Voices from the Battle of the Bulge

1

HITLER’S LAST GAMBLE

According to his devoted followers Adolf Hitler was an infallible military genius. His critics and enemies regarded him as a reckless adventurer, lacking the professional training and prudence of the true strategist. With hindsight we can say he was a gifted amateur who was lucky in the early stages of his career as supreme commander of the German armed forces. But by autumn 1944 his luck was running out. Germany’s military situation was desperate. In the east the Red Army was rolling across Poland towards Berlin. In the south the Allied armies in Italy were advancing towards the alpine frontier of Austria. In the west the American and British armies were closing on the Rhine.

The Ardennes offensive of December 1944 was the gambler’s last throw of the dice. The competent professionals in the German High Command never believed that the plan for Wacht am Rhein had a chance of success, but were unable to persuade Hitler to give it up. On 3 November 1944, Field Marshal Hasso von Manteuffel attended a conference at the HQ of Army Group B at which Colonel General Alfred Jodl, Chief of Staff at Oberkommando der Werhmacht (OKW - Supreme Command of the Armed Forces), produced a draft plan, together with sketch maps for ‘a decisive offensive’ to be launched against the Western Allies.

The aims of the plan were ambitious: to push two Panzer armies through the wooded hills in the middle of winter, then move on to take Antwerp, the greatest port in Europe and vital to the supply of the Allied armies. This bold thrust would separate the British 2nd Army from the American armies, cut it off, and force another evacuation by sea - a second Dunkirk. Such a disaster would demoralize the war-weary British people. If this did not force Churchill to negotiate a compromise peace it would at least gain time for the V-2 and other ‘miracle weapons’ to sap the will of the British to carry on. As for the Americans, Hitler’s racial prejudices led him to believe that they were morally weak and would collapse if caught unawares by a surprise attack.

Field Marshal Walter Model, a dutiful and committed Nazi and Hitler’s personal choice as commander of the attack, was at odds with the Führer throughout, constantly seeking permission for the best military solutions but regularly having his plans rejected or changed.

Field Marshal Gerd von Runstedt, the overall commander in the West, felt that the plan was not a practical operation and tried to persuade Hitler to accept a ‘small solution’ in which the aim of the offensive would be to gain the banks of the River Meuse running along the western side of the Ardennes. He argued that a successful advance to the Meuse would have a similar shock effect but at much lower cost and risk.

When von Runstedt declared that he was tired of the argument and would take no responsibility for the projected offensive Hitler appointed Field Marshal Walter Model to command the attack. Model was a committed Nazi who believed that he had a strict duty to obey his Führer, although he felt that the plan he was to carry out was unsound. He allowed ideological loyalty to overrule professional judgement. Model’s senior subordinates also lacked confidence in the plan. Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich, commander of the 6th Panzer Army in the north, was an old comrade of Hitler driven by personal loyalty. Field Marshal von Manteuffel, commander of 5th Panzer Army to the south, was a personal favourite of Hitler, and was held in thrall by his personality. General Erich Brandenburger, commander of the 7th Army on the southern flank, felt that he had no choice but to obey his orders in solidarity with the commanders to the north. All these senior officers felt that they would be lucky to reach the River Meuse because of both the balance of forces in the theatre and their own lack of the necessary resources. But they also felt a sense of duty to do their best to make the offensive succeed.

TROOP POSITIONS

For the Allied forces, December 1944 had brought a confident and offensive mood. The US 12th Army Group of the 9th, 1st and 3rd Armies was deployed between Geilenkichen and the Saar, engaged in offensive actions or preparing to mount attacks in the near future. North of 12th Army Group the 21st Army Group was making ready to advance to the Rhine as part of the planned final assault on the western defences of Germany. But in the Ardennes the Allies were not planning any major operations on the grounds that the terrain made any large-scale activity too difficult. Between Geilenkirchen and Monschau, on the northern edge of the Ardennes, there were 16 American divisions on a front of around 25 miles; in the Saar sector 10 American divisions held about 40 miles. In contrast in the Ardennes five divisions occupied a line of around 63 miles. Four of these divisions were in the VIII Corps, one in the V Corps. The VIII Corps divisions were the 28th and 4th, which were seasoned by experience of combat in Normandy, but were tired and depleted, especially the 28th which had suffered grievous losses in the Hurtgen Forest. The other divisions, the 106th and the 9th Armoured Division, were green and untried in battle. The American troops in the Ardennes were confidently expecting to enjoy a period of rest and quiet until the time came to move on Germany in the spring. They had deployed a thin screen of outposts forward to watch the German lines, but most of them were well to the rear, lodged in warm billets for the winter.

Although they had been retreating since their defeat in Normandy in August, by December the Germans were also intent on offensive action in a desperate attempt to gain time to improve German defences and for the V-weapons to take effect. The High Command decided to concentrate the main effort in the Ardennes, but planned supporting offensives to the north in the sector of the 15th Army and also in Lorraine, in order to distract the American forces to the south of the decisive blow. Three armies were to attack through the Ardennes. In the north the 6th Panzer Army, consisting of two SS panzer corps and an infantry corps, was to advance on a front of 15½ miles. The LXVII Corps was to assault the American V Corps positions around Monschau and Butgenbach in order to secure the right flank of the Army. In support, a scratch force of 10,000 paratroopers was to drop into the high ground north of Malmedy, behind the American lines, to open up routes from Elsenborn to Eupen. To the south of the LXVII Corps the I SS Panzer Corps would advance westwards via Butgenbach, Malmedy and Stavelot to cross the Meuse on both sides of Liège, then motor on to the strategic objective of the whole offensive, Antwerp.

The II SS Panzer Corps was in reserve, earmarked to follow on and exploit opportunities and deal with Allied counter-attacks as required. The two panzer corps could not be deployed abreast because their sector offered too few roads for them to get forward and the heavily wooded steep ridges running to the south-west made movement off the roads impractical for tanks. The 5th Panzer Army was to advance in the centre with the LXVI Corps, LVII SS Panzer Corps and XLVII Panzer Corps in line on a front of 28 miles across more open and undulating country where movement off the roads was easier. The infantry corps in the north of the sector was to envelop the American 106th Division in the Schnee Eiffel (eastern extension of the Ardennes) and then move on to take the town of St Vith, a centre of road communications vital to the advance of the 6th Panzer Army. The two panzer corps were to cross the Our then move west as quickly as possible via Houffalize and Bastogne. They would then move on across the Meuse at Dinant and Namur, en route to Brussels, to cover the left flank of the advance by the 6th Panzer Army.

On the left the 7th Army was to send four infantry divisions west and south to form a protective line north of Luxembourg and Arlon. The Luftwaffe was to provide air support as needed when the weather permitted. Herman Göering had promised to devote 2,000 aircraft to this mission, but even Hitler expected only half this number to appear. Special Forces were also to act; in Operation GREIF troops commanded by Otto Skorzeny, using American uniforms and equipment, were to undertake covert operations to seize the bridges over the Meuse and to conduct deception and disruption activities.

The German plan depended heavily on the use of rapid movement to surprise and shock the Allies, using the paralysing effect to counteract the imbalance of forces in the theatre. Because of this, Field Marshal Model realized that control of the road network was of critical importance.

Without free passage along the roads the German mechanized forces would never be able to keep to their schedule, and their shortage of fuel would become a crippling handicap. This meant that the road centres of Bastogne and St Vith had to be secured early. Even if they were, Model believed that it would take his leading elements at least four days to reach the Meuse rather than the two days reckoned by Hitler. In the northern sector the 6th Panzer Army would have to count on good luck to find enough clear routes forward, threading along the sides of the ridges and across the rivers through many sites ideally suited to demolitions, ambushes and blocking actions. They relied on the human factors of audacity and flexibility to make the most of their chances. Also significant was the fact that Hitler ignored the logistic realities of his forces’ position far from sources of fuel, and expected his soldiers to capture necessary supplies from their enemies. He believed that the attack would be so unexpected that it could succeed by shock alone, and was influenced by superstition to think that because the German Army had been lucky in the Ardennes in 1940 it would be lucky again in 1944.

INTO THE ATTACK

The attack began at 05.30 on 16 December with an artillery barrage delivered by 2,000 guns all along the front from Monschau to Echternach. On the northern shoulder the planned parachute drop had to be postponed because there was no fuel available to transport the paratroops to their airfield. When they did jump, the next day, strong winds scattered them so badly that they were not able to assemble in sufficient numbers to be effective. The LXVII Corps attacked with the 326th and 272nd Volksgrenadier Divisions but stout defence by the V Corps meant that they failed to take Monschau and Butgenbach, even when reinforced by 12th SS Panzer Division.

The 1st SS Panzer Division did better, pushing along the boundary of V and VIII Corps, but was delayed by traffic congestion and bad roads, and was behind schedule by the end of the day. The 5th Panzer Army had more success, partly because each division had sent a ‘storm’ battalion to infiltrate behind the American outpost positions during the night to isolate them by cutting their telephone wires and attacking them from the rear at first light. These actions disrupted and confused the defence. In the north of the area the 106th Division was encircled; by the morning of the 17th two regiments had been wiped out and 8,000 troops had been captured. South of the Eiffel the panzer corps infantry and sappers swiftly seized and improved crossings over the Our and the tanks rolled forward through the startled 28th Division. But although the 5th Panzer Army did better than the 6th it was also falling behind schedule; in particular the LXVI Corps had failed to secure St Vith. Further south the 7th Army was also late, held up by a lack of trained sappers and a resolute defence by the 4th Division.

At first the Allied senior commanders did not appreciate the scale of the offensive. On the 16th, General Hodges, commanding the 1st Army, refused to reinforce the V Corps. When Eisenhower and Bradley ordered the 7th Armoured Division from 9th Army and the 10th Armoured Division from 3rd Army to move to the Ardennes, Patton questioned the need. But on the 17th, as the German armies continued to advance, they took a more serious view. In the north the 99th and 2nd Divisions held on at Monschau and Butgenbach, but KampfGruppe Peiper, the leading element of 1st SS Panzer Division, moved 20 miles into Belgium and threatened the 1st Army HQ at Spa. In the area of 5th Panzer Army the 2nd Panzer Division crossed the Clerf, followed up by 26th VolksGrenadier Division.

However, the German commanders were already apprehensive that things were going wrong. Skorzeny observed that his Special Forces teams could not get forward because the roads were jammed. The American 7th Armoured Division had begun to arrive and deploy in a horseshoe position east of St Vith, and until this town was taken the 6th Panzer Army would be confined to a front of advance of a mere five miles. Model ordered the FührerBegleit Panzer Brigade to reinforce the attack on the 18th, but it did not get into action until the 20th. In response to the evidence of a major German attack, which was still unclear but increasingly convincing, Eisenhower ordered the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions to move to the Ardennes. Montgomery, acting on his own initiative, ordered the British XXX Corps to move to a position covering the approaches to Brussels just in case the Germans were able to cross the Meuse. The Guards Armoured Division, three extra armoured brigades and the 43rd, 51st and 53rd Infantry Divisions began to roll south from Holland. They were delayed by wintry conditions, but not as much as their enemies were in the rough terrain of the Ardennes.

As the American 7th Armoured Division and various stragglers continued to hang on around St Vith the two German panzer armies were unable to co-ordinate their actions and were in effect fighting separate battles. Before the offensive began they had not had the opportunity to reconcile their views and plans, nor to overcome the bad effects of the increasingly bitter distrust and rivalry developing between the Army and the SS. The 5th Panzer Army’s failure to clear St Vith meant that the I SS Panzer Corps had only one road open to it heading in the right direction, winding along the banks of the Ambleve. The lead was taken by KampfGruppe Peiper consisting of about 4,000 men with 70 main battle tanks, including 20 of the huge, cumbersome and underpowered Tigers that were a hindrance to the rapid movement required for the attack on the Americans. This powerful column was often only able to advance on a one-tank front as it dashed forward towards the vital bridges over the Ambleve, Salm and Meuse. Peiper had been frustrated by delays due to a variety of reasons, such as the presence of ‘friendly’ minefields and horse-drawn transport belonging to other formations from the start of his advance to contact on the 16th. Once moving he soon got far ahead of the 12th VolksGrenadier Division infantry who were supposed to follow up to secure his flanks and lines of communication. His advance was impeded by the skirmishing of the American 14th Cavalry Group and by small parties of American soldiers carrying out demolitions and ambushes along the route. These actions did little physical damage but robbed Peiper of time, the most precious commodity of all in the circumstances.

On the evening of the 17th a party of the 291 Engineers set up an improvised roadblock, with a few mines covered by bazookas and light machine-guns, on the road just east of Stavelot; it checked Peiper’s advance and persuaded him to halt for the night. During the night a handful of American anti-tank guns and some infantry moved into Stavelot.

An essential element of the German plans was to make use of existing Allied installations, including bridges such as this one, as well as their dumps of fuel. The roads, many of which were unsuitably narrow for tanks, would prove a key element in the battle to come.

Early on the morning of the 18th they were overwhelmed by artillery firing in support of Peiper. The KampfGruppe pushed through the town, taking a side road to evade contact with an anti-tank gun in the square, firing at all the windows en route to discourage snipers. They pressed on down the road to Trois Ponts without bothering to clear the town, so that it was passed but not actually captured. A flank recce force explored the road towards Francorchamps to the north but turned back before finding the American fuel dump.

As Peiper was making the most progress of any in the 1st SS Panzer Division another KampfGruppe, ‘Knittel’, was sent to follow and reinforce him. Knittel traversed Stavelot at 19.00 on the 18th; by 20.00 a battalion of the US 30th Division had taken possession of the town and placed artillery and tank destroyers to cover the bridge. This severed the line of communication for Peiper and Knittel. On the 19th Knittel attacked Stavelot from the west whilst another KampfGruppe, ‘Sandig’, based on a battalion of SS Panzer-Grenadiers with Mk IV and Mk VI tanks in support, assaulted the bridge from the south-east. The Americans in the town beat off both these attacks.

Before dawn on the 20th Sandig’s infantry waded the river in an attempt to storm the town but were spotted in the light from flares and burning buildings and driven back. At 05.00 combat engineers blew the bridge and ruined all hope of restoring the line of supply to Peiper and Knittel. Meanwhile, on the 18th, Peiper had forced his way through Trois Ponts, but two of the bridges were blown, which prevented him from crossing to the south side of the Ambleve. Attempts to ford the river failed because the water was too deep. A bridge over the Ambleve at Petit Spai collapsed under the weight of a self-propelled anti-tank gun and engineers trying to repair the span were stopped by artillery fire.

Peiper explored other routes to the west and north but was blocked in all directions as bridges were blown or his recce troops ran into Task Forces of American infantry mixed with tanks from the 30th Division and 82nd Airborne Division. Both these divisions were highly experienced, having seen intense fighting in Normandy. In this battle they showed great skill and flexibility as well as a powerful military spirit. As he was running short of fuel and engineer stores Peiper was progressively hemmed in around Stoumont and La Gleize. His land line of supply was cut. On the 22nd the Luftwaffe made a supply drop but only 10 per cent of the goods fell in the right area. Attempts to float supplies down the river failed. Task forces of the XVIII Airborne Corps with infantry from the 82nd and tanks of the 3rd Armoured Division fought their way forward to confine Peiper to a pocket at La Gleize. Although his force could not be re-supplied nor relieved, he was denied permission to break out and make for the rear until 17.00 on the 23rd, by which time there was no fuel to move the vehicles. At 02.00 on the 24th Peiper led 800 of his men out, swimming the icy Salm and creeping through the forest back to the German lines at Wanne.

Peiper’s adventure illustrates the impracticality of the whole plan of 6th Panzer Army which depended on unrealistic rates of movement in the difficult winter conditions and on the idea of capturing vital supplies from the enemy. In some areas the advancing troops were fortunate enough to capture American fuel and food, or seize supplies from the civilian economy, but in other areas their tanks and transport were stranded and the soldiers starved. Their misery and weakness were made worse as the temperature dropped and snow fell.

In addition, while some American troops obliged by panicking and running away, many did not, and did what they could to delay the Germans. After the first few days these guerrilla actions were reinforced by more substantial improvised counter-attacks as the 1st Army fed in reinforcements from 9th Army and the SHAEF reserve. These operations denied ground and access routes temporarily or permanently and so prevented the I SS Panzer Corps from carrying out its plan to attack by rapid manoeuvre.

By 19 December, Model had realized that the 6th Army had been checked and was unlikely to succeed. He proposed that the 6th Panzer Army should send five divisions to exploit better opportunities in the 5th Panzer Army area. Hitler rejected this idea; for ideological reasons he was intent on ensuring greater success for the SS than for the Army. He was also considering an operation to attack the American line at Aachen, north of the Ardennes. He gave categorical orders that the II SS Panzer Corps must advance in the northern sector, even though there was no room to deploy it, but also agreed to allow Model to send a panzer and a panzer-grenadier division to the 5th Panzer Army.

THE ALLIES REACH BASTOGNE

The 5th Panzer Army was still held by the 7th Armoured Division east of St Vith but had advanced further west to the south. In effect, XLVII Panzer Corps was now in a race for Bastogne, which it narrowly lost. The corps, particularly the Panzer Lehr Division, was held up by bad roads on the 18th. On that day Bastogne could have been taken easily; the only American troops in the town were the HQ of VIII Corps and some disorganized elements of the 28th Division. Combat Command B of the 10th Armoured Division, sent up by 3rd Army, was 40 miles away in Luxembourg. The 101st Airborne Division was 100 miles off at Rheims, moving up in trucks.

Late in the evening of the 18th, Panzer Lehr was within five miles of the town but was persuaded by local civilians to take a ‘short cut’ which led the tanks into a mire from which they could not be recovered until the morning of the 19th. On the approaches to Bastogne, Panzer Lehr met ad hoc task forces of CCB and the 28th, picketing the villages on all the roads into the town. During the fighting the American task forces suffered heavy losses but gained time for the 101st Airborne to arrive and deploy inside the town and beyond in an inner perimeter of villages, thus giving defence in depth. These developments presented von Luttwitz, Commander of the Panzer Corps, with a difficult question: should he commit all his formations to make certain of seizing Bastogne? Or should he use his 26th VolksGrenadier Division to mask and then attack the town, and send his two panzer divisions to by-pass it and push on swiftly to the Meuse?

In the event he decided on a compromise: 2nd Panzer Division was to take Noville, a village north of Bastogne on the road to Houffalize, go round the north of Bastogne on minor roads and motor on westwards, while the VolksGrenadiers attacked Bastogne from the north and Panzer Lehr wheeled round to drive in from the east. The disadvantages of this plan were that neither the force moving west to the Meuse nor the one assaulting Bastogne was strong enough for its mission, and that the condition of the minor roads, complicated by artillery fire from the American garrison, prevented rapid movement. But von Luttwitz was under great pressure both to take Bastogne in order to secure efficient lines of communication for 5th Panzer Army on its march to and beyond the Meuse, and also to capture intact bridges over that river as soon as possible, before the Allies could either guard or demolish them. On that day the British 29th Armoured Brigade was ordered to move to defend the bridges from Dinant to Namur. The Household Cavalry Regiment sent armoured car patrols across the river on reconnaissance and the Special Air Service went into the Ardennes on covert surveillance missions to give early warning of a German approach.

STRATEGY AND TACTICS

The Allied commanders had received the first reports of the German attacks in the Ardennes without much concern on the 16th, became alarmed by the lack of reliable intelligence and the signs of a major offensive on the 17th, and started to feed in whatever reinforcements were available on the 18th, with a vague idea of attempting a general containment of the enemy. Failures of signals, the disruption activities of Skorzeny’s troops and the rumours that always emerge in times of crisis deprived them of the sort of information that they needed in order to make a considered response. The Germans were fighting separate battles in the two panzer army sectors and the Allies were sending in extra troops piecemeal and blind. The 101st Airborne Division had been sent to Bastogne only because the town was at the centre of the road network in the southern Ardennes and so a good location from which to be deployed elsewhere. The 82nd Airborne had originally been ordered to concentrate at Bastogne but was diverted en route to block the advance of KampfGruppe Peiper.

On 19 December, Eisenhower held a conference at Verdun at which a concerted strategy and coherent concepts of operations were formed. Bradley, Patton and Deevers, Commander of the US 6th Army Group which was deployed south of 12th Army Group, were present. Eisenhower opened the discussion by remarking that the German attack must be treated as an opportunity and not a serious threat to the Allies, since he doubted that the enemy had the resources to sustain this effort for much longer. Patton agreed and proposed a high-risk/high-gain strategy. He wanted to allow the Germans to advance as far to the west as they could before launching counter-attacks from north and south simultaneously - from the eastern-most positions of the 1st Army and his own 3rd Army - so inflicting the maximum possible loss on the enemy.

Eisenhower favoured a less aggressive and more cautious strategy. He insisted that the Allies must, in any circumstance, hold the line of the Meuse, and particularly the crossings at Liège and Namur. The northern flank held by the 1st Army must stand firm just in case the German intent was to swing north against the Aachen salient. The main counter-stroke was to be delivered from the south by the 3rd Army making a methodical series of attacks via Bastogne. In order to provide the resources for this move he wanted Deevers’ Army group to take over from the 3rd Army in the Saar, withdrawing from Strasbourg and the eastern Vosges if this was necessary. This latter proposal was vigorously opposed by the French who insisted there must be no sacrifice of recently recovered French territory.

By the afternoon of the 19th the situation as the American commanders at Verdun understood it was as follows: the northern and southern flanks of the ‘Bulge’ were holding; the position at St Vith was obscure, but the Germans had gone past the town to the north and south, so the American defenders must be outflanked; Houffalize had fallen to the enemy and Bastogne was about to be surrounded; there was a 20-mile gap between Bastogne and Werbomont which could be used by at least six panzer and panzer-grenadier divisions to exploit to the west; and the enemy were moving on Namur, Givet and Dinant with leading units 15 miles from Liège in the northern sector and 15 miles west of Bastogne in the southern. For the Allies, 3rd Army had sent two divisions northwards and would be able to send four more by the 22nd, 12th Army Group would need two or three days to move additional divisions from the Roer area into the Ardennes’ northern shoulder and four British divisions were on the way to deploy as a back-stop along the Meuse.