It was after midnight when the engineers finally reported that the charge had been replaced and successfully detonated.7 Even then the span was only partially wrecked and was still capable of bearing foot troops; but the German tanks milling about the burning buildings east of the river would have to find other means of crossing the Salm. The arrival of gasoline, rations, ammunition, and the presence of a few replacement vehicles in the division park would make the last-ditch stand or withdrawal, whichever it might be, a little easier. The three task forces organized along the new line nominally represented a total of five medium tank companies, a. light tank company, three platoons of 90-mm. Still worse, CCB had no friendly contact on the north, and a patrol sent to establish connection with CCB, 9th Armored, on the south had disappeared. Forty minutes later the tanks left Poteau, moving fast and exchanging shots with German tanks, while the 275th Armored Field Artillery. Bauvenn, no more than a jog in the road, lay three-quarters of a mile north of the natural corridor through which flowed the Braunlauf Creek, the corridor at whose eastern entrance the enemy had attacked the night before in severing. Only a few arrived in time to take part in the battle there; for the rest of the day and far into the night the Panthers crawled into the Rodt assembly area. 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. Apparently the German corps command had some difficulty in organizing a co-ordinated and well-timed advance over the broken and wooded ground around St. Vith. By prodigious effort the LXVI Corps artillery finally had been wormed through the traffic jam east of St. Vith, and towed and manhandled into position. The 7th Armored Division Move to St. Vith, When the counteroffensive began, the 7th Armored Division (Brig. In an hour the armored infantry were out of their holes and their half-tracks were clanking down the road to Vielsalm. d. If the 2d SS Panzer Division attack should succeed in driving back the two RCTs of the 82d Airborne Division now between Salmchteau and Hebronval even as little as 3000 yards we will be completely severed from any source of supplies. other German units forged westward past its northern and southern extensions. The period of rest and refitting, after heavy fighting at Metz and in Holland, had put the 7th Armored in good condition. 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. It finally arrived in the division assembly area east of Vielsalm late in the afternoon. About 2045 CCR got its first word of the Germans it had so narrowly missed when the driver for the division chief of staff, Col. Church M. Matthews, appeared at the command post with the report that during the afternoon he had run afoul of a large tank column near Pont and that the colonel was missing. to the XVIII Airborne Corps commander setting forth the hard facts of the case already put to the British captain. At 0030 on the 23d General Hasbrouck informed General Hoge that his combat command, which was to initiate the move west, would begin withdrawal at 0200. By midnight on the 23d over two hundred men from the column had reached the 508th Parachute Infantry and many others straggled in before daylight. Hasbrouck earlier had been "suspicious" of what was happening in the northern sector around Recht and Poteau, but he was no longer too apprehensive after the successive march groups of the 1st SS Panzer Division had bounced off the 7th Armored Division roadblocks. On the morning of the 17th Colonel Slayden, VIII Corps' assistant G-2, and Lt. Col. Earle Williams, the 106th Division signal officer, while doing independent scouting east of St. Vith, had seen the enemy and tapped the signal wire to ask for artillery interdiction of the highway. of the Ardennes battleground. Remer, still missing most of his tanks, had been instructed to drive from Nieder-Emmels straight south into St. Vith. The 969th Field Artillery Battalion was an African American United States Army field artillery unit that saw combat during World War II. (It will be remembered that the 18th Volks Grenadier Division was charged with the encirclement and capture of St. The 440th Armored Field Artillery Battalion, unable to reverse itself, turned west to Stavelot and subsequently joined the western group on its way to Vielsalm. The entire force under Generals Hasbrouck and Jones was to form a defensive ring west of St. Vith and east of the Salm River. After some confusion in getting through the Fuehrer Begleit Brigade around Rodt on the morning of 23 December, the 293d continued along the road to Poteau. 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. threatening to run down the vehicles barring the road, from Vielsalm Communication between the higher American headquarters and their subordinate units was sporadic and, for long periods, nonexistent. a slim connection remained between the 7th Armored Division rear installations the VIII Corps headquarters and the St. Vith command post was almost The bulk of the artillery column closed at Vielsalm during the morning, although the last few miles had to be made against the flow of vehicles surging from the threatened area around St. Vith. Like the Americans on 17 December, jammed on the St. Vith-Vielsalm road, the Germans lacked adequate military police to handle the situation. Late in the day General Jones moved the 106th command post to Vielsalm, setting up near General Hasbrouck's headquarters. 87th infantry division museum They come back to the more secure positions. needed time to gather for a coordinated and effective defense. 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. When the Germans finally maneuvered into position to renew the attack, the Americans broke free and fell back toward Commanster. The bulk of the LXVI Corps remained wedged in the streets of St. Vith or backed up along the roads funneling in from the east. Chrain. 802 Field Artillery Bn SMITH, ROY BENTON. Just north, the wing of the 82d Airborne defense running west to the Baraque de Fraiture crossroads (and junction with the 3d Armored Division) rested on the Salm River. None of the charts on traffic density commonly used in general staff or armored school training could give a formula for establishing the coefficient of "friction" in war, in this case the mass of jeeps, prime movers, guns, and trucks which jammed the roads along which the 7th Armored columns had to move to St. Vith. nonexistent, even by radio. Prisoners subsequently told of very severe losses here in the forest.3. This bridgehead village lay in the outpost line of the 508th Parachute Infantry. Having set up installations west of La Roche, the trains' commander (Col. Andrew J. Adams) used his own people and all the stragglers he could find to man roadblocks around the train area. reached Vielsalm. Even when separated from the 7th Armored trains the St. Vith front was considerably stronger and better organized than it had been. The 424th and 112th Infantry Regiments were to withdraw from their positions. Two hours later while the division assembled and made ready, an advance party left the division command post at Heerlen, Holland, for Bastogne where it was to receive instructions from the VIII Corps. This, one of his division commanders opined, was easier said than done. squadron being formed from the remains of the 14th Cavalry Group. Liaison and staff officers coming from Bastogne brought word of only meager American reinforcements anywhere in the neighborhood of St. Vith. The roads to be used were few and in poor state, During the night of The 62d Volks Grenadier Division had been given the mission of cutting the possible escape routes southwest of St. Vith by an advance through Grufflange and Maldingen. By daybreak the Fuehrer Begleit advance guard had arrived at the edge of the forest north of Rodt. 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"). The problem involved in extricating and reforming these units was enhanced by the natural desire of the German soldiers to make the most of this opportunity to sleep for a little while in warm billets. assembly area, more difficult and tenuous. In general, however, the battle was waning all along the eastern arc, bringing a brief respite to the men in the foxholes, now subjected to a freezing, blasting wind after hours of fighting in snow and slush. United States Army Field Artillery Battalion, 365th US Army Heritage and Education Center + Leaflet | Map data OpenStreetMap contributors, CC-BY-SA, Imagery Mapbox Contact Information View in Google Maps Details 42 leaves [1946?] The American gunners in the groupment west of Lommersweiler immediately answered the cavalry call for aid, apparently with some effect; yet within the hour at least a part of the twenty-two enemy guns counted here were in action, firing in preparation for an assault across the river. Veteran C. Young. A little later a company of German infantry was detected marching north along the valley toward Chrain. This estimate was received at the headquarters of the VIII Corps at 0500 on 17 December, the first indication, it would appear, that the leading armored elements would arrive at 1400 instead of 0700 as planned. The mass of artillery, cavalry, and supply vehicles moving painfully through St. Vith to the west-with and without orders-formed a current almost impossible to breast. There is a sign that reads Headquarters Battery 969 F and features 2 cannons crossed on the bottom. It stands at the entrance to the valley road which leads to Vielsalm, and mechanized attack from either Recht or Rodt had to funnel through the narrow neck at this crossroads, vehicle maneuver off either of the two approaches being almost impossible. The town square was a scene of utter confusion. But the combat echelons of the two regiments of the 62d Volks Grenadier Division which had bypassed the city on the south were in position by the night of the 22d to renew the attack. Despite the American withdrawal from the WinterspeltHeckhuscheid area and the promptings of the impatient commander of the LXVI Corps, the 62d only tardily brought itself into conformity with the forward kampfgruppen of the 18th Volks Grenadier Division. 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. His regiment had lost most of its vehicles, radios, and crew-served weapons but had suffered relatively light casualties and lost but few stragglers. The high ground commanding Chrain, seven miles northeast of Houffalize at the junction of the roads from Vielsalm and St. Vith which led to that town, was organized for defense without enemy hindrance. They had given the XVIII Airborne Corps badly back to Vielsalm: the 112th had withdrawn to Huldange, thus coming closer to the 7th Armored and 106th. General Hasbrouck was apprised of this new enemy threat; by what he later remembered as "one of the funniest. Two of the American tank destroyers reached St. Vith and here blocked the main street until nearly midnight, when one was destroyed by a bazooka round. The Americans did not know that the troops of the 9th SS Panzer Division, who in past days had made raids from Recht southwest toward Poteau, were few in number and that only the day before the main body of the 9th SS Panzer Division had started on a forced march to the northwest in an attempt to break through to Kampfgruppe Peiper, now nearing the end of its tether. Taking advantage of a heavy fog which rose in midafternoon, Remer sent a tank company through Ober-Emmels and up the slope west of Hnningen. There two companies of the 1st Battalion, 112th Infantry, were deployed, guarding a draw and secondary road which provided quick access to the Salm valley at a point midway between Jones's assembly area at Bovigny and Salmchteau. During the night a quick freeze had hardened the ground just enough to allow the tanks and half-tracks from the east, covered with clinging foot troops, to swing cross-country and south to the Braunlauf road. Colonel Nelson, commanding the 112th Infantry, had sent a radio message General Clarke, the CCB, 7th Armored Division, commander, could do little to influence the course of the battle. The section of the main St. Vith-Vielsalm supply road west of Rodt was guarded by two American medium tank companies spread over a distance of three miles. Furthermore the 7th Armored trains had reported signs of an enemy force far to the west of the 7th Armored outpost positions. The loss of this combat command would create a wide breach in front of the enemy congregating south of St. Vith, a breach which hardly could be filled by the last reserves at Hasbrouck's disposal. Congrats. was left of his command to fall back to the high ground west of the city, planning to anchor the new line on those of his troops who were still intact in the Nieder-Emmels sector, northwest of St. Vith. To protect the valley corridor through which Task Force Jones would have to move some companies of the 112th Infantry were still left east of the river in the villages of Rogery and Cierreux. The command situation finally was "regularized" when Ridgway gave Maj. Gen. Alan W. Jones the command of the 7th Armored Division (he ranked Brig. detachment arrived to set up the Gouvy roadblock, it found the Germans inside the village. in firing position) and a massed infantry assault drove the troopers out. Find 365th Field Artillery Battalion unit information, patches, operation history, veteran photos and more on TogetherWeServed.com. He still hoped to counterattack and restore the line Malmdy-St. Vith. Possession of the First Army ration dumps at Gouvy Station was a boon to the units in the St. Vith-Vielsalm defense, for by 20 December the 7th Armored Division trains for all practical purposes were cut off from the forward combat elements. room to constitute a real threat to the southern and western sections 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. Field Artillery Battalions. After a personal reconnaissance east of St. Vith on 19 December Remer concluded that a frontal attack in this sector was out of the question. howitzers to give Stone's men a hand. With the discovery of this new enemy force in the north and the knowledge that the only route of withdrawal remaining to CCA was along the road from Poteau to Vielsalm, Colonel Rosebaum gave over the effort against the Fuehrer Begleit armor and gathered the major part of his command in a circular defense around the Poteau crossroads. A small German attack hit the right flank just as the move was being. Unwilling to risk his tanks without infantry protection in a night fight through narrow streets, and uncertain of the enemy strength, Warren ordered a withdrawal after a sharp 45-minute engagement. About this time the Germans made another attempt, covered The stand made by Troop B, 32d Cavalry Squadron, near Heuem and the later fight by the engineers gave the German point an excuse to report-as it did-the presence of "stubborn resistance" east of St. Vith. Tank and artillery fire stopped the Germans just as it had on previous days. Vith.) the tight control needed in this type of operation General Ridgway ordered Having found a negotiable route for his heavy vehicles, Remer prepared to capture Rodt, cut the main road between that village and Vielsalm, and overrun such of the American batteries as remained in the way. 695th Armored Field Artillery Battalion: U.S. Army: 1945: Invasion behind enemy lines and capture of the French city Metz. Word of this, handed down by Colonel Ryan who had been at the VIII Corps headquarters in Neufchteau and had worked his way back to the division trains, caused a little confusion as to the exact status of the units attached to the 7th Armored Division. It was known that a German move northwest toward this open flank was in process-indeed the 116th Panzer Division and the 560th Volks Grenadier Division had been identified. up to cover his right rear and had ordered the regiment to seize and German infantry and a few tanks pursued but were held off until the last of the CCB column had been pushed through the village and was on its way northwest to the Vielsalm bridge. In fact, however, there was little left of the 106th; so responsibility tended to devolve on the junior commander, Hasbrouck. There remained the task of evacuating the blocking force which for so long had held the southernmost outposts of the St. Vith salient.

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