Divisional History
A History of the 90th Division in World War II
6 June 1944
To
9 May 1945
Chapter 9
If Winter Comes
Christmas of 1944 found the 90th in the area between the Moselle and the Saar rivers in light contact with the enemy. The Division’s mission was mainly to prevent the German forces in that zone from reinforcing von Rundstedt’s offensive in the north. New replacements had arrived, filling in the badly depleted ranks, and it was vitally important that the newly-arrived troops receive additional training and combat orientation.
On the night of January 5th orders were at last received. “be prepared for movement.” Bitter cold had descended on the area, and freezing winds drifted the snow aimlessly and treacherously. Obscuring the roads and rendering them into icy sheets. No one yet knew the Division’s destination, its mission, the obstacles which lay before it. The orders were brief and pointed. “Be prepared for movement.” The 90th Division prepared.
The following day the 90th now, assigned to III Corps, began its highly secret trek toward its assembly area in Luxembourg. Identification on vehicles was obscured, relieving troops assumed the T-O patch in order to keep the enemy in complete ignorance, and the 50 mile march began.
Southeast of famed Bastogne the enemy had thrust a salient contained for the past several weeks by the 26th and 35th Infantry and 6th Armored Division. These units had successfully prevented further penetration, but the strength of the enemy, the terrain and wintery weather combined to make their operations difficult in the extreme. Corps plans called for an assault along the perimeter of the enemy salient with the 90th making the main effort with the object of reducing the salient and destroying the enemy contained therein.
On January 9th all was in readiness for the attack. The 90th examined the terrain which stood in its way and saw endless reaches of towering hills coated with snow and ice. From this day until the end of combat the 90th was destined to conduct its activities in the hills of Europe.
The weather was also a formidable foe. For now the January winds swept paralyzingly through the exposed valleys, the temperature hovered around the zero mark, armor and other vehicle ground helplessly on the ice for traction, and the spectre of trench foot and frost-bite hung nightmarishly over the American troops.
The enemy, with mobile reserves of SS Panzer units, were well dug in on the sides of the hills ready to resist fanatically any encroachment on their main supply roads running east from Bastogne itself. And so the 90th Division arraigned itself against he hills, the winter, and the Germans. With the 357th on the left, the 359th on the right and the 358th in reserve, the assault launched on the morning of January 9th from line running generally from Bavigne northeast to a crossroads north of Nothum.
Where precious gains in the area had been measured in terms of yards, the 90th provided the added impetus required to shrivel the salient to nothing. Nebelwerfer barrages of unaccustomed intensity roared menacingly overhead; artillery and tank fire added their bit in an attempt to halt the rising tide that threatened to engulf the salient. Berle fell to the 90th the first day, on the third day Sonlez and Doncols were taken.
The speed and power of the assault was a decided surprise to the Germans. On the third day of battle alone more that 1,200 prisoners were captured. So devastating was the attack that enemy communications were almost completely shattered. Captured documents revealed the great respect accorded the 90th by the enemy . . .
“It is imperative (said on directive) that steps be taken to ascertain whether or not the American 90th Infantry has been committed. Special attention must be give to the numbers 357, 358, 359, 343, 344, 345 915, and 315. Prisoners identified with these numbers will immediately be taken to the Regimental G-3.”
The 358th Regiment was committed on the fourth day, sweeping rapidly northward as far as Bras itself. The 90th had fought through Luxembourg and was now in the soil of Belgium. On that day also, contact was established between the 90th and the 35th Infantry Divisions as well as the 6th Armored. The enemy salient had been liquidated, the objectives attained.
New orders called for a resumption of the attack to the northeast, the 6th Armored on the left, the 26th on the right, and the 90th in the center. On the 14th the attack was resumed in the direction of Niederwampach. A strongly held line along the railroad south of the town, however, held up the attack until one battalion, sweeping wide around the left, attacked the town unexpectedly from the northwest. With the aid of a 14 battalion artillery concentration, Niederwampach fell at last in comparatively docile fashion.
By the night of January 16th the 90th held a line facing east from Longvilly on the left through Oberwampach and Niederwampach on the right. It now became evident that the enemy was attempting orderly withdrawal from the area. Convoys of vehicles stretched endlessly on the roads leading out of the Rundstedt “bulge.” But skies which had been previously overcast now cleared and yielded to Allied control of the air. The German retreating columns were mercilessly pounded, while the 90th’s artillery joined in the holocaust of fire, inflicting irreparable damage to the German machine . . . the same machine which had proudly boasted one month before that Paris was its objective.
On the following day, the 17th, the enemy counterattacked the 90th’s forces at Oberwampach. Elements of the 2nd Panzer Division attempted doggedly to re-enter the city, SS troops screamed at the top of their lungs in a frenzy of fanaticism as they stormed the town from the north and east. Artillery concentrations plus the effective work of the 733rd TD battalion inflicted costly casualties and smeared the assault for “no gain.” Three such attacks were repulsed on the first day.
It required still another night and day of ceaseless, but futile counterattacks to teach the enemy that the 90th had no intention of giving ground no matter what pressure might be exerted. Tankers of the 712th Tank Battalion accounted for six enemy tanks, eight German panzers were knocked out by the TDs, Division artillery cut five notches in its belt.
In all, the Germans launched nine counterattacks led by powerful armor. Snow and wind blanketed their dead, so that no accurate count of casualties could be obtained. In a 36-hour period during which the battle raged, the 344th Field Artillery Battalion fired 6,000 rounds of ammunition. When at last the Germans realized the hopelessness of their mission and attempted to make good their escape artillery concentrations boxed off their avenues of retreat and made an inferno of the enemy lines. What had begun as an ambitious counterattack against elements of the 90th, ended in a dismal fiasco with the 90th in firm possession of Oberwampach.
Thereafter, the Division moved in a general northeasterly direction, plodding through deep drifts of snow, engaging the enemy and the snow and ice and wind of winder with equal fortitude. One by one, the objectives fell, and obstacles were brushed aside with veteran efficiency.
On the morning of January 24th, elements of the 357th Regiment, having just occupied the town of Binsfeld, bore the brunt of a vicious counterattack supported by overwhelming armor. Without anti-tank guns, without armor, the doughboys slugged it out, matching their light machine-guns with the direct fire laid down by the tanks. The 343rd FA Battalion laid down a shield of fire, 900 rounds in slightly more than two hours, and the attack died in the red-stained snows of Belgium.
Succeeding days found the 90th wading eastward through the snow, warming itself where it could as freezing winds numbed hands and feet. Security forbade the building of fires with which to warm the brick-hard cylinders of K-ration cheese, yet survival demanded fire and warmth. The Division buttoned its coats against the weather and pushed eastward over the “Sky Line Drive” grimly defended by the Germans.
On the 26th the 90th Division moved to VIII Corps control once more, the same Corps with which it had fought through the disheartening days of Normandy. Corps orders immediately called for another river crossing, familiar work to the 90th. The Our River lay only a few kilometers to the east. The 90th was to effect a crossing and protect the right flank of the Corps. The 87th Division was to cross on the left, while the 4th Infantry Division was to knife through the center. The crossing was scheduled for the morning of January 29th.
The intervening days were devoted to cleaning out he area west of the Our and to make all necessary preparations. Deep snow which blanketed the roads and the precipitous hills on either side of the river proved the major natural obstacles. Again the Engineers performed prodigiously to clear the way for he assault.
Now once again the 90th stood on the threshold of German soil. General von Rundstedt’s costly gamble had succeeded only momentarily in stemming the advance juggernaut of Allied armies. Once more Germany itself was the target, and this time the advance was not to be denied. The “sacred” soil of Germany was soon to know the feel of American combat boots trudging through the snows and through the “sacred” German mud. The points at which the 90th was to make its drive was the juncture of Luxembourg, Belgium and Germany , the very gap though which he enemy had poured only six weeks before. But this time the traffic had changed directions, and to the conclusion of the war there was no turning back.
On the morning of the 29th the 90th Division crossed the Our River and stood on German soil. Moving rapidly against determined resistance they fought the Germans and the winter to a standstill. January had come to an end, and Spring was not far off, an encouraging thought to men who warmth was a remote luxury.
Not so encouraging, however, was the realization that beyond the present lines lay the bulwark of the enemy defense . . . the Siegfried Line.