Welcome to the Rallying Point of the 3rd Battalion 327th Infantry Regiment(OIF1) Combat Veterans.

Bastogne Origins

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At Bastogne, Belgium, the 327 held half of the perimeter (including the 401, which was acting as the Regiment's 3rd Battalion and later officially became a part of the 327). Numerous intense fights erupted along the 327 sector including two brutal fights at Marvie and more to the west in the 401 section. The Germans attacking were of the Volksgrenadiers and the elite tank-based Panzer Lehr. At Marvie the 327 was outnumbered by 15 to 1. Facing only two US companies, G Company, supported by several tanks from the 10th Armored Division and E Company in reserve, the German commander took his whole division further west. At Marvie, the Germans lost six tanks and several half tracks. One tank did break into Marvie, but was destroyed trying to make a run towards Bastogne. Several days later, during the night of 23 December, the enemy attacked in force with tanks. The road through Marvie was blocked when G Company mistook a US tank destroyer for a German tank and destroyed it on the village bridge. The Germans overran Hill 500 just to the west of Marvie and broke through the gap between F and G Company. The enemy then put rear pressure on the F Company Command Post. A platoon sized paratrooper element came to support F Company. The German forces managed to place tanks behind US lines between Marvie and Bastogne. The glider men of Company G and Company F were pushed back from 500 to 1,000 yards during the intense fighting, but did not break. Unable to make quick progress, the Germans pressed the attack until morning, but withdrew when the German Command Center was destroyed by US artillery. Again, the 327 was badly outnumbered by the enemy.

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After the break through by General Patton's tanks, the 327th proceeded to the north sector of the Bastogne theater of operations. There, 2nd Battalion was involved in clearing Champs after a German armored element broke through paratrooper lines. Companies A and C suffered intense casualties and were consolidated into one company call ACE. Later, the 327 made an open field maneuver against armored enemy troops east of Foy, which helped secure that village. The ferocity and speed of the open-field attack surprised the Germans and the paratrooper regiments on the flanks of the attack. German forces attacked the flank and surrounded ACE Company in Bois Jacques. After that, the enemy was primarily in withdrawal mode back to Germany.

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Like other Glider regiments of the era, the 327 is sometimes overlooked by histography of the 101st Airborne Division and the North-west Europe Campaign. Several companies of the 327 suffered casualty rates comparable to other paratroop regiments. On D+2, glider flights into Market Garden suffered a 30% loss of gliders. Later, the 327 was involved in action near Haguenau in the Alsace.

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Operation Iraqi Freedom - The Invasion

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In early 2003 the entire 101st Airborne Division deployed to Kuwait in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom where the 1st Brigade Combat Team made up of the 327th Infantry Regiment under the command of Colonel Ben Hodges and its support elements prepared for battle at Camp Pennsylvania. The majority of the 327th Infantry Regiment later shifted to Camp Udairi, Kuwait and from there, conducted a massive air assault into southern Iraq while other soldiers crossed the Kuwaiti-Iraqi border in a massive maneuver known as a GAC, or Ground Assault Convoy. Once in Iraq, the 327th encountered heavy to light resistance from both fleeing Iraqi soldiers as well as the Fedayeen Saddam and other less organized fighters. The 327th, under LTC Edmund Palekas, fought through An Najaf, Al Kufa, Karbala, Baghdad, and then headed north to conduct Stability and Security Operations in Qayyarah West and Mosul or Al Mawsil.

While deployed in Mosul, Iraq, 3-327 was attached to 2nd Brigade, 502nd, when they killed Saddam Hussein’s sons, Uday and Qusay Hussein. This was Operation Tapeworm in which 3-327 led the isolation and containment of the objective in support of TF Delta.

They returned to the U.S. in early 2004 and were re-deployed to Iraq again in the fall of 2005. During their second tour in Iraq, they were stationed in the Kirkuk province under the command of LTC Marc Hutson and CSM David Allard. The majority of the 1st Brigade Combat Team were positioned on FOB Warrior at the Kirkuk Regional Air Base while 1st Battalion and other attachments were spread out amongst FOB McHenry outside of Hawijah, FOB Caldwell just south of Kirkuk, and FOB Bernstien southwest of Kirkuk.

For their third OIF deployment, the Bastogne Bulldogs were split up, with the 1st Battalion deployed near Baiji, Iraq, and the 2nd Battalion deployed in the vicinity of Samarra, Iraq. Both battalions served 15 month deployments beginning in September 2007, and ending in late November 2008.

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