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. 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. 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. 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. After three years of campaigning on the Eastern Front the division had been so badly shattered during withdrawals in the Lithuanian sector that it was taken from the line and sent to Poland, in September 1944, for overhauling. These villages, at which the crucial engagements would be fought, were Berdorf, Echternach, Lauterborn, Osweiler, and Dickweiler. Although the 212th was at full strength it shared the endemic weaknesses of the volks grenadier division: insufficient communications and fewer assault guns than provided by regulation (only four were with the division on 16 December). It was his father's 47th birthdaya veteran who had served in France in the first War. But the Germans defending the houses were heavily armed with bazookas and the tanks made little progress. 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. If this additional weight should be thrown against the thin American line immediately to the north of the 4th Infantry Division, there was every likelihood that the line would break. The Germans had excellent intelligence of the 4th Infantry Division strength and positions. Unfortunately rain and snow, during the days just past, had turned the countryside to mud, and the tanks were bound to the roads. Activated again on Jul 1, 1940, as part of the build-up of military forces prior to the US's entry into World War II. 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. Ammunition at the pieces ultimately gave out, but a volunteer raced to the. The German attack through the 9th Armored sector beyond Waldbillig had been checked. New. The 12th Infantry cannon company was just moving up to a new position when fire opened from the wood. Major Gorn organized a hasty defense with a few cooks, MP's, stragglers, and one tank, but the blow did not fall. 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 4th Division would not be left to fight it out alone. Although the evacuation of Berdorf was part of the 4th Division plan for redressing its line, the actual withdrawal was none too easy. By nightfall the situation seemed much improved-despite the increased pressure on the 4th Division companies closely invested in the north. This is the order of battle of German and Allied forces during the Battle of the Bulge. 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. Each regiment, by standard practice on such a wide front, had one of the division's 105-mm. On the opposite flank things were temporarily under control, with Task Force Luckett not yet seriously engaged and the enemy advance thus far checked at Mllerthal. 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. 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. 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. The Parc was a three-storied reinforced concrete resort hotel (indicated in the guide-books as having "confort moderne") surrounded by open ground. Apparently the assembly of the 316th Regiment behind the 212th Volks Grenadier Division center was completed during the day. Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. At dark the Americans drew back to the hotel, while the Germans plastered the area with rockets, artillery, and mortar shells, lobbed in from across the river.2. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. The cemeteries are in Belgium and Luxembourg. On the final night (15-16 December) the division moved into the position for the jump-off: the 423d on the right, north of Echternach; the 320th on the left, where the Sauer turned east of Echternach; and the 316th in army reserve northeast of the city. 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). And in and around Eisenborn, CCA, 10th Armored Division, was assembling to counter any German attack. 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. At 1330 a report reached the 12th Infantry that Company E had gotten out. 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. Normandy; Northern France ; 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. His two divisions generally had reached the line designated as the LXXX Corps objective. The drivers and gunners dived for cover and returned fire. The enemy infantry would outnumber the Americans opposing them in the combat area, but on 17 December the Germans in the bridgehead would meet a far greater weight of artillery fire than they could direct against the Americans and would find it difficult to deal with American tanks. The Fall of the Golden Lions. The problem of regimental control and coordination was heightened by the wide but necessary dispersion of its units on an extended front and the tactical isolation in an area of wooded heights chopped by gorges and huge crevasses. The long southern flank of the old 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been drastically weakened to permit the concentration at Echternach. Strength to exploit these points of penetration failed when the village centers of resistance were bypassed. The replacements received, mostly from upper Bavaria, were judged better than the average although there. 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. 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. The tanks rolled down the road from Scheidgen with. 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. Morris had already dispatched one of his armored infantry battalions to help the 9th Armored in an attack intended to retake Waldbillig. to join the two companies beleaguered in Osweiler. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" One of the Company F men had been rummaging about and had found an American flag. The 4th Division and 10th Armored sought to disengage their advance elements and regroup along a stronger main line of resistance, and the enemy fought to dislodge the American foothold in Berdorf and Echternach. On the second day of the battle both sides committed more troops. 1940. 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. Casualties among the officers left a lieutenant who had just joined the company in command. In Echternach Company E, 12th Infantry, had occupied a two-block strongpoint from which it harassed the German troops trying to move through the town. 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. When the German artillery opened up on the 12th Infantry at H-hour for the counteroffensive, the concentration fired on the company and battalion command posts was accurate and effective. By some chance the two platoons on the right missed the German hive. The division served as the first official military guardian of the gold vault at Fort Knox. Losses and stragglers, however, had reduced the American infantry companies, already understrength at the opening of the battle. Either these sets failed to function or the outposts were surprised before a message could get out. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. arrived from the 9th Armored, the assault gun and mortar platoons of the 70th Tank Battalion, a battery of 105-mm. Osweiler now had a garrison of one tank company and four understrength rifle companies. 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. The professionalism and pride with which each unit preforms shows the true credentials of the 8th Infantry Division (M). howitzer battalions in direct support. Apparently the crews manning the rubber boats had trouble with the swift current, and there were too few craft to accommodate large detachments. Possibly the American artillery and self-propelled guns had disorganized and disheartened the German infantry; prisoners later reported that shell fragments from the tree bursts in the bottom of the wooded gorge "sounded like falling apples" and caused heavy casualties. This was unfurled on the shattered roof. The division fusilier battalion was committed against the 12th Infantry center in an attempt to drive a wedge through at Scheidgen while a part of the 23d Festung Battalion crossed the Sauer near Girst to extend the left flank of the German attack. J. C. Kolinski got up, ran back to a truck, fixed a round, and fired it from a howitzer still coupled to the truck. Higher German headquarters had anticipated the appearance of some American reinforcements opposite the LXXX Corps as early as the third day of the operation. The enemy made no move to push deeper in the center. 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. A few rocket projectors and guns were ferried over at the civilian ferry site above Echternach, and about the middle of the afternoon a bridge was finished at Edingen, where the 320th Regiment had crossed on 16 December. The floor of the gorge is strewn with great boulders; dense patches of woods line the depression and push down to the edge of the stream. 1st Infantry Division two months later, was redeployed to thwart the German offensive during the Battle of the Bulge. antitank gun which had been placed here to block the gorge road. Small tank-infantry teams quickly formed and went forward to relieve or reinforce the hard-pressed companies. 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. 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. It was imperative that the line be held. Apparently some troops went at once into the line, but the actual counterattack was postponed until the next morning. 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.". 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. About an hour after dark a message from the 3d Battalion reached the 12th Infantry command post: "Situation desperate. The casualties suffered by Company E cannot be numbered, but have been reported as the most severe sustained by any company of the 4th Division in the battle of the Ardennes. 4th Infantry Division troops dash across a Bailey bridge while under enemy fire near Moesdorf, Luxemborg, January 21, 1945. 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. American shellfire finally drove the enemy away from the bank, necessitating a new effort in broad daylight farther to the north. $8.99. Although the German penetrations on the left and in the center of the 12th Infantry sector deepened during the day, the situation on the right was relatively encouraging. Accordingly, the 316th Infantry began to cross the Sauer, moving up behind the center of the parent division. Although the fighting on 19 December had been severe on the American left, a general lull prevailed along the rest of the line. When the day ended the relief force had accomplished no more than consolidating a defensive position in Lauterborn. 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. 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. The 2d Battalion of the 22d Infantry, in regimental reserve, was alerted to move by truck at daylight on 17 December to the 12th Infantry command post at Junglinster, there to be joined by two tank platoons. Both units would therefore be involved in guarding the cross-corridors and ravines which stemmed from the gorge itself. gathered about sixty men in the Parc Hotel as the enemy closed in. Despite the presence of the tanks, which here could maneuver off the road, the infantry were checked halfway to their objective by cross fire from machine guns flanking the slope and artillery fire from beyond the Sauer. The Battle of the Bulge. Company E, in Echternach, likewise was surprised but many of the outpost troops worked their way back to a hat factory, on the southwestern edge of the city, which had been organized as a strongpoint. The 8th Armored Division was activated on 1 April 1942 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, with "surplus" units of the recently reorganized 4th Armored Division and newly-organized units. $20.00 + $3.90 shipping. Since most of Task Force Riley by this time had reverted to the reserve, Lauterborn, the base for operations against Echternach, was abandoned. Farther to the west another part of the German force which had come from Scheidgen surrounded the rear headquarters of the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, and a platoon of towed tank destroyers in Geyershof. As yet no American troops had had opportunity to try the mettle of the 212th (Generalmajor Franz Sensfuss). These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. Companies A and G together now totaled about a hundred officers and men. Through the night of 19-20 December Riley's tanks waited on the road just north of Lauterborn, under orders from the Commanding General, CCA, not to attempt a return through the dark to Echternach. 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. Company A, mounted on a platoon of light tanks, was ordered to open the main road to Lauterborn and Echternach which supplied the 2d Battalion (Maj. John W. Gorn). At the break of day on 17 December Company C, the 12th Infantry reserve, moved out of Herborn en route. Formed in May 1918, it saw service in France several months later. Meanwhile the 7th Company, 423d Regiment, pushed forward to cut the Echternach-Luxembourg road, the one first-class highway in the 12th Infantry sector. 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. With the close of the second. Elsewhere on the VIII Corps front the enemy advance was picking up speed and reinforcements were rolling forward. 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 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. 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. Barton was apprehensive that the enemy would attempt a raid in force to seize Luxembourg City, and in the battle beginning on the 16th he would view Luxembourg City as the main German objective. Even so General Barton made careful disposition of his understrength and weary division, even ordering the divisional rest camps, originally back as far as Arlon, to be moved to sites forward of the regimental command posts. 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. 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. 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. 1 Jun-. American troops atop the ridge known as the Schnee Eifel weren't expecting much action that morning. Thus both Osweiler and Dickweiler remained tight in American hands. General Barton's headquarters saw the situation on the evening of 17 December as follows. 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. Go to https://www.militaryvideo.com/ to purchase the entire video, or to see movie trailers of over 700 other military videos.This 9. The 82nd Airborne Division began its illustrious military career as an infantry division during World War I. howitzer battalion and two additional medium battalions belonging to the 422d Field Artillery Group, but even this added firepower did not permit the 4th Division massed fire at any point on the extended front. 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. Yankee Division Patch.svg 26th . German casualties probably ran somewhat higher, but whether substantially so is questionable. 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. Company G, now some forty men, and the last of Riley's tanks withdrew to the new main line of resistance. This team fought through some scattered opposition southwest of Lauterborn, dropped off a rifle platoon to hold Hill 313 (which commanded the southern approach), and moved through the village to the Company G command post, freeing twenty-five men who had been taken prisoner in the morning. 8th Armored Casualty Figures Casualty figures for the 8th Armored Division, European theater of operations: Total battle casualties: 2,011 Total deaths in battle: 469 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. 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