Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  Bombers Hit Bastogne

  The entry in T/4 Gerald Zimmerman’s diary for this date covers some of the highlights for Christmas Eve as Bastogne received its first aerial bombing:

  December 24, 1944—Another clear day—our air support and more supplies by air. Shells going in and out. I went to bed about six in the shelter but was awakened about eight when we received our first bombing here. It was a living hell. We nave no ack-ack or machine guns to hinder them. They (enemy) come over, drop flares and then take their time dropping their ‘bundles’.

  When war correspondent Fred McKenzie volunteered to go on the mission with the 101st Division, he never dreamed just how hectic life would be for him and the others. The first aerial bombing of Bastogne is etched in the memories of all who had to withstand the sounds and explosions as the enemy planes flew unmolested over the city. The action is described by McKenzie:

  Most of us were underground when the first German aerial attack was launched at 8 o’clock Christmas Eve. Our cellar heaved and trembled from blasts 150 yards away.

  ‘Steady men, keep calm and don’t crowd,’ said Lt. Col. Ned D. Moore, the chief-of-staff and there was no disorder.

  About that time, little Cpl. Daniel Olney of Tucson, Arizona and I got the same urge to find foxholes. We dashed out into bright moonlight. I, with a feeling of exhilaration.

  It was cold but the fresh air was invigorating after the fetid atmosphere underground. I decided ‘to do my dying’ above ground and did not again seek shelter in a cellar.

  On leaving the cellar after the air raid, I went to the police barracks and there found an empty bunk whose occupant had taken refuge underground.

  Bastogne was lighted by flames from the bombing, garish in bright moonlight. A division officer came by the police station enroute to the fire and we went together.

  Now and then, a shell whined over and we hugged walls until after the bursts. The streets were deserted but we were frequently challenged by sentries until we reached the fire. An aid station, housing wounded, had been hit by a bomb.

  There seemed nothing to do so we turned back to headquarters and subsequently I went to bed in the police barracks where Pvt. John Connolly was sound asleep.111

  As commander of “B” Battery of the 81st Anti-Tank Battalion, Captain A. G. Gueymard’s troopers were attached to the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment. Thus, his battery command post was in the same building that housed the regimental command center in Bastogne.

  One of the most memorable experiences Gueymard had during the war was on Christmas Eve during the first enemy attack by bombers. He wrote:

  On Christmas Eve, German bombers were roaming around above the town. We heard a few bombs drop nearby and were naturally a bit excited. All of a sudden, we heard a tremendous crash—not an explosion—and then all was quiet. The bombers departed and we all turned in for the night. The next morning, upon arising, we investigated as to what had caused the crash the night before and found that in the next room to where we were, a 500 pound bomb had fallen into the room—not exploding—but splitting open like a watermelon and covering several tons of coal stored there. The powder was green so that the coal looked green also. Needless to say, had the bomb exploded, many of us would not be here today.

  Aid Station Hit

  Captain Gordon Geiger of the 20th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 10th Armored Division had been hit by shrapnel as the armored troops and the 1st Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment had battled to maintain their foothold in Noville on December 19. He was evacuated to the medical facility of the 10th Armored Division in Bastogne.

  On Christmas Eve the Germans shelled Bastogne with a vengeance and bombed the town twice during the night. It was the first time Geiger had ever been bombed and shelled. He wrote:

  They hit our first aid station, which caved into the basement. We went over and tried to get the men out. A lot of mattresses had caught fire, as well as other things. One boy was pinned down by a beam on his leg. Someone found a saw and began to cut at the beam to free him. The boy was saying, ‘Shoot me! Please shoot me!’ But we said, ‘You’ll be all right!’ We were able to cut him out of there.

  Others weren’t so fortunate. Only about half of the soldiers in the aid station survived. Included in the casualties was a young Belgian girl named Renee LeMaire, who had volunteered to care for the wounded.

  She was a very beautiful eighteen year old girl who had been taking care of our boys. When the bomb came in, she was killed. My doctor was there and he sat down and cried like a baby. He had a daughter about the same age and the Belgian girl’s death really got to him.112

  A move to return to his make-shift hospital to write a letter to the wife of a young officer was interrupted by an invitation from one of his men to share in a Christmas Eve drink may have saved the life of Captain John T. Prior. He wrote:

  At 0830 p.m. Christmas Eye, I was in a building next to my hospital preparing to go next door to write a letter for a young lieutenant to his wife, The lieutenant was dying of a chest wound. As I was about to step out of the door for the hospital, one of my men asked if I knew what day it was, pointing out that on Christmas Eve we should open a champagne bottle. As the two of us filled our cups, the room, which was well blacked out, became as bright as an arc welder’s torch. Within a second or two, we heard the screeching sound of the first bomb we had ever heard. Every bomb, as it descends, seems to be pointed right at you. We hit the floor as a terrible explosion next door rocked our building. I ran outside to discover that the three-story apartment serving as my hospital was a flaming pile of debris about six feet high. The night was brighter than day from the magnesium flares the German bomber pilot had dropped. My man and I raced to the top of the debris and began flinging burning timber aside looking for the wounded, some of whom were shrieking for help. At this juncture the German bomber, seeing the action, dropped down to strafe us with his machine guns. We slid under some vehicles and he repeated the maneuver several times before leaving the area.

  Our team headquarters, about a block away, also received a direct hit and was soon in flames. A large number of men soon joined us and we located a cellar window. (They were marked by white arrows on most European buildings.)

  Some men volunteered to be lowered into the smoking cellar on a rope and two or three injured were pulled out before the entire building fell into the cellar. I estimated that about thirty injured were killed in this bombing along with Renee LeMaire. It seems that Renee had been in the kitchen as the bomb came down and she either dashed into, or was pushed into, the cellar before the bomb hit. Ironically enough, all those in the kitchen were blown outdoors since one wall was all glass. I gathered what patients I still had and transported them to the riding hall hospital of the Airborne Division.113

  Second Strike

  Whether the onset of the 0300 attack on the western perimeter and the second bombing strike of Bastogne at the same hour was a coordinated attack on the part of the enemy wasn’t known to the participants on the receiving ends.

  War correspondent Fred McKenzie managed to get some sleep in the police barracks after the first bombing attack but finally awakened to the police barracks after the first bombing attack but finally awakened to the chill in the room. He continued his story:

  These ruins are believed to be the remains of Captain John T. Prior’s 20th Armored Infantry Battalion’s aid station in Bastogne.

  I awakened about 2 o’clock and felt cold. The feeble fire was almost out, so I poked it hopefully and went outside to talk to soldiers guarding the gate.

  The Germans, I learned later, were preparing one of their biggest attacks. It came against our lines and by air at 3 o’clock. The drone of planes was the first warning.

  I told myself they were friendly planes. It couldn’t be that Christmas morning would bring new horror in the defenders of Bastogne. Hadn’t they passed through the crisis enough?

  The scream of descending bombs answered us. Down, down t
hey came and one of the sentries cried, ‘In here, sir!’ As I plunged into a foxhole where they stood guard with .30 caliber machine guns, bombs burst everywhere, but we were unscathed.

  I don’t know how many bombs fell, but none of us was fear stricken and all were very angry. After a while, I climbed from the foxhole and we talked, but I don’t remember the substance of the talk.

  A third soldier joined us. Then shells began to whine. This time, there were four of us in the foxhole.

  We could hear machine guns chattering and mortars coughing in the battle begun on the southern boundary of the defense perimeter. The soldier came back into the bivouac area and disappeared.

  A plane droned over again and this time flares came down and hovered many minutes, lighting so brilliantly you could see far across Bastogne and out on the plain.

  We saw sparks like tracer bullets off to the west, but instead of going up from the earth they started in midair and streaked parallel to the ground. They must have been fired from a plane, but that eerie sight in the sky served to unnerve me more than crashing bombs and shells.

  We went to the other side of the barracks and then there were more planes overhead and screaming bombs. I remember huddling in a foxhole just big enough to squeeze into and the cold earth seemed furry and soft and it seemed my helmet came down to cover even my knees that were tucked under my chin.

  Here was the supreme moment of apprehension for me at Bastogne. A bomb fell 70 yards away beside the cemetery where Sunday they had buried our dead.

  A shell struck a pole on the other side of the barracks, broke it off and shattered bricks and windows, but no one was hurt.

  By this time, I had reached the limit of self-reliance and as shrapnel from shells and bombs tinkled around I was physically and spiritually folded in one little knot of thought which ran something like this: ‘Thy will be done—for how long, I do not know.’114

  Captain John T. Prior ended his account of the bombing episode wondering how the pilot picked his hospital as the particular target or was it the fact that the streets were so full of vehicles which offered such a wealth of “easy pickings.”

  At about 3 a.m. Christmas morning, the bomber returned and totally destroyed a vacant building next to the smoldering hospital. I have often wondered how the pilot picked this hospital as a target. There were no external markings but, as some of the men said, the bomb must have come down the chimney. Many tanks and half-tracks were parked bumper to bumper in the street in front of the hospital so it seemed probable he simply picked an area of high troop concentration.115

  A Tragic Shooting

  Two soldiers relate the story of a tragic shooting at an outpost position in the area of Senonchamps on Christmas Eve.

  Other than some sporadic shelling, the Senonchamps area probably experienced one of the more quiet Christmas Eves around the perimeter. On duty at the Chateau Ile-le-Hesse to patrol the grounds, Pvt. Duane Harvey remembered a report of a tragic shooting:

  When we were on the ridge outside of Senonchamps, a sergeant would make a check of the foxholes during the night One of the fellows said, ‘the sergeant was shot last night by a replacement when he came by on his nightly check’.

  S/Sgt. Robert G. Salley of Headquarters Company of the 326th Engineer Battalion, whose unit was part of the western defense line, related a story which may fit the action recited by Pvt. Harvey but it wasn’t the sergeant who got shot. Salley wrote:

  During the night of December 24th, I was on guard duty with PFC. Tony DiSalle on top of a hill on the edge of a woods. We had been there all night and just as it was getting light, Captain William J. Nancarrow sent two men up to relieve us.

  Our replacements were from the 9th Armored Division engineers, who were with us temporarily. Tony and I, being on top of the hill, were easily discernable by these men as they came up to us.

  I could see them coming up the grade and they were running from tree to tree and bush to bush. About that time, Tony stood up to stretch the kinks out of himself.

  I told him to get down but before he could do that one of these men, probably nervous as we all were and not being sure who we were because the area had Germans dressed in our uniforms, shot Tony in the stomach. Tony died where he fell. In the turmoil that followed, I never did learn who these two men were. I’m sure this same sort of thing happened many times during the various conflicts our country has been in.

  CHAPTER 10

  CHRISTMAS DAY

  Reconnaissance of the area west of Bastogne had convinced Division that the next major attack along the perimeter would come from that direction and most likely it would come on Christmas Day.

  The thinly held line was outposted by men of 1st Battalion of the 401st Glider Infantry with Companies “A” and “B” on line and Company “C” in reserve around the Battalion command post on the outskirts of Hemroulle.

  The brunt of the battle in the initial stages was to be borne by 2nd Platoon of “A” Company. The pre-dawn attack by 18 enemy tanks would come through their foxhole positions.

  World War II historian, Brig. General S. L. A. Marshall provides this description of “A” Company’s readiness to do battle on this day:116

  Perhaps the best measure of the fighting elan of this unit is that on the morning of the attack they were covering their ground with five .50 caliber machine guns and two light MG’s in excess of the two light guns allowed by the tables. They had scrounged this extra weapon power and were quite happy to carry it along. This was a general characteristic of the 101st Airborne Division; it’s men never overlooked a chance to build up weapon power. They would preempt armor and work it, if they could get their hands on it.

  There were 77 men in the Company under 1Lt. Howard G. Bowles in the hour of the action. They were holding a sector approximately 1100 yards in width, organized generally along a ridge line, with a large pine plantation on the Company right and a small forest lot in the center ground in which the CP was established. Two tank destroyers of the 705th TD Battalion were in position in a forest patch directly behind the CP and two others were in tree cover farther up the hill, well to the left. Company A’s machine guns were disposed so as to tie together the general front defended by the glidermen and the destroyer crews.

  Reconnaissance had already convinced Division that this was the most likely avenue in the whole defensive circle for a thrust by enemy armor. The men knew this. Moreover, late on Christmas Eve, they had heard armor out beyond their horizon; the noise came from the forward elements of 15th Panzer Grenadier Division, which were just entering the battle.

  At 2200 on Christmas Eve, on order from Division, 1Lt. Jack Adams commanding the 3rd Platoon, was given ten picked men by Bowles and told to work out through the fog and dynamite the culvert short of the village of Flamizoulle, where the sounds of activity were coming. The patrol had gone five hours. The fog had enabled Adams to make his approach safely, but it had also slowed his progress. He got to the culvert, drilled a few holes, put in the dynamite, then he heard the tramp of German infantry marching along the road and coming toward him; he had to withdraw before completing his mission.

  He brought this word back to Bowles and told him that there seemed to be ‘plenty of armor’ in the village. Bowles at once asked for an artillery shot on Flamizoulle and got it. But it was too late to be effective. Almost coincidentally, Pvt. Allie Moore got back from the 2nd Platoon outpost and told Bowles that a considerable force of infantry and ‘many tanks’ were coming directly on his front.

  Bowles ran forward to the outpost on his left flank. He reached it just in time to see the tanks come on; the armor was in column, moving on a line which would take it directly between his left flank (2nd Platoon) and the Company CP. Bowles doubled back to the main position.

  Awakened from a sound sleep in an upstairs room of his command post near Hemroulle, LTC. Ray Allen, commander of the 401st Glider Infantry Battalion, was told a long column of tanks was headed toward the positions of his line companies coveri
ng a ridge southwest of Champs. Asked by his staff officers if the men on line should commence firing, he had told them no. It would be better to determine at what point the enemy was moving through the line positions and order those men to move out of the path of the armor.

  The tank column accompanied by white-capped infantrymen, some riding on the backs of the tanks, came through the positions of 2nd Platoon of “A” Company. Knowing that to stay in their foxholes would mean certain death, the glider troopers moved out of their positions and joined 3rd Platoon up on higher ground.

  In an interview with his son-in-law, Colonel Allen described the action that occurred as the enemy forces came through the abandoned positions:

  The column of 60-ton German tanks began moving into Company A’s positions with their flame throwers blazing. Each tank had 15 or 16 infantrymen, wearing white sheets, riding on it and some infantrymen were walking behind the tanks. They were firing rifles and flame throwers as they came into the 2nd Platoon’s positions. The Germans were probing, trying to find my front-line positions. As soon as the last tank rolled through 2nd Platoon’s position, about 30 minutes later, the men of the 2nd Platoon simply climbed out of the 3rd Platoon positions and went back to their own positions, closing up the front line. No one told them to do it, they just did it and not one man failed to return to his position. Now they were behind the tanks and in front of the approaching infantry.117