The Victors: Eisenhower and His Boys

by Stephen E. Ambrose

  * * *

  1. Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 422.

  2. Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 462.

  11

  “They Got Us Surrounded—the Poor Bastards”

  BASTOGNE

  December 19–31, 1944

  ON DECEMBER 19 Easy went into the line south of Foy as one part of the ring defense of Bastogne. It was, in effect, one of the wagons in the circle. Inside were the 101st Airborne, Combat Command B of the 10th Armored, plus the 463d Field Artillery Battalion. Against this force the Germans launched as many as fifteen divisions, four of them armored, supported by heavy artillery.

  The fighting was furious and costly. During the nineteenth and twentieth, the 1st Battalion of the 506th, supported by Team Desobry of the 10th Armored, engaged the 2d Panzer Division at Noville, northeast of Foy. When the battalion pulled back beyond Foy on the twentieth, it had lost thirteen officers and 199 enlisted men (out of about 600). Together with Team Desrobry, it had destroyed at least thirty enemy tanks and inflicted casualties of between 500 and 1,000. Most important, it had held for forty-eight hours while the defense was being set up around Bastogne.

  Easy and the other companies badly needed the time, as the situation in the defensive perimeter was fluid and confused. Easy’s left was on the Bastogne-Noville road, linked to 3d Battalion on the other side. Dog Company, on the right flank of 2d Battalion, extended to the railroad station at Halt, but it was not linked to the 501st PIR. Winters worried that the battalion was not in the right position; he sent Nixon back to regimental HQ to check; Nixon returned to say the battalion was where it was supposed to be.

  Easy’s position was in a wood looking out on a grazing field that sloped down to the village of Foy, about a kilometer away. The trees were pines, 8 to 10 inches in diameter, planted in rows. The men dug foxholes to form a Main Line of Resistance a few meters inside the woods, with outposts on the edge. Winters set up battalion HQ just behind the company at the south edge of the woods. The first night on the MLR was quiet, even peaceful; the fighting was to the north, in Noville, 4 kilometers away.

  At dawn on December 20, a heavy mist hung over the woods and fields. Winters rose and looked around. To his left he saw a German soldier in his long winter overcoat emerge from the woods. He had no rifle, no pack. He walked to the middle of a clearing. Two men with Winters instinctively brought their rifles to their shoulders, but he gave them a hand signal to hold their fire. The Americans watched as the German took off his overcoat, pulled down his pants, squatted, and relieved himself. When he was finished, Winters hollered in his best German, “Kommen sie hier!” The soldier put up his hands and walked over to surrender. Winters went through his pockets; all he had were a few pictures and the end of a loaf of hard black bread.

  “Think of this,” Winters commented. “Here is a German soldier, in the light of early dawn, who went to take a crap, got turned around in the woods, walked through our lines, past the company CP and ended up behind the Battalion CP! That sure was some line of defense we had that first night!”

  German soldiers were not the only ones who got lost that day. Medic Ralph Spina and Pvt. Ed “Babe” Heffron went back into Bastogne to scrounge up some medical supplies. At the aid station Spina got some of what he needed (the 101st was already running low on medical supplies, a major problem). The two E Company men grabbed a hot meal, and although they hated to leave the stove, with darkness coming on, they set out for the line.

  Heffron suggested a shortcut across a wooded area. Spina agreed. Heffron led the way. Suddenly he fell into a hole. There was a shout of surprise. Then a voice called out from under Heffron, “Hinkle, Hinkle, ist das du?”

  Heffron came barreling out of the foxhole and took off in the opposite direction, yelling, “Hinkle Your Ass, Kraut!” He and Spina got reoriented and finally found the E Company CP.

  (Spina, who recalled the incident, concluded: “To this day every time I see Babe, I ask him how Hinkle is feeling or if he has seen Hinkle lately.”)

  The medics were the most popular, respected, and appreciated men in the company. Their weapons were first-aid kits, their place on the line was wherever a man called out that he was wounded. Lieutenant Foley had special praise for Pvt. Eugene Roe. “He was there when he was needed, and how he got ‘there’ you often wondered. He never received recognition for his bravery, his heroic servicing of the wounded. I recommended him for a Silver Star after a devastating fire-fight when his exploits were typically outstanding. Maybe I didn’t use the proper words and phrases, perhaps Lieutenant Dike didn’t approve, or somewhere along the line it was cast aside. I don’t know. I never knew except that if any man who struggled in the snow and the cold, in the many attacks through the open and through the woods, ever deserved such a medal, it was our medic, Gene Roe.”

  • • •

  On December 20 what was left of the 1st Battalion of the 506th and Team Desobry pulled back from Noville and went into reserve. Easy awaited an attack that did not come; the damage inflicted by 1st Battalion was so great that the Germans made their assaults on other sectors of the defensive perimeter. Easy underwent artillery and mortar bombardments, but no infantry attack.

  On December 21, it snowed, a soft, dry snow. It kept coming, 6 inches, 12 inches. The temperature fell to well below freezing, the wind came up, even in the woods. The men were colder than they had ever been in their lives. They had only their jump boots and battle dress with trench coats. No wool socks, no long underwear. Runners went into Bastogne and returned with flour sacks and bed sheets, which provided some warmth and camouflage. In the foxholes and on the outposts, men wrapped their bodies in blankets and their boots in burlap. The burlap soaked up the snow, boots became soggy, socks got wet, the cold penetrated right into the bones. Shivering was as normal as breathing. The men looked like George Washington’s army at Valley Forge, except that they were getting fired upon, had no huts, and warming fires were out of the question.

  Col. Ralph Ingersoll, an intelligence officer with First Army, described the penetrating cold: “Riding through the Ardennes, I wore woolen underwear, a woolen uniform, armored force combat overalls, a sweater, an armored force field jacket with elastic cuffs, a muffler, a heavy lined trenchcoat, two pairs of heavy woolen socks, and combat boots with galoshes over them—and I cannot remember ever being warm.”1

  For the men of Easy, without decent socks and no galoshes, feet always cold and always wet, trench foot quickly became a problem. Corporal Carson remembered being taught that the way to prevent trench foot was to massage the feet. So he took off his boots and massaged his feet. A German shell came in and hit a tree over his foxhole. Splinters tore up his foot and penetrated his thigh. He was evacuated back to Bastogne.

  At the hospital set up in the town, “I looked around and never saw so many wounded men. I called a medic over and said, ‘Hey, how come you got so many wounded people around here? Aren’t we evacuating anybody?’ ”

  “Haven’t you heard?” the medic replied.

  “I haven’t heard a damn thing.”

  “They’ve got us surrounded—the poor bastards.”

  General McAuliffe saw to it the wounded had booze for comfort. A medic gave Carson a bottle of crème de menthe. “I didn’t even know what it was, but to this day I have liked crème de menthe.” The Luftwaffe bombed the town that night. Carson remembered to get on his hands and knees for the concussion. He got sick. “Thank God for that helmet. I had already had about half that crème de menthe. It was all green in my helmet.”

  For the most part, all the men of Easy had to eat was K rations, and not enough of those had been distributed back at Mourmelon. The company cooks tried to bring a hot meal up after darkness, but by the time they reached the men in the foxholes, the food was cold. Mainly it consisted of white navy beans which, according to Sergeant Rader, “caused gastronomical outbursts that were something to behold.” Cook Joe Domingus found some shortening and cornmea
l, which he turned into corn fritters, also stone cold by the time they arrived. The men mixed the lemonade packet in their K rations with snow to make a dessert.

  On the line, the days were miserable, the nights worse. The shelling was not continuous, the machine-gun fire directed at the Americans was sporadic, but snipers were active through the day. At night, the ominous silence would be broken by the nerve-racking hammering of enemy mortars, followed by cries from the wounded and calls to man the positions in preparation for an attack. Then another ominous silence.

  Every two hours, the platoon sergeants would wake two men in a foxhole and lead them to the outpost (OP) position, to relieve the men on duty. “The trip out to the OP was always eerie,” Christenson remembered. “You eyed all silhouettes suspiciously, skeptical of any sound. Reluctantly, you approach the OP. The silhouettes of the men in their positions are not clear . . . . Are they Germans? The suspense is always the same . . . then finally you recognize an American helmet. Feeling a little ridiculous, yet also relieved, you turn around and return to the main line, only to repeat the entire process in another two hours.”

  In the foxholes, the men tried to get some sleep, difficult to impossible given the cramped conditions (usually 6 feet by 2 feet by 3 or 4 feet deep, for two men). At least lying together allowed the men to exchange body heat. Heffron and Pvt. Al Vittore did manage to get to sleep the second night out. Heffron woke when Vittore threw his heavy leg over his body. When Vittore started to rub Heffron’s chest, Heffron gave him a shot with his elbow in his belly. Vittore woke and demanded to know what the hell was going on. Heffron started to give him hell in return; Vittore grinned and said he had been dreaming about his wife.

  “Al,” Heffron said, “I can’t help you, as I got combat boots, jump pants, and my trench coat on, and they are not coming off.”

  In other foxholes, men talked to relieve the tension. Sergeant Rader and Pvt. Don Hoobler came from the same town on the banks of the Ohio River. “Don and I would talk all night about home, our families, people and places, and what the hell were we doing in a predicament like this?” Spina recalled discussing with his foxhole mate “politics, the world’s problems, plus our own. Wishing we had a drink or a hot meal, preferably in that order. We talked about what we were going to do when we got home, about a trip to Paris in a couple of weeks, go to the Follies. Mainly we talked about going home.”

  Sergeant Toye, back from hospital, didn’t like the silence at night between mortar attacks. To break it, he would sing. “I’ll Be Seeing You” was his favorite. Heffron told him to cut it, that the Krauts would surely hear him. Toye sang anyway. According to Heffron, “Joe was a hellu’va better soldier than singer.”

  • • •

  Sitting in front-line foxholes was bad, being an OP was worse, going on combat patrol looking for a fight was the worst. But it had to be done. It was the inability of VIII Corps to patrol aggressively, due to insufficient manpower, that had led to the December 16 surprise when the Germans attacked in far greater force than anyone anticipated.

  On December 21 Lieutenant Peacock sent Sergeant Martin to the various foxholes of 1st platoon. At each one holding a sergeant or a corporal, Martin announced, “I want all N.C.O.s back at the platoon CP—now.”

  The men gathered. Lieutenant Peacock, the platoon leader, as tense as ever, stopped the grumbling: “At ease. Battalion wants a platoon to go on a combat patrol, and we have been elected to be that platoon.” He paused. No one spoke. Peacock went on, “We know the Krauts are in the woods in front of our MLR, but we don’t know how many, or where their MLR or OPs are located. It’s our job to acquire that information, and to capture some prisoners, if possible.”

  Questions came in a torrent. “What’s the plan of attack?” Sergeant Christenson, leader of 1st squad, wanted to know.

  “How will the squads be positioned?” asked Sergeant Muck of the mortar squad.

  “What happens when we lost contact in those woods?” wondered 2d squad leader Sergeant Randleman.

  Peacock did not have any ready answers. “You’ll know more of what you’re going to do when we reach the woods,” was all he could think to say. Son of a bitch, Christenson thought to himself. This is going to be another SNAFU operation, with not enough information to fill a peapod.

  “We move out at 1300 hours,” Peacock concluded.

  Damn, was Christenson’s thought. We are being led by Mister Indecision himself; to infiltrate into the German lines without a good plan is a tremendous, bungling, tactical error. But when he met with his squad, he kept his thoughts to himself. He told the men to draw ammunition and be ready to jump off at 1300.

  At 1200, 1st platoon fell back a few meters from the MLR and gathered around Father Maloney, who had his Communion set out. He announced that he was giving a general absolution. After the men who wanted one received their Communion wafer, he wished them “Good luck.”

  Just before 1300, the platoon assembled in the woods behind the MLR. Peacock looked to Christenson “like a frightened rabbit.” He had no special orders to give, offered no clarification about a plan. He just announced, “All right, men, let’s move out.”

  The platoon moved to the extreme right flank of the battalion, along the railroad tracks. It moved through D Company’s position and began advancing toward the Germans, the tracks to the right, the woods to the left. It proceeded slowly, moving in column, stopping frequently. Some 200 meters beyond the MLR, Peacock called the N.C.O.s forward. He gave his orders: each squad would form a column of twos, abreast of one another, send out two scouts on point, and proceed into the woods until contact was made.

  The platoon plunged into the woods. Immediately, the columns lost touch with each other, the squads lost touch with their scouts. The snow was soft, not crunchy, and the silence complete. It was broken by a short burst from a German machine-gun. Pvt. John Julian, a scout for 2d squad, was hit in the neck and Pvt. James Welling, scouting for 3d squad, was also hit.

  The machine-gunners from Easy set up their weapons and prepared to return fire. Pvt. Robert Burr Smith of 1st squad opened up with a long burst in the direction of the German fire base. When he paused, the Germans let loose another burst of their own. Christenson shouted for Martin. No answer. For Randleman. No answer. For Peacock. No answer. Only more German fire.

  The 1st platoon’s being decimated! Christenson thought. He shouted again. Bull Randleman came through the woods to answer. “Have you seen Martin or Peacock?” Randleman had not. Another burst of machine-gun fire cut through the trees.

  “We have got to make a move,” Randleman said. He joined Chris in calling for Martin. No answer. “Let’s get the hell out of here,” Chris suggested. Bull agreed. They called out the orders to their men and fell back to the railroad. There they met Martin, Peacock, and the remainder of the platoon.

  The patrol had not been a great success. 1st platoon had uncovered the German MLR and discovered that the German OPs were thinly manned and stretched out, but it had lost one man killed (Julian) and one wounded and failed to bring in a prisoner. It spent the night shivering in the foxholes, eating cold beans and fritters, wondering if the weather would ever clear so that the 101st could be resupplied by air.

  • • •

  The next couple of days were about the same. Easy sent out patrols, the Germans sent out patrols. Occasional mortar attacks. Sporadic machine-gun fire. Bitter cold. Inadequate medical supplies. No hot food. Not enough food. Constant shivering was burning off energy that was not being replaced. For the privates, not enough sleep. For the N.C.O.s, almost no sleep. This was survival time, and reactions were slow due to the near-frozen limbs.

  Shell bursts in the trees sent splinters, limbs, trunks, and metal showering down on the foxholes. To protect themselves, the men tried to cover their holes with logs, but not having axes made it a difficult task. One man solved the problem by putting two or three German “stiffs” over the top.

  Most maddening was the inability of the Americ
an artillery to respond to German shelling or to disrupt German activity. Easy’s OP men would watch with envy as German trucks and tanks moved back and forth behind the German line, bringing in the shells and food that the Americans so badly missed. Back in Bastogne, the Americans had plenty of guns, including 105 and 155 mm howitzers. They had been active the first few days of the siege, firing in a complete circle at all German attempts to break through the MLR. But by the twenty-third they were almost out of ammunition. Winters recalled being told that the single artillery piece covering the Foy-Bastogne road—his left flank—was down to three rounds. They were being saved for antitank purposes in the event of a German panzer attack down that road. In other words, no artillery support for Easy or 2d Battalion. This at a time when the men of the company were down to six rounds per mortar, one bandolier for each rifleman, and one box of machine-gun ammo per gun.

  That day, however, the snow stopped, and the sky cleared. C-47s dropped supplies, medicine, food, ammunition. American artillery got back into action, curtailing German daytime activity, boosting morale on the MLR. K rations were distributed, along with ammo. But the 30-caliber for the light machine-guns and M-1s was insufficient to the need, and the 24,406 K rations were enough for only a day or so. Not enough blankets had been dropped to insure that every man had one.

  • • •

  Officers watched for signs of breaking. When Winters sensed that Private Liebgott was on the edge, he brought him back to battalion CP to be his runner. This gave Liebgott a chance to rest up and get away from the tension of the MLR. “Just being back 50 yards off the front line made a tremendous difference in the tension,” Winters wrote.

  The temptation to stay put when a patrol went out was very strong; even stronger was the temptation to report back at the aid station with trench foot or frozen feet and hands or an extreme case of diarrhea. “If all the men who had a legitimate reason to leave the MLR and go back to the aid station in Bastogne had taken advantage of their situation,” Winters wrote, “there just would not have been a front line. It would have been a line of outposts.”