Online Encyclopedia
Battle of the Bulge
| The Battle of the Bulge | |||||||||||||||||
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| Conflict | World War II | ||||||||||||||||
| Date | December 16, 1944 – January 15, 1945 | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | The Ardennes | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | American victory | ||||||||||||||||
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The Ardennes Offensive, popularly known as the Battle of the Bulge, was the last major German offensive on the Western Front in World War II. It was intended that the German army would split the Allied line in half, capture Antwerp, sweep north and encircle and destroy four Allied armies, thus forcing them to negotiate for peace.
Although unsuccessful, it nevertheless tied down huge amounts of Allied resources, and a slow response to the resulting gap in their lines erased months from their timetable. An alternative analysis is that the offensive allowed the Allies to severely deplete the preponderence of German army outside the defenses of the West Wall and in poor supply state, greatly easing the assault on Germany afterward. In numerical terms, it is the largest battle the United States Army has ever fought.
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Background
The breakout from Normandy in August, 1944 saw the Allies dash across France at unprecedented speeds. The situation for the Germans was grim, as the Allies had enjoyed air supremacy over the Western skies since March. The Luftwaffe was severely depleted, and like the German Army, faced chronic manpower and fuel shortages. The retreat to the West Wall considerably shortened their supply lines, improving their supply situation as they could now rely on Germany's extensive road and rail network.
The Allies had their own supply problems by the time they reached the German border, the trucking system that ran across France, the so-called Red Ball Express , was simply inadequate. Few usable port facilities had been captured. The Germans made sure to wreck any ports thoroughly before they fell to the Allies. Realizing this, the Allies attempted to take the great port of Antwerp by surprise (thus allowing this port to be captured intact). In part, Operation Market Garden was intended to secure the Dutch ports, as well as bypass the Siegfried Line. Market Garden failed due to an unexpected level of German resistance at the final hurdle, the bridge over the Rhine at Arnhem.
Eventually, the Canadian First Army did get enough supplies to move forward, clear the Westerschelde and open Antwerp to shipping. This stabilized the situation, with the battle lines at approximately the 1939 German border, and the supply problems the Allies had experienced started to ease.
At about this time, Operation Bagration—a massive Soviet offensive on the Eastern Front—burnt itself out in eastern Poland after crushing Army Group Centre. The fighting eased as the fall encroached on Europe, with limited operations during the Lorraine campaign and the Battle of Aachen.
Planning
A massive German counter-attack in the West had been in planning since July. By mid-September, on Hitler's insistence, it was decided that the German army would strike through the Ardennes, as they had four years earlier in the Battle of France. They would split the Allied lines, drive northwest to the Meuse River, capture the city of Antwerp, encircle and destroy the 1st Canadian, 2nd British, 1st and 9th American armies. Adolf Hitler believed that Allied morale could not sustain a decisive defeat. The Western Allies, Hitler thought, would be forced to sue for peace amid heavy losses, and then Germany could concentrate all its resources on defeating the Soviets in the East. The new plan was codenamed Wacht am Rhein ("Watch on the Rhine") in order to fool Allied intelligence into believing the upcoming German operations were strictly preparations for the defense of Germany's vital Rheinland.
Three armies were selected for the operation:
- The 6th SS Panzer Army , led by Sepp Dietrich. Newly created on October 26, 1944, it incorporated some of the Waffen-SS's most elite units. It was assigned as the main attacking force, leading the northernmost attack with the objective of capturing Antwerp.
- The 5th Panzer Army led by Hasso von Manteuffel, was assigned to the middle attack route with the objective of capturing Brussels.
- The 7th Army, led Erich Brandenberger , was assigned to the southernmost attack, with the task of protecting the flank.
Overseeing the operation were Field Marshals Walther Model, the commander of the German Army Group B and Gerd von Rundstedt, the overall commander of German troops in the West.
For the offensive to be successful, three things were deemed critical by the planners.
- The attack had to be a complete surprise.
- The weather conditions had to be poor in order to neutralize Allied air superiority and the damage it could inflict on German offensive and supply lines.
- The progress had to be rapid and not delayed. Field Marshal Walther Model had declared that the Meuse River had to be reached by day 4, if the offensive was to have any chance of success.
Prior to the offensive, the Allies were virtually blind to German troop movement. During the reconquest of France, the extensive network of the French resistance had provided valuable intelligence about German dispositions. Now that they had reached the German border, this source dried up. In France, orders had been relayed within the German army using radio messages ciphered by the Enigma machine, and these could be picked up and decrypted by Ultra. In Germany, such orders were typically transmitted using telephone and teleprinter, and a special radio silence order was imposed on all matters concerning the upcoming offensive. The major crackdown in the Wehrmacht after the July 20 Plot resulted in much tighter security and less leaks. The foggy autumn weather also prevented allied reconnaissance planes from correctly assessing the ground situation.
Thus Allied High Command considered the Ardennes a quiet sector, relying on assessments from their intelligence services that the Germans were unable to launch any major offensive operations this late in the war. What little intelligence they did get led the Allies to believe precisely what the Germans wanted them to believe, that preparations were being carried out only for defensive, not offensive operations. All of this meant that the attack, when it came, was a complete surprise to the Allies who in the past, due to their superior intelligence gathering services, were always one step ahead of the Germans. Allied units deployed in the Ardennes were a mixture of green troops (such as the rookie U.S. 99th and 106th Divisions), and battle hardened troops sent to that sector to recuperate (the U.S. 2nd Division).
Thirty newly rebuilt divisions, some of the last reserves of the German army, were selected for the offensive. Among them were Volksgrenadier units formed from a mix of battle hardened veterans and recruits formerly regarded as too young or too old to fight.
During the preparations, training time, equipment and supplies were inadequate. The German fuel shortage was precarious—the operation would depend heavily on using captured supplies. Many units were still horse drawn. As a result, the start of the offensive was delayed from mid-November to December 16.
German intelligence had set December 20 as the expected date for the start of the upcoming Soviet offensive, an offensive aimed at crushing what was left of German resistance on the Eastern Front, thus opening the way to Berlin. It was hoped that Stalin would delay the start of the operation once the German assault in the Ardennes had begun, and wait for the outcome before continuing.
In the final stage of preparations, Hitler and his staff left their Wolf's Lair headquarters in East Prussia, in which they had co-ordinated much of the fighting on the Eastern Front. After a brief visit to Berlin, on December 11, they came to the Eagle's Nest, Hitler's headquarters in southern Germany. This was the place from where he had overseen his successful 1940 campaign against France and the low countries.
Initial German assault
The German assault began on December 16, 1944 at 0530 hrs with a massive artillery barrage on the Allied troops facing the 6th SS Panzer Army. By 0800 all three German armies assaulted through the Ardennes. In the northern sector Dietrich's 6th SS Panzer Army assaulted Losheim Gap and the Elsenborn Ridge in an effort to break through to Liege. In the centre, von Manteuffel's 5th Panzer Army attacked towards Bastogne and St. Vith , both road junctions of great strategic importance. And in the south Brandenberger's 7th Army pushed towards Luxembourg in their effort to secure the flank from Allied attacks.
Mimicking tactics the Russians had used against German lines with devastating results during Operation Bagration, the German first wave consisting mostly of infantry, cleared the way and created pincers in the front that could be exploited by Armored troops. The initial advance caught the Americans by surprise, many forward deployed units surrendered, but strong resistance further back greatly slowed the German advance.
Attacks by the Waffen-SS units in the north fared badly due to fierce resistance by the U.S. 2nd Infantry Division at the Elsborn Ridge, stalling the German advance in the north. In the center and the south, the Germans fared better as they attacked the U.S. 106th Infantry Division. All along the lines, however, the inexperience of some of the German troops was evident. They tended to attack from the open, and marched without cover, making them prime targets for American ambush.
Starting on December 16, terrible snowstorms engulfed the Ardennes area. While having the desired effect of keeping the Allied aircraft grounded, the weather also proved troublesome for the Germans as poor road conditions hampered their advance. It took 36 hours to advance from Eifel to Stavelot, it had taken just 9 hours in 1940. As the Americans fell back, they blew up bridges and fuel dumps, denying the Germans critically needed fuel, and further slowing their progress.
Hitler had predicted it would take Eisenhower two or three days to realize that the fighting in the Ardennes was a major offensive and not a local counter-attack. His prediction was proven quite wrong; before the first day was finished, Eisenhower (ignoring the advice of his advisers), had ordered vast reinforcements to the area. The Red Ball Express stopped delivering supplies and started moving troops. Within a week, 250,000 troops had been sent. At the same time, the 101st Airborne Division, (along with a combat team from the 10th Armored Division ) was ordered to move and defend the town of Bastogne. (Citizen Soldiers, p 201).
Malmédy massacre
- Main article: Malmédy massacre
On December 17, 1944, near the hamlet of Baugnez , on the height half-way between the town of Malmédy and Ligneuville , in Belgium, elements of Waffen-SS Kampfgruppe Peiper encountered the American 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. After a brief battle, the Americans surrendered. They were disarmed and with some other Americans captured earlier, sent to stand in a field near the crossroads. A tank pulled up, and a truck shortly thereafter. A single SS officer pulled out a pistol and shot a medical officer standing in the front row, and then shot the man standing next to the medical officer. Other soldiers joined in with machine guns. It is not known why this happened; there is no record of an order by an SS officer — however, such routine shootings of prisoners of war (POWs) were common on the Eastern Front. News of the killings raced through Allied lines. Afterwards, the order went out: SS and fallschirmjäger were to be shot on sight.
Operation Greif
- Main article: Operation Greif
During the Battle, Otto Skorzeny, the German commando who had rescued Benito Mussolini, led a battalion of 500 English-speaking German soldiers in Operation Greif.
These soldiers were dressed in American and British uniforms and wore dog-tags taken from corpses and POWs. Their job was to go behind American lines and change sign-posts, misdirect traffic, and generally cause disruption. The ploy worked, and rumors spread like wild-fire. Military policemen soon grilled soldiers on things that every American was expected to know, like who is Mickey Mouse's girlfriend, or what is the capital of Illinois. (General Bradley was detained when he answered: "Springfield"; the GI who was questioning him apparently thought the capitol of Illinois was Chicago).
Some of the disguised Germans were captured. During interrogation, they lied about their mission, saying that their mission was to go to Paris to either kill or capture General Eisenhower. Security around the general became airtight and he was confined to his headquarters. Because these prisoners had been captured in enemy uniform, they were later executed by firing squad; this was the standard practice of every army at the time, and was expressly allowed under the Geneva Convention.
Bastogne
On December 19, the senior Allied commanders met in a bunker in Verdun. Eisenhower, realizing that with the Germans out in the open and on the offensive, the Allies could destroy them much more easily than if they were on the defensive. Eisenhower told the generals "The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for us and not of disaster. There will be only cheerful faces at this table". George Patton, realizing what Eisenhower implied, responded "Hell, let's have the guts to let the bastards go all the way to Paris. Then, we'll really cut'em off and chew'em up". Eisenhower asked Patton how long it would take to turn his Third Army (then located far to the south in France) north to counter-attack. He said he could do it in 48 hours, to the disbelief of the other generals present. In fact, before he had gone to the meeting, Patton had ordered his staff to prepare to turn north; by the time Eisenhower asked him how long it would take, it was already part-way done. (Citizen Soldiers, p 208)
By December 21, the German forces had completely surrounded Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division. Conditions inside the perimeter were tough—most of the medical supplies and personnel had been captured. However, despite determined German attacks, the perimeter held. When General Anthony McAuliffe was awakened by a German invitation to surrender, he gave a one-syllable reply that has been variously reported and was probably unprintable. However, there is no disagreement as to what he wrote on the paper delivered to the Germans: "NUTS!" That reply had to be explained, both to the Germans and to non-American Allies.¹
The German tactics during the siege of Bastogne were clever. Rather than launching one simultaneous attack all around the perimeter, they would concentrate their attack on one spot, then another, then another. The Americans had to move reinforcements to repel one attack, then shuffle them to repel the next attack, and so on. Despite overwhelming numerical superiority, the Germans could not breach the American defenses.
American counterattack
On December 23 the weather conditions started improving, allowing the Allied air forces to attack. They launched devastating bombing attacks on the German supply points in their rear and P-47s started decimating the German troops on the roads. The Allied air forces also helped the defenders of Bastogne, dropping much needed supplies—medicine, food, blankets and ammunition. A team of volunteer surgeons flew in by glider and began operating in a tool room.
By December 24 The German advance was effectively stalled short of the Meuse River , they had outrun their supply lines, and shortages of fuel and ammunition were becoming critical. On the evening of the 24th, General Hasso von Manteuffel recommended to Hitler's Military Adjutant a halt to all offensive operations and a withdrawal back to the West Wall, Hitler rejected it.
Patton's Third Army was now battling to relieve Bastogne. At 1650 on December 26, the lead element of the Fourth Armored Division reached Bastogne. The siege was over.
- "Charles Boggess drove the first vehicle from the 4th Armored into the lines of the 101st Airborne. He was followed by Capt. William Dwight. 'How are you, General?' Dwight asked General McAuliffe, who had driven out to the perimeter to greet them. 'Gee, I'm mighty glad to see you', McAuliffe replied'. (Citizen Soldiers, p 248).
On January 1, in an attempt to keep the offensive going, the Germans launched two new operations. At 0915 the Luftwaffe launched Operation Bodenplatte , a major campaign against Allied airfields in the Low Countries. Hundreds of planes attacked Allied airfields, destroying or severely damaging some 465 aircraft. However, the Luftwaffe lost 277 planes, 62 to fighters and 172 to an unexpectedly high number of Allied flak guns, set up to protect against German V-1 flying bomb attacks. Many other airplanes were lost due to friendly fire from the German flak guns. While the Allies recovered from their losses in just days, the operation left the Luftwaffe "weaker than ever and incapable of mounting any major attack again". (A World At Arms, p 769, Gerhard Weinberg). On that same day, Operation Northwind , a diversionary attack into the Alsace region, began. The fighting ranged over 150 kilometers from Saarbrucken in the north to the Rhine in the South. After twenty gruelling days of fighting, the Americans fell back, (having taken some 11,609 casualties but inflicting 23,000).
While the German offensive had ground to a halt, they still controlled a dangerous salient in the Allied line, from which their panzers could wreak havoc. The Allied counter-attack was slated to begin on January 1. Patton's Third Army in the south, centered around Bastogne, would attack north, Montgomery's forces in the north would strike south. The two forces would meet up at Houffalize.
Many of the men slated to attack were incredulous — they could not believe that after two weeks of heavy fighting, they were being asked to spearhead another major offensive. Not only was exhaustion a factor, but the temperature during January 1945 was the coldest on record; trucks had to be run every half hour, or the oil in them would freeze; weapons would freeze, and so men took to urinating on them to warm them up. Men typically wore multiple overcoats and slept with two to four blankets. The offensive went forward despite these protests.
Despite vehement protests from Bradley, Eisenhower had put American troops in the north (the 1st and 9th American Armies), under Montgomery's command. Eisenhower wanted Montgomery to go on the offensive on January 1. Had they quickly struck south, they would have met up with Patton's advancing Third Army and cut off most of the attacking Germans. Instead, as was his custom throughout the war, Montgomery delayed as long as possible. He did not launch the attack until January 3.
American progress in the south was also slow — about a kilometer a day (at the start of the offensive, the two Armies were separated by about 40 kilometers). The Germans did their best to slow the Americans, while letting their army retreat in good order. Much of the German army escaped the battle, although the fuel situation had become so dire that a lot of the German armor had to be abandoned.
On January 7, 1945, Hitler agreed to pull back most of the forces from the Ardennes, including the 6th SS Panzer Division, thus ending all offensive operations. The Ardennes Offensive was now over, what remained for Allies was mopping up the remaining weak German units.
On the same day Montgomery held a press conference, where he took credit for most of the victory (saying that the Americans fought well once they had good leadership — British leadership). He also said that he thought the counter-offensive was going very well (when in fact, it was going extremely slowly). Eisenhower later retracted his earlier order, and placed the American armies back under the command of Omar Bradley. Never again would American troops be put under British command.
On January 12, as the last Germans left the Bulge, Stalin launched his Vistula-Oder Offensive .
The two American forces met up on January 15, 1945. The Battle of the Bulge was over.
Aftermath
Casualty estimates from the battle vary widely. American casualties are given variously as 70,000 to 81,000 (approximately); German casualties are estimated at between 60,000 and 104,000.
The Allies pressed their advantage following the battle. By the beginning of February 1945, the lines were roughly where they had been in December 1944. In early February, the Allies launched an attack all along the Western front: in the north under Montgomery toward Aachen; in the center, under Courtney Hodges; and in the south, under Patton. German forces, depleted following the Bulge, were unable to stem the tide. The Western Allies soon broke through the Siegfried Line, crossed the Ruhr river, and reached the German interior.
The German losses in the battle were critical in several respects: the last of the German reserves were now gone; the Luftwaffe had been broken; and the German army in the West was being pushed back. Most importantly, the Eastern Front was now ripe for the taking. In the East, the German army was unable to halt the Soviet juggernaut. Germany was sent reeling on two fronts, and never recovered.
The battle in popular culture
The Battle of the Bulge has been the setting of several movies and novels. A full length movie, Battle of the Bulge was made in 1965, starring Henry Fonda. (IMDB entry).
Stephen Ambrose's Band of Brothers follows the fortunes of Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101st Airborne, in 1944 and 1945; this includes the Company's experiences in the Battle of the Bulge, particularly near Bastogne.
Battleground is a 1949 film depicting the 101st Airborne's defense of Bastogne.
Reference
- The Last Offensive by Charles MacDonald (ISBN 1568520018)
- Riviera to the Rhine by Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert Ross Smith (ISBN 0756764866)
- Company Commander by Charles MacDonald (ISBN 1580800386)
- Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose. (ISBN 0684848015)
External links
- The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge official US ARMY history by Hugh M. Cole
- http://hometown.aol.com/dadswar/bulge/index.htm
- World War II Online Newspaper Archives
1. For the benefit of those not familiar with English slang, nuts is American English slang for testicles, similar to the British English balls. In this context, it means approximately 'go to hell'. Nuts can also mean 'crazy'.