Part 1

So there’s one thing I want to unpack before I get into the specifics of what occurred in Cologne and to the south. There are two US Army infantry formations with the number “9” attached to their title- the 9th Infantry Regiment and the 9thInfantry Division. During the Second World War the US Army fielded triangular infantry divisions, meaning that they were built in threes- three battalions to a regiment, three regiments to a division. The 9th Infantry Regiment was an organic (permanently assigned) regiment of the 2d Infantry Division, while the 9th Infantry Division was, obviously, a division- and it was comprised of the 39th, 47th, and 60th Infantry Regiments along with support troops and division artillery (three battalions of 105mm howitzers and one of 155mm howitzers). Neither fought in Cologne, as the 9thDivision was under the control of III Corps and the 2d Division was fighting as part of V Corps, both to the south of the city. We will get to their stories in a moment.

Responsibility for the assault on Cologne fell to Major General J. Lawton Collins’ VII Corps of the First US Army. This task was bestowed upon the corps through the issuance of orders by Lieutenant General Omar Bradley’s 12thArmy Group that instructed the corps to guard the right flank of the neighboring Ninth US Army as it drove to the Rhine. Once this was complete Collins was to invest Cologne and swing his command to the right, advancing southward where he would link up with other elements of the First US Army and elements of the Third US Army. This, and the actions of III and V Corps, was part of a greater plan called Operation LUMBERJACK, shown here on this map.

The thrust toward Cologne was carried out by three formations: the 3d Armored Division, the 104th Division, and the 8th Division. Here is a map showing their advance, with the 99th Division on the left of the corps covering the right flank of the Ninth Army. What this map does not show is a low, flat ridge called (at least at the time) the Vorgebirge. The ground west of the Vorgebirge was littered with small towns, mining pits, the detritus of the mines, and flooded areas, while the land north of the ridge was open farmland with no major obstacles. As a result, Collins tasked the 3d Armored Division (augmented by the attachment of the 8th Division’s 13th Infantry Regiment) with hooking around the ridge to the north to seize Stommeln, thereby securing the right flank of Ninth Army against any counterattacks from German armor regrouping in the vicinity. From Stommeln it was to continue to Worrigen on the Rhine before turning to attack Cologne from the northwest. As the 3d Armored executed these missions the 104thDivision would drive directly through and over the Vorgebirge to strike Cologne from the west while the 8th Division, fighting over the ridge as well, maneuvered to attack the city from the southwest.

The armor jumped off on 2 March 1945, driving through the town of Niederaussem. The fall of Fliesteden and Busdorf followed, and by the end of the day on 3 March Stommeln was in American hands. That night the division’s 83d Armored Reconnaissance Battalion reconnoitered to the Rhine, bypassing Roggendorf and capturing the town of Hackhausen (where they seized a battery of 105mm guns replete with prime movers as well as a large munitions dump) along the way. The following day the battalion linked up with Task Force Lovelady of Combat Command B, aiding the task force in securing Roggendorf and Worrigen. At 0710 hours on 5 March, Colonel Leander Doan’s Task Force X of Combat Command A entered the northwestern suburbs of Cologne, where they ran into resistance in the Binkendorf neighborhood.

As the Spearhead Division accomplished its primary missions and began to descend on the city the Timberwolves of Terry Allen’s 104th Division were slugging it out with the defenders of the Vorgebirge. Aware of the difficulty and prospective loss of a direct assault on the easily defensible villages and slag pits that dotted the ridge’s western face, the division opted to defeat the enemy through maneuver. Seeking to unhinge the German position the 415th Infantry Regiment was sent to envelop the ridge from the north as the 413th and 414th Infantry Regiments held the enemy in place. The plan proved successful, and despite stiff resistance the crest of the ridge was in American hands by the late afternoon of 3 March. The division continued to make steady progress, mopping up enemy resistance on the Vorgebirge and continuing on towards Cologne, where the lead elements of the 414th Infantry entered the city limits at 0923 on 5 March.

Further to the south, on 2 March the 8th Division seized Modrath and Habbelrath. In the predawn hours of the third the 3d Battalion of the 28th Infantry Regiment captured Bottenbroich; beyond it, to the southeast, they uncovered 200 civilian families taking subterranean refuge in a mine complex. Continuing the regiment’s advance, the 1st Battalion of the 28th moved on Grefrath around 0300 hours, seizing it shortly after. For the rest of the day the regiment consolidated its gains before jumping off again that night. As the 1st and 2d Battalion drove northward toward Frechen the 3d Battalion maneuvered to envelop it from the southwest, and by evening on 4 March the town was secure and the regiment had, in places, advanced approximately one mile beyond it. During the night the 121st Infantry attacked through the 28th in two columns, seeking the western bank of the Rhine, only five miles distant. Striking to the southeast the regiment subdued several village strongpoints before the 28th resumed its advance in the early morning hours of 6 March. Both regiments continued to drive toward the Rhine during the day before elements of the 28th Infantry finally seized multiple villages on the river that night.

As the 8th Division attacked to gain the Rhine the 3d Armored and 104th Division were reducing Cologne. Elements of Combat Command B entered the city close behind Combat Command A’s Task Force X and immediately went to work. Advancing behind a smokescreen, Task Force Lovelady conducted a tank-infantry attack at the airport that charged and overran sixteen 88mm dual-purpose guns while Task Force Welborn fought through several villages on the outskirts. Resistance was fierce, despite the fact that the defenders (hailing from the 363d Volksgrenadier Division, the 9th Panzer Division, and 3d Panzergrenadier Division) could only scrape together enough manpower to field two regiments, and was carried out through prodigious use of dual-purpose flak guns, small arms, and handheld antitank weapons. Snipers abounded within the ruined city as well, slowing movement further. The 104th Division, entering the city from the west, overran Junkersdorf, a sports park, and several residential areas, encountering savage but futile resistance all the while. At one point elements of the division ran up against a roadblock in the form of five tram cars reinforced with steel rods driven into the street- accompanying M4’s drove right through it. Both divisions fought through the city past the civilian population, which looked on soberly. On the 6th, the same day that the duel occurred, the Hohenzollern Bridge across the Rhine was blown as elements of the 3d Armored Division approached the river. Nightfall found the division on the Rhine. The following day the 104th Division mopped up resistance in its sector and came into line with the armor. The city had fallen.