A Vast Hellish Ruin WTO (id:#66792)

(ASL 16 - Twilight of the Reich ID: 302)   [next]   [previous]

Heilbronn, Germany 1945-04-09 (16 others)

Overview:

By 8 April, Company I, 397th Regiment, 100th Infantry Division had advanced deep into the factory area on the northern skirts of Heilbronn. Here, the unit met stiff resistance from a fortified brick house manned by German rifleman and a heavy machine gun. As the obstacle was holding up the advance of 2nd and 3rd Battalions, an artillery strike was requested to reduce this strongpoint. After this attack proved mostly ineffective, a squad led by Sergeant Richard C. Olsen maneuvered through an adjacent factory to have a go at the building. As the unit approached the house, one of the more popular men in the squad, a scout named Private Henry C. Perkins, 'An amiable farmer' from Kentucky, was killed as he attempted to scale a wall flanking the building. This death so infuriated the men of Sgt. Olsen's squad that they launched a furious, all-out assault on the German defenders. Through a fierce combination of machine gun fire, point blank bazooka shots, and ant-tank grenades, the squad breached the front of the house, capturing nine occupants and killing the rest. Perkins' fellow scout, Private James E. Van Damme, would be awarded the Silver Star for his valor in leading the breach. With this obstacle cleared, Company L took the lead in advancing further toward the center of the city with the objective of linking up with elements of 1st Battalion proceeding north from the area around St. Kilian's.

Defender: German (Grenadier-Regiment 689, Volksgrenadier-Division 246 and Grenadier-Regiment 223, Volsgrenadier-Division 16 with Grenadier-Regiment 1121, Volksgrenadier-Division 553, with FlaK-Regiment 42, and Penal-Battalion 292, Kampfgruppe Bodendörfer)  

Errata (source)