Loss and Redemption at St. Vith: The 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge
384
Loss and Redemption at St. Vith: The 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge
384eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780826274359 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Missouri Press |
| Publication date: | 11/15/2019 |
| Series: | American Military Experience |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| File size: | 14 MB |
| Note: | This product may take a few minutes to download. |
About the Author
Gregory Fontenot is a retired Colonel of the U.S. Army. He is currently a consultant on threat emulation for Army experimentation and a working historian. He was lead author of On Point: The US Army in Operation Iraqi Freedom published by CGSC Press and is the author of The 1st Infantry Division and the US Army Transformed: Road to Victory in Desert Storm, 1970-1991, winner of the 2017 Army Historical Foundation award for Unit History. He lives in Lansing, Kansas.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Lucky Seventh Goes to War
The August battles have done it and the enemy in the West has had it.
— Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, G-2 summary, August 23, 1944
The Boche always come through the Ardennes.
— Belgian civilian
In the early morning hours of Saturday, December 16, 1944, three German field armies comprising twenty-eight divisions, including nine Panzer divisions, attacked a thinly defended sector of the American lines in the Ardennes forest. Eventually two US field armies of twenty-nine divisions, including eight armored divisions, responded. A British corps of three divisions and three armored brigades backstopped the American effort. The German offensive aimed to seize Antwerp, thus cutting off the British-led 21st Army Group from its American allies. Success would protect the Ruhr industrial region and perhaps drive an irreparable wedge between the Americans and British. The German high command, or at least Adolf Hitler, believed doing so could lead to concluding the war in the west successfully.
Instead the Allies stopped the Germans short of the Meuse River and then drove them back. After six weeks of bitter fighting, Hitler's last significant operational reserve withdrew, much diminished, beyond its original line. By any measure this battle — the Battle of the Bulge — was the largest fought by the US Army during World War II. More than a half million Allied and German soldiers fought among the densely forested ridges of the Ardennes during the coldest winter in a century. More than two thousand tanks and tracked antitank guns fought along slippery roads and through small towns, supported by several thousand artillery pieces. The Luftwaffe took to the air in large numbers against the Allied air forces for the last time during the war. The US Army suffered nearly 80,000 combat casualties, including 8,607 killed in action, 47,139 wounded, and 21,144 captured or missing. German reckoning is less certain, but it appears the Germans had 12,652 killed, 38,600 wounded, and 30,582 captured or missing. Trench foot, sickness, and nonbattle injuries claimed thousands more on both sides.
Peter Schrijvers's The Unknown Dead is the best source for the reckoning of the suffering among civilians. Many civilians fled, but whether they fled or not they suffered. Schrijvers reports "an estimated 2,500 civilians died in Belgium as a direct or indirect result of the Battle of the Bulge." Still more died in Luxembourg — as many as five hundred more. Sadly, Allied air raids killed roughly one-third of Belgian civilians who died. The horrendous destruction of homes, livestock, and infrastructure ensured that the misery extended beyond the end of the war. The Battle of the Bulge has transcendent explanatory power for the US Army in World War II, corresponding to that ascribed to the Battle of Gettysburg in the Civil War. Both battles took on mythic proportions in the history of the Army. The Battle of the Bulge remains memorable in scope, scale, and misery. For the US Army, the battle reflected strategic decisions taken as early as 1939 on equipment, leadership, and how to fight. For the German forces, the battle constituted Hitler's last gambler's throw, beyond which there was nothing but progressive and cumulative disaster.
The 7th Armored Division
American soldiers from private to general who served either in or alongside the 7th Armored Division (AD), the soldiers who fought to defend and then to retake St. Vith, are the chief protagonists in this saga of perseverance and adaptability in combat. The 7th AD joined the fight alongside the 106th Infantry Division (ID) and a part of the 9th AD on the second day of the battle, Sunday, December 17, 1944. Because the Germans had penetrated the defenses of VIII Corps, the troops of the 7th AD arrived amid mass confusion, in bitterly cold weather, and immediately entered a fight for their very survival. At the outset their commanders worked, as one said, "to keep the confusion from becoming disorganized." Though tired and scared, as well as confused, the American soldiers responded, according to the German general who commanded their antagonists, with "courage ... of the highest order." This is their story.
To comprehend their experience it is necessary to understand both the context of this battle and how the Army intended the 7th AD to fight. Not until after World War II did the United States maintain a large standing army in peacetime, something that neither the US Constitution nor the culture of the United States favored. During both world wars the Army grew rapidly — so rapidly that the number of citizen soldiers exceeded the number of experienced officers and noncommissioned officers available to train and lead them. Accordingly, the Army published doctrine that described how to fight and how to prepare to do so. Army field manuals and technical manuals of the era are remarkable for their scope and the speed with which they were published. Most of them were published after Pearl Harbor. They are richly illustrated self-help books à la Plumbing for Dummies (in this case, perhaps, Fighting for Dummies — or at least fighting for the hitherto innocent). These marvelous little books run the gamut from Field Manual (FM) 55105, Water Transportation: Oceangoing Vessels, instructing the reader on the operations of the Army's quite large navy, to Technical Manual 9-759, M4 Sherman Medium Tank Technical Manual, which showed tank crews how to maintain their steeds.
The structure of units and the Army's doctrine are the consequence of specific design concepts. The Army designed the Lucky Seventh and the other armored divisions to exploit penetration of enemy positions made by the infantry. According to FM 17-100, Armored Command Field Manual: The Armored Division, the "primary role [of the armored division] is in offensive operations against hostile rear areas." FM 17-100, published on January 15, 1944, did not list defending a position among the thirteen missions imagined for armored divisions. Nevertheless, bowing to necessity, the manual did devote a chapter to defensive operations, specifying that armored divisions would assume the defense if forced or ordered to do so. Even then the doctrine required armored divisions to fight by active means, including counterattack. Accordingly, infantry and antitank units were to "occupy forward areas." Tanks, on the other hand, were to use their mobility and firepower in local counterattacks.
The Army built armored divisions as balanced combined arms formations that included both infantry and tanks, but it did not equip or man them to fight extended defensive operations. Nor did the Army have the means to replace losses rapidly or to reconstitute units mauled in combat. The 7th AD fought desperately for six winter weeks in the Ardennes to defend and retain the important road junction at St. Vith. Eventually the Lucky Seventh withdrew under pressure and, for a brief period, it constituted the XVIII Airborne Corps' reserve. During that time it reconstituted combat capability by assimilating replacements, replacing equipment lost in combat, and fielding some new equipment. The Division also trained both individual soldiers and small units to return to combat. Finally, supported by airborne infantry, the 7th AD resumed the offensive, retaking St. Vith a month after being forced to cede the town to General der Panzertruppe Hasso von Manteuffel's troops and thus concluding their part of the campaign. The 7th AD fought alongside other units, some of whom were formally attached, and others that joined on a commander's initiative or were dragooned by one the 7th AD's generals.
Armored and Infantry Division Organization
The organization of armored, infantry, and airborne divisions reflected both conceptual decisions and the reality that the United States had insufficient manpower to man its divisions as originally designed. The 7th Armored Division activated on March 1, 1942, at Camp Polk, Georgia, with Major General (MG) Lindsay McDonald Silvester in command. Formed around a cadre provided by the 3rd AD, the Lucky Seventh had little respite in the intervening two years before it landed in France in August 1944. The Division trained at Camp Polk and at Camp Coxcomb in the California desert. Finally the 7th AD participated in large-scale maneuvers in Louisiana and Texas before sailing with its equipment for the United Kingdom.
In the midst of training and deploying units, manpower restrictions forced the Army to reduce the strength of its armored and infantry divisions. Even these cuts proved insufficient to address the manpower shortages. The Chief of Staff, General (GEN) George C. Marshall, then reduced the planned number of all types of divisions to ninety. After that decision the Army Ground Forces Reduction Board applied the knife to division structure, reducing the infantry divisions by nearly two thousand officers and men and the armored divisions by nearly four thousand. The Army reduced the number of tanks in armored divisions from 360 to 263. Finally, the expansion of ground forces that began in 1940 ended in August 1943, and no new divisions were activated after that time. The Army made do with what it had. At the end of World War II it did not have a single division still in the continental United States; all eighty-nine divisions it finally fielded had deployed overseas by the end of the war in August 1945.
Beyond a shortage of manpower it is fair to say that neither the Army nor line infantry divisions received the cream of the crop. Until 1942, young men could avoid the draft by joining the Army Air Forces, the Marine Corps, or the Navy. The airborne infantry skimmed off more of the best and brightest soldiers, as did some of the specialty formations. The shortage of manpower reached its nadir in 1944. Soldiers had to be stripped from antiaircraft artillery units and combat support and service support units to find infantry and armor replacements. Last but not least, replacements came from the Army Specialized Training Program designed to educate a cadre of bright young men in universities. Young men who had hoped to spend the war in college got a rifle instead of a degree and went to war — often without adequate training. These young men were bright and for the most part highly motivated. They added high-quality troops to units in the field.
In any case, before deploying, the 7th AD reorganized from a "heavy" armored division of three robust regiments to a smaller combined arms division. The reduction and reorganization reflected not only manpower restrictions but also operational concepts and strategic decisions. First, building up air power took priority over ground troops. Second, Lieutenant General (LTG) Lesley J. McNair, the commander of the Army Ground Forces and the driving force of Army operational concepts, intended the armored divisions to exploit success, not attempt breakthroughs, which further justified their reduced numbers.
The reorganized armored divisions fielded three tank and three armored infantry battalions. Two combat command headquarters, one commanded by a brigadier general, provided command and control of the maneuver battalions, which were attached to combat commands according to mission requirements. A third combat command reserve would control units rotated out of the line to rest and refit. In practice, the divisions used the combat command reserve as a third headquarters. In addition to six maneuver battalions (three tank battalions and three armored infantry battalions), a mechanized cavalry reconnaissance squadron supported the division, assuming economy of force and security missions. The armored divisions had combat support and service support formations similar to those in the infantry divisions. The combat support formations included three self-propelled 105-millimeter howitzer battalions. The armored divisions also had an organic armored engineer battalion. They usually had an attached antiaircraft artillery battalion and a tank destroyer battalion. The organic service support formations included an ordnance battalion and a medical battalion.
Manpower shortages in late 1943 forced the Army to ravage units late on the deployment schedule to man those scheduled earlier. The 106th ID is perhaps the most poignant example. Activated on March 15, 1943, it suffered delay and disruption due to being "cadred." In the summer of 1944, after the 106th ID completed unit training, it lost 7,247 soldiers, or some 60 percent of its authorized strength. Plumped up just in time to deploy, the 106th ID arrived in Europe without the opportunity to train replacements adequately. While the Division could be considered to have had two years of preparation, the majority of its soldiers enjoyed significantly less.
The 106th ID and the other infantry divisions organized with just over fourteen thousand soldiers. They remained robust, with three regiments of three infantry battalions. Each battalion consisted of nearly nine hundred soldiers, mostly riflemen. Infantry regiments also possessed an organic cannon company, normally of six towed short-barreled 105-millimeter howitzers to provide immediate fire support. Each infantry division fielded four artillery battalions commanded by a division artillery commander, normally a brigadier general. Three 105-millimeter howitzer battalions provided direct support to the regiments. A towed 155-millimeter howitzer battalion provided general support to the Division. The division artillery headquarters had the means to mass the fires of all four and integrate fires from reinforcing artillery. An engineer battalion rounded out organic combat support, and each infantry division also had a reconnaissance troop. Antiaircraft artillery, antitank battalions, and tank battalions attached from the field army routinely supported the infantry divisions. Transportation assets could be added to provide added mobility. Although numbered field armies provided the bulk of logistics support at supply points, the infantry division had some organic logistics organizations for transportation and distribution.
A corps commander directed from two to as many as six divisions according to mission requirements. The corps echelon exercised tactical direction and coordination of attached divisions. The 1941 edition of FM 100-5, Operations, described the corps as "primarily a tactical unit." Accordingly, it had almost no administrative responsibility for logistics or accounting for personnel and equipment. As such, corps headquarters had fewer than two hundred soldiers authorized. Depending on the assigned mission, a corps received various "pooled" units from its controlling field army. Typically it could expect cavalry, engineers, antiaircraft artillery, and field artillery to be assigned from the Army echelon. In turn the corps could retain or attach these to subordinate divisions to weight specific missions. Artillery was easily the most important combat support asset employed by the corps in support of operations.
The Red Army was justifiably famous for barrages fired by artillery lined up hub to hub. What is not widely known is that only the Red Army had more artillery than the US Army. US artillery, however, demonstrated better agility and could mass fires from dispersed batteries using a technique called time on target, which required fire direction centers to coordinate direction of fire and time of flight for multiple artillery units. This technique enabled multiple battalions to deliver accurate bombardment with first rounds from as many as a hundred or more tubes of artillery striking simultaneously. On December 15, 1944, some twenty-three battalions of corps artillery and fourteen battalions of divisional artillery could support operations in the Ardennes stretch of the Allied line. Equally important, no artillery went to waste. The artillery that supported Americans in the Ardennes included two "provisional" battalions equipped with captured German 10.5-centimeter howitzers that were a close match to the US 105-millimeter howitzer. These were manned by reducing manning in several 155-millimeter battalions assigned to the VIII Corps artillery. The US Army believed in and used artillery effectively.
The Breakout: Penetration, Exploitation, and Culmination
A brief review of events following the breakout after the Battle of St. Lo in July 1944 will set the context of the 7th AD's fight in the bulge. At the outset of the campaign in Normandy, British field marshal Bernard Law Montgomery led the Allied ground forces as commander of the 21st Army Group until late July, when LTG Omar N. Bradley activated the 12th Army Group, which was composed of First US Army, commanded by LTG Courtney H. Hodges, and Third US Army, commanded by LTG George S. Patton Jr. The Allies, led by US forces, exploited the breakout by repelling a heavy counterattack at Mortain and racing east and west, sending a corps to encircle the Port of Brest and the rest of Third Army around the southern flank of the German Army in Normandy. For a few weeks the Allies, and in particular the US Army, demonstrated blitzkrieg to those who invented it. But the Americans and their allies did not demonstrate the level of expertise the Germans showed in 1939–41. After nearly encircling large German forces at Falaise, the Allies failed to close the gap because of difficulties coordinating forces from the converging 12th and 21st Army Groups attacking north and south, respectively.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Loss and Redemption at St. Vith"
by .
Copyright © 2019 The Curators of the University of Missouri.
Excerpted by permission of University of Missouri Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.