{"id":110438,"date":"2020-01-02T12:30:01","date_gmt":"2020-01-02T17:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=110438"},"modified":"2020-01-02T12:30:01","modified_gmt":"2020-01-02T17:30:01","slug":"42nd-infantry-division-soldiers-were-in-desperate-combat-in-january-1945-at-other-battle-of-the-bulge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=110438","title":{"rendered":"42nd Infantry Division Soldiers were in desperate combat in January 1945 at &#8220;other Battle of the Bulge&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-gallery columns-2 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex\"><ul class=\"blocks-gallery-grid\"><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"640\" height=\"519\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/450108-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=640%2C519&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"110439\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/i1.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/450108-A-A3538-0001.jpg?fit=652%2C529&amp;ssl=1\" data-link=\"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?attachment_id=110439\" class=\"wp-image-110439\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/450108-A-A3538-0001.jpg?w=652&amp;ssl=1 652w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/450108-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=300%2C243&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/450108-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=150%2C122&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/450108-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=400%2C325&amp;ssl=1 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"blocks-gallery-item\"><figure><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"500\" height=\"537\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/451218-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=500%2C537&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" data-id=\"110440\" data-full-url=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/451218-A-A3538-0001.jpg?fit=500%2C537&amp;ssl=1\" data-link=\"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?attachment_id=110440\" class=\"wp-image-110440\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/451218-A-A3538-0001.jpg?w=500&amp;ssl=1 500w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/451218-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=279%2C300&amp;ssl=1 279w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/451218-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=140%2C150&amp;ssl=1 140w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/451218-A-A3538-0001.jpg?resize=400%2C430&amp;ssl=1 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><figcaption class=\"blocks-gallery-caption\"> ABOVE LEFT: 42nd Infantry Division Soldiers prepare a defensive position at their log and dirt bunker near Kauffenheim, France, Jan. 8, 1945 (U.S. Army Photo). ABOVE RIGHT: U.S. President Harry S. Truman presents the Medal of Honor to U.S. Army Master Sergeant Vito Bertoldo, a 42nd Infantry Division Soldier, at a White House ceremony Dec. 18, 1945.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The division is now part of the New York Army National Guard,\nheadquartered in Troy<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In the earliest days of 1945, the infantrymen of the 42nd\nInfantry Division, now a part of the New York Army National Guard, were locked\nin desperate combat against German tanks and paratroopers during Hitler&#8217;s final\noffensive in Western Europe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Operation Nordwind, sometimes called &#8220;the other Battle\nof the Bulge&#8221; kicked off on New Year&#8217;s Eve 1944 in the Alsace region of\nFrance. The American and French armies fought desperately to halt the attack\nand hold onto the city of Strasbourg, the capital of Alsace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three regiments of 42nd Infantry Division soldiers, who had\nbeen hurried to France without the rest of their divisional support units, had\narrived in Strasbourg, France, just before Christmas 1944. They expected to\nspend time in a quiet sector to learn the ropes of combat.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They could not have been more wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 42nd Infantry Division had been made up of National\nGuard troops during World War I and nicknamed &#8220;the Rainbow Division&#8221;\nbecause it contained elements from 26 states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In World War II, the division was reactivated but filled\nwith draftee soldiers. With a desperate need for infantry troops in Europe, the\nsoldiers of the 222nd, 232nd and 242nd Infantry Regiments had been pulled out\nof training in the United States and shipped to southern France.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The three regiments were named Task Force Linden, because\nthey were commanded by the division&#8217;s deputy commander Brig. Gen. Henning\nLinden. They were committed to battle without the artillery, armor, engineers\nand logistics support the rest of the division would normally provide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The attack came as a shock to the newly arrived infantrymen,\nexplained Capt. William Corson in a letter to a 42nd Division reunion gathering\nin 1995. Corson commanded Company A in the 1st Battalion, 242nd Infantry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;The green, inexperienced troops would occupy a small\ntown named Hatten since the Germans had nothing more than small patrols in the\narea. At least that was the information given at a briefing, but someone forgot\nto tell the enemy,&#8221; he wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">German paratroops and panzer forces with tanks and\nself-propelled guns crossed the Rhine River 12 miles north of Strasbourg and\nclashed with the thinly stretched Rainbow Division infantry at Gambsheim Jan.\n5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the next three weeks, the three regiments defended,\nretreated, counterattacked and finally stopped the Germans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The first week was a frenzied effort to halt the German\nadvance, with companies and battalions moved around the front like firefighters\nplugging gaps, Corson said. The fighting was so desperate that the 42nd\nDivision even threw individual rifle companies into the fight whenever they\nbecame available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;Officers knew little more than the GI,&#8221; Corson\nsaid. &#8220;One morning, my company moved to a barren, frozen hillside with\norders to dig defensive positions covering an area about three times larger\nthan we were capable of adequately defending. After four hours of chipping away\nat the frozen ground, we were told that this position would not be defended, so\nwe moved to another frozen spot about 10 miles away and started digging\nagain.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Gambsheim, the odds were too great for the American\ninfantry. The majority of its defenders from the 232nd Infantry Regiment were\ncaptured or killed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In a failed Jan. 5 through 7 counterattack at Gambsheim,\nunits from all three regiments were combined in a patchwork force that was\nultimately repulsed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Dan Bearse, a rifleman with the 242nd Infantry in the\ncounterattack, recounted the events in an oral history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;They had tanks and heavy artillery, endless infantry troops,&#8221;\nBearse recalled. &#8220;We were outnumbered two or three to one. So we were\nquickly repulsed. Lost lots of people, killed, wounded and captured. And we\nwere thrown back immediately,&#8221; he said of the Jan. 6 battle. &#8220;We were\nbadly mauled and it was very demoralizing. That was our baptism of fire. And it\nwas a loser.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">At Hatten on Jan. 10, 1945, the 242nd Infantry Regiment and\na battalion from the 79th Division tried to stop the German tanks and\nparatroopers again. The defenders were overrun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Corson was wounded and captured with dozens of his soldiers,\nbut one soldier from the 242nd Infantry, Master Sgt. Vito Bertoldo, decided to\nstay. Bertoldo, who was attached from Corson&#8217;s Company A to the battalion\nheadquarters, volunteered to hold off the Germans while other soldiers\nretreated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Bertoldo drove back repeated German attacks for 48 hours. He\nwas exposed to enemy machine gun, small arms and even tank fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Moving among buildings in Hatten to fire his machine gun, at\none point, Bertoldo strapped it to a table for stability. He fired on\napproaching German tanks and panzer grenadiers, repeatedly defeating the German\nattacks and killing 40 of the enemy. For his actions, he was awarded the Medal\nof Honor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;On the close approach of enemy soldiers, he left the\nprotection of the building he defended and set up his gun in the street,&#8221;\nhis Medal of Honor citation reads, &#8220;there to remain for almost 12 hours\ndriving back attacks while in full view of his adversaries and completely\nexposed to 88-millimeter, machine gun and small arms fire.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">&#8220;All I did was try to protect some other American soldiers\nfrom being killed,&#8221; Bertoldo would tell newspapers back home after the\nwar. &#8220;At no time did I have in mind that I was trying to win\nsomething.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 1st Battalion, 242nd Infantry paid a heavy price for its\ndefense of Hatten. At the beginning of the battle, there were 33 officers and\n748 enlisted men in the battalion. Three days later, there were 11 officers and\n253 enlisted men reporting for duty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Germans launched their final assault Jan. 24, just seven\nmiles from the fight at Hatten, looking to cut American supply lines back to\nStrasbourg in the town of Haguenau.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They attacked straight into the 42nd Division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Troops of the 222nd Infantry were dug in inside the nearby\nOhlugen Forest, with thick foliage and dense fog concealing American and German\npositions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The regiment had two battalions in the defense, covering a\nfrontage of 7,500 yards, three times the normal frontage for a regiment in\ndefense, according to the &#8220;42nd \u2018Rainbow\u2019 Infantry Division Combat History\nof WWII.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Facing the Americans were elements of a German tank\ndivision, a paratroop division and an infantry division.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">During the fighting, 1st Lt. Carlyle Woelfer, commanding\nCompany K in the 3rd Battalion, 222nd Infantry, captured a German officer with\nmaps detailing the German attack. The officer and another prisoner were put on\nan M8 Greyhound armored car for transport to the rear. But the German officer\nsignaled for other Germans to come to their aid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Three Germans moved on the vehicle, killing one American soldier,\nbut were then killed in turn by Woelfer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The back-and-forth fighting continued through the rest of\nthe night as the 222nd fought to contain the German breakthrough toward\nHaguenau. The regiment earned a Presidential Unit Citation for its actions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The 232nd Regiment was brought up from reserve to help in\nthe defense. The defense had held as reinforcements from the divisions which\nhad been fighting in the Battle of the Bulge arrived to push the Germans back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By mid-February 1945 the rest of the 42nd Infantry Division\narrived in France and the infantry regiments were rebuilt. The division then\nwent on the attack against German units that had been severely ground down by\nthe Nordwind attack.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the Rainbow Division, their attack would lead into\nGermany and capture the cities of Wurzburg, Schweinfurt, Furth, Nuremberg,\nDachau and Munich before the war ended in May 1945.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong><em>The present day Soldiers of the 42nd Infantry\nDivision headquarters are currently preparing to deploy to Kuwait in 2020.\nDuring the 75th anniversary of World War II the Division of Military and Naval\nAffairs will be highlighting the division&#8217;s advance into Germany in 1945.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The division is now part of the New York Army National Guard, headquartered in Troy In the earliest days of 1945, the infantrymen of the 42nd Infantry Division, now a part of the New York Army National Guard, were locked in desperate combat against German tanks and paratroopers during Hitler&#8217;s final offensive in Western Europe. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":110439,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[22367,8,21571],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-110438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-top-story","category-veterans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/madisoncountycourier.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/01\/450108-A-A3538-0001.jpg?fit=652%2C529&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p43meu-sJg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=110438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/110439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=110438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=110438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=110438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}