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At about 1300, I and K Companies jumped off into the attack in the open while L Company
moved up into the woods. On this afternoon, Company I knocked out six pillboxes and Company K
three. The plan of attack was for K to take BUTZDORF while I was to take TETTINGEN. The
pillboxes were encountered en route to the towns. Both companies were under harassing machine gun
and artillery fire as they approached their towns.
Company K was abreast of Company I for about 400 yards out of the woods. Then leaving one
rifle platoon and the mortar platoon upon a ridge short of the town, the 1st and 3rd platoons of Company
K with a section of heavy machine guns from M Company attacked the town of BUTZDORF.
In order to reach BUTZDORF, it was necessary for K Company to cross a wide open valley
covered with cross fire from machine guns. Captain McHolland thereupon ordered his men to run for the
town, get in the buildings and reorganize there. The majority of the three platoons made the town in
spite of the heavy machine gun fire. Company I meanwhile was heavily engaged with pillboxes and
were only able to get to the edge of TETTINGEN before it turned dark. Lt. Rugh alternated his men
half in and half out of the pillboxes during the night and the foxholes were muddy and cold. Dysentery
was still prevalent.
Upon reaching BUTZDORF, the Kraut Killers took cover in the first three houses they reached
and reorganized. They then proceeded to mop up the town until an influx of Germans forced them back
into the three houses after dark. The Germans were all around the buildings and it was impossible to
leave any of them without being subject to German machine pistol fire.
Shortly after dark, a German rifle company came down the road toward TETTINGEN in a
column of twos. The enemy column was attacked viciously by all men. Unfortunately their heavy
machine gun was jammed with mud and unable to fire. The column was pretty well cut up with small
arms fire and hand grenades, and the Germans jumped into a ditch, gradually infiltrating out after dark.
Captain Robert B. McHolland was killed shortly afterwards when he opened the door of his
house to let two of his men in. A German machine gun opened up and got him in the back. His loss was
deeply felt by the entire Battalion.
For the rest of the night, Company K men, cut off from the rest of the Battalion, fought Germans
who tried to make them surrender. In their desperation, the Germans practically shot the first platoon
house down with bazookas and then finished the job with a Mark IV tank. About ten men ran through
the machine gun fire to the 3rd platoon house, seven of them making it.
Five K Company men ran right into a larger number of Germans during the night and four were
captured, while the fifth was shot as he tried to escape. The next day 21 Germans surrendered to these
four men when Company L reached the town.
In the rest of the Battalion, casualties were fairly light and 142 prisoners were taken. A
Company I patrol was unable to get through to Company K because of the German machine gun fire and
consequently Company K was without contact with the rest of the Battalion.
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