No Victory in Valhalla

by Ian Gardner

  Some of the medics who had dug their foxholes in the nearby woods managed to escape back to American lines, using their prismatic compasses. “Along with two colleagues, we followed a southeasterly bearing for a couple of hours before stumbling across an isolated farm,” recalls T/4 Lester Smith. “The family were kind enough to give us food and drink before we continued toward Bastogne.” At first light, as the men approached Assenois, which was occupied by the 326th Airborne Engineer Bn, they were stopped by a sentry. “Of course we didn’t know the password but managed to convince the outpost that we were Americans. After being called forward one at a time we were debriefed and eventually sent to the seminary.”

  Meanwhile the prisoners from the field hospital were now heading toward Luxembourg. The contents of Ed Peterson’s musette bag, which he had thrown onto the trailer behind his truck, were about to fall out:

  I instructed Pvt Lucien Denis to stretch across and grab a hold before everything was lost. Half expecting my carton of cigarettes to be the first thing the Krauts were going to take, I handed a couple of packs to non-smoker T/5 Andy Roach for safe keeping, which turned out to be a wise move. I was wearing arctic issue clothing plus a pair of German officer’s gloves, which I decided to keep in my possession despite being advised to get rid of them. Up until now no searches had been made and several of the men had pistols which they dismantled and threw away. The sight of the Germans using our vehicles back and forth along the way brought tears to my eyes… That day Wednesday, December 20, was one of the longest I’ve ever lived!

  Several times during the journey we had to leave the road, allowing the German armor priority. Dozens of wrecked American tanks and vehicles littered the fields and the bodies of our troops lay sprawled along hedgerows and on roads where passing traffic had ground them into the mud. At about 0300hrs on Thursday, we arrived in Luxembourg and detrucked at a small village. We were held in a school building which was surrounded by a large courtyard. After a couple hours’ sleep they put us to work at first light unloading equipment from the trucks and trailers. The villagers offered cookies and sugar and helped to refill our canteens. From here we were driven to Wiltz and herded into a theater, the walls of which were still adorned with posters advertising a “Christmas Dinner & Dance.” Once inside we were lined up and searched and almost everyone went to great lengths to hide their valuables. When it came to me, one of the guards went through my musette bag and swiped a couple of packets of cigarettes, before throwing back my Zippo lighter which he declared was “kaput.” As I walked across the room to join my buddies a young German officer, who spoke English, snatched away my gloves. I could see him discussing them with one of his colleagues who nodded affirmatively during the conversation. I thought they were going to give me a hard time, but the officer tossed them back and just said “Ja, German gloves.” After being searched we were marched out of the building and lined up in formation, five abreast. Over the next couple of days we moved east on foot, across the German border, and joined around 500 other prisoners from the 28th and 106th infantry divisions. Our number had grown to about 1,800 by the time we reached a railway station at Gerolstein [some 30 miles from Wiltz] on Saturday, December 23.

  We were marched to an old warehouse and each given a chunk of bread. The Krauts refused to speak to us in English but I understood enough to know that the building had just been vacated by another group of POWs who had been moved to the station to await transportation.

  On Christmas Eve, the railway yards were attacked by the US Air Force. Toward evening we were lined up and searched again. This time the Germans made it clear that anyone subsequently caught hiding a lighter or matches would be shot. As an early “Christmas present” we were given a spoonful of sorghum [a cereal crop used for animal fodder], and as I was jostling in the “chow line” one of the other prisoners stole my belt kit and water bottle. At dusk two German ambulances drove up, loaded with GIs who had been injured during the attack on the railway. The poor devils had been trapped in boxcars and were slaughtered as the fighter bombers strafed the train. The guards finally unlocked the doors and the survivors used their blankets to form the letters “PW – US” in the snow. Although the fighters immediately called off the attack, 85 men were injured and 15 killed. Myself and several other medics went to work on the wounded as soon as they arrived – although the Krauts wouldn’t lift a finger to help.

  Shortly afterwards, the prisoners were marched to the station and placed aboard 40/8 boxcars before being transported to Stalag XII-A, situated 120 miles northeast of Bastogne, at Limburg near Koblenz in Germany.*

  * Chapter 12 continues the narrative of life as a POW.

  * It is interesting to note that all citizens of Belgium were and still are required to carry their passports at all times as a means of personal identification.

  3

  “Today is the only reality”

  December 20, 1944

  During the night many attempts were made by the enemy against 1st Bn at Noville to penetrate their perimeter using two or three tanks at a time supported by infantry. Heavy artillery and tank fire could be heard throughout the early hours, and at 0715hrs the reserve TD platoon moved forward to Noville. Accompanying the tanks were Lt Canham and the FOs from B Battery, 321st GFA, who had been ordered back to Foy the previous afternoon. The LOD was still covered in low cloud and dense fog that only served to amplify the sound of the enemy armor from 2.Panzer-Division now advancing on Noville from the east.

  Luckily the German commander, Von Manteuffel, did not order Col von Lauchert, the CO of 2.Panzer-Division, to launch a frontal attack along the N30 against the southern edge of town. Instead, Manteuffel opted for a three-point envelopment (consisting of 20 tanks) that turned out to be a poor tactical decision. In a further attempt to close the net behind 1st Bn, Volksgrenadier-Regiment 78 were attached to the Panzers and sent several companies of infantry supported by more tanks to flank Foy and encircle Recogne. At 0800hrs, using all available roads, the enemy broke through the fog opposite H and I companies, while over on the western side of the LOD, G Co were hit hard by another small armored force.

  In the afternoon, Tony McAuliffe drove to Neufchâteau for an emergency meeting with Gen Middleton about how best to coordinate the tanks from Combat Command B. Although the armor commander, Col Roberts, was also based in Bastogne at Hotel Lebrun, he was still under Troy Middleton’s control. During the short conference, McAuliffe and Middleton discussed the possibilities of handing over responsibility of Combat Command B to the 101st. After returning to his CP, McAuliffe received a telephone call from Middleton, who gave permission for Tony to assume command of the tanks. Subsequently, Roberts relocated his HQ situated on Route de Marche to McAuliffe’s bunker at Caserne Heintz. This dynamic change to the command structure would later prove vital to the outcome of the forthcoming battle.

  That evening McAuliffe learned the enemy had crossed the Neufchâteau road and he was now completely surrounded and cut off from Gen Middleton and VIII Corps HQ. Before the encirclement only a handful of the 100-plus supply trucks that had been dispatched back to camps in France had returned to Bastogne. Although wire lines to Middleton had been cut, normal radio channels were still open; in addition, the specialist equipment maintained by VIII Corps Signal Co provided radio/telephone facilities throughout the forthcoming operation. The first air re-supply request was made but it was not possible to action due to the poor weather conditions.

  Hotel Bastogne – feeding the prisoners

  T/5 George Allen from the divisional Interrogation Prisoner of War team (IPW) was working 1 mile away from Caserne Heintz at the police station and recalls his first few days in Bastogne:

  Our nine-man team took over several buildings surrounding the Gendarmerie [along Route de Marche near the railway bridge] where the MPs had established a POW cage. During the afternoon of December 20, the tankers from Combat Command B started to bring in the first prisoners. Initially we arranged them by their regiments, batt
alions, and companies while lieutenants Vidor, Loeffler, and M/ Sgt Charles Wahler (who was an Austrian political refugee) carried out the interrogations. The prisoners were telling us that most of their units were under strength and that they hadn’t eaten properly for the last 48 hours. Most of the private soldiers were willing to talk while their senior NCOs and officers refused to cooperate. At the end of the day we had around 160 POWs in a large space above the stables with no chance of evacuating them due to the encirclement.”

  Virtually identical in construction to the Gendarmerie, the stable block (which included a number of small cells) was situated across a large courtyard from the police station (which in 2014 is being used for social housing). Allen continues:

  When I asked one of the MPs what plans they had for feeding the prisoners, he told me that they didn’t have enough personnel for that sort of thing so the “Krauts” would have to go without.

  M/Sgt Wahler kindly gave me permission to establish a kitchen and scavenge for supplies. I discovered a large tub that had been used for laundering clothes which was ideal especially as it had a built in heating element. That evening I went over to the compound to see how the prisoners were doing. At the top of the stairs above the stables I came across a Volksgrenadier on a makeshift stretcher who had lost an arm and was in a bad way. I had no idea why the guy was not taken to the nearby aid station, but as I knelt down he whispered something about being hungry. One of the MPs handed over some crackers, which I placed in the man’s mouth. I asked if he would care for a smoke. He nodded, and I lit and placed the cigarette between his lips. He inhaled several times and died in my arms.

  The next morning around 0800hrs, I went back to the POW compound and with permission from the MPs called for two cooks. In the event three men came forward and followed me downstairs to the laundry area in the courtyard. The prisoners set about scrubbing the tub with soap, using water from a nearby pump. I took the third guy and together we collected any food we could find from surrounding basements and cellars such as potatoes, oatmeal, apples, and purple-colored sugar beets. Nobody had seen this type of root vegetable before and we weren’t sure if it was even edible. I decided to show the German officers, five of whom were locked up in one of the cells… They didn’t know either and refused to sanction the sugar beet for use. When I got back to the “kitchen” the cooks had already tasted the white fleshy root and figured that it would make a perfect sweetener for porridge. As the men began to prepare the first meal we had time to chat. One came from Westphalia and had seen service in the Crimea. Another had been a steward on the airship Hindenberg while the third came from Austria like Wahler.

  As soon as the cauldron of food was ready, it was ladled into buckets and taken upstairs to feed the prisoners. All day long the three men cooked, dished up, scoured, and then prepared another serving. By 1600hrs, as it was starting to get dark, we had to call a halt to our makeshift restaurant for fear that the sparks emanating from the chimney would attract enemy artillery fire.

  It was a slightly different story for the civilian population now trapped within the city. Several larger buildings that had underground cellars and vaults, such as the Pensionnat des Soeurs de Notre-Dame (Sisters of Notre-Dame Catholic Boarding School) located on Rue des Remparts in the center of town, and the French Franciscan Monastery, became safe havens for around 800 people during the siege. It is interesting to note that before the German breakthrough, Troy Middleton had planned to hold a dinner dance at the monastery to celebrate the first anniversary of VIII Corps. Bastogne’s mayor, Leon Jacqmin, took control of the civilian crisis and appointed a team of volunteers, including two local doctors, to assist. Because of its facilities the boarding school became a bakery and food distribution point. Animals were collected from nearby stables and butchered before being delivered to the school. As the siege continued the cellars of Notre-Dame also became an overflow aid station for casualties. George Allen continues his account:

  At first light on the 21st, more prisoners began to arrive in groups of varying sizes as we started the feeding process all over again. All the while German artillery grew heavier and the building behind ours was hit by a shell, killing two MPs who were taken to the cemetery for burial. A couple of days later we learned that two men from our team, Benoit and Herren, who had remained at the caserne with Divisional HQ, were also killed by shellfire. Both were replacements and had been with the division for less than a week. Around this time General Higgins visited the Gendarmerie to see how the prisoners were faring and I showed him the “kitchen.” The prisoners kept coming and some were taken under guard to the cemetery to dig graves in the frozen ground. The burial detail allowed them extra rations so the Germans were happy to volunteer. I visited the site and witnessed Lt Duffield, our substitute Graves Registration Officer, bending over the body of a woman, trying to hack off her arm with an axe, so she could be conveniently placed into a crude coffin. Eventually he succeeded and the corpse was lowered into the solid ground, severed arm and all. Not long afterwards Duffield was badly wounded at the caserne and I never saw him again.

  That night a number of German aircraft tried unsuccessfully to destroy the wooden bridge* situated no more than 200 yards away that separated us from the main part of town. Immediately the MPs decided to evacuate all prisoners into the basements of the houses, which we were now occupying. It was total chaos as they sent the POWs scrambling down the narrow basement steps of our house and we all sat there, while the raid against the bridge droned on overhead.

  Line of Defense, Foy – southeastern sector

  Initially the sector protected by 3 Ptn H Co remained relatively untouched by Volksgrenadier-Regiment 78; however, the two other platoons were not quite so fortunate. Shortly after dawn on December 20, 2nd Lt Harry Begle was dozing in a haystack opposite the LOD when a burst of machine-gun fire ripped through the straw. “The stack caught alight and we ran for our lives. I leapt behind a nearby pile of manure as bullets tore up the ground behind me. A few moments later the clatter of enemy tanks became louder through the fog and we began to receive heavy mortar fire. The mortars were so close that we could hear the ‘thump, thump’ sound as they opened up.” Clark Heggeness ran over and shouted in Begle’s ear that Sgt Alex Spurr (3rd Squad) had been shot in the left knee over by the haystack and asked if he could help evacuate him back to Battalion HQ. The two men had only carried Spurr a short distance when Clark ordered Harry back to the LOD and told him to hold for as long as possible. The platoon was still dug in along the road and could not see the enemy due to the mist and smoke. Suddenly, Acting Sgt Ken Johnson and his 1st Squad spotted three tanks or SPGs supported by infantry directly opposite their positions.

  The 75mm gun attached to the battalion from the 321st GFA accounted for at least one of the enemy vehicles. During the first contact, Johnson shot three enemy soldiers as Pvt Kneller sank to the bottom of the trench and curled up in the fetal position:

  Between shots I shouted for Kneller to pull himself together and he quickly gathered his wits, stood back up, and faced the enemy. I was glad that he did because moments later my machine gunner, Don Hegeness, was hit and began calling for help. Handing Kneller my M1, I sprinted about 70 yards through the fog and smoke to save Don. The tank shells were landing ahead of us and I could feel the pressure wave from the explosions against my chest. Bullets were whizzing above our heads and twice on the way back I was physically blown off my feet. At one point we were sent sprawling to the ground when a shell glanced off the side of my helmet, leaving a deep groove in the steel! An inch further and it probably would have taken my head off – someone was truly watching over me that morning!

  Communications within the platoon quickly became an issue when Lt Heggeness disappeared with the SCR 536 portable radio handset or “walky-talky.” “As we were expecting our own artillery at any moment,” recalls Harry Begle, “I told the boys to pull back across the road and into the trees. Moving through the woods, I saw Capt Fred Anderson from I Co, wh
o told me to watch out for the overhead enemy tank fire and to conserve ammo.” At least one platoon from I Co had been sent through the Bois Jacques to support H Co’s right flank with instructions not to engage any enemy troops unless they had a positive shot. Capt Jim Walker ordered Begle to take four men over to the railway embankment near Detaille Farm and give covering fire to Lt Wilkinson and his squad who were now trapped on the eastern side of the road in what was then open fields.

  Begle took his men and followed a streambed along the edge of the tree line for about 300 yards until they reached the corner of the woods. From here the watercourse turned through 90 degrees and ran parallel to the railway before converging with the embankment. Once in position near the CP, Begle and his team had a clearer view along the tracks. Now, above the fog Begle was able to support Wilkinson who was crawling toward him along a fence line through the field next to the embankment. As Begle was observing Wilkinson, a couple of enemy shells burst into the trees behind them. Moments later a jeep (probably from the 501st) drove up and the men heard the driver shouting, “Tanks, tanks!”

  A German tank was now advancing down the railway behind Wilkinson toward Detaille Farm. As the mist began to disperse an armor-piercing (AP) shell hit the CP and went right through the building. Another shell burst into the trees above Begle, badly wounding him. “That was the end of my war until March 1945,” he recalls, “… one miserable morning of combat. I went over to our aid station which was next to the CP and Capt Walker told me to get on the next available medical evacuation jeep.” Earlier, Clark Heggeness had been hit by a piece of shrapnel, which penetrated his thigh above the left knee. The two officers were loaded onto one of the Medevac jeeps belonging to the 326th with eight or nine other wounded and sent back to Bastogne. The men were taken to the divisional aid station inside the chapel at the Catholic Seminary located at the junction of Rue Pierre Thomas and Rue Gustave Delperdange.