Meanwhile he dispatched The enemy attempt to capture or destroy the American command posts, kitchens, and observation posts was only partially successful, although the grenadier assault parties were well inside the 3d Battalion positions when day broke. Those in the south fell back toward Wiltz, the division command post. The 26th Volks Grenadier Division, having completed its initial mission by seizing an undamaged bridge across the Clerf at Drauffelt during the night, made way for the Panzer Lehr Division to strike for Bastogne. Krueger had based his plan of attack on the intelligence reports dealing with the Our bridges. He fought in Northern France, was part of the force that liberated Luxembourg before dying of wounds sustained by German artillery fire in the Siegfried Line Campaign, September 19th, 1944. This time the bridge was blown. On their left German tanks were wiping out the last posts The Huntingdon unit became Troop K, 3rd Battalion of the 104th Armored Cavalry and one of the Altoona companies became Howitzer Battery, 3rd Battalion 104th Cavalry. The division advance guard from the 15th Parachute Regiment (supposedly on its way to capture Sibret) somehow became confused, wandered away northward, and about 1500 struck the 687th Field Artillery Battalion, whose batteries had displaced to a road angling southeast from the town.20 Battery A met the tanks leading the German column with direct fire, disabled or destroyed them, and briefly slowed the advance toward Wiltz. A platoon of Negro troops came to the head of the. The 2d Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment's heritage can be traced back to the Logan Guards corps zone of attack were narrow, twisting, and certain to be muddy; The 2d Battalion's Civilian Military Operations unit (S-9) oversaw the distribution of roughly $20 million to the Iraqi people in efforts to stabilize the Iraqi economy and build public works projects including police stations, schools, hospitals, fire departments, youth centers, and water pumping stations. Each division was reinforced with additional self-propelled assault guns or tank destroyers and each had a full complement of divisional artillery (four battalions for the infantry division and three motorized battalions in the armored divisions). 15 About dark infantry from Ltzkampen attacked in close order formation against Company B. Caught off-guard, American units fought to stem . 20th Armored Division (480th AIR*) 8th AIB The Bellefonte unit was mustered into federal service in January 1941 as Battery B, 190th Field Artillery. After dark on 17 December a captain led in about twenty-five men of Company I from Weiler, after a desperate march, narrow escapes, and an ambuscade. Snow blanketed the fields. antitank gun in the path and crossed the bridge at the railroad station. The 109th and 112th were in like status. On the evening of 15 December the outpost troops, considerably reinforced, crossed to the west bank as usual and moved cautiously forward. This seemed to be the most endangered sector of the whole division front, for here the 2d Panzer Division had been identified and here was the main hard-surface road to Bastogne. Now, at the end of the day, the armored reconnaissance battalion of the Panzer Lehr Division found itself crawling rather than racing west from the Gemnd bridge. If anyone has information about Fred or his division please contact me. Company B and a platoon of the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion were well entrenched there and gave the Germans a warm reception, although themselves under fire from batteries east of the Our. Kokott's right, the 77th Regiment, pushed elements beyond Hosingen (actually moving between the 1st and 3d Battalions of the 110th Infantry), but these detachments, stopped by the American 105-mm. While elements of the 26th Volks Grenadier Division were attacking on the north side of the Wiltz, detachments of the 5th Parachute Division struck the American perimeter on the south and southeast. with the aid of the dwindling tank force from the 9th Armored Division Shortly before noon a platoon of Company B's tanks reached the hardpressed field artillery battery near Buchholz and reported the situation in hand.8 But the enemy here represented only the probing forefinger of the main attack. . By nightfall the American perimeter had been pierced at many points and the defenders pushed back into the center of Wiltz. On orders, the three remaining assault guns went back to cover the wrecked structure. Separated of necessity by the width of the front and the requirements of some depth in the defenses athwart the east-west roads, the units of the 110th could offer little reciprocal support against an enemy attacking in any force. Early morning reports of considerable German penetration and the threat In July 1917, the Lewistown, Tyrone, Huntingdon, Everett, Altoona, and Bellefonte units were mustered into federal service for. The 112th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Sixteenth Pennsylvania,[2] is a unit in the Pennsylvania National Guard which can trace its lineage back to before the American Civil War. The American strongpoints were therefore located with an eye to blocking these entry ways while at the same time defending the lateral ridge road which connected the 110th with its neighboring regiments and provided the main artery sustaining the entire division front. It was breached at midnight when tanks and self-propelled guns of the 3d Panzer Regiment entered Marnach. Beautifully illustrated with 200 photographs. The story in the 2d Panzer Division zone was the same. A Symbol of the Combat Ability of MI Soldiers. In January 1910, the Logan Guards (Lewistown) were redesignated as Company M, 8th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment and Company A, 5th Pennsylvania Infantry (Huntingdon) was redesignated as Company F, 8th Pennsylvania Infantry, Company C, 5th Infantry (Altoona) was redesignated as Company G, 10th Infantry, and Company B, 5th Infantry (Bellefonte) was redesignated Company L, 12th Pennsylvania Infantry. On the west slopes of the ridge a platoon of medium tanks was committed early in the afternoon to drive the Germans off the side road linking Holzthum and Consthum. his tanks and tank destroyers to block the roads west of the river. At Hosingen, on the ridge road, Company D and Company B were fighting German infantry hand to hand inside the village. Source Documents: Danny S. Parker, Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's Ardennes Offensive, 1944-1945, 1991, Combined Book Inc, Hong Kong; Shelby S. Stanton, Order of Battle US Army, Presidio Press, Novato, California, 1984; different additional sources. In a month's time the flow of replacements had brought the regiment to full strength. Fuller and some of his staff made their escape, hoping to join Company G, which had been released at division headquarters and was supposed to be coming in from the west. By this time, however, the advance infantry detachments of the 2d Panzer Division were not only involved in a battle to knock out Marnach but were pushing past the village en route to Clerf. moved toward Sevenig. Middleton had ordered the 44th Engineer Combat Battalion The sector designated for the XLVII Panzer Corps breakthrough was held by the 1st and 3d Battalions of the 110th Infantry (28th Infantry Division), commanded by Col. Hurley E. Fuller. On the nights of 14 and 15 December, sounds of horse-drawn vehicles and motors moving in slow gear drifted to the American outposts; but since the same commotion had attended an earlier relief in the German lines, it was reported and perfunctorily dismissed. Five hundred yards from the Germans, on the far side of a draw, the. Company B, on the extreme north flank, had been forced back into the 424th Infantry area, but about 235 men withdrew cross-country toward Ouren. At Clerveaux, two battalions of the 110th held off four German regiments for several . The bulk of his two divisions, as a consequence, faced the 112th Infantry, albeit the corps zone overlapped somewhat the sectors of the 106th Infantry Division in the north and the 110th Infantry in the south. The 560th Volks Grenadier Division (Generalmajor Rudolf Langhaeuser) was assigned two specific bridges as targets, one just north of Ouren, the other a stone arch a little to the south of the village. If you want a powerful account of the battle from the mouths of those who were there, this is it. and the U.S. 84th Division had essayed an attack in the sector around Nonetheless he advised Cota to withdraw the 110th back of the Clerf, that "under the circumstances it was necessary." *AIR broken up into three separate armored Infantry battalions. The tankers had been told that there were no friendly troops on the road and just Outside Holzthum knocked out an antitank gun placed there by Company I. to the Our bridges in the 3d Battalion area led the regimental commander Less than two miles west of Marnach lay the Clerf River and the town of Clerf, the latter the headquarters of the 110th Infantry. He was a prisoner of war at Stalag IV-B in the town of Mhlberg an der Elbe for six months. Colonel Fuller had ordered a platoon of the 2d Battalion to swing south and bar the road, but it was already dominated by the German armor. . The 26th Volks Grenadier Division was across the Our River in force but had failed to gain its first-day objective, control of the Clerf River crossings. Once through St. Vith the LXVI would follow Krueger to Andenne, but if things grew rough on the left wing Manteuffel intended to switch Lucht's corps to the south. He hoped that the armored debouchment into the bridgehead would commence during the early afternoon. a sweep along the western bank calculated to take the Ouren crossings General Luettwitz was none too pleased with the progress made by his two attack divisions on this first day. 126th Infantry Regiment. In 1995 the battalion became a mechanized infantry battalion. day-as usual a boundary line had proved a point of little resistance-and Wrote one in his diary: "Nobody able to sleep and no hot meals, today. cannon company gunners quickly bore-sighted their pieces, loaded reduced charge, and with direct fire knocked out four of the panzers. Colonel Nelson decided to pull back through Huldange since enemy tanks were known to be in Trois Vierges. Colonel Nelson decided to pull back through Huldange since enemy tanks were known to be in Trois Vierges. The refused positions of the 2d Battalion allowed fairly free use of a regimental reserve during both days and good counterattack plans were ready. General Cota and the 28th Division Staff were prepared for some kind of German effort west of the Our, but the intelligence coming down from higher headquarters pointed only to the possibility of a limited German attack against the 109th Infantry and the American communications running north from Luxembourg City. With three divisions, and added corps troops, the XLVII Panzer Corps possessed a considerable amount of shock and fire power. The company commander withdrew the remaining five tanks on a side road and reached Urspelt, taking position near the 2d Battalion command post.9, The American pincers action had failed to constrict at Marnach. The XLVII Panzer Corps, if all went well, would cross the Our and Clerf Rivers, make a dash "over Bastogne" to the Meuse, seize the Meuse River crossings near Namur by surprise, and drive on through Brussels to Antwerp. Division. The Infantry School at Fort Benning began collecting academic monographs from company commanders soon after the end of World War II, to record their personal combat experiences. Once the 2d Panzer Division had thrown a bridge across the Our at Dasburg and the 26th Volks Grenadier Division had put a bridge in at Gemnd, the well-known Panzer Lehr Division would be ready to roll, advancing behind the two forward divisions until the corps had cleared the Clerf River, then pushing ahead of the infantry on the corps left in the race to Bastogne. Organized by Pennsylvania in 1878, the division was made up of units that had already earned battle streamers for contributions in conflicts from the American Revolution to the Civil War. Miscellaneous troops of the 110th Infantry had joined with units of Combat Command R of the 9th Armored Division (briefly under operational control of the 28th Infantry Division) to defend along the main road to Bastogne in the area west of Clerf. At the chteau, however, headquarters company still was hard pressed by riflemen and machine gunners in the houses nearby. was reached midway between Bastogne and the Meuse. trusted officers set feverishly to work on plans for Christrose, Luettwitz, at least, pinned his faith on bad flying weather, night operations, and the large number of flak guns dispersed through his columns. Those who could left the road, scattering in small parties into the dark. It is impossible to assess in hours the violence done the 2d Panzer Division timetable at Clerf, but it is clear that the race by this division to Bastogne was lost as the result of the gallant action by the 110th Infantry in front of and at the Clerf crossings. By noon the 2d Battalion, helpless against massed tanks and without artillery support, was held in check along the ridge running southwest from Urspelt to the Clerf road, only a thousand yards from its line of departure. This regiment formed the division center, with the 112th Infantry on the north and the 109th Infantry aligned to the south. 1600 casualties and destroyed 18 tanks during nine days of continuous action, which later became known as the "Battle of the Bulge." The Regiment was awarded . But now the north road into the town was open. Ouren. The line of departure for Krueger's corps began across the Our from Kalborn and extended north to a point east of Burg Reuland. The 112th Infantry Regiment of the US Army dates back to the American Civil war and has since participated in several conflicts, including WWI and WWII. 109Th infantry aligned to the head of the river hundred yards from Germans! 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