The last Roar

To understand the genesis of the German offensive in the Ardennes it is necessary to make a footstep back in the time and to pass from December 1944, month when it had begun, to the autumn of the same year. In September 1944 the allies, finally gone out of the knapsacks in which they had been forced since the landing in Normandy, thanks to their aerial superiority and the great mobility of the land troops, had rocketed to the top toward Nazi Germany. On September 1st, the Canadians had conquered the city of Dieppe, where in 1942 many their fellow compatriots had lost life in a first useless landing on the French coasts. On 2nd of the same month, English cross the Belgian frontier and they advanced up to Tournai and the following day they make a triumphal entry in the capital Bruxelles. On 5th in South they arrive up to Sedan, while the American army under the push of the general Patton freed Nancy and on the day 6th the 1st American Army reached the line Tirlemont-Namur and subsequently the channel Albt. In only a week the allies regained all the territories gotten by Germany during the country of France.

However, behind the marvelous victories a particularly insidious danger was hidden. Firstly, the fact to have widened the front from the Channel up to the border with Switzerland it owed to involve an efficient service of communications and provisioning. It was initially guaranteed by the so-called “Red Bail Highway” a road that took the name from the red circle that countersigned it on the papers of the Headquarters. Constituted by an ascending line that passed through Saint-Lo, Argentan, Dreux, Versailles and from a descendant that crossed Fontaine-bleu, Chartres and Alençon to return to Saint-Lo, it was kept clear all the day so that a long snake of trucks, which continually crossed it to a distance of twenty meters the one from the other one, could bring their load of fuel to destination. With this shuttle, the allies succeeded in delivering a quantity equal to 12.000 daily tons. A most notable figure if it would have not been for the insatiable thirst of the allied tanks that they pretended at least 25.0 of it to continue in the advance.

It was clear that the key to resolve the problem had to be the port of Antwerp. Taken practically intact in its infrastructures, it had a commercial ability of 80.000-100.000 tons a day. Its reactivation would have resolved every difficulty. To prevent it there was the German occupation of the mouths of the Schelda, forced passage for coming into the port. General Montgomery unlike the prudent actions that he had always supported either in Africa either in Italy, was the representative of a very hazardous plan. Denominated operation “Market Garden”, it consisted in the conquest of the zone of Arnhem and Nimega with the consequent encirclement of the German army that occupied the belt surrounding Antwerp. The success of the mission was entrusted in maximum part to airborne troops that would have had to hold the key positions around Arnhem until arrive from south of the armored divisions. The plan was theoretically possible and, if it would have been realized, it had shorten the war of months. Unfortunately, “Market Garden” became one of the biggest failures of the allies.

Failed the passage of the Rhine, the allies were forced to mark the footstep. The nature also seemed adverse to the western powers. Big rains blew up the rivers that became real lines of defense along which German strengths started to reorganize them. On the moral point of view, it started to glimpse an inversion of tendency. While after the defeats consequent to the landing in Normandy the Germans had almost stopped fighting and their adversaries continued on the wings of the enthusiasm, after the defeat of Arnhem there was the contrary effect. Germany became conscious that it was fighting for its own survival and it was seized with tenacity and the strength of the desperation to every edge of its territory. On the other front, above all English had a bending in their war effort. Already since September 1st, the first V2 had started to rain on London. These weapons were long distance guided supersonic bombs that had their bases of departure in the zone of the Schelda that the allies wanted to free. The disaer happened on the Rhine let fall into discouragement the civil population of England that after having been deceived with a fast end of the hostilities, it opened the eyes in front of the reality of a war that lasted by now from five years and it still didn't let foresee its conclusion. After all, even in the freed territories the situation was less difficult.

Once France have seen running away the occupant, it had considered concluded the war and few wanted to keep on fighting a war that they did not feel theirs anymore. In Italy, life was even more tragic. According to Pietro Nenni's words, “The tissue of the society is decomposed”. Prostitution, black market and the theft spread in our country. Conditions in the allied countries were not better. In Canada, the increase of the quota of young people called to the weapons with the obligatory conscription provoked some popular revolts. In the United States, the delay of the reentry of the troops from Europe estimated for Christmas caused a wide bad mood thaalso reflected on the war production. The relationships with the Soviet Union were becoming harder and harder because of the revolt of the communists in Greece that was harshly repressed by English.

Now in the middle of all these difficulties, in the months of October and November of 1944 the high allied commands succeeded in getting what had been only grazed in September: the complete liberation of the mouths of the Schelda. It is reasonable to affirm that it was from the loss of this fundamental strategic position that started to delineate a counterattack, which brought the Germans on the shores of the Channel. Since half October, Hitler had required to the OKW (Ober Kommand Wehrmacht, Superior Command of the Armed Strengths) the preparation of a series of counteroffensives on the western front. Although the oriental front had a superior precariousness, the Nazi leader has never resigned to be defeated in front of the western powers. The motives for this stubbornness are not well clear. Hitler continued to affirm that the strength of the Red Army was only fictitious and well soon it would be crumbled under the effort, which it tried to bring ahead. He would have repeated it even when the Russian trooppenetrated in the district of Spandau in Berlin. Now also granting these visionaries boldness to a commander maniacally marked by the attentat of the preceding July, it is amazing to ascertain that he has made show of a last lightning of genius to oppose allied strengths in Western Europe and not to prevent that the strengths of Moscow were appropriated of Western Germany. Which were the reasons, it owes to recognize the paternity of the action of the Ardennes to Hitler. Although passed to the history as “offensive Von Rundstedt”, the old general of the Reich had well few to do with the real genesis of the plan. As remembered above, Hitler pretended from his submitted an attack in great style for that winter, but everything what was submitted to him was only operations with objective limited in the time and in the space, nothing similar to what was passing in the mind of the Führer.

Also not throwing back completely the plans that were proposed him, he would have liked to get the files of war of 4th and the 12th army during the 1940 France Campaign. They were the two armies that had effected the staving in of Sedan crossing the Ardennes. Unfortunately for him, these important documents had gone lost during an aerial bombardment. Openly challenging the fate, which once again was shown adverse to him, Hitler prepared himself to put again hand to the whole planning of the attack, with the bad concealed hope to repeat the successes of the beginning of the war. With a paranoiac behavior he held to the dark his own generals, often charging them with cowardliness and defeatism, replacing them in some cases with his faithful adjutant as Himmler and Dietrich. Inevitably, the move from the front of the good troops was known either to the German general either to the Allies. On October 24th, he decided to warn at least the commanders of the western front: Von Rundstedt and Model. Hitler's expectatns are disarming in the ingenuity that show. He affirmed that the allies have worn out by the fights that they have brought ahead since the summer and that only preventing the reopening of the port of Antwerp, the Germans can take advantage of it, so much more than according to him, the oriental front would have been stabilized, allowing to deprive it of some armored divisions.

The operation must be conducted by the Armed Corp B commanded by Model with the addition of thirty divisions withdrawn by the oriental front. The declared objective is one and only one: Antwerp! Either Model either Rundstedt was conscious of the material impossibility to bring to conclusion what he pretended from them. If it was true that the allies have logistic difficulty and of provisioning and that they hold a front of 700 Kms with only 70 divisions, it is also sure that the German troops have suffered more and a standstill of the fights of few days cannot serve to regain strengths in time. There was also the situation of the wamaterial that, even if produced by the industries of the Reich in impressive quantity despite the imposing daily bombardments, found insurmountable difficulty to arrive to the troops on the front. Hitler did not want to hear reasons, he has foreseen the beginning of the attack on November 26th and it pretended that the schedule of march is respected.

To save for the moment his general bad weather came that prevents with torrential rains the movements of the troops. Model has so the possibility to formulate an alternative to the original plan. Instead of proceeding up to Antwerp, impossible thing at the moment, he proposed to stay around Aix-la-Chapelle, before the Mouse, in way to surround and to destroy the American troops displaced in that zone, few more than twenty divisions. This would bring the armies of the Reich in a position of strength from which they could go on attacking in direction of Antwerp. Tactically simpler and strategically valuable, the plan of Model has only a small, but meaningful defect: it is not pleasant to Hitler. He defines it a "halbe Lösung", a half solution, nothing more than a diversion. Antwerp will remain the solo result of the joined military effort of the German armed strengths. Once he annihilated the hesitations on the concrete possibilities of result of the action, it did not stay that to obey. The moral of the soldis of the Wehrmacht is high. In maximum part they are young, twenty years old is the average, fresh recalled for making up for the big losses of that year. It is promised them a new 1940 and to regain Paris. Many of them believed it, but the veterans knew that they do not have anymore in front of them the routed French army and the climatic conditions were not those of the summer of four years earlier. The movements started in the night between December 15th and 16th. The busy German men will be about 250.000 with 970 tanks and a support of 1500 airplanes. A similar grouping of means had not been enough to break the front if there would have casually been a certain allied negligence.

In fact, the zone of 130 kms on which the first attack would have fallen, was well defended by 2nd, 99th, 106th, 28th and 4th American Divisions to the orders of the general Gerows and Middleton. Numerically enough to hold up the assault, the American troops, however, are displaced badly on the territory and the soldiers have quietly abandoned themselves in the softness of the rear areas because of the lack of contact with the enemy. Skirmishes of the imminent German movement could be found in the detachment of different departments of selected troops in the zone of the Ardennes, in the continuous and useless flyover on the American lines by air scouts that consume their precious gasoline to cover the noise of the armored columns in approach. Every warning is allowed to fall and the morning on December 16th the movement in mass of the strengths of the Wehrmacht is a real surprise for the Americans. The general Bradley is not even to the front being in that instant in the far Versailles. Additionally to this itial unpreparedness, there also was an extreme undervaluation of the course of the offensive. On the beginning, it is considered nothing more than an operation of lightening in sight of the definitive entrenchment for the winter. Only on December 16th forenoon the high allied command had a correct vision, enough to push it to throw in the fray all the armored troops that it had to disposition.

On the German slope, it had been foreseen that General Dietrich was the point of diamond of the penetration going to strike the front of the Mouse to get ready to reach Antwerp. The forecasts of the general of the OKW became immediately exact. The Americans withdraw under the push of the panzer divisionen but the frozen and covered by the snow ground transformed the walk in a "Via Crucis". Already for the day 17th it was clear that neither the Mouse nor Antwerp could be reached. Stopped on the most important part of the front, the offensive of the Ardennes got unexpected successes in a zone less important according to the initial directives, but equally remarkable under the strategic profile. In the night between December 17th and 18th, the 2nd armored division and the famous “Panzer Lehr” proceeded expeditiously in direction of Bastogne. The Belgian town was an essential crossroad in the allied communications, constituting the backbone of the connections between east and west.

Despite the vital knot that was threatened, in the allied command the confusion still reigned. On 17th, Bradley without warning the general Patton as directed commander, decided to detach the Command Combat B of the 4th armored division to the VIII Corp already engaged around Bastogne. The city was garrisoned by the 101st airborne Division to the orders of General Brigadier McAuliffe, the only big reserve unity that could have hocked in the moment of the emergency. The detachment of the CCB had to serve as provisional tactical support waiting helps from the rear areas. The CCB commander Albin Irzik was unaware witness of the beginning and conclusion of the encirclement of Bastogne. On 18th he arrived around ten kilometers from the agglomeration. There, he received the order to send a strong detachment to its inside. The squad was composed by two armored companies and by a battalion of field artillery. Denominated “Task Force Ezell” from the name of the captain that conducted it, the squad did not have difficulty to penetrate in the cityFew hours after that unexpected reinforcement, the Brig. Gen. McAuliffe had to renounce to it. Behind order of the direct superior, General Dager, Irzik had summoned to Ezell to return on his own footsteps and to rejoin with the CCB that had to withdraw near Arlon. In the inverse journey, the Task Force had the opportunity to come upon in strange events that pointed out the proximity of the enemy. For example, a whole column of American trucks had been destroyed by hits of big caliber referable to tanks type Tiger, whose imprints in the frozen mud were found again to less than two kilometers from the first houses of Bastogne. Secondarily, different pieces of American artillery were found abandoned along the road as if the personal had run away in front of the sight of German tanks. Arrived healthy and salute to the rejoining with the CCB, this complied to the order of reaching the zone of Arlon-Leglise.

Only later, they would have discovered to have passed through the meshes of the German advance. The tanks of the Reich had jumped ahead so quickly that the infantry that followed them had not succeeded in maintaining the contact. This had allowed the CCB to cross the unstable front without shooting a hit. The fortunate event was mainly due to the impossibility for Manteuffel, the German general responsible of the sector, to besiege the city and contemporarily to maintain the contact with the left side of Dietrich. The refolding of the CCB would have proven then fundamental in the liberation of the besieged him, but we do not want to anticipate the times. From the episode of the small group of the 4th Division, the allied command had drawn some important confirmations. They now knew that the Germans were being moved along the same roads that had crossed in 1940 and this was well, since to know the position of the enemy is fundamental part to be able to baste a counteroffensive. At the same time, however, they missed enough strength to strike the still frayed German lines. On December 19th near Verdun, it took place the fundamental reunion among the allied generals to determine what to do before the situation fell.

The gravity of the moment is underlined by the presence of all the generals of the supreme general allied command among which: Eisenhower, Tedder, Bradley, Devers, Patton. The bases were thrown for an immediate answer to the German offensive and Patton had the most serious assignment. Of extremely impetuous character, the general of the 4th Division had discovered only in a second moment, as we see in his memories "War as I have known it", of the CCB's detachment according to an order of Bradley. It is ' behind his initiative that that department was let withdraw up to Arlon and only for a fortunate coincidence, that movement it would have revealed the key of vault of the new allied plan. In fact, to Patton it is asked during the reunion of Verdun to prepare an attack to free Bastogne with at least six divisions. The answer of the fiery commander was that he would have been able to effect it already on December 22nd, but only with three divisions. He thought, with reason, that the time more than the number w important. Striking the advance of the Wehrmacht when it had not yet stabilized its own front is considered an absolute priority.

Nevertheless, what does it let think with so much safety to Patton to be able to win the clash? It was really the retreat of the CCB that crossing the German lines regaining the allied zone that confirmed his thought: the hostile divisions didn't maintain the contact among them. Additionally, having avoided that the CCB ended in the sack of Bastogne, Patton can keep his promise to attack on day 22nd with all the available strengths. Without the armored unity that so much had risked for a series of incomprehensible orders, the American answer would have attended for days granting the necessary time to the Germans to consolidate the positions laboriously reached. An ulterior fact of relief happened on December 20th. Eisenhower conferred the command of 1st and 4th American Armies to Montgomery. The English, returned prudent after the Dutch defeat, used the 30th British Corp to garron the passages of the Mouse setting an impassable obstacle for the troops of the Reich. The men of the 101st Airborne are exhausted, but although completely encircled, they constantly refuse to surrender, also behind magnanimous offer of the Germans. The aerial restocking are almost entirely prevented by the adverse meteorological conditions and the winter cold also touched record points for continental Europe. The only factor of advantage for this desperate resistance consisted in the fact that the same difficulties wee afflicting the assailants.

On December 22nd, Patton began what promised, pushing in the fray the armored divisions 4th, 26th and 80th. For the whole day the attacks result fruitless and only the next day with the amelioration of the weather and the tactical support of the aviation, he was able to regain some lost ground. On December 26th, the besieged were finally reached by the vanguards of the 4th Division. The same men that had risked to be encircled effected the liberation of besieged city! The decontrol of the town did not involve the end of the battle of the Ardennes, but it meant the loss of initiative for the Wehrmacht. Rundstedt and Model already before Christmas had asked to withdraw behind the line Sigfrid to prevent a useless waste of human life in vain. Hitler opposed with all his strengths and, as usual, he won. In his by now evident folly, the sacrifice of 100.000 men and irreplaceable material, did not care void. He foolishly inveighed against his generals, incapable to complete an impossible plan. With the beginning othe new year the Red Army launched the final offensive reaching first the Oder and then Berlin and at that moment it would have shown the uselessness of the last roar of Germany.

Quotation from: ”A veteran of the battle of the Bulge tells the story of the 4th Armored Division's Combat Command B and the relief of the encircled city” by the General of Brigade Albin F. Irzik, “World War II” by Raymond Cartier.

Beginning of Page