by Leo Barron
The tank was none other than one of the lead panzers that had spearheaded the attack that morning, the tank with the name “Lustmolch” (“Happy Salamander”) written on its barrel. According to some of the American witnesses, this was the same Mk IV that had knocked out both George Schmidt’s and Adam Wans’s M18s near the haystack as it rolled its way toward the Champs–Hemroulle road. It then turned right from Allen’s headquarters when C Company attacked the farmhouse. (Evidently, the crew decided to take a chance and make for Hemroulle instead.) That’s how the crew of this vehicle had joined up with the tanks assaulting the 463rd, only to be knocked out of commission just a little bit later.26 “Lustmolch” had just become “Booger” Childress’s prize of war.
The two Able Battery guns also fired from their position near the eastern hills above Hemroulle. These gunners claimed a tank or two. A Battery’s captain, J. F. Gerhold, recalled how the two guns (numbers two and three) from his battery were turned to fire down from a hill, homing in on the approaching armor with a mixture of armor-piercing and white phosphorus rounds: Gerhold’s sergeant told the gunner on the howitzer to remove the panoramic sight on the left of the breech and, like the men in B Battery, simply bore-sight the gun on the nearest panzer. Gerhold remembered, “The sound of the tanks was definitely west of me and south, but very close. I ran to [Sergeant Raymond F.] Gooch’s #2 gun and we could just about identify them when Col. Cooper screamed over the phone, ‘Fire at the SOBs—kill the SOBs. They’re Krauts. Open Fire!!’”
The assistant gunner pulled the lanyard cord on the right of the weapon. The next few rounds hit home. One round hit one of the large wooden sleds a panzer was pulling through the snow, loaded with troops. Gerhold witnessed the devastating effect: “Gooch… hit it or just below it and blew it to smithereens. I think that troop carrying sled was all wood. There wasn’t much left of it or the Krauts on and around it.”27
Excited and with their blood up, many of the 463rd security men abandoned their foxholes and ran after the German soldiers fleeing for the nearby trees in panic. As rifle shots split the air, the remaining Panzergrenadiers, having lost their armor support, and realizing that the assault had failed, either surrendered, ran back toward Mande Saint-Etienne in retreat, or died in place, fighting a hopeless fight.
Able Company’s first sergeant Joseph F. Stolmeier remembered that morning with a touch of grim humor in a letter written after the war. “We had a real Christmas Day Turkey Shoot. That’s the only time I had fun in combat. I hit one those dirty buggers with a shot from my Garand rifle, and I saw his boots go back up over his head, so I passed the word that you can’t count a hit, unless you see his boots go up higher than his head.”28
For the 463rd, it was an artilleryman’s battle, and the veteran gunners proved their mettle, stopping the last of the German assault cold, just short of the entrance to Bastogne. As the last few rounds flashed out and struck home, oily smoke billowed from at least two of the German tanks, knocked out of commission, and one was captured. Back at the B Battery gun pits, First Sergeant Smith remembered being so mesmerized by the action while watching it through his binoculars that his bare hands had “… frozen to my field glasses.” Smith had to have a buddy pry his hands off the binoculars and help him put his gloves back on.29
Cooper picked up the telephone to report the attack to division. Someone on the line had the nerve to ask, “Cooper, are you making this up?”
Cooper responded with satisfaction. “Hell no—look out your window and you will see five smoke columns, each a burning tank. No, make it six, there goes another one!” Cooper may have been exaggerating the number or possibly confused by the fires from other German vehicles destroyed nearby, but his crews had definite claim to stopping several of the last panzers to attack that day.
As things quieted down in his sector, Cooper’s gunners took a break, but kept the armor-piercing shells unpacked and next to each gun pit in case of another attack.30
After 0900 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Along the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery gun line,
Able, Baker, and Dog batteries
Hills east of Hemroulle, Belgium
“Booger” Childress was a quick learner. To his amusement, he had “Lustmolch”—the captured Mk IV—moving, and in no time figured out how to steer the war trophy using the two large handles on each side of the driver’s seat. With the driver’s hatch open, just enough of his head was exposed so that he could see where he was going. A smiling Childress, accompanied by First Lieutenant Ross W. Scott and the others marching the German prisoners behind the tank, drove the tank toward the B Battery positions. The move was a bit foolhardy—luckily Cole and Lyons told their gunners to hold their fire, recognizing the GIs accompanying the tank and calling out.
“Our machine gun section drove the captured tank near our positions,” Lyons recalled. “Meanwhile, the German prisoners were disarmed and marching behind the tank toward the number-one gun. Sergeant Childress and Gus Hazard [sic] of the machine gun section were riding the tank and stopped in front of my position. At that point I said to them, ‘Get that tank out of our area, because if the skies ever clear they’ll see the German tank and we’ll catch hell from our own airplanes.’ I said, ‘Why don’t you take them up to battalion.’ So they took the German prisoners and operational German tank up to battalion.”
Lyons remembered that one of the German prisoners, an officer with his hands on his head, spoke English. He directed his comment at Lyons, recognizing him as a fellow officer. “Lieutenant, you’re wasting your time all around the perimeter,” the German said cockily. Lyons looked him in the eye and replied, “You’re the prisoner, I’m not.”31
Someone from Baker Battery had already contacted Cooper. Anxious to see the trophy and the prisoners, Cooper told the men at the gun positions to tie a white T-shirt to the antenna or gun muzzle and he would soon be there. Hopping in his jeep with his driver, Private Walter Scherl, Cooper sped down and had to smile at the sight greeting him: his happy troopers clambering around the vehicle and scores of dejected German prisoners being searched by several guards.
This tank and these men, Cooper decided, needed to be taken to McAuliffe. That would forever silence those doubting Thomases who said his little guns and their crews couldn’t stop German armor. Cooper led in his jeep, and Childress once again started up the Mk IV. Together they led a parade of captured grenadiers into Savy, for the division staff and all others to see the fruits of their labor. For many years, the soldiers of the 101st and other units in Bastogne would not forget the captured tank “Lustmolch,” which became an object of interest, photographed, examined, and regarded as one of the 101st Airborne’s best trophies of the war.32
The 463rd lists three soldiers killed during the Christmas battle: Rogan’s friend Corporal Rester W. Bryan, who was posthumously awarded the Bronze Star, Private Ollie S. Butts of HQ Battery, and Private First Class John P. Hall of the medical detachment. Two enlisted men were wounded—Private First Class Richard A. Carroll, A Battery, and Tech 4 Marlyn W. Havig, HQ Battery.33
The fire logs for Christmas show three fire missions during the period of 0700 to 0930, of which at least one was direct (antitank) fire. A Battery fired sixty-four rounds; B Battery fired 180, of which around thirty-one were AP; and Dog Battery fired seven rounds, and four AP from its one gun that was brought into play against the tanks later.
Christmas had indeed been a busy day, with the gun crews of the 463rd working like Santa’s little helpers. For the entire December twenty-fifth, the battalion had fired off 884 rounds of HE, 51 rounds of WP, and 35 rounds of AP. The total of 970 rounds was the highest daily number the 463rd would fire for the entire Bastogne siege (December 18 to January 1).34 Cooper’s carefully laid-out plan had indeed brought a rain of steel upon Maucke’s panzers.
Later that afternoon, General McAuliffe, Colonel Sherburne, and other division officers drove out in jeeps to see the 463rd’s handiwork in the fields southeast
of Hemroulle. With each smoking wreck, the staff officers took pictures and examined the devastation, carefully watching the skies overhead to ensure that no lurking American fighter-bombers would mistake them as a target of opportunity.
Much like the scene near Rolle, the sights that greeted the command were grisly. One of the men with Colonel Sherburne, Corporal James L. Martin, Sherburne’s security, described the scene that midafternoon: “…there was a German tanker burned to a crisp hanging upside down on the right side of the tank. His foot was caught in or near the opening on top of the tank…. The other tank that I remember had made a mad dash into a thick patch of pines to escape. The trees were 6 to 8 inches in diameter. The tank plowed into the woods 75 to 100 yards, making a path about 10 feet wide until it hit a bank about 4 feet high at a 45 degree angle.”35
Cooper was pleased that Colonel Elkins and Colonel Carmichael were also in attendance. He quietly relished the looks of surprise on their faces as McAuliffe gave the 463rd credit for three of the Mk IVs: the one Childress captured, and two others reduced to burned wrecks by the gunners of the three batteries.
“He [McAuliffe] would approach a burnt out tank and say, ‘What gun hit this one?’ It so happened that two tanks were hit in the side and were burned out. There was a streak in the snow that went directly to a gun aimed on those two. The general said, ‘I’ll give you credit for these two and the one you captured, but this other cannot [sic] positively be identified as being knocked out by your guns.’”
McAuliffe then added, “Anytime a tank is hit and burns up, it is destroyed and knocked out.”
Hearing that, Cooper then inquired whether he could use that term in his after-action report.
The general shot back with a grin, “Hell, yes!”
Cooper turned to an awestruck Elkins and said with great satisfaction, “I got my tanks today!” He was more than pleased to get the official recognition for three tanks, although Cooper remained convinced that the 463rd actually accounted for destroying several more near Hemroulle that day, either with 75mm Pack rounds, bazookas, or determined “tank-stalking” infantry.36
Like D’Angelo and his crew near Rolle, the 463rd gunners were relieved the action was over and that they had stopped Maucke’s right hook from getting through to Bastogne. As they relaxed and continued the restocking of ammo in the gun pits, the men, Hesler remembers, were once again served the typical fare for Christmas dinner—hotcakes with sugar.
After 0900 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Area of operations, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment
Champs, Belgium
As late morning arrived, the fighting in Champs was starting to sputter out. Still, with many of the Germans still sheltering in the town, the houses and streets had the potential to explode into a deadly killing ground. Swanson’s A Company had to go house-to-house to evict the last few stubborn Germans. It was during one of these actions that Sergeant Asay, the “mother hen” of his squad, almost lost his life.
The men would approach with rifles at the ready and surround the building. Usually one or two would have a grenade ready to hurl into the structure just in case there was resistance. Otherwise, it was hoped a few demands in German would help the enemy realize the hopelessness of their situation, drop their weapons, and come out peacefully. Asay remembered a tense moment. “Sergeant Zweibel and I were cleaning out houses. He went in the back door while I was backing him up.”
Asay recalled that some sixth sense told him to turn at that moment. There stood a German coming around the corner, only a few feet away. “I shouted, ‘Hände hoch!’ three times. He had a Schmeisser [submachine gun]—we were only two and a half feet apart from each other.” After what seemed like an eternity of a standoff to Asay, the German finally dropped his gun and put his hands over his head. “Well, he yells into this house and out of this building come sixteen more, so I had seventeen prisoners.” Asay and his men marched the Germans back into Champs.37
After dealing with the prisoners, Asay then approached a woodshed located on the right side of the Rouette–Givry road, the area of buildings that had been captured by the Germans and then evacuated as the Americans regained control of the road north of Champs. A group of Asay’s men were in the structure, taking a break from the intense fighting. Still bleeding from his wound in the face, Asay walked over to the shed.
“As I entered the house, a shot rang out and hit the doorjamb near my head,” Asay said. He ducked inside the shed and asked whether any of the men had seen where the shot came from. The men cautiously slid outside and noticed a dead German in the snowy field across the road. Rifles ready, Asay and his troops walked right up to the German soldier, dressed in white and lying facedown with his rifle near his hands.
“I gave him a few kicks in the ribs,” Asay recalled. The German leaped up and lunged for his rifle. Asay fired twice from his M1, killing the grenadier instantly.
“He had been playing dead when we spotted him, and was the one who had taken a potshot at me.” With that, Asay led his men back to the houses. A bit more determined, he continued the hunt for remaining Germans.38
Wallace Swanson recognized that things were starting to simmer down in Champs. He radioed Chappuis at Rolle and verified that he would not need Hanlon to bring B Company into play. Swanson decided to take a look at the situation for himself and, with an armed escort, left his CP and strolled cautiously toward the Champs church and the schoolyard nearby. The occasional burst of rifle or automatic fire confirmed that his men were still mopping up German resistance ahead. Prisoners were brought by him, marching in groups, and shed of their weapons, belts, and helmets, with their hands over their heads. To Swanson, the vaunted “Übermensch” of the Third Reich’s 77th Volksgrenadier simply looked forlorn, cold, and tired.
The paratroopers continued to search the farmhouses, sheds, barns, and haystacks in Champs. Other Able Company men were ordered by Swanson to check the church tower and make sure there were no German “holdouts” still in it. Swanson knew that when the Germans had occupied it earlier that morning, they had used it to call in fire on his own position nearby.
Swanson asked one of his troopers whether he had searched and checked every part of the church and schoolyard. The sergeant answered affirmatively, so Swanson decided to climb the church tower and see what he could see of the situation in his area. Swanson recalled: “As I was going up, I ran into a curve in the stairway and steps and as I was moving I happened to glimpse out of the corner of my eye the movement of a white sheet lying in the corner of the floor area behind some paste board and boards leaning against the wall.”
Drawing his weapon, Swanson shouted in the little German he knew for the figure to come out. “The object under the sheet moved again and it turned out to be a German officer who had been in command of some of the troops who had entered Champs. I retrieved a pistol which he had in his hand and told him to move on down stairs. As I came out of the church doorway, the sergeant who had told me everything was clear, was almost flabbergasted when I brought a German officer from that church steeple area.”39
By late in the morning, the connection between A Company and Sutliffe’s 2nd Battalion to the right had been reestablished; the Germans, including Ludwig Lindemann and the surviving members of his company, had apparently vacated the Les Bresses woods and retreated back toward where they had come, leaving their dead behind. The American positions around Champs, at least for the time being, appeared safe once again.40
Approximately 1000 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Possibly southwest of Champs, Belgium
Where precisely the tank had hidden for so long, and why, would remain a great mystery for years for the men of the 502nd. This single Mk IV would become known as the “rogue tank” to the Americans. Somehow, in the mad and frantic fighting that took place around Rolle that day, the tank had been forgotten. Unaccounted for, it had slipped past the American defenses. It had lunged at the Champs–Hemroulle road after
surviving the fire of D’Angelo’s and Vallitta’s M18s. It survived Schuyler Jackson’s second bazooka round, which had bounced off its turret. It had then motored on down the road toward the zigzag woods. The Mk IV panzer seemed to be either impervious or just plain lucky.
Shortly after the machine gunner in the bow of the tank had killed a private from Baker Company near the roadblock, the tank seemed to disappear. For hours it hid, probably deep in some woods, its crew by now realizing they were one of the last German units left intact within the American line, desperate to get back to their own lines. Hearing—or, as daylight broke, possibly seeing—the fighting in Champs, the tank commander decided to make his move. Perhaps he thought that if he could link back up with the 77th Volksgrenadier in Champs, he could get out of the American pocket alive.
As the panzer driver pushed the vehicle into gear, the tank pulled out of the snow and onto the road just southeast of the town. Smoke poured from the exhaust and muffler as the vehicle churned the mud and snow on the road, emerging from the woods and bearing straight into town.
Swanson was taken completely by surprise. He had just returned to his CP and was being visited by some of the 1/502nd’s HQ brass; Major “Long John” Hanlon, Captain Joe Pangerl, and Jim Hatch, the S3. Swanson remembered the shock:
“We heard a loud rumbling sound outside the house we were using as the company CP.”
Swanson and Hatch went to the door and opened it. They were shocked to see a German tank roll right past their position on the street outside.
“We saw this German tank go by from our rear toward our front lines. We realized we had no weapons that would do any good. We shut the door and Hatch said, ‘this is no place for a pistol!’”41
Discretion being the better part of valor, the officers decided to evacuate the house from the other side. Pangerl recalled the commotion years later: “I was telephoning with my back to the door, looking out of the window. About four men, including one of my majors, climbed over me to get out of the window. The last one said ‘Scram—there’s a German tank outside the door!’ In my imagination, I could see the 88mm gun pointing through the door ready to fire so, needless to say, I went out that window, telephone and all. Nothing, however, happened so I went around the front of the house and saw it disappearing up over the hill with men running after it shooting but of course not doing any damage.”42
