This made the 8th the only division in US Army history to be designated Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Airborne). With the close of the second. judgmental sampling is also known as . 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. He told Barton that if he could find the engineers he could use them. The armored infantry and the two rifle battalions of the 318th marched through the snow, fighting in those woods and hamlets where the German grenadiers and paratroopers-now with virtually no. 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. to join the two companies beleaguered in Osweiler. About an hour after dark a message from the 3d Battalion reached the 12th Infantry command post: "Situation desperate. 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. 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). 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. Yankee Division Patch.svg 26th . 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. The 987th Regiment failed to emerge from the gorge and even may have withdrawn from Mllerthal, after beating off the counterattack launched there in the afternoon by elements of the 9th Armored Division. Jun-. 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. 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. No large-scale assault was attempted this day, apparently because the enemy was still waiting for guns to cross the river. About forty men were wounded, creating a problem for evacuation by this small force. 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. Although the 212th was at full strength it shared the endemic weaknesses of the volks grenadier division: insufficient communications and fewer assault guns than provided by regulation (only four were with the division on 16 December). $8.98. . There they re-established contact with Company E and covered the withdrawal of outlying detachments to the hat factory. A few rocket projectors and guns were ferried over at the civilian ferry site above Echternach, and about the middle of the afternoon a bridge was finished at Edingen, where the 320th Regiment had crossed on 16 December. 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. Each regiment had one battalion as a mobile reserve, capable of moving on four-hour notice. 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. to widen the avenues of penetration behind the panzers. 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. 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. In Dickweiler the troops of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, had been harassed by small forays from the woods above the village. 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. At the break of day on 17 December Company C, the 12th Infantry reserve, moved out of Herborn en route. eleven tanks and six half-tracks and made their way past burning buildings to the new 4th Division line north and east of Consdorf. 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. Apparently some troops went at once into the line, but the actual counterattack was postponed until the next morning. This ambulance convoy was en route to Consdorf, in the late afternoon, when a radio message reported that the Germans had cut the road north of Consdorf and bazooka'd two tanks on their way back from Berdorf for ammunition. Both flanks were nailed down, and the German attack seemed to have lost momentum. 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. 1) The 1st Abn BG, 504th Inf and 1st Abn BG, 505th Inf joined the division as part of the 1st Brigade. Mobile support was provided by those tanks of the 70th Tank Battalion which were operational, the self-propelled tank destroyers of the 803d Tank Destroyer Battalion, and the towed tank destroyers of the 802d. Company G, therefore, was assigned this task. The Americans had strengthened the Osweiler-Dickweiler position, but the Germans had extended their penetration in the 12th Infantry center. Picture 1 of 2. . By 1130 the remainder of Company G, armed with rifles and one BAR, was surrounded but still fighting at a mill just north of the village, while a platoon of the 2d Battalion weapons company held on in a few buildings at the west edge of Lauterborn. There was, of course, no means by which the VIII Corps commander could know that the Seventh Army scheme of maneuver was limited to a swing only as far as Mersch, eight miles north of the city. Paul H. Dupuis, the senior officer in Echternach, refused on the ground that General Barton's "no retrograde movement" order of 16 December was still in effect.3 As darkness settled in, the small relief force turned back to the mill north of Lauterborn, promising to return on the morrow with more troops. 8th Infantry Division "Pathfinder Division" "Arrow Division" Its nickname is represented by the golden arrow piercing the white "8" on a blue shield. 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. 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. 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. 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. While CCA, 10th Armored, gave weight to the 4th Division counterattack, General Barton tried to strengthen the 12th Infantry right flank in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector. 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. Next Mabry shifted his attack to the right so as to bring the infantry through the draw which circled the nose. The tanks rolled down the road from Scheidgen with. 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. Miles L. Standish), which had been assigned to help the 2d Battalion, 12th Infantry, clear the enemy from Berdorf, had little better success. 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. 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. 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. But the 320th Regiment, although badly shaken in its first attempts to take Dickweiler, was rapidly increasing the number of its troops in this area, spreading across the main road and encircling the two villages. The division served in World War I, World War II, and Operation Desert Storm. 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. This idea caught on and other men started to serve the howitzers, awkward as the technique was, some firing at ranges as short as sixty yards. 2nd Infantry Division, BOBA veterans to attend 8ARMDD Monument Dedication in Carlisle, PA. They went overseas on 5 December 1943 where they trained in Ireland for the Invasion of Europe. L and I completely surrounded." Infantry replacements were particularly hard to obtain and many rifle companies remained at no better than half strength. Artillery, normally the first supporting weapon to be brought into play by the division, had very limited effect at this stage. Middleton had nothing to offer but the 159th Engineer (Combat) Battalion, which was working on the roads. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" 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. 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). These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. US ARMY 17TH AIRBORNE DIVISION PATCH GOLDEN TALONS BATTLE OF THE BULGE VETERAN. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. At Lauterborn, however, they were told that the tanks could not be risked in Echternach after dark. At noon the picture of battle had sharper definition; so General Barton authorized the 12th Infantry to commit the 1st Battalion (Lt. Col. Oma R. Bates), the regimental reserve. Either these sets failed to function or the outposts were surprised before a message could get out. 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. Contact thus established, an assault was launched to clear Berdorf. Whatever the reason, this enemy penetration went no further than Mllerthal. In Echternach Company E, 12th Infantry, had occupied a two-block strongpoint from which it harassed the German troops trying to move through the town. $8.99. Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. Unfortunately rain and snow, during the days just past, had turned the countryside to mud, and the tanks were bound to the roads. The plans to utilize these positions were briefed by General Barton to his commanders on the 13th. On the left, Task Force Chamberlain (Lt. Col. Thomas C. Chamberlain) dispatched a small tank-infantry team from Breitweiler into the gorge. The Fall of the Golden Lions. Equipment, which had been in use since the Normandy landings, was in poor condition. 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. 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 midafternoon the remaining companies of the 2d Battalion, 22d Infantry, started for Osweiler, advancing in column through the woods which topped a ridge line running southwest of the village. This time the tanks deployed on the roads and trails south of Berdorf and moved in with five riflemen on each tank deck. 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. Through the morning rumors and more rumors poured over the American radio nets, but there was no sign of Company E. About noon Colonel Riley agreed to send a few tanks in one final effort to reach the infantry in Echternach, provided that the 12th Infantry would give his tanks some protection. 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. 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. Apparently the crews manning the rubber boats had trouble with the swift current, and there were too few craft to accommodate large detachments. 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 1st Battalion, 423d Regiment, overran three of the outpost positions, captured the company mortars, machine guns, and antitank guns sited in support of the forward detachments, and moved in on Berdorf. 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. 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. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. 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. 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. Other troops of Task Force Standish returned to the attack at Hill 329, on the Berdorf-Echternach road, where they had been checked by flanking fire the previous day. And in and around Eisenborn, CCA, 10th Armored Division, was assembling to counter any German attack. The superiority in tanks maintained by the 4th Infantry Division throughout this operation would effectively checkmate the larger numbers of the German infantry. 8th Armored Casualty Figures Casualty figures for the 8th Armored Division, European theater of operations: Total battle casualties: 2,011 Total deaths in battle: 469 Once in possession of these hills the 320th was to seize the two villages, then drive on to join the 423d. Each regiment, by standard practice on such a wide front, had one of the division's 105-mm. 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. 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. As yet no American troops had had opportunity to try the mettle of the 212th (Generalmajor Franz Sensfuss). Normandy; Northern France ; 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. 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). Picture Information. An hour earlier the tank destroyer reconnaissance company had begun a long-range fire fight but the German advance guard, despite heavy shelling from three field artillery battalions and every self-propelled piece which could be brought to bear, drove straight on to Mllerthal. 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. 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 company radio was back for repair but each of the artillery observers, forward, had a radio. The 12th Infantry cannon company was just moving up to a new position when fire opened from the wood. 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. and command messages in addition to its own calls for fire. US ARMY 1ST ID FIRST INFANTRY DIVISION PATCH BIG RED ONE 1 VETERAN FORT RILEY. After a few minutes of this exchange Sgt. Later Barton phoned the corps commander to ask for reinforcements. 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 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. were many seventeen-year-olds. 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