Bastogne: A Fascinating, Obscure Vignette

by Brigadier General Albin F. Irzyk, Ret. Just before dark on the day after Christmas, 1944, elements of General George s. Patton’s 4th Armored Division, attacking from the south, succeeded in making contact with, “the beleagured, battered bastards of Bastogne.” The encircled lOlst Airborne Division had occupied the critically vital Belgian town for several days, categorically refusing German demands for surrender.

The dramatic linkup of the two forces, an emotional, historic moment, broke the seige of Bastogne and was one of the great turning points in the Battle of the Bulge. This legendary event has often been described in histories and biographies of World War 11, but there is a sub-plot to this story - a fascinating and exceptional story in itself, but one that is little known.

It took the 4th Armored Division five days of bitter, costly fighting to break the ring of German units encircling the lOlst, but only six days before, elements of this same 4th Armored Division had actually been in Bastogne. In fact, during their earlier movement into the town, these forces had come within one kilometer of the same spot where they would return, six days later, after heavy fighting. How could this be? How could this happen?

Setting the Stage To understand this enigma, one must go back 18 days to 8 December, 1944, the day the 4th Armored Division was pulled back from heavy fightingin the Maginot Line for rest and refitting. The move to the rest area was not only welcome but richly deserved. The men and vehicles of the division were exhausted after incessant fighting during steady, heavy November rains. The weather, the enemy, and the gummy mud had taken their toll of men and tracked vehicles. Now there would be time to pull worn engines. break and reDair CCB, 4th Armored Division Moves to Bastogne I I.*--.-*C. i-I,.

I c; BELGIUM

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2. B i i c. 8th Tk Bn \ i’, replacements, and even fire small arms and tank guns. Spirits were high; such extended breaks in the fighting were rare.

The story now focuses on Combat Command “B” (CCB) of the 4th Armored Division, commanded by Brigadier General Holmes E. Dager, and its 8th Tank Battalion, which was my command.

During the rest period, our command post was in Domnon Les Dieuze, a tiny, muddy, wet, and depressing little French village about 40 miles northeast of Nancy. Within three days, the town was littered with tank parts and equipment as the repairs continued.

Then the atmosphere brightened:

General Patton had stopped for a visit. He arrived in his jeep with a big grin and all his stars ablazin’. in how we were doing, and his visit raised the spirits of all of the troops. But neither the troops nor Patton himself realized the portentous events lying just ahead.

Rumors from the North Our first inkling that the rest period might be coming to an end came late on December 16. Stories began making the rounds that the enemy was counterattacking somewhere north of us. Spirits were immediately dampened, but the rumors spurred the men to complete the servicing and maintenance of their vehicles, weapons and equipment in case we had to move on short notice.

The speculation and uneasiness ended abruptly at 1045 hours, December 18th. Combat Command “B” was placed on one-hour alert -tracks, service the weapons, train He was jolly, animated, interested and told to be prepared to move north in anticipation of an enemy attack into the XI1 Corps sector. But the concern, uneasiness, and puzzlement returned when the alert order was cancelled at 1700 that day.

Three and a half hours later, the alert was restored, this time with firm instructions to be prepared to move north to the I11 Corps sector to assist in stopping a strong German counterattack. At 30 minutes after midnight, CCB was rolling. There was no information about the situation ahead or about the enemy. CCB’s orders were to move to a n area in the vicinity of Longwy, France, many miles to the north. The combat command had been relieved from XI1 Corps and was now assigned to I11 Corps. Combat Command “A” (CCA) was the next to move out, nine hours behind CCB, along the same route. Leading the odyssey north into the cold, black night was the 8th Tank Battalion, cross-reinforced with the halftracks of the 10th Armored Infantry. One factor that made this move unique was the fact that the combat command had only one map - and it was in the hands of General Dager. During our rapid movements across France that summer and autumn, we had occasionally run off of our combat maps and had to rely on Michelin road maps for direction. But for our tankers to be completely out of maps was anew experience, indeed.

At the head of CCB, my tank leading the way, we rolled mile after mile into the great unknown. I was guided and directed by General Dager in a variety of ways: he radioed instructions from his jeep; his staff relayed radio messages; he rode alongside to shout directions at me in my turret; and at tricky intersections, he personally dismounted to point the way. The hours and miles passed, and Longwy loomed closer. The end was in sight. But then spirits were dashed again as we reached Longwy and were waved on, rolling through the city without slackening the pace. Our tank guns were still pointed north, and now, for the first time in the war, we were in Belgium. We reached and passed through Arlon, then changed direction to the northwest, with no slackening of speed or purpose. We began our journey in darkness and were to end it in darkness, as night came upon us again. We traveled in blackout, with no idea of what lay ahead, reconciled to receiving enemy fire at almost any moment.

Neufchateau, another milestone, came and went as we continued to roll, still without enemy contact. Again, we changed direction slightly and were soon moving northeast on the NeufchateadBastogne road, enroute to Bastogne, another new and unfamiliar town name. Bivouac in Belgium Near the village of Vaux Les Rosieres, we were at last told to stop for the night and find a bivouac area. I selected a spot about two kilometers east of the road. It was now 2300.

Except for brief halts, we had traveled unceasingly for over 22 hours - half of one night, all day, and half of another night under blackout conditions. Remarkably, we had traveled 161 miles over frequently difficult roads without maps and without confusion. Such endurance was a tribute to both men and vehicles, and spoke well for the work we’d accomplished during the recent rest period. Happily, there had been no enemy contact. That evening, none of us realized that we had been in the vanguard of what President Nixon, a Patton admirer, later called the greatest mass movement of men in the history of warfare. Patton’s troops had been poised to attack the Saar. He then abandoned this plan and ordered the major part of the 3d Army to make a gigantic 90-degree wheeling movement and then drive north at full speed. Involved in this spectacular achievement were probably a quarter of a million men and thousands of vehicles operated in damnable weather over often-icy roads.

Once we’d reached the bivouac area, there was still no rest for many of the weary. As soon as we closed into our positions, as exhausted as some of the men were, we sent out strong patrols of light tanks and armored infantry to protect against enemy movements from the north.

Task Force Ezell’s Mission The following morning, I was hit by a thunderbolt: General Dager E-c - * r - -. _-called and ordered me to send a task force into Bastogne. ing him that the situation up ahead was unclear, terribly confused, and tioni that this was no time for a piecemeal commitment of my forces. General Dager agreed wholeheart- intt?l 0 P‘ edly. He said he had been having t the same kind of tug of war that morning with General Middleton of the VI11 Corps. General Middleton had ordered him to take CCB into Bastogne and he had hotly resisted, insisting that General Middleton wait until General Gaffev ar-I protested vehemently, remind- - ”.. - - - rived with the rest of the 4th Armored Division. Middleton had agreed not to commit the entire combat command, but only after General Dager offered instead to I formed the task force - “A” I t me in my turret, and at tricky Company, 8thTankBattalion; ‘‘C” ctions, he personally dismounted Company of the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion; and &‘”’ Battery, 22d Armored Field Artillery Battal-it the way...” ion - and placed my executive officer, Captain Bert P. Ezell, in command of what was to be called Task Force Ezell. His mission was to report to General McAuliffe, commandingthe lOlst Airborne, to learn the situation, receive instruc-rode alongside to shout direc- send in a task force-tions, and render support, if so

- ordered.

The task force moved northeast on the Neufchateau/Bastogne Road and reached Bastogne without encountering any resistance or seeing any enemy troops.

Upon entering the town, Captain Ezell was told to report for instructions - not to General McAuliffe, but to Colonel William Roberts, commander of the 10th Armored Division’s Combat Command “B”. While these events were taking place in Bastogne, I received a division order to recall the task force at once. I reached Captain Ezell short- ly after noon to tell him to return. He was, at that moment, receiving his instructions for employment from Colonel Roberts. Within a short time, Task Force Ezell was on the road again.

Wide Tracks in the Road Sometime later, Ezell’s task force returned to our bivouac area with many more vehicles than it had when it pulled out - and with a strange story to tell.

As the troops had moved away from Bastogne, they had encountered an American 2%-ton truck in a ditch on the right side of the road. The truck was otherwise undamaged; the driver was still sitting behind the wheel, but the top of his head had been blown off above the eyes, apparently by an armor-piercing round.

Moving a little further down the road beyond the ditched truck, the task force noticed two tank tracks running across the asphalt pavement, the largest tracks Captain Ezell had ever seen. They had to have been made by a German Panther or Tiger.

The task force moved out again and after traveling a short distance came upon another strange sight -about two battalions of U. S. artillery stopped along the road. The equipment seemed intact, but there was no sign of any American troops. Some of the vehicles were still idling.

It wasn’t clear whether the American artillery units had been attacked and their positions overrun or they had been “spooked” by the sight of German tanks crossing the road just to the north of them. But from the evidence, there was no question that a German force in strength had moved rapidly west and had cut across the Neufchateau-Bastogne road just prior to Ezell’s return. Perhaps the Germans had been moving so fast that following forces had not yet closed up on the vanguard. Ezell’s return trip could well have been a well-timed fluke, but certainly, Ezell’s unit had managed to slip through a gap in the enemy echelons driving west. This must go down as one of the most remarkable incidents of the war, considering the bitterness of the battle which was immediate-1s develoDina. ”... Ironically, the battle at Chaumont was fought just four kilometers east of the quiet bivouac area we’d occupied three days earlier...” Ezell’s task force hauled back as much of the abandoned artillery equipment as they could handle -trucks, jeeps, and artillery prime movers. The task force ran into no resistance the rest of the way back to the bivouac area.

After Captain Ezell’s task force returned, events continued to move swiftly. At 1400 on 20 December, CCB was released from attachment to VI11 Corps and reassigned to I11 Corps, along with the rest of the division. We were ordered to move southwest to Neufchateau, then southeast to Leglise, arriving after dark. The next day, while at CCB headquarters, I received orders and details for the attack that was to take place the following morning. We moved out from Leglise at 0430 so as to arrive at the initial point (IP) at 0600. The 8th Tank Battalion and the rest of CCB -plus the 80th and 26th Infantry of I11 Corps - would be part of the 4th Armored Division’s coordinated attack.

The slow, costly, painful return to Bastogne began. The following day, upon reaching Chaumont, the 8th Tank Battalion received one of the most powerful tank-led counterattacks of the war. Ironically, the battle at Chaumont was fought just four kilometers east of the quiet bivouac area we’d occupied three days earlier.

The relief of the lOlst Airborne took five days, and by 28 December, the woods had been cleared of the enemy and all our positions had been consolidated. When Captain Ezell walked into the 8th Tank Battalion command post at Assenois, he was just one kilometer southeast of where his unit had been eight days earlier as it rolled into Bastogne.

Those of us who participated in this operation could not help but note the many ironies and incongruities. They raised many questions: 0 Why did CCB, a I11 Corps unit whose original destination was the vicinity of Longwy, continue on until it reached a position in the VI11 Corps sector, only nine kilometers from Bastogne?

Why did General Middleton of VI11 Corps seem to exert such an “ownership” of CCB, a I11 Corps unit?

Why didn’t the rest of the 4th Armored Division close up behind CCB instead of leaving CCB near Bastogne, by itself, while the rest of the division assembled well to the rear in the Arlon/Longwy area? Why was CCB’s Task Force Ezell recalled from Bastogne right after it amved, especially considering how General Middleton had argued so strongly for its commitment?

Should higher commanders have exploited Task Force Ezell’s rapid progress to Bastogne, once they knew Task Force Ezell had entered the town without a fight and returned? Shouldn’t Middleton have been allowed to hold on to CCB and to use it to keep the Neufchateau-Bastogne highway open, perhaps preventing the encirclement of the town?

And once CCB had moved into its bivouac at Vaux les Rosieres, shouldn’t the rest of the 4th Armored Division have capitalized, moving up to attack from the bivouac location - only a short distance from Bastogne -rather than consolidating for the attack further south and then fighting their way north again along the difficult forest axis from Arlon to the encircled city? * * * With the passage of years and the publication of histories and memoirs, some of those questions can now be answered, adding to the fascination of this tiny, puzzling

- -episode. Initially, as the Battle of the Bulge was intensifying, General Patton met with General Bradley at his headquarters in Luxembourg on 18 December. General Bradley called off General Patton’s planned offensive into the Saar, thus making units available to him. Without hesitation, General Patton told General Bradley that he would concentrate the 4th Armored Division in the vicinity of Longwy, would pull the 80th Infantry Division out of the line, and would get the 26th Infantry Division moving within 24 hours. Later the same day he issued the order that got CCB moving just after midnight.

General Patton met with his staff at 0800 the next morning, December 19, as CCB was already well on its way to Longwy. His plan, he told the staff, was to strike due north and hit the underbelly of the German penetration where it would hurt. During the next hour, General Patton and his staff planned, in outline. three distinct operations. telephone call, which operation would be implemented.

Later that same morning, General Patton met at Verdun with General Eisenhower and a distinguished gathering of higher commanders. All agreed that there should be a counterattack at the earliest possible moment and that General Patton was the man for the job.

General Patton told the group that he could attack with three divisions of the I11 Corps on 22 December. A stronger force, he said, would take several more days to assemble and would forfeit surprise.

The group was astonished at his rapid response to the situation and was more than satisfied with the proposal. It should be emphasized that at the Verdun meeting on 19 December, in front of all of the senior commanders, General Patton had pledged a three-division counterattack with the entire 4th Armored Division as the key division in the Corps. With their agreement, he called his chief of staff to imdement one of the three Dlans he’d discussed with them earlier. General Patton explained the events of the following day in his memoir, “War As I Knew It”: “... The next morning, I arrived at Bradley’s headquarters in Luxembourg and found that he had, without notifying me. detached Combat Ctmmand “B” (Brigadier General H. E. Dager) of the 4th Armored Division from Arlon to a position southwest of Bastogne. Since the Combat Command had not been engaged, I withdrew it to Ar-Historian Martin Blumenson, in the second volume of “Patton Papers’,, quotes from General Patton’s diary entry of that same day, December 20: “In the morning, I drove to Luxembourg, arriving at 0900. Bradley had halted the 80th Division at Luxembourg and had also engaged one combat command of the 4th Armored Division in the vicinity east of Bastogne without letting me know. but I said nothin E...” I l o.. ” 1 Arrangements were made for a simple code to indicate, with a brief -SCALE: rnl lorn,. ' - (Patton was clearly wrong in his diary entry when he placed the unit "east" of Bastogne. according to the author. Apparently. his memoir was correct. Ed.)

General Patton then drove to Arlon, to the headquarters of General Middleton's troubled VI11 Corps for a first-hand picture of the situation in the Bulge. When he arrived, he found General Gaffey of the 4th Armored Division, General Paul of the 26th Infantry Division, and General Milliken of the I11 Corps already there.

There is considerable speculation, and some differences of opinion of what actually took place at that meeting. However, subsequent events lead one easily into certain assumptions.

General Middleton undoubtedly was still anxious to send CCB into Bastogne behind Task Force Ezell, This map of the road network around Bastogne shows the route 4th Armored's three combat commands took in relieving the city. Minor roads, many of them used in the attack. are not shown in detail here. At left, a few days after the relief of the 101 st Airborne Division, a smiling General Patton receives General Bradley's congratulations at Bradley's headquarters in Luxembourg. already scattered and his armor, especially, had been badly piecemealed.

This employment simply would have been more of the same. To commit CCB into Bastogne would have been to lose it.

General Gaffey obviously wanted his Combat Command returned. With an attack in two days, he needed his division at full strength, and the 4th Armored Division would have been severely handicapped without CCB.

General Milliken also knew that the key to his I11 Corps attack was the 4th Armored. So at this meeting, he surely must have supported General Gaffev's argument to have As the attack developed, CCB shouldered an extremely heavy share of the 4th Armored fight, acting as the powerful left flank of I11 Corps all the way to the encircled town.

In retrospect, General Dager's resistance to committing CCB into Bastogne may have saved the unit. If he had not protested, CCB would have probably been in Bastogne before General Patton was aware that it had been given away by General Bradley.

It was fortunate, too, that Task Force Ezell had returned unscathed. The loss of a tank company, an armored infantry company, and afield artillery battery would have weakened CCB considerably. and surely requested permission to do so. Elements of his Corps were 30 ARMOR: The Magazine of Mobile Warfare

- - Y his CCB returkd. Patton’s Plan At the Verdun meeting, General Patton had committed himself to a coordinated attack with three full divisions. The situation at Bastogne was confused and chaotic and did not warrant a major commitment at that time. It was not the time to change plans, reinforce a failing situation, and risk having major elements of the 4th Armored committed prematurely. Once committed to Bastogne, CCB would have been caught up in the chaos and confusion - perhaps never to be retrieved. General Patton’s decision was revealed when Task Force Ezell was ordered out of Bastogne shortly after noon and CCB was ordered to move to the rear, which it began to do by mid-afternoon.

General Patton chose as his ultimate course of action a well-planned, well-coordinated, orderly attack in strength toward a known, specific, vulnerable objective. He jumped off from ground firmly in his hands. His plans and execution were sound and professional. Undeterred by the panic around him, he kept his eye on the ball. General Patton’s plan not only broke the ring enclosing Bastogne, but destroyed the German penetration with his stroke north, eliminating hundreds of enemy vehicles and thousands of troops. The rapidly organized and well-executed counterattack snatched the momentum from the Germans and seized the initiative. He had done what he’d promised his commanders he would do several days earlier, and while his plan had raised skeptical eyebrows, he delivered.

In the eye of history, the story of Task Force Ezell is an extremely minor episode in the Battle of the Bulge and in the war. It had no simificant imDact on anv engagement or event. Yet by knowing the story, some puzzling aspects of the l Battle of the Bulge are revealed, clarified, and enriched. We learn even more about how and why things happen in combat, and a great deal more about the men who make these things happen. Although I was a participant in much that happened there, I still find the story of Task Force Ezell most unusual and certainly fascinating. My purpose in writing about it is to share the episode with others and in doing so, dislodge it from its long-occupied perch of obscurity. i“ BRIGADIER

IERALAL-BIN F. IRZYK was commissioned in the Cavalry Reserve after graduation from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, in 1940, and was called to active duty with the 3d US. Cavalry. After brief service in the 10th Armored Division, he was reassigned to the 4th Armored Division, then at Pine Camp, New York, in August, 1942, and later in the Tennessee Maneuvers, the DesertTrain-ing Center, and Camp Bowie, Texas. In December, 1943, the division sailed for Europe, where it fought in five campaigns: Normandy, Northern France, the Ardennes, Rhineland, and Central Europe. In December, 1944, when the experiences in this storytook place, he had just assumed command of the 8th Tank Battalion. He remained with the 4th Armored Division during the postwar occupation of Germany, spending 44 months overseas before returning to the United States in 1947. His long and illustrious military career later included service at numerous CONUS stations, USAREUR, and the Pacific.