FH2 CAMPAIGN #15 - THE LAST WINTER - HAS BEGUN
BATTLE #8 - HERRLISHEIM - WILL START IN:
Events happening today
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6
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10 May 2024 06:00 PM 10:00 PM
CMP FH2 Campaign #15: The Last Winter
Battle #6: Verdenne
History
The Fight at Verdenne
"On the night of 4 December the 84th Infantry Division was deployed along an arc of some twelve miles reaching from Hogne, northwest of Marche, through Waha, south of Marche, thence bowing back to the northeast in front of the Marche-Hotton road. On the right, the 4th Cavalry Group formed a screen masking the infantry line. The center at the moment was quiet, but on the left the 116th Panzer Division had broken through the outpost line and despite the successful American counterattack made late in the afternoon still held an entrant position at Verdenne.
The 116th Panzer faced a lone battle as it prepared to carry out the Fifth Panzer Army orders for attack westward. Thus far the fighting on its right in the sector east of the Ourthe River had not gone too well; neither the 2d SS Panzer nor the 560th Volks Grenadier Division managing to gain ground on the 24th. To the left the attention of the 2d Panzer was centered on Foy-Notre Dame and Celles far to the west. Nonetheless so long as Luettwitz' armor had any chance of breaking through to the Meuse the 116th had to continue its attack to breach the American defenses north of Marche and press forward as a covering shell for the drive to Dinant.
General Bolling knew that some Germans still were around Verdenne on the night of 24 December, but the 84th Division was unaware that the enemy had slipped on into the woods between Verdenne and Bourdon until a lucky fluke revealed the new threat. About midnight Companies A and K of the 334th Infantry and Company L, 333d Infantry, started along the woods trails and byroads to converge in a night assault against Verdenne. Moving in from the west, Company K took a wrong turn and suddenly bumped into a column of six or eight tanks. Sgt. Donald Phelps, marching at the point, went forward to check the lead tank. Suddenly a figure leaning out of the tank shouted, "Halt!" Phelps, recognizing the German accent, took a snap shot at the figure who screamed as the bullet struck. The German tanks opened fire with not only their machine guns but their main armament, and the American infantry file hit the dirt. Severely lacerated before it could break away, the remaining forty men of Company K joined the main assault against Verdenne an hour later."
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Map edited by @GeoPat
Screenshots made by @Hawk
Forgotten Hope 2
