In The News

St. Paul Dispatch and Pioneer Press

36 Hour Tank Attack Fails to Budge Yank Unit After First Blow

by Meyer Levin

WITH US SECOND INFANTRY DIVISION: The line held by the Second Infantry Division, which so far is bearing the brunt of the surprise German offensive, has not been budged by the Nazi onslaught.

For 36 hours the Germans assaulted the division's position with massed tanks in an effort to unhinge the First Army front, but from the moment when clerks and messmen of the headquarters company halted the enemy's main thrust, the Second withstood everything the Germans could throw at it.

Sixteen German tanks were knocked out in a village near here in as many hours, some slugging it out at ranges as close as half a block with tanks of the 741st Tank Battalion, which is supporting the Second Infantry.

Six American tanks were lost in the fight.

The all-night battle of the tanks was described by Lt. Jay Van Winkle of Nutley, N.J., "We had four tanks, all in a row," he said, "while the Nazis had three on one side of us and two on the other. They kept shooting at and missing us all night. We knew that our tanks were not supposed to match theirs in armor or firepower, but we stayed. In the morning they pulled their tanks around into the town and faced us and pretty soon the streets were blocked with their five tanks. Close in that way, we could battle them, as at close range they lost their heavy advantage.

"Every time we saw a German tank, we knocked it out," Lt. Van Winkle reported. His outfit even destroyed a German Tiger tank at a 35 yard range.

Working with the tanks Tuesday were doughboys of the Thirty-Eighth Infantry Battalion, with First Lt. Albert Shelton of Oklahoma City and his men slugging it out with the enemy.

"We've got the situation under control now," Lt. Shelton said. "We came in yesterday to set up a hasty defense and I yelled up to a man in a tank and asked him to stay and support us. The tank men said they would.

"During the night the Germans came up behind us and took half the town and the church, but in the morning with the help of the tanks, we regained all the ground we had lost. We lost only two men dead," Lt. Shelton added.

Field Marshal Von Rundstedt's forces moved forward in spots but the Nazi infantry scheduled to relieve the assault troops never reached them and the attacking forces were rounded up.

"Von Rundstedt did not reckon with me," said Col. Geo Hirschfield of San Antonio, Texas, who after 30 years in the army is right in the field with his men.

Col. Hirschfeld and his men had finished plowing through 200 yards of rolled barbed wire, known as concertina wire, to make a surprise night attack on a group of twelve pillboxes. His men, who had stormed Brest, had gone through two days of an offensive battle tougher than Brest, through mined paths in a woods. The paths were covered by felled trees with bobby traps in their branches hidden by the snow.

The men conquered all this and were catching their breath in the pillboxes. Col. Hirschfeld took a day off on his back in a field tent, nursing a cold, but refusing hospitalization.

On that day, Von Rundstedt attacked the division's rear and and the old lion leaped from his cot to supervise the turning about of his regiment to meet the enemy thrust and to hold the hardest German attack made.

---

 

Stars & Stripes

741st Tank Battalion

February 7, 1945

The Distinguished Unit Citation and special commendations by an Infantry Division and a Corps commander have been received by this unit for its fight through the continent.

Landing on D-Day with the First Infantry Division, the unit's direct fire support enabled the infantry to secure and hold some of the more bitterly defended sectors. The battalion was rehabilitated by Lt. Col. Robert N. Skaggs of Los Angeles while moving.

In the battle for Hill 192, the 741st Shermans played an important part in supporting the Second Infantry Division. It was here that Sgt. John Brewer of Trenton, Tennessee first used a tank dozer to bury an enemy machine gun complete with crew.

During the recent breakthrough in the Ardennes, the battalion held the hot corner at Rocherath in support of the Second Infantry Division and did not yield a foot of ground until ordered by higher quarters to retire to better defense positions. The battalion claims 27 tanks destroyed in this action.