16
December 1944 This date saw the biggest German attack since D-Day directed
at the U.S. 1st Army,
with the bulk of the attack coming at St. Vith, around which the 106th
Division was deployed in defensive positions. First indication that the
attack was coming was a report from K Company at 0140 that heavy mortar
fire was falling in its area. The real pre-attack artillery barrage started
promptly at 0540 with intensive fire all along the regiments front. At
0550 K Company saw the first enemy activity, with the infantry moving toward
the regiment under cover of the artillery. By 0615, an estimated company
of enemy had penetrated the K an L area.
By
this time, German artillery had broken all wire communications with the
battalions and with division. Only contact was by liaison officer and radio.
At daylight, one squad of K Company had been forced back out of its original
position and a force of enemy had penetrated to the L Company CP.. At 0810
another general bombardment was sent all along the front. A German force
forged in between the 2nd
Battalion on the right and the 112th
Infantry and the 2nd
Battalion C.O. sent a platoon of G Company to fill the gap
Cannon
Company in the meantime had been overrun and Captain Freesland, the C.O.
appealed for assistance from the reserve battalion, which was under Division
control. C Company was dispatched to the Winterspelt-Habescheid Road to
back up Cannon Company. Other 1st
battalion companies couldn‘t get up to the lines because German pressure
and so set up to defend at Winterspelt. The lineup of the 1st
Battalion then was, from right to left, C, B, A and Company C of the 81st
Engineers, part of the Regimental Combat Team. At0900, I Company
was committed in the L Company sector. L Company by this time had been
scattered by the attack. By 0100, the L Company Commander. Captain Ben
Bartell, had restored his company to its original lines. As the morning
progressed F Company beat off an attack of 6 tanks cutting across its front;
an estimated company of enemy wedged its way into L Company’s position
again and K Company had reestablished its lines.
At
Noon, all original positions were intact. L Company had reformed two platoons
and was prepared to counterattack. I Company reverted to battalion reserve.
The overall picture showed two-thirds of the regiment in action. The remainder
of this first day saw the battalion holding their own against sporadic
enemy attacks and against tank threats. Front line companies continued
to receive intensive artillery fire.
During
the first day, many acts of individual heroism were recorded. Captain Lee
Berwick, 3rd Battalion
S-3, was sent with a squad of men to clear the enemy from buildings in
the CP.. area. Braving enemy fire, he exposed himself and called for the
group in one building to surrender. Their answer was a burst of fire. He
deployed his men then called on the enemy again to surrender. They raised
the white flag and out of the building came two officers, 105 enlisted
men andtwo American officers and 15 American enlisted men who had
been held as prisoners.
In
the 1st Battalion
area at Winterspelt, Lt. Cl. Lamar A. Welch and his battalion staff were
in their CP.. when they heard German voices outside the window. All dived
for their weapons and raced outside. Just as they cleared the building
a stick of grenades completely destroyed the CP..
Anti-tank
Company had a big day, too. Staff Sergeant Rocco P. DeFelice was knocked
unconscious by a shell burst. Rousing himself, he went back to his gun
and promptly was wounded by another enemy shell. He dragged himself back
to the gun and directed fire that destroyed two German tanks. TSgt Glenn
D. Risk took over another gun by himself, doing his own loading, aiming
and firing. He got a tank too. Pvt. Gilbert Thomas manned a bazooka and
he also stopped a tank. Service Company at Elcherath saw its first action
Sunday, when the enemy struck from around Winterspelt and surrounded the
Company position. The company evacuated its area by the only possible route
out, a back trail, on Sunday afternoon. Capt. Uhel Barrackman, MTO, was
credited with saving two vehicles and personnel as the members of the company
set up an effective rearguard action.
John P. Dimeglio 424/I
Dec 16
The Germans began their
attack that night. We were ordered out of the dugouts to form a skirmish
line behind the dugouts. There was firing all night at what we conceived
to be the enemy. The next morning we could clearly see the untouched snow,
there were no Germans out there. ###-
Dimeglio
Hubert Hochstetter 424/I
Dec 16
On December 16th our Heckhuscheid
positions were subjected to heavy artillery, mortar and rocket fire. This
was my first experience with Screaming Meemies. My platoon was in the chow
line when the call came to assemble immediately and proceed to high ground
behind Heckhuscheid. I set up there and learned that a portion of L Company
had been overrun. I was ordered to leave a squad (this was a short squad
since some men were out) and with the other two squads proceeded to set
up positions to protect and then attack the L Company area that had been
overrun. Sometime later I sent one squad to the right of the buildings
that were occupied by the Germans and some L Company prisoners. The other
squad I led in a frontal attack. This took place some time had gone by
with Battalion Staff and our men attempting talk the Germans into surrendering.
When my squad and I reached a position about 30 yards from the German positions
and my enveloping squad neared the positions and we both opened fire, the
Germans did surrender and we recovered the L Company men who had been taken
prisoner. I lost one man killed in this counterattack
My estimate is that more
than a half of battalion of Germans were killed in this area in the attack
and our counter attack. The I Company gun section had continued to hold
position and covered the left flank of the of the Battalion and L Company.
They were in a defilade position and accounted for many of the German dead.
K Company was also attacked but held on to their positions.
My platoon was assigned
to hold the positions of L Company that we had retaken. We did this for
the rest of the day, that night, and until the next evening. During this
time we had skirmishes with patrols but no real attacks. During the night
we could hear the sound of burp guns closing to our rear at what seemed
to be about 2 miles. ###- Hochstetter
Robert Lyons424/HQ
Dec 16
Lester Helmich and I were
together at the 424th Regimental Headquarters Company at Heckhalenfeld,
Germany on December 16. At that time I was Colonel Alexander Reid’s orderly
and Les was on a temporary assignment. After the morning attack, Colonel
Reid called us to his office, pointed out our position on his map, and
told us that we were going to defend our CP. He informed us that we were
to be the Bazooka Team and needed to dig in behind the hedgerow and be
ready. I had never fired the bazooka and don't believe that Les had either,
but we were ready. Early in the afternoon an enemy attack, with heavy artillery
support, drove our troops toward us until the arrival of a P-38 and a P-47
stopped the action. A beautiful sight.
Orders came to us that
the company would walk out of the area at 8:00 PM that evening and relocate
in the town of Bracht. At the designated time of departure everyone was
gone except four officers and seven enlisted men. Lt. Colonel Orville Hewett
was in charge and included Captain Shanard, and two other officers. The
enlisted men included me and Les, a radioman, and four others that we can't
identity. We marched cross country to Bracht.
Milton J. Schober, 424/F
Dec 16
Like most of the 424th
Regiment, Company F moved into front-line positions on December 12,1944.
I was an exception, arriving on the 15th because of guard responsibilities
at our previous campsite. We were at the very end of the many miles of
front covered by the 106th Division. The next unit was Company B, 112th
Regiment of the 28th Division, Associate Member Charlie Haug’s unit.
When the big noise started
in the early morning of December 16, Company F wasn't doing too badly on
their hillside perches looking toward the village of LUTZKAMPEN some 1500-2000
yards distant. (Perhaps I should qualify this as the first platoon of Company
F since the other platoons of the Company did get artillery and troop contact.)
We could see the action of German troops moving against Company B 112th,
at the outskirts of LUTZKAMPEN and we noticed German artillery landing
in the farm fields in front of us, but nothing was landing on us at the
time. In the late afternoon of the 16th, our company jeep came bouncing
down a logging road to bring hot chow to first platoon men. While waiting
to be served, there was a loud explosion that I took to be incoming artillery
but then realized that 25-35 feet away was a 3” Anti-tank gun of Company
B. 820th Tank Destroyer Battalion which was firing toward LUTZKAMPEN— a
column of German tanks was the target, and what excitement there was in
watching those fiery orange balls streaking to and exploding the tanks.
Some say there were six tanks, others say five tanks and a truck, but whatever,
they all burned furiously. Charlie Haug was in a foxhole very close to
the tanks and wrote his story about them in a 1992 issue of The CUB. While
all of this was going on, one of the cooks dishing out the food said, Hurry
up, you guys— we've got to get out of here." He got no sympathy from us!####- Schober
Robert M. Shaw (dcsd)
424/H Dec 16
At twelve minutes after
three AM on the 16th, my forward observer called to say he could hear gravel
crunching and the hum of engines. After verifying this with Lt. MCKay,
I reported this to my CO. I was told to shut up and go back to sleep and
tell my men to do the same. My observer, a man by the name of Castro, wanted
to know if anyone back there knew there was a war going on. At three twenty
five, I went over the head of the CO and called Bn HQ. I only talked to
the CQ. He didn't want to disturb the Col. I was explaining to him what
was going on when the CO cut in on the line and told him to disregard what
I was telling him and ordered me to get off of the line.
At this point, Castro and
Lt. McKay shouted over their phones, that they had just heard a tail gate
drop. I repeated this to Bn and requested permission to shoot. My CO told
we when he heard the first shot, he would start filing charges against
me.
At three thirty, I ordered
the gun crews out, and had the telephone line cut between my CP and Company
HQ. The targets given me were several hundred yards in front of our line
and nothing to guide close in support. The trucks seemed to be only one
hundred and fifty yards from my observer who was in a machine gun position.
At twelve minutes to four, we fired the first round to see what would happen.
No one could see where it hit because of the contour of the land. Two or
three minutes later I received reports of screaming and calls for medics.
All guns opened up. By four twenty, we had used all the ammo I was supposed
to have, and started on the “extra.”
We fired until daylight,
and then only when a target was called. When the German attack came up
the hill, they were few in number and were slaughtered by the rifles and
machine guns. Every German was “dead.” The field was littered with their
bodies.
At three o’clock a messenger
came up a trail between the two sections of our line carrying a message
to someone that we had been driven off the hill. He became a prisoner.
The report Headquarters
made was not right. I called Bn HQ at three twenty five in the morning
of Dec 16, and told them the Krauts were unloading in front of our positions.
The CO Salyers, cut in on the line and told them to disregard what I was
saying and threatened to court martial me if the mortars fired even one
round. As you probably know, we started shooting at ten minutes to four
and fired continually till the search lights came on and the riflemen and
MG crews could see what was going on. We hit them when they were unloading.
The OP where I had a phone, reported hearing them screaming and calling
for medics.
In the afternoon of the
16th, a rifleman over on the right side of our line near where Lt. McKay
was located, claimed he could smell food cooking and eventually slipped
down through the woods and came back with a mess kit full of food from
a German chow line which he shared with others near him. He and McKay plotted
on a map where he thought the kitchen was and we fired thirty six rounds
in on it, We never knew if we hit anything or not, but ten years later,
a German DP who was working where I was, claimed he was in that group and
was getting ready to mount an attack but the Mortars knocked them out.
They had so many casualties the attack had to be canceled.
I guess they didn't want
to admit they had been caught off guard. ###- Shaw
The general withdrawal of the regiment was ordered on Sunday, (17th December 1944). The 3rd Battalion started moving off across country at 1900, the 2nd battalion at 2100 and also the 1st Battalion, and Engineers at the same time. The CP.. closed out at 2100, moving to Burg-Reuland. The Battalion lineup after the move was: the 1st Battalion dug in left of Bracht, the 3rd battalion filled in from Bracht to Burg-Reuland, and the 2nd Battalion from Burg-Reuland right. The 112th Infantry (28th Inf Div) was on the regiment’s right and the CCB of the 9th Armored was on the left, with a 1,000 yard gap in the lines. The CP.. was at Grufflingen under constant artillery fire and at Bracht, where heavy artillery also fell.