CHAPTER 37
Final Assault on Bergstein
As part of the enemy’s December 8 counterattack, a diversionary force had struck companies B and C, located in Bergstein near the base of Hill 400. “Under covering fire of three towed antitank guns and one self-propelled gun, another self-propelled gun attempted to penetrate the position but was blocked from the entrance to Bergstein by a wrecked vehicle roadblock, which it attempted to blast off the road without success. The fire of the supporting American tank destroyers and mortars forced the withdrawal of these enemy guns. This attack was stopped at 8:37 AM.”
After the attack, Doc Block began the evacuation of the wounded from the church. Earlier that day, he had eerily predicted his own death. He had remarked in the morning that he would not live out the day. A short time later, while supervising the evacuation, Doc Block was struck and killed by a German shell.
32Using a Jeep marked with red crosses to designate they were noncombatants, Zyrkowski and other men evacuated the wounded, dodging heavy machine gun and tank rounds on each run. “The sons of bitches were firing at us. It was a miracle we made it across with the Jeep,” Zeke recalled. He somehow made several trips unscathed, even as the German machine gunners zeroed in on the vehicle.
After Zyrkowski survived the hailstorm of small arms and artillery fire, Joe Stevens tasked him with transporting several German prisoners who had valuable intel. “Hey Zeke, we have two prisoners who know where the German tanks are.” Stevens added, “We’ve got to get the prisoners back so they can reveal the intelligence about where the tanks are.”
Zyrkowski followed orders, making several more dangerous runs. He recalled that when he and other Rangers approached a house, some concealed Germans began firing. “A GI dashed across the road, and the German tank opened fire on him. But he made it across the road. We ran after him, and we made it through, and that was the third time we made it through the opening. Someone was watching out for us.” On Zyrkowski’s fourth time making the perilous journey, he saw a German tank lying in wait outside the church.
“Holy Christ!” shouted one of the officers.
Zeke recalled, “Two guys ran outside with a bazooka and fired a round and missed the tank.”
The fifth and final counterattack began when, in the words of the official after-combat report, “Large-caliber guns to the east of the Roer River concentrated on the area at 1630 [4:30 P.M.]. The enemy came from the southeast and, at 1702 [5:02 P.M.], engaged Dog Company in a firefight.”
Of the five counterattacks the Rangers withstood on Hill 400, this one was the strongest of all—and it came closest to success. As Stein noted, “The Germans came within thirty yards of the bunker before being stopped by small arms fire.”
After the Rangers stopped the German advance, Lieutenant Kettlehut drove the remaining paratroopers off the hill with a tremendous artillery barrage. “He called down all the artillery available in the corps, eighteen battalions in all.”
The colossal firepower of eighteen battalions fell on Rangers and Germans alike. Scores of 105 mm, 155 mm, and 203 mm guns fired their rounds, exhausting the ammunition bearers loading the guns but halting the paratrooper attack on the hill. By 5:50 P.M., the overwhelming fire forced the Germans to withdraw.
As they climbed down the hill, “the enemy… was blocked by this curtain of fire, and in their demoralized state proved easy targets for the men on the hill.”
Back in Bergstein, the Germans once more hit the town with an all-out attack. “At that time, they threw another counterattack at us. I thought the roof was going to cave in,” Zeke explained. “A shell came through one window and out another. One of the statues fell down. Things were so severe, we thought the church would be overrun by the Germans. So [one of the men] said bluntly, ‘If you have any German souvenirs on you, get rid of them. If they break through, the last thing you want is German souvenirs on you.’”
Due to the tremendous number of wounded, there was a shortage of medical supplies, and the men had to improvise. Zyrkowski emotionally recounted the scene: “We were in a Catholic church, and they had these vestments. One of the men was ripping up the vestments, and I said, ‘You really shouldn’t be doing that.’ He said, ‘We have no choice, we have no bandages left.’ At that point, another outfit came into the church and set up a machine gun near the sacristy. I lay behind the altar, and I started to cry because I thought the roof was going to collapse because the shelling was so intense.”
