Office of the Chief of Military History, Dept. The stubborn defenders of St. Vith played a major role in defeating the final German offensive of World War II in Western Europe. The line companies were down to one officer apiece. VGD) was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army (Heer) during the Second World War, active from 1944 to 1945.. Jones wanted Clarke to counterattack immediately with his combat command and break that ring that these people have closed around the Schnee Eifel.. Manteuffels operation in the St. Vith area was already three days behind schedule. One, the Sixth Panzer Army, was commanded by SS Obergruppenfhrer (brigadier general) Josef Sepp Dietrich, and the other, the Fifth Panzer Army, was commanded by General Hasso von Manteuffel. The colonel ordered the troop east along the road to Schoenberg to delay a German tank and infantry team approaching St. Vith from that direction. Out of the 1,467 tanks the Germans brought with them to the Battle of the Bulge on the 16th of December, 1944, 52 of them were Tiger IIs and 14 of them were Tiger Is. Besides the previously mentioned absence of any recountings of this event in several notable documents that should have contained it, and most peculiarly, Captain Anstey himself makes no mention of the engagement when he discusses and documents the events of the 18th of December 1944 in a combat interview he gave on the 2nd of January 1945, just over two weeks after the event supposedly took place. By midnight on the 19th, the horseshoe- shaped defense of St. Vith had taken form. Infanterie-Division 19398 . The distance from Burg Reuland on the southeast to Poteau on the northwest was about 10 miles with only a single secondary road as a line of retreat for thousands of men defending the horseshoe against attack from three directions. 1964. Close. German reports are also far from subtlety. Before departing, however, Hoge gave orders to Lt. Col. Leonard E. Engeman, commander of the 14th Tank Battalion, to get a strong force ready to move out to assist 7th Armored should it become necessary. According to Hugh M. Cole, an American historian and army officer. General Jones and his staff had pulled out of St. Vith on the morning of the 18th for Vielsalm. A scratch force made up of one platoon of riflemen from Company A, 27th AIB and a platoon from Company B, 9th Engineers were sent to contain the Germans. Company B of the 9th Engineers and D Company of the 89th Recon joined the line to supplement the armored infantry. Adding to the slowdown of operations against St. Vith, the 18th Volksgrenadier Division was still using two of its three regiments and all but one of its artillery battalions against the two trapped 106th Infantry Division regiments on the Schnee Eifel. As a result of 7th Armoreds earlier regrouping, Rodt was the junction point between CCA of the 7th Armored under the command of Colonel Rosebaum and General Clarkes CCB. War Department Technical Manual TM 9-1904 Ammunition Inspection Guide. The U.S. 9th Armored Division arrived in the European Theater of Operations in late October 1944 as a reserve for Maj. Gen. 1947. While a single troop of the 14th Cavalry Group continued to resist the German spearheads, the 106th's engineers dug in to block the crucial Schoenberg road 2 miles east of St. Vith, a last ditch defense, hoping . Zaloga, Steven. Volksgrenadier-Division; 18. Because the Our had ceased to be a barrier anywhere else, General Hoge felt that there was little to gain in continuing to overextend his command to hold the low ground along the river. The Ardennes 1944-1945: Hitlers Winter Offensive. Armour Plate Porforation [sic: Perforation] of Tank and Anti Tank Guns. Thus, the job of rescuing the two trapped infantry regiments on the Schnee Eifel passed from the 9th to the 7th Armored Division. The second task force hit another probe by the 1st SS Panzer and pushed it out of Hunningen. 16 Dec 2022 08:28:00 General Lucht hurried to Winterspelt to get the 62nd Volksgrenadier moving to the Our. On its way to the new position, C Company came under a sudden artillery and rocket barrage in the village of Lommersweiler. Eisernes Kreuz 2.Klasse (1914) Period: First World War (1914-1918) Awarded on: October 30th, 1917. The Americans knew that their only hope in doing any sort of damage to this beast was to get as close as possible to it and shoot its weaker rear armor. General Jones wanted Hoge to use the infantry of his 27th AIB to seize the series of hills near Winterspelt while the 14th Tank Battalion was to remain west of the Our River for use as the situation developed. South of Sixth Panzer Army was General Manteuffels Fifth Panzer Army, with the Seventh Army on its left. Volksgrenadier-Division. This is before you take into account that the manufacturing process for German armor allowed for a tolerance in plates which often left plates 2 to 5 mm thicker than ordered. Add to cart. It was at full strength and supplied with the latest equipment. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division (18th VGD) was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army (Heer) during the Second World War, active from 1944 to 1945. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division (18th VGD) was a volksgrenadier division of the German Army (Heer) during the Second World War, active from 1944 to 1945.. Back in the 1970s I worked with a man who told this story, he claimed he was the driver. Developed in the 1930s, the Panzer IV was one of the mainstay German armored fighting vehicles of the Second World War as well as Germanys most-produced tank of the war, with over 8,500 produced. American Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force Choose a Unit. Hoge has just reported an attack. Two regiments of the 62nd Volksgrenadier Division attacked 9th Armored positions early that morning, their goal to gain the Salm River at Salmchateau. First Edition, Stackpole Books, 2004. Im going to guess that they just created this all up in their head. Hoge pointedly asked Ridgway how it could be done. To execute this maneuver, Hoges entire command would have to move all the way up to St. Vith and back down again. The Seventh Armored Division in the Battle of St. Vith. The American plan was that once the 2nd Infantry Division reduced the German defenses at the Wahlerscheid crossroads, CCB was to spearhead a drive to the reservoirs north of Gemund and Schleiden. They were repulsed by machine-gun fire. Two of its tanks were mired in mud that had not frozen and had to be retrieved by a tank dozer. VGD division was absorbed into the 26. 2014 Since speed was the key to success of the German plan, two panzer armies would spearhead the offensive. The event simply was not that notable. Germanys Tiger Tanks D.W. to Tiger I: Design, Production & Modifications. There are a few notable issues raised by this morning report and record of events entry, the most obvious one being that the M8 Greyhound is reported as being from Troop A of the 87th, not Troop B of the 87th, as it is in the contemporary story. This battalion hit the 424ths Cannon Company at the Weissenhof crossroads. Thus, there are four different versions of this story circulating: Troop Es version with a Tiger I, Troop Es version with a Tiger II, Captain Ansteys version with a Tiger I, and Captain Ansteys version with a Tiger II. . In this version the M8 is replaced by an M5 Stuart from the 17th Tank Battalion of the 7th Armored during the retreat from St. Vith, that somehow miraculously ended up behind a Tiger when they thought they were following a Sherman. After learning of the attack by the Fhrer Escort Brigade, Brig. VGD) was a volksgrenadierdivision of the German Army(Heer) during the Second World War, active from 1944 to 1945. This story has gained a good deal of attention in recent years, especially on the internet thanks to videos such as The Tank Duel at St. Vith, Belgium by Lance Geiger The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered, which has garnered hundreds of thousands of views. I think we can make it now. Troop D, 89th Recon held the sector from Steinebruck to Weppeler while A Company, 27th AIB put up a defensive line anchored on the high ground east of Maspelt. Three times the grenadiers [German] tried to rush their way through the foxhole line held by the 38th Armored Infantry Battalion (Lt. Col. William H. G. Fuller) and B Troop of the 87th astride the Schnberg road. At approximately 0100 on December 18, a German force of about 30 men tried to cross the Our at Steinebruck after a brief artillery barrage. After listening to the information provided by General Clarkes staff officer, General Hoge decided to go to St. Vith himself to assess the situation. It is stated as being reported to Major Boyer by one Captain Walter Henry Anstey of Company A of the 38th Armored Infantry Battalion, who is said to have been a witness to the event. . Created as 22.Infanterie-Division in 1935, one regiment participated in the 1939 Invasion of Poland; the rest of the division stayed in garrison on the Siegfried Line in case of a French attack in defense of Poland. The division was formed in Denmark, in September 1944, by redesignating 571.Volksgrenadier-Division.Under the command of Gnther Hoffmann-Schnborn, the new division absorbed elements of the 18th Luftwaffe Field . I have come to believe is that this type of fight happened more than once. Little offtopic here but another misidentification might be the 1 destroyed 88mm assault gun (Ferdinand). As each unit joined the rear of the column, it took its turn being the rear guard. It contained the 293., 294. and 295. grenadier regiments, Panzerjger-Bataillon 1818, Pionier-Bataillon 1818, Fsilier-Bataillon 1818 and Artillerie-Regiment 1818.[1]. 18th Artillery Division 651. So, rather than spill blood needlessly to take meaningless ground, Hoge called off the attack on Winterspelt. Add to cart. After conferring with Clarke, Ridgway wanted to talk to one more man in whom he had supreme confidenceBrigadier General Hoge. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division (18. Not long after Rodt fell to the Fhrer Escort Brigade, an attack came against the 7th Armored from the direction of Recht. 10 Apr. During the 27th AIBs assault, a call went out for the 14th Tank Battalion to join the action. The troop was to hold until relieved by the 27th Armored Infantry Battalion (AIB) and then reconnoiter farther down the road toward Winterspelt. Stackpole Books, 2015. The village of St. Vith lay approximately 12 miles behind the front lines on December 16, 1944, the day the offensive code-named Operation Watch on the Rhine began. Still quite a feat for a little Greyhound, though well probably never know conclusively. Schneider, Wolfgang. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division (18. CCBs new position blocked the main Winterspelt-St. Vith highway and the valley of the Braunlauf Creek, a second natural corridor leading to St. Vith.
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