****Lt General Fritz Bayerlein, Commanding Gen. of the crack Panzer Lehr Division, was on a hill north or Singling on 6 Dec 1944, when tanks of the 4th Armored Division broke open hills to the south in a frontal attack on the town. After the war ended he remembered that sight and spoke of it with professional enthusiasm as "an outstanding tank attack, such as I have rarely seen, over ideal tank terrain."
  At the moment when he saw the American tanks in motion, the attack was not his problem. His Division, after costly losses had been withdrawn, relivied by the 11th Panzer Division. Bayerlein himself had remained behind only because some of his tank destroyer units had been temporarily attached to the relieving forces.
  The attack which General Bayerlein so admired were the last actions in Lorraine of the US 4th Armored Division. For nearly a month the division had been fighting in the most difficult terrain and under the most trying weather conditions of its entire campaign in France. Casualties in men and material had been very heavy, largely because constant rains prevented air cover and because swampy ground either confined the tanks to roads or so reduced thier maneuverability in cross-country attack that they fell easy prey to the enemy's prepared positions.
  From a military standpoint, Singling is important not as a town but as a terrain feature. An agricultural village of some 50 squat houses, it is strung along about a half-mile of the highway from Achen east to Bitche and the German border. The picturesque insignificance of Singling conceals a military reality. Some of these farmhouses have meter-thick reinforced concrete walls; the garden walls are high and thick; concrete pillboxes stand guard at the entrances to town, in the valley north, and on the ridge south. For Singling is in the Maginot Line, and its position along a southwest-northeast ridge is tactically important. Elements of the 61st Anti-tank Battalion and tanks of 11th Panzer Division held the town. 
  How difficult it would be to take was discovered on 5 Dec by the 37th Tank Battalion, commanded by Lt Col Creighten W. Abrams, when it attacked north from Schmittviller, with orders to advance as far as possible. The attack carried only to within 1000 meters of Singling and was there stopped by difficult terrain and heavy artillery and direct fire from Singling and beyond. Half the battalions Shermans were lost to mud and enemy guns, while five were hit almost simultaneously on topping a ridge south of town. Others bogged in the sticky ground and were destroyed or disabled.
  That night, Task force Abrams of Combat Command A, 4th AD, whose principal combat elements were the 37th Tank battalion, 51st Armored Infanrty battalion, 94th Field Artillery Battalion (105mm), and 2/3 of Co B of the 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion, was ordered to continue the attack toward Singling in the morning.
  At 0800hrs 6 Dec, B co of 37th TB, with mounted elements of 51 AIB, advanced rapidly towards Singling, supported by fire from A co and an arty prep by the 94th Art. The Germans let the American forces advance to within 500 meters before engaging with accurate anti-tank fire. The tank platoons carrying the infantry reached a hedge just south of town and they slowed to let the infantry dismount. Bitter house-to-house fighting broke out as the Americans were engaged by Panthers, Sp guns and light machine guns, and a Wurfrahmen rocket carrier. 2/3 of B co's Shermans were destroyed or disabled in short order, but the infantry forces managed to gain a small foothold on the edge of the village.
  Around noon, enemy forces were observed in the valley north of Singling, forming for a counterattack. Shortly thereafter, Panthers and grenadiers accompanied by two more Wurfrahmen moved into town and were only stopped by the heroic efforts of the American infantry and bazooka teams hiding in the buildings. 
  To relieve the embattled  forces in town, Abrams committed C co with more mounted infantry to the attack and the street fighting erupted anew. As the situation developed into a stalemate, Lt Col Abrams ordered a covered withdrawal from Singling. Shortly thereafter, with the sun already set, Corps artillery began a massive bombardment of the town using Time on Target attacks from several battalions at once.
  The next morning, the tanks and infantry moved back short of the crest south of Singling but ordered not to advance any further. They were relieved by units of the 12th Armored Division later that day. Singling fell on 10 Dec, after most of the enemy units defending there had withdrawn from the punishing artillery bombardments.

 The full story and eyewitness accounts can be found in the US Army field manual  FM-17-3-2 "Armor in Battle".