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Battle Of The Bulge

It was the biggest and bloodiest single battle American soldiers ever fought -- one in which nearly 80,000 Americans were killed, maimed, or captured. The Battle of the Bulge was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves.

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Early on the morning of 16 December 1944 heavy enemy shelling and attacks by German infantry, in battalion and company strength, signaled the opening of a great German counteroffensive on the Ardennes sector of the northern Allied front.

The savage action that followed is now known to millions of Americans as the "Battle of the Bulge." The sector chosen by Hitler for this last desperate attempt to seize the initiative from the victorious Allies and to revive the fading prestige of the Third Reich was held by one newly-arrived division and two depleted and battle-worn divisions. These were thinly deployed over an extended front.

General Eisenhower had taken a calculated risk in this disposition of weak forces along the 75-mile front between Trier and Monschau because he wished to throw the strongest possible weight into the battles in the armyachen sector and along the Saar-Wissembourg front in the south. In addition, the Ardennes terrain was difficult, especially during the winter, and there were no large depots or important strategic objectives in this area.

During the earlier lull in activity on the Roer front the Germans had secretly massed a large force behind the Our River, facing the Ardennes. When fully committed in the Ardennes counteroffensive, this force would consist of the Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies, and the Seventh Army; the whole totaling some 14 infantry and 10 panzer or panzer grenadier divisions. The strategic employment of this force, which had been personally planned by Hitler, aimed at driving a wedge between the British and American forces in the north and the American and French forces in the south by a blitz thrust to the Meuse River in the Liege-Namur area. Once having seized Liege, which was the chief communication center for the American 12th Army Group, the enemy intended to drive on to the great port of Antwerp, and by its capture render the supply situation of the Allied armies in the north untenable. Finally, Hitler hoped to weaken the Allied will to continue the offensive which had progressed unremittingly from the Normandy beaches to the Siegfried Line.

On 16 and 17 December the German counteroffensive grew in intensity. The enemy struck with speed and determination all along the American front from Echternach to Kronenburg. Armored spearheads knifed into and around the weak American formations, isolating defending units and disrupting communications. Strong columns of enemy infantry and self-propelled artillery followed close on the heels of the tanks, expanding the holes in the American lines and attacking isolated units. The weather, in the first days, favored Hitler. The ground was frozen and permitted the rapid movement of the German panzer tanks. The skies were heavily overcast, and, for the first time since the beginning of the invasion, offered the German ground troops freedom from air attack.

As early as 16 December General Eisenhower had sensed that this new activity, in what had been a quiet sector, was more than merely a series of local counterattacks. On that date he instructed General Bradley to move the 10th Armored Division from the south and the 7th Armored Division from the north against the flanks of the inrushing German attack. At the same time he ordered the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions forward from their positions in SHAEF reserve.

During the first 48 hours of the attack the 4th, 28th, and 106th Infantry Divisions, and the 9th Armored Division, had appreciably blunted the initial break-through in the First Army area, but at great cost to themselves. On 18 and 19 December the armored divisions, which had been rushed forward from the Third and Ninth Armies, and the two airborne divisions, now fighting as ground troops, were engaged in the battle area.

In the absence of Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, I was in temporary command of the 101st Airborne Division. This Division - fortunately reinforced by Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division; the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion and some artillery - was directly in the path of the German attack. Its task was to hold the important road center at Bastogne.

Here, on 22 December, when the Division was encircled by enemy forces, the Germans requested that the besieged garrison surrender. And it was here, on the same day, that we gave them the answer - "Nuts!" The Germans initially could not translate this reply, but they soon understood that the Division had no intention of surrendering. Fortunately, though completely surrounded and attacked by many times its own numbers, the Bastogne garrison continued to hold this important position, and thus impeded the German drive toward the Meuse.

Meanwhile, General Eisenhower had acted to strip the rest of the Allied front and bring additional divisions into the Ardennes battleground. In the South, General Devers was ordered to extend his left and thus relieve as many of General Patton's Third Army divisions as possible, weakening his own lines and even giving ground if that was necessary. The Third Army was instructed to give up its attack at the Saar and thus free the forces necessary for a counterattack against the enemy's southern flank. North of the Bulge, Marshal Montgomery collected a British corps as a reserve in the Brussels area. General Hodge's First Army assembled an American Corps under General Collins for use as a counterattack force, and at the same time shored up the northern shoulder of the German penetration. The last Theater Reserves, the 17th Airborne Division and the 11th Armored Division, were brought up to the Meuse River to meet, if necessary, the German columns still on the march toward the west.

On 22 December the Third Army forces were in position and launched the initial large scale counterattack against the Germans' southern flank, striking from the vicinity of Arlon toward encircled Bastogne. Providentially, or so it seemed to the American soldiers, the skies cleared on 23 December and remained clear for five days. The Air Forces at once intervened, pounding the German columns and supply dumps silhouetted against the snow. The losses inflicted on the enemy were enormous, and this Allied air effort contributed greatly to the final defeat of Hitler's aspirations in the Bulge.

The Third Army attack went slowly in its initial stages against strong opposition. On the northern shoulder, after tenacious fighting, the Americans lost the St. Vith position, which had stuck like a thorn in the German flank. By the close of 26 December, the three German armies had reached the highwater mark of the counteroffensive, but the German detachments farthest westward still were short of the Meuse River line. That same night the lead tanks of the Fourth Armored Division rolled into Bastogne; they opened a corridor from the south along which reinforcements and supplies could reach the hard-fighting garrison.

All enemy attempts to sever this corridor were repulsed, and the Allies commenced to push in the nose and southern flank of the Bulge. The Third Army attack to drive obliquely across the salient, in the direction of St. Vith, moved steadily but slowly. At the close of December a regrouping in the north, carried out under Marshal Montgomery's direction, brought British reinforcements opposite the tip of the German tongue and permitted the creation of a counterattack force in the First Army area. On 3 January 1945, General Hodge's troops began a counterattack from the north, driving toward Houffalize to meet the Third Army forces moving up from the south. Slowly the First and Third armies converged, supported by heavy artillery fire and massed air attacks. But the broken terrain, the weather, and desperate delaying actions by the enemy, combined to hold the jaws of the trap open for several days. Finally, on 16 January, Hodges and Patton joined forces at Houffalize, flattening the Bulge still more. Eight days later St. Vith was retaken. The salient was collapsing rapidly, although the enemy still formed a continuous front as they retreated, and this was true despite brutal punishment dealt out by the fighter-bombers.

At the close of January all of the ground lost during the German counteroffensive had been regained, The Battle of the Bulge was ended and the Allies prepared to drive through the Siegfried Line and across the Rhine River.

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