After a two-day passage of the Mediterranean from Nisidia, Italy to Marseilles in early October, the Battalion marshalled and began the movement by train and truck convoy to the front near Lunéville. On 30 October, the 776th was attached to the 44th Infantry Division nearby.
During the transition of missions from the penetration of the Saverne Gap to the pursuit of German units withdrawing toward the Ensemble de Bitche in the Maginot Line in early December, using Panzer Lehr Division Panthers it had previously knocked out, the 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion conducted two evaluations to determine the effectiveness of two common US infantry anti-tank weapons, namely the2.36-inch (60mm) rocket launcher (the “bazooka”) and the 57mm Anti-Tank Gun. The results, which were disseminated throughout the Seventh Army, were important for determining the character of anti-tank defenses to be built in late December, when the Seventh Army was forced to assume a defensive posture later due to the impact of the German offensive in the Ardennes.
As the divisions of XV Corps (44th and 100th Infantry and 12th Armored Division) approached the Maginot Line and the German border in early December, the enemy stubbornly delayed by forming strongpoints around key road junctions. Advancing along the rolling hills where the Saar River plain meets the western edge of the Low Vosges Mountains (on the left flank of the 100th Infantry Division), the 44th was opposed by elements of the 11th Panzer and 25th Panzer-Grenadier Divisions. These experienced, tough German units ultimately occupied positions in pillboxes and forts of the Maginot Line to the west of Bitche.
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M36 Slugger of the 776th TD Battalion parked near a badly damaged Maginot Line casemate, December 1944. (An Informal History of the 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion) |
The most formidable Maginot position occupied by the Germans in this sector was Fort Simserhof, a major Maginot fortress (gros ouvrage). A combined arms team built around the 44th’s 71st Infantry Regiment attacked Fort Simserhof from 14 - 19 December, and M36 tank destroyers from the 776th TD Battalion played a key role in this attack.
Two destroyers were sited about 2,000 yards from one of Simserhof’s blocs, and were used as 90mm “sharpshooters” tasked with the mission of destroying the enemy ensconced in the impenetrably thick, steel-reinforced concrete fortifications by firing 90mm rounds through the narrow firing and observation apertures. This unusual mission was accomplished by elements of A/776th, even as the rest of the Battalion was performing its more traditional anti-armor missions.
It was during this period that elements of the 776th first provided support to the 100th Infantry Division during its parallel assault on Fort Schiesseck , another Maginot fortress two kilometers east of Simserhof. On 18 December, M36 Sluggers from 3rd Platoon, A/776th fired at a bloc of Fort Schiesseck as Combat Team 398 was continuing its assault, begun on 14 December.
Just after the fall of Forts Simserhof and Schiesseck, all Seventh Army offensive’ operations were halted due to operational requirements generated by 12th Army Group’s reaction to the Germans’ Ardennes Offensive, well to the north. To cover the area about to be vacated by Third Army in their attack north to relieve the pressure on First Army in Belgium and Luxembourg, the entire Seventh Army had to go over to the defensive and shift its positions to the west.
Still supporting the 44th Infantry Division, the 776th took up defensive positions between Sarreguemines and Rimling commencing 22 December. In addition to occasional direct fire anti-armor missions, the battalion fired its 90mm main guns in reinforcement of DIVARTY, 44th Infantry Division.
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776th TD Battalion Slugger in hulldown position in the snow, December 1944. (Informal History of the 776th TD Battalion) |
Just before midnight on New Year’s Eve, the German 1st Army commenced their last offensive in the west, Operation .NORDWIND The 44th Infantry Division was attacked by the 19th and 36th Volks-Grenadier Divisions, and by elements of the 17th SS-Panzer Grenadier Division, heavily supported by armor. Over the next ten days, the crews of the 776th TD Battalion engaged and destroyed Panzer IVs, Sturmgeschütz III and IV assault guns, Hetzer tank destroyers, half tracks, and a wide variety of other German armored vehicles.
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A Sturmgeschütz III Assault Gun after a catastrophic kill by a 776th TD Battalion Slugger, January 1945. (NA) |
