The black represents the iron from the mills of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania where many of the troops were from. They continued to fight even as the American press trumpeted the rapid crumbling of German resistance. [4], Distinguished Service Cross (United States), "Lineage And Honors Information, 395th Regiment Lineage", "World War II: Interview with Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler", "The Operations of the 3rd Battalion, 395th Infantry (99th Infantry Division) Prior to and During the German Counter-Offensive, 10November 24 December 1944 (Ardennes Campaign) (Personal Experience of a Company Commander and Battalion Operations Officer)", "Why the Bulge Didn't Break: Green Troops Grew Up Fast to Become Heroes of Hofen", "The Battle of the Bulge Part II Holding the Line (review)", "Chapter 5: The Ardennes, the Battle of the Bulge", "Battle of the Bulge: U.S. The breakout from Saint-L, France was accomplished far more rapidly than Allied planners had dared hope, and American units plunged through the French countryside with undreamed of rapidity, far in advance of operational plans. There Major Butler collapsed due to exhaustion on 30 April, and Lt. Col. J. It was not just the lives of 3/395 at stake; a German breakthrough here would have enabled the Sixth Panzer Army to outflank the 2nd ID and 99th ID and achieve a direct route to the Meuse River. It was organized with the rest of the 99th on 16 November 1942 at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. [16], In September 2007, in preparation for the transition to Fort Dix and establishment of the new 99th RSC, the 99th RRC assumed administrative responsibility for the former regions of the 77th and 94th RRCs, which had inactivated. As they did so, another German assault hit them, this time with support from 5 MKV Panther tanks. [16], In 2005, the Army Reserve began its latest transformation under the Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) directive and lessons learned from eight years of deployments in support of the Global War on Terrorism. Richard Mills were awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. Troops were fatigued by weeks of continuous combat, Allied supply lines were stretched extremely thin, and supplies were dangerously depleted. Unbeknownst to its commanding general at the time, Maj. Gen. Walter E. Lauer, the division would play a strategic role in the war and would gain the honor of having the most decorated platoon of the US army during World War Two. The division was also known as the "Battle Babies" during 1945, a sobriquet coined by a United Press correspondent when the division was first mentioned in press reports during the Battle of the Bulge. In a long fight with about 500 men of the 1st Battalion, 9th Fallschirmjaeger Regiment, 3rd Fallschirmjaeger Division, the 18 men of the platoon along with four artillery observers inflicted between 60[6][7] to more than 100[8] casualties on the Germans. Ehrenfried-Oskar Bge. They engaged in division-level maneuvers in July 1944. When hostilities ceased on 7 May 1945, the regiment had during six months of fighting experienced 300 percent turnover due to casualties. Those who survived the initial onslaught and did not manage to flee, had to eke out a living on a battleground ravaged by incessant bombardment and street fighting. Earl Denzil Reese April 13th, 1945 - A combat engineer snapped this series of photos while riding on back of a truck during the Battle of the Ruhr Pocket. On 1 February 1944, Major Butler assumed command of the 3rd Battalion, 395th Regiment. Battle of the Bulge The National WWII Museum Digital Collections. [5] The 99th boarded ships bound for England on 10 October 1944 and briefly stayed at Camp Marabout, Dorchester, England. The Ardennes area was chosen because of a lack of operational objectives for the Allies, the terrain offered good defensive positioning, roads were lacking, and the Germans were known to be using the area within Germany to the east as a rest and refit area for their troops. The platoon seriously disrupted the entire German Sixth Panzer Army's schedule of attack along the northern edge of the offensive. The 99th battled on to the bridge at Remagen that was taken on March 7th. By December 1944, Allied armies had reached the western border of Germany itself. Hfen remained in American handsfor now. On 25 October 1981, the entire platoon was recognized with a Presidential Unit Citation. EN. Butler's father had been a major in the Illinois National Guard and urged his son to become a guardsman when he was 16 years old. Table of Contents. Led by 20-year-old Lieutenant Lyle Bouck Jr., they delayed the advance of the 1st SS Panzer Division, the spearhead of the entire German 6th Panzer Army, for nearly 20 hours. American troops from the 290th Regiment near Amonines, Belgium. Despite mauling the Germans on their first attempt to take Hfen, 3/395s situation was grim. [16], The U.S. Army Center of Military History states that the 99th RSC does not perpetuate the lineage and honors of the 99th Infantry Division. [20], After a short period off the line, the battalion conducted offensive operations in Germany, including the seizure of several German towns from 1 to 5 March. Just south of Hfen, the lines of the 99th entered this forest, ran through a long belt of timber to the boundary between the V and VIII Corps at the Losheim Gap. The coat of arms was originally approved for the 395th Regiment Infantry, Organized Reserves on 15 June 1931. Originally planned as a Pennsylvania unit, the horizontal band of white and blue. The camp was newly built, and the barracks were covered in tar paper. Outnumbered five to one, they inflicted casualties in the ratio of 18 to one. Soldiers who were in direct support of the relief efforts were also awarded the Humanitarian Service Medal as a personal award. The terrain was open and rolling, and over six weeks the 3rd Battalion prepared dug-in positions that possessed good fields of fire. Formerly nicknamed the "Checkerboard Division," which referred to its shoulder patch, in late 1944 having not yet seen battle, the division was nicknamed the "Battle Babies. This page was last edited on 11 March 2022, at 19:44. General Eisenhower and his staff chose the Ardennes region, held by the First Army, as an area that could be held by as few troops as possible. Category: 395th Infantry Regiment Lt. Col. Henry B. Koon Sr. Special Troops The 395th Infantry had mostly held their lines, and now with the battle hardened 2nd Infantry Division on the way to back them up, the lines of defense near Elsenborn appeared to be significantly harder to pierce. A. Gallagher assumed command for the last few days of the war. The unit was inactivated after World War II, then became a reserve unit, and was redesignated as the 395th Regiment in 1999. Captain Ned Nelson, veteran of 3/395 and the battle at Hfen. To make circumstances worse, just beyond the bloodied-but-not-beaten Volksgrenadiers waited the tanks of the 6th Panzer Army. Crest The crest is that of the U.S. Army Reserve. Organization and training began in October but were not complete by the time the war ended in November 1918, so the division was demobilized in early 1919. Two men who had been sent on foot to regimental headquarters to seek reinforcements were later captured. The citation read: During the German offensive in the Ardennes, the Third Battalion in the 395th Infantry, was assigned the mission of holding the Monschau-Eupen-Liege Road. It then intersected a main eastwest road at Bullingen. The regiment arrived at Camp Van Dorn in early December. The infantry at Hfen lay in a foxhole line along a 910 metres (2,990ft) front on the eastern side of the village, backed up by dug-out support positions. [6], The regiment's (3rd Battalion) earned the sobriquet Butler's Battlin' Blue Bastards derived from the name of its single commander, its special fighting abilities, the battalion's color designation, and because the regiment was often lent out and belonged to no one. The 393rd, 394th & 395th were the Infantry Regiments of the 99th Infantry Division. Against light resistance, it crossed the Dill River and pushed on to Krofdorf-Gleiberg, taking Giessen 29 March. [2], Because of the success of the 395th and the 99th, the Americans maintained effective freedom to maneuver across the north flank of the German's line of advance and continually limited the success of the German offensive. Alexander John Mackenzie was born in New York City, 22 February 1895, the son of Alexina and Kenneth M. A group [16], On 16 July 2003, the command was redesignated as the 99th Regional Readiness Command, placing additional emphasis on training, readiness, and mobilization. The 395th Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the United States Army, part of the 99th Infantry Division during World War II. . In March 1945, the 99th advanced into the Rhineland, crossing the Rhine River at Remagen on March 11. The combination of no ammunition and heavy German armor caused the American lines to fold, like a dam bursting. Pennsylvania State College, and the Pennsylvania Military College. It was redesignated with description updated, for the 395th Regiment on 7 June 1999. Subscribe to 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division Footer menu. The stiff American defense prevented the Germans from reaching the vast array of supplies near the Belgian cities of Lige and Spa and the road network west of the Elsenborn Ridge leading to the Meuse River. [14], The 99th as a whole, outnumbered five to one, inflicted casualties in the ratio of eighteen to one. More often than not, the noises thought to have been heard arent anything at all, and the forest resumes its eerie silence. The division was destroyed near Vitebsk during the Soviet Vitebsk-Orsha Offensive of Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944. [17]:51, On another day, the 3rd Battalion took 50 Germans prisoner and killed or wounded more than 800 Germans, losing only five dead and seven wounded themselves. [5] After more than ten days of intense battle, they pushed the Americans out of the villages, but were unable to dislodge them from the ridge, where elements of the V Corps of the First U.S. Army prevented the German forces from reaching the road network to their west. The 12th SS pushed through the woods and probed the villages at around 1100 hours. Either short or completely devoid of ammunition, the defenders of Rocherath began to filter to the rear in the growing darkness that swallowed the battlefield. On 17 September 2008, the 99th Regional Support Command was activated at Fort Dix, N.J. 504-528-1944, Jenny Craig Institute for the Study of War and Democracy, Black Volunteer Infantry Platoons in World War II, Kasserine Pass: German Offensive, American Victory, The Top 5 Veteran Research Questions: Where to Go and What to Know, Gallantry against Great Odds: LTC George Marshall and Operation RESERVIST, Prelude to Liberation: Genesis of American Amphibious Assault in the ETO, Black Thursday October 14, 1943: The Second Schweinfurt Bombing Raid, An Exercise in Depravity: The Establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto, Unsung Witnesses of the Battle of Stalingrad. Gallagher (1 May 1945 29 September 1945), Organized Reserves redesignated 25 March 1948 as the Organized Reserve Corps; redesignated 9 July 1952 as the Army Reserve, Relieved 29 October 1998 from assignment to the 99th Infantry Division, Redesignated 17 October 1999 as the 395th Regiment and reorganized to consist of the 1st, 2d, and 3d Battalions, elements of the. Many of the 99th Division's best soldiers were products of the ill-fated ASTP program. Despite fatigue, constant enemy shelling, and ever-increasing enemy pressure, the Third Battalion guarded a 6,000 yards (5,500m)-long front and destroyed 75 percent of three German infantry regiments. 99th Infantry Division soldiers putting up a winterized squad hut. Not only did your command assist in effectively frustrating that particular part of the plan, but it also inflicted such heavy losses on the enemy that he was unable to carry out other contemplated missions in other sectors of the Allied front. [11], The area around Hfen and Monschau were critical because of the road network that lay behind them. In early December, the front was unusually calm and the weather was bone-chilling cold. 395 th Regiment Constituted 23 July 1918 in the National Army as the 395th Infantry and assigned to the 99th Division Demobilized 30 November 1918 Reconstituted 24 June 1921 in the. But the infantry often bore worse casualties than the tanks did and had to be replaced and reinforced more quickly. The German armor, with SS Panzergrenadiers riding on their decks, clattered down the icy roads of Rocherath and headed for Krinkelt, only a stones throw away. Butler's uncle, General Edward J. McClernand, fought in the Indian Wars and was awarded the Medal of Honor. Butler attended, but did not graduate from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Encountering paltry resistance at first, the Germans launched an attack on the towns and initially met with success, pushing into Rocherath with a clear path beyond. The 99th Division was constituted at Camp Wheeler, Georgia, on 23 July 1918. On 28 January 1945, after six weeks of the most intense and relentless combat of the war in the biggest battle of World War II, involving approximately 1.3million men, the Allies declared the Ardennes Offensive, or Battle of the Bulge, officially over. No division commander was appointed during the organization's brief existence. A popular historical anecdote is the design of the famous M1 carbine by convicted murderer David Marshall Williams. The 3rd Battalion of the 395th Infantry Regiment (3/395), commanded by Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler, occupied the town of Hfen on the German border. The battalion was badly outnumbered and nearly surrounded. The 99th RSC was awarded the Army Superior Unit Award on 9 May 2016 by the US Army Human Resources Command for its role in the relief support after Hurricane Sandy, from 29 October 2012 thru 31 March 2013.