60 Years After Hitdorf Am Rhein, Place where A Company won its Citation Options

[Frank]

Today it is exactly 60 years after A Company crossed the Rhine River at Hitdorf and the heaviest battle in the company history took place. Lieutenant John Spooner was killed on this day, 60 years ago at the St. Stephanus Church in Hitdorf. And Lieutenant Richard Hallock and the 3rd Platoon were overrun and captured during the German counterattack

Frank

[admin]

Today it is exactly 60 years after A Company crossed the Rhine River at Hitdorf and the heaviest battle in the company history took place. Lieutenant John Spooner was killed on this day, 60 years ago at the St. Stephanus Church in Hitdorf. And Lieutenant Richard Hallock and the 3rd Platoon were overrun and captured during the German counterattack

Frank

Thanks Frank! My dad also took a dip in the Rhine River tomorrow to swim back across from this battle.

[Frank]

YES, that is right!! Your father played a vital role in bouncing off the German counter attack. In a few days I will send you chapter 1 of the A Company book by e-mail. Let me know when you receive it and what you want to change or add.

Frank (IMG:http://forums.strikehold504th.com/style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Frank]

To see a photo of the church in Hitdorf, see my website:

http://www.freewebs.com/a504/germany1945.htm

Frank

[Frank]

Lieutenant Rex Hazen of the 376th went across with Captain Pease in the first waves to provide artillery support. Captain Johnson of the 412th went over in the last boat with Breard at 0500 hours.

Frank

[Frank]

Last Wednesday I made a battlefield tour around some places where the 504th PIR fought between December 1944 and April 1945. First I drove to the village of Hitdorf in Germany, where A Company of the 504th was surrounded. The father of Jim McNamara (the webmaster) killed 7 Germans when he dropped a gammon grenade on a tank. The grenade bounced off and killed 7 Germans standing alongside the tank. PFC McNamara received a Silver Star for this action.

After taking pictures of the church and some old buildings I drove to Aachen and on to Verviers in Belgium. It was here that LT Reneau Breard (with B Company in December 1944 and January and part of February 1945) traded a bottle of scotch for a truckload full of rations, which he distributed to the 1st Battalion men in Remouchamps.

I did some shopping in Verviers and then drove on to Trois Ponts, where the 2nd Battalion of the 505th stopped Kampfgruppe Peiper. A Company of the 504th was also in this area when the 1st Battalion (B, C and HQ Companies) were decimated at Cheneux.

Then I drove on to Bra, where A Company stayed from Christmas Day till January 3rd. I was surprised to learn that this village is so small: only four streets, a church and a nice castle (chateau), which was used by Major General Gavin as his Division CP. There is also a nice small monument remembering that.

The last place I visited was Remouchamps, sited in a magnificent valley. Here the 504th rested for two weeks in January 1945.

If the weather stays well, I will visit St. Vith, Holzheim and Manderfeld next week.

(IMG:http://forums.strikehold504th.com/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Frank
Unit historian, A Company 504th PIR

[admin]

Last Wednesday I made a battlefield tour around some places where the 504th PIR fought between December 1944 and April 1945. First I drove to the village of Hitdorf in Germany, where A Company of the 504th was surrounded. The father of Jim McNamara (the webmaster) killed 7 Germans when he dropped a gammon grenade on a tank. The grenade bounced off and killed  7 Germans standing alongside the tank. PFC McNamara received a Silver Star for this action.

After taking pictures of the church and some old buildings I drove to Aachen and on to Verviers in Belgium. It was here that LT Reneau Breard (with B Company in December 1944 and January and part of February 1945) traded a bottle of scotch for a truckload full of rations, which he distributed to the 1st Battalion men in Remouchamps.

I did some shopping in Verviers and then drove on to Trois Ponts, where the 2nd Battalion of the 505th stopped Kampfgruppe Peiper. A Company of the 504th was also in this area when the 1st Battalion (B, C and HQ Companies) were decimated at Cheneux.

Then I drove on to Bra, where A Company stayed from Christmas Day till January 3rd. I was surprised to learn that this village is so small: only four streets, a church and a nice castle (chateau), which was used by Major General Gavin as his Division CP. There is also a nice small monument remembering that.

The last place I visited was Remouchamps, sited in a magnificent valley. Here the 504th rested for two weeks in January 1945.

If the weather stays well, I will visit St. Vith, Holzheim and Manderfeld next week.

(IMG:http://forums.strikehold504th.com/style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

Frank
Unit historian, A Company 504th PIR

Frank,

That is great! If you have any photo's I would love to post them. The factory he and Jack Kasilowski were trapped in was horse shoe shaped with a gate in the front.

Regards,

Jim

[Frank]

Jim,

I will send you all the photos (about 10) that I took there by e-mail. You can post them here if you like. I photographed the church, the place where they crossed the houses, the main street from two sides and some buildings.

Frank

Frank,

That is great!  If you have any photo's I would love to post them.  The factory he and Jack Kasilowski were trapped in was horse shoe shaped with a gate in the front.

Regards,

Jim

[admin]

Thanks!!!!


To the rest of the group you can listen to my dad's account of Hitdorf on the main
www.strikehold504th.com page. It is in the MP3 files under Hitdorf.

Regards,

Jim

[Frank]

This is an excerpt of my unpublished manuscript about A Company of the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment about the Hitdorf Operation in April 1945:

At 0200 hours on April 6, 1945, the assault force made their way to the observation post of A Battery, 376th Parachute Infantry Regiment at the village of Langel, where they would board the steel boats. It was pitch dark that night, as clouds obscured the moonlight. Thirty minutes after they had made their way to the riverbank, the first boats were pushed off the shore.

Lieutenant Breard witnessed the assault waves of A Company leaving in the dark night, soon paddling out of sight. Minutes passed until he heard explosions and the sound of heavy automatic small arms fire on the other side. Although he couldn’t see the flashes of the explosions, Breard knew that A Company had landed in a minefield.

The 2nd Platoon of 1st Lieutenant James A. Kiernan was the first group that went across. Pfc Bethel V. Goolsby, Sergeant Fay T. Steger and Pfc Willard M. Strunk were three of the “old timers” who were still in the 2nd Platoon. Technician 5th Grade Len Keck, 1st Lieutenant Richard R. Hallock and the 3rd Platoon were in the second assault wave and the 1st Platoon of 1st Lieutenant Larkin S. Tully was in the third wave. The current of the Rhine River was swift and the boats were swept downstream, to the north. One boat was lost during the crossing and the men had to swim to the eastern shore.

The boats came ashore north of Hitdorf. The leading group climbed ashore and practically at the same time all hell broke loose and a couple of anti-personnel mines exploded. German MG-42’s fired from fixed positions criss-cross over the field where the 2nd Platoon had landed. For a few moments there was small chaos.


Lieutenant Kiernan made a plan in a few seconds and split his platoon into two groups. He assumed the command of one group while the assisting platoon leader, 1st Lieutenant John S. Spooner, led the other group. One group moved to the left and one to the right and both parts fought their way to the edge of the town.
They successfully outflanked the enemy opposition, but when the two groups
joined forces it appeared that Lieutenant Spooner had been badly wounded in a skirmish. It was here that Lieutenant Kiernan moved to his wounded assisting platoon leader under heavy enemy fire. The recommendation for the Distinguished Service Cross that he would receive for his actions at Hitdorf, reads as follows:

“First Lieutenant Kiernan displayed initiative, courage, and leadership during an assault on a fiercely defended enemy strongpoint. In addition to personally directing his men in the face of withering enemy fire, he assumed the duties of a rifleman on two different occasions, killing six and wounding many others of the enemy. With complete disregard for his personal safety, he exposed himself in the face of machine gun and heavy artillery fire to render first aid to his mortally wounded assistant platoon leader.”

The second and third assault waves had paddled across not long after the 2nd Platoon had crossed the river. The 504th regimental book, The Devils in Baggypants, mentions about the assault waves:

“Loading into assault boats in platoon waves, A Company crossed the Rhine at 0230 on the 6th. Upon reaching the east bank, the enemy was immediately contacted. Under heavy fire, and finding themselves in a minefield, the company momentarily lost control and the first wave split into two parts each of which separately fought its way to the pre-designated objective.
The two groups of the leading wave joined forces, knocked out several machine gun nests, and proceeded to establish a road block. Under conditions similar to those encountered by the first wave, the succeeding waves infiltrated through the enemy and subsequently entered the village.”

As the 2nd Platoon attacked toward the town the 3rd Platoon led by 1st Lieutenant Richard R. Hallock disembarked from the boats and waded up the river bank. Technician 5th Grade Len Keck remembered that all went well until his group landed in a minefield on the eastern shore of the Rhine River:

“We got on the far bank at Hitdorf and landed right on a minefield. And one of my ammunition bearers from Chicago, James Emery, was killed in that field. That was my first real experience with a man crying for his mother in the middle night and this close. It was the most heartbreaking experience you ever heard. You heard the man crying for his mother and his arms and legs were already gone. He moved around on a couple of more mines and that ended it.
We stayed in the water and walked up the beach a couple of hundred yards and we had not been in town when there was a machine gun that had opened up on us over this minefield. Someone from our platoon snuck around behind him and dropped a grenade in the machine gun nest. The grenade went off and that was the end of the machine gun.”

Private James R. Emery is now buried in the American Cemetery near Margraten, the Netherlands, in plot C, row 18, grave 18. The 3rd Platoon assembled and moved down the road toward the town, where it linked up with the 2nd Platoon.

As the first wave of A Company made the crossing the field telephone rang in the Fire Direction Center of the 412th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, 20th U.S. Armored Division. The call came from their forward artillery observer, Lieutenant Lester Delafield from A Battery, in OP 702 directly opposite Hitdorf. Lieutenant Delafield reported that a reinforced company of the 82nd Airborne Division was moving across the river to seize the town of Hitdorf. Maybe an opportunity for one of the other artillery officers to accompany them?

This applied to Captain Edwin C. Johnson, Jr. and his driver, Private First Class Elwood R. Coslett, so they decided to accompany the paratroopers. Born in Michigan on February 19, 1919, Captain Johnson was the battery commander of C Battery of the 412th and had entered military service in June 1941 in Fort Laramie, Wyoming, just one month after he had graduated from university. He had been assigned to various units and was not sent overseas when the three regular armored divisions of the U.S. Army, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd, had left the United States.

Johnson was anxiously looking for some combat experience, as his battalion had been overseas since January 1945 and the 20th Armored Division had not yet been involved in any combat. Besides, he could relay messages for supporting artillery fire from his own battalion. His driver, Pfc Coslett, carried a 509 field radio to contact Lieutenant Delafield’s observation team in OP 702, who could relay the messages to the Fire Direction Center of the 412th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. Captain Johnson and Private Coslett gathered their battle gear and set off in a jeep toward the riverfront.

Lieutenant Breard was just boarding the last boat that would go across with some radio men, wires and other communication equipment, when Captain Johnson and Private Coslett came up to him. Johnson explained that he was an forward artillery observer of the 20th Armored Division and asked Lieutenant Breard if he could come along as an extra artillery observer, directing supporting fire of the 412th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. Breard remembered of the crossing:

“Just as I was ready to cross (in the last boat), a captain from the 20th Armored Division (brand new in Europe) asked if he could go. He stated he and his two [one] men were an artillery observation team and he could fire the whole Division Artillery if needed. I said: “Hop in”. We all had to paddle. The current was strong and would take you down opposite the town.
When we arrived just before daylight at the church, he and his team went to work and I never saw him again.”

As Lieutenant Breard’s group made their way into the town, Captain Johnson and Private First Class Coslett noticed that it was closely built up and much larger than the small town where their Battalion CP was located. Lieutenant Breard led them to the church, which was almost in the center of the town and easy to find.
When Breard entered the church he saw the body of a dead paratrooper lying on the floor in the church aisle, the second indication that the landing had not been unopposed:

“At that time Pease had the company CP in the church, which was right about in the middle of the town. It faced the river, a beautiful little church. When I walked in there was a body there. I said, “Who is that?”
Pease said, “Spooner – he was killed. He was wounded, and died in the church.”
I introduced Pease to this captain, and the captain went off and started shooting.”

It was now around 0530 hours in the early morning of April 6. Captain Johnson and Pfc Coslett climbed up the stairs to the north church steeple. It took some time before they were ready to relay fire missions as one antenna had been lost during the crossing. The website of the 20th Armored Division mentions about Captain Johnson and his driver in the morning of April 6, 1945:

“About 30 minutes after they had hit the beach, Captain Johnson and Private Coslett reached their projected OP, the north church steeple in Hitdorf. They had a 509 field radio, field glasses, and a map. They had some trouble setting up the antenna as they had lost one in the crossing, but finally got set up to sent their fire missions at about 0730.”

In the first 82nd Airborne Division history book, Saga of the All American, one chapter was written about the Hitdorf operation. According to the division history, the civilians in Hitdorf were frightened when the paratroopers of A Company swarmed through their streets, clearing the town:

“At dawn they were in the river town of Hitdorf, Germany where they flushed 68 surprised Jerries out of their sacks. Terrified civilians hid in their basements, and when brought out, expressed surprise when they weren’t raped or tortured. The only organized enemy resistance was in a factory in the north end of the town.”

At 0830 hours, A Company reported by radio that the town had been taken. The platoons were deployed in a perimeter defense, with Lieutenant Tully’s 1st Platoon near a beer factory in the north end of the town, the 2nd Platoon in the west side of the town around the St. Stephanus Church and Lieutenant Hallock’s 3rd Platoon in the southern end of the town.
One machine gun squad from Captain Herbert F. Hobbs’ Headquarters Company took up positions at the east side of the town. The other machine gun squad, commanded by Technical Sergeant John Stubbs, and the dozen or so demolition men from the Demolition Platoon were deployed in the vicinity of the command post of A Company that had been moved to one of the houses north east of the church at the corner of a street, along the Ringstrasse, one of the main roads leading through the town.
Lieutenant Rex A. Hazen of the 376th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion had established himself in the southern church steeple of the church with his forward observation team. They communicated by radio, as their wire team had not been able to lay a wire across the river. They had the map coordinates of the location of some German guns, that had been given by one of the prisoners. For some reason this information was not shared with the forward observation team of the 412th Armored Field Artillery Battalion.


© 2005 by Frank van Lunteren. All rights served