At 5:30 AM on December 16, 1944, 1600 German artillery pieces commenced a 90 minute barrage hammering a 80 mile portion of the American line in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium and Luxembourg. It was Hitler's desperate gamble to overwhelm the Allies in the West, throwing virtually all of his strategic reserves into an attack of 300,000 men and almost a thousand tanks. It was a massive intelligence failure on the part of the Americans, as the German attack was carried out with nearly total surprise. Their objective was to cross the Meuse and capture Brussels and Antwerp. The plan was almost suicidally ambitious - due to shortages of fuel, the plan set the time to achieve their final objective of Antwerp at four days. They would be forced to rely on captured American fuel and ammo dumps for resupply, as they lacked the resources to supply their forward units.
The Ardennes was viewed as too densely covered with trees for a major attack with armored forces, and as such the US Army used it as a quiet sector for green, untested forces (99th and 106th Divisions, who had seen no combat) and to rehabilitate units chewed up in combat (the 28th Division, which had endured murderous fighting in the Hurtgen Forest).
Heavy snowfalls and fog prevented the Allies from using their overwhelming superiority in the air.
Outnumbered initially, some American forces fled in chaos and many were captured, but there was enough determined opposition from the green soldiers in the Ardennes to slow the German advance considerably. At Elsenborn Ridge and Bastogne, the Germans were stopped cold by outnumbered American forces. The German attack slowed and finally halted on Christmas Day. Reinforcements began arriving, and clearing weather allowed Allied airpower to be unleashed. A month after that opening barrage, the final remaining German units evacuated the Ardennes, and the Wehrmacht would never again mount a major attack on the Western front. The cost for victory was 19000 KIA, 47000 WIA, and 23000 captured or missing.
One Bulge veteran's story
The anniversary in Belgium
Another veteran's story
History of the battle
RIP grandpa, you were a real hero.
True heroes...all of them.
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Is there a connection between Die Wacht am Rhein and the Battle of the Bulge? I thought the song was from a much earlier conflict.
Always interested to read about the history of it.
Same as to the cold and the feeling the forest was alive.
I was born in 1952. It was still pretty fresh in his mind when I was a kid. When I was 7 or 8, it's like something that happened in 1999 or 2000 today. It's weird to think about in those terms. We tend to think of it as ancient history, but it wasn't then.
27 years ago today is 1997. That's yesterday. That's just mind blowing to me.
No wonder people my Dad was close with back when I was a kid, his generation, were still talking about Pearl Harbor day like it was a fresh wound. It was.
Just think how we will all be feeling in 10 years or so when we think back to 9-11. It won't feel like 25 years at all.
So forget everything I just said.
Is there a connection between Die Wacht am Rhein and the Battle of the Bulge? I thought the song was from a much earlier conflict.
Musical setting from 1854 according to Wikipedia.
The Germans sing it in "Casablanca", and other bar patrons counter it with "La Marseillaise"