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| First tank in Bastogne, "Cobra King," M4A3E2 Jumbo. |
by A. Harding Ganz
Bigonville was rough.
With intelligence of advancing German armor, Reserve Command (CCR) had been
committed on the right flank, as the other two combat commands of the American
4th Armored Division continued to slug north toward Bastogne and the
beleaguered paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division. Colonel Wendell
Blanchard, commander of CCR, had the 37th Tank, 53rd Armored Infantry and 94th
Armored Field Artillery Battalions, when the command jumped off on 23 December
1944. The Reconnaissance Platoon of the 37th Tank preceded the advance
guard—Team B (B Company, 37th Tank, and B Company, 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions)—as
far as the 25th Cavalry's outpost, where Lieutenant Marion Harris pulled the
platoon aside and waved the column on.
The approach march to
contact, along the sheer, ice-covered secondary road was difficult, and tanks
and half-tracks skidded out of control. Initially, Team B received no fire, nor
observed any enemy, save an enormous pair of very large enemy tank tracks
looming before it in the new-fallen snow.
But as the team
approached Flatzbourhof—the Bigonville-Holts railroad station—it began to
receive tank, anti-tank and machine gun fire from the railroad building and
adjacent woods. Captain Jimmie Leach, commander of B Company, 37th Tank
Battalion and of Team B, deployed his force along the railroad embankment,
while the artillery pounded the nearby woods and German positions beyond the
railroad station.
As expected, the
Germans were quick to counterattack, with white-clad paratroopers, reinforced
by two self-propelled guns and a captured M4 Sherman tank. Just as quickly, B
Company, 37th Tank Battalion tanks, firing from their positions behind the
railroad embankment, dispatched all three German vehicles, halting the
counterattack. During the fight, it was Sherman against Sherman, with Captain
Leach's gunner coming out a winner.
As darkness fell Team B
was ordered to hold its position, while Lieutenant Colonel Creighton W.
Abrams Jr., commanding the 37th Tank Battalion, attempted to maintain the
momentum of his attack by sending the tanks of A Company through Team B, and
those of C Company around its right flank. However, stubborn resistance by
tank-reinforced troopers of the German 13th Parachute Regiment, mines and
casualties, brought the attack to a standstill a full mile away from
Bigonville, the CCR objective. A Company, 37th Tank Battalion's passage of B
Company, 37th Tank Battalion's lines was aborted due to numerous vehicles lost
to snow-covered mines, including Lieutenant John Whitehill's command tank; and
C Company, 37th Tank Battalion's attack was likewise aborted because of the
loss of nine tank commanders, including the commanding officer, Captain Charlie
Trover, who was killed.
During the cold, clear
night with outposts alert, the CCR tankers, redlegs (artillerymen) and doughs
(infantrymen) received some badly needed replacements. They repaired their
vehicles and reorganized their troops and crews for the next morning's attack.
On the 24th, Team B's
tanks and doughs attacked again, fighting their way into the very center of
Bigonville, where the tough troopers of the German 5th Parachute Division had
to be blasted out house by house. Small arms and panzerfaust fire continued
to take its toll. Lieutenant Bob Cook, B Company, 37th Tank Battalion's
executive officer and 3rd Platoon leader, went down with a rifle bullet in his
chest. He was briefly captured by the Germans while he was attempting to find
the accompanying medic jeep, but abandoned as the B Company doughs advanced.
As the Bigonville
battle continued, Colonel Abrams ordered a blocking and screening position,
without its infantry, to the north of town. No sooner had its tanks moved into
position, than a flight of four American P-47 Thunderbolt fighter-bombers,
thinking them enemy, made two bombing and strafing attacks on them. Captain
Leach and his tank crews tossed out red smoke grenades, and frantically
attempted to uncover the red recognition panels for identification, while the
battalion S-3, Captain Bill Dwight, radioed Colonel Abrams to call off the "friendlies."
There were no casualties—luckily the U.S. fliers had missed everyone and
everything.
When the mopping up was
over, Bigonville and the surrounding area yielded some 400 prisoners of war
and 100 enemy dead to the tenacious CCR attackers.
With Bigonville
secured, CCR looked forward to spending a restful Christmas Day, feasting on a
turkey dinner. The battalions were much under strength, and the 37th Tank
Battalion in particular, had just completed a 160-mile road march up from
Lorraine and the Saarland, where it had been supporting the newly-arrived 87th "Golden
Acorn" Infantry Division in the Westwall fighting.
When alerted for the "fire
call" run to the Ardennes, the 4th Armored Division had just been pulled
out of line in Lorraine after a month of slugging from the Seille valley to the
German border. Mud and mines had restricted the tanks, overcast had grounded
the tactical air support, and the revitalized German defense had skillfully
parried every thrust—all of which combined to deny Patton a breakthrough.
Having achieved a brilliant reputation as it slashed across France after the
Normandy breakout, the 4th Armored was bitter about the casualties it had
suffered in the November offensive. Knocked-out tanks were strewn along the
way in what was considered an atrocious misuse of armor; and after a shouting
match with his corps commander, Major General John S. Wood, the 4th Armored's
beloved commanding general, was relieved by Lieutenant Gen. George S. Patton
Jr., 3rd Army commander.
But Patton gave the 4th
his own chief of staff, Major General Hugh Gaffey, who had commanded the 2nd
Armored in Sicily. "Gimlet-eyed Gaffey," the laconic Texan with
immaculate riding breeches and "boots you could use as a mirror," had
a style completely unlike the bluff, good-natured "P" Wood. But he
was coolly efficient, and the 4th was an experienced war machine.
On 22 December 1944,
the 4th Armored, under Milikin's new III Corps in Belgium, jumped off to drive
on Bastogne where the 101st "Screaming Eagles" Airborne Division was
surrounded by the German offensive of the Battle of the Bulge.
The counterattack cut
into the still-expanding torrent of the German offensive, and resistance
stiffened north of the Sure River. Patton, who had promised to reach Bastogne "by
Christmas," found his advance stalling. On the 24th, Milikin decided to
regroup his forces to concentrate more power for the relief of Bastogne. Two
battalions of the 80th "Blue Ridge" Infantry Division were trucked
over to reinforce the armor, and the boundary of the 26th "Yankee"
Division was extended to include the Bigonville area, thereby releasing CCR
to the 4th Armored Division.
By doctrine and
practice, CCR was not employed tactically. Its TO&E headquarters was much
smaller than those of Combat Commands A and B (CCA, CCB) and it was only
intended to administratively control units not in the line. But Gaffey
employed the reserve tactically, to meet the threat to the right flank at
Bigonville, and now he intended to shift it around to the left, to seek a weak
spot in the German front.
CCR had just turned in
on Christmas eve, when it received orders for a 27-mile night road march from
Bigonville around to Neufchateau highway leading to Bastogne. Attended by
appropriate griping, the column crossed the initial point (IP) an hour after
midnight under radio listening silence, with the reconnaissance platoon jeeps
and light tanks of the 37th Tank Battalion leading as the point.
Then came the advance
guard, comprising the light tank company (D Company, 37th Tank Battalion
[–]), B Company, 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion mounted in half-tracks, and a
squad of C Company, 24th Armored Engineers to clear obstacles.
Five minutes back came
the main body of the combat command, with the rest of Lieutenant Colonel
Creighton W. (Abe) Abrams' 37th Tank Battalion and Lieutenant Colonel George
Jaques' 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion; the M7 105 mm Priest self-propelled
howitzers of Lieutenant Colonel Robert Parker's 94th Armored Field Artillery
with C Battery of 155 mm towed howitzers attached from the 177th Field Artillery;
two gun companies, of the 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion, and other
attachments. Service and supply elements came separately, under CCR Trains
command.
The Christmas eve night
was clear and cold, lit by a nearly full moon, while flares and explosions
illuminated the northern horizon at Bastogne. As the column twisted through the
dark forest areas, bleary-eyed drivers tried to focus on the cat-eye blackout
markers of the vehicle ahead. In the open half-tracks, armored doughs dozed
fitfully and stomped their frozen feet to regain circulation. There were some
400 vehicles in the column that stretched over 16 miles of road space. Standing
operating procedures called for an eight-miles-per-hour rate-of-march at a
50-yard closed interval at night (15 miles per hour at a 100-yards open
interval by day), with a one minute interval between company march units and
five minutes between battalion march groups (serials), giving a time length of
about two hours. Thus, the vanguard of the column had already pulled into its
assembly area south of Vaux while the rest of the column was still closing on
the release point (RP) at Molinfaing.
As the troops topped
off their vehicles and got a cat-nap their commanders attended a conference
for planning the Christmas Day attack. If there were prayers, they were silent
and individual. CCR's mission was flank protection, with the main drive still
to be mounted by CCB, in the center. The three combat commands were deployed
abreast, each comprising a tank battalion, an armored infantry battalion, a
direct support armored field artillery battalion, and the normal attachments;
a company each from the tank destroyer, engineer, medical,
ordnance-maintenance and anti-aircraft artillery battalions, a troop from the
cavalry/reconnaissance squadron and the MP platoon, as well as supporting II
Corps artillery.
In Lorraine, each
combat command had operated with two battalion-sized task forces, the tank and
armored infantry battalions cross-reinforcing each other. But because of the constricted
terrain in the Ardennes, there was only one ridge-running road on the axis of
advance of each combat command: the Arlon-Martelange highway for CCA; a
secondary road through Chaumont for CCB, bounded by the Strainchamps and Burnon
creeks; and the Neufchateau highway for CCR—a zone of advance eight miles wide.
Thus, the tank and armored infantry companies were paired as teams to leap-frog
from village to village, with the infantry and tank battalion commanders
working closely together. Normal practice for the three company teams was to
leap-frog from assault to reserve, to support, with a team's turn to lead
coming up every third turn.
The 37th Tank Battalion
had three medium tank companies and one light tank company, supported by the M4
105 mm assault gun and 81 mm mortar platoons of Headquarters Company. Since
each of the 37th's three medium companies were down to nine of ten tanks
instead of seventeen, they often maneuvered as one unit (rather than in three
platoons), deploying from column into line, wedge, echelon, or line of sections
formation, depending on terrain. If serious resistance was expected, the
armored doughs left their thin-skinned half-tracks and "married up"
with the tanks in the attack position just short of the line of departure (LD),
mounting a squad on the rear deck of each tank. The platoon leaders mounted
their counterparts tanks to facilitate control by using the tank company
radio frequency. The tank company commanding officer commanded the team's
assault until the infantrymen dropped off and went into action on their own.
Each team advance would
be preceded by direct fire from the supporting team, a sharp artillery
concentration on call by the forward observer in his tank, and tactical air
support by P-47 fighter planes, if available. The few air controllers were
normally at combat command headquarters.
The commander of the
37th Tank Battalion was chunky, 29-year-old Lieutenant Colonel Creighton W.
(Abe) Abrams, who was already making a fighting name for himself. In 1944 campaigns,
Abrams' aggressive leadership of the 37th, under the skillful direction of
Colonel Bruce C. Clarke of CCA, did much to establish "P" Wood's 4th
Armored as Patton's favorite division. (When the German Ardennes offensive
began, Clarke had gone to CCB of the 7th Armored with a brigadier general's
star and was blunting the German drive in the St. Vith sector as the 4th fought
toward Bastogne.) Abe's combat philosophy was simple: "Our operations are
all based on violence," and "Go east, it's the quickest way home."
Abrams had developed
the 37th Tank as a finely-honed fighting unit. His staff not only functioned
well as such, but he often used his staff officers to direct his attacks. They
would monitor both battalion and company radio frequencies, leaving the
company commanders free to handle their units, yet the battalion commanding
officer was kept in close touch with the situation.
As the 105 mm assault
gun tank of each company was frequently grouped with the battalion assault gun platoon,
so too did Abe take the seventeenth tank from each of the medium companies and
give them to his S-2, S-3 and liaison officer (LNO). These headquarters tanks,
with those of the commanding officer and executive officer, received names
beginning with "T," just as the company tank name began with the
company letter. Thus, Abe rode in "Thunderbolt VI" (he would wear out
seven M4's during the war), with its name painted on its flanks in letters
eight inches high on a background of billowing white clouds punctured by
jagged red streaks of lightning. "We can always spot his tank," said
A Company, 37th Tank Battalion's Lt. John Whitehill, "because it doesn't
roll ahead like others. It gallops." And in the hatch was Abe, his long,
black unlighted cigar clenched in his teeth, aggressively jutting forward,
looking like "just another gun." He led by courageous example, and
the 37th's motto was "Courage Conquers."
The 53rd Armored
Infantry Battalion was still absorbing reinforcements from the Lorraine
fighting. The armored infantry had long since discarded their 57 mm anti-tank
guns as useless against German panzers, and the anti-tank platoon of each of
the three rifle companies was used as a fourth rifle platoon or as replacements.
Though badly under their TO&E strength of ten men (excluding the half-track
driver), the three rifle squads of each platoon augmented their firepower by
mounting an additional machine gun on their half-track, and by trading tanker
jackets for Browning automatic rifles (BAR) and Thompson submachine guns
(Tommy guns). The rifle platoon leaders each had a 60 mm mortar squad and a
light machine gun squad with two .30-caliber light machine guns to provide fire
support, backed up by the battalion assault gun, mortar and machine gun platoon.
The commander of the
53rd Armored Infantry Battalion was Lt. Col. George L. Jaques, "Jigger
Jakes," whom his fellow Bay Stater, Abrams, addressed over the radio as "Sadsack."
In fast-moving armored combat, nicknames were preferred to the daily changing
SOI call signs, and voice recognition as authentication. More orthodox than
the tanker, "going by the book," Jaques was ably seconded by his
battalion executive officer, Major Henry A. Crosby. The 53rd Armored Infantry
Battalion was an experienced outfit.
Both battalion
commanders had more tactical experience and expertise than their CCR commander,
and it was Abe who head the final drive to Bastogne.
At 1100 hours on
Christmas Day, the drive began. The German combat outpost line was quickly scattered
as CCR tanks roared down the highway, firing as they went. In fact, the only
obstacles encountered were those emplaced earlier by American engineers
withdrawing from the onslaught of the German offensive. The 37th's S-3, Captain
Bill Dwight, had hit a mine on the night road march in his tank "Tonto."
It was an American mine, "fortunately," and only broke a track block,
which was soon replaced. While returning to his command post the next day, Abe
hit another mine that tossed him out of his peep—unscratched—but totaled the
peep and crippled his driver. "Another lesson about marking minefields,"
wryly observed the 37th Tank Battalion's executive officer, Major Ed Bautz.
As Baker Company of the
53rd Armored Infantry Battalion cleaned out Vaux-les-Rosieres, the armored
spearhead continued up the highway toward Bastogne, ten miles ahead.
The German main line of
resistance was probably astride the highway itself, covering the primary armor
approach. But the available intelligence, such as it was, was not of much help.
Red-penciled enemy symbols cluttered the situation maps, many with question
marks. (It is now known that it was the 5th Parachute Division that had
responsibility for protecting the German southern flank, while the 26th
Volksgrenadier Division invested Bastogne, launching attacks in conjunction
with the 15th Panzergrenadier and Panzer Lehr Divisions.)
To avoid possible
minefields astride the highway, the armored attack swung off the hardtop beyond
Vaux into a secondary road that might be less defended. The terrain was fairly
open—snow-covered fields, patches of dark woods, and stone-built farm villages
dotted the countryside. D Company's light tanks and M18 Hellcat tank
destroyers outposted the flank beyond Petite Rosiers, while C Troop, 25th
Cavalry Squadron, screened the open flank to the west. Now, the main attack
began to pick up momentum. Team A tanks and infantry drove into Nives supported
by Team C, and then Team C passed through the town before it was cleared, on
its way to Cobreville. There radio contact with battalion was lost, but C Company,
37th Tank Battalion's commander, Lt. Charles Boggess, who had taken over the
tank company only two days before, acted on his own initiative and continued
the attack. While his team cleared the town, Boggess dismounted from his tank
around 1400 hours to reconnoiter an area where the road crossed a small creek,
and found the bridge had just been blown. Colonel Abrams called up his
tank-bulldozer, which crumpled a nearby stone wall and pushed it into the gap
so the drive would continue—it was moving again by 1530 hours.
Since the Cobreville
bridge had been prepared for demolition, it was likely that Remoiville would be
defended. Four artillery battalions pounded the town for ten minutes, while the
supporting Shermans blasted the stone buildings: "Gunner! Kraut
bazooka! Barn! HE! Traverse right! Steady … On! Eight hundred! Fire!"
Then Team A charged into the dust and rubble, with the tanks firing high
explosive rounds and spraying machine gun fire everywhere. B Company, 53rd
Armored Infantry Battalion, came in to help in the house-to-house fighting—it
was toss a grenade through a window, kick open the door, leap in and to the
side, and spray the room with Tommy gun fire. High-velocity tank shells
screamed through the upper floors, sending plaster dust flying. By 1800, 327
prisoners of war had been rounded up from the 3rd Battalion, 14th Parachute
Regiment.
The advance had already
rolled through Remoiville, but leading elements encountered a crater in the
road as dusk fell. B Company, 37th Tank Battalion, worked around to the left
and took up positions in and around Remoiville overlooking Remichampagne,
while infantry screened the woods to the west. CCR was now abreast of CCB,
which was in sight across the gorge of Burnon Creek, after having finally
driven the German paratroopers out of Chaumont. CCA had likewise slugged ahead
up the Arlon highway, but now the Germans were reinforcing their front to stop
the 4th Armored.
On Christmas night, the
infantry line companies dug in fronting on the Bois de Cohet and Remichampagne,
six miles from Bastogne. The 94th Armored Field Artillery had displaced by
battery up from Juseret to just south of Sure, from where its 105 mm
self-propelled howitzers could range to 12,000 yards, or almost to the outpost
lines of the 101st Airborne Division.
During the evening, a
German counterattack came down the highway from Sibret, but was warded off by
tank destroyer and artillery barrages.
The 37th Tank Battalion
and 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion command posts moved into Cobreville, and
the command post of CCR relocated to Vaux. The command posts were set up in
towns now, with the stone buildings providing both warmth and protection from
shell fragments, and the radios from the headquarters tracks were remoted
inside.
Colonel Blanchard came
forward to meet with Abrams, Jaques and Crosby. CCB was still slated to flank
onto the Arlon highway and enter Bastogne. Accompanying CCB was a fretting
Major General Maxwell Taylor, who had been on leave in the States when his
101st Airborne entrucked for the Ardennes. Now, he was impatient to rejoin his
command.
CCR was to cover the
left flank, advancing through Remichampagne and Clochimont, then turning left
toward Sibret, which was held in strength. The battalion commanders were
vehemently opposed to attacking Sibret. Instead they urged a drive directly to
Bastogne. Blanchard was concerned about the left flank thus being exposed, but
finally gave in at about 0300 hours stating, recalls Major Crosby, "that
if we failed it was on our heads and not his as he was refusing to take any
responsibility." The battalion commanders then issued oral attack orders
to their company commanders—armored units didn't take time to draw up
five-paragraph field orders.
As dawn broke on 26
December, CCR moved over frozen ground with Team B under Captain Jimmie Leach,
in "Blockbuster III," in the lead. Teams A and C laid down a base of
fire into the Bois de Cohet and Remichampagne. Lieutenant Don Guild, in his
forward observer (FO) tank, prepared to lift fires as the attack went in.
Suddenly P-47 fighters, probably from the 362nd Fighter Group, appeared
overhead. They had not been called in, and there was no forward air controller
to coordinate their actions, but they flew in, bombing and strafing only a few
hundred yards ahead of the tanks, and sent the Germans diving for cover.
Nonetheless, house-to-house fighting gave Team B a two-hour fight before the
town was secured at 1055.
Meanwhile, the armored
column passed through Remichampagne and, finding the Burnon Creek bridge
intact, continued on up the road to the crossroads to Clochimont. There,
Lieutenant Guild dismounted from his FO's tank, and personally captured about a
dozen Germans who were cowering in their slit trenches from the fierce assault.
Moments after joining
Leach at the crossroads and reviewing the situation, Colonel Abrams ordered A
Company, 37th Tank Battalion, to seize the high ground to the left of Clochimont.
But as A Company, 37th Tank Battalion, arrive don position, its tanks received
several rounds of anti-tank fire from a position down the road to the right of
Abrams in "Thunderbolt." "Gunner! Steady...On! Twelve hundred!
Fire!" Once again Abrams proved he had the best tank crew in the 37th. "Target!
Cease fire!"
By now, the 37th Tank
Battalion was down to 20 of its 53 TO&E medium tanks, and the 53rd Armored
Infantry Battalion was short 230 riflemen. While Abrams and Jaques were
coordinating their planning, hundreds of C-47 transport planes thundered low
over them, heading for Bastogne like flocks of fat geese. Red, yellow and blue
parachutes with supplies began blossoming out over the town. But so did ugly
bursts of German flak, and several planes arched down streaming flames. Since
Leach's Team B had gotten this far rather easily, Abrams was ready to drive for
Bastogne, and radioed the division commander directly. The other two combat commands
had made less than a mile each on the 26th. At 1400, Gaffey telephoned Patton
who quickly gave his approval for Abrams to move on Bastogne.
CCR artillery prepared
to fire on Assenois. A and C Batteries, which had displaced forward to Nives,
would fire on the woods north of town, B Battery on the south edge of the town,
and the 155's of C Battery, 177th Field Artillery, on the center. Additionally,
the three artillery battalions with a neighboring CCB were also tied in, to
give a total of 13 batteries to annihilate any enemy force in Assenois. D and A
Companies, 37th Tank Battalion, were to overwatch the Sibret road on the left
flank and give warning of any German tank movement.
Abrams then called his
S-3, Captain Bill Dwight, to bring up Team C from reserve. Lieutenant Boggess
mounted the battalion commander's tank for a briefing at the Clochimont
crossroads. There had been no reconnaissance up the road, but the area was
known to be strongly defended. Abe told him simply, "Get to those men in
Bastogne." The Charlie Company commander called his eight tank commanders
together and told them he would lead and set the speed of the attack. "You
all know we've got to get to those men in the town. All you've got to do is
keep 'em rollin' and follow me. It won't be any picnic, but we'll make it."
At 1620 hours, Abe gave
the familiar hand signal, "Let 'er roll," and the tanks moved out.
Boggess picked up speed, tracks squealing, and charged right through Clochimont
toward Assenois, guns firing. Three miles to go. Boggess in C-8, "Cobra
King," fired straight ahead, Lieutenant Walter Wrolson in the second tank
fired to the right, the third tank to the left. The Shermans pumped fire in all
directions, firing on the move, with their gyrostabilizers enabling them to
maintain the momentum of the attack. "I used the 75 like a machine gun,"
said "Cobra King's" gunner, Corporal Milton Dickerman. Boggess had
instructed him to choose his own targets. "Murphy was plenty busy throwing
in the shells. We shot twenty-one rounds in a few minutes and I don't know how
much machine gun stuff."
As soon as he had
cleared Clochimont Boggess called Abe for artillery fire on Assenois. Abrams
radioed, "Concentration Number Nine, play it soft and sweet." Almost
immediately the town seemed to erupt in a chaos of explosions. At the edge of
the town, Boggess called for the artillery to lift 200 yards, and barreled on
in without pausing. But there was German fire, even if erratic; Lieutenant
Chamberlain's FO peep was hit and he went into a ditch, and it was Lt. Billy
Wood in a Cub plane overhead who finally got the fire lifted.
Leaning into friendly
artillery fire cut losses from enemy resistance, but Assenois was a murky haze
of shell bursts and the dust of collapsing houses. Tank commanders in combat
usually road with head and shoulders out of the hatch because visibility
through the periscope was too limited; but Boggess had to pull his hatch down
to three or four inches above the turret roof because shell splinters were
singing off the armor. Dirt from an earlier enemy shell burst had smeared the
driver's periscope, and Hubert Smith "sorta guessed at the road." In
addition, the left brake locked and the "Cobra King" swerved up a
side street. Two other tanks also took wrong turns.
Walt Green's C Company
infantrymen had been following in their half-tracks but artillery fire was
still coming in and they piled out of their open-topped, thin-skinned vehicles
to seek any shelter they could find in the town. Simultaneously, the
defenders emerged from the cellars, and the armored doughs mixed it up with the
German paratroopers and Volksgrenadiers well into the night.
Nineteen-year-old
Private Jimmy Hendrix went swinging into two 88 mm gun crews with his M1
rifle, forcing them to surrender. He then silenced two machine guns and dragged
a dying GI from a burning half-track, all of which earned him the Congressional
Medal of Honor. Abrams followed into the confusion that was Assenois, and
even dismounted his tank to help wrestle a fallen telephone pole off a tank to
keep the attack moving.
Boggess cleared
Assenois with three tanks as dusk fell. A gap in the column had opened that
gave the Germans a chance to throw some Teller mines onto the roadway from a
dark treeline, and blow up a following half-track. Dwight was right behind in
his Sherman, "Tonto," and helped clear the wreckage and toss the
mines aside. The column moved forward again, running a gauntlet of
panzerfausts, mines and small arms fire. Four more half-tracks were lost. Dwight
was simultaneously trying to raise Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe and the
101st Airborne—"Tony, this is one of Hugh's boys, over"—on channel
20 assigned the command, but to no avail.
Up ahead "Cobra
King" lead the spearhead. Dickerman slammed three main gun rounds into an
old camouflaged concrete pillbox, and the bow gunner, Harold Hafner,
traversed his machine gun through a chow line of appalled German soldiers
standing under the snow-covered fir trees, knocking them over like bowling
pins. Suddenly the tanks debouched from the woods into an open field where
multi-colored supply parachutes dotted the snow. Boggess slowed as he
approached a line of foxholes, and called "Come on out, this is the Fourth
Armored." No answer from the wary GI's. Finally a khaki-clad figure
emerged to shake his hand. "I'm Lieutenant Webster of the 326th
Engineers, 101st Airborne Division. Glad to see you." At 1645 hours, CCR
logged in its journal: "Hole opened to surrounded forces at Bastogne …"
"Tonto" was
the fourth tank to arrive, followed by more half-tracks and other tanks, as
paratroopers gathered around, beginning to realize the siege was finally over.
Noting the clean-shaven faces Dwight muttered, "Well, things don't look so
Goddam rough around here to me." The airborne felt that discipline and
morale were closely related. One of the paratroopers asked the veteran tank
battalion S-3 if all tanks were commanded by officers, rather like the Air
Corps, as there were three officers in the first four tanks. Dwight said no.
But it was a significant observation; leadership in the 4th Armored was up
front. Dwight then met McAuliffe who had come up to the perimeter. To his
salute, the general replied, "Gee, I am mighty glad to see you."
Abrams joined them shortly thereafter.
Back at Assenois, B
Company, 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion, under Lt. Robert "Potsi"
Everson was committed to help clean out the town, some 500 POWs and heavy
artillery pieces including four 88 mm guns and a battery of 105 mm howitzers
finally were taken. A Company, 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion, passed through
to clear the dense woods northeast of the town. Lieutenant Frank Kutak, though
wounded in both legs, nonetheless directed the company from his peep as the
armored doughs worked through the fir trees. A and B Company tankers of the 37th
Tank Battalion defended the left flank of the corridor. That same night the
division G-4, Lieutenant Colonel Knestrick, led a column of supply trucks and
ambulances through to Bastogne, escorted by D Company, 37th Tank Battalion's
light tanks. Wrote Patton happily—if with hyperbole—to his wife, Beatrice, "The
relief of Bastogne is the most brilliant operation we have thus far performed
and is in my opinion the outstanding achievement of this war."
CCB widened the
corridor on 27 December, even as CCA of the 9th Armored came up on the left
flank, and the 35th Infantry Division came up on the right. The Germans had
already called off their Ardennes offensive. The high drama of the breakthrough
to Bastogne had passed into a bitter struggle of attrition in the winter
snows.
The breakthrough to
Bastogne vividly demonstrated what an elite armored unit in action can do.
Though understrength
and fighting under less than favorable conditions of terrain and weather, the
4th Armored Division brought overwhelming force to bear at the decisive point.
The battalion task
force organization was modified to one of joint infantry-tank company teams
that leap-frogged one another in a column of companies to maintain the momentum
of the attack.
The reserve company
passed through to attack the next objective even before the first objective had
been secured, keeping the enemy off guard.
The tanks'
gyrostabilizers enabled them to smother the defense with fire while moving
across the battle area, and leaning into friendly fire gave the defenders no
chance to recover.
Pre-planned and
hip-shoot artillery concentrations, air strikes, and organic supporting bases
of fire further overwhelmed the defenders.
True, such cavalier
tactics would be less successful against a well-prepared defense; but in this
instance, the Germans were not given time to prepare. Nonetheless, the
principle of bringing the full force of infantry, armor, artillery and air
power to bear at the point of the main effort remains valid today.
Of particular note is
the quality of personal leadership, both in direction and by example. The
company and even battalion commanders were well forward or leading in their
combat vehicles, providing leadership up front at the decisive point. Orders
were oral, simple and of the general "mission-type." This encouraged
initiative on the part of junior officers who knew where to go and were
confident their commanders were with or right behind them.
Lastly, at a time when
many were bewailing the inferiority of the American Sherman tank, the 4th
Armored maintained confidence in themselves and their equipment. For "armor"
was a concept, of a combined arms team, and when all elements were brought to
bear, they were bound to prevail.
Source Materials
4th Armored Division
operations are based on unit diaries, journals and after action reports, U.S.
Army Armor School special studies, Military History Institute oral history
projects, and published sources. Research in these materials was supported, in
part, by an Ohio State University, Newark Campus, research grant.
Drs. John Slonaker and
Richard Sommers and Ms. Phyllis Cassler of the U.S. Army Military History
Institute, Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania, were very helpful, as was Mr.
William Hansen, Librarian of the U.S. Army Armor School, Fort Knox, Kentucky.
Interviews with
veterans were facilitated by Samuel Schenker and the late Frank Paskvan of the
4th Armored Division Association.
Correspondents include
Major Generals Edward Bautz Jr. (37th Tank Battalion) and DeWitt C. Smith Jr.
(B Company, 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion); Colonels (Retired) Robert
Connolly (4th Division Adjutant and G-1), William Dwight (37th Tank Battalion),
and H. Ashton Crosby (53rd Armor Infantry Battalion); Charles Boggess (C
Company, 37th Tank Battalion) and especially Col. (Retired) James H. Leach (B
Company, 37th Tank Battalion) who helped revise the manuscript.
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| 4th Armored Division advance to Bastogne, 25-27 December 1944. |
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| An M4 medium tank of the 4th Armored Division, partially camouflaged with white paint, during the race to reach Bastogne. |
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| Soldiers of the U.S. 28th Infantry Division are welcomed by the people of Bastogne, as they arrive there in September 1944. |
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| American M4 medium tank amongst the ruins of a Belgian village. |
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| U.S. Army tanks and vehicles take cover in a Belgian town during the German winter offensive that precipitated the Battle of the Bulge. |
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| Much of the civilian population of Bastogne left the town with the approach of battle. Here, some of the townspeople, now refugees, seek safety. American troops have halted along the street, where no snow has fallen as of the date of this image. |
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| Manning a lonely outpost along a road leading into Bastogne, soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division point their bazooka in the direction of an expected German attack. |
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| Their rifles slung over their shoulders, three men of the 101st Airborne Division walk down a rubble-strewn Bastogne street past the bodies of fellow soldiers killed by German bombing the previous night. This photograph was taken on Christmas Day, 1944, and the beleaguered defenders of the town were relieved the following day. |
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| American troops on a bombed-out street in Bastogne. |
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| Supplies moving through Bastogne, 22 January 1945, on their way to the front-line troops. |
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| GIs in a jeep stand guard at a cross-roads near Bastogne as the bodies of two Americans lie in the field where they fell. December 1944. |
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| Two American soldiers man a foxhole near Bastogne with a .50-caliber machine gun which has been dismounted from a vehicle. Note the extra machine gun barrel at the left, propped up on two ammo boxes for cooling. A bazooka can also be seen to the right of the machine gun. |
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| 4th Armored Division tanks deploy on the road to Bastogne. |
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| Casualties on the road to Bastogne. |
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| Crew of M4A1 tank of the 4th Armored Division add foliage to their vehicle in order to improve its camouflage, Winter 1944. |
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| Lt.Col. Creighton W. Abrams, Jr, CO, 37th Tank Battalion, December 1944. |
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| Members of the 44th Armored Infantry, supported by M4 medium tanks of the 6th Armored Division, move in to attack German troops surrounding Bastogne, Belgium, 31 December 1944. |
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| On the day after Christmas, 1944, Douglas C-47 transport aircraft drop provisions to American troops occupying Bastogne. |
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| M8 howitzer motor carriage, with white sheets for winter camouflage, Bastogne, December 1944. |
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| Weary troopers of the 101st Airborne Division march in two columns along a road on the outskirts of the Belgian crossroads town. |
Award of Bronze Star and Purple Heart to Pvt. Alfred E. Odle, 8th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored
Division: On the evening of 21/22 December, Pvt Odle participated in his unit's
drive north in an attempt to open the ring around Bastogne to relive the
defenders of the city. On 22 December 1944, as part of III Corps, the 4th Armored
Division was assigned the mission to advance northward to open a corridor into
Bastogne. They were to use the avenue of attack between the
Neufchateau-Bastogne Highway and the Aarlon-Bastogne highway and advance
northward as quickly as possible. The 8th Tank Battalion was part of Combat
Command B, and owned the western sector of the attack. They were to use the
north-south secondary roads in their advance. According to Cole's narrative of
the attack in the U.S. Army's Green Book series:
At
0600 on 22 December (H-hour for the III Corps counterattack) two combat
commands stood ready behind a line of departure which stretched from
Habay-la-Neuve east to Niedercolpach. General Gaffey planned to send CCA and
CCB into the attack abreast, CCA working along the main Arlon-Bastogne road
while CCB advanced on secondary roads to the west. In effect the two commands
would be traversing parallel ridge lines. Although the full extent of damage
done the roads and bridges during the VIII Corps withdrawal was not yet clear,
it was known that the Sure bridges at Martelange had been blown. In the event
that CCA was delayed unduly at the Sure crossing CCB might be switched east and
take the lead on the main road. In any case CCB was scheduled to lead the 4th Armored
Division into Bastogne.
On
the lesser roads to the west, General Dager's CCB, which had started out at
0430, also was delayed by demolitions. Nonetheless at noon of the 22d the 8th
Tank Battalion was in sight of Burnon, only seven miles from Bastogne, nor was
there evidence that the enemy could make a stand. Here orders came from General
Patton: the advance was to be continued through the night "to relieve
Bastogne." Then ensued the usual delay: still another bridge destroyed
during the withdrawal had to be replaced, and it was past midnight when light
tanks and infantry cleared a small German rear guard from Burnon itself.
Wary
of German bazookas in this wooded country, tanks and cavalry jeeps moved
cautiously over the frozen ground toward Chaumont, the next sizable village.
Thus far the column had been subject only to small arms fire, although a couple
of jeeps had been lost to German bazookas. But when the cavalry and light tanks
neared Chaumont antitank guns knocked out one of the tanks and the advance
guard withdrew to the main body, deployed on a ridge south of the village.
Daylight was near. CCB had covered only about a quarter of a mile during the
night, but because Chaumont appeared to be guarded by German guns on the
flanking hills a formal, time-consuming, coordinated attack seemed necessary.
During
the morning the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion and the twenty-two Shermans of
the 8th Tank Battalion that were in fighting condition organized for a sweep
around Chaumont to west and north, coupled with a direct punch to drive the
enemy out of the village. To keep the enemy occupied, an armored field
artillery battalion shelled the houses. Then, as the morning fog cleared away,
fighter-bombers from the XIX Tactical Air Command (a trusted friend of the 4th
Armored Division) detoured from their main mission of covering the cargo planes
flying supplies to Bastogne and hammered Chaumont, pausing briefly for a
dogfight with Luftwaffe intruders as tankers and infantry below formed a spellbound
audience. While CCB paused south of Chaumont and CCA waited for the Martelange
bridge to be finished, the Third Army commander fretted at the delay. He
telephoned the III Corps headquarters: "There is too much piddling around.
Bypass these towns and clear them up later. Tanks can operate on this ground
now." It was clear to all that General Patton's eye was on the 4th Armored
Division.
Apparently Odle was wounded some time during the evening of
21/22 December either while the Battalion was assembling for the attack or
moving forward. He stayed with his vehicle until the situation stabilized and
then he was evacuated and eventually made his way to a field hospital where he
was treated. It is interesting to note that the HQ got his ASN wrong and the
Field Hospital labeled the place of injury as Germany, and the date as 23 December.
Clerical errors of this type were common. Judging by the location of Hotte on
the map (blue arrow), it is likely that the Bronze Star citation is correct, as
the unit had already advanced a few kilometers to the north near Chaumont by
the 23rd.
