Along the southernmost final attack line for the offensive running down to Echternach lay a picturesque, castled German border with Luxembourg which became known as the “southern shoulder” of the Bulge. This craggy terrain favored the deployment of infantry over tanks. The Germans had few tanks here, a factor the would cost them.
Under General Brandenberger, three German Volksgrenadier Divisions and one Fallschirm Division of the German Seventh Army attacked the U.S. 109th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division, the 9th Armored Division’s Combat Command A, and the 4th Infantry Division, stretched in that order down the Luxembourg border from the Vianden area to Echternach. Unlike Dietrich and Manteuffel’s armies, Brandenberger’s army was not expected to race to the Meuse towards Brussels and Antwerp.
Its role was to protect Manteuffel’s southern flank as he charged west.
Bradenberger’s northern element, the German 85th Corps, consisting of the 352nd Volksgrenadier and 5th Fallschirm Divisions, enjoyed some success. Their combined mission was to push west from Luxembourg to Wiltz near Bastogne, seizing Ettelbruck and Diekirch on the way, then swing south towards Martelange on the Arlon-to-Bastogne highway. This would create a defensive line against Patton’s army coming up from the Saar.
The 5th German Fallschirm Division, furthest north of Brandenberger’s attacking units, made its initial assault from Stoltenberg through Vianden towards Wiltz, attacking near Bourscheid, thus separating the U.S. 109th Infantry Regiment from it’s parent 28th Infantry Division and driving it south into the sector of the U.S. 9th Armored Division CCA. The 109th was under Lieutenant Colonel Rudder, earlier the U.S. Rangers Commander at Pointe du Hoc on Normandy’s Omaha Beach.
In this area of wooded heights chopped by the deep gorges made by the Ernz and Clerve Rivers, the U.S. 109th Regiment was hit at Fouhren. Its main body was largely destroyed by the German 5th Fallschirm and 352 Volksgrenadiers, advancing west along separate paths. From Fouhren, paratroopers of the 5th Fallschirm moved on toward the southern sector of Bastogne, reaching Wiltz and the Martelange area. Along the Arlon-Bastogne highway, they fiercely resisted Patton’s December 23-26 drive north. Young Luftwaffe ground news folded into the 5th’s German paratroops proved to be some of Hitler’s best fighters.
Just to the south of the 5th Fallschirm Division zone, the 352nd Volksgrenadiers took the Hoesdorf Plateau, Diekirch, and Ettelbruck, but suffered heavily from U.S. artillery in the process. They pushed on, but the U.S. 109th Regiment, after suffering at Fouhren, conducted an effective fighting withdrawal slowly to the southwest. The 109th regrouped on the high ground west of Ettelbruck and ambushed the Volksgrenadiers on December 20 near Grosbous, inflicting severe German casualties. The U.S. was suffering serious casualties as well. In nine days of continuous combat, the 109th Regiment lost 30 percent of its troops, 815 killed and wounded. By this time the 352nd Volksgrenadiers were also becoming engaged in a series of sharp battles, including at Merzig, with Patton’s 80th Infantry (“Blue Ridge”) Division fighting its way north.
Bradenberger’s southernmost corps, the German 80th Corps, consisting of the 276th and 212th Volsgrenadier Divisions, started south of Vianden in mountainous terrain called “Little Switzerland.” Near Wallendorf, just south of Vianden, the 276th Volksgrenadiers, under a U.S. artillery attack, had a difficult crossing over the Our River. They ran against the US. 9th Armored Division’s 60th Armored Infantry Battalion (AIB), capturing Beaufort and surrounding U.S. troops for three days. The Germans inflicted 350 casualties on the 60th AIB, but made little overall progress against tough resistance in rugged terrain. After Beaufort, they swung southeast to join the 212th Volksgrenadiers. Their goal was to take the high ground south of Echternach towards Consdorf to block Patton’s advance, but they made it only a few miles to Waldbillig, six miles west of Echternach, before being checked by the combined blocking force of the 9th Armored and 4th Infantry Divisions.
There were Montanans involved in this “hard elbow” of the Bulge, fighting with the U.S. 9th Armored Division CCA in continuous action from December 16-23 near Waldbillig and Savelborn, Luxembourg, repulsing constant and determined attacks by a German division. Outnumbered five to one and often surrounded, clerks, cooks, mechanics, drivers, and others manned the defensive line, supported by artillery, thus barring the way from the German border to Luxembourg City.
The Montanans included the “Marysville Five,” Bob O’Connell, brothers George and Tom Surman, Ray Smigaj, and Roger Williams. They had all found their way to the Bulge from the small mining town of Marysville, Montana. Carl Straberg of Helena was with them. In a Bulge anniversary issue of Helena’s newspaper, they described being in combat “for 10 wild days,” with sleep confounded by Benzedrine sulfate tablets. A quote from Stars and Stripes told of their unit being “trapped deep in enemy territory,” but working their way back through the German lines with helmets and blankets draped around their shoulders. They slung their M-1 rifles with lanyards to hide their identity as they marched through Beaufort, where a German regiment was celebrating the capture of the town. When a German sentry challenged the shadowy forms, one of them responded “Heil Hitler,” and they continued back to U.S. lines.
Bob O’Connell, in a letter to his parents at the time, said, “We knocked the best Hitler has to offer all over the lot.” The American artillery had out-dueled the Germans’ best guns in the deep snow in sub-zero temperatures. The 9th Armored CCA was awarded a Presidential Unit Citation for “delaying the German steamroller two days while blocking the way to Luxembourg City in the ‘elbow.’”
Further south, the 212th Volksgrenadiers, once considered the best infantry division in the German army, attacked the extreme southern tip of the Bulge at Berdorf, Lauterborn, Ehternach, Osweiler, and Dickweiler. The Volksgrenadiers crossed the Sauer River and hit the U.S. 12th Infantry Regiment of the 4th Infantry (“Ivy”) Division, a veteran unit supposedly used up in the Hurtgen Forest. The 4th was strongly supported by the 10th Armored Division.
Walter Tipton of Helena, Montana was engaged in this sector, serving with the 174th Field Artillery. During the war, Tipton served a total of 280 days in combat with three U.S. armies. As a radio technician in headquarters battery attached to the U.S. 6th Armored (“Super Sixth”) Division, he had participated in the difficult Cotentin Peninsula and Brest battles prior to the Bulge, fighting his way across France with Patton. According to the 174th official history, We Did, by Harry P. Snyder, they became famous in Luxembourg as a key U.S. artillery unit blocking the German attack against the U.S. 4th Infantry Division. The 174th’s self-propelled 155-mm guns mounted on tank chassis could get to the action fast and then fire rounds 12 miles. Tipton’s unit received a commendation for its role in the U.S. stance near Echternach.
Tipton wrote home of constant movement by Patton, saying, on December 25, 1944, he was confident of victory; “I think this will all end up in a boomerang for the Jerries if all goes well. I say let them punt as far as they want; so long as they are out of their blockhouses it makes it easier for us to fight them.”
The U.S. 5th Infantry (“Red Diamond”) Division relieved the 4th Infantry at Dickweiler on the 22nd. After tough fighting they were able to contain Brandenberger’s southernmost edge of the Bulge and, with the 10th Armored and 4th Infantry Divisions, drive the Germans back across the Sauer River. The 5th Infantry Division under General Irwin, called the “Red Devils” by the Germans, had a superb record.
American success in this sector has been attributed to the lack of German armor and the tenacious 4th Infantry Division defense under General Barton, who allowed no retreat or retrograde movement. Colonel Chance’s 12th Infantry Regiment was later singled out as one of the heroic units of the Battle of the Bulge. Barton felt so. So did Eisenhower.
Wayne Brown of Marshalltown, Iowa, who fought with the 12th Infantry Regiment, confirmed Barton’s “no retreat” policy in an interview for the Battle of the Bulge Association. Brown told of the coldest winter in history, and of being shelled by German artillery and tanks, with one shell coming through the roof of a house he was in, injuring many. He took shrapnel in the back near his waist, but a medic was able to pull it out and put some sulfa powder on the wound, sending him back for a welcome night in the aid station, his first time out of the cold and combat.
The next morning, December 24, all the patients were lined up at the foot of their beds in the hospital ward and told that “all who could stand” would be sent to the front. They were then loaded on 40x8 trailers, the lightly wounded as well as clerk and support personnel, and put on the front line. Later, while thinking about his numerous close calls and looking at his helmet, which had a bullet hole in it, he was told by a buddy, “Don’t think, it will just drive you crazy.” Brown remembered fighting through his wounds, telling himself not to forget that he was there for a reason.”
Second Lieutenant Richard McMenemy of Butte, Montana served in the Bulge with Patton’s Third Army in the U.S. 10th Infantry Regiment of the 5th Infantry Division after fighting through from Normandy for six months., He was a combat veteran with a Silver Star even before the Bulge, where he served as an 81-mm mortar man with Heavy Weapons Company D of the 1st Battalion. In an interview with Butte’s Montana Standard, he described Patton’s 90-mile drive north, marching with thousands of other men on a two-day snowbound trek to fortify troops devastated by fighting, knowing the grueling trip would end in more bloodshed. They fought in the same numbing chill night after night, without any fire to keep warm. After the war McMenemy would tell his wife that ever since he spent an entire winter in Northern Europe, without any kind of heat or fire, he was still cold.
He spoke of serving as a forward observer for the mortar company, going out to a foxhole with a field telephone to call back coordinates, and giving orders to wipe out a big clump of forest a thousand yards away. Information was going to a staff sergeant running the guns who would then set up aiming stakes and direct the mortar fire. Each mortar was carried by three men, crossing rivers, climbing hills, and trying to keep out of the way of enemy fire while firing from foxholes and hitting the enemy with a mix of explosive shells and white phosphorous, “a bad way to die.”
Confirming the Bulge as the battle of small unit engagements, McMenemy offered a common refrain: “It was not like the newsreel showed, ‘of collective might and troops sweeping in.’ It was instead a little group of squads and rifle companies who were only aware of their immediate surroundings and immediate problems, and where is the next piece of cover and concealment?” It was “Sergeant, take your men up that draw or platoon over this ridge; it all came down to small groups of men.”
Private Hugh Radwell of Dillon, Montana, and Corporal James Schara of Circle, Montana, lost their lives with the 5th Division in the December 18-20 fighting. Both are buried at Henri-Chapelle Cemetery in Belgium.
After the war Brandenberger claimed his army had been unable to advance as planned due in part to terrain difficulties, including bad roads with hairpin turns on snow and ice, and steep gradients of the Our River, making motorized traffic difficult. But he also credited the highly skilled U.S. gun crews with knowledge of terrain, and the American soldier who fought valiantly on the ground in the Walledorf Heights in bloody engagements, with 9th Armored CCA and 109th Infantry. The U.S. 4th Infantry Division further south, he said, also “fought skillfully, using strongpoints backed by strong artillery and counterattacking with tanks in bitter fighting.”
The U.S. defense in the “southern shoulder” ensured that Brandenberger’s four divisions didn’t stop Patton or entirely protect Manteuffel’s southern flank. By blocking the German Seventh Army advance west, U.S. troops on the southern shoulder, like those on the northern shoulder, compressed the German offensive into a narrow front in Manteuffel’s sector.
In a Stars and Stripes interview on February 4, 1945, General Patton praised General Barton’s 4th Division after the Bulge, telling Barton, “Your fight in the Hurtgen Forest was an epic of stark infantry combat, but in my opinion, your most recent fight, from 16 to 26 December, when with a tired and depleted division you halted the left shoulder of the German thrust into the American lines and saved the city of Luxembourg and the supply establishments and road nets in the vicinity, was the most outstanding accomplishment of yourself and your division. The capture of Luxembourg City would have provided Rundstedt the ideal souther hinge for his westward drive as a lot of highways fan out from that city into northern France. And, the German press would have made much of the capture of Luxembourg City.”
Touring the massive war museum at Diekirch, with the German and American equipment displays, we were astounded to discover how severe the fighting in this sector was. Diekirch was at the center of the U.S. 80th Division’s drive north, and also of the 352nd Volkgenadiers’ push west. The Diekirch area was different from the Germany-Luxembourg border. Here, the land flattened out into a plateau onto what would normally be good tank country except there were few roads and they were extremely slippery.
General Bradley maintained his army group headquarters nearby in Luxembourg’s capital, not moving even though he was cut off from part of his army group in the north and in danger of being overrun. When Eisenhower proposed he move to a more central locale, Bradley rejected the idea, saying it would startle the people of Luxembourg too much: “They would think we were defeated and had to get out.” He knew they feared being abandoned and left to the German reoccupation and reprisals. Bradley remained loyal to the citizens of Luxembourg, not leaving them even though he lost part of his command to his rival, British Field Marshal Montgomery, as a result.
Thus far, we have covered the German original line of attack going from north to south at six critical junctures: Hofen, the Elsenborn shoulder, Peiper’s spearhead, St.Vith, Skyline Drive, and the Luxembourg southern shoulder. Now we turn to the remaining five critical junctures of the Bulge as the battle climaxed: the siege of Bastogne, Patton’s drive north, the German “high water mark” near the Meuse river and Marche Plain, and the Allied counteroffensive beginning with the widening of the Bastogne corridor.
