With an initial strength of 800 officers and enlisted men, the remaining 250 members of the Battalion were ordered on 7 January 1945 to attack the Belgian village of Rochelinval over open ground and without artillery support.

Virtually nothing of the unit's history was known to the American public until the 1990s when renewed interest prompted its veterans to seek recognition for their costly success at Rochelinval.

The 1st Battalion, 551st Parachute Infantry Regiment was activated on 26 November 1942 at Fort Kobbe in the Panama Canal Zone.

While at Camp Patrick Henry, the men picked up a unique mascot, a short-haired black and tan dachshund puppy they stole from the yard of the port commander.

Upon arrival in Panama, they trained for approximately eight months in jungle warfare to prepare for a planned invasion of the Vichy French island of Martinique.

Lieutenant Colonel Wood Joerg, the Battalion's commanding officer, earned a great deal of his men's loyalty and fierce respect when he successfully faced down the Master, risking a court-martial, and the crew was able to keep their mascot.

The unit underwent intense training and was selected to participate in testing the feasibility of using gliders as paratroop transport.

[5] In March 1944, Lieutenant Colonel Joerg rejoined the unit, and on 23 April 1944, the Battalion departed Norfolk, Virginia for Italy.

They trained at Camp Wright in Trapani and Marsala, Sicily during June 1944, before moving to Lido di Roma, near Rome in July.

As a non-divisional unit for the entire war, the Battalion was attached to the provisional 1st Airborne Task Force for the Allied invasion of southern France in August 1944.

The 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion arrived in Werbomont, Belgium and entered the Battle of the Bulge on 21 December 1944 with a strength of more than 643 officers and enlisted men.

Their first days in the Battle of the Bulge were, according to paratrooper Don Garrigues, miserable: "no sleep, frozen feet, trench foot, knee deep snow, cold food and hallucinations."

[2] The evening of the next day they carried out the raid against the Oberst Friederich Kittel's 62nd Volksgrenadier Division in the tiny hamlet of Noirefontaine, taking 18 casualties in the process.

He thought the attack, down slope by his un-camouflaged men in the daylight across a half-mile expanse of foot-deep snow at a concealed, alert enemy, to be suicidal.

"[3]: xiv [9] Like the independent 509th Infantry Battalion, the unit's strength had been overwhelmed by battle, and paratrooper replacements were not in the pipeline.

The 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion is cited for exceptional heroism in performance of duty in combat against the enemy at the beginning of the American counteroffensive in the Ardennes, Belgium, culminating in its heroic attack and seizure of the critical, heavily fortified, regimental German position of Rochelinval on the Salm River.

On 3 January 1945, the 551st from the division's line of departure at Basse Bodeux attacked against great odds and secured the imposing ridge of Herispehe.

On 4 January, the battalion conducted a rare fixed bayonet attack of machine gun nests that killed 64 Germans.

On 5 and 6 January, the 551st captured the towns of Dairomont and Quartiers, parrying German counterattacks while often fighting in hand-to-hand combat.

At less than half strength, on 7 January the battalion confronted its final critical objective: Rochelinval on the Salm River.

Initially repelled into a hailstorm of artillery and machine gun fire toward a high ridge of entrenched enemy, the 551st finally overwhelmed the defenders and captured Rochelinval, shutting off the last bridge of egress to the Germans in a 10-mile sector of the Salm River.

In fighting a numerically superior foe with dominant high ground advantage, the 551st lost over four-fifths of its men, including the death of its inspirational commander, Lieutenant Colonel Wood Joerg, as he led the last attack.

[7]Many WWII momentos and memorabilia including uniforms, helmets, equipment are on display at December 44 Museum, at La Gleize, Belgium.

It includes the unit commander Lt. Col. Wood G. Joerg's signature beret (killed on 7 January 1945 at Rochelinval) A monument was built at Leignon, Belgium, to memorialize Pfc Milo Huempfner, who was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for action there on 23 December 1944.

In the SandHill Game land on the west side of Camp Mackall, NC a monument was dedicated (1 JULY 1992) to the heroic men of the 551st PIB.

Joe character Dusty displayed a patch on his left sleeve that implied he had been a part of 551st Parachute Infantry battalion before being assigned to the G.I.