Tag Archives: battle of the bulge

That Belgian Chill

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80 years ago today.

Members of the 740th Tank Battalion and Headquarters Company of the 3rd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, advance in a snowstorm behind a tank to attack Herresbach, Belgium. 28 January 1945, with the help of a local.

U.S. Army Photo.

A tank and infantrymen of the U.S. Army’s Company G, 740th Tank Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, push through the snow toward their objective near Herresbach, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge, Jan. 28, 1945. 111-SC-199509

For those who haven’t read of the fight between the three refurbished M4 Shermans of the 740th against the lead element of Battle Group Peiper and the 1st SS Panzer Division during the “Bulge,” you have some research to do. 

Blue Ridge Smoke Break

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77 Years Ago Today: Two riflemen from E Company, 1st Battalion, 317th Infantry Regiment, 80th Infantry Division, take a moment to roll their own cigarettes in Goesdorf (Luxembourg), 10 January 1945. Left is SSG Abraham Aranoff, Boston, Mass., right is Private Henry W. Beyer of Grand Rapids, Michigan. These men had been fighting for 27 days straight, most of it during the German counter-offensive in the Ardennes known today as the Battle of the Bulge. They’d just been pulled out of the lines for a short, well-deserved break.

…At least the Sarge put the safety on his carbine before pointing it at his buddy. Also note the bullet holes on the wall behind them. Signal Corps image via Mads Madsen, Colorized History.

Nicknamed the “Blue Ridge” division as, when it was originally formed in the Great War, a majority of its troops hailed from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Virginia, the 80th Infantry Division was reactivated in 1942 and arrived in Europe, where it landed on Utah Beach on 3 August 1944. It would then spend the next nine months pushing from France to the Ardennes and on through to Bavaria and into Austria.

The 80th ID helped liberate the Buchenwald concentration camp in April 1945 to provide relief to the 6th Armored Division, which had arrived the day before. Several weeks later, as the “Blue Ridge” Division pushed into Austria, it liberated Ebensee, a subcamp of the Mauthausen concentration camp, and is recognized as a Liberating Unit by the US Army’s Center of Military History and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

The 80th suffered 17,087 battle casualties in WWII– however, both of the above GIs made it back home and lived long lives.

As noted by WW II Uncovered: 

After the war, Abraham Aranoff returned to New York and he and his wife Bertha started a family. He retired in West Palm Beach Florida. Abraham passed away on August 15, 2008 at the age of 96.

Henry W. Beyer enlisted with the US Army on May 1, 1944 in Grand Rapids Michigan. He was 25 years old. Henry was discharged from the Army on January 14, 1946. Henry and his wife Frances relocated to Columbus Ohio where he worked in retail sales. Henry passed away on February 28, 1998 at the age of 79.

Hey Girls, Want to Check out Our New Tiger?

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8 January 1945: This German Panzer VIB, (Königstiger) tank #312 (SS-Oberscharführer Peter Kisters), of SS Panzer Abteilung 501, was knocked out by 90mm M36 tank destroyers of the 628th “Victory” Tank Destroyer Battalion, attached to support the paratroopers of the 82nd “All American” Divison, near Coronne, Belgium.

Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-198889 from the National Archives.

Formed five months prior to Pearl Harbor as the 28th Infantry Division’s anti-tank battalion, the 628th was largely formed from Pennsylvania National Guard members. Shipping out for England in April 1944, they were assigned to support the 1st Infantry and 29th Infantry at Normandy, where they landed at Utah Beach with M10 Hellcats.

Fighting to the Falaise Pocket and through Belgium to the Siegfried Line and the Hurtgen Forest, around which time they upgraded to M36s, they really came into play at the Battle of the Bulge to help blunt the German offensive in the Ardennes, fighting in turns with the 5th Armored, 78th Infantry, and 3rd Armored Divisions.

On New Year’s Day 1945, the 628th was chopped to the All Americans for 11 days to give their light infantry some muscle in clearing the area west of the Salm River. In their time with the paratroopers, the battalion lost four M36s and 14 men but chalked up six panzers in return– including two Tiger II tanks.

Finishing the war deep in Germany, the 628th was inactivated on 14 November 1945, their scoreboard holding 56 tanks by then.

Roof Inspectors, 1945 Belgium Edition

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7 January 1945. Original Caption: “S/Sgt. Urban Minicozzi, from Jessup, Pennsylvania (Headquarters Company), and Pfc. Andy Masiero, from Newburg, New York (A Company), stop to reload while sniping snipers from the roof of a building in Beffe, Belgium. 1st Battalion, 290th Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division.”

Original Field Number: ETO-HQ-45-6556. Photographer: Corrado. Signal Corps No. 111-SC-198884 via NARA. National Archives Identifier: 148727200

Note that the Soldier in the foreground looks to have a rarer “gas trap” M1 Garand and has his bayonet tied, fighting knife style, to his right leg just above his boot.

Constituted on Christmas Eve 1942 and assigned from the start to the brand-new 75th Infantry Division, the 290th Infantry Combat Team trained at Fort Leonard Wood the next year and shipped overseas in late 1944, landing in Wales in November. Disembarking at Rouen on 13 December, they were rushed to Belgium “by motor convoy and boxcar, utilizing the same 40-and-8 cars that had been the scourge of doughboys in World War I.”

On Christmas Eve 1944, “2nd and 3rd Battalions, 898th Field Artillery, Company B 629th TD Battalion, Company B 750th Tank Battalion, and Company B 275th Engineer Battalion, units comprising the 290th Regimental Combat Team, moved forward to establish a defensive area in the vicinity of Biron, Belgium. This order had scarcely been accomplished when it was followed by a second one directing units of the 3rd Battalion to occupy the town of Hotton, and hold it at all costs.”

Some units had their first contact on Christmas Eve, with the entire division engaged by Christmas. 

U.S. Army infantrymen of the 290th Regiment, 75th Infantry Division, fight in fresh snowfall near Amonines, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, Jan. 4, 1945. Note the M3 Grease Gun to the right and M1 Carbine to the left. (Photo: U.S. Army)

The unit was thrown headlong into the Battle of the Bulge, earning combat honors for the Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe in the course of fewer than six months.

Appropriately, the motto of the 75th ID is “Make Ready.” Arguably, the 290th should have a Christmas tree on its badge.

‘Lucky Seventh’ Tiger

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Original Caption: “German Tiger Tank, after being repaired by men of 129th, Ordnance Batallion, down the street of Gersonsweiler, Germany. Company B, 129th Ordnance [Maintenance] Battalion, Gersonsweiler, Germany.” 

Original Field Number: ETO-HQ-44-29921. Photographer: Private William C. Sanderson (167th Signal Company) 12/15/1944. NARA 111-SC-197752

That mother beautiful King Tiger, as Oddball would say, has been patched up by the maintenance battalion of the 7th Armored “Lucky Seventh” Division, just prior to the Battle of St. Vith, where they were rushed to support the paratroopers and glider troops of the XVIII Airborne Corps as part of the First Army. It would have been curious to know if the Americanized Tiger was used against the Germans there, as Skorzeny and his boys were infamously running around the area with assorted captured Allied and viz-modded German gear with U.S. markings at the same time. 

Formed in California in 1942 out of spare parts from the reorganized 3rd and 5th Armored Divisions, the 7th AD entered combat in Northern France in mid-August 1944, crossing through the Netherlands as part of Market Garden, then through the Ardennes and Rhineland and into Central Europe, ending the war at Grevesmuhlen on 6 May 1945 after traveling 2,260 miles across the continent. Besides the above Tiger, the unit captured an amazing 113,000 Axis POWs.

In 172 days of combat across those eight months, the division suffered 10,502 casualties or 98.4 percent of their authorized strength.

Lucky, indeed.

Bastogne Beer Run

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World War II Veteran Vincent J. Speranza, spent 144 days in combat with Company H, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division, and, at 95, is one of the estimated 600 or so remaining vets who served at the Battle of the Bulge. A few months ago, he jumped with the Black Knights.

However, in the Bastogne area today, he is far better remembered for a beer run than for his staunchly-defended machine gun nest.

Check out the detailed backstory behind that, below.

A break between Fallschirmjägers and destiny

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TEC5 Thomas “Red” O’Brien, C Company, 101st Infantry Regiment, 26th (Yankee) Division, getting a quick meal in while parked on a snowbank near Mecher, Luxembourg, 75 years ago yesterday.

Photo by TEC5 Arthur Hertz, 166th Signal Photo Company, for Stars and Stripes. Via LOC

O’Brien’s unit had been engaged with elements of the tough German 5. Fallschirmjäger-Division, fighting small unit actions in the snow for the past several days prior to this image being shot. Veterans of the 101st would refer to the Battle of the Bulge as “Our Valley Forge.”

Sadly, CPL. O’Brien was killed less than two weeks after this image was captured, on 25 January, by German sniper fire at a crossroad outside Clervaux, Luxembourg, aged 23. He was a native of Rhode Island but a Massachusetts resident when he volunteered in 1942 and is interred at the American Military Cemetery, Henri-Chapelle, Belgium.

The 101st, as was most of the 26th ID, hailed from New England, where they had previously served as a Massachusetts National Guard and state militia outfit dating back to the Civil War. While the regiment cased their colors in 1993, the 26th is still around as the 26th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade in the MARNG, headquartered at Natick.

All Quiet in the Ardennes

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American engineers emerge from the woods and move out of defensive positions after fighting in the vicinity of Bastogne, Belgium, in December 1944. Note the M1 Garand, M1 Carbine and M9 Bazookas, along with a liberal sprinkling of grenades and spare ammo. (Photo: U.S. Army)

Today is the 75th Anniversary of the last great German offensive of WWII. Launched through the densely forested Ardennes region near the intersection of the eastern borders of Belgium, France, and Luxembourg, some 200,000 Germans fell on less than 80,000 unsuspecting American troops, many of which were recovering from the summer and Fall push through France and the Lowlands.

While the German offensive gained ground at first, eventually reinforcements– including Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army–were rushed to the scene and counterattacked.

However, for the men trapped inside the 75-mile “bulged” salient from St. Vith to the week-long Siege of Bastogne, it was a white hell of exploding trees and an onslaught from 1,000 German panzers that those who survived never forgot.

The U.S. Army suffered over 89,000 casualties in the six-week-long Battle of the Bulge, making it one of the largest and bloodiest battles fought by the nation’s servicemen.

U.S. Army infantrymen of the 290th Regiment, 75th Infantry Division, fight in fresh snowfall near Amonines, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge, Jan. 4, 1945. Note the M3 Grease Gun to the right and M1 Carbine to the left. (Photo: U.S. Army)

For a more detailed look at the men, firepower, and background of the battle, check out the (free) 685-page U.S. Army Center of Military History reference, “The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge” by Hugh M. Cole, as well as the vast records available through the National Archives. For more information about commemorating the battle Bastogne and other events, visit Bastogne 75 and Belgium Remembers 44-45.

Didn’t shoot it all? Bury it!

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One common thing that happens all the time in the military is being issued too much ammo, such as on a live fire exercise, and intead of returning it which is a whole pain in the ass, it gets disposed of via E-tool.

Well apparently in 1945 when a B-24 unit was leaving England to return home, they left a few belts of .50 cal behind in the dirt of their borrowed RAF airstrip. Fast forward 70~ years and some aviation buffs dug up about 1,500 rounds of still very live tracer and ball ammo just three feet below the surface.

Heck, I am surprised they didn’t find a whole B-24!

More in my column at Guns.com.

Of men and steel

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1911 battle of bulge

“Today I held hell in my hands,” said a firearms buff who came across a battered 1911, pockmarked from its wartime service before it was recovered from a World War II battlefield.

Some 71 years ago this week, Hitler launched the last great German offensive through the densely forested Ardennes region near the intersection of the eastern borders of  Belgium, France, and Luxembourg.

Codenamed “Operation Watch on the Rhine” over 200,000 Germans, including some of the most crack units remaining in the Army at the time, fell upon just 80,000 American troops, including many units such as the 101st Airborne, who were under strength following heavy losses and looking forward to some time in a “quiet area” to regroup.

While the German offensive gained ground at first, eventually reinforcements– including  Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army–were rushed to the scene and counterattacked.

However, for the men trapped inside the “bulged” salient from St. Vith to the week-long Siege of Bastogne, it was a white hell of exploding trees and German panzers that those who survived never forgot.

The pistol examined by Daniel ED MacMurray IV, marked with a yellowed tag that reads, “Colt pistol picked up after battle at Bastonge Dec. 1944,” is battered with shrapnel wounds across the top of the slide, muzzle and grip including several that penetrated deep into the steel.

More images and the rest of the story as Mr. Harvey said, in my column at Guns.com