Above the Prayers WTO (id:#56727)

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(Revision: MMP: ASL Journal #3 KGP CG IV)

Stoumont, Belgium 1944-12-20 (38 others)

Overview:

Although distant battle sounds troubled the otherwise quiet air from time t o time, the village of Stoumont was dead calm in the misty winter morning. Few German soldiers were to b e seen since many o f them, along with their weapons and vehicles had actualy regrouped in La Gleize. The previous day victory had been quite a pyrrhic one and no real exploitation to the west could be caried on. The Amblève valley semed to be a dead end ; ammunition and fuel were already becoming scarce. Meanwhile, the US forces were building up and the first probe was soon arriving from the north along the Theux road. A few German sappers were busy seting up anti tank mines on this road when they suddenly heard distinctive tank track noise coming up. They fled and waited for the result ... that soon came: the first two Shermans exploded by the coupled action of the minefields and flanking direct fire. This forced a general withdrawal of the first elements of task force Jordan, part of the 3rd US armored division CCB. Later in the afternoon, another US counterattack emerged from the Targnon road, in the west. The infantry of the Ist bat, 119th Rgt, after having fought its way through the German outposts along the N 3 road, finally too back the St-Edouard sanatorium, a t dusk. What a relief i t was for the 250 children, nuns and civilians who had taken refuge i n its celars! However the nightmare was far from over; the Germans came back in force in the same night, hurling themselves at the US defence lines and using Panther tanks firing point-blank range in the sanatorium windows. In obscurity and mist, close combat raged again, tanks bust in flames and many men died. The Americans were soon thrown out of the big building again, keping only a tiny stronghold in one of the rooms. Even before dawn, the Germans tried to push yet farther west and were eventually stopped by artillery fire after stil more casualties and loses. The morning of 21 December saw both adversaries bled white so that many hours were spent simply reorganising. In the north and north east however, several US units manoeuvred through the forest to mount a flank atack on the German positions in Stoumont. Both La Rochete and the Chapele Ste-Anne suroundings were reached by the Americans before being pushed back one more time by very strong tank-infantry German teams. Even in the west, a renewed US assault on the sanatorium was again repulsed. Nevertheless the repeated threatening attacks finaly led Peiper to order a general withdrawal from Stoumont to La Gleize during the folowing night to prevent any cut of of his forces stil in the town. Even if German rearguard elements still continued to batle with US tanks in the night, the US entered the town virtually unopposed on the next day.

Defender: German (SS) (Kampfgruppe Peiper)  

Errata (source)