The counterattack moved off on the morning of 18 December in a thick winter fog. 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. Possibly this failure is explained by the lack of heavy weapons needed to blast a way up from the gorge bottom. 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. 1940. American shellfire finally drove the enemy away from the bank, necessitating a new effort in broad daylight farther to the north. 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. 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. Both units would therefore be involved in guarding the cross-corridors and ravines which stemmed from the gorge itself. eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of Consdorf. 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. Rotation in the line allowed. Having lost over 5,000 battle casualties and 2,500 nonbattle casualties from trench foot and exposure, the division now had to be rebuilt to something approaching its former combat effectiveness. The 82nd Airborne Division began its illustrious military career as an infantry division during World War I. The Fall of the Golden Lions. Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. The division fusilier battalion was committed against the 12th Infantry center in an attempt to drive a wedge through at Scheidgen while a part of the 23d Festung Battalion crossed the Sauer near Girst to extend the left flank of the German attack. The gunners nevertheless began to get on the targets, and the German infantry reported very punishing artillery fire during the afternoon. Meanwhile the 7th Company, 423d Regiment, pushed forward to cut the Echternach-Luxembourg road, the one first-class highway in the 12th Infantry sector. In addition to the organic medical support provided in its infantry and armored divisions, the VIII Corps, First U.S. Army, in the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge possessed a. 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. Yankee Division Patch.svg 26th . 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. General Morris left Bastogne and met the 4th Infantry Division commander in Luxembourg. The little column came in on the flank of the 2d Battalion, 320th Regiment, which was in the process of moving two companies forward in attack formation across the open ground northwest of Dickweiler. . By now the German artillery was ranged inaccurately. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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) . The German attack through the 9th Armored sector beyond Waldbillig had been checked. German casualties probably ran somewhat higher, but whether substantially so is questionable. 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 southern shoulder of the German counteroffensive had jammed. On the morning of 17 December the 10th Armored Division (General Morris) had moved out of Thionville for Luxembourg, the first step (although at the time not realized) which General Patton's Third Army would make to intervene in the battle of the Ardennes. 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. American intelligence officers estimated on 17 December that the enemy had a superiority in numbers of three to one; by the end of 18 December the balance was somewhat restored. 8th Cavalry Regiment; Canadian Army Trophy (CAT) Divisional Cavalry & Reconnaissance; Infantry Unit Pages. 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 division served as the first official military guardian of the gold vault at Fort Knox. American infantrymen jumped on top of the enormous Panthers and Jagdpanthers, as they rolled through the streets and killed the crews, with thermite grenades thrown into the turrets. 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 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. 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 Infantry reached to the right along the Moselle until it touched the First and Third Army boundary just beyond the Luxembourg border. The 8th Infantry Division, (" Pathfinder " [1]) was an infantry division of the United States Army during the 20th century. Replacements, now by order named "reinforcements," joined the division, but by mid-December the regiments still averaged five to six hundred men understrength. Osweiler now had a garrison of one tank company and four understrength rifle companies. 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. 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. If this additional weight should be thrown against the thin American line immediately to the north of the 4th Infantry Division, there was every likelihood that the line would break. The 12th Infantry cannon company was just moving up to a new position when fire opened from the wood. . 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. 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. 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). This house-to-house assault gained only seventy-five yards before darkness intervened. 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. 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 4th Division would not be left to fight it out alone. 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. narrow that the tanks had to advance in single file, and only the lead tank could fire. 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. Direct assault failed to dislodge these Americans, and the attempt was abandoned pending the arrival of heavy weapons from across the river. At several points canyonlike cliffs rise sheer for a hundred feet. Despite its losses Company E drove on, clearing the Germans from the lower slopes before the recall order was given. 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. 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. Since most of Task Force Riley by this time had reverted to the reserve, Lauterborn, the base for operations against Echternach, was abandoned. 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. 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. At Berdorf most of Company F (1st Lt. John L. Leake) had been on outpost duty at the four observation posts fronting the river. The enemy here was in considerable strength and had established observation posts on the ridges ringing Lauterborn and bordering the road. 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. There were 20 Infantry Divisions, 10 Armored Divisions and 3 Airborne Divisions that received the Ardennes Credit. This OOB specifically, at a point near the end of the battle, which lasted from 16 December 1944 until 25 January 1945. Jun-. The net day's operations amounted to a stand-off. The rest of the tanks returned to Consdorf for gasoline and ammunition. their motors cut and caught the enemy on the slopes while the engineers moved in with marching fire. When this little force reached Osweiler, word had just come in that Dickweiler was threatened by another assault. The center task force (Lt. Col. Troops from the 320th Regiment and fusilier battalion circled around Echternach and Lauterborn meanwhile in an attempt to cut the main road at Scheidgen. Battle of the Bulge. 1) The 1st Abn BG, 504th Inf and 1st Abn BG, 505th Inf joined the division as part of the 1st Brigade. 4th armored division battle of the bulge. Reports that two new German divisions were en route to attack the 109th Infantry and 9th Armored Division had reached General Morris, coming by way of the 12th Army Group intelligence agencies. 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. 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. In the first week of December the 4th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Raymond 0. Click on a link to access the respective web site. 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. The drivers and gunners dived for cover and returned fire. On the left, Task Force Chamberlain (Lt. Col. Thomas C. Chamberlain) dispatched a small tank-infantry team from Breitweiler into the gorge. 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. 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. Both flanks were nailed down, and the German attack seemed to have lost momentum. The company radio was back for repair but each of the artillery observers, forward, had a radio. The first German shells came as a jolt. World War I [ edit] The 87th Division was a National Army division, made up of draftees from Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Mississippi. 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. The team from Task Force Standish had made little progress in its house-to-house battle in Berdorf. Finally, the Americans halted near the T in the gorge road just south of Mllerthal. 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. 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. 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. day it may be said that the German opportunity to exploit the initial surprise and attendant tactical gains commenced to fade. Barton) left the VII Corps after a month of bloody operations in the Hrtgen Forest. 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. 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. The tank-infantry counterattack by Task Forces Standish and Riley in the Berdorf and Echternach areas also resumed. December 1944, was a month that would be forever seared into John Schaffner's memory. As a result, these two units faced four German regiments in the 12th Infantry sector. gathered about sixty men in the Parc Hotel as the enemy closed in. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" The superiority in tanks maintained by the 4th Infantry Division throughout this operation would effectively checkmate the larger numbers of the German infantry. On the second day of the battle both sides committed more troops. The tank commander offered to cover the withdrawal of Company E from the city, but Capt. 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. Intense fog shielded all this activity. The 4th served as an experimental division for the Army, testing new equipment and tactics to Oct 43. 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. Picture Information. This was unfurled on the shattered roof. After three years of campaigning on the Eastern Front the division had been so badly shattered during withdrawals in the Lithuanian sector that it was taken from the line and sent to Poland, in September 1944, for overhauling. It moved south to Luxembourg, "the quiet paradise for weary troops," as one report names it, taking over the 83d Infantry Division positions on the right flank of the VIII Corps (and First Army) while the 83d occupied the old 4th Division sector in the north. The American makeweight would have to be its armor. 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. There was no guarantee, however, that the enemy had committed all his forces; the situation would have to develop further before the 4th Division commander could draw heavily on the two regiments not yet engaged. 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. During these operations in France, while light and medium bombers and fighter-bomber aircraft of Ninth Air Force had been engaged in close support and interdictory operations, Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces had continued their strategic bombing. Later Barton phoned the corps commander to ask for reinforcements. Contact thus established, an assault was launched to clear Berdorf. The tanks opened fire on the German flank and rear, while all the infantry weapons in the village blazed away. US ARMY 1ST ID FIRST INFANTRY DIVISION PATCH BIG RED ONE 1 VETERAN FORT RILEY. 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. But a thick winter fog rolled in before the Americans could occupy the hill. 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. 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 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. 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. Infantry replacements were particularly hard to obtain and many rifle companies remained at no better than half strength. It is probable that the Americans in Echternach were forced to surrender late on 20 December. . 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. 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. It was imperative that the line be held. The 8th U.S. Infantry reactivated in 1947, assigned to Ft. Ord, California, remaining assigned to the 4th Infantry Division. CCA made good speed on the 75-mile run from Thionville, but the leading armor did not arrive in the 12th Infantry area until late in the afternoon of 17 December. Brandenberger rated the 212th as his best division. The one liaison plane flying observation for the gunners (the other was shot up early on 16 December) reported that "the area was as full of targets as a pinball machine," but little could be done about it. The professionalism and pride with which each unit preforms shows the true credentials of the 8th Infantry Division (M). Although the evacuation of Berdorf was part of the 4th Division plan for redressing its line, the actual withdrawal was none too easy. Until the night of 14 December this estimate was correct. 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. Covered by this counterattack the battalion headquarters withdrew to Herborn. At Lauterborn, however, they were told that the tanks could not be risked in Echternach after dark. The leading companies of the two German assault regiments began crossing the Sauer before dawn. The division commander now called off the attack and assigned Task Force Luckett the mission of denying the enemy the use of the road net at Mllerthal, a task which could be accomplished in less costly fashion. . By nightfall the situation seemed much improved-despite the increased pressure on the 4th Division companies closely invested in the north. As yet the 212th had no bridge, for the American artillery had shot out the structure erected on the 16th before it could be used. 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. However, there was a present danger that the large German force might turn the 4th Division flank by a successful attack through the 9th Armored Division blocking position at Waldbillig. The Seventh Army had thrown three of its four divisions into the surprise attack at the Sauer River on 16 December. 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. 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. 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. Task Force Chamberlain, whose tanks had given fire support to Task Force Luckett, moved during the afternoon to a backstop position near Consdorf. This was the last effort. His father was a truck driver with a balloon observation company. Once in possession of these hills the 320th was to seize the two villages, then drive on to join the 423d. 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. The tanks and riflemen proceeded to run a 2,000-yard gauntlet of bursting shells along the high, exposed road to Dickweiler (probably the enemy guns beyond the Sauer were firing interdiction by the map). The 8th Infantry Division, was an infantry division of the US Army during WW-14 and WW-2. German losses in dead and captured, as confirmed by the 78th Infantry Division, were approximately 770, not counting wounded or missing. 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