Breakthrough to Bastogne

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.

4th Armored Division advance to Bastogne, 25-27 December 1944.

An M4 medium tank of the 4th Armored Division, partially camouflaged with white paint, during the race to reach Bastogne.

Soldiers of the U.S. 28th Infantry Division are welcomed by the people of Bastogne, as they arrive there in September 1944.

American M4 medium tank amongst the ruins of a Belgian village.

U.S. Army tanks and vehicles take cover in a Belgian town during the German winter offensive that precipitated the Battle of the Bulge.

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.

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.

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.

American troops on a bombed-out street in Bastogne.

Supplies moving through Bastogne, 22 January 1945, on their way to the front-line troops.

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.

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.

4th Armored Division tanks deploy on the road to Bastogne.

Casualties on the road to Bastogne.

Crew of M4A1 tank of the 4th Armored Division add foliage to their vehicle in order to improve its camouflage, Winter 1944.

Lt.Col. Creighton W. Abrams, Jr, CO, 37th Tank Battalion, December 1944.

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.

On the day after Christmas, 1944, Douglas C-47 transport aircraft drop provisions to American troops occupying Bastogne.

M8 howitzer motor carriage, with white sheets for winter camouflage, Bastogne, December 1944.

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.