Where was company k 36 infantry division 143 infantry regiment during battle of the bulge?

Answer 1

The US 36th Infantry Division (in peacetime the Texas-Oklahoma National Guard) was one of the three very experienced veteran divisions to hit the beach in the "second D-Day", on August 15, 1944. These landings were on the Riviera, the Mediterranean coast of France. It had been intended to make these landings at the same time as the troops went ashore in Normandy, June 6, but the Anzio campaign in Italy took too long to finish. All three of the Divisions which landed in southern France August 15 were fresh from Anzio and the capture of Rome.

With these Operation Dragoon landings the Allied line in western Europe, from north to south, was the British 21st Army Group in the North (British 2nd Army, Canadian 1st Army); the US 12th Army Group in the center (US 9th Army, US 1st Army, US 3rd Army); and now ashore in the south the US 6th Army Group (US 7th Army, French 1st Army). When the northern Ardennes Offensive ("Battle of the Bulge") came in December, the attack fell at the juntion of the US 9th and 1st Armies. At that time the 36th ID was part of VI Corps of the US 7th Army. It had been in VI Corps since the landings in August. During the month the Bulge went on the 36th ID was moved to the XXI Corps and then the XV Corps, all still a part of the US 7th Army, the southernmost US Army in the line.

The 7th Army had fought its way through the Vosges Mountains in the autumn of 1944. These mountains had never been crossed in all recorded European history by any army faced with resistance, and had never been been crossed in wintertime by any army, even unopposed. It was a region of steep mountains and few roads, a brutal, grinding campaign for the high ground overlooking one flyspeck village after another, a struggle for the rare crossroads. It was the coldest winter in Europe in one hundred years. The German 19th Army was on the other side. Finally the 7th Army had emerged on the Rhine Plain in early December.

Few remember today that the German plan for the Ardennes Offensive was actually a two-pronged attack. There was the main, massive assault in the north, but also a smaller attack in the south, the goal of which was to prevent the detaching of reinforcements for the north from the south. This southern German attack was Operation Nordwind. It got nowhere against the veteran troops down south.

Just before the Bulge the 36th ID had forced its way across the Muerthe River and through the St Marie Pass onto the Rhine Plain. The Germans made a local counter-attack December 13, but were unable to push the Division back. The 36th ID resumed attacking, northward along the Rhine River, on its west bank, to take Mannheim.

Company K was a rifle company in the 3rd Battalion of the 143rd Infantry. The 143rd Infantry was one of the three infantry regiments in the 36th Infantry Division.

Answer 2

The division was assigned to XIII Corps and held defensive positions along the Roer waiting for the next offensive. I'm assuming that's where Company C, 175th, would've been. :)