ϟϟ-Kampfgruppe Hansen: The Clash at Poteau between Hansen and Mayes

Leibstandarte SS Panzergrenadiers during the Ardennes Offensive

SS-Panzergrenadier-Regiment 1 on the road to Poteau

Leibstandarte SS Panzergrenadiers after the Clash at Poteau

The famous clash between SS-Kampfgruppe Hansen and U.S. Army Task Force Mayes at Poteau is often misleading described as the Ambush at Poteau, however, it was more of an encounter. Both units were heading in the opposite direction. Early in the morning on December 18 1944 an convoy of the U.S. 14th Cavalry Group run into the Hansen, who provided the southern flank protection to SS-Kampfgruppe Peiper. The lightly armed Task Force was no match. The Waffen-SS achieved complete surprise and forced the Americans to abandon their vehicles and pull back to the town of Poteau. A couple of SS war correspondents who arrived at the scene shortly after the encounter, took some staged and posed shots for the benefit of the Deutsche Wochenschau that have gone down in documentary history. The shots showing SS-Panzergrenadiers and men dressed in Luftwaffe gear, most likely transferred former Luftwaffe personnel still in their LW uniforms, loitering around the U.S. wreckage along the road to Poteau. They pass burning and wreckedout M3 half-tracks, M8 armoured cars, jeeps and M5 Stuart light tanks. The destroyed M8 Greyhound scout car belonged to the Mayes, composed of elements of the 14th Cavalry Group and 820th Tank Destroyer Battalion. Over the years many scholars and historians have attempted to identify the Waffen-SS soldiers who appears in this German news reel. The only point of agreement seems to be that they belonged to the attacking force of Hansen and or elements of Schnelle Gruppe Knittel, who showed up at the scene shortly after the encounter. The film is taken near Poteau on 6.Panzer-Armee's front on the northern shoulder of the Bulge on the Poteau and Recht road on December 18 1944. The clips come from a captured SS-Propagandakompanie film that is believed to have been shot by SS-Kriegsberichter Max Büschel's cameraman SS-Unterscharführer Schäfer. Schäfer's dispatch rider was captured by men of the U.S. 3rd Armored Division the following day carrying the undeveloped film. Credit: Frank Studenski, AHF inter alia. Credit images: Julius Backman. U.S. National Archives.