Castrop from a Hilltop

Posted on by Thor

Near each coal mining town in Germany there is a halde which means dump in German. These man made mountains are built up from all the stone that comes to the surface that is not coal. It was extremely windy up there. I had a great overview of Castrop-Rauxel and the Erin Shaft 7. On the distant hill, Erin Shaft 3 can be seen along with several wind turbines. Clean energy is slowly replacing dirty carbon energy.

On April 7, 1945, 291st Infantry Division, G-Company Troops finished eating K rations at about 1PM. The main railroad tracks to the front had a series of boxcars and the majority of them held coal and gravel. They stretched from highway 2 on the company’s left for 200 yards to the right. As scouts tried to crawl through the obstacle, they were fired upon. The scouts withdrew and the advance was help up for half an hour until Private First Class Ferrel picked off the enemy gunners from a position in a railroad control tower.

The platoons then surged forward and house to house fighting resumed. The situation was chaotic as men searched for snipers in each building. By 5PM the outskirts of the town had been reached. Contact was made with C-Company on the left. F-Company was meeting stiff resistance from a castle like building 1,000 yards to the right. Lieutenant Craig had been killed by a sniper. Another man was wounded in the neck, and another killed when they ran into an enemy ambush while pursuing a sniper.

Lieutenant Allen and several other soldiers were separated from the Company and found themselves behind enemy lines. They made their way back towards the road block. Along the way they found two wounded men. It was difficult to get to the men since enemy automatic weapons fire would blast in all directions any time they got close. On the second attempt the wounded men were recovered. They managed to get the wounded men through a basement window of a German duplex.

German civilians were discovered as the main floor was searched. They were so scared that they just froze and stared. Blankets were found for the wounded men. The men then moved back to the basement after hearing German voices and boots thumping in the upper floors of the house. Twice Lieutenant Allen and one soldier crept back to the former front line at a road block, to find the command post or an aid station. They were unsuccessful.

A patrol of 5 men was formed to find the missing men. They returned instead with two German prisoners instead. From behind enemy lines, Lieutenant Allen made contact with his Company using a SRC 536 walkie talkie with the antenna protruding from the basement window. It was dark in the basement and outside, and German voices could be heard giving orders. German troops were milling about outside for what might be an attack or a withdrawal. Via the radio, range was established for American artillery fire, which was dialed in on the German troops thanks to the basement coordinates. If the enemy had been planning an attack, the artillery fire changed their plans.

The next morning, a battalion medical jeep dashed into Castrop and picked up Lieutenant Allen and the wounded men that had been in the basement of the German home. The jeep managed to drive back to the American lines after being fired on several times by enemy snipers. No one was hit.

April 7, 1945: Castrop-Rauxel Germany

Posted on by admin

The 291st Infantry Division attack on Castrop-Rauxel Germany resumed on April 7, 1945. Two squads of the 1st Platoon of G-Company rode into Castrop on two lead tanks, followed by a tank destroyer. The two other tanks found positions on the outskirts of town and supported the attack with fire. Machine guns were set up in the upper stories of two houses to support the attack.

At 7AM C-Company moved into the city on the left on foot. Three tanks drove at full speed down Highway 2 with the soldiers hanging on for dear life. As they cleared a road block, they were hit with a hail of German small arms fire. American troops jumped down and sought cover in houses on either side of the street. A moment later the tank destroyer took a direct hit and burst into flames. Three men who had jumped off the lead tank ran to the back of a house, and surprised a German crew of six who were about to fire a 120-mm mortar. The Germans were killed and a thermite grenade was dropped into the barrel of the mortar.

C-Company continued to move into town from the left killing Germans who were trying to escape. About 15 Germans ran towards the woods on the opposite side of town and they were in the sights of one of the machine gunners. He didn’t fire because he wasn’t sure if they were Americans or Germans.

The 1st and 2nd Platoons found one another in town. A captured German soldier told the interrogator that the town was swarming with parachutists. Because it was getting dark, and the 3rd Platoon could not be located, it was decided to hold off further attacks until morning.

C-Company of the 1st Platoon had received orders to push through Castrop-Rauxel and continue mopping up operations to the south. Mopping up operations continued through April 8 and 9th 1945.

When to run up the white flag and surrender to the Americans became a crucial question for German civilians. Doing so too early meant falling afoul of the Nazi authorities who were demanding a fight to the finish; doing so too late could mean a violent introduction to the American way of war. All too often, the local Nazi bigwig called upon his townsmen to fight to the death, then fled just before the Americans attacked.