And . . . I'm Still In St. Vith.

Route: St. Vith, Rodt, Poteau
Distance: About 30 km
In a misguided attempt to save weight on this trip, I left behind my excellent MSR lightweight backpacking stove and titanium cooking pots. I really don’t know what I was thinking. I remember in the days before boxing everything up in New York, I had all my gear laid out on the bed. I was going through it piece by piece. Packing it into the bags, checking the weigh, unpacking it, ditching things like I didn’t need like the CD drive to this laptop, an extra book I wanted to read, and some extra clothes.
I was trying to not only keep it as light as possible for my sake, I had to meet a 21 kg per box requirement with British Airways to qualify the bike and the bags for free checked luggage. In the end, I got really drastic and I was throwing things overboard as if from a sinking balloon. Chief among them was my stove, fuel bottle and coffee setup.
Now, I can do without a lot in the way of amenities. I have no problem sleeping on the ground, you get used it after a few nights. I don’t mind it being cold at night, I’ve got winter clothes and the tent with the rain-fly keeps me, if not warm, tolerable. The one thing that I’m having a real tough time with, however, is coffee.
I know it sounds ridiculous to say this, but I can’t think for a few hours in the morning unless I have coffee. I’ve tried replacing it with things like Coca Cola. This is ok if you like having a diabetic attack at 7 am. I’ve tried buying coffee at cafes, but it’s literally $6 a pop and you have to sit and have someone serve you, which I guess is what you’re paying for?
“You should go to Starbucks” Andrea at the tourist information center said to me yesterday. I winced like the good northwest boy that I am.
“Where’s that?”
“Germany.”

So, yesterday, I rediscovered something that I thought had virtually disappeared from American cabinets; instant coffee crystals. By pouring a moderate amount of these pieces of chemical coffee chunks into my mug, and getting hot water from the bathroom, I have had my first homemade cup of coffee in three weeks this morning, which probably explains why I’m writing right now instead of drooling in the corner of my tent wondering where I am. Note to self; Belgium.
Actually, coffee crystals were developed (as with so many other things like Tang, cheese whiz, and bullion cubes, for the combat foot soldier during World War Two. These items would come in little boxes called K-rations. A K-ration usually contained a freeze dried food item like beef noodle soup, a pack of 4 cigarettes, a stick of gum, some chocolate, a toilette or other sundry item, ect. These were intended to be lightweight food for the infantryman on the go. Of course, the worse possible chemicals where used to create these marvels of food engineering and for years after the war you could purchase these for consumption at army surplus stores because they had the shelf life of a Twinkie..
So, on this my second day in St. Vith waiting for my credit card, I will take a cue from grandpa and go and buy some bullion cubes, more coffee crystals, some powdered coffee creamer, and anything else I can find that you need hot water for like ramen. Then, I’m going to get a few candles, some tin foil and a tuna can with which to MacGyver a poor mans camping stove. When you are outdoors, especially during the time when winter could come at any moment, you need warm food. If you don’t get it every now and then, the body shuts down.
During the war, GI’s would have to get creative to eat. There are many stories of men raiding farm houses, especially as they got into this area close to Germany where the political sentiments of some of the people were questionable. As has been done in all wars since the dawn of civilization, they would take all food they could get their hands on. This is just simple fact, not an attempt to denigrate the sacrifices made by these guys.
You have to keep in mind that they were living in the most miserable conditions you can expect; cramped at night getting shelled in a muddy/freezing hole in the ground with no winter clothing during the worst blizzard since the 1880’s. I think they can be forgiven if they pillaged some food. K-rations were almost universally despised.
In Neik’s archive, I came across a letter written by Captain Phillip Burnham, who took over as CO of A Company from grandpa, who had been put in charge when the previous CO had been wounded in Meijel, Holland. His letter is great, as I mentioned in a previous posting, because it’s the first piece of personal written evidence that Grandpa was there.
It’s also cool because in it he tells a story of how the men of A Company, grandpa included no doubt, “found a pig that wandered” into their area. They were starving, so they captured and butchered it. You have to remember that a lot of these men grew up on farms so they knew how to slaughter and cook it.
So they got this pig, snuck out of their area back to the mobile kitchen and broke in to have a pig roast in the middle of the night. The letter says they all had a great time, ate a lot of food, and cleaned up everything afterwards without the kitchen staff ever knowing what had happened. The lengths people will go to for just a hint of normalcy under nightmarish conditions is amazing. They all could have been in serious trouble for leaving their post during an active engagement, although they were in reserve at that time.
Now I think of Grandpa, sitting in a foxhole line on the hills above this town, trying to heat a cup of coffee in his mess kit over a candle during a freezing morning like this one. If he was anything like me he would need coffee to function. Well, that and cigarettes evidently. He was always asking, in almost every other letter, for cigarettes. I guess he smoked about 2 packs a day. Not healthy, but in those days, under those conditions, can you blame him?
After staying up last night reading the after action reports and the S-3 journal again, I have mapped out A Company’s general movements during the Battle of the Bulge. I will follow these on my bike with the day pack, using St. Vith as a home base since I have I have to hang around here anyway.
It will be interesting though, because I no know the general locations of the defense lines and the exact locations of the CP. From these, I will find where grandpa was on the entry into, retreat from, and finally the retaking of St. Vith.

Riding into town this morning felt routine. I had made plans to visit Andrea at the tourist information building to get online, and finalize the meeting with her brother later tonight to discuss the war here in St. Vith. Of course, the internet was still down for normal people like me. I kind of expected this, so I went to the source; the local computer shop.
There I met Stephan, and Kristophe, two 20-something computer guys working in a mom and pop set up run by a friendly gentlemen in his 40’s. They were sympathetic, and more than willing to help me when I told them I was a writer, and I hadn’t posted my stuff in a week. For FREE, they led me into the workshop, a simple room filled with desktop machines in every stage of disassembly with a panoramic view of the Schnee Eifel Hills to the East, and set me up on an old CRT monitor with a European style keyboard and a coverless upright CPU ticking away on the desk.
I thanked them profusely and got online without people watching over my shoulder for first time in a long time. Finally I got to email home, post some stuff, and check on the progress of my card. Thank God, it should be at the St. Vith post office in a couple of days. Let’s keep our fingers crossed on this one shall we!
With this out of the way, I headed down to the hotel where Andrea’s brother, Freddy, works as a cook. He wasn’t there, but I got a chance to meet the proud grandmother who runs the place. It’s a family affair, and it looks like it’s been there since well before the war judging by the pictures on the wall. There was also a certificate of appreciation from the 106th Infantry Division Association, one of the units directly involved in the defense of St. Vith along with Grandpa’s unit. I had a great feeling about getting some inside stories after seeing this place.
With this meeting set up, business was done for a while, and I headed to the town of Rodt, a small hamlet in the valley about 5 km to the west of St. Vith. It had been the headquarters of the 48th AIB during the early days of the battle, and I wanted to see what it looked like.
Heading out of town toward the west, I felt like I myself was retreating. It occurred to me that by the time Grandpa’s unit made it here due, it was already too late. The Germans had taken the heights to the east of the town, and with those under their control, it was only a matter of time before they brought down the fires of their 88’s to the positions held by the 7th armored across this little valley centered on Rodt.
The town itself is very small; a church, new of course, in the central street crossing surrounded by mostly residential buildings also new. It’s ignominous distinction as the HQ of the 48th made it a prime target for the Germans. Also, when the Americans pulled out, they couldn’t let it fall intact. Either way, it meant the end of centuries of built environment. The name of the town is the same but, like St. Vith, the town itself is new.
Finding one of the Euro Velo signs near the center, I followed the road to Neundorf, another tiny town to the south. This was the southern edge of the defense put up by the 48th AIB. Riding the road through these fields filled with cows and barns I felt like I was flying through the little fields of Vermont. Dairy farmers were going about their business, some tractors and bailers were driving the back roads. There were very few cars. Also, it was mostly downhill and I hit 54 kph at one point! I dread the thought of having put those bags back on the bike.
Soon I came somehow to the town of Cromach. This was completely by accident. I must have zigged when I should have zagged. In any case, it was obvious that the apse of the church in this town was original, with a new addition built alongside. Around the perimeter was a new rock retaining wall. Inset in this were original tombstones shaped like crosses with skulls on them in the style of the old world similar to what you would see in an old graveyard in New England.
This is something that I’d seen before, but for some reason failed to understand what it was. These were the stones of the people who had been in the graveyards next to the churches before they were bombed by the Americans or Germans. When they rebuilt, they used them as historical art pieces to pay homage to those had been there before. They function now as reminders that this new building is in fact ancient.
The ride back to Rodt from there was amazing. I came up a rise and was able to get a view of the entire valley. From here I could see the hill that Grandpa’s unit was tasked with defending. I decided to head over, but on the way I found this really cool old railroad bridge with a bike trail on top. I found a little uphill jumper path up to it, and had a picnic consisting of processed cheese product and salami meat-like substance. Sadly, such is the state of my finances.
After wrapping up my “meal” I noticed that on either side of the rock pathway were shrines with the figure of Jesus in different poses. One had him on the cross. In another he was giving bread and fish to the people. Each one was surrounded by bushes which constituted the only cover on top if this arched structure situated so that every car that passed on the highways below could see whoever was on top. I had to pee. This presented a problem as, of course, I had no desire to pee on the Jesus. Luckily, I found an unsanctified patch of bushes back toward the trail I had taken up.
I followed the railroad grade down the other side of the bridge to a narrow roadway leading at an angle up the hill back toward Rodt. The hill that grandpa had been on was to my front. After a long struggle, during which I passed many a confused looking cow, I found myself at the highway roundabout that I had crossed through two days ago on my way to St. Vith. There was a sign pointing to a patch of woods on the other side. It said “Bier Museum”. I was curious.
Passing into the trees, I saw that I was entering into a managed trail system in a section of woods astride a hill overlooking St. Vith. The museum was sadly closed, although this was really a blessing in disguise as it would have probably sucked me inside for the remainder of the day.
Instead, I found a board depicting a large network of backwoods trails covering the whole area all the way back to Poteau and up to Recht. This was exactly the hill and the woods that I was looking for. Grandpa had been all over this area during the defense of St. Vith. Following a random trail, I soon came across an old foxhole filled with brush looking east into the valley. It acted as a sort of counterpart to the trench lines I had found on the hills overlooking my campsite in the east.
After doubling back, I stopped with a squeak of the brakes when I saw a huge crater in the trees. I propped the bike against a large fir, and walked over the shell hole. It must have been five feet deep and twenty felt across. Trees had grown up on its edges over the years of course, but the hole itself had been used as a fire pit, so it’s shape and size were pretty much intact.
Continuing downhill on the trail, I flew through stands of new and second growth timber. Every time I slowed for a corner, I could see the trenches and foxholes dug under the new growth. I finally stopped at a cross gate which was lowered over the road. Like any good mountain biker, I ignored it and went around. I soon found myself at the junction of a highway and another trail map. After seeing this board, I realized that I was now standing in the general location of grandpa’s company during the first days of the bulge.
I was about 5 km southeast of Poteau, and about 7 km west of St. Vith. Here was where the 48th CO had placed A company, to hold these hills and protect the road leading back to Poteau from enemy infiltration. At best, this was a stop gap measure because the Germans were flowing west to the north of this hill, and to the south of the valley I hadjust crossed. In short, the 7th had arrived too late to save St. Vith. The Germans were crashing around the division like a wave around a rock at the beach. Sooner or later, the rock would be swept in the tide
It occurred to me at this point that I, and perhaps my family, owed its very existence to an order coming from the British 2nd Army commander, Field Marshal Montgomery who said on the 23rd of December 1944 that the 7th Armored was allowed to withdraw. The American command had wanted to keep them in to the last man. Monty rightly perceived that they had slowed the Germans long enough, and any further resistance on these hills would have been a pointless waste of life.
This order may well have saved grandpa’s life, because by the time it was received on December 22nd 1944, his unit was in very real danger of being surrounded. The Germans had broken through in the south to Rodt in the valley below the hill, and onto the main highway leading to Vielsalm. They had also been bypassing to the north throughout the battle. They were starting to break through to the direct east, and come up the hill directly from St. Vith.
The only way back at this point was to perform what the manuals called “A fighting advance to the rear”. In other words, they ran west through the trees, leaving their vehicles and equipment behind. In an earlier action, the Germans had managed to capture or destroy the 48th AIB motor pool back at Poteau anyway, so there was no other option but to hike out in the snow.
The after action reports state that the church steeple at Vielsalm was the rally point, and that all units were to report there when they arrived down from the forest. This means that there was a scattered retreat happening all over the area, with no communication, so they picked a visible landmark and said go there. Once in Vielsalm, they crossed the last bridge over the River Salm. They code named this bridge “Brooklyn” and the assembly area on the west side of the river “Flatbush”. Sounds like home.
They blew the bridge on the evening of the 23rd after everyone had made it across. Of course, not everyone made it. The family story, that I’ve so far been unable to support with hard evidence, is that Grandpa and some of his men did not make across the bridge in time. This is born out by circumstantial evidence because the 48 AIB was the last unit to be withdrawn from the sector. The last man across the bridge was from HQ Co 48th AIB.
Since Grandpa was way up in the hills fighting on three sides, it’s likely that he didn’t even get word that they were supposed to pull out. This was not uncommon in those days. The Germans had cut all communication lines, so the only way to get a message through was by radio or runner. The radios of the period were famous for not working, and when they did work, they drained their batteries very quickly. During an engagement, SOP was to maintain constant contact with surrounding units, so those batteries would have been long dead by the 22nd because they had been fighting on this hill for 5 days by then.
Option two was a runner. Runners were sent out to bring Monty’s withdraw order to the front line. In a lot of cases, they made it through, but they also could only do so much. Since grandpa was effectively cut off on a wooded hill behind Germans, I think it would be a safe guess that word didn’t reach him, or if it did, it was very late like the next day.
There were thousands of these stories during this battle. All up and down the western front, the Germans were pushing relentlessly west making for the Meuse River and, ultimately, Antwerp. The theory was that if they made Antwerp, they would deny the use of the port for supplies, but more importantly, split the British and American Armies in two. If they succeeded in this plan, Hitler could have pushed for a negotiated end to the war in the west, and turn his attention back to fighting the Russians in the east. Needless to say, this would have made the history of the world very different.
So, Grandpa and his men, cut off and surrounded on all sides by the 23rd of December, had to trudge downhill to the west through forest and hope to make it back to Allied lines, which were also retreating west pretty fast. He did make it, along with some of his men, to Vielsalm in time to join the rest of Division on its further retreat to Manhay. For this, he received the Bronze Star and a battlefield promotion to 1rst Lt. He also, of course, got to live.
Tomorrow, I’m going on a bike ride up into some of the places where the 106th Infantry Division was surprised by the Germans with Andrea’s brother Freddy. He seems nice enough, speaks pretty good English, and is the cook at their family run hotel. We met last night, and he loaned me some maps and a book about the opening days of the battle. He said he can show me some good stuff in the hills around St. Vith, so I’m pretty stoked.
He also said when he was a kid, you used to find things like helmets, ammunition, canteens, pieces of rifles, and other such refuse of war. Now, he says, you will find stuff, but nothing good. The foxholes and some of the shell holes are all still there however, and it will be awesome to ride some in some of the famous places like “88 Corner” and “Skyline Boulevard”.
To all my peeps, thanks for reading and I’ll have more to report tomorrow!

Peace.