Breakthrough: The Epic Story of the Battle of the Bulge: The Greatest Pitched Battle in America’s History

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Text originally published in 1961 under the same title.

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Publisher’s Note

Although in most cases we have retained the Author’s original spelling and grammar to authentically reproduce the work of the Author and the original intent of such material, some additional notes and clarifications have been added for the modern reader’s benefit.

We have also made every effort to include all maps and illustrations of the original edition the limitations of formatting do not allow of including larger maps, we will upload as many of these maps as possible.

BREAKTHROUGH

The Epic Story of the Battle of the Bulge,

The Greatest Pitched Battle in America's History

BY

FRANKLIN M. DAVIS, JR.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

THE END OR THE BEGINNING? 4

AUTHOR’S PROFILE 5

MAP 6

DEDICATION 7

PROLOGUE 8

THE BREAKTHROUGH 10

1—The Center—St. Vith 10

2—Deception—Einheit Stalau 19

3—First Three Days—The Lion Caged 24

4—Penetration—Kampfgruppe Peiper 35

5—Southern Shoulder—Echternach 45

SEALING THE GAPS 67

6—The Thrust Blunted—Panzer Lehr 67

7—The Eagle’s Talons—Bastogne 74

8—Dienst ist Dienst—15th Panzergrenadier Division 82

RESUMING THE OFFENSIVE 90

9—A Spark—Malmédy 90

10—New Orders—Schwerpunkt Ost! 98

11—Press Briefing—Ken Zumwalt 102

ERASING THE BULGE 108

12—Link-up—Closing the Gate 108

13—The Bulge Appraised—Generaloberst Alfred Jodl 115

EPILOGUE 122

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 123

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 126

THE END OR THE BEGINNING?

Over the American field telephones the frantic messages came:

...The 106th Division’s just vanished. Swallowed whole.

...The 424th’s catching hell!

...Sneaking in, bastards in white. Like ghosts.

...No contact. Wires cut.

...I don’t care what Corps says! My left flank’s open and I want to close it!

Kick the Krauts the hell out! came the order.

Cooks, radio operators and wounded were put in the lines, weakened positions were reinforced, defenses were shifted about with surprising speed—the new lines held and the epic Battle of the Bulge went into its final, devastating phase.

AUTHOR’S PROFILE

Franklin M. Davis, Jr. is a Regular Army lieutenant colonel with twenty years’ service in the Cavalry and Armor branches of the U.S. Army. During World War II he participated in the Ardennes, Rhineland and Central campaigns, first as an assistant operations officer on the Corps staff and then as a tank battalion executive officer in the 3rd Armored Division.

He is the author of three novels and fifty short stories, most of them with a military background and he is currently a member of the faculty at the U.S. Army War College and with his wife and two sons lives at Carlisle Barracks, Pennsylvania.

MAP

DEDICATION

FOR STEVE AND THANNY

Who often ask how it was

PROLOGUE

One of the most cherished myths of the German Army during World War II was the myth of the ineffectiveness of the individual American soldier. In the German view, no Army created from a soft decadent democracy like the United States could field a tough, determined, resourceful individual fighter. Matériel, the Germans said—the planes, the tanks, the incredible amounts of ammunition, the vast bulk of American logistic support—accounted for American success, and gave the Allies the victories in Africa, Sicily, and on the beaches of Normandy. It wasn’t the American soldier.

The fallacy of this German belief was never better proven than in the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign in Europe during the period 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. In this campaign, called the Battle of the Bulge by the American press after the salient marked on the battle maps, Adolf Hitler launched his greatest offensive of the war in Western Europe. This battle, Hitler said, is to decide whether we shall live or die...The enemy must be beaten—now or never! Thus lives our Germany!

Hitler chose his time and place well. He picked the harsh nadir of winter, the worst Europe had seen in decades, and he picked a place where the Allied forces were water-thin, so Allied momentum could be maintained in a winter offensive elsewhere. Hitler’s chosen battleground was Belgium, the initial contact the Ardennes forest front between Monschau on the German border on the north and Echternach in Luxembourg on the south. Skilfully, secretly, his major capabilities and intentions unsuspected by Allied intelligence, Hitler assembled three German armies under command of Field Marshal Walther Model. Twenty-four divisions—250,000 men with full equipment—were committed to the German task. The objective was to cross the Meuse River in Belgium between Liège and Namur, bypass the capital at Brussels, and reach the port of Antwerp in a week, thus making a strategic breakthrough to permit encircling and destroying the Allied forces to the north of the breakthrough. This, Hitler reasoned, would disrupt the Allied effort against Germany in the West. 970 tanks and assault guns and 1900 pieces of German heavy artillery hammered into an initial American-deployed strength of four divisions and an armored cavalry regiment. In the beginning, Hitler had better than five to one superiority in men and firepower. Thus started the greatest pitched battle ever fought by the United States in the 168 years of its existence.

The strategic problems created for both sides differed, of course, in major aspects. For Hitler, attacking against the advice of his generals, the offensive was a desperate gamble; virtually the last military resources of the Reich committed in hope of achieving a strategic upset. Under the conditions of terrain and weather existing at the time, Hitler’s greatest needs were for road nets to deploy his panzer armored forces in a blitz role, and the maintenance of a tight timetable to enhance the momentum he lacked resources otherwise to maintain.

For the Allies, notably the American forces, the problem was essentially to regain a strategic initiative already established by earlier campaigns in France. In broad detail, this required sealing the enemy penetration at its deepest point, holding the shoulders of the breakthrough to prevent the enemy spilling out to the north and south, and then attacking from a suitable direction to destroy the enemy forces and re-establishing a platform to continue the drive into Germany proper.

That this enemy offensive, this breakthrough, begun with German advantages in strategic and tactical surprise, men, firepower and then fortified with the heady wine of initial success ended in an Allied victory is due to one major factor. It is this, more than the brave decisions, the fantastic logistic performances, and the superb American generalship, that gives the Battle of the Bulge its epic quality, and places it at the top of the scroll of classic feats of American arms. This factor is the fighting quality of the American soldier who was there. Along the deceptively peaceful snow-covered slopes of the Ardennes, under a murk of fog and weather that kept his air support grounded, the American soldier reeled, wiped his bleeding face in disbelief, then came charging back. Ignoring the skin-cracking cold, the tremendous odds, inevitable foul-ups of command, and even the shattering sight of some of his own comrades fleeing in terror, the American soldier came driving back to spike the German myth in close combat as vicious as in any battle action in American history.

For those with ears to hear it, the Bulge was fought to an obbligato counterpointing every American battle from Cowpens to Cold Harbor, from, Belleau Wood to Pork Chop Hill. This obbligato is the beat of America’s fighting heart. In the Ardennes, in that December and January at St. Vith and Malmédy, at Hotton and Soy, at Bastogne and Vielsalm, this beat was a thunder in the snow. Today, on the fifteenth anniversary of the Ardennes victory, we best honor that fighting heart by reminding ourselves that we have it. And, elsewhere in the world, there are others who would do well to listen to the thunder, too.

THE BREAKTHROUGH

1—The Center—St. Vith

"...St. Vith some fifteen miles south of Monschau...was an important point on the road net of that area and necessary to the German spearheads attempting to push to the west..."—Dwight D. Eisenhower, Crusade in Europe

Something was up.

Charley Deering jumped from the command car at the main gate of Ogbourne Barracks, waved a perfunctory Thanks for the lift to the cat-eye blackout taillight vanishing into the black English night, and peered at the sleeping camp. The long single-story brick building lay like black logs in the darkness, as if they’d been stacked against the Wilshire hills to feed some farmer’s bonfire. Charley ran a bony hand across his wide-set eyes and then set his blocky jaw. Things didn’t look right just the same. Though a few drinks rested pleasantly in his belly—it was his twenty-fourth birthday and he’d celebrated with his first pass to town since the outfit came over from the States—his perceptions weren’t dulled. Sure, the 17th of December came only once in 1944, but with a war on, no officer worth a damn let himself get fuddled. You just never knew when you might be needed. And maybe this was the time.

Because something was up. For one thing, there was a flock of blackout violations. Thin creases of light cracked the darkness in a dozen places or more. Usually this brought the air-raid sentries pounding through the sprawling macadem lanes of the camp with a barrage of knuckles on offending shutters.

Now there was movement—you could hear a few sounds and even see a shadow or two as someone hurried along a wall—but the lights glowed on. How come? Huddling deeper into his officer’s field coat against the chill—Christ, these Limey winters!—Charley caught the deep roar of engines in the motor pool. A warm-up at two A.M.? Here?

He shivered, this time at the quiver of apprehension scampering up his spine. They’d caught it! Hey. Hey, sentry! Charley burst into the MP shack at the gate, the startled military policeman coming to swift attention when he spotted the major’s leaves on Charley’s shoulders. What’s up? We catch an air raid? Everybody’d been predicting one for the five months the XVIII Airborne Corps had been in England. And now they’d, caught one. Kraut planes had zeroed in on the Wilshire area, after all, and now maybe all of greater Swindon was blasted. But how come he hadn’t noticed it coming through? When’d they hit? Anyone hurt?

The MP, a beefy-faced kid with puffy eyes, looked puzzled. Air raid? No sir. Leastways, not that I know of.

Why’re they warming up vehicles then? Why so many light leaks? Hell, it’s two o’clock Sunday morning, man! What’s going on?

The MP looked embarrassed, fingering the pass sign-up book. Beats me, sir. But my relief’s late. That’s all I know.

Giving up, Charley signed in from pass, then pelted swiftly to his room in the Officers’ Quarters. It was something, wasn’t it? Deering on pass when the excitement started. Fine thing.

But he hadn’t been forgotten. When he got to his tiny room in the single-story barracks he found his chair, desk, alert pack, and flight-bag all stacked on his bunk. Somebody wanted to be sure he didn’t go to bed. A note explained it.

Charley: Don’t go to bed until you see me at the office. No matter WHAT time. Joe.

Changing to his OD shirt and pants, Charley grinned. Trust Joe to get him the word. That was proper. Joe was a good exec—he wouldn’t leave anybody out.

And Joe had the dope. He sat sprawled in a straight-backed chair in front of the big wall-map in the G-3 war-room, a slender, hard-voiced lieutenant colonel with tired eyes. His leather jacket, too big for him, billowed when he spoke. About time you blew in. He greeted Charley sourly, not looking away from the map. Haven’t you heard? There’s a war on.

No! Charley acted surprised. Where is it this time? Some place we haven’t got a plan for, I’ll bet.

Before Joe could answer, Sergeant Lapp, the operations non-com, stuck his head into the war-room. What about the new plywood may-boards, Colonel Mozley? Those go, too?

Everything, Sergeant Lapp. It might be a long war. Then Joe turned to Charley. Remember that counterattack we heard about at the noon briefing? Joe’s eyes lit up under his heavy brows. It’s worse now. The Corps is being committed. He looked at his watch. Be here at six. Full field. We take-off at seven. By air. That doesn’t give you much time for sleep, does it?

What about you, Joe? Aren’t you going to hit the sack? It’s going to be a long war. You said so yourself. Man needs a little sleep.

Hell, I’d been asleep five hours when the word came in. How much sleep do you think I need? Go on, shove off, boy. While you got a chance.

And so XVIII Airborne Corps was committed. First word came on a late Sunday night at Ogbourne Barracks in the rolling hills of Wilshire near Swindon in England. Now the whole corps headquarters, complete, with aides asses and adjutants, as Doc Eaton put it, had to be airlifted to Rheims in France, aboard the dun-colored C-47 aircraft of the Troop Carrier Command. In a matter of hours, the shallow red dimples marked on the briefing map in the Corps war-room, Charley saw, took on a new significance, not only for him and the two hundred-odd men of XVIII Airborne Corps headquarters but for the entire Allied force in Europe.

It was plain now, Charley thought, as he scanned the thickening message files before he stuffed them into the G-3 field desk for outloading, that the Germans had created a new twist to the Wagnerian drama they loved so well. You didn’t need any special omniscience to see it, either. This was Siegfried, with a gimmick. The Germans fashioned a dragon and a sword, and now the curtain was going up on an 85-mile stage between the medieval placidity of German Monschau on the Belgian border and sleepy little Echternach in Luxembourg.

This time, Siegfried, the sword, and the dragon were working together. That was the gimmick. Wagner had Siegfried fight the dragon; now Hitler, in his rewrite, pitted the sword and dragon against the Allies. Fafnir, the mighty fire-breathing monster whose roar made the very ground tremble, was built of three German Armies with at least twenty divisions among them. The sword, like Siegfried’s original blade, was created from a dust made up of many particles—a concept of foolhardy boldness, thousands of war machines, a fortunate sequence of impossible weather that blinded and grounded Allied air, frightening flying bombs that spluttered through murky skies, German paratroopers, even a new development in battlefield illumination that could turn night into day.

Just as Siegfried drank the dragon’s blood and then spoke the language of the birds and the beasts, there was a new slant on this. Special detachments, speaking American slang, wearing American uniforms, and using American equipment, were infiltrating the thin American lines to sow terror and confusion with sabotage, false orders and electrifying rumors. There was even a Siegfried—at least the dragon and the sword were bourgeoning out of the ground behind the Siegfried Line. The Siegfried of legend ate the dragon’s heart for greater strength; the massive thousands of German soldiers giving this new dragon its armored scales, its thundering fiery breath, and its bulging muscles got their inspiration from a message sent by lizard faced old Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt himself, commander-in-chief of all German ground forces in the West. The message finished: "...Your great hour has come...you carry with you the holy obligation to give all to achieve superhuman objectives for our Fatherland and our Führer."

Charley slammed the lid on the field desk and snapped the padlock. At 5:30 A.M. on Saturday December 16, 1944 the curtain went up on Wagner with a gimmick. And part of the plot was hackneyed, not that the knowledge did anyone any good now. But in 1870, 1914 and 1940 the Germans had rolled through the seven-mile corridor in the Schnee Eifel forest area called the Losheim Gap. This time, they did it again, sword and dragon abreast. Charley fingered the padlock for a moment. If he remembered Wagner right, Siegfried, though he was supposed to be invulnerable from his bath in dragon’s blood, had a fatal weakness. A spot right between the shoulder blades.

Doc Eaton, the crusty