 On the 18th of December, 1944, the conflict that would become the Battle of the Bulge was two days old. It had started with a huge German counter-offensive planned with a strict timetable. By the 18th, two Panzer armies should have reached the Muse River, driving toward their objective antwerp. Instead, thousands of Hitler's finest troops were still fighting to take a small town in the Belgian Ardennes. A junction of roads and railways. The key to success for the counter-offensive was its timetable. A key to the timetable was Sam Vith. At dawn on the 16th, the massive German assault had achieved its first object, surprise. It had overwhelmed the inexperienced American troops in the forests east of Sam Vith, where some, like Colonel Oliver Patton, then a Green Lieutenant in the 106th Division, were still trying to fight back two friendly lines on the 18th. We made a last attack down toward the Schoenberg-Blayoff Road. And in that attack, I was hit for the second time that day. I was hit through both legs and I couldn't walk. Late that night, I remember the battalion commander came through and told us that the battalion had to pull out. Had orders to continue to try to break out, back toward American forces. And they were going to leave us, there were four or five of us in the H station, they would leave us with a medic. To the south, the German attack had split the 28th Division, cut off the 112th Infantry of Colonel Guston Nelson. That afternoon, I received orders from division, which was then at Bastogne, to fall back on 12 airs and fight stiff delaying actions, direction Bastogne. I knew that this was impossible. The German attack in this sector was being made by troops of the 5th Panzer Army. The capture of Samveth with its roads and railways was vital to their advance. They had been expected to take Samveth on the day before with little resistance. And on the 18th, their commander, veteran General Hasso von Manteufel, came up himself to see what was delaying their advance. I suspected that it was just about individual... I suspected the presence of scattered though very courageous forces, which had come here from Samveth or other directions to assist the fighting troops. I was under the impression that up to the 17th and 18th, the small scattered battle troops were not under centralized command. However, on the evening of the 18th, before nightfall, it became obvious that new enemy forces were approaching. The general's surmise was correct. But American intelligence of the size of the German attack was still so limited that some units of the 9th and then 7th Armored Divisions hastily strung out to extend the American defenses from the original roadblock to a long horseshoe line. We're still unaware that even a little crossroads like Potol could be vital. There, most troops had already withdrawn when Lieutenant Will Rogers Jr. woke on the morning of the 18th to word that a German tank was in the street below. So we raced around to my jeep to get this bazooka. And the rest was sheer laurel and hardy. We couldn't get the strap off because it was covered with mud. Finally, we fought and got the bazooka unstrapped, and then we got it tangled up in some camouflage netting. I was so excited that when I grabbed for the rockets, I took them out and they dumped and fell down into the mud. Finally, we got everything all set, went down to the edge of this long hedge, and here was a German tank very thankfully waiting just right there waiting for us. We got the bazooka all set, started to fire at this tank, nothing happened. We'd forgot to wire the terminals properly. Finally, we got the terminals wired. We got off one shot at this tank, big explosion by the tank, but we couldn't see any result. However, the German officer in the tank closed down the turret and slowly back down out of this little Belgian town of Potol. The significance of any threat to the defensive horseshoe was clear to the man who was building it. Seventh Armored Division Commander, General Robert Hasbrook. Early on the 18th, I received bad news. The crossroads town of Potol, which lay to the left rear of General Clark, up at Sand Beach, had been captured by the Germans. Since there was a road leading from Potol directly to General Clark's rear, it was imperative that this be recaptured at once. Accordingly, I ordered CCA, my division reserve, located at Beehaw, to proceed immediately and recapture Potol. The northern front of Sam Vith's defenses was being held by the Seventh Armored Division's combat command B under General Bruce C. Clark. It became apparent that a command post in the town of St. Vith was too far forward. And so in the afternoon I sent my aide back around to the vicinity of Crombach to find a place where we could move and move into a room where there were tables and chairs, a place for messengers and liaison officers to park, a room that could be blacked out so we could use it tonight. The 19th of December was characterized by strong probing attacks by the Germans all around the defensive horseshoe. Most of these attacks were about one company in size and were apparently looking for a soft spot. On the southern front of the horseshoe, combat command B of the Ninth Armored Division found itself backed up against a deep railroad cut and embankment which could not be crossed. Its commander, General William Hogue, fought side by side with General Clark throughout the rest of the battle. In order that General Clark who was on my left would know what I was doing, I conferred with him and told him of the situation and I intended to withdraw through St. Vith and take up the new line on his right after dark on the night of the 19th. This very difficult operation was carried out in complete darkness and was very successful. We were most happy that that had occurred some two nights later when the attack took place which drove us out of the forward end of the horseshoe and took St. Vith. As the morning of the 20th dawn we of the 7th Armored felt pretty lonely. We had enemy on all sides and on our rear. We were out of touch with the 8th Corps which I later learned that we forced retreat from Bastogne to Nuffchateau down in France. Accordingly I decided to send the staff officer of mine Lieutenant Colonel Schroeder to try and locate first Army headquarters and apprive them of our situation and ask for help. The defenses east of St. Vith still held. There Colonel, then Major, Don Boyer was in the point of the horseshoe. Communications were sparse but there were sufficient to pass requests for artillery fire and exchange the necessary coordination for the attacks of the various battalions of the division as we received attacks from the Germans and kicked them out with counter-attack after counter-attack. Colonel V. L. Boylan was in the horseshoe's northern curve. I can't recall too many details at that time of specific attacks because it seems that they went on around the clock. And the battlefield is an extremely lonesome place. It's not milling with people. You don't see much. You hear things, tanks drawn up, artillery, small rounds and things like that. For a private like Bill Dessinger, the battlefield was everywhere. Minute by minute things change. I only know what it is to be in just that little hole. Maybe a squad or two around us. That's all we know. We know that little bit of territory that we have. You were constantly getting rumors. I remember one time we heard that the brightest spot on the western front was St. Vith. Many men believed the rumors that different units had pulled out and in turn were panicked. I remember reading one of Jim Thurber's book stories which is entitled, The Day the Dam Broke. And it seems so apropos to this situation that I ask every member of my staff to read that book and take it to heart. Continued attacks went on during the day on both of the combat command bees. And my G2 towards the end of the day told me that we had prisoners of war and our prisoner of war enclosure who were identified from five German divisions. This seemed impossible to me but later events proved it to be correct. The defensive horseshoe was now a good 25 miles long reinforced by Colonel Nelson's regiment that had lost touch with his division. But the line was being pounded from a horseshoe into a fortified goose egg. Lieutenant Patton knew why. He was riding wounded on the hood of a jeep driven by a German officer back toward a German aid station. There were two things going on on that road that even a lieutenant as green as I was could add up and make sense out of. First thing of course was the number of troops moving west along that road, infantry on either side of the road and the other was the number of vehicles coming down. Tanks, trucks, flak wagons, cars. And they were the biggest tanks I'd ever seen in my life. Every time one of those tanks had go by I'd look at it and lieutenant would lean over and look at me and grin. As I occupied my positions here on the east on the night of the 20th of 21st snow flurries in the air all of us with frostbite some with frozen fingers and frozen legs to our front, to our right flank, to our left flank all night long. We heard the noise of trucks and the noise of tanks moving into positions. At last the long delayed coordinated German attack on San Vith fell. The General Hasbrook searched for first army headquarters and his efforts to convince them that he was facing more than a local German counter attack had been successful. On the morning of the 21st we were overjoyed to find that the 82nd Airborne had arrived in our general vicinity and had made a tenuous contact with us near the Vilsam Bridge. This was an eventful day in our sector. CCB of the 7th Armored was attacked by a full German car. By noon heavy concentrations of artillery started breaking on the woods in which my forces were located. Screaming Mimi barrages started. These sounded like a huge spring being compressed and then suddenly cut loose. It was a horrible din that came through the air down among the trees. I remember one unit commander who I had who several times reported to me that he had to be relieved or had to have reinforcements that he could only hold maybe another hour or sometimes three hours or sometimes eight hours. I remember telling him very definitely that saying how the hell you know how long can you hold. You just hold there as long as you have the ability to fire back. Time meant nothing. But between 1200 and 1300 on the 21st until 2300 hours or 11 o'clock that night I saw my own immediate force which had been in the neighborhood of 680 men go to less than 200. The eastern point in the horseshoe defending San Vith was now an island defending only itself. There Colonel Thomas J. Riggs the 160th Division engineer whose roadblock had been the town's first defense still held the road under his original orders. By that evening the Germans were building up their intensity and we're starting to break through on both of our flanks. By about midnight we lost communication on both flanks with the two units so we knew we were being completely isolated. Knowing that San Vith now was filled with German troops coming in from the east, the north and the south Healed off to the right until we got in the vicinity of the road that led to Prum and there we broke off into five and eight man groups. I gave them a compass bearing and told them to try to work their way to the west to rejoin General Clark, combat command B where we might continue the fight. For by nightfall I and the four men in my group were prisoners of the Germans and I realized that in the furious fight in the day before that I had been wounded and for me the world had come to an end at that point. We could then in the dawn's light see that all the roads leading into San Vith were full of German troops concentrating on and going through San Vith. We obviously could not counter attack. I attempted at that time to split them up into patrols so they could attempt to work their way back to the friendly lines, U.S. lines. We started two of these patrols out and watched both of them captured and shortly thereafter I was captured with the remainder of the group. On the afternoon of 21st December, General Clark informed me that the attack on San Vith was becoming so heavy they would be forced out of that position that evening and said he would retreat to the west. I agreed to conform with his movement. The tremendous delay we had suffered so far in my schedule left its mark on the whole army in the central corps as well as in the southern sector. Until December 22nd, therefore, my efforts were concentrated on the coordination of the attack on San Vith. In other words, the cooperation of all arms, the infantry, the storm guns, the artillery, the tanks in a final attempt to take San Vith. We were able to coordinate the attack on the 21st and 22nd so that we could finally take San Vith. But the time loss was great and therefore the importance of the defense of San Vith. In our new defensive line in the Cromback area, our forces were driven back and at the same time pressure from the north and the south was applied against our flanks. So as a result, by the night of the 22nd, our forces banked pretty much in a semi-circle around the town of Comanster. It should be pointed out that when the men were dispersed on the ground, they were like the fingers of a hand. And as they withdrew, as I later pointed out to them, they gained strength by coming back as the fingers would in forming a fist. This gave them strength and coordination. Comanster would be the last defense. From there, General Clark immediately sought an escape route to the west, a dirt road through the woods to Vielsalm. And although the Battle of the Bulge would last for another month, its turning point had been reached. The defensive places like San Vith had given the Allied armies what they needed, time to rally and regroup. Next morning, the skies were clear. The ground which had been a sea of slush and mud that would have mired hopelessly the withdrawal of 23,000 men and their thousands of vehicles was frozen hard. During the early morning hours of the 23rd, both CCB of the 7th Armored and CCB of the 9th Armored were hotly engaged with the enemy. It was difficult for them to disengage, but also during the day the 82nd Airborne was attacked from the south. I finally sent a message to General Clark and General Hub telling them it was imperative that they start their withdrawal. If they did not start now, they would be withdrawing into a bunch of Germans instead of into the ranks of the 82nd Airborne Division. There was no time to issue formal orders or orders under code. So I instructed that the radio to all units under my command be opened up and that the orders would be given in the clear. General Hasbrook told me that I would have to withdraw across the Vielsam Bridge by noon or else the bridge would have to be blown because of the pressure of the German army coming in from his flanks. And I directed that the withdrawal would start immediately and the plan would be that they would withdraw down the Dirtwood Road on a first come, first served basis. This required that I personally direct traffic at the crossroads at Comanster. So I started the battle as a military police and I ended the battle as a military police, but of course that was necessary. I met Bruce Clark in the town where he was directing traffic at the time trying to ease the confusion of the milling vehicles passing through. We went into position around the town. The withdrawal started at 7 a.m. and went on constantly throughout that day. It went very smoothly, the covering forces operated efficiently, and only one unit had trouble. That was Task Force Jones on the southern flank the last to withdraw. So the American column passed through these little towns of Behoe and Bovigny and as they did they became part of Task Force Jones which was the rear guard of the American unit coming out of San Vieth. And my little platoon became part of the rear of the rear guard of the last unit out of San Vieth. As we fell back onto the road to Somme Chateau I found it choked with vehicles from a Task Force of the 7th Armored Division. We attempted to work our way through these vehicles to find out what the trouble was and we found that there was a burning tank in Somme Chateau and that the Germans had apparently come around behind us with an anti-tank gun. In the meanwhile, someone had discovered a side road up a sort of a side canyon that went up this high mountain beside this Somme River. And just then a beautiful thing happened. A full bright moon came up over the hills. We went up this side road and then across country. And in one place we had to detail some of the tanks of the 7th Armored Division to pull the wheel vehicles over this over a highland swamp. And about two o'clock in the morning we finally wound up behind the 82nd Airborne lines. Mile after mile and we came out through the snow this brilliant beautiful moonlight night and then we saw another wonderful sight. About every hundred feet or so we saw a man in a white park standing there and that was the 82nd Airborne. And we came out through the 82nd Airborne Division out of the Battle of the Bulge out of Somme Vieth and that was Task Force Jones. We were the tail end of the rear guard of the 7th Armored Division. I climbed up the slope pin there where I was greeted by General Hasbrook. Drawn, tired, out on his feet. But still the type of a commander standing there with his troops to the very last minute threw his arms around me and said, Boylan, thank God you got him out. And toward the end I figured that I got practically no sleep for the last 72 hours before reporting to General Hasbrook behind the 82nd Airborne lines. I wished him a merry Christmas, it was a day before, but I wished him a merry Christmas. But to us it was just a big step to get home. I was and still am proud of the men and officers of the 106th Infantry Division with whom I went through such a dreadful bath of blood during this action. I was so proud as a matter of fact that I returned to that unit after escaping from prisoner of war camp some 20 days later. It is the war of the small men, the outpost commanders, the section commanders, the company commanders. Those were the decisive people here who were responsible for success or failure, victory or defeat. We depended upon their courage. They could not afford to get confused and had to act according to their own decisions until the higher command was again in a position to take over. I believe I can say and I have the right to make this judgment that the Germans did this admirably well. At the same time, however, I am also convinced that this was the case with the American forces, who after all succeeded in upsetting the entire time schedule, not only of the attacking unit in Savit, but also of the 5th and 6th Panzer Armies. That is a fact which cannot be denied. Just one month later in January, you can imagine how we felt the satisfaction of regaining what we had been forced to lose. There was snow on the ground, small road leading down to the right, a few farmhouses and trees, and Saint Vith itself. No movement, no noise, no dogs, no smoke, lifeless, flattened. Such is the rush of history that Savit Belgium is almost lost in it now, but not in the memories of those who made history there that winter, or those who must take life up again when history is past. And then we came back one by one. The first to return were my father and my elder brothers, but when we came back, things weren't over yet by far. Everything was destroyed here. That wasn't too bad. Somehow children don't care too much for material values, but the destroyed tanks were a horror. Everywhere, sometimes there were still burned bodies inside. Soldiers, Germans, Americans. And when we were playing sometimes, or ventured into the woods, which was very dangerous, when we tried to jump across a trench or something, suddenly we saw we were startled with horror because there was a body lying in there. But gradually things came back to normal, accidents were less frequent, and in time they were forgotten. And then it went on like that, and in spite of everything, we grew up and became strong. But still, something has remained. Sometimes when one talks about it, it comes back to one's memory, how awful it is. I think it's very difficult for a child. Well, one of the things that's always bothered me most about the Battle of San Viz, is that a number of heroic actions went unrecognized and unrewarded. Of course, there were a good many Silver Stars and Bond Stars awarded because I delegated that authority to my commanders and they carried them in their pockets and were authorized to put them on the man at the time. But the higher decorations which many deserved were not forthcoming because the sworn statements of witnesses were hard to get in the heat of battle. Afterwards, the witnesses were gone in some cases and in others, the act was forgotten only too soon.