Chapter 18: The Forests of the Meurthe
The departure of General Truscott in the VI Corps was also marked by another high-level command change affecting the 6th Army Group. On 22 October General Devers, commanding the army group, turned over his concurrent command of NATOUSA to Lt. Gen. Joseph T. McNarney, formerly Deputy Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. This rather belated shift relieved Devers of what had become nagging U.S. Army administrative responsibilities in the Mediterranean area and allowed him to devote all his time and energy to the affairs of 6th Army Group. Devers, however, unlike Bradley, continued to operate with only a small operational staff, monitoring problem areas between his two subordinate armies and SHAEF headquarters, but rarely interfering with tactical operations conducted at corps level, or with the logistical and administrative responsibilities shouldered by the larger army-level headquarters. In any case, with the XV Corps’ battle of the Parroy forest and the French II Corps’ attack in the southern Vosges ended, there was little Devers could do while he waited for fresh supplies and fresh units for a major army group offensive scheduled for mid-November.
DOGFACE Resumed
As VI Corps commander, General Brooks, a quiet New Englander with experience as an artillery officer during World War I, was to prove more reserved and less colorful than his predecessor, but equally able and innovative. Assigned to Fort Knox, Kentucky, in September 1941, he had taken over the 11th Armored Division in July of the following year; in 1944 he had commanded the U.S. 2nd Armored Division in Bradley’s army group during the campaigns in northern France. Although eager to do well in his first corps command assignment, Brooks would find the VI Corps infantrymen much different than his former armored troops and the Vosges terrain more challenging than the gentler ground to the north. In fact almost immediately he would inherit all the frustrations that had plagued Truscott since crossing the Moselle and gain a few new ones in the bargain.
With Devers’ approval, both Patch and his new corps commander were eager to have their new drive on St. Die and the Meurthe River under way as soon as possible. Thus on the morning of 23 October, the 45th Division’s
two attacking regiments began crossing the Mortagne River. Despite opposition, units of the 180th Infantry were across the river by 0745 and by noon had penetrated over half a mile northeast into the Rambervillers forest, followed quickly by elements of the 179th Infantry. The crossing had cost the 180th’s lead battalion nearly one hundred casualties, almost all of them suffered during the initial attempt, and the unit captured about one hundred Germans on the east bank.
Once across the river, progress was rapid. Patrols from the 45th Division soon met elements of the 3rd Division; by the following day, 24 October, both of Eagles’ regiments began swinging northward, making gains of up to a mile through the dense Rambervillers forest. Light resistance was less of an impediment than were the difficulties of opening supply routes on the dirt roads and trails to support further advances. The 45th Division’s 157th Infantry joined the attack early on the 25th from the Rambervillers region, crossing the Mortagne near Autry and pushing east and northeast. Meanwhile, south of Autry, the 120th Engineer Battalion, 45th Division, installed a forty-ton bridge across the Mortagne to support the advance.
During the afternoon of 25 October German resistance stiffened all across the front of the 45th Division, and throughout the night German artillery and mortar fire constantly harassed the attacking units. Although forward troops braced for a possible counterattack, the morning of the 26th revealed that the night bombardment had only been a cover for a general German withdrawal. Thereafter the advance resumed. Elements of the 157th Infantry reached Route D-32 about midway across the forest during the course of the day; farther south, the 179th Infantry continued northeastward for a mile and a half, while the 180th Infantry, pinched out by the other two regiments, reverted to division reserve. By the end of 26 October the 45th Division had thus penetrated the boundary between the 21st Panzer and the 16th Volksgrendier Divisions and, in conjunction with 3rd and 36th Division operations to the south, had completed the isolation of most of the 16th Division in the center of the American attack.
South of the 45th, the 3rd Division had resumed its advance toward Les Rouges Eaux along the axis of Route N-420 on 23 October, with the 15th Infantry north of the road and the 7th Infantry to the south. The 7th Infantry ran into stubborn resistance in the Les Rouges Eaux sector, but made some progress south of the highway and finally cleared the hamlet on the 25th.
Just short of Les Rouges Eaux on the 23rd, the 15th Infantry moved off the highway and began to advance generally northward into the rough forested terrain just west of twisting Route D-7 on 24 October. Progress was fairly steady until the vanguard ran up against a German strongpoint on the 25th, centering around a small road junction two miles within the forest; here the forward movement of the regiment halted.
Meanwhile, the 30th Infantry (moving over from the Le Tholy area) had rejoined the rest of the 3rd Division and, on the 25th, dispatched its 3rd Battalion northward behind the 15th Infantry. About a mile south of
the strongpoint that was holding up the 15th regiment, the battalion cut east across Route D-7 and headed northeast along woodland trails for a mile and a half, encountering almost no resistance. By the time the morning was well along, the other battalions of the 30th Infantry had followed, moving undetected through a large gap in the 16th Division’s right flank. Taking advantage of the situation, the 30th Infantry pushed one battalion north to Route D-32 while the other units moved rapidly east, heading directly for the Magdeleine woods.1
While the 30th Infantry’s success accelerated the 3rd Division’s push through the Rambervillers forest, the progress of the division’s 7th regiment along Route N-420—presumably the easier axis of advance—was stopped a few miles north of Les Rouges Eaux by what turned out to be the strongest opposition yet encountered.2 The 7th Infantry had come up against the 933rd Grenadiers of the 338th Division, representing the first major response of the German Army command to the VI Corps’ offensive.
The German Response
The rapid thrust of the VI Corps threatened to split von Gilsa’s LXXXIX Corps in the north from Thumm’s LXIV Corps in the south. Balck and Wiese tried desperately to remedy the situation. During the night of 23–24 October, the Nineteenth Army thus began shifting the reinforced 933rd Grenadier Regiment3 north from the IV Luftwaffe Field Corps sector in order to close the gap between the 16th Volksgrenadier Division (LXXXIX Corps) and the 716th Division (LXIV Corps) that had been opened by the 36th Division on the 22nd. When the advance of 36th Division units southeast of N-420 continued to widen the gap on the 24th, Wiese immediately decided to commit the 602nd Reconnaissance Battalion and the 201st and 202nd Mountain Battalions—the latter unit having detrained at St. Die during the night of 23–24 October. By the 25th at least some of these units had crossed the Meurthe River west of St. Die to assist the disorganized 16th Volksgrenadier Division in holding on to Route N-420 and closing the gap south of the highway in the Domaniale de Champ forest. Also reinforcing the 16th Division on 24 or 25 October were the two provisional infantry battalions made up of probationers and men with ear problems, but these units may have simply been integrated into existing divisional formations.
Although the initial German redeployments substantially reinforced the
center and left of the collapsing Volksgrenadier Division, they had done nothing to strengthen its right wing or the equally tenuous situation of the 21st Panzer Division next door in the Rambervillers–Raon-l’Etape area. The only other backup force readily available was the 106th Panzer Brigade, which the Nineteenth Army had already moved to the northeastern edge of the Rambervillers forest. But General Wiese was reluctant to commit the brigade to the direct support of either the 21st Panzer or the 16th Volksgrenadier Division, preferring to hold the bulk of the unit in reserve against an expected American advance into the Meurthe River valley itself via Routes D-7 and D-32. Like the American commanders, Wiese too found it difficult to employ more than a few armored vehicles effectively in the wooded terrain of the Vosges at one time.
His decision proved to be sound as the battered 16th Division appeared to have little staying power. During 26 and 27 October, the 3rd Division’s 15th Infantry reduced the German strongpoint at the D-7 crossroads, cleared the road to La Bourgonce, and went on to occupy most of the town with no opposition.4 To the north, the 179th Infantry of the 45th Division had also reached D-32, and just to the south the 30th Infantry had continued eastward through the La Bourgonce area all the way to the Magdeleine woods to secure the high ground overlooking St. Die. These last gains enabled American forward artillery observers to place the 201st Mountain Battalion under accurate artillery fire as it was detraining at the town, and the Germans were therefore unable to commit the 201st along N-420 until the following day.5
In the sector of the 21st Panzer Division, the German defenders had done little better. On 27 October the 45th Division’s 157th and 179th Infantry regiments pushed northeast and east another mile and a half, with the 157th maintaining control over Route D-32 and the 179th drawing abreast of the 15th Infantry as it advanced into La Bourgonce. The next day, 28 October, the 180th Infantry came back into the line along Route N-59A, on the division’s left wing, and all three regiments began crossing Route D-32 in force toward Raon-l’Etape.6 Although the division encountered disorganized but determined resistance throughout the 27th and 28th, supply and support problems played the major role in slowing progress. Tracked vehicles repeatedly became mired in the muddy forest trails, while engineers had to work around the clock to keep unpaved roads and mountain trails passable for even lightweight jeeps. Bringing supplies and ammunition to forward units remained a major chore.
For the Germans, the 45th Division’s advances on 27 and 28 October posed new and serious threats. Outflanked in the Rambervillers forest
area, the 21st Panzer Division was forced to relinquish its positions around the town of Rambervillers, which had guarded the road approaches to both Raon-l’Etape and Baccarat. Wiese had hoped that the anemic panzer division might have been able somehow to tie its stretched defenses into those of the withdrawing 16th Volksgrendier Division near La Bourgonce, but both units were too weak and thinly spread to make a linear defense possible. Preoccupied with efforts to defend along Route N-420 and to close the gap south of the highway between the LXXXIX and LXIV Corps, Wiese and von Gilsa had apparently been slow to appreciate the extent and significance of a second gap that was developing between the 21st Panzer and 16th Volksgrenadier Divisions.
On 28 October Wiese belatedly decided to pull LXIV Corps’ 716th Division out of its now relatively quiet sector southwest of Bruyères and move the division northward to positions between his ailing panzer and Volksgrenadier units.7 He also instructed these embattled units to pull back toward the Meurthe River, hoping that the 16th Volksgrenadiers in the center of the Allied attack could hold a much smaller defensive front between the area just east of La Bourgonce and Le Haut Jacques Pass, on Route N-420 between Les Rouges Eaux and St. Die. From Le Haut Jacques Pass the 16th Volksgrenadier Division’s main defenses were to continue south through the central portion of the Domaniale de Champ forest to the Neune valley in the vicinity of Biffontaine; south of the town, the division would tie in with LXIV Corps units. Now expecting an early VI Corps breakout to the east from the Rambervillers forest, Wiese also directed the 21st Panzer Division and the 106th Panzer Brigade to pull their remaining armor back into reserve positions, thereby denying the defending forces any armored support for the immediate future. Given the nature of the fighting and the terrain, however, it was probably a wise decision.
The Nineteenth Army commander’s actions came somewhat late to be of much help to the Volksgrenadier Division. With the 30th Infantry’s penetration of the Bois de la Magdeleine, the division’s chances of establishing defenses very far north of N-420 were extremely poor, and Wiese’s orders indicated that both the Nineteenth Army and LXXXIX Corps lacked accurate information about the situation along the 16th Division’s front. Indeed, on 28 October Maj. Gen. Ernst Haeckel, commanding the Volksgrenadier Division, was in a state of confusion. As a result of nearly insoluble communications problems, he had little control of his tactical units, and many had started to fall apart. After one of his grenadier companies deserted to American lines on 27 October, General Balck came close to relieving Haeckel, but Wiese kept him on the job, mainly handling the German defenses along Route N-420. Although well aware that there were dangerous penetrations on both flanks of his unit, the harried division commander could do little about them.
The Attack Stalls
Unknown to Wiese, the 45th Division was not planning to conduct any major breakout eastward from the Rambervillers forest. On the division’s left, the 117th Cavalry Squadron had pushed a few miles northeast of Rambervillers with no opposition, but its flank security responsibilities prevented it from advancing more rapidly. In the forest itself, the movement of the 45th Division’s three infantry regiments toward the Meurthe River was steady, but also carefully measured. The 180th Infantry crossed Route D-32 near the western edge of the forest and, on the 30th, after overcoming stubborn resistance, reached Route N-59A. In the center the 157th Infantry pushed several miles north of D-32; meanwhile, on the division’s right, the 179th Infantry consolidated positions on high ground overlooking La Bourgonce, staying abreast of the 3rd Division’s 15th Infantry to the south, whose pace was much slower.
In the VI Corps’ center the 3rd Division was finding the way to St. Die more difficult. The 15th Infantry had spent its time since 27 October mopping up along Route D-7 in the La Bourgonce area, and on the 30th it began relieving 30th Infantry troops on the front lines a few miles east of La Bourgonce. While the relief was in progress, a German force—probably troops of the recently redeployed 716th Division—attacked and drove the intermixed American units back southward about a mile; during the confusion, about twenty-five troops of the 15th and 30th Infantry regiments and a forward observer party from the 141st Field Artillery Battalion were killed or captured. The attack, however, soon petered out, and, with its rear secured by the 15th Infantry, the 30th pressed east to assist the 7th regiment and the rest of the 3rd Division in opening Route N-420.
Despite almost continuous infiltration and numerous small, intense counterattacks that probably marked the arrival of elements of the 201st Mountain Battalion along the regimental front, the 30th Infantry was able to consolidate its positions in the Magdeleine woods area and, on 28 October, began to push elements east toward Hill 616, which dominated the highway just north of Le Haut Jacques Pass where the 7th Infantry was still stalled.8 If the hill could be captured, the entire German defensive position in the pass would be gravely threatened, as would its line of communications to St. Die. The Germans also recognized the tactical importance of Hill 616 and strengthened the area as best they could; at dusk on 30 October they were still holding back the 30th Infantry’s attacking force half a mile north of the hill’s summit.9
Meanwhile, the 7th Infantry still had its hands full along Route N-420. Despite several days of hard fighting, the unit had been unable to clear the
three miles of road between Les Rouges Eaux and the entrance to Le Haut Jacques Pass, and had been equally unsuccessful in attempting to bypass German strongpoints by skirting through the edges of the Domaniale de Champ forest just south of the highway. Assistance from the 36th Division was needed, but Dahlquist’s units, stretched thin over a long front, had their own problems.
The Lost Battalion
While the 45th and 3rd Divisions pushed northwest toward the Raon-l’Etape–St. Die area, Dahlquist’s 36th Division had moved east into the forbidding Domaniale de Champ forest south of the main attack. On 23 October the 442nd Infantry, on the 36th Division’s left, penetrated several miles toward the center of the forest, with one battalion clearing Biffontaine in the south. The following day the 442nd was relieved by the 141st and 143rd Infantry regiments, which continued the drive east. However, the hapless 141st was soon in trouble again. When the regiment’s 1st Battalion occupied Hills 624 and 645 northeast and southeast of Biffontaine on the 24th, the Germans reacted at once. Near Hill 624, an artillery-supported German counterattack cut the supply lines to elements of the 1st Battalion, and a relief column of the 2nd Battalion was unable to reach the isolated units, having become embroiled in several small skirmishes itself. The defenders were fresh units of the 338th Division’s 933rd Grenadiers, which Wiese hoped would stem the 36th Division’s penetration of the German inter-corps boundary.
During the night of 24–25 October the German grenadiers overran the command post of the 1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, and completely blocked the main trail to the battalion’s forward elements at Hill 645. An accounting on the morning of the 25th revealed that the Germans had cut off 241 Americans near the hill; their only contact with the rest of the regiment was the radio of an artillery forward observer.10 As yet, the Germans were only vaguely aware of the isolated American pocket, since the situation within the densely forested hills and ridges of the Domaniale de Champ was as murky for the 933rd Grenadier Regiment as it was for the 141st Infantry.
On 25 October the 2nd Battalion, 141st Infantry, gained some ground in the Hill 624 area, but fell far short of reaching the group near Hill 645. The 141st Infantry’s 3rd Battalion, moving into the battle area from the north, also met determined resistance and made little headway. During the afternoon the isolated group sent out a 36-man combat patrol to scout for a possible breakout route, but the detachment was subsequently ambushed. Only five men made it back to the Hill 645 perimeter and only a single soldier, after being lost five days in the woods, was finally able to reach American lines.
Domaniale de Champ forest (High Vosges in background). Location of “lost battalion “ is noted.
The situation remained unchanged throughout 26 October, but the trapped men were running desperately short of ammunition, medical supplies, and food. The 2nd Battalion, 442nd Infantry, after a two-day rest, came back into the line to allow the 141st to focus all its activities on the relief effort, but the regiment, worn thin by the long weeks of campaigning in the Vosges, was unable to clear a path to the isolated soldiers. The Hill 645 group—by now inaccurately dubbed The Lost Battalion—remained cut off.11
The next day, 27 October, an exasperated Dahlquist decided to bring the rest of the 442nd Infantry back into the line on the 141st Infantry’s left. However, the Japanese-American regiment was immediately subjected to armor-supported counterattacks launched by the 202nd Mountain Battalion, which had moved into the Les Rouges Eaux valley south of N-420.
To the east, the 141st Infantry’s progress was again negligible, and the 3rd Battalion even had to give up some ground in the face of German pressure.12 Increasingly frustrated with the performance of the 141st Infantry, General Dahlquist relieved the regimental commander and replaced him with Col. Charles H. Owens, the division’s chief of staff.13 These measures brought no immediate relief, however, to the trapped unit.
On 28 October the two recommitted battalions of the 442nd Infantry moved northeast into the sector of the 7th Infantry, 3rd Division, in an attempt to approach the southeastern portion of the Domaniale de Champ forest from a different angle. But again progress was painfully slow, and at dusk the 442d’s leading troops were still over two miles northwest of the “lost battalion.” During the day, however, the Japanese-American unit captured some ninety Germans, among them the commanding officer of the 202nd Mountain Battalion. Meanwhile, aided by clearing weather, artillery and aircraft managed to deliver some supplies to the stranded group. While howitzers fired in canisters filled with chocolate bars, P-47 fighters of the 371st Fighter-Bomber Group dropped packets of ammunition, K-rations, medical supplies, radio batteries, and water.14 On the same day, the 36th Division’s OSS detachment even sent a three-man team into the forest in an unsuccessful attempt to aid the unit.15 All this attention undoubtedly pinpointed the location of the small force for the 933rd Grenadiers, but the Germans had become increasingly disorganized and were unable to mount a concerted attack to eliminate the American pocket.
During 29 and 30 October, at a high cost, the 442nd Infantry laboriously fought its way down the southeastern arm of the forest. Finally, about 1400 on the 30th, a Nisei patrol reached the Hill 645 group, marking the end of the struggle. By 1600 the bulk of the two 442nd battalions had closed around the 141st Infantry’s isolated force and began evacuating the group’s casualties—twenty-six wounded, including twenty-two litter cases. The next day the remainder of the group rejoined the rest of the battered 1st Battalion, and Owens quickly pulled the unit out of the line. At the time, the battalion had only 490 men left out of an authorized strength of about 870.
At the end of October, the rest of the 141st Infantry was not in much better condition. During the month the regiment had received nearly 650 fresh enlisted replacements, and another 600 enlisted men had returned to duty after being out of the line as casualties. However, both battle and nonbattle casualties had risen to the extent that the regiment was still short about 450 enlisted men, and the 36th Division as a whole was approximately
Men from the Lost Battalion (1st Battalion, 141st Infantry, 36th Division).
4,400 troops below its strength of 1 October. Coming out of the battle, the attached 442nd Infantry, after only a relatively short period of fighting, was emaciated and down to little more than 50 percent of its authorized strength with no replacements in sight.
The whole affair of the lost battalion was extremely upsetting to both Dahlquist and Brooks. For five days the relief of the Hill 645 group had consumed the energies of the bulk of two infantry regiments plus a large proportion of the 36th Division’s supporting artillery, armor, and engineers. The diversion had prevented the 36th Division from continuing its advances elsewhere or even starting to approach its final DOGFACE objective, St. Leonard. In addition, fully occupied in the southeastern section of the Domaniale de Champ, the 36th was unable to provide any assistance to the 3rd Division’s attack up Route D-420. In fact, Brooks had to shift the 3rd Division’s boundary about two miles southward to cover the left flank of the troubled unit. The best that can be said of the episode was that the reinforcements sent by Wiese had also been badly damaged, as the Nineteenth Army once again ran up against the American hard-luck division.
The VI Corps’ attack, which had seemed so promising at first, appeared to be stalled in the Vosges forests at the end of October. Troop fatigue, poor weather, difficult terrain, ammunition shortages, and fresh German reinforcements all conspired
against any rapid advance to the Meurthe River. With the approach of winter, time seemed to be working against the American attackers, and the first major snowfalls in the mountains would make offensive operations even more difficult. But the Germans also had severe problems. The broad, grinding American advance was chewing up their infantry units bit by bit, never allowing them to build up their reserve for anything more than localized counterattacks. If the battle continued further, Wiese would have no troops to man and defend the Vosges Foothill Positions or any other winter defensive line. The fighting in the Rambervillers and Domaniale de Champ forests, and along Route N-420 thus seemed to be coming down to a matter of will and stamina—a war of attrition that, without assistance from the outside, only the more determined opponent would win.