Hugh M. Cole

“ The defense of Krinkelt and Rocherath, so successful that by the second day many officers and men believed that the sector could be held against all attack, is a story of determination and skilled leadership in a veteran command. But more than that, the American battle here exemplifies a high order of coordination and cooperation (typed though these terms have become) between the ground arms. Although the infantry almost single-handedly secured the ground and held it for the first few hours, the main German assaults were met and checked by infantry, tanks, tank destroyers,' and artillery. ”

“ The chief source of failure, said the General Staff observers, was the inadequate training of the troops who had been used in the attack. The conclusion reached as to the future conduct of operations on the Sixth Panzer Army front was simple enough and in accordance with established German doctrine: more maneuver room must be secured so that the attack could "unfold"; the entire Elsenborn area, therefore, must be won and at once. The right wing must be brought abreast of the 1st SS Panzer Division, at this moment twenty miles to the west of Stoumont. ”

“ Robertson's wish for an American tank with adequate armament to cope with the German Panthers and Tigers was being echoed and would be echoed-prayerfully and profanely-wherever the enemy panzer divisions appeared out of the Ardennes hills and forests. What the 2d Division actually had was a little less than a battalion of Sherman tanks mounting the standard 75mm. Gun, a tank weapon already proven unequal to a duel with Panther or Tiger in head-to-head encounter. ”

“ The direction of the German main effort, as a result, would shift, substituting an armored thrust against the flank for the battering-ram frontal attack against the now well-developed defenses in the area of Krinkelt-Rocherath. Fresh German infantry were en route to the twin villages, and some reinforcements would be employed there on the 19th, but the attack would lack the armored weight whose momentum had carried earlier assault waves into the heart of the American positions. At dawn, on 19 December, and blanketed in thick fog, the German grenadiers advanced on Krinkelt and Rocherath. ”

“ The 12th SS Panzer Division, whose tanks and armored infantry carriers made extremely slow progress on the muddy secondary roads quickly chewed up by churning tracks-was able by dawn to assemble the 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, an assault gun battalion, and one full tank battalion east of the villages. During the 18th this force was strengthened by one more tank battalion, the final armored commitment being about equally divided between Panther tanks and the heavy Tigers. ”

“ These tactics failed; illumination served the waiting American tanks as well as the enemy. German bazooka teams did succeed in knocking out a pair of Shermans but generally found the American infantry, dismounted tankers, and tank destroyer crewmen, waiting to erase the walking infantry screens. The American tank destroyers shared honors with the tanks in this battle, but as it often happened in the Ardennes the fight had to be carried by the self-propelled guns, the towed guns serving mostly as convenient targets for the enemy. ”

“ A number of attacks were checked by shellfire before they could make much headway. Nonetheless, a tank platoon penetrated as far as the 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry, command post before it was destroyed, and a few German tanks got as far as the road south to Wirtzfeld. In this quarter, as at Rocherath, the American tanks, tank destroyers, and bazooka teams left the German tanks smoking and broken.6 During the night of 18 December, the 2d Division still held the twin villages while the last organized units of the 99th Division moved west on their way to Elsenborn. ”

“ But men counted as much as weight of metal. Of the 48 forward observers working with the 15th Field Artillery Battalion, 32 were evacuated for wounds or exposure in six days of battle. Although an experienced outfit, the 2d Infantry Division made its first fight against a large force of tanks in the action at Krinkelt-Rocherath. In the early evening of 18 December General Robertson telephoned his assistant division commander: "This is a tank battle-if there are any tank replacements we could use them as crews are pretty tired. We could use the tanks mounting a 90m. ”

“ The first daylight assault came about 0900 preceded by a barrage of artillery, rocket, and mortar fire. Advancing through a thick haze, ten tanks, seven armored cars, and an infantry battalion made for the village. Once more the defensive gun concentrations made great play in the gray ranks. The 3-inch tank destroyers of the 612th Tank Destroyer Battalion, although frozen in place, held the German fighting vehicles at bay-even with the limited traverse. ”

“ German dead literally were piled in front of the 3d Battalion. The disparity in losses suffered by the combatants is amazing. The German dead counted in and around Höfen numbered 554; prisoners numbered 53. The American casualties were five killed and seven wounded. From this time on the 326th Volks Grenadier Division abandoned all but minor action in this sector, finally turning south to take a secondary role in the ensuing battle at the Elsenborn ridge. Höfen and Monschau remained in American hands through the rest of the Ardennes Campaign. The 2d Division Withdraws to the Elsenborn Line ”

“ The front lit up as the American mortars and artillery shot illuminating shell over the roads leading to the village. Concentration after concentration then plunged down, three battalions of field artillery and a 90-mm. battery of antiaircraft artillery firing as fast as the pieces could be worked. The enemy infantry, punished by this fire and the stream of bullets from the American foxhole line wavered, but a handful of tanks rolled off the roads and into Dom Butgenbach. (They had shot down three bazooka teams and a Company H machine gun section.) ”

“ At one time a battalion commander of the 38th was reported to have men from sixteen different companies fighting under his command. By midnight, however, the enemy tanks behind the American lines had been accounted for and the German infantrymen captured or killed. When the wild night of fighting drew to a close, the Americans still were in control of the two villages and the near sector of the Wahlerscheid withdrawal route. ”

“ Tanks fought tanks; men were captured, then captured again. Meanwhile, Colonel Boos did what he could to form some defense behind what was left of the 1st Battalion of the 9th.5 He radioed Colonel McKinley that as soon as the 2d Battalion of the 38th could swing into position, a matter of an hour or more, the 1st Battalion should withdraw. With his remaining two companies transfixed by direct tank fire and surrounded by German infantry, McKinley replied that no withdrawal was possible unless friendly tanks or tank destroyers arrived. ”

“ The move through Wirtzfeld, now in flames, brought the 38th under German guns and resulted in some casualties and confusion, but at 0200 on 20 December the rear guard tank platoon left Wirtzfeld and half an hour later the 9th Infantry passed through the new lines occupied by the 38th Infantry a thousand yards west of the village. The four-day battle which had pitted the 2d Infantry Division and the 99th Infantry Division against the spearheads of the Sixth Panzer Army had cost both sides heavily in men and materiel. ”

“ Rocherath and Krinkelt had to be held if the 2d Division was to reach the Elsenborn position intact and with its heavy weapons and vehicles. The 99th Division had long since thrown its last reserve into the battle; therefore the 2d Division (with the attached 395th) alone had to provide for the defense of this endangered sector of the corridor south. The 2d Division commander assigned responsibility to his officers as follows. 1 Col. Chester J. Hirschfelder, commanding the 9th Infantry, was charged with the actual withdrawal from Wahlerscheid. ”

“ Then too the enemy at the Wahlerscheid road junction seemed hardly strong or aggressive enough to make even a daylight disengagement difficult. The danger zone would be the twin villages. Roads from the east led into Rocherath and Krinkelt. And, to the east, as information from the 99th Division rifle battalions warned, the Germans had made a deep penetration and were liable at any moment to come bursting out of the forest. ”

“ This new plan, probably only a reflection of conclusions already reached in the higher echelons, actually had gone into effect on 19 December when German tanks and infantry made the first serious attempt to drive northwest from Büllingen, shoulder the Americans out of the Butgenbach position, and open the Büllingen-Malmédy highway. The Enemy Tries the Western Flank; 19-23 December In Butgenbach, forty-five hundred yards straight west of the 2d Division anchor point at Wirtzfeld, the 26th Infantry of the 1st Division covered the 2d Division's flank and rear. ”

“ The elite SS panzer formations on which the Fuehrer so relied would continue to play a major role in the Ardennes counteroffensive but no longer would be charged with the main effort; this had passed on 20 December to Manteuffel and the Fifth Panzer Army.15 And if, as Manteuffel later suggested, the Fuehrer wanted to see an SS and a regular panzer army competing, it could be said that he had his answer. ”

“ This first assault was beaten off, while a number of the German tanks were crippled or destroyed by bazooka teams stalking successfully under cover of the fog. When the fog lifted about 0830, three German tanks rolled right along the foxhole line firing their machine guns while the German infantry rushed forward. Lt. Stephen P. Truppner of Company A radioed that his company had been overrun and asked for artillery to fire on his own position. For thirty minutes an American battalion shelled this area. Only twelve men escaped. ”