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Late on Christmas eve, Lt. Colonel Walter Richardson was commanding a tank battalion at Manhay when the 2nd SS Panzer Division began its attack on the vital crossroads. The timing of that attack was perfect; another tank battalion from the 7th Armored Division was pulling out just as the attack began. In the confusion of the attack, the Germans got across the small bridge before it could be destroyed. Then two German tanks snuck into the retreating American armored column. A few minutes later they swung out into a field beside the road and began pouring fire into the defenseless American vehicles. The Americans scattered. Richardson jumped into an abandoned Sherman and took a shot at a Tiger, but the round bounced harmlessly off the huge German tank and its countershot destroyed Richardson's tank.
Richardson hopped into a jeep and bugged out, stopping a mile away in Grandmenil. There he found two American M10 tank destroyers. He positioned them to intercept any approaching German armor. Within a few minutes, two Panthers appeared, churning through a field in the blinding snowstorm. The first TD knocked one out with a shot into its side. But a third Panther blew up the American TD with a lucky hit on its ammunition rack. The second M10 now tried a frontal shot against a Panther. It bounced off, and the Panther returned the fire. The Panther's second shot knocked out the TD.
Realizing that he'd been beaten again, Richardson called down an artillery barrage on the little village and bugged out for the second time that night. In three days of continuous fighting his command had been reduced from 65 tanks to under a dozen.
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