Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  I told Sam to take his squad and go a little bit north of town because you always have to be ready for a counterattack—typical military doctrine. I remember going back and stripping the Germans of their military equipment.

  After that, they took us and sent us to the left side of the road. We were in the village then. It was about 1000 or 1100 a.m. when those guys surrendered. They were sent to the rear and we were sent over to the west side of the road. ‘I’ Company was across the road.

  The small village of Foy changed hands numerous times. It was a town which could not easily be defended. Sgt. Sam Hefner describes one of the forays into the town which occurred in January:

  Sometime in January, we took Foy for about the third time and were mopping up and I had a Thompson with me so I busted out the window to the basement and sprayed it real good—out came these Krauts, hands behind their heads. One smart-ass young kid was among them. I told them to double time over to the compound we had set up for POW’s. Medic Irving ‘Blackie’ Baldinger could speak German, though the enemy soldiers didn’t know it. The kid was shouting at me and Blackie yelled, ‘Hey Sarge, he’s cussing you out real good!’ I jerked the bolt back on that Thompson and sprayed the ground in front of his feet. He moved fast. That was the closest I have come to committing murder. That kid double-timed!

  It was understandable that the enemy artillery would cease firing when Lt. Andros’ platoon got in among the houses. German troops were still in some of those houses, some hidden but others were firing.

  In the afternoon, Major Dick Winters was left in a sour mood because of two incidents which occurred during the day. He had asked Colonel Sink to relieve one of his replacement company commanders for cowardice in the face of the enemy and a second episode had to do with the antics of two photographers. Winters wrote:

  One more memory of that day and that attack deserves to be remembered. It, too, left me in a foul mood. As the men were carrying the wounded back from Foy, I was suddenly aware of two photographers standing beside me, taking pictures of this detail. I am not sure where they came from or who they belonged to—I am only sure I’d never seen them before.

  When the detail reached about 20 to 25 yards from the woods, well out of danger by this time of any possible fire from Foy, one photographer put down his camera and dashed out to grab hold of the soldier to help carry him. He grabbed him in such a way and manner that he got as much blood on the sleeve and front of his nice, new, clean, heavily-fleeced jacket as possible. Then this guy turned toward his buddy, who was still taking pictures, and put on a big act of being utterly exhausted as he struggled across those final few yards to the woods. At that point, he immediately dropped out of the picture. What a phony! This just topped off my day for phonies!

  Troops from 3rd Battalion of the 327th Glider Regiment (1st Battalion of the 401st) were also in Foy in the afternoon for mopping up operations. A surprise awaited S/Sgt. Roger Seamon’s men once they had set up a command post in one of the buildings. PFC. Ted Rhodes describes his experience:

  We entered the small town of Foy approximately five miles northeast of Bastogne in the afternoon. Tony Casel was number 1 scout leading the column up the left side of the main street and I, number 2 scout, led the column up the right side. Tony would fire at the upstairs windows on the right and I would fire at the windows on the left.

  From time to time, a German soldier would come out with hands over head and we would signal for him to walk down the middle of the street, toward the rear of our column. As we approached the other end of the town, Sgt. Seamon sent a roadblock team to set up a station a few hundred yards up the road. He chose the building at the edge of the town for our quarters for the night.

  ‘Red’ Leveille and I pulled the first watch behind the building overlooking a cleared area and the beginning of the wooded section. We had no sooner positioned ourselves when we heard a rumble like a tank toward the front of the house. I told ‘Red’ that I would go and investigate the noise. As I approached the front of the house, a German half-track pulled up in front of the house we had chosen for our quarters. From my position I could see the back of the half-track and the rear doors opened and I saw two pairs of legs below the door. I proceeded to advance toward the rear of the half- track where I came face to face with two big German soldiers. I looked into the half-track and saw the silhouettes of a number of German helmets. I said to the German nearest me, about six inches from my shoulder, ‘You wait right here, I’ll be back!’ I was hoping he didn’t understand English. I went into the house and, as I was warming my hands over the stove, I told S/Sgt. Seamon that we had visitors. There’s a German half-track out front full of cold and hungry German soldiers.’ Seamon said, ‘You’re kidding!’ I said, ‘Come on, I’ll show you.’ Sgt. Seamon opened the front door and took one glance outside and closed the door real fast. He said, ‘Damn!’ He told the men to get their rifles, that we had a problem. He led the men out the side door and we surrounded the half-track and, after we explained the situation to the Germans, they cooperated to the fullest.

  PFC. Oliver Bryant had taken his rifle apart to clean and when Seamon said, ‘Let’s go!’, Bryant picked up his entrenching tool. When I was relieved on watch and I started to break down my rifle to clean it, I received the surprise of my life. The last round I had fired while taking the town of Foy, the shell had jammed in the chamber and I would have been very embarrassed if I had to use it while we were engaged in the diplomatic relations.

  “Fox” Company Enters Foy

  S/Sgt. John H. Taylor then describes how his platoon from “F” Company of the 506th Regiment apparently replaced the 401st troops on the east side of Foy in the afternoon. He related:

  Somewhere around 4 o’clock that afternoon we moved into Foy. We moved through those people who were down there to the far side of Foy with 2nd Platoon and to the right side of the road. I know ‘Easy’ Company pulled out of there and T and ‘H’ Companies stayed, though they had very few men left. We got down there and started setting up. Jake’s squad went over to the right—the town wasn’t very big. Back to the left a bit, was Olanie and his mortar squad. Facing east was the house we set up as platoon headquarters. We had the rest of the platoon scattered around the area. There was a cellar in this house and we were trying to get communications back to company headquarters which was back over on the other edge of town.

  We had gotten everything pretty well set by dark. We didn’t have any food that night. They brought food up but 1/Sgt. Charles Malley said “No—take it back.’ Really, you have to expect a counterattack or something like this. That is what Charley had in mind.

  January 14: Pre-Dawn Counterattack

  The first attempt to retake the town from the Americans in Foy occurred at 0415 when six enemy tanks and 75 infantrymen attacked. The 506th units holding the town were supported by four TD’s, two of which were in the village and the other two up on the ridge west of Foy. The regimental reserve, 2nd Battalion (minus “E”) moved up behind Foy but wasn’t committed. The attack was repulsed but the enemy came on again with a force of 14 tanks and a battalion of infantry. The defenders were forced to withdraw to the ridge west of the village. A heavy artillery barrage was placed on the enemyoccupied town. By 0900, Company “I” was back in town.

  In describing his role in the predawn fighting, S/Sgt. John H. Taylor had a narrow escape when the enemy burst into the house his platoon was using as a command post. He related:

  About this time, Lt. Williams from the 3rd Platoon came up with several men. I know Oakley was one of them. They were going through our position to see if they could contact the 327th. We were in the cellar talking about it. I was supposed to direct him out through Jake’s forward position. We got the men together and there was a long hall all the way through the house. As you went out of the house, you turned left where Olanie was at the corner of the village. At the end of the street, there was a hill leading out of town. Lt. Williams and the patrol and I got up to the front door wh
en heavy .50 caliber fire from the hill started coming down the street. Williams said, ‘We’re gonna have to wait until this fire lifts.’ He sent the two or three men he had with him down into the cellar. Down in that cellar was Shaefer and little Joe Gillespie. I believe there was a sergeant from T Company who was trying to use our communication to get back to 3rd Battalion. Lt. Williams and I were standing in the door of this house, watching as the fire was hitting Jake’s house.

  All of a sudden, there was a lull in the firing. For some reason, or by instinct, I said, ‘I hear a tank!’ I ran through the hall of that house and looked out back. About 30 to 40 yards from the house I could see this tank—I knew it was German—in the snow, coming up over a little bank and quite a few foot soldiers on either side. I ran back and told Lt. Williams ‘we have a damn tank in back of us’. He said, ‘I’ll get the men out of the cellar.’ This all happened. I ran to the back door again. I saw the tank move on to the left side of the house while the troops went around to either side of the house. I stepped back from the rear door and could see one man come nearly to the rear door. I stepped back into another room that had the windows blown out. I was standing by the door when one of the enemy soldiers started through the blown out window right toward the door and he couldn’t see me. I knew he was going to run over me if I didn’t do something. I shot him and jumped back into the hall. Just as I jumped back, I heard one of two men fire down the hall toward me. I heard someone scream. I remember turning my head, momentarily. The two guys in the front door threw their hands up and fell. Almost at the same time they fired down the hall, Lt. Williams came up the stairs and cut them down with a submachine gun.

  We knew that tank was out there setting beside the house. I think Lt. Robertson came out of the cellar. He yelled, ‘Let’s get out of here!’ We went out of the back door, firing from the hip. I remember Oakley and I went out about the same time and I ran over a roll of barbed wire, turned a flip and we went down behind a church building. Another column was coming down the street and Luke Atkins cut down on them with an Ml. He fired it like an automatic weapon. We got organized down there and moved back up a little side street and got into another house. Couldn’t find Lt. Cook. We crawled along a high bank which was beside the street Got back up there and about 40–50 yards from the house, crawling through the snow, I heard someone say, ‘You German or American?’ There was Lt. Cook. He had been hit pretty bad through the hip and leg. We pulled him back and got him out of there.

  Meanwhile, at another “F” Company position, Lt. Ben Stapelfeld was with members of his platoon. One of its members was Pvt. John B. Himelrick, a replacement who had just returned to his unit on the 10th of January, after being hospitalized in England. He had been painfully burned when a gasoline stove had exploded when two men were cooking a meal on the Island in Holland. Pvt. Himelrick describes his piece of the action:

  We went into town and I was out on outpost, slightly to the north of Foy and probably to the east a bit. Myself and another trooper were in a previously dug foxhole. It was covered with a wooden sled over which earth had been thrown. It was a long, narrow slit trench. There was barely enough room for the two of us. The sled was over the center of it and we could look out either side. The hole was aligned parallel to the front, facing the enemy. One had to watch out from one side and one from the other. We were there for several hours.

  Early in the morning, sometime between midnight and 0400, there was a German attack on Foy by several tanks accompanied by infantry and the person in the hole with me became extremely frightened and refused to get out of the hole, or even to look out. It was a very safe thing to do, as the tracers were passing a few feet over our heads and spraying the walls of the building behind us. Tank fire was being directed at the buildings. While they were approaching, they had apparently hit the town from other directions also, because a runner came up and told us we were pulling back to the center of town, to move the line back. When I got out of the hole, the other fellow was at the bottom of the hole, at the other end, and would not get out. The runner and I literally dragged him out of that hole. He disappeared that night He was suffering from combat fatigue and I don’t think he saw any more service with the outfit He had reached his wits end and this is not said in a derogatory way. It happened to lots of us and some of us went over the edge, some teetered on it and some never approached it.

  We pulled back into the center of town. I would assume my squad had gone into some sort of reserve. I remember that I was in a building. It was getting warm. Someone came after me to go on a contact patrol. There was a big question as to whether the outfits on either side of us had pulled back. If they had gone back into the hills outside of Foy, we didn’t want to be left sticking out there by ourselves so we tried to make contact that night.

  MAP 22—Staplefeld Sketch of Foy

  The material above was copied from two pages of a combat journal which was kept by Lt. Ben Stapelfeld of “F” Company of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment during the Bastogne campaign. Stapelfeld kept accurate records of his platoon (and “F” Company). Material was sent to Richard D. Winters by Dorothy Stapelfeld after her husband died. Winters, in turn, sent copies for this narrative with permission of Mrs. Stapelfeld.

  Lt. Ben Stapelfeld was on the contact patrol with me and one other person. I believe it was Sullivan, our radioman. The three of us went across some open fields, made contact with the unit on our right and started back. It was just getting light and we felt it was not safe to go back across those same open fields. We took a route back around the hill where the armor was lined up. We were climbing that hill toward an armored halftrack or tank destroyer weapon—a tracked vehicle of some sort and a person stepped out from behind that vehicle, possibly from the 11th Armored. We used double passwords, sign and countersign. He called out the first part of the password. I was leading, coming up the hill, and I responded with the proper countersign just as he fired. It took me a moment to realize I had been hit in the right arm and hip. The bullet went completely through my right arm and hip and came through several layers of clothing before lodging at a point where my pants were bloused into my boots.

  Lt. Stapelfeld called to me and asked if I was hurt. I told him I had been hit. They came over and examined the damage and it wasn’t that severe. I was able to walk and could do everything else. We went on to the top of the hill. The man shot me with a .45. Lt. Stapelfeld told me the man began crying and was really upset about what he had done. I knew where the aid station was, having passed it on the way into the outfit.

  When die fighting had ended on the 13th, the remnants of “I” Company and”H” Company were in positions along the north and west perimeters of Foy. 1Lt. Alex Andros was sleeping in a bam. He added to his story.

  That night I was sleeping in one of the barns and one of the outposts came and wakened me saying, There’s some tanks out there!’ We went out and we could hear three or four German tanks but they were all confused. They started firing their machine guns but they were way over us. I don’t know where they thought we were. It was very confusing. Just before dawn we got orders to move back to the top of the hill. I was lagging behind to make sure all my men got out and I turned to look back and here came Pat Fitzmaurice—somebody had forgotten to tell him we were moving back—slogging up the hill. They didn’t fire on us. They must have moved out before dawn. I have no idea what happened to them.

  Over on the northeast side of Foy, S/Sgt. John Taylor and his men moved to another location. He describes how the situation developed in his area during the early morning hours after the first tank had appeared beside the house in which they had set up temporary quarters:

  The tank had apparently set fire to one of the houses. We had gotten a phone back in communication and we had to move to another house. The enemy had come through ‘H’ and ‘I’ Companies and were up on our rear side. We didn’t know what the situation was. Along with Lt. Robertson and about 15 men, we didn’t know who else was in there. So we st
ayed in there until just before daylight. Finally, just before dawn, word came down by runner for us to pull back on the high ground. We started sending the men up the hill.

  As a member of “Dog” Company, PFC. Paul Z. Martinez stated that the fighting at Foy on January 13 and 14 was his most memorable experience in the Bastogne area. The actions occurred in the early morning hours when an enemy tank had set several houses on fire. He wrote:

  The night Captain, Joe McMillan, was chasing a Tiger tank with a bazoo ka to get a clear shot at it in the then burning town of Foy is still my vivid recollection. We had very heavy fighting in support of ‘Fox’ Company.

  After S/Sgt. John Taylor saw to it that all of his men were out of Foy, he himself moved out as the last man. The tank that Captain McMillan was chasing may be the same one involved in Taylor’s continuing story. He added to his account:

  I thought I had everybody from my bunch moving back up that hill and I started crawling in the ditch back to the main road and back up the hill. I had gone about 150 yards up the hill and I heard a tank coming up the main road. I could see this German tank coming pretty fast from the far outskirts up through the main intersection. All of a sudden, about the time it reached that main intersection, something exploded almost over my head. One of our TD’s was setting up there on the bank. It was camouflaged and it fired on the tank. The tank exploded and flames shot up all around it. I saw someone jump out of it and run. We moved back up the road and went over to the left side of it. I tell you we were beat. We were told to hold right there—we’d be getting some tanks. Sure enough, there came the 11th Armored Division. They moved up. They were new. They lined the tanks up on the hill and brought up a couple companies of armored infantry. This was the way to fight a war with tanks. They lined those tanks up on the hill—guess there must have been eight or ten of them. The tanks fired on the village with the big stuff and the fifty calibers for a few minutes and then the armored infantry took off. All they had to do was walk down there. They got the village secured. Lt. Robertson and I decided to go back down into Foy because we had left all of our stuff down in that cellar. Back down there, sure enough, there was a dead German in the room, some in the doorway, some in the yard. We got our stuff and went back. That afternoon, about 3 o’clock, we got word to move to our left and do a flanking movement and attack Noville.