When two tank platoons carrying the infantry reached a hedge just south of Singling, they slowed up to let the infantry dismount. Lieutenant Belden got off ahead of his platoon leaders. First to reach him was 2d Lt. William P. Cowgill, whose platoon assembled most rapidly because the men happened to be riding on tanks relatively close together. Lieutenant Belden told Cowgill to take the left side of town, disregard the first three houses on the south, and move in; 2d Lt. Theodore R. Price was ordered to take the right side. Belden said to 1st Lt. Norman C. Padgett, "Follow up after Cowgill." Padgett commented drily afterwards, "I was in support."
That was the plan. Neither leaders nor men had any knowledge of the town or of the enemy. They were to clean out the houses, splitting the work as circumstances dictated. Though all the platoon leaders and a good percentage of the men were recent replacements, they had all had combat experience and had fought in towns before. (From 9 November to 6 December, the company had received 128 replacements and had suffered 100 percent officer casualties. Lieutenant Belden took command 25 November but had been in the company before; Padgett, Price, and Cowgill were all replacements who had joined the company 13, 16, and 21 November respectively.)
The enemy they now attacked included as the principal combat element all four companies of its 1st Battalion of the 111th Panzer Grenadier Regiment (armored infantry of the 11th Panzer Division), with a total strength three or four times as great as that of the attacking American infantry. They were supported by two "tanks" (probably SPs) of an unknown unit, by the five batteries of the 119th Artillery Battalion (three or four 105-mm howitzers), organic battalion of the 11th Panzer Division, and by elements at least of the five battalions of the 208th Volks Artillery Corps with guns of miscellaneous caliber from 75- to 210-mm.
Three days before, headquarters of the 1st Battalion, 111th Panzer Grenadier Regiment had been in Singling, while the companies were committed near Hinsingen. On about 4 December the companies moved via Sarmlbe to Voellerdingen, where they fought against elements of Combat Command B, 4th Armored Division, and apparently retreated that day or night to the vicinity of Singling. The original mission after the withdmwal was to attack Oermingen, but this mission was changed to the defense of Singling.
Considering its depleted strength (150-200 men), the enemy battalion was well armed. The three companies actually in contact at Singling had one towed 75 mm antitank gun, at least five 81 mm mortars, eight to ten light machine guns, one heavy machine gun, three 20-mm antiaircraft guns, and a wurfgeraet, an improvised rocket launcher of steel-supported wooden frames, capable of firing two 200-pound, 36-inch projectiles at a time.
An indication of the relative importance of Singling and Bining in the enemy's defensive plan is the fact that while a battalion with tank and artillery support held Singling, the defense of Bining was entrusted to a single company (the 1st) of the 61st Antitank Battalion (11th Panzer Division). This company had about 50 men and 8 old-type 75-mm antitank guns mounted on Mark IV chassis, which a prisoner of war testified could not penetrate a Sherman tank from the front at more than 600 yards.
Near Bining, exact location undeterrained, were one or possibly two companies of the 2d Battalion, 111 th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, whose presence was apparently unknown to the men of the 1st Battalion of that regiment. Probably at least a company of tanks was in the area, though no identifications were made. Finally, the enemy was employing Marsch Battalion B-a collection of some 250 ovemged, crippled, or otherwise unfit personnel--as labor troops to dig defenses.
The enemy facing Team B was thus stronger and better armed (particularly in respect to heavy weapons) than the attackers. Nevertheless, before the battle was joined some of the enemy troops had been warned by their own officers that they were facing the 4th Armored Division, "one of the best divisions in the American Army." This they had a chance to discover for themselves in both Singling and Bining as the day wore on.
Lieutenant Cowgill (3d Infantry Platoon) with Pfc. John T. Stanton, his radio operator acting this day as runner, came into town ahead of his platoon. They made their way nearly up to the main square before spotting an enemy SP parked beside No. 44.
The building, burning from shell fire, clouded the square with thick smoke. Cowgill turned and shouted back a warning to the tanks not to come up. Padgett with two men of his 1st Squad was nearby. He had not waited to assemble his platoon as they were trained to watch him, when they dismounted, and to follow. This they did, though the 2d Squad was actually held up most of the morning by some housecleaning (see below).
At Cowgill's shouted warning, Captain Leach dismounted and advanced along the street ahead of his tank. The SP up to this point was apparently unaware of them, though the commander's head was out of the turret. Padgett, Leach, Cowgill, and the two men started firing to make him button up. Then the SP moved. It backed across the street to the church preparatory to heading west. In the meantime more infantry had come up from the south. When Lieutenant Belden approached, the street was crowded. Annoyed, he shouted at the men to clear off and fan out into the houses on either side.
His shout was less effective than a burst of machine gun fire from the SP which followed the shout by a matter of seconds. The 1st Squad of the 3d Platoon (Lieutenant Cowgill), which, for the first half hour or so that it remained together, was under command of Cpl. Ralph R. Harrington, ducked into houses on the west side of the street. The 2d Squad, under Sgt. John McPhail, retreated hastily into No. 45 on the east, and the street was nearly clear.
Belden could not see the SP. He stopped a soldier to ask what they were getting ahead. The answer was: "Machine gun." "If it is a machine-gun nest," said Belden, "we'll bring up a tank." In the mysterious pathways of rumor, this remark traveled rearward, lost its "if,* and resulted in the ordering of the last tank under Sgt. Kenneth L. Sandrock of the 1st Tank Platoon to clean out an enemy machine-gun nest. Sandrock moved west from his platoon which had driven into the orchard east of town, fired pot shots at the church steeple on the chance that it might be an enemy OP, went on up the south street, and found no machine-gun nest. Then, meeting Captain Leach, Sandrock drove his tank in behind No. 6, where he remained separated from his platoon the rest of the day.
In the meantime the enemy SP at the square had completed its turning and headed west along the main street. Leach continued to fire his tommy gun at it. But in so doing he blocked the line of fire of his own tank behind him, and the SP escaped. Leach did not attempt to follow. He had received the report about a tank that had knocked out Lieutenant Farese, and decided that it would be wiser to attempt to get the escaping SP from the flank by moving the 3d Platoon tanks through the west end of the town.
He therefore had his own tank back between buildings No. 6 and No. 7, where he was covered from the west and could command the square, and called Lieutenant Cook. Cook's three tanks, his own, the one commanded by Sgt. Giles W. Hayward, and the 105-mm assault gun, commanded by Sgt. Robert G. Grimm, were advancing on the town between the two southern trails. In front of them the large farm building (No. 11 ) was on fire and clouds of smoke reduced visibility to the north to a few feet. Cook led his tanks to the right of the burning farm with the idea of cutting across the main street in pursuit of the enemy SP. As they approached, Pvt. Charles R. McCreer, Cook's loader, saw Farese get hit in the orchard to his left. He may have informed Cook, or may have assumed that Cook had seen it too.
In any case, Cook did not absorb the information and made his next moves in ignorance of the existence of enemy tanks on his left flank. He drove his tank between the corner of the burning bam and the house north of it, No. 9. Between these buildings, invisible in the smoke, was a low stone retaining wall and about a 2-foot drop into the walled garden in front of No. 11. Hitting this unseen barrier at a 45-degree angle, Cook's tank teetered dangerously on its left tread. For a moment it threatened to overturn, then lumbered on, righting itself Grimm and Hayward, following, had little trouble as the first tank had broken down the bank.
The garden in which the three tanks found themselves was inclosed on the north and west by a 4-foot concreted stone wall, stepped up to 6 feet high around the northwest comer. Despite this inclosure, they felt, on emerging from the smoke pall, as naked as if they had suddenly come up on a skyline. In fact, their position was seriously exposed from the north, for the continuous slope of the ground northward for several hundred yards canceled out the wall as a screen. Immediately across the street were two smaller gardens with low stone walls, and a dirt trail leading down into the valley. Originally, Cook had no intention of staying there. He planned to cross the road, then work around to the west still intent on trapping the SP which he knew was somewhere on his left. He did not know that its gun now commanded the street, and he would have found out too late if Lieutenant Cowgill had not appeared at that moment to warn him.
Cowgill's platoon had set out immediately after the escape of the SP from the square to move into the west side of town. Cowgill, himself, with two men of his 1st Squad (Harrington and Pvt. Grover C. Alexander), moved along the south side of the street. (the other four men of the squad stayed behind near No. 7 from which later on they undertook an independent mission to the north.) Cowgill, Harrington, and Alexander made their way to No. 10 and from there could see two German SPs parked on either side of the street 200 yards to the west. It was then that Cowgill, coming around No. 10 into the garden into which Cook's tanks had just driven, found Cook and warned him of the enemy.
Cowgill said, "There is a Kraut tank behind the third building down to the west." Cook got the impression that the "tank" was located behind a house which he could see on the north side of the street. He therefore had his tank and Grimm's 105 chop down the corner of the wall in front of them. This fire probably nettled the enemy into replying, and a round of 75-mm struck the northwest corner of No. 10 not far from where Cowgill was standing. Cook dismounted and with Cowgill walked around to the east side of the building which had been hit.
In the meantime the 2d Squad of Cowgill's platoon under Sergeant McPhail had moved on from No. 45 into which the SP's machine gun at the square had driven them. Satisfied that there were no enemy in No. 45, the seven men crossed the square and entered No. 28, a handsome low-lying stone house set back from the street and surrounded by a 2-foot wall, surmounted by an iron railing. In this house McPhail and his men discovered twelve civilians sheltering in the cellar. A few minutes were consumed in searching them, then the squad set out to continue the sweep of the north side of the street. McPhail and Tech. 4 Ben A. Todd emerged through the front door of No. 28 and made a dash to the schoolhouse. A third man tried to follow but ducked back when machine gun bullets spattered in the front yard. Then and for the rest of the day, No. 28 was under direct fire from the enemy tanks on the west. McPhail and Todd reached the school; the rest of the squad stayed in No. 28. Lieutenant Cowgill, standing on the other side of the street, shouted across to ask McPhail whether he could see the enemy SPs. He could.
Cowgill ordered him to fire. Lieutenant Cook, having seen the true location of the SPs, returned to his tank and backed it into an alley between No. 9 and No. 10, just wide enough to let him through. He told Grimm and Hayward about the enemy SPs, asked Grimm whether he thought he could get out of the garden if necessary, and Grimm thought he could. Cook then called Captain Leach and asked whether tanks could be sent around to hit the enemy guns from the southwest. Leach radioed orders to Sowers (2d Tank Platoon) to try to go through the burning barn (No. 11) and find a way to attack the SPs. Sowers tried, but got only a few yards. Just beyond the wall, the nose of his tank, exposed through the gate to the west, was shot at. Convinced that advance was impossible, Sowers returned to the orchard.
Every attempt to deal with the enemy so far had been made in ignorance both of the layout of the town and of the enemy position. This Lieutenant Cowgill set out to remedy and, while Cook maneuvered his tanks, Cowgill and his two men started on a devious exploratoryjourney through the houses to the west.
At the same time McPhail and Todd, who had fired a few rounds at the SPs, discovered what seemed to them more profitable targets in enemy infantry in the valley to the north. This enemy was also occupying the attention of two other groups of men in town. The four men of Cowgill's 1st Squad (Pvt. Joseph C. Bridges, Pvt. William M. Convery, Pfc. Frank M. 0. Asplund, and Pfc. L. W. Battles) who had stayed at the square when the squad leader, Harrington, had accompanied Lieutenant Cowgill spotted 15-18 Germans near a pillbox in the valley. They crossed the street, took up firing positions in the yard of No. 28, and shot into the Germans. They thought two were hit before the group dispersed. They continued to fire until an officer across the street by the church shouted at them to stop.
The officer was Lieutenant Price (1st Platoon), whose men had come last into town because they had stopped at two small pillboxes south of Singling to take and disarm 11 unresisting Germans. Although Price's mission had been to occupy the east end of town, when he arrived at the square he could see Lieutenant Padgett's (2d Platoon) men already moving along the houses to the east. Lieutenant Cowgill's men were on the west. Price decided to go north. Tech/Sgt. Lovell P. Mitchell with four men cleaned out the houses on the southeast corner of the square while S/Sgt. John Sayers and six men took over No. 35. Price with the rest of his platoon crossed the street to the back of the church, moved along the hard-surfaced alleyway between the church and No. 35. Posting Pvts. Rudolph Aguilar and Randall S. Brownrigg at the northeast corner to watch in that direction, Price and four men followed the alley around the north side of the church.
At the corner they could see the Gerrnans at the pillbox who had already been spotted by the four 3d Platoon men. A burp gun was firing from somewhere to the northwest. The steep drop of the Singling ridge to the north made it possible for Price's men to return fire over the roofs of the houses back of No. 28.
Under cover of this Lieutenant Price and Sgt. Elmer White planned to work their way into the valley behind the northeast row of houses. But they were checked at the outset by a heavy wire fence which, hooked to the comers of No. 34 and No. 35, inclosed the alleyway. It was at least six feet high and too exposed to enemy observation to be scaled. It would have to be cut. The platoon wire cutters, however, had been entrusted to a man who two days before had been evacuated, taking the cutters with him. White went into No. 34 to look for tools. While he was in there, the Germans in the valley were getting ready to give up. They were encouraged in this not only by the continuing small-arms fire of Price's men and the four men of the 3d Platoon, but also by machine-gun and HE fire from Lieutenant Cook's tanks.
Sergeant Grimm started it by dispatching a lone German a few hundred yards away with 100 rounds of .30-cal. Minutes later, Grimm saw six Germans jump up and run into the valley pillbox. In his own words, he "closed the door for them with HE." All three tanks also periodically fired HE at the ridge 1,200 yards to the north, more to register the range of the skyline on which German tanks were likely to appear than to engage specific targets. The total effect, however, was to throw a large volume of fire in the direction of a handful of enemy, and shortly Lieutenant Price saw white cloths wave from the pillbox. It was then that he ordered the men across the street to cease fire. Twelve Germans walked up the hill and surrendered to Price. One who spoke some English reported that there were five more in the valley who were anxious to surrender but were afraid to come out. After all the Germans had been disarmed, Price sent one back down the hill to corral his comrades.
At that moment, however, a volley of enemy mortar and artillery struck the square. One shell hit No. 34 and Sergeant White inside was wounded in the head by fragments and wood splinters. Sayers and Pvt. Randall S. Brownrigg outside and Cpl. Frank B. McElwee in No. 43 were slightly wounded. Price and his men ducked back from the alley, and began occupying houses on the square where they were to remain all day. Although Price believed that enemy held the houses to the north, he decided not to attack them, because by advancing north he would move out of contact with the platoons on his flanks. No more was seen of the German emissary or the five volunteers for capture. The 11 still in the possession of the 1st Platoon were sent down the road south.
Just as these started off, two more walked up the hill to the schoolhouse and surrendered to McPhail and Todd. McPhail escorted these two across the square to the street south. There, seeing Price's 11 walking down the street, he motioned to his 2 to fall in with them, and, himself, returned to the school. He and Todd then climbed to the second story, and resumed the business of shooting enemy in the valley. The four men of the 1st Squad decided then to go down to the pillbox to get whatever Germans might still be in it. They found none, but did draw machine-gun fire from the direction of Welschoff Farm. Battles was wounded in the leg and the squad was pinned in place for seveml hours.
From the east end of town, Lieutenant Padgett (2d Infantry Platoon) had also seen the enemy infantry in the valley, but he had seen two other things which worried him far more-a rocket launcher (Wurfgeraet) firing from about 800 yards west of Welschoff Farm, and seven enemy tanks on a ridge northeast. Padgett was in No. 39, which he had reached with his 1st Squad without difficulty after going through the three small houses to the west. These houses were occupied only by a few scared civilians who were rounded up and sheltered in No. 39. House No. 39 was a fine place to be.
Outwardly just another farm house, it was actually a fortress, with walls of 3-foot concrete reinforced with steel girders. Nevertheless, Padgett worried. Protection enough from artillery and the wurfgeraet (which Padgett decided was shooting short anyway), the house would not be of much avail against the enemy tanks. More reassuring were the four tanks of the 1st Platoon (Lieutenant Goble) which pulled into position in the orchard opposite No. 39 about the same time that Padgett arrived there.
The enemy armor, though threatening, was still too far away for direct action. Padgett sent his runner to report the situation to Lieutenant Belden and also to find the 2d Squad of his own platoon and bring them up. When the runner failed to return in what seemed to Padgett a reasonable time, he sent out another man, Pvt. Lonnie G. Blevins, on the same mission.
Blevins left on his run under the impression that the infantry company CP was at No. 3 where it had first been set up by Belden on entering the town. Actually Belden had stayed in that house less than half an hour, only long enough to set up the radio and notify the 51st Infantry Battalion that he was in town. He then moved to No. 28. Blevins reached No. 44, where he met a man of Price's platoon and was warned not to cross the square which enemy guns to the west covered. Blevins went around No. 44 and on up the road south to No. 3.
Finding no one, he returned along the west side of the street and got as far as No. 5. A tanker, one of Sandrock's or the forward observees crew, waylaid Blevins and told him to take charge of a prisoner who had just walked up to the tank and surrendered. At No. 7 Blevins with his prisoner met Battles who had not yet started for the valley pillbox. Battles took temporary charge of the prisoner while Blevins dashed through a burst of machine gun fire across to No. 28. In a few minutes, he reappeared in the door and motioned to Battles to send the pris- oner over. Half his mission accomplished, Blevins still had to find the 2d Squad. By luck he met them near No. 44 and delivered his message to Pfc. Phillip E. Scharz in charge.
Scharz's squad had already with little effort accomplished one of the most notable successes of the day. Investigating the south- ernmost house of town, which the rest of the infantry, entering between No. 2 and No. 3, had bypassed, they found a Frenchman and asked whether there were any Germans inside. He shook his head, but Scharz's men, noticing a radio antenna thrusting out of a cellar window, were suspicious. Four of them surrounded the house, and Scharz and Pfc. Lewis R. Dennis went in. In the cellar they found 28 German enlisted men and 2 officers. None offered any resistance. They were frisked and evacuated. A search of the house then revealed large stores of small arrns and ammunition. When the squad emerged, they met on the road the 13 prisoners sent back by Lieutenant Price and McPhail. Having discovered enemy in one house, they searched with slow caution the others along the street, and so arrived late at the square where Blevins found them.
When Blevins had completed his mission of telling Scharz to take his squad east, the enemy artillery and mortar which had wounded four of Price's men was falling around the church. Blevins crossed the street to No. 7 to "see Battles." With Battles now was 1st Sgt. Dellas B. Cannon who was on his way to the CP. Cannon sprinted across to No. 28; Blevins followed, and then worked east back to No. 39.
Cannon had not been in the CP long before a round of 75-mm hit the building. Pfc. John E. Tsinetakes was scratched by dislodged plaster but there were no other casualties. The fire had quite possibly been drawn from one of the enemy SPs by the recent activity in the street. In any case the shot decided Cannon to go west to where the SPs were and "get a closer look." He invited McPhail who had just come over from the school to go along. The two set out, taking almost exactly the route that Lieutenant Cowgill, unknown to them, had already followed twice.
Sergeant Grimm had started Cowgill on his first journey from the garden, which the 3d Platoon tanks occupied, by blasting open the door of No. 12 with a burst of .50-cal. Cowgill and his two men entered and climbed to the attic. They found that, although they could see the two enemy SPs through the damaged tiling on the roof, they could not see beyond. They continued explomtion westward.
For one reason or another they were unable to reach the roofs of the next three buildings. In the last (No. 17) they found their progress blocked by the lack of openings of any kind in the west wall. They backtracked through the courtyard between No. 16 and No. 15 and then walked through an opening in the south wall out into a gar-den-orchard walled with concreted stone like all the Singling gardens. They crawled to a gap in the wall and found themselves within spitting distance of the two SPs. Beyond, in an arc or line not more than 200 yards distant, they saw the outlines of three enemy tanks.
They returned at once to Lieutenant Cook's position to report. Cowgill sent word to Lieutenant Belden that there were "five enemy tanks on the west" and then he took Lieutenant Cook back to the OP at the wall. Harrington and Alexander were left at No. 12, which Cowgill decided was the most suitable spot he had seen for his platoon headquarters.
When Cook returned from his reconnaissance, he was impressed with both the strength of the German position and the difficulty of dislodging them. Their command of the main street and of the nose of the ridge west of town made it impossible for tanks to attack them. Axtillery seemed, despite the proximity of our own troops, the most logical answer, and Cook therefore went to look for the observer, 1st Lt. Donald E. Guild. Guild was at the infantry company CP with Lieutenant Belden and Captain Leach. When Cook joined them, the four officers discussed the problem. Lieutenant Guild felt that artillery could not be brought down without unduly endangering friendly troops. Mortar fire would be fine, but the infantry had brought no mortars because they had too few men to man them and carry ammunition.
The mortar squad, down to three men, were armed with a bazooka. Lieutenant Cook suggested that the street might be smoked with grenades and the tank mortars. Behind that screen the tanks might cross the street and attack the enemy from the northeast. Actually he felt that the smoke alone would be enough to force the SPs to withdmw. The proposal was not seriously considered because Captain Leach preferred to try the infantry bazookas. This was the decision, and the job was given to Lieutenant Cowgill.
He sent back to ask Belden for a bazooka, and riflemen to protect it. His plan was to shoot at the Germans from the attic of his CP. Lieutenant Guild advised that it would take the SP about two minutes to elevate its gun to fire, and that was considered ample time to launch the rockets and move out. Belden sent Pfc. Kenneth L. Bangert and Pvt. Frank LeDuc down to Cowgill with the headquarters bazooka. Headquarters runner, Pfc. Melvin P. Flynn, went over to No. 7 occupied by seven men of the machine- gun and mortar squads. His message apparently was, "Lieutenant Cowgill wants some riflemen to protect his bazookamen." What happened was that S/Sgt. John W. Herring, the two men of his mortar squad who carried the second bazooka of the company, and S/Sgt. Patrick H. Dennis, leader of the machine gun squad, went down to No. 12; the other three men of the machine-gun squad remained all the rest of the day at No. 7 where, having no field of fire, they were unable to set up their gun.
More France: 4th Armored Division at Singling Part I
France: 4th Armored Division at Singling Part II
Back to Table of Contents -- Combat Simulation Vol 1 No. 3
Back to Combat Simulation List of Issues
Back to MagWeb Magazine List
© Copyright 1995 by Mike Vogell and Phoenix Military Simulations.
This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web.
Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com