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The 7Th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge

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The 7Th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge LOSS AND REDEMPTION AT ST. VITH Loss and Redemption at St. Vith The 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge Gregory Fontenot Colonel, US Army, Retired UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI PRESS Columbia Copyright © 2019 by The Curators of the University of Missouri University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65211 Printed and bound in the United States of America All rights reserved. First printing, 2019. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Fontenot, Gregory, 1949- author. Title: Loss and redemption at St. Vith : the 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge / Gregory Fontenot. Other titles: 7th Armored Division in the Battle of the Bulge Description: Columbia : University of Missouri Press, [2019] | Series: American military experience | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019023568 (print) | LCCN 2019023569 (ebook) | ISBN 9780826221926 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780826274359 (ebook) Subjects: LCSH: Ardennes, Battle of the, 1944-1945. | World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Belgium. | World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Luxembourg. | United States. Army. Armored Division, 7th--History. | Germany. Heer--History--World War, 1939-1945. Classification: LCC D756.5.A7 F66 2019 (print) | LCC D756.5.A7 (ebook) | DDC 940.54/219348--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023568 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019023569 This paper meets the requirements of the American National Standard for Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, Z39.48, 1984. Typefaces: Armalite Rifle, Acumin, and Minion THE AMERICAN MILITARY EXPERIENCE SERIES JOHN C. MCMANUS, SERIES EDITOR The books in this series portray and analyze the experience of Americans in military service during war and peacetime from the onset of the twentieth century to the present. The series emphasizes the profound impact wars have had on nearly every aspect of recent American history and considers the significant effects of modern conflict on combatants and noncombatants alike. Titles in the series include accounts of battles, campaigns, and wars; unit histories; biographical and autobiographical narratives; investigations of technology and warfare; studies of the social and economic consequences of war; and in general, the best recent scholarship on Americans in the modern armed forces. The books in the series are written and designed for a diverse audience that encompasses nonspecialists as well as expert readers. Selected titles from this series: Military Realism: The Logic and Limits of Force and Innovation in the US Army Peter Campbell Omar Nelson Bradley: America’s GI General, 1893–1981 Steven L. Ossad The First Infantry Division and the US Army Transformed: Road to Victory in Desert Storm, 1970–1991 Gregory Fontenot Bataan Survivor: A POW’s Account of Japanese Captivity in World War II Frank A. Blazich Dick Cole’s War: Doolittle Raider, Hump Pilot, Air Commando Dennis R. Okerstrom Contents Foreword ix Author’s Note on Equipment xiii Formation Symbols xvii Preface xix Acknowledgments xxiii Introduction 3 Chapter One The Lucky Seventh Goes to War 7 Chapter Two Silesia Is Defended in the West 31 Chapter Three The Eve of Battle 55 Chapter Four The Golden Lions at Bay 73 Chapter Five The Lucky Seventh Goes to St. Vith 93 Chapter Six A Thin Olive Drab Line 117 Chapter Seven Stand at St. Vith 145 Chapter Eight Crisis at St. Vith 167 Chapter Nine Decision at St. Vith 187 Chapter Ten They Come Back With All Honor 209 Chapter Eleven Reversal and Reconstitution 239 Chapter Twelve Redemption at St. Vith 263 vii viii Contents Epilogue After the Battle 285 Appendix 1 Table of Ranks through Lieutenant Colonel 301 Appendix 2 Troop List—7th Armored Division 303 Appendix 3 German Units in Contact with 7th Armored Division 307 Bibliography 311 Index 339 Foreword General Frederick M. Franks, Jr. General, US Army, Retired I first met Greg Fontenot during the thick of Operation Desert Storm, when he was a Lieutenant Colonel commanding TF 2- 34, 1st Brigade, 1st infantry Division, “Big Red One,” on 18 January 1991. Division Commander Major General Tom Rhame had assembled his chain of command on a patch of sand in his tactical assembly area to study just how to breach Iraqi defens- es as part of our VII Corps attack. I wanted to see their efforts firsthand and to interact with the chain of command and senior NCOs there. Also pres- ent were assistant division commander for maneuver Brigadier General Bill Carter, First Brigade commander, Colonel Bert Maggart, and Greg’s assault company commander, CPT Bob Burns. This was command face to face and up front, just as we all had practiced in VII Corps, the same way Brigadier General Bob Hasbrouck and his team had commanded the Lucky Seventh, the US 7th Armored Division, seventy- five years ago in defense of St. Vith in the Battle of the Bulge 1944– 45. In the ensuing assault, Greg commanded his task force with courage and distinction. After completing that mission, he moved TF 2- 34 rapidly for- ward with 1st Brigade and the rest of the Big Red One more than 100 kilo- meters, then made forward passage of lines at night with 2nd ACR in enemy contact. Throughout that night and all the next day they fought elements of the Iraqi Republican Guards until mission complete, at the cease-fire, some 150 kilometers from that passage of lines. After Desert Storm, Greg went on to continue a distinguished career as commander of 1st Brigade 1st Armored Division in the Implementation Force in Bosnia. He also served as director of the School of Advanced Mili- tary Studies (SAMS) at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas. Prior to that I was fortunate ix x Foreword when serving as TRADOC commander to have Greg as chief of my strategic planning group at our headquarters in a time of significant strategic change in the early 1990s. Greg and I have become close and loyal friends based on shared combat service together, those face- to- face meetings, our continuing service togeth- er, and our mutual love of history. When it was my honor to present the VII Corps combat colors to Ft. Leavenworth and the School of Advanced Mili- tary Studies, it was Colonel Greg Fontenot who hosted the ceremony. So when a tank battalion commander combat veteran writes a historic account with commentary of a World War II series of actions in and around St. Vith by the 7th Armored Division based on extensive research, person- al interviews, and on the ground visits— in total research stretching from his undergrad days at Kansas State University to his graduate study at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and at the School of Advanced Military Studies, we should all pay close attention. Pay attention because he is a combat veteran tank commander who has been in the middle of combat action. His commentary reflects those judgments and experiences. More im- portant, pay attention because he is a distinguished historian who pays im- peccable attention to details and personal accounts of combat all along the ranks, from enlisted soldier to senior commander. The result of Fontenot’s long research and personal experience has in the pages that follow resulted in an enormously powerful book that is at once invaluable for historians, military veterans, military professionals looking to learn and grow in their ability to command in large- scale combat, or any reader wanting insights into the inspiring courage of American Soldiers and leaders in the border- line chaos that is close combat all arms battle. When I deployed to Desert Storm I took with me five books to inform us of enduring truths of that kind of war: Clausewitz’s On War; Defeat Into Victory by Field Marshal Slim; Desert Generals by Corelli Barnett; On the Banks of the Suez by Bren Adan; and Rommel’s War in North Africa by Wolf Heckman. Had this book on the 7th Armored Division at St Vith in Decem- ber and January 1944-45 existed then, I surely would have taken it, too. I was not looking for any recipe for our own situation many decades later but for enduring truths. I knew there were enduring truths about the operation we were about to undertake, even if there were also many things we would have to figure out for ourselves. The central, perhaps most important, enduring truth is one that Greg Fon- tenot reminds us of again and again in this work. It is that soldiers, sergeants, and junior officers up through battalion level win battles and engagements. Foreword xi It is their skill, courage, adaptability, and fierce will to win, even in severe conditions of weather and surprise enemy actions, and sacrifice that make victory possible. Furthermore he shows that a vital key to victory is that commanders be up front with those soldiers, making key decisions based on personal observation and listening to judgments made by subordinates face to face of current and rapidly changing situations. It is vital that these commanders ensure battle plans are flexible enough to allow for a variety of options, as so often well- laid plans give way to the realities of battle. Finally, and as Greg points out, adaptability was key in the WWII US Army, just as it was for us in 1991 during a sudden shift from defensive Cold War Germany to offensive large- scale all arms attack in the deserts of Iraq and Kuwait. Those mostly drafted soldiers in the 7th Armored Division and units attached in and around St Vith were innovative, able to quickly form teams out of fragments of units, overcome surprise while throwing in some sur- prises of their own for the attacking Germans, and display plain combat grit, something so necessary anywhere in the crucible that is close combat.
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