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32 Army Hist. 1 (1994)

handle is hein.milandgov/aryhsy0032 and id is 1 raw text is: ARMY HISTORY THE PROFESSIONAL BULLETIN OF ARMY HISTORY PB-20-94-5 (No. 32) Washington, D.C. Fall 1994 Engineers in the Battle of the Bulge William C. Baldwin This artcle originally appeared as an essay in Builders and Fighters: U.S. Army Engineers in World War II. Reprinted with permission of the general editor, Dr. Barry W. Fowle. Although D-day gave the western Allies a beach- head in northern France, it took them almost two months of bitter fighting to break out of the Normandy hedgerows. After the breakout, Allied armies raced across France, liberated Paris, and headed toward the German frontier. The rapid pace of the advance placed a severe strain on Allied logistics which, along with bad weather and stiffening German resistance, slowed the offensive. By mid-December, American armies had reached the Roer River inside Germany and the West Wall along the Saar River in eastern France. Between these two fronts lay the Ardennes, a hilly, densely forested area of Belgium. The Germans had attacked France through this supposedly impassable region in 1940. In early December 1944 five American divisions and a cavalry group held the 85-mile-long Ardennes front. The difficult terrain of the region and the belief that the German Army was near exhaustion had con- vinced the Allied commanders that the Ardennes sec- tor was relatively safe. Thus three of the divisions were new, full of green soldiers who had only recently arrived on the Continent; the other two were recuper- ating from heavy losses suffered in the bitter fighting in the Huertgen Forest farther north. In addition, the heavy demand for American troops in some sectors had forced Allied commanders to man lightly other por- tions of the front. After months of retreat, Adolph Hitler decided on a bold gamble to regain the initiative in the West. Under the cover of winter weather, Hitler and his generals massed some twenty-five divisions opposite the Ardennes and planned to crash through the thinly held American front, cross the Meuse River, and drive to Antwerp. If the offensive succeeded, it would split the British and American armies and, Hitler hoped, force the British out of the war. Before daybreak on 16 December 1944, the German Army launched its last desperate offensive, completely surprising the Ameri- can divisions in the Ardennes. One of the new divisions there was the 106th Infantry, which had relieved the 2d Infantry Division starting on 10 December. Its organic engineer combat battalion, the 81st, had begun road repair and snow removal in the division's sector. Behind the 81st was the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion (ECB), a corps unit, which had been operating sawmills and quarries. The massive German assault on 16 December quickly interrupted these routine tasks. Both battalions found themselves fighting as infantry in a brave but ulti- mately futile attempt to stem the German offensive. On the morning of 17 December, as German troops were cutting off and surrounding the regiments of the 106th, the division commander ordered It. Col. Tho- mas J. Riggs, Jr., the commander of the 8 1st, to estab- lish defensive positions east of the important cross- roads at St. Vith. Reinforced by some tanks from the 7th Armored Division, elements of the two engineer battalions under Colonel Riggs held their position against determined German attacks until 21 December. During that afternoon, a heavy German assault, led by tanks and accompanied by intense artillery, rocket, and mortar fire, overran the exhausted American defend- ers. Colonel Riggs ordered his men to break up in small groups and attempt to escape to the rear. The Germans captured most of the survivors, including Colonel Riggs. For its participation in this action, the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion received the Distinguished Unit Citation, which praised its extraordinary hero- ism, gallantry, determination, and esprit de corps. The capture of Colonel Riggs began an odyssey which eventually ended with his return to his battalion several months later. The Germans marched their

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