Corporal Alvin Boeger, a BAR man in C Company, was at first literally scared into paralysis by the menacing, tromping sound of approaching enemy boots. He cowered in his foxhole and found that he could not move his arms and legs. "I thought of my mother-how she would react to my death. I saw saw a gold star in her window." In World War II, a gold star flag signified the death of a loved one on some fighting front. Boeger was experiencing what one scholar called Condition Black, meaning a fear-induced shutdown of bodily functions. The limbs fail to respond. The heart rate shoots dangerously high. The blood vessels constrict, draining all color from the face (hence the term "white as a sheet"). Only the sight of German soldiers dropping grenades and shooting into nearby holes snapped Boeger out of Condition Black. He stood up, faced them, and pointed his fearsome weapon. "The enemy came on in waves and I fired my BAR until it was real hot. There were grey uniformed bodies everywhere." a gold star in her window." In World War II, a gold star flag signified the death of a loved one on some fighting front. Boeger was experiencing what one scholar called Condition Black, meaning a fear-induced shutdown of bodily functions. The limbs fail to respond. The heart rate shoots dangerously high. The blood vessels constrict, draining all color from the face (hence the term "white as a sheet"). Only the sight of German soldiers dropping grenades and shooting into nearby holes snapped Boeger out of Condition Black. He stood up, faced them, and pointed his fearsome weapon. "The enemy came on in waves and I fired my BAR until it was real hot. There were grey uniformed bodies everywhere."
Staff Sergeant Roy House, another BAR man, was part of a squad that was about to be overrun. He held off a company-sized group of Germans while his comrades withdrew. "I was able to hold off the attackers for about 10 or 15 minutes because they made no attempt at concealment. Finally one of the Germans was able to get to the left and shot me through my left arm." In spite of the wound, House escaped.6 The German attack had little ambiguity or complexity. They simply came forward in waves. Lieutenant Robert Dettor, a platoon leader in K Company, one of the hardest-pressed units, desperately tried to hold his platoon together in the face of a veritable avalanche of enemy soldiers. Small-arms fire was crackling everywhere. His communication wires to the company command post and his platoon outposts were completely out. In terse diary pa.s.sages, he recounted the horror. "No contact with men except those in foxholes in immediate vicinity. Sgt. Phifer, Sgt. Surtorka, myself fighting from same emplacement. Sgt. Surtorka moved to foxhole on right to cover flank. Sgt. Surtorka yelled over grenade being thrown at my foxhole. Hunter hit by grenade. Sgt. Phifer wounded in the shoulder by rifle bullet. Enemy closing within 20 feet of foxhole." They were almost out of ammo. Hunter caught a burp-gun burst and slumped over dead. Lieutenant Dettor ordered all maps burned and food distributed evenly. Finally, when the lieutenant and his men ran out of ammo, the Germans overran the position. They jostled the Americans around, took their wrist.w.a.tches, pens, money, and other valuables, and sent them east, behind the German lines. Half of K Company was overrun in similar fashion.
After such costly initial a.s.saults against the American strongpoints, the German survivors began flanking them, taking advantage of many dead spots in the U.S. defenses, cutting them off. Units on both sides lost all cohesive-ness. Most were out of communication with higher headquarters. The battle degenerated into clashes between isolated groups b.u.mping into one another in the dark, bewildering forest. German mobility was dramatically restricted by the sheer volume of U.S. supporting fire. Fighting from deep holes, the Americans did not hesitate to call down artillery on their own positions since they knew the sh.e.l.ls would do much more damage to the unsheltered enemy than to themselves. In one instance, a company commander and a forward observer, knowing they were in danger of being annihilated, called down 105-millimeter howitzer fire, literally on top of themselves. "The rounds burst in trees above their heads, and sprayed forward, piling up so many Germans in front of their positions that the attack failed," a unit after action report claimed. "It took guts, but it worked."
Mortarmen contributed their own fury. Working very carefully from their pits in firebreaks and clearings-mortar teams never never set up their tubes underneath trees-they provided devastating close support for the hard-pressed riflemen and machine gunners. Sergeant Earl Wiseman and his 81-millimeter mortar crews from M Company laid down a steady curtain of sh.e.l.ls in support of their buddies in the overwrought rifle companies. "I was proud then to be with these boys [of his crews] because the hotter the fight got, the better we functioned. Swinging one gun here, laying another there with azimuths continually shifting great distances and ranges steadily decreasing until they were down to 50 yards, and less." One section was even firing straight up "to put them right on top of Jerry coming thru those woods." The Germans breached the lines of Wiseman"s platoon area, capturing several men in their holes. At that point, the platoon became part mortar unit and part rifle unit. Some of the men were fighting a deadly cat-and-mouse battle, stalking the Germans and vice versa. One man dropped a b.l.o.o.d.y enemy submachine gun at the feet of Wiseman"s crew and said: "Here"s a souvenir for you." The crews kept firing, eventually stopping the Germans in their tracks. "We stood the ground for that day tho and I dare say the Germans lost heavily for every step they"d taken." In fact, a company report later claimed that the unit"s mortars and heavy machine guns had killed between two hundred and three hundred German soldiers. set up their tubes underneath trees-they provided devastating close support for the hard-pressed riflemen and machine gunners. Sergeant Earl Wiseman and his 81-millimeter mortar crews from M Company laid down a steady curtain of sh.e.l.ls in support of their buddies in the overwrought rifle companies. "I was proud then to be with these boys [of his crews] because the hotter the fight got, the better we functioned. Swinging one gun here, laying another there with azimuths continually shifting great distances and ranges steadily decreasing until they were down to 50 yards, and less." One section was even firing straight up "to put them right on top of Jerry coming thru those woods." The Germans breached the lines of Wiseman"s platoon area, capturing several men in their holes. At that point, the platoon became part mortar unit and part rifle unit. Some of the men were fighting a deadly cat-and-mouse battle, stalking the Germans and vice versa. One man dropped a b.l.o.o.d.y enemy submachine gun at the feet of Wiseman"s crew and said: "Here"s a souvenir for you." The crews kept firing, eventually stopping the Germans in their tracks. "We stood the ground for that day tho and I dare say the Germans lost heavily for every step they"d taken." In fact, a company report later claimed that the unit"s mortars and heavy machine guns had killed between two hundred and three hundred German soldiers.7 The 277th Volksgrenadiers utterly failed to take the forest by nightfall. They had breached the 393rd lines in many places, but had not dislodged the Battle Babies sufficiently to open the way to the twin villages. In snowy draws, and underneath snow-stooped trees, many maimed Germans lay fighting for their lives. Their anguished cries sounded like the wail of tormented souls. "The wounded could be heard hollering for hours and later a couple of German litter teams went out and picked up what looked like a number of bodies," an American soldier recalled. Lieutenant Colonel Scott"s regiment was also in bad shape. The 3rd Battalion alone had already lost three hundred men. But, for now, the regiment was holding off the enemy. After the sun set, the fighting tapered off. Many of the dogfaces worried about a German night attack but it never came. Instead the Germans decided to bring up armor from the 12th SS Panzer Division and attack again at first light, mainly to take positions still held by the 3rd Battalion survivors. The Battle Babies had no tank support, no ant.i.tank guns, and a dwindling supply of ammunition. Artillery, mortars, and bazookas comprised their main weapons against the tanks.
Five Jagdpanzer IV/48 tank destroyers, accompanied by elements of an infantry battalion from the 277th, hit M Company. American artillery dispersed some of the infantry, but the lead tank destroyer kept coming. "One of our [machine] guns opened up on the tank and b.u.t.toned it up," one of the M Company sergeants wrote. "They also knocked out some of the infantry that followed the tank." As ever, "knocked out" was a euphemism for killing. Needless to say, the German infantrymen were not subjected to a standing eight count. They were ripped open by high-velocity bullets. Their lifeblood drained into the snow, turning it crimson, then rust as the blood dried.
The lead Jagdpanzer, invariably called a tank by the GIs, opened up with its own machine gun and a main-gun round, instantly killing one of the American machine gunners. The man next to him was, somehow, completely unscathed (and probably wondered for the rest of his life why). "The tank just kept coming, knocking out everything in its way," the company history recorded. Several of the Battle Babies, including Private First Cla.s.s James Langford, crawled forward in the snow, bazookas in tow, trying to get a shot at the German armor. "We hit [it] a total of nine times with bazooka rockets and didn"t even appear to slow it down," Langford wrote.
The other tank destroyers soon joined their leader. Together they spewed main-gun rounds and machine-gun fire at the GIs. "The bazookamen poured desperate shots [at the lead tank] and finally succeeded in hitting its tracks, immobilizing the vehicle. Otherwise it suffered no damage because the crew continued to fire their MGs." The Americans did destroy one other Jagdpanzer (thanks to the heroics of Sergeant Vernon McGarity, who earned the Medal of Honor), but the enemy attack was simply too overwhelming. In this terrain, the German armor had enough maneuvering room, along with cover and concealment, to foil the bazooka gunners. Those gunners had trouble finding ways to get close enough to the tanks, into advantageous positions, to hit their vulnerable side and rear armor, not to mention their tracks.
By now, Lieutenant Colonel Scott realized that the 3rd Battalion was almost surrounded. Against considerable odds, the 393rd had held off the enemy attackers for over twenty-four hours. With General Lauer"s authorization, Scott ordered his battalions to disengage under cover of jeep-mounted machine guns and withdraw west, to a new defensive line between Rocherath and the forest. As best they could, the Battle Babies trudged, almost continuously under fire, away from their enemies, out of the menacing forest. Like the battle itself, the withdrawal was anything but orderly. It was more like a latter-year Trail of Tears, with battered, weary, hungry, scared, bewildered, cold survivors making their way west, usually in small groups, all the while worried about the possibility of being overtaken by the Germans. They had no idea that reinforcements were already in place.8 Enter the Indian Heads--3/23 Infantry in the Forest.
The soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division wore a unique Indian Head patch that portrayed a proud, fierce-looking Native American warrior adorned with battle headdress against the background of a large white star. The patch was the largest of any divisional unit in the Army. Somehow it symbolized the pride and resourcefulness of a division that had come ash.o.r.e the day after D-day and had, for the most part, been in combat ever since. A hard core of experienced NCOs, staff officers, and commanders had held this outfit together through many waves of replacements. On the day the German offensive began, elements of the 2nd had actually been launching an attack of their own, at Wahlerscheid, just to the northeast of the 99th Division. In fact, officers of both divisions initially thought the German push was nothing more than an attempt to take the pressure off their comrades at Wahlerscheid. By December 17 they understood that they were facing an all-out, last-ditch enemy offensive that was coming right at them.
General Walter Robertson, the 2nd Division commander, had skillfully broken off his attack and rerouted his infantry regiments to back up the 99th. He understood that the 277th Volksgrenadier and 12th SS Panzer Divisions would eventually push through the Krinkelter Wald and into the valuable twin villages. He simply needed to hold them off long enough to place his units in and around the villages. One of his battalions, the 3rd of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, had moved through Krinkelt and Rocherath on December 16. From there they tromped into the western edge of the Krinkelter Wald to take up defensive positions that allowed them to block two key roads that led out of the woods and into the towns. Some of the soldiers had settled into existing dugouts with overhead cover. Others tried to scoop out shallow fighting positions in the frozen earth (digging true foxholes with shovels in the frigid ground was an impossibility). They had come from a rear area and thus had only a basic load of ammunition. Such was the confusion of the moment that, during the night, these men initially believed they would attack to restore contact with the 393rd. Instead their mission changed by morning to "hold at all costs," a desperate phrase that obviously held sinister connotations for the infantry soldiers, who might soon pay the ultimate price to fulfill the order.
The entire 3rd Battalion was supported by one platoon of Shermans, under Lieutenant Victor Miller, from the 741st Tank Battalion. "We were one rifle battalion thrust into a densely wooded area, with no terrain features that favored the defender, with orders to "hold at all costs,"" Captain Charles MacDonald, the commander of I Company, wrote. "The defense was a single line of riflemen." His company was on the left (northern) flank, along the main road into the villages. There was a fifty-yard gap between his unit and neighboring K Company on the right. He had seven bazookas but only three rounds for them. Two of the tanks were in place to support him. Artillery support consisted of a few tubes from the 99th Division, whose observers MacDonald, of course, did not know.
As the sun rose, the 2nd Division men could hear sounds of shooting from the east, where the 393rd was fighting for its life. Soon, stragglers-both mounted and dismounted-from that embattled regiment began streaming through the makeshift lines of the Indian Head soldiers. The differing descriptions of this retreat are a cla.s.sic example of the tendency of soldiers, even those with similar racial and cultural backgrounds, to perceive events according to their own a.s.sumptions, biases, and experiences. Nearly all of the 99th Division records and personal accounts speak of the 393rd"s exodus as a "withdrawal," thus indicating some level of cohesion to the retreat with an ultimate purpose of setting up a new defensive line outside of Rocherath.
The 2nd Division accounts, coming from a more blooded division whose members were likely to look down on the less experienced 99th, paint a more mixed picture. Private First Cla.s.s Edward Bartkiewicz, a rifleman in L Company, watched "American vehicles go by, jeeps, trucks, kitchen trucks pulling stoves . . . and it looked like some officers in jeeps going . . . right through us." Like many riflemen, he had no idea who they were, or what was going on. He just wondered why they did not stop and join L Company. Captain MacDonald, a bit better informed about the intense fighting to the east, saw them as the gallant survivors of a unit that had given its all. One of his platoon leaders, Lieutenant Long Goffigan, whose outfit was holding the extreme left flank, begged them for ammunition. Many of them complied, turning over grenades, ammo clips, and boxes of .30-caliber machine-gun bullets. Two of them even elected to join Goffigan"s platoon. Elsewhere, in K Company"s lines, First Lieutenant Lee Smith, a no-nonsense Texan with little appreciation for what the 393rd had just been through, saw them coming and tried to get them to halt and fight with his outfit. "They would not stop. They just seemed stunned." Smith even ordered them to halt and fight with his company. "I did so, but the next big bunch that came by were being led by officers who paid absolutely no attention. They were headed for town like trail cattle after water." Lieutenant Smith gave up, considering the effort useless, especially since "nearly all of them had thrown away their arms and equipment." To his dying day, Smith maintained, quite unfairly and ignorantly, that "the 99th Division crumbled completely." Such were the vicissitudes of just this one event.9 On one thing there was no confusion, though. As the number of stragglers petered out, every 2nd Division soldier understood that the Germans were close behind them and would soon attack. Shortly after noon, enemy infantry soldiers began clashing with all three of the 3rd Battalion rifle companies. Their attack was not unlike a quick-forming, violent thunderstorm. In a matter of seconds, the air was filled with bullets. One soldier described it as a "crackling crescendo." Anyone who raised his head risked getting it blown off. Tracer rounds bounced off trees. At the leading edge of L Company"s line along a narrow forest trail, Private First Cla.s.s Bartkiewicz saw the Germans erupt from the line of trees that were across the road. "There was all kinds of ammunition flying in all sorts of directions. Our machine gun could cut a person"s body right in half if he was in front of it within about twenty feet. That"s what happened." A German soldier tried to throw a grenade at the machine-gun team. The gunners cut him down before he could let go of the grenade. The ensuing explosion maimed the man"s already cooling corpse. Bartkiewicz captured two survivors.
The Germans soldiers were close enough to I Company that Captain Mac-Donald"s men could clearly see the billed caps indicative of SS infantrymen. The enemy troops were working their way through and up a slight draw in front of I Company"s holes. "Wave after wave of fanatically screaming Germans stormed the slight tree-covered rise," Captain MacDonald later wrote. "A continuous hail of fire exuded from their weapons, answered by volley after volley from the defenders. Germans fell right and left."
German artillery and Nebelwerfer rounds were exploding behind I Company. In front of them, several rounds of U.S. artillery exploded among the attackers. "We could hear their screams of pain when the small-arms fire would slacken. But still they came!" The fire was so thick that Captain MacDonald was lying flat on his back in his shallow CP foxhole, with a phone to his platoons in one ear and a battalion radio in the other ear, trying to talk and hear amid the noisy maelstrom. Lieutenant Goffigan"s platoon was bearing the brunt of the a.s.sault. He needed artillery support. Several men were wounded and the captain was calling for litter bearers. MacDonald was also talking to his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tuttle, requesting more ammunition and artillery support. All he could get in response was a promise that "we"re doing all we can" and another order to "hold at all costs." Goffigan was now reporting the presence of tanks in the distance.
To I Company"s right, the Germans were also furiously attacking K Company. For the hard-pressed Americans, the stress level was extreme. When the shooting started, Smith was serving as executive officer, the company"s second in command. Then Lieutenant Dillard Boland, one of the platoon leaders, came to Smith"s hole and told him that he "couldn"t take any more." He had been in combat for months and he had reached his limit. He left for the rear. Smith claimed that soon thereafter the company commander broke. "[He] . . . was hysterical. He was a martinet and I never saw a martinet that did well under fire. [He] chickened out and went to the rear."
a.s.suming command, Lieutenant Smith held K Company together the best he could in the face of unrelenting infantry and armor attacks. "Instead of running and falling the way we did they just walked and used marching fire. Then they would stop and fall down and the tanks would come on. Then the tanks would go back for them and they would mill around, then here they would come again." Like MacDonald, Smith spent much of his time talking with battalion, asking for help, listening to imprecations that he must hold on. All around him, he could hear "the crump of artillery . . . the high-pitched ripping sound of the submachine guns and the double rapid rate of the German machine guns as compared with ours." When soldiers got hit, they generally did not scream "or cry out or make any sort of audible sound." All the while, Lieutenant Smith was worried that his front could not hold out much longer, especially because he had few weapons with which to fight the tanks.
A few dozen yards to the left, the SS men were flinging themselves repeatedly at I Company. Captain MacDonald"s men bitterly resisted each enemy push. "Seven times the enemy infantry a.s.saulted, and seven times they were greeted by a hail of small-arms fire and hand grenades that sent them reeling down the hill, leaving behind a growing pile of dead and wounded." Each attack was poorly organized, with little artillery support, almost like a German version of banzai, yet with a distinct geographic objective. "There was only the suicidal wave of fanatical infantrymen, whooping and yelling and brandishing their rifles like men possessed." Many of these Germans were teenaged members of the Hitler Youth. With the oblivious idealism of youth, they were all too eager to turn the war back in their fuhrer"s favor. Some of them fell dead within ten yards of the company"s lead foxholes.
As had been the case with the 393rd to the east, the presence of German armor was decisive against the 3rd Battalion of the 23rd Infantry. Five Mark V Panthers were closing in on Lieutenant Goffigan"s platoon. In the lieutenant"s recollection, the tanks "were firing into foxholes and cutting off trees like matchsticks." He called Captain MacDonald to plead for help. The captain arranged for some artillery fire but it did no good. A bazooka man in Goffigan"s platoon fired two shots of precious ammunition at the lead tank but missed. Within moments, he was killed by enemy fire and the bazooka was destroyed. The tanks were now within seventy-five yards of the platoon holes. Lieutenant Miller"s Shermans were the last hope of salvation for Goffigan"s men. Half sobbing, Lieutenant Goffigan called Captain MacDonald: "For G.o.d"s sake, Cap"n, get those tanks down here. Do something, for G.o.d"s sake." But the friendly tanks had moved south, closer to K Company, in search of a more advantageous position.
Goffigan"s gallant infantrymen were left to fight the enemy tanks with little else besides rifles, machine guns, and courage. "Within a short time the tanks, with German infantry disposed on both sides of each tank, had approached where they could fire AP [armor piercing] ammo point blank into the foxholes," a post-battle report recounted. "A section of heavy machine guns held their positions and took a heavy toll of the enemy infantrymen until they ran out of ammunition."
At this point, when the Germans overwhelmed Goffigan"s platoon, caving in the left flank, I Company"s front began to collapse. The fighting was at extremely close range. The Germans were blasting everything in front of them, cleaning out hole after hole. "The sound of battle reached a height which I had never thought possible before," MacDonald wrote. "The burst of the . . . sh.e.l.ls in the woods vied with the sounds of hundreds of lesser weapons." MacDonald was doing everything in his power to hold his outfit together, but events had moved beyond his control.
Throughout the forest, men were engaged in private death struggles. Private Hugh Burger was on the move, looking for a place to dodge the explosions. He jumped into a foxhole and literally b.u.mped into an SS soldier. Stunned, the German staggered to his feet. The two enemies were now intimate partic.i.p.ants in the evil of war. They could have mutually decided to live and let live, go their separate ways, but this was not the mood of the battle in the Krinkelter Wald. At this harrowing moment, Burger knew he had to act fast or die. "I grabbed his rifle with my left hand while gripping my knife in my right. I made a [lightning] thrust into his stomach and jerked up with all my strength. I felt hot blood squirt out on my hand and my arm as I pulled the knife out then rammed it home again as his body sagged and slid to the ground. To me it was sickening, but that was my job if I wanted to live." There were few more traumatic ways to kill than this, and Burger"s nausea was standard for anyone having to take life in this elemental fashion. He wiped the blade of his knife against his pants, ran away in the direction of the villages, and later rubbed snow on his bloodstained arms and hands.
Captain MacDonald first attempted to pull the remnants of his company back to new positions, but in spite of the bravery of Private First Cla.s.s Richard Cowan, a machine gunner who held off the Germans for a few minutes, the situation was way too chaotic for that. Overhead the trees were bursting as artillery sh.e.l.ls exploded. Machine-gun and rifle bullets were smashing into trees and men alike. The captain ordered his CP group to destroy their maps and radios and retreat. They made it as far as K Company, whose soldiers were also in close combat with enemy infantrymen and tanks. Lieutenant Miller"s Shermans, having displaced here earlier, destroyed two of the enemy Panthers before German fire blew the American tanks up, killing Miller and several of his men. Some of the American soldiers were fighting the enemy with bayonets (the rarest form of combat in modern war) and using their rifles as clubs. One bazooka gunner swung his empty tube at a German, in an attempt to bludgeon him to death. Enemy soldiers with burp guns cut down the gunner.
The 3rd Battalion was disintegrating. Stragglers were already streaming out of the forest, into Krinkelt and Rocherath. Lieutenant Smith agonized over whether to keep trying to "hold at all costs" or retreat. His K Company soldiers held off the Germans as long as they could-helping many 3rd Battalion men escape-before Smith reluctantly ordered a withdrawal. The remnants of the company streamed west, out of the forest.
Captain MacDonald and a few of his men made their way west, somehow dodging intense enemy fire. Like Lieutenant Smith, the captain felt guilty for retreating. Moreover, he barely knew what happened to most of his men. His company had simply disintegrated under an avalanche of enemy pressure. MacDonald"s clothes were soaking wet. His mouth was dry. He was sad and dispirited. He and his men made it to a farmhouse near Krinkelt, where Lieutenant Colonel Tuttle had set up his command post in the bas.e.m.e.nt. The captain half expected to be court-martialed. Instead Tuttle greeted him warmly and said: "Nice work, Mac." The captain stood bewildered as Tuttle explained the big picture of the German Ardennes offensive and the true strength of their attack on the 3rd Battalion. "The Germans are throwing everything they"ve got. You held out much longer than I expected." MacDonald"s company, along with the others, had held off the Germans for half a day, buying time for other Indian Head units to get into position in and around the twin villages. Moments earlier, MacDonald had believed that his beloved I Company had been lost for nothing more than his own failure as a commander. Now, though, he began to understand the important mission that his men had accomplished, many by making the ultimate sacrifice. Good news though this was, the thought of it all was overwhelming to him. He felt a catch in his throat. A moment later, the catch turned into deep, wracking sobs. In the dimly lit bas.e.m.e.nt, he stood quietly, tears rolling down his cheeks, hands trembling, sadly contemplating his lost company.10 The Manchus at the Lausdell Crossroads.
Captain MacDonald, and so many others like him, could at least take solace in the fact that the destruction of the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry, had a purpose. Their self-sacrificial resistance (and the 393rd"s determined stand) bought valuable time for General Robertson to arrange for the defense of Krinkelt and Rocherath. Every significant road in the area went through the two towns. If the Germans were to have any hope of carrying out a lightning advance to the Meuse, they had to control these roads, and thus the two little towns.
Throughout the day on December 17, the general disengaged from his attack at Wahlerscheid, personally supervised the southerly movement of troops to the danger area around Krinkelt and Rocherath, and deployed his men into defensive positions. For the 2nd Division soldiers, the process was exhausting and disorienting. One minute they were a.s.saulting a line of pillboxes at Wahlerscheid. The next minute they abruptly ceased attacking, began a forced march several miles to the south, and soon thereafter they were fighting a defensive battle. Only a well-led unit like the 2nd could have pulled off this dangerous transition with any semblance of order.
As the sun set on December 17, ushering in a cold, dark winter night, this process was well under way, but the general was still scrambling to reinforce the twin villages. He planned to defend the towns with his 38th Infantry Regiment, a stalwart unit with the moniker "Rock of the Marne" for its part in blunting a major German offensive in World War I. Much of the 38th was still strung out in long columns along the narrow road that led into the villages. These soldiers were under enemy artillery fire, which, of course, inflicted casualties on them and impeded their movement. Moreover, retreating GIs and vehicles crowded the road and sowed confusion among the "Marne" soldiers. Robertson needed several more hours to sort this mess out and deploy the 38th"s rifle companies, plus their armored support, in and around the villages. In the meantime, Robertson decided that soldiers from another one of his regiments, the 9th, absolutely had to hold a key crossroads-generally known as the Lausdell junction-about one thousand yards east of Rocherath, right in the path of the onrushing German advance. If the Germans captured the crossroads and succeeded in getting large numbers of troops and tanks into the village this evening, they could slaughter the 38th Infantry soldiers along the roads before they could hide in buildings or dig foxholes overlooking the road.
The 9th was one of the most storied infantry regiments in the Army. The unit had fought in nearly every war since its activation in 1812. In 1900, soldiers from this regiment had helped crush the Boxer Rebellion in China, earning themselves the colorful nickname "Manchus." Now, on this frigid Ardennes evening, they were once again at the center of momentous events. On the road north of Rocherath, General Robertson collared twenty-eight-year-old Lieutenant Colonel William McKinley, commander of the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, and gave him the job of defending the Lausdell crossroads. In the recollection of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Steele, the regimental executive officer, the general emphasized that the battalion "must hold at all costs in order to ensure . . . an effective defense position."
It was like a father-son talk. The general, bald and in his late fifties, looked like the wizened elder he was. The youthful McKinley looked little different from the men he was leading. He was quite popular with his fellow officers and his soldiers. "He was a fearless and thoughtful commander," one of his soldiers said. "Our welfare was always his first consideration." He loved to sing, and had even written a 9th Infantry fight song. He was the grandnephew of President William McKinley, whose name he carried on. As a West Pointer who was born into an Army family, and an infantry officer who had earned many combat decorations, young McKinley was the embodiment of a warrior. Like any good officer, he never asked his troops to do what he would not. "Many times he did the dangerous himself, rather than risk the lives of his men," Steele later wrote. He had known General Robertson and Lieutenant Colonel McKinley for several years and greatly admired them. "Both Robertson and McKinley were soldiers all the way through and neither of them flinched or questioned the other. To me [watching them converse] was like viewing a movie."
When the conversation ended, Lieutenant Colonel McKinley placed his companies on a forward slope astride the crossroads. The soldiers dug shallow foxholes, through snow and earth, along little hedges that offered some bare semblance of concealment. Most of the men were in a foul mood. For almost five days they had been in combat, in the cold, with no hot food and little rest, watching their friends get killed or wounded. Now they had been sent on this boondoggle to stave off what they thought was only a local counterattack that some other unit could not handle. Combat units invariably see the world narrowly. Most believe they have a harder, more dangerous job than any other unit. They often perceive that it is their unhappy lot to succeed where other units have failed ("so then we had to bail out this other outfit" is an oft-heard phrase, as is "why do we always get the c.r.a.ppy jobs?"). Although these notions are usually false, built as they normally are on incomplete information, biases, and ungrounded a.s.sumptions, they do help build unit pride.
Hence, McKinley"s men resented the situation they were now in, but they accepted it and were determined to do their job. If nothing else, they knew they must hold this position. McKinley had already lost almost half of his battalion in the Wahlerscheid attacks. His C Company was even down to fifty men. Fortunately, he had some help from K Company of the 9th, a unit that General Robertson had previously placed around a farmhouse near the crossroads. McKinley and his Manchus also had some a.s.sistance from a few machine-gun sections, along with three ant.i.tank guns from the 644th Tank Destroyer Battalion that were covering the road. In all, he had about six hundred soldiers. Among them, they had fifteen bazookas. Artillery forward observers had been out of communication with their batteries from the 15th Field Artillery Battalion farther to the rear for much of the day but, just as the battalion settled in, they reestablished contact and planned defensive fires along the likely routes of enemy attack. The infantrymen also had some ant.i.tank mines but they did not yet put them in place because they correctly believed that American armor and vehicles would still migrate along the road for much of the night.11 A shroud of foggy, inky darkness descended over the area. The air was cool and crisp, albeit fraught with the tension of antic.i.p.ated combat. The dogfaces crouched in their holes and peered into the darkness. Shivering fingers hovered near triggers. Snot ran from noses. The body heat of each man caused the snow around him to melt, making it hard to stay dry. Some of the men lined their holes with straw in an effort to provide a semblance of dryness and warmth. They fought off sleep. Stomachs growled with hunger. In even more cases, stomachs were queasy with the bile of fear.
Some men, like Sergeant Herbert Hunt of A Company, hungered for tobacco. After digging in and lining his hole with straw, he was down to one soggy cigarette. He plopped to the bottom of his hole, placed his tommy gun on his lap, and lit the cigarette. "As I sat there, savoring each precious puff of the cigarette, I began to hear the distant rumble and clanking of moving tanks." Like many of the other men, Hunt had been told by his officers to be on the lookout for American tanks. But another NCO, Sergeant Billy Floyd, a combat-experienced man, peered into Hunt"s foxhole and voiced the opinion that the tanks sounded German. The two sergeants walked a few dozen yards and stood by the side of the road, listening. A moment pa.s.sed as the vehicle noises got closer. They could see a column of infantrymen approaching. Another moment pa.s.sed. Then they heard German voices.
The truth hit Floyd and Hunt at the same time. They were actually standing right next to SS Panzergrenadiers who were walking along the road, with tanks rumbling right behind them. The two Americans stood frozen in place. Hunt"s heart was beating wildly. "What followed made no sense. The German infantrymen pa.s.sed by, scarcely looking in our direction. Some were laughing and joking. One German, with a very foul breath . . . leaned over and looked in my face as he pa.s.sed. Then the German tanks pa.s.sed by, splashing Billy and me with mud and slush." A German tank commander, standing in his open hatch, even flipped them off as his tank drove past them!
Stunned by this surreal experience, Hunt and Floyd took off to warn their company commander, Lieutenant Stephen Truppner. On the way they ran into another GI and, together, they heard the German tanks stop and shut off their engines. The three Americans got to Truppner"s dugout, on the west side of the road, and told him what had happened. The lieutenant decided to radio for artillery and mortar fire while the three enlisted men warned the company of the German presence. Hunt and his friends left the dugout and took a few steps in the direction of the road. All at once, the night exploded with enemy fire. Machine-gun tracer rounds zipped along the road. To Hunt, it seemed like the tracers were about to go right through him. The other two men clutched their throats and fell dead to the pavement. Sergeant Hunt went back to the A Company CP and found out that Truppner could not get his radio to work. "Lieutenant Truppner wants you to go back to D Company and get the artillery turned on," one of the men told him. Their CP, he learned, was in a building behind a barn, just across the way.
By now, the shooting was intense. Tracer rounds were still buzzing in every direction. Sergeant Hunt heard the tanks firing their main guns, answered by American rifle and machine-gun fire. The barn was on fire (Hunt found out many years later that Captain MacDonald and a few of his men were taking shelter inside). Hunt made his way to a house behind it. "German tank sh.e.l.ls were exploding against the front of the house, sending terrifying flames of light into the sky, and filling the air with hot, sharp, and deadly hunks . . . whirring shrapnel." Somehow, Hunt did not get hit. He made it to D Company and "told the company commander [Captain Louis Ernst] . . . that we had to have artillery, mortar, and tank support, immediately!" Ernst did so immediately and got quick results. A lucky sh.e.l.l scored a direct hit on one of the enemy tanks, cooking off the ammo inside. A spontaneous explosion blew the turret off.
From here, the battle turned into a confused struggle in the darkness and the shadows of burning fires. Generally, the Americans were fighting from within holes and buildings. The Germans were usually in the open, on the road, or outside of houses. American artillery and mortar sh.e.l.ls were coming down on the whole Lausdell crossroads area. The effect was devastating, especially to the Germans. For instance, a new German armored column, with infantry, attacked B Company"s position, immediately astride the junction. An American artillery forward observer walked his rounds up and down the road, toward the woods where the Germans were coming from. "This fire continued for about 10 minutes while B Company raked the infantry with machine gun fire," Major William Hanc.o.c.k, the battalion executive officer who helped coordinate the fire, later said. "The enemy tanks stopped when the artillery came in on them, and the defenders could hear the screams of enemy wounded." Fragments laced through the exposed infantrymen, cutting some of them into shreds. Others dispersed as best they could. Seldom did the rounds score direct hits on the tanks, but they did not have to. Near misses had the effect of spooking the enemy crews into immobility or retreat, especially when their infantry support melted away.
A couple hundred yards to the west, the same thing happened in A Company"s sector. The sh.e.l.ls even destroyed, or immobilized, four German tanks. Three more kept rolling forward, like menacing nocturnal monsters, until they were among the company foxholes, shooting up the Manchu infantrymen with their machine guns and cannons. The explosions and anguished cries were horrible. Screaming into his radio, Lieutenant John Granville, a forward observer, made a desperate plea to the distant batteries for maximum support: "If you don"t get it out right now, it"ll be too G.o.dd.a.m.n late!" His ear was pressed to the receiver, but he could hear no response. Convinced he was dead, he leaned back and, in his own words, "reached out for G.o.d to take me by the hand." Three minutes later, a huge barrage from seven full battalions of artillery came cascading down, prompting the German tanks to retreat in a hurry.
Under the protective shelter of the artillery, the infantrymen dealt with the tanks as best they could-mainly with mines, rifle grenades, and bazookas. When Sergeant Ted Bickerstaff and Lieutenant Roy Allen of B Company heard the tanks in the distance, they placed mines on the road, right along their likely avenue of approach. "As we armed the eighth mine," they later wrote, "the German tanks were 400 yards away." They placed bazooka teams to cover the mines. "The tanks were stopped by the mines and the others proceeded to go around them through the fields." The bazooka teams destroyed them.
In a K Company foxhole about one hundred yards from the road junction, Private First Cla.s.s Frank Royer, a rifleman, was awed by the sight of yet another attacking group of tanks. "They are big and really imposing to a Private in a foxhole with a rifle. I could make out the black hulk of a tank running over our foxholes and heading right for me." He and his foxhole buddy, Private E. J. Sanders, felt totally helpless. Just ahead, the tank ran over the foxhole of two other men from the company. Soon theirs would be next. This was like something out of a nightmare. Then something, or someone, hit the enemy tank, blowing it up. "It burst into flames. I could hear the crew screaming." The German tankers could not get out of the tank so they burned to death. Royer and his friend crawled closer to help a couple other K Company men dig out from under the burning German tank.
At the junction, in B Company"s position, First Lieutenant John Melesnich, the company commander, personally destroyed one enemy tank with a bazooka. Two of his soldiers, Sergeant Charles Roberts and Sergeant Otis Bone, put their lives at extreme risk to attack a tank that was lacing the company with accurate fire. The two sergeants retrieved a can of gasoline from a nearby vehicle and then somehow sidled up alongside the metal monster. "[They] poured it on the tank, and set it afire" with thermite grenades. "The crews were picked off by American riflemen."
By midnight, the fighting died down a bit as the Germans withdrew, probably to reorganize for more coordinated attacks. Lieutenant Colonel McKinley sent a message to his regimental commander: "We have been strenuously engaged, but everything is under control at the present."12 In the morning, just before sunrise, the SS renewed their attacks, this time with even more ferocity. A chilly curtain of fog and drizzle hung over the area, concealing attacker and defender alike. The Germans threw nearly two battalions of tanks and two battalions of Panzergrenadiers at the Americans, particularly McKinley"s hard-pressed outfit. American artillery and mortar sh.e.l.ls practically showered the Lausdell crossroads. Some exploded as close as twenty yards in front of the American holes, if not even closer. "The men of the battalion engaged the tanks and infantry with every means at hand," a post-action report stated with laconic accuracy. As the report hinted, McKinley"s infantrymen offered near-suicidal resistance, pouring machine-gun, rifle, and grenade fire at the approaching hostile shapes. "The riflemen of "B" Company fired at the turret men of the enemy tanks as they proceeded to come down the road," Lieutenant Allen wrote. He watched as two enemy tank crewmen made the fatal mistake of abandoning their vehicle. "One was shot by "D" Company and I shot the other." At this point, a bazooka gunner scored a hit on one tank but did no substantial damage. The menacing steel monster turned its turret in the direction of the bazooka men. "Four hits were obtained at a range of thirty yards without effect. Then one of my men approached the tank from the rear, poured gasoline on it, and ignited the gasoline with an incendiary grenade, thus knocking out the tank."
From the vantage point of a foxhole near the crossroads, Sergeant Hunt of A Company watched as German tanks, accompanied by groups of foot soldiers, cautiously moved west, right past the company holes. Some of the attackers were on the road, some not. All were under sh.e.l.l fire that Lieutenant Truppner was calling down in a last-ditch attempt to avoid being overrun. "Then . . . the G.I."s of A Company-all at the same instant-opened fire into the backs of the German infantrymen, killing them by the dozen," Hunt recalled. The terrified German soldiers careened around, looking desperately for cover. Few escaped the barrage of bullets. The .30-06-caliber rounds smashed into them, presenting the odd sight of torn holes in their winter uniforms (not to mention their bodies underneath). Threads hung crazily in all directions. Blood poured profusely from some of the worst wounds. Steam rose from others.
The shooting, though effective, gave away the location of A Company"s positions. The enemy tanks, minus any infantry support, turned around, rumbled right up to the holes, and began blasting them with cannon and machine-gun fire. Hunt was transfixed by the horrendous violence of A Company"s mortal struggle. "A G.I. leaped from his foxhole, lobbed a grenade onto the deck of a tank, and set it afire. Another G.I. was trying to rip open the hatch of a tank with his fingers. Three other G.I."s were running behind the tanks, trying to set them afire with burning straw. Far to the right, a G.I. was trying to jam his rifle between the cleats of a moving tank." None of this extraordinary valor was enough to stave off the tanks. Two of them simply took up station adjacent to the foxholes and methodically shot up the occupants. Gradually the sound of American small-arms fire died off as, one by one or two by two, the soldiers of A Company got killed. Somehow, Hunt and a few others managed to escape to Lieutenant Colonel McKinley"s command post in a dugout at the crossroads. The young commander draped his arm around Hunt"s shoulders and exclaimed: "Thank G.o.d, Herb, you got out of there! I thought I had lost all of Company A." Hunt"s eyes glistened with tears.
Elsewhere, Private William Soderman of K Company huddled in a ditch by the side of the road, pointed his bazooka at the lead tank of an enemy column, and fired. The rocket struck the tank and ignited it, forcing the crew to abandon it. The destruction of this tank created a roadblock that halted the column. The Germans could not quite see Soderman through the mist, but they poured heavy return fire along the road. He slung the bazooka over his back, grabbed his rifle, got up and ran away, in an effort to find a new firing position. All at once, he b.u.mped into a platoon of enemy grenadiers. He raised his rifle, shot three of them to death, and took off, making it back to the remnants of his company in a cl.u.s.ter of houses. Once again, when enemy tanks attacked K Company, Soderman unloosed his bazooka and destroyed the lead vehicle (some accounts say he got two). As he displaced, a machine-gun bullet from a surviving enemy tank smashed into his shoulder, badly wounding him. He managed to crawl to the protection of a nearby ditch, where two of his buddies attended to him. "Guns were firing all around," Soderman later said. "The tanks were shooting. But everybody seemed too busy to pay any attention to us. I walked out of there upright. I guess I was too fuzzy to know exactly what I was doing." Medics evacuated him to the rear. He earned the Medal of Honor for his exploits.
His company was down to a handful of men, including Private First Cla.s.s Royer, who was trembling in a foxhole, in the middle of a terrifying "friendly" artillery barrage that was designed to stave off the Germans and save K Company. "My ears hurt, head ached, and dirt crumbled into our hole from the sh.e.l.ling." The artillery slackened a bit, but not the German pressure. Royer heard a retreat order. He left his hole and started crawling west, but a fragment tore into his leg. Before he could even attend to his wound, German troops towered over him and forced him to surrender. Nearby, an enemy tank pointed its muzzle at the front door of a house that served as K Company"s command post. Captain Jack Garvey, the commander, had seen the Germans capturing Royer and several others. He and his command group, including several refugees from I Company of the 23rd Infantry, surrendered before the tank could open fire. They ascended the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs and filed through the front door. "We were marched out with our hands up-the most humiliating moment of my life," one of the NCOs later commented. Only twelve men from the company escaped death, wounds, or captivity.
The rest of McKinley"s beleaguered battalion held on, thanks to a curtain of supporting artillery fire, not to mention sheer guts and determination. He was deeply worried, though, that his unit would be annihilated by the powerful enemy a.s.sault. Throughout the morning, his communications with regiment and division were spotty. He simply knew he must hold. Finally, late in the morning, he got authorization to withdraw west, into the villages, where troops from the 38th Infantry were now in place. McKinley"s executive officer later said that the colonel was concerned that he would be "unable to get any of his troops out from the very close contact with the enemy." Fortunately for McKinley and his survivors, they were able to escape under the umbrella of the artillery barrage and some direct support from Sherman tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion.
McKinley and his operations officer were the last ones to vacate the battalion position. The Germans were so close that the two officers could hear them screaming for the retreating Americans to surrender. Six hundred men had gone into place at the Lausdell crossroads. Only 217 made it out. McKinley"s dogfaces fulfilled their mission, destroying-mostly with bazookas-seventeen enemy tanks, halting the German push for the villages, and buying time for General Robertson to place reinforcements inside both Krinkelt and Rocherath. Colonel Francis Boos, commander of the 38th Infantry, even believed that McKinley"s determined stand had prevented the destruction of his own outfit on the evening of December 17, when his men had filtered into the two towns. At midday on December 18, the grateful Boos told McKinley: "You have saved my regiment." The division operations officer chimed in: "You have saved the division." The Lausdell crossroads was arguably the Manchus" finest moment in World War II.13 The Indian Heads, and Friends, in the Twin Villages.
Thus ensued, over the next thirty-six hours, a chaotic, h.e.l.lish free-for-all within the villages. In the remains of what had been two quaint farm towns, the Germans found themselves enmeshed in a bitter block-to-block struggle that approximated urban combat. By and large, their attacks were violent but uncoordinated. They threw men and machines into the villages haphazardly, where they engaged in close-range death matches with their American adversaries.
To be sure, the conditions and terrain made it difficult for the German attackers to retain any semblance of organization. Most of the roads that went through Krinkelt and Rocherath were not paved. Vehicles, snow, and mud turned them into pulpy quagmires for the tanks of both sides. Houses were built from st.u.r.dy masonry. When artillery and tank sh.e.l.ls. .h.i.t these structures, roof shingles, bricks, and stones emptied rubble into the narrow streets, creating impromptu roadblocks. Some houses were intact, albeit with jagged holes in their roofs or walls where sh.e.l.ls had penetrated the masonry. The presence of farm animals added to the chaos. Many were trapped in burning barns. Sometimes, the Germans, in an attempt to cover their a.s.saults, herded animals into the streets. In the memory of one American, "cows lay dead all over the roads." Another soldier, from the 99th Division-many retreating stragglers from this outfit fought alongside their Indian Head comrades in the villages-never forgot the sight of "flickering flames illuminating a pen of abandoned bleating sheep. I was struck by the biblical innocence of the sheep and the violence of war."
The most prominent landmark in the twin villages was the battered Krinkelt church, located within the confluence of several roads. With a spire that towered over the landscape, the imposing stone church attracted artillery observers and vehicles alike. Truly, the fighting represented the full fury of industrial-age ground combat, but in a small-town setting. Tanks and tank destroyers yielded a b.l.o.o.d.y harvest. Yet, all too often the deadliest weapon in this environment was men with bazookas in their hands.
Using houses and rubble for cover, bazooka teams roamed this ruptured landscape, taking on tanks like modern-day duelists. Private Daniel Franklin, a rifleman in the 38th Infantry, was near the house that served as his company"s command post when he heard that enemy tanks had overrun an adjacent platoon. Two of his buddies turned to him and asked if he had ever been close to a Tiger tank. In World War II, American soldiers tended to refer to every German tank as a "Tiger." In fact, bona fide Mark VI Tigers were fairly rare (a fortunate circ.u.mstance for the Allied war effort). More commonly, the GIs faced Mark IV medium tanks and Mark V Panthers. The surviving accounts of Krinkelt and Rocherath claim encounters with all three models, most notably plenty of Tigers. Franklin and the other two soldiers saw the enemy tank-which they believed was a Tiger-unleash a sh.e.l.l that tore through the attic of the command post. "We went around the building with a bazooka and hit the tank dead center in the rear." Nor were they the only ones in their unit to do so. "Lt. Bloomfield . . . and Sgt. Frank Little of N.C. [North Carolina] knocked out 2 tanks. They [the tanks] were all over us. Platoons were mixed. Radio operators were carrying bazookas. Lt. Richard Blankennagel . . . kept his platoon busy killing the Germans getting out of the tanks."
A couple blocks away, in another house, Private First Cla.s.s Kenneth Myers"s ears were a.s.saulted by the overpowering explosions of enemy tank sh.e.l.ls slamming into the building. "Bazooka men of all kinds moved to the windows and doors, firing right into the tanks of the enemy." Amid the racket, he could hear the screams of "soldiers and buddies with a half an arm or leg torn off, yelling for medics." Some were lying outside, in fields or along the roads. Some had been mercilessly crushed by the enemy tanks but were somehow alive "with half of their body left." Myers saw two German machine gunners and shot them to death.14 Elsewhere, Private Hugh Burger, the man in I Company, 23rd Infantry, who had killed an enemy soldier by stabbing him to death in the Krinkelter Wald, was now standing next to the second-floor window of a house, manning a machine gun with his buddy Private First Cla.s.s Willie Hagan. They watched as an enemy tank cautiously rolled forward. The two made for an odd but synergistic pair-the sort of impromptu team that infantry combat often produces. Hagan was an irreverent career soldier in his thirties. To the eighteen-year-old, Bible-reading Burger, Hagan seemed impossibly old to be in combat. Hagan was on the gun and Burger was his loader.
All at once, a sh.e.l.l from a U.S. tank destroyer pierced the armor of the German tank, setting it afire. In the next moment, five German soldiers came into view alongside the burning tank. As their sergeant paused to give orders, Hagan opened fire. "I thought he would surely burn the barrel up before he stopped firing, but not a Kraut got up," Burger later wrote. Hagan turned to Burger and, in an almost clinical tone, said: "I got every one of the sonofab.i.t.c.hes." They had also alerted any other Germans in the vicinity to their presence, so they decided to displace to the ground floor of the house. This was a smart tactic for any machine-gun team in this environment and, in this case, it probably saved their lives. "We were making our way down when a tank fired into the wall knocking it out, upsetting our machine gun and showering us with chips of bricks." This was the only shot, though, and they made it downstairs.
Later, the tank pulled into the house"s backyard and sat there, its engine idling menacingly. The crew inside was probably searching for targets. Hagan and Burger found a bazooka and some ammunition. The sight for the bazooka was gone but the weapon still worked. Hagan loaded. Burger snapped off a shot. "The projectile hit the ground and skipped over the tank." Having missed so badly, Private First Cla.s.s Burger felt like running away. His confidence was down. He was terrified of the tank"s retaliation. Before he could run, though, Hagan tapped him on the shoulder, indicating he had loaded another round into the bazooka. In that nanosecond, Burger"s att.i.tude changed. Instead of panicking, he forgot his natural fear because of Hagan"s quiet, unspoken determination. If Hagan could keep fighting, then so can I, Burger figured. It was a cla.s.sic example of the unspoken strength that infantry soldiers drew from one another under the most harrowing of circ.u.mstances. Burger aimed, fired, and scored a direct hit. "Hot metal sprayed like a cutting torch." Filled with the exhilaration that often overtook men in the immediate aftermath of such an impersonal kill, Hagan jumped up and roared: "You got him! You knocked h.e.l.l out of the sonofab.i.t.c.h!"
This exhilaration soon gave way to horror. A hatch opened on the burning tank and a badly wounded crewman jumped out, collapsed, and lay writhing in the street. One of his hands was blown off and his face looked "like fresh ground meat." Hagan and Burger carried him into the house, put him on a cot, and tried to help him. The man was delirious and terrified. He kept screaming at the top of his lungs. Neither of the Americans spoke any German. For all they knew, the man was calling to his comrades to come get him. The wounded crewman simply would not shut up. What had started out as a mission of mercy turned into yet another moment of self-preservation. "He will bring every Kraut here in town in here on us," Hagan said. "If I stop that noise, you won"t ever tell, will you, Burger?" The eighteen-year-old promised he would not. Hagan killed the man (in later years, Burger could not bring himself to say how his friend carried out the grisly business). In the shattered house, Burger hung his head to pray. The two men never spoke of this incident again. But, for Burger, the close-quarters killing brought back haunting memories of his own experience in the forest, when he had stabbed a young German to death. "Shooting a man from a distance is different [from] using a knife. I washed my hands over and over but I could still smell his blood."
A few blocks away from Burger, Sergeant John Savard, a Minnesotan, was also playing a cat-and-mouse game with the German tanks. He stepped out the door of one house and "found myself looking almost down the gun barrel of a Mark IV tank. I dived back inside and down the cellar as part of the building exploded. A bazooka team knocked out the tank and we killed the crew as they emerged."
In the attic of another house, Staff Sergeant Merrill Huntzinger, a machine-gun squad leader, was fighting as a rifleman alongside one of his section leaders, a man named Eddie. The two men were spread out on either side of the attic. Both had a panoramic view of the streets that led to the house. About fifty yards away, they saw dozens of German soldiers, augmented by a tank, apparently waiting to attack. Sergeant Huntzinger heard the tank engine start up. "Then the tank hatch opened. Someone stood up, took a quick look around, threw out an empty . . . sh.e.l.l casing, and I popped him. Then I opened up on crew members who were outside the tank." Huntzinger ran over to Eddie"s position and saw him "dropping Germans left and right." The sergeant was worried that the Germans now knew their position and suggested they vacate the attic. "The h.e.l.l with "em," Eddie replied, "keep killing the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds." Staff Sergeant Huntzinger could have ordered Eddie to leave but, like Private First Cla.s.s Burger in the other house, he was emboldened by his partner.
No sooner did this thought flash through Huntzinger"s mind than a tank sh.e.l.l hit the roof of the attic, close to Eddie"s perch. The explosion staggered Huntzinger, making him feel "like my head was the size of a pumpkin. My ears were ringing, my head was thumping, my forehead and face felt like it had been sandblasted." The attic was enveloped in thick dusty smoke. Eddie lay unconscious. As Staff Sergeant Huntzinger tried to revive him, another sh.e.l.l exploded, knocking the sergeant down, giving him a b.l.o.o.d.y nose. With an act of sheer will, he picked himself up and rushed to the window he had manned a moment earlier. "Germans were kneeling outside our building directly beneath me." He aimed his rifle and fired. "It was like shooting fish in a barrel." This rifle fire, in addition to a well-placed grenade, prevented the German soldiers from a.s.saulting Huntzinger"s shattered house. A moment later, he heard a ma.s.sive explosion as an American tank destroyer scored a direct hit on the German tank, setting it afire. By now, Eddie was barely conscious and moaning that he could not see. "He was seeping blood from several spots on his face and fluid was seeping from his eyeb.a.l.l.s." Sergeant Huntzinger got Eddie out of the attic, to the medics, but Eddie"s sight was gone forever.
In the heart of Rocherath, Lieutenant George Adams and several members of his 2nd Platoon, C Company, 38th Infantry, were holed up in a two-story house belonging to the Drosch family. On the street outside they saw eleven German tanks approaching, with infantry riding aboard. One of Adams"s squad leaders, Sergeant Richard Shinefelt, fired several rifle grenades at them. The grenades did no damage to the tanks, but they reaped a grim harvest among the infantry. Time and again, the Germans in the twin villages attacked with infantrymen riding aboard tanks, making the foot soldiers ideal targets in such a contested, confined environment. They would have been much better advised to dismount their infantry and place them alongside the tanks, as protection from bazooka men (similar to what the Americans did at Aachen). The vaunted reputation of the SS aside, this revealed an amateurish ignorance among the commanders and troops of the 12th SS Panzer Division. The Americans made them pay by slaughtering the infantry soldiers with impunity.
Bereft of infantry support, the tanks rolled past the Drosch house. Adams"s men showered them with bazooka shots but did no damage. At one point, several of the tanks stopped and unleashed three or four shots into the house. Masonry, walls, and stairs collapsed. In the recollection of Lieutenant Adams, "visibility was nil in the clouds of stifling smoke." The tanks moved on to points unknown. For a time, Adams and his men left the house, but they returned when the dust settled. Eventually, they were all that stood in the way of an enemy tank-infantry attack that threatened to overrun C Comp