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.