Hugh M. Cole

“ The gunners, fighting as infantry, first beat off the approaching Germans while a neighboring battery blasted the woods east of the road in which the enemy assembled. Hard pressed as the day wore on, the gunners were relieved by a series of friendly sorties. Two motor carriages mounting quadruple .50-caliber machine guns (the M16) from the 447th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion were put on the Diekirch-Hoscheid road. One was crippled by enemy fire, its driver and loader wounded by a rifle grenade when it drove squarely into the files of German infantry on the road, guns blazing ”

“ Near Brandenburg the American tank platoon destroyed four assault guns belonging to the 352d. But the German march to the west continued. In the 3d Battalion sector, on the extreme right flank, the enemy achieved little success during the day and German reports speak of "bloody fighting." Having failed to take the heights by frontal assault, the 916th Regiment started a flanking attack along the south bank of the Sauer, moving for this purpose into the zone of the 276th Volks Grenadier Division, which thus far had been held in check around Reisdorf and Bigelbach. ”

“ Schmidt, the German division commander, tried to lead his troops forward and was seriously wounded. When night came the fight flared up once more, small groups of the enemy probing for weak points while artillery fire and searchlights were employed to guide the attack and distract the defenders. Colonel Rudder phoned the 28th Division chief of staff about 2000, told him that the 109th might be cut off and surrounded, and suggested that he should pull his regiment back to the southwest across the Sauer to cover the left flank of the 9th Armored Division. ”

“ The 107th and 108th Field Artillery Battalions, emplaced near Bissen, answered the enemy guns and gave what protection they could to the marching infantry. Engineer parties laid mines on the main roads and blew the last bridges at Diekirch. The rear guard, formed from the attached tank company, stayed on in Diekirch, where the first platoon captured 107 prisoners. By midnight the 1st and 3d Battalions were west of the Alzette, strung along the west-reaching line of hills which began just south of Ettelbruck and anchored near Grosbous. ”

“ Patrols that went out to the front and flanks found nothing in the dangerous gap between Ermsdorf and Diekirch but drove off a German patrol which was moving south from Eppeldorf, not west into the gap. At the right end of the American line patrols discovered a large group of Germans in a farmhouse. After a platoon of tank destroyers shelled the house, a volunteer squad of seven noncoms from Battery A, 482d Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, made the assault with Tommy guns and hand grenades. ”

“ There it lay, with perfect cover for close-in work with the bazooka, when the American advance began. Lacking sufficient infantry to clear the woods or defend the tanks, the Americans had been unable to profit by their superiority in heavy weapons. The situation on the flanks in the CCA sector also was unfavorable to the Americans. At Ermsdorf, which had been the linchpin on the northern flank, elements of the 1st Battalion, 986th Regiment, brought up mortars and attacked. The light tanks beat off the Germans but were forced to give up their screening activities in this area. ”

“ Belgian woman salvaging grain in gutted barn The fighting armored infantry had so successfully contained the German main forces on 16 and 17 December that the infiltrating units which first made headway in the Beaufort area were relatively small. The 9th Armored intelligence estimates set the enemy strength to be encountered here at approximately three companies. Against this supposedly limited force the CCA commander mustered his remaining men, assault guns, and armored vehicles for a counterattack to reestablish contact with the three isolated companies "and drive the enemy into the river." ”

“ The 109th Infantry Defense on the Sauer and Our Rivers: 16-20 December The 109th Infantry, led by Lt. Col. James E. Rudder, a former Ranger commander, was close to full strength, although, like the rest of the 28th Division, its rifle companies were filled by replacements with limited experience and training. The division commander had considered that the enemy might make a "distracting" attack toward Diekirch and Ettelbruck, in an attempt to cut the road and rail lines running north from the city of Luxembourg, and had disposed the 109th accordingly. ”

“ This deep, thickly wooded gorge posed a constant threat to both CCA and the 4th Infantry Division. As yet the enemy made no attempt to utilize the natural sally port, but in the 4th Division sector German infantry surrounded Berdorf, which controlled a lateral road descending into the gorge. In the 9th Armored sector three lateral draws debouched west from the gorge toward Haller, Waldbillig, and Christnach. In the late afternoon Company A, 19th Tank Battalion, joined the 12th Infantry (4th Division) as a mobile reserve in this area. ”

“ Hoscheid was garrisoned by part of the 110th Infantry Antitank Company, six medium tanks mounting 105-mm. howitzers (which the 707th Tank Battalion had organized as an assault gun platoon) and three regular mediums. Through most of the 17th the defenders held on against infantry attack from the west and German assault guns attacking from the north on the Skyline Drive. Finally, about 1530, the Hoscheid garrison received orders to fight its way out and join the relief force. ”

“ True, one arm of the 352d was reaching north of the 3d Battalion, but the latter still blocked the Sauer valley road and the direct approach to Diekirch and the Ettelbruck bridges. The 109th Infantry had held its positions in this first day, and Rudder saw no cause for alarm since he occupied good terrain. The hard fact remained that the German infantry, masked by the accidents of the rugged Our country, had achieved considerable success in exploiting the gaps between the village strong-points. ”

“ Brandenberger would have to rely in the main on his artillery if the Seventh Army was to hold its position at the shoulder of the counteroffensive against any strong attack from the south. One of the first objectives, therefore, would be to neutralize or destroy the American artillery groupments, and for this purpose the army was given a few batteries of the new, long-range 120-mm. guns. The total artillery strength available in the army was 319 guns and 108 rocket projectors. When it came to close and mobile support for the assault Brandenberger's divisions would be in a bad way ”

“ Five hundred officers and men had been lost in the three-day battle; of the heavy infantry weapons only one section of 81-mm. mortars and four sections of heavy machine guns were left; the antitank company had no pieces; the tank company badly needed fuel and maintenance. But in these three days the regiment had held the enemy short of the Ettelbruck crossing and prevented the planned concentration of the 352d Volks Grenadier Division south of the Sauer. ”

“ The cavalry unit, led by Capt. Victor C. Leiker, held on until 2030, by which time the German infantry controlled all the street corners, then fought its way south to Waldbillig. This rear guard stand cost Troop A 16 jeeps and 7 of its 12 armored cars as well as 43 casualties. While the 60th Armored Infantry Battalion headquarters withdrew to Savelborn, the 3d Armored Field Artillery Battalion moved its batteries west from Haller to the Savelborn-Medernach road. ”

“ To make success certain, General Brandenberger, the Seventh Army commander, sent army artillery and rocket projectors to join the 352d artillery battalions in creating an "artillery center of gravity" at Bastendorf. The shortage of bridging equipment continued to plague the Seventh Army, but Brandenberger's staff scraped together an impromptu bridge train and started it toward Ettelbruck. Fortunately for the Seventh Army drivers, gunners, and pontoneers, the skies remained overcast and the columns moved freely along the roads. ”

“ Bofors where the Tandel and Longsdorf roads met. The American 57-mm. antitank guns scored "many hits" on the German tanks, but as usual without effect, and two of the guns were lost. The enemy infantry proved more vulnerable, twenty-five being captured and a large number killed. Although the penetration was checked, the dual attempt to relieve Führen made no headway. On the east road Company A dwindled under bitter fire. By midafternoon it numbered only twenty-five men and an artillery observer commander as the single officer left. ”

“ These orders came too late, for an hour and a half earlier this task force had been ordered to the aid of a battery of the 107th Field Artillery north of Diekirch. In Hoscheid the tanks were running low on ammunition. When night fell they loaded on the foot soldiers and made a dash south to the 687th Field Artillery command post at Lipperscheid, where they found that the batteries were in process of displacing across the Wiltz River. ”

“ He was confident that the Allies would not be able to react in a forceful way until these armies were across the Meuse and it would appear that he expected this reaction to take the form of a counterattack somewhere on the west bank of that river. ”