Infantrymen of the 110th Infantry, 28th Div., US 1st Army following the German breakthrough in that area, Bastogne, Belgium, 19 December 1944. A secondary road, on the right of the through highway to Bastogne, approaches Clerf from the hamlet of Urspelt. By dusk the American line had been pushed back nearly to Weidingen when orders came to withdraw behind the Wiltz River and destroy the bridge at Weidingen. 107th Field Artillery Battalion (105 Howitzer) . Wrote one in his diary: "Nobody able to sleep and no hot meals, today. 103d Engineer Combat Battalion 103d Medical Battalion 28th Division Artillery. Norman G. Maurer, 3 of the 3d Battalion, leading a sortie of twenty men, surprised the enemy and drove him back with very heavy casualties. Snow blanketed the fields. Around them Clerf was crawling with tanks, for most of the Mark IV Battalion of the 3d Panzer Regiment had assembled in the town during the night. With the first light some eighteen Mark V tanks started down the ridge spur pointing toward Ouren; at the same time the 1130th Regiment and the 156th Regiment resumed the attack to cut off and destroy the forward American companies. The 3d Battalion commenced its withdrawal at 2200 under orders to pull back through Ouren. A German attempt to cut the road between Consthum and Holzthum failed when Capt. On the afternoon of the 16th the division commander had loaned Neslon the light tank company of the 707th Tank Battalion, but after a sweep through the 1st Battalion area in which not a shot was fired the tanks recrossed the river. The 560th Volks Grenadier Division (Generalmajor Rudolf Langhaeuser) was assigned two specific bridges as targets, one just north of Ouren, the other a stone arch a little to the south of the village. and the 110th Infantry. Despite harassing fire from American guns and mortars the Germans moved swiftly. The capitulation of the gallant garrison at Hosingen, during the morning, removed this threat to the 902d supply road. On the evening 18-41 "Rocky" Moretto was one of only two men in his infantry company who . Extensive pine forests covered much of the area, making observation difficult. Finally the Germans took the village, only to be driven out again. For nearly two hours enemy flares methodically picked out targets for mortar and bullet fire, while the Americans were so closely beset that the Bofors and murderous quad mounts could not retaliate without cutting down their own people. Although Fuller pled for the return of the 2d Battalion to his regiment, Cota refused to release this last division reserve. Fuller had only two battalions at his disposal because the 2d Battalion, located at Donnange, constituted the division reserve. In any case the defenders made radio contact (their last) with the 28th Division as late as 0528 on the morning of 18 December. A few hundred yards had been traversed when, at the first crossroad, the leading half-track ran into a patch of mines laid in front of a German roadblock and exploded. The symbolism of the distinctive unit insignia is the same as that of the coat of arms. A radio message alerted the commander to the danger of a direct approach; so the platoon and some accompanying infantry entered Clerf by a secondary road along the river. Through this gap the panzers moved in on the support positions held by Company D. Earlier a German infantry company in close order had been caught in the glare of its own headlights atop a hill and been massacred by Company D sections lying on the reverse slope, but at 0755 Company D was forced to send out an urgent plea for help "and damn quick." Formed in 1917, the division deployed to France as a part of the . Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. moved toward Sevenig. Some additional help for the 112th did arrive before daybreak on 17 December, four self-propelled tank destroyers out of the 811th Tank Destroyer Battalion borrowed from Combat Command Reserve, 9th Armored Division, at Trois Vierges. The battle plans and tactics of the Fifth Panzer Army, more than those of any other German army that took part in the Ardennes counteroffensive, bore the very strong personal imprint of its commander, General Manteuffel. The 77th Regiment formed on the right near Hosingen and the 39th, echeloned to the left and rear, assembled in the woods north of Wahlhausen. But there were too few guns and too few air sorties to keep the enemy immobilized for long. The 2d Panzer Division advance guard had taken a bloody nose The Lead-Up to the Battle of the Bulge. Today marks the 76th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, in order to commemorate this anniversary we are releasing our first Then and Now video focusing . The 2nd Battalion, 112th Infantry was formed from units of the 104th Armored Cavalry on 01 April 1975. The total impact of the severe German blows dealt the 110th Infantry in the late afternoon and evening of 17 December was not felt at the division and corps headquarters for several hours. On the eve of commitment the two tank battalions were about full strength, with 27 Mark IV's, 58 Panthers, and 48 armored assault guns in the division tank parks. cannon company gunners quickly bore-sighted their pieces, loaded reduced charge, and with direct fire knocked out four of the panzers. It was the longest battle on German ground during World War II and is the . The regiment was awarded battle streamers marked Champagne 1918, Champagne-Marne, Aisne-Marne, Oise-Marne, Lorraine 1918, and Meuse-Argonne for its service in France. One working on roads, and the like). Over 83,000 Americans were casualties during the battle which lasted from December 16, 1944 until January 25, 1945, and as a result, the battle occupies a prominent place in our collective minds. Two of the American tanks, destroyed during the German assault later in the day. The road center at Wiltz and the bridges there were only about twelve miles from Bastogne. The fall of Wiltz ended the 28th Division's delaying action before Bastogne. This new Altoona unit converted back to an engineer company unit they were redesignated Troop C, 104th Cavalry in 1929. the German engineers moved in. Battery B fired its few remaining rounds to cover the other batteries, the battalion assembling during the evening at a crossroad southeast of Harlange. . He continued to fight with Cannon Company until the 423rd Regiment surrendered Dec. 19, 1944, near Schnberg, Belgium. His record in North Africa and Russia, where he achieved a reputation for energetic leadership and personal bravery, brought him to Hitler's attention and promotion directly from a division to an army command. On the corps right, then, the 116th Panzer Division (Generalmajor Siegfried von Waldenburg) had orders to attack north of Ltzkampen; at least two or more bridges crossed the Our in this sector. Battle of the Bulge CD 2 749 Pages - PDF . The battalion became an, In 2003 the battalion deployed 350 soldiers to, In October 2003, the battalion re-organized as a, In September, 2005, the battalion deployed to. antitank gun in the path and crossed the bridge at the railroad station. The authors do a great job of telling the the story with first-person accounts from the American soldiers, both officers and enlisted. The little group from regimental headquarters which had been deployed on the ridge line at Ouren was less successful. The Huntingdon unit became Troop K, 3rd Battalion of the 104th Armored Cavalry and one of the Altoona companies became Howitzer Battery, 3rd Battalion 104th Cavalry. Just before dark, therefore, Kokott threw a part of his replacement training battalion into the action; these fresh troops succeeded in forcing their way into the north edge of the village, although with heavy losses. The 28ID is the oldest continuously serving division in the United States Army. . Some of the first Americans to confront Hitler's gamble on the front lines were the men of the 394th Infantry Regiment at Lanzareth Ridge. Subsequently General Cota ordered them to go to the aid of the hardpressed 110th Infantry. The Logan Guards were mustered as Company E, 25th Pennsylvania Volunteers and then as Company A, 46th Pennsylvania Volunteers. They conducted full spectrum operations in and around Baghdad, Iraq. on numerous occasions before; so it is questionable whether either of them expected the Luftwaffe to make good. Five hundred yards from the Germans, on the far side of a draw, the. But now the north road into the town was open. He was born Dec. 12, 1922, in Litchville, N.D., to Ole and Inga (Olson) Fostervold. They sailed to Puerto Rico on 5 July 1898 and served with the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 1st Army Corps throughout the campaign. Both Luettwitz and Manteuffel had been "promised" air support. But the German infantry were more vulnerable and their march was delayed for several hours before engineers and self-propelled 88's finally set the riddled chteau afire and forced the Americans to surrender. Here Nelson received a message from the 28th Division which ordered the regiment to hold the line LausdornWeiswampach-Beiler, which the 112th Infantry had just abandoned. ", The main effort launched by the LVIII Panzer Corps on 16 December was assigned the 116th Panzer Division. The road net was adequate, although mired by constant rain, but the two forward battalions had to be supplied at night because of German fire. Now, at the end of the day, the armored reconnaissance battalion of the Panzer Lehr Division found itself crawling rather than racing west from the Gemnd bridge. The 29th Infantry Division (29th ID), also known as the "Blue and Gray Division", is an infantry division of the United States Army based in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.It is currently a formation of the U.S. Army National Guard and contains units from Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia.. they were particularly bad on the axis assigned to Luettwitz' southern Company L, on the western side of the ridge at Holzthum, reported figures in the half-light but, peering through the ground fog, which clung all along the division front, could not be sure whether they were American troops passing through the area or the enemy. Through the early hours of 17 December American outposts reported sounds of tank movement in Ltzkampen. Here in the south daylight patrols also operated to maintain control of the eastern bank, although the main positions were around Lieler and Lausdorn. The road to Hosingen was muddy and winding; but worse, at the western exit of the bridge an American abatis and a series of bomb craters blocked the flow of traffic. Manteuffel also held strongly for infiltration tactics by small detachments, such as were conventionally employed by both opponents on the Eastern Front. (Lt. Col. Clarion J. Kjeldseth) to Wiltz on the previous evening with restored while the commander of the 1130th reported that his the thin infantry line on the Wahlhausen road. observers could see the enemy assembling in the woods just to the north. Company B of the 2d Tank Battalion, en route to set up a roadblock northeast of Clerf, was appropriated by General Cota and sent to support the 110th Infantry. It was disbanded on 16 July 1883 and reorganized as Company A, 10th Pennsylvania Infantry on 3 July 1884. To the surprise of the division staff the task of re-equipping and replenishing the 26th went amazingly fast for the beginning of the sixth year of the war. east. The 902d, advancing by way of Munshausen, now cleared of Americans, followed. up positions north and east of the town. guns and asked for American artillery fire on their own positions. On the morning of the 17th German tanks had set the town ablaze, but the few American Shermans had held them at bay. Minus his heavy weapons, the enemy failed to knock the. The German plans had been altered during the day, but of course some This was the last word from Marnach. In the 1st Battalion zone to the north the advance detachments of the 2d Panzer Division moved straight for Marnach, attempting with one quick blow to clear the Americans obstructing the through road from Dasburg to Clerf.7 While the German engineers labored at the Dasburg site to bring their heavy tank bridging equipment down to the river, the 28th Panzer Engineer Battalion and the 2d Battalion, 304th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, crossed the Our in rubber boats and moved west through the predawn darkness. In 1947, the Lewistown unit was redesignated Headquarters and Service Battery, 176th Field Artillery Battalion. This was the end: shots, blazing vehicles, and screaming wounded. About noon the 2d Battalion counterattacked and German pressure along the 112th front began to wane. This attack aimed at the bridges near Burg Reuland (in the 106th Division sector) and Oberhausen, in the rear of the positions manned by the left. Second Bn., 109th; 1st and 3rd Bns., 110th; 1st Bn., 112th, rocked most severely under the first blows, lashed back to ward off attacks, caused many enemy casualties. The Bellefonte unit was redesignated Troop L, 103d Cavalry. By the second day it was apparent that the combination of stubborn resistance and poor approach roads would delay the projected crossing at Ouren. Replacements, mostly from the Navy, were whipped into shape by the "Old 26th," and first-rate equipment replaced that lost in the east. columns. 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