The Geilenkirchen Offensive
Throughout October the Division held the line fronting the Reichswald Forest just east of Nijmegen. It was a period of very active patrolling which produced much information of value to the big offensive to be launched in the. coming February. On 11th November the whole Division was swiftly and secretly switched south. That day it took over a sector of the line south-cast of Sittard and inside Germany. On the 18th the Second Army, with the 43rd putting in a powerful left Flanking attack and the Americans assaulting for the southwest, struck at the Siegfried Line town of Geilenkirchen.
By dusk, after a noon zero hour, the Division had won all its objectives in spite of appalling ground conditions which bogged many vehicles including tanks. The 7th Bn Somerset Light Infantry entered Neiderheide, the 1st Worcestershires captured Tripsrath, the DCLI Hocheid and then proceeded to cut the main road leading north out of Geilenkirchen, The 4th Dorsets finished off the day by capturing Bauchem after the village had been heavily mortared by the Middlesex all day and throughout the previous night. It was a brilliantly organised encircling operation which had gone completely according to plan, Next morning the Americans entered the encircled town.
The Dorsets were engaged in grim fighting to clear the woods in the area and all units were in the line for some days under the most unpleasant conditions of rain and mud. The DCLI, after holding for four days against incessant shell fire and in appalling weather, were ordered to capture the hill village of Hoven. It was this action which a Second Army spokesman described as 'one of the great stories of British participation in this war'. ft ranks thus because the aim behind the attack was to threaten the Germans opposite the Americans on the other side of the valley with a turning of their flank. It was hoped that an entry into Hoven would cause the Germans to pull back. The DCLI got into Hoven. But the odds were too heavy. They were almost surrounded from the first. Counter attacked and besieged early the next morning the remnants of a gallant Company, some 17 men all told, alone returned to the Battalion lines in rear.
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