THE ARDENNES

  It is hardly understandable why military authorities select such unfavorable terrain to fight their wars. The Ardennes was possibly worse than the Huertgen forest. The snow was knee-deep. All movement was restricted to the few roads and trails.

The roads were covered with a coat of ice and the 3rd Division's recovery vehicles were constantly busy, pulling tanks that had slipped off the road hack onto it. On January third the regiment relieved the 504th Regiment of the 82nd Airborne Division and continued the advance toward Petit-Langlir. It didn't get very far. The Germans had left a tank and infantry force to hold the crossing of the Langlir river while they retreated toward the Rhine. In foot-deep snow our infantrymen stood out like sore thumbs whenever they left the cover of the forest. The main defense was dug-in tanks, with only the barrel of the gun above the snow, and it camouflaged. "I" Company tried stalking one with two bazooka teams. Both teams got in place on the flanks of the tank at close range. Both fired their bazookas, only to see them bounce harmlessly when they hit the curved sides of the tank. The tank turned its gun on one bazooka team, destroying it, then swung its turret around and destroyed the other.

The crossing was finally captured by a maneuver by Major Sharpe's 2nd Battalion. It found a foot bridge some distance down the river and got in the rear of the infantry defenders. The tanks got away but Sharpe's men killed or captured most of the infantry, allowing the 331st Infantry on our right to move in and capture the crossing and the few houses in Petit-Langlir. We were, however, too late to stop the main force. It got back across the Rhine, leaving only small delaying forces to slow pursuit.

  Warfare under any conditions is bad. Winter warfare is much worse. The regiment lost almost as many men in this campaign from frozen feet as from enemy fire. Extra socks had been issued, but whether they were not enough or the G.I.'s were too ornery to put them on is not known. Equipment also suffered. The engines in vehicles had to be warmed up several times each night to be sure they would start in the morning. Water-cooled machine guns had to have glycerin or alcohol in their water jackets, and had to be fired several times at night to be sure that they would operate in an emergency. Toward the end of the Battle of the Bulge the regiment received snow-suits, which made a great difference when men were exposed in the open. A noted military authority once said, in speaking of the Russians, "Russian armies have been defeated several times in history, but nobody has ever defeated the Russian winter and probably nobody ever will."

After securing the crossing of the Langlir river we started in pursuit of the German rear guard. The rear guard fought by leaving small groups of men at critical points along their line of retreat. These groups would fight until outflanked or overrun, and then surrender. As a delaying action it was very effective. The first break in the almost continuous forests was the village of Honelez, which stood in a clearing. The 2nd Battalion reached the edge of the clearing at nightfall. To them the houses in the village looked like shelter from the cold and snow, so they moved as fast as the snow would let them into the village. The village was occupied by German troops, but they had had enough. A short fight ended with the Germans and the Americans sleeping on the floors of the same houses -- the Germans as POW's.

Two other villages lay beyond Honelez; one, Bovigny, was in the zone of action of the 329th, the other, Courtil, was in the zone of the neighboring regiment. The 1st and 3rd Battalions were given orders to attack Bovigny, with the stipulation that the one who got into the village first could have it for shelter. At 10: 00 A.M. reports were received that both battalions were in Bovigny. While Regimental Headquarters was trying to make a "Solomon's decision," the 3rd Battalion sent a message that Courtil had not been captured and asked if they could have it for shelter if they captured it. Division Headquarters was interrogated -- it changed the boundary to make Courtil inclusive to the 329th Infantry.

The 3rd Battalion captured it, and everybody was happy except the neighboring outfit, which had to spend the night in the snow. A few days later junction was made by our 3rd Armored Division with units of General Patton's army, and the Battle of the Bulge was over. The campaign had cost the regiment five officers killed and twenty-nine wounded, and seventy-two enlisted men killed and two hundred and fifty-one wounded not nearly as bad as Normandy but the costliest campaign since. The 329th got a break at this time. It was ordered to Tohogue, Belgium, in reserve. The rear echelon heroes can have their U.S.O. shows, their Red Cross, their clubs and bars. To the front-line infantryman heaven is a warm and dry place to sleep and some hot meals.

In Tohogue we had houses to sleep in, our "C" rations were hot, and sometimes we could swap part of our "C" rations to the Belgians for such delicacies as milk and fresh bread. We had gone from June to January on a steady diet of "C" and "K" rations, except for some finagling in Angiers and the occasional result of a cow falling victim of a caliber thirty mine. There was nothing quite equal to fresh bread and a glass of milk. During our rest at Tohogue we could have allowed most of our men to go on short R&R trips to Paris, but Paris was so cluttered up with SOS units that there was no room for outsiders. The regiment was limited to three per cent of its total strength. If the high command had had any regard for the combat echelon, it would never have allowed all those SOS units to move into Paris, but would have kept it open as a leave center. There was no particular necessity for the SOS units to be in Paris. There were many suburbs that would have served their mission just as well and might even have kept more of them on the job. While at Tohogue the regiment received five hundred and seventy replacements for those evacuated during the Battle of the Bulge.

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