Baraque de Fraiture - Parker's crossroad

Site of the "Alamo Defense" by the 589th Field Artillery, Maj. Arthur C. Parker III, commanding. Battle of the Bulge, 20 December to 23 December 1944. Elements of the 106th Infantry Division and other American small units versus the 2nd SS Panzer Division.

A World War II vintage 105mm howitzer is now displayed here at Baraque de Fraiture, marking the place where fewer than 400 U.S. troops resisted a German Panzer division for three crucial days during the first phase of the Battle of the Bulge.

Here a skeleton headquarters and a bob-tailed, three gun battery of light howitzers, the forlorn remnant of a once potent 589th Field Artillery Battalion, chugged wearily up to the junction under the command of Major Arthur C. Parker III. The battalion's mission was to organize and defend the crossroads when a great wave of Nazi armor and infantry had cracked the Allied Front, reaching north-westward toward the crossings of the Meuse River and the vital port of Antwerp. A dangerous split between the British and American armies was a real possibility.