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

FIRST MEETING WITH THE ENEMY 37
Captain Lowell B. Bigelow, into the action from a position near
the battalion command post, 1,000 yards west of Bastogne. Luck
rode with him. The defilade where he had placed Battery B on
the spur of the moment was so well chosen that the guns were
to work there for almost a month without receiving a single round
of German counter-battery fire. B ' (Plate 22.)
This day, however, the batteries had no need to worry about
anything coming in on them. The only heavy support for the
German attack was from their tanks and it was all close-up fire
directed against Ewell's infantry units. The American artillery
fire was turned mainly against the tanks and the small groups of
German infantry. There were many such targets. 11
Colonel Ewell sized up his situation. In 1st Battalion, Companies
Band C were in skirmish line, while Company A was
collected in reserve. Major Bottomly had deployed most of his
strength to the north of the highway but he had managed to find
room for one platoon in the ground south of the creek and rail
line. The battalion had put two mortars into operation almost
immediately and their fire was shaking down the houses around
the enemy roadblock in Neffe. 8a
But an attempt to get the 1st Battalion's left flank forward had
failed. From Neffe, the north road climbs gradually through a
shallow draw to the small farming community of Bizory. The
country hereabouts is all uninterrupted grazing land except for
the small but thick tree plantations and clusters of farmhouses
which appear as villages on the map. The dominant terrain features
are the long and quite regular ridges which run generally
in a north-south line. These hills are gently undulating and the
hillsides are quite smooth. From the tops of the commanding
ridges one can see great distances on a clear day. The reverse
slopes of the hills are smooth and are usually accessible from
either end of the hills, making them highly useful to artillery
and armor. The roads are close enough together so that vehicles
can move to the ridges from either direction. When the country
is covered with snow, nothing obtrudes on the landscape except
the small black patches of forest. The ridges fall away in gently
sloping draws which provide clear fields of fire to the flank and