Looking for info 44th Combat Engineers

[Jeeper704]

The 44th Combat Engineers were in The Bulge and fought off the Germans in the Wiltz area (Luxembourg) together with the 28th Infantry Division.

 

About 1000 on 18 December, General Cota received the welcome word that a

combat command of the 10th Armored Division was moving forward to his

assistance, probably to be in position to give support by the late

afternoon. Middleton had ordered the 44th Engineer Combat Battalion (Lt.

Col. Clarion J. Kjeldseth) to Wiltz on the previous evening with about

six hundred men (it had been operating sawmills and rock crushers,

working on roads, and the like). This unit now relieved the provisional

battalion, hastily formed from the 28th Division headquarters, by

setting up positions north and east of the town. There were also

available some tanks and guns to help the engineers, bandsmen, telephone

linemen, and paymasters who composed the defense. All that remained of

the 707th Tank Battalion-some six crippled tanks and five assault guns-

was gathered in Wiltz after a rear guard action in Wilwerwiltz. Six

three-inch towed tank destroyers from the 630th Tank Destroyer

Battalion, weapons of the 447th Antiaircraft Battalion, and light

armored cars of the 28th Reconnaissance Troop reinforced the perimeter.

Southeast of the town the undergunned batteries of the 687th Field

Artillery Battalion held firing positions along the road, sited to cover

the Wiltz perimeter or support the 3d Battalion, 110th Infantry,

fighting at Consthum.

 

December 19: The 44th was hit from the northeast and east by

infantry armed with machine pistols charging in alongside single tanks.

As American riflemen and machine gunners cut down the German assault

teams, they saw their own ranks thinning. In this fight the crossroads

near Erpeldange changed hands four times. The assault gun platoon gave

good support wherever the line was threatened, but by the end of the

afternoon its fuel and ammunition were nearly gone and the gunners,

after four days of nearly continuous action, were approaching complete

exhaustion. When darkness finally came, the 44th withdrew with the

assault guns into Wiltz, having lost four officers and 150 men.

 

While elements of the 26th Volks Grenadier Division were attacking on

the north side of the Wiltz, detachments of the 5th Parachute Division

struck the American perimeter on the south and southeast.

 

Information from various sources.

 

It is possible that this GI was captured during the Ardennes Offensive.

 

Erwin