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Patton's Troubleshooters Book                        Patton's Troubleshooters DVD

From my book, "Patton's Troubleshooters": "On the morning of 24 December, the 80th Division lost the two battalions pre-empted by the Corps Commander, as infantry support for the 4th Armored Division.  This diminution of it's rifle strength, and successive collisions with German units crossing the front enroute to the Bastogne sector in the west, constituted the closest link the 80th Division would have with the dramatic effort being made to reach the encircled 101st Airborne.  From this time forward, the 80th Division attack would be related to the fighting further west only in that it was blocking the efforts of the 7th Army to move it's reserves into the Bastogne area.

For the next three days, the division would wage a lone battle to reach, and cross the Sure River.  The scene of action being limited to the wedge formed on the north by the Sure, on the east by the Sauer River, with a base represented by the Ettelbruck-Heiderscheidergrund road.  This area, the 80th came to know as the Bourscheid triangle.  Within this frame, lay thick forests, deep ravines and masked ridges.  The whole, a checkerboard of little terrain compartments.  Control of a force larger than a battalion would be most difficult.  Artillery support, except at clearings and villages, would be ineffective, and the maintenance of an inter-locking, impervious front nigh impossible.  Once a battalion cleared a compartment and advanced to the next, the enemy could be counted on to seep back into his original position.  Unobserved fire, and loss of direction in the deep woods, down the blind draws and along the twisting ridges, made each American unit a potential threat to its neighbors.  Often forcing the use of a single battalion at a time, the infantryman would be duly thankful when tanks, tank destroyers or artillery could give a hand, or at least encouragement by their presence.  But the battle of the woods and ravines was his own….

The [German] LXXXV Corps was left with the 79th and 352nd.  On Christmas Eve, the last troops of the 352nd left Ettelbruck, shelled out by high explosive and white phosphorus.  The German line north and east of the city, hereafter, would rest on the far bank of the Sauer.  Kniess was not yet ready to withdraw his right wing to the protection of the river barrier, nor would the 7th Army Commander permit it.  For the high ground in the Bourscheid bridgehead could still be used to observe and interdict any crossing of the Sauer further south, and at the same time, act as an anchor at the eastern end of the Sure.  Because the 79th Volks Grenadier Division still lacked much of it's infantry, and nearly all of it's heavy weapons, the corps commander ordered Colonel Weber to defend the bridgehead by concentrating on the heavy woods around Kehmen and Welscheid.

With the limited rifle strength at his disposal, Weber was able to man the Burden ridge, his left flank thus adhering the Sauer.  But in the north, the right flank of the 79th consisted only of a thin outpost line extending to Ringel Hill and the Sure.  Early on Christmas morning, in the bitter cold, the 80th Division returned to the attack.  It's main thrust aimed at Bourscheid.  Colonel Fisher sent the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 317th Infantry toward Kehmen and Scheidel, hoping to open the road east to Bourscheid.  At Scheidel, the attack surprised the enemy infantry.  One platoon captured the hamlet and a large number of prisoners.  But when the two battalions turned north toward Kehmen, the enemy, a battalion, and the 266th Regiment was ready and waiting.  Each assault made across open ground was repelled by deadly fire from the village and the woods to the north.

When General McBride finally intervened to end the attack, the assault battalions lost nearly 200 officers and men.  Kehmen, once again had proved a hard nut to crack.  Captain Robert W. Smith, commanding Company "K", was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery and leadership displayed in the fight at Kehmen."