by Douglas Harvey, 84 INFD 334 REG 1 BN HQ CO
The afternoon of December 24th, Bob Davies and I were ordered to make up a daisy chain. We used eight mines from the stock carried on our Dodge 6 x 6 truck and a commandeered Belgian rope. Our squad leader led us to a position, before the first switchback on the road leading up a hill toward woods to the northeast, to the forest and the villages of Verdenne and Marenne. The hillside was too steep a road to go straight up. The rather small dirt road angled up to a switchback that further angled up to a woods. Later, I found the forest up the hill was between villages of Bourdon, Verdenne, and Marenne was the location of the 116 Panzer infiltration on the east side of Verdenne. It should have been known by our Platoon leader that, at that time, the Germans of the 116 Panzer Division had breached our front line, taken Verdenne, and occupied some of the area around the village. A correct response would have been a more extensive defense involving the entire platoon. More mines and a deployment of our antitank guns would have been appropriate. I have no way of knowing what knowledge the squad leader had of the Verdenne attack. However, someone in Battalion or Regiment must have know something, as Davies and I were suddenly put on the defensive position. Our roadblock was only a short distance from the comfortable barn hayloft billet where we spent the previous night. I think the rest of the platoon was still in the barn, with a single guard posted. Davies and I had orders: if attacked, let the first two tanks go by, and pull the mines in front of the third tank. The position was in the open, with no possibility of any cover. The hillside was totally bare, not even a small bush. This was truly a mission impossible. There were no ditches or structures within 150 yards. Any enemy tank coming down the road would see us immediately, on turning the upper switch back 300 yards away. It was possible they would have been so startled by our pluck or stupidity that they would have backed off, thinking it was a trap of some kind. All we could do is stay there and wait for something to happen.
In reality, the two of us were the only defensive position between the 116th Panzers and their assigned objective of the Marche Hotton road. The Division Headquarters of the 116 Panzer Division was in Grimbiemont, a few miles to the southeast. Heinz Guderian gives a reasonably accurate description in his book “From Normandy to the Ruhr” of actions from December 23 to 28. The attack on Verdenne began at noon of the 24th. Verdenne and the forest, 1500 feet up the hill and to the southeast of Bourdon, were captured and occupied by German tanks and troops. The forest uphill from our position was occupied by Bayer’s combat group. Guderian p. 331 indicates there were 13 Panzer fives and 2 Panzer fours in the forest. Guderian also relates that a patrol crossed the Marche Hotton Road. A false report must have been made, as we were on the only route from the woods to the road, and saw no Germans.
Approximately a half-hour before dark, a M8 “Greyhound” armored reconnaissance vehicle appeared from the direction of Bourdon. Markings on the vehicle indicated that they were a cavalry unit. Our division history indicates that we had no attached cavalry units at the time. However, the 771 Tank Battalion, part of the 4th Cavalry Group, was attached December 20, just before we arrived in Bourdon. An officer was waist-high out of the turret hatch, as if he might be going to a parade. The vehicle passed us, and disappeared around the first switchback and up the hill. An M8 Greyhound is a six rubber-tired armored vehicle with a 37-mm gun turret. They are no match for a fight with a tank. Our 37 mm antitank guns were replaced by 57s during training in Louisiana. A 37mm would not be much better than an M1 rifle against a tank of any kind. We wondered where the M8 was going, and why. Anyway, we had no information to give the officer, had he asked. The vehicle did not even slow down as it passed us and disappeared around the switchback. Within a minute, the vehicle came back down the hill with the throttle wide open. No one was in sight, and when it reached our position, the vehicle stopped, sliding all six tires. A small part of the officer’s head appeared in the turret hatch, shouting, “There are ten German tanks coming down the road—hold at all costs!” Gears clashed, and the engine roared, as the vehicle disappeared down the road into Bourdon. We never saw it again. If the M8 was from the tank unit, perhaps they were the tanks that were to support K 333, to attack Verdenne later that night. They may have been lost, or at best it was a reconnaissance mission. It is an interesting irony that the M8 Greyhound vehicle met tanks of the German 116 Panzer Division, which was known as the “Greyhound” Division. How they were able to count ten tanks on the road in the woods is a mystery. The officer was so shook that perhaps 10 was the first number that came to mind.
I learned later that the Germans were using captured M8 vehicles to lead some attack columns. This possibility never entered our minds when we saw the vehicle going past us. We only had a vague idea of which way the Germans might come from. At the time, I felt Bourdon was south of Verdenne, when it is really north. I had been given no map or compass, as a private’s only responsibility is to take orders and follow your leader. After the report and order from the Cavalry Lieutenant, there was no doubt as to the direction of the Germans. I have determined since then that we were in the exact center of enemy’s main attack. Orders to the 116 Panzers were to cut the Marche Hotton Road that was to the north of our position (Guderian, p. 332). In fact, this road, less than 200 yards away, could be easily seen from our elevated position on the side of the hill. With heavily defended Marche on one end, and Hotton on the other ,Verdenne and Bourdon were the logical points to attempt a breakthrough. Hotton had been attacked repeatedly for several days, but the brave Engineers, with little help from anyone else, held out. The resistance at Hotton directed the 116 Panzers toward Verdenne and Bourdon. Hotton was 3 miles to the east. We probably should have reported the officer’s information to our squad leader, but we could not leave the position until relieved. Also, I don’t think we really believed the Cavalry Lieutenant. We were not terrified by the possibility of 10 German tanks coming down the road, although we should have been. Sometimes it is better not to know.
I have attempted to find an origin for the phrase “hold at all costs.” I could not find any authority that traced the history of the statement. It was used in the American Civil War and in the First World War. It has probably been used in every war. The order or its equivalent was probably used in many combat situations during a retreat, when faced with overwhelming forces. I feel that virtually all Officers that gave this order immediately left the area, away from the enemy’s direction.
It is positively un-American to accept a suicide mission. Suicide missions generally involve religion. Persons volunteering for these missions feel they will get some reward in an afterlife. Not wanting to disgrace their family or let the Emperor down was the motivation for the Jap Kamikaze pilots in the Pacific. I had already shown during the previous month of combat that I was not a coward, but none of the factors leading to a voluntary suicide mission applied. I was not going to hold at all costs if my life was the currency.
After the M8 armored vehicle passed, I quickly scouted the area for some cover. Digging a foxhole in the possibly frozen and hard ground, in the time that seemed available, was out of the question. The soil in the area was hard clay, not like the sandy soil we had just left in Germany. In Germany, we could dig a good hole in less than an hour. I never made a complete foxhole in Belgium, but it reportedly took at least 5 hours. The nearest good cover was down the hill, in a railroad track siding 100 yards away. There was a railroad car weighing scale pit. One could enter the covered pit by opening a hatch. The pit was around 3 feet deep, and filled partially with the beams, levers, and other parts of the mechanical weighing scale. Not really good cover, but the best within running distance. Our rope was too short to reach the pit, so we just stood by the side of the road and hoped for the best. If we pulled the rope ahead of the first tank, I think we would have had at least a 5% chance of one of us making the railroad pit. If we waited for any tanks to pass, the first one would have used its machine gun on us. We were just standing by the side of the road, like onlookers at a bicycle race.
It was so quiet that we felt the reconnaissance officer may have just been seeing things. We stayed on this position until well after dark, but heard no tank engines, and no tanks appeared. I knew from my experience in Leiffarth, Germany, that tanks could not sneak up, as the noise of the engine and the flop-flop of the treads could be heard from some distance. We easily heard the recon-vehicle as it approached from up the hill above us. The road may have been too small, and with the switchbacks, too difficult for the large German tanks. The tanks may have been trapped by a road that was inadequate for their size and weight. I believe the hill was too steep for a tank to leave the road and go straight down.
The tanks were there all right, in the area now known as the “Verdenne Pocket.” It is also reported in Guderian’s book, “From Normandy to the Ruhr With the 116th Panzer Division World War II,” that their orders were to cut the Hotton Marche road, which was down the hill and across the railroad track from our position. Our two-man roadblock was the only defensive position in the way of this objective. Since that time, I have pondered reasons why an attack was not made down the hill. The most probable is Commander Johannes Bayer did not want to sacrifice his men for what he knew (although unspoken) to be a lost cause. Fuel and other supplies were also a problem for the advanced and somewhat isolated group. The Germans in the pocket were short of food and fuel. I learned later that they had broken through our thinly manned foxhole line between Marche and Hotton to occupy the woods. Also, the 116 Panzer Division had driven our troops out of Verdenne.
A rifleman from one of our units described this attack on Verdenne to me a few days later. Our heavy 30-caliber water-cooled machine guns were able to each fire only one shot. Water in the cooling jackets had frozen, so the mechanism could not function. The rifleman escaped down the back yards of a street in Verdenne, with a enemy tank following him. He vaulted over the back yard fences, which the tank was easily knocking down behind him. It was not dark, but he felt that the occupants of the tank did not see him. If he had been seen, the tank would have fired the forward-pointing machine gun.
The foxholes on the line defending Verdenne, containing men of our 3rd Battalion, were 50 to 100 yards apart. There was no way that the riflemen could stop the tank attack. Why the Germans holed up in the woods is a mystery. The most probable explanation is they wanted to hide from our aircraft, which were operational that day. Previously, the weather had kept them on the ground. Trees also seem to give a feeling of security. Of course, trees cause artillery shells to explode above, sending shrapnel down. Tree bursts are effective against men in foxholes. The December 23rd directive to the 116th Panzer Division quoted from p.329 of Guderian’s book: “It is important for the Division to achieve a quick breakthrough toward the north, between Hotton and Marche, to prevent reinforcement of the opponent in his position.” Our two-man roadblock, up the road from Bourdon, was the only obstacle in their way on the night of the 24th. Guderian reported that after the capture of Verdenne, “reconnaissance elements were deployed across the Hotton-Bourdon-Marche road.” This cannot be true, since the only road available was past our position. The German unit must have made a phony claim. I think the Germans, for the most part, had no stomach for coming down the hill toward Bourdon. They must have known our Division was there and heavily supported by artillery. The 116 Panzers had already suffered heavy losses during the 7 days of almost continuous enemy contact. When the weather cleared on the 23rd, daylight travel in the open was difficult, if not impossible.
Chapter 25 Company K 333 Attacks the Pocket
After being replaced on the roadblock, we reported the incident of the recon-vehicle to our squad leader. As usual, he did nothing. I will probably never know if whoever was directing our movements in this area received a report from the officer in the reconnaissance vehicle. However, the action of Company K 333 described below indicates they didn’t know. As usual, the so-called fog of war was very thick. I also do not know whether anyone was on our position when Company K, 333 took this road up the hill, thinking it was the way to Verdenne. I feel sure that our antitank squad members would have told them about the reported enemy tanks up the road. Communication between lower level units are not encouraged or even allowed. Communications are required to go way up, then back down, if at all. Of course one may talk to a GI from another unit if he is next to you. If I had been on the road when K 333 started up the hill, I would have passed on the tank sighting report the officer in the M6 armored vehicle had given us.
The excursion of K 333 past our position is covered in the Leinbaugh/Campbell Book, Men Of Company K, pp 134-137. I have excerpted these pages below.
From Leinbaugh’s book:
“When we unloaded from our two and a halfs, the battalion operations officer was waiting. He told us we were in Bourdon, a couple of miles east of Marche.
The platoons formed up along the village’s main road while the officers and platoon sergeants crowded into the battalion CP in a school building for orders. The meeting was short, lasting less than five minutes. The only available map of the area was a badly printed, smudged black and white copy with roads and trails barely distinguishable.
The sky was clear, but the feel of snow was in the air, the ground lightly frozen and covered with frost. To us, the night was ominously quiet, the only sound the distant mutterings of heavy artillery. The sergeants were briefing their squads when the colonel hurried out of the CP and told us to get moving – the attack was already behind schedule. Seeking some means of identifying each other in the dark, we tried tying handkerchiefs around our right arms, but their olive drab color blended too closely with the dark brown overcoats to be of help.
We‘d learned this much in the briefing. The 334th’s Third Battalion had been defending a series of villages and strongpoints to the east of Marche, and some hours earlier German tanks had overrun the lightly held village of Verdenne. Heavily outnumbered, the Gls pulled back in good order, setting up new defensive positions along a woods line between Verdenne and Bourdon.
A sergeant from the 334th came down to lead K Company up the hill and point us toward the objective. According to the last radio message, four or five tanks were with the riflemen in the woods. They were to follow behind us in the attack, but details would have to be coordinated on the spot with the tank commander. Our battalion staff lacked precise information, but they thought at least a company of German infantry and several tanks were defending. The tanks were our big concern. The colonel told Leinbaugh our regiment’s attached artillery battllion would lay down a barrage on Verdenne just before the final assault which was to begin at midnight. L Company, in reserve, was to follow behind K and help consolidate.
As the company moved out, Brewer was setting up a CP in the village. He called a quiet greeting to Phelps. “Merry Christmas, Don. Take care of yourself.”
“Don’t worry,” Phelps replied, but he had a feeling that it was his turn, that he was going to get hit that night.
The company column crossed twin railroad tracks to begin a gradual ascent toward the ridgeline then stopped as the road forked. Which road? The main road to the left, or the secondary road, a half right? Our guide from the 334th hesitated, then pointed to the left. Pulling the map from his field Jacket, Leinbaugh, shielded by a raincoat, struck several matches but he was unable to pinpoint the road junction in the brief flares of light.
“What’s the name of that goddam town?” “Verdenne,” Campbell answered. “I’m pretty sure that’s it, about a mile I’d guess.”
“Yeah……Well, as long as we’re going up we’re okay.”
Heading left and uphill, the company moved on, traversed a horseshoe curve the direction seemed right and after a hundred yards entered a dense forest.
(The horseshoe curve was the position of Davies and myself with our daisy chain of antitank mines.)
Just ahead a tank loomed out of the darkness, its huge bulk nearly filling, the narrow road, branches pressing in on either side brushing its steel plates. The men at the front of the column stopped several feet away and passed back word to hold up.
The ground mist had thickened after entering the woods, so it was impossible to see more than a few yards. The time was exactly midnight. As the column halted, Leinbaugh turned to Phelps. Tell the tankers to follow the tail end of the company through the woods. We’ll work out details for the attack on the far side.”
Phelps felt his way slowly along the side of the tank and called out, but there was no answer. Pounding on the side of the hull with the butt of his M l, he yelled louder: “Hey, you guys open up!” He pounded again.
The hatch opened slowly, a creak of metal, and the head and shoulders of a man appeared. “Was ist los?” the man demanded. Again, peering over the side of the turret, “Was ist los?
It took awhile, more seconds than necessary but suddenly as we hit the ditches, we realized K Company’s first full-fledged night attack was getting off to a bad start.
Compiled shortly after the war, the 84th Division’s history noted that the enemy’s salient beyond Verdenne was discovered in a curious way.”
The first man in the company to grasp what was happening, Phelps stepped back two steps and fired a single shot at the dark form in the turret. The man screamed and collapsed from view. Seconds latter the hatch clanged shut.”
In the fight with the German tanks and infantry, several of the men from K 333 were wounded. However, most of them got back down the hill alive.
Of course, the tanks that the reconnaissance officer told us about at least six hours before, were the ones found by K 333. Why there was not better transfer of information was probably due to military protocol. The reconnaissance officer was from some attached cavalry unit (probably the 771 Tank Battalion). He would have reported to his unit commander, who would report to someone in division headquarters, who might possibly pass it down. Davies and I reported it to our squad leader—we had no other possibility, or responsibility. According to our Division History, we had no Cavalry attached between December 20 and January 2nd, but the 771, which was attached at the time, was part of the 4th Cavalry Group. I will possibly never know positively why or who were the men in the armored vehicle that passed our position Christmas Eve 1944.
We left the position when relieved by two others from our platoon around ten. We told them about the reported tanks. I feel they must have left the position, as they would have reported the possibility of German tanks up the hill. We were relieved around two hours before K 333 men passed. The first time I learned of the Company K 333 venture up the hill was when reading Leinbaugh’s book more than 50 years later.
After a little sleep that night, we were awakened around midnight to prepare for the recapture of Verdenne. We did find the correct road, and entered around 0200 December 25 1944. This road went up the hill, with the woods on the left that were the location of the pocket (referred to in Guderian’s book as “the hedgehog.”) The road (trail) we took into Verdenne is no longer in use, and was smaller than the one taken by K 333.
Guderian also reported that General Hasso Eccard von Manteuffel, head of the Fifth Panzer Army, was in Grimbiemont a few miles to the southeast on December 24, 1944. He was there to order an attack on the Marche Hotton Road. This attack, if made, would have of course gone through our roadblock. This was the only road of any size between Hotton and Marche. Again, I’m sure we were saved by the Germans lack of supplies and their probably hidden, at least unspoken, feeling that Hitler’s big offensive into Belgium was totally futile. They may at the start had some enthusiasm, but now out of food, gasoline, and artillery support, they were ready to go defensive. Also the weather had cleared, and any daytime movement was open to air attack. New Allied forces had moved into defensive positions, and were well supported by artillery. The Germans had underestimated our motorized mobility. Hitler and his generals overestimated the time required for our response, with troops to set up defenses in the path of the advancing German units. Hitler also counted on a much faster advance of his units.
Guderian complained about their lack of air support. It was promised but never came. I am completely sure that the ten tanks (at that time there were at least 20) with attached foot troops could have gone through a 2-man roadblock. We did have mines, a bazooka, and side arms, but they are not much against Panther tanks. If they had been supplied, they could have easily made their objective, the Muse River. However, on that narrow road, down from the woods, a single disabled tank might have stopped them all, for at least a while. Roads in the Belgian Ardennes are at best narrow and winding, and may not be paved. Yes, the attack in that area was unexpected, but probably a bad idea. The roads were easily jammed with traffic, especially when two-way movement was attempted. One can only speculate on what might have happened if the Germans had tried to move down the hill toward the Marche Hotton road.