Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  Mortar sergeant Richard L. Klein was in on the same action as a member of the heavy weapons company referred to by Sgt. Donald Castona earlier. He had discarded his galoshes and overcoat to increase mobility while on patrol the night before and would pay for it as the evening of the 20th approached. Klein recalled:

  After darkness had set in, we returned to Mont barely returning before the Germans launched an attack on the night of December 20th. It was during this attack that I was hit. This attack was the most intense that I had ever experienced. The artillery bombardment was extremely heavy along with a large volume of machine gun and small arms fire. Obviously, Colonel Ewell’s defensive deployment was outstanding. The 501st stopped the attack cold without giving up an inch of real estate.

  More than once I’ve reflected on the December 20th attack. Thank God, it was launched on the 20th and not December 19th and thank God the Germans didn’t attack an hour earlier. If they had done either of these two things, those two platoons of ‘G’ Company, plus Reilly and Klein, would have been history.

  A description of the overall action that took place near Neffe is provided by the authors of Rendezvous with Destiny as follows:

  Between 1900 and 1930 on the night of December 20th, the enemy struck through the fields lying between Neffe and Mont, advancing against Colonel Griswold’s left. The presence of the tank destroyers had intimidated the German armor. It took refuge in a little wooded patch lying just to the west-southwest of Neffe and from the grove it shelled Mont. The German infantry advanced under this fire. Enemy self-propelled guns moved along the railroad line next to the highway from Neffe a short distance and went to work on the same target. These two lines of fire converged on Griswold’s positions at almost right angle. The men in the forward line had to give ground, falling back on the village. The most forward of the tank destroyers, commanded by Sgt. George N. Schmidt, became their rallying point. Schmidt unloaded most of his crew and told them to join the fight with small arms. He then joined the infantry machine gunners who were already searching the bottom slopes with every automatic weapon the Battalion could bring to bear. In the next few minutes, he threw 2,000 rounds of caliber .50 at the enemy. Lt. Andrews used a radio-equipped jeep as his command post and central control station. He used his security section as ammunition carriers to feed the stuff up to whichever tank destroyer was calling for it most urgently. The other three tank destroyers, under Sgt. Darrell J. Lindley, were shooting at the railway line. They tried, at first, to spot the self-propelled guns by firing at muzzle blasts. When that failed, they put flares up over the valley. The fighting died down about 11 p.m. By that time, the three self-propelled guns were out, the defenders of Mont had no clear idea of why their automatic fire had made such a clean reaping of the German attack or of where the attack had broken. But, in the light of the next morning, December 21, they could see what had happened. The hillside between Neffe and Mont was crossed in both directions by barbed wire fences, spaced between 30 and 50 yards apart with five or six strands in each fence. In ordinary times, they were used for cattle. With the tank fire behind them, the Germans tried to come right through this fenced area without first destroying the fences in any way or equipping infantry to cut them. On coming to the fences, they tried to climb through but the spaces were small and their individual equipment bulky. Griswold’s men had perfectly clear fields of fire and so did the tank destroyers supporting them. The fences were as effective as any entanglement. The evenly spaced lines of dead told the story. They had charged right into a giant mantrap.69

  An Accented Outpost

  Being assigned to outpost duty, in front of the MLR, is not a choice assignment and having a partner who spoke with a heavy accent didn’t help when it came to returning through the line from that duly. PFC. Robert I. Wickham relates what happened one night, a few days after the initial contact with the enemy was made:

  One memory that I always get a kick out of was a night on outpost with Herman Koeppl. We were manning the outpost that had been set up on the hill above where we first encountered the tanks. In day time, the post was on the front line but after dark we moved to a fox hole about a hundred yards forward. My watch ended about 0300 and I woke Koeppl and told him to get me up before daylight so we could move back to the line under cover of darkness. I then went to sleep. I woke up in broad daylight and knew immediately that something was wrong. I was alone and no one in sight. Moving back across that field, I felt so naked that I shudder, even now, to think of it.

  I came across the first machine gun emplacement and asked them if they had seen anything of Koeppl. They didn’t know him but asked me if he spoke with a heavy accent. When I affirmed that he did they said, ‘Yeh, we captured him but when he said he was with you, we let him go and he headed back to you about an hour ago.’

  Now what? I started down the line toward 2nd Battalion, asking each man I met if anyone had seen him. But no one had. Then I saw six or seven men coming toward me. They were from 2nd Battalion and they had ‘captured’ my man. We all got a kick out of it and even Koeppl laughed.

  Herman Koeppl was born in Germany, of Jewish parents. He left Germany in 1936, I believe, and lived in New York City until the war. He came to us in 1st Battalion S-2 as a replacement while we were in Mourmelon. In my opinion, he was a good soldier but he had a problem with the English language. It was difficult to understand him. Sometimes (jokingly), we would use Fechtman as our translator.

  Dwindling Artillery Ammunition Supply

  After a day of heavy firing in support of the 501st Parachute Regiment, its artillery support battalion, the 907th Glider Field Artillery, found its supply of ammunition for the snub-nosed 105mm howitzers was running dangerously low.

  The 907th Glider Field Artillery Battalion History records the following action to find further ammunition sources for its 105mm guns.

  At 10:30 (December 20), five GMC trucks were sent to ASP (Army Supply Point), in the vicinity of St. Hubert, with instructions to bring back either M2 or M3 ammunition. These trucks returned about 1700 with 1500 rounds of M2 ammunition and stated that they had been under tank and small arms fire. At about 1500, Assistant S-4 was still trying to locate ammunition dumps with M3 ammunition. The only ammunition available at that time was 105mm M2 but the 105 M3, which was used by our type howitzer, was expected in. The maximum range with M2 is 4400 yards (charge 3) while a range of 7500 yards is considered effective with the M3 ammunition.70

  PFC. Charles W. Hogan was one of those men sent on the mission to find an ammo depot to replenish the fast disappearing stock of 105mm artillery shells. At the time he walked out of the hospital at Rheims on December 18th, he was still not one hundred percent fit for full duty. However, he felt he could handle the resupply mission. He recalled:

  We decided to go for ammunition. We had very little ammo for the 105’s, just a few rounds per gun. They asked for volunteers to go on this ammo detail. There were two or three from each of our batteries who went along. The only other one I remember from my battery was Cpl. Dwight Spotts. The tracks that were taking us to pick up the resupply of ammo were the same ones that brought us in. They were from a Quartermaster Truck Company stationed in Paris. The ammo dump was sixty to seventy miles from Bastogne. The weather wasn’t too bad when we started out—kind of dreary and foggy. That was one reason why I wanted to go on the detail. Anytime I could get away from the battery, I went. I liked riding around the countryside. We took off and headed for the ammo dump. We didn’t have any trouble getting there. Everything was in kind of a mess. No one seemed very excited. We asked for a certain kind of ammo and the fellow in charge said, ‘We don’t have any shells that are suitable for your guns—only type we have is for the regular 105.’ We, in the 907th, had the snub-nosed or short-barreled gun.

  The ammo available had seven powder charges whereas the 907th guns had only four charges. The shells could be fired in the snub-nosed gun but three charges had to be removed. PFC. Hogan continues his story:

&nbs
p; We decided to get regular 105mm ammunition and we could tear off three powder charges and go ahead and use them. Our guns weren’t safe to shoot seven charges. The guns could blow up or tear up the recoil mechanism. We picked up all the regular 105 ammo we could find and started back to the Battalion. It seems to me we had to take a different route and did a lot of detouring because the Germans were between us and Bastogne.

  It was getting dark and the small arms fire was something terrific and the engineers were blowing down trees across a highway as we came back in. I remember one place we stopped—it was late at night and there were some boys from one of the infantry regiments who ran down the road and crawled in the back of the truck with us. They were stocking-footed. One of them asked, ‘Where’s George?’ Another responded: ‘That crazy SOB stayed to put his boots on!’ They hadn’t taken the time to put their boots on and had come down the road stocking-footed and carrying their boots. They had a roadblock and they were staying at a house. They had all bedded down but one or two and the rest were out there in the road directing traffic. They said tanks were coming up the road and one of the fellows said he was out there directing which way the tanks should go and they wound up being German tanks. He took off in a big hurry.

  We got into Bastogne and it was real late. We stopped at Battalion HQ and they said we couldn’t go through Bastogne with the ammo as the Germans were shelling the town so bad and they didn’t want us to lose any of the ammo. We bedded down in a house. In a little while, they came and woke me up. They said, ‘Captain McGlone is out of ammo—we’re going to have to risk taking one truck through Bastogne and get to the gun positions with the ammo.’

  I hadn’t been paying much attention to directions as we rode in the back of the supply truck. I didn’t know the location of the batteries. Ole Spotts was alaying there fast asleep and I kicked him awake and said, ‘Spotts, wake up—Captain McGlone said for you and me to bring one load through Bastogne to the gun positions!’ I knew ole Spotts would know the way. He just got up and never said a word and away we went. About every foot of the way, through Bastogne, the shells were landing every place. I’ve never seen such a barrage and somewhere near Bastogne there was a bridge and a shell had hit there. A fellow lying along the road there with his head cut off.71

  We got to the battery position and reported in to Captain McGlone. He said, ‘Boy, am I glad to see you! We are clean out of ammunition!’ We explained to him that the ammo was not the type used for our guns and that the shells had seven powder charges and three had to be removed before they were fired through the howitzers.

  A Trip to Find Gasoline

  Besides the scarcity of artillery ammunition at this early stage, the leadership was already sensing that additional gasoline would be essential in case the troops became surrounded. Gasoline was necessary for the tanks and other armored vehicles (which had to race from one hot spot to another), jeeps, trucks, ambulances and the portable generators for making electricity throughout the command posts within the perimeter.

  As a member of the wire communication platoon of the 101st Airborne Signal Company, Cpl. Joseph Gambino had this recollection of the importance that fuel for the vehicles played in the total picture of actions in and around Bastogne. He was driving one of the trucks sent out on the 20th to find gasoline supplies. He wrote:

  I feel I was the last guy to get gasoline before we were completely cut off at Bastogne.

  With a 6 x 6 truck—don’t ask where I went because I don’t know, but I was sent down a road and through the woods to a supply area—filled the truck with five gallon cans of gas and came back through the woods—no roads—just followed tank tracks. I was stopped a couple times by the 327th boys. They said, ‘Step on the gas and don’t stop for anything else’. Shortly after that, all hell broke loose.

  Engineer Actions

  As dawn broke on the morning of December 19th, PFC Harry Sherrard and a small group of engineers had been supplied with plenty of ammunition, hand grenades and bazooka shells. They had been whisked off in the direction of Neffe and Mont where they were posted at an intersection of dirt roads. A long vigil had followed. Early on the morning of the 20th, a vehicle came on the scene and transported them to the road perimeter positions being held by “A” Company of the 326th Engineer Battalion. Sherrard wrote:

  We were dropped off in an area south of Bastogne where ‘A’ Company was starting to dig in some positions between the road to Neufchateau, across and just east of the dirt road to Assenois.

  I was positioned at an outpost at the end of a woods on the east side of the road with Eugene Walters, my ammo carrier. I had a bazooka and an M1. There was about a ten foot road cut so we dug in about five feet from the edge of the cut with a V-shaped foxhole. We placed some trip flares in the woods to the south and east of us … maybe thirty feet from our hole. It was still daylight. A command car72came up to us from Bastogne and went on toward Neufchateau. Later, a jeep with a machine gun mount along with a recon car came to our spot in the road, stopped and the officer in charge said they would let us know how far out they saw anything on their way back. A few minutes later, we heard some small arms fire down the road. Then we heard the two vehicles racing toward us on the road. They sped on by us without stopping, right on back into town. We wondered if they really saw anything.

  Later, another recon group did the same thing—we waited but no one came back. A single railroad track paralleled the road. It was about fifteen feet on the far side of the road from us.

  We heard artillery fire to the north and west of us but I think that died down on the second day. We had a telephone hook-up between our outpost and ‘A’ Company’s CP. Our CP was not more than 100 yards in front of the company line and the company CP was not very far behind it just over the dome of the rolling hill.

  The first night our trip flares went off. However, we didn’t see who or what set them off. They were set with the trip wires only about a foot off the ground. We guessed some animals had tripped them. They were reset the next day, a little higher.

  Forward Observers

  The 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion served as the support group for the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment in Normandy and Holland and would continue to serve in that capacity at Bastogne. The group had arrived at Bastogne behind the 502nd and, after a night of digging in the 75mm pack howitzers and preparing shelters for the gun crews, the forward observer teams needed to be assigned to the various battalions.

  As a forward observer, 1Lt. James A. Robinson was assigned to the 1st Battalion of the 502nd at its OP from December 22 to January 3. He has this description of the strategic post and its importance to the planners at Division Headquarters:

  This OP was the most exposed infantry outpost on the Champs defensive perimeter. It was also the most forward of any position from the MLR (about 250 yards). Here, both the 502nd PIR and 377th PFA were busy around the clock, reporting on enemy activity. With the stronger radio, the artillery observer was in contact with his own battalion artillery S-2 and S-3, as well as the artillery liaison at the 1st Bn., 502nd PIR CP, Capt. Marv Richardson.

  Since there was such a dire lack of artillery ammunition, normal massed concentrations of artillery fire in the American manner had to be held in abeyance or eked out under the strictest control. The many targets of opportunity coming into plain view further aggravated the frustration being felt not only by the artillery observer but by battalion and Division staffs astounded at the large accumulation of reports on such a wide variety of intense enemy activity. The OP offered a broad picture of three sides of the outlying bowl shaped landscape about Champs. A commanding sweep of the countryside, coupled with the wide choice of available targets within normal range, had never been experienced before. So much so, that it was only from this place that the Division staff could gain clear observation on troop movements on the important Bertogne-Sprimont perimeter road.

  Very often, as many as ten vehicles could be seen on a half-mile stretch of road
and several times as many as fourteen tanks, armored or other vehicles were reported. On looking north onto this Bertogne-Sprimont road, one could see at shorter ranges and at lower elevations the villages of Rouette and Givry, German strongholds where the enemy even held staff conferences in open view and troops could be seen milling about and tending to their daily ablutions, to use an English term. As one looked right or eastward, much of the Champs-Rouette road could be observed. This main approach, from the north, lay in the extreme eastern section of ‘A’ Company and ran straight through the company positions, becoming, itself, the village main street going past the church on the left and, after a little rise, it passed the company CP on the way toward the 502nd Regimental Headquarters at Rolle.

  Between the OP and that main road lay a broad expanse of barren ground descending for more than 600 yards. Having great depth, this snow-covered field separated much of the company’s forward elements from the enemy positions.

  For 1Lt. Jack J. Price, the assignment for his forward observer team began the very next day after the firing batteries had set up their guns in and around Savy. The team had to pick up an intelligence sergeant from Regimental Headquarters and then head out to where a patrol had spotted vehicular movement the very first night. Price wrote:

  Early the next morning, my FO team was sent to the 502nd to pick up an intelligence sergeant and he was to take us up where we could fire on some Germans. We started north, passed the 502nd outpost and continued for about two miles. There was nothing moving in the area until I saw a man behind a building, about 100 yards off the road. I stopped the jeep and we all hit the ditch. Six men came out from behind the building with their hands up. I halted them at about 25 yards. Strange—three of these guys had on 1st sergeant stripes. As my team covered the men, I went out and checked them. Sure enough, they were legit. They were 106th Division troops. The 1st sergeants were experienced vets and, when they were overrun, they were smart enough to escape and brought the other soldiers with them. I sent them on the road to the 502nd outpost.