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IR 169’s senior commanders entrusted Rombach with full latitude to plan and execute the raid. To keep the operation as simple as possible, Rombach was adamant to only use the resources organic to his own company and declined the support of higher echelon heavy artillery and mortars. The raiding party would consist of a squad-sized group a volunteers, a single light machine gun from the 1st MG Company and three Granatenwerfers.

The Granatenwerfer 16 was a grenade launcher which bridged the gap between hand-thrown grenades and the light minenwerfers. This weapon threw a small grenade with a 400g high explosive charge to a maximum range of about 300 meters. A practiced crew could maintain a rate of fire of 4-5 rounds per minute. The Gr.W.16s proved to be effective trench weapons for the Germans. They had a high rate of fire, practical range and delivered a powerful detonation punch.

For three consecutive nights before the raid, Rombach, accompanied by one man, crawled through no-man’s-land to conduct a personal reconnaissance of the French digging. He carefully recorded their activities, habits and time schedules. On the fourth night he was ready to execute the mission. The storm troop was made up of 17 hand selected men, including Medical Orderly Jung and one light machine gun crew. The infantrymen were armed only with pistols and as many hand grenades as could be carried. The three granatenwerfers were positioned in the second trench-line of IR 169 trench section Abschnitt04. The explosion of the patrol’s first hand grenade would be the signal for the grenade launches to open fire

Rombach divided the patrol in five groups. He personally led the assault team of three men, with the objective of snatching a French prisoner. Two hand grenade teams, of three men each, were to align on the flanks of the attack area to disrupt the enemy response. A third team of the remaining seven men were positioned behind the assault element. They were to throw the first volley of grenades into the trench. The machine gun was placed to the west of the patrol and just outside the German trenches.

In the early morning hours, the storm troop crawled out of a forward deployed sap trench and carefully cleared a pathway through the German obstacle field. The raiding party silently crept through the no-man’s-land and took up their assigned positions near the objective. The assault team then snipped the outer strands of the barbed wire that protected the target. The storm troop waited in complete silence for 30 minutes. Just as Leutnant Rombach was about to give the attack command, he detected a large mass of French troops, with rifles, picks and shovels strapped on their backs, enter the trenches before him. He estimated there were now about 100 enemy troops now before him, too many for his small raiding force to take on. The Germans waited another endless hour.

Rombach finally assessed that the majority of the French troops were moving off to right. After waiting several more minutes, Rombach blew a whistle to signal to attack. An instant later, a wave of hand grenades were tossed as Rombach fired a flare pistol into the trench, illuminating a scene of panic and destruction. The assault team, led by Rombach and Unteroffizer Ruhmann, slipped through the cut wire and leapt into the trench. The French in the second trench were quick to react and a furious grenade battle erupted, with the German squad throwing 150 hand grenades. Ruhmann, fighting with great fury, was hit in the leg and evacuated by Orderly Jung. The assault team grabbed a stunned French sapper and the entire raiding party raced back to their lines. To cover the retreat, the machine gun fired 500 rounds while the three grenade launchers laid a barrage of 80 grenades on the patrol’s endangered right flank.

Rombach’s troop, along with their prisoner, made it safely back to German lines. The only casualty was the lightly injured wounded Ruhmann. Unteroffizer Ruhmann received an Iron Cross First Class and Medic Orderly Jung an Iron Cross Second Class. While any tactical benefits derived from the raid were short-lived, the action was recognized as 52nd Division’s exemplar on how to conduct a successful raid. Resulting teaching points included the importance of detailed planning, violence of action, designating soldiers to evacuate prisoners and use of concentrated indirect fire to protect the raider’s flanks.

IR 169’s tour of duty in the Juvincourt trenches ended on 17 June, when they were pulled back to a reserve camp eight miles behind the lines. The eight week posting in the Juvincourt trenches cost IR 169 ten officers (three killed) and 201 enlisted men. A month later, IR 169 suffered much worse losses in a horrific week on the Winterberg. IR 169 also returned these same Juvincourt trenches in May 1918 for the launch of the 1918 Aisne Offensive.

Citation: Description of the Gr. W. 16 [Weapon description comes from the “Forgotten Weapons” website, http://www.forgottenweapons.com.] Additional citations are found at www.ironregiment169.com.

Google Map. This depicts the greater Juvincourt sector, with blue lines reflecting German lines positions in the first phases of the Neville Offensive. IR 169 was in the trenches directly before Juvincourt. The Chemin des Dames and Winterberg are to the West.

Raid Map: Adapted by Megan Moore from map in Otto Lais’ autobiography, Die Schlacht im Kreidekalk (The Battle in the Limestone Chalk), Verlag G. Braun, Karlsruhe, Germany, 1942.

Next Installment: Horror on the Winterberg, July 1917.