Generalmajor Wahle’s World War I Combat Service Record:
Western Front, 1914-1918
- 23-24 August 1914: Battle of Dinant.
- 24-29 August 1914: Battle on the
Maas.
- 29-30 August 1914: Pursuit to the
Aisne (wounded during the engagement at Bertoncourt).
- 29 January 1915-20 May 1916: Combat
on the Aisne.
- 1 April 1916-30 August 1916: Positional
combat in Champagne.
- 19-26 October 1916: Battle on the
Somme.
- 27 October 1916-15 March 1917: Positional
combat on the Somme.
- 16-19 March 1917: Combat before the
“Siegfried” Front.
- 14 April 1917-27 May 1917: Double
Battle of the Aisne and Champagne.
- 28 May 1917-22 August 1917: Positional
combat at Reims.
- 23 August 1917-8 February 1918: Positional
combat in Champagne.
- 21 March 1918-6 April 1918: Great
Battle in France (“Ludendorff Offensive”).
- 7 April 1918-22 June 1918: Combat
between Arras and the Albert.
- 23 June 1918-7 August 1918: Combat
on the Avre and on the Matz.
- 8-20 August 1918: Defensive Battle
between the Somme and the Avre.
- 21 August 1918-3 September 1918:
The Defensive Battle between the Somme and the Oise.
- 4 September 1918-1 October 1918:
Combat before the “Siegfried” Front 1918.
- 2-8 October 1918: Defensive Battle
between Cambrai and St. Quentin.
- 9 October 1918-4 November 1918: Combat
before and in the “Hermann” Position.
- 18 October 1918: Battle of Wassigny.
Generalmajor Wahle and the Mons Pocket
First organized
on 1 February 1944 under the command of Generalleutnant Otto Elfeldt, the
47th Infantry Division had served since its inception under the LXXXII Army
Corps of the 15th Army in static defense positions on the French coast at
Calais.[1]
Following the Allied invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944, the 47th Infantry
Division, along with the rest of the 15th Army, remained idle in the Pas
de Calais region of France and on the Belgian coast. An elaborate Allied
deception plan, codenamed Operation Fortitude,
had led the Germans to believe the Allies would launch a second large-scale
landing against the Pas de Calais. As a result, the infantry-heavy 15th
Army did not immediately intervene against the Allied beachheads in Normandy.
Although nine of the 15th Army’s divisions were ultimately transferred to
Normandy between the end of June and the middle of August, the 47th Infantry
Division continued to remain on the Channel coast.
While
the fighting in Normandy raged on, Generalmajor Wahle received command of
the 47th Infantry Division when Generalleutnant Elfeldt was delegated with
the temporary leadership of the LXXXIV Army Corps on the invasion front.[2] Upon
Generalmajor Wahle’s assumption of command, the division consisted of the
following primary components: Infantry Regiments 103 (Oberstleutnant Roediger),
104 (Oberstleutnant Bartels) and 115 (Oberst Baumann), Artillery Regiment
147 (Oberst Luecken) and Fusilier Battalion 147 (Hauptmann Schuetz). Generalmajor
Wahle later recalled the condition of his new command:
The
Division was considered fit for employment in static warfare. The
Infantry regiments consisted of 2 battalions each, and the Artillery
regiment of 4 battalions each except for the IV. (heavy) battalion,
which consisted of 2 batteries. At the middle of August ‘44 all units
excepting the Artillery were at about 80 – 85% of their T/O strength.
The Artillery was considerably weaker. The percentage of men unfit
for fighting was high, consisting mostly of men suffering from frost-bite
contracted in the battles in the East. Armament strength was up to
requirements, but contained a lot of captured weapons. The complement
of horse-drawn and motorized vehicles was completely insufficient.[3]
|
On
18 August 1944, the 47th Infantry Division finally received its marching
orders. Passing to control of the LVIII Panzer Corps of the 5th Panzer Army,
Generalmajor Wahle received instructions from Army Group B to concentrate
his division at Clermont, north of Paris, to help establish a line on the
Somme and, later, to defend the French capital.[4] With
only a quarter of the 47th Infantry Division at its assembly area on August
25th, the mission of defending Paris became a moot point. That morning,
General der Infanterie Dietrich von Choltitz, the Commanding General and
Armed Forces Commander of Greater Paris, ignoring a direct order from Adolf
Hitler to turn Paris “into a field of ruins,” formally surrendered the city
to General Jacques Philippe Leclerc, the commander of the Free French 2nd
Armored Division.
Following
the Allied breakout from Normandy in late August 1944, the German Army began
retreating from northern France in the face of a rapid Allied pursuit. Although
Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, the commander-in-chief of Army Group
B, had hoped to stabilize the German front along the line of the Schelde
estuary—Albert Canal—Meuse River, the pace of the Allied advance and the
poor condition of his armies dictated otherwise. On 1 September 1944, after
recognizing the proposed line could not be held, Generalfeldmarschall Model
ordered the withdrawal of his mauled armies to the West Wall (“Siegfried
Line”) on the German border.
Prior
to Model’s decision, Generalmajor Wahle’s division had moved into the northern
Paris suburbs and occupied the line Pierre-Fitte sur Seine—Dugny—northern
edge of le Bourget airport—northern edge of Sevran on the Canal de l’Ourcq
to prevent an Allied breakout from that quarter of the city. Attacked by
General Leclerc’s Free French troops and outflanked on the left by armored
spearheads of the U.S. 3rd Army commanded by Lieutenant General George S.
Patton, Jr., the 47th Infantry Division abandoned northern Paris on August
28th and retreated toward the Oise River. After his front was pierced by
an enemy tank attack near Rully on August 30th, Generalmajor Wahle withdrew
his division to the northern bank of the Oise to establish a defense line
from the river to the Compiegne Forest.
Meanwhile,
Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges’ U.S. 1st Army had passed to the west
of Paris and was racing full bore for the West Wall and its intended prize:
the Rhine River. On 31 August 1944, Lieutenant General Omar N. Bradley,
the commander of the U.S. 12th Army Group, spotted an opportunity and ordered
General Hodges to shift his axis of advance north into Belgium to cut off
a large portion of the German retreat before the troops could reach the
Schelde—Albert—Meuse line. With his XIX Corps advancing on the left flank
toward Tournai, General Hodges’ VII Corps moved on the right flank and hooked
north to Mons as the blocking force while his V Corps pushed up the center
to the Lille-Brussels highway at Leuze.[5]
The convergence of the three American corps cut off a like number of German
corps staffs and the battered remains of at least 20 divisions—including
Generalmajor Wahle’s 47th Infantry Division—from contact with the headquarters
of the 5th Panzer Army.[6] As the
three American corps pushed on their objectives, the German forces were
sandwiched between them into a large, fluid pocket around and south of Mons
on the Franco-Belgian border.
Withdrawing
to Noyon under heavy enemy air attack during which Oberstleutnant Roediger
and Hauptmann Schuetz were both killed, Generalmajor Wahle’s division was
briefly subordinated to SS-Obergruppenführer und General der Waffen-SS Wilhelm
Bittrich’s II SS-Panzer Corps on 1 September 1944. Conferring at Fontaine,
northeast of St. Quentin, Bittrich informed Wahle that his slow moving division
would be of no use to the II SS-Panzer Corps and advised him to “save as
many men as possible out of this pocket.” Generalmajor Wahle later recalled
the poor state of his division and the chaotic conditions he experienced
in the rapidly forming Mons Pocket:
| Unavoidable
marches by day found the troops exposed to the full effect of the enemy
bombers. The losses were so critical that the 103rd Inf Regt, for instance,
was disbanded and the remnants were attached to the other two Inf Regiments.
The number and condition of the horses sank lower every day. Supplies
began to fail to arrive. There was a complete lack of gasoline for the
few vehicles available, of means of communication and of maps; the one
[vehicle] belonging to the C.O. of the Division did not go beyond Noyon.
Most of all news was missing concerning the disposition of the enemy,
of the neighbours, and of the intentions of the own command. |
Split
into two march groups under Oberst Baumann and Oberstleutnant Bartels, the
47th Infantry Division reached the Belgian frontier on 3 September 1944.
After deciding to break through the American lines between Maubeuge and
Mons with the goal of reaching Maastricht on the German border, Generalmajor
Wahle divided his division into three columns, with himself in command of
the northern column, for the breakout that night. Stopped by an American
blocking position at Havay, Wahle’s column, joined by part of the middle
column, moved into Givry where they were promptly ambushed by a U.S. tank
and withering machinegun fire. In the midst of the confused night action,
Wahle and a small band of his men became separated from the divisional columns.
On the morning of 4 September 1944, Generalmajor Wahle and his eight remaining
companions, their location reported by Belgian partisans, were captured
by American troops about 1 ½ kilometres south of the Hyon-Ciply railway
station near Mons.
By
5 September 1944, the U.S. 1st Army had completed the reduction of the Mons
Pocket. During the action, at least 3,500 German troops had been killed
and another 25,000 taken prisoner, including Generalmajor Carl Wahle.[7] The
elimination of the pocket significantly lessened the number of German troops
available for further defensive operations and cleared the way for the U.S.
1st Army to resume its eastward advance to the German border.
After
the war, Generalmajor Wahle paid homage to the average German soldier and
reflected on the events leading to the destruction of his division and the
defeat of the German Army in France:
|
In
the further development of the events on 28 August [the Allied advance
to the east and west of Paris] this caused the 47th Inf Division to
attempt the impossible: To start a race to the German frontier against
the superior, modernized mobile Armor of the enemy without the protection
of its own Luftwaffe. There could be no doubt as to the outcome of
this right from the start.
How
these events are to be judged within the framework of the overall
picture of the war will be the job for those who write the history
of this war. Long before the start of the small part of the war which
is depicted here [in the account of the 47th Infantry Division], voluntary
departure from certain operative and tactical principles had shaken
the whole Wehrmacht and headed it towards a debacle which no amount
of human bravery was able to avert. The German soldier fought for
a lost cause. If he bravely stuck to his post under hopeless circumstances,
then the future histories of the war will justly give him his due
for it.
|
Biography of Generalmajor a.D. Carl Wahle possibly from
a German veteran’s newsletter (note the Commander’s Cross 2nd Class of the
Swedish Royal Order of Vasa worn at his throat)
Born
on 7 February 1892, Generalmajor a.D. [außer Dienst = Retired] Carl Wahle
lives in Prien/Chiemsee. The son of a general, he was born in Dresden and,
after graduating from humanistic high school, he became a soldier in March
1912 when entered the Royal Saxon Rifle Regiment “Prince George” as a Fahnenjunker.
As a platoon leader in his regiment, he was badly wounded on 30 August 1914
on the Aisne River. In January 1915, Leutnant Wahle returned to the field
and served as a battalion adjutant, a company leader, a regimental adjutant
(Oberleutnant) and, in the last year of the war, an ordnance officer in
the General Command of the XII (1st Royal Saxon) Army Corps and then the
24th Infantry Division. In the 100,000-man army, he was on the staff of
Reichswehr-Brigade 12 and, from 1922-1931, he served in the 10th (Saxon)
Infantry Regiment based in Bautzen, including over three years as regimental
adjutant in Dresden and four years as Chief of the 12th (Machinegun) Company.
From 1931-1932, Wahle was in the Reich Defense Ministry (Military Intelligence
and Foreign Intelligence Departments) and subsequently served as a battalion
commander in Infantry Regiment 32 at Grimma. In 1935, he was detached to
the Swedish Army and in 1938 became the military attaché at the German embassy
in Bucharest (1 November 1938 promoted Oberst). In October 1940, he became
commander of Infantry Regiment 267 and passed into leader reserve at the
beginning of 1942. On 1 June 1942, he was appointed a Generalmajor and the
Armed Forces Commandant of Hamburg. For his circumspection and drive during
the heavy bombing attacks in the summer of 1943, he was awarded the Knight’s
Cross of the War Merit Cross with Swords. On 1 February 1944, he took command
of the 214th Infantry Division followed a month later with command of the
719th Infantry Division and in August 1944 the 47th Infantry Division. At
the beginning of September, he was captured by the Americans near Mons.
Supplemental
Sources:
- Collins,
Larry & Lapierre, Dominique. Is Paris Burning? Simon &
Schuster, New York, New York, 1965.
- Hastings,
Max. Overlord: D-Day, June 6, 1944. Simon
and Schuster, New York, New York, 1984.
- Keegan,
John. Six Armies in Normandy: From D-Day to the Liberation of Paris.
Penguin Books, Ltd., New York, New York, 1983 printing.
- Keilig,
Wolf. Die Generale des Heeres. Podzun-Pallas Verlag, Friedberg,
Germany, 1983.
- Mehner,
Kurt. Die deutsche Wehrmacht 1939-1945:
Führung und Truppe. Militair-Verlag Klaus D. Patzwall, Norderstedt,
Germany, 1993.
- Munoz,
Antonio J. Göring’s Grenadiers: The Luftwaffe Field
Divisions, 1942-1945. Axis Europa Books, Bayside, New York, 2002.
- Pallud,
Jean Paul. “The Battle of the Mons Pocket,” After
the Battle, Number 115 (2002), pp. 2-33.
- Pitt,
Barrie (consultant editor). The Military History of World War II.
Temple Press Aerospace, Twickenham, United Kingdom, 1986.
- Wahle,
Carl. “Northern France Campaign, 26 August – 4 Sept ‘44 (MS # B-176).”
[1] As of 1 February1944, the commanding general
of the LXXXII Army Corps was General der Infanterie Johann Sinnhuber
while Generaloberst Hans von Salmuth served as commander-in-chief of
the 15th Army. Generals Sinnhuber and von Salmuth continued to hold
these posts until 1 September 1944 and 23 August 1944 when they were
replaced by Generals der Infanterie Walter Hoernlein and Gustav-Adolf
von Zangen respectively.
[2] Following his capture by Polish troops in
the Falaise Pocket on 20 August 1944, Generalleutnant Otto Elfeldt was
transferred to Great Britain and ultimately imprisoned at Island Farm
Special Camp No. 11.
[3] Wahle, Carl. “Northern France Campaign, 26
August – 4 Sept ‘44 (MS # B-176).” Written by Generalmajor Wahle for
the U.S. Army Historical Division after World War II, this account chronicles
the movements and actions of the 47th Infantry Division during the time
period indicated. Without access to reference documents or proper maps,
he wrote the account from memory supplemented by articles from the British
Daily Mail newspaper while being held as
a prisoner of war at Island Farm Special Camp No. 11. All quotations
by Generalmajor Wahle are cited from this document.
[4] SS-Oberst-Gruppenführer und Panzer Generaloberst
der Waffen-SS Josef “Sepp” Dietrich commanded the 5th Panzer Army from
9 August 1944-9 September 1944.
[5] The corps commanders of the U.S. 1st Army
were Major General Charles H. Corlett (XIX Corps), Major General J.
Lawton “Lightning Joe” Collins (VII Corps) and Major General Leonard
T. Gerow (V Corps).
[6] The three corps staffs
in the Mons Pocket were the LXXIV Army Corps (General der Infanterie
Erich Straube), the LVIII Panzer Corps (General der Panzertruppe Walter
Krüger) and the II SS-Panzer Corps (SS-Obergruppenführer und General
der Waffen-SS Wilhelm Bittrich). The primary German units in the Mons
Pocket were remnants of the following divisions: the 47th, 49th, 271st,
275th, 344th, 348th and 352nd Infantry Divisions; the 3rd and 6th Fallschirmjäger
[Parachute]-Divisions; the 18th Field Division (Luftwaffe); Battle Group
“von Aulock,” a mixed unit originally formed for the defense of Paris;
and Battle Groups “Hohenstaufen” and “Frundsberg,” the combat-worthy
remains of the 9th and 10th SS-Panzer Divisions respectively. Stragglers
and displaced troops from other divisions as well as rear area support
personnel were incorporated into these units.
[7] Three German generals were captured in the
Mons Pocket: Generalmajor Hubertus von Aulock, the leader of a battle
group; Luftwaffe Generalleutnant Rüdiger von Heyking, the commander
of the 6th Fallschirmjäger-Division; and Generalmajor Wahle. Although
the Germans suffered extremely heavy losses in the Mons Pocket, at least
40,000 troops, including all three of the corps staffs, managed to escape
capture by slipping through the porous American front. Bittrich’s Battle
Groups “Hohenstaufen” (SS-Obersturmbannführer Walter Harzer) and “Frundsberg”
(SS-Oberführer Heinz Harmel) were among the more significant divisional
elements to escape ahead of the American advance. Worthy of mention,
Generalleutnant Joachim von Tresckow, the commander of the 18th Field
Division (Luftwaffe), broke out of the Mons Pocket with 300 of his men
on 3 September 1944. After traveling 260 kilometers on foot, the general
and his band reached the German lines on the 18th of September. On the
day after his return, Generalleutnant von Tresckow received the Knight’s
Cross of the Iron Cross in recognition of his outstanding leadership
of the division.
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