Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  On the morning of January 2, in an effort to widen the corridor leading south, the last threat to vehicular movement along that route was removed. The men of “F” Company of the 327th Glider Regiment were attached to Team Cherry of the 10th Armored Division for a sweep of Senonchamps, the small village two miles west of Bastogne.

  One of the local residents came out of Senonchamps with a horror story as will be related by Baroness Rene Greindl.

  The 501st Regiment was preparing to go on attack in an area which included a railroad trestle between Foy and Bizory. Two troopers will tell of their actions. Another soldier was held back by his company commander from an attack scheduled for the following day.

  Clearing Senonchamps

  After a few days of rest from the hard fighting south of Bastogne and northwest of Marvie, the men of “F” Company of the 327th were moved by trucks to the Senonchamps vicinity for an effort to drive the remaining Germans from those positions. PFC. Charles Kocourek describes this action in which they had an opportunity to work with tanks for the first time:

  The next day they drove us down near Senonchamps in trucks. We were to try taking it. Two earlier attempts had failed. Sgt. Francis McCann went on a patrol into the town and returned saying it was pretty quiet. He related: ‘It doesn’t look like there are any Germans in there.’ We had three or four tanks with us. We hadn’t fought with close tank support before. I asked a tanker what do we do? He said, Take care of enemy bazookas (panzerfausts). You can ride on top or follow behind us.’ We started, guns blazing. We saw a couple soldiers race away. We let them go. We got all the way to the other side of town. There were two or three American tanks still burning—no bodies. The troops continued on, going toward a hill and shooting like mad. There was no firing coming in our direction.

  We came to what looked like a chicken coop. There was a whole pile of dead Americans inside, piled on top of each other—at least 15 to 25 of them in that little building.166

  We left that building and went down to the road, crossed over and there was an American half-track, slightly burned. I looked up into it and there was a gunner slumped over his .50 caliber machine gun—lots of shell casings strewn on the floor. He must have put up a helluva fight. One other soldier lay dead on the floor and a third man was lying beside the half-track.

  We made a circle around and came back. In the meantime, the tanks came back. They had a couple prisoners.

  Deception Turns Brutal

  An added story of enemy brutality toward the civilian population is related by Baroness Rene Greindl whose home at Ile-le-Hesse was being used as the nighttime 101st Division command post at this time. Team Cherry and “F” Company of the 327th had just cleared the remaining enemy soldiers from the village of Senonchamps. She wrote:

  On the 2nd of January, to our surprise, the Americans brought us back from Senonchamps, Mademoiselle Vernel. She told us about the terrible time she had in that neighboring village, taken by the Germans before Christmas, after a battle from house to house, in which 17 out of 25 houses were destroyed. That tiny place had been the scene of horrifying events. We had seen from the chateau the terrible bombing attacks by which the Americans intended to destroy every German sheltered in this village.

  Two men were murdered by the Germans under particularly horrid circumstances. They were father and son, and lived in the last house of the village towards Chenogne. The following details were clearly established thanks to the testimony of the next door neighbor’s child, young Picard, age ten. The boy had his evening meal at the neighbor’s house, when the village was still in the hands of the Americans. Suddenly, a jeep stopped outside the door and five Americans entered. They spoke French and seemed famished. They ate three loaves of bread and two pounds of butter. This detail alone should have struck any observant person. The Americans, well fed at the beginning of the battle, were always extremely loathe to accept the peasant’s food; in addition, few, if any, spoke French. The good peasants, overtrustful, spoke openly and made no secret of their feelings toward the enemy and openly boasted that they belonged to the White Army and had helped to feed it. The guests left during the night and the child went to his own home. The next day, the murdered bodies of father and son were found in their house. The truth was not far to seek. Once more stood revealed German treachery; the guests were not Americans, but Germans in stolen uniforms, who had come to examine the neighboring woods. They had come back during the night to wreak their vengeance on these innocent people.

  Mademoiselle had spent the last days in the stables of the principal farm, the only shelter left standing and where the sixty remaining villagers had also taken refuge. She had seen the enemy tanks firing on each other from a range of 100 yards. A man had fallen mortally wounded beside her and another had died in the battle. In this humble village of twenty-five houses, seven men were killed, apart from those already mentioned.…167

  Action Near the Railroad Trestle

  One of the actions that stands out in the memory of Pvt. James Jacobsma is an experience he had at a railroad trestle which occurred on January 2nd. He wrote:

  On or about the night of January 2nd, the platoon was a little northeast of Bastogne underneath a railroad trestle. We had set up or dug holes with two .30 caliber machine guns when the Krauts put on their biggest and last counter-offensive against us. We put out anti-personnel and anti-tank mines. The first German tanks were stopped at the bridge and that is where we held them. They halted on the grade and we kept them there all night. I fired the machine gun for two, maybe three hours. The gun got hot. Others passed me rags to keep from burning my hands. I don’t remember who was firing the other gun. When daylight came, we couldn’t believe that we had stopped so much armor and infantry. We had held them back. We felt proud and very tired.

  A machine gunner from the weapons platoon of 1st Battalion of the 501st, PFC. John C. Trowbridge was also in the action near the railroad trestle. He describes his part in the action:

  The lowly private first class is never fully informed of the battle situation and rarely is he certain as to who is on his right and who’s on the left flank. Seldom does he know the enemy’s position and strength. So it was on this day.

  My understanding was that our 1st Battalion would relieve 3rd Battalion on the line in the Bois Jacques the night before the attack. Next day, after what little rest they could get, 3rd Battalion would advance through our lines. Then 1st Battalion would pull back and remain in regimental reserve.

  The attack never got underway on the 2nd as planned. The only action that I saw that day, but never fully understood, was a half-track and a jeep with mounted anti-aircraft guns making dry runs down the slope toward the railroad tracks, then back up again.

  That night, January 2nd, our squad went forward to outpost a bridge where the Foy-Bizory road crossed a railroad which ran northeast out of Bastogne.

  At this point, the rail bed laid about 20 feet below the actual lip of the cut. The woods at our rear had trees planted in straight rows, like you would plant corn. The branches of the trees were so weighted down with snow that they nearly touched the snow-covered ground beneath. This muffled the sound of gun fire to the extent that one never knew who was firing at whom.

  We set up the gun about 50 yards to the right of the bridge, with a field of fire directly across the railroad into another woods, more dense than the one to our rear. Although we couldn’t see the road as it approached the bridge from Foy, we could cover it with fire.

  We arranged for two men to man the gun for a two-hour watch, while the other two tried to keep as warm as possible with one blanket and an overcoat in the nearby dugout. Without a doubt, this was the most frightful, the most desperate situation, it seemed to me, that I had faced up to this time.

  We only had three grenades and it should be mentioned here that, a few days before, Rasmussen has traded his Thompson for an M1 rifle. That turned out to be a big mistake. That very night, it could have made a big difference in the German ca
sualty list.

  Sometime during the night, while Rasmussen and Thornton were on watch, an enemy patrol made its way along the tracks to a point directly below the gun. It was impossible to fire without the gunners exposing themselves. They dropped the three grenades and yelled for Webb and me to get out there and help. By then, it was our carbines against their grenades and machine pistols. As the patrol disappeared into the night, I wondered what that Thompson might have done.

  A “Dear John” Letter

  Mail call is always awaited with great anticipation—and even moreso after a unit has been isolated and in continuous combat for a long period of time. Sometimes the news wasn’t good. PFC. Seth O. Berry describes such a piece of mail:

  When Patton broke through to us and we received our mail, there was a letter from my wife’s aunt to the effect that my wife had started living with a man who was married and had four children. She had broken up his marriage. Two days later, I received a letter from her asking me to get a divorce from my wife. I took this letter and went back to company headquarters. I let Captain (Harry) Howard read both of the letters. I also told him that if I was killed that I sure didn’t want my wife to get my insurance. We went back to personnel and he typed up a letter to this effect. He told me that it was not legal to do this, but to send all of this to my mother in case she (my wife) tried to collect it and go to court. He didn’t think there was a court in the United States that would let her have it. Captain Howard and I went back to company headquarters. We were supposed to jump off in an attack the following morning. He looked at me and told me to stay there with him and the first sergeant. I looked at him and said, ‘Captain Howard, if you think that I am going to commit suicide, you are mistaken’. He looked at me, grinning, and said, ‘No, I don’t think so, but I won’t take the chance so you just stay here with me’.

  CHAPTER 16

  JANUARY 3, 1945

  On this day the fighting would be particularly fierce in the 2nd Battalion of the 502nd Parachute Regiment front at Longchamps where the enemy attempt to move south was stopped by the combined efforts of infantry, antitank, armor and artillery. The most valuable prisoner of war taken by the 101st during any of its campaigns is part of this chapter.

  To the east, in the Bois Jacques (Jack’s Woods), a unit of the 506th was hit hard by a heavy barrage as it returned to its former positions. Several key noncoms were lost and the company commander showed the first signs of cracking from the strains of battle.

  Using American uniforms and driving a jeep, enemy soldiers penetrated the lines of the 501st and hijacked an armored vehicle.

  Troops of the 501st Regiment were locked in several fierce battles as the troops attacked and retreated, fighting from one plantation to another.

  2nd Battalion Hit Hard at Longchamps

  To the northwest of Bastogne, along a 7,000 yard arc running outward from the villages of Champs, Longchamps, Monaville and Sonne-Fontaine, the 502nd Parachute Regiment was holding with all three battalions on line. As has been extensively reported thus far, 1st Battalion was on the left in the Champs vicinity; 2nd Battalion faced north in front of Longchamps and Monaville while 3rd Battalion covered the area northeast from Monaville to Recogne where its troops tied in with the 506th Regiment.

  In the 2nd Battalion sector, Captain Earl Hendricks, with “F” Company, was in reserve. Additional support for 2nd Battalion was provided by “C” Battery of the 81st Anti-Tank Battalion of the 101st with five 57mm guns. Also in a supporting role were troops of the 705th TD Battalion with eight of its tank destroyers.

  The description of the action beginning on what looked like a quiet day is found in the division history, Rendezvous with Destiny of the fighting taking place on the 2nd Battalion front:

  It was looking like the beginning of a quiet afternoon on this front when, at 1310, the phone rang in the CP of the 502nd’s Company D. ‘I hear something.’ It was Sgt. Lawrence J. Silva calling in from the outpost line. A few minutes later he called back. ‘I can see fourteen tanks.’ Then there were eighteen. Then there were twenty. Then more. Finally, his voice came: ‘I can’t tell you any more.’ ‘Why not?’ ‘There’s a tank right over me. I’m lying flat on my stomach.’ A day or two later he was found that way in his hole, dead.

  The attack was not unexpected; for several days patrols had been returning with reports of an obvious buildup, chiefly in the section north and northwest of Longchamps, which was the center of the 502nd position and was held by 2nd Battalion. Heavy traffic had been observed on the main east-west highway between Compogne and Bertogne within mortar range of the front lines. But when 2nd Battalion got Sgt. Silva’s first report they could only estimate, due to the heavy fog, the strength and intentions of the enemy force by sound and not by sight.

  The first report received by Division twenty minutes after the tanks were heard on the 2nd Battalion front, said that there were fourteen enemy tanks in front of Lt. Bud Rainey’s Company D and asked for tank destroyers. Actually, an estimated thirty to forty tanks, mostly Mark IV’s, and a battalion of infantry were there in the mist.

  The enemy armor had come down the road which runs south from Compogne to Longchamps. On reaching the crossroads north of Monaville and just beyond the 2nd Battalion’s lines, the tanks had fanned out for the attack. In a well planned maneuver six of the tanks moved west across the front of Company D, crossed the Bertogne-Longchamps highway and, from the west side of the road, set up and maintained a base of fire throughout the attack. Their fire was very effective against both the anti-tank guns and automatic weapons defending the sector. Meanwhile, five other tanks moved to a point approximately four hundred yards northwest of Longchamps in front of Company E, went into position, and added to the fire of the six tanks. Though these eleven tanks never moved forward the fire from their cannon and machine guns, spraying over the 2nd Battalion area, kept the paratroopers down in their foxholes and handicapped their efforts to do anything about the main attacking force.

  Some of the officers who had fought since Normandy thought the afternoon set a high in courage. The Germans had enough tanks to use them to shoot or rout or gas out individual riflemen. Tanks would stop over foxholes and pivot with the hole as the point of the pivot. Often, the hardness of the frozen ground and the depth of the hole would thwart the tank’s action; then the man would rise and fire on the following German infantry. Sometimes the tank would return and park over the hole and gun its motor, flooding the paratrooper with carbon monoxide. The man could only lie and take it; but if he was still living when the tank finally went on, he would again get up and look for targets against which his rifle might be effective. It was a day productive of fear, frustrations and bravery. PFC. Bruno J. Mecca of Company D, whose hole on the outpost line was early overrun, came back to the CP that night with tears in his eyes: ‘I’ll fight any son-of-a-bitch, but I can’t fight those goddamn tanks with a carbine.’

  There was one man on the Company D front that day who did not stay in a foxhole. He was Warren Cobbett, a medic attached to the company. All afternoon Cobbett moved about in the open, picking up and bringing in the wounded. To many a man there, he was the hero of the day.168

  On a day when “F” Company would suffer staggering losses, there was one soldier at a bazooka position who gave the Germans all they could handle and then some. PFC. E. O. Parmley relates the story of how his buddy, Pvt. Ray “Calfboy” Blasingame earned his Silver Star at Bastogne:

  It is daylight, January 3, 1945. An order is snouted and relayed all along the ‘F’ Company line—‘All bazooka teams on line—a tank attack is imminent!’

  The ground is covered with four to six inches of snow. ‘Calfboy’ looks for a position of concealment. There is none—the ground is flat and treeless. He spies a mount of dirt about 50 yards in front of the ‘F’ Company line. It is a square hole about three feet wide and three feet deep—a previously dug German hole, Calfboy says, ‘they dig square holes to match their helmets. We dig round ones, not so muc
h work.’ He heads for the hole. Ray Gary, the pack mule for the bazooka, follows.

  It is about noon when the monotonous funeral music of tank motors is heard. They come into view slowly, four abreast parallel to the line. The turret guns fire as suspect targets appear on the line. The tank nearest our lines is coming directly toward Calfbby’s hole as they are fifty yards in front of the line. Concealment is the only chance for them. A shot to the front of the tank is useless. With its slow pace, the tank is thorough in its search for targets or possible danger spots. Calfboy’s position is spotted when the tank is forty to fifty yards from them. The first shot explodes behind them. The next one hits the front of the mound, blowing them, along with a large amount of dirt, halfway out of the hole. Gary yells, ‘we’ve got to get out of here! We’ve got to get out of here!’

  Calfboy yells, ‘We stay, get back in the hole!’ The tank continues its agonizing crawl, possibly its commander was thinking the occupants of the hole are out of action. The tank passes within ten to fifteen feet of the hole.

  Resting the bazooka on the edge of the hole, Calfboy fires when the rear of the tank is exposed. The tank goes up in flames and smoke. Two men emerge. No one seems to know what happened to them. There are other tanks to attend to. Calfboy fires five more shells. One hits a tank but does not explode. Gary failed to pull the pin, although after each shot Calfboy yells, ‘Pull the pin!’ There are three hits on the remaining tanks. One shot is a miss. Calfboy is credited with half a tank on the three remaining, which are knocked out also. The battle lasted thirty to forty-five minutes. A new battle line is formed as German artillery will try to avenge their four lost tanks.

  Sgt. Burt Ellard was in the same squad of the 2nd Platoon with PFC. E. O. Parmley and Ray Blasingame. Ellard claims he activated the first round for Blasingame’s bazooka before “Calfboy” headed for the foxhole in front of the company’s positions. This is the way he describes the bazooka action: