This fleshed out a more or less connected but thin line running as a semicircle from south of Recht to a point about a thousand yards east of St. Vith, then curving back to the southwest where the 424th Infantry and CCB, 9th Armored, met near Grufflange. The 106th Division now could report, "We have Even so, by the evening of 19 December the two infantry divisions of the LXVI Corps were in position to launch piecemeal attacks at or around St. Vith. Early on 19 December word reached General Jones by way of liaison officer that, as of the previous evening, the 112th Infantry was cut off from the 28th Division and had fallen back from the Our to the neighborhood of Weiswampach. the 2,500-yard-long column on the valley road when word passed down Through most of the confusion and immobility characterized the St. Vith bottleneck. to pull out of Salmchteau. They had met an entire German corps flushed The roads to be used were few and in poor state, The attacking troop assembled in Wallerode toward midmorning where they offered wonderful targets for the artillery supporting CCB, 7th Armored. Several of the American fighting vehicles were destroyed before they could return fire. A brace of 90-mm. Communications were gone and he had no reserves. A perimeter defense by units cut off from the rest of the XVIII Airborne Corps was a very temporary expedient; the ground now occupied, in the opinion of the local commanders, could not be held for long. During the night of Some held where they were; some stampeded blindly through the woods in search of an exit to the west. General Clarke took a hand here as a kind of super traffic cop until the jam cleared. Around 1400 the German guns and Werfers opened up against Fuller's positions in front of the town. 8 Cavalry Rgt BAUGH, EDWARD RODOLPH. 141st Field Artillery World War, 1939-1945--Military personnel--American. By mid-afternoon the enemy had reached the 168th Engineer positions less than two miles from St. Vith. Wemple's task had been complicated by the events of the night, since the Germans had. orders I ever issued," the 7th Armored commander sent his "division reserve" -two tank destroyers-hurrying south from Vielsalm. While Boylan's men took positions to defend Hinderhausen against attack from Rodt, Lohse's heavy column formed to enter the trail at Hinderhausen. Connecting the Bllingen and Schnberg approaches a spider web of secondary roads and trails ran back and forth, centering at the hamlet of Wallerode (two miles northeast of St. Vith) behind which lay a large forest. In any case the German armored reserve was not available. Date Created. In the course of the night battle at St. Vith the German assault units had become badly scrambled. Although troops of the 18th Volks Grenadier Division or the 9th SS Panzer Division fired on Boylan as his detachment reached the river, they made no attempt to rush the bridge-a fortunate circumstance, as it turned out, for when the 82d Airborne engineers tried to blow the bridge the charge failed to explode. squadron being formed from the remains of the 14th Cavalry Group. 803 Engineer Battalion, Aviation (Separate) RECTOR, PAUL J. Add an answer. of the 38th Armored Infantry line. The losses sustained by the defenders of St. Vith must be measured To counter this threat the light tank platoon moved into Steinebrck, leaving the American left uncovered. had just crossed the river west of Cierreux and started feeding into Between Rodt and the next village to the west, Poteau, two companies of medium tanks patrolled the main road and watched the trails running in from the north. after concentration against the enemy thrusting against the 38th and The gap between Hoge's command and CCB, 7th Armored, which at dark had been 3,000 yards across, closed during the night when a light tank company and an anti-aircraft battery came in. The three task forces organized along the new line nominally represented a total of five medium tank companies, a. light tank company, three platoons of 90-mm. The loss here of the four armored infantry companies would be keenly felt by CCB, 7th Armored Division. That the enemy was prepared to contest this move all intelligence reports affirmed. Early on the 18th, Lt. Col. Augustine Duggan, senior of the remaining staff, intercepted elements of the 18th Squadron, part of Troop C, 32d Squadron, and the one remaining platoon of towed 3-inch guns from the 820th Tank Destroyer. From these Jones learned that both regiments had begun It was about an hour before noon. 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. Clarke would hold as long as possible east of the town, but with both combat commands in its streets St. Vith was an obvious trap, It was decided, therefore, that Hoge should pull his command back during the coming night to a new line along the hills west of the railroad running out of St. Vith, thus conforming on its left with CCB, 7th Armored. The 7th Armored commander, at Hoge's request, got Middleton to cancel the order, and CCB, 9th Armored, subsequently was taken under the First Army command. 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. In a matter of minutes German infantry and tanks were to the rear of the foxhole line. This decision rested with Field Marshal Montgomery, the newly assigned commander of all Allied forces north of the German salient, who had been authorized by the Supreme Commander to give up such ground as was necessary in order to assemble sufficient strength for a decisive counterattack. Unit Casualty List By Last Name Unit Casualty List By Date Army BBS howitzer, to fire only on the most urgent and well-defined targets. After some confusion in getting through the Fuehrer Begleit Brigade around Rodt on the morning of 23 December, the 293d continued along the road to Poteau. The traffic jam thus created was made worse by the horde of officers and men driving American vehicles captured in the Schnee Eifel who were grimly determined to hang onto their loot. By noon the situation was such that the little group of troopers dared delay no longer. At 2000 the battle along the Schnberg road flared up again. The decision was left to General Hasbrouck, who first was to consult with the 106th Division as to how and when his leading combat command would be employed. Nelson waited for three hours for the division order to withdraw (a At the forward command post of the 7th Armored in Vielsalm, the Division G-4 (Lt. Col. Reginald H. Hodgson) sent a message back to Colonel Adams, depicting the view of the situation taken by the St. Vith commanders and their staffs as the 19th came to a close: All division units holding firm. Using the church spire as a reference point the cannoneers of Battery C opened fire, their 155-mm. The 7th Armored Units to south have apparently been by-passed by some Boche. If you served in A Battery, 965th Field Artillery Battalion, Join TWS for free to reconnect with service friends. In the early evening CCB, 9th Armored Division, received orders to revert to the VIII Corps and move that same night to St. Hubert, seventeen miles west of Bastogne. Communication between the higher American headquarters and their subordinate units was sporadic and, for long periods, nonexistent. The fact that this attack, launched about 1630 by the German center and left, miscarried was due as much to the enemy's failure to locate the new line of, defense as to American resistance. When ordered back into the village the cavalrymen found it jammed with German infantry. Late in the afternoon a battalion of the 424th Infantry was added to the line, but as yet the enemy made no appearance in force in this sector. It would seem that a German rifle company first crossed into Weppler, now unoccupied, then wheeled and encircled the 2d Platoon on the hill. of firing moving west. By this time most of the 32d Squadron had threaded their way south through Poteau, apparently unaware that the group had established a command post there. The withdrawal of CCB, 7th Armored Division, last night from St. Vith was expensive. (thirty-five miles by road) was extremely difficult. 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. It was now about 1600 hours. CCB, 9th Armored, also made readjustments to meet the new situation. About a mile and a half to the east a large wooded hill mass rises as a screen. In the darkness, and with radios and wire no longer functioning, the first sign of the enemy armor was a volley of flares fired in flat trajectory from the Panthers. The southern advance, which had carried a mass In general, however, the battle was waning all along the eastern arc, bringing a brief respite to the men in the foxholes, now subjected to a freezing, blasting wind after hours of fighting in snow and slush. did much to check the grenadiers. An hour later the platoon west of the village saw an enemy column of horse-drawn artillery driving into position. The 969th Field Artillery Battalion was an African American United States Army field artillery unit that saw combat during World War II. When the American tanks rolled in from the east, two of the leaders were hit by antitank fire and left helplessly blocking the road. This optimism, as the record shows, was not shared by the commanders in the ring itself. Stone sent out one of his staff to try to line up some help; this officer discovered the command post of the 965th Field Artillery Battalion, near the town of Beho, and put forth the case of the Gouvy defenders "who were attempting to hold the line despite their not being trained infantrymen." Word that the St. Vith-Vielsalm road had been cut at Rodt reached Lt. Col. Vincent L. Boylan, Commanding Officer, 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, who took charge of the few troops of CCB remaining north of St. Vith on the wide open flank. On the left the bulk of the 62d Volks Grenadier Division was still confronted with an unbroken defense. the village, then funneled slowly into the woods. It was some hours later-and the Americans had decamped-when the 293d finally entered Poteau. In sharp fighting most of the mechanized force at the tail was destroyed. 7th Battalion, Somerset Light Infantry. named deputy commander of the 7th Armored. 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. West of St. Vith, in position to give close support, were located the 275th Armored Field Artillery Battalion (Lt. Col. Roy Udell Clay) and the remainder of CCB. Another small German detachment deployed in front of the engineers an hour later was engaged and was finally put to flight by American fighter planes in one of their few appearances over the battlefield on this day. One of the tank destroyers arrived just as a German tank platoon hove into sight at Cierreux, hit the two leaders, and drove off the five remaining tanks. 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. (See Map VII. 413th AAA Gun Bn (Mbl) 20 Dec 44-24 Dec 44. The closest of the northern armored routes, as these appeared on the German operations maps, ran through Recht, about five miles northwest of St. Vith. The VIII Corps passed to General Patton's Third Army during the 20th. Trucks loaded with soldiers and nurses from a nearby hospital, supply vehicles, and civilians of military age on bicycles eddied around the square in an attempt to get on the road leading out to the west; a battalion from a replacement depot threaded its way on foot between the vehicles, also en route to the west. The infantry, considerably disorganized, from a bazooka; the third tank and the infantry withdrew. It was on this estimate that General. Finally, in midafternoon, Colonel Nelson (commanding the 112th) appeared at the 106th Division command post and reported his situation, and the regiment was taken over by General Jones-a solution subsequently approved by General Middleton. American 90-mm. The light tanks and tank destroyers, earlier disposed at Cierreux, and now brought back to form the column rear guard, were spotted by German scouts and set upon in the dark by assault guns that lighted their targets with high velocity flares. VIII Corps has ordered me to hold and I will do so but need help. This, of course, was the panzer detachment of the 1st SS Panzer Division. Despite repeated requests by General Lucht, this brigade was not released to reinforce the LXVI Corps until late afternoon on 18 December.9 Colonel Remer reached the corps headquarters that same night, but the movement of his complete brigade from Daun via Prm to St. Vith would take considerable time. Colonel Nelson brought a welcome addition to the St. Vith forces. He is getting infiltration in his rear from the vicinity of Recht. When Stone took a look around he found himself in charge of a rail-head stock of 80,000 rations-which had been set ablaze by the depot guards-an engineer vehicle park, and 350 Germans in a POW cage. Corps toward Bastogne and Houffalize, had the troops and the maneuver Remer's orders were to join the LVIII Panzer Corps west of the Salm, and his immediate design was to reach the paved road leading to Salmchteau. Meanwhile the hours of darkness were slipping away. from the 423d Infantry (dispatched at noon on the previous day) finally In German plans the hub at St. Vith was important, but it was not on the axis of any of the main armored thrusts. All during the morning of 22 December American observers had watched enemy troops and vehicles milling around Recht, just to the north of Poteau. Information on the location of the enemy or the routes he was using was extremely vague and generally several hours out of date. On the morning of 20 December the Americans defending St. Vith held Three times the grenadiers He still hoped to counterattack and restore the line Malmdy-St. Vith. 09:17 NUTS! By this time the 7th Armored plans for the Schnberg attack were definitely off and a company from the 31St Tank Battalion joined in the affair. To the northeast the troop from CCB which originally had held the left wing of the St. Vith sector around Hnningen was still in position; as yet it had not sustained any heavy blows. Hours out of date until the jam cleared to general Patton 's Third Army during the night since... Village saw an enemy column of horse-drawn Artillery driving into position this move all intelligence reports.! Traffic cop until the jam cleared that the enemy was prepared to contest move... 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