Second Battalion 501st PIR at Bizory, Belgium
December 1944 through January 1945

Preface

The following is this author’s description of the flow of events and action as experienced by the men of Second Battalion, 501 Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne Division beginning on the 18 December 1944 and ending on 15 January 1945. It is based on veteran’s accounts shared with the author in personal discussions, written accounts by veterans, and documents on file in the National Archives in Washington DC. It is in no way meant to be an accurate or final account, but the most probable based on the author’s interpretation of the material presented.

The men who were living witnesses to the events presented here have distinct memories of what they saw, heard and did. They are by all means valid. However, it is not uncommon for people to witness the same event and remember it differently. In battle when emotions are high and events are chaotic, this phenomenon is accentuated. In most instances the combat soldier is mainly aware of what is directly in front of him.

It is not the purpose of this account to provide a complete, factual timeline of events, but one that is most probable based on assessing individual veteran accounts, comparing them with others, and with official journals and reports. The time of an event as reported in an official document cannot be taken as completely accurate for that was usually the time that the event was reported to the person who recorded it. We must assume a slight lag time between the event and when it was recorded. Therefore, I have given a span of time for the events instead of a specific time. All times will be given in military time.

Over the years I have received photos via email from many people. I am presently unable to credit most of these photos. Vintage photos most likely came to me via email from Mark Bando or I copied them off the Internet. I wish I could give credit where credit is due. I will post photos I took of the Bizory area as I am able to, but since I took prints and slides and these images are not yet digitized, I cannot do so at the present. What recent color photos I show were provided to me by the great generosity or Erwin Janssen and Hubert Achten. Erwin is from Holland and Hubert is from Belgium. I am indebted to them for their kindness. Aerial photos were taken by Oliver Turbang who lives in Belgium.

Mark Stephenson, November 14, 2006.


The Opening, 18-20 December 1944

(All sections are under construction. I apologize for any mispellings or grammatical errors. All contents are the property and copyright of Mark Stephenson 2006.)

Alert

The phone rang in the second battalion guardhouse. Corporal Harry Mole answered and handed the phone to 2nd Lt Bernard Jordan. He listened intently for a moment, answered in the affirmative then handed the phone back to Cpl. Mole. “Mole,” Jordan said, “I’ve just received orders to let all the captives out of the stockade and have them report to their units immediately.” He paused. That was a strange order to be given with the division in camp, he thought. Easy company was pulling regimental guard duty and it was Jordan’s shift in the guardhouse. “Mole, get that guy back on the line. Some damned fool might be trying to pull my leg or test me, or something. I can’t do that!” He got the company command post and asked what was up. The guy at the other end told him, “Yeah, we’re on alert, that’s a good order. Go on and execute.” Cpl. Mole ran out the door and went to each of his guards. As he ran past Pfc. Peter Broome, a recent replacement in second platoon, he yelled, “Broome, get back to your barracks.” “I can’t,” Broome called back, “I’m on guard duty.” Mole ran on, but called back, “Get back now, we’re movin’ out!”

Trucks soon began arriving in the battalion section. The men gathered up what clothing, equipment and weapons they had. Groups of men began to congregate in the battalion street. Trucks, semi's pulling forty-by-eight open-topped trailers typically used to haul cattle, began to line the street. The troopers milled around the waiting to board them holding their overcoats and packs, their rifles and ammo boxes, as if they were waiting on a commuter train to take them to office jobs in the city rather than to some place nearer the front.


Men of Easy 501 boarding the trucks to take them to Bastogne.

Many men stood with dazed looks on their faces as if they had just gotten out of bed. But underneath the routine, the gears of their business were still turning. Some men received new assignments, even at this late hour. Private Broome was told to exchange his rifle for a carbine: he was now an assistant machine gunner assigned to Winston Jones’s gun. The news curbed his excitement for he had heard what others knew first hand: machine gunners had a short life span in combat.

The battalion trucks crossed the embarkation point at 1400hrs. Truck after truck carrying the division turned onto the road with the 501 PIR at the head of the convoy. In the lead truck sat Captain Frank Gregg, company commander of Easy company. Sitting next to the driver and holding a map was a bit more comfortable to him than standing in the trailer behind with the men. His main concern was trying to follow the map and give directions to the driver and hoping the few jeeps leading the convoy wouldn’t get too far ahead and lose them. But in the back of his mind was a definite possible danger. He had been told to keep a lookout for German paratroopers rumor had to be operating behind American lines to disrupt rear operations. If they were out there he did not want to run into them while he was stuck in a truck. A world of unknowns lay before him and it was quickly getting dark. Germans or no Germans, Gregg later said, “The driver put the pedal to the metal.”

With little room to sit most of the men stood. The cold air and breeze forced some to huddle as close to the front wall as they could. Some men joked and discussed what might await them and night quickly fell over them. No one knew where they were going as the convoy wound its way east and then north. Someone said they thought they were in Belgium. That soon became clear, but where in Belgium? One small town or village after another passed them, the next one just like the last one in the black of night. The night air was cold and many huddled as close to the front of the trailer to help break the wind on them. Lying down was difficult and if possible someone was either under you or on top. While uncomfortable, it was a bit warmer that way. No one was afraid; in fact, the element of the unknown, as opposed to having some idea what might be awaiting them in Normandy and Holland, made it a little exciting. Charlie Eckman, Harry Coffey and Gleason Roberts had a running debate as to what they might be getting into or how bad the fighting might be. Curiosity ran high. But there were some who nursed fears that they would not make it through this one.

Arrival

0130hrs 19 Dec, 44 Bn arrives at forward assembly area just west of Bastogne at 545579. Thus wrote Louis Frey into the “Jot-Em-Down Book.” Instructions written to Frey or anyone on duty was to “'Jot down everything that comes into or goes through this office that has anything to do with the functioning of this section - Give time and date,' signed, Capt. W.E. Pehlam." Pelham and Frey were in Headquarters Company of “Klondike White”, the code name for the second battalion of the 501st Parachute infantry Regiment. The trucks carrying the battalion stopped about a kilometer west of the ancient town of Bastogne on the Rue de March (N4 highway). In the distance could be heard artillery. At times there would be an explosion in the town. Easy company was lucky enough to have a barn waiting for them next to their trucks. Here some would try to get a little sleep and await further orders from the battalion and regiment. The men were to find some place nearby, dig in, and try to get a little sleep. Pvt. Broome recalls his platoon being directed into a small patch of woods where they dug shallow slit trenches. “My first night was spent in a shallow, wet slit trench.”

Capt. Frank Gregg, a tall Virginian who had both the elegance of old gentry and the strength of a back woodsman, and who sported a head of bright red hair leading those close to him to call him “Foxy”, and his company first sergeant, Raoul Papich, attended a meeting of commanders in a nearby barn. The meeting was brief and little information was available to them. When it ended Gregg and Papich walked out into the cold, damp, darkness in silence. Papich, a large, “bear of a man” who had been the great Ester Williams’ swimming coach before the war and who would later become a fine tango dancer in New York City, turned to his captain, breaking the silence and asked, “Do you think we’re going to get back in combat - be any shooting?”

“Not a damned chance,” Gregg replied.

They walked a few more steps in silence. Papich wasn’t so sure of his company commander’s prognosis. “Not a damned chance, you say?”

Into the Void

The gray light of dawn had not yet broken the dark of night when the battalion began to move from their assembly area around 0530. The men fell out onto the road in two lines on either side. Only a few yards from their bivouac they crossed a bridge over some railroad tracks: the same tracks with which they would later become well acquainted over the coming weeks, only a few miles away. The column followed the road into town. The streets of were jammed with vehicles and VIII Corps headquarters personnel. Men and vehicles from other units also filled the streets and alleys. Shells were still falling in the town and it was clear that everyone they passed were getting out. As second battalion passed through the congested streets, civilians peered out from darkened doors and windows watching the frantic activity in the streets. They, too, did not know how the tide would turn over the coming hours and feared the possibility of the return of the enemy. The column stopped and Lt. Bill Sefton of D company propped himself against a building and watched as a Bastogne civilian hastily whitewashed over an American flag painted on a wall. As Sefton watched, the window next to him opened and a hand immerged from the darkness within offering to him a steaming cup of coffee.

The situation developing east of Bastogne was unknown and sketchy at best. Stragglers from American units were filtering into Bastogne along every road. “Wiped out…Tanks, tanks, tanks,” was all they could report. These men, despondent and some crying did not know from where they came or where they were heading. General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commander of the Division, had instructed Colonel Julian Ewell, regimental commander of the 501st, to move east where he was to “make contact, attack and clear up the situation.” Ewell directed first battalion to move out the N28 road where they should find a roadblock in Longvilly held by CCR of the 9th Armored Division.

First battalion had been delayed by a few hours as a result of making a wrong turn in Bastogne but was soon put back on the correct road by Ewell himself. Fog blanketed the road and they could not see more than about two hundred yards at best. Ahead of them in the murk they could hear heavy fighting. The division’s reconnaissance platoon had passed them earlier but had taken a wrong turn and was now trying to make its way back to the head of the battalion column. Before the platoon could reach the head, the column was stopped by ferocious fire coming straight down the road at them. The road was flat and straight. Their forward progress ended where they could discern through the fog the outline of the first house in Neffe. Behind that house hidden from their view sat a German tank. Fire from the tank was too strong and concealed to approach directly. Major Raymond Bottomly deployed C company and most of B company to the left onto the high ground overlooking Neffe and had just enough room on the right between the road and a small creek for two squads. A small-gauged railroad spur from Bastogne ran between the road and the creek and its embankment provided some cover. They had no weapons strong enough to challenge the tank. First battalion’s goal of clearing up the situation had come to a standstill less than a mile outside of Bastogne. They would advance no further east for the next two weeks.


Into the land of Nod

Once Colonel Ewell recognized his first battalion could go no further, he called on Major Sammy Homan, commander of second battalion, to bring up his men and swing around the left frank of first battalion. Ewell saw from the available maps that there was high ground north of Neffe that overlooked the area from where the Germans appeared to be in force. Ewell needed to know what they were up to. Second battalion moved through Bastogne again led by Easy and followed by Fox and Dog companies, respectively. Headquarters Company fell in line between Fox and Dog. Now on foot, Captain Gregg marched at the head of the column. At the age of twenty he had been a jump school instructor at Ft. Benning, Georgia and had helped train Ewell’s battalion in 1943 by “politely encouraging” them to jump from the high towers.

Gregg led the battalion past the Eglise St. Pierre, Bastogne’s ancient church that had stood since the fourteenth century.


The Eglise St Pierre, top left. The main street through Bastogne lies parallel to and on the other side of Eglise St. Pierre and then passes the Seminary seen to the right of the ancient gate to Bastogne.


The Seminary school. At the time of the battle, the regiment’s telephone communication center was located just inside the large door letting out onto the road in the left photo. All telephone wires passed through this door. The road to Bizory and Neffe leads off into the distance in the right photo. In 1944 the ground to the right sloped to a creek that has been covered by the parking lot.


It was sometime between 0900 and 1000hrs. They followed the highway past the Seminary school, which was already being used as a regimental command post. The last buildings of Bastogne now gave way to the drab, fog-shrouded, wintry landscape. As the battalion left Bastogne, Capt. Frank Gregg recalled, “There was a lot of confusion as we were leaving Bastogne. There were a lot of refugees coming toward us. The fog was so heavy we could see no more than fifty yards. Those people came right through us. They were going west, toward Bastogne. I remember remarking to Papich, ‘Oh hell, this doesn’t look good.’ Some were pushing wheelbarrows and two-wheeled carts with their possessions. They looked worn out and terribly frightened. I did not converse with them but put the company on either side of the road and gave them the middle.”

A few hundred yards beyond the seminary, the road crossed a concrete bridge that arched over the railroad spur to Neffe. (This bridge was located where today the tank turret aimed toward Neffe is. The original road followed the curve of the paved path to the tank turret.) Instead of following the road that would take them to the rear of first battalion, Gregg turned the column left down a small, muddy side road beyond the bridge. At the foot of a large hill on their right in the vee of the intersection, men of battery B of the 907th glider field artillery battalion were beginning to prepare positions for their new 105mm howitzers to lend support to first battalion. These howitzers had never been fired and the battery had not even been given a chance to test its radios.

The road dipped into a slight hollow and passed through a small farm being used as a command post by the artillerymen. The stream of refugees had ceased and now out of the mist more weary and scared soldiers appeared. These men looked at the troopers with sullen bewilderment and some spoke with scornful contempt, saying, “If you wanna fight Krauts, they’re right over the hill.”


Left, the old road to Bizory passed through the farm. The modern road to the Mardasson Memorial and Bizory is to the right. Right – the farm from the Bourcey railroad track bed. The 907 GFA, Battery B, was in the field beyond the farm. Neffe is over the distant hill.



On into the fog the battalion marched. The sound of the fighting in Neffe could clearly be heard. “Shouldn’t we go help those guys?” some men in E company asked. The answer: “Keep walkin’, you’ll soon get your chance.” The muddy road came to the crest of a broad hill more shrouded in heavy fog and soon descended into a void they could not see.

As D company, pulling up the rear of the column, began the ascent of the hill, the battery of 105s on their right opened up. It was now sometime after 1000 hrs. Had it been a clear day when second battalion came over the rise they would have been seen stretched out over more than a half mile - a long ribbon of men making a broad sweeping arc into the distant valley. But on this morning the fog played in their favor and shrouded their movements from any enemy on the heights in the distance.

Half a mile ahead of D company, E was feeling its way into the fog. Gregg was no longer meeting refugees or stragglers making their way west. All was strangely quiet. With the sound of the fighting in Neffe he wondered why he had not yet met the enemy. Surely they were nearby.


Into Bizory

There are conflicting accounts as to who and what second battalion encountered when they entered Bizory. In my documentary research and discussions with veterans, all but one – the first man to enter Bizory - have mentioned there being elements of some unit other than those from the 101st Airborne in Bizory creating a traffic jamb when second battalion entered. The following is my interpretation and reconstruction of events based on based on the evidence I have been able to obtain.

According to the “Battle History of Company B, 158th Engineer C Battalion (B/158), at 0500 hrs 18 December, two platoons of B/158 took up a defensive position along the Neffe-Bizory and Bizory-Foy roads between Neffe and the Bourcy railroad tracks (Halt Station). A third platoon set up roadblocks forward of the company positions on the N28 highway in Longvilly and Mageret. The company command post was in Bizory. Company B, 158th, was augmented during the night by two platoons of Company C, 9th Armored Engineers. At 2300 hrs 18 December German infantry overran the roadblock in Mageret and the forward roadblock in Longvilly was cut off. After this, armored vehicles could be heard entering Mageret. A unit of five tanks and one tank destroyer reported to the C.P. of B/158 at about 0530 hrs and were placed in defensive positions around Bizory. At 0600 enemy tanks and infantry attacked the platoon in Neffe. The fighting was desperate and close in with the first enemy tank destroyed. A Sherman tank was sent to reinforce the platoon. It dueled with a second tank but soon Neffe was filled with foot soldiers supporting the tanks and the platoon was forced to withdraw. Wounded from the platoon were evacuate from Neffe at 0730 hrs. Some of these wounded feigned dead when overrun by the Germans and escaped through enemy patrols. Enemy patrols tried to encircle the company positions but were repulsed. At 1000 hrs “elements of the 101st Airborne Division came from our rear to relieve our positions.” The commander of B/158 informed what he knew of the enemy to the battalion commander “of this organization” (we now know as men of 2/501). This relieving unit moved forward at 1200 hrs while the left was protected by B/158. “Enemy shelling became very heavy, we held our positions until relieved by the 101st Airborne troops at 1430 hrs. [Our] withdrawal was orderly and under control.


The view of Bizory as seen from the Bastogne/Bizory road. Easy company would not have seen any of this on their approach due to the fog. The objective of the battalion was the hill on the far distance. Mageret is over the hill in the center of the picture.

The road made a sweeping curve to the left then leveled and banked to the right. The large hulks of old stone barns and a few houses loomed up and closed in on the column on either side of the road. They had reached Bizory. Still there was no sound except for the plodding of their boots on the wet road and, as remembered by Frank Gregg, no human was to be seen.


Entering Bizory. The road to Foy turns off to the left. A battalion aid station was located along the whitewashed wall at the right. The Remy chateau is the large building in the center. It would house 2/501's tactical command post.

Action by 2/501

Captain Frank Gregg was the first man of second battalion to enter Bizory. He remembers meeting no one. “Bizory was a ghost town,” he told me. He marched through Bizory with at least one entire platoon followed by most of another. However, Sergeant Frank McClure with second platoon remembers there being “a traffic jam, second platoon did not get out of Bizory.” Peter Broome, also in second platoon, recalls he never made it out of Bizory. Lt. Bill Sefton of Dog company, pulling up the rear of second battalion’s column writes in his book, “It’s My War”, that he too dealt with a traffic jamb in Bizory. The evidence is strong that some unit was in Bizory and in the process of trying to get out when second battalion entered sometime around 1100 hrs.



This montage of photos was provided by a friend on Mark Bando's Trigger Time forum. The upper right photo shows the road to Mageret leading out of Bizory. The lower right photo shows the Remy Chateau. Imagine more fog and this is what the men of 2/501 would have seen upon entering Bizory. The B&W photos show German prisoners being led to the rear by men of the 50th Armored Infantry Battalion. Thanks go to John Bolender, webmaster of the 50th AIB website, for providing the B&W photos.

Gregg continued with the company on the road to Mageret. His main objective was the high ground just beyond Bizory designated as “hill 510”. Beyond hill 510 was the small village of Mageret. The road out of Bizory dips slightly for a few hundred yards and crosses a draw, or small drainage feature, before making a steady ascent up hill 510. The column of Easy now stretched from the foot of this hill all the way back to Bizory where second platoon pulled up the rear.

Instead of following Easy on the Mageret road, Major Sammy Homan sent Fox to take a patch of woods on the same high ground but left of where Easy was probing. They soon found themselves on a narrow farm track consisting of not much more than a wagon path.

The fog had lifted somewhat so that Gregg could see about a one hundred yards ahead of him. The road rising before him began to curve to the left. Out of the fog he saw a group of figures coming toward him on the road about two hundred yards away. It was the Germans.


Approximate location where Gregg first saw the Germans coming down the hill. The Germans moved off to the left in an attempt to flank Gregg's column.

“I saw them about the same they saw me. I think they were as surprised to see me as I was to see them,” Gregg later said. A few troopers began to fire on the enemy who were now moving off the road to Easy’s left. Gregg countered by moving the column off the road to the left. The ground to his right dropped off very steeply making it unsuitable for the Germans to move in that direction. Word spread back down the line to move to the left and the company moved off the road in squads and other small units and took cover where they could.

The Germans began to make flanking probes toward Bizory from the north along Easy's position, unaware of the extent to which second battalion was deploying all around Bizory. Sporadic firefights now erupted along the column as the groups met in the fog. Half way back in the column, Sergeant Frank McClure, second platoon’s sergeant, was called down into the draw where sergeant Thomas Butcher and some of his squad had found cover. “A group of Germans had tried to make their way down this draw thinking it would provide them with some cover and did not know we were there. When the fog lifted we had a turkey shoot.”

Back in Bizory the rear of the column the last squads of second platoon had made their way off the road and up to high ground behind a small chapel. There, a tree line extended north from the rear of the chapel and then made a right angle to the west. First squad from second platoon led by Corporal William Clark began to take cover in these trees. An American tank destroyer sat behind the chapel where Clark was taking his men; it had been knocked out recently. Winston Jones and Peter Broome, manning the machine gun of this squad, took position at the corner of the tree line. View of the treeline where Clark's squad was located behind the Bizory chapel. Jones and Broome set up their machine gun under the second tree from the left at the corner of the tree line and about seventy yards behind the chapel. The Germans moved from right to left in the distant field.

Out in the fog, they could see what appeared to Broome to be sixty or seventy of the enemy crossing his front from right to left about a hundred yards away. “We opened up on them. They did not know we were there. Some vaporized in a ball of fire. They must have been carrying mortar rounds or panzerfausts and our bullets hit them. Jones and I went through two boxes of ammunition rather quickly. Not a one of them made it.”


View looking east from Broome and Jones's foxhole. The Germans tried to flank from the left. The draw where McClure and Butcher were is where the trees are in the middle distance.

Also unbeknownst to the Germans was Fox company. By now Fox was stretched along the farm track all the way to the high ground northeast of Bizory. (It is possible that Fox actually left Bizory slightly before Easy moved out on the Mageret road. Some units of Fox actually made it to the woods objective, which is nearly a kilometer away – a much further distance than Easy was from Bizory when they encountered the Germans on the Mageret road.) Fox could not see Easy due to the thick fog. A trooper in third platoon in Fox recalled they were walking along the farm track when they heard the firing by Easy. “We knew something was up now, and we all turned to our right and laid down along the trees and road where we began to dig any sort of protection we could,” he said. There they waited for whatever was to come out of the fog.


Right. The farm track leading out of Bizory to the northeast. Fox company moved out this road to a small woods a half mile away. Left. View 90 degrees to the left of the photo at right. Some of Dog company dug in along fence. The woods visible in the right distance of the left photo were present in 1944 but have been cut. Photos taken December 1974 by Peter Broome.

Dog company, meanwhile, had moved into Bizory. Most of the company followed Fox but stopped just beyond the edge of Bizory and dug in perpendicular to the farm track out which Fox was stretched (see photo above). Private William Hayes dug in along a fence. He could see nothing of the fighting but recalls a tank destroyer, most likely one of the four requisitioned on the spot by Gregg earlier, moved up next to his position, fired several rounds at some unseen foe, and made a hasty retreat slinging mud on him from the tracks as it went.



Map no. 1. First encounter with Germans by 2/501. Gregg with Easy meets Germans on Mageret road and moves company off road to counter German movement. Fox strung out along farm track to wood patch on hill 510.


The positions of Easy and Fox formed a large right angle into which the Germans were now trying to enter. The Germans sent infantry from over the distant hill on which sat a number of halftracks and armored vehicles. The 101st division’s artillery began to lay down a wall of fire causing the German vehicles to move back. The artillery then began to walk back towards Bizory forcing the German infantry, caught in the open, to move forward or else be pulverized. Unknown to them, they ran into the waiting fire of Fox. The closer they moved toward Bizory, the more they were caught in the crossfire of Easy and Fox. “E company was in perfect position to fire down their lines,” the trooper from Fox said. It was death trap.

The fighting petered off as the afternoon wore on. By 1600 hours darkness had fallen. The positions held by Easy and Fox were precarious at best. Gregg described his position as “not a hell of a good place to be”. Both were strung out of Bizory like thin ribbons with offering no mutual support. They held the low ground for Bizory is located in the bottom of valley.

Once darkness fell, the companies moved to somewhat better positions forming a semi-circle around Bizory facing northeast and east. Fox company’s left flank overlooked the Foy/Bizory road and curved around over an open field with their right flank on the farm track out which they had walked earlier that day. The center of their line took position in foxholes dug by William Hayes and others of Dog company, who moved back in battalion reserve on the forward slope of the large hill west of Bizory. Easy company’s left tied in with Fox’s right on the farm track and curved around Bizory, over the Mageret/Bizory road. The right flank of Easy tied in with Charlie company of first battalion near the Neffe/Bizory road. The position furthest east held by any member of second battalion was that occupied by second squad of second platoon, anchored by the machine gun of Jones and Broome under the corner tree behind the chapel. One unit or another from Easy and Fox would hold these positions for the next eleven days.



Map No. 2. Troop disposition of 2/501 after dark 19 December 1944.

It was probably after darkness fell that a tank destroyer convoy with four tank destroyers being ferried to the rear appeared in Bizory led by an African-American master sergeant. Gregg stopped the convoy. The master sergeant told Gregg he was taking his tanks to the rear and was getting the hell out of there. Gregg told him in no uncertain terms he was not leaving. The sergeant pleaded saying he was not a combat soldier. Gregg told him that as of right then he was a combat soldier. Gregg gave him orders as to where he was to position his tanks; he then proceeded on to his objective.

The position furthest east held by any member of second battalion was that occupied by second squad of second platoon, anchored by the machine gun of Jones and Broome under the corner tree behind the chapel. One unit or another from Easy and Fox would hold these positions for the next eleven days. What became of the four tank destroyers stopped by Capt Gregg is unknown. Clair Hess noted, “All armor pulling back scared as hell. Expect big attack in the morning.”

20 December 1944

Throughout the night, all members of each company were busy preparing themselves for the inevitable. Patrols were sent out from Dog company to lay anti-tank mines on the roads beyond the battalion’s positions. Lieutenant Clair Hess, executive officer of Fox had set up his command post in a small house in the crook of the s-curve on the farm track leading out of Bizory. Most all of the company had prepared their positions in the open field a few yards north of his C.P. All they had to combat armor and tanks were a few bazookas and he and Sergeant Parks spent the night making Molotov cocktails.


Right. Peter Broome standing before house on farm track that was the C.P. of his company after 22 December. On the night of 19 December, Lt. Clair Hess used this house as the C.P. of Fox company. Left. Broome standing behind the Bizory chapel. Photos made in 1974.

Sometime after midnight, word filtered through the lines that unknown armor was approaching from the east. Shortly before daylight, they could hear the clanking of tank treads and the rumble of engines coming down the farm track into Bizory. Peter Broome recalled, “We could not see a thing until it was right on top of us. Everybody had a finger on the trigger”. The tanks were friendly. It was what was left of Team Ryerson of the 10th Armored Division. Captain Ryerson had been sent by Cherry to reopen the road in Mageret, which was now occupied by what was thought to be a German patrol. Ryerson arrived in Mageret to discover what turned out to be a large force from both Panzer Lehr and the 26th VG Division. The Germans had not moved down the Longvilly-Mageret road but had moved cross country into Mageret from the east. Ryerson held onto a small corner of Mageret before withdrawing along the farm lanes through Bizory to Bastogne.

At first light on the 20th Captain Gregg gathered men of Easy behind the chapel. He laid out what they could expect and what was expected of the men. “We are not moving back,” he told them. “You will not have another opportunity to serve your family and your country as you will have right now. Everyone is to hold his foxhole. General McAuliffe says we’ll probably be surrounded and we are to make our stand here.” The address impressed the nineteen year-old Peter Broome, who had joined the company only a few weeks before as a replacement. From that moment, Broome held the highest regard for Gregg and would later describe Gregg as “the epitome of a paratrooper.” Corporal William Clark, first squad’s leader in second platoon of Easy, and considered by many to be a prince of a man, took the newbee replacement, Peter Broome, aside so as not to humiliate him and to emphasize Gregg’s point told him that if he wanted to survive not to get out of his foxhole for any reason unless ordered so.

Gregg then said he needed fifteen volunteers for a combat patrol to see what the Germans were up towards Mageret. Due to the dangerous nature of this patrol, he wanted no married men to go. Broome, wanting to show he was one with his company volunteered. The patrol was to be led by Corporal William Foreman, better known by his men as “The Crow” because he had a large, hooked nose. Foreman was a mortar man and he carried the tube of a 60-mm mortar. Broome was the right flank machine gunner. Corporal Wesley Callahan, nicknamed “Raven” because he had a thick mane of jet black hair, carried his machine gun on the left flank. Everyone carried on mortar round.

The patrol moved out and made their way without opposition down the road to Mageret. This time they reached the crest of the high ground they failed to reach the day before. Down in the valley lay the small village of Mageret and in the streets loitered many German soldiers and an open command car. Foreman sat down in the middle of the road and placed the mortar between his legs with no base plate. In rapid succession he dropped all the rounds the patrol carried with them into the village. “The Germans scattered in every which direction,” Broome recalled. No sooner had they finished, they received a call over the radio to get back to Bizory was fast as possible. Sporadic artillery shells were beginning to fall along the line from Bizory to Neffe. The expected attack was about to begin.

[The exact time of the attack on Bizory by the elements of the 26th Volksgrenadier Division is in dispute. The “Jot-em Down Book” indicates 1300hrs. Another source, a general account of the 501st by William Burge, who was a member of Headquarter’s Company. He gives 0730 as the time of the attack.]

No sooner did the Foreman’s patrol reach Bizory did a rain of artillery begin to fall. “We got plastered,” Broome said later. “I did not even make it back to my foxhole, but was caught in the open behind the chapel. I tried to sink into the mud.” Staff Sargent Kent McKenny was also caught in the open and took cover next to a stone wall by the chapel. Broome was watching as a mortar round hit the wall above where McKenny lay. This time, McKenny was lucky. He was only knocked out but otherwise unhurt. He would not be so lucky in a few days when he would be killed in action. Broome tied to “soak up the ground” and during the first lull he took shelter behind the chapel before making his way back out to his foxhole.

All along the line from Bizory to Neffe, the Germans laid down a wall of artillery that some on the receiving end described as the worse they experienced the entire war. It was the prelude for a major assault. It is a bit unclear as to exactly when the barrage began and how long it lasted, but it was prelude to the expected attack. Frey noted in “Jot-em down” that about 1300hrs “Four tanks and small amount of infantry attack F company.” Clair Hess wrote in his pocket diary at the time “The Jerries line up five tanks with infantry in front of woods and lay down big smoke screen. Thought this would be my last day.”



Map No. 3. Events of 20 December 1944. The attack came from behind the woods (now gone).


View of Big Attack from Fox's positions. In 1944 a wood patch stood at the far left about a third of a mile away. The farm track is visible along the treeline at the right.

The attack came when these five tanks and infantry emerged from behind woods to the left and front of Fox’s position. It was no minor skirmish. All machine guns in Fox, augmented by guns from HQ company, as well as the four tank destroyers opened on the German assault columns simultaneously. Within moments, all the artillery General McAuliffe could turn towards Bizory struck the attackers with hundreds of rounds. By 1400 hrs the attack was over. Two tanks were knocked out by “our tank destroyers”, notes the “Jot-em Down Book.” This was one of two major attempts that day to take Bastogne from the east through the 501st’s positions. At 1900 hours “all German mobile guns that could be brought to bear” hit the 501st front. The firing severed all telephone cables from each battalion back to regimental headquarters. This was followed by a two-pronged attack on Neffe and Mont by infantry followed closely by armor. Again, a “dam of fire” was dropped across the attack by nearly all the 101st Division’s artillery. According to the 907th GFAB’s unit journal, the combined number of rounds fired was between 2500 and 3000. Batteries A and B of the 907th, in support of the 501st, contributed 1200 rounds to this dam of fire. It was the opinion of Lt. Col. C. F. Nelson of the 907th that this period saw the heaviest use of artillery during the siege. [A detailed account of the attack on first and third battalions’ positions at Neffe and Mont is given in Rendezvous with Destiny.]

The attack by the 26th VGs was not without losses for Fox. Hess mentions that Lt. Brown was hit making Hess the C.O.; Pvt. Melvin Heitsman was killed; First Lieutenant Charles Warrener was seriously wounded and would die of his wounds on Christmas Eve. It is probable that Warrener was the “Lieutenant in a rifle platoon [who] stood up and was hit by shrapnel from a shell that hit ten feet from his hole;” Pvt. Lester Randolph was killed and Pfc. Daniel Klores died of his wounds three days later. Several others were wounded but not all returned to duty.

Dog company was not sitting back on the hill watching the show in Bizory during the day of 20 December. Their main concern was making contact with the 506th on the other side of the tracks. Four patrols were sent out by D company during the afternoon of December 20, but were turned back by Germans in the vicinity of Halt Station house. (G. William Sefton writes of this in his book, It Was My War.)

Corporal Frank Lasik of D company led his fourth patrol of the day just as dusk began to settle. The woods to Dog’s left near the railroads tracks would soon be the scene of one of the more celebrated actions of the day. They went around the west side of woods and the Foy-Bizory road where he dropped six men of his nine-man patrol and continued on with two others. He and the two men reached the railroad tracks several hundred yards to the southwest of the Halt Station house. Here, he could see seven German Tanks supported by infantry coming down the tracks. Private Manzi fired a shot at the Germans and the three of them withdrew as quickly as possible. Lasik returned to the Battalion C.P. and alerted them that the Germans were coming down the tracks.

Able company was attached to second battalion at about 1630hrs and moved up along the railroad tracks to close the gap between the 506th and 501st. The action that followed is also given a detailed accounting in Rendezvous with Destiny and I will not go into detail here. Briefly, Able moved up the left flank of D company but stopped a few hundred yards further southwest of Lasik’s location where he saw the German tanks. Able company had moved one platoon north of the tracks and two platoons to the south of the tracks. Here they waited in ambush. At this time a German company had passed Lasik and D company’s position and was moving down the tracks ahead of the tanks. Someone in Able company could not wait for the bulk of the German unit to move in to the killing zone and opened fire. Much of the German force retreated into the woods west of Halt and north of the tracks. It was this group which men of A/506 had to flush from the woods, whose account is provided by Donald Burgett in his book, “Seven Roads to Hell, a Screaming Eagle at Bastogne.”

By the end of 21 December contact had been established with the 506th. All of the German assaults on the 501st had been repulsed and the Germans gave up any attempts to take Bastogne from the northeast.


Settling In, 22 December to New Year’s Day

Second Battalion Moves to Better Defensive Positions.

Cessation of major attacks into the lines held by the 501st does in no way imply the men of the 501st were safe. Second battalion’s positions around Bizory were still precarious. They were in the bottom of a bowl with German tanks and artillery on the rim looking down on them. Seldom it was that there was not some form of artillery, mortars, or direct tank fire on second battalion’s positions. Beginning the night of 21-22 December under the cover of darkness units of each company began to move to stronger defensive positions on the forward slope of the large, broad hill west of Bizory and south of the railroad tracks. At about 2000hrs, first and second platoons of Easy took up positions on the north and south sides of the Bastogne/Bizory road about a third of the way up the slope.



Third platoon remained in Bizory as outpost. At about 0400hrs 22 December first and second platoons of Fox moved to a position in the woods cleared by A/501 the day before. The first mention of snow by anyone in second battalion was on the night of the 20th. Lt. Clair Hess, Executive Officer of Fox company, wrote as if as an aside in his diary, “Beginning to snow.”

The forward slope of the broad hill west of Bizory offered choice defensive positions for the 501st. Charlie and Baker companies of first battalion continued to hold the slope overlooking the Bizory/Neffe road with the right flank of Baker company on the Neffe/Bastogne road. Units of third battalion occupied the line from Baker’s right, then along a dirt track that leads from Neffe to Marvie.

After dark some platoon back on the slope would slog its way to Bizory and relieve the outpost. Sometimes an entire company would take the duty. This routine continued somewhat on a regular basis through 29 December. To the men of second battalion it must have seemed like they were forever being shuffled from one place to another. For any company, units not on outpost duty in Bizory occupied positions on the big hill west of Bizory.



Men on outpost duty listened to “propaganda talk” as well as receiving many pamphlets suggesting they should give up or that things were not going well back home. One such pamphlet featured an illustration depicting “your wife”, quite anatomically correct, in the arms of a handsome man, both standing before a mirror. Instead of an image of the two lovers, the image in the mirror showed the specter, Death, choking a soldier – you! – the man in whose arms the lovely woman is supposed to be.

Peter Broome, first squad, second platoon, Easy Co., recalls that the German listening post in front of his foxhole on the farm track in Bizory was very close. Being a baseball player, Broome always judged distances in terms of baseball. The German listening post was close enough to him that a good little league pitcher could knock the helmet off the man sitting in it from his foxhole. Harry Mole recalls sitting in the listening post one night as being no fun at all. “You start to see things. It gets a bit hairy all out there by yourself.” A fellow Easy trooper, Ted Braden, would crawl out to the listening post alone just after sundown. He knew that by the time he was settled into the listening post two German soldiers would be making their way as quietly as possible from tree to tree along the farm track to their listening post only a few dozen feet away. The Germans always sent two men to such an outpost for they knew one soldier might be tempted to make his way to the American lines and give himself up. Men on listening outpost duty frequently heard snoring from their German counterparts.

Broome also remembers well December 22nd. “We had been on outpost duty in Bizory and we were relieved before it had gotten dark. That was a big mistake on someone’s part because the Germans could see any movement and were we went – especially once it snowed. As soon as we got back to the hill the Germans started dropping mortars on us. That is when Butcher was killed.”

Sergeant Thomas Butcher is remembered as being aloof and hard to get to know, but when he did the affect was like “God talking to you”. Butcher was an expert machine gunner. He also wore two pearl handled revolvers. Harry Mole, radio man or, when there was a telephone, the one who answered the phone for sergeants McClure or Kenny at second platoon’s C.P., remembers getting calls during a battle such as “Butcher just got shot ten! Butcher got another fifteen!” Somewhere along the way Butcher got hold of a 50-cal. machine gun, which he was fond of carrying with an improvised sling. Frank McClure believes he must have been firing it just before the platoon was shelled. McClure remembers, “He took a direct hit by a tank.” Peter Broome recalls Butcher had a premonition of some type as if he knew his time was up. “He gave many things to McKenna just before he was killed.” Butcher’s best friend was Harry Altick who was in the foxhole with Butcher at the time. Harry Mole thought Butcher was prone to not protecting himself. “Butcher was standing up watching the artillery, Mole said. “Altick came running in to the C.P. crying and yelling “Butcher’s been killed! Butcher’s been killed!” Butcher might not have been prone to protecting himself, but as for others, Mole said, while “[Butcher] took chances, guys knew he would get them back safely if they went on patrol with him.”


Providing Help to other sectors of the Bastogne perimeter.

The third battalion of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment began to be pressed by attacks that were becoming heavier beginning the night of 23 December. The line held by the 327th was the longest of any unit of the division and it was feared the line might break. On the night of 23-24 December, division headquarters decided to create a reserve unit that would establish a line of defense on the high ground between Marvie and Bastogne. This unit was designated “Task Force X”. Task Force “X” was made up of second and third platoons from Fox, first platoon from Easy, the entirety of Charlie company, and Fox of the 81st AT bn. Meanwhile, first platoon from Fox joined the two platoons of Easy in Bizory. Dog company continued to hold their positions along and just west of the Foy/Bizory road. These units were assembled by 0300 on the morning of 24 December.

Task Force X moved into position on the high ground just southeast of Bastogne and north of the Wiltz road. Here, they would form a second line of defense in the event that the Germans broke through the 327th in Marvie. The fighting for Marvie was desperate and teetered on breaking, but the 327th held and Task Force X was no longer needed. After darkness fell on Christmas Eve the members of Task Force X rejoined their respective units.

Merry Christmas

Nightfall of Christmas Eve found second battalion occupying the ground between Neffe and the Bastogne/Bourcy railroad tracks. One platoon of Dog covered the entire face of the big hill from the tracks to the Bizory/Bastogne road. The other platoons of Dog company were near the farm further up the hill. To the right of each Dog position was a platoon from Easy with the exception of one platoon that was on outpost in Bizory. Fox faced east about halfway up the hill overlooking the Neffe/Bizory road with their right flank tying in with H company on the Neffe/Bastogne road.

Shortage of food was becoming a major concern for the Division. There was a large supply of flour in Bastogne that helped matters some. Those on the receiving end of the food chain didn’t quite have the same opinion. Frank Gregg recalls only getting “two, small, cold pancakes before sun up and two, small, cold pancakes after sundown, “and that was it!” Peter Broome remembers one night on or just before Christmas. He and second platoon of Easy were on the forward slope of the big hill west of Bizory. “We waited for the truck to come. It had to come down the road from Bastogne with its headlights turned off. Even then, the Germans could hear the truck and would fire towards the sound. We didn’t dare move until long after the truck left. Then we’d crawl out of our foxholes and feel in the snow for the cans dropped by the truck. We’d drag these cans back to the platoon. This night when we opened the cans what we found was applesauce! That was all. That is what we had for our Christmas dinner.”

First lieutenant Bert Collier of Dog company recalls he got a little more with his applesauce on Christmas morning. “The cooks came out of Bastogne at four o’clock in the morning to the front lines. I got two little pancakes about as big around as the top of a teacup, a spoonful of applesauce and a half a canteen cup of cold coffee. That was breakfast, lunch, AND supper!”

Morning broke clear and cold. Raymond Hamlet, mortar man in Easy, remembers a small bit of Christmas cheer drifting over the snow outside of Bizory. “The Germans weren’t very far away and they were singing Christmas carols.”

All was not quiet this day and night. The enemy continued making probes along the entire line and Allied planes bombed and strafed enemy positions in the woods along the railroad tracks. Men of Dog company were hit by this bombing killing at least one man.

After dark a German truck struck a mine on the Bizory/Mageret road. This truck must have been laden with gasoline for it burned ferociously. Clair Hess could see this truck burning from his position.

Twice during the day, enemy patrols were sighted coming toward Fox’s positions. The first patrol was “dressed in white”. The second patrol was spotted coming over the hill on the Bizory/Mageret road, but turned south toward first battalion.

The Germans dropped a warm Christmas present of mortars and artillery on the entire main line of second battalion beginning about 0300 hrs and continued for the next six hours. Instead of illuminated Christmas trees, the Germans lighted the night sky with flares dropped by planes. When the gift giving ended about 0930, a large force of about sixty Germans in white capes came over the ridge between Neffe and Mageret. This force was repulsed by artillery fire. However, a few hours later, this forced tried to come over the ridge again. After mortars were laid on the ridge four enemy soldiers surrendered.

That evening, a patrol from Dog company entered the woods north of the Foy/Bizory road at Halt station where they made contact with a platoon of the enemy. The patrol withdrew following a brief firefight. One member of the patrol did not return and was reported as missing. However, soon after the patrol returned, the missing man reappeared and with him two prisoners.

The major change in troop disposition change for the battalion took place after dark on Christmas when Fox took over for Baker company on the forward slope of the big hill overlooking the Neffe/Bizory road. Fox would be here for the next six days. First battalion moved to regimental reserve between Mont and Bastogne.

Night of Excitement

Christmas had come and gone. After the momentary serenade of carols by the Germans, two attempts were made using stealth to enter Bizory. The first was repulsed with a few artillery rounds. The second appeared on the hill between Mageret and Neffe, then turned south, perhaps thinking trying in the same location in daylight wasn’t such a smart idea. Shortly after midnight on the 26th Dog company again probed into the woods in front of their position. Nothing was uncovered, but a few hours later, German tanks north of Halt station fired into Bastogne using the tracks as a guide.

In Bizory, Lt. Bernard Jordan, platoon leader of second platoon, Easy, was in the Remy chateau with most of his platoon trying to get warm having just come off outpost duty. It was about 0530. Daylight would not be long in coming and some of the men of second platoon had already begun to move back to their positions on the hill west of Bizory. The Remy chateau was the largest house and barn combination in Bizory. The cellar was used as the battalion aid station and forward command post. With no warning, a great commotion and gunfire erupted in and about the chateau. Not to be denied a third time, a combat patrol, estimated in size in the “Jot-em Down Book” to be about twenty men, had infiltrated through Easy’s outpost line wearing white sheets. Jordan had little time to size up the situation. “I was on the second floor. I looked around the corner of the hall and there was a potato masher at my feet.” Jordan turned from the explosion and did not receive the full blast, but got a few fragments in his foot. The chateau soon was aflame. George Willey, who had been making his way back to the hill with the other part of the platoon, heard the shooting and turned back to see flames at the chateau. “We turned and high-tailed it back to Bizory,” he recalled.

Confusion now spread in and around the chateau. Jordan and another man who had a mortar with him had no recourse in the burning building than to jump from the second story window. The drop was not dangerously high, but it was no easy jump with his bloody foot. Once on the ground, he and the other man made their way into the darkness where the mortar man fired a few rounds using his helmet at a base plate.

When the commotion died down three E company men, Charles Brown, Cardwell Othello and Gerald Robinson had been taken prisoner. Four men were wounded. The Remy chateau had been burned. All that remained of it were its stone walls. On a single-page document entitled “Record of Events” for Easy, it is written that the enemy combat patrol consisted of twenty-five men and they “shot up Bizory and stayed in town for two hours before being driven out." (The chateau would be rebuilt in the early 1950s and stands today appearing much as it did in 1944.)

Waiting.

After the burning of the battalion forward command post in Bizory the next three days saw the battalion enduring various levels of harassment in the form of machine gun fire from the high ground near Mageret to now ubiquitous mortar fire. All companies, most notably Dog company, continued to make contact patrols. The woods in front of Dog’s positions offered the closest covered approach for the Germans. Most patrols to these woods only discovered outpost foxholes and an occasional cough was hear through the trees. Allied planes made occasional strafing runs and dropped a bomb.

Clair Hess, with the rest of Fox out on the broad face of the hill northwest of Neffe, described the time in his diary as “pretty quiet.” The S-3 report for the 501st innocuously describes second battalion’s activities as “Maintaining defensive positions. Sector Quiet. Maintained patrols to front to determine location and maintain contact with enemy.” One’s definition of quiet was determined on where they were. When one unit was firing or being fired upon, everyone in the battalion could see it due to the nature of the topography. So all was never really quiet for anyone. But all could agree on one thing: it was very cold. While records of the 506th PIR note daily temperatures mosty being in the 20s and 30s in December, on the 26, the temperature did not get over ten degrees above zero according to Clair hess's diary. The weather was described in the S-3 report between the 23rd and 31st of December as “Clear and cold. Visibility excellent” with the exception of December 28th, which saw mist with low clouds and flurries of snow. As such, improvements to dugouts and foxholes were a continuing activity. Some men were able to use logs supplied by artillery taking down trees. One squad leader in Dog company was too lazy to hunt for branches, so he covered his foxhole with several frozen corpses of German soldiers.

Diary entries are famous for using descriptive words such as “routine” to describe events. The word routine could also be used to avoid acknowledging moments that to those present would best be forgettable. Life was never routine on the front line. Replacements came as often as supplies at times and all such activity becomes a blur to the memory. New men appeared and before names were known, they disappeared. Bernard Jordan recalls with great sadness when a new runner was assigned to him. Bernard was in his foxhole at the edge of the woods on the big hill. His hole was covered with a few logs and had a tarp to keep out the snow. “I was in my hole when this new boy came to be my runner. He had only joined the company fifteen minutes before. Just as he got to my foxhole, we were hit with a mortar barrage. A tree burst came through the top of the foxhole and a fragment pierced the boy’s helmet and took off the top of his head. He had his on, and there I was sitting right next to him, holding my helmet in my hands. His did him no good. I don’t remember his name.”

Food for the troopers had been improving with the resupply drops that commenced on the 23rd. Clair Hess even writes he was able to supplement his diet by cutting of the leg of a dead cow this day. It “tasted pretty good with bullion powder added.”

The daylight hours of 29 through 31 December were generally quiet and routine. The men endured the cold and occasional bomb dropped and watched as Bastogne continued to be bombed by German planes. General Taylor, finally back from the States having missed the siege entirely, made a visit to the front a few days after Christmas and had all the men shave. Bernard Jordan crawled out of the foxhole where the boy had been killed, made his way to the creek at the foot of the big hill, and attempted to shave for the first time in over a week. “No shaving cream and only a razor, and a cold one at that. It was tough.”

Supplies were making their way to the men of second battalion with the resupply drops beginning on the 23rd and a major corridor from the south having been opened by the Fourth Armored Division on the 26th. More than just food and supplies were coming up the corridor. There was a continuous rumble to their rear. It had to be impossible for this not to be heard by second battalion. Heavy fighting was taking place to the south of their position and getting closer each day as the flanks of the German bulge were being pressed back from where they came.

On New Years Day Clair Hess awoke somewhat leisurely at 1000hrs and crawled out of his dugout. The sight that greeted him was truly one for sore eyes: “Tanks all over the place,” he writes. Second battalion’s stay in Bizory was about to change.


Happy New Year

Combat Command B (CCB) of the Sixth Armored Division had been delayed by congestion on the Neufchateau Road. Their objective was to attack abreast and left of Combat Command A, which had met stiff resistance but now held the high ground just west of Wardin north to near Neffe. CCB attacked through the lines of second battalion and took the high ground overlooking Mageret, which had been the objective of 2/501 on 19 December. It would be interesting to know what the Germans on the rim of the bowl around Bizory thought when they awoke the morning of 1 January to see the great hill across the valley from them covered by vehicles of an armored division. There is no written documentation as to the thoughts of men in second battalion, but you can guess there was a sense of great excitement that things were truly about to change. But the change many of them knew was coming would not be easy. Instead of sitting still, they would now be moving forward on the attack.



The men of Dog company watched as the 50th armored infantry battalion moved forward into the woods across the Foy/Bizory road. The battalion made its way through Easy and Fox and attacked toward Mageret. After the 50th passed on to the high ground beyond Bizory patrols went out from second battalion to check the woods. Four Germans, including an officer, surrendered to Dog company. In Mageret, the 50th AIB took 400 prisoners, many described as very young.

Division sectors had now changed and the area south of the Bastogne/Bourcy railroad was assigned to the 6th AD while the 101st took over north of the tracks. Roberts and Ballard of the 501st reported that the railroad track was the responsibility of the 6th Armored.

The 50th AIB attacked on New Year’s Day and advanced as far as the high ground east and north of Bizory but had to pull back to Bizory due to insufficient infantry to hold these gains. They then requested that the Bois Jacques be cleared before they again attacked toward Bourcy again.

The 501st Attacks – 3 January 1945

Note: There is some confusion in the various veteran accounts as to the exact date of the regimental attack by the 501st. Bill Sefton settles on the date of 4 January because It was my war and I’ll remember it as I want. In a declassified interview dated 17-21 June 1945 with Colonel Bob Ballard and ___ Roberts the date they recall is given as 4 January. They state that the attack was supposed to jump off a day earlier but was delayed due to attacks in the north. What these particular attacks were is unclear, but perhaps they are referring to the attacks by the 506th to clear the woods north of the Foy/Bizory road and north of the railroad tracks, which had to be accomplished before the 501st could move up to make their attack. The preface to the written account of their interview states that “In almost every case the action is vague in the minds of those contacted and they tended to refer to their After Action Reports and accept them as the best information which could be obtained on the subject.” The After Action, S-3 Report, No. 16, for the 501st dated 4 January 1945 covering the period from 0900 hrs on 3 January to 0900 hours on 4 January clearly indicates the attack took place 031200A, which is 1200hrs on 3 January 1945. The “Jot-em Down Book” of 2/501 gives the date as 3 January. It is clear that 3 January is the correct date of the attack.

During the night of 1-2 January, the companies of second battalion were on the move and by 0630hrs 2 January assembled northeast of the Foy/Bizory road where today the Peace Woods memorial park is today located. Movements by platoon or company were usually performed in a leap-frog manner. From this assembly area, first battalion turned and faced northwest and dug in facing the railroad tracks from Halt up to the Foy/Mageret farm track road. They would be in Division reserve in this position. Third battalion moved across this road and into a wooded area. The 50th AIB was to screen the right flank of the 501st and take over responsibility of the tracks. By 1230 hrs second battalion moved into a wood patch, which would become rather infamous the next day.

The woods across the tracks and toward which first battalion was facing was being cleared of Germans by the 506th. The 506th cleared these woods up to the unimproved Foy/Mageret road.

The coming attack by the 501st would swing clockwise through the woods like a giant door hinged on the Foy/Ouburcy road bridge over the railroad tracks. Second battalion was on the right and third on the left. It was the job of second battalion to maintain contact with the enemy, which means not to move very far ahead and keep the enemy pinned down, while third battalion initiates the main probe of the attack. Veterans of second battalion insist that Dog company was on the right and Fox on the left - contrary to published maps. The order of the attack was then, from right to left: D, F, H and G, with I in reserve behind H and G, and E in the woods behind D and F.

Company A of the 50th AIB was to attack through Easy/501's position. Second battalion’s forward C.P. was in the same woods with, but perhaps up to 100 yards behind, Easy and near the rear edge of the wood patch. It is the author’s belief that the heavy weapons platoon of second battalion was in the woods near the battalion C.P. Snow lay on the ground a foot deep in open fields. This day would see the most intense fighting by second battalion.

The following account of events is based on official documents and conjecture based on veterans’ accounts.

The attack by the 501st jumped off about noon. Simultaneously, the 50th AIB began to attack to the north across open fields and wood patches between the railroad tracks and Ouburcy. The attacking units of second battalion nearest the bridge had to scurry down the steep cut to the railroad tracks and then struggle up the other side before entering enemy territory. The units to the left did not face as severe an obstacle. Once on the other side of the tracks, the attack entered the dense forest. The attackers could not see the well-prepared defensive positions until they were on top of them. The objective was the Foy/Oubourcy road. Third battalion met strong resistance within 150 yards of their line of departure. Dog and Fox companies advanced without serious resistance for nearly 500 yards losing contact with third. The uneven rate of advance caused a large gap to form between the attacking battalions. Sometime after 1400hrs the Germans found this gap and poured through it and into the rear of second battalion. They came down the tracks and across the open field from the direction of Oubourcy in halftracks and tanks. Peter Broome remembers, “They came swarming over the tracks.”





The attack by third battalion was halted and pulled back to help fill the gap. Item company was committed to help stem the penetration as were members of the heavy weapons platoon of HQ/2.

Somewhere in an open, snow-covered field on the right of Easy's position was a listening post manned by Charlie Eckman and Harry Coffey of the light machine gun platoon, HQ/2/501. (It is not certain exactly where they were, but based on reasonable analysis of all accounts, I suspect they were most likely were in this area.) Schwabe, a runner for Captain Rhett, came to position to get Eckman and bring him back to the C.P. Eckman and Schwabe got back to the C.P. just before as the Germans came over the tracks and toward the position where Coffey still was. The fighting in that area was very heavy with small arms. Rhett asked where Coffee was and Eckman said he was out in the crater the last time he saw him and now doubted he was alive. Charlie took off to find Coffee. Schwabe ran after him. They reached the edge of the woods and stopped to catch their breath. Between them and Coffee lay at least a hundred yards of open, snow-covered field, and beyond that was a wood patch filled with Germans firing in their direction. Charlie and Schwabe made a run for it. They ducked and dodged bullets and mortars then dove head first into the crater and onto a pile of four dead Germans. Coffey was not to be seen. They began to pull the bodies aside and up popped Coffee, covered in blood from head to foot. He was incoherent and sobbing. He pulled Charlie to him and would not let go. Charlie and Schwabe pulled Coffee down out of the way of the bullets hissing overhead. The blood was not his; he had not a scratch on him. The three stopped for a moment to again catch their breath and then, with Coffee between the two others made a beeline back to the woods. Eckman was hit. As he hit the ground he pulled the other two with him. They again got up and ran for the trees. Eckman got hit again. Captain Rhett was watching the entire episode through his field glasses. When they reached the trees and the C.P., Eckman remembers, “I had blood in my mouth and thought I had bitten my tongue. I was gurgling. A bullet had gone through my back and lung and the blood was coming up that way.” Lt. Russo of the company mortar platoon thought Charlie was dying. Charlie heard him say later, “Too damned bad about Eckman. Chopped up and bloody. I watched him die.”



Item company became tangled in a heavy firefight and could only partially block the gap. The three tanks from Team O’Hara were committed to the left rear of Easy’s position and the penetration was eventually halted, but not before darkness fell.

The 50th AIB was facing stiff resistance and could advance no further. Easy’s position in the woods was at a right angle to the railroad tracks and from there they could see the advance of the 50th. Before them lay snow-covered fields and, several hundred yards to their front, was another patch of woods partially obscured by the occasional snow flurries on this cloudy, misty day. Peter Broome in second platoon on the right of Easy’s line recalls that a heavy artillery barrage hit them. “It was getting dark and the tanks on our right began to pull back. Cpl. Clark was not at all pleased with that prospect because we would have no flank protecting us. When the artillery hit, he knew what was coming.” Bernard Jordan pleaded with a tank driver to give them some support but “he kept backing up - driving the wrong way!”

Without informing Easy or the 501st the 50th began to filter back at 1630 hrs. At 1700 hrs the company commander of the 50th informed the 501st he was pulling his company back because they could not hold their sector, which was to extend about 400 yards forward against an enemy counter attack coming between the railroad and Ouburcy.

It was an attack by elements of the 12 SS Hitler Jugend Divison: infantry supported by at least four tanks and four half-tracks

By now it was dark. Fighting still swirled to Easy’s rear. Three tanks from Team O’Hara moved up into the gap between second the third battalions to help stem the infiltration, and to Easy’s front armored vehicles with mounted infantry were approaching. On Easy’s right, the 50th AIB had pulled back. Under the cover of darkness, the C.P. of second battalion pulled back to a position near the assembly area of the day before. Corporal William Clark, squad leader of first squad, second platoon, was out on the far edge of Easy’s position with no flank support and enemy tanks and infantry coming his way. With the C.P. moving back, he had nothing to his right or behind him. He told then company commander Heaton he was pulling his guys back too and would take responsibility. Peter Broome, in Clark’s squad, recalls, “We had to get out of those woods and cross a wide field to get to some other woods. If we could get across that field before the Germans set up we might be safe.” Clark’s squad began to cross the field. “Mortars were dropping all around us,” said Broome. “A guy near me was hit in the thigh and went down. There I stood carrying our machine gun and needing to help this guy get across that field. I couldn’t carry both. Just then, Lt. Heaton ran up and said, ‘You move on, I’ll get him,’ and picked the guy up and carried him across that field.”

Enemy tanks and halftracks pulled up before the woods occupied by Easy and infantry dismounted. In the woods nearer the railroad tracks Bernard Jordan lay with Joseph McGregor awaiting the oncoming tanks and halftracks. “McGregor had a bazooka. He let that halftrack get right on top of us then fired. He put a round right in the radiator and knocked it deader than a hammer. Several Germans ran out of it and we were waiting. One ran right into me and I pulled the trigger. I thought the Germans were letting women fight; this one had long blond hair!” A tank on Easy’s right was up close firing point blank into the woods. Harry Mole remembers he was looking at Wesley Callahan firing his machine gun just as a piece of shrapnel tore into his forehead. A jeep was nearby and Mole was loaded onto the hood of the jeep. “I could see that damned tank turning its gun on the jeep. I was scared as hell.”

The attack was soon repulsed by small arms before they could organize their assault. As the attacking Germans began to move back their own guns were turned on them. Frank McClure was able to mount one of the halftracks and turn its mounted machine gun on the Germans. For this he received the Silver Star. Soon, except for resisting small pockets of enemy, the majority of the fighting began to quiet and by 2000hrs the original lines of departure of all units of the 501st and 50th were re-established.

Moving to Another Sector

Easy still held the woods, but the regiment began to make a strategic withdrawal back over the railroad tracks to positions on the south side of the Foy/Bizory road. The Germans still occupied the woods across the field from Easy’s position. Just after dark, first battalion began to make their move. They moved into the woods east of Luzery and north of the railroad tracks. Third battalion dug in for the night facing east in the woods behind and a bit south of those occupied by Easy. Late on the night of 3 January an enemy tank tried to make its way down the tracks but was repulsed by G company on the far left of third battalion. Just prior to this, second battalion pulled back and passed through third where they took up positions near the assembly area of 2 January.

At sunrise on 4 January, Item company, on the right of the battalion, was hit with an attack by eight tanks. Item knocked out four of these tanks. A small group of infantry tried to infiltrate the sector held by third battalion and were cleaned out by 1200 hrs and the battalion’s sector was taken over by the 50th AIB. Item company remained in a screening position allowing the other companies to withdraw and by 2000hrs it passed through second battalion’s line. All this time the area was under heavy shelling. Second battalion then moved into positions in the Bois Jacques between the Foy/Bastogne highway and the Bastogne/Bourcy railroad tracks with Easy on the left overlooking Foy and Dog on the right along the Foy/Bizory road. Fox moved into a reserve position behind them. The woods into which Easy moved had been occupied by the 506th up to this time so the digging of foxholes was not a major task. Third battalion moved into divisional reserve west of the Foy/Bastogne highway and northeast of Savy.

The Germans still held the Bois Jacques north of the Foy/Bizory road. On 5 January a force of at least platoon size attacked Dog’s position followed quickly by another attack of company strength according to the regimental S-3 report. William Hayes of Dog company recalls that by the time his platoon moved into their new position, of the fifty-three men who went to Bastogne with him, only about thirteen were left. After the repulse of these two attacks the number would be nine. Men of the battalion’s heavy weapons platoon filled in what gaps there were in the line. Hayes had just drifted off to sleep with his feet wrapped in a jacket and him lying on his boots to keep them from freezing when the outposts ran back reporting the attack. His pants legs had still frozen to the sides of the foxhole. Each side fired across the road with small arms and bazookas. Hayes was knocked out for a short time and when he came to he was sent to the rear for treatment. When he returned to his outfit seven weeks later he was told that the company had killed 200 of the enemy along this short stretch of road. He thinks that is a bit high, but he was not there to see the end. He credits the repulse to the fact that most men at this time had automatic weapons of some sort.