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OBJECTIVE Achtung! We are on the offensive! Drive the US forces from the town of Echternach. They are holding position at the Hat Factory. Historial Info: Abandoned Hat Factory By the second day of the offensive, about 100 men of Co. E of the 12th Infantry were dug into Echternach. Five platoons held outposts scattered throughout town, with the Command Post in a three-story abandoned hat factory and adjacent garage downtown. Orders from General Barton calling for "no retrograde movement" were taken seriously in spite of increasing evidence that the Co. was soon to be cut off. US tanks twice made it through to the hat factory, but couldn't make it a third time after orders to withdraw from Echternach and regroup at the CP were finally received. Two> men made a daring escape via jeep to notify the battalion of Co. E's predicament, but it was too late. All attempts to relieve the men failed, and 115 surrendered on the fifth day after running out of ammunition for their lone bazooka and light machine gun. Ironically, ample food had been scavenged from the cellars of Echternach: sardines, spaghetti, sugar, apples, potatoes, and "enough beer and liquor to last a month"! The German officer accepting the surrender amazed the soldiers when he asked "Has anyone Chesterfields?" in perfect English. A soldier offered him a pack, but the officer declined with a smirk: "You'd better keep them; you'll be needing them where you're going." And indeed that was true. Lt. Dick Cook, one of the men in the jeep escape and now living in Texas, declined to give any personal recollections of his experiences but recommended the 12th Infantry History as an accurate account of the Hat Factory battle. Many survivors of this battle returned to Luxembourg every year during the 1970's and 1980's until their health failed |
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