Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  Just as they arrived, I had finished my adjustment on the tanks and was asking for ‘fire for effect’. Battalion gave me all they had. I remember one round went right into the hatch of a tank and it exploded the ammo within. General Patton, with his way of speaking, said, ‘Now by God, that is good firing!’ We knocked out two of them and the rest moved out. We had no further trouble from that group of tanks. By this time, the attack on 2nd Battalion had subsided and I returned to Bastogne.164

  CHAPTER 14

  DECEMBER 31

  A Tree Patch Outpost

  Agrowth of evergreen trees, divided into sections by fire lanes, was located at the top of the highest point of ground west of Champs. It was the location of lLt. Jim Robinson’s artillery outpost during the fighting at Christmas time when “A” Company of the 502nd Regiment occupied the positions. The Germans had driven the observers and outpost members from the heights during the early morning fighting on Christmas Day. Robinson had worked his way back toward the abandoned outpost while “C” Company went about trying to wrest the valuable position from the enemy in position up there now. After calling a heavy artillery barrage down on the enemy, Robinson had sent the enemy soldiers scurrying to their former positions north and west of the hillside. By the end of the day, the OP was back in friendly hands though much the worst for wear.

  “Oscar”

  Continuing in his role as artillery observer for the 502nd Regiment’s 1st Battalion, Lt. Robinson was now with “C” Company which had relieved “A” Company in the positions west and northwest of Champs. Robinson describes the appearance of the hilltop after the heavy shellings and an unusual way the men had of placing position markers out in front of the foxholes.

  On the 31st of December, the date of the attack on Sgt. Black’s Company ‘C’ position, the OP position would clearly show the bullet-torn tree trunks, broken limbs, and mangled underbrush resulting from enemy mortar and artillery fire, as well as from fire fights involving small arms and grenades. Such actions against this position had also occurred daily during Company ‘A’s’ occupation of the OP December 22nd through December 28th prior to Company ‘C’ taking over the area. Retaking the CP on Christmas Day had been a substantial undertaking. Therefore, it was plain that the enemy also prized what this location had to offer and wanted it badly. The frozen enemy dead accumulating on the small space in front had been pre-arranged in the still of the night to serve as directional markers. One was stood upright in a foxhole, pointing skyward and was called OSCAR in honor of the paratrooper’s mascot jumping dummy. OSCAR held the central point of the little snow-covered field of fire and, when darkness came in close around and suspected infiltrators could not be located in the fog, one could always whisper to a buddy, ‘He is to the left or right of ‘OSCAR’. After many hushed exchanges, artillery fire could then be placed in that direction and onto the pockets hidden from view. Then, if harassment continued, one or two guns shooting time fire could be brought in as close to the edge of the thicket as safety would allow. Enemy positions were so close that the artillery radio picked up German transmissions quite clearly.

  On New Year’s Eve, Sgt. Layton Black’s “C” Company squad was up there as the snow continued to fall. It was the kind of night when an enemy patrol could probe the area and possibly make an attempt to recapture the location. All the while an artillery barrage was coming over the hill with most of the shells landing among the houses in Champs. During moments of extreme tension, the senses tend to be overly acute. The eyes play tricks and sounds are magnified.

  In their two-man foxhole situated near the hilltop, Sgt. Layton Black and Cpl. Marvin Milligan were anticipating an attack at any moment. Black wrote:

  Back in our foxhole at the machine gun, the two of us were certain now that we saw something move out in front of us. The words ‘Open fire!’ were only a breath away from my lips. All that held me back from saying them was that we both didn’t see it at the same time. It was like Milligan saying, ‘Black, did you see that?’ ‘No, where?’—‘There!’ ‘What was it?’ ‘Something moved!’—‘I didn’t see anything, can you still see it?’ ‘No.’ Then it was my turn to see something. ‘Hey Milligan, what was that?’—‘Where?’—‘Over there!’—‘You mean, right there?’—‘No, over more to my left’—‘Oh! That’s that bush again—I think.’—‘Did you hear it, or did you see it, Sergeant?’ ‘I thought I saw something. It must have been that bush. Yeh, that’s what it was. Man, I almost pulled the trigger on this air-cooled baby that time!’

  During the night of sporadic shelling by the enemy, “C” Company’s commander called his outpost, manned by Sgt. Layton Black and Cpl. Marvin Milligan, asking where the 88mm shells were landing in Champs and particularly how close the explosions were to the command post. With the snow and foggy conditions at the time, the two outposted soldiers had no idea as to where the shells were exploding. The inquiries from the jittery commander had been going on ever since the barrage started earlier. The two men were worried about the possibility of enemy soldiers trying to sneak up on their position.

  When soldiers want to communicate with the sound power telephone between two positions, they often whistled into the phone to get the attention of the person at the other end. The whistling sound carried long distances at night.

  The two soldiers were acutely aware of the possibility there was an enemy soldier close enough to their position to actually hear the whistling sound coming from the other end of the line and could thereby determine the exact location of their foxhole.

  By midnight, Sgt. Black was all talked out and turned the phone over to Milligan who had already become extremely annoyed listening to his sergeant having to respond to every artillery explosion that landed in Champs—and there was no way of knowing where those hits were occurring in relation to the buildings. Milligan allowed his annoyance with his captain to show. Black wrote:

  Let me say a new voice must have been a very welcome sound to everyone back of the line. Everyone who was tuned in to us got the message except the company commander. The message, of course, was that we did not want to make a sound, let alone have to talk. Hell, we were faced with the real threat of a German patrol which was just counting on us to make some kind of noise.

  But to the captain, who had set up ‘C’ Company’s CP in one of the better houses (still standing) in the center of Champs, our ‘tree patch’ outpost was ‘his’ listening post and by God he was going to use it as such—and did so.

  Milligan had been on the phone for over an hour responding to the query of his commander, who asked, ‘Where did that one hit?’ after each explosion.

  Suddenly, out of the dead silence, came the damndest whistling noise I have ever heard. It came blaring out of our foxhole. It made the hair stand up on the back of my neck. I am sure that the Germans heard it in Givry (small town to the north). All of my men heard it all the way to the haystack. That was the straw that did it!

  That was it. With the question repeated three times, Corporal Milligan sat up still and straight as a board and, speaking as clearly as I’ve ever heard anyone talk, stated ‘Right on top of the damn Company CP!’

  While the company commander screamed into his phone demanding to know who was giving him sass and smart-ass responses, the questioning was cut short when Sgt. Black ordered his men to commence firing. The order to start firing was in response to Milligans answer to the commander’s last question. Black wrote:

  I pulled Milligan down into the foxhole and yelled, ‘Open fire!’ With that, I held the trigger down on the machine gun. As I did, everybody else opened up. I threw several hand grenades and so did everybody else.

  I don’t know how long we had been firing when Cpl. Milligan came to his senses and asked me, ‘What in the hell happened?’ I said, ‘That last batch of 88’s hit the company CP, so I opened up on these damn Germans!’ Cpl. Milligan said to me, ‘Are you shitten me Sergeant—the Germans hit our Company CP?’ ‘Hell yes, I’m sure,’ I said. ‘How the hell
do you know?’ he asked. ‘By God, because you said so!’ I replied.

  In between laughing, firing and throwing hand grenades, no Germans got through to us in our ‘tree patch’ on this night. We must have kept firing for a half hour. Then, all quiet until 0400 hours.

  We used up two boxes of machine gun ammo; all of our hand grenades and half of our rifle ammo. However, we had yet to fire our bazooka. We had made it through that German attempt to capture us, but I was sure daylight would bring worse.

  Suddenly, it was quiet for the men of Black’s squad. They needed the next two hours of quiet. They had spent the night peering ahead as the wind drove the snow into their faces. The conditions had been ideal for an enemy patrol to sneak up to their positions. They hadn’t seen a soul out to their front. Nobody got any sleep though the men were dead tired… Black explains why:

  Sleep would have come if it had not been for the sound of a wounded German soldier’s moan. Out in front of us, so very close, he was to die slowly. Yet, in so doing, he surely saved my men’s lives. He was the only proof we had that the Germans had been out there on this night, for we were yet to see them.

  After continuously shelling the village for many hours, which was most likely diversionary so as to allow their snow-caped patrols to penetrate the ‘C’ Company outposts and positions along the hilltop, heavy shelling of the entire 1st Battalion front began before daybreak. One of those shells severed the telephone line from Black’s position to the platoon sergeant in Champs. Leaving Milligan on the machine gun, Black started back along the wire, tracing it to its break. The break was such that the two ends couldn’t be pulled together and spliced. He had to go all the way back to the command post. Black continues his story:

  The platoon sergeant told me to go by way of the company CP and pick up an artillery lieutenant from Division Artillery. He was going with me to the ‘tree patch’ as the observer for the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion.

  As I went by the CP, picking up a Lt. James Robinson, I saw the first sergeant, Robert Grotjan. I said to him, ‘I heard that the Jerries landed a direct hit in here last night.’ All he answered was—‘How in the hell do you know about that?’

  As Sgt. Black, accompanied by Lt. Robinson, returned to the tree patch position, he pondered the news he had received about Sgt. Bill “Big Holly” Hollingsworth’s squad which was now being reported as missing. He had also learned of the death of another company favorite and learned of the other company casualties and the discovery of additional dead enemy soldiers found in front of the positions. Black continued his story:

  On the way up the hill, I kept thinking about Holly and his squad. I had also been told about Haddick’s death. Sgt. Howard had said that he hadn’t heard from any of Holly’s squad since last night. I quickened my steps up the hill now for the thought of those three dead German soldiers came back to mind. I remembered, too, those last words about our losses (one officer and two EM’s dead—four wounded). I wondered if Holly had trouble. But, try as hard as I could, I didn’t remember hearing any small arms firing from over on my left flank. I was almost running up that long hill west of Champs now. I heard someone behind me say, ‘What’s the big hurry Sergeant?’

  When I reached Sgt Griffith’s mortar dugout, Sgt. Howard told me that Holly and his whole squad were gone. ‘Damn it Black, they ain’t there!’ He had taken a look and found no one in their foxholes. I was stunned. I had to look for myself. It was true. No one was left.

  What had happened? Everything was still in place around each foxhole. Even rifles and machine guns were still in place. All the ammo, plus their bedding, was still in each foxhole. It looked like they had just crawled out of their sacks. Hell—they had all been captured in their sleep!

  If so, I was mad. ‘Damn it!’ Cpl. Milligan, Sgt. Bird and I, with all of our men, had fought all night—well, not in the true sense. But we had been under the gun and we damned well hadn’t shut our eyes. I’ll be a son-of-a- bitch if I hadn’t lost three men while these guys were asleep! My mind raced on for the answer and I was mad.

  By the time I reached the tree patch outpost, the artillery officer had already set up his big radio. He had started to call in the big stuff—even the 155mm stuff. From the hill at our tree patch we could see some of the German soldiers on foot moving off this hill way down in front of us. They were off to the left of us somewhat but very much in our view. While the lieutenant was still talking, over went the barrage. Man, that was something to watch. The 377th troopers sure let those Krauts have it. While this was going on, our platoon medic was taking care of the wounded. Some would be done with war.

  The enemy artillery barrages which had been hitting the 1st Battalion positions in and around Champs were not the only positions on the 502nd perimeter being hit. In the Longvilly area where he was busy evacuating wounded in the woods as the result of the shelling, lLt. Henry Barnes has this recollection of how an incoming shell can have a surprising effect on a soldier who is screaming and crying in pain. As the medical evacuation officer from the 326th Medical Company attached to the 502nd, Barnes was attending the wounded man in the woods on New Year’s Day. He wrote:

  New Year’s Day brought on a new reaction. We started on the attack. We spent most of our time in dense pine woods. I don’t know where we were most of the time. I remember once trying to calm one man who was screaming and crying. I was sitting on him, straddling him, trying to inject some morphine with one of our syrettes when an artillery short whistled into the trees above us. You could tell by the erratic whistling, it wasn’t a good one. Next to us was a dugout built underground with pine log cover.

  There was a 16-inch opening through which this soldier disappeared as the shell exploded. He must have scared the hell out of the soldiers he dove on. He certainly was faster than I who was left sitting in the snow. These upset men seemed to sense danger sooner and reacted faster.

  Back at the tree patch area, Sgt. Black had gone to look at the empty foxholes in Sgt. Hollingsworth’s sector. He tried to figure out what had taken place. He also stopped by Sgt. Willis O. Bird’s machine gun position and learned of action which occurred at the time he was tracing the broken telephone line. Black added:

  As I came from Holly’s position back to my tree patch outpost, I stopped by Sgt. Bird’s gun crew to see how he had made out. They had a close call sometime after the haystack had burned out. It must have been about the time I reached Sgt. Howard’s foxhole.

  As near as Bird and I could put the pieces together, this is what happened to him. Those Germans who had slipped to the far left of my tree patch, because of the haystack fire no doubt, had then come upon Holly’s squad. Finding them easy prey, the Jerries became even more bold. But, they ran into Griffith and Howard next, and they were not so easy. Three dead so quick must have forced them to think about saving their prisoner catch. Thus, they started back down the hill toward their lines. But, one Jerry came too close to Bird’s gun crew.

  Over in the tree patch where Cpl. ‘Jump Knife’ Milligan was then alone, he saw the Jerry at the same time as Sgt. Bird. He ran and jumped into Bird’s foxhole (with him) to help out. Sgt. W. O. Bird yelled to his machine gunner to swing his gun to the rear and open fire. The boy was a new trooper named Kelley. He turned in plenty of time to see the German bearing down on him. Kelley froze and did not fire. Bird and Milligan did. But, it was too late for Kelley. He was wounded. The rest of the Jerries hurried off with their prisoners.

  Back at the tree patch outpost, Cpl. Hartman was putting in my new telephone line. He was also running new wire from Sgt. Griffith’s post on down into Champs to our platoon CP. Still coming over my head was the good stuff of the 377th. Now Lt. Robinson was giving the Germans hell all over the valley out in front of me. He certainly had them on the run and was paying them back double for last night.

  While moving around investigating his squad members on the outpost and checking the phone line to see it was clear to platoon, Sgt. Layton Black was called by
Lt. Robinson to come up to his OP position. Black wrote:

  It must have been some time after 1000 hours (New Year’s Day) when the artillery officer called me to come back to the top of the hill where he was located. As I reached the top of the hill near him, I heard some rifle fire off to the south. It was more over in Sgt. Hollingsworth’s area than mine, or where he had been. It was a single rifle firing—Pow-Pow-Pow! I asked the lieutenant what was going on. He told me to look down there and pointed to one trooper seated in the snow down the hill.

  That long range rifle marksman was none other than Sgt. William T. “Big Holly” Hollingsworth who had somehow eluded the enemy and was now firing at the last retreating form in the distance. Black continues describing the marksmanship he witnessed:

  The officer then let me use his powerful field glasses. I saw clearly that Holly was firing at a German soldier who was at least six hundred yards away.

  I watched at least five shots through the field glasses as they hit on either side of the German. The German was down in the snow. One of Holly’s shots would land to the left and the German would roll over to his right. The next shot landed right and the German rolled back left; so on it went for those five shots.

  I handed the glasses back to the lieutenant and a short time later he yelled, ‘He got him, he got him, men!’ Then a cheer went up from everyone on our hillside.

  Sgt. Black then walked part way down the hill, calling to Holly to get back up to the platoon positions. Then Black got a surprise. He wrote:

  With the sound of my voice, he stood up and said, ‘That you, Black? I thought they got you too!’ As he came near me I saw right away what was wrong—hell—Holly had been drinking! I knew Holly better than anyone else and something had to have happened to him for him to take that kind of a chance with his own life. He had to be drunk—and he was.