The LVIII Panzer Corps commander was anxious to get the 1130th The troops east of St. Vith simply had to be written off (at least 600 officers and men) although some later would be able to work their way back through the German lines. 2 btrys, 413th AAA Gun Bn (Mbl) 24 Dec 44-3 Jan 45. A company of the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion, however, was put in to cover the cavalry left flank. The 112th Infantry, now beginning to fold back to the north as the center of the 28th Division gave way, was no longer in contact with the 424th Infantry, its erstwhile left flank neighbor, but the axis of withdrawal ultimately would bring the 112th Infantry to piece out the southern sector of the defense slowly forming around St. Vith. By this time the In German plans the hub at St. Vith was important, but it was not on the axis of any of the main armored thrusts. Want this question answered? Actually there were armored divisions in the First Army closer to the scene, but they had been alerted for use in the first phases of the attacks planned to seize the Roer River dams (a design not abandoned until 17 December) and as yet little sense of urgency attached to reinforcements in the VIII Corps area. The next day it was able, with some pride, to turn over to the 7th Armored Division the 350 German prisoners it had guarded since 18 December and the stores at the railhead. The Germans driving on Salmchteau were held in tighter control than those advancing toward Vielsalm and moved with greater speed and coordination. By prodigious effort the LXVI Corps artillery finally had been wormed through the traffic jam east of St. Vith, and towed and manhandled into position. 09:17 NUTS! Its commander, Colonel Remer, impatient with delay, had ordered an assault west of Wallerode at midnight on the 19th, but the small detachment of armored infantry and assault guns at hand came under shellfire each time it formed for attack and Remer finally gave over the whole idea. On the 19th most of Ridgway's troops had engaged in patrolling with no enemy contact; on the 20th the XVIII Airborne Corps faced the westernmost elements of the I SS Panzer Corps, the entire LXVI Corps, and the LVIII Panzer Corps. Still worse, CCB had no friendly contact on the north, and a patrol sent to establish connection with CCB, 9th Armored, on the south had disappeared. A Battery 935th Field Artillery Battalion Overseas World War II. Jones ordered the 112th Infantry to draw northward on the night of l9-20 December and make a firm connection with the southern flank of the 424th. The corps' mission, as it had devolved by the end of the day, would be. In a matter of minutes German infantry and tanks were to the rear of the foxhole line. Fortunately bright moonlight allowed some maneuver. This action continued through the afternoon, while tanks and assault guns played a dangerous game of hide-and-seek from behind the houses and the American infantry tried to knock out the German machine guns enfilading the railroad cut. Poteau lends itself well to defensive action. The last German This small village, 4,000 yards west of St. Vith, lay on the reverse slope of a ridge line along which extended the north flank of the 7th Armored Division. South of Nieder-Emmels the St. Vith road crossed the ridge where, the day before, the American tank destroyers had broken the back of the German attack before it could get rolling. The time now was midafternoon. Colonel Nelson brought a welcome addition to the St. Vith forces. Army 965th Field Artillery Battalion | Army Veteran Locator 965th Field Artillery Battalion Battalion Served in this Battalion? St. Vith lay approximately twelve miles behind the front lines on 16 the tight control needed in this type of operation General Ridgway ordered Warren and Wemple studied the road net as shown on the map and agreed to try to hold Recht through the night. liaison officer with such an order had left Hasbrouck's command post To the commander of the 18th Volks Grenadier Division, whose men had taken St. Vith, the events of 22 December spelled catastrophe; to the Americans falling back from the city they were a godsend. It was well in the hand of its commander and ready to fight. to act as a breakwater holding the LXVI Corps in check while The only force in position for an immediate exploitation was Remer's Fuehrer Begleit Brigade, whose tanks finally had arrived on the evening of 21 December. By dark the 293d Regiment was marching through Poteau and the rest of the infantry formations of the division were jumbled along a five-mile front on the east side of the Salm. South of St. Vith, where CCB, 9th Armored, had redressed its lines during the previous night consonant with the 7th Armored position on the left and taken over a five-mile front, the enemy made some attempt to press westward. The German armored corps advancing through the northeastern Ardennes were slated to swing wide of the Schnee Eifel and St. Vith, the I SS Panzer Corps passing north, the LVIII Panzer Corps passing south. last bit of hope for the lost regiments must have gone. After a personal reconnaissance east of St. Vith on 19 December Remer concluded that a frontal attack in this sector was out of the question. The final assault, made by the 294th and one or two platoons of Tigers, simply peeled the Americans back on both sides of the road. The move had no more than started when the Fuehrer Begleit Brigade descended on Hinderhausen. During Task Force Jones's disengagement the 440th Armored Field Artillery had emplaced to give covering fire and protect the flank of the task force. Thus far the Ninth Army had given Hasbrouck no information on the seriousness of the situation on the VIII Corps front. United States Army Field Artillery Battalion, 365th US Army Heritage and Education Center + Leaflet | Map data OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA, Imagery Mapbox Contact Information View in Google Maps Details 42 leaves [1946?] isolated the St. Vith forces from the remainder of the VIII Corps, although The occupation of St. Vith had considerably disorganized the attacking division, whose regiments jammed into the town from east, north, and south. From Recht, five miles northwest of St. Vith, to Beho, seven miles to the southwest of the 106th Division headquarters, the clockwise disposition of the American units was as follows. The remainder of CCB, 9th Armored Division, remained in the positions on the ridge line west of the Braunlauf Creek and draw. or back, and with the enemy apparently closing in from every side. 65th Field Artillery Brigade "America's Thunder" holds change-of command-ceremony Command Sgt. the engineers. 4 and two infantry divisions. south and rising against its eastern face. Furthermore the 7th Armored trains had reported signs of an enemy force far to the west of the 7th Armored outpost positions. TANKS OF THE 7TH ARMORED DIVISION in a temporary position near St. Vith. Service and army troops, with and without orders, jammed into the city in a kind of scavenger hunt for anything usable that the Americans had left behind. Sixteen 105mm Armored Field Artillery Battalions (105mm SP): The 58th, 59th, 62nd, 65th, 69th, 83rd, 87th, 93rd, 253rd, 274th, 275th, 276th, 400th, 440th, 695th, and 696th; Seventeen 4.5" gun battalions: The 172nd, 176th, 198th, 211th, 215th, 259th, 770th, 771st, 772nd, 773rd, 774th, 775th, 777th Colored, 935th, 939th, 941st, and 959th; It should be noted that the HHB, 65th Field Artillery Brigade at Utah National Guard, a unit formerly assigned to the 40th Infantry Division was redesignated as V Corps Artillery and also landed at Normandy on D-Day. A few tanks, light armed reconnaissance troops, most of the division engineers, and considerable rifle strength struck through the dark against the eastern arc of the loosely organized American ring. In the early morning of 23 December Remer gathered a truck-mounted battalion of armored infantry, put some tanks at their head, and started them for Hinderhausen, with the intention of cutting south across the rear of the Americans. Access to the Poteau-Vielsalm route in the north or the Beho-Salmchteau route in the south was no longer possible. had ordered. At Commanster a traffic jam started. East of the village American infantry and engineers were aided by friendly gunners, for the 434th Armored Field Artillery Battalion had received some ammunition when the trains came in and its forward observers were well posted. 87th infantry division museum The 106th Division now could report, "We have CCR headquarters had meanwhile become ensnarled with the remnants of the 14th Cavalry Group and the residue of the corps artillery columns at the little village of Poteau, where the roads from Recht and St. Vith join en route to Vielsalm. The 164th Regiment, advancing opposite the southern flank of CCB, reported success while moving unopposed through Maspelt and across ground which had been abandoned the previous night, but at a crossroads in the Grufflange woods American shells suddenly poured in and the advance came to a dead stop. Lucht, therefore, was ordered. As usual, attempts to bring up the horse-drawn caissons past the armor only resulted in more delay and confusion. The enemy grenadiers and gunners refused to stay put. with the engineers, ordnance, and quartermaster people on the spot. After a hasty meeting of his corps staff the XVIII Airborne commander sent. The addition of the 7th Armored Division to the XVIII Airborne Corps had contributed greatly to the phenomenal expansion of a corps front which measured only some twenty-five miles on 19 December but which represented a sector of approximately eighty-five miles on the evening of 20 December. The formation adopted by CCA was based on a semicircle of ten medium tanks fronting from northwest to east, backed by tank destroyers and with riflemen in a foxhole line well to the front. On the whole it appeared that the north flank of the St. Vith force shortly would be battened down at its western terminus and that the danger of a German turning movement there had been removed. By this time both Hoge's and Clarke's combat commands were under attack. The detachment which Jones had sent to Gouvy, midway between Deifeld and Chrain, was surprised to find the village occupied by German infantry. At an earlier and more optimistic hour this company had been dispatched to Houffalize with orders to make a counterattack southward to relieve the pressure on Bastogne. The 18th Volks Grenadier Division, on the right, had fed the foot troops of its 295th Regiment in between the Mobile Battalion, deployed around Wallerode, and the 294th, astride the St. Vith-Schnberg road. The liquidation of the Schnee Eifel pocket had freed the last elements of the LXVI Corps for use at St. Vith; General Lucht now could concentrate on the reduction of that town. The letter, safely delivered, gave the First Army its first definite picture of events in the far-removed St. Vith sector: I am out of touch with VIII Corps and understand XVIII Airborne Corps is coming in. Thus far the 2d SS Panzer Division had not been located. At the same time Company A of the 38th Armored Infantry Battalion fired into their ranks from the front. Although no major disruption had occurred in the ring defense, the night attacks had developed cracks in the line at Crombach and in the valley of the Braunlauf which would widen under a little more pressure. It had become embroiled with the 112th This opening had been partially covered by the advance southeastward of the 82d Airborne Division, but a gap of some five miles still existed north of the Chrain outpost set up by Task Force Jones. 369th Adjutant General Battalion "Army Pride" Air Defense Artillery units 1 to 100 1st Air Defense Artillery (formerly 1st Coast Artillery) "Primus Inter Pares" (First Among Equals) 2nd Air Defense Artillery (formerly 2nd Coast Artillery) "Fidus Ultra Finem" (Faithful Beyond The End) 3rd Air Defense Artillery (formerly 3rd Coast Artillery) To the left the two remaining regiments of the 62d were to attack due west with the object of reaching the road between St. Vith and Maldingen; they would take no part, however, in the assault on St. Vith. There had been no contact whatever with the 424th Infantry to the south. The task force pulled back into the village and hastily prepared a defense around the dozen or so houses there, while to the north a small cavalry patrol dug in on a hill overlooking the hamlet and made a fight of it. on the main road, was launched late in the day but was repulsed by the American artillery. Having convinced the corps commander that direct attack on St. Vith from the east was no longer feasible, Remer tried to make good on his own favored plan for an armored flanking attack in the north even at the risk of a piecemeal effort. The Americans had blown the bridge and fallen back through Salmchteau to the lines of the 82d, whereupon a few of the Germans crossed the river and entered the village. During the earlier lull the enemy infantry worked through the thick woods, penetrating the thin and disordered American line at a number of points. The St. Vith salient, where the 7th Armored Division was to remain on the defensive during the XVIII Airborne advance, was confronted with growing German forces on three sides. With the arrival of the assault guns some attempt was made to probe the American defenses east of St. Vith. The situation at Grufflange was so confused that neither Americans nor Germans reacted to the fight there, either to seal off the sector or to continue the penetration. Early on the afternoon of the 17th the 440th Armored Field Artillery, leading the column, entered Malmdy, only to be greeted with the sign THIS ROAD UNDER ENEMY FIRE. Some of the Germans made it to the houses and defended themselves. But that the XVIII Airborne Corps lacked the strength to close the gap of thirteen road miles between the VIII Corps and itself (that is, the gap between the 7th Armored Division detachment at Chrain and the elements of the 101st Airborne at Foy) was rapidly becoming apparent to all. But some Germans filtered into town from the north and started hunting down the American tanks and assault guns. Only two medium tanks were barring the road. Since the shift would leave Hoge's northern flank open, it was agreed that contact between the two combat commands would be re-established at Bauvenn, necessitating that Hoge's left be pulled back some two thousand yards. Then too, it appeared that the enemy was concentrating in Recht and might try an attack through Poteau to Vielsalm. tank destroyers from the 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion, waiting on the reverse slope, caught the first wave of four Panthers in their sights, fired seven rounds, and knocked out all four. One of the heaviest and longest-sustained barrages the veteran American combat command had ever encountered tied the troops of CCB to their foxholes, and even there tree bursts claimed many a victim. By this time Task Force Jones was The few houses here were separated by an abandoned railroad cut, just south of the crossroads, which ran east and west. a slim connection remained between the 7th Armored Division rear installations By this time the last of the milling traffic was leaving Poteau; eight 8-inch howitzers of the 740th Field Artillery Battalion were abandoned here as the German fire increased, ostensibly because they could not be hauled out of the mud onto the road. The entire force under Generals Hasbrouck and Jones was to form a defensive ring west of St. Vith and east of the Salm River. On the movement of the main body of the 7th Armored Division on 17 December hung the fate of St. Vith. It was on this estimate that General. An opportunity had been missed. and the sizable attached units all would have to make their westward As yet the enemy forces passing to the north and south had failed to Mayes's group moved out from the crossroads at first light on 18 December but had gone only some two hundred yards when flame shot up from the leading light tank and an armored car, the two struck almost simultaneously by German bazooka fire. The high ground commanding Chrain, seven miles northeast of Houffalize at the junction of the roads from Vielsalm and St. Vith which led to that town, was organized for defense without enemy hindrance. The main danger, apparent since 19 December, was the open south flank of the St. Vith defense hanging on the air at Holdingen. These were placed under the command of Maj. J. L. Mayes as a task force to comply with the orders from division. The town square was a scene of utter confusion. stocks at Gouvy Station east of the village proper, but this fact was In fact, however, there was little left of the 106th; so responsibility tended to devolve on the junior commander, Hasbrouck. General Clarke, the CCB, 7th Armored Division, commander, could do little to influence the course of the battle. gap in a column on any one of the roads would be serious. He is getting infiltration in his rear from the vicinity of Recht. Vith.". Corps toward Bastogne and Houffalize, had the troops and the maneuver This sector was under Lt. Col. William H. G. Fuller (commanding officer of the 38th Armored Infantry Battalion), whose command consisted of four companies of armored infantry, Troop B of the 87th Reconnaissance Squadron, and some four hundred men remaining from the 81st and 168th Engineer Combat Battalions (the men who had taken the first enemy blows at St. Vith), backed up by a tank company and a platoon of self-propelled 90-mm. At Poteau, five miles from the river, CCA stood facing the enemy to north, east, and south. Units to south have apparently been by-passed by some Boche. command post, lacking any communication with the 7th Armored headquarters, The center regiment of the 62d Volks Grenadier Division (the 190th), charged with seizing the high ground in the thick forest east of Grufflange, did get one battalion under way in the morning and succeeded, in overrunning an armored infantry platoon and three tank destroyers belonging to CCB, 9th Armored. The second attempt, just before Colonel Duggan finally gave the order to retire down the road to Vielsalm. Hasbrouck earlier had been "suspicious" of what was happening in the northern sector around Recht and Poteau, but he was no longer too apprehensive after the successive march groups of the 1st SS Panzer Division had bounced off the 7th Armored Division roadblocks. Stone's group was incorporated in Task Force Jones. CCR maintained its cordon along the valley road. Actually there were only three Shermans on the main road, remnant of a reserve platoon which had been commandeered when the initial tank support had decamped. 780 Field Artillery Battalion YORK, E. T. 8. The new defense ordered by Clarke began to form shortly before midnight. some time around 1300 telling Hasbrouck that the withdrawal east of The division, assembled about fifteen miles north of Aachen, had taken no part as a unit in the November drive toward the Roer, although companies and battalions on occasion had been attached to attacking infantry divisions. The 7th Armored Division Move to St. Vith, When the counteroffensive began, the 7th Armored Division (Brig. Tanks of the Fuehrer Begleit Brigade, theoretically attached to the LXVI Corps but subject to commitment only on army orders, would not be released for use at St. Vith until too late for a successful coup de main. Then, too, the artillery belonging to the division had been turned inward against the Schnee Eifel pocket on 18 December; only one battalion got up to the Schnberg-St. Vith road.5. As the intermingling of roadways at St. Vith had made it possible for the defenders to bar the way west, so now this knot in the Belgian-German road prevented a quick transfer of men and guns in pursuit. drive by this time were twenty-five airline miles to the southwest of The village itself was garrisoned by the service company of the 48th Armored Infantry Battalion and some drivers belonging to the battalion whose vehicles were parked there. 2d Plat, Battery C, 226th AAA SL Bn 8 Feb 45-12 Feb 45. Description. My right flank is wide open except for some reconnaissance elements, TDs and stragglers we have collected and organized into defense teams at road centers back as far as Cheram [Chrain] inclusive. While Boylan took on the Germans, Lohse's column circled. hand, the bulk of the 23d Armored Infantry Battalion appeared to reinforce He decided, therefore, to flank the St. Vith defenses from the north as soon as his brigade, scheduled to arrive on 20 December, was in hand. The southern force of CCB, 7th Armored, under Colonel Wemple, was next to go, the plan calling for a move south through Braunlauf and onto the route traveled by Hoge's columns. Corps and division artillery was brought forward piece by piece whenever a break in a traffic jam occurred, but the appearance of these horsedrawn guns in the motorized columns only succeeded in further disrupting the march order. The St. Vith perimeter, now of substantial size, continued General Clarke took a hand here as a kind of super traffic cop until the jam cleared. This gambit was succeeded by a fifteen-minute artillery concentration; as it raised westward the main German attack moved forward. nonexistent, even by radio. . Colonel Nelson, commanding the 112th Infantry, had sent a radio message After 30 years and learning the computer and finding VetFriends, I went to my first reunion of the USS Navasota AO-106. columns pushing past Houffalize. In a long distance Bad road conditions, the blown bridge at Steinebrck, and continued attempts by Sixth Panzer Army columns to usurp the corps main supply road at Schnberg combined to delay Lucht's concentration. The American gunners in the groupment west of Lommersweiler immediately answered the cavalry call for aid, apparently with some effect; yet within the hour at least a part of the twenty-two enemy guns counted here were in action, firing in preparation for an assault across the river. Well to the rear of the 1st SS Word of this, handed down by Colonel Ryan who had been at the VIII Corps headquarters in Neufchteau and had worked his way back to the division trains, caused a little confusion as to the exact status of the units attached to the 7th Armored Division. The 424th and 112th Infantry Regiments were to withdraw from their positions. The section of the main St. Vith-Vielsalm supply road west of Rodt was guarded by two American medium tank companies spread over a distance of three miles. the regiment now was between five and six hundred), and had been unable About 0800 the Panthers engaged the small covering force at Hinderhausen. The division artillery might be in firing position by the morning of the 20th. Also, the transmittal of the 7th Armored Division's own estimate of its possible progress was subject to "friction." This is crossed by the road to Schnberg, which then dips into the Our valley and follows the north bank of the river until the Schnberg bridge is reached, approximately six miles from St. Vith. 922nd Battalion. received reinforcement late in the afternoon when a company of the 112th Infantry appeared. Bauvenn, no more than a jog in the road, lay three-quarters of a mile north of the natural corridor through which flowed the Braunlauf Creek, the corridor at whose eastern entrance the enemy had attacked the night before in severing. The western column made its march without coming in proximity to the west-moving German spearheads, its main problem being to negotiate roads jammed with west-bound traffic. other officers set to work to organize a breakout. Even so, a number of vehicles mired and had to be abandoned at the soft banks of a small stream. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. Lt. Col. Fred M. Warren, acting commanding officer, sent the driver on to division headquarters to tell his story, and at the same time he asked for a company of infantry. The 440th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, unable to reverse itself, turned west to Stavelot and subsequently joined the western group on its way to Vielsalm. A little later a company of German infantry was detected marching north along the valley toward Chrain. At noon the situation was critical, the village was raked by fire, and the task force was no longer. Battery C had been assigned to support the 112th Infantry and with the consent of the latter shifted its 155-mm. Army Service No. Vith.) Battalion, at the tail of the column, rolled through Stavelot about 0800 on the morning of 18 December, it found itself in the middle of a fire fight between the advance guard of the 1st SS Panzer Division and a small American force of armored infantry, engineers, and tank destroyers. It is surprising that under the circumstances control and communication functioned as well as they did. made but was checked by fire from the American tank guns and mortars. under way in the 7th Armored zone, Rodt was the junction point between CCA, still holding the division north flank, and CCB, raising a new line along the low hill chain that extended south of the village. narrow defile cut by the Salm River. The first phase of the withdrawal had been auspicious. Rosebaum asked for The second German assault was made in a more methodical manner. The front held by the 7th Armored Division, CCB of the 9th Armored, and attached units by this time had expanded to about thirty-two miles. two companies from the 14th Tank Battalion (Maj. Leonard E. Engeman) and one from the 811th Tank Destroyer Battalion took over the fight. Colonel Nelson his executive officer, Col. William F. Train, and a few But the process of disentangling this mass of men and vehicles was speeded up considerably during the afternoon when the 402d and 485th Squadrons (370th Fighter Group) winged their bombs onto the city and its approaches. An attack from Bastogne to the NE will relieve the situation and in turn cut the bastards off in rear. The southern route, through Recht and Vielsalm, was assigned to a kampfgruppe of the 1st SS Panzer Division made up of a reinforced panzer grenadier regiment and a battalion of assault guns. CCB, 7th Armored Division, be it remembered, was a battle-tested outfit of superior morale-as was the entire division-so credit also must go to the unnamed officers, noncoms, and men who withdrew in good order to the new line. The roads to be used were few and in poor state, Shortly after midnight the Ninth Army was informed that the two columns would depart at 0330 and 0800; actually the western column moved out at 0430. While it is true that an outline or trace of the subsequent St. Vith perimeter was unraveling on the night of 17-18 December, this was strictly fortuitous. in communication with any other Americans. A double column of enemy troops and vehicles marched along the road into St. Vith. 61 Lake Avenue, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866 Phone: (518) 581-5100 | Fax: (518) 581-5111. Like the probing thrust at Hnnange, the German efforts on the road east of St. Vith during 18 December were advance guard actions fought while the main German force assembled. Battalion Overseas World War II commander and ready to fight bastards off in rear surprising that under circumstances... After a hasty meeting of his corps staff the XVIII Airborne commander sent from... December hung the fate of St. Vith, when the counteroffensive began, the CCB, 9th Armored move... Of an enemy force far to the St. Vith, when the counteroffensive began, the village was by! 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