Bastonge- 10th Armored Division

[Lye-El]

This is a letter written by one of my Dads crewmates, sent to his tank commander long after the war was over.

 My Dad never talked about the war and I never knew he was in the Battle of the Bulge and only found out when my Dads tank commander tracked my family down in an attempt to get a reunion together. Unfortunately my father had passed away by this time. We did meet Al Glancy, the tank commander, at his home. He gave us some pictures and such and a copy of this letter.

I thought some of you guys might like to read it. It is a first person account from somebody NOT in the 101st Airborne, not to take anything away from those guys but it has always irked me because every time you hear anything about Bastonge you get the impression the 101st guys were the only ones there.

Anyway, I thought Memorial Day would be a good time to post this:

Hmmm...too long, I guess I'll have to break it up into parts.

Part #1




October 1981:

My name is Carl W. Moot, Jr.

At the time of this army battle in December 1944 I was a Second lieutenant —ASN —
0—529853 in the United States Army, assigned to Headquarters Battery of the420th Armored
Field Artillery Battalion of the Tenth Armored Division I was assigned the duty of Forward
Observer (one of 3) for the 420th AFA Bn. I operated out of a Medium Tank (Sherman).

A recent visit with Gen. Crittenburger (Ret.) and a vacation tour of the 10th Armored Division
battle area of World War II have prompted me to write down some of my battlefield experiences
before my memory dims any further.

 I regret that I did not do this years ago since I have forgotten the names of many of my comrads
involved in this action.

The battle at Longvilly, prior to the encirclement of Bastogne, was so intense that much of it is
still quite clear in my memory. The following is my recollection of the events of that battle:

December 16. 1914

No battle action in immediate area. The 420th AFA Bn. was bivouacked in the small town of
Wehingen, between the Saur & Mosel rivers. The line between the German and American Armies
was the Saur River. The three forward Observers were taking turns each night, watching across
the Saur River from a prominent hilltop. Our mission was to report any gun positions, German
movement, etc., that we could see, and to direct the artillery on any worthy targets that we could
observe. I was assigned as the all night Observer on this night and proceeded to the hilltop shortly
after dark. Nothing unusual happened all night, just the normal gunfire sounds and muzzle flashes.
I recall hearing German vehicle engines running as if trucks, tanks or other vehicles might be
moving across the river, however those noises were common, had been heard for several days, so
no significance attached to them.

December 17. 1944

I returned to the 420th Bn. Hq. shortly after dawn.  Battalion Commander Colonel Brown, most
of the Bn Staff and a number of other officers were there. Col. Brown said that the 420th was to
move out as soon as possible, the Division was moving to the vicinity of  Luxembourg. There had
apparently been a German break thru northeast of Luxembourg and the Division was to help stop
it as soon as possible. There was a flurry of activity preparing to move out and as I recall the
Battalion rolled out onto the road within an hour or two. We preceded toward Luxembourg, I
think we traveled 70 or 80 miles and ended up in a small town in Luxembourg about dark. I was
assigned as Bn. Duty Officer and spent the night sorting maps and making up sets of maps for
each Observer, Btry Co, etc.






December 18 1944

We moved out that morning toward the northeast. I remember the Luxembourg people cheering
and
waving as we passed thru some of the small towns. The Tenth Armored Division was formed into
Combat Commands that day, however I cannot remember how the Combat Teams were formed.
Normally I would have reported to a Tank Bn. Hq. for instructions and assignment to a Combat
Team. Everyone was moving down the road.

However, along toward dark I had joined the Third Tank Battalion, Task Force Cherry and Team
Haiduk and was moving along with the point platoon of tanks. I cannot remember the lieutenant's
name who was in command of this platoon of tanks. There were 4 or 5 tanks in the platoon, plus
my
tank, and I was riding in the middle of the column, 3rd or 4th tank from the point, or front tank.
There was some Armored Infantry just behind us, but I cannot recall what unit they were from. I
had
worked with the 3rd. Tank Bn. before,  Col.Cherry and Lt. Haiduk, so I was pleased to be with
them
again, rather than someone I did not know.

It was after dark when we moved up near the German position. We went thru the little town of
Margaret and everything was quiet. At Longvilly we stopped just short of town and pulled off to
the
side of the road and waited. It is my recollection that we were planning to jump off from
Longvilly
the next morning. We had always been on the offensive, and I think everyone on the team
expected
us to take the offensive next morning and start pushing the Germans back.

Shortly after stopping , that night, I started looking for a map of the area. I had a complete set of
maps that I had put together the night before. After an hour or two of pouring over these maps
(by
flashlight inside the closed  tank), I knew that I did not have a map of the locality that we were
now in. However, the boundry of one map was just short of the town of Longvilly. I called the
420th Bn. Hq. by radio and informed them of my map problem. They already knew about it and
told me that the Bn. had gotten the wrong maps, however they had gotten some maps of the area
and would send me a set by jeep as soon as possible.

Later that night some vehicles of the 9th Armored Division began moving back past our tanks,
going
toward Margaret. Also, later I discovered that there was a battery or more of artillery M-7's of the
9th Armored Division just to our left flank, over a small rise. They were not firing, everything was
fairly quiet in the immediate vicinity.

Much later in the night (2 or 3 A.M.) I called the 420th Bn. Hq. again and asked about the maps,
since I had not received any. I was informed that they could not or would not bring them to me
and
that I would have to get by with what maps I had. This upset and angered me because I needed
map
coordinates to initiate an artillery mission. A little later I was monitoring the 3rd. Tank Bn. radio
channel and learned that the town of Margaret, behind us, had been invaded by the Germans after
we went through, and there was a fight going on to re-open the road thru it. I then understood
why
the Bn. Hq. could not send any maps to me. I drew in some coordinate lines past the edge of the
one
map, and located the approximate location for Longvilly on them, so that I would have some kind
of
approximate coordinates to call in if and when I wanted to adjust some artillery fire.

[Lye-El]

December 19. 1944

Just before dawn the flow of vehicles and soldiers coming back past our tanks increased
continuously. There were all kinds of vehicles from jeeps and R & R cars to halftracks and
medium
tanks. After daylight this column toward the rear was jammed up, bumper to bumper and moving
very slowly. Some of the soldiers going by asked us what we were going to do and we told them
we
had come up to help stop the Germans. They said we were crazy, that there were thousands of
Germans just behind them. Most of them appeared to be badly demoralized and just trying to get
away from the fighting. Shortly after dawn the fighting started, and we began receiving mortar,
and/or artillery fire, along with some rocket fire and a lot of small arms fire. Soon there was an
anti-tank gun or two firing into the jam of vehicle a from a direction about northeast of Longvilly.
However I could not see these anti-tank weapons and I could not determine their position close
enough to direct any artillery fire on them. I think it was purely luck that our tank platoon had
stopped and pulled off to the left side of the road, the night before, in a place where the anti-tank
guns could not fire on any of us. They were , however, knocking out vehicles on the road about
50 yards in each direction from our nearest tanks. A medium tank pulled off the road opposite our
tanks, toward the east, (away from us) and was knocked out after he got stuck about 100 ft. from
the road. There were a lot of men on foot about this time, heading toward the rear, many of them
from vehicles that had been knocked out or abandoned in the traffic jam. Some of the M-7s from
the artillery outfit on our left flank started trying to move out and back down the road. I don't
think any of them got out, but it is possible some of them made it.

Shortly after the anti-tank firing started, which was fairly early in the morning, German
infantrymen
could be seen coming over a hilltop to our Northeast, Moving toward Longvilly. They came over
the
hilltop standing up in full view. One of them, apparently an officer, was standing on the highest
point and looking all around. This was my first artillery target. The other tanks with me began
firing
on the hilltop, mostly machine gun fire, with a few high explosive rounds from their big guns.
Using
my improvised map I finally got an artillery round that I could identify, adjusted it on the hilltop,
and called for a battalion barrage. This was fairly early in the morning and I got the entire 420th
Bn.
(18 guns). The Artillery fire covered the hilltop, and this stopped all visible movement over the
hill.
I did not see any Germans on it again. From our position, just southeast of the town of Longvilly,
we
could not see the buildings in town below a level of 6 to 8 feet above the street level, but
we could see the upper parts of nearly all the buildings in town.

I thought we had some armored infantry men from our team (10th Armored Div.) in the town, but
I
was not sure of this. There was a lot of small arms firing in town, both German and American
machine guns could be heard, but it was impossible from my position to tell how the fighting was
going. I never saw any of the 10th Armored Div. infantrymen that day, so if they were in town
they were apparent1y killed or captured. Periodically some German soldiers were seen to our
right front or Northeast, they were gunned down or driven back by our tank machine guns while
still several hundred yards away from us.

By late morning (10 or l1 AM) most all of the troops that were retreating past our position had
gone
on by us so that our tank platoon was more or less alone. One side of the road was jammed up
bumper to bumper with knocked out or abandoned vehicles, beginning about 50 yards past our
position and extending down the road to the rear as far as I could see. Many of them were
burning.
At this time, I do not think there had been a single casualty in the tank platoon I was with. All of
the
tanks were firing steadily, mostly machine guns. We had not seen any German tanks. Some time in
this period I fired another Artillery Barrage but I cannot remember what the target was. I was
monitoring the 420th Bn. fire direction radio channel continuously. Since I first fired the Battalion
Artillery early in the morning, the calls for Artillery fire had increased steadily. It seemed like
every officer in the Battalion had a target. The fire direction team had been split so that the
second time I requested fire all I could get was one battery (6 guns). The other two batteries were
each busy firing on other targets.

Apparently we were causing a big problem for the Germans because the incoming mortar, artillery
and rocket fire began to increase steadily along with the firing of flares by the Germans. I thought
at
the time that this was mostly rocket fire because there was a lot of blast or explosion, but the shell
fragments seemed to be small or light weight. The Medium tanks were very rarely closed up tight
(buttoned up), usually the tank commander kept his hatch open and looked out over the top of the
turret. This was because vision was very limited out of our periscopes. At that time the aerial
bombardment kept increasing in intensity until I could not see anything but dust and smoke, then I
buttoned up the hatch on my tank. The intensity of the bombardment increased until no individual
explosions could be distinguished, it was one continuing solid sound of explosion. This went on
for what seemed like along time but was probably only a few minutes, then it all stopped
suddenly.

I immediately opened my hatch and looked around. I could see nothing but smoke & dust. This
began to clear off shortly and the first thing I saw was the nearby road sign that said "Longvilly".
The sign was cut all to pieces by shell fragments, and was barely legible. I could also see that my
tank was covered with dirt from the blasting, and our duffel bags, etc. that were on the back deck
of
the tank were all tattered and torn by shell fragments. However, my 50 Caliber machine gun
(mounted just in front of my hatch) was not damaged. The smoke and dust cleared in a few
minutes
and it appeared that none of the other tanks with me were seriously damaged either. None of them
were on fire.

When the smoke and dust was about cleared a wave of German soldiers came over a hill to our
right
flank or to the East & slightly South. The hill top was not too close to us, possibly 200 yards or
more. About 10 or 12 Germans came ruining as fast as they could , toward us. They were
carrying
only Panzer Fausts (German Bazookas) and were apparently trying to get close enough to knock
our
tanks out with them. This was a disastrous mistake for them. All of our tanks were still fighting,
and
the Co-Axial 30 Caliber Machine Guns were very accurate at that range. All of the German
soldiers
were killed more than l00 yards from us, before any of them could fire his Panzer Faust.

Not long after the Artillery Barrage stopped I remember that a lone German soldier came leisurely
strolling toward us from the town of Longvilly to our left front. He did not seem to realize what
was
going on. He carried a light machine gun casually under his arm with the barrel pointing into the
ground. Our co-axial machine gun was pointed away from him, toward the panzer faust attack so
I
tried to hit him with my 45 sub-machine gun (grease gun). I emptied a clip of ammunition without
hitting him or even rousing him from his casual stroll. He was getting close to us and I was about
to
have my gunner traverse around and get him, when one of the other tanks cut him down. I
remember
he acted very surprised as the bullets hit him, at that time he was only about 100 ft. from me.



Some time in the early afternoon I saw some German vehicles moving, quite a distance away to
my
right or to the East. Visibility was not good, but I could see vehicles passing on a short stretch of
road. I directed my last artillery barrage at that target. By that time there were so many artillery
fire
missions that the Batteries had been split into platoons and each platoon was firing on a different
target. For this fire mission all I got was one platoon (2 guns)(from "B" Battery I think). Visibility
was so poor that I could not see if I had knocked out any vehicles. I did get the artillery adjusted
on
the place I wanted it however.

As time passed we continued to be attacked by the foot soldiers carrying panzer fausts, over the
hill
on our right flank, always over the same hill and only a few men at one time.(no more than 12).
This
seemed to be a very foolish thing for the Germans to do, because those soldiers did not have a
chance to make it as long as we could still fire our machine guns. All together there were four or
five
of those groups of soldiers who came over the hill at us in the same manner. Each time they were
all
cut down by our machine gun fire before they got close enough to fire their weapons. Not a single
panzer faust was fired. At the end, the hillside was quite a grisly scene, with approximately 40 or
50
dead Germans laying out there. Our machine gun ammunition belts contained tracer and
incendiary
bullets and a lot of the bodies had their clothing burning and smoking from these bullets.

[Lye-El]

As the afternoon progressed our position became more & more insecure. The town of Longvilly
was
in German hands and we were receiving small arms fire from there. Also the sound of battle now
extended back along our flanks, well to the rear of our position. No other American troops could
be seen other than those in our tank platoon. Apparently everyone else had retreated at least a
quarter of a mile behind us. The Lieutenant in command of the tank platoon came over to my tank
and we discussed the situation. We both thought that we would soon be cut off from the rear if
we
did not do something. We were getting very low on machine gun ammunition also. The
Lieutenant
said he was going to request permission to retreat, and returned to his tank. He could not contact
anyone in command and returned to my tank, and I tried to contact Lt. Haiduk or Col. Cherry on
my
radio without any success. He then decided to take the responsibility to retreat back down the
road if possible. We had to use the road because it was too muddy to go overland. At that time all
of the tanks in the platoon were still in fighting condition, there my have been some casualties, but
all the tanks were firing and capable of moving. All five of us in my tank were un-touched.

In a short time the tanks jockeyed around and the lead tank started back down the road toward
Margaret, with just enough room to get by the other knocked out vehicles on the road. As the
first
tank came out of our protected position, he immediately came under fire the anti-tank gun across
town. Before he got more than 100 yards he was hit and the tank started burning. The engine kept
running and the driver tried to get the tank off of the road, but the fire became too intense and the
burning tank was left squarely blocking the road, Shortly after this the Lieutenant in charge told
that
they were going to abandon the remaining tanks and attempt to get out on foot.

My crew and I discussed abandoning the tank, We could see no way to drive it out. We checked
for something to disable it or destroy it so the Germans could not use it. There were no thermite
grenades, but we had some smoke and fragmentation grenades. The sure way would have been to
put thermite grenades in the gun, ammunition compartment, and on the engine. I decided to use a
fragmentation grenade and try to set it on fire. We got out submachine guns (grease guns) and
proceeded to leave the tank. Shortly before or after my crew (4 men) left the tank, I fired the last
of
my 50 cal. machine gun ammunition into the town of Longvilly. I was the last to
leave the tank and before I got out I opened the gasoline valve on the gasoline generator (little
joe)
inside, and left gasoline running out into the tank. As I left I threw the grenade back down into
the
hatch, hoping it would start a fire. I immediately came under small arms fire, and to this day I do
not
know if the tank caught fire or not.

As I hit the ditch on the West side of the tank it seemed like a hundred riflemen were shooting at
me,
however, I really think it was only one or two rifles and possibly a burp gun (German submachine
gun). I crawled down the ditch about 100 yards or so with the rifle fire hitting the shoulder of the
road just a few inches above me. By then I was opposite a line of disabled vehicles on the road,
bumper to bumper.

I looked back toward Longvilly and I could see that I was wide open to the small arms fire, the
ditch
was too shallow. The bullets were hitting into the road shoulder inches above my helmet and only
inches from my face, which was flat on the ground. I decided to run for the knocked out vehicles
in
the road, and try to get behind them away from the rifle fire. As I raised up to run I was hit in the
left
arm and left buttocks by bullets. Neither wound was very serious and I made it behind the vehicles
without further injury. My assistant tank driver (don't remember his name) had seen my
predicament and he was waiting for me there, he was unhurt. After seeing that I could move OK
we started down the road, behind the vehicles and away from the small arms fire. One of the other
tanks came up behind us and we moved in front of it for more cover. An anti-tank gun began
firing at this tank, but only high explosive ammunition, apparently they were out of armor piercing
ammo. We came to the burning tank that was blocking the road and stopped. We were talking to
the tank crew when a round of high explosive hit in the road behind the tank and shell fragments
came through under the tank and hit my assistant driver's foot, injuring it so that he could barely
put any weight on it, but I was not hit. The tank crew said they were going to try to get their tank
out that they would not abandon it. We said we were leaving, they were still OK and trying to get
past the burning tank the last time I saw them. We could not get by the burning tank so we
ducked through the other vehicles and back down into the ditch again. At that point we were
almost out of range of the small arms and the ditch was deeper. No small arms fire was hitting
close to us as we crawled back down the ditch. Soon we came to a culvert in the road where there
was water running and a hole of water about 2 ft deep. Rather than expose ourselves, we stayed
in the ditch and got all wet.

The Lieutenant who was in command of the tank platoon was lying at the edge of the water hole
near the culvert. He had been shot thru the body and was badly hurt. He said he was to badly
wounded to go on and he did not want us to try to help him. He asked us to send the medics for
him
if we ever caught up with them. We left him there and went on down the ditch. Water was
running in
the ditch there and I remember being worried because there was gasoline on the water from some
of
the vehicles along the road, and also some of them were burning. I was afraid the ditch would
catch fire, but it did not while we were there.

Soon we came to a place where there were a few houses (one or two on each side of the road).
We
were well out of range of the small arms, however a round of high explosive artillery fire hit the
bank some distance from me and a shell fragment cut across my right boot and cut a gash on the
top
of my foot, but not deep enough to be a serious injury. My assistant driver was ahead of me.
The ditch ended at the houses and there was a big jam up of vehicles on the road between the
houses.
The vehicles were knocked out and completely blocked the road but none of them were burning.
The assistant driver jumped up into the road and disappeared into this traffic jam. In a moment I
followed him and came out on the other side to find him sitting in a jeep that had been abandoned.
He had the engine running and said, "Get in lieutenant and lets get the hell out of here"  I got in
and
we wormed out way thru the other vehicles and moved quickly back toward Margaret. In a short
distance we cleared the disabled and abandoned vehicles, the road was clear and we had seen no
one
Germans or Americans. As we came over a rise we found the American soldiers that were trying
to
get back through Margaret. There were quite a few soldiers and vehicles just on the outskirts of
town I did not know the Captain who had taken command and I do not know if he was a 10th
Armored Division Officer or from one of the other units. The soldiers were a mixture of several
units. We talked to some Medics about going back after the lieutenant we had left in the ditch, but

I
do not think they made any effort to do it.

I think it was probably about 5 PM when we got back to the soldiers at Margaret, because it was
not
long before it got dark. We gave the jeep to someone and got into a halftrack with some other
wounded soldiers and laid down. There was a lot of gunfire of all kinds going on around us, with
the
most intense of it in Margaret, as darkness set in. The group we were with was trying to fight it's
way around Margaret on the North West side on some poor dirt roads as I remember it. The
vehicles
were fairly close together, and we were on the edge of town shortly after dark when suddenly a
medium tank, only about 20 ft. behind the halftrack we were in, was hit by an antitank round.
Only
one round was fired, but the tank immediately burst into flames, burning all over and lighting up
the area like daylight. All the other men in the halftrack left immediately, but my assistant driver
was asleep or nearly passed out and I had trouble getting him up and out of the halftrack. All the
time I was expecting the next round of anti-tank fire to hit us. However we got out and there
never was another round fired. The tank was the only vehicle hit. The two of us struggled up the
column about 100 yards and got back into another halftrack. We had quite a bit of trouble
moving, my assistant driver's foot was really bothering him, he could barely walk and I was pretty
weak from loss of blood and lack of sleep.

The rest of the night is rather vague time. We moved around looking for a route around Margaret,
hitting road blocks, detouring and trying another route most of the night.

December 20. 1944

Shortly after daylight the column was some distance from any town, it was slightly foggy when
suddenly soldiers from the 101st Airborne division cane toward us out of the mist. They had
opened
up a road back to Bastogne. There was not much gun fire, they were on foot, carrying only rifles
and
went on past us toward the German positions.

[Lye-El]

We preceded back into Bastogne and all of the wounded were put in a building that was being
used
for a FIRST AID STATION. Ambulances were loading up to evacuate them to the rear. They
were
loaded according to the severity of the wounds. I was not badly hurt, so there were only 2 or 3
wounded left when I was loaded into the last ambulance that was there. We were taken to a
hospital
in Liege, Belgium for a short time, and then that night, that hospital was evacuated to Paris by
train,
because of the danger that it might be overrun by the Germans.

After several days in the Paris hospital I was sent to a hospital in Normandy (do not remember the
town) and spent about two months recovering, I returned to duty with the 420th AFA Bn. in
Metz.
France sometime February 1945.

I found out that my tank crew (except for the assistant driver who was with me) had gotten out
without injury. They had gone through some woods, off the road and that was the reason I did
not see any of them as we drove back down the road in the jeep. My assistant driver was injured
severely enough that he was sent back to the U.S.A. and did not return to combat. The tank crew
that was trying to get out, and the lieutenant in command, who was left lying in the water hole,
did not get out and were listed as missing in action.

Since the Battle of the Bulge, or the Battle of Bastogne has some historical significance I would
make the following comments about the fighting at Longvilly:

1. Our tank platoon was in an area that was protected from anti-tank fire. I think this was only a
lucky coincidence. We could not get into Longvilly because it was jammed up with other
vehicles or we would have been someplace else.

2. Other than the fact that the anti-tank guns could not reach us, we were in a very bad
location for tank fighting. It was low, high ground all around us, and no chance to observe the
action in Longvilly or on the roads, etc. on the other side of town.

3. The attacking Germans were apparently all infantry troops. I did not see any German tanks
or other combat vehicles that day except the ones in the distance that I fired artillery on. Those
vehicles were not attacking our position. I did not see any of the guns that were the source of
the anti-tank fire, they could have been tanks or individual guns mounts. The intense aerial
barrage I believe was mostly rocket fire because the shell fragments did not appear to be as
damaging as mortar or artillery shell fragments.

4. The Germans attack using foot soldiers with panzer fausts to try and disable our tanks
appeared to be very foolish to me  Each wave came over a hill some distance away on our right
flank. They always came over the same hill, with only a few soldiers each time. If they had
come from the direction of Longvilly, on our left front, they would have been much closer to
our tanks before they came into view. From that direction they might have been able to at
least fire some of the panzer faust. at us. As it was they sacrificed about 40 or 50 men needlessly.

5. A great amount of American equipment (vehicles and supplies) was lost on the road from
Longvilly to Margaret, including the tank platoon I was with. Also a lot of men passed my
position , going toward the rear, without any thought of fighting. If at least part of these soldiers
could have been organized to fight a delaying action, I think the road could have been kept
open and a lot of the lost vehicles could have retreated back down the road and been used to
fight again. I believe that at least part of the tanks in the platoon I was with would have been
able to fight their way out.


And so ends the letter. I hope you guys found it interesting. My father was the driver of the letter writers tank. After my father and Al Glancy made their way back to Bastonge they were given another tank. When Al asked where they were to go they were told "Nowhere, we're surrounded."

As they made their way back they were "captured" by American forces who thought they might be spies dressed in American uniforms. It took about a half an hour to convince them they were Americans. When they asked how long they were under observation the reply was "If you had been Germans you would have been dead 20 minutes ago."



Remember what Memorial Day is about.

[Maverick]

Good read, thanks for the post. We're losing those men from that generation faster and faster as time goes on.

To all, if you know of any vets, say thanks and go talk to them. Ask them if they will talk of their experiances. One of the things a lot of Nam vets say is that they feel left out and castigated because of that conflict, they deserve better. Let them know you do appreciate their service.

To all Veterans and especially the combat Veterans, and thank you for your service.

[somespam]

Awsome post!! I think that was probably the bravest generation of our proud country.  What those men had to endure....If you know a vet, don't forget to say thanks