Extract from an article written by Gary Schreckengost and originally appeared in the January 2001 issue of "World War II."

After its bloodletting in the Hürtgen, the 28th Division was sent to the Ardennes, which Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower considered to be a quiet area where new divisions could receive experience and battle-weary units could rest. There, what was left of the division began to take in thousands of new recruits to replace the casualties lost during the summer and fall campaigns. But although the Ardennes was considered a quiet sector, the men still held positions on the front line. The 28th’s portion of the front was a 25-mile-long sector that was more than three times the area an infantry division was normally expected to defend. The 110th was assigned the vulnerable center section of the line. To make the task even more challenging, the regiment held this portion of the front with only two of its three battalions, the 1st and 3rd. The regiment’s remaining battalion, the 2nd, was held behind the lines at Donnange and Wiltz, where it served as the division’s only infantry reserve.

The bulk of the 110th was deployed along the St. Vith-Oiekirch Highway. Known to the Americans as ‘Skyline Drive,’ the highway was a hard-surfaced road that ran parallel to the Luxembourg-German border and overlooked the Our River and Germany to the east and the Clerf River and Luxembourg to the west. Along this road, which ran about two miles from each river, Colonel Fuller deployed his two battalions along a series of strongpoints: Company A, 110th, held Heinerscheid; three machine-gun crews from Company D held Reuler; Company B and five 57mm towed cannons from the 630th Tank Destroyer Battalion held Marnach; Companies K and B, 103rd Engineers, held Hosingen; Company L held Holzthum; and Company I held Weiler. Most of these towns, except for Hosingen, were on roads that ran east-west from the Our River and the German lines to the American rear. Believing that they were in a quiet area and that the Germans were too battered to launch an attack of their own, Fuller allowed his men to occupy their positions during the daylight hours and to retire to warmer quarters in the evening. During the hours of darkness, the forward American positions were only lightly held.

Totally cut off, overwhelmed and out of ammunition, the defenders of Clervaux now tried to escape from the battle area using the wooded draws around the town for cover. Fuller was forced to leave his second-story command post when a German tank began pumping artillery rounds into the first floor. There was no formal order of retreat. Fuller, what was left of his staff, and some wounded riflemen went out a back window of the hotel and climbed a cold steel ladder up the face of the windblown cliff that overlooked Clervaux. As they were exiting the building, they could hear the thud of German jackboots on the floor below.

The few GIs who had escaped the struggle now began to make their way westward as best they could. As the American defense disintegrated, Lauchert’s Panther Battalion, now two days behind schedule, began to roll through town and across the Clerf River. Fuller, without a command, tried to make his way westward. After a harrowing period of avoiding various German detachments, the unfortunate colonel was eventually captured. Unable to locate Fuller, Colonel Theodore Seeley returned to command what remained of the regiment.

Clervaux, however, was not yet completely in German hands. The chateau was still held by 50 or so stalwart souls under Captain Clark Mackey, commander of the 110th’s Headquarters Company, and Captain John Aiken, Fuller’s signal officer. All night long, as tanks of the 2nd Panzer Division raced west toward Bastogne, the Americans continued to fight.

"As the Shermans advanced through Clervaux, Sergeant Frank Kushnir exacted some revenge from the Germans who were now firing point-blank into American positions. Armed with a bolt-action M1903 Springfield sniper rifle in a tower of the chateau, Kushnir took the opportunity to kill a few careless Germans who were’smoking and joking’ outside their armored vehicles instead of safely inside with the hatches shut."

Although the manpower was badly needed elsewhere, Lauchert was forced to leave an entire battalion behind to mop up opposition at the chateau. By the afternoon of December 18, totally out of ammunition and with the chateau burning and crumbling around them, the gallant defenders of ‘Fort Clervaux’ finally surrendered.

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Battle of the Bulge- U.S. Army 28th Infantry Division's 110th Regimental Combat Team Upset the German Timetable - HistoryNet

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