by Leo Barron
Private First Class Werner C. Lunde, one of the captured soldiers, wrote about the event after the war. “I should have gotten back to our line. I feel bad about that. I still don’t know how so many Germans could get past our guard posts without being seen. By the time the guys on guard woke us up, we were completely surrounded. There were several tanks right outside the door. That was the beginning of the worst four months of my life.”21
0300–0330 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Mortar section, 1st Platoon, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment
Champs, Belgium
Mortar section sergeant Louis Merlano had taken brief shelter with several of his men in a cellar near the 1st Platoon’s CP during the short bombardment. When the firing let up, he told the men trapped with him to get ready for an attack.
“Hustle up!” he exhorted.
The sudden bombardment had separated Merlano from his mortar team. To get back to them, he chose to sprint from the cellar with his rifle in his hands and beeline for their last-known position. As he momentarily glanced up, Merlano saw several Germans heading his way. He changed directions and rolled out of a cellar window instead, dropping out into an alleyway. He could hear the firing as some of his men took on the Germans at point-blank range.
When he finally made it back to his mortar section, Merlano ordered his men to start hanging rounds into the tube. Panting, his breath making clouds of condensation in the cold air, Merlano knelt in the snow and watched the figures darting around the dark houses of Champs. He heard the sporadic, amplified gunfire in the still night air, the crackling of the fire burning the roof of the nearby CP, and the desperate shouts in German and English. From where he sat, it didn’t look good.
“At that point, it looked like we were totally overrun….”22
0300–0400 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Down in the cellars of various homes
Champs, Belgium
The soldiers weren’t the only ones caught up in the Christmas-morning maelstrom. The townspeople of Champs, those brave souls who had decided to stay, were also trapped inside their homes, while German Volksgrenadiers and Hetzer tank destroyers roamed free outside. For the soldiers, the line of buildings running along the east side of the road was merely cover and concealment. To the townspeople, the buildings were their homes, many families having lived in the area for a century or more. In fact, the initial penetration passed between Victor Raviola’s and the Rieses’ houses, east of the Rouette–Champs road. Down in the cellars, the huddling Belgians could hear the shouts of German soldiers calling out to one another over the sounds of battle.
A few minutes later, the civilians heard chugging and popping sounds emanating from the Longchamps road where the Americans had dug in. Some of the more patriotic probably smiled, knowing now that the Americans were not rolling over, but putting up a fight to save their town. Suddenly Madeleine Séleck, one of the younger residents, watched as the Poncelet farm burst into flames. The farm was also on the east side of the Rouette–Champs road, and lay between German lines and Asay’s squad. As the roof of the building began to burn, it resembled a huge orange torch in the night. The fire produced an unexpected dividend for the Americans. The blazing farm silhouetted the advancing German soldiers. Now, with better targets, the paratroopers had begun to rally and fight back. From positions in ditches, behind buildings, and in hedgerows like the one commanded by Albert Wise, the Screaming Eagles opened up with a fury of rifle and automatic weapons fire.
In response, the German Volksgrenadiers barged into the stone homes to escape the deadly and now accurate fusillades. Several groups occupied the chapel and the local schoolhouse, just down the road. The group of grenadiers who occupied the chapel sent a soldier scurrying up the stairs of the blocky stone bell tower. He immediately mounted an antenna atop the steeple so the squad could communicate back to regiment.
Glancing from a cellar window, Mademoiselle Séleck noticed some Germans approaching their farmhouse. Like many in the town she was hiding with twenty others who had joined her family deep in the cold cellar. They could hear the Germans on the floor above them as they burst through the door and rummaged around the farmhouse. Madeleine’s godfather, a brave and perhaps foolhardy man, decided to find out what was going on upstairs and left the group. Several minutes later, he returned with two Germans dressed in white smocks. At first Madeleine didn’t know who they were, but when they removed their winter tops and she heard them speak, she knew they were the enemy. Curiously, the two soldiers sat down and laid their weapons by their sides. They did not seem too concerned about the ongoing battle or that they were surrounded by Belgian civilians. As a matter of fact, Séleck could see they were there only to catch their breath. The two Germans had no intention to harm them. After a few minutes, the two picked up their weapons and, without a word, climbed back up the stairs to rejoin the battle raging in the streets. Just like that, the Germans were gone.
A little later, several more of Schriefer’s grenadiers returned and climbed down into the now-crowded Séleck cellar. This time, though, it was mostly German wounded. One of them, suffering from a horrible bullet wound to his jaw, still managed to ask the civilians for a cigarette. This time, Séleck noticed, two German grenadiers posted themselves by the stairway, pointing their Schmeisser submachine guns up the stairs. Outside, the battle noises continued unabated.23
0319–0330 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Command post, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment
Champs, Belgium
Now Swanson was getting nervous. Peering out the frosted window of his farmhouse, he could see the flames and hear the gunfire coming from the two A Company platoon CPs located past the school. This was only a scant hundred yards to the northwest. Just then Cassidy called back on the line to check in. It was 0330 hours.
Cassidy wanted another update. Swanson, trying not to sound worried, still had to convey the seriousness of the situation. “The krauts are on top of us,” the Able Company commander replied. Before he could say anything more, a Krupp artillery shell cut short their conversation, severing the phone line. Swanson’s line to headquarters at Rolle had just gone dead.24
0330–0400 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Headquarters, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, Rolle Château
Rolle, Belgium
To Chappuis, listening carefully to the communications and gunfire to the north and west of Rolle, it seemed like all hell was breaking loose. The commander had raced into the communications center after the barrage to see what was going on. Now he drummed his fingers on the table where the telephone and radios lay. Like Swanson, Chappuis was quickly debating whether this could be the main German thrust at Champs or a mere feint. At that moment, German artillery interrupted his thoughts. The German gunners had shifted their attention to Rolle itself. A shell screamed in and exploded nearby. Spurred on, “Silent Steve” knew he’d need to make a decision and act quickly, before the entire A Company line was penetrated and the krauts came rolling down the road to Bastogne. Every few seconds Chappuis ducked as another round came shrieking down and exploded outside.
Cassidy stood nearby, tension on his face. Chappuis was aware of Cassidy’s presence, waiting for his commander’s decision. Chappuis, ever the man of few words, simply told Cassidy to call for Hanlon down in Hemroulle. The communications operator, an enlisted man, quickly determined that the phone lines to Hemroulle had also been cut. Once again the radio was the only option.
When “Long John” answered the radio, Chappuis ordered him to report immediately to Rolle and prepare his other two companies (B and C) for battle. When “Kickoff” signed off, Chappuis, still wrapped in the wool blanket he had been sleeping in, started considering his next move while he waited for Hanlon.
When he arrived, the 1st Battalion commander informed Chappuis that Baker Company was on the road from Hemroulle moving up to Champs, and C Company would be following shortly. When
Hanlon learned that Chappuis had lost contact with Swanson and Able Company, Long John requested that he go and reestablish contact with his lead company. Swanson was one of his best commanders, and the major felt a sharp sense of responsibility to the Kansas football player.
Chappuis told him to wait. Having his 1st Battalion commander rush off without a clear idea of the situation, especially with communication so choppy, would not be in anyone’s best interest. Chappuis knew they needed to determine right now whether the attack was big enough to commit all of the battalion at this time in order to hold Champs. Or Champs could even already be lost, in which case it didn’t make much sense to send Hanlon off willy-nilly until a strategy to retake the town could be devised. Chappuis and “Hopalong” went over to the map and quickly discussed the potential enemy courses of action. To Chappuis, the Germans’ main effort would either be pushing through Champs or southwest of it. Once again, the ground to the south of Champs seemed more suited for armor, if the Germans were mounting a serious attempt that morning. Hanlon nodded in agreement. The best solution would be a second line of defense behind Champs, which could potentially react to either enemy course of action. Hanlon, seeing the logic, immediately called back down to his Baker Company and ordered them to move forward and occupy the roadblock behind Champs. Satisfied that he had done all he could, Hanlon snapped a quick salute and left in his jeep to go find “Swannie” and the rest of A Company.25
0400 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Command post, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment
Champs, Belgium
Throughout the desperate struggle for Champs, Swanson had sent out runners to check on his platoon commanders, but so far all had failed to come back. He was about to send one as far as Rolle when his radio operator suddenly picked up a message from Chappuis: Cassidy had woken the regimental commander, who wished to check the situation first, but promised to get right back to him. It had been minutes since he had spoken with Cassidy, but those minutes felt like hours. Swanson felt relief to hear the soft, deliberate Louisiana accent come over the earpiece of the “handy-talky.” Chappuis asked Swanson to tell him more about the situation.
Shouting into the radio over the noise of gunfire, Swanson told him the fighting was furious and house-to-house, but the Americans seemed to be holding Champs, if barely. Chappuis assured Swanson that Hanlon was sending help in the form of Lieutenant Clarence J. Thompson’s B Company and Captain George R. Cody’s C Company, both units called up from their bivouacs outside of Hemroulle. Already the two companies were moving up the road toward Champs. Swanson expressed his concern that in the dark, and with the battle in full swing, his boys might not be able to distinguish between friend or foe. He suggested that Hanlon keep the rest of his battalion outside of Champs.
Swanson signed off, listening to the continuous rattle of an American machine gun, strong and singular, firing somewhere in the dark ahead and to his left. He hoped Chappuis would consider his recommendation. It could be a disaster if Able’s paratroopers opened fire on their comrades in Baker Company, but with the dark and chaos running rampant in the town, it was a very real possibility.26
0330–0400 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Machine gun section, 3rd Platoon, Able Company,
502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment
West side of the Rouette–Champs road, Champs, Belgium
Two of A Company’s abandoned command posts were burning, casting a flickering orange glow into the night, but from his foxhole position next to the potato shed across the road, Fowler was still firing. The .30-caliber was banging away, and German soldiers were going down in droves. Caught moving down the Rouette road or in the open field advancing, persistent Volksgrenadiers found no cover. Fowler watched his deadly work as the enemy dropped in writhing groups to the snowy ground. In between bursts he could hear their shouts and screams. He paid no mind to the possibility that the Germans might be sneaking by on his right, preparing to flank his position; Fowler was too focused on what was in front of him to care. All he knew was that he seemed to be the only machine gun in action, and his bullets were holding up the attack in front of him.
As Fowler finished a belt, he would yell for Emerson to reload the gun. The muddy bottom of the foxhole was filling with spent brass as the two men continued to work. By now, other members of the platoon were crawling up to their position and dropping off the extra ammunition from the frozen machine guns. During one break, Fowler happened to notice a German tank on the ridge. In the dark it was a sinister, monstrous shape moving back and forth. For the life of him, Fowler couldn’t understand why the tanks didn’t just come charging down on his position.
“That probably would have been the end of us,” he later noted in an interview.27
To Fowler’s right and left, the situation was desperate. Able Company’s 1st and most of its 2nd Platoon had been forced to withdraw and give up the farmhouses and barns that dotted the road from Champs to Rouette. The Germans had moved quickly, and were now in possession of those buildings and foxholes the Americans had been squatting in about an hour before. And to the far right of A Company’s flank, the situation was about to get worse.
0330–0400 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
Forward line of troops, 6th Company, 77th Volksgrenadier Regiment
Les Bresses woods, Champs, Belgium
True to Kokott’s orders, Unteroffizier Ludwig Lindemann and others from the 2nd Battalion of the 77th Volksgrenadier had moved through the cover of the Les Bresses woods, following the Rue Rouette streambed and a parallel logging trail. Their objective was to cut the Champs–Longchamps road at the base of the slope, and thus separate the 1st of the 502nd from its sister battalion, the 2nd, to the northeast.
For the past few days, Lindemann’s commander, Martin Schriefer, had been able to exercise a distinct advantage over Maucke: He was able to reconnoiter the American positions and determine that here, indeed, the American line was thin and weak. Creeping stealthily through the snow and trees Lindemann’s company had advanced carefully most of that night. The partial moon dimly reflected through the snowy woods as the Volksgrenadiers moved in, weapons ready.
Lindemann recalled the first contact as his men crept forward in the thick woods, hugging the trees along the broad logging trail. “As we moved through the woods quietly, we saw the American positions about sixty meters away,” he recalled.
Clutching his Sturmgewehr 44 automatic rifle, Lindemann used hand signals as best he could in the dark. The Germans, dressed in white overcoats and helmets covered in white cloth or painted white, crawled through the snow. Yards from the first American outposts, the men leaped up and attacked, many firing from the hip as they charged.
Lindemann continued his account, “I saw a few of the Americans; they were everywhere and they ran at first. I hoped we would win the battle. Many of the Americans retreated.”
After the Volksgrenadiers successfully drove in the outposts, they reached a sharp dropoff in elevation as the woods made contact with the Longchamps–Champs road. The American line here was somewhat alert, having heard the fighting to their left. Just yards away from each other, both sides erupted in gunfire. Great chunks of wood were blasted from tree trunks. The smell of tree sap was strong in the air. Lindemann and the other Volksgrenadiers dived for cover behind the trees and logs.
Gunshots echoed back and forth through the once-peaceful woods.28
0400 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
3rd Platoon, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment
Along the Longchamps–Champs road, Champs, Belgium
Meanwhile in Champs, Sergeant Charles Asay was moving back from house to house with his squad. As he did so, he would occasionally empty a clip from his M1 at anything moving from doorway to doorway or following him down the street.
Moving with Asay, Private First Class Goldmann noticed that the Germans were starting to make mistakes. “They shot flares into a totally dark s
ky and we took advantage of them. They fired haystacks and then got in between us and the blazes to form perfect silhouettes and down they went.”29
Asay noticed the same. He hurled more hand grenades to his right to keep the Germans at bay as they moved through the fields and the abandoned 1st Platoon and 2nd Platoon positions in an attempt to flank the town and hit the intersection of the Rouette and Longchamps road, near where Swanson had his company HQ.
Chased behind buildings, the GIs continued to fire at any German who silhouetted himself against the fires. Machine guns chattered, and bullets ricocheted and slapped into the stonework Belgian houses. The right flank was indeed falling back, but as Asay hurled another grenade at a cluster of Volksgrenadiers rounding a building, he could tell his squad was fighting back with everything they had.
0400 hours, Monday, 25 December 1944
2nd Platoon, Able Company, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment
West of the Rouette–Champs road, Champs, Belgium
The battle in Champs had degenerated into a pell-mell street fight. House-to-house—and in some areas hand-to-hand—was reported. Typical of the violent struggle on the right flank was Staff Sergeant Robert Barnes’s experience that night. During the attack on the right, Barnes was in a slit trench near a machine gun position. He heard gunfire and then saw movement:
Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a moan from the direction of the machine gun. I looked over and saw a figure in white making arm motions. I ducked down in the foxhole, not knowing if other Germans were around. I heard another moan that was real low. My first thought was that a bayonet or knife was being used. I suppose this helped put me to use as I raised up, pointed my rifle, could not see the sights, and fired. The figure in white fell, and at the same time a grenade went off. Shots were fired at me from my flank. Four or five of the shots were fired and then all was quiet. I went over to the machine gun and the figure in white was a German officer, shot in the head. The grenade was a concussion type and was dropped by the officer when hit. As there were only two, I assumed that it was a reconnaissance patrol trying to pick up a prisoner. The two men on the machine gun received slight wounds from the grenade but [that] didn’t put them out of action, which was good, as we only had seventeen men left in the 2nd Platoon at this time. The German who had fired at me from the flank made a getaway.30