Citizen Soldiers_ The U.S. Army from the - Stephen E. Ambrose [57]
rations. Remaining stationary in damp, cold foxholes, with physical activity extremely limited, we began to suffer casualties from trenchfoot. The extreme cold, fatigue, boredom, and hazard became maddening. A few men broke under the strain, wetting themselves repeatedly, weeping, vomiting, or showing other physical symptoms." But there was no more retreating.
The fighting was at its most furious in the twin villages of Rocherath and Krinkelt, on the eastern edge of the ridge. There a battalion from the 2nd Infantry Division engaged a German armoured division in a wild melee that included hand-to-hand combat. American tank crews knew they could not take on the big German tanks toe to toe, so they allowed the Panthers and Tigers to close on their positions for an intricate game of cat and mouse among the village streets and alleys. Shermans remained hidden behind walls, buildings, and hedgerows, waiting for a German tank to cross their sights. Most engagements took place at ranges of less than 25 metres. The 57-mm antitank guns of the Americans were cumbersome, with too little firepower to have much effect. The bazooka, however, was highly effective within the villages, especially after dark, when bazooka teams could work their way close enough to the German tanks.
Sergeant Arnold Parish of the 2nd Infantry had made the D-Day landing, when he won the Bronze Star, had been wounded on June 9, and had rejoined his unit in August, so he had four months of combat by midDecember. He agreed: Elsenborn was the toughest. "We were helpless," Parish recalled, "and all alone and there was nothing we could do, so I prayed to God." During the nights "the time went by very slow as I tried to keep warm but that wasn't possible so I thought about my mother and hoped she didn't know where I was or what I was doing. I was glad I was not married."
SOUTHWEST OF Elsenborn the 82nd Airborne was arriving to stop Peiper's rush westwards. On December 20 Colonel Ben Vandervoort's 2nd Battalion, 505th PIR, arrived at Trois-Ponts, where the Salm and Ambleve rivers flowed together. Vandervoort put E Company on the east side of the Salm. By 0300 hours they were in position to ambush any German force coming from the east. There they waited, no fires, no lights, no smoking, all wide awake.
German armour-Peiper's-was coming on, accompanied by infantry. Peiper had a twenty-to-one manpower advantage over Vandervoort and a colossal firepower superiority. The American paratroopers had only one little 57-mm antitank gun, six bazookas, and the ultralight airborne 75-mm pack howitzer for artillery.
At 0315 hours, as an armoured German vehicle rounded a curve on the road and wound its way down to the river, a bazooka team bushwhacked it. After the German crew fled, the paratroopers placed a minefield on the far side of the burning hulk. At 0400 a second armoured vehicle blew itself up on the mines.
At first light on December 21, Peiper attacked E Company with infantry and five tanks. Bazookas and the antitank gun knocked out the armour. Men in the foxholes drove back the infantry with great loss. From the west bank the Americans could see Peiper's tanks, artillery, and mobile flak batteries massing for another attack.
Vandervoort sent F Company across the river to support E Company with a flank attack, but it had little effect. Vandervoort later remarked that "disaster seemed imminent, but not one man of E company left his fighting position." He jumped into a jeep and had his driver take him over the bridge and to the bluff above the east bank. He arrived at the CP just as the first wave of German infantry attacked, supported by tanks firing their cannon and machine guns spraying the American positions.
Vandervoort jumped out of his jeep and ran to the CO, Lieutenant William Meddaugh. "Pull out," he ordered,