On the morning of December 18th, the full weight of the Sixth Panzer Army came down on the defenders of the little village of Rocherath, northeast of St. Vith. Standing directly across the path of the German steamroller was the 1st Battalion of the 9th Infantry Regiment. In heavy fog, German tanks bore down on the foxhole line and broke right through. Company A was overrun by German infantry; Lt. Stephen Truppner called for artillery fire on his own position. For half an hour an entire artillery battalion shelled Truppner's position. Twelve men from Company A escaped. Company K was similarly overwhelmed; its commander, Captain Jack Garvey, radioed from his cellar command post that he would not retreat without bringing his men. Only eleven men from Company K escaped.
Companies B and C managed to hold on. They let the German tanks roll past them, then turned to fight the oncoming German infantry with grenades and bayonets. When the enemy infantry had been driven off, bazooka teams went out into the fog to stalk the German tanks. Lieutenant. R. A. Parker knocked out six enemy tanks in this manner.
Colonel McKinley, the battalion commander, knew that he could not retreat while his battalion was under direct fire from German tanks. Miraculously, a platoon of Shermans appeared shortly thereafter. They counterattacked towards the Company A and K positions, but nobody was left alive there. Then, under the covering fire of the Shermans, the shattered remains of 1st Battalion withdrew. Only 240 men out of nearly 1,000 were still alive.