No Silent Night

by Leo Barron

  0500–0530 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944

  3rd Platoon, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment

  Champs, Belgium

  By 0500 hours, Asay and others, though exhausted, were counterattacking. The Sioux City sergeant remembered charging back up the road with his squad, made up of Goldmann, Ballard, and others. “Even later, I was still carrying grenades,” Asay recalled.39

  Asay and his squad made for the old command post, its smoldering ruins being used as a holdout by the Germans now. “The Germans, in their eagerness and self-confidence, even set up an aid station in the house with the barn attached,” Goldmann remembered.

  The big sergeant ran up and threw grenades into the group of Germans, “scattering them like a busted vase,” according to Goldmann.

  As the rest of his men charged in, firing, shrapnel hit Asay in the ribs and left cheek, possibly from his own grenades, possibly from a German mortar round hitting the bricks nearby. The wounds were relatively minor and Asay continued to do his job, albeit bleeding. Regardless, the house was soon liberated and prisoners taken. Asay and his men discovered a strange but relieved mixture of inhabitants.

  “That house was an odd one—four Americans hiding upstairs, a German aid station on the main floor, and eighteen Belgian civilians hiding in the basement,” Goldmann recalled years later.

  While Asay’s squad continued to clear the homes in Champs, two Hetzers once again appeared along the skyline to the northwest of Fowler’s position. A lone M18 tank destroyer, left behind by the 811th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was able to destroy one of the distant Hetzers and damage the other, driving the pair off.

  At this point, a lull settled over Champs. The Germans were still trying to move men and armor into the area they had captured, but the best trail—the roadway that ran down from Rouette—was still being held up by the single machine gunner from Cordele, Georgia.

  Fowler’s gun was now steaming hot, and he and Emerson threw snow on the barrel to cool it. They welcomed the break in the fighting, taking advantage of the time to reload the weapon and stand the boxes of .30-caliber ammo nearby for ready use.

  It was almost 0530 hours when Emerson and Fowler noticed the group of four more German armored vehicles appear on the ridge ahead of them, front-on. They ducked as they saw the tanks fire into Champs.

  “Those were some pretty good-sized German tanks,” Fowler said.

  Fowler decided his best course of action was to stay low and continue to let the gun cool. Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to get much of a break. “We’d be very quiet and inconspicuous,” he said. “I’m sure the tankers could probably see us, but whether they did or not, I was looking at them when a column of German soldiers came darting out from behind the tanks. They started down the ridge toward our location. I told Emerson to stay low; I was going to fire on them and then the tanks would open up on us. I caught the column from front to rear and every man fell. I’m not sure whether I killed every one of them or not but I’m sure I killed some.”40

  Sure enough, as Fowler hopped up and started firing the .30-caliber at the German troops, the tanks answered in kind. Out of the corner of his eye, Fowler caught the muzzle flash from one of the tanks. He dived back into the foxhole. The shell hit the corner of the potato shed, ripping out great splinters of wood. The concussion from the passing shell threw the two men back against the cold ground of their hole. When the two shocked paratroopers had recovered and checked each other for wounds, Fowler told Emerson it would be wiser now to stay down and play dead.

  “I told him that if they see any movement, they’ll fire again.”

  After a while, Fowler took off his helmet and peeked over the foxhole edge, exposing just the top of his head. He could tell that the flying pieces of potato shack had damaged the machine gun, blasting it off the tripod. Now the tanks had them pinned, and they had no way of fighting back. Fowler looked at his machine gun and noticed that it appeared damaged. Meanwhile, the rest of the squad hunkered down. The German tanks were too far away for a bazooka shot, and therefore the Screaming Eagles couldn’t return fire.

  “I thought we were really in trouble then,” Fowler recalled.41

  The gunners in the little Hetzers found the single tank destroyer and disabled it with a series of blows. The crew tried to restart the engine, but it was dead. Realizing they were sitting ducks, the crew bailed out of the doomed TD and sought cover in the houses and foxholes nearby. The German tankers were far from finished, though. Peeking out of his foxhole, Fowler realized he and the others needed help, and soon. Luckily, help was on the way.42

  0530 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944

  Fire Direction Center, 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion

  Savy, Belgium

  While 3rd Platoon and the rest of Able Company dug deeper into their foxholes to escape the German armor, forward observers, like Lieutenant Robinson, were calling in fire missions on the meddlesome German tank destroyers. At 0530 hours, the FDC at Savy received another fire mission from an observer in Champs (possibly Robinson).

  Within seconds the men of Able Company could hear the outgoing mail as it screamed over their heads, sounding like a freight train. The targeted area this time was the ridge between Rouette and Champs, and the targets themselves were the Hetzers. It didn’t take long for the observer to radio back the results to the FDC. For the German tank destroyers, the twenty-two rounds of high-explosive forced them to withdraw behind the hill, thereby, saving 3rd Platoon. Later on that morning, four P-47s made a deadly strafing and bombing run, ensuring the Hetzers wouldn’t return.43

  Private Goldmann later wrote about the incident, feeling the battle for Champs was finally over: “Lovely artillery, beautiful TD’s, wonderful Air Corps; we had been hurting for sure and now we had won.”44

  0600–0630 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944

  Area of operations, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment

  Champs, Belgium

  Able Company soldiers noticed the chatter of Willis Fowler’s machine gun finally went silent around daybreak. He had been in nonstop action, firing for close to three hours. During the battle, Fowler had played a key role in beating the Germans back. Equally important, by slaughtering so many of the foot soldiers, Fowler had also held up the German armor.

  A humble Fowler said in an interview with one of the authors, “I was told later, by my CO, that the German tankers were timid. They didn’t want to go in [to Champs] without infantry support, and, well, we had taken care of that.”45

  The townspeople of Champs also noticed that the sounds of battle had started to fade following 0600 hours that morning, after the men of Able Company had executed their counterattack. Madeleine Séleck was still hiding in her cellar. After the war, she and the others remembered the moment as the battle for her village drew to a close:

  The Germans were at the end of their ropes by now; grenades and submachine gun fire were beginning to slow down. Little by little the bursts came with longer and longer delays. Suddenly there was the sound of footsteps stopping outside the cellar (where some Germans still were hiding, one of whom was an officer). The footsteps belonged to Edward Ries, and there were American soldiers with him: they spoke German and ordered the Germans out of the cellar and demanded that they surrender. For a few seconds (that felt like they went on forever) the German officer looked around the cellar, at the terrified civilians and the moaning wounded soldiers. Then, suddenly, he stood up, paced to the cellar door, pulled it open, and threw his gun at the Americans’ feet. Immediately thereafter the Americans got the wounded out of there, disarming them; and then the Americans descended into the cellar. They noticed an empty holster and immediately set about looking for the missing gun; as one of the civilians had hidden it in a pile of potatoes while the Germans were still there. The GIs were angry and yelled a lot, and Achille—who didn’t move quickly enough for them—was kicked in his derriere. They finally left without finding the gun, which was actu
ally discovered much later by a pig rooting about for food! Everyone was relieved, but no one dared go outside.46

  Out in the streets the Americans continued to clear the various houses to see whether any Germans were hiding in the cellars and closets of the smashed homes. The paratroopers had decided to turn Victor Raviola’s farm into a holding area for prisoners. Mr. Raviola even helped the men of Able Company in sorting and processing the vanquished.47

  Besides the prisoners, the dead required sorting out too. Joss Heintz, in his book, In the Perimeter of Bastogne, wrote about the dead: “The village heights resembled a necropolis. Ninety nine German corpses were strewn over the grounds. The number of wounded was even greater. Torn arms, slashed legs, gaping wounds flooded with blood the Raviola kitchen where dozens of the injured awaited aid.”48

  As the sun rose dimly through the fog that morning, the Americans once again strolled through the devastated streets of Champs, ushering prisoners to the rear. Outside of Bastogne, the bodies lay scattered across the roads and fields. As they passed at a somber gait, the soldiers on both sides realized that tragically, for so many of their comrades, this was their last Christmas.

  0500–0600 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944

  Headquarters, 101st Airborne Division, Heinz Barracks

  Bastogne, Belgium

  Thanks to a reconnaissance section from the 90th Cavalry, perched on a hilltop overlooking Champs, the men of the division staff had been kept up-to-date and now knew the battle in Champs was basically over, the town back in American hands. By 0530 hours, the division staff learned that at least one German armored vehicle was destroyed, and that the Screaming Eagles of Able Company had “the situation well in hand.” As the morning progressed, the news only improved.

  At 0600 hours, the reconnaissance section reported that only a few Germans remained, trapped in several houses along the perimeter. To the cavalry scouts, sitting in their observation post, “Situation [was] quieting down [and] 6 or 8 Germans trapped in town will be mopped up at day light.”49

  For McAuliffe and his staff, it was a good thing that the fighting was settling down in Champs, because things were just getting interesting elsewhere around Bastogne.

  0700 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944

  Headquarters, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Rolle Château

  Rolle, Belgium

  As sporadic fighting continued, A Company continued to take each house to reclaim Champs. Every once in a while, German artillerists located near Givry would send a few mortar rounds into town, forcing the paratroopers to dive for cover into the cellars or behind anything made of stonework.

  It was now daybreak. As he stood quietly in the stone château, listening to the radio, “Silent Steve’s” moment of relief wouldn’t last long. At that very moment, about two miles to the southeast, unknown to Chappuis, a train of German tanks was driving right toward his headquarters.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Panzer Angriff

  “God grant that we may never be brought to such a wretched condition again!”

  —Nathanael Greene, Valley Forge, 17781

  2200–0430 hours, 24–25 December 1944

  Able Company, 1/401st Glider Infantry

  Battle positions between Bastogne and Mande Saint-Etienne

  In the dark of Christmas Eve, eleven American soldiers ran for their lives, leather boots crunching through the thin layer of snow, the sound of their breathing the only other noise in the night. Lieutenant Jack Adams sprinted at the front, his squad of glidermen from Able Company straining to catch up with their leader.

  The muscular Oklahoman flashed back to what he and his men had witnessed earlier. For the past few hours, they had crouched and crawled through ditches and culverts, miserably hiding in freezing cold water as German soldiers hunted them like animals, trying to find and kill the American infiltrators in the dark. A hell of a way to spend Christmas Eve, Adams thought. Panting, he plowed on through the snowy field.

  It had been a dangerous mission, Adams knew, but he accepted that danger. At 2200 hours, Lieutenant Bowles had been instructed by division to destroy a culvert near Flamizoulle, approximately one mile to the front of the 1/401st’s main line. Demolishing the culvert would block any German tanks from using the road that ran from Flamizoulle to the intersection of the Champs–Mande Saint-Etienne road. Though it was a mission fraught with risk, after the battles the other day, it made good tactical sense to deny the Germans any avenue for their armor. Shortly after nightfall, Bowles gave Adams ten volunteers, including eight of the best engineers in the company, with the order to dynamite the culvert.

  Creeping slowly to dampen the sound of their movement, and using the fog for camouflage, Adams and his patrol moved toward their objective. The young lieutenant measured their progress in inches, and several hours passed before the squad finally reached the culvert, only a hundred yards outside of German-held Flamizoulle. When they arrived, they started to drill holes near the base. While the engineers furiously dug, throwing piles of dirt onto the bridge, the riflemen maintained security on top of the culvert. Adams’s men quickly shoved sticks of dynamite into the holes. They had been working for forty minutes, and Adams estimated they needed just a few more to complete their job.

  Then they heard it. Through the thick fog, Adams detected the crunching sound of boots approaching through the snow. Since none of his own men were up and moving, he knew that those boots could belong only to German soldiers. At almost the same instant, the Americans heard the ominous sound of grinding gears. Just as they had done in battle drill, Adams and his patrol scrambled into the ditches that lined the road and watched while seven German tanks rolled onto the culvert bridge. Now there was no way to finish wiring the charges. Adams and his men noticed the watchful Panzergrenadiers who rode the tanks like spearmen on a chariot.

  When they reached the culvert, the lead panzer commander noticed the strange mounds of dirt the engineers had left. The Panzergrenadiers hopped off to investigate. One of the Germans shot a flare into the night sky. Sensing the enemy was around, the Germans let loose with their submachine guns, spraying the cold night air. Using the sputtering cracks of the MP40s and the Kar 98s to mask the sound of their movement, the Americans used the cover of the roadside ditches and creeks to sneak away. When Adams believed his patrol was clear of the enemy, they stood up and broke into a run.

  Adams knew he had to warn headquarters. Like Swanson and D’Angelo earlier that afternoon, Adams had stumbled upon a massed force of German armor that shocked him with its scale and power. Colonel Maucke had launched the column of Hauptmann Schmidt’s panzers right at the heart of the 1/401st’s fragile defensive lines.

  It was after 0400 when the slightly frigid soldiers finally cleared the outposts (upon giving the proper password) and reached Bowles’s CP behind a grove of trees. Puffing and panting, Adams told Bowles more than just the bad news that his group had failed to blow up the culvert. Out of breath, cheeks ruddy from the night cold, Adams could only point at the map. “Plenty of armor,” he said, putting his trembling finger on the town of Flamizoulle.2

  Now they all could hear the rumble of engines and the clanking of tank treads in the distance and closing. The tanks were heading right for their lines. Huddled in their foxholes carved from the frozen farmland east of Mande Saint-Etienne, Bowles’s glidermen knew the sound was the unmistakable approach of the attack they had been anticipating for days. Kokott’s desired Panzer Angriff was on its way—the führer’s Christmas present would be delivered on time, as promised.3

  Bowles desperately needed artillery to disrupt the rapidly assembling German force. He rang up Cooper’s gunners, supporting the 1/401st that morning. Adams and Bowles figured that the Germans had moved their forces after Adams had bumped into them earlier on his patrol, so they adjusted the fire mission to drop rounds northeast of Flamizoulle.4 At 0405 hours the 463rd unleashed a salvo of three rounds of high-explosive on the suspected enemy position. It was a bit of a shot i
n the dark. Because no observers were present, no one could adjust fire or conduct battle damage assessment on the target. For the Germans, the inaccurate rounds were a nuisance and did little to slow down their preparation for the attack.5

  Bowles informed his higher command of the presence of German panzers near Flamizoulle.6 Receiving the news at his HQ, Colonel “Bud” Harper was irritated. It was Christmas morning that the enemy had decided to strike in an area Harper predicted. Christmas morning, for God’s sake! Harper could do nothing until he knew more about the German intentions. For now, the outcome of the battle would depend heavily on the decisions and actions of his subordinate commanders.

  0430 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944

  2nd Platoon/Able Company/705th Tank Destroyer Battle positions

  East of Mande Saint-Etienne

  Colonel Allen’s hardy troopers were not alone. About two hundred yards behind Bowles’s headquarters were two M18 tank destroyers under the command of Lieutenant Klampert of A/705. Two more TDs were another four hundred yards farther to the south under the command of Lieutenant Richard Miller. Between the two sections, using overlapping fields of fire, the TDs could roughly cover the area where Klampert had anticipated the Germans would strike.

  Klampert had established these positions with Miller shortly after the bitter fight near Cocheval, where he lost the two tank destroyers. At 0430 hours the southernmost section detected four panzers moving east from the town of Monty. The two sections (four TDs) backed into the firing position to watch over the road. Coordinating with 2nd Platoon, B Company, within minutes, the Americans reported they had destroyed two panzers, causing the enemy infantry to scatter. Unfortunately, no one else could confirm 2nd Platoon’s kills, especially the Germans.7