Tanks pumped seven hundred rounds into the woods to shake the Germans there, but little time was left in the short winter day and the foot soldiers only got across the Mllerthal-Waldbillig road. The latter crossed east of Echternach, its first objective being the series of hills north of Dickweiler and Osweiler. This ambulance convoy was en route to Consdorf, in the late afternoon, when a radio message reported that the Germans had cut the road north of Consdorf and bazooka'd two tanks on their way back from Berdorf for ammunition. At the same time he gave Colonel Chance eight medium tanks and ten light tanks, leaving the 70th Tank Battalion (Lt. Col. Henry E. Davidson, Jr.) with only three mediums and a platoon of light tanks in running order. The five medium tanks drove through to the northeastern edge and just before noon began shelling the Parc Hotel in the mistaken belief that it was held by the enemy. antitank gun which had been placed here to block the gorge road. The 8th Armored Division was activated on 1 April 1942 at Fort Knox, Kentucky, with "surplus" units of the recently reorganized 4th Armored Division and newly-organized units. Many radios were in the repair shops, and those at outposts had a very limited range over the abrupt and broken terrain around Echternach and Berdorf, Luxembourg's "Little Switzerland." At the day's end only the regimental antitank company, numbering some sixty men, stood between the enemy and the 2d Battalion command post at Consdorf. Although the 212th was at full strength it shared the endemic weaknesses of the volks grenadier division: insufficient communications and fewer assault guns than provided by regulation (only four were with the division on 16 December). As in the case of the 276th Volks Grenadier Division, there is no indication that the LXXX Corps expected to send the 212th into Luxembourg City, although the Germans knew that the 12th Army Group Headquarters and the advance command post of the Ninth Air Force were located there. While part of Task Force Standish was engaged in Berdorf, another team attacked through heavy underbrush toward Hill 329, east of Berdorf, which overlooked the road to Echternach. The 320th had not reached Osweiler and the first assault at Dickweiler had been repulsed handily. The wounded were left in Berdorf and the task force tanks, hampered by milling civilian refugees, began a night-long fire fight with the 2d Battalion, 423d Regiment, which had concentrated to capture Consdorf. Task Force Riley sent tanks carrying infantry into the edge of Echternach on the morning of 19 December. They went overseas on 5 December 1943 where they trained in Ireland for the Invasion of Europe. Thus both Osweiler and Dickweiler remained tight in American hands. rear of the column and drove an ammunition truck, its canvas smoldering from German bullets, up to the gun crews. By noon, however, with Berdorf and Echternach known to be under attack, Dickweiler hit in force, and Lauterborn reported to be surrounded, it was clear that the Germans at the very least were engaged in an extensive "reconnaissance in force," thus far confined to the 12th Infantry sector. The 35-mile front assigned to the 4th Division conformed to the west bank of the Sauer and Moselle Rivers. The following night all three regiments assembled behind a single battalion which acted as a screen along the Sauer between Bollendorf and Ralingen, the prospective zone of attack. In addition to the organic medical support provided in its infantry and armored divisions, the VIII Corps, First U.S. Army, in the opening days of the Battle of the Bulge possessed a. Accordingly, the 316th Infantry began to cross the Sauer, moving up behind the center of the parent division. The leading companies of the two German assault regiments began crossing the Sauer before dawn. The Americans dug in for the night, and the Germans passed on toward Scheidgen. Tanks en route to Osweiler got word of this situation, picked up twenty-five cannoneers from the 176th Field Artillery Battalion, and intervened in the fight. And in and around Eisenborn, CCA, 10th Armored Division, was assembling to counter any German attack. In the fire fight which followed the 2d Battalion companies became separated, but the early winter darkness soon ended the skirmish. After three years of campaigning on the Eastern Front the division had been so badly shattered during withdrawals in the Lithuanian sector that it was taken from the line and sent to Poland, in September 1944, for overhauling. Thirty minutes later the answer came back from CCA: a section of tanks and some riflemen were fighting at the outskirts of Echternach. howitzer battalion and two additional medium battalions belonging to the 422d Field Artillery Group, but even this added firepower did not permit the 4th Division massed fire at any point on the extended front. Later the 4th Infantry Division historian was able to write: "This German battalion is clearly traceable through the rest of the operation, a beaten and ineffective unit.". Orders were radioed to Company E (a fresh battery for its radio had been brought in by the tanks) to fight its way out during the night. Both sides were forced to rely largely upon radio communication, but it would appear that the Germans had particular difficulty: prisoners reported that "nobody seems to know where anybody else is.". An hour earlier the tank destroyer reconnaissance company had begun a long-range fire fight but the German advance guard, despite heavy shelling from three field artillery battalions and every self-propelled piece which could be brought to bear, drove straight on to Mllerthal. The long southern flank of the old 212th Volks Grenadier Division sector had been drastically weakened to permit the concentration at Echternach. By nightfall the situation seemed much improved-despite the increased pressure on the 4th Division companies closely invested in the north. When the 4th Division reserves arrived in Breitweiler on the morning of 17 December the threat of a flanking move through the gorge was very real but the Americans had time to dig in. The 12th Infantry was on the left (next to the 9th Armored Division) and fronting on the Sauer; the 8th Infantry was in the center, deployed on both the Sauer and Moselle; the 22d. During these operations in France, while light and medium bombers and fighter-bomber aircraft of Ninth Air Force had been engaged in close support and interdictory operations, Eighth and Fifteenth Air Forces had continued their strategic bombing. In the face of the German build-up opposite the 12th Infantry and the apparent absence of enemy activity elsewhere on the division front, General Barton began the process of regrouping to meet the attack. Fighting on 17 December took place along the axes of three principal German penetrations: on the American left flank at Berdorf, Consdorf, and Mllerthal; in the center along the Echternach-Lauterborn-Scheidgen road; and on the right in the Osweiler-Dickweiler sector. Death dates are between Dec. 16, 1944, and Jan. 25, 1945, the period of the giant battle. Gen. Edwin W. Piburn), the leading combat command, should make an immediate drive to the north between the Schwarz Erntz gorge and the main Echternach-Luxembourg road. Contact thus established, an assault was launched to clear Berdorf. The defenders had been split up by the German assault and the company commander had to report that he could not organize a withdrawal. The cemeteries are in Belgium and Luxembourg. Finally, in the late afternoon, Colonel Chance sent a call over the radio relay system: "Where is Riley?" Both flanks were nailed down, and the German attack seemed to have lost momentum. In late 1944, during the wake of the Allied forces' successful D-Day invasion of Normandy, France, it seemed as if the Second World War was all but over. The German attack through the 9th Armored sector beyond Waldbillig had been checked. But Colonel Chance sent out all of the usable tanks in Company B, 70th Tank Battalion-a total of three-to pick up a rifle squad at the 3d Battalion command post (located at Herborn) and clear the road to Osweiler. The two were of one mind on the need for counterattack tactics and arranged that CCA (Brig. The gunners nevertheless began to get on the targets, and the German infantry reported very punishing artillery fire during the afternoon. American artillery observers by the failing light saw "troops pouring into Echternach." Soldiers of each army grappled with knives and bayonets in the open streets as machine gun fire and mortars rained down around them. In accordance with the division orders to hold back maximum reserves, the 12th Infantry had only five companies in the line, located in villages athwart the main and secondary roads leading southwest from the Sauer River crossings to the interior of the Grand Duchy. to widen the avenues of penetration behind the panzers. Barton's troops and Morris' tanks had brought the 212th and the 276th Volks Grenadier Division to a halt, had then withdrawn most of their advance detachments successfully, and now held a stronger position on a shortened line. Direct assault failed to dislodge these Americans, and the attempt was abandoned pending the arrival of heavy weapons from across the river. The 8th Infantry Division was recognized as a liberating unit by the US Army's Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 1988. be remembered, four rifle battalions still were retained on guard along the twenty miles of the division front south of the battle area. Lacking tanks and self-propelled artillery, the 212th Volks Grenadier Division had to rely on the infantry. When darkness fell the Americans still were held in check, and the infantry drew back, with two tanks in support, and dug in for the night. The enemy infantry would outnumber the Americans opposing them in the combat area, but on 17 December the Germans in the bridgehead would meet a far greater weight of artillery fire than they could direct against the Americans and would find it difficult to deal with American tanks. He told Barton that if he could find the engineers he could use them. Sharp assault destroyed the German machine gun positions and the attack reached the ridge leading to Hill 329. Meanwhile the sixty-some members of Company F remained in the Parc Hotel, whose roof and upper story had been smashed in by German shelling. When the day ended the relief force had accomplished no more than consolidating a defensive position in Lauterborn. were many seventeen-year-olds. The enemy here was in considerable strength and had established observation posts on the ridges ringing Lauterborn and bordering the road. The platoon from Company A, 12th Infantry, which had been posted on Hill 313 the day before, fell back to Scheidgen and there was overwhelmed after a last message pleading for tank destroyers. The Luxembourg-German border was easily crossed, and despite the best efforts of the American Counter Intelligence Corps and the local police the bars and restaurants in Luxembourg City provided valuable listening posts for German agents. As before, the maneuver was a flanking movement designed to seize the high ground overlooking Mllerthal. These villages, at which the crucial engagements would be fought, were Berdorf, Echternach, Lauterborn, Osweiler, and Dickweiler. Higher German headquarters had anticipated the appearance of some American reinforcements opposite the LXXX Corps as early as the third day of the operation. The rest of the tanks returned to Consdorf for gasoline and ammunition. The Americans had met this onslaught with two infantry regiments (the 12th and 109th), an armored infantry battalion (the 60th), and an understrength tank battalion (the 70th), these units and others attached making the total approximately division strength. When the fight died down one of the defenders found that the blast had opened a sealed annex in the basement, the hiding place of several score bottles of fine liquor and a full barrel of beer. Here the company was found to be in good spirits, supplied with plenty of food and wine, and holding its own to the tune of over a hundred of the enemy killed. The tank-infantry counterattack by Task Forces Standish and Riley in the Berdorf and Echternach areas also resumed. Initially activated in January 1918, the unit did not see combat during World War I and returned to the United States. The tanks and riflemen proceeded to run a 2,000-yard gauntlet of bursting shells along the high, exposed road to Dickweiler (probably the enemy guns beyond the Sauer were firing interdiction by the map). Night had come, Echternach was swarming with Germans, and the 10th Armored Division headquarters had ordered all its teams to reassemble behind the 4th Division lines preparatory to moving "in any direction." In Dickweiler the troops of the 3d Battalion, 12th Infantry, had been harassed by small forays from the woods above the village. The Fall of the Golden Lions. At dark the Germans had lost. The third task force from CCA, 10th Armored (led by Lt. Col J. R. Riley), made good progress in its attack along the Scheidgen-Lauterborn axis. #23A US Army WII ARMY Infantry 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th patches. TWS is the largest online community of Veterans existing today and is a powerful Veteran locator. 1940. This proved to be slow work. Enemy artillery had interdicted many of the roads in the area and had been very effective at Berdorf. It is probable that the Americans in Echternach were forced to surrender late on 20 December. 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