The Schnee Eifel and the 106th Infantry Division

At 0905 on 17 December 1944 (the records use the 24-hour military clock, so 0905 is 9:05 a.m.), a report reached the 106th Infantry Division command post in St. Vith that German troops driving north from the village of Bleialf had pushed the 423rd Infantry back and joined hands with another German force at Schönberg, a crossing of the Our River behind the American line. With that junction, as Hugh Cole wrote in the Army’s official history, the German plan of envelopment had succeeded: the 422nd and 423rd Infantry Regiments were encircled on and behind the Schnee Eifel ridge (Cole, ch. VII, p. 164).

The division had been in the line five days. Two days later most of both regiments were prisoners. For the wider campaign, see the Battle of the Bulge hub.

By the numbers

The Schnee Eifel at a glance

• 5 daysin the line before the attackrelief of the 2nd Infantry Division, 11–12 Dec
• 21+ milesof front for the division and the 14th Cavalry Groupabout 18 miles in a straight line
• 8,000–9,000Americans bottled up by dark on 17 DecCole's estimate
• ≤150men of the 422nd Infantry who got back to American linesCole's figure
• 1Medal of Honor connected to the divisionEdmonds, for his conduct as a POW, awarded 2 Mar 2026

Why it mattered

Cole called the Schnee Eifel battle “the most serious reverse suffered by American arms during the operations of 1944-45 in the European theater” (p. 170). It also opened the roads to St. Vith, leaving engineers, cavalry and the arriving 7th Armored Division to hold them, the story of Chapter 5.

The Germans needed St. Vith early, Cole explains, partly to seal off any troops trapped on the Schnee Eifel (ch. XII, p. 272). As long as the regiments held out, the corps that had trapped them had to watch them.

Terrain and objectives

Three ridges run northeast to southwest out of the Eifel plateau; the forested middle one is the Schnee Eifel. At its western foot lies the Losheim Gap, a narrow valley of abrupt hills with villages tucked into draws. To the south the ridge ends at the valley of the Alf, a small creek bending toward Prüm (Cole, pp. 137–138). Autumn attacks had taken part of the West Wall (the German border fortifications) on the crest, leaving an exposed salient. Middleton, the VIII Corps commander, was under pressure from higher headquarters to keep it for a later drive toward Bonn (p. 140); Cirillo adds that Bradley refused his request to pull back to a shorter line (Cirillo, p. 13).

The roads decided everything. Cole lists four routes an attacker could use, and all four were used: Hallschlag–Manderfeld–Schönberg; Roth–Auw; Prüm–Bleialf–Schönberg; and Pronsfeld–Winterspelt–Steinebrück. They crossed the Our at Andler, Schönberg and Steinebrück and funneled into St. Vith (p. 141). Each circled one end of the ridge. Troops on the crest held commanding ground, but the roads behind them belonged to whoever held the ends.

The two main roads were macadam, about 22 feet wide, winding through blind turns and narrow village streets (p. 137). St. Vith, a town of a little over 2,000 people about 12 miles behind the front, was the knot where six paved roads met (ch. XII, p. 272).

A new division on an old front

Arrival and the relief in place

Activated at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, in March 1943, the 106th then lost about 60 percent of its enlisted men to replacement demands before and after D-Day (Cole, p. 140). Sources differ on when it sailed: Cole says 20 October 1944 (p. 139); the Army’s current unit history says it went overseas on 10 November, reached England on 17 November and moved to France on 6 December. Col. Charles C. Cavender of the 423rd wrote that his regimental combat team drove about 270 miles to St. Vith in two days from 8 December, in bitter cold and snow (The CUB, 1946).

The relief was a rotation in the plainest sense: the veteran 2nd Infantry Division came out to attack the Roer River dams, and the 106th took over its positions under orders, as Cavender recalled them, to take over “man for man, and job for job.” His regiment finished relieving the 38th Infantry at 1700 on 11 December; the division-wide relief was complete a day later. The newcomers inherited log dugouts with stoves, a wire net reaching almost every squad (though few sound-powered telephones of their own), and the 2nd Division’s plan to shorten the line in an emergency and free a regimental combat team for a counterattack in the north (Cole, p. 140).

What they had, and what they lacked

The details that mattered later were small and cold. The 422nd, last to draw overshoes, already had trench foot cases by 15 December. Carbine and bazooka rounds seem to have been short, the nearest ammunition supply point was more than 40 miles away at Noville, and the antitank mines Jones requested never arrived. Veteran divisions by then carried far more automatic weapons than their tables allowed; the 106th had only the regulation issue (Cole, p. 141).

The division and the attached 14th Cavalry Group held more than 21 miles. The cavalry manned eight village garrisons across the Losheim Gap. The 422nd held the West Wall on the crest, its command post at Schlausenbach. The 423rd continued along the ridge, then bent back toward Bleialf, its open wing filled by a provisional battalion of antitank gunners, cannoneers and a cavalry troop. The 424th held six miles to the southwest (pp. 138, 151).

Devine’s cavalry group had taken over the gap only on 11 December. Its 18th Squadron held the villages mostly in platoon strength among uncharted minefields; its 32nd Squadron was refitting near Vielsalm with no specific plan for its use (Cole, pp. 138–139).

Across the line, General Lucht’s LXVI Corps planned a double envelopment on the classic model of Cannae. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division (a late-war infantry division, formed that September partly from Luftwaffe and Navy men) would pass both ends of the ridge and meet at Schönberg, leaving about 200 replacements to screen the heights. The untried 62nd Volksgrenadier Division would break through at Winterspelt toward Steinebrück (pp. 142–144). In place of tanks the corps had an assault gun brigade of forty guns, and in the nights before the attack the Germans built ramps over the West Wall’s dragon’s teeth so the guns could climb across (pp. 143–145). German patrols had found an unoccupied 2,000-yard stretch between Roth and Weckerath (p. 144).

Timeline

From England to the cage: the 106th Division, 17 November–22 December 1944

Times use the 24-hour military clock. Where accounts differ, the source is named.

1. 17 Nov

   The division arrives in England (U.S. Army unit history).

2. 1–6 Dec

   Crossing to France. The Army history gives 6 December for the division; Col. Cavender's account has the 423rd's headquarters ashore near Le Havre by 1 December.

3. 8–10 Dec

   Regimental Combat Team 423 drives about 270 miles to St. Vith in two days, in cold and snow (Cavender).

4. 11 Dec · 1700

   The 423rd completes its daytime relief of the 2nd Division's 38th Infantry (Cavender). The division-wide relief is complete on 12 December (Cole).

5. 16 Dec · 0530

   LXVI Corps guns, rocket launchers and mortars open on the 106th Division (Cole, p. 152).

6. 16 Dec · c. 1630

   The cut-off cavalry garrison at Kobscheid breaks out; 61 men walk to St. Vith, arriving 19 December (p. 149).

7. 16 Dec · night

   The division reserve, 2nd Battalion, 423rd Infantry, takes the wrong road south, leaving the northern approach to Schönberg open (p. 156).

8. 17 Dec · 0530–0900

   The 293rd Regiment retakes Bleialf within an hour; about 0900 its lead troops meet the northern force near Schönberg. The report reaches St. Vith at 0905 (pp. 164–165).

9. 17 Dec · 1445

   Division radios an order to withdraw to the Our. It reaches the regiments about midnight, by then judged out of date (pp. 166–167).

10. 17 Dec · 1730

    The 424th Infantry receives its withdrawal order and crosses the Our that night with CCB, 9th Armored Division (p. 160).

11. 18 Dec · 0215

    Jones orders the regiments to destroy a German column from positions south of the Schönberg–St. Vith road. The order arrives 0730–0800; the march west begins at 1000 (p. 167).

12. 18 Dec · c. 1200

    Armored engineers blow the Steinebrück bridge on Brig. Gen. Hoge's order (ch. XII, p. 284).

13. 18 Dec · 1535

    Last radio message out of the pocket: the regiments have started to comply. St. Vith receives it the next morning (p. 171).

14. 19 Dec · 1000–1630

    The 423rd's 3rd Battalion attacks toward Schönberg. At 1430 Descheneaux decides to surrender the trapped part of the 422nd, complete about 1600; Cavender surrenders the 423rd about 1630 (pp. 168–170).

15. 21 Dec · morning

    Maj. Albert A. Ouellette's group of about 400 surrenders (p. 170).

16. 22 Dec

    The airdrop mission, grown to 138 planeloads, is canceled to support Bastogne (p. 172).

16 December: both jaws move

The Losheim Gap

German shock companies moved toward the cavalry about 0400, and the LXVI Corps guns opened on the 106th at 0530 (Cole, pp. 145, 152). Nowhere else on the American front, Cole judged, did the enemy so outnumber the defenders: two regiments, forty assault guns and a reinforced tank destroyer battalion against one cavalry troop and a platoon of another (p. 145). Cirillo calls it the offensive’s “greatest overmatch” (p. 17). In fog and drizzle the attackers slipped between the garrisons toward Auw. Cole has Auw in German hands when light tanks tried to reach Roth at about 0830; the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion’s own account puts the first fire at Auw around 0930 (Cole, p. 146; 81st Engineer citation narrative).

Some garrisons fought hard; at Krewinkel troopers held their fire until a German company was twenty yards from the wire (p. 147). At Kobscheid, cut off, the troopers held until about 1630; then 61 men under 1st Lt. Lorenz Herdrick set out cross-country through the snow and reached St. Vith on 19 December (p. 149). Devine’s request for an infantry counterattack was refused “at this time” (p. 148). By evening, after Manderfeld was burned to deny its records to the enemy, the cavalry was back on a Holzheim–Andler line (p. 150).

Auw and the guns

Company A of the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion was billeted at Auw and had turned out that morning, as usual, to work on the roads. It fought the German column with machine guns until self-propelled guns shelled it out. Cpl. Edward S. Withee (a technician fifth grade in the battalion’s records) stayed behind with a submachine gun to cover his platoon’s dash across an open field; he was captured and awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (p. 155, n. 6; 81st Engineer citation narrative). The Germans then turned on the 589th and 592nd Field Artillery Battalions southwest of the village. The cannoneers fired with the shortest fuzes possible and stalked assault guns with bazookas, knocking out three; late in the afternoon artillery and mortar fire cost Battery A of the 592nd 36 men (p. 156).

Jones sent his reserve, the 2nd Battalion of the 423rd under Lt. Col. Joseph F. Puett, to Schönberg. Ordered that night to attack and cover the 422nd’s open flank, apparently by turning north toward Andler, it took the wrong road in the dark and went south, leaving the northern approach to Schönberg open (p. 156).

Bleialf and the 424th

In the south the German 293rd Regiment broke into Bleialf, the key to the southern road. The 423rd’s service, cannon and headquarters companies and Company B of the 81st Engineers cleared it by 1500 in house-to-house fighting (pp. 154–155). The 424th checked the 62nd Volksgrenadier Division at Heckhuscheid, where a sortie led by Capt. Lee Berwick took 107 prisoners (p. 153), though Germans pushed into Winterspelt that night. 2nd Lt. Crawford Wheeler, a platoon leader in the 424th’s cannon company, was killed facing an assault gun with a bazooka (p. 154; The CUB, Nov. 1951). The 591st Field Artillery Battalion fired more than 2,600 rounds that day, nearly all its ammunition (p. 154). That night division intelligence predicted that the enemy could pinch off the Schnee Eifel from both flanks “at any time” (p. 157).

What the commanders knew

The decision not to withdraw is the most disputed point. On the evening of the 16th Middleton told Jones the position was untenable unless its north flank could be “heavily protected.” When Jones raised a pullback, Middleton left it to the commander on the spot and hung up expecting a withdrawal. A later corps order barred withdrawal unless positions became completely untenable, and armor had been promised. Jones kept the regiments in place (Cole, p. 161). Cirillo calls it mixed signals, each general believing the other wanted something different (p. 19).

The “hold at all costs” line drawn to accompany the corps order ran along the west bank of the Our, while all nine of Jones’s rifle battalions were east of the river (p. 161). And the armor was not where Jones thought it was. Middleton told him that CCB of the 7th Armored Division would reach St. Vith by 0700 on the 17th; Lt. Col. W. M. Slayden of the corps staff, present for the call, later said he should have warned Jones that the corps commander was “over optimistic” (p. 158). A revised estimate of 1400 reached corps at 0500 on the 17th (ch. XII, p. 275); the first elements arrived in midafternoon (Cirillo, p. 22).

17 December: the ring closes

At 0530 on the 17th the 293rd retook Bleialf within an hour, and about 0900 its leading troops met a battalion of the 294th near Schönberg (p. 165). Troop B of the 32nd Cavalry Squadron had already been pushed out of Schönberg, a loss Cole calls decisive (pp. 162–163). Puett’s battalion, blocked by German tanks, could move only east, into the pocket (pp. 164–165).

The guns went first. Battery C of the 589th Field Artillery bogged down and its howitzers were destroyed where they lay; the rest of the battalion was ambushed south of Schönberg, and only three howitzers reached St. Vith, later to fight at Baraque de Fraiture (Chapter 8). The 590th, blocked by the same tanks, turned back into the pocket (p. 164).

By dark Cole counts “some eight or nine thousand Americans” bottled up, with rifle ammunition but only about 300 rounds for the 590th Field Artillery’s howitzers, about a day’s extra rations, and surgical supplies very short. The 422nd reported only forty wounded for evacuation (p. 166).

The 424th was not trapped. Reid held until 1730, when a liaison officer brought Jones’s order to withdraw. That night the regiment and CCB of the 9th Armored Division (a combat command, the brigade-sized armored task force of an armored division) crossed to the west bank of the Our (p. 160).

Engineer's eye

Three bridges on the Our

Every road around the Schnee Eifel crossed the Our River at one of three bridges, at Andler, Schönberg and Steinebrück, before funneling into St. Vith (Cole, p. 141). Whoever held them held the back door to the ridge. Tiger tanks of the 506th Heavy Panzer Battalion rolled through Andler at daybreak on 17 December, and the 18th Volksgrenadier Division had Schönberg that morning (pp. 162–163). The 81st Engineer Combat Battalion had a company billeted in Schönberg; its own award narrative says the town and its bridge were under heavy shelling on the first morning.

Steinebrück was the last of the three in American hands. After the 424th Infantry and CCB, 9th Armored Division, pulled back over the river, the bridge was left standing on the 18th because there was still some hope that the 423rd might come out that way. About noon, with German infantry closing on the far bank, a platoon of armored engineers blew it on Hoge's order (ch. XII, p. 284). By the night of 19–20 December the Germans had built a division bridge beside the wreck (p. 292).

A demolition is a decision about who will be left on the far side. At Steinebrück the decision was delayed as long as the situation allowed. The regiments in the pocket never got close enough to use the bridge.

Orders by artillery radio

With the wire cut, messages went over the artillery radio net, slowly and with much repetition. An order sent at 0945 on the 17th to withdraw “if they become untenable” was delayed in transit. An order sent at 1445 to withdraw to the Our arrived about midnight, when the regimental commanders thought it overtaken by promises of airdrop (Cole, pp. 165–167). At 0215 on the 18th Jones ordered them to destroy a German column by fire “from dug in positions S of Schönberg-St. Vith Rd”; the regiments received it around 0730–0800 (p. 167). Cirillo says the regiments understood they were to break out to high ground behind the Our, three to four miles away (pp. 22–23).

The airdrop never came, though the request went in early. At 1051 on the 17th the 423rd radioed for one, and by 1345 St. Vith was promising a drop near Buchet “tonight” (p. 171). The 435th Troop Carrier Group at Welford, England, was told early on the 18th to prepare forty planeloads of ammunition and medical supplies. Twenty-three C-47s reached the air over Florennes, Belgium, but the field was too busy to take them. The group commander and his wingman landed and found no briefing, no drop coordinates and no fighter escort. The group sat at Dreux, France, while the mission went on and off; grown to 138 planeloads, it was canceled on 22 December to support Bastogne (pp. 171–172).

Cole concluded that “fixed responsibility and coordination were lacking,” and that supplies had to come from the United Kingdom even though Allied troops stood on the German border. He also records that Jones did all he could, and that the weather allowed flying on the 18th, when the drop was most needed (pp. 171–172).

18–19 December: toward Schönberg

The regiments set out at 1000 on the 18th, abreast but in touch only by patrol. Near the Bleialf–Schönberg road Puett’s battalion hit Germans about 1130 and began pushing them back, until Jones radioed that the armored relief was off and the regiments should take Schönberg. Puett’s call for help went unanswered and the attack stalled. That night the 423rd gathered on Ridge 536 southeast of Schönberg after some 300 casualties, including 16 officers, with no 81-mm. mortar rounds left (pp. 167–168). The 422nd, navigating by map, bivouacked about three miles from Schönberg rather than the mile and a half it believed (pp. 168–169).

On the morning of the 19th German guns swept the 423rd’s ridge and infantry overran the 590th Field Artillery behind it. Lt. Col. William Craig of the 1st Battalion was mortally wounded (Cole dates his death to the 18th, Cavender to the barrage of the 19th). Lt. Col. Earl F. Klinck’s 3rd Battalion still attacked at 1000, and two companies reached the edge of Schönberg before antiaircraft fire drove them back. With five to ten rounds per rifleman, no supporting weapons, and wounded beyond the reach of the regimental surgeon, Maj. Gaylord D. Fridline, and his staff, Cavender surrendered the 423rd about 1630 (p. 168). (Cavender’s account says 1600.)

The 422nd’s leading companies were hit by machine gun and tank fire at the Bleialf–Auw road, and its left flank mistook a 423rd movement for a German attack and fired into it (pp. 169–170). About 1400 tanks approached from the north. They were German: the Führer Begleit Brigade, moving up to support the attack on St. Vith. At 1430 Descheneaux decided to surrender the trapped part of his regiment; after securing German assurances of food and care for the wounded, the surrender was complete about 1600. Most of the regiment’s vehicle column tried to break out through Bleialf late that afternoon and was stopped by a minefield at the edge of the village. Maj. Albert A. Ouellette reorganized about 400 men, who were surrounded and surrendered on the morning of 21 December. No more than 150 men of the 422nd reached American lines (p. 170).

In their words

Though my spirit revolted against such a decision, surrender seemed to be the only solution to avoid needless loss of life and further suffering.

Col. George L. Descheneaux Jr., commanding the 422nd Infantry, in a letter to former members of the regiment, 20 August 1945

Into captivity

Cole’s last image of the regiments is of men “marching into German captivity” (p. 172). The 422nd’s executive officer, Lt. Col. Joseph C. Matthews Jr., wrote in September 1945 that most of the regiment was marched about 50 kilometers to Gerolstein, then moved deeper into Germany on foot or by boxcar, many of them to Stalag IX-B at Bad Orb.

A War Department Military Intelligence Service report of November 1945, built from interrogations of returned prisoners, describes one column bound for Bad Orb: 985 Americans captured in the first two days, marched four days and fed once, then packed sixty to a boxcar at Gerolstein and locked in from 21 to 26 December. Eight men who jumped from the train were killed by a land mine. The report does not name their units, but Gerolstein is the route Matthews describes for the 422nd.

Allied air power was a danger too. The division association lists 1st Lt. Richard C. Diamon of the 422nd Infantry’s medical detachment as killed while a prisoner in the bombing of Limburg, site of Stalag XII-A, on 23 December (The CUB, Nov. 1951). The train carrying Kurt Vonnegut to Stalag IV-B was strafed and bombed on Christmas Eve (Guise, 2020).

At Bad Orb barracks held 290 to 500 men each, the fuel ration gave about an hour of heat a day, and the German ration had a paper value of 1,400 calories before it was cut further. Between 28 February and 1 April, 32 Americans died there of malnutrition and pneumonia (Military Intelligence Service report).

The Germans separated the ranks. On 25–26 January, 1,275 noncommissioned officers went from Bad Orb to Stalag IX-A at Ziegenhain (Military Intelligence Service report), where Roddie Edmonds took charge. Officers went east; Matthews wrote that some reached Poland, then marched in winter to Hammelburg, where a 4th Armored Division raid freed them on 27 March before most were recaptured. Jewish prisoners faced a separate danger. At Bad Orb a German officer put men he took to be Jewish in a separate barracks (Military Intelligence Service report), and in February about 350 prisoners from the camp, Jewish soldiers and men the guards called troublemakers, were sent to Berga, a subcamp of Buchenwald, for slave labor. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum records that 80 of them died or were killed there. That is the background to the order Edmonds refused at Ziegenhain.

Honors

The Schnee Eifel fighting produced no Medal of Honor; the division’s award tally in the Army Almanac (current to October 1948) lists six Distinguished Service Crosses and none. Its only Medal of Honor came eighty-one years after the war, for a stand made inside a prison camp.

Medal of Honor · Posthumous

Master Sgt. Roderick W. "Roddie" Edmonds

Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 422nd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division

27 January – 30 March 1945 · Stalag IX-A, Ziegenhain, Germany

Edmonds was captured with his regiment on 19 December 1944 and held first at Stalag IX-B, Bad Orb. On 25 January 1945 he and the other noncommissioned officers were moved to Stalag IX-A, where he became the senior American NCO in charge of more than 1,200 prisoners.

On the evening of 26 January the Germans ordered that only Jewish-American prisoners fall out for the next morning's roll call. Understanding that separating the more than 200 Jewish prisoners would likely mean their persecution and possible death, Edmonds had all 1,200 Americans fall out. The Army's account records his words to the German officer as "We are all Jews here." With a pistol pressed to his forehead, he cited the Geneva Convention, refused, and warned that shooting him would bring a war crimes prosecution. The officer lowered the weapon.

In March 1945, when the Germans tried to move the prisoners east, he organized repeated refusals that delayed the evacuation until the guards left the Americans behind. Soldiers of the Third Army reached the camp on 30 March 1945. The medal was presented to his son, Chris Edmonds, at the White House on 2 March 2026; Edmonds was inducted into the Pentagon's Hall of Heroes the next day.

Read the official citation →

Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust remembrance center, had already recognized Edmonds as Righteous Among the Nations on 10 February 2015, announcing it on 2 December 2015 and calling him the first American soldier so honored. Its file rests on testimony from two Jewish prisoners, Paul Stern and Lester Tanner; in its version Edmonds says “We are all Jews,” and the German officer is named as Major Siegmann. The medal was presented to his son in Washington on 27 January 2016 (Yad Vashem).

Distinguished Service Crosses and unit awards

• Cpl. (T/5) Edward S. Withee, Company A, 81st Engineer Combat Battalion: covered his platoon’s withdrawal at Auw, 16 December; captured (Cole, p. 155, n. 6).
• 1st Lt. A. L. Mills, Staff Sgt. Woodrow W. Reeves and Cpl. C. E. Statler, 18th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron (14th Cavalry Group, attached to the division): the village fights in the Losheim Gap, 16 December (Cole, p. 149, n. 5).
• 1st Lt. R. H. Thompson, 423rd Infantry: the attack toward Schönberg, 18 December (Cole, p. 167, n. 11).
• 1st Lt. Eric Fisher Wood Jr., executive officer of Battery A, 589th Field Artillery Battalion, posthumous. His citation says that when his section was cut off near Schönberg on 17 December he refused to surrender, escaped into the woods, and with other Americans behind German lines ambushed supply columns and patrols until he was killed (Military Times Hall of Valor). His date of death is uncertain: the War Department first listed 17 December; later accounts give 22 January 1945. The people of Meyerode placed a memorial cross where he was found (American Legion, 2020).
• Distinguished Unit Citations: the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion (16–23 December 1944) and the 3rd Platoon, Company F, 423rd Infantry (St. Vith, 17–23 December), per Adjutant General information printed by the association in 1951; the Army Almanac’s 1948 tally counts only one.
• Foreign awards: the Belgian Fourragère (1940) for the 424th Infantry and 591st Field Artillery Battalion (Decree 7253, 1950), and the French Croix de Guerre with silver-gilt star for the 589th Field Artillery Battalion (Decision 247, 1946) (The CUB, Nov. 1951).

People in the record

The 422nd’s and 423rd’s records were destroyed before capture, so much of this story rests on postwar interviews; Cole applied the rule “one witness, no witness” where he could (Cole, p. 136 and n. *).

• Pfc. Paul C. Rosenthal, a tank destroyer gunner supporting the 424th, is recorded by Cole as destroying five German tanks and a truck north of Lützkampen on 16 December with a 3-inch gun at 2,000 yards, using 18 rounds (p. 153).
• Pfc. Kurt Vonnegut, an intelligence scout in the 423rd, was captured on 19 December. His experience as a prisoner in Dresden became the basis of Slaughterhouse-Five (National WWII Museum).

These sources say almost nothing about civilians in the pocket. The border ran through the battlefield: Auw, Bleialf and Winterspelt are in Germany; Schönberg, Andler and St. Vith are in Belgium. Where Belgian civilians do appear, it is mostly as helpers: a Belgian farm family took in Lieutenant Wood and another soldier for a night after his escape (American Legion, 2020).

A family connection

The author’s grandfather, Capt. Bertram Carlos Finch Jr., served in Company A, 1st Battalion, 422nd Infantry. His personal timeline, reconstructed from family letters and Army records, is published separately in Bert and Dot: Two Timelines of the Battle of the Bulge. Nothing in this chapter places him at any specific place, time or event; the movements described above are the regiment’s as the official histories record them, not his documented location.

Losses and uncertainty

No exact count exists. The figures below measure different things and should not be added together. “Captured” means taken prisoner; “casualties” includes killed, wounded and missing.

Figure	What it counts	Source
8,000–9,000	Americans bottled up in the pocket on the night of 17 December	Cole, p. 166
At least 7,000; probably 8,000–9,000	Officers and men captured with the two regiments and attached units	Cole, p. 170
Over 7,000	Men captured	Cirillo, p. 23
416 killed, 1,246 wounded, 7,001 missing	Whole 106th Division, as announced by the War Department in early January 1945	The CUB, Aug. 1946
6,697	Prisoners reported by the 106th Division overall	National WWII Museum (Guise, 2020)
About 300, incl. 16 officers	423rd Infantry casualties in the 18 December attack	Cole, p. 168
About 400	Ouellette group, surrendered 21 December	Cole, p. 170
No more than 150	Men of the 422nd who escaped to American lines	Cole, p. 170
9 officers and about 70 men	Men of the 422nd neither killed nor captured	Matthews memorandum, 1945
About 100 killed, 750 wounded	422nd Infantry estimate, including deaths and injuries after capture	Matthews memorandum, 1945

Different measures

How many were captured? Four counts that should not be added

Each bar measures something different. Cole's and Cirillo's figures cover the two trapped regiments and attached units; the other two cover the whole division.

Cole: captured, minimum7,000 mentwo regiments and attached troops; 'probably closer to eight or nine thousand'

Cirillo: captured7,000 men'over 7,000 men were captured'

War Department, early Jan. 1945: missing7,001 menwhole division; most presumed prisoners

106th Division: prisoners reported6,697 menwhole division, as cited by the National WWII Museum

How many were captured? Four counts that should not be added

Cole: captured, minimum	7,000 men
Cirillo: captured	7,000 men
War Department, early Jan. 1945: missing	7,001 men
106th Division: prisoners reported	6,697 men

The first official count

106th Division losses as announced in early January 1945

Secretary of War Stimson's announcement, as recalled by a prisoner's father in the division association's magazine. It covers the whole division to that date; most of the missing were presumed prisoners.

14%81%

• Killed416
• Wounded1,246
• Missing in action7,001

8,663 killed, wounded and missing

106th Division losses as announced in early January 1945

Killed	416
Wounded	1,246
Missing in action	7,001

Cole and Cirillo agree on a floor of about 7,000; Cole’s estimate includes the attached artillery, engineer, medical, cavalry and tank destroyer units, and the sources do not explain the lower division-reported figure. Cirillo’s “battalion-sized group” appears to be Cole’s Ouellette group. Matthews’s escape count is lower than Cole’s ceiling of 150, which is an upper limit. Even the date varies: the Army’s 1948 combat chronicle gives 18 December; the detailed accounts place the surrenders on the 19th.

Myths and the record

“The 106th did not fight.” The record says otherwise: the 424th threw back the 62nd Volksgrenadier Division at Heckhuscheid, service troops and engineers retook Bleialf, the 589th’s and 592nd’s cannoneers fought assault guns at close range, and the 423rd attacked toward Schönberg two days running. Cole judged that outside the cavalry sector the odds “were not inordinate” (p. 145) and that the Germans won “without great superiority in numbers” (p. 170). His account points to position, communications and time, not courage.

“Higher command simply abandoned them.” The record is mixed. Jones pushed hard for the airdrop and the 7th Armored was slowed by jammed roads (p. 171; ch. XII, p. 275), but the corps and division commanders misread each other, and the airdrop died in a chain of headquarters with no fixed responsibility (pp. 161, 172).

How it connects

To the north, the blow that opened the Losheim Gap also struck the 99th Infantry Division (Chapter 1, Chapter 2). Behind the pocket on 17 December, Jones sent the half-strength 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, joined by about 40 men of the 81st Engineers, to dig in astride the Schönberg road east of St. Vith (Cole, ch. XII, p. 273). The pocket also tied down its captors: on the 18th, Cole writes, the 18th Volksgrenadier Division was “riding two horses,” closing on St. Vith while holding its side of the ring, with its artillery turned on the pocket (p. 283). Cirillo writes that the Schnee Eifel tragedy “was soon eclipsed by the triumph of St. Vith” (p. 23), told in Chapter 5.

What happened afterward

The 424th and the division’s remaining units fought on in the St. Vith “goose egg.” On 22 December Ridgway briefly gave Jones command of the 7th Armored Division as well, a change effective for only a few hours; for the withdrawal over the Salm, Hasbrouck took charge and Jones became assistant to the corps commander (Cole, ch. XVII, pp. 407, 413). The rebuilt division spent much of the rest of the war in rehabilitation, guarding prisoners and on occupation duty, and was inactivated on 2 October 1945 (U.S. Army). American troops reentered St. Vith in late January 1945 (Chapter 9).

The lost regiments were rebuilt from replacements; Matthews reported the 422nd reconstituted in France on 10 April 1945. In August 1945 survivors founded the 106th Infantry Division Association at Camp Lucky Strike, France; its magazine, The CUB, has preserved much of what the destroyed regimental records could not.

Questions readers ask

Did any soldier of the 106th receive the Medal of Honor for the December fighting? No. The division’s only Medal of Honor is Roddie Edmonds’s, awarded on 2 March 2026 for his conduct as a prisoner from 27 January to 30 March 1945. The highest awards for the fighting itself were Distinguished Service Crosses (see Honors).

How can I research a soldier who served in the 106th? Start with the 106th Infantry Division Association’s website, which hosts a reconstructed roster, a name index to The CUB and veterans’ accounts, and the Library of Congress Veterans History Project, which holds oral histories such as that of Cpl. William R. Kahn of the 423rd’s Cannon Company (AFC/2001/001/84628). Because the two regiments’ records were destroyed before capture, letters, award orders and postwar interviews matter more than usual.

Sources and further reading

• Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge (U.S. Army in World War II, CMH Pub 7-8), ch. VII, “Breakthrough at the Schnee Eifel,” pp. 136–173, including footnotes 5, 6, 10 and 11 on awards and casualties. HyperWar text
• Cole, ch. XII, “The First Attacks at St. Vith,” pp. 272–275, 283–284, 289, 292. HyperWar text
• Cole, ch. XVII, “St. Vith Is Lost,” pp. 407, 413. HyperWar text
• Roger Cirillo, Ardennes–Alsace (CMH Pub 72-26), pp. 13, 17, 19, 22–23. Internet Archive text
• U.S. Army, “Master Sergeant Roderick W. Edmonds,” Medal of Honor page with official citation, ceremony record and a 106th Infantry Division summary. army.mil
• Yad Vashem, “American Named Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem for Saving Fellow Jewish Soldiers,” press release, 2 December 2015. yadvashem.org; and “Roddie Edmonds,” Righteous Among the Nations story. yadvashem.org
• “106th Infantry Division,” combat chronicle and award tally reproduced from The Army Almanac (1950), pp. 571–572, U.S. Army Center of Military History. CMH page (archived)
• Military Intelligence Service, War Department, “American Prisoners of War in Germany: Stalag IXB,” 1 November 1945, transcription distributed by American Ex-Prisoners of War. PDF
• Lt. Col. Joseph C. Matthews Jr., memorandum to former members of the 422d Infantry, 25 September 1945, with Col. George L. Descheneaux Jr.’s letter of 20 August 1945, reprinted in The CUB, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Sept. 1946). 106th Infantry Division Association
• Col. Charles C. Cavender, “The 423 in the Bulge,” The CUB, Vol. 3, No. 4 (Nov. 1946). 106th Infantry Division Association
• George F. Starrett, “The Agony Grapevine,” The CUB, Vol. 3, No. 1 (Aug. 1946). 106th Infantry Division Association
• The CUB, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Nov. 1951): unit citations and foreign awards from the Adjutant General; killed-in-action notices including 2nd Lt. Crawford Wheeler Jr. and 1st Lt. Richard C. Diamon. 106th Infantry Division Association
• Headquarters, 106th Infantry Division, unit citation request and narrative for the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion (1945), with the battalion’s after action report, transcribed in the association’s archive. indianamilitary.org
• Distinguished Service Cross citation, 1st Lt. Eric Fisher Wood Jr., 589th Field Artillery Battalion, Military Times Hall of Valor. valor.militarytimes.com; and “Our WWII Story: Eric Fisher Wood Jr. – Rambo of the Ardennes,” The American Legion, 21 October 2020. legion.org
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Norman Fellman collection: German prisoner identification tag, Stalag IX-B and Berga. collections.ushmm.org
• Kim Guise, “‘I’ve Too Damned Much to Say’: Kurt Vonnegut, World War II, and Slaughterhouse-Five,” The National WWII Museum, 30 July 2020. nationalww2museum.org
• Library of Congress, Veterans History Project, William R. Kahn Collection (AFC/2001/001/84628). loc.gov
• 106th Infantry Division Association, home page, roster and The CUB archive. 106thinfdivassn.org
• Further reading: R. Ernest Dupuy, St. Vith: Lion in the Way: The 106th Infantry Division in World War II (Infantry Journal Press, 1949). Cole drew on it heavily but notes several points where his account differs.

Photographs: U.S. Army Signal Corps / National Archives via Wikimedia Commons, public domain unless noted. The Schnee Eifel landscape photograph is by Mabol! (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0); the Edmonds marker photograph is by Jrryjude (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0); the Jones portrait is from the U.S. Army Center of Military History, public domain.