The battalion was ordered to rest and refit while waiting for the 17th Airborne Division, then in training in England. As it awaited the arrival of its new division, the battalion was temporarily attached to the 101st Airborne Division for administration and rations.

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A few of the artillery battalion commanders in the 101st, unfamiliar with the 463rd, thought the battalion consisted of a bunch of greenhorns just arriving from the States. During one dinner discussion between Cooper and officers from the 101st, a debate developed about the ability of a 75mm pack howitzer to knock out a German tank. At one point, Cooper said, ‘We certainly can knock out Mark IV tanks with a 75 pack howitzer.’ An artillery officer from the 101st responded, ‘Do not ever say, in your after-action reports, that you knocked out a tank, because General Anthony McAuliffe says you might disable, but you’ll never knock out a tank.’ Incredulous, Cooper was quick to respond to the taunt. ‘We have spent more time waiting for our parachutes to open,’ he said, ‘than you guys have spent in combat since the invasion of Europe.’ Cooper would soon have an opportunity to back up his words with deeds.

Fate had placed Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, the 101st’s artillery commander, in acting command of the division when word reached Mourmelon that the Germans had launched a major offensive in Belgium. Major General Maxwell Taylor, the 101st’s commander, was in the United States, and his deputy, Brig. Gen. Gerald Higgins, was in England along with five senior divisional commanders and 16 junior officers to discuss the recently concluded operation in the Netherlands.

After being alerted by XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters, McAuliffe called a division staff meeting at 9 p.m. on December 17 to mobilize the division. To his shocked and sullen officers he announced, ‘All I know of the situation is that there has been a breakthrough, and we have got to get up there.’ He informed them that they should be ready to move out by truck the next morning for Werbomont, Belgium.

As the meeting broke up, Cooper approached McAuliffe and the acting division artillery commander, Colonel Thomas Sherburne, to remind them that his unit was only temporarily attached to the 101st and requested permission to join the division in its advance. McAuliffe directed Cooper to talk to Colonel Joseph H. ‘Bud’ Harper of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, which lacked direct support artillery. Cooper found Harper, who had just made it back from England, and asked, ‘Do you need me?’ Harper replied, ‘You’re goddamn right.’ As a formality, Cooper returned to his battalion and gave his officers a choice of whether to stay and wait for the 17th or to join the 327th. To a man, the officers voted to go.

The division’s convoy began leaving Mourmelon at 9 the next morning. Since the 463rd would be supporting the 327th, which was the last infantry regiment to leave, Cooper’s battalion did not set out until 9:30 that evening. After more than a year of active campaigning Cooper knew that you could never have enough ammunition and directed the battalion’s truck drivers to pass by Mourmelon’s ammunition dump yard. ‘As we passed the ammo dump,’ Cooper remembered, ‘I turned and took the whole battalion through with orders to load as much 75mm ammo as we could carry in any vehicle, regardless of how crowded they were.’ This extra ammunition would come in very handy a few days later when the Germans cut all supply lines into Bastogne.

By the time the 463rd entered Belgium, the division’s destination had changed from Werbomont to Bastogne. The 327th was directed to cover a position to the west of the town. Cooper’s command deployed its guns around the small village of Hemroulle, about a mile northwest of Bastogne. The command post and fire direction center were set up in a house across the street from the village church, which was designated as the battalion aid station. While the primary mission of the 463rd was to support the thinly covered western and southern sector held by the 327th, it was called on daily to assist in repelling the Germans from the other sectors of the 101st’s perimeter.

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