The Ardennes Offensive-Today in The Battle of The Bulge

[Triple C]

The U.S. Army Official History's account of the fight for Domaen Butgen in front of Elsenborn Ridge:

The hardest blows dealt the 2d Battalion defenders at Dom Butgenbach came on 21 December. After repeated pleas from the 12th SS Panzer the guns and Werfers which had been used at Krinkelt-Rocherath were committed, and the entire 25th Panzer Grenadier Regiment was also made available, as well as one battalion or more of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment. About three hours before dawn guns, mortars, tanks, and Werfers began pounding the American foxhole line, which was outlined by a double row of trees, and the few houses in Dom Butgenbach. This fire continued unremittingly until the first light in the east, inflicting many casualties, destroying weapons by direct hits, and tearing large gaps in the main line of resistance. American counterbattery fire was intense but failed to still the enemy shelling. Now, as the Germans crossed the fields in assault formation, the American forward observers called for a defensive barrage to box their own front lines. At least ten field artillery battalions ultimately joined the fight (for this batteries of the 2d and 99th Divisions were tied into the 1st Division fire control system) and succeeded in discouraging the German infantry.

Some panzers and assault guns did make their way through the storm of exploding shells and against the 2d Battalion right. During the previous night two platoons of the regimental antitank company had taken station here right on the foxhole line and surprised the panzers with fire at no more than 100 yards. Two or three kills were inflicted by the 1st Platoon, but other tanks quickly shot down the 57-mm. crews and then overran

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the guns of the 2d Platoon.11 At this segment of the 2d Battalion main line of resistance the foxhole line followed a long hedgerow. Having broken through and destroyed the American antitank guns, the German tankers drove along the hedgerows searching out the automatic weapons which earlier had helped check the infantry assault. Undefended against moving steel, the BAR and machine gun crews were wiped out.

Through this gaping hole on the 2d Battalion right more tanks appeared as the morning progressed and moved down the slope toward Dom Butgenbach. A self-propelled tank destroyer belonging to the 634th Tank Destroyer Battalion accounted for seven tanks in succession as these, in column, hove in sight over the ridge line. Two Sherman tanks, lying close to a barn, got two of the Germans before they, in turn, were knocked out. Three of the enemy reached the cluster of buildings and fired pointblank into the houses and barns Colonel Daniel and the 2d Battalion command post group were defending. Every device was used to reach the tanks but with no success until, finding it warm, two made a break for the open and were stopped by a section of 90-mm. tank destroyers which had just come up. The last tank was flushed out from behind a barn by 81-mm. mortar fire but got away.

The battalion mortars had played an important role all along the line (one section firing 70 rounds before its position was blasted by close range tank fire), and so had every American weapon that could be brought to bear. But in late afternoon, when the German assault was dwindling, the 2d Battalion commander paid the infantryman's heartfelt compliment to the guns. "The artillery did a great job. I don't know where they got the ammo or when they took time out to flush the guns but we wouldn't be here now if it wasn't for them.... A hundred [Germans] ... came at one platoon and not one of them got through." 12 The regimental cannon company, the 1st Division Artillery, the 406th Field Artillery Group, and reinforcing batteries from the 2d and 99th Divisions fired over ten thousand rounds in support of the Dom Butgenbach defenders during an eight-hour shoot on the 21st, plastering enemy assembly areas and the road net and plowing up the fields across which the German attack came. For one period of three hours all communication between the hard-pressed rifle battalion and the artillery broke under German fire, but the American shells continued to arrive with devastating effect. A patrol sent into the woods from which had come the final assault against the riddled battalion flank reported a count of three hundred dead enemy infantry-the reason, perhaps, why the tanks that penetrated to the 2d Battalion command post came alone. At any rate the 12 Volks Grenadier Division had had enough. The division commander told his superiors that no more attacks could be made unless a promised assault gun battalion arrived to ramrod the infantry. The total German casualty list must have been high, and after these three days of battle heavy inroads had been made in the tank strength of the 12th SS Panzer Regiment. The 2d Battalion, understrength

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when it arrived to face the Germans, had been reduced by perhaps one quarter. Indeed, in midafternoon of the 21st, the battalion commander had planned withdrawing a thousand yards to the rear to compensate for the dwindling strength in the firing line. But when the 2d reorganized that evening its position was somewhat strengthened. Company C, with extra bazookas, had come up to man the denuded right flank, the 1st Engineer Combat Battalion laid a hasty field of about a thousand mines in front of the lines, and the regiment had attached the 4.2-inch mortars of the 2d Division chemical battalion to Daniel's command.

Meanwhile the enemy regrouped to continue the attack with new forces. The armored infantry reserve of the 12th SS Panzer Division, the 26th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, finally had negotiated the poor roads and traffic jams along the German line of communications and arrived in Büllingen, ready for its first commitment in the offensive. Shortly after day broke on 22 December patrols from the 26th commenced to probe at the 2d Battalion lines. The fresh enemy regiment, however, set out to vary the unsuccessful headlong tactics previously employed by striking at the flanks of the Dom Butgenbach position. The first assault, shortly before 1000, carried an undetermined number of panzer grenadiers through a gap between Companies A and K, on the right of the 2d Battalion. Here there were about twenty Mark V's and tank destroyers, but the 90-mm. tank destroyers from the 613th Tank Destroyer Battalion rushed in on the flank and Stopped the enemy. The continued threat, though serious, was countered by shifting local reserves from the 18th and 26th to close the gap, and by the end of the day the situation was well in hand. Again the American gunners had taken over a large share of the burden, firing over 300 missions. The cooperation between the artillery and infantry arms, it must be said, was reciprocal. The fact that the 26th Infantry had continued to hold its position on ground overlooking the German routes west had allowed the observers a grandstand seat and had caused the German columns taking the 1st SS Panzer Division detour through Schoppen to run a gantlet of accurate and continuous fire.

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A good historian of the battle, Brig. General (Ret.) John D. Eisenhower died today. One more connection to the past broken forever. Present Arms!

[zraver]

Rip

[Albany Rifles]

Dude, I loved all of his work. His So Far From God is the seminal work on the Mexican War. He was a smart man who recignized he would never match his father's accomplishments (who could!) so he carved out his own career as an historian. As a BG he was Chief of History for the US Army.

Sidenote: His West Point class graduated on 6 June 1944.

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It was one of those few classes that fell in the window with guys seeing combat from W.W.II through Korea to Vietnam. I imagine you could graduate in June, be through your branch course and on the way to Europe or the Pacific by October. I don't know how it worked then but I assume officers still had to be branch-qualified before deployment.

My dad broke his leg in basic and dodged that fight. Most of his cycle were sent as individual replacements. Our next door neighbor lost his arm there.

It was hell.

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10,000 rounds in an eight hour shoot. 1250 per hour. That's a mountain of ammo. Something tells me that wasn't the only target area for 99 and 2 I.D. DIVARTY even if it was one of two primary A.A.s assigned to 12th S.S. So there was an absolute boatload of shooting going on.

Interesting point made that without numerous strong stands made along key routes, artillery could not be as decisive. Units would have displaced faster and further while shooting less and for diminished effect. The infantry held. The choke-points remained corked and a target-rich environment presented itself for the artillery. An F.O.'s dream were it not for the urgency behind those fires. Those units in places like Lanzerath and Dom Butgenbach and up along Skyline Drive absolutely don't survive without those fires. The artillery can't deliver those shoots without the infantry bearing down and making a determined stand.

Lot of really inspiring stuff going on those first couple of days.

[Doktor]

You are fascinated by arty and the infantry that held the choke-points, it is indeed. To me it is also amazing so much ordnance massed in so few time. And then all that moved on.

[Albany Rifles]

Keep in mind about the artillery....the American army suffered from an artillery ammunition shortage through the late summer and fall.

The use of such devastating masses of fire were refined in the need for first round first kill earlier in the year. A lesson learned early.

And on this day...

2d Panzer Division lead elements are stopped by 3 RTR 4 kms from the Meuse marking the farthest penetration of the Bulge. Elements of Ernie Harmon's 2d Armored Division, the famed Hell on Wheels, start to engage flank elements of the 2d Panzer.

Montgomery orders units on the north side of the Bulge to pull back to straighten the lines.

Resupply drops begin in Bastogne....mostly fuel for the tanks, ammo for the artillery and plasma. And Anthony McAuliffe delivered his Christmas message to the troops.


General McAuliffe's Christmas Message (1944) :: Freedom Shrine

[Triple C]

Two things that the passage really struck me: The immense physical courage it required to be a bazooka man or 57 mm crew to face down a tank. Their casualty rates were horrific. The official history says soldiers consider 57 mm gun "tank fodder" and the bazooka scarcely any better, but they manned the weapon and did the job anyway. Another is the reality of attrition. Most purportedly veteran divisions must have been hollowed out by replacements. In an unquoted part of the passage, the 26 Infantry Regiment was described as having nine-tenth replacements. Barton, CO of the 4th ID, said his division was "stripped of its soul" in Hurtgen Forest. I don't think the "veteran" German divisions were in any different shape, either.

Russel Weigle repeatedly pointed out in Eisenhower's Lieutenants that 2d Panzer Division was rated by the U.S. Army as the absolute best German armored formation in Western Europe, including the SS. I don't have access to much material about the destruction of the Celles pocket and the German counterattack at Humaine, but the green book series painted a very grim struggle.

[Triple C]

Jumping the gun a bit, but I am going to post excerpts of the Official History on the destruction of the forward Kampfgruppe of the 2d Panzer Division in the "Celles Pocket" on December 25, and the German attempts to rescue the trapped troops on the 26.

The U.S. First Army, passing under Field Marshal Montgomery's 21st Army Group, was ordered to establish blocking positions on the east bank of the Meuse River against Fifth Panzer Army's renewed drive. A series of command contretemps come to pass when 2d Armored Div's scouts encountered the Panzer Reconaissance Battalion of 2d Panzer Division within 10 miles of the former's division bivouac. Harmon, commander of the 2d Armored, immediately pressed his corps superior, Joe Collins, to authorize him to wipe out this most dangerous opponent that had evidently been immobilized by want of fuel. Collins, in term, informed his First Army superiors. But General Hodge could not be reached, and an unclear message from the Army chief of staff was forwarded to Collins, ordering him to make only a limited advance. Fortuitously, Collins made the bold interpretation that he had been authorized to make an all-out attack, which was wholly in his character. When clarification arrived, Collins simply elected to ignore it and told Harmon to plunge ahead.

Once in motion, CCB swiftly bypassed German resistance, trapping in the pocket one panzer reconaissance battalion, one panzer battalion, one regiment of panzer grenadiers and much artillery. Favorable sky brought highly effective fighter bomber support to the battle, further immobilizing the German forces, whose tanks were nearly empty.

The attack mapped out by Collins and Harmon late the previous afternoon was launched by CCB at 0800 on Christmas Day, the idea a double-pronged sweep to capture Celles and annihilate the German armor believed to be thereabouts.9 For this maneuver General White divided his command into two task forces. Task Force A (Lt. Col. Harry Hillyard) had its line of departure on the Achêne road and orders to take the Bois de Geauvelant, a large wood some thousand meters across, which lay midway between Achêne and Celles. It was to assemble for the final assault on high ground northwest of Celles. Task Force B (Maj. Clifton B. Batchelder), starting its move near Leignon, was to make the main envelopment and cut off Celles on the southeast. The 82d Armored Reconnaissance Battalion went in on the open right flank of the attack to screen toward the west and as far forward as the Lesse River, south of Celles. CCB would be supported by artillery emplaced west of Ciney and by both American and British fighter-bombers.

Task Force A, medium tanks to the front, went through the Bois de Geauvelant with almost no opposition. As it debouched it came under fire from a little farm near Foy-Notre Dame and lost three half-tracks. The 370th Fighter Group of the IX Tactical Air Command, flying in support of CCB, then flushed out four Panther tanks and put them out of action, at least temporarily. The column again drew fire near Boisselles, but two platoons of the 67th Armored Regiment moved in and destroyed three Panthers doing the shooting. By the middle of the afternoon Task Force A reached the high ground overlooking Celles, blocking the roads to the west and southwest. Task Force B had a brief battle at Conjoux, then rushed on-knocking out isolated tanks and guns- until it arrived on the ridge 1,300 yards southeast of Celles.

The British 29th Armoured Brigade was conducting its own private battle west of Foy-Notre Dame while pushing reconnaissance toward the Lesse River. The British knocked out three Panthers and some infantry near Sorinne, then shot up more German vehicles and took prisoners around Foy-Notre Dame. In the skirmish near Boisselles a few tanks of the British 3d Royal Tank Regiment and some British gunners gave a hand to Task Force A.10

Meanwhile the 82d Reconnaissance Battalion had run into the remnants of the 2d Panzer reconnaissance battalion at Foy-Notre Dame (part of this group had escaped eastward to rejoin the main force huddled in the woods northeast of Celles). These Germans intended to make a fight of it, though at first sight Foy-Notre Dame seemed a peaceful farming village-nothing more. When a

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platoon from the 82d moved in, the enemy began a fusillade of antitank and machine gun fire from hidden positions. Worse, four Panthers on high ground just south of the village took a hand. The American cavalry suffered some casualties, but Sergeant Rogers used his assault gun to charge a German antitank gun in the middle of the village and the mop-up began. The four Panthers were brought under fire by British gunners, then finally destroyed by air attack. (Probably these were the tanks which had struck Task Force A near the Bois de Geauvelant.) This skirmish marked the end of the German reconnaissance battalion: the commander and 147 others were captured, and much of its remaining equipment was taken.

When General White's two task forces finally sent tanks into Celles they met little resistance. At first it seemed empty except for the townspeople who had gathered in the church; later some 200 dispirited prisoners were rounded up in and near the town. With the capture of Celles the string was drawn on the bag in the forest between that town and Conjoux. Harmon ordered CCB to turn back the next morning and give the coup de grâce to the trapped enemy.

Although Christmas Day had brought much sporadic action and occasional flare-ups like the fight at Foy-Notre Dame the main German pocket simply had been bypassed. It is known that Cochenhausen's tanks had very little gasoline, probably not enough to permit any appreciable skirmishing or tactical movement, but the German sluggishness in the pocket may be credited to the gunners supporting CCB, the army pilots in their flying OP's," and the close coordination between the artillery and the fighter-bombers of the 370th Fighter Group and Royal Air Force 83 Group. At noon, for example, a spotter plane picked up a column of seven enemy tanks north of Celles-all were destroyed by artillery fire. Twelve P38's and an unknown number of British Typhoons, taking time out only to replenish fuel tanks and ammunition racks, worked over the woods where lay Cochenhausen's command and strafed roads and trails whenever vehicles showed signs of making a break for it.

What of the German efforts to reach Cochenhausen's force? Two small forays were attempted during the day by the Panzer Lehr, whose commander had dispatched tanks along the Custinne road toward Celles, but these efforts were foiled by the ubiquitous Allied planes. That night the kampfgruppe with which the 2d Panzer had been blocking in the Hargimont sector was relieved by the 9th Panzer, and Lauchert finally was free to attempt Cochenhausen's relief. The force which he led from the Rochefort road through the Bois de Famenne and Ciergnon was not likely to give much confidence of success: a company or two of tanks, a battalion of armored infantry, a light artillery battalion, two companies of engineers, and part of a flak battalion.

The Germans had neared the twin villages of Petite and Grande Trisogne, little more than a mile from Celles, when they saw the ridge ahead "crawling with tanks." (These may have been British tanks because the 29th Armoured Brigade was blocking behind the CCB lines.) 11 The 2d Panzer never got to

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launch an attack, for the American guns opened "a hellish fire" (their targets spotted-as Lauchert later recalled-by five artillery planes). Then to top this came the P-38's and Typhoons. On nearby roads more Allied tanks hove in sight but made no concerted attack. Lauchert's group was saved by an order radioed from the XLVII Panzer Corps: he was to return to Rochefort at once; the troops in the pocket would have to destroy their vehicles, leave their wounded, and get out on foot. A Panzer Lehr attempt to reach the pocket via Custinne on 26 December was equally futile, and for the same reasons. Bayerlein's kampfgruppe-at no time in the battles on the Marche front did the Panzer Lehr commander have his entire division in hand-also was ordered back to Rochefort during the night of 26 December.

The story of the 2d Panzer pocket is quickly told. CCB spent two days clearing the thick woods and dense under- brush between Celles and Conjoux. The procedure was simple and effective: first, heavy shelling on a given area, then a slow, methodical advance by the infantry line backed with the tanks. In an extension of the Bois de Geauvelant, where tanks could operate with some freedom, an armored sweep was made which killed about 150 of the enemy. In the main forest near Celles a final squeeze produced 200 prisoners, 12 guns, and 80 vehicles of various types to add to the larger bag. Nonetheless many of the German troops did succeed in escaping on foot. Major von Cochenhausen and nearly 600 of his men ultimately reached Rochefort, but all the equipment of the reconnaissance battalion, the 304th Panzer Grenadier Regiment, the 2d Battalion of the 3d Panzer Regiment, three artillery battalions, and two-thirds of the division flak battalion had to be left behind.12

[Triple C]

[Cont.]

Meanwhile, Combat Command A, 2d Armored Division, was ordered to relieve the infantrymen of the hard-pressed 84th Division, "The Railsplitters", who had battled Panzer Lehr Division for days unaided at Marche. At the little town of Humaine, CCA's vanguards collided into Panzer Lehr's own effort to breakthrough to their comrades in the Celles Pocket, resulted in heavy combat. The fighting ended with Humaine in American hands, with severe losses of life on both sides.

The Fight at Humain

The 2d Armored Division's "limited objective" attack, so carefully planned for Christmas Day, included a drive by CCA straight south from Buissonville on the paved highway to Rochefort, there to relieve the battalion of the 84th Division. This move never was carried through, although Harmon did not learn that the Rochefort troops had escaped until early afternoon. Instead CCA and the 4th Cavalry Group were caught up in a quite unexpected battle whose focal point was Humain, east of Buissonville. During the night of 24 December Troop A of the 24th Cavalry Squadron occupied Humain as an outpost for the CCA assembly area at Buissonville. But the troopers had short tenure in Humain, for across the lines the Panzer Lehr was gathering its few tanks to break the American stranglehold on the throat of the 2d Panzer spearhead. Bayerlein divided his Panthers into two assault groups: a platoon, supported by a rifle company, to seize Humain; a company, reinforced by an understrength rifle battalion, to drive on the left for Havrenne, then Buissonville.

The German blow struck Humain at first light, driving the cavalry out of town. The attack to the west rolled past the burned-out relics of the American

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successes of the day before-2d Panzer trucks, many armored cars, halftracks, and, near Havrenne, the guns of an entire artillery battalion. Havrenne being empty, the German column moved on toward Buissonville, Here a ruse was tried and worked. A German officer in American uniform went forward to the two Sherman tanks guarding the bridge over which the Havrenne road entered Buissonville; so effective an actor was he that the tank crews obeyed without question his order that they return to their bivouac. Four of the German tanks actually crossed the bridge at daylight, but were driven out by fire from the CCA tanks' guns. On the heels of this skirmish, the leading CCA task force started down the road for Rochefort. Near Havrenne the Panther company attempted to make a stand but was outgunned and lost five tanks. Havrenne fell to the Americans, but CCA discontinued the advance toward Rochefort for by this time it was known that the friendly infantry there had escaped. Meanwhile a considerable threat was looming on the exposed flank at Humain.

Col. John C. MacDonald's 4th Cavalry Group had set about retaking Humain, but his light tanks and tank destroyers were no match for the heavier German Panthers; nor could the American assault guns get a direct shot at them, shielded as they were behind the stone walls of the village. MacDonald tried a dismounted assault, but this failed. Artillery was unable to dislodge the enemy. Late in the afternoon Harmon sent a company of medium tanks to assist the 24h Cavalry Squadron. One last attack was made in the waning daylight-this, too, made no headway. At midnight General Collier, on his own cognizance, ordered the American cavalry to withdraw, blocking the roads to the north and east lest the enemy erupt toward Marche.

When the 26th dawned the defenders had a fresh force in the town. Panzer Lehr, it will be remembered, had been relieved during the night by the 9th Panzer to engage in the sortie toward Celles. The 9th Panzer Division (Brig. Gen. Elverfeldt) had been brought from Holland on 22 December. In view of its exposure to air attack and delays while it waited along the road for tank fuel the division had made very good time, albeit arriving in the battle line a day behind schedule. A veteran of the Arnhem and Aachen battles (it had opposed the 84th Infantry Division at Geronsweiler in the north), the 9th Panzer may have had as many as 90 tanks and 35 self-propelled assault guns or tank destroyers. Apparently the division artillery regiment did not arrive until three or four days later. When the first march column reached the line on the afternoon of the 25th it deployed south of Marche, there taking over the Marloie-Hedree blocking position held by the 2d Panzer.

As more troops arrived the 9th Panzer extended westward, thus including Humain in its bailiwick, but Elverfeldt's fresh division had more than a defensive mission. Although Luettwitz intended to employ this new armor to nourish the drive westward, it is questionable whether the XLVII Panzer Corps commander had anything more in mind than the defeat of the American armor east of the Meuse when he gave the 9th Panzer its orders on the night of 25 December: attack from the Humain sector and take Buissonville.

About 0700 the cavalry observation

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posts north of Humain saw tanks defiling from the town onto the Havrenne-Buissonville road. This word was flashed to the 2d Armored command post where Harmon ordered Col. Carl Hutton, the division artillery commander, to fire a "serenade" (a TOT) on Humain with all the 155-mm. and 8-inch battalions in range "right away." The avalanche of heavy shells falling in Humain did not disrupt the German attack formation en route to Havrenne but may have prevented its prompt reinforcement. The engagement at Havrenne began within a half-hour, carried by fifteen Panther tanks and a battalion of grenadiers from the 10th Panzer Grenadier riding in armored half-tracks. At the edge of the village the German infantry took over the initial assault, only to be beaten off by tank guns, tank destroyers, and artillery. Company I of the 66th Armored Regiment, with its attached platoons of infantry and tank destroyers, met and threw back three separate attacks during the day. The job was made easier by the capture of the German attack plan and the warm attention paid Humain-the German sally port-by Hutton's artillery and MacDonald's light armor, the latter engaged in shooting up the thin-skinned half-tracks bringing reinforcements into Humain.

It may seem strange that the 9th Panzer, with fresh troops and close to its full tank complement, did not press the attack against CCA. But the 9th, like the 2d Panzer and Panzer Lehr before it, was fighting with one arm behind its back. Luettwitz, gravely concerned that the Americans might break through west of Bastogne and surge north to cut off the divisions in the salient beyond Rochefort, turned the blocking position at Rochefort over to the 9th Panzer, leaving that division with its line bent at a right angle.

All through the night of 26 December the medium and heavy calibers of the 2d Armored Division artillery blasted away at the Germans in Humain. The town had to be retaken, for it presented a continuing point of entry into the left flank of the 2d Armored. But as part of the larger VII Corps' scheme, Harmon had the task of carrying forward the American front to the east-west line of the L'Homme and Lesse Rivers. For this general advance Harmon brought up CCR (Col. Sidney R. Hinds), which had been waiting at Hogne since Christmas Day, and attached it to Collier's CCA. Collier ordered CCR to take on the Panthers in Humain and sent CCA to clear the large forested area and the roads running south to Rochefort and L'Homme. CCB was thus left in the west to eradicate the last remnants of the Celles pocket while extending patrols, in cooperation with the British 29th Armoured Brigade-all of its troops now east of the Meuse-to the line of the Lesse River.

To trap the Humain garrison, Colonel Hinds made his attack on the morning of the 7th with tanks circling south, east, and west of the town, and the armored infantry moving in from the north. The 2d Battalion (Lt. Col. Lemuel E. Pope) of the 67th Armored Regiment had isolated Humain by 1015 but found the Panthers missing, driven out during the night by the artillery bombardment. There remained considerable bite in the Humain defenders and they momentarily halted the American tank column led by Pope. Pope went to the head of the column,

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reorganized the formation under intense fire, and started the attack moving again. (Colonel Pope was awarded the DSC.) By noon CCR was in Humain, where it took another ten hours to clear the houses of the 150 grenadiers who had been left behind. Even while this fight was in progress Harmon telephoned Collier to "go to the river with abandon."

This was not quite the end of the three-day battle. An artillery spotter plane flying over Hargimont in the early afternoon saw a column of German vehicles gathering for a march down the Humain road. It seems rather appropriate that this last effort against the 2d Armored should have been dealt with by the fighter-bombers whose cooperation had contributed in striking measure to the 2d Armored successes before the Meuse. Fourteen P-38's from the 370th Fighter Group struck Hargimont and, as a cavalry outpost happily reported, "gave them everything they had." Two more flights were vectored in: "much flame and smoke observed." As a final and fitting gesture of Allied cooperation it may be noted that CCR, faced with a stubborn hold-out detachment in a large chateau east of Humain, called on the flame-throwing Crocodile tanks of the

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Scottish Fife and Forfar Yeomanry to apply the finishing touch to the fight for Humain.13

The ill-fated battle of the XLVII Panzer Corps in front of Dinant was ended. Luettwitz had new orders: his corps must make one final, all-out effort to take Bastogne, leaving a minimum force in the Rochefort area to guard its back. Across the lines, on 28 December, the 83d Infantry Division and the British 53d Division began to replace the 2d Armored Division combat commands.14 By 31 December the 2d Armored was in billets, belatedly eating its Christmas dinner. During the brief operation east of the Meuse the 2d Armored Division had racked up a considerable tally: 1,213 prisoners taken, 82 tanks, 83 guns, and 441 vehicles captured or destroyed. The American losses in armor were light: 5 light tanks and 22 mediums. The fight had cost the 2d Armored Division and its attached units 17 killed, 26 missing, and 201 wounded-an illuminating commentary on the use by a veteran formation of the combined arms, the impossibility of striking power inherent in the piecemeal tactics employed by the enemy, the lack of a strong German artillery to counter the weight of metal always available to the Americans, and the complete absence of German attack planes in skies ruled by the American and British fighter-bombers.

[Albany Rifles]

Well done!!!

Please also add your insight to the discussion going forward.

[Triple C]

My... insight? I am quite flattered by the compliment from a professional. True, I am a historian, but this isn't even my field! Perhaps when I do find something to comment on, I will, but for specific operational issues/command decisions, I stand at the presence of professionals who does this for a living. I will make the attempt, tho!

[Albany Rifles]

The highlight of this date was at approximately 1630 D Company, 37 Tank Battalion attacked up the Assenois-Bastogne road. As it neared the town, a soldier stepped out from a hole in the ground and waved. Cobra King, an M4 Sherman linked up with the Airborne Enginners of the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, opening the line from the 3rd Army to Bastogne.

Airstrikes continued that day as Germans from Panzer Lehr and 2d Panzer Division applied pressure on the west of Bastogne. Airdrops continued as gliders brought in gasoline and 4 surgical teams with plasma and whole blood.

German forces go to ground along the Elsenborn Ridge.

A photo of Cobra King, the most famous tank in Bastogne.

[Triple C]

Supplementary to AR's post:

The Third Army's drive to relieve Bastogne proved a tougher fight than Patton envisaged. According to Carlos D'Este's biography of Patton, after Patton informed Eisenhower that he was ready to attack with three divisions in 24 hours, Eisenhower replied that he would prefer Patton to wait three days and attack with six divisions! Between Luxembourg and Bastogne was the roughest terrain in all of Ardennes; the elevations as well as the roads in the region ran on a east-west axis. The XII Corps, consisted of 4th Armored, 80th Infantry and 26th Infantry Divisions, therefore had to force its attack in highly unfavorable conditions.

Though the German Seventh Army was the weakest of the three German attack armies for Operation Watch on the Rhein, it was able to mass one Fallschrimjaeger division, two Volksgrenadier divisions, and a Panzergrenadier brigade on the path of US XII Corps. Though Patton response was much faster than the Germans anticipated, lax radio security in Patton's army aided the Germans in moving their troops in blocking positions. It also happened that a battalion of JadgtTiger tank destroyers chanced to be near Bastogne and significantly delayed the relief of the paratroopers. For all US divisions involved, the fighting was a series of uphill frontal assaults that cost dearly in casualties and equipment, especially when CCB ran into the aforementioned JadgtTigers and lost 18 tanks in a matter of minutes.

In the end, General Gaffey, CO of the 4th Armored, pulled CCR out of the divisional reserve and ordered it to make a left hook against Bastogne, a route suggested by General Middleton, CO of the VIII Corps, that was rejected by Patton earlier because he judged a flank attack was too time consuming. CCR overcame the last significant German bastion on the way to Bastogne using a TOT barrage and an armored coup de main. The armored collumns, firing all guns without stopping, followed the barrage so closely that a halftrack was lost by an US howitzer shell. While the tanks cleared the town without pause, the halftracks stopped at town square and disgorged the armored infantry, who fought hand to hand into the night until they possessed the town. 500 prisoners were taken by the armored infantrymen.

Regardless of the defects in the operation, it was considered to be Patton's greatest achievement. He reoriented XII Corps 90 degrees against the positions of its logistics depots, and advanced his divisions 125 miles to contact in 24 hours under a sub-zero blizzard. One historian remarked that had Patton never done anything remarkable in his career, his relief of Bastogne would virtually have ensured his place in American military history.

Historical trivia:

1. The Cobra King was a M4A3E2 assault tank, a type of Sherman tank with significantly buffed up armor at the hull front, turret front and the gun mantlet to the thickness of 100-178mm!

2. Due to the ferocity of the combat, the Cobra King was sent in alone for the last leg of the trip to Bastogne. It would take additional days of fighting to broaden the width of the corridor to Bastogne from one road to a size that was safe from German counterattacks. Contrary to popular depiction of the Battle of the Bulge, more American soldiers would be killed or wounded after the relief of Bastogne than during the German offensive phase of the battle.