Throughout the length of the Siegfried Line, villages along the border were incorporated into the defence system. The houses, churches, and public buildings were built of stone and brick. The second floors of the buildings and the belfries on the churches provided excellent observation posts.

The US Army had no training for driving Germans out of villages where the streets were jumbled and tanks had difficulty manoeuvring, where gunners had crisscrossing fields of fire. It was going to have to learn such basic things as the first rule of street fighting-stay out of the streets-and the second rule-a systematic, patient approach works, while audacity and risk taking don't. Reconnaissance pilots, meanwhile, had taken tens of thousands of photographs, creating an intelligence picture almost as complete as that developed for the Normandy beaches. Commanders were given maps that plotted all known strongpoints.

FIRST ARMY'S mission was to break through the Siegfried Line. That route would be along the narrow Aachen corridor, between the fens of Holland to the north and the Hurtgen Forest and Ardennes to the south. To avoid getting caught up in the urban congestion of Aachen, breakthroughs would take place north and south of the city. When the two wings linked to the east, Aachen would be enveloped and could be neutralized.

Aachen had little military value. It was more a trading centre than a manufacturing site. But Aachen's psychological value was immense. It was the first German city to be threatened, symbolic enough by itself, and a city central to German civilization. The Romans had medicinal spring baths there, the Aquisgranum. It was the city where Charlemagne was born and crowned. It was the seat of the Holy Roman Empire-what Hitler called the First Reich.

Hitler was determined to hold the city and, to do so, sent in the 246th Volksgrenadier Division, about 5,000 boys and old men with a small assortment of tanks, assault guns, and artillery pieces. He ordered the CO, Colonel Gerhard Wilck, to hold the city "to the last man, and if necessary, allow himself to be buried under its ruins."

For six days prior to jump off, First Army's heavy artillery pounded forty-five known German pillboxes immediately in front of the American 30th Division. This stripped away camouflage, ripped up the barbed wire obstacles, set off hundreds of mines, and forced the Germans to take cover. Otherwise it had little effect except to let the Germans know where the attack was coming.

H-hour (the planned hour of attack) was set for 1100, October 2. At 0900 hours the American artillery shifted targets from the German front to antiaircraft batteries in the rear, sending up clouds of black smoke that hampered German visibility. Unfortunately, it also hampered American visibility. The 360 medium bombers and 72 fighter-bombers committed to the pre-assault bombing of German positions went astray. Only a half-dozen bombs fell in the target area-almost a total failure.

As the planes left, the artillery shifted targets back to the pillboxes. Mortarmen rushed to their positions and in a few hours fired 18,696 shells from 372 tubes. As the infantry moved forward, tanks put direct fire on the pillboxes to prevent German gunners from manning their weapons. Infantry platoons accompanied by engineer teams manoeuvred their way behind the pillboxes, where the engineers blew the rear doors with satchel charges, bangalore torpedoes, and bazookas.

By the end of the day, the 30th Division had breached the first line of pillboxes. The next day the 2nd Armoured joined the attack. By October 7 the Americans had made a clean break through the Siegfried Line north of Aachen. The 1st Division, meanwhile, broke through to the south. The two wings hooked up, and Aachen was surrounded. First Army was on the verge of a classic victory.

On October 10 First Army sent Colonel Wilck an ultimatum. When he rejected it, the 1st Division prepared to take the city. It fell to Lieutenant Colonel Derrill Daniel, CO of the 2nd Battalion of the 26th Infantry, to lead the attack. He got three Shermans, two towed antitank guns, and other weapons to support his rifle companies.

H-hour was 0930, October 13. The jump-off line was a high railroad embankment, with the German lines just on the other side. At 0930 every soldier in the battalion heaved a hand grenade over the embankment. Daniel's men came after the explosions, shouting and firing. Resistance was light. The tanks punched holes in the sides of buildings, through which infantry could move from one building into the next without exposing themselves in the street. The battalion was nearing the city centre as night came on.

In the morning German resistance stiffened. The battle grew desperate. The GIs brought wheeled artillery into the city and were able to fire parallel to the front, dropping their shells just beyond the noses of the American infantry. Building by building Daniel's men advanced. Colonel Wilck's men fought back from every conceivable hiding place. They used the city sewer system to mount counterattacks from the rear so effectively that the Americans had to locate and block every manhole to prevent further infiltration.

FOR CAPTAIN Dawson and G Company the task wasn't to attack but defend. Dawson and his men were holding high ground east of Aachen, which gave them observation posts (OPs) to call in targets to the gunners and pilots. The Germans were desperate to get him off that ridge.

At 2300 hours, October 15, an SS panzer division hit G Company. The first shots came as a surprise because the leading tank in the column was a captured Sherman with American markings. The battle thus joined went on for 48 hours. There was hand-to-hand fighting, with rifle butts and bayonets. It was surreal, almost slow-motion, because the mud was ankle-deep. Dawson called in artillery to within ten metres of his position. At one foxhole a German toppled dead over the barrel of an American machine gun, while in another a wounded American waited until the German who had shot him came up and looked down on him, then emptied his tommy gun in the German's face. The two men died at the bottom of the hole in a macabre embrace.

INSIDE AACHEN the battle raged. The Germans fell back to the centre of the city, charging a price for every building abandoned. Rubble in the streets grew to monstrous proportions. The old buildings, made of masonry and stone, were almost impervious to tank cannon fire, so Lieutenant Colonel Daniel brought a 155-mm artillery piece into the city, using a bulldozer to clear a path. Daniel reported that its effects were "quite spectacular and satisfying."

On October 16 the battalion ran into a strong German position in the city's main theatre building. Daniel brought the 155-mm forward and fired more than a dozen shells, point-blank, into the theatre. It survived, but its defenders, dazed, surrendered.

For another four days and nights the Germans and Americans pounded each other while they destroyed Aachen. Finally, on October 21, Daniel's men secured the downtown area. Colonel Wilck dared to disobey Hitler and surrendered his 3,473 survivors. At his interrogation he protested bitterly against the use of the 155-mm in Aachen, calling it "barbarous" and claiming it should be outlawed.

American losses were heavy, over 5,000. The 30th and 1st divisions were exhausted, used up. They were in no condition to make a dash to the Rhine. German losses were 5,000 casualties and 5,600 prisoners of war. Aachen was destroyed, with the exception of the cathedral, which housed Charlemagne's coronation chair. It escaped major damage.