Battle of the Bulge - Definition, Dates & Who Won - December 16th, 1944.
78 years ago tomorrow the largest and bloodiest battle of WWII started, it ended six weeks later on January 25, 1945.
It's estimated that more than 1 million Allied troops fought in the Battle of the Bulge , including 500,000 Americans. The Battle of the Bulge is considered the largest and bloodiest single battle fought during WWII . More than 19,000 U.S. soldiers died during that winter, and more than 70,000 were wounded or went missing.
Inside the Battle of the Bulge, there were major engagements and one such was the battle for ''Bastogne''.
General Eisenhower made two strategic decisions the first being that the Bastogne was to be held at all costs and the second was the Red Ball Express would drop everything it was doing and get the 101st Airborne to Bastogne to defend this strategic city.
The attack by the Germans was unexpected and caught the US and its allies off guard. Thus began six weeks of bloody fighting and the Germans were not the only enemy, the weather was bitter cold and all the allies suffered thousands of casualties to the cold.
The fighting in other areas had been hard and bloody, Company F, 405th Infantry Regiment was pushing forward in November, and on Thanksgiving day the battle for Beerk took place and there we lost one of our family, my cousin PFC Monroe W. was KIA meanwhile an uncle was in savage fighting in the Po Valley, in Italy where my Uncle was part of the 87th Mountain Infantry. America's first ski/winter troops. Today the 87th is part of the 10th Mountain Division, he was WIA in early January and again in early April 1945.
Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division was defending the small town surrounding Bastogne and after inflicting heavy losses on the Germans and they also suffered heavy casualties withdrew to Bastogne with the 501st PIR, 502nd PIR, the 506th PIR (Parachute Infantry Regiment) and the 327th Glider Infantry along with combat engineers and the 333rd artillery (969th All Black Unit) where they made their stand.
On December, 24th another cousin was KIA at Bastogne as a Trooper with the 101st.
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
- Author: History.com Editors
- Updated: Jul 22, 2020 Original: Oct 14, 2009
George Silk/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images
Called "the greatest American battle of the war" by Winston Churchill, the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes region of Belgium was Adolf Hitler's last major offensive in World War II against the Western Front. Hitler's aim was to split the Allies in their drive toward Germany. The German troops' failure to divide Britain, France and America with the Ardennes offensive paved the way to victory for the allies.
Lasting six brutal weeks, from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, the assault, also called the Battle of the Ardennes, took place during frigid weather conditions, with some 30 German divisions attacking battle-fatigued American troops across 85 miles of the densely wooded Ardennes Forest.
As the Germans drove into the Ardennes, the Allied line took on the appearance of a large bulge, giving rise to the battle's name. The battle proved to be the costliest ever fought by the U.S. Army, which suffered over 100,000 casualties. The formerly serene, wooded region of Ardennes was hacked into chaos by fighting as the Americans dug in against the German advance at St.-Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and, later, Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division.
"Did you ever see land when a tornado's come through? Did you ever see trees and stuff, twisted and broken off? The whole friggin' forest was like that," said U.S. Army Charlie Sanderson in My Father's War: Memories from Our Honored WWII Soldiers.
READ MORE: 8 Things You May Not Know About the Battle of the Bulge
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The surprise German attack broke through the front on day one as stories quickly spread of massacred soldiers and civilians, according to the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
"For those who had lived through 1940, the picture was all too familiar. Belgian townspeople put away their Allied flags and brought out their swastikas," the center writes. "Police in Paris enforced an all-night curfew. British veterans waited nervously to see how the Americans would react to a full-scale German offensive, and British generals quietly acted to safeguard the Meuse River's crossings. Even American civilians, who had thought final victory was near were sobered by the Nazi onslaught."
Troops Faced Severe Cold
Hitler's mid-December timing of the attack—one of the bloodiest of the war—was strategic, as freezing rain, thick fog, deep snow drifts and record-breaking low temperatures brutalized the American troops. More than 15,000 "cold injuries"—trench foot, pneumonia, frostbite—were reported that winter.
"I was from Buffalo, I thought I knew cold," baseball Hall of Famer and WWII veteran Warren Spahn said in The Love of Baseball. "But I didn't really know cold until the Battle of the Bulge."
Nazis Sent in Imposters and Changed Road Signs
Another Nazi strategy was to attempt to infiltrate the Allied troops.
Veteran Vernon Brantley, a private first class in the 289th Regiment, told the Fort Jackson Leader in 2009 that his unit had just arrived in Germany from France when they were told to load up and return to Luxembourg.
"We got word that the Germans had dropped a lot of paratroopers behind our lines, and that they were dressed like American Soldiers and spoke English," he said. "... They were there to create confusion."
The Germans also changed road signs and spread misinformation.
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"The Nazis were carefully groomed for their dangerous mission," LIFE magazine reported in 1945. "They spoke excellent English and their slang had been tuned up by close association with American prisoners of war in German camps. ... Under the rules of the Hague Convention these Germans were classifiable as spies and subject to an immediate court martial by a military tribunal. After brief deliberation American officers found them guilty, and ordered the usual penalty for spies: death by firing squad."
To stop infiltrators, the U.S. troops would ask suspected Germans to answer American trivia questions.
"Three times I was ordered to prove my identity," Gen. Omar Bradley recalled, according to the Washington Post. "The first time by identifying Springfield as the capital of Illinois; the second by locating the guard between the center and the tackle on a line of scrimmage; the third time by naming the then-current spouse of a blonde named Betty Grable."
Click here to watch the full episode on the Battle of the Bulge and more from WWII in HD on History Vault
Allied Air Forces Arrived on Christmas Day
It wasn't until Christmas Day that the weather conditions finally cleared, allowing Allied air forces to strike.
"It was on that bright, clear and cold Christmas morning in 1944 that the ground froze solid," Brantley told the Leader. "The tanks and air forces could finally maneuver, and get assistance to all of us who were previously blocked off. … It was a welcome sign to see the sun come up. It meant that we were alive for one more day."
Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower, the supreme Allied commander, and Lt. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. led the American defense to restore the front. According to the National Archives' Bloodiest Battle, Eisenhower gave Patton the Third Army, about 230,000 soldiers, and ordered him to head to the Ardennes.
101st Airborne Division Arrive in Bastogne
In the small, pivotal Belgian town of Bastogne, the Germans surrounded thousands of Allied troops. Eisenhower, in response, sent in more units, including the famed 101st Airborne Division.
"When the Germans sent a message demanding the surrender of the 101st on December 22, they got a one-word response from its commander, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe: 'Nuts!'" the Bloodiest Battle states. "This was interpreted by German officers as a more colorful—and negative—response to their demand. The day after Christmas, units of Patton's rapidly approaching Third Army finally arrived, broke through the German lines, and rescued the troops."
Claiming victory of the battle on January 25, 1945, and the Allies headed for Berlin. The war ended less than five months later with Germany's May 7 surrender.
In all, according to the U.S. Department of Defense, 1 million-plus Allied troops, including some 500,000 Americans, fought in the Battle of the Bulge, with approximately 19,000 soldiers killed in action, 47,500 wounded and 23,000-plus missing. About 100,000 Germans were killed, wounded or captured.
"The Ardennes campaign of 1944-45 was only one in a series of difficult engagements in the battle for Europe," wrote John S.D. Eisenhower, in his 1969 book, The Bitter Woods. "Nevertheless, it can be said that the Ardennes campaign epitomized them all. For it was here that American and German combat soldiers met in the decisive struggle that broke the back of the Nazi war machine."
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In a business in northern Minnesota there are five photos and next to them is a bronze plaque that states, ''A Rendezvous with Destiny'' they are the photos of each member of our family KIA in WWII, they have been there since 1946.
It is a time to remember for our family and all Americans, The Greatest Generation and the ''Battling Bastards of Bastogne''.
A quote from Bastogne by an American. ''They have us surrounded, the poor bastards''.
The Ardennes Offensive was the last gasp of The Third Reich. My father was there. He survived although he rarely spoke of his experience.
Some years ago I stumbled on a book written by Karem Abdul Jabbar (yes the basketball player) entitled, ''Brothers in Arms'' an outstanding book on the 761st Tank Battalion an all-black unit that was in the middle of the fighting at the Bulge. Jabbar is an outstanding author and this book had me read more of his books.
A salute to your father.
One of my father's best friends, a college fraternity brother, was captured by the Germans in the Battle of the Bulge, and spent the rest of his war in a German P.O.W camp. I don't know at what point he was liberated.
The only stories he ever told my father were that when he knew he was going to be captured, he got rid of his dog tags because they identified him as being Jewish, and he mentioned seeing a horse's lip float up in the soup they were served one day. Other than that, he never talked about his experiences as a P.O.W.
A salute to your father's best friend.
It wasn't until Christmas Day that the weather conditions finally cleared, allowing Allied air forces to strike.
And when you have total air superiority, in adition to a battlefield numerical superiority, the battle is quickly won. Game, set and match.
And last but not least:
"From April to September Germany suffered a 95 percent reduction in POL, and a 97 percent reduction in aviation gasoline. This meant a curtailing of Luftwaffe pilot training to conserve gas, while mechanized and motorized units were running out of fuel on the battlefield. The desperate need for fuel sources was a substantial deciding factor in Germany’s launch of the Ardennes Offensive, what is commonly known now as the Battle of the Bulge. In the end, Germany ended up depleting what fuel it had left in the attempt to take the Allied fuel sources at Antwerp."
And before the weather cleared for air superiority the US lost 19,000 KIA and 70,000 WIA or missing. That did not include the losses by our allies.
And to gain air superiority the US Army Air Force the 8th had huge losses.
We paid in blood for every advantage.
Yup, it's a good thing the weather cleared or the army that military experts thought incapable of another offensive would have been in Antwerp.
No, I don't think so. Patton's 3rd Army (4th AD and the 80th and 26th Infantry) reached Bastogne on December 26th and the fuel that the Germans needed so badly wasn't there since the supply dumps they expected to capture in the Bulge were destroyed by the retreating American and allied troops.
RIP uncle pete.
A salute to Uncle Pete.
I will give a big salute to every allied soldier that fought in the Bulge and other battles.
My dad supplied submarines in the Pacific. My uncle was a coxswain on landing craft in the Pacific. I salute them and all the allies in the Pacific theater also.