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 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. The two were of one mind on the need for counterattack tactics and arranged that CCA (Brig. World War I [ edit] The 87th Division was a National Army division, made up of draftees from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. Night had come, Echternach was swarming with Germans, and the 10th Armored Division headquarters had ordered all its teams to reassemble behind the 4th Division lines preparatory to moving "in any direction." In Dickweiler the troops of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, had been harassed by small forays from the woods above the village. This house-to-house assault gained only seventy-five yards before darkness intervened. The team from Task Force Standish had made little progress in its house-to-house battle in Berdorf. 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. Troops from the 320th Regiment and fusilier battalion circled around Echternach and Lauterborn meanwhile in an attempt to cut the main road at Scheidgen. 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. and forward supply dumps in the Trier-Bitburg area. This company struck Lauterborn, on the road a mile and a half southwest of Echternach, and cut off the Company G outposts. The accompanying infantry were under constant bullet fire; and when the lead tank was immobilized by an antitank projectile some time was required to maneuver the rest of the column around it. 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. 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. Task Force Riley sent tanks carrying infantry into the edge of Echternach on the morning of 19 December. On October 9, the 1st Battalion, 120th Regiment, 30th Infantry Division, was ordered to take part in an afternoon attack on the fortified village of Birk, three miles north of Aachen. 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. 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. By now the German artillery was ranged inaccurately. What had been seen were troops of the 987th Regiment, the reserve regiment of the 276th Volks Grenadier Division, then attacking in the 9th Armored Division sector. After two hours, and some casualties, a patrol bearing a white flag worked its way in close enough for recognition. On the second day of the battle both sides committed more troops. The five medium tanks drove through to the northeastern edge and just before noon began shelling the Parc Hotel in the mistaken belief that it was held by the enemy. 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. Of the 4th Division, it must. This advance was made across open fields and was checked by extremely heavy shellfire. 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. The division saw extensive action in . eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of Consdorf. At dark the Americans drew back to the hotel, while the Germans plastered the area with rockets, artillery, and mortar shells, lobbed in from across the river.2. Unit commanders and noncommissioned officers were good and experienced; morale was high. Normandy; Northern France ; Heavy and accurate shellfire followed each American move. . 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. The engagements at Geyershof and Maisons Lelligen were comparatively minor affairs, involving only small forces, but German prisoners later reported that their losses had been severe at both these points. Other elements of Task Force Riley meanwhile had advanced to the mill beyond Lauterborn where the command post of Company G was located. 3D Armored Division "Battle of the Bulge" memorial, Houffalize, Belgium; 3D Armored Division monument, Fort Indiantown Gap . The latter crossed east of Echternach, its first objective being the series of hills north of Dickweiler and Osweiler. With the close of the second. Troops of the 8th Infantry Regiment move out over the seawall on Utah Beach after coming ashore on D-Day, June 6, 1944. 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. In the first week of December the 4th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Raymond 0. Further, the German inability to meet the American tanks with tanks or heavy antimechanized means gave the American rifleman an appreciable moral superiority (particularly toward the end of the battle) over his German counterpart. In accordance with the division orders to hold back maximum reserves, the 12th Infantry had only five companies in the line, located in villages athwart the main and secondary roads leading southwest from the Sauer River crossings to the interior of the Grand Duchy. When darkness fell the Americans still were held in check, and the infantry drew back, with two tanks in support, and dug in for the night. The first appearance of any enemy force deep in the center occurred near Maisons Lelligen, a collection of two or three houses on the edge of a large wood northwest of Herborn. As yet no American troops had had opportunity to try the mettle of the 212th (Generalmajor Franz Sensfuss). The Battle of the Bulge began with the German attack (Operation Wacht am Rhein and the Herbstnebel plan) on the morning of December 16, 1944. 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. Battle Casualties: 13,458 : Non-Battle Casualties: 7,598 : Total Casualties: 21,056 : Percent of T/O Strength: 149.4 : Campaigns. Through the night of 19-20 December Riley's tanks waited on the road just north of Lauterborn, under orders from the Commanding General, CCA, not to attempt a return through the dark to Echternach. arrived from the 9th Armored, the assault gun and mortar platoons of the 70th Tank Battalion, a battery of 105-mm. Consdorf, the command post of the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, was left open to an attack from Mllerthal up the Hertgrund ravine. No large-scale assault was attempted this day, apparently because the enemy was still waiting for guns to cross the river. With this reinforcement a new defensive line was organized on the hills just east of the village. Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. Most important, just before midnight the corps commander telephoned General Barton that a part of the 10th Armored Division would leave Thionville, in the Third Army area, at daybreak on 17 December. Three battalions of 155's and two batteries of 105-mm. Apparently the assembly of the 316th Regiment behind the 212th Volks Grenadier Division center was completed during the day. About an hour after dark a message from the 3d Battalion reached the 12th Infantry command post: "Situation desperate. In any event the LXXX Corps commander decided on the night of 19 December to place his corps on the defensive, his estimate of the situation being as follows. In the early days of the Battle of the Bulge John would find himself fa. 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. Brandenberger rated the 212th as his best division. Covered by this counterattack the battalion headquarters withdrew to Herborn. The professionalism and pride with which each unit preforms shows the true credentials of the 8th Infantry Division (M). 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). During the night of 16 December searchlights had been brought down to the river opposite Echternach to aid the German engineers attempting to lay spans on the six stone piers, sole relic of the ancient bridge from whose exit the people of Echternach moved yearly in the "dancing procession" on the feast of St. Willibrord. Late in the morning two enemy companies attacked Dickweiler, defended by Company I, but were beaten off by mortar fire, small arms, and a .50-caliber machine gun taken from a half-track. 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. This time the tanks deployed on the roads and trails south of Berdorf and moved in with five riflemen on each tank deck. 1944. It was his father's 47th birthdaya veteran who had served in France in the first War. At Lauterborn, however, they were told that the tanks could not be risked in Echternach after dark. 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. The 3d Battalion and its reinforcements had "a semblance of a line" to meet further penetration in the vicinity of Osweiler and Dickweiler. Go to https://www.militaryvideo.com/ to purchase the entire video, or to see movie trailers of over 700 other military videos.This 9. Morris had already dispatched one of his armored infantry battalions to help the 9th Armored in an attack intended to retake Waldbillig. were many seventeen-year-olds. antitank gun which had been placed here to block the gorge road. Half an hour later this report was denied; now a message said the company was coming out in small groups. 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. The stubborn and successful defense of towns and villages close to the Sauer had blocked the road net, so essential to movement in this rugged country, and barred a quick sweep into the American rear areas. By nightfall the situation seemed much improved-despite the increased pressure on the 4th Division companies closely invested in the north. US ARMY 1ST ID FIRST INFANTRY DIVISION PATCH BIG RED ONE 1 VETERAN FORT RILEY. Two later attacks on New Year's Day 1945 attempted to create second fronts in Holland (Operation Schneeman) and in northern France (Operation Nordwind ). Early in the day Company B and ten tanks from the 70th Tank Battalion renewed the attack at Berdorf in an attempt to break through to Company F, still encircled at the opposite end of the village. The 12th Infantry had rigidly obeyed the division commander's order that there should be "no retrograde movement," despite the fact that nine days earlier it had been rated "a badly decimated and weary regiment" and that on 16 December its rifle companies still were much understrength. Farther to the west another part of the German force which had come from Scheidgen surrounded the rear headquarters of the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, and a platoon of towed tank destroyers in Geyershof. On the final night (15-16 December) the division moved into the position for the jump-off: the 423d on the right, north of Echternach; the 320th on the left, where the Sauer turned east of Echternach; and the 316th in army reserve northeast of the city. Infantry replacements were particularly hard to obtain and many rifle companies remained at no better than half strength. Initially activated in Jan 1918, the unit did not see combat during WW-1 and returned to the USA. The first German shells came as a jolt. The Germans had excellent intelligence of the 4th Infantry Division strength and positions. On the left, the 8th Infantry Division fronted along the Kyll River line. There were 20 Infantry Divisions, 10 Armored Divisions and 3 Airborne Divisions that received the Ardennes Credit. The force available was insufficient to continue the attack. 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. And in and around Eisenborn, CCA, 10th Armored Division, was assembling to counter any German attack. His father was a truck driver with a balloon observation company. 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. The division served in World War I, World War II, and Operation Desert Storm. The elements of Task Force Riley, which had waited outside of Lauterborn through the night of l9-20 December in vain expectation that Company E would attempt to break out of Echternach, received a radio message at 0823 that Company E was surrounded by tanks and could not get out. J. C. Kolinski got up, ran back to a truck, fixed a round, and fired it from a howitzer still coupled to the truck. 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. The 12th Infantry commander already had given permission for Company E to evacuate Echternach, but communications were poor-indeed word that the tanks had reached Company E did not arrive at the 12th Infantry command post until four hours after the event-and the relief force turned back to Lauterborn alone. Since most of Task Force Riley by this time had reverted to the reserve, Lauterborn, the base for operations against Echternach, was abandoned. When the fire lifted the attack was resumed, but the enemy fought stubbornly for each house. 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. Later Barton phoned the corps commander to ask for reinforcements. 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. 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. When the Germans attacked, the 70th Tank Battalion, attached to the 4th Division, had only eleven of its fifty-four medium tanks in running condition. This delay brought the advance troops of the 320th onto the hills above Osweiler and Dickweiler well after daylight, and almost all of the American outposts were able to fall back on the villages intact. The Parc was a three-storied reinforced concrete resort hotel (indicated in the guide-books as having "confort moderne") surrounded by open ground. With every yard forward, bazooka, bullet, and mortar fire increased, but the enemy remained hidden. Despite its losses Company E drove on, clearing the Germans from the lower slopes before the recall order was given. Contact thus established, an assault was launched to clear Berdorf. Accordingly, the 316th Infantry began to cross the Sauer, moving up behind the center of the parent division. In late 1944, during the wake of the Allied forces' successful D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, it seemed as if the Second World War was all but over. 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. The 4th Infantry Division was reactivated at Fort Benning, Georgia as part of the U.S. Army buildup prior to the country's entry into World War II. When this little force reached Osweiler, word had just come in that Dickweiler was threatened by another assault. Both flanks were nailed down, and the German attack seemed to have lost momentum. His outfit would launch a gas filled balloon tethered to a ground-based winch. 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. The long southern flank of the old 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been drastically weakened to permit the concentration at Echternach. 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. Click on a link to access the respective web site. 8th Infantry Division The 8th Division was activated 1 July 1940. The tanks opened fire on the German flank and rear, while all the infantry weapons in the village blazed away. Battle of the Bulge. The drivers and gunners dived for cover and returned fire. Barton was apprehensive that the enemy would attempt a raid in force to seize Luxembourg City, and in the battle beginning on the 16th he would view Luxembourg City as the main German objective. By some chance the two platoons on the right missed the German hive. 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. The 423d Regiment made a forced march from the sector southwest of Trier and by daylight had bivouacked on the right wing of the 212th. 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 defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. This is the order of battle of German and Allied forces during the Battle of the Bulge. All that could be said of the 12th Infantry center was that the situation was fluid, for here the road junction at Scheidgen was in enemy hands and German detachments were on the loose. Finally, the Americans halted near the T in the gorge road just south of Mllerthal. Apparently some troops went at once into the line, but the actual counterattack was postponed until the next morning. Both units would therefore be involved in guarding the cross-corridors and ravines which stemmed from the gorge itself. If you served in 8th Infantry Division, Join TWS for free to reconnect with service friends. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" Many radios were in the repair shops, and those at outposts had a very limited range over the abrupt and broken terrain around Echternach and Berdorf, Luxembourg's "Little Switzerland." $8.99. Soldiers of each army grappled with knives and bayonets in the open streets as machine gun fire and mortars rained down around them. But the Germans defending the houses were heavily armed with bazookas and the tanks made little progress. The 8th U.S. Infantry reactivated in 1947, assigned to Ft. Ord, California, remaining assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. The American makeweight would have to be its armor. Direct assault failed to dislodge these Americans, and the attempt was abandoned pending the arrival of heavy weapons from across the river. German casualties probably ran somewhat higher, but whether substantially so is questionable. 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 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. 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. Successful the American defense in the Sauer sector had been, but costly too. The cemeteries are in Belgium and Luxembourg. 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. The three tanks which had come up the evening before, and very effective fire by American batteries, put an end to these German efforts. New. 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. Artillery, normally the first supporting weapon to be brought into play by the division, had very limited effect at this stage. 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 enemy resisted wherever encountered, but spent most of the daylight hours regrouping in wooded draws and hollows and bringing reinforcements across the river, stepping up his artillery fire the while. December 1944, was a month that would be forever seared into John Schaffner's memory. reserves to the threatened left flank to block further penetrations and to reinforce and relieve the garrison villages in the north. The 87th Infantry Division ("Golden Acorn" [1]) was a unit of the United States Army in World War I and World War II . Picture 1 of 2. . 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. As the American reinforcements stiffened the right flank and the armored task forces grappled to wrest the initiative from the enemy on the left, German troops widened and deepened the dent in the 12th Infantry center, shouldering their way southward between Scheidgen and Osweiler. Osweiler now had a garrison of one tank company and four understrength rifle companies. 1 Jun-. the battalions was severed. 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. The enemy here was in considerable strength and had established observation posts on the ridges ringing Lauterborn and bordering the road. American troops atop the ridge known as the Schnee Eifel weren't expecting much action that morning. . It was too late. 18th Infantry Regiment; 36th Infantry Regiment; 37th Armored Infantry Battalion; 48th Infantry Regiment; . Company C, 70th Tank Battalion, now had eight tanks in running condition and these were hurried to Breitweiler to reinforce the cavalry and engineers. The division served as the first official military guardian of the gold vault at Fort Knox. to join the two companies beleaguered in Osweiler. The 109th Infantry, the 9th Armored Division, the 4th Infantry Division, and CCA, 10th Armored Division, had to win both the time and the space required for the assembly of the American counterattack forces. Only two Festung battalions were left to cover the twelve miles south to the boundary between the Seventh and First Armies, but in this denuded sector the Sauer and Moselle Rivers afforded a considerable natural defense. The 4th served as an experimental division for the Army, testing new equipment and tactics to Oct 43. Intelligence reports indicated that the 4th Division was confronted by the 212th Volks Grenadier Division and miscellaneous "fortress" units, deployed on a front equal to that held by the 4th. The German attack through the 9th Armored sector beyond Waldbillig had been checked. Neither the 83d Division, which the 4th had relieved, nor any higher headquarters considered the Germans in this sector to be capable of making more than local attacks or raids, and patrols from the 4th Division found nothing to change this estimate. At dark the Germans had lost. Fighting on 17 December took place along the axes of three principal German penetrations: on the American left flank at Berdorf, Consdorf, and Mllerthal; in the center along the Echternach-Lauterborn-Scheidgen road; and on the right in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector. On the night of 13-14 December the 212th commenced to strip its extended front in concentration for its part in the counteroffensive. Across these rivers lay a heterogeneous collection of German units whose lack of activity in past weeks promised the rest the 4th Division needed so badly. It was activated at Camp Pike, Arkansas on 25 August 1917. 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. Jun-. Since any static linear defense was out of the question because of the length of the front and the meandering course of the two rivers, Barton instructed his regimental commanders to maintain only small forces at the river outpost line, holding the main strength, generally separate companies, in the villages nearby. 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 day before, he had ordered the US 24th Infantry Division to move from its reserve position near Taegu to the lower Naktong River to relieve the US 1st Provisional Marine Brigade in the Naktong Bulge area of the US 2nd Infantry Division front. 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. 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. Research | Military Units | Newsletter Archives | Soldiers Registry | Veterans Assistance | WWII Memorial Registry | Books| DVDs | Film & Video. As Company C worked its way through the woods south of Osweiler the left platoon ran head on into the 2d Battalion, 320th Infantry; all the platoon members were killed or captured. The Battle of the Bulge (December 16, 1944 - January 18, 1945) . 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). On the left, Task Force Chamberlain (Lt. Col. Thomas C. Chamberlain) dispatched a small tank-infantry team from Breitweiler into the gorge. Then, in 1966, the first three battalions of the 8th deployed to Vietnam, fighting in 9 campaigns and . 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. Strength sufficient to achieve a quick, limited penetration the German divisions possessed, so long as the assault forces did not stop to clean out the village centers of resistance. General Barton, it may be added, had refused absolutely to permit the artillery to move rearward. 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. 10th, 51st, and 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions 8th, 35th, and 37th Tank Battalions 22nd, 66th, and 94th Armored FA Battalions . The 8th Infantry Division, was an infantry division of the US Army during WW-14 and WW-2. 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.