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Fleig's group headed into the Kall River gorge at about 1830. Mortar fire broke up the column and scattered it into several smaller groups. 'We went through the woods,' recalled one 707th officer, 'trying to maintain a human chain, hand in hand. But the bank was so steep that we were unable to maintain this hand to hand contact and the column became spread out in the darkness. You couldn't see more than three or four yards.' Some men got lost and did not reach safety for several days. Others were killed or remain missing to this day. Fleig and six exhausted GIs reached Vossenack around midnight on November 8-9. He later recalled, 'It was right at the freezing point and raining, darker than the inside of your hat.'

By the time the last survivors limped back across the Kall River and up into Vossenack, the 112th Infantry had sustained 2,093 battle and nonbattle casualties–a staggering 64 percent of its assigned strength. In the eight days of fighting, the 28th Infantry Division–the Bloody Bucket–lost a total of 6,184 soldiers. The 707th Tank Battalion lost 31 of its 52 Shermans (Company A lost 15 out of 16), and the 893rd Tank Destroyer Battalion lost 16 of its 24 M-10s.

Completely spent, Cota's division was replaced in the line beginning on November 13 by elements of the 8th Infantry Division. The 28th then moved to a quiet sector in the south to reconstitute. A little more than a month after that, the division again found itself facing the 116th Panzer Division when the Germans launched their massive surprise attack into the Ardennes.

The fight for Schmidt and Kommerscheidt was over, but not the campaign for the Hürtgen Forest. On November 16, VII Corps' northern attack jumped off as planned. A month later the GIs were still fighting and dying in the thick, dark woods. The Hürtgen Forest campaign came to an abrupt halt on December 16, as all Allied forces reoriented and attempted to react to the Ardennes offensive. The Hürtgen Forest fight essentially had been an economy of force operation for the Germans–and they conducted it brilliantly. Schmidt and Kommerscheidt remained in German hands until early February 1945. From mid-September to mid-December the Germans had stopped the U.S. First Army cold, inflicting more than 28,000 casualties on V and VII corps. It was one of the greatest defeats the U.S. Army ever suffered.

The bitter and chaotic fighting at Kommerscheidt saw countless unrecorded and unheralded acts of heroism–on both sides. Two of the greatest known heroes of the battle undoubtedly were Turney Leonard and Raymond Fleig. On September 1, 1945, War Department General Order No. 74 awarded Leonard the Medal of Honor. His body was not recovered and identified until the early 1950s. At his mother's request, it was returned to Dallas, Texas.

On January 1, 1945, Fleig received the Silver Star for his actions at Kommerscheidt. Captain Hostrup, Lieutenant Payne, and Sergeants Spooner and Lipe also received well-deserved Silver Stars. Many soldiers and historians believe Fleig deserved greater recognition for his heroism. After World War II, Ray Fleig remained in the U.S. Army. He retired as a lieutenant colonel in 1967, and then went on to a second career as a teacher.

This article was written by Edward G. Miller and David T. Zabecki, and originally appeared in the November 2000 issue of World War II. For more great articles subscribe to World War II magazine today!

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