Tag Archives: Belgium

Wolverines and Thunderbolts

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If you think you are cold, how about this shot from 78 years ago today?

20 January 1945, with an M-10 Wolverine tank destroyer of Co. C, 629th Tank Destroyer Battalion, in the frame, track commander SGT Jimmy Richardson talks to his driver, PVT Joe Honig, while Joes of the 83rd Infantry Division (“Thunderbolt”)’s 331st Inf. Regiment warm themselves by the fire after their retirement to the sector following the Battle of the Bulge, all trying to keep warm “somewhere near Courtil, Belgium.”

Richardson and Honig are likely in the jeep caps and jackets while the infantrymen are in the heavy coats and M1 helmets. Signal Corps Photo 455222. NARA #0006

Of the 58 Tank Destroyer battalions that shipped overseas during WWII, the 629th was one of 52 sent to the European Theatre.

The 629th TD Battalion first saw the elephant alongside the 9th Infantry Division in France during the third week of August 1944, then served with the 28th Division for the last two weeks of September during the Siegfried Line fighting and the 2nd Infantry Division into November. During the Battle of the Bulge, it supported the 75th until early January when it was attached– as shown above– to the 83rd Division. It then supported the paratroopers of the 82nd Airborne Division (which were fighting as “leg” infantry) during the first two weeks of February, and the 99th Division from the last week of February until the end of the war, concluding the campaign equipped with the M36 90mm GMC.

As further detailed by TankDestroyer.net:

Unit History: Established 15 December 1941, at Fort Meade, Maryland. Arrived in Liverpool, England, on 9 January, 1944 and disembarked at Omaha Beach on 2 July with M10s. Performed artillery missions in Caumont sector. Joined 30th Infantry Division in fighting at Mortain in early August, then supported reduction of the Falaise Pocket. Participated in V Corps parade through Paris on 29 August. Advanced to Luxembourg by early September and then supported operations in the Hürtgen Forest and against the Siegfried Line. Shifted to Ardennes sector on 24 December. Fought to eliminate the Bulge in January 1945. Joined renewed assault on Siegfried Line in February. Crossed Rhine River into Remagen bridgehead on 11 March and converted to the M36 that same month. Participated in operations against the Ruhr Pocket in April, then conducted road march south to Bavaria and reached the Isar River before ending offensive operations.

As for the 83rd, during the division’s later headlong rush across Germany to the Elbe (280 miles in 13 days) in 1945, it earned the nickname “The Rag Tag Circus” from war correspondents due to MG Robert C. Macon’s ordering the supplementing of the division’s transport with anything that moved, “no questions asked.”

From their unit history: 

In those thirteen days the Thunderbolt Division threw away the books and improvised. We became a weird caravan. We picked up vehicles of any kind — and kept moving. Some of us drove deep into the Harz Mountains. Some of us dashed toward the Elbe. Our eyes ached, our backs were sore — but there was no let up. At times we were so tired we did not know what we were doing.

The Germans could not stop us. Rivers and mountains could not stop us. We passed beyond the Elbe, threw back counterattacks, then waited. Suddenly it became very quiet. We had time, then, to recollect a few of the things we had done and seen.

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.

From the Midwest to Malmedy

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Just three Midwestern guys smoking and joking while backpacking through Europe, 76 years ago today.

Official caption: En route to front lines, beyond Malmedy, Belgium, American Infantrymen pause to rest. Left to right, Sgt. Lyle Greene, Rochester Minnesota, S/Sgt. Joseph DeMott, Greenwood, Ind., and Pfc. Fred Mozzoni, Chicago, Illinois. 29 December 1944.

Note the extra bandoliers and enthusiasm for grenades. Signal Corps Photo 111-SC-198409 via National Archives

Due to the geographical makeup of the above group, I would wager they are dismounts from the 106th Cavalry Regiment, an Illinois Army National Guard whose armory was in the Windy City, which would explain the tanker boots on DeMott and Mozzoni.

The 106th, formerly the 1st Illinois Volunteer Cav back when they rode horses, was federalized 25 November 1940 and spent most of the war in Texas and Lousiana. Landing in Normandy in late June 1944, they pushed from Northern France, through the Ardennes-Alsace, into the Rhineland, and finished WWII in Austria, being the first unit American troops to enter Salzburg before going on to free King Leopold of Belgium who had been a German prisoner for five years.

They fought dismounted at the Battle of the Bulge, which is when the above image hails from, and patrolled north of Sarrebourg to scout for German forces.

Suffering 700 casualties in their 10-month trek across Europe from the coast of France to the Alps, they returned to the States in October 1945 and today make up part of the 33rd Brigade Combat Team of the Illinois Army National Guard.