The leading companies of the two German assault regiments began crossing the Sauer before dawn. 4th Infantry Division troops dash across a Bailey bridge while under enemy fire near Moesdorf, Luxemborg, January 21, 1945. The platoon from Company A, 12th Infantry, which had been posted on Hill 313 the day before, fell back to Scheidgen and there was overwhelmed after a last message pleading for tank destroyers. This was the last effort. This turned out to be only a patrol action and the enemy was quickly beaten off. L and I completely surrounded." The enemy made no move to push deeper in the center. J. C. Kolinski got up, ran back to a truck, fixed a round, and fired it from a howitzer still coupled to the truck. 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. 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. Southern France 15 August - 14 September 1944 The 8th Armored Division was activated on 1 April 1942 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, with "surplus" units of the recently reorganized 4th Armored Division and newly-organized units. In Echternach Company E, 12th Infantry, had occupied a two-block strongpoint from which it harassed the German troops trying to move through the town. Here the company was found to be in good spirits, supplied with plenty of food and wine, and holding its own to the tune of over a hundred of the enemy killed. Perhaps these German divisions faced from the onset the insoluble tactical dilemma, insoluble at least if the outnumbered defenders staunchly held their ground when cut off and surrounded. The immediate objective of the northern regiment, the 423d, was the plateau on which stood the village of Berdorf; beyond this the regiment had orders to cut the road running west from Lauterborn and Echternach and link forces with the 320th Regiment. the battalions was severed. The first German assault here did not strike until about 1100, although Echternach lay on low ground directly at the edge of the river. 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. 1st Infantry Division Leake's force had only one .50-caliber machine gun and a BAR to reinforce the rifles in the hands of the defenders, but the Germans were so discouraged by the reception given their initial sorties that their succeeding attempts to take the building were markedly halfhearted. 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. The enemy infantry would outnumber the Americans opposing them in the combat area, but on 17 December the Germans in the bridgehead would meet a far greater weight of artillery fire than they could direct against the Americans and would find it difficult to deal with American tanks. 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). At the same time he gave Colonel Chance eight medium tanks and ten light tanks, leaving the 70th Tank Battalion (Lt. Col. Henry E. Davidson, Jr.) with only three mediums and a platoon of light tanks in running order. Outpost 2 at Birkelt Farm, a mile and a half east of Berdorf, somehow escaped surprise. 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. The Battle of the Pusan Perimeter (Korean: ) was a large-scale battle between United Nations Command (UN) and North Korean forces lasting from August 4 to September 18, 1950. 1940. The American makeweight would have to be its armor. Accordingly, the 316th Infantry began to cross the Sauer, moving up behind the center of the parent division. 8th Armored Casualty Figures Casualty figures for the 8th Armored Division, European theater of operations: Total battle casualties: 2,011 Total deaths in battle: 469 Also included are units of the 8th and 9th Army Air Forces. When the German artillery opened up on the 12th Infantry at H-hour for the counteroffensive, the concentration fired on the company and battalion command posts was accurate and effective. 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. On the second day of the battle both sides committed more troops. Osweiler now had a garrison of one tank company and four understrength rifle companies. to join the two companies beleaguered in Osweiler. For the 106th Infantry Division, the Opening of the Bulge was a Death Blow. Company C, 70th Tank Battalion, now had eight tanks in running condition and these were hurried to Breitweiler to reinforce the cavalry and engineers. After a short melee in the darkness American hand grenades discouraged the assault at this breach and the enemy withdrew to a line of foxholes which had been dug during the night close to the hotel. World War I [ edit] The 87th Division was a National Army division, made up of draftees from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. General Barton had warned his regiments at 0929 to be on the alert because of activity reported to the north in the 28th Division area, intelligence confirmed by a phone call from General Middleton. The 9th Armored Division loaned a medium tank company from the 19th Tank Battalion, also to report to the 12th Infantry on the following morning. Company E, in Echternach, likewise was surprised but many of the outpost troops worked their way back to a hat factory, on the southwestern edge of the city, which had been organized as a strongpoint. . 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 wounded were left in Berdorf and the task force tanks, hampered by milling civilian refugees, began a night-long fire fight with the 2d Battalion, 423d Regiment, which had concentrated to capture Consdorf. The failure to open the divisional bridges over the Sauer within the first twenty-four hours had forced the German infantry to continue to fight without their accustomed heavy weapons support even while American reinforcements were steadily reducing the numerical edge possessed by the attacker. 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. 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. Although the German penetrations on the left and in the center of the 12th Infantry sector deepened during the day, the situation on the right was relatively encouraging. Replacements, now by order named "reinforcements," joined the division, but by mid-December the regiments still averaged five to six hundred men understrength. Initially activated in January 1918, the unit did not see combat during World War I and returned to the United States. As yet no American troops had had opportunity to try the mettle of the 212th (Generalmajor Franz Sensfuss). Then, so the plan read, CCA would advance in three task forces: one through the Schwarz Erntz gorge; one on the Consdorf-Berdorf road; and the third through Scheidgen to Echternach. Company G, now some forty men, and the last of Riley's tanks withdrew to the new main line of resistance. 8th Infantry Casualty Figures Casualty figures for the 8th Infantry Division, European theater of operations: Total battle casualties: 13,986 Total deaths in battle: 2,852 The 3d Battalion and its reinforcements had "a semblance of a line" to meet further penetration in the vicinity of Osweiler and Dickweiler. $20.00 + $3.90 shipping. New. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. 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. General Patton, commanding the Third Army, to which the VIII Corps was now assigned, gave General Morris a provisional corps on 19 December, composed of the 10th Armored Division (-), the 9th Armored, the 109th Infantry, and the 4th Infantry Division. Artillery, normally the first supporting weapon to be brought into play by the division, had very limited effect at this stage. . Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. It should be added that Seventh Army divisions suffered as the stepchild of the Ardennes offensive, not only when bridge trains failed to arrive or proved inadequate but also in the niggardly issue of heavy weapons and artillery ammunition, particularly chemical shells. In December, 1944, the gorge represented a formidable military obstacle, difficult of traverse for both foot troops and vehicles, capable of defense by only a few. For this reason the 212th was assigned the mission of protecting the flank of the Seventh Army, just as the latter was responsible for guarding the flank of the forces in the main counteroffensive. others a few hours in Luxembourg City, ice cream in several flavors, well-watered beer, and the dubious pleasure of hearing accordionists squeeze out German waltzes and Yankee marching songs of World War I vintage. Task Force Riley sent tanks carrying infantry into the edge of Echternach on the morning of 19 December. Consdorf, the command post of the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, was left open to an attack from Mllerthal up the Hertgrund ravine. At dark the Germans had lost. The team from Task Force Standish had made little progress in its house-to-house battle in Berdorf. The defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. 10th, 51st, and 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions 8th, 35th, and 37th Tank Battalions 22nd, 66th, and 94th Armored FA Battalions . Company E, which had about seventy men and was the strongest in the battalion, led off. Apparently some troops went at once into the line, but the actual counterattack was postponed until the next morning. About three hours before dawn, General Barton, concerned over his left flank, dispatched the 4th Engineer Combat Battalion and 4th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop to Breitweiler, a small village overlooking the wishbone terminus of the Schwarz Erntz gorge and the ganglia ravine roads which branched thence into the 12th Infantry flank and rear. Company F was mounted on tanks from the 19th Tank Battalion, which had just come in from the 9th Armored Division and also set out for Osweiler. Both sides were forced to rely largely upon radio communication, but it would appear that the Germans had particular difficulty: prisoners reported that "nobody seems to know where anybody else is.". Thirty minutes later the answer came back from CCA: a section of tanks and some riflemen were fighting at the outskirts of Echternach. The 4th Division switched all local. About forty men were wounded, creating a problem for evacuation by this small force. 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. In Dickweiler the troops of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, had been harassed by small forays from the woods above the village. The 4th Division would not be left to fight it out alone. Elements of Task Force Standish were strafed by a pair of German planes but moved into Berdorf against only desultory opposition and before noon made contact with the two companies and six tanks already in the village. 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. 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. His outfit would launch a gas filled balloon tethered to a ground-based winch. 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. Finally the enemy had control of most of the northern section of the road net between the Sauer River and Luxembourg-but it was too late. 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 tank-infantry counterattack by Task Forces Standish and Riley in the Berdorf and Echternach areas also resumed. By nightfall the situation seemed much improved-despite the increased pressure on the 4th Division companies closely invested in the north. Company A, mounted on a platoon of light tanks, was ordered to open the main road to Lauterborn and Echternach which supplied the 2d Battalion (Maj. John W. Gorn). Paul H. Dupuis, the senior officer in Echternach, refused on the ground that General Barton's "no retrograde movement" order of 16 December was still in effect.3 As darkness settled in, the small relief force turned back to the mill north of Lauterborn, promising to return on the morrow with more troops. The Americans dug in for the night, and the Germans passed on toward Scheidgen. their motors cut and caught the enemy on the slopes while the engineers moved in with marching fire. Major Gorn organized a hasty defense with a few cooks, MP's, stragglers, and one tank, but the blow did not fall. Battle of the Bulge. December 1944. Troops from the 320th Regiment and fusilier battalion circled around Echternach and Lauterborn meanwhile in an attempt to cut the main road at Scheidgen. Two later attacks on New Year's Day 1945 attempted to create second fronts in Holland (Operation Schneeman) and in northern France (Operation Nordwind ). These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. 2nd Infantry Division, BOBA veterans to attend 8ARMDD Monument Dedication in Carlisle, PA. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. Five tanks and two companies of the 159th Engineer Combat Battalion, which Barton had located on the road job as promised by Middleton, then launched a surprise attack against the Germans on Hill 313, overlooking the road to Lauterborn. The superiority in tanks maintained by the 4th Infantry Division throughout this operation would effectively checkmate the larger numbers of the German infantry. The 35-mile front assigned to the 4th Division conformed to the west bank of the Sauer and Moselle Rivers. 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