Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  Their jeep had been passed by General Higgins as he rushed forward to notify the lead elements to move toward Bastogne rather than continue on to their previous destination. Chappuis had been directed to the proper assembly area by the MP’s, Colonel Tom Sherburne and General Higgins.

  Captain Jim Hatch continues his story of the arrival in the Bastogne area where Chappuis had an opportunity to interrogate the acting 101st Division plans and operation chief. Hatch wrote:

  After daylight, we ran into Colonel Harry Kinnard, Division G-3, at Corps HQ. They had already organized advance parties to locate the unit assembly areas. We started on Harry to see what he could do about getting maps of the area. It wasn’t long before the 101st troops began arriving.

  PFC. Ted Goldmann was getting his first test of combat in the next several days. He remembers the arrival in the Bastogne area as a member of “A” Company:

  Just before dawn on the 19th, we disembarked and set out on foot. We could have been in China for all we knew. We hadn’t seen any towns, as the men had somehow managed to drop off to sleep. We marched about two miles to a bare hill (it seemed a hell of a place to us) and sat down. We dug shallow holes, filled them with straw, built fires and ate K-rations.

  Working with his regimental commander, Captain Jim Hatch was busy during the morning as he and Colonel Steve Chappuis checked out the perimeter area, which had been assigned to the 502nd Regiment. Hatch wrote:

  I don’t recall any real problem with the 502nd units since it appeared we would be one of the last ones to be committed to action. Steve and I would visit each unit as they were committed around Bastogne and had a pretty good idea of the terrain and what the Germans were putting up in the way of troops and tanks, etc. We could take the battalion commanders with us and they would then take their company commanders around.

  Once the battalion commanders knew the extent of their perimeter assignments, there was often some adjusting and moving platoons about. Such was the recollection of PFC. Ted Goldmann. He wrote:

  After many stops and starts and at about 11 o’clock at night (darkness at 5), we stopped just outside a small village (Monaville) and were given a squad area and told to dig in and set up the MG and try to get some sleep. We had a tree-lined gulley so we didn’t do any digging, threw the MG up on the edge of the gulley, set one at a time on guard and to hell with the Germans—went to sleep.

  A Mortar Outpost

  The 3rd Battalion of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment had just arrived in the area assigned to them. Mortar platoon leader, 1Lt. Ray Brock describes his first action:

  We moved into the area to be defended by 3rd Battalion in late afternoon and the company commander told me where he wanted the 81mm mortars placed. I told Platoon sergeant Karol Southard to see that the mortars and the men were dug in and I took a corporal and we started stringing communications wire from the position up to the OP, which was a few hundred yards ahead of the mortar positions. It was getting dark by the time we got the OP set up.

  A half-track about 50 yards to my right opened fire with a 75mm on some German armored units about 3/4 of a mile away on a ridge. The Germans returned the fire so the half-track being out-gunned, wheeled, pulled out of position and left.

  I was on my hands and knees selecting predetermined targets on my map in the remaining dim light when a shell hit the tree above me. I was knocked down and stunned but fortunately, not hit. My corporal, who had dug a foxhole, was resting in his sleeping bag. I commented, ‘That was close!’ There was no response so I went over to him and found that he had been killed by the shrapnel from the tree burst. His position was only about ten feet from where I was.

  A single, thin communication wire was often the only contact between a forward observer and his back-up forces. One gets a very lonely feeling when nothing is heard at the other end of the line—especially since the line had just been run. A change had occurred at company level while Brock was setting up his OP. He continued:

  Later, I lost phone contact with the platoon so I assumed the wire had been cut by shell fire. There weren’t any troops around my OP as the rifle companies had selected positions elsewhere and my OP was on the edge of the tree line on a road running from Recogne to Monaville.

  I spent the night alone and cold and, as soon as it became light enough to see, started back towards the platoon position, splicing wire as I went. When I neared the platoon position, I was shocked to find no one there except a badly wounded supply sergeant who was unable to communicate. I knew where the Germans were so started in the opposite direction. I had gone about 200 to 300 yards when I met the platoon coming up to look for me. Unbeknown to me, the company commander decided that his position was too exposed so pulled back to a position that could be better defended but didn’t feel he could send someone to find me and the corporal in the darkness.

  Chateau Rolle

  The headquarters command post for the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment was set up in a large 16th century building complex about a kilometer south and east of Champs.

  From an excerpt of a V-Mail letter Captain Joseph Pangerl wrote to his parents on December 30, 1944, he describes the setting at Chateau Rolle, which served as the command post during the siege:38

  Just now, I am in a beautiful 17th century castle which also serves as my home. It has been modernized but, naturally, still has the three-foot thick walls all around and you know what that means in combat dad. In front of this castle is the former castle; this one of the 10th century. The first few days here I spent quite a lot of time going around taking pictures at all sorts of angles. The setting here is much like a Hollywood one. We are on a small hill with hills all around us, covered with pine forests. There are the small lakes and rushing brooks that you always associate with such a setting and the fact that it snowed over a week ago and all the snow is still on the ground makes everything look like a Xmas postcard.

  One of the radio operators providing communications at Chateau Rolle was T/4 Robert J. Harle who had a good vantage point from which he witnessed much of the action. He wrote:

  As a radio operator, I held forth during the encirclement in the small woodshed. My buddy, Russ Miller, and myself dug in our radio and surrounded ourselves with a low wall of firewood. We each gave up a blanket to be used by the wounded in the stables across the courtyard. On occasion, the Germans would unleash a round or two from what must have been a huge artillery piece and these shells, when they passed overhead, sounded like they were tumbling end over end. Most passed harmlessly over and detonated in the valley to one side of the chateau. Once in a while though, rounds of smaller caliber made their way into the courtyard, causing minor damage and frayed nerves.

  From our vantage point, we could keep tabs on all the goings-on in the courtyard. Captain Stone would come and go, twirling his thin, but elaborate moustache. He holed up in a cellar under one of the stone buildings. Communications people occupied every available nook and cranny-barns, attics, basements and haystacks in the compound sheltered a wide variety of troopers. Wounded took up a large area in the stables; S-2 people and demo personnel shared available space with medics and men from the wire gangs. Parts of existing supplies were spread out under tarps on a sloping hillside, just outside the walls. I seem to recall at least one 6 x 6 truck parked just outside the main gates and under it one or two deep foxholes had been dug. Occasional cigarette smoke and muffled conversation would drift out from under there but I never did actually see the occupants. Later on, someone told me that there were two of them and that they weren’t from the 101st.

  The 401st Covers the West

  The 1st Battalion of the 401st Glider Infantry was given a new designation for the Ardennes fighting. Henceforth, in the official annals, it was to be known as the 3rd Battalion of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment. Its commander was LTC. Ray C. Allen. During this account, we will continue to identify this unit by its former designation as the veterans of the earlier cam paigns are more familiar with “Able”, “
Baker” and “Charley” Companies of the 401st Glider Infantry Battalion.

  In a lengthy story he had written of his wartime experiences in 1946, when the actions were still fresh in his mind, PFC. Richard V. Bostwick has this description of the detrucking of his unit as the 401st was the last of the infantry battalions to arrive on the scene near Mande St. Etienne. He wrote:

  We were told the Krauts could come from any direction; the front was everywhere. The company was extended in a ditch, along a gentle rise of slope. This gave us a rise over which we could see without being seen. We dug in much like a bunch of gophers, as the trucks, now empty, circled around in the fields and returned to France. We pulled out from that position before a foxhole could be completed.

  Late the same day, we rendezvoused with Company ‘C’ and set up a road block at an intersection on the ‘Red Ball Highway’ since this was a main supply route and an open road to France, should the Krauts gain control. I bitched about the poor foxhole location; the bottom of a ravine. Orders were to stay alert—no one was to sleep.

  1Lt. Ralph K. Nelson, of “A” Company, had spent 70 days in hospitals in England recovering from machine pistol wounds received on June 7th in the Normandy fighting. He had recovered in time to make the airborne mission into Holland and was wounded again while crossing the railroad bridge at Veghel but recovered in time to participate in the fighting around Opheusden. Nelson describes how his unit brought up the rear as they arrived in the Bastogne area and got into defensive positions:

  The 401st was the last battalion to close the ring at Bastogne and my platoon was the rear guard for ‘A’ Company, which was the rear guard for Battalion. We took up a reverse slope defense so the Krauts could not see us until they came over the brink of the hill. We outposted with a few men to observe the enemy.

  As “C” Company moved into its sector of the perimeter defense west of Mande St. Etienne, two of its platoons had noncoms as leaders. No officers had been assigned to them as replacements. S/Sgt. Robert M. Bowen positioned the men of his 3rd Platoon almost immediately after arriving in the vicinity. He provides a detailed description of how he placed his men as well as a description of the company meeting involving the platoon leaders and the company commander:

  I saw to the dispersal of my squads and returned to dig in. I studied the surroundings as I dug my slit trench. There were rolling hills, patches of forest and open farm land. To the west was a great hill that ran north and south with a large patch of forest to the east. We were in a valley hidden by the hills but in a poor defensive position. The weather was typically December in a temperate zone, in the forties and overcast. In the not-too-distant hills, sounds of booming artillery echoed hollowly.

  A call came over our SCR-300 radio asking me to report to the Company CP. As I hiked up the road, I could see ‘A’ and ‘B’ Companies moving out. Evidently, the Battalion had been committed. The CP was in a garage of a small stone house beside the road. Captain Towns possessed the only map in the company of the area. We gathered around him as he pointed out the positions each platoon would occupy. He finished the briefing with: ‘There have been reports of the enemy here.’ He ran his finger along the ridgeline to the northwest. ‘The troops holding the MLR have been routed so look for stragglers filtering back from the north. The 28th, 99th and 106th Divisions were completely overwhelmed. Many of them were captured. We have some reports of German troops dressed in American uniforms. Challenge everyone and make goddamn sure who they are before you let them into your position.’

  I returned to my platoon and called the squad leaders. We were to set up a roadblock on a secondary road to the northwest. The 1st and 2nd Platoons set up blocks on the road from Bastogne with the mortars in a wooded area in the rear of the CP. We had too much ground to cover for the size of our decimated platoon. I had Jerry Hans dig his squad in on the road. They overlooked open fields and a distant tree patch. Felker’s squad was dug in on a ridge line to Hans’ left, with Leamon’s men spread out along the same ridge to Felker’s left. There was a gap of 400 yards to 2nd Platoon’s position, which would have to be covered at night by patrolling. I put Sgt. Andy Mitchell and his 60mm mortar squad in defilade position on a reverse slope overlooking our front. I set up my CP there, also.

  The platoon dug in with our one bazooka covering an unimproved road, which led to the northwest. We had three shells for it. 1st Platoon dug in an orchard south of the main road, several hundred yards west of Mande St. Etienne. 2nd Platoon’s position was several hundred yards farther west on the same road, entrenched south of the road, also. At its rear, on high ground, was a large stone house with its surrounding out-buildings. Huge fir trees surrounded the house with a wide brick pavement leading from the road to a central court. A 37mm anti-tank gun was stationed among the fir trees, covering the road to the west. A tank destroyer was assigned to the company and took position in the courtyard and a Sherman tank moved up and parked on the east side of the house. It took most of the day to get our defenses in place.

  During the afternoon, S/Sgt. Robert Bowen reported to the Company CP to pick up rations for his men. Non-coms from the other platoons were also present for the same purpose. The company commander and his executive officer were in the garage going over the only map available to the unit. Both men had grim, worried looks on their faces. Bowen added:

  Captain Towns said heavy fighting had been reported in the 501st and 506th areas and that tanks had been reported heading in our direction. He warned me to be especially alert at night with half the men on guard at all times.

  As we settled in for the night, the sound of gunfire was all around us, but most heavy in the north and east. The night was cold with a bitter wind coming in over the valley to our front and into our foxholes. Twice, I left my CP to visit each squad. There were no reports of enemy activity.

  The 327/401st glidermen covered a ten-mile front, almost half of the entire defensive perimeter of Bastogne. Patrols were sent out as far as three to six miles to the west and south to probe for German positions and movements. To “B” Company, under Captain Robert J. McDonald, went the long range patrol assignment. From their initial defensive Position, southeast of Flamierge, they would be ordered, after midnight, to move west.

  Field Hospital Captured

  As indicated earlier, in the order of the road march of the convoy of vehicles carrying the 101st Airborne Division to the assembly area near Mande St. Etienne, the 326th Medical Company was near the tail end of the long column.

  T/5 George Whitfield remembered the trip to Bastogne as he was driving the jeep for 1Lt. Henry Barnes, the last remaining medical evacuation officer left from the original four who started with the company in Normandy on D-Day. Whitfield describes how their part of the convoy became separated from the lead elements and Lt. Barnes ended up leading the rest of the convoy to the assembly area.

  On our way to Belgium, we stopped for a break alongside the road. We expected the truck ahead of us to pull out any minute but they sat there till morning. A jeep came by with one of our surgeons in the front passenger seat. He told Lt. Barnes that most of the convoy had left during the night and he should lead us to where the Medical Company was ahead of us in Belgium.

  By the time the remainder of the 326th Medical Company convoy neared the Bastogne area, the on-coming road traffic was sticking to its own side of the road, thanks to the efforts of General Gerald J. Higgins and Colonel Thomas Sherburne. T/5 George Whitfield comments further on the trip:

  Every town we went through, the MP’s waved us on. We seemed to have priority over everybody going north. Within an hour or so, Major Barfield and the first sergeant came along and led us to where the Medical Company was located. We unhooked our trailers and waited at the company compound till the other drivers made a run out to where the regiments were located. One of the drivers came back for us before nightfall and we arrived at the 502nd.

  As the medical evacuation officer of the 326th who was assigned to work closely with the 502nd
Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1Lt. Henry Barnes went off immediately to find the location of the 502nd. He wrote:

  I left the company there and went on into Bastogne to find the location of the 502nd Regimental Headquarters so I could locate the regimental aid station. In an hour or so, I had located Major (Douglas) Davidson and went back for the balance of my six jeeps and seven trailers.

  PFC. Robert “Buck” Barger was assigned to provide evacuation from the 1st Battalion, 506th aid station, back to the 326th medical field hospital as he had done in Holland during that 72-day campaign earlier. The troops of 1st Battalion had left several hours earlier and Barger and his team leader were on their way to catch up with them. Barger recalled:

  Upon arrival in the Bastogne area, I was reassigned, along with S/Sgt. Jack Galt, as part of a medical team to the 1st Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, under the command of Captain Joseph E. Warren, surgeon for that battalion.

  We moved up to the town of Noville, in a northeasterly direction from Bastogne—not many miles further. 1st Battalion was going to kick off an attack around 1330–1400 hours.

  Meanwhile, back at the site selected as the location for the 326th Field Hospital, work went on quickly to prepare the facilities for the expected casualties, which would begin arriving shortly after the 101st troops had made contact with the enemy.

  As a member of the 3rd Auxiliary Surgical Team, T/4 Emil K. Natalle had already participated in the glider landings in Normandy and Holland in support of the 326th Medical Company. Now he describes the beginning of this third venture: