This move particularly threatened Company F, which was on the ridge road three miles north of Bastendorf (the 2d Battalion command post), and which represented the northern linchpin of the regiment. The 2d Platoon of the 707th's Company C, supporting Companies F and G of the 109th, was refueled and resupplied during the night. In the center of the 9th Armored sector the 60th Armored Infantry Battalion headquarters at Beaufort discovered that the enemy had cut in between the headquarters and the three companies of armored infantry in the line.7 Six armored cars counterattacked and cleared the high ground north of Beaufort but were unable to drive the Germans from the woods behind the isolated companies. Through most of the 17th the defenders held on against infantry attack from the west and German assault guns attacking from the north on the Skyline Drive. Company B, now missing the platoon sent with the Hoscheid task force, moved a short distance along the road between Tandel and Führen but likewise was checked. Each combat command was a combined arms military organization of comparable size to a brigade or regiment and loosely patterned after the German combined arms approach to mechanized warfare. In any case there was considerable confusion and delay on the east bank, and few or none of the rubber assault boats landed on the American side before 0630. Nonetheless the Seventh Army commander was well pleased with the advance made by his right wing. General Middleton had just finished speaking to Maj. Gen. John W. Leonard, the 9th Armored commander, and had promised a battalion from the incoming 80th Infantry Division to fill the gap between Leonard and Rudder. The situation on the flanks in the CCA sector also was unfavorable to the Americans. The division artillery lacked the motors to accompany a rapid advance, and fire support would be given by the assault guns and a regiment of Volks artillery. At daybreak Company A and its tank platoon resumed attempts to break through Longsdorf and open the road to Führen, but by 0845 mortar and machine gun fire had pinned down the infantry five hundred yards short of Longsdorf. Mayer went missing in action on December 17, 1944. South of the village of Wallendorf, where the Our flows into the Sauer, the 276th Volks Grenadier Division would push into the narrow segment of the Sauer front held by the 60th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 9th Armored Division (-), then fan out against the left flank of the 12th Infantry. The only definite mission given the 276th was to gain the high ground across the Sauer, dislocate the American artillery positions around Haller, and form the western extension of the blocking line which the LXXX Corps was to present to any American thrust aimed at the southern pivot of the great counteroffensive. At best this position amounted to a thin screen with numerous gaps; so a slim reserve was created consisting of two engineer platoons and a dozen assault guns. Troops of the 914th Regiment had arrived in the bridgehead late in the day with orders to form a link between the 915th and 916th, now widely separated, and to mop up the pockets of American resistance wherever found. The attack was launched by the 1st Platoon of “B” Company, 14th Tank Battalion, with a group of some 20 infantryman commanded by the S-2 of the Armored Infantry, and the enemy surrendered at about 1500 hours. The counterattack was to be made by two task forces. Colonel Rudder phoned the 28th Division chief of staff about 2000, told him that the 109th might be cut off and surrounded, and suggested that he should pull his regiment back to the southwest across the Sauer to cover the left flank of the 9th Armored Division. During the late afternoon the enemy, who earlier. Here Company A was deployed in the woods above the Sauer with observation on the river but with insufficient strength to block the numerous ravines running up the wooded heights. This force was relieved by infantry and armored units from the 7th Armored Division at 1700 hours. “C” Company maintained this roadblock until 1800 hours on the 24th of December. The hard fact remained that the German infantry, masked by the accidents of the rugged Our country, had achieved considerable success in exploiting the gaps between the village strong-points. The unseen enemy, firing behind the cover of huge boulders and trees, had the upper hand; at dark a platoon of cavalry assault guns laid down a protective barrage and the American task force withdrew to the hills flanking the exit from the Waldbillig-Müllerthal defile. The 109th "could fight it out . Five hundred officers and men had been lost in the three-day battle; of the heavy infantry weapons only one section of 81-mm. At 1410, while the fight was in progress Colonel Rudder asked for and received permission to pull his regiment together on the high ground around Diekirch; this withdrawal, however, already was in progress. Although the penetration was checked, the dual attempt to relieve Führen made no headway. In the 109th sector proper the battle during 17 December turned on attempts to relieve Company E (Capt. Books published 12. If this plan were successful the 5th Parachute Engineer Battalion would ferry the assault companies across the Our, then join the advance and reach the Wiltz sector with ferrying equipment by the end of the first day. About 0900 the division chief of staff gave Colonel Rudder permission to withdraw the two companies for use as a reserve. At Ermsdorf, which had been the linchpin on the northern flank, elements of the 1st Battalion, 986th Regiment, brought up mortars and attacked. The 14th Parachute Regiment, badly disorganized in the series of village fights at Hoscheid and elsewhere, was pulled together and sent marching to the Clerf River. The 15th Regiment drive through Walsdorf marked the most extensive penetration of the 109th Infantry positions on this first day. not yet under his command), but Rudder was in contact with the enemy and could not risk the disorganization attendant on a change in plans at this point. On the east side of the river, however, American bombers had. When the 2d Infantry Division turned over its area to the 106th it had taken its armored support, Combat Command B, 9th Armored Division, north to the V Corps sector. The 916th Regiment found the going much more difficult than its northern sister regiment. “C” Company, 14th Tank Battalion, supported by mortar fire from the battalion’s mortar platoon, successfully counterattacked this formation. The Columbus Dispatch Article 11. By noon the attack threatened to overrun the company and infiltration had taken place at several points, the German movements hidden by the dense pine. The 27th Armored Battalion was deployed in the center with the 14th Tank Battalion’s Medium Tank Companies at either flank. The troopers were supported by six halftracks from Company A, 482d Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, mounting the deadly quadruple .50-caliber machine guns, but the half-tracks found it impossible to maneuver in the heavy woods. While the assault gun was immobilized, the tank from “A” Company, 14th Tank Battalion, had needed only minor repairs and was mobile. With these heavy weapons the advance guard of the reserve regiment, the 914th, appeared on the west bank to take a hand in the fight. It would seem that the German gunners were firing by the map (there had been numerous changes of position in this area which were unknown to German intelligence) and the opening barrage shortly dwindled away to occasional salvos without inflicting much damage or disrupting communications. mortar platoon when this shifted to meet the assault. Combat Command "B", 9th Armored Division (CCB, 9AD) was in an assembly position in the vicinity of Faymonville – Ligneuville, Belgium. After a platoon of tank destroyers shelled the house, a volunteer squad of seven noncoms from Battery A, 482d Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, made the assault with Tommy guns and hand grenades. Ambulance Detachment, 581st Ambulance Company. In honor of their World War II service, the 9th was officially nicknamed the "Phantom Division." Starting at 0500, this area came under intense small arms and artillery fire. Thus the 5th Parachute Division engineers wiped out the 2d Battalion outpost in the château ruins at Vianden before any warning could be sent out. on Führen from the south. At 1000 hours, during the ensuing fire fight, the antitank guns were destroyed but two of Company “A’s” tanks were lost. of the 14th, the Americans therefore found no enemy. The 212th Volks Grenadier Division, acting as the southern pivot for the entire German counteroffensive, would cross the Sauer in the Echternach sector and drive head on against the 12th Infantry. The Attack by the German Left Wing Resupply and evacuation were the chief concern of the 109th Infantry on the night of 17-18 December, particularly the problem of getting ammunition to the tanks and Companies E and F. Carrying parties were used and tanks employed to bring up supplies and evacuate the wounded. The right flank of the 9th Armored, although none too secure, at least was outposted. Small arms firing immediately followed by larger caliber tank weapons occurred within ten minutes after the warning was received. The Americans fired flares onto the east bank in an attempt to discover the purpose behind the heavy concentration of German artillery, but no certain word of enemy troops reached the 109th command post at Ettelbruck until about 0900 when Company B reported that a 20-man patrol had assaulted the outpost near Hosdorf. On the division south flank, the 3d Battalion (Lt. Col. Jim H. McCoy) was allotted a four-mile front, but had concentrated men and weapons in an almost continuous 3,000-yard defense line along the heights in the triangle formed by the Our and Sauer Rivers which overlooked the valley road west to Ettelbruck. Contributions from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions, and the 28th Division’s 109th and 687th Field Artillery Battalions provided needed firepower. This left the Tank Company isolated. Troop B, 89th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, came up to reinforce Company B, 811th Tank Destroyer Battalion, whose 76-mm. Early in the afternoon German guns opened up on the Diekirch positions (the artillery regiment of the 352d had just come into position west of the Our), and those elements of the 915th and 916th Regiments which the 352d commander could personally gather were thrown into a series of piecemeal assaults. Forward artillery observers with the 27th Armored Infantry called for time fire, and two sections of “B” Company of the 482nd AAA Battalion opened up with their quadruple mounted .50 caliber machine guns. This fire, combined with that of “A” an “C” Companies of the 27th Armored Infantry, caused very heavy casualties, and toward dark the enemy withdrew. During the morning, contact with the Germans was lost. The 14th Parachute Regiment had orders to cross the Our in the north near Stolzembourg, drive past Putscheid and seize a crossing point on the Wiltz someplace west of Hoscheid. Against this supposedly limited force the CCA commander mustered his remaining men, assault guns, and armored vehicles for a counterattack to reestablish contact with the three isolated companies "and drive the enemy into the river." Subsequent attacks were made against the Infantry, Reconnaissance, and Tank positions at 1115 hours, 1210 hours and 1600 hours. Colonel Rudder called on the meager armored reserve allotted him by Cota (the 1st Platoon of Company C, 707th Tank Battalion), sending it north from Diekirch about 1300 to check the 915th thrust. guns. At 0530 on the morning of 16 December the guns and rocket projectors of the German Seventh Army opened fire, signaling the attack across the Our and Sauer Rivers. Several other members of the 14th Tank Battalion’s trains were captured in this action. General Hoge, CCB, 9th Armored Division, and General Clarke, CCB, 7th Armored Division, agreed that in the event CCB, 7th Armored Division had to withdraw to the west of St. Vith, CCB, 9th Armored Division would be isolated to the east because of a railroad embankment, and its only route of withdrawal would be trough St. Vith. Regiment took advantage of the wide gap between the two strongpoints manned by Companies E and F of the 109th, its leading battalion marching without a fight to Walsdorf, an unoccupied village about two miles from the river. C.C.B. The Germans finally had opened the western Sauer valley and driven an entering wedge between the 9th Armored Division and the 109th Infantry. A rememberance pageto the Battle of the Bulge, December 16th 1944 - December 16th 1999. At 1300 the tank platoon at the battery positions on the Hoscheid road hooked up the artillery pieces and started south. 16-20 December. The 9th Armored Traded Blood For Time In a Heroic Battle Against Nazi Forces. Company E, which had served to deflect some pressure from the 3d Battalion by its stubborn defense at Führen, was no longer in the fight. This last maneuver, however, was not a mandatory part of the Seventh Army plan. Patrols that went out to the front and flanks found nothing in the dangerous gap between Ermsdorf and Diekirch but drove off a German patrol which was moving south from Eppeldorf, not west into the gap. After the Battle of the Bulge, the 9th Armored Division re-organized and then returned to active operations in February 1945. At the close of the second day the 109th still was holding tenaciously but against increasingly heavy attack. During the late. The 107th and 108th Field Artillery Battalions, emplaced near Bissen, answered the enemy guns and gave what protection they could to the marching infantry. Since the 9th Armored Division was in this sector with a force equivalent only to a combat command, Leonard's reserves consisted of one tank battalion (the 19th), a company from the divisional engineers, a battery from the 482d Aircraft Artillery Battalion, most of the 89th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, a company of self-propelled tank destroyers, and two reconnaissance platoons belonging to the 811th Tank Destroyer Battalion. Despite the poverty of forces allotted Brandenberger's Seventh Army, the Fuehrer was prepared, as always, to expect the impossible. of establishing a bridgehead at Echternach on the Sauer River, then undertaking a limited advance to the southwest. By midafternoon the 2d Battalion of the 915th Regiment, which had bypassed Bastendorf earlier, was pressing in on that battery and Battery A, 108th Field Artillery, emplaced nearby. The 276th, however, could not count on accompanying gun support for its infantry since no assault guns had been supplied. German efforts to achieve a real penetration on the left flank were less successful than on the right. Part of one battalion circled into the sharp valley where the Our and Sauer meet, intending to seize Hill 402 (southwest of Bigelbach), which offered the best observation in the vicinity. In this weak portion of the line, defense was based on two strongpoints of rifle company strength, one on a ridge road about a mile and a half west of Vianden and the Our River, the other at Führen about a mile from the river. Meanwhile the twenty-five men left in Company A had withdrawn from the Longsdorf road under cover of indirect fire laid down by two tanks which formed a rear guard. Only a few days before the attack Heilmann warned Model that the 5th Parachute Division was only a Class IV outfit, but Model, who by now must have been surfeited with complaints on lack of equipment and insufficient training, merely replied that success would be won by the paratroopers' "usual audacity.". In this instance, however, the military axiom that a commander who is worried about the enemy may reflect on the worries besetting the enemy commander, was proven by the event. These orders came too late, for an hour and a half earlier this task force had been ordered to the aid of a battery of the 107th Field Artillery north of Diekirch. Here, during daylight hours, the attackers had literally been "blown all over" (as American observers reported) by the howitzers firing from Savelborn and the guns on three headquarters tanks. At one point in the planning period Hitler envisaged these four divisions as forming a blocking line all the way from the German frontier to Charleville on the Meuse. howitzers (which the 707th Tank Battalion had organized as an assault gun platoon) and three regular mediums. The chief problem, however, was not so much that of establishing a homogeneous front as of jarring the Americans loose from the heights at the Sauer-Our triangle. Most of his infantry and two divisional artillery battalions were well forward, which would make any withdrawal extremely difficult at best because only a single road led south from Wahlerscheid. Late in the day Company E radioed for ammunition and rations. “The humanity and intelligence that made Greg Fontenot a great soldier also make him a first-rate historian. Here the 109th faced north, forming the westernmost segment of the still firm south shoulder of the VIII Corps line. On 19 December, then, Dempwolff reorganized his regiments, moved artillery and rocket projectors forward, and gave his troops food and rest. Along this winding front, a distance of some thirty miles, the opponents would be matched at the first shock approximately as follows. The compromise solution that moved one much depleted battalion of the 109th southeast to make contact at Stegen gave General Leonard's tanks some badly needed infantry protection but could hardly deflect any determined enemy thrust around the left flank of the 9th Armored Division. Division, because this division, under peremptory orders from its commander, had continued the westward advance through the night, the forward troops defiling into the Kautenbach bridgehead. Bridge work at Gentingen went badly on the first day. The Battle of the Bulge was the largest land battle in US military history, fought in Luxembourg and Belgium during the winter of 1944-1945. Some were quietly bypassed as the German shock companies moved quickly inland. General Leonard borrowed the 90th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (less three troops) from the 4th Infantry Division zone, where a part of its parent organization, the 10th Armored Division, had initiated counterattacks the previous day. Under cover of the attached tank platoon roadblock at Bastendorf the companies fell back to Diekirch. Headquarters Company with 16 cooks, clerks and mechanics, to aid “D” Company against enemy infiltrating bazooka teams. Word that Winterspelt was no longer in friendly hands reached CCB, 9th Armored Division just as the two leading rifle companies started moving to the Our River. Battle of the Bulge. The 352d Volks Grenadier Division succeeded in crossing a few tanks and assault guns, as well as more light artillery. Strict orders had arrived from the Seventh Army headquarters, located at Ingendorf (a little village southwest of Bitburg), that the 352d must start the attack rolling once more and take possession of the vital crossings at Ettelbruck. After the war he admitted that the Wehrmachtfuehrungsstab would have been satisfied to see the Seventh Army advance only half the distance between Echternach and Luxembourg City.1, When Brandenberger and his chief of staff, Generalmajor Rudolf Freiherr von Gersdorff, finally were allowed to map their own scheme of maneuver they settled on a containing mission for the two infantry divisions in the left corps (General der Infanterie Franz Beyer's LXXX Corps), and an advance by the two infantry divisions on the right which comprised General der Infanterie Baptist Kniess's LXXXV Corps. E radioed for ammunition and rations “ D ” Company maintained this roadblock until 1800 hours on night... 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