The undermanned troops of “A” Company got some assistance when “C” Company moved over to provide support. S/Sgt. Jack Williamson has an encounter with a German medic. He relates:
Then Capt. Walter Miller came up with ‘C’ Company. We finally set up a defensive line behind the house. There was a drop-off there and it made a good line for defense. They started firing and were careful not to hit me or Wolverton. Burt and I were behind the corner of the house when a German came around. He was clean and neat and he spoke English. He said, ‘Don’t shoot—I’m a medic!’ He indicated there were some wounded soldiers out there. I asked, ‘Amerikaner?’ He said nothing. I said, ‘Those are American soldiers out there.’ I figured they’d be some of mine. He didn’t say anything so I decided to go out with him. I told Wolverton, ‘Put your rifle right on his back. If they shoot me, you shoot the German.’ Burt said, ‘OK.’ Well, no one shot me and we ran into about 20 to 30 Germans. About that time, I heard some good old American cussing. I told Burt to stay with the Germans and I’m going out to see who that is. It turned out to be an American but he wasn’t one of my soldiers. He was hit in one leg. I got hold of one of his arms and dragged him over the snow. I’m sure it was a rough trip for him. We got him back and there was a jump trooper over there and he said, ‘I’ll take him,’ which he did.
PFC. Willis Rohr remembered that getting ammunition to the mortar gunners became a real problem with so many enemy soldiers milling around the Champs area. He wrote:
Three of the ammo bearers for our mortar squad went into Champs for resupplies and were unable to return because the Germans were overrunning the positions. I believe it was Joe Brennan, Ted Knapek and myself who went down. It was during this attack that lLt. Ron Mills was injured and the 1st sergeant was wounded.
PFC. Werner W. Jutzin was part of the mortar section of “C” Company. He remembered an action in which his group had support from several different units. He wrote:
I remember when ‘C’ Company was pinned down behind a deep embankment from an attack by a battalion-sized unit. Our mortars were firing without base plates—tube held by hands. Finally, 502nd paratroops opened up with 81mm mortars and the 81st anti-tankers knocked out three German tanks. The counterattack was successful.
Describing his role at Bastogne as a member of “C” Company, and a fellow mortarman, PFC. Andrew Thieneman wrote:
I was the 1st gunner on a 60mm mortar and, in this case, we used the bi-pod. I set the sights on 200, which was the closest you can level the sight. Then I cranked the tube one more turn and we fired to see where it landed. Then I turned it one more time until we saw it was effective and we captured quite a few.
MAP 20—Attack through 1/327, Jan. 4
With the arrival of daylight, Capt. Walter Miller could see the targets out to his front and around him. Using his radio, he called for artillery support. Miller added to his story:
As the enemy infantry approached, they were met by my men and cut down. With daylight, the enemy tanks remained on the hillside facing Champs. I lay in the snow on the hillside, calling for artillery fire to drive those tanks away but the fire was denied because we were inside the ‘no fire’ line.
Troops of the 1st Battalion of the 502nd Parachute Regiment arrived on the scene and were now attempting to drive the enemy soldiers from their previously held position. S/Sgt. Jack Williamson became a part of that counter-attack to retake the positions on the hillside. He relates:
Here came a jump unit up there. They lined up in a skirmish line to counter-attack back up that hill. Burt and I were standing there. They started up the hill. This old sergeant turned to us and said, ‘You two fellas, move it on up!’ I said we were not from their outfit. He then answered back, ‘You’re an American soldier aren’t you?’ He added, ‘Move your ass!’ As we were attacking up the slope, I noticed Wolverton kneeling down to help a German. My rage was great when I saw this happening. It turned out ole Burt was looking for food. He found it, too—bread, cheese, some sausage. He didn’t say a word, just moved out with me. We went up the hill firing our guns and Woiverton eating as we went But God, we were hungry!
Capt Walter Miller goes on to describe the culmination of the day’s action on the front southwest and west of Champs:
About 1100 in the morning, a lone Sherman tank approached from the right and fired at the German tanks and they withdrew over the crest of the hill and back toward their former location. We then reoccupied the top of the hill. A patrol by S/Sgt. Ernest Cummings moved forward to make contact and to learn the location of the enemy. During this time I also observed an artillery observer who manned a machine gun. We found the two-man crew of a 37mm anti-tank gun had been choked to death.
I have not mentioned the individual rifleman or machine gunner who stood in his foxhole and performed his duties. It was so cold, water in my canteen froze. All these men are great heroes. No one, but one who was there, knows the cold, shelling, fire and the privations they underwent to prevent the enemy from entering Bastogne. It is a tribute to the individual American soldier—all the way!
3rd Platoon Counter-Attack
While 1st and 2nd Platoons and Company Headquarters were involved in the January 3rd action in support of 2nd and 3rd Battalions at Longchamps, 3rd Platoon of “A” Company of the 502nd was still on line west of Champs. PFC. Ted Goldmann was serving as platoon runner and positioned in a house in the village. On this occasion he was separated from his buddy, Pvt. Johnny Ballard, who was in action supporting 1st Battalion of the 327th Glider Infantry in repulsing the enemy attack. Goldmann describes the action on the 3rd Platoon front as it was related to him later by others:
In Champs, the 327th Glider Infantry relieved all 502nd troops the evening of the 3rd but they weren’t fully organized and dug in for some reason or other and when the Germans hit there at 4 a.m., January 4th, the 327th retired to the Crucifix in the center of Champs. The 502nd troops (all 1st Bn.) were sent in to force the Germans back because we had to hold the hill to hold Champs and if we lost Champs, Longchamps and Monaville, occupied by the remainder of the 502nd would be cut off and lost, leaving the northern route to Bastogne open. The 3rd Platoon spearheaded this counter-attack and regained their previous position only to be pinned down by five tanks and they had no tank support of their own, although some was coming up. Johnny had a bazooka and Asay, taking my job, was loading for him. Having the only anti-tank weapon, they were firing it at the tanks but to no avail. Four rounds bounced off the thick armor. Just as Johnny was getting set to fire the 5th round, a mortar shell hit near by and the shrapnel from it killed Johnny instantly but left Asay untouched. But, another shell in the next few minutes seriously wounded him. Anderson got a bullet in the scalp, just above the temple, and jumped up crazily and ran around some before they could get him back down on the ground. Williams had been hit in the leg the evening before when the 327th came up to relieve them.179
During the counterattack of the 502nd 1st Battalion at Champs after the forward positions of “A” Company of the 327th Glider Regiment were overrun, Sgt. Charles Asay of “A” Company of the 502nd was involved in the action. He wrote:
We counter-attacked January 4th with my squad on point. When we crested the hill, we ran into tanks as well as infantry. I sent the squad around to set up flanking fire. I took the bazookaman, Pvt. John Ballard, with me to take on the tanks. They zeroed in and shell fire hit him and killed him. Another shell blew me out of the position and I woke up face down in the snow. 180
When 3rd Platoon was relieved from attachment to the 327th near Champs during the evening of the 4th, platoon runner Pvt. Ted Goldmann was to learn of the death of his close friend. This is how he described it in his letter to the father of Johnny Ballard:
The evening of the 4th, the company had all gone (with the exception of the 3rd Platoon) to Monaville and Longchamps. I was still at a road junction in Longchamps waiting for the platoon to show them where to go. At this time, I knew nothing of their fight that m
orning, so when they came up, I yelled, ‘Ballard!’ and received no answer and then they told me what had happened. I had found a carbine for Johnny so he wouldn’t have to carry the bazooka and a rifle too. But that meant nothing now. I took the fellows into a house where I had a fire so they could dry out and eat some food I had rustled up from an aid station. I sat down in the corner and cried; it all seemed so impossible and useless—that anything could happen to our ‘invincible lucky squad’ and never occurred to me after Christmas morning and when it did, I couldn’t believe it. In a little while we moved on to Monaville, too. We got the remaining 18 men in a house and settled down. I went back to the CP where I spent the night relaying telephone messages for artillery concentrations and carrying mortar ammo up to a position which had just been hit by an enemy patrol.181
Was it “Kamikaze?”
Over in the 2nd Battalion sector near Longchamps, PFC. Ray “Calfboy” Blasingame was on outpost duty. His story of a one-man “kamikaze” attack is related by his close friend, PFC. Emmert O. Parmley. Both men served with “F” Company.
On January 4, the morning following a tank attack which won him a Silver Star, Blasingame saw movement in front of our lines. It was still quite dark. There was a German helmet moving up and down. a German soldier was creeping and crawling directly toward Blasingame and he could see only the helmet. When so close that he could not miss from 30 feet, he fired five or six shots into the helmet with his carbine. After it was light enough to see there were no more Germans, Blasingame crawled out to examine the German. Being shot in the head, it was hard to tell his age but he seemed to be an older fellow. He was infantry and not a tanker from one of the four dead tanks in front of the line. He was carrying a machine pistol (we called them burp guns). In the left pocket of the ragged overcoat he was wearing was a cheaply made civilian automatic pistol. Blasingame took the burp gun and pistol back to his hole to examine them. There were only eight rounds in the burp gun. The pistol had only one shell. ‘Calfboy’ pointed the burp gun in the air to see if it would fire. It responded with a ‘burp’. There was also an immediate response on the line. The sound of a German gun brought a response when fired on the front lines. Calfboy had sounded reveille for ‘F’ Company.
There were no more Germans seen that morning. What this German had in mind or where he was going was a mystery. If he was a deserter or wanted to surrender, his approach to the line would have been different. With only eight shots in his machine pistol, he could not have put up much of a fight anywhere.
A Hit By A Sniper
Fierce fighting had been in progress in the Bois Jacques at the same time the 502nd troops were involved in the battles with tanks and infantry in the Longchamps area. Mortar sergeant Ahzez Karim of 2nd Battalion Headquarters Company of the 501st Regiment was making his second move in as many days. He describes an incident which had a strange and satisfying end. He wrote:
The next day, we moved again. Lt. Phipps took squads 3 and 4 and Capt. Homan moved out with squads 1 and 2. I didn’t understand the reason for moving us across some open fields. This never made sense to me but we followed the captain until we came to a dead end. Now, as we had forest on three sides of us, and with the Germans somewhere ahead of us, the captain said to dig in along the edge of the forest. Then with the two troopers, he went back the way he came. Now, we thought, what the hell is this? Two 81mm mortars with no outposts and nothing to fire at. I had a map. I opened it, spread it out on the ground to find out where we were and which way the Germans were located. A couple of the guys knelt next to me on my left and one to the right. We were looking at die map when a single shot rang out. It hit the trooper to my right. The bullet hit him square in the chest. He fell forward on top of the map I had laid out
At the sound of the shot, all the troopers hit the ground, put a tree between them and where the shot came from and tried to spot the sniper but in vain.
I went back to the wounded trooper, rolled him over, looked at the wound, called for a medic. The medic came up, looked at him and said, ‘There isn’t a thing I can do for him!’ I said, ‘The hell there isn’t—get him on that jeep and to the aid station!’ We put him on a stretcher and on the jeep. The medic drove off with him.
That sniper must have had a scope on his rifle, to pick out a target through all those trees. Grogan said, ‘That’s a hard way to find out where the Germans are!’
One of the troopers came over to me and said he saw several soldiers with white capes walking across the field. He picked them out with his field glasses. He saw them, but they did not spot him. We figured we had Germans on every side of us—surrounded again! There was one helluva fire fight to the right of us, maybe five or six hundred yards away. It was hard to tell. The sound of rifles, machine guns and direct tank fire was coming through the forest.182
CHAPTER 18
A RESPITE
January 5
The period of January 5th through the 8th was relatively quiet with no major moves taking place on the 101st perimeter. There was sporadic shelling, especially of the town of Bastogne. Enemy bombers continued the nightly missions over the city whenever the weather permitted. There was a heavy snowfall during this period. Friendly divisions continued to move up on the left and right of the Bastogne perimeter. The campaign to pinch off the enemy salient was doing better from the north than from the south.
A Truck Load of Mines
There are so many instances in wartime when one can recall a “what if” situation when one had been in a life-threatening situation and to have moved out of harm’s way just before such an occurrence. This was the case for PFC. Rudy Wedra and 1Lt. Lee Bowers on January 5th at the 501st Regimental command post in Bastogne. Wedra related:
I was in a large room in a school building or seminary. The ceiling was high. Outside the door was a corridor or hallway. The message center was here with ‘Pappy’ Colvin and Pat Winters. Right straight out the door was a courtyard where the truck was located. They loaded this truck (with mines) and I was back here in the building—probably goofing off. 1Lt. Lee Bowers came in saying, ‘Damn it, I forgot my map dispatch case’ and he walked back into the corridor and, just as he got in there, and I was standing nearby—that thing went off. We thought at first it must have been an aerial bomb because shells don’t make that kind of racket. Colvin was in a daze for several days. After the dust settled, we went out in the courtyard. There was nothing left of the truck, the mines or the personnel who had been loading it.
A member of the Intelligence Section of the 501st who recalled the explosion of the mine-laden truck was Cpl. David M. Smith. He recalled:
The truck load of mines which blew up out in the courtyard left its mark. The courtyard wall is still blackened (witnessed on the 1989 trip) from the explosion. We lost some good men on that one.
The truck load of mines had been scheduled for deliverance to the front line troops of the 501st Parachute Regiment. A total of twelve members of the Demolitions Platoon and the truck driver died in the blast.
General McAuliffe Promoted
On the 7th of January, word reached the 101st Airborne Division that General A. C. “Tony” McAuliffe had been promoted and assigned as commander of the 103rd Infantry Division as a reward for the superb manner in which he handled the 101st Division at Bastogne.
There was a “spur of the moment” farewell party for him by his fellow officers as they came to say goodbye to him. As a departure gift and as a reminder that he was leaving a division of booted paratroopers and glidermen, his fellow officers presented him with a gift of canvas leggings as a memento that he was now a “leg”.
Continued Shelling of the Division CP
Because of the continued shelling of the command post, it was felt the enemy had the caserne zeroed in. VIII Corps commander, General Troy Middleton arrived to pay a call during the day and while he was present, the command post was shelled again with several of the men being killed or wounded. The Corps commander was unhurt. The incident spu
rred Division to move out of the facility to another at Ile-le-Pre about a mile and a half southwest of Bastogne.
One of the lasting memories Major William Ferguson, assistant engineer officer for the Division Headquarters, has of the Bastogne campaign illustrates the point made above about the continuous shelling. He wrote:
Both the 326th Engineers and the 81st AA & AT Battalion had adjacent headquarters in barracks at the compound where Division HQ was located. One morning during the siege, I was outside our HQ talking to Major Kemm of the 81st when we both heard the unmistakable sound of an artillery shell coming in. We both hit the snow. The shell landed some 100 yards away and when the shrapnel quit flying, we both arose, brushed ourselves off and Kemm announced, ‘You know Ferg, there must be an Army camp around here. I’ve been seeing a lot of soldiers lately’. It would be difficult to find a better example to illustrate the morale of the 101st under rather trying circumstances. I have never forgotten this episode.
Goldmann Wounded
The 7th of January was the last day of the Bastogne fighting for PFC. Ted Goldmann as he was injured in an accidental explosion. He describes the day’s events leading up to his injury:
From then until the evening of January 7th (Sunday), activity was limited to the usual barrages and the 3rd Platoon had a two-man guard at night to pull on a knocked-out German tank 150 yards in front of us. Here we had the only white uniform (sheets) I saw up there. During the night, some Germans came up in front of us several times laying mines. We fired at them several times during the night but after a while they kept coming back. Visibility was so limited it was hard to distinguish anything.
Battered Bastards of Bastogne Page 54
