394 Infantry Regiment (USA) heavy shelling and attack by the Germans
394 Infantry Regiment (USA) heavy shelling by the Germans and the beginning of the battle of Lanzarath
The Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon from the 394th Infantry Regiment of the 99th division was the most decorated platoon of World War II for action on the first morning of the Battle of the Bulge defending a key road in the vicinity of the Losheim Gap.
Led by 20-year old Lieutenant Lyle Bouck Jr., the second youngest man in the unit, the unit of 18 men along with four U.S. Forward Artillery Observers from Battery C, 371st Field Artillery, held off an entire German battalion of over 500 men during a 10-hour long fight, inflicting 92 casualties on the Germans. The platoon seriously disrupted the entire Sixth Panzer Army's schedule of attack along the northern edge of the offensive. At dusk on 16 December, about 50 German paratroopers finally flanked the platoon and captured the remaining 15 soldiers.
Two who had been sent on foot to regimental headquarters to seek reinforcements were also later captured, and a member of the forward artillery observation platoon assisting the platoon was killed.