Shortly before noon a platoon of Company B's tanks reached the hardpressed field artillery battery near Buchholz and reported the situation in hand.8 But the enemy here represented only the probing forefinger of the main attack. The main body of the 1st Battalion was stationed at Camp Taji while the main body of the 2d was stationed at Camp Liberty on the Victory Base Complex. About this time a German tank platoon appeared on the ridge less than a thousand yards from the regimental command post in Ouren. Col. Daniel Strickler, the regimental executive officer, who now had assumed command at Consthum, organized a perimeter defense of the town, set out mines along the approaches, and disposed his three effective tanks and three armored cars to watch for the enemy armor known to be on the road from Holzthum. Co-ordination between small packets of infantry and armor, hard at best, was made most difficult by this kind of piecemeal commitment. The bridges at Clerf and Wilwerwiltz were in German hands (no preparations had been made to destroy them); most of the sixty tanks committed in the central sector were destroyed. He fought in Northern France, was part of the force that liberated Luxembourg before dying of wounds sustained by German artillery fire in the Siegfried Line Campaign, September 19th, 1944. Company C earned the Combat Infantry Streamer. . Although the enemy had seized all of the ground which the 112th Infantry was occupying east of the Our and finally had secured a bridgehead at Ouren, the cost to him on 17 December had been high. The 687th Field Artillery Battalion pulled out to the southwest and the 3d Battalion also started to move, under the impression that this was the plan. it to call on neighboring battalions, attacking Weiler, to help outflank
After a brief pause they wheeled back into Ltzkampen. Even in daytime it was possible for German patrols to move about on the west bank, using the cover provided by the deep, wooded draws. employ the armor once these two rivers lay behind. Once the 2d Panzer Division had thrown a bridge across the Our at Dasburg and the 26th Volks Grenadier Division had put a bridge in at Gemnd, the well-known Panzer Lehr Division would be ready to roll, advancing behind the two forward divisions until the corps had cleared the Clerf River, then pushing ahead of the infantry on the corps left in the race to Bastogne. In 1968, all of the units, except for the units in Huntingdon and Everett became the 2nd Battalion, 104th Cavalry; Lewistown was Headquarters and Headquarters Troop (less detached troops), Tyrone was Troop H, Altoona unit became Troop G and Howitzer Battery, and the Bellefonte unit became a Detachment of Headquarters and Headquarters Troop. Once through St. Vith the LXVI would follow Krueger to Andenne, but if things grew rough on the left wing Manteuffel intended to switch Lucht's corps to the south. At the moment Luettwitz' corps was fighting
About four and a half miles west of the town, a second block was encountered and a German self-propelled gun lashed out at the lead vehicles while machine gunners blazed away from positions around it. Norman G. Maurer, 3 of the 3d Battalion, leading a sortie of twenty men, surprised the enemy and drove him back with very heavy casualties. A camouflaged grunt takes aim. Once this barrier was passed the 26th would be responsible for covering the left flank of the corps while the armored divisions made the Meuse crossings. 112th Infantry took up their posts in the . Letter, 22 August 1864, from Theodore Skinner of Company E, 112th New York Infantry, at Bermuda Hundred, Virginia, to family in New York discussing picket details, an aborted troop movement, and other aspects of military life during the siege of Petersburg, Virginia. A scratch platoon of less than fifty men collected from the regimental headquarters and Ouren held the supporting German infantry at bay along the ridge east of the village. As the column emerged from the village of Heinerscheid, concealed high-velocity guns opened on the skimpily armored light tanks, picking them off like clay pipes in a shooting gallery. They were mustered out of federal service in December 1898. Fuller, however, was able to get a warning message through to the 28th Division command post about 0900. was reached midway between Bastogne and the Meuse. But the tactical effect of this artillery preparation was considerably less than the German planners had anticipated. In the last analysis the losses inflicted on the enemy may have equaled those sustained by the Americans-certainly the Germans paid dearly for their hurried frontal attacks against stonewalled villages and towns-but the final measure of success and failure would be in terms of hours and minutes won by the Americans and lost to the enemy. He was an instructor at the U.S. Army Infantry School (1932-1933) and graduated from the U.S. Army War College in 1936. from the rear. Interlocking machine gun and rifle fire blocked off the German reinforcements some sixty were captured and the rest dug in where they could. The 229th Field Artillery Battalion was emplaced behind the north flank near Welchenhausen on the German side of the river. A Symbol of the Combat Ability of MI Soldiers. Caveat: This Battle lasted more than a month, with assignments in considerable flux. Cota, as it turned out, already had phoned the corps commander and asked permission to bring the 112th back to the high ground west of the river. The company leading the left battalion surprised a platoon of Company L at breakfast, overran the company kitchen (which was only 800 to goo yards behind the rifle line) and killed the platoon commander. continue the attack for the bridges at Ouren. He hoped that the armored debouchment into the bridgehead would commence during the early afternoon. About 1830 troops at the battalion observation post reported that enemy vehicles were attacking with multiple 20-mm. 1959 is when this organization began to resemble the current organizational structure. Small detachments with burp guns now crept down through the dark and engaged the troops in and around the chteau. Even before the seizure of Ouren the LVIII Panzer Corps had shifted its interest to the south. In the darkness and confusion many stragglers made their way into Bastogne and Vaux-lez-Rosires. The units from Lewistown, Tyrone, Huntingdon, Everett, and Altoona were all mustered into federal service for duty on the Mexican border in July 1916. The two heavy tank bridges were the Americans obviously were weakening, and the 2d Panzer Division had been able to move its tanks forward on the relatively good road in the northern part of the corps zone. Hitler himself seems to have favored this concept (it is found in the first Fuehrer operations order), but only in the Fifth Panzer attack would assault detachments be found inside the American positions when the initial barrage opened up. They conducted full spectrum operations in and around Baghdad, Iraq. The 3d Battalion (Maj. Walden F. Woodward), in the regimental center, was hit by the 1130th Regiment of the 560th Volks Grenadier Division. The northern regiment of the Panzer Lehr Division, the 902d, made better progress. In August 1950 the Lewistown unit was mustered into federal service for the Korean War. The battalion was activated for federal service in Iraq 19 September 2008, and redeployed back to the States in late August 2009. On 18 December what was left of the 110th Infantry was wiped out or withdrew to the west.11 Survivors in the north headed toward Donnange and, with Company G, joined elements of the 9th Armored Division to make a stand. In 1949, the Bellefonte unit was redesignated Battery B, 688th Field Artillery. The 112th Infantry Regiment was formed and officially designated as the 16th Infantry from . Collectively, these units received credit for the following World War II campaigns: Normandy (with the Bellefonte unit participating in the assault landing), Northern France, Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, and Central Europe. Those who could left the road, scattering in small parties into the dark. Communication between the 112th and division headquarters had been sketchy since 16 December, depending on artillery radio nets and liaison officers. During December 1944, the 112th Infantry Regimental Combat Team was holding a 6-1/2-mile long sector which the Germans attacked with nine divisions. On the nights of 14 and 15 December, sounds of horse-drawn vehicles and motors moving in slow gear drifted to the American outposts; but since the same commotion had attended an earlier relief in the German lines, it was reported and perfunctorily dismissed. Nonetheless some part of the assault wave had broken through as far as the battery positions near Welchenhausen, where they were repelled by the .50-caliber quadruple mounts of the antiaircraft artillery. Four of the 707th tanks that had been crippled the previous day were drawn up on the ridge east of Wiltz to give what help they might as more or less stationary artillery. Most of the positions occupied lay on the east. The German infantry on the north side of town aligned for the assault about 1400. All this gave the 112th Infantry a chance to get its breath on 18 December. In the meantime the Company C advance north toward Marnach also ran into trouble: persistent small arms fire forced the infantry to leave the road and move slowly across country. Companies E and F dug in on a ridge north of Reuler under a rain of
The action of the 112th Infantry in this part of the 28th Division story stands therefore as an episode in itself until, after four days' fighting, the regiment joins the forces arrayed in defense of St. Vith.13. This attack aimed at the bridges near Burg Reuland (in the 106th Division sector) and Oberhausen, in the rear of the positions manned by the left. 114th Infantry Regiment. The road net was adequate, although mired by constant rain, but the two forward battalions had to be supplied at night because of German fire. "Rocky" Moretto was one of only two men in his infantry company who . Colonel Nelson gave the order to withdraw behind the river under cover of darkness. This place is not healthy anymore.". time was needed for orders to reach the front-line troops. Through this gap the panzers moved in on the support positions held by Company D. Earlier a German infantry company in close order had been caught in the glare of its own headlights atop a hill and been massacred by Company D sections lying on the reverse slope, but at 0755 Company D was forced to send out an urgent plea for help "and damn quick." and the 110th Infantry. This regiment formed the division center, with the 112th Infantry on the north and the 109th Infantry aligned to the south. The 39th regrouped and turned to assault Holzthum and Consthum in force. View of a Clearing Station, somewhere behind Utah Beach, Normandy, taken June 6 - 7, 1944 - triage of Airborne casualties and patients . United States Army, Historical and Pictorial Review of the 28th Infantry Division in World War II, 1946, page 16, Learn how and when to remove this template message, Distinguished Unit Citation with oak leaf, "112th Infantry Regiment (Sixteenth Pennsylvania)", United States Army Center of Military History, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=112th_Infantry_Regiment_(United_States)&oldid=1107738250, Infantry regiments of the United States Army National Guard, Military units and formations in Pennsylvania, United States Army units and formations in the Korean War, Infantry regiments of the United States Army, Military units and formations established in 1878, Articles needing additional references from September 2009, All articles needing additional references, Wikipedia articles needing clarification from February 2014, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. Early on 19 December the 112th Infantry and 229th Field Artillery Battalion moved under cover of a heavy fog and assembled without hindrance around Huldange, the defensive front now facing south. Two hours later the enemy struck at Company A, apparently an attempt to clear the north-south Skyline Drive, but artillery fire beat him off. One battalion of armored infantry was given bicycles, and would move so slowly through the mud and over the hills that its function during the drive to the west was simply that of a replacement battalion, feeding into the more mobile units up ahead. Sufficient trucks were available to motorize most of the division, but there was a shortage of tracked cross-country vehicles. Battalion. Shortly before dusk
Without it the western exit road from the Gemnd bridge was hopelessly blocked; through Hosingen ran the main divisional supply route to the Clerf. The 77th had been unable to win a quick decision at Hosingen. Radio communication, which was functioning fairly well, showed that the division center was most endangered. Company L, on the western side of the ridge at Holzthum, reported figures in the half-light but, peering through the ground fog, which clung all along the division front, could not be sure whether they were American troops passing through the area or the enemy. The garrison of a hundred or so was reinforced by Company L, ordered back from Holzthum to avoid entrapment. In fact the troops of the 26th Volks Grenadier Division sent against Wiltz from the northeast were acting under orders to protect the flank and rear of Panzer Lehr against possible American counterattack from the Wiltz valley. The unit was mustered into federal active service on 16 July 1917 for service in World War I, and Rickards remained its commander. Back to the west, in the 28th Division command post at Wiltz, General Cota took what steps he could to help the 110th Infantry. On the ridges which look down over Wiltz more Germans appeared in the early evening, apparently. Later the Americans in this sector reported that the attackers must have been "awfully green"-as indeed they were. A half hour before dawn on 18 December German guns and mortars opened heavy fire. Fortunately Major Woodward, the battalion commanding officer, was suspicious of this route. About dusk the Marnach garrison radioed that half-tracks could be heard moving toward the village. Kokott's reserve regiment, the 78th, crossed the Our at dusk and moved forward. This was the end: shots, blazing vehicles, and screaming wounded. 113th Infantry Regiment. By noon Company D had so many prisoners that it "couldn't handle them all!" Colonel Nelson sent back request after request for air support. Meanwhile he dispatched
Schoppen, Belgium, the 16th Infantry Regiment's first objective after going on the offense during second half of the Battle of the Bulge. The Fifth Panzer Army commander was bitterly opposed to that part of the plan which called for a tremendous opening barrage at 0800 and a two-hour artillery preparation before the attack jumped off. This timing might seem to. and the U.S. 84th Division had essayed an attack in the sector around
To the southwest, Company C and the regimental cannon company were deployed in and around Munshausen, guarding the side road which cut cross-country from Marnach to Drauffelt. tanks and guns to help the engineers, bandsmen, telephone linemen, and
World War II: Another great uncle, 2LT Elton Barry Arnett, was an infantry platoon leader with Co. C, 1/112th Infantry, 28th Infantry Division. A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge. As a substitute, a system of village strongpoints-each manned in about rifle company strength-was set up on the ridge line separating the Our and Clerf Rivers, which here is traced by the excellent north-south highway connecting St. Vith and Diekirch. Three-quarters of an hour later the regimental commander ordered the artillery to displace behind the river; Colonel Fairchild moved the battalion across the river without losing a piece and immediately resumed firing. The total impact of the severe German blows dealt the 110th Infantry in the late afternoon and evening of 17 December was not felt at the division and corps headquarters for several hours. Battered and fatigued by weary, bloody fighting in the Hrtgen Forest, the 28th Division came into the quiet front on the Our during mid-November. To complete the concentration against the enemy in or around Marnach, Colonel Fuller ordered the medium tank platoon in Munshausen to attack to the northeast with a rifle platoon from Company C. When Fuller heard of the light tanks, he ordered Colonel Henbest to delay the 2d Battalion attack next morning until the incoming tank detachment was ready to attack on the Skyline Drive. At Hosingen, on the ridge road, Company D and Company B were fighting German infantry hand to hand inside the village. trusted officers set feverishly to work on plans for Christrose,
The 14th Parachute Regiment, which had been moving slowly westward (the 5th Parachute Division commander ascribed its dilatory movement to the habit of attacking small villages in order to have billets for the cold December nights), entered the fight via a climb onto the eastern ridge overlooking the town. or German bank of the Our River. Company B, on the extreme north flank, had been forced back into the 424th Infantry area, but about 235 men withdrew cross-country toward Ouren. There the American tank platoon from Company B, 707th Tank Battalion, hit into the German flank while attempting to reach Weiler and, it would appear, caused disorganization and confusion. The roads in the
The 3rd Battalion of the 395th Infantry Regiment (3/395), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler, occupied the town of Hfen on the German border. The regimental command post staff left Ouren even while the enemy was filtering into the village and moved to Weiswampach. To the east, at Dasburg, the German engineers were straining to finish the tank bridge which would bring the German armor into play. Early in the afternoon of 18 December a radio message finally arrived at the division command post asking that the regiment be given instructions. (Strickler made it to the latter point where General Cota placed him in charge of the defense.) The origins of the 1st Battle Group are derived from the 112th Infantry Regiment in which it was . By 1315 the howitzers around Welchenhausen again were firing at their minimum range. The other Altoona unit was mustered into federal service for home station duty during World War II as Battery B, 200th Field Artillery. The town itself lies in a horseshoe bend of the river. The 109th and 112th were in like status. Both Luettwitz and Manteuffel had been "promised" air support. In fact, detachments of the 39th Regiment had crossed the Skyline Drive unobserved and were moving in to surprise Holzthum. 107th Field Artillery Battalion (105 Howitzer) . In 1951, a rampant lion as found on the arms of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg grasping a red cross of the province of Lorraine in France were added to the old coat of arms of the 112th Infantry Regiment. The regimental commander believed that morale had been restored to a high degree and that the new officers and men now were fairly well trained. 116th Infantry Regiment. New York: William Morrow and Co., 1985. 112th Infantry Regiment. To the south Company I held Weiler-les-Putscheid, a hamlet in a knot of trails and byroads on the forward slopes of the ridge line. The seven tanks counted here strangely enough made no effort to attack (perhaps the rough terrain and dragon's teeth along the American bunker line did not appear too promising) . The regimental cannon company also provided some interested spectators, who trained their howitzers on Heinerscheid with such good effect that enemy records take rueful note of this harassing fire from the north. The 28ID is the oldest continuously serving division in the United States Army. From town and river rise wooded and precipitous slopes, particularly sharp and difficult to the east. For some reason the tank platoon sent from the 707th had not reached the Company I area when night fell. The enemy attempt to capture or destroy the American command posts, kitchens, and observation posts was only partially successful, although the grenadier assault parties were well inside the 3d Battalion positions when day broke. The refused positions of the 2d Battalion allowed fairly free use of a regimental reserve during both days and good counterattack plans were ready. The battalion is assigned to the 56th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 28th Infantry Division, Pennsylvania Army National Guard. 125th Infantry Regiment. Shortly before dark the 60-ton bridges were completed at Gemnd and Dasburg (inexperienced engineers and the difficulties attendant on moving the heavy structures down to the river bed had slowed construction markedly), and the German tanks and assault guns moved across to give the coup de grce to the villages still defended by the 110th Infantry. Late in the afternoon, Colonel Fuller had ordered Company D, a platoon of heavy machine guns, and a provisional rifle company hastily assembled from men on pass in Clerf, to move to Reuler and protect Battery B of the 109th Field Artillery Battalion, then firing in support of the troops in Marnach and very hard pressed by the enemy. The Americans had taken 186 prisoners and killed or wounded two or three times that number; the losses in the 1130th Regiment were "very high," said the enemy reports. In 1947, the Lewistown unit was redesignated Headquarters and Service Battery, 176th Field Artillery Battalion. The Americans lined up in German formation and, while an officer shouted commands in German, marched boldly across the bridge. Arriving in France in late Spring 1918 . The 26th Volks Grenadier Division, having completed its initial mission by seizing an undamaged bridge across the Clerf at Drauffelt during the night, made way for the Panzer Lehr Division to strike for Bastogne. the code name for the coming offensive. The 28th Division got caught in the Battle of the Bulge and endured many casualties. Two company kitchens were captured and one or two observation posts cut off, but the artillery observer inside Sevenig was able to direct the 229th Field Artillery howitzers onto the Germans in the draw. Infantry of the 26th Volks Grenadier Division took over the attack on the northeast (probably the 39th Volks Grenadier Regiment). Luettwitz turned the Geilenkirchen sector over to the
The latter consisted of three divisions. It is impossible to assess in hours the violence done the 2d Panzer Division timetable at Clerf, but it is clear that the race by this division to Bastogne was lost as the result of the gallant action by the 110th Infantry in front of and at the Clerf crossings. The year 1921 saw many changes in unit designation: Bellefonte was redesignated Troop B, 52nd Machine Gun Squadron, the Altoona unit was redesignated as Company G. During 1921, Company D, 1st Pennsylvania Engineers was organized. As the column turned northwest on the main Bastogne highway enemy fire increased; some in the column turned back from the gantlet in hopes of finding another escape route by retracing their steps through Wiltz. Organized by Pennsylvania in 1878, the division was made up of units that had already earned battle streamers for contributions in conflicts from the American Revolution to the Civil War. The sector designated for the XLVII Panzer Corps breakthrough was held by the 1st and 3d Battalions of the 110th Infantry (28th Infantry Division), commanded by Col. Hurley E. Fuller. going in the West Wall maze north of Ltzkampen and the initial
The regiment was again called to active federal service on 17 February 1941, 10 months prior to the attack on Pearl Harbor. One rifle regiment and part of the division engineers were still in Denmark. 126th Infantry Regiment. On the afternoon of the 16th the division commander had loaned Neslon the light tank company of the 707th Tank Battalion, but after a sweep through the 1st Battalion area in which not a shot was fired the tanks recrossed the river. Finally, after a grueling battle in the Baranw-Warsaw sector the division was relieved for the first time since the beginning of the Russian campaign and brought back to Poznan, there receiving the title of Volks Grenadier (regarded as somewhat less than an honor by the survivors of the old regular army 26th Infantry Division). While elements of the 26th Volks Grenadier Division were attacking on the north side of the Wiltz, detachments of the 5th Parachute Division struck the American perimeter on the south and southeast. Tanks, ordered up from the division reserve, had not yet arrived. German tanks opened fire on them, but a direct hit stopped the leading Mark IV, for the moment effectively blocking the serpentine approach from Marnach. Company B and a platoon of the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion were well entrenched there and gave the Germans a warm reception, although themselves under fire from batteries east of the Our. or support the 3d Battalion, 110th Infantry, fighting at Consthum. and maneuver was possible. In a matter of minutes the left company ran into a strong German skirmish line, deployed at the edge of a wood, which was supported by tanks and self-propelled artillery firing from around Marnach.