395th Infantry Regiment

The 395th Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the United States Army, part of the 99th Infantry Division during World War II. It was organized with the rest of the 99th on 16 November 1942 at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. During the Battle of the Bulge, the regiment—at times virtually surrounded by Germans—was one of the few units that did not yield ground to the attacking Germans. On at least six occasions they called in artillery strikes on or directly in front of their own positions. Their success in defending Höfen resulted in the 395th Infantry being repeatedly assigned to other divisions for difficult assignments during the remainder of the war, earning them the sobriquet, Butler's Blue Battlin' Bastards. The unit was inactivated after World War II, then became a reserve unit, and was redesignated as the 395th Regiment in 1999.

Interwar period

The 395th Infantry was demobilized on 30 November 1918 as an inactive element of the 99th Division. It was reconstituted in the Organized Reserve on 24 June 1921, assigned to the 99th Division, and allotted to the Third Corps Area. It was initiated on 7 December 1921 with regimental headquarters at Franklin, Pennsylvania. Subordinate battalion headquarters were concurrently organized as follows: 1st Battalion at Butler, Pennsylvania; 2nd Battalion at Kane, Pennsylvania; and 3rd Battalion at Ridgway, Pennsylvania. The regimental headquarters was relocated on 11 December 1929 to Uniontown. The regiment conducted summer training most years with the 12th Infantry Regiment at Fort George G. Meade or Fort Howard, Maryland, and some years with the 34th Infantry Regiment at Fort Eustis, Virginia. Also conducted infantry Citizens Military Training Camps some years at Fort George G. Meade or Fort Howard as an alternate form of summer training. The primary ROTC feeder schools for new Reserve lieutenants for the regiment were Pennsylvania State College and Pennsylvania Military College.

World War II

Activated: 16 November 1942 Overseas: 30 September 1944 Campaigns: Rhineland, Ardennes-Alsace, Central Europe Days of combat: 151 Unit Awards: Presidential Unit Citations – 1 Individual Awards: Medal of Honor – 1 Distinguished Service Cross (United States) – 2

Commanding Officers: 395th Infantry Regiment: Col. Alexander J. Mackenzie / Lt. Col. Griffin 1st Battalion: Maj. Davis 2nd Battalion: Lt. Col. Boyden 3rd Battalion: Lt. Col. McClernand Butler (1 November 1942 – 30 April 1945) Lt. Col. J.A. Gallagher (1 May 1945 – 29 September 1945) Returned to U.S.: July 1945 Inactivated: 29 September 1945 at Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts. Organized Reserves redesignated 25 March 1948 as the Organized Reserve Corps; redesignated 9 July 1952 as the Army Reserve Relieved 29 October 1998 from assignment to the 99th Infantry Division Redesignated 17 October 1999 as the 395th Regiment and reorganized to consist of the 1st, 2d, and 3d Battalions, elements of the 75th Division (Training Support); 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Battalions concurrently allotted to the Regular Army

The regiment was organized with three battalions, each containing three rifle companies and a weapons company armed with .30 caliber and .50 caliber machine guns. The battalion also had its own Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, as well as medics and support personnel.

An Infantry Regiment consisted of: 3 Infantry Battalions | Regimental Headquarters and Headquarters Company | Service Company | Cannon Company | Anti-Tank Company | Medical Detach Each Infantry Battalion consisted of (35 officers and 825 men): 3 Rifle Companies | 1 Heavy Weapons Company | Battalion Headquarters and Headquarters Company Companies were lettered: 1st Battalion (Companies A-B-C-D) | 2nd Battalion (Companies E-F-G-H) | 3rd Battalion (Companies I-K-L-M) | *Companies D, H and M were Heavy Weapons Companies

Training and tactics

The regiment arrived at Camp Van Dorn in early December. The camp was newly built, and the barracks were covered in tar paper. From Camp Van Dorn they were transferred to the more established Camp Maxey in Paris, Texas for additional training. They engaged in division-level maneuvers in July 1944. The 395th was held in the United States until more room was available for the unit to enter Europe. From Camp Maxey they took a train to Camp Myles Standish outside Boston. The 99th boarded ships bound for England on 10 October 1944 and briefly stayed at Camp Marabout, Dorchester, England.

On 5 March 1941, as the United States began to mobilize for the possibility of war, McClernand Butler became a second lieutenant in the Regular Army. Butler's great-grandfather, General John Alexander McClernand, commanded infantry during the Civil War. Butler's uncle, General Edward J. McClernand, fought in the Indian Wars and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Butler's father had been a major in the Illinois National Guard and urged his son to become a guardsman when he was 16 years old. Butler attended but did not graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He returned to Illinois and in 1933 was commissioned a second lieutenant in the National Guard. On 1 February 1944, Major Butler assumed command of the 3rd Battalion, 395th Regiment. Butler was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 21 March 1944, and remained in command of the 395th until 30 April 1945, when he collapsed from exhaustion. The war was over six days later.

The Army operated a program designed to capitalize on the large number of educated and intelligent recruits that were available. The program was called the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), and it sought to give extra training and special skills to a select group of intelligent and able young men, most of whom were taken from America's colleges. The program never fulfilled its promise, and the large number of "ASTPers" were rapidly integrated into various divisions to make up for personnel shortages in front line units during 1944. This quick infusion of personnel into the 99th Division occurred in March 1944, when more than 3000 joined the division. The sudden infusion of new men caused some friction with the old hands in the short term, but the long-term effects were generally positive. Many of the 99th Division's best soldiers were products of the ill-fated ASTP program.

Allied forces were fighting their way across France, and fresh units were badly needed in autumn 1944 to continue to press the offensive. The breakout from Saint-Lô, France was accomplished far more rapidly than Allied planners had dared hope, and American units plunged through the French countryside with undreamed of rapidity, far in advance of operational plans. American press reports from the European theater foretold the imminent fall of the Third Reich, and many men in Lt. Col. Butler's battalion thought that the war just might be over before they got there. This did not turn out to be true.

Deployment to the front

On 1 November 1944, the 99th Infantry Division, comprising the 393rd, 394th, and the 395th Infantry Regiments, was put under operational control of V Corps, First Army. On 3 November 1944, the 395th Regiment disembarked at Le Havre, France. The 395th were moved by train and truck, and finally by foot, to front line positions near the German town of Höfen a few kilometers west of the Siegfried Line and near the Belgium-German border.

No one had anticipated such a rapid Allied advance. Troops were fatigued by weeks of continuous combat, Allied supply lines were stretched extremely thin, and supplies were dangerously depleted. While the supply situation improved in October, the manpower situation was still critical. General Eisenhower and his staff chose the Ardennes region, held by the First Army, as an area that could be held by as few troops as possible. The Ardennes area was chosen because of a lack of operational objectives for the Allies, the terrain offered good defensive positioning, roads were lacking, and the Germans were known to be using the area within Germany to the east as a rest and refit area for their troops.

Col. Butler went ahead to look over the area they were assigned to defend. He found that his 600 riflemen were assigned an extremely large area about long without any units in reserve.

That is three to four times wider than recommended by Army textbooks. I never dreamed that we would have a defensive position of this size without any backup or help from our division or regiment. When I got to Höfen, I found the area too big to cover in one afternoon. So I stayed in the village overnight."

The battalion dug in, its purpose to hold the line so that other units could attack key dams across the Roer River. In early December, the front was unusually calm, and the weather was bone-chilling cold. The 99th held lines stretching from Monschau, Germany to Losheimergraben, Belgium, totaling . The 393rd, 394th, and 395th Regiments were put online, each unit protecting approximately of front, roughly equivalent to one front-line infantry man every . Butler held a single platoon of 40 men from Company L in reserve. In the event of an emergency, the battalion headquarters and company administrative personnel, including clerks and motor-pool staff, were to join the platoon, creating a small reserve force of about 100 men.

Around Höfen, which the 395th defended, the ground was marked with open hills. On the east lay a section of the Monschau Forest. Just south of Höfen, the lines of the 99th entered this forest, ran through a long belt of timber to the boundary between the V and VIII Corps at the Losheim Gap. The thick forest was tangled with rocky gorges, little streams, and sharp hills.

The area around Höfen and Monschau were critical because of the road network that lay behind them. During the battle to come, if the Germans succeeded in taking Höfen, their ranks would be swelled rapidly, and the 99th and 2nd Infantry Divisions would be outflanked and could be attacked from the rear. For their part, the German army was planning a seven-day campaign to seize Antwerp.

To the north of Höfen lay a paved main road that led through the Monschau Forest, at whose eastern edge it forked. A second road ran parallel to the division center and right wing, leaving the Höfen road at the small hamlet of Wahlerscheid, and continued south through two very small villages, the twin towns of Rocherath and Krinkelt. It then intersected a main east–west road at Bullingen. This was the road network the Germans needed to meet their objectives. If the Germans penetrated Höfen, the U.S. soldiers would have to withdraw several miles to the next defensible position.

Battle of the Bulge

In early December, much of the Allied forces were established in a general defensive line from the North Sea to the Swiss border. Specific units were charged with penetrating Germany's West Wall.

Defense of Höfen

The 3rd Battalion, 395th Infantry, led by Lt. Col. McClernand Butler, occupied the area around Höfen, Germany, on the border with Belgium during early December. The terrain was open and rolling, and over six weeks the 3rd Battalion prepared dug-in positions that possessed good fields of fire. The 38th Cavalry Squadron (led by Lt. Col. Robert E. O'Brien) was deployed to the north along the railroad track between Mutzenich and Konzen station. The 1st Battalion was positioned on the right. The infantry at Höfen lay in a foxhole line along a front on the eastern side of the village, backed up by dug-out support positions. These would later prove instrumental in defending themselves from the attacking Germans and in protecting themselves when their own artillery fired on or just in front of their own positions, which happened at least six times over the next few weeks. They inflicted disproportionate casualties on the Germans and were one of the only units that did not give ground during the Battle of the Bulge.