Immediately after the Battle of the Bulge, the tag "a calculated risk" would be applied to . The three tanks which had come up the evening before, and very effective fire by American batteries, put an end to these German efforts. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. The 2d Battalion of the 22d Infantry, in regimental reserve, was alerted to move by truck at daylight on 17 December to the 12th Infantry command post at Junglinster, there to be joined by two tank platoons. 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. antitank gun which had been placed here to block the gorge road. Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. and forward supply dumps in the Trier-Bitburg area. 10th, 51st, and 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions 8th, 35th, and 37th Tank Battalions 22nd, 66th, and 94th Armored FA Battalions . The Luxembourg-German border was easily crossed, and despite the best efforts of the American Counter Intelligence Corps and the local police the bars and restaurants in Luxembourg City provided valuable listening posts for German agents. With this reinforcement a new defensive line was organized on the hills just east of the village. A number of the divisional vehicles had broken down en route to Luxembourg; a part of the artillery was in divisional ordnance shops for repair. Early in the afternoon Company B mounted five light and five medium tanks and set out to reach Company F. At the southern entrance to Berdorf, which is strung out along the plateau road for three-quarters of a mile, the relief force ran into a part of the 1st Battalion, 423d Regiment, which opened bazooka fire from the houses. 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. The 8th Infantry Division, was an infantry division of the US Army during WW-14 and WW-2. This made the 8th the only division in US Army history to be designated Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Airborne). Meanwhile the sixty-some members of Company F remained in the Parc Hotel, whose roof and upper story had been smashed in by German shelling. The infantry and engineers belonging to Task Force Luckett were given this mission, advancing in the afternoon to bypass Mllerthal on the west and seize the wooded bluff standing above the gorge road north of Mllerthal. The problem of regimental control and coordination was heightened by the wide but necessary dispersion of its units on an extended front and the tactical isolation in an area of wooded heights chopped by gorges and huge crevasses. When the 4th Division reserves arrived in Breitweiler on the morning of 17 December the threat of a flanking move through the gorge was very real but the Americans had time to dig in. General Barton's headquarters saw the situation on the evening of 17 December as follows. His two divisions generally had reached the line designated as the LXXX Corps objective. Meanwhile the 7th Company, 423d Regiment, pushed forward to cut the Echternach-Luxembourg road, the one first-class highway in the 12th Infantry sector. The latter crossed east of Echternach, its first objective being the series of hills north of Dickweiler and Osweiler. American artillery, now increased in the 12th Infantry zone, gave as good support as communications permitted and succeeded in destroying a pontoon bridge at the Echternach site before it could be put in use. As soon as the Allies had broken out of the Normandy Beachhead, they pushed the Germans back rapidly until they had reached the German Frontier in November and December. Initially activated in Jan 1918, the unit did not see combat during WW-1 and returned to the USA. American shellfire finally drove the enemy away from the bank, necessitating a new effort in broad daylight farther to the north. Orders were radioed to Company E (a fresh battery for its radio had been brought in by the tanks) to fight its way out during the night. The following night all three regiments assembled behind a single battalion which acted as a screen along the Sauer between Bollendorf and Ralingen, the prospective zone of attack. The Battle of the Bulge. 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. The American makeweight would have to be its armor. 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. narrow that the tanks had to advance in single file, and only the lead tank could fire. their motors cut and caught the enemy on the slopes while the engineers moved in with marching fire. . Consdorf, the command post of the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, was left open to an attack from Mllerthal up the Hertgrund ravine. The VIII Corps commander originally had intended to use a part of the 10th Armored in direct support of the 28th Division, but now he instructed Morris to send one combat command to the Bastogne area and to commit the remainder of the 10th Armored with the 4th Infantry Division in a counterattack to drive the Germans back over the Sauer. 3D Armored Division "Battle of the Bulge" memorial, Houffalize, Belgium; 3D Armored Division monument, Fort Indiantown Gap . Ammunition at the pieces ultimately gave out, but a volunteer raced to the. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. A white-clad soldier from the 8th Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, with young German prisoners captured during fighting in the Sauer River sector. The Germans withdrew to some woods about 800 yards to the north, ending the action; apparently the 320th was more concerned with getting its incoming troops through Echternach. Barton's troops and Morris' tanks had brought the 212th and the 276th Volks Grenadier Division to a halt, had then withdrawn most of their advance detachments successfully, and now held a stronger position on a shortened line. Elsewhere on the VIII Corps front the enemy advance was picking up speed and reinforcements were rolling forward. Initially activated in January 1918, the unit did not see combat during World War I and returned to the United States. 4th Infantry Division troops dash across a Bailey bridge while under enemy fire near Moesdorf, Luxemborg, January 21, 1945. Losses and stragglers, however, had reduced the American infantry companies, already understrength at the opening of the battle. L and I completely surrounded." Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" The cemeteries are in Belgium and Luxembourg. The prospect must have brightened considerably at the 4th Division headquarters when the promise of this reinforcement arrived. The Americans dug in for the night, and the Germans passed on toward Scheidgen. Other troops of Task Force Standish returned to the attack at Hill 329, on the Berdorf-Echternach road, where they had been checked by flanking fire the previous day. There were 20 Infantry Divisions, 10 Armored Divisions and 3 Airborne Divisions that received the Ardennes Credit. The field artillery battalions were widely dispersed behind the various sections of the long 4th Division front; only fifteen pieces from the 42d Field Artillery Battalion and the regimental cannon company were in range to help the 12th Infantry. A few small affrays occurred in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector, but that was all. Actually, only a few men were stationed with the company command post in each village; the rifle platoons and weapon sections were dispersed in outposts overlooking the Sauer, some of them as far as 2,000 yards from their company headquarters. The first German shells came as a jolt. His outfit would launch a gas filled balloon tethered to a ground-based winch. While General Morris made plans to hold the ground needed as a springboard for the projected counterattack, General Beyer, commanding the German LXXX Corps, prepared to meet an American riposte. . Toward the close of day Company C of the 12th Infantry took position on some high ground between and slightly south of the two villages, thus extending the line here on the right. New. Morale was good, bolstered superbly by the company cook who did his best to emulate the "cuisine soigne" promised in the hotel brochures by preparing hot meals in the basement and serving the men at their firing posts. Formed in May 1918, it saw service in France several months later. The casualties suffered by Company E cannot be numbered, but have been reported as the most severe sustained by any company of the 4th Division in the battle of the Ardennes. 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. 8th Infantry Division "Pathfinder Division" "Arrow Division" Its nickname is represented by the golden arrow piercing the white "8" on a blue shield. No large-scale assault was attempted this day, apparently because the enemy was still waiting for guns to cross the river. The two were of one mind on the need for counterattack tactics and arranged that CCA (Brig. Three battalions of 155's and two batteries of 105-mm. The 4th Division and 10th Armored sought to disengage their advance elements and regroup along a stronger main line of resistance, and the enemy fought to dislodge the American foothold in Berdorf and Echternach. Gen. Edwin W. Piburn), the leading combat command, should make an immediate drive to the north between the Schwarz Erntz gorge and the main Echternach-Luxembourg road. 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. In February 1945, the division advanced into Germany, crossing the . New. During the night of 18-19 December the 9th Armored Division (-) withdrew to a new line of defense on the left of the 4th Infantry Division. This fact, combined with the American pressure on either shoulder of the penetration area, may explain why the enemy failed to continue the push in the center as 18 December ended. On the night of 13-14 December the 212th commenced to strip its extended front in concentration for its part in the counteroffensive. The Schwarz Erntz gorge lay within the 4th Infantry Division zone but in fact provided a natural cleavage between the 4th Division and the 9th Armored Division. 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 American artillery forward observer's tank was crippled by a bazooka and the radio put out of commission, but eventually word reached the supporting artillery, which quickly drove the enemy to cover. At Berdorf a team from Task Force Standish and a platoon of armored engineers set to work mopping up the enemy infantry who had holed up in houses on the north side of the village. Each regiment had one battalion as a mobile reserve, capable of moving on four-hour notice. Two tanks and two squads of riflemen continued along the main road to the hat factory at the southwestern edge of Echternach where Company E, 12th Infantry, had established itself. At the same time elements of the 276th Volks Grenadier Division struck through Waldbillig, the point of contact between the 4th Division and the 9th Armored, in an attempt to push the right wing of the LXXX Corps forward to a point where the road net leading east to the Sauer might be more easily denied the gathering American forces. As in the case of the 276th Volks Grenadier Division, there is no indication that the LXXX Corps expected to send the 212th into Luxembourg City, although the Germans knew that the 12th Army Group Headquarters and the advance command post of the Ninth Air Force were located there. eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of Consdorf. This time the tanks deployed on the roads and trails south of Berdorf and moved in with five riflemen on each tank deck. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. This advance was made across open fields and was checked by extremely heavy shellfire. The defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. arrived from the 9th Armored, the assault gun and mortar platoons of the 70th Tank Battalion, a battery of 105-mm. For the 106th Infantry Division, the Opening of the Bulge was a Death Blow. Troops of the 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry (Lt. Col. George Mabry), with tanks and armored field artillery firing in support, first attacked east from Waldbillig to take the wooded nose around which looped the Waldbillig-Mllerthal road. Scheidgen was retaken early in the afternoon virtually without a fight (the German battalion which had seized the village had already moved on toward the south). The burden of this advance was carried by battalions of the 320th Regiment (which explains the relaxing of pressure in the Osweiler-Dickweiler area), and the advance guard of the 316th Regiment which General Sensfuss had pried from the Seventh Army reserve by reporting the arrival of the 10th Armored Division. The fighting began 16 December 1944 and became the last offensive by Nazi Germany in World War II. It was 0530 on a wintry Saturday morning, December 16, 1944. The tanks rolled down the road from Scheidgen with. 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. Heavy and accurate shellfire followed each American move. Companies A and G together now totaled about a hundred officers and men. 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. 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. The two, last of the Americans to come out of Echternach, made the run safely despite direct fire aimed by the German assault gun. But Colonel Chance sent out all of the usable tanks in Company B, 70th Tank Battalion-a total of three-to pick up a rifle squad at the 3d Battalion command post (located at Herborn) and clear the road to Osweiler. It cannot now be determined whether the German agents (V-Leute), who undoubtedly were operating behind American lines, had correctly diagnosed the beginning of the Third Army shift toward Luxembourg and Belgium, or, if so, whether they had been able to communicate with the German field headquarters. In any case, about 800 German prisoners were taken and nonbattle casualties must have been severe, for German commanders later reported that the number of exposure and trench foot cases had been unusually high, the result of the village fighting in which the defender had the greater protection from cold and damp. General Middleton regarded the German advance against the southern shoulder of his corps as potentially dangerous, both to the corps and to the command and communications center at Luxembourg City. By 1130 the remainder of Company G, armed with rifles and one BAR, was surrounded but still fighting at a mill just north of the village, while a platoon of the 2d Battalion weapons company held on in a few buildings at the west edge of Lauterborn. The Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944 - January 18, 1945) . Osweiler, west of Dickweiler, thus far had seen no enemy. Troops from the 320th Regiment and fusilier battalion circled around Echternach and Lauterborn meanwhile in an attempt to cut the main road at Scheidgen. At 1330 a report reached the 12th Infantry that Company E had gotten out. After suffering more than 6,000 casualties in heavy fighting in the Hrtgen Forest during the autumn of 1944, Maj. Gen. Norman Cota's 28th "Keystone" Division was sent to an area that First Army thought would be a quiet sector to rest and replace their losses. The slopes while the engineers moved in with marching fire while the engineers moved in five. 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