Bastogne: The Story of the First Eight Days - US Army Center Of ...

THE ENEMY STORY 191
concluded that Von Lauchert' s guns had done most of the damage.
It was a melancholy night for Liittwitz. He was under the
impression that a strong American force had arrived at Wardin.
And if that were true, it was a serious impingement on any effort
to attack Bastogne from the south. His immediate problem was
a kind of tactical monstrosity. He could use his entire corps
against Bastogne and yet he had to commit it in such a way
that there would be no chance of Itn involvement that would
militate against the accomplishment of his basic mission to keep
on advancing. He was dropping infiltration for the moment but
he WitS not undertaking siege: there was no time to coordinate
a general plan.
In the morning he felt a little better. Word came that Bayerlein's
reconnaissance battalion (Panzer Lehr Division) had taken
Wardin. Liitt\0.tz felt that this eased his situation, though no
one bothered to tell him that Wardin had fallen into his hands
without struggle because there were no Americans there. On
the right the 2d Panzer Division took Noville somewhere near
the middle of the afternoon, and again the Corps commander
grew confident that the Americans were yielding to his superior
force. He thought that an outflanking movement directed at
Noville by the 2d Panzer Division from the northwest had
brought off the capture of the village. He didn't know that the
pressure on the American right rear had anything to do with it
-a ·pressure coming from one of Kokott's regiments. Kokott's
men had come through the woods and were pressing on Foy.
It was this pressure that persuaded Colonel Sink to ask for
permission to withdraw. So during most of that day Liittwitz
entertained an illusion that his hit-and-run effort was succeeding.
His hopes were again dashed by what happened to his center.
The 90lst Regiment, Panzer Lehr Division, tried for Marvie in
the hours of the late morning and was repulsed. However, to
Liittwitz that was no more than an incident in the battle; he
hadn't expected much. But when Bayerlein hit again from Neffe
just after dark fell, and his attack was stopped cold, the whole