A Fight Worth Remembering - Association of the United States Army

T
he Allied landings at Normandy on June
By COL Kevin W. Farrell
U.S. Army retired
6, 1944, remembered today as D-Day, remain the most recognizable campaign of
World War II for most Americans. As the
“Greatest Generation” moves on, this perception will strengthen. The lasting impact of
blockbuster Hollywood films and the powerful
mental image of a great fleet launching an invasion to liberate a continent continue to dominate our understanding of World War II. Next
June, there will be numerous 70th anniversary
tributes celebrating D-Day. In comparison, 70th
anniversary commemorations of the Battle of
the Bulge, the U.S. Army’s greatest victory, will
D-Day. What is needed is to put some perspective on the Battle of the Bulge and place it back
on center stage.
34 ARMY ■ December 2013
U.S. Army Signal Corps
most certainly be fewer than those focused on
U.S. Army Signal Corps
A Fight Worth Remembering
U.S. Army Signal Corps
Clockwise from
left: 101st Airborne
Division soldiers
exit the town of
Bastogne, Belgium,
on New Year’s Eve,
1944; soldiers of
1st Battalion, 157th
Regiment, 45th
Division, man a
machine gun at
a roadblock near
Bastogne; a Sherman tank is readied to repel a German advance in
the Ardennes near
Manhay, Belgium.
T
he Battle of the Bulge involved a large number of American soldiers and
was arguably the most desperately fought battle in our history, yet it grows
increasingly obscure. In addition to being the largest and bloodiest battle in
American history, more than any other it demonstrated the emergent capa-
bility of the U.S. Army as it withstood the full, final offensive of a German war
machine desperate to reverse the tide in a war that had turned inexorably against
it. Although there were notable shortcomings—first, an intelligence failure second
only to Pearl Harbor and second, disastrous battlefield performances by some
December 2013 ■ ARMY
35
U.S. National Archives
A German soldier carries a full ammunition belt
during the Battle of the Bulge. German armed
forces on the Western Front grew to number more
than 1.3 million men in December 1944.
U.S. Army units, most notably the 106th Infantry Division—
overall, this battle demonstrated that five months of continuous combat in Western Europe had transformed the U.S.
Army into a force capable of matching the Wehrmacht on its
own terms. For the U.S. Army, therefore, the Battle of the
Bulge should be remembered as perhaps its greatest chapter in a very proud history.
Nazi Germany’s Desperate Situation
By December 1944, World War II had been raging in Europe for more than five years. Nazi Germany’s spectacular
military victories from 1939–1941 were distant memories.
Unable to defeat Great Britain, Adolf Hitler sought final
victory and culmination of his diabolical designs in the
COL Kevin W. Farrell, USA Ret., Ph.D., is the former chief of
military history at West Point. He commanded a combined
arms battalion in Iraq, and his most recent book is The Military and the Monarchy.
36 ARMY ■ December 2013
east, launching the largest invasion in world history in
June 1941 against the Soviet Union. Following astonishing
initial victories, Hitler experienced his first major defeat,
which occurred outside Moscow before Christmas 1941.
Renewed offensives in 1942 brought Hitler’s empire to its
maximum size, but military disaster at Stalingrad in February 1943 permanently changed the strategic context of the
war. Germany’s July 1943 offensive, Operation Citadel, included the largest armored battle in history near Kursk,
but it failed, and with it so did Hitler’s opportunity for victory over the Soviet Union.
By autumn 1944, Germany was clearly losing the war—it
was simply a question of when, not if. Allied armies were
steadily advancing from three directions. The Allies had retaken North Africa, Sicily, and southern Italy in 1943, continuing a slow but deliberate advance northward and crossing the Arno River by August 1944. On the Eastern Front,
the Soviet juggernaut continued to roll relentlessly westward, inflicting massive casualties on the German Wehrmacht and suffering even more of its own in the process.
The colossal Soviet offensive of June 1944, Operation Bagration, inflicted the greatest defeat ever suffered by the German army—30 divisions annihilated—and it was punctuated with the attempted assassination of Hitler that July. By
any measure, Wehrmacht casualties on the Eastern Front
were staggering: From June 1941 to May 1944, Germany
lost an average of 60,000 men per month. Although the situation stabilized by autumn 1944, it was obvious that a final,
unstoppable Soviet onslaught was inevitable in 1945.
In the west, the landings at Normandy on June 6, 1944,
changed the strategic situation further in favor of the Allies.
In July, the Allies broke free from the Normandy bocage and
destroyed the Wehrmacht in France that August at Falaise. A
second invasion in southern France, Operation Dragoon,
also in August 1944, complemented the drive to the western border of the Third Reich. It seemed the war would
soon be over. Even though Operation Market Garden—
British Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery’s daring
plan to end the war before Christmas through an airborne
spearhead into Holland—failed, the Allied war machine
appeared to be unstoppable.
The dreadful strategic position of Germany was further
weakened as its major cities received daily bombing raids
that reduced them to rubble: the Americans by day and the
British by night. The German navy was trapped in a few
Axis-held ports while U-boats had been rendered largely
ineffective through Allied advances in technology and tactics. The few, pitiful allies that Nazi Germany once had in
Europe were all gone as 1944 neared its end.
As the combined industrial and military might of the Allied armies—united in purpose, confident in the justness of
their cause, vastly improved in proficiency and fully motivated to stop the unspeakable horrors of Nazi Germany—
steadily closed in on a shrunken Third Reich, most viewed
final victory as just around the corner. Surrounded and
alone, Nazi Germany appeared to be on its last legs. Unfortunately, Hitler had a vastly different strategic vision.
vance toward Antwerp and seize important crossing points
before the weather cleared and American airpower could
be brought to bear. Virtually from the start, however, Dietrich’s attack lagged well behind its optimistic schedule because of unexpectedly stiff American resistance and
abysmally poor road conditions.
To the south, Gen. Hasso von Manteuffel’s Fifth Panzer
Army attacked as a supporting effort to the Sixth Panzer
Army. Manteuffel came from a long line of distinguished
Prussian army officers, making him suspect in Hitler’s
eyes, but the general’s extensive experience and expertise
as a tactician made him invaluable. With four army panzer
divisions and four infantry divisions, his attack route ran
through the Belgian cities of Bastogne and Brussels, reinforcing the drive toward Antwerp. Just below this southern
shoulder of the “bulge”—the dent the German forces made
in the Allies’ line—Gen. Erich Brandenberger’s Seventh
Army attacked to protect the left flank. With only four infantry divisions and substantial artillery, its mission was
mainly protective.
On September 16, 1944, the day before Operation Market
Garden, at his headquarters near Rastenburg, East Prussia,
Hitler announced his decision to stage a major counterattack. Despite the gross imbalance of forces in the west—
55 German divisions faced 96 Allied divisions with 10 more
en route from England—Hitler believed a lack of supplies
(especially fuel) and the absence of functioning deepwater
ports weakened the Allied situation. He was convinced a
surprise attack toward Antwerp would split the AngloAmerican alliance and a major defeat would force the Western Allies into a separate peace. Recognizing the precariousness of the Allied logistics, he incorrectly believed
relations between the Americans and the British were
strained and that Americans made poor soldiers. With the
Western Front secure, “wonder weapons” (jet aircraft, super-heavy tanks and improved U-boats) would reinforce
the final effort to defeat the Soviet Union.
The plan, deceptively code-named Wacht am Rhein
(Watch on the Rhine), depended on three great armies, two
A Great Chapter of American Military History
of them panzer. Launched from the Ardennes Forest near
Despite an initial local advantage, the German surprise
the start point of the 1940 invasion of France, the 1944 plan
included an elaborate deception, Operation Greif (Griffin), attack failed almost from the start, mainly because of dewith Germans dressed as Americans operating behind Al- termined American resistance. In the north, the German
lied lines. Fog and miserable weather would ground the main effort struggled against the 2nd Infantry Division, a
vastly superior Allied airpower. Surprise was essential. veteran unit refitting, and the 99th Infantry Division, an
Hitler assured his generals that sufficient assets would be outfit that had recently arrived from the United States.
available to spearhead the offensive, and he refused any re- Hard fighting by both divisions doomed the entire attack
because it delayed the German timetable. American frontductions to the plan.
Despite the military situation and
deep skepticism of Hitler’s generals,
the Wehrmacht on the Western Front
increased to more than 1.3 million
men in December 1944. Three armies
advanced westward along a 60-mile
front. About 400,000 troops, 1,400
tanks, 2,600 artillery pieces and 1,000
aircraft faced a thin sector: four American infantry divisions and a partial
armored division possessed some
83,000 men and 400 tanks. American
units were either new arrivals and
therefore “green,” or were refitting following previous hard-fought engagements. The Germans achieved complete surprise.
The Sixth Panzer Army—the main
effort—attacked along a route now
known as the northern shoulder. Led
by Hitler’s favorite commander, SS
Gen. Josef Dietrich, a crude but experienced armor officer, the Sixth Panzer
Army attacked along five preplanned
A gun crew assigned to the 217th Antiaircraft Artillery Battalion readroutes. With four SS panzer divisions,
ies the “Black Widow” 90 mm antiaircraft gun to fire at an enemy plane
a parachute division and four infantry
sighted outside Bastogne. The engagement between American and
German forces at the crossroads town lasted about one week.
divisions, Dietrich’s army had to adDecember 2013 ■ ARMY
37
U.S. Army
Wacht am Rhein:
Germany’s Last Offensive in the West
U.S. Army
A civilian casualty
picks his way
through the rubble
of the Belgian town
of La Roche-enArdenne in January
1945. Allied bombing raids helped
liberate it from the
Germans but destroyed much of it
in the process.
line units were quickly overrun, but isolated troops fought
heroically against overwhelming odds. A telling example
was an 18-man intelligence and reconnaissance platoon
from the 99th Infantry Division commanded by LT Lyle
Bouck Jr., that held off the spearhead of the entire German
Sixth Panzer Army for almost a full day. Bouck’s platoon
remains the most decorated platoon in World War II, and
its performance reflects the best of the U.S. Army engaged
during the Battle of the Bulge.
Securing the Elsenborn Ridge to protect the northern
flank of the German drive was essential to the German plan.
Inspired command decisions—especially by 2nd Infantry
Division commander MG Walter M. Robertson at the twin
villages of Krinkelt and Rocherath—further impeded the
German advance. Hard-fought battles at Trois Ponts,
Stavelot and La Gleize permanently halted the northern
German attack. By December 19, Kampfgruppe Peiper, spearhead of the Sixth Panzer Army, was surrounded as GEN
Dwight D. Eisenhower committed the theater reserve, the
elite 82nd Airborne Division. Widespread individual heroism, combined with outstanding leadership at all command
levels, defeated the best the Wehrmacht could muster. In three
difficult days, the U.S. Army had met and overcome the
greatest challenge it would face during the war in Europe.
The German attack to the south by Manteuffel’s Fifth
Panzer Army, though intended to be a supporting effort, met
with greater success. Manteuffel trapped most of the 106th
Infantry Division, causing the greatest American defeat in
the European Theater when approximately 9,000 soldiers
surrendered. Seizing St. Vith after bitter fighting and surrounding Bastogne, the supporting effort became the main
38 ARMY ■ December 2013
effort as its success surpassed that of the army to its north.
Following the collapse of the 106th Infantry Division,
fierce resistance, once again combined with superb command decisions, halted the German offensive along the
southern shoulder as well. Although the Germans ultimately
seized the vital road junction at St. Vith, BG Bruce Clarke of
the 4th Armored Division assumed command of scattered
American units—remnants of the 7th and 9th Armored Divisions, the 28th Infantry Division, and the sole surviving regiment of the 106th Infantry Division—and brilliantly contained the German advance. Even though the Germans
captured St. Vith, they did not do so until December 21, four
days later than planned. By Christmas Eve, the German advance in the south was halted, and the 4th Armored Division
relieved the defenders of Bastogne on the 26th.
The weather improved on December 23, allowing Allied
airpower to pound German positions as American reinforcements, most notably GEN George S. Patton Jr.’s Third
Army, poured into the region. Victory came with a steep
price, though. The bulge was not fully cleared until early
February 1945, and Allied and German casualties incurred
in reducing the salient exceeded those of the initial attack.
American casualties totaled about 80,000 men, of whom
19,000 were killed. German losses neared 85,000.
Historical debates remain, primarily about an intelligence failure that enabled the Germans to attack with complete surprise. Nothing, however, should diminish the fact
that the Battle of the Bulge was not only the greatest and
bloodiest battle in the history of the U.S. Army, but that it
also was the Army’s finest battlefield performance on such
a grand scale.
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