The division fought in the Ardennes, inflicting on the 106th US Infantry Division the worst defeat suffered by U.S. forces in the ETO, when over 8,000 US soldiers surrendered to the volksgrenadiers. The tanks of the 14th Tank Battalion and the half-tracks of the 27th AIB paused to pick up the foot elements of the 424th RCT, 106th Infantry Division. On the morning of the December 20, three tank destroyers were placed in support of Company C, 27th AIB. How to use 'poor shape' in a sentence? Rodt was garrisoned by the service company of the 48th AIB and some drivers belonging to the battalion whose vehicles were parked there. 47. At daybreak on December 21, the Germans launched their first assault of the day on CCB, 9th Armored. The message was that his command was now back with VIII Corps and that he was to go to St. Vith and report to Maj. Gen. Alan W. Jones, commander of the newly arrived 106th Infantry Division. As each unit joined the rear of the column, it took its turn being the rear guard. Volksgrenadier-Division; 18. When you get surprised like this, you become cautious.Undoubtedly much, if not most, of the armor encountered by Manteuffels probing actions during the early days of the German offensive belonged to CCB, 9th Armored Division. How about a Tiger II? Together they broke up the attack. Yeah but Panthers rear and side armor is very weak, so its completely different story. Manteuffel answered, We estimated that we were up against a division, and perhaps against an entire corps. These German tanks would later be specified to be Panzer IVs or Mark IVs. This leads to a second candidate, the StuG III. Six paved or macadam roads converged at St. Vith, but none of these was considered by the Germans to be a major military trunk line. First-time contributor Charles Gutierrez is the son of a 9th Armored Division veteran. En route, the officer was approached by a member of General Clarkes staff who told him that German tanks were approaching St. Vith along the road from the north. It contained the 293., 294. and 295. grenadier regiments, Panzerjger-Bataillon 1818, Pionier-Bataillon 1818, Fsilier-Bataillon 1818 and Artillerie-Regiment 1818.[1]. Armour Plate Porforation [sic: Perforation] of Tank and Anti Tank Guns. Revised Edition, Arms and Armour Press, 1973. No one knew what was happening. But if four versions was not enough, there is potentially another version of this tale contained in a combat interview given by Lieutenant Arthur A. Olson of Troop D, 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron on the 8th of January, 1945. VGD) was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army (Heer) during the Second World War, active from 1944 to 1945.
Design, Production & Modifications. Boylan, Vincent L. After Action Report, Month of December, 1944. A mobile battalion of the 18th Volksgrenadier Division was already moving on Andler to seize the Schoenberg bridge and the road to St. Vith. United States 106th Infantry Division on the 16th and 17th of December 1944 (the first two days of the battle of the Ardennes were as follows: 1.
The fall of Rodt effectively split 7th Armoreds CCA from General Clarkes CCB. Although the American forces in the St. Vith area came under command of General Ridgways XVIII Airborne Corps, the Airborne Corps itself was under the command of Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, overall commander of the northern sector of the Bulge. Not to mention that the M8s 37 mm M6 gun is more than capable of penetrating the rear hull armor of the Panzer IV, which was only 20 mm thick angled at 10 degrees. Task Force Jones and the 112th Infantry eventually found their way into 82nd Airborne Division lines during the night of the 24th, but not before the units suffered heavy losses. Cole, Hugh M. The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge. The fight lasted for more than three hours before the Germans withdrew, leaving one burning tank and approximately 150 dead. The division was formed in Denmark, in September 1944, by redesignating 571. A second attempt on the bridge, made by about 40 men four hours later, was also thrown back by machine-gun fire. Additionally, the M8s 37 mm M6 gun is more than capable of penetrating the rear hull and rear casemate armor of the StuG III. The U.S. 9th Armored Division arrived in the European Theater of Operations in late October 1944 as a reserve for Maj. Gen. Division 4.
18th Volksgrenadier Division | Detailed Pedia At approximately 0530 on December 16, eight German armored divisions and 13 infantry divisions launched their all-out attack on five divisions of the U.S. First Army. Hoge and Clarke agreed that Hoges entire command should be withdrawn west of the railroad tracks. The Battle at St. Vith, Belgium 17-23 December 1944 An Historical Example of Armor in the Defense. The platoon lost four men missing and two wounded in the ensuing engagement. On February 5, 1945 General Walter Botsch took over command of the division. Armored Champion, The Top Tanks of World War II. An appropriate start for the investigation of this action is to identify contemporary American accounts. At CCB, 9th Armored Divisions headquarters in Faymonville, General Hoge was just finishing up his briefing for his commands move to the Losheim Gap and Manderfeld when the call came through from General Jones informing him of 9th Armoreds new Winterspelt mission. Jentz, Thomas. The guns of two platoons of Company A, 811th Tank Destroyers were overrun. However, once a closer look is taken at this story, cracks begin to appear, and soon enough one begins to wonder whether or not this story really is too good to be true. Your email address will not be published. To this end, General Hoge was in the town of Monschau to check on the possibility of getting his command across in that area. Infanterie-Division . Volksgrenadier-Division. Lieutenant Colonel Boylan also makes no mention of this event in a 1946 letter he wrote to Major General Robert W. Hasbrouck, the former commanding general of the 7th Armored Division, which details the actions of the 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron at the Battle of St. Vith. Established in 1941, the unit was deployed in German-occupied areas of the Soviet Union, in the Army Group North Rear Area. Engeman set out with two task forces to meet the enemy. Beevor, Antony. However, there is one major issue with this explanation, Panzer IVs were not attacking Troop B. Fortunately for Colonel Reid, word came at about 1730 that his 424th Infantry Regiment was to withdraw immediately. Jentz, Thomas, and Hilary Doyle. What Jones did not tell Hoge was that in one of those regiments his own son was serving at regimental headquarters.
WWII Pictures on Twitter: "Soldiers of the 18th Volksgrenadier Division General Jones wanted Hoge to use the infantry of his 27th AIB to seize the series of hills near Winterspelt while the 14th Tank Battalion was to remain west of the Our River for use as the situation developed. Hoge pointedly asked Ridgway how it could be done. At the close of the first day of battle, General Lucht could look with some satisfaction at the days events, although his 62nd Volksgrenadier Division had yet to break through the American line. Gen. Herbert T. Perrin, assistant commander of the 106th Infantry Division, drove up carrying a message from General Jones. The two task forces held onto their respective positions on N23 and N27, deflecting all German armored attempts to penetrate St. Vith, until they were relieved late in the afternoon by CCB, 7th Armored Division. Under the command of Gnther Hoffmann-Schnborn, the new division absorbed elements of the 18th Luftwaffe Field Division. General Hoge moved his command post to Commanster. On February 5, 1945 General Walter Botsch took over command of the division. Once the bridge at Steinebruck was seized, the 62nd was to support the 18th Volksgrenadier Divisions drive on St. Vith by blocking the western and southern routes in and out of the town. Inside the command post, General Hoge learned that the Germans had launched a heavy assault on Winterspelt against the men of the 424th Infantry. During the rest of the day and on into the evening of December 17, CCB, 7th Armored moved into St. Vith and began a buildup that resembled a large horseshoe on the high ground to the east of the village. Close. Bergstrm, Christer.
WAR DEPARTMENT - Indiana Military Plastic Models - Page 8 - Esswex Hobbies Sturmpanzer.com - Sturmpanzer and WW2 German Army Research Hunnicutt, R. P. Armored Car A History of American Wheeled Combat Vehicles. Slayden had been sent to Jones by Middleton as an adviser until the 106th Division could become acclimated. Out of this grand battle would come a too-good-to-be-true story symbolic of the stiff American resistance put up against the German offensive, that of how an M8 Greyhound armored car destroyed a Tiger I heavy tank. That cold snap that hit us has frozen the roads. Encyclopedia of German tanks of World War Two. Company C, 27th AIB withdrew under heavy artillery and sniper fire but managed to destroy a number of German vehicles. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army during the Second World War, active from 1944 to 1945. #WW2 . At approximately 0930 on December 17, B Company was the first 9th Armored Division unit to cross the Our River. . The defense of St. Vith was now achieving some kind of order in contrast to the chaos that had reigned during the previous three days. The last Tiger II belonged to Schwere Panzer Abteilung 506 (Heavy Tank Battalion 506) and was lost to enemy fire on the Lentzweiler road in Luxemburg. This article already explains ballistics and mentions that while Panther was vulnerable to lower-caliber AT guns, the Tigers were almost immune to them. Staff Sergeant Frank Mykalo knocked out a German machine-gun position, enabling the men in the lead half-tracks to dismount and deploy along the side of the road. Back in the 1970s I worked with a man who told this story, he claimed he was the driver.
Battle of the Bulge order of battle | Military Wiki | Fandom Tigers In Combat II. 301 sentences with 'poor shape'. According to British penetration diagrams from 1944, the 37 mm M6 gun firing its standard round, the 37 mm APC M51, could, under ideal conditions, penetrate the 80 mm thick rear hull armor angled at 9 degrees when firing at an angle of 0 degrees, albeit just barely. Looking at German records The Fhrerbegleit Brigade with one Panzerabteilung of four companies of Pzkw IV and a Sturmgeschutzabteilung with four batteries of StuG III were in reserve assembled in the area around Daun on the 17th and not yet in action only beginning to move up at 1600H on the 18th. Created as 22.Infanterie-Division in 1935, one regiment participated in the 1939 Invasion of Poland; the rest of the division stayed in garrison on the Siegfried Line in case of a French attack in defense of Poland. The German tank then stopped dead in its tracks and shuddered; there was a muffled explosion, followed by flames which billowed out of the turret and engine ports. On December 16th at 4:00 a.m., they took the twenty-two foot macadam road following the Our River valley towards Manderfield. 13th Flak Division 651 . Inform us! The fortified goose egg ran nearly 10 miles in diameter, containing a mass of forest and only one decent road running northwest to southwest. It contained the 293., 294. and 295. grenadier regiments, Panzerjger-Bataillon 1818, Pionier-Bataillon 1818, Fsilier-Bataillon 1818 and Artillerie-Regiment 1818.[1]. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. It is possible that, as part of the attacks on the line held in part by Troop B of the 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, a lone StuG III was used to probe out the American line, as had been done on the previous day, and was subsequently knocked out by an M8 Greyhound. At 0200 on December 22, the Fhrer Escort Brigade launched its attack against the town of Rodt, a small village west of St. Vith. 560th Volks Grenadier Division (15-29 Dec. 1944) and 12th VGD (1-28 Jan. 1945). Schneider, Wolfgang. During the assault, B Company suffered about 40 casualties including its commanding officer, Captain Henry D. Wirsig. I should also note that reconnaissance doctrine was to disengage if at all possible and in no way engage enemy armour beyond scout elements. Furthermore, late-war Panzer IVs equipped with Schrzen additional armor would look bigger, even closer to the size of a Tiger and this is before consideration is made on the stress of war, camouflaging materials applied to vehicles, the weather, and level of knowledge of the crews.