As 1945 approached it seemed,
to most, that Germany's surrender was only a matter of time. The Allies, having
been on the offensive for so long, had an all time high determination and
morale. The idea that Germany could muster the supplies, troops, or will to
launch an offensive seemed crazy. In fact, many were already asking the
questions of when and where the assault on the Rhine should be launched. Hitler,
utilizing his talent of strategic vision, noticed a hole in the Allies defenses.
He saw the Ardennes Forest of Belgium was lightly defended. The Ardennes Forest
had traditionally been thought of as impassible to tanks and there fore not an
option for either side. The Allies left only four divisions to defend a front of
over eighty miles. Because the Germans had now been pushed back almost to
Germany, and in some places were already fighting on German soil, the Allies
lost the important intelligence on troop movements provided by French and
Belgium residents. As a result Germany was able to do major troop movements and
buildups right behind the front lines. Hitler secretly assembled the twenty-one
divisions that would later take place in The Battle of The Bulge with out the
Allies even knowing. Field-Marshal von Rundsted is generally credited with the
plans for the offensive, however in actuality he was strongly opposed to the
plan. It was Hitler and his immediate staff who secretly developed the plan, and
turned down all requests for changes or revisions. In one of von Rundsted's
request for revisions Hitler responded "The Plan itself is
irrevocable"(World War II Trevor Hall and Gerald Hughes, Smithmark
Publisher) The plan was actually brilliant in its simplicity, and if Germany had
the fuel, men and supplies that Hitler's plan required, it could have succeeded
giving Germany a major victory in the west. Fortunately for the Allies, Hitler's
idea of the amount of fuel and number of men at his disposal was greatly
exaggerated, and his plan did not take into account that three of his Panzer
tank divisions were down to roughly 100 tanks per division, less than half the
amount in the American armored divisions. At 5:30 in the morning of December 16,
1944 with the benefit of fog and clouds keeping Allied planes on the ground,
Hitler attacked a 90 mile American front between Monschau and Echternach using
twenty one German divisions high on morale but low on fuel. The first wave of
the attack was by the 150th Panzer Brigade, a unit of about 2,000 English
speaking Germans who knew American slang and customs. Under command of Colonel
Otto Skorzeny, and using captured Jeeps and wearing American combat jackets, the
Germans moved through the American lines cutting telephone wires, turning
signpost, and setting up false mind field indicators. The 150th was under orders
that if captured tell the Americans that thousands of Germans in Jeeps were
behind the American lines. This operation was a huge success thirty-two of the
forty Jeeps that went in came back, and the ones who did not make it kept their
orders and spread rumors of large number of undercover Germans. The Americans
took the bait and set up checkpoints causing massive traffic jams and hundreds
of American soldiers were sent to jail if they could not answer check questions
such as the height of the Empire State Building. Later the Americans commended
these under cover operations as "Military Genius". Less respectable
were the acts committed by the 1st SS Panzer Brigade known as Battle Group
Peiper. This unit captured the city of Stavelot and discovered a group of
civilians huddled in a basement, the Germans took them out and shot in cold
blood. Later that same day the US 99th Infantry Division retook Stavelot and
held their positions until reinforcements arrived. Ironically while Peiper was
held up in Stavelot he was with in a mile of a lightly guarded American fuel
dump containing 2.5 Million gallons of gasoline. But he did not know that it was
there and therefore made no attempt to capture the fuel that could have changed
the entire offensive. While Peiper was held up in the north von Manteuffel's 5th
army busted through the US 106th Division. By the following day the 5th
Panzerarmee had forced the surrender of 7,000 men. Further south the 58th and
47th Panzer Corps had made strong progress and each was close to their goals of
Hoffalize and Bastonage. Only now two days after the offensive started did the
Allies realize that it had a chance of succeeding. Putting an exclamation point
on this thought is the fact that the US First Army HQ at Spa had to be quickly
relocated after the 6th Panzerarmee advanced only miles from the town. On
December 19 the German 47th Panzer Corps reached the town of Bastogne about the
same time as the reinforcements, the 101st Airborne Division. That same day the
US 30th Division was sent to reinforce the 99th division at Stavelot. With the
help of air attacks these two divisions cut off Peiper Battle Group from the
rest of his army, and began pushing him back. By the 24th he had no gasoline at
all, he and his troops abandoned their tanks and walked back through the
Ardennes Forest. Further south on that same day von Manteuffel's 5th Panzerarmee
had taken the city of St. Vith and forced the US 7th armored division to
retreat. The Allied line was now burst wide open, Eisenhower acted quickly,
putting Montgomery in charge of all the forces north of the breach and Bradley
in command of those south of it. On December 21st General Bradley gave General
Patton the task of counter attacking von Manteuffel in order to relieve
Brigadier-General McAuliffe and the 101st at Bastogne. The 101st had been at
Bastogne for three days, completely cut off from all American reinforcement when
German General Luttwiz offered them terms of surrender. McAuliffe's response to
the German white flag party..."Nuts!", puzzled the German asked the
meaning of this answer McAuliffe then responded "Go to Hell!" By
December 24, Christmas Eve the bad weather had cleared and the allied airforces
mad up for lost time flying 17,000 sorties in the next three days. von Rundstedt
once again requested that the whole offensive be called off, Hitler refused. By
now the defenders at Bastogne were almost defeated but knew that reinforcements
would arrive soon. On December 25th Christmas day German tanks made a last ditch
effort to break into the town, but remarkably the 101st held out. At 4:46 Pm on
the 26th the US 4th Armored division broke through and made contact with the
exhausted troops at Bastogne. By the 24th Patton's counter from the south was
pushing the German 7th army back. The 7th army and von Manteuffel's 5th
Panzerarmee combined but were still not strong enough to stop Patton. Hitler
released the 9th & 15th Panzer divisions from reserves, but even they were
not enough to stop the counter attack by General Collins. On December 26th he
retook Celles just five miles from Hitler's goal, the Meuse. This was the
turning point of the battle. On December 27 von Manteuffel received the
reinforcements he had been waiting for, but they were too few too late. Even if
they would have arrived on time he lacked the fuel to put them to good use. The
Battle of The Bulge was over Hitler's last offensive had failed, but there were
significant losses on both sides. The Americans could replace the weapons and
tanks lost ,Germany could not. All said, The Americans lost 76,890 men, the
Germans 81,834, over 700 US tanks were lost as opposed to Germaney's 324 and 590
American planes were downed compared to 320 Germans.

Bibliography
World War II Trevor Hall and Gerald Hughes, Smithmark Publisher, New York NY,
1998 Battles of the 21st Century Ivor Matanle, Canon Publishing, London England,
1989 Microsoft Encarta '95 1992-1995 Microsoft Corporation