Saint Vith, much like the next place picked to dig a line in hopes of stopping a forest fire, must be seen in its unique context. Because the place is a crossroads town, the divisions in General Lucht’s 66th Corps of Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army fully intended to capture and control those intersections. Not only a town was at stake, but the timetable for the German offensive. In this sector the Germans heavily outnumbered U.S. defenders, more than on any other fronting the Bulge, and the gradual terrain offered flexibility to the attackers, with Saint Vith only seven miles west of the German border.
As the Losheim Gap seemed an open door to Peiper’s battle group attacking northwest, so did the same low place present a southwesterly route with no serious rivers or mountains to overcome, an area of the Bulge less rugged than the northern or southern shoulders. It was a region of low hills, some bare, others forested, separated by valleys and draws, stretching from Krewinkel in the north to Bleialf in the south, with four east-to-west roads.
On December 16-17, three German prongs of attack followed the main roads. In the north, the 18th Volksgrenadier Division launched an encircling movement with support from the Sixth SS Panzer Army’s reserve Tiger tanks and the Fuhrer Begleit (Escort) Brigade. By the evening of the 17th, this German pincer had surrounded the U.S. 422nd and 423rd Regiments of the U.S. 106th (“Golden Lion”) Infantry Division, novice units in their exposed position for only a few days. These two regiments fought another two days under constant artillery fire and tank and infantry attacks. They found themselves without ammunition and trapped, with no communications to their division headquarters. On the 19th, 8,000 men finally surrendered at the village of Schonberg and were marched into Germany. They included 22-year old Kurt Vonnegut, subsequently imprisoned at Dresden to survive Allied fire bombing of that beautiful city. From that experience he later wrote Slaughterhouse-Five, and concluded that war, unfortunately, is inevitable. His essentially anti-war view argue that it’s therefore doubly important to ensure there are only just wars.
Montanans Mel Mellinger and Kenny Newton were with the 423rd Regiment in the surrender. They described landing in France and being taken directly to foxholes along a 22-mile front in temperature ranging from 32 degrees at night to 38 in the day, with lots of snow the night before the German offensive. Newton described the day the Bulge was launched, “hearing the rumbling of tanks, then retreating and mass confusion; no leadership, just a scramble. And fear, remembering the body of a soldier of the division in a foxhole under his greatcoat; he had shot himself; it was depressing; he had committed suicide, it was that tough.”
According to Mellinger, “the situation was changing so fast, no one knew what was going on. German 88s were there, combing the area for three days, pinpointing their shots, raking back and forth. By the 19th, the situation was really bad, with units hiding in the wooded areas, vehicles tumbling into a creek in the withdrawal, German shells coming back and forth; there were bodies pretty prevalent around the whole area; guys didn’t make it when they started to round us up. The Germans lobbed shells right into the field hospital.”
“We had a choice,” he said, “of lying in our ‘v’ trench full of water, five of us lying there soaked to the bone either that or the choice of getting shot. Finally, around the evening of the 19th, we were instructed by our leaders to start dismantling our rifles. We were surrendering. The Germans surrounded us and herded us like sheep to corral, 2,000 of us with no food for one day to the railroad spur, then a two-day and night march, throwing away our overshoes, our feet freezing, we were loaded into 40x8 boxcars, riding ten days with just room to sit, two meals a day, broth and a slice of bread, to Limburg railroad yard during an RAF bombing attack, then on to Dresden with tough guards who separated the Jewish POWs out.”
Another Montanan was also there, James Dew of Missoula, who confirmed that nobody knew what was going on. Dew also recalled the utter chaos, saying he was sure if there hadn’t been a surrender they would have all been killed, and being terrified when they did surrender, knowing the Malmedy Massacre had happened two days earlier. “I was extremely lucky,” he remembered. “I could have been killed with shrapnel right off.” Private First Class Stuart Bethel of Helena, Montana was killed with the 423rd, shot at Bleialf while serving in an anti-tank company. He is buried at Henri-Chapelle.
Slightly to the south, the 62nd Volksgrenadier Division attacked along the Steinebruck-St.Vith road, defended by two battalions of the 424th Regiment of the 106th Infantry Division, reinforced by Combat Command B of the U.S. 9th Armored Division, including the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion and 14th Tank Battalion. The 62nd Volksgrenadiers were initially blocked at Steinebruck and took tremendous casualties, but eventually penetrated U.S. defenses. Intensive shelling by the U.S. 591st Field Artillery enabled the Steinebruck defender to escape, outrunning a near encirclement and fighting their way back to assume defensive positions at St.Vith and Grufflingen.
Fortunately, as soon as Eisenhower heard of the German offensive, he had dispatched the 9th Armored CCB and the 7th Armored Division south to St.Vith under the command of the 7th Armored Commander General Hasbrouck. Rather than attempt a counter-attack to rescue the trapped U.S. regiments, Hasbrouck chose to defend St.Vith with its vital road junctions. He charged General Clarke, Commander of the 7th Armored CCB, with organizing the city’s defense.
“Clarke of St.Vith,” as he became known, created a defensive “horseshoe” facing east, northeast and southeast around the city, positioning field artillery to range all approaching roads with supporting fires. He faced the 7th Armored Division Combat Commands A and B east and North, with the 9th Armored CCB facing south and west, while feeding remnant of the 112th Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division, and the 424th Regiment of the 106th Infantry Division into the horseshoe as they withdrew to St.Vith.
The 7th Armored was a veteran unit with combat experience from Normandy to Holland. Aided by clogged, muddy roads and traffic jams that were slowing the Fifth Panzer Army movement, especially the artillery, Clarke was holding the city against fierce but uncoordinated piecemeal attacks. German commander Manteuffel, himself was out on the clogged roads, trying to direct traffic, realizing the importance of taking St.Vith on schedule to protect the German supply line and free up troops for the drive to the Meuse using the St.Vith road network.
After surrounding the American regiment at Schonberg, the 18th Volksgrenadier moved to attack the next U.S. roadblock at Prummerberg Height, a commanding hill located five miles directly east of St.Vith along the main Bleialf to St.Vith road.
Here, the Volksgrenadiers encountered tough resistance from the U.S. 81st and 168th Engineer Combat Battalions, a part of the U.S. 38th Armored Infantry, and the 275th Field Artillery, aided from overhead at one point by three P-47s. Employing effective mortar and directed artillery fire, the defenders held their line of foxhole over three days against three separate German attacks by infantry and self-propelled assault guns, earning the defenders a Presidential Unit Citation.
On December 19 another German threat developed, this time to the northwest behind St.Vith, from the fast moving Fuhrer Begleir Brigade panzers. There had been one clash already involving a task force of the 1st SS Panzer southern wing. Here, 7th Armored’s Combat Command A (CCA) again successfully defended Poteau crossroads, keeping open the St.Vith escape route west while outlying U.S. units around the horseshoe, including those at Prummerberg, were pulled back closer to St.Vith, moving in small groups and at night to infiltrate through surrounding Germans. While some got back, many were killed, wounded, or captured.
On December 20, the Germans launched an all-out assault on the horseshoe. Facing 21 attacks using Nebelwerfer, or Smoke Mortar, rockets, tanks, and infantry from the north, east, and south, five American field artillery battalions fired 7,000 rounds. The U.S. 38th Armored Infantry Battalion, with only 75 percent of its strength, again, as at Prummerberg Heights, played a major role in the final defense of the city. To save ammunition, its member were instructed, “For every round fired, a corpse must hit the ground.”
The final German push on St.Vith, under artillery support brought up by Manteuffel after the roads had finally unclogged, came on December 21. Seeing the inevitable, and deciding to save his division unless ordered to hold at all costs, General Hasbrouck had begun moving unit west 12 mile to form a new defensive “goose egg” near Vielsalm on the Salm River, while fighting off German efforts to block the withdrawal. St.Vith was finally lost on the 21st after six days of fighting. Five thousand U.S. soldiers were killed, wounded, or missing, along with 59 medium Sherman tanks and 30 light tanks. Columns of U.S. prisoners once again clogged the roads as they were marched east to POW camps.
In the meantime, elements of the U.S. 82nd Airborne Division were being rushed to Vielsalm on the Salm River to screen the St.Vith defenders as they pulled back. The Fuhrer Begleit Brigade and 18th and 62nd Volksgrenadiers were in close pursuit, going to cut Hasbrouck’s forces off before they reached the river. This fighting withdrawal lasted until late night December 23, when the 7th and the 9th Armored Divisions made it successfully across the Salm to General Ridgeway’s newly created U.S. 18th Airborne Corps defensive line.
Hasbrouck and Clark had averted a disaster equal to the 106th surrender, losing 5,000 men at St.Vith but saving another 15,000 men and their armor to fight another day. The initiative, however, was still with the Germans, as the U.S 7th Armored Division was battered, and as three new dangers were appearing. The German 9th SS Panzer from Dietrich’s reserve in the north was approaching Vielsalm from the northwest; Manteuffel’s 116 Panzer and 560th Volksgrenadiers Divisions were already beyond the Salm River to the southwest near Marche; and the 2nd SS Panzer, also from Dietrich’s reserve, was appearing in the Houffalize area south of Vielsalm and turning northwest. It would now be Ridgeway’s problem to incorporate the survivors of St.Vith with his own 18th Airborne Corps, forming a new defense line near the Ourthe River. British Field Marshal Montgomery, charged by this time with all Allied forces in the sector, concurred with Hasbrouck’s withdrawal, saying, “They come back with all honor.”
The U.S. active defense at St.Vith had slowed the Germans at high cost, denying a vital road network for seven days, preventing a coordinated German Fifth and Sixth Panzer Army drive west, and giving the U.S. time to establish its new defense line. After the war Manteuffel said if he could have taken St.Vith earlier, he probably could have aided Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer army attacking in the north.
We visited St.Vith twice on our tour of the Bulge. The first time, we drove down 20 miles from Stavelot, stopping at a pastry cafe in what has become a pretty city surrounded by low hills, a city with nice, well-maintained modern-style boutiques. The clerks and customer in the cafe were speaking German rather than French, reminding us this had been the German part of Belgium, like Malmedy. More than 100 St.Vith boys were said to have served in the Wehrmacht. The city was accidentally bombed twice, once on Christmas Day 1944 by the Allies. Only one building survived.
Continuing further east another five miles from St.Vith towards the German border, we traveled through hills and valleys before coming to Schonberg, a narrow farming village along the Ridgeline of a low hill. This was the site of the surrender of the two U.S. regiments. Standing there, we could imagine the scene on December 19, 1944. GIs would have been able to see the German fir forests to the easts beyond the rolling hills as they were being bypassed and cut off. Derided for giving up, with their Division Commander sent to the rear where he suffered a heart attack, the 106th Infantry was never recognized for the defense it put up. There is not a single monument or marker in Schonberg, or any mention of the 106th.
This hilltop somehow brought the war home. War is a word overused by those who have not been visited by it. How can we possibly identify with the depravation of Belgians trying to keep their families intact? Can we identify with the life of American and German infantrymen slogging 15 to 20 miles a day through deep snow, trying to see their painfully damaged feet functioning amid the adrenaline rushes that come with the knowledge that the enemy has just killed your buddy and now are earnestly trying to terminate your existence?
St.Vith is the story of Americans fighting rearguard action as they retreated from the “horseshoe” to the “goose egg” over the seven days of constant fighting from December 16-23. But it is a hard battle to get one’s mind around. Manteuffel could not understand why there were delay in taking this important road and rail center, since the Americans were so outnumbered and the terrain not as rugged as in the north. He came to the front line to see what was wrong and direct traffic personally.
What had happened was that the U.S. 7th and 9th Armored Division were there to back up the 106th Division, which was destroyed. U.S. engineers, Manteuffel also discovered, were terrific soldiers, blocking roads, laying mines and fighting skillfully as infantry. Their role was magnified at St.Vith. The battle there was actually a number of small engagements joined together, as Manteuffel said after the war, in “the battle of small men,” of platoons in small scattered battles with troops not under central command. It all came down to the rifle platoon, and to how the individual responded and made his own decisions in time of crisis. That applies to life in general. Eisenhower said later that he considered the St.Vith resistance second in importance only to the American stand at Elsenborn Ridge.
