Kirchhellen

hi brodowb, thanks for the feedback,

actually, I hope they will tell you more about what they know...

best regards

nautiker

From my book "The Dad I Never Knew" http://tinyurl.com/9q8m82q

On Monday March 26 Brodowski’s tank left Grefrath at 2005 and traveled 36 miles to the vicinity of Bruckhausen. It was now Tuesday March 27th at 0450. We waited there for our turn to go across the pontoon bridge and across the Rhine River.

We finally got our orders on the 28 of March. The Second Platoon and a Bull Dozer left Bruckhausen at 0730 leading the assault on Kirchhellen with Company “B” of the 58th Infantry. The Third Platoon was in support and the First Platoon was in reserve. We lined our tanks up along a dirt road leading into Kirchhellen. German artillery was raining down on us as we returned fire with our tank guns.

Sam Montean of C88 writes, “We jumped off on March 28th and must have gone only about a hundred yards when we seen some branches laying across the road. When we took a closer look we seen a couple of box mines on the road under the branches. We then heard bullets whizzing by followed by explosions in the tree tops over our heads. The road was lined with trees. I looked up and seen the flashes in the branches over our heads. McLinden and Dubois turned the jeeps around and the rest of us jumped in the jeeps and went back to the rest of the platoon. They then sent a lieutenant from the engineers up with a tank right behind him and he took away the branches and mines.

It was at this point that the order was given that we were to go in shooting and first squad was to lead with a tank right behind. My jeep may have been the only mortar jeep in the whole troop equipped with a 30 caliber machine gun on the hood right in front of the car commander. Blaker’s gunner in his jeep was to fire on the right side of the road as we went into Kirchellen and I was to fire on the left side of the road. We were pretty close to the town when Blaker’s jeep got hung up on some down power lines. Rissmiller came up right behind me and yelled “Montean, take the point.” He immediately said follow me and his armored car went around both of us. I followed him into Kirchellen. The tank followed me. We were pretty much through the town when Rissmiller figured we went far enough. They sent the tank ahead and it was promptly knocked out.

Dick Kemp recalls that day in his story “A Pleasant Day in Deutschland.” “We had just bypassed several Tellar mines hidden on the road when orders from our Task Force Commander, Major George Artman, came over the radio, "Bypass your recon." By 0725 in the town of Kirchellen we were in the basement of a house. I shall never forget that house! When the command came, "Avenelle" my tank moved out from behind a large building marked as a hospital because Lt. Martin wanted to draw enemy fire. The other 4 tanks and the infantry remained concealed. We were about 200 yards into the open when the German 88mm fired. The tank rocked and white hot steel was flying everywhere inside. Fire started almost immediately. Don Elshire and I flew out through our hatches. The sandbags on the front were being ripped with machine gun fire as we jumped over the side. “

Across the field a 58th armored infantry officer could see a large farm house with a fence surrounding the farm. Behind the farm house was smoke billowing up into the sky. The smoke was coming from a tank, Kemp’s tank. No one knew at that time Kemp and his crew were in the basement of that farm house safely hidden from the Germans.

The tank was really burning and starting to explode. We grabbed the Lt. and ran to the house.

We were trapped in the upper basement with about 90 German civilians in the lower bomb shelter basement, while Panzer Grenadiers searched for us. There were five of us trapped in the basement until 1830 that evening when the town was retaken. It was after we were hit, that the Task Force withdrew and did not retake the town until dark.

The Second Platoon accomplished its mission of taking Kirchhellen. The Third Platoon with Ed Brodowski relieved the Second Platoon at 1700 and took up defensive positions in the town. Kemp could hear the gun fire and knew it was ours by the sound of the guns. Kemp left the basement of that farmhouse and down the column to Brodowski’s tank. Brodowski looked down and yelled “Kemp, you’re suppose to be dead. You better go tell Capt. Peterson.” Kemp went to Peterson’s tank and when Peterson saw him, he said” Kemp you’re supposed to be dead.” They then went back to the basement of the farm house to get the rest of the men.

At 1900 the First Platoon and “C” Company (58th Inf.) bypassed the Second and Third Platoons in Kirchhellen and traveled several miles southeast, took up positions outside of Overhagen.

On Thursday March 29th at 0630 the Third Platoon with Ed Brodowski moved out of Kirchhellen with Company ”B” of the 58th, and moved to Zweckel a distance of 9 miles without meeting any stiff resistance.

Also, the First Platoon and Company “C” moved out of their positions at 0600 outside of Overhagen, proceeded through Zweckel and engaged the enemy on the outskirts at approximately 1430. At this time, tanks of the third Platoon went out on reconnaissance in an attempt to find an easier route of advance. They were forced to abandon the mission after being subjected to heavy direct fire for a considerable length of time because of heavy enemy concentrations in that area. The column retreated to a defilade position in the town for the night. The German 180th Volks Grenadier Division and the 116th Panzer Division withdrew to set up new defensive lines running through the fortress town of Rocklinghausen.

There was a Panzer Tiger somewhere out there and they knew it. It was blocking our forward progress. Kemp was supposed to drive lead tank for Lieutenant Kaz, even though his tank was destroyed on March 28th. Brodowski volunteered to be the lead tank. It was then that Capt Peterson decided that Ed Brodowski would lead off. On that 29th of March, Peterson gave command of the Second Platoon to Sgt. Brodowski. S/Sgt. Edward Brodowski was moved over from the Third Platoon.

It was March 30. Good Friday. Around 1600 Brodowski’s platoon was moved up to support an Infantry company. It was thought that the enemy had a defense in that area and an attack was made to break through it. Kemp wrote, “Brodowski lead the attack on an area of houses and was met by a barrage of direct and indirect fire from enemy positions. It was a suicide mission. Lt. Kaz knew it and we knew it. As the attack neared the town a camouflaged German tank drove out from behind a building. Ed delivered a withering fire at the Grenadier ground troops surrounding the Tiger." The Tiger shot off a round that hit the right track of Ed’s tank and disabled it.” Johnny yelled out, we’ve been hit. We can’t move the tank. Let’s get the hell out. Then Brodowski slipped down into the gunner’s seat with McStay as his ammo loader. He knew there was no way that his 76mm could match up against the superior armor and firepower (88mm) of the "Tiger." He could have bailed out with the others to come back to fight another day.” There was a chance that he might have been able to do some damage. Picking out the place from where the German tank had fired, he directed three rounds from his tank gun at the German tank before his tank was hit again. This time in the turret hitting McStay and Brodowski. S/Sgt. Brodowski, Tank Commander, was instantly killed doing what he was trained to do. This was in Buer Hassel, Germany.

Hi

Buer Hassel are 2 districts - one called Buer, the other just North of it is Hassel. They're located in the north of the somewhat sizeable city of Gelsenkirchen, located some 20km WNW of Dortmund, and about 40km East of the Germany/Netherlands border. It's pretty much in the centre of this grab of Google Maps I took: https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Bottrop/@51.5927021,7.0540388,12z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x47b8ebd6912e5e2f:0x9dee8340d56bd0e0

If that link doesn't work, search for SC Buer-Hassel 1919 e.V., on Google Maps (which is the local football/soccer club - their website is http://www.sc-hassel1919.de although it likely holds little of interest to you). Of perhaps more interest is the Wikipedia entry for Gelsenkirchen as well as the Wikipedia entry for Bottrop, which are the 2 cities that kinda border Buer Hassel to the SE and SW respectively. The Wikipedia entries have some fairly high level stuff about what happened to them during the second world war.

Kirchhellen is about 5km to the West of Hassel. Head for the extremely obvious power station and you're about half way there to Kirchhellen.

As for Margraten, details of how to get there are available at http://www.abmc.gov/cemeteries-memorials/europe/netherlands-american-cemetery .

To be honest, I wouldn't bother hiring a car except for a day to drive around Buer, Hassel and Kirchhellen (and only then to avoid getting confused by local bus services). Public transport in this part of the world is just too good - when you're in this densely populated an area. Refer to http://www.bahn.co.uk (which is the English language version of the German rail system) for a full train + bus + tram timetable which will tell you how to get to wherever you're going whenever you're going there. Basically, from Amsterdam airport (which I assume you fly into), take a train to Amsterdam Centraal, then from there you can head down into Germany, or direct to Maastricht if you want to visit his grave first. If you do hire a car, get a sat nav.

The sightseeing options are numerous. Refer to http://www.ruhr-tourismus.de/en.html which is the official tourist webpage for this area. The Landschaftspark is quite something, as is the surprisingly interesting Bergbau museum, all about mining which dominated this area.

As an alternative to flying into Amsterdam, consider investigating flying into Duesseldorf airport which is much closer to the region in which he was killed than Amsterdam is. I can't really help with hotels or restaurants (I live at the other end of the Ruhr valley some 80 odd miles away so am not that locally familiar). Tripadvisor and Yelp are quite handy for identifying good places to stay and eat.

As for finding a road map of Kirchhellen for that time of year, dunno, that's stumped me. Perhaps you could try emailing stadtbibliothek@gelsenkirchen.de (try using Google Translate if you don't speak German and can't find anyone who does) which is the local library in Gelsenkirchen. They may not have one on file, but maybe know someone who does. In the interim, I will ask around if anyone I know has any idea.

One note of caution - Gelsenkirchen suffered particularly severe damage in world war 2 because it was home to a hydrogenation plant at Gelsenkirchen-Scholven (which is extremely close - a mile or two) to where you said your Dad was killed. Because it produced gasoline this was of particular importance for air strikes, maybe your Dad was involved in trying to capture/destroy it at the time. If he was in the USAF, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oil_Campaign_chronology_of_World_War_II says they attacked it on March 8th 1945 with the RAF following up again 2 days later. To get an idea of the damage caused to the area by Allied attacks, here's a picture of the plant 2 months dated May 1945 as taken by the USAF: http://www.spiegel.de/fotostrecke/photo-gallery-documenting-destruction-fotostrecke-54868-32.html . As you'll appreciate, there's little trace left today of what it looked like, nearly 70 years later. As a result of such damage this may cause you problems specifically with road layout - it may well have substantially changed from 1945's layout. Still, I'll try to find out where on earth you could get a copy of a map of the area (I have no idea).

I now have a 1944 road map of Buer which shows Buer and then just north is the suburb of Buer Hassel. Is there a WWII historian in Buer that would have expert information on what happened in March 1945?

Does anyone have any experience with Booking.com. I have booked rooms at B&B Helena's Hoeve , ibis Köln Centrum, Hotel Gladbeck van der Valk, and B&B de Kunstkamer . I am worried that without without credit card reservation confirmations, these rooms will not be available when we arrive at the hotels.

Yes, it's a major European website, huge one.

Booking is a hugely popular world wide website.
Hotels listed on it are allowed to add their own conditions. Booking has no say in that. So if like have found there is no credit card payment that is what the hotel likes to do.
The room will be there.
If you are still unsure then phone the customer help line, the staff are quite helpful.

as regards local experts, I again recommend getting in touch with that local history society mentioned in #7 - if they cannot think of anyone suitable, I doubt anyone else can (the report mentions the name Kopatz as the historian who compiled that chapter).

as a sidenote, I'm a bit amazed how detailed and thorough each side has kept their 'diaries', everything looks so very precise and unquestionable, yet when comparing the American account in #11 to the German one linked to in #7, they sometimes offer so very different stories: both agree that Buer is being taken on Good Friday, 30th. the American side says they know there's a Tiger in the area, the German tale merely tells of a lightly armoured Panzerspähwagen. they say the Americans, coming from Polsum, approached along the Valentinstraße towards the Hasseler Markt, whilst at the corner Valentinstraße/Ottestraße stood the small German tank 'hidden by a willow', surveiling the market. the story goes on that it fired a shell at the first (of several) Shermans that appeared - until this point this fits the American account well, that the American tank is being attacked by a camouflaged tank, however the German tale continues: 'the American tanks retreated, half an hour later an American plane dropped a pinpoint bomb on the emplacement, killing all. a few hours later the Americans had taken Buer without meeting further resistance'. given that the place and timeframe accords and there are no further accounts of tanks (the German side only mentions 'Volkssturm' infantry), I find it surprising that, regardless the turmoil at that time, a destroyed American tank would go unnoticed. still, I guess that wouldn't be improbable so that's most likely the nearest you get. Valentin- and Ottestraße still exist today, the Hasseler Markt nowadays goes by the name August-Schmidt-Platz. be aware that this is probably not the most picturesque place in Germany.