The Battle of the Bulge, Hitlers Final Gamble

THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE HITLER’S FINAL GAMBLE

PATRICK DELAFORCE

First published in Great Britain in 2004 by Pearson Education Limited Reprinted in this format in 2014 by PEN & SWORD MILITARY An imprint of Pen & Sword Books Ltd 47 Church Street Barnsley, South Yorkshire S70 2AS Copyright © Patrick Delaforce, 2004, 2014 ISBN 978 1 78346 359 6 The right of Patrick Delaforce to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission from the Publisher in writing. Printed and bound in England By CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Pen & Sword Books Ltd incorporates the imprints of Aviation, Atlas, Family History, Fiction, Maritime, Military, Discovery, Politics, History, Archaeology, Select, Wharncliffe Local History, Wharncliffe True Crime, Military Classics, Wharncliffe Transport, Leo Cooper, The Praetorian Press, Remember When, Seaforth Publishing and Frontline Publishing

For a complete list of Pen & Sword titles please contact PEN & SWORD BOOKS LIMITED 47 Church Street, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, S70 2AS, England E-mail: [email protected] Website: www.pen-and-sword.co.uk

Contents



List of maps and figures Acknowledgements Introduction: Bleak midwinter

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

Winston Churchill: ‘The forward leap was over ’ Euphoria followed by complacency On the other side of the hill: Third Reich The Allied generals at war Hitler ’s great counter-offensive plans Hitler ’s brilliant deception plans Hitler ’s deceptions: Stösser and Greif The air war Hitler ’s battle plan The secret war of ULTRA and Enigma The Ardennes battlegrounds: the Ghost Front ‘All hell’s broken loose’ The Losheim Gap Battle: gallant cavalry The doom and destruction of the young ‘Golden Lions’ The ‘Checkerboard’ division: ‘A hurricane of iron and fire’ The ‘Ivy’ division defend ‘little Switzerland’ Battles for the Twin Towns and the Elsenborn Ridge Colonel Fuller and the Keystones: ‘Buckets of Blood’ Peiper, Hitler ’s Bodyguard and the massacres

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37

The defence of St Vith Montgomery takes command of US 1st and 9th Armies The rise and fall of Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army The battle for Wiltz The dying days of Kampfengruppe Peiper The Seventh Army has problems in the south The air war 16–25 December: the ‘metallic starlings’ All roads lead to Bastogne Patton relieves Bastogne? German Seventh Army: ‘battle of attrition’ High Noon for von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army War in the air: Christmas Day to New Year ’s Day Hitler ’s surprises (1) Operation Bodenplatte British XXX Corps: longstop and counter-attack Hitler ’s surprises (2) Operation Nordwind Autumn Mist: January – retribution Gotterdämmerung: the final audit The heroes



Appendix A: Order of battle: the Ardennes Offensive Appendix B: Military museums in the Ardennes Bibliography Index

List of maps and figures

Maps 1

2

3

4 5 6 7 8

The great breakout from Normandy, over the river Seine, and Paris, Brussels and Antwerp captured by superb British and American armoured thrusts Adolf Hitler ’s battle plan for Wacht am Rhein: the seizure of Antwerp and Brussels, surrounding British, Canadian and American armies, thus forcing the Allied Command to sue for peace The gallant American defence of the Elsenborn ridge and the savage battles in the twin towns of Krinkelt and Rocherath delayed considerably the advance of the German 6th SS Panzer Army Kampfgruppe Peiper, the Schwerpunkt of 1st SS Panzer Division, made a powerful and brutal incursion of the American defences leaving a trail of massacres behind The gallant American defence of the vital town of St Vith delayed the German 5th Panzer Army advance by almost a week The German ‘Das Reich’ SS Panzer division created havoc between the rivers of Ourthe and Aisne General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel enveloped Bastogne with his 5th Panzer Army, and, despite a viscious siege lasting three weeks, failed to capture the vital town The Task Forces O’Hara, Cherry and Desobry helped 101st ‘Screaming Eagle’ Airborne division to hold up Bastogne Detailed sketch plan of General patton’s 4th US Armoured division

9 10 11 12 13

advance and actions to relieve Bastogne General Patron’s III Corps advance towards Bastogne and Wiltz. The German 7th Army under General Erich Brandenberger stubbornly defended the line of the river Süre Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate). The Luftwaffe’s ambitious plan to destroy Allied airforces on the ground – New Year ’s Day 1945 Wacht am Rhein: Christmas Day was almost the furthest inroads and closest to the river Meuse reached by Adolf Hitler ’s three armies Four weeks of bitter fighting in January 1945 before Wacht am Rhein was closed out. Casualties on both sides were severe

Figures 3.1 3.2 4.1 4.2 5.1 5.2 7.1 13.1 13.2 14.1 14.2 15.1

General Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief of Wacht am Rhein Adolf Hitler and Dr Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, confer in mid-1944 The Allied generals: Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley, Bedell Smith; British Airmarshals Arthur Tedder, Leigh-Mallory and Admiral Ramsay Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, GOC US 12th Army Group Adolf Hitler invests General der Waffen SS ‘Sepp’ Dietrich with the Oak Leaves to Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross General Field Marshal Walther Model, the ‘Fuhrer ’s Fireman’, GOC Germany Army Group B Oberst Otto Skorzeny, a Führer favourite, OC 150 Panzer brigade in Operation Greif The ‘dragon’s teeth’, anti-tank obstacles in the Westwall, Hitler ’s Siegfried Line German Volksgrenadier waves his men on, with burning AFV in background German infantry of Panzer Grenadiers advance German infantry of Panzer Grenadiers attack, with US half-track ablaze in background Hofen, south of Monschau, gallantly defended by US 99th ‘Checkerboard’ Infantry division

15.2 Countryside around Hofen, near Monschau, held by US 99th Infantry division 17.1 Knocked out panzers at Rocherath crossroads Dom. Bütgenbach, held by US 26 IR of 1st ‘Big Red One’ division 17.2 against ferocious attacks by 1st SS Panzer division Oberst Jochen Peiper ’s troops reach vital crossroads between St Vith 19.1 and Malmédy, west of Honsfeld 19.2 Stavelot, scene of fierce battle against Oberst Peiper ’s 1st SS Panzers On the way to St Vith, attacked by General Walther Lucht’s LXVI Corps 20.1 on 21 December 20.2 St Vith Railway south-west of St Vith where 7th Armoured Combat Command 20.3 B and guns of 434th Field Artillery held off panzers and Volksgrenadiers on 23 December Poteau, where US 40th Tank battalion and 48th Armoured Infantry held 20.4 up 2nd Kampfgruppe of 1st SS Panzer division then, later, units of 9th SS Panzer division Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery checks the situation map with 21.1 Major General Matthew Ridgeway, GOC 18th US Airborne corps Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery with Major General Simpson, 21.2 GOC US Ninth Army, and divisional commanders, 31.12.1944 Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, Major General JL Collins, US 7 21.3 Corps and Major General Ridgeway, US 18 Corps, 27.12.1944 21.4 Salmchâteau, facing north-west, held by US 82nd Airborne division Battleground of Manhay, 2nd SS Panzer division success, 24–25 22.1 December GIs advance into La Gleize, passing one of SS Oberst Jochen Peiper ’s 24.1 Tiger tanks ablaze 24.2 Ruins of La Gleize – Peiper ’s last stand A B-26 Marauder of 9th on a forward USAAF aerodrome being 26.1 cleared of snow and ice 116 Panzer division went through Houffalize unopposed on 18 27.1 December Olin Dows’ picture of 327 Glider Infantry lining up for ‘chow’ in 27.2 Hemroulle, north-west of Bastogne 27.3 Bastogne: command centre in cellar Bastogne: 101 Airborne division message centre, in basement of

27.4 barracks, north-west edge of town 27.5 Anti-tank gun crew near Bastogne General George Patton, GOC US Third Army, confers with Major 28.1 General Manton Eddy and Major General Horace McBride 28.2 327 Glider Infantry medical aid post south of Bastogne 28.3 General Patton’s Third US Army Shermans outside Bastogne C-47 Douglas of IX Troop Carrier Command parachutes supplies to 28.4 Bastogne garrison 28.5 Bastogne, snow at Chrismas. 101 US Airborne troops and transport GIs of 3rd US Armoured division cook their rations on a wood fire 30.1 near Manhay, 28 December, with an M-10 tank destroyer in the background 30.2 La Roche Abandoned enemy equipment of 2nd Panzer division, out of fuel near 30.3 Celles Formation of US C-47 Dakotas dropping parapacks of supplies and 31.1 ammunition to defenders of Bastogne Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery inspects 6th (British) Airborne 33.1 division with Major General E. L. Bols and senior officers, 16.1.1945 British Shermans of 29th Armoured brigade (11th Armoured division) 33.2 advance towards Hotton, 9.1.1945 33.3 The Welsh 53rd division advance towards Hotton, 9.1.1945 33.4 51st Highland division in Hotton on the way to La Roche Sherman tanks of 35th US division, part of General Patton’s Third US 35.1 Army, move through the outskirts of Bastogne Bomb bursts on Blankenheim railroad, the line used to supply German 35.2 troops in Malmédy-Monschau areas FM Sir Alan Brooke CIGS, Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill and FM Sir 35.3 Bernard Montgomery, 6.1.1945 Snow-covered Shermans of 7th US Armoured division, 1st US Army, 35.4 recapture St Vith, 23.1.1945 35.5 Leutnant General Erich Brandenberger surrenders German 7th Army

Acknowledgements

W

e are grateful to the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

The Trustees of the Imperial War Museum for figures 3.1, 3.2, 4.1, 4.2, 5.1, 5.2, 7.1, 13.2, 14.1, 14.2, 19.1, 21.1, 21.2, 21.3, 22.1, 24.1, 26.1, 28.1, 28.3, 30.1, 30.3, 31.1, 33.1, 33.2, 33.3, 33.4, 35.1, 35.2, 35.3, 35.4 and 35.5; the US National Archives and Records Administration for figures 13.1, 15.1, 15.2, 17.1, 17.2, 19.2, 20.1, 20.2, 20.3, 20.4, 21.4, 24.2, 27.1, 27.2, 27.3, 27.4, 27.5, 28.2, 28.4, 28.5 and 30.2 and the Text Publishing Company for permission to reproduce extracts from Eclipse by Alan Moorehead. In some instances we have been unable to trace the owners of copyright material, and we would appreciate any information that would enable us to do so.

Introduction Bleak midwinter

I

n the early days of September 1944 the British Army performed one of its most famous feats of arms. After ten weeks of ferocious, attritional fighting during Operation Overlord to clear the Wehrmacht out of Normandy, their three armoured divisions left the killing grounds of the Falaise–Argentan gap to head northwards. My division (in which I was an RHA troop leader) was the 11th Armoured, led by Major General ‘Pip’ Roberts, arguably the most experienced tank formation commander in the British Army. With its fearsome ‘Black Bull’ emblem it hammered its way through Flanders and captured Amiens in a daring long night charge, surprising Generalleutnant Eberbach still in bed! They thrust northwards and in an astonishing coup de main captured the vital port of Antwerp and its garrison of 15,000 troops. With great help from the Belgian Resistance the immense docklands were taken before the German defenders could sabotage them. Altogether there were 30 miles of wharves and quays, 632 cranes and hoists and 186 acres of warehouse storage space. Its oil storage facilities could house over 100 million gallons. Antwerp would eventually be able to land 40,000 tons per day of POL (petrol, oil and lubricant), ammunition, food, weaponry and reinforcements. An immense build up of supply was needed before the final gargantuan efforts to break the West Wall (Siegfried Line), cross the river Rhine and four other water barriers before capturing Bremen, Hamburg and linking up with the Russians on the Baltic coast. It had taken a long time for General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery to realise that the logistical battle of supply had to be won and

won quickly. Operation Market Garden, that brilliant, flawed, British– American battle to jump the Rhine, distracted the Allied ‘top management’. Adolf Hitler had no such delusions. He ordered his River Scheldt and Walcheren fortresses to fight to the last man to deny the opening of Antwerp port. I have recounted the story of this battleground in my book Smashing the Atlantic Wall. Once the port was opened on 28 November Hitler ordered half of his V-l and V-2 terror weapons (over 10,000) to be targeted on Antwerp docks and city. He ordered his remaining E-boats and U-boats to sink Allied shipping and mine the Scheldt estuary. The Allied High Command had failed to realise the importance of Antwerp. Indeed, Eisenhower had to order Montgomery to deploy Canadian and British forces for the port’s capture. The Allied High Command then failed to realise the great importance that Hitler placed on the recapture of Antwerp. This book is the story of the huge, secret, audacious battle plan to retake Antwerp and perhaps capture most of the British and Canadian (plus two American) armies. Hitler called the plan Wacht am Rhein for deceptive purposes (it was not the Rhine, nor was there to be any watching!). His second name for it was Herbstnebel or Autumn Mist, as he could rely on cloud, snow and rain to nullify the Allied airforces. The Anglo-Saxon world named it the Battle of the Bulge, Ardennes 1944/5. It started two weeks after the first Allied ships arrived in Antwerp. It was to become the largest and perhaps the most savage land battle fought by the Americans in World War Two. Within a huge triangle of approximately 40–50 miles on each side nearly a million men with 3,000 armoured fighting vehicles (tanks and assault gun SPs) fought each other without much mercy on the snowy ground, in the little hamlets and along the river valleys. In the 40 days of combat, thousands of small vicious firefights took place, mostly during the day, often at night. Above the battlefields the dreaded Allied fighter-bombers, called ‘Jabos’ by the Germans, swooped, soared and left a trail of destruction. Sometimes, not often, the Luftwaffe came too, ‘strafing’ by day, bombing by night. The American High Command was initially taken completely by surprise, despite ULTRA at Bletchley Park deciphering dozens of clues which could – should – have sent up warning signals. But with some controversial help from Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery, the Americans reacted very quickly. ‘Old Blood and Guts’, General Patton, sent one of his army corps to try to relieve besieged Bastogne where the gallant US 101st Screaming Eagles Airborne Division held out.

The Führer, like a black spider in the Adlerhorst, devised a whole series of brilliant plans – Wacht am Rhein, Greif (Griffon), Stösser, Bodenplatte and Nordwind. For a variety of reasons, luck, the weather, indomitable American Task Forces fighting German Kampfengruppen and the dominance of the USAAF and RAF in the air war, they all came to naught. But it was a close run thing. There were heroes aplenty on both sides – seventeen American soldiers won the rare Congressional Medal of Honour, besides the gallant defenders of the Losheim Gap, St Vith and the Twin Towns, Clervaux and Bastogne. There were heroes on the German side too. Generals who led from the front such as von Manteuffel and Bayerlein and leaders such as Otto Remer, the controversial Oberst Peiper, Oberst von der Heydt and Oberst Skorzeny. The Waffen SS panzer forces unfortunately left a trail of murdered GIs and Belgian citizens. I declare a small personal interest. The 29th Armoured Brigade of 11th Armoured Division, which usually my regiment ‘protected’, was involved in ‘Monty’s’ backstop operations beyond the river Meuse. I was in Brussels (convalescing from wounds) when the Luftwaffe noisily and successfully bombed and strafed the three RAF airfields a mile or so away. Winston Churchill, who followed the course of the battle and watched the flow and ebb of the battle, needed to ask Marshal Josef Stalin in Moscow ‘whether we can count on a major Russian offensive during January.’ On 6 January 1945, in his own words, ‘The battle in the West is very heavy.’ But when it was all over Churchill wrote, ‘Our subsequent battles on the Rhine, though severe, were undoubtedly eased.’ The best part of three German armies had been badly mauled, almost destroyed.

chapter 1

Winston Churchill: ‘The forward leap was over’

T

he long hot summer of 1944 had seen two months of fierce fighting after the successful D-Day coastal landings during Operation Overlord. The terrible attritional battles of Epsom, Goodwood, Jupiter, Totalise, Bluecoat and Cobra had ended, with the destruction of most of Adolf Hitler ’s Seventh Army in the killing grounds of the Argentan–Falaise pocket. The experienced war reporter Alan Moorehead wrote in Eclipse: Now the sun shone out day after day. The trampled corn turned brilliant yellow. The dust rose up with the smoke of explosions. And through this hot August sun the allied aircraft streamed down on the trapped German armies with such a blitz of bombing as western Europe had never seen … The carnage along the roads was horrible … There could be no reason in this ghastly scene. I say again, I think I see the end of Germany here. This was their best in weapons and men, their strongest barrier before the Rhine. It has been brushed aside, shattered into bits. The beaten Wehrmacht is a pitiable thing. The euphoria was understandable. The American and British press had been highly critical with the apparent lack of success during June and July 1944. The casualty rate with the British, Canadian and American armies had been heavy – almost at World War One intensity. And now suddenly out of the blue came this stunning victory. Moreover,

Cherbourg had been captured and the port was being gradually reopened. General George Patton (who had been commanding a ‘Phantom’ deceptive army in SE England, apparently tasked with the capture of the Pas de Calais) had arrived in Normandy, commanding the Third US Army, which ran riot in Brittany and then crossed the River Seine at Mantes. On 24 and 25 August General Bradley ordered the US 4th Infantry division and the 2nd French Armoured division into Paris. All Europe knew that with the liberation of Paris, the Battle of France was won. There was wild enthusiasm in the French capital for General de Gaulle, the FFI (French Forces of the Interior) and for the American troops. On the day after the fall of Paris, the SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) Intelligence summary reviewed the situation: Two and a half months of bitter fighting, culminating for the Germans in a bloodbath big enough even for their extravagant tastes have brought the end of the war in Europe within sight, almost within reach. The strength of the German Armies in the West has been shattered. Paris belongs to France again and the Allied Armies are streaming towards the frontiers of the Reich.’ Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, wrote, ‘By 30 August our troops were crossing the river Seine at many points. Enemy losses had been tremendous; 400,000 men, half of them prisoners, 1,300 tanks, 20,000 vehicles, 1,300 field-guns. The German Seventh Army had been torn to shreds.’ All the senior German Wehrmacht commanders had escaped the pocket, although the brilliant General Rommel had been badly wounded and Field Marshal von Kluge had committed suicide. ‘When you receive these lines,’ wrote von Kluge to his Führer, ‘I shall be no more … I am despatching myself where thousands of my comrades have already gone. I do not know whether Field Marshal Model [Hitler had replaced von Kluge with Model] will yet master the situation. From my heart I hope so but if this should not be the case and if your new, greatly desired weapons, especially those for the Luftwaffe should not succeed then, my Führer, make up your mind to end the war. The German people have borne such untold suffering that it is time to put an end to this frightfulness. There must be ways to obtain this object and above all to prevent the Reich from falling under the Bolshevist heel.’ At the Führer conference on 31 August Hitler told Generals Westphal and Krebs, who were taking the places of Generals Blumentritt and Speidel, The time is not yet ripe for a political decision … At a time of heavy military defeats it is quite childish and naive to hope for a politically favourable

moment to make a move. The time will come when the tension between the Allies becomes so strong that in spite of everything, the rupture occurs. History teaches us that all coalitions break up … I intend to continue fighting until there is a possibility of a decent peace which is bearable for Germany and secures the life of future generations. Then I shall make it … Whatever happens we shall carry on this struggle until, as Frederick the Great said, “one of our damned enemies gives up in despair”!’

Map 1 The great breakout from Normandy, over the river Seine, and Paris, Brussels and Antwerp captured by superb British and American armoured thrusts A few days later Montgomery’s armoured divisions had surged northwards,

achieving over 200 miles in four days, liberating Brussels amidst incredible rejoicing and the huge prize of Antwerp city and docks. More successes occurred when Operation Anvil, the invasion of the French Riviera by the US Seventh Army (with French troops under command), took place, watched by Winston Churchill. Quickly they raced north up the Rhône valley, capturing Avignon, Valence, Lyons (on 3 September) and four days later Besancon, before linking up with General Patton’s Third US Army. Despite Panzer Grenadier divisions arriving from the Italian front, Patton reached the river Moselle and entered Metz. General Eisenhower now had 37 divisions under his command in NW Europe – nearly a million men. General Alexander ’s armies in Italy – British, American, Polish and French – were moving steadily northwards to the Gothic line defences and Rome had been captured in June. Many of the allied commanders were confident that the war would be over by Christmas. The German Army in the West now – in early autumn – had a strength of about seventeen divisions, many of them in poor condition, often without armoured support and with inevitably horse-drawn supply services. General Hans Speidel, Rommel’s former chief of staff, noted, ‘An orderly retreat became impossible. The Allied motorised armies surrounded the slow and exhausted German foot divisions in separate groups and smashed them up … There were no German ground forces of any importance that could be thrown in and next to nothing in the air.’ Indeed, the Luftwaffe appeared to be a spent force and rarely appeared in strength. ‘Of course this pace could not last. The forward leap was over and the check was evident,’ wrote Churchill.

chapter 2

Euphoria followed by complacency

T

he euphoria of the glorious summer soon vanished. Hitler ’s rocket war against London and SE England continued as 8,000 V-1 flying bombs were launched. Over 6,000 civilians were killed and 18,000 seriously wounded. In the follow-up attack by V-2 long-range rocket bombs, 1,359 were launched against London, killing 1,700 civilians and seriously wounding 6,500. Although great efforts were made by the RAF to bomb, and ground troops to locate and destroy launching pads, the horrifying terror attacks on British civilian morale continued unabated. By early September the Allied armies had almost completely outrun their supplies of POL and many British and American formations were grounded and unable to advance. At least 20,000 tons of supplies were needed every day. The supply lines back to the Normandy beaches or to Cherbourg were between 250 and 400 miles long. Despite the American ‘Red Ball Express’ truck and trailer delivery and additional supplies by air, the Atlantic Wall ports were not yet on stream in sufficient quantities. On 8 September Winston Churchill wrote a memorandum to General Ismay for the Chiefs of Staff Committee: ‘At the present time we are at a virtual standstill and progress will be very slow … Apart from Cherbourg and Arromanches, we have not yet obtained any large harbours … unless the situation changes remarkably the Allies will still be short of port accommodation when the equinoctial gales are due. One can already foresee the probability of a lull in the magnificent advances we have

made. General Patton’s army is heavily engaged on the line Metz–Nancy. Field Marshal Montgomery [as from 1 September] has explained his misgivings as to General Eisenhower ’s future plans. No one can tell what the future may bring forth.’ He went on to note, ‘It is at least as likely that Hitler will be fighting on 1 January; and that he will collapse before then.’ Instead of concentrating on the reopening of Antwerp port and the blocking and destruction of the German Fifteenth Army retreating steadily from the Pas de Calais, Field Marshal Montgomery launched the audacious Operation Market Garden to capture three key river bridges on the way to the Zuider Zee. Although eight crossings were captured by brave and skilful airborne troop drops by two US and one British airborne divisions, the vital bridge at Arnhem was not. Nevertheless, the British Second Army had made a salient 60 miles deep into enemy territory, beyond the northern end of the Siegfried Line. By 25 September it was clear that the main purpose of Operation Market Garden had failed, although Churchill and Montgomery put on brave faces! Alan Moorehead, writing in Eclipse, described the situation in the autumn of 1944: It was a most dangerous period of delay. Every hour, every day the German morale was hardening. As the broken remnants of the Fifteenth [from Pas de Calais] and Seventh [from Normandy] German armies struggled back to the Reich, they were regrouped into new formations. Anything and everything served at this desperate moment. Submarine crews were put into the line as infantry. The German water-police were mobilised. There was a brigade of deaf men who presumably received their orders in deaf-and-dumb language. There was a whole division of men who suffered from stomach ailments and had to be served special bread. Throughout the Reich every officer and man was summoned back to his post. We began to collect extraordinary prisoners; nearsighted clerks who had left their city offices three weeks before; men with halfhealed wounds, even cripples and children of fifteen or sixteen. It was a makeshift hotchpotch army, an emergency army put in simply to hold the gap, simply to fight for time while the German generals reorganised on a sounder basis. Little by little a crust was formed reaching along the valley of the Rhine from the Swiss border to the Zuider Zee. The German High Command was also fortunate. As their own supply lines shortened, their battle grounds in the autumn were favourable for defensive tactics. The First Canadian Army, with British formations under command, fought in appalling conditions in the swamps and polders on both sides of the

Scheldt estuary. The canals in Belgium – the Albert and Meuse–Escaut – were formidable water barriers. The British Army fought west of the river Maas in the dreaded Peel country, with its high water-table and swamps where slittrenches and foxholes filled quickly with water and the dirt roads and tracks raised several feet above the sodden fields crumbled quickly into mud. Every farmhouse was a German DF (defensive fire) target. It was a nightmare. In the south the Americans fought in the Vosges mountains and in the Hürtgen Forest – nightmares of a different sort. The Allied superiority in AFVs (armoured fighting vehicles) and numbers of tanks was nullified. The airforces were often grounded on their advanced airfields by snow, ice or heavy rain. In any case, few substantial targets could be identified. The early winter rains were the worst for many years, flooding the rivers and streams and making quagmires through which the PBI (poor bloody infantry) had to struggle. Casualties mounted from trench foot. The German defenders also had the option of opening water and canal sluices and locks to literally flood the battlefields. On 10 October Winston Churchill wrote to President Roosevelt: The pressure on the Dutch salient seems to be growing very severe and our advances are slow and costly.’ Casualties had already caused Field Marshal Montgomery to ‘cannibalise’ divisions: 59th Staffordshire had been disbanded and the gallant 50th Northumbrian, which had won four Victoria Crosses, was soon to go. A week later the President replied: ‘All of us are now faced with an unanticipated shortage of manpower and overshadowing all other military problems is the need for quick provision of fresh troops to reinforce Eisenhower in his battle to break into Germany and end the European war … He is now fighting the decisive battle of Germany with divisions which have been in continuous combat since they landed on the Normandy beaches in the first part of June. The need for building up additional divisions on the long front from Switzerland to the North Sea is urgent.’ Churchill visited Generalisimo Josef Stalin in Moscow and attended a magnificent Armistice Day parade in Paris. But two weeks later he was writing to Stalin: ‘The battle in the west is severe and the mud frightful. The main collision is on the axis Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne. This is by no means decided in our favour yet, though Eisenhower still has substantial reserves to throw in. [By now the Allies had 54 divisions in NW Europe.] To the north west Montgomery’s armies are facing north, holding back the Germans on the line of the Dutch Maas. To the east we are making slow but steady progress and keeping the enemy in continued battle.’ The important meeting at SHAEF in Versailles on 22 September achieved

very little. Montgomery did not attend it! The minutes of the conference stated, The envelopment of the Ruhr from the north by 21st Army Group, supported by the US First Army is the main effort of the present phase of operations plus the opening of the port of Antwerp as a matter of urgency.’ The autumn stalemate continued throughout October, although on the 21st General Bradley issued orders for a general advance to the Rhine. The First and Ninth US Armies would attack on 5 November and the Third US Army on the 10th. In appalling weather by the end of November the First US Army had closed up to the river Roer opposite Düren. The Ninth US Army had reached the line from Julich to Linnich – a total advance of about eight miles into Germany. But Patton’s Third US Army had severely weakened the German defences in the Vosges, and the Seventh US Army took Strasbourg (by appropriately the 2nd French Armoured division) and threatened the Nineteenth German Army in the ‘Colmar pocket’. On 4 December Eisenhower wrote to his boss in America, General George Marshall: ‘No sign of an early collapse of German morale in the west. The enemy should be able to maintain a strong defensive front for some time assisted by weather, floods and muddy ground.’ He might have added too, superb defensive actions by Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Commanderin-Chief Army Group West. From the Swiss border north to Aachen, the allies were halted before the Siegfried Line. In the Vosges the Germans had a foothold on French soil. From Aachen north to the mouth of the river Maas, the allies were held in check. Churchill wrote to his friend Field Marshal Smuts on 3 December: ‘In spite of Metz and Strasbourg and other successes we have of course sustained a strategic reverse on the Western Front … We must now regroup and reinforce the armies for a spring offensive. There is at least one full scale battle to fight before we get to the Rhine in the north which is the decisive axis of advance.’ Three days later he wrote to President Roosevelt: ‘The fact remains that we have definitely failed to achieve the strategic object which we gave our armies five weeks ago. We have not yet reached the Rhine in the northern part and most important sector of the front. We shall have to continue the great battle for many weeks before we can hope to reach the Rhine and establish our bridgeheads.’ For three months the American and the British views on the strategy to break into and beyond the long West Wall, with its 3,000 reinforced concrete pillboxes and gun emplacements protected by minefields and concrete dragon’s teeth, differed completely! The British view was that Montgomery’s 21st Army Group should make a

concentrated, violent attack on the northern flank. Eisenhower and all his generals were convinced (despite Patton’s brilliant ‘end-run’ from Brittany to Paris and beyond) that the correct approach was for all the American armies to attack what was in front of them all the time. What the Germans called a Schwerpunkt, a hard-driven nail into the enemy defences, was an alien concept. Since by now the Americans had twice as many divisions in NW Europe and the supreme commander was an American, Churchill and his generals had no alternative but to acquiesce to Ike’s philosophy. A key conference at Maastricht on 7 December was held at Montgomery’s request. Eisenhower reiterated, ‘My basic decision was to continue the offensive to the extreme limit of our ability.’ The lower Rhineland was to be cleared by converging offensives from the Roer and the Reichswald as soon as General Bradley had captured the Roer dams. General Patton was ordered to capture the Saar before Christmas. None of the Allied commanders who met at Maastricht believed that the Germans would attempt any large-scale counter-offensive. Nevertheless, the weather – the worst for 50 years – prevented the full use of the Allied armour and airpower. Field Marshal Montgomery’s 21st Army Group communiqué noted, ‘The enemy is at present fighting a defensive campaign on all fronts. His situation is such that he cannot stage major offensive operations. Furthermore at all costs, he has to prevent the war from entering a mobile phase. He has not the transport or the petrol that would be necessary for mobile operations, nor could his tanks compete with ours in the mobile battle. The enemy is in a bad way. He has had a tremendous battering.’ On 15 December Eisenhower was playing golf in Versailles, attended a wedding and conferred with General Bradley. Montgomery was preparing for a week’s leave in the UK to see his son. Colonel ‘Monk’ Dickson, the First Army Chief of Staff, had a 72-hour pass to Paris. Assistant Chief of Staff General John Whitely told Ike that there was ‘nothing to report in the Ardennes sector ’. And Churchill wrote, ‘A heavy blow now impended.’

chapter 3

On the other side of the hill: Third Reich

T

he Third Reich would not last a thousand years. It was dying slowly and surely. Its vast tentacles were being lopped off. The zenith had been when Operation Barbarossa had seen the Wehrmacht fighting just outside Moscow. Since then Stalingrad, Tunis, Sicily, the loss of the Ploesti oilfields, Rome, France, Belgium, Romania, Bulgaria, Finland, Greece and most of Poland and Yugoslavia had shown the Allies that not only were Hitler ’s armies not invincible, but that it was now only a question of timing before eventual surrender. By night and day the Allied bombing demolished proud German cities and pulverised munition factories and other key targets. In five years of war the German armed forces had lost almost 3.75 million men. Vital raw materials from Russia, the Balkans, Finland and France had been cut off. The 20 July bomb plot by Colonel Count von Stauffenberg to kill Hitler had failed and Himmler ’s security service took a terrible revenge. About 5,000 socalled conspirators were condemned to death before the ‘People’s Court’ and were executed. A further 10,000 were sent to concentration camps. Thousands of Social Democrats and Liberals were ‘eliminated’, who would have been invaluable in the reconstruction of post-war Germany. One result of the putsch was that Hitler, who had suffered minor wounds (a ruptured eardrum, persistent headache and spells of dizziness), took on a new lease of life. He was 54 years old and looked considerably older but now, in the summer of 1944, he took almost complete control of his still vast military machine. The severe

and brutal reprisals after the 20 July putsch had convinced the army Field Marshals and generals who had survived the purge (Rommel had been forced to commit suicide) that their future depended – more than ever – on total unquestioning loyalty to their Führer and also to the Nazi party and, to a lesser extent, the SS. From his ‘spider ’s-web centre’ he had direct lines to 300 field commanders and to his coastal fortresses around the Atlantic Wall. In August he proclaimed that all commanders, even the most senior, must carry out his orders unconditionally and without questions. The Führer put great store on his ‘new’ secret weapons. The V-1s and V-2s were pulverising inaccurately SE England. His new jet-propelled aircraft were to be deployed in Der Grosse Schlag (the Great Strike), but production of the ME 262 was negligible. He had plans for electro U-boats to resume attacks on the Atlantic convoys from bases in Norway and Denmark. Hitler gave Goering, Goebbels and Himmler new responsibilities intended to link the German people to the Nazi war machine. He declared after the bomb plot, The German people see in this [the assassination attempt] again the guiding hand of Providence directing that I must and will carry out my task.’ In late August, in reaction to the emergencies created by the ‘bomb plot assassination attempt’ and the Wehrmacht’s retreat from France, Goebbels proclaimed a new draconian policy. All music halls, cabarets, theatres and drama schools were to be closed. The press, magazine and book publications were to be cut back severely. Men and officers on leave were sent back to their unit. Postal officials, teachers, small shopkeepers, civil servants, air raid wardens – all were called up for military service. His Chief of Staff OKH Colonel General Heinz Guderian reported, ‘Hitler ’s mistrust now reached extremes and the miracle of his survival gave him greater faith than ever in his mission. He shut himself up in his bunker, engaged in no further private talks … He was convinced that he alone possessed clear perception concerning all fields of human activity. Accordingly he condemned generals, staff officers, diplomats, government officials and towards the end even Party and SS leaders as armchair strategists, weaklings and finally as criminals and traitors.’ Hitler ’s HQ Area No. 1, the underground bunker in the Forest of Gorlitz in East Prussia, was known as the Wolfsschanze – the Wolf’s Lair. It was guarded by barbed wire and electric fencing, enormous concrete forts and bomb-proof underground steel and concrete shelters with walls twenty feet thick. His trusted General Walter Warlimont, Deputy Chief of Operations OKW, said, ‘Neither he nor his immediate entourage got any direct impression either of the severity

of the struggle or the main fronts on one hand, nor of the blazing effects of the air war on German cities on the other.’ His suite of three rooms had a Spartan atmosphere, described by Field Marshal Alfred Jodl, Chief of Operations OKW, as ‘a mixture of cloister and concentration camp’. The Führer rarely went to bed before five or six in the morning and rose about eleven. Jodl then briefed him before the daily ‘Führer Conference’ started at about one o’clock. Besides Jodl and Warlimont, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel, Chief of the High Command of the Armed Forces (OKH), was always present. The latter, aged 62, had been a loyal and capable administrator and staff officer of the ‘old school’ and was Hitler ’s chief military adviser during World War Two. He was obnoxious and unpopular with his peers. In his memoirs he wrote, ‘I was a loyal shield bearer for Adolf Hitler.’ On the other hand, ‘I was never permitted to make decisions. The Führer reserved that right to himself even in seemingly trivial matters.’ There is no doubt that Hitler treated Keitel as a lackey. Jodl was probably closer to Hitler than anyone else. He, although subservient, was brilliant, able and ambitious and was the Führer ’s first adviser on strategic and operations problems. Having fired von Rundstedt in July, in September Hitler reappointed him as Commander-in-Chief Army Group West. Aged 69, he had had a brilliant series of victories in the first two years of the war – in Poland, the Low Countries and the drive across the Ukraine to the Crimea in 1941. At his own request he retired in November of that year with the reputation for moral courage, independence and for never having lost a battle. Hitler brought him back in the spring of 1942 as Commander-in-Chief Army West. In the autumn of 1944 he was a well-respected soldier, conventional, a real professional, whose role was now to be that of a nominal figurehead for what the Führer had in mind. Under von Rundstedt came General Field Marshal Walther Model, now aged 53, a very loyal supporter of Hitler and the Nazi movement. He got on well with Hitler and would argue his case. A brilliant Prussian, nicknamed ‘Hitler ’s Fireman’, he was suddenly in August 1944 made Commander-in-Chief Army Group West and saw his command in Normandy shattered with the loss of 325,000 men. Stockily built and of humble origins, he tried his best to look like a monocled Prussian junker officer. General von Manteuffel described Model thus: ‘His manner was rough and his methods were not always acceptable in the higher quarters of the German army, but they were both to Hitler ’s liking.’ Sixteen years younger than von Rundstedt, Model respected his ‘boss’ but ran his Army Group independently – apart, of course, from direct orders from the Führer.

Fig 3.1 General Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, Commander-in-Chief of Wacht am Rhein (MH 10132 IWM) On 19 August, as the Normandy campaign came to a disastrous finale, Hitler gave orders: ‘Prepare to take the offensive in November when the enemy

airforces cannot operate. Some 25 divisions must be moved to the western front in the next one or two months.’ What Hitler urgently needed was time and miracles. The first miracle was to be the rapid creation of some 25 ‘new’ divisions to replace those destroyed in Normandy. At the beginning of September there were 3,421,000 troops on the rosters of the Feldheer (armed forces strength). Just over 2 million were serving and were needed on the Ost front to combat the Russian hordes. Hitler called them Untermenschen or subhumans. He saw his Third Reich as the last bulwark against the forces of communism. Via the Japanese Ambassador in Berlin, Baron Hiroshi Oshima, to Joachim von Ribbentrop came a hint, a rumour that the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin might be willing to discuss terms for ‘peace’. ‘Probing the Soviet attitude is like touching a glowing stove to find out if it is hot,’ Hitler wrote to Frau Ribbentrop. In the summer of 1944 the German losses on the Russian Front were nearly a million, compared to a third of that in the west. Hitler was prepared to trade lost ground in Russia (despite Stalingrad) to reduce losses and stretch the Russian supply lines. The West Wall of 400 miles from the North Sea to the Swiss border was in a poor state of repair. Nearly all the weapons, signal equipment, belts of wire and mines had been removed, field defences had been ploughed in and many bunkers were being used to house bombed-out families. On 4 September Model, as Commander of Army Group B defending the northern fronts in Belgium, sent Jodl a request for 25 fresh divisions and 5 or 6 Panzer divisions, ‘otherwise the gateway into North West Germany will be open.’ Nevertheless, the miracle of the manpower situation was achieved by truly heroic and often brutal measures. The Third Reich had vast resources of, in effect, slave workers, labour from the occupied countries who were manning the production lines in the Ruhr and Saar munition factories, thus freeing manpower for the armed services. Every male member of the population between the ages of 16 and 60 was forced into service in one form or another. Heinrich Himmler, Reichsführer SS and Minister of the Interior, was directed by Hitler to form and train a people’s militia (Volksturm), the equivalent of the British Home Guard. Himmler was also Chief of Police and Commander-in-Chief Home Army, thus controlling the military and police forces within the Reich. He was given the task of raising and training the Volksgrenadier (VGD) divisions. The usual German infantry division at full strength would have 17,000 men. The new VGD divisions would have a

strength of only 10,000 men. An American infantry division of 1944 would have about 14,500 men. To make up for lack of manpower the VGDs were issued with a much larger complement of automatic weapons, usually the Sturmgeweher MP-44 with a rate of fire (rpm) of 500 rounds per minute. Motorised rocket projector brigades of Nebelwerfers 42 and Panzerwerfer 42, with a range of up to 7,500 yards, supported the VGDs. Eight weeks of concentrated training produced results. A typical VGD would have two or three rifle regiments divided into two battalions of 700 men each, one motorised, the other marched. But they were lavishly equipped with machine pistols, plus mortars, machine guns and panzerfausts (hand-held anti-tank rockets). The Volks artillery regiment had four battalions of 75mm, 105mm and 150mm field guns. Most of their supplies were by horse-drawn wagons.

Fig 3.2 Adolf Hitler and Dr Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda, confer in mid-1944 (KY 22044 IWM) Joseph Goebbels, the propaganda expert of the Third Reich and close friend of Hitler, was given the role of ‘General Plenipotentiary for the Mobilisation

of Total War ’. Unbelievably, 750,000 ‘new’ men under arms were now ‘called up’. Hitler had ordered the formation of eighteen new divisions in addition to the VGDs. Some 100 garrison and fortress infantry battalions used in rear areas were quickly transferred into replacements for front-line troops. Training regiments and schools of officer cadets were converted into operational units and despatched to the Siegfried Line. Garrison troops in Finland, Norway, Denmark, Holland the Balkans were hastily brought back for the defence of the Reich, plus several divisions from the Italian front. An unexpected bonus now appeared. Reichsmarschall Herman Goering revealed to the complete surprise of the OKH (German Army High Command) that he had six parachute regiments in various stages of training or re-equipping, plus two more to come from convalescent depots, making a formidable force of 20,000 troops. Moreover, he could add another 10,000 from the Luftwaffe air crews and ground staff whose operations had been cancelled due to shortage of petrol. These mainly young, ardent, loyal Nazis fought like demons in the battles still to come. They formed the nucleus of the First Parachute Army commanded by General Kurt Student, the Commander-in-Chief Paratroops. They were immediately ordered to close the gap in Northern Belgium by holding a front of 60 miles along the Albert canal from Antwerp to Maastricht. So no less than 25 VGDs were quickly formed plus six ‘new’ panzer divisions. The best VGDs were derived from AA, Luftwaffe, ex-naval personnel, coastguards or police. Less satisfactory were the reserved civilian occupations, the ‘stomach’ (Magen) and ‘deaf’ (Ohren) convalescent, even wounded, soldiers and the sweepings of the German prisons. There were many ‘pressed’ men or ‘volunteers’ from the east (Ost-Truppen), Poles, Czechs even Russians. Rather more dangerous were the ‘foreign’ SS battalions from Denmark, Belgium, Holland, France and Italy. Dangerous because, as renegades, they could expect little mercy in the battles to come. So Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels and Goering between them conjured up nearly threequarters of a million men to join the ranks of the Wehrmacht – a miracle indeed. There was another bonus. The Fifteenth German Army that had been guarding the Pas de Calais area against General Patton’s ‘phantom army’ had been fighting their way north along the coast. Since the Allied commanders had their eyes on Market Garden, General von Zangen, in a mini-Dunkirk, succeeded in extracting about 70,000 first-class troops who swelled the ranks of the Wehrmacht battle groups in Holland and Belgium. This was a major error by Field Marshal Montgomery and General Eisenhower, since they could

have been halted and captured. Another of Hitler ’s heroes was Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments and War Production, who had reorganised the German war industry in 1942–3. He was originally Hitler ’s personal architect and city planner and succeeded Dr Fritz Todt, Chief of the Organisation Todt, which built the Atlantic West Wall. His production miracles in the midst of heavy Allied bombing undoubtedly prolonged the course of the war. He juggled with the supplies of oil from Romania and Hungary, the output of synthetic refineries in the Reich, supplies of copper, nickel and bauxite. He juggled with the control of production in the Ruhr and Saar. In the autumn of 1944 280 PzKw Mark IV tanks, 370 PzKw V Panthers and about 120 of the formidable Tiger tanks rolled out of the factories. Hitler decreed that most of these AFVs should go to the six new panzer divisions. Since only 130 assault guns and tanks escaped from Normandy, the situation was dire. However, SP assault guns were now being made in Czechoslovakia in considerable quantities. In September 3,031 singleengine Luftwaffe fighter planes were produced – an all-time record – but most were grounded due to severe POL rationing! In four critical months a record 1.25 million tons of ammunition were manufactured. Production of rifles, machine guns, mortars and heavy artillery pieces were still at a very high level. Speer had produced the second miracle for his Führer. On 16 September ULTRA in Bletchley Park deciphered a grim order from the Commander-in-Chief Field Marshal von Rundstedt, who emphasised that ‘the fight on German soil must increase German fanaticism. Every pillbox, block of houses or village to be defended until the Allies bled to death or the garrison are dead. Only task to hold positions or be annihilated. Commanders to ensure that this fanaticism continually increased in troops and civilians. Anyone, officer or men, apathetic and unaware of decisive responsibility of the hour and who did not carry out tasks with complete disregard for his life to be removed and proceedings taken. All authorities to ensure, by comprehensive and draconian methods, that the will to resist in the troops was re-established and maintained.’

chapter 4

The Allied generals at war

T

here have been several biographies of each of the four key and very distinguished Allied leaders, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley and Patton. The most perceptive biography of General Dwight D Eisenhower is by Carlo D’Este, a distinguished American Colonel and historian whose biography of Patton is also to be recommended. Known to the world as ‘Ike’, Eisenhower was never a battlefield commander. In World War One he was a staff officer, then spent six years as special assistant to the American Assistant Secretary of War and then to the Chief of Staff of the US Army. Four years followed as Chief of Staff to General MacArthur in the Philippines. His only regimental duty was to command an infantry regiment in training. His friend at court, the powerful General George Marshall, Chief of Staff in Washington, sent Ike to command the American forces assembled in Britain preparing for Operation Overlord. His intimate knowledge of military political problems at the highest level commended him to all the senior Allied politicians. Rather surprisingly he was appointed Commander-in-Chief for Operation Torch, the invasion of French North Africa. Chester Wilmot wrote, ‘North Africa was the proving ground for Eisenhower ’s conviction that it would be possible to create a closely knit Anglo-American command organisation inspired by a spirit of unity and common purpose which would over-ride international prejudices and inter-service rivalries. Universally trusted, he evoked spontaneous affection, respect, loyalty from political and military leaders alike, from the people of America and Britain and from their troops in the field.’ Ike became the most successful commander of allied forces in the history of

war. At the Teheran Conference in 1943 he was selected to command the Allied Expeditionary Force for the Invasion of Europe. In Torch, with no experience of battle or of high command and beset by political problems with the French warring tribes, he was eventually successful. However, General Patton ‘bailed him out’ after the Kasserine Pass debacle and General Montgomery completed the North African campaign when a quarter of a million Germans and Italians surrendered at Tunis. Ike’s main dictum was ‘If I can keep the team [of Allied generals] together, anything’s worth it.’ Indeed, as Supreme Commander Ike’s philosophy was to suggest, not order, his policies to his ‘team’ of Montgomery, Bradley and Patton and delegate completely thereafter. His martial philosophy was simple – just keep attacking and never give up any ground. All the American generals subscribed to this policy. Ike was also a very impatient commander with a resulting bad temper. In the autumn of 1944 General Dwight Eisenhower commanded five armies, the First Canadian and Second British (under Montgomery, promoted to Field Marshal on 1 September) and the Twelfth US Army Group (commanded by General Omar Bradley), comprising the US First, Third and Ninth Armies and shortly to be joined by the Seventh US and First French armies. Eisenhower ’s HQ at SHAEF did tend to be cumbersome and sited a long way back from the battlefields! General Bernard Montgomery was the most professional battlefield commander in the ranks of Allied commanders in Europe. His experience in the Great War, with the BEF in France, North Africa, Sicily, southern Italy and in Normandy, was without equal. He was the master of the totally planned battle, usually with attritional artillery, tank and air support. He was prepared to be patient, as he was during the ten-day battle of Alamein and the ten-week campaigning in Normandy (Epsom, Jupiter, Goodwood, Bluecoat, Totalise). He kept his nerve when SHAEF were losing theirs, and when the British and American press were calling for his head. Even Churchill had his moments of doubt. Montgomery, or ‘Monty’ to his troops, was immensely popular with the rank and file. They knew he had never lost a battle and really tried to minimise casualties. He also knew that in the early autumn of 1944 the manpower reserves of front-line infantry was beginning to run dry. The American generals detested him and made no secret of it. Eisenhower tolerated him and certainly respected his battlefield experience. In his memoirs Eisenhower indicated that Montgomery’s policy in Normandy of his 21st Army Group deliberately attracting the German panzer forces on to the British and Canadian front (not on to the American front) was

the correct solution.

Fig 4.1 The Allied generals: Eisenhower (centre), Montgomery (right), Bradley (top left). Bedell Smith (top right); British Airmarshals Arthur Tedder (bottom left), Leigh-Mallory and Admiral Ramsay (NYT 13625 IWM) Montgomery had friends at court. Certainly Alan Brooke, the Chief of General Staff, was the only person who could ‘control’ Monty, who was arrogant, tactless, vain and difficult. Churchill knew that Montgomery had changed the fortunes of the country after his great victories in North Africa. Nevertheless, Churchill once said of Monty that ‘he was indomitable in retreat; invincible in a advance; insufferable in victory!’ Montgomery also had two secret weapons that ULTRA at Bletchley Park had given him on a plate: General Rommel’s plans before Alam Halfa and El Alamein, and thereafter in Sicily, Italy and Normandy. Monty made extremely good, intelligent use of ULTRA, probably more so than the American generals. He maintained his special team – his Knights of the Round Table. These were a dedicated team of a dozen or so young, highly intelligent and remarkably brave officers, either

majors or captains who were despatched on a daily basis (often driving through the night) to the front lines and, above all, to the front-line commanders. Their task was to ‘read the battle’ by seeing for themselves what was happening. They talked to regimental commanders, perhaps even at a lower level, to identify the real situation. In the fog of war, when communications break down or the traditional report lines have been ‘watered down’ by mistake, or sometimes deliberately, Monty knew by dawn exactly which way the battle was going. These well-trained ‘gallopers’, his Phantoms, often died or were wounded in their quest for the battlefield news. Those who survived were always decorated appropriately. General Omar Bradley’s home-spun, soft-spoken kindliness inspired devotion and he rose swiftly to prominence in World War Two, initially as Patton’s deputy in Operation Torch in North Africa. Although Bradley had been at West Point with Eisenhower, their relationship was not close. Bradley criticised Eisenhower: ‘Ike was too weak, much too prone to knuckle under the British, often at our expense’ or ‘Ike’s African record clearly demonstrates that he did not know how to manage a battlefield.’ Bradley’s opening campaign in the Cotentin peninsula to seize the port of Cherbourg went slowly because he futilely insisted in the true Fort Leavenworth (US Army Service School) formula of attacking all the time on a very broad front. Then, when the closing of the Falaise–Argentan gap was a military possibility, Bradley instantly halted Major General Haislip’s XV Corps (part of General Patton’s Third Army) at Argentan. It was obvious to Montgomery and Patton that it was a terrible decision and allowed significant numbers of experienced Wehrmacht to escape. Bradley had boasted to the visiting Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthal, ‘an opportunity that comes to a commander not more than once in a century. We’re about to destroy an entire hostile army. We’ll go all the way from here to the German border.’ In fact, because of this blunder by Bradley, Field Marshal Walther Model wrote that ‘Five decimated panzer and the remains of eleven infantry divisions allowed us to regroup four units’ from the approximate 30,000 Wehrmacht who escaped. Three months later Bradley’s XII Army Group fought, in his own words, ‘a ghastly war of attrition’ of bloody infantry battles to capture Metz, Aachen and the Lorraine campaign. The most brutal battle of all was fought in the frigid, dense Hürtgen Forest, which lay astride the route to the Roer dams. During Patton and Hodges’ attempts to crack the West Wall, eight American divisions were torn apart with 57,000 combat losses and 70,000 to exposure and trench feet. The American historian Carlo D’Este described it thus: ‘the Allies were left with a hollow victory in what was undoubtedly the most ineptly fought series of battles of the

war in the west.’

Fig 4.2 Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, GOC US 12th Army Group (FRA 200371 IWM) Montgomery wanted above all else to keep control of all Allied Forces in Europe, not for personal ambition but because he genuinely and passionately believed that a ‘quick’ victory depended on a single ground commander. At the time, Bradley said of Montgomery, ‘At no time did he probe into First Army with the indulgent manner he sometimes displayed among those subordinates who were his countrymen. I could not have wanted a more tolerant or judicious commander. Not once did he confront us with an arbitrary directive and not once did he reject any plan that we had devised.’ Montgomery genuinely tried very hard to be tactful, but sometimes his natural arrogance and expertise came over as patronising. Bradley’s comments above were made shortly after the Normandy campaign. They were to be very different during Wacht am Rhein. General Patton disdained Bradley’s generalship as ‘insufferably cautious, predictable and orthodox’, as it undoubtedly was! There was no love lost between Bradley and Patton personally and professionally. Patton was apparently a good friend of Eisenhower but thought nothing of him as a field commander. Patton, a swashbuckling aristocrat, egotistical, bombastic and frequently reckless, was, nevertheless, a brilliant armoured formation commander. Five years older than Eisenhower or Bradley, he had infinitely more combat experience – and knew it! He was a showman with his ‘horse-soldier ’ tailored green jackets, fancy leather belt and boots and pearlhandled pistols. He won his spurs in Torch, did brilliantly in Sicily and his armoured breakout after Cobra into Brittany and his charge towards Paris and the Somme were superb. The German generals rated Patton as the best Allied armoured commander. He was extremely popular with his own troops and led from the front like a cavalry general should. Nevertheless, he was cordially disliked by Bradley and his staff. Ike found him to be a ‘loose cannon’ and difficult to control. When Patton misbehaved in Sicily by slapping wounded ‘shirkers’ in hospital, Ike protected him. Patton had a formidable temper, swore frequently and detested the British and specifically Montgomery, who didn’t even notice! Adolf Hitler was kept informed about the Allied war of the generals!

chapter 5

Hitler’s great counteroffensive plans

H

itler firmly believed that any coalition which consisted of such disparate traditions and political objectives such as Russia, the USA, the British Empire (as he regarded the UK plus the dominions, each with their agenda and priorities) and France must inevitably ‘be brought down with a crash’. He felt sure he could conclude armistice terms with the Western Allies, then turn his attention wholeheartedly to the Russian front and eventually force Josef Stalin to sue for peace. The Third Reich would be reasonably intact, although her European gains (France, Belgium, probably Holland and Italy) would have to be conceded. Moreover, his intelligence reports told him of friction in high places, with Allied generals at war with each other, and the free-spirited English language press on both sides of the Atlantic criticising their political leadership. Divide and conquer has been the oldest, most successful, ploy since time began. It was obvious to Hitler and his senior commanders that a possible major counter-offensive on the Eastern Front would achieve little against the hordes of the Red Army. But a decisive operation to regain Antwerp and surround or divide the British and Canadian armies (and an American one as a bonus) was a very convincing scenario. Another ‘Dunkirk’ would force Churchill to negotiate peace talks, which might then dissuade President Roosevelt from continuing the conflict. Winston Churchill thought that the sensible policy for the Germans would be to withdraw all their forces behind the West Wall

(Siegfried Line), with the great Rhine barrier as the second line of defence. To break through both barriers would probably cause the Allies unacceptable losses. He knew that the American armies battling in and around Aachen, the Vosges and the Hürtgen Forest were taking heavy losses. He may have guessed that in the autumn of 1944, General Eisenhower and Churchill were increasingly worried about their righting manpower situation. General Alfred Jodl, Chief of OKW operations, was ‘also convinced that the Russians had so many troops on the Eastern Front, that even if Hitler ’s secret build-up of forces was successful in destroying thirty Russian divisions, it would have made no difference to the final outcome. On the other hand the loss of thirty divisions to the Allies on the Western Front – perhaps half of their invasion army – would be destroyed or surrounded. Then they must sue for peace.’ At a Führer Conference on 1 September, Hitler uttered some prophetic words. He would halt the Allied advance at the West Wall, on the Moselle and in the Vosges. The coming winter would provide (translated) ‘fog, night and snow’ and it would be a ‘great opportunity’. At a meeting of the Wehrmacht Führungsstab – the daily briefing meeting in the Wolfschanze – in early September with Alfred Jodl and his aide Major Herbert Buchs, a passing reference was made to the Ardennes. This wellforested region of Belgium and Luxembourg was where the Allied line was probably at its weakest with only four or five American divisions holding the whole large area. Hitler at once latched on to this point. Successive meetings on the 16th and 25th were dominated by Hitler ’s thoughts and initial plans. The Schwerpunkt (main effort) for a massive drive to seize bridgeheads over the river Meuse and thrust for Antwerp would be made by four SS panzer divisions of the Sixth Panzer Army. Hitler thus demonstrated his faith and loyalty in the SS, still largely made up of volunteers. It was also a sign to the Wehrmacht, whose officers had tried to kill him in the July Putsch, that he did not entirely trust them to do his bidding! The trusted Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt would be the titular head of Hitler ’s grand counter-attack. There would be three armies striking in parallel under the Army Group B, under the command of Hitler ’s current favourite, Field Marshal Walther Model. The Sixth SS Panzer Army – the spearhead – would be commanded by Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, one of Hitler ’s oldest comrades. He was an expert on armoured warfare, a tough, rough, ex-butcher, fearless and loyal but vastly overpromoted. Goering said that ‘he could command a division, that was his limit.’ His able Chief of Staff, Major General Fritz Kraemer, would tell Dietrich what

to do! The Waffen SS had now made up to strength the 1st SS ‘Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler ’ division, the 2nd SS ‘Das Reich’ division, the 9th SS ‘Hohenstaufen’ division and 12th SS ‘Hitler Jugend’ division.

Fig 5.1 Adolf Hitler invests General der Waffen SS ‘Sepp’ Dietrich with the Oak Leaves to Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. Dietrich commanded the 6th SS Panzer Army In Ardennes (HU 40125 IWM)

Fig 5.2 General Field Marshal Walther Model, the ‘Führer ’s Fireman’, GOC German Army Group B (MH 12850 IWM) The Fifth Panzer Army would be commanded by another of Hitler ’s favourites, General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel, a short,

energetic, dashing, brave cavalry officer, a Prussian who would speak his mind to the Führer, a well-trusted commander brought from the Eastern Front. The main strike force comprised 2nd Panzer, 9th Panzer, 130th Panzer Lehr (a brilliant performance in Normandy) and 116 Greyhound Panzer. The Seventh Army, mainly composed of infantry divisions under General der Panzertruppen Erich Brandenberger, would protect the south flank of the attack. Brandenberger was an able general whose main experience was of armoured warfare; bespectacled, bejowled and with a donnish aspect he was, nevertheless, a respected commander. He had six VGD divisions, plus 15th Panzer Grenadier and 5th Parachute divisions, but no armour. The new VGD divisions were to go into action for the first time as units – 12th, 18th, 26th, 62nd, 79th, 167th, 212th, 246th, 272nd, 276th, 277th, 326th, 340th, 352nd and 560th. On 8 October Jodl prepared a draft plan for the Ardennes offensive with a force of 32 divisions (twelve panzer or panzer grenadiers, two parachute and eighteen infantry). In addition, there were to be five motorised AA regiments, twelve artillery corps and ten rocket projector brigades, plus appropriate engineer and signal battalions. The Luftwaffe would provide about 1,500 planes including 100 of the new jets. On the morning of 22 October von Rundstedt and Model were ordered to send their Chiefs of Staff, General der Kavelleri Siegfried Westphal and General der Infanterie Hans Krebs, to their Führer ’s Wolfschanze, where the Wacht am Rhein plan was unveiled by Hitler. It is now interesting to understand what some of his trusted generals thought of (and later spoke of) their Führer ’s abilities. Colonel General Guderian wrote, ‘Hitler was convinced that he alone knew what to do. He shut himself up in his bunker, engaged in no further private talks and ordered every word he uttered to be recorded. He lost himself more and more in a world of theories which had no basis in reality! He studied maps for hours on end. He had a formidable memory. He knew all the vital data of his war machines – on land, in the air or under the sea.’ The young von Manteuffel, who had commanded the Gross Deutschland division so ably that Hitler frequently summoned him to the Wolf’s Lair to discuss emergency missions and consult him on armoured warfare problems, wrote: Hitler had a magnetic, indeed hypnotic personality. For my part, having come to know Hitler well, I had learnt how to keep him to the point and maintain my

own argument. Hitler had read a lot of military literature and was also fond of listening to military lectures. Coupled with his personal knowledge of the last war as an ordinary soldier [corporal], he had gained a very good knowledge of the lower level of warfare – the properties of the different weapons, the effect of ground and weather; the mentality and morale of troops. On the other hand he had no idea of the higher strategic and tactical combinations. He had a good grasp of how a single division moved and fought, but he did not understand how armies operated. He had a real flair for strategy and tactics, especially for surprise moves. Hitler would rarely listen to the arguments of the older generals, whom he distrusted, but he had a very different attitude towards newer men and ideas. He loved revolutionary ideas. Unfortunately he insisted that all land gains in a battle must be held whatever the consequences. Long after his plans had miscarried Hitler insisted on pursuing the attack. He forbade any timely withdrawal. [During the autumn of 1944 the Wehrmacht was suffering about 10,000 casualties per month.] The plan for the Ardennes offensive was drawn up completely by OKW [Ober Kommando der Wehrmacht] under General Wilhelm Keitel and sent to us as a cut and dried ‘Führer Order’. The object defined was to achieve a decisive victory in the West by throwing in two Panzer armies – the 6th under Dietrich and the 5th under me. The 6th was to strike NE, cross the Meuse between Liège and Huy and drive for Antwerp. It had the main role and main strength. My army was to advance along a more curving line, cross the Meuse between Namur and Dinant and push towards Brussels to cover the flank. On the third or fourth day the 15th Army [originally from Pas de Calais, now renamed the 7th Army] using the specially reinforced 12th SS Corps under General Blumentritt was to make a converging thrust from the NE towards the Meuse at Maastricht to assist the 6th Panzer Army’s drive on Antwerp. The Führer’s idea was that the Ardennes offensive would by then have drawn off a large part of the reserves to the help of the Americans, so that this secondary strike, though lighter, should have a chance of success. The aim of the whole offensive was by cutting off the British Army from its bases of supply to force it to evacuate the Continent. Hitler certainly remembered with great pride the Panzer Blitzkrieg of May 1940 when his Army Group A, under von Rundstedt and with ten tank divisions, swept through the deeply wooded Ardennes valleys. At Bastogne on 17 May 1940 at von Runstedt’s HQ, he declared in that moment of victory, ‘all the world hearkens’. Although certainly not ideal tank country it had served him well then; now why not again, four years later?

When Field Marshal von Rundstedt was shown the plan on 24 October he said (after the war to Basil Liddell Hart), ‘I was staggered. Hitler had not consulted me about its possibilities. It was obvious to me that the available forces were far too small for such an extremely ambitious plan. Model took the same view of it as I did. In fact, no soldier believed that the aim of reaching Antwerp was really practicable. But I knew by now it was useless to protest to Hitler about the possibility of anything. After consultation with Model and Manteuffel I felt that the only hope was to wean Hitler from this fantastic aim by putting forward an alternative proposal that might appeal to him, and would be more practicable. This was for a limited offensive with the aim of pinching off the Allies’ salient around Aachen.’ Manteuffel recognised that the strategic dispositions were faulty, the flanks would need to be buttressed. The ammunition supplies were inadequate. The Allied air superiority would be too great a handicap. Moreover, strong Allied reinforcements, including Airborne divisions, were available back in the UK. The good network of roads north of the river Meuse would facilitate the Allied counter-attacks.

Dietrich’s Waffen SS Schwerpunkt Before the war, Hitler ’s elite Praetorian Guard, the Schutzstaffel, had been the equivalent, with three divisions, to a state military police force. Hitler was paranoid and saw conspiracies everywhere. He distrusted most of his generals. He halved the operating power of OKW (Supreme Command of the Armed Forces) and OKH (which directed the Wehrmacht in its day-today operations on all fronts). In 1941 OKH confined itself to the Russian Front, and OKW to all other theatres. The only co-ordinating link between OKH and OKW was Hitler and his own small personal staff. To try to avoid an army putsch against him, he encouraged Goering and Himmler to create, in effect, private armies. Only in the Waffen SS, the armed SS, did Hitler have any real confidence in their personal loyalty to him. Their strength from 1941 was rapidly increased to more than 30 elite divisions. In the Normandy campaign, when apparently the Wehrmacht were failing to get the upper hand, Hitler ordered Field Marshal Rommel to launch a formidable series of counter-attacks and four SS divisions were brought in, the 9th and 10th from Poland, the 1st from Belgium, the 2nd in reserve at St Lo. Maintaining remorseless pressure on land and in the air, Montgomery and Bradley, commanded by Eisenhower, gradually wore them down and

surrounded them in the Falaise–Argentan ‘gap’ and corridor. Each of the four SS divisions was reduced to a few hundred men with rarely more than a dozen panzer tanks. Nevertheless they were reformed, usually with the same commanders, and were now grouped together under the rather stupid and brutal ‘Sepp’ Dietrich. Their very names indicate their loyalty to the Führer. The 1st was the ‘Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler ’, the bodyguard of Adolf Hitler. The 2nd was ‘Das Reich’ and its two PzGr regiments were the ‘Deutschland’ and ‘Der Fuehrer ’. The 9th was the ‘Hohenstauffen’ and the 12th was the ‘Hitler Jugend’, composed of 17-year-old Titans who fought superbly in Normandy, and of course died there. Only 300 with ten tanks survived! General Dietrich was given the honour of capturing Antwerp, and von Manteuffel of capturing Brussels via Namur. The easiest route into the Ardennes was through the Losheim Gap, which was allocated to the Fifth Panzer Army, which, not surprisingly, eventually got closest to the river Meuse bridges. Even the Fuhrer ’s old comrade SS Oberst Gruppenfuhrer Sepp Dietrich was sceptical: ‘All Hitler wants me to do is to cross a river, capture Brussels and then to go on and take Antwerp! And all this in the worst time of the year through the Ardennes where the snow is waist deep and there isn’t room to deploy four tanks abreast, let alone several panzer divisions. Where it doesn’t get light until eight and its dark again at four and with reformed divisions made up of kids and sick old men – and at Christmas!’ Later, von Rundstedt noted, ‘Antwerp? If we reach the Meuse we should go down on our knees and thank God – let alone trying to reach Antwerp.’ On 4 November a modified plan, rather a sensible one, was sent to OKW [Ober Kommando der Wehrmacht] for submission to Hitler, with the proviso that any plan on this scale could not be launched before 10 December. The Rundstedt plan was for the 15th Army (now 7th Army) to deliver an attack north of Aachen towards Maastricht. The 6th SS Panzer Army would attack south of Aachen with the aim of establishing a bridge over the river Meuse in the Liège area. Then the 5th Panzer Army would strike from the Eifel plateau of high broken forest near Monschau, towards Namur. If the opposition showed signs of collapse, then exploit towards Antwerp. Predictably the Führer overruled his generals. Alan Moorehead, writing in Eclipse, thought the Rundstedt plan was one of the most imaginative and daring proposals of the war. Eisenhower ’s armies would be cut in half. Four Allied armies would be bottled up in Holland and Belgium. With Antwerp taken there would be no escape route to the sea: ‘Once

negative the western front and Germany might have good chances of holding off the Russians for another winter. And then with the summer – the V1 and V2, the rocket and the jet-propelled fighters in mass production. Their prefabricated U-boat in mass production. Yes, anything might happen if the Reich got through intact to the summer of 1945. They might even propose a separate peace to Russia. Hitler might say to Moscow, “look, you see the Allied position in the west is hopeless, let us come to an agreement and finish the war”.’ Hitler, since he became Chancellor in January 1933, had taken enormous risks and practically all his gambles had succeeded. He had conquered Europe more or less as he said he would in Mein Kampf. Stalingrad, Tunis and the eventual debacle in Normandy were major setbacks. With the enormous manpower of the Third Reich and his millions of slave workers, allied to his astonishing control of Germany, his plans for probably the largest single battle of World War Two would be his final gamble.

chapter 6

Hitler’s brilliant deception plans

T

here is no evidence of any kind that Hitler or his senior commanders were aware that Bletchley Park’s ULTRA organisation had been ‘reading’ the majority of German wireless messages, using special encoding Enigma machines, for several years. Nevertheless, he suspected after the botched July assassination plot that there were ‘traitors’, even ‘spies’, in the ranks of the Wehrmacht (not of course in the SS) and Luftwaffe. He might have realised how the Allied Operation Fortitude had been so successful in early 1944. General Patton’s ‘phantom army’ in SE England, with its many radio messages and bogus ‘activities’ had caused Hitler ’s generals to place, and keep placed, their 15th Army in the Pas de Calais where the main invasion assault must logically come. Fortitude was a brilliant deceptive plan. First of all, various operational names must be devised and leaked to mislead the Allies as to the whereabouts of Hitler ’s next attack. Better still, it should indicate that it was a defensive plan! Abwehrschlacht Im Westen (Defensive battle in the West) was ideal. Then muddy the waters a bit with Christrose. Next came the best of all, Wacht am Rhein, which was both ‘defensive’ and vague, as the mighty Rhine is a very long waterway! Next was Herbstnebel (Autumn Mist), which was vague in several ways, since Null-Tag or D-Day was fixed for 16 December or midwinter. Hitler had always planned for this secret operation to take place when the weakness of the Luftwaffe and the strength of the Allied airforces would be nullified. Meteorological records

showed the maximum probability of low cloud, rain, fog and snow – thus grounding the dreaded Jabos (Thunderbolts and Typhoon fighter-bombers). They had helped destroy his panzers in Normandy where they had ruled the skies. Of course, the choice of the Ardennes for Wacht am Rhein was brilliant, provided the weather was as predicted and his two huge panzer armies achieved what he ordered! Nearly all the American and British commanders believed that the Ardennes was a most unlikely choice for a major offensive. The terrain was very heavily wooded, with many small rivers running north to south across the path of invaders moving mainly east to west. The few roads were poor in quality and wound up and down through valleys and defiles. There were two key features. The Schnee-Eifel became a trap for one green American division but the Elsenborn ridge became a key defensive area in the battle to come. Marshal Foch, the Supreme Allied Commander in the Great War, called the Ardennes ‘an impenetrable massif’, and one of Foch’s generals, Charles Lanzerac, stated, ‘If you go into that death-trap of the Ardennes, you will never come out.’ Every operational order sent out by the OKH had to be preceded by the words (translated) ‘in preparation for the anticipated enemy offensive …’ No messages concerning the counter-offensive could be sent by wireless, telegraph or telephone. All orders had to be delivered by officer-couriers, by plane or car or train, heavily chaperoned by the Gestapo! No one was to be told more than he needed to know sooner than he needed to know it. Then he had to sign a pledge of secrecy ‘on pain of death’. The whole operation was planned in detail without reference to the High Command of the Army (OKH), such was Hitler ’s obsession with treachery! Instead he told the Combined Forces High Command (OKW), and specifically Generaloberst Jodl, to prepare the plans in the Führer ’s own HQ without reference to the key commanders involved. Jodl’s assistants were Major IG Buchs and Major Percy Schramm, keeper of the OKW war diary. Field Marshal von Rundstedt, out of ‘retirement’, was Hitler ’s perfect choice. Old, reliable, orthodox, uninspired competence … he was the most unlikely choice to lead a sudden, dynamic, smash-and-grab panzer assault! One of the unsung heroes of Operation Christrose was General Rudolf Gercke, Wehrmacht Chief of Transportation. From 17 September onwards he had reorganised every part of Germany’s rail and road systems. This in the face of thousand-bomber raids which laid waste to the Third Reich during 1944. He was ordered to transport 250,000 men with several thousand AFVs and huge quantities of POL into assembly areas east of the West Wall defences,

for three huge, complex armies involved. Gercke had to make a complete overhaul of the Reichsbahn (German state railways). Emergency systems, schedules and controls were set up. Priority was given to the crossings of the river Rhine. Bridge piers and pillars had to be reinforced, tracks laid on road bridges to carry locomotives and 60-ton Tiger tanks. Ferries had to be modified to carry very heavy loads. If the Allies bombed the bridges, replacement heavy spans were constructed and then concealed along the Rhine to repair the damages. Supply depots and dumps were prepared east of the Rhine. Trains were armoured to protect their crews. Light flak AA guns were mounted on trains to try to protect them from the Jabos. Most movements were to be made at night. Absolute secrecy was essential and no radio, telephones or teletype messages were allowed. Nevertheless, ULTRA broke the Reichsbahn Enigma codes! Gercke produced miracles. From 9 September to 15 December the main concentration area received 1,500 troop trains and about 500 supply trains. Hitler allocated 100 ammunition trains from his own special reserve to strengthen Wacht am Rhein. Oberquartermeister Generalmajor Alfred Toppe was responsible for the supply ‘miracle’. No less than 145,000 tons of supplies had been unloaded from the Eifel rail system in the same period. But only 2 million gallons of fuel had been delivered to the Eifel assembly area in the same period. Eventually a total of over 3 million gallons were delivered to the three armies out of the estimated 4.5 million gallons of fuel needed for the whole operation. It was ironic that a huge American fuel depot of 2.5 million gallons at Francorchamps, near Stavelot, was ‘missed’ by a marauding panzer column, although another at Bullingen was captured. In the event, Allied bombing made 125 breaks in the railway lines feeding into the concentration areas of which 60 were in the key Eifel area, mainly leading from Koblenz and Cologne. All were swiftly and efficiently repaired. Many guns and smaller vehicles were towed by horses to cut down engine noise! Hitler ordered General Jodl’s much despised Chief of Staff Wilhelm Keitel to supervise the immensely difficult administrative task of moving up the three armies secretly to their new attack positions. In fact Allied intelligence had lost track altogether of the Sixth SS Panzer Army! Keitel was also instructed to release a general order to be deliberately picked up by the Allies, addressed to all German commanders on the west front and declaring that no counter-attack was possible at that time, that strategic reserves must be deployed in the imminent defence of the Fatherland. An apparently sensible and logical policy! Various bogus headquarters were set up to cause confusion – probably to

friend and foe! A new ‘Gruppe von Manteuffel’ was apparently the ‘old’ Fifteenth Army HQ. Another bogus HQ was set up for the Twenty-Fifth Army with appropriate false radio traffic. Von Manteuffel’s genuine command was called Feldjager Kommando zbv (Military Police Command for Special Assignment). A ‘new’ Army Group H assumed control of the front in the Netherlands, leaving Model responsible for the Aachen sector, which included the Ardennes-Eifel area. Hitler refused to allow reconnaissance of the target battleground until the very last moment. The Sixth SS Panzer Army was moved into the Cologne area to defend against a presumed American offensive. Signals were deliberately bungled for the benefit of Allied intelligence. The real move of 35 miles south was made secretly at night three days before Null-Tag. Signals were also leaked, deliberately indicating severe shortages of POL and thus diminishing the likelihood of an attack. Hitler also ordered that the seven crack armoured divisions (four Waffen SS and three panzer) be secretly re-equipped with brand new tanks including giant Tigers. Manteuffel received four hundred new Panther and Mark IV tanks for his panzer brigades. The Allied commanders were also confused by the arrival on the Western Front of the Volksturm (in effect, Dad’s Army!) and the many new Volksgrenadier (People’s Infantry) divisions. There is evidence that Eisenhower and Bradley were confused by the news of the Volks formations. There were many more deceptive surprises to come and Operations Greif (Snatch), Stösser (Thrust), Bodenplatte (Baseplate) and Nordwind (North Wind) are covered in forthcoming chapters. Two more diversionary operations were planned: on D+3 an attack from the lower Roer to retake Maastricht and prevent the movement of American reserves from the Aachen salient; and on D+10 an attack from northern Holland to recapture Breda and keep the British Army in play. Generals Model, Dietrich, von Manteuffel and many other senior German commanders were briefed on Wacht am Rhein by the Führer himself at the Adlerhorst, the medieval castle of Ziegenberg, near Bad Nauheim on 11 December. Model’s ADC, Oberst Hubert Meyer, described the meeting: ‘Hitler went far back into history before getting to the Ardennes offensive itself. He spoke without notes, without moving his hands and was easy to understand. He was able to describe the object of the operation – splitting the American and English forces through a lightning advance … the destruction of the English armies in an encirclement battle west of Aachen, in a vivid and convincing manner … He said in closing: “Gentlemen, if our breakthrough via Liège to

Antwerp is not successful, we will be approaching an end to the war which will be extremely bloody. Time is not working for us, but against us. This is really the last opportunity to turn the fate of this war in our favour”.’ Brandenberger, Bittrich and the senior commanders responsible for the second wave of the offensive received a similar briefing the following day. For an ill, ageing and mildly desperate military dictator it was a brilliant package of deceptive intentions.

chapter 7

Hitler’s deceptions: Stösser and Greif

F

ield Marshal Model first suggested a parachute jump near Krinkelt on the eastern edge of Elsenborn ridge to hold key road junctions and high ground ahead of Sepp Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army’s planned attack. Adolph Hitler hijacked the Model plan as his own idea, and altered the dropping zone to the Hohes Venn. This flat marshy tableland lies between Monschau and Malmédy and Eupen-Spa, some 15 miles behind the American lines. The original operation codename therefore was ‘Hohes Venn’ and then became Stösser (Thrust). As late as 8 December Hitler gave the order to General Student, who not only commanded the German Parachute Corps but also Army Group H, now brilliantly defending the Dutch Canal and river lines. Student pointed out to the Führer that his troops were only 50 miles from the key objective of Antwerp: ‘Give me ten infantry and four panzer divisions and I guarantee to take Antwerp.’ And he probably would have done with that force! Student still had a force of 35,000 ‘parachutists’ but few had actually jumped since their horrific losses in the capture of Crete. Student was ordered to produce a battalion, 1,200 strong, ready to jump on an imminent mission. He chose Colonel Graf Friedrich von der Heydte, a professional soldier and veteran with his ‘storming Eagles’ in Crete, then Italy, and with his 6th Parachute regiment had caused the Americans in the Cherbourg Campaign and British/Canadians in the Scheldt clearance huge problems. Hitler then ordered commanders of all parachute regiments in II Para Corps to send a hundred of

their best soldiers to join the ‘Hohes Venn’ operation. In the event they were second-raters apart from 250 volunteers from von der Heydte’s own 6 Parachute division. The force was divided into four rifle companies and a heavy weapons company of twelve machine guns and four mortars, plus engineer and signals platoons. Operation Auk was the next codename allotted. ‘Never during my entire career with the Parachute Forces had I been in command of a unit with less fighting spirit,’ von der Heydte complained. ‘So I quickly replaced the men whose fighting spirit appeared lowest with trustworthy volunteers from the school units, many with no previous experience. Most of the officers had originally been part of the Luftwaffe ground forces or had served with antiaircraft or signal communications. In the last five days before the operation began many men had to be taught the most rudimentary elements of infantry combat and behaviour under fire. Pilot and crew training was still deficient. Most of the pilots and radio operators were young and many had just left [parachute] school. Some had not finished training. Two-thirds of the pilots did not hold the certificates required for flying a Junkers aircraft. The crews were not accustomed to formation flying. Most of the crews had no front-line experience. For more than half of them the operation would be their first flight over enemy territory [possible AA fire]. Moreover the pilots and jump-masters were not used to co-operating with each other.’ Von der Heydte was appalled when he aired these complaints with his new commander. Sepp Dietrich had been drinking heavily and told him at his HQ near Munstereifel that the parachute drop must be made at night, only a few hours before the ground attack started, in order to reduce the time for American defences to respond. When von der Heydte realised that the drop would be in a region of marshy swamps, moors and forests, Dietrich would not budge, nor would Model, nor would General der Fliegar ‘Peppo’ Schmidt. Von der Heydte later commented, ‘Sepp Dietrich gave the impression of an old NCO permanently addicted to alcohol. He had all the qualities of a first-class NCO of the old German Army. He was personally brave, tough and disciplined. He cared for his men as though they were children. He chastised them like a stern father. He was feared, respected and even loved. But he was certainly not a commander.’ The two agreed on a drop 11 kilometres north of the key road hub of Malmédy. Dietrich refused to allow patrols behind the US lines or aerial reconnaissance of the drop area. However, there could be support from a long-range artillery battery and an FOO equipped with radio would jump with Kampfgruppe (Battle Group) von der Heydte. ‘Don’t be

afraid,’ said Dietrich. ‘Be assured that I will meet you personally by 1700 hours on the first day of the attack.’ Model had also been told that the parachute drop at night over dangerous unknown territory would only have a 10 per cent chance of success. Model replied that the entire operation Wacht am Rhein had not more than a ten per cent chance of success! Nevertheless, von der Heydte did his best to reduce the odds against him. Three hundred ‘dummy’ paratroopers would be dropped haphazardly to create alarm. He checked that foreign labourers could not sabotage the parachutes. He worked out arrangements to guide the aircraft by Luftwaffe search lights from Paderborn marking and lighting the initial flight path. A guide plane – a pathfinder – from bomber command would lead the group to the drop zone and mark it with incendiaries. The planes would fly the final 50 kilometres with their wing light illuminated. On the morning of 15 December von der Heydte received his final orders scheduling the airdrop for between 0430 and 0500 hrs in the early dawn of Null Tag. By 8 p.m. that day the transport to take the airborne troops to Paderborn and Lippspringes airfields had not arrived, since no one had authorised fuel for the trucks! Stösser was delayed by 24 hours. By then the weather had deteriorated. Six metres per second is the highest wind speed permissible for a night drop into a wooded area. The local weather report said that a much higher wind velocity had to be expected above the target area. Von der Heydte was sure that Luftflotte West and General Major Peltz (GOC airforce fighter corps) had deceived him. Probably Hitler would have fired the commanders responsible if Stösser was further delayed. A priest blessed the aircraft. The paratroops boarded the 68 Junkers 52s and sang ‘Rot scheine die Sonne’ (‘The Sun Shines Red’). The task force jumped into a surface wind of 17 metres per second, triple the acceptable limit for experienced parachutists. The inexperienced jump-masters gave the order by clock time rather than by looking at the ground! Two hundred men jumped in the Bonn area or Holland 50 miles away. German and American AA shot down some of the planes. Eventually only 35 out of 68 planes dropped their parachutist cargo in the right place on the Hautes Fagnes. By 5 a.m. von der Heydte’s force totalled a platoon of 25. By 8 a.m. it had increased to 150 out of the 1,200 that had started. His only significant weapon was one medium mortar. The intrepid von der Heydte sent out 2- or 3-man reconnaissance patrols on the roads leading to Eupen, Malmédy and Verviers. By late afternoon of 17 December he had acquired a very significant picture of the enemy dispositions. But all the radios had been lost. His force expanded eventually to 300. For three days Heydte operated in this fashion, capturing 36

Americans in the process. Food and ammunition soon ran out, so he decided to try an action along the Eupen–Malmédy road. American patrols were spotted looking for the Stösser group and tanks also appeared. Von der Heydte said, ‘Faced with this situation and with the ever decreasing fighting strength of my hungry shivering men, I decided at noon on 20 December to disband the task force. I gave orders for the entire force to split up into groups of three and to strike out for the German lines to the east.’ Eventually about 100 of the original Hohes Venn force reached the Wehrmacht positions. Their leader tramped through forests and swamps, crossed the Roer river and reached Monschau, which should have been in German hands by then: ‘Completely exhausted mentally and physically I was taken prisoner by the Americans on the morning of 22 December.’ Only 300 out of the 870 paratroopers actually managed – without heavy weapons or radios – to form up in the Baraque Michel area, north of Malmédy. However, in some ways Stösser was a success. The widespread impression that there had been a considerable parachute operation. The 300 dummy paratroopers helped caused widespread concern with hundreds of men looking anxiously for dangerous non-existent paratroopers. Perhaps if von der Heyte had flown on the original evening, he could have assembled 80 per cent of his force with a working radio or two to send his information back. What if Monschau had been taken on Null-Tag? All imponderables. But the Graf was undoubtedly a gallant soldier.

Operation Greif (Gryphon/Snatch) Captain Otto Skorzeny, a young Austrian engineer, was a member of the ‘German Gymnastic Association’. He and his colleagues organised ‘defence units’, which were ordered into action when the Nazis marched into Austria. He was a big handsome man who looked, and was, fearless and indeed reckless. He joined the Waffen SS at the outbreak of war and fought in Yugoslavia and on the Russian Front. He won the Iron Cross and his unit got into sight of Moscow. After recovering from illness, the Waffen SS offered him a job in Section Six of the Secret Service, a unit specialising in espionage and sabotage. In July 1943 Hitler in his Wolf’s Lair personally briefed Skorzeny on a daring mission to rescue the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, who had been placed under arrest. Skorzeny led an SS Commando unit in gliders, which crashlanded amidst the rocks around the hotel in the Abruzzi mountains. He rescued

the Duce and personally conducted him to the Führer, who rewarded him with the German Cross in Gold and promoted him. He became one of Hitler ’s favourites when he and his men seized the citadel in Budapest and kidnapped Admiral Horthy to prevent Hungary’s defection. That earned him promotion to Obersturmbannführer (Lieutenant Colonel). Now Hitler involved him in Wacht am Rhein: ‘One of the most important tasks in this offensive will be entrusted to you and the units under your command.’ Skorzeny was to form a special brigade – 150 Panzer: ‘There are several bridges between the cities of Liège and Namur on the Meuse river and your commandos will capture one or more before they can be destroyed. I have decided that this can be accomplished faster and with lighter losses if your men wear American uniforms. The enemy has done us a great deal of damage by the use of our uniforms in various commando operations.’ Apparently the American capture of Aachen had been greatly helped by an American unit wearing German uniforms. ‘Moreover, small detachments in enemy uniforms can cause the greatest confusion among the enemy. They can give false orders and upset their communications, sending bodies of troops in the wrong direction.’ Skorzeny was told he had only five or six weeks to organise his forces for what Hitler called Operation Greif (Gryphon). He was promised no less than 3,300 troops, most of whom would have command of American/English language and idioms! He at once sought American uniforms, jeeps and other vehicles including Sherman tanks. Immediately Skorzeny recognised that under the ‘rules of war ’ (the Hague Regulations of 1907) anyone under his command who was captured wearing an American uniform would face a firing squad. This possibility engendered much discussion with Field Marshals von Rundstet and Alfred Jodl. Hitler himself said that ‘if forced to fight in combat, the commando troops should instantly cast off their American uniforms!’ Skorzeny was also deeply angered when OKW (Army High Command) sent a message to all units of the Wehrmacht: ‘Report until 10 October, all Englishspeaking officers and soldiers available for special missions. These are to be directed to Friedenthal [Skorzeny’s training base] near Berlin, in view of their incorporation into the commando units of Lieutenant Colonel Skorzeny.’ General Fegelein, Hitler ’s brother-in-law, advised the apoplectic Skorzeny that ‘The business is, after all, incredible and incomprehensible, but that is only one more reason for you not to speak to the Führer about it. Consequently it is impossible to cancel your mission.’ ULTRA at Bletchley Park had indeed intercepted a message about the need for English-speaking troops. The German 86 Korps sent such a message out on 30 October.

Fig 7.1 Oberst Otto Skorzeny, a Führer favourite, OC 150 Panzer brigade in Operation Greif (HU 46178 IWM) Skorzeny had been ordered by Hitler to secure the crossings over the river Meuse. He was a burly, brutal giant of a man who as an SS Oberst had directed

secret agents in foreign and neutral countries. He was by any standards a swashbuckling, bold adventurer! Eventually he had acquired about 50 ‘recruits’ who could speak reasonable English/American and a further 350 who could understand and possibly get by! Twelve Panther tanks were disguised with wood and canvas to resemble Shermans. Also four American scout cars, thirty jeeps and fifteen American Ford trucks were acquired. The deficiencies were made up by German vehicles painted in American green. Also US-type olive-drab combat jackets were found, but all had brightly coloured PoW patches on the back! Skorzeny planned to launch three separate battle groups, each aimed at one of the Meuse bridges to be captured within 24 hours and held until the advancing panzers caught up with them. Very ambitious but perhaps possible. Skorzeny had pointed out that his brigade of three main battlegroups assigned to follow Sepp Dietrich’s armoured columns could only succeed if Sixth SS Panzer Army achieved their first-day objectives. The US 99th Infantry Division had to be brushed aside for Greif troops to dash for the bridges, hold and retain until the main forces came up to consolidate. Their secondary tasks were sabotage, cut telephone lines, blow up ammunition dumps, increase panic and spread confusion by false reports! Army Group B’s Chief of Staff General Krebs personally assured Skorzeny that by nightfall on 16 December the whole American front line would have ceased to exist. With 20 tanks and 30 scout cars he could probably seize the bridges but only hold them for 24 hours. Skorzeny set up his HQ at Schmittheim, 9 or 10 miles behind the start line. Sergeant Major Heinz Rohde had been recuperating from wounds and was training troops in Hamburg under frequent and severe Allied bombing raids. He volunteered for service with a special unit where security was paramount. The guards around the base were Ukrainians, unable to speak German and thus unlikely to pass on information or gossip. His 80-strong company was called Stielau Einheit. In five weeks the unit had six commanders, indicating some of the operational problems involved! Some of the unit were sailors who had been to the USA. Some were German-Americans. Some men had lived in the States for a year or so. Teaching the whole force American slang with appropriate profanity was predictably difficult! American movie films were shown. Visits were made to PoW camps to talk to American or British captives. The rigid Wehrmacht drill, the giving and receiving of orders, was totally different to the more casual American style. Forged identity papers were relatively easy. The Germans had considerable experience in that area. White

letters were painted on the jeeps, a C, D, X, Y or Z indicated that the vehicle belonged to Skorzeny’s 150 Panzer brigade. Other secret signs were issued to avoid the genuine German troops firing on the bogus American troops. ‘We did not plan to capture high American officials. When the unit was first organised the soldiers began to spread rumours about the employment of this special formation. Naturally,’ Skorzeny wrote, ‘we censored all the mail and tried to suppress these rumours. By the middle of November, I realised that it was impossible; many rumours were spread by my officers.’ Skorzeny met with Folkersam, his Chief of Staff, and Hardick, the brigade commander: ‘We decided to let the rumours go but direct them so they were not too close to the truth.’ Rumours included kidnapping General Eisenhower at SHAEF in Versailles, or capturing Antwerp, or freeing the surrounded garrison of Dunkirk. Corporal Wilhelm Schmidt, aged 24, wrote: Early in November 1944 I reported to an SS Camp at Friedenthal where I was examined by a board consisting of an SS, a Luftwaffe and a naval officer. I passed the test but was ordered to refresh my English. For this purpose I spent three weeks at prisoner-of-war camps in Kustrin and Limburg, where large numbers of American troops were being held. I was then sent to Grafenwohr where the training of 150 Panzer brigade was being carried on. The linguists, of whom forty were officers, were being organised into a separate unit and given a special course. Our training consisted of studying the organisation of the USA army, identification of American insignia, American drill and exercises. We were given courses in demolitions and radio technique. Then our unit was divided up into an engineer group, a communications destroyer group and a radio group. The task of the engineers was to destroy HQ, and HQ personnel: the communications destroyers were to eliminate message centres, radio stations and communications routes and the radio group was to reconnoitre behind the American line and keep the advancing Germans informed of Allied intentions and dispositions. At the beginning of December the first weapons and uniforms arrived together with about 30 American jeeps. This was our first indication of what our job was to be. To my knowledge none of the men protested. On 12 December we arrived at Munstereifel, east of Monschau, where we were all given American uniforms, driver’s licences and paybooks. I was told a number of details about the 5 US Armoured division which I was to use in answering questions. The mission of 150 Panzer brigade was to create confusion and disorder in the American rear areas, thereby aiding the advance of the main German forces. Our jeep with three men was given the

task of infiltrating through the American lines and reporting the condition of the Meuse bridges and of the roads leading to those bridges. We were to make our reports by radio and to remain near the Meuse until German troops had arrived. We had no difficulty penetrating the American line and reached the bridge at Aywaille twenty-five miles behind the front, in just over half an hour. Here we were stopped by an American military policeman; not knowing the password, we were arrested. A young commando officer talked to Skorzeny at Grafenwohl and said that he thought the real objective of the brigade was to go straight to Paris and capture the Allied HQ. He had lived in Paris and spoke French fluently. After slipping through the enemy lines in American uniform, the RV should be in the Place de l’Opera at the Café de Paris. From there, it should proceed to assassinate or capture General Eisenhower. Skorzeny had chosen Greif for the operation. The word could mean ‘Snatch’ or ‘Grasp’ (as well as Gryffon), perhaps indicating kidnapping. Skorzeny did not deny or agree with the young lieutenant. Later, when a young Lt Gunther Schulz and his jeepload of bogus Americans reached the river Meuse, they were stopped and arrested. Schulz freely admitted that a main objective of Skorzeny’s brigade was to penetrate SHAEF HQ and assassinate General Eisenhower and other senior officers and then RV at the Café de Paris. In 150 Panzer brigade the rumour spread: ‘Kill Eisenhower ’. Soon the rumours reached the US command and extraordinary precautions were taken to keep Ike safe and well protected. He was moved from his luxurious villa in St Germain-en-Laye to a house close to SHAEF HQ in Versailles, which was surrounded with guards and AFVs. A Lt Colonel Baldwin Smith, Ike’s ‘double’, moved into the villa instead. There was considerable panic in Paris. Thousands of posters of Hitler ’s favourite Kommando, Skorzeny, were published and distributed. He was described as a most dangerous Nazi – a ‘gangster ’ with the title of Scarface! In his student days he had a duel over a ballet dancer in Vienna and suffered a wound on his cheek. The French police said that parachutists had landed at Port Marly near SHAEF HQ and certainly 200 had landed near Bohain. Near Valenciennes Skorzeny’s paratroops dressed as nuns or priests had floated down to earth. As a result the guards around SHAEF were quadrupled and all passes were examined and re-examined. Eisenhower became a virtual prisoner for most of the opening days of Wacht am Rhein. The rumours spread and spread. General Omar Bradley’s hotel room was changed, his general’s stars on his jeep removed and stars on his helmet covered up. Cautious GIs challenged Bradley on three occasions and

asked him ‘trick’ questions which only a true American would – or should – know! Field Marshall Montgomery, when halted for checking his identity, ordered his driver to ignore the sentry, who shot out the car tyres and delayed the British commander for several hours! Skorzeny had obtained three of the new parachute infantry battalions, two tank companies (each of ten tanks), three reconnaissance companies (each of ten scout cars), one light flak AA company and one commando company. The total force numbered about 2,500, of which 800 were from the Luftwaffe, 500 from the Waffen SS and 1,200 from the Wehrmacht. Sgt Major Heinz Rohde, alias Sgt Morris Woodahl of the US Army, led one of the three groups, totalling 44 men, which successfully infiltrated the American lines. As Skorzeny described it: ‘The jeeps would follow at the rear of an attacking panzer column [1st SS Pz Division, 12th SS Pz Division and 12th VGD]. When the column got into a firefight, they would move off the road and travel around the battle area on side roads until they were beyond the withdrawing American troops. This was easy in the first few days of the confused fighting.’ Rohde recalled, ‘At 5.15 a.m. a hellish scene sprang to life around us as hundreds of dazzling searchlights around the Hohes Venn mountains directed their ghostly fingers onto the American positions and the artillery and rocketlauncher positions behind us unleashed an unearthly fire. The unmistakable whine of our shells made it plain we must be right in front of the enemy position. A series of balls of light shooting up heralded a coming change of scene, brought about by the Panzers whose menace had till then lain dormant. We were now in no man’s land. High time to discard our para-suits.’ Rohde’s small group ran against, into and through the American defences, brushing aside an anti-tank crew, a noisy US sergeant and an American MP (military police): ‘The disarray of the enemy combat units gave us unexpected encouragement. Our disguise was fairly complete. We felt more and more safe.’ In fact, most American jeeps were manned by one or two, at most three, soldiers. Skorzeny’s commandos packed in four to a jeep. Instead of blackout lighting for the jeeps, the Greif drivers should have had no lights at all or be fully illuminated. Ten miles behind the American lines Rohde’s signaller transmitted their first radio report and was delighted with the prompt coded acknowledgement. They sent back a message about the standard use of headlights: ‘Our warning was too late, two of our commando teams had been recognised and intercepted.’ By 5.30 p.m. Rohde’s group reached Huy on the river Meuse. The bridge was packed with traffic going both ways, covered by a

powerful searchlight. The Americans were probably aware of the possibility of saboteurs. By the next morning Rohde’s HQ gave them permission to return by a different route, back to the German lines. Most of the commando teams were captured and killed, often by engineers manning roadblocks. On 17 December MPs stopped a jeep at Aywaille on a bridge over the river Amblève. The three bogus Americans travelling as Privates Lawrence, Sensenbach and von der Werth did not know the password. Large sums of US and British currency were hidden on the jeep, plus pistols, plastic explosives, half a dozen grenades, a radio transmitter and German paybooks! Their actual names were Gunter Billing, Wilhelm Schmidt and Manfred Pernass. Schmidt also passed on Greif ’s intention, led by Skorzeny, to get to Paris and ‘deal with Eisenhower ’. Six days later a firing squad of twelve GIs executed the trio. By arrangement, Billing shouted, ‘Es lebe unser Führer Adolf Hitler ’ (long live our leader) before he was shot. A week later one of Skorzeny’s jeep-teams crashed through a checkpoint over the river Meuse at Dinant. The British 3rd Royal Tank Regiment had laid a necklace of mines across the road in case a vehicle refused to stop. The four occupants were blown to pieces, all wearing German uniforms under their American dress. Frustrated by the failure of Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army to make a breakthrough, which in turn would allow Greif force to fulfil their time objective, Skorzeny volunteered 150 Panzer brigade as a regular combat force. He was given the task of attacking Malmédy, which had been reported lightly held. By the 21st the defences were strongly held, including an artillery regiment firing the VT or Pozit shell fuses. From Ligneuville the Greif forces went in with ten tanks and a few armoured cars and jeeps, towards the Malmédy–Stavelot main road. By nightfall Skorzeny’s force had been torn to ribbons and he was wounded. Greif was over.

chapter 8

The air war

G

eneral Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt, the German Commander-inChief, gave three reasons for Allied victories in NW Europe: ‘Three factors defeated us in the west where I was in command. First, the unheard of superiority of your Air Force which made all movement in daytime impossible. Second, the lack of motor fuel – oil and gas – so that the Panzers and even the remaining Luftwaffe were unable to move. Third, the systematic destruction of all railway communications so that it was impossible to bring one single railroad train across the Rhine.’ All three reasons were a direct result of the Allied air supremacy in 1944/45. Field Marshal Walter Model, GOC Heeresgruppe B, produced the following edict issued to all his unit commanders: Enemy number one is the enemy airforce which because of its absolute superiority tries to destroy our spearheads of attacks and our artillery through fighter bomber [known as Jabos] attacks and bomb carpets and to render movements in rear areas impossible. The armament industry at home and the leadership are trying with all possible means to render ineffective, for the time being, this air superiority at least for the purpose of supporting our actions [such as Wacht am Rhein and Nordwind]. During this time of year our attacking troops profit from fog and the danger of icing of aircraft. Everywhere the troops will employ camouflage, and at every halt they will dig in deeply troops, weapons and vehicles. Hitler realised that Wacht am Rhein needed the maximum of bad flying weather

to keep the Jabos from savaging his panzer armies. He needed a minimum of at least a five-day forecast of poor weather from his chief meteorologist, Dr Werner Schwerdtfeger. The OKW diary keeper, Dr Percy Schramm, noted, The attack can only be carried out at a time when the prevailing weather conditions will be a considerable handicap for enemy air forces.’ And Hitler himself wrote: The only thing which is not in our favour this time is the air situation. That is why we are now forced to take advantage of the bad winter weather. The air situation forces us to do so. I cannot wait until the weather gets better. I would be happier if we could somehow hold off until the spring … now there are at least some weeks before there can be carpet bombing [by the USAAF] of troop concentrations. That means a lot …’ Another captured order from Model elaborated in more detail the instructions to be passed down to all junior line commanders: These are the means to protect against the Anglo-American highwaymen. (1) Maintenance of a proper march interval between vehicles; (2) No rest stops on roads; (3) Use of woods for camouflage; (4) Preparation of fox-holes. ‘Spade work provides the best highway furnace’; (5) Only combat vehicles or supply columns on roads; (6) Importance of night marches; (7) Danger of icy serpentine roads. ‘Therefore seek cover first. Then fire away.’ Each soldier who knocks down an enemy strafer plane with his infantry weapon, even a machine pistol, rifle or machine-gun, will receive a ten-day special furlough! For a year or more Adolf Hitler had lost all confidence in the Luftwaffe. Reichsmarschall Hermann Göering had for many years been Hitler ’s favourite warrior, having been responsible, with his Stukas, for the panzers’ success in overrunning half of Europe in 1939 and 1940. His star began to wane after his failures to eliminate the British Army at Dunkirk, for the inability of the Luftwaffe, despite the Baedecker raids and the London blitz, to win the Battle of Britain. Further disasters occurred in the capture of Crete, failure to support the German armies in North Africa, and failure to prevent the 1,000-bomber raids over Berlin and a dozen other cities. And more recently in Normandy, lack of success in keeping the Jabos at bay. After Hamburg was practically destroyed by the RAF’s ‘fire storm’, General Adolf Galland, the Luftwaffe Chief of fighter forces, describes a meeting between ‘der Dicke’, the ‘fat one’, and his Führer:

We were met with a shattering picture. Göering had completely broken down. With his head buried in his arms on the table, he moaned some indistinguishable words. We stood there for some time in embarrassment, until at last he pulled himself together and said that we [Galland and General Dietrich Peltz] were witnessing his deepest moments of despair. The Führer had lost faith in him. The Führer had announced that the Luftwaffe had disappointed him too often, and a changeover from offensive to defensive in the air against the west was out of the question. After the wreck of Hamburg Göering, Galland and Peltz had agreed among themselves that the Luftwaffe should immediately refocus on defensive efforts against the Allied fighter forces. Offensive air weapons would be sacrificed to produce increased fighter forces. Even Dietrich Peltz, the Chief of the Luftwaffe bomber forces, agreed. But the Führer, of course, had the power of veto. Professor Willi Messerschmitt was working on his sixth prototype at the jet aircraft plant at Regensberg – the ME-262 jet fighter. Hitler, of course, said, ‘I’m not interested in this plane as a fighter. I order this plane built as a bomber.’ At Dessau the Junkers designers were producing the Jumo-004B jet engine and the large swept-wing JU-287 jet bomber, and at Brandenburg Dr Walter Blume had assembled five prototypes of the AR-234 jet bomber. On 20 June 1944 Hitler ordered Field Marshal Erhard Milch (Göering’s deputy) and Karl-Otto Saur (Albert Speer ’s deputy) to examine ways to increase the output of the ME-262 jets to a thousand per month. Nine days later Hitler signed a decree ordering that only fighter aircraft would be produced. After the debacle for the Wehrmacht in Normandy, at his Wolfschanze HQ, Hitler discussed the consequences of that defeat with his right-hand adviser, General Alfred Jodl: ‘We must do everything to ensure that we can hold the Luftwaffe formations at home as a last reserve in readiness to be employed at some point where we can turn the tables once more. I cannot say now, when and where that point will be … There is no doubt that if we could suddenly pump in an additional 800 fighters and at once bring up our fighter strength to 2,000 – as we probably could – the whole crisis would be overcome at once.’ Galland accordingly produced a grandiose plan, Der Grosse Schlag (the Great Blow), whereby on 12 November 1944 more than 3,000 (out of a total of 3,700) aircraft and pilots, in eighteen fighter groups, would, in the most decisive air battle of the war, cripple, perhaps destroy, the US Eighth Air Force. This plan was never sanctioned but Operation Bodenplatte (base plate) was instead. By September 1944 the Luftwaffe had written off in five years an

astonishing 81,444 aircraft and an equivalent amount of pilots. And in five days of intensive bombing in February 1944, the Allied air forces had destroyed or severely damaged about 75 per cent of the German aircraft facilities. Almost unbelievably Albert Speer, Hitler ’s armaments minister, had managed to boost German fighter strength to its greatest operational levels of the war. On 20 December 1944 the Luftwaffenkommando West, under Generalleutnant Josef ‘Beppo’ Schmidt, had an operational strength of 2,360. The 33 squadrons included 1,770 single-engine fighters, 155 ground attack aircraft, 135 night ground attack aircraft, 140 twin-engined fighters, 65 reconnaissance aircraft, 55 high-level bombers and, rather surprisingly, 40 jet aircraft (ME-262 A-2 bombers plus 16 Arado-234s). On other fronts, the Russian and Italian, another 2,200 Luftwaffe planes were in action. The Allied air strength was a massive 9,720. The 8th USAAF had 2,710 heavy bombers and 1,234 fighters; 9th USAAF had 1,111 medium bombers and 1,502 fighters; 2nd British TAF had 293 medium bombers and 999 fighters, and RAF Bomber Command had 1,871 heavy bombers. In addition there were 411 reconnaissance planes, split 217 with 9th USAAF and 194 with 2nd British TAF. In the winter of 1944/5 the Luftwaffe had a total of 66 operational bases in the west, including 13 guarding the Berlin area. At the start of Wacht am Rhein, Major General Hoyt Vandenberg’s 9th US Air Force command provided tactical air support to Lt General Omar Bradley’s US 12th Army Group. They were based on 29 airfields, with eight in Belgium, one in the Ardennes (at Verviers), one in Luxembourg, six in the Paris region and the remainder in France between the Seine and the Moselle. General Otto ‘Opie’ Weyland commanded XIX Tactical Air Command, which supported General Patton’s US Third Army. They proudly called themselves ‘Patton’s Air Force’. Weyland wrote: We were very mobile in Europe and this caused a lot of communications problems. We always tried to stay as close to the action as possible to extend our range, increase our time over the target and run several missions a day. During the Battle of the Bulge, some of my units ran four or five missions a day. We had to be close to do that. I couldn’t stay back in Brest or some goddamned place 500 miles to the rear. We depended heavily on spiral cable. One cable could handle sixteen messages simultaneously. My intelligence people monopolised communications like hell, and the administrative boys also

thought that the cable had been strung out for their exclusive use. Fighter control in the air was done through ground controllers using radar. Mission assignments came from my combat HQ and usually went out the night before the missions were flown. General Elwood ‘Pete’ Quesada commanded IX TAC, based at Verviers, which supported General Courtney Hodges’ First US Army. A US tighter group consisted of three fighter squadrons, each with about 25 operational aircraft. Each squadron had about 80 fighter pilots with the necessary ground crew, administrative and service personnel. For the average combat mission, each squadron supplied four flights of four aircraft each with an extra flight of four aircraft on standby status. During the Battle of the Bulge combat losses and wear and tear often reduced these figures. The Luftwaffe equivalent was the Geschwader, usually with three Gruppen of three Staffeln of twelve aircraft each. Their smallest tactical unit was the four-plane Schwarme. The North American P-51 Mustang had a top speed of 437 mph, which in 1944 was very fast indeed. The Republic P-47D Thunderbolt and the twinengined Lockheed P-38 Lightnings were the two excellent aircraft that could give close ground support, fighter escort duties, and carry bombs or rockets. They could also take punishment from light flak and small arms fire, but were not as good in one-on-one fighter dogfights, which the Mustang could definitely achieve. Danny Parker in To Win the Winter Sky noted, ‘Establishment of air superiority centred on beating the enemy’s fighters in the air. To the man in the cockpit this reduced to survival. Operations analysis of fighter combat conclusively showed what the pilots suspected “Speed is Life”.’ Manoeuvrability, altitude ceiling, acceleration, range and rate of climb were important but generally overshadowed by speed itself. Studies showed that 80 per cent of kills were made when one plane made a single pass at another and shot down the enemy before the opponent knew what was happening. One fighter pilot described the brevity of air combat from sighting to decision as ‘the ten-second eternity of the dogfight’. Only 36 per cent of Eighth Air Force aircrew in the second half of 1944 could be expected to survive a 25-mission tour of duty. In fact in August 1944 the typical tour was extended from 25 to 35 missions! The only weakness in the American air forces was the P-61 ‘Black Widows’, used as night fighter groups. Most of them had more than 300 combat hours on the clock and were definitely ‘tired’. Moreover, their radar sets no longer functioned properly. This was one of the reasons why the massive Wacht am Rhein build up which was mainly done at night was rarely detected.

The Luftwaffe were still mainly dependent on their sturdy warhorses used in the 1939–40 Blitzkrieg, the ME-109s and FW-190s, although they were upgraded from time to time. From a production point of view it was quicker and more economical to keep on producing still reliable but now slightly outof-date machines. Johannes Steinhoff was Kommodore of JG77, stationed on the outskirts of Berlin to try to protect the capital. He wrote in the autumn of 1944: We were given large numbers of new Messerchmitts. We were assigned young pilots who were timid, inexperienced and scared. We flew little, fuel was in short supply, but we were able to practice some formation flying and formation attacks on mock bomber flights. The young pilots were not yet ready for combat. It was hard enough leading and keeping together a large combat formation of experienced fighter pilots but with youngsters it was hopeless, they were just windy. They were expected to fly in precise formation stuck in the middle of an enormous unit made up of more than a hundred fighters, keeping distance, height and spacing constant. They were supposed to watch their airspace and not let themselves be lured into dogfights with enemy fighters. They had absolutely no experience in aerial combat and when the formation attacked the bomber armada they were told they must keep in position – come what may. It could never work. The US Army Air Corps had established a specific operational policy, mainly based on the British RAF experiences in winning the long-drawn-out campaign in North Africa: First Priority Gain necessary degree of air superiority. This will be accomplished by attacks against aircraft in the air and on the ground and against those installations that the enemy requires for the application of air power. Second Priority Isolate the battlefield by clipping off the enemy’s communications lines, destroy bridges and roads, strangle the enemy supply route (air interdiction). Third Priority Provide the ground forces with direct support, by attacking enemy troops, tanks and strongpoints.

Generally the fighter-bombers would be used for close support while maintaining air superiority. The medium bombers addressed the second priority, blasting bridges, roads and rails to the enemy’s rear. The use of the heavy bombers for isolating the battlefield was acknowledged as possible but should not deviate from strategic mission. It was ironical that the 30-year-old General Major Dietrich Peltz, chosen by

Hitler to plan and organise the Luftwaffe part in Wacht am Rhein, was a bombing expert. Hitler wanted a determined, aggressive Luftwaffe leader whose military ambitions matched his own. General Adolf Galland was the obvious choice as a ‘fighter ’ expert but Hitler regarded him as a ‘defeatist’ after his proposal for Der Grosse Schlag. Peltz scrapped the Galland plan and concentrated on two important tasks. Initially a huge concentrated surprise air strike by all Luftwaffe fighters on Allied air bases to knock out the USAAF and RAF on the ground in France and Belgium. Thus the close-range danger from the US Ninth Air Force and British 2nd Tactical Air Force would be vastly reduced. The Luftwaffe would then be able to establish a protective fighter ‘umbrella’ over the panzer armies. At the same time, fast bombers of the 3 Flieger Division would smash up American columns in the rear areas. Night fighter-bombers would attack enemy ground targets and shield the movement of the three German armies. Model’s order of 11 December specified the priorities and three days later Hermann Göering sent out an operational order. All the fighter units – 12 fighter Geschwader with 40 Gruppen – would be moved closer to the start lines, coming under the control of Luftflotte West in Limburg. Operation Bodenplatte meant that the still huge Luftwaffe collection of pilots and planes had been trained single-mindedly to shoot down Allied bombers over Germany, as in Galland’s ‘Great Blow’. The limited training of the Luftwaffe pilots had concentrated on the tactics of air-to-air combat, and not the very dangerous ground support of Bodenplatte.

chapter 9

Hitler’s battle plan

M

ajor Percy Ernst Schramm kept the OKW war diary. He was Generaloberst Alfred Jodl’s assistant. Documents covering the period 1 April–18 December 1944 have been translated by the Historical Division HQ US Army, Europe, and Appendix 2 contained the attack orders for Hitler ’s three assaulting armies. Jodl had prepared the first draft of the operation following his Führer ’s detailed brief. Keitel prepared estimates of POL and ammunition needed and General Walter Buhle, the Wehrmacht Chief of Staff, produced a survey of all additional units needed (artillery corps, rocket-launcher brigades, independent tank battalions, river-bridging engineers, etc.). General Hasso von Manteuffel tried hard to persuade Hitler: ‘I proposed to him a number of changes. The assault should be made at 5.30 a.m. under cover of darkness. The artillery would concentrate on key targets such as batteries, ammunition dumps and headquarters that had been definitely located. A “storm” battalion of most expert officers and men from each infantry division would advance in the dark at 5.30 a.m. without any covering artillery fire and penetrate the American forward defence posts. They would avoid fighting if possible until they had penetrated deep.’ Manteuffel also wanted ‘artificial moonlight provided by flak units projecting searchlight beams on the clouds to reflect downwards. At 4 p.m. it will be dark, so you will only have five hours after the main assault at 11 a.m. in which to achieve the breakthrough. If you adopt my idea you will gain a further five and a half hours for the purpose. Then when darkness comes I can launch the tanks. They will advance during the night, pass through our infantry

and by dawn the next day they will be able to launch their own attack on the main position, along a cleared approach.’ Hitler agreed to this plan. Manteuffel told Liddell Hart after the war, The time of reaching the Meuse was not discussed in any detail … The Meuse could not possibly have been reached on the second or third day – as Jodl expected. He and Keitel tended to encourage Hitler ’s optimistic illusions.’ The orders from Model’s Army Group B were: ‘Sixth SS Panzer Army, after strong artillery preparations, will on X-Day (16 December 44) break through the enemy front on both sides of Hollerath and will relentlessly thrust across the Meuse towards Antwerp. For this purpose, the Army will make full use of its motorised forces.’ Furthermore: (a) I SS Panzer Corps. SS Grupenführer Herman Priess’s panzer corps would attack at 0600 hrs on X-Day (16 December 1944) and break through enemy positions along the front in the Monschau–Losheim sector, taking the Elsenborn Ridge and breaking through the Losheim Gap. To achieve this frontal assault, Dietrich deployed three divisions: 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division, 12th and 277th VGD with 3rd Fallschirmjäger (Parachute) division on the left to open up the Losheim Gap. Subsequently, with 12th SS Panzer division on the right and 1st SS Panzer division on the left, they would thrust forwards, cross the Meuse and continue the attack towards Liège-Huy. Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler – Battle Group Peiper. In addition to his own SS Panzer Battalion (72 mixed Pz Kpfw IV and Panther tanks) of his 1st SS Panzer Regiment, Jochen Peiper was given 501st SS Heavy Panzer Battalion (45 Tiger II tanks), 3rd SS Panzer Grenadier Battalion (mounted in half-tracks), an artillery battalion of 18 105mm towed guns, an infantry gun company (150mm) and part of 84th Light Flak Battalion equipped with some twenty 20mm and 37mm guns, plus his normal engineer, AA, etc., units. The battle group comprised some 4,800 men and 800 vehicles (nearly 25 per cent of which were tanks). Hitlerjugend – Battle Group Kuhlmann. 1st SS Panzer Battalion with 80 (37 Pz Kpfw IV, 37 Panther, 4 command and 2 recovery) tanks and 560th SS Heavy Panzer Battalion (14 Jagdpanther, 26 Jagdpanzer), plus additional artillery, infantry gun company, AA, etc., with a total strength roughly equivalent to Peiper ’s force.

(b) II SS Panzer Corps. SS Obergruppenführer Wilhelm Bittrich’s Panzer Corps would follow close behind I SS Panzer Corps ‘To thrust together with I SS Panzer Corps towards the Meuse, cross the river and continue its advance on Antwerp, disregarding any enemy contact on its flanks.’ They also had the task of keeping the ‘road of advance’ (i.e. the Centre Line) open behind I SS Panzer Corps. (c) LXVII Infantry Corps. Generalleutnant Otto Hirtzfeld’s infantry corps was ordered to break through the enemy positions on both sides of Monschau, with 326th and 246th Volksgrenadier divisions, then cross the Mützenich– Elsenborn road, turning north and west, to build up secure defensive positions along a line – Simmerath–Eupen–Limbourg–Liège – to protect the northern shoulder of the offensive. 12th VGD and 3rd Parachute Division would defend west of Limbourg. HQ Sixth SS Panzer Army would move them up after completion of their tasks with I SS Panzer Corps. ‘Road-blocks, supported by armoured detachments, will be established far to the north across the main roads and cross the lines of communication leading from north to south. The hilly terrain around Elsenborn will be seized and firmly held.’

The main effort: Der Schwerpunkt Sepp Dietrich’s panzer army was tasked with the ‘main effort’, and was equipped with more tanks and other AFVs than either of the other two armies. Army Group B’s orders stated that Sixth Panzer Army would break through to the north of the Schnee-Eifel and would then ‘Resolutely thrust forward on its right flank with fast moving units for the Meuse crossing-point between Liège and Huy. Following this they will drive forward to the Albert Canal between Maastricht and Antwerp.’ To assist them in achieving their missions, two individual co-ordinated operations had been planned: Operations Greif and Stösser: 1

Operation Greif. This was designed to capture selected bridges over the River Meuse and was to be carried out by Otto Skorzeny’s 150 Panzer Brigade.

2

Operation Stösser. A parachute landing in the mountain area north of

Malmédy, to secure important road junctions at Baraque Michel needed for armoured spearheads of 12th SS Panzer Division to advance on their way to Liège.

Map 2 Adolf Hitler ’s battle plan for Wacht am Rhein: the seizure of Antwerp

and Brussels, surrounding British, Canadian and American armies, thus forcing the Allied Command to sue for peace In their final orders, OKW stressed three objectives which had to be taken initially: (a) In the north, the vital Elsenborn Ridge. (b) In the centre, the Schnee-Eifel. (c) In the south, the confluence of the rivers Sauer and Our.

Fifth Panzer Army On 10 December, General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel issued detailed ‘instructions on the assembly and fighting’ under three headings: (1) the enemy; (2) intentions of the Army Group and the adjacent units; (3) mission of Fifth Panzer Army. ‘The mission of Fifth Panzer army is to break through the enemy positions in the Olzheim–Gemünd sector under cover of darkness and to thrust across the Meuse on both sides of Namur up to Brussels.’ The first objectives of the attack were the bridgeheads across the Meuse. It was vital to keep going by day and night: ‘To advance relentlessly, disregarding prescribed routes of advance; if necessary, the advance will be continued on foot.’ (a) LXVI Infantry Corps. On the right flank, using 18th and 62nd VGD, General der Artillerie Walther Lucht’s corps was to execute a double envelopment of the enemy forces in the Schnee-Eifel to ‘nip out’ that salient, after which they were to capture St Vith. They would press on, reach the Meuse and cross in the Huy–Andenne sector, or else be moved to cover the left wing of the Army. (b) LVIII Panzer Corps. In the centre, using 116th Panzer Division and 560th VGD, General der Panzertruppen Walter Krueger ’s panzer corps was to force a crossing of the river Our on a broad front on both sides of Ouren, then push forward to the Meuse via Houffalize, thrust across the Meuse in the Andenne–Namur sector and establish bridgeheads.

(c) XLVII Panzer corps. On the left flank, south of Dasburg, using 2nd Panzer Division and 26th VGD, General der Panzertruppen Heinrich von Luttwitz’s panzer corps was to force a crossing of the river Our on a broad front in the Dasburg–Germund area, bypass the Clerf/Clervaux sector, capture Bastogne and, finally, thrust towards and across the Meuse south of Namur. (d) Panzer Lehr division and Führer Begleit Brigade. Initially they were to be held in readiness as Panzer Army reserve; when one of the corps had succeeded in breaking through, they would be launched in a rapid thrust towards the Meuse.

Seventh Army The mission of General der Panzertruppen Erich Brandenberger ’s Seventh Army on X-Day was: ‘to cross the Rivers Our and Sauer, break through the enemy front in the Vianden–Echtenach sector, then, with its reinforced right wing, to thrust towards the line Gedinne–Libramont–Martelange–Mersch– Wasserbillig in order to protect the southern flank of Fifth Panzer Army. The Army will then gain ground beyond this line, will advance up to the Semois sector and the Luxembourg area and will – by fluid conduct of battle – prevent any enemy thrust into the southern flank of the Army Group.’ Seventh Army had two principal tasks: the first to protect von Manteuffel’s left flank; the second to threaten Luxembourg to tie down enemy reserves. The following instructions were issued to the corps: (a) LXXXV Infantry Corps. General der Infanterie Baptist Kniess’ Infantry Corps will start its attack at 0600 hours on X-Day, crossing the river Our and breaking through the enemy front in the area Vianden–Ammeldingen. The 5th Fallschirmjäger Division on the right and the 352nd VGD on the left will ‘relentlessly thrust to the west,’ then turn off towards the line Gedinne–Libramont–Martelange–Mersch and adopt a defensive posture. Advance mobile detachments will keep contact with the southern element of Fifth Panzer Army, which will be advancing to the north of the corps via Bastogne. These detachments are to advance beyond the objective of the operation up to the Semois and block its main crossing-points. (b) LXXX Infantry Corps. General der Infanterie Franz Beyer ’s Infantry

Corps would attack at 0600 hours on X-Day, crossing the rivers Our and Sauer, breaking through the enemy front in the Wallendorf–Echternach area. With 276th VGD on the right and 212th VGD on the left, they would ‘relentlessly thrust towards the line Merch-Wasserbillig where their main forces will adopt a defensive posture. Advance mobile detachments will cross the Sauer, advance into the Luxembourg area and prevent enemy forces from advancing via Luxembourg.’ It is important that enemy artillery positions in the Christnach–Alttrier area be quickly neutralised. Special mention of the role of the penal battalion (Bewährungsbataillon) committed it to the River Sauer front west of Trier, to be held in readiness for the thrust across the Sauer. (c) LIII Infantry Corps, commanded by General der Kavallerie Gaf von Rothkirch und Trach, to remain ‘available’ to HQ Seventh Army.

Orders of the Day, 16 December 1944 The following daily order was issued by OB West, from the C-in-C West: Soldiers of the Western Front!! Your great hour has struck. At this moment the veil which has been hiding so many preparations has been lifted at last. Large attacking armies have started against the Anglo-Americans. I do not have to tell you anything more than that. You feel it yourself: We are gambling everything! You carry with you a holy obligation to give everything to achieve things beyond human possibilities for our Fatherland and our Führer! Signed Von Rundstedt Generalfeldmarschall The stirring call to arms was endorsed by the C-in-C Army Group B: We will not disappoint the Führer and the Fatherland who created the sword of retribution. Advance in the spirit of Leuthen. Our battle-cry must now more than ever be ‘No soldier in the world can be better than we soldiers of the Eifel and of Aachen!’ Signed Model

Generalfeldmarschall

chapter 10

The secret war of ULTRA and Enigma

B

letchley Park in Buckinghamshire housed the most secret establishment in the whole of the Allied war machine. Nearly two thousand intensely dedicated men and women worked in Station X, servicing various complex machines. During the war the Germans constructed some 100,000 ciphering machines called Enigma, which made thousands of incomprehensive wireless messages. It was the regular vehicle for the Reich’s secret traffic by the Wehrmacht, Luftwaffe, German Navy and U-boats, and even the Reichsbahn, the excellent German rail network. Geniuses such as Turing and Welchman devised a sophisticated data-processor known as ‘the Bombe’ and later simply as ULTRA. Cryptoanalysts in various numbered huts (Hut 3 for the Army and Airforce, Hut 5 for the Royal Navy) fed in thousands of intercepted German wireless messages. They might come in from Rommel’s Afrika Korps, the German Seventh Army, from the Russian or Italian fronts – all was grist to the ULTRA mill. Churchill received daily a box of the most important ULTRA intercepts. He described the people at Bletchley Park as ‘the geese who laid the golden eggs but never cackled.’ For many years the German commanders down to brigade or squadron level used their Enigma encoding machines believing their message to be unbreakable. The Bombe, a huge electro-mechanical computer, was fed with coded enemy signals which had been copied on to a tape. A staff of over a hundred, working in shifts, manned each hut, filling in missing letters or words, translating the

German messages (German linguists were in great demand). Finally, senior staff decided on an indication of the priority of each message by assigning a number of Zs from one to five. Many key battles were won, or not lost, by the receipt of secret ULTRA messages – the Battle of Britain, the Battle of the Atlantic, the key North African and Normandy battles. Group Captain FEW Winterbotham selected and trained most of the Special Liaison Officers who were on the staff of all very senior Allied commanders. They reported directly to Winterbotham. A total of 28 were ‘placed’ with British and American command groups. Adolf Rosengarten was SLU at General Hodges’ US First Army, Joe Ewart with Field Marshal Montgomery, Bill Williams at 21st Army Group HQ. They worked closely with the G-2s (General Staff Officer – Intelligence) who were ‘cleared for ULTRA’. They had to ensure that actions taken as a result of ULTRA intercepts were not too obviously linked to the decrypt. As the German army and Luftwaffe stations fell back towards the German frontiers, the volume of radio traffic diminished as telephone and telegraph messages took over short-distance communications. Nevertheless, in the autumn and early winter of 1944 Bletchley Park continued to handle about 50 messages a day on the north-west European battle front. Although the Führer had put into effect his most comprehensive plans for secrecy, there were many clues in this bizarre battle of wits that – skilfully assembled – should have alerted the key Allied commanders to the approaching storm of Wacht am Rhein. But a look at the key intelligence personalities provides an insight into why this was not the case. Brigadier Edwin Sibert was G-2 at Lieutenant General Omar Bradley’s HQ US 12th Army Group. The American Army did not rate ‘intelligence’ as a career move. By contrast, the British Army viewed a role in intelligence as no bar at all to promotion. Sibert was a career artilleryman and was surprised to be chosen as a G-2, and unfortunately he had a poor relationship with Colonel ‘Monk’ Dickson, the G-2 of US First Army. Dickson had been Bradley’s G-2 in North Africa and had stayed with him when Bradley took command of US First Army. He was regarded as a ‘volatile man, a pessimist, an alarmist.’ Nevertheless, Dickson was highly intelligent and was reputed to have a photographic memory. He had one bad habit, however, that of presenting ULTRA briefings directly to Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, bypassing their SLU Lt Colonel Rosengarten. Colonel Oscar Koch was G-2 at HQ US Third Army under Lieutenant General George Patton. He was a brilliant, hardworking, bilingual intelligence officer, much respected by

Patton, who trusted his judgement: ‘The best damned intelligence officer in any United States Army command.’ Group Captain Winterbotham thought very highly of Dickson and Koch. On 28 August Koch submitted a realistic intelligence estimate: Despite the crippling factors of shattered communications, disorganisation and tremendous losses in personnel and equipment, the enemy nevertheless has been able to maintain a sufficiently cohesive front to exercise an overall control of his tactical situation. His withdrawal, though continuing, has not been a rout or mass collapse. Numerous new identifications in contact in recent days have demonstrated clearly that, despite the enormous difficulties under which he is operating, the enemy is still capable of bringing new elements into the battle area and transferring some from other fronts … barring internal upheaval in the homeland and the remoter possibility of insurrection within the Wehrmacht, it can be expected that the German armies will continue to fight until destroyed or captured. Major General Sir Kenneth Strong was SHAEF’s (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) Chief of Intelligence in Eisenhower ’s HQ. With Ike’s agreement, Strong issued a bulletin in late August when the Wehrmacht Seventh Army had been destroyed, which said, ‘The defeat of the German armies is complete and the only thing now needed is speed’. On 9 September Strong’s Bulletin concluded, ‘In short the German C-in-C West may expect not more than a dozen divisions to come from outside to the rescue and that the maximum available to the defence of the West Wall may struggle up to a total of about twenty.’ Since Jodl, Himmler, Göering and Goebbels assembled 32 divisions for their December offensive out of a total strength on the Western Front of 76 divisions, it can be seen how overoptimistic, perhaps even complacent, was the Supreme Command thinking! On 4 September General Hiroshi Oshima, the pro-Nazi Japanese ambassador and in Joachim von Ribbentrop’s (Hitler ’s Minister for Foreign Affairs) confidence, had a meeting at Hitler ’s Wolfschanze. The Führer boasted that he was ‘forming a force of a million men, augmented by units pulled back from other fronts, and a replenished airforce would strike a large-scale offensive in the west – probably in November.’ The decoding and deciphering of Japanese signals was coded as ‘Magic’ by the Americans. This was a significant clue and should have alerted the Allied commanders. ULTRA intercepted an important message on 18 September (decoded nine days later) stating that all SS units on the Western Front (1st, 2nd, 9th and 12th

SS Panzer Divisions) must be withdrawn, plus the 17 SS Panzergrenadier Division, three heavy (Tiger) tank battalions and HQ troops of 1st SS Panzer Corps. Himmler ’s Waffen SS HQ then ordered them to be assigned to the staff of Oberstgruppenführer Sepp Dietrich’s new Sixth SS Panzer Army. The message intercepted coded the move as ‘Resting and Refitting Staff 16’. In mid October ULTRA provided a message from Field Marshal Keitel indicating that the Sixth Panzer Army was to be the OKW reserve. So neither von Rundstedt nor Model had control over it. It was a strategic reserve for the Führerhaupquartier, Hitler ’s HQ! The HQ of 1st SS Panzer Corps was ordered to join the Sixth Panzer Army by 20 October ‘at latest’ and all panzer units had to be brought up to full strength. During 1944 there were still seventeen German divisions stationed in Norway and Denmark. ULTRA monitored Luftwaffe messages after the Führer conference of 22 October saying that significant heavy shipping tonnage was moving men and material south, back into the Fatherland. Towards the end of October ULTRA intercepted a bulletin from OKW (German High Command) noting that ‘further signs of disintegration had appeared’ and ordered ‘the severest measures, including the immediate execution of officers in front of their own men, against anyone endangering the Wehrmacht’s will to fight’, while Hitler virtually imprisoned his troops on the Western Front by reiterating Himmler ’s former prohibition of ‘crossing the Rhine from west to east’ No wonder all the autumn and winter battles were fought by the Wehrmacht (and of course the SS) with utmost violence and ferocity. On 1 November a sinister message was passed on by ULTRA. A Führer order for volunteers for a special force with knowledge of English and American ‘idioms’ and language. Early in November ULTRA had broken the codes of the German rail network, the Reichsbahn, and picked up signals of 400 (almost half the total) of the colossal train movements towards the Ardennes front. This was a significant pointer to Wacht am Rhein. At the same time, Major General Strong first made mention of the Sixth Panzer Army, citing a German deserter as the source. He also mentioned an alarming fact that the Fifth Panzer Army had disappeared from the line in Lorraine. But where to? A month earlier Strong had noted in his weekly bulletin that the Germans were providing a panzer reserve north of the Ardennes. ULTRA revealed that Hitler himself had ordered the withdrawals and creation of Sixth Panzer Army. What was going on? A Magic intercept caught Baron Oshima, Ribbentropp and the Führer at Sonnenberg, east of Berlin. Ribbentropp was evasive about details and timing but confirmed the major offensive was imminent.

Fortunately the Luftwaffe were often indiscreetly chatty. In November ULTRA found evidence of a hurried move of German fighter aircraft to the west. Many fighter groups were reported on the 8th to be arriving in the Netherlands ‘in regard to the special contingency known to you’. A week later high Luftwaffe command ordered daily reports on the serviceability of all aircraft for the Jagerauf-Marsch (a grouping of forces for a planned operation). On the 23rd a new HQ was reported, Jagdführer Mittelrhein (Officer Commanding Fighters, Central Rhineland). Moreover, ULTRA read Enigma messages that Luftwaffe fighters and fighter-bombers were being ordered to the west, fitted with equipment for close ground attack. The Luftwaffe was also ordered to protect large troop movements along the railroads leading into the Eifel area behind the Ardennes. The US 67th Tactical Reconnaissance Group of IX Tactical Air Command, which supported 1st US Army, flew 361 missions in November of which two-thirds were considered ‘successful’. Although there were many requests for reconnaissance for the Eifel area of the Ardennes, air officers assigned them ‘low priority’. When the winter weather was marginal, pilots elected to fly over areas they presumed to be important – the northern regions of the front. However in clear weather on 18 and 19 November pilots of IX and XIX Tactical Air Command reported heavy rail movements in the Eifel, at Gemund, Bitburg, Gerolstein and near the Roer dams. The marshalling yards at Trier and Koblenz were well away from the northern sector where Allied commander eyes were focused. By 20 November all the intelligence experts, Major General Strong, General Sibert at 12th Army Group and Colonel ‘Monk’ Dickson, were agreed. The Sixth Panzer Army’s role was to counter-attack once the American armies crossed the river Roer, probably with the assistance of the Fifth Panzer Army, now spotted in the Aachen area. Gruppe von Manteuffel had also been identified. But on 23 November the bulk of the Wehrmacht, Waffen SS and Luftwaffe movements and transfers appeared to cease. Why? Alan Moorehead, the journalist, wrote, ‘Our information about the Germans meanwhile was very bad indeed. We were now up against Germany itself and no news came out of Germany.’ When he wrote that he was not privy to ULTRA ‘Hitherto we had always travelled through friendly country where the French and the Belgians and the Dutch had eagerly brought us information of the enemy movements.’ On the other hand, von Rundstedt was getting excellent information from agents left behind in France, Belgium and Holland bringing him a constant stream of news. Frequent Luftwaffe requests were noted by ULTRA for protection of

Koblenz, and it identified several Army Group B Volksgrenadier divisions and Hitler ’s own ‘palace’ guard, the Führer Begleit brigade, inside the Eifel region. On 7 December Army Group B wanted fighter cover for virtually the entire Eifel. The Luftwaffe were asked for aerial reconnaissance of crossings of the Meuse river from Liège past the bend in the river at Namur and upstream for 55 miles past Dinant to Givet. Again, why? For a two-week period ULTRA reported these demands for specific river crossings data. Peter Calvocoressi, head of Hut 3 Air Section at Bletchley Park, later recalled that ‘Some time before the Ardennes offensive, one of my colleagues on the signals side told me that his section had identified two new wireless networks to the east of the Ardennes. From their configuration they belonged to full-blown armies. Their corps and divisions could be counted, with a fair degree of certitude and located by direction-finding. They had plainly been told to keep wireless silence, which was in itself a significant piece of intelligence.’ The wireless networks could not maintain complete silence as the controlling station needed to ensure that its satellite stations were in working order and not suffering from frequency drift. On 3 December and again on the 8th ULTRA reported that reconnaissance of bridges over the Meuse was ‘of the greatest urgency’ and ‘a good photo of Meuse crossings from Maastricht to Givet still with priority over other tasks.’ Colonels Dickson and Koch did their best to pass on warnings about the imminence of attack on their fronts but were blocked and discouraged by Brigadier General Edwin Sibert and General Strong. Koch had succeeded in alerting his boss, General Patton, who on 24 November wrote in his diary, ‘The First Army [under General Hodges] is making a terrible mistake in leaving VIII Corps static as it is highly probable that the Germans are building up east of them.’ General Troy Middleton’s VIII Corps G-2 was Colonel Andrew Reeves, who estimated on 9 December that the enemy opposite VIII Corps consisted of four weak infantry divisions: ‘the enemy desires to have this sector of the front quiet and inactive.’ Bradley told Middleton that an attack in the Ardennes was ‘only a remote possibility’, and at most a spoiling attack involving four to six divisions. If it should happen, Middleton was ‘to make a fighting withdrawal all the way back to the Meuse river if necessary.’ Middleton never told his divisional commanders that. He was not to locate any major POL depots within the area that might be given up. Bradley never told General Courtney Hodges that order. If Middleton was forced to withdraw, Bradley would order US armoured divisions to attack the enemy’s flanks. Bradley never alerted any division of

that role. Bradley, Hodges, Middleton and Reeves were of course ‘cleared for ULTRA’ and could read the wholesale evidence of a considerable build-up a few miles to the east. But no action was taken. Major General Walter Robertson commanded 2nd Infantry Division stationed around Monschau and the SchneeEifel. After hearing of intense enemy activity, Robertson’s G-2 telephoned Middleton in St Vith with a request for aerial reconnaissance. It was tersely refused! On his way to a conference with Montgomery and Bradley on 7 December, Eisenhower drove through the peaceful Ardennes. He noticed how thinly held this sector was – no sign of American troops or transport. He questioned Bradley about the vulnerability, with a frontage of 75 miles held by four reserve and resting divisions. Ike wondered aloud about ‘another nasty little Kasserine’ (the disastrous battle in North Africa where the American army suffered a bloody nose). Bradley was confident that any attack could be promptly counter-attacked from either flank before the Germans could reach the Meuse. Colonel ‘Monk’ Dickson told General Hodges and his First US Army staff at their HQ in Spa on 14 December that many German PoWs were saying that an offensive would soon begin. He slapped his situation map in the area of Monshau and Echternach and said, ‘Its the Ardennes.’ Nobody paid much attention to his outburst. Colonel Oscar Koch’s (Patton’s G-2) appreciation was more convincing: ‘the enemy rail movements indicated a definite build-up of enemy forces and supplies opposite the north flank of Third army. The massive armoured force gives the enemy the definite capability of launching a spoiling offensive.’ In military terminology a ‘spoiling’ offensive is quite serious but not deadly serious! ULTRA noted on 12 December ‘Jagdkorps II aware that all SS units were observing wireless silence.’ So the top brass in the American and British army went on leave, went to weddings, played golf or attended a conference at SHAEF in Versailles. Group Captain Frederick Winterbotham was Chief of the Air Department of the Secret Intelligence Service based at Bletchley Park. In his book The ULTRA Secret he wrote, ‘The Intelligence staffs and the commanders at SHAEF army groups and army headquarters who had for the past two and half years, and in the case of the British, for four and a half years, had the enemy’s intentions handed to them on a plate, had perhaps come to rely on ULTRA to such an extent that when it gave no positive indication of the coming [Ardennes] attack, all the other indications were not taken seriously enough.’ Winterbotham was

on a visit to Washington where at the Pentagon he got the first news of the apparent failure of ULTRA to warn either Eisenhower, Bradley or Montgomery of Hitler ’s offensive through the Ardennes. ‘Had I been in England I believe that the very absence of ULTRA would have aroused my strong suspicions.’ The case of the dog that did not bark in the night. The many intelligence appreciations put out in the late autumn months, particularly from Colonels Oscar Koch and ‘Monk’ Dickson, had produced many clues which could have put Eisenhower ’s vast army on the alert for the massive German counter-attack. ‘I think that the two old timers, even without the high level signals from Hitler and the OKW that they were used to, had put their bits and pieces together correctly despite the extraordinary precautions that Rundstedt had taken to cover up his troops movements,’ wrote Winterbotham later on. In the middle of December Hitler got what he wanted, a clear day for the start of Wacht am Rhein, then dark foggy weather for the follow-through. On 14 and 15 December the Fifth Panzer Army was sent south to a point opposite Luxembourg, near Prüm. The Sixth SS Panzer Army quietly moved into place vacated by the Fifth. On 16 December Hitler unleashed his ‘Dogs of War ’ on a 40-mile front on four hapless American infantry divisions. It was Churchill’s ‘A heavy blow now impended.’

chapter 11

The Ardennes battlegrounds: the Ghost Front

T

he Ardennes covers nearly 4,000 square miles (10,000 square kilometres) and includes the southern Belgian provinces, part of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg and the French département of Ardennes. Much of it is heavily forested with the rest covered with thin water-logged heathland. Apart from the towns on the river Meuse of Dinant, Namur, Huy, Givet and Liège, there are only three others of note, Bastogne, St Vith and Malmédy. There are scores of villages and hamlets, usually sited on crossroads, with populations of between 2,500 and 4,000. There are a number of minor rivers, the Wiltz, Warche, Salm, Sauer, Our, Outhe, Amblève, Clerf, Lienne and Clerve. Some run through deep gorges and twisting valleys. Some flow north and west towards the great river Meuse, others south and east to the wide river Moselle. The whole area is shaped like a big isosceles triangle with an 80-mile base. In 1944 there were ten well-surfaced roads across the German frontier into Belgium and Luxembourg between Wasserbillig and Monschau. They all went roughly north–south and none east–west. Contiguous with the Ardennes is the plateau region of Germany called the Eifel with three areas – Voreifel, Hocheifel and Schnee-Eifel. It lies between the Rhine, the Moselle and the Belgian and Luxembourg borders. The highest hill is Hoche Acht at 2,450 feet, drained by the river Ath. The Hohes Venn is an area of flat tableland between Eupen and Spa in Belgium and Monschau and Malmédy on the German side.

There are three attack routes out of the Eifel and Hohes Venn where the three German armies were lying in wait in the woods and forests preparatory to DDay: to the south between Trier and Prüm and through southern Luxembourg before heading NW to the Meuse; in the centre the Losheim Gap between St Vith and Malmédy; and in the north from the Aachen area via Eupen and Verviers then SW towards Marche and Rochefort, heading for the river Meuse at Givet. The rail network into the Eifel had been well engineered and expanded for military traffic. It is interesting that, besides Adolf Hitler, two authorities on armoured warfare, Basil Liddell Hart and General Heinz Guderian, agreed that the Ardennes battleground could be taken by armoured forces despite the difficulties of the terrain. Hitler favoured the 70-mile stretch between Echternach and Monschau, towards the region thinly held by four ‘resting’ American infantry divisions. In the three months up to the onslaught on 16 December the Ardennes had become a rest and recuperation area for divisions who had suffered heavily in their attacks on the West Wall in the Hürtgen Forest battles. With well-organised rest centres, out of reach of enemy gunfire and mortars, a 48-hour pass with good food, hot showers, real beds (not foxholes), USO entertainment, coffee, doughnuts and free cigarettes did wonders for the tired and weary GIs. The Ardennes was also a sensible, safe area for the totally new, green young troops fresh out of the States who could be inducted fairly gently at a low level of operations. The American infantry division was composed of about 14,000 officers and men commanded by a full colonel. There were three infantry battalions designated, for example 1/106 or 3/99 or 2/28 Infantry. Each battalion was commanded by a lieutenant colonel and had a strength of about 836 men. The support troops under command included four artillery battalions with 66 gunhowitzers and 57 anti-tank guns, plus a medical battalion, engineering battalion, tank battalion, a tank-destroyer battalion, plus a recce troop, an AA battalion, a mechanised cavalry squadron, a signal company, an ordnance company, and a QM company, not forgetting the military police and the band. The ‘Ghost Front’ was the GI nickname for the Ardennes before 16 December. The 70-mile stretch ran north–south from Monschau to Echternach, often through dense fir forests, sometimes along a river, and at times through segments of the West Wall (Siegfried Line). Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges, then aged 57, commanded the US First Army from his HQ in Spa. He had been in charge of an MG company in the grim Meuse–Argonne campaign in the Great War. He was soft spoken and taciturn, with a sad, pessimistic face.

Although he seemed to be colourless, both Eisenhower and Bradley thought highly of him, as did General George Marshall in Washington. Hodges was popular with the GIs and, as he had originally enlisted as a private soldier, was known as ‘the soldiers’ soldier ’. From north to south were stationed the 2nd ‘Indian-Head’ infantry division under Major General Walter Robertson; the 99th ‘Checkerboard’ infantry division under Major General Walter Lauer; the 106th ‘Golden Lions’ infantry division under Major General Alan Jones; the 28th ‘Keystone’ infantry division under Major Norman Cota; the 4th ‘Ivy’ infantry division under Major General Raymond Barton and 9th ‘Phantom’ armoured division under Major General John Leonard. Their CCA defended near Emsdorf, CCB at St Vith and CCR along the Bastogne–Trois Vierges road. Only the ‘Indian-Head’, ‘Ivy’ and the ‘Keystone’ divisions had any substantial battle experience. The other three had arrived in Europe quite recently. The 2nd and 99th in the northern sector were part of Major General Leonard Gerow’s US V Corps. The 106th, 28th, 4th and 9th armoured were part of Major General Troy Middleton’s VIII Corps. The length of front to be defended was: 99th, twelve miles; 106th (plus 14th Cavalry group) twenty-three miles; 28th, eighteen miles; 4th (plus part of 9th Armoured), twenty-two miles. Von Runstedt’s three giant armies had gathered fairly secretly in the area known as the Eifel, east of the West Wall and between 30 miles in the north, and 60 miles in the south, west of the river Rhine. The main towns from north to south are Gemund, Schleiden, Prüm and Vianden, on the way to Trier. Due east of Vianden is the small town of Bitburg, with five roads feeding into it, a major target for the Allied airforces. The Eifel is a rugged area of high dense pine forests, which runs south for about 70 miles until it reaches the valley of the Moselle. There are two parallel ridges: the High Eifel on the west, facing Belgium, and the lower, volcanic Eifel on the east, which slopes away to the Rhine. In the centre is the 2,300-foot-high north–south ridge called the SchneeEifel (east of St Vith and defended by the young, green ‘Golden Lions’). There is a continuous river barrier running along the western edges of the Eifel, the Our, Sauer and Moselle. The Siegfried Line or West Wall ran roughly north– south along the German–Belgium frontier. The Germans had not needed to build as many concrete anti-tank ‘dragon’s teeth’, or pillboxes, or lay minefields on the Eifel compared to the rest of their formidable West Wall defence lines. Both Eifel to the east and Ardennes to the west are natural defensive areas,

against which it is difficult to launch a ‘solid’ attack. Rivers, streams, valleys, gorges, ridges and colossal impenetrable woods make progress difficult for the attacking forces. However, traditionally there was the key Losheim Gap, a sector some 5 miles wide beginning at the north end of the Schnee-Eifel. Through this little corridor the Kaiser ’s armies entered in 1914, and again in 1940 when General Erwin Rommel (later followed by his Führer) and his panzers forced their way through. There were four key communication centres in the Ardennes which von Runstedt’s armies had to seize within 48 hours of Null-Tag, not only to speed the German advance but also to deny vital roads to block American reserves. These were St Vith, Malmédy, Houffalize and Bastogne. Each was a little hub with roads feeding in and out. St Vith, 13 miles SE of Malmédy, had five main roads and three rail lines radiating outwards. Malmédy was a major US Army service centre with engineering workshops, hospital, ordnance and military police. Malmédy also had five roads feeding in and out. Houffalize, SW of St Vith and NE of Bastogne was an important road junction. It lies in a narrow valley on both sides of the river Ourthe and a main road continues to La Roche from which a network of roads leads directly to the Meuse bridges. Bastogne lies 11 miles south of Houffalize. It was the vital town for its roads and railhead through which American reinforcements would pour. It would be the springhead for any American counter-offensive. It was also the HQ of General Troy Middleton’s VIII Corps with no less than nine roads feeding into it. It was shortly to become one of the most famous siege towns in American history. Winston Churchill wrote, ‘Within six days a crisis burst upon us. The Allied decision to strike hard from Aachen in the north as well as through Alsace in the south [Eisenhower ’s policy of attacking everywhere all the time on a broad front] had left our centre very weak.’ Altogether Army Group B was allocated 2,168 tanks and assault SP guns of which the vast majority were assembled to smash the Ghost Front on X-Day or Null-Tag.

chapter 12

‘All hell’s broken loose’

A

lan Moorehead reported the dramatic events of the first two days of Wacht am Rhein:

The shock was chaotic. An American division which had just landed in France took the first blow [the 99th suffered 3,000 casualties] and was rolled up in a few hours. An American armoured division was caught on its flank and knocked off balance [probably 14th Cavalry Group]. Three or four other American divisions were either encircled [106th and 28th] or overrun. Divisional and Corps headquarters – even army headquarters – were forced to pack and run. A stream of flying bombs came over, not hitting anything much, but adding to the unreal and frightening savagery of the assault. German paratroops [Operation Stösser] began sniping on bridges far behind the US lines and then to spread the confusion squadrons of apparently friendly tanks [Operation Greif] appeared only to open up murderously when they got within range. No man could trust another in the forward areas … The American system of communications broke down. [In fact Major General Strong at SHAEF had identified by midnight on Null-Tag the German forces in action. Ten infantry (12, 18, 26, 62, 272, 276, 277, 326, 352 and 560 VGDs), five panzers (1 SS, 12 SS, 2nd, 116 and Panzer Lehr) and one parachute (3rd).] No one – not even at SHAEF – had any clear idea of what was happening. Whole corps of Americans were cut off somewhere in the battle area. It was useless trying to send them orders, since one knew nothing definitely of what was going on. With fantastic speed the Germans appeared in one village after another. All through 17

December the battle was out of our control. On the 18th it was serious. Worse still a fog had settled over the battlefield. Writing well after the battle was over, indeed when the war ended, the Chief Allied Commanders wrote their account of what ‘actually’ happened. Churchill, Eisenhower, Montgomery, Bradley and Patton all put a happier gloss on those first few terrible days. Churchill noted, ‘In the Ardennes sector a single corps, the VIII American of four divisions, held a front of seventy-five miles. The risk was foreseen and deliberately accepted, but the consequences were grave and might have been graver,’ and, ‘The Sixth Panzer Army was known to be strong and in good fettle … in early December it vanished for a while from the ken of our Intelligence [ULTRA produced many indications] and bad weather hindered our efforts to trace it [the efforts were rather halfhearted]. Eisenhower suspected that something was afoot, though its scope and violence came as a surprise.’ General Bradley knew nothing about the attack until late afternoon on the 16th, nearly twelve hours after the opening barrages all along the 75-mile line at 5.30 a.m. He was in conference with General Eisenhower at SHAEF HQ. Eisenhower, newly promoted to the rank of five-star General of the Armies, also attended the wedding of his batman/valet Mickey McKeogh in the Louis XIV Chapel at Versailles. Generals Bradley, Courtney Hodges (GOC US First Army) and ‘Pete’ Quesada (Chief of US Tactical Airforces in Europe) had just visited a Belgian manufacturer of quality shotguns. Bradley had also been escorting Marlene Dietrich, the dazzling actress; Hodges had been entertaining major American league baseball stars. Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery was asking for leave to visit his son in England and play golf with the Welsh professional Dai Rees. Bradley had motored from his HQ in the Hotel Alfa in Luxembourg City, had lunch at the Ritz in Paris and reached Eisenhower ’s HQ in the Trianon Palace Hotel in Versailles early in the afternoon. At about dusk Major General Strong was handed a note to say that the Germans had attacked at five points along the front of US VIII Corps. Bradley was convinced that it was a spoiling attack with perhaps four to six divisions, planned to upset the US First Army’s attack on the Roer dams, and perhaps the US Third Army’s pending attack against the Saar industrial region south of the Ardennes. Soon another message arrived, indicating that eight divisions not previously identified on the Ardennes front were involved in the attacks. Bradley dithered. Eisenhower ‘suggested’ that Bradley should ‘send [General] Troy Middleton [GOC VIII Corps] the 7th Armoured division from US Ninth Army in the south – send

him some help.’ Bradley was worried in case the fiery General George Patton would be ‘upset’ if he was asked to help out. Eisenhower, perhaps out of character, then said, ‘Tell him [Patton] that Ike is running this damn war.’ When Bradley reluctantly got Patton on the telephone, he was indeed angry: ‘Troy Middleton could handle that [problem] himself. It must be just a spoiling attack.’ Bradley then, rather apologetically, continued: ‘I hate like hell to do it, George, but I’ve got to have that division, Middleton must have help.’ Bradley then telephoned his staff in Luxembourg City with instructions to tell General Simpson of the Ninth Army to get the 7th Armoured division moving south to help Middleton. Bradley and Eisenhower then had dinner together in Ike’s villa in St Germain-en-Laye, ‘cracked a bottle of champagne’ to celebrate Eisenhower ’s promotion and played five rubbers of bridge. At 11 p.m. ULTRA sent a message, a decrypted signal that the Luftwaffe Jagdkorps II in the Netherlands be prepared on the 17th ‘to support the attack of 5 and 6 armies.’ Neither Eisenhower nor Bradley bothered to pick up the phone and actually talk to General Middleton or Hodges. Moreover ULTRA had sent an intercept message directly to Bradley’s HQ in Luxembourg City, logged in the early afternoon of 16 December: ‘Rundstedt on sixteenth informed soldiers of West Front that hour of destiny had struck. Mighty offensive armies faced Allies. Everything at stake. More than mortal deeds for Fatherland and Führer. A quote “holy duty” unquote.’ 394th Infantry of US 99th Division had captured the same field order, which was promptly sent to HQ US First Army, which passed it promptly to Bradley’s HQ 12th Army Group. There it stayed! To their credit Patton and Hodges did react positively. Patton set high standards and demanded excellence and hard work: ‘I’ve won in battle and I’m going to win again. I won because I had good commanders and staff officers. I don’t fight for fun and I won’t tolerate anyone on my staff who doesn’t fight. It is inevitable for men to be killed and wounded in battle. But there is no reason why such losses should be increased because of the incompetence and carelessness of some stupid son-of-a-bitch.’ Patton had daily meetings at 0700 hours with his Chief of Staff and the head of the various HQ sections of US Third Army. So 10th US Armoured division were on their way to help north of Luxembourg City. Hodges also sent the US 7th Armoured division south towards St Vith and a regiment of the US 1st Infantry division to help the 99th ‘Checkerboard’ division. But Hodges was reluctant to allow General Gerow of US V Corps to recall his 2nd Division’s attack on the Roer dams. Alan Moorehead wrote:

I cannot see anyone disentangling the chaotic history of those two days. One stands out clearly. The American units in the midst of the German flood, being without orders or information simply took things into their own hands and fought back. This is probably the major imponderable of warfare – to know just when men will suddenly and often of their own freewill commit an act of unthinking desperate bravery. Once started, it has a contagious effect and each man tries to outdo the other. But why it should start and how, is something you can never know for certain beforehand. You can expect the soldiers to fight up to a certain known standard but here in the Ardennes the Americans rose above themselves and in the midst of so much confusion and doubt and bloodshed, they held on long after the time when normally all hope would have been lost. It was this desperate resistance by isolated Americans in the early days – this and nothing else – which saved Belgium and Holland from being overrun. But the messages were now coming back to all the various HQs: ‘All hell’s broken loose here.’

chapter 13

The Losheim Gap Battle: gallant cavalry

G

eneralfeldmarschall Walther Model and General der Panzertruppen von Manteuffel had been directed by their Führer to capture the vital town of St Vith, if possible on Null-Tag, 16 December. The easiest and traditional route from Germany was through the Losheimgraben (Losheim Gap). This 2–6mile-wide sector was the historic German invasion route from the SchneeEifel into Belgium. Unfortunately for the ‘Amis’ (nickname for the American troops by their enemy), the gap was the boundary between Major General Middleton’s VIII Corps and Major General Gerow’s V Corps. Often front-line boundaries are inefficiently defended. German military intelligence had spotted that the vital gap was lightly held by a reconnaissance squadron (the 18th) of the Fourteenth Cavalry Group. A US armoured cavalry squadron numbered nearly 1,000 men. It had a light tank company with, usually, 17 M5A1 Stuarts armed with a 37mm gun, and an assault gun troop each with two M8 75mm carriage howitzers. The three recce platoons in each of the three recce troops were equipped with M8 armoured cars, half-tracks and jeeps. It was a highly mobile unit but totally unsuited for a solid defensive role. Their Commanding Officer, Colonel Mark Devine, was a tough disciplinarian and, like Montgomery, insisted on physical fitness. When he arrived at Manderfeld, a mile west of the river Our, he personally reconnoitred the whole line of positions and was shocked at the inadequacy of the defences. He was not happy that he was under command of the very green 106 ‘Golden Lions’ division,

which had replaced on 11 December the experienced US 2nd Infantry division holding the Schnee-Eifel mountain range defences. Devine had under command twelve towed 3-inch guns, some SP 105mm howitzers and two platoons of 820 Tank Destroyer battalion. Devine kept the 18th Squadron and support troops – a total of 900 men – in the front line, guarding eight defence posts in and around the six hamlets of Roth, Weckerath, Krewinkel, Afst, Berterath and Losheim. Devine kept his 32nd Armoured Cavalry squadron in reserve about 20 miles back at Vielsalm. He made sure his defence posts were well wired with defensive minefields and that his ‘cavalry’ patrolled aggressively between them. Devine had little help, certainly no firm orders, from Major General Alan Jones GOC 106 infantry division whose HQ was in St Vith. Jones’s priorities were mainly administrative and getting his inexperienced troops, still wearing ties and gaiters, installed in the SchneeEifel foxholes and dugouts. By coincidence the boundary lines of the advance routes planned by Sixth SS Panzer Army and the Fifth Panzer Army also ran through the Losheim Gap! Sepp Dietrich had put Major General Wadehn’s 3rd Parachute division (with 5, 8 and 9 parachute infantry regiments) and Generalmajor Gerhard Engel’s 12th Volksgrenadier Division (VGD) (with 48 and 89 VG regiments) to smash through the northern sector of the Losheim Gap. And then 1st SS Panzer Division, the ‘Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler ’ under General Wilhelm Mohnke would follow through to capture St Vith. General Hasso von Manteuffel was relying on his 18th VGD under Oberst Gunter Hoffman-Schonborn (with 293, 294 and 295 regiments) backed by a battalion of tank destroyers and forty SP assault guns (mistaken for tanks by the American defenders). They would capture the three villages in front of them and then race down the valley and secure the river Our bridge at Schonberg. At the same time this move would help trap the two regiments of the Golden Lions on the high ridge of the Schnee Eifel. The 422nd and 423rd regiments were holding a six mile line on the east slopes. Von Manteuffel had placed another regiment of his VGD, with a battalion of SP guns just south of the Schnee Eifel defence line. They would be the left hook to encircle the Americans in the hills and then strike five miles NW to Schonberg. None of the German forces opposite Devines cavalry were particularly experienced. 18 VGD were chiefly Kriegsmarines, plus men of 571 Grenadier Division and 18 Luftwaffe division. They had been stationed in Denmark and had fought around Trier and then in the Roer dams battle. They were still almost at full strength. 12 VGD was probably the most formidable having

fought in Poland, France and on the Eastern Front. Rebuilt in East Prussia to a strength of 15,000 and redesignated a VGD they fought as part of I SS Panzer Corps. The 62nd VGD under Oberst Friedrich Kittel had fought in Poland, France, suffered heavily at Stalingrad and Kursk and had been reorganised in September with mainly Polish and Czech conscripts. The 3rd Fallschirmjager (Parachute) division had fought as infantry in Normandy and were almost completely destroyed. The remnants escaped to Holland to be rebuilt with inexperienced Luftwaffe troops. Thousands of concrete ‘dragons teeth’ anti-tank impediments had been constructed along the West Wall just in front of the American defences. The German attackers built planks and ramps to ease their AFVs across these improvised bridges. Then their artillery barrages knocked out all wire communications in the American outposts, and jammed radio messages. On the night of the 15th 2nd Lt Max Crawford, Sgt Herzog and Corporal Banister were part of an eight man patrol of C Troop, 18th Cavalry Recce squadron based on Afst. They set off south to lay an ambush in Allmuthen and to try to grab a prisoner. They saw a thirty strong enemy patrol ahead in a hamlet. Private Richard King fired his Thompson MG at them and the patrol retreated briskly. Crawford reported to the squadron S-2 the presence of a large patrol so close. General von Manteuffel, disguised as an infantry colonel, had personally made reconnaissances at night, based in a pillbox overlooking the river Our. Just before 5.30 a.m. on 16 December the outposts along the Losheim Gap saw spectacular flickers of light as von Manteuffel’s artificial moonlight started. At the same time, a heavy artillery and Nebelwerfers barrage fell on or near the cavalry defence posts. But not on Weckerath, Roth and Kobscheid in the south of Losheim Gap, for German patrols from 18 VGD had found an undefended gap of more than a mile between Roth and Weckerath. In darkness, in relative silence, von Manteuffel sent a VGD column through this gap to seize the village of Auw, where the road led west to Andler and Schonberg or south-west on a road nicknamed by the Americans the Skyline Boulevard. The cavalry units (each of three troops that were 145 men strong) had mixed fortunes in the first day’s battles. Roth, astride a direct road to Auw, had a small garrison of A Troop under captain Stanley Porchée and two of the static towed 3-inch tank destroyers. The Volksgrenadiers had strong support from SP assault guns and the outcome was never in doubt. Colonel Devine tried to send a platoon of light tanks to help Porchée but the VGD fended them off. By midday a radio message was sent from Roth: ‘Enemy SPs were 75 yards from

CP [Command Post], firing direct fire. Out.’ Three men were killed and 87 surrendered.

Fig 13.1 The ‘dragon’s teeth’, ants-tank obstacles In the Westwall, Hitler ’s Siegfried Line (111-CC-109298: 4-129-46)

Fig 13.2 German Volksgrenadier waves his men on, with burning AFV in background (EA 48002 IWM) From Weckerath the defenders could see about fifteen enemy assault guns and a battalion of VGD marching through the gap between them and Roth,

bound for Auw. At Kobscheid the two platoons held out and at dusk the 81 survivors smashed up their vehicles and over the next three days made their way through the snowy woods back to Divisional HQ at St Vith. Lt Crawford did well at Afst and his garrison retired in good order without losses. The shock troops of 18 VGD arrived before Weckerath while it was still dark. Reinforced by a platoon of light tanks from Manderfeld, a mile away, the defenders held out all day. From the German town of Ormont in the northern half of Losheim Gap, the 3rd Parachute division advanced towards Manderfeld. The Americans had built good defensive positions in front of the small towns of Krewinkel and Afst. First Lieutenants Kenneth Ferrens and Aubrey Mills masterminded a heroic defence by C Troop 18th Squadron at Krewinkel. After the early opening artillery barrage, through the half light created by searchlight, the defenders watched with amazement as a large column of paratroops marched down the road, rifles slung, talking, whistling and singing. When they reached the barbed wire outer defences Ferrens ordered his men to open up – with deadly effect, in their second, better planned attack, 50 paratroops got into the village but the cavalrymen in the stone schoolhouse and church held out. At daylight the Germans began to withdraw and at least 150 Germans died in the action, for 3 US casualties. At Afst Lt Crawford and his platoon waited for the white-suited Germans to reach the outer wire. The paratroops withdrew, leaving 30 dead. Lt Colonel William Damen, CO 18th Cavalry reconnaissance squadron, must have been proud of his young officers who had delayed the enemy so bravely. Colonel Devine sent a troop of 32nd Cavalry, which had been in reserve, south to Andler and another with assault guns along the crest of the Manderfeld Ridge, north towards Lanzareth. This small town had been quickly overrun and the cavalry troop with two three-inch guns had made a rather too hasty retreat. Captain Macdonald called it ‘indeed a bug out’. During the morning, Colonel Devine asked his commanding officer, General Alan Jones, for help. ‘Nothing at this time’ was the answer. Devine, however, rashly promised to counter-attack with Lt Colonel Paul Ridge’s 32nd Cavalry recce squadron moving up from Vielsam. When the withdrawals from Weckerath, Krewinkel and Afst began, Captain Charles MacDonald, who was an American company commander in the Battle of the Ardennes, wrote, ‘So close was the enemy that it was a shoot-out in the tradition of stagecoaches beset by Indians in the Wild West. The cavalrymen clambered aboard any vehicle that could move; jeeps, half tracks, armoured cars, light tanks, holding on with one hand so they could shoot with the other. The vehicles could only

make about ten miles per hour. They had to run a gauntlet of Germans on both sides of the road.’ Around 4 p.m. Colonel Devine was allowed to withdraw the cavalry defence line 2 miles back, behind Manderfeld–Andler. That night, Devine visited General Jones in St Vith, who was ‘too busy’ to see him. Unfortunately in his absence, Lt Robert Reppa, A Troop commander 32nd Cavalry, felt lonely and, without orders, moved his little force north to Honsfeld where 99 US Infantry were preparing defences. Unfortunately too, when Devine returned to his HQ at 11 a.m. on the 17th at Manderfeld, he found his staff in a panic. No sign of their 32nd Cavalry Squadron. The pathetic cri de coeur to 106 Division HQ to ‘counter-attack to save us’ was predictably ignored. Maps, records and orders were being destroyed. Staff were packing up and about to flee. At midday on the 17th, the leading troop – Chicago’s famous Black Horse Troop of 32nd Squadron – arrived and Devine cooled down his panicky staff. He ordered the newcomers to attack north and retake Lanzerath and protect his open flank. Two miles out of Manderfeld they met the 3rd Parachute troops, who had pushed neatly through the Afst-Krewinkel Gap. Although their troop of SP howitzers caused severe casualties among the German paratroops, the cavalry unit was vastly outnumbered and had to withdraw. The paratroops continued their advance north-west. Manderfeld was now being isolated and Devine was given permission to fall back to another defence line – Andler bridge to Holzheim, thus helping in the outer defence of St Vith. Floods of refugees poured into Manderfeld with reports of terrible disasters and great successes. In a second wave of panic, Devine’s troops set fire to Manderfeld and destroyed it completely before scuttling SW to Andler. Devine now sent three troops of ‘cavalry’ to occupy Holzheim high on the Manderfeld ridge to be the north flank anchor. At Andler, the south flank anchor, there was another troop. Devine’s light tank company was guarding the vital Schonberg–St Vith road. Their supporting artillery battalion, which had been firing in support all day, had been able to withdraw without loss. By nightfall on the 27th, with his new line established, the intrepid but exhausted colonel made his way to St Vith to explain to 106 Division staff his dispositions. He could not speak to anyone in authority. Angry and discouraged he returned to his new HQ at Holzheim to find that three troops had withdrawn without orders – two from Holzheim, the other from Andler. So Devine ordered a general withdrawal by 14th Cavalry Group to a line beside the main American supply route leading north from St Vith. Rather rashly, he told 106 Divisional HQ it ‘was their final delaying position.’ The Chicago Black Horse

Troop moved north 2 miles, to Honsfeld, to link up with 99 Infantry division. It was a sad end to what had been mainly a very brave series of small defensive actions by Devine’s ‘cavalry’. On Null-Tag the American Jabos and the Luftwaffe were in action over the Losheim Gap. One German flak officer was not impressed by Herman Göering’s ‘fly-boys’. FW Karl Laun, an Austrian flak officer with the Flaksturm Battalion 84 assigned to 1 SS Panzer division reported on Null-Tag: Another halt is called before Losheim. We advance 300 metres and then stop again, no doubt an order to await noon or rather the fabos. There they are already, those Thunderbolts and Lightnings. Their flying order is perfect with only two Mustangs, those Katzenjammer kids, diving in and out of formation and generally indulging in gymnastic horseplay. They are always where there is something interesting to dive on. Now the first wave of Thunderbolts starts diving at us. Our quadruple flak platoon opens up and succeeds in setting the last plane on fire. However, our positions there along the highway are so unfortunate that a series of prematurely bursting flak shells makes seven men of our Battery candidates for the Verwundeten medal. Instead of the advertised 1,000 planes, approximately 50 Messerschmitts and Focke Wulfs arrive, who are evidently very reluctant to enter into dogfights. One can easily sense it from down here how they wriggle and turn to get out of the Jabo’s field of vision. The proportion of airplanes shot down is 3:1 in favour of the US. In the late afternoon we continue the advance.

chapter 14

The doom and destruction of the young ‘Golden Lions’

M

ajor General Alan Jones, the commanding officer of the US 106th Infantry division – the ‘Golden Lions’ – was described as a stockily built man of 50, with a full rounded face, jet-black hair, heavy eyebrows and a thin moustache. Outwardly calm he was a person who seldom revealed his emotions. He had never been responsible for men’s lives in combat. His division landed in France on 6 December and five days later replaced the veteran 2nd US Infantry division in the Schnee-Eifel mountain sector. The young green troops moved into well-prepared log dug-outs and bunkers for their rifle and weapon squads and took over the heavy .50 calibre machineguns and mortars already in place. A good communications network linked every squad and outpost. There were eight separate little positions – some built-in depressions – along the 15-mile front line of Lanzerath–Krewinkel– Roth–Kobscheid. To the north and under command was the 18th Cavalry reconnaissance squadron covering most of the Losheim Gap which led to St Vith and Malmédy. There were three main routes through the divisional area. The southern road went from Prüm through the West Wall through the river Alf valley to Eigelscheid, Winterspelt and NW to St Vith. In the centre the road came from Roth, then SW through the Losheim Gap. The northern road came from Hallschlag into the river Our valley to St Vith. The northern and southern routes were wide tarmac roads, ideal for panzers. The journey from England to Le Havre in a storm meant four seasick days

until the foul weather abated. There was no transport to meet them. For three days they waited near Le Havre in the driving rain and mud. The truck journey north took another two days and a night. They bivouacked in the snow, waiting for 2nd infantry to move out, taking their looted stoves with them. The last 15 miles to the Schnee-Eifel took four hours. Most of the five days spent in the line before Wacht am Rhein was spent trying to make conditions liveable rather than sending out patrols and general reconnaissance on their extended front. Trench foot was soon rife. There was a shortage of snow-shoes, ammunition, bazookas and anti-tank grenades. The Golden Lions were in no condition to go to war. First Lieutenant Alan Jones, son of the divisional commander, was S-3, 1st Battalion 423rd regiment. He wrote, ‘During our month in England we could only engage in basic stuff, physical conditioning with a lot of road marches, firing small arms and re-zeroing weapons, classes in first aid and map reading and similar exercises.’ On arrival in the Ardennes, ‘We were aware of some enemy activity. We could hear trains in the vicinity of Prüm, several miles behind the enemy lines.’ Both 423rd and the enemy were ensconced in pillbox defences of the Siegfried Line! Private James Mills, I Company 423rd had a West Point officer as company commander. ‘The captain did his best to see we were good soldiers.’ Atop the Schnee-Eifel ‘there was a valley in front and similar mountains across the valley facing us. There were firebreaks through the pines on both mountains.’ Mills was trained to use the M-1 Garand, the Bar machine-gun, bazooka, mortar, Bangalore torpedo, flame-thrower, plastic explosives and grenades. The West Point officer was obviously highly professional! Phil Hannon, aged 20, served with 81st Engineer Combat Bn, under command of 106 Infantry division: ‘We were eighteen, nineteen, twenty-yearold kids. None of us could believe anything bad could happen to us. At most we thought of the million dollar wound, getting hit in the leg and being sent home as a hero.’ Staff Sergeant John Collins, in the same unit, said, ‘We were in Auw, a small town of 600 people on a hill with a valley between it and the front about three miles away. The weather is sloppy, cold and snow about a foot deep. Lt Woerner, Smitty the jeep driver, Stanley the tool keeper and myself stayed with a German family of eight. 13 and 14 December we are still working on repairing and building roads for the 422nd regiment. The morale is very high and the men are having fun, so it seems.’ Richard McKee qualified as expert rifleman with an M-1 Garand carbine and

became assistant squad leader 3rd platoon, Company A, 422nd Regiment: ‘We left the camp in St Laurient [near Le Havre] on the Red Ball Express. We began to sense the war in the faces of the old women and men as our convoy moved through the gloomy forests around Malmédy and St Vith. Bastogne was just another town, as we moved on, jammed together like sardines in a can. Cold, soaked and frozen, no change of warm clothing was available because our barracks bags had not caught up with us. But we fell from the trucks and took over, man for man, gun for gun, from the troops of the 2nd Division twelve miles east of St Vith near Schönberg.’

Fig 14.1 German infantry of Panzer Grenadiers advance (MH 24765 IWM) Private Harry Martin, Company L, 424th Regiment, was told by his sergeant, ‘This is a quiet sector where combat troops are sent to rest and green troops like us gradually broken in. No real activity in this area for nearly three months. We would earn our Combat Infantryman’s Badges and receive leave

passes to Paris.’ Master Sergeant Clifford Broadwater, with the anti-tank company of 423rd Infantry, was sited in a three-storey duplex building in Bleialf, 4 miles south of Schönberg. His squad were equipped with a 57mm anti-tank gun which fired a 12½ pound projectile with a muzzle velocity of 3,000 feet per second with an effective range of 500 yards. It could penetrate four or five inches of armour plate. The German tanks in the front often had seven inches of plate! Major General Jones had stationed 424th regiment in the southern sector of Heckhuscheid and Winterspelt area, 423rd in Bleialf area and 422nd on the Auw–Schönberg road. On Null-Tag the assault troops of 18th and 62nd VGDs had started forward at 0500 hours. Both Colonel Charles Cavender, CO 423rd Infantry, and Colonel George Descheneaux, CO 422nd Infantry, were content to hold their strong well-prepared position on the Schnee-Eifel. Through the 16th and 17th casualties were negligible. The men were confident that although they appeared to have Volksgrenadiers in their rear a relief column would appear, possibly an airdrop of supplies too. Enemy shelling had been heavy from the German LXVI Corps artillery and had damaged command posts at Schlausenbach (422nd) and Buchet (423rd) as well as on the two villages blocking key roads – Bleialf and Eigelscheid, both in 424th regiments area. Road junctions in the rear of Schönberg and even St Vith took a pounding from big German railway guns. Front-line telephones were quickly knocked out, but most units of 106th Division had little experience of using radios, particularly under fire. General von Manteuffel had taken a deliberate risk. He had divided 18 VGD into two flank attacks, north and south of 422nd and 423rd Golden Lions. He had left a token 200 troops in his original front line, being confident that General Alan Jones would not contemplate leaving a strong defensive position and making an assault eastwards! Quite soon Bleialf in Colonel Cavender ’s rear was captured by three columns of Volksgrenadiers, with a platoon of American anti-tank guns destroyed and a troop of 18th Cavalry cut off. Cavender asked General Jones for the return of his second battalion, which was in divisional reserve. Jones refused and Cavender assembled a makeshift counter-attack and, with great help from his artillery, Bleialf was recaptured in house-to-house fighting. However, General Jones did release his other reserve to help the 3/424 regiment, which was in trouble around Heckhuscheid. Colonel Alexander Reid, CO 424th, was holding the ‘Golden Lions’ right wing to the south between Grosslangenfeld–Winterspelt–Heckuscheid and Grosskampenberg. His adversary was Oberst Frederick Kittel, CO of the 62nd

Volksgrenadiers, who was trying to push his troops, guided by flashlights and flares, advancing erect, shouting and screaming, through Eigelscheid, on to Winterspelt and Steinebruck and then commit a battalion on bicycles to seize St Vith! Keittel sent a second supporting attack in parallel 2 miles south, aimed at the high crest at Heckhuscheid. Ferocious fighting all day by Captain Joseph Freesland’s cannon (57mm antitank gun) company defended the Weissenhof crossroads. They were forced out back to Winterspelt despite gallant actions by Sergeant de Felice, Lt Crawford Wheeler and Pfc Paul Rosen. By the night of the 16th, General Alan Jones had committed all his reserves, apart from the Combat Engineers helping the defenders of St Vith. Private Harry Martin, L Company, 3/424, was woken at dawn by an NCO who burst into the squad cabin and yelled, The Germans are coming. We will all be killed.’ The squad picked up their rifles and steel helmets and ran to their two-man foxholes on the extreme left flank of Heckhuscheid. Martin recounted: ‘Seconds later I could see hundreds of shadowy heads bobbing up and down, coming over the crest of the hill just before dawn. They acted like they were drunk or on drugs, screaming, shrieking. I was absolutely terrified. They had outflanked our company and now they were coming to finish us off. With nothing on our left and out of sight of our platoon on the right, it felt almost like we were against the whole German Army. I was horror-stricken. There was no thought of running away or surrendering. I had an absolute conviction to fight to the death while being certain we would be killed. There were so many of them storming down the hill coming right for us. There was no way of stopping all of them. I had a feeling of utter hopelessness. I was panic-stricken. I felt my entire life force had left my body. I was already dead and was fighting like a zombie. Sheer panic caused me to fire without thinking or miming. I was unaware of my body, just terror, firing as fast as my finger could pull the trigger. In the middle of this terrifying battle I heard a very confident calm voice inside my head say, “Squeeze the trigger”.’ Harry Martin then shot one of the charging Germans through the head. ‘At that moment I was a veteran combat soldier I continued to shoot attacking Germans until they finally stopped coming. The battle was over at Heckhuscheid – for the time being.’ Tank support arrived with the appearance of CCB [each American armoured division was composed of CCA, CCB and CCR. These units were composed of a tank battalion, armoured infantry battalion plus supporting arms. They could thus become ‘Task Forces’ named after their commander] 9th ‘Phantom’ Armoured under Major General John Leonard.

By daybreak on the 17th, 62nd VGD, urged on by the German Corps Commander Walther Lucht, drove the ‘Golden Lions’ of 1/424 out of Winterspelt, but were blocked on the main road to the river Our. A scratch force under Lt Huddleston held the Steinebrück bridge over the Our. Brigadier General Hoge’s CCB of 9th Armoured sent a tank and an armoured infantry battalion to the rescue of 424 Infantry and a ferocious battle ensued for the hills flanking Echterach. This enabled the 424 ‘Golden Lions’ to withdraw in reasonable order back to St Vith. Major General Jones was involved in a number of crucial misunderstandings. When he talked to General Troy Middleton, VIII Corps Commander, on the Saturday night of Null-Tag he thought that he was being told that the CCB of ‘Lucky Seventh’ Armoured division, due to help defend St Vith, would arrive at 7 a.m. on the Sunday morning. It was clearly impossible for the CCB to drive 70 miles through the night on snowy roads overwhelmed by ‘refugee’ troops and their vehicles, reach St Vith and then deploy for battle to save the trapped ‘Golden Lions’ or block the enemy incursion in the Losheim Gap. Jones was naturally delighted that the CCB of 9th and the CCB of 7th Armoured divisions were arriving to support him. But, still concerned about the fate of his two regiments on the Schnee-Eifel, Jones telephoned Middleton (codename Monarch) late that night. Using codes such as ‘big friends’ (armour) and ‘keys’ (regiments), they talked rather vaguely around the problem. Jones wanted a clear-cut order, either ‘keep 422 and 423 where they are and let them fight it out’ or ‘withdraw them to St Vith’; Middleton was under the impression that he had ‘ordered’ Jones to pull his regiments back to safety. Jones had also asked VIII Corps to arrange an airdrop of specific ammunition, rockets, rations and wound dressings for the two Golden Lions regiments. For various reasons the C-47 aircraft based in England flew to Belgium but were unable to deliver. At 9.30 a.m. on Sunday morning Jones, having heard that Winterspelt and Schönberg were firmly in German hands, sent this message to the two commanders, Colonels Cavender and Descheneaux: ‘Reinforcements driving through this afternoon. Withdraw from present positions if untenable.’ As all normal communications had by now all broken down, this urgent message went by the 106 Division’s artillery wireless network. It did not reach the hapless defenders for another six hours. The German senior commanders were hounding their leading assault troops. Late on Saturday night Field Marshal Walther Model, Commander in Chief Army Group B, encountered General von Manteuffel near Schönberg and ordered 18th VGD under Oberst Günter Hoffmann-Schönborn to capture

Schönberg, and also for Oberst Otto Kremer ’s crack Führer Begleit (Escort) brigade to make sure on the Sunday of breaking through to St Vith. To put this unusual meeting in context would be to have General Omar Bradley talking to General Jones in St Vith and telling him what to do! At 2.15 a.m. on Monday morning, General Jones finally ordered his two regiments to fight their way out and, on the way to St Vith, destroy the enemy forces along the Schönberg–St Vith road. The message was unclear: ‘To destroy by fire from dug-in positions S of Schönberg-St Vith R.’ Jones failed to designate a commander for the break-out, although Cavender was senior to Descheneaux. Sgt Richard McKee, A Company, 422nd regiment, was ordered by his company commander to cache the company payroll of about $70,000. He buried it in an ammunition container near an abandoned German pillbox: ‘While we had no idea of how devastating the German attack was, we felt we were headed for trouble. As we marched down a road, the side ditches were strewn with gas masks and equipment. Everyone was in such a hurry, they threw away everything, so they could go faster and easier. No one bothered to tell us if we were advancing or retreating. Around mid afternoon we were crossing an open field when three German 88mm shells screamed overhead and detonated on our right.’ McKee was hit in the right leg. The next day he was promoted to staff sergeant, led out a patrol and encountered Germans in the woods: ‘We ran back. I only had enough time to jump on the last jeep in the convoy. It was panic, pure and simple, no withdrawal. We were running for our lives. As we entered Schönberg the lead jeep hit a land mine and blew up. The CO [Lt Colonel William Craig] was killed. All the vehicles stopped. It was around 9 a.m. and one of the officers holding a white flag told us to destroy our guns, other equipment and surrender. We couldn’t believe it. We were not under fire and we could not see any Germans. Everyone was told to get rid of family pictures, money, billfolds and knives. Keep only your dog-tags, blankets, canteen. Around 10.30 a.m. the Germans came up and took over. They were like a bunch of kids with new toys, trying to start the trucks and going through them. Our captors ordered us to get rid of our helmets, put our hands on top of our heads. They took our watches and anything else they wanted. They told us that if anyone attempted to escape they would shoot everyone. The war was over for me.’ Sergeant Leo Leisse served with the ammunition and pioneer platoon of 3/422 HQ and wrote, ‘On 19 December we came under small arms and artillery fire from several directions. The 1st Battalion was attacked by tanks

[Oberst Remer ’s Führer Begleit] and part of it was cut off and captured. We came under intense fire from several types of weapons which inflicted heavy casualties and knocked out a number of our mortars and machine-guns. The 423rd on our left sustained heavy casualties and was badly disorganised. On the afternoon of 19 December, unable to get supplies of food or ammunition or to evacuate our casualties for the past four days, Colonel [George] Descheneaux decided to surrender. We had begun to retreat, some of the men in frightful disorder, towards the wooded area when the next order came to ‘Stand Fast’. A bit later we got another order from the Colonel to destroy our weapons. We threw them into the creek and broke our rifles over the rocks.’ Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Puett, 2/423 Infantry, led the advance, or retreat, towards Radscheid along the so-called Sykline Boulevard, the Bleialf–Auw road. Mid morning on the 18th, Puett asked Colonel Cavender for a reinforcement on his left flank. At that moment General Jones told Cavender on a radio that the CCB 7th Armoured would not counter-attack from St Vith to Schönberg. 422 and 423 Infantry were now directed to take Schönberg and proceed to St Vith. Puett’s battalion was under fire and pinned to the ground, so Cavender ordered Lt Colonel Earl Klinck’s 3/423 to bypass Puett’s battalion along a track towards Schönberg and cut the Bleialf–Schönberg road. This Klinck did but at dusk confusion set in and they withdrew to Oberlaschied. Radio messages and runner-messengers failed to reach each other in the darkness. And then General Jones came on the air: ‘Attack Schönberg, do maximum damage to enemy there, then attack towards St Vith. This message is of gravest importance to the nation. Good luck.’ Cavender and Descheneaux now continued their ‘advance’ in ignorance of what each other was doing. Private Henry Broth wrote, ‘We found that we were surrounded on all sides by German tanks and other panzer outfits. No matter which way we turned we were stopped. In our particular sector the communications were not too good, because we were spread too far apart. We didn’t know where the other elements of our division were. We ourselves didn’t even know where we were, we were just wandering about trying to get out of the trap.’

Fig 14.2 German infantry of Panzer Grenadiers attack, with US half-track ablaze in background (EA 47962 IWM) The 423rd tried to attack towards Schönberg but were stopped by enemy fire. One battalion became separated and was fired on in error by part of the 422nd. Private Frank Raila, E Company, 2/423 with a tank-destroyer unit in Bleialf wrote, ‘The place we were in apparently had become untenable. The sergeant said we were going on the march. We all hit the road, passing US trucks burning with ammo exploding, an occasional shell shooting into the air, pyrotechnics! It got very confusing. We were not much of a company any more. There were different platoons and companies. Everything was quiet. I think the Germans let the point keep walking. We reached an area of a few acres, all hell let loose. I didn’t hear anything until the explosions started to rock the ground. Dirt flew up everywhere, pelting you in the chest and back. We all dropped down paralysed. People were hollering and screaming until the sergeant said, “Get out of here”. We crawled back until the explosions didn’t follow us any more and then we ran like crazy. We struggled back to the front lines, a miserably thin line of GIs including my own machine-gun platoon.’

Colonel Descheneaux, aged 32, was the first to surrender. The appearance of Panthers and SPs of the Führer Begleit Brigade behind 422 Infantry was the final straw. Little food remained. The only water came from streams. Medical supplies had almost run out and, vitally, ammunition and mortar shells were almost finished. 422 Infantry surrendered at 2.30 p.m. and Colonel Cavender did the same at 4 p.m. Three field artillery battalions, the 81st Engineer Combat battalion, 820th Tank Destroyer battalion, medical and reconnaissance – the ‘Golden Lions’ lost more than 8,000 troops in the woods and shadow of the Schnee-Eifel. The orders given by Field Marshal Model had resulted in the 18th VGD and Oberst Remer ’s Führer Begleit surrounding and capturing the young green ‘Golden Lions’.

chapter 15

The ‘Checkerboard’ division: ‘A hurricane of iron and fire’

M

ajor General Walter Lauer and his 99th ‘Checkerboard’ infantry division had landed at Le Havre on 3 November. They moved to Aubel in Belgium and then into the Ardennes to take over the positions from 9th ‘Octfoil’ infantry division between Hofen and Lanzerath. The 2nd ‘IndianHead’ infantry division moved through them in mid December for an attack on the Roer dams. Under Lauer ’s command were 393, 394 and 397 infantry regiments, supported by the usual three field artillery battalions, an engineer combat battalion and 801 tank-destroyer battalion. Lauer had sited his nine battalions on their 12-mile front on what became the ‘Northern Shoulder ’ of Wacht am Rhein. From north to south were 3/395 holding Hofen and 1/395 and 2/395 supporting the ‘Indian-Heads’ in their attack. The 99th northern boundary ran through the southern part of Monschau, reputed to be one of Hitler ’s favourite towns. The positions north were held by the 38th Cavalry squadron. The attack by the experienced ‘Indian-Head’ 9th Infantry division on the well-defended Wahlerscheid crossroads started early on 13 December and ended at dawn on the 16th. Despite 737 American casualties, 277 VGD defenders were either killed or captured. The ‘Checkerboard’ troops were not involved in this painful little operation. Captain Charles MacDonald, who fought with US 2nd Division, and later author of the campaign, wrote, ‘Monshau was set in a gorge astride the upper reaches of the Roer river, a mountain stream gurgling over a rock-strewn bottom. The town consisted of

charming medieval buildings of white stucco, exposed wood framing ranged along cobble-stoned streets. Another four battalions were holding a 6-mile front south of Wahlerscheid along the eastern forest ridge of Jans Bach down the “International Highway” down to Losheim. Eight garrison strong-points were based in and around six small villages of Berterath, Afst, Krewinkel, Weckerath, Auw and Bucholz station.’ Adolf Hitler was convinced. ‘Sepp’ Dietrich was sure that his powerful Sixth SS Panzer Army would break through the weak American defences in the Monschau–Losheim sector, taking the Elsenborn Ridge and smashing through the Losheim Gap, and ‘relentlessly to pierce towards Antwerp’. Generalleutnant Otto Hirtzfeld, a highly experienced commander in infantry tank co-operation commanded LXVII Corps, with 272 and 326 VGDs plus 3rd Panzer Grenadier division. In theory he had fourteen infantry battalions at his disposal for the break-in attacks on Mutzenich, Monschau and Hofen. But 272 VGD was still in action north of Monschau and not immediately available. Three battalions of 326 VGD had at the last moment been detailed for other tasks. General Erwin Kaschner, their CO, had an inexperienced and poorly trained formation, overrun in Normandy, sent to Hungary and ‘re-built’. The 3rd Panzer Grenadier regiment was part of General Sepp Dietrich’s army reserve. So on Null-Tag, Hirtzfeld had four infantry battalions immediately available. A crucial heavy panzer support battalion failed to arrive because the Reichsbahn trains bringing it up to the front had been attacked and derailed by the US Airforce. The German artillery barrages and concentrations on Null-Tag were considered vital for the ‘break-in’. General Stadtinger commanded the artillery of Sixth SS Panzer Army: ‘Besides the divisional artillery of both Korps [I SS Panzer and II SS Panzer] we had one battalion of three batteries. Each with nine guns ranging from 150mm to 210mm. In army artillery we had two Nebelwerfers [nine-barrelled mortars nicknamed Moaning Minnies] brigades plus three brigades of heavy artillery – 200mm, 240mm and 350mm. We also had two or three Volksartillerie Korps of six battalions each. We planned the following three types of fire for the first day: one, fire on the main line of resistance starting at about 5.00 a.m. Two, fire on the command posts, road crossings, villages in the neighbourhood of the front line and other strongpoints, thus cutting the American lines of communications. Three, fire on the more distant villages and strong-points, especially roads on which we thought reserves would be brought up.’ Stadtinger wanted to concentrate on the Elsenborn Ridge, which runs from Rocherath–Krinkelt to Camp Elsenborn,

where he was convinced the American defences would be heaviest. He was overruled. Sepp Dietrich and his Chief of Staff, Major General Kraemer, ordered Hirtzfeld, with 326 VGD and 12 VGD under General Major Gerhard Engel, to capture respectively the Monschau–Hofen area and the Losheimergraben/Losheim area. In the centre 277 VGD under Oberst Wilhelm Viebig would break into a 3-mile stretch of defences to capture Krinkelt and Rocherath. Further south 3rd Parachute division would thrust through the Losheim Gap towards Lanzerath, Berterath and Afst. Lieutenant Colonel McClernand Butler, CO of 3/395 Infantry, had sited his defences well. The 38th Cavalry recce squadron under his command were based in Monschau. Their Stuart light tanks with 37mm guns were loaded with canister. A line of 50 machine-guns collected from half-tracks, jeeps and armoured cars were emplaced NW of Monschau behind a railway track to protect the road to Mützenich on the high ground. Various road blocks were set up and protected by the Stuart tanks. The 62nd Armoured Field Artillery battalion provided direct support and defensive fire could come from two Corps artillery battalions close by. Hofen lies a mile south and Butler ’s ‘Checkerboard’ troops were well dug in and were supported by an artillery battalion and twelve 3-inch towed guns of 612 Tank Destroyer. At 0530 hours on 16 December, General Stadtinger ’s artillery forces unleashed an earth-shaking inferno of bombardment. Hofen was soon on fire. PFC Thor Ronningen of 395 Infantry was asleep in a foxhole in Hofen and later wrote, ‘a terrifying experience to wake up to the crash of the artillery and the ear-splitting scream of the rockets. The ground shook like a bowl of JellO.’ Although wire communications were widely cut up, the roofed foxholes provided good cover to the GIs. 326 VGD attacked the cavalry posts on either side of the river gorge in front and north of Monschau. Lt Colonel Robert O’Brien, CO of the Cavalry, asked Colonel Oscar Axelson, CO of 405 Field Artillery Group, for fire support and down came the new Pozit proximity fused shells on the advancing Volksgrenadiers. The Germans deployed ‘artificial moonlight’, big searchlights beamed on the ‘night’ clouds. This light helps both sides to see each other! PFC Joseph Thimm, rifleman in 2nd Platoon K Company, 3rd Bn 395 I-R (who had all three companies I, K and L east of Hofen facing the enemy-held village of Rohren) said, ‘The German assault on Hofen was detected along the front late in the night of 15 December – engine noises could be heard … Our own artillery and mortar fire began before midnight. Before dawn we were on the receiving end of heavy German artillery, mortar and rocket fire which

lasted about half an hour. The main German thrust struck I and K companies and was met by small arms and concentrated mortar and artillery fire. The Germans backed off until about midday then began to attack again directly on the K Company front. Small arms fire and artillery blunted the attack. Fortunately the [German] tanks never appeared on the Hofen road, either taken out by artillery fire or bogged down in the snow and mud.’ The next day was quiet but on the 18th the 326 VDG launched separate attacks, first on I, then on K Company, with not only infantry but tanks as well. Again American heavy artillery and mortar fire drove them back; again they came and were driven back.

Fig 15.1 Hofen, south of Monschau, gallantly defended by US 99th ‘Checkerboard’ Infantry division (by Harrison Standley) (NARA) General Kaschner, CO 326 VGD, decided that the US resistance at Hofen was too effective to be broken by direct frontal attack so he planned to outflank the Americans north of Monschau. Early in the morning of 17th his first attack on 38 Cavalry was thrown back by defensive artillery concentrations. More persistent, brutal assaults were made by the Volksgrenadiers during that Sunday. Two squadrons of Luftwaffe strafed the thin cavalry line, which was breached in several places. Later in the day USAAF Lightning fighter-bombers appeared and smashed up the VGD reserves in a village a mile to the east. On Monday General Kaschner put in a fresh battalion against the Hofen defenders. A

concentrated artillery, mortar and rocket assault assisted the VGD which almost succeeded in breaking through. The American anti-tank guns, although frozen in place by the intense cold, just managed to break up the attack. Elements of ‘Octfoil’ 9th Infantry appeared to reinforce the ‘Checkerboards’. Major Gunther Holz, CO 12 VGD Tank-Destroyer Bn, said that ‘the earth seemed to break open. A hurricane of iron and fire went down on the enemy positions with a deafening noise. We old soldiers had seen many a heavy barrage but never before anything like this.’

Fig 15.2 Countryside around Hofen, near Monschau, held by US 99th Infantry division (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-103695: 4-124-46) Lt Colonel Butler was superb. Pfc Thor Ronningen wrote, ‘Six times during the battle he ordered five-minute concentrations on our positions from our own artillery as he knew we were well protected. No GIs were killed. Our artillery was a fantastic advantage and we could not have held without them.’ Even though the Volksgrenadiers sent combat patrols at night, the main battle was over, although the Germans kept up pressure until Christmas Eve. The 3/395 denied the road to Eupen to ‘Sepp’ Dietrich’s VGDs and were awarded a presidential Unit Citation for its defence of Hofen. Further south the pressure on the 99th Checkerboard division was even more intense. Major General Lauer had sited five battalions south of Wahlerscheid in strong-points and outposts on a 7-mile front. Three battalions of 393 and two of 394 regiments spent 16 and 17 December fighting for their lives against the sound and fury of 1st SS Panzer Corps. Oberst Wilhelm Viebig, CO of 277

VGD, was tasked with breaking through the American defences around Krinkelt–Rocherath, 6 miles south of Hofen. This would open up routes for the 12th SS Panzer division. The CO of the ‘Checkerboard’ 393 Infantry, Lt Colonel Jean Scott, had placed his 3/393 battalion along a dominating forested hill, the Rathberg. A line of foxholes extended more than 2 miles, mainly inside thick fir forest. A short stretch overlooked the International Highway. The early morning German barrage on the 16th was followed up by two battalions of 277 VGD which overwhelmed a company of Lt Colonel Jack Allen’s 3/393. Allen’s troops fell back but at noon were assailed by an SS Panzergrenadier battalion, which pushed the Americans back to a creek called Jans Bach. It was a desperate business until Major General Lauer released a company of 394 to help. During this often close-quarter fighting over 300 Americans were killed, wounded or taken prisoner. When the thaw melted the snow in the spring, 300 German bodies were found leading up to the International Highway. Just to their south Major Legier, CO 1/393, underwent a numerically overwhelming attack. But, overlooking the International Highway with mainly open ground, the powerful supporting artillery and the ‘Checkerboard’ mortars and machine-guns just held up the reserve battalion of Viebigs 277 VGD. Sgt Ben Nawrocki served with B Company 1/393 and described the situation just before the battle against 990th VG regiment: Our foxholes and gun emplacements were really spread thin with gaps between squads, platoons, companies and other units. We had no reserve. All our men were up on the line. We were overextended in terms of a good position. But the 9th Infantry [relieved by the 393rd] did a good job on the foxholes. They were two-men type with a slit-trench adjoining and covered with pine branches and logs to protect against the weather and artillery. The defence line was along the International Highway, an inviting artillery target There was a lot of snow, the trees covered as well as the ground. The field of fire dropped into valleys studded with wooded corridors, the Siegfried Line laced with barbed wire, dragon teeth concrete tank barriers, pillboxes and forts with protective crossfire. The area was heavily mined. It was cold, hard to keep dry and warm. We had to keep our toes moving or they would freeze. We wore a pair of socks round our stomachs and exchanged them daily. We slept with our shoes on. During the day we would take them off, rub our cold feet and change socks. Men stood on pine boughs and straw. Trench foot became a big problem; we lost quite a few men that way. By daylight on the 17th both sides had suffered about 400 casualties. It had

been a cold, miserable night. Medical officers and aid men in both battalions did their best. Many wounded went back by jeep and both the aid posts were overflowing. First Lieutenant J Bouck was OC of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon of 3/394 and took patrols to Losheim and Lanzerath. Bouck’s platoon of eighteen men were dug in on the outskirts of Lanzerath when the bombardment started on the 16th: ‘Initially we were in a shocked, stunned state, but the log coverings shielded us. We could hear small arms fire up the road near Losheimgraben and behind us at Bucholz station.’ Bouck and Platoon Sergeant Slape were disconcerted when the nearby tank destroyers of 14th Cavalry suddenly pulled out. Colonel Helmut von Hofman commanded the German 9th Parachute regiment which from 0400 hours, with two Panther tanks followed by armoured half-tracks, made a series of assaults on 394 Infantry regiment. Lt Warren Springer 371st Field Artillery brought down fire targets. A firefight developed in and around the two-storey house and barn used as an OP (observation post): ‘Meanwhile my three guys, McGehee, “Pop” Robinson and Jim Sivola, arrived at the house to join in the fight.’ They were cut off by a machine-gun and isolated. Bouck continued: While all of this was going on, here comes a German column up the road, walking north towards us, single file on both sides of the road, their weapons slung. They were singing as they marched. There was an advance party of maybe thirty and then the main body of troops with the command group … But the paratroopers suddenly dispersed. As they did, Bill Tsakanikas opened fire and so did the rest of us. McGehee, Robinson and Sivola took off and tried to reach the 1st Battalion. German soldiers in camouflage caught them. We could see people crawling around to reorganise. After an hour and a half they came screaming and yelling in a direct frontal attack up the snow-covered hill. They were firing at us but they had no targets. The paratroopers had to climb over a typical farm fence that bisected the hill. For us it was like target practice. We had a couple of BARs (Browning Automatic Rifle) and a .30 calibre machinegun manned by Risto Milosevich. Tsak and Slape took turns on the .50 machinegun of the jeep until it was hit and blew up. The other guys had M-1s while I had a carbine. I could see blood all over the snow. I heard screaming, hollering. It was a bizarre scene, hard for me to realise it was really happening. When the third attack came, Kahlil again was firing at the enemy. Milosevich recalled, ‘It was like shooting clay ducks at the amusement park. Slape came into the foxhole with me, took over the machine-gun while I fed the belt. He kept firing and firing and I was harping at him to shoot in bursts of

three.’ As ammunition got low, Bouck decided to pull out. But it was too late. McConnell, Tsak, Kahlil and Bouck were wounded, the platoon surrounded and captured. Springer, the artillery officer, said, 1 heard a mixture of German and English. We were told to throw our guns out and come out or they would throw hand grenades in.’ Around the Café Scholzen the R&I platoon had put up a gallant fight. Oberst Wilhelm Osterhold, the CO of 12 VGDs 48th Regiment (89 was the other VGD regiment in General Major Gerhard Engel’s 12 VGD), had fought in Poland, France and on the Eastern Front. Now he was tasked with the capture of the small towns of Bullingen and Nidrum on the main ‘centre line’. Its first objective was the main road from Losheim, NW to the crossroads at Losheimergraben, then on to Hunningen, Murringen, Bullingen and Butgenbach and thus open the way for 12th SS Panzer division to follow up. Osterhold had massive artillery support, plus fifteen powerful 75mm SP assault guns. The 89 VGD would make a supporting attack along the railway line just to the south. Lt Colonel Robert Douglas, CO 1/394 IR, held the crucial crossroads. Osterhold himself led his Volksgrenadiers and by nightfall reached the edge of the woods overlooking Losheimergraben. On the way the American B Company was smashed with the loss of 60 men, but ‘friendly’ fire from the German artillery fell on one of their own attacking battalions. Douglas asked Colonel Don Riley, CO 394 IR, for reinforcements, so four platoons from the 3rd Bn took up positions astride the highway behind Losheimergraben. Major Norman Moore, CO of the 3rd Bn, was sited around the minor railroad depot, Bucholz Station. As L Company lined up for breakfast early on the 16th, the ‘chow’ line noticed a group of about 50 infantrymen walking through the early morning mist towards them along the railway line. It was the advance guard of the 277 VGD regiment. All morning, fighting at close quarters went on around the railway station. At noon the fighting died down so the Checkerboard cook prepared a late breakfast just as a ‘stonk’ of Nebelwerfers and artillery fell on them. In the day’s fighting there were about 80 casualties on each side. Colonel Don Riley, CO of the 394 IR, in early afternoon on the 17th ordered all three battalions to fall back to prepared positions at Hunningen and Murringen. They had suffered heavy losses at Bucholz Station and at Losheimergraben. Deep in the woods Lt Colonel Jack Allen’s 3rd Bn 393 IR was also in deep trouble. The enemy reinforcements were another battalion of SS Panzer grenadiers and four companies of 12 SS Panzer division tanks.

American bazooka teams kept the tanks at bay as the Checkerboard battalion withdraw, leaving fifteen very seriously wounded behind. General Lauer ’s HQ had been shifted back to a café in Elsenborn, with most of the staff seen to be in a state of shock with little knowledge of either American or German forces. As the vehicles of 394 IR neared Krinkelt, with its houses burning and under shellfire, Colonel Don Riley assumed the village was held by the enemy and ordered all his vehicles to be abandoned. Most of the survivors of 394 IR moved on foot cross-country towards Wirtzfeld. At daylight on 18th ‘friendly’ fire fell on many of the retreating ‘ninety-niners’. The 1st Bn of 393 had less than 300 survivors. Sergeant Ben Nawrocki, B Company 393 ID, said, ‘The German attackers beamed lights upwards into the sky from tanks, trucks, pillboxes, everywhere. This was to help the Germans see the terrain and us. The snow was hip deep with a heavy fog. The enemy were between us and the lights made them a good target. Some wore American uniforms, throwing grenades, a few were seen on skis. Some wore white snow-suits. We kept cutting them down. In many places the Germans piled up on top of one another like cordwood.’ Heavy artillery fire from the big American field pieces at the rear inflicted heavy casualties on the Volksgrenadiers. For two days Ben Nawrocki’s troops continued to drive off wave after wave of the German assault troops: We were surrounded and had no contact with the rear. The officers decided to withdraw and try to fight our way to friendly lines. It was decided the two battalions [1st of 393rd and 2nd of 394th] would band together. It was miserable going. We headed for Murringen, held by 394th Regiment. We came under our own artillery, which mistook us for German troops. We were creeping six and eight abreast in snow, mud and water while the artillery kept taking its toll. We tried to carry all the wounded we could. There were cries and moans and screams of pain from the wounded. It was heartbreaking and hard to continue. We came across a lot of trucks and vehicles strewn with wounded begging for help. It was a terrible scene. About midnight 18 December we headed for Krinkelt. We could see a hell of a firefight going on by tracer fire and burning buildings. It was dark in the valley and all that stood out was the firefight. Finally a small patrol under Sergeant Henderson contacted a 2nd Division outpost and they lifted the artillery fire and shifted it to our flanks for our protection. They said they had mistaken us for enemy troops. Major General Walter Lauer, GOC of the ‘Checkerboard’ division, had his HQ in Butgenbach. In moments of crisis he played the piano in the imposing villa!

When General Walter Robertson, GOC US 2nd ID, and his artillery commander, Brigadier General John Hinds, visited the 99th HQ to see how they could help, what they found appalled them. The living room of the house was in tumult, crowded with enlisted men and officers, everybody trying to talk at once. And, yes, the general was playing the piano! Lauer was confident that he had matters well in hand. He was proud of his inexperienced, totally green troops. At midnight he phoned General Leonard Gerow, his corps commander, and said, ‘My front is practically established on its original line – the situation is in hand and all is quiet.’ In Null-Tag the Checkerboard divison had 1,000 casualties, but the Volksgrenadiers had made no real breakthrough.

chapter 16

The ‘Ivy’ division defend ‘little Switzerland’

E

ighty miles to the south of the Wacht am Rhein assault line, General Erich Brandenburger ’s VII Army was the ‘Cinderella’ force in Adolf Hitler ’s detailed plans. Aged 52, bespectacled, bald and donnish, he was promoted in August 1943 to be Generalleutnant der Panzertruppen and took command of the Seventh Army a year later. Ironically, he now commanded two Korps HQ (LXXXV and LXXX) four infantry divisions, 30 assault guns, 427 artillery pieces and rocket projectors and no panzers! Field Marshals von Rundstedt and Model had urged their Führer to strengthen the Seventh Army in its two tasks of protecting von Manteuffel’s left flank and of threatening Luxembourg and thus tie down the American reserves. Hitler of course refused! He was fully confident that Dietrich and von Manteuffel would urge their armies upto and over the river Meuse and continue to threaten Brussels and Antwerp. On NullTag General der Infanterie Baptist Kneiss, CO LXXXV Infantry Korps, with 5th Fallschirmjager (Parachute) division on the right and 352 VGD on the left, will ‘relentlessly thrust to the west’ and, at 0600 hours on 16th, cross the river Our and break through the American front in the Ammeldingen–Vianden area. The next stage would be an advance to the line Gedinne–Libramont– Martelange–Mersch. Once there, they were to hold the line defensively. The Fifth Panzer Army would be advancing via Bastogne, north of Kniess’s Korps. General der Infanterie Franz Beyer ’s LXXX Infantry Korps with 276 VGD on the right and 212 VGD on the left would cross both rivers Our and Sauer at

0600 hours on Null-Tag. Their initial objective was the American front at Wallendorf–Echternach and then they would, according to Major Percy Schramm, Model’s keeper of the OKW war diary, ‘relentlessly thrust towards the line Mersch–Wasserbillig where their main forces will adopt a defensive position. Advance mobile detachments will cross the Sauer, advance into the Luxembourg area and prevent the enemy forces from advancing via Luxembourg.’ LIII Infantry Korps with 9 VGD, 15 Panzer Grenadier division and the Führer Grenadier brigade would remain in reserve under General der Kavallerie Graf von Rothkirch und Trach. Opposing Brandenburger ’s Seventh Army were, from north to south: 109th IR from General Cota’s 28th ‘Keystone’ division, holding a 7-mile line west of the river Our including the small towns of Vianden and Wallendorf; next was a 3-mile stretch held by elements of US 9th Armoured division and finally a 10mile line along the river Sure between Berdorf, Lauterborn, Echternach and Dickweiler held by the US 4th ‘Ivy’ infantry division. Major General Raymond Barton, aged 55, was a World War One veteran whose division had landed on Utah beach on D-Day, helped capture Cherbourg and liberate Paris and then suffered heavily in the Hürtgen Forest fighting. They had an excellent record but were battle weary and needed many reinforcements to get up to strength. The ‘Ivy’ was composed of 8, 12 and 22 IRs, plus four Field Artillery battalions, 70 Tank battalion and 802 and 803 Tank-Destroyer battalions. Barton had sited his defence line with, as it happened, 12th Infantry regiment facing 276 and 212 VGD with 2nd Bn holding Berdorf, Echternach and Lauterborn and 3rd Bn holding Dickweiler and Osweiller and, finally, 8th Infantry regiment further south. The whole area was known as ‘little Switzerland’. Hitler was convinced that the Allied counter-attack, if and when it came, would be directed at the forces trying to reach the Meuse bridges. Therefore, it was unlikely that the Seventh Army would be attacked at the southern flank of the Fifth Panzer. So Brandenberger received no panzer support. Hitler was also sure that no counter-attack could be launched quickly as the Allied commanders would not react rapidly to Wacht am Rhein. General Brandenberger and his staff disagreed with Hitler: ‘Since it was highly probable that the Franco-Belgian area contained no large reserves, the possibility had to be considered that all available enemy troops in the area of Metz and perhaps in the sector opposite [German] Army Group G would be brought up for offensive action against the southern flank of the attacking

German armies. The roads through Luxembourg and Arlon would be considered first. The Seventh Army estimated that strong enemy forces would arrive in the Arlon area north of Luxembourg not earlier than the fourth day of the attack. The fact that these forces would probably be commanded by General Patton made it quite likely that the enemy would direct a heavy punch against the deep flank of the German forces scheduled to be in the vicinity of Bastogne. In the battle of France Patton had given proof of his extraordinary skill in armoured warfare, which he conducted according to the fundamental German conception.’ The ‘Ivy’ 4th Infantry division had, like the 28th, lost about 5,000 battle casualties in the Hürtgen Forest battles and a rather demoralising 2,500 suffering from exposure and trench foot. Many rifle companies were at half strength and in mid December regiments were about 600 infantrymen under strength. Moreover, 43 out of its 54 support tanks were undergoing repair and were thus out of action. Since General Bradley’s Army Group HQ in Luxembourg City was a prime objective, two of the ‘Ivy’ division regiments were strung out further south. Roland Gaul of Diekirch, Luxembourg, has written the history of 5th Paratroop division and 352 VGD in their roles in the Ardennes southern flank. Major Goswin Wahl was given command of 13th Regiment of 5th FJD (Parachute), Oberst Schimmel was CO Regiment 14 and Oberstleutnant Kurt Groschke of Regiment 15. Hauptmann Hollander was OC Assault Gun Brigade II. Their division strength was 16,000 men (and 352 VGD was 13,000 strong). Wahl’s staff were Barthelt (1st Bn), Metzler (2nd Bn) and Frank (3rd Bn). Corps Commander General Kneiss told him that Bastogne was the divisional target via Doncols, Warnach and Soller. Eduard Krüger, a key telephone operator in 13 IR stated, ‘After a murderous fire from all available artillery and rocket launcher units, which lasted for one hour early on 16 December, my regiment crossed the [river] Our near Roth. The makeshift bridge erected by paratroop engineers here was still intact despite enemy fire. No additional bridging equipment was necessary. On the other side, US mortar fire caused the first losses in our ranks. The actual attack, or march rather, on to the Luxembourg side took place quickly with little opposition. The 2nd Bn of Hauptmann Metzler was immediately sent towards Diekirch. The 1st and 3rd via Brandenburg to Fouhren, reached in late afternoon of the second day. As we advanced quickly the Americans scarcely offered any opposition – their soldiers in such confusion, leaving their gear and equipment behind or throwing it away unharmed. In the first couple of

days almost 1,000 soldiers were taken prisoner in the regiment’s sector.’ Wahl surmised that the German offensive was not earlier detected because bad weather deterred air reconnaissance. His regiment captured ‘large quantities of equipment, food and vehicles, especially jeeps, with this mass flight of Americans in our sector.’ The German cycle platoons were now equipped with jeeps! However, the Amis put down fire on Wahl’s men in Brandenburg, which caused casualties, and in Soller 70 of Wahl’s parachute troops were captured. Nevertheless, all three regiments, 14, 15 and 13, made good progress towards Bastogne, despite American resistance in Walsdorf. Eduard Krüger was a key telephone operator in 13 IR and noted: We were a varied lot If we had gone on parade with the uniform pieces that we wore, they would have chased us back to the banacks with scorn and disgrace. The soldiers of the regiment that had been almost wiped out in Normandy still wore their complete paratroop uniform: jumping helmet, Luftwaffe jacket, jumping trousers, bone bag [camouflage overalls] and jumping shoes taken from captured French supplies. The newly added replacements wore the Luftwaffe steel helmet and a kind of camouflage coverall. Before the attack the usual ‘iron rations’, consisting of some 250 grams of cakes or hard zwieback, known as dog cake, plus a small can with about 150 grams of pork, were given out. I was already familiar with this type of ‘iron rations’ from my father’s and grandfather’s stories of World War I. The cakes were tasteless and odourless, and hard as a rock, too. In terms of quality as well as quantity, it was obvious that nothing had changed since 1914. This ration was to be eaten only in times of extreme need and on orders from the company commander. Every soldier with half a brain ate his ten minutes before the attack began – that is, only the can with the pork, for the rest was unpalatable anyway. During the Ardennes offensive, though, there were completely new alternative types of food for us. At first the Americans left well-filled food depots behind, and we soldiers in the front lines very soon helped ourselves. The American C and K rations very quickly became familiar to us, and their contents tasted great to us. To this day I remember the desirable and almost legendary contents of the C rations, all packed in watertight, wax-covered cardboard boxes; cigarettes, chewing gum, cookies, cheese spread, peanut butter, corned beef, chocolate, canned sausage, a vegetable dish, chicken with rice, instant coffee, powdered milk, sugar, lemonade, powdered eggs, candy, canned ham [spam], toilet paper and waterpurification tablets. Man, was that a feast for our hungry mouths! Our field kitchen with its uniform Wehrmacht menu according to Luftwaffe service regulations was completely done away with. The ‘kitchen bull’ should have

watched to see how his food was disposed of! We had prepared meals in cans. But as the saying goes, pride goeth before a fall, for later we begged for the dishwater with the mouldy army bread when the US food tap stopped serving. The equipment of the signal platoon in the 1st Battalion was also more than meagre. Things had to go wrong, for supplies were lacking up front and in the rear. As for me, as the battalion’s telephone man, after Dr Christel no longer needed me, as the offensive went on in the Wiltz area, I was once given 1,000 metres of telephone cable and two field phones, and with this ridiculous stuff I was supposed to construct a communication system on order. That was just ridiculous! Connect three company leaders and one battalion command post with two field telephones. Somebody should have drilled me on that in advance. Insulating tape? We had none. So I sneaked over to the battalion’s bandaging station and made off with some leucoplast as a substitute. Paratroopers always have to improvise. The paratrooper was a lone fighter from basic training on, and survived by improvising in battle. And because one depended on oneself, it was surely believed in the command staffs that the German paratrooper, even in the sixth year of the war, could still improvise, or in plain language, scrounge. If he was not issued a vehicle, he would surely take one from the enemy. Lacking artillery and tank support were made up for by fighting spirit and stiff bearing! Those were probably some of the reasons why we were equipped so miserably. Ulrich Kruger, ex-Luftwaffe, joined 14th Company of FJ Regiment 15. It was a Panzerjager unit which operated on foot with Panzerfaust, Panzerschreck (stovepipe) armour-piercing weapons. Oberstleutnant Kurt Groschke commanded the best-equipped unit of the 5th FJD. From Masholder, then Korperich, Krüger and his comrades crossed the river Our at Vianden by a damaged rail bridge. Their 4th Company had wiped out the small American garrison and castle in Vianden: ‘Astonishingly we met with no resistance on our advance. Random harassing fire from medium calibre artillery fell in the area, but it did not bother us.’ Through Gralingen they marched to Goebelsmuhle on the banks of the river Sauer: ‘We got ready to take on the Americans. Another column of vehicles approached. I fired a Panzerfaust into the column, scored a direct hit, disarmed several men. Except for the crews of three jeeps, we captured all the Americans. Several dead US soldiers were buried in a nearby field. That night three Sherman tanks came along. One we shot down with a Panzerschreck. The other two fled into a village and were found the next day, deserted with their motors running. Still fully functional,

they were then used by our forces.’ In heavy fog, the German infantry crossed the river Our in assault boats. VGR 915 at Gentingen and VGR 916 (of 352 VGD) captured bridges and footbridges. The combat engineers needed another two days to strengthen the bridges for AFVs. VGR 915 reached the wooded area north of Bastendorf, and VGR 916 attacked the high slopes south of Hoesdorf and Bettendorf. Their objectives were the towns of Diekirch and Ettelbruck, defended well by 109 US IR under Lt Colonel James Rudder. So, indeed, was Fouhren. Further south the 276th VGD (with 986, 987 and 988 VGRs) fought in the Wallendorf–Grundhof area. Eighteen-year-old Paul Engelhardt recalled, ‘It was snowing lightly and raining as well in the early morning of 16 December. Lone US reconnaissance aircraft droned above us. We were in readiness between Mettendorf and Bollendorf. To the right, under the trees, rifle companies moved soundlessly, eerily past us. At 5.30 the inferno of this battle began; artillery and DO-launcher fire began from every available weapon to prepare the way for and support the infantry as it crossed the Sauer. The attack took place in three waves with assault and rubber boats. Our 8th Company consisted of one platoon of mortars, one of heavy machine-guns, one of antitank forces, plus our platoon of infantry guns of the IIG 18 type light infantry gun, 85mm calibre.’ Engelhardt noted that ‘the best equipped units fought in the north and were intended as a spearhead directed at gigantic Allied fuel and food stores. We were trained and assembled much too fast. Enough weapons but shortages of gasoline and warm clothing.’ Engelhardt and his platoon leader Leutnant Kaiser and Obergefreiter Ettinghofer were sent on a scouting party from Grundhof: ‘In various places we found dead or severely wounded comrades. One soldier with a terrible abdominal wound begged me to put him out of his misery with a shot from my 08 pistol. I ran away horrified. I could not help him. It was terrible to experience it.’ Generalleutnant Kurt Moehring, commander of 276 VGD, had failed to build a bridge quickly across the river Sure. His superior determined to replace him but Moehring was killed in his command car near Beaufort. His troops were progressing steadily and threatened Waldbillig, Mullerthal, Beaufort and Savelborn. General Brandenberger, the commander of the Seventh Army, considered 212 VGD the most capable of his four divisions. In fog and darkness the Volksgrenadiers crossed the river Sauer on both sides of Echternach, almost in the centre of the US 4th Infantry division’s, 12th IR. By late morning on the 16th, the VGD had surrounded all five of Colonel Robert Chance’s regiment at

Dickweiler, Osweiler, Lauterborn and Berdorf with Company E in Echternach. General ‘Tubby’ Barton then sent up three platoons of tanks that had been guarding Radio Luxembourg and relieved the American defenders at Osweiler and Dickweiler. On the whole, General Brandenberger was reasonably happy with Null-Tag.

chapter 17

Battles for the Twin Towns and the Elsenborn Ridge

L

t General Courtney Hodges, GOC US First Army, took about 24 hours to realise that the new sudden attack on his front in the Ardennes was not a ‘spoiling’ action. Early on the 17th he gave permission for Major General Leonard Gerow, commander of US V Corps, to halt the Roer dams attack and go on the defensive. Major General Walter Robertson, aged 56, had commanded the 2nd ‘Indian-Head’ division since May 1942 and had brought them ashore on D+1 on Omaha beach. Later in Brittany they took part in the 39-day siege of Brest, and moved to St Vith at the end of September. From 13 to 16 December they took part in the Roer dams operation and captured Wahlerscheid. Wacht am Rhein battles raged to their north at Hofen and Monschau and south of them for more than 40 miles. Robertson commanded 9, 23 and 38 Infantry regiments. He also took command of the 99th formations separated from their GOC Major General Lauer, and started to unravel his command. Five battalions were sent back to try to save the Twin Towns of Rocherath and Krinkelt five miles south and organise a defensive line on the Elsenborn Ridge, 3 miles west of the ‘Twins’. Robertson ordered his 38th Infantry back to defend the two towns, 9th would link with 23rd to defend Wirtzfeld, south of Elsenborn. Robertson then visited Colonel Alexander Mackenzie CO 395 of the Checkerboards, who had two out of three battalions, and another of 393 and politely ordered them to pull back from the forest battles and cover the north flank of the Twin Towns’ defences.

On 18 December with Panzer troops in Bullingen the only escape route for the two American divisions – 2nd and 99th – was through Wirtzfeld, which became General Robertson’s HQ. General Preiss, commanding 1st SS Panzer Corps, was determined to take Rocherath and Krinkelt, so he threw into the attack the 989th Grenadier regiment of 277 VGD, 25th Panzer Grenadier regiment, an assault gun battalion and two tank battalions of Tiger and Panther tanks – a total of six infantry and three armoured battalions. At the time of General Preiss’s attack, Robertson had in place his 9th, 23rd and 38th Infantry regiments, elements of 393 and 394 regiments of the ‘Checkerboards’ and three tank-destroyer battalions, the 612, 644 and 801. More importantly he had all the artillery battalions of both divisions in position on the Elsenborn Ridge 4 miles to the west. For two days the battle raged. There were scores, hundreds probably, of small, vicious firefights, some of which are now detailed. In an action near Krinkelt the ‘ninety-niners’ won their first US Medal of Honour by T/Sgt Vernon McGarity of 393 Infantry regiment. Although wounded in the initial artillery barrage, with a bazooka he knocked out a tank, rescued a wounded GI, knocked out next a light cannon, then an MG nest until, all ammunition expended, he and his men were captured. Brigadier Krass GOC 12th SS Panzer Division and the 277 Volksgrenadiers were being hounded by Field Marshals Model and von Rundstedt to make quick work of capturing the Twin Towns and get beyond the Elsenborn Ridge. Sharp, strong messages were pouring into ‘Sepp’ Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army with increasing frequency. At the sharp end this meant taking extreme risks. Back and forth the fighting ebbed. The Germans climbed over their own dead, ignoring their losses. Their huge Tiger and Panther tanks were at a disadvantage, fighting often in poor light or fog in the close, built-up areas of the small towns and villages. Bazooka rockets aimed at close quarters at the side or rear of a panzer were deadly. But with visibility those panzers poured cannon fire and machine-gun bursts at GIs sheltering in foxholes and behind hedgerows, or in farm buildings. Sometimes American infantry commanders called for their own guns to fire on top of their dugouts to wipe out Panzergrenadier and Volksgrenadier attacks. It was bedlam. The thick morning fog aided the defenders whose bazooka teams could approach the tanks close enough to fire without being seen. When crews from disabled tanks tumbled out of their turrets and escape hatches GIs from windows or rooftops shot them down. Little mercy was shown by either side. Sgt Willi Fischer commanded a Panther tank: ‘I was positioned behind Johann Beutelhauser, my platoon commander. As I reached a point near Krinkelt church, Beutelhauser

caught it right in front of me. He got out but his gunner was hit by rifle fire. Near me Brodel’s panzer was burning gently with Brodel still sitting lifeless in the turret. In front of me, further along the road more panzers had been put out of action and were still burning. It was an absolute death trap.’ To Fischer it was ‘a cruel sight’. Another platoon leader, SS Sgt Gerhard Engel, arrived at SS Colonel Helmut Zeiner ’s HQ in a house in Krinkelt; his face showed depression and resignation. An immobilised Sherman turned a Panther into a flaming wreck. Zeiner, with three Panthers and 40 SS Panzergrenadiers, had side-slipped Lt Colonel William McKinley’s battalion of 9th Infantry regiment guarding the Rocherath–Baracken crossroads north of Rocherath, and moved into that town. For several hours Zeiner ’s panzers and Panzergrenadiers knocked out Shermans, dominated the village and massacred half a dozen of Colonel Mildren’s 1/38 in farmhouses in the vicinity of Krinkelt. Before daylight on the 19th, Zeiner ’s gruppe sneaked out with 80 American prisoners. S/Sgt Dick Byers, FOO with 371 Field Artillery with 99th Infantry, was sheltering in a dug-out on the 17th: ‘About 10 p.m. we woke up to the sound of a firefight and tank battle in Krinkelt/Rocherath. I saw a scene I can’t forget. There was a fire blazing in front of Krinkelt church. It was a burning Sherman, one of three knocked out by Panthers. The flames lit the height of the church spire. Through binoculars I could see figures running back and forth silhouetted by the fire, and watched tracers from tanks at either end of the town. My thought that evening was a line from Alan Seeger ’s poem, “I have a rendezvous with death/At midnight in a flaming town”.’ Byers also saw some extremely triggerhappy GIs who panicked and by mistake shot and killed one of their majors and shot another officer in the leg. The 2nd Indian-Heads fought like devils and Sgt José Lopez and Private Richard Eller Cowan both won Congressional Medals of Honour for their courage in the Twin Towns’ terrible battles. Fighting with the 23rd Regiment they fired their machine-guns non stop to protect and shield retreating GIs. Captain Charles MacDonald wrote, ‘It soon became a pell-mell rush back towards safety. I felt we were helpless little bugs scurrying blindly about. I wondered if it would not be better to be killed and perhaps that would be an end to everything.’ The retreat took Captain MacDonald back to a road junction near the Twin Towns, and there he sheltered in a farmhouse: ‘Tank fire crashed around the building. Artillery fell without pattern in the snow. The night was ablaze with more noise and flame than I had thought possible for men to create. Here was a “movie war”. Here was Armageddon.’

Fig 17.1 Knocked out panzers at Rocherath crossroads (By Harrison Standley) (111-CC-11 2622: 4-123-46) Mildren’s 1st Bn HQ near the church was under frequent tank attack and near his command post five panzers got within a hundred yards. Shermans and tank destroyers knocked out four, the fifth withdrew. Although several American companies were overrun, the main defences held and General Preiss was forced to send in a fresh division, 3rd Panzer Grenadier. During the 19th General Robertson, although the Twin Town battles had died down, decided to withdraw all his surviving forces, after destroying all American and German vehicles, weapons and equipment that could not be extracted. At dusk the little road from Wirtzfeld that meandered to Elsenborn became a one-way escape route which the engineers had worked on so hard. At 2 a.m. on 20 December the battered remains of the ‘Indian-Heads’ and ‘Checkerboards’ were out of Krinkelt, Rocherath and Wirtzfeld, which were swiftly occupied by General Preiss’s troops. The two American divisions had lost 4,413 men killed, wounded and missing, plus a further 900 from exposure and trench foot. One of the undoubted heroes was Lt Colonel Bill McKinley from the task force of 9th Infantry; only 217 men out of 600 survived. ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, whose losses in men had been similar, had 44 tanks destroyed in the two-day battle. He ordered his Corps Commander Preiss to set up HQ in Bullingen and for the next four days fierce attacks were made at Bütgenbach and Malmédy, trying to outflank the American defences. The defenders on Elsenborn Ridge, with their artillery, controlled all three roads to the west. Captain Charles MacDonald of 2nd Infantry described the area which now

became a great defensive bastion: ‘The US commanders and staff designated a high ridge line on the German side of the town of Elsenborn and nearby [Belgian Army] Camp Elsenborn. Shaped like a boomerang with the highest point over 2,000 feet between Elsenborn and the village of Wirtzfeld forming the southern prong of the boomerang. Its slopes drop sharply to a reservoir, Lac de Bütgenbach. To the NW of the highest point, two other crests form the other prong of the boomerang.’ General Eisenhower had authorised the ‘Big Red One’, the famous US 1st Infantry division (which had fought in North Africa, Sicily, Omaha Beach and in the Hürtgen Forest) to join Gerow’s V Corps. Brigadier General Clift Andrus, its GOC, had under command 16, 18 and 26 Infantry regiments. By last light on the 17th, the 26th IR had reached the high ground in front of Bütgenbach. They were followed by the 16th north of Waimes, while the 18th was sent north to deal with von der Heytes’s parachute troops in Stösser near Eupen. The ‘Big Red One’ did not go into action until 20 December when 26th IR was attacked while defending Bütgenbach. Two miles south of Bütgenbach, SS Lt Colonel Helmut Zeiner led the 12 SS ‘Hitler Jugend’ division’s tanks, with ten Panthers and 200 young lads aged between fifteen and eighteen – his Jugend SS Panzergrenadiers. They fought ferociously in Normandy and were doing so again in the Ardennes. Equipped with Schmeisser machine-guns or bazookas or mortars they were perfectly able to deal out death! Lt Colonel Derrill Daniel, who commanded 2/26 IR, aged 39, had fought in North Africa and Sicily and now defended Dom. (Estate) Bütgenbach with a small taskforce, including tanks and tank destroyers. For nearly four days and nights the Waffen SS, men and boys, hammered away at Daniel’s ‘ring of steel’. Standartenführer der Waffen SS Hugo Kraas was desperate to break through, outflank the Elsenborn Ridge and reinforce Kampfgruppe Peiper, the leading brutal spearhead of the Liebstandarte ‘Adolf Hitler ’ division. Some panzers broke through into the town but without infantry support were hunted down by tank destroyers and the ‘Big Red One’ bazooka teams. Deadly games of hide and seek took place among the hedges and buildings. If you ‘lost’ the game, you died. Corporal Henry Warner, a 57mm cannon (anti-tank) gunner destroyed two tanks in rapid succession. The first with four shells, the next with three. He immobilised a third by shooting dead its commander with his .45 pistol. The next day he hit another panzer, but was killed by its machine-gun; later, he was awarded posthumously the Congressional Medal of Honour. Daniel did, however, have two aces up his sleeve. The 3/26 and 1/26 battalions were supporting him but,

best of all, no less than twelve artillery battalions sited on Elsenborn Ridge were on call when the ‘Hitler Jugend’ was rampant. In the battles for the Twin Towns and Dom. Bütgenbach, Oberst Zeiner lost so many tanks that he had to consolidate the survivors into one company. Young Captain Charles MacDonald, Company I, 23rd Infantry 2nd division, was almost dug in three miles west of Camp Elsenborn, a former Belgian army depot. ‘Almost’, because the snow lay a foot deep and ‘the silent forest was filled with oaths and the sound of shovels scraping against the frozen earth.’ MacDonald (who subsequently wrote brilliant books about his service in the Ardennes) was anxious because reports had been received of enemy penetration to the Twin Towns of Krinkelt and Rocherath a few miles east of Camp Elsenborn. At midday on 17 December MacDonald’s formation, moved south-east into the path of the probable German onslaught and survivors of the battered 99th ‘Checkerboard’ division retreated through his positions. Only 200 out of the 900-strong battalion that had fought gallantly on the 16th survived: ‘A few minutes later a hail of small-arms fire which sounded like the crack of thousands of rifles echoing through the forest. There was no doubt now. My men could see the billed caps. They were Germans. The assault was massive. Wave after wave of fanatically screaming German infantry stormed the treecovered rise held by the three platoons. A continuous hail of fire exuded from their weapons answered by volley after volley from the defenders. Germans fell right and left. We could hear the screams of pain. But still they came.’ Seven times the Volksgrenadiers tried to gain the crest of the hill and failed. But Panther tanks lumbered towards Company M and I. The American Shermans, fearing confrontation with the heavier, bigger gunned panzers, fled. 1st Sergeant Ben Nawrocki, with a handful of men from B Company 393 IR of 99 ID, was trying to dig a foxhole on Elsenborn Ridge: We had only our rifles and the ammo we could carry. The ground was frozen hard, like rock. There weren’t any entrenching tools. We used mess kits, mess knives, bayonets and helmets to dig in. It was frantic hard work but with shells flying all the time we had to have shelter. We could see them shelling and attacking to our right rear in the Malmédy–St Vith area. We kept heating them off. We had a good open field of fire and a lot of artillery to help us. A day or two after, the 99th dug in on Elsenborn Ridge; two hundred Germans with tanks came towards our lines. The 394th Regiment was in front. The Germans carried their arms in sling positions on their shoulders and waved white handkerchief flags as if to surrender. They were told to drop their arms. They refused and kept coming. Obviously they wanted to get closer and overrun us. All of the

firepower on the front opened up. They tried to and did run over some of the foxholes with their tanks. But our firepower and artillery really chewed them up. There were pieces of bodies and tanks flying all over. When the fire lifted nothing moved. They all died. The tanks and equipment destroyed. On 21 December 1st Sergeant Nawrocki called the roll and wrote his report on a piece of toilet paper. Five days earlier Company B had 216 men. On 21 December it was one officer and thirteen men. During that day, the American howitzers fired over 10,000 rounds and destroyed 782 Volksgrenadiers and smashed 47 tanks and AFVs. Major Percy Schramm, the OKW diarist, noted on 20 December, ‘Because the counter-pressure exerted by the enemy on the right flank still continued [opposite Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army] and threatened to grow sharper, Cin-C West [Field Marshal von Rundstedt] ordered Army Group B [Field Marshal Model] to clean up the situation as quickly as possible. The intentions of 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division were changed in that it and 12th SS Panzer Division were incorporated into the thrust movement of the other units. As the objective to be attained C-in-C West was given the capture of St Vith on the right wing and the extension of the ground gained then to the west, as well as the quickest possible formation of bridgeheads over the Meuse between Huy and Givet that is on both sides of Namur. For C-in-C West it was a matter of so building the northern front of the attack arrow so that it would run 15 to 20 kilometres north of the roads used by motorised units and thus would make their use unhampered by artillery’ (World War Two German Military Studies, OKW War Diary Series, Part IV). As a direct result, Dietrich’s SS Panzers (2nd and 9th SS) moved southwards and were marginally involved north of St Vith and Bastogne.

Fig 17.2 Dom. Bütgenbach, held by US 26 IR of 1st ‘Big Red One’ division against ferocious attacks by 1st SS Panzer division. After the battle 500 German dead were found in the woods (top left) (by Harrison Standley) (111CC-103362: 4-114-46 NARA)

Map 3 The gallant American defence of the Elsenborn ridge and the savage battles in the twin towns of Krinkelt and Rocherath delayed considerably the advance of the German 6th SS Panzer Army

chapter 18

Colonel Fuller and the Keystones: ‘Buckets of Blood’

M

ajor General ‘Dutch’ Cota earned promotion to command the 28 ‘Keystone’ Infantry division through his skill and bravery as assistant divisional commander of 29th Infantry division in the Normandy campaign. The 28th had been badly mauled in the Hürtgen Forest, losing 6,000 casualties while trying to break into the West Wall, hence their nickname with their blood-red bucket-shaped ‘Keystone’ shoulder patch. Cota’s division included 109, 110 and 112 Infantry regiments backed by four field artillery battalions, an engineer combat battalion and 707 Tank and 630 TD battalions. In the Ardennes they were guarding an 18-mile stretch from Dasburg to Vianden along the rivers Our and Sauer. They were also absorbing 6,000 reinforcements. Colonel Gustin Nelson’s 112 IR guarded the area around the villages of Lutzkampen and Sevenig east of the river Our, which had four bridges, two at Ouren and two further north. The 109 IR further south held Führen, Vianden and Wallendorf, with a reserve battalion in Diekirch. A major road from Germany crossed the Our, continued up the valley of the Sauer through Diekirch to Ettelbruck, a prime target. Lt Colonel Hurley Fuller commanded 110 IR and based his HQ in the charming old town of Clervaux astride a bend in the river Clervé in a deep narrow basin. Fuller was a difficult, irascible but capable commander and was tasked with guarding a 15-mile line close to the river Our, much of it along what the GIs called the Skyline Boulevard (the Heinerscheid–Hoscheid road). Hosingen and Marnach were

two important villages. There were also three bridges over the river Clerf/Clervé, at Drauffelt, Clervaux and a third a few miles south. Major General Norman Cota’s HQ was in Wiltz, 12 miles west of Dasburg. Sergeant John Chernitsky with the anti-tank company of 110 IR described his first action in the Hürtgen Forest: ‘All hell let loose. The Jerries had zeroed in on the orchard and were lobbing mortar shells and artillery fire in a continuous barrage that lasted about 45 minutes. The green replacements suffered the heaviest casualties. More than half were killed or wounded. The veterans were calling to the men to keep their heads down. My fear throughout seemed to be mingled with curiosity. I remember seeking comfort and freedom from fear during artillery barrages and combat forays by reciting the TwentyThird Psalm repeatedly. I received my Combat Badge effective 1 December 1944 after several more weeks of fighting in that miserable forest.’ On 14 December he was sent to Wiltz as an NCO weapons instructor. On Null-Tag the ‘Keystones’ were attacked in overwhelming force. Along the Skyline Boulevard 110 IR faced at first two, then three units of General von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army. His elite XLVII Panzer corps was commanded by General von Luttwitz, a plump, monocled career officer and strict disciplinarian who drove his men hard. The 26th VGD under Oberst Heinze Kokott, known as the ‘Dom’ division after an emblem of Cologne Cathedral, had a strength of 17,000 men, many from Poland, Westphalia and the Rhineland. But the Schwerpunkt was the crack 2nd Panzer division, rated by the Americans the best on the Western Front, with their 58 Panther and 27 PzKw Mark IVs and 48 new SP assault guns. And lurking in the wings was Generalleutnant Fritz Bayerlein’s elite Panzer Lehr division with 30 Panther and 27 Mark IV tanks, and Oberst Otto Remer ’s Führer Begleit brigade, which was about to envelope the ‘Golden Lions’. Luttwitz Korps task was the capture of the river Our crossings at Dasburg and Gemund, bypass the Clerf/Clervaux sector and head 20 miles west to capture Oberwampach and Bastogne. In the northern sector Lt Colonel Nelson’s 112th IR was attacked by Generaloberst Walter Krueger ’s LVIII Panzer corps, spearheaded by Generalmajor Siegfried von Waldenburg’s 116 ‘Greyhound’ Panzer division. It had been mauled in Normandy, reformed in the autumn and now had a strength of 11,500 with 139 panzers and assault guns. Their partner was the green 560th VGD, with two regiments, recruited in Denmark and Norway, under Oberst Rudolf Langhauser. They were tasked with the capture of the two bridges on either side of the village of Ouren and then push rapidly towards Houffalize en route for the river Meuse bridges.

Colonel Nelson had two battalions of 112th Infantry in the line, one near Lutzkampen, close to the right flank of the Golden Lions 424th Infantry. The other was to the SW around the village of Sevenig. A third was in reserve west of the river Our. On Null-Tag Nelson’s men put up a strong defence and Lt Colonel William Allen’s 1/112 inflicted heavy casualties on the Volksgrenadiers. They counterattacked during the afternoon and regained most of the positions lost. When Generalmajor Siegfried von Waldenburg unleashed his Panzergrenadiers to take the Ouren bridges they were attacked by the ‘Golden Lions’ 424th on one flank and 3/112 battalion on the other. PFC Paul Rosenthal, a gunner with a towed tank destroyer supporting the ‘Golden Lions’, fired eighteen rounds and knocked out five panzers! By the end of the day the inexperienced Volksgrenadiers had lost nearly 1,000 casualties; 116 Panzer lost 13 tanks and several hundred casualties, with at least 80 captured. The two main bridges had not been captured. The actual bridges had long been destroyed but the debris, felled trees and mines meant that completely new bridges were now needed. Sixty-ton pontoons were laboriously brought up. Von Manteuffel’s two main columns had been held up for 24 hours. Ironically, one of their stumbling blocks was the line of dragon’s teeth concrete blocks of the West Wall (Siegfried Line) erected many years before! Down at the Our river, swollen with the winter rain, German engineers had been working non-stop to construct bridges capable of holding heavy Panther tanks. General von Manteuffel visited both sites. Major Loos’s engineers finally completed a bridge for 2nd Panzer at Dasburg, leading to the road for Marnach and Clervaux. At dusk, downstream at Gemund, a bridge was completed for Panzer Lehr to cross. Corporal Hans Hejny served with 381st Armoured Engineer battalion, part of 38th Armoured battalion of 2nd Panzer division. From the German town of Dreis, 2nd Panzer moved out on 15 December towards Luxembourg: ‘At 5.30 a.m. there was a sudden flash. Then followed ear-splitting explosions. It was a terror-fraught fire attack. As far as the eye could see there were flashes everywhere, heavy and heavier guns were fired. Everything was lit up by day. Conflagrations erupted and we thought we heard piercing screams, perhaps screams of death of those hit. All of us jumped into the vehicles without averting our eyes from the horrible spectacle. Because of the fires the landscape seemed drenched in blood. We had to continue forward, most unhappy as we watched the awful bombardment over our heads that brought death and destruction. The road ended at a river and we left the trucks.’ Hejny’s

platoon leader briefed them about their task: ‘We engineers have to quickly build a ferry [at Dasburg] so the most important vehicles can cross the river until the blown-up bridge farther up the river has been sufficiently repaired.’ The company built a passable bridge using huge flotation bags. A small landing pier was erected on shore as the first ambulances arrived. The villages that von Manteuffel really wanted to capture were Hosingen and Marnach, both about 5 miles west from the Dasburg bridges, and 2 miles inland from the Skyline Boulevard. His Panzergrenadiers crossed the river Our at Dasburg in rubber boats and streamed towards Marnach. There Company B/110 and a platoon of tank destroyers blocked the east–west road. Corporal Ed Uzemack with B Company 110th Infantry noted, ‘On the morning of the sixteenth we experienced an intense and long bombardment. The quiet that followed was soon disrupted by shouts of alarm from GI lookout posts. German infantry in large numbers were moving up the hill towards our village of Clervaux. The fighting that ensued was weird. It was like shooting ducks at a carnival. With a heavy blanket of snow on the hillside, the Germans wore no camouflage and the dark uniforms made inviting targets. Besides our M-1 rifles, we had a couple of .50 calibre machine-guns and perhaps a mortar or two. After encountering heavy fire from our vantage point the enemy troops broke and ran for cover. The action was repeated several times during the day in what were almost suicide missions.’ Uzemack’s unit had their platoon HQ in an inn at the intersection of three highways. ‘The next day we got our wake-up call, a barrage. As the almost one-sided infantry battle continued the walkietalkie crackled with requests for more rifle ammunition, casualty reports and calls for a runner.’ Late that night the GI platoon shared a bottle of Scotch. In the night Panther or Tiger tanks rumbled into the village and captured Uzemack’s unit. ‘We could see that their tanks were in excellent condition. The black-uniformed Panzer men were young, clean-shaven and very smart in appearance. They were efficient and cocky in their attitude to us. They had captured us [and 400 other GIs of 28 Division] and quite naturally attributed this feat to their “Aryan” superiority.’ By nightfall on Null-Tag the key towns of Hosingen and Marnach were under intense pressure. Colonel Hurley Fuller had his HQ of 110 IR sited in the Hotel Claravallis in Clervaux, just west of Marnaux. It was a favourite town for GIs on leave, with an attractive 12th-century château on a hill east of the town. The deep gorge of the river Our was a natural defence. Fuller had stationed Lt Colonel Donald Paul with 1/110 around Marnach, his 3/110 around Costhum and his divisional commander, General Cota, kept 2/110 as divisional reserve,

and was reluctant to part with it. Fuller was given permission to ‘impress’ the 300 GIs on leave in Clervaux into a local defence unit. Lt General Troy Middleton, GOC US VIII corps, had ordered ‘Dutch’ Cota not to consider withdrawal. In turn Cota ordered Fuller, hold come what may. Several smaller villages – Bockholt, Wahlhausen, Weiler, Holzthum, Consthum and Munshausen – were defended by the ‘Keystones’ in platoon or company strength, often supported by batteries of field artillery. Hosingen, for instance, was held by 160 green young soldiers of Company K, 3/110. Shortage of ammunition meant that practical ‘training’ and registration of guns on defensive fire tasks was practically nil! But patrols on both sides of the river Our and through dense forests had been encouraged. General ‘Dutch’ Cota had the field commander ’s usual problem: How long to keep the reserve troops out of battle? Which front-line unit needs them most? Do they go – the reserves – in penny packets to staunch inroads into the defences or en masse? Cota had available the 110th Second battalion of infantry and the 707th Sherman tank battalion. The defenders of Marnach, Hosingen, Consthum and Holtzthum were almost at the end of their tether. Eventually Cota sent two platoons of Shermans for Fuller to allocate to Marnach. Another platoon was sent to Weiler and Wahlhausen but were fended off by VDG infantry. Both places then surrendered. Five Shermans fought their way into Hosingen. 2nd Panzer troops then bypassed Marnach and headed for Clervaux. At midnight, after a gallant defence, Panthers, assault SPs and halftracks mounted with deadly multiple machine-guns swamped the Marnach defenders. General Cota that evening released three out of four companies of the 2nd Bn 110 IR back to Colonel Fuller to help in the defence of Clervaux. All through the night of 16/17th General von Luttwitz’s forces moved across the two strongly built bridges – Tiger tanks, heavy siege guns, SPs and deadly flame-throwers to capture Hosingen and Clervaux on the morrow. In the early hours of Sunday morning the 3rd Panzer regiment’s Panzergrenadiers had crossed the river Our in rubber boats eight hours ahead of the Mark IVs, which finally took Marnach. The Panzergrenadiers cut Skyline Boulevard despite heavy casualties from American guns at Urspelt and Shermans from Munshausen. But they destroyed Company B 110 IR in the process and soon reached the high ground above Clervaux and poured dominating fire into the château. Colonel Fuller was determined to save Marnach, not knowing it was too late. He sent the three 2nd Bn companies in separate columns to try to relieve the town. They moved off at dawn on 17th and ran into Panthers and SP assault

guns. Eighteen American light Honey tanks of 707 Tank brigade were knocked out near Heinerscheid, and soon Clervaux was under more pressure. Gefreite Guido Gnilsen, a radio operator in 2nd Panzer grenadier regiment, 2nd Panzer division, wrote, ‘We lost many good men. San FW Bacher killed, our communications sergeant also dead: the Adjutant Leutnant Feitner, his clerk Corporal Winterer, our “sparks” Wegner and Schwedler wounded. Richard Schmitt missing. The company also had heavy losses with two platoon commanders killed and today [16th] is only the first day of the advance. We were beginning to ask ourselves when our number would be up.’ Further north 112 IR had successfully held the Ouren salient and its two bridges, but an all-out battle followed on the Sunday. The rather demoralised 560 VGD were ordered to destroy the forward American defence posts ‘at all costs’. A Panther tank battalion from 116 Panzer division was ordered to take Ouren ‘at all costs’. 112 IR were then reinforced with four SP tank destroyers from CCR 9th Armoured division (part of the Corps reserve). Fighting went on all day, Panthers versus tank destroyers, artillery fire at close quarters, some air support by fighter-bombers. At dusk 112 IR were forced back west of the river Our and lost another bridge. By Monday morning 116 Panzer division had crossed the river Our south at Dasburg and assembled around Heinerscheid and thereby cut off 112 IR from General Cota’s division. They linked up with the ‘Golden Lions’ surviving regiment in the defence of St Vith. In the south, 109 IR lost over 500 casualties but had prevented 352 VGD from crossing the Sauer. It too was split from 28th Infantry division and was forced to link up with US 9th Armoured division. Late on Sunday afternoon Colonel Fuller took stock. Three companies of his 110 IR had been overwhelmed in Marnach, Heinerscheid and Weiler. Two others were just holding out at Consthum. Three more were in Munshausen and Hosingen and on the ridge east of Clervaux. One was in Clervaux. The twelfth was part of General Cota’s HQ defences at Wiltz. Gefreite Guido Gnilsen, the 2nd Panzer grenadier radio operator said, ‘We reached Clervaux (Clerf), the first big town and a very important train junction, just at the right time. We had received a wireless message from Major Monschau that the bridge was still in one piece and we were able to take our tanks over including the Panthers. For this success he was later awarded the Knights Cross. There was a lull in the fighting until midnight. Prisoners were brought in and the wounded cared for. Then the fighting started again and by the next morning Clervaux was free of all enemy, a few hundred prisoners were brought in together with lots of booty.’

Corporal Hans Hejny, 2nd Panzer division, took part in the capture of Clervaux: ‘Leaving the protection of the woods behind us, the street led us among the houses.’ Round the next bend ‘there was an indescribable combat pandemonium, every noise mixed with another, grenades, rifle shots, mortar and machine-gun fire. A unique blast from hell. I saw Jahn cautiously moving ahead, searching for cover. I kept close to him. Projectiles whistled around our ears, impacting in the walls, splintering whole portions from them, ricocheting, twittering aimlessly through the air, sounding as if they were harmless, chirping birds. A huge fire raged in the middle of the roadway, obstructing any passage. Dense clouds of smoke floated above our heads. About fifty metres away an American Sherman tank was fully aflame. Behind it some Americans sought cover but these poor devils had no escape left. There was no possibility of flight. A massive detonation wave shook the street. Whole pieces of steel were hurled into the air. A terrible gust of fiery wind threw me back, choking and coughing.’ Hejny saw the defending GIs being fired on and wounded. ‘At that moment I felt immense sympathy for the Americans. The cowardice and brutality toward the completely defenceless men set me aflame with wild hate. No attempts were made to take prisoners.’ Hejny saw German Panther tanks shoving the burning armour aside to open a passage through Clervaux. During the last phone call out of the 110 IR CP to HQ at Wiltz, the signals sergeant reported that German tanks and infantry were running wild in Clervaux and that he was the only able-bodied man left. At 6.39 p.m. on Sunday 17 December the next voice on the telephone was German. 26 VGD, supported by tanks from Panzer Lehr division, crushed Fuller ’s Third Battalion in the south and the crack 2nd Panzer division swamped the First and Second Battalion strong-points in the north and in Clervaux. Hosingen defended stoutly but 300 GIs were captured. Consthum held out until the 18th and a few survivors moved out to Nocher and the defenders at Wiltz. Colonel Fuller and a few men escaped from Clervaux but were captured in heavy forest 36 hours later. The hundred HQ troops in the great walls of the château held out until Monday morning. The 110th Infantry were virtually destroyed, the men and fighting vehicles of five tank companies lost, the equivalent of three combat engineer companies dead or missing and tank destroyers, artillery and miscellaneous units engulfed in the Skyline and Clervaux battles. The German losses were also severe. Their frontal attacks against stonewalled villages and towns had eventually been successful, but at a cost. The ‘Buckets of Blood’ had put up a magnificent battle. Colonel Fuller had

organised his defences to the best of his abilities. It can be argued that General Troy Middleton’s orders to General Cota for 28 Infantry division to hold out to the last man (similar vein to Adolf Hitler) was deeply flawed. The losses of several thousand men were not, however, totally in vain. Valuable time was given to build up the defences of St Vith, Bastogne and the Meuse river crossings.

chapter 19

Peiper, Hitler’s Bodyguard and the massacres

G

eneral Hodges in his HQ in the Grand Hotel Britannique in Spa was disturbed to learn early on the 17th that a certain Kampfgruppe Peiper had made a dramatic breakthrough at Honsfeld, just west of the Losheim Gap. Hodges now acted decisively and at noon asked Major General Leland Hobbs, GOC 30th, the ‘Old Hickory’ (which had landed at Omaha beach on 10 June), to move south to block an enemy move on Liège. Hodges also asked General Bradley to get permission from Ike to release the final reserve troops – the famous 82nd and 101st Airborne divisions. ‘Sepp’ Dietrich had chosen Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper, a 28-yearold Waffen SS colonel to command the Sixth SS Panzer Army’s Schwerpunkt Peiper, trilingual with English and French, was at the beginning of the war one of Himmler ’s personal adjutants. He trained as an SS officer at Dachau and fought brilliantly in Poland, France and Russia. He also had a reputation as a Waffen SS officer of murdering Jews, Poles and Russians indiscriminately. His unit in Russia did not take any prisoners at all. In Italy he had 33 partisans killed in the Piedmont area. He served with the crack Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler, the 1st SS Panzer division and won two Iron Crosses with them. Peiper commanded a strike force of 1st SS Panzer division, with 250 tanks and 3,500 men (with monster Jagdtigers, SP 128mm guns, some dual-purpose 88mm AA/A/Tk guns and an engineering battalion to repair bridges). Theoretically Operation Greif was under Dietrich’s command but he thought that Peiper ’s

force would cause as much confusion to his troops as to the Americans! His 15-mile centre-line was through the Losheim Gap after 12 VGD had made the initial break-in. They were held up by the 14 Cavalry unit’s delaying actions and Peiper ’s troops reached Losheim late evening of 16 December. They were ordered to divert to Lanzerath and to keep up maximum pressure, so Peiper drove his AFVs through an old German minefield, losing half a dozen halftracks in the process. Pushing on through the night his column reached Honsfeld at dawn on the 17th. Peiper wrote, ‘An American reconnaissance unit was stationed at Honsfeld. The vehicles were standing in front of all the doors of all the houses in town. There were plenty of weapons around particularly tank destroyers, but the American troops were not at their weapons or in the vehicles, but were in the houses asleep. For that reason there was hardly any fighting at all.’ A service unit of 99 Infantry division, plus elements of 14th Cavalry Group and a platoon of anti-tankers were quickly rousted out of their beds. Besides 300 GI prisoners, Peiper captured more than 100 trucks, halftracks and recce vehicles, some field guns and 17 SP anti-tank guns. It was a small disaster for the Americans. At least fifteen American troops and civilians were massacred. Two American airstrips were shot up in the town of Bullingen, although it was technically the 12 SS Panzer Hitler Jugend objective. In Bullingen a US petrol dump was captured and Peiper ’s column ordered 50 captured GIs to fuel their vehicles. Despite some strafing by the hated Jabos (Thunderbolts) and a skirmish in Bullingen, Peiper ’s armoured column then overran small garrisons in Muderscheid and Thirimont. By noon on 17 December Peiper was nearing the crossroads of Baugnez, 2 miles from Malmédy. Lt Colonel David Pergrin was the CO of 291st Engineer Combat battalion charged with the defence of Malmédy, which had roads radiating out to Eupen, Stavelot and Baugnez. Pergrin set up small road blocks in the villages of Amblève, La Gleize, Stavelot and Trois Ponts. He watched in dismay as elements of US 7th Armoured division arrived and pushed on along Highway N23 towards St Vith. Soon after, 140 soldiers of Battery B 285 Field Artillery observation battalion arrived, declined to stay and their trucks rolled down the hill towards the Baugnez crossroads. There are – surprisingly – several published accounts of the infamous Malmédy massacre that then took place. Gerald Astor ’s A Blood-Dimmed Tide has accounts by James Mattera, William Merriken and by Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper. According to Peiper, ‘I suddenly heard my cannons and machine-guns open fire. I realised that the point had hit the main road from Malmédy to Petit Thier

and I drove off to the point in my jeep. The column behind me was detached, since the road was exceptionally difficult.’ He met the point troops about twothirds of a mile east of Baugnez. ‘About five tanks and five half-tracks were standing in front of me and they were shooting with all weapons at their disposal at an American truck convoy. I gave an order to cease fire several times, since I was annoyed at having those beautiful trucks which we needed so badly shot up.’ Peiper ordered his troops to ‘drive on at great speed. I mounted the vehicle of Major Poetschke and ordered him to send a radio message that the enemy was leaving Malmédy [actually Baugnez] and that we had reached the main road south of Malmédy.’ At the crossroads a Panther tank was shoving shot-up US vehicles into the ditches. ‘I saw a large number of American soldiers, forty or sixty according to my estimate. Some of them were standing in the road already: some were lying in the ditch, and the great majority of them were lying on the west side of the road in the open area. Some of the American soldiers played dead: some of them slowly crept towards the woods: some of them suddenly jumped up and ran toward the forest and some of them came towards the road. Grenadiers who were in the half-tracks behind me fired on those who carried rifles and were running towards the forest.’ Peiper reportedly yelled in English, ‘It’s a long way to Tipperary, boys.’

Fig 19.1 Oberst Jochen Pelper ’s troops reach vital crossroads between St Vith and Malmédy, west of Honsfeld (EA 47958 IWM) Peiper subsequently claimed he did not see any prisoners shot. Mattera and Merriken state that the firing into the crowd of GIs lasted for about fifteen minutes. Lt Virgil Lary survived through the kindness of local civilians. The terrible result was that of the 113 unarmed GIs in the field, 77 were killed there, 25 were wounded, another 11 died close by, or later of wounds; 56 others survived although 7 became PoWs. There were no German casualties. Several civilians who saw the massacre were also shot. Peiper ’s column then headed for Ligneuville, 3 miles south and manned by service personnel of US 9th Armoured division’s 14th Tank Battalion. In a skirmish Peiper lost Lt Fisher ’s Panther tank but destroyed three Shermans and an assault gun. Peiper ’s officers had a good lunch at the Hotel du Moulin before they pressed on to cross the river Amblève at Stavelot, 5 miles due west. Behind him in Ligneuville, Sgt Paul Ochmann and Corporal Sturmann Suess

proceeded to massacre eight more GIs. Ochmann stated, ‘All told, I myself shot and killed with my pistol four or five of these American prisoners of war. The others were shot in my presence by Suess. While I shot, Suess also shot.’ Kampfgruppe Peiper continued to detour around Malmédy and a lone American sentry, Private Bernard Goldstein, a combat engineer under Lt Colonel Pergrin, fired as Peiper ’s half-tracks trundled slowly on the curved main road into Stavelot. An American bazooka shell hit the first Mk IV tank and disabled it. The German column reversed gears and backed to plan their next move. Peiper was convinced that Stavelot must be heavily defended. Many of his Waffen SS troops had been without sleep for at least 36 hours, so Peiper held off until the next day. Lt Colonel David Pergrin, aged 25, took the 291st Engineer Combat battalion overseas, England, Normandy and into the Ardennes. Like all engineers they could turn their hands to practically every task such as building and maintaining roads, operating saw mills to provide timber for squad huts, removing demolitions, building road blocks, clearing or laying minefields. They could also fight. Pergrin had placed his three companies in Werbomont, a second in a château near the village of La Gleize and the third in Malmédy. Colonel Wallis Anderson was CO of 111 Engineer Combat Group of which 291 was part. Anderson’s own HQ was in Trois Ponts and his three battalions provided a screening force for the US First Army’s HQ in Spa. Purely by chance Pergrin’s three companies were completely blocking Oberst Peiper ’s onrush through the river Amblève valley. It was Pergrin’s B Company of 180 men in Malmédy that on the 17th had tried to persuade an artillery group to stay and help defend the town (and failed) and then tried to persuade the innocent B Battery 285th Observation battalion to move on (and failed) – shortly afterwards they were massacred. Pergrin alerted First Army HQ in Spa to the awful massacre and also urgently asked for reinforcements. Very shrewdly he ordered C Company at La Gleize to move to swell the defences of Malmédy, but also to place a squad of engineers in Trois Ponts and Stavelot and construct road blocks. Sgt Charles Hensel commanded the twelve-man squad that arrived in Stavelot in darkness on the 17th. They crossed the bridge over the river Amblève and continued up the hill, where there was a sharp bend with an escarpment on one side, steep cliffs down to the river – ideal for a line or two of mines guided by a bazooka team. Not long after, Peiper ’s advance guard could be heard approaching. A bazooka rocket damaged the leading tank, which halted. Major Paul Solis with A Company of towed tank destroyers of 526 Armoured IB plus an infantry company arrived in Stavelot at 3 a.m. on

18 December. Just before daybreak Peiper ’s mortars and assault guns opened up; direct panzer fire knocked out all but two tank destroyers. Each one destroyed two German tanks but by 8 a.m. Solis and the survivors pulled out back towards Malmédy, unfortunately failing to destroy the key bridge.

Fig 19.2 Stavelot, scene of fierce battle against Oberst Peiper ’s 1st SS Panzers (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-103347: 4-110-46 NARA) Peiper recalled, ‘At dawn we launched the attack led by two Panther tanks running at full speed. The lead one was hit and burned but its momentum carried it through the anti-tank obstacles where it careered off two Sherman’s [probably 75 mm tank destroyers]. A second Panther then seized control of the bridge and the Americans evacuated their position. We continued at top speed towards Trois Ponts delayed briefly by a single anti-tank gun which was destroyed.’ It was thought that two ‘GIs’ who ‘helped’ the engineers place explosives under the Stavelot bridge were part of Operation Greif and sabotaged the explosives! Peiper claimed that local Belgians ‘shot at us from

the windows and openings in their roofs’ in Stavelot. ‘We got bogged down because of stubborn resistance at the edge of Stavelot. We suffered fairly heavy losses, 25–35 casualties from tank, mortar and rifle fire.’ Peiper, however, failed to seize the huge fuel dump at Francorchamps. The American engineers burned 120,000 gallons and prevented the SS Waffen troops reaching the vital dumps. Peiper ’s group reached Trois Ponts at 11 a.m. on 18 December. The action at Stavelot gave Colonel Anderson time to organise the defences of Trois Ponts. Major Robert Yates, with C Company of 51st Engineer Combat Bn, prepared demolitions for two bridges, and a platoon of 291st Engineers did the same for the third bridge. Two, over the rivers Amblève and Salm were in Trois Ponts, 500 yards apart. The third, over the Salm, was a mile SE on the road to Vielsalm. Kampengruppe Peiper planned to drive along the main road from Stavelot, turn left beyond the first bridge, crossing the Amblève, and in the village turn right and head west for Werbomont. At 11 a.m. a Panther poked its head round the second of the two rail underpasses and promptly had a track damaged by an intrepid anti-tank gun crew. As they were killed by the tank’s 75mm gun, bridges 1 and 2 in Trois Ponts were thoroughly blown up. The Amblève has such steep banks that no AFVs can cross it. Peiper had sensibly sent a column of Mark IV panzers from Stavelot along a minor road following the river, through the village of Wanne, and they could have, via the railway station, entered Trois Ponts. Sgt Jean Miller with his 291st Combat Engineer team watched the Mark IVs near the railway station and decisively blew up ‘his’ bridge. So, on towards La Gleize and Werbomont to find alternative crossings over the river Salm. Along the way the dreaded P-47 Thunderbolts bombed and strafed Peiper ’s columns. Ten of the leading vehicles including three tanks were knocked out, blocking the narrow road completely. A bridge half a mile ahead was then blown. The next village of Stoumont was well defended and six half-tracks of 2nd SS Panzer grenadiers regiment were blown to pieces or abandoned. The defenders from the US 30th Infantry division had ended a long journey south from General Simpson’s Ninth Army. So 117 IR was ordered to seize and defend Malmédy and Stavelot. One battalion then stayed to garrison each town. But Peiper ’s troops with ten panzers decided to retake Stavelot. The 30th Division now held Stoumont in strength, and the panzer group plus a company from 3rd Parachute division held La Gleize.

Map 4 Kampfgruppe Peiper, the Schwerpunkt of 1st SS Panzer Division, made a powerful and brutal incursion of the American defences leaving a trail of massacres behind Two fierce battles were now imminent. ‘Hitler ’s Bodyguard’ with a battalion of Tigers, assault parties of Panzer Grenadiers and parachute infantry was determined to capture Stoumont from 119 IR. The 117 IR was equally determined to throw Battlegroup Peiper ’s forces out of Stavelot. The ‘Old Hickory’ 30th US Infantry division was commanded by Major General Leland Hobbs. It fought in Normandy, then in Operation Cobra and in October helped complete the encirclement of Aachen. The division was nicknamed for Andrew Jackson and was formed originally from National Guardsmen from the Carolinas and Tennessee. At the start of Wacht am Rhein the division was resting out of the line at Kohlscheid on the German frontier. On 17 December it was rushed to the Malmédy-Stavelot area. Hobbs’s formation included 117, 119 and 120 Infantry regiments. Curtiss Martell, a platoon sergeant with C Company 119 IR, landed on Omaha beach on 13 June and ‘had our first nasty encounter against SS paratroopers. We suffered many casualties.’ Near St Lo P-47 fighter-planes ‘bombed and strafed the hell out of us’, causing many casualties. ‘In the

beginning I harboured no animosity towards the enemy. They were soldiers dedicated to the duties of combat for their country, as we were to ours. However, my attitude changed dramatically as time passed. I became a person with vengeance in his heart and at times almost vicious in nature. My leadership became more demanding. Battle casualties were generally high. The new replacements never really knew me. I learned not to be buddies with my men because it was difficult to accept their death, should it happen. I had a good relationship with most of my superior officers. Most enlisted men that I led were dependable. During the Ardennes campaign, the men performed admirably. I saw acts that some would classify as acts of courage which to me were examples of carelessness.’ Private First Class Bob Hall served with the Ammunition and Pioneer platoon, 3/119 IR: ‘A&P soldiers toted shells and cartridges, performed light engineering tasks and served as riflemen. I never thought much about being killed, wounded or becoming a prisoner. I figured “If the Lord thinks it is my time to get killed, it will happen”. We learned to think of ourselves as only serial numbers instead of human beings. My superior officer was 1st Lt Walter Goodman. I can only say great things about him.’ Bob Hall earned a Silver Star for gallantry in Normandy and in October was wounded in the attack on Kohlscheid. From there via Eupen the ‘Old Hickory’ GIs motored towards the Belgian town of Stoumont, but 120 IR moved 40 miles SE to Malmédy.

chapter 20

The defence of St Vith

T

he little town was a vitally important road communication centre with six important roads feeding into it. Fifth Panzer Army regarded St Vith as a key objective, with roads leading to Huy and Antwerp, Malmédy and Liège. It was, however, close to the Sixth SS Panzer ‘boundary line’. The unfortunate Major General Alan Jones, GOC the ‘Golden Lions’, had made St Vith his divisional HQ. His son was serving on the Schnee-Eifel and would shortly become a prisoner of war. General Jones was joined early on Sunday morning 17 December by Brigadier General Bruce Clarke whose CCB of 7th Armoured was on its way supposedly to break through and rescue the beleaguered Golden Lions. Jones was probably happy to hand over command of the defence of St Vith to Clarke. A monumental traffic jam of vehicles fleeing to the rear had delayed the arrival of the tanks of 31st Tank battalion leading the CCB. Major Don Boyer, in a staff car behind the leading tank battalion of 7th Armoured CCB, arrived at the road junction of Poteau three miles west of St Vith: ‘As we arrived at the road junction we were hit by a sight that we could not comprehend. A constant stream of traffic hurtling to the rear, nothing going to the front. It was a case of “every dog for himself”. It was a retreat, a rout. About a mile further up the road we ran into a hopeless mass of vehicles fleeing to the rear on a narrow road. Vehicles streaming back had attempted to pass each other in the intervals between tanks of 31st Tank battalion and now no one could move. Finally, at 8.15 p.m. we entered St Vith. It had taken two and a half hours to move three miles, and because of vehicles fleeing with men, who refused to pull over and let troops through, troops who would

actually save them if they could reach the town before the Germans.’ At the command post of General Hoffman-Schonborn of 18th Volksgrenadier division, Field Marshal Model, commanding Army Group B, General von Manteuffel, commanding Fifth Panzer Army, and General Lucht, GOC LXVI Corps, met and agreed that the latter must take St Vith at all costs and as soon as possible. The forces getting into place for the attack were 18th and 62nd VGDs, and Oberst Otto Remer ’s Führer Begleit brigade, which at full strength had rolled through the US 422nd Infantry on the Schnee-Eifel and mauled 424th near Schönberg. The Germans also had monumental traffic jams to contend with and initially only modest probing attacks could be made on the St Vith defenders. They initially comprised General Jones HQ troops, remnants of 14th Cavalry, and the 81st and 168th Engineer Combat battalions (ECB). During Sunday afternoon the first Shermans and armoured infantry of Brigadier General Clarke’s CCB started to arrive. When Brigadier General Robert Hasbrouck, GOC 7th Armoured (Lucky Seven) division, arrived at St Vith, he, Clarke and Jones contemplated counter-attacks on Schonberg and relief of the ‘Golden Lions’ on the Schnee-Eifel. An attack by 18th VGD broke into the defences held by 38th Armoured infantry battalion, and attacks by 295th Grenadier regiment and 190th Grenadiers of 62 VGD made it clear that the Germans meant business. Most of 424 Infantry arrived to join the garrison. Lt Colonel Thomas Riggs, CO of 81st ECB, cobbled together a task force of 500 men and assembled them on high grounds at Primerberg, 2 miles east of St Vith. Sgt John Collins was one of them: ‘From nowhere appeared Riggs who stopped us and organised us into a defensive unit along a firebreak atop a wooded hill. We dug in – the dirt flew. Daisy chains of mines were stretched across the roads. At about 4 p.m. a battalion of VGD advanced to a distance of 1,000 yards. The six tank destroyers failed to score any hits but at least caused the enemy armour to back off.’ But to Riggs’s dismay, ‘the tank destroyer platoon moved north and out of our sector without reporting. Several units left our sector to join a movement to the rear.’ General Clarke made Lt Colonel William Fuller, CO 38 AIB, in charge of the critical defences in front of St Vith. It was a large horseshoe shape, about 12 miles in length, and included the 38 AIB, 23rd AIB, a composite force of 400 combat engineers and 112th and 424th Infantry. Eleven Sherman tanks covered open ground near Wallerode (2 miles NE of St Vith). Most of the tank destroyers were in reserve in the town. And there were several gaps. Private James Buck, HQ Company 106 Infantry, escaped from the woods

where the Golden Lions had fought and lost. It took him three days trying to get back to the remains of his unit. He fell in with a tank unit on the Schönberg road: ‘The tanks pulled back through St Vith. The town was in flames. It reminded me of the burning of Atlanta in Gone with the Wind, stone buildings in flame and shooting out of windows but no crumbling walls.’ Desperately hungry, he found a jeep pulling a trailer. Instead of K Rations, ‘I lifted the tarp [tarpaulin]. It was full of dead GIs. They were GIs who had hung up on the barbed wire on a snowy field where they had been shot.’ Although 740th Medium Field Artillery battalion had abandoned its guns and simply ‘bogged out’, Lt Colonel Maximilian Clay, CO 275th Armoured Field Artillery battalion, volunteered his unit’s services. For the first few days it would be Brigadier Clarke’s only artillery support. Clarke was aged 43, a big man, well over 6 feet tall, with a heavy frame and was West Point trained. Clarke’s defence line went from Wallerode across the Prümerberg, blocking the two roads from Schönberg. Sgt John Collins, 81st Engineer CB, recalled, ‘We were a bunch of frustrated, scared kids; except for Lieutenant Colonel Riggs and one lieutenant, we felt our officers had deserted us. There was plenty of courage in the men who stayed in the line. Without exception, every one of us relied on the lieutenant colonel to bring us through this situation. You can bet they [the Germans] are going to attack when the shelling is intense and stops. They will charge, yelling, screaming and firing or throwing grenades. Tanks were in the area but were stopped with chain mines and in one case our own [captured] tanks. Their tanks though are much larger than ours and have firepower advantage. Our tanks are no match. We had no blankets and we shook from the cold and the shelling. Some units seemed to fade away when the going got tough. I guess we did not have the guts or brains to leave. I didn’t seem to be doing much but at least I remained and followed orders.’ Captain Nathan Duke Ward assisted Lt Colonel Riggs in the defences: ‘The 88s, mortars, burp guns and buzz bombs were very frightening. Like most of the others I was scared stiff. I envied those going to the rear on stretchers. Morale stayed good although we had very little food and the weather was mighty cold.’ Over the next few days Brigadier General Clarke conducted a classic defensive operation. ‘As commander of CCB [US 7th Armoured], I analysed the situation.’ He concluded that ‘the German objectives were not St Vith or a bridgehead over the river Salum but rather a decisive objective far to my rear, probably towards the English Channel. I could well afford to be forced back slowly, surrendering a few kilometres of terrain at a time to the German forces

while preventing the destruction of my command and giving other units in my rear time to prepare a defence or counter-attack.’ The St Vith perimeter, now of substantial size, continued to act as a breakwater, holding the German LXVI Corps at bay. The Führer Begleit brigade tried a half hearted attack but 814 Tank Destroyer battalion knocked out four leading Panthers with seven shots! 62 VGD was brought up to assist 18 VGD in the assault and Oberst Gunter Hoffmann-Schonborn accompanied his troops in an attack on St Vith’s railway station at Gouvy. Although this failed, von Manteuffel sent in a really substantial attack on the 21st. The American defences were as follows. The 7th Armoured division was defending a line from Poteau, south east, and including St Vith; 9th Armoured division’s CCB continued the defence line SW of St Vith and the two sorely battered infantry regiments (424 of 106 Division and 112 of 28 Division) curved the line around to the west. Sprinkled around were tank destroyers, light tanks, recce troops and stragglers. If 560 VGD and 116 Panzer divisions moved, as reported, towards Houffalize, the St Vith defenders would be surrounded. General der Artillerie Walther Lucht planned to take St Vith earlier than the 20th or 21st but monumental traffic jams in the Losheim Gap and at Schönberg had delayed formations getting into position. The threepronged plan was for 62 VGD to attack the SE sector from Steinebruck, 18 VGD along the two roads from Schönberg to the Prümerberg and the Führer Begleit brigade would attack St Vith from the north. The difficulty of building a bridge at Steinebruck for 62 VGD had contributed to the delay. Oberst Otto Remer ’s brigade had three mobile grenadier battalions, an artillery battalion of 105mm guns, a flak regiment with 24 88mm dual-purpose guns, a panzer battalion with 45 Mark IVs and 35 SP assault guns. A captured diary of an artillery lieutenant of 18 VGD is revealing: ‘17 December: Our fighter planes still control the air in the morning and afternoon. 18 December: The infantry is before St Vith. The men hear the wildest rumours of successes. 19 December: Endless columns of prisoners pass. At first abut a hundred, half of them Negroes, later another thousand. Field Marshal Model himself directs traffic. He’s a little, undistinguishedlooking man with a monocle. Now the thing is going. The roads are littered with destroyed American vehicles, cars and tanks. 20 December: The American soldiers have shown little spirit for fighting. Most of them often said, “What do we want here? At home we can have everything much better.” That was the spirit of the common soldier. If the officers thought that way …?? A rumour has been started that Eisenhower was taken prisoner. It will probably prove to be only a rumour. 21 December: Roads still clogged, but traffic continues.

Vehicles are almost exclusively captured American equipment. It was a tremendous haul. St Vith has fallen.’ The attack started on the 21st and from 3 p.m. an intensive artillery bombardment started as well as the deadly multi-barrel minewerfers. On the Prümerberg tree bursts deluged the defenders’ foxholes. At 4 p.m. both VGDs pushed into St Vith, the 18th from Wallerode and the 62nd from the south. The Führer Begleit took Rodt. Tiger tanks of 506 Heavy Panzer battalion swept along the highway from Schönberg and smashed every American tank in their way, and knocked out dozens of MG crews. The VGDs were infiltrating gaps in the defences. Inside St Vith confusion was rampant. Volksgrenadiers clinging to Tigers and Panthers lumbered down the steep hill. In the darkness vehicles of all types began streaming out of town towards the west. The men of the two Combat Command battalions of 7th and 9th Armoured divisions had lost half their tanks and CCB of 7th Armoured nearly 1,000 men. The armoured infantry and engineer combat teams had suffered heavy casualties. The 424 IR was almost overwhelmed and 112 IR lost 700 men. Around 9.30 p.m. General Clarke ordered Colonel Riggs to withdraw to a new line on the first highground behind the town, but Riggs and many of his men were captured. 9th Armoured had managed to contain 62 VGD during the day and they too, under Brigadier General Hoge, fell back to conform with Clarke’s new defence line. Fortunately the three regiments of 18 VDG and one of 62 VDG had swarmed into the town. Their support troops raced down from the Prümerberg to join in the looting in the centre of town. Captured American jeeps were popular. Even elements of Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army deviating south from the Losheim Gap joined in the final capture of St Vith. Corporal Horace Thome of 89 Cavalry squadron was awarded a posthumous Medal of Honour for knocking out enemy tank crews and MG nests. The unfortunate Major General Alan Jones, GOC 106 ID, following the traumas of the Schnee-Eifel, died of a heart attack. Probably 5,000 Americans were killed, wounded or captured in St Vith and during the retreat west to the river Salm. Nevertheless, it was not taken until the 23rd, the eighth day of Wacht am Rhein, which set Hitler ’s plan back by almost a week.

Map 5 The gallant American defence of the vital town of St Vith delayed the German 5th Panzer Army advance by almost a week

Fig 20.1 On the way to St Vith, attacked by Genera! Walther Lucht’s LXVI Corps on 21 December (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-112556: 4-106-46 NARA)

Fig 20.2 St Vith (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-103210: 4-134-46 NARA) The 7th Armoured and 14th Cavalry group together had lost 3,397 officers and men, killed, wounded and missing. The 7th also lost 59 Shermans, 29 Stuarts and 25 armoured cars. Over 15,000 American troops were retreating fairly skilfully west, towards Clarke’s new defences, and then further back to where General Gavins’s newly arrived 82nd ‘All-American’ Airborne division was holding along the Salm river. General Robert Hasbrouck now had his HQ in Vielsalm, 8 miles west of St Vith. Poteau and Salmchateau were also key towns in the defensive plan. Oberst Otto Remer ’s Führer Begleit had captured Rodt and Crombach, so the two key roads from St Vith to Vielsalm were in enemy hands. Hasbrouck’s plan was for the bulk of the infantry and tanks to move at night along narrow unsurfaced roads (fortunately frozen hard) from Hinderhausen and Commanster. The main withdrawal started at 6 a.m. on Saturday 23 December and, despite immense traffic jams caused by nine battalions of artillery moving westwards and attacks by the ferocious Führer Begleit brigade and 9th SS Panzer division, was remarkably successful. Flights of USAAF Lightning fighter-bombers strafed 9th SS Panzer, attacking Poteau from Recht. Brigadier General Bruce Clarke was seen directing traffic at a key crossroads! On the map the retreat corridor was shaped like a large goose egg.

More than 15,000 men, 100 tanks and most of the artillery had got back by Sunday morning, crossing the river Salm at Salmchâteau. The last two groups of the rearguard were Colonel Rosebaum’s CCA, 7th Armoured, in and around Poteau and Task Force Jones. Lt Colonel Robert Jones, CO 814 TD Bn, had defended a sector to the SW of the St Vith defences. Before daylight Task Force Jones, with survivors from eight different units and survivors of Colonel Gustin Nelson’s 112th Infantry (of the 28th Keystones), bypassed Salmchâteau and managed to escape. 1st Lt Bertruch, 814 TD, had a fierce fight with the Führer Begleit panzers under brilliant moonlight. Seven Panzers were knocked out and so were all the platoon’s tank destroyers, about twenty vehicles in total. Hasbrouck’s command had executed the most difficult of military manoeuvres, a fighting retreat, most of it at night. The St Vith defence had thwarted the advance of the Sixth Panzer Army, and gave XVIII Airborne Corps time to form solid lines west of the Salm. Charles MacDonald wrote, ‘For the rest of their lives Robert Hasbrouck, Bruce Clarke, William Hoge, Dwight Rosebaum, Alexander Reid, Gustin Nelson and many other commanders who had fought in the salient beyond the Salm river would be grateful to Field Marshal Montgomery for getting them out of what they saw as a death-trap for their commands.’

Fig 20.3 Railway south-west of St Vith where 7th Armoured Combat Command B and guns of 434th Field Artillery held off panzers and Volksgrenadiers on 23 December (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-103634: 4125-46 NARA)

Fig 20.4 Poteau, where US 40th Tank battalion and 48th Armoured Infantry held up 2nd Kampfgruppe of 1st SS Panzer division then, later, units of 9th SS Panzer division (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-119078: 4-117-46) General Ridgeway’s defence line stretched from Werbomont to Trois Ponts to Salmchateau to Fraiture. The St Vith defenders were at once put back into the line. 424 Infantry and part of 7 Armoured to the Airborne’s weakest flank. CCB 9th Armoured to Malempré to help block the road from Baraque de Fraiture to Liège. The survivors of 112 Infantry became part of Ridgeway’s reserve.

chapter 21

Montgomery takes command of US 1st and 9th Armies

G

eneral Montgomery sent a message to the War Office in London on 17 December: ‘We cannot come out through Dunkirk this time as the Germans still hold that place.’ He may not have been entirely serious but the Allied HQ and part of SHAEF in Brussels were in a state of shock as the news and rumours from the Ardennes campaign filtered north. Paratroops, saboteurs, kidnap threats all contributed to the need for drastic action. By late on Tuesday 19 December Montgomery believed that there was little to prevent the Germans from ‘bouncing the Meuse and advancing on Brussels.’ SHAEF ordered the British 6th Airborne division to come by sea from England as quickly as possible. Lieutenant General Horrocks was ordered to get his British XXX Corps down to the Meuse to protect all the vulnerable bridges. General Eisenhower held an Allied Commanders’ conference at Verdun, also on the 19th. He put on a brave face and told Generals Bradley, Patton, Devers and Ike’s deputy, Air Chief Marshal AW Tedder, ‘The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this conference table.’ In response to Patton’s comment about the Germans reaching Paris, ‘then we could cut ‘em off and chew ‘em up.’ Ike said, ‘The enemy must never be allowed to cross the Meuse.’ ULTRA had informed Eisenhower before the Verdun conference that the 2nd SS Panzer corps with two SS Panzer divisions was about to be committed and that there had been more calls for the Luftwaffe aerial reconnaissance of the Meuse

bridges. Eisenhower also now knew the identities of the 17 German divisions so far committed. ‘All offensive action is to cease, and commanders in the field can give up ground to shorten lines and free reserves,’ Ike went on. That would have been encouraging news to the GOCs of 28th, 106 and 7th Armoured divisions whose formations had been cut to ribbons with their survivors retreating rapidly. General Devers was ordered to move the boundary of his 6th US Army Group northward to free General Patton to mount an urgent move to reach and save Bastogne. General Simpson’s Ninth Army was also ordered to free divisions. Patton stunned the meeting by promising to get three divisions on the road and moving in 36 hours’ time! Patton had shown in the Mortain Battle in Normandy how dramatically fast he could get his troops into action. Montgomery also sent SAS troops known as ‘Phantom’ and his team of young officers, who travelled by day and night into the real battlefields, hurrying into the Ardennes to be his eyes and ears. On 19 December Montgomery sent Captain Carol Mather, one of his trusted young liaison officers, to see General Hodges, First Army HQ at Spa. He found the HQ deserted: ‘A hurried evacuation has evidently taken place. We walk in. The tables are laid for Christmas festivities. The offices are deserted, papers are lying about. Telephones are still in place. The German attack is more serious than we thought for the evacuation of the headquarters shows every sign of a panic move.’ Mather eventually found Hodges at Rear HQ considerably shaken, unable to give a coherent account of the battle situation. Hodges was also out of touch with Bradley’s HQ. Montgomery also sent a telegram on 19 December to the CIGS Field Marshal Alan Brooke in London: ‘great confusion and all signs of a full-scale withdrawal – a definite lack of grip and control – an atmosphere of great pessimism. The command set-up has always been very faulty and now is quite futile with Bradley at Luxembourg City and the front cut in two.’ The northern shoulder held – just – with Monschau, Hofen and the Twin Towns of Rocherath and Krinkelt still in American hands. In the south, Brandenberger ’s Seventh Army had made relatively slow progress. But in the centre, von Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army had torn a gap nearly 20 miles wide between St Vith and Bastogne through which 2nd Panzer and 116th Panzer had reached the main north–south road linking Bastogne through Houffalize to Liège. And Peiper ’s dangerous marauders, leaving massacres in their wake, had reached Stavelot, Cheneux and Stoumont – a 30-mile advance. However, the famous 101 US Airborne division, refitting near Rheims, made a 100-mile

dash to reach and perhaps save Bastogne, arriving on the morning of the 19th. On 19 December a German newspaper published an account of the opening stage of the Ardennes attacks (translated): The German offensive in the west stands at the forefront of all events. Powerful German formations have launched a major attack on the Western Front The initial concentration before the German attack, which came as a complete surprise to the Americans in spite of the constant superiority of the enemy in the air in the neighbourhood of the front, was an unsurpassed masterpiece of German commandership. The German forces advanced over a broad front from the West Wall between Hohes Venn and northern Luxembourg. A short but powerful artillery preparation and the intervention of German fighter and attack planes supported their advance and air forces overran and broke through the American lines at the first attack. Winston Churchill naturally took a very keen interest in Wacht am Rhein and wrote: The Germans had indeed a major plan. Rundstedt assembled two Panzer armies, the Fifth and Sixth and the Seventh Army, a total of ten Panzer and fourteen infantry divisions. This great force led by its armour was intended to break through our weak centre in the Ardennes to the river Meuse, swing north and north west, cut the Allied line in two, seize the port of Antwerp and sever the lifeline of our northern armies. This bold bid was planned by Hitler who would brook no changes in it on the part of his doubting generals. In its support the remnants of the German Air Force were assembled for a final effort, while paratroops, saboteurs and agents in Allied uniforms were all given parts to play. He went on to send an interesting telegram to his old friend Field Marshal Smuts, dated 22 December: Montgomery and also we here in England have pressed for several months for the emphasis of the advance to the north of the Ruhr and have on repeated occasions urged that our strength did not enable us to undertake two major offensives such as the one against Cologne and that across the Saar. In spite of appalling weather conditions our friends [American armies] however pushed on confidently and were very much spread from north to south when the enemy began his counterstroke. I spoke to Eisenhower on the telephone during the

afternoon of the 20th and suggested that he give to Montgomery the whole command north of the breakthrough and to Omar Bradley everything south of the breakthrough, keeping control himself of the concerted operation. He replied that he had issued orders exactly on these lines in the morning. Montgomery now in fact has under his command eighteen American divisions plus his Twenty-first Army Group, comprising about sixteen divisions. He is forming substantial reserves and is assuming entire charge of the battle in the area of his command. He should be able to intervene heavily. There is nothing so far to suggest that the Germans have the power to mount a full-scale offensive against the Twenty-first Army Group’s main front. Matters are not by any means so clear south of the gap. The Americans are putting up stubborn resistance but there is a good deal of disorganisation. Naturally an army has been gathered from the Metz region to march north under Patton. Axis Sally was one of the German English-speaking radio announcers with an early morning programme aimed at American GIs: ‘And now just to let you boys in khaki know we’re always keeping track of you here are the latest troop movements. Roosevelt’s fanatic 30th Division is on its way south to rescue the First Army.’ The American radio was being read daily and easily by the Wehrmacht monitors. To the German citizens went out another triumphant report: ‘The speedy collapse of very organised Allied defence has considerably eased our tasks. We have all been asking ourselves why is the Führer so silent. Perhaps he is ill? Now we can tell you. The Führer is enjoying excellent health, but he has been preparing this new offensive down to the minutest details. His silence has been worth it. The enemy has received a shock! We must force the enemy to throw in the sponge. He must realise that the battle no longer pays!’ Monty wanted to ‘tidy up’ his newly acquired front line by giving up St Vith. General Hodges wanted to keep the ‘status quo’, with Clarke’s slow withdrawal towards the river Salm delaying von Manteuffel and buying time for defences in Bastogne. It was clear that General Ridgeway’s XVIII Airborne Corps must continue moving towards St Vith to protect the garrison’s escape route. Monty agreed with this logic and sent Major General Hasbrouck, GOC US 7th Armoured, which was the key ingredient in the heroic defence of St Vith, this message: ‘They [the defenders of St Vith] can come back with all honour. They come back to more secure positions. They put up a wonderful show.’ Monty agreed that the northern defence shoulder from Monschau– Bullingen–Malmédy must be held firm at all costs; that 1st SS Panzer ’s force [Peiper] at Stoumont be trapped and then destroyed and that Ridgeway’s Corps

should drive east to make contact with the St Vith defenders.

Fig 21.1 Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery checks the situation map with Major General Matthew Ridgeway, GOC 18th US Airborne corps (EA 49926 IWM) On the evening of the 19th Ike returned to Versailles. His two British officers, Major General Strong and Major General John Whitely, had received a phone call earlier in the day from Field Marshal Montgomery, suggesting that Eisenhower place him in command of all American troops north of the German penetration. General Bradley was determined to remain in Luxembourg City, and communications with Lt General Courtney Hodges’ new First Army HQ in Chaudfontaine must be very poor, for communications from Versailles to Chaudfontaine were definitely poor. How could Bradley control the US 12th Army Group effectively and particularly First and Ninth Armies? Now it is an unpalatable fact that many American generals seem to be irascible and bad tempered. Eisenhower ’s Chief of Staff General Bedell Smith

was well known for his quick unnecessary temper. When Strong and Whitely passed on Montgomery’s request and their joint recommendation that Ike agree to it, Bedell Smith predictably blew his top. Nevertheless, duty bound, Smith told Eisenhower of Whitely’s proposal and Strong’s concurrence. The next morning, Eisenhower drew a line on his operational map from Givet on the river Meusse, eastward through the Ardennes and across the German frontier to Prüm. He decided that all four armies north of that line (Monty’s 21st Army Group plus US First and Ninth Armies) would pass temporarily to Montgomery’s command. Bradley was of course furious for a variety of reasons. Patton was furious as well, not that he was directly affected. Bedell Smith was equally unhappy. Montgomery immediately – still on the 20th – took control. He first visited General Simpson’s Ninth Army HQ at Maastricht and then he visited General Hodges HQ at Chaudfontaine, arriving in style with staff car, huge Union Jack flag on the bonnet, accompanied by eight MC outriders. General Simpson GOC US Ninth Army was also present. Neither of them had had any contact with Bradley or his staff since the German offensive had started. By contrast the German commanders Model, Dietrich, von Manteuffel and Brandenburger were often up with their troops in the front line. General Simpson reported to Eisenhower: ‘I and my Army are operating smoothly and cheerfully under command of the Field Marshal. The most cordial relations and a very high spirit of co-operation have been stabilised between him and myself personally and between our respective staffs.’ Both Hodges and Simpson were soon offended by Monty’s attitude and lectures. Bradley was appalled that ground was being given up to shorten the defence lines and counter-attacks denied. Following a meeting between them, Bradley wrote, ‘Monty was more arrogant and egotistical than I had ever seen him. Never in my life had I been so enraged and so utterly exasperated. To avoid a crippling break-down in the Allied command, I kept my counsel.’ Monty cabled the CIGS Alan Brooke that evening: ‘Ninth Army has three divisions, First Army fifteen, there are no reserves anywhere behind the front. Morale is very low. They seemed delighted to have someone to give them firm orders. I have every hope the situation can be put right, now that we have a properly organised set-up for command and proper supervision and control can be kept over the battle.’ To his friends he confided, ‘Personally I am enjoying a very interesting battle, but one ought really to burst into tears at the tragedy of the whole thing. Possibly in years to come certain people [my critics and SHAEF] will turn in their graves when they think back on the past. There are some good sharp rocks ahead even now. At the moment I do not see how this is going to turn into what

Ike calls “Our greatest victory”.’ After the relative failure of Market Garden and the canal battles in the Peel country in Holland, Montgomery was now delighted to get into a ‘proper ’ battle.

Fig 21.2 Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery with Major General Simpson, GOC US Ninth Army, and divisional commanders, 31.12.1944 (B 13219 IWM) At Monty’s request Major General Lawton Collins with his VII Corps HQ was now added to First US Army. Collins then took over command of the 2nd and 3rd Armoured divisions plus 75th and 84th Infantry divisions. This Corps were then ordered south to cover the vulnerable right flank of First US Army and to deal with the German panzers driving hard for the river Meuse. Monty soon had Horrocks’s 30 British Corps, 51st Highland, 53rd Welsh and three armoured or tank brigades (29th, 33rd and 34th) in place guarding all the vital bridges over the Meuse. The 6th Airborne division under Major General Eric Bols arrived rather later in the campaign on 26 December.

Fig 21.3 Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery (centre), Major General JL Collins, US 7 Corps (right) and Major General Ridgeway, US 18 Corps, 27.12.1944 (B 13173 IWM) The British armies had had a good deal of experience of fighting retreats starting with the BEF in 1940 and the Dunkirk evacuation. For the next three years the ebb and flow in North Africa, where holding hundreds of square miles of sand was fairly pointless, to the fighting withdrawal from Greece, the British commanders usually realised that keeping one’s fighting forces reasonably intact was paramount. The American tradition was that ‘voluntary’ or ‘tactical’ withdrawals were ‘un-American’. Montgomery knew that it was vital to extricate Hasbrouck’s force of weary St Vith defenders. Early on 22 December General Ridgeway’s XVIII Airborne Corps in the Werbomont– Grandménil area closed up to the river Salm, in so doing encircling Peiper ’s troops. But Ridgeway ordered Hasbrouck to continue the fight east of the river Salm. If necessary, to form a defensive perimeter to be supplied by air! Hasbrouck told Ridgeway, ‘In that case there would soon be no more 7th

Armoured division.’ Ridgeway then fired Hasbrouck. By chance one of Montgomery’s liaison officers arrived at Hasbrouck’s HQ and immediately advised the Field Marshal of this strange situation. On Monty’s orders Hasbrouck was reinstated and brought his force fairly safely back across the Salm. There is controversy about this incident. Ridgeway’s order relieving Hasbrouck was dated 0625 hrs 22 December and that reinstating him was timed at 1853 hrs the same day. Hasbrouck’s forces now proved a useful reserve to meet the next crisis, when Ridgeway’s 82nd Airborne was assailed by 2nd SS Panzer Corps. Montgomery had another clash with Ridgeway the next day. Major, General James Gavin, GOC 82 Airborne, was now holding a salient of 7 miles into enemy territory. Montgomery ‘suggested’ that 82nd be pulled back to an almost impregnable ridge south of Werbomont. This time Hodges and Ridgeway demurred. That evening on the 23rd 2nd SS Panzer division, attacking along the main Bastogne–Liège road, broke through the weak defences on Gavin’s right flank. Monty now ordered a withdrawal, which took some time by which the Germans had captured Grandménil and it took all General Ridgeway’s reserves to contain them. This crisis would not have happened if the 82nd had been brought back in good order. Even General Gavin was ‘greatly concerned with the attitude of the troops … the Division never having made a withdrawal in its combat history.’ It was very difficult for Montgomery, who had much more practical experience of modern warfare than any American General. He knew all about tactical flexibility and strategic balance and the paramount necessity to keep one’s forces intact. The Americans regarded Monty as an ultracautious general and by their standards perhaps he was. But he had never lost a battle. Montgomery was clearly on his best behaviour by his standards. He tried not to give ‘his’ American generals ‘direct’ orders but, initially anyway, suggestions. On yet another occasion Montgomery wanted to keep Collins’s VII Corps intact for an eventual counter-attack. Hodges wanted to involve them by blocking the Germans west of the river Ourthe. Monty deployed logic. Hodges had to give way but gave Collins ambiguous orders.

Fig 21.4 Salmchâteau, facing north-west, held by US 82nd Airborne division (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-103493: 4-108-46 NARA) On Christmas Eve Field Marshal Montgomery had every reason for concern. Five panzer divisions were already in action and a sixth on the way, the 2nd Panzer and Panzer Lehr pushing past Marche for the Meuse and 116th Panzer trying to get across the Marche–Hotton highway and on to the Condroz plateau; 2nd SS Panzer and 9th SS Panzer on the other side of the river Ourthe were also trying to get on to the plateau, with 9th SS Panzer on the way to help at Marche. There was also the Führer Begleit brigade and the remains of 12th SS Panzer after its vain efforts to get past the Elsenborn Ridge. However, nearly all the panzer divisions had already incurred heavy losses. All of them were likely to be short of fuel. And the air force interdiction starting on the 23rd was damaging the panzer formations and their lines of communications. General Patton wrote, ‘If Ike put Bradley back in command of the First and Ninth Armies we can bag the whole German army. I wish Ike were more of a gambler but he is certainly a lion compared to Montgomery, and Bradley is better than Ike as far as nerve is concerned.’ Patton’s diary entry on Christmas Day noted, ‘Monty says that the First Army cannot attack for three months and that the only attack that can be made is by me, but that I am too weak. I feel this is disgusting and might remove the valour of our army and the confidence of our people … If ordered to fall back, I think I will ask to be relieved.’ On 23 December a German newspaper reported (translated): The word ‘retreat’ shows up everywhere in the English and American front-page news. The Belgian population, without any shedding of tears, hauled down the flags of England and the United States, the Union Jack and the Stars and Spangled Banner, and stared in grim silence after the departing North Americans. Their ‘victory’ has now again withdrawn to a considerable distance and the Germans have gained time in which to perfect their new weapons. Regarded as a whole, therefore, the war situation has changed in recent days definitely to the disadvantage of the Allies. The American troops who are surrounded in the various areas [St Vith, Clervaux, Bastogne] are fighting, it is true, with courage and endurance, but their enemy has captured their supply depots and cut their lines of communications. In London the morale barometer has reached a new low. The government is attempting to cheer the public with the assurance that ‘Eisenhower will find a way to handle the situation: we must just have patience.’ But that is slim comfort to the sorely tried Londoners with

flying bombs hurtling through their skies and who in September had been fed with the hopes that the war would be as good as ended by Christmas. The friends of Montgomery are again causing talk by asserting that the breakthrough would have been avoided if he had been in Eisenhower’s place.

chapter 22

The rise and fall of Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army

H

itler ’s original plan had placed the Schwerpunkt in the north with his favourite ‘Sepp’ Dietrich commanding his faithful Waffen SS Legions in Sixth SS Panzer Army. He was confident that the 1st ‘Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler ’, the 12th ‘Hitler Jugend’, 2nd ‘Das Reich’ and 9th ‘Hohenstaufen’ with several Volksgrenadier divisions would smash the thin American defence lines on their way to the Meuse and Antwerp. Monschau and Hofen held out and thus Eupen and Verviers could not be seized. But the drive by Oberst Peiper ’s spearhead of 1st SS Panzer through the Bütgenbach Gap (just south of the Elsenborn Ridge) to Malmédy and Stavelot had been successful. Model now suggested to his Führer that Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army be diverted south of St Vith to exploit von Manteuffel’s breakthrough. For political reasons (and personal) Hitler wanted the decisive blow of Wacht am Rhein to be struck by ‘his’ Waffen SS. He insisted that the plans for 1st SS and 12th SS should be adhered to but the three VGDs could be released to Model. The OKW war diary keeper Major Percy Ernst Schramm recorded on 20 December: Because the counter pressure exerted by the enemy on the right flank still continued, and threatened to grow sharper, C-in-C West [von Rundstedt] ordered Army Group B [Model] to clean up the situation as quickly as possible. The intentions of 3rd Pz Gren Div were changed in that it and 12th SS Pz Div were incorporated into the thrust movement of the other units. As the objective to be attained, C-in-C West was given the capture of St Vith on the right wing

and the extension of the ground gained then to the west, as well as the quickest possible formation of bridgeheads over the Meuse between Huy and Givet, that is on both sides of Namur. For C-in-C West it was a matter of so building the northern front of the attack that it would run 15 to 20 kilometres north of the roads used by motorised units and thus would make their use unhampered by artillery. It must have been galling for Hitler and von Rundstedt to make this change of plan. Moreover, the Führer ’s personal reserves, the Führer Begleit and Führer Grenadier brigades, were also made available to von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army. In the event, Dietrich’s SS Panzers kept hammering away for several more days against the formidable Elsenborn Ridge. The second most senior Waffen SS Division, 2nd SS ‘Das Reich’, under Brigadeführer Heinz Lammerding, had fought in Poland in 1939, on the Eastern Front, but came out of Normandy with 450 men, 15 tanks and 6 guns! It was rebuilt to a 17,000-man strength and equipped with new AFVs including 58 Panthers, 28 Mark IVs, 20 Jagdpanzer IVs, 28 SP STUG assault guns, 8 Flakpanzer IVs plus 246 SPs and armoured cars. Nevertheless, this powerful formation had a shortage of motor transport and their SS Pz Gn regiment moved by bicycle. On 13 December they formed up at Euskirchen and ULTRA reported on the 18th, ‘urgently request fighter protection for own attacking spearheads. Own attacks were hampered today by massed fighter-bomber attacks. Losses of personnel and equipment. FLAK protection weak.’ The ‘Das Reich’ then took part in ferocious actions at Baraque de Fraiture and Manhay. As part of Hitler ’s change of emphasis on the 20th he directed that seizure of the Meuse crossings between Dinant and Huy and other river crossings were acceptable even as far south as Givet (SW of Dinant). As a result. Das Reich (2nd SS Panzer division), which had originally moved from Prüm to within 15 km east of Houffalize, was ordered to advance NW with all speed to secure the important crossroads at the Baraque de Fraiture. This hamlet was at the intersection of N-15, the main road from Bastogne to Liège, with another good road, east–west Salmchâteau to La Roche. At 2,200 feet in height, the second highest point in the Ardennes, it is a windswept area with woods and marshes. By 22 December the crossroads area with three farmsteads was held by a small mixed American force of field artillery, two SP assault guns, a troop of 87th Armoured recon squadron and a company of the 325 Glider Infantry. The 560 VGD under Oberst Rudolf Langhauser made three probes on the 21st and 22nd and had been beaten off. During these actions Major Arthur Parker, the local commander, was badly wounded and the GIs christened the dangerous

crossroads ‘Parker ’s Crossroads’. Oberst Otto Weidinger, 4th Pz Gr regiment of 2nd SS Panzer division ‘Das Reich’, launched his attack with a pre-dawn bombardment on the 23rd. Their grenadiers then overran the Tank Destroyer platoon but a counter-attack by a 3rd Armoured unit restored the situation. Snow then fell and at dusk Weidinger put in a full-scale attack by a company of Mk IV tanks and another of SP assault guns, artillery barrage, flares, mortars and tank fire. 1st Leutnant Horst Gresiak, who led the 7th SS Company of Mk IVs, wrote, ‘After a long exhausting night march [fuel shortage had delayed their start] I went at once to Regiment. My orders were “Immediately seize and hold the Baroque de Fraiture crossroads”. This order I opposed since my men were dead tired, had nothing to eat and I knew nothing of the terrain. My objections were noted.’ Gresiak and two SS troops reconnoitred and saw ‘three Shermans at the juncture, well dug in, well camouflaged, with only the tank cupolas showing. We scouted the area further and recognised more tanks, anti-tank guns and mounted machine-guns. I thought “Holy Mother of God! We can’t carry out these orders”.’ Gresiak, a heavily decorated veteran aged 24, called the engagement ‘although brief, the most violent and toughest battle I experienced during the whole war. In rapid succession from right to left eight trucks were shot up in flames. Tank turrets flew in the air. It was hell, an inferno. It was like a terrible storm, like the end of the world. I saw in front, in the darkness, infantry. At first I thought they were German troops.’ Realising they were in fact Americans offering to surrender, ‘I immediately stopped the fire, climbing out of my tank. I radio’d HQ “The crossroads of Baraque de Fraiture is firmly in our hands”.’ Horst Gresiak was awarded the Knight’s Cross. Weidinger claimed 17 tanks, 4 armoured cars, 33 half-tracks and other vehicles. Only 45 out of 116 Glider infantrymen got away. Parker ’s Task Force lost about 200 casualties in the ‘Das Reich’ onslaught. SS Brigadier Heinz Lammerding commanding the ‘Das Reich’ division, continued to advance astride the N-15 with the aim of securing Manhay, Malempré and Vaux-Chavanne before turning west to Grandménil. Major General Ridgeway, GOC XVIII Airborne Corps, ordered on 24 December the US 7th Armoured division to fill the gap in the boundary between his Corps and the newly arrived Major General Lawton Collins’s VII Corps. This involved three Task Forces of their CCA to cover the N-15 in the Manhay sector, another to defend Malempré, 2 km south of Manhay, and the third 2 km further down the N-15 astride the crossroads leading to Malempré and Odeigne. The gallant 7th ‘Lucky Seventh’ Armoured who had defended so well

at St Vith were well below strength. Between the three Task Forces there were 26 Shermans, five Stuart light tanks and six tank destroyers. Lammerding launched a two-pronged attack against Manhay with 3rd Deutschland SS Pz Gr tackling Odeigne on the left flank and 4th ‘Der Führer ’ SS Pz Gr through the woods from Fraiture towards Malempré. At nine o’clock on Christmas Eve in bright moonlight, the Panzergrenadiers set off. Shortage of fuel meant that most of Lammerding’s tanks remained hidden in the woods. A captured Sherman tank led the platoons of 4th SS Panzer company, with Panzergrenadiers moving through the woods on both sides of the tanks. Unexpectedly finding himself in the lead of No. 4 Kompanie Panzers, SS Senior Sergeant Ernst Barkmann, already a Knight’s Cross holder, in his Panther No. 401 drove past a startled group of nine Shermans dug in 2 km south of Manhay and infiltrated through Manhay, mixing with American vehicles and spreading panic and destruction as he did so. He shot into the crammed columns of the CCA and Task Force Kane’s echelons ‘bugging out’ from Grandménil. He was credited with the destruction of seven tanks, two TDs, a half-track and two jeeps. His section commander SS Sergeant Major Franz Frauscher knocked out five of the Shermans bypassed by Berkmann and four more later in the battle. He was awarded the Knight’s Cross. Their company commander Ortwin Pohl destroyed four tanks. CCA lost 21 out of its 32 tanks – the majority of them without firing a shot and an untold number of half-tracks and other vehicles. Altogether 40th Tank and 48th Armoured infantry had 460 casualties including 18 officers – the vast majority being captured. A task force from 3rd Armoured cut off by the advance from Odeigne moved into Malempré, believing it still in friendly hands. The lead tanks were knocked out by the SS Panzers. The American commander ordered the vehicles to be abandoned and sauve qui peut This was Task Force Brewster and eight vehicles including five Shermans were abandoned or destroyed. It was a night of disaster.

Fig 22.1 Battleground of Manhay, 2nd SS Panzer division success, 24–25 December (KY 6092 F IWM) Captain Charles La Chaussee led C Company 517 Parachute infantry regiment and from Lamormenil was ordered, together with Lt Eldon MacDonald’s troop of tanks from 3rd US Armoured, to try to capture Dochamps. But before they could move, the Germans from ‘Das Reich’, 2nd SS Panzer division, counter-attacked La Chaussee’s paratroopers. From eight machine-gun squads, ‘as the tracers locked in, we could see Germans dropping. It was a beautifully clear day. Soon after the shooting started, American planes appeared in strength. They strafed and bombed the area of the German attack. We were displaying orange panels on our vehicles but the pilots must have had difficulty telling friend from foe. There were at least thirty planes overhead and they did not lack for targets. Explosions and columns of smoke rose as the fighter-bombers scored upon enemy vehicles. The German effort petered out. We ceased fire and waited for new developments. German aircraft arrived. A truly epic dogfight took place. This was the only aerial dogfight I saw during the war and it was a dandy. German

infantry was as engrossed in watching the air battle as we were. Planes from both sides were going down but the Americans seemed to be getting the better of it. While the dogfight swarmed above us a large formation of B-17s passed far to the north, bound eastward. Winnow-strips of metal foil to jam enemy radar dropped like snow. The bombers came under heavy AA fire and, as we watched, two went down in smoke.’ ULTRA encoded a message on Christmas Eve: ‘2 SS will still try with 9 SS [part of Willi Bittrich’s II SS Panzer Korps] to hook around Vielsalm NW using 3 Pz Gr Div and eventually possibly 10 and 12 SS.’ After the capture of Manhay, Das Reich, instead of driving north towards Liège, turned west towards Grandménil and Erezée. At the former Lammerding’s Panthers brushed aside Task Force Kane and, using a captured Sherman tank, sailed through the raw 289 Infantry of the newly arrived US 75th Division. Early on Christmas Day ‘Das Reich’ advance guard moved up Highway N-15 from Manhay to try to get across the Ourthe river and on to the Condroz plateau. On the 27th General Dietrich ordered Lammerding to link up with the weakened 560 VGD and 12 SS ‘Hitler Jugend’ (leaving the Elsenborn Ridge battle behind) in a futile new attack through Hotton and Soy on to the Condroz plateau. All four of the once proud SS Panzer divisions, sorely battered, had failed to cross the Ourthe river and would have little impact in the continuing battle. The 9th SS Panzer ‘Hohenstaufen’ division under Oberführer Sylvester Stadler consisted of 9 SS Panzer regiment backed by 19 and 20 SS Pz Grs. They had fought in Poland on the Eastern Front, were almost destroyed in Normandy and with 10 SS Panzer division were reforming around Arnhem during the ill-fated Market Garden. Stadler, only 34, had a reputation for sensible military tactics and, of course, bravery and tenacity. His division was very short of motor transport. Rather strangely they took six days to progress, from the 16th to the 22nd, to help with the assault on St Vith. They attacked Poteau on the 20th and then took another two days because of travel conditions to move 20 miles to Recht. Then they struck at the Salm river front in the area of Vielsalm. By the end of the year their tanks were much reduced in numbers and out of fuel.

chapter 23

The battle for Wiltz

G

eneral der Panzergruppen Erich Brandenberger, Commander of the Seventh Army, had made little progress on the southern front, although his four attacking divisions had made small penetrations. On his northern flank 5th FJD (Parachute division) under Generalmajor Ludwig Heilman (with 13, 14 and 15 Parachute regiments) were also in effect General von Manteuffel’s left-flank attack. The division was in a poor state and Heilman, a tough regular army officer, described them to Feldmarshal Model as ‘a grade four outfit’. Model replied, ‘You will have to make do with horses, at least at first. Soon there will be plenty of captured American transport for your guns. Success will be won by the paratroopers usual audacity.’ 5 FJD were tasked with crossing the river Our against 109 IR sector and move parallel to the tanks of 2nd Panzer division as far as Bastogne and then hold that key communications centre once captured. Moreover, 5 FJD had been caught in the open by the Allied air forces on their move towards the Ardennes and lost most of their anti-tank guns and mortars. Once over the river Our, 5 FJD would have to move their only brigade of motorised assault guns 6 miles to the next river, the Wiltz. On the first day they had penetrated a modest 3 miles. During Sunday assault guns, artillery and anti-tank guns were west of the river Our, and 5 FJD had worked their way between 109 IR and 110 IR of US 28 ‘Keystone’ division. Gefreite (Corporal) Eduard Kruger in the 13th regiment of 5th FJD wrote, ‘My battalion commander was Oberleutnant Petrikat, later Oberleutnant Barthelt. The entire battalion bandaging station travelled on foot with all its equipment. About 1 p.m. we crossed a makeshift

bridge over the Our built by German Army engineers. We went towards Bettel, then turned towards Fouhren. At a fork in the road there lay five dead paratroopers all in a row mowed down by machine-gun fire. We left them lying there.’ That night the German paratroops had roasted potatoes with bacon. ‘A wonderful war booty for us. On 19 December we moved on towards Tandel. There lay numerous American soldiers who must have run into German mortar fire. We also captured two abandoned jeeps that came in very handy The advance towards Bleesbruck topped. This intersection was under heavy US artillery fire. We were directed towards Batendorf.’ His battalion occupied the town of Diekirch. The 352 VGD had pushed 109 IR out of that town back to Ettelbruck. Rather surprisingly for the German paratroops looting was punishable by death. ‘Diekirch was still filled up with a mixed up mess of German troops who kept on arriving.’ The next day, the little Gefreite was sent ahead with a medical Unter Offizier to locate quarters for their dressing station. ‘We reached the edge of the town, heard German singing. The song about the Westerwald where the wind whistles so nicely. Our heroic comrades of 352 VGD had found an agricultural alcohol distillery. They were celebrating their victory!’ He also encountered Grenadier Regiment 916 of 352 VGD. ‘They had combat boots of raw leather, very young soldiers in illfitting combat fatigues, many with warm camouflage clothing. Officers and NCOs in spotless uniform coats and black leather boots. The decorations on their chest proclaimed front-line experience. Their weapons were self-loading carbines with revarnished stocks, plus Panzerfausts, plus some assault rifles and MG 42 machine-guns.’ Feldwebel Heinz Reuter served with 4th Battery, 5th Paratroop flak unit, with four platoons each with 3.7mm anti-aircraft guns. His CO was Hauptmann Muller and the battery leader was Oberleutnant Voss. ‘We reached Fouhren with no trouble, two houses were still burning as night fell. At the command post I heard that the 5 FJD Divison had already reported 1,300 men lost on the first day. Oberleutnant Gieler came back from Diekirch in a captured American jeep and brought American cigarettes, chocolate, rations and several canisters of lard. On the morning of 17 December I saw the bodies of paratroopers being loaded on to carts along the Fouhren–Vianden road. They lay along the road, one after another, a great number had been struck by deadly defensive fire and killed on their advance to Fouhren. On the advance from Vianden there were numerous American armoured vehicles in a marching column on the road abandoned by their crews without a fight.’

Map 6 The German ‘Das Reich’ SS Panzer division created havoc between the rivers of Ourthe and Aisne Major Goswin Wahl, who commanded 13th Regiment in 5 FJD, wrote, ‘In the first days [after crossing the Our] I drove to a commanders discussion north of Diekirch. Oberst Kurt Groschke, Commander of the 15th Regiment, was also present. My two battalions 1 and 3 now moved farther in the direction of Bastogne without significant enemy action.’ Bavigne, Ettelbruck, DoncolsMartelange, Soller were all taken. Oberst Heilman had his HQ in a railroad tunnel south of Wilwerwitz, 2 miles east of Wiltz. In Bastogne General Troy Middleton realised that a threat to the town would come from many directions and in particular the valley of the river Wiltz, 12 miles east of Bastogne. At Weidingen a bridge crossed this river into Wiltz and led on to the main highway to Bastogne from the SE. So Middleton sent the 44th Engineer Combat regiment commanded by Lt Colonel Kjeldseth, plus six Sherman tanks, five assault guns, six anti-tank guns and some light armoured cars to reinforce Major General ‘Dutch’ Cota’s HQ in Wiltz. The 600 engineers were deployed to block villages beyond the river in Eschweiler and Erpeldange. Major General Cota had a provisional battalion of 110 IR swelled by HQ staff of drivers, telephone linesmen, postal clerks, bandsmen and MPs.

Quite soon Lt Colonel Daniel Strickler ’s 3rd Bn 110 IR fighting at Consthum would join the Wiltz defenders. However, ‘Dutch’ Cota’s outposts were attacked about midday on 18th and the combat engineers were forced back into the buildings of lower Wiltz. The 13th-century château dominates the town on a high ridge occupied by the 42nd Field Hospital. This first attack was by Panzer Lehr and was not serious! All they wanted to do was bypass Wiltz, trying to get out of the Clervé river valley and head for Bastogne! Nevertheless, Cota moved himself and his HQ at dawn on the 19th to relocate 10 miles to the rear at Sibret. General von Luttwitz, GOC XLVII Panzer Korps, had ordered Oberst Kokott, CO 26 VGD, to keep an eye on the town – but not to storm it! Lt Colonel Strickler was made OC of the Wiltz garrison. Oberst Heilman also had no designs on Wiltz but the advance guard of 5 FJD ‘lost their way’ and, in mid afternoon on the 19th, blundered into the firing positions of 687 Field Artillery Bn in upper Wiltz. The American gunners knocked out the German SP assault guns but expended all their artillery rounds! One reasonable view was that (a) Oberst Heilman could not exert control of his widespread division of 13, 14 and 15 Para regiments, mainly ex-Luftwaffe, or (b) there are several accounts of looting and the desire for comfortable, warm ‘homes’ for the night! Now followed comedy, shortly followed by tragedy. Lt Colonel Max Billingsley, CO of the Artillery regiment with his useless howitzers (no ammunition), withdrew his regiment at nightfall to an RV 4 miles outside Wiltz, at a crossroads where was sited the Café Schumann. Seeing the gunners leaving Wiltz, Major Milton, OC 3rd Bn 110 IR (Strickler was the overall garrison commander), assumed a withdrawal plan was in operation and told his 200 men to follow the artillery! A mile from the Café Schumann crossroads, a messenger from Strickler overtook them and, in effect, ordered Major Milton and the troops to return to Wiltz. Milton, with masterful inactivity, did nothing. He waited for an hour and returned to Strickler ’s HQ in Wiltz. The hungry and thirsty parachute division had now effectively surrounded the town. The American tanks and assault guns were either destroyed or immobilised, their crews exhausted or asleep. Sgt John Chernitsky, anti-tank Company of the 3rd Bn 110 IR, wrote, ‘Orders had come to teachers [he was an instructor to NCOs in Wiltz] and pupils to rejoin their respective units. Enemy fire blocked the roads. I stayed in Wiltz with the newly organised riflemen, members of the band, clerks, cooks, bakers and any men caught between Wiltz and Clervaux. After an artillery barrage I was shot in the back with shrapnel.’ Chernitsky escaped towards the

rear, met an American squad car, manned by Germans in US uniforms, and was promptly ‘put in the bag’. Strickler had told Milton to block the Ettelbruck–Bastogne highway at the road junction. Still a mile away from the crossroads, Milton’s men heard heavy firing and panicked. Paratroopers had attacked the several hundred artillerymen and a convoy of armoured cars and jeeps with GIs leaving Wiltz. In the capture of Wiltz the combat engineers had 150 casualties and the gunners and infantry about another 400. 28th Infantry (what was left of them) in the new HQ at Sibret tried to send reinforcements but 26 VDG and 5th Parachute were blocking all roads into the town. The 110th IR had gone down fighting. Colonel Hurley Fuller and his Keystone battalions had put up terrific defensive fights at Clervaux, Marnach, Weiler and Heinerscheid. But also, spirited defences were made on the way back to Wiltz, at Hosingen and Consthum. On Monday 18th, Hosingen, after 48 hours of attack, surrendered with 300 ‘Keystone’ captives. At Consthum the 26 VGD attacked all day and night on the 17th and 18th. The few survivors escaped as a pea-soup fog rolled in and, with their wounded, they moved 5 miles SW to Nocher. The 110th Infantry regiment had been smashed. Their Corps Commander General Troy Middleton had said hold ‘at all costs’. Their divisional commander Major General ‘Dutch’ Cota had said ‘hold at all costs’. The ‘Keystones’ had blocked General von Manteuffell’s Fifth Panzer Army for at least two days.

chapter 24

The dying days of Kampfengruppe Peiper

E

arly on 19 December General Leland Hobbs sent his second in command, Brigadier General Harrison, to control all the American forces around Stoumont. These were the ‘Old Hickory’ 119 IR under Lt Colonel Sutherland and Task Forces Jordan and McGeorge of the CCB 3rd ‘Spearhead’ Armoured division. Their task was to capture Stoumont and then La Gleize, where KG Peiper ’s troops were ensconced. Moreover, the brutal young Oberst was holding up US First Army’s plan to close the gap between Malmédy and St Vith. General Courtney Hodges planned to send US forces to relieve the gallant defenders of St Vith. This was before Field Marshal Montgomery took command of First Army on the 20th. St Vith would surrender, in the event, on the 21st. The German High Command were also in some confusion. General Preiss, GOC 1st SS Panzer Corps, was convinced that Kampfengruppe Peiper ’s breakthrough had run out of steam. It was almost surrounded and was pounded on clear-flying days by the Jabos. Yet Preiss’s own commander, ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, disagreed completely. His Sixth SS Army had been unsuccessful at Monschau and Hofen and KG Peiper had so far been ‘his’ only success. Dietrich ordered General Wilhelm Mohnke, GOC 1st SS Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler (of which Peiper was the Schwerpunkt), to employ every resource to break through and link up with the KG. Also, Oberst Skorzeny’s Greif, 150 Panzer brigade, would be tasked to help Peiper by retaking Malmédy. Peiper

also had problems. He noticed some of his panzers reversing and ordered Major Werner Poetschke to summarily halt the retreat. Carrying a Panzerfaust, the SS Major went from tank to tank threatening to blow up the next one to reverse! Peiper had expected to travel and fight his way the 60 miles to the Meuse bridges in two days. After four days he was halfway there, fighting with ever-increasing losses of men and machines in the maze of swift flowing rivers, creeks and streams in the Amblève valley. Despite being twice attacked by General Pete Quesada’s 365 and 368 Fighter Groups with sixteen P-47 Thunderbolts, the first time near Stavelot and the second near the bridge at Cheneux, the damage was unimportant. The USAAF claimed 32 AFVs destroyed. Peiper lost a Panther, a few half-tracks and trucks, and some casualties (many 500lb bombs had been dropped and the column’s MG strafed). Since Wacht am Rhein started on the 16th, the Peiper KG had lost only thirteen AFVs – three at Dom. Bütgenbach when bypassing the Elsenborn Ridge, four in front of Wirtzfeld, one at Ligneuville, four at Stavelot and one at Cheneux, plus two Flak tanks. During the night of 18/19th KG Peiper received reinforcements. Seven of his Tiger tanks, Major Knittel’s 1st SS Panzer division reconnaissance battalion and a liaison officer equipped with an ultra-high-frequency radio. He could now communicate with General Mohnke, General Preiss, even General ‘Sepp’ Dietrich! The fighting around Stoumont and La Gleize settled into a bloody stalemate. On the 21st Peiper decided to concentrate his entire force at La Gleize, but still keeping open the bridge across the Amblève near Cheneux. He was trapped, short of food, ammunition and petrol. Fierce fighting, much of it hand-to-hand, went on for two days. The Luftwaffe appeared with a supply drop after dusk on the 22nd. Peiper reckoned that only 10 per cent reached his own men. Unable to ford or bridge the Salm river and Lienne Creek with his panzers, Peiper, in his farmhouse HQ at La Gleize, watched in near despair as the American artillery pounded his position. Several American counter-attacks at Cheneux caused heavy casualties on both sides. Later Peiper said, ‘Our position in La Gleize had become very difficult. The town is surrounded by mountains and offers excellent artillery observation points to the enemy. The forest is very close to the town and offers very good lines of approach for infantry. It was only a matter of days before the whole town would be shot to rubble. All squares of the streets were under direct machine-gun and tank destroyer fire.’ General Mohnke’s 1st SS Panzer division were in the area east of the river Salm, south of the river Amblève, but were cut off from Kampfengruppe Peiper by the American recapture of Stavelot and the blown bridges at Trois

Ponts. On Thursday 21 December Mohnke made a determined effort to link up with Peiper. SS Panzergrenadiers waded the icy waters of the Amblève but the American troops of 117th Infantry rained mortar fire down, killing about 80. Fighting continued all that day. Some panzers and SPs were left on the north bank of the river but separated from Peiper by a 3rd US Armoured division combat group. Around the bridge at Cheneux 82 US Airborne’s infantry fought bitterly to overcome a tough Waffen SS rearguard. Of the two US companies involved, only 59 survived the day. Major McCown’s battalion of 30th Infantry division launched two attacks against Stoumont and its château and sanatorium. Peiper struck first at five in the morning and, with three assault SPs and infantry, knocked out four Shermans, followed by heavy mortar and MG fire. The sanatorium changed hands four times with a Tiger tank and four Shermans exchanging shell fire through the windows. All the patients and wounded were safe in the cellars. Another attack on Peiper was made by the powerful Task Force Lovelady of 3rd Armoured division’s CCB (with 58 medium tanks, 9 SP 105mm guns and a company of armoured infantry). From Trois Ponts, under cover of fog, they moved northwards to seize the high ground dominating La Gleize. Two Shermans blew up on mines and German anti-tank guns accounted for two more and the attack stalled. Staff Sergeant Curtiss Martell and C Company 1/119 IR 30 ID, after a sleepless night aboard trucks, continued their march towards Stoumont, held by Kampengruppe Peiper. ‘Past noon, with a steep hill ahead to our front, we saw a scene of American troops who were running down the hill towards us. The sight was one of utter panic and confusion as these troops ran towards us. They were fleeing the 1st SS Panzer division and obviously were badly shaken. We lacked armour back-up. The only message from the fleeing soldiers was “Get the hell out of here”. An orderly retreat was executed while the German tanks fired their missiles at our rear ends!’ Later, ‘It was dusk and our tanks and TDs arrived – the 740th Tank Battalion – and occupied strategic firepower points behind the bend. We had no sleep. Darkness fell and we heard the rumble of three German tanks without enemy infantry. Silhouetted against the skyline a TD fired and scored a direct hit, the tank blazed up. A Mark V tried to swing round the crippled one; it too was knocked out. One of our tanks then destroyed the third enemy tank. The road was blocked, the sky lit by the fire.’ Sgt Curtiss Martell’s 119 Infantry regiment struggled to capture the fourstorey brick building, St Edouard Sanatorium, on the hill at Stoumont. ‘It was nightfall before we reached the top of the hill. Casualties were high and some

of our men had been captured. Three furious counter-attacks were launched against us with the enemy screaming “Heil Hitler”. Our ammo was running low and we were being battered. But the Germans were getting hit harder. Confusion was rampant because some Germans wore American uniforms. I saw one captured American tank with SS markings painted on the sides.’ St Edouard’s changed hands several times after intense fighting. In the cellars were nuns and American prisoners and many wounded of both sides. Stoumont finally fell on 21 December and Peiper ’s defiant Waffen SS holed up in the hill-top village of La Gleize. Major Hal McCown, with 2nd Bn of 119th IR, was captured, and about 300 American prisoners were jammed together in large cellars in La Gleize. McCown wrote, ‘An amazing fact to me was the youth of the Kampfengruppe. The bulk of the enlisted men were either 18 or 19 years of age, recently recruited but thoroughly trained from years of Russian fighting. Colonel Peiper was 29, his tank battalion commander was 30: his captains and lieutenants ran from 19 to 27. Their morale and discipline was very good. The noise discipline on the night movements was so perfect … The physical condition of all personnel was good, despite a lack of proper food. The equipment was good and complete except some reconditioned half-tracks. All men wore new boots and had adequate clothing, some with captured American overcoats, gloves, sweaters, overshoes, wool cap. The relationship between officers and men was closer and friendlier than I would have expected. Many times I saw Colonel Peiper give a slap of encouragement on the back of heavily loaded men and speak a couple of cheering words.’ McCown and Peiper talked together, ‘our subject being mainly his defence of Nazism and why Germany was fighting. He was completely confident of Germany’s ability to whip the Allies. He spoke of Himmler ’s new reserve army at length. It contained so many new divisions, armoured and infantry, that our G-2s [intelligence officers] would wonder where they all came from.’ Peiper talked too about the V-1 and V-2 rockets, of a new submarine campaign, of even more new secret weapons. The Luftwaffe with new types of plane would cover their breakthrough in Belgium and Holland and later to the French coast. Peiper also went out of his way to stress that his Kampfengruppe had ‘at no time’ mistreated American prisoners! Peiper ’s radio generators still operated and twice he asked for permission from Oberführer der Waffen SS Wilhelm Mohnke, GOC 1st SS Panzer division, to withdraw, but in vain. By 23 December only the village of La Gleize, the hamlet of La Venne and a few isolated farmhouses was still held.

Peiper again: ‘The enemy attacked with very strong infantry, very strong tank concentrations. They penetrated the outermost houses. The whole town was filled with fog.’ Peiper, armed with a machine pistol, jumped out of his cellar while his adjutant started burning secret documents. He was asked on his radio what should be done with six Tiger tanks stranded at Stavelot. Peiper answered, ‘Send them by air to La Gleize’. He was outraged because a US tank battalion had obtained a ‘Long Tom’, a 155mm SP artillery piece with which they were bombarding his positions. Eventually Peiper ’s distant HQ relented. He could extract his force and withdraw to the east to the nearest troops. Peiper negotiated a plan of exchange with Major McCown relating to the American prisoners and wounded, not only at La Gleize but also in the château at Stoumont.

Fig 24.1 Gls advance into La Gleize, passing one of SS Oberst Jochen Peiper ’s Tiger tanks ablaze (AP 48074 IWM) ‘At 0500 [on Christmas Eve],’ said Major McCown, ‘we heard the first tank blow up and inside of thirty minutes, the entire area formerly occupied by

Colonel Peiper ’s command was a sea of fiercely burning vehicles.’ This was the responsibility of Sergeant Karl Wortmann and his flak tank section. The Kampfengruppe had started with about 4,000 men and were joined by 1,800 men of Major Knittel’s reconnaissance battalion, and a battalion of 2nd SS Panzer grenadier regiment. He led only 800 men out of La Gleize. He had managed to evacuate many wounded over the wooden bridge at Petit-Spai, but still left 380 behind. He left behind about 60 tanks, including 7 Tigers, 70 halftracks, 33 guns, 25 assault SP guns. Peiper led his ferocious Waffen SS survivors to safety. His Kampfengruppe had done a lot of damage in their 8day onslaught. FW Karl Laun, the Austrian officer of Flaksturm Battalion 84 had escaped from La Gleize on Christmas Day with the survivors of Kampfengruppe Peiper, and wrote, ‘Looking for the rest of my Battery I became from afar a witness to the US bomber attack on St Vith. The forest forms a soundproof wall against the rumbling detonations of the bombs, but thick smoke indicates that six kilometres in front of me a town is dying by dismemberment. A never ceasing array of airplanes flies in loose formation over St Vith. The thunder of the motors sounds in my body. How often I have witnessed such a modern Pompeii … I make my way to the kitchen of a neighbouring battery. A limping bomber appears overhead returning from the St Vith show. All of a sudden, the damned thing starts diving towards the nearby kitchen … And now the bombs start dropping. I throw myself down and when I dare to rise again I look over for the field kitchen, its gone. The cook and mess personnel are dead or severely wounded. Well, there went our supper!’ An armada of 278 British Lancaster and Halifax bombers – not American – blasted St Vith with 1,140 tons of explosives. All the roads were blocked with rubble and the town was a mass of flames. Spitfires of 135 Wing flew cover for the bombardment, shooting down two ME-109s and damaging an ME-262.

Fig 24.2 Ruins of la Gleize – Peiper ’s last stand (by Harrison Standley) (111CC-112661: 4-302-46 NARA)

chapter 25

The Seventh Army has problems in the south

A

t the southern shoulder in front of Luxembourg City General Brandenberger ’s VGDs assaulted a single regiment of General Barton’s 4th ‘Ivy’ Infantry division. The twelve companies of Lt Colonel Robert Chance’s 12th Infantry had been skilfully deployed, although by midnight on the 16th four were surrounded. At Lauterborn, Berdorf, Echternach (around a hat factory), Osweiler and Dickweiler they all were holding out. Five additional batteries of artillery were moved up in support. Barton, of course, had to keep his other two regiments on the right flank inactive in case of an attack on the long frontage south of Echternach down to the boundary between First and Third US Armies. The Sixtieth Armoured Infantry of 9th Armoured division was in the line on the left/northern flank to gain battlefield experience and now faced the 276 VGD. Lt Colonel James Rudder ’s 109 IR of 28 Keystone division was facing 352 VGD and elements of the Paratroop 5 FJG division. General Troy Middleton, the corps commander, had promised Barton 159 Combat Engineer battalion (if he could find them) and that 10th Armoured division from US Third Army had been released and would arrive on 18 December. General Brandenberger ’s VGDs had problems throwing bridges over the rivers Our and Sauer under constant American artillery fire. Although Brandenberger had no tank support, he wanted his SP assault guns over the rivers to provide more fire support. The history of 352 VGD relates:

On 17 December the 914th regiment disposed of resistance in Longsdorf, called Marxberg. GR 916, regrouped, tried to take the heights near Hoesdorf, along the ridge moved towards Reisdorf and the low hill near Bettendorf. Contact was made with GR 914 over the ‘Kirchbosch’ at Longsdorf. GR 915 was still pinned down near Bastendorf and Tandel because of tough American resistance and lack of heavy weapons. Worst of all US tanks cut off access to Bastendorf and Fouhren. Anti-tank troops were sent into action. Precious time was lost. Late on 17 December the makeshift bridge at Gentingen was strong enough to hold vehicles, but under steady enemy fire. The approach road ran through a sea of mud. The morning of 18 December GR 916 eliminated opposition near Hoesdorf. GR 914, faced by three Sherman tanks at ‘Seltz’ crossroads, unable to make contact with GR 915 in Bastendorf. Six Hetzer tank destroyers went over the Gentigen bridge to ease the pressure. Major Wahl’s 13th Paratroop Regiment took Fouhren, made contact with GR 914 and 915. 19 December a.m. contact with three regiments again with unified combat action. All divisions’ artillery moved across the Our under excellent leadership of its commander Oberst Santmann. But enemy opposition also became stronger despite the ground we have gained. The result was heavy losses in local fighting at the northern routes to Diekirch at ‘Friedhaff ’, ‘Hueldaer’ and at the Blees bridge. In the process, the division commander Oberst Schmidt was wounded [25 December replaced by Generalmajor Bazing]. On 20 December Diekirch was finally taken without a fight. The American combat forces withdrew during the night. The bridge at the entrance to Ettelbruck, damaged only slightly, allowed our infantry with heavy weapons across. Though strongly defended, Ettelbruck was taken on 21 December. 22nd Division advanced to Attert area with GR 915 going via Feulen and Mertzig, GR 914 via Michelbuch and Vichten to Useldingen and GR 916 via Schieren to Birtringen to protect the flank. GR 915 was almost surrounded in Mertzig but was able to push forward to Pratz. Oberst Schmidt put his relatively slow advance down to the delay in bridge building, which meant that the Hetzer tank destroyers and artillery were late coming into action. This meant that his ‘young soldiers succeeded without heavy weapons, using Light [Panzerfaust] anti-tank weapons to fight off tanks, once they had overcome their initial fear.’ The young Paul Engelhardt with 8 Company GR 986 in the 276 VGD, part of LXXX Corps commanded by General der Infanterie Dr Beyer, fought on the left wing of 352 VGD in the Wallendorf–Echternach area. He describes some of the combat around Beaufort, Eppeldorf and Medernach against units of 60th Armoured Infantry battalion and the US 4th Infantry division. On 17 December

the Volksgrenadiers were astonished to find out that the actress Marlene Dietrich was due to put on a show for the GIs at a front-line theatre! ‘We never got over the shock.’ On the way to Mettendorf, Engelhardt’s gun crew were overtaken by a Waffen SS unit of motorcyclists, tanks and assault guns in the direction of Bollendorf to go into action. ‘To my astonishment the SS emblem was actually on the vehicles.’ On the afternoon of 18th, ‘We got the news that our division commander, Generalmajor Kurt Moehring, had been killed, his staff car torn apart by artillery shell fragments. The town of Wittlich had been declared a “Red Cross City”. All German units other than doctors, medics and nurses were not allowed to pass through the city, but had to go round it. We saw that the occupation of Beaufort had been accomplished by our rifle companies on the afternoon of 19 December. Engineers were there to de-activate the mine traps in the abandoned houses. Signs were put up, “Whoever Loots will be Shot.” On the 20th we moved with our infantry guns out of Beaufort past “Laengt” where a battery of 8.8 anti-aircraft guns, field howitzers and a quadruple flak gun were in position. A few HIWIs, “Russian volunteer helpers”, were among the crews.’ Engelhardt described the scene: Our gun team consisted of five men: the gun leader; the aiming gunner or K1, the loader, K2, and the K3 and K4 gunners. The latter were responsible for the ammunition which they passed to K2 loader as complete shells which he then loaded into the gun. The position officer passed the firing and technical data on to the gun leader and the K1 gunner aimed the gun accordingly. The 7.5cm shells had a separate cartridge, consisting of a lacquered steel case with five charges and an ignition primer-screw. For anti-tank use there were hollowcharge shells with sensitive impact fuses made in one piece including the case. About 3.00 a.m. on the 21st we received our first hot food since the attack had begun, plus our cold food. The nearby field kitchen produced [hot] casserole of peas, beans, savoury cabbage, carrots, potatoes, turnips or red cabbage with a lot of fat or meat. Sometimes also baked potatoes, goulash or a piece of roast meat with vegetables, fruit and salad. The food was plentiful here, each man received a mess kit with 1.5 to 2 litres of it. The cold food consisted of army bread, baked to a special recipe, which could be stored for a week. The spreads were ration of butter or margarine, rubber sausage, jelly, ersatz honey, sausage of various kinds, Blut-, Leber-, Fleisch-, Brat- or Rotwurst plus either hard cheese or cheese spread and sardines in oil or fish in tomato sauce, packed in oval aluminium cans. Also some cans of Schokakola. In addition, the ‘iron ration’, every front-line soldier received 200 grams of pork in a can plus a small linen bag with hard zwieback, or crispbread or pumpernickel, before he

went into combat. The first snow fell on the morning of 21st. The forest was turned into a sugary landscape – a fairytale scene. Engelhardt noted, ‘There were constantly three US reconnaissance planes flying in the airspace over us, so low we could see the silhouettes of the pilots. We called them “artillery crows”. We had the feeling that a game of cat and mouse was being played. On the morning of 22 December, V-1 rockets, always three at a time, flew over our positions several times, launched from the Moselle.’ Engelhardt’s gun positions were shelled by American counter-battery fire, killing their radioman Niemann. ‘As our comrade he was the hero of the day in our eyes. An American “sniper” in a tree spotted the VGD gun position and gave the order to fire on our position. Shells exploded around the guns, one after another … it was hellish. The crew of the second gun were all wounded. We of the fourth gun took over the second one as well and kept it firing.’ General Brandenberger was not pleased with the performance of 276 VGD, even though they captured Beaufort and forced the American HQ back to Savelborn, and ambushed on Monday morning a 9th Armoured task force near Medernach. Nor did General Franz Sensfuss, 212 VGD, fare any better. Tasked with the capture of Echternach, Lauterborn and Berdorf, they failed, although the first two towns were surrounded. 4th ‘Ivy’ Infantry division had been hit hard and in two places penetrations of 4 miles had been made by the VGDs. Major General William Morris, GOC of the US 10th Armoured division, agreed with General Barton on an ambitious plan, to commit three task task forces on Monday 18th. They were called Task Force Chamberlain, Riley and Standish. Their objectives were to push the 276 VGD out of the gorge of the Schwarz Ernst, another to move through Consdorf and relieve the Bersdorf garrison, and the third to relieve the Echternach garrison. Two attacks failed but Riley took Scheidgen (which was empty), then through Lauterborn into the outskirts of Echternach, where Captain Paul Depuis (in the hat factory) thanked his rescuers warmly (killing a hundred Volksgrenadiers in the process) and decided to stay put! Although 212 VGD had penetrated behind the US 4th ‘Ivy’ division rear positions, they had no tanks or assault guns with them and could not exploit. All the German armour was up north with Dietrich and von Manteuffel! After three days of constant attack all five of the forward American strong-points were still holding out against 212 VGD. 276 VGD, now commanded by Oberst Hugo Dempwolff, decided that Tuesday 19th should be a ‘rest’ day and waited for artillery and rocket projectors to cross the river bridges and catch up. 276 VGD had, however,

pushed the 10th Armoured division CCA back to Ermsdorf and 352 VGD had pushed the 109 IR out of Diekirch back to Ettelbruck. A dangerous 4-mile gap now opened up between the CCA and 109 Infantry. General der Infanterie Dr Franz Beyer, GOC LXXX Korps, ordered 212 and 276 VGD on to the defensive and wanted his formations dug in and ready for the American counter-attacks. But Generalmajor Sensfuss wanted his 212 VGD to finish off the capture of Echternach. A Fusilier Battalion with four assault guns opened devastating fire on the American defences in the Hotel de Luxembourg and the hat factory. Sensfuss led the attack and was slightly wounded. Twenty men of Company H and 110 of Company E of the 2nd Bn, 12 Infantry regiment, duly surrendered. Captain Charles MacDonald wrote, ‘In three days of fighting, the 9th Armoured CCA lost seven tanks – all to Panzerfausts – and in two days of fighting 10th Armoured CCA lost not a single tank.’ Did these statistics reflect clever deployment and manoeuvre or reluctance to close with the enemy? General Brandenberger ’s Seventh Army had rather surprisingly been reinforced by the Führer Grenadier brigade under Oberst Hans Kahler; like the Führer Begleit brigade, it was a force of 6,000 troops, many of whom had fought with the Gross Deutschland division on the Eastern Front. It had two battalions of infantry mounted on half-tracks and trucks, an assault gun battalion and a battalion of 40 Panther and Mark IV tanks. Brandenberger also received as reinforcements from the Führer Reserve the 79th VGD at half strength, under Oberst Alois Weber, with 208, 212 and 226 VG regiments. They had little or no combat experience, having originally been totally destroyed on the Eastern Front. Brandenberger had established his army HQ in Wiltz and intended to counter-attack with these new forces, south of the river Sauer, and regain control of the Ettelbruck–Bastogne highway. Both the US 26th and 80th Divisions were about to have a tough slogging match on their hands. The terrain was heavily wooded with deep hollows and ravines. The first obstacle was the wide, fast-flowing river Sauer. 80th on the right flank quickly moved north for 5 miles and destroyed a German column of unsuspecting 352 VGD which, having captured Diekirch and Ettelbruck, thought they had broken through into open country! Near Grosbous the Volksgrenadiers won the day and destroyed half of 104 IR of 26th Division.

chapter 26

The air war 16–25 December: the ‘metallic starlings’

D

uring Wacht am Rhein the Allied air forces flew 63,741 individual flight missions between 16 December and 15 January. They dropped over 71,000 tons of bombs and lost a total of 647 aircraft. 8th US Air Force flew 28,330 and 9th US Air Force 23,264 missions. The British 2nd Tactical Air Force flew 5,636 and RAF Bomber Command 6,511 sorties. The latter dropped about 4 tons per aircraft mission and 2nd TAF had the highest percentage of loss – 190 out of 647. About 90 per cent of all aircraft losses were due to German flak/AA guns. Nearly every air force, British, American and German, overstated – for a variety of reasons – claims of damage done to the enemy in the air or on the ground. Nevertheless, 8th US Airforce claimed 240 and 9th US Airforce 405 enemy aircraft destroyed in the first ten days of the campaign as well as 468 AFV, 3,438 M/T (motor transport) and 666 railroad locomotives and cars/carriages destroyed. During the whole campaign 1,260 enemy AFV were destroyed or damaged and 9,200 motor transport vehicles. In the first seventeen days of the campaign six were classified as ‘foggy’, four as ‘overcast’ two as ‘snow’ (on 28th it was ‘heavy snow’, which reduced sorties on both sides to a negligible figure). The Luftwaffe main days of flying activity were the 17th, 18th (despite ‘fog’), 23rd (fog but clear!), 24th and 25th. On Operation Bodenplatte, delayed to 1 January, the Luftwaffe flew 12,057 sorties and the Allies replied with 1,000. On 16 December the top Allied tactical air commander met at General Pete

Quesada’s IX TAC in Verviers. Their meeting was solely concerned with plans to support General Omar Bradley’s two powerful assaults on the Siegfried Line. Because of the mid-December fog and overcast weather it was clear that ‘blind bombing’ would be required. Beyond that no one agreed on how the air operation should be staged! Ninth Army wanted, needed, fighter-bomber support. But First Army wanted bombers for their assault. General Sam Anderson with the IX Bombardment Division explained that medium bombers could not operate if the overcast weather was below 10,000 feet while the fighters could. The RAF, represented by Air Commodore Dickens, pointed out that the RAF would not bomb ‘blind’ less than five miles from friendly troops, whereas the US Eighth Air Force could and did! RAF Bomber Command and the Eighth Air Force disagreed on the minimum ceiling for their ‘visual’ bombing. On the first day of Wacht am Rhein the four air forces had little or no knowledge of the chaotic fighting in the Ardennes. During the Normandy campaign, apart from one truly deplorable incident during Operation Cobra when an American division lost heavily to US bombing, the Allied record was remarkably good. The front lines were always in close contact with each other, from perhaps 200 yards to a mile at the most. Pin-point bombing by the Allied Jabos, Typhoons and Lightnings, was of a very high standard. But after the closing of the Falaise–Argentan gap there was a crazy ten-day period at the end of August – a war of constant movement when ‘friendly fire’ occurred every day on many occasions. The RAF and USAAF simply could not get it right. The author ’s armoured division was bombed and strafed in daylight, despite appropriate coloured signals and the Allied White Star on all vehicles. Some units were so badly hit and exasperated by the vehemence of the strafing that they deployed their AA troops to deter, perhaps destroy, the ‘friendly’ attacking planes. In the four weeks of Wacht am Rhein the whole frenzied chessboard in the Ardennes made it difficult for the Allied air forces to be 100 per cent sure of their targets. It was slightly easier for the Luftwaffe, since they usually knew exactly where their panzer spearheads had got to. After all, the Führer had told them specifically which route to take! In the early hours of 17 December an ULTRA decrypt astonished SHAEF HQ: ‘II JagdKorps had received orders to support the attack of 5 and 6 Armies.’ They could only be the known Fifth Panzer Army and the missing elite Sixth SS Panzer. Another ULTRA decrypt was of a message by General Gerd von Rundstedt: ‘The hour of destiny has struck. Mighty offensive armies face the Allies. Everything is at stake. More than mortal deeds are required as a holy duty to the Fatherland.’

Many of the US Army G-2s and British intelligence officers wondered whether the German High Command had found out about ULTRA and the interpretation of Enigma machine messages. Was it all a great double-bluff? General Eisenhower in Versailles, and Generals Hodges, Bradley and Quesada were having a busy social day with a wedding for one and purchase of expensive Belgian shotguns for the trio. Moreover, on that day, Ike was promoted to five-star general – the US Army’s highest rank. Monty was planning leave and was playing golf that day at Eindhoven with the Welsh professional Dai Rees. But at 2 p.m. Ike had a meeting in his map room with Bradley (who had driven there from Spa), Bedell Smith, Major General HR Bull, Air Marshal Sir Arthur Tedder and General Carl Spaatz (the senior American airman in Europe). Their main topic was to discuss the critical shortage of infantry replacements in Europe. The British had already disbanded two divisions and several brigades and were busy deploying AA, heavy artillerymen, and other army ‘services’ into the PBI (Poor Bloody Infantry), as they were known. When Major General Strong informed the meeting of the continuous series of very violent attacks with a massive artillery barrage along the Ghost Front in the Ardennes, there was not immediate concern. Bradley thought it was just a ‘spoiling’ attack to divert US forces from the main efforts further north. Eisenhower, who had recently driven through the Ardennes and noticed how few troops were stationed there, agreed with Strong that the attacks reported were sufficiently serious for action to be taken. Eisenhower then ‘asked’ Bradley to move 10th Armoured up from the south and 7th Armoured down from the north. Strong was concerned that the Americans had only experience of the German ‘Boche’ in retreat – North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Normandy. Strong remembered the Blitzkrieg in 1940 and Rommel’s brilliant campaigns pre-Monty. On the next day, the 17th, the Luftwaffe was out in strength and despite the ‘fog’ flew 650 sorties, the greatest number of air sorties since D-Day. Field Marshal Göering preened himself as he visited Hitler ’s Eagle Nest HQ near Bad Nauheim. Major John Motzenbecker, the Blue Leader of a flight of the 365th Fighter Group ‘Hell Hawks’, flew his P-47 south of Monschau and spotted at least 150 vehicles including tanks, trucks and infantry bunched up in a single convoy. It was Kampfgruppe Peiper of 1 SS Panzer Division. Their flak punctured one of his wings. Soon Major George Brooking spotted another large convoy between Monschau and Simmerath (the 326 and 272 VG Divisions). By the end of the day 365th Fighter Group claimed 107 vehicles destroyed in action. Despite rain, overcast and snow flurries on the 18th, the

Luftwaffe had 849 sorties to the Allies’ 519. Dogfights went on all day with FW-190s and ME-110s taking on Thunderbolts and British Tempests and both sides conducting strafing ground actions. A pilot of 6 Staffel wrote to his parents before his capture: We are very busy here. They almost got me on my last operational flight. You must realise that we are now the first unit in the ‘West’ to meet the enemy. As you know, 800 fighters accompany the bombers as escort. Our unit is praised again and again. All heavy fighters ask for us as high altitude cover – we are busy with only 30 planes – losses are high. Two of my best friends did not return last Sunday and never will. In our Staffel with ten pilots you feel that sort of thing. But now I am finding just how useful experience is. Aachen is our sector for ground strafing missions. That is a terrific sight when one sees the front for the first time, you hear nothing, but below you see clouds of smoke and guns flash. The flak fires like mad. In this madhouse you force yourself to be calm, seek your target and shoot. I have four operational flights now, two against enemy bombers over Reich territory. In its report to High Command that night of the 16/17th Model and Heeresgruppe B announced, ‘Over the whole front there has been only limited enemy bomber and recon activity. Considerable relief was achieved by the commitment of German fighter units over the attack area.’ The US Ninth Air Force claimed 68 enemy aircraft destroyed, but lost 27 of their own. According to Luftwaffe records, II JagdKorps launched 650 planes from 16 fighter wings to intervene in the Ardennes battle on the 17th. ULTRA then reported this intercept: ‘II JagdKorps orders night 17–18 December were to support 6 SS Pz Army’s attack by covering right flank by continuous harassing attacks on roads, railways and localities area Sittard–Aachen–Eupen–Liège– Maastricht. Objective: materially delay Allied movements.’ ULTRA also warned of ‘the arrival of Staffel Einhorn coming from Italy, an air–ground attack unit with special FW-190 aircraft carrying 4,000lb bombs and specialising in attacking Allied headquarters.’ By now ULTRA and other sources identified over twenty German divisions active in the Ardennes campaign. It looked as though Liège was the objective for Sixth Panzer Army. ULTRA picked up this order to the Luftwaffe JagdKorps II: ‘Establish (a) Conditions of Meuse crossings near Huy, as well from Namur to Givet; (b) Whether Allies are bringing up forces from North via Hohes Venn; (c) Whether Allies are bringing up forces from area on both sides of Luxembourg.’ Moreover, Generalfieldmarshal Model had ‘lost’ his prime

spearhead. Where had Kampfgruppe Peiper got to? He hoped it was close to the river Meuse. In the pea soup conditions of the 17th, the ceiling for cloud in the valleys of the Amblève river was only 200 feet. It was believed that Kampfgruppe Peiper ’s 15-mile armoured convoy had reached that area. Any attempt to fly under 200 feet at over 400 mph (P-47D Thunderbolt top speed 429 mph; the P51 Mustang 437 mph; the British Spitfire XIV 448 mph) in the sharp valleys and forested hills was near suicidal. General Quesada’s request to Colonel George Peck of the veteran 67 Tactical Recon Group produced two volunteers to brave the 10/10 fog. Captain RH Cassady and 2/Lt A Jaffe, both Mustang ‘jockeys’, volunteered to locate Peiper ’s column. They had to drop to treetop level, dangerously close to the undulating 450-foot hills. Suddenly, flying at 100 foot, they spotted a winding column of 60 enemy tanks and AFVs. ‘We made three runs over that column. The Germans were so surprised, they didn’t fire until the last run. We could see their faces. They fired rifles, machine-guns, 20mm flak and pistols too – everything they had,’ remembered Cassady. The two pilots remained over the target to guide Colonel Meyers’ seven 4-plane flights in to bomb until it was dark at 5 p.m. Eventually the ‘Hell Hawks’ claimed 56 vehicles, 15 tanks or half-tracks. One plane was lost and eight damaged by flak. Major George Brooking was awarded the Silver Star. By 4 p.m. the panzer column was spotted from Lodometz, through Stavelot all the way to Cheneux. Three more squadrons joined in the fun and claimed 32 tanks and 56 other vehicles. Realistically these claims should be halved! On the third day of the great German assault, ‘Hitler ’s weather ’ set in. Thick, heavily impenetrable mist punctuated by treacherous squalls and freezing rain with danger of mid-air collisions and the risk of landing in ‘closed down’ airfields. The 368th Fighter Group were tasked with providing assistance to the surrounded 106th Infantry division in the Schnee-Eifel. Bad weather prevented any help to the poor ‘Golden Lions’. The RAF was also in action with Spitfire’s of British 2nd TAF tangling with many FW-190s around Cologne. On 17th and 18th they put up 327 sorties, shooting down 11 planes. By comparison, US Ninth Air Force put up 1,150 sorties claiming 96 aircraft destroyed. Hitherto, Eighth Air Force had been bombing deep into Germany, destroying oil installations, armaments factories and railroads. But with Generals Eisenhower and Spaatz’s agreement, Lt General Jimmy Doolittle threw his huge 3,500-strong force of bombers into halting Hitler ’s Wacht am Rhein. Rail marshalling yards in Cologne, Koblenz, Kaiserlauten, Ehrang, Mainz and Mayen were pulverised by an

armada of 985 bombers escorted by some 773 fighters. British and Canadian Mosquito night-fighter squadrons were very active in the last week of December and claimed 32 nocturnal victims (JU 88s, JU 188s, JU 87s, ME 110s). ULTRA was on stream again after the brilliant Teutonic ‘armed silence’ imposed by Hitler and his generals before Wacht am Rhein started. They revealed that General Major Dietrich Peltz, responsible for Luftwaffe support in the Ardennes campaign, informed Ob West that he was pleased with the performance of his Luftwaffe in the first two days of battle, despite losing 65 pilots. ULTRA revealed a message that II JagdKorps intended to harass Allied movements across the river Meuse ‘to supply Battle Group Heydte.’ Model had lost touch with von der Heydte’s Operation Stösser with his 800-man team of parachutists, who had started and mostly failed to arrive in the hills between Monschau and Malmédy. They had simply vanished! When ULTRA revealed that Peiper was marooned without fuel for his panzers near Stoumont, this was news that was of great importance to the Allied generals. This was proof that Allied air interdiction was working. Then another ULTRA communiqué from Hermann Göering, that jackbooted Reichsmarschall, decreed that all motor transport not required for the immediate conduct of operations be immobilised. Indeed it is one of the many mysteries of Wacht am Rhein how the Nazi armoured columns, with their huge consumption of fuel, were kept supplied through the corridors under intense air interdiction. A week later Oberst Polack, the OKH quartermaster, reported, ‘It may be necessary to demotorise the army, even the Panzergrenadiers moving on foot or by bicycle, with only the Panzer brigades remaining fully motorised.’ Weather conditions on 19 and 20 December were appalling. A heavy ground fog shrouded the battlefields with visibility often less than 500 yards. Air operations just about ceased. The Eighth Air Force was unable to fly a single combat mission between Wednesday 20 and Saturday 23 December. Even the air bases were shrouded in fog. However, Generali der Infanterie Baptist Kneiss, GOC of LXXXV Armeekorps, acknowledged the effect of the Allied bombing: ‘already by 20 December all railways between the Luxembourg front and the Rhine were out of commission, and thus a great deal of motor and horse transport was missing from the start. The shortage of gasoline was already strongly felt …’ Eisenhower wrote home on 21 December: ‘This is the shortest day, how I pray that it may, by some miracle, mark the beginning of improved weather!’ The 22nd started with a snowstorm! Meanwhile, 10,000 Allied planes – the

world’s most powerful air force – stood impotent before the weather. General Patton’s Third Army started off on their advance from Arlon to relieve the garrison at Bastogne, along a 20-mile front, on the 22nd. Without air support, German resistance kept the American advance to seven miles. Moreover, ULTRA revealed that Hitler was pulling divisions from the Russian front, probably for use in the West. But Eisenhower ’s prayers were answered on the 23rd. Danny Parker, in his book To Win the Winter Sky, wrote, ‘The mists and ground fog slowly faded to show a clear, steely blue winter sky. A pale December sun hesitantly rose above the horizon to at last reveal itself. Within hours the sun was like a blazing arc illuminating the snow dusted forests over the embattled hills of the Ardennes.’ Then the Luftwaffe and the Allied air Forces could get down to the serious business of killing each other. On 23 December the combined Allied air Forces flew 3,153 sorties. On the 20th it had been zero, on the 21st and 22nd a token 207 and 123. ULTRA overheard a message that the Luftwaffe was planning to cover their offensive with 150 aircraft sorties per hour to provide an ‘umbrella over the spearhead of advance.’ Danny Parker puts the Allied response eloquently: ‘The Allied air forces rose in strength to lay a mortal blow on the German enemy. The skies over Luxembourg and Belgium were filled with Allied planes: it was as if a dense block of metallic starlings had choked the skies. Everywhere there were P-47s and B-26s roaring about.’ The statistics were simple. The Luftwaffe flew 800 sorties on the 23rd, the Allies 6,194. All the panzer spearheads at Soy, Florennes, Vielsalm, Stavelot, Rochfort and Foy Notre Dame were bombed and strafed most of the day. Obgefr. Edmund Linkiewicz with the recon battalion of 2 Panzer looked up to see an angry swarm of fighter-bombers swooping down on their column: six trucks and three half-tracks were damaged or destroyed. Worst of all the battalion’s only fuel truck exploded in a blaze, consuming 3,400 litres ‘in a flash’. And Captain James Parker in Bastogne was constantly radioing targets to help the airborne defenders survive. On the 23rd, Task Force Hogan, part of 3rd Armoured division, was surrounded by 116 Panzer division north of La Roche along the river Ourthe. At 4 a.m. SHAEF received their SOS for 4,000 gallons of fuel, plus rations and ammo for their 1,000-man ‘garrison’. Thirty C-47s took off for the mission and dropped the supplies in the village of Marcourt. Lt Colonel Sam Hogan and his dispirited men were actually in the village of Marcouray, half a mile away. 116 Panzer were delighted – just what they wanted. The next evening, the Task Force abandoned all their tanks, AFVs and equipment and walked to safety in the dark. Another unfortunate incident occurred when the

US 392nd Squadron escorted the 322nd Bomb Group to attack the German town of Zulpich. Six B-26s Marauders dropped sixty 250lb bombs on the town of Malmédy instead. Once set afire, other American bombers also joined in. Bombed on three occasions, the ‘Old Hickory’ 30th Infantry division lost 37 killed and 100 wounded. At least 125 civilians and refugees were also killed. The second attack was on Christmas Eve and the third on Christmas Day. Big identification panels were prominently displayed on rooftops of the town houses. Malmédy is 33 miles away from Zulpich. Twice earlier in July, forming up for big attacks in Normandy, 30th Infantry division were unmercifully bombed by the US Ninth Air Force. Then they lost 138 men killed and 100 wounded. The ‘American Luftwaffe’ strikes again! The US marshalling yards at Arlon were attacked by five IX BD and five tanks of precious oil fuel for Patton’s tanks went up in smoke. The town of Verviers, east of Spa, firmly held by the Americans, was also bombed. Major General Samuel Anderson, GOC the IX Bombardment Division, issued a stern warning that secondary targets were to be positively identified. During the 23rd his group lost 36 bombers and 3 Pathfinder aircraft, with a further 182 aircraft damaged – about 8 per cent of those that actually reached the target area. Bridges, rail centres, roads and marshalling yards to the enemy rear were bombed, particularly Ehrang, Junkerath, Ahrweiler, Dahlem, Kaiserlauten and Homburg. The Luftwaffe sent up powerful groups of fighters to tackle the Marauders: 50 over Euskirchen; two dozen ME-109s and FW-190s over the Eller bridges; 20 over Daun, and 60 fighters from JG 2, 3 and 11; 16 of 30 B26s were shot down over Arhweiler. Fieldmarshal von Rundstedt later said, ‘The consequences were disastrous. It meant that we could not get supplies or troops forward. The further we advanced, the further the troops had to march. The deep penetration of heavy bombers east of the Rhine against our communications was painful for moving our troops, our supplies and our fuel. On the roads our convoys or single motor transport could not move during the day. We could never count on when a certain division would arrive at its destination.’ The Luftwaffe reported to OKW that it flew 800 sorties on the 23rd with 63 pilots killed, another 35 wounded. Out of interest, IX Air Force claimed 91 enemy planes shot down and VIII Air Force 75, a total of 166, indicating that claims should be reduced by 60 per cent! Eisenhower was jubilant about the arrival of good killing weather, although he was still quarantined at Versailles for fear of a Skorzeny-inspired assassination attempt. On Christmas Eve there took place the largest single bomber strike of the

entire Second World War. It was cold and clear over the Ardennes with visibility of 3–5 miles. It was Mission 760, with 2,034 heavy bombers of the Eighth, escorted by 803 fighters. The RAF put up 502 heavy bomber sorties and the US Ninth Air Force flew 1,138 tactical sorties, 161 reconnaissance and a further 2,447 bomber missions. The main efforts were directed at the thirteen German Luftwaffe airfields that had produced such belligerent efforts the day before. In Danny Parker ’s book there is an interesting chart denoting the eleven USAAF and two RAF airfield targets deluged with nearly 4,000 tons of bombs by over 1,300 bombers. A table by the Luftwaffe lists the number of days the airfield was made unserviceable after the bombing. These range from Gross Ostheim, Darmstadt, Rhein-Main and Giessen, where between 165 and 441 tons were dropped by the 8th Air Force with no or little effect! The four that suffered the most from 10–13 days out of action were Biblis, Mulheim (RAF), Kirchgons and Nidda. The frozen ground made some airfields craters difficult to fill in by bulldozer. Also, the Luftwaffe had a great many other airfields available. Over the next sixteen days a further nine different airfields were bombed of which four had no or little effect and three had between eleven and twenty days out of action. All the thirteen airfields bombed on Christmas Eve were able to put up their ordered share of the great Luftwaffe attack on 1 January 1945, code Operation Bodenplatte. The British 2nd TAF made 1,243 sorties with its Boston medium bombers pounding the crossroad towns of Kall, Gemund, Trier and Recht. They were supported by Spitfires and Tempests, and rocket-firing Typhoons poured into the skies looking for panzers on the ground, closing in on the river Meuse. The celebrated Gruppen-Kommandeur Hauptmann Erich Woitke, who had 28 confirmed victories, was himself shot down near Aachen. Lt Hans Halbey remembers the action: ‘Shortly after take-off Woitke called to us to release supplementary fuel tanks as enemy aircraft were in the area. To be able to escape them we had to lighten our load. The action was not long in coming. Woitke’s aircraft was hit by a full burst and was transformed into a ball of fire. Shortly after the explosion I shot down a Spitfire in a circling combat. One of my comrades confirmed the victory over the radio. I was the only pilot of our formation to regain Rheine safe and sound.’ His Kommodore, Oberst Lt Herbert Ihlefeld, wanted to court-martial Halbey for cowardice in the face of the enemy. Because, as ordered, he had released his fuel tank after take-off, shortage of fuel forced him to return to base earlier than his comrades! On the following day, 25 December, the day was sunny but cold. ‘I was shot down (my

fifth time) by a Spitfire and had to bail out.’ The 2 Panzer and 116 Panzer divisions around Celles, within 4 miles of the Meuse, were fiercely attacked at 4 p.m. by Major Nuckols and seven P-38s of 370th and 474th Fighter Groups. Fearsome punishment was inflicted. Enemy fuel trucks went up in flames, tanks were set on fire and trucks and staff cars mercilessly gunned down. Just after dark on the 24th, 442 RAF Halifaxes and Lancasters pounded German airfields at Dusseldorf, Essen and Bonn-Hangelar. Another 94 British bombers smashed the railyards at Cologne–Nippes. ULTRA confirmed the damage: ‘Air attack on Cologne 1725–1837 hours 24 December. Four traffic installations and one ammunition train hit. Stretch of line Cologne–Neuss closed. Nippes marshalling yard hit. Entire superstructure destroyed. Repairs will take 5–6 days.’ Reichsmarschall Hermann Göering claimed it was easy to make quick repairs to bombed airfields: ‘race between the shovel and the bomb.’ Nevertheless, despite the enormous American and British assaults, the Luftwaffe fought back. They sent up 1,088 sorties. The American air commanders were pleased. Major General Hoyt Vandenberg, commanding Ninth Air Force, said, ‘We’ve been trying for months to make them come up. Now we’ve got them where we want them.’ In fact the Allied air force battlefield sorties for Christmas Eve totalled 1,138, absolute parity with the Luftwaffe. Hauptmann Diether Lukesch had been ordered to make his new jet-bomber Einsatzstaffel of KG76 ready for Wacht am Rhein. His single-man Arado 234s were moved on 18 December to Munster-Handorf. Each bomber carried a single SC-500 1,108 lb bomb loaded with Trialen high explosive. With a speed of 560 mph (100 mph faster than any Allied plane), Lukesch’s nine jet bombers had no difficulty penetrating the Allied fighter screen. Their targets were the rail complexes at Liège and Mamur. Lukesch attacked a factory complex at Liège, ‘in a shallow dive from 13,000 feet releasing my bomb at 6,500 feet. Our airplanes flew individually in a loose trail. They were fast enough to avoid fighters in a dive and carried no defensive armament.’ The first four flights of Arados – two on 24th, two on 25th – were all successful. A British Tempest hit one, which crashlanded in Holland. 9 Staffel was a mere pinprick to the Allies but clearly showed the immense potential and superiority of its tiny jet-bombers.

Fig 26.1 A B-26 Marauder of 9th on a forward USAAF aerodrome being cleared of snow and Ice (FRA 102204 IWM) At his HQ at Munstereifel, Generalfieldmarshal Model wrote his report at night on Christmas Eve to the Führer and the OKW: ‘The enemy air force employment on 24 December reached its former zenith [Normandy]. While the focus of the four-engine formations was the rail installations and traffic targets in the Eifel and the area of Cologne–Bonn the enemy fighter-bomber attacks went on almost incessantly over the attack points, as well as the German march and supply routes. On the other hand, flak and German fighters shot down countless enemy planes, but were not able to bring the necessary relief in the front battle area. Because of the attacks on roads, railroad stations and rail installations, which then led to countless blockages on roads, we can expect considerable disruption of transport. Accelerated repair of areas and roads which have been incapacitated must be taken care of immediately using all forces and even summoning up the population for assistance.’ On Christmas Day, early morning fog soon cleared up and US Ninth Air Force had another field day with 1,920 sorties. The battle front and rear areas

of Heeresgruppe B were hit by 1,700 fighters and about 820 medium and heavy bombers. They claimed the destruction of 99 AFVs, 813 trucks and 24 enemy aircraft shot down. The Eighth US Air Force continued to pound German communications centres and 422 bombers dropped over 1,000 tons on eleven hapless villages on the German border. They were escorted by 460 P-51 fighters. Captain Charles Cesky went on a rampage in his P-51 Mustang north of Maastricht. In a matter of minutes he and his wing-man shot down four FW-190s. The 2nd TAF Operational Research Section later made a detailed study of ground claims compared to actual damages in the hundreds of fighter-bomber attacks in the Ardennes. They found that only one in ten of enemy panzer tanks was actually knocked out or destroyed, and for enemy motor (thin skinned) transport only one in five was actually destroyed! The greatest effort on Christmas Day was made by XIX TAC which recorded 596 sorties and around Bastogne General Otto Weyland’s fighter-bombers claimed 766 vehicles, 74 tanks and AFVs and 71 gun positions. Press Correspondent Demaree Bess travelled from Arlon towards Bastogne with Patton’s 4th Armoured division. From a hill overlooking the day’s battle he wrote, ‘The panorama of ground and aerial warfare staged with all the perfection of a Hollywood Pageant. The rolling plains of Belgium stretched for several miles dotted with frequent patches of evergreen woods. On Christmas Day the countryside was idyllic in its beauty – the ground white with fine snow contrasted with the dark green of pine and cedar clumps. Then behind us came the roar of planes. They passed almost over our heads – a flight of fighter bombers and then turned in a diving attack upon the silent village. One after another they dropped their bombs and were far up in the air again, soon out of sight. Great clouds of smoke and bursts of flame rose from the picturesque little houses … We saw a column of tanks advancing upon the village …’ 368th Fighter Group helped halt the 2nd SS Panzer division around Manhay, despite a clever new tactic. They moved their main equipment off the roads and left a few worthless cars sitting on side roads as bait for the hungry Jabos! The bombers turned the small towns of St Vith, Gerolstein and Bitburg into Mondlandschaft – lunar landscapes. Nevertheless, the Luftwaffe made 600 battlefield sorties on the 25th. ‘Maestro’ Captain James Parker enjoyed his Christmas Day. He called down strikes on Lutrebois, Sibret, Assenois, Sainlez, Bourcy, Lutremange and Noville. 15th Panzergrenadier and 26th Volksgrenadier divisions had a

miserable festive season. The intrepid 406th Fighter Group claimed 156 vehicles torched, as well as 16 tanks and 21 half-tracks destroyed. Most of the Allied air forces managed to get a Christmas dinner of turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce and for the men of 226 Squadron, with their French chef, there was ‘much dining, wining and inebriation’. The indomitable little General Fritz Bayerlein had an unhappy Christmas Day. Part of his Panzer Lehr division was trapped ahead. His Corps Commander, von Luttwitz, had ordered him early on Christmas Day to move from Rochfort to retake Humain and Buissonville, thus reopening the shortest route westwards. He sent a Kampfgruppe toiling up the valley of the Lesse river towards Celles, with fifteen tanks, Panzergrenadiers and support troops. Through Troisdorf to Humain the Panzer Lehr columns were tormented by P38 Lightnings of 370th FG and rocket-firing Typhoons of the British 83 Groups. His tank repair workshop at Birresborn was bombed flat. The road to Champion was littered with blackened, gutted supply vehicles. At Buissonville the Jabos swept down again. In mid afternoon at his rear HQ in St Hubert his staff had decorated the HQ hotel to capture a little of the Christmas spirit. He was told that his supply units had been ejected from their billets in Hives, south of La Roche, by Leon Degrelle and his group of Belgian ‘Quislings’, who were trying to set up a ‘stooge’ government in reconquered territory! ULTRA picked up a message to the Luftwaffe from OKW: ‘main task is protection of spearheads and flanks … avoid engaging four-engined aircraft and concentrate on freeing attacking forces by preventing Allied low-level tactical bombing strikes … revision of tactics avoiding large unwieldy battle formations, splitting up instead into formations of 12–15 aircraft for combing the front area … attempt to extract last ounce from pilots, appeal to honour, denunciation of lack of zest, injunctions to continue even with misfiring engines and faulty drop tanks on pain of court-martial … further mobilisation of night-fighters for ground-strafing.’ Major George Preddy was the leading ace of Eight Air Force, credited with 26 enemy aircraft destroyed plus many probables and ground kills. His Mustang called ‘Cripes a ‘Mighty’ was shot down by ‘friendly fire’. A Quad50 of the 12th AA Group near Liège fired at what the gunner thought were two ME-109s flying low and strafing ground targets. The Luftwaffe had made a valiant effort on Christmas Day despite losing 60 planes and 49 pilots, with 13 more wounded. British bombers had razed Munich with 4 million pounds of explosives. Hitlers answer was, ‘This nightmare will soon stop. Our new jet aircraft are now in mass production.

Soon the Allies will think twice about flying over Reich territory.’ From his Adlerhorst HQ near Bad Nauheim and with von Rundstedt a mile north with OB West HQ in Ziegenberg Castle, they could both see in the sky the long white contrails of the thousand-bomber raid. The new ME-262s were unarmed bombers, not fighter planes! William Breuer, Kompagnie B of 87th Mortar Bn of LXVI Korps under General der Artillerie Walter Lucht, watched an aerial dogfight near Sadzot off the Manhay–Hotton road: As the miles-long stream of bombers was nearly overhead, bright and twinkling specks high in the sky, the initial elation the mortar men felt on the ground quickly was replaced by a chilling surge of concern. From out of the bright sun, a swarm of ME-262 jet fighters [sic] pounced on the American bombers and the ultra-high speed Luftwaffe planes promptly began knocking Flying Fortresses and Liberators out of the sky. Several bombers, burning brightly, plunged to the earth with their crews … There were no parachutes. The P-47 Thunderbolt and P-51 Mustang fighters that were accompanying the four-engined craft sought in vain to protect the bombers from their tormentors, but the speedy new jet fighters simply flew faster … The sky was filled with pieces of destroyed American bombers which were tumbling and spinning downward in a crazyquilt pattern – part of a wing here, a portion of a fuselage there, a tail assembly twisting and turning in grotesque movements … Criss-crossing the winter skies were countless vapour trails … General der Panzergruppen von Manteuffel wrote later of the importance of power in the air: ‘The activity of the enemy air force was decisive from 23 December. It controlled the supply route, railways and roads completely. In the same way the air superiority too had a bad immediate effect on our fighting forces. When the fair weather set in all troop movements on the battlefield had to put up with all the difficulties caused by the almost complete lack of our air force [Luftwaffe] and the superiority of the enemy airforce.’ Certainly the four Air Forces, by winning the battles of the winter sky, were probably the decisive factor in the Battle of the Bulge.

chapter 27

All roads lead to Bastogne

I

n the winter of 1944 Bastogne was a quiet peaceful little town of 4,000 inhabitants. On the 16 December its shops in the Grand Rue were doing their usual bustling business. It was the HQ of General Troy Middleton’s VIII Corps. A full-fledged ball had been sanctioned at the French Franciscan monastery. The next day, the local priest thundered from the pulpit, ‘Heaven has already punished the soldiers. As I speak to you, the German troops have reached Clervaux.’ Bastogne was the focal point for five major and three minor roads fanning out in all directions including the river Meuse and Liège. The little market town, built on level ground, is surrounded by wooded hills. Soon the streets were jammed with trucks and jeeps, as a long line of traffic retreating from the front arrived. Dazed, terrified stragglers, faces black with powder burns, red-eyed, often hungry and thirsty, all speaking of disaster. Some were survivors of Colonel Hurley Fuller ’s regiment from Clervaux and Wiltz. Late at night on the 16th Eisenhower agreed that the two famous US Airborne divisions, 82nd and 101st, should be sent urgently into the Ardennes, and at General Courtney Hodges’ request be allocated to the XVIII Airborne Corps. Both divisions left Rheims promptly. One would proceed to Werbomont, the other to Bastogne. Troy Middleton realised that his front was falling to pieces even though communications were dire. He was not sure whether the Airborne division coming to hold Bastogne would arrive before the onrush of the panzers. In addition, Major General William Morris GOC 10th ‘Tiger ’ division arrived in Heintz barracks, Middleton’s HQ and they agreed that the division which had

reached Luxembourg City (40 miles away) would proceed rapidly to Bastogne. The German High Command had intercepted American radio messages about the imminent arrival of the two American airborne divisions. They were rather pleased. They preferred to fight them as infantry on the ground rather than have them dropping Task Forces behind their lines and cutting off the Schwerpunkts. The pressure was very much on for Generals von Manteuffel, von Luttwitz (GOC XLVII Panzer Korps) and Bayerlein (GOC Panzer Lehr division). Their Führer, von Rundstedt and Model were urging that the timetable to reach the Meuse bridges be adhered to – and it was agreed that Panzer Lehr (which had had setbacks at Consthum and Hosingen) plus Oberst Heinz Kokott’s 26th VGD (17,000 strong crammed with young Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe troops) would be the Schwerpunkt to beat the American reinforcements into Bastogne and then join 2nd Panzer division and head for the bridges.

Fig 27.1 116 Panzer division went through Houffalize unopposed on 18 December (by Harrison Standley) (111-CC-115079: 4-101-46 NARA) Early on 18 December the curious mix of Panthers, Mark IVs, half-tracks, mortar troops, artillery grenadiers on bicycles, and Volksgrenadiers marching or in horse-drawn wagons flowed to the west, moving jerkily as traffic congestions held up the advance. Low clouds and misty rain deterred the Jabos.

On the 18th all that Troy Middleton had to defend the town were some survivors of General Cota’s 110th Infantry, three Engineer Combat battalions, a separate armoured Field Artillery battalion and CCR of 9th Armoured. Colonel Joseph Gilbreth’s CCR had not been in battle before and were now tasked with holding two roadblocks at Antoniushof (Task Force Rose) and at Fe’itsch (named Task Force Harper). Colonel Gilbreth set up the CCR HQ in Longvilly. During the 18th 2nd Panzer and 116 Panzer divisions’ advance guards overwhelmed both TFs. Task Force Booth, screening Longvilly, was also cut to pieces. The advance guard of CCB, 9th Armoured and Team Cherry (under Lt Hyduke) reached the edge of Longvilly at 7 p.m. on 18th. As Colonel Cherry passed through Mageret, General Bayerlein’s tanks were in the outskirts. ‘Bastogne must be taken, otherwise it will remain an abscess in our lines of communication. We must clean out Bastogne and then march on.’ Von Luttwitz orders were that if the town was lightly held, the panzer divisions were to attack it at once; if it were defended frontally, the tanks were to envelop and attack it from the rear; and if both these courses failed, the panzer divisions were to continue on to the river and leave the task of reducing Bastogne to the 26 VGD. Both Panzer Lehr and 2nd Panzer division had reached positions less than three miles from Bastogne by the evening of 18 December. Hitler ’s plan was for St Vith and Bastogne to be captured on Null-Tag, late on the 16th. Nevertheless, a salient of 20 miles had been made. At 10 p.m. Bayerlein had reached the Luxembourg border village of Niederwampach, 8 miles east of Bastogne. His advance guard of Panzer Lehr Division comprised 15 panzers and 4 companies of Panzergrenadiers in halftracks. General de Panzertruppe Heinrich von Luttwitz, that large, paunchy, red-faced commander of XLVII Korps, expected him to seize Bastogne by a coup de main. He had three choices: north to Longvilly on the good St Vith road, south on the equally good Wiltz road, or straight ahead on a secondary road via Mageret. The last was shorter in distance and was less likely to be defended. He made the wrong choice as the secondary road soon became a muddy lane! Panzer Lehr had missed the race to be first into Bastogne! ‘We had gotten permission from General Middleton,’ noted Lt Colonel Harry Kinnard, operations chief to the garrison commander, Brigadier General McAuliffe, ‘before he left Bastogne to stop any American units that were withdrawing through the town. We stopped every unit and we had some really good finds, some with really big artillery with plenty of ammunition in their ammo trains. As a result we were much heavier in artillery than we could

normally have expected to be. We had a portion of an armoured combat command and a CCB of the 10th Armoured Division. They were a splendid unit and full of fight. It was a luxury [for an airborne unit] to have that many tanks fighting with us. We had a super-fire tank destroyer unit, the 605th, which had the very newest tank destroyer and plenty of ammunition.’ Major Eugene Watts, whose 52nd Armoured Infantry unit of 9th Armoured division had been badly mauled, was assigned to lead Team SNAFU, ‘Situation normal, all fucked up.’ ‘We collected about 175 including guys from the 106th and 28th divisions. As more and more men came through, they downed a hot meal, cleaned themselves up and became part of SNAFU. We lived in foxholes in Bastogne. The Germans bombed the hell out of the place, their planes dropped 500 pounders at night. You had to fight the soldier ’s natural inclination to be warm and feel safe in a house. But that was not safe. It was safer in a hole. There were hundreds of people killed in Bastogne and a lot of them because they stayed in houses.’ ‘One important thing,’ said Lt Colonel Kinnard, ‘we had the town and the Germans were out there in the snow. Even our outposts had small villages where you could get a guy warm, dry his socks and feed him some hot coffee. The Germans had none of this. We simply were not going to let them run us out of the houses.’ On 18 December Middleton sited his two combat engineer regiments, the 25th and 158th, in position at Foy, Bixory, Neffe and Marvie on the roads into Bastogne from the NW, east and SE. The thin line of defences ran from Noville, 5 miles north on the road to Houffalize, to Mageret, Marvie and a roadblock about a mile south of Bastogne on the road to Arlon. Houffalize had been abandoned and this meant that the good main road north of Bastogne was only defended at Noville. General Middleton ordered his main HQ to be evacuated and moved 18 miles south west to Neufchâteau. Middleton’s HQ had left behind large stocks of supplies including a Red Cross depot, and great amounts of dough (for making doughnuts of course). Reserves of food were not too bad and the local farms supplied poultry, cattle and pigs. The three problem areas were a potential shortage of POL and ammunition, and, sadly, of surgeons, medics and medical supplies. By midday on the 18th nearly 1,000 civilians left the town, pushing carts and pulling children’s wagons loaded high with possessions. As the fighting closed in, the civilian population took to their cellars. More than 600 crowded into the boarding school of the Sisters of Nôtre Dame, which had underground corridors. The Franciscan church and the Récollets monastery, with its thick vaults of ancient cellars, provided fairly safe refuges. Despite these

precautions, during the siege 115 civilians were killed and many more injured. At the railroad station good stocks of coal were found. Electricity was being saved by a curfew at 5 p.m. On the night of the 18th, Air Force General Pete Quesada ordered 367 Fighter Group CO Colonel Ed Chickering to send ‘a top notch flight commander to act as forward air controller. Give him a jeep with a radio, a radio maintenance man and a driver and get them into Bastogne.’ An hour later Captain James Parker of the 393rd Squadron was on his way. Within three hours of arrival the Germans had cut the last road into town. On the 19th the overcast and patchy rain that had restricted operations on the preceding days became an impenetrable thick mist. Major Stuart Fuller, the ‘weatherman’ for Major General Hoyt Vandenburg, had a simple statement: ‘more mist, fog and overcast.’ And ‘on more than 100 socked-in airfields from Scotland to Brussels, an Allied Air Force of more than 4,000 planes waited for the end of von Runstedt’s conspiracy with the weather.’ Colonel William Roberts, CO of CCB 10th Armoured division, was responsible for siting three defensive road blocks to the NW and east of Bastogne. Lt Colonel Henry Cherry, CO 3rd Tank battalion and a company of 20th AIB, with a total of seventeen Shermans and ten light Stuarts, was sent via Mageret to guard Longvilly. This became Task Force Cherry and it gave Bayerlein’s Panzer Lehr probe such a difficult time that the panzer leader was convinced that very substantial defences were in front of him. Colonel Roberts also sent Major William Desobry with a task force totalling 400 men with the same mix as Task Force Cherry to the village of Noville on Highway N-15, linking Houffalize with Liège. Noville was also just within range of any US artillery groups sited in Bastogne. At 4 a.m. on 19 December a recce party was heard coming from Bourcy which was checked with hand grenades. Two hours later two German panzers arrived and promptly knocked out two of Desobry’s Shermans. Through thick early morning fog more German tanks accompanied by Panzergrenadiers appeared and, this time, two German Mark IVs went up in flames. About 10.30 a.m. the fog lifted and on the high ground to the north and north east were, rather frighteningly, about 50 or 60 panzers. Colonel von Lauchert’s 2nd Panzer division had arrived in strength, intent on bypassing Bastogne and heading for Liège. Suddenly a platoon of SPs of the 609th TankDestroyer battalion raced into the village of Noville, deployed and with the Shermans quickly hit nine out of fourteen panzers on the ridge to the north, setting three on fire. By midday Desobry’s Task Force had knocked out a total of nineteen Panzers for the loss of one SP tank destroyer, four small vehicles

and thirteen men wounded.

Fig 27.2 Olin Dows’ picture of 327 Glider Infantry lining up for ‘chow’ in Hemroulle, north-west of Bastogne (111/C-20711: 4-198-46 NARA)

Fig 27.3 Bastogne: command centre in cellar (111-C-103429: 4-311-46 NARA)

Desobry later wrote, ‘We could hear in the darkness a large number of German tanks manoeuvring off the road and to the north. We all stood around the town listening to this horrendous, raucous noise of tracks going round. Just before daylight we got hit again. We pulled in all of our outposts and buttoned up for the fight. We didn’t know what we were fighting, maybe a reinforced tank battalion. By three o’clock in the afternoon we knocked out thirty-two German tanks that we could see, plus the half-tracks. When daylight came we noted the town [Noville] was in low ground surrounded by high ground on three sides. The Germans really had a shooting gallery. Because of the fog some of the attacks were fought at ranges of twenty-five to fifty metres up to 1,200 metres.’ Gefreite Guido Gnilsen, the radio operator in a command halftrack of 3rd Panzer Grenadier Regiment (in 2nd Panzer Division): ‘On a hill with crossroads we stopped. Here was the spearhead, the tanks were all ready to go, all lined up.’ They were waiting for petrol replenishment. ‘Then we went off along the main road to Bastogne, passing a burning Sherman and a good many knocked-out German tanks lying at the side of the road. To assist the attack were several four-barrelled AA guns on a gun carriage, also a few turretless tanks.’ When the battle was at its height Desobry called Colonel Roberts on the radio and asked for permission to withdraw to Foy. Instead Lt Colonel James La Prade’s newly arrived 1st Bn, 506th Parachute Infantry of the Screaming Eagles were sent from Bastogne to reinforce Task Force Desobry. The latter, possibly optimistically, then told Roberts, ‘I’ll get ready to counter-attack as soon as possible.’ At 2.30 p.m. the combined Task Force of tanks and paratroops attacked towards the high ground to the north and east of Noville, moving along three roads and also across open fields. It was a brave effort but disastrous. The tanks were stopped within 500 yards. A few of the paratroops reached the lower slopes of the ridges and were pinned down. In mid afternoon Colonel von Lauchert’s force counter-attacked with two columns of sixteen tanks each and a battalion of Panzergrenadiers. The smoke of burning vehicles and evening fog screened the desperate fighting in and around Noville. In the darkness an 88mm shell hit the American command post, killing La Prade and badly wounding Major Desobry. The remaining eight Shermans stayed in the centre of the ruined village. At dawn on Wednesday 20th the perimeter was still just intact. Colonel Roberts was now second in command to Brigadier General McAuliffe and had two responsibilities besides overall charge of the armour. His garrison reserve consisted of two teams. The remnants of Team Cherry with eight Sherman tanks, and another, the survivors of Team Desobry with

fifteen light Stuart tanks and four tank destroyers. In addition, he had a force of sixteen half-tracks each with four .50 machine-guns. When the 105mm artillery pieces were running very low of shells, Roberts sent Captain McCloskey with three tanks and two half-tracks south towards Arlon to try to bring back supplies of shells. Within a mile all five vehicles were knocked out. CCB, 10th Armoured, still had 30 tanks left, and Team O’Hara’s force was still intact. And Team Pyle, under Captain Howard Pyle, had located 14 Shermans in Neufchâteau plus 60 armoured infantrymen from 9th Armoured division’s CCR. General Middleton refused to allow a withdrawal back to Foy: ‘If we are to hold Bastogne we cannot keep falling back,’ he said. Colonel von Lauchert’s artillery now caught up and plastered the task force survivors. His panzers and Panzergrenadiers then attacked south and cut off the Americans. Finally Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, now in command of the Bastogne garrison, gave permission for the Noville survivors to retire straight down the main road into the Bastogne defence perimeter. Fortunately fog came down and screened the retreating column. The parachute troops had lost 212 men in twenty-four hours, and Team Desobry lost 16 AFVs and 200 men. The great 2nd Panzer division had lost 20 tanks, with a further 25 damaged, and the equivalent of a battalion of Panzergrenadiers. Gebreite Guido Gnilsen wrote of the action of 20 December, ‘Out of the smoke came our grenadiers retreating as fast as they could with frightened looks on their faces. Tank No. 4 was also withdrawing, so we did. Our commander Major Monschau was wounded and evacuated. The adjutant, Captain Goricke, took over 112th Battalion and our Signals Officer, Leutnant Bepp took over “A” Company as its CO was wounded.’ Gnilsen saw in the Hotel de Ville in Noville ‘all our men who had been killed, lying in rows. The fighting around Noville was without doubt the most terrible part of the war for me, in a few hours we had lost twenty tanks and half of the Panzergrenadier regiment. Our battalion was now only at company strength and we had lost all our senior officers. The tired and weary grenadiers who had not had time to sleep for days took part in the push for Foy. Now we were standing in the twilight in a street where the AMI’s artillery was pounding us constantly. But our destination was not Bastogne but the Meuse. So we moved further west and after a long drive came to Harsin – and then Hargimont.’ Colonel William Roberts had also organised two other ‘scratch’ task forces, mainly from CCB of 10th Armoured. Lt Colonel James O’Hara, with 30 tanks

and 500 men, was tasked with the defence of Wardin, 2 miles SE of Bastogne, guarding the Wiltz road. Lt Colonel Henry Cherry, with a similar force of tanks and infantry, was tasked with the defence of Longvilly, 4 miles east of Bastogne. Cherry’s HQ was in Neufchâteau, 2 miles west of Mageret. Captain Ryerson and Lt Hyduke were responsible to Cherry for two outpost road blocks. But at 2 a.m. on Tuesday 20th the Panzer Lehr had captured Mageret, effectively cutting off Team Cherry. Colonel Roberts then agreed that Longvilly too would be yielded. The retreat was a small disaster. Cherry’s force included elements of the CCR of 9th Armoured as well as from CCB of 10th Armoured. The narrow road west from Longvilly was badly jammed and it took an hour for the main Team Cherry to move one mile back to the edge of Mageret. Attempts to outflank the village failed and a long line of vehicles blazed from heavy shellfire. Two hundred, were knocked out.

Map 7 General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel enveloped Bastogne with his 5th Panzer Army, and, despite a viscious siege lasting three weeks,

failed to capture the vital town

Fig 27.4 Bastogne: 101 Airborne division message centre, in basement of barracks, north-west edge of town (by Olin Dows) (111-CC-107537: 4-308-46 NARA) At 2 p.m. Lt Hyduke’s rearguard was destroyed by a triple German attack. The 26th VGD moved from Oberwampach, the Panzer Lehr moved from Benonchamps towards Longvilly, and 2nd Panzer division sent six deadly SP 88mm guns from Chilfontaine. Within an hour all of Team Cherry’s AFVs were destroyed. Colonel Cherry’s HQ was shelled and burned down. Late on Sunday both Task Forces Rose and Harper were overwhelmed at Antoniushof and Fe’itsch. Lt Colonel Julian Ewell, the commander of 501st Parachute Infantry, 101 Airborne, a blunt-spoken, wiry man, had arrived at his assembly area 3 miles west of Bastogne at midnight on 18 December. Ewell’s paratroops marched through a countryside of grassy fields, over long gently rolling ridges, like those that overlooked Noville, running from north to south, topped by dense forests of pine trees and dotted with ‘hamlets’ and clusters of farm buildings. It was the first ‘Screaming Eagle’ formation to arrive from Camp Mourmelon! He reported to the ‘rump’ of VIII Corps HQ in the Heintz barracks in Bastogne. General Troy Middleton and Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe, the interim commander of 101st Airborne, were both there. On

their first day in action Ewell’s three battalions had a dreadful start. One was repulsed at Neffe, another occupied Bixory but was repulsed in the thrust on Mageret and the third suffered a repulse at Wardin. And a battalion of 506 Parachute Infantry was practically wiped out at Noville. Many paratroops had arrived short of helmets, weapons, coats, overshoes and ammunition. Some cadged helmets, rifles and ammunition from the HQ troops and logistical units of VIII Corps as they were retreating to a safer town! The 101st Airborne division was suited to all-round defence. There were four infantry regiments (501st, 502nd, 506th Parachute IRs, 327th Glider IR) backed up by three battalions of 75mm pack howitzer artillery and a battalion of 105mm howitzers. The total divisional strength was about 11,600 (14,250 in a normal infantry division). In all there were 130 artillery pieces ensconced in the town defences, including 420, 755 and 969 Armed Field Artillery battalions, plus 36 brand new SP tank destroyers. Lt Colonel Clifford Templeton commanded 705th TD Bn equipped with the M18 GMC Hellcat with its effective MIAIC 76mm gun. Brigadier McAuliffe, the de facto commander of the Bastogne garrison went to see General Troy Middleton in the evening of 20 December. He was confident he could hold Bastogne for at least 48 hours even if he was completely cut off. Middleton was able to inform McAuliffe that Major General Hugh Gaffey’s 4th Armoured division, from Patton’s US Third Army, was on its way. At 6 a.m. on 22 December they crossed their start line from Habay-la-Neuve to Niedercolpach and started to move up the main Arlon to Bastogne road. Team Cherry and CCR 9th Armoured incurred heavy losses in the Mageret– Longvilly road and, with the earlier Task Force losses at Antoniushof and Fe’itsch, CCR virtually ceased to exist. Team Cherry lost 175 casualties, 17 tanks and 17 half-tracks. The gallant 110th Infantry of 28 ‘Keystone’ division lost 2,750 officers and men, wounded, captured and killed – virtually the entire regiment, and all its vehicles. Company B of 103rd combat Engineers, 109th Field Artillery, 707 Tank Bn, 630 Tank-Destroyer Bn were all virtually wiped out in the initial defence of Bastogne. After Noville fell, the 2nd Panzer division was able to swing north of the town to get on to the Marche–Bastogne road and head for the Meuse. The Panzer Lehr division moved round the southern outskirts and headed for St Hubert, 16 miles due west of Bastogne. Oberst Heinz Kokott’s 26 VGD with its three battalions plus a regiment of Panzergrenadiers loaned by Panzer Lehr, plus Kampfgruppe task force under Major Rolf Kunkel were now tasked with the capture of Bastogne on 21 December. Generals von Manteuffel and von

Luttwitz were optimistic because the leading force of General Ernest Brandenberger ’s Seventh Army had arrived. The 5th Parachute division was now in the process south of Bastogne of blocking the highways from Arlon and Neufchâteau. On the 21st and 22nd Kampfgruppe Kunkel caused the heaviest fighting to the west of the town around Villeroux and Senonchamps, Team Pyle acted as a mobile defensive force as did another extempore, Team Browne with 420th Armoured Field Artillery Battalion. The US 771st Artillery battalion were overrun and the gunners abandoned their pieces and fled. But the other two corps artillery battalions, the 755th and the 969th, withdrew in good order to Senonchamps. Snow fell before daylight on the 22nd. Kunkel made three more furious attacks on the two villages but failed to take them. The American artillery power was crucial but rationing was imposed on the 22nd of ten rounds per gun per day. And the American wounded filled two aid stations in a church and a garage. Von Manteuffel’s armour would have had a clear run to the Meuse bridges at Narnur and Dinant if, on 19 and 20 December, the 2nd Panzer division, 26th VGD and Panzer Lehr division had pushed harder. Bastogne’s garrison when Middleton’s HQ was still there could have been swept aside. It took Panzer Lehr and 2nd Panzer three days to work around the town. Moreover von Manteuffel had to pull back the 116th Panzer division east of the Ourthe again so that 2nd Panzer could skirt around the northern edge. On 21 December patrols inside the town discovered that every road leading into Bastogne was blocked by the enemy. When the siege started the garrison numbered 18,000 and there were still 3,500 civilians left in the town. ‘The Ardennes was different,’ noted Captain Wallace Swanson, CO A Company 502nd Parachute regiment of the ‘Screaming Eagles’, after arrival in the town. ‘After initial offensive action we worked at improving our defensive line. There was a basic problem of fog and darkness at times. The bitter cold weather [zero degrees] meant mechanical gun parts of rifles and machine-guns had to be kept free of moisture from hands or breath. Otherwise these liquids would freeze on the weapons. Even though they had been warned and the NCOs constantly told them to be careful, more than once soldiers found themselves with unusable weapons. Men told me it was a weird, hopeless feeling when they could not use their rifles or machine-guns.’ At 11.30 a.m. on the 22nd Sgt Oswald Butler, 327 Glider Infantry in an outpost 3 miles south of Bastogne, noticed four German soldiers approaching, carrying makeshift white flags. An artillery major and a medical captain from Panzer Lehr explained that they wanted to communicate with the commander of

the American garrison in Bastogne. General von Luttwitz, GOC XLVII Korps, had, without consulting his Army commander, von Manteuffel, sent in an ultimatum, one copy in English, another in German: ‘To the USA commander of the encircled town of Bastogne. The fortune of war is changing. This time the USA forces in and around Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armoured units. More German armoured units have crossed the river Our near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St Hubert by passing through Homores–Sibret–Tillet. Libramont is in German hands. There is only one possibility to save the encircled USA troops from total annihilation: that is the honourable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over, a period of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note. If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Korps and six heavy AA Battalions are ready to annihilate the USA troops in and near Bastogne. All the serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity, [signed] The German Commander.’ After discussion between McAuliffe, Colonel Joseph Harper and Lt Colonel Ned Moore, they agreed on a suitable reply: ‘To the German Commander: Nuts: the American Commander.’ Colonel Harper conducted the two German envoys to Sgt Butler ’s farmhouse outpost. There they had to explain that ‘Nuts’ freely translated meant ‘Go to Hell’. The Luftwaffe bombers again dropped their lethal load on the town that night. The USAAF drop of badly needed supplies to the Bastogne garrison was cancelled, because of ‘bad’ weather! ‘On the morning of the 23rd, the first lifting of the weather, we’ (Lt Howard Park and a flight of P-47s from 406th Fighter Group based on Mourmelon. He was now a veteran from Normandy and had been twice badly wounded. His famous red-nosed plane was called ‘Big Ass Bird II) ‘took off two abreast under a 200-foot ceiling. Flying at a fixed rate of climb for one minute, then a 180 degree turn, continued until we broke into the clear at 12–15,000 feet. We would contact ground controller, Captain James Parker, and given as much altitude as possible, we began a high speed dive towards designated targets – tanks, troops and guns – then jinxing violently away from the target. I had flown continuously since early May 1944 and had never before experienced such intense light flak. Intelligence informed us that about 700 four-barrel coaxial mount 20mm flak guns were about Bastogne. The flak tracers were like garden hoses with projectiles arcing lazily through the air towards me. Despite skill, a lot of luck was needed to escape unscathed. The flak took a toll.’ The 513th squadron of Howard Park lost seven pilots in a week. ‘Most of those

who didn’t return were recently transferred to us from the States and had no feel for the flak as those of us who dealt with it regularly.’ 513th Squadron flushed out twenty German Panzers disguised as haystacks. German flak guns in the woods NW of Bastogne were blasted. Convoys of 2 SS Panzer division SE of Manhay were strafed. Captain Bernard Sledzick flew with 514th Squadron: ‘I was in a flight of six aircraft [P-47s] that took off in the early morning hours to support the embattled 101st at Bastogne. We arrived over the town in twenty minutes and received instructions from the Ground Controller (“Ripsaw” of XIX TAC). Four of the planes led by Lt Miles Jones went down on the target with 500lb bombs and left me and my wingman, Lt Fuller, to provide top cover. Twelve ME 109s appeared in the skies above us approaching from Trier, Germany. We alerted the flight that “Bandits” were coming down on us. Ten of them went down on our four attacking the target leaving two ME-109s to attack Fuller and me.’ A furious dogfight ensued. Sledzick shot one down. Fuller disposed of the second that was on Sledzick’s tail. Two American pilots were shot down, but bailed out. ‘Lt Sickling shot down three ME-109s before the aerial battle ended. It seemed like the battle only lasted a few minutes and parachutes of downed pilots filled the sky.’ Captain James Parker was more or less ignored for the first four or five days. Then suddenly he became a hero! On the 23rd he was constantly radioing instructions: ‘As the P-47s swarmed in they could see the tracks of the German tanks leading into the woods. Napalm set the trees on fire and sent the Germans running. By the end of the day the 406th claimed destruction or damage to 97 vehicles, 11 tanks, 20 horse-drawn vehicles and 24 gun positions.’ Oberst Otto Remer, CO the Führer Begleit Panzer brigade, said, ‘Lord, let the evening come, then the battle is won.’ Operation Repulse was the drop and resupply by 24 loaded C-47s from 490th Quartermaster Unit in England of badly needed supplies into Bastogne. Of the first 21 parachute resupply aircraft to arrive all but 8 were lost to the German flak guns ringing the town. But 192 tons of ammunition, 12 tons of gasoline and 35 tons of medical supplies and provision reached the garrison. Red smoke marked the drop zone. In the period 23–28 December 962 C-47s flew in 850 tons of supplies. In the same period, the Germans shot down 19 planes and badly damaged another 50. The American Jabos forced 26 VGD to call off one attack until after dark. Oberst Ludwig Heilman, CO 5th Fallschirmjager (Parachute) division, noted, ‘At night one could see from Bastogne back to the West Wall, a single torch

light procession of burning vehicles.’ Tanks of the Panzer Lehr divison were sent scurrying for cover by Thunderbolts of 354th Fighter Group. Later Captain Parker was awarded the Bronze Star. S. Sgt Jack Agnew, Pathfinder 506 Parachute Infantry, operated a Eureka radio signal set atop a pile of bricks, with which he and his GIs guided in planes bearing vital supplies. A German 88mm shell killed eight men in a dugout next to Agnew. ‘The cold weather was the worst. We only had field jackets borrowed from an air corps Pathfinder group. We were always hungry and thirsty but existed on very little food and drink. Our Christmas dinner consisted of hot C rations, an improvement over K’s with cow beets and onions … Many of the dead on both sides lay frozen stiff where they had fallen. Burial details had problems putting them on stretchers. Where the snow was piled deep they were obliged to carry the litters shoulder-high. In spite of the German shelling we managed to guide in enough supplies to fight off the enemy. It was a great Christmas present delivered by air.’ Sgt Schuyler Jackson, Regimental HQ, Demolition Platoon 502 parachute IR earned a Purple Heart ‘when a shell landed nearby, ripped a strip off my field glasses, gave me concussion, my left arm slashed … But when I saw all the wounded, it was tough. Goddamn. I give those doctors credit. They would work for 48 hours straight taking care of Americans and Germans.’

Fig 27.5 Anti-tank gun crew near Bastogne (by Olin Dows) (111-C-20712: 4200-46 NARA)

Captain Wallace Swanson, CO Company A, 502nd Parachute IR, wrote, ‘We were at Champs in the NW perimeter of the donut-shaped defence around Bastogne. About 2.30 a.m. [Christmas Day] there was an all-out barrage, artillery, cannon, mortar and other firepower. It was raining, snowing, hailing down on our Company A positions. This was the strongest, most extensive barrage I was ever in. Their goal was to devastate our main line of resistance and around our strong-points. Regimental HQ was in Rolle Château, attacked directly. A ragbag task force was rapidly formed of cooks, clerks, radiomen and even chaplains for a defence. The regimental surgeon collected his walking wounded from the stable, the temporary hospital, issued them with rifles and led them to defensive posts adding to their numbers.’ Rifle and machine-gun fire pitched dead and wounded foot soldiers off the German tanks and into the snow. Tank destroyers and bazooka-wielding troops broke up the panzer assault. Hand-to-hand fighting in the houses of Champs followed. After several hours Captain Swanson recalled, ‘The men held their positions on Christmas Day, securing protection and the enemy who infiltrated the forward positions were taken prisoners.’ Sgt Schuyler Jackson remembered, ‘There was a bridge in front of us [near Champs], we had planted explosives but the detonator froze when they hit us on Christmas Day. Their infantry rode on the tanks and we were picking them off. I got myself a bazooka and hit one in the motor. The crew came out fighting. They did not surrender. We had to shoot them. We had originally put mines on the road but we expected the relief column. We pulled them off to the side of the road. When the German tanks came some of the commanders must have thought the road mined. They drove off on the side and exploded our mines. We had enough ammo at our spot and stopped them cold. The last tank was turning back and going up a rise. I fired the bazooka at it, and a one-in-amillion shot dropped right down the turret. Except it didn’t explode. The loader had forgotten to pull the pin on the rocket! But the tank didn’t get away. Somebody else destroyed it.’ For five days the battle raged fiercely around the town. Oberst Wolfgang Maucke arrived with a Panzergrenadier force of two battalions of Pz, two battalions of SP artillery and eighteen tanks from 15 Pz Division. He joined Oberst Heinz Kokott, whose 26 VGD with Kampfgruppe Kunkel had made half a dozen serious attacks on the garrison defences. The arrival of five colossal Ferdinand tank destroyers, with long-barrelled 88mm guns mounted on a Tiger tank chassis helped 5 FJG (Paratroop) division retake Chaumont. They also destroyed many of General Patton’s Shermans of US 4th Armoured. The

American Teams Cherry, Browne, O’Hara and Pyle helped fend off a substantial German attack at 3 a.m. on Christmas Day morning. The padres held ‘church’ services in the burning ruins of the little town. The Luftwaffe Junkers 88s bombed heavily at midnight, hitting an aid post, burying twenty patients and four officers of CCB Team Cherry in the Hotel Le Brun. General McAuliffe sent out a Christmas card with the usual words ‘Happy Christmas’. The fighting on Christmas Day was desperate since Adolf Hitler ’s latest order was to capture Bastogne on that day – or else! ‘Maestro’ James Parker brought down special USAAF bombing raids on troop concentrations in the streets of Bertogne, Morhet, Remagne, Flamierge, Salle and Givry. All were sprayed with napalm, bombs, rockets and bullet fire. The USAAF 406 Fighter Group targeted on Lutrebois, Assenois, Sainlez, Bourcy, Lutremange and Noville. The American task forces, with enormous help from the air forces and massed artillery, saved the day. General McAuliffe’s message read, ‘What’s merry about all this, you ask? We’re fighting – it’s cold – we aren’t home. All true but what has the proud Eagle division accomplished with its worthy comrades of the 10th Armoured Division, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion and all the rest? Just this. We have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the north, east, south and west. We have identification from four German Panzer divisions, two German infantry divisions and one German parachute division. These units spearheading the last desperate lunge were heading west for key points when the Eagle division was hurriedly ordered to stem the advance. How effectively this was done will be written history, not alone in our division’s glorious history, but world history. The Germans actually did surround us. Their radios blared our doom. Allied troops are counter-attacking in force. We continue to hold Bastogne. By holding Bastogne we assure the success of the Allied Armies.’ He was right.

chapter 28

Patton relieves Bastogne?

G

eneral George Smith Patton, aged 59, was almost a legend in the United States Army and had become their most brilliant and controversial fighting commander. Due to his cavalry background he was at his best in the Blitzkrieg-type of mobile armoured tactics. On 19 December at a summit meeting in Verdun, Eisenhower, Tedder, Bradley, Devers, Bedell Smith and the key SHAEF staff officers met to determine the Allied response to Wacht am Rhein. Patton and Bradley had discussed the situation the day before, in Luxembourg City, and Patton had already briefed his staff. He told them, ‘What has occurred up north is no occasion for excitement. As you know alarm spreads very quickly in a military command. You must be extremely careful in a critical situation as this, not to give rise to any undue concern among the troops. Our plans have been changed. We’re going to fight but in a different place [not east to penetrate the Siegfried Line]. Also we are going to have to move very fast. We pride ourselves on our abilities to move quickly. But we’re going to have to do it faster now than we’ve ever done before … and whatever happens we will keep on doing as we have always done, killing Germans wherever we find the “sons-of-bitches”.’ Patton promised that he could get three of his divisions on the move north towards Bastogne on the morning of 21 December. Lt Colonel Charles Codman, Patton’s aide, recalled, ‘Within an hour everything had been thrashed out – the divisions to be employed, objectives, new Army boundaries, the amount of our own front to be taken over by [General Devers] Sixth Army Group – and virtually all of them settled on

General Patton’s terms.’ Two of Patton’s three Corps were to be extricated for a counter-attack into the Ardennes with (General) Patch’s Seventh Army taking control of most of Third Army sector in the Saar. On the 20th Patton met General Troy Middleton at Arlon and asked his advice for the start point – Arlon or Neufchâteau. It was decided that Patton would send his favourite 4th Armoured division under Major General Hugh Gaffey up the highway north from Arlon and the two infantry 26th ‘Yankee’ under Major General Willard Paul and 80th ‘Blue Ridge’ under Major General Horace McBride to clear territory on the right flank of 4th Armoured, clearing territory between the Alzette river and the Arlon–Bastogne highway. Patton’s ambition was to proceed beyond the relief of Bastogne and then roll up the front towards St Vith. Patton’s III Corps had little knowledge of the German forces ahead. The tough rather battered 5th Parachute division and 352 VGD had reached Ettelbruck. Elements of Panzer Lehr, 26 VGD and Kampfgruppe Kunkel were occupying all the small villages south and south-east of Bastogne. Patton and his staff reckoned a couple of days and they would be in Bastogne. Unfortunately the Bastogne defenders were counting on that ‘promise’. In the event Patton’s Army Corps would have two weeks of brutal fighting ahead of them. Major General John Milliken commanded the US III Corps which had arrived in Europe in September. This was his first combat action. Although it was ‘only’ 20 miles from Arlon to Bastogne, eastern Luxembourg contained rugged terrain with the two large Wiltz and Sure rivers, difficult obstacles for an armoured force advance. Both infantry divisions had fought well in the Moselle and Saar campaign.

Map 8 The Task Forces O’Hara, Cherry and Desobry helped 101st ‘Screaming Eagle’ Airborne division to hold Bastogne Major General Hugh Gaffey, CO 4th Armoured, had been Patton’s Chief of Staff from April 1944. When Major General Wood was hospitalised in early December, Patton promoted Gaffey. He was an artilleryman and won the DSM in North Africa. The division landed on Utah beach on 13 July and fought in the Cherbourg, Avranches, Lorraine and river Saar battles. It operated the usual American armoured CCA, CCB and CCR combat command structure. Since Gaffey had not commanded a full division in combat before, Patton gave him these instructions: ‘The attack should lead off with the tanks, artillery, tank destroyers and armoured engineers in the van. The main body of armoured infantry should be kept back. If stiff resistance is encountered, envelopment tactics should be used. No close-in envelopment should be attempted. All envelopments should be started a mile or a mile and a half back, and be made at right angles.’ The division’s official history records that ‘Bastogne was at the end of a 130 mile “fire call” run, the Fourth Armoured made to smash back the German winter offensive in the Ardennes. The run started at Fenetrange,

where the division was resting in the French Lorraine from exhausting battles against mud, cold and German armour east of the Saar.’

Fig 28.1 Lt General George Patton, GOC US Third Army (centre), confers with Major General Manton Eddy (left) and Major General Horace McBride (EA 44643 IWM) Patton, known to his troops as ‘Old Blood and Guts’, had instructed his chaplain thus: ‘Chaplain, I want you to publish a prayer for good weather. I’m tired of these soldiers having to fight mud and floods as well as Germans. See if we can’t get God to work on our side.’ The chaplain of course demurred, so Patton shouted, ‘Are you teaching me theology or are you the Chaplain of the Third Army? I want a prayer.’ Everyone in his Third Army received a walletsized prayer. It included the words ‘We humbly beseech Thee of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have to contend. Grant us fair weather for battle.’ The rest of the prayer contained all of Patton’s unrestrained belligerence. On 18 December, the division was in XII Corps reserve. Tankers heard vague reports of a two-day-old German offensive up in

Belgium and Luxembourg, but gave it little thought. ‘At 1700 orders were received to march north against the breakthrough. CCB was to move at midnight. At 2300 CCB was ready. Shortly before midnight, the combat command got its march route from [Patton’s Third] Army. Trucks, weapons carriers, tanks, half-tracks, armoured cars, and peeps (jeeps) jammed the roads and somehow kept moving north east. Through overcast days and blackout at night Third Army’s divisions rolled to the Western Front’s bloodiest battleground. Drivers strained blood-shot eyes at cat’s eye blackout lights on vehicles ahead. Infantrymen slept with M-1s between their knees. In the incredibly short period of two days, Third Army was on the south flank of the 40 mile penetration. The march, an average of 120 miles for Fourth Armoured troops was the longest made by any division as Third Army wheeled its front about 90 degrees with speed that appalled the Germans.’ CCA would advance along the main Arlon–Bastogne road, while CCB pushed forward on secondary roads to the west (left flank). Major Abe Baum was with the 10th Armoured Infantry Bn: ‘We were in the lead with 8th Tank Bn. The roads were frozen over, the metal tracks of tanks kept sliding badly. But we didn’t meet any resistance and we covered 151 miles in nineteen hours.’ 8th Tank Bn ‘lost’ 33 AFVs to mechanical problems en route. Captain Bert Ezell commanded a small task force from CCB of 4th US Armoured division with a company of Shermans, some armoured infantry and SP artillery. His force arrived in Bastogne on the night of 18 December. General Troy Middleton was delighted to have tank support to guard the town. Unfortunately Middleton’s VIII Corps was still part of General Hodges’ First army. Fourth US Armoured division was Patton’s favourite. Drama. A merrygo-round of telephone calls now started. Middleton to Hodges to Bradley. Bradley back to Middleton giving permission to employ all of CCB 4th Armoured ‘only if necessary to hold his positions’. At one stage five American generals were involved so Bert Ezell with his 18 Shermans entered Bastogne early on 20 December. Then the irascible General Patton ordered Task Force Ezell out of Bastogne to rejoin 4th Armoured in Arlon and help lead them 35 miles back to Bastogne! Ezell had to obey orders. On the way back to Arlon he retrieved a large number of abandoned American vehicles, some with their engines still running!

Fig 28.2 327 Glider Infantry medical aid post south of Bastogne (by Olin Dows) (111-CC-103649: 4-201-46 NARA) Fourth US Armoured faced problems at Marelange (bridge with huge bomb crater), at Burnon (5th Parachute rearguard), and at Chaumont (a real battle between CCB, plus an entire battalion of artillery, a three-prong tank assault, and a strike by Lightning bombers). Major General Kokott’s SP guns knocked out 11 Shermans and caused 65 American casualties. Another battle took place at Bigonville, and another in Warnach. In the latter CCA only took the village on Christmas Eve. After 48 hours of non-stop fighting against the 5th Parachute division strongholds, the advance stalled. Patton was furious: ‘There is too much piddling around. Bypass these towns and clear them up later. Tanks can operate on this [frozen] ground now.’ The 101st Airborne’s planning officer got through by radio from Bastogne: ‘Our situation is getting pretty sticky around here. The enemy has attacked all along the south and some Panthers and Tigers are running around in our area. Request you ask 4th Armoured to put on all possible pressure.’ But Major General Kokott was particularly angry to see the dreaded Jabos enter the battle on the 23rd. He knew that he did not have enough forces to capture Bastogne. He was worried about the pressure on 5th Parachute division screening his southern flank. ‘It is an uncomfortable feeling to have someone launching a drive to your rear. I feared 4th Armoured. I knew it was a “crack” division. I talked to General von Manteuffel on the telephone and told him I could not watch two fronts. He told me to forget 4th Armoured, that it was quiet for the moment. The only solution was to attack Bastogne, and devote all my efforts to the attack from the north west.’ The narrow hard-surfaced roads forced both Americans and panzers to stay on them and thus present easy targets for anti-tank weapons. Get off the roads and bog down and get picked off by Panzerfaust or bazookas. General Patton

optimistically sent General McAuliffe a radio message: ‘Christmas Eve present coming up. Hold on.’ On the 24th CCA were still trying to clear Warnach, 9 miles south of Bastogne. CCB had only two platoons of tanks left after the costly fight for Chaumont. Patton now admitted that his original advice to Major General Gaffey was inappropriate. The advance urgently needed more infantry, so two rifle battalions were snatched away from 80th ID on the corps right and one sent each to CCA and CCB. CCR had made little progress after capturing Bigonville, and were suddenly switched westwards to Remoiville. Their 400 vehicles travelled in a 16 mile long column, almost 30 miles at night with the moon providing the only light. The main reason was the new threat posed by the arrival of the Führer Grenadier brigade – CCR were then ordered to attack on Christmas Day Oberst Kaufmann’s 39th Grenadier regiment, which in turn was attacking the Bastogne defenders! CCA’s advance was held up at Tintange and needed eight Lightnings to clear the village. At nightfall they were then held up at Hollange, 7 miles from Bastogne. CCR’s attack foundered at Remoiville, held up by the determined paratroopers. Patton’s diary records, ‘This has been a very bad Christmas Eve. All along our line we have received violent counter-attacks, one of which forced the 4th Armoured back some miles with the loss of ten tanks. This was probably my fault because I had been insisting on day and night attacks. This is all right on the first or second day of the battle and when we had the enemy surprised, but after that the men get too tired.’ The next day was, however, different: ‘A clear cold Christmas, lovely weather for killing Germans which seems a bit queer, seeing whose birthday it is.’ Clear weather of course meant that the ferocious Jabos could see what their targets were on the ground.

Fig 28.3 General Patton’s Third US Army Shermans outside Bastogne (AP 48554 IWM) CCR was used as a clearing house – a tactical unit – shuffling or switching tank and armoured infantry battalions in and out of CCA and CCB as required. Their HQ controlled battalions requiring rest and absorbing replacements. Other US armoured divisions used their CCR as a fighting reserve unit. CCR on Christmas Eve at Neufchâteau was composed of 37th Tank Bn under Lt Colonel Abrams, 53rd Armoured Infantry battalion under Lt Colonel Jaques, plus a platoon of SP tank destroyers, and two artillery units. On Christmas Day CCR charged through Vaux-les-Rosières but their commander Colonel Wendell Blanchard was wary of the German defences at Sibret. Four battalions of artillery smashed up the hamlet of Remoiville defended by a Parachute Division rearguard. The next day, the 26th, with help from sixteen P-47s of 362nd USAAF Fighter Group, the next village of Remichampagne was captured. By 3 p.m. Colonels Abrams and Jaques’s troops were near Clochimont and, without telling their CO Colonel Blanchard, decided to make a combined dash for Bastogne on a secondary road through Assenois, thus

bypassing Sibret. Lieutenant Charles Boggess of C Company 37th Tank battalion led, and he recalled, ‘Beyond Assenois the road ran up a ridge through heavy woods. There were lots of Germans there. We were going through fast, all guns firing straight up that road to bust through before they had time to get set. Would the road be mined? Would the bridge in Assenois be blown? Were their anti-tank guns ready for us? Then we charged. Meanwhile four artillery battalions were slamming barrages into enemy held Assenois and the edge of the woods beyond.’

Fig 28.4 C-47 Douglas of IX Troop Carrier Command parachutes supplies to Bastogne garrison (EA 43216 IWM) In little Assenois a hundred German paratroopers and Volksgrenadiers surged up from the cellars and fierce hand-to-hand fighting ensued. Private James Hendrix, a 19-year-old red-haired farm boy from Arkansas, won the third congressional Medal of Honour for 4th Armoured division. With C Company 53rd Armoured Infantry Bn he silenced two enemy MG posts and rescued two wounded GIs under intense fire. On the next day 428 defenders in

Assenois finally surrendered having been pulverised by air attacks and huge artillery concentrations. In the meantime Lt Boggess with his four Shermans had burst through the village and at 4.50 p.m. on 26 December shook hands with 2/Lt Duane Webster of 326 Airborne Engineer Bn. In theory Bastogne had been relieved. In the very narrow corridor supply convoys entered the town escorted by CCR Shermans. Many wounded GIs and some German PoWs came out and limited supplies went in. The gallant 101st Airborne had lost 1,641 casualties in the siege (up to the 26th), and many more than that from CCB 10th Armoured, CCR 9th Armoured, Task Force SNAFU, combat engineers and artillery units. Patton’s 4th Armoured had suffered 1,400 casualties in four days of ‘relieving’ Bastogne. In fact Bastogne had not been relieved. Charles MacDonald, soldier in the Bulge and author, wrote, ‘As the men in and around Bastogne soon learned, the end of the siege spelled no end to the fighting. Bastogne was no longer a hole in a doughnut but a balloon on the end of a string and the string was vulnerable. In the days ahead, the defenders of Bastogne were destined to face their most severe test. Adolf Hitler was convinced that taking Bastogne was more important than ever.’ Patton’s two infantry divisions on the right flank also had a difficult advance. The villages of Arsdorf, Rambrouch, Grevels and Eschdorf were all welldefended strong-points. The 80th ‘Blue Ridge’ incurred heavy casualties in three attacks to try to clear the Germans out of Ettelbruck. Heiderscheid, Rehmen and Tadler villages were, however, taken. 352 VGD of Brandenberger ’s Seventh Army were defending a line which included Ettelbruck. 79 VGD in their first action defended another sector which included Bourscheid. 26 US ‘Yankee’ Infantry managed to force a small bridgehead over the river Sauer and 80th Infantry struggled to get up to the rear bank of the river. General Patton ordered up the US 35th ‘Santa Fe’ division under Major General Paul Baade to fill a gap between 26 and 80th Infantry. By 26 December the three controlled the countryside south of the river, held two small bridgeheads and had regained Ettelbruck.

Fig 28.5 Bastogne, snow at Christmas. 101 US Airborne troops and transport (by Harrison Standley) (111-C-18996: 4-310-46 NARA) The German 5th Parachute division under Oberst Ludwig Heilman defended Martelange, Burnon, Chaumont (where Brigadier General Holmes Dager ’s

CCB lost eleven Shermans) and Warnach, where the CCA lost 68 casualties. One 4th Armoured tanker wrote, ‘In their way these panzer-trained paratroops are saying “nuts” to us. I want to describe these bastards because some observers have underrated them. They were to be sure, inexperienced, being recently reorganised, but the fact is they didn’t act inexperienced. They were slick, savage, continuously shooting, continuously moving forward almost sullen in their bloody determination.’ The area east of the Bastogne–Arlon road was good defensive country, with numerous woods, large and thick with trees. There were many deep steep-sided ravines. The many small roads and tracks ran blindly through forests, or down into stream-gullies or curved precipitously around steep slopes. The SureSauer and Wiltz rivers were swollen with the winter rains and snow and difficult to cross. The infantry lost casualties to exposure and trench foot, even veteran divisions suffering. General Patton was appalled at the high rate of casualties in 11th Armoured, 87th Infantry and the new 17th Airborne, which he attributed to combat inexperience. In his diary for 4 January he wrote, ‘The 11th Armoured is very green and took some unnecessary losses to no effect. There were also some unfortunate incidents in the shooting of prisoners. (I hope we can conceal this.)’

chapter 29

German Seventh Army: ‘battle of attrition’

B

y 26 December General Brandenberger ’s Seventh Army was deployed in a 25-mile defensive line from south of Bastogne along the banks of the rivers Sure, Clervé and Alzette. General Kneiss’s LXXXV Corps with 5th Parachute and 352 VGD were defending furiously a dozen little villages in the path of Patton’s 4th Armoured on their way – laboriously – to Bastogne. The two newcomers, the Führer Grenadier brigade and 79th VGD, had been slotted into the line to their east, with General der Infanterie Franz Beyers’ LXXX Korps completing the defensive blocking line. The latter had eventually moved up from its earlier defensive role of the 19–20th. Their 212 VGD under General Major Franz Sensfuss was the best division in Seventh Army. 276 VGD was under General Kurt Moehring, who was replaced on his death in action by Oberst Hugo Dempwolff. General Brandenberger ’s HQ in Wiltz was Patton’s main objective after the ‘relief of Bastogne, accomplished on 26 December. Patton’s original three divisions, 4th Armoured, 26th and 80th Infantry divisions, were reinforced by the 10th ‘Tiger ’ Armoured and 5th ‘Red Diamond’ Infantry. Five strong well-equipped American divisions with overwhelming artillery and air support were tackling the six German divisions, weakened, under strength and dying briskly for their Führer. They had the advantage of the natural defences created by the small towns, villages and hamlets between Bastogne and Echternach. Gunter Munnich worked the field telephone switchboard of the 1st Bn,

Grenadier Regiment 914, 352 VGD: ‘The equipment of our five-man unit was loaded on to two infantry carts, pulled by a mule. Each of us carried a cable drum on a special back carrier. Every other man carried a case of tools for making repairs in the field, plus a long pole for laying cable in the crowns of trees and a portable field phone. The cable was of mediocre quality. The protective outer coating of impregnated cloth tore from frequent use and raindampness. Very often we used captured American cable.’ In Longsdorf on 17 December Munnich found two serviceable jeeps, and on 20th reached Ettelbruck. ‘As we pushed through the centre of town we were fired on heavily by US artillery and took cover in houses,’ and helped themselves to canned food ‘despite the steady fire. Our Feldwebel was killed by heavy harassing fire on the bridge and fell into the river Alzette. On 22 December I took part in the attack on Michelbuch and watched the destruction of a Sherman tank by a Panzerschreck group. Here was bitter close-combat fighting in the surrounding woods, leaving countless dead on both sides. On Christmas Eve we were transferred to a valley at Niederfeulen. We got our mail, a parcel from my grandmother, with two pairs of socks and a cake which my comrades and I cut up with a bayonet and ate it.’ The battalion withdrew to Diekirch and stayed there into mid January. Unteroffizier Wilhelm Stetter, 3rd Company, 1st Bn GR 915 352 VGD, took part in all the actions between the rivers Our and the Sauer. He had fought in 1940: ‘We crossed the river Aisne when a third of our company was killed.’ His first battle was in Tandel, where he fell into the ice-cold stream, the Blees. ‘Sgt Muller and his two men came running back: “Everything ahead is full of Americans”. An American MG started to bark, bullets whistled over us. Shots were heard from the side. Things got really unpleasant. Finally another command came, “Everybody back.” Back across the Blees and up the slope on the other side. There the situation really got worse. Mortars were firing at very close range. Thirty metres from me a shell exploded and wounded a few men including a prisoner. Another mortar projectile exploded three metres from me in a shallow ditch that absorbed the splinters and the pressure.’ The next action was in Bastendorf where his company was cut off in the woods. Hauptmann Konig ordered Stetter to find Battalion HQ. Eventually he did. His battalion had suffered heavy losses, some 30 severely wounded men still lying in the woods. The next village was Erpeldingen, then Burden, Warken and on 20 December, Ettelbruck. On to Grenzingen, Welsdorf, Niederfuelen and Mertzig. In Grosbous with two Hetzers (SP assault guns) supporting them and in Pratz there were two confusing furious little firefights. In Grosbous the VGD drove out a company of 109 IR of 28 Division. ‘Snow fell steadily. The

silence was uncanny. The few comrades from my company [only twelve survived] were sleeping. Only the groaning of the badly wounded men could be heard. If they didn’t die from loss of blood, they probably froze to death.’ On the attack on Pratz, ‘About 3 p.m. all hell broke loose. We lay flat in our holes to avoid the thousand flying splinters. Shells flew at us endlessly, ploughing up the ground and destroyed everything. The thunder of the shots mixed with the impacts. It was almost impossible to tell them apart. Earth and wood sprayed and hot iron splinters hissed on the ground. This inferno continued for an hour and we believed we were done for. But we survived. But the sounds we heard from over where the 2nd company had dug in sounded terrible: the crying and screaming of the wounded and the dying. Who could help them? They had been decimated from over fifty men to barely a dozen. Our company consisting of twelve men had come through this hellfire without loss, a real miracle. Now we had only the choice of fighting our way out or dying.’ That was Christmas Eve in the Ardennes. Paul Engelhardt with 8th Company GR 986 of the 276th VGD fought mainly on the left flank of 352 VGD in the Wallendorf–Grundhof area. On 23 December his battalion was in front of a farm near Beaufort. Their GOC, General Brandenberger, was unhappy with the performance even though 276 VGD succeeded in pushing back the US 60th Armoured Infantry out of Breitweiler and Beaufort. He sacked Generalmajor Moehring, the 276 VGD CO who was then killed in action trying to lead an attack on Medernach. Like other German commanders in the Ardennes, Moehring had been asked to do too much with too little. For inexperienced mainly 18-year-old Volksgrenadiers to take on massed artillery, SP guns, tanks and armoured cars was usually impossible. Engelhardt and his comrades were planning to stem an attack by ‘AMI’ armour: ‘Eight soldiers volunteered for close combat with the Panzerfaust and magnetic hollow charge. Among them were three senior soldiers with “Panzer-kills” badges. On the Eastern Front they had already won several battles in single-handed combat, man against tank. The guns were dug in deep and camouflaged. We dug bigger dugouts for the ammunition and the gun crews. Then covered them over with felled trees, moss and earth. On Christmas Eve the sun came out a little bit. The skies cleared and the first bomber squadrons of the US air fleet flew over our area, over our position on their way to bomb Bitburg. About 2 p.m. the long awaited American tank attack finally began. Our gun batteries, the heavy mortars, 88 anti-aircraft guns, artillery howitzers and our infantry guns spat fire, hurling shell after shell at the tanks that rolled towards us. When eight US tanks were put out of commission by the long barrelled 88mm AA guns, excellent for ground

combat, the spearhead of the attack collapsed.’ Christmas Day was celebrated with ‘Heilige Nacht’ and a small fir tree decorated with American aluminium strips to interfere with radar and radio transmissions, and three cigarettes per man. ‘In the darkness of 25 December, a withdrawal took place through Beaufort to Biesdorf to Echternach and Grundhof. Many of the horses that towed the field guns were wounded and had to be shot.’ From 19 December there was a deep gap between the 5th FJD (Parachute division) and 352 VGD and Oberst Hummel’s 79th VGD arrived from the Sudetenland to fill it. They travelled to Dresden, Prüm-Dasburg and arrived in Trier on 23 December. Emil Frie was an 18-year-old gunner in the 3rd Battery of Volkswerfer (Rocket) Brigade 18, attached to LXXXV Army Korps as a rocket artillery support unit. His unit went through Ettelbruck, Echternach and Diekirch and at Christmas, after several actions, was in Vianden. Even though under artillery fire he found time to have philosophical discussions with ‘our two Lieutnants, Hohne and Morell. The subject of the discussion was martial law and the shooting of hostages. I was encouraged to express my opinion of their shooting. They wanted to know how I would behave in such a situation.’ Frie was annoyed that his lieutnants could ask such a question. ‘It gave me a bad feeling, I thought of a picture by Goya called The Shooting, I expressed my view that I found it vulgar and criminal to shoot innocent people completely arbitrarily. This opinion was too daring and dangerous and aroused their mistrust. I was told very clearly that if I refused to obey an order I could be included with the hostages. I know that I became very quiet, pensive and annoyed about my impotence. I was simply speechless. Feeling revulsion, I rejected the idea … I felt very unhappy because filth, meanness and brutality came out in the open here. At that time I ranked among the many ignorant men who reassured themselves with the thought that Hitler and the highest military leaders knew nothing of such occurrences. Even in the spring of 1944, we stupid Hitler Youth boys were still drawn into the war with idealistic presuppositions and a certain amount of enthusiasm.’ Another philosophical discussion a few days later was whether the young Emil Frie, who trained as a medic and in his uniform pocket carried a white armband with a red cross, should continue to carry weapons during service as a medic, or lay down his personal weapons. ‘Even my references to the Geneva Convention were not accepted.’ Leutnant Axel Volquarts with 5th FJD Paratroops heavy mortar Battalion 5 wrote, ‘We had 36 mortars of 12cm calibre, some of them from captured Russian stocks designated sGrW 42/378 (r). We crossed the completed bridge

at Roth on 17th and followed quickly to support the three paratroop regiments. Although the heavy launcher limbers were fully mobile when towed by vehicles, the advance march took much too long for lack of fuel. Several times we even had to steal gasoline from other German units that passed us in order to move forward at all. Our mortars were used as artillery. During our actions it was not possible to have an advanced observer [of the fall of shot]. Almost all our data was transmitted by messengers, since the few telephone lines were frequently out of order for long periods. Our outmoded radio sets simply did not work. There was practically no ammunition. The 12cm shells had a very sensitive fuse. Their effect on living targets was very great.’ General Brandenberger was much alarmed when the US 26th Infantry division pushed forward towards Wiltz on the 27th. He thought that the American attacks around Marvile and Harlange could suddenly break through and trap 5th Parachute division. The attack by 26 Division was renewed on 2 January and threatened the Bastogne–Wiltz road. Brandenberger asked Model for permission to pull his troops back from Villers-la-Bonne-Eau and Harlange. Model refused: ‘Germany was now in a battle of attrition, by which the Allies would become enmeshed and ground down.’ Anyway the Führer had forbidden any withdrawals.

chapter 30

High Noon for von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army

I

t was not until 5 January that the military threat to the garrison of Bastogne was lifted, some nine days after the ‘relief on 26 December. In fact Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were the blackest 48 hours on the US First Army’s front since Null-Tag. Some of the SHAEF experts were predicting that elements of Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies would be across the Meuse within the next two days. On 4 January after the US 6th Armoured division in their first action were torn apart and the green US 17th Airborne Division was severely mauled – some battalions sustaining 40 per cent casualties – the pugnacious, optimistic General Patton wrote in his diary, ‘We can still lose this war.’ American casualties in the second half of the Battle of the Bulge (30 December–12 January) were a third higher than in the first half. The popular concept of the Ardennes battle is that the Americans had a terrible time (which they did) in the first two days of total surprise, then day by day things got better! They did not! It was still the German Fifth Panzer Army’s Führer ’s orders to seize the Meuse bridges (with a little bit of help from ‘Sepp’ Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer), and capture Bastogne. General von Manteuffel wrote, ‘On the 20th I went forward myself with the Panzer Lehr division, led it round Bastogne, and pushed on to St Hubert on the 21st. The 2nd Panzer division pushed round the north of Bastogne. To cover

these bypassing advances, I masked Bastogne, using the 26th Volksgrenadier Division to surround the town with the help of a Panzer grenadier regiment from the Panzer Lehr. The 58th Panzer Corps meanwhile pressed on through Houffalize and La Roche after momentarily swinging north to threaten the flank of the resistance that was holding up the 66th Corps near St Vith and help it forward. Even so, the masking of Bastogne entailed a weakening of my strength for the forward drive and thus diminished the chances of us reaching the Meuse at Dinant. Moreover the 7th Army was still back on the Wiltz which it had not been able to cross. The 5th Parachute division, on its right, came through my sector and pushed forward close to one of the roads running south from Bastogne, but was not across it.’

Map 9 Detailed sketch plan of General Patton’s 4th US Armoured division advance and actions to relieve Bastogne On Christmas Eve six German panzer formations were thrusting for the Meuse, 2nd Panzer and Panzer Lehr pushing past Marche, 116 Greyhound Panzer trying to get across the Hotton–Marche highway towards the Condroz

plateau, 2nd SS Panzer and 9 SS Panzer trying to get on to the Condroz plateau from the river Ourthe valley, 9th Panzer coming up to help at Marche and the Führer Begleit brigade was threatening the bridge at Hotton. Admittedly the powerful and destructive Kampfgruppe Peiper had been corralled in the Amblève valley and 12th SS Panzer were badly mauled at the Elsenborn Ridge battle. Field Marshal Montgomery knew that all these panzer formations, except 9th Panzer, had taken losses from ground and air interdiction. He was unaware of their fuel status which ULTRA decrypts picked up, almost daily. Although the panzer armies had failed to spot and capture the two largest US fuel dumps, they were obviously getting regular fuel top-up supplies along their wide corridor back to Germany, at night of course to avoid the dreaded Jabos. ULTRA detected that on 23 and 24 December the Schwerpunkt of the panzer columns around Foy–Nôtre Dame–Celles and Conjoux were virtually all out of fuel. The USAAF and British TAFs continued to dominate the battlefields. Unfortunately US Lightnings bombed CCB 3rd US Armoured near Grand Menil and Manhay, and smashed up 120th Infantry regiment in Malmédy. There were then three frenetic battle areas in the last week of 1944. In the eastern sector 82nd Airborne, US 7th Armoured, US 3rd Armoured, 84th ‘Railsplitters’ and the CCA and CCR of US 2nd Armoured in a whole series of vicious, scrappy little battles were taking on 2nd SS Panzer, 560 VGD, 116 Greyhound Panzer, Panzer Lehr and the 9th Panzer. Around Bastogne CCA 9th Armoured retook Sibret to open a second corridor, the Neufchâteau road into the town. Chenogne, Villeroux, Senonchamps, Sainlez and Livarchamps were village strong-points which were captured and recaptured in the week starting on Christmas Day. General von Manteuffel was determined to break through the two corridors into Bastogne. He wrote, ‘On the evening of 25 December typical orders arrived from Hitler, instructing Fifth Panzer Army to use all available forces to seize the heights around Marche’ (in the drive for the Meuse). However, von Rundstedt and Model, reading the battlefield situation more realistically than their Führer, quietly decided to shorten their line and regroup; 2nd SS Panzer, 9th Panzer and 116th Panzer up at the ‘sharp end’ were to appear to be attacking from the river Ouerthe sector. In reality they were adopting defensive tactics. They put into effect the Führer command to take Bastogne come what may. A Kampfgruppe of about fifty tanks was formed from the remains of 1st SS Leibstandarte plus 3rd Panzer Grenadier division and would move from the north towards Bastogne. The Führer Begleit brigade was brought back over the

river Ourthe into the Bastogne sector. General Model’s war diary for the 26 December read, ‘On the entire front there was the heaviest enemy low-flying attacks with a focus on Fifth Panzer Army which made movement and supply on the battlefield nearly impossible for the whole day. An Offizier sent by the General Inspector der Panzertrupper has reported considerable destruction of vehicles as a result of low-flying attacks. The Luftwaffe could only offer localised and temporary relief in the face of massive use of enemy aircraft over the battle zone.’

Map 10 Genera! Patton’s III Corps advance towards Bastogne and Wiltz. The German 7th Army under General Erich Brandenberger stubbornly defended the line of the river Süre

Fig 30.1 Gls of 3rd US Armoured division cook their rations on a wood fire near Manhay, 28 December, with an M-10 tank destroyer in the background (EA 49160 IWM)

Fig 30.2 La Roche by Harrison Standley (111-CC-103616: 4-115-46 NARA)

Rochefort was the very tip of Wacht am Rhein with the southern flank running through St Hubert, Wiltz and Ettelbruck to the river Sauer facing Patton’s US Third Army. The northern flank ran from Marche–Hotton–Soy– Amonines–Baraque de Fraiture–Vielsalm and St Vith. Field Marshal Montgomery had told Eisenhower that he had little confidence that General Patton’s attack into the southern flank would be strong enough to deter the advance of the Fifth Panzer Army towards the Meuse. In which case, perhaps a trifle arrogantly, he would be left to deal ‘unaided’ with both Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies. The German defences were surprisingly strong in front of Patton’s forces and progress was slow. In the northern sector ULTRA picked up a message that ‘the Germans are continuing build up Marche area and to west where Second Panzer Division halted along line Dinant–Ciney road!’ Fierce encounters took place at Humain, Havrenne, Buissonville, Verdenne and Rochefort. General Boiling’s ‘Railsplitters’ did well to counter-attack and retake Verdenne. General Siegfried Waldenburg, GOC 115 ‘Greyhound’ Panzer division, lost 600 PoW in their efforts to capture Menil and Verdenne. His last offensive action was swamped by three battalions of field artillery who poured down over 2,000 high explosive shells on the Panzergrenadiers. By Friday 22nd Oberst Meinrad von Lauchert, CO 2nd Panzer division, had lost 44 tanks including six Tigers and about a battalion of Panzergrenadiers in the first battles of Wacht am Rhein. But he still had 44 tanks and 25 SP tank destroyers. He reported back, ‘Our parachutists and Greif commandos have sown panic in the Allies’ rear areas. Enemy morale seems strongly shaken. Since our fight at Noville we have encountered only weak resistance easily overcome – except south of Marche today. Enemy planes have been little active. The Luftwaffe has not yet intervened in the battle. Revictualling and refuelling is insufficient and irregular, strongly restraining the tactical mobility of the division. We will continue our advance along the axis Buissonville, Chapois, Conneux with our main force. We will put in a roadblock at Leignon [NW of Chapois] awaiting our promised flank guard. We will occupy the zone Celles, Conjoux and prepare to cross the Meuse at Anseremme [a railway bridge 1½ miles from Dinant].’ Von Lauchert was an excellent, tough experienced commander of the ‘old’ school of career officers and drove his men hard. During the night of 23/24 he sent his spearhead led by a Skorzeny Kommando Greif team in a jeep, followed by the recce regiment, a battalion of Panthers, a regiment of PzGr and the divisional artillery to reach Dinant. British tanks and artillery halted 2nd Panzer 5 miles from Dinant. They

had come 60 miles in eight days and now they were out of fuel. Gefreite Guido Gnilsen of 2nd Pz Div: ‘As Christmas Eve approached we put pickets all around the town [Hargimont]. We hoped for a bit of peace over Christmas. However, the AMIs came down from the high ground and tried to get at us from all sides but we drove them back. Our Sergeant Tonnebohm was very badly hit. They wrapped him in a tent cover and took him with four others to the Command Post. It was a wonderful Christmas Day, the sun was shining and it was very quiet. We moved further west, the convoy making a hell of a lot of noise – no wonder the enemy artillery was landing shells right in the middle. Lieutnant Baier was wounded and Sergeant-Major Schmeltzer took over the company. It was a wonder we got through the barrage and on the 26th we pushed to the furthest point west [Dinant 9 kms on the road sign]. The tanks were stranded at Celles – no petrol and the enemy was preparing to surround us. The fighting went on for three days, then came the fighter bombers to give us the last push backwards. The Ardennes offensive was lost. For two days we were still fighting in Rochefort with the Americans advancing from all sides. The infantry in their foxholes in the snow and ice pushing back every attack. So ended the year 1944.’ The American generals still resented Field Marshal Montgomery’s decision to build up General Collins’s VII Corp as his strike force to the north-west flank of the Bulge. Montgomery did not believe that the First Army front was stable enough to permit piecemeal counter-attacks. Generals Bradley, Patton, Hodges and Bedell Smith were unanimous: ‘Montgomery was throwing away an opportunity to inflict a devastating defeat on the enemy.’ Bradley of course wanted ‘his’ First and Ninth Armies returned to him immediately. He urged General Hodges, Collins and Major General Ernest Harmon (GOC US 2nd ‘Hell on Wheels’ division) to look for an opportunity to attack ‘as soon as possible’, the direct contradiction to Montgomery’s policy. Charles MacDonald tells the convoluted story very well in his book The Battle of the Bulge. The end result? Harmon was encouraged to act offensively on the 24th when he saw 2nd Panzer more or less motionless in front of him. ‘Old Gravel Voice’ Harmon, a highly experienced armoured commander, to his credit sent off his CCB, CCA and CCR in enveloping movements around Boisselles, Foy, Nôtre Dame, Bois de Geauvelant and Celles. Aided by RAF Typhoons, 2nd Panzer, still more or less fuel-less, were torn apart by the 26th. They lost 1,500 casualties and 82 tanks and 83 assault guns were left on the battlefield – most of them without fuel. It was a notable victory, nevertheless, for ‘Hell on Wheels’. The spearhead of Hitler ’s Ardennes offensive was over.

The German counter-attack around Bastogne and against the two corridors had driven a wedge two miles wide and two miles deep into the eastern flank. The OKW war diary recorded, ‘A report from Army Group B at 1215 hours [31 December] again described the ferocity of the fighting around Bastogne. The western attack group [3 PzGr and Führer Begleit] cannot advance any further without the support of the eastern group [Liebstandarte and 167 VGD]. The eastern group has indeed resumed the attack but can only gain a little ground. The deployment of artillery will bring some relief. The forces so far committed appear to be insufficient to achieve the assigned objective.’ General Patton wrote in his diary dated 30th, ‘These repulses were largely aided by the action of XIX Tactical Air Command which was able to fly most of the day [690 sorties] despite very bad weather. The 101st [Airborne] also repulsed a counter-attack from the NW. Unquestionably this was the critical day of the operation, as there was a concerted effort on the part of the Germans, using at least five divisions to again isolate Bastogne.’ Despite the severity of the fighting and the desperate German defences, Patton insisted that General Milliken’s III Corps continued its attack towards St Vith. The failure to break the American corridors into Bastogne convinced General von Manteuffel that the capture of the town was now not possible. Lest his spearheads be trapped he appealed to Field Marshal Model for permission to fall back on a line based on Houffalize. General von Luttwitz, whose troops had suffered so much and still had forward troops at risk, lent his support. The presence of a British division near Rochefort indicated more pressure. It was the usual story. Model approved but had no authority to sanction withdrawal. The Führer promised reinforcements for another major attack on 4 January.

Fig 30.3 Abandoned enemy equipment of 2nd Panzer division, out of fuel near Celles (B 13244 IWM)

chapter 31

War in the air: Christmas Day to New Year’s Day

T

he Ninth Air Force groups that had left their comfortable ‘digs’ in England found their shabby tents in Belgium or France rather primitive. The more fortunate were housed in old German Wehrmacht or Luftwaffe barracks or mess halls. The icy weather during the last part of December was the most severe experienced by all four air forces. Weather-related take-off and landing accidents were common. On the 27th a B-17 at the Suffolk, UK, base of Parham rose some 50 feet, staggering to gain altitude and ultimately fell back on to the runway, killing its crew. Two days later an attempt to take off in fog using instruments ended in a horrible accident with two B-24s hurtling into each other at the end of the runway. Pilots reported problems with high-altitude icing. Boxing Day, with nearly 1,000 Allied sorties over the Ardennes battlefield, was typical. The Eighth Air Force was almost grounded, with freezing fog that promised deadly wing icing for the unwary; rime covered trees, planes and anything else exposed. Nevertheless, the IX TAC flew 214 sorties over the Ardennes: 150 vehicles in St Vith were attacked by the Jabos, 9 Panzer division in Humain, 2 SS Panzer near Erezée, 9 SS Panzer Division at Poteau, enemy transport along the forest roads north of Amblève, and woods sheltering ‘equipment’ near the Baraque de Fraiture crossroads, Houffalize, Rochefort, La Roche and Bleialf. The Panzer Lehr, 116th Panzer division, were tracked down and strafed. Eleven enemy-held villages around Bastogne suffered from the indomitable ‘Maestro’ Captain Parker. Napalm on

the tiny hamlet of Assenois turned it into a funeral pyre. The bridges near Bertogne, Sainlez, Harlange, Tintange, Wardin and Sibret were regularly divebombed. In St Hubert, the Panzer Lehr supply depot was destroyed. The valiant 5th Fallschirmjager (Parachute) division, trying to fend off Patton’s tanks south of Bastogne, was pulverised. Thunderbolts bombed a German motor column hauling bridging equipment east of Clervaux. Thunderbolts also escorted C-47 transports flying in supplies to the Bastogne garrison. Over the two-day period 26–27 December, XIX TAC flew 1,102 sorties, dropped 450 tons of bombs and claimed 690 motor transport, 90 AFVs and 25 enemy aircraft for the loss of 17 fighter-bombers (13 to enemy flak). General Richard Nugent’s XXIX TAC in the same period flew 651 sorties, dropped 364 tons of bombs, claimed 191 motor transport, 49 AFVs and lost 11 planes to enemy flak. But a hard look at the statistics means all these claims should realistically be reduced by a factor of 5:1 for enemy transport and 10:1 for enemy armour. A captured panzer tank commander of Panzer Lehr described how, during the clear weather, he had been attacked by Allied Jabos ‘as often as three times a day.’ Even so he reported that none of their tanks were disabled by those actions. The attacks did force most enemy movements to be made under cover of darkness. General Richard Metz, artillery commander of Fifth Panzer Army noted on Boxing Day, ‘The attacks from the air were so powerful that even single vehicles for the transport of personnel and motorcycles could only get through by going from cover to cover.’ Two serious problems remained to be solved. Friendly fire by American AA or American planes resulted in an edict on 31 December: ‘No .50 calibre weapon will fire upon aircraft unless the aircraft has started to bomb or strafe friendly troops or installations.’ Friendly fire by bombing or strafing friendly ground troops was still prevalent. Recognition and identification of ground targets while travelling at 400 mph in ‘difficult’ countryside is of course extremely demanding. There was no easy solution. On the 26th and 27th the Luftwaffe sent 819 sorties over the Ardennes. The II Jagdkorps’ war diary for the 26th painted a grim picture: Very cold. Limited operations by the Americans and the British and our own operations were reduced accordingly. II/JG1 had the heaviest losses of the day. Eight pilots failed to return and are reported missing following dogfights in the Bastogne area. Fifteen ‘long-noses’ [FW-190Ds] of I/JG 26 led by Oberst Leutnant Hartigs were airborne at 10.58 and engaged Mustangs over Belgium. Oglt and FW Schondorf taken prisoner near Carlsbourg. Flieger Bergmeier and

Feldwebeln Grad and Sattler were killed in action. Stabsfeld-Webel Schwarz reported one victory. JG27 also lost six pilots killed in action near Liège. In the southwest II/JG 53 engaged an American incursion in the Stuttgart area. Hptm Meimberg, the Gruppe commander was shot down and bailed out over Schaichoff. OgLt Ludolf was killed near Rutescheim. He was too low when he baled out and the parachute did not have time to open fully. Gefr Rutland was wounded and made a wheels-up landing near Flacht. Gefr Meermann was shot down and killed near Wimsheim. SG4 lost four pilots, including two Staffel leaders, Hptm Jungellausen and Hptm Schurmer were killed in action in map reference LK. Ofw Weinrich and Ofw Zumkeller missing. KF-76 was the Luftwaffe squadron for the new Arago-234 jet bombers. They continued to be successful. Six of them bombed Verviers which General ‘Pete’ Quesada’s IX TAC had vacated. Eight jets hit Libramont rail station. On the 27th KF-76 suffered its first combat casualty when condensation in his ‘bubble’ canopy blinded Lt Erich Dick and his aircraft smashed into an airfield embankment. Five other planes bombed the US 28th Division defending Neufchâteau. Sepp Dietrich, the rough-diamond GOC of Sixth SS Panzer Army, denounced the air force effort: ‘All that comes from the Luftwaffe is crap.’ In one area the Luftwaffe were successful. The NJG (night fighters) had caused a great deal of nuisance ever since Wacht am Rhein started. They made a point of sending single night fighters – the JU 88S-3s – over known USAAF airfields to disturb the fliers sleep! They ranged far and wide over France, Holland and Belgium. Adolf Hitler was so concerned over the domination of the Ardennes battlefields by the Allied air forces that he sent his trusted Albert Speer, his Reich armaments minister, to the Ardennes to make a personal reconnaissance. As well as the chaotic traffic conditions that existed – a Kampfgruppe would normally require over 12 miles of good surface road for a move forward – Speer reported that ‘The flow of supplies ceased when the foggy weather changed in a few days and the cloudless sky by day filled with innumerable fighter planes and bombs. A drive by daylight became a problem even for a fast passenger car. We were often glad to seek the shelter of a small patch of woods. Now the supply services could only operate in the night, groping their way forward, virtually without visibility, almost from tree to tree. Vehicles must move at night without headlights. Since all daytime movement is unsafe and night time travel is slow, our troop movements amount to only one half to one third of the enemy movements. The enemy can move in broad daylight and with lights on at night. An additional serious obstacle, especially to the

bringing up of supplies, is the condition of the roads in the Eifel region and the Ardennes.’ Hitler took no notice of course. When Jodl told his Füehrer ‘We cannot now force the Meuse,’ Hitler went into a diatribe: ‘My plan was not followed to the letter, but all is not lost. We must fight to the last cartridge.’ When Reichmsmarschall Göering blurted out ‘the war is lost’ and recommended that Count Folke Bernadotte be asked to negotiate an armistice, Hitler flew into a rage: ‘If you go against my orders, I will have you shot!’ The Luftwaffe chief scuttled back to Karinhall! ULTRA was now providing daily decrypts from Heeresgruppe B: ‘The progressive destruction of the railway lines and stations and of multiple road junctions in the Eifel was making the supply situation tense and dangerous. Certain trains had to be unloaded along the Rhine which were intended for the 7th Armee, too far from troops and given the lack of fuel and tonnage space needed for quick transport.’ Sepp Dietrich complained to Albert Speer on his tour: ‘We are receiving no ammunition. The supply routes have been cut by air attacks.’ The main cause of the failure of the panzers to attack the Meuse bridges, having struggled to within 4 or 5 miles, was shortage of fuel. Those formations that did get fuel could only move in starts and stops. Reports were received of German ambulances towing field guns. Still there were no representatives of the Geneva Red Cross around to report or remonstrate! The Luftwaffe had another acute problem. Their many young inexperienced pilots were known as ‘Green Hearts’. The 24-year-old Hauptmann Robert Weiss was the Kommodore of III Gruppe of JG-54 stationed at Varrelbusch aerodrome. Many of his even younger pilots had less than three weeks of operational experience. III Gruppe was tasked with three assignments: protection to the new Arago jets, bomber interception and ground support sorties. On Christmas Day, Weiss, who was one of the Wunderkind of the Luftwaffe having shot down an astonishing 121 Allied planes in his short career, informed all his senior and experienced flyers that they must help to protect the ‘Green Hearts’ and not just leave them to fend for themselves: ‘We have little to lose but our lives. We will continue to fly in the sure knowledge that our NCO pilots are backing us up.’ On 29th, Schwarze Tag (Black Day), a total of 14 pilots including Weiss were killed and at least 17 FW-190D-9s were lost. British, Canadian and New Zealand pilots in their Typhoons and Tempests south-west of Rheine and Lingen in wild dogfights destroyed many of the unfortunate ‘Green Hearts’. In another action, Flight Lieutenant RJ Audet of 411 Squadron shot down three FW-190s and two ME-109s near Osnabruck –

in one day. A record for 2nd TAF. Bombers in World War Two were not renowned for their accuracy. The Ninth Air Force bombed many bridges including railway bridges at Ahrweiler, Kall, Eller and Nonnweiler. On 26 and 27 December 1,277 tons of bombs were dropped on them. Only two – the Nonnweiler and Konz–Karthaus spans – were rendered unserviceable. The bridge at Ahrweiler, heavily protected by flak batteries, was bombed on many occasions but continued to defy destruction. Grenadier Franz Wienecke, with 326 VGD, had previously served with the Luftwaffe. On 24 and 27 December he witnessed the USAAF attacks by 30 P38s on the bridge at Kall. The railway station was hit, 20 vehicles were hit. The key bridge and town road junction were untouched! 1st Lt Howard Park flew ‘Big Ass Bird II’ with 513 squadron of 406 FG: ‘Our group of three squadrons flew continuous cover over the city [little town of Bastogne] and environs in missions of eight-two four-ship flights – approximately four missions per day for each squadron. This occupied about ten daylight hours of target time per day … The record shows we flew 105 sorties per day … The whole five days [23–28] – the critical days – seem almost a blur in my memory. It was the first time in the war where I felt I didn’t have enough control over my own destiny! So much depended on luck in evading the flak … None of us could believe the intensity of the flak. Captain Parker suggested our targets. We never shirked regardless of flak or feelings. I do not believe I was consciously scared, just fatalistic.’ General von Mellenthin, who had fought with Rommel in North Africa, was assigned to 9th Panzer division near Hargimont, possibly as an observer: ‘I set off for the 9th Panzer Division which was in the hills northwest of Houffalize. The icy bound roads glittered in the sunshine. I witnessed the uninterrupted air attacks on our traffic routes and supply dumps. Not a single German plane was in the air, innumerable vehicles were shot up and their black wrecks littered the roads.’ One captured tank officer of 3 Panzer Grenadier division said that his 103 PzBn had been attacked seventeen times in a single day on the way to Bastogne. His AFVs had suffered only superficial damage, but many supply trucks had been destroyed. The British 2nd Tactical Air Force Report No. 19 concluded that ‘the main contribution of both air forces was not by the direct destruction of armour which appeared to be insignificant but rather by the strafing and bombing of the supply routes which prevented supplies from reaching the front.’

Fig 31.1 Formation of US C-47 Dakotas dropping parapacks of supplies and ammunition to defenders of Bastogne (FRA 200189 IWM) During the four-week campaign the Allied air forces claimed 751 tanks and AFVs destroyed, plus 509 damaged. An accurate figure is difficult to establish. The original claims were much too high, and several hundred German AFVs were left on the battlefield having run out of fuel – a difficult equation! The Allied Ordnance Evacuation companies inspected in late January 1945 AFVs of Heeresgruppe B left on the Ardennes battlefield. The total was 413. After a hard look at 91 destroyed, only 7 were diagnosed as being disabled by air attack! On New Year ’s Eve the Luftwaffe pilots looked forward to some drink and merriment to mitigate the gloomy prospects for the New Year. From the start of Wacht am Rhein on 16 December the Luftwaffe had lost 464 pilots killed or missing in their support for Hitler ’s three armies attacking in the Ardennes. Another 150 had been wounded. On Christmas Day alone Luftflotte West recorded 260 aircrew casualties. One pilot in four that had begun Hitler ’s last offensive was dead. In the two-week period before Wacht

am Rhein the Luftwaffe lost 136 fighter pilots killed or missing. Their war was no fun for the survivors on New Year ’s Eve. No evening passes. All alcohol was forbidden. Lights out at 1900 hrs with very tight security. Every possible plane was to be made ready. Lt Moser, technical officer for I Gruppe, worked throughout the night to get 21 speedy ME-262 jets operational. At midnight Adolf Hitler took to the airwaves: Only the turn of the year causes me to speak to you today. My German men and women. Although our enemies have predicted our collapse during every one of our past years they set special hopes on 1944. But once again, we have turned fate away. That this fight itself is an incredibly hard one is due to the enemy’s aims … to exterminate our people. When destroying our towns they do not only hope to kill German women and children, but also to eliminate our 1,000-yearold civilisation. Our people are resolved to fight the war to victory under any and all circumstances. The world must know that this state will, therefore, never capitulate. Germany will rise like a phoenix from its ruined cities and go down in history as the miracle of the twentieth century. We shall fulfil our duty faithfully and unshakeably in the New Year too, in the firm belief that the hour will strike when victory ultimately will come to him most worthy of it, the Greater German Reich.

chapter 32

Hitler’s surprises (1) Operation Bodenplatte

H

itler and General Major Peltz, the Luftwaffe chief, had planned that a massive air attack would be made on 14 December. For various reasons this was changed to New Year ’s Day 1945. At the Führer conference on 28 December he addressed von Rundstedt and certain other commanders about Operation Bodenplatte. ULTRA had already picked up significant but opaque messages which included the codewords Varus, Teutonicus and Herman. These Latin words referred to the ancient German leader Arminius who a long time ago destroyed three Roman Legions! This time ten elite Luftwaffe formations would fly 1,035 sorties at ground level on 1 January and destroy Allied (mostly British and Canadian) fighters and fighter-bombers clustered on some 27 airfields in France, Holland and Belgium. The objective was twofold: help protect the panzer formations in the Ardennes from their terrible daily punishment by Jabos, and perhaps enable the Luftwaffe to nullify the huge nightly bomber raids on German cities and industrial and military targets, assuming of course huge damage to the target aircraft on the ground attacked by cannon, machine-guns and light bombs. The airfields would be pounded by bombs to crater the surface and cause, it was hoped, long delays before they could be repaired. The planning was brilliant, the execution less so. The operation orders from II Jagdkorps read: ‘Maintaining complete radio silence up to the moment of attack [0920 hrs], all Geschwader will fly low over the frontier simultaneously

in the early hours of the morning to take the enemy air forces by surprise and catch them on the ground. The Geschwader will receive air photos of the targets allotted to them and will use their briefings to take every pilot through the operation in detail.’ The role of each attacking wing was described, including the approach routes, the low-level approach to avoid enemy radar and the strict policy of radio silence. However, many experienced Staffel leaders told their inexperienced aircrew: ‘Just follow me.’ Every pilot, regardless of experience was to take part. Even the experienced Gruppen and Geschwader leaders who often directed operations but did not fly! Each Geschwader would be guided by two Pathfinder JU-88 aircraft of a night fighter unit. ‘Look out for the Goldregen (Golden Rain)’ marker flares to mark their path and to alert the German flak AA gunners en route that a lowlevel Luftwaffe operation would move across their path early on 1 January. Generalmajor Deutsch, commander of 16th Flak division, whose HQ was in Arnhem, had insufficient time to brief his 50 flak batteries. Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate) had been planned in deadly secrecy – in fact, as it turned out, too secret! It was hoped that the majority of the Allied pilots and AA defence staff would not be at their most keen-eyed best after ‘seeing the New Year in’.

Map 11 Operation Bodenplatte (Baseplate). The Luftwaffe’s ambitious plan to destroy Allied airforces on the ground – New Year ’s Day 1945 The most important turning points within German territory, such as Spakenburg south of the Zuider Zee, would be illuminated by ground markers

– green flares with white smoke or red flares with orange smoke. Much attention was paid to map co-ordinates, checkpoints, compass headings, even airspeeds and flying times. Briefing cards were issued to each pilot advising them when to turn on their radios over the target, when to arm their guns, to take careful note of Allied planes destroyed on the airfield targets. Ground crews fitted auxiliary fuel tanks with 300 litres for the longest trips. The codeword for aborting the mission once airborne was Spatlese – ‘Late Harvest’. For their return journey pilots were instructed to follow a reciprocal path. If they were lost then simply ‘When in doubt fly due east’ and a chain of German airfields in Western Germany were standing by to receive the ‘lost’ or damaged sheep! All the air crews were wakened before 5 a.m. and given an excellent breakfast and a last-minute briefing. Gefr Werner Molge of II/JG 26, aged 19, was the youngest pilot in 8 Staffel, based in Nordhorn. His target was Evère, one of three close to Brussels. ‘At 0600 breakfast was served in the pilots’ mess at the Berning Hotel. The bus carried us to the field at Clausheide. On the way the “weather frog” gave us the weather forecast for our mission area, as he did daily. For 1 January he predicted a cloudless sky, light winds from the SW and a temperature of −5 degrees Centigrade. When we turned in at the field, a fantastic sight spread out in front of our eyes. The aircraft of all the Staffel had been taxied from their dispersals by the ground crews and were lined up at the field, as if for parade inspection. Fifty FW 190D-9s in the last light of the moon. The mechanics had worked all night to get them ready. In the Gruppe command post our three-man band was playing hot rhythms to get us stirring. The crews were told the target was “Low-level attack on the airfield at Brussels-Evère”. The maps we were given had the course from the German border marked, as well as the return course to the border. Take off was at 0800 into the reddish glare of the now rising sun. The Schwarme of four aircraft threw up fountains of snow that greatly hampered visibility. Take-offs at close spacing were always dangerous due to the prop-wash which threw us about unexpectedly. Also there were four to six inches of snow on the ground which made things even more difficult.’ KG51, the Arado 234s squadron, was based at Rheine with a target of GilzeRijen, British airfields near Eindhoven. Oberstleutnant Arthur Stark led six AR-234s, each jet carrying 33 light fragmentation bombs. Although joined by a small group of ME-109s and FW-190s from JG3, the Spitfires and Mustangs of the RAF No. 35 Tactical Reconnaissance Wing suffered only one P-51 damaged. Between 9 and 10 a.m. the Luftwaffe arrived in force over the mainly British targets and struck the nineteen airfields. Of the 36 Gruppe after-action

reports, only 4 reported ‘excellent’ (i.e. major damage) and 10 ‘successful’. Asch aerodrome, north of Liège, was home to a Ninth Air Force and an Eighth Air Force squadron, some of whom were airborne with their P-47 Thunderbolts intent on tank-busting near St Vith. Jettisoning their bombs, they tore into the Luftwaffe JGII and serious dogfights erupted. Although a number of planes and buildings were shot up at least eight Luftwaffe planes were downed. Six pilots of 352 Fighter Group claimed multiple victories. JGII lost at least 28 machines out of the 65 that attacked Asch, and 25 Luftwaffe pilots were killed. RAF pilots in action on that clear crisp morning included Canadians, New Zealanders, Poles, and British. The Tempests of the New Zealand 486 Squadron, Spitfires of the Canadian 401 Squadron, and Group Captain Gabszewicz’s 131st Polish Wing of Spitfires all had a field day. Australian pilots with the crack 122 Wing of Tempests based at Volkel were strafed as they were climbing out of their planes. Oberst Kogler ’s JG-6, with 70 planes, lost a third of them over Volkel. Eindhoven was home to three wings – 124 and 143, both with Typhoons, and 39 Reconnaissance Wing flying Spitfires. They were attacked by 70 planes of JG-3 under their ace Oberst Heinz Bär, who had 202 victories to his credit. His group met up over Lippstadt and flew the 140 miles to Eindhoven at only 150 feet at 220 mph. Flight Lieutenant Dave Mercer in his recon Mustang with 268 Squadron spied eight ‘bandits’ (JU-188 and FW-190s) over Utrecht. He shot one down into the woods below and radioed back to his controllers with a warning. Mercer and his wingman John Lykes saw Eindhoven aerodrome. ‘They were getting a real pasting, the airfield was covered in smoke, Bofors guns going full blast and FW-190s buzzing like flies. I picked up a 190 and closed in on him. He still had his bomb on-board, but when I pressed the trigger – nothing happened – used all my shells on the JU-188.’ Colonel Norman Holt, CO of 366th Fighter Group described the battle: The famous all-out raid by the Luftwaffe against our strips arrived over our base in a force of about 50 ME-109s and FW-190s. The enemy was engaged immediately by a flight of eight of our T-bolts that had just taken off and assembled. Jettisoning their bombs they attacked the enemy planes and kept them from hitting our pitifully unprotected planes on the ground. The entire air circus took place at treetop level directly over the strip. Roaring engines, spitting machine-guns and flaming planes going down to destruction had brought the War right to our door step! The onslaught lasted for fully 45 minutes. A couple of our planes, out of ammunition and low on fuel, were forced to drop wheels and land in the midst of it. Alert Nazi pilots veered in on the

tails of such juicy targets only to be shot down or scared away by our Ack-Ack gunners. One squadron commander in his eagerness ran out and took off in his pyjamas! JGII turned to the east to escape the hellish fire over the airfield and four more German pilots were shot down before the border was reached. The JU88 Pathfinder leading Hptm Naumann’s II Gruppe of JG-6 flew at 500 feet over the Zuider Zee, got lost and led the 70 planes astray, heading for Heesch and Volkel. No wonder their results were coded D (minor damage). 442 Squadron of the RAF did well and shot down a bag of five for the loss of one Spitfire. The New Zealand 486 squadron with Tempests also shot down five Luftwaffe pilots. The commander of the 5 Staffel, Hptm Norbert Katz, Hptm Ewald Trost of 2 Staffel and Hptm Willi Kindler of 9 Staffel – all belonging to Major Kühle’s III Gruppe of JG-6 – were knocked out and crashed. But the Luftwaffe could claim successes. The RCAF (Canadian) lost some 144 aircraft on the ground with a further 84 damaged. These included 28 Spitfires, 11 Wellington bombers and many Typhoons. They lost 46 killed and a further 145 wounded. Three Polish squadrons of 131 Wing RAF, all with Spitfire Mk IX, were based on St Denis-Westrem field near Ghent. At 9 a.m. Hptm Staiger ’s II Gruppe of JG-1 roared over the airfield. The birds had flown on a mission to Woensdrecht. According to LA Simmons, who had just landed in an Anson plane, ‘the Luftwaffe’s cannon tracers were hitting the ground and bouncing off in graceful curves. There seemed to be hundreds of them. It was a free-for-all for the Jerry pilots as there were no ground defences at all! They flew around and attacked and attacked till their ammunition was used up.’ When the airstrip AA woke up they promptly shot down a Polish Spitfire! On their way back from their mission many of the Polish fliers were out of ammunition or fuel or both. When the action was over JG-1, under Oberst Ihlefeld with his three Gruppen totalling 80 planes, had lost a third of its pilots. About 20 burnt out German aircraft were later found in and around Ghent. More were shot down by Luftwaffe flak on the way back to base. However JG-1 had destroyed or damaged 32 Spitfires, a B-17 and a Stirling. Nearly all these losses were on the ground and only two Polish pilots were killed. JG-2, the ‘Richtofen’ Geschwader under Oberst Lt Buhligen with 90 planes, was tasked with the destruction of St Trond airfield, NW of Liège. Aerial photographs showed some 130 fighters and half a dozen bombers parked on the airfield runway. Many of JG-2s FW-190s were so new that they lacked tactical markings. Kurt Buhligen had amassed over 100 ‘kills’ over the Allies

in the West. By the end of the day JG-2 had lost 33 pilots, nearly 40 per cent of those who started. The veteran Major Michalski led his JG-4 force of 68 ME109s and FW-190s from Rheine-Maine airfield. The only problem was that their proposed assault on Le Culot totally failed as they could not find it! It held over 100 P-47s of the US 363 and 373 Fighter Groups parked on the field! Eventually JG-4 returned to their base, having lost half their strength. No less than 170 ME-109s and FW-190s of JG-26 and JG-54 were tasked with the obliteration of the airfields around Brussels. The author, recovering from wounds received in the Peel country, saw and heard some of the sound and fury that swept Brussels. Major Borris briefed his 1 Gruppe of JG-26, based on Furstenau and targeting Grimbergen airport. Take off would be at 8.30 a.m. Each pilot was to make three strafing passes over the target in sections of four. FW Willi Heilman of III Gruppe recalled, ‘We were woken at three o’clock in the morning and half an hour later all the pilots of JG-26 and III/JG-54 were assembled in the messroom. Hauptman Worner came in with the ominous envelope already open in his hand. “To make it brief, boys, we’re taking off with more than 1,000 fighters [Major Percy Schramm, keeper of the OKW diary, confirmed the actual figure of 1,035] at the crack of dawn to prang various airfields on the Dutch/Belgium border.” Then followed the details of take-off, flying order, targets and return flights.’ Brussels was the target for III/JG-54. ‘The whole mission was to be carried out at less than 600 feet until we reached the targets so that the enemy ground stations could not pick us up. To this end, radio silence was the order until we reached the target. We were given a magnificent breakfast, cutlets, roast beef and a glass of wine … For sweets there were pastries and several cups of fragrant coffee [i.e. not made of acorns]. The last minutes before we were airborne seemed an eternity. Nervous fingers stubbed out half-smoked cigarettes. In the scarlet glow the sun slowly appeared above the horizon to the east. It was 8.25 a.m. And then the armada took off.’ The three airfields around Brussels were Melsbroek, to be attacked by JG-27 and IV/JG-54; Evère, to be attacked by II/JG-26 and III/JG-26; and Grimbergen, to be attacked by I/JG-26 and III/JG-54. The formation of 170 aircraft travelled in three ‘vics’, each composed of sections of four in line abreast. At only 150 feet off the ground their route took them to the turning point at Spakenberg, then on to Rotterdam and south to the targets NW and N of the Brussels suburbs. Although the German 16th Flak division had been warned of Bodenplatte, the AA guns defending the V-2 launching sites west of Rotterdam, the Schelde and Walcheren shot down a score of the Luftwaffe

planes. Next the armada was attacked over Waasmunster by RAF fighters of the Polish 308 Squadron, which claimed ten victims. On arrival over Grimbergen airfield there were only six planes on the ground – four B-17s, a Mustang and a twin-engined fighter. They were quickly dispatched, but the local AA batteries claimed another dozen victims. On the return flight III/JG-54 lost five more planes to a Spitfire group over Hasselt. At least three Luftwaffe planes crashed in Brussels. Rather surprisingly the Grimbergen attack was rated ‘C’, or limited success, for the destruction of six on the ground for losses of over twenty-five in the air to the attackers! However, at the Brussels-Evère airfield the famous British 2 TAF were caught with their trousers down. The 127 Wing (403, 416 and 421 squadrons) had 40 Spitfires neatly lined up on one side with at least a dozen mixed B-17s, Austers, Ansons and a Dakota or two. Over 23 aircraft were destroyed or written off and tanker-trucks, barracks and hangers were shot up, sending big clouds of thick smoke mushrooming up to a height of 13,000 feet! The attack lasted 45 minutes and was a significant Luftwaffe victory. The total tally was formidable – 120 Allied aircraft destroyed including 60 fighters and 32 heavy bombers. At Evère alone nearly 40 Allied planes were written off. JG-26 lost 20 pilots in the day. However, Wing Commander and RAF ace ‘Johnny’ Johnson, who watched the Evère raid, noted, ‘The Luftwaffe shooting was atrocious and the circuit at Evère reminded us more of a bunch of beginners on their first solos than pilots of front-line squadrons.’ The Luftwaffe classified the Evère raid as ‘A’, ‘very successful’. The Herzas, ‘Red Hearts’, of JG-77 was one of the most famous of the Jagdeschwadern and had fought since 1940 with a series of brilliant commanders. Their 105-strong force of ME-109 G-14 and ME-109 K-4 fighters were tasked with the destruction of the Antwerp-Deurne airfield some 200 miles away from Dusseldorf and Dortmund. Major Freitag briefed the pilots. Their route was by a wide sweep to the west via Rotterdam. Deurne was home to the 145 and 146 RAF Wings which included Typhoon 1-Bs of 193, 197, 257 and 263 squadrons plus two French Spitfire units, 341 ‘Alsace’ and 345 squadrons. On the way, German Navy flak ships brought down three planes. II Gruppe under Major Freitag couldn’t find Deurne airfield; Woendsrect airport, target for III Gruppe, was bare as the Spitfires of 66 and 127 squadrons were on their way to the Ardennes to escort RAF Mitchells. Only 30 Luftwaffe planes managed to track Deurne down and clobbered a dozen Typhoons from 266 Squadron on the ground. The ‘Red Hearts’ returned home having scored ‘D’, ‘D’ and ‘D’ or ‘minor damage’ reports, having lost

ten planes and pilots. Melsbroek was the third of the airfields just north of the suburbs of Brussels which was the target for I, II and IV Gruppe of JG-27 and IV Gruppe of JG-54. Although 35 Mitchell bombers of RAF 139 Bomber Wing had left to bomb the Dasburg bridge in the Ardennes, there were unfortunately many Wellingtons, Mosquitos, Spitfires and a few Mitchells for the 85-strong Luftwaffe force. They arrived overhead via Munster and Enschede. On the way, as usual, ‘friendly’ flak felled three and Allied AA shot down two more. For 35 minutes JG-27’s Messerchmitts had a field day. They destroyed a mixed bag of 37 on the ground, but lost 17 pilots and planes. Hauptmann Hans Dudeck, commander of IV/JG-27, a 28-year-old with ten years’ experience with the Luftwaffe, having fought in the Battle of Britain, North Africa and Italy, claimed three victims at Melsbroek but near Venraij his ME-109 G-10 was hit by flak. With a ripped parachute he landed in the branches of a tree and found himself a prisoner in a British hospital. However, the four Gruppen of raiders on Melsbroek earned ‘B’s for ‘success’. Oberst Leutnant Bennemann’s JG-53, with 50 ME-109s, earned a high rating of ‘B’ for their attack on Metz airfield. They formed up over Karlsruhe, headed over Piramasens and were ambushed by American P-47s over the Pfalz Forest. Ten pilots including the CO Hptm Luckenbach were forced to bail out – all escaped by parachute. III Gruppe had shed their drop tanks and, short of fuel, had to return to base. The ‘Hell Hawks’ of Colonel Ray Stecker ’s 365th Fighter Group had moved to Metz-Frescaty airfield four days previously and some 40 yellow-nosed Thunderbolts were parked tightly along the airstrip. Twenty-two were quickly destroyed for a cost to the Luftwaffe of 14 pilots and 24 planes. At sundown only 30 ME-109s of JG-53 were still serviceable. Some 33 Luftwaffe Gruppen had taken part in Bodenplatte. Of these, ten groups never located their targets. Two groups attacked a non-operational airfield and a further nine made attacks on airfields of only limited effectiveness. The overall loss rate to the Luftwaffe was over 300, or over 30 per cent. Surprisingly, 85 per cent of their losses were due to ‘friendly fire’ from flak! ULTRA picked up three signals from Jagdivision 3, OKW and OKL, reporting on average 400 Allied planes lost on the ground and another 80 or so shot down in the air. An aerial German photo reconnaissance mission just after the raid, intercepted by ULTRA, revealed 279 destroyed Allied aircraft still visible on the ground at eight [out of seventeen] airfields. Certainly the USAAF 8th AF lost 40 on the ground and 70 destroyed in the air during Bodenplatte. It was probably a draw in terms of ‘material’ but the

Luftwaffe admitted that 237 of their best pilots were killed or missing. These included 3 Wing Commanders, 17 Group Commanders and 39 Squadron Commanders (Geschwader, Gruppe and Staffel). Winston Churchill was sufficiently concerned about Bodenplatte to ask on 2 January 1945 for an enquiry. He wrote to Chief of Air Staff: ‘German air attack on our airfields in Belgium. It is very easy to disperse aircraft and especially to separate large ones by sandbags, etc. I doubt very much whether the question of dispersion was examined as such and rejected. It seems more probable that the aircraft congestion was allowed to grow and no preparations were made. After all, we have had many of these airfields in our possession for months. No doubt it was their crowded state that led the enemy to attack. What will be done now? Will the airfields be left in their congested state, or will they be properly dispersed? I should have thought dispersion would be part of the drill the moment there was time to spare. I cannot consider the incident satisfactory and I should like to have a report upon the points I have mentioned.’ It was an RAF disaster, and most unlikely that Churchill would receive an adequate reply.

chapter 33

British XXX Corps: longstop and counter-attack

B

oth the American and the British press were complaining bitterly that Field Marshal Montgomery had committed no British troops to fight alongside the Americans in the Ardennes. Lt General Brian Horrocks’ XXX Corps – most of it – had been guarding the vital bridges over the river Meuse since 21 December – a front of 25 miles. For a week XXX Corps acted as an efficient longstop in case the panzers did succeed in reaching the Meuse. With adequate fuel supplies they would have done. Horrocks did not want to cross in force east of the river, which would move them across the American lines of communication. Montgomery urgently required his key XXX Corps for the next phase of 21st Army Group’s advance into Germany for Operation Veritable. However, when General Harmon, encouraged by General Hodges, attacked and defeated the German 2nd Panzer division, Montgomery ordered XXX Corps to cross at Dinant and over a second new bridge at Chanley. The author ’s armoured brigade of 11th Armoured division included 3rd Royal Tank Regiment at Dinant, 2nd Fife and Forfar Yeomanry at Namur and 23rd Hussars at Givet. 8th Rifle Brigade actually guarded the three vital bridges. On Christmas Eve 3 RTR were in action against the reconnaissance troops of 2nd Panzer and destroyed two Panthers, a Mk IV, a half-track and a scout car. Trucks loaded with ammunition and fuel were satisfactorily blown up. On Christmas Day the veteran 51st Highland division were detached south of the Meuse near Liège as a reserve to the US First Army. On 3/4 January the 53rd

Welsh division, two battalions of the British 6th Airborne division and the 29th Armoured brigade were all in action in the combined Allied counter-attacks around Foy-Nôtre-Dame. Horrocks’ attack as right-flank protection to the US VII Corps was in two ‘prongs’. Armour (and 29th Armoured brigade had early in December been issued with superb, brand new British made Comet tanks, equipped with 76mm gun and quite formidable. At panic stations on the 18/19 December they had to leave their new toys and retrieve their beat up Shermans from a tank depot near Brussels) and paratroops would attack the German defence line facing NW along a high ridge 8 miles from St Hubert, and also secure, in a mainly infantry attack, crossings over the river Ourthe and cut the vital Rochefort–St Vith road. The villages of Sorinnes and Boiselles were found clear. 61st Reconnaissance and a dashing Belgian SAS unit patrolled eastwards; Hans-sur-Lesse and Tellin were clear but St Hubert and Bure were firmly held. The armour and 7th and 13th Parachute battalions of 5th Parachute brigade were tasked with the capture of Bure and Wavreille and exploitation to Grupont and Forrières. 3rd Parachute brigade occupied the area around Rochefort.

Fig 33.1 Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery inspects 6th (British) Airborne

division with Major General E.L. Bols and senior officers, 16.1.1945 (B 13697 IWM)

Map 12 Wacht am Rhein: Christmas Day was almost the furthest inroads and closest to the river Meuse reached by Adolf Hitler ’s three armies Major Jack Watson, CO A Company 13th Parachute battalion, described the attack on Bure in order to clear the way to Grupont: My Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Peter Luard’s plan was to spend one night in Pondrome and move in transport to Resteigne where we would march to Tellin. It was very cold, well below freezing, and there was ice on the roads but the men were in very good form. We marched to a wood overlooking Bure, which was our first objective. This was the furthest point that the enemy’s armour had reached during their offensive. It was the battalion’s task to drive the Germans out of Bure. We were the left assault company with B Company on our right and C Company in reserve. We were to attack Bure itself whilst B Company, commanded by Major Bill Grantham, secured the high ground. We formed up

and were ready for H-Hour at 1300 hours. It was a bloody cold day and it was snowing heavily. Moving up to the start line was very difficult because of the very thick snow which was three or four feet deep in places. We reached the start line and looked down on the village which was silent. However, the enemy knew that we were there and were waiting for us. As soon as we broke cover, we came under heavy fire – I looked up and saw the branches of the trees above me being shattered by machine-gun fire and mortar bomb splinters. The enemy had set up sustained fire machine-guns on fixed lines and these pinned us down before we had even left the start line. This was the first time that I had led a company attack and after a few minutes I had lost about a third of my men. We were held up for about a quarter of an hour because of the dead and wounded amongst us but we had to get going. We were some four hundred yards from the village and so, as quickly as I could, I got a grip of my company and gave the order to advance. Whatever happened, we had to get into the village as quickly as possible. On the way we suffered more casualties, including my batman. One of my men was hit by a bullet which ignited the phosphorous grenades that he was carrying. He was screaming at me to shoot him. He died later. We reached the village and took the first few houses, in one of which I installed my company headquarters. At this stage I was unaware that B Company was also suffering badly in its attempt to take the high ground, having come under fire from tanks and artillery. Bill Grantham had been killed on the start line, along with one of his platoon commanders. Lieutenant Tim Winser and Company Sergeant Major Moss, his company second in command and one of the other two platoon commanders, had been wounded. The only surviving platoon commander, Lieutenant Alf Largeren, led the remainder of B Company to their objective. Unfortunately he was killed later in the day whilst clearing a house in which there was an enemy machine-gun position. Once the company was in the village, it was very difficult to find out exactly what was happening. I got my platoon commanders together to make sure that their platoons were secure and to give them orders for moving forward to start clearing the rest of the village. It was a most peculiar battle because we would be in one house, with my company headquarters and myself on the ground floor, when my radio operator would suddenly tell me that there were enemy upstairs. In other instances, we were upstairs and the enemy were downstairs! We were suffering heavy casualties as we advanced, clearing each house in turn. Eventually we reached the crossroads in the middle of the village by the old church. I had kept the Commanding Officer informed as to our progress and

he decided to move C Company up to support us. However, by that time the enemy had decided to send in some of their Tiger tanks and they were now firing at us, demolishing some of the houses in the process. I moved from one side of the road to the other, drawing their fire. One of the tanks opened fire on me and the next thing I knew was that the wall behind me was collapsing. At that point one of my PIAT teams came running up and opened fire on the tank, destroying its tracks. They were extremely brave. The battle went on like this all day. The enemy counter-attacked but we managed to hold them. They forced us back and then we in turn advanced again. It became very difficult to keep the men awake because they were exhausted and had not eaten a hot meal all day. During that night, the fighting continued nonstop with us firing at the Germans and them firing back and shelling us. When we had told Battalion Headquarters that we were up against armour, C Squadron of the Fife and Forfar Yeomanry was sent forward to support us. A troop approached the village first but the leading tank was blown up by a mine. The remaining tanks then tried to approach from another direction and reached the village but one was knocked out. Three tanks stayed with us during that night but by the following morning all of them had been knocked out. The problem was that the Shermans were no match for the Tigers and by the end of the battle sixteen of them had been put out of action. We were also reinforced by C Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry, under Major Johnny Granville, because my own company was by then down to one platoon in strength. The following day, 4 January, Colour Sergeant Harry Watkins suddenly and miraculously arrived out of the blue with a hot meal. How the hell he ever found us I do not know because we were still scattered amongst the houses along the main road in the centre of the village. He brought us a stew which was more than welcome and we managed to organise the men into small groups to have their meal and then return to their positions in the houses. At one point one of our medics, Sergeant Scott of the Royal Army Medical Corps, went forward in an ambulance to rescue some casualties. One of the Tiger tanks, which had been in action against us all day, came up alongside him and the commander popped his head out of the turret and said, ‘Take the casualties away this time but don’t come forward again, it is not safe.’ Needless to say, Sergeant Scott took the hint. During the following day, 5 January, we were subjected to five further counter-attacks which were supported by enemy armour. However, by that time we had a field regiment and a medium battery in support and started giving the

enemy a hard time too. They responded to our shelling by trying to blast us out of Bure with their own artillery. Luckily, however, most of my men had experienced heavy shelling in Normandy and thus knew what to expect. I instructed Major Johnny Granville to move his men forward beyond my own positions in order to find out what was happening. As his company advanced, the enemy counter-attacked again with two Tiger tanks in support. However, we beat them off and then everything went quiet. At that point I decided that it was now high time that we secured the other half to the village, along with C Company and Major Granville’s company, and cleared the Germans out of all the houses. This we did, with much hand-to-hand and close-quarter fighting going on all day. By about 2100 hours that night we had finally taken the whole village, with my company overcoming the last enemy position. We established ourselves in defensive positions but that same night received orders to withdraw. We later discovered that 7th Parachute Battalion had made an approach from a different direction and, meeting little opposition, had taken Grupont. As a result, we ourselves did not have to go any further. In the very early hours of the following day, 6 January, I assembled my very tired and very wet company and withdrew to Tellin. The battalion had suffered casualties which totalled seven officers and a hundred and eighty-two soldiers. Of these, about sixty-eight men had been killed, of whom about half were my company. They were buried in a field in Bure by our padre, the Reverend Whitfield Foy, a few days later.’

Fig 33.2 British Shermans of 29th Armoured brigade (11th Armoured division) advance towards Hotton, 9.1.1945 (B 13400 IWM) Lt Edward Harte, 23rd Hussars, wrote, ‘A Squadron moved out from Beauraing, then to Wellin and Tellin. The awkward top-heavy Shermans skated about on the icy roads like a stampede of drunken elephants. First Sergeant Huthwaite’s tank went up on a mine; next Sergeant Roberts’ was bazookad and he was killed. When we reached Bure four more tank crews were killed. The Germans clung to the houses and ruins, hid in cellars and catacombs, fighting and sniping to the end. There followed an afternoon of very bitter fighting in the village which was in a hollow and the main street was littered with bodies, both Airborne and Germans. Stanley Goss with his troop gave magnificent support but both his support tanks were knocked out by a Tiger.’ The 53rd Welsh division arrived on New Year ’s Eve. Their 160 Brigade relieved 84 US Division in the Marche area and 158 Brigade relieved 2nd US Armoured division on the river Lesse about Hoyet and Ciergnon. Eventually a 13-mile front was held between Houyet and Aye. There was thick snow on the ground and icy, dangerous roads. The Highland Light Infantry regimental band, about 40 strong, came out for a jolly visit over Hogmanay and soon

found themselves in the line where they could see live Germans within 200 yards! Their two gunner regiments, 83rd Field at Fromville and 133rd at Rochefort, were soon in action. Along the roads lay wrecks of German vehicles of all sorts abandoned, burnt and shattered, but also many American anti-tank guns overrun by the enemy and shot up at close quarters. CSM Cullen, 4th Welsh battalion, noted, ‘We were moving across a long viaduct with a concrete balustrade along each side when we saw tanks coming down the road towards us. They were American and in a real state of panic. Crewmen were standing with their heads visible in the turrets and were shouting that the Krauts were behind them. The tanks were moving faster than they should have been on the icy surface.’ One Sherman by mistake crushed a Welsh rifleman to death, pinned to the side wall. ‘Later we found that the American tanks were supposed to be there to provide us with support in establishing new positions.’ The main opposition ahead was the remnant of 116 Panzer division with six battalions each reduced to about 300 men backed by some tanks, SPs and mortars. Elements of 9 Panzer division were in the SW sector opposite Marche. 53rd Welsh division then took part in a four-day battle to capture Rendieux-le-Bas, Waharday, Grimbiemont and the line of the river Hedrée. There is a detailed account of the very difficult attacks against the 2nd Monmouthshires, 1st East Lancashires, 6th and 7th Royal Welsh Fusiliers, 4th Welsh, the Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry and the Manchesters in Red Crown and Dragon. There are two interesting accounts, the first by Major AJ Lewis, 4th Welsh, which was tasked with the capture of Authiers de Tailles: ‘The rough mountains would have made the going hard in any case, but snow, ice and the cold made the going even worse. There was no cover and the icy, cold wind seemed to whip right through our bodies. The attack was made [supported by 144 RAC tanks] in the face of heavy machinegun and artillery fire and many were the deeds of outstanding heroism. One private soldier [Pte JA Strawbridge] after being hit was seen to carry back wounded on five occasions before inevitably being hit again and mortally wounded. A Lance Corporal with his lower arm blown off continued to lead his section in attack until the objective was gained. How could the enemy withstand such courage! Neither soldier received any award for gallantry.’ Lt Colonel Crozier, CO 1st Manchesters, kept a diary: ‘Jan 1: 71 Brigade at Marche taking over from the Americans ‘C’ Coy. Move with 158 Brigade and take-over on the left. Jan 2: All Coys had a dreadful day trying to get their carriers up, some only making one mile in eight hours, roads covered with ice. Temperature dropped. Very cold. Jan 3: Moved HQ to Sinsin-Granite, 8 miles

NW of Marche. Jan 4: Attack today went well in spite of considerable enemy opposition and very bad weather conditions. Several enemy counter-attacks inc. Tiger tanks. Snowing all day, about three inches on ground. Going very bad. C company abandoned their carriers and carried their [MMG] guns and ammo up two miles of hillside. Jan 5: 2 Mons after several attacks failed to take their objective on the left and this pm the General [Ross] decided to switch the attack to the right and centre. Nothing gained all day and enemy counterattack this evening against 7 RWF met with some success. Heavy snow in the hills and frosts south of Marche and Hotton. Jan 6: Last night’s counter-attack postponed our attack. Jan 7: Very successful battle today, all objectives taken. Division is now on high ground N of Marche–Rendieux road. Our infantry casualties fairly heavy.’ Indeed, the division suffered well over a thousand battle casualties in their week of fighting, plus several hundred cases of frostbite. Although the Airborne Division fresh out of UK arrived with white camouflage winter clothing, the Welsh PBI were issued with theirs after the Ardennes campaign! Having taken Waharday and cleared the road blocks on the road to Rendieux-le-Bas, the 53rd Welsh division went into reserve on 11 January in the Liège area and were replaced by the 51st Highland division. Arriving on the 7th in the Ardennes, the ‘Highway Decorators’ were in action at dawn on the 9th. Their first objective was the high ground west of La Roche, 30 miles east of Dinant and 15 miles NW of Bastogne. The Scotsmen had a good supply of ‘weasels’, little tracked vehicles that could move across snow without bogging down. The supporting tanks of 33rd Armoured brigade had special gripping snow studs fitted to their tracks. Major Martin Lindsay, acting CO of 1st Gordons, visited the RWF battalions that were holding the front until relief on the 9th. They recommended a constant supply of dry socks and hot tea! By nightfall Warizy, Cheoux, Hodister and Lignièrie were captured or occupied. The Derbyshire Yeomanry’s armoured cars led the Black Watch into Hampteau and at dawn on the 11th into La Roche. Private Stan Whitehouse, B Coy 1st Black Watch, recalled, ‘We occupied La Roche village littered with German corpses from an artillery shelling. In the sub-zero temperature the bodies looked fresh and still alive. We were ordered to deal with SS men still holding out.’ In front of the men of B Company, two platoon commanders were shot by snipers. ‘Once again we were without an officer. Platoon commanders were snipers’ prime targets, a lesson we had learned in Normandy, but a new breed of officers coming through made the enemy sharpshooters’ task so much easier by flaunting themselves in the front line with map boards, binoculars and other trappings of rank.’ The Highlanders pushed on to Hives, Lavaux, Thimont and Roupage. 152 Brigade was sent over

the hills to occupy Halleux and Vecmont. Division HQ moved to Rendeux Haut to control the final phases of the battle. The enemy from 3rd Panzer Grenadier division and 116 Panzer were now retreating fast to keep pressure on the Bastogne defenders. But they left small rearguards, snipers, mines and booby traps to delay the Scotsmen. With 32 degrees of frost, Bren guns froze up and armoured car and tank engines had to be run to avoid seizing up. By 15 January, at the end of their battle, 5th Black Watch had lost 6 KIA, 30 wounded and 42 sick and out of action with frostbite and exposure to the intense cold. On the 10th, Genes and Ronchamps were occupied. Major H Decker, a gunner FOO with 5th Seaforth and a former bookmaker, had laid odds against ‘his’ Scots capturing Mierchamps. From Ronchamps much of the mile-long road to Mierchamps was heavily mined. There was a blown bridge on the way over the little river Brouze. Up a winding road through thick woods and over a ridge to the village where ‘many’ Panzergrenadiers were lying in wait. Odds of 50:1 looked about right. However, Decker laid on with his artillery regiment a thundering barrage and by 1900 hrs, to everyone’s surprise, 180 half-frozen Panzergrenadiers defending Mierchamps were in the bag!

Fig 33.3 The Welsh 53rd division advance towards Hotton, 9.1.1945 (B 135303 IWM)

Fig 33.4 51st Highland division in Hotton on the way to La Roche (B 13599 IWM) The advance went on. 2nd Seaforth attacked and captured Ronchampneu but suffered casualties from heavy shelling. Spandau, mortars and Panthers caused casualties to the Argylls trying to capture Beaulieu. On the 13th they not only took Beaulieu but Lavaux and Cens as well. For Major Martin Lindsay ‘13 January was an unlucky, unpleasant day.’ From La Roche 1st Gordons were ordered to go through Hubermont and then occupy Nisramont. The score of

Panzergrenadiers in Hubermont put up a fight. The Black Watch ‘friendly fire’ inadvertently wounded Lt David Scott-Moncrieff. Panther tanks in Nisramont knocked out four ‘friendly’ tanks and SPs. Frank Philips, their gunner FOO, was badly wounded. Every Gordons vehicle was shot at by the hostile Panthers and Major Martin’s men suffered twenty casualties. On the 14th it was the end of the battle for the Highland division when they linked up with 84th US Infantry division advancing northwards. Two days later the US 1st Army and the US 3rd Army met at Houffalize, seven miles east of Nisramont. Monty’s ‘British longstop’ troops had suffered 1,400 casualties including 200 KIA in their three weeks of minor battles closing out the very tip of Wacht am Rhein. They had helped to push back the Panzer forces almost 40 miles from Dinant. Ewen Traill, the padre with 1st Gordons, always of his own choice went into battle as a non-combatant with one or other of the rifle companies. He said, ‘What a small degree there was between sticking it out and breaking down. When going forward, it only needed one man to shout, “This is murder, I’m getting out” and he would take half a dozen with him.’ The margin between success and failure was narrow, with tired troops and war-weary NCOs who did not feel up to taking the responsibilities of officers.

chapter 34

Hitler’s surprises (2) Operation Nordwind

T

he shift of General Patton’s Third Army from the Saar to the Ardennes had left General Jacob Devers’ 6th US Army Group with a front of 200 miles. The 57-year-old general had led his command from southern France all the way into Germany. He was a General Marshall protégé, which was why he was promoted to four-star rank. He was not one of Eisenhower ’s favourite generals, possibly because of lack of combat experience! Devers commanded the US Seventh Army under Lt General Alexander Patch and the French First Army under General de Lattre de Tassigny. The latter of course was protecting French territory south of the Belfort Gap and in the north from the Rhine to the High Vosges. Strasbourg became a key issue with Eisenhower and General de Gaulle: ‘In the Seventh Army the five experienced divisions are deployed facing the north, each occupying a frontage of 10–15 miles. They are short of 9,000 infantry and are in need of retraining and refitting.’ From left to right these were: 103rd ‘Cactus’, under Major General Charles Haffner; 44th, under Major General Robert Spragins; 100th ‘Century’, under Major General Withers Burress, all part of Major General Wade Haislip’s XV Corps; the 45th ‘Thunderbird’, under Major General Robert Frederick; 79th ‘Cross of Lorraine’ division, under Major General Horace McBride, the last two being part of Major General Edward Brooks’ VI Corps. Three more divisions had just arrived from Marseilles with only their infantry regiments and no usual back-up of artillery engineers, tanks and tank destroyers. They were the 42nd

‘Rainbow’ under Major General Harry Collins, 63rd ‘Blood and Fire’ under Major General Frederick Harris and the 70th. In addition, 87th ‘Golden Acorn’, 36th ‘Texas’ and 12th ‘Hellcat’ armoured were west of the Vosges in SHAEF Reserve. The edict to try to solve the acute shortage of infantry had been put into practice. SHAEF had ordered on 20 December that all basic private soldiers without specific job assignments be stripped out and reassigned to Patton’s Third Army rifle battalions. Devers ‘lost’ 2,000 men this way. General ‘Jake’ Devers, unpopular with Eisenhower and the other American generals, wrote in his diary, ‘You can kill a willing horse by overdoing what you require of him. I feel that SHAEF has given me too much front and taken away too many of my troops … However, we shall loyally carry out our orders and, I believe, hold our own, no matter what the cost.’ Bradley’s Army Group HQ staff numbered 1,200 and Devers’ only 600 officers and men. Devers visited his corps and divisional commanders regularly. Bradley rarely visited his operational commanders and preferred to deal with his Army Commanders, although dealing with Patton always had its problems. Eisenhower realised that Hitler might launch a spoiling attack on Devers’ front to divert Third Army’s troops from closing out the southern shoulder of the Bulge. Unusually Eisenhower advised Devers that he could yield ground to maintain the integrity of his forces – but not Strasbourg. ULTRA had been providing decrypts of rail movements, aerial reconnaissance and flow of reinforcements into the Colmar pocket and Saarbrucken area. Moreover, they located the fact that SS Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler had command of Army Group Oberrhein, a separate army group independent of OB West. This controlled General Leutnant Siegfried Rast’s Nineteenth Army which was still ensconced west of the Rhine, holding on to the Colmar pocket along with XIV SS Corps. On 22 December General Johannes Blaskowitz took command of Army Group G, still facing General Patch’s Seventh Army. Blaskowitz was noted for his military competence, albeit lukewarm to the SS! By Christmas Eve ULTRA had reported ‘enemy units building up in the Black Forest for offensive. Other indications for imminent enemy aggressive action exist. Imperative that all defensive precautions be immediately effective.’ Devers flew to Versailles to visit SHAEF and discuss the threats with Eisenhower. As a result he prepared three fallback positions: the French Maginot line, the Moder river from Hagenau to Wingen, and the Vosges, which was Eisenhower ’s ‘suggestion’. Devers was told that Strasbourg and Mulhouse should be held if possible because of

French ‘sensitivity’. ULTRA reported seven German infantry divisions on Army Group G’s front with three panzer divisions in reserve. 21st Panzer division and 17th SS Panzer Grenadier division were clearly identified. As a result of the ULTRA intercepts it was known that General Karl Henschel’s 5 Luftwaffe Jagdivision would support the new offensive with fighter forces screening the new panzer spearhead in the Saar. Air Force General Hoyt Vandenberg transferred part of his US Ninth Air force including 365th Fighter Group of ‘Hell Hawks’ to the Metz-Frescaty airfield. Group Captain FW Winterbotham in his book The ULTRA Secret noted that the warning of a substantial attack by the German Army Group G enabled Eisenhower to make quick moves to straighten the US Seventh Army front. At the Führer conference (Fragment 27) of 28 December, Hitler briefed over twenty of his generals at his Ziegenberg Castle HQ about his secret new plan to launch a strong attack in Lower Alsace, south of Luxembourg City along the Saarbrucken, Saverne, Strasburg and Colmar line; I am convinced that in the long run we could not maintain the defensive. Only the offensive will enable us once more to give a successful turn to this war in the west. Wacht am Rhein [has] not resulted in the decisive success which might have been expected [because of] delays caused by bad roads and the destruction of certain bridges which could not be repaired quickly. [However] a tremendous easing of the situation has come about. The enemy has had to abandon all his plans for attack. He has been obliged to regroup his forces. He has had to throw in again units which were fatigued. He is severely criticised at home. He has had to admit that there is no chance of the war being decided before August [1945] perhaps not before the end of next year. This means a transformation in the situation such as nobody would have believed possible a fortnight ago. The Americans have been forced to withdraw something like fifty per cent of the forces from their other fronts to the Ardennes. [The result] is that their line in Alsace had become extraordinarily thin. There we shall find a situation which we could not wish to be better. Its success would automatically bring about the collapse of the threat to the left of the main offensive. Hitler then gave orders to Model to consolidate his hold on the Ardennes, but at the same time make a new and powerful assault upon the Bastogne salient. This would keep Patton’s Army fully occupied while the German forces concentrated in the Saar and, from the Colmar pocket, were breaking out into Alsace. Hitler ’s speech to his generals concluded with:

I wish to tell you something here and now, gentlemen, our forces are certainly not inexhaustible. It meant taking an incredible risk to mobilise these forces for this offensive and the coming blows, a risk that on the other hand also contains the greatest dangers. The overall plan is clear – to liquidate the American divisions. The destruction of these American divisions must be the objective – exterminate division by division. Our only concern is to destroy and eradicate the enemy forces wherever we find them. We will then fight the third battle there and there we will knock the Americans to pieces. That must be the fanatical goal. Field Marshal Model wrote his instructions for Nordwind: ‘The final target of Antwerp must be abandoned for the time being. The task which now presents itself is to strike at the enemy with annihilating force to the east of the Meuse and in the Aachen area. The attacking arrowhead should be pushed forwards in a northerly direction in order to capture Liège and Maastricht and thus cut off the enemy units in the Aachen area. After the successful conclusion of this partial attack it should be possible to develop the operation against Antwerp.’ Model had specifically included ‘Antwerp’ as a final objective to convince the Führer that Wacht am Rhein had not been abandoned! The main German assault force was SS Gruppenfuhrer Max Simon’s XIII SS Corps with 17th SS Panzer Grenadier division (the Goetz von Berlichingen title derived from a Middle Ages robber chief) and 36 VGD. This was the northern group opposite the US XV Corps defending the valley of the Saar. In the Bitche area further south were XC Korps under Generalleutnant Erich Petersen with 257 VGD and 559 VGD. Further south in the Vosges were LXXXIX Corps under Generalleutnant Gustav Hoehne with 256 VGD and 361 VGD. Later SS Gruppenfuhrer Kurt Brenner ’s 6th SS Gebirgs (Mountain) division joined XC Korps from Norway. It had two SS Gebirgs Regiments, 11th ‘Reinhard Heydrich’ and 12th ‘Michael Gesimar ’. Under direct control of Army Group G was XXXIX Panzer Korps under Generalleutnant Karl Decker. The original 21st Panzer division had fought well, and was later destroyed in Tunisia. Reformed, it fought gallantly in Normandy where it barely survived. Its commander was Generalleutnant Edgar Feuchtinger. 25th Panzer Grenadier division under General Major Arnold Burmeister held the Bitche area. All the German forces were short of tanks and assault guns but Blaskowitz had about 80 tanks, mainly Panthers and Tigers, held in reserve to exploit a breakthrough. In theory Blaskowitz had about twenty divisions available but many formations were at half strength with a severe shortage of experienced officers and senior NCOs.

Eight German divisions attacked southward from the Saar early on 1 January, in two prongs, XC, LXXXIX Korps and XIII SS Korps struck across the Saar valley and through the wooded lower Vosges. The northerly attack was just held by the US 44th Division and south of Bitche, east of Sarreguemines, by the 100th ‘Century’ division. The SS Panzergrenadiers attack was with their usual bravado, cursing and screaming in suicidal open waves. As usual the American artillery defensive fire broke up the attacks. The weather was poor for several days and both USAAF and Luftwaffe were quiet until 5 January. Generalleutnant Max Simon, GOC XIII SS Korps, noted sadly, ‘The German soldier still knows how to die, but little else.’ The attack by the Volksgrenadier divisions 559, 257, 256 and 361 was more successful and penetrated the Task Force Hudelson defences from Bitche to Neunhoffen. The XC Korps kept up the pressure along the mountain chain and by 4 January had punched the Bitche salient almost 10 miles towards the Saverne gap, reaching Wingen on the river Moder. One key reinforcement was General Leclerc’s 2ème Division Blindée (armoured) which became the US XV Corps reserve. The Germans used captured Sherman tanks successfully as a ruse de guerre against the French. Eisenhower ordered Devers to withdraw Patch’s Seventh Army to the Vosges before it was badly mauled. To pull the VI Corps back all the way to the Vosges would leave Strasbourg vulnerable. General de Gaulle certainly did not want a third of a million of ‘his’ citoyens back under Nazi rule. So an almighty row ensued with Churchill and President Roosevelt appealed to by the French. General Patch agreed with his opposite number, General de Lattre de Tasigny, that a simple withdrawal to the Maginot Line would still leave Strasbourg well covered. So Eisenhower reluctantly agreed that Strasbourg should be held at all costs. As the capital of Alsace and Lorraine, the city was a vital symbol of Gallic pride. The official US history noted, ‘as American reinforcements met German attacks the battle quickly turned into a bitter winter infantry fight focusing on the towns that lay along the snow-covered mountain roads.’ The history of the US 45th ‘Thunderbird’ division noted that their GOC, Major General Robert Frederick, had eight different infantry regiments under his command, half of whom had never been in combat before. They included Task Forces Herren (70th), Harris (63rd), ‘Blood and Fire’, Linden and (42nd) ‘Rainbow’. They were young green units freshly arrived from Marseilles. One US divisional history noted, ‘Rear echelons remembering the fate of 1st Army echelons, 7th Army HQ, 12 TAC HQ huge trucking and ordnance outfits,

all packed up and fled! Leaving food uneaten on the table they “partied” [GI slang for “left” in French] and never stopped until they had reached Luneville.’ Further substantial German attacks took place on 5 January 10 miles north of Strasbourg and two days later at Rhinau south of the city in Operation Sohnnenwande (winter solstice). Blaskowitz sent troops against Wissembourg into the Alsace Plain and Himmler sent forces against Gambscheim. Spearheading the German pressure was 10th SS Panzer ‘Frundsberg’, 21st Panzer, 7th Parachute and 25 Panzer Grenadier divisions. Fortunately XII TAC Thunderbolts flew 190 sorties and claimed many panzers destroyed. General Roderick Allen’s new 12th ‘Hellcat’ armoured division attacked Herrlisheim and lost in the Stainwald Forest 70 vehicles, mainly AFVs. Generals Brooks and Patch then reluctantly withdrew VI Corps back from the Maginot Line to the Moder river and Rothbach river lines. A new arrival was 103 Cactus infantry division commanded by the hero of Bastogne Major General Anthony McAuliffe of 101 Airborne fame. The Luftwaffe appeared in strength over the Alsace battlefield and flew 175 sorties on 6 January. The next day Generalleutnant Karl Decker ’s XXXIX Panzer Korps launched a new attack along the northern sector of the Lauterbourg salient, aiming to capture Strasbourg. Blaskowitz visited 21st Panzer, 25th PzGr and 245 VGD divisions and threatened to court-martial all the senior commanders including Edgar Feuchtinger and Arnold Burmeister. Two days later the threats worked. Brooks’ US VI Corps had their centre smashed in and he was forced to throw in his reserve Major General Albert Smith’s ‘Liberator ’ 14th Armoured division. Around Ritteshoffen and Hatten confused fighting continued for a week. The official US history recorded ‘bitter hand to hand combat in the small towns with dismounted panzer grenadiers and armoured infantrymen fighting side by side with the more lowly foot infantry. Almost every structure was hotly contested and at the end of every day each side totalled up the number of houses and buildings it controlled. Often in the smoke, haze and darkness, friendly troops found themselves firing at one another and few ventured into the narrow but open streets, preferring to advance or withdraw through the blown-out interior walls of the gutted houses or businesses.’ In this awful general mêlée Master Sergeant Vito Bertoldo, A Company 242/42 Infantry division was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honour. The attack from the Colmar pocket was unprofitable despite the occasional appearance of Heinrich Himmler. Another strong effort was made on 16 January by 7th Parachute under Wolfgang Erdmann and 109th SS Frundsberg under SS Oberführer Heinz Harmel, aided

by Himmler ’s personal escort battalion and two assault gun brigades and destroyed the US 43rd Tank battalion. The last serious German attack in Nordwind took place on the night of 24/25th and lasted for two days. The Battle of the Moder river was touch and go. 10th SS Panzer took on Task Force Linden in 36th division area. 7th Parachute and 25th PzGr hit hard at the 79th and 42nd ‘Rainbow’ and the newly arrived 6th SS Mountain division (Nord) under SS Gruppenführer Kurt Brenner severely tested McAuliffe’s 103rd. Six German divisions were pushing out hard with three spearheads across the icy river and snow-covered fields. Prisoners boasted that the Swastika flag would fly over Strasbourg by the anniversary of Hitler ’s accession to the Chancellorship, 30 January. It didn’t as McAuliffe’s 410 Infantry made a determined counter-attack and cut off a Schwerpunkt at Schillersdorf and Mulhausen. The German columns got close to Strasbourg but not close enough. Like thieves in the night 21st Panzer, 7th Parachute, 25th PzGr divisions quietly withdrew – retreated from the 20 miles of unimportant land they had taken. French honour was saved. Devers and Patch could breathe again and Adolf Hitler replaced Blaskowitz with SS Paul Hauser. And Himmler? Most of his Army Group Oberrhein were sent to face the Russians on the Eastern Front. Nordwind had cost the Germans 25,000 and the Americans lost 15,600 casualties. On 9 February Hitler allowed withdrawal across and east of the Rhine.

chapter 35

Autumn Mist: January – retribution

T

he very patient General Eisenhower faced extraordinary problems at the start of the New Year. The intensity of the fighting in the Bulge, around Bastogne and the halting of the panzer Schwerpunkt east of the Meuse was still touch and go. Patton’s armour had been chewed up and his infantry divisions probing towards St Vith had made little progress. So just winning the immediate battle was of course his major problem, or was it? He and particularly General Patton were intensely worried about the infantry manpower shortage. US First Army had lost more than 41,000 men in the second half of December and received only 15,295 replacements. If Hitler suddenly decided to switch a dozen Wehrmacht divisions from the Eastern front to the West, the Allies could be in serious trouble. Ike persuaded the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington to hasten the departure to Europe of an airborne, three infantry and three armoured divisions. They would probably arrive in February and be thrown into the attritional quagmire that sucked poor green troops to their quick end. Patton had already set in motion the 10 per cent edict whereby all privates in the support troops without a specific skill would move into the rifle platoons. Several French divisions had been raised by General de Gaulle, but their priority was defending French cities! Winston Churchill was waging war with the bureaucrats of the British Army and the Royal Navy (he was after a marine division). The 21st Army Group had taken heavy losses both to British and Canadians. Churchill proved that the German Army had a

far, far shorter administrative ‘tail’ than the Allies. Two divisions and several brigades had already been brought out of the line and disbanded. After five years of war the manpower shortage was becoming extreme. After all, the West Wall/Siegfried Line in the north and centre was still to be assaulted. Heavy AA, heavy artillery, coastal artillery, marines, administrative staff (not, of course, SHAEF with its teeming thousands) and other support services were joining the ‘sharp end’ troops but not in great numbers and of course not with much enthusiasm. Ike had two more problems to deal with. The first was with General de Gaulle who had always been proud, intransigent and difficult since Dunkirk. In Hitler ’s Operation Nordwind the French general deployed every weapon to protect Strasbourg – including various forms of blackmail. Eisenhower lost his temper – a rare occasion. The biggest problem of all – at that time – was the War of the Generals. Bradley and Patton detested Field Marshal Montgomery as a man, and as a general. They were continually putting pressure on Eisenhower and criticising what they (and the American and British press) thought of Monty’s slow, cautious build-up. Bradley wanted his two Armies back under his control. On 30 December the Field Marshal had a rush of blood to the head and demanded from Eisenhower not only operational control of his 21st Army Group but of the whole of General Bardley’s 12th Army Group. In effect Monty proposed himself as the supreme commander in the field. Bradley threatened to resign and obviously was deeply upset. Eisenhower drafted a letter to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in Washington implying that ‘he was tired of the whole business. It was now a matter for the Combined Chiefs of Staff to make a decision. It was quite obvious that with Montgomery still pressing to be the Land Force commander it was impossible for the two of them to carry on working in harness together.’ Fortunately Major General ‘Freddie’ de Guingand, alerted to the problem, flew, rather dangerously, to Monty’s HQ and told him, ‘I’ve just come from SHAEF and seen Ike, and its on the cards that you might have to go.’ Monty’s reply was not ‘Why?’ but ‘Who will take my place?’ Only when de Guingand told him that Eisenhower would nominate Field Marshal Alexander (with whom Ike got on very well) did Monty sign a signal already prepared eating humble pipe. It could not last of course. All the Allied generals, even with the battle raging (Bodenplatte occurred on 1 January, and Nordwind started on the same day), had to consider the alternative strategies for the counter-offensive to close out the Bulge. There were three schools of thought. Eisenhower and Montgomery, for different

reasons, wanted to close off starting at Celles, high tide of the panzer advance. Patton wanted to try to cut off all or most of the three German armies ‘to attack north of Diekirch.’ Since his own Third Army was making heavy weather and incurring serious losses, his plan was optimistic! Hodges, Bedell Smith, Collins and Gerow all favoured an attack by Collins’s VII Corps attacking the base of the Bulge from Malmédy. However, a closer look at the terrain, roads and distance involved ruled the ‘majority’ vote out! General Eisenhower feared a prolonged slugging-match trying to close the 40-mile gap at the eastern base of the Bulge. The compromise plan was agreed. A Third Army drive from Bastogne and a First Army drive towards St Vith converging on Houffalize on the river Ourthe in the centre of the waist of the bulge. On the last day of 1944 Montgomery agreed for Collins’s VII Corps followed by XVIII would attack towards Houffalize and St Vith respectively, on a start date of 3 January 1945. Eisenhower expected that the two convergent Armies would produce a convincing victory in the Ardennes that would in turn lead to a major offensive thrust into Germany through the Ardennes and across the Eifel, ‘Thereafter First and Third Armies to drive NW on the general line Prüm–Bonn, eventually to the Rhine.’ Eisenhower agreed that when First and Third US Armies met within the Bulge, Montgomery could be ‘allowed’ to retain US Ninth Army for his great offensive across the Rhine north of the Ruhr. By now the Americans had 42 divisions on the continent against 19 from the UK and Canada, a fact that Winston Churchill and Eisenhower were well aware of, but not apparently Montgomery! Three substantial onslaughts started on the 3rd. In the north General Hodges’ First Army attacked along a 25-mile front. VII Corps pushed SE to just east of Houffalize. XVIII Airborne Corps moved towards St Vith and V Corps was active in the Elsenborn Ridge area. In the south Patton’s Third Army tried once again to push towards Houffalize and clear Wiltz. His VIII Corps started from just north of Bastogne with III Corps in the centre and XII Corps in the south. XXX British Corps made considerable progress east, south of Marche towards Houffalize. 3 January dawned overcast and bitterly cold. The Jabos were unable to fly in support in great strength. 366 US Fighter Group claimed 200 enemy vehicles destroyed near St Vith and Gemund. The other supporting arm even more vital to American armour and infantry tactics, the artillery, would also be muffled by lack of observation, as well as by woods and rugged ground. Where the tanks could find level, open, solid footing, they were able to move cross-country over the frozen fields; but so much of the area was marshland, forested and hilly that the armour usually had to stay on the roads, which were icy. The Ordnance Department had tried all manner of expedients

but had never developed either rubber or steel tank treads that would grip on ice. Again and again the narrow, steep, high-crowned roads presented sharp turns at the crest of hills, and whenever a tank attempted to make such a turn or to pass a stalled vehicle, it was likely to skid into the ditch bordering the road.

Fig 35.1 Sherman tanks of 35th US division, part of General Patton’s Third US Army, move through the outskirts of Bastogne (EA 48967 IWM) The third great attack came from the indomitable von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army. He pulled back his battered trusted formations from the western corridor towards Bastogne – Panzer Lehr, Führer Begleit, Führer Grenadier Brigade, 5th Parachute, 26 VGD and 1st, 9th and 12 SS Panzer divisions. They were not the proud elite that had plunged out of the fog, mists and snow on 16 December. They had been battered by the Allied air forces, hammered by the

huge American artillery concentrations. It was later calculated that the Americans fired four times the amount of shells at the Germans as they in turn received fire. The German armies had been frustrated by intense lack of fuel and in many cases ammunition. They had been frustrated by the many gallant US Task Forces such as Hogan, Riley, Kane, McGeorge, Harper, Cherry, Jordan and others. Nevertheless, the Führer called the odds and the Germans fought back on all fronts. The panzer divisions were down to about 6,000 strong and the VGDs only about 3,000. 9th and 12th SS Panzer divisions now between them had a mixed bag of 55 tanks, plus assault guns. During the next few days the weather was as bad or worse and the enemy defence stiffened. In temperatures dropping below zero, the few clusters of houses and farm buildings became prizes richly to be desired and therefore fiercely contested. Road blocks had to be flanked by infantry labouring through drifted snow. Where bridges were broken, infantry had to cross icy streams to create footholds on the south bank, while the tanks waited and German artillery often made bridge building impossible until nightfall. The infantry divisions, initially cast in a supporting role, had to attach regiments to the armour to lead the slow, slugging advance. ‘An enemy counter-attack made on 3 January 1945,’ noted von Manteuffel, ‘and recognised as such, changed events and the conduct of the army front lines completely. I informed the troops of my decision to fall back by fighting delaying actions, stressing the fact that by their mutual co-operation, liaison within the army was to be maintained to prevent a breakthrough by the enemy within the zone of our army. Lack of fuel and the huge lack of recovery and repair services of all kinds forced us to destroy or leave behind considerably more armour than was put out of action by the enemy during the entire attack. In this way artillery too fell into the hands of the enemy without firing. Neither Field Marshal Model, nor I, or any other military leader doubted that our forces could no longer resist the enemy pressure. The plan and the suggestion of OB West Heeresgruppe [Army Group] B and the army had therefore the aim, after a short reorganisation of the troops at the starting line of the attack on 26 December, to retreat to the Rhine in widespread withdrawal movements. This had been expressly requested several times by Field Marshal Model. Hitler refused to have any discussions whatsoever on this subject.’ Hitler had already begun to withdraw his Waffen SS divisions of ‘Sepp’ Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army ‘with their duties to be taken over by the Fifth Army.’ Von Manteuffel was furious.

Fig 35.2 Bomb bursts on Blankenheim railroad, the line used to supply German troops in Malmédy–Monschau areas (FRA 10220 IWM) ‘A great burden was added to the army when, during the first days of January, orders were given to withdraw the units of the Sixth Army from the fighting front. The troops and commanders did not comprehend this action, and I protested against it in the sharpest manner. The explanation that these units were wanted for new tasks at the Eastern Front could not drive the troops any longer to believe that during these decisive days, once more the Heer [German Army] has to bear the main brunt of the fighting whereas the units of the Waffen SS first enjoyed what the front-line soldier usually called a “rest.” The supreme command had once again forgotten to take into account the psychological effects on the troops.’ ULTRA produced decoded messages each day, referring to the acute shortage of fuel for the panzer combat groups. One result showed that 9 SS

Panzer had a dozen immobile tanks dug in near Petit Langlir on the VII Corps front and ten more as static road blocks around Dochamps. German supply trucks towed two or three others to save fuel. Replacements for the 116 Panzer division were ordered to hitchhike from Euskirchen to Houffalize. 273 GHQ Flak battalion could only obtain fuel supply by bartering its liquor ration to a neighbouring unit. One day 1 SS Division, the proud Liebstandarte, needed 4,752 gallons of fuel for one small move. They only had 264 gallons and were thus grounded. The 101st Airborne division HQ reported about the attack by General Herman Priess ‘Hohenstaufen’ 9th SS Panzer division against Longchamps and Monaville – part of the Bastogne defence perimeter: ‘Although the force of the expected enemy attack was considerably lessened by our heavy artillery concentration on the enemy assembly areas, the attack was the heaviest to date [since 101st arrived in Bastogne on 18 December]. A strong tank and infantry attack was repulsed by Task Force Higgins in the vicinity of Monaville between 1330 and 2200 on the 3rd.’ And presenting a view from the Hohenstaufen, SS Captain Appel, CO 1st Bn 20th SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, wrote, ‘We lie – under unpleasant conditions – before Bastogne. Through unfavourable circumstances – inadequate training of the men and very serious shortages of supplies, particularly clothing and boots – I have very heavy casualties. They are mostly due to artillery and, whenever the weather clears, from Jabos [ground attack aircraft]. Yesterday [4 January] I received 200 replacements, but unfortunately almost all are old men from the Ukraine, some of whom neither speak nor understand German. Everything is lacking. Here a man really has to prove himself. I have already experienced what it means to have to attack without any heavy weapons, since the anti-tank, infantry guns and artillery could not be brought forward due to a lack of prime movers or because they had to be left, stuck fast in the frozen ground, as target practice for the enemy and the Jabos. The companies have only a fraction of their fighting strength … on average about forty to fifty men.’ By dusk on 4 January the Hitler Jugend, 12th SS Panzer division, had gained 2 km and was within 3 km of Bastogne. It was, however, exhausted. It was the high tide of the German counter-attack. Early on 3 January Winston Churchill and CIGS Field Marshal Alan Brooke visited Eisenhower at SHAEF in Versailles. The battles were raging all over the Bulge in appalling weather and casualties were heavy: Churchill and Alan Brooke were only too well aware of the ‘Battle of the Generals’. It was decided that, as Patton put it rather pessimistically, ‘This war can still be lost.’ It was

urgent to find out not if, but when the Russian dictator Joseph Stalin would start the long-awaited winter offensive. Air Marshal Tedder had been sent off to Moscow but because of delays in Naples and Cairo only reached the Kremlin in the middle of January. On the 6th Churchill wrote personally to Stalin: ‘The battle in the West is very heavy. You know yourself from your own experience how very anxious the position is when a very broad front has to be defended after the temporary loss of the initiative. I shall be grateful if you can tell me whether we can count on a major Russian offensive during January. I regard the matter as urgent.’ Stalin replied immediately: ‘… nevertheless taking into account the position of our Allies on the Western Front, GHQ of the Supreme Command has decided to accelerate the completion of our preparation and regardless of the weather, to commence large scale offensive operations against the Germans along the whole Central Front not later than the second half of January.’ Unspoken were the thoughts that it was not in Russia’s interest to have her Western Allies defeated in battle and sue for peace. Moreover, ‘Uncle Joe’ was determined to have the Red Flag flying over the Reichstag before the Allies arrived in Berlin! Six days later a huge Russian advance took place across the Upper Vistula.

Fig 35.3 FM Sir Alan Brooke CIGS (left), Rt. Hon. Winston Churchill (centre) and FM Sir Bernard Montgomery, 6.1.1945 (B 13437 IWM) On 8 January, although the three remaining Panzer divisions and VGDs in good defensive positions held up the Allies, Hitler ordered the forward units to fall back to a line running south from Dochamps to Longchamps, 5 miles north of Bastogne. OKW ordered the remaining SS Panzer divisions on the northern end of the front to go over to the defensive. Both Patton’s 6th Armoured under Major General Grow and 17th Airborne division suffered very heavy blows on the 4th. The ‘Super Sixth’ were ousted from the villages of Oubourcy, Magaret and Wardin. The 11th ‘Thunderbolt’ Armoured division under Brigadier General Charles Kilburn in their first ever action at Mande-St Etienne lost 661 casualties and had 54 tanks knocked out. The green 17th ‘Golden Talon’ Airborne under Major General William Miley had some battalions incurring 40 per cent casualties. In five days the drive for Houffalize gained only 5 miles. There were some successes, however. The experienced 82nd Airborne division reached Vielsalm and took Salmchâteau with 500 prisoners. The 84th Infantry got into Marcouray and ‘Old Gravel Voice’ General Harmon recaptured, with the 2nd ‘Hell on Wheels’ Armoured, the battlefields of Dochamps and Baraque de Fraiture. ULTRA picked up a message on the 8th indicating that all new panzer tanks coming off the Ruhr factory lines were to be diverted to the Eastern Front, a clear sign that Hitler ’s priorities had altered. On 9 January General Joseph Dietrich, GOC Sixth SS Panzer Army, was visiting HQ 2 SS Panzer at the castle at Ferme du Bois St Jean, north of Houffalize. ULTRA reported ‘Battle HQ destroyed, completely burned out in attack by 12 Lightnings. Six to eight bombs fell. Some wounded, 7 MT destroyed, the [general’s] baggages burned out!’ On the 9th, Patton’s Third Army attack with four infantry (26, 35, 87 and 90), two armoured (4 and 6) and two airborne (17 and 101) divisions made slow progress. Starting from the Café Schumann crossroads, the 90th ‘Tough Hombres’ division took heavy casualties. 101st Airborne attack took six days to cover 5 miles to Noville. Part of VII Corps, the 83rd Thunderbolt, which had done so well in ‘Cobra’, now suffered 1,600 casualties in a few days. Task Force ‘Lovelady’, leading 3rd ‘Spearhead’ Armoured division under Major General Rose, from 3–9 January reached the line Provedroux-Ottré-Regne. They resumed their attack on the 13th and slogged their way to Hebronville, Cherain, Bihain and Langlir. Every hour of daylight saw combat. The Germans retreated skilfully. They laid mines on the verges, they covered crossroads and

bridges with mortar fire and SP guns, Mark IVs and Mark Vs. Bazooka ‘parties’ lurked in every hamlet and village. They made the Americans (and the British in the north) pay for every yard gained. The advance needed patience, bravery and skill. The many thousands of very young, green GIs had neither patience nor skill. They had bravery and they died in their hundreds. General Patton’s diary for 13 January read, ‘Attitude of troops completely changed. They now have full confidence that they are pursuing a defeated enemy. This in spite of the fact that the Germans north and north-east of Bastogne are resisting viciously in order to preserve their escape routes.’ Task Force Lovelady of the Spearhead division only had ten tanks left in their two tank companies by the 15th. Their history, Five Stars to Victory, noted, ‘Bitterly with our surviving tanks and the remnants of the infantry battalion we again marched in the face of death. One tank returned while the larger part of a hundred doughboys guarded the other nine [tanks] with their lifeless bodies. Cold, wet, miserable, with trench foot, frozen fingers and battle weary minds, men whose tanks had been knocked out would walk back to the aid station at Lomre. Here they stripped, sat by a hot stove whilst their clothes dried, ate and drank hot coffee. In a few hours they were fighting mad again.’ Task Force ‘Lovelady’ was down but not out. They had three Stuart light tanks, no Shermans, 60 infantrymen and two tank destroyers. Originally 3rd Armoured division had at full strength 232 Shermans and 158 Stuarts. ULTRA read a message: ‘0930 hrs 14 January 5 Pz Army state that extraordinary heavy fighter-bomber activity brought all movement to a standstill. Fighter protection in Houffalize area urgently requested. Reply from II Jagdkorps at 1200 hrs stated that up to 1100 hrs 216 aircraft had been directed thither. No further forces were at that moment available.’ During January the four Allied air forces flew more than 1,000 sorties per day on ten out of the first fifteen days of the month. Only on the 4th, 8th, 9th, 11th and 12th were the Jabos not on their destructive ground attack missions. The Bomber Command bombed bridges and railway targets unmercifully. On the 7th, 9 SS Panzer division in Houffalize were deluged with bombs by four waves of Allied bombers blasting the little town from 6,000 feet. On the 10th a camouflaged petrol dump with 15,000 gallons near Hillesheim went up in flames. At Heppenback on the 12th assault guns with 3 Fallschirmjager (paratroop) division were bombed and chased through thick woods near Ondenval. The Führer Begleit brigade complained that six assault SPs and four Hornisse SPs could not be collected from repair depot ‘as every drop of fuel is necessary for the battle.’ On the 11th, 474th Fighter Group hit an ammo dump

near Mayen and ground targets near St Vith and Prüm. Medium bombers blasted Clervaux and Houffalize. Weyland’s XIX TAC flew 546 sorties on the 13th, claiming 137 vehicles and 16 tanks. The next day five speedy and cheeky AR-234 jets bombed American artillery in Bastogne. But it was Black Sunday, the 14th, for the Luftwaffe, which admitted 107 pilots killed and 32 wounded. On 15 January the OKL produced a grim, depressing report about the air situation in the West. They noted, ‘except for single Recce machines, no German aircraft reached the front line over the last two weeks owing to the interception in the rear areas. Artillery spotters very annoying. No apparent German fighter protection. Greatest danger low flying aircraft. Diligent camouflage and vehicle dispersal vital. Flak operations only effective weapon against Allied air attacks.’ OKL also criticised the German ground units. ‘Large proportion of faults due to late briefing by officers and fall in quality of leadership in ground troops. Need to save every minute of time, and drop of petrol, not sufficiently realised. Bomb damage not quickly enough cleared up to let supplies through traffic jams often due to lack of energy and leadership. Not enough attention paid to danger from air in locating headquarters, camouflaging motor transport and occupying villages. Too many men wandering about looking for their unit …’ This document was considered to be so depressing that it was not distributed to the commanders in the field. At 7.15 a.m. on Monday 15 January, Adolf Hitler boarded his special train and moved from the Adlerhorst back to Berlin. Wacht am Rhein, Bodenplatte and Nordwind had been unsuccessful. General Heinz Guderian on the Eastern Front had pleaded with his Führer to run the defences of the Third Reich – in face of the new formidable attacks by Stalin’s Red Army – from the shattered Reichschancellery building in Berlin. To assist the withdrawal of their ground forces the Luftwaffe put up 175 air sorties on the 16th over the Ardennes battle zone. Patton’s diary of 16 January: ‘At 0905, 41st Cavalry of the 11th Armoured division made contact with 41st Infantry of 2nd Armoured division in Houffalize thus terminating the Bastogne operation as far as the Third Army is concerned.’ One direct result of this historic meeting of First and Third US Armies in the battered, inoffensive little town of Houffalize was that General Omar Bradley was a far happier man! On the 17th he had regained command of General Hodges’ First Army, but not US Ninth, which remained under Montgomery’s control. General Patton visited his troops attacking towards Wiltz and St Vith – the 6th Armoured, 26th and 90th divisions. ‘I know you’re tired,’ he told them, ‘but you’ll have to keep fighting.’ On his right – southern – flank the three

divisions 4th, 5th and 80th were still fighting an attritional battle in the Echternach–Diekirch area. These two accounts by Volksgrenadiers of Brandenberger ’s Seventh Army are of interest, as the ‘Amis’ close in on them. Unteroffizier Wilhelm Stetter with 3rd Company VGR 915, part of 352 VGD, was one of the garrison troops of Hoesdorf and Bettendorf on the river Sauer, 4 kilometres from the German West Wall. Hauptmann Konig was the battalion commander and Platoon Leader Schnabel and Feldwebel Krupka were Stetter ’s senior officers. A mill and Bettendorf Castle were two of the defence points guarded by No. 3 Company. Stetter recounted how, in the attack by the American 5th Infantry early on the 18th, his friend Tannenberg was shot through his left eye and the bullet came out of the back of his head. ‘His head was a sticky, bloody mess. It was terrible to see. He was completely dead. His left hand was smashed.’ Unteroffizier Franz had been shot in the abdomen: ‘He cried out that I should give him a weapon so he could shoot himself. He must have been in terrible pain. In the meantime a heavy fight was on in the village itself. The terrible crashing of tank guns was heard. I was upstairs in the mill with my men. Suddenly a few shells whined into the mill and exploded. I immediately heard screams, more intense than I had ever heard before. The whole courtyard was full – a hundred inhabitants had sought shelter in the silo on the other side of the mill. Now the Americans had shot several anti-tank projectiles in and wounded numerous civilians. They flocked into the cellar. We were powerless.’ In the castle Stetter was captured. ‘At daybreak we had to march to Gilsdorf with a five-man guard. Along the road were eighteen camouflaged Sherman tanks. There were only forty of us in Bettendorf.’ Lt Gunter Stottmeister was OC of the heavy engineering company of 352 VGD, which held Diekirch with machine-guns and mortars: ‘We mined the banks of the river Sauer at Diekirch to prevent enemy surprise attacks. Wooden and concrete mines were laid, as we had supplies of hundreds of them. Every day Diekirch was fired on. Especially frightening were the US white phosphorous grenades that set whole blocks of houses on fire.’ Gunter ’s company was housed in the large cellar of a house near the market square. On 18 January the order came, ‘Begin withdrawal. The Amis crossed the river Sauer last night.’ The RV was the courtyard of an old brewery. Every VGD wore a white bed sheet as camouflage in the snowy white surroundings. ‘Through the binoculars I could see the Americans moving into Diekirch. We were fired on but moved, guided by compass and maps, towards the German boundary, the river Our. Somehow we reached Vianden and then Roth where we crossed the bridge to south of Bitburg.’ When the US 5th ‘Red Diamond’

infantry division under Major General Leroy Irwin attacked Diekirch on 18 January, Ulrich Jonath and Horst Hennig were machine-gunners with VGR 914 defending the town. During the night 17/18th, ‘We got the alarm. Apparently numerous Americans had been seen by the Sauer. In the early hours things really let loose, which we had all feared. Under cover of darkness and without artillery preparation they were crossing the Sauer in boats to begin the attack. Through the glass I could see numerous white-camouflaged figures hurrying down the slope. I shot at the rows of attacking Americans. The group to our left also fired like mad, some of our mortars also fired. Screams were heard. There were many dead men on the slope. Enemy smoke shells destroyed our view, followed by heavy US artillery fire.’ Soon the railway station area, the Kulhaus and the saw mill were under such heavy fire as to be untenable. Via a cemetery and a brewery, despite being wounded, Ulrich Jonath managed to escape. Alan Moorehead was an influential wartime journalist and author who had followed the campaigns of the Allied forces in North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Normandy and the Ardennes. He described the end of the campaign: ‘Heavy snow covered the ground. Soldiers of both sides were dying of frostbite and exposure. Yet still for the Allies the position was far from secure … At the New Year the Allies at last passed to the offensive. From the north and south immense pressure came down on the German salient. Mile after mile the enemy was squeezed back to his original starting line in Germany. This was some of the most gruelling fighting of the whole war; the daylong, night-long endless snow, the unremitting cold. Men froze to death in their foxholes in the night. Petrol froze in the tanks and the anti-freeze mixture in the radiators froze as well. All round Brussels and Liège it was milky fog.’ Patton and the Allied leaders were now desperate in their efforts to trap 5th and 7th German armies west of the Our river. Critical, therefore, was the necessity to knock out the bridges over the river. From 17 to 21 January the Ardennes suffered a ‘white-out’ with snow falling every day. The Allied bombers and fighter-bombers were impotent. But on the 22nd and 23rd the weather cleared and the Allied medium bombers of 386 Bomb Group went to work, mainly on German rail bridges with strange names. The span at KonzKarthaus was briefed fifteen times but only attacked on two occasions. There were others – Ahrweiler, Keuchengen, Bullay, Neuwied and Sinzig. Each was defended by massed flak batteries which always gave intruders a very hot reception. The ‘Turkey Shoot’ started on the 22nd when columns of German vehicles totalling 1,500 were spotted near Prüm and another 400 waiting to

cross the road bridge at Dasburg. The Sixth SS Panzer Army were on the way to the Eastern Front. Brigadier General Anderson’s IX Bomb Division sent 304 medium bombers for six targets at Blumenthal, Euskirchen and Nideggen. At Blankenheim and the marshalling yards at Gerolstein they found the railheads for Sixth SS Panzer Army. Marauders known as the ‘Bridge Busters’ dropped 42 tons of bombs from 12,000 feet (high to avoid flak) on the Dasburg bridge – and, perhaps surprisingly, hit it. General Otto Weyland’s XIX TAC then unleashed swarms of P-47 Jabos. His 550 sorties claimed 1,162 motor vehicles, 30 AFVs, 49 horsedrawn wagons and 49 gun positions wiped out. Dasburg and Prüm were the main targets. General Elwood ‘Pete’ Quesada’s IX TAC total for the 22nd was also formidable – 350 sorties produced claims of 409 enemy trucks, 28 AFVs, 8 horsedrawn vehicles and 13 gun positions with Blankenheim, Prüm and Dasburg as the main targets. In the north General Nugent’s XXIX TAC blasted rail traffic in the Duren, and Dorsten–Dulmen areas. They claimed 15 locomotives and 628 rail cars. Late in the day a further 2,000 enemy vehicles were spotted near the Gemünd bridge, NW of Vianden. General Bayerlein’s Panzer Lehr division had been desperately fighting to hold open escape routes across the Our river at Gemünd. Lack of fuel forced him to abandon 53 tanks in perfect operating order. His Panzer Grenadiers fought in knee-high snow in bitter combat around Hoscheid. The road to Hosingen was solid with enemy transport. The next day the Panzer Lehr were forced out of Hoscheid in brutal street fighting. The proud but broken Panzer Lehr pulled back to the West Wall with 18 tanks and 400 exhausted grenadiers. The slaughter caused by the Allied air forces (the British 2nd TAF assisted the Ninth US Airforce) continued on the 23rd, with 750 sorties over the Our bridging sites with claims totalling 1,017 vehicles. This despite deadly German flak defending Dasburg, which caused carnage to General Anderson’s medium bombers attempting low-level bombing. And the terrible pounding continued on the 24th and 25th. The protective cloak of mist, fog and overcast descended over the German Eifel and the river crossings from the 26th. The three Tactical Air Commands claimed in the four days a staggering 6,618 MET, 396 AFVs, 188 gun positions, 47 locomotives and 1,157 rail cars! St Vith fell and General Huebner gave the honour to the US 7th ‘Lucky Seventh’ Armoured division of being the first to enter the wrecked town. General Hasbrouck in turn asked Brigadier General Bruce Clarke to lead the American troops in. Other places with bitter memories were captured. Baugnez and Malmédy, Vielsalm and Salmchâteau, Wiltz and Clervaux, Consthum and

Marnach, Diekirch and Fouhren. By 26 January only a few ‘stay-behind’ German delaying detachments remained. Two days later the official date was set by the US Army for the end of Wacht am Rhein. Nearly 600,000 Americans were eventually involved in the fighting, including 29 divisions, 6 mechanised cavalry groups, and several independent regiments. Casualties totalled over 100,000 of which 19,000 were killed and 15,000 captured. The British XXX Corps totalled 55,000 with three divisions and three brigades. Casualties totalled 1,400 of which 200 were KIA. The German three armies totalled about 500,000 including 28 divisions and three brigades. Including Nordwind, the German casualties were not less than 130,000 of which about 19,000 were KIA. Both sides lost heavily in weapons and equipment, probably as many as 800 AFVs on each side. ‘Sepp’ Dietrich admitted to losing almost 400 AFVs, and Fifth Panzer well over 200 AFVs. The Luftwaffe lost 1,000 planes and were now a spent force.

Fig 35.4 Snow-covered Shermans of 7th US Armoured division, 1st US Army, recapture St Vith, 23.1.1945 (FRA 102245 IWM)

Fig 35.5 Leutnant General Erich Brandenberger (centre) surrenders German 7th Army (EA 66042 IWM)

chapter 36

Gotterdämmerung: the final audit

B

y the end of January 1945 Hitler ’s armies in the Ardennes were back where Christrose, Herbstnebel, Wacht am Rhein and Norwind operations had started six weeks earlier. Hitler was now forced to concentrate on the Red Army onslaughts in the East. Unfortunately the Allied ‘Battle of the Generals’ reached a climax during January, causing Eisenhower much anxiety. On 6 January the London Daily Mail published a very stupid and provocative article headlined ‘Montgomery: Full Story of Breach Battle, British Halted Drive to the Meuse Line’. It went on to include the words ‘the knowledge that Field Marshal Montgomery is now in full control there will be received with relief in this country.’ The next day the Field Marshal called a press conference at Zonhoven in Belgium. He paid high tribute to the American commanders, to the US soldier and brave fighting man, steady under fire and with the tenacity in battle which stamps the first class soldier: ‘I never want to fight alongside better soldiers.’ He pleaded ‘for Allied solidarity at this vital stage of the war.’ Most listeners understood and agreed with what he was saying, even though it sounded patronising: ‘I reorganised the American and British armies.’ Many American newspapers were highly critical of his speech although the New York Times of 7 January commented, ‘No handsomer tribute was ever paid to the American soldier than that of Field Marshal Montgomery in the midst of battle.’ A BBC broadcast gave Monty’s speech in such a way as to irritate most of SHAEF. ‘It is the most brilliant and

difficult task he has yet managed. He found no defence lines,the Americans somewhat bewildered, few reserves on hand and supply lines cut … The battle of the Ardennes can now be practically written off, thanks to Montgomery.’

Map 13 Four weeks of bitter fighting in January 1945 before Wacht am Rhein

was closed out. Casualties on both sides were severe General Omar Bradley and all his staff were furious, particularly since the London Daily Mail’s next headlines ran, ‘Montgomery Foresaw Attack: Acted “on own” to save day.’ SHAEF were collectively upset because Montgomery should have made it clear that his command over half of Bradley’s Army Group was temporary. So Bradley held a press conference in Luxembourg City to explain why Eisenhower had given Montgomery half of the battlefield in the Ardennes. The Daily Mail continued to stir things up with an editorial, ‘A Slur on Monty.’ Bradley went to see Eisenhower in Versailles and told him that if Montgomery was put in command of all ground forces ‘You must send me home. For if Montgomery goes over me, I will have lost the confidence of my command.’ Patton of course told Bradley that he would join the exodus as well! Early in the New Year Prime Minister Winston Churchill and the CIGS Field Marshal Sir Alan Brooke spent two days with General Eisenhower and Field Marshal Montgomery. Churchill then telegraphed President Roosevelt: ‘They both feel the battle very heavy, but are confident of success. I hope you understand that, in case any troubles should arise in the Press, His Majesty’s Government have complete confidence in General Eisenhower and feel acutely any attacks made on him. He and Montgomery are very closely knit [a perhaps over-rosy comment?] and also Bradley and Patton and it would be disaster which broke up this combination which has in 1944 yielded us results beyond the dreams of military avarice. Montgomery said to me today that the breakthrough would have been most serious to the whole front but for the solidarity of the Anglo-American Army.’ On 12 January Montgomery sent Bradley a really warm friendly letter: ‘I would like to say two things (1) What a great honour it has been for me to command such fine troops. (2) How well they have done … it has been a great pleasure to work with Hodges and Simpson: both have done very well. And the Corps Commanders in the First Army, Gerow, Collins and Ridgeway have been quite magnificent …’ And ended by sending ‘My kind regards to you and to George Patton.’ However, it is true that during the 33 days of battle, Bradley never met with either General Hodges or Simpson and in his two memoirs published after the war he was highly critical of SHAEF, Eisenhower and Montgomery. Charles MacDonald fought in the Ardennes, aged 22, and commanded an infantry company and was awarded the Silver Star. In 1979 he retired as Deputy Chief Historian of the US Army. He has written comprehensive

accounts of the battle and listed the occasions when ‘Monty got it wrong.’ 1

Monty wanted to pull back from the Elsenborn Ridge even though the defensive battle was going well. When General Hodges protested, Monty bowed to his objection.

2

Monty wanted to pull back ‘immediately’ from St Vith, but again ‘bowed’ to his objection.

3

Monty wanted 82nd Airborne to withdraw from the Salm river to the Trois Ponts–Manhay line, but Ridgeway had already directed General Gavin to prepare for such a withdrawal.

4

Monty ordered the Manhay crossroads to be relinquished. Later Hodges ordered the crossroads to be retaken.

5

Monty ordered General Collins to assemble for an attack. But Collins [for various reasons] became involved in the defensive battle. Monty then authorised withdrawal. Collins [then disobeyed] attacked instead and halted the Panzers south of the Meuse.

6

When it came to reducing the Bulge, Montgomery moved ‘so slowly’ – but surely – that the Germans were able to regroup undisturbed by the First Army for new assaults on Bastogne.

And so on and so forth. General von Manteuffel later said this of Montgomery: ‘The operations of the US 1st Army had developed into a series of individual holding actions. Montgomery’s contribution to restoring the situation was that he turned a series of isolated actions into a coherent battle fought according to a clear and definite plan. It was his refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough.’ In Chester Wilmot’s Struggle for Europe, the highly experienced war journalist was an Australian. He was not British. He was not American. These were his views: When Montgomery took command, the Germans still had a very good chance of reaching the Meuse in force. This was soon eliminated by his strong and patient handling of the chaotic situation he had inherited. Bradley, Patton and other American generals thought that he was too patient and that his policy was unduly cautious. It may well he that Montgomery underestimated the toughness and resilience of the American troops after suffering a severe reverse. If

Montgomery had allowed US First Army to take part in an attritional slogging match east of the River Ourthe the panzer forces would have had a clear run between the Ourthe and the Meuse. He converted a series of individual actions into a coherent battle fought in accordance with a clear plan. The quick placing of the British XXX Corps to hold all the key river Meuse bridges restored the balance of the Allied armies. His insistence on the withdrawal of First Army from its more exposed positions enabled the US forces to establish a firm, defensive line and front blocking the way to Namur. Montgomery refused to make piecemeal and premature counter-attacks. This enabled the Americans to create reserves which foiled the German attempts to penetrate and outflank that front. There is no point in rehashing all the ‘insults’ and ‘slights’ caused unwittingly by Montgomery on Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, Hodges and others. The battle was won. Bradley got one of his armies back! Oberst Otto Remer commanded the independent Führer Begleit (Escort) brigade, aged 32, and had already won the Knight’s Cross with Oakleaves and the German Cross in Gold. Remer later wrote a detailed analysis of their failure. 1

Weather Contrary to the Wehrmacht weather forecasters’ predictions the skies cleared after the first week and the Allied air forces took full advantage of the clear blue skies.

2

Road conditions Roads degenerated rapidly as a result of snow and the pounding of hundreds of heavy AFVs. The Volksgrenadiers relied mainly on horsedrawn transport for their supplies. Monumental traffic jams, particularly in the first two days, hindered the speed of the German advance. The Führer and Model had planned to seize bridgeheads over the Meuse by the end of the second day. This was obviously impossible.

3

Shortage of fuel The Begleit Brigade had fuel shortages from the third day onwards. Fuel vehicles had to be towed forward by tracked vehicles, thus increasing fuel usage. About 50 of Remer ’s 100 tanks had to be destroyed at the end through shortage of fuel or the lack of recovery vehicles to tow them away. ‘Tactical decisions were dependent on the fuel situation,’ he wrote. (The American armies used six times the amount of fuel in the Ardennes.)

4

Underestimated the enemy From the Führer downwards there was the view

that the young, green GIs (and young green officers) would not resist the power of the panzers for long. 5

Lack of combat troops Remer considered that fewer combat units were actually available in Wacht am Rhein. The reserves were not released quickly enough or in sufficient quantities.

6

Quality of units All the panzer divisions and brigades were short of tanks and some VGD and Volksartillery units were short of horses. A number of units had no combat experience.

7

American artillery Remer ruefully noted that the US artillery with its large expenditure of ammunition was always superior. ‘This cost us much blood in difficult attacks,’ he wrote. (The Americans fired four times as many shells in the Ardennes.)

8

Air support ‘The complete lack of air support on the one hand and the continuous enemy air activity on the other had a considerable effect on the morale of our troops.’

Remer ’s Führer Begleit suffered 2,000 casualties in five weeks of fighting on the left flank of von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer Army. Some 60–70 per cent of losses were due to shell and handgrenade splinters. (In Normandy the German Nebelwerfers mortars inflicted the same proportion of casualties to the Allies.) The Allied air forces inflicted about 15–20 per cent of casualties by bombs or strafing, but these losses were mainly to the supply troops and reserves in ‘soft’ transport. About 10 per cent of casualties came from tank fire and the rest from MG or rifle fire. Of Remer ’s nine unit commanders, three were killed and four wounded. Of his 100 tanks 10–12 per cent were knocked out by tank or anti-tank gun fire, 5–10 per cent ran over mines. Only 25–30 per cent survived when the offensive was over; presumably the balance was abandoned. Remer claimed his brigade put 140–150 American tanks or SPs out of action and that the usual ratio of losses between the two sides in direct action was one to eight. Remer ’s troops captured 20–30 artillery pieces and 150 jeeps and trucks, which used too much precious fuel. The brigade took 400–500 prisoners and their efficient flak unit shot down thirteen planes. Colonel Hugh Cole, the American historian who wrote United States Army in WWII – the Ardennes, lists six reasons for the eventual success of the American armies:

1

The initial US defence had been much more stubborn and tenacious than had been anticipated by Hitler and Model, so the rapid penetration of the US positions had not been achieved.

2

Tactical support and resupply had not kept pace with the advance of the fighting troops.

3

Denial of a free road net to use for control and ease of movement. The Americans retained control over the two key road hubs of St Vith and Bastogne.

4

The shoulders of the German offensive had not been brought forward in time with the central thrust, the lack of forces and proper control causing the ‘shoulders’ to jam.

5

The slow build-up had prevented any real depth being achieved in time for the offensive to succeed before the Allies reacted sufficiently to halt it.

6

The tactical reaction of the Allied forces as a whole, especially the commitment of reserves, had been much faster than anticipated.

The famous Australian war journalist Chester Wilmot believed that the ‘fundamental reason for the German failure was Hitler ’s assumption that the Wehrmacht had the power to repeat its performance of 1940. His plan had been based on a gross over-estimate of his own strength and an even grosser underestimate of Allied strength and particularly of the American capacity to recover. When winter weather reduced their air support, the American and British armies would be no match for the Wehrmacht.’ Finally Hitler, as usual, completely ignored the advice of his generals. They knew that Autumn Mist was doomed to failure. They knew that Hitler ’s plan was foredoomed to failure. He had neither the strength nor the petrol to capture Antwerp. But after the assassination ‘coup’ in July had failed, no German general dared to tell the Führer to his face that he was wrong. Colonel Hugh Cole examined the German records shortly after the end of the war. In the autumn of 1944 the total paper strength of the Wehrmacht was 10,165,303. Generally speaking their records were usually very accurate. Of these 7,536,946 were in the Army and Waffen SS, 1,925,291 in the Luftwaffe and 703,066 in the Navy. Many of the Luftwaffe and Navy were being transferred into the new Volksgrenadier divisions. In his statement and speech to von Rundstedt and other generals before Nordwind in late December Hitler told them, ‘We should not forget that even today [end of 1944] we are defending an area which is essentially larger than Germany has ever been, and

that there is at our disposal an armed force which even today is unquestionably the most powerful on earth.’ He had 260 divisions in the field (including 17 idle in Scandinavia), twice as many as he had had in May 1940. Lebensraum had always been vitally important to the Führer and he gave all his commanders direct orders that territory, once seized, should not be surrendered but defended to the ‘last man and bullet’. Already millions of his faithful soldiers had been sacrificed in North Africa, Sicily, Greece and Crete, half of Italy, France, Belgium, half of Holland and of course at Stalingrad and on the vast useless Russian Steppes. He appeared to believe that his ‘miracle’ weapons would turn the tide in 1945: his few operational jet-bombers (he still thought they were fighters!), his Scandinavian naval bases from which new electro-U-boats would start again to terrorise Allied shipping, his scores of V-2 rocket bombs in Holland raining down death in SE England, London and Antwerp. The great final gamble of Autumn Mist/Wacht am Rhein was a ‘bishop’ attack on Hitler ’s military chessboard. Nordwind and Bodenplatte were ‘pawn’ attacks. The Eastern Front took two castles and a bishop and the Italian front a couple of knights and a few pawns. He juggled and switched pieces with amazing rapidity. Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army was on its way to prop up the East. Blaskowitch’s forces also. General von Mantueffel later, after the war, commented: The fortress of Germany got a breathing spell. The home front which had been attacked constantly by the enemy air forces was relieved for a while. However, sacrifices and costs, it is true, were so large that it seems doubtful whether the offensive was really a gain. The last German reserves were badly damaged, they were lacking in effectiveness for continuation of the war in the West as well as the East. The quick success of the Red Army stood in causal coherence with the offensive in the Ardennes which possibly accelerated the end of the war, in which case the gaining of time in the West must be regarded as a false conclusion. The reaction on the morale and in consequence upon the total attitude of the troops and the nation probably accelerated the breakdown of the armed forces and the country. Alan Moorehead the journalist wrote in his book Eclipse, ‘It was here on the battlefield that the issue was really decided when the common American soldier elected to fight up to the point of his death. Had the American soldier on the spot not risen immediately to his crisis then nothing Montgomery or Bradley could have done would have altered the situation … Plans could be made anew and Montgomery was able to fight what I believe to be his greatest

battle.’ Prime Minister Winston Churchill had no doubt that: This was the enemy’s final offensive of the war. At the time it caused us no little anxiety. The Germans could not replace their losses and our subsequent battles on the Rhine, though severe, were undoubtedly eased. The German High Command and even Hitler must have been disillusioned. Taken by surprise Eisenhower and his commanders acted swiftly, but they will agree that the major credit lies elsewhere. In Montgomery’s words, ‘The Battle of the Ardennes was won primarily by the staunch fighting qualities of the American soldier.’

chapter 37

The heroes Congressional Medal of Honour Heroes of the Battle of the Bulge

Arthur O Beyer Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Corporal, US Army, Company C, 603rd Tank Destroyer Battalion Near Arioncourt, Belgium, 15 January 1945 St Ansgar, Iowa 20 May 1909, Rock Township, Mitchell County, Iowa 73, 30 August 1945

Cpl Beyer ’s platoon, in which he was a tank-destroyer gunner, was held up by anti-tank, machine-gun and rifle fire from enemy troops dug in along a ridge about 200 yards to the front. Noting a machine-gun position in this defence line, he fired upon it with his 76mm gun, killing one man and silencing the weapon. He dismounted from his vehicle and, under direct enemy observation, crossed open ground to capture the remaining members of the crew. Another machine-gun, about 250 yards to the left, continued to fire on him. Through withering fire, he advanced on the position. Throwing a grenade into the emplacement, he killed one crew

member and captured the two survivors. He was subjected to concentrated small-arms fire but, with great bravery, he worked his way a quarter mile along the ridge, attacking hostile soldiers in their foxholes with his carbine and grenades. When he had completed his self-imposed mission against powerful German forces, he had destroyed two machine-gun positions, killed eight of the enemy and captured 18 prisoners, including two bazooka teams. Cpl Beyer ’s intrepid action and unflinching determination to close with and destroy the enemy eliminated the German defence line and enabled his task force to gain its objective.

Melvin E Biddle Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Private First Class, US Army, Company B, 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment Near Soy, Belgium, 23–24 December 1944 Anderson, Indiana Daleville, Indiana 95, 30 October 1945

Serving as lead scout during an attack to relieve the enemy-encircled town of Hotton, PFC Biddle aggressively penetrated a densely wooded area, advanced 400 yards until he came within range of intense enemy fire and, within 20 yards of enemy positions, killed three snipers with unerring marksmanship. Courageously continuing his advance an additional 200 yards, he discovered a hostile machine-gun position and dispatched its two occupants. He then located the approximate position of a well-concealed enemy machine-gun nest and, crawling forward, threw hand grenades which killed two Germans and fatally wounded a third. After signalling his company to advance, he entered a determined line of enemy defence, coolly and deliberately shifted his position, and shot three more enemy soldiers. Undaunted by enemy fire, he crawled within 20 yards of a machine-gun nest, tossed in his last hand grenade and, after the explosion, charged the emplacement, firing his rifle. When night fell, he scouted enemy positions alone for several hours and returned with valuable information which enabled our attacking infantry and

armour to knock out two enemy tanks. At daybreak he again led the advance and, when flanking elements were pinned down by enemy fire, without hesitation made his way towards a hostile machine-gun position and from a distance of 50 yards killed the crew and two supporting riflemen. The remainder of the enemy, finding themselves without automatic weapon support, fled panic stricken. PFC Biddle’s intrepid courage and superb daring during his 20-hour action enabled his battalion to break the enemy grasp on Hotton with a minimum of casualties.

Paul L Bolden Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Staff Sergeant, US Army, Company I, 120th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division Petit-Coo, Belgium, 23 December 1944 Madison, Alabama Hobbes Island, Iowa 73, 30 August 1945

He voluntarily attacked a formidable enemy strong-point in Petit-Coo, Belgium, on 23 December 1944 when his company was pinned down by extremely heavy automatic and small-arms fire coming from a house 200 yards to the front. Mortar and tank artillery shells pounded the unit, when S/Sgt Bolden and a comrade, on their own initiative, moved forward into a hail of bullets to eliminate the ever increasing fire from the German position. Crawling ahead to close with what they knew was a powerfully armed, vastly superior force, the pair reached the house and took up assault positions, S/Sgt Bolden under a window, his comrade across the street where he could deliver covering fire. In rapid succession, S/Sgt Bolden hurled a fragmentation grenade and a white phosphorous grenade into the building and then, fully realising that he faced tremendous odds, rushed to the door, threw it open and fired into 35 SS troopers who were trying to reorganise themselves after the havoc wrought by the grenades. Twenty Germans died under fire of his submachine-gun before he was struck in the shoulder, chest, and stomach by part of a burst which killed his comrade across the street. He withdrew from the house, waiting for the surviving Germans to come out and surrender.

When none appeared in the doorway, he summoned his ebbing strength, overcame the extreme pain he suffered and boldly walked back into the house, firing as he went. He had killed the remaining 15 enemy soldiers when his ammunition ran out. S/Sgt Bolden’s heroic advance against great odds, his fearless assault, and his magnificent display of courage in re-entering the building where he had been severely wounded cleared the path for his company and ensured the success of its mission.

Richard Eller Cowan Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Private First Class, US Army, Company M, 23rd Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division Near Krinkelter Wald, Belgium, 17 December 1944 Wichita, Kansas Lincoln, Nebraska 48, 23 June 1945

He was a heavy machine-gunner in a section attached to Company I in the vicinity of Krinkelter Wald, Belgium, when that company was attacked by a numerically superior force of German infantry and tanks. The first six waves of hostile infantrymen were repulsed with heavy casualties, but a seventh drive with tanks killed or wounded all but three of his section, leaving Pvt Cowan to man his gun, supported by only 15 to 20 riflemen of Company I. He maintained his position, holding off the Germans until the rest of the shattered force had set up a new line along a firebreak. Then, unaided, he moved his machine-gun and ammunition to the second position. At the approach of a Royal Tiger tank, he held his fire until about 80 enemy infantrymen supporting the tank appeared at a distance of about 150 yards. His first burst killed or wounded about half of these infantrymen. His position was rocked by an 88mm shell when the tank opened fire, but he continued to man his gun, pouring deadly fire into the Germans when they again advanced. He was barely missed by another shell. Fire from three machine-guns and innumerable small arms struck all about him; an enemy rocket shook him badly, but did not drive him from his gun. Infiltration by the enemy had by this time made the position untenable, and the order was given to withdraw.

PFC Cowan was the last man to leave, voluntarily covering the withdrawal of his remaining comrades. His heroic actions were entirely responsible for allowing the remaining men to retire successfully from the scene of their lastditch stand.

Francis S Currey Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Sergeant, US Army, Company K, 120th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division Malmédy, Belgium, 21 December 1944 Hurleyville, New York Loch Sheldrake, New York 69, 17 August 1945

He was an automatic rifleman with the 3rd Platoon defending a strong-point near Malmédy, Belgium, on 21 December 1944, when the enemy launched a powerful attack. Overrunning tank destroyers and anti-tank guns located near the strong-point, German tanks advanced to the 3rd Platoon’s position and, after prolonged fighting, forced the withdrawal of this group to a nearby factory. Sgt Currey found a bazooka in the building and crossed the street to secure rockets, meanwhile enduring intense fire from enemy tanks and hostile infantrymen who had taken up a position at a house a short distance away. In the face of small arms, machine-gun and artillery fire, he, with a companion, knocked out a tank with one shot. Moving to another position, he observed three Germans in the doorway of an enemy-held house. He killed or wounded all three with his automatic rifle. He emerged from cover and advanced alone to within 50 yards of the house, intent on wrecking it with rockets. Covered by friendly fire, he stood erect and fired a shot which knocked down half of one wall. While in this forward position, he observed five Americans who had been pinned down for hours by fire from the house and three tanks. Realising that they could not escape until the enemy tank and infantry guns had been silenced, Sgt Currey crossed the street to a vehicle, where he procured an armful of antitank grenades. These he launched while under heavy enemy fire, driving the tankmen from the vehicles into the house. He then climbed on to a halftrack in full view of the Germans and fired a machine-gun at the house. Once again changing his position, he manned another machine-gun whose crew had been killed; under his covering fire the five soldiers were able to retire to safety.

Deprived of tanks and with heavy infantry casualties, the enemy was forced to withdraw. Through his extensive knowledge of weapons and by his heroic and repeated braving of murderous enemy fire, Sgt Currey was greatly responsible for inflicting heavy losses in men and material on the enemy, for rescuing five comrades, two of whom were wounded, and for stemming an attack which threatened to flank his battalion’s position.

Archer T Gammon Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Staff Sergeant, US Army, Company A, 9th Armoured Infantry Battalion, 6th Armoured Division Near Bastogne, Belgium, 11 January 1945 Roanoke, Virginia 11 September 1918, Chatham, Virginia 18, 13 February 1946

He charged 30 yards through hip-deep snow to knock out a machine-gun and its three-man crew with grenades, saving his platoon from being decimated and allowing it to continue its advance from an open field into some nearby woods. The platoon’s advance through the woods had only begun when a machine-gun supported by riflemen opened fire and a Tiger Royal tank sent 88mm shells screaming at the unit from the left flank. S/Sgt Gammon, disregarding all thoughts of personal safety, rushed forward, then cut to the left, crossing the width of the platoon’s skirmish line in an attempt to get within grenade range of the tank and its protecting foot troops. Intense fire was concentrated on him by riflemen and the machine-gun emplaced near the tank. He charged the automatic weapon, wiped out its crew of four with grenades, and with supreme daring, advanced to within 25 yards of the armoured vehicle, killing two hostile infantrymen with rifle fire as he moved forward. The tank had started to withdraw, backing a short distance, then firing, backing some more, and then stopping to blast out another round when the man whose singlehanded relentless attack had put the ponderous machine on the defensive was struck and instantly killed by a direct hit from the Tiger Royal’s heavy gun. By his intrepidity and extreme devotion to the task of driving the enemy

back no matter what the odds, S/Sgt Gammon cleared the woods of German forces, for the tank continued to withdraw, leaving open the path for the gallant squad leader ’s platoon.

Leonard A Funk Jr Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

First Sergeant, US Army, Company C, 508th Parachute Infantry, 82nd Airborne Division Holzheim, Belgium, 29 January 1945 Wilkinsburg, Pennsylvania Braddock Township, Pennsylvania 75, 5 September 1945

After advancing 15 miles in a driving snowstorm, the American force prepared to attack through waist-deep drifts. The company executive officer became a casualty, and 1st Sgt Funk immediately assumed his duties, forming headquarters’ soldiers into a combat unit for an assault in the face of direct artillery shelling and harassing fire from the right flank. Under his skilful and courageous leadership, this miscellaneous group and the 3rd Platoon attacked 15 houses, cleared them, and took 30 prisoners without suffering a casualty. The fierce drive of Company C quickly overran Holzheim, netting some 80 prisoners, who were placed under a four-man guard, all that could be spared, while the rest of the understrength unit went about mopping up isolated points of resistance. An enemy patrol, by means of a ruse, succeeded in capturing the guards and freeing the prisoners and had begun preparations to attack Company C from the rear when 1st Sgt Funk walked around the building and into their midst. He was ordered to surrender by a German officer who pushed a machine pistol into his stomach. Although overwhelmingly outnumbered and facing almost certain death, 1st Sgt Funk, pretending to comply with the order, began slowly to unsling his submachine-gun from his shoulder and then, with lightning motion, brought the muzzle into line and riddled the German officer. He turned upon the other Germans, firing and shouting to the other Americans to seize the enemy’s weapons. In the ensuing fight, 21 Germans were killed, many wounded, and the remainder captured. 1st Sgt Funk’s bold action and heroic disregard for his own safety were

directly responsible for the recapture of a vastly superior enemy force, which, if allowed to remain free, could have taken the widespread units of Company C by surprise and endangered the entire attack plan.

James R Hendrix Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Private, US Army, Company C, 53rd Armoured Infantry Battalion, 4th Armoured Division Near Assenois, Belgium, 26 December 1944 Lepanto, Arkansas Lepanto, Arkansas 74, 1 September 1945

On the night of 26 December 1944 near Assenois, Belgium, he was with the leading element engaged in the final thrust to break through to the besieged garrison at Bastogne when halted by a fierce combination of artillery and small-arms fire. He dismounted from his half-track and advanced against two 88mm guns and, by the ferocity of his rifle fire, compelled the gun crews to take cover and then to surrender. Later in the attack he again left his vehicle, voluntarily, to aid two wounded soldiers, helpless and exposed to intense machine-gun fire. Effectively silencing two hostile machine-guns, he held off the enemy by his own fire until the wounded men were evacuated. Pvt Hendrix again distinguished himself when he hastened to the aid of still another soldier who was trapped in a burning half-track. Braving enemy sniper fire and exploding mines and ammunition in the vehicle, he extricated the wounded man and extinguished his flaming clothing, thereby saving the life of his fellow soldier. Pvt Hendrix, by his superb courage and heroism, exemplified the highest traditions of the military service.

Isadore S Jachman Rank and organisation: Place and date:

Staff Sergeant, US Army, Company B, 513th Parachute Infantry Regiment Flamierge, Belgium, 4 January 1945

Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Baltimore, Maryland Berlin, Germany 25, 9 June 1950

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity above and beyond the call of duty at Flamierge, Belgium, on 4 January 1944 when, with his company pinned down by enemy artillery, mortar and small-arms fire, two hostile tanks attacked the unit, inflicting heavy casualties. S/Sgt Jachman, seeing the desperate plight of his comrades, left his place of cover and with total disregard for his own safety dashed across open ground through a hail of fire and, seizing a bazooka from a fallen comrade, advanced on the tanks, which concentrated their fire on him. Firing the weapon alone, he damaged one and forced both to retire. S/Sgt Jachman’s heroic action, in which he suffered fatal wounds, disrupted the entire enemy attack, reflecting the highest credit upon himself and the parachute infantry.

Truman Kimbro Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Technician Fourth Grade, US Army, Company C, 2nd Engineer Combat Battalion, 2nd Infantry Division Near Rocherath, Belgium, 19 December 1944 Houston, Texas Madisonville, Texas 42, 24 May 1945

On 19 December 1944, as scout, he led a squad assigned to the mission of mining a vital crossroads near Rocherath, Belgium. At the first attempt to reach the objective, he discovered it was occupied by an enemy tank and at least 20 infantrymen. Driven back by withering fire, Technician 4th Grade Kimbro made two more attempts to lead his squad to the crossroads but all approaches were covered by intense enemy fire. Although warned by our own infantrymen of the great danger involved, he left his squad in a protected place and, laden with mines, crawled alone towards the crossroads. When nearing his objective he was severely wounded, but he continued to drag himself forward

and laid his mines across the road. As he tried to crawl from the objective his body was riddled with rifle and machine-gun fire. The mines laid by his act of indomitable courage delayed the advance of enemy armour and prevented the rear of our withdrawing columns from being attacked by the enemy.

Jose M Lopez Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Sergeant, US Army, 23rd Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division Near Krinkelt, Belgium, 17 December 1944 Brownsville, Texas Mission, Texas 47, 18 June 1945

On his own initiative, he carried his heavy machine-gun from Company K’s right flank to its left, in order to protect that flank which was in danger of being overrun by advancing enemy infantry supported by tanks. Occupying a shallow hole offering no protection above his waist, he cut down a group of 10 Germans. Ignoring enemy fire from an advancing tank, he held his position and cut down 25 more enemy infantry attempting to turn his flank. Glancing to his right, he saw a large number of infantry swarming in from the front. Although dazed and shaken from enemy artillery fire which had crashed into the ground only a few yards away, he realised that his position soon would be outflanked. Again, alone, he carried his machine-gun to a position to the right rear of the sector, enemy tanks and infantry were forcing a withdrawal. Blown over backwards by the concussion of enemy fire, he immediately reset his gun and continued his fire. Single-handed he held off the German horde until he was satisfied his company had effected its retirement. Again he loaded his gun on his back and in a hail of small-arms fire he ran to a point where a few of his comrades were attempting to set up another defence against the onrushing enemy. He fired from this position until his ammunition was exhausted. Still carrying his gun, he fell back with his small group to Krinkelt. Sgt Lopez’s gallantry and intrepidity, on seemingly suicidal missions in which he killed at least 100 of the enemy, were almost solely responsible for allowing Company K to avoid being enveloped, to withdraw successfully and to give other forces coming up in support time to build a line which repelled

the enemy drive.

Vernon McGarity Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Technical Sergeant, US Army, Company L, 393rd Infantry, 99th Infantry Division Near Krinkelt, Belgium, 16 December 1944 Model, Tennessee Right, Tennessee 6, 11 January 1946

T/Sgt McGarity was painfully wounded in an artillery barrage that preceded the powerful counter-offensive launched by the Germans near Krinkelt, Belgium, on the morning of 16 December 1944. He made his way to an aid station, received treatment, and then refused to be evacuated, choosing to return to his hard-pressed men instead. The fury of the enemy’s great Western Front offensive swirled about the position held by T/Sgt McGarity’s small force, but so tenaciously did these men fight on orders to stand firm at all costs that they could not be dislodged despite murderous enemy fire and the breakdown of their communications. During the day the heroic squad leader rescued one of his friends who had been wounded in a forward position, and throughout the night he exhorted his comrades to repulse the enemy’s attempts at infiltration. When morning came and the Germans attacked with tanks and infantry, he braved heavy fire to run to an advantageous position where he immobilised the enemy’s lead tank with a round from a rocket launcher. Fire from his squad drove the attacking infantrymen back, and three supporting tanks withdraw. He rescued, under heavy fire, another wounded American, and then directed devastating fire on a light cannon which had been brought up by the hostile troops to clear resistance from the area. When ammunition began to run low T/Sgt McGarity, remembering an old ammunition hole about 100 yards distant in the general direction of the enemy, braved a concentration of hostile fire to replenish his unit’s supply. By circuitous route the enemy managed to emplace a machine-gun to the rear and flank of the squad’s position, cutting off the only escape route. Unhesitatingly, the gallant soldier took it upon himself to destroy this menace single-handedly. He left cover and, while under steady fire from the

enemy, killed or wounded all the hostile gunners with deadly accurate rifle fire and prevented all attempts to reman the gun. Only when the squad’s last round had been fired was the enemy able to advance and capture the intrepid leader and his men. The extraordinary bravery and extreme devotion to duty of T/Sgt McGarity supported a remarkable delaying action which provided the time necessary to assemble reserves and form a line against which the German striking power was shattered.

Curtis F Shoup Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Staff Sergeant, US Army, Company I, 346th Infantry, 87th Infantry Division Near Tillet, Belgium, 7 January 1945 Buffalo, New York Napenoch, New York 60, 25 July 1945

On 7 January 1945, near Tillet, Belgium, his company attacked German troops on rising ground. Intense hostile machine-gun fire pinned down and threatened to annihilate the American unit in an exposed position where frozen ground made it impossible to dig in for protection. Heavy mortar and artillery fire from enemy batteries was added to the storm of destruction falling on the Americans. Realising that the machine-gun must be silenced at all costs, S/Sgt Shoup, armed with an automatic rifle, crawled to within 75 yards of the enemy emplacement. He found that his fire was ineffective from this position and, completely disregarding his own safety, stood up and grimly strode ahead into the murderous stream of bullets, firing his low-held weapon as he went. He was hit several times and finally was knocked to the ground. But he struggled to his feet and staggered forward until close enough to hurl a grenade, wiping out the enemy machine-gun nest with his dying action. By his heroism, fearless determination, and supreme sacrifice, S/Sgt Shoup eliminated a hostile weapon which threatened to destroy his company and turned a desperate situation into victory.

William A Soderman

Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Private First Class, US Army, Company K, 9th Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division Near Rocherath, Belgium, 17 December 1944 West Haven, Connecticut West Haven, Connecticut 97, 1 November 1945

Armed with a bazooka, he defended a key road junction near Rocherath, Belgium, on 17 December 1944, during the German Ardennes counteroffensive. After a heavy artillery barrage had wounded and forced the withdrawal of his assistant, he heard enemy tanks approaching the position where he calmly waited in the gathering darkness of early evening until the five Mark V tanks which made up the hostile force were within point-blank range. He then stood up, completely disregarding the firepower that could be brought to bear upon him, and launched a rocket into the lead tank, setting it afire and forcing its crew to abandon it as the other tanks pressed on before PFC Soderman could reload. The daring bazookaman remained at his post all night under severe artillery, mortar and machine-gun fire, awaiting the next onslaught, which was made shortly after dawn by five more tanks. Running along a ditch to meet them, he reached an advantageous point and there leaped to the road in full view of the tank gunners, deliberately aimed his weapon and disabled the lead tank. The other vehicles, thwarted by a deep ditch in their attempt to go around the crippled machine, withdrew. While returning to his post PFC Soderman, braving heavy fire to attack an enemy infantry platoon from close range, killed at least three Germans and wounded several others with a round from his bazooka. By this time, enemy pressure had made Company K’s position untenable. Orders were issued for withdrawal to an assembly area, where PFC Soderman was located when he once more heard enemy tanks approaching. Knowing that elements of the company had not completed their disengaging manoeuvre and were consequently extremely vulnerable to an armoured attack, he hurried from his comparatively safe position to meet the tanks. Once more he disabled the lead tank with a single rocket, his last; but before he could reach cover, machine-gun bullets form the tank ripped into his right shoulder. Unarmed and seriously wounded, he dragged himself along a ditch to the American lines and was evacuated. Through his unfaltering courage against overwhelming odds, PFC

Soderman contributed in great measure to the defence of Rocherath, exhibiting to a superlative degree the intrepidity and heroism with which American soldiers met and smashed the savage power of the last great German offensive.

Horace M Thorne Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Corporal, US Army, Troop D, 89th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, 9th Armoured Division Near Grufflingen, Belgium, 21 December 1944 Keyport, New Jersey Keansburg, New Jersey 80, 19 September 1945

He was the leader of a combat patrol on 21 December 1944 near Grufflingen, Belgium, with the mission of driving German forces from dug-in positions in a heavily wooded area. As he advanced his light machine-gun, a German Mark III tank emerged from the enemy position and was quickly immobilised by fire from American light tanks supporting the patrol. Two of the enemy tankmen attempted to abandon their vehicle but were killed by Cpl Thorne’s shots before they could jump to the ground. To complete the destruction of the tank and its crew, Cpl Thorne left his covered position and crept forward alone through intense machine-gun fire until close enough to toss two grenades into the tank’s open turret, killing two more Germans. He returned across the same fire-beaten zone as heavy mortar fire began falling in the area, seized his machine-gun and, without help, dragged it to the knocked-out tank and set it up on the vehicle’s rear deck. He fired short rapid bursts into the enemy positions from his advantageous but exposed location, killing or wounding eight. Two enemy machine-gun crews abandoned their positions and retreated in confusion. His gun jammed; but rather than leave his self-chosen post, he attempted to clear the stoppage; enemy small-arms fire, concentrated on the tank, killed him instantly. Cpl Thorne, displaying heroic initiative and intrepid fighting qualities, inflicted costly casualties on the enemy and ensured the success of his patrol’s

mission by the sacrifice of his life.

Henry F Warner Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Corporal, US Army, Anti-tank Company, 2nd Battalion, 26th Infantry, 1st Infantry Division Near Dom. Bütgenbach, Belgium, 20–21 December 1944 Troy, North Carolina 23 August 1923, Troy, North Carolina 48, 23 June 1945

Serving as 57mm anti-tank gunner with the 2nd Battalion, he was a major factor in stopping enemy tanks during heavy attacks against the battalion position near Dom. Bütgenbach, Belgium, on 20–21 December 1944. In the first attack, launched in the early morning of the 20th, enemy tanks succeeded in penetrating parts of the line. Cpl Warner, disregarding the concentrated cannon and machine-gun fire from two tanks bearing down on him, and ignoring the imminent danger of being overrun by the infantry moving under tank cover, destroyed the first tank and scored a direct and deadly hit upon the second. A third tank approached to within 5 yards of his position while he was attempting to clear a jammed breach lock. Jumping from his gun pit, he engaged in a pistol duel with the tank commander standing in the turret, killing him and forcing the tank to withdraw. Following a day and night during which our forces were subjected to constant shelling, mortar barrages and numerous unsuccessful infantry attacks, the enemy struck in great force on the early morning of the 21st. Seeing a Mark IV tank looming out of the mist and heading towards his position, Cpl Warner scored a direct hit. Disregarding his injuries, he endeavoured to finish the loading and again fire at the tank whose motor was now aflame, when a second machine-gun burst killed him. Cpl Warner ’s gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of life above and beyond the call of duty contributed materially to the successful defence against the enemy attacks.

Paul J Wiedorfer

Rank and organisation: Place and date: Entered service at: Born: GO No:

Staff Sergeant (then Private), US Army, Company G, 318th Infantry, 80th Infantry Division Near Chaumont, Belgium, 25 December 1944 Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore, Maryland 45, 12 June 1945

He alone made it possible for his company to advance until its objective was seized. Company G had cleared a wooded area of snipers, and one platoon was advancing across an open clearing toward another wood when it was met by heavy machine-gun fire from two German positions dug in at the edge of the second wood. These positions were flanked by enemy riflemen. The platoon took cover behind a small ridge approximately 40 yards from the enemy position. There was no other available protection and the entire platoon was pinned down by the German fire. It was about noon and the day was clear, but the terrain extremely difficult due to a 3 inch snowfall the night before over ice-covered ground. Pvt Wiedorfer, realising that the platoon advance could not continue until the two enemy machine-gun nests were destroyed, voluntarily charged alone across the slippery open ground with no protecting cover of any kind. Running in a crouched position, under a hail of enemy fire, he slipped and fell in the snow, but quickly rose and continued forward with the enemy concentrating automatic and small-arms fire on him as he advanced. Miraculously escaping injury, Pvt Wiedorfer reached a point some 10 yards from the first machine-gun emplacement and hurled a hand grenade into it. With his rifle he killed the remaining Germans and, without hesitation, wheeled to the right and attacked the second emplacement. One of the enemy was wounded by his fire and the other six immediately surrendered. This heroic action by one man enabled the platoon to advance from behind its protecting ridge and continue successfully to reach its objective. A few minutes later, when both the platoon leader and the platoon sergeant were wounded, Pvt Wiedorfer assumed command of the platoon, leading it forward with inspired energy until the mission was accomplished.

appendix A

Order of Battle The Ardennes Offensive 16 December 1944–2 January 1945

German 1st SS Panzer Division 2nd SS Panzer Division 9th SS Panzer Division 12th SS Panzer Division Panzer Lehr Division 2nd Panzer Division 9th Panzer Division 116th Panzer Division 3rd Parachute Division 5th Parachute Division 9th Volksgrenadier Division 12th Volksgrenadier Division 18th Volksgrenadier Division 26th Volksgrenadier Division

276th Volksgrenadier Division 277th Volksgrenadier Division 326th Volksgrenadier Division 340th Volksgrenadier Division 352nd Volksgrenadier Division 560th Volksgrenadier Division 3rd Panzer Grenadier Division 15th Panzer Grenadier Division Führer Begleit Brigade Führer Grenadier Brigade 150 Brigade (Skorzeny) US 2nd Armoured Division 3rd Armoured Division

62nd Volksgrenadier Division 79th Volksgrenadier Division 167th Volks grenadier Division 212th Volksgrenadier Division 246th Volksgrenadier Division 272nd Volksgrenadier Division 17th Airborne Division 82nd Airborne Division 101st Airborne Division

4th Armoured Division 6th Armoured Division 7th Armoured Division 9th Armoured Division 10th Armoured Division 11th Armoured Division 83rd US Infantry Division 84th US Infantry Division 87th US Infantry Division

1st US Infantry Division 2nd US Infantry Division 4th US Infantry Division 5th US Infantry Division 9th US Infantry Division 26th US Infantry Division 28th US Infantry Division 30th US Infantry Division 35th US Infantry Division 75th US Infantry Division 80th US Infantry Division

99th US Infantry Division 106th US Infantry Division British 51st (Highland) Division 53rd (Welsh) Division 29th Armoured Brigade (11th Armoured Division) 6th Airborne Division

appendix B

Military museums in the Ardennes

Bastogne Historical Centre Colline de Mardasson B-6600 Bastogne Musée de la Bataille Des Ardennes 5 Rue Châmont B-6980 La Roche-en-Ardennes Historical Museum ‘December 44’ 7 Rue de L’Eglise B-4987 La Gleize Ardennen Poteau ‘44 Museum, Potauerstrasse 22 B-4780 Poteau-St Vith Truschbaum Museum Camp Elsenborn B-4750 Bütgenbach Maison Mathelin 1 Rue G. Delperdange B-6600 Bastogne Musée National D’Histoire Militaire 10 Bamertal L-9209 Diekirch

Tel: 32 061 211413

Tel: 32 084 411725

Tel: 32 080 785191

Tel: 32 080 217425

Tel: 32 080 442105

Tel: 32 061 211758

Tel: 352 808908

General Patton Memorial Museum 5 Rue Dr Klein L-9054 Ettelbruck Musée de la Bataille Des Ardennes Château de Wiltz L-9516 Wiltz Musée de la Bataille Des Ardennes Château de Clervaux L-9712 Clervaux 385th Bomb Group Museum Rue de L’Eglise L-8826 Perlé

Tel: 352 810322

Tel: 352 269 50032

Tel: 352 920072

Tel: 352 236 49465

Bibliography

Astor, Gerald, A Blood Dimmed Tide, Donald Fine, New York, 1992 Crookenden, Napier, Battle of the Bulge, Ian Allen, 1953 Churchill, Winston, Triumph and Tragedy Vol VI, Second World War, Cassell, 1954 Delaforce, Patrick, The Black Bull, 11 Armoured Division, Sutton, 1993 Delaforce, Patrick, Monty’s Highlanders, Chancellor Press, 1997 Delaforce, Patrick, Red Crown and Dragon, 53 Welsh Division, Donovan, 1995 Elstob, Peter, Hitler’s Last Offensive, Pen and Sword, 1971 D’Este, Carlo, Eisenhower: A Soldier’s Life, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003 Forty, George, Reich’s Last Gamble, Cassell, 2000 Gaul, Roland, Battle of the Bulge in Luxembourg, Schiffer, New York, 1995 Gelb, Norman, Ike & Monty, Constable, 1994 Harclerode, Peter, Go to It, 6th Airborne Division, Bloomsbury, 1990 Lewin, Ronald, ULTRA Goes to War, McGraw-Hill, 1978

Liddell Hart, Basil, Other Side of the Hill, Cassell, 1948 MacDonald, Charles, Battle of the Bulge, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1984 Moorehead, Alan, Eclipse, Hamish Hamilton, 1945 Parker, Danny, To Win the Winter Sky, Combined Books, Pennsylvania, 1994 Reynolds, Michael, Men of Steel, Spellmount, 2001 Schulman, Milton, Defeat in the West, Secker & Warburg, 1947 Toland, John, Battle of the Bulge, Frederick Muller, 1960 Weigley, Russell, Eisenhower’s Lieutenants, Indiana University Press, 1981 Wilmot, Chester, Struggle for Europe, Collins, 1952

Index

Aachen 10, 27, 47, 72, 145, 201, 293 Abrams, Lt Colonel 241, 243 Afst 89, 90, 103, 104 Ahrweiler 205, 265 air war 13, 39, 55 16–25 December 1944 40, 91, 105, 198–212, 232 25–31 December 1944 261–7 January 1945 268, 307–8, 310–11 Allied air strength 57 dogfights 58, 176, 201, 228–9, 264–5, 271 see also British air force; Luftwaffe; Operations (German): Bodenplatte; US Army Air Force aircraft Arado-234s 56, 57, 207, 263, 271 B-17s 176, 261, 275 B-24s 261 B-26 Marauders 208 C-47s 229, 242, 262, 266 FW-190s 58, 209, 264, 265, 271, 272, 273 Halifax bombers 191 JU-88 Pathfinders 270, 272 JU-287 jet bombers 56 Lancasters 191

ME-109s 58, 191, 228, 265, 271, 272, 273, 275 ME-262s 14, 56, 57, 191, 211, 267 P-38 Lightnings 58, 155, 210, 241, 253, 265 P-47D Thunderbolts 38, 58, 138, 143, 145, 185, 202, 211, 228, 229, 241, 262, 271, 273 P-51 Mustangs 58, 202, 209, 211, 271 P-61 ‘Black Widows’ 58–9 Spitfires 191, 202, 206, 271, 274 Tempests 206, 207, 264–5, 271 Typhoons 39, 206, 210, 259, 264–5 Aix-la-Chapelle see Aachen Allen, Lt Colonel Jack 107, 110 Allen, Lt Colonel William 131 Alzette river 246 Amblève 138, 184, 186, 261 Amblève river 53, 140, 141, 143 Anderson, Colonel Wallis 141, 143 Anderson, Major General Samuel 199, 205 Andler 89, 90, 91 Andrus, Brigadier General Clift 123 Antoniushof 215, 225 Antwerp 1–2, 7, 9, 11, 36, 43, 275, 293, 321 Ardennes 30, 39, 76, 77 battlegrounds 76–9 communication centres 79 military museums 343–4 Argentan 25, 27 Arlon 114, 205, 235, 239 Arromanches 8 Assenois 210, 232, 243, 261 Astor, Gerald 138 Atlantic Wall 8, 14, 20 Autumn Mist see Operations (German): Herbstnebel Auw 86, 93, 103 Axelson, Colonel Oscar 104 Axis Sally 162

Baade, Major General Paul 243 Baraque de Fraiture 172, 173, 261, 306 Barkmann, SS Senior Sergeant Ernst 175 Barthelt, Oberleutnant 114, 178 Barton, Major General Raymond 78, 113, 118, 192, 195 Bastendorf 193, 247 Bastogne 2, 35, 66, 76, 79, 114, 130, 136, 160, 178, 215, 216–24, 226–32, 251–3, 260, 262, 265, 287, 303–4, 307 Bayerlein’s tanks in outskirts 215 Christmas Day air drop 209 focal road junction 213 Führer orders capture 257 German counter-attack 259 illustrations 219, 224, 230, 238, 240, 242, 244, 266, 300 maps 223, 234, 252, 254 Middleton organises defences 181 Patton starts rescue advance 204 relief convoy arrives 243 ‘Screaming Eagles’ arrive 225 Task Force Ezell 239 termination of operation 308 ‘Battle of the Generals’ 298–9, 304, 315, 317–19 Baugnez massacres 138, 140, 311 Baum, Major Abe 237 Bayerlein, Generalleutnant, Fritz 130, 210, 215–16, 311 BBC broadcast 315, 317 Beaufort 117, 194, 195, 248, 249 Bedell Smith, General 24, 164, 200, 259, 299 Belgian Resistance 1 Berdorf 113, 118, 192, 195 Bernadotte, Count Folke 264 Berterath 103, 104 Bertogne 232, 261 Bess, Demaree 209–10 Bettendorf 308–9 Beutelhauser, Johann 120–1

Beyer, Corporal Arthur O 324–5 Beyer, General Dr Franz 66, 112–13, 193, 196, 246 Biddle, Private First Class Melvin E 325–6 Billingsley, Lt Colonel Max 181–2 Bitburg 72, 78, 210, 248 Bittrich, General Wilhelm 42, 62–3 Blanchard, Colonel Wendell 241, 243 Blankenheim railroad 302, 310 Blaskowitz, General Johannes 291, 293–4, 295, 296, 322 Bleialf 95, 96, 101, 261 Bletchley Park 2, 68–9, 73 Blumentritt, General 5, 34 Boggess, Lieutenant Charles 243 Bolden, Staff Sergeant Paul L 326–7 Bolling, General Alexander 257 Bols, Major General Eric L 166, 279 the Bombe see ULTRA Bouck, First Lieutenant J 108–9 Bourcy 210, 220, 232 Bradley, General Omar 24, 26 and Bastogne 239, 259 ‘Battle of the Generals’ 298, 317 character 25, 164, 169 command 5, 11, 12, 23, 25, 27, 69, 291, 308 on Eisenhower 25 on Hodges 78 in Luxembourg City 114, 137, 160, 161–2, 164, 165, 169 safety precautions 52 at Verdun 159 and Wacht am Rhein 41, 57, 73–4, 81–2, 200 Brandenberger, General Erich 42, 112, 164, 195, 248, 250, 313 character 33 Brandenburg 56, 115 Brenner, SS Gruppenführer Kurt 293, 296 Breuer, William 211–12 British air force

2nd Tactical Air Force 60, 198, 202, 206, 209, 265, 274, 311 131st Polish Wing 271, 273 air strength 57, 191 Canadian 401 Squadron 271 New Zealand 486 Squadron 271 Polish 308 Squadron 274 RAF Bomber Command 198, 199, 272–3, 307 see also British armed forces British armed forces Second Army 9, 23 21st Army Group 11, 23, 25, 162 XXX Corps 159, 166, 278–89, 299, 314, 319 DIVISIONS 11 Armoured 1, 3, 278, 284 50 Northumbrian 10 51 Highland 166, 278, 282, 286–9, 288 53 Welsh 166, 278–9, 284–6, 287 6th Airborne 159, 166, 278–9, 279, 286 BRIGADES 3rd Parachute 281–3 5th Parachute 279, 281 29th Armoured 166, 279, 284 33rd Armoured 166, 286 34th Armoured 166 Brooke, Field Marshal Alan 25, 160, 165, 304, 305, 317 Brooking, Major George 200, 202 Brooks, Major General Edward 290, 295 Brussels 7, 36, 273, 274 Bucholz Station 103, 108, 110 Buhle, General Walter 61 Buissonville 210, 257 Bull, Major General HR 200 Bullingen 40, 109, 119, 123, 138 Bure 279, 281–3, 284 Burmeister, General Major Arnold 293, 295 Burnon 239, 245

Bütgenbach Gap 171 Butler, Lt Colonel McClernand 104, 107 Calvocoressi, Peter 73 Canada Air Force 271, 272–3 First Army 9–10, 23 Cavender, Colonel Charles 95, 96, 98, 99, 101 Celles 258, 259, 260, 298 Chance, Lt Colonel Robert 118, 192 Chaumont 232, 239, 245 Cherbourg 4, 8, 25, 43, 113 Chernitsky, Sergeant John 130, 182 Cherry, Lt Colonel Henry 215, 217, 220, 222, 225 Churchill, Winston 305 August–October 1944 5, 7, 8, 10 ‘Battle of the Generals’ 25, 304, 317 December 1944 11, 12, 79, 81, 161 January 1945 3, 276–7, 297, 323 Clarke, Brigadier General Bruce 147, 149–50, 151, 155, 162, 311 Clervaux 129, 132, 133, 134–5, 307, 311 Clervé river 129, 246 Codman, Lt Colonel Charles 233 Cole, Colonel Hugh 321 Collins, Major General Harry 290, 299, 317, 318 Collins, Major General J Lawton 166, 166, 169, 173, 259 Collins, Sergeant John 93, 148, 149 Colmar 291, 296 Cologne 10, 41, 203, 207 Condroz plateau 167, 176, 253 Congressional Medal of Honour heroes 3, 324–40 Consthum 133, 134, 135, 182, 311 Cota, Major General Norman ‘Dutch’ 78, 113, 129, 130, 133, 136, 181, 183 Cowan, Private First Class Richard Eller 121, 327–8 Crombach 155 Currey, Sergeant Francis S 328–9

Dager, Brigadier General Holmes 245 Dahlem 205 Daily Mail 315, 317 Damen, Colonel William 89, 102–3 Daniel, Lt Colonel Derrill 124 Dasburg 130, 131, 134, 310, 311 De Gaulle, General Charles 5, 290, 294, 297, 298 De Guingand, Major General ‘Freddie’ 298 De Lattre de Tassigny, General 290, 294 Decker, Generalleutnant Karl 293, 295 Degrelle, Leon 210–11 Dempwolff, Oberst Hugo 196, 246 Denmark 71, 85 Depuis, Captain Paul 195 Descheneaux, Colonel George 95, 98, 99, 101 Desobry, Major William 220, 221 D’Este, Carlo 22, 27 Devers, General Jacob 159, 160, 290, 291, 294 Devine, Colonel Mark 84–5, 86, 89, 90–1 Dickens, Air Commodore 199 Dickson, Colonel ‘Monk’ 12, 69, 70, 72, 73, 74, 75 Dickweiler 113, 118, 192 Diekirch 114, 117, 129, 179, 193, 247, 249, 309, 311 Dietrich, Josef ‘Sepp’ 31 character 30, 36, 44, 164 Losheim Gap 85 on Luftwaffe 263, 264 Null-Tag 62 Operation Greif 137 Operation Stösser 44–5 Twin Towns battle 120, 123 Wacht am Rhein 34, 36, 41, 103–4, 112, 176, 184, 185, 306, 314 Dietrich, Marlene 81, 194 Dinant 53, 76, 258, 278 Dochamps 175, 303, 306 Doolittle, Lt General Jimmy 202

Douglas, Lt Colonel Robert 110 Dows, Olin 218, 224, 230, 238 ‘dragon’s teeth’ 78, 86, 87, 131 Dudeck, Hauptmann Hans 275–6 Echternach 113, 118, 192, 195, 196, 249 Eddy, Major General Manton 236 Ehrang 203, 205 Eifel 40, 72, 73, 76, 77, 78 Eindhoven 271–2 Eisenhower, General Dwight D 24 air war 203, 205–6 Antwerp 1, 2 ‘Battle of the Generals’ 298–9, 304, 315, 317 career 22–3 character 23, 25, 27, 169, 298 command 7, 23 Nordwind 294 and Patton 28 rumours 51–2, 53, 151 strategy 10, 11, 12, 23, 25, 290 at Verdun 159–60, 161–2 and Wacht am Rhein 12, 41, 74, 81–2, 137, 200, 297 Elsenborn 110, 123 Elsenborn Ridge 39, 63, 103, 119–21, 123–5, 127, 299, 318 Engel, General Major Gerhard 85, 104, 109 Engelhardt, Paul 117, 193–5, 248–9 Enigma machines 38, 40, 68, 72 Erezée 176, 261 Ettelbruck 117, 129, 181, 193, 235, 245, 247, 249, 257 Euskirchen 172, 303, 310 Evère 270, 274, 275 Ewell, Lt Colonel Julian 225 Ezell, Captain Bert 237, 239 Fegelein, General 47, 49

Fe’itsch 215, 225 Ferrens, First Lieutenant Kenneth 89 Feuchtinger, Generalleutnant Edgar 293, 295 Fischer, Sergeant Willi 120–1 Fouhren 114, 117, 179, 193, 311 Foy 204, 217, 222, 259, 279 Francorchamps 40, 143 Frederick, Major General Robert 290, 294 Freesland, Captain Joseph 96 French armed forces 5, 11, 23, 290 Fuller, Lt Colonel Hurley 129, 132–3, 134, 135, 136, 182, 213, 228 Fuller, Lt Colonel William 148 Funk, Sergeant Leonard A, Jr 330–1 G-2s (General Staff Officers – Intelligence) 69, 73, 74, 187, 200 Gaffey, Major General Hugh 225, 235, 241 Galland, General Adolf 55–6, 60 Gammon, Staff Sergeant Archer T 329–30 Gaul, Roland 114 Gavin, Major General James 155, 167, 318 Gemünd 72, 78, 130, 131, 206, 299, 311 Gercke, General Rudolf 39–40 German armed forces (SS) 30, 35 Sixth SS Panzer Army 30, 36, 40, 41, 49, 53, 71, 72, 75, 81, 103, 120, 147, 151, 155, 172–7, 199, 201, 251, 310, 322 battle plan 62–3 boundary lines 85 CORPS I SS Panzer 62, 63, 120, 184 II SS Panzer 62–3 XIII SS 293, 294 XIV SS 291 DIVISIONS 1 SS Panzer ‘Liebstandarte Adolf Hitler ’ 33, 36, 62, 70, 71, 85, 107, 126, 137, 185–6, 301, 303 2 SS Panzer ‘Das Reich’ 33, 36, 70, 128, 159, 169, 171, 172, 173, 175, 180,

210, 228, 253, 261, 306 6 SS Gebirgs (Mountain) 293, 296 9 SS Panzer ‘Hohenstauffen’ 33, 36, 70, 128, 155, 169, 171, 176, 253, 261, 301, 303, 307 10 SS Panzer 36, 176, 295, 296 12 SS Panzer ‘Hitler Jugend’ 33, 34, 36, 62, 63, 70, 107, 110, 120, 128, 138, 169, 176, 253, 301, 304 17 SS Panzer Grenadier 70–1, 292, 293 DIVISIONS: PANZER AND PANZER GRENADIER 2 Panzer 33, 65, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 160, 169, 204, 207, 215, 220, 222, 225, 226–7, 251, 253, 257, 258, 259, 260, 278 3 Panzer Grenadier 103, 123, 128, 133, 257, 265, 287 9 Panzer 33, 253, 257, 261, 265, 285 15 Panzer Grenadier 33, 113, 210 21 Panzer 292, 293, 295, 296 25 Panzer Grenadier 120, 293, 295, 296 116 Panzer 33, 65, 130, 131, 134, 150, 160, 169, 204, 207, 215, 226, 253, 257, 261, 285, 287, 303 Panzer Lehr 33, 66, 130, 131, 135, 169, 181, 210, 215–16, 220, 222, 225, 226, 229, 235, 251, 253, 261, 262, 301, 311 Hitler withdraws unit 303 Hitler ’s confidence in 171 objectives 34 on way to Eastern Front 310 Schwerpunkt 137 see also German armed forces (Wehrmacht); Luftwaffe; Volksturm (people’s militia) German armed forces (Wehrmacht) 94, 100 ARMIES First Parachute 19–20 Third 5, 7, 8, 11, 23, 25, 57, 69, 82, 240 Fifth Panzer 34, 36–7, 71, 72, 75, 112, 113, 130, 160, 172, 183, 199, 257, 262, 310, 314 battle plan 65–6 boundary lines 85 composition 33

Führer ’s orders 251 great attack 301 replaces Sixth SS Panzer Army 303 St Vith key objective 147 Seventh 4, 5, 9, 34, 36, 70, 112, 114, 160, 193–7, 226, 247–50, 253, 310, 313 battle plan 66–7 bridging problems 192 composition 33 defensive line 246 opposed by ‘Keystones’ 113 Fifteenth 9, 20, 34, 38 Nineteenth 11, 291 Twenty-fifth 41 ARMY GROUPS A 35, 43 B 17, 30, 49, 62, 63, 73, 79, 259, 303 G 291, 292, 293 12th 23, 27, 57, 69 Oberrhein 291, 296 West 15 CORPS V 78 VII 166, 167, 173 VIII 73, 78, 79, 81, 97–8 XV 25 XXXIX Panzer 293, 295 XLVII Panzer 65, 130 LIII Infantry 67, 113 LVIII Panzer 65, 130, 253 LXVI Infantry 65, 95, 148, 150, 153, 211, 253 LXVII Infantry 62, 103 LXXX Infantry 66–7, 112–13, 193, 246 LXXXV Infantry 66, 112, 203, 246, 249 LXXXIX 293, 294 XC 293, 294

DIVISIONS: INFANTRY 19 DIVISIONS: PARACHUTE 3 Parachute 62, 63, 85, 86, 89, 90, 104, 145 5 Parachute 33, 112, 114, 178–9, 181, 182, 192, 226, 229, 232, 235, 239, 245, 246, 249, 250, 253, 262, 301 7 Parachute 295, 296 DIVISIONS: VOLKSGRENADIER 19, 20, 33, 41, 65, 66, 73, 86, 88, 319, 322 12 VGD 33, 62, 63, 85–6, 104, 138 18 VGD 33, 85, 86, 89, 95, 98, 148, 150, 151 26 VGD 33, 130, 135, 181, 182, 210, 215, 225, 226, 229, 235, 251, 253, 301 36 VGD 293 62 VGD 33, 86, 95, 96, 148, 150, 151 79 VGD 33, 196, 245, 246, 249 128 VGD 148 212 VGD 33, 118, 195, 196, 246 245 VGD 295 246 VGD 33, 63 256 VGD 293, 294 257 VGD 293, 294 272 VGD 33, 103, 200 276 VGD 33, 117, 192, 193, 195, 196, 246, 248 277 VGD 33, 62, 104, 120 326 VGD 33, 63, 103, 104, 105, 200, 265 352 VGD 33, 114, 117, 134, 179, 192–3, 196, 197, 235, 245, 246, 249, 308–9 361 VGD 293, 294 559 VGD 293, 294 560 VGD 33, 130, 131, 134, 150, 172, 176, 253 BRIGADES 150 Panzer 47, 50, 51, 53, 63 Führer Begleit 66, 73, 98, 99, 101, 130, 148, 150, 151, 155, 169, 172, 253, 257, 301, 307, 319–20 Führer Grenadier 113, 172, 196, 241, 246, 301 Kampfgruppe Peiper 62, 124, 137–41, 143, 144, 145, 160, 184–91, 188, 190, 200, 202, 253

casualties 13, 17, 34, 36, 107, 108, 110, 115, 117, 136, 179, 185, 222, 247, 258, 259, 286, 296, 314, 320 weapons 19, 20–1, 41, 84, 85, 93, 95, 103, 104, 109, 124, 130, 150, 172 see also German armed forces (SS); Luftwaffe; Volksturm (people’s militia) Gerolstein 72, 210, 311 Gerow, Major General Leonard 78, 82, 84, 111, 119, 123, 299, 305, 317 ‘Ghost Front’ 77 Givet 76, 278 Gnilsen, Gefreite Guido 134–5, 220–1, 222, 258–9 Goebbels, Dr Joseph 14, 18, 19 Goering, Reichsmarschall Herman 14, 19, 30, 35, 55–6, 60, 200, 203, 207 Grandménil 167, 173, 175, 176, 253 Granville, Major Johnny 282, 283 Gresiak, 1st Leutnant Horst 173 Grimbergen 273, 274 Grimbiemont 285 Grosbous 247–8 Groschke, Oberstleutnant Kurt 114, 116–17, 181 Grundhof 117, 249 Grupont 281, 283 Guderian, Colonel General Heinz 14, 33, 77, 308 Haffner, Major General Charles 290 Hague Regulations (1907) 47 Haislip, Major General Wade 25, 290 Halbey, Lieutenant Hans 206–7 Hall, Private First Class Bob 145–6 Hamburg 1, 55 Hargimont 222, 258, 265 Harlange 250, 262 Harmon, Major General Ernest 259, 278, 306 Harper, Colonel Joseph 227–8 Harris, Major General Frederick 290 Harrison, Brigadier General 184 Hasbrouck, Brigadier General Robert 148, 155, 162, 167, 311 Heckhuscheid 96–7

Heilman, FW Willi 273–4 Heilman, Oberst Ludwig 178, 181, 229, 245 Hejny, Corporal Hans 131–2, 135 Hendrix, Private James R 243, 331 Himmler, SS Reichsführer Heinrich 13, 14, 17, 19, 35, 71, 187, 291, 295, 296 Hitler, Adolf 18, 31 on the air war 55, 211 Antwerp 1–2 assassination attempt 13–14 Berlin 308 Führer Conferences 5, 7, 15, 30, 268, 292–3 generals’ opinion of 33–4 hopes for armistice 29, 37 mistrust 14, 30, 35, 39 personality 34 on Stalin 17 Wacht am Rhein 2, 33, 34, 41–2, 71, 77, 113, 171–2, 264, 267 in the Wolfsschanze 14, 30, 70 Hirtzfeld, Generalleutnant Otto 63, 103, 104 Hives 210, 287 Hobbs, Major General Leland 137, 145, 184 Hodges, General Courtney 69, 73–4, 119, 137, 160, 162, 164, 169, 184, 213, 239, 259, 278, 299, 317, 318 career 77 character 77–8, 81, 82 Hoehne, Generalleutnant Gustav 293 Hoesdorf 193, 308 Hofen 102, 103, 104, 105, 106, 160, 171 Hoffman-Schonborn, Oberst Gunter 85, 98, 148, 150 Hoge, Brigadier General William 97, 151, 155 Hohes Venn 43, 76 Holzheim 90, 91 Honsfeld 90, 91, 137, 138 Horrocks, Lieutenant General Brian 159, 166, 278–9 Hosingen 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 182 Hotton 176, 253, 284, 287, 288

Houffalize 79, 130, 150, 172, 214, 217, 253, 260, 261, 289, 299, 303, 306, 307, 308 Huebner, Major General Ralph 311 Humain 210, 257, 261 Hürtgen Forest 10, 27, 113, 114, 129, 130 Huy 53, 76 Hyduke, Lieutenant 215, 222, 225 Ihlefeld, Oberstleutnant Herbert 206–7, 273 Irwin, Major General Leroy 309 Jackson, Sergeant Schuyler 229, 231 Jans Bach 103, 107 Jaques, Lt Colonel 241, 243 Jodl, General Field Marshal Alfred 15, 17, 30, 33, 39, 47, 56, 61, 62, 264 Johnson, Wing Commander ‘Johnny’ 275 Jonath, Ulrich 309, 310 Jones, Lt Colonel Robert 155 Jones, Major General Alan 78, 85, 89, 90, 92, 93, 95, 96, 97–8, 101, 147, 151 Kaiserlauten 203, 205 Kall 206, 265 Kaschner, General Erwin 103, 105 Keitel, Field Marshal Wilhelm 15, 34, 40, 61, 62, 71 Kimbro, Technician Truman 332–3 Kittel, Oberst Friedrich 85, 96 Kneiss, General Baptist 66, 112, 114, 203, 246 Knittel, Major Gustav 185, 189 Koblenz 72, 73, 203 Kobscheid 86, 89 Koch, Colonel Oscar 69, 70, 73, 74, 75 Kokott, Oberst Heinze 130, 181, 216, 225, 231, 239 Konig, Hauptmann Eugen 247, 308–9 Kraemer, Major General Fritz 30, 104 Krebs, General Hans 5, 33, 49 Krewinkel 89, 90, 103 Krinkelt 104, 110, 111, 119–21, 123–5, 127, 160

Krueger, Generaloberst Walter 65, 130 Kruger, Gefreite Eduard 114–15, 178–9 La Chaussee, Captain Charles 175–6 La Gleize 138, 141, 145, 184, 185, 187–91, 188, 190 La Prade, Lt Colonel James 221 La Roche 79, 253, 256, 261, 286, 289 Lammerding, Brigadeführer Heinz 172, 173, 175, 176 Langhauser, Oberst Rudolf 130, 172 Lanzerath 90, 104, 108, 138 Lauer, Major General Walter 78, 102, 107, 110, 111, 119 Laun, FW Karl 91, 189 Lauterborn 113, 118, 192, 195 Lavaux 287, 289 Leclerc, General Jacques 294 Leonard, Major General John 78, 97 Liddell Hart, Basil 35, 77 Liège 76, 207, 293 Lindsay, Major Martin 286, 289 ‘little Switzerland’ 113–18 Longsdorf 193, 247 Longvilly 215, 220, 222 Lopez, Sergeant Jose M 121, 333–4 Lorraine campaign 27 Losheim Gap 36, 77, 79, 84–91, 92, 103, 108, 137, 150, 151 Losheimergraben 109, 110 Lucht, General Walther 65, 97, 148, 150 Luftwaffe 16–25 December 1944 91, 198, 199, 200, 201, 205, 206, 207, 210, 211, 232 25–31 December 1944 262–3, 264–5, 267 January 1945 308 aircraft 59 command structure 58 Jagdführer Mittelrhein 72 losses 56–7, 264, 267, 275, 276, 307, 314 manpower 7, 19, 55–6, 321

night fighters 263 Operation Bodenplatte 56, 60, 270–1, 272–7 Operation Nordwind 292, 295 operational order 60 strategy 54–6, 60 ULTRA intercepts 72, 82, 199, 201, 204 Lutrebois 210, 232 Lutremange 210, 232 Lutzkampen 129, 131 Luxembourg 66, 67, 75, 76, 112, 114, 235 Luxembourg City 81, 82, 114, 160, 164, 192 Maastricht 12, 41, 209, 293 McAuliffe, Brigadier General Anthony 216, 221–2, 225, 227, 232, 241, 295, 296 McBride, Major General Horace 235, 236, 290 McCown, Major Hal 186, 187, 189 MacDonald, Captain Charles 89, 90, 102–3, 121, 123, 124–5, 155, 196, 243, 259, 318 McGarity, Technical Sergeant Vernon 109, 120, 334–5 McKee, Sergeant Richard 93, 95, 98–9 McKinley, Lt Colonel William 121, 123 Mageret 215, 217, 222, 225 ‘Magic’ signals 70, 71 Malempré 158, 173 Malmédy 53, 76, 79, 139, 140, 141, 145, 146, 171, 184, 253, 311 defences 138 Dietrich attacks 123 key road junction 44 USAAF bombs by mistake 205 Manderfeld 89, 90 Manhay 172, 173, 174, 175, 253, 255, 318 maps Bastogne 223, 234, 252, 254 Das Reich SS Panzer Division 180 Elsenborn Ridge 127

January 1945 316 Kampfgruppe Peiper 144 Normandy 6 Operation Bodenplatte 269 St Vith 152 Süre river 254 Wacht am Rhein 64, 280, 316 Marche 169, 253, 286 Marcouray 204, 306 Marnach 129, 132, 133, 134, 311 Marshall, General George 11, 22, 78, 290 Martell, Staff Sergeant Curtis 145, 186–7 Martin, Private Harry 95, 96–7 Mather, Captain Carol 160 Mattera, James 138, 140 Mayen 203, 307 Mein Kampf 37 Melsbroek 274, 275–6 Merriken, Staff Sgt William 138, 140 Messerschmitt, Professor Willi 56 Metz 7, 8, 27, 113, 276, 292 Metz, General Richard 262 Meuse river 47, 49, 51, 53, 63, 65–6, 73, 113, 128, 131, 159, 166, 172, 251, 258, 264, 278, 319 Middleton, General Troy 73–4, 78, 81, 82, 84, 97–8, 133, 136, 183, 192 at Bastogne 181, 213, 215, 216, 217, 221, 225, 235, 237, 239 Milch, Field Marshal Erhard 56 Miley, Major General William 306 military museums 343–4 Milliken, Major General John 235, 260 Model, General Field Marshal Walther 5, 27, 32, 112, 178, 250, 260, 303 air war 54, 55, 60, 201–2, 209 and Bastogne 257 battle orders 67 character 15, 17, 164 Operation Nordwind 292, 293

Operation Stösser 43, 44, 45 Schwerpunkt 30, 171 St Vith 148, 150 Twin Towns battle 120, 128 Wacht am Rhein 33, 35, 41, 45, 84, 98, 101 Moder river 296 Moehring, Generalleutnant Kurt 117, 194, 246, 248 Mohnke, General Wilhelm 85, 184, 185–6, 187 Molge, Gefreite Werner 270–1 Monaville 303–4 Monschau 46, 74, 102–3, 160, 171, 302 Monschau, Major 135, 222 Montgomery, Field Marshal Bernard 24, 279, 305 Antwerp 1, 2 assessments of 318–19 Bastogne 253, 257, 259 ‘Battle of the Generals’ 298–9, 315, 317 career 23, 25 character 12, 23, 25, 27, 81, 164, 169, 298 First and Ninth Armies 159, 160, 161, 162–7, 163, 165, 166, 169–70 Operation Market Garden 9 safety precautions 52 strategy 8–9, 10, 11, 23, 25, 27, 36, 155 ULTRA 69 XXX Corps 278 Moorehead, Alan 4, 9, 37, 72, 80, 82–3, 310, 323 Morris, Major General William 195, 213 Moselle river 78 Moss, Sergeant Major 281–2 Motzenbecker, Major John 200 Munnich, Gunter 246–7 Munshausen 133, 134 Murringen 110, 111 Namur 76, 278 Nawrocki, Sergeant Ben 107–8, 110–11, 125

Neffe 217, 225 Nelson, Colonel Gustin 129, 130, 131, 155 Neufchâteau 217, 221, 222, 241, 263 Normandy 6, 56, 124, 129, 145, 160, 172, 199, 293, 320 Noville 210, 217, 220–1, 222, 225, 232 Nugent, General Richard 262, 311 Null-Tag 62–3, 66, 84, 91, 95, 103, 112–13, 118, 131–3, 178, 192, 215 Oberwampach 130, 225 OKH (Oberkommando des Heeres) 35, 39 OKW (Oberkommando der Wehrmacht) 34, 35, 36, 39, 47, 61, 63 Operations (Allied) Anvil 7 Cobra 145, 199, 306 Fortitude 38 Market Garden 1, 9, 20, 176 Overlord 1, 5, 22, 113, 119, 145 Repulse 229 Torch 22, 23, 25 Veritable 278 Operations (German) Abwehrschlacht Im Westen 38 Auk 44–5 Barbarossa 13 Bodenplatte 2, 56, 60, 206, 268–77, 269, 298, 308, 322 Christrose 38, 39 Der Grosse Schlag 14, 56 Greif 2, 46–7, 49–53, 63, 80, 137–8, 143, 184, 258 Herbstnebel 2, 38 Nordwind 2, 290–6, 298, 308, 322 Sohnnenwande 295 Stösser 2, 43–6, 63, 65, 80, 203 see also Wacht am Rhein Oshima, Baron Hiroshi 17, 70, 71 Osterhold, Oberst Wilhelm 109–10 Osweiler 113, 118, 192 Our river 65, 66, 78, 97, 117, 129, 130, 131, 178, 192, 193, 310, 311

Ouren 130, 134 Ourthe river 176, 204, 257, 279, 299 Panzer Blitzkrieg (May 1940) 35 Paris 5, 10, 113 Park, Lieutenant Howard 228, 265 Parker, Captain James 204, 210, 217, 228, 229, 232, 260, 265 Parker, Danny 58, 204, 206 Parker, Major Arthur 172–3 Pas de Calais 20, 38 Patch, Lt General Alexander 290, 294, 295 Patton, General George 236 air force 57 Bastogne 2, 233–7, 239, 241, 243, 245, 251, 259 ‘Battle of the Generals’ 298, 304, 317 and Bradley 27, 28, 169 career 22, 28, 114, 233 character 27–8, 164, 237 command 5, 7, 12, 69 on Eisenhower 27, 169 January 1945 297, 299, 306, 308, 310 at Verdun 159, 160 and Wacht am Rhein 73, 81–2 Paul, Lt Colonel Donald 133 Paul, Major General Willard 235 Peiper, Oberst Jochen 62, 124, 137–41, 139, 143, 145, 160, 184–6, 187, 189, 203 Peltz, General Major Dietrich 45, 56, 59, 60, 203, 268 ‘People’s Court’ 13 Pergrin, Lt Colonel David 138, 140, 141 Petersen, Generalleutnant Erich 293 ‘phantom army’ 5, 20, 38 Philips, Frank 289 Poetschke, Major Werner 140, 184–5 Poteau 147, 155, 157, 177, 261 Pratz 247–8

Priess, SS Grupenführer Herman 62, 120, 123, 184, 185, 303 Prüm 78, 93, 172, 307, 310 Prümerberg 148, 150, 151 Puett, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph 99 Quesada, General Elwood ‘Pete’ 58, 81, 185, 198, 217, 311 Recht 177, 206 Reeves, Colonel Andrew 73, 74 Reid, Colonel Alexander 96, 155 Remer, Oberst Otto 130, 148, 150, 229, 319–20 Rendieux-le-Bas 285, 286 Ridge, Lt Colonel Paul 89–90 Ridgeway, Major General Matthew 158, 162, 163, 164, 166, 167, 173, 317, 318 Riggs, Lt Colonel Thomas 148, 149, 151 Riley, Colonel Don 110 Roberts, Colonel William 217, 220, 221, 222 Roberts, Major General ‘Pip’ 1 Robertson, Major General Walter 74, 78, 111, 119–20, 123 Rochefort 2–4, 210, 257, 259, 261, 281, 285 Rocherath 104, 119–25, 122, 127, 160 Rochfort 204, 210 Rodt 151, 155 Roer dams 72, 85, 102, 119 Rohde, Sergeant Major Heinz 49, 52–3 Rommel, General 5, 14, 25, 36, 78 Ronningen, PFC Thor 104, 107 Roosevelt, President Franklin 10, 11, 294, 317 Ross, Major General Robert Ross 286 Roth 86, 89, 250, 309 Rudder, Lt Colonel James 117, 192 Russian Front 13, 17 Saar valley 293, 294 Sainlez 210, 232, 257, 261 Salm river 143, 155, 167, 177, 185

Salmchâteau 155, 168, 306, 311 Sauer river 66, 67, 78, 118, 129, 134, 192, 196–7, 245, 257, 308 Scheldt estuary 10, 43 Schmidt, Corporal Wilhelm 50–1, 53 Schmidt, Generalleutnant Josef ‘Beppo’ 44, 57 Schnee-Eifel 39, 65, 74, 76, 78, 84–5, 92, 148 Schönberg 85, 98, 99, 101, 148, 150 Schramm, Major Percy Ernst 39, 55, 61, 113, 125, 128, 171–2, 274 Schwerpunkt 12, 30, 35–7, 63, 65, 130, 137, 171 Senonchamps 226, 257 Sensfuss, General Franz 195, 196, 246 SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) 11, 23, 51–2, 81, 159, 204, 251, 291, 304, 317 Intelligence 5, 70, 74–5 Shoup, Staff Sergeant Curtis F 335–6 Sibert, Brigadier Edwin 69, 72, 73 Sibret 181, 210, 241, 253, 262 Sickling, Lieutenant 228–9 Siegfried Line see West Wall Simpson, Major General 82, 160, 164, 165, 317 Skorzeny, Oberst Otto 46–9, 48, 51–3, 184 Skyline Boulevard (Drive) 86, 99, 130, 133 Sledzick, Captain Bernard 228–9 Smith, Major General Albert 295 Smuts, Field Marshal 11, 161 Soderman, Private First Class William A 336–7 Soller 115, 181 Soy 176, 204 Spa 137, 141, 160 Spaatz, General Carl 200 Special Liaison Officers (SLOs) 69 Speer, Albert 20, 56, 57, 263–4 Speidel, General Hans 5, 7 Spragins, Major General Robert 290 Springer, Lt Warren 108, 109 St Germain-en-Laye 51, 82

St Hubert 210, 226, 251, 257, 262, 279 St Vith 65, 76, 84, 90, 91, 119, 128, 136, 147–58, 160, 167, 176, 184, 190, 192, 210, 261, 299, 307, 318 American losses 155 communication centre 79 critical town defences 148 illustrations 139, 153, 154, 156, 312 map 152 Montgomery praises defences 162 muddled command decisions 97 recaptured by Americans 311 three-pronged German attack 150 Stadtinger, General 103–4 Stalin, Marshal Josef 3, 10, 17, 304–5 Standley, Harrison 105, 106, 122, 126, 142, 153, 154, 156, 157, 168, 190, 214, 244, 256 Stavelot 138, 140, 141, 142, 143, 145, 160, 171, 185, 189, 204 Stetter, Unteroffizier Wilhelm 247–8, 308–9 Stottmeister, Leutnant Gunter 309–10 Stoumont 143, 145, 146, 160, 184, 185, 186–7, 189, 203 Strasbourg 11, 290, 291, 294, 295, 296, 298 Strickler, Lt Colonel Daniel 181–2 Strong, Major General Sir Kenneth 70, 71, 72, 73, 80, 81, 164, 200 Student, General Karl 19–20, 43 Süre river 113, 117, 245, 246, 254 Swanson, Captain Wallace 227, 231 Tedder, Air Chief Marshal AW 159, 200, 304 Tellin 279, 281, 283, 284 Thimm, Private First Class Joseph 104–5 Third Reich 13, 17, 27 rail and road systems 39–40, 54, 77, 103, 203 Thorne, Corporal Horace M 151, 337–8 Tintange 241, 262 Todt, Dr Fritz 20 Toppe, Generalmajor Alfred 40

Trier 72, 85, 206, 249 Trois Ponts 138, 141, 143, 185, 186 Twin Towns see Krinkelt; Rocherath ULTRA 25, 38, 49, 68–75, 159, 172, 176, 199–200, 204, 207, 253, 257, 264, 268, 307 acute German fuel shortage 303 break Reichsbahn Enigma code 40 decipher many clues 2 identify bodenplatte losses 276 identify Luftwaffe priorities 211 key Luftwaffe objectives 201 locate Himmler ’s new command 291 new German tanks for Eastern front 306 on stream again 203 Rundstedt’s grim order 21 Rundstedt’s ‘holy deed’ 82 secret establishment 68 US armed forces 188 ARMIES First Army 11, 12, 23, 58, 69, 72, 73, 74, 77, 82, 141, 160, 162, 164–5, 166, 184, 199, 289, 297, 299, 308, 318, 319 Third Army 204, 237, 240, 289, 291, 299, 306, 308 Seventh Army 7, 11, 23, 233, 235, 290–1, 294–5 Ninth Army 11, 23, 81–2, 160, 164, 165, 199, 299 ARMY GROUPS 6th 160, 233, 290 12th 82, 298 14th Cavalry Group 84, 91, 108, 138, 148, 155 21st 69, 162, 164, 297, 298 CORPS III 235, 260, 299 V 78, 84, 299 VI 290, 294, 295 VII 169, 279, 299, 306 VIII 73, 78, 81, 84, 299

XII 299 XV 290, 293, 294 XVIII Airborne 155, 162, 167, 213, 299 DIVISIONS: AIRBORNE 17th ‘Golden Talon’ 245, 251, 305, 306 82nd ‘All American’ 137, 155, 167, 186, 213, 215, 253, 306, 318 101st ‘Screaming Eagles’ 2, 137, 160, 213, 215, 224, 225, 227, 232, 239, 243, 244, 260, 303, 306 DIVISIONS: ARMOURED 2nd ‘Hell on Wheels’ 166, 253, 259, 284, 306, 308 3rd ‘Spearhead’ 166, 175, 184, 186, 204–5, 253, 255, 306–7 4th 209, 225, 232, 235, 237, 239, 243, 245, 246, 252 6th ‘Super Six’ 251, 305, 308 7th ‘Lucky Seventh’ 81–2, 97, 99, 138, 147, 148, 150, 151, 155, 156, 158, 160, 162, 167, 173, 175, 200, 253, 311, 312 9th ‘Phantom’ 78, 97, 113, 134, 140, 150, 151, 158, 160, 192, 195, 196, 215, 216, 221, 222, 226, 243, 253 10th ‘Tiger ’ 82, 192, 195, 196, 200, 213, 216, 217, 221, 222, 232, 243, 246 11th ‘Thunderbolt’ 245, 305–6, 308 12th ‘Hellcat’ 148 14th ‘Liberator ’ 295 DIVISIONS: INFANTRY 19, 77 1st ‘Big Red One’ 82, 123–4 2nd ‘Indian-Head’ 74, 78, 82, 84, 92, 93, 102, 119–20, 121, 123 4th ‘Ivy’ 5, 78, 113–14, 118, 192, 194, 195, 196, 308 5th ‘Red Diamond’ 246, 308, 309 9th ‘Octfoil’ 102, 105, 107, 108, 119–20, 121, 123 26th ‘Yankee’ 126, 196, 197, 235, 245, 246, 250, 308 28th ‘Keystone (Buckets of Blood)’ 78, 80, 113, 129–36, 150, 160, 178, 182, 192, 263 30th ‘Old Hickory’ 145, 162, 186, 205 35th ‘Santa Fe’ 245, 300 38th 119–20 75th 166, 176 80th ‘Blue Ridge’ 196–7, 235, 241, 243, 245, 246, 308 83rd ‘Thunderbolt’ 306

84th ‘Railsplitters’ 166, 253, 257, 284, 289, 306 87th ‘Golden Acorn’ 245 90th ‘Tough Hombres’ 308 99th ‘Checkerboard’ 49, 78, 80, 82, 90, 91, 102–11, 105, 106, 119, 123, 124–5, 138 106th ‘Golden Lions’ 78, 80, 84, 85, 90, 91, 92–101, 98, 149, 150, 160, 202 casualties 58, 89, 101, 107, 108, 110, 111, 114, 123, 125, 129, 134, 136, 138, 140, 149, 151, 155, 173, 175, 186, 222, 226, 243, 251, 296, 297, 306, 314 rations 115–16, 217 rest and recuperation 77 tanks 104, 134, 155, 175, 240, 284, 300, 312 see also US Army Air Force US Army Air Force 307 AIR FORCES Eighth 56, 57, 58, 198, 199, 202, 203, 205, 206, 209, 211, 261, 271, 276 Ninth 57, 60, 198, 201, 202, 205, 206, 207, 209, 261, 265, 271, 292, 311 AIR COMMANDS IX Tactical 58, 72, 311 XII Tactical 295 XIX Tactical 57, 72, 198, 209, 259, 261, 262, 307, 311 XXIX Tactical 262, 311 V-1 flying bombs 8, 14, 187 V-2 long-range rocket bombs 8, 14, 187 Vandenberg, Major General Hoyt 57, 207, 217, 292 Verdun conference 159–60, 161–2, 233 Verviers 58, 171, 198, 205, 263 Vianden 78, 113, 116, 129, 249, 309 Viebig, Oberst Wilhelm 104, 107 Vielsalm 155, 177, 204, 306, 311 Villeroux 226, 253 Volksturm (people’s militia) 17, 19, 41 Von der Heydte, Colonel Graf Friedrich 43–4, 45–6, 123 Von Hofman, Colonel Helmut 108

Von Kluge, Field Marshal 5 Von Lauchert, Oberst Meinrad 220, 221, 258 Von Luttwitz, General Heinrich 65, 130, 133, 181, 210, 215, 216, 226, 227, 260 Von Manteuffel, General Hasso on the air war 212 Bastogne 215, 226, 239, 251, 253, 257, 260, 301, 303 character 33, 164 Losheim Gap 84, 85, 86 Null-Tag 131, 132 reflections 15, 34, 318, 322 St Vith 148, 150, 162 Wacht am Rhein 34, 36, 41, 61–2, 65, 95–6, 98, 112 Von Mellenthin, General 265 Von Ribbentrop, Joachim 17, 70, 71 Von Rothkirch und Trach, General Graf 67, 113 Von Rundstedt, Field Marshal Gerd 16 on Allied victories 54 Bastogne 257 battle orders 21, 67, 82 career 11, 15 command 15, 30 Operation Greif 47 Twin Towns battle 120, 128 Wacht am Rhein 33, 35, 36, 37, 39, 79, 112, 161, 205 Von Stauffenberg, Colonel Count 13 Von Waldenburg, Generalmajor Siegfried 130, 131 Von Zangen, General 20 Vosges 10, 11, 294 Wacht am Rhein 2, 33, 38–42, 69, 71, 75, 151, 161, 203, 293, 308, 314, 321, 322 17–18 December 1944 80–3 battle plan 33, 34–5, 61–3, 64 maps 64, 280, 316 order of the day 67 see also Schwerpunkt

Wadehn, Major General 85 Waffen SS see German armed forces (SS) Waharday 285, 286 Wahl, Major Goswin 114, 115, 181, 193 Wahlerscheid 102, 119 Waldenburg, General Siegfried 258 Wallendorf 113, 129 Wardin 222, 225, 262 Warlimont, General Walter 14–15 Warnach 239, 241, 245 Warner, Corporal Henry F 124, 338–9 Watson, Major Jack 281–3 Weckerath 86, 89, 90, 103 Weiler 133, 134 Werbomont 141, 213 West Wall (Siegfried Line) 1, 11, 17, 27, 78, 86, 87 Westphal, General Siegfried 5, 33 Weyland, General Otto ‘Opie’ 57–8, 209, 311 Whitely, Major General John 12, 164 Wiedorfer, Staff Sergeant Paul J 339–40 Wilmot, Chester 22, 318–19, 321 Wiltz 116, 130, 134, 178–83, 196, 246, 250, 253, 257, 311 Winser, Lieutenant Tim 281–2 Winterbotham, Group Captain FEW 69, 70, 74–5, 292 Winterspelt 96, 97, 98 Wirtzfeld 110, 119, 123 Woitke, Gruppen-Kommandur Hauptmann Erich 206 Wolfsschanze 14–15, 30, 33, 70 Zeiner, Colonel Helmut 121, 124