Citizen Soldiers by Stephen E. Ambrose

Lieutenant Dettor expected to be shot. Instead he was kicked, relieved of his watch and $48 cash, then put to work carrying wounded German soldiers on stretchers. He got to see the German army on the move from the inside and described it vividly: “Many SS troops in vicinity. Pushed around by SS officer. Beautiful observation from enemy position. Firing still going on. Men being ushered into attack. Roads filled with vehicles, ammunition, staff cars, horse and wagons. Staff cars carrying German officer and ammunition trucks draped with large red crosses to disguise them as ambulances. Snow on ground-windy.”

The Germans took Dettor’s coat, gloves, and shoes, leaving him his overshoes, and put him in a column of POWs marching east. “Roads filled with heavy equipment coming to the front,” Dettor noted. “Felt extremely depressed after seeing size of the attack.” Then he began to cheer up as he observed, “German motor vehicles very poor. Many vehicles broken down.”

LIEUTENANT Lyle Bouck commanded the Intelligence and Reconnaissance (I&R) platoon of the 394th Regiment, 99th Division. He had enlisted before the war, lying about his age. He was commissioned a second lieutenant at age eighteen. Informal in manner, he was sharp, incisive, determined-a leader. The only man younger than he in the platoon was Private William James. The platoon was near Lanzerath. Bouck kept his men up all night, sensing that something was stirring somewhere.

Shortly before dawn on December 16, the sky was lit up from the muzzle flashes of one hundred pieces of German artillery. In the light of those flashes Bouck could see great numbers of tanks and other vehicles on the German skyline. He and his men were in deep, covered foxholes, so they survived the hour-long shelling without casualties. Bouck sent a patrol forward to Lanzerath. The men came back to report a German infantry column coming towards the village.

Bouck got through to battalion headquarters on the radio. When he reported, the officer at the other end was incredulous.

“Damn it,” Bouck hollered. “Don’t tell me what I don’t see! I have twenty-twenty vision. Bring down some artillery, all the artillery you can, on the road south of Lanzerath. There’s a Kraut column coming up from that direction!”

No artillery came. Bouck started pushing men into their foxholes. Including Bouck, there were eighteen of them. They were on the edge of a wood, looking down on the road into Lanzerath. Bouck, Sergeant Bill Slape, and Private James had their foxhole on the edge of the village, in a perfect position to ambush the enemy, and they had plenty of fire-power-a couple of .30-calibre machine guns, a .50-calibre on the jeep, a half-dozen BARs, and a number of submachine guns.

The German columns came marching on in close order, weapons slung. They were teenage paratroopers. The men of the I&R platoon were fingering the triggers of their weapons. Sergeant Slape took aim on the lead German. “Your mother’s going to get a telegram for Christmas,” he mumbled.

Bouck knocked the rifle aside. “Maybe they don’t send telegrams,” he said. He explained that he wanted to let the lead units pass so as to ambush the main body. He waited until about 300 men had passed his position and gone into the village. Then he saw his target. Separated from the others, three officers came along, carrying maps and binoculars, with a radioman behind-obviously the battalion CO and his staff. Private James rested his M-l on the edge of his foxhole and took careful aim.

A little blonde girl dashed out of a house down the street. Later James recalled the red ribbons in her hair. He held his fire. The girl pointed quickly at the I&R position and ran back inside. James tightened his finger on the trigger. In that split second the German officer shouted an order and dove into the ditch. So did his men, on each side of the road.

The ambush ruined, the firefight began. Through the morning, Bouck’s men had the Germans pinned down. Without armoured support the German infantry couldn’t fire with much effect on the men in the foxholes. By noon the I&R had taken casualties, but no fatalities. Private James kept screaming at Bouck to bring in artillery. Bouck in turn was screaming over the radio. Battalion replied that there were no guns available.

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