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. 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. At several points canyonlike cliffs rise sheer for a hundred feet. The gunners nevertheless began to get on the targets, and the German infantry reported very punishing artillery fire during the afternoon. 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. 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. 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." 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. their motors cut and caught the enemy on the slopes while the engineers moved in with marching fire. The Germans had cut the road back to Consdorf; so the right team of Task Force Standish was withdrawn from the attack on Hill 329 and spent most of the afternoon clearing an exit for the men and vehicles in Berdorf. Successful the American defense in the Sauer sector had been, but costly too. 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. 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. $8.99. 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. 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. 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. The defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" Troops of the 8th Infantry Regiment move out over the seawall on Utah Beach after coming ashore on D-Day, June 6, 1944. By now the German artillery was ranged inaccurately. 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. Here the 2d Platoon (with twenty-one men and two artillery observers) held out in the stone farm buildings for four days and from this position harassed the Germans moving up the ravine road to Berdorf. Across the river at the headquarters of the 212th Volks Grenadier Division there was little realization of the extent to which the American center had been dented. Either these sets failed to function or the outposts were surprised before a message could get out. 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. The 8th Infantry Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the US Army's Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1988. This made the 8th the only division in US Army history to be designated Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Airborne). The latter crossed east of Echternach, its first objective being the series of hills north of Dickweiler and Osweiler. 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. 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. 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. Losses and stragglers, however, had reduced the American infantry companies, already understrength at the opening of the battle. The tanks were hardly out of sight before the Germans began an assault on the hat factory with bazookas, demolition charges, and an armored assault gun. The advance of the 423d Regiment across the Berdorf plateau on 16 December had reached the winding defile leading down into the gorge west of Berdorf village, there wiping out a squad of infantry and one 57-mm. These villages, at which the crucial engagements would be fought, were Berdorf, Echternach, Lauterborn, Osweiler, and Dickweiler. With the close of the second. 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. Replacements, now by order named "reinforcements," joined the division, but by mid-December the regiments still averaged five to six hundred men understrength. Colonel Chance took Company C, the last troops of the 12th Infantry, and sent them to the 3d Battalion command post for use on the morrow. Morris, now charged with unifying defensive measures while the Third Army counterattack forces gathered behind this cover, alerted CCA, 10th Armored Division, early on the morning of 20 December, for employment as a mobile reserve. 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. The 8th Infantry Division, (" Pathfinder " [1]) was an infantry division of the United States Army during the 20th century. It is probable that the Americans in Echternach were forced to surrender late on 20 December. The 212th Volks Grenadier Division took a shock company from the 316th Regiment, which was still held in reserve under Seventh Army orders, and moved it into the fight. 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. 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 the second day of the battle both sides committed more troops. 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. It was one of the first major engagements of the Korean War.An army of 140,000 UN troops, having been pushed to the brink of defeat, were rallied to make a final stand against the invading Korean . 1944. Although the fighting on 19 December had been severe on the American left, a general lull prevailed along the rest of the line. American troops atop the ridge known as the Schnee Eifel weren't expecting much action that morning. J. C. Kolinski got up, ran back to a truck, fixed a round, and fired it from a howitzer still coupled to the truck. Osweiler, west of Dickweiler, thus far had seen no enemy. Higher German headquarters had anticipated the appearance of some American reinforcements opposite the LXXX Corps as early as the third day of the operation. Company E, which had about seventy men and was the strongest in the battalion, led off. The division completed its concentration within the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg on the 13th, its three regiments deployed as they would be when the German attack came. 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. The long southern flank of the old 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been drastically weakened to permit the concentration at Echternach. The enemy made no move to push deeper in the center. 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. This advance was made across open fields and was checked by extremely heavy shellfire. While part of Task Force Standish was engaged in Berdorf, another team attacked through heavy underbrush toward Hill 329, east of Berdorf, which overlooked the road to Echternach. 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. 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. Meanwhile the 7th Company, 423d Regiment, pushed forward to cut the Echternach-Luxembourg road, the one first-class highway in the 12th Infantry sector. Tanks en route to Osweiler got word of this situation, picked up twenty-five cannoneers from the 176th Field Artillery Battalion, and intervened in the fight. General Barton's headquarters saw the situation on the evening of 17 December as follows. 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. to widen the avenues of penetration behind the panzers. He told Barton that if he could find the engineers he could use them. #23A US Army WII ARMY Infantry 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th patches. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. 2nd Infantry Division, BOBA veterans to attend 8ARMDD Monument Dedication in Carlisle, PA. 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. 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. Finally, a little after dark, Companies B and F (12th Infantry), ten engineers, and four squads of armored infantry loaded onto. 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. Of the 4th Division, it must. 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. narrow that the tanks had to advance in single file, and only the lead tank could fire. Once in possession of these hills the 320th was to seize the two villages, then drive on to join the 423d. Elsewhere neither side clearly held the field. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. 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. antitank gun which had been placed here to block the gorge road. Attempts by the 320th Infantry to make a predawn crossing at Echternach had been frustrated by the swift current, and finally all the assault companies were put over the Sauer at Edingen, more than three miles downstream. 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. His father was a truck driver with a balloon observation company. According to War Department General Order 114, December 7, 1945 there were approximately 2,000 units that received the Ardennes Credit, (The Battle of the Bulge). 10th, 51st, and 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions 8th, 35th, and 37th Tank Battalions 22nd, 66th, and 94th Armored FA Battalions . By daybreak all wire communication forward of. 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. His two divisions generally had reached the line designated as the LXXX Corps objective. 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. Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. Find 8th Infantry Division unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. Covered by this counterattack the battalion headquarters withdrew to Herborn. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of Consdorf. 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. 8th Cavalry Regiment; Canadian Army Trophy (CAT) Divisional Cavalry & Reconnaissance; Infantry Unit Pages. This house-to-house assault gained only seventy-five yards before darkness intervened. Each regiment had one battalion as a mobile reserve, capable of moving on four-hour notice. At dark the Germans had lost. It was imperative that the line be held. 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. Each regiment, by standard practice on such a wide front, had one of the division's 105-mm. The tanks opened fire on the German flank and rear, while all the infantry weapons in the village blazed away. Thus both Osweiler and Dickweiler remained tight in American hands. . the battalions was severed. Click on a link to access the respective web site. December 1944. 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. 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 the meantime the 2d Battalion, 22 Infantry (Lt. Col. Thomas A. Kenan), had arrived in the 12th Infantry zone. These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. The counterattack moved off on the morning of 18 December in a thick winter fog. In Dickweiler the troops of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, had been harassed by small forays from the woods above the village. When the fire lifted the attack was resumed, but the enemy fought stubbornly for each house. Rotation in the line allowed. Outpost 2 at Birkelt Farm, a mile and a half east of Berdorf, somehow escaped surprise. 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. . 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. . Possibly the American artillery and self-propelled guns had disorganized and disheartened the German infantry; prisoners later reported that shell fragments from the tree bursts in the bottom of the wooded gorge "sounded like falling apples" and caused heavy casualties. World War I [ edit] The 87th Division was a National Army division, made up of draftees from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. 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. There were 20 Infantry Divisions, 10 Armored Divisions and 3 Airborne Divisions that received the Ardennes Credit. 16th situation map shows the front line in this sector thinly held by the U.S. Army VIII Corps comprised of the 106th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry Division, the reduced 9th Armored Division, and the 4th Infantry Division arrayed from north to south. Company G, now some forty men, and the last of Riley's tanks withdrew to the new main line of resistance. Intervention by elements of the 10th Armored Division on 18 December, as a result, was viewed only as the prelude to a sustained and forceful American attempt to regain the initiative. This proved to be slow work. Then the advance had to be halted short of the objective in order to free the tanks and half-tracks for use in evacuating the large number of wounded. This OOB specifically, at a point near the end of the battle, which lasted from 16 December 1944 until 25 January 1945. 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. and forward supply dumps in the Trier-Bitburg area. The Division arrived on the European Continent on 4 Jul 44 and elements began their World War II combat on 6 July with the entire division engaged on 8 July 1944. It was clear that to capture Mllerthal, or even to block the southern exit from the gorge, the surrounding hills and tableland had to be won. howitzers, the reconnaissance company of the 803d Tank Destroyer Battalion, and the 2d Battalion, 8th Infantry, were hastily assembled in Colbet, a mile and a half south of Mllerthal, and organized at 1104 as Task Force Luckett (Col. James S. Luckett) . 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. Ammunition at the pieces ultimately gave out, but a volunteer raced to the. 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. By nightfall the situation seemed much improved-despite the increased pressure on the 4th Division companies closely invested in the north. 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. 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. Brandenberger rated the 212th as his best division. German casualties probably ran somewhat higher, but whether substantially so is questionable. January 4, 1945 was a signal date for the truck driver. After two hours, and some casualties, a patrol bearing a white flag worked its way in close enough for recognition. and command messages in addition to its own calls for fire. Battle Casualties: 13,458 : Non-Battle Casualties: 7,598 : Total Casualties: 21,056 : Percent of T/O Strength: 149.4 : Campaigns. Yankee Division Patch.svg 26th . Small tank-infantry teams quickly formed and went forward to relieve or reinforce the hard-pressed companies. The 4th served as an experimental division for the Army, testing new equipment and tactics to Oct 43. Contact thus established, an assault was launched to clear Berdorf. 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. 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. 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. Heavy and accurate shellfire followed each American move. 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. At daylight on 20 December the 1st Battalion, 423d Regiment, which had been brought in from the Lauterborn area, initiated a counterattack against the team from Task Force Standish at the edge of Berdorf and recovered all the ground lost during the previous two days. In the fire fight which followed the 2d Battalion companies became separated, but the early winter darkness soon ended the skirmish. Company F, 12th Infantry, retained its position in the Parc Hotel, despite a German demolition charge that exploded early in the morning of the 20th and blew in part of one wall. In February 1945, the division advanced into Germany, crossing the . Strength to exploit these points of penetration failed when the village centers of resistance were bypassed. 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. 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. 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. Task Force Chamberlain, whose tanks had given fire support to Task Force Luckett, moved during the afternoon to a backstop position near Consdorf. By some chance the two platoons on the right missed the German hive. New. 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. Unit commanders and noncommissioned officers were good and experienced; morale was high. 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. The 42d Field Artillery Battalion in direct support of the 12th, though forced to displace several times during the day because of accurate counterbattery fire, had given the German infantry a severe jolting. 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. (When one blast threw a commode and sink from a second story down on the rear deck of a tank the crew simply complained that no bathing facilities had been provided.) 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