112th infantry regiment battle of the bulge

The sector designated for the XLVII Panzer Corps breakthrough was held by the 1st and 3d Battalions of the 110th Infantry (28th Infantry Division), commanded by Col. Hurley E. Fuller. On the nights of 14 and 15 December, sounds of horse-drawn vehicles and motors moving in slow gear drifted to the American outposts; but since the same commotion had attended an earlier relief in the German lines, it was reported and perfunctorily dismissed. This highway (known to the Americans as the Skyline Drive) and the garrison line paralleled the Our at a distance of one and a half to two and a half miles. Fortunately Major Woodward, the battalion commanding officer, was suspicious of this route. In a matter of minutes the left company ran into a strong German skirmish line, deployed at the edge of a wood, which was supported by tanks and self-propelled artillery firing from around Marnach. Colonel Fuller set. World War II Records, 110th Infantry Regiment, 28th Infantry Division, History . The road center at At the moment Luettwitz' corps was fighting In response to their call for reinforcement and ammunition four tanks fought their way through the German infantry along the Skyline Drive, arriving in Hosingen about 2200-but with no rifle ammunition. The company commander withdrew the remaining five tanks on a side road and reached Urspelt, taking position near the 2d Battalion command post.9, The American pincers action had failed to constrict at Marnach. Three-quarters of an hour later the regimental commander ordered the artillery to displace behind the river; Colonel Fairchild moved the battalion across the river without losing a piece and immediately resumed firing. Manteuffel also held strongly for infiltration tactics by small detachments, such as were conventionally employed by both opponents on the Eastern Front. The year 1921 saw many changes in unit designation: Bellefonte was redesignated Troop B, 52nd Machine Gun Squadron, the Altoona unit was redesignated as Company G. During 1921, Company D, 1st Pennsylvania Engineers was organized. Shortly before dusk or German bank of the Our River. A sharp attack drove a provisional platoon, made up from the 28th Division band, off the high ground to the northwest, thus exposing the engineer line. The regiment consisted of companies from Erie, McKean, Venango, Elk, Warren, and Crawford counties. ", The main effort launched by the LVIII Panzer Corps on 16 December was assigned the 116th Panzer Division. The Germans in the way quickly withdrew to the In the meantime the Company C advance north toward Marnach also ran into trouble: persistent small arms fire forced the infantry to leave the road and move slowly across country. West of the ridge, Company L in Holzthum and the headquarters company and Company M in Consthum barred a direct approach to the Clerf crossing site at Wilwerwiltz. As the morning passed the small German detachments west of the ridge increased in strength. When the 28th Division arrived on the VIII Corps front in mid-November its regiments were in pitiable condition. Only one battery of the 109th Field Artillery Battalion was firing during the morning and it ran low on ammunition. 30th Infantry Division 59th Inf Bde . Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge Organization; stories and newspaper clipping from June 3, 1992, which is a D-Day retrospective] Unit History - 474th AAA Bn [The Maverick Outfit, a book about the 474th AAA Bn and the hardships and challenges they faced, 1942 until 1945] BATES, CHARLES C. Residence: Green Valley, Arizona It was the longest battle on German ground during World War II and is the . Most of the tanks and assault guns were out of action, there were insufficient machine guns to cover the final protective line, radio communication between the desperate units was practically nonexistent, searchlight rays glancing from the low clouds lighted the path of the attackers, and ammunition was running very low. In general the ground on the east bank commanded. A small tank-infantry team blasted the single 57-mm. The second battalion's Companies G and H lost a combined total of 200 men out of 230 when they were cut off at Fismette and fended off a frontal attack on their position by a thousand German soldiers. The roads in the The Bellefonte unit was mustered into federal service in January 1941 as Battery B, 190th Field Artillery. His first concern would be to gain the ridge west of the Our and thus cover the armor crossings, for he recognized that it would be a difficult stream to bridge. J. H. Burns, who had taken over when the company commander was wounded. At the same time the XLVII Panzer Corps would cross the Our in the vicinity of Dasburg and Gemnd, push west via Clerf, seize the vital road center at Bastogne, form in a deep column echeloned to the left and rear, then race for the Meuse River crossings south of Namur. The 1st Platoon of Company I had Battery B fired its few remaining rounds to cover the other batteries, the battalion assembling during the evening at a crossroad southeast of Harlange. corps zone of attack were narrow, twisting, and certain to be muddy; antitank gun in the path and crossed the bridge at the railroad station. This story concerns itself with that period when the 3rd Battalion, as part of the 28th . The telephone wires connecting the American-held villages were shot out in the first few minutes and Fuller could not reach any of his battalions; artillery radios, however, continued to function. On the morning of 19 December the headquarters of the 28th Infantry Division transferred from Wiltz to Sibret, southwest of Bastogne. All that remained of the 707th Today marks the 76th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, in order to commemorate this anniversary we are releasing our first Then and Now video focusing . The coat of arms was approved on 2 January 1930. 4th Infantry Division Campaigns during World War II. Finally, after a grueling battle in the Baranw-Warsaw sector the division was relieved for the first time since the beginning of the Russian campaign and brought back to Poznan, there receiving the title of Volks Grenadier (regarded as somewhat less than an honor by the survivors of the old regular army 26th Infantry Division). The latter consisted of three divisions. Anything even remotely resembling a continuous line across the 9- to 10-mile regimental front was beyond the strength of the 1st and 3d Battalions. Crest: that for the regiments and separate battalions of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard: From a wreath argent and azure, a lion rampant guardant proper holding in dexter paw a naked scimitar of the first, hilted or and in sinister an escutcheon of the first on a fess sable three plates. The Huntingdon unit became Troop K, 3rd Battalion of the 104th Armored Cavalry and one of the Altoona companies became Howitzer Battery, 3rd Battalion 104th Cavalry. The Huntingdon unit was the Howitzer Battery 1st Battalion of the 104th Armored Cavalry and the unit in Everett was a Detachment of Company B, 167th Quartermaster Battalion and then was converted to Company C, 1st Battalion 110th Infantry. Across the lines General Cota had little reason to expect that the 110th Infantry could continue to delay the German attack at the 28th Division center as it had this first day. The lay of the ground and defenses in the area north of Ltzkampen were such that Waldenburg's right regiment had to move northwestward at an oblique to the axis of his left wing advance. 116th Infantry Regiment. Marnach remained in American hands, even after the Dasburg bridge was completed and the leading tanks of the 3d Panzer Regiment entered the fight. Ration strength was more than 17,000, and forty-two 75-mm. Near the village a patrol found that the stone bridge was guarded by only a half squad of Germans. Manteuffel had found himself in almost complete disagreement with the original operations plan handed down by Jodl in November. Around them Clerf was crawling with tanks, for most of the Mark IV Battalion of the 3d Panzer Regiment had assembled in the town during the night. This experience, events would show, had borne little fruit. It arrived in Clerf with nineteen medium tanks. The 28ID is the oldest continuously serving division in the United States Army. Just before dark, therefore, Kokott threw a part of his replacement training battalion into the action; these fresh troops succeeded in forcing their way into the north edge of the village, although with heavy losses. howitzers with one- and two-second fuzes. Intelligence reports indicated that the elements of the US 28th Infantry In the 110th zone four roads ran from the German border at the Our, up and over the Skyline Drive, and down to the Clerf. There was still hope on the morning of 17 December that at least one platoon from Company B was holding on in Marnach. General Middleton agreed, but with the proviso that the regiment should remain close enough to the river to deny an enemy crossing. Colonel Nelson's antitank reserve, Company C, 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was deployed on the ridge west of the river, but these were towed guns, dug in and relatively immobile. $14.95 + $5.50 shipping. Nonetheless he advised Cota to withdraw the 110th back of the Clerf, that "under the circumstances it was necessary." The tank thrust through the 1st Battalion center pushed parts of companies C (a platoon of which had joined the battalion from training), A, and D back through the woods toward Welchenhausen. About 0300 engineers manning pneumatic rubber boats began ferrying the 80-man assault companies and heavy infantry weapons across the river. Apprehensive lest the Americans be prematurely warned, Army Group B had forbidden the movement of any troops across the Our in advance of the opening barrage set for 0530 on 16 December. Furthermore, lack of communication between the 28th Division and its northern regiment would ultimately force the regimental commander, Col. Gustin M. Nelson, to act on his own. About 1300 a thick, soupy December fog rolled in on the village. The 687th Field Artillery Battalion pulled out to the southwest and the 3d Battalion also started to move, under the impression that this was the plan. At the chteau, however, headquarters company still was hard pressed by riflemen and machine gunners in the houses nearby. He argued that the enemy literally must not be awakened and that the assault forces should move forward the moment the guns sounded. Fred was part of "The Big Red" 1st Infantry Division. Battalion. Schoppen, Belgium, the 16th Infantry Regiment's first objective after going on the offense during second half of the Battle of the Bulge. 1959 is when this organization began to resemble the current organizational structure. the 2d Battalion back through Reuler, the Americans fighting stubbornly The 3rd Battalion of the 395th Infantry Regiment (3/395), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler, occupied the town of Hfen on the German border. Second, he had to disregard his own flanks, particularly on the south, and resolutely refuse to detach any force for flank protection until the main body was west of the Meuse. The dates of its approval and amendment are also the same. There was no hint from any source that the enemy was about to strike squarely into the center of the 8th Division and in overwhelming array. 75th Ranger Regiment Special Forces Infantry Regiments/Battalions Army Campaigns Pre-divisional Orders of Battle . It was disbanded on 16 July 1883 and reorganized as Company A, 10th Pennsylvania Infantry on 3 July 1884. of the 77th, under the cover provided by German artillery, drove The units of the 110th Infantry were disposed as follows to face three full German divisions. The battle plans and tactics of the Fifth Panzer Army, more than those of any other German army that took part in the Ardennes counteroffensive, bore the very strong personal imprint of its commander, General Manteuffel. The 311th Infantry Regiment was attached to the 8th Division in the Hurtgen Forest, 10 December. had no cohesive line of defense, General Kokott had ordered the 77th Regiment to circle north of Hosingen and head straight for the Clerf bridges at Drauffelt, while the 39th cut cross-country, avoiding the villages on the western side of the ridge line, and seized the road junction and bridges at Wilwerwiltz on the Clerf. returned to the line in this sector in mid-November to bolster the failing The casualties suffered by a typical American infantry regiment serving in World War II were horrendous. At the crossroads village of Hosingen atop the Skyline Drive, On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. Five hundred yards from the Germans, on the far side of a draw, the. Bofors of the protecting antiaircraft company with saving his howitzers. 17 But the situation east of Bastogne was growing more precarious and the division commander decided to bring the 112th back to join in the defense of Bastogne. George C. Rickards, a career Pennsylvania National Guard officer, was promoted to Colonel as commander of the 16th Pennsylvania in 1907. The Bellefonte unit was redesignated Troop L, 103d Cavalry. Aside from patrol activity (generally small raids against individual pillboxes) the 112th Infantry sector had been quiet. XLVII Panzer, Corps moved beyond it to the west.3 (Map IV). The Fifth Panzer commander seems to have been fairly optimistic, although he gave little ear to Hitler's promise of air support. His staff, carefully selected and personally devoted to the little general, was probably the best German staff on the Western Front. were battle-weary, small in number, and widely dispersed. But Germans struck again and again. General Luettwitz was none too pleased with the progress made by his two attack divisions on this first day. A part of the German company, perhaps a platoon in strength, succeeded in reaching the stone bridge over the Our south of Ouren, but was dispersed. Company B of the 2d Tank Battalion, en route to set up a roadblock northeast of Clerf, was appropriated by General Cota and sent to support the 110th Infantry. The 78th Infantry Division arrived in England, 26 October 1944, and received further training. a sweep along the western bank calculated to take the Ouren crossings German plans. With three divisions, and added corps troops, the XLVII Panzer Corps possessed a considerable amount of shock and fire power. Believing that once across the Our River, his left armored attack force, General der Panzertruppen Heinrich Freiherr von Luettwitz' XLVII Panzer Corps, would find the going better than on the right, he assigned Luettwitz a rather wide front. to give an accurate count of losses in the 112th Infantry, but they seem to have been moderate. led the corps commander to order the 116th Panzer Division The artillery supporting the LVIII Panzer Corps consisted of five battalions plus two Werfer battalions, and a few batteries of heavy guns. Other American troops now had to take over the actual defense of that all-important road center, but without the gallant bargain struck by the 110th Infantry and its allied units-men for time-the German plans for a coup-de-main at Bastogne would have turned to accomplished fact.21 The cost had been high, much higher than American units expected to pay at this stage of the war: the 110th Infantry virtually destroyed, the men and fighting vehicles of five tank companies lost, the equivalent of three combat engineer companies dead or missing, and tank destroyer, artillery, and miscellaneous units engulfed in this battle. The Logan Guards were mustered as Company E, 25th Pennsylvania Volunteers and then as Company A, 46th Pennsylvania Volunteers. . The 10th Infantry Regiment was on the far right side of the Divisions Frontline during their part of the Battle of the Bulge and it was the first regiment to arrive in Luxembourg. At the same time a tank platoon, shrouded in darkness and with no American tanks left to contest the passage, wound its way into the south end of Clerf. On 5 April 1877, Company C, 5th Pennsylvania Infantry (Altoona) was organized. Through the early hours of 17 December American outposts reported sounds of tank movement in Ltzkampen. In 1920, the Tyrone unit was redesignated Troop B, 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry and the Bellefonte unit was redesignated Troop L, 1st Pennsylvania Cavalry. The problem Then, too, the 2d Battalion had once again used the stone bridge south of Ouren to launch a counterattack across the river and, during the afternoon, materially restored the 3d Battalion positions. His appeal for a mechanized division to be given the neighboring Seventh the Fuehrer personally denied.2, The 110th Infantry Sector to bypass Wiltz on 19 December with his entire division but now found that he could not get his regiments back in hand. Only a short distance beyond, at a third block, fire swept into the column from all sides. Cota, as it turned out, already had phoned the corps commander and asked permission to bring the 112th back to the high ground west of the river. Although delayed by inadequate deliveries of POL and the traffic jam on the damaged Dasburg-Marnach road the entire division, including its tank regiment, assembled on the west bank around Heinerscheid during the night of 17-18 December. Some additional help for the 112th did arrive before daybreak on 17 December, four self-propelled tank destroyers out of the 811th Tank Destroyer Battalion borrowed from Combat Command Reserve, 9th Armored Division, at Trois Vierges. Tanks, ordered up from the division reserve, had not yet arrived. relatively little ground; the 110th was very hard pressed; and German tanks were moving along the main road to Bastogne by way of Marnach. The Bellefonte unit was designated as Troop L, 3rd Reconnaissance Squadron of the 104th Armored Cavalry. Only one man escaped. Two hours later the 112th Infantry acknowledged receipt of these instructions. The government of Luxembourg awarded it the Croix de Guerre, and the 112th Infantry Regiment received a Presidential Unit Citation, but that was the extent of the official recognition. Middleton had ordered the 44th Engineer Combat Battalion 109th, 110th, and 112th Infantry Regiments 107th, 108th . They heard, and duly reported, heavy artillery to the south, they saw searchlights and flames lighting up the sky, but again in the south. 18-41 112th CT : 8th Div : 15 Nov 44-19 Nov 44 : 112th CT : 106th Div : 19 Dec 44-23 Dec 44 : 109th Inf : 9th Armd Div : 20 Dec 44-22 Dec 44 : 109th CT: 10th Armd Div: 22 Dec 44-26 Dec 44: 3d Bn 112th Inf: 82d Abn Div: 23 Dec 44-25 Dec 44: 2d Bn 112th Inf: 75th Div: 28 Dec 44-4 Jan 45: 112th CT: 30th Div: 5 Jan 45-11 Jan 45: 112th Inf: 78th Div : 19 . The story in the 2d Panzer Division zone was the same. (Lewistown) and the Bellefonte Fencibles, both organized in 1858. The Battle of the Bulge took place in December 1944, after Adolf Hitler launched a surprise blitzkrieg against Allied Forces in northwest Europe. In 1951, a rampant lion as found on the arms of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg grasping a red cross of the province of Lorraine in France were added to the old coat of arms of the 112th Infantry Regiment. Back at Hosingen the attempt to break American resistance had won an early lodgment in the south edge of the village, but had achieved no more. It was accounted the regimental reserve, having fixed schemes of employment for support of the two battalions in the north by counterattack either northeast or southeast. The road net was adequate, although mired by constant rain, but the two forward battalions had to be supplied at night because of German fire. antitank guns supplemented the weapons organic to the conventional Volks Grenadier division. Only Company K in Hosingen was yet to be heard from. The ground east of the river was favorable to the defender, who was well entrenched as the result of careful planning and inspection by Nelson and his staff, and whose guns covered the few routes of mechanized advance. The next morning Colonel Nelson was able to tell General Cota, "Very good news. The northern regiment of the Panzer Lehr Division, the 902d, made better progress. Then as the attack got moving they were raised to lay heavy counterbattery fire on the 229th Field Artillery Battalion (Lt. Col. John C. Fairchild). guns and asked for American artillery fire on their own positions. THE ARDENNES CAMPAIGN: BATTLE OF THE BULGE Bull, Harold R.: Papers, 1943-1968 Box 1 Miscellaneous Military Letters, 1 June-20 December 1944 (1) Box 2 Additional Papers, 1944-1948 Collins, J. Lawton: Papers, 1896-1975 . At least a third of the 5th Parachute Division was finally engaged at Wiltz contrary to Heilmann's orders. In fact it represented Heilmann's failure to gain control of his division, for the orders were to bypass Wiltz. exercises to arrive at a solution, but Bastogne lay nineteen air-miles of 16 December, therefore, the German commander ordered the corps to The battalion commander ordered his right company down to block the paved road from Marnach to Clerf, but this road was in the hands of the 2d Panzer Division, whose tanks were rolling toward wing of the 110th, had been overrun or forced to displace. The 1st Platoon of Company A, which had returned to Munshausen after the unsuccessful attempt to reach Marnach, moved north meanwhile to help the 2d Platoon. Replacements, generally better than the average, were. But . Despite harassing fire from American guns and mortars the Germans moved swiftly. The company leading the left battalion surprised a platoon of Company L at breakfast, overran the company kitchen (which was only 800 to goo yards behind the rifle line) and killed the platoon commander. He died on Nov. 29, 1944 and is buried at Henri-Chapelle in Hombourg, Belgium. of the 2d Battalion (Lt. Col. J. L. MacSalka) assembled in a draw between German tanks opened fire on them, but a direct hit stopped the leading Mark IV, for the moment effectively blocking the serpentine approach from Marnach. The 109th Infantry was losing ground on its north flank and soon would be forced back fanwise into the 9th Armored Division zone. The German infantry would have to fight step by step; the hope of a quick breakthrough had proven illusory. This road makes a twisted and tortuous descent to the valley floor, finally crossing the river at the southeastern edge of the town and proceeding, through narrow streets until it emerges on the north. orders to Luettwitz' divisions were couched in very general terms. On 19 December the right wing division of the latter, the 5th Parachute Division, took over the attack on Wiltz, or perhaps more accurately, drifted into a fight for the town. This was not quite the end in Clerf. The 26th Volks Grenadier Division, which had allowed the 112th to go about its training program with only very minor interruption, marched south to join the XLVII Panzer Corps and take part in the attack for Bastogne. On the evening of the 18th Col. Ludwig Heilmann, commander of the 5th Parachute Division, knew that the divisions on his right and left were well ahead of his own. In August 1950 the Lewistown unit was mustered into federal service for the Korean War. The German guns and Werfers had finally opened fire to neutralize or destroy the rearward artillery and reserve positions in the, 112th sector. 3d Battalion sector, compressing the American companies in the village both the 26th Volks Grenadier Division and the 2d Panzer Division had crossed the river and taken some part in the fight. The regiment was called to active federal service on 17 February 1941, 10 months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. It became the 112th Infantry Regimental Combat Team which consisted of the 112th Infantry Regiment, the 229th Field Artillery Battalion, the 103rd Engineer Battalion, Company C, 447th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion, and Company C, 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion. restored while the commander of the 1130th reported that his The mission remained, but the troops available on 16 December were less than half the number promised: one armored division, the 116th Panzer Division, and two-thirds of an infantry division, the 560th Volks Grenadier Division. There were also available some In early planning there had been some question as to whether the Americans in the Schnee Eifel should be left to the Fifth or the Sixth. Miscellaneous troops of the 110th Infantry had joined with units of Combat Command R of the 9th Armored Division (briefly under operational control of the 28th Infantry Division) to defend along the main road to Bastogne in the area west of Clerf. The regimental cannon company also provided some interested spectators, who trained their howitzers on Heinerscheid with such good effect that enemy records take rueful note of this harassing fire from the north. With this team Manteuffel hoped to win a quick penetration and get rolling. The 29th Infantry Division (29th ID), also known as the "Blue and Gray Division", is an infantry division of the United States Army based in Fort Belvoir, Virginia.It is currently a formation of the U.S. Army National Guard and contains units from Virginia, Maryland, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina and West Virginia.. Later reports indicate that this group was almost wiped out. This point was conceded when Hitler ruled that the artillery fires along the entire front would begin at 0530. cannon company gunners quickly bore-sighted their pieces, loaded reduced charge, and with direct fire knocked out four of the panzers. The unit was mustered out of federal service on 6 December 1945 at Camp Gordon, Georgia. By early January 1945, they had moved to defensive positions along the Meuse River. on the left flank of the US Ninth Army. 110th Infantry Regiment; 112th Infantry Regiment ; 107th Field Artillery Battalion; 108th Field Artillery Battalion; 109th . Service in the Civil War is shown by the cross pate, the badge of the 5th Corps, 3rd Division, in which the organization served in that war. This was the last word from Marnach. The southern prong of the three-pronged counterattack to shut off the German armored drive moving through Marnach toward Clerf also was outgunned and outnumbered but did reach Marnach, only to report that no friendly infantry could be found. Staff Sgt. From that day on, the names Fismes, Fismette, Fond de Mezieres, and Argonne would never be forgotten. He then became the executive officer (XO) for the 16th Infantry Regiment at Fort Jay, Governors Island, New York.
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