Evening star., 1944-12-25
Former Illinois Grid
Captain Uses Football
Strategy 10 Halt Nazis
Ry HAL ROYLE.

Associated Press War Correspondent.
WfaH AMERICAN TROOPS
NEAR ST. WITH, Belgium, Dec. a.
Behind the dramatic fall of this
small Belgian crossroads, whose vital
highway network was denied to the
Germans in week of steady bat
ting, lies story of the brilliant
heroism of football star turned
warrior.
Big 1t. Col. Thomas Riggs of
Huntington, w. Va, proved on the
battlefield that he was as able
leader in war. as he was on the
gridirons of the Big Ten.
The six-foot, two-inch, 250-pound
tackle, captain of the 1910 Univer-
sity Of Illinois football team, found
it wasn't problem of tearing holes
In the other sides line. 1t was a
problem, instead, of blocking out a
heavy opponent and keeping him
from breaking through and Destroy
ing Col. Riggs own team.
Keeps Enemy OFF Balance.
To Col. Riggs it was the same
problem he had met more than
once on the football field, and he
solved it by keeping the enemy off
balance.
AS commander of one unit of
combat engineers, he was given the
assignment of delaying the German
armored march into st. With, from
whose great road net the Nazis
could spread out swiftly.
Time was needed, precious hours
and days, to mass American armor
and infantry like blood cells around
an infection. Col. Riggs organized
and personally led a defense that
halted the chafing Germans and
made name for himself that will
live, so far as his division is con-
cerned, much longer than his foot
ball fame.
He stuck to his post, although the
Germans shelled the area heavily
with giant 240-millimeter shells,
destroying a convent in st. With
and killing many people there.
Col. Riggs knew the main blow
was coming directly from Schon-
berg, where two columns of the
enemy had converged after sur
rounding strong infantry forma-
tions from his own division.
He had only 10 antitank guns
and 300 men to halt the Germans"
said 1t. Wilbur R. Wensley, Free
port, N. Y.
Waiting for Germans.
His engineers built a strong road
blockade about 2 miles east of St
With and they were there waiting
when the German tanks and in
fantry hit. Col. Riggs had his guns
well placed and he fought the Jer-
ries to a standstill He wasn't sat
isfled with just stopping them, he
kept communicating them to keep
them from getting set and he led
practically every counterattack
himself.
While the baked Nazis milled
around Col. Riggs road block, Amer
ican tank and infantry outfits in
the vicinity grouped around st. With
for an all-out assault. 1t wasn't
long coming.
Angry at having their time table
upset, the German commanders be-
gan to circle with their fluid COL
umns and eventually delivered a
grand-scale attack from three di-
rections, north. northeast and east,
where Col. Riggs still held his road
block.
Realizing that every day they
were held up further removed the
possibility of achieving their grand
lose scheme, the Germans hurled
elements of its crack SIS Panzer
Division and two full regiments of
volksgrenadiers with large numbers
of supporting tanks against the
town.
They probably were aided by
treachery within as well as the
force without. Soldiers reported pro-
German civilian Sympathizers
flashed code messages to the Nazi
inflltrating troops.
Many Nazi Sympathizers.
Capt. Oswald D. Karter of Mobile
Ala, signal officer, found a radio
signal set in one home and 1t.
Wensley estimated approximately
80 per cent of the civilians who
stayed in the town were Nazi SYM
pathizers.' st. Vith's population had
a high percentage of Germans.
Discussing the Importance of St.
With, 1t. Col. Robert P. Stout,
Kansas City, said:
The Germans hoped to break