Battle of the Bulge: U.S. Troops Fight at Elsenburn Ridge

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The little road junction of Wahlerscheid was a veritable German fortress. Large concrete bunkers and log-covered pillboxes dotted the landscape, while the forest trails and roads bristled with mines and machine-gun nests. Barricades of barbed wire, piled high and 8 to 10 feet deep, covered all avenues of approach. Out in front of the bunkers, fields of fire had been cleared to provide yet another advantage to the defenders, while the thick trees and dense undergrowth further stymied attackers.

For 2 1/2 days the Americans had been stopped in their tracks, but by 0600 on December 16, 1944, the Americans’ hold on the crossroads was complete, the mopping up finished. Evidence of the effort expended to capture Wahlerscheid was plain to see–shattered tree trunks stood starkly against the snow-covered ground, and branches littered the forest floor. Large, deep holes made by every type of shell were evident in great numbers. Telephone wire and other communications cables were strung out crazily. Ammunition boxes, empty bandoleers and clips lay all over the torn ground. Then there were the men, tired and disheveled. Some walked around poking through the debris. Others stood smoking cigarettes, silent. Still others, laid out in neat, straight rows, did nothing. The battle for Wahlerscheid was over, but soon the Battle of the Bulge would unfold, and the survivors would call it ‘Heartbreak Crossroads.’

Located inside Germany, across the German/Belgian border, the road junction of Wahlerscheid was a key piece of the puzzle. The Roer River dams, long a major source of irritation to Allied planners, had to be captured before an advance across the wide, flat Roer Plain could be attempted. Once taken, Wahlerscheid would provide not only decent roads but also a good axis of attack toward the dams, which lay just a few miles to the northeast.

While the newly formed 78th Infantry Division attacked German positions farther north along the German border between Lammersdorf and Monschau, the task of capturing Wahlerscheid fell to the 2nd Infantry Division, a seasoned outfit that had recently been pulled out of the line farther south. Assembled near the town of Elsenborn the first week of December, two of the 2nd Division’s three infantry regiments, the 9th and the 38th (the third, the 23rd Infantry, was held in reserve near Elsenborn), were trucked to Büllingen, then north to Rocherath and Krinkelt, two villages so close together they had been nicknamed the ‘Twin Villages.’ From there, the two regiments marched north for six miles along the only road to Wahlerscheid. This single road, the main avenue of approach, was the only route by which supplies and reinforcements could be funneled to the forward regiments from divisional headquarters at Wirtzfeld.

For two days the Germans fought with grim determination, until several members of a lone U.S. patrol cut their way undetected through one barricade after another until they were in the bunker line. They later slipped back to report the breach, and late on December 15, first a company, then a battalion, and then another battalion had slipped through the opening in the wire. By early the next morning, the fight for Wahlerscheid was over.

A couple miles east of and parallel to the 2nd Division’s line of march, through a dense forest belt, lay the front lines of the green 99th Infantry Division. On the Continent for just over a month, the 99th held a line from Monschau, northwest of Wahlerscheid, to the border village of Lanzerath, southeast of the Elsenborn Ridge, a distance of nearly 19 miles. Except for the area around Höfen, a village located southeast of Monschau, the 99th’s front lay inside a thick, coniferous forest. During the first week of December, the forward rifle companies, rather than presenting a solid line, were positioned just inside the forest and parceled out in platoon-sized outposts along the entire line, thus leaving numerous undefended gaps. The longest section of the line ran parallel to a major road, dubbed the International Highway, from a point just west of Hollerath, Germany, south to the frontier village of Losheimergraben. Intersecting the front were two trails that led from the highway west, back through the forest, where they converged about 1 1/2 miles northeast of the Twin Villages. The northernmost trail left the highway just west of Hollerath in an area covered by the 393rd Infantry Regiment. The southern trail entered the forest west of Neuhof, also in Germany, at a point just north of where the lines of the 393rd and 394th Infantry regiments met.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Historical Conflicts, World War II

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