112th infantry regiment battle of the bulge

Although delayed by inadequate deliveries of POL and the traffic jam on the damaged Dasburg-Marnach road the entire division, including its tank regiment, assembled on the west bank around Heinerscheid during the night of 17-18 December. About an hour before dawn eleven searchlights flicked on, their rays glancing dully from the low clouds back onto the Ltzkampen-Sevenig ridge. on the operations of the two armored corps, the Fifth Panzer Army had been given a small infantry corps of two divisions to flesh out its right shoulder. the 109th and 112th Regiments gave ground slowly, but they . But now the north road into the town was open. 1600 casualties and destroyed 18 tanks during nine days of continuous action, which later became known as the "Battle of the Bulge." The Regiment was awarded . Company D positions had been taken by assault only a few minutes earlier. Because surprise was essential in this stroke for the bridges, artillery fire on the American forward positions in the first moments of the assault was forbidden. This unit now relieved the provisional Reconnaissance Troop reinforced the perimeter. Finally, on the morning of 18 December, the surviving members of the garrison sent out a last radio message; they had no choice but surrender. Over 83,000 Americans were casualties during the battle which lasted from December 16, 1944 until January 25, 1945, and as a result, the battle occupies a prominent place in our collective minds. of the 77th, ran into a snag. The Huntingdon unit was the Howitzer Battery 1st Battalion of the 104th Armored Cavalry and the unit in Everett was a Detachment of Company B, 167th Quartermaster Battalion and then was converted to Company C, 1st Battalion 110th Infantry. When this was refused the Germans systematically set to work to surround the village; by dark they had ringed Weiler. Summarized in part from an article of the Morning Record. The 78th Infantry Division arrived in England, 26 October 1944, and received further training. It was his intention, however, to move the provisional battalion first, leaving the 3d Battalion to keep the escape exits open while the 44th Engineers acted as rear guard. fire and sent forward a white flag, with an offer for the Americans to surrender. Crest: that for the regiments and separate battalions of the Pennsylvania Army National Guard: From a wreath argent and azure, a lion rampant guardant proper holding in dexter paw a naked scimitar of the first, hilted or and in sinister an escutcheon of the first on a fess sable three plates. The bulk of his very limited reserve consisted of the 2d Battalion, 110th Infantry, and the 707th Tank Battalion. The task of rebuilding the rifle companies, repairing battle damage, and training replacements was of necessity a slow one. The Fifth Panzer Army commander was bitterly opposed to that part of the plan which called for a tremendous opening barrage at 0800 and a two-hour artillery preparation before the attack jumped off. The road net was adequate, although mired by constant rain, but the two forward battalions had to be supplied at night because of German fire. Only the weakened 1130th Regiment and the division fusilier company, once again in touch with its fellows, were left behind to extend the bridgehead formed at Ouren. Even before the seizure of Ouren the LVIII Panzer Corps had shifted its interest to the south. "Air Power in the Battle of the Bulge: A Theater Campaign Perspective", published in the Winter 1989 issue of "Airpower Journal". Maps picked up from dead Germans showed that the American machine gun positions had been exactly plotted-but as they had existed up to a change made just before the 16th. Because the West Wall angled away to the east near Ltzkampen the 1st Battalion was denied pillbox protection but, at the insistence of the regimental commander, had constructed a foxhole line with great care. They heard, and duly reported, heavy artillery to the south, they saw searchlights and flames lighting up the sky, but again in the south. He was a prisoner of war at Stalag IV-B in the town of Mhlberg an der Elbe for six months. Through the roundabout artillery channels he asked permission to join the 106th Infantry Division, only a little distance away to the north. Two hours later the 112th Infantry acknowledged receipt of these instructions. The artillery supporting the LVIII Panzer Corps consisted of five battalions plus two Werfer battalions, and a few batteries of heavy guns. And German tanks still fired from the eastern height. During December 1944, the 112th Infantry Regimental Combat Team was holding a 6-1/2-mile long sector which the Germans attacked with nine divisions. At that crucial point the infantry had to take Bastogne as quickly as possible, with or without the help of the armored divisions. After a long wait the battalion commanding officer, Major Milton, went back into Wiltz to get further orders; when he returned most of his battalion had disappeared. In midmorning Paul ordered Company C to march north from Munshausen, leaving the cannon company there, and counterattack the Germans in the Company B area. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. The story in the 2d Panzer Division zone was the same. 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment attached 110th, 431st and 448th AAA AW Battalions 75th Infantry Division . The ground east of the river was favorable to the defender, who was well entrenched as the result of careful planning and inspection by Nelson and his staff, and whose guns covered the few routes of mechanized advance. John "Lefty" Zagarella, As Told In Letters, 1941-1945. In 1968, all of the units, except for the units in Huntingdon and Everett became the 2nd Battalion, 104th Cavalry; Lewistown was Headquarters and Headquarters Troop (less detached troops), Tyrone was Troop H, Altoona unit became Troop G and Howitzer Battery, and the Bellefonte unit became a Detachment of Headquarters and Headquarters Troop. But . Across the Vesle was the larger town of Fismes headquarters of the 112th Infantry Regiment, 28th Division. 114th Infantry Regiment. the 447th Antiaircraft Battalion, and light armored cars of the 28th on the Marnach road, but more tanks and infantry were arriving hourly The 2nd Battalion, 112th Infantry was formed from units of the 104th Armored Cavalry on 01 April 1975. tank destroyers from the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion, weapons of To the southwest, Company C and the regimental cannon company were deployed in and around Munshausen, guarding the side road which cut cross-country from Marnach to Drauffelt. The 1st Platoon of Company A, which had returned to Munshausen after the unsuccessful attempt to reach Marnach, moved north meanwhile to help the 2d Platoon. "Rocky" Moretto was one of only two men in his infantry company who . A few attacks were started against the new American line, which now covered Beiler, Lieler, and Lausdorn, but none were energetic. The company commander withdrew the remaining five tanks on a side road and reached Urspelt, taking position near the 2d Battalion command post.9, The American pincers action had failed to constrict at Marnach. First, Luettwitz could not allow any slackening to an infantry pace by frontal attacks against strongly defended American positions. While tanks dueled in the street like gunmen of the Old West the 3d Battalion made its orderly way out the west side of the town, reorganized, and as night descended marched to Nocher. The 3d Battalion commenced its withdrawal at 2200 under orders to pull back through Ouren. Bofors of the protecting antiaircraft company with saving his howitzers. Seven officers and fifty to sixty men did reach Donnange. Nevertheless by midnight the 1st Battalion front had. At 2013 General Cota phoned the VIII Corps commander to say that the situation was critical, that routes were open for the German tanks to come through, and that "there is some question in regard to the 110th Infantry CP." The Infantry School at Fort Benning began collecting academic monographs from company commanders soon after the end of World War II, to record their personal combat experiences. The advance party of grenadiers had moved along the wooded draw between the two companies holding the 1st Battalion line. About 0620, however, the 1st Battalion phoned to say that shells were coming over the battalion command post. The 2d Battalion, 112th Infantry Regiment's heritage can be traced back to the Logan Guards Despite the general dictum that defended towns would be bypassed, Manteuffel wanted St. Vith as a blocking position and so ordered Lucht to capture it. After the D-Day invasion of Normandy on June 6, 1944, Allied forces advanced east through France to Germany's western border establishing what became known as the "Western Front." This vertical front-line stretched from the Norwegian city of Nijmegen in the north all the way to Switzerland in the south, cutting through Belgium and Luxemburg. This article appears in: . But the tactical effect of this artillery preparation was considerably less than the German planners had anticipated. Early morning reports of considerable German penetration and the threat The American infantry had made excellent use of the ground and had held their positions, refusing to buckle under the weight of numbers. Bullet fire from the old stone walls was no menace to armored vehicles, bazooka teams sent down from the chteau were killed or captured, and the German tank battalions moved on, north and west toward Bastogne. Company B, on the extreme north flank, had been forced back into the 424th Infantry area, but about 235 men withdrew cross-country toward Ouren. The regiment was again called to active federal service on 17 February 1941, 10 months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. Odds didn't favor the 28th Division. To the south Company I held Weiler-les-Putscheid, a hamlet in a knot of trails and byroads on the forward slopes of the ridge line. This came late in the morning, after the 28th Division commander, General Cota, ordered a tank platoon from the 707th man infantry out of the Battery C area. Just before dark, therefore, Kokott threw a part of his replacement training battalion into the action; these fresh troops succeeded in forcing their way into the north edge of the village, although with heavy losses. trusted officers set feverishly to work on plans for Christrose, With three divisions, and added corps troops, the XLVII Panzer Corps possessed a considerable amount of shock and fire power. 4th Infantry Division Campaigns during World War II. 112th Infantry took up their posts in the . He continued to fight with Cannon Company until the 423rd Regiment surrendered Dec. 19, 1944, near Schnberg, Belgium. Although Fuller pled for the return of the 2d Battalion to his regiment, Cota refused to release this last division reserve. To complete the concentration against the enemy in or around Marnach, Colonel Fuller ordered the medium tank platoon in Munshausen to attack to the northeast with a rifle platoon from Company C. When Fuller heard of the light tanks, he ordered Colonel Henbest to delay the 2d Battalion attack next morning until the incoming tank detachment was ready to attack on the Skyline Drive. Company C was in "reserve" in Munshausen. General Cota, as a result, decided to concentrate what was left to him-headquarters troops, engineers, stragglers, and the handful of organized units moving back from across the Clerf-in defense of Wiltz, the 28th Division command post. In the last planning conference held at Hitler's headquarters, Model and Manteuffel combined forces in a forthright appeal that carried the day on a series of tactical decisions although it failed to sway the Fuehrer from his strategic decision for the Big Solution. On 18 December what was left of the 110th Infantry was wiped out or withdrew to the west.11 Survivors in the north headed toward Donnange and, with Company G, joined elements of the 9th Armored Division to make a stand. On the right its 1st Battalion marched on Hosingen, bringing flame throwers and self-propelled guns to blast the Americans from the village; the 2d Battalion moved straight for the Clerf River, aiming at control of the crossings and road net at Wilwerwiltz. Manteuffel allotted Luettwitz the 15th Volks Werfer Brigade (108 pieces), the 766th Volks Artillery Corps (76 pieces), the 600th Army Engineer Battalion, and the 182d Flak Regiment, all motorized. The Battle of Hrtgen Forest (German: Schlacht im Hrtgenwald) was a series of battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944, between American and German forces on the Western Front during World War II, in the Hrtgen Forest, a 140 km 2 (54 sq mi) area about 5 km (3.1 mi) east of the Belgian-German border. in Wiltz after a rear guard action in Wilwerwiltz. Hfen, along with the nearby town of Monschau, was strategically vital because it sat on elevated terrain overlooking an important road junction. The 560th Volks Grenadier Division (Generalmajor Rudolf Langhaeuser) was assigned two specific bridges as targets, one just north of Ouren, the other a stone arch a little to the south of the village. Staff Sgt. By noon the 2d Battalion, helpless against massed tanks and without artillery support, was held in check along the ridge running southwest from Urspelt to the Clerf road, only a thousand yards from its line of departure. In sum, the way through Clerf would be none too easy for an armored division.10. Roads and bridges, he reckoned, must be in shape to support the American troops east of the river. Aside from patrol activity (generally small raids against individual pillboxes) the 112th Infantry sector had been quiet. It was released from active duty in 1953 and was redesignated Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion 104th Cavalry. The immediate mission of Krueger's corps, like that of the XLVII Panzer Corps on its left, was to seize crossings at the Our River. The Everett unit remained with the 110th Infantry and the remaining Altoona unit became Company C in the. In the last analysis the losses inflicted on the enemy may have equaled those sustained by the Americans-certainly the Germans paid dearly for their hurried frontal attacks against stonewalled villages and towns-but the final measure of success and failure would be in terms of hours and minutes won by the Americans and lost to the enemy. The company leading the left battalion surprised a platoon of Company L at breakfast, overran the company kitchen (which was only 800 to goo yards behind the rifle line) and killed the platoon commander. The 28th Division got caught in the Battle of the Bulge and endured many casualties. in house-to-house fighting with Company D and Company B, 103d Engineer Eighteen men put up devastating fire against the first attack of over 500 German paratroopers. column and, attacking through the dark with grenades and bayonets, cleared the position. been deployed along the Wahlhausen road on the forward slope of the Next to the paved through highway via Clerf, the Wiltz valley offered the best avenue westward. An old line division, the 26th had fought on the Eastern Front from July 1941 to the last days of September 1944, winning many decorations but little rest. This created a bulge in the German line. Two hours later the enemy struck at Company A, apparently an attempt to clear the north-south Skyline Drive, but artillery fire beat him off. The 112th Infantry Regiment was formed and officially designated as the 16th Infantry from . 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