On this day seventy-five years ago, the little-known battle for Uckerath began as part of the United States Army VII Corps breakout from the Remagen Bridgehead. After spending the previous week consolidating its positions within the vicinity of Remagen and repelling fierce counterattacks across its front, the 1st Infantry Division received orders on March 20th that it would be responsible for a major push out of the bridgehead. Having reached the designated phase line on schedule and with enemy resistance stiffening, the anticipated push eastward by the Big Red One would come over the course of the next several days. The Division’s 18th Regiment specifically was tasked with taking the strategic town of Uckerath by March 25th. The town itself was situated along a ridge line which gave the German forces in the area a commanding view west towards the Allied bridgehead. Along with its strategic disposition on high ground, the town offered a paved road deemed valuable to the Allied push. A finished road such as the one leading out of Uckerath was especially suitable for the tanks of the 3rd Armored Division, which were assigned to be the muscle of the coming operation.
In contrast to what the GIs of the Big Red One had experienced throughout the previous several weeks, the 1st Infantry Division was prepared and expected to meet stiff German resistance in their attempt to break out from the Remagen bridgehead. At the town of Uckerath and in its periphery, committed enemy strength were comprised of the following forces: elements from two regiments of the 363rd Volksgrenadier Division bolstered by one dozen tanks of the 11th Panzer Division, nearly half of that division’s remaining strength at the time. Additional support came from both the 244th and 902nd Assault Gun Brigades which fielded multiple self-propelled guns alongside the 11th Panzer's tanks. The Germans were expected to make a hard last stand at Uckerath, having chosen to relieve what was left of its battered 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division and instead deploy their better remaining forces in the area in defense of the town.
In the two days day leading up to the assault, heavy enemy rocket fire saturated the 1st Infantry Division’s zone as its infantry battalions positioned themselves for their impending attack. Officers of the 1st Infantry Division planning for the assault knew it would be a tough day as any for the Big Red One during its stint in combat. On March 21st, this stint had already reached its 400th day. On the evening of March 22nd 2nd Battalion, 18th Regiment stepped off with Company F in the lead closely followed by Companies E and G. Not long after the battalion departed did it run into fanatical enemy resistance. Elements of the German’s aforementioned strength had been carefully positioned at key avenues of approach leading towards the town. Unable to make quick work of the Germans in their way, 3,000 yards of open ground which 2nd Battalion, 18th Regiment had planned to have crossed as part of their push into the northeastern end of town under the cover of darkness on the evening of March 22nd – 23rd now had to be crossed in daylight come the morning of the 23rd.
Uckerath may have been overlooked or may have been left out of the popular American memory of the Second World War as most battles were. It may now be relegated to the confines of history and the texts of archived military reports, far overshadowed by the Big Red One’s exploits such as those of D-Day. At least for a ninety-four-year-old from a small Pennsylvania town, the day would be one he would remember clearly even as the decades have passed by. Private Russell Sattazahn (Schaefferstown, Penna.), a replacement rifleman who served in Company G, 18th Regiment, vividly recalled his harrowing experience during 2nd Battalion’s brazen assault on Uckerath:
“And we all said everybody, charge! And we go out there, and when we did they opened fire with machine guns from both sides. Halfway across, I saw a crater, a bomb crater, and I dove in there because we had a long ways to go yet and they were firing, and I went in there for protection. There was another man in there, and every now and then I would hear a bullet hitting into the ground close. I said, ‘We’re sticking out here’ I said ‘I’m gonna go’. The other guy said no he’s gonna stay. And I went, now I’m the only guy on the field that I can see. As I go by, I saw the machine gun fire and the dirt flying at my feet. I never got hit. I dove into the first house that I could get into for protection.”
Sattazahn also took care to compare this experience to that of the past several weeks where he and other GIs of the 18th Regiment had faced much less resistance from their German adversaries:
“Most of the time, you would march in to town and take all the prisoners and that was the end of the war for them. And like I said, they decided one last stand and set up in this town we went into. They had machine guns set up for us, we had to cross open fields, they had machine guns set up, machine gun fire, and they had artillery of some kind when we got in there (be)cause they knew which houses we were going to go into and where we were gonna be. They had everything zeroed in, and they were dug in pretty hard to try to save one of the last towns.”
It was during this fateful day, however, that Sattazahn’s war would come to an end. Roughly 45 miles from the enemy capital of Berlin, Private Sattazahn was wounded while taking cover from enemy artillery fire in the basement of a home where Company G had managed to penetrate the German perimeter and enter the town. They would be trapped there on their own overnight, as neither Company E nor Company F had been able to make it into town to aid their comrades. Attempts by the enemy to flush out the infiltrators were made by infantry and more notably by roving panzers which mercilessly fired into homes suspected of sheltering GIs at point blank range. The 32nd Field Artillery Battalion after – action report for March 23rd - 24th , produced by 1st Lieutenant G.W. Elliot, sheds light upon how dire the situation was for the men of Company G trapped in Uckerath. Determined to protect Company G, the 32nd Field Artillery responded by firing a series of box barrages around Company G through the day, creating quite literally a wall of explosions around the trapped GIs in their best attempt to protect them from the merciless German defenders.
Through the night of March 23rd – 24th, Private Sattazahn and several others remained hunkered down in the same basement where he was wounded with nowhere to go. Murderous fire rained in all around them. A piece of shrapnel from the explosion had gashed his upper lip, and when the blood streamed down his face he had raised his right hand, terrified that his face had been horribly mutilated. From this simple movement, he realized a much graver wound he had sustained. From bellow the elbow, his right arm had been reduced to mangled strips of flesh and bone, at the end of which he could see what remained of two of his fingers. It would not be until the following day when Private Sattazahn was evacuated from Uckerath, first moving on foot to a medical collection point in Uckerath and from there was moved rearward to a field hospital by Jeep. For his wounds sustained in action at Uckerath, Private Sattazahn would be awarded the Purple Heart. In the next several weeks Sattazahn, having received surgery in a field hospital in Germany, would be moved to a hospital in Paris and soon after would be stateside undergoing further medical care in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Sattazahn still has in his possession today the original Western Union telegram sent home to his mother and father, informing them that their son had been wounded in action. It was only one day before this telegram from the Army had reached them that another letter, hand written by a nurse in Paris for Private Sattazahn, which informed his parents with slightly more detail that he had been wounded but that he would be okay and returning home soon. The battle for Uckerath would end by March 25th with scores of enemy killed and captured along with several destroyed or captured panzers and self-propelled guns. The efforts of the Germans to commit some of their best remaining troops and resources in the west to the defense of Uckerath proved futile against the strength and courage of the 1st Infantry Division’s GIs.
Sattazahn returned to Schaefferstown during his recovery by means of train followed by hitch-hiking, and he recalls being at home on his parent’s back porch when word broke that Germany had surrendered and that the war in Europe was finally over. Sattazahn would spend much of the remainder of his active years working alongside his wife at the RCA Tube Department plant in Lancaster, Pennsylvania until he retired in 1988. Sattazahn still lives in Schaefferstown today. It is believed that, with unfortunate certainty, he is one of only two World War II veterans still alive and well today out of over 200 men and women from Schaefferstown who answered the call in defense of their nation. On his prosthetic hand, one will observe a Purple Heart wring which he wears with pride.
In a phone call this evening, Sattazahn stated that after seventy-five years of reflection, he is still eager to discover more about the battle for Uckerath and the history of the 18th Regiment in World War II. He has also stated with a bit of humble pride in his voice that despite his age and relative “tech – illiteracy”, he has been able to use his personal computer to do research of his own.
A more detailed account of Sattazahn’s combat service with the Big Red One, lasting from January 15th to March 24th, 1945 is currently in the works by the author under the title “Humility & Courage: The Recollections of Private Russell Sattazahn which is set to be included in a larger, multi-chapter piece detailing the stories of World War II veterans from Lebanon County. An online copy of the interview conducted by the author with Private Sattazahn will be made available in the next several days on the East Penn Re-enactors Group website.