The Battle of The Bulge
Luxembourg was not a fortuitous site to relocate. Within a week of the battalion’s arrival, the Germans began their last desperate counteroffensive into the Ardennes. The Battle of the Bulge began on 16 December, and the 70th Tank Battalion was located on the southern flank of the German penetration, with only eleven of its 54 medium tanks in operating condition. On 16 December 1944, elements of the battalion were sent forward with infantrymen of the 12th Infantry Regiment mounted on their tanks in order to reach elements of the regiment which had been overrun and isolated near Echternach, Berdorf, Lauterborn, Osweiler, and Dickweiler, in the northeastern part of Luxembourg. Until 24 December, platoon size detachments of tanks, supported by no more than five infantrymen mounted on each tank, operated as mobile strike forces to repel any German thrusts toward Luxembourg city. Thinly as the 70th Tank Battalion’s operational tanks were spread, their presence, reinforced by combined arms task forces from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions is credited with defeating superior numbers of German infantry.
The battalion had lost another 5 men killed, 14 wounded, and 4 missing in just a week in the Ardennes. After the unrelenting combat and movement since coming ashore at Utah Beach, the 70th Tank Battalion had nearly a month from Christmas Day 1944 until 21 January 1945 to rest and refit and bring the battalion back up to strength before it went back on the offensive.
Read more about this topic: 70th Armor Regiment (United States), World War II
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