The Last Stand of the Eggersheim Volkssturm

Bundesarchiv

"What's the name of this stream?"  Cpl. Maurice Ryan yelled back at Sgt. Melvin Katz. He was trying to make sense of the map in front of him. As the halftrack he was riding in was bouncing down the rutted road, he was continually being tossed back and forth in the front passenger seat. Katz was seated just behind him in the main compartment.

"Near as I can make out, it's the Neffelbach. I'm pretty sure that field of rubble we just passed used to be the village of Eggersheim." Katz yelled back at Ryan. "Keep your eyes peeled to the..."

No sooner had the words left his mouth then a number of machine gun rounds spattered off the side of the halftrack. They had hit at an angle so didn't penetrate, Pfc. Johnny Robles, one of the new replacements, was on the pintle-mounted .50 caliber machine gun. He quickly swung the gun in the direction of where the fire had come from.

As the .50 started hammering away, Katz was on the radio to his platoon commander, three vehicles back. As he tried to make himself understood over the noise of the .50, the tank to their front, commanded by Sgt. Bob Horner, fired its main gun.

"Damn it, I can't hear the L.T. and the L.T. can't hear me. Johnny, keep pounding that position. Caleb you keep feeding him ammo, the rest of you guys, dismount! Move to your right as you get out. Stay low!! Let's go, let's go, let's go!!"

The back door on the track banged open and the men scrambled out, low and keeping to their right to keep the body of the vehicle between them and the source of the incoming fire. The cannon on Horner's tank barked again.

Katz led his men down a ditch which followed the road, it wasn't that deep but it gave them some cover. Katz was angry because he couldn't see shit. He couldn't tell where the enemy was and things were devolving into utter confusion. At that moment his walkie-talkie squawked, taking a knee so he could keep an eye on things, he got on the small radio.

"Yeah, Katz."

"Cat, take your squad out wide to the left, have your track lead, stay under cover of the vehicle, Horner's gonna go with you. We think we smoked the Krauts but L.T.'s not keen on poking our heads out until we're sure. Copy?" Katz recognized Myerson's voice on the circuit, which made him realize that Hernandez was busy.

"Copy all, out!"

Grenadier Horst Sahlfeld looked over at his sergeant, the man had been hit in the head by one of the Ami machine guns hammering their position. The sergeant was an older man, a veteran of the First War, he had been old in 1918, now he would get no older.

Horst heard the squeak of tracks and the rumble of the Ami's tanks and halftracks. He was terrified. As near as he could tell, he was the only one of his squad left. He had seen the machine gun team get destroyed by an American tank round, not long after they had opened fire. Far too early, the sergeant had turned and screamed at them, that's when the American bullet hit the top of his head, killing him instantly.

Two of the boys had jumped from the trench, throwing their Panzerfausts down as they ran. They ran perhaps five meters before they were cut down.

Horst looked down at his stomach, the blood kept welling up between his fingers, no matter how hard he pressed down on the wound. They'd taught him in their brief training to keep pressure on the wound until a Sani could treat it.

They had no Sanitäter, he had been killed yesterday by a strafing aircraft. Horst had no idea what sort of aircraft it was, though his friend Hans had assured him that it was a Spitfire. Young Willi Klingemann had insisted it was a P-47. Horst didn't know and didn't care, it had killed the Sani and two of the other boys in his platoon. Today the Amis had killed Hans and Willi.

Horst began to feel the pain of his wound now, he assumed that the shock of being hit was wearing off. He looked about, there, there was his rifle, the stock was shattered, he wondered if whatever had hit his rifle had also hit him.

Horst gasped, the pain was getting very bad now, then he felt a warmth in the crotch of his trousers, he had wet himself. He felt shame for a moment, then he felt nothing at all...

"Jesus, they're just kids, Sarge. F**king kids." Pvt. Warren Pratt was kneeling beside the trench where they had taken fire from. He looked down, a dead kid with a shattered rifle. Nearby, an older man, the top of his head gone. A bit further on, the remains of a destroyed MG 34 and what was left of its crew. Horner's high explosive round had destroyed the position.

Pratt started to stand up, but Sgt. Katz waved at him to stay down. There was a farmhouse about a hundred yards away. He was concerned about snipers. "Stay down Warren, no sense giving some Kraut sharpshooter an easy target. Looks like Stump's squad will be clearing that farmhouse, so we'll hold here."

Katz walked in a low crouch over to the rear of Horner's tank and picked up the telephone handset.

"Yeah?"

"Bob, it's Cat, you see anything from up there?"

"Nothin' Cat, looks like Stump is done clearing the farm up ahead. Any live Krauts in that trench?"

"Nope, one dead old guy and a dead kid in this end, what might have been three men, or boys, next to the MG, two dead kids away from the trench, probably trying to run away."

"Copy. All right, let's get mounted up again, Stump is signaling the all clear."

Katz looked towards the farm, yes, a man, probably Stump, was signaling.

"Okay guys, back in the track, we're not done yet."

As the American column headed on to the east, quiet settled over the fields south of Eggersheim. One old sergeant and six kids, none older than fifteen, had delayed the American advance for maybe 30 minutes, no more.

No one knew of their sacrifice, no one reported on their futile stand to higher headquarters, quite simply because there was no one left to make a report. The Party officials in the area had fled to the East the day before, after the local Party chief had ordered the small group to make its stand.

In sixty-nine days, the Third Reich will surrender.

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