Patton quickly picked up the theme. "Hell, let's have the guts to let the bastards go all the way to Paris," he said. "Then we'll really cut 'em off and chew 'em up." He had already seen the obvious: the Germans were putting their heads in a noose. By attacking the southern shoulder of the salient with his Third Army, Patton could cut enemy supply lines, isolate the tanks inside what was already being called "the Bulge," and destroy them. Before leaving Metz, he had told his staff to begin the preparations for switching his attack line. So when Ike asked him how long it would take for two Third Army corps that were facing east to turn and face north and attack the German flank, Patton boldly replied, "Two days."
Elsenhower's decisiveness and Patton's boldness were electrifying. Their mood quickly spread through the system. Dispirited men were energized. For those on the front line, help was coming.
From the Supreme Commander down to the lowliest private, men pulled up their socks and went forth to do their duty. It simplifies, but not by much, to say that here, there, everywhere, from top to bottom, the men of the US Army in northwest Europe shook themselves and made this a defining moment in their own lives and in the history of the army. They didn't like retreating, they didn't like getting kicked around, and as individuals, squads, and companies they decided they were going to make the enemy pay.
Chapter Eight
The Ardennes: December 20-31, 1944
BY MIDDAY, December 20, Charlie Company, 395th Infantry Regiment, 99th Division, had been retreating for three and a half days, mostly without sleep and water and enough food, through mud that was so deep "that men carrying heavy weapons frequently mired in mud so others had to take their weapons and pull them out. In one area it took one and a half hours to cover a hundred metres." Sergeant Vernon Swanson said that when word came down at 1700 hours that the regiment was withdrawing to Elsenborn Ridge, where it would dig in beside the 2nd Division, "it was certainly good news. We felt it was the equivalent of saying we were returning to the United States."
The journey to Elsenborn, however, Swanson remembered "as the worst march of that week," because of the combination of mud, ice, frozen ground, and snow all along the route. "We left most of our supplies behind," Swanson said, "but our weapons were always ready. Throughout this entire journey our men made their way, cold, tired, miserable, stumbling, cursing the Army, the weather and the Germans, yet none gave up."
They arrived on the ridge around midnight, and although beyond exhaustion, the men dug in. A good thing, because at dawn a German artillery shelling came down on them. Swanson's company took seven casualties, four of them sergeants, "which opened up the field for promotions." One of those hit was Swanson, who got wounded in the neck by shrapnel. Litter bearers brought him to an aid station, where a chaplain bent over him. "I could dimly make out his collar ornament which was a Star of David. He, in turn, misread my dogtag, thought I was a Catholic and gave me last rites. I remember thinking that I really had all bases covered."
Peiper could have taken Elsenborn without difficulty on the seventeenth or eighteenth, but he stuck with Hitler's orders and moved west rather than north once through the American line. The low ridge should have been a main objective of the Germans, but the Americans got there first and dug in. Now only a direct frontal assault could oust them from the position.
The Germans tried. "The first night at Elsenborn is unforgettable," Captain Charles Roland of the 99th wrote later. "The flash and roar of exploding shells was incessant. In all directions the landscape was a Dante's inferno of burning towns and villages." His regiment dug furiously throughout the night. "Everyone was aware that there would be no further withdrawal, whatever the cost."
Enemy mortar and artillery fire hit the 99th. American artillery fired continuously. At night the temperature fell well below zero. "The wind blew in a gale that drove the pellets of snow almost like shot into our faces," Robert Merriman wrote. "Providing hot food on the front line became impossible, and we were obliged to live exclusively on K rations. Remaining stationary in damp, cold foxholes, with physical activity extremely limited, we began to suffer casualties from trenchfoot. The extreme cold, fatigue, boredom, and hazard became maddening. A few men broke under the strain, wetting themselves repeatedly, weeping, vomiting, or showing other physical symptoms." But there was no more retreating.
The fighting was at its most furious in the twin villages of Rocherath and Krinkelt, on the eastern edge of the ridge. There a battalion from the 2nd Infantry Division engaged a German armoured division in a wild melee that included hand-to-hand combat. American tank crews knew they could not take on the big German tanks toe to toe, so they allowed the Panthers and Tigers to close on their positions for an intricate game of cat and mouse among the village streets and alleys. Shermans remained hidden behind walls, buildings, and hedgerows, waiting for a German tank to cross their sights. Most engagements took place at ranges of less than 25 metres. The 57-mm antitank guns of the Americans were cumbersome, with too little firepower to have much effect. The bazooka, however, was highly effective within the villages, especially after dark, when bazooka teams could work their way close enough to the German tanks.
Sergeant Arnold Parish of the 2nd Infantry had made the D-Day landing, when he won the Bronze Star, had been wounded on June 9, and had rejoined his unit in August, so he had four months of combat by mid-December. He agreed: Elsenborn was the toughest. "We were helpless," Parish recalled, "and all alone and there was nothing we could do, so I prayed to God." During the nights "the time went by very slow as I tried to keep warm but that wasn't possible so I thought about my mother and hoped she didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I was glad I was not married."
SOUTHWEST OF Elsenborn the 82nd Airborne was arriving to stop Peiper's rush westwards. On December 20 Colonel Ben Vandervoort's 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR, arrived at Trois-Ponts, where the Salm and Ambleve rivers flowed together. Vandervoort put E Company on the east side of the Salm. By 0300 hours they were in position to ambush any German force coming from the east. There they waited, no fires, no lights, no smoking, all wide awake.
German armour-Peiper's-was coming on, accompanied by infantry. Peiper had a twenty-to-one manpower advantage over Vandervoort and a colossal firepower superiority. The American paratroopers had only one little 57-mm antitank gun, six bazookas, and the ultralight airborne 75-mm pack howitzer for artillery.
At 0315 hours, as an armoured German vehicle rounded a curve on the road and wound its way down to the river, a bazooka team bush-whacked it. After the German crew fled, the paratroopers placed a minefield on the far side of the burning hulk. At 0400 a second armoured vehicle blew itself up on the mines.
At first light on December 21, Peiper attacked E Company with infantry and five tanks. Bazookas and the antitank gun knocked out the armour. Men in the foxholes drove back the infantry with great loss. From the west bank the Americans could see Peiper's tanks, artillery, and mobile flak batteries massing for another attack.
Vandervoort sent F Company across the river to support E Company with a flank attack, but it had little effect. Vandervoort later remarked that "disaster seemed imminent, but not one man of E company left his fighting position." He jumped into a jeep and had his driver take him over the bridge and to the bluff above the east bank. He arrived at the CP just as the first wave of German infantry attacked, supported by tanks firing their cannon and machine guns spraying the American positions.