One brief engagement was fought on the 18th at Gouvy, a rail and road junction southwest of Beho. One tank company was left as rear guard north of Maldingen, there blocking the approach from the German concentration area at Galhausen, but the enemy reacted slowly and the rear guard got away with the loss of only two tanks. A disabled German self-propelled gun is in the foreground. In the early afternoon the sketchy line just west of St. Vith was abandoned and CCB fell back to the secondary position which had been under preparation since the early morning hours. Actually there were only three Shermans on the main road, remnant of a reserve platoon which had been commandeered when the initial tank support had decamped. the engineers. there still was a faint hope that the 422d and 423d somehow might be The 7th Armored trains, which had reached Salmchteau by the western route on the morning of the 18th, were sent twenty-two miles west of La Roche, partly to keep them out of enemy reach but also because of the possibility that the division might soon have to retire behind the Ourthe River. Battalion, at the tail of the column, rolled through Stavelot about 0800 on the morning of 18 December, it found itself in the middle of a fire fight between the advance guard of the 1st SS. The 82d Airborne Division, it was estimated, would reach Werbomont (about the same distance northwest of Vielsalm) on the morning of 19 December, but it was apparent that in this area also the enemy barred any solid contact with the St. Vith defenders. The panzer grenadier regiment and the assault guns therefore were ordered off their assigned route and turned northeast to follow the column through Stavelot. By this time the last of the milling traffic was leaving Poteau; eight 8-inch howitzers of the 740th Field Artillery Battalion were abandoned here as the German fire increased, ostensibly because they could not be hauled out of the mud onto the road. Brig. During this entire action the 275th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, To the left the two remaining regiments of the 62d were to attack due west with the object of reaching the road between St. Vith and Maldingen; they would take no part, however, in the assault on St. Vith. ABMC Headquarters 2300 Clarendon Blvd, Suite 500 Arlington, VA 22201 Phone: 703-584-1501 At Vielsalm General Hasbrouck waited impatiently for word that the two harassed combat commands were ready to disengage. Artillery Battalions had landed at Normandy by 12 June 1944. The enemy took the village quickly, and with it many of the half-tracks belonging to the 48th Armored Infantry Battalion. Colonel Boylan led the rear guard back toward the bridge but then was ordered, because of a traffic jam at the bridge, to hold on the east bank until the 7th Armored Division headquarters could cross. The southern route, through Recht and Vielsalm, was assigned to a kampfgruppe of the 1st SS Panzer Division made up of a reinforced panzer grenadier regiment and a battalion of assault guns. Between Rodt and the next village to the west, Poteau, two companies of medium tanks patrolled the main road and watched the trails running in from the north. In German plans the hub at St. Vith was important, but it was not on the axis of any of the main armored thrusts. General Jones and General Hasbrouck still expected that CCB would. narrow defile cut by the Salm River. to act as a breakwater holding the LXVI Corps in check while Although German patrols continued up the road to Steinebrck, attempting in vain to seize the bridge during the night, the attack was not pressed until after daylight on the following morning. In an infantry division, there were usually 4 artillery battalions, 3 outfitted with 105mm . Usually, 4 to 6 guns made up a battery in the field artillery. In the meantime, Colonel Rosebaum, the CCA commander, sent two of his Supply routes to the 7th Armored Division trains were still open, although menaced by the roving enemy and obstructed by west-moving friendly traffic. The Germans started a dash to sweep the column broadside, but the first shot knocked out an air-compressor truck whose unwieldy hulk effectively blocked the road. While the 2d SS Panzer Division was awaiting the gasoline needed for its projected attack north along the seam between the 82d Airborne Division and the 3d Armored in the Baraque de Fraiture sector, the reinforced Reconnaissance Battalion (Maj. Ernst Krag) had been dispatched on the 22d to cut the main road between Salmchteau and the Baraque de Fraiture crossroads. able to fight their way out through Schnberg as General Jones howitzer, to fire only on the most urgent and well-defined targets. By this time most of the 32d Squadron had threaded their way south through Poteau, apparently unaware that the group had established a command post there. The movement plans prepared by the First Army staff assigned General Hasbrouck two routes of march: an east route, through Aachen, Eupen, Malmdy, and Recht, on which CCR would move; a west route, through Maastricht, Verviers, and Stavelot, which would be used by the main body of the division. The 164th Regiment, advancing opposite the southern flank of CCB, reported success while moving unopposed through Maspelt and across ground which had been abandoned the previous night, but at a crossroads in the Grufflange woods American shells suddenly poured in and the advance came to a dead stop. That was all. Although all intention of attempting to breach the German ring around A trail had been discovered leading west out of the valley, and most of the middle of the column, led by a light tank company, escaped over it. At that time the combat command retained only the 17th Tank Battalion (assembled to the southeast) because its armored infantry battalion had been diverted to St. Vith. For some hours the columns could move neither forward nor back, and when Field Marshal Model arrived on the scene he was forced to dismount and make his way into the city on foot. His regiment had lost most of its vehicles, radios, and crew-served weapons but had suffered relatively light casualties and lost but few stragglers. By midmorning of 22 December the flood of vehicles streaming into St. Vith was out of control. General Hasbrouck received a telephone call at 1730 alerting, his division for movement to the south (it took five more hours for the 7th Armored G-2 to learn that "three or four German divisions were attacking"). This fresh armored division was in fact moving its main strength west from Recht toward the Salm River and collision with the 82d Airborne Division, but a kampfgruppe had been dropped off to cover the south flank of the division by attacking in the direction of Vielsalm. The second German assault was made in a more methodical manner. latter village, its right more or less secured by a provisional company The course of the valley westward proffered a natural line of advance, and through it, in the early hours of the 22d, pushed small detachments of the 62d Volks Grenadier Division. At Commanster a traffic jam started. The First Army commander, tired and worried from the strain under which he had lived since 16 December, agreed to the withdrawal.6. About 0800 the Panthers engaged the small covering force at Hinderhausen. But that the XVIII Airborne Corps lacked the strength to close the gap of thirteen road miles between the VIII Corps and itself (that is, the gap between the 7th Armored Division detachment at Chrain and the elements of the 101st Airborne at Foy) was rapidly becoming apparent to all. For the first time the two divisions holding the salient had some clear picture of the dispositions and plans of neighboring friendly units. It would seem that a German rifle company first crossed into Weppler, now unoccupied, then wheeled and encircled the 2d Platoon on the hill. A few tanks, light armed reconnaissance troops, most of the division engineers, and considerable rifle strength struck through the dark against the eastern arc of the loosely organized American ring. made but was checked by fire from the American tank guns and mortars. by the 168th Engineers the previous day. The arrival of an additional field artillery battalion belonging to the 7th Armored and two 155-mm. The next day it was able, with some pride, to turn over to the 7th Armored Division the 350 German prisoners it had guarded since 18 December and the stores at the railhead. emplaced along the Recht road northwest of St. Vith, fired concentration Yet at no time during the day did the Germans use more than three assault guns and one or two platoons of infantry in the piecemeal attacks west of Schnberg. The problem of maintaining control over the heterogeneous formations in the St. Vith-Vielsalm area or of giving complete tactical unity to the defense was very difficult. When Stone took a look around he found himself in charge of a rail-head stock of 80,000 rations-which had been set ablaze by the depot guards-an engineer vehicle park, and 350 Germans in a POW cage. Over the field telephone General Jones concurred in the opinion furnished Montgomery and Ridgway, but at 1250 Jones dispatched a memo to Ridgway saying, "My intentions are to retain the ground now defended." After a. hasty conference the counterattack was postponed until the following morning. During the night, CCB, 9th Armored Division, and the 424th Infantry withdrew across the Our River and established a defensive line along the hill chain running from northeast of Steinebrck south to Burg Reuland; these troops eventually made contact with the advance elements of CCB, 7th Armored Division. About 1035 the blocking troops left by the 9th SS Panzer Division made an attack. Earlier, Task Force Jones (deployed on the southern flank of the salient) had captured a German engineer officer who, under questioning, said that his division, the 2d SS Panzer Division, was moving toward Gouvy. squadron being formed from the remains of the 14th Cavalry Group. Even though the new armored outfit did not prove to be the famous division but Remer's much weaker panzer brigade, the report was of particular concern. Dismounted infantry in foxholes control the intersection at Poteau but [it is] covered by enemy fire." At 2000 the battle along the Schnberg road flared up again. On 18 December the 7th Armored had learned in a roundabout way that a "Lieutenant Colonel named Stone" had collected a few troops and was holding Gouvy. The enemy grenadiers and gunners refused to stay put. About 1315 the task force fell back through Beho and proceeded west to Salmchteau, picking up other small blocking groups as it went. The motorized rifle battalion, now led by an assault gun company, headed south toward the road center at Beho, found it free of American troops, and there joined a part of the 62d Volks Grenadier Division. named deputy commander of the 7th Armored. spanning the Salm River at Vielsalm and Salmchteau. Half an hour later three enemy tanks and some infantry appeared before the 168th Engineer Battalion position astride the St. Vith road. After an hour or so the battery turned once again and, taking no chances, circled wide to the west. c. The road net within our position is totally inadequate to the troops and vehicles concentrated therein. The detachment which Jones had sent to Gouvy, midway between Deifeld and Chrain, was surprised to find the village occupied by German infantry. 806 Bomb Squadron (446 Bomb Group) The tankers, mindful of their passengers, could not use the tank cannon; so the column rolled through the streets with the infantry riders firing wildly in every direction. Three armored cars, two jeeps, and one light tank were able to disengage and carried the wounded out; apparently a major part of the force was able to make its way to Vielsalm on foot. U.S., World War II Hospital. But the armored infantry, rallied by their officers and General Hasbrouck was apprised of this new enemy threat; by what he later remembered as "one of the funniest. Force at Hinderhausen Poteau but [ it is ] covered by enemy fire. southwest of Beho was out control! Well-Defined targets landed at Normandy by 12 June 1944 Jones howitzer, to only. 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