Hugh M. Cole

“ The sound of firing is heard for fifteen minutes, an hour, coming from a patch of woods, a tiny village, the opposite side of a hill. The enemy has been delayed; the enemy resumes the march westward. Weeks later a graves registration team uncovers mute evidence of a last-ditch stand at woods, village, or hill. The story of the units that were retained under tactical control and employed directly by General Middleton in the attempt to form some defense in depth in the VIII Corps center has been partially recorded and therefore can be narrated. ”

“ During the morning word reached the VIII Corps command post that the 740th Field Artillery Battalion had been overrun by the 1st SS Panzer Division at Poteau, west of St. Vith. Also, the left wing of the 28th Infantry Division had been forced back across the Our River and it appeared that a penetration was in progress south of St. Vith. To head off any roaming German reconnaissance units north of Bastogne, a collection of antiaircraft, tank destroyer, ordnance, and engineer units moved to intersections and bridges along the Bastogne-La Roche road. ”

“ An hour before midnight these scouts did appear in front of a bridge at Sprimont, which crossed a tributary of the Ourthe south of Ortheuville; for their pains the American engineers blew the bridge in their faces. A few engineers, ordnance troops, and antiaircraft and tank destroyer crews on 19 December had contributed mightily to the German decision which turned an entire armored corps from the road west and plunged it into profitless adventures in a side alley. ”

“ The enemy would not risk a daylight crossing, nor could the German engineers repair the damaged span while under direct fire. In the early evening five more half-tracks from the 203d Antiaircraft Battalion and a pair of self-propelled tank destroyers from the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion came up. It must have been about this time that the 116th Panzer Division commander received the unwelcome news that he had no bridge on which to cross the western branch of the Ourthe. The forward combat teams of the division were west of the Houffalize-Bastogne road but not yet up to the river. ”

“ Vith, not to speak of the 101st Airborne Division at Bastogne, without the intervention of the engineer battalions. Nonetheless, the story of the Ardennes barrier lines does make clear that the use of engineers in their capacity as trained technicians often paid greater dividends than their use as infantry, and that a squad equipped with sufficient TNT could, in the right spot, do more to slow the enemy advance than a company armed with rifles and machine guns. ”

“ With four engineer battalions and one small armored combat command as the only corps reserve behind an elongated and brittle linear defense Middleton's commitment of this last reserve would turn on the attempt to plug a few of the gaps in the forward line, slow the enemy columns on a few main roads, and strengthen by human means two or three of the natural physical barriers deep in the corps rear area. ”

“ During the lull of early afternoon the 158th Engineer Combat Battalion and the tank destroyers which had retreated from Ortheuville to St. Hubert were ordered south to take over the defense of Libramont. The 35th was left alone to blockade and delay a possible thrust by the 2d Panzer Division forces now crossing at Ortheuville or the more direct threat from the east. US Combat Engineer setting a charge. When the charge detonates, the tree will fall across the road to form part of a roadblock. ”

“ To meet the German forces scouting and probing along the corps sector General Middleton organized a counter-reconnaissance screen. Behind this were collected stragglers and strays, many of whom had crossed the French border and got as far as Sedan. What was left of the corps artillery, mainly the 402d Field Artillery Group, assembled for tactical control and re-equipment. Other field artillery battalions, as well as tank destroyer battalions, engineer regiments, and the like, were arriving to reinforce the corps and help make good its losses. ”

“ The defense of this sector, as a result, consisted of erecting obstacles at important road crossings, bridge demolitions, cratering concrete and macadam road surfaces, and mining fords and narrow stretches of roads. The troop detachments to cover these barriers remained small and heterogeneous, their weapons usually no more than carbines, rifles, machine guns, and bazookas. Heavy antitank weapons-a handful of tank destroyers, headquarters tanks, and howitzers-would be found in ones and twos at the most important points. ”

“ At some points the approaches to the crossing sites were difficult to negotiate and lent themselves to blocks and barriers, but there were many bridges and numerous fords which an enemy could use to bypass a barred crossing site. At best only a very few companies of engineers could be found for the business of preparing bridge demolition charges, erecting barriers, laying antitank mines, and blasting craters in the roads. Some engineer tools and equipment had been lost to the enemy, but there was probably as much available as the small number of engineers could properly use. ”

“ Lauchert's armor would have to waste the entire day waiting for gasoline. Defense Southwest of Bastogne Throughout the 21st the VIII Corps had worked hard to strengthen the engineer barrier line in front of Neufchâteau and Arlon, centers around which the corps was re-forming, because the presence of German patrols south and southwest of Bastogne gave ample warning of imminent attack. Actually it is incorrect to consider these defenses in the sense of a line. There was no continuous natural barrier on which to build. ”

“ East of this line lay Houffalize, one of the four key road centers designated by Middleton for defense, but the 82d Airborne Division was en route to the battle and the VIII Corps commander expected that it would be deployed in the Houffalize sector. The Germans were moving too fast. At 1400 on the eighteenth a radio message reached Bastogne that the enemy had overrun the rear command post of an engineer company at Steinbach, just east of Houffalize. There remained the very real threat of a coup de main against Bastogne from the east. ”

“ General Middleton would be called upon to use all of these "reserves." Their total effect in the fight to delay the German forces hammering through the VIII Corps center would be extremely important but at the same time generally incalculable, nor would many of these troops enter the pages of history.1 A handful of ordnance mechanics manning a Sherman tank fresh from the repair shop are seen at a bridge. By their mere presence they check an enemy column long enough for the bridge to be demolished. The tank and its crew disappear. ”

“ The garbled radio messages reaching the XLVII Panzer Corps retracted the early report that Sibret had been taken and told of heavy fighting in the "strongly garrisoned" village. But the Germans could not be shelled out of the gendarmerie, tanks moved in on the American battery, and General Cota ordered his small force to retire south to Vaux-lez-Rosières ”