Things that piss me off
Read an article in the LA Times today-- seems there's a Belgian Museum honoring the US military personnel who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. Seems there was a mistake in one of their exhibits regarding a particular instance of heroism-- 3 enlisted men and an officer stayed at a 90 mm anti-aircraft gun and used it to hold off some german attacks
( Read more... )
Now that I've read through what actually happened, from both US Army and German perspectives, the article is such bullshit.
The AA gun knocked out one tank. (Another had been lost in the mud due to negligence with a winch.) Volunteers from the same crew knocked out two other tanks with bazookas. Later that afternoon, other Panzer crews had to be threatened by a German officer with a Panzerfaust to continue the attack, which they did, and took the town. The Germans then withdrew a day due to fuel problems. This is not "stopping the massive German advance," this is more trapping a German SS armored group. (They ultimately abandoned their equipment and E&Ed out on foot on 23 December from La Glieze.)
Adding insult to injury, doctrine was that an officer was to stay with each gun during anti-armor operations. So the officer was just doing his job.
Took me 15 minutes to find an oral history transcript with Lt. Leon Kent. This got me curious so I went digging for a bunch of extra info:
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/diglib/vhp-stories/loc.natlib.afc2001001.07607/transcript?ID=sr0001
Date: 19 December 1944
Time: approx 0730 hours
Unit: 143rd AAA Gun Battalion, Battery C
Unit Roster: available here, http://www.143rdaaagunbnww2.com/scan-63.html
Location: winding road that led towards the railway station outside Stoumont, Belgium (http://g.co/maps/ay5yz6). Spot where first tank knocked out is now a police station (had been a church.)
Opposition: 1st SS Panzer Division, Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler. 2nd Kompanie Panthers.
Commanded by: Obst. Jochen Peiper
Objective: Liège, Belgium
Axis of Attack: west, then northerly
Axis of Defense: facing roads to east
Identity of Equipment: 1st tank knocked out, Panzer Mark VI #223 of SS-Rottenführer Prahm (Prahn?). This was the one knocked out beside the Robinson house by the M1 90mm antiaircraft gun (Gun #1 or Gun #2 of Battery C).
Soldiers: A US Army "gun crew." Two gunners, one ammunition passer. All were awarded Silver Stars.
Two of the same soldiers from the crew were awarded Distinguished Service Crosses for attacking Panzers with rocket launchers later on the same day: PFCs Albert Anthony Darago Jr. (survived the war) and PFC Roland E Seamon (killed).
We have a picture of Private Seamon here: http://www.lerenfort.fsnet.co.uk/A_darago_0211d.jpg
At the same time, Pfc Donald Eyanson was killed and Pvt's DP Phillips and Charles Schofield were seriously wounded.
Per Lt. Kent:
"We'd go through it, we were just sitting ducks. I was standing on the platform right next to the gun, with the gunners on each side of me. And the, and a gunner in back. The gunners are on scopes, or they can sight down the barrel.
"And I was trying to spot with binoculars, and I was absolutely useless. The gun would fire, and nothing but smoke and fire, and I'm bounced on my fanny each time. And after about, I guess after we got the first one stopped I just decided there's no purpose. And we did knock out the first one we saw. And I got off and started passing ammunition. There was only one ammunition passer, there was supposed to be two. And the second tank tried to come around the first one, but at that time he exposed his side, and we got him from the side. There was no action for a while, a few minutes. And somebody came from the, you saw where the railroad tracks were, on the other side, tanks couldn't go down there because that was a steep slope down to the tanks. Tanks had to stay on the road. Slope up, slope down.
"And he said they're coming -- they're coming along with halftracks and with machine guns and leapfrogging. They're planting a machine gun, and the next one shoots, and the next one goes over that. And we had nothing to defend against that, so we had to blow up the gun, and take off. I said everybody take off into the prime movers, and I was in the Jeep, and led us out."
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Books:
http://www.amazon.com/Duel-Mist-Leibstandarte-Offensive-Kampfgruppe/dp/0955541301
This book "Duel in the Mist" is considered definitive based on interviews with both Kent and Darago.
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_15.htm
http://books.google.com/books?id=47UGHTrBKPUC&pg=PA11&lpg=PA11&dq=stoumont+battle+of+the+bulge&source=bl&ots=cNF-vXe8JG&sig=qDUeEc4KGX7U7bPunItRIcFA3M0&hl=en&ei=1YV-Tp_EIJTXiAKdgL26Aw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10&ved=0CG4Q6AEwCQ#v=onepage&q=stoumont%20battle%20of%20the%20bulge&f=false
Other references:
http://www.lerenfort.fsnet.co.uk/page8aN.htm
http://www.criba.be/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=346&Itemid=4
http://ed-thelen.org/J-McGrath/90MMGUN.HTM
http://www.wehrmacht-awards.com/forums/showthread.php?t=28959
http://www.network54.com/Forum/47208/thread/1089964844/1089974788/US+90+mm+AA+guns+in+Stoumont-
http://www.feldgrau.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=26&t=4994
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You could drop them an E-mail and ask: museum@december44.com
The names of the enlisted could be dug out by the museum. All of them are on the Battery C roster linked above. It's just a matter of pulling up Lt. Kent's relatively recent (belated) Silver Star citation and getting the names from it; or at worst cross-referencing.
National Archives in College Park, Maryland (Archives II) has the Silver Star citations from World War II.
Roland Seamon's DSC citation: http://militarytimes.com/citations-medals-awards/recipient.php?recipientid=22653
Albert Durago's DSC citation: http://militarytimes.com/citations-medals-awards/recipient.php?recipientid=22027
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Thanks for posting the info (I suppose if I'd taken a little time to really investigate further, I might have tripped over some of it). Interesting to know that the paper really got a whole lot of things wrong.
That it is relatively easy to find the names of the enlisted personnel, and yet the paper still ignored them, and ignored that there were some DSC recipients for actions on that day, still leaves me very annoyed with the LA Times, though.
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