3rd-7th January 1945
Tucked into the rolling heart of the Belgian Ardennes, the Salm and Amblève valleys offer a landscape that feels almost suspended in time—where dense forests give way to meandering rivers, and mist lingers in the hollows long after sunrise. Both exude a quiet, enduring beauty.
The Salm River, narrow and quick in winter, curls through sleepy hamlets and past moss-covered bridges, its waters often framed by a dense treeline of pine and beech that cloak the surrounding hills like a protective embrace.
To the north, the Amblève Valley opens in broader strokes—sweeping green pastures, hidden rock outcrops, and waterfalls tucked between steep ridges. Villages like Stavelot and Trois-Ponts sit like watercolor sketches along the riverbanks, their stone cottages and centuries-old churches hinting at stories far older than the battles that once scarred the soil and structures over eighty years ago.
In winter, the land sleeps under a hush of snow. Mist hangs low over the river bends, and the only sounds are the crunch of boots on frosted paths or the caw of a distant crow. It is a place that invites reflection, solitude, and quiet wonder. The forests are quiet, the rivers are steel-grey, and the valleys take on an austere beauty that is both haunting and serene. It is hard to imagine, standing by a frost-rimmed bend in the Salm, that this peaceful landscape was once the site of some of the fiercest fighting during the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s last ill-fated offensive in the west, launched on 16th December 1944.
If you ignore the countless memorials and, if you care to look, the still evident scars of war that bear brutal witness to what happened here, you are struck immediately by nature’s quiet resilience that is part of the region’s allure. You could be forgiven for thinking that nothing ever happened here. However, look closely and one’s eyes soon adjust and you are able to peel back the invisible layers of memory that every field, forest, village and stream holds.
At the outset of 1945, these valleys were carpeted with thick snowfall, the mercury in the thermometer dropping to -7°F (-22°C). The fighting along the Amblève that had culminated in the blocking of Joachim Peiper’s savage thrust towards the Meuse River at the small hamlet of La Gleize on 24th December 1944 still raged as the Allies sought to begin clearing their lines and pinch the salient created by the offensive. Both sides fought tenaciously. The Allies, to recoup what they had so startlingly lost at the outset of the offensive. For the German forces, despite the obvious fate of Hitler’s ambitions, it was a dying regime’s final frenzied attempt to shape the outcome of the war.
Instead of today’s peaceful image I have sought to conjure up, in January 1945 the thick forests that stretch across these valleys were choked with snow and smoke. Echoing up and down the length of each, an orchestra of fire and steel was maintaining a savage crescendo. The narrow re-entrants reverberated with the near constant squeal of vehicles; the crump of artillery explosions; the crackle of rifle fire; the sharp, mechanical clatter of the German MP-40’s; the deep, rhythmic pounding of the American .50 cal and the continuous roar of the German MG-42. And, in amongst this, humanity – both civilian and combatant – suffered. Fields now grazed by sheep were soaked in blood and scattered with the fallen.
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Standing in the stillness today, it is difficult to imagine what the men of the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion (PIB) endured here in January 1945. For this little-known independent battalion that was formed in the Panama Canal Zone in 1942 to fight in the Caribbean, which eventually saw some combat in southern France in August 1944 during which they became the first American unit to capture a general, it was a cold baptism. One that would see it virtually snuffed out on the battlefield over the course of four days of brutal combat and then cease to exist following its disbandment in the days that followed as no replacements were forthcoming.
Their commander, Lt. Col. Wood Joerg, was beloved, but the Regiment was unruly and its early restless days prepping for an assault on the Vichy French island of Martinique were marked by high rates of absence, brawls and venereal disease. Joerg’s favorite expression reputedly was to be constantly telling his men to “get off your ass” and the nickname “GOYA birds”, or simply “GOYAs” was born.
During their short lifespan as a non-divisional entity, the GOYAs were assigned to six different units that must surely have emphasized the vagabond perception they had of themselves. For those familiar with this blog, we have encountered the 551st PIB before when the extraordinary Pte Milo Huempfner entered the fray on 23rd December (https://greatstories-withdates.com/the-day-the-lone-ranger-came-to-leignon/) in the small village of Leignon, close to the apex of the Bulge.
The tide of the campaign then turned with an improvement in the weather around Christmas and the Allies went on the offensive. The 551st – with little to no winter equipment and little to no artillery to support the succession of raids they were ordered to conduct against the Germans along the northern shoulder of the Bulge – were thrown into the mix. So severe were the losses of the battalion in four short days in that first week of the New Year that the word decimation—originally coined by the Romans to describe the killing of one in ten soldiers as punishment—feels inadequate to capture the scale of the battalion’s sacrifice.
The operation began at 08.30 hrs on 3rd January, when the 643 men of the 551st were ordered to attack without tank support and with minimal artillery support. Their initial objective was the heavily defended Herispehe Ridge to be followed in the days to come by the hamlet of Dairomont while moving in the direction of the little village of Rochelinval on the Salm River. Because the heavy winter clothing they had been issued with hampered their rapid movement, they had been ordered to leave their woollen overcoats and their rubber overshoes behind. Swopping the ladles that they had served the stew and pancakes that morning, the battalion’s cooks would serve as ammunition bearers due to the shortage of men.
The first objective at Herisphere Ridge was taken after a stiff defence but at great cost to the battalion, 189 casualties, almost a third of its strength. A Company was down to forty-five men. C Company fared a little better. Since Company B had eighty-three men remaining, it was ordered to lead the following day. That night, it was impossible to sleep as the men had no sleeping bags and it was too cold to sleep. So the men of the 551st passed the long night walking in small circles trying to stay warm. Nevertheless, twelve men perished from hypothermia.
On 4th January, the battalion undertook a daring assault on Dairomont, held by German forces in strength. The village was critical to the German defensive line in the sector and had to be cleared before any further advance could be made toward the Salm River. With the terrain offering little cover and German machine guns entrenched along the tree line some 200 yards south of the village, the young officer in charge of the assault, Lt Richard Durkee led a bayonet charge.
In what proved to be one of the last such bayonet charges of the war, the order – almost an anachronism in the mechanized warfare of 1945 – was both desperate and courageous. Fixing bayonets, the paratroopers rose from their snow-covered positions and stormed across an open field into the teeth of German fire. The scene was chaotic, violent, and unforgettable: a brutal, up-close engagement in which cold steel and sheer willpower overcame the defenders caught off guard by the ferocity and speed of the assault.
Although the attack was successful and the village retaken, it came at a terrible cost for the GOYAs. Dozens fell in the charge and in the attack on the village, and the survivors emerged both physically exhausted and emotionally drained. That night, their misery continued as temperatures plunged once again. A steady stream of appalling frostbite cases—many with blackened extremities—had to be evacuated to the aid stations. Officers were forced to slap their men to keep them awake. Those that sat down struggled to get back up. The order to “get off your arse” that night saved many but a number still succumbed.
Over the next two days, in the bitter cold and with a growing sense of isolation and despair made worse by lack of sleep and food as well as mounting casualties, the battalion conducted aggressive patrolling and reconnaissance in preparation for the assault on nearby Rochelinval. At night, many more froze to death. Despite the ninety men lost during this period, the battalion’s battle record for the forty-eight hour period optimistically reports high morale amongst the troops. However, following a direct hit from a German artillery shell, the loss of a vehicle carrying a late delivery of Christmas presents from home will have compounded the feeling of loneliness each paratrooper must have felt.
The climax came on 7th January, when the battalion launched a daring frontal assault on Rochelinval, a negligent discharge of a machine gun on the flank warning the 400 defenders that the GOYAs were coming. In bitter cold and under heavy fire, the 551st advanced across open ground through two feet of snow, taking the village in a ferocious close-quarters battle. Inexplicably, the battalion received just four rounds of fire support during the battle by contrast to the 1,052 rounds of artillery fire received by the neighbouring unit.
Early on, Lt Dick Durkee led a small group of A Company men down a narrow lane on the left flank but came under effective sniper and machine gun fire. Ordering his men yet again to prepare for another charge, Durkee then shouted back to his runner to move the riflemen forward so the attack could continue. Private Pat Casanova yelled back, “Sir, they’re all dead.” Stunned, Durkee knew that he couldn’t continue the attack on the village with only two men so he crawled back to join the remnants of A Company by now down to just nine men and himself appointed the company commander.
Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the paratroopers cleared Rochelinval house by house, ultimately forcing the defenders to retreat. Heavy fighting continued throughout the morning around the remnants of B Company attempting a flanking movement into the village from the right hand side. Around 11.30 hrs, a single American tank had arrived but its turret was jammed with the barrel pointing backward into the woods. Despite this, the tank’s commander joined the assault offering some respite by the tanks presence despite its ineffectiveness.
The spirited attacks by the 551st paid off around noon as the paratroopers began moving into Rochelinval. House-to-house fighting continued for some time but eventually around 200 defenders from Major Werner Duve’s 183rd Grenadier-Regiment of the 62nd Volksgrenadier Division surrendered and the fighting died down.
The victory sealed off the last escape route across the Salm River—but it came at a devastating price. Wood Joerg had been killed about ninety minutes after the attack began as he climbed out of his foxhole and ran to the edge of the tree line to observe the attack’s progress. He was mortally wounded when a 120mm high explosive round, burst right above him.
By the end of the operation, the 551st had suffered catastrophic losses. Of the roughly 643 officers and men who had begun the campaign on 3rd January, only about 110 remained on the duty roster by the end, the majority of these considered “walking wounded”. Lt. Col. Wood Joerg, who had led from the front and personally taken part in the charge on Dairomont, was among the dead. The regiment had been so depleted that, with a 94% casualty rate, it was officially disbanded later that month, its survivors being absorbed into other airborne units.
Extraordinarily, it wasn’t until 23rd February, 2001, through the efforts of U.S. Congresswoman Constance Morella, surviving members of the 551st, and Gregory Orfalea, son of a GOYA veteran and author of a book about the 551st, that the GOYAs were finally recognized with a Presidential Unit Citation for their role in the Battle of the Bulge.
Dick Durkee survived the war only to find himself once again in combat during the Korean War during which he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for leading yet another bayonet charge against an enemy position. In addition to this decoration, second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor, Dick Durkee was to end his career with the Silver Star and a Bronze Star with Oak Leaf Cluster.
Major Werner Duve was later awarded the Knight’s Cross in February 1945 for earlier actions around St. Vith only to be fatally wounded a month later in Germany.
