Peipers Route at the battle for the bulge
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By the time Kampfgruppe Peiper got here
men of the 1st and 2nd Platoons, Company K, 394th lightly held Buchholz, the
bulk of their battalion committed elsewhere in its role as the 99th Division reserve. In addition to the few sleeping Company K riflemen, three soldiers of Battery C, 371st Field Artillery Battalion, Lieutenant Harold R. Mayer, Sergeant Kichard H. Byers and Sergeant Curtis Fletcher had spent the night in this house. As Peiper's column entered Buchholz, the infantry put up a token defence.
Determined to escape, the artillerymen attempted to reach their jeep, which they'd parked the previous night by the stone
outbuilding to your left. Seeing the Germans had already tumed the bend towards Honsfeld, they couldn't retrieve their jeep.
Mayer and his men turned back intending to go through the building in the hope of making their escape on foot. German paratroops captured Fletcher but Mayer and Byers made good their escape. Working their way through the trees in the dark, they managed to crouch beneath some low-hanging branches at the roadside just in front of where you are presently parked. As a gap occurred in the German column, they raced over the road and through the trees eventually reaching friendly lines in Hünningen, still held by the 1st Battalion, 23rd Infantry blocking Rollbahn C.
ArdennesBattle for the BulgeBuchholzNormandiePeiperVadVarVem
![Some of the most well-known photographs taken during the battle are those showing three dead GI's lying face down in the mud in front of this trough as German soldiers try on the dead men's boots. <br />
Roger Foehringer well remembers passing those dead Americans: 'There were several [three] bodies lying in the road, it was hard to visualise that these were bodies because so many German vehicles had run over them. We tried to avoid walking on them, they were like pancakes, but the Germans made us valk over them.'](https://photos.smugmug.com/History/Land/Peipers-Route-at-the-battle/i-chXpZwF/76/e2dc68cc/Ti/PEL-Peiper_Ardennes_Route_020-1-Ti.jpg)
![Some of the most well-known photographs taken during the battle are those showing three dead GI's lying face down in the mud in front of this trough as German soldiers try on the dead men's boots. <br />
Roger Foehringer well remembers passing those dead Americans: 'There were several [three] bodies lying in the road, it was hard to visualise that these were bodies because so many German vehicles had run over them. We tried to avoid walking on them, they were like pancakes, but the Germans made us valk over them.'](https://photos.smugmug.com/History/Land/Peipers-Route-at-the-battle/i-Gw7B3CP/78/9a652aad/Ti/PEL-Peiper_Ardennes_Route_021-1-Ti.jpg)
![Some of the most well-known photographs taken during the battle are those showing three dead GI's lying face down in the mud in front of this trough as German soldiers try on the dead men's boots. <br />
Roger Foehringer well remembers passing those dead Americans: 'There were several [three] bodies lying in the road, it was hard to visualise that these were bodies because so many German vehicles had run over them. We tried to avoid walking on them, they were like pancakes, but the Germans made us valk over them.'](https://photos.smugmug.com/History/Land/Peipers-Route-at-the-battle/i-QfFw75s/74/c3ae9ce8/Ti/PEL-Peiper_Ardennes_Route_022-Ti.jpg)
![Some of the most well-known photographs taken during the battle are those showing three dead GI's lying face down in the mud in front of this trough as German soldiers try on the dead men's boots. <br />
Roger Foehringer well remembers passing those dead Americans: 'There were several [three] bodies lying in the road, it was hard to visualise that these were bodies because so many German vehicles had run over them. We tried to avoid walking on them, they were like pancakes, but the Germans made us valk over them.'](https://photos.smugmug.com/History/Land/Peipers-Route-at-the-battle/i-CG25CbS/72/036ba712/Ti/PEL-Peiper_Ardennes_Route_024-1-Ti.jpg)
![Some of the most well-known photographs taken during the battle are those showing three dead GI's lying face down in the mud in front of this trough as German soldiers try on the dead men's boots. <br />
Roger Foehringer well remembers passing those dead Americans: 'There were several [three] bodies lying in the road, it was hard to visualise that these were bodies because so many German vehicles had run over them. We tried to avoid walking on them, they were like pancakes, but the Germans made us valk over them.'](https://photos.smugmug.com/History/Land/Peipers-Route-at-the-battle/i-bzS3mTb/68/172842f8/Ti/PEL-Peiper_Ardennes_Route_025-1-Ti.jpg)