Tuesday, 19th December 1944
Tuesday, 19th December 1944 is the date by which the advancing Germans pouring through a fifty mile breach between Elsenborn in the north and Echternach in the south are supposed to have captured the first of their objectives, the bridges on the Meuse between Liège and Namur. Thereafter, the plan is for the three attacking armies to pivot and turn their attention towards Hitler’s intended prize, the port of Antwerp.
But, as we have seen, it is the initial brave stand in most places by four already shattered U.S. Divisions thinly holding along the front that blunts the offensive, buying precious time for General Eisenhower to move his last reserves forward, the 101st and 82nd Airborne Divisions and into position from deep within France.
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In the north, after a slow start caused by the delaying actions around Lanzerath and Losheimergraben, Kampfgruppe Peiper’s sixteen mile-long column has finally broken through and begun its rampage along a line of often narrow, single lane roads.
Atrocity, mayhem and destruction has followed in its wake as Peiper has pushed his men hard to regain the initiative and make up for the eighteen hours lost on the first day of fighting. Theirs is the shortest route to the Meuse but along the way they have encountered a stiffening resistance which has either blocked their advance or forced them to detour, losing valuable time and using up precious fuel. The news of the massacre at the Baugnez Crossroads close to Malmédy on 17th December has a huge impact on stiffening the resolve of the defenders. Realizing their likely fate, surrender suddenly becomes less of an option for many G.I.s.
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With each delaying action often by small numbers of dogged defenders, it is clear that yet more grit is being thrown into the machinery of an offensive the success of which is dependent on speed, momentum and aggression. The force and the energy of the assault is becoming slowly diminished with each passing hour as the attacking units become channelled or dispersed. The supporting logistical ‘tail’ is becoming choked too with one unit, the 12th SS-Panzer Division forced to a standstill, starved of fuel resupply for over twelve hours.
The extraordinary defense of the twin villages of Krinkelt and Rocherath has seen heroes emerge too with no less than five Congressional Medals of Honor to be awarded for actions there in the first three days of fighting. The sacrifices made around the Twin Villages, notably by a single battalion commanded by Lt. Col. William McKinley, grandnephew of the slain President, William McKinley, play a crucial role in averting defeat and preventing an encirclement that could have resulted in the loss of two divisions.
The consequences of this defense, not just by McKinley and his men at the Lausdell Crossroads but countless other unsung heroes buys time. So focused is the 1st SS Panzer Division on reaching the Meuse on schedule that after the initial engagements and the dampening of its momentum, it shies away from the solid resistance coming from the U.S. 99th Infantry “Checkerboard” Division. This in turn buys time allowing the U.S. 2nd Infantry “Indianhead” Division to bolster its defenses and for the famous 1st Infantry “Big Red One” Division to be deployed as a bulwark against the attack. The American commanders decide to build their redoubt along the Elsenborn Ridge overlooking the Twin Villages and all efforts now are on buying time to ensure that this bastion can be established.
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By midnight on the 18th December, while Peiper may be only a day’s march from the Meuse, the delay in taking the Twin Villages and the subsequent failure to capture Elsenborn Ridge mean that the German commanders are forced to reroute their forces to find other ways of joining their intended lines-of-march. This takes time and will mean yet more delay as units become entangled or dispersed.
Seeing the relative lack of progress in the north by comparison to the centre and south of the Bulge, Hitler orders the 6th Panzer Armee’s reserve divisions, 2nd SS Panzer and 9th SS Panzer, to the south to exploit progress being made by 5th Panzer Armee. The resulting shift in armor and the stalling of the 12th SS Panzer due to a lack of fuel means that the attacks against the Twin Villages and Elsenborn Ridge now lack armored support which diminishes the attackers efforts again, slowing momentum.
More importantly, this decision has a huge impact on the progress of 5th Panzer Armee’s efforts to invest and capture the vital market town of St. Vith which, like Bastogne further to the south, controls key road and rail networks in the area. As 2nd SS Panzer and 9th SS Panzer Divisions move south on the 19th December, they become entangled in 5th Panzer Armee’s line-of-march causing hideous traffic jams in the rear and delaying the arrival of artillery needed for assault on St. Vith.
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The Americans have not been without their own misfortunes though. The ignominious loss of two regiments from the U.S. 106th “Golden Lions” Division, which came following their surrender on the morning of the 19th December after being encircled, results in more than 6,000 defenders and all their materiel effectively becoming hors de combat.
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Elsewhere, following noon broadcasts in Germany on Monday, 18th December celebrating the results of the offensive, Eisenhower has told his two Generals Bradley and Patton to meet him in Verdun, France the next day to discuss the counter-attack. These are political and operational decisions Hitler had been convinced would take the Allies more than a week to make.
Eisenhower meets Bradley and Patton in Verdun at 11.00 hrs on the 19th December to discuss the situation. He tells them that “The present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity and not a disaster. There will only be cheerful faces at this conference table.” Patton is ordered to halt his forthcoming attack on the Saar to the south of the forming Bulge, to pivot and begin his attack against the German flank no earlier than 22nd and no later than 23rd December.
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Around that time, the hero of Omaha Beach, Major-General “Dutch” Cota, and commanding U.S. 28th Infantry “Bloody Bucket” Division is handing over responsibility for the defense of the Luxembourgish town of Wiltz so that he can relocate his headquarters to Belgium. The Germans are also beginning their second assault against the Big Red One at Dom Bütgenbach along the Elsenborn Ridge.
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More or less at the same time, news is spreading fast across the battlefield following the capture of four of Otto Skorzeny’s Greif Kommandos that Eisenhower is meant to be the target of an assassination attempt. This in turn will have significant implications for the Allied command and control in the coming days.
In an extraordinary witch-hunt on the battlefield, McCarthyesque efforts are now being made to winkle out any would-be assassins. Brigadier-General Bruce Clarke is trying to assume responsibility for the defense of St. Vith but his insistence that the Chicago Cubs are in the American League fails to reassure his interrogators of his provenance which sees him being incarcerated for five hours before his identity is finally authenticated. One of the MPs holding him even has the cheek to ask for Clarke’s autograph as he is released.
Across the battlefield, the disrupting effect of the Greif Kommandos is already starting to have an impact, far exceeding Skorzeny’s expectations. Even General Omar Bradley is stopped by MPs as he returns to Luxembourg from Verdun. At one checkpoint, he is asked by MPs what the capital of Illinois is. At another, the position of guard in a football line. At a third, the name of Betty Grable’s newest husband.
The Hollywood actor, David Niven is serving in “Phantom”, a special reconnaissance and signals unit of the British Army formed in 1939. Near the town of Vielsalm, he is stopped by nervous G.I.’s and asked to confirm his allegiances by identifying who had won the World Series in 1943. He famously answers, “Haven’t the foggiest idea, but I did co-star with Ginger Rogers in Bachelor Mother!”
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In the south, outnumbered and outgunned by a ratio of 10:1, the men of the 28th Infantry Division and other smaller supporting units have held on to a series of small outposts and choke points along the network of roads lacing the terrain. They have made the attackers pay for every icy inch of ground they have gained.
John C McManus’ ‘Alamo in the Ardennes’ and Robert F. Phillips’ “To Save Bastogne” both give an excellent description of these bloody delaying actions fought in the preceding days before the 101st Airborne Division are able to take up their positions around Bastogne on the 19th December.
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By midnight on the 18th December though, the battlefield from north to south has become a writhing mess. It is indescribably confusing to those involved in multiple struggles everywhere with small units fighting in horrendous weather conditions having little sense or awareness of the events going on around them or the impact that their actions and gallantry is having upon the rhythm of the battle.
For most, their perspective is simply the small piece of real estate within the ordinary soldier’s limited field of view. Their experience is the raw material of conflict upon which the industry of warfare revolves. Despite some tactical gains being made by the attackers, the key strategic effect for the defenders is that sufficient time has been bought through the accumulation of multiple actions by handfuls of brave and stubborn G.I.s.
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While the fighting rages in the evening of the 17th December 1944 across the battlefield to their north, the 101st and 82nd Airborne divisional headquarters received orders to be ready to move from their rest areas in France. From the areas around Reims where they are billeted, if travelled today, that would be a two-hour drive.
For the 101st, Bastogne is not given as the final destination. Although the order of march will eventually flip, the 101st are told they will leave first headed for the town of Werbomont and the 82nd will follow, the latter learning en route that they will be rerouted to reinforce the developing St. Vith pocket.
While the headquarters are energizing themselves around understanding the implications of these orders, members of both Divisions are involved in a punch up in downtown Reims. This has to be broken up by MPs and the paratroopers are ordered to return to their barracks (82nd to Suippes and 101st to Mourmelon). Almost as the brawl is being wrapped up, the officer commanding 82nd Airborne, Major-General Jim Gavin, is attending a ballet in Suipes. The performance is interrupted and the attendees told of the developments.
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Over the next 30 hours, a series of events occur which do, or could have a profound impact on the tide of the battle in the south leading proponents of the counterfactual to ponder how history might have been altered if certain individuals had behaved differently.
The first is the decision taken around 16.00 hrs on Monday, 18th December by Brigadier-General Anthony MacAuliffe, acting commander 101st Airborne, to detour unexpectedly to Bastogne to receive a briefing from the Corps commander, Major-General Troy Middleton headquartered there. Noone had told him to do this. He just considered it the right thing to do.
Like his advance party, MacAuliffe had been en route with his G-3, Lt. Col. H.W. Kinnard and his aide Lt. Frederic Starrett to Werbomont to recce where he believed the division will deploy. There he learns by a pure act of providence that the decision has been taken that the 101st will instead deploy to Bastogne. Wasting no time, the three men set about making provision for the arrival of the division. At this moment though, the advance party that, instead had travelled on to Werbomont as planned cannot assist them so the work is left to the three men before they can be once again reunited. This does not happen until 03.00 hrs on 19th December after which some elements of the division had anyway arrived and were preparing to deploy forward.
The second is the decision by Middleton to deploy the recently arrived 10th Armored Division’s Combat Command Group (CCB) commanded by Colonel William Roberts into three separate teams. These will assume blocking positions around Bastogne to the north at Noville, to the east at Longvilly and south-east at Wardin and which will play a key role in trading space for time in order to allow the perimeter to be established.
The third is a stubborn captain commanding a heavy maintenance company who refuses to move his vehicles blocking the main approach road being taken by the 101st as it heads northwards through the evening of 18th December towards its destiny in Bastogne. Precious time is wasted until Brigadier General Gerald Higgins, acting deputy commander of the 101st is called and manages to ‘persuade’ the captain to reconsider his obstinacy.
In every sense, it is a race against time to set up the perimeter around the town. Coming from the other direction, three divisions, the 2nd Panzer Division, the 26th VolksGrenadier Division and the Panzer Lehr Division have finally broken through the forward U.S. positions in Luxembourg and are barrelling towards Bastogne and seeking to encircle the town. Their orders are not to become embroiled in fighting in Bastogne but to push on to the Meuse even if the doorway to the town is more or less fully open. Bastogne will be left for Panzer Lehr.
Fourthly, around 22.00 hrs on the 18th December, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel’s former chief-of-staff, Major-General Fritz Bayerlein commanding Panzer Lehr arrives in the Luxembourg border town of Niederwampach, 8 miles east of Bastogne. Panzer Lehr has been struggling over muddy secondary roads and Bayerlein is coming under pressure to take Bastogne that night.
He has three choices regarding his next move. After consulting some local farmers who deliberately misguide him that the secondary road straight ahead to Mageret is a sound one, because of this advice, he chooses to head to Mageret with the fifteen panzers and four companies of infantry in half-tracks immediately available to him. After a mile, the paved road becomes dirt and their progress slows. After a further half mile, it becomes a cow track. It is too dark to turn back so they push on. One by one, vehicles stall in the mud and are left behind. Fuel consumption increases across country and yet more precious time is lost.
As Bayerlein’s column struggles through the mud, a mile to the north, the loose American screen in Longvilly comprising stragglers that have withdrawn towards Bastogne from the earlier roadblock battles to the east is confronted with the 2nd Panzer Division’s flanking movement around to the north of Bastogne and probing attacks from the east coming from the 26th VolksGrenadier Division. News that the screen may now be outflanked by Panzer Lehr from the south means they will be cut off from their rear and so make the decision to withdraw.
Before Bayerlein is able to untangle himself from the mire south of Mageret, one of the CCB teams commanded by Lt. Col. Henry Cherry had earlier passed through the town heading east towards Longvilly. This means that when Bayerlein finally reaches Mageret at 02.00 hrs on the 19th December with the remains of his already reduced column, the road between Bastogne and Longvilly is now cut for those U.S. forces trapped to the east. The first elements of the 101st have arrived between 23.00 hrs and midnight but not in any strength. Bayerlein is now 2.5 miles from the eastern outskirts of Bastogne but he too is not in strength.
However, at this moment, Fate decides to play three strange hands in order to buy the 101st time to establish the perimeter. Taking stock of his surroundings, Bayerlein is tired, angry at the Luxembourgish farmers’ subterfuge that has lost him time and materiel crossing the fields, and frustrated that his bosses are ‘on his case’ for not moving fast enough.
He temporarily billets himself in a house across the square from the village church because he wants to take stock. A local Belgian farmer, Emile Frère, is brought into his presence and Bayerlein asks him if there are any Americans in the vicinity. “Oh yes” is the reply. “Many”. Whether by design or default, the farmer misleads Bayerlein into believing that a “great force of at least 50 tanks and 40 armored cars have passed through Mageret on their way to Longvilly” commanded “by a general”.
So instead of realising that he has outflanked them, Bayerlein loses his nerve. He begins to be concerned that he himself may be outflanked. He can hear in the darkness outside the movement of a large number of vehicles which of course are those of his own vanguard struggling to catch him up as well as those in Lt. Col. Cherry’s column in the distance that have passed through Mageret shortly before he arrived.
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As he ponders what to do next, Bayerlein, not normally given to hesitation is now confronted in the morning with a new challenge if some reports and Bayerlein’s own recollections after the war are to be believed. At this point is ushered into the room “a beautiful, blond nurse” belonging to a hospital unit that has been captured by Bayerlein’s men in a forest block outside the village. Some reports suggest that this mystery femme is Belgian but the few records on this story that do exist indicate she is likely an American nurse who, to this day, remains nameless. The story runs that Bayerlein is instantly distracted by her beauty and spends the better part of the rest of the morning, if not the day, “dallying” with her, trying to woo her with his charms no doubt. History doesn’t relate what happened and nor does one need to know but, if true, one prays that she leaves the scene with her virtue intact.
More importantly, her presence serves to distract the very man poised to push against the open door of Bastogne and to prevent him from making key decisions in the coming hours which, in turn, buys time for the defence of the town to be established and for the legend to be born. Certainly, the timeline of events in the following hours would indicate some cause for hesitation beyond just Bayerlein’s other concerns already described. Whether she is aware of the consequences of her action or if she sees an opportunity to buy further time is not known.
It is really not possible to authenticate this story but it offers an image not dissimilar from the scene in the film ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ where the character ‘Marion Ravenwood’ played by the actor Karen Allen, is cajoled into wearing a white dress while her captor tries to tempt her. In this story, a fantastical image emerges of Bayerlein becoming so beguiled by the nurse that he is incapable of making any coherent decision and all the while his commanders stand in the square outside twiddling their thumbs awaiting orders. That Bayerlein should boast of this event is also strange given that many lay the blame on the failure to take Bastogne firmly at his feet.
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One more final extraordinary coincidence enables the Bastogne perimeter to be sealed that morning while Bayerlein dithers. The first unit of the 101st Airborne Division to arrive in Bastogne and be ready to deploy in the early hours of the 19th December is the 1st Battalion of 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment (PIR 1/501st) commanded by Lt. Col. Julian Ewell.
By pure chance, Ewell had visited Bastogne back in November 1944 while taking some well-earned R&R and had walked the ground to the east of the town. As he is leading his already exhausted men out of Bastogne around 08.00 hrs, many still without helmets, few with overcoats and some even without rifles towards the small hamlet of Neffe, despite the swirling fog, he appreciates they have taken a wrong turn and so redirects them back onto the right road. He also recognizes the tactical importance of a hill next to the hamlet of Bizory and sends word for the 2nd Battalion following him to take up the defense of this key feature. This decision is key as it provides a vital vantage point above Bizory to the west and Mageret to the south from which the Americans cannot be dislodged.
Almost simultaneously, Ewell’s column encounters the lead elements of Panzer Lehr in Neffe which lies just to the west of Mageret. If he had not corrected his route, it’s possible that this clash at this moment would not have happened and what follows would have been different. Nevertheless, Bayerlein is informed of this clash and he assumes that he is up against a far larger force and so orders his men to dig in, their momentum now completely ground to a halt.
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By a scant few hours, the Americans have won the race for Bastogne. For those following their fortunes, this is also the moment, on the morning of the 19th, that the 506th PIR (including Easy Company’s ‘Band of Brothers’) enter the scene marching north towards the southern edge of the Bois Jacques close to the railway crossing at Halte where they remain as a stand-by force.
By the end of the 19th December, with the 101st now in place and the town effectively surrounded, the remnants of the blocking teams and the survivors of the Bloody Bucket’s remarkable defense are given permission to withdraw from the roadblock battles. Many make it inside the perimeter and the stream continues throughout the coming days.
It is a truism that those that manned Bastogne’s perimeter from the 19th December encountered stragglers flooding back from U.S positions forward of Bastogne in a state of disarray and disorder but these retreating soldiers and tankers were not, despite some postwar accounts, a bunch of dispirited, demoralized, and undisciplined panic mongers. The great majority of these men had given it their all. They came through the 101st defensive lines having had very little sleep or food for three days and in almost constant battle with an enemy that not only had the full advantage of surprise but was also far superior in numbers, the quantity and quality of its armor, and in its battle experience. Many were able to regroup and assist with the subsequent defense of Bastogne acting as either mobile emergency relief strike forces, armored support for the lightly armed paratroopers, or direct infantry support to the perimeter’s defense.
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The Siege of Bastogne has now begun but that’s another story. For the time being, our butterfly has been beating its wings furiously and the course of history will be affected.