No Silent Night

by Leo Barron

  Near the potato shed and the Rouette road, Corporal Willis Fowler and several other men from Asay’s squad were finally relaxing, enjoying the tiny amount of sunlight that had burned off the fog, providing a small bit of warmth on their faces. Fowler was trying to fix the tripod on his machine gun. The other troopers were eating near the potato shed or cleaning weapons. Some of the men had scrounged bread and butter and other victuals from the German prisoners they had searched—a simple reward for the hungry victors. It almost made up for the three chickens Fowler, Ted Goldmann, and the others had killed, plucked, and stored in the potato shed for a planned Christmas feast. The chickens had become combat casualties, blown to pieces by the German tank shells that had blasted the wooden structure during the battle.

  The men were chatting, recounting the part they had played in the morning battle, when someone suddenly yelled out that a German tank was approaching from behind. Fowler recalled the shock at seeing this holdout tank, guns blazing, heading toward them. “It was right there before we knew it, coming up the road.”43

  Ted Goldmann was also in disbelief: “Johnny [Ballard] was in his hole cleaning his rifle; Fowler and [Private Harold] Curry in theirs. Lenz, Williams and I were slicing bread with a bayonet. I had a slice fixed when Johnny yelled to ask me to fix him one, which I started doing.”

  The “rogue tank” veered slightly to the left after it passed Swanson’s HQ, following the road out of Champs, just across from the church. As the paratroopers ducked between houses and dived out of the way, the tank continued on, climbing the incline, its commander apparently determined to reach Rouette.

  Goldmann continued. “Fowler yelled, ‘Here comes a German tank behind you!’ Sure enough, a light-medium tank was coming up behind us with its machine gun blazing away. We [Lenz, Williams and myself] ducked behind what remained of the potato shack doorway.”

  A quick-thinking Johnny Ballard picked up his bazooka and waited until the Mk IV had passed his foxhole. There was a German soldier hanging onto the back of the tank who was quickly dispatched with a rifle shot from one of the paratroopers. Ballard leveled the bazooka, took aim, and fired at the back of the tank from less than fifty yards away.

  The first bazooka shell slammed into the back of the motor—just under the turret—causing the tank to stall. It rolled off the left side of the road, grinding to a halt in front of the potato shed and some trees. Ballard reloaded and, firing again, hit the panzer squarely in the back. The tank’s engine stopped dead and flames shot from the rear. Fowler, Goldmann, and the others whooped, then crouched back down as they saw the German crew bailing out. Aiming their rifles and carbines, they opened up.

  “The crew came piling out to be met by a volley of lead from all of us. No more tank and all the crew was killed except one who had a radio on his back that Sgt. Bud Zweibel wanted to get intact,” Goldmann recalled.44

  As the wreckage of the tank sizzled and crackled, burning, the men were amazed at how close a call it had been. The “rogue tank”—although it had almost made it back to its lines—was little more than a stone’s throw in front of their positions. So close the men had to back up as the wreck continued to burn that afternoon, in case the ammunition cooked off.

  Walking back into Champs, Fowler and the others hoped they might finally be able to get some food and relax. They were handed K rations. It wasn’t much, but for the time being, it satisfied Fowler’s empty gut.

  As Captain Swanson and the others regained their composure after the surprise from the rogue tank, “Swannie” was happy to see that communication lines had been repaired and he was back in touch with Rolle and Bastogne via landline. Prisoners were tallied. According to Able Company records, more than a hundred or more Volksgrenadiers from both battalions of the 77th were accounted for. Meals were brought in for his exhausted troopers, who had been up all night fighting for the tiny little town. Christmas was more like Thanksgiving, in many ways, as many of the paratroopers had a warm meal and appreciated the very fact that they were alive for another day. Actually, casualties among Swanson’s company were light, considering the ferocity of the German attack and the hard work of evicting the enemy from the town that morning. The company suffered only one killed in action, a Private Steinback, six missing in action, and thirteen wounded.45

  Chappuis and Allen, as well as their company commanders, also took stock. Although the battle appeared to be won for now, up and down the 502nd’s perimeter, there would be more fighting in the near future.

  Midafternoon, Monday, 25 December 1944

  West of Bastogne

  All around the northwest sector, on a line from Champs in the north, past Rolle and the Dreve de Mande, and heading farther south past Hemroulle to the gun pits of the 463rd, the wreckage of the Christmas-morning battle lay dark and smoking.

  Maucke’s failed attack was evident. Bodies of landsers lay in clumps in the bloodstained snow. German prisoners, searched by guards from the 502nd, 463rd, and 1/401st, dropped their weapons in piles and marched toward Bastogne with their hands held over their heads.

  Tanks, in various stages of wreckage, littered the area. The wreckage was thick, particularly along the Champs–Hemroulle road near D’Angelo’s and Vallitta’s positions. Some were burned black, their hulls crumpled down and still pouring smoke from the hatches. Inside, the charred remains of their crews sat at their posts where they had died. Some wrecks simply showed the small penetration hole of an armor-piercing shell, the snowy ground nearby scattered with the still bodies of the crew. Others were knocked about and pointing in all directions like a careless child’s toys.

  Impact holes—dark smears in the snow with earth thrown up around them—were everywhere, as were burn and scorch marks here and there. Brass shells, large-caliber and small-, glittered in the sun, scattered or in tight piles dumped in the snow. Hanlon provided his own description:

  “Suddenly, as if on signal, the fighting ended; an eerie calm broken only by the crackling of burning tanks, came over the field.”46

  As the sun rose, warming the frozen fields, shadows began to appear. Christmas started to take on an air of hope for the GIs who had battled all night and morning. The survivors noted that the action seemed to have reached its crescendo, the Germans having apparently blown their attempt to gain Bastogne. The sight of so many German prisoners was indeed heartening to the defenders of Bastogne.

  By noon, Chappuis had reestablished communications with all units in the area. To maintain the initiative, “Silent Steve” decided to seize the key terrain to the west of Champs in order to deny that territory to the Germans. It was vital that the Americans take advantage of the failed German assault and regain the ground lost that morning. Captain Hatch, the regimental operations officer still in Champs, orchestrated the attack.

  At 1230 hours, the attack commenced. Baker Company had the task of clearing the eastern side of Champs, while Charlie Company, the decisive operation, pushed west to high ground. Unfortunately, not all the Germans had left Champs. Somewhere in town, a German forward observer had set up a hide site, and from there he called down artillery fire upon Baker Company’s men as they attempted to push through the village. As a result, Baker’s 3rd Platoon suffered severe casualties, including its platoon leader. Tragically, Lieutenant Porter C. Little of B Company was one of the last Americans to be killed that day. As the men of the 502nd moved up to try to retake the hill and Robinson’s OP above Champs, the Germans fired a few parting shells. Lieutenant Little was hit and died shortly thereafter.47

  Despite the losses, the attack continued. By 1500 hours, the two companies had achieved their missions. The Germans attempted a halfhearted counterattack, but it fell short. The paratroopers would keep their gains. After the counterattack, Chappuis pushed Baker Company toward the Bois de Nibelmont after a patrol from 3rd Battalion stumbled into some Germans in Recogne. Their mission was to secure the Longchamps–Bastogne road. The perimeter now secured, Chappuis and Cassidy spent the evening in Rolle, chew
ing on a Christmas meal of sardines and crackers.48

  While they munched away on their Christmas dinner, the S2 staff pored over a captured order from one of the prisoners. It came from the 77th Volksgrenadier Regiment. The intelligence analysts realized that Able Company had taken on two German Volksgrenadier battalions that morning, while to the south, the 1/401st and 705th’s tank destroyers had grappled with the entire 115th Panzergrenadier Regiment.49 It was only then that the paratroopers realized how much the Germans had thrown at them in this Christmas attempt to end the siege. The Wehrmacht had concentrated two regiments against two battalions. In addition, one of the regiments had a company of panzers and assault guns to support it. Chappuis, Cassidy, Hanlon, and Swanson shook their heads in disbelief. By the standards of any military logic, this should have been more than enough to overrun the American lines. Instead, the attack had failed.

  By the time the attack had stalled, the Germans had lost that entire company of panzers and a battalion of Panzergrenadiers; they were decimated by the stubborn 502nd’s paratroopers and the glidermen of Allen’s 1/401st. In addition, two battalions of Volksgrenadiers had been mauled by the American defenders in their failure to take Champs. Colonel Kokott had risked his newest armored forces to end the siege, and had wound up almost destroying Maucke’s regiment. In essence, Kokott had gambled everything on the Christmas attack, only to lose it all.

  Midafternoon, Monday, 25 December 1944

  327th Glider Infantry Regiment area of operations

  Southwest of Bastogne

  Hearing the tapering off of the noises of battle near his sector, Colonel “Bud” Harper felt immense relief. It had been close, but his lines had held. The Germans had tried one more time to attack Able Company of the 401st’s lines shortly before noon, but it was little more than an unenthusiastic attempt to stave off total defeat. Allen confirmed that, indeed, the repaired lines would hold.

  Allen’s battalion was not the only spot where the Germans had struck. The town of Marvie, in Harper’s area of operations, also witnessed more fighting that day. But at the end of the day, when Captain William Abernathy, the Regimental S2, completed his roll-up report, the 2/327th had captured 117 Germans.50 Thanks to prisoners of war, the intelligence officers at division now had a strong sense of whom they faced in Harper’s part of the perimeter. Prisoners from the 1st and 2nd battalions of the 39th Fusilier Regiment, the 6th, 10th, and 11th companies of the 901st Panzergrenadier Regiment, and the 1st Battalion of the 77th Volksgrenadier Regiment had been captured. Furthermore, several prisoners revealed the location of the 77th regimental headquarters. Schriefer’s HQ was in Rouette.51 Overall, with the capture of so many Germans, the Americans were realizing an unexpected benefit—loads of information on the status and shape of the German forces still facing them. All in all, it was a good day for the interrogators.

  The victory, though, was not without cost. During the rollover by Maucke’s force that morning, Allen’s 1/401st suffered twenty-two casualties. Many of these men sustained only light wounds, and would probably return to battle shortly. Others, however, were not so lucky. Bowles’s Able Company had four men killed in action: Private First Class Frederick W. Bader, Staff Sergeant Seeber Crawford, Technical Sergeant Frank Evans, and Sergeant Roy W. Sprister. Towns’s Charlie Company suffered only one man killed in action: Private First Class Amos Damron from Kentucky. Headquarters Company did not lose a single soul.52

  Midafternoon, Monday, 25 December 1944

  P-47 close air support mission from the

  513th Fighter Squadron, 406th Fighter Group

  Skies over Bastogne

  First Lieutenant Howard M. Park glanced over his shoulder at the ground below. Somewhere dug in and around the town of Bastogne were his comrades in the 101st Airborne Division. Just a short time earlier, before Park and his fighter pilots arrived on station over Bastogne, the resupply aircraft had reappeared. Even if Patton’s tanks had not arrived yet, Supreme Allied Command was going to make damn sure the defenders of Bastogne would receive a Christmas present. The sky once again filled with the shapes of C-47 transports, parachutes billowing from the aircraft and fluttering to the ground. The little fighters swept the sky before the next serial of Dakotas thundered overhead, delivering more goods to the GIs below. Now, with the supply birds gone, the fighters could once again ply their deadly trade on the German forces on the ground.

  For P-47 pilots like Park, this was to be their finest hour. The weather that had sided with the Germans for the past week was gone. The clear skies beckoned the pilots to take to the air, and their rivals in the Luftwaffe seemed almost nonexistent.53

  On the downside, Park had never experienced such flak before these missions, and he had been flying almost nonstop since spring. The intelligence staff had warned the pilots the Germans had more than nine hundred 20mm and 40mm flak guns pointed skyward, ringing Bastogne like a crown of thorns. This concentration of firepower gave the Germans the ability to throw a dome of hot lead and bursting shrapnel over the battlefield. No aircraft was safe over Bastogne, but that was where Park and his fellow pilots were needed.54

  The 406th had given McAuliffe’s boys constant coverage throughout the daylight hours, starting on the twenty-third. Park’s 406th had three squadrons, and each squadron flew four missions daily. For each mission, the squadron would send up two flights of four aircraft each. According to the flight records, the 406th averaged 105 sorties daily between December 23 and 27. Park himself had flown one mission each day so far. Today his aircraft had gone wheels up at 1400 in the afternoon. The typical flight to Bastogne, loiter time, and back lasted around two and a half hours.55 The missions were becoming something of a blur to Park. Although the pilots were being worn and pushed to their limits, the men knew the work was vital to stopping the Germans’ Christmas drive and helped relieve some of the pressure on the hard-pressed Americans in Bastogne.

  Park’s squadron, the 513th, had been pulverizing German positions outside of Bastogne since Christmas morning. A typical mission over Bastogne was anything but typical. Once he reached the ten-mile exclusion zone around Bastogne, Park and his fellow pilots would receive a call from Captain James E. Parker, the forward air controller for the 101st. Parker, stationed on the ground near McAuliffe’s headquarters, would provide the target and the location. Park would then search for the bright orange marking panels that the airborne troopers had used to designate the forward line of troops, or FLOT. From there, Park would know where the friendlies were. He just had to avoid strafing or bombing anything on the Bastogne side of those markers.

  Park and his wingmen would climb to a decent altitude for an overall view of the area on the ground, and to try to keep out of the range of the flak. Pushing over, the men would line up any targets in their crosshairs—the P-47 “Jugs” diving to the deck like chubby ospreys. As Park watched the snowy ground rise up from below, he looked for the telltale tracks of German vehicles on the enemy side of the perimeter. Meanwhile, he would “jink” the stick to avoid the exploding flak. The P-47’s wings would dip and arc as he hurtled his eight-ton aircraft toward the ground. All around him, tracers passed over and beneath his wings, whipping by his canopy like supersonic fireflies. At the last second, Park would level out to deliver his payload and strafe the target. His mission complete, he would then pull up, repeating his jinking tactic as his plane pulled away. He knew that good stick handling was important to his survival, but whether his plane got hit or not would always be a matter of luck—the ultimate deciding factor.

  Park remembered the tracers: “The flak tracers were like garden hoses with projectiles arcing lazily thru air toward one. I remember so vividly my slipping and skidding as streams of flak fire reached for me, sometimes within three feet of my wing surfaces.”56

  Down on the ground, Captain Parker, code-named “Ripsaw,” directed the planes as if he were directing traffic at a busy intersection. Every morning he would consult Colonel Danahy’s G2 map and vector in the aircra
ft to the locations where the infantry and tankers had reported enemy activity. His tactical operations center was a simple jeep with a high-frequency radio he’d borrowed from 10th Armored. Most of the time, his TOC, or tactical operations center, was in the courtyard of the Heinz Barracks, so he could be in close communication with McAuliffe’s staff. He also wanted to be in the best place to observe the P-47s and P-51 Mustangs visually, as they whisked and wheeled over the battlefield.57

  Throughout the morning and afternoon, the P-47s of the 406th Fighter Group continued to pound the Germans surrounding Bastogne. In total, the 406th flew 115 sorties on Christmas Day. The 512th and 513th fighter squadrons each flew six missions, while the 514th flew five. The 406th claimed that they struck forty-seven gun positions, nineteen armored vehicles, one mobile gun, eleven buildings, 128 motor transports, and ten tanks. The 512th Fighter Squadron also sent Thunderbolts to attack convoys outside of Givry, tanks near Lutrebois, vehicles outside of Assenois, enemy forces in Hompre, and field guns near Villeroux.

  Park’s own squadron directly assisted in the destruction of the German forces that had attempted to penetrate Chappuis’s line. They attacked tanks outside of Marvie, troop concentrations south of Bourcy, enemy forces near Tintange, Wehrmacht units south of Bastogne, and especially enemy forces outside of Flamierge and antiaircraft units in Salle. Park’s squadron winged over again and again and powered down on the northwestern sector, made conspicuous by the funeral pyres of so many burning tanks. Chattering .50-caliber bullets tore up the German positions where the Panzergrenadiers were trying to regroup and lick their wounds.