TheTroubleshooters.com Home                   Catalog                   World War 2                   World War 1                  Links

Patton's Troubleshooters Book                        Patton's Troubleshooters DVD

According to the 80th Division G-2 report:

"On the 10th of September, the paratroopers were driven from Fort Villey Le Sec and Fort Gondreville, but the enemy continued to oppose our advance toward Nancy from the Foret de la Haye.  Also on the 10th of September, with the exception of a small pocket of resistance of Pompey, the enemy was cleared from the West bank of the Moselle River in the entire division sector."

Captured German Airfield

The following morning, the Eleventh, the Hendricks diary states:

"Rosiers - Morning comes and we do the usual thing again, eat 'C' rations.  It is cloudy and slight rain is falling and that never to be forgotten fog.  It all adds up to make the day more gloomy.  Church services are going to be held in our company area at noon.  Late this afternoon word came to be ready to move at 4:00 the next morning.  The engineers had completed the bridge across the Moselle.  It is getting late in the day.  The maintenance crew and the cooks are having their usual bull session again. Darkness comes early these days.  Our bed rolls are ready and we turn in for a night's rest."     

On this same day, Ed Wizda wrote:

"No rest after Villey-Le-Sec.  The boys were surprised to read that it made the Stars and Stripes (front page).  Our 2nd Platoon in support of L Company, 319th made a reconnaissance in force east of Gondreville.  Machine gun fire was the only thing encountered and that was wiped out.  Our Third Platoon supporting Company F, 319th Infantry, encountered machine gun nests and pill boxes.  They wiped them out with efficiency and no casualties occurred for either platoon.  Action occurred near Lenedeen.

On the 12th of September, a bridgehead was pushed across the Moselle River at Dieulouard.  The enemy was unable to hold our push and had to withdraw and attempt to regroup for a counterattack." 

The primary cause for the lapse in coverage in the documents of the 702nd Tank Battalion during September, 1944, was because the battalion, and the very division, was fighting for it's life, in the bloodiest fighting in it's history to date.  Under constant bombardment from German artillery, the 80th Division's valiant Engineers finally got a bridge across the Moselle on the 12th.  The entire Moselle valley was under direct enemy observation from Mousson Hill, east of the river.  The plan was, get a foothold across the river, take Mousson Hill from the Germans, consolidate the bridgehead, then move east.  

The 319th Infantry Regiment, with "C" Company of the 702nd Tank Battalion attached had moved south towards Nancy, with Combat Command "B", of the 4th Armored Division because that great armored division was short of the infantry support needed to clear the wooded area west of Nancy.  Once the other two regiments of the 80th established a bridgehead over the Moselle, Combat Command "A", of the 4th Armored Division would pass through the 80th's lines, and effect a double envelopment of Nancy.  The 80th would hit a snag though.