Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  Friendly Fire

  As had been related by one of his platoon leaders, company commander Ed Mehosky remembers that some of the shooting that was directed at his men was actually friendly fire coming from the guns of 3rd Battalion of the 506th Regiment. He wrote:

  I was in a prone position and watching the fire and movement of the advancing company when I saw what reminded me of a ‘bee’ heading straight toward me. I instinctively turned and rolled away. Then, I felt a sharp, burning pain in my hip. Fearing the worst and afraid to look, I called to a medic to come check me. He couldn’t find anything wrong and said I was OK. I discovered something hot had entered the left top part of my trousers and burned my leg. What I found in my pocket was a hunk of lead with a painted black tip. It was a spent M-1 armor-piercing round apparently fired by advancing 3rd Battalion units.

  Rear Guard Action

  Off to the rear end on the flank, PFC. Robert Flory, of “B” Company, was with a squad making sure enemy soldiers didn’t get into position to put fire on the troops from that direction. He describes the experience of one of the new men in his platoon during the withdrawal:

  We were on a slight rise just on the south edge of Noville. I had my machine gun set up facing back towards town. There was a patch of trees about fifty yards to my left. Suddenly, we heard a shot and a few minutes later a fellow from the 3rd Platoon by the name of Lustoff (a new man) appeared holding a German officer by the ear. The man was crawling on his hands and knees. It seems Lustoff was patrolling the woods when all of a sudden this Kraut stepped out from behind a tree. Lustoff had his safety off and his M-1 pointed down. It scared him so badly that he jumped back and pulled the trigger, hitting the Kraut in the foot.

  Finding Cover

  As a member of the forward observer team attached to 1st Battalion, PFC. William J. Stone was still near Major Robert Harwick during the move toward Bastogne. He describes the move, taking advantage of low ground to remain out of view of enemy troops:

  The battalion commander ordered the troops to leave the road and continue the withdrawal on the western side of the road, which was low ground—so low that it was not visible to the enemy. The combination of fire from the 321st and the low ground enabled the 1st Battalion and Team Desobry to continue their withdrawal in order to fight another day.

  There was considerable confusion once we moved off the road and control was lost. This was certainly undesirable but was not as bad as it might be inasmuch as we were no longer in contact with the enemy. Low ground is often wet and our route was that. By this time, I was riding on a half-track of Team Desobry. The tracks of the rear of the vehicle drove the wheels in the front end into the wet ground and we came to a halt. After we freed the vehicle, I decided that it would be better to proceed on foot and ended up south of Foy and back on the road.

  There was no clearly defined front and as I looked at the high ground to the east of the road, three German soldiers emerged from the woods 100 yards away. When they saw me they immediately surrendered. I searched them and took from them their military papers. I later gave them to Captain Joe Perkins, the S-2 of the 321st. It took some time but I finally found someone in the 506th who would take the prisoners from me. The troops of the 506th were busy people, just then, and few of them wanted to have prisoners on their hands.

  As one of the walking wounded, PFC. Donald B. Straith had left Noville in the back of a half-track positioned at the mounted .50 caliber machine gun that faced forward. He had a good view to the front. He describes:

  The vehicles and the men beside them would move a short distance, then stop, start again, then stop, while the wounded men periodically yelled at their drivers to get moving. From my vantage point, my view reached almost to the head of the column and, as we approached Foy once again, I could see that the first one of three Sherman tanks leading the column was on fire and blocking the road. This was forcing the half-tracks to turn off into a field where they were encountering some difficulty, so those of us who could walk were directed to dismount and go on foot around the cluster of houses. In one field through which we passed, an abandoned half-track stood57and near it lay the corpse of a German soldier. Thinking perhaps the man was faking death, I approached the body gingerly and nudged it with my foot. There was no question about it—the only enemy I had seen was definitely dead. We moved on and eventually reached the collecting station in Bastogne in the late afternoon.58

  Major Robert Harwick summarizes the final actions which took place as his 1st Battalion withdrew from Noville and entered Foy:

  I sent a platoon to the left. They ran into heavy trouble but kept pushing. I took a group of about thirty to the right. The Germans had fortified a group of farm houses at a place called Foy. We moved across the fields while a machine gun fired tracers into a large stone barn. The barn caught fire and we caught the Krauts as they ran out. The buildings were captured without loss to our small group. Thirty-two German prisoners, including a major—I did not count the dead. The Germans pulled back and the way was open to Bastogne. Unfortunately, one of the tanks driven by the troopers was lost. There was no pursuit from Neville, as the exploding ammunition moved the remains of the church across the road. All the wounded came out safely.

  We had just broken our way through the German ring and the battalion was moving down the road through the few buildings that made Foy. It was no column. The fighting had scattered the groups and they now reformed and filed past me and on into the barn. They were dirty as only fighting men can get—clothing torn and mudcaked. Two day’s beard just made them appear dirtier. A few were bloody; all with a shovel or pick or ax, mostly German or taken from the farm. If you don’t dig, you die. But happy! I’ll say they were. They had been in a rough spot. Through their own strength, they had gotten out. They had done a good job and they knew it. The spring in the step of the tired, dirty bodies and the look in the eyes told that. Almost 600 had gone in. There were less than 400 who came out.59

  In a letter he wrote to his former company commander, who was recuperating in a stateside hospital, 2Lt. Ted Patching listed the troopers who had served with Capt. Melvin Davis in Normandy and Holland and had become casualties in December. Patching was also in a stateside hospital undergoing extensive treatment for wounds received in Neville.60

  To get to Basting—Captain Mason shot in stomach by explosive bullet—after several emergency calls to the Chaplain to perform last rights, he finally decided to live. He is now in the general hospital in Palm Springs, California.

  Joe Hopkins killed instantly—bullet through head. Sherman Sutherland commissioned a few days after me in Holland, died four hours after being shot through the temple by a sniper. Abide Fell died a few minutes after being shot through the stomach. Ollie Barrington killed by a piece of shrapnel in brain; Bill Shearins whole squad pretty well wiped out when they were caught in the cross fire of two German tanks—there were only two known survivors but some of the boys seemed to think that Bill might have made it, too. Doss had the top of his head blown off and was begging the boys to shoot him. Shoemaker said he was still living 24 hours after he was hit. Shoemaker was wounded again through the leg and arm; went back to duty, however.

  John Powers wounded again (if nothing else, that boy is going to have a nice string of clusters to his Purple Heart).

  ‘Scurvy’ Slaton had a big dud land so near to him that it almost covered him with dirt. It knocked him silly and he had to be evacuated. (Steve Polander’s story makes mention of this.) Behus was wounded again, badly. Gividen, a squad leader, was put out of action by a house collapsing on him. Tony Borrelli was wounded lightly by shrapnel in the cheek. Rumor had it in the evacuation hospital that Captain Brooks had been wounded lightly and that Captain Kessler had been killed. By the way, Kessler took over ‘A’ Company after Meason was wounded. Loible’s leg tied up on him and put him out of action. Lt. Col. LaPrade killed—his executive officer, Major Harwick, bad stomach wound. I don’t know who has the battalion now—the boys said
Kessler was really out for blood.

  Revenge

  Not all of the civilian population had fled from Noville before the fighting moved into their small farm community. The Allied forces, which had been holding the approaches to the town, finally got word from General A. C.McAuliffe to pull back to the high ground near Foy. Andre Meurisse, who is an authority on the battle actions, which took place around the perimeter of Bastogne, describes what happened to some of the civilians still in town when the enemy arrived:

  The 2nd German Panzer Division entered Noville about the noon hour of the 20th of December, just after the joint U. S. Force committed to its defense had left, having received permission to withdraw from General McAuliffe.

  Following the main body of the 2nd German Panzer Division, a special German reprisal unit entered the town. Its members had with them photographs showing local area people fraternally celebrating and feasting along with the U. S. troops their country’s liberation on the previous September 10th.61

  3rd Battalion at Foy

  Early morning of December 20th found the 3rd Battalion of LTC. Lloyd Patch along a line which extended from Recogne (where “G” Company was in position) continuing along the Recogne-Foy road and then to the railroad trestle and station (Halte) where the 506th sector ended as it supposedly connected to the 501st at this point. 3rd Battalion troops were in position along the northern fringes of Foy and occupied many of the houses early that morning.

  An enemy attack on Foy commenced at 0800, with the movement of tanks and infantry attacking from the northeast. Bearing the brunt of the attack were men of “H” Company.

  After spending the first night in a haystack near Foy, 1Lt. Harry Begle and others from the platoon would be sent scurrying from their place of shelter and concealment. Begle related:

  On the morning of the 20th, it was cold, foggy and machine gun fire hit the haystack. You never saw so many of us fly out of there at once in your life. The haystack caught fire and I ran up towards a big potato pile covered with horse manure. The machine gun was right after me. It blew a bunch of potatoes at me. I hid there for what seemed like hours (though it was more like a few minutes) and then ran back toward the haystack again. I could hear the tanks. They were so close you could hear the clanking and the Germans started throwing mortars and we could hear the ‘thump’ and I’d say, ‘Oh, oh, here comes a mortar barrage!’ Lt. Heggeness ran down and got me and said, ‘One of the sergeants had been hit. ‘We ran to the haystack and picked up the sergeant. He had been hit in the leg and so we carried him back between the two of us. The enemy was throwing mortars at us.

  Clark Heggeness continued on back to the battalion CP and he told me to hold the line as long as I could. Meanwhile, the machine gun was after me again so I headed for my potato pile. We were taking some small arms and mortar fire. Clark had called for artillery fire with a Walkie-Talkie (SCR-536) radio. I had no communication with Heggeness so I told my men, ‘Come on—we’re gonna pull back a bit.’ We pulled back and as we crossed the main road into the woods, I remember Captain Fred Anderson was commanding either ‘G’ or ‘I’ Company—he yelled, ‘Watch your fire, ‘H’ Company is withdrawing!’ So we withdrew back and I had three or four guys with me. We got back up and I saw Captain Jim Walker, ‘H’ Company commander yelling, ‘Get back down there and line up on that ridge by the main road!’ There was a small country road that went behind the pines which were spaced about three or four feet apart. We got in position. We saw another squad crawling on their hands and kness coming up along a fence row across a field. I think it was Wilkinson bringing them up.

  A couple of tree bursts hit and someone came up in a jeep yelling, ‘Tanks, tanks!’

  I ran toward the Battalion CP just as an AP shell went all the way through the house and everyone came tumbling out of there. Then another shell hit the trees. That was all she wrote for me. I was a goner—didn’t get back to the outfit until March.

  1st Platoon leader Bob Stroud had his men spread thinly over a great distance and below the heights of a hill. Evidently, some of the men were able to get into the houses on the outskirts of Foy. This is what Stroud remembers of that action:

  It was fairly quiet the first night and the next morning things really hit. They threw tanks at us and everything else. At that time, about the middle of the morning, we were told to move out to the heights which were directly in back of the town. The heights were covered with quite a few pine trees. There were several elements already up there as we gradually moved into position. Meanwhile, we were catching quite a bit of fire.

  I remember well Sgt. Padisak when I pulled our communications out—Snyder, my commo man, and I moved back through Padisak who was firing a BAR from a woodpile in back of one of the houses. He was taking care of quite a few Germans who were trying to push through on our left. We got up into one of the houses and I wanted to check before we pulled all the way back together to see where these Germans were. I went to the attic of a three-story house and knocked out a couple of tiles from the roof and looked down. There was a German tank right next to the little house I had set up as my CP. I went downstairs real quick. We found a bazooka and went back up there. We had a fellow from one of the other platoons feeding me ammunition. He was bringing up one round at a time. I managed to get one round off by poking the launcher out through the hole in the roof and just before I fired I observed quite a few Germans around the tank. I think I hit the tread on the tank. I ran down quick to get another round and meanwhile Johnson was coming up with the additional rocket. I couldn’t get off another shot before they started blasting the roof and top of the house.

  I came back, pulling my men back to our line on the ridge. After that, we sort of stabilized for a while.

  As the company communications sergeant, Gordon Yates witnessed the above incident from his post about a quarter mile away. He remembered:

  We had an outpost in Foy in the second story of a house and the men had a sound power phone and I had a wire relay down to the command post. The man on outpost duty kept whistling into the phone, ‘Here comes a tank!’ and evidently the German tanks were stopping directly below him. The building was right on the road and he says, ‘Here comes another one! and another one!’ and whoever was on the other end of the line said, ‘Well, how many tanks are there?’ He says, ‘I can piss on nine of them out of this window!’ About that time the lead tank started up and came around the corner, firing randomly from left to right and evidently the third round went into a stone building and whoever was in it came out of the back end at the same time. I was about a quarter mile down the road from the outpost and I could see both the outpost and the building and the tanks.

  Though most of 3rd Battalion was stopped short of Foy on the evening of December 19th, members of “H” Company moved into some of the houses. Sgt. Charles E. Richards ventured into the first house on the southern outskirts on the 20th. He recalled:

  Our platoon’s defense was on the edge of the woods, to the left side of the road where the pillbox was located (facing the town of Foy). After dark, Sgt. Hefner and I took some men and crossed the road to the old farmhouse (used as an outpost). This happened on different nights. On one of the nights, two German soldiers were approaching the house. In a short burst of gunfire, one of the Germans was killed. The other got away. We dragged the German into our backyard, took his I.D.’s for our captain and left him lying on his right side with his right arm extended. The weather was cold. In the morning, we turned him on his back to check for unit insignias and he was frozen. His right arm came straight up as we turned him over. From then on, it was a ritual to shake hands with him every time we came or left the house. We figured that if we could shake his hand, we were a helluva lot better off than he was.

  Pvt. Guy D. Jackson, of “H” Company, remembers the same incident as was related by Sgt. Richards—even to the date but shaking hands with a corpse wasn’t one of the incidents he related:

  On the 20th of December, a German scout came
down the road, out of Foy. We cut him down. It was half way between our lines and Foy. Later on, we had an OP in a house on a road fifty feet from his body.

  In an action which occurred over on the “G” Company MLR, near Recogne, Pvt. Ewell B. Martin had vivid recollections of his first days of action near Bastogne. Combat was new to him as a late replacement:

  Our squad was dug in on a line in an open field during the night. I don’t recall much of what was happening that night except for the sound of tanks and a wounded German who must have been calling his lieutenant for help for what seemed like hours. Early in the morning the squad member up the hill from me called that we were pulling out. I decided to go down the hill and check to make sure that the squad next to me had also gotten the word. That was a mistake. As I got to the fence I could see that the next squad had already moved out. They had been dug in along a hedgerow. I started through the fence; at the same time, a Kraut machine gun opened up. I jumped into a hole and remember cussing out the digger for not going any deeper. I was trying to get as flat as I could while the tracers were walking toward me, down the hedgerow just above the ground. Had a hole ripped in my pants leg but not a scratch on me. I crawled out along the hedgerow back to the village where I met a 75mm gun crew who had seen me coming in. We tried to search back to the point I had been fired on to locate the tank that was close by but couldn’t spot it.