Part 3 (1/2)

Corporal Alvin Boeger, a BAR man in C Company, was at first literally scared into paralysis by the menacing, tromping sound of approaching enemy boots. He cowered in his foxhole and found that he could not move his arms and legs. ”I thought of my mother-how she would react to my death. I saw saw a gold star in her window.” In World War II, a gold star flag signified the death of a loved one on some fighting front. Boeger was experiencing what one scholar called Condition Black, meaning a fear-induced shutdown of bodily functions. The limbs fail to respond. The heart rate shoots dangerously high. The blood vessels constrict, draining all color from the face (hence the term ”white as a sheet”). Only the sight of German soldiers dropping grenades and shooting into nearby holes snapped Boeger out of Condition Black. He stood up, faced them, and pointed his fearsome weapon. ”The enemy came on in waves and I fired my BAR until it was real hot. There were grey uniformed bodies everywhere.” a gold star in her window.” In World War II, a gold star flag signified the death of a loved one on some fighting front. Boeger was experiencing what one scholar called Condition Black, meaning a fear-induced shutdown of bodily functions. The limbs fail to respond. The heart rate shoots dangerously high. The blood vessels constrict, draining all color from the face (hence the term ”white as a sheet”). Only the sight of German soldiers dropping grenades and shooting into nearby holes snapped Boeger out of Condition Black. He stood up, faced them, and pointed his fearsome weapon. ”The enemy came on in waves and I fired my BAR until it was real hot. There were grey uniformed bodies everywhere.”

Staff Sergeant Roy House, another BAR man, was part of a squad that was about to be overrun. He held off a company-sized group of Germans while his comrades withdrew. ”I was able to hold off the attackers for about 10 or 15 minutes because they made no attempt at concealment. Finally one of the Germans was able to get to the left and shot me through my left arm.” In spite of the wound, House escaped.6 The German attack had little ambiguity or complexity. They simply came forward in waves. Lieutenant Robert Dettor, a platoon leader in K Company, one of the hardest-pressed units, desperately tried to hold his platoon together in the face of a veritable avalanche of enemy soldiers. Small-arms fire was crackling everywhere. His communication wires to the company command post and his platoon outposts were completely out. In terse diary pa.s.sages, he recounted the horror. ”No contact with men except those in foxholes in immediate vicinity. Sgt. Phifer, Sgt. Surtorka, myself fighting from same emplacement. Sgt. Surtorka moved to foxhole on right to cover flank. Sgt. Surtorka yelled over grenade being thrown at my foxhole. Hunter hit by grenade. Sgt. Phifer wounded in the shoulder by rifle bullet. Enemy closing within 20 feet of foxhole.” They were almost out of ammo. Hunter caught a burp-gun burst and slumped over dead. Lieutenant Dettor ordered all maps burned and food distributed evenly. Finally, when the lieutenant and his men ran out of ammo, the Germans overran the position. They jostled the Americans around, took their wrist.w.a.tches, pens, money, and other valuables, and sent them east, behind the German lines. Half of K Company was overrun in similar fas.h.i.+on.

After such costly initial a.s.saults against the American strongpoints, the German survivors began flanking them, taking advantage of many dead spots in the U.S. defenses, cutting them off. Units on both sides lost all cohesive-ness. Most were out of communication with higher headquarters. The battle degenerated into clashes between isolated groups b.u.mping into one another in the dark, bewildering forest. German mobility was dramatically restricted by the sheer volume of U.S. supporting fire. Fighting from deep holes, the Americans did not hesitate to call down artillery on their own positions since they knew the sh.e.l.ls would do much more damage to the unsheltered enemy than to themselves. In one instance, a company commander and a forward observer, knowing they were in danger of being annihilated, called down 105-millimeter howitzer fire, literally on top of themselves. ”The rounds burst in trees above their heads, and sprayed forward, piling up so many Germans in front of their positions that the attack failed,” a unit after action report claimed. ”It took guts, but it worked.”

Mortarmen contributed their own fury. Working very carefully from their pits in firebreaks and clearings-mortar teams never never set up their tubes underneath trees-they provided devastating close support for the hard-pressed riflemen and machine gunners. Sergeant Earl Wiseman and his 81-millimeter mortar crews from M Company laid down a steady curtain of sh.e.l.ls in support of their buddies in the overwrought rifle companies. ”I was proud then to be with these boys [of his crews] because the hotter the fight got, the better we functioned. Swinging one gun here, laying another there with azimuths continually s.h.i.+fting great distances and ranges steadily decreasing until they were down to 50 yards, and less.” One section was even firing straight up ”to put them right on top of Jerry coming thru those woods.” The Germans breached the lines of Wiseman's platoon area, capturing several men in their holes. At that point, the platoon became part mortar unit and part rifle unit. Some of the men were fighting a deadly cat-and-mouse battle, stalking the Germans and vice versa. One man dropped a b.l.o.o.d.y enemy submachine gun at the feet of Wiseman's crew and said: ”Here's a souvenir for you.” The crews kept firing, eventually stopping the Germans in their tracks. ”We stood the ground for that day tho and I dare say the Germans lost heavily for every step they'd taken.” In fact, a company report later claimed that the unit's mortars and heavy machine guns had killed between two hundred and three hundred German soldiers. set up their tubes underneath trees-they provided devastating close support for the hard-pressed riflemen and machine gunners. Sergeant Earl Wiseman and his 81-millimeter mortar crews from M Company laid down a steady curtain of sh.e.l.ls in support of their buddies in the overwrought rifle companies. ”I was proud then to be with these boys [of his crews] because the hotter the fight got, the better we functioned. Swinging one gun here, laying another there with azimuths continually s.h.i.+fting great distances and ranges steadily decreasing until they were down to 50 yards, and less.” One section was even firing straight up ”to put them right on top of Jerry coming thru those woods.” The Germans breached the lines of Wiseman's platoon area, capturing several men in their holes. At that point, the platoon became part mortar unit and part rifle unit. Some of the men were fighting a deadly cat-and-mouse battle, stalking the Germans and vice versa. One man dropped a b.l.o.o.d.y enemy submachine gun at the feet of Wiseman's crew and said: ”Here's a souvenir for you.” The crews kept firing, eventually stopping the Germans in their tracks. ”We stood the ground for that day tho and I dare say the Germans lost heavily for every step they'd taken.” In fact, a company report later claimed that the unit's mortars and heavy machine guns had killed between two hundred and three hundred German soldiers.7 The 277th Volksgrenadiers utterly failed to take the forest by nightfall. They had breached the 393rd lines in many places, but had not dislodged the Battle Babies sufficiently to open the way to the twin villages. In snowy draws, and underneath snow-stooped trees, many maimed Germans lay fighting for their lives. Their anguished cries sounded like the wail of tormented souls. ”The wounded could be heard hollering for hours and later a couple of German litter teams went out and picked up what looked like a number of bodies,” an American soldier recalled. Lieutenant Colonel Scott's regiment was also in bad shape. The 3rd Battalion alone had already lost three hundred men. But, for now, the regiment was holding off the enemy. After the sun set, the fighting tapered off. Many of the dogfaces worried about a German night attack but it never came. Instead the Germans decided to bring up armor from the 12th SS Panzer Division and attack again at first light, mainly to take positions still held by the 3rd Battalion survivors. The Battle Babies had no tank support, no ant.i.tank guns, and a dwindling supply of ammunition. Artillery, mortars, and bazookas comprised their main weapons against the tanks.

Five Jagdpanzer IV/48 tank destroyers, accompanied by elements of an infantry battalion from the 277th, hit M Company. American artillery dispersed some of the infantry, but the lead tank destroyer kept coming. ”One of our [machine] guns opened up on the tank and b.u.t.toned it up,” one of the M Company sergeants wrote. ”They also knocked out some of the infantry that followed the tank.” As ever, ”knocked out” was a euphemism for killing. Needless to say, the German infantrymen were not subjected to a standing eight count. They were ripped open by high-velocity bullets. Their lifeblood drained into the snow, turning it crimson, then rust as the blood dried.

The lead Jagdpanzer, invariably called a tank by the GIs, opened up with its own machine gun and a main-gun round, instantly killing one of the American machine gunners. The man next to him was, somehow, completely unscathed (and probably wondered for the rest of his life why). ”The tank just kept coming, knocking out everything in its way,” the company history recorded. Several of the Battle Babies, including Private First Cla.s.s James Langford, crawled forward in the snow, bazookas in tow, trying to get a shot at the German armor. ”We hit [it] a total of nine times with bazooka rockets and didn't even appear to slow it down,” Langford wrote.

The other tank destroyers soon joined their leader. Together they spewed main-gun rounds and machine-gun fire at the GIs. ”The bazookamen poured desperate shots [at the lead tank] and finally succeeded in hitting its tracks, immobilizing the vehicle. Otherwise it suffered no damage because the crew continued to fire their MGs.” The Americans did destroy one other Jagdpanzer (thanks to the heroics of Sergeant Vernon McGarity, who earned the Medal of Honor), but the enemy attack was simply too overwhelming. In this terrain, the German armor had enough maneuvering room, along with cover and concealment, to foil the bazooka gunners. Those gunners had trouble finding ways to get close enough to the tanks, into advantageous positions, to hit their vulnerable side and rear armor, not to mention their tracks.

By now, Lieutenant Colonel Scott realized that the 3rd Battalion was almost surrounded. Against considerable odds, the 393rd had held off the enemy attackers for over twenty-four hours. With General Lauer's authorization, Scott ordered his battalions to disengage under cover of jeep-mounted machine guns and withdraw west, to a new defensive line between Rocherath and the forest. As best they could, the Battle Babies trudged, almost continuously under fire, away from their enemies, out of the menacing forest. Like the battle itself, the withdrawal was anything but orderly. It was more like a latter-year Trail of Tears, with battered, weary, hungry, scared, bewildered, cold survivors making their way west, usually in small groups, all the while worried about the possibility of being overtaken by the Germans. They had no idea that reinforcements were already in place.8 Enter the Indian Heads--3/23 Infantry in the Forest.

The soldiers of the 2nd Infantry Division wore a unique Indian Head patch that portrayed a proud, fierce-looking Native American warrior adorned with battle headdress against the background of a large white star. The patch was the largest of any divisional unit in the Army. Somehow it symbolized the pride and resourcefulness of a division that had come ash.o.r.e the day after D-day and had, for the most part, been in combat ever since. A hard core of experienced NCOs, staff officers, and commanders had held this outfit together through many waves of replacements. On the day the German offensive began, elements of the 2nd had actually been launching an attack of their own, at Wahlerscheid, just to the northeast of the 99th Division. In fact, officers of both divisions initially thought the German push was nothing more than an attempt to take the pressure off their comrades at Wahlerscheid. By December 17 they understood that they were facing an all-out, last-ditch enemy offensive that was coming right at them.

General Walter Robertson, the 2nd Division commander, had skillfully broken off his attack and rerouted his infantry regiments to back up the 99th. He understood that the 277th Volksgrenadier and 12th SS Panzer Divisions would eventually push through the Krinkelter Wald and into the valuable twin villages. He simply needed to hold them off long enough to place his units in and around the villages. One of his battalions, the 3rd of the 23rd Infantry Regiment, had moved through Krinkelt and Rocherath on December 16. From there they tromped into the western edge of the Krinkelter Wald to take up defensive positions that allowed them to block two key roads that led out of the woods and into the towns. Some of the soldiers had settled into existing dugouts with overhead cover. Others tried to scoop out shallow fighting positions in the frozen earth (digging true foxholes with shovels in the frigid ground was an impossibility). They had come from a rear area and thus had only a basic load of ammunition. Such was the confusion of the moment that, during the night, these men initially believed they would attack to restore contact with the 393rd. Instead their mission changed by morning to ”hold at all costs,” a desperate phrase that obviously held sinister connotations for the infantry soldiers, who might soon pay the ultimate price to fulfill the order.

The entire 3rd Battalion was supported by one platoon of Shermans, under Lieutenant Victor Miller, from the 741st Tank Battalion. ”We were one rifle battalion thrust into a densely wooded area, with no terrain features that favored the defender, with orders to 'hold at all costs,'” Captain Charles MacDonald, the commander of I Company, wrote. ”The defense was a single line of riflemen.” His company was on the left (northern) flank, along the main road into the villages. There was a fifty-yard gap between his unit and neighboring K Company on the right. He had seven bazookas but only three rounds for them. Two of the tanks were in place to support him. Artillery support consisted of a few tubes from the 99th Division, whose observers MacDonald, of course, did not know.

As the sun rose, the 2nd Division men could hear sounds of shooting from the east, where the 393rd was fighting for its life. Soon, stragglers-both mounted and dismounted-from that embattled regiment began streaming through the makes.h.i.+ft lines of the Indian Head soldiers. The differing descriptions of this retreat are a cla.s.sic example of the tendency of soldiers, even those with similar racial and cultural backgrounds, to perceive events according to their own a.s.sumptions, biases, and experiences. Nearly all of the 99th Division records and personal accounts speak of the 393rd's exodus as a ”withdrawal,” thus indicating some level of cohesion to the retreat with an ultimate purpose of setting up a new defensive line outside of Rocherath.

The 2nd Division accounts, coming from a more blooded division whose members were likely to look down on the less experienced 99th, paint a more mixed picture. Private First Cla.s.s Edward Bartkiewicz, a rifleman in L Company, watched ”American vehicles go by, jeeps, trucks, kitchen trucks pulling stoves . . . and it looked like some officers in jeeps going . . . right through us.” Like many riflemen, he had no idea who they were, or what was going on. He just wondered why they did not stop and join L Company. Captain MacDonald, a bit better informed about the intense fighting to the east, saw them as the gallant survivors of a unit that had given its all. One of his platoon leaders, Lieutenant Long Goffigan, whose outfit was holding the extreme left flank, begged them for ammunition. Many of them complied, turning over grenades, ammo clips, and boxes of .30-caliber machine-gun bullets. Two of them even elected to join Goffigan's platoon. Elsewhere, in K Company's lines, First Lieutenant Lee Smith, a no-nonsense Texan with little appreciation for what the 393rd had just been through, saw them coming and tried to get them to halt and fight with his outfit. ”They would not stop. They just seemed stunned.” Smith even ordered them to halt and fight with his company. ”I did so, but the next big bunch that came by were being led by officers who paid absolutely no attention. They were headed for town like trail cattle after water.” Lieutenant Smith gave up, considering the effort useless, especially since ”nearly all of them had thrown away their arms and equipment.” To his dying day, Smith maintained, quite unfairly and ignorantly, that ”the 99th Division crumbled completely.” Such were the vicissitudes of just this one event.9 On one thing there was no confusion, though. As the number of stragglers petered out, every 2nd Division soldier understood that the Germans were close behind them and would soon attack. Shortly after noon, enemy infantry soldiers began clas.h.i.+ng with all three of the 3rd Battalion rifle companies. Their attack was not unlike a quick-forming, violent thunderstorm. In a matter of seconds, the air was filled with bullets. One soldier described it as a ”crackling crescendo.” Anyone who raised his head risked getting it blown off. Tracer rounds bounced off trees. At the leading edge of L Company's line along a narrow forest trail, Private First Cla.s.s Bartkiewicz saw the Germans erupt from the line of trees that were across the road. ”There was all kinds of ammunition flying in all sorts of directions. Our machine gun could cut a person's body right in half if he was in front of it within about twenty feet. That's what happened.” A German soldier tried to throw a grenade at the machine-gun team. The gunners cut him down before he could let go of the grenade. The ensuing explosion maimed the man's already cooling corpse. Bartkiewicz captured two survivors.

The Germans soldiers were close enough to I Company that Captain Mac-Donald's men could clearly see the billed caps indicative of SS infantrymen. The enemy troops were working their way through and up a slight draw in front of I Company's holes. ”Wave after wave of fanatically screaming Germans stormed the slight tree-covered rise,” Captain MacDonald later wrote. ”A continuous hail of fire exuded from their weapons, answered by volley after volley from the defenders. Germans fell right and left.”

German artillery and Nebelwerfer rounds were exploding behind I Company. In front of them, several rounds of U.S. artillery exploded among the attackers. ”We could hear their screams of pain when the small-arms fire would slacken. But still they came!” The fire was so thick that Captain MacDonald was lying flat on his back in his shallow CP foxhole, with a phone to his platoons in one ear and a battalion radio in the other ear, trying to talk and hear amid the noisy maelstrom. Lieutenant Goffigan's platoon was bearing the brunt of the a.s.sault. He needed artillery support. Several men were wounded and the captain was calling for litter bearers. MacDonald was also talking to his battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Paul Tuttle, requesting more ammunition and artillery support. All he could get in response was a promise that ”we're doing all we can” and another order to ”hold at all costs.” Goffigan was now reporting the presence of tanks in the distance.

To I Company's right, the Germans were also furiously attacking K Company. For the hard-pressed Americans, the stress level was extreme. When the shooting started, Smith was serving as executive officer, the company's second in command. Then Lieutenant Dillard Boland, one of the platoon leaders, came to Smith's hole and told him that he ”couldn't take any more.” He had been in combat for months and he had reached his limit. He left for the rear. Smith claimed that soon thereafter the company commander broke. ”[He] . . . was hysterical. He was a martinet and I never saw a martinet that did well under fire. [He] chickened out and went to the rear.”

a.s.suming command, Lieutenant Smith held K Company together the best he could in the face of unrelenting infantry and armor attacks. ”Instead of running and falling the way we did they just walked and used marching fire. Then they would stop and fall down and the tanks would come on. Then the tanks would go back for them and they would mill around, then here they would come again.” Like MacDonald, Smith spent much of his time talking with battalion, asking for help, listening to imprecations that he must hold on. All around him, he could hear ”the crump of artillery . . . the high-pitched ripping sound of the submachine guns and the double rapid rate of the German machine guns as compared with ours.” When soldiers got hit, they generally did not scream ”or cry out or make any sort of audible sound.” All the while, Lieutenant Smith was worried that his front could not hold out much longer, especially because he had few weapons with which to fight the tanks.

A few dozen yards to the left, the SS men were flinging themselves repeatedly at I Company. Captain MacDonald's men bitterly resisted each enemy push. ”Seven times the enemy infantry a.s.saulted, and seven times they were greeted by a hail of small-arms fire and hand grenades that sent them reeling down the hill, leaving behind a growing pile of dead and wounded.” Each attack was poorly organized, with little artillery support, almost like a German version of banzai, yet with a distinct geographic objective. ”There was only the suicidal wave of fanatical infantrymen, whooping and yelling and brandis.h.i.+ng their rifles like men possessed.” Many of these Germans were teenaged members of the Hitler Youth. With the oblivious idealism of youth, they were all too eager to turn the war back in their fuhrer's favor. Some of them fell dead within ten yards of the company's lead foxholes.

As had been the case with the 393rd to the east, the presence of German armor was decisive against the 3rd Battalion of the 23rd Infantry. Five Mark V Panthers were closing in on Lieutenant Goffigan's platoon. In the lieutenant's recollection, the tanks ”were firing into foxholes and cutting off trees like matchsticks.” He called Captain MacDonald to plead for help. The captain arranged for some artillery fire but it did no good. A bazooka man in Goffigan's platoon fired two shots of precious ammunition at the lead tank but missed. Within moments, he was killed by enemy fire and the bazooka was destroyed. The tanks were now within seventy-five yards of the platoon holes. Lieutenant Miller's Shermans were the last hope of salvation for Goffigan's men. Half sobbing, Lieutenant Goffigan called Captain MacDonald: ”For G.o.d's sake, Cap'n, get those tanks down here. Do something, for G.o.d's sake.” But the friendly tanks had moved south, closer to K Company, in search of a more advantageous position.

Goffigan's gallant infantrymen were left to fight the enemy tanks with little else besides rifles, machine guns, and courage. ”Within a short time the tanks, with German infantry disposed on both sides of each tank, had approached where they could fire AP [armor piercing] ammo point blank into the foxholes,” a post-battle report recounted. ”A section of heavy machine guns held their positions and took a heavy toll of the enemy infantrymen until they ran out of ammunition.”

At this point, when the Germans overwhelmed Goffigan's platoon, caving in the left flank, I Company's front began to collapse. The fighting was at extremely close range. The Germans were blasting everything in front of them, cleaning out hole after hole. ”The sound of battle reached a height which I had never thought possible before,” MacDonald wrote. ”The burst of the . . . sh.e.l.ls in the woods vied with the sounds of hundreds of lesser weapons.” MacDonald was doing everything in his power to hold his outfit together, but events had moved beyond his control.

Throughout the forest, men were engaged in private death struggles. Private Hugh Burger was on the move, looking for a place to dodge the explosions. He jumped into a foxhole and literally b.u.mped into an SS soldier. Stunned, the German staggered to his feet. The two enemies were now intimate partic.i.p.ants in the evil of war. They could have mutually decided to live and let live, go their separate ways, but this was not the mood of the battle in the Krinkelter Wald. At this harrowing moment, Burger knew he had to act fast or die. ”I grabbed his rifle with my left hand while gripping my knife in my right. I made a [lightning] thrust into his stomach and jerked up with all my strength. I felt hot blood squirt out on my hand and my arm as I pulled the knife out then rammed it home again as his body sagged and slid to the ground. To me it was sickening, but that was my job if I wanted to live.” There were few more traumatic ways to kill than this, and Burger's nausea was standard for anyone having to take life in this elemental fas.h.i.+on. He wiped the blade of his knife against his pants, ran away in the direction of the villages, and later rubbed snow on his bloodstained arms and hands.

Captain MacDonald first attempted to pull the remnants of his company back to new positions, but in spite of the bravery of Private First Cla.s.s Richard Cowan, a machine gunner who held off the Germans for a few minutes, the situation was way too chaotic for that. Overhead the trees were bursting as artillery sh.e.l.ls exploded. Machine-gun and rifle bullets were smas.h.i.+ng into trees and men alike. The captain ordered his CP group to destroy their maps and radios and retreat. They made it as far as K Company, whose soldiers were also in close combat with enemy infantrymen and tanks. Lieutenant Miller's Shermans, having displaced here earlier, destroyed two of the enemy Panthers before German fire blew the American tanks up, killing Miller and several of his men. Some of the American soldiers were fighting the enemy with bayonets (the rarest form of combat in modern war) and using their rifles as clubs. One bazooka gunner swung his empty tube at a German, in an attempt to bludgeon him to death. Enemy soldiers with burp guns cut down the gunner.

The 3rd Battalion was disintegrating. Stragglers were already streaming out of the forest, into Krinkelt and Rocherath. Lieutenant Smith agonized over whether to keep trying to ”hold at all costs” or retreat. His K Company soldiers held off the Germans as long as they could-helping many 3rd Battalion men escape-before Smith reluctantly ordered a withdrawal. The remnants of the company streamed west, out of the forest.

Captain MacDonald and a few of his men made their way west, somehow dodging intense enemy fire. Like Lieutenant Smith, the captain felt guilty for retreating. Moreover, he barely knew what happened to most of his men. His company had simply disintegrated under an avalanche of enemy pressure. MacDonald's clothes were soaking wet. His mouth was dry. He was sad and dispirited. He and his men made it to a farmhouse near Krinkelt, where Lieutenant Colonel Tuttle had set up his command post in the bas.e.m.e.nt. The captain half expected to be court-martialed. Instead Tuttle greeted him warmly and said: ”Nice work, Mac.” The captain stood bewildered as Tuttle explained the big picture of the German Ardennes offensive and the true strength of their attack on the 3rd Battalion. ”The Germans are throwing everything they've got. You held out much longer than I expected.” MacDonald's company, along with the others, had held off the Germans for half a day, buying time for other Indian Head units to get into position in and around the twin villages. Moments earlier, MacDonald had believed that his beloved I Company had been lost for nothing more than his own failure as a commander. Now, though, he began to understand the important mission that his men had accomplished, many by making the ultimate sacrifice. Good news though this was, the thought of it all was overwhelming to him. He felt a catch in his throat. A moment later, the catch turned into deep, wracking sobs. In the dimly lit bas.e.m.e.nt, he stood quietly, tears rolling down his cheeks, hands trembling, sadly contemplating his lost company.10 The Manchus at the Lausdell Crossroads.

Captain MacDonald, and so many others like him, could at least take solace in the fact that the destruction of the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Infantry, had a purpose. Their self-sacrificial resistance (and the 393rd's determined stand) bought valuable time for General Robertson to arrange for the defense of Krinkelt and Rocherath. Every significant road in the area went through the two towns. If the Germans were to have any hope of carrying out a lightning advance to the Meuse, they had to control these roads, and thus the two little towns.

Throughout the day on December 17, the general disengaged from his attack at Wahlerscheid, personally supervised the southerly movement of troops to the danger area around Krinkelt and Rocherath, and deployed his men into defensive positions. For the 2nd Division soldiers, the process was exhausting and disorienting. One minute they were a.s.saulting a line of pillboxes at Wahlerscheid. The next minute they abruptly ceased attacking, began a forced march several miles to the south, and soon thereafter they were fighting a defensive battle. Only a well-led unit like the 2nd could have pulled off this dangerous transition with any semblance of order.

As the sun set on December 17, ushering in a cold, dark winter night, this process was well under way, but the general was still scrambling to reinforce the twin villages. He planned to defend the towns with his 38th Infantry Regiment, a stalwart unit with the moniker ”Rock of the Marne” for its part in blunting a major German offensive in World War I. Much of the 38th was still strung out in long columns along the narrow road that led into the villages. These soldiers were under enemy artillery fire, which, of course, inflicted casualties on them and impeded their movement. Moreover, retreating GIs and vehicles crowded the road and sowed confusion among the ”Marne” soldiers. Robertson needed several more hours to sort this mess out and deploy the 38th's rifle companies, plus their armored support, in and around the villages. In the meantime, Robertson decided that soldiers from another one of his regiments, the 9th, absolutely had to hold a key crossroads-generally known as the Lausdell junction-about one thousand yards east of Rocherath, right in the path of the onrus.h.i.+ng German advance. If the Germans captured the crossroads and succeeded in getting large numbers of troops and tanks into the village this evening, they could slaughter the 38th Infantry soldiers along the roads before they could hide in buildings or dig foxholes overlooking the road.

The 9th was one of the most storied infantry regiments in the Army. The unit had fought in nearly every war since its activation in 1812. In 1900, soldiers from this regiment had helped crush the Boxer Rebellion in China, earning themselves the colorful nickname ”Manchus.” Now, on this frigid Ardennes evening, they were once again at the center of momentous events. On the road north of Rocherath, General Robertson collared twenty-eight-year-old Lieutenant Colonel William McKinley, commander of the 1st Battalion, 9th Infantry, and gave him the job of defending the Lausdell crossroads. In the recollection of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Steele, the regimental executive officer, the general emphasized that the battalion ”must hold at all costs in order to ensure . . . an effective defense position.”

It was like a father-son talk. The general, bald and in his late fifties, looked like the wizened elder he was. The youthful McKinley looked little different from the men he was leading. He was quite popular with his fellow officers and his soldiers. ”He was a fearless and thoughtful commander,” one of his soldiers said. ”Our welfare was always his first consideration.” He loved to sing, and had even written a 9th Infantry fight song. He was the grandnephew of President William McKinley, whose name he carried on. As a West Pointer who was born into an Army family, and an infantry officer who had earned many combat decorations, young McKinley was the embodiment of a warrior. Like any good officer, he never asked his troops to do what he would not. ”Many times he did the dangerous himself, rather than risk the lives of his men,” Steele later wrote. He had known General Robertson and Lieutenant Colonel McKinley for several years and greatly admired them. ”Both Robertson and McKinley were soldiers all the way through and neither of them flinched or questioned the other. To me [watching them converse] was like viewing a movie.”

When the conversation ended, Lieutenant Colonel McKinley placed his companies on a forward slope astride the crossroads. The soldiers dug shallow foxholes, through snow and earth, along little hedges that offered some bare semblance of concealment. Most of the men were in a foul mood. For almost five days they had been in combat, in the cold, with no hot food and little rest, watching their friends get killed or wounded. Now they had been sent on this boondoggle to stave off what they thought was only a local counterattack that some other unit could not handle. Combat units invariably see the world narrowly. Most believe they have a harder, more dangerous job than any other unit. They often perceive that it is their unhappy lot to succeed where other units have failed (”so then we had to bail out this other outfit” is an oft-heard phrase, as is ”why do we always get the c.r.a.ppy jobs?”). Although these notions are usually false, built as they normally are on incomplete information, biases, and ungrounded a.s.sumptions, they do help build unit pride.