At 0850 on 21 December 1944 (military time; 8:50 a.m.), a message from Soy reached the 3rd Armored Division command post at Erezée: “many enemy tanks” were on the Soy–Hotton road, heading west. The fight at Hotton had already begun. About two hundred men from the division’s service detachments and a combat command headquarters held the buildings on the east bank of the Ourthe, with one light tank and one medium. On the west bank, at the exit of the town’s two-way timber bridge, stood a platoon of the 51st Engineer Combat Battalion under Capt. Preston C. Hodges, with a Sherman, two 40-mm guns and a 37-mm antitank gun. A squad of engineers watched a footbridge at Hampteau, 2,000 yards south of town (Cole, ch. XVI, p. 378).
The attackers, Kampfgruppe Bayer of the 116th Panzer Division (a kampfgruppe is an improvised German battle group), came out of woods that reached the edge of town. Maj. Jack W. Fickessen of the 23rd Armored Engineer Battalion blocked the streets with trucks and handed out bazookas and machine guns. The Germans took about half the buildings on the near bank but never reached the bridge. A 90-mm tank destroyer that “appeared from nowhere” hit a Panther, and by late afternoon the German infantry were loading back into their half-tracks. The 116th Panzer’s commander and General Hasso von Manteuffel later praised “the bravery of the American engineers” (pp. 379–380). For the wider campaign, see the Battle of the Bulge hub.
Battle of the Bulge · Chapter 8 of 9
- Dates
- 19–27 December 1944
- Where
- Between the Salm and the Meuse: Baraque de Fraiture, Manhay and Grandménil, Soy and Hotton, Marche, Rochefort, and Celles and Foy-Notre-Dame near Dinant, Belgium
- American forces
- VII Corps (2nd Armored, 3rd Armored, 84th and 75th Infantry Divisions) and XVIII Airborne Corps (82nd Airborne, 7th Armored, CCB 9th Armored, 517th Parachute Infantry); 51st Engineer Combat Battalion; British 29th Armoured Brigade; IX Tactical Air Command and RAF fighter-bombers
- German forces
- Fifth Panzer Army (2nd Panzer, Panzer Lehr, 116th Panzer, 9th Panzer, 560th Volksgrenadier, Führer Begleit Brigade) and Sixth Panzer Army’s II SS Panzer Corps (2nd SS Panzer Division)
- Commanders
- U.S.: Collins, Ridgway, Harmon, Rose, Bolling, Hasbrouck, Gavin. German: Manteuffel, Lüttwitz, Krueger, Bittrich, Lauchert, Bayerlein, Waldenburg, Lammerding
- Outcome
- German spearhead stopped roughly four to five miles from the Meuse at Dinant; 2nd Panzer Division’s advance guard destroyed in the Celles pocket; Manhay retaken 27 December
The western tip, 19–27 December 1944
- 4 milesCelles to the Meusewhere German tanks massed on 24 Dec
- 44 of 116returned from Parker's Crossroadsafter the position fell on 23 Dec
- 1,213prisoners claimed by the 2nd Armoredin its fight east of the Meuse
- 13U.S. artillery battalionsfiring on the 2nd SS Panzer by 26 Dec
- 10,305Ninth Air Force sorties23–31 Dec, all types
Why it mattered
Once Peiper was boxed in on the Amblève, the lead passed to Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army, whose 116th Panzer and 2nd Panzer Divisions drove for a gap between the American XVIII Airborne and VIII Corps (Cole, ch. XVIII, p. 428). On 23 December a report that the 2nd Panzer’s advance guard was nine kilometers from the Meuse reached Hitler, who sent congratulations and released two more divisions (Cole, ch. XXII, p. 563). Cirillo’s verdict: the defense between the Salm and the Meuse stopped both panzer armies, and “Hitler’s drive for Antwerp was over” (Cirillo, p. 35).
Terrain and objectives
West of the Ourthe the country is high and rolling. A lesser river line, the Lesse and its tributary L’Homme, ran south of Marche through Rochefort to the Meuse near Dinant. Marche was the controlling road junction between the middle Ourthe and the Meuse, where the Liège–Sedan highway crossed N4, the Luxembourg–Namur road, with its branch to Dinant. Rochefort, eight miles southwest, was about twenty road miles from Dinant (Cole, ch. XVIII, p. 428). The German columns moved through the low Famenne Depression, with American troops on the higher Marche plateau to their north (Cole, ch. XXIII, p. 579).
Farther east, Baraque de Fraiture stands 652 meters (2,139 feet) up, on one of the highest points of the Ardennes, where the Liège–Bastogne highway (N15) crossed the St. Vith–La Roche road (N28). Woods curved around the north and west, and bare ground fell away to the south and east like a glacis, the open slope in front of a fort (Cole, ch. XVI, p. 389). Four miles north lay Manhay, where a lateral road ran west through Grandménil toward Hotton (p. 391). Beyond everything lay the Meuse, about 120 yards wide and fast in winter, with cliffs in places nearly three hundred feet high (Cole, ch. XXII, p. 556).
Hotton and Marche, 20–22 December
At 2200 on 20 December the lead troops of the 84th Infantry Division, 1,278 men short of strength after a month on the West Wall, entered Marche. That night the advance guard of the 2nd Panzer Division bivouacked on the west bank of the Ourthe about fifteen miles away. Neither side knew the other was there (Cole, ch. XVIII, p. 428). The 2nd Panzer already held the Ourthe bridge at Ortheuville, taken from a detachment of the 158th Engineer Combat Battalion, but its tanks were waiting for gasoline and “literally could not move” (p. 429).
The only Americans Brig. Gen. Alexander R. Bolling found at Marche were the 51st Engineers, posted at roadblocks and demolitions from Hotton to the Champlon crossroads (p. 429). At 0900 on the 21st they asked the 84th for help at Hotton; the division staff doubted the reported enemy strength (Cole, ch. XVI, p. 379). About 1100 Bolling asked First Army whether to commit his one regimental combat team (an infantry regiment with attached artillery and support). The answer was “Yes, hold.” By midnight the whole division and the attached 771st Tank Battalion were deploying, digging outposts into frozen ground (Cole, ch. XVIII, pp. 431–432). At 1930 the engineers on the Bastogne road blew their charges and fell back; those demolitions later delayed the 2nd Panzer’s main column for several hours (pp. 432, 436).
That night German maps showed the 116th Panzer at Hotton as the most advanced German unit in the offensive, twenty air-line miles from the Meuse. Its corps commander drew the opposite conclusion and turned the division back south to cross the Ourthe at La Roche, losing more time (Cole, ch. XVI, pp. 381–382).
Why a bridge exit is the place to stand
Hotton's bridge was a class 70, two-way timber span: rated well above the weight of any tank in the theater, and so just as useful to a 45-ton Panther as to a Sherman. Captain Hodges' platoon did not try to hold the whole town. It held the far end of the bridge, where any attacker had to come straight at the guns across the narrow deck of the bridge, with the river closing off everything to either side. The two 40-mm guns, the 37-mm and the lone Sherman were weak weapons against German armor in the open; at a bridge exit they did not need to be strong, only steady.
The 2,000-yard gap to the Hampteau footbridge shows the other half of the engineer's arithmetic. That bridge was overrun, but it could carry no vehicles, so losing it cost little. Meanwhile the 51st's charges on the Marche–Bastogne road, blown at 1930 on 21 December, held up the 2nd Panzer's main column for several hours on the 23rd. Delay was the product engineers were selling, and on this front it was bought cheaply.
Soy, Hotton and Task Force Hogan, 22–25 December
The German battle group pulled back from Hotton but kept tanks and antitank guns on the high ground between Soy and Hotton, “King of the Rock” over the road in Cole’s phrase. The first American attack along the road lost six medium and two light tanks. The 1st Battalion, 517th Parachute Infantry, reached Soy at twilight on the 22nd and was thrown in half an hour after leaving its trucks; by 2000 it had stopped (Cole, ch. XVI, p. 384). On the 23rd the attack from Soy lost four tanks in five minutes and became an infantry fire fight that lasted into the night. In it Pfc. Melvin E. Biddle went out in front of his own line (pp. 386–387).
Private First Class Melvin E. Biddle
Company B, 1st Battalion, 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment
Serving as lead scout in an attack to reopen the road to Hotton, Biddle worked forward through dense woods, killed three snipers from about 20 yards, then knocked out a series of machine-gun positions with rifle fire and grenades. After dark he scouted the German line alone for several hours; the information he brought back let infantry and armor knock out two enemy tanks. At daybreak he led the advance again and silenced another machine-gun crew from 50 yards. The citation credits his 20-hour action with breaking the German hold near Hotton at minimum cost.
Cole records the same fight from the battalion's side: a stalled fire fight against tanks and antitank guns firing from hull defilade, in which one paratrooper went out in front of his own line. President Truman presented the medal on 12 October 1945. Biddle, of Anderson, Indiana, died in 2010; his oral history interview is held by the Library of Congress Veterans History Project.
South of the road, Task Force Hogan of the 3rd Armored, about 400 men, had been cut off at Marcouray since the 21st and was out of gasoline (Cole, ch. XVI, pp. 381, 384). On the 23rd German officers came forward to demand surrender and were told that if they wanted Marcouray they could come and take it. Gunners of the 54th Armored Field Artillery Battalion packed howitzer shells with medical supplies, but the packets were ruined on impact (p. 387). On Christmas Eve Hogan’s men wrecked their vehicles, left the wounded with volunteer aid men, and walked out by stars and compass; most reached American lines by Christmas morning (Cole, ch. XXIII, pp. 593–594).
Parker’s Crossroads, 19–23 December
On the afternoon of 19 December Maj. Arthur C. Parker III brought three 105-mm howitzers to Baraque de Fraiture, all that was left of the 589th Field Artillery Battalion after the Schnee Eifel. Four half-tracks with multiple .50-caliber machine guns from the 203rd Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion joined the next day. Before dawn on the 21st they cut up an 80-man German patrol that included an officer of the 2nd SS Panzer Division scouting his division’s route. D Troop of the 87th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron came in that afternoon, then eleven tanks of the 3rd Armored’s Task Force Kane (Cole, ch. XVI, pp. 389–390).
Charles F. Jacelon, a 589th sergeant who drove Parker’s jeep, recalled in an account posted on the 106th Infantry Division pages of IndianaMilitary.org that the decision to stand was made on the spot, when a truck brought word of German tanks coming from Houffalize. He remembered Major Goldstein of the battalion saying, “we came over here to fight a war and this looks like a good place to start.” It is one veteran’s memory, written long afterward.
Maj. Gen. James M. Gavin of the 82nd Airborne sent the 2nd Battalion, 325th Glider Infantry, to Fraiture, three-quarters of a mile northeast, and Capt. Junior R. Woodruff led Company F into the crossroads just before noon on the 22nd. The gain was offset when Task Force Kane took its tanks back for the fight at Dochamps, and a tank destroyer platoon sent from Manhay lost its way and was captured (pp. 390–391).
Lack of fuel held up the 2nd SS: on the 21st it had gasoline only for its reconnaissance battalion. Enough arrived on the evening of the 22nd to move the 4th Panzer Grenadier Regiment (panzer grenadiers were German armored infantry), which ringed the crossroads in the night. On the 23rd the Germans used radios from captured American vehicles to jam the American forward observers’ frequency (pp. 390–391). Shortly after 1600, twenty minutes of shelling came down. Then two panzer companies and the whole regiment attacked across fresh snow. At 1700 Company F asked to withdraw; Gavin’s order was still “hold at all costs.” Within the hour the position fell and the howitzers were taken. Some men got away through the woods, a few behind a herd of stampeding cattle. Cole records that forty-four of the original 116 returned (p. 391). Jacelon walked into captivity from the burning command post. That night Maj. Olin F. Brewster formed a new block 3,000 yards north, and by morning it still stood between the 2nd SS and Manhay (p. 392).
Rochefort, 23–24 December
At dark on the 23rd German scouts reported Rochefort empty; apparently they had not gone in. Maj. Gordon A. Bahe held it with most of the 3rd Battalion, 335th Infantry, and attached tank destroyer, engineer and antitank platoons. Panzer Lehr’s commander, Fritz Bayerlein, sent a battalion up the St. Hubert road, a narrow defile between two hills, with an order Cole translates as “Shut your eyes and go in!” Cross fire and a roadblock stopped it (Cole, ch. XVIII, p. 437). The main attack came after midnight. The defenders held a large hotel commanding the town square until a tree burst from an 88 knocked out their two 57-mm guns. About 1300 a single radio message got through: Bolling’s order to withdraw (p. 438).
At 1800 the garrison broke out under smoke. Sgt. J. W. Waldron covered the move with a machine gun, was wounded, and received the Distinguished Service Cross. The vehicles reached Givet on the Meuse. A foot column under Lt. Leonard R. Carpenter struggled north, and two officers and thirty-three men were later picked up by 2nd Armored patrols. Fifteen wounded stayed behind with a volunteer medic (pp. 439–440). Bayerlein later rated the defense as comparable in courage and significance to Bastogne (p. 440).
What the commanders knew, 22–24 December
On the German side, confidence ran ahead of the facts. On 22 December an OB West estimate judged a major Allied counterattack unlikely before 1 January (Cole, ch. XXII, pp. 562–563). By the 24th Model was telling Rundstedt that the 2nd Panzer was out of fuel and must march for the Meuse on foot. Lüttwitz proposed pulling the forward columns back; Manteuffel knew Hitler would not allow it and pleaded with Jodl for more divisions (p. 564; ch. XVIII, pp. 443–444).
On the American side the higher headquarters were the gloomier ones. St. Vith had fallen, and Field Marshal Montgomery, commanding First Army since the 20th, judged Ridgway’s front overextended. With Hodges he agreed to shorten the line and release VII Corps from “all offensive missions” (Cole, ch. XXIII, pp. 586–587). In midafternoon Maj. Gen. Ernest N. Harmon of the 2nd Armored asked VII Corps for permission to commit another combat command near Ciney and Celles. With Collins away, his artillery commander, Brig. Gen. Williston B. Palmer, took a call from First Army’s chief of staff, William B. Kean, who spoke guardedly of “a town A and a town H” and a “pivoting move.” Palmer picked two villages ahead of the 2nd Armored and sent the good news to Collins (Cole, ch. XXII, pp. 565–566).
Now get this. I'm only going to say it once. Roll with the punch.
William B. Kean, First Army chief of staff, by telephone to Brig. Gen. Williston B. Palmer, VII Corps artillery commander, afternoon of 24 December 1944
Kean meant Andenne and Huy, thirty miles to the rear. Palmer remembered it as the only moment in the war he was “ill with disapproval.” Collins told Harmon to “hold everything” but keep planning for Christmas morning. That evening a First Army liaison officer confirmed that VII Corps was “authorized” to fall back to the line Andenne–Hotton–Manhay. Neither Collins nor his staff considered giving up the attack: a withdrawal would cover Huy and Liège but uncover Namur and the Dinant crossings, and Harmon’s tanks had done “very severe damage” that day. The 2nd Armored would attack on the 25th (p. 566).
Celles: the high-water mark, 23–27 December
Harmon’s division had made a seventy-mile road march in twenty-two hours through cold rain and assembled north of Marche under radio blackout. “We lost more vehicles on the march down here than in the subsequent fighting,” one officer said later (Cole, ch. XVIII, p. 434). On the 23rd Harmon sent Brig. Gen. John Collier’s Combat Command A (a brigade-sized armored task force) south. Near Leignon that night Capt. George E. Bonney heard motors ahead, pulled the half-tracks off the road and let a small German column drive in among them; thirty Germans were killed and as many captured (p. 436). On the 24th Combat Command A took Buissonville, with 38 wheeled vehicles, ten guns and 108 prisoners. But the 2nd Panzer’s lead battle group had already slipped west. A Belgian telephone operator at Conjoux tried to warn the Americans, but the message passed secretly through several hands and arrived only that afternoon. German tanks were massing at Celles, about four miles from the Meuse (pp. 440–441).
Reported distances from the Meuse
Each figure as its source states it. The high-water-mark figures describe the 2nd Panzer Division's advance guard on 23–25 December; the Hotton figure is a straight-line measurement from an earlier day, shown for scale.
| Celles, 24 Dec (Cole) | 4 miles |
| Foy-Notre-Dame, 25 Dec (Cole) | 4 miles |
| Within reach, 24 Dec (AAF history) | 5 miles |
| Western tip (Cirillo) | 5 miles |
| German report, 23 Dec | 5.6 miles |
| Hotton, 21 Dec (OKW map) | 20 miles |
The British were already on the river. On 19 December Montgomery, on his own initiative, had ordered the 29th Armoured Brigade, refitting in western Belgium, to take back its old tanks and defend the Namur–Dinant sector. By the 23rd each main crossing at Givet, Dinant and Namur was held by an armored regiment and a rifle company, and American engineers of Task Force Thrasher were preparing the Meuse bridges for demolition (Cole, ch. XXII, pp. 557, 559–561).
The pocket
At dawn on the 25th the 2nd Panzer reconnaissance battalion lay near Foy-Notre-Dame, “only four or five miles from the bridges at Dinant.” Major von Cochenhausen’s main column, a tank battalion and a panzer grenadier regiment, waited in the woods about 5,000 meters behind it, nearly out of fuel (Cole, ch. XXII, p. 567). Combat Command B under Brig. Gen. Isaac D. White attacked at 0800 in two task forces. The 370th Fighter Group put four Panthers out of action near Foy-Notre-Dame. Near Boisselles two platoons of the 67th Armored Regiment destroyed three more, with help from a few tanks of the British 3rd Royal Tank Regiment and British gunners, and the 29th Armoured Brigade knocked out three Panthers near Sorinne (p. 568).
At Foy-Notre-Dame the 82nd Armored Reconnaissance Battalion ran into hidden antitank guns and four Panthers. The German reconnaissance battalion’s commander and 147 others were captured. In Celles the townspeople had gathered in the church; some 200 prisoners were taken in and near the town. At noon a spotter plane found seven German tanks north of Celles, and artillery destroyed them all (pp. 568–569).
Relief attempts by the 2nd Panzer and Panzer Lehr were broken up by artillery, P-38s and RAF Typhoons. Near the Trisogne villages, a little over a mile from Celles, Lauchert’s small relief force saw the ridge ahead “crawling with tanks,” possibly British. The XLVII Panzer Corps then ordered the trapped troops to destroy their vehicles, leave their wounded and get out on foot (pp. 569–570). Combat Command B spent two days clearing the woods between Celles and Conjoux: heavy shelling, then a slow advance of infantry backed by tanks. Cochenhausen and nearly 600 men reached Rochefort, but the equipment of the reconnaissance battalion, the 304th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, a battalion of Panthers, three artillery battalions and two-thirds of the division’s flak battalion stayed behind (p. 570).
What happened to the men cut off near Celles, 25–27 December
Partial counts from separate actions, in men. They overlap in time but not in event, and they are not a full accounting of the pocket's strength.
| Escaped on foot to Rochefort | 600 men |
| Captured in the final squeeze near Celles | 200 men |
| Captured in and near Celles, 25 Dec | 200 men |
| Killed in the Bois de Geauvelant sweep | 150 men |
| Captured at Foy-Notre-Dame, 25 Dec | 148 men |
The fight then moved east. On the 26th the fresh 9th Panzer Division attacked through Havrenne and was thrown back three times (Cole, ch. XXII, pp. 571–572). On the 27th Combat Command R retook Humain after Lt. Col. Lemuel E. Pope went to the head of his stalled tank column under heavy fire and restarted the attack, for which he received the Distinguished Service Cross. While that fight went on, Harmon told Collier to “go to the river with abandon” (pp. 572–573). North of Marche, the 84th retook Verdenne from the 116th Panzer; at noon on Christmas Day a German tank company lost all nine of its tanks there to Company B, 771st Tank Battalion (pp. 574–575).
Manhay and Grandménil, 24–27 December
On Christmas Eve the XVIII Airborne Corps was ordered back to the shorter line. Combat Command A of the 7th Armored, just out of St. Vith, got word only at 1800, and its move back through Manhay was set for 2230 (Cole, ch. XXIII, pp. 586–587). The 2nd SS had spent the day waiting while its engineers cut a road through the woods to Odeigne. At 2100, on a clear moonlit night with hard-packed snow, the column moved (pp. 587–588). At its head was a captured Sherman, the “Judas Goat.” At two roadblocks, bazooka teams and tanks firing by flarelight knocked out American tanks whose crews had taken the column for friendly armor. The panzers entered Manhay as the American headquarters column was leaving. “Thus Manhay passed into German hands” (p. 589). By 0300 on the 25th the Germans also held Grandménil (p. 591).
They got no farther. West of Grandménil one unknown soldier of Company K, 289th Infantry, a regiment new to combat, stopped the lead Panther with a bazooka where the road edged a high cliff, and the tanks behind could not pass (p. 591). The first American attempt to retake Manhay on the 25th broke down on trees the retreating tankers had felled across the road, and the 2nd Battalion, 424th Infantry, lost an estimated 35 percent of its men nearing the village (p. 593). The 7th Armored, with less than 40 percent of its tanks and tank destroyers running, could not yet fight as it had at St. Vith (p. 596).
What held the 2nd SS was observation and gunfire. Thirteen American field artillery battalions were firing on it by the 26th, while the II SS Panzer Corps had got only one corps artillery battalion and one rocket-launcher battalion across the Salm, and its trucks needed three or four nights for each round trip to the ammunition dumps at Bonn (p. 595). Task Force McGeorge of the 3rd Armored received sixteen more Shermans at noon on the 26th and retook Grandménil after a three-battalion shoot (p. 596). After midnight the 3rd Battalion, 517th Parachute Infantry, went into Manhay behind a twenty-minute, eight-battalion artillery concentration. By 0400 on 27 December the village was clear, at a cost of ten killed and fourteen wounded. The Germans, Cole notes, had apparently already ordered their garrison out, leaving its wounded behind (p. 598).
The decisive hours
Seen hour by hour, the three days after Christmas Eve show how quickly the separate fights at Rochefort, Celles, Verdenne and Manhay were decided.
24–26 December on the western tip
Panzer Lehr opens its main attack on Rochefort; the 84th Division's 3rd Battalion, 335th Infantry, fights house to house.
Harmon orders Combat Command B to secure Ciney "as a base for future operations."
Harmon asks to commit another combat command. First Army's chief of staff tells VII Corps to "roll with the punch."
The Rochefort garrison breaks out under smoke; the vehicles reach Givet on the Meuse.
The 2nd SS Panzer attacks from Odeigne on a clear, moonlit night, a captured Sherman at the head of the column.
Panthers enter Manhay as the 7th Armored's headquarters column is leaving.
The Germans hold Grandménil; west of the village a single bazooka round blocks their road at a cliff.
Combat Command B, 2nd Armored, attacks toward Celles in two task forces, with fighter-bombers and British tanks in support.
At Verdenne a German tank company tries to break through and loses all nine tanks to Company B, 771st Tank Battalion.
Eleven P-38s mistakenly bomb Task Force McGeorge; Combat Command B later reports 39 killed.
Lauchert's relief force is stopped near the Trisogne villages. The trapped troops are ordered to wreck their vehicles and walk out.
The fresh 9th Panzer attacks toward Buissonville through Havrenne; three assaults are beaten off during the day.
Task Force McGeorge, reinforced with sixteen Shermans, retakes Grandménil.
The 3rd Battalion, 517th Parachute Infantry, reports Manhay clear.
Fuel, weather and the air
Gasoline shortages dogged the German columns throughout. By 24 December OB West’s orders called for the advance toward the Meuse “to proceed on foot” (Cole, ch. XXIII, p. 578). Then the “Russian High,” an eastern high-pressure system, moved in on the night of 22–23 December and brought five days of superb flying weather (Craven and Cate, vol. III, p. 689). Christmas Day came “bright and clear,” bringing what Cole calls one of the greatest demonstrations of tactical ground support American troops ever saw. Lauchert admitted that Allied fighter-bombers kept his units from moving by day, and that no German fighter appeared that far west (Cole, ch. XXII, p. 567).
Fighter-bomber sorties under Ninth Air Force control
Daily totals across the whole battle area, not the western tip alone. The next two days, 26 and 27 December, added 2,343 more between them.
Values in sorties
| 23 Dec | 696 sorties |
| 24 Dec | 1,157 sorties |
| 25 Dec | 1,100 sorties |
Cirillo writes that the Allied air forces averaged 3,000 sorties a day in good weather and dropped more than 31,000 tons of bombs in the first ten days of attacks on German supply routes (Cirillo, p. 34). On 24 December the Eighth Air Force sent more than 2,000 heavy bombers against German airfields; their air commander, Brig. Gen. Frederick W. Castle, stayed at the controls of his burning B-17 so his crew could bail out, and received the Medal of Honor posthumously (U.S. Army Medal of Honor citations). Close support had a cost. On Christmas afternoon eleven P-38s of the 430th Squadron, vectored by the 7th Armored, bombed Task Force McGeorge by mistake; Combat Command B reported 3 officers and 36 men killed (Cole, ch. XXIII, p. 592).
People and civilians
Many who decided these fights are known only by their units: the service troops at Hotton, the bazooka man west of Grandménil, the glider infantrymen of Company F. On the night of 22 December, with the 2nd SS arriving, Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose of the 3rd Armored told his reserve commander what was at stake:
“Impress on every individual that we must stay right here or there will be a war to be fought all over again, and we won’t be here to fight it.”
Maj. Gen. Maurice Rose, quoted in Cole, ch. XVI, p. 388
Cole records little about civilians here, and this account will not guess. At Celles the townspeople sheltered in the church while the town changed hands (p. 569). The worst civilian loss in this sector came at Bande, on the N4 between Marche and the Champlon crossroads. A German security-police (SD) detachment following the advance, hunting resistance fighters, detained some seventy men there. According to Liberation Route Europe, thirty-three young men aged 17 to 32 were shot one by one in a cellar on 24 December; other published counts give thirty-four. One, Léon Praile, 21, broke away and hid in the snow until the Germans left. A memorial at the Cave des Fusillés beside the N4 was inaugurated in 1948 (Liberation Route Europe, “The massacre of Bande”).
Honors
Biddle is the only soldier we found awarded the Medal of Honor for ground action on the western tip between 19 and 27 December. The Army’s World War II citation lists show none for the 2nd, 3rd or 7th Armored or the 84th Infantry Division in this sector; the 82nd Airborne’s Bulge recipient, 1st Sgt. Leonard A. Funk Jr., earned his at Holzheim in January. Cole names these Distinguished Service Cross awards here:
- Sgt. J. W. Waldron, 84th Infantry Division, rear guard at Rochefort, 24 December (Cole, p. 439)
- Lt. Col. Lemuel E. Pope, 2nd Battalion, 67th Armored Regiment, Humain, 27 December (p. 573)
- Pvt. C. W. Dillingham and Pfc. F. S. Rose, 2nd Armored Division, 28 December (ch. XXII, n. 14)
Losses and uncertainty
These are Cole’s figures, not sector totals. Killed, missing and wounded are kept separate, and figures for different units and dates should not be added together.
| Action | Figure | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Baraque de Fraiture, 23 Dec | 44 of the original 116 who went to the crossroads returned | Cole, p. 391 |
| Rochefort, 23–24 Dec | 15 wounded left in the town with a volunteer medic; another 25 killed or captured | Cole, pp. 439–440 |
| 3rd Bn, 290th Infantry, first battle, 24–25 Dec | Participants estimated 250 casualties; Cole thinks this “probably is exaggerated” | Cole, p. 594 |
| 2nd Bn, 424th Infantry, attack on Manhay, 25 Dec | An estimated 35 percent casualties | Cole, p. 593 |
| Task Force McGeorge, 25 Dec (friendly air attack) | 3 officers and 36 men killed, as reported by CCB | Cole, p. 592 |
| Manhay retaken, 27 Dec (3rd Bn, 517th PIR) | 10 killed, 14 wounded | Cole, p. 598 |
| 2nd Armored Division and attachments, east of the Meuse | 17 killed, 26 missing, 201 wounded; 5 light and 22 medium tanks lost. Claimed 1,213 prisoners and 82 tanks, 83 guns and 441 vehicles captured or destroyed | Cole, p. 574 |
| 84th Infantry Division, VII Corps operation | 112 killed, 122 missing, 348 wounded; 592 prisoners at Verdenne | Cole, p. 577 |
Some details are uncertain. Cole’s “116” at Baraque de Fraiture follows a sentence about Company F and may mean that company alone; Liberation Route Europe gives 44 of 119. Cole puts Manhay four miles north of the crossroads in one chapter (p. 391) and five in another (p. 581), and his two Hotton accounts differ on whether 84th Division troops arrived in midafternoon (p. 430) or late afternoon (p. 380). The 2nd Armored’s tank and prisoner totals are the division’s own claims.
Myths and the record
- “The Germans reached the Meuse.” No German formation reached the river in force; the closest were about four to five miles short. One jeepload of Germans in American uniform reached Dinant on 23 December and was captured by a British post, and Cole notes that not one act of sabotage at the Meuse crossings was reported in the whole campaign (Cole, pp. 561, 567; ch. XXII, n. 2).
- “They simply ran out of gas.” Fuel was decisive, but the pocket was found and destroyed by the 2nd Armored, British tanks and gunners, observed artillery and fighter-bombers (pp. 568–570).
- “Montgomery stopped the attack” or “Montgomery won it.” Both are too simple. He moved British forces to the Meuse on his own initiative and, with Hodges, authorized VII Corps to fall back; the decision to attack at Celles was Collins’ own (pp. 557, 566).
- “A café owner stopped the panzers.” A Celles story, repeated in modern travel writing (Brussels Times, 2023), says the café owner Marthe Monrique told a German officer the Dinant road was mined. It is not in the military record and should be treated as local tradition.
Walking the ground today
At Celles a Panther tank and a commemorative stele stand at the crossroads of the Dinant and Ciney roads, according to the Houyet tourist office. At Grandménil, beside the Manhay History 44 Museum on rue Alphonse Poncelet, stands a Panther Ausf. G that the regional tourist office describes as one of five tanks abandoned in a minefield at the village entrance. A memorial marks Parker’s Crossroads at Baraque de Fraiture, near the old inn, now the Auberge du Carrefour, where wounded defenders were sheltered. Hotton War Cemetery, kept by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission on the road toward Ménil, holds 666 Commonwealth burials of the Second World War. At Bande the Cave des Fusillés memorial stands beside the N4. These are cemeteries, memorials and lived-in villages; keep to public ground.
Questions readers ask
How close did the Germans get to the Meuse? About four to five miles, near Foy-Notre-Dame and Celles on 24–25 December (Cole, pp. 441, 567).
Did the British fight here? Yes. The 29th Armoured Brigade held the Namur, Dinant and Givet bridges, its tanks fought near Boisselles and Sorinne on Christmas Day, British Crocodiles helped finish Humain, and the British 53rd Division relieved the 84th on New Year’s Day (Cole, pp. 433, 568, 574, 577). British 30 Corps casualties for the whole campaign were 1,408 (Cirillo, p. 53).
How it connects
Parker’s howitzers survived the Schnee Eifel disaster. The 7th Armored had just come out of St. Vith and the Fortified Goose Egg. The 517th’s 3rd Battalion and the 3rd Armored’s Combat Command B arrived from the La Gleize fighting in Peiper’s Road and the Engineers. The 2nd Panzer and Panzer Lehr had bypassed Bastogne; after Third Army opened the Assenois corridor, Lüttwitz’s corps was ordered back for one final, all-out effort to take that town (Cole, ch. XXII, p. 574).
What happened afterward
From 28 December the 83rd Infantry Division and the British 53rd Division relieved the 2nd Armored, which ate its Christmas dinner in billets on the 31st; on New Year’s Day the 53rd relieved the 84th (Cole, ch. XXII, pp. 574, 577). The 2nd SS was sent west to join a new attack on the Hotton–Soy–Erezée line (ch. XXIII, p. 598). First Army attacked on 3 January, with VII Corps’ 2nd and 3rd Armored leading and the 84th and 83rd following, in fog so thick that no tactical aircraft could fly (MacDonald, ch. II, pp. 26–29). That fight, to Houffalize and St. Vith, is told in The January Counteroffensive.
Sources and further reading
- Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge (U.S. Army Center of Military History, CMH Pub 7-8), ch. XVI, “One Threat Subsides; Another Emerges,” pp. 377–392 (Hotton; Soy; Task Force Hogan; Baraque de Fraiture): HyperWar text
- Cole, ch. XVIII, “The VII Corps Moves To Blunt the Salient,” pp. 423–444 (Marche, Rochefort, Buissonville, Verdenne): HyperWar text
- Cole, ch. XXII, “The Battle Before the Meuse,” pp. 556–577 and notes (Meuse defenses, Celles pocket, Humain, Verdenne): HyperWar text
- Cole, ch. XXIII, “The Battle Between the Salm and the Ourthe,” pp. 578–598 (Manhay, Grandménil, Hogan’s breakout, the 290th’s first battle): HyperWar text
- Wesley Frank Craven and James Lea Cate, eds., The Army Air Forces in World War II, vol. III, Europe: Argument to V-E Day (Office of Air Force History), ch. 19, “Battle of the Bulge,” pp. 689–701 cited: HyperWar text
- Roger Cirillo, Ardennes–Alsace (CMH Pub 72-26), pp. 33–35, 53: Internet Archive text
- Charles B. MacDonald, The Last Offensive (CMH), ch. II, “Victory in the Ardennes,” pp. 26–29: HyperWar text
- U.S. Army, “Medal of Honor Recipients: World War II (A–F),” citations for Pfc. Melvin E. Biddle and Brig. Gen. Frederick W. Castle: army.mil; Congressional Medal of Honor Society, “Melvin Earl Biddle”: cmohs.org
- Library of Congress, Veterans History Project, Melvin Earl Biddle Collection, AFC/2001/001/5175: loc.gov
- Charles F. Jacelon, “How Parker’s Crossroads Happened,” 106th Infantry Division pages, IndianaMilitary.org: indianamilitary.org
- Imperial War Museums, War Pictorial News No. 196, “Western Front – the Battle of the Ardennes” (1945 newsreel; British Sherman crews in the snow, probably 29th Armoured Brigade): iwm.org.uk
- Commonwealth War Graves Commission, “Hotton War Cemetery”: cwgc.org
- Office du Tourisme de Houyet, “Tank Panther” (Celles): tourismehouyet.be; Maison du Tourisme Cœur de l’Ardenne, “Panther tank Ausf. G” (Grandménil): coeurdelardenne.be
- Liberation Route Europe, “The massacre of Bande” and “Parker’s Crossroads”: Bande, Parker’s Crossroads
- For further reading, cited by Cole: Ernest N. Harmon, “We Gambled in the Battle of the Bulge,” Saturday Evening Post, 2 October 1948; and the postwar Foreign Military Studies manuscripts of Fritz Bayerlein (MSS A-941, A-943, A-944) and Heinrich von Lüttwitz (MSS A-938, A-940).
Photographs: U.S. Army Signal Corps / National Archives via Wikimedia Commons, public domain unless noted. The Hotton, Baraque de Fraiture and Marche photographs come from the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
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