Unit Chronology

551st Parachute Infantry Battalion

"GOYAs" — The Lost Battalion of the Ardennes

Type: Independent airborne infantry battalion Side: United States Higher command: XVIII Airborne Corps (att. 82nd Airborne Division) Commander: Lt Col Wood G. Joerg (KIA 7 Jan 1945) Strength (Bulge): c. 840 men (21 Dec 1944) Nickname: “GOYAs” (Get Off Your Ass) Campaigns: Southern France, Ardennes Active: 26 Nov 1942 – 10 Feb 1945

Order of Battle (Ardennes)

Headquarters Company— Capt Bill Smith

Company A— Capt Marshall Dalton

Company B— Capt Jim Evans

Company C— Capt Tims Quinn

XO / 2IC— Maj William N. Holm

S-2 Intelligence— Capt Ed Hartman

Activation

Fort Benning, Georgia“The Frying Pan”

26 Nov 1942

Activation Formally 1st Battalion, 551st Parachute Infantry Regiment (Reinforced). No other regimental battalions were ever activated; the 551st would fight alone. Formed from a single company of the 501st PIB and Fort Benning parachute school graduates.

Panama Canal Zone

Fort Kobbe, PanamaCanal Zone garrison

Dec 1942–Aug 1943

Caribbean posting Battalion trains for mobile intervention in the Caribbean basin. In May 1943, placed on alert for possible action against Vichy-held Martinique; operation cancelled when the French commander surrendered. Sails for the United States in August.

Camp Mackall

Camp Mackall, North CarolinaAirborne training centre

Sep 1943–Mar 1944

Training and tragedy Intensive airborne training. Lt Col Joerg temporarily replaced by Lt Col Rupert D. Graves, then returns to command in February 1944. On 16 February, a night jump goes wrong: eight men drown in a reservoir. The battalion’s mascot, a dachshund named Furlough, accompanies the unit.

Southern France

Le Muy, ProvenceDrop Zone A

15 Aug 1944

Operation Dragoon: first US daylight combat jump in Europe Battalion drops tightly on DZ A northwest of Le Muy. Attacks northwest. First sustained combat. Awarded the French Croix de Guerre with Gold Star for the action at Draguignan.

Maritime AlpsFranco-Italian border

Aug–Nov 1944

Mountain warfare Three months of continuous combat advancing east along the coast and into the Maritime Alps. Hard terrain, hard fighting. Battalion withdrawn in November and moves to Laon, France for rest.

Battle of the Bulge

Laon → WerbomontBelgium

21 Dec

Day 6

Arrival in the Ardennes Battalion moves from Laon to Werbomont by afternoon. Enters the battle with c. 840 men. Initially assigned to 30th Infantry Division to reinforce positions around Stavelot, La Gleize, and Francorchamps. ~840 men

LeignonSouth of the Amblève

20 Dec

in transit

Huempfner’s one-man war PFC Milo C. Huempfner, separated from the battalion after a truck accident, conducts a five-day solo defence near Leignon against elements of 2. Panzer-Division and 116. Panzer-Division. Destroys a 75mm gun, two halftracks, and captures 18 German soldiers. DSC

Rahier, Ster, Francorchamps30th Division sector

22–25 Dec

Days 7–10

Attached to 30th Division Battalion reinforces positions around the Stavelot perimeter. Tasked to help finish off Kampfgruppe Peiper; mission cancelled when Germans abandon positions north of the Amblève. Christmas Day spent in the snow near Ster.

82nd Airborne sectorTransferred 26 Dec

26 Dec

Day 11

Attached to 82nd Airborne Division Battalion transferred to the 82nd Airborne Division and attached to the 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment under Col Rupert Graves, Joerg’s former commander. The 551st will serve as connecting tissue between the 517th (left) and 505th PIR (right) in the coming offensive.

NoirefontaineNight raid

27–28 Dec

Days 12–13

Noirefontaine raid Battalion raids advanced German positions at Noirefontaine. Close-combat action in darkness. The raid provides vital intelligence on German dispositions ahead of the planned counteroffensive.

Basse-BodeuxLine of departure

Sol MeOpen snow field

Herispehe RidgeFir-covered ridge

3 Jan

Day 19

Attack on Herispehe 08:30 — XVIII Airborne Corps counteroffensive begins. 551st crosses the line of departure at 09:15. A Company leads left, C Company right, across 1½ miles of frontage. Men shed overcoats and overshoes (never recovered). Last hot meal: 03:00 stew and coffee.

Sol Me: 500 yards of open snow upslope to a wooded ridge. Germans in white camouflage; GOYAs in dark fatigues. Two Panther tanks on the left flank; bazookas useless against them. Capt Dalton (A Company) hit by tank fire, evacuated. Lt Luening mortally wounded. Pvt Wilson KIA rescuing a wounded medic.

Herispehe: C Company reaches the ridge by 11:00. Capt Quinn leads a “rebel yell” charge. Screaming Meemies destroy the CP jeep, stacked with unopened Christmas presents and incoming mail. By nightfall, the ridge is held. Pvt James Carroll freezes to death in his sleep.

DairomontCaptured 5 Jan

QuartiersCaptured 6 Jan

4–6 Jan

Days 20–22

Fixed bayonets; grinding advance 4 Jan: Battalion executes a fixed-bayonet assault, killing 64 Germans. 5 Jan: Dairomont captured. 6 Jan: Quartiers taken; counterattacks parried in close combat. Frozen-foot evacuations mounting. German artillery slowly chewing the battalion to pieces. Joerg pleads to have the final attack on Rochelinval cancelled. Request denied.

RochelinvalFinal objective, Salm River

7 Jan

Day 23

The assault on Rochelinval Planned artillery preparation fails to materialise. With daylight, un-camouflaged men must cross half a mile of open ground against 183. Volksgrenadier-Regiment, backed by 88mm flak guns and 105mm howitzers. Joerg calls it a “suicide attack.” He orders it anyway.

A Company: 60 men at the start; 4–5 remain after the fighting. Lt Durkee leads the assault up a footpath. Sgt Robert Hill seizes a fallen man’s BAR, riddled by 15 machine-gun rounds but survives. DSC

Joerg killed: Early morning, a tree-burst mortar round explodes over his forward observation post. His radioman, Cpl “Mel” Clark: “I almost went berserk.” Maj William Holm assumes command.

Village taken. Lt Sano leads the final assault with tank support. 400 German prisoners captured, 200 more killed or wounded. Rochelinval’s capture denies the Germans any bridge in a ten-mile radius of the Salm River. On 8 January, Hitler orders the first retreat of the Bulge.

Lt Don Booth, A Company commander: KIA. 2nd Lt John Ryan, B Company: KIA. Pvt Willie “Spotlight” Brown, B Company: KIA in the last moments before cresting the hill. Cpl John McAtee, A Company, age 23: KIA. Buried Henri-Chapelle, Plot G, Row 7, Grave 68.

~840 Entered the Ardennes

110 Remained (9 Jan)

86% Casualty Rate

400 Prisoners Taken (Rochelinval)

Aftermath

JuslenvilleRear area

9 Jan 1945

Relieved 14 officers and 96 men pulled back to Juslenville. The battalion that entered the Ardennes with 840 men has effectively ceased to exist as a fighting unit.

82nd Airborne DivisionAbsorbed

10 Feb 1945

Disbanded Directive formally dissolves the battalion. Surviving personnel “unceremoniously turned over to the 82nd Airborne Division.” Commander dead. Combat records lost. Unit deactivated. For forty years, the survivors lived scattered lives, each assuming he was among the last.

Legacy

Atlanta, GeorgiaFirst reunion

1977

Rediscovered Eighteen survivors come together for the first time since the war. In 1984, they produce a unit history. Gen Ridgway, who had recommended a Presidential Unit Citation in January 1945 (recommendation lost with the battalion’s records), writes that the 551st had sustained “a grave error and injustice to as gallant a combat battalion as any in WWII in Europe.”

Washington, D.C.Pentagon

2001

Presidential Unit Citation After a campaign supported by Vice President Gore, Senators Kennedy and Gorton, and retired General James Lindsay, the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion finally receives the Presidential Unit Citation, fifty-six years after the battle. A painting is commissioned for the ceremony.

Fort Benning, GeorgiaNational Infantry Museum

2007

Monument A statue of the battalion mascot Furlough is erected at Fort Benning. Inscription: “Furlough — GOYA Mascot — MIA Belgium.” Base reads: “Ne les oubliez jamais” — Never forget them.