It moved south to Luxembourg, "the quiet paradise for weary troops," as one report names it, taking over the 83d Infantry Division positions on the right flank of the VIII Corps (and First Army) while the 83d occupied the old 4th Division sector in the north. to join the two companies beleaguered in Osweiler. Task Force Riley sent tanks carrying infantry into the edge of Echternach on the morning of 19 December. This is the order of battle of German and Allied forces during the Battle of the Bulge. The Battle of the Bulge. 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). Each regiment, by standard practice on such a wide front, had one of the division's 105-mm. Both sides were forced to rely largely upon radio communication, but it would appear that the Germans had particular difficulty: prisoners reported that "nobody seems to know where anybody else is.". The long southern flank of the old 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been drastically weakened to permit the concentration at Echternach. Once in possession of these hills the 320th was to seize the two villages, then drive on to join the 423d. A number of the divisional vehicles had broken down en route to Luxembourg; a part of the artillery was in divisional ordnance shops for repair. Morris had already dispatched one of his armored infantry battalions to help the 9th Armored in an attack intended to retake Waldbillig. J. C. Kolinski got up, ran back to a truck, fixed a round, and fired it from a howitzer still coupled to the truck. Next Mabry shifted his attack to the right so as to bring the infantry through the draw which circled the nose. Five tanks and two companies of the 159th Engineer Combat Battalion, which Barton had located on the road job as promised by Middleton, then launched a surprise attack against the Germans on Hill 313, overlooking the road to Lauterborn. Enemy artillery had interdicted many of the roads in the area and had been very effective at Berdorf. Click on a link to access the respective web site. General support was provided by the division's own 155-mm. The Seventh Army had thrown three of its four divisions into the surprise attack at the Sauer River on 16 December. Company F, 12th Infantry, retained its position in the Parc Hotel, despite a German demolition charge that exploded early in the morning of the 20th and blew in part of one wall. Possibly this failure is explained by the lack of heavy weapons needed to blast a way up from the gorge bottom. American artillery observers by the failing light saw "troops pouring into Echternach." Many radios were in the repair shops, and those at outposts had a very limited range over the abrupt and broken terrain around Echternach and Berdorf, Luxembourg's "Little Switzerland." The first German assault here did not strike until about 1100, although Echternach lay on low ground directly at the edge of the river. 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. 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. 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. Infantry replacements were particularly hard to obtain and many rifle companies remained at no better than half strength. When this little force reached Osweiler, word had just come in that Dickweiler was threatened by another assault. Despite its losses Company E drove on, clearing the Germans from the lower slopes before the recall order was given. Scheidgen was retaken early in the afternoon virtually without a fight (the German battalion which had seized the village had already moved on toward the south). The supply situation was poor and could become critical, in part because of the Allied air attacks at the Rhine crossings, in part because of the Allied success-even during poor flying weather-in knocking out transportation. Task Force Chamberlain had been placed in reserve the previous day, but it was not immediately feasible to withdraw the two task forces that were still engaged alongside the 4th Division for it would take General Barton's division a few hours to reorganize on a new line and plug the gaps left by the outgoing armored units. 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. Consdorf, the command post of the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, was left open to an attack from Mllerthal up the Hertgrund ravine. 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. Intense fog shielded all this activity. In the fire fight which followed the 2d Battalion companies became separated, but the early winter darkness soon ended the skirmish. 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 platoon from Company A, 12th Infantry, which had been posted on Hill 313 the day before, fell back to Scheidgen and there was overwhelmed after a last message pleading for tank destroyers. L and I completely surrounded." . This house-to-house assault gained only seventy-five yards before darkness intervened. By now the German artillery was ranged inaccurately. 8th Infantry Division "Pathfinder Division" "Arrow Division" Its nickname is represented by the golden arrow piercing the white "8" on a blue shield. The leading companies of the two German assault regiments began crossing the Sauer before dawn. His two divisions generally had reached the line designated as the LXXX Corps objective. At the break of day on 17 December Company C, the 12th Infantry reserve, moved out of Herborn en route. The Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944 - January 18, 1945) . A white-clad soldier from the 8th Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, with young German prisoners captured during fighting in the Sauer River sector. In accordance with the division orders to hold back maximum reserves, the 12th Infantry had only five companies in the line, located in villages athwart the main and secondary roads leading southwest from the Sauer River crossings to the interior of the Grand Duchy. 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. Thus both Osweiler and Dickweiler remained tight in American hands. The Division arrived on the European Continent on 4 Jul 44 and elements began their World War II combat on 6 July with the entire division engaged on 8 July 1944. A large-scale American counterattack against the LXXX Corps could be predicted, but lacking aerial reconnaissance German intelligence could not expect to determine the time or strength of such an attack with any accuracy. This OOB specifically, at a point near the end of the battle, which lasted from 16 December 1944 until 25 January 1945. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. The division served in World War I, World War II, and Operation Desert Storm. The division served as the first official military guardian of the gold vault at Fort Knox. The latter crossed east of Echternach, its first objective being the series of hills north of Dickweiler and Osweiler. On the morning of 17 December the 10th Armored Division (General Morris) had moved out of Thionville for Luxembourg, the first step (although at the time not realized) which General Patton's Third Army would make to intervene in the battle of the Ardennes. The gunners nevertheless began to get on the targets, and the German infantry reported very punishing artillery fire during the afternoon. After suffering more than 6,000 casualties in heavy fighting in the Hrtgen Forest during the autumn of 1944, Maj. Gen. Norman Cota's 28th "Keystone" Division was sent to an area that First Army thought would be a quiet sector to rest and replace their losses. $8.99. Death dates are between Dec. 16, 1944, and Jan. 25, 1945, the period of the giant battle. Apparently the crews manning the rubber boats had trouble with the swift current, and there were too few craft to accommodate large detachments. But a thick winter fog rolled in before the Americans could occupy the hill. 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. Company G, now some forty men, and the last of Riley's tanks withdrew to the new main line of resistance. In six days (through 21 December, after which the Americans would begin their counterattack) the units here on the southern shoulder lost over 2,000 killed, wounded, or missing. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. 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) . For this reason the 212th was assigned the mission of protecting the flank of the Seventh Army, just as the latter was responsible for guarding the flank of the forces in the main counteroffensive. The 8th Infantry Division, was an infantry division of the US Army during WW-14 and WW-2. German casualties probably ran somewhat higher, but whether substantially so is questionable. Apparently the assembly of the 316th Regiment behind the 212th Volks Grenadier Division center was completed during the day. were many seventeen-year-olds. The professionalism and pride with which each unit preforms shows the true credentials of the 8th Infantry Division (M). The company radio was back for repair but each of the artillery observers, forward, had a radio. Sharp assault destroyed the German machine gun positions and the attack reached the ridge leading to Hill 329. The Schwarz Erntz gorge lay within the 4th Infantry Division zone but in fact provided a natural cleavage between the 4th Division and the 9th Armored Division. 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. The 12th Infantry commander already had given permission for Company E to evacuate Echternach, but communications were poor-indeed word that the tanks had reached Company E did not arrive at the 12th Infantry command post until four hours after the event-and the relief force turned back to Lauterborn alone. The first German shells came as a jolt. Paul H. Dupuis, the senior officer in Echternach, refused on the ground that General Barton's "no retrograde movement" order of 16 December was still in effect.3 As darkness settled in, the small relief force turned back to the mill north of Lauterborn, promising to return on the morrow with more troops. 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. General Sensfuss told his superiors that the 212th had made little progress beyond completing the encirclement of Echternach. The failure to open the divisional bridges over the Sauer within the first twenty-four hours had forced the German infantry to continue to fight without their accustomed heavy weapons support even while American reinforcements were steadily reducing the numerical edge possessed by the attacker. January 4, 1945 was a signal date for the truck driver. 4th Infantry Division troops dash across a Bailey bridge while under enemy fire near Moesdorf, Luxemborg, January 21, 1945. 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. Later Barton phoned the corps commander to ask for reinforcements. 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. December 1944, was a month that would be forever seared into John Schaffner's memory. The prospect must have brightened considerably at the 4th Division headquarters when the promise of this reinforcement arrived. eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of Consdorf. And in and around Eisenborn, CCA, 10th Armored Division, was assembling to counter any German attack. General Barton, it may be added, had refused absolutely to permit the artillery to move rearward. The VIII Corps . Higher German headquarters had anticipated the appearance of some American reinforcements opposite the LXXX Corps as early as the third day of the operation. General Patton, commanding the Third Army, to which the VIII Corps was now assigned, gave General Morris a provisional corps on 19 December, composed of the 10th Armored Division (-), the 9th Armored, the 109th Infantry, and the 4th Infantry Division. Whatever the reason, this enemy penetration went no further than 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. In time of peace the gorge of the Schwarz Erntz offered a picturesque "promenade" for holiday visitors in the resort hotels at Berdorf and Beaufort, with "bancs de repos" at convenient intervals. US ARMY 17TH AIRBORNE DIVISION PATCH GOLDEN TALONS BATTLE OF THE BULGE VETERAN. When the fire lifted the attack was resumed, but the enemy fought stubbornly for each house. New. 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). The burden of this advance was carried by battalions of the 320th Regiment (which explains the relaxing of pressure in the Osweiler-Dickweiler area), and the advance guard of the 316th Regiment which General Sensfuss had pried from the Seventh Army reserve by reporting the arrival of the 10th Armored Division. The engagements at Geyershof and Maisons Lelligen were comparatively minor affairs, involving only small forces, but German prisoners later reported that their losses had been severe at both these points. In the first week of December the 4th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Raymond 0. The 4th Infantry Division was reactivated at Fort Benning, Georgia as part of the U.S. Army buildup prior to the country's entry into World War II. The plans to utilize these positions were briefed by General Barton to his commanders on the 13th. With this reinforcement a new defensive line was organized on the hills just east of the village. The 320th had not reached Osweiler and the first assault at Dickweiler had been repulsed handily. Leake's force had only one .50-caliber machine gun and a BAR to reinforce the rifles in the hands of the defenders, but the Germans were so discouraged by the reception given their initial sorties that their succeeding attempts to take the building were markedly halfhearted. American troops atop the ridge known as the Schnee Eifel weren't expecting much action that morning. The little column came in on the flank of the 2d Battalion, 320th Regiment, which was in the process of moving two companies forward in attack formation across the open ground northwest of Dickweiler. Troops of the Third Army were already on the move north, there to form the cutting edge of a powerful thrust into the southern flank of the German advance. This was unfurled on the shattered roof. This ambulance convoy was en route to Consdorf, in the late afternoon, when a radio message reported that the Germans had cut the road north of Consdorf and bazooka'd two tanks on their way back from Berdorf for ammunition. gathered about sixty men in the Parc Hotel as the enemy closed in. Fighting on 17 December took place along the axes of three principal German penetrations: on the American left flank at Berdorf, Consdorf, and Mllerthal; in the center along the Echternach-Lauterborn-Scheidgen road; and on the right in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector. Covered by this counterattack the battalion headquarters withdrew to Herborn. 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. two months later, was redeployed to thwart the German offensive during the Battle of the Bulge. More specifically, the Seventh Army plans called for the 212th to attack over the Sauer on either side of Echternach, reach and hold the line of the Schlammbach, thus eliminating the American artillery on the plateau in the Alttrier-Herborn-Mompach area, and finally to contain as many additional American troops as possible by a thrust toward Junglinster. The action lasted for over three hours At last two howitzers were manhandled into a position from which they could cover the company; guns and vehicles were laboriously turned around in the mud, and the company withdrew. The two, last of the Americans to come out of Echternach, made the run safely despite direct fire aimed by the German assault gun. The Germans had cut the road back to Consdorf; so the right team of Task Force Standish was withdrawn from the attack on Hill 329 and spent most of the afternoon clearing an exit for the men and vehicles in Berdorf. Captain Murray S. Pulver, commander of Company B, 120th Infantry Regiment, was in his usual placethe thick of the fighting. $8.98. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. 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. Meanwhile the sixty-some members of Company F remained in the Parc Hotel, whose roof and upper story had been smashed in by German shelling. After a few minutes of this exchange Sgt. 8th Infantry Casualty Figures Casualty figures for the 8th Infantry Division, European theater of operations: Total battle casualties: 13,986 Total deaths in battle: 2,852 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. Strength sufficient to achieve a quick, limited penetration the German divisions possessed, so long as the assault forces did not stop to clean out the village centers of resistance. howitzer battalions in direct support. The 12th Infantry cannon company was just moving up to a new position when fire opened from the wood. But the first word that the Germans were across the river reached the 12th Infantry command post in Junglinster at 1015, with a report from Company F, in Berdorf, that a 15-man patrol had been seen approaching the village a half-hour earlier. The advance of the 423d Regiment across the Berdorf plateau on 16 December had reached the winding defile leading down into the gorge west of Berdorf village, there wiping out a squad of infantry and one 57-mm. 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. It was 0530 on a wintry Saturday morning, December 16, 1944. 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 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. others a few hours in Luxembourg City, ice cream in several flavors, well-watered beer, and the dubious pleasure of hearing accordionists squeeze out German waltzes and Yankee marching songs of World War I vintage. When the day ended the relief force had accomplished no more than consolidating a defensive position in Lauterborn. The Battle of the Pusan Perimeter (Korean: ) was a large-scale battle between United Nations Command (UN) and North Korean forces lasting from August 4 to September 18, 1950. December 20, 2019. 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. 18th Infantry Regiment; 36th Infantry Regiment; 37th Armored Infantry Battalion; 48th Infantry Regiment; . the battalions was severed. When the Germans attacked, the 70th Tank Battalion, attached to the 4th Division, had only eleven of its fifty-four medium tanks in running condition. In the early days of the Battle of the Bulge John would find himself fa. Companies A and G together now totaled about a hundred officers and men. US ARMY 1ST ID FIRST INFANTRY DIVISION PATCH BIG RED ONE 1 VETERAN FORT RILEY. 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. 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. 1) The 1st Abn BG, 504th Inf and 1st Abn BG, 505th Inf joined the division as part of the 1st Brigade. The division commander now called off the attack and assigned Task Force Luckett the mission of denying the enemy the use of the road net at Mllerthal, a task which could be accomplished in less costly fashion. Finally, a little after dark, Companies B and F (12th Infantry), ten engineers, and four squads of armored infantry loaded onto. During the seven days of fighting for the village between 13 and 19 December, the 78th Infantry Division lost approximately 1,515 dead, wounded, missing and injured, according to the division's records. Company F was mounted on tanks from the 19th Tank Battalion, which had just come in from the 9th Armored Division and also set out for Osweiler. A few small affrays occurred in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector, but that was all. About an hour after dark a message from the 3d Battalion reached the 12th Infantry command post: "Situation desperate. Immediately after the Battle of the Bulge, the tag "a calculated risk" would be applied to . The 4th Division switched all local. Casualties among the officers left a lieutenant who had just joined the company in command. The third task force from CCA, 10th Armored (led by Lt. Col J. R. Riley), made good progress in its attack along the Scheidgen-Lauterborn axis. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. Troops from the 320th Regiment and fusilier battalion circled around Echternach and Lauterborn meanwhile in an attempt to cut the main road at Scheidgen. . When the 4th Division reserves arrived in Breitweiler on the morning of 17 December the threat of a flanking move through the gorge was very real but the Americans had time to dig in. As the American reinforcements stiffened the right flank and the armored task forces grappled to wrest the initiative from the enemy on the left, German troops widened and deepened the dent in the 12th Infantry center, shouldering their way southward between Scheidgen and Osweiler. Miles L. Standish), which had been assigned to help the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, clear the enemy from Berdorf, had little better success. About three hours before dawn, General Barton, concerned over his left flank, dispatched the 4th Engineer Combat Battalion and 4th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop to Breitweiler, a small village overlooking the wishbone terminus of the Schwarz Erntz gorge and the ganglia ravine roads which branched thence into the 12th Infantry flank and rear. Here the 2d Platoon (with twenty-one men and two artillery observers) held out in the stone farm buildings for four days and from this position harassed the Germans moving up the ravine road to Berdorf. Rotation in the line allowed. 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 center task force (Lt. Col. No large-scale assault was attempted this day, apparently because the enemy was still waiting for guns to cross the river. American artillery, now increased in the 12th Infantry zone, gave as good support as communications permitted and succeeded in destroying a pontoon bridge at the Echternach site before it could be put in use. Other elements of Task Force Riley meanwhile had advanced to the mill beyond Lauterborn where the command post of Company G was located. December 1944. a few houses, but were in the process of being reinforced by Nebelwerfers and armored vehicles. 2nd Infantry Division, BOBA veterans to attend 8ARMDD Monument Dedication in Carlisle, PA. New. The fighting began 16 December 1944 and became the last offensive by Nazi Germany in World War II. Thirty-five of the enemy, including one company commander, surrendered; the commander of the second company was killed, as were at least fifty soldiers. Throughout this first day the 12th Infantry would fight with very poor communication. With the close of the second. At several points canyonlike cliffs rise sheer for a hundred feet. The 1st Battalion, 423d Regiment, overran three of the outpost positions, captured the company mortars, machine guns, and antitank guns sited in support of the forward detachments, and moved in on Berdorf. Major Gorn organized a hasty defense with a few cooks, MP's, stragglers, and one tank, but the blow did not fall. 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