One day of Battle at Houyire Hill, January 3, 1945

This presentation is an attempt to give you an overall picture of “B” Company’s attack, its failure and possibly an explanation of what happened and why.

By December 24, 1944, the 1st S.S. Panzer Division is kaput. The 526th has helped to stop the best the Germans could muster in 1944. We have paid the price in men and blood for our battle star and Combat Infantry Badge.

 For the 526th and especially “B” Company the worst is yet to come. The German Army is not defeated and behind Colonel Peiper lay a veteran division pulled out of Norway for their drive into Belgium. They had taken the city of St Vith and now they were dug in on the high ground above Baugnez, Geromont, Otaimont and Hedomont. They are well equipped, well deployed and well dressed in their grey-green and white reversible uniforms.

The story really starts on the morning of January 2, 1945 when Colonel Irwin is notified that quote “in two or three days the 526th will conduct a raid using approximately 50 men.” End of quote. The company chosen for the attack is “B”.

 At about 11:30 the same morning the battalion is notified it would not be a raid but quote “A limited objective attack of company strength on Houyire Hill at 810007. The attack will be tomorrow January 3rd.

At 2 P.M. that day, Colonel Irwin reported to the 30th Division H.Q., here he was briefed and then went to the Regimental H.Q. of the 120th Regiment, our parent organization. There he received orders for the attack. It is now 3:30 P.M. At 6:15 P.M. he returns to Battalion C.P. and at a meeting of staff and Company C.O.’s issues orders for an attack at 8:30 A.M. January 3rd.

Also accompanying is in the attack area is “I” Company of the 120th Regiment. This is of considerable interest to us for two reasons.
1. We are now a part of and entered in the history book of the 120th Regiment and
2. The part played by the tanks assigned to “I” Company

I now quote from the history book of the 120th. “Company “B” 526th was to drive through Hedomont and Baugnez for the hill called Houyire 1500 yards S.W. of Baugnez. It was to be supported by artillery fire from the 1st Battalion and to be prepared to withdraw on orders. Company “I” of the 120th was to attack the area southeast of Otaimont. Its orders were to take prisoners and withdraw on orders to regular position.

Still quoting from their history. At 8:30 A.M. both companies moved out on schedule. The day was foggy, snowing and observation was difficult. Company “I” made good progress until they were well into German lines when the enemy opened up from well camouflaged positions that had been covered with snow. The tankers speeding through the town helped flush out the enemy and the company was able to extricate itself. Company “I” took many casualties and at 7:30 P.M. with 3 prisoners according to plan withdrew.

Resistance proved stiffer for Company “B” 526th. They reached Hedomont but just beyond ran into withering machine gun fire which made it clear the Germans intended to hold Houyire at any cost. Company “B” with at 5:30 P.M.”. End of report and quote.

Now let’s return to our story and the morning of January 3rd. We had been issued white long johns and white towels to put over our uniforms. We were issued extra ammo. I remember we commented about what good aiming points the green and white made. The C.P.’s have been set up; medical half tracks are placed for casualties.

Communication is to be by radio except for a wire line that is to be with Lieutenant Bernstein and the 1st Platoon. Captain Wessel will ride a tank with radio communication to others. It is cold, foggy, and snowing on occasion and visibility is limited. Our artillery from 1st Battalion 120th starts firing on predetermined targets and we are moving out.

At 8:30 A.M. and 8:40 A.M. the 2nd Platoon under Lieutenant Batt and 3rd Platoon under Lieutenant Halbin leave the line of departure in an area named Floriheid at 790033. They skirt a mine field at 790031 and head for Hedomont. The 2nd is on the right and the 3rd on the left.

Captain Wessel on his tank with the radio communication is to meet the infantry near Hedomont at point 795022. He arrives there too soon and is fired upon and withdraws to await the infantry. The 2nd Platoon has already taken three casualties from or own artillery and it has put a light machine gun out of action.

The infantry continues the attack and a German outpost starts firing and Joe Farina, the pointman, is killed. Felix Garcia returns fire and kills the German. The rest of the line moves forward until a machine gun opens fire. Warren Watson with Crugar and Gardiner giving covering fire kills the two machine gunners. Nearby another German jumping from behind a tree empties his burp gun hitting no one and is killed by bullets from several men.

It is now 9:15 A.M. and the infantry is in part of Hedomont. Captain Wessel on the tank platoon leader tank has made contact with them. He is to communicate with the C.P. using their SCR 238 radio. He has had no communication with Lieutenant Bernstein or the 1st Platoon. Apparently he has had none with his C.P. Time is taken here for reorganization of the 2nd and 3rd Platoons and the attack is continued.

At Baugnez 1st Platoon of “A” Company under Lieutenant Beardslee at 8:30 A.M. proceeded to 814020. They take two casualties from enemy artillery at 808023 but move on to set up flanking protection in a semi circle from 814012 to 814020. They are to receive intermittent small arms and mortar fire all day. They are finally ordered to withdraw at 8 P.M. and the last get back to their area at 10:15 P.M.

Things have gone very poorly with 1st Platoon under Lieutenant Bernstein. They leave Geromont proceed up the road to 810020 where they head south toward the objectif 810007 Houyire Hill. Enemy artillery hits soon after we leave the road. John Lopez is killed and Sergeant Magnuson is knocked for a flip but not hit by shrapnel and recovers.

We proceed on to 808015 where we are met by heavy machine gun and mortar fire from the woods ahead of us. The front line Johnny Hess, Ralph Iverson, Bill Duncan, D. J. Johnson and others are dead. The attack continues and one machine gun is captured and the two men are made prisoners. Some want to kill them but fortunately they are taken back otherwise 13 of us later captured would be dead.

Some are now in the woods and some of us are on the hillside in the snow. Art Allen come along side of me with his light machine gun. He is also out of ammo. He has already lost two loaders he tells me. John Bush is trying to work his way forward in front of us. He flops over in the snow dead. Art decides to go back for more ammo and a loader. I decide to try for the woods. It takes a couple of dive in the snow to escape an machine gun but somehow I made it. I later discovered the pants pushed under the long johns on my back have several holes in them.

It must be 9:30 A.M. Part of the platoon is in the woods and the rest are scattered over the hillside dead, wounded or pinned down. Back at Hedomont, the reorganization completed, the attack is continued and ordered. You continue about 200 yards to 797019. Here the leading squad becomes victim of a machine gun off to the right in a barn. Sergeant Schuster has been killed earlier by a hand grenade and now Sergeant Haefs, Bernard Ward, Warren Blankenship, Oliver Love, and Warren Watson are all hit. Sergeant Black returns fire with his machine gun but is also wounded with a bullet through his right eye.

The tank with Captain Wessel moves up to fire a couple of rounds at the barn with no result noted. The attack continues as far as 799017 but now we come under fire from another machine gun at 805016 which has also hit the 1st Platoon. Again the tank fires a couple of rounds with no results. We are pinned down and enemy mortar rounds are starting to drop around us. Artillery is called for but refused because men from 1st Platoon are in that area.

It is now 11:30 A.M. and Captain Wessel has had no contact with his C.P. in the rear at 790033 nor has he heard anything from 1st Platoon. He returns to the C.P. to make contact with Battalion. He is told to hold and defend Hedomont. He is also told the tanks will withdraw at dusk. He returns to Hedomont with the orders at 2:30 P.M. and then returns to the company C.P.

Meanwhile men of the 2nd and 3rd are trying to find any cover they can. Felix Garcia with bullets thumping around him decides to make a run for a barn. He makes it but his canteen doesn’t. In the barn are Sergeant Black and Walter Volinski both wounded. Joe Ricks from the medical detachment exposes himself to pull a man back to the cover of the dirt road. Just before he gets to the road near Lieutenant Halbin an enemy bullet kills him. Wounded men like Watson are trying to work their way back to the C.P. and medical assistance. Sergeant Horvat helps a badly wounded Sergeant Fazio back and returns to Hedomont with supplies. Lieutenant Halbin with a badly dislocated knee returns to the C.P. on way to an operation in Liège.

At about 11:30 A.M. when everything seemed to be stalled Colonel Irwin calls Lieutenant Batt away from 2nd Platoon and sends him to find out what happened to Lieutenant Bernstein and the 1st Platoon. He takes 3 men and goes to Baugnez. There he contacts Lieutenant Beardslee and 1st Platoon “A” Company. No one has heard from Lieutenant Bernstein since 8:30 A.M. Lieutenant Batt starts up the hill and contacts 3 men crawling back down who have been under the machine gun at 805016. They are from 3 different squads. One is a machine gunner who is out of ammunition. Lieutenant Batt asks how many men have been lost. They don’t know and say a lot. He can hear a fire fight going on up in the woods. He continues working his way up the hill and met some men with Lieutenant Johnson. None of these people had seen Lieutenant Bernstein since 8:30. Lieutenant Batt started to return and was pinned down for a time by machine guns at 805016 and 805018. They worked their way out and reported to Colonel Irwin. Lieutenant Johnson and the men and they build on the right flank of 1st Platoon “A” Company.

We in the woods find it is no sanctuary and we are trying to find any cover we can. At the same time with burp guns and hand grenades the Germans are trying to bring other machine guns in on us. Swanstrum and Sciarra working their machine gun help to discourage them. They are both to end up with shrapnel souvenirs. We are trapped and with no communication. We keep looking for the tanks or the rest of the company.

Finally Lieutenant Bernstein sends Warren Clutter out to make contact. He doesn’t get far before he is cut down. I just heard this year that he did make it back. Then Bernstein takes off heading down the hill but a bullet in his posterior puts him in a shell hole and he is later captured.

As we all remember shortly before dusk, the Germans started their counter attack with a barrage of mortar, rocket and artillery fire. The bombardment lasts 20 minutes. To those of us in the woods it was tree limbs, snow and metal coming down followed by hand grenades and burp guns. I take a bullet through my left foot and one through the right shoe. Near By Jim Coslett is cut up by four bullets and will die as a P.O.W. Behind me Sergeant Leo Day and Ralph Russel are killed. Sergeant Magnuson finally calls out Commeradon – the firing stops.

We are relieved of our cigarettes, candy, food, watches, etc. A German soldier about our age helps get my shoe off. We put the bandage on and he makes a tourniquet to slow the bleeding. We are marched back to an area where a medic looks at us but doesn’t do anything. There are 13 of us left. Eight of us have collected Purple Hearts.

We are sat in a semi-circle then taken to a small farm house where we are interrogated by a German officer who speaks very good English. He already knew more about us than we did. He told Lieutenant Bernstein “My men wish to honor your men for the bravery with which you fought but you never had a chance”. For us the battle is over.

 It is not over for the rest of you. Shortly before the barrage starts Ray Holderman, who has already collected one piece of mortar shell, decides they aren’t in a very secure place along side a small hedgerow. McCaslin, Morrow, Wood and Gattis all agree that the machine gun and mortars are getting too friendly and they manage to get back to safer ground. Cotton Potter discovers that the machine gun he has been packing all morning really wouldn’t have worked as a piece of shrapnel has destroyed the operating mechanism. Everyone is hunkering down now trying not to become a target. The cold is beginning to make itself known. Captain Wessel has a new radio and is just leaving the C.P. for Hedomont.

Now comes the bombardment and the tanks take off refusing to wait for any of our wounded. The counter attack comes. There are about 130 white clad Germans. They are hard to see. Orders are given to withdraw and by 5:15 P.M. we are back to the original line of departure. Lieutenant Jacques will spent most of the night trying to account for everyone and get the casualty lists.

When it is over “B” Company has captured 4 Germans from the 2nd and 3rd Companies of the 293rd Regiment of the 18th Volksgrenadiers. The official after action report says we killed approximately 25.

Our attack was a feint, not a main attack, but we were sacrificed to get the Germans to commit their reserves to our area. I understand it worked and they did commit them but we paid quite a price.

 Some conclusions I have reached on what went wrong.

 I – There was very poor intelligence and apparently very little organization. It appears the attack was conceived without real preparation. No one seems to have known what the enemy had or where it was located. We went from a 50 men raid to de done in two or three days to a two company attack the next morning with less than six hours of preparation.

 II – There was a real problem with communication. This is also a planning problem but apparently none of the equipment was tested or put together until we were in the attack. Lieutenant Bernstein was supposed to have a wire phone. What happened to that I don’t know but apparently there was no backup unit. Captain Wessel never heard from Bernstein after 08:30. Yet Battalion, if it knew the problem, did nothing until about noon when it took Lieutenant Batt from his platoon. Why not someone in H.Q., From the after action report quote “It was now 11:30 and because there had been no contact with his rear C.P. up to this time, Captain Wessel returned to his C.P.” He was starting to return with a 509 radio when the counter attack began.

III – The artillery and tanks. Others than the initial barrage on the prepared targets, we could apparently get no further help from the artillery. There is some question about the tanks. We supposedly had one platoon of medium tanks from the 743rd and one Tank Destroyer gun from the 823rd T.D. Battalion. Did we have them and if so what did they do? Even the SCR 538 radio, Captain Wessel tried to use apparently didn’t work. They wouldn’t even take our wounded back.

Remember I quoted from the 120th history. “”I” Company had become entrapped but the tanks hurrying through Otaimont had moved the Germans out so the company could extricate itself”. Well it seems we got a different kind of tankers? They sure didn’t contribute much to our attack or defense.

IV – The weather.

I suppose we can say the weather is the same on both sides of a field, so it didn’t contribute to our defeat, but the Germans were not open and exposed so they probably benefited the most. We all agree the weather was terrible and the Krauts were better prepared for it than we were.

V – We were green. This was our first attack.

Final Conclusion. 

It is interesting to note in this game of chess called war, if you are the General or player who gets to move the pawns, you can do the same thing over and over until you get it right or run out of men.

Let me quote you from the history of the 120th Regiment. “On January 13th the 3rd Battalion of the 120th of the 30th Division was sent in deep snow to take Houyire. The casualties sustained by all three companies reached a new high. They finally took Houyire. Company “I” strength was now that of a strong platoon.”

Source:  http://www.battleofthebulgememories.be/