Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  Having come to and from meetings at Battalion, I passed many abandoned tanks, vehicles and armored personnel carriers. I decided to commandeer the damn things rather than leave them to the enemy. They could be very useful to me, provided I had drivers. The diversity of the airborne trooper was again obvious as I asked for, and got, drivers for these vehicles. ‘C’ Company now had a jeep, a half-track, a Sherman Tank and a 2-1/2-ton truck.

  An abandoned Sherman tank near their forward position become a prize the new “C” Company commander, 1Lt. Ed Mehosky, wanted his men to retrieve. He had sent a runner to T/4 James J. Cadden’s position, asking that he report to the CP. Cadden was asked if he had ever been in the armored forces. Cadden related a weird story:

  Not knowing what the company commander meant, I told him so, whereupon he asked me to accompany a ‘tank driver’ to retrieve an abandoned Sherman tank out in front of the 3rd Platoon sector. With apprehension, I agreed and was escorted outside and introduced to Pvt. Fred Zavosky, of my platoon’s 3rd squad, and was informed he would operate the tank. We proceeded to the 3rd Platoon sector, which was being raked with shell fire and observed the Sherman tank, which was sitting about 150–200 yards out in the field. We crouched and crawled toward the vehicle and suddenly were joined by Sgt. Ted Hintz, a squad sergeant in 3rd Platoon. We made our way out to the tank and entered the open hatches. Zavosky jumped into the driver’s seat, I into the machine gunner’s position and Ted Hintz in the turret. As we were entering the Sherman tank, the Krauts obviously saw us and began firing.(Note: It was at this point that I learned that Zavosky knew nothing about tanks and when I asked him when in the hell he was going to start the tank, he responded that he was familiar with farm tractors and they operated like tanks.)

  After flicking on a vertical panel of toggle switches, he probed around and found the starter. The tank started with a roar. Then, Zavosky finally got the thing into low gear and we started jerking and heaving forward. Both Hintz and I commenced yelling for him to turn the thing away from the Kraut tanks and he turned two protruding steering rods back and forth and we made an abrupt turn and heaved and jerked back toward the 3rd Platoon area. The turret cannon was turned at a 50-degree angle and neither me nor Hintz could straighten it to point forward, while we were jerking along.

  As we approached 3rd Platoon, Zavosky had lost control of the tank movement and could only direct its steering mechanism. The 3rd Platoon guys scattered in various directions as we came upon them. We knocked over chicken coops and hog pens and then, we drove onto the street with the tank cannon scraping buildings, causing the tank to tilt. Some tankers came out in the street in front of us, pumping their arms up and down, apparently trying to guide us and we almost ran over them. At an intersection, several troopers waved to us to stop and we realized a tank fire exchange was going on between a tank destroyer and a German tank on the intersecting street and we jerked through the intersection. We then rammed head on into a shell-damaged, rock-style house which finally stopped the tank as it stalled out. If we weren’t in such a helluva fight, I’d have punched Zavosky in the nose. We could have killed some of the guys, if not ourselves. It was a parallel, with a Max Sennett ‘Keystone Cops’ caper that you saw years ago in the movies.

  Over in the “B” Company defensive positions, PFC. Robert Flory recalled the pullback from the hill and learned a schoolmate had been killed, then to a listening post adventure:

  Shortly after that, we were ordered back down the hill and placed in a line of defense in the north part of town. That’s when I learned that a schoolmate of mine, Sgt. Johnny York, had been killed. The order came to dig in deep and when the attack came the next morning, we were to let the tanks roll over us and kill the infantry following the tanks. Before we could start digging in, my squad was ordered to move into a barn about 100 yards to our front to act as a listening post. We moved in just before dark and closed the big double doors facing the north. We could see through the cracks and had a good view of what was going on because a German tank was burning just down the road.

  At about 2100 hours, we could hear another tank approaching. It pulled up just outside our door, swung that big 88 around facing the barn door and shut his motor off. I swear that tank looked as big as a battleship. We had no bazooka and you just don’t fight a tank with grenades and a machine gun. We could hear the Krauts talking inside the tank. I asked Sgt. Lee Rogers what was going to happen. He said, ‘Any fool should know that come daybreak, he’s going to blow this barn to hell so he can get that tank destroyer up in town.’

  I volunteered to leave the barn and go back to the defense line and let everyone know what was going to happen, but Rogers turned me down. All this time, we were whispering. Then something happened that is etched in my memory. We hadn’t had anything to eat for over 36 hours and I was famished. Suddenly, I could smell bologna! One of the new men was eating bologna and wasn’t going to share it! Later, I found out who it was. To this day, I still crave bologna.

  After he returned from his forward post near a burning half-track, PFC. Robert Wiatt got himself another weapon, which he would put to good use. He recalled:

  I found an armored infantryman who had a bazooka and some ammunition, which he did not want to use, so I took it because I was sure it would do more damage than my M1. As we worked our way around the left side of town and on towards the high ground beyond, we got some fire from a house on the left side of the main road. Two shells from my bazooka broke that up. As we advanced up the high ground, we came under very heavy fire. We had to back off and dig in.

  About this time, we got a very heavy pounding from enemy artillery. I was deep in a hole (as I often was), but wondering if any of the company could have survived. Near dark, things were a bit quiet and we moved into a defensive position at the southern end of Noville. After I got a good, deep hole dug, I was instructed to make contact with the outpost in front of us. I found one group, all new replacements, who were not dug in. I told them they had better dig fast and deep. On my next round, I found that this group of three had dug holes but were not in them because they were wet and muddy. I later found that two of these men were killed by artillery; they were not in their holes.

  Platoon leader Al Hassenzahl had passed the house in which 1st Battalion commander LTC. James LaPrade had just been killed. The Germans had counter-attacked and driven his men off the ridge, east of town. He wrote:

  We were forced to withdraw to the outskirts of Noville. There we set up a perimeter defense and our orders were to hold Noville at all costs. At this point I began to wonder if any of us would get out of this combat situation alive. But, hold Noville we did. We held it all night.

  Members of “A” Company were positioned in the vicinity of the cemetery on the north edge of town. PFC. Donald B. Straith describes what it was like during his first evening and night of combat on December 19th:36

  As evening approached, activity in the area decreased to scattered, small arms fire and intermittent artillery rounds dropped in and around town. There being no point in lying where we were, Ed Cavanaugh, another ‘A’ Company man, and I started out to find out what was going on. Several of our men had dug slit trenches in the cemetery alongside a house that formed one wall, then had tilted gravestones over them, against the house, to provide shelter from shell fragments. Although Ed and I did our best to talk our way in with them, they refused our request and, at the same time adding insult to injury, relayed the latest rumor—that the Germans were taking no prisoners. With our spirits sagging even more from this unwelcome news, the two of us wandered out through the cemetery gateway.

  The town seemed almost deserted, but we soon ran into a man from our mortar squad who was out looking for more mortar ammunition. After informing us that Colonel LaPrade, our battalion commander, had been killed by one of the German shells, he asked us to help him in his search. We reluctantly agreed to do so and turned down the same lane we had come up in the afternoon, pausing to make use of an outhouse behind the
first house next to the cemetery. It was now getting dark rapidly and, as we started down the lane again, another soldier stepped from a shadowy doorway of one of the houses and told us to go inside.

  The house was typical of the area, with the garage and cowshed sharing a common wall. In this latter space, an elderly man and woman and a couple of children had taken refuge. Meanwhile, in the kitchen, two or three women busily prepared bread, butter and jam which they insisted on serving, at a table in the next room, to any of us who happened to enter. As we relaxed there briefly, enjoying our first food since leaving camp, I could not help but be amazed at the courage of these women. I felt that I would be eternally grateful to them for their kindness. This family, the Copines, was left homeless the following night when the house was struck by a shell and burned to the ground. Although uninjured, M. Copine and his daughters (the others in the shed were neighbors) lost everything but the clothes they were wearing.

  A short time later we left and, at someone’s instructions, made our way to a house on the north edge of town. There we were, teamed up with another young soldier named Cunningham and sent to occupy an observation post a hundred yards or so out in a field. This consisted of a hole about a foot deep and just wide enough for the three of us. With our rifles resting on the edge of the hole, we lay there cold and scared, our nerves taut, staring into the darkness and waiting.

  A burning haystack some distance to our left front provided only a slight amount of light. From time to time, we could hear the rumbling and rattling of tanks maneuvering in the night, but the dim light revealed nothing. We grew colder and I regretted having thrown away my overcoat. I had left camp with no gloves, so Cavanaugh loaned me an extra pair of his with the admonition to return them later. This I assured him I would do. Although we were nervous and apprehensive as well as tired, our fatigue caused us to doze off occasionally, waking with a start each time our heads drooped and our helmets hit the ground.

  Suddenly, we detected movement out in front of us and, as my heart pounded, I thought to myself, ‘Here they come!’ In a moment or two, we could make out two helmeted figures crawling toward us. Cunningham and I raised our rifles and, taking aim, were about to fire when Cavanaugh’s arm shot out and pushed our weapons down again. He whispered a challenge to the two shadowy figures and, to my surprise and consternation, received the correct reply. We had been a fraction of a second from killing two of our own men. As they crawled on past, they told us they had been a forward listening post, a little fact about which no one had informed us. Because they didn’t know what was happening, they had decided to withdraw and, because our condition was the same, we shortly followed their example.

  After being directed up a slope and through a low hedge, we dug in for what was left of the night.37

  3rd Battalion Heads for Foy

  It didn’t bode well for the 3rd Battalion troops as they moved forward as hundreds of other soldiers were retreating as both passed each other along the highway. There was some indecision on the part of the officers as they neared Foy as to where the defensive positions were to be set. PFC. Guy D. Jackson recalled that first day:

  As we proceeded out of Bastogne, heading for Foy, things didn’t look too good. Other outfits were coming straggling down the road and we hadn’t had much sleep the past night. Everybody was kind of down and out. Foy lies down in a valley. South of Foy there is a rise and there was a little hill. We were stopped there, in the afternoon, deployed in a field to the left of the road, close to some woods. There seemed to be a lot of confusion among the officers, as if they were arguing on what positions to take. For a few minutes, it looked like we were going to dig in the open field and have the woods around us and the Germans could just come up and blow us away. I was kind of uptight about that. They did move us out of there. We wound up more or less in the tree line where you face Foy and have a clear field of fire. From the road to the left, they deployed my company—I wasn’t sure if any of the Battalion was deployed on the right side of the road. The 1st Battalion was up there in Noville and heavily engaged.

  1Lt. Alex Andros had the 3rd Platoon of “H” Company in the Ardennes fight. He describes the actions in which his group was involved during the day in the Foy vicinity:

  We had about 1,500 yards of front to cover as a platoon. We dug our holes 100 to 150 yards apart. The trees were so thick, you could have marched a regiment through the space between two foxholes. Finally, the enemy started infiltrating through. We did some firing at them but not a lot. We had to move back because ‘E’ Company, of the 2nd Battalion, was coming through our position. They came through just as we were pulling out. We didn’t see a helluva lot of combat that first day—did get to fire at a few guys.

  We pulled back to the high ground south of Foy and we were on the left (west) side of the road. On our side of the road was a little concrete house.

  1Lt. Harry Begle was assistant leader of 2nd Platoon under 1Lt. Clark Heggeness. The Bastogne mission was the first for Begle, with the 101st Division. He describes his actions for the late afternoon of the 19th:

  On the first day, late in the afternoon, when it was getting dark, I cannot remember if we had a password. Clark Heggeness gave me a map and said, ‘Find that railroad track and tie in with the 501st.’ I had about six men and I was placing them along a dirt road, which was to the right, and I was to the right of Stroud’s platoon. I walked up to the edge of the woods some 300 to 500 yards and still didn’t see any railroad tracks. We had a big front to cover. I got back and told Clark I never did find the railroad track. It was cold and there was a haystack, so we bedded down for the night in it. The Battalion HQ was in a brick farmhouse about 200 yards to the rear of the haystack.

  1Lt. Robert Stroud, of the 1st Platoon of “H” Company was concerned about the expanse of territory his group was assigned to cover. He related:

  I deployed my platoon on the right side of the road, just below the heights of a hill. I deployed with Vecchi’s squad on the left and Bob Martin’s squad on the right. I was told to deploy my platoon to reach a railroad to our right. It was over quite a ways and Bob Martin came back to tell me they were having a helluva time reaching the place. We had Hank DiCarlo’s squad in reserve. I had to deploy all three squads on line—we had so much area to cover.

  Somehow, PFC. Ewell B. Martin was in the right place at the wrong time, or the wrong place at the right time, as he happened to be near the 506th regimental commander, Colonel Robert F. Sink, on the evening of the 19th Martin wrote:

  On the night of December 19, Colonel Sink picked me up with another ‘G’ Company man to go into Noville with him. I can recall looking for possible snipers while the Colonel was standing up in his jeep looking around the town from the middle of the street. The town was burning and that small is something I guess you never forget.

  During the days preceding departure for the Ardennes, Pvt. John Kilgore had been practicing for the coming Christmas Day football game against the 502nd Parachute Regiment. Now he was going into combat with a platoon leader who was new to the regiment and knew only two members of the platoon—those two men were Privates John G. Kilgore and Albert Gray, both members of his football squad. The platoon leader was one of the coaches for the 506th team. Kilgore didn’t think much of the situation. He wrote:

  On the evening of the 19th, we arrived in the piney woods and started to dig in defensive positions outside a cross-road hamlet of Recogne, several miles from Bastogne.

  MAP 5—2nd/3rd 506th

  Guess who was the newly assigned platoon leader? Lt. Fitzpatrick! Guess who he knew in the platoon? Right—Gray and Kilgore. Guess who was picked for the patrol the first night—right—Gray and Kilgore. Guess who was picked to spearhead the advance the next day? Right—Gray and Kilgore.

  ‘Jesus Christ, Lieutenant!! Will you please learn someone else’s name in the platoon!’ He did.

  (Albert Gray was taken prisoner while on patrol New Year’s Eve and we heard, found shot in the head, executio
n style, in Germany several months later. 1Lt. Lawrence Fitzpatrick was killed instantly by machine gun fire leading a patrol across a river months later in a different place. John Kilgore zipped when the bullets zagged and came home. He never played football again.)

  Members of “G” Company were the first to feel pressure near Recogne, on the 19th, as described by PFC. James H. Martin, who wrote:

  The enemy hit the 1st platoon on our right flank, opposite Foy. They came in under rolling ground fog, early in the evening, with troops and tanks. Our 2nd platoon was pulled over to help because 1st was getting pressed hard. They (enemy) finally broke through and we were ordered to pull back to a wooded high point to regroup and counterattack. As we came back, there was Sgt. Stan Clever, all by himself on the machine gun, still stacking them up. He either didn’t hear the order or ignored it. I’m convinced that if he had not stayed we would not have been able to repulse the enemy. He got a Bronze Star for the action.

  The comment of S/Sgt. Stan B. Clever for the December 19th action was very simply put: “German infantry and two tanks came in with the fog. We fought a delayed action to give the company a chance to dig in on the high ground, south of Foy.”

  The Reserve Units

  Accompanied by his regimental S-3, Captain James J. Hatch and his driver, Colonel Steve Chappuis, left early on the afternoon of December 18 so as to be at his assembly area before the troops arrived. Enroute, they had encountered Brigadier General Gerald J. Higgins. The deputy division commander had just arrived from England and was at Division Headquarters when a directive arrived stating that the 101st would go to Bastogne rather than proceed further north to Werbomont.