Bastogne - The Story Of The First Eight Days

In Which The 101st Airborne Division Was Closed Within The Ring Of German Forces [Illustrated Edition]

S. L. A. Marshall

• Publisher: Lucknow Books
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781782892304
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

[This edition benefits from numerous maps of the battlefields that the actions were fought over]
"NUTS!" - Among the many military legends that abound from the fighting of the Second World War, the one word reply to a German summons to surrender must rank highly in terms of its resonance, importance and sheer grit. General Mcaulliffe decided that despite the odds and the lack of supplies and ammunition his troops would continue to hold the important communication hub of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. This dramatic, yet authoritative account brings all of the action to the fore as the Battered Bastards of Bastogne wrote their names into legend.
"THIS STORY OF BASTOGNE was written from interviews with nearly all the commanders and staff officers and many of the men who participated in the defense of Bastogne during the first phase of that now celebrated operation—the days during which the American forces were surrounded by forces of the enemy…
Thus it is essentially the account of how a single strong defensive force was built from separate commands of armor, airborne infantry and tank destroyers—a force convinced that it could not be beaten."-Introduction.

 

CHAPTER 1 — THE SITUATION

THE SIEGE OF BASTOGNE is one chapter in the history of the battle of the Ardennes. On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched their greatest offensive of the war in the west. Achieving a considerable success in their first attacks, they broke through, penetrated 65 miles into Allied territory, halted the Allied offensive then going on, and threatened the entire front in the west. The failure of this German drive was due in part to the American resistance at St. Vith and Bastogne.

The background of Bastogne dates from the fall of 1944. At that time three American armies, forming the 12th Army Group, were in position on the central part of the western front. The U.S. First and Third Armies were along the Siegfried Line and the U. S. Ninth Army was facing the Roer River in Germany some thirty miles from the Rhine. All three armies were pushing for the Rhine over difficult terrain, across swollen rivers, and against determined enemy resistance. Except in the Aachen sector, where an advance was made to the Roer, the line did not move during October and November. The Third Army fought near Metz; the First and Ninth Armies made their advance farther north, near Aachen. In between these two major efforts the First Army held an extensive line of defense. Of this line the southern and major part was maintained by the U. S. VIII Corps.

On December 16, VIII Corps, under the command of Major General Troy H. Middleton (plate 1) had its headquarters in Bastogne, Belgium (Map 1, pages 2-3). Its area extended from Losheim, Germany, north to a point where the Our River crosses the Franco-German border. Generally parallel to the German frontier along eastern Belgium and Luxembourg, its front was 88 miles wide. The country, the Ardennes, has rugged hills; there are high plateaus, deep-cut valleys and a restricted road net.

 

 

The mission that First Army gave VIII Corps was to defend this line in place. New divisions were brought into this part of the front for battle indoctrination, and battle-worn divisions were sent to VIII Corps for re-equipment and rest. As divisions were rotated into the sector, they took over existing wire nets and other facilities.

At the beginning of the German attack in December, the VIII. Corps front was held by two battle-weary divisions, a green infantry division, part of a green armored division, and a cavalry group. The battle-tested divisions (they had both seen months of fighting) were the 4th Infantry Division, which in November had fought a costly action through the Hürtgen Forest below Düren, Germany, and the 28th Infantry Division, which had sustained heavy casualties in the First Army drive to the Roer. The 106th Infantry Division, newly arrived on the Continent, entered the Corps line four days before the German offensive began. The 14th Cavalry Group, consisting of the 18th and 32d Cavalry Squadrons, held the north flank of VIII Corps, and the 9th Armored Division, minus Combat Command B which was with V Corps, had the most of its units attached to the divisions.

The enemy facing the VIII Corps was estimated at four divisions. From north to south these were the 18th, 26th, 352d and 212th. Early in December the 28th Division took prisoners and reaffirmed the presence of the 26th and 352d Divisions, but rumors that one or more panzer units were in rear of these infantry divisions were not confirmed. From December 12 on, the American outposts along the VIII Corps front heard sounds of a great volume of vehicular movement behind the enemy lines.

On the morning of December 16, the VIII Corps front, which had been quiet since the latter part of September, suddenly flared up. For more than a month the enemy had been concentrating some 25 divisions. It had been skilfully done and the extent of the concentration was not fully known to our forces. At 0500 heavy artillery concentrations struck along the entire VIII Corps front and these were soon followed by tank and infantry attacks. The strongest attacks were in the north near the V and VIII Corps boundary.

The infantry-tank attack on the north flank of the VIII Corps began at 0800 on the 16th, and in three hours the enemy had penetrated the position of the 14th Cavalry group three miles. Group reserves were committed and the 106th Division put out flank protection to the north. Through the right of the 106th Division the enemy advanced rapidly for a mile and a half, but then as reserves were brought up his progress was slowed. The German gains threatened to isolate two regiments of the 106th Division. Captured documents showed that on this day the enemy hoped to take St. Vith. This he did not do.

Against the 28th Division the enemy used two panzer divisions, three infantry divisions and one parachute division in an infantry-tank attack on the “Ridge Road” just west of the Our River. In this operation, two enemy divisions assaulted each regiment of the 28th. In the center and right of the 28th the enemy made advances up to four and a half miles and crossed the north-south highway at several points. In the southern part of the VIII Corps the 9th Armored and the 4th Infantry Divisions were also attacked by the enemy. These attacks were diversionary to prevent our shifting troops to the north.

At the start of the German offensive the VIII Corps reserve consisted of an armored combat command and four battalions of combat engineers. The engineers were assembled during the first morning, and as the seriousness of the enemy thrust became apparent, additional troops were made available. In the north on December 17, Combat Command R of the 9th Armored Division was released from V Corps and the 7th Armored Division was ordered to close into an assembly area near St. Vith. In the south the 10th Armored Division was moved toward an assembly area near the city of Luxembourg. Orders were also issued to move the 101st and 82d Airborne Divisions to the general area threatened.

From captured documents and from the direction of early thrusts it seemed evident to VIII Corps that the objective of the attacks was Liège and possibly Namur. This, however, was a clear case of VIII Corps misunderstanding the enemy’s intent, though the same misunderstanding prevailed in the entire Army for months afterward. It was finally found, however, that Hitler had given his commanders in the Bulge attack specific and inflexible orders to stay to the south of Liège.{1}

On the 17th, the second day of the offensive, the enemy increased his pressure along the whole front especially in the north. The right flank of V Corps was forced back and in the VIII Corps, German infantry and armor had by 0900 cut off two regiments of the 106th Division. To stem the advance on St. Vith the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion fought a delaying action north and east of that town, Combat Command B of the 9th Armored Division was put into the line, and the 7th Armored Division was committed piecemeal to defensive action as it arrived during the evening.

In the 28th Division sector the Germans began their attacks early and made large gains. The left flank of the 28th was forced to withdraw to the west bank of the Our River and the right was pushed back an additional one to four miles. But it was in the center of the division that the enemy made his deepest penetrations, thursting one salient of eight miles and another of six. Everywhere the American withdrawal had been four to six miles. At some points the enemy was within 11 miles of Bastogne.

On the southern flank of the VIII Corps the 4th Infantry Division defended against strong attacks, but the enemy did not make the heavy effort here that he had made farther to the north. The 10th Armored Division reached the Luxembourg area in time to assure its defense.

On December 18, the third day of the offensive, the enemy increased the momentum of his drive in the center of VIII Corps. The Corps north flank was bolstered by the arrival of the 7th Armored Division but remained extremely critical because of the deep German penetrations into the V Corps sector. But the weight against the 28th Division was so overwhelming that its thin defenses disintegrated and the enemy achieved a breakthrough. The right flank of the 28th, which pulled back across the Our River on the upper eastern border of Luxembourg the previous night, was unable to stabilize its lines. In the withdrawal a wide gap was created through which the enemy pushed a great deal of armor. In the center, enemy thrusts between strongpoints encircled companies and destroyed or captured them one by one. To the 28th Division headquarters the picture was obscure throughout the day because of lost communications, but the appearance of many enemy columns behind the regimental sectors and the tragic tales of stragglers indicated a complete disintegration of regimental defenses. The 28th Division command post itself was attacked when the enemy approached Wiltz. The 44th Engineer Combat Battalion, the 447th Antiaircraft Battalion, and miscellaneous headquarters personnel from the division were used to defend the town. The command post had communications left with only one regiment.

Directly behind the 28th Division, on the St. Vith-Bastogne road, were roadblocks established by the Combat Command Reserve of the 9th Armored Division. One block, known as Task Force Rose, was attacked by the enemy in the morning and was overrun by 1400, December 18. A roadblock on the Wiltz-Bastogne road, known as Task Force Hayze, came under heavy attack by 1815. The Germans overran this roadblock during the night of December 18-19 to come within three kilometers of Bastogne. The defense of Bastogne now became the task of airborne infantry and armored units which had been ordered into the sector.{2}

CHAPTER 2 — THE CONCENTRATION ON BASTOGNE

ON THE MORNING of December 17 at SHAEF two members of the Supreme General Staff looked at the map and pondered the question of where best to employ SHAEF Reserve, which at that moment consisted of the two American divisions, the 82d Airborne and the 101st Airborne, recently withdrawn from the lines in Holland.

“I think I should put them there,” said Major General J. F. M. Whiteley, the Assistant Chief of Staff, G-3, “the place has the best road net in the area.”

Lieutenant General W. B. Smith, General Eisenhower’s Chief of Staff nodded and said to go ahead and do it. He based his decision purely on the thought of how advantageous Bastogne’s radial highway net appeared on the map. It was his idea at the time that both 101st and 82d Airborne Divisions should be employed in the Bastogne area. It was in this way that the Airborne Corps happened to make its start toward Bastogne.

SHAEF’s general concept was subsequently modified by decisions made at lower headquarters although the initial impetus had been given in the required direction. The change in direction for the 82d Division, which was to have some of its greatest days in the fighting around Werbomont on the northern flank of the Bulge, came after the XVIII Airborne Corps (82d and 101st Divisions) had passed from SHAEF Reserve into the command of 12th Army Group, which was already forming other plans both for the defense of Bastogne and the employment of the airborne strength. But out of the difference in the SHAEF concept of how to employ the airborne force and the ideas which were already forming at 12th Army Group there came some early confusion to the two Corps commanders directly concerned and to their forces. However (as later reported in this chapter) the situation was clarified before any real harm was done.{3}

On December 17 and 18, three battle-tested organizations, by different routes and under separate authority, began their moves toward the town in the Belgian Ardennes with whose name their own fame was to be thereafter inseparably linked. Orders from 12th Army Group were received on the 16th directing the 10th Armored Division to be temporarily attached to VIII Corps, First Army, to counter the serious German attempt at a breakthrough.{4} At 1320 on December 17, in compliance with the order. Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division, took its first step toward Bastogne when it moved from a rest area at Remeling, France, to ‘the vicinity of Merl in Luxembourg.{5} That evening at 2030 the 101st Airborne Division, which was then re-outfitting in a training area at Camp Mourmelon (near Reims, France, and roughly 100 miles from Bastogne) received telephone orders from Headquarters XVIII Airborne Corps that it was to move north though at that time Bastogne was not the destination given.{6} On the following night, December 18 at 1800, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, then in position at Kohlscheid, Germany (about 60 miles north of Bastogne) was ordered by the Ninth Army to march to Bastogne and report to VIII Corps.{7}

Bastogne, then the Headquarters of VIII Corps, was the natural place for rendezvous and for stabilizing the defense. The town is the hub of the highway net covering the eastern Ardennes —a countryside that is forbidding to the movement of mechanized forces except when the roads are available. By holding at Bastogne the VIII Corps could unhinge the communications of the Germans who were striking west toward the line of the River Meuse.{8}

Combat Command B closed into the vicinity of Merl at 2155 on the 17th. On the following morning it was ordered to move independently of the 10th Armored Division to join VIII Corps. It took the road through Arlon to Bastogne. On the way Colonel William L. Roberts, the commander (plate 2), received a request from Major General Norman D. Cota, commanding the 28th Infantry Division, to support his force at Wiltz by putting Combat Command B into position south and southeast of the town. But this Colonel Roberts could not do and comply with his Corps orders, so he took his column on into Bastogne and reported there to Major General Middleton at 1600 on the 18th.{9}

At Camp Mourmelon, the 101st Division was short many of its soldiers who were on leave in Paris. The commander of the XVIII Airborne Corps, Major General Matthew B. Ridgway, was at the rear headquarters of the Corps in England. The 101st Division commander, Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, was in the United States (plates 3, 4, 5). Upon hearing of the attack and of the fact that the 101st had been committed to battle, he immediately took a plane for Europe. The assistant division commander, Brigadier General Gerald J. Higgins, was giving a lecture in England on the earlier airborne operation in Holland. With him were five of the senior commanders of divisional units and sixteen junior officers. The night would pass before these men were to hear that the division had been alerted for movement to the front and it would be noon of the next day before they were all rounded up and ready to emplane for Mourmelon. So the seni...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• UNITS, COMMANDERS, STAFF MEMBERS, AND MEMBERS OF UNITS, MENTIONED IN THIS NARRATIVE
• CHAPTER 1 - THE SITUATION
• CHAPTER 2 - THE CONCENTRATION ON BASTOGNE
• CHAPTER 3 - TEAM CHERRY
• CHAPTER 4 - FIRST MEETING WITH THE ENEMY
• CHAPTER 5 - EAST OF BASTOGNE
• CHAPTER 6 - HOLDING THE CHATEAU
• CHAPTER 7 - TEAM DESOBRY AT NOVILLE
• CHAPTER 8 - ATTACK AND WITHDRAWAL
• CHAPTER 9 - DOUBTS AND DECISIONS.
• CHAPTER 10 - THE REPULSE
• CHAPTER 11 - RUNNING BATTLE
• CHAPTER 12 - FIRST ACTION AT MARVIE
• CHAPTER 13 - THE RESPITE
• CHAPTER 14 -”NUTS!”
• CHAPTER 15 - THE SECOND MARVIE ATTACK
• CHAPTER 16 - LOW EBB OF SUPPLY
• CHAPTER 18 - THE SITUATION IMPROVES
• CHAPTER 19 - WEST OF BASTOGNE
• CHAPTER 20-CHRISTMAS EVE
• CHAPTER 21 - THE RELIEF
• APPENDIX - THE ENEMY’S STORY
• KEY NOTES
• Illustrations