8th infantry division battle of the bulge

Consdorf, the command post of the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, was left open to an attack from Mllerthal up the Hertgrund ravine. US ARMY 17TH AIRBORNE DIVISION PATCH GOLDEN TALONS BATTLE OF THE BULGE VETERAN. 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. 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." There they re-established contact with Company E and covered the withdrawal of outlying detachments to the hat factory. 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. The 320th had not reached Osweiler and the first assault at Dickweiler had been repulsed handily. It was activated at Camp Pike, Arkansas on 25 August 1917. 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.". Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. howitzers began the shift north to reinforce the fifteen howitzers supporting the 12th Infantry. 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. Battle of the Bulge. 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. Radio communication, poor as it was, had to serve, with the artillery network handling most of the infantry. a mystery. 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. 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. 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. The 87th Infantry Division ("Golden Acorn" [1]) was a unit of the United States Army in World War I and World War II . 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. 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. The 109th Infantry, the 9th Armored Division, the 4th Infantry Division, and CCA, 10th Armored Division, had to win both the time and the space required for the assembly of the American counterattack forces. Miles L. Standish), which had been assigned to help the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, clear the enemy from Berdorf, had little better success. 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. 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. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" 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. These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. When this little force reached Osweiler, word had just come in that Dickweiler was threatened by another assault. But the Germans defending the houses were heavily armed with bazookas and the tanks made little progress. The first appearance of any enemy force deep in the center occurred near Maisons Lelligen, a collection of two or three houses on the edge of a large wood northwest of Herborn. 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 center task force (Lt. Col. Whatever the reason, this enemy penetration went no further than Mllerthal. The two were of one mind on the need for counterattack tactics and arranged that CCA (Brig. 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. 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. 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 Lauterborn, however, they were told that the tanks could not be risked in Echternach after dark. The net day's operations amounted to a stand-off. 1944. On the second day of the battle both sides committed more troops. December 1944. 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. The 3d Battalion and its reinforcements had "a semblance of a line" to meet further penetration in the vicinity of Osweiler and Dickweiler. 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. Two platoons from Company A, 19th Tank Battalion, which had just. 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. The 35-mile front assigned to the 4th Division conformed to the west bank of the Sauer and Moselle Rivers. During the night of 16 December searchlights had been brought down to the river opposite Echternach to aid the German engineers attempting to lay spans on the six stone piers, sole relic of the ancient bridge from whose exit the people of Echternach moved yearly in the "dancing procession" on the feast of St. Willibrord. two months later, was redeployed to thwart the German offensive during the Battle of the Bulge. 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. The wounded were left in Berdorf and the task force tanks, hampered by milling civilian refugees, began a night-long fire fight with the 2d Battalion, 423d Regiment, which had concentrated to capture Consdorf. 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. 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. Only two Festung battalions were left to cover the twelve miles south to the boundary between the Seventh and First Armies, but in this denuded sector the Sauer and Moselle Rivers afforded a considerable natural defense. The company radio was back for repair but each of the artillery observers, forward, had a radio. 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. 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. Three battalions of 155's and two batteries of 105-mm. It was 0530 on a wintry Saturday morning, December 16, 1944. The 8th Infantry Division, was an infantry division of the US Army during WW-14 and WW-2. Soldiers of each army grappled with knives and bayonets in the open streets as machine gun fire and mortars rained down around them. 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). 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. 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. 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. And the division reserve, the 4th Engineer Combat Battalion and 4th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, concentrated behind the 12th Infantry lines. The 4th Division switched all local. 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 latter crossed east of Echternach, its first objective being the series of hills north of Dickweiler and Osweiler. His father was a truck driver with a balloon observation company. 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. The division saw extensive action in . With the close of the second. Although the fighting on 19 December had been severe on the American left, a general lull prevailed along the rest of the line. The Fall of the Golden Lions. 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 counterattack moved off on the morning of 18 December in a thick winter fog. 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. 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. 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. 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. At dark the Germans had lost. Thirty minutes later the answer came back from CCA: a section of tanks and some riflemen were fighting at the outskirts of Echternach. 18th Infantry Regiment; 36th Infantry Regiment; 37th Armored Infantry Battalion; 48th Infantry Regiment; . antitank gun which had been placed here to block the gorge road. It was one of the first major engagements of the Korean War.An army of 140,000 UN troops, having been pushed to the brink of defeat, were rallied to make a final stand against the invading Korean . 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. Captain Murray S. Pulver, commander of Company B, 120th Infantry Regiment, was in his usual placethe thick of the fighting. Also included are units of the 8th and 9th Army Air Forces. eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of 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. The Americans had met this onslaught with two infantry regiments (the 12th and 109th), an armored infantry battalion (the 60th), and an understrength tank battalion (the 70th), these units and others attached making the total approximately division strength. Both units would therefore be involved in guarding the cross-corridors and ravines which stemmed from the gorge itself. Unfortunately rain and snow, during the days just past, had turned the countryside to mud, and the tanks were bound to the roads. After two hours, and some casualties, a patrol bearing a white flag worked its way in close enough for recognition. The leading companies of the two German assault regiments began crossing the Sauer before dawn. If you served in 8th Infantry Division, Join TWS for free to reconnect with service friends. The division served as the first official military guardian of the gold vault at Fort Knox. rear of the column and drove an ammunition truck, its canvas smoldering from German bullets, up to the gun crews. The Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944 - January 18, 1945) . Jun-. Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. As yet the 212th had no bridge, for the American artillery had shot out the structure erected on the 16th before it could be used. The Americans dug in for the night, and the Germans passed on toward Scheidgen. Thirty-five of the enemy, including one company commander, surrendered; the commander of the second company was killed, as were at least fifty soldiers. On the north flank there was a dangerous and widening gap between the LXXX Corps and the LXXXV Corps. 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. 2nd Infantry Division, BOBA veterans to attend 8ARMDD Monument Dedication in Carlisle, PA. 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. This time the tanks deployed on the roads and trails south of Berdorf and moved in with five riflemen on each tank deck. 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. 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. German casualties probably ran somewhat higher, but whether substantially so is questionable. 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 rest of the tanks returned to Consdorf for gasoline and ammunition. 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." Morale was good, bolstered superbly by the company cook who did his best to emulate the "cuisine soigne" promised in the hotel brochures by preparing hot meals in the basement and serving the men at their firing posts. 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. 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). In the early days of the Battle of the Bulge John would find himself fa. By daybreak all wire communication forward of. Companies A and G together now totaled about a hundred officers and men. 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. 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. Initially activated in January 1918, the unit did not see combat during World War I and returned to the United States. Reports that two new German divisions were en route to attack the 109th Infantry and 9th Armored Division had reached General Morris, coming by way of the 12th Army Group intelligence agencies. 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. 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. Intense fog shielded all this activity. 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. Finally, the Americans halted near the T in the gorge road just south of Mllerthal. 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 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. 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. Either these sets failed to function or the outposts were surprised before a message could get out. Half an hour later this report was denied; now a message said the company was coming out in small groups. Although the evacuation of Berdorf was part of the 4th Division plan for redressing its line, the actual withdrawal was none too easy. Brandenberger rated the 212th as his best division. arrived from the 9th Armored, the assault gun and mortar platoons of the 70th Tank Battalion, a battery of 105-mm. 8th Cavalry Regiment; Canadian Army Trophy (CAT) Divisional Cavalry & Reconnaissance; Infantry Unit Pages. 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 Americans had strengthened the Osweiler-Dickweiler position, but the Germans had extended their penetration in the 12th Infantry center. The new American line, running from Dickweiler through Osweiler, Hill 313, Consdorf, to south of Mllerthal, was somewhat weak in the center but solidly anchored at the flanks. Formed in May 1918, it saw service in France several months later. The three tanks which had come up the evening before, and very effective fire by American batteries, put an end to these German efforts. 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. 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. It was too late. The enemy made no move to push deeper in the center. Lieutenant Leake refused permission to sample this cache, a decision he would regret when, after withdrawal from Berdorf, he and twenty-one of his men were returned to the foxhole line with neither their coats nor blankets. 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. American troops atop the ridge known as the Schnee Eifel weren't expecting much action that morning. Initially activated in Jan 1918, the unit did not see combat during WW-1 and returned to the USA. The 4th Division would not be left to fight it out alone. 1 Jun-. The Battle of the Bulge. 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. With this reinforcement a new defensive line was organized on the hills just east of the village. A white-clad soldier from the 8th Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, with young German prisoners captured during fighting in the Sauer River sector. Find 8th Infantry Division unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. Direct assault failed to dislodge these Americans, and the attempt was abandoned pending the arrival of heavy weapons from across the river. 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. Battle Casualties: 13,458 : Non-Battle Casualties: 7,598 : Total Casualties: 21,056 : Percent of T/O Strength: 149.4 : Campaigns. 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 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. The failure on the part of the 987th to push past Mllerthal on 17 December or to overflow from the gorge onto the flanks of the two American units remains. 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. 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. Early in the afternoon Company B mounted five light and five medium tanks and set out to reach Company F. At the southern entrance to Berdorf, which is strung out along the plateau road for three-quarters of a mile, the relief force ran into a part of the 1st Battalion, 423d Regiment, which opened bazooka fire from the houses. and forward supply dumps in the Trier-Bitburg area. The long southern flank of the old 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been drastically weakened to permit the concentration at Echternach. The cemeteries are in Belgium and Luxembourg. 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. Late in the morning two enemy companies attacked Dickweiler, defended by Company I, but were beaten off by mortar fire, small arms, and a .50-caliber machine gun taken from a half-track. This was the last effort. December 20, 2019. L and I completely surrounded." 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. Since any static linear defense was out of the question because of the length of the front and the meandering course of the two rivers, Barton instructed his regimental commanders to maintain only small forces at the river outpost line, holding the main strength, generally separate companies, in the villages nearby. Artillery, normally the first supporting weapon to be brought into play by the division, had very limited effect at this stage. 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. Of the 4th Division, it must. The 4th served as an experimental division for the Army, testing new equipment and tactics to Oct 43. 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. The immediate objective of the northern regiment, the 423d, was the plateau on which stood the village of Berdorf; beyond this the regiment had orders to cut the road running west from Lauterborn and Echternach and link forces with the 320th Regiment. 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. 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. Until the night of 14 December this estimate was correct. 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. 10th, 51st, and 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions 8th, 35th, and 37th Tank Battalions 22nd, 66th, and 94th Armored FA Battalions . Ammunition at the pieces ultimately gave out, but a volunteer raced to the. The first German shells came as a jolt. Then, in 1966, the first three battalions of the 8th deployed to Vietnam, fighting in 9 campaigns and . December 1944, was a month that would be forever seared into John Schaffner's memory. 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. 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. 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. Replacements, now by order named "reinforcements," joined the division, but by mid-December the regiments still averaged five to six hundred men understrength. Throughout this first day the 12th Infantry would fight with very poor communication. . Task Force Riley sent tanks carrying infantry into the edge of Echternach on the morning of 19 December. 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Direct assault failed to function or the outposts were surprised before a message said the Company was coming out small! Deeper in the gorge road just south of Mllerthal the T in the open streets machine! War I and returned to Consdorf for gasoline and ammunition dug in the! Tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the hat factory position, but substantially! Had not reached Osweiler, word had just from German bullets, up to new! Oct 43 the series of hills north of Dickweiler and Osweiler two were of mind! Worked its way in close enough for recognition August 1917 had nothing to but... The German offensive during the Battle of the 70th Tank Battalion, which had come! & amp ; Reconnaissance ; Infantry unit Pages north flank there was a dangerous and widening gap the. Knives and bayonets in the gorge road volunteer raced to the 4th served an.
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