Battle of the Bulge

• 1. Introduction

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  The Battle of the Bulge began at 05:30 on the 16th of December 1944, when 1,600 German artillery pieces opened fire along an 80-mile front in the forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. For 90 minutes the ground shook. American soldiers who had been resting in a sector considered so quiet it doubled as a training ground suddenly found themselves at the center of the largest German offensive since the fall of France.

  The Germans called their operation Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein, 'Operation Watch on the Rhine,' a name deliberately chosen to suggest a defensive posture. That deception was one of the most successful of the entire war. Allied commanders had convinced themselves the Germans were incapable of mounting a major offensive this late in the conflict. The men sleeping in the Ardennes that December morning would find out how wrong that assessment was.

  The offensive would last until the 25th of January 1945. By the time it was over, it had become what historians would call the largest and bloodiest single battle fought by the United States in the Second World War. What drove Germany to gamble everything on a single strike? And how did the Americans, caught completely off guard, manage to hold?

• 2. A Desperate Gamble

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  Adolf Hitler first outlined his counter-offensive plan to his generals on the 16th of September 1944. The timing tells its own story. The Allied breakout from Normandy at the end of July had accelerated into a rout. By December, the situation for Germany was dire on both fronts. On the Eastern Front, the Soviets' Operation Bagration during the summer had destroyed much of Germany's Army Group Center. German intelligence estimated the Soviets were preparing a winter offensive for around the 20th of December.

  Hitler's plan was breathtakingly ambitious. He wanted his forces to pierce the American lines between Monschau and Wasserbillig, cross the Ardennes in two days, reach the Meuse River between Liège and Dinant by the third day, and seize the Belgian port of Antwerp by the fourth. Capturing Antwerp would trap four Allied armies without supplies behind German lines. Hitler believed that success in the west might compel the Americans and British to settle for a separate peace, independent of the Soviet Union.

  Senior German field marshals were not convinced. Both Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model and Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt felt the Antwerp objective was too ambitious given Germany's scarce resources. They drafted alternative, more limited plans: Model's Unternehmen Herbstnebel and von Rundstedt's Fall Martin. Together they presented what they called a 'small solution' to Hitler. He refused to listen.

  Rundstedt later testified that while he recognized the merit of Hitler's operational plan, he saw from the very first that 'all, absolutely all conditions for the possible success of such an offensive were lacking.' Hitler traveled by special train to Giessen on the 11th of December, taking up residence in the Adlerhorst command complex at Kransberg Castle, the same site from which he had overseen the successful 1940 campaign. He was drawing on a faith in omens that his generals did not share.

• 3. The Fog of Deception

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  German preparation for the offensive was carried out under conditions of extraordinary secrecy. Units assembling in the Ardennes were issued charcoal instead of wood for cooking fires to reduce visible smoke. A strict radio silence order was imposed on all matters concerning the attack. After the 20th of July 1944 assassination attempt against Hitler, security within the Wehrmacht had tightened considerably, and leaks were rare.

  The Allies had grown dependent on Ultra, the intelligence derived from decrypting German radio messages at Bletchley Park. Ultra intercepted some 40-50 messages per day and had recorded a quadrupling of German fighter forces. One intercepted Luftwaffe message used the term Jägeraufmarsch, meaning 'Fighter Deployment,' which implied preparations for an offensive. But because the Germans were now communicating through telephone and teleprinter rather than radio inside their own territory, the volume of decipherable traffic was far lower than usual.

  Three American intelligence officers did read the warning signs correctly. The U.S. First Army intelligence chief, U.S. Third Army intelligence chief Colonel Oscar Koch, and SHAEF intelligence officer Brigadier General Kenneth Strong all predicted that German forces had both the capability and intention to strike the U.S. VIII Corps area. Their predictions were largely dismissed by the U.S. 12th Army Group. Strong informed Bedell Smith of his suspicions in December, and Smith sent Strong to warn Lieutenant General Omar Bradley. Bradley's response was succinct: 'Let them come.'

  On the 8th of December 1944, U.S. Rangers took Hill 400 during the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest at great cost. The following day, soldiers who relieved the Rangers reported considerable German troop movement inside the Ardennes. No one in the chain of command connected the dots.

• 4. Northern Shoulder: Elsenborn Ridge

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  While popular memory often centers on Bastogne, the battle for Elsenborn Ridge was arguably the decisive action of the entire offensive. The 6th Panzer Army, commanded by SS Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich, had been personally selected by Hitler as the offensive's main strike force. It included the elite of the Waffen-SS, among them the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. These were the best-equipped formations the Germans could field.

  Opposing them were untested troops of the 99th Infantry Division, who had never seen heavy combat. Yet the 99th held. They prevented the best-equipped German armored units from advancing and forced them to reroute through unfavorable alternative terrain that slowed the entire offensive.

  Kampfgruppe Peiper, the armored spearhead, consisted of 4,800 men and 600 vehicles under SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper. Its newest tank, the Tiger II, consumed two US gallons of fuel per mile. The Germans only had enough fuel for an estimated 90 to 100 miles of travel, not nearly enough to reach Antwerp. A key road through the Losheim Gap was blocked by two collapsed overpasses that German engineers failed to repair during the first day, forcing Peiper to reroute through Lanzerath.

  At Lanzerath, a single 18-man Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon from the 99th Infantry Division, together with four Forward Air Controllers, held up a German battalion of roughly 500 paratroopers until sunset, causing 92 casualties. This one small stand created a bottleneck that set Kampfgruppe Peiper more than 16 hours behind schedule from the very first day.

  Historian John S. D. Eisenhower wrote that 'the action of the 2nd and 99th Divisions on the northern shoulder could be considered the most decisive of the Ardennes campaign.' The division finished the battle having inflicted casualties at a ratio of 18 to one against an enemy that had outnumbered them five to one.

• 5. Massacre and Momentum

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  By the afternoon of the 17th of December, Kampfgruppe Peiper was near the hamlet of Baugnez, equidistant between the town of Malmedy and Ligneuville, when they encountered elements of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. After a brief fight the lightly armed Americans surrendered. Approximately 150 prisoners were gathered in a field under light guard.

  About fifteen minutes after Peiper's advance guard passed through, the main body under SS-Sturmbannführer Werner Pötschke arrived. The SS troopers opened fire on the prisoners. Most were shot where they stood. Accounts of the killing vary, but at least 84 of the prisoners of war were murdered. Survivors carried the news through Allied lines, and knowledge of the killings spread rapidly.

  On the same day, in Wereth, Belgium, approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Saint-Vith, eleven Black American soldiers were tortured after surrendering and then shot by men of the 1st SS Panzer Division belonging to Schnellgruppe Knittel. Some of the injuries sustained before death included bayonet wounds to the head, broken legs, and severed fingers. The perpetrators were never punished for this crime. It was not until 2001 that a group began working on a tribute to remember the eleven men killed at Wereth.

  Peiper's forces continued west but were repeatedly delayed. At Trois-Ponts on the 18th of December, retreating American engineers blew the bridge as the Germans reached it at 11:30. A Luftwaffe resupply mission later went badly when SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke insisted Peiper's provided grid coordinates were wrong, parachuting supplies directly into American hands in Stoumont. By the 23rd of December, Peiper's men had run out of food and virtually all fuel. The 800 remaining troops abandoned their vehicles and heavy equipment and attempted to break through Allied lines on foot. Most escaped, but Kampfgruppe Peiper as a fighting force was finished.

• 6. Bastogne and McAuliffe's Reply

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  On the 19th of December, senior Allied commanders met in a bunker in Verdun. Bastogne sat at the center of a network of 11 hard-topped roads through the heavily forested, mountainous terrain of the Ardennes. Whoever held Bastogne controlled movement through much of the region. Eisenhower told his generals, 'The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table.'

  Patton's response was characteristic: 'Hell, let's have the guts to let the bastards go all the way to Paris. Then, we'll really cut 'em off and chew 'em up.' Unknown to the other commanders present, Patton had already ordered his staff to prepare three contingency plans for a northward turn in at least corps strength. When Eisenhower asked how long it would take him to strike north, the movement had already begun. Patton said he could attack with two divisions within 48 hours.

  By the 21st of December the Germans had surrounded Bastogne. The garrison included the 101st Airborne Division, the all-African American 969th Artillery Battalion, and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division. Most of the medical supplies and medical personnel had been captured. By the 22nd of December, artillery ammunition was restricted to 10 rounds per gun per day.

  That day the German commander Lüttwitz demanded the town's surrender. When Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101st, was told of the demand, he responded in frustration: 'Nuts!' His staff later reminded him they needed a formal reply. Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kinnard observed that McAuliffe's initial response would be 'tough to beat.' So McAuliffe wrote it down, it was typed and delivered to the Germans, and 'NUTS!' became one of the most famous replies in American military history.

  At 16:50 on the 26th of December, Company D of the 37th Tank Battalion, 4th Armored Division, reached Bastogne from the south, ending the siege. The relief had come from Patton's Third Army, which had executed one of the most remarkable pivots in the history of armored warfare.

• 7. Infiltrators and Confusion

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  Otto Skorzeny, the German SS-commando officer who had rescued the former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, led Operation Greif, a plan to infiltrate English-speaking German soldiers dressed in American uniforms behind Allied lines. Although they failed to capture the Meuse bridges, their presence caused confusion far exceeding their actual numbers.

  Even General George Patton was alarmed. On the 17th of December he described the situation to Eisenhower as 'Krauts... speaking perfect English... raising hell, cutting wires, turning road signs around, spooking whole divisions, and shoving a bulge into our defenses.' Checkpoints appeared across the Allied rear. American military police quizzed soldiers on things every American was expected to know: the identity of Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, baseball scores, or state capitals. General Omar Bradley was briefly detained when he correctly identified Springfield as the capital of Illinois, because the MP questioning him believed the capital was Chicago.

  Rumors spread that Skorzeny's men were tasked with going to Paris to kill or capture Eisenhower. Security around the general was greatly increased and he was confined to his headquarters. When captured operatives were tried after the war, Skorzeny was acquitted at the Dachau Trials in 1947. He had argued that as long as his men did not actually fight while wearing American uniforms, the tactic was a legitimate ruse of war. Most of his men had worn their German uniforms underneath the American ones precisely because they understood what capture in enemy clothing would mean.

• 8. The Reckoning

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  On New Year's Day 1945, the Germans launched two operations to keep the offensive alive. At 09:15, the Luftwaffe launched Unternehmen Bodenplatte, a major attack on Allied airfields in the Low Countries. Hundreds of aircraft struck Allied airfields, destroying or severely damaging some 465 aircraft. The Luftwaffe lost 277 planes, 62 to Allied fighters and 172 largely to Allied flak guns positioned to defend against German V-1 attacks and equipped with proximity-fused shells. The Luftwaffe never recovered from those losses.

  The final accounting was devastating for Germany. German forces had committed over 410,000 men, just over 1,400 tanks and armored fighting vehicles, 2,600 artillery pieces, and over 1,000 combat aircraft. Between 63,000 and 104,000 of those men were killed, missing, wounded, or captured. The battle depleted Germany's armored forces in a way that could not be reversed. In the northern sector alone, the fighting produced more than 4,000 German deaths and the destruction of 60 tanks and large guns.

  Allied forces eventually totaled more than 700,000 men. Their casualties ran from 77,000 to more than 83,000, including at least 8,600 killed. Survivors on both sides retreated or advanced into a landscape utterly changed by six weeks of some of the most intense fighting the Western Front had seen.

  The battle marked the last major offensive attempted by Axis forces on the Western Front. After the 27th of December, when the trapped units of the 2nd Panzer Division made two break-out attempts with only partial success, the Germans never again held the initiative in the west. The survivors fell back to the Siegfried Line, and many veteran units were effectively out of both men and equipment, leaving the road to Germany open to the advancing Allies.