“Near-complete surprise was achieved by a combination of Allied overconfidence, preoccupation with Allied offensive plans, and poor aerial reconnaissance. The Germans attacked a weakly defended section of the Allied line, taking advantage of heavily overcast weather conditions, which grounded the Allies’ overwhelmingly superior air forces. Fierce resistance on the northern shoulder of the offensive around Elsenborn Ridge and in the south around Bastogne blocked German access to key roads to the northwest and west that they counted on for success. Columns of armor and infantry that were supposed to advance along parallel routes found themselves on the same roads. This and terrain that favored the defenders threw the German advance behind schedule and allowed the Allies to reinforce the thinly placed troops. Improved weather conditions permitted air attacks on German forces and supply lines, which sealed the failure of the offensive. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were left severely depleted of men and equipment, as survivors retreated to the defenses of the Siegfried Line.” wiki
Long ago and far away I served with a man named Bill Harris. This was in Turkey in a big NATO headquarters. Harris was a full colonel and a WW2 paratrooper. I was a very young major just back from Vietnam.
Bill was from Missouri, had attended the University of Missouri and had left that institution a year before the war when he ran out of money. He joined the pre-WW2 US Army and had reached the rank of sergeant before the Japanese attacked the fleet at Pearl Harbor.
He spent a few months improving the training of National Guard troops as they mobilized for war and then was sent to the Infantry Officer Candidate school at Fort Benning, Georgia. To his surprise he was assigned to the emerging paratroop force at graduation. He served with the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division throughout the war in Europe.
Bill jumped into; Sicily and Salerno in Italy, Normandy and Holland with the 505th Regiment. He was the only man I ever saw who had four stars embedded in his parachute badge, one for each of his combat jumps. At the end of the Market Garden operation in Holland the 82nd Division was pulled back to a rest and training area outside Paris. There, the division built itself a camp and settled down to wait for spring and an anticipated jump across the Rhine. By that time, Bill Harris was a major and the chief operations staff officer (S-3) of the 505th.
Christmas approached and the division prepared to party. Officers’ Class A uniforms were brought over from storage in England so that they would look resplendent for an anticipated grand Christmas gala to be held a few days before the holiday. The front was far to the east and the intelligence people thought the Germans would be inactive for a while, certainly long enough for the 82nd to celebrate. The division’s engineers built an amphitheater made of canvas and wood in which to hold the officers’ party. The structure had concentric circular platforms on which tables for four were placed at higher and higher levels as one moved away from the center. In the very center of the big tent was a dance floor. The division’s band combined forces with part of the Air Corps’ Glenn Miller Orchestra to provide music. “Chattanooga Choo Choo” and “American Patrol” sounded through the wintry night for the party. Women and booze were pre-requisites for such an event. Paris was an easy source for the liquor. Army nurses, Red Cross girls and French women from the city were invited and eagerly accepted.
On the much anticipated night, the revelers gathered. According to Harris, the ladies were enchanting. The American women were in uniform but the French ladies wore dresses from their pre-war wardrobe and were described to me by Harris as “simply lovely.” Champagne flowed. The bands played. Couples filled the dance floor. The division’s officers were dressed in “pinks and greens” with “bloused” jump boots. Major General Gavin, the 37 year old division commander, sat with his staff in the circle closest to the dance floor.
Just before midnight, the division’s “officer of the day,” entered the “big top” and approached Gavin to whisper in his ear. A few minutes later the division’s chief intelligence staff officer (G-2) did the same. Gavin rose to exit with the regimental commanders. At that point Harris gathered his belongings from the table and had someone take the regiment’s women friends to their transport. The 82nd Airborne Division’s officers sat and waited champagne glasses in hand.
There were similar parties for enlisted men underway across the division. In all these festive locations, soldiers waited.
The division chief of staff arrived to announce that the Germans had attacked in great strength in Belgium and Luxembourg, that US units in the path of the onslaught had been defeated and, in some cases, annihilated. Troops were being rushed forward to stop the German advance and to that end the division would move to the front in two hours.
Everyone changed into combat gear, and began climbing into trucks in blowing snow and darkness. Long “serials” of 2 1/2 ton trucks rolled toward the east as they finished the job of loading troops and supplies.
Major Bill Harris rode in the right front seat of his jeep at the end of the 505th’s column of vehicles. At four in the morning the regiment passed through a little town in Belgium. At one street corner a US MP stood directing traffic. Harris stopped his jeep to ask the soldier what unit he was from. The man answered that he belonged to the 7th Armored Division. They had passed through the town the previous day, and had left him. He had seen no other Americans until the 82nd had begun arriving in the last hour. As they spoke a rumbling, clanking could be heard. They turned toward the sound and watched in awestruck surprise as a German Tiger crawled into view as it rounded a corner at the end of the street. The turret rotated towards them. Harris reached out, grabbed the MP by the front of his clothes and pulled him into the jeep across his lap while yelling at his driver to move! They drove out of town before the tank could finish aiming its main gun.
The 82nd Division moved to its assigned sector on the north flank of the Bulge penetration. There, it played a crucial role in halting the westward advance of the 5th Panzer Army under General der Panzertruppe Hasso von Manteuffel. Manteuffel became a Liberal Party politician after the war.
The quality of the 82nd Division in the Battle of the Bulge is well represented by the possibly apocryphal legend of a sergeant of the 325th Glider Regiment who told a retreating tank destroyer crew, “… pull your vehicle in behind me—I’m the 82nd Airborne, and this is as far as the bastards are going!”
As part of the German plan for the Bulge operation, a “scratch” airborne Kampfgruppe (battle group) had been assembled to participate. One of Germany’s most experienced paratroop officers, Colonel Friedrich_August_Freiherr_von_der_Heydte was appointed to command this forelorn hope. This nobleman, a famous professor of law after WW2, fought in Holland in 1940, in Greece, in Crete, in Italy, in Normandy as CO of the 6th Fallschirmjager (paratroop) regiment and finally in this last desperate throw of the dice. 1200 paratroop instructors, students and officer cadets were brought together, loaded into transport aircraft and dropped into a Belgian wood to assist von Manteuffel’s advance. Once there, they discovered that they were surrounded by counter-attacking Americans. Re-supply drops never arrived. Ammunition and food ran out. There was no ammunition, no shelter and his men were slowly freezing to death. In this circumstance, Von der Heydte (a holder of the Knight’s Cross) made a command decision and sent a parlementaire officer out of the woods to a road to talk to the Americans under a flag of truce. In the course of this meeting in the snow, the Luftwaffe officer said that the battle group wished to surrender but could not, and would not surrender to any but US or British paratroops.
The next day Bill Harris accompanied General Gavin to the site of the talks, and displayed a white flag while standing next to Gavin’s jeep. The same German officer came from the forest to ask who they were. He returned to the dark of the trees and soon emerged at the head of a column of German paratroops that was led by Baron von der Heydte himself. Von der Heydte saluted Gavin and handed him his sidearm. The Germans stacked arms in the road and waited quietly in ranks to be loaded into the trucks Gavin had brought with him.
Bill Harris is no longer with us. I know that von der Heydte is not, nor is Gavin. I hope that somewhere they and the sergeant from the 325th Glider Regiment are celebrating Christmas together. pl
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/505th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallschirmj%C3%A4ger_(World_War_II)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxrUvQtTWxQ&t=1s
Comment: Colonel Lang posted this in both 2019 and 2020. I think it would be worth your while to review some of the comments to his earlier postings of this work. You will see that, above all, he was a soldier. And I am blessed to know him as a fellow soldier and a friend. Enjoy.
Since reposting is in season I’ll repost a snippet from one of my late Uncle’s volumes of war memoirs, and this time include his epilogue to the second volume. Below the link.
Meanwhile, returning to the present, Seymour Hersh this morning demonstrates that he’s only about 5 years or so behind our own commenter Tidewater with this update to his earlier story about the destruction of the North stream pipelines by US and Norwegian special forces at the orders of President Biden. Why 5 years behind Tidewater? Because he, Hersh that is, either hasn’t the imagination to foresee some of the dire scenarios which may result from this predatory and destructive act, or was perhaps too full of holiday cheer to bum out his readers. Or he’s a devotee of the Many Worlds interpretation of the time evolution of Schrodinger’s equation.
NORD STREAM AND GERMANY’S SHRINKING ECONOMY
Has Biden’s pipeline sabotage led to the rise of the German right?
https://seymourhersh.substack.com/p/nord-stream-and-germanys-shrinking
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FOCUS TWELVE
ARMY SERVICE
George W. Lock Company E 335th Infantry
Now for my service years to start with, not that it matters one way or the other. I joined service in December, 1940 as a regular army serial no. 17021197. That was the 17th Q.M. truck outfit, 2nd Cavalry Division, Fort Riley, Kansas. It was mule pack outfit but when I joined along with 32 others, we became a truck outfit with semi-trailers hauling 8 horses and 8 men and equipment. I made corporal in the third month and was in Tennesse maneuvers, North Carolina maneuvers, and then Arkansas-Louisiana maneuvers, the last one horses against tanks out of Ft. Knox with Lt. Col. George S. Patton.
We went back to Ft. Riley, Kansas. Then the war started and the 2nd Cavalry was ordered to ride border patrol in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona border along the river against Mexico from December 1941 until June 1942. Back in Camp Funston, Kansas we lost our horses and were given armored equipment. We were in the California desert down from Death Valley to Mexico. Some of us were sent to the African Desert and the rest of us to England.
I crossed the Channel on June 6th on C.G. LST #17. On July 17 we lost our equipment and became the 3596th Q.M. Trick Company, the start of the Red Ball Express. Again with semi-trailers, we were given three times the number of men. Some could drive and some couldn’t. This took me through the Normandy Campaign and the Northern France Campaign. From September through November I was in the Rhineland Campaign. In November, 1944 I joined the 84th Division, 335th Regiment, E Company. I became a Staff Sergeant after our first engagement.
I went on to the Elbe River. Being a high point person, I was sent to the 63rd Division, 225th Regiment Company G where I was acting 1st Sergeant. I was home in October 1945.
Infantry life was quite different than I was used to but it made no difference. I wanted to get home. I had a strong feeling for the Captain there and could see that he was one swell fellow. All I heard him called was Captain Dick. That was good enough for me. On one trip up on the front line, while helping the British, General Montgomery got himself in trouble when the Germans counter attacked there in Holland in the Arnheim bridge area. He called for help. We were that help and were pulled off the Siegfried Line in Germany. We accounted for 112 German pill boxes and bunkers that we had taken up to that time.
The outfit that relieved us, just fresh from the states, was the 106th Division Golden Lions. While we were in Holland General Von Rumsted counter attacked the 106th area taking that group prisoners plus losing two regiments to him.
While we were back in Holland doing our best, our Captain Dick was taken prisoner. We got a new Captain, Thompson, and finished that area and were sent to the Roer River for that drive and then on to the Elbe River and were told to wait for the Russians who were headed our way.
Since things were rather quiet, I asked for a three day pass to Paris. I went there to be with old buddies and friends. I had my 84th Division patches on and was asked quite a few questions about my time in the infantry. When I returned to the Elbe River, my group there was on an ox-bow living on a barge that we had pulled up to act as our CP.
Back to Captain Dick who was taken prisoner in November 1944. He was taken to Germany and walked toward Poland. One day he had his uniform taken away from him and was given rags to wear. Then he heard that the Russians were close and they were going back to Germany. One night he escaped and went to the Russian lines. They had a hard time believing that he was an American officer wanting to get back to his group. He was told to walk to the Black Sea and then go to Italy and then go on to France and Paris. This being December 1944, Captain Dick started out doing what he was told. He finally arrrived in Paris about April 1945 and was trying his best to find someone who would help him. Someone remembered the Red Ball group and told him to find that group just outside Paris. He went there and asked for help. They told him they had an order to be delivered to the 84th on the Elbe River. One day after I returned to my group, word got out that our old Captain had returned. A day later he came to our group and asked if anyone wanted to attend church services wih him. A few of us went. I was walking just behind him and heard the word Frontenac. I broke in and asked him if Captain meant Frontenac, Kansas. He stopped and turned around and asked just what I knew about Frontenac. A answered, “Why Captain, Frontenac is next to Pittsburgh, Kansas.” He then asked me just what I knew about Pittsburgh. I said, “That is my home.”
He threw his arms around me and said, “Why, you son of a gun. Why didn’t you say so before?”
I answered, “Why, Captain, I never heard you called anything but Captain Dick. Just what is your last name?”
He said, “Richard Von Schriltz.”
We told each other about our lives there on a dirt road in Germany. We had both come form the same town. Captain Dick holds life membership #892 and I hold life membership #1475. Captian Dick died in 1995. His wife and I write to each other. I have her permission to use this story.
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FOCUS TWENTY-FOUR
EPILOGUE
Mike Chirco Co.H 335th Infantry
Company H has a very active group of alumni. For many years there have been annual reunions. Many of them have neen held in Terre Haute, Indiana, the home of Charles Hilton, and some in Arkansas, hosted by Tip Thielenier.
Charles Hilton, Chuck as he prefers to be called, retired from a cement products company that he built up and ran in Terre Haute. He has been very active in American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars affairs. Besides that he travels around the country when he is notified, to attend funerals of Company H men.
In January of 1975, Chuch Hilton, his wife June, Company H’s Tip Thielmeier and his wife Jean went west visiting some of the old Company H men. Chuck had written several times to Ernest Murphy in Cibique, Arizona and received no answer. Ernest Murphy was a full blooded Apache Indian and a fine soldier.
Chuck Hilton had helped evacuate Ernie when he was severly wounded and hadn’t seen him since. At a park in Arizona, he asked a ranger if he knew where Cibique was as it didn’t appear of any map. The ranger told him it was about twenty-five miles away. The foursome headed for Cibique and almost accidently saw a small sign pointing the way. In Cibique, they were viewed suspiciously by all including the Indian police who pretended not to know Ernest Murphy. When Chuck Hilton explained that he was Ernie’s commander in World War II, they said, “Oh, You mean Ernie!” Ernie was glad to see his friends and explained that he didn’t answer letters because he couldn’t write a proper letter. Chuck and June went back in 1985 but were too late. Ernie had recently died of complications from his World War II wounds.
With each issue of the 84th Division Society’s The Railsplitter, I read of the passing of another Company H friend. The July 1990 issue told us of the passing in Philadelphia of Bill Erdman. He became a well known surgeon and headed one of Phiadelphia’s hospitals. The same issue listed Malcolm Forbes, the publisher. He was an enlisted man in Company D, 334 Regiment, 84th Division. When authorities found out who Malcolm Forbes was, they wanted to send him to a desk job in Washington. He refused, wishing instead to serve as an enlisted man in the infantry.
In September 1993, Tip Theilmeier hosted the annual Company H reunion in Arkansas. I was not able to attend because of health problems. When I received our Christmas card from the Thielmeiers, the usual note was not in Tip’s handwriting. It was written by his wife Jean. She said Tip had passed away suddenly in November.
I am glad that I had the opportunity to serve. The experience changed my life in many ways. In later years, the tempering of my character through combat experience helped me face many difficult situations. I have been lucky.
Four combat jumps! That’s got to be a tiny percentage of vets. Did any US or foreign paratroopers besides the 505th conduct four combat jumps? My Dad was at Salerno but he was a ‘leg’ combat engineer and I doubt he met Major Harris or anyone else there from the 505th.