Siege of Bastogne, 19-27 December 1944

The battle, stage by stage

1. 19 December 1944

   Noville, Longvilly, Neffe and Wardin

   Three days into the German Ardennes offensive, Bastogne's road junction lies in the path of the XLVII Panzer Corps. Three armored teams of Col. William Roberts' Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division, have gone out to block the roads: Team Desobry at Noville to the north, Team Cherry toward Longvilly to the east, and Team O'Hara near Wardin to the south-east. The 101st Airborne Division, rushed up by truck under Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, assembles near Mande-Saint-Etienne. At 0600 Col. Julian Ewell's 501st Parachute Infantry marches east on the Longvilly road and meets Panzer Lehr near the Neffe railroad station; its battalions take Bizory and Mont. East of Mageret, Team Cherry's main body and the remnants of Combat Command R, 9th Armored Division, are caught on the road and largely destroyed; Team Ryerson holds the edge of Mageret until night, then breaks out to Bizory. At Noville the fog lifts at about 1000 on some thirty German tanks of the 2d Panzer Division; Desobry's tanks and tank destroyers and Lt. Col. James LaPrade's 1st Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry, hold the village. LaPrade is killed and Desobry wounded. In the afternoon Company I, 501st, is badly hurt at Wardin and its commander killed.

2. 20 December

   Noville given up; Foy, Marvie and Neffe

   Before dawn German grenadiers attack Noville from three sides, and by one report the garrison is 'all reserves committed.' McAuliffe and Roberts order a withdrawal. The 3d Battalion, 506th, retakes Foy at 1400 to open the road, the 3d Battalion, 502d, pushes north-east from Longchamps, and 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion guns cover the column, which is back inside the lines by 1700. The 1st Battalion, 506th, had lost 13 officers and 199 men at Noville. To the east the 26th Volksgrenadier Division's 77th and 78th Regiments probe toward Foy and Bizory, and the 902d Panzergrenadier Regiment attacks Neffe in the evening; at Marvie the 2d Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry, and Team O'Hara drive out a 901st Panzergrenadier advance guard. The 2d Panzer Division turns away north-west toward the Meuse, and that night Panzer Lehr and 26th VGD units begin to swing round Bastogne to the south and west.

3. 21 December

   Surrounded

   By mid-morning the 501st's journal records the last road cut; by evening the town is ringed. Inside, the 101st Airborne, Roberts' CCB (about 40 operable medium tanks with CCR) and attached artillery, tank destroyer and engineer units form a perimeter: the 502d in the north around Longchamps, the 506th at Foy and on the Bourcy railroad, the 501st facing east, the 2d Battalion, 327th, at Marvie, the 1st Battalion, 327th, and the 326th Airborne Engineers in the south, and the 3d Battalion, 327th, from the Marche highway to Champs. Col. Roberts gathers stragglers into 'Team SNAFU.' In the south-west, Kampfgruppe Kunkel turns north from Sibret, scatters an artillery battalion near Villeroux and is stopped short of Senonchamps by Task Force Browne, the displaced 155-mm battalions and .50-caliber fire from an antiaircraft battery. The 2d Panzer and the main body of Panzer Lehr bypass the town toward the Meuse, leaving the 26th Volksgrenadier Division, with Panzer Lehr's 901st Regiment, to reduce it.

4. 22 December

   "Nuts!"

   Snow begins to fall. At about 1130 four Germans under a white flag come up the Arlon road from Remoifosse into the lines of the 2d Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry, near the Kessler farm, carrying a typed demand from 'the German Commander' that the 'encircled town' surrender within two hours or be annihilated by artillery. The paper is taken to McAuliffe's headquarters in the Heintz Barracks; his written reply reads 'To the German Commander: NUTS! The American Commander,' and Col. Joseph Harper of the 327th carries it back, explaining to the envoys that it means 'Go to hell.' The pressure goes on: Kampfgruppe Kunkel again attacks toward Senonchamps, and ammunition, especially for the artillery, runs low.

5. 23 December

   Supplies from the sky

   The weather clears. At first light two IX Troop Carrier Command aircraft drop pathfinder teams, who mark a drop zone stretching from Senonchamps north to Hemroulle and Savy. From about midday C-47 transports come over in waves; by one Army account some 260 aircraft drop 334 tons that day, and over the following days the airlift brings in more than 1,000 tons by parachute, followed by gliders. Fighter-bombers attack the German ring. On the ground the attacks go on: an outpost at Flamierge in the north-west is given up after a night attack, and from that evening into Christmas Eve Panzer Lehr's 901st Regiment, with tanks, attacks Marvie from the south-east and reaches the brook that divides the burning village.

6. 25 December

   Christmas morning: Champs and Hemroulle

   Col. Heinz Kokott, commanding the 26th Volksgrenadier Division, throws in the newly arrived 115th Regiment of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division to break into Bastogne from the north-west. Before dawn men of the 77th Grenadier Regiment get into the northern part of Champs, held by Company A, 502d Parachute Infantry, and are cleared out with the help of two tank destroyers. At about 0530 the 115th's I Battalion and 18 Panzer IVs take Mande-Saint-Etienne and break through the 3d Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry, west of Hemroulle. Seven tanks swing north toward the 502d's headquarters at the Rolle chateau and are destroyed by tank destroyers, bazookas and an improvised line of clerks, cooks and walking wounded; the rest run into a crossfire of tank destroyers, tanks, glidermen and the 463d Parachute Field Artillery Battalion near Hemroulle. By the defenders' count all 18 tanks are knocked out or captured. Kokott calls off the attack that afternoon.

7. 26 December

   Relief through Assenois

   Patton's Third Army has been attacking north since 22 December, the 4th Armored Division leading. On the afternoon of the 26th Combat Command R, with Lt. Col. Creighton Abrams' 37th Tank Battalion (down to about 20 Shermans) and Lt. Col. George Jaques' 53d Armored Infantry Battalion, reaches the high ground at Clochimont and, rather than go on to Sibret, turns for Assenois. After an artillery concentration, Capt. William Dwight's column, led by 1st Lt. Charles Boggess in the Sherman 'Cobra King,' dashes through the village and the woods beyond, and at 1650 meets men of the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion on the perimeter; Abrams soon shakes hands with McAuliffe. The infantry clears Assenois by midnight, taking more than 350 prisoners; Pvt. James R. Hendrix of the 53d earns the Medal of Honor there that night. The narrow corridor opens the way for trucks and ambulances from the 27th, though the fighting around Bastogne goes on into January 1945.