It was now getting late in the afternoon, and still the relief scheduled to take place an hour or more earlier had not been accomplished. It was shortly past noon that Colonel Abrams had been ordered by Brig. Gen. Herbert L Earnest, Combat Command A, to turn over Singling to Combat Command B and get ready to move on his own objective, Bining and Rohrbach.
Mark V tank destroyed by fire from Fitzgerald's tank. Enemy tank is headed southwest, and the gun has not started to swivel southward to engage Fitzgerald. Note broken track front bogie.
On information that his tanks and infantry were in town, Colonel Abrams told Maj. Albin F. Irzyk, commanding officer, 8th Tank Battalion, in the presence of Major Alanis, commanding officer, 51st Armored Infantry Battalion, that he was "ready to turn over to them their objective--and without a fight." Despite constant fire from the direction of Singling, the relieving units henceforth acted on the assumption that the town was clear.
Major Irzyk decided to send Company C of his battalion in with Company B of the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion. The infantry had been in an assembly area 3,000 yards south of Singling for more than an hour, the tanks were moving up when orders reached the commander of Company C, Ist Lt. William J. Marshall. The orders were to pick up the infantry, go into Singfing, contact the commanding officer of the tank company in town, and take over the outposting with infantry and tanks. In addition to the outposts, patrols were to be sent out north.
Marshall was instructed to enter town "as the other unit had done."With some of the 35-40 men of Company B of the 10th mounted on all his tanks, Marshall set off to carry out these instructions exactly, as his tanks moved in at about 1400 following the tracks of Company B, 37th Tank Battalion.
At the south edge of town, the 1st Tank Platoon (2d Lt. George Gray), in the lead, turned northwest following the approach route of Lieutenant Farese. Farese's two knocked-out tanks were, of course, still where they had been hit. Although Lieutenant Gray remarked that the tank hatches were open and there was no sign of the crew, he did not suspect that the tanks were out of action. Approaching the comer of the wall at No. 14, he saw ahead of him near the road a tank which he assumed to be American since he believed no enemy was in town.
When, therefore, Lieutenant Marshall called to ask how he was making out, he replied, "OK, as soon as I get around this corner." Then he was hit by two rounds of AP. The gunner, Cpl. Tauno H. Aro, was killed. Gray, seriously wounded, was evacuated to Lieutenant Cowgill's CP at No. 13, arriving there just as McPhail, Cannon, and Harrington returned from their reconnaissance trip to the west wall.
As soon as Gray was hit, Lieutenant Marshall ordered the 2d Platoon (S/Sgt. Edwin J. De Rosia) to move east and try to circle behind the enemy tank that had knocked out Gray. De Rosia, however, had not moved far when he reported enemy direct fire from north and east which he could not exactly locate. Marshall then ordered all tanks to withdraw to the reverse slope of the ridge south of town. Except the men who had been riding Gray's tank, and who dismounted when the tank was hit to assemble near No. 49, the infantry remained on the decks of the tanks when they withdrew. 1st Lt. Robert F. Lange, commanding officer of Company B, 10th Armored Infantry Battalion, went into town to make contact with Lieutenant Belden. At the same time, Lieutenant Marshall returned with his tank to the 8th Tank Battalion to consult with Major Irzyk.
Lange found Captain Leach in a tank outside of town and together they went to No. 28 to talk with Lieutenant Belden. The decision agreed on by the three commanders was to relieve Lieutenant Cowgill and Lieutenant Padgett in place; Lieutenant Price was to be withdrawn first from the center of town without relief, Company B of the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion had organized its handful of men into 2 platoons; about 15 men in one, 18 in the other. While Lieutenant Lange sent a noncommissioned officer to meet his platoon leaders, inform them of the decision, and guide them into town, Captain Leach went to look for Lieutenant Marshall and arrange for the relief of his tanks.
The afternoon was wearing on and Colonel Abrams began to worry; he wanted to pull his tanks out of Singling as soon as possible. He called Captain Leach to find out how the relief was progressing. In Captain L4each's absence Lieutenant Cook took the call and made a report which could not have been very reassuring. He said that there were five enemy tanks west of the town and that from three to five more had been observed moving down the ridge to their front. He said that one enemy tank had been knocked out by the 1st Platoon on the right. He detailed the disposition of his platoons and reported that they were receiving heavy enemy artillery fire and that the enemy was laying a smoke screen on the north. (Lieutenant Cook did not know at the time that this was put down by the Mark V to cover its escape from Fitzgerald's fire; he believed that it might herald a German counterattack.) He told Colonel Abrams that the 51st Infantry was still outposting the town and that the 10th Infantry was in process of relieving them. He added that he was not in contact with the infantry's commanding officer, that he had not yet heard from Captain Leach who was conferring with Lieutenant Marshall.
Lt. Gobel's tank, showing the holes made by enemy shells.
Colonel Abrams called back a little later and told Cook to organize the company tanks, pick up the 51st Infantry, and move out immediately whether he found Captain Leach or not. Cook notified all tanks to prepare for immediate withdrawal. In fact, the withdrawal was delayed about half an hour to allow the relieving infantry to consolidate their positions.
Lieutenant Lange made few changes in Lieutenant Belden's dispositions, except to post most of his men outside the buildings to guard against enemy infiltmtion during the night. He established his CP at No. 45 to get away from the direct fire that had been harassing No. 28 all day.
Captain Leach, in the meantime, had arrived at the Company C, 8th Tank Battalion position in the absence of Lieutenant Marshall, but was able to talk to Marshall over Sergeant De Rosia's mdio. Leach reported the situation in Singling as follows: he said there were four enemy SPs in town, but he thought one had been knocked out by a bazooka; some enemy infantry occupied the northern part of the town (Lieutenant Lange, who put outposts to the north later, reported no enemy there); and a Panther tank to the northeast of town had fired on our tanks when they exposed themselves in that direction. Leach then asked Marshall how long it would be before the latter relieved but Marshall, who had just been ordered by Major Irzyk to stay put, replied that he would not come into town "until my orders are changed."
This change in plan was not known to the infantry in town, who were completing the relief as scheduled. Most of the wounded had already been evacuated earlier on Sergeant Morphew's tank, which due to radio failure had not been in action but was brought up expressly to take the wounded back. No revlar evacuation vehicles were available at battalion, as Lieutenant Cook ascertained early in the afternoon when he called just after Sergeant Hayward was hit. Some wounded nevertheless remained to be evacuated by the withdrawing infantry.
Cowgill and Padgett led their men to the street south to a rendezvous with the tanks in the vicinity of No. 3. Price, who did not have to wait for relief, moved his men out first and met the tanks outside town beside the two pillboxes that had been cleaned out by Padgett's 2d Squad that morning. Here, they picked up the last prisoner of the day, a sleepy German who had to be prodded into surrender. He was lying on the ground swathed in a belt of .50 cal. ammunition and evinced no interest in his capture.
It was already getting dark when Cook moved his tanks out. They collected the infantry as arranged, and found Captain Leach with Lieutenant Marshall about 400 yards south of town. As the 2d and 3d Platoon tanks moved out together and the 1st Platoon on the right headed back to join them further south, another heavy enemy artillery concentration fell among them, but by a miracle caused only one light casualty, Pvt. Genar W. Ferguson, 2d Infantry Platoon, who was hit in the leg. To cover the withdrawal, all tanks swiveled their guns north and fired back into Singling. The enemy tanks replied and the AP tracers streaked through the gathering darkness. Two rounds landed within a few feet of Sergeant Del Vecchio's tank before the fire fight was taken up by Lieutenant Marshall's tanks and the enemy shifted his attention to them.
After Captain Leach's tanks had pulled out, the relief infantry company in Singling remained more than three hours without direct tank support. During this time the enemy on the west crept up to the two destroyed tanks of Farese's platoon and started the battery chargers. It may be that they were going to attempt to drive the tan away.
When the infantry outposts at No. 14 heard the engines, they believed them to be relieving tanks which they were expecting. 2d Lt. Robert J. Victor, commanding the platoon which took over Lieutenant Cowgill's sector, went out with one of his squad leaders to investigate.
He approached one of the tanks to within 25 feet, then stopped. The silhouette of the three figures on top of the tank made him suspicious; their overcoats were too long, their helmets too sharply beaked. As Victor and his sergeant had only one carbine, they returned to the CP to pick up weapons and another man. Approaching the tank the second time, they were fired on by a burp gun, which they answered with rifle fire and grenades. The enemy retreated, but later in the night returned to set fire to the tanks.
Lieutenant Lange, in the meantime, worried about his thinly outposted positions in town, had gone out to see Lieutenant Marshall and, as he said, "try to move the tanks in personally." As lieutenant Marshall had been called back shortly after dark to battalion by Major Irzyk, commanding the 8th Tank Battalion, Lieutenant Lange found Sergeant De Rosia temporarily in command. Major Irzyk and Capt. Abraham J. Baum, S-3 of the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion, were also in the company area at the time.
The question of whether to attempt to hold in the town for the night or withdraw was discussed. Although Major Irzyk's first plan was to send one platoon of tanks in to support the infantry, he reversed his decision after talking to Lange. He was already doubtful, because he could see no very good reason for holding the town when the enemy occupied all the high ground north and east. Lange reported that, with less than 50 men at his disposal, he had had to outpost very thinly and that it would be easy for the enemy to probe out these outposts during the night and infiltrate through his whole position.
Major Irzyk was also impressed by an incident which Lange related. An hour or so earlier (it was now about 2000), the east platoon under 2d Lt. James W. Leach, had shot up and captured a German kitchen truck which they waylaid at the town square. The truck was carrying hot soup, estimated to be enough to feed at least a company. Major Irzyk, taking this to indicate that the enemy in at least that strength still held the outskirts of town, west and north, figured that the presence of our own troops in the center of town would only obstruct the use of artillery against the Germans.
Major Irzyk therefore gave the order to withdraw from Singling. To cover the withdrawal, Sergeant De Rosia jockeyed his tanks back and forth on the reverse slope of the hill to make the enemy believe that they were entering town. The infantry assembled in about an hour near No. 47 and moved back to the tank positions 400 yards to the south. They dug in and outposted the tanks for the night. During the few hours they had been in Singling they had suffered five light casualties from enemy mortar fire.
Within five minutes of the infantry report that Singling was clear of friendly troops, corps artillery put a heavy TOT [time on target] on the town.
(TOT: A type of artillery concentration in which the shells from a number of batteries am timed to burst simultaneously on the target. Such a concentration was used for its demoralizing effect on the enemy and also to prevent enemy observation outfits from picking up the location of individual batteries.)
The next day (7 December) tanks and infantry moved back up to just short of the crest of the Singling ridge, but they were ordered not to advance as they would be relieved momentarily. Relief by units of the 12th Armored Division actually took place that night. Singling was finally taken on 10 December.
The final reckoning of the battle at Singling reveals neither a big action nor a startlingly successful one. All 4th Armored Division units directly involved suffered a total of 22 casualties, of which 6 were killed; they lost 5 medium tanks. Known enemy losses were 2 Mark V tanks and 56 prisoners.
The attack on Singling was made against heavy odds and attended with all the confusion of a hastily improvised maneuver. In itself, the action was a stalemate; nevertheless, it achieved immediate tactical success for Combat Command A. With the main German forces heavily engaged at Singling during the afternoon of 6 December, other elements of Combat Command A were given the opportunity to pass Singling and reach the primary objective, Bining. This was accomplished by the 1st Battalion, 328th Infantry, and Company D (light tanks) of the 37th Tank Battalion. Rohrbach, the further objective, was not entered by Combat Command A.
By probing one of the areas in which the Germans had strongest prepared defenses, the action at Singling opened the way for later advances by the 12th Armored Division.
France: 4th Armored Division at Singling Part II
France: 4th Armored Division at Singling Part I
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