Back to the east the advance guard of the 116th Panzer Division was marching toward Ortheuville.Īt this point General Krueger, the LVIII Panzer Corps commander, made his fateful decision. So things stood as the evening advanced: the engineers and tank destroyer crews waiting for some enemy move to take the bridge the German self-propelled guns and tanks lobbing in a shell now and again to keep the Americans away from the bridge and perhaps with hopes of cutting the wires on the demolition charges. These guns, as it turned out, would not reach Bastogne for a number of days. Hubert, dropped off eight tank destroyers to bar an enemy crossing while its trains passed through Ortheuville. The 705th, following the near bank of the Ourthe west to St. Originally ordered to use the road through Bertogne, the battalion had been forced to detour when the battalion commander found the enemy there. The 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which Middleton had attached to the 101st Airborne Division, was on the move to Bastogne. To his surprise and relief the engineer company commander found that he would have some antitank support-desultory shell-fire already was falling on the village and it was known that German armor was close at hand. It would take some while to reassemble the battalion but Company C was reached and diverted to Ortheuville. The companies of the 158th were returning to their separate and original bivouacs when corps orders suddenly arrived dispatching the battalion to the Ourthe line. Sam Tabets) which, as part of the screen east of Bastogne, had been in a fire fight throughout the morning, was relieved by the 501st Parachute Infantry, the battalion leaving the sector about 1430.

In the meantime the 158th Engineer Combat Battalion (Lt. Three companies of the 299th and a small portion of the 1278th Engineer Combat Battalions comprised all the troops-available for a barrier line now being constructed from Martelange northwest along Highway N46 to the Ourthe River, thence on both banks of the river to Ortheuville-a distance of about twenty-seven miles. Although the VIII Corps staff had given priority to defense at this bridge, there was little enough that could be put in the effort.

Shortly after noon on the 19th a platoon or less of the 299th Engineer Combat Battalion arrived in Ortheuville to prepare this important span for destruction. The river by means of a heavy Bailey bridge.

Battle of the bulge tank destroyers