The heaviest action for the 776th occurred on the 44th’s eastern flank, between Rimling and Gros Réderching, where the 17th SS, supported by at least 70 assault guns and a company of Panthers from the 21st Panzer Division, pushed hard to break through to the south and east to encircle the 100th Infantry Division and regain the Saverne Pass.
In this fighting, several units of the 776th were subordinated to the elements of the 100th Infantry Division. On 8 January, 1st Platoon of A/776th was attached to Combat Team 397 and went into action in the vicinity of Rimling, which was being attacked in force by elements of the 17th SS. On the following day, a crew from this platoon, under Lieutenant John C. Britz, knocked out a “Hunting Tiger” (Jagdpanzer VI, or “Jagdtiger”) from Heavy Tank Destroyer Battalion 653, the first such vehicle ever knocked out on the Western Front. This behemoth armored vehicle—at 79 tons, the heaviest ever committed to combat in the 20th century—was completely destroyed by hits from the 90mm main guns of the M36s in A/776th. (Interestingly, in a history of Battalion 653 which appeared in 1997, the veterans of this unit claim that the vehicle was destroyed by a bazooka hit.)
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Captain Jack Rothschild, 776th TD Battalion, examines the wreckage of the first Hunting Tiger ever destroyed on the Western Front, killed by the crew led by Lieutenant John C. Britz. Near Rimling, January 1945. (NA) |
On the same day, 1st and 2d Platoons of B/776th were also attached to CT 397 and went into action in the vicinity of Rimling. Over the next few days, they covered elements of 2d and 3d Battalions, 397th Infantry, as they withdrew from Rimling, where, for over a week, the infantry had been fighting while surrounded on three sides. In the process, at least one more Panther was destroyed by a B/776th crew, at the extreme range of 3,000 yards.
On 11 January, B/776th was attached to the 398th Infantry, occupying defensive postiions in depth near Guising and Bettviller. This company remained there for the next eight days, providing heavy anti-tank firepower along the Rimling - Rohrbach and Rimling - Petit-Réderching armor avenues of approach, and firing harassing and interdiction missions into Rimling.
Even as elements of the 776th were providing important combat support to the 100th, some of its crews were providing training support that would prove invaluable to the Division in the days to come. Starting on 16 January, one crew from Company A and two from Company B were detailed to train personnel from the 824th Tank Destroyer Battalion (Towed AT Gun) in the operation and maintenance of self-propelled tank destroyers. By March, the 824th would turn in its 3-inch (76mm) towed anti-tank guns with their half-track prime movers, and be reequipped with M18 “Hellcat” tank destroyers; thus equipped and trained by the veteran 776th, they would support the 100th Infantry Division in its drive through the Siegfried Line and across the Rhine, and provide critical support in vicious fighting during the assault crossing of the Neckar River at Heilbronn in April.
By 19 January, the 776th TD Battalion was once again attached in its entirety to the 44th Infantry Division. Its destroyer crews spent the next two months conducting desultory indirect fire missions in reinforcement of the 105mm and 155mm howitzers of the 44th’s Division Artillery.
Finally, on 15 March 1945, the battalion was attached to the 63rd Infantry Division to support its penetration of the Westwall, or as the Allies called it, the “Siegfried Line.” Companies A and C were awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation for their part in the furious battle to breach the Reich’s last line of defense on 16 and 17 March 1945.
After a brief rest in late March, the 776th was again attached to the 44th Infantry Division for the final drive across Germany. Between 26 March and 8 May, the Battalion covered hundreds of miles from Fischbach, Germany to Mannheim, Heidelberg, Fohrbach, Ehrbach and Ulm, before crossing the Danube and heading into Austria. V-E Day found the 776th in the East Tyrolian village of Ehrwald, Austria, in the shadow of the Zugspitz Mountain.
In its 550 days in combat, the 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion only supported the 100th Infantry Division for less than two weeks, but they were critical ones. Elements of the 776th provided crucial heavy anti-tank firepower exactly when it was needed most—when the 100th was facing its only major German armored attack in its own six months of grinding combat in the European Theater. However, the highly experienced veterans of the 776th also indirectly aided the 100th by imparting their knowledge gained in the sands of North Africa, the mountains of Italy, and the bitter snows on the edge of the Vosges Mountains to the anti-tank gunners of the 824th Tank Destroyer Battalion, which supported the Century Division during its last two months of combat in Germany.
Hailing mostly from small towns in the Great Northwest and upper Midwest United States, but later including replacements from all over the nation, the citizen-soldiers of the 776th Tank Destroyer Battalion forged a sterling record with which the veterans of the 100th Infantry Division can be proud to have been associated.
