BARAQUE DE FRAITURE, BELGIUM, 20 December 1944: The German effort to encircle or bypass American forces in the Ardennes offensive required aggressive, even reckless pursuit of any breakthrough. Invariably, this strategy resulted in unexpected, but nonetheless vicious confrontations. One such conflagration involved file leading force of the German 560th Volksgrenadier Division and the recently deployed American 203rd AAA Battalion at a tiny Belgian crossroads called Baraque de Fraiture.

A small company sized patrol of the 560th’s Kampfgruppe Schumann encountered heavy automatic weapons fire while traveling north along the N-15 highway at the small crossroads. The 80 men of this bicycle-mounted reconnaissance unit lost 12 men dead and 14 captured from the deadly M16 (nicknamed ‘Meat Choppers’) and M15A1 anti-aircraft half-tracks of the 203rd AAA Battalion. In this instance, German aggressiveness proved costly. Although this first battle of Baraque de Fraiture was to be an American victory, the German forces to follow were determined to take this vital position...