On the left the 26th Volks Grenadier Division finally achieved contact with the 5th Parachute Division, which had been advancing cautiously along the boundary between the 109th and 110th Infantry and had done nothing to help Kokott's southern regiment, the 39th. 126th Infantry Regiment. These reinforcements arrived at Reuler in time to take a hand against the Germans pouring past Marnach toward Clerf and its bridges. The German attack to penetrate the front lines of the 28th Division succeeded on the first day of the offensive in splitting the 112th Infantry from the rest of the division. Luettwitz and the army commander ran at least two map 3. This time the bridge was blown. General Luettwitz was none too pleased with the progress made by his two attack divisions on this first day. However, if it were not . The 902d, advancing by way of Munshausen, now cleared of Americans, followed. moved toward Sevenig. He was wounded in action on Dec. 16, 1944 in Bleialf, Germany, by shrapnel. Company B and a platoon of the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion were well entrenched there and gave the Germans a warm reception, although themselves under fire from batteries east of the Our. Division likely to be encountered during the first hours of the attack 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. A patrol which had been sent from the 3d Battalion to carry the withdrawal order to the 1st Battalion command post, still holding on at Harspelt, failed to get through. Manteuffel had found himself in almost complete disagreement with the original operations plan handed down by Jodl in November. Fuller had only two battalions at his disposal because the 2d Battalion, located at Donnange, constituted the division reserve. The 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, on 16 December 1944, held the center sector of the defensive zone of the division and VIII Corps in the Ardennes. MacDonald, Charles B. The other Altoona unit was mustered into federal service for home station duty during World War II as Battery B, 200th Field Artillery. Here it lay astride the main attack axis of the German LXVII Panzer Corps of the Fifth Panzer Army headed to Bastogne, Belgium, and points west. In common with the German assault tactics employed all along the front on 16 December, both regiments led off with a predawn advance by shock companies eighty men strong. In 1949, the Bellefonte unit was redesignated Battery B, 688th Field Artillery. Colonel Nelson sent back request after request for air support. The 26th Volks Grenadier Division, having completed its initial mission by seizing an undamaged bridge across the Clerf at Drauffelt during the night, made way for the Panzer Lehr Division to strike for Bastogne. 1st Battalion held the northern section with Col. Donald Paul's command post at Urspelt: Company A held Heinerscheid. This created a bulge in the German line. World War II Records, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, History . 125th Infantry Regiment. tank destroyers from the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion, weapons of The Spanish castle indicates service in Puerto Rico during the SpanishAmerican War, while the bridge, which is a representation of the bridge over the. Schoppen, Belgium, the 16th Infantry Regiment's first objective after going on the offense during second half of the Battle of the Bulge. At that crucial point the infantry had to take Bastogne as quickly as possible, with or without the help of the armored divisions. relatively little ground; the 110th was very hard pressed; and German tanks were moving along the main road to Bastogne by way of Marnach. For example, by the end of January, 1945, the 47 th Infantry Regiment (which fought in France and Germany) had lost well over 100% of their strength to battle casualties, where men were either killed, wounded . in the Ardennes sector. guns and asked for American artillery fire on their own positions. The areas selected by the two corps for their main efforts were some six to seven air-line miles apart-an indication of the weight to be thrown against the American 28th Infantry Division. exercises to arrive at a solution, but Bastogne lay nineteen air-miles As a junior officer in the prewar panzer troops, Manteuffel had made a mark as an armored specialist. In the last analysis the losses inflicted on the enemy may have equaled those sustained by the Americans-certainly the Germans paid dearly for their hurried frontal attacks against stonewalled villages and towns-but the final measure of success and failure would be in terms of hours and minutes won by the Americans and lost to the enemy. The Huntingdon unit went through several redesignations including a quartermaster company and finally Headquarters and Headquarters Detachment of the 154th Transportation Truck Battalion. Colonel Fuller set. On German operations maps Wiltz lay athwart the boundary which divided the attack zones of the XLVII Panzer Corps and the LXXXV Corps. 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. At night the strip between the ridge and the river became a no man's land where German and American patrols stalked one another. "Rocky" Moretto was one of only two men in his infantry company who . In fact it represented Heilmann's failure to gain control of his division, for the orders were to bypass Wiltz. Outnumbered and outgunned, the men of the 110th Infantry Regiment upset the German timetable during the Battle of the Bulge. In the late afternoon of 15 December General Luettwitz gathered his division commanders in the XLVII Panzer Corps forward headquarters at Ringhuscheid for final instructions and introduction to the new commander of the 2d Panzer Division, Colonel von Lauchert, who had been selected at the last moment by the Fifth Panzer Army leader to replace an incumbent who was not an experienced tanker. The Lewistown company was consolidated with another company and became Headquarters and Headquarter Troop, 3rd Reconnaissance Squadron, 104th Armored Cavalry Regiment. The orders given the 116th Panzer Division on the night of 16 December to switch to the left were altered on the 17th to start its infantry regiments marching still farther south to the Dasburg bridgehead held by the neighboring corps. The regimental position, really a series of squad and platoon posts, followed a ridge line south through Harspelt and Sevenig, then bent back across the Our and followed the western slopes of the river nearly to Kalborn. Meanwhile he dispatched But the credit side of the ledger showed a few entries. Two hours later the enemy struck at Company A, apparently an attempt to clear the north-south Skyline Drive, but artillery fire beat him off. In 1914 the 2d Squadron was assigned to the 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry and Company L, 12th Pennsylvania Infantry was redesignated Troop L, 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry. The timetable for the 26th Volks Grenadier Division advance called for both its attacking regiments to reach the Clerf River by nightfall of the first day. Remnants of the 3d Battalion had assembled at Consthum, the battalion headquarters. 112th Infantry Regiment. Legacy : Acker, Lewis F. Lt Col CWS : . To the south Company I held Weiler-les-Putscheid, a hamlet in a knot of trails and byroads on the forward slopes of the ridge line. Small detachments with burp guns now crept down through the dark and engaged the troops in and around the chteau. The unit was mustered out of federal service on 6 December 1945 at Camp Gordon, Georgia. In 1951, a rampant lion as found on the arms of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg grasping a red cross of the province of Lorraine in France were added to the old coat of arms of the 112th Infantry Regiment. In this case, as in many others during the American withdrawal, the full story is that of the cooperation of the combined arms. The Battle of the Huertgen Forest: The Untold Story of a Disastrous Campaign. Snow blanketed the fields. When the 28th Division arrived on the VIII Corps front in mid-November its regiments were in pitiable condition. The unit was mustered into federal active service on 16 July 1917 for service in World War I, and Rickards remained its commander. regiment, despite many attempts, had not been able "to get going. Krueger was the elder of the two and lacked something of Luettwitz' dash. fire and sent forward a white flag, with an offer for the Americans to surrender. 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. USA soldiers during the Battle of the Bulge, 1944. started a march intended to bring it east of Sevenig on the left of At the same time a tank platoon, shrouded in darkness and with no American tanks left to contest the passage, wound its way into the south end of Clerf. This had been accomplished by noon on the first It was accounted the regimental reserve, having fixed schemes of employment for support of the two battalions in the north by counterattack either northeast or southeast. Most of the positions occupied lay on the east. Three-quarters of an hour later the regimental commander ordered the artillery to displace behind the river; Colonel Fairchild moved the battalion across the river without losing a piece and immediately resumed firing. 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. The unit was transported to and garrisoned at El Paso, Texas for training, but was never utilized because hostilities ended. The regiment was called to active federal service on 17 February 1941, 10 months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Manteuffel likewise opposed the concept proposed by Jodl in which the attack would be carried by two panzer corps advancing in column. 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. and the U.S. 84th Division had essayed an attack in the sector around The Infantry School at Fort Benning began collecting academic monographs from company commanders soon after the end of World War II, to record their personal combat experiences. (By this hour, of course, the story was quite different: the 1st Battalion was cut to pieces, most of the 2d Battalion was surrounded, and the 3d Battalion was holding at Consthum and Hosingen only by the skin of its teeth. As American riflemen and machine gunners cut down the German assault teams, they saw their own ranks thinning. Battered and fatigued by weary, bloody fighting in the Hrtgen Forest, the 28th Division came into the quiet front on the Our during mid-November. Both flanks of the regiment, however, were in process of being uncovered by enemy thrusts against the neighboring units-although this effect may not have been immediately apparent. mortars, and an antitank platoon repelled wave after wave of attacking German infantry. The family moved to Willmar in 1928 and to a farm north of Willmar in 1932. Anything even remotely resembling a continuous line across the 9- to 10-mile regimental front was beyond the strength of the 1st and 3d Battalions. Men in the observation posts watched the enemy move about his daily chores and reported flares and occasional rounds of mortar or artillery fire. He continued to fight with Cannon Company until the 423rd Regiment surrendered Dec. 19, 1944, near Schnberg, Belgium. Company B, however, had been badly shot up during the engagement and probably somewhat shaken by the presence of two or three flame-throwing tanks-a new experience to most American troops on the Western Front. Kokott's infantry would have to carry the battle through the night. whereupon the light tank platoon destroyed its single remaining tank Albright, Barry E. CPT, "Operations of the 2nd Battalion, 508th Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, in the Invasion of Normandy, 5-13 June 1944" (Normandy Campaign Alford, Truman MAJ , "Operations of the 6th Tank Destroyer Group, as part of Taks Force "A", in the march through Brittany Peninsula to Brest, France, 3-9 August 1944 . Odds didn't favor the 28th Division. The regiment reached France in May 1918 as part of the American Expeditionary Force. Beautifully illustrated with 200 photographs. On 22 November 1878, the battalion was organized as the 16th Regiment, Pennsylvania National Guard. Adherence to this schedule meant that the villages garrisoned by the American companies would have to be avoided or captured quickly. The 229th Field Artillery Battalion was emplaced behind the north flank near Welchenhausen on the German side of the river. Five hundred yards from the Germans, on the far side of a draw, the. In a matter of minutes the left company ran into a strong German skirmish line, deployed at the edge of a wood, which was supported by tanks and self-propelled artillery firing from around Marnach. Other American troops now had to take over the actual defense of that all-important road center, but without the gallant bargain struck by the 110th Infantry and its allied units-men for time-the German plans for a coup-de-main at Bastogne would have turned to accomplished fact.21 The cost had been high, much higher than American units expected to pay at this stage of the war: the 110th Infantry virtually destroyed, the men and fighting vehicles of five tank companies lost, the equivalent of three combat engineer companies dead or missing, and tank destroyer, artillery, and miscellaneous units engulfed in this battle. This sizable town lay in a bend of the Wiltz River valley, southwest of Clerf and some three miles away from the enemy-held crossings at Wilwerwiltz. The company commander withdrew the remaining five tanks on a side road and reached Urspelt, taking position near the 2d Battalion command post.9, The American pincers action had failed to constrict at Marnach. There was no hint from any source that the enemy was about to strike squarely into the center of the 8th Division and in overwhelming array. The 2nd Battalion, 112th Infantry was formed from units of the 104th Armored Cavalry on 01 April 1975. Shortly before noon the advance guard of the 60th Panzer Regiment, rolling along the Ltzkampen-Leidenborn road, appeared on the knoll west of Ltzkampen. they were particularly bad on the axis assigned to Luettwitz' southern The new mission given General Kokott was this: the 26th would force the crossings at the Our and Clerf Rivers on the left of the corps, hold open for the armor, then follow the more mobile panzer units to Bastogne. The Americans had taken 186 prisoners and killed or wounded two or three times that number; the losses in the 1130th Regiment were "very high," said the enemy reports. Meanwhile the 39th Regiment, echeloned to the left 65th Infantry Regiment, Puerto Rican Casualties 66th Armored, Casualties 714th Anti Tank . antitank gun in the path and crossed the bridge at the railroad station. The massed guns and Werfers of the XLVII Panzer Corps which roared out at 0530 on 16 December gave the Americans their first warning. One thing clearly worried him: would the Seventh Army keep pace and cover his left flank to Bastogne? the code name for the coming offensive. *AIR broken up into three separate armored Infantry battalions. 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. This came late in the morning, after the 28th Division commander, General Cota, ordered a tank platoon from the 707th man infantry out of the Battery C area. The heavy barrage and the pyrotechnic display which opened elsewhere on the 28th Division front on 16 December was viewed at first with some detachment by the men at the 112th observation posts. good tank-going could not be expected until the Marche-Rochefort line This was the last word from Marnach. patrol at the stone bridge had evaporated under machine gun fire-and in Wiltz after a rear guard action in Wilwerwiltz. had no cohesive line of defense, General Kokott had ordered the 77th Regiment to circle north of Hosingen and head straight for the Clerf bridges at Drauffelt, while the 39th cut cross-country, avoiding the villages on the western side of the ridge line, and seized the road junction and bridges at Wilwerwiltz on the Clerf. With surprise almost certainly assured and the knowledge that the Americans. blocked with trees and mines, the bridge debris would have taken much This road makes a twisted and tortuous descent to the valley floor, finally crossing the river at the southeastern edge of the town and proceeding, through narrow streets until it emerges on the north. the 2d Battalion back through Reuler, the Americans fighting stubbornly In 2004-2005, A Company, 1st Battalion, was deployed with Task Force Dragoon to Tikrit Iraq. 29th Infantry Division 58th Inf Bde 115th 175th 88th Inf Bde 116th 176th. Thomas G. Bradbeer, General Cota and the Battle of the Hrtgen Forest, Army History, No. The degree of tactical success achieved by the 112th Infantry and the fact that it was able to hold intact as a regiment may be explained by a number of factors. The refused positions of the 2d Battalion allowed fairly free use of a regimental reserve during both days and good counterattack plans were ready. When the 2d Panzer Division was relieved at the end of September its tanks were gone, but there remained a large cadre of veterans who had escaped to the West Wall on foot. Jones attached the 112th Infantry to his own division on the spot, assuring Nelson that he would assume full responsibility. . Manteuffel had no precise schedule for his right wing but after the war was over would say that he had hoped for the seizure of St. Vith on the first day of the attack. At the close of this first day the 112th Infantry remained in its positions east of the Our.16 The 2d Battalion had not yet been seriously engaged, although one company had been detached to reinforce the 3d. It was breached at midnight when tanks and self-propelled guns of the 3d Panzer Regiment entered Marnach. At Heinerscheid, Company A had been overrun in Most members of the 1st Battalion, for example, eventually found their way back to the regiment. The provisional battalion which had been recruited from the headquarters staff remained in Wiltz. Robert L. Smith, soldier of the 112th Infantry Regiment tells of his memories of service in the breakout from Normandy to Paris, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany. All of these units were released from federal service in 1945. The Bofors crews belonging to the 447th Antiaircraft Artillery lingered on near Consthum as a rear guard, discouraging all pursuit with their fast, accurate fire. This story concerns itself with that period when the 3rd Battalion, as part of the 28th . At Weiler the Americans, with only a few rounds left, were completely surrounded and decided to fight their way out. By the second day it was apparent that the combination of stubborn resistance and poor approach roads would delay the projected crossing at Ouren. battalion, hastily formed from the 28th Division headquarters, by setting Arriving in France in late Spring 1918 . In 1943, he joined the. on the Marnach road, but more tanks and infantry were arriving hourly the German engineers moved in. Attached below and to the sides of the shield a Silver scroll inscribed "STRIVE OBEY ENDURE" in blue letters. Even on the first day of the offensive one of Heilmann's regiments had been lost for several hours. 116th Infantry Regiment. Map of St Vith drawn 15 November 1944. General Middleton agreed, but with the proviso that the regiment should remain close enough to the river to deny an enemy crossing. This unit now relieved the provisional 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The 3d Battalion (Maj. Walden F. Woodward), in the regimental center, was hit by the 1130th Regiment of the 560th Volks Grenadier Division. Across town the regimental headquarters company was billeted in an ancient chteau, now partially modernized but retaining the heavy stone walls behind which, since the twelfth century, fighting men had dominated the river bend and controlled the main bridge site. But Germans struck again and again. The speed of the German attack caught most of the regimental medical company and troops from the headquarters and cannon companies. The Americans were not too worried by the flanking move because tanks of the 10th Armored Division were expected momentarily. Both Luettwitz and Manteuffel had been "promised" air support. . At 1839 the sergeant at the regimental switchboard called the division to report that he was alone-only the switchboard was left. observers could see the enemy assembling in the woods just to the north. On the morning of the 17th German tanks had set the town ablaze, but the few American Shermans had held them at bay. The 1st Platoon of Company I had Even in daytime it was possible for German patrols to move about on the west bank, using the cover provided by the deep, wooded draws. Twice during the morning the attackers were allowed to send in aid men and remove their wounded. After a long wait the battalion commanding officer, Major Milton, went back into Wiltz to get further orders; when he returned most of his battalion had disappeared. Accurately adjusted fire held the enemy battalion at bay and forced Subsequently General Cota ordered them to go to the aid of the hardpressed 110th Infantry. In fact the troops of the 26th Volks Grenadier Division sent against Wiltz from the northeast were acting under orders to protect the flank and rear of Panzer Lehr against possible American counterattack from the Wiltz valley. Its pillboxes and supporting positions were occupied in greater strength as the LVIII Panzer Corps (Krueger) moved in. If anyone has information about Fred or his division please contact me. How the US Army 28th Infantry Division's 110th Regimental Combat Team Upset the German Timetable. Middleton had ordered the 44th Engineer Combat Battalion The lay of the ground and defenses in the area north of Ltzkampen were such that Waldenburg's right regiment had to move northwestward at an oblique to the axis of his left wing advance. Once through St. Vith the LXVI would follow Krueger to Andenne, but if things grew rough on the left wing Manteuffel intended to switch Lucht's corps to the south. Luettwitz concluded that the Clerf River now would be crossed not later than the evening of the second day. West of the ridge, Company L in Holzthum and the headquarters company and Company M in Consthum barred a direct approach to the Clerf crossing site at Wilwerwiltz. A platoon of self-propelled tank destroyers had Attempts during the evening to send a task force of stragglers and trains forward from the 28th Division headquarters at Sibret were abortive; the roads east to Wiltz now were blocked every few kilometers by enemy infantry and self-propelled guns. Seven officers and fifty to sixty men did reach Donnange. employ the armor once these two rivers lay behind. Finally the Germans took the village, only to be driven out again. The 10th Infantry Regiment was on the far right side of the Divisions Frontline during their part of the Battle of the Bulge and it was the first regiment to arrive in Luxembourg. Meanwhile the mortar crews took a hand from their foxholes on the hill behind Sevenig, dropping mortar shells into the hollows where the Germans congregated or picking them off with carbines. 103d Engineer Combat Battalion 103d Medical Battalion 28th Division Artillery. Hitler himself seems to have favored this concept (it is found in the first Fuehrer operations order), but only in the Fifth Panzer attack would assault detachments be found inside the American positions when the initial barrage opened up. Separated of necessity by the width of the front and the requirements of some depth in the defenses athwart the east-west roads, the units of the 110th could offer little reciprocal support against an enemy attacking in any force. The line of departure for Krueger's corps began across the Our from Kalborn and extended north to a point east of Burg Reuland. 17 But the situation east of Bastogne was growing more precarious and the division commander decided to bring the 112th back to join in the defense of Bastogne. The battle of the bulge had begun. Shortly before dusk The 26th Volks Grenadier Division was across the Our River in force but had failed to gain its first-day objective, control of the Clerf River crossings. Despite the failure of his Fifth Panzer Army in the Lorraine campaign against Patton's Third Army, Manteuffel was listed by Hitler for command in the Ardennes. Luettwitz, at least, pinned his faith on bad flying weather, night operations, and the large number of flak guns dispersed through his columns. In sum, the way through Clerf would be none too easy for an armored division.10. While elements of the 26th Volks Grenadier Division were attacking on the north side of the Wiltz, detachments of the 5th Parachute Division struck the American perimeter on the south and southeast. He died on Nov. 29, 1944 and is buried at Henri-Chapelle in Hombourg, Belgium. The regiment was awarded battle streamers marked Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland, and Central Europe for its service in World War II. 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. The mission given Luettwitz conformed to his reputation for drive and audacity. It is southeast of Aachen, Germany.D-Day for the Battle of Hurtgen Forest was November 2, 1944, H-hour was 0900. General Cota, as a result, decided to concentrate what was left to him-headquarters troops, engineers, stragglers, and the handful of organized units moving back from across the Clerf-in defense of Wiltz, the 28th Division command post. These were the stakes when the Germans launched their surprise attack through Belgium on December 16, 1944.

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