18th Infantry Regiment; 36th Infantry Regiment; 37th Armored Infantry Battalion; 48th Infantry Regiment; . Then, so the plan read, CCA would advance in three task forces: one through the Schwarz Erntz gorge; one on the Consdorf-Berdorf road; and the third through Scheidgen to Echternach. The company radio was back for repair but each of the artillery observers, forward, had a radio. 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. This time the tanks deployed on the roads and trails south of Berdorf and moved in with five riflemen on each tank deck. At Bech, behind the American center, General Barton now had the 3d Battalion, 22d Infantry, in reserve, having further stripped the 4th Division right. 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. January 4, 1945 was a signal date for the truck driver. Although the German penetrations on the left and in the center of the 12th Infantry sector deepened during the day, the situation on the right was relatively encouraging. 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. Troops of the 8th Infantry Regiment move out over the seawall on Utah Beach after coming ashore on D-Day, June 6, 1944. The 320th had not reached Osweiler and the first assault at Dickweiler had been repulsed handily. The drivers and gunners dived for cover and returned fire. 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. 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. 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. 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 morning situation in the sector held by the 3d Battalion (Maj. Herman R. Rice, Jr.) had not seemed too pressing. 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. On the second day of the battle both sides committed more troops. 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. Troops from the 320th Regiment and fusilier battalion circled around Echternach and Lauterborn meanwhile in an attempt to cut the main road at Scheidgen. 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. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. Actually, only a few men were stationed with the company command post in each village; the rifle platoons and weapon sections were dispersed in outposts overlooking the Sauer, some of them as far as 2,000 yards from their company headquarters. This made the 8th the only division in US Army history to be designated Infantry Division (Mechanized) (Airborne). When the 4th Division reserves arrived in Breitweiler on the morning of 17 December the threat of a flanking move through the gorge was very real but the Americans had time to dig in. Orders were radioed to Company E (a fresh battery for its radio had been brought in by the tanks) to fight its way out during the night. 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. . Gen. Edwin W. Piburn), the leading combat command, should make an immediate drive to the north between the Schwarz Erntz gorge and the main Echternach-Luxembourg road. In the first week of December the 4th Infantry Division (Maj. Gen. Raymond 0. As before, the maneuver was a flanking movement designed to seize the high ground overlooking Mllerthal. American artillery observers by the failing light saw "troops pouring into Echternach." 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. $20.00 + $3.90 shipping. The Schwarz Erntz, taking its name from the rushing stream twisting along its bottom, is a depression lying from three to five hundred feet below the surrounding tableland. The new American line, running from Dickweiler through Osweiler, Hill 313, Consdorf, to south of Mllerthal, was somewhat weak in the center but solidly anchored at the flanks. (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.) One of the Company F men had been rummaging about and had found an American flag. 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. The 12th Infantry cannon company was just moving up to a new position when fire opened from the wood. It was imperative that the line be held. 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. 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. 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. Picture Information. J. C. Kolinski got up, ran back to a truck, fixed a round, and fired it from a howitzer still coupled to the truck. After two hours, and some casualties, a patrol bearing a white flag worked its way in close enough for recognition. General Sensfuss told his superiors that the 212th had made little progress beyond completing the encirclement of Echternach. Battle of the Bulge Here is every one of the 158 Wisconsin burials and MIAs at the three main American cemeteries in Europe that are from the Battle of the Bulge. The floor of the gorge is strewn with great boulders; dense patches of woods line the depression and push down to the edge of the stream. Both units would therefore be involved in guarding the cross-corridors and ravines which stemmed from the gorge itself. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. . At Berdorf most of Company F (1st Lt. John L. Leake) had been on outpost duty at the four observation posts fronting the river. narrow that the tanks had to advance in single file, and only the lead tank could fire. By nightfall the Germans had been driven back some distance from Lauterborn (they showed no wish to close with the tanks), but the decision was made to dig in for the night alongside Company G rather than risk a drive toward Echternach in the dark. The southern shoulder of the German counteroffensive had jammed. The division served in World War I, World War II, and Operation Desert Storm. 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. The defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. The two, last of the Americans to come out of Echternach, made the run safely despite direct fire aimed by the German assault gun. 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. 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. . These units vary in size from a small number of people up to and including an Army Group. 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-. 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. But the Germans defending the houses were heavily armed with bazookas and the tanks made little progress. The 8th Infantry Division, was an infantry division of the US Army during WW-14 and WW-2. 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). Battle Casualties: 13,458 : Non-Battle Casualties: 7,598 : Total Casualties: 21,056 : Percent of T/O Strength: 149.4 : Campaigns. 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