The Neglected Objective
As the 9th Division in early October prepared to attack, few within the American command appeared to appreciate the critical importance of another objective which capture of Schmidt might expose. This was a multiple objective, a series of seven dams near the headwaters of the Roer. Though three of the seven are on tributaries of the Roer, all came to be known collectively as the Roer River Dams. (Map 5)
The two principal dams are the Urft and the Schwammenauel. Constructed just after the turn of the century on the Urft River between Gemuend and Ruhr-
erg, the Urft Dam is capable of impounding approximately 42,000 acre-feet of water. Built in the mid-thirties near Hasenfeld, about two miles downhill from Schmidt, the Schwammenauel Dam creates a reservoir encompassing about 81,000 acre-feet. The Schwammenauel is of earth construction with a concrete core. Both the principal dams were designed for controlling the Roer River and providing hydroelectric power for Dueren and other cities downstream to the north.
3
Lesser dams downstream from the Schwammenauel are at Heimbach and Obermaubach. These were designed primarily to create equalizing basins in accordance with industrial needs farther downstream. Of the other three dams, the Paulushof, near the confluence of the Roer and the Urft at Ruhrberg, was designed primarily to regulate water levels at the headwaters of the Schwammenauel reservoir; the Kall Valley Dam, on the upper reaches of the Kall River near Lammersdorf, has only a small capacity; and the Dreilaenderbach Dam creates the Hauptbecken Reservoir near Roetgen on the headwaters of the Vicht River. The
Dreilaenderbach Dam was in American hands before the 9th Division's October attack.
4
Value of the Roer River Dams to German defense was outlined several days before the 9th Division's October attack by the division G-2, Maj. Jack A. Houston. "Bank overflows and destructive flood waves," Major Houston concluded, "can be produced [on the Roer River] by regulating the discharge from the various dams. By demolition of some of them great destructive waves can be produced which would destroy everything in the populated industrial valley [of the Roer] as far as the Meuse [Maas] and into Holland."
5 The intimation was fairly obvious: should the Allies cross the Roer downstream from the dams, the Germans could release the impounded waters to produce a flood that would demolish tactical bridges and isolate any force east of the Roer. Allied troops beyond the river would be exposed to destruction in detail by German reserves.
Despite this hazard, the Roer River Dams were not a formal objective of the 9th Division's October attack.
6 Indeed, as the division prepared to attack, advisers to the First Army commander minimized the defensive value of any floods which might be produced. On 3 October, the day after the 9th Division's appraisal appeared, the First Army's intelligence section believed that if "all of the dams" in the entire First Army sector were blown, "they would cause at the most local floodings for about 5 days counted from the moment the dam was blown until all the water had receded."
7 Two days later the First Army engineer amended this view somewhat with the opinion that "widespread flooding" might result.
8 But not for a long time were American commanders to appreciate the true value of the dams to the Germans. One explanation might rest in the fact that during October all reservoirs in the system were "considerably drawn down, in amount estimated at 30-50 percent of total capacity."
9 Yet as late as 28 November, after water level in the reservoirs had risen as high as two thirds of capacity, the First Army G-2 still could express the theory that "the economic importance of the dams to life in the Rhenish cities
could prevent the enemy blowing them up as part of a drowned earth' policy.
10
Closer to reality was an early appraisal by the XIX Corps engineer. Aware that his corps eventually was to cross the Roer downstream from the dams near Juelich, where banks of the river are low, the XIX Corps engineer warned his corps commander on 8 October. "If one or all dams were blown," he estimated, "a flood would occur in the channel of the Roer River that would reach approximately 1,500 feet in width and 3 feet or more deep across the entire corps front . . . . The flood would probably last from one to three weeks."
11
Unfortunately, the XIX Corps engineer went on to dismiss the subject because all the dams were in the VII Corps zone. The VII Corps, he noted, "could be requested to capture and prevent destruction although they can be presumed to do so as their area is affected also."
12 On the contrary, General Collins and the VII Corps at this time were engrossed in plans to subdue Aachen and to send the 9th Division through the Huertgen Forest. They paid scant attention to an objective like the dams that did not lie along the planned route to the Roer and the Rhine.
13
General Eisenhower's headquarters, SHAEF, remained aloof from the subject of the dams until 20 October, several days after the 9th Division's Huertgen Forest attack had ended. On that date the SHAEF G-2 repeated and enlarged upon information originally obtained by the V Corps from a German prisoner. In Dueren, the prisoner said, a persistent ringing of the city's church bells was to mean the dams had been blown. The people were to evacuate the city, because the flood there would reach a depth of almost twenty feet. Turning to photographic files, SHAEF noted that air cover of all dams except the Urft had existed since 10 September. Allied air officials, SHAEF remarked, were "prepared to study [the] question of [air] attack."
14
Like the First Army, General Bradley's headquarters, the 12th Army Group, minimized the possible effects of a flood. Like SHAEF, the 12th Army Group in October looked upon the dams as "an Air Force matter."
15
A realistic view toward the Roer River Dams was slow to come. All through October and November, the First Army and, in later stages, the Ninth Army were to fight to build up along the west bank of the Roer downstream from the dams without making any specific effort to capture the dams. Yet neither army could cross the Roer until the dams were either captured or destroyed.
Just how long it took the American command to adopt a realistic attitude toward the dams is apparent only from the denouement of First Army operations through October and November and into December. As one considers the unfolding of operations in the Huertgen Forest and farther north amid the villages of the Roer plain, it becomes increasingly evident what a predominant role these dams came to play in German thinking and how determined German defense of the region of the dams had to become before American commanders heeded the danger.
16
What happened in February 1945 as troops of the First Army at last neared the dams and the Germans attempted in panic to blow them was a flood in the valley of the Roer lasting one day short of two weeks.
17 This the Germans accomplished with only partial destruction of but one dam, the Schwammenauel.