103 Division 410 Regiment 1st Platoon Anti Tank Unit: Going North to Help General Patton

Help! The German's Surprise Attack

The German's by December had been badly crippled and
Eisenhower, the soldiers and even back home everyone
thought the war would be over by Christmas.

Unbeknownst to all but a few intelligence officials who
weren't taken seriously....

Otto Skorzeny

The German's had thrown all their chips in one last gamble
with their "Operation Watch on the Rhine". Hitler used some
of his best and most vicious SS officers, moved tanks,
artillery as well as 250,000 troops secretly over the border.
Hitler had his vicious General Otto Skorzeny train English
speaking Germans to dress up in American uniforms and
cross over lines to cause confusion and deter any idea that a
major attack was coming.

Field Marshall Von Rundstedt

On Dec.15 to our surprise German troops under the expert
command of Field Marshall Von Rundstedt opened up fire
killing thousands of our men, shooting even those that
surrendered.

On Dec 22 Frank Blocks division was called up to relieve
elements of the Patton's 6th armored division as Patton was
rolling into the Ardenes and Bastogne, to the south on the
French/German border a large area needed to be held.

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Dec 22, 1944

Relieving other platoons and squads was a big part of day to day war. One

of the the reasons the Germans lost is their inability to refurbish their

troops. However they had to go back through the mountains. The Battle of the

Bulge was probably the reason they were needed.

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Dec 23, 1944

Move about 27 miles today.

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Dec 25, 1944

Christmas was not going to be a celebration with the war

being over. Instead Frank and the 410 spent the day in a fox

hole.

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Dec 26, 1944

MLR is the Main Line of Resistance, as you move forward
and you sure don't want any holes broken through by the
enemy. The C (Charley) company was out in front. The Anti
Tank Unit's like Frank Block was in was behind the infantry.

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Dec 28, 1944

The Germans were fighting with dirty

tactics. It was thought they might start using poisoned gas as

well.

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Dec 29, 1944

The men took 2 hour shifts through the night on patrol.

Sometimes a messenger would come to your fox hole and

yell out the code word "Crayon" and you would yell back

"Cognac" and then he would give you the message

Get your men alerted for a heinie attack! Here are your gas

masks.

Fireworks start to explode on the left, Tracers cross the sky

in lazy arcs. Red shell bursts fleck the horizon. Flares

blossom in the air and sail down again.

Lord you hope they don't come down on you, too. It is the

same through the quiet and frosty night. The hours drag on

until finally in the east the horizon is bordered with grey, then

white. And now the sun.
Your buddies seem to let out sighs of relief and start to talk-

a sure sign of relaxation. You get ready to go back a few

hundred yards for hot chow.....

from "Report After Action"

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Jan 2, 1945

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Jan 4, 1945

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Jan 7, 1945

Frank Block snapped a pic of Chester taking a short nap,
during a down time in Gundershoffen.

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Jan 16, 1945

The 103rds General retires due to physical conditions and

General Anthony McAuliffe of Battle of Bulge fame takes

over leadership.

Initially good progress was made but the German resistance

proved stronger, with Panzer tanks, self-propelled weapons

and Flak wagons.

Flak Wagon

This turned out to be one of the worst battles of the winter.

The snow had thawed then refroze. Mortar shells detonated

on the hard crusty soil and sent shrapnel whining for great

distances.

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Jan 17, 1945

The weather was spine tingling cold just like some of the
German soldiers that had become fanatical. They often
wore GI uniforms. Some of our soldiers would return stiff and
blue that were captured, stripped of their uniforms and set
free.
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Jan 20, 1945

The 103 defended their sector well but the MLR had been

pierced on the flanks causing them to withdraw southwest

near the Moder river in Uttweiler. The pull out was

successful though difficult to move all the artillery in the ice

and snow.

The French Alsatian civilians had tears in their eyes when the

Cactus men, who they graciously had shared their houses

with, pulled out, saying "Voux nix parti?" the doughs would

lie and tell them no, were just shifting troops.

The FFI (French Forces of the Interior) told the Cactus men

that if they left and the Germans came back it would be

certain death for them. Without a choice in the matter they

pulled out as French kids threw icy snowballs at them, they

didn't seem to care they felt they deserved it.

FFI (French Forces of the Interior) the volunteer French Resistance

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Jan 25, 1945

Frank's platoon along with the other Cactus men had no idea
what was going on and why they were pulling out. Little did
they know that Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's second in
command had taken command of the German troops
opposite Frank's Division and the whole 7th army.

Heinrich Himmler

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Jan 26, 1945

A crack battalion of SS mountain troops, were making
attacks, screaming, cursing in English at our soldiers and
had taken some of our men prisoners. Perhaps that is what
happened to the 2nd platoon and the eight missing men.

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Jan 27, 1945

The 88 was the creepiest of all the German weapons.
originally it was designed to fire at aircraft but it also worked
well as a canon and could fire for 2 miles. Our men would
wonder how these shells found them but the Germans could
match the arc of our mortars from several miles away.