The Battle of the Bulge - and the men who fought it
The year is 1944 and The Second World War is raging. It is turning Europe into a place of death and destruction and the war is reaching a very critical point for both sides. The German Army is on the retreat from the Western and Eastern fronts with their world collapsing around them. They decided to launch an offensive in the West as a last-ditch effort to gain the upper hand. This plan would hopefully bring the allies to the bargaining table and allow them to surrender under terms favorable to them to save the destruction of their country. The Allies, who were caught unaware of this new offensive, sent in the legendary 101st Airborne Division to fill in a gap in the line. Their purpose would be to stop the German offensive at a small Belgian town in the Ardennes Forest known as Bastogne. The battle for this small town would arguably be one of the most important turning points in the war in the West and effectively break the back of the German Wehrmacht’s ability to wage war on the Western Front. The men of the 101st Airborne Division who fought in Bastogne would come to earn the nickname the Battle Bastards of Bastogne, and their story is told to American infantrymen to this day, as a reminder that even surrounded and outgunned, the American infantryman does not surrender or retreat, and that they can win any battle no matter the odds. These paratroopers truly embodied the infantryman’s creed, and their story will live on for many years to come. Let us now look at how so few stood against so many, and saved the allies from collapsing on the Western Front, this is the story of the Battle Bastards of Bastogne”.
The 101st before the battle begins
By the time of December 1944, the 101st Airborne Division had been fighting since the 6th of June 1944, participating in the D-Day invasion of Normandy, and Operation Market Garden. Market Garden, which took place in Holland and was fought in September 1944, was supposed to give the Allies a quicker route to strike into Germany itself. However, it had failed for the Allies, costing them between 15,000-17,000 casualties -but the 101st had held the bridges they were sent to capture, so for the division it was a success. They had fought in Holland for seventy-two bloody days straight, and were sent to Reims for some rest and recovery, and to gather replacements in men and equipment. They had been battered after Operation Market Garden and were weakened. The Allies had underestimated how much fight the German Wehrmacht had left in them. When December of 1944 came, the German Wehrmacht launched a counter-offensive to attempt to break through the Allied lines in the Ardennes Forest and capture the port of Antwerp, in the hopes of cutting off the British 6th Army, forcing the Allies to the bargaining table. The Allies were caught off guard and needed to close the gap in their lines and with few options at the time they decided to call up the 101st who were still licking their wounds after fighting in Holland. Depleted, with some men not even having weapons and most not having sufficient gear like winter clothing, the 101st was once again called up to go into the heart of the fight. Their rendezvous point would be a small Belgian town called Bastogne, and it would be here where they would launch themselves into the annals of history.
State of the German Military by 1944
The German plan would be a risky one, considering the lack of resources they now had this late in the war, in 1944. Their combative power had been seriously reduced in the last couple of years, thanks to significant losses on the Eastern Front. A couple of those battles are significant and need to be mentioned to grasp the state of the German Army at this time in 1944. Firstly, and arguably the most important one, the Battle of Stalingrad from July 1942- to February 1943.
Stalingrad alone cost the entire German 6th Army, commanded under General von Paulus, to be annihilated with an estimated 500,000 soldiers lost and 91,000 captured. This was a crushing blow to the Germans and many German officers such as Heinz Guderian who noted in his book (Panzer Leader) after the war that “Stalingrad was the single costliest defeat of the entire war for Germany and where they lost it”. Next is the Battle of Rzhev which lasted from January 1942 to March 1943 and would become known as the ‘meat grinder of Rzhev’. This is due to the sheer ferocity and loss of life it cost both sides; German losses were around 162,713 killed, around 36,000 missing, and 467,747 wounded. This is according to some German reports that are in the Bundesarchiv. Then we have the Battle of Kursk which was the last major German offensive in the East in 1943 and the largest tank battle in history. Kursk had taken a lot out of the German Tank forces with estimates of around 750-1200 tanks and assault guns being destroyed or damaged and 112,000 casualties. The summer of 1944 would be catastrophic for them, however, because the Allies landed in Normandy in June. But simultaneously the Russians launched their summer offensive in the East in Operation Bagration (June -August 1944). This caused the complete collapse of the Central sector of the German army in the East and cost them another 400,000 casualties. So, when the Germans decided to launch their counter-offensive in the West their troops and equipment had been extremely depleted. This last gasp from General Jodl to split the Allied Armies in the West was truly going to be a make-or-break offensive, they had not been able to replace their losses in men and equipment, and with American and British bombers completely decimating the German logistics with bombings day and night if they didn’t break through and capture the Port of Antwerp the war was truly lost for them.
First-hand account from Vincent Speranza in his book, Nuts!
Vincent Speranza was a fresh recruit in the 101st at the time. In his book, Nuts! he recounts the unit had been out of Holland for just three weeks by the time he arrived. One morning at 4 a.m., their First Sergeant kicked open the door and yelled “Drop your cocks and grab your socks! We are moving out!” They loaded them into trucks, gave them very little time to gather any needed gear, and rushed them to Bastogne. Many of the troops did not know where they were going until they reached Bastogne when they saw the remaining men of the 28th Infantry Division. The 28th were retreating after almost being completely wiped out by the opening phases of the German Counteroffensive that had completely taken the Allies by surprise. It was another blitzkrieg with the same ferocity and speed as the earlier German campaigns in 1939 and 1940. Speranza explains how he and the other men of the 101st took any weapons and equipment they could get from these retreating soldiers. The men of the 101st would need it more than them; luckily many of the men got the weapons, ammo, and other vital pieces of gear they desperately needed for what would become for many of them arguably the toughest fight of their lives. They arrived in Bastogne on the 18th of December one day before the steam roller that is the German Wehrmacht arrived. On the 19th of December on a quiet foggy morning, the German onslaught began, Speranza describes the beginning of it: “The fog and mist began to lift in the early morning and then we heard the most dreaded sound that an infantryman can hear-the clank and squeal of the bogie wheels on tanks. We couldn’t see them yet, but the sound carried across the open field. And then the even worse sound of the big 88mm artillery pieces being fired, and then a few seconds later a terrible explosion near you. Their artillery began a bombardment to supplement the tanks. The ground shook with explosions. All we could do was crouch down in our foxholes as low as we could and pray, we didn’t get a direct hit. When the bombardment ceased, we knew the German troops were now on their way. I chambered a round in my machine gun and waited for the lieutenant to give the word because the German infantry was now crossing the field. The Germans were approaching the 400-yard mark. What they didn’t know and what didn’t know either was that where the ground started sloping up toward us, there was a series of barbed wire fences buried in the snow. When the first wave of the German troops hit those fences, it stopped them. We watched them struggling to get off the wire when the second wave came up. They were attempting to help their buddies get off the fence. I was dying to pull the trigger, but the lieutenant kept saying “Not yet, Not yet”. When the third wave of German troops came up to the fence you now had the knots of men tangled in snow and barbed wire. “Now!” shouted the lieutenant. Everything we had opened on those Germans. It was a slaughter. The snow turned red. We kept pouring it on.”
The Challenges of Bastogne
The German Wehrmacht would be stopped there but would break through at other various points in the Allied lines to the North and South of Bastogne and eventually end up surrounding the town. For most units, this would be disastrous but the men of the 101st however would not be deterred;, many of the men being combat veterans of other airborne operations previously would welcome this challenge. They were also used to this, being paratroopers, they normally fought surrounded, when they dropped into a combat zone and many of the men would say “We’re paratroopers we are supposed to be surrounded”. Luckily for the allies, the men’s morale here was extremely high. It seemed like one of the few units the allies had who could doggedly withstand the German attacks and that was built for fighting surrounded was now in the perfect position to break the back of the German Wehrmacht in the West and hold them at Bastogne till the allies could answer with a counterattack of their own. This would allow them to drive the Germans out of Belgium and back into Germany. For the next few weeks, the men of the 101st were cut off from supplies, Surrounded, they faced countless attacks from German tanks, infantry, and artillery who were trying to eradicate them from Bastogne and continue pushing West. When the Germans launched their offensive, they were lucky with the weather being foggy and blizzard-like conditions caused the Allied Air Forces to remain grounded. This effectively stopped one of the biggest advantages the Allies possessed on the Western Front allowing their tanks to roam around without fear of American and British air support. The Germans had also made great use of artillery at Bastogne that would explode at tree top level causing a deadly combination of wood shrapnel and lead to go all over the place and seriously wounding and killing many of the paratroopers. The Germans were getting annoyed that the outnumbered and outgunned 101st was putting up one hell of a fight when they threw everything, they could at them. No one could have predicted how doggedly the 101st would defend Bastogne. The German Wehrmacht sent a message to General McAuliffe who was over the defense of Bastogne ordering his surrender. General McAuliffe in true John Wayne fashion responded to the Germans with one word “Nuts!”. The 101st was either going to hold onto Bastogne till the Allies broke through the lines and relieved them or they were going to die defending the city;, that was their only two choices surrender was not an option for these men. It would not be until January 26th, 1945, when the US 3rd Army commanded by General George S. Patton would break through the German lines and relieve the men of the 101st from Bastogne. The Battle of the Bulge would be the largest battle the US Army has ever fought in its history with over 600,000 allied soldiers participating in the battle, pushing the German Army back out of Belgium and into Germany ready for the final assault to end the war. Nevertheless, the Allied victory did come at a cost with 80,000 casualties. Some US Army reports state that around 19,000 soldiers lost their lives with 47,500 wounded and 23,000 captured or missing.
The German Perspective of the battle and war
For the Germans, the Battle of Bastogne and the Ardennes Counter Offensive costed them 80,000-100,000 casualties. Casualties that many would argue if Hitler had listened to his senior officers would not have happened. Many German officers such as the legendary Heinz Guderian were completely against the offensive in the West. They were against it because according to Guderian “there was a massive build-up of Russian troops on the Eastern front which was already severely low on men.”. Guderian watched the offensive in the West begin to see if they could break through, but when the attack bogged down he requested that 4 divisions be transferred from the Western front to the Eastern front which on December 24th after much convincing and backlash from General Jodl who commanded the Western Front it was approved, and the troops arrived on the Eastern front a few days before the Russian offensive began on January 12th, 1945. Many of the German officers who were fighting on the Western Front, such as General Luttwitz, the Commanding Officer over the German forces at Bastogne, had viewed the American soldiers as undisciplined and unwilling to fight as hard as the German soldier. When he received the reply “Nuts!” from General McAuliffe, which in a way also meant “Go to hell”, it was a shock to him as, he and his officers had thought an American surrender would be easy and that they would choose to save themselves and the civilians around them and not fight to the death. It had appeared Luttwitz's bluff was called, and he had shown that he had completely underestimated his opponent. The 101st would hold on against Luttwitz onslaught until their relief on January 26th by the 3rd Army.
General Jodl and his men on the Western Front would never again launch another massive offensive in the West. Most of the German resources would therefore be directed East to try and stop the Russian wave of men and tanks coming towards them. The German high command knew that if the Allies captured most of Germany, their country would be spared the atrocities the Soviet Union was going to commit on its people. So as a result, their troops were more likely to surrender to the Allies and put up less of a harder fight compared to the Germans in the East who did not want to be sent to Russian labor camps and who were fighting tooth and nail to keep them out of their homeland. Those 80,0000-100,000 German soldiers would have been better used on the Eastern front to stop an opponent who was coming for revenge and was known for raping women, killing, and even torching anyone who had supported the Germans. There is a very good reason why many German soldiers on the Eastern front fled West and surrendered to the Allies or fought to the death out on the Russian plains. There are countless books written by German soldiers who fought on the Eastern front and most of them had only survived the war partly because they fled the West when they had the chance to. In the book Blood Red Snow written by Gunter K. Koschorrek, he details how when he was wounded on the Eastern front, and how he was sent to a hospital in Germany that was about to be captured. He and the other soldiers there were relieved and excited the Americans were coming, the soldiers there did not even put up a fight and just surrendered without a shot; they were just happy their war was over, and the Americans had gotten them before the Russians did.
The Importance of the battle and the effect it had on the war
The Battle of Bastogne was such an important Battle in WWII in its own way because not only was it the largest battle in US Army history, but it effectively ended German resistance on the Western front. The 101st Airborne Division was propelled into the history books forever once again because of their stubborn defence of Bastogne which earned them the nickname the ‘Battle Bastards of Bastogne’. If it was not for these outgunned and outnumbered stubborn American Paratroopers, Europe as we know it today would have looked considerably different, and the Allied war effort in the West may have even possibly been stopped altogether. The men of the 101st truly embodied the infantryman’s creed which states:
“I am the Infantry. I am my country’s strength in war, her deterrent in peace. I am the heart of the fight wherever, whenever. I carry America’s faith and honor against her enemies. I am the Queen of Battle. I am what my country expects me to be, the best trained Soldier in the world. In the race for victory, I am swift, determined, and courageous, armed with a fierce will to win. Never will I fail my country’s trust. Always I fight on…through the foe, to the objective, to triumph overall. If necessary, I will fight to my death. By my steadfast courage, I have won more than 200 years of freedom. I yield not to weakness, to hunger, to cowardice, to fatigue, to superior odds, For I am mentally tough, physically strong, and morally straight. I forsake not, my country, my mission, my comrades, my sacred duty. I am relentless. I am always there, now and forever. I am the infantry follow me!”
Bibliography:
Primary Sources:
Cole, Hugh. 1964. The Ardennes: Battle of The Bulge (United States Army in World War II: The European Theater of Operations). Online Book. US ARMY CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY. Har/Map. Whitman Publishing. https://www.history.army.mil/html/books/007/7-8-1/CMH_Pub_7-8-1.pdf.
Guderian, Heinz, Constantine Fitzgibbon, Kenneth Macksey, and Liddell Hart. 2001. Panzer Leader. Reissue. Da Capo Press.
Speranza, Vincent. 2014. Nuts!: A 101st Airborne Division Machine Gunner at Bastogne. Vincent J. Speranza.
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