Today is the 70th anniversary of the beginning of Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein – or, as it’s more commonly referred to in the US, the Battle of the Bulge. At 0530 (local time) on 16 December 1944, German forces in the Ardennes began a general offensive against American forces in northeastern Europe. The fighting was to last until 25 January 1945 – a total of forty-one days.
The German operational objective was to capture the Belgian port of Antwerp. The strategic objective was to split British and US forces, cutting off the former in Belgium and the Netherlands, in hopes of causing the Western Allies to make a separate peace with Germany.
From the beginning, the German offensive was a desperate gamble – some German commanders gave it only a 10% chance of success. However, at that point in the war the German high command felt they really had no choice. A continued defensive posture was viewed only as a way of prolonging eventual defeat.
Due to a combination of missed indicators and overconfidence on the part of Allied commanders, German forces achieved near-complete operational and strategic surprise. That the offensive failed is due IMO largely to two factors. The first was the generally weakened state of German forces (due to massive prior losses in France and on the Eastern Front) at that point in the war. Had the Germans had stronger forces available, they possibly would have achieved their operational objective of Antwerp. (Whether that would have induced the US and UK to seek a separate peace with Germany is an open question.)
The second reason for the German offensive’s failure was determined early resistance by US forces – at Elsenborn Ridge during the battle’s opening days, and in the much better-known (but probably less decisive) defense of Bastogne beginning somewhat later – prevented a German breakout. These determined defensive stands irreparably disrupted and delayed the German offensive, buying US forces sufficient time to react and contain it. German forces indeed forced a large salient in US lines – famously referred to as a “bulge” – but were unable to achieve a breakout to the English Channel and Antwerp.
By Christmas 1944, the initial German advance in the Ardennes had been stopped. Over the next six weeks, German forces were forced back to their original lines at the beginning of the offensive.
The Germans tried again in early January to continue their offense via operations against the US 7th Army in Alsace, which had sent troops to reinforce US forces farther north. German forces achieved some initial success in this supporting effort. However, it was also contained. By late January, this supporting offensive also had ended.
The Battle of the Bulge was the largest fought by US forces during World War II. It was also the most costly in human terms. Multiple published totals for US casualties exist, ranging from nearly 90,000 (including 19,000 killed and 23,000+ missing) to over 108,000 (including 19,000+ killed and 26,000+ missing). German casualties were on the same order as US casualties; official German casualty figures for the battle totaled 84,834.
The Battle of the Bulge was almost an exclusively American-German battle. British casualties numbered 1,408: 200 killed, 969 wounded, and 239 missing.
The battle’s effect on German forces in the Western theater was near-catastrophic. The battle depleted German theater reserves, and Germany could not adequately replace them. These losses doubtless hastened the end of World War II in Europe.
As you go about your activities today, take time to remember 70 years ago. It’s history worth remembering.
Thanks for that post, Hondo.
My aunt’s (father’s oldest sister) first husband Aaron ‘Yuki’ Resnik was an American armored officer in the battle; and killed there. He’s buried in Europe, and named on a memorial to local war dead in the cemetery where our family members are buried in CT. The family adored him and missed him, and talked about him when I was growing up. (They also hated the guy she later married and divorced.)
Good reminder to call her sister for Hanukkah, and get her to reminisce about him for me. It won’t be long before that generation have all left us, and there won’t be anyone to tell us over tea or a beer about what they did in their own words.
It was then that my wife’s father lost half a leg fighting a tank with grenades.
I had a great-uncle at Bastogne; he said that the greatest sight was when the clouds broke and the DC-3s came in dropping supplies.
My father sustained wounds there on 12 Jan 1945 from a grenade. The shrapnel remained in his leg till he passed away in 1998. Some of my most treasured possessions are his original Purple Heart and Bronze Star, along with the original citation for his Bronze Star and CIB.
He never spoke a word about what happened during that time. I happened to find these items sitting in a drawer after he passed, never having known how or when he earned them till I read the citations. Although he was very active in the VFW, Legion and AMVETS, the war was never discussed at my house.
Not in many houses. My Grandfather was a founding member in our small towns VFW. I remember one story only during his life that he told and it was about his breaking his back on patrol in Germany during a rockslide and having a German soldier find him, decide he had had enough war, pick my Pepe up and carry him back to his unit and surrender. Most of The Greatest Generation do no speak of it. This is why posers and POS’s make me go postal.
Those men fought hard against overwhelming odds and the entire group of them are true heroes in my book.
Thank you Hondo…My father served in the 4th Engineer Battalion, 4th Infantry Division from D-Day, Operation Overlord, through the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign (the Battle of the Bulge) until it was inactivated 19 February 1946 at Camp Butner, North Carolina, near our home. I miss him so much still today and would give so much to talk with him just once again.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rksGtmbRv2o
My Grandfather went ashore at Normandy, marched across France and was there. Never spoke much about it. A 25yr old that spoke better French than English and stood 5ft 4in had more balls than a brass monkey. The Greatest Generation? Few can imagine.
We look at Generation X or The Millennials and wonder what the fuck happened.
My old man participated in the Bulge from Luxumberg City supporting Patton’s Third Army. The war was only a few miles away but his unit enjoyed a Christmas dinner fit for kings. Pop was the Mess officer for his unit and found Turkey and all the trimmings. The meal was prepared by a Belgian chef employed by the mess. The wine list would not have been out of place at a three star Michelin restaurant in Paris or New York.
Pop saved that Christmas Dinner Menu for the rest of his life. He said that when he got to Bastone several days after the battle ended he was embarrassed that he ate so well while they were fighting for their lives. Pop’s main job was to ensure that Patton got enough fuel, ammo, and rations to sustain his drive to break the Germans backs via the Redball express. He used to joke that Patton only moved so fast because hundreds of Negro truck drivers were chasing him. They chased him from Normandy all the way to Czechoslovakia.
One of my favorite historical mysteries come from the Battle of the Bulge. This retelling of events comes from the fantastic book, “Unexplained Mysteries of World War II” by William Breuer (1997, John Wiley & Sons, Inc.), a fantastic read for anyone interested in some of the strange but true events of that conflict (a personal favorite is when a German and a British airborne division drop into the exact same location, but because of the low light conditions and near-identical berets and covers, don’t realize that they’re among foes for a while).
I present to you, word for word, “The Ghost Voice of the Ardennes”.
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Half-frozen men of Company B of the U.S. 87th Mortar Battalion, veterans of the D-Day assault at Utah Beach, were holed up in old, wood and stone houses in the hamlet of Sadzot, Belgium, on the northern shoulder of what would become the Battle of the Bulge. Five days earlier, on December 16th, 1944, the outfit had been pulled from the Aachen sector twenty-five miles to north and rushed to Sadzot, which was directly in the path of German spearheads that were charging toward their initial objective, Liége.
It was an eerie situation in Sadzot. All hell had broken loose throughout Belgium, but the GI mortarmen had been sitting on a powder keg in Sadzot for three days and nights without seeing a single German soldier or hearing a shot fired. Where was the enemy spearmen that was supposed to be coming toward them?
An hour before midnight on December 27, Corporal John Snyder was hunched over his communications radio and heard an alarming report. The wireless set remained “open” at all times and its frequency connected it with the infantry battalion that was being supported by the eight mortars dug in at Sadzot.
“A large formation of Krauts are headed through the woods directly for your village!” the voice on the radio warned.
Captain James J. Marshall, the company commander, alerted the entire unit, whose members rushed to defensive positions along the front of the village. Clutching their weapons in the subzero cold, the GIs waited tensely for the looming German assault. But there was no enemy activity in the thick, pine forests surrounding Sadzot. So, after two hours, the alert was cancelled and those not assigned to outpost duty returned to their old houses and bedded down on the floors.
Back at the company command post, Captain Marshall asked his radio operator who at battalion headquarters had sounded the alert.
“I don’t know,” young corporal Snyder replied. “The guy simply came on the air and started talking.”
An inquiry was made at battalion. No, the call had not come from them. Then where had it come from, Marshall reflected. The radio wavelength connected only the mortar company and the rifle battalion. If the caller had been an American from some other unit, how would he have known the radio frequency? How had he been aware that there was a mortar unit in Sadzot? And how had he known that the German force was heading for that particular hamlet?
On the other hand, if the mystery caller had been an English-speaking German, how had he known B Company’s wavelength? And would such a person have been likely to warn the Americans that they were about to be struck by a major assault?
Captain Marshall contacted other higher-level headquarters in the region. None of them had made the warning call.
An hour later at 1:25 A.M., all was tranquil in Sadzot. Most of the mortar company’s sixty-five men were sleeping soundly. Suddenly, pandemonium reigned. From out of the forest on three sides of the village charged hordes of wildly-yelling figures: foot soldiers of the crack 2nd SS Panzer Division. There was a cacophony of grating noises: explosions, small-arms fire, and bursting grenades. Grabbing their weapons, the GIs dashed outside to do battle against the overwhelming force of an estimated four hundred SS men.
Flames from burning houses cast eerie, dancing shadows. Such was the confusion of the savage nighttime hand-to-hand fight that it as was as though all of the combatants on both sides had been dumped into a gigantic tumbler by some supernatural force, then been thoroughly mixed and redeposited at random throughout Sadzot.
The death struggle lasted only about a half hour. Seventeen GIs managed to get out of the village; the remainder of the company was killed, wounded, or captured. Among the survivors was Captain Jim Marshall, who still pondered over the ghost voice. Who had made the call would forever remain a mystery.