Battle of the Bulge 50 Anniversary

CHALLENGE SPECIAL VOLUME 2, 1994 ...

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CHALLENGE SPECIAL

VOLUME 2, 1994
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4 OPERATION MARKET GARDEN: PRELUDE TO DISASTER/Taylor The failure of the massive airborne attempt to capture key bridges on the long road to Berlin set the stage for the nearfiasco that befell an entire Allied army

16 REMEMBERING THE BULGE/Farmer During the Second World War, American aircraft went into battle adorned with a fabulous array of what became known as "Nose Art"-the creative names and forms (very often female) used to personalize the warplanes with a uniquely American perspective. This was an American art form that existed for just four years yet, during that time period, tens of thousands of aircraft paintings were undertaken and these art works exemplified the American fighting spirit. Now, for the first time, there is a magazine exclusively devoted to this art form! NOSE ART presents many PREVIOUSLY UNPUBLISHED PHOTOGRAPHS of Amer-ican warplanes adorned with combat art and insignia. This is truly a visual feast for the World War Two aviation enthusiast and will surely become a collector's item.

The key to victory lay in the complete dominance of Allied airpower - airpower that was totally grounded by the worst European winter in a decade

CHALLENGE SPECIAL VOLUME 2, 1994 Editorial & Production Staff Edwin A. Schnepf! Publisher Michael O'leary! Associate Publisher & Editor Sean Greenway! Associate Editor Ray Braybrook ! Technical Editor DJ. Nellis! Editorial Assistanr Jim Larsen, Gerald Liang, Emil Strasser!

Photographers Denis J. Calvert! European & British

24 THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE/Taylor Hitler rallied his weary Wehrmacht to mount a massive winter offensive that was calculated to annihilate the trapped American army and bring the Allies to their knees

32 REMEMBERING THE BULGE: Part II/Farmer Wartime soldiers and airmen reminisce about the frustrations and fears of knowing there was little the Air Force could do until the weather broke

40 ORDER OF BATTLE/Ent A look at the combat units of both armies that participated in the Battle Of The Bulge

44 SKORZENY'S SECRET STRIKE/Taylor Hitler's most ruthless commando devised a bold plan to infiltrate

Milirary Aviation Correspondenr Bob Matthews, Jeff Kertes ! Camera Plane

Pilots Andrew Garcia! Art Director Jose Martinez! Associate Art Director Richard Graves! Graphics Director Fred AI ires ! Production Coordinator Tom Combs! Circulation Director Susan Duprey! Circulation Manager Carol Van Orsdol! Business Manager

Advertising Staff Jim Bender! Advertising Manager Thomas Maxwell! Advertising Coordinator

Editorial & Advertising Offices Challenge WWIl Special 7950 Deering Ave. Canoga Park, CA 91304 Tel. (818) 887-0550 (7:30-6:00 Mon.-Thurs.) FAX (818) 884-1343

the US lines with American-speaking Germans who would create chaos with sabotage and intrigue

56 BASTOGNE: HITLER'S FAILED GAMBLE/Taylor Starved, out of ammo and half-frozen, the GIs were on the verge of giving up when the first US reinforcements broke through the German lines to effect a daring rescue

64 REMEMBERING THE BULGE: Part III/Farmer As soon as the clouds broke, the sky was filled with US planes dropping tons of supplies to the besieged GIs of Bastogne

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72 BREAKOUT!: THE SAGA OF THE 4th ARMORED DIVISION/Jacobs

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The battle history of this unit was typical of many that stormed ashore at Normandy to slug their way to the gates of Berlin

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80 OPERATION NORTHWIND: HITLER'S FINAL GAMBLE/Taylor It was the Fuhrer's last attempt to stop the Allies before they reached the Rhine. But the plan backfired and cost the lives of 90,000 troops Hitler could ill-afford to lose

CHALLENGE WWII SPECIAL is published quarterly by Challenge PUblications, Inc., 7950 Deering Ave., Canoga Park, CA 91304. Copyright ©1994 by Challenge Publications, Inc. All rights reserved. Nothing in whole or in part may be reproduced without written permission of the pUblisher. Send editorial and advertising material to 7950 Deering Ave., Canoga Park, CA 91304. Publisher assumes no responsibility for unsolicit- . ed material. All photos, artwork, and manuscripts must be accompanied by stamped selfaddressed return envelope. PRINTED IN U.S.A.

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he Allie had landed ucces. fully at NOimandy in German-occupied France beginning in June 6, 1944. From that epic landing, they forged a bridgehead inland, and from that broke out into the open French countryside, fanning out in several directions. heading toward Paris and the German frontier. Paris, the fabled "City of Light," was liberated from Nazi rule on Aug. 25th. following the succes of Operation Dragoon, the Allied econd inva ion of France, on lhe sunny French Riviera on the MeditelTanean. With the e victories behind them, the Allies pondered what to do next ~ and how best to invade the Third Reich. Stated the late American author Cornelius Ryan in his 1974 book A Bridge Too Far, "Shortly after 10 a.m. on Sunday, Sept. 17, 1944, from airfields all over Southern England, the greatest armada of troop-carrying aircraft ever assembled for a single operation took to the air. [n this, the 263rd week of World War ll, the Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Dwight David Ei en hower, unleashed Market-Garden, one of the most daring and imaginative operations of the war. "Surprisingly, Market-Garden, a combined airborn and ground offen ive, was authored by one of the most cautious of all the Allied commanders, Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery. Markel, the airborne pha e of the operation, was monumental: it involved almost 5000 fighters, bombers, transports and more than 2500 gliders. "That Sunday afternoon, at exactly I:30 p.m., in an unprecedented daylight assault, an entire Allied airborne army, complete with vehicles and equipment, began dropping behind the German Ijne . The largel for lhis bold and historic invasion from the sky: Nazi-occupied Holland. "On the ground, poised along the Dutch-Belgian border, were the German forces, massed tank columns of the British 2nd Army. At2:35 p.m., preceded by artillery and led by swarms of rocket-firing fighter, the tanks began a dash up the backbone of Holland along a tralegic route the paratroopers were already fightjng to capture and hold open. "Montgomery' ambitious plan was de igned to print the troops and tank through Holland, springboard across lhe Rhine and into Germany it elf. Operation Market-Garden. Montgomery

, By Blaine Taylor 4 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

reasoned, was the lightning stroke needed to topple the Third Reich and effect the end of the war in 1944." ote author Martin Blumenson in his 1978 volume Liberation, "On Sept. 17th, as 10,000 men of the British 1st Airborne Divsion were preparing to take off for German-occupied Holland, a paratrooper named Gordon Spicer remarked that their mi ion seemed likely to be 'A fairly impie affair, with a few backstage German recoiling in horror at our approach.' "The affair would prove to be anything but simple. The 1st Airborne's objective - the highway bridge over the Lower Rhine at Arnhem - was crucial to the success of the huge Allied operation called Market-Garden, the bold but hazardous scheme to get the Allies swiftly aero s the Rhine and into Germany. Success depended upon two things: the seizure of seven key bridges along a 65mile corridor in southeastern Holland by Allied paratroopers and glidermen, and the eventual relief of this force by a Briti h armored column driving up from the south. "What Gordon Spicer did not know was that everything had to work to perfection for the operation to ucceed. If the narrow corridor designated for the armored column was blocked anywhere along the line, the tanks could be stopped, and the airborne forces beyond that point, cut off from upport, would be threatened with annihilation. Pondering the hazard faced by the relieving force, one somewhat knowledgeable officer ob erved: 'It will be like threading seven needles with one piece of cotton and we only have to miss one to be in trouble.' "All such misgivings went unheeded by the Allied planners. When Dutch Resistance source reported that German Panzer formations had moved into the area, their warning was ignored. When Lt. Gen. Frederick A.M. Browning got a look at the plans, he said to Montgomery, 'I think we might be going a bridge too far.' Montgomery paid no attention to Browning. "The bridge that Browning was talking about wa the one at Arnhem. Sgt. Walter Ingli of the British Ist Parachute Brigade, in keeping with the general euphoria, told friends the Arnhem bridge would be 'A piece of cake.' He and his cohorts would find it highly indigestible. "The paratroopers and the glidermen in the Market-Garden operation were to land in broad daylight, a ri ky maneuver that had been decided upon because night landings in Sicily and Normandy had resulted in disastrous foul-ups and confusion. The decision seemed to be the right

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Field Marshal Montgomery review British soldiers, of whom there were some three million by 1945, Like D-Day, Market-Garden was a combined Anglo-American operation. (Photo courtesy George Peterson, Notional Capitol Historic Sales, Springfield, VA.)

The sought-after prize: the 2,C
British Sherman tanks enter Hertogenosh, Holland, in October. 1944, on the way to the port of Antwerp, Hitler's prime goal during the Bottle of the Bulge two months later. (Imperial War Museum, London)

one when the paratroopers floated down from the sky. There was no German machinegun or small-arms fire, but to Maj. Gen. Robert E. 'Roy' Urquhart, the commander of the Briti h 1 t Airborne Divi ion - known as the Red Devil the silence seemed unreal. "The general had good reason to be apprehensive. His men still had a long way to go to reach their objective, the bridge at Arnhem. The landing sites-

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eight miles from the pan - had been cho en to avoid the soft, boggy ground around the ci ty. The distance between the airborne troops and their goal would give the German plenty of time to prepare a rude reception for them. "After the Paratrooper had landed, Lt. Col. John D. Frost, colorful commander of the 2nd Battalion of the I t Parachute Brigade, rallied his men with a hunting horn and led them onto a secondary road

to Arnhem. They were charged with making a quick da h Lo the city to eize the bridge whi Ie the 1st and 3rd Battalions, following main roads, were to come in behind them and occupy the city and high ground to the north. "As the three battalion moved toward Arnhem, they encountered an unexpected hazard: the Dutch they were liberating. 'Waving, cheering and clapping their hand " a battalion officer later recounted, 'they offered u apple, pear, something to drink, but they interfered with our progres and filled me with dread that they would give our positions away.' Allied pilots being briefed before their flight to Holland in England before manning the tow planes that took the troops into combat. (Imperial War Museum. London) VOLUME 2,1994 7

bridge. They moved quietly into buildings nearby and set up a base of operations for an attack on the span. "When darkness came," continues Patton biographer Blumensen, "Col. Frost began his attack. 'The sky lit up,' he remembered later, 'and there was the noise of machinegun fire, a succession of explosions, the crackling of burning ammunition and the thump of a cannon.' In that savage battle, Frost's men cleared the north end of the bridge, but fires and exploding ammunition on the span prevented their crossing it. "With the south end of the bridge still firmly in German hands and no relieving force in sight, Frost and his troops soon found themselves outnumbered and under

American Army Sherman tanks enter Nijmegen. Holland, seizing the bridge over the Wool River. (Imperiai War Museum, London)

"The Germans were quick to take advantage of the British soldiers' predicament. 'One moment we were marching steadily toward Arnhem; the next, we were scattered in the ditches,' recalled one officer. 'Snipers had opened fire, and three dead airborne soldiers lay across the road.' "As the enemy fire intensified, the 1st and 3rd Battalions bogged down, but Frost and his men, pushing along a lightly guarded secondary road, made it through to the city, and in the fading light of dusk they reached the northern end of the

Devastated Nijmegen, Holland, foil owing its capture by the Americans in September 1994, during Operation Market-Garden, (Imperial War Museum, London)

siege. German tanks and artillery pounded the houses in which they were holed up. The basements were soon filled with wounded - some of whom glowed eerily from phosphorus shell fragments. "As casualties mounted and food, water and morphine ran low, the men waited desperately for help. Their hopes were as illusory as the vision seen by one of the shell-shocked wounded: 'Look,' he said, peering from a window. 'It's the 2nd Army's ground column. On the far bank. Look. Do you see them?' His comrade sadly shook his head. "As Frost and his men tried valiantly to hang on until help arrived the other troops Allied planes wing overhead to drop paras onto Holland near Eindhoven on Sunday, Sept. 17, 1944, (Imperial War Museum, London) VOLUME 2, 1994 9

of the British Ist Airborne Division were running into trouble advancing toward Arnhem. Germans suddenly seemed to be everywhere. As they swarmed over the area and enveloped entire unit, they unknowingly trapped an important quarry - the 1st Airborne's commander, Gen. Urquhart. "The General had joined the 3rd Battalion, but as opposition mounted, Urquhart and two other officers were cut off from the battalion and were forced to take refuge in a Dutch hou e. Trapped in an attic while the fighting raged outside, Urquhart and his companions expected the Germans to burst in at any moment. When they failed to do so, 'The idiocy of the ituation forced itself upon me,' and Urquhart ugge ted that the three make a break for it. 'I don't know how you chaps feel,' he said, 'but we are less than u eles cooped up here.' However, only when British troops began advancing down the treet could the three make a run for it. "Urquhart had been missing for 36 hours, and there were rumor circulating that he had been killed, wounded or captured, but when he returned to his headquarters he was greeted by his unruffled orderly with the words: 'I'm glad you're back, sir. Your tea and shaving water are ready.'

"While the German merciles ly pounded them, the tired, dogged men of the British Ist Airborne were sustained by one thought - airdrops would bring relief, but the Germans closed in on the drop zones and greeted tran ports and gliders with hailstorms of mortar and antiaircraft fire. Some glider pilots, trying to

escape the enemy barrage, released their planes too soon. "The flimsy craft collided in midair and plowed into one another on the ground. Transports burst into flames and crashed; others - even though they were on fire - continued to hover over the drop zones after its lower fuselage was

Harassing fire across the River Moos being fired from British self-propelled guns into German positions in Holland, January, 1945. (Imperial War Museum, London)

On Dec, 20, 1944, a British 2nd Army machinegun team near Geljsteren, Holland, takes up a position along the Moos River. (Imperial War Museum. London)

Rockets from an RAF Typhoon fighter streak toward a German barge on the Westerscheldt in Nazi-occupied Holland in September, 1944. (Imperial War Museum, London)

These are the first two British gliders to touch down at Arnhem on Sept. 17, 1944. Here, the Headquarters group of an artillery regiment putting supplies into a trailer just unloaded from the glider, (Imperial War Museum. London)

engulfed in flame. An awestruck British officer who watched from the ground recalled later, 'I couldn't take my eye off the craft. Suddenly, it wasn't a plane anymore, just a big orange ball of fire.' "Mo t of the supplies fell behind German lines. In two days of drops, the enemy captured nearly 630 of the 690 ton of supplies that had been intended for the beleaguered airborne troops. 'It was the cheapest battle we ever fought,' aid one German colonel. 'We had free food, cigarettes and ammunition.' "Even more disastrous for the British at Arnhem was the inabi lity of the 1500 men of the Polish I st Independent Parachute Brigade to reach them. Grounded in England for two days by bad weather, the brigade finally took off on the afternoon of Sept. 21 st. As the planes flew over Holland, the brigade commander, Maj. Gen. Stanislaw Sosabowski, staring out of the window of his Dakota transport, saw huge traffic jams, burning vehicles and wreckage on the road north of Eindhoven. "This could mean only one thing: the Briti h relief column coming up from the south was under heavy German attack. Sosabowski' sagging spirits received

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British infantry advance along a ditch taken near St. Michielsgestel in Holland following the end of Operation MarketGarden. October. 1944. (Imperial War Museum. London)

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another jolt shortly afterward, when he spotted German tanks on the Arnhem bridge: Obviou Iy, the Briti h paratroopers had not taken their main objective. So abowski bitterly concluded that hi brigade was 'Being sacrificed in a complete British disaster.' "Moments later, as the Poli h troops began to bailout over the drop zone, they were cut to piece by German antiaircraft fire. Only half of them ever made it to Arnhem, and they arrived there too late to

US gliders land in Holland during Market-Garden on Sept. 17. 1944. with the nose of the one at center opened for unloading. (Imperial War Museum. London)

British paras wave tablecloths from a nearby hotel to attract the attention of Allied resupply planes overhead. but most of the material fell into German hands anyway. (Imperial War Museum. London)

do much good. At the bridge, Fro t's men had managed to hold on for almo t 72 hours, but then German tank and artillery, working in relays, started systematically blasting the British position. '''It was the best, most effective fire I have ever seen,' recalled a German private. 'Starting from the rooftops, buildings collapsed like dollhouse .' Frost ordered tho e who could to e cape and then arranged a truce with the German to remove the injured. One of the wounded was Frost him elf. A he wa carried out on a tretcher, he said to the man lying next to him, 'Well, we didn't get away with it this time, did we?" 0, sir,' ansBritish troops take cover behind a crane in Holland on Nov. 13. 1944. after Operation Market-Gorden's failure and a month before the start of the Battle of the Bulge, (Imperial War Museum. London)

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wered the man, 'but we gave them a damn good run for their money.' "On the night of Sept. 25th, all hopes for reinforcement gone, the battered remnants of the British I t Airborne Diviion began a quiet withdrawal under the noses of the German . Their feet wrapped up in cloth to muffle the sound of their boot, the urvivor of the ill-fated operation filtered through the darknes to the north bank of the Lower Rhine and later were ferried or swam to safety. The division had 10 t 7500 of its original 10,000 men. "But, aid Gen. Eisenhower afterward: , 0 single performance by any unit ... more highly excited my admiration.'" Another account i pre ented by Lt. Col. Eddy Bauer in the 1966 Illustrated World War If Encyclopedia: "Gen. Bradley wa to de cribe his stupefaction on learning of Operation Market-Garden, which Montgomery had got Eisenhower to approve and with which Bradley did not agree: 'Had the pious, teetotaling Montgomery wobbled into SHAEF (Supreme Headquarter Allied Expeditionary Force) with a hangover, I could not have

been more astonished than I was by the daring adventure he proposed ... Although I never reconciled myself to the venture, I nevertheless freely concede that Monty' plan for Arnhem was one of the mo t imaginative of the war.' "In effect, the 'carpet' over which 30th Corp was to advance toward the northern outskirts of Arnhem wa 60 mile long and cri scro sed ix time by canals and watercour e . Ei enhower had put at Montgomery's dispo al the 1 t Airborne Army. Commanded by Lt. Gen. Loui H. Brereton, it engaged it 1 t Airborne Corp as follows: "US IOlst Airborne Divi ion (Maj. Gen. Maxwell D. Taylor) would take Eindhoven by surprise and seize the bridges on the Wilhelmina Canal, the Dommel, and the Willem Canal; US 82nd Airborne Divi ion (Maj. Gen. lame M. Gavin) would take the Grave bridge over the Maa and the ijmegen bridge over the Waal (the southern arm of the Rhine); ... "It was along the corridor opened up by these forces that the three divisions of the Br!tish 30th Corps (the Guards' Ar-

mored, the 43rd and the 50th Division) under Horrock were to advance towards Arnhem and, breaking out of the bridgehead, drive on at full peed to the Zuiderzee, a final run of about 37 mile. All thing conidered, it doe seem that Operation MarketGarden relied heavily on what Frederick the Great called 'Her Sacred Maje ty Chance' and the expectation that he would favor Gens. Browning and Horrock for everaJ day and under aJI circum tances. "Even had he favored them throughout, however, it i unlikely that 30th Corps could have made the run to Berlin all alone, a Ei enhower had no trategic re erve or logi tic re ource to exploit fully any initiaJ ucce of this ri ky enterpri e. Yet 30th Corp' advance had to take place up a single road flanked by lowlying country, covered with a network of drainage ditche . This wa to provide ideal terrain for the German to slow down or even halt the advance with a tenacious antitank defen e, while launching flank attack against 30th Corps' own communication, and this, in fact, was what was to happen. VOLUME 2, 1994 13

"Although Montgomery knew from intelligence reports that two Panzer division (part of the 2nd SS Panzer Corps) were refitting just north of Arnhem, he believed them incapable of effective action and Horrocks, the commander of 30th Corps, was not even informed that the e German forces lay 0 do e to the battle area. In fact, the e forces al 0 included the I t Parachute Army... under the command of Col Gen. Kurt Student... "For the 10 Ist Airborne Division, all went well except for the Son bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal which it could not save from destruction. The 82nd managed to surpri e the Grave bridge, but in the evening, when the Germans had got over the shock, failed in its first attempt on Nijmegen. By this time Gen. Student had got the plans for Market-Garden, which had been found on board an American glider shot down behind the German line . "...Field Mar hal Model, commander of Army Group B... alerted SS Gen. Wilhelm Bittrich, commanding 2nd SS Panzer Corps, and counterattacked with the 9th Hohenstauffen Panzer Division through Arnhem, and the 10th Frundsberg along the left bank of the eder Rijn ... "Supported on the left by the 12th

Son to Nijmegen (36 miles), but it was not until the evening of the following day that the British and the Americans - fighting ide by ide - succeeded in crossing the Waal and eizing the road and rail bridges

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which Model had ordered to be left intact for a counterattack. "When he had been given his orders for Market-Garden, Browning a ked Montgomery how long he would have to

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-. Allied paratroopers land In Holland on sept. 17, 1944. (US Army Signal Corps)

Corps and on the right by 8th Corps (Lt. Gen. Evelyn H. Baring), 30th Corps got off to a good start... it reached Val kenswaard at the end of the day. A day later, its Guard' Armored Division was at Son, where the Bridge over the canal was, by dawn on the 19th. There was good contact with the 82nd Airborne Division, which had resumed its attack on ijmegen, but without much ucce .

"By now, it had begun to rain. MarketGarden, in fact, enjoyed only one day of blue skies out of ten. Were the weather forecasts ignored? There were consequential delay in the reinforcement of the airborne division and a notable drop in efficiency of the ground support; 30th Corps had only one axi along which to advance it 23,000 vehicle. During the 19th, Horrock wa able to get hi tanks from

German troops move In warily on British-occupied Arnhem, weapons at the ready. (Imperial War Museum, London)

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hold the Arnhem Bridge. 'Two day,' aid Montgomery briskly. 'They'll be up to you by then.' 'We can hold it for four. ", Finall y, the order came to abandon the operation altogether a unwinnable. "The survivors of the British 1st Airborne Division now received the order to pull back to the left bank of the Neder Rijn; 2163 of them got acro during the night of Sept. 25-26, 1944, out of a total of 8905 officers, NCO and men and the 1100 glider pilots who had held off the attacks of 2nd SS Panzer Corp for the la t ten days. The Poles left behind 1000 of their men and the US 82nd and 101 t Airborne Divi on lost respectively 1669 and 2074 killed, wounded and missing. Between Sept. 17-30, 1944...about one-third of the 34,876 men who fought between Eindhoven and Arnhem were los!..." • American paratroopers drop from troop carrier planes near Grave, Holland. In the foreground are gliders which have also landed with airborne troops, Sept. 23, 1944. (Imperial War Museum, London)

A painting of the Arnhem Bridge battle by David Shepherd. The plan was to seize this and four other major bridges in an area mistakenly believed to be weak In German forces, Thus secured, the Allies planned next to invade the Third Reich via the Ruhr. The scheme collapsed In the face of surprisingly strong German resistance. (Imperial War Museum, London) VOLUME 2,1994 15

American airmen and soldiers offer dramatic first-person recollections of airpower s role in the Allied victory at the Battle of the Bulge

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"I BYJAMESH. FARMER

Major Glenn Eagleston of the Ninth Air Force's 354th Fighter Group makes

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t was in Ohio in 1954 or 1955," recalls Mrs. Joan O'Dell. "We had a neighbor who lived behind us who knew that my husband, Gordon, had been a troop carrier command pilot during World War Two. One day she asked me if Gordon was

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on the Christmas Day flight to Bastogne. When I answered in the affirmative, she said there was a lady who lives next door whose husband was one of those freezing, starving soldiers surrounded and cut off there by the Germans that December of

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~._:.h:...is_W_a_y_to_h_is_fi_el_d'_s s_n_ow_-_bo_u_nd_r_un_w_a_yW_i_th_th_e_h_el_p_of_a_g_ro_un_d_c_re_w_m_an_o_n_th_e_w_in_g'---I 1944. When her husband discovered Gordon had taken part in the food drops to Bastogne, he wanted to personally shake his hand. He had never experienced anything so wonderful in his life as when he saw those C-47s come overhead. He was just tickled to death to meet Gordon." Gordon O'Dell was but one pilot of one unit - the 80th Troop Carrier Squadron of one group, of one wing of the Ninth Air Force, along with sizable units of the US Eighth Air Force and Royal Air Force which were directly involved in tactical air operations over Bastogne or in strategic support of its defense behind the lines. His postwar encounter was but one of countless thousands of similar chance meetings

played out across the length and breadth of the United States during the nearly five decades since that cold winter of 1944. Today, Bastogne is all but a forgotten footnote to contemporary youth who have difficulty discerning the significance of December Seventh. For those living survivors, foot-soldiers and fliers alike, however, it was a moment of high drama - a personal issue of life and death proportions to be savored and reflected upon so long as there remains a breath to be taken. Sequestered at his East Prussian "Wolfs Lair" on 16 September 1944, Hitler had called his "a momentous decision" by refusing to accept further Allied advances on his homeland. Hitler would again,

against all odds, do the impossible and go on the offensive. Three months later to the day on a cold 16 December morning, four German armies led by Field Marshal von Rundstedt and composed of 20 divisions - seven of those Panzer - attacked into the Ardennes along a 60 mile front through Luxemburg and Belgium. The six snow and fog-bound American divisions lying between the Germans and their goal - the harbor at Antwerp were caught completely off guard and without access to air cover, ill-prepared for the contest. While the Second, Fourth and 28th US Infantry Divisions were composed of veterans, the latter two had sustained recent heavy loses in the Huertgen VOLUME 2, 1994

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Forest fighting and had been pulled out of the line for rest and regrouping. The Ninth Armored and 106th Infantry Divisions had only recently arrived in Europe and - as with the 99th Infantry Division which had been on the Continent for a month - lacked combat experience. Against these tired and green unitssome 75,000 AmericaHs in all - Hitler threw four armies: A quarter million Germans manning 1900 pieces of heavy artillery and 970 tanks and assault guns. Disruptions in telephone communications on the first day led to initial false assumptions by many US area commanders that the attacks were local in nature. General Eisenhower, however, apprais d the situation differently. By dusk of the first day his Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in Versailles, near Paris, had ordered the inth Army's Seventh Armored Division and the 10th Armored Division of General Patton's Third Army detached and sent to the aid of Fir t Army forces under attack in the Ardennes. To this, General Hodges, CO of the First Army, also ordered the First Infantry Division down into the lines. Though elements of the US Seventh Armored were rolling into St. Vith by the 17th, and blooded and green American unit alike were engaged in costly holding skirmishes along the 60 mi Ie front, by the 18th 50 German column had already surged nearly 30 miles into the Ardennes. By noon, Manteuffel's Second Panzer Division had clo ed to within 20 mile of hi initial objective, the rail and road center at Bastogne. Among the seven paved roads which radiated out from the town's center was the east-west highway which ran from the German border to banks of the Meuse River, a key artery in Hitler's march to Antwerp. Supported by two other German divisions, the Panzer Lehr and the 26th Volksgrenadiers, all that lay b tween Manteuffel and his objective were some 20 mi les of roll i ng, open cou ntry and a handful of American roadblocks. The posi tions were man ned by Task Forces Rose and Harper of the US inth Armored Division and by the hastily-deployed Combat Command B teams of the Tenth Armored Division, the first elements of which rolled into town from the west that afternoon under the command of Colonel William Roberts.

WE REALLY GOT INTO IT THIS TIME! Major Chuck Fife, Roberts' S-3 and acting executive officer, recalled the scene in Bastogne upon their arrival by j ep late that afternoon. "There were still a lot of children playing on the streets when we got there.

Gil Vogt at the controls of his 80th Troop Carrier Squadron C-47 B/andie, based at Membury, England, during the Bastogne drops of December 1944. (Gil Vogt)

What contact there was with the Germans was till happening outside of town. We saw a lot of foot traffic ... coming out of an impre sive building you could tell it was a city hall or something like that. Roberts found out it wa General Middleton's (VIII Corp commander) headquarters. As Col. Roberts headed in, another small detachment of ours, 15 or 20 vehicles was coming up our rear. Robert said, 'You'd better stick around here and when they show up push them ov I' in that field.'" While Colonel Roberts wa inside meeting with General Middleton, Fif di covered that the rmy map depot, to their rear, had already been overrun. Nor could he find anyone in town who seemed to know the current whereabouts of the Corps artillery. "That's the first I knew we were in trouble," continue Fife. "Pretty soon old Robert came out and asked, 'Fife, when do you think the head of our column will get here?' I told him I thought within two or three hours." The CCB column was six or seven hours long, coming into Bastogne in an administrative parade formation. Its speed over the icy roads could be no more tban some four miles an hour. So worn were the rubber pads on the tracks of their combat-weary M-4 Sherman tanks, half-tracks and M-7 that their steel cleats dangerously lost their grip on solid icy urfaces above such speeds. "Roberts nodded and said, 'Okay, Middleton says the Ninth Armored is getting the hell kicked out if it.' Then, he added, 'We really got into it this time!' "As he's talkin' to me, I'm looking at this map. All I had was a German auto club-type map of the area." While Roberts was with Middleton, Fife, realizing the situation, had already began generating a scheme for dividing the CCB into teams and where to put them.

18 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

"I a k d Colonel Roberts, 'Where is this stuff (the Germans) comin' from?' He said, 'It's comin' from the east and southeast.' '"Then,''' I replied, '''apparently, nothing is happening to the north?' '" ot right now, but those bastards are going to swing around and hit u from there. '

"Okay, what I figured out Colonel, three forces.'" Major Fife had already written fragmen tary orders for three armed teams on a scrap of paper. Again, Col. Robert concurred. "'That's what Middleton suggested. He wants us to block things from the northeast, east and southeast.' "'Okay,' I showed Roberts what I had scribbled out." T'he CCB was divided into three balanced teams, sending the first, commanded by the youngish Major Bill Desobry to Noville, to the northeast. Another team, Team Cherry, went to reinforce the remains of a combat team of the Ninth Armored Division at Longvilly to the east, while the third team, Team O'Hara, moved out to Marvie to the southeast. "As the units rolled into Bastogne," recalls Fife, "I and ten or twelve other men, who came up with the advanced party, were stoppin' the vehicles, giving 'em assignments to their respective teams and directions to their positions east of town." Among the officers of the Tenth Armored's Combat Command B settling

into Bastogne on the evening of 18 December was Second Lieutenant Charles Roberts, commander of the Second Platoon, Company B of the 80th Armored Medical Battalion. His unit consisted of a Dodge comm'and and reconnaissance car with a ten-channel radio,

"Today, Bastogne is all but aforgotten footnote to contemporary youth who have difficulty discerning the significance of December Seventh" five ambulances and 20 men. Robelts recalls, "We set up shop in a three-story stone building across the street from a church that used to be used for boy scout meetings. But we didn't tay there long. The next morning we found our 20th Armored Infantry Battalion aid station had moved up to Noville."

It had been a long night and would be an even more harrowing morning for Desobry, whose unit arrived in Noville at II :00 on the evening of the 18th. The main highway through the village was flooded with weary, retreati ng GIs who told of a strong armored force rapidly closing their rear. "When those elements of his Third Tank Battalion arrived in Noville," continues Fife, "all they could do was just poke around in the dark. If they ran into a tree, they'd stop, back up and go around it because it was so damn dark they couldn't see. They were parked there waiting for dawn when those six Tigers (German tanks) came rolling down the road. That's when all hell broke loose!" Battle had been joined during the predawn darkness of the 19th with the va tIy superior forces of the Second Panzer . Division. The attack continued until 7:30 when a heavy fog settled over the area. The obscured fi Id of fire slowed but did not halt the advance of the German tanks which could be heard clanking through the mist. When the blanket lifted two hours later, Desobry's men found the surrounding fields infested with Panzers. Every sur-

"Normally," recalls Matt Biggs, "our maximum total gross takeoff weight was something like 29,000 Ibs. But on missions like those to Normandy and Bastogne they raised the limit to about 31 ,000. They were going to push safety to the limit because they were going to get in anyway and with as much as they could." (Gil Vogt)

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viving piece of American hardware was brought to bear on the advancing targets. Bazooka rockets, 90mm tank destroyers and the handful of surviving M-4 Sherman medium tanks laid into the fight. Despite heavy casualties, Team Desobry hung on until reinforced by the newly arrived 506th Parachute Infantry regim nt. With a new influx of men, an American advance was begun but soon stalled ome 500 yards west of Noville, which was now under heavy and continuous artillery attack. Lieutenant Roberts recalls the scene which awaited him when his small convoy of ambulances arrived at their oville aid station that morning. "We found the aid station consisted of a hal f-track and ajeep. Th

INITIAL ALLIED AIR RESPONSE The extremely poor weather of the 16th - the first day of the counteroffensivehad severely curtailed air operations across the Continent, e pecially those of the medium and heavy bomber units. Eighth Air Force heavy sorties had been limited to 81 Third Air Division B-17s - of 236 dispatched - which managed to find their primary target of the marshal i ng yards at Stuttgart. Clouds and fog had also grounded all inth Air Force medium and light bomb I' units and strictly limited reconnaissance operations. inth Air Force 29th and 19th Tactical Air Command units did manage to launch 337 .fighter-bomber sortie

200-plus military transports and 68 German aircraft for the loss of 16 9th AF fighters. Though their efforts could not be appreciated by the soldiers on the ground facing the cold, growing food and ammunition shortages - and the Germans8th AF and 9th AF heavy, medium, light bomber and fighter-bomber operations by the third day had shifted into high gear in spite of the weather to strike at communications and other tactical targets behind the front in western Germany. While ext n i ve cloud cover for ed the recall of the 8th AF's entire Second Division operation numbering 358 B-24s, along with portions of other units, 600 First and Third Division B-17 struck targets from

then a 9th F P-47 pilot flying out ofSt. Deziel', France, with the 511 th Fighter Squadron of the 405th Fighter Group remembers, "[ vividly recall waiting for the weather to break. We., ,couldn't even takeoff the first day, II the pilots were hanging around th operations roam waiting to go, [t was very intense as far as the pilots were concerned. They had to be constrained a bit because they would have tried some absolutely impossible things with the weather a bad as it was, The first day we could get off the ground we couldn't see the target or get down under the overcast. Radar v ctored us in to what they called a 'pickle barreI.' We held a tight formation and droppecl our bombs on a road by radar command, [ don't know how effective it was. We couldn't even see the bomb bursts." General Quesada, commander of the Ninth Tactical Air Command, desperate for specific information on the whereabouts of the enemy advancing through the Lor heim Gap, called on the 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group asking for volunteers to fly through the 10/1 0 fog in the region to get ome answers. Captain Richard Cassady and Lieutenant Abraham Jaffe volunteered, weaving their F-6 photorecon Mustangs through dangerous snowcovered valleys, pulling up over tall grove of pine and fir until they surprised a column

of some 60 tanks and half-tracks along with some 200 additional military transports near Trois Ponts. Four-plane fI ights of 9th AF Thunderbolts from the 365th and 368th FG were soon airborne and working their way down through the mist-shrouded hills with their twin 500 Ib bomb loads, By dusk,

"Against these tired and green units - some 75,000 Americans in all - Hitler threw four armies: A quarter million Germans manning 1900 pieces of heavy artillery and 970 tanks and assault guns" 32 armored vehicles and tanks and nearly 60 troop and supply trucks of the famed Adolph Hitler Divi ion had been put out of action, the column's advance checked for the 10 s of a lone Thunderbolt. Thi 13.ction was a significant initial, though small, victory where the "Hitler

Weather" of low-lying fog, drizzle and haze persisted, Whi Ie many 9th AF fighter units were operating below minimullls, more units remained grounded, G neral Hodges had earlier ordered the US 82nd and 101 st irborne Di visions out of France and into the Ardennes, Whi Ie the 82nd moved to ch ck the German advance to the north, the first of I 1,000 hastily assembled men of th 101 st rumbled through the fog into Bastogne from the west on the morning of the 19th while Team De obry was heavily engaged with the Second Panzer Division at Noville six miles to the northeast and as General Bayerlein's Panzer Lehr waited, hidden in the mist four mile to the east. Stationed around th French town of Mourmelon-Ie-Grand, some 100 miles to the southwest of Bastogne, the 10 I st had been badly mauled during Field Marshal Montgomery's recent, failed airborne assault into Holland, Sustaining one-third ca ualtie , the unit was awaiting resupply, replacement personnel and th return of commander Major General Maxwell D. Taylor from a conference in Washington, DC. The chance of the division's immediate recall to the lines had seemed remoted at best. Chuck Fife recalls when the first elements of the 101 t' 380-truck convoy arrived in Bastogne from the west: "The

-. Ambulances of 2nd Lt. Charles Roberts' Second Platoon, Company Bof the 80th Armored Medical Battalion were among the first to discover that the some 18,000 troops at Bastogne were indeed surrounded when their southwest avenue of casualty evacuation was closed off by German forces.

hal f-track had an 88mm shell through the center of the I' d cross on the side panel. It made a perfect bullseye. Not far away, there was a German Tiger tank with its barrel pointed off to one side. When we topped, I ran as fast as I could to the aid station. [t was intact and the one doctor, Capt. Jack Prior, was working on a patient. He said, 'Boy, am [glad to see you" We carried his patient out by litter to our ambulances and headed back to Ba togne. We wouldn't see Noville again until the siege was lifted," Captain Charles Husted had replaced the seriously wounded Major Bill Desobry during the night's tank engagement. Around noon of the next day the remains of Husted's forces fell back to Foy, a mile closer to Bastogne. By midmorning of the 20th it had begun to snow.

under the mo t hazardous of conditions. That first day of the counteroffensive, which the Germans had code-named "Watch on the Rhin ," the Luftwaffe limited ground support operations to 150 sorties in an effort to conceal the scope of their broad thrust into the Ardennes. By the 17th, 8th AF operations had ground to a half. While the weather also continued to keep 9th AF bombers on the ground, 9th AF fighter-bomber orties increa ed markedly d spite the atrocious conditions. Som 650 P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang sorties were chalked up matched by a lik number of Luftwaffe mission . By day's end, Allied tactical operations had begun to draw blood by destroying or temporarily putting out of action a numb I' of locomotives and rolling tock,

20 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

the marshaling yards at Cologne to those at Mainz. Additionally, all of the 8th AF's fighter groups, except the 78th FG, were in the air either escorting bombers or on we ps looking for breaks in the weather. The 18th also saw the first attempted troop carrier resupply mission of Operation Repulse. Twenty-one 9th AF C-47s from the 435th TC Group of the 53rd Wing in England tried to re upply the 106th Infantry Division trapped ast of St. Vith, but was forced to abort due to poor communications, Anoth I' 165 9th AF medium and light bombers were al 0 airborn along with approximately 500 9th AF fighter-bomber sorties for the day. Finding holes in the weather to actually get at the advancing enemy remained a hit and miss proposition at be t. Dean Hes ,

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365th Fighter Group Thunderbolts of the Ninth Air Force played an active roll in breaking the siege at Bastogne.

men of the 10 I st had been called back from wherever they could be found. ome of them had been on short leave when the alert went out. They had been assembled from wherever and climbed on trucks as they were found. When they got to us some of them were still in their classuniforms. without rifles, helmets or even proper winter gear.'· mong the officers Brigadier General Anthony C. McAuliffe, acting commander of the 101 st, met with that first day in Bastogne was Lieutenant Roberts, who'd just returned from Noville. "I remember General McAuliffe coming up to me," recalls Lt. Roberts. "He said, 'Hey Iieutenant, we're lost our medical battalion. Can you help us out'?' Of course, Itold him 'General. we're going to do everything we can to help you. '" Roberts' help was immediate and material. "We'd already collected a lot of carbine rifles, ammunition, helmets and other equipment from the wounded and the dead at our aid station. We passed this out to any of General McAuliffe'. troops who needed it when they came marching by." The Germans began shelling Bastogne that morning. With a sizable portion of the 101 st irbome now on the. cene, Mc uliffe's newly reinforced perimeter defenses were probed at two points. Elements of the Pall;:.er Lehr hit and temporarily broke through the lines of the CCB's Team 0' Hara at Marvie, while units of the 10 Ist eventually stopped un its of the veteran Pall;:.ergrellCidiers near Bizory, with heavy casualties on both sides.

The issue, however, remained in doubt as the night of the 20th fell on Bastogne. General McAuliffe, in radio contact with his corps commander, . uggested Bastogne would probably soon be surrounded. So thorough was the shell ing of the town itself that little would remain of the Tenth Armored's CCB Bastogne headquarters by battle's end. Colonel Fife recalls, "When we first set up shop in the Hotel LeBrun there, it was a four-story building. By the time we left it was nothing but rubble at street level. We were operating out of

"Finding holes in the weather to actually get at the advancing enemy remained a hit and miss proposition at best" the second or third basement when we finally vacated for another location." mong the first to realize Bastogne was surrounded wa Lt. Roberts when hi ambulance.. evacuating wounded on the highway to the south we t of town, were forced to turn back on the morning of the 21 st. Bastogne laid under a picturesque but dangerous blanket of snow. American troops promptly began rummaging through abandoned residences looking for white bed sheets with which to more comfortably dissolve into their fresh surroundings. Four German divisions along with units of three others now surrounded the some

22 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

I ,000 d fenders of Bastogne. Food, medicine and, most critically, ammunition was in desperatel short supply. Chuck Fife recalls, "I ormally, artillery picks up a target of opportunit from a forward observer and a fire mission is called. It goes into the fire direction center and map coordinates are called out and the target located. Then. one to five rounds are fired to register the target. Depending upon the type of target, you fire for effect. You blast like hell and then in due time you lift and wait for your nexttargel. We were gettin' down to, hell. .. , 'fire' meant fire one round per gun. Period. We were out of ammunition." More revealing of the caliber of the men who defended Bastogne, is Fife's first call to his division superiors announcing the Belgium town was surrounded: "Our high-frequency radio had been knocked out and the land line had been out from the second or thi I'd day we had been there in Ba togne. In desperation, one day I went over to the phone. It was a futile attempt, but I grabbed the dam ned phone and gave ita hal I' dozen cranks and I heard someone. ay, 'signal.' The thing hadn't worked for days' "I said, 'Thi. i. Handicap Five. I want to talk to Crown ix.' I was telling the operatorthis is the executive officer ofC B and I wanted to talk to the commanding general of Tenth Armored. I said, 'through Lucky (Third Army).' I got a standby. I'm holding the phone with a half a dozen other guy lookin' on in the basement and they're amazed. They're all gawkin' at me 'cau e

2nd Lt. Charles Roberts, commander of the Second Platoon, Company Bof the 80th Armored Medical Battalion, one of the some 18,000 Gis trapped at Bastogne, recalls the emotions of seeing the C-47s first arrive over their besieged position: "One would just look up and with tears in your eyes know we had not been forgotten." Then-sergeant Roberts is pictured in Hawaii in April 1942 before OCS. A chemical engineer by trade, Roberts retired from the postwar Army Reserve as amajor. (Charles Roberts)

the damn phone's working. ;'A voice comes on the phone and I recognize it right away as our G-3, Lt. Col. John Sheffield. I said, 'Hi, Tiger.' '''Oh Fife. oddamn you' Get your list of officers into us with the number that are going to be down here for our ew Year Eve's party or we'r not going to have enough women to take care of you guys at the dance.' "'What the hell are you talking about?' '''Well, goddamnit, we've got a big party to make arrangements for you guys. You won't answer your phone. You won't answer your radio, so we sent an MP messenger up there three days ago and that bastard hasn't returned yet either.' "01' course, we're talking clear-text (not scrambled) so I said, 'you'd better pick that MP up either on your Line Two (missing in action) or Line Four (killed in action) on the Morning Report.' '''What are you talking about? Haven't you seen him?' '''Hell, no 1' '''Jesus hrist, are you guys hurtin')' '''We are throwing snow balls. We are out of lighter fluid. The C rations are all gone. The band aids won't stick.' '''How long has this been gain' on?' '''Three days. You know what a doughnut is?'

'''Yeah.' '''We're the hole.' '''Does Georgie (Patton) know?' '''I don't know.' "'['II tell him. Good luck.''' Fife replaced the receiver and returned to the business of war.

THESE WERE OUR GUYS From the beginning of the weather-delayed Operation Repulse resupply program the Ninth Troop Carrier Command had assigned the proposed air drop mis ions to the 53rd TC Wing and Pathfinder Group in England. Though the 50th TC Wing had been moved to France by General Brereton in September to get away from the notoriou Engli h winter weather and clo er to the front it upplied, the wing lacked the parapack equipment and technician required for the Bastogne drop. So it wa at weathered-in midland Engl i h ba e from A IdeI'm a ton, to Welford Park, to Membury, to Ramsbury, to Greenham Common the crews and planes of the Ninth Troop Canier Command waited. "There was no doubt in anybody' mind," recalls 80th Troop Carrier Squadron operations officer Gilbert vogt, "that these were our guy. They were urrounded and needjust about everything from

ammunition, to food, to clothes. I think all the fella (in the quadron) had a sen e of urgency. It wa a job that ju t had to be done. It was lou y weather at that time and ordinarily we wouldn't have been out on missions. But these guy were all eager, anxious and ready to get over there." Bill Reid, another 80th TCS C-47 pilot, affirms, "We didn't have to be told. We knew what they were up again t at Ba togne. We had been resupplying tho e people all acro France, so we were familiar with their predicament. When they got pinned in there we felt we had a real 6bligation. That was part of our outfit - we were real close to them. It's not that simple living out ide in that kind of weather for four or five day. We felt damn well sorry for tho e guy. "The weather in England wa n't good, but the bigge t problem wa over the Continent. We stood around and waited. We knew it wa lou y over there that winter. It was about the coldest winter that had hit Europe. It was so damn cold even the fog froze. Even when we were held by the weather, we were ready to go. It goe back to the old college rah, rah, rah. Your buddies are in trouble out there and we figure they bu t their ass to help us and we wanted to do the ame for them. You get a bunch of kid 20 to 25-year -old, hell, they're 0 damned stupid they think they can beat the world by themselves!" Another 80th airman, Bill Sargent, adds, "We were spoiled, being pilots. We always had a bed at night, and a hot meal. But tho e poor guys. Our major job was resupply. We ran gas up to the front and brought back the wounded. If you ever wanted to know what·.they went through all you had to do wa make a couple of litter flight. Some of tho e kids we brought out - it made you heart ick." Matt Bigg ,another 80th Troop Carrier Squadron pilot then ba ed at Membury, remembers the wait in England. "Twice we sat there trying to get off and we couldn't make it. During one of tho e time we had an ice fog. It kind of uper-cooled the moi ture in the air cau ing it to change to ice. We were sitting there parked nose to tail, loaded and ready to go on the taxi way. You could watch the ice build up on the aircraft in front of you. The build-up on the antenna wire, which ran from the roof of the cockpit to the tail, was bad enough a couple of times the radio operator would (conlinued on page 70)

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Dec. 8, 1944 - the Allied advance continues unchecked a week before the Bulge a.ttack starts as Sherman tanks of the 2nd Armored Division of the US First Army roll toward the town of Smaree in Belgium. (US Army Signal Corps photo) Wash. 24 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

"After an hour, the barrage stopped. There was a stunned silence, but only for a moment. Then at key points all along the front giant searchlights from the ea t stabbed through the morning fog. American frontline positions, battered and smoking, were lit up. GIs stared out faces white in the deathly glow. This was their first terrifying, bewildering taste of the new Nazi fright weapon, 'artificial moonlight.' "Now, ghostly, white-sheeted forms came out of the haze toward, advancing in a slow, ominous walk 12 and 14 abreast. In the north, infantrymen of Sepp Dietrich's 6th Panzer Army burst into the 99th Division's forward positions. As they did, plane of a new design came out of the east with a strange, crackling roar, streaking by at unbelievable speed. The Germans looked up, suddenly realizing these were the new jets. They cheered, wild with excitement. Hitler' 'miracle weapon' were a fact. "Even the hard-bitten veterans who had been pummeled in Russia and chased across France felt new hope. Exultantly they swept forward, leaping and screanling and waving their rifles. The power, fervor and surprise of their attack was met by a stubborn if makeshift defense by the green American troops. Cooks and bakers, clerks and musicians, loggers and truck drivers were thrown pell-mell into the Line to stem the tide. Some ran; many stood and fought. Though Dietrich had boasted he would overwhelm this untried divi ion in the first assault, the line from Monschau to the Losheim Gap wavered but held. "At the Gap, it was a different story. Here, there was little to stop the attackers. Already, planks had been thrown across selected sections of the concrete 'dragon's teeth.' The e were quickly fastened to underpinning, secretly constructed the previous night. Tanks, armored cars, and assault guns roared over these improvised bridges and through huge holes already punched in the loo ely-held American lines by infantrymen... "By 9 a.m., 'Watch on the Rhine' was developing well. The Losheim Gap was being overrun, and the center of the erstwhile Ghost Front, the gateway to Bastogne, was pierced in a dozen places. A definite pattern had appeared, but no one on the Allied side could see it. With telephone lines knocked out and radios jammed, the battle was on the squad, platoon and company level; Regiment wa hard put to communicate with battalion up front and Division to the rear; and many would die in ignorance before Division could get intelligence and receive instructions from Corps. The whole process of command had been shortcircuited. "By noon, every village in the Lo-

EACH SYMBOL REPRESENTS I DIVISION INFANTRY

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BRITISH ARMORED . . . U. S. ~ BRITISH

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FRENCH

MAR BUR

hit... leading to the epic truggle that became known, because of the way it bent back the American line, as the Battle of the Bulge. "When Hitler began mulling his plan in late July, he quickly drew some general conciusions... Absolute secrecy was essential to the success of the counteroffensive ... Hitler therefore decided that he would personally plan and command his counteroffensive ... even in discussions with his hand-picked advisors, Hitler avoided mentioning the specifics of hi plan as it developed through August and early September... "He finally decided in early December to attack through the Ardennes region of

Belgium and Luxembourg. The Ardennes - the clas ic invasion route taken by German armies in 1914 and 1940 - was admittedly a region of difficult terrain: dense woodlands and rolling hills slashed by deep valleys and rugged ravines, but the Germans had occupied the region for four years before evacuating it in early September, and the commanders were familiar with the twists and turns in the vital roads that would speed the panzer divisions on their way." Appointing Nazi Propaganda Minister Dr. Josef GoebbeLs to comb out surplus

workers from business and indu try within the Third Reich to form 25 new YoLksgrenadier (People' Infantry) Divi ion, with 10,000 men each, some 7000 less than the standard German Army infantry division, equipped with automatic, rapid-fire burp gun and Panzerfausts - hand-launched, rocket-firing, anti-tank weapons. "In addition to the Yolk grenadier, Hitler created ten new panzer (armored) brigades, each built around a core of 40 tanks. These units were given top priority in the distribution of the new medium Panther tanks and the heavy Tiger tank, which were now coming off the production line in record numbers despite the Allied air raids ... Finally, Hitler ordered

•

Field Marshal Walter Model, called "The Fuhrer's Fireman" because Hitler sent him to trouble spots from Normandy to Belgium. Model, who was overall commander of German troops at Arnhem In September, 1944, joined von Rundtstedt in his opposition to Hitler's plans for Watch on the Rhine, (US National Archives)

Maj. Gen, Robert Hasbrouck, commanding officer of the US Army 7th Armor, Once the German counteroffensive began, Bradley sent his unit from Eubach. Germany to the rescue of soon-to-be-embattied Bastogne. (US Army Signal Corps)

Hitler counted on bad weather to ground the mighty allied Air Forces as he opened his winter Bulge offensive. Here, an artillery liaison plane of the 422nd Field Artillery Battalion of the 3rd Armored Division sits parked in a snow-covered field near Bastogne on Jan, 19. 1945, (US Army Signal Corps photo from DAVA Still Media Depository, Wash., DC)

the formation of about 100 'fortre ' battalions. These infantry units were to be made up of older men and presumably would be of low fighting quality. They were assigned to the fortifications of the West Wall (where many of the unit later rendered good ervice). "The main body of troops wa a sembled oppo ite the Ardennes. Here, the strictest security precautions were ob erved. Radio silence was enforced; tanks and other vehicles were heavily camouflaged. Severe limitations were placed on reconnai sance patrols and artillery activity for fear that they would reveal the troop concentrations and tip off the impending attacks. " ...The problems involved in assembling the attack forces were enormous. Divisions had to be transported to the a sembly areas from as far away as Austria, East Prussia and Denmark. Bridges over the Rhine, which had recently been

101 st Airborne Assistant Division Comander Brig, Gen. Anthony C McAuliffe. whose one-word refusal to surrender - "Nuts!" delighted the Allied media and Infuriated Hitler. (US Army Signal Corps)

MILES

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To provide sufficient power for the November offensives on the Roer and in the Saar, US strength had been concentrated in those divided sectors. Meanwhile. Middleton held the Ardennes front with an armored and three Infantry divisions.

sheim Gap was either taken, under siege, or about to be attacked. Every road in and to the Gap was in a frenzy ...Through the afternoon, a supporting infantry followed German assault troops through the Losheim Gap, the American situation worsened rapidly ...The villagers were cool, almost hostile, clearing their houses of all traces of American occupation. 'In a few minutes,' someone said grimly, "they'll be hanging out German flags.' "In the Losheim Gap ... Dietrich and (Gen. Baron Hasso von Manteuffel shoulder to shoulder, had smashed a broad hole

26 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

in the Gap, and were about to burst out the Belgian ide of the corridor, and when they did Manteuffel would surge southwest toward St. Yith and Dietrich would knife due west..." Note authors William K. Goolrick and Ogden Tanner in their 1979 book, The Battle of the Bulge, "Hitler's plan was grandiose, reckless - brilliant. It caught the overconfident Americans and British totally unprepared; a major offensive seemed 0 far beyond the capability of Germany that the po sibility scarcely occurred to them - unti I the onslaught

VOLUME 2, 1994 27

Vapor trails from Allied and Luftwaffe aircraft above them engage the attention of this US Army anti-aircraft crew at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, (US Army Signal Corps)

prepared for demolition to prevent any Allied crossing to the ea t, now had to be buttressed to carry the heavy traffic in the opposite direction, "Movement to the assembly areas was mostly by rail. The trains, hidden in tunnels or forest during the day, moved at night to the appointed areas, unloaded swiftly and returned for another load before daylight. Air raid warning stations were erected near assembly areas, and when Allied planes were reported heading that way, the trains were rushed into tunnel , So effective were the precaution that the German losses to Allied air attack totaled only eight ammurrition car in September, eleven cars of ammunition and rations in October, and four cars of gasoline in November. In the month of November, the assembly areas received 3982 carloads of ammunition, fuel, rations, horses, coal, weapons and equipment. Between September and December, the total was nearly 10,000 carloads, 144,735 tons of supplies. "Nevertheless, logistical problems forced Hitler to postpone his offensi ve several times. The original attack date, set at Nov, Ist by Hitler, was moved up to Nov. 25th, then postponed successively to Dec. 10th, Dec. 15th and finally the 16th. The delays did not seem to matter greatly; bad weather was still predicted for mid-December, and postponements were not new to the High Command, The western blitzkrieg in 1940 had been postponed 16 times, ]n addition to the four main arrrries to be employed, "A 1000-man parachute force under Col. Friedrich von der Heydte."was to land behind the American lines, open roads for German armor and block enemy units from interfering with the panzers' progress. To prevent detection by the AJLies, all the units in the German offensive were to be held at least 12 miles from the front until Hitler gave the order for the final assembly, Then troops and tanks would move up on a rigid timetable."

Wounded German Army soldiers brought in by horse-drawn sled are aided by US 1st Army medics, (US Army Signal Corps)

The Ardennes was considered a rest a.rea for US troops, an area not likely to be attacked by the Germans, or so the US high command thought... Stated Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the Allied Supreme Commander, in his 1948 memoirs, Crusade in Europe, "I was immediately convinced that this wa no local attack: it was not logical for the enemy to attempt merely a minor offensive in the Ardennes, unless of course it hould be a feint to attract our attention while he launched a major effort elsewhere."We had always been convinced that before the Germans acknowledged final defeat in the We t they would attempt one de perate counteroffensive. It

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seemed likely to (Gen. Omar) Bradley and me that they were now starting this kind of attack." Noted BradJey hi msel f iil his 1951 book, A Soldier's Story, "Antwerp was to be the primary objective, for the enemy reasoned that if he could sever our major supply lines from that port, he would have isolated four Allied armies north of the Ardennes".He had chosen to gamble his dwindling resources on the slender chance of achieving a strategic upset." Rejoin Ike, "One factor that caused us special concern, even anxiety, was the weather. For some days our great air force had been grounded because of clouds and impenetrable fog. The air force was one of

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American artillery thwarts yet another German thrust, Stated Bradley in his postwar memoirs, A Soldier Reports, "At SHAEF the gloom thicken edc as red tabs marking von Rundstedt's armies moved across the war maps, G-3 fretted again over the security of the bridges across the Meuse between Namur and Dinant, While not denying that von Rundstedt might yet extend his Bulge to that river, I disputed his ability to cross it even with light reconnaissance forces," (US Army Signal Corps)

28 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNiVERSARY!

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On December 16,1944, more than 250,000 Germans attacked 83,000 American troops deployed thinly along the 85-mile Ardennes front (broken line), In the north, the Sixth Panzer Army struck the US 99th Division and threatened to cut off the US 2nd Division attacking into Germany through the West Wail. In the center, the Fifth Panzer Army hit the 106th Division, the 14th Cavalry Group and part of the 28th Division, In the souh, the Seventh Army clashed with elements of the US 4th, 9th Armored and 28th Divisions,

our greatest assets a.nd now, until the weather improved, it was practically useles . As long as the weather kept our plane on the ground, it would be an alJy of the enemy worth many additional divisions.The morning of Dec, 17th it became clear that the German attack was in great strength, "Surprised as we were by the timing and the strength of the attack, we were not wrong in its location, nor in the conviction that it would eventually OCCLu'",Gen, Bradley and I had long since agreed on plan . Write Col. Eddy Bauer in the 1966 Illustrated World War IJ Encyclopedia, "Eisenhower and Bradley immediately realized the implications of the offen ive, but in the reserves, they were limited to the J8th Airborne Corps (Maj, Gen. Matthew Ridgeway), two of who e divisions, the 82nd and the 101st, were being reformed near Rheims, after two month ' action in the Nijmegen alient. This Corps was immediately alerted, and the 9th and 3rd Arm ies recei ved orders to make their 7th and 10th Armored Division re pectively available to the 1st Army. In a few day' time, Eisenhower would also be able to call upon the 2nd Armored Divi ion, which had ju t landed in France, as weJI a the 87th Division and the 17th Airborne Division, which were still in England, but about to embark for France. "In the public mind, the Ardennes campaign is summed up in the one word Bastogne" (which Hitler had visited in 1940 - BT), and rightly so, since Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe and his 10Ist Airborne Divi ion fought heroically around the little town, altllough the behavior under fire of the 7th Armored Division and it commander, Brig. Gen. Robert Ha brook, wa also worthy of the highe t prai e, "Between Dec. 18-22, the defen ive position of Saint Vith compelled the 5th Panzer Army to dis per e its energies, and the town was only evacuated after an expres order. It i true that on Dec. 19th, in the Schnee Eifel plateau region, two regiments of the 106th Divi ion were trapped, and 6000 men had to urrender, but everywhere else the Americans tood up gallantly under all the attacks, "A Jacque Mordal very rightly ay : 'The great merit of the American troops was that despite the surprise and initial di order, a few commanders and a few handful of troops were found who saved the ituation by holding on grimly to certain vital positions; and it may be said ti1at rarely has the fate of 0 many division depended on a few isolated engagement. "A mere handful of artillerymen firing their few guns saved Butgenbach on Dec. 16th, and prevented the complete i olation of the 2nd and 99th Divisions, A battalion of engineer was to ave Malmedy; and a VOLUME 2, 1994 29

company of the 51st Engineer Combat Battalion stopped the advance of the leading element of Battle Group Peiper. They blew up the Trois-Ponts bridge across the Salm, and forced Peiper to go back via Ambleve, and find a further bridge at Werbomont, where the engineers of the 291st Battalion fought heroically to prevent his crossing; for the second time the

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miles, was carried out in five days. During this time, the 3rd Army's rear echelons tran ported 62,000 tons of supplies, the Intelligence staff distributed thousands of maps of the new sector, and the communications section put down 40,000 yards of telephone cable. "And all tills was achieved in snow and on roads covered with black ice...On Dec. 20th, Ei enhower placed Montgomery in charge of the northern flank of the German penetration (with the US 1st and 9th armi'es under his command), and gave Bradley the southern flank. "On the morning of Dec. 19th, the

continuous front to be reestablished on a line Manhay-Grandmenil-Hotton-Marche." While Montgomery believed in plugging gaps here and there and then counterattacking when ready, "Hodges, Collins and Ridgeway ... hated giving up ground ... To guard against every eventuality, the meticulous Montgomery established Gen. Brian Horrocks's British 30th Corps, and the Guards' Armored Division halfway between Namur and Brussel , thereby greatly facilitating the American 1st Army's movement, which up to Dec. 24th, had involved 248,000 men and 48,000 vehicles. "By Dec. 22nd, Rundstedt had decided

"In the meantime, Lt. Gen. von Lauchert's 2nd Panzer Division had reached Ciney, Beauraing and Celles, in contact with the British 29th Armored Brigade, and only six miles from the Meu eat Dinant. On Christmas Day, it uffered a flank attack at the hand of the American 2nd Armored Division ...The effect was one of total surprise, and the di a tel' was no les complete. "By the end of the day, Lauchert's los e were a follows: 1050 prisoner, 2500 killed, 81 tanks (out of a total of 88), seven assault gun, all hi artillery (74 pieces) and 405 vehicles. That day the

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Victory! (I to r) American Army Generals Omar Bradley, Dwight Eisenhower and George S. Patton, Jr. in liberated Bastogne. It was the greatest battle ever fought by the US Army. (US Army Signal Corps)

Von Rundstedt's plan for the December counteroffensive called for a slashing drive through the Ardennes with tanks pacing the advance to Antwerp. Two panzer Armies wre to carry the main thrust while two others held open the shoulders. If successful. the stroke would have cut off the Allied Armies north of Aachen.

German troops saw a bridge being blown up in front of them, and they also suffered severe losses from air attacks launched in spite of the bad weather. "Stavelot, lost on Dec. 17th, was recaptured two days later. The battle went on in the sunken valley of the Ambleve, where after five days of hard combat, Peiper, out of fuel, was forced to leave behind all his equipment and withdraw the few hundred men remaining on foot in the now, and following impossible tracks. "On the German side, Dietrich made the big mistake of stubbornly trying to take the Eisenborn Ridge, whose defenses had been greatly strengthened by the transfer to Gen. Leonard Gerow of that first-class fighting unit, the American 1st Division: thus the 12th Hitler You th SS Panzer Division was halted around Butgenbach. As for the celebrated Leibstandarte, it became separated from its advanced elements, which had pushed forward into the Ambleve Valley, on Col. Peiper's orders. "In short, four day after the initial attack, the 6th Panzer Army was still far

from the Meu e bridges - which it should have reached within 72 hours. "On Dietrich' left, Manteuffel had shown more tactical flair. Clervaux and Wiltz feU easily, thu opening up the way to Bastogne. Faced with this most unexpected development - for, after all, it had been thought that Dietrich's forces would have the starring role in the offensive - Field Mar hal Model and von Rund tedt recommended the immediate transfer of 2nd SS Panzer Corps from the 5th to the 6th Panzer Army, following the principle that successful operations ought to be exploited in preference to the less successful. "But Hitler refu ed categorically to allow this transfer. ..Had Eisenhower known that his adversary was making this tactical mistake, he would probably have refrained from taking ome of the measure which marked his intervention on Dec. 19th, but with all his report from the front indicating that Bastogne and the JOist Airborne Division were practically surrounded, he decided that the time had come to throw all his authority into the struggle..."

30 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

Writing in his 1963 biography, Patton: Ordeal and Triumph, author Ladislas Farago stated, "The historic Verdun conference of Dec. 19th, wa , I submit, one of the high points of Dwight D. Eisenhower's generalship of the war...lke was in top form ... holding the conference with iron hands to its key issue - the Allied counterattack ... He was called upon to make absolute decisions." Adds Col. Eddy, "The main decision taken was to move the six divisions of Gen. Patton's 3rd and 12th Corps from the Saar front to the Echternach-DiekirchBa togne front, at the ame time subordinating 8th Corps to the 3rd Army. This meant that the right flank of Gen. Devers army group would be extended from Bitche to Saarbrucken. Such a maneuver had already been discussed at 3rd Army headquarters, so that a single telephone call from Verdun by its commander was enough to get it started. "According to Farago, this order, which meant the moving of some 133,178 vehicles over a total of some 1,500,000

One of the 115 American Army Gis allegedly massacred by SS troopers at Malmedy, Belgium on Dec. 17, 1944, the second day of Hitler's controversial counteroffensive in the Ardennes Forest. Stated John Toland in his 1959 book Battle: The Story of the Bulge, "The outcome of the resulting trial is still bitterly argued in Europe," but no one was ever executed for the slaughter of these POWs. (US Army Signal Corps)

JOist Division entered Bastogne, joining up with tho e elements of the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions defending the town. The next day ... the 26th Volksgrenadier Division's commander, Lt. Gen. Heinz Kokott, called upon Gen. McAuliffe to surrender; he recei ved the rudest of replies: 'Nuts.' The garri on's high morale was kept up, fir tly, by the wholehearted support of the town population under their mayor. ..and secondly by the sound of 3rd Corp' guns announcing the beginning of the counterattack in the south. "On the northern half of the Bulge, an attack by the 30th Divi ion, called by the Germans 'Roosevelt's SS,' enabled Hodges to close up the Ambleve Valley sector by lengthening the position held by 5th Corps. Dietrich succeeded in revitalizing the offensive, forcing Hasbrook to evacuate St. Vith on Dec. 21st. "The intervention, firstly of 18th Airborne Corps (although reduced to the 82nd Airborne Division), and secondly, of Gen. Collins' 7th Corps, comprising the 75th, 83rd and 84th Divisions, enabled a

Christmas, 1944 in enemy-besieged Bastogne: from left to right. Col. William Roberts. Lt. Col. Ned Moore, Brig. Gen. Gerald Higgins, McAuliffe, the garrison commander: Col. Thomas Sherburne, Jr.: Lt. Col. Harry W.O. Kinnard: Lt. Col. Paul Danahy and Col. Curtis D. Renfro. (US Army Signal Corps)

upon immediate withdrawal from the engagement, already running into trouble...Hitler refused... he thought that if they threw in the High Command reserves, especially the 9th Panzer and 3rd and 15th Panzergrenadier Divisions, they would be able to resume the offensi ve, or at least capture Bastogne, the main thorn in their ide. "On Dec. 23rd, an anti-cyclone brought with it a week of brilliant un hine over the whole of the Ardennes front. The Allied air forces were immediately unleashed, flying 2000 mis ions on the first day, and 15,000 in the next three days. On Christmas Eve, at a cost of 39 planes lost, 2000 American bombers, escorted by 900 fighters, attacked the airfields near Frankfurt and the communications networks of Kaiserslautern, Bad Munster, Koblenz, Neuwied and Euskirchen. "...Other air attacks were succe sfullyJaunched on the enemy's rear ... 961 Dakotas and 61 gliders were able to drop 850 tons of supplies and ammunition to beleagured Bastogne...

American 2nd Armored Division certainly lived up to it nickname of 'Hell on Wheels.' Confronted with this crushing blow, Manteuffel could only withdraw his Panzer Corps to Rochefort. "Patton's 3rd Army had a little more difficulty in relieving Ba togne, a the German 5th Parachute Division ...on the right of the German 7th Army, put up a very spirited re i tance.It was not until Dec. 26th that the American 4th Armored Division ... managed to link up with the beleaguered garri on, and even then it was only by means of a narrow corridor a few hundred yards wide. "Faced with these defeats, Hitler di engaged, but was he deceiving himself or trying to deceive other? On Dec. 28th, harranguing his generals who were about to take part in Operation North Wind against the American 7th Army, he pretended to be satisfied with the result .. .Our short offensive has had the initial result of greatly easing the situation along the whole front, although unfortunately it (continued on page 95) VOLUME 2,1994 31

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Continuing our account ofthe recollections of American airmen and soldiers on how airpower aided the Allied victory at the Battle ofthe Bulge

REMEMBERING D BY .JAMES H. FIlRMER

D

cAuliffe had not been given an exact hour for the arrival of the Douglas C-47s. Every available ground transport, however, had been marshalled and waiting since dawn for their appearance. First in, was a pair of 9th AF Pathfinder Group C-47s from Chalgrove, England. Their Pathfinder teams parachuted into Bastogne and quickly set up their Eureka radar transmitters on which subsequent troop carrier flights would home. Everything had been done, except the waiting. Then, at II :50 that morning, the first of the C-47 formations, led by 42 planes of the Pathfinders Group, rumbled in over the drop zone. They were followed by 50 C-47s of the 53rd TC Wing's 434th TC Group. The formations seemed to parade

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to the horizon. The 435th TC Group provided ten transports; the 436th TC Group flew over another 47; 43 more Gooney Birds came from the 437th TC Group, while the 438th TC Group contributed 44 C-47s to the day's drops. The 50th TC Wing's 441 st TC Group also appeared over Bastogne with 21 aircraft. The group, based in Dreux, France, had acquired the parapacks of the 21 435th TC Group C-47s after their abortive mission to St. Vith on 18 December. Multi-colored parachutes began to spill from the endless train of C-47s - each colored parachute (red, white, black or green) identifying the type of cargo (ammunition, food, medicine, etc.) slung underneath. Another 29 aircraft from the 53rd TC Wing flew on to Marcoury a few miles to

the northwest of Bastogne in a less than successful effort to resupply the hardpressed American Task Force Hogan. In all, nearly 280 C-47s were airborne on the 23rd for the first significant day of Operation Repulse. Lt. Charles Roberts' recollections are typical of the Amelican defenders at Bastogne: "The sky was just fi lied with parachutes carrying ammunition, food, medical supplies and gasoline. One would just look B/ondie was piloted by Gil Vogt and frequently copiloted by Pete Boisseau before he got his own ship. Bill Elmendorf manned the radios, while August "Gus" Brown was the transport's crew chief. In Troop Carrier Command, the senior pilot and crew chief were, generally, per· manently assigned to aspecific aircraft while the balance of the five-man crew could be rotated through other air· craft assignments as needs demanded. (Gil Vogt)

PART TWO

BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

VOLUME 2, 1994

33

up and with tears in your eyes know we had not been forgotten. What a wonderful feeling it was to be an merican GI." "We u ually tried to drop air bundle and supplie as Iowa we could and still get the chute open," recalls Gilbert Vogt, then operations officer of the 80th Troop Carrier Squadron. "We didn't want to get over 300

Col. Adriel . Williams, a West Pointer still in his 20s, followed a "newer book." And the squadron's similarly youthful pilots often added an extra-legal add ndum or two of their own along the way. Vogt explains, "In a squadI' n of any size you've got all kinds of per analities, happy-go-lucky guys, serious types and then there were the

hotrodders who thought they were flying P-51 s. We had guy go up above the overcast in England and get into mock dogfights with their C-47 . They d come down' ometime with the fairings mis ing at the wing/fuselage joint and a degree or two of extra dihedral. "I was up with the bunch one day and we were having a great time. I saw some piece fly off one of the other airplane, so we thought we'd better go back home. We got down and the fairing right at the wing root hadju t peeled off. The wing had sprung so much ... we had gotten a little over the redline. But, of course, no one on the ground could figure out how it happened." "When we came back from our regular deli ery mi sions and we were empty," add 80th TCS pilot Bill Sargent, "when we would get near home we'd just have a rat race. Many of the earl ier guyin troop carri-

er had come from pursuit a signments and were still fighter pilots at heart. We'd ring those C-47s out like you couldn't believe." Hedgehoping for troop carrier pilots? A piece of cake! Vogt was at the controls of his C-47 Blondie on the 23rd as they approached Ba togne. At the time, troop calTier squadrons were considerably overstrength. Instead of a more typical nine to twelve plane complement, the unit operated between 25 and 30 aircraft with crew - a result of anticipated casualties which, fortunately, never materialized. Vogt approached hi drop zone at the head of a V -formation of three C-47 , with another V on either wing to form a front wedge of nine tran port followed by two more wedges, completing the squadron's formation. "That fir t day one of our main concern was enemy aircraft. Of course, we

had no armor and no armament and chuggin' along there at 150 or 160 mph you felt rather ulnerable. But, we had pretty good control of the skies and we knew that. That first day was the only time I saw any evi-

"If you got a bumpy ride, you knew you were in the prop wash of the plane ahead ofyou" dence of German aircraft. A we were coming into our drop Bastogne I could look directly ahead of u and see our fighter boy picking up and meeting the few Germans that were trying to get to us.

"We weren't the first formation into the DZ (drop zone). By the time our outfit got in you could see all these chutes and material laying in the area from pre ious drops. We tried to ju t tack it right on top of the arlier drops." C-47 pilot Matt Biggs continue, "You could watch the fighter-bombers circling on the way into the drop zone. Those P47 pilots would circle at a thousand or 2000 feet and then, one at a time, they'd roll inverted down on the German concentrations. They'd pull out two or 300 feet above the ground." Gordon O'Dell's impres ions were much the ame a hi C-47 approached the drop zone. "A we were coming into the DZ, [ took time ju t to look out. The copilot wa flying and I ju t t ok a fast I ok at what wa going on down below. I recall seeing a P-47 diving on a tank and as he

Gil VagI stands by his 80th Troop Carrier Squadron C·47 B/ondie. (Gil VagI)

feet. Small arm - rifle, machine gun and 20mm - fire were our main problem at Bastogne. The German ju t couldn't fu e their anti-aircraft fire down that low. At that altitude anti-aircraft wasn't any problem for us, except in Holland where they could ee us coming a long way off and lower the 88s and use them a long ri fle . "Before we arrived at the drop zone in Ba togne, we were right on the deckbehind the tree and hill line . We'd then pull up to drop. If you came in low even small arm fire would mo t often mi the mark. If you're hunting geese, sitting there in your blind and a flock of birds come over at 300 feet, boy, they make a nice hot. But, if they come just right over your head they're over you, pa t and gone before you can get your gun on them. That was one of our better defenses. We were one of the few types of outfit actually authorized to hedgehop." The 80th Troop CarTier Squadron's CO, Major Clarence L. Schmid was typical of the 436th TC Group's squadron CO : A enior prewar airline captain who'd leanied to fly in peacetime by the "pa sengerfriendly corporate book." His group CO, Gil Vogt's 80th Troop Carrier Squadron C·47 B/andie. (Gil Vogt)

34 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

VOLUME 2, 1994

35

pulled up 1 saw a big flash. It looked as though" the '47 had hit its mark. "It was one hell of a battle going on down on the ground there, something I will always remember vividly." "It was the most phenomenal thing that anybody could ever witness," adds Bill Sargent. "We looked north and you could ee dogfights and guys strafi ng. [ was flying copilot the first day in.l was sitting there playing with my flak helmet

fantry, burning tanks - it was unreal I" "You could follow the tracks through the snow to see how the tank movements and battles had taken place," adds Yogt's radioman, Bill Elmendorf. "You could see these tracks going across a field and all of a sudden turning to the left or right and then every once in a while you saw the burning hulk of a tank or some other kind of vehicle." Flying below the overcast into the drop zone Biggs recalls, "I just concen-

"It was kind ofa desperate feeling there at Bastogne, one you couldn't do anything about"

altitude and the weight of the cargo pack to be --- J Ie dropped determined the distance ahead of the impact point at which you punch the green Iight and start dropping the load. I'm just picking a number out of my head, but it might be 200 yards short of the impact point was about right - that's eyeballing it. You look out the left, or right side of the cockpit, or straight out ahead and pick omething a little ways ahead. You can't look straight down. Pick a tree or ome other landmark and as you go by that point you hit the green light. Air speed for a drop in a Gooney was about 90 to 95 mph. Biggs' attention was divided, at best. "I remem• ber once we were over the tanks with the red panels, we were okay. But once there were no red panels (on the tanks) when we dropped to 600 feet to begin our drop run. I remember seeing this row of guys lined up, lying in a ditch and all firing at us. As we went over they stood up and continued firing at us in classic rifleman fa hion." Not all of the air bundles were carried internally. The 80th's C-47s were al 0 fitted with six pararacks mounted externally and running down the cen"It gave you ahell of alot of a sense of well·being you didn't have before when you saw those C-47s," recalls Bastogne defender and Tenth Armored Division oHicer Charles Fife. "...Georgie hadn't forgotten us. It just tickled the hell out of us." ter-line of the fuselage. Air bundles were released some discarded Stars and Stripes new pafire through the fuselage but we didn't have electrically either from the cockpit or aft pers and several Yank magazine and anybody on the plane hit. It's strange, one cargo bay by the door. shoved them into the harne of some of of the guys that was pushing the cargo out "Our job," adds Elmendorf, "was to our parabundle. ometime later I did read the door had his foot back and braced get in there, drop your bundles and get the that someone had actually received the down. The shell went up through the floor hell out. We'd turn at the IP (inital point) papers and that they really liked the spirit." and just behind his foot. As it came through heading for the drop zone. Of course, "If there's such a thing as humor in the metal floor it made a flower of curled everybody stayed with the lead airplane. war we saw it at Ba togne during the metal. One of the curls went right into the You generally stayed pretty flat (within a drops," adds Fife. "The stuff would come heel of his boot and clamped it to the floor. few feet of the leader's altitude). If you driftin' down and there would be haifa He couldn't move his foot and didn't know were in calm air, you didn't get jostled dozen GIs, or maybe more, run like hell what happened to him for a moment. He around. But, if you got a bumpy ride, you towards the place where it looked like it eventually pulled his foot free. knew you were in the prop wash of the was going to hit. And here would come a "Shells would hit the plane but the C-47 plane ahead of you. You tayed in it bunch of Germans from the other side was a pretty durable airplane. Unless you because you didn't want to tack up the running like hell. There'd be a tug-of-war. hit the controls, or the pilot, the airplane whole formation (at varying altitudes)." That happened frequently and who vel' just seemed to keep going." "In our particular squadron we didn't won would go haulin' off the loot. "On one of the tri ps," recalls Blandie's 100 e anybody," recalls Biggs. "We always "It gave you a hell of a lot of sense of radioman Bill Elmendorf, "I had collected got hit. Our particular plane took 20mm

•

....

and 1 looked down out the right cockpit window right into the barr I of a guy aiming up at us. He wasn't friendly. With the snow on the ground, and the sky ... everything you could have thought of in warfare was laid out in stark detail - dogfights, ground support strikes, active inThe senior 80th TCS CO and veteran pre-war airline captain Maj. Clarence L. Schmid (left) with 436th TCG CO Col. Adriel N. Williams. (Gil Vogt)

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Recalls a80th Troop Carrier Squadron pilot, "We were one of the few...(transport) outfits actually authorized to hedgehop."

36 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

trated on staying on the lead plane in the formation. We dropped when he did. The cargo was tacked in the back of the airplane with a chute on the top of each bundle and you had two guys - three, if I sent the radio operator back - to push them out. When we started the run they'd have it all untied from the cargo floor and when we got over the drop zone they'd see the gr en light and start shoving it out the door. The speed of the airplane, its

VOLUME 2,1994

37

well-being that you didn't have before when you saw those C-47s," adds Fife. "It was kind of a desperate feeling there at Bastogne, one you couldn't do anything about. But, now came some air a sistance which more or Ie s told you Georgie hadn't forgotten us. ]t ju t tickled the hell out of us." A reported 95 percent of the 1446 parachuted bundles, 44 tons of desperately needed supplies dropped on the 23rdwere recovered by the Bastogne defenders. On the 23rd, 9th AF fighter-bomber had bounced on German forces around Ba togne with a determined passion. They had flown 696 sorties, downing 91 enemy fighters for the los of 19 of their own. Eight 9th AF Troop Carrier Command C47s were lost to ground fire that first day, though none were lost to enemy air action. On the night of 22/23 December, 485 Royal Air Force heavy bombers bombed the rail center at Koblenz. Another 500 RAF Lancasters were launched on the morning of the 23rd to hit more key tran portation centers. The 8th AF's three bomb divi ions launched 423 B-17s and B-24s, escorted by 636 fighters, triking at communication centers and marshalling yards aero s We tern Europe feeding the German offensive. Additionally, the eleven 9th AF light and medium bomber groups - 624 aircraft in all- were in the air hammering at blidges, rail yards and communication centers immediately behind the lines. Heavy enemy flak took its toll that day, accounting for the 10 s of36 twin-engined bombers. To aid the 9th AF in protecting its fighter-bombers from enemy aircraft, two 8th AF fighter groups - 150 Mustangs and their crews - were tran ferred to Belgium. The 352nd arrived in A ch on

the 23rd, while 361 t flew into St. Dizier. The clearing weather of the 23rd proved to be a double-edged sword for those on the ground - for if the Allied air forces could come by day, the Luftwaffe could come by night. Lieutenant Roberts continues. "We had

"To aid the 9th AF in protecting its fighterbombers from enemy aircraft, two 8th AF fighter groups -150 Mustangs and their crews -were transferred to Belgium" . set up sort of hospital in this three-story stone building with our one doctor and medical staff there. We even had some German wounded we were caring for. "Usually, the German planes would come over in the morning before daylight, drop a couple of bombs and leave before our P-47s and Mu tangs arrived. Well, this morning all my men were in the basement sleeping. 1 was in a small room on the ground floor. ] could look out the window and see our ambulance and my C and R car parked out back. ]n the next room we had 20 or 0 wounded on litters. "When the planes flew over you could tell they were the enemy by the sound of their engines and by all the .50 caliber fire

coming up from the ground. It was quite a sight. ] could look out the window and see all this tracer fire converging and eros ing. [ could tell the plane was headed right for us! They dropped flares which lit up the area like the sun was out. It wa easy for the pilot to see what to bomb. I'm not sure why they picked our ambulances with the red crosses on the top and sides. Maybe they thought our building was the HQ in disguise. "He dropped his two bombs. One fell on a building in the back; it completely crumpled in on it elf. The other bomb fell between my ambulances. "I got down in my sleeping bag with one leg in a spring condition, in case I had to get out in a hurry if the roof fell in. After 1 got up enough nerve to get up, ] could see the big window looking out on the ambulance had been completely blown out - sort of over the top of me. The stone wall on the other side of the room, opposite the window, was buckled out but it hadn't fallen. When daylight came, ] went out to inspect our five ambulance. They appeared to have exploded from the inside out, like tin cans that had had fire crackers in them. Though the panels were bowed out, they all still ran." Bomb had fallen near a railroad overpass, not far from McAuliffe's headquarters, a well a houses on the square below. Another aid station had been hit, killing many wounded; still another bomb had detonated within 50 feet of the command post, wh iIe a second tore through two floors of the CP, but had not exploded. Fires burned late into the night in downtown Bastogne while General Kokou flung his blooded 26th Volksgrenadiers, reinforced by tank and infantry of the

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38 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

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Bondie radioman Bill Elmendorf recently tracked down his wartime mount, 42·100537, which is still flying in Ciudad Bolivar, Venezuela. (Bill Elmendorf)

Panzer Lehr, at the town's thin outheastern defenses throughout the night. The CCB's Team O'Hara Sherman tanks, however, held firm at Marvie. His attack turned back with heavy losses the evening of the 23rd, but 24 December would prove a relatively quiet day as Kokott repositioned his forces for a final assault from the northwest on Christmas Day. The 24th had dawned clearer than the previous day. "Everything that will fly" was the order that had come down from the 8th AF command. Fourteen hundred First and Third Bomb Division B-17s took to the air, joined by 634 Second Bomb Division B-24s. Every 8th AF bomb group took part, escorted and otherwise upported by every 8th AF fighter command group, with the exception of the fogged-in 78th and 339th FGs. The target: Airfields and communication centers across Western Eu rope. Ei gh th Air Force fi gh tel's claimed 92 aerial kills for the day. Freezing conditions and ground fog in England caused numerous takeoff accidents. The single mo t significant 8th AF casualty of the 24th, however, wa the los of Brigadier General Fred Castle, commander of what would be the largest air strike operation of the war. He would receive a posthumous Medal of Honor for taking the controls of his doomed Flying Fortress so that his crew could safely bailout. The American heavies were joined by 800 RAF Halifaxes and Lancasters, targeting additional enemy airfields in an effort to suppress Luftwaffe interference in the defen e of the Bulge.

Nearly 400 9th AF medium and light bombers added to the carnage, going after additional bridges and communication targets. Ninth Air Force Thunderbolts and Mustangs flew 1157 ground support 01'tie on the 24th, claiming numerous tanks, armored vehicles, nearly 800 military transports and ome 170 rail car. The troop carrier drop conti nued on the 24th, with the Pathfinder Group, the 434th, 435th, 436th, 437th TC Groups returning with 165 C-47s, all told. The 438th TC Group sent another 41 planes to Marcoury with mixed results to bring the day's total of air drops to just over 200. Perhaps the day's single mo t important morale booster for the Bastogne defenders was the news that Patton's Fourth Armored Division was on the move, and headed their direction. Air drops were again su pended on Chri tmas Day because of poor weather. Air operations, however, continued, though on a reduced scale behind the front with 432 Second and Third Division B-24s and B-17s hitting communication centers and rail bridges west of the Rhine. Another 629 9th AF medium and light bombers were airborne adding 1239 tons to th day's bombing totals, aided by 1095 9th AF fighter-bomber sorties which accounted for 99 enemy tanks and armored vehicle , and 813 motor transports. Confirmed Ninth and Eighth Air Force aeri a I ki lls for 24 and 25 Decem bel' totalled an impressive 287 enemy aircraft. The greatest single loss on Christmas Day, however, wa the death of the ETa's leading active American ace, Major George E.

Preddy. To aid the 9th AF in protecting it bomb-laden fighter-bomber from enemy air acti n, two 8th AF fighter gr up 150 Mustangs and their crews - had been transferred to Belgium. The 352nd FG had arrived in Asch on the 23rd; the 361 st FG settled into St. Dizier. Preddy, who was credited with 27.5 kills, was hot down near Liege on 25 December by American ground forces when hi low-flying P-5 I D Cripes A' Mighty, was mistaken for an enemy aircraft. Two more flights of Luftwaffe planes bombed Bastogne on the evening of the 24th - even as a choir of wounded, wrapped in colored parachutes for warmth, continued to sing "Silent ight, H Iy ight." Bombs buried 32 of the wounded in the vaulted chapel of the make hift ho pita!. General Kokott began his attack around 2:30 Christmas morning with a heavy artillery attack on the village of Champs. Heavy hand-to-hand fighting followed when Volksgrenadier troop entering Champs met stiff resi tance from American airborne units. At dawn, enemy tank broke through lightly-defended American lines near Flamizoulle, reaching the edge of Bastogne itself; perhaps a mile from McAuliffe' CPo The tank were caught in a hail of American fire. They would advance no further, the German's final effort to take Bastogne had been crushed. Not one of the 18 Tiger tanks that had gone into the action would survive. The heavie t American troop arrier losse of the operation, however, were yet to come. • VOLUME 2, 1994

39

A LOOK AT THE COMBAT UNITS COMPOSING THE OPPOSING ARMIES IN THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

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By Uzal W. Ent B/Gen PNG, Ret. 40 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

VOLUME 2,1994 41

BADGES OF SCHUTZSTAFFELN

ORDER OF BATTLE, THE ARDENNES CAMPAIGN DIVISIONS/BRIGADES US

GERMAN

BRITISH

=1: -== --

-== =:.. == --..

:.,..---

~;~§-

-= ---

30th DIVISION

NEW 80th DIVISION

FIRST ARMY

VIII ARMY CORPS 42 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

35th DIVISION

75th DIVISION

1st SS pz Div 4th lnf Div 2nd SS pz Div 5th lnf Div 9th SS pz Div 9th lnf Div 12th SS pz Div 26th lnf Div pz Lehr Div 28th lnf Div* 2nd pz Div 30th lnf Div 116th pz Div 35th lnf Div 3rd Para Div 75th lnf Div 5th Para Div 80th InfDiv

62nd VGD 2nd Amd 51 t (Highland) Div 79th VGD 3rd Amd 53rd (Welsh) Div 167th VGD 4th Amd 6th Abn Div 212thVGD 6thAmd 29th Amd Bde (I I th Amd Div) 246th VGD 7th Amd

1. I 55 Panzer Division 'Leibstandarte'

11. XI 55 Frw pz Gren Division 'Nordland'

2. II 55 Panzer Division 'Das Reich'

12. XII 55 Panzer Division 'Hitlerjugend'

3. III 55 Panzer Division 'Totenkopf'

13. XIII 55 Mountain Division 'Handschar'

4. IV 55 pz Gren Division 'Polizei Division'

14. XIV 55 Waffen Gren Division 'Galizische No I'

5. V 55 Panzer Division 'Wi king'

15. XV 55 Waffen Gren Division 'Latvian No I'

6. VI 55 Mountain Division 16. XVI 55 pz Gren Division 'Nord' 'Reichfiihrer 55'

272nd VGD

9th Amd

7. Vii 55 Vol Mnt Division 'Prinz Eugen'

17. XVII 55 pz Gren Division 'Gotz von Berlichingen'

277th VGD

10th Amd

8. Viii 55 Panzer Division 'Das Reich'

18. XVIII 55 Vol pz Gren Division 'Horst Wessel'

326th VGD

11th Amd

9. IX 55 Calvalry Division 'Florian Geyer'

19. XIX 55 Waffen Gren Division 'Latvian No II'

340th VGD

17th Abn Div 10. X 55 Panzer Division 'Frundsberg'

20. XX 55 Waffen Gren Division 'Estonian No I'

99th DIVISION

THIRD ARMY

XII ARMY CORPS

III ARMY CORPS

XIX ARMY CORPS VOLUME 2, 1994 43

"on

about October 20, 1944 I returned to the Fiihrer'sdqwuters," wrote SS Col. Otto Skorzeny, the huLki g, scar-faced Austrian-born c nmando who had made world headlines by his ating airborne rescue of Benito ussolini in 1943. "This time, Adolf Hitler received me a one". 'I am going to charge you wi new mission, perhaps the most important in your Ijfe.. 0 far \'.ery few 0 e at we"at'e preparing in utmost secrecy a mjssion in which yo are pay a prmcipal patt. In December, the German Army wiD launch a great offensive, the issue of which will be decisive in the destiny of our country.' "...For some weeks now, a few members of the General Staff had been prepat'ing a great offen ive. We must now regain the initiative, which ...belonged solely to the Allies. Even during the Anglo-American advance from the beaches of Normandy to the German frontiers, Adolf Hitler had been considering a vigorous counterattack, but the critical situation of all our armjes had made the execution of such a plan impos ible. "Now, for the last three weeks, the AlLies were no longer advancing".Their Ijnes of communications had been enormously lengthened; and the material of their motorized atmjes was worn out after four months of incessant battles. Thanks to these two factor, our Western Front, after having all but collap ed, was now stabilized. According to the FUhrer, it was their supremacy in the ajr which permitted the Allies to land atld to win the Battles of France atld Belgium, but it was to be hoped that the bad weather predicted for the last months of the year would reduce Anglo-Americatl ajr activity for awhile at least. "And the Luftwaffe could muster 2000 new jet planes which had been held in reserve for this offensive... A lightnjng offensive would prevent the creation of a strong French Army. For the moment, the Allies possessed 70 large units, which was distinctly insufficient for a front some 450 miles long. Consequently, it must be possible for a strong concentration of German troops to break through some weakly-defended sector before the Allies could consolidate their front by using new French divisions."

BY BLAINE TAYLOR

SS Col. omo Skorzeny (left), seen here with Hitler at Ft. Wolf following his daring surprise rescue of Mussolinl in September, 1943, led Germans dressed in American uniforms behind Allied lines to sow confusion, and did. It was also rumored that an attempt to assassinate Ike would be made, but never was. (Photo from the Heinrich Hoffman Albums in the US National Archives)

44 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

VOLUME 2, 1994 45

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Writing in his 1950 work, Skorzeny's Secret Missions: War Memoirs of the Most Dangerous Man in the World, the famed commando stated "'Finally,' said Hitler, 'we decided to elaborate the plan of an offensive starting north of Luxembourg and supported by a drive starting from Aix-Ia-Chapelle ... the region we broke through in the first campaign of France in 1940. '''As for you and the units under your orders, we have chosen for you one of the most difficult tasks within the framework of thi offensive. As advance groups, you will have to occupy one or several bridges on the Meuse River between Liege and Namur. You will carry out this mission thanks to a stratagem: Your men will wear British and American uniforms ... Small groups of your men in enemy uniform, once they have passed behind the enemy lines, will be expected to issue false orders, to hamper communications and, in a general way, to throw the Allied troops into confusion. '" Your preparations must be completed by December I, 1944.. .1 know the time given you is very short,' the FUhrer admitted, 'but I count on you to do the impossible. Of course, you yourself will be at the front when the time comes for your troops to go into action; however, ] forbid you to venture into the enemy lines, we cannot afford to lose you ... '" Thus was started one of the most controver ial operations of the war, one that the Allies claimed included the projected assassination of the Allied Supreme Commander, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower. Actually, as we have seen from Skorzeny's foregoing account, Hitler had said nothing about an attack on Ike or any other Allied leader, but the Allies had been badly embarra sed at having been surprised by the German attack, and so perhaps concocted this tale to take away attention from their own flaws. State American author Charles Whiting in his 1984 book Ardennes: The Secret War, "In the winter of 1944, Allied intelligence seemed to be asleep. By midSeptember, the Western Allies had felt imminent victory in their hands. Flushed with their great victories of the summer, the enemy having fled behind his own border and the Reich tottering to its knees, the Anglo-American intelligence chiefs shared the confident opinion of the fighting commanders that it could be a matter of only weeks, perhaps even days, before the 'Thousand-Year Reich' collapsed... "Gen. Edwin Sibert, Gen. Omar Bradley's chief of intelligence, issued an intelligence summary, stating that 'It i now certain that attrition is steadily sapping the strength of German forces on the

Western Front and that the crust of defenses is thinner, more brittle and more vulnerable than it appears on our G-2 maps or to the troops in the line,' and it wa an optimi m that was hared by most of the Allied intelligence chiefs. Thus, the situation of overconfidence that existed in the Allied camp set the stage for the operation that Hitler had in mind for Skorzeny, who was later briefed by Col. Gen. Alfred Jodi: '''You will go in to action in the region covered by the 6th Armored Army... ' Gen. Jodi asked me to submit, within the briefest time possible, a list of the personnel and material that I would require. He added that the General Staff ordered him to place at my disposal all English-speaking officer and men. "This order was subsequently to appear as a most wonderful example of blundering in so far as the secrecy of the

this affair. After the war, I learned that less than a week later the Americans were in pos ession of this order. I never understood why they drew no conclusions from it and why they failed to take certain precautions at the time. Skorzeny immediately asked to have the operation cancelled because he felt it wa impossibly compromised, but permission was denied by SS Gen. Hermann Fegelein, Heinrich Himmler's liaison officer at the FUhrer's Headquarters. "At about the same time, I had an interesting conver ation with a colonel...This officer et forth the judicial aspect of my mission. According to him, in case of capture, smaJl commando units risked being treated as spies and judged in consequence. As for the bulk of my troops, international law merely forbade a man in enemy uniform to use his anns. He there-

interpreters' school, but on their return a fresh problem arose. It had now been decided to use his brigade entirely against the American sector of the front, so all the men must pass a Americans. "A few volunteer were sent into prison cages to 'wise up' on the idiom: the real prisoners usually got 'wised up' first, and at lea t one imposter was badly beaten at one of these finishing schools. In the end, Skorzeny had to advise most of the men to ru h past the enemy wi th teeth clenched, as though shell-shocked. "But even a deaf-mute column must somewhere come to rest and be exposed

Sherman tanks, 30 armored cars, vehicles for three battalions of motorized infantry, guns for antitank companies and an antiaircraft company... "Of the 20 Sherman tanks Skorzeny wanted, he got two - with apologies from the Inspector of Armored Vehicles who had no more to end. German Panther tanks had to make up for the lack. Their outlines were altered with sheet of tin ...Six American armored cars arrived. Protests brought four more, but they were Briti h: How could their appearance in an American sector be explained? Discu sion ended when all four broke down on trial

"In the end, only the pecial commando company could be fitted out with American weapons. To every protest the High Command now had a single answer: 'Why worry? There will be plenty for the taking when the Americans begin to run,' The fir t load of uniform had to be sent back: they were British. Then came a variety of American greatcoats; since the troops oppo ite were in field jackets, these were u eless, too. "Field jackets at last appeared - covered with POW triangle which had to be got off. 'Never mind,' they told Skorzeny, 'you can pick up all you want after the

Often identified (some experts say mistakenly) as SS commander Jochen Peiper 0eft), this SS officer scans the road signs to St. Vith and Malmedy (scene of an SS massacre of US POWs) during the successful days of the German attack in the Battle of the Bulge. (US National Archives)

operation was concerned - an example of blundering by the supreme authority of the German Army. A few days later, I received a copy of this order. Reading it, I almost threw an apoplectic fit. Signed by one of the top Staff brass, and stamped 'Secret,' the essential passages of this masterpiece may be boiled down to thi : '''To all units of the Wehrmacht: Report until October 10, 1944, all English- peaking officers and soldiers vol unteering for a special mission ...These are to be directed to Friedenthal, near Berlin, in view of their incorporation in the commando units of Lt. Col. Skorzeny... 'I flew into a towering rage. Incontestably the Allied secret service would get wind of

46 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

fore recommended that my soldiers wear German uniforms; at the moment of the attack, properly speaking, they would shed their British or American uniforms. "Naturally, I decided to follow this advice." Notes Skorzeny's first biographer, Charles 'Foley in his 1955 work, Commando Extraordinary: The Remarkable Exploits of Otto Skorzeny, "The volunteers came streaming in to Friedenthal from every part of Germany. Their spirit was magnificent; they were hot for adventure, ready for anything - except a language test. .. About 150 had an academic knowledge of English; some 30 or 40 had been abroad and spoke it quite well. ..The brightest candidates were sent off to an

Troopers of the 2nd SS Panzer Division pass an abandoned US Army gun and half-track during the initial German assault of December, 1944. (US National Archives)

to close ob ervation. GI behavior was taught to the men, but the bark of the Prussian drill sergeant still echoed in their ears. Whenever Skorzeny came on a group they would stiffen to attention. 'Relax,' he would beg - and the stamp of boots to an 'at ease' position would ring across the square. "To stroll by, hands in pockets; to chew gum, and park it; to flick a cigarette out of a 'pack;' aJl the effortless arts even that of failing to see, and hence salute, one' officer off duty - had to be expounded .. .In a pecial training camp near Nuremberg, Skorzeny orted out his men, nearly 3500 of them, and made section leaders...He put in a request ,for 20

- obviously they had been left for junk. Again, German car had to be camouflaged with khaki paint and white tars on the hoods. "Jeeps: every other officer Skorzeny met eemed to have captured a jeep for his plivate use, but on the day JodI's order called them in, every jeep in Germany vanished ... 15 jeeps (were found) hidden in barns and warehou es. A few German Fords were painted khaki, and Czech French cars were added. The guns arrived: only half a many as they wanted, but still more than they hoped for. Ammunition came too, everal railway wagons of American shells, mo t of which exploded the next day thank to inexpert unloading by newly arrived men.

breakthrough.' He could discover no American uniform of his size, and in the face of Hitler's order not to cross the Lines he dared not a ked for one, so the brigade conllTIander had to wear a khaki weater." Rumor about the intended mis ion of the secret brigade abounded, and one of these wa of the plot to kill or kidnap Ike, 0 perhap that is another way this a pect ha entered the story of the Battle of the Bulge. The plans proceeded for Operation Grief, the mythical Griffen bird. Stated Skorzeny in 1950, "My troops were to form the 150th Armored Brigade... the whole amounting to about 3300 men .. J declared that, in my opinion, our operation ...could succeed only if launched the night after the VOLUME 2,1994 47

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(top photo) The light .30 caliber machine gun with ammo cans and reel with communications wire is on display at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland. (bottom photo) From left to right Airborne shirt with Screaming Eagle patCh, and outer jacket and web gear; below left helmet with camouflage netting and right carbine with ammo pouch on the butt, a clip in place. Note also the soft cap lying on the blanket. (Photos by Blaine Taylor, TQwson, MD)

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48 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARYI

VOLUME 2, 1994

49

their various missions to the best of their abilities, J asked them especially to explore the three roads down which my three combat detachments were to pass if all went well. The offensive soon got bogged down in a ma sive traffic jam on the snow-cover d Belgian backroads, "The enemy had undoubtedly been surprised by this unforeseen offensive, but they clung to their ground, whereas we had hoped to see them retreat without fighting. As for the headlong flight which alone could have allowed Operation Grief to obtain a real success, it was not to be thought of. We could not even dream of reaching the Meuse the next day or the day after. Strong enemy reserves were even now

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AGerman soldier armed with a P-38 Walther pistol and Potato masher stick grenade guards a column of American GI POWs on December 17, 1944, (DAVAStill Media Depository) beginning of the offensive so that we might derive the maximum advantage from the enemy's surprise and confusion, "To make this possible, the first-line divisions must have attained all their objectives on the evening of the fir t day."otherwise, I would be forced to give up the mission entrusted to me".! a ked for aerial photographs of the three bridges my troops were meant to seize ... As advanced observers at the front, they would render inappreciable services to the bulk of our armie ".to add to the confusion reigning among the enemy, by spreading false rumor, by exaggerating the initial success of the German divisions, by giving fantastic orders, by cutting the telephone lines and by destroying reserve munjtions. "".So far our preparations seemed to have completely eluded the ob ervation of the Allies, The enemy front remained Soldiers attached to the 2nd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment race forward in the attack. (US quiet and received scant reinforcement. The Americans eemed to expect a long National Archives) The attack began on December 16, period of rest. I felt that they would not decide on the terrain it elf what means 1944, but the objectives were not reached enjoy it for 10ng.. J gave my last instructhey must employ to seize the bridges. At as hoped. Still, Skorzeny went ahead as tions to my battalion chiefs. The main all events we could not permit ourselve best he could. "From among the keenest thing was to keep in constant contact..'! to fight a real battle; we were much too men of the headquarters company, I insisted on the neces ity of refraining weak to do so. Our project could be carformed three groups entrusted with the from firing; the slightest shot risked ried out on two condjtions only: the enedisorganization of the enemy's rear lines. botching the whole operation. my front must have given way and, from "Our groups were to keep on advancthe very first day of the offensi ve, our I ordered them to go further south and to look there for a po ibility of illfiltrating ing and advancing, allowing nothing to advance must have penetrated far behind behind the enemy Jines 0 as to carry out stand in their way; they would have to the Allied lines," 50 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

road signs had confused an American tank battalion moving towards the front. A unit had been bluffed into withdrawing from a village which it held, Telephone wires had been cut and an ammunition dump had been blown up. A few other light-weight blows were the sum total of the results on the ground. There had, however, been a psychological result. The realization among American soldiers that there were Germans in US uniform active behind the front line produced in some of the noncombatant detachments an outbreak of spy manja. Sentries posed catch que tions and the unfortunate who was challenged and ilid not know, for example, that Harry James was a trumpet player or failed to have a detajled ICllowledge of the leading

enemy's clothing was not a capital offense unless accompanied by the carrying of weapons, Skorzeny was angered at the American Army's action. "He was not to know that a rumor had swept the US forces that the real object of the German special detachments was the assassination of Gen. Eisenhower and that the Americans were determined not to let the Commander-in-Chief fall victim to a terrorist's bullet." His American biographer, Glenn B. Infield, writing in his 1981 book Skorzeny: Hitler's Commando, attempted to answer the Ike assassination question thus: "Did Skorzeny try to assassinate Eisenhower? Thi question has never been answered satisfactorily".In 1945, Skorzeny derued that

Bitter Allied rivals in 1945 were British Field Marshal Sir Bernard Law Montgomery (left) and US General George S, Patton, Jr. (right), seen here two years earlier on Sicily, (US Army Signal Corps) he had ever intended to assa sinate swinging energetically into battle. baseball team , was Liable to be arrested, Eisenhower. 'We did not plan to capture "In these circumstances, I mu t abanbeaten up or threatened with execution as don our mjssion; any notion of improvisahigh American officials."This was never a spy. "Of Skorzeny's nine teams, even part of the cheme".NaturaUy, we censored tion would have been sheer madness".! all the mail and at first tried to supinformed the 6th Army staff of this al1d were able to infiltrate successfully and received their approval." one reached the Meuse. The remaining press".rumors".J began to realize that it Adds British author James Lucas in his two were quickly intercepted and caught. would be impossible to stop the rumors, many of wruch were spread by officers of 1985 book Kommando: German Special Men from one of the captured groups, the Einheit Steilau, were court-martialled and the unit .. .! decided to let the rumors Forces of World War fI, "What had the hot. Bel ievi ng that the weari ng of an go. "Some of the men were claiming that special units achieved? Some reversed VOLUME 2,1994 51

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bearing of every British general traveling headquarters for several days; he was our unit, single-handedly, was to capture in Belgium." forced to settle in a little house, guarded Antwerp while others said we were to On December 23rd, Skorzeny left for by several cordons of MP . Soon the drive to Dunkirk and free the German Meyrode, ''To shake up the staff of the 6th general had enough of it and sought by troops encircled in that town. I am quite Armored Army ...My trip was fairly lively. all means to escape this surveillance. certain that the rumor about capturing The return of fair weather had freed the "The counterespionage authorities even Gen. Eisenhower was started in this way.' skies for enemy airplanes. We had continumanaged to find a double for Eisenhower. "Skorzeny's explanation was not acally to stop and throw ourselves into the Every day the pseudo commander-incepted unchallenged by American offichief, clad in general's uni form, had to get ditches. When, to avoid a dangerous crosscials. Where was Skorzeny during the first roads we cut across country, we had no into his chief's car and drive to Paris in days of the Ardennes battle? Only during ditches at hand; at such times we would lie order to attract the attention of the the attack on Malmedy was Skorzeny's flat on our belJie , our noses buried in 'German spies.' location known to the Americans. Why manure. During one of these exercises, sud"Similarly, during the entire Ardennes did so many German POWs state unedenly I began to shudder, my teeth chatOffensive, Marshal Montgomery ran the quivocally that Skorzeny intended to murtered and I broke into a sweat. Doubtless risk of being stopped and questioned by der Eisenhower, if it was not true? And this little access of fever came from my the MPs. A pleasant jokester had spread what were Skorzeny's commando doing wound...for it was slightly infected... the rumor that a member of Skorzeny's so near to Paris if they were not trying to "On December 28, 1944, we were band was engaged in spying disguised a stalk the General? Skorzeny, of course, relieved by an infantry division. Next day, a British marshal, so the MPs carefully was not captured during this period and we settled in temporary billets east of examined minutely the appearance and his whereabouts, except during the Malmedy attack, were never ascertained. "For months after the battle, American security men carried photographs of him, still wary of his intentions, still suspicious that he was on the trail of Eisenhower." On December 21st, acting as infantry, Skorzeny's men had almost taken Malmedy in a surprise attack, but had been beaten back by the Americans; Skorzeny himself had been wounded in the head. Adds Charles Foley in Commando Extraordinary, "Moving about almost as freely as if they were invisible, Skorzeny' groups turned signposts around to mi direct reserves, severed telephone and cable lines, looped red ribbons to trees to indicate that this or that road to the front was barred by mines ... "When the first disguised u'oops were pulled out of their capsized jeep and made to confes , waves of shock ran through the front and rear of the defender - a brigade of Germans in American uniforms! An attack on Gen. Eisenhower's headquarters! Otto Skorzeny was in command of a specially trained murder gang! It was incredible - yet, here in these wretched pri oners, was the proof. The rockbound certainties of Army life collapsed, the laws of probability were swept away." Noted Skorzeny himself in Secret Missions, "The success of these commandos went far beyond my expectations, and a few days later, the American tation at Calais spoke of th'e discovery of an immense enterprise of espionage and sabotage ...The Americans announced that they had already captured more than 250 men in my brigade, a gro sly exaggerated figure... "Believing me capable of the most frightful crimes and of the boldest designs, American counterespionage considered itself bound to take exceptional measures to assure the security of the high command. Accordingly, Gen. The end of the line for a German commando caught in GI uniform - the firing squad Eisenhower was sequestered in his own post. (US Army Signal Corps) 52 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

• Two of Skorzeny's special.brigade members captured in American Army uniforms and guarded by US Military Pollee. They were shot as spies. (US Army Signal Corps)

Hundreds of American Army GI POWs were taken in the first days of the Ardennes offensive as seen here (right) by the advancing Germans. (US National Archives) ,

Saint- Vith. Soon, there was the general retreat, which swept us back to Germany. For my elf - as for the whole German Army - the great offensive in the Ardennes ended in a great defeat." But if Skorzeny had failed to achieve the actual goal set out for him by Hitler in the meeting of October 20, 1944, he had gained a psychological victory over the Americans that had not been seen since the late Field Mar hal Erwin Rommel, as detailed by Charle Foley: "Soon, half the Army was waiting for Skorzeny. The air was full of hostile spectors, in and behind the lines. Anyone might be an enemy. Those trucks beside the road could be an ambush; that quiet stranger in the bar-was he a saboteur? Such fancies did nothing to steady the defenders a they strove to recover from the Ardennes punch. "To Gen. Bradley, in his Army Corps headquarters at Luxembourg, it was the last drop in a cup brimming with vexation. Soon he wa commenting on the spectacle of 'Half a million Gl ... playing cat and mouse with each other every time they met.' He could not even drive to hardpres ed Ist Army Headquarters; Gen. Hodges' taff begged him to wait for a plane until the fog cleared - 'Because the rear areas were being panicked by disguised Germans.' "High-ranking officers rushing from one conference to another found roadblocks all the way; badges of rank now meant nothing, and even password were distrusted. In this extremity, folklore showed up in the crumbling routine of the Army: Su pects - and everyone wa suspect - had to take part in a quiz game to establish their American birthright. "When at last Gen. Bradley took the road in his three-star limousine, it was to find that 'Neither rank, nor credentials, nor protests' spared him the common inquisition. At every crossroad he had to prove his nationality: 'The fjr t time by IdentlfYll1g Springfield as the capital of Massachusetts (my questioner held out for Chicago); the econd time by locating the football guard between the center and tackle on a line of scrimmage; the third time by naming the current pou e of a blonde called Betty Grable.' "Montgomery wa taking over part of the ruptured American front; his liai on officers, speeding through ice and snow, found tommy guns thrust over their frosted windows. 'Who is Pruneface?' a hoarse voice would demand. 'Where does L'il Abner live? Who works with Jiggs?' British officers unfamiliar with the Declaration of Independence or the title of a whistled sample from tin-pan alley, were put under arrest; for was it not said that some of the VOLUME 2,1994 53

dis embling Germans had performed a quick-change into British uniform?.. 0 chance could be taken, and none was." In her own postwar memoirs, Eisenhower Was My Boss, his Irish-bam driver, Lt. Kay Summersby, recalled, "Security officers immediately turned headquarters compound into a virtual fortres . Barbed wire appeared. Several tanks moved in. The normal guard was doubled, tripled, quadrupled. The pas system became a strict matter of life and death, instead of the old formality. ''The sound of a car exhaust was enough to halt work in every office, to staIt a flurry of telephone calls to our office, to inquire if the boss was all right. The atmosphere was wor e than that of a combat headquarters up at the front, where everyone knew how to take such a situation in their stride. "The intended victim wa the only officer at SHAEF unperturbed by the report. Gen. Ei enhower had the war, the Bulge, to worry about; he couldn't be bothered by this one fanta tic story. The staff insisted he move in from the von Rundstedt house (at St. Germain, outside Paris), which was comparatively i olated from the Trianon (at Ver ailles, his headquarter ). They pointed to the lonely, wooded stretches along the road; they emphasized the Germans knew every inch of that territory from their Occupation days. They aid the General's security wa impos ible under uch circumstances. " ...He reluctantly agreed to leave, and moved into the compound - 'But only so you'll forget about the damned busines and get back to the war,' he growled. Security even a ked Gen. Eisenhower not to walk outside the office, for fear a sniper might've slipped through the toe-to-toe guard ... We were prisoners, in every sense of the word. "This new, personal tension, coupled with the flood of bad new and rumors from the Ardennes, left most of headquarters frankly apprehensive and depre ed. Ike, the one solely responsible for the success or failure of our counterattack and therefore the only one entitled to the luxury of depres ion, had to mother his own feeling and act as the eternal optimist... "[ lay awake for hours envi ioning death and wor e at the hands of SS agents. Sleep was impossible - with the tramp, tramp, tramp of heavy-booted guards patrolling our tin roof." On December 22nd, her diary noted, "On our personal front, Intelligence passed along a report the sabotage assassins had made their way into Paris proper. It wa said they would rendezvous at the Cafe of the Peace. This warning failed to bother the General. He came out of his office cell grumbling, 'Hell's fire! I'm going for a walk. [f anyone wants to shoot me, he can go right ahead. I've got to get

out!' The tolen walk was in the courtyard of the buildings with guards all around." His US Navy aide, Capt. Harry Butcher, wrote in his 1946 memoirs, My Three Years With Eisenhower, "He is thoroughly but hopeles Iy irritated by the restrictions on his moves. There are all ort of guards, ome with machineguns, around the house, and he has to go to and from the office, led, and ometimes followed, by an armed guard in a jeep. He eemed pleased to have someone to talk with like me, eemingly from the outer world." "Unknown to the General," continues Foley, "security was using a human decoy to trap Skorzeny: one Lt. Col. Baldwin B. Smith who was aid to have the 'Eisenhower look.' Daily, the Colonel drove in the Supreme Commander's car between hi house at St. Gelmain and Versailles - salut-

ing with that quick flash for which 'Ike' was known - and waiting for a bullet or a pistolfIred grenade... "On December 27th, Eisenhower broke 10 se. He left to take the train for Brussels like a schoolboy off to town - and found the Gare du ord seething with troops and police. 'After we were well tarted on our journey,' Ike wrote in Crusade in Europe, 'I found that a squad of soldier was accompanying me. At every stop - and these were frequent becau e of difficulties with ice and snowbanks - the e men would jump out of the train and take up an alert position to protect us. ,,, Concludes Foley, "Months after the Ardenne battle, MPs till carried Skorzeny' picture... while all the French police had a notice to ay that thi was a most dangerous man..." •

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Account No. German Army commander Col. Gen. Johannes Blaskowitz (1883-1948) fought in France in both the 1940 and 1944 campaigns, as well as in Operation No~h Wind, He ended the war in 1945 as commander of Fortress Holland, dying at age 64 on February 5, 1948. (US National Archives)

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t was a sick, defeated Adolf Hitler who left his East Prussian military headquarters for the last time on Nov. 20, 1944, and returned by rail to Berlin for a vocal-chord operation that was performed, successfully, two days later. . More than any other man in the Third Reich, Hitler, as supreme commander of the German armed forces, knew the full extent of the impending disaster facing Nazi Germany on sea, in the air and on land fronts both East and West. In the East, everyone knew the Russians were building up for their last great offensive of the war, one that would carry them to the very doorstep of Hitler's Reich Chancellery in Berlin. In the West, the German armies had been steadily defeated and driven back ever since the successful Allied landings in France in June. Despite the German victory at Arnhem and grueling battles in Holland's Schelde Estuary and Germany's Hiirtgen Forest, the Western Allies were now poised to smash through Hitler's vaunted West Wall pillboxes - the Siegfried Line - and possibly end his Thousand- Year Reich by Christmas. Indeed, the first German city in the West - Aachenhad already fallen, on Oct. 21.

A famous newsreel shot of a Waffen SS trooper passing a burning US Army half-track. Writers for After the Battle believe this newsreel footage was staged for German propaganda purposes after the real action took place. (US National Archives) VOLUME 2,1994 57

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An SS trooper tokes port in the Bottle of the Bulge, 1944. (US Notional Archives)

58 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

Hitler was a beaten man, and everyone knew it, all except the former World War I corporal him elf. Like Napoleon I on Elba in 1815, Hitler planned one la t, desperate roll of the dice to retrieve the ituationthe Ardennes offen ive, which will live in history as the Battle of the Bulge. Hitler saw clearly enough that the choice for both him and the Nazi regime wa either victory or the rope, and he had one more stunning trick up his sleeve. Although it failed in the long run, the Battle of the Bulge caught the We tern Allied high command completely by surprise - and almost ucceeded to boot. . Before leaving East Prussia, Hitler called a secret conference on Sept. 16th of hi most trusted generals. During this briefing, Col. Gen. Alfred Jodi remarked almost casually, "And on the Western Front, we're getting a real rest in the Ardennes." Hitler raised his hand suddenly and shouted, "Stop!" After two minutes of total silence, he rejoined, "I have just made a momentous decision. I am taking the offensive, hereout of the Ardenne !" As he smashed his fist on the table before him, Hitler cried, "Across the Meu e and on to Antwerp!" Hitler picked his forces and their commanders carefully, all in an atmosphere of enforced, total secrecy. The assembled forces included 12 armored and 18 infantry divisions: 300,000 men; 1900

artillery piece; 1000 aircraft (including 80 of the new ME-262 Messerschmidt jets) and 900 tanks (such as the giant new Panthers and Tigers) and motorized assault guns. In titular command under Hitler would be the grand old man of the German Army, 70-year-old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt. Under him, Field Marshal Walter Model would be in overall opera-

tional command, while three of Germany's be t frontline leaders would head up a triad of Nazi armies. Tough artillery Gen. Erich Brandenburger led the 7th Army, while Lt. Gen. Baron Ha so von Manteuffel - former German pentathlon champion and hor eman, whose tanks had tailed the 1944 Soviet offensive in the East - would lead the new 5th Panzer (armored) Army.

Dead German soldiers paid the final price for Hitler's gamble in the Bottle of the BUlge and Operation North Wind. (US Notional Archives)

An American infantrymen crawls under a barbed-wire fence in enemy-occupied Belgium in January. 1945. (US Army Signal Corps) VOLUME 2, 1994

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The choicest command - the 6th SS Panzer Army - had been reserved for the Fiihrer's most trusted SS commander, hi crony from the early Nazi days of truggle within Germany in the 1920 , a former sergeant, butcher and drunk risen to the rank of Colonel General under Hitler's favor; Jo ef "Sepp" (Joe) Dietrich. The attack in the We t, Adolf Hitler's ultimate brainchild, wa clearly to be an SS terror offen ive. The offen ive had three ecret code names, and three additional name by which it became known to the world. Its fir t clande tine nomenclature was "Watch on the Rhine," to confuse the Allie. (It did.) Next, it was called Autumn Fog by the German planner, and, durin o its latter stage, North Wind. The Germ~n who fought in it called it imply the Ardennes offensive; it was The Bulge to the Americans, the Rundstedt offensive to the Briti h. Thi last name wa ironic, ince the man it wa named after was totally again t the entire plan, which he arca tically referred to after the war a "This stupid operation in the Ardenne .. .1 had nothing to do with it. It came to me as an order complete to the last detail." All the other German generals selected to command it also were opposed, but after Hitler had convincingly strung up many of their dis ident brother officers with piano wire on meathooks following the July 20 attempt on him, they swallowed their mi giving. One man did not, and this wa tank expert Col. Gen. Heinz Guderian, who

VICTOR AND VANQUISHED on May 5, 1945, at Augsburg, Gerr:nany. Here,. US 7th Army Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch, Jr. (right) meets for the first time hiS most IllustriOUS prisoner, German Army Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedf. who - although fired by Hitler several times - participated in every German military cam~aign th~oughout the war except for that in North Africa and also Scandinavia. At the time of hiS capt~~e by the US 36th Infantry Division, von Rundstedt was undergoing treatment for arthritiS at a recuperation hospital at Bad Tolz, Germany. He'd been relie;,ed by Hitler f,?r the last time on March 15, 1945, and replaced by Field Marshal Kesselring. (US Army Signal Corps)

~~~~v~~~~r~~ng~~:~:~a~~~r?:t~~ ~~~~~r~~~~~~~iss~ha~nk::~~fh'~~~~~~rt~~~I~:~e(~~~~rr~~~~:\1:~r~~~e~~~I~~~1~8~~~~~:~~ Manteuffel's. Hitler called the little Baron A genera w nows w . ff I

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National Archives)

pleaded with Hitler to ignore the Western Front and concentrate entirely on the Ru ian threat in the East, a view hared by many in the divided German high command. Hitler gambled that Stalin wouldn't attack unti I after his own surpri e offensive had run its cour e, a he knew of the divisions within the Allied upper strata, too. In this as essment, he proved correct. While All ied'intelligence in the West blithely and wrongly stated, "The German Army i no longer a cohesive force," Hitler addressed the assembled commanders at hi new West Front headquarter, a bunker next to the medieval castle of Ziegenberg, the Eagle's Eyrie, near Bad auheim, from which he had masterminded the 1940 German breakthrough. For over an hour, Hitler lectured his general , explaining to hi thunder truck audience their intended military moves that would accompli h his political objectives. The three great German armie _ which had stealthily moved into place under the unsuspecting Allie' very noses! - would break out of the We tern Front in the Ardenne Fore t on the BelgianGerman frontier from Monschau to Echternach, sma h all resistance before them in two days, leap 50 miles to cro s the Meu e River between Liege and amur, bypass Bru els and reach

Antwerp within the fir t week of the tart of the offen ive. The We tern Allies - split in two as the French and British had been on the same ground in 1940 - would have four armies shattered, followed by an attempted "second Dunkirk" evacuation at Antwerp, but this time one blocked by the German Navy. The West would ue for a separate peace, and Hitler would wheel about to face the Soviet colossu with hi full trength for the final showdown battle in the East. "The enemy mu t be beaten _ now or never!" he yelled. The plan was ba ed fir ton surpri e, and then on bad weather to keep the superior Allied air forces grounded, which wa actually the ca e for the fir t eight days. Despite the fact that the Germans had truck in exactly this spot three time previously - through the Loshein Gap in 1870, 1914and 1940-theAllieswere caught napping. Later, there would be loud recriminations at all level - US Gen. George S. Patton charged, "We can till lose thi war!" - and the political impact on the Allied domestic scene was alma t as great as that of the Tet offen ive in Vietnam a generation later. The Allied breakthrough of the summer had stalled becau e their supply line

It was the troops of Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.'s 3rd Army (right) that eventually broke through the German siege of the 101 st Airborne Division at Bastogne. The 1970 movie Patton highlights his role in the Battle of the BUlge, particularly in demanding a special prayer from his chaplain for good weatherl (Author's Collection)

reached back 350 mile to ormandy, while Hitler' were ju t acro the German border, without the port of Antwerp to supply them, the Allie would be in a bind. Moreover, due to the rugged terrain of the Ard nnes - with it high ridge, winding road and rapidly flowing

de of the 5th Panzer Army in the Battle of the Bulge (center)

US ARMOR POISED FOR THE ArrACK OUTSIDE HOUFFALIZE IN BELGIUM ON JANUARY 16, 1945 - Light and medium tanks and tank destroyers of the 82nd Reconnaissance and 66th Armored Regiment of the 2nd Armored Division line up awaiting orders to advance against the Germans. (US Army Signal Corps)

60 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY! VOLUME 2,1994 61

the front from the German side, completely stunning the American. White-clad, nowsuited German infantry and their tank poured acros the Schnee Eifel (Snow Mountain) to begin the greatest battle of the US Army's history, as 30 German divisions crashed into the US line, which wa quickly hattered at several point. The dent thus driven into the Allied lines became known as the "Bulge." Within five days, 350 US tanks had been destroyed and more than 24,000 US soldiers taken pri oner, the large t such defeat for American arms ince the urrender of Bataan in 1942. Within the entire ix weeks that the battle raged back and forth, more than 180,000 men would be killed on both sides, making it the greatest battle of the Western Front in the Second World War. At night, earchlights created artificial moonlight for the German advance. SS troopers slaughtered both helpless Belgian civilian and captured American POWs, more than 80 GI being machinegunned in a field at Ma1medy alone, under the orders of SS Lt. Col. Jochen Peiper. Another SS Lt. Colonel commando chief Otto Skorzeny, who'd rescued Italian dictator Benito Mussolini in 1943 - sent German troop trained as American and dre sed in US uniforms behind Allied lines to sow confuion and mi trust. Rumor had it that their mis ion was to kill Allied Supreme Commander Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, and thus Ike was kept a virtual prisoner in his own headquarter by overzealous MPs. Also, German paratrooper were dropped behind American lines. German morale went from A patrol of the 82nd Airborne Division recounts a successful patrol around a campfire In the good to ecstatic. One wrote home: Ardennes. Noted Bradley in A Soldier Reports. "Assured by Patton that he would soon break through to relieve Bastogne. I was eager to have Montgomery hit the enemy from the north. I "You cannot imagine what gloritherefore begged Ike to prod Montgomery in an effort to speed up that counterattack." (US ou days we are experiencing Army Signal Corps) now ...Today we overtook a fleeing column and finished it... a gloriou treams - the Allies felt safe from attack. that foxhole had to be blasted out with bloodbath, vengeance for our destroyed dynamite! Few American soldiers had This was reflected in the US defenhomeland. The snow must turn red with ive force stationed there: the Ardenne been i ued winter clothing, ju t a with American blood ... We will throw them "ghost front" was lightly-held by ix the Germans in Russia during late 1941, into the ocean, the arrogant, big-mouthed American divi ions, three brand-new all of which Hitler knew. Moreover, he and never before in combat, and the thought the Americans themselves to be apes from the ew World..." The French - so recently Iiberatedother three bled white from earlier bat- poor oldier who would run away at the feared that the German might actually tIes and ent there for recuperation. ot first sign of defeat. retake Paris and cduldn' t understand why only was the sky cloudy and the air At 5:30 a.m. on Dec. 16, 1944, a terthe Allied high command, under Ike's foggy, the ground wa frozen so hard rific artillery barrage opened up all along

calm direction, wasn't packing. Back at Ziegenberg, Hitler wa elated: "Everything has changed in the West! Complete uccess is now within our gra p! Above all, we must have Bastogne!" - and there hi grandiose plan of renewed azi victory began to unravel. The man that Hitler did not believe existed - the re olute GI who held out when surrounded and fought on until relieved - turned the tide against him. With it junction of even paved roads, the town was the key to the resupply of the entire German offensive, a wa St. Vith, which also held out. At Ba togne, the German demand for surrender met with one contemptuou word" ut!" - and thi typified the GIs' general reaction to SS telTor tactic . There were more German blunder . Paratroopers were dropped in the wrong place, then forced to surrender. Becau e of too rigid secrecy, Germans hot down their own Luftwaffe. When Dietrich' SS Panzers were stopped cold, Hitler refused to upport Von Manteuffel's ucce sful Army drive instead. Skorzeny' men never took the Meuse bridges, and German tank never reached them. The kie cleared, finally, and Allied airpower and more than 70 divi.sion counterattacked. Antwerp, Pans and Brus els all remained in Allied hand. On Jan. 12, 1945, 180Sovietdiviion attacked in the East, Hitler returned to US Army light artillery in action. Stated Bradley in his book, A Soldier Reports "It was 0 Berlin on the 15, and the Front wa back to Decembe~ 26th t~at the Bulge reached its high water mark, 17 miles from wh~re the iC~ it original state by the end of the month. turesque City of Dlnant guards the rocky gorge of the Meuse ... " (US Army Signal cor~)

nr1--'\""---,-------------;:-----------,

The German ' Battle of the Bulge wa over, with 75,000 men killed, countJe s other wounded, their panzer gone and the Luftwaffe fini hed forever. What had Hitler' reckle gamble achieved? Although it had up et the Allie' timetable by six week, the Fuhrer had pent his last re erve , and he had actually shortened the war by month ,and yet... • An abandoned American Army Sherman tank, destroyed at the entrance to a belgian Village. States World War" in Color "Although they resisted fiercely, th~ American forces yielded in the center of the line and the Germans advanced rapidly towards Houffalize and Bastogne." (US Army Signal Corps)

62 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY! VOLUME 2, 1994

63

Veterans recall the stunning victory over the Germans at what would become known as the Battle ofthe Bulge BY JAMES H. FARMER he fir t, and probabl~ only, single glider combat mISSion of World War Two took place over Bastogne on 26 December 1944. Waco CG-4A glider pilot John Wesley of the 440th TC Group, 96th TC Squadron, then based in Orlean, France, recalls that morning: "Our operations officer, Lt. Rideout, came into our room along about four o'clock that morning. I was right by the door. He shook me, woke me up. He wanted me to volunteer to go out on an operation, but I hadn't gotten over Chri tma . 'No,' I told him, 'I don't want to go on an operation. So he went to the next bed and woke up 'Corky' Corwin" Lieutenant Charlton W. 'Corky" Corwin Jr. and his copilot, Benjamin F. Connie" Costantino, were to fly a nine-man volunteer surgical team of the 4th Auxiliary Surgical Group, headed by Major Lamar Soutter MD into the beleaguered town. Another 4th Surgical Group doctor, Major Howard P. Serrell, had already been flown into Ba togne on the 24th in an L-4 potter plane to help relieve the evere shortage of medical personnel. Corwin later recalled, "I believe the flight into Bastogne was not only the only single glider combat mission of WWll, but also rna have been the only glider to have landed twice on the same combat mis ion." Corwin's CG-4A glider was towed aloft by a Douglas C-47 from hi Orlean base and flown into the Republic P-47 Thunderbolt field at Etain, France, where they received their final briefing and the medical team

T

itself. "On the way to Bastogne," adds Corwin, "I looked out and there wa a fighter next to me. The pilot waved and smiled and I waved back. It wa a great relief to see him appear on my wing. We had a fighter escort made up of four P-47s." "The fir t thing I saw the e doctor do," add Lt. Charle Roberts, "was to amputate leg and arm. It wa: n't very plea ant to watch bones awed off. It was amazing, though, what they could do in non- terile operation. Just prinkle the tump with sulfa powder and sew it up." The inth's Troop Carrier Command committed 301 C-47s to the Ba togne drop of the 26th. The 434th TC Group flew in with 66 transports, the 435th with 56, the 436th with 71, the 437th with 56, and the 43 thwith4l.TheGerman'sre pon e, however, wa becoming more dangerous with each passing day. Intense flak and small ann ftre resulted in nearly a third (99) ofthe C47s receiving significant damage. Another ten CG-4A gliders, all from the 440th TC Group, flew into Bastogne later that day with de perately needed gasoline. "Around noon, Rideout told me 1 was going on an operation," recalls We ley. John We ley served as Robert H. Price's copilot on the flight. "We were carrying 450 gallon of high octane ga oline. ~ome of us had gasoline and some of us carried O'asoline and 105mm (artillery) shells. We o , were late getting off because we hadn t gotten the jce off the wings. But our fighter e cort had taken off, on schedule, ahead

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of u . By the time we got on our way, they were already coming back low on fuel. Because we were late getting off, it wa about dusk when we arrived over the landing zone. J think that' what saved us." Texan William W. Burnett, another 440th TCG glider pilot who flew into Bastogne that day, recalls, "I wa eating lunch in the mes hall when they came in and told me to draw my combat equipment. I was going on a mjs ion. We were briefed. They didn't even tell us what we were carrying. We a ked, but the colonel kind of sluffed it off. We didn't find out until we got out on the strip that we were carrying ga oline. Vje were alway about 50 percent overloaded. We didn't have any mission carrying just what the glider was built for.

"When we got out to the air trip, Jim Crowder and I looked around. We couldn't find a glider mechanic anywhere. That wa Jim's first mission. I said, 'Jim, let' preflight this glider.' The gliders we flew in were alvaged out of Holland (Operation Market Garden) and they hadn't been flown since September when they were flown into the base. We started checking, and the flying wires on the tail areju t flopping. They're suppo ed to have 400 pounds of pre sure. We couldn't even find ourselve a pair of plier , so we start tightening them up with our hands. About thi time they howled, 'You all better get in, your tow ship is taxiing up.' Wejumped in." John Wesley vividly remembers their approach to the landing zone. "We're over

the e German gun emplacement. They're shooting at u with quad-fours. Oh boy, the tracers were pretty! They were hooting under u , thank goodne . There wa snow on the ground. You could ee fires burning all over the place. Tho e damn navigators on those C-47s! They got u up there and we didn't know where we're going. And then, I aw tracer coming over from our right and down to the ba e (of an emplacement) where tracers were coming up at us. And I said, 'Oh, we're getting there. It looked like some 10 Ist wa hooting to keep the Germans off ur back.'" "About 30 minute before we got off the tow," continues Burnett, "maybe a little more than that, I was flyin' when it feltju t like flak had hit us. All at once my right

64 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY! VOLUME 2, 1994

65

wing dropped down. I yelled at Jim, 'Help me! Help !' We got the wing up. I said, 'Look back there and see what happened!' He said, 'You'd better look back there.' So what happened, this flying wire had broken and my tai I, the vertical and the horizontal, had twi ted a little bit. That wa what wa making it fly with a wing low. "Jim said, 'What are you going to do?' And I said, 'Well, we're going to fly this SOB in, if we can!' "It was just getting dark when we arrived over the landing zone. We were supposed to see a eries of muge pots arranged in a T. We never did see them, but we went in anyway. We cut off the tow at about 600 feet, banked back to the left real quick into a 360 d gree turn and followed our group leader, Wallace F. Hammargren, in. We could see activity on On the morning of 27 December 1944, near Chateau·dun, France, 439th TC Group pilot Claude Berry prepares to man his the ground, but not the smuge pots. We Waco CG-4A glider for the 21/2 hour flight to Bastogne. The operation would be anything but "peachie." (Claude Berry) were supposed to land where the liaison aircraft were landing. We felt we were over Allied territory and followed each other in. If! remember correctly, I wa the number three or four glider. "Hammargren went in first and slid right through a barbed-wire fence. "When we flew our glider in and hit the ground, the tail, the whole tail section, broke off. I was told six or even years ago at one of our reunion, that I had been put in for the DFC and the Silver Star but it was turned down. Whether that was true or not I don't know. All glider pilot got was the Air Medal. We didn't have any generals to put us in for those tllings. That wa kind of standard. "There was kind of our aying: We weren't bastards, we ju t couldn't find our mother. The tug pilots hated our gut, because we got more time off and got paid just as much as they did; the troopers hated our guts and the ground crews disAn American tank crew keeps aclose eye on aknocked-out German tank as they move towards the front line. (USA) liked u . But, we felt sorry for the tow the we t-southwest approach route continues Bumett. "They picked us up and pi lots when we got off. They still had to remained unchanged for tile 50-glider opertook us into Ba togne where we pent the fly back through the flak to get home. I of the 27th. The results would prove ation night in a schoo\''' knew I could dig a hole and climb in. nearly disastrous. For Wesley and Burnett "We had two meals a day at Bastogne," "The jeeps and weapons carriers came there had been an element of surprise, and adds We ley, "coffee and pancake for flying down the road a soon as we touched then the latenes of their arrival over breakfast, then about three 0' clock in the down. By the time we got topped they Bastogne, at sunset, had further improved afternoon, we had coffee and pancakes." were already unloading the five-gallon jerry their chances of a successful touchdown. The siege wa fi nally broken on the cans. The whole cargo floor was just solid But, the Germans were ready and wait26th when elements of General Patton's jerry cans." ing on the 27th. Their target, the glider train Fourth Armored Divi ion, under the com"We came in and slowed right down," ofCG-4As and C47 tow plane, would mand of Colonel Creighton W. Adam , recalls Wesley, "running up a snow-covered 'stretch out over five time longer a piece of broke through to Bastogne. The engageslope. There was no problem and no damage sky than that of the ten-glider operation of ment itself, however, was anything but to our glider. The trucks pulled up just as we the day before. The operation wa deemed over. And artillery rounds for McAuliffe's stopped, looking for that gasoline. As soon from the start to be sufficiently hazardou to guns remained in critically short supply. as we landed, they took me to operations to limit ~e crew of each Waco glider to a lone Another glider resupply mis ion was discus how those coming in the next day pilot. The glider teams of the 439th TC called for the 27th, at the suggestion of the might avoid the flak we encountered. I didn't Group drew the short straw. IOlst Airborne, to answer the need. know we had any holes in our glider, but I Glider pilot Claude Berry of Oklahoma Despite the counsel of John Wesley and read Lt. Price's report which aid there were recalls the flight: "It was about a two, two other 440th TCG glider pilots who had 41 holes in our glider. 1 don't believe it. I and a half hour fl ight from Chateau-dun, braved the 20 miles of German flak concendon't think we got hit." France, into Bastogne. Fortunately, I was tration and flown into Bastogne on the 26th, "We landed a little away from Bastogne,"

one of the first four or five gliders up front. When we made our first turn toward Bastogne you could see the anti-aircraft fire over there was at our level, about 2500 feet. The anti-aircraft fire explosions looked just like you see it in the movies. They would have had our altitude pretty good but we dropped to 700 feet for the glider release. "Fortunately, they didn't have anything but machine gun and Iight,arms fire at that height. The tracers were going by pretty bad. But it was my first mission; 1 really didn't feel much apprehen ion. Ijust sat there fat, dumb and happy and flew it in. Tracers were thumping through the glider, but it didn't seem to bother me much. 1 was on later combat mi sions when I had a little more apprehension. Ignorance is bliss, that's true! But, behind me they had started to hit the gliders; they had finally gotten our altitude. "We flew right over the landing zone. It was clear. Ice and snow were on the ground. You could see the hulks of tanks littered around, some till burning. We were overloaded with 155mm artillery rounds. We had the fuses and powder in there with us." Wesley, Burnett, Corwin and the other 440th TCG glider pilots who'd flown in the day before had a front row seat to the tragic drama about to unfold before them. "That morning on the grounds of the school where we'd spent the night,"

recalls Burnell, "we found the groundcontroller set up talking to our fighters. We weren't right in downtown Bastogne, as such. We were on the outskirts." "They ran the operation from a courtyard," adds Wesley. "They had a big table there with a layout of the whole area. They had a clear sheet over tile map which showed the enemy positions. Of course, they moved. When they did, they'd rub them out and write in the new positions.

"We didn't have any missions carrying just what the glider was builtfor" "They'd get reports of enemy tanks and call in the fighters. You could ee the fighter dive right down on them. We watched them win the war. I remember a couple of RAF Typhoons were spotted coming in and they wouldn't acknowledge our call. So they told the P-47s to get them out of the area. The P-47s went after them and chased them out." And what were their reactions of tho e men tanding in the school courtyard

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watching the glider landings of the 27th? "It was horrible," recalls Burnett. "The Germans knew they were coming; it was no surprise. They really knocked' em out of the sky. The tow ships were on fire. The gliders were being cut off. Some of the tow pilots of the hit planes stayed with it, even after they had the rest of their crews bailout, to get the gliders over the landing zone. I saw many of the gliders crash. There were lots of heroes, lots of heroes." "We had to land a little faster," continues Claude Berry. "We'd u ually come in about 60,65 mph with a regular load. But, these gliders were overloaded. I came in about 75 mph. We were at least 500 to a thousand pound heavier than we usually were. "Coming in, we could see the landing zone. They had marked it with colored smoke. I hit on the ground and couldn't stop. I kept sliding pretty fast. I could put it up on the skids, but the brakes didn't help on the ice. I kept guiding the glider on the skids, with the tail in the air. I hit one side of the gear with one fence po t and slipped it over to another fence post and knocked the other gear off. I was headed straight for a gun pit. The guys all jumped out and started running, but I got it stopped. "A soon as I got out they were there unloading the Waco. I gues they had been pretty Iowan ammunition. There

Introducing Robert Taylors salute to the men who participated in the Allied Aerial Armada which flew in support of the greatest invasion in history. Operation "Overlord" -D-Day, June 6th, 1944. Signed by 6 Airmen who took part in the Normandy Invasion

$295.00

"D-Day, Airborne Assault" Al 0 included are two companion prints saluting the work horses of the airborne invasion, the C-47 and the CG-4 Waco glider. Each print is 17" x 13 1/2"

•

MILTARY ART GALLERY 19358 KELLY ROAD HARPER WOODS, MI48225 (313) 521-6420 1-800-362-8567 2, 1994

66 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

wa a photographer there from 'Star and Stripes.' They got a picture of my glider itting there in 'Star and Stripe .' 'From there, I kept watching the others. They were starting to knock the glider down. One friend of mine from the 91 t was coming in and the towship was on fire. Lieutenant J. D. Hill was piloting the glider. Joe Fry was the tow hip pilot. He had the re t of the crew bailout. He stayed with it and towed the glider on in. Then, hejumped him elf. He got burned pretty bad. He came out that night with us. "The glider behind u were just getting hit right and left. Another C47 had released it tow, but the transport's control were hot away. He made a beautiful belly-landing in the snow using just his engines for directional control. Boy, these guys were good! Both props broke off and he ju t lid her to a stop. Nobody was hurt, except the crew chief. He jumped out after the landing and prained his ankle. "We had a couple of (glider) guys land just at the hedge line on the perimeter. The airborne GI kept waving at them to come their direction. Well, these pilot thought they were the Germans. They ran the other direction, right into the arms of the enemy and were captured." On 27 December 1944, Ninth Troop Carrier Command uffered its highest aircraft 10 se , per mission sorties, of the war. Thirteen of the 50 C-47 di patched (26 percent) were hot down. Seventeen member of the C-47 crews were killed, another 21 captured. Seventeen of the 50 gliders (34 percent) failed to make the

American lines. Three glider pilots were killed, another twelve captured. Within minute of the glider landings of the 27th, 138 53rd Wing C-47 appeared over the drop zone, adding their parabundle to the day's total resupply tonnage. They had flown in from the outh, over the narrow corridor opened by Patton' Fourth Armored Division the previou day. There were no los e . While the 80th Troop Carrier Squadron didn't 100 e any C-47 over Ba togne, five were hit bad enough to make emergency landing at Munchen-Gladbach, a former German airlleld recently overrun by Patton' Third Army. Warren Kuhlman, a heet metal speciali t with the 80th, pent five day patching up his aircraft at Munchen-Gladbach. "They'd received a lot of small arm fire in the ailerons and tail, one plane had three pi ton hot out of one engine and another had it recognition light shot out in the belly. One of the plane wasju t loaded with holes. It's a wonder that omeone wasn't killed in the plane. In tead of putting metal patches on her we ju t put on fabric patches, like on the gliders.Otherwi e, it would have been whistling all the way home." Originally, the German had planned to have their two Panzer divisions bypass the little Belgium market town of Bastogne, leaving it to the 26th Volksgrendiers to occupy without a fight. When, however, the entire Panzer corps became engaged, its advance lowed through the gallant effort of Americans, like the oldier of the Tenth Armored Divi ion' Combat Command B and the

rol t Airborne Division and the fliers of the Ninth and Eighth Air Force, Ba togne took on an importance, both ymbolic and tactical, upon which the outcome of the battle would depend. Not originally recognized by the Germans a such, Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering would later call Bastogne "the keystone of the entire offen ive." "A few day after Chri tma ," adds Lt. Roberts, "we had turkey with all the trimmings - just like home. We could always tell when we were a igned to General Patton's army, a we were at Bastogne; we always had the best rations. "The Bulge should have been the German' last defeat, but it wa n't. We till had lot of fighting to do. We took the City of Trier from the rear. We cros ed the Rhine and never stopped until we got to the Italian border." Acknowledgement: This article could not have been written without the generous patience and time of Charle Roberts (this writer's uncle), Charle Fife, Dave Menard, Dean Hes , Ray Goodrich, Clarence L. Schmid, Gilbert Vogt (who passed away while researching this article), Bill Ried, Warren Lawson, Matt Bigg , Bill Sargent, Bill EI mendorf, Earl Ph iIii ps, Sherfey Tipton "Tip" Randolph, Claude A. Berry, John H. We ley, W.W. Burnett, Warren Kuhlman and Gordon and Joan O'Dell. The author remains fa cinated with all aspect of the Bastogne operation. Should anyone have a correction or additional personal r<::collection of the battle to add, please • call Mr. Farmer at (818) 963-4202.

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The eastern panorama as seen from the elevate monument at the Battle of Bulge Museum in Bastogne on 24 December 1993. The area has remained little changed since the great bat· tie. (Guido Deleye)

68 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

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REMEMBERING THE BULGE

REMEMBERING (continued/rom page 23) Kobleng to low the flow of enemy material have to get out of the airplane and climb up to the Ardenne. With the exception of a on the wing and from there get up on the handful of weather reconnais ance ortie , top of the fu elage and break off the ice. ormally, our maximum total gross inclement weather completely hut down takeoff weight was something like 29,000 8th AF operations for the next three days. Ibs, but on mi ion~ like those to ormandy and Bastogne they raised the limit to about AND THEN THE MIRACLE 3 I ,000. I can't recall the exact numbers. In Bastogne, the morning of the 23rd How much cargo we actually carried wa , of course, al 0 a function of the ranges dawned cri p and clear at ground level with involved and how much fuel we had to a broken, high overcast. The weather had cart"y. I would imagine we had clo e to not been 0 for month. and within days 7000 lb of cargo onboard for the Bastogne would once again be a it was, yet it wa reldrops. E erybody knew what wa going on. atively clear on the 23rd and would be again They were going to push afety to the limit the next. Tho e on the ground who were becau e they were going to get in anyway awake searched the skie for the answer to their prayers - Allied air upp rt. The and with a much as they could." When the weather cleared. The final encirclement of the Belgium town on the 21 t wa followed by a twoday lull in the fighting a the enemy consolidated their po ition , moving up new units prior to a final assault. Despite the lack of serious renewed attack on the perimeter defense, the shelling of Bastogne continued unabated. The morning of the 22nd dawned cold and threatening. The weather seemed to have Bastogne in a death grip. Morale was at its grimmest. Around I I:30 am four Germans appeared trudging through the snow under a answer was not long in com ing. The fi rst white flag toward the American lines on the small silvery specks began to appear within road from Remoifo se. They had come to an hour of sunrise. The SAA P-51 st and P-47s and RAF Typhoons were cheered by demand the urrender of Ba togne. General McAuliffe's reply would become one ofthe the cold and weary paratroopers and mo t famous quote of the Second World artillerymen as the fighter-bombers began to War. When the reportedly arrogant German fill the air over Ba togne, and Bizory, and effe, and Mont, and Foy, and Marvie. major read McAuITiffe' one-word answer of" uts!" he asked what it meant. Colonel Other Gl , too exhausted fr m nightlong Harper, who had per onally delivered the engagements, were waken by th familiar response, took no little de.light in clarify- concussions of exploding bombs - Allied ing the me sage, replying "Go to hell," bombs. They watched, smiles involuntarily adding" ... on your way bud." forming on their frozen, stubbled face as McAuliffe is ued order to ration each the Mustangs and Thunderbolts went into their di ves, watched a the bomb under man to two boxe of K rations per day and each artillery piece to ten round per day. their wings and bellies began to fall away. The temperature hovered around ten They watched the bloom of yellow flame degree a snow drift continued to grow and black smoke form suddenly, silently and exhausted GI endured the pain of against the brilliant white backdrop - followed moments later by the sound which freezing finger and trench foot. Heavy fighting continued through' reverberated sharply across the crystalmuch of the night at a number of key clear cold of the countryside. "Boy, tho. e fighters came over in perimeter points. blankets," recalls Fife. "They came over Flying weather, though always bad, had gotten worse by the 19th and would remain and just continued to come over. It made so through the 22nd. All 9th AF bombers you feel awfully good." inth Air Force Thunderbolt pilot were again grounded, while 9th AF fighterbomber orties were substantially scaled Dean Hes recalls, "Our initial runs began at 1500 feet or maybe less. Our dives were back to no more than 250 a day. On the 19th, the 8th AF had uccessful- about 30 degrees because once you got Iy launched more than 300 B-17s and B-24s back up into the clouds it wa pretty diffiwith fighter escort to various rail and tacti- cult to let down again because you had cal target in Luxembourg, Ehrang, and other aircraft working down under there.

"We went after concentrations of enemy troops with our .50s. We flew too close to friendly forces in the area to use bombs"

70 BATILE OF THE BULGE-50TH ANNIVERSARY!

"We would go out on a mi ion, fly the hour back to our base in France, refuel, reann and then go back out again. I flew about three mi sion a day then. We were carrying 1000 pounder, ometimes 500 pound bombs, rockets and .50-caliber ammunition for our guns. The thing that impres ed me so much wa that we were working down 0 clo e to the enemy. It was not uncommon in fighterbomber work to ee per onnel running and crambling. But when we were working on Bastogne we w'ould be flying over enemy troop, strafing and then end up going back on the line they were coming in on and we'd only be, maybe, a couple of hundred feet from them on the ground as we'd be circling for another strafing run. You could see quite a bit at that altitude. "Our mission, particularly, was to break the German supply lines coming into Bastogne. When we finally got into the area it wa pretty cloudy, even then. There wer lots of low clouds. We had to virtually dive through the cloud, then spot a target and strafe or di ve bomb it. You could ee for miles to the east where the Germans were throwing in everything they had into the area. We were going after personnel, upply truck, and especially the tanks. "The weather was so bad, even when we were working, that one of the pilot. diving through these clouds called back and said he'd hit bottom. We couldn't figure out what he meant. He was still airborne. He had dived down through and just within a fraction of a sec nd was able to pull out, craping hi belly on the way back up. Another pilot called that he got hit. He was still airborne but he had lost his propeller. Later, we found out an enemy round had hit right on the hub of the propeller and knocked the hub, the four blades, everything off. But he wa able to glide back to Bastogne and belly in where he was picked up by our Army. When they broke out he returned. "We had a lot of battle damage, but we only lost that one airplane in our 51l th Squadron. The-P-47 was quite a durable airplane. I think the one that lost its propeller was our only loss over Bastogne. That was a total write-off." Ray Goodrich, another 9th AF Thun'derbolt pilot from the 366th Fighter Group, then ba ed at Asch, Belgium, recalls, "We'd already had several briefings and we were just waiting around for the weather to break to get in there and get some relief to the guys.. The targets had already been pre-assigned. We usually had area ground controller working with us by radio from our own lines but we didn't have any at Bastogne. We'd been around the area before, however, and fair-

Ninth Air Force Thunderbolts such as Dutchess used their 500 Ib bombs to good affect on German tank columns surrounding Bastogne.

Iy well knew what we could expect. "The weather wasn't all that hot; even though it broke it remained pretty hazy. It was pretty difficult at time to ee what was on the ground, even though they put red-colored cloth marker panel out for us to distingui h between the German and our own tanks. onetheless, the first couple of missions were awfully touch and go. "We didn't carry any bomb or belly tank on our mis ion (Asch was 20 minutes flying time from Ba togne). We went after concentration of enemy troops with our .50 . We flew too close to fliendly forces in the area to use bombs. Our group would leave a squadron above for top cover while the other two squadrons went in on their a signed target. I don't recall eeing any German fighter when we were up. "Each fighter group that went into Ba togne had pre-planned target . The 9 AF T AC command as igned each group sectors to which they were to confine their activities. This was so they wouldn't interfere with the other force in the area. It was all pretty low work. We were flying three or four missions a day over Bastogne. We encountered ome light flak, but I didn't pick up any in my plane at Bastogne." "We felt relieved, seeing those fighter ," recalls Roberts, "then we knew we weren't going to spend Chri tmas with the German ." •

Operating in te~.degree weather at Bastogne, short of adequate clothing, medical supplies and personne;, aGI's chances of survIving even moderate wounds were. questionable at best.

VOLUME 2,1994 71

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his is the story of a 3,OOO-mile race from Normandy to the mountains of ancient Bohemia, of the most insolent armored blitz of the war, of a tremendous forced march and the heroic relief ofthe beleaguered garrison of Bastogne - the story, in short, of the 4th Armored Division. War correspondents dubbed it, at various times, Patton's Panzers, the Breakthrough Boys, the Fabulous Fourth; the Germans called it, among other things, Roosevelt's Butchers. The 4th Armored had a great fighting philosophy, one that had its origin in the early days ofthe Division's combat in Normandy when one of its battalions found itself far behind enemy lines near Avranches. The battalion commander formed a perimeter defense for the night with tank cannon, machine guns, bazookas, rifles and even pistols aimed in every direction ofthe compass. The German Army was all around them. Constant A. Klinga, a youthful sergeant and tank commander from Brooklyn, New York, considered the potentially ominous situation thoughtfully and declared in mock dismay, "They've got us surrounded again:' Then he added, with a flashing grin, "The poor bastards:'

In a remarkably short time this became the battle cry of the 4th Armored. "They've got us surrounded again - the poor bastards:' It was uttered in the thickets of Normandy, in the rolling country of Lorraine, in Belgium, in Luxembourg and in Germany. It was Major General John S. Wood. who molded the Division and fashioned it into a crack fighting team. He was past his 56th birthday when he led his command into combat for the first time but he was hardy and as fit as most officers who were many years his junior. A member of the West Point Class of 1912 he had played football at the Military Academy and, before that, at the University of Arkansas in his native state. General Wood's association with the Division began during June 1942, when the 4th Armored was little more than one year old. Upon arrival at Pine Camp, New York, a bustling military reservation on the Canadian border, Wood found himself successor to Major General Henry W. Baird, who was due to retire. A rocket-firing M-4 Sherman tank moves up to support engineers repairing a bridge while under fire.

72 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

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It was Baird who had superintended the activation of the 4th Armored at Pine Camp on April 15, 1941,30 minutes after his arrival from Fort Knox, Kentucky. When a 4th Armored bugler sounded off for the first time 600 officers and 3,200 men stood at attention. By the time Wood assumed command there were nearly 15,000 in the ranks. Most of the early officers and men were regular army veterans ofthe cavalry and fledgling armored units but within a few weeks of its activation the Division began to receive large numbers of newly inducted selective service soldiers. By July 9 the newborn Division was massed for its first review - a review on foot because in the entire Army at that time there were less than 100 medium tanks.

"WHEN THEY GATHERED THEIR WITS AND REALIZED THAT A LONE GUNNER WAS DOING ALL THE DAMAGE, THE ENEMY TURNED ON WHITSON. BUT THE REDHEADED KID CONTINUED TO SHOOT UNTIL HE WAS KILLED" It was considerably different after Pearl Harbor when a steady stream of new medium tanks began to flow into Pine Camp. Under Wood's command the 4th Armored moved out of Pine Camp for the first time and rumbled into the Tennessee Maneuvers of October 1942. Then it traveled clear across the continent in mid-November for seven strenuous months in the Mojave Desert. The Division celebrated its second anniversary with a review at Camp Ibis, 20 miles north of Needles, California. General Wood looked approvingly at his bronzed troopers as they rolled by the reviewing stand in tanks and halftracks, and reflected that the 4th Armored had come a long way since the days when there were only 20 tanks in the entire division - and still fewer soldiers who knew how to handle them! Next the Division found itself in Camp Bowie, near Brownwood, Texas. The Division was fully equipped with new vehicles now (its old, maneuver-

A wounded American GI, blown from his jeep by a land mine, is comforted by a buddy as the 4th rushed toward Bastogne.

worn rolling stock was turned over to the 9th Armored in June) and it was in top condition. September brought another important armor reorganization and the 4th Armored became a "light armored division;' losing nearly 4,000 men in the process. In essence all of its regiments were scaled down to battalion size. It was to operate in combat with three combat commands (Combat Command A, Combat Command B and Combat Command Reserve) designated CCA, CCB and CCR. Each would normally consist of a battalion of tanks, a battalion of armored infantry and a battalion of armored field artillery plus engineers, tank destroyers and other support elements. Out of this reorganization evolved the armored division virtually as it is known today. The old 51st Infantry

74 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

Regiment, with a history dating back to World War One and AEF service with the 6th Infantry Division, was broken up into three armored infantry battalions. One battalion retained the numerical designation and became the 51st Armored Infantry Battalion. The others were designated the 10th and 53rd. In the September 1943, reorganization the 84th Recon Battalion became the 25th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, Mechanized; the old tank regiments became the 35th and 37th 'funk Battalions and one new battalion was designated the 8th 'funk Battalion and nicknamed the "Rolling 8-Ball" by its C.O., Lieutenant Colonel Edgar T. Conley. Division Artillery consisted of the 22nd, 66th and 94th Armored Field

Artillery Battalions; and support elements included the 24th Armored Engineers, 126th Ordnance Maintenance Battalion, 46th Armored Medical Battalion and 144th Signal Company. No battalions, companies or detachments were to be permanently assigned with Combat Commands. They would be shifted from one Combat Command to another according to the tactical situation. The Division was alerted for overseas in November 1943. Early December found the troops converging upon Camp Myles Standish, Massachusetts, Gis of the 4th Division take a brief respite and shortly after Christmas the 4th from the heavy fighting to relax in a Armored sailed out of Boston. captured Nazi pillbox. For six months, following its arrival in Britain, the 4th Armored trained for a role in the forthcoming invasion of tempted to flee Avranches they were the Continent. But it was not until D- challenged by Private William "Red" plus-36 that the LSTs carrying the Di- Whitson, a machine gunner ofCompavision touched down on the sands of ny B, 51st Armored Infantry. Whitson Utah Beach. In long columns the placed his water-cooled .30-caliber tanks, halftracks, self-propelled ar- machine gun to cover the bend in the tillery and assault gun rolled over the ,road. He let the enemy column draw dusty roads to an a embly area in the close th6i1 he opened fire. Twenty-five Barneville-Sur-Mer ctor on the west vehicles were knocked out of action side of the Cherbourg peninsula: and more than 50 German soldiers The 4th Armored entered combat sprawled in the road in a tangle of less than a week later, relieving battle- shattered wagons and plunging horses. weary elements ofth 4th Infantry Di- When they gathered their wits and vision at the front, about five miles realized that a lone gunner was doing north of Perier . Lieut nant Colonel all the damage, the enemy turned on George L. Jacque' 53rd Armored In- Whitson. But the redheaded kid confantry was the fir t unit ofthe Division tinued to shoot until he was killed. By to see action and Li utenant Jim Duffy that time the Germans were comof the 53rd wa it fir t casualty. pletely unnerved and more than 500 Days passed with the Division on surrendered. the defensive. M anwhile First Army The 4th Armored fought its way made plans for a bold stroke. The through and around Avranches. In the neighboring infantry divisions would thick of the fighting were the selfpinch the 4th Armor d out of the front propelled tank destroyers ofthe 704th and then Wood would nd his armored TD Battalion, then under the comcolumns slashing through, into the mand of Lieutenant Colonel Delk enemy's backyard. McC. Oden. The tank destroyer men The attack began on the morning slammed into action. Sergeant Joe of July 28. First to fall was Coutances. Shedevy's "Hell Cat" KO'd an enemy Then Cerences. A heroic medic, Cap- tank to score the first of many "kills" tain Frank Allen, a member ofthe den- that the battalion was to record in 230 tal corps, became the first Silver Star days of rugged combat. winner of the Division as he contin~ed Combat Command B captured Avto tend casualties under heavy fire ranches after a fierce fight. Then the even though he himself had been Germans launched a strong attack wounded. that threatened the Combat ComIn the advance south toward Av- mand headquarters. General Dager ranches, headquarters ofCombat Com- grabbed a tomms gun and organized mand B bivouacked north of the city the headquarters people for a counterabout 200 yards from the main road. thrust, After a brisk fight enemy The headquarters was almost stam- resistance was shattered, peded by German columns fleeing Not only the tankers, artillerymen toward the south. In the early morning and infantry were busy. The 489th hours of July 30 as more Germans at- AAA Battalion at the Pont Ie Gilbert

bridge came under attack when a horse-drawn German Field Artillery batallion attempted to pass their position. A battery of AA guns, fired pointblank, wiped out the enemy artillery and the ack ack boys held the bridge in an all-night battle. The last day of July found the Division zone of action cleared of enemy resistance. In four days on the offensive the Division had taken the key to Brittany, had bagged more than 3,000 prisoners and had wiped out an enemy regiment and severely mauled four divisions. August 1 was a big day for the 4th Armored. Third Army under Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr., became operational and the 4th Armored (which made little secret of the fact that they considered themselves "Georgie's Boys") was transferred to Third Army Control. Patton sent Wood and the 4th Armored hurtling toward Rennes. Colonel Bruce C. Clarke and CCA took the lead in the 54-mile sprint to the onetime capital of ancient Brittany. 'Ibward dusk Third Army received an alarming report - that an armored column was less than 15 miles southwest of Rennes and moving in rapidly. Patton called Major General O. P. Weyland, head of the XIX 'fuctical Air Command, and asked for fighter-bombers to stop the enemy armor. The planes roared into the skies but luckily decided to take a fast look before they began their strafing run. The "enemy column" turned out to be Clarke's own fast-stepping CCA tankers. Soon Wood had the 4th Armored south of Rennes - and headed at top speed toward Paris and the east. This, however, was not in Patton's plans and so a staff officer was sent hurrying after the Division with orders for Wood to move southwest to St.-Nazaire, Vannes and Lorient. When these orders finally reached the Division, Wood was already beyond Chateaubriant. The Division swiftly severed the Brittany Peninsula and overran the Atlantic port city of Vannes. Then it was sent against the huge enemy submarine base at Lorient. En route it wiped out a battalion of horse-mounted Russian mercenaries, the 281st Ost Cavalry Battalion, and fought a running battle with th'e rearguard of a German outfit that blew the bridges at Hennebont before their own troops even cleared the span. As it neared VOLUME 2, 1994

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Sens 60 miles southeast of Paris, meant tween them. The tanks roared out in that the tanks had outflanked the front, followed closely by the armored French capital and cut off the Germans personnel carriers Chalftracks) and the south of the 400-mile length of the assault guns. Heavy artillery fire pounded all Loire. around them as they raced toward the General Wood unleashed his "panzers" once again on August 25, the day enemy bastion with all engines roarafter the fall of Paris. He was still ing at full throttle. When they got covering the southern flank of the ad- within range they were subjected to vance - and by nightfall his command ferocious machine-gun and rifle f}.re had knifed deeper into the enemy lines but the tanks hurtled a seven-foot antithan any other U.S. or Allied force. tank ditch and leveled the embankGeneral Dager led CCB in a crossing ments so the halftracks and other veof the Yonne River at Villeneuve-sur- hicles couid follow. West sent a couple Yonne on the Division's southern of tanks and a platoon of infantry to flank. Combat Command A streamed deal with Germans in the ditch itself. out of Sens in two columns to force a Most of them were evidently artillery crossing of the Seine and seize Troyes, forward observers. Once they were wiped out the artillery fire lost much some 85 miles southwest of Paris. In command of the column that of its steam. Hard-shooting armored infantry veered north was Oden. By noon he soldiers followed the Shermans into had reached the Seine and began "WE DIDN'T HAVE A bridging it under heavy artillery fire. the streets of Troyes and one after THING IN THE WORLD The other column led by Major Arthur another the enemy strong points were TO STOP THEM - JUST L. West of Stillwater, Oklahoma, mean- wiped out. They reached the town A BUNCH OF SOLDIERS while reached its attack position. The square by dark and dug in for the WHO WOULDN'T GIVE coordinated attack was delayed while night. Then, in the first light of dawn, UP" Oden's force rushed the extensive they went into action again. Twelve bridging that had to be done. Then it trucks of the SS Brigade's Headquartwas decided that West would attack ers Company made a dash down a side street. The 4th Armored people were The following day the 4th Armored with his column alone. Under his com- waiting for just such a move. A Shermand was his own outfit, the 10th Arwas shifted from VIII Corps to XII man fired at point-blank range and Corps for the pursuit of the German mored Infantry Battalion mounted in blew up the lead truck. A halftrack cirArmy. Third Army was to push forward halftracks, a company of medium cled the block and moved up on the on the extreme southern flank of the tanks, a platoon of engineers and a few rear of the stalled column to shoot up Allied Expeditionary Forces and XII self-propelled assault guns. Ahead, be- the tail-end vehicles. Loaded down Corps was to guard this flank. The tween him and Troyes, lay a three-and- with ammo, the trucks caught fire and south flank of the Corps was to be the a-half-mile stretch of open country exploded. In a few hours the 51st SS sloping gently toward the enemy-held 4th Armored. Brigade was out of existence. Among While CCB was in the process of city. The German garrison was sup- West's 557 prisoners was General being relieved at Lorient by the 6th Ar- posed to number around 500. But the Hans George Schamm, the military mored Division, CCA moved east and tankers suspected that the garrison commandant ofTroyes. Scattered Germade a 22-hour forced march to St. had been reinforced and this surmise man troops managed to escape West's Calais where it was ordered to refuel proved correct. The enemy, by the time patrols. They pulled out toward the immediately and march on Orleans. West's attack was launched, numbered east - only to be engaged by ColColonel Bruce Clarke sent his combat more than 2,000 - most of them mem- onel Oden's tankers who had by then command hurtling toward the objec- bers of the crack 51st SS Brigade. Surveying the broad plain across bridged the Seine and were ready and tive in two columns. One was led by waiting to the east of the city. Lieutenant Colonel Bill Bailey, the which he would have to attack, West Fourth Armored columns contindecided upon extraordinary tactics. He other by Lieutenant Colonel Delk ued to slash into German-occupied the word that the task force passed McC. Oden. They battled through France. Lieutenant Colonel Creighton strong enemy defenses, overran the would move upon Troyes at five pm and W. Abrams' light tanks of the 37th city before dusk and handed over the then his startled subordinates heard Tank Battalion burst into Commercy town to a combat team of the 35th him call for a mounted charge "in in a blinding downpour and with such spread desert formation~' Infantry Division. Not sirice California Maneuvers suddenness that German crews manAugust 21 found the Division (CCA ning "88s" on the bridge were unable leading, then CCB, Division Head- had the 4th Armored soldiers em- to fire a single shot before they were quarters and CCR) slipping swiftly ployed this strategem - and now they overwhelmed and the vital bridge through the outskirts of Orleans into were to make the cavalry-style charge taken. Sens. It met little opposition and seized straight into the mouths of the enemy's The month of August came to an its objective just before dark - just in guns. West gave the signal to move out end as the Division closed upon the time to capture a German train loaded and the vehicles deployed along a wide Meuse. In the seven weeks since Norwith precious gasoline. The capture of front with more than 100 yards be-

well-defended Lorient, the Division's swift progress was checked. Artillery fire pounded it and CCB suffered a terrible toll until the German forward observers were hunted down and killed. The village of Pont Scorffwas taken but the main defenses of Lorient held the 4th Armored at bay - just as they would hold the Allied armies at bay through ten long months of the war, until the Reich surrendered. While Combat Command B pecked at Lorient, probing its formidable defenses, the remainder ofthe 4th Armored wheeled east to slash into the heart of France. Its march took it 80 miles (in seven hours) to Nantes. The Loire River town was cleared by August 12.

76 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

Men of the 4th Armored Division firing at Nazi snipers from the protection of an American tank.

mandy the 4th ArmOl d had advanced the axis of Third Army more than 700 miles. Wood's men wer in the lead all the way. Unhappy days wer h ad for the 4th Armored as the teel chargers were hobbled - not by anti-tank ditches or .' Third shellfire from enemy' Army was stopped by a severe hortage of gasoline. Coming as it didju t when the fast-moving armored columns had the Nazis on the run, the fuel crisis gave the enemy a chance to catch their breath and regroup their defenses. September 11 the advance was resumed as the Division was ordered to throw a bridgehead across the cold, fast-running waters of the Moselle. Waiting on the east bank was the Wehrmacht. Combat Command B sped toward the river at 0630, to force a crossing near Bayon. Under cover of dark Lieutenant Colonel Edgar T. Conley's 8th Tank Battalion had moved to a jumping off point and by seven in the morning "the Rolling 8-Ball" was at the bank of the canal that parallels the course of the Meuse on the west bank. Reconnaissance showed all the bridges over the canal and the river to have been destroyed. First Lieutenant William C. Mar-

shall wheeled his platoon of mediums down to the very edge ofthe canal and depressed the 75s to fire point-blank at the opposite bank. Gradually he broke down the other wall. Then he and his men pushed logs into the mud and water. Marshall leaped into his tank and gave it the gun. His Sherman labored and chugged through the 20-foot canal and made it up to the other side. Then Marshall hooked up a tow line and hauled the rest of the platoon across. The five tanks under his command raced downstream between the river and the canal seeking a channel they could ford. Marshall came to a place where the river split into three forks - and he decided to press his luck a little more. He and the others plunged into water that came up to their turrets - but they made it across to the east bank and clambered up on the enemy-held bank like five terrible, dripping monsters from the deep. Their arrival saved the day for the tiny bridgehead that the infantry had carved on the enemy-held bank. Other tanks, halftracks and towed jeeps followed Marshall's route over the Moselle enabling the 4th Armored to put a strong force across the river although

the engineers were not able to get a 168-foot floating bridge across until late the following afternoon. The armored columns flashed through Aulnois, Lemoncourt, Arracourt and Einville. Combat Command A continued to race far in advance of the Allied drive. For three days Clarke's columns roamed far behind enemy lines. At nightfall they would form a perimeter defense and the combat command's artillery would range its guns to fire in all directions - there was no danger of hitting friendly troops for CCA was thoroughly isolated. Combat Command R (CCR) moved into Luneville and held fast as the Germans counterattacked with elements of the Panzer grenadier division that CCA and CCB had beaten at Valhey and Arracourt. But CCR, consisting in the main of the 10th Armored Infantry, the 35th Tank Battalion and the 704th TDs, held fast. But in the action Lieutenant Bill Bailey of the 704th was killed. He had only, recently swapped jobs with Lieutenant Colonel Oden who had given up command of the 704th to take over the 35th Tank. Major Henry P. Heid, Jr., a 1940 West Pointer, took over the 704th for the rest of September. VOLUME 2, 1994

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BREAK OUT! The Germans sent their crack armor outfits out to meet the 4th Armored - but Wood's men ripped them apart and continued the march through Lorraine. In three weeks of furious combat 4th Armored soldiers accounted for 281 enemy tanks. The heaviest tank engagement of the Battle of France took place during the four days of September 19-22 and it began when a force of 40 German tanks charged toward the Division, only to be challenged by "Colonel Abe's" 37th Tank Battalion. The Germans split up and pushed against the right flank of CCA. Two platoons of the 704th Tank Destroyers were sent to meet them. They moved through the mist to within 150 feet of the attacking Panthers. The tide of battle surged back and forth as the armored soldiers hurled themselves upon each other. In one tremendous effort a force of Germans swept to within 800 yards of General Dager's CCB command post, but were pushed back by the stubborn 4th Armored tankers.

"COME ON OUTA THERE, YOU SONSABITCHES:' SHOUTED HENDRIX AS HE CHARGED TOWARD THE GERMAN GUNS While the tanks pounded each other from one end of the front to the other, the armored infantrymen dismounted from their halftracks and went into action as rifle soldiers in the classic sense. A bitter action developed on the slopes of Hill 265. During the night the 1st-Platoon of Company A, 10th Armored Infantry, slipped up the hill to fill a gap where two infantry platoons had been wiped out the previous afternoon. In command of the 1st Platoon was First Lieutenant James H. Fields, a small, wiry soldier from Caddo, 'Texas. Field's platoon had scarcely moved into.defensive positions when the Germans began to attack in that sector. At six in the morning the enemy launched an allout assault - more than a company of infantry supported by artillery and· three hulking Panther tanks. As the battle raged Fields heard a call for help from a man who had been badly wounded and was trapped in his foxhole by the enemy advance. The young officer raced over to offer as-

sistance. German riflemen closed in on him and Fields whirled to meet them. The Germans had the drop on him and a series of shots rang out before he could fire. A bullet ripped through his cheek, knocking out most of his teeth, severely lacerating his tongue, and filling his mouth with blood and jaw fragments. A squad leader tried to motion him down the hill toward the rear but Fields, unable to speak, shook his head. He crammed a compress from his first-aid pouch into his mouth and held another one over his badly torn right cheek and continued to fire his pistol with his left hand. By hand and arm signals and hastily penciled notes he maneuvered his men to meet the attack and stayed in the forefront of the fight. When the three German Panther tanks began to assault the position he dashed out to meet the attack. He spotted the commander of the lead tank in an open turret and fired a lefthanded pistol shot. The rest of the platoon took heart and fired so fast and furiously that the other two tanks withdrew. "I'll never know why they didn't just overrun us;' Fields said later. "We didn't have a thing in the world to stop them - just a bunch of fighting-mad foot soldiers who wouldn't give up~' It was not until noon that the German pressure on the 1st Platoon sector was relieved and only then did Fields - who all through the fight had adamantly refused to turn the command over to an officer replacement who reached the hill - head for the rear. He ran, walked and stumbled nearly half a mile to the battalion aid station but wouldn't let them evacuate him to a hospital for treatment until he had drawn a detailed sketch of the platoon zone of action and enemy positions for Major West. A last desperate effort was made by the Germans when they put together a force of25 tanks for a savage assault toward Arracourt. Fourth Armored tank-infantry teams swarmed out to meet them and the battle was joined at Hill 318. More than 400 casualties were inflicted upon the enemy and 24 tanks were put out of commission. By the middle of October the Division had the enemy's armor thoroughly intimidated. The rolling Lorraine countryside was littered with fireblackened hulks of what had once been the enemy's crack panzer divisions.

The Moselle bridgehead was taken and, after 87 days of continuous combat as spearhead of the Third Army, the 4th Armored was relieved and ordered to a rest area. At 0645 on November 9,1944, the 4th Armored rolled out of Arracourt to phase into the attack, with General Dagger's CCB in the van. On the following day CCA slashed forward and in a few hours the 4th Armored was to encounter the heaviest artillery fire it had yet experienced. 'Ib" this were added a fanatic enemy and miserable weather conditions - continuous rain and snow flurries. Ahead, too, were roadblocks, mine fields and camouflaged anti-tank weapons of all descriptions. When the 4th jumped out in front of Third Army's "winter offensive" it attacked in columns - each one pushing forward on a front that was as wide as the road on which it traveled. This was no armored blitz like the drive from Normandy through Troyes and across the Moselle. It was slow, rugged going. The 4th Armored thrust to the Conthil-Rodalbe area posed such a threat to the enemy entrenched in the vicinity ofMorhange that he pulled his forces out ofthe Chateau-Salins forestDelma Ridge area. It was a great strategic triumph for the Division and the enemy was forced to throw in reserves he had been holding west of the Saar. In battle array at this time the Division lineup found Combat Command B attacking in two columns - the left under the command of Major Thomas G. Churchill and the right under Lieutenant Colonel Alfred A. Maybach. Churchill, pushing forward on the left of CCB, sent out an advance guard of Shermans, light tanks and tank destroyers under the command of Major Albin F. Irzyk of Salem, Massachusetts. Irzyk neared a village northeast of Chateau-Salins and decided to swing up a muddy slope instead offollowing the road. Staff Sergeant Ellsworth Ranson of Watertown, New York, was in command of the leading light tank and as its snout poked over the hill he was fired upon by two antitank guns. He peered through a slit and could see the muzzle flash in a: clump of bushes nearly 1,000 yards away. Ranson got his machine guns firing to keep the enemy busy. A few moments later the tankers were treated to a unique sight - about 200 Ger-

German prisoners marching out of the combat zone after the 4th broke the seige of Bastonge.

mans tearing pell m II out ofthe nearby town. They wer r lief gun crews who had been taking a break in town. They had not count d upon any Americans reaching their po itions so soon and in such awful w ather. They raced for their guns - but ~ w of them ran more than a few t p b fore they were machine-gunned by the U.S. light tanks. South of Morhang , meanwhile, CCA ran into a hot fight at Guebling, where Panther tank de~ nded the village as aden's column attacked - the 35th Tanks and 10th Armored Infantry. The tank company commander was killed and Fir t Lieutenant Arthur L. Sell of Madi on, Wisconsin, took over. He was ambu hed by three German Mark IVs but attacked them boldly with his own tank after deploying the rest of his force to cover the flanks. He raced to within 50 yards of the enemy tanks before he opened fire. Sell crippled two of the enemy Panthers before his tank was knocked out of action by direct hits. Then the rest of his outfit moved in and finished off the remaining Mark IV. Five more German tanks were speeding up the road to join in the fight at Guebling but the artillery spotter planes saw them and a few minutes later all five were destroyed by artillery fire. Thanksgiving Day found the 4th Armored, the 48-hour battle of Guebling behind it, driving north from Kirrberg and Schelback to reach the

high ground in the Gungwiller-Durstel-Mackwiller area, enabling infantry divisions on the right and left to advance against a minimum of opposition. The Division closed upon the Saar River only to find most of the bridges blown. But luck was with Troop C of the 25th Cavalry led by Lieutenant John Keenan. The motorized cavalry troopers rushed Gosshelming so unexpectedly that they captured its bridge intact, although it was mined and all wired for detonation. In a Bierstube the troopers seized the German demolition crew. Wood pushed his division across the Saar and promptly found himselffaced with a fresh, newly equipped enemy panzer division. For two days there were a series of vicious battles near Bettborn. Then with 14 battalions of artillery slamming round after round of high explosives in front of its attack the 4th stormed into Alsace. General Wood, in ill health, was relieved by Major General Hugh J. Gaffey and under his command the tanks of the 4th Armored broke across the open hills to make their magnificent frontal attack on the town of Singling on December 6, 1944. The town ofSingling and the neighboring·towns ofBining and Rohrbach became the focal points of the 4th Armored scheme of maneuver. Singling was an important bastion in the secondary system of forts of the Maginot

Line and the Germans had prepared to defend it well. But in the initial phase of the attack Singling was overlooked and CCA ordered Lieutenant Colonel Creighton W. Abrams to shove off from Schmittviller and proceed with an attack on Bining. Singling was to be bypassed under cover of supporting fire. Once his attack was under way, however, Abrams realized at once that gunfire alone would not succeed in neutralizing heavy enemy fire power in Singling. On his own initiative he decided to take the town. The job was given to Team B - Companies B/37 (tanks) and B/51 (armored infantry). The team was under the command of Captain James H. Leach, the tank company commander; the infantry commander was 1st Lieutenant Daniel M. Belden. The B 'Team had been scheduled to make the attack upon Bining. When Abrams decided to go after Singling he gave Leach the order to attack and Leach in turn passed the word along to Belden. But Belden's armored infantry was already mounted and there was no time to pass the word. Hours later, at the height of the fire fight in Singling, many of the officers and men thought they were fighting in Bining. Heavy caliber self-propelled guns rocked the little task force as it pushed into Singling on the morning of December 6. A violent fight quickly developed as the Germans, alerted by their intelligence officers that they were facing "one of the best divisions in the American Army;' fought back from behind three-foot-thick reinforced concrete walls and well-placed pillboxes. In the swirling fight from one end of the town to another the tankers and the infantrymen fought valiantly. One after another the medi urn tanks of the B Team were kayoed as the day wore on. While the B Team was in the midst of its bitter fight for Singling, Colonel Abrams was instructed by Brigadier General Herbert L. Earnest, commanding general ofCCA, to turn Singling over to CCB and get about the business ofseizing his assigned objectives, Bining and Rohrbach. By mid-afternoon the relief party was in the thick of the fight. That night, after the relief had been accomplished, Major Irzyk pulled out of Singling to enable U.S. artillery to work the town over. The next day the advance was resumed and the (continued on page 90)

78 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY! VOLUME 2,1994

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By Blaine Taylor

s his Ardennes Offensive was winding down in defeat, Hi.tler w~s planning yet another stnke, hIS final gamble of the war in the West, the little-known but very important Operation

A

Nordwind (North Wind). States author Lise M. Pommois in her 1991 book Winter Storm, War in Northern

Alsace, November, 1944-March, 1945,

PFC Frank Vukasin of Great Falls, Montana, loads another clip of M 1 ammo near dead German soldiers on the snow at Houffalize, Belgium, near the junction point of the US 1st and 3rd Armies on January 16, 1945. (US Army Signal Corps)

80 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

"Hitler wanted to retain the initiative in the West: a second thrust was needed, either to the north or to the south of the Bulge. The drive to the south was favored because the US 7th Army front was held thinly in that area. Plans for the new German operation succeeded one another in the greatest confusion... "On December 22, 1944, Hitler ordered that a new plan be prepared: under it the attack would be launched by three panzer divisions (the 17th SS PGD, the 21st PD and the 25th PGD-Panzer Grenadier Division) and four infantry divisions (the 36th Volksgrenadier Division - People's GD - the 257th VGD, the 55th VGD and the 36lst VGD). The 6th SS Mountain Division...would reinforce the attack. The

The end of the line for this German soldier as Hitler loses the Battle of the Bulge. (US National' Archives)

target was a sector west of Bitche in the direction of Saverne. The goal was 'The destruction of the enemy forces in Alsace...' "Hitler did his best to persuade the generals of the opportunity of the operation: 'If this operation succeeds, it will lead to the destruction of a part of that group of divisions which confronts us south of the breakthrough point. The next operation will then follow immediately. It will be connected with a final push. I hope that in this way we shall first smash these American units in the south. '''Then we shall continue the attack and shall try to connect it with the real long-term operation itself...This second attack has an entirely clear objective: the destruction of the enemy forces. No questions of prestige are involved. It is not a question of gaining space. The exclusive aim is to destroy and eliminate the enemy forces wherever we find them. It is not even the task of this operation to liberate all Alsace - that would be wonderful! '''It would have an immense effect on the German people, a decisive effect on the world, immense psychological importance, a very depressing effect on the French people, but that is not what matters ... What matters is the destruction of the manpower of the enemy. I consider it a particularly good omen that in German history New Year's night has always been of good military omen...When, on New Year's Day, the news spreads in Germany that the German offensive has been resumed at a new spot and that it is meeting with success, the German people will conclude that the old year was miserable at the end, but that the new year has a good beginning. That will be a good omen for the future ... '''I hope we shall succeed in bringing the right wing forward quickly in order to open the routes to Saverne. Then we must immediately drive into the Rhine plain and liquidate the American divisions.. .! hope that the fuel situation will then permit us to move on to another concentration with a new grouping of forces and strike another blow, supported by additional divisions, including one fresh division from Finland...As soon as we successfully execute 'these two operations A and B, the threat to our left flank will cease. Then we shall fight the third battle, and completely destroy the Americans.' "Hitler impressed everyone with his knowledge of the situation and his conviction the plan could succeed. The offensive was to jump off at 11 p.m. on December 31, 1944. Army Group Upper Rhine forces had to effect ajunction with Army Group G in the Haguenau-Brumath area only after the armored divisions had reached the Ingwi'ller-Saverne sector. 'Time advantages him who uses it,' he said, "but Col. Gen. Heinz Guderian VOLUME 2, 1994 81

the Chief of the German General Staffwas worried about the imminent Soviet offensi ve on the Eastern Front, where "The Russian pos essed an overwhelming superiority: II-I for the infantry, 7-1 for the tanks, 20-1 for the guns ... and 20-1 in the air. Hitler had refused to consider the problem. He would not send his divisions against imaginary enemies!" State authors William K. Goolrick and Ogden Tanner in their 1979 work The Battle of the Bulge," ew Year's Day saw another German operation: Nordwind (North Wind), a diversiQnary cheme to lure American 3rd Army troops away from Bastogne by triking elsewhere, far to the southeast of Belgium in the Vo ge Mountains and the plain of Alsace. There, the US 6th Army Group, under LTG Jacob L. Devers, had driven a salient all the way to the Rhine; in the process, French U'oops under his command had captured in the great Alsatian city of Strasbourg, however, German troop till held a bridgehead west of the river, around the city of Colmar. "Hitler's plan of attack called for German spearheads to cut off Strasbourg and link up with forces in the Colmar pocket, as it was called. The intelligence officers of the US 7th Army anticipated the attack and warned Gen. Devers and Ei enhower. Ike sugge ted that Devers withdraw from the threatened area rather than ri k the entrapment of his troop . "This plan had one major drawback it meant that the French would lose Strasbourg again. Nevertheless, when the German attacked the city on New Year's Eve, Eisenhower ordered the pullback. When the French were informed of thi scheme, they erupted in a Gallic furor. Strasbourg had been under German control from 1870-1918, and again from 1940 until its liberation in November, 1944. "The French were fearful of repri als against the city's 400,000 inhabitants if the Germans returned. Indeed, 0 alarming was this pro pect that the French threatened to remove their forces from Allied control and defend Strasbourg on their own. The delicate problem was bucked up all the way to Roosevelt and Churchill. Roosevelt refused to become involved, but Churchill di cussed the issue in Versailles with Ei enhower, Gen. de Gaulle and Gen. Alphonse Pierre Juin, Chief of Staff of the French Mini try of Defense. "The Allied leaders decided at the conference to bow to French wi hes and retract the order to abandon Strasbourg. The Allied lines would be shortened, but the city would remain within the area to be defended. As it turned out, stubb rn Allied resistance prevented the Germans from linking up their forces. Strasbourg wa saved, and Operation Nordwind, which

US Army 1943 M24 Ught Tonk. (Courtesy Museum Specialist Armando Framarini, Sr., US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, MD)

US Army Medium M7 Tonk, 1943. (Courtesy Museum Specialist Armando Framarini, Sr.. US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, MD)

US Army 1944 Gen. P rslrlng M26 Medium Tonk. (Courtesy Museum Specialist Armando Fromorini, Sr., US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, MD)

US Army 1944 M18 Gun Motor Carriage. (Courtesy Museum Specialist Armando Framarini, Sr., US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, MD)

A US Army 1945 T-30 heavy tonk, on display today at the US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, Maryland. (Courtesy Museum Specialist Armando Framarini, Sr .. US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, MD)

82 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

US Army 1943 M 18 Gun Carriage. (Courtesy Museum Specialist Armando Framarini, Sr.. US Army Ordnance Museum, Aberdeen, MD)

VOLUME 2,1994 83

failed to achieve Hitler's aim of diverting American troops from the Ardennes, petered out in les than three week. oted American hi torian John Toland launched his writing career in 1959 with hi epic work Battle: The Story of the Bulge, in which he tates: "'Nordwind,' the new offensive a hundred mile outh of the Bulge, wasn't Hitler's only surpri e of the ew Year. Fighter pilot of the Luftwaffe did not celebrate ew Year' Eve, as u ual, at night-long partie. In tead, they were ordered to bed early. "At 5 a.m. on January 1st, they were awakened and briefed. Every fighter plane that could fly was to take off in a de perate attempt to knock out Allied air in the We 1. It was an attack personally planned by Goring and Hitler: Operation Hermann, or the Big Blow. Each pilot was a igned a special target at a specified airfield:There would be no deviation. "If the carefully worked-out plan wa followed exactly, Allied air would be dealt a crippling blow. The pilots, many of them with only a few hours of 010 flight, were enthu iastic. At la t they were on the offensive. At 7:45 a.m., more than 1100 FockeWulf 190 and Messer chrnitt I09 took off from now-covered field in four mas ive formations. Led by Junker 88s, they headed toward the Ardennes under strict radio silence. At the Rhine, the shepherding Junkers turned back and the inexperienced pilot were glided west by colored moke, searchlight, and 'golden rain' flares. "The four great waves dropped dangerously low and were oon kimming over the snowbound Ardennes, at tree level. Now enemy radar would be useless and the urprise attack complete and devastating." One of those American GIs who fought in stopping North Wind was Marylander Joseph A. Neil on, Jr., whose story was told by writer Carrie McCully in the March 3,1988, issue of Soundoff! in Howard County, Maryland. She notes, "Mo t people expected the war in Europe to be over by Christmas. Neilson and his fellow 01diers never really thought they'd see action ...The memories of chao are both harp, and blurred, but it is on the recollection of ingle moments that the tory rests. "They form a shaky rope bridge of memory that take you backward, not necessarily from day to day, but from horror to horror. That i how you piece it together again. Perhap you remember the headless soldier on the bridge, or the drawled and deflating lines of a joke from a man risking death. Or how the heat from the body of a dead man face-down formed a cast or hi features in the ice. "Whatever you remember, those few weeks in January, 1945, that were the second half of the Battle of the Bulge were

A 105mm Grizzly German self-propelled gun weighing 28 tons. (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO)

The 1942 Nebelwerfer 42, a 220mm rocket launcher whose projectiles weighed about 88 pounds. States Arms and Uniforms/The Second World War Part 4 by Liliane and Fred Funcken, "The stand with a round base visible between the wheels was lowered for firing. Only one rocket at a time was fired, for to shoot them all simuitaneously would have turned the launcher upside-down ... " (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO)

A German Flak 37 gun, used against both aircraft and tanks. (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO)

A German Henschel heavy I nk ullt with a Maybach engine. Nearly 500 were built during 1944 45, and It was known as the King Tiger. Its turret c rrled a powerful 8.8cm gun. These were greatly feared by all Allied troops In Normandy in 1944. (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO)

-~

A German LFH 18 M 1942 105mm gun, which weighed approximately two tons. (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO)

A German tank destroyer with a 75mm gun and weighing 26 tons, as preserved today at the US Army Ordnance Museum at Aberdeen Proving Grounds, Maryland. (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO

84 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

A German Panther tank, used against the Allies in Normandy in 1944 with great effectiveness. (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO)

.

~

German Ja~dpanthertank destroyer. States George Forty's book German Tanks of World War Two in Action, this was "The most Important variant of the Panther and probably one of the best tank destroyers ever built. Its 8.8cm gun could deal with most tanks on the battlefield at ranges up to 2750 meters (3000 yards)." (Photo by Beth A. Goodrich, USAOCPAO)

VOLUME 2,1994 85

disjointed and chaotic scarcely a platoon remained intact, scarcely a commander survived from one a sault to the next in the battles that became known as North Wind. Later, recon tructing histories from both sides of the war, American survivor realized that North Wind was Hitler's la t act of vengeance again t the Allies. "At the time, you could attarh no overall significance to the thousands of Americans killed. Instead, you remember chaos...the confusion of advancing and retreating over a few, frozen, snow-covered miles near the Rhine River and Franco-German border, oml(times in daylight, sometimes in dark, sometimes without food or communications. Intelligence had warned that a reinvasion of France was most likely to occur on

margins of military histories or comments near the photos of men in uniform. They form skeleton of recollections that fit together with the next man's to shape the body of the North Wind battle. "And one day a few of the survivors look at each other and realize: we were fighting together and did but did not know it. Alone, but together, we held the Ger-mans, and what if we had not? If they had not? Today, Joe Neil on find it hard to con ider, now that he knows what they were up against. "The Ellicott City Maryland, man knows that behind the few orphaned American infantry regiments that held the line against that la t German offensive, there was nothing. There were no Allied defense between those monstrous German divisions

A famous shot from the German side of the Battle of the Bulge: paratroopers riding a King Tiger 222 model tank at Kaiserbarracke, heading north towards Ligneuville, part of a 2nd SS Panzer Corps. (US Nationai Archives)

New Year' Day, 1945, but no one was prepared for the immense panzer divisions that charged out of Germany into France, black again t the nowy fields. "Suddenly, in the thick of battle, you were alone, and then you were not, moving from one miraculous reunion to the next. In the protection of the flooded woods where the ground was two feet of black ice, you met suddenly with a boy you had trained with at Camp Gruber, or a man you had run with just days ago through a barrage of German artillery, then lost and imagined dead. "Each of the survivors has memories like these. They make a record of them on tape, on blurry map marked by handdrawn arrows, with ironic notations in the

crossing the Rhine and the interior of France. If the men who had fought at orth Wind had not held, the Panzer columns could have made it halfway to Paris. "When he arrived in Marseilles on a rainy day ju t before Christma , 1944, the young Maryland boy had less than six month of training behind him, and he was trained mostly for the jungle, since fresh troops were expected to be needed in the Pacific, not Europe. "But he was better prepared than many in the 42nd Rainbow Division, a embled hastily when orders came for replacements ... By January 5,1945, cattered companies of the three infantry regiments of Rainbow's Task Force Linden met their

86 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

fir t German assault at Gambshein, a small town near the German border in the Alsace region of France. ''The town was taken in an overpowering display of German military strength and losses were heavy. Farther north, other German divisions had moved on France as well, and American soldiers were engaged in battle that left the Allies reeling." Continuing, Ms. McCully adds, "Neilson's company was sent to help defend Gambshein. They slept in the now out ide the town the night of January 5th, with German tracer lighting the night sky in jagged treaks. Early the next morning, the Germans attacked with tanks, and the American order, 'Every man for himself,' ent oldiers cattering. It seemed to Neilson that every spot of ground he passed blew up behind him. "He ran from woods to ditch in a frenzy, finally grabbing a hand-hold on a jeep speeding out of Gambshein. That night, outside the town they dug foxholes in the frozen ground. The oldier with Neilson was trembling with convulsions. The two men pent the night in the wet ditch, the icy water eeping up around them. They stripped down at the che t to their T- hirts to share body heat. It snowed again that night. "They stayed there for a day and on the 8th were loaded up and taken to Rittershofen. On the 9th, the Germans attacked Hatten, less than a mile to the ea t. A day later, the Germans moved in a concentrated attack through Hatten and into Rittershofen. The two tiny towns, with populations of less than 1200 each, were nearly leveled. German and American tanks parked on either side of a ingle house, bla ting away at each other through the wall . "In the houses left standing, German and American soldiers left held out next door to each other in cat-and-mouse warfare. Neilson and his buddies, crouched with some remaining French civilians in the basement of a small Rittershofen house, felt the shells fall around them. eil on held a little boy on his lap and counted the child's finger to quiet him. When the basement wall blew in around them, they scrambled back upstair . "North Wind was to la t until the end of January, with American forces stopping the German advance at the Moder River, orne 20 mile southwest of Hatten and Rittershofen. Finally, Hitler abandoned the attack to counter an offensive from the Rus ians at Germany's Eastern Front, and the Nazis withdrew across the Rhine. Neilson was more fortunate than many of his friends who died at North Wind. A year later, he was back home. "Reports place American ca ualties at the Battle of the Bulge at nearly 77,000. Survivors of North Wind working to reconstruct what

A German camouflaged self-propelled gun in the initial advance. (US National Archives)

happened there estimate that of tho e 10 es, 25,000 were from North Wind. "In May, 1986, Neilson went back to Rittershofen. With two other men from the Rainbow Division, and Li e Pommoi Secretary of the orthern Alsace Historical Society, Neil on was looking for that hou e, that basement, that family, that little boy. "Though the town had been de troyed, it had been rebuilt almo t exactly t it pre-war state in a reflex of hi t ry mmon to that wartorn region f Fran Neilson believed he recognized th h u but villager as ured him h wa mi tak n. "Finally, nthelatdy fhi vi it, Neil on per uaded P mm i t a ny him, and th y kn d al th d r. A pleasant-fac d w man r t d th m, showed them in, and P mm i plain d. As they stood ther a il r-haired old woman entered the r m, , k d ut, and through another d r app ar d man in his late forties. Pomm i a d hi memoly pau ed. ries of the bomb. He 'One, two, three, four I " h aid. "And the words ran lik a b II above their head ." Operation North Wind ffi ially la ted from January 1-25, 1945, whil the Battle of Hatten-Rittershofen de rib d above took place during January 7th-20th. The German effected a juncti n of the force fighting in the Gamb heim-H rrli heim bridgehead, and by the 20th, American 7th Army units withdrew to th Moder River, with the last German a au It on Haguenau taking place during the 21 t-26th. According to author Li e Pommois, "This last offensive along the Moder had been Hitler's final stand." Stated Gen. Linden of the Rainbow Divi ion, "Looking back, it can be seen that this battle of the

M d r River wa the turning point in the entir German campaign in Alsace. The Rainb w halted an attack which, if succes ful w uld have required a withdrawal all al n the entire Army front. It wa an exampi f courage and determination which ha Id m been equalled by fighting men ..." dd M . Pommois, "On January 25th, Hitler ordered all offensive operation in n rthem Al ace u pended...This ultimate failure had been fore een by Col. Gen. J hannes Blaskowitz, Commander of rmy Group G, on the 9th: Operation Nordwind had become tatic aftersome initial succe ses, and this wa due to the lack of infantry troops to mop up conquered territorie . The Americans had superior mobility forces and equipment and ma tery of the air, though this Ia t factor cannot be taken into consideration for this particular period due to bad weather conditions... "German losses for Operation Nordwind were tremendous. Von Rundstedt released the following figures on January 27th: 2210 killed; 8466 wounded and 4707 mis ing for the First Army. To these figure must be added: 518 killed, 1725 wounded and 450 mis ing for 89th Wantry Corp and 39th Panzer Corps: 46 killed, 95 wounded and 42 mi ing for 14th SS Corp, for the period starting January 20th. The total for Army Group G and Army Group Oberrhein (upper Rhine) was 2774 killed, 6286 wounded and 5199 mi ing. ''The 19th Army had already uffered 682 killed, 2391 wounded and 1600 missing in the Colmar pocket. The combined losses of Army Group G, Army Group Oberrhein and 19th Army close to 3456 killed, 8677 wounded and 6799 missing, that i 22,932 officers and men, for a period of 25 days ...Thi is about one fourth of the casualties suffered in

the Battle of the Bulge between December 16, 1944 and January 25, 1945... "The strength of infantry divisions had been reduced by 3-4000 men, that of armored divisions by 2-3000 men. Good replacement had hardly been available during the month of January. The Germans were hort of material, ammunition, transportation, fuel...They had 10 tat lea t 176 tanks and elf-propelled guns. "American 10 se had been heavy, too: about 11,000 battle casualties for the whole month of January .. .for the Ardenne were 10,276 killed in action, 47,493 wounded in action and 23,218 mi ing in action, that is 80,987 casualties for five- ix weeks. "The magnitude for the losse is explained by the importance attributed by the Germans to the operation: beside the engagement of Himmler himself' (note: SS ReichsfUhrer National Leader Heinrich Himmler commanded Army Group upper Rhine - BT), "we mll t note the commitment of 16 divisions, among which were three SS divisions, a parachute divi ion,

A "Screaming Eagle" sign that said it all. Hitler had asserted, "Above all, we must have Bastogne!H He didn't get it. (US Army Signal Corps)

two panzer and two panzer grenadier division . Nine division had been engaged in the Colmar Pocket." Ultimately, in America, all these operations would come to be lumped together as "The Battle of the Bulge," however, a erts Ms. Pommoi ,on June 1, 1945, "Campaign Ardennes" de ignated the period December 16, 1944-January 25, 1945, for "Action in containing and reducing the German breakthrough in the area of the Ardennes. In fairness to the soldiers of VOLUME 2, 1994 87

the 7th Army and in view of the importance attached to Battle Participation Awards...it is felt that equal consideration should be given to 7th Army's repulse of a major German effort in Alsace..." The claim by 7th Army was rejected by Gen. Eisenhower, and thus it is hoped that the foregoing article will help redress the grievances of these GIs and what they did, just as fought those men actually in the Bulge itself. This is the assessment of Canadian author Milton Shulman, writing in his 1948 book Defeat in the West: "The cost in German blood of the fiasco in the Ardennes had been terrific. The Allies had taken about 50,000 prisoners-of-war in this month-long battle and the total serious casualties suffered by the Wehrrnacht in the Ardennes was in the neighborhood of 120,000 men. In addition, almost 600 tanks and assault guns were destroyed and countless motor vehicles abandoned. "Another crippling blow was the loss of over 1600 planes. It was the price the Luftwaffe had to pay for daring to challenge Allied air supremacy, and it was also the final humiliation and defeat of the Ger man Air Force, for it never seriously appeared in the sky again. ''To offset these losses, the Wehrrnacht had little to show. They had gained no ground at all, being back to where they had started from by the end of January, 1945. They had inflicted about 50,000 total casualties on the Allied forces in the Ardennes, but had paid twice as much in manpower to do it. "Their only real achievement was the fact that they had checked the pending Allied operations against the Ruhr and the Saar, and set them back almost six weeks, but it is safe to say that by depriving themselves of the resources in men and material consumed in the Ardennes, the Wehrrnacht had so weakened itself for the battles both east and west of the Rhine that, in the long run, they had shortened the eventual duration of the war by many months. "Another loss suffered by the Wehrmacht through the collapse of the counteroffensive - a much more intangible, but, nevertheless, a very real loss - was the deep disillusionment which now gripped the average soldier in the West. His faith, strained to the breaking point by what it had been through in Normandy and the slogging battles of the Siegfried Line, had been called upon to believe in a new set of promises and to hope for a new series of miracles, but when these hopes and these promises proved as illusory as the rest, when the familiar sensation of defeat all too soon replaced the one fleeting moment of victory, then despair in full measure flooded in upon the German Armies in the West..."

He concludes, "What little faith the German soldier might still have had, before the Battle of the Ardennes, he now had lost, but nothing had come to take its place - neither hate, nor resentment, nor lust for revenge. Whereas other men might have turned upon their leaders and demanded a halt to the senseless slaughter, the men of the Wehrmacht were too ignorant, too disciplined and too terrified to generate anything more than apathy. From now on the German soldier merely waited and waited. He no longer waited for victory. He only waited for an end."

Liddell Hart's own comment on the campaign was: "The Ardennes offensive carried to the extreme of absurdity the military belief that 'Attack is the best defense.' It proved the 'worst defense' wrecking Germany's chances of any further serious resistance. From that time on the main concern of most of the German commanders seems to have been, not whether they could stop the Allies advance, but why the Allies did not advance faster and finish the war quicker." I will give Gen. Eisenhower the last word, from his 1948 book entitled The first two issues of America's hottest new compLiter magazine have SOLD OUT! Order today to receive the third issue of PERSONAL COMP~TER COMBAT S,IMULATIONS! P.C. COMBAT SIMS, May/June 1994 is the first of the bl-fllonthly issues 6f;the # 1 magazine covering P.C. format simulations!I

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A blasted US Army truck, overturned by Luftwaffe bombs. (US Army Signal Corps)

British military analyst Basil H. Liddell Hart had an opportunity to interview many of the German commanders for his own 1948 book, The German Generals Talk: "Manteuffel summed up the last stage of the war in two sentences: 'After the Ardennes failure, Hitler started a 'corporaJ's war.' There were no big plans - only a multitude of piecemeal fights.' He went on: 'When I saw the Ardennes Offensive was blocked, I wanted to carry out a general withdrawal- first, to our starting line and then to the Rhine, but Hitler would not hear of it. He chose to sacrifice the bulk of his main forces in a hopeless struggle on the West Bank of the Rhine.' "Rundstedt endorsed this verdict, but he also made it clear that although the German Army's leading exponent of offensive warfare, he had never seen any point in this offensive. 'Each step forward in the Ardennes offensive prolonged our flanks more dangerously deep, making them more susceptible to Allied counterstrokes .. .1 wanted to stop the offensive at an early stage, when it was plain that it could not attain its aim, but Hitler furiously insisted that it must go on. It was Stalingrad # 2!'

88 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

Crusade in Europe: "The losses on both sides in the Battle of the Ardennes were considerable. Field commanders estimated that in the month ending January 16th, the enemy suffered 120,000 serious casualties. In view of the fact that after the war German commanders admitted a loss of about 90,000, this estimate of our own would seem to be fairly accurate... "Our own losses were high, with the 106th Infantry Division suffering the worst. Because of its exposed position, it was not only in the fight from the start, but many men were isolated and captured. The 28th Division was likewise roughly handled and the 7th Armored took serious losses during its gallant defense of St. Vith. Altogether, we calculated our losses at a total of 77,000 men, of whom about 8000 were killed, 48,000 wounded, and 21,000 captured or missing. Our tank and tank destroyer losses were 733." Nevertheless, the Campaign of the Battle of the Bulge was over, a resounding defeat for Hitler and a victory for the Allies. Ahead lay tjle invasion and conquest of the Third Reich itself - but that is another story... •

The May/June '94 issue.honors the 50th Anniversary of the D-!;)dy Invasion with complete coverage of; all the latest World War Two combat simulations! Find out what Impressions Software will include in their latest MicroMiniatures release D-Day: The Beginning OfTherEnd! Join us as we go "across the lake to pre\Aiew Across the'Rhine", the new WWII tank warfare simulati9n: from Microprose Software. Find out how:you can be the Ace in Aces Over Europe frqm Dynamix, then go behind the scenes for a preview of Origin's WWII epic, Pacific Strik~! Learn how to modify your files to customize y,our copy of Secret Weapons of the Luffwqffe from Lucas Arts Entertainment, then check out PC Battleground for an update on what's new in the strategy and wargame arena! ,

PC Combat Simulations features "Future Combat" in every iss~e! Continue the exploration of "Space-The Final Frontier" with a review of Star Trek Judgment Rites, then enter the Shadow~ Of Darkness in Sierra's Quest For Glory/IV. Are you intimidated by "dark hQllways"? You Will. be when you discover Doom and Biake Stone in our What's New In 3-D section! Are computer generdted aviation pictures really art? We ask the experts including the graphic artist for the USAF Thunderbirds! Location based entertainment is the new buzzword in simulatioQs;. PC Combat Sims takes ybu on a tour of the Bottom Gun Cafe, and then previews the "Virtual Mustang",a P-51 cockpit simulator that's heading your way! . You'll gel all this and more in PC COMBAT SIMULATIONS!

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infantry tramped back nearly to the crest of the Singling Ridge when they were ordered to hold and prepare to turn their positions over to the fresh 12th Armored Division. The 4th Armored moved out of the zone of action with Singling still in enemy hands but the furious house-to-house fight in the Maginot Line town had enabled other elements of CCA to smash into the primary objective ofBining and there is little doubt but what the attack of the B Team and the follow-up by the men in Irzyk's command had paved the way for later advances. Late on December 18, General Gaffey was orderd to march north against the Germans' Ardennes Offensive and to relieve the 101st Airborne Division and elements of two armored divisions in the city of Bastogne, Belgium. Leaving its assembly at Cutting, France, Combat Command B started north shortly after midnight and raced a distance of nearly 180 miles in less than 20 hours. By December 22 the entire Division was concentrated around ArIon, Belgium, only 16 road miles from Bastogne, where the U.S. garrison was completely encircled by the enemy. Sixteen miles were all that lay between Bastogne and the relief columns of the 4th Armored - but they might as well have been a hundred. There was a murderous house-to-house fight with enemy paratroopers at Martelange, a ferocious tank fight at Chaumont, another vicious infantry fight at Bigonville Vaux-Ies-Rosieres . .. Cobreville Romoiville - until the days passed and it was Christmas Day, a bleak, miserable day for the halffrozen armored soldiers pressing toward the trapped 101st Airborne. December 26, all three combat commands of the 4th Armored pressed toward Bastogne by separate routes. But destiny earmarked CCR - Combat Command Reserve - for the greatest glory. The early part of the day was marked by a series of successful actions as tank-armored infantry teams swept through Remichampagne, and seized the command terrain overlooking Clochimont and Assenois - on the road to Bastogne. As dusk threatened to close in there was a tense conference

in a battered farmhouse near Clochimont. Colonel Wendell Blanchard, CCR's commanding officer, told the others that the Division plan called for an attack on Sibret, about a mile or so away, off to the left. He told them that the town was probably strongly defended. His battalion commanders listened thoughtfully - present were Lieutenant Colonels Creighton W. Abrams, George L. Jacques, and James W. Bidwell. Abrams, known to his Army associates as "Colonel Abe" was in command of the 37th Tank Battalion which was then down to 20 tanks; "Jigger" Jacques (pronounced "Jakes") commanded the 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion which was then under strength by about 230 men; Jim Bidwell's 704th Tank Destroyer Battalion, as usual, was missing more than half its strength - companies parceled out among the other combat commands of the Division. Colonel Abe removed the stub of a cigar from his mouth and said to Blanchard, "Colonel, we can blast our way right through to Bastogne~' "Okay;' Blanchard agreed enthusiastically. "Go out there and attack~' The armor and infantry moved into the town of Assenois so swiftly that when the GIs began swarming through the town they ran into the final stages of a U.S. artillery barrage. The shock of the artillery action didn't slow down the assault; the veteran 4th Armored men had upon several occasions learned that in the long run it was best to "lean into the barrage" and strike while the enemy was huddled in his foxholes. Tank gunners used 75-mm guns like machine guns as the assault forces of CCR slugged into Assenois. The Germans fought back doggedly. A force of 53rd Armored Infantry soldiers riding the tanks came under fire from a pair of enemy "88s~' Nineteen-year-old Private James R. Hendrix of Lepanto, Arkansas, leaped from the tank he was riding and led an attack on the enemy guns. "Come on outa there, you sonsabitches:' shouted Hendrix as he charged toward the German guns. "Come on outa there~' When a Nazi trooper popped up in one of the positions Hendrix drilled him. He closed in and smashed another enemy soldier with the butt of his rifle. The Germans crumpled and the remainder of the troops who manned the two guns surrenderd to the Arkansas farm boy who was later promoted to staff sergeant and ultimately became the Division's

90 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

third Medal of Honor man. Actually, Hendrix was far from finished. He sped to the rescue of two wounded GIs. To get to them he had to wipe out a pair of enemy machine gun nests. Then he held off a counter-thrust with rifle fire until reinforcements arrived. Later he extricated a soldier from a burning halftrack and smothered the wounded man's burning clothes with his own body. Assenois was in flames as the lead tanks under First Lieutenant Charles Boggess, Jr., broke out into the clear on the road to Bastogne. Boggess, in the lead tank, told the driver, Private Hubert J. Smith, to give it full throttle. Private James G. Murphy pushed shells into the breech of the 75-mm gun that Corporal Milton Dickerman was firing and Private Harold Hafner blasted away with the bow machine gun. Behind Boggess were four more tanks and one halftrack loaded with armored infantry soldiers. Then there was a gap in the column as the rest of the force was still battling its way through Assenois. The Germans tried to stop the remainder of the column with Teller mines but Captain William A. Dwight who was in command of the assault team pushed through and raced up the road in the trace of Boggess' force. It was nearly five pm when Boggess spotted soldiers with a machine gun trained on him. They were in a foxhole nearly covered by snow. He leaned out of the open turret and yelled, "It's all right. Come on out. This is the 4th Armored~'

For an instant the GI gunners stared in obvious disbelief, then one of them walked toward Boggess with a broad grin on his face. "Hi!" he shouted, "I'm Lieutenant Webster of the 326th Engineers, 101st Airborne Divisionand very damn glad to see you~' Boggess and his tough tankers and armored infantry soldiers were inside the lines of the 101st Airborne and in a few minutes the rest of the CCR column started streaming into Bastogne led by Colonel Abrams, Colonel Jacques and Captain Dwight. Less than half an hour later the first ambulance and supply column moved into the beleagured Belgian city. The encirclement of Bastogne was broken and the swift action of the 4th Armored turned the Battle of the Bulge into an Allied triumph and a severe defeat for the Germans. As CCR battled to keep its slim corridor through the German lines open in the days that followed the initial break-

through, the other two combat commands slugged their way into the perimeter. In coming to the relief of the 101st Airborne and elements of two armored divisions, General Gaffey's tankers suffered as many casualties as the defenders of the garrison. And by the time the Bastogne fight had run its course Gaffey didn't have enough medium tanks to equip even one battalion at normal strength. Both the breakthrough men of the 4th Armored and the heroic "Battered Bastards of the Bastion of Bastogne" as the 101st Airborne soldiers dubbed themselves, were later awarded the Distinguished Unit Citation by the President of the United States - the only two full divisions so honored in the Army in World War Two. Heavy snowfall and high winds pounded the Division as it prepared to move out of the Bastogne sector early in January. A rotation system was announced and a group of 36 enlisted men and three officers took temporary leave of the Division and headed for 30 days of R&R (rest and recuperation leave) in the United States. In the first group was Staff Sergeant Clyde W. Workman, Company A, 10th Armored Infantry - the Division's ninth DSC winner. Workman, who hailed from Lewisburg, West Virginia, had been credited with wiping out a force of 35 German soldiers in the push toward Bastogne. All told, the sergeant had killed more than 135 Germans since the Division's arrival in France. Early on the morning of January 11, 1945, General Gaffey assembled his staff and the battalion commanders and he passed along the latest orders from General Patton's headquarters. Shoulder patches were to be removed from clothing, all vehicular insignia and identifying marks were to be covered over. The Division was to motor march to an area south of Luxembourg "under wraps" - radio silence would be in effect all the way. This latest move took the Division into an area west of the ThienvilleLuxembourg highway where the U.S. high command anticipated an enemy airborne landing or counterattack. There were a few formations, too. Sergeant Paul Porter of the 53rd Armored Infantry received the DSC. Colonel Abrams and Jacques, a,nd Major Harold Cohen of the 10th Armored Infantry received oak leaf clusters to their Silver Stars for gallantry in action at Bastogne. Then, on February 7, the XII Corps

began a crossing of the Our River and the series of rivers and streams that led toward the Kyll and the approaches to the Rhine. Three infantry divisions hit the river line first. Then the armored soldiers were to bolt through and seize Bitburg. Among the casualties as the Division pushed through Brimingen in Germany, three days after the jump off, was StaffSergeant Constant A. Klinga, by then a lengendary figure in the 8th Tank Battalion. Klinga suffered head wounds and died shortly thereafter. Combat Command B (with the 10th, 51st, 53rd Armored Infantry Battalions, the 8th Tank Battalion, and the 94th Armored Field Artillery in its columns) sped 40 miles to Lahr, Germany, in support of the XII Corps drive. It was the first large movement of 4th Armored fighting men into Germany. General Dager's CCB fought in conjunction with the 80th Infantry Division until February 25 when it was returned to 4th Armored control. Back together as a fighting force once again, the 4th Armored slammed forward with the 51st Infantry and 37th Tanks working as a team, probing the back-country trails to the very outskirts of Bitburg. Thrown off balance by the speed of the 4th Armored attack the Germans pulled back and Gaffey raced to the Kyll. March 5, 1945, was the big day as Corps ordered the 4th Armored forward. Gaffey sent his division across the Kyll in a mad sprint toward the Rhine north of Coblenz, 65 miles due east. Combat Command B started with a 13-mile dash but CCA hit bad roads and had to swing back and follow in the track ofCCB, putting the entire Division assault on a front along the width of one narrow, twisting road. Soon the road had to accommodate two columns - the 4th Armored plunging toward the Rhine and enemy PWs streaming toward the rear. Fifty-eight hours after its departure from Bitburg the 4th Armored reached the Rhine. In just a little over two days it had sped through the wooded Eifel area and hurled itself deep into the enemy's rear. In the 12th Army Group command post in Namur General Omar N. Bradley looked admiringly at the long blue line that indicated the 4th Armored assault and promptly proclaimed that Gaffey "had staged the boldest and most insolent armored blitz of the Western war~' Trying desperately to pull out and retreat to the comparative safety east ofthe Rhine, the Germans clogged the

river roads and the few Rhine bridges that were still intact. The artillery of the 4th Armored blazed into action and soon the roads were outlined by smoke-blackened hulks that once had been enemy fighting vehicles and transports. More than 3,000 prisoners were taken by the Division in its sprint from the Kyll to the Rhine and the 2nd Panzer Division and five Grenadier Divisions of the enemy's 7th Army were wiped out or severely mauled. Brigadier General Holmes E. Dager who had been in command of CCB since 1943 was sent to take over the 11th Armored Division. Lieutenant Colonel Creighton W. Abrams got command of CCB and Major William A. Hunter moved into Colonel Abe's old slot as C.O. of the 37th Tank Battalion. Ahead now was the Palatinate the huge triangle formed by the Rhine, Moselle and Saar Rivers. The Division, being north ofCoblenz, was ordered to recross the Moselle, CCB attacking through the 5th Infantry Division, and CCA slamming through the 90th Infantry Division. The two forces rapidly converged upon Worms, CCA from the northwest and CCB from the west. Tanks of the 4th Armored rumbled through the city's streets by nightfall. Gaffey's troopers once again hit the Rhine less than two weeks after they reached it 104 miles to the south near Coblenz. General Gaffey, who had by this time commanded two armored divisions and had been Patton' Third Army Chief of Staff, was promoted to the command ofa Corps. As the 4th Armored prepared to plunge across the Rhine it came under the command of Brigadier General William M. Hoge whose CCA of the 9th Armored Division had won the Remagen Bridgehead for First Army. Hoge, like General John S. Wood, was a former West Point (1916) football player. He sent CCA under Colonel Haydon L. Sears over the Rhine first (at nine am on March 24) and by three am on March 25 the 4th Armored with all of its 2,500 vehicles was in business on the east bank of the river. Forward elements moved swiftly and advanced seven miles inland in ten minutes. Lead elements of CCA captured three enemy towns before the tail of the column cleared the river crossing. The Division raced the 25 miles to the Main River as CCA sped through Ober Ranstadt, CCB headed toward Aschaffenburg, and CCR took Darmstadt. Near Aschaffenburg, Lieu-

BREAK OUT! tenant Colonel Harold Cohen, a tough former National Guardsman, led his 10th Armored Infantry Battalion across the Main on a railroad span. They barreled into the Grossauheim station at approximately the same moment as a 25-car German train loaded with infantrymen and heavy weapons. The 4th Armored infantrymen hit the train with their machine guns but First Lieutenant Sherman R. McGrew, a forward observer from Battery C, 94th Armored Field Artillery, said it was a job for the cannoneers. He told the infantrymen to pull away from the railroad embankment to give him some elbow room. Then he called in fire from three battalions and moved it up and down the rail line. Five cars, loaded with bombs or shells, were blown up. The others were reduced to rubble. It was at this time, as the Division marched north with Aschaffenburg still in enemy hands, that the 4th Armored was called upon to provide the dramatis personae for a strange and tragic adventure. Directly from General George S. Patton, Jr., came orders for the dispatch of the small task force that was to engage in what history would remember as "the Hammelburg affair~'

The objective was a Nazi prisoner of war camp where 900 US. Army prisoners were held behind barbed wire. Hammelburg lay due east, some 50 miles behind enemy lines. In addition to rescuing the US. prisoners the littIe task force would give the impression that Patton was hurling his armor east at a time when he was actually attacking toward the north. Within three days of its departure the task force disappeared from the face of the earth as Radio Berlin jubilantly reported the utter destruction of "a strong U.S. armored force~' When it was all over Patton admitted Hammelburg was an error and adamently insisted he should have sent a full combat command to do the job. But to the Army Group Commandel', General Omar N. Bradley, the Hammelburg affair was "a story that began as a wild goose chase and ended in tragedi' Bradley in his memoirs has declared that "his (Patton's) mistake had been made in ordering the raid. Certainly had George consulted rne on the mission I would have forbidden him to stage ie' In his own diary (excerpts from

Baum's idea was to head north and which are published in the recent "Portrait of Patton" by Harry H. Semmes; link up with the Third Army advance. Appleton, Century, Crofts) Patton him- But his plan was thwarted by bazooka self wrote, "I felt very gloomy ... but fire that cost him four tanks in a few I believe that I did the right thing, and minutes. All he could scrape together I certainly could never have lived with by then were two platoons totaling myself had I known that I was within about 110 men. Only three medium 40 miles of 900 Americans and not and three light tanks were left but he laid out a plan of march and gave the made an attempt to rescue them~' The man chosen to lead the task men a last minute pep talk and briefforce was 24-year-old Captain Abra- ing. As it prepared to move out, Task ham J. Baum, an armored infantry Force Baum was clobbered with tank officer from the Bronx, NY. Baum was and self-propelled gun fire. All vehicles were knocked out in a then S-2 (Intelligence Officer) in the few moments and the armored infan10th Armored Infantry Battalion. His 293-man, 50-vehicle force included try was hacked to pieces. What was left Captain Robert F. Lane's Company A of the task force was on foot and Baum of the 10th Armored Infantry, Second moved them into the woods. The GerLieutenant William J. Nutto's Compa- mans closed in for the kill. To help ny C of the 37th Tank Battalion, and them track down the GIs they brought Second Lieutenant William G. Weav- bloodhounds from Hammelburg. A er's light tank platoon of Co. D, 37th German sergeant stalked Baum, who had been wounded earlier at GemunTanks. Task Force Baum, hurriedly assem- den, and shot him with a P38 pistol. bled around five pm, slugged its way The US. captain was seized roughly through Schweinheim and disappeared and half-marched, half-carried, to a into the night. It sped east and was building in Hundsfeld. Soon he was soon out of artillery support range and back in Hammelburg - among the entirely on its own. On March 27 Cap- PWs he had come to rescue. He was tain Baum sent back a message, "Tell still there on April 6 when a reinforced air of enemy troops marshaling guards combat command ofthe 14th Armored Division rolled into the compound and at Gemunden~' Gemunden was about halfway to took over. One by one the survivors of the the objective and it was here that Hammelburg affair returned to US. Baum began to encounter serious difficulties. Enemy bazooka fire cost control. Some lived off the country and him three tanks as he sought a cross- regained US. lines, others were libering over the Saale. Every bridge was ated in prison camps, many did not get blown in his face so he backed out of free until after V-E day. At least 236 of Gemunden and headed north. TF the 293 men in the Task Force were Baum finally crossed at Grafendorf prisoners at one time or another. There after a cross-country sprint and a wild were 57 casualties. Task Force Baum's fight was credride down a mountain trail. There was a skirmish with a German tank force ited with the diversion of considerable near abel', about a mile and a half from German strength, thus opening the the PW camp and even as he smashed way for the armored drive to the northtoward Hammelburg, Baum knew that east. But for the purposes of continuhe would soon have a knockdown tank ing the battle in the days following the destruction of the task force it was fight on his hands. The fight in the outskirts of the necessary for the Division to completecamp began around 4:30 in the after- ly reconstitute Company A ofthe 10th noon but it was not until 7:30 that Armored and Company C of the 37th the first US. prisoners were seen. Tanks. The last day of March found the DiThere was wild joy when the PWs saw the US. markings on the vehicles in vision within 15 miles of the Werra Baum's task force but this enthusiasm River, the last river barrier before the flickered when it was learned that Thuringian plains and the large industhere wasn't sufficient transportation trial centers, Gotha, Weimar, Jena, to get everyone out. Those who were Gera and Chemnitz. The 4th Armored wounded or too sick to accompany the could look around and find that it was armored force sorrowfully headed back still further east than any other Allied for the barbed-wire compound. Many outfit. It was Easter Sunday, April 1, when others picked up weapons that belonged to wounded men ofBaum's com- the Division reached the Werra and mand and climbed up on the tanks and found the bridge near Horschel blown. halftracks.

92 BATILE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

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An infantry-tank team attempted to seize a crossing further north and came under heavy rifle and machinegun fire. The infantrymen were forced to dismount from the tanks. Moving alongside the tanks they tried to fight back. Forced to run a 400-yard gauntlet of fire, 21 of the armored infantrymen were hit. Meanwhile another team headed for the bridge at Cruezeberg. It was blown up in their faces as they attacked. Captain William Crane mounted his men, Company B of the 51st Armored Infantry, in rubber assault boats for the tough river crossing. They sliced over to the east bank and fought an allnight battle to win a little bridgehead. Then Company A ofthe 24th Armored Engineers eased a floating treadway into position, linking Creuzeberg with the east bank. The task was almost done around seven in the morning when a flight ofthree German planes swooped in and dropped fragmentation bombs that ripped out four of the floats. The angry engineers cussed aloud and went back to work. The gunners of the 489th AAA Battalion, the Division's antiaircraft artillery, had a field day as the Luftwaffe made one last mighty effort to stem the tide. The ack-ack boys scored 34 "kills" and badly shot up six others April 2. On the next day the combat commands streamed across the Werra, steered clear of the autobahns and highways and pushed up trails and country roads that would have scared a mountain goat. The 4th Armored "panzers" overwhelmed Gotha then smashed southeast to Muhlberg and Ohrduf. On April 8 the Division was relieved by the 80th and 89th Infantry Divisions and reassigned to the famous XX (Ghost) Corps under the command ofthen Major General Walton W. ("Johnny") Walker who later died in command of Eighth Army in Korea. Under Walker's Corps the 4th Armored turned east once again April 11 and the tanks rumbled toward Erfurt and Weimar. The combat commands raced forward abreast taking Jena, bridging and crossing the Saale, and making a final sprint at a roadburning pace as the war drew to a close. From Jena the Division sped more than 40 miles to seize the bridges over the Zwick-Mulde (less than seven miles from Chemnitz) before the Germans could blow them. In the 100-mile

dash in three days the Division's only pause was to pay its respects to the passing of Commander-in-ChiefFranklin D. Roosevelt on April 14. As CCB closed on Wolkenberg, which was stubbornly defended by bazooka and machine gun fire, Major Hunter, the C.O. of the 37th Tank Battalion, was wounded and Captain Dwight, one of the heroes of the Bastogne breakthrough, took command. CCA crossed the river at Waldenberg that night and established a bridgehead in the Ober-Winkel sector. A task force from CCR cleared the important lateral roads between CCA and CCB as the 4th Armored swiftly and efficiently closed in for the kill. On the following day the columns of the fast-moving 4th smashed through Falken, Rossdorf, Limbach, Ernsthal, Mohenstein, Wustenbrand, Frehna, Muhlau and Berggstadt. The troopers of CCR were ordered to seize Glachau. Companies Band C qf the 35th Tanks and the 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion attacked at 10:30 in the morning and found the city stoutly defended. Nevertheless by dusk the 4th Armored men had taken Glachau. The 4th Armored sent patrols toward Chemnitz on April 15 - the fourth anniversary of the Division's activation. Two miles from Chemnitz the 4th Armored was halted and withdrawn and placed in Third Army reserve. As for the war ... it was all over but the shouting. Old-timers of the 4th Armored recalled that back in England General Patton had promised that the Division would be "in on the kill~' And so, May 1 the 4th Armored marched through a snow storm into Bavaria and into an assembly area north of Deggendorf on the Danube. Then the Division was pointed toward the scene of the Nazi's last stand, in Czechoslovakia. With its old comrades-in-arms, the 5th and 90 Infantry Divisions, the Division marched through the mountains of the southern border of Bohemia to strike toward Prague. Combat Command A drove swiftly through Freyung Pass while CCB sliced through Regen Pass. Although they had crossed the German frontier into Czechoslovakia the tankers were met by the same sullen faces they had seen throughout Germany. But once they were through the Sudetenland (the strongly pro-German segment of Czechoslovakia) they met the shouting, cheering Czechs who greeted them as liberators. Combat Command A established its CP in

94 BATTLE OF THE BULGE - 50TH ANNIVERSARY!

Strakonice, CCB in Horazdovice, and Division Headquarters at Susice and forward elements at Pisek. The troops were impatient to push forward to Prague - but they had reached their restraining line, and it was here that 4th Armored celebrated V-E Day. By agreement the German PWs were turned over to the oncoming Russians and the Division again turned south to begin a tour of duty as occupation troops on the Danube and Isar Rivers in Bavaria. The Division's "high point" men sailed for home with other units. General Hoge left the Division and for a time the 4th came under the command of Brigadier General Bruce C. Clarke, the old CCA commander, and then Brigadier General Faye B. Prickett. On November 11, 1945, the Division CP moved for the 69th time to headquarters at Regensburg, where it was centrally located to control more than 7,500 square miles of Germany from Amberg in the north to Pfarrkirchen in the southeast. The following April, CCR carried home the colors ofthe 4th Armored Division (almost five years to the date since the Division's activation) and the remaining combat commands were formed into the backbone of the Constabulary - the colorful flying squads under General Ernie "Gravel Voice" Harmon. Fourth Armored Division headquarters became the hub of the 1st Constabulary Brigade; CCA formed the 2nd Brigade and CCB the 3rd Brigade. The Division was reactivated briefly when the Constabulary was disbanded in 1949. Then it disappeared from the rolls of the active army until June 15, 1954. By an interesting coincidence it was Brigadier General John K. Waters, as acting division commander, who received the colors ofthe new 4th Armored in the formal ceremonies at Fort Hood, Texas. The sight of the old 4th Armored colors must have sent the thoughts of the tall, soldierly Waters racing back nearly ten years. Then a lieutenant colonel, Waters was among the prisoners that the 4th Armored tried to rescue in the ill-fated expedition to Hammelburg. General George S. Patton, Jr., declared, "There has never been such a superb fighting organization as the 4th Armored Division~' And to an even greater degree it stems from the legendary Sergeant Klinga, whose words express the deepest sentiment ofthe 4th Armored Division. "They've got us surrounded again - the poor bastards!"

•

ftIE .....7LE OF mE BULGE (continuedjrom page 3/)

has not had qui te the great success we expected. "'The enemy ha been forced to abandon all idea of attack; he ha been compelled to regroup his force completely, and put back into action troop completely worn out by previous engagements. His strategic intentions have been completely thwarted. The p ychological factor is against him, for public opinion i bitterly critical. He now has to assert that an end to the fighting cannot be envisaged before August, perhaps before the end of the year. "'We have, therefore, a complete reveral of the situation, which was certainly not con idered pos ible a fortnight ago.'" Col. Eddy believes that "Hitler... instead of rapidly withdrawing hi 5th and

Ardenne, but on the whole of the Western Front," and yet Hitler - as we shall ee - wa determined on yet a econd winter offensive in the We t. Conclude Col. Eddy, "In this mood of total fantasy, Germany's Supreme Commander brought in the New Year 1945." Of the Bastogne re cue, Bradley noted in A Soldier Reports, "Patton called to report that his 4th Armored Division had broken through to relieve Bastogne and end the seven-day iege of that city. At a co t of 482 killed, 2449 wounded, Tony McAuliffe had with tood the attack of three German divi ion while memorializing the epoch with his ingle-word rejection of the enemy's demand for urrender... "The New Year began more brightly

Bulge veteran commanders meet in peace 20 years on at Washington. DC: I to r. Gen. Bruce Clark. Baron Hasso von Manteuffel. Gen. Robert W. Hasbrouck and Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe to discuss Bulge tactics. (US Army Signal Corps)

6th Panzer Armies behind the West Wall ... insisted on their trying to hold the Ardenne salient in impo ible conditions, there 0 turning hi half ucce s of Dec. 16th into a clear failure. That thi i 0 clear from the losse of the two side : in manpower the Americans had uffered 76,890 ca ualties to the Germans' 81,834; in tanks 733 to 324; and aircraft 592 to 320. "Wherea the Americans could replace their material los es with little difficulty, the GenTIans could not. When one realize that German possibilities of rebuilding the Wehrmacht's strength were slowly diminishing, and that on Jan. 12, 1945, Stalin unlea hed his fifth and la t winter offensive, there is no doubt that the e figures confirm the German defeat, not only in the

than the old one had ended when Montgomery reported that he would attack into the north ide of the Bulge on Jan. 3rd ... Another 53 day were to pa before we jumped across the Roer to resume the winter offen ive that had been halted by German attack, but if our afflictions were heavy, we could take comfort in the fact that the enemy' outweighed our own. So severe were his los e that none of tho e divisions committed in the Bulge were ever effective again." He added thi grim footnote to the Battle al 0:" 0 ooner had the time of danger ended than the period of recrimination began. During the bitter, trained weeks that followed, the Allied amity that Ei enhower had sought to preserve suf-

fered a evere setback...For once the enemy had been turned back. Montgomery was depicted as St. George come to ave the American command from di a ter...The Briti h pre s suddenly erupted in a rash of comment that attributed the Bulge to our lack of unified ground command..." States The Battle a/the Bulge, "It remained for Churchill to set the record straight. In a peech before the Hou e of Common on Jan.18, 1945, Churchill declared, 'I have een it suggested that the terrific battle which ha been proceeding ince Dec. 16th on the American front i an Anglo-American battle. In fact, however, the United State troop have done almost all the fighting and have suffered almost all the losse . They have suffered 10 es almo t equal to tho e on both ides in the Battle of Getty burg. "I never hesitate to tand up for our own oldier when their achievement have been cold-shouldered or neglected or overshadowed, a they ometimes.are, but we mu t not forget that it is to American homes that the telegrams of per onal 10 e and anxiety have been going during the pa t month ... Care must be taken not to claim for the Briti h Army an undue share of what i undoubtedly the greate t American battle of the war, and will, I believe, be regarded a an ever-famous American victory." I will give the la t word to John Toland, whom the current writer had the plea ure to hear speak and meet at the US National Archives in Wa hington, D.C. in 1976. He asserts in Battle: The Story a/the Bulge, "There are many impre ive monument to the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes: the Patton Memorial in Ettelbruck; the hrine to those murdered at Baugnez; the beautiful memorial at Bastogne. "My favorite is on a lonely foot trail several miles from the village of Meyerode. Here in the middle of a den e fore t lie a mo s-covered mound in the form of a cro - the exact pot where I t Lt. Eric Wood, Jr. died. Acros the path i a mall monument built by the people of Meyerode... "Every day, some villager walks to the monument and put fre h flowers in a rna on jar. There are other monument in the Ardennes, too - the thousand of foxhole, dotting the country ide like open grave. The e holes till tell the story of the battle. In them can be found rotting ration cans, gas masks, rifle clip, bits of camouflage material, boot, and even occa ionally the pitiful remains of a human being, forgotten for many years. "These foxholes are the most appropriate monument to the GJ. .. " • VOLUME 2, 1994

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BV102 FIGHT· Japan's aces. ING ACES OF THE RAF: Valiant fighter pilolS struggle against Lultwalfe in NGI'lh Africa, Europe and at sea. 51 min.

BV103 TltE FlGHT1NG 5TH AIR FORCE: Excmg ail' aaion over the Pacific jungles as 6-255, P--38s 8-24s lake on the Japanese aces. 90 mil..

NF139 USAF IN KOREA: Raredoarnentary on eatIy Korean aircomba1 wi1h P·51S, 6-29& F-80 + plus bonus WWlI shows W.ngs Over Leyte'& 'AircrahCarrier'. 80 m.

BV104 THE AGHT1NG 8-24lJBERATOR: Hair raising air aaKln & exploits of WWII's most conltOYersial bomber in 'NOltdwide service. 58 m.

BH101 CANOPIES UP!: Tallesyou i'llo lhe cockpit of today's honest jets and haulers with a"new pix of aimlen inaction.

BV105 D-Z NORMANDY: D-Day exploits of AfIied alrpoweras thousands 01 planes aid in the invasion 01 Fraooe In the savage fight to drive H~lerfrom Europe. 120 min. NF190THE FANTASTIC FORD ml-MOTDR: The most classic pior,eering ai" liner 01 all seen in her prime and as eXquisile f¥ng reslorationstoday.451rin. NF710THE 'X' PLANES: Rate Iocok at the eat1y years of Edwards AfB Flight Test Center and The ft9ltStttf planes like the X-1, X·2. X-3& X-15. 5(rnn

AVIATION

&

WAR

AF119 CRACK-UP!: SpectactJlarcrashes from Jennies to Jetsl30 min. AF115 EXPLORING TltE WRECK OFTHE NAZI CRUISER PRINZ EUGEN: Fascinating NEW undelWater video of WNlI warship tnat suMved lhe BiUli A·bomb tests. Xl min. AF116 TltE ACES REMEMBER: Amaz.i'lg aa:olI'Its of five American f91ter piot's

expklitsin WWlI. NEW & Topootdt 45 mil. UM200 SAGA OF THE ISRAEU AIR FORCE: Rare look al the woMs most effectiveairpower+its~.58mi"l.

PP451 MITCHELl. B-2S BOMBER: Come fty the famed Tokyo raider with Jeff Ethel. All new prolessionally made show. 52 min. PP452 BOEING 9-17: Aft new walblrd footage takes you O('l a thrilling ride In famed 'NWJI bombel. SO mirt

GB-403 WINGS OF GOLD: Fly w~h the Navy's fiercestftghling planes aboard the world's largest carriers. min.

60

GB-404 F/A·18: TltE HORNET ADVANTAGE: straps you into the dazzling cockpilof the Navy's newest strike lighter. AF112 KNIGHTS OF THE BLACK CROSS: 3 Top Luftwaffe Aces recooot WWlI e~ f91ti'lg the AIies. 50 min. NF124 NORTHROP ORIGINAL 'FtYING WING': WW11 era YB-49. 23m SM508 KOREAN WAR JET ACES: Excitilg firsljetcornbal. 30 min. BH100 EAGLES OVER THE GULF: Vivid air aclion of OESERT STOAM with F·117 Steallh.55min. AF110 WARBIRDS OVER FLORlOA: Spectacular Valianl Air Command airshow with top walbitdsof South-eastetn states.

NF152 SMASHING THE REICHl: Award-

winning doc:001enlaty on dereat of Nazi by Mied airpower. 85 mit

UM2QS RIVER PATROL· THE GAMEWAR· DENS OF VIETNAM: Excilllg aI new accotXll of i1lense riveme combat i"I the Mekong Delta with vMd re
GB-402 F·15E· EAGLE COUNTRY: lakes you on lOlI'ld robin 85 minute ride in the USAPs top superiority ~ter.

NF132 WARBtRD CHECKOUTS Vol. I: Fly the P-4Q Wathawk, F4U Corsair, F6F HelIcal, S82A Buccaneer, Gn.mnan TBF Avenger.

'''''.

NF145 WARBIRD CHECKOUTS Vof II: Fly thelabulousP-38~,9-25MilcheI,

P-61 Black Wdow, Oooglas A-26lnvader. l:40hrs.

AF113 YESTERDAY'S WARBIRDS TODAY: Exciting look at how warbirds ale restored, preserved and nown by flying museums.

NF151 WARBIRD CHECKOUTS Vol. Ill: Fly the famed P-51 MUSlang, Douglas A·2O HavocandBeOP·39Airacobra.l:50hrs.

AF114 LOST WARBIRD RELICS OF THE PACIFIC: Dramalic recent dtscovery or 50 WWllaircratl found In an island lagoon.

NF136 WARBIRD CHECKOUTS Vol,IV: The Republic P-47 & North American T-6ISNJ.1:50hrs.

NF708 FLYING THE AH·1G HUEY COBRA GUNSHIP: Amamg ability of deadly allack helo dubbed 'The Snake' by Gis in Vietnam.

NF155 WARBIRD CHECKOUTS Vol, V: Fly the Boeing 9-29 plus preftight inspection:sol Boeing9-17&9-241..beraIor.l:47tvs.

NF166 MACHO MACHINES: Two Gulf War topper1ormers ·A-10Warthogand F·117A Stealth· show their awesome fnpower.

NF180 HOWTO flY THE MARTIN 8-25 MARAUDER: How AAf taugh! yooog pbs nol to fear the fabled Widow Maker. 50 min.

NF171 LOCKHEED GIANTS: Exquisite action trbrtelOtn-sonicSR·718lad
NF181 HOW TO FLY THE BOEING CJ.17: 0IficiaI WWl1 pial tranng lim. 90 min.

NF164 MISSION SR·71 BLACKBIRD: Stilt thehottesl, rastestspyplane ever buill seen as nevet before In full color. NF167 WIDEBODIED JET LINERS: Close-up look at the Airbus A·300 and L.ocl
PP453 MUSTANG- THE P·51: Fanlasticnew footageputs)'OtJ ilthe cockpit with Jalf Ethen. First rate! 54 min.

...,.,.

GB405 HlGHTSTALKERS: The Stealth story. irdJding \he radic:aI new ATF. F·117 & 8-2probelheniljllskies.45mi'l.

NF663 AGHTFOR THE SKY: P·51s & P-38s sweep \he skies of Europe tmling the luftwalfe. Fantastic aerial combat scenes.

GB406 THE WESTS COMBAT HELICOPTERS: ExcMg review of every NATO chopper and gunship. 55 mil.

PP-450 CURTlSS P-40 WARHAWK: JorI Jeff Ethel on a fantastic ~ minute IfIQhl in W'N1I's legeOOiuylighl".OoIby.....-.d.

flight maneuvers ofWWU's prrnary biplane

GB407 PHANTOM II: The fabuloos F4 war horse in aA its roles lrom Vietnam 10 lOday•

GB-400 F·16 FALCON DOMAIN: 90 minutes oIthrit~ng flight In the USAF's top multi-mis·

GB408 AIR WAR VIETNAM: A thri61~g review of ALL Navy, USAF and Marine aircraft that saw action in'Nam. Lots of surprise planes and scenes.

sion lighter + The Thunderbirds! GB-401 F·14 TOMCAT: THE TOP GUN MIG KILLER: Dynamic carrier action marks this eolortullook al the Navy's new F·140.

NF723 8-17 mILOGY: Three wartime shorts on alr action over TUlisia, thrills 01 first mis·

sian & hell over Germany. 55 min. AF101 THE KILLER MITCHELLS (B-25): Salutes 5OthAnniversaryl000l~Ue Raider reunion ptuscrew io1erviews. Topnoldl.50min. AF102 REMEMBERING THE p.J8 UGHT· NING: Aces recal their axperiences. Rare P-38foolage + Lefty Garmer's P-38. l:50hrs. SM501 BLUE ANGelS: A BACKSTAGE PASS: A sick. fast paced look an he Navy's top aerobalic team ltyilg \he F·18 Home!.

JOmin. AF103 WW11 FIGHTER ACES: Int81Views with 10lop·scoringacesblendswarbirdllying and combal roolage. Bruce Porter, Manny Segal, Hub Zemke, R.T Smith, Alex Varaciu. Great yamsl 60 min. AF104 THE FLYING TIGERS: CHEN· NAULTS ACES OVER CHINA: Saga lamed AVG & 14th AF rare lims 01 AVG P-40s+ interviews with aces Tex HI and Col. Robert F. Scott. 55 min. AF105 BIPLANE FEVER: Classic ~ highigtd the best restoratilnsol a bygone ara. Stearrnans, Wacos, N3Ns galora. A roost lor vintage buffs. 55 min. Color. NF505 CARRIER ACTION: KOREA /From Chasin to Hoognam carrier Iaooched F4Us' and Panthers in breathless action al sea. 41mrn. AF106 TltE P·51 MUSTANG SAGA: Review 01 top 'NINlllighler puts you in the cockp~ as five Mustang pilots reoountlhek exploils and the deveklpment 01 this warbln:l favorite. 55iOO.

AF109 T-6: THE MIGHTY TEXAN: The most popuIarmilitarylralnerolalltine.Pilol inlerviews and unusual military uses. 55 min. AF108 VINTAGE WINGS: Classic and rare ,lighlplanesseenattopantiquemeets.55min. NF103 THUNDER OVER VIETNAM: Four spectaculat USAF engagements using 60s village jets in vivKl combat 1:.20 hrs. AF111 SAGA OF THE MEDIUMS/8-25& A·25: 'NW1l1ighI bombers in combat and as warWds loday. 55 min. NF150 OUR AVIATION HERITAGE: Blends 5 award-....Y rilg videos; restoration of a 9-29, Nav-Airlranng,heicop(eraerobabcs,great air pioneers and aena! ballet 01 T·38 Talon. 1:55hls. NF128 AIR WAR- PACIFIC: Blends 'Hook Down, Wheels Down' two parter with SAGA Of NAVAL AVIATION & Ford's DECEMBER. 7th. 2 hrs. NF137 AIR WAR·EUROPE: Blonds saga 01 81hAF B·17swith role of b1inps and dingible$ inAtlanlicseawar.l:41 hIS. NF730 TAILSPIN TOMMY 'STUNT PILOT: HoIywood film with extraordinary vdage arrmfl.l:05hrs. NF625 PILOTS HEAVEN: HoIywood SlI6ll' man PN Mantz shl1Ns yooog pilots how NOT TO FLY in thlSwsrtirneclaSSIC•.c5r1Wl NF707 MISSION TO REBAUL: 5lh AF P-38s, B-255, P-4Qs & 9-24s bomb and sUII. Japaneseshippiog.60min. NF702 RECON PILOT: Bin Holden staf1ll'l this 'NW1I epic 01 an unarmed F·5 IP·38jllywlg tough mission against Japs. 30 min NF159 HOW TO FLY THE B·24 UBERA· TOR: Plio! traln:ng ,." made by Con9olldalod

60 min. NF158 THE DAM BUSTERS: EnglIsh lulur. movie starring RK:hard Todd and lancaItlf bl:lrrtlers il ramed WW11 rait 2 hrs NF761 PBY- THE BLACK CATS IN ACTION: Stirrilg WWII saga 01 seaplanel roIeil the PaciOC. 21 min.

ARMOR

&

MILITARY

NF703 MARINES AT TARAWA & IWO JIMA: Two riveling invasion classics 01 PaCific War. 40 min. SM510 VIETNAM HEROES: Medal of Honor wilners recoootlheir exploits using combat Iootage.30 mi'l. NF626 TltE BURMA ROAD: ThriIing sagII of batlleto keep open a vital supply 1M Natraled by Ronak1 Reagan. 50 rrin. NF711 APPOINlMENT IN TOKYO: P8CIflc

groood war from MacAttOOr Ieavng Philippiles to VJ·Day. Rate Bataan Death Matctl. 55 min.

NAVAL

ACTION

NF675 THE FLEET THAT CAME TO STAV: Vivid Kamikaze attacks on American ships. 22 min. NF687 DOWN TO TltE WIRE: Carrier pilots hairy landings. 30 min. NF689 BAmE OF MIDWAY: John Forcfl claw:: doa.mentary of pivotal Paafic see battle. 22 min. NF605 TltE AGHTING LADY: WartrTlt documentaty in color shot in aetJon ll'llhe Pacific:. Bob Taylor narrates. 61 mil.. NF668 SEAPOWER IN THE PACIFIC: US Navy'sgianlwartimeneetinacliondumg 'NW1l.30mln. NF726 CARRIER ACTION: Compares Ile&I carriers of 'NW1I and Vietnam era v.tth axcibnQ lootage.50min.

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