These are the last three days of Lt Axel Sahlins life

Day by Day in the Ruhr Pocket ...
7 April 1945

At daybreak I Company sent a patrol down the dirt road to its left to contact K Company and bring chow forward. A group of infiltrating Germans were encountered and after a few were killed the rest surrendered.

Chow was distributed to all companies, prisoners taken during the preceding night were evacuated and ammunition was re-supplied by the Battalion Ammunition and Pioneer platoon, capably led by Lt. James Hilmar.

From the prisoners, who seemed almost eager to give information, it was learned that the Krauts had moved two companies into the area during the night and were planning to attack the ground occupied by Companies I and K. It was apparent that the Germans did not know that their objectives were held by American troops.

The influx of surrendering Germans continued during the day and all told the same story. There was a definite lack of organization in the enemy forces and small groups or individuals were found wandering aimlessly in the woods looking for a place to surrender. Though the GIs were glad to see the Germans giving up, it was hard to watch their enemies go back to the safety and relative comfort of a PW enclosure.

At 1555 hours the battalion was once more ready to attack. All three companies jumped off to the northeast as planned, with L Company heading for the little village of Alzen, I moving into Hofferhof, and K Company attempting to get control of the road between the towns of Morsbach and Steeg.

K Company's immediate objective consisted of two sections of high ground overlooking Wisser Bach which was a small creek that followed the road from Steeg to Morsbach. The two sparsely wooded knolls were separated by a dirt road that joined the highway less than a mile east of Morsbach. Two platoons were sent forward; one with the mission of taking the high ground to the right and setting up a road block on the highway, and the other with the mission of securing the high ground to the left.

Both platoons reached their objectives shortly after jumping off but while they were still digging in the enemy began throwing direct artillery fire from the front and right flank. In addition the GI's began receiving sporadic but effective machine gun fire. The concentration of enemy fire eventually made the exposed positions untenable, and word was sent back that it was inadvisable to try to hold the ground and would be better to pull back and consolidate the day's gains by forming a unified defense.

Meanwhile, L Company was moving north from K's left rear. The town of Alzen lay huddled in an open draw surrounded on three sides by thick woods. Heavy machine guns from M Company were set up, on the line of departure and the mortars began firing from a little farther back as targets presented themselves. The two forward observers had a clear view of the objective from an OP near the wood line about 350 yards from the town, and the softening up process began.

The first platoon had moved off on the left flank, and the second platoon was on the right with the light machine guns. The third platoon was in support.

The first counter action by the enemy came, as the scouts leading the first platoon were about halfway across the open area. A 20 mm gun began sending a stream of explosive shells into the fringe of woods and the first platoon was forced to double-time across the field and down into the town where it was engaged in a fire fight. It was either remain in the-deadly fire of the 20mm gun or close with the enemy.

The second platoon moved through direct 88 fire to the north end of town and set up a defense on the reverse slope with the light machine guns. By this time the first platoon had chased the Krauts out of its section of town and Capt. Barzelay had followed, in with his radio operator.

The support platoon cleared the woods to the east and southeast searching for the 20 mm gun but was unable to find it. Using one or two squads to a house the company cleared the buildings one by one and reassembled to set up the night's defenses.

The heavy machine-guns were placed by the machine-gun platoon leader in such a position as to take some of the pressure off K Company which had suffered heavy casualties before pulling back to a position out of the ring of relentless Kraut fire.

While K and L were fighting for their objectives, Company 1, on the battalion's right flank, ran into stiff opposition on the road to Steeg. Leaving the woods in the vicinity of Dietershagen, Lieutenant Ochs' men had moved down across a stream and into Hofferhof where only a little resistance was met in two of the houses. The town was quickly cleared and four German riflemen were captured.

At 1700 the company started off to the east with one of M Company's platoons trailing the column. The enemy intelligence section was, evidently not functioning as well as Lieutenant Janes' "I & R" men. On several occasions the company ran into Germans who thought the road still belonged to Deutschland. Two Krauts approaching on motorcycles were ambushed and killed, an another was taken alive when he came riding down the road on a bicycle. A little later a Volkswagen came up the road behind the column of American soldiers and the driver was killed.

The company had barely started moving again when still another German jeep approached from the rear. This one was carrying two captains and a lieutenant. One of I Company's bazooka men stopped the vehicle with a direct hit and there was a short exchange of small arms fire that ended with the death of one of the officers and the capture of the other two.

The first platoon, which had been leading the attack, moved off to the left to clear a group of buildings, and the second platoon moved on through. About 600 yards from Steeg the first squad had arrived at some houses on the right when two German tanks were spotted coming onto the highway.

Immediately, two bazooka teams took up firing positions in the ditch at the side of the road. There was a bend in the highway several hundred yards in front of the bazookas and the GIs in the ditch lay very still and waited. The wait was not long.

The first of the tanks lumbered into view and the long gun began to belch flame and high explosive. The bazookas opened up at the same time but the first round whistled down the middle of the road and missed. Another dark hulk rolled, up beside the first and both tanks directed their fire at the buildings that sheltered men of I's first and second platoons.

The red tile-roofed houses stood behind small trees that lined both sides of the road and the tank gunners began throwing shells at the trees. The shells ripped into the new spring foliage and exploded against the twisted branches sending hot shell fragments in all directions. A tree-burst is the most wicked type of artillery fire. GIs hugging the damp earth beside the houses had no protection from the descending fragments.

In an attempt to take some of the pressure off his men, Lieutenant Ochs brought the company's 60mm mortars into play. Within a matter of seconds the mortar men had zeroed in and were lobbing shells at the two tanks. The increase in fire forced the Germans to back up.

Enemy machine gun and sniper fire from the right flank had increased and casualties in the two groups of buildings had mounted to eight wounded and two killed.

The 60's began to run low on ammunition and were forced to lift their fire. The tanks started down the road again and gray-coated German Infantry could be seen coming over the rise of ground in front of Steeg. There were an estimated 130 enemy riflemen in the counter-attacking force.

Some of the second platoon got out from tinder the fire and moved into a creek bed on the left. The "536" radios had failed, but the company commander managed to get word out for his men to fall back to a hill southwest of the village and reorganize for another attempt.

The GIs had to cross 300 yards of open country through a hail of deadly fire from the "88's" and machine guns on the Kraut tanks, and two men were cut down by direct hits as they raced for cover in the woods on the other side of the field.

Most of the company got across to the high ground and permission was requested to return to the first objective taken that day.

When Company I moved back into the woods around Hammer to set up its defenses that night, the list of missing men was a large and bitter thing. Because of the heavy concentration of enemy fire, the company had been unable to evacuate its wounded. Others were cut off by the enemy counterattack and some never received word to leave town.

There were fifteen men, including the 4.2, mortar observer, who had been cut off but managed to keep contact by 300 radio. While trying to get back to the American lines, they sent patrols out from time to keep track of the enemy and radioed their location to battalion headquarters. The mortar observer even directed artillery fire by radio. It was three days before they found their company again and by that time they had picked up twenty prisoners. Twelve of the original 15 Americans returned safely.

That night, L Company found its town difficult to defend because of the numerous draws and depressions in the surrounding terrain. Light machine guns were set up on the high spots under the direction of 2nd Lt. Robert Hibbard who led a squad of his own up under heavy enemy mortar fire to establish a strong outpost. Wire was laid to him there and all night there was a protective ring of machine guns around the company area.

60 mm. mortars put in their usual overtime. During the long hours of darkness they fired half of their basic load, making the night as uncomfortable for the Krauts as possible.

The Battalion's 105s, under Captain M. L. Smith, FA, fired a few supporting rounds, and the only counter fire came from some enemy self-propelled artillery that was silenced between 0200 and 0300 hours.

When I Company's soldiers moved back to dig in for the night, they discovered Germans in the positions they had taken the evening before. At 2300, twenty-three prisoners were taken and more came strolling in at intervals throughout the night.

As darkness thickened into deep night on the 7th of April 1945, there were several hundred American men scattered through the wooded hill-land southwest of the German village of Steeg. For a few, the night had brought peace, forever. But for the living the night was to be only another long wait for the new day. A new day and a new list of dead and wounded and missing.

 
Day by Day in the Ruhr Pocket ...
8 April 1945

Shortly after dawn, I Company jumped off again, moving over the same ground they had covered the day before and picking up prisoners as they went. It was a crisp cool morning and the freshness of the air helped clean the haze out of the fogged minds of the tired GIs as they marched down the slope toward Steeg. The company column swung left before reaching Steeg and began moving northwest.

A patrol was sent off to the left flank and found 13 unarmed Germans and about 150 Russian and Polish slave-laborers. A little later, engineers, coming up behind the company to establish a two-way road chain, ran into a dozen Germans who had slipped into a farmhouse after the company had moved through. Two were killed and the others took off on the run toward Steeg.

The advancing GIs passed newly laid German communication wire and cut it before the Wehrmacht ever got a chance to use it.

While Item's first and third platoons were nearing their objective to the northwest, Company L moved out of Alzen to meet three tanks and a tank destroyer that had been released by K Company. When the armor arrived a half-hour later, L Company advanced into the wooded hills overlooking Morsbach and waited there for orders to attack. As usual the troops had dug in and were partially protected from the intermittent enemy shellfire.

Morsbach lay clustered around the road junction in a triangular hollow below L Company's position. The forward observers moved up to high spots along the edge of the forest and began to pick out targets. In a few minutes M Company's mortars and the 903rd FA'S 105 howitzers were blasting holes in the town.

An enemy tank was spotted and its location relayed to the TD commander. He brought his Tank Destroyer up with only the barrel of the gun pointing out of the green shadow of the trees. Eight rounds were fired and five connected. The tank began to burn and the Jerries hauled it away under cover of a smoke screen. Later in the day the knocked-out tank was captured about 580 yards south of Ober Warnsbach. The Germans had salvaged the ammunition and destroyed the gun.

Orders finally came for Company L to attack and the riflemen started down the slope toward town with M Company's mortars and heavy machine guns covering their advance from fixed positions. The second platoon, with light machine guns attached, moved under cover of the woods to the road junction. The trees were so dense as to make observation impossible and a two-wire team went with the platoon for communications.

The third platoon climbed onto the three tanks and the TD and traveled down the road to hit the enemy from the west flank in a coordinated push with the second platoon. They moved through Lt. Hibbard's men, dismounted at the road junction, and began clearing the houses one by one.

Contact between platoons was maintained by "536" radio. The second platoon was clearing the high ground on the West Side of town. It ran into two buildings filled with Germans and there was a short but vicious exchange of fire in which the GIs used bazookas, rifle grenades and mortars as well as small arms. Ten Germans were killed and ten captured.

With Morsbach cleared, the company climbed into the hills north of town and began the approach march on Birzel. The armor had to crawl up a narrow dirt road and one squad went with it as protection. The second platoon was traveling on the left side of the road with the other two clearing the high ground on the right.

Contact with the enemy came just before the lead scouts reached Birzel. The advance was held up while mortars and artillery threw shells over the GIs' heads into' the German positions.

Engineers had come up behind the infantry to get the road in shape for use as a supply route. They discovered German plastic mines in front of the company and dug out eight of them so that the advance could continue.

There was a house filled with German soldiers a few hundred yards from town and the tanks opened up on it. Krauts could be seen scurrying out of the house and diving for cover. The tanks held their fire while Company L's riflemen stormed into the house and killed a few Germans who had stayed behind.

Heavy fire, from the woods behind the house forced the GIs to get out and the Germans returned.

Again the Blue Infantrymen poured bazooka and machine gun fire into the rapidly deteriorating building and regained it this time for keeps. The Germans had enough. White flags appeared and about a hundred prisoners were taken.

The 4.2 and 81-mm mortars then laid a terrific barrage into the town itself and 180 more Krauts came out with their hands in the air. The little village of Birzel was now in American hands.

As the company moved into town, and artillery liaison plane swooped in low, dipping its wings. It circled back and the pilot dropped a note saying there were two Germans tanks 1500 yards to the north and that one of them was apparently disabled. The pilot's information proved to be completely accurate.

The second platoon led the advance on Ober Warnsbach while Captain Barzelay and the rest of the company remained in the woods. The disabled German tank was found by the GIs just before they reached the town.

Resistance in Ober Warnsbach was light. Seven PWs were taken and the entire company moved in with orders to dig in and hold.

Company K had waited until Company L crossed the Auburn phase line at Morsbach before beginning its attack. Up to that time, K's CP was used as an observation post for directing mortar and artillery fire on possible enemy strong points and on actual German traffic around the autobahn.

When the jump-off came at 1650, the company was without its armor and moved out on, foot. They left Stentenbach once more and cleared the woods to the northeast. German patrols had been reported in the area but none were contacted.

The first mission, establishment of a road block on the Steeg-Morsbach highway, was accomplished under fire. Two Germans were killed and eleven captured.

Machine-guns, riflemen, and one anti-tank gun were left at the road block and the remainder of the company followed the first platoon into Wasser. There was some resisting machine-gun and semi-automatic fire as the company passed through and the first platoon stayed behind to clean up the place while the others infiltrated into Steeg under cover of darkness.

The platoon in Wasser suffered a few casualties before silencing the enemy weapons but accomplished its mission and remained there until ordered to rejoin the rest of K Company. The few scattered houses designated on the map as the town of Hammer offered little resistance. While going through the buildings, the GIs found wounded soldiers who had been left behind when Company I was driven back the day before. The Germans had given them neither trouble nor assistance.

One GI had had a leg shot off and was treated by the Germans and left to die. For 16 hours, he lay in the farmhouse keeping himself alive by pure guts until K Company picked him up.

A squad was placed in Hammer to maintain a road block, and the force that had established the other road block earlier in the day came up the main road on foot to rejoin the main body of the company in Steeg. Tanks which had joined Company K at Wasser followed along behind the foot troops.

It was quite dark by this time and Steeg was not actually cleared of Germans until the following morning. A perimeter defense was set up and the GIs sweated out the night, getting what sleep they could while cautiously awaiting the dawn.

I Company, in Ober Warnsbach, had sent a patrol back to contact the 309th's G Company in Morsbach. Contact was made and Lt. Wright of the 309th returned with the patrol. Shortly after dusk, Lieutenant Ochs, leading I Company in its advance to the northwest contacted Captain Barzelay, and informed him that Company I was going to move through the town. At 2210 the company came walking in and stopped just long enough to have chow before proceeding on to Kappenstein. There were supposed to be enemy tanks between Ober Warnsbach and Kappenstein so one tank and one TD left L and followed I Company up the road. However, the armor was blocked by another vehicle and the infantry had to continue alone.

The night was dark and eight of the enemy stumbled through the company's lines and were captured by the second platoon which was spread out through the'w6ods flanking the road on either side.

A lone German sentry tried to stop the company's advance about 25 yards from the first building in Kappenstein. He was killed.

Immediately, the silent darkness was shattered by the sharp popping of small arms fire as the Krauts opened up from houses on both side of the road. The company advanced into the fire and took fifty prisoners of whom a dozen were officers.

The Krauts had plenty of weapons and ammo but were caught napping, and I Company took the town with only one casualty.

The third day in the Ruhr Pocket ended with the situation much brighter than it had been the night before. The battalion had covered a lot of ground with casualties relatively light, and the Jerries were being driven back toward the center of the pocket where they would be forced to surrender or be completely wiped out by the American troops that were relentlessly closing in from all sides.

 
Day by Day in the Ruhr Pocket ...
9 April 1945

When the first gray streaks of dawn drifted into Steeg from the east, K Company awoke to find itself practically bedded down with the enemy. Intense sniper and machine-gun fire greeted every movement the GIs made.

Lt. Axel E. Sahlin, who had received a field commission only three days before, went up into the barn being used as an observation post to try to locate the snipers. As he stepped in front of the loft window there was the sharp crack of a German rifle and the Third Battalion lost one of its best men.

Another man was hit in the leg and had to be evacuated. The Krauts were causing too much trouble. Captain Owens, Company C. 0., ordered the tanks to fire into the fringe of woods where most of the enemy fire was originating. The thick groves of fir and birch were raked by fire from the tanks' 76 mm guns and 50 caliber machine-guns and by fire from K Company's bazookas and machine-guns.

Air enemy machine-guns position was spotted by a GI who notified his squad leader. In a few moments the squad's bazooka team blasted the nest and two of the Krauts who had been manning the gun were killed.

The company occupied the entire morning cleaning the last snipers out of the town.

Up in the hills around Kappensicin, where Company I had spent the night, the morning was very quiet.

At 1000, Company L of the 311th came marching into town and relieved Lieutenant Ochs' men, who walked out of town and through what the 311th said were the enemy lines back to Morsbach, where the Third Battalion CP was located. The march was unhampered by contact with Kraut infantry.

When they reached Morsbach they formed in a march column with L Company and part of battalion headquarters and moved to a new assembly area at Solbach. The column marched up the same old highway through Steeg and was fired on by snipers and machine-guns as it passed K Company's right flank. Two platoons of I Company got past the road junction before the fire became so severe that it held up the rest of the column. Item's first two platoons swung back to protect the battalion’s flank while King Company's second platoon went out to clear the woods in which the by-passed Krauts were hiding. The GIs returned with forty prisoners, and the column moved out again with K Company and the forty Germans marching along behind.

The new assembly area was a peaceful stretch of woods and meadows and the battalion spread out to wait for new orders. By this time it was afternoon and the sun was shining bright and warm.

The forty prisoners were herded into a little shack. One had received a nasty bullet wound from the rear and he was treated by Pfc. Mike Harkovi, medic runner with the battalion CP group.

That afternoon, the commanders of the companies and of the attached TDs and tanks met in the battalion command post which was a slightly damaged farmhouse on' the side - of a muddy hill. There they received their orders and the battalion moved out, still on foot, to Hohenhain.

A new battalion CP was set up at 1920 on the hill overlooking Hohenhain in a German post office. The rest of the outfit established defensive positions and settled down once more to wait out the night.

Armored units of the 5th German Panzer Division were reported massing on the highway to the north and a counter attack was expected. The battalion was ordered to hold its position until Corps sent word to attack.

Even with the threat of counter attack hovering in the blackness, the night was the most restful since the battalion left Betzdorf.