(Picture from 1939 Hawkeye yearbook; Dept. of Special Collections;
University of Iowa Libraries; Iowa City, Iowa)


Medals and Badges Major Hinsch probably earned

William R. Hinsch Jr. was born in 1912 and lived in Fort Dodge, Webster County, Iowa. His parents probably were William Sr. (1872) and Phoebe Hinsch. William Hinsch Jr. had probably a brother Peter (1910) and a sister Bertha. William Jr. went from 1936-1939 to the University of Iowa (Journal of Business- Business Manager- President, Cadet Officers Club- Student- Commerce. 1936: 182; 1937: 118; 1938: 65; 1939: 126).

On December 5, 1944 William R. Hinsch Jr. became Major (executive officer) of the 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, 2nd Infantry Division. He joined the unit in the Elsenborn area, Germany.

On December 10, in the midst of a driving snow storm, the Division started North for an attack on a Siegfried Line stronghold at Wehlerscheid in the Monschau Forest. The 106th Infantry Division assumed the defense of the Schnee-Eiffel, and, as the men of the 2nd Infantry pulled away, there were mutterings about the luck of the 106th Division inheriting such a quiet sector. But five days later, Von Runstedt’s cyclone struck the 106th in full force, inflicting grievous casualties. The Second Infantry had missed Von Runstedt by five days in the Schnee-Eiffel, but it was to meet him head-on on the sixth. On 12 December, the 23rd Infantry Regiment moved 30 miles north to the vicinity of Sourbrodt, Belgium.

To most men of the 2nd Infantry, the Wehlerscheid Offensive became known as the battle of Heartbreak Crossroad – and with a good reason. It was a savage, costly four-day battle in freezing weather, which ended with the fruits of victory being snatched away under circumstances utterly beyond the control of the men who fought there.

While the newly formed 78th Infantry Division attacked German positions farther north along the German border between Lammersdorf and Monschau, the task of capturing Wahlerscheid fell to the 2nd Infantry Division. Assembled near the town of Elsenborn the first week of December, two of the 2nd Division's three infantry regiments, the 9th and the 38th (the third, the 23rd Infantry, was held in reserve near Elsenborn), were trucked to Büllingen, then north to Rocherath and Krinkelt, two villages so close together they had been nicknamed the "Twin Villages".

The battle of Heartbreak Crossroad was a battle for the Roer River dams. The 2nd Infantry had the mission of capturing the dams if possible, or to force the Germans to blow the dams and eliminate the threat of the floodwaters wrecking the river crossings planned along the river. From Gemund, the river ran North several hundred miles and was a dangerous threat to the Allied advance as long as the Germans controlled the dams. The division’s mission was an important one.

The route of the 23rd US Infantry Regiment

Roads into Germany had proved to be scarce and heavily defended. There was only one good one leading to the dams in the division’s zone. This ran from Rocherath, Belgium, across the German border at Wehlerscheid – Heartbreak Crossroad – and thence beyond the Siegfried Line where it branched into an excellent road net. Along the German border the Rocherath road passed through the Monschau Forest, and at Wehlerscheid, in the heart of the forest, Siegfried Line fortifications were clamped across it like a gaint vise. Barring the way into Germany were 25 concrete pillboxes sqautting in the forest on both sides of the road. For 200 yards the approach to the pillboxes had been cleared of trees to give German gunners a field of fire, and across the clearing, with its profusion of mines, stretched masses of barbed wire.

A severe ordeal obviously awaited any troops attempting to force their way into Germany over this route. Yet as the war developed in early December, the road, as a means of approach toward the Roer River dams, became more and more important in relation to the overall Allied strategy on the Western Front, and the 2nd Infantry Division was given the mission of smashing through the Wehlerscheid stronghold into the open country South of the dams.

Spearheaded by the 9th Infantry Regiment, the Division launched its attack on December 13, driving into the Monschau Forest astride the Rocherath-Wehlerscheid road. Hardships beset the troops from the start. Snow, knee-deep in places, covered the ground and made the going laboriously hard for doughboys burdened with weapons, ammunition, and packs. The forest was so dense the branches were interlocked as stiffly as gates, and the men had literally to push their way forward. To make matters more miserable a thaw was sending the snow on the pines dripping down on the men, soaking them to the skin. That night the weather turned intensely cold. They had to sleep without blankets, and their wet clothing froze.

The attack was not preceded by an artillery preparation. It had been planned to surprise the Germans, and the regiment advanced several hunderd yards to the vicinity of the clearing around the pillboxes without opposition. As the assault companies neared the clearing, however, leading scouts reported smoke from German fires.

Two hundred yards away, beyond the rows of barbed wire, were the pillboxes, squat, ugly, half-concealed in scrub pine. As the troops closed up to the clearing, hundreds of German guns of many caliber split the silence of the forest. And they exhaled murderous fire. The attack had been detected when the men crossed the anti-tank ditch. Machine guns clipped the bushes, kicking up dirt around the embattled GIs. Artillery and mortar shells, shearing off the tops of trees, sprayed shrapnel in all directions. Casualties were heavy and the battle continued for several more days before the GIs captured their targets.

Bright prospects were opening to the 2nd Infantry Division thanks to the grieve fighting of the 9th and 38th Infantry Regiments. The first belt of the Siegfried Line had been breached at Wehlerscheid. The road to Hofen and Monschau and the road to Dreiborn and Schleiden were ready to fall, but German artillery was growing in volume along the entire line.

In the morning of December 16, battalion commanders were hurriedly summoned to the Regiment. There the full truth became known. A serious German counter-attack was developing around Rocherath. The 9th and 38th Regiments must pull back quickly to avoid encirclement and help stem the attack. The pillboxes so dearly won must be relinquished without a fight.

Map of the Ardennes Offensive

On the afternoon threatening shadows assumed a darker and more menacing appearance when General Robertson received orders not to commit the 23rd Regiment (Major Hinsch’s regiment), which at that time was preparing to move from Camp Elsenborn, site of the Division rear echelon, to aid in exploitation of the Wehlerscheid breakthrough. Later in the afternoon one battalion of the 23rd was detached from Division control and attached to the 99th Division to plug gaps in the lines. Shortly afterwards another battalion was attached to the 99th Infantry Division, leaving only one battalion of the 23rd Regiment in Division reserve – Major Hinsch’s 2nd Battalion. The 3rd Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment had set up a defensive position on a ridge northeast of Rocherath, prepared to support the 393rd Infantry Regiment. The 2nd Battalion (Major Hinsch’s battalion) had assembled in the late afternoon of the 16th approximately a mile and a quarter north of Rocherath. The 1st Battalion would be at Hunningen. Troops of the 2nd Division had continued the attack on 16 December, but during the afternoon Maj. Gen. Walter M. Robertson made plans for a withdrawal, if necessary, from the Wahlerscheid sector.

As midnight approached in Lanzerath on December 16, the Kampfgruppe of the 1st SS Panzer Division drove into the village. The commander, Colonel Peiper, was furious. After being stalled all day at the rear of a long column, he had finally received orders to break out to the west any way he could. Pushing the men and equipment ahead of him off the road, he had finally reached Lanzerath - several hours later than scheduled. Waiting for the 3rd Parachute Division to clear a path through the 99th Infantry Division’s lines, in addition to traversing broken terrain and mined roads, had cost him even more time - time that he feared he might not be able to make up. He was not in the mood for any more delays.

Absolutely vital to the German advance were the two roads leading to Malmedy. They had to be captured quickly by German infantry, for just behind the foot troops several hundred tanks, halftracks and armored cars waited. Once the Losheimergraben crossroads was taken, the pent-up force of SS Colonel Joachim "Jochen" Peiper's armored battle group (Kampfgruppe) of the 1st SS Panzer Division would rush through the breach and dash headlong for the Meuse River and beyond. The division's ultimate objective was Antwerp.

The Germans renewed their attack at Losheimergraben early on December 17. German engineers had repaired a bridge along the Losheim-Losheimergraben road, and shortly before noon German armor made an appearance on the road, crawling slowly toward the disputed crossroads. As even more German infantry joined the fray, the few remaining GIs pulled back from the woods and took up positions in basements in the few buildings around a small customs house.

It was hardly 0730 Hours on December 17th when General Robertson learned from the V Corps Commander that the Germans were attacking in force along the entire front of other divisions and had already been broken through defenses of a neighboring division on the right and rear, there by seriously threatening the 2nd Division flank and Command Post at Wirtzfeld.

Map showing troop movements in the Elsenborn area, 16-19 December 1944
(click on picture to enlarge)

Almost immediately after word was received that the neighboring division had been overrun by superior forces of German tanks and foot troops, the 9th and 38th Infantry Regiments began disengaging from the Germans and started a daylight withdrawal from the Wehlerscheid area to defensive positions around Rocherath, Krinkelt, and Wirtzfeld, covering the roads leading to Eupen and Verviers. The redeployment of the 2nd Division had a double aim: securing a firm hold on Wirtzfeld, essential to the control of the road net in the final phase of the move to Elsenborn, and defending Krinkelt and Rocherath until such time as both the 2nd and 99th Divisions could be withdrawn to the Elsenborn ridge. The 9th Infantry Regiment, leading the move, was to concentrate the bulk of its troops around Wirtzfeld; the 38th Regiment, to build up a defensive line at Krinkelt-Rocherath as its battalions arrived.

Moving back through the woods, men of the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 23rd Infantry Regiment found themselves in Mürringen, due south of the Twin Villages and just north of Hünningen, where the lone battalion from the 23rd Infantry still held positions. General Robertson ordered the headquarters commandant to prepare a defense at the division command post (a few hundred yards north of Bullingen) and sent his only free rifle battalion, the 2nd Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment (Maj. Hinsch's battalion), south from the Rocherath area. Major Hinsch’s remaining 2nd Battalion, plus a TD Company and a company of medium tanks, started to head South at once toward Rocherath, Krinkelt, and Wirtzfeld, the latter the of the Division Command Post. During the withdrawal, Major Hinsch’s 2nd Battalion clashed with a large group of Germans. With his ammunition dangerously low, the American commander was unwilling to risk another fight, and he led his troops into the woods southeast of Mürringen until a clear determination of friendly positions was made. For the time being the threat to the southern terminus of the 2nd Division line of withdrawal was ended. The 2nd Battalion, 23rd Infantry Regiment, and additional tank destroyers from the 644th soon arrived and deployed in the deep snow south of Wirtzfeld (the village at which the 2nd Division would have to turn toward Elsenborn) on the slope facing Bullingen, there to watch the 1st SS Panzer Regiment as it filed southwest.

During the withdrawal GIs came out onto large stretches of open ground that were raked by German artillery and rocket fire, adding to the confusion. Many men became separated from their units and made their way to the rear individually or were rounded up and captured by the rapidly advancing Germans. Through the afternoon the prospect of a large-scale German armored attack from Bullingen had loomed large in the calculations of both General Robertson and General Lauer. Fortunately the attack failed to come.

Before dark the 2nd Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment had traversed the seven and a half miles of congested and shell-torn road, deploying south of Wirtzfeld in line with Major Hinsch's 2nd Battalion of the 23rd Infantry Regiment. The 3rd Battalion, next in the 9th Infantry Regiment column, arrived after dark and dug in between the two battalions already south of Wirtzfeld.

2nd Division Infantrymen on the March

General Robertson's 2nd Division and attached troops had carried through a highly complex maneuver in the face of the Germans, disengaging in a fortified zone, withdrawing across a crumbling front, then wheeling from column to secure and organize a defensive line in the dark and under attack. Having completed this mission, the 2nd Division was under orders to hold in place while the remnants of the 99th Division right wing passed through to Elsenborn; then it was to break away and re-form for the defense of the Elsenborn ridge. The flanks of the 2nd Division position at the villages were more or less covered by elements of the 9th and 23rd Infantry Regiments (Major Hinsch among them) in Wirtzfeld, to the southwest, and the battalions of the 393rd Infantry Regiment deployed in blocking positions to hold the road net north of Rocherath. As yet, however, there was no homogeneous line sealing the 2nd Division front, and the men and vehicles of the 99th Division still passing through to the west complicated the problem of coordinating the defense and artillery fire.

The savage fighting continued nonstop on December 18. Infantry and tank battles raged throughout the villages. The streets and lanes of both were filled with wrecked and burning tanks. Bodies of American and German dead were strewn about everywhere, frozen into the grotesque positions that only violent death can fashion. Men were captured, escaped and were recaptured. The battle for Krinkelt, if it can be separated from that raging around Rocherath, commenced sometime before dawn when five tanks and a body of infantry moved cautiously up to the eastern edge of the village. When the German tankers halted to confer with their infantry escort, Company L, 23rd Infantry Regiment, which had been placed in the line after its retreat from the woods the evening before, killed some forty of the Germans and the panzers decamped. A brief period of quiet followed and during this lull the foot detachment of the 394th Regiment from Murringen passed through the American lines en route to Wirtzfeld and Elsenborn.

For hours GIs and grenadiers fought one another separated only by a narrow road. Word that the SS had been murdering prisoners and bayoneting wounded spread like wildfire through the American ranks and as the battle for Krinkelt and Rocherath continued - they neither gave nor expected quarter. At 1800 on 18 December the V Corps commander attached General Lauer's 99th Division to Robertson's 2nd Division. General Gerow's instructions, given Robertson late on 17 December for a defense of the Rocherath-Krinkelt-Wirtzfeld line until such time as the isolated American troops to the east could be withdrawn, finally were fulfilled on the night of 18-19 December when the remnants of the 1st Battalion of the 393rd and the 2nd Battalion of the 394th came back through the 2nd Division lines. These were the last organized units to find their way to safety, although small groups and individual stragglers would appear at the Elsenborn rallying point for some days to come. Then, despite the fact that the 2nd Division was hard pressed, Robertson made good on his promise to the corps commander that he would release the 99th Division elements which had been placed in the 2nd Division line and send them to Elsenborn for reorganization within their own division. The tactical problem remaining was to disengage the 2nd Division and its attached troops, particularly those in the twin villages, while at the same time establishing a new and solid defense along the Elsenborn ridge. On through the night of December 18th the German attacks continued relentlessly.

The German plans for 19 December were these: the 277th Volks Grenadier Division and advancing troops of the 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division were to continue the attack at Krinkelt and Rocherath; the 89th Regiment, 12th Volks Grenadier Division, which had come up from reserve and initiated an attack from Mürringen against Krinkelt the day before, was to maintain pressure in this sector. Meanwhile, the 12th SS Panzer Division was to complete its withdrawal from the twin villages and move as quickly as the poor roads would allow to join a kampfgruppe of the 12th Volks Grenadier Division in a thrust against the American flank position at Butgenbach. The direction of the German main effort, as a result, would shift, substituting an armored thrust against the flank for the battering-ram frontal attack against the now well-developed defenses in the area of Krinkelt-Rocherath. Fresh German infantry were en route to the twin villages, and some reinforcements would be employed there on the 19th, but the attack would lack the armored weight whose momentum had carried earlier assault waves into the heart of the American positions.

Finally, at 1345 Hours, the withdrawal order was issued, to be put in effect beginning at 1730 Hours. The 395th Infantry Regiment was to retire from its lines north of the villages and move cross-country (by a single boggy trail) west to Elsenborn. The 38th Infantry Regiment and its attached units, more closely engaged and in actual physical contact with the Germans, would break away from the villages, fall back west through Wirtzfeld, then move along the temporary road which the 2nd Division engineers had constructed between Wirtzfeld and Berg. Once the 38th Regiment had cleared through the Wirtzfeld position, now held by elements of the 9th Infantry Regiment and Major Hinsch's 2nd Battalion of the 23rd Regiment, it would occupy a new defensive line west and northwest of Wirtzfeld, while the 9th Infantry Regiment in turn evacuated that village. After darkness on December 19th, the last elements of the 2nd Division had withdrawn and taken positions on the Elsenborn Ridge, dominating terrain feature overlooking the twin cities of Krinkelt and Rocherath which were being shelled heavily by American Artillery.

99th Division Vehicles moving through Wirtzfeld en route to Elsenborn

The Division CP set up at Camp Elsenborn, where plans for reorganization and regrouping were formulated. Riflemen dug in, imporved their underground homes by insulating them against cold and dampness with sides of ration boxes and pine boughs, and equipped them with makeshift stoves made from abandoned jerricans of German milk cans.

The veteran 2nd Infantry Division had taken considerable punishment from exposure and battle loss beginning on 13 December with the start of the Wahlerscheid operation. There is no total available for the 2nd Division during these important seven days. The 23rd Infantry Regiment, in reserve before 16 December and then committed by battalion, sustained these battle losses:
~ 1st Battalion, 10 officers and 221 men;
~ 2nd Battalion, 1 officer and 100 men (Major Hinsch's battalion);
~ 3rd Battalion, 10 officers and 341 men.

The 9th Infantry, which was engaged both at Wahlerscheid and the twin villages, lists 47 officers and men killed, 425 wounded, and 192 missing. The regiment likewise had lost nearly 600 officers and men as nonbattle casualties (trench foot, respiratory diseases induced by exposure, fatigue, and related causes), a figure which tells something of the cost of lengthy battle in snow, damp, and mud, but also reflects the high incidence of nonbattle cases in a veteran unit whose ranks are filled with troops previously wounded or hospitalized - often more than once. The bitter character of the initial 24 hours of the 2nd Division fight to occupy and hold Krinkelt and Rocherath, after the march south, is mirrored in the battle losses taken by the 38th Infantry Regiment in that critical period: 389 officers and men were missing (many of them killed in action but not so counted since the Americans subsequently lost the battleground); 50 wounded were evacuated; and 11 were counted as killed in action. In the three days at the twin villages the 38th Infantry suffered 625 casualties.

After three long, difficult days of practically nonstop combat, the initial phase of the battle around Elsenborn Ridge was over. Although some units lost as much as 80% of their combat strength, the back of the German offensive in the Ardennes was effectively broken at the Twin Villages. The continuing efforts of the 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions, in concert with the 1st Division to the south and the 78th Division in the north, near Elsenborn Ridge, would end all German hopes for a successful drive to the Meuse River and then the vital Belgian port of Antwerp.

On 19 December German General Staff officers from the high headquarters of WFSt and OB WEST appeared in the battle zone to peer over the shoulders of the combat commanders and diagnose the irritating failure to achieve a complete breakthrough. The conclusions they reported reached as to the future conduct of operations on the Sixth Panzer Army front was simple enough and in accordance with established German doctrine: more maneuver room must be secured so that the attack could "unfold"; the entire Elsenborn area, therefore, must be won and at once. The right wing must be brought abreast of the 1st SS Panzer Division, at this moment twenty miles to the west of Stoumont. This new plan, probably only a reflection of conclusions already reached in the higher echelons, actually had gone into effect on 19 December when German tanks and infantry made the first serious attempt to drive northwest from Büllingen, shoulder the Americans out of the Butgenbach position, and open the Büllingen-Malmedy highway.

On the 20th of December German soldiers felt out the defenses with several small attacks which were repulsed. Deciding that the sector was too strongly fortified and too firmly held, the Germans made no further efforts to continue their offensive. It was a foregone conclusion that one section of Rundstedt’s sweep toward Antwerp had been definitely halted after one of the hardest battles along the entire First Army Front.

The Germans continued the shelling of the Division area with artillery and rockets. The Luftwaffe reappeared to bomb and strafe supply routes and elements of the division at Camp Elsenborn. Buzz-bombs sputtered over the sector on almost constant schedules. It was bitter cold and intermittent snows fell.

The successful withdrawal from the Krinkelt-Rocherath sector to the more favorable terrain of the Elsenborn ridge had resulted, by 20 December, in a fairly homogeneous and well-constructed defense with the 2nd Division on the right and the 99th Division on the left. On the morning of this same day the 9th Infantry Division took over the Monschau-Höfen sector (its 47th Infantry Regiment had moved earlier into supporting position west of these two towns) and so covered the northern flank of the 99th Division.

The German attempt to crack the newly formed north-south line was handled in catch-as-catch-can and piecemeal fashion, for the primary mission was the flanking maneuver in the Butgenbach area. The 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division, which had relieved the 12th SS Panzer Division at the twin villages, went to work at once against the 99th Division portion of the Elsenborn line although the bulk of its rifle strength was not yet in hand. On the morning of 20 December German tanks and infantry made the first of three assaults. But the 99th Division, on a forward slope with perfect visibility and good fields of fire, checked this and the subsequent attempts with heavy losses to the attacker. On the following day, the 3rd Panzer Grenadier was caught by artillery fire just as its assault waves were forming. Confused and disorganized, the German infantry were unable to make another bid.

On Thursday December 21, 1944 Major William R. Hinsch Jr. was Killed in Action at age 32 in the Elsenborn area, Belgium. In the short time Major Hinsch served at the front he earned a Bronze Star Medal and a Silver Star Medal.

Major William R. Hinsch Jr.’s grave
(Picture Courtesy of Rick Demas)

Major William R. Hinsch Jr.’s final resting place is, together with 7,989 brothers in arms, the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium, Plot A, Row 7, Grave 14.

Rick Demas next to Major William R. Hinsch Jr.’s grave
(Picture Courtesy of Rick Demas)

If anyone has information about Major William R. Hinsch Jr. that may be of assistance to me, please contact me at rickmommers@msn.com

Sources:
The Twenty Third United States Infantry, 1812-1945
From D + 1 to 105: The Story of the 2nd Infantry Division
D + 106 to VE: The Story of the 2nd Division
www.thehistorynet.com
www.defenselink.mil
www.ibiblio.org/hyperwar