Cemeteries & Memorials; Burial Search; About Us; Education; Facebook; Twitter; YouTube; Instagram; ABMC Headquarters 2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 500 Arlington, VA 22201 Phone: 703-584-1501. This fresh armored division was in fact moving its main strength west from Recht toward the Salm River and collision with the 82d Airborne Division, but a kampfgruppe had been dropped off to cover the south flank of the division by attacking in the direction of Vielsalm. General Hodges' answer, dispatched at 1230, stated: For the first time since forming the St. Vith perimeter the force there knew what measures were under way for its reinforcement or relief as well as the precise status of command within the force. First Army intelligence sources carried word of an enemy force building up here south of the 30th Division, a matter of considerable concern to Generals Ridgway and Hobbs by the night of 20 December. Actually CCR of the 7th Armored, on the eastern route, came very close to colliding with the leading tank column of the 1st SS Panzer Division south of Malmdy but cleared the road before the Germans crossed on their way west. The 275th, reinforced by the 16th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, and three batteries of corps artillery, fired through the night to interdict the eastern approaches to St. Vith; this was all the artillery support remaining to the American troops in this sector. west from Rodt. The southern advance, which had carried a mass failed when the 4.5-inch guns of the 770th Field Artillery Battalion were cut off at Samre en route from La Roche. Description. It was located along the German-Belgium border, and was about 50 square miles. Both American units were able to drive forward and the Shermans knocked out six light panzers or assault guns. American 90-mm. As the leading tank platoon hove in sight of Poteau it came immediately under small arms and assault gun fire. 19 December the bulk of the 1130th Regiment, 560th howitzers to give Stone's men a hand. Around 1500 the mobile column of the Fuehrer Begleit Brigade appeared in front of Rogery. Supply routes to the 7th Armored Division trains were still open, although menaced by the roving enemy and obstructed by west-moving friendly traffic. Prisoners had reported that the Grossdeutschland Panzer Division, previously identified on the Eastern Front, had joined the LXVI Corps before St. Vith. 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. these units had carried out a successful withdrawal under the most difficult With the arrival of the assault guns some attempt was made to probe the American defenses east of St. Vith. the easternmost position of any organized nature in the center sector Stone then organized a defense. At Poteau, five miles from the river, CCA stood facing the enemy to north, east, and south. Already the advance guard of this force had pushed beyond Samre. Much of the area here described was covered with dense stands of timber spaced irregularly with clearings between. Just north, the wing of the 82d Airborne defense running west to the Baraque de Fraiture crossroads (and junction with the 3d Armored Division) rested on the Salm River. 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. back to Vielsalm: the 112th had withdrawn to Huldange, thus coming closer to the 7th Armored and 106th. CCR headquarters started down. The problem involved in extricating and reforming these units was enhanced by the natural desire of the German soldiers to make the most of this opportunity to sleep for a little while in warm billets. By noon most of the 424th Infantry and Wemple's force were across the Salm. But Hasbrouck had no doubt that General Middleton counted on the continued defense of the St. Vith road center-this part of the mission needed no reiteration. ABMC Headquarters 2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 500 Arlington, VA 22201 Phone: 703-584-1501 The fact was that the 62d Volks Grenadier Division had thrust a force through the woods and along Braunlauf Creek into the gap between the two combat commands. The threatened sector remained the line from Poteau to St. Vith, and from St. Vith along the eastern front covered by CCB, 7th Armored, and CCB, 9th Armored. The most advanced elements of the German He cannot protect Poteau. liaison officer with such an order had left Hasbrouck's command post The division commander, General Hoffmann-Schnborn, did try a piecemeal attack on the high ground north of the Schnberg road with the intent to seize the St. Vith railroad station. Silhouetted in light and with blinded crews the Shermans were disposed of in one, two, three order. The German column at Poteau, however, made no attempt to drive on to Vielsalm. 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. This, one of his division commanders opined, was easier said than done. 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. by the 168th Engineers the previous day. 806 Bomb Squadron (446 Bomb Group) led a company of tanks and another of armored infantry into St. Vith. 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. While Boylan's men took positions to defend Hinderhausen against attack from Rodt, Lohse's heavy column formed to enter the trail at Hinderhausen. The real punch in the forthcoming attack would be delivered by the tanks belonging to the Fuehrer Begleit Brigade. The motorized rifle battalion, now led by an assault gun company, headed south toward the road center at Beho, found it free of American troops, and there joined a part of the 62d Volks Grenadier Division. Communications were gone and he had no reserves. Heuem, they reported, was in enemy hands and a German column was heading straight for St. Vith. This gambit was succeeded by a fifteen-minute artillery concentration; as it raised westward the main German attack moved forward. For some reason this attack never fully developed-later German reports indicated that the assault waves lost their direction while moving through the thick woods. General Ridgway estimated that Hasbrouck's troops would have fourteen hours of darkness in which to make their getaway. 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. (It will be remembered that the 18th Volks Grenadier Division was charged with the encirclement and capture of St. Of the force originally commanded by Colonel Fuller in the eastern sector only some two hundred escaped, and half of these had to be evacuated for wounds or exhaustion. It would seem that a German rifle company first crossed into Weppler, now unoccupied, then wheeled and encircled the 2d Platoon on the hill. The homogeneity of the battalion, in American practice the basic tactical unit, largely ceased to exist, nor did time and the enemy ever permit any substantial regrouping to restore this unity. Free shipping for many products! (See Map VII. Using the church spire as a reference point the cannoneers of Battery C opened fire, their 155-mm. It was now about 1600 hours. on the westward movement of troops, guns, tanks, and supplies belonging after concentration against the enemy thrusting against the 38th and Task Force Lindsey, whose cavalry and infantry had screened the main withdrawal of the southern segment of the ring, had come under damaging shell-fire as the 62d Volks Grenadier Division artillery got into position. The enemy took the village quickly, and with it many of the half-tracks belonging to the 48th Armored Infantry Battalion. Thus far CCA had no contact with CCR headquarters and its scratch force to the west at Petit Thier because the road from Poteau was under fire. In the late afternoon of the 23d the single company of the 112th Infantry at the eastern end of the Salm River bridge had been attacked by a larger force from the 62d Volks Grenadier Division. The time now was midafternoon. Covered by one reconnaissance platoon and the cavalry assault guns, sited near the bridge, the remaining platoons of Troop D had left their positions and started filing toward the Steinebrck-St. Vith road when suddenly the movement order was canceled. The entire force under Generals Hasbrouck and Jones was to form a defensive ring west of St. Vith and east of the Salm River. Krag decided to shift his advance toward Salmchteau and there possibly link up with friendly forces he knew to be coming from St. Vith. Finally, late in the evening, a radio message Infantry at Sevenig, had suffered intensely (the fighting strength of CC A (3d Armd Div) 10 Jul 44-16 Jul 44. north, south, and west. Observation was poor-the 18th was a day of low-hanging 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. They come back to the more secure positions. This move brought the grenadiers across open ground and under flanking fire from American tanks located by the railroad underpass just north of St. Vith. Despite a brush with Remer's group and the loss of several tanks in the swampy ground south of Rodt the command reached Crombach and Hinderhausen, where General Clarke was building a second line of defense. Corps toward Bastogne and Houffalize, had the troops and the maneuver Faced with the problem of organizing and integrating a defensive line which had come into being piecemeal and with little regard to the integrity of the tactical units involved, the Americans divided command responsibility along easily discerned map features. Back to Unit. Subscribe to 465th Field Artillery Battalion Footer menu. The bend in the Our River near Steinebrck necessitated a switch The road to Spa and the First Army headquarters, albeit roundabout and hazardous, remained open on the morning of the 20th. True, Kampfgruppe Peiper had been pretty well bottled up on the corps left wing; but this effort had been made by thinning the line between Malmdy and Trois Ponts. 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. The battalion landed at Utah Beach during Operation Neptune, and participated in the liberation of France and Belgium. Through most of the confusion and immobility characterized the St. Vith bottleneck. The artillery battalions of the 7th Armored Division were in firing positions north and east of Vielsalm at the close of 18 December. were abandoned-their crews shelled out by accurate enemy concentrations 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. In midmorning of 20 December the Germans in the village deployed skirmishers and began a fire fight to test the American strength around the station. A little later a company of German infantry was detected marching north along the valley toward Chrain. The mass of artillery, cavalry, and supply vehicles moving painfully through St. Vith to the west-with and without orders-formed a current almost impossible to breast. The Fuehrer Begleit Brigade, whose tanks were supposed to add new punch to operations of the infantry corps, was still strung out along the jammed and miry roads east of St. Vith. Undetected, a German rifle company reached Neubrueck, in the valley southwest of Bauvenn, where the command post of the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion was located. 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. The fir trees interlocked at their low branches so everyone had to stoop all the time. The 106th Division now could report, "We have 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. 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. 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. 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. Additional infantry units, tank destroyers, and badly needed artillery were on their way to reinforce Ridgway's command, but the enemy force in opposition was strong and at most points along the extended front the initiative remained in German hands. This optimism, as the record shows, was not shared by the commanders in the ring itself. Confusion, darkness, and mud slowed the move, but by morning a medium tank company and a platoon of riflemen had reached the village. As the size and direction of the first enemy effort began to assume some shadowy form on the situation maps in the corps and division headquarters, General Middleton advised the 106th Division commander that he could use the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, which was engaged in routine duties around St. Vith and Vielsalm. At Recht were located the command post of CCR and the rear headquarters of CCB, with the 17th Tank Battalion assembled to the southeast. around the Schnee Eifel barrier to the net which fanned out toward the General Hoge conferred with General Jones at St. Vith and the two decided that the combat command should withdraw from the river northwest to slightly higher ground. Division, previously identified on the Eastern front, had joined the LXVI Corps before St. Vith and of... For some reason this attack never fully developed-later German reports indicated that the Grossdeutschland Panzer Division, identified. 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