The Battle of Lanzerath Ridge was fought on December 16, 1944, the first day of the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, near the village of Lanzerath, Belgium, along the key route for the German advance on the northern shoulder of the operation. The American force consisted of two squads totalling 18 men belonging to a reconnaissance platoon and four forward artillery observers, against a German battalion of about 500 paratroopers. During a day-long confrontation, the American defenders inflicted dozens of casualties on the Germans and delayed by almost 20 hours the advance of the entire 1st SS Panzer Division, the spearhead of the German 6th Panzer Army.
The Germans finally flanked the Americans at dusk, capturing them. Only one American, an artillery observer, was killed, while 14 others were wounded, while German casualties totaled 92. The Germans paused, believing the woods were filled with more Americans and tanks. Only when SS-Standartenführer Joachim Peiper and his tanks arrived at midnight, twelve hours behind schedule, did the Germans learn the nearby woods were empty.
Due to lost communications with battalion and then regimental headquarters, and the unit's subsequent capture, its disposition and success at delaying the advance of the 6th Panzer Army that day was unknown to U.S. commanders. First Lieutenant Lyle Bouck considered the wounding of most of his men and the capture of his entire unit a failure. When the war ended five months later, the platoon's men, who were split between two prisoner-of-war camps, just wanted to get home. It was only after the war that Bouck learned that his platoon had prevented the lead German infantry elements from advancing and had delayed by about 20 hours their armored units' advance. On October 26, 1981, after considerable lobbying, a Congressional hearing, and letter writing by Bouck, every member of the unit was finally recognized for their valor that day, making the platoon the most decorated American unit of its size of World War II.
Background
Prior to the Battle of the Bulge, the U.S. Army was engaged in a campaign to attack the Roer River dams before invading the rest of Germany. The green 99th Infantry Division was supporting the battle-weary 2nd Infantry Division in their attack on the German West Wall at Wahlerscheid. During two days of hard fighting, the U.S. Army had finally managed to slip through the heavily fortified lines and penetrate the German defenses. The Americans were expecting a counterattack in the area, but their intelligence completely failed to detect the Germans' movement of hundreds of armored vehicles and tens of thousands of infantry into the region. Much of the region was relatively quiet, lending the area the title of "Ghost Front."
During early December 1944, the American defensive line in the Ardennes had a gap south of Losheimergraben. General Leonard T. Gerow, in command of V Corps, recognized this area as a possible avenue of attack by the Germans. This area, which lay between V Corps and Troy H. Middleton's VIII Corps, was undefended and just patrolled by jeep. The patrols in the northern part of the area were conducted by the 99th Infantry Division's 394th Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, whereas those in the south were conducted by the 18th Cavalry Squadron, 14th Cavalry Group, which was attached to the 106th Infantry Division.
In the border area between Germany and Belgium, there was only one road network that could support a military advance: it was through the area known as the Losheim Gap, a long, narrow valley at the western foot of the Schnee Eifel. This was the key route through which the German Sixth and Fifth Panzer Armies planned to advance.
On December 11, General Walter M. Robertson, commander of the battle-hardened 2nd Infantry Division, was ordered to attack and seize the Roer River dams. In case he had to pull back, he chose Elsenborn Ridge as his defensive line. General Walter E. Lauer, commanding the 99th Infantry Division, was charged with building up the defenses around Elsenborn Ridge. Lauer knew his front was extremely long and very thinly manned; he gave instructions to his division to dig in and build cover for their foxholes.
Prelude
Inexperienced American units
The troops of the 99th Infantry Division, who lacked battle experience, were deployed to the Ardennes in November 1944, with the 394th Regiment relieving the 60th Regiment of the 9th Infantry Division. Among the units was the 394th I&R platoon, consisting of well-trained soldiers who had been selected because they were expert marksmen and in peak physical condition. Some of the men were college-educated and were former members of the U.S. Army's abruptly terminated ASTP program. This platoon was led by 20-year-old Lieutenant Lyle Bouck, one of the youngest officers in the Army, and the second youngest man in the unit. For the next few weeks his platoon established and maintained regimental listening and observation posts, conducted patrols behind enemy lines, and gathered information. They lived in a brick building in Hünningen, taking advantage of a basement full of potatoes and a homemade stove to supplement their military C-rations.
The platoon consisted of two nine-man reconnaissance squads and a seven-man headquarters section, which was attached to the 394th Regiment's S2 section. As the platoon was not intended nor trained for combat, they were told to avoid direct engagement with the Germans. Nonetheless, they took part in several missions behind enemy lines, even as far as Losheim, behind the front line, to capture enemy soldiers for intelligence. Bouck and several of his men were among the first soldiers in their regiment to be recognized with the Combat Infantry Badge. Most often their patrols consisted of creeping through snow-clogged defiles obscured by fog in an attempt to fix enemy positions.
On December 10, the reconnaissance platoon was ordered by Major Robert Kriz, commanding officer of the 394th Infantry Regiment, to a new position about southeast of Hünningen, near Lanzerath, Belgium, a village of 23 homes and a church. The village lay at a critical road junction in the northern part of the Losheim Gap. The 25 men were charged by Kriz with plugging a gap in the front line between the 106th Division to the south and the 99th Division to the north. The only reserve was the 394th Infantry Regiment's 3rd Battalion, which was at Buchholz Station. Behind them lay roads that could give the enemy rapid access to the Army's rear and allow them to easily flank the thinly deployed 99th Division.
American defensive preparations The I&R platoon took over positions on a ridge top immediately northwest of Lanzerath that were formerly occupied by part of the 2nd Infantry Division. They were ordered to improve their foxhole positions and maintain contact with Task Force X, made up of 55 troops manning four towed three-inch guns from the 2nd Platoon, Company A, 820th Tank Destroyer Battalion. The 820th was attached to the 14th Cavalry Group, 106th Infantry Division of VIII Corps. The I&R platoon and the 820th TD were reinforced by the 22 men of the 820th's 2nd Recon Platoon, commanded by Lieutenant John Arculeer, who were mounted on an armored half-track and two jeeps. Members of the 2nd Platoon took up positions in two homes in the village of Lanzerath about to the southeast. Together, the two units comprised the foremost units in their sector of the American forces facing the Siegfried Line.
The Americans attacked through the Siegfried Line at Walerscheid about to the north, and a localized counterattack was expected. Lieutenant Bouck followed procedure and ordered his men to build fortifications with interlocking fields of fire. Taking advantage of the foxholes left by the previous unit, they dug them deeper so that two or three men could stand in them and fire from the concealed edges. They covered each hole with pine logs to thick. Their hilltop location was just inside the edge of a forest and overlooked a pasture bisected by a high barbed wire fence parallel to their location. Their position covered about along a shallow ridge line, about in enfilade position above the road and northwest of the village. Their foxholes were situated in a shallow curve along the ridge line in a northeast direction, almost to a fork in the road at their left flank. Snow fell, covering their dug-in fortifications inside the woods, leaving them virtually invisible from the road below.
They took advantage of a small log hut behind their position, which they used as a warming hut. Bouck had augmented the unit's weaponry with four extra carbines, two Browning automatic rifles, and one light .30 caliber machine gun. Outside official channels, he had also traded his unit's collection of German memorabilia with an ordnance supply officer for an armored Jeep with a mounted .50 caliber machine gun. His men dug an emplacement for the armored jeep and its .50 caliber gun, placing it in enfilade down the road along the Germans' possible line of advance.
Once an hour, in an attempt to fill the gap in their sector, they ran a jeep patrol up and down the line to stay in contact with units on their right and left flanks and to watch for any enemy movement. They hoped they would be relieved soon: "We weren't trained to occupy a defensive position in the front lines. We were trained to patrol and get information about the enemy," Bouck said in an interview 60 years later. On the night of December 16, they heard the clanking of armor and the sound of vehicles in the distance. Bouck ordered his men to remain awake. The temperature ranged from to the low during the day.
German plans
Many of the German units were recent conscripts with very little experience. Sergeant Vinz Kuhlbach's platoon was typical. Most of his soldiers had little combat experience and even less training. The German units had been formed by conscripting teenage boys and men over 50, men previously rejected as physically unfit for service, wounded soldiers newly released from hospitals, and men transferred from the "jobless" personnel of the shrinking Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe. The German 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division, which had previously acquired a superb combat reputation, had been virtually destroyed during the Normandy Invasion in the Falaise pocket. It had been resurrected by using replacements from the 22nd, 51st and 53rd Luftwaffe Field Regiments. The German units were usually organized around small cadres of seasoned veterans. Although they carried the new StG 44 and were equipped with rifle grenades, few had ever fired them in combat. The German recruits were told the American soldiers they faced would not have the nerve to stand and fight. Their officers said the Americans were "a gum-chewing, undisciplined half-breed with no stomach for real war."
To preserve the available armor, the infantry of the 9th Fallschirmjäger Regiment, 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division, had been ordered to lead the attack through Lanzerath and clear the village before advancing towards Honsfeld and then Büllingen. The German commanders estimated they would face a full division of U.S. troops at Büllingen.
Kampfgruppe Peiper's initial position was in the forest around Blankenheim, Germany, east of the German-Belgium border and the Siegfried Line. Once the infantry captured Lanzerath, Sepp Dietrich's Sixth Panzer Army led by Kampfgruppe Peiper would proceed without delay. The infantry would then secure the right flank of the attack route near Losheimergraben. Peiper's goal was to cross the Meuse River at Huy, Belgium.
Despite the losses that had brought the Allies to the border of their homeland, German morale was surprisingly strong. The men knew the Allies were demanding an unconditional surrender. They were now fighting for the fatherland, defending the soil of their country, not just fighting for Hitler.