Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  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. While I was firing, I saw a muzzle blast from one of the tanks. I immediately dropped down in the hole. The projectile went over our heads and hit the corner of the potato house where we had dug in—just above our heads. The explosion and concussion of the shell shook us all around that hole and, after we regained our composure, we checked each other for wounds. We were both okay. I said, ‘We’ll stay down in the hole—if they see any movement, they’ll fire again.’ We stayed down in that hole—I don’t know how long. I cautiously peeked out from the edge, having removed my helmet so just my eyes and the top of my head were exposed. It was then I discovered the projectile had damaged the machine gun. I peered up at the ridge and the four German tanks were still setting there. There wasn’t any action. We stayed down a couple minutes longer and I decided to take another look. As I peeked over the edge this time, I noticed the tanks started moving back down the ridge from which they had arrived earlier. I learned later they didn’t advance because they had lost their supporting infantry.

  Enemy Tanks Head for Rolle

  As was the case for “C” Company of the 502nd Regiment, which had been in the process of moving north to help “A” Company, “B” Company got the word to move toward Longchamps from Hemroulle in the pre-dawn hours. Part way during the move, one platoon of the company was recalled and ordered to set up a blocking position south of Champs facing the direction of the attack which was coming through the positions of the troops of the 401st Glider Battalion. PFC. Amos Almeida of “B” Company remembers the move and the resulting action:

  We had been going back and forth, relieving one unit after another. On Christmas Day we were called to go toward the town of Longchamps. On the way over, we were shelled. Some of the unit had to keep on going, but we were called back to stop a tank attack which consisted of six enemy tanks and a company of infantry. We didn’t have time to dig in so we just stayed down in a ditch. We had two bazookas, a machine gun and some riflemen. There was no time for us to position ourselves before we were attacked. About that time, two of our tank destroyers came out to help us as the enemy attacked in full force. Tanks were firing their artillery and machine guns—their infantry was firing at us. We held our fire until the last moment. We knocked out five tanks and killed all the men in their infantry. We lost one man and two TD’s.

  After word of the German attack in the vicinity of Hemroulle and Champs had been received at Regimental Headquarters, Captain Joseph Pangerl, the prisoner interrogation officer for the 502nd, had gone forward in the early morning darkness so he would be near the first enemy troops to be captured so he could interrogate them right on the scene of the actions. He has this description of what could have been a fatal action on his part:

  I went over the bridge between Rolle and Champs in the dark on December 25th to interrogate PW’s before dawn. Our dug-in troops wondered why we didn’t blow up as they had mined it without telling HQ—and the mines were within our lines. (We later found out that after they had laid the mines, it had snowed, gotten warm during the day and the melting snow later froze and made the mines inoperative. Thank God!)

  While at a location near Champs, which had already been hit by tank and infantry attacks in the pre-dawn hours, 1Lt. Samuel B. Nichols, intelligence officer for 1st Battalion, spotted enemy armor and infantry moving along a ridge as dawn was breaking. They seemed to be headed toward Rolle. Nichols raced ahead on foot, arriving winded, he announced to regimental commander Colonel Steve Chappuis “there are seven enemy tanks and infantry coming over the hill to your left!”132

  For a short period of time there was turmoil at the Rolle chateau as cooks, clerks and radiomen were collected under Headquarters Company commander Captain James C. Stone. They were rushed west to the next hill which was a dominant feature and took up positions close to the road.

  One of the communications men who rushed forward into the defensive position was S/Sgt. Kenneth H. Garrity. He remembered seeing one of his friends stop a tank with a bazooka. Garrity wrote:

  Early in the morning of Christmas Day, orders came for all personnel to ‘get out on line’—meaning cooks, truck drivers, communications men, walking wounded, etc. German tanks were approaching the chateau. I saw Sky Jackson with a bazooka crouched behind a stone wall. Don’t know how many tanks he got that day but he was awarded the Silver Star for the feat.

  The earlier shelling before midnight had been enough to send others scurrying to less exposed shelter but PFC. Leonard Swartz, the regimental mailman, had placed two full ten gallon water cans at the head end of his sleeping bag and had gone to sleep, unaware of the shelling until wakened by his buddies. He remembered:

  All of a sudden, I heard these guys laughing. I looked up from my sleeping bag and there were all these rocks and rubble on the bag. I glanced around and there was a big hole in the wall. The guys said, ‘Boy, he can sleep through anything!’ They yelled, ‘Germans are coming—we’ve got to go out and dig foxholes and get ready to fight a war!’

  I went out there and it was like digging in cement. I got next to a hedge. Four Mark IV’s came and a couple of TD’s knocked out some of them and the rest were disabled by bazookas. The Germans piled out of the tanks and they were mowed down. It was just red blood on the snow.

  As a member of the Demolitions Platoon of the 502nd Regiment, Sgt. “Sky” Jackson won his second Silver Star on Christmas Day in front of the regimental headquarters when he disabled an enemy tank, part of the attacking force which was threatening to overrun that command post. It was extremely cold when he and his fellow troopers were rushed out to set up a hasty defensive line. Jackson recalled:

  What I remember was hearing the shells from the tank guns and the mortars dropping. It was so cold—the temperature had dropped 22 to 23 degrees in a day.

  We had mined a bridge leading to the chateau, but it was so cold that everything froze and we couldn’t blow it up. One tank stopped right in the middle of the bridge and we couldn’t blow it up.

  I ran out of the door and saw five tanks coming through the snow with the German infantrymen riding on them. I ran and got a bazooka as the rest of our guys ran out and reinforcements started coming in from the town. I hit the first one in the track and knocked it out. Then we got the others—killed all the infantrymen.133

  1Lt. Henry Barnes, a medical evacuation officer from the 326th Airborne Medical Company had returned during the night from Bastogne where he had transported wounded to the Division medical facility. Now he was back at the 502nd aid station in the barn. He wrote:

  I dozed sitting on a parachute in a candle-lit barn while talking to the wounded. At dawn, most of them had drifted off to sleep.

  I awoke when someone shook me and whispered that enemy tanks were crossing a mined bridge and told me further that the mines didn’t detonate as the batteries were low. Not knowing anything about mines, I tried to figure what he meant by batteries. Someone else ran up and said we were going to be captured.

  I thought of stories told by other medical officers who had been captured. One had had a German run up, point a tommy gun into his ribs, pull the trigger and laugh while holding up the magazine in the other hand. Another told me he wasn’t even bothered as long as he was treating wounded Americans and Germans. I remembered we had no German wounded here.

  The noise of firing, explosions and shriek of incoming shells increased with daylight. A medical officer ran over to me and told me to get ready to burn all our medical books of tags so the enemy couldn’t know how many men we had lost. Everyone was running around; suddenly the courtyard was cleared and most of the able-bodied personnel followed a captain down the road and took up defensive positions along another road.

  Here it was Christmas morning in a Belgian chateau with a room full of wounded and outside all hell was breaking loose. I glanced at the wounded and smiled comfortably and went outside behin
d the chateau and relieved myself.

  I came running back picturing myself walking along with my arms over my head, a prisoner of war, when I ran into the room we used for our dressing room. The shooting was just outside the wall and the sound of grinding tanks could be heard. Someone shouted, ‘Burn the tags!’ and I started a small bonfire, watching the smoke curl up. We heard there were seven tanks outside with about a company of infantry.

  I rushed in to comfort the litter wounded and gave one a rifle to calm him. A shout caused me to run back into the aid station and, on our walkie- talkie, a shrieking voice shouted in German, filled the room with discordant sound. One medical officer listened in disbelief and said that it must be one of the tank commanders outside giving orders. It shut off and left us bewildered.

  Back to the wounded I went and told them what was going on and said I would stay with them when someone ran in shouting, ‘We’re getting them!’ I whooped with delight and ran down the slope. Four German tanks were in sight, smoking and the ground was strewn with bodies, some clothed in white.

  One soldier pounded me on the back, kept shouting that he had hit one tank with his bazooka, but in the excitement had not armed it and all that happened was a loud clang when it hit the tank.

  Intelligence section member, Cpl. Newman L. Tuttle remembered that even in the heat of battle there is one wisecracker who comes up with a relaxing remark. He wrote:

  On Christmas morning practically all of the personnel from regimental headquarters of the 502nd were in foxholes waiting and ready for the Germans. After a rather fierce encounter, several enemy tanks were burning. I could hear some of the enemy wounded screaming in burning tanks. If one thought of trying to rescue them, he would probably be killed in the attempt. Along about 0930 or so in the morning, my good buddy Louis Migliarese poked his head out of his foxhole and yelled over to me, ‘Tuttle, this is worse than a snowball fight in south Philly!’ That really made me laugh and broke the tension of the encounter which had just ended with our having stopped the Germans once again.

  Captain Jim Hatch, the regimental operations officer had this description of a frustrated attempt to stop the remaining tank which had not been put out of action in front of Rolle:

  After the fire fight, most of the infantry on the tanks were KIA. The tanks started to pull out. All but one were knocked out. I figured it would head for the road leading to Champs, which would be the shortest route back to their front lines. There was a short bridge on the road which our demolitions people had prepared to blow up if needed. I got the demo man and we ran to the bridge and got there before the tank and we hid in the stream bed and had the two wires ready to rub together when he hit the bridge. Sure enough, the tank was headed for the bridge. Just as he got there, the demo man put the two wires together and we expected the tank and bridge to go up together. Needless to say, the snow-ice for some reason had shorted out the demolition and the tank went over the bridge and the span remained solid. All we could do was cry!

  The Fight Continues in Champs

  The appearance of the enemy tanks on the hilltop in front of Cpl. Willis Fowler’s machine gun position on the “A” Company front heralded the start of the daylight attack which is described by 1Lt. Albert Wise. He had stayed at the outpost with Grosvenor and others. He wrote:

  At about 7:30 a.m., I was relieved and returned to the platoon. About 0800, Pvt. Grosvenor and the remainder of the outpost were dislodged from their position by a Jerry strike which signalled another major German push on our whole line. At this time, it was light and naturally we could see the Jerry infantry and tanks coming over the hills and could prepare a reception for them.

  On the Christmas Day attack I believe the Jerry attack would have penetrated our lines, as they had the commanding heights of the hill to fire down upon us. They had my section of the platoon pinned down. However, a forward observer from the artillery crawled up to me and said that all they had were six rounds of 105mm, which they would fire. He mentioned something about a new type magnetic fuse which would explode when the shell was in the vicinity of the target. He also mentioned that these shells had not been used before now as intelligence had not wanted any duds falling into enemy hands. I have an idea these might have been the first application in the ETO of the radio proximity fuses, used so successfully in the Pacific.

  We fired one round for range, which by luck was excellent and fired four rounds for effect. I never saw a more beautiful sight; all four bursts detonated approximately 100 feet over the Jerries and I guarantee the hill was cleared. At this time, I took one squad of men and went up the hill, taking same with no casualties. We did inflict several on the Jerries.

  The balance of Christmas Day was quite uneventful except for rooting out any Jerries remaining in the village houses. The remainder of the subject is history.134

  Because 1st Battalion of the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment spent considerable time in the Champs area, PFC. Ted Goldmann was able to sketch the battle area which he included with his letter to the parents of Johnny Ballard. Using his sketch, he related how the action unfolded. The appearance of the tanks on the hillside, as mentioned earlier by Cpl. Willis Fowler, comes into his continuing narrative. Goldmann describes:

  At 0700 or a little earlier, four tanks appeared on the high ground to our left flank and two opened fire on the TD which they soon disabled (knocked out the motor rendering it useless for the remainder of the battle but injured none of the crew). As you can tell by the map, their line of fire was directly over the position occupied by our squad. The shack marked ‘X’ received four direct hits which ruined it along with three chickens we had killed and plucked for Christmas dinner. Fowler could have touched the side of the building from his hole and so could Johnny. The shells hit only a few feet away. Even the shoulder rest attachment on the back of the LMG was riddled with shrapnel. Lenz’s and William’s rifles even blew up and still the squad was unscathed except Asay’s jaw. Call it luck or what have you, we call it God’s will. Although six men in the other squad were surrounded by the Germans, when daylight came and the Germans were forced to surrender or withdraw, those six came in unscratched also. Only the outpost was missing.

  MAP 14—Attack thru A/502-HQ/502

  Those four tanks were driven off by aerial bursts from the hoarded supplies of artillery ammo, which we had practically none of, and the appearance of four P-47’s. Lovely artillery, beautiful TD’s, wonderful Air Corps; we had been hurting for sure and now we had won.135

  Before daylight arrived on Christmas morning, many of the infiltrating enemy soldiers were in and among the farm buildings, some hidden in wood piles and others in haystacks. The church, a place of prominence, had been searched, but not too thoroughly as will be related.

  Sgt. Charles Asay remembers the assignment of going through the area to check it out for hidden German soldiers. He related:

  Sgt. Zweibel and I were cleaning out houses. He went in the back door while I was backing him up. A sixth sense turned me and I was face to face with a German sergeant 25 feet away. I told him ‘Hande hoch!’ and, after what seemed like an eternity, he laid down his Schmeizzer. I had a rifle. He walked forward and 17 or 18 followed him out from behind a woodpile. I still have his Iron Cross (medal) dated 1939.

  Near the church, Sgt. Louis Merlano found even more of them. With their capture, the attack was halted. He wrote:

  At the crack of dawn we had quite a number of them in a haystack beside the church. When dawn came about, they all surrendered—a total of 80 prisoners which Captain Swanson came up and noted their number. It now appeared that we had finally squelched the action.

  As the enemy soldiers had roamed almost at will through the “A” Company area in the early morning darkness, it was logical that they seek vantage points from which to view American positions when daylight arrived. Captain Wallace Swanson describes the action:

  In an interesting action in Champs, the enemy had used a church steeple which was the highest point in t
he town to observe the action. We had men go up there to flush out the snipers and observers. These were some of the men we captured. After I asked the sergeant if every place in the church had been secured, he assured me that it had been done. I went up to see what I could view from the highest vantage point. 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. Realizing something was different, I told the object to come out, not realizing what, if anything, was there. Speaking in German, what little I knew of the language, I ordered ‘it’ 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.

  With this action, the men and officers of the different platoons searched out the buildings and barns, anything that might be a hiding place. Around noon time and early afternoon, everything was back to normal.

  The sheets that had been provided for the troops of 1st Battalion of the 502nd Regiment a few days earlier when the snow fell, now proved their worth on Christmas Day. Major John Hanlon, battalion commander, describes the action: