Don Burgett - December 18, 1944

[Jack]

To all, or to anyone interested,

 

Early AM 18 December 1944 we were rousted out of bed about 02:30 hours by our plt. Sgt., Ted Vetland, yelling loudly that there had been some sort of breakthrough somwhere by the Krauts and we had to go up and straighten things out.

 

We were ordered to make our "seaborne rolls" ' We're going in again.' We got dressed, began making up seaborne rolls, and fell out to the supply room to get weapons, ammo, trench knives, helmets or whatever we were short of. The supplyroom had virtually nothing in it and most troopers waiting in long lines in the dark came away with little or nothing.

 

Chow was served in a battalion mess, no orders for company priorities in line, just go there get in line and go through it hoping the food would last, at least until you got yours.

 

Around noon big semi-trucks with open cattle trailors began coming into the Divisional Hdq's. Some MP's did what they could to get the trucks parked into a convoy order. By late PM and our waiting all day outside near our stacked gear we were ordered to entruck by Bn's, Co's, etc. As each truck was filled it moved forward keeping combat distance from the truck ahead and parked in place. When all was loaded we moved out on command of Col. Thomas L. Sherburne, acting Artillery Cmdr. and convoy Cmdr.

 

Our convoy moved at maximum convoy speed through the darkest of nights with all lights fully on in the convoy that we could make the best speed possible; we were in a race with the enemy for certain cities, towns, or where-ever that we knew nothing of. We didn't know where we were headed.

 

What turned out to be almost to our destination our convoy caught up with the rear of the 82nd Abn. Div's convoy who had left their bivouac area about two hours ahead of the 101st Div. The 82nd was dispatched first for they had been relieved from Holland two weeks ahead of the 101st and were fully now armed and clothed, their destination was Werbomont.

 

The 101st was also mistakenly ordered to Werbomont, unknown to us but we arrived by a hit and miss circumstances of fate to the west area of Bastogne, Belgium at a small town of Champs, where we detrucked. We followed the leader through a very dark night to an assigned field where we were ordered not to open our seaborne rolls for the blanket, we could move out on the double in a moments notice and had to be ready. We were ordered to lie down and get what sleep we could on the bare ground in the field. There was no snow on the ground anywhere in our areas west of Bastogne but the ground and the air was still cold making any sleep hard to come by.

 

Before daylight we formed up, made our way to the road leading to Bastogne and ordered to stack out seaborne rolls alongside that road, we would pick them up tomorrow after we had taken care of the enemy. We then marched app. 3 miles to Bastogne, just breaking daylight. Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe standing with a group of officers called to our Cmdr. Co. Robert Sink as we marched by to take his Rgt., the 506, North and develop the situation.

 

We marched without stopping to Bastogne and the Houffalize Rd. to Bastogne, turned north and began our march toward Noville. The 2nd Bn., 506 ( with the now well known Easy Company) stopped on the north outskirts of Bastogne known as Luzery to bivouac there in the barns and houses as reserve. Just north of Luzery the 1st and 3rd Bns came to a small covering of snow on the ground, about an inch deep. There was still no snow in Bastogne.

 

The rest of the 506 continued northward with 1st Bn. in the lead, the 3rd Bn. following, Rgtl. hdq. had stopped to bivouac and billit in Bastogne. On the way we came upon a jeep parked in the center of the Houffalize Rd. A 10th Armored officer, Lt. George C. Rice was handing out ammunition to all who didn't have ammunition, and that was nearly every one of us. Col. Bob Sink was standing talking to Lt. Rice. Lt. George C.Rice had seen the pitiful way we armed and without ammo had gone around to his 10th armored comrades and begged, borrowed and stole ammo from them for us, and was now distributing it among our passing troopers.

 

South of Foy after having received ammunition from Lt. Rice Able Co. Comdr. Cpt. Meason ordered us to the east side of the Houffalize Rd. where he ordered us to remove and stack our overcoats, overshoes, gloves, mufflers, etc. that we would be able to fight better unrestricted with heavy clothing. We would pick up our outer clothing tomorrow after we had kicked the Krauts butts. We never saw our outer clothing again.

 

The 3rd. Bn. stopped off in Foy to form a secondary line of defense. Our 1st Bn. 506 marched all the way to Noville where the 10th Armored had arrived and entrenched about 6 or 8 hours ahead of us. They had set up road blocks and had repulsed on feelers probe by German armor; now they were taking a heavy bombardment by German artillery as a "softening up process."

 

Our 1st Bn. 506 moved through the 10th Armored lines in an attack, B Co North and north west. A company north east. C company straight east. We made our way through extremely heavy artiller fire toward the crest of the highground shaped as a horseshoe around Noville and halfway up through the fog we met Panzers coming down the hills in force. We fought as best we could against panzers and panzer grenadiers backed by heavy artillery. In four and one half hours Able Company had 58 men left.

 

We held through the night in constant fighting and artillery. Twenty December 1944 we were ordered to pull out of Noville to a position in Luzery where the 2nd Bn. billited in reserve. We formed up the 10th armored vehicles, wounded in the center of the convoy and with C Co. leading, B Co. second, and Able Co. taking rear guard we fought our way out of Noville, engaging enemy at arms length to 20 feet or more in the fog. The enemy held the east side of the Houffalize Road, we held the west side of that same road. The temperture had plummeted to 10*F below zero to 20*F below zero the night of 20 december, 1944, and we were without coats, overshoes, gloves or scarves.

 

We fought our way through the enemy encirclement, reformed on the Houffalize Rd South of Foy and made our way back to Luzery where the 2nd Bn. was still in reserve. The 2nd Bn. troopers handed us K rations that night, our first meal since we had left Mourmelon le Grand. Able Co. immediately went on line on the RR trackes east of Luzery through that night and 21 Dec. 44.

 

22 Dec. 44 Able Company was called off the line to make an attack, backed by Baker Co. into the Bois Jacques to clear that woods of enemy that had dug in there. We made the attack with 58 men, losing eight of them, four out of my squad, Speer, Alverado, Bielski and Horn. Our attack cleared the west side of the Bois Jacques from the Houffalize Road to the RR track at the "Halt" Station. Able Co. had dstroyed an entire Bn. of enemy with a loss of eight men to ourselves.

 

The rest of our tour in Bastogne was a constant fight to push the enemy back through Foy, Noville, and the rest of the perimeter, back to the border of Germany.

 

In Rememberance of all men who's lives were taken in "The Battle of the Bulge."

 

Donald R. Burgett, Sgt., WWII,

Able Company, 506, 101st Abn.

 

My thanks to Don Burgett, M Bando and Trigger Time.