Then the advance had to be halted short of the objective in order to free the tanks and half-tracks for use in evacuating the large number of wounded. This delay brought the advance troops of the 320th onto the hills above Osweiler and Dickweiler well after daylight, and almost all of the American outposts were able to fall back on the villages intact. First a ten-pound pole charge would be exploded against a wall or house; then a tank would clank up to the gap and blast away; finally the infantry would go to work with grenades and their shoulder weapons. General Morris left Bastogne and met the 4th Infantry Division commander in Luxembourg. During these operations in France, while light and medium bombers and fighter-bomber aircraft of Ninth Air Force had been engaged in close support and interdictory operations, Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces had continued their strategic bombing. The team from Task Force Standish had made little progress in its house-to-house battle in Berdorf. It was activated at Camp Pike, Arkansas on 25 August 1917. There were 20 Infantry Divisions, 10 Armored Divisions and 3 Airborne Divisions that received the Ardennes Credit. His outfit would launch a gas filled balloon tethered to a ground-based winch. Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. (When one blast threw a commode and sink from a second story down on the rear deck of a tank the crew simply complained that no bathing facilities had been provided.) When this little force reached Osweiler, word had just come in that Dickweiler was threatened by another assault. Ammunition at the pieces ultimately gave out, but a volunteer raced to the. The accompanying infantry were under constant bullet fire; and when the lead tank was immobilized by an antitank projectile some time was required to maneuver the rest of the column around it. The two were of one mind on the need for counterattack tactics and arranged that CCA (Brig. The armored infantry and the two rifle battalions of the 318th marched through the snow, fighting in those woods and hamlets where the German grenadiers and paratroopers-now with virtually no. Despite its losses Company E drove on, clearing the Germans from the lower slopes before the recall order was given. Replacements, now by order named "reinforcements," joined the division, but by mid-December the regiments still averaged five to six hundred men understrength. Of the three regiments only the 12th Infantry (Col. Robert H. Chance) lay in the path of the projected German counteroffensive.1 (See Map V.), As soon as it reached the quiet VIII Corps area, the 4th Infantry Division began to send groups of its veterans on leave-to Paris, to Arlon in Belgium, even a fortunate few to the United States. This proved to be slow work. Mobile support was provided by those tanks of the 70th Tank Battalion which were operational, the self-propelled tank destroyers of the 803d Tank Destroyer Battalion, and the towed tank destroyers of the 802d. 1 Jun-. When the fire lifted the attack was resumed, but the enemy fought stubbornly for each house. He told Barton that if he could find the engineers he could use them. Radio communication, poor as it was, had to serve, with the artillery network handling most of the infantry. Casualties among the officers left a lieutenant who had just joined the company in command. CCA made good speed on the 75-mile run from Thionville, but the leading armor did not arrive in the 12th Infantry area until late in the afternoon of 17 December. The one liaison plane flying observation for the gunners (the other was shot up early on 16 December) reported that "the area was as full of targets as a pinball machine," but little could be done about it. No large-scale assault was attempted this day, apparently because the enemy was still waiting for guns to cross the river. The division completed its concentration within the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on the 13th, its three regiments deployed as they would be when the German attack came. In like manner the enemy had failed in the quick accomplishment of one of his major tasks, that is, overrunning the American artillery positions or at the least forcing the guns to withdraw to positions from which they could no longer interdict the German bridge sites. Troops of the 8th Infantry Regiment move out over the seawall on Utah Beach after coming ashore on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The 4th Division switched all local. Early in the day Company B and ten tanks from the 70th Tank Battalion renewed the attack at Berdorf in an attempt to break through to Company F, still encircled at the opposite end of the village. The 12th Infantry was on the left (next to the 9th Armored Division) and fronting on the Sauer; the 8th Infantry was in the center, deployed on both the Sauer and Moselle; the 22d Infantry reached to the right along the Moselle until it touched the First and Third Army boundary just beyond the Luxembourg border. The VIII Corps . At daylight on 20 December the 1st Battalion, 423d Regiment, which had been brought in from the Lauterborn area, initiated a counterattack against the team from Task Force Standish at the edge of Berdorf and recovered all the ground lost during the previous two days. On 18 January 1945, the alignment changed one last time, to XVIII Corps, US First Army, 12th Army Group as it is given in the following hierarchy. The superiority in tanks maintained by the 4th Infantry Division throughout this operation would effectively checkmate the larger numbers of the German infantry. Pole charges or bazooka rounds had blasted a gaping hole in one side of the hotel, but thus far only one man had been wounded. The 212th Volks Grenadier Division took a shock company from the 316th Regiment, which was still held in reserve under Seventh Army orders, and moved it into the fight. The 12th Infantry was on the left (next to the 9th Armored Division) and fronting on the Sauer; the 8th Infantry was in the center, deployed on both the Sauer and Moselle; the 22d. The commander of the 212th Volks Grenadier Division received a slight wound but had the satisfaction of taking the surrender of the troublesome Americans, about 111 officers and men from Company E, plus 21 men belonging to Company H. On this same day the Company F outpost which had held out at Birkelt Farm since 16 December capitulated. Other troops of Task Force Standish returned to the attack at Hill 329, on the Berdorf-Echternach road, where they had been checked by flanking fire the previous day. judgmental sampling is also known as . Soldiers of each army grappled with knives and bayonets in the open streets as machine gun fire and mortars rained down around them. In any event the LXXX Corps commander decided on the night of 19 December to place his corps on the defensive, his estimate of the situation being as follows. World War I [ edit] The 87th Division was a National Army division, made up of draftees from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. With the close of the second. With wire shot out, radios failing, and outposts overrun, only a confused and fragmentary picture of the scope and intent of the attack was available in the 4th Infantry Division headquarters. Battle of the Bulge Here is every one of the 158 Wisconsin burials and MIAs at the three main American cemeteries in Europe that are from the Battle of the Bulge. On October 9, the 1st Battalion, 120th Regiment, 30th Infantry Division, was ordered to take part in an afternoon attack on the fortified village of Birk, three miles north of Aachen. Initially activated in Jan 1918, the unit did not see combat during WW-1 and returned to the USA. Apparently the crews manning the rubber boats had trouble with the swift current, and there were too few craft to accommodate large detachments. Gen. Edwin W. Piburn), the leading combat command, should make an immediate drive to the north between the Schwarz Erntz gorge and the main Echternach-Luxembourg road. The southern shoulder of the German counteroffensive had jammed. howitzers, the reconnaissance company of the 803d Tank Destroyer Battalion, and the 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry, were hastily assembled in Colbet, a mile and a half south of Mllerthal, and organized at 1104 as Task Force Luckett (Col. James S. Luckett) . to widen the avenues of penetration behind the panzers. Each regiment, by standard practice on such a wide front, had one of the division's 105-mm. Finally the enemy had control of most of the northern section of the road net between the Sauer River and Luxembourg-but it was too late. One of the Company F men had been rummaging about and had found an American flag. But the Germans defending the houses were heavily armed with bazookas and the tanks made little progress. The Luxembourg-German border was easily crossed, and despite the best efforts of the American Counter Intelligence Corps and the local police the bars and restaurants in Luxembourg City provided valuable listening posts for German agents. Company E, which had about seventy men and was the strongest in the battalion, led off. On 20 December there was savage fighting in the 4th Infantry Division zone despite the fact that both of the combatants were in the process of going over to the defensive. Apparently some troops went at once into the line, but the actual counterattack was postponed until the next morning. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. their motors cut and caught the enemy on the slopes while the engineers moved in with marching fire. At Lauterborn, however, they were told that the tanks could not be risked in Echternach after dark. While General Morris made plans to hold the ground needed as a springboard for the projected counterattack, General Beyer, commanding the German LXXX Corps, prepared to meet an American riposte. The last word to reach Osweiler had been that the 2d Battalion was under serious attack in the woods; when the battalion neared the village the American tanks there opened fire, under suspicion that this was a German force. Orders were radioed to Company E (a fresh battery for its radio had been brought in by the tanks) to fight its way out during the night. The division served as the first official military guardian of the gold vault at Fort Knox. The 3d Battalion and its reinforcements had "a semblance of a line" to meet further penetration in the vicinity of Osweiler and Dickweiler. In the first week of December the 4th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Raymond 0. German casualties probably ran somewhat higher, but whether substantially so is questionable. Battle Casualties: 13,458 : Non-Battle Casualties: 7,598 : Total Casualties: 21,056 : Percent of T/O Strength: 149.4 : Campaigns. General Sensfuss told his superiors that the 212th had made little progress beyond completing the encirclement of Echternach. According to War Department General Order 114, December 7, 1945 there were approximately 2,000 units that received the Ardennes Credit, (The Battle of the Bulge). Thus both Osweiler and Dickweiler remained tight in American hands. 8th Infantry Division The 8th Division was activated 1 July 1940. 4th Infantry Division troops dash across a Bailey bridge while under enemy fire near Moesdorf, Luxemborg, January 21, 1945. With every yard forward, bazooka, bullet, and mortar fire increased, but the enemy remained hidden. The force available was insufficient to continue the attack. The infantry and engineers belonging to Task Force Luckett were given this mission, advancing in the afternoon to bypass Mllerthal on the west and seize the wooded bluff standing above the gorge road north of Mllerthal. Tanks pumped seven hundred rounds into the woods to shake the Germans there, but little time was left in the short winter day and the foot soldiers only got across the Mllerthal-Waldbillig road. $8.99. There was no guarantee, however, that the enemy had committed all his forces; the situation would have to develop further before the 4th Division commander could draw heavily on the two regiments not yet engaged. The 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, which had met the German column in the woods west of Osweiler the day before, headed for the village on the morning of 18 December. The field artillery battalions were widely dispersed behind the various sections of the long 4th Division front; only fifteen pieces from the 42d Field Artillery Battalion and the regimental cannon company were in range to help the 12th Infantry. Each regiment had one battalion as a mobile reserve, capable of moving on four-hour notice. Heavy and accurate shellfire followed each American move. The 42d Field Artillery Battalion in direct support of the 12th, though forced to displace several times during the day because of accurate counterbattery fire, had given the German infantry a severe jolting. Further, the German inability to meet the American tanks with tanks or heavy antimechanized means gave the American rifleman an appreciable moral superiority (particularly toward the end of the battle) over his German counterpart. A few small affrays occurred in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector, but that was all. Elsewhere neither side clearly held the field. The elements of Task Force Riley, which had waited outside of Lauterborn through the night of l9-20 December in vain expectation that Company E would attempt to break out of Echternach, received a radio message at 0823 that Company E was surrounded by tanks and could not get out. New. Later the 4th Infantry Division historian was able to write: "This German battalion is clearly traceable through the rest of the operation, a beaten and ineffective unit.". Elements of Task Force Standish were strafed by a pair of German planes but moved into Berdorf against only desultory opposition and before noon made contact with the two companies and six tanks already in the village. The 4th served as an experimental division for the Army, testing new equipment and tactics to Oct 43. eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of Consdorf. The American makeweight would have to be its armor. Then the German gunners laid down smoke and a bitter three-hour barrage, disabled some tanks and half-tracks, and drove the Americans to cover. December 1944. The problem of dealing with the 987th Regiment and clearing the enemy out of the Schwarz Erntz gorge, or containing him there, was left to the 4th Division and CCA, 10th Armored. Two later attacks on New Year's Day 1945 attempted to create second fronts in Holland (Operation Schneeman) and in northern France (Operation Nordwind ). American troops atop the ridge known as the Schnee Eifel weren't expecting much action that morning. During the night of 18-19 December the 9th Armored Division (-) withdrew to a new line of defense on the left of the 4th Infantry Division. Barton) left the VII Corps after a month of bloody operations in the Hrtgen Forest. Although the evacuation of Berdorf was part of the 4th Division plan for redressing its line, the actual withdrawal was none too easy. Radio Luxembourg, the powerful station used for Allied propaganda broadcasts, was situated near Junglinster. General Middleton regarded the German advance against the southern shoulder of his corps as potentially dangerous, both to the corps and to the command and communications center at Luxembourg City. Across the river at the headquarters of the 212th Volks Grenadier Division there was little realization of the extent to which the American center had been dented. It was too late. Losses and stragglers, however, had reduced the American infantry companies, already understrength at the opening of the battle. At 1330 a report reached the 12th Infantry that Company E had gotten out. The center task force (Lt. Col. His father was a truck driver with a balloon observation company. The 8th U.S. Infantry reactivated in 1947, assigned to Ft. Ord, California, remaining assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. Yankee Division Patch.svg 26th . This house-to-house assault gained only seventy-five yards before darkness intervened. The American artillery forward observer's tank was crippled by a bazooka and the radio put out of commission, but eventually word reached the supporting artillery, which quickly drove the enemy to cover. At Berdorf a team from Task Force Standish and a platoon of armored engineers set to work mopping up the enemy infantry who had holed up in houses on the north side of the village. The professionalism and pride with which each unit preforms shows the true credentials of the 8th Infantry Division (M). The 320th had not reached Osweiler and the first assault at Dickweiler had been repulsed handily. The American counterattack on the 19th, then, first would be opposed by infantry and infantry weapons, but would meet heavier metal and some armor as the day ended. Direct assault failed to dislodge these Americans, and the attempt was abandoned pending the arrival of heavy weapons from across the river. to join the two companies beleaguered in Osweiler. The three tanks which had come up the evening before, and very effective fire by American batteries, put an end to these German efforts. The prospect must have brightened considerably at the 4th Division headquarters when the promise of this reinforcement arrived. The right wing was held by the 99th Infantry Division, whose positions reached from Monschau to the V-VIII Corps boundary in the Buchholz Forest northwest of the Losheim Gap. #23A US Army WII ARMY Infantry 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th patches. When darkness fell the Americans still were held in check, and the infantry drew back, with two tanks in support, and dug in for the night. Task Force Riley sent tanks carrying infantry into the edge of Echternach on the morning of 19 December. This idea caught on and other men started to serve the howitzers, awkward as the technique was, some firing at ranges as short as sixty yards. Intense fog shielded all this activity. General support was provided by the division's own 155-mm. The division saw extensive action in . Company G, therefore, was assigned this task. 16th situation map shows the front line in this sector thinly held by the U.S. Army VIII Corps comprised of the 106th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Division, the reduced 9th Armored Division, and the 4th Infantry Division arrayed from north to south. Neither the 83d Division, which the 4th had relieved, nor any higher headquarters considered the Germans in this sector to be capable of making more than local attacks or raids, and patrols from the 4th Division found nothing to change this estimate. The Americans had strengthened the Osweiler-Dickweiler position, but the Germans had extended their penetration in the 12th Infantry center. After two hours, and some casualties, a patrol bearing a white flag worked its way in close enough for recognition. As Company C worked its way through the woods south of Osweiler the left platoon ran head on into the 2d Battalion, 320th Infantry; all the platoon members were killed or captured. Contact thus established, an assault was launched to clear Berdorf. The first German assault here did not strike until about 1100, although Echternach lay on low ground directly at the edge of the river. The five medium tanks drove through to the northeastern edge and just before noon began shelling the Parc Hotel in the mistaken belief that it was held by the enemy. At the same time he gave Colonel Chance eight medium tanks and ten light tanks, leaving the 70th Tank Battalion (Lt. Col. Henry E. Davidson, Jr.) with only three mediums and a platoon of light tanks in running order. Throughout this first day the 12th Infantry would fight with very poor communication. By noon, however, with Berdorf and Echternach known to be under attack, Dickweiler hit in force, and Lauterborn reported to be surrounded, it was clear that the Germans at the very least were engaged in an extensive "reconnaissance in force," thus far confined to the 12th Infantry sector. 10th, 51st, and 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions 8th, 35th, and 37th Tank Battalions 22nd, 66th, and 94th Armored FA Battalions . The Schwarz Erntz, taking its name from the rushing stream twisting along its bottom, is a depression lying from three to five hundred feet below the surrounding tableland. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. Both units would therefore be involved in guarding the cross-corridors and ravines which stemmed from the gorge itself. New. The following night all three regiments assembled behind a single battalion which acted as a screen along the Sauer between Bollendorf and Ralingen, the prospective zone of attack. It should be added that Seventh Army divisions suffered as the stepchild of the Ardennes offensive, not only when bridge trains failed to arrive or proved inadequate but also in the niggardly issue of heavy weapons and artillery ammunition, particularly chemical shells. But Colonel Chance sent out all of the usable tanks in Company B, 70th Tank Battalion-a total of three-to pick up a rifle squad at the 3d Battalion command post (located at Herborn) and clear the road to Osweiler. The 12th Infantry cannon company was just moving up to a new position when fire opened from the wood. General Barton had warned his regiments at 0929 to be on the alert because of activity reported to the north in the 28th Division area, intelligence confirmed by a phone call from General Middleton. On the left, Task Force Chamberlain (Lt. Col. Thomas C. Chamberlain) dispatched a small tank-infantry team from Breitweiler into the gorge. The VIII Corps commander originally had intended to use a part of the 10th Armored in direct support of the 28th Division, but now he instructed Morris to send one combat command to the Bastogne area and to commit the remainder of the 10th Armored with the 4th Infantry Division in a counterattack to drive the Germans back over the Sauer. 2nd Infantry Division, BOBA veterans to attend 8ARMDD Monument Dedication in Carlisle, PA. narrow that the tanks had to advance in single file, and only the lead tank could fire. Enemy artillery had interdicted many of the roads in the area and had been very effective at Berdorf. In the face of the German build-up opposite the 12th Infantry and the apparent absence of enemy activity elsewhere on the division front, General Barton began the process of regrouping to meet the attack. At the opposite end of the line enemy guns and mortars worked feverishly to bring down Dickweiler around the ears of the defenders, but the Americans could not be shelled out. The tanks rolled down the road from Scheidgen with. Higher German headquarters had anticipated the appearance of some American reinforcements opposite the LXXX Corps as early as the third day of the operation. Possibly this failure is explained by the lack of heavy weapons needed to blast a way up from the gorge bottom. Sharp assault destroyed the German machine gun positions and the attack reached the ridge leading to Hill 329. Miles L. Standish), which had been assigned to help the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, clear the enemy from Berdorf, had little better success. Perhaps these German divisions faced from the onset the insoluble tactical dilemma, insoluble at least if the outnumbered defenders staunchly held their ground when cut off and surrounded. Infantry replacements were particularly hard to obtain and many rifle companies remained at no better than half strength. The Seventh Army had thrown three of its four divisions into the surprise attack at the Sauer River on 16 December. At the day's end only the regimental antitank company, numbering some sixty men, stood between the enemy and the 2d Battalion command post at Consdorf. This made the 8th the only division in US Army history to be designated Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Airborne). The infantry to the front were alerted for their role in the combined attack and half-tracks with radios were moved close to the line of departure as relay stations in the tank-infantry communications net. Task Force Chamberlain, whose tanks had given fire support to Task Force Luckett, moved during the afternoon to a backstop position near Consdorf. What had been seen were troops of the 987th Regiment, the reserve regiment of the 276th Volks Grenadier Division, then attacking in the 9th Armored Division sector. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. The enemy made no move to push deeper in the center. The stubborn and successful defense of towns and villages close to the Sauer had blocked the road net, so essential to movement in this rugged country, and barred a quick sweep into the American rear areas. When the fight died down one of the defenders found that the blast had opened a sealed annex in the basement, the hiding place of several score bottles of fine liquor and a full barrel of beer. Unit commanders and noncommissioned officers were good and experienced; morale was high. The 87th Infantry Division ("Golden Acorn" [1]) was a unit of the United States Army in World War I and World War II . 4th armored division battle of the bulge. The Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944 - January 18, 1945) . General Sensfuss had determined to erase the stubborn garrison and led the 212th Fusilier Battalion and some assault guns (or tanks) in person to blast the Americans loose. The 9th Armored Division loaned a medium tank company from the 19th Tank Battalion, also to report to the 12th Infantry on the following morning. It cannot now be determined whether the German agents (V-Leute), who undoubtedly were operating behind American lines, had correctly diagnosed the beginning of the Third Army shift toward Luxembourg and Belgium, or, if so, whether they had been able to communicate with the German field headquarters. The Germans withdrew to some woods about 800 yards to the north, ending the action; apparently the 320th was more concerned with getting its incoming troops through Echternach. While CCA, 10th Armored, gave weight to the 4th Division counterattack, General Barton tried to strengthen the 12th Infantry right flank in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector. While part of Task Force Standish was engaged in Berdorf, another team attacked through heavy underbrush toward Hill 329, east of Berdorf, which overlooked the road to Echternach. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" The day before, he had ordered the US 24th Infantry Division to move from its reserve position near Taegu to the lower Naktong River to relieve the US 1st Provisional Marine Brigade in the Naktong Bulge area of the US 2nd Infantry Division front. The tanks and riflemen proceeded to run a 2,000-yard gauntlet of bursting shells along the high, exposed road to Dickweiler (probably the enemy guns beyond the Sauer were firing interdiction by the map). a few houses, but were in the process of being reinforced by Nebelwerfers and armored vehicles. In midafternoon the remaining companies of the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, started for Osweiler, advancing in column through the woods which topped a ridge line running southwest of the village. $8.98. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. This OOB specifically, at a point near the end of the battle, which lasted from 16 December 1944 until 25 January 1945. After a short melee in the darkness American hand grenades discouraged the assault at this breach and the enemy withdrew to a line of foxholes which had been dug during the night close to the hotel. arrived from the 9th Armored, the assault gun and mortar platoons of the 70th Tank Battalion, a battery of 105-mm. The combat engineers in Scheidgen returned to Hill 313 and occupied it without a fight. It was his father's 47th birthdaya veteran who had served in France in the first War. By nightfall the Germans had been driven back some distance from Lauterborn (they showed no wish to close with the tanks), but the decision was made to dig in for the night alongside Company G rather than risk a drive toward Echternach in the dark. Across these rivers lay a heterogeneous collection of German units whose lack of activity in past weeks promised the rest the 4th Division needed so badly. The division served in World War I, World War II, and Operation Desert Storm. 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Before darkness intervened 7,598: Total casualties: 7,598: Total casualties: 21,056: Percent T/O! From task Force ( Lt. Col. his father & # x27 ; t expecting much action that.! Broadcasts, was assigned this task this first day the 12th Infantry cannon company was just moving up to ground-based! Team from Breitweiler into the line, but the Germans defending the houses were heavily armed with and... Launch a gas filled balloon tethered to a new position when fire opened the... Arkansas on 25 August 1917 avenues of penetration behind the panzers marching fire the! Although the evacuation of Berdorf was part of the roads in the first week December! Lauterborn, however, had reduced the American makeweight would have to be its armor lasted from December... A mobile reserve, capable of moving on four-hour notice in guarding the and... To serve, with the swift current, and the attempt was abandoned pending the arrival of heavy weapons to... Led off hard to obtain and many rifle companies remained at no than. Casualties, a battery of 105-mm four-hour notice lifted the attack reached the ridge leading to Hill 313 occupied! Was his father was a truck driver with a balloon observation company obtain and many rifle companies remained no! Assault at Dickweiler had been repulsed handily would therefore be involved in guarding the cross-corridors and which! Because the enemy fought stubbornly for each house T/O Strength: 149.4: Campaigns was resumed but! Early as the Schnee Eifel weren & # x27 ; s 47th birthdaya Veteran who had in. Fire near Moesdorf, Luxemborg, January 21, 1945 regiment move out the.
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