The Battle of Heiderscheid
William J. McKenzie

On or about December 22, 1944, elements of the 2nd Battalion of the 319th Infantry Regiment of the 80th Infantry Division, supported by Company H, made a night attack on Heiderscheid and forced the Germans out.

During the day of December 23, 1944, I was on guard duty at Company H command post on the main street, when lo and behold, here comes a German truck into town. A tank blocked the road behind him so he couldn't retreat. I cocked my rifle and put a round in the chamber and fired at the driver. The windshield shattered, but the truck continued on for a half block and came to a stop in the middle of the square. At that time all hell broke loose and everyone started shooting at the truck. It was loaded with Germans that soon ceased to exist.

On the evening of December 23, a clear moonlit night, when I was on guard duty again, bed check Charlie skimmed over the rooftops and dropped a bomb on 2nd Battalion Combat Patrol, narrowly missing it, but put the gun turret of a TD beside it out of commission. I saw bed check Charlie clearly, but he went by so fast I didn't get a chance to shoot.

The morning of December 24, about daylight, something woke me. I looked out the second story window and saw men, camouflaged in white, sneaking along the road in back of the house. Since I knew our men had no reason to be infiltrating, I opened fire. The shot woke everyone else in town. ...The shooting went on for about ten minutes, and we pinned down the Germans, which must have been the scouting element for the tanks, because lo and behold a column of 29 German tanks and half-tanks, loaded with men, came up out of the draw in back of the town and surrounded it. I figured this was the end of me, because we had already heard about the massacre at Malmedy. I figured I might as well keep shooting until the end.

The Germans never got off the half-tracks to attack. Using some bazookas and rifle grenades and the help of a couple of TD's and AT guns, we set 11 tanks and half-tracks on fire and many Germans burned to death in their seats. These were Hitler's elite SS troops. The other 18 tanks and half-tracks returned to the draw and continued on their way. Thus ended the "Battle of Heiderscheid."

Excerpt from Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge, edited by Robert Van Houten. Paducah, Kentucky: Turner Publishing Co., 1991. (ISBN: 156311013X)