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. 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. Finally, a little after dark, Companies B and F (12th Infantry), ten engineers, and four squads of armored infantry loaded onto. It was activated at Camp Pike, Arkansas on 25 August 1917. Equipment, which had been in use since the Normandy landings, was in poor condition. By early afternoon, however, a new threat was looming in the Consdorf area, this time from an enemy penetration on the right along the Scheidgen section of the main highroad to Echternach. 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. Sharp assault destroyed the German machine gun positions and the attack reached the ridge leading to Hill 329. Colonel Luckett deployed his troops along the ridge southwest of the Mllerthal-Waldbillig road, and a log abatis wired with mines and covered by machine guns was erected to block the valley road south of Mllerthal. This was the last effort. 1st Infantry Division Thirty minutes later the answer came back from CCA: a section of tanks and some riflemen were fighting at the outskirts of Echternach. a mystery. two months later, was redeployed to thwart the German offensive during the Battle of the Bulge. 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. 3D Armored Division "Battle of the Bulge" memorial, Houffalize, Belgium; 3D Armored Division monument, Fort Indiantown Gap . 1940. December 1944, was a month that would be forever seared into John Schaffner's memory. Go to https://www.militaryvideo.com/ to purchase the entire video, or to see movie trailers of over 700 other military videos.This 9. 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. This OOB specifically, at a point near the end of the battle, which lasted from 16 December 1944 until 25 January 1945. There was, of course, no means by which the VIII Corps commander could know that the Seventh Army scheme of maneuver was limited to a swing only as far as Mersch, eight miles north of the city. $8.99. Unfortunately rain and snow, during the days just past, had turned the countryside to mud, and the tanks were bound to the roads. With wire shot out, radios failing, and outposts overrun, only a confused and fragmentary picture of the scope and intent of the attack was available in the 4th Infantry Division headquarters. Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. Troops of the Third Army were already on the move north, there to form the cutting edge of a powerful thrust into the southern flank of the German advance. In the fire fight which followed the 2d Battalion companies became separated, but the early winter darkness soon ended the skirmish. Picture Information. Losses and stragglers, however, had reduced the American infantry companies, already understrength at the opening of the battle. Thus both Osweiler and Dickweiler remained tight in American hands. 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. Enemy artillery had interdicted many of the roads in the area and had been very effective at Berdorf. . It was 0530 on a wintry Saturday morning, December 16, 1944. In the face of the German build-up opposite the 12th Infantry and the apparent absence of enemy activity elsewhere on the division front, General Barton began the process of regrouping to meet the attack. 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. Either these sets failed to function or the outposts were surprised before a message could get out. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. At Berdorf most of Company F (1st Lt. John L. Leake) had been on outpost duty at the four observation posts fronting the river. Although the fighting on 19 December had been severe on the American left, a general lull prevailed along the rest of the line. 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. As before, the maneuver was a flanking movement designed to seize the high ground overlooking Mllerthal. The defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. New. The 35-mile front assigned to the 4th Division conformed to the west bank of the Sauer and Moselle Rivers. 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. Apparently the assembly of the 316th Regiment behind the 212th Volks Grenadier Division center was completed during the day. The right wing was held by the 99th Infantry Division, whose positions reached from Monschau to the V-VIII Corps boundary in the Buchholz Forest northwest of the Losheim Gap. However, there was a present danger that the large German force might turn the 4th Division flank by a successful attack through the 9th Armored Division blocking position at Waldbillig. It is likely that the enemy had spotted all the American outpost and artillery positions; it is certain he knew that the 212th Volks Grenadier Division would be opposed only by the 12th Infantry during the first assault phase. Even so General Barton made careful disposition of his understrength and weary division, even ordering the divisional rest camps, originally back as far as Arlon, to be moved to sites forward of the regimental command posts. At 1330 a report reached the 12th Infantry that Company E had gotten out. The Americans had strengthened the Osweiler-Dickweiler position, but the Germans had extended their penetration in the 12th Infantry center. . It was too late. The American counterattack on the 19th, then, first would be opposed by infantry and infantry weapons, but would meet heavier metal and some armor as the day ended. Despite the presence of the tanks, which here could maneuver off the road, the infantry were checked halfway to their objective by cross fire from machine guns flanking the slope and artillery fire from beyond the Sauer. The Germans had cut the road back to Consdorf; so the right team of Task Force Standish was withdrawn from the attack on Hill 329 and spent most of the afternoon clearing an exit for the men and vehicles in Berdorf. 1944. 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. More specifically, the Seventh Army plans called for the 212th to attack over the Sauer on either side of Echternach, reach and hold the line of the Schlammbach, thus eliminating the American artillery on the plateau in the Alttrier-Herborn-Mompach area, and finally to contain as many additional American troops as possible by a thrust toward Junglinster. 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 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. In six days (through 21 December, after which the Americans would begin their counterattack) the units here on the southern shoulder lost over 2,000 killed, wounded, or missing. Higher German headquarters had anticipated the appearance of some American reinforcements opposite the LXXX Corps as early as the third day of the operation. This team fought through some scattered opposition southwest of Lauterborn, dropped off a rifle platoon to hold Hill 313 (which commanded the southern approach), and moved through the village to the Company G command post, freeing twenty-five men who had been taken prisoner in the morning. In time of peace the gorge of the Schwarz Erntz offered a picturesque "promenade" for holiday visitors in the resort hotels at Berdorf and Beaufort, with "bancs de repos" at convenient intervals. The 320th had not reached Osweiler and the first assault at Dickweiler had been repulsed handily. These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. 8th Cavalry Regiment; Canadian Army Trophy (CAT) Divisional Cavalry & Reconnaissance; Infantry Unit Pages. Companies A and G together now totaled about a hundred officers and men. A few small affrays occurred in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector, but that was all. At the break of day on 17 December Company C, the 12th Infantry reserve, moved out of Herborn en route. The 12th Infantry was on the left (next to the 9th Armored Division) and fronting on the Sauer; the 8th Infantry was in the center, deployed on both the Sauer and Moselle; the 22d Infantry reached to the right along the Moselle until it touched the First and Third Army boundary just beyond the Luxembourg border. The drivers and gunners dived for cover and returned fire. Throughout this first day the 12th Infantry would fight with very poor communication. The 1st Battalion, 423d Regiment, overran three of the outpost positions, captured the company mortars, machine guns, and antitank guns sited in support of the forward detachments, and moved in on Berdorf. The two companies in Berdorf reported a combined strength of seventy-nine men, while the 2d Battalion of the 22d Infantry listed an average of only sixty in each company. In the meantime the 2d Battalion, 22 Infantry (Lt. Col. Thomas A. Kenan), had arrived in the 12th Infantry zone. Both flanks were nailed down, and the German attack seemed to have lost momentum. The action lasted for over three hours At last two howitzers were manhandled into a position from which they could cover the company; guns and vehicles were laboriously turned around in the mud, and the company withdrew. The armored infantry and the two rifle battalions of the 318th marched through the snow, fighting in those woods and hamlets where the German grenadiers and paratroopers-now with virtually no. A large-scale American counterattack against the LXXX Corps could be predicted, but lacking aerial reconnaissance German intelligence could not expect to determine the time or strength of such an attack with any accuracy. 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. In the first week of December the 4th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Raymond 0. Pole charges or bazooka rounds had blasted a gaping hole in one side of the hotel, but thus far only one man had been wounded. to widen the avenues of penetration behind the panzers. and command messages in addition to its own calls for fire. These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. The division commander now called off the attack and assigned Task Force Luckett the mission of denying the enemy the use of the road net at Mllerthal, a task which could be accomplished in less costly fashion. The 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, which had met the German column in the woods west of Osweiler the day before, headed for the village on the morning of 18 December. Task Force Chamberlain, whose tanks had given fire support to Task Force Luckett, moved during the afternoon to a backstop position near Consdorf. Half an hour later this report was denied; now a message said the company was coming out in small groups. When the Americans resumed the counterattack early on 19 December Task Force Luckett made another attempt to bring forward the extreme left flank in the gorge sector. While CCA, 10th Armored, gave weight to the 4th Division counterattack, General Barton tried to strengthen the 12th Infantry right flank in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector. 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