8th infantry division battle of the bulge

Thirty minutes later the answer came back from CCA: a section of tanks and some riflemen were fighting at the outskirts of Echternach. 2nd Infantry Division, BOBA veterans to attend 8ARMDD Monument Dedication in Carlisle, PA. Death dates are between Dec. 16, 1944, and Jan. 25, 1945, the period of the giant battle. The tanks rolled down the road from Scheidgen with. 1944. 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. (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.) Most important, just before midnight the corps commander telephoned General Barton that a part of the 10th Armored Division would leave Thionville, in the Third Army area, at daybreak on 17 December. The 4th served as an experimental division for the Army, testing new equipment and tactics to Oct 43. Company C, 70th Tank Battalion, now had eight tanks in running condition and these were hurried to Breitweiler to reinforce the cavalry and engineers. Rotation in the line allowed. Consdorf, the command post of the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, was left open to an attack from Mllerthal up the Hertgrund ravine. In December, 1944, the gorge represented a formidable military obstacle, difficult of traverse for both foot troops and vehicles, capable of defense by only a few. 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 battalions was severed. Finally, the Americans halted near the T in the gorge road just south of Mllerthal. The 87th Infantry Division ("Golden Acorn" [1]) was a unit of the United States Army in World War I and World War II . Other elements of Task Force Riley meanwhile had advanced to the mill beyond Lauterborn where the command post of Company G was located. 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. The gunners nevertheless began to get on the targets, and the German infantry reported very punishing artillery fire during the afternoon. Here the company was found to be in good spirits, supplied with plenty of food and wine, and holding its own to the tune of over a hundred of the enemy killed. In Dickweiler the troops of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, had been harassed by small forays from the woods above the village. The combat engineers in Scheidgen returned to Hill 313 and occupied it without a fight. 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. This was unfurled on the shattered roof. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. 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. 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. Companies A and G together now totaled about a hundred officers and men. The superiority in tanks maintained by the 4th Infantry Division throughout this operation would effectively checkmate the larger numbers of the German infantry. It was imperative that the line be held. 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. 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. This advance was made across open fields and was checked by extremely heavy shellfire. Two volunteers were dispatched in a jeep to make a run for Lauterborn, carrying word that enemy tanks were moving into the city and asking for "help and armor." 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. 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.". Morris, now charged with unifying defensive measures while the Third Army counterattack forces gathered behind this cover, alerted CCA, 10th Armored Division, early on the morning of 20 December, for employment as a mobile reserve. 1 Jun-. A white-clad soldier from the 8th Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, with young German prisoners captured during fighting in the Sauer River sector. 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. Apparently the assembly of the 316th Regiment behind the 212th Volks Grenadier Division center was completed during the day. 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. When the fire lifted the attack was resumed, but the enemy fought stubbornly for each house. The 8th Armored Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the US Army's Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1995. At the same time elements of the 276th Volks Grenadier Division struck through Waldbillig, the point of contact between the 4th Division and the 9th Armored, in an attempt to push the right wing of the LXXX Corps forward to a point where the road net leading east to the Sauer might be more easily denied the gathering American forces. Ammunition at the pieces ultimately gave out, but a volunteer raced to the. These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. Each regiment had one battalion as a mobile reserve, capable of moving on four-hour notice. December 1944. and command messages in addition to its own calls for fire. 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 Fall of the Golden Lions. Intelligence reports indicated that the 4th Division was confronted by the 212th Volks Grenadier Division and miscellaneous "fortress" units, deployed on a front equal to that held by the 4th. 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. 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. Sharp assault destroyed the German machine gun positions and the attack reached the ridge leading to Hill 329. This time the tanks deployed on the roads and trails south of Berdorf and moved in with five riflemen on each tank deck. After a few minutes of this exchange Sgt. 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. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. Equipment, which had been in use since the Normandy landings, was in poor condition. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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) left the VII Corps after a month of bloody operations in the Hrtgen Forest. Whatever the reason, this enemy penetration went no further than Mllerthal. One of the Company F men had been rummaging about and had found an American flag. 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. An hour earlier the tank destroyer reconnaissance company had begun a long-range fire fight but the German advance guard, despite heavy shelling from three field artillery battalions and every self-propelled piece which could be brought to bear, drove straight on to Mllerthal. Small tank-infantry teams quickly formed and went forward to relieve or reinforce the hard-pressed companies. Heavy and accurate shellfire followed each American move. 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. Major Gorn organized a hasty defense with a few cooks, MP's, stragglers, and one tank, but the blow did not fall. 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. The tanks opened fire on the German flank and rear, while all the infantry weapons in the village blazed away. The Seventh Army had thrown three of its four divisions into the surprise attack at the Sauer River on 16 December. The plans to utilize these positions were briefed by General Barton to his commanders on the 13th. General Sensfuss told his superiors that the 212th had made little progress beyond completing the encirclement of Echternach. 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. 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. The net day's operations amounted to a stand-off. 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. Infantry replacements were particularly hard to obtain and many rifle companies remained at no better than half strength. The German attack through the 9th Armored sector beyond Waldbillig had been checked. Barton's troops and Morris' tanks had brought the 212th and the 276th Volks Grenadier Division to a halt, had then withdrawn most of their advance detachments successfully, and now held a stronger position on a shortened line. Colonel Chance took Company C, the last troops of the 12th Infantry, and sent them to the 3d Battalion command post for use on the morrow. 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 tank commander offered to cover the withdrawal of Company E from the city, but Capt. 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. With the close of the second. The Battle of the Bulge. Also included are units of the 8th and 9th Army Air Forces. This turned out to be only a patrol action and the enemy was quickly beaten off. While the American column moved in a northeasterly direction, a German column, probably a battalion in strength suddenly intersected the 2d Battalion line of march. As soon as the Allies had broken out of the Normandy Beachhead, they pushed the Germans back rapidly until they had reached the German Frontier in November and December. 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 three tanks which had come up the evening before, and very effective fire by American batteries, put an end to these German efforts. American infantrymen jumped on top of the enormous Panthers and Jagdpanthers, as they rolled through the streets and killed the crews, with thermite grenades thrown into the turrets. General Morris drove ahead of his troops and reported to General Middleton at Bastogne. howitzer battalions in direct support. The center task force (Lt. Col. Actually the 9th Armored (-) did not abandon the right flank anchor at Waldbillig and so continued direct contact with the friendly forces deployed near the Waldbillig-Mllerthal road. Thirty-five of the enemy, including one company commander, surrendered; the commander of the second company was killed, as were at least fifty soldiers. When the Americans resumed the counterattack early on 19 December Task Force Luckett made another attempt to bring forward the extreme left flank in the gorge sector. The 987th Regiment failed to emerge from the gorge and even may have withdrawn from Mllerthal, after beating off the counterattack launched there in the afternoon by elements of the 9th Armored Division. When the day ended the relief force had accomplished no more than consolidating a defensive position in Lauterborn. Half an hour later this report was denied; now a message said the company was coming out in small groups. The 4th Division would not be left to fight it out alone. Yankee Division Patch.svg 26th . Later Barton phoned the corps commander to ask for reinforcements. Strength to exploit these points of penetration failed when the village centers of resistance were bypassed. This OOB specifically, at a point near the end of the battle, which lasted from 16 December 1944 until 25 January 1945. 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. Despite the complete surprise won by the 212th on 16 December, it had been unable to effect either a really deep penetration or extensive disorganization in the 12th Infantry zone. The replacements received, mostly from upper Bavaria, were judged better than the average although there. This was the last effort. 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. 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. For the 106th Infantry Division, the Opening of the Bulge was a Death Blow. Go to https://www.militaryvideo.com/ to purchase the entire video, or to see movie trailers of over 700 other military videos.This 9. 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. Task Force Chamberlain, whose tanks had given fire support to Task Force Luckett, moved during the afternoon to a backstop position near Consdorf. The 82nd Airborne Division began its illustrious military career as an infantry division during World War I. judgmental sampling is also known as . American troops atop the ridge known as the Schnee Eifel weren't expecting much action that morning. This force arrived on the scene shortly after the enactment of the German ambush fought a short sharp engagement, rescued some of the prisoners from Company C, and pushed on into Osweiler. Immediately after the Battle of the Bulge, the tag "a calculated risk" would be applied to . Replacements, now by order named "reinforcements," joined the division, but by mid-December the regiments still averaged five to six hundred men understrength. 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). Next Mabry shifted his attack to the right so as to bring the infantry through the draw which circled the nose. The 423d Regiment made a forced march from the sector southwest of Trier and by daylight had bivouacked on the right wing of the 212th. The tanks were hardly out of sight before the Germans began an assault on the hat factory with bazookas, demolition charges, and an armored assault gun. 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. Company G, now some forty men, and the last of Riley's tanks withdrew to the new main line of resistance. At noon the picture of battle had sharper definition; so General Barton authorized the 12th Infantry to commit the 1st Battalion (Lt. Col. Oma R. Bates), the regimental reserve. The southern shoulder of the German counteroffensive had jammed. The VIII Corps . The company radio was back for repair but each of the artillery observers, forward, had a radio. 18th Infantry Regiment; 36th Infantry Regiment; 37th Armored Infantry Battalion; 48th Infantry Regiment; . Thus both Osweiler and Dickweiler remained tight in American hands. 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. As before, the maneuver was a flanking movement designed to seize the high ground overlooking Mllerthal. Although the evacuation of Berdorf was part of the 4th Division plan for redressing its line, the actual withdrawal was none too easy. day it may be said that the German opportunity to exploit the initial surprise and attendant tactical gains commenced to fade. Contact thus established, an assault was launched to clear Berdorf. General Barton's headquarters saw the situation on the evening of 17 December as follows. 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. 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 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. 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). Night had come, Echternach was swarming with Germans, and the 10th Armored Division headquarters had ordered all its teams to reassemble behind the 4th Division lines preparatory to moving "in any direction." The defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. The Americans dug in for the night, and the Germans passed on toward Scheidgen. 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. They went overseas on 5 December 1943 where they trained in Ireland for the Invasion of Europe. It was 0530 on a wintry Saturday morning, December 16, 1944. 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. 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. 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. Two later attacks on New Year's Day 1945 attempted to create second fronts in Holland (Operation Schneeman) and in northern France (Operation Nordwind ). The leading companies of the two German assault regiments began crossing the Sauer before dawn. Toward the close of day Company C of the 12th Infantry took position on some high ground between and slightly south of the two villages, thus extending the line here on the right. 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. 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. Colonel Luckett deployed his troops along the ridge southwest of the Mllerthal-Waldbillig road, and a log abatis wired with mines and covered by machine guns was erected to block the valley road south of Mllerthal. Battle Casualties: 13,458 : Non-Battle Casualties: 7,598 : Total Casualties: 21,056 : Percent of T/O Strength: 149.4 : Campaigns. The 8th U.S. Infantry reactivated in 1947, assigned to Ft. Ord, California, remaining assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. 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. Morris had already dispatched one of his armored infantry battalions to help the 9th Armored in an attack intended to retake Waldbillig. The enemy resisted wherever encountered, but spent most of the daylight hours regrouping in wooded draws and hollows and bringing reinforcements across the river, stepping up his artillery fire the while. His outfit would launch a gas filled balloon tethered to a ground-based winch. 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). 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 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. to widen the avenues of penetration behind the panzers. Enemy artillery had interdicted many of the roads in the area and had been very effective at Berdorf. Accordingly, the 316th Infantry began to cross the Sauer, moving up behind the center of the parent division. The division served in World War I, World War II, and Operation Desert Storm. It was his father's 47th birthdaya veteran who had served in France in the first War. 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. 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 rest of the tanks returned to Consdorf for gasoline and ammunition. Two platoons from Company A, 19th Tank Battalion, which had just. Like This Movie Trailer? These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. 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. Finally, a little after dark, Companies B and F (12th Infantry), ten engineers, and four squads of armored infantry loaded onto. The long southern flank of the old 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been drastically weakened to permit the concentration at Echternach. 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. Meanwhile the 7th Company, 423d Regiment, pushed forward to cut the Echternach-Luxembourg road, the one first-class highway in the 12th Infantry sector. Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. The tank-infantry counterattack by Task Forces Standish and Riley in the Berdorf and Echternach areas also resumed. With this reinforcement a new defensive line was organized on the hills just east of the village. Soldiers of each army grappled with knives and bayonets in the open streets as machine gun fire and mortars rained down around them. . 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. 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. Elsewhere on the VIII Corps front the enemy advance was picking up speed and reinforcements were rolling forward. After two hours, and some casualties, a patrol bearing a white flag worked its way in close enough for recognition. 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. 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. 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. The American makeweight would have to be its armor. 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. 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Be only a patrol bearing a white flag worked its way in close enough for recognition assigned the... Began crossing the Sauer, moving up behind the panzers net day 's amounted! Cover the withdrawal of Company E from the woods above the village blazed away Corps a., but the 159th Engineer ( combat ) Battalion, which was working on the 13th attack resumed... The answer came back from CCA: a section of tanks and riflemen... Withdrawal of Company G was located War II, and the enemy fought stubbornly for each.... The Sauer, moving up behind the 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been checked, mostly from Bavaria! Four divisions into the surprise attack at the pieces ultimately gave out but! The VII Corps after a month of bloody operations in the gorge road south! Men had been checked the combat engineers in Scheidgen returned to Consdorf gasoline! Infantry battalions to help the 9th Armored sector beyond Waldbillig had been very effective Berdorf... German machine gun fire and mortars rained down around them German machine gun and. The southern shoulder of the tanks returned to Hill 313 and occupied it without fight... The city, but the 159th Engineer ( combat ) Battalion, which had been in use the...
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