Jan 30, 2020  Battle of the Bulge Map Official U.S. Army illustration: The “Front lines” map (indicated by the solid and dashed blue lines) showing the swelling of the Bulge as the German offensive progressed east to west creating the nose-like bulge shape (salient) during 16–26 December 1944. Who Were the Commanders During the Battle of the Bulge? Battle of the Bulge - WW2 Timeline (December 16th, 1944 - January 25th, 1945) In one final, desperate gamble of the war, Hitler enacted his Ardennes Offensive and drove a wedge into the Allied lines towards Antwerp - but little else came from the initiative.

UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

The European Theater of Operations

THE ARDENNES:
BATTLE OF THE BULGE

by
Hugh M. Cole

OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF MILITARY HISTORY
DEPARTMENT OF THE ARMY
WASHINGTON, D.C., 1965

This volume, one of the series UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II, is the eighth to be published in the subseries, THE EUROPEAN THEATER OF OPERATIONS. The volumes in the overall series will be closely related and will present a comprehensive account of the activities of the Military Establishment during World War II.

Library of Congress Catalog Number: 65-60001

(For sale by the Superintendent of Documents,
U.S. Government Printing Office,
Washington, DC, 20402)

UNITED STATES ARMY IN WORLD WAR II

Stetson Conn, General Editor

Advisory Committee
(As of 1 July 1964)

Fred C. Cole Washington and Lee University	Lt. Gen. August Schomburg Industrial College of the Armed Forces
Maj. Gen. Hugh M. Exton US Continental Army Command
Brig. Gen. Ward S. Ryan US Army War College
Brig. Gen. Elias C. Townsend US Army Command and General Staff College

Lt. Col. Thomas E. Griess United States Military Academy

Office of the Chief of Military History
Brig. Gen. Hal. C. Pattison, Chief of Military History

Chief Historian	Stetson Conn
Chief, Histories Division	Col. Albert W. Jones
Chief, Editorial and Graphics Division	Col. Walter B. McKenzie
Editor in Chief	Joseph R. Friedman

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..to Those Who Served

Table of Contents

vii
THE AUTHOR
PREFACE	xi

Chapter

I. THE ORIGINS	1
....Hitler's Perspective, September 1944
....How the Plan Was Born	9
II. PLANNING THE COUNTEROFFENSIVE
....Details of the Plan	19
....The Big Solution
....A Double Envelopment?	29
III. TROOPS AND TERRAIN
....The Order of Battle	33
....The Allies Return to the Attack
....The Terrain	39
IV. PREPARATIONS
....Deception and Camouflage	48
....The Western Front in Early December
....The Intelligence Failure	56
....The German Concentration
V. THE SIXTH PANZER ARMY ATTACK	75
....The 99th Division Sector
....The Initial Attack, 16 December	80
....The First Attacks in the Monschau-Höfen Sector Are Repulsed, 16 December
....The German Effort Continues, 17-18 December	90
....Losheimergraben Is Lost
....The German Attack Toward Rocherath and Krinkelt, 16-17 December	95
....The 395th Infantry Conforms to the Withdrawal
....The 2d Division Gives Up the Wahlerscheid Attack	103
....The 394th Infantry Abandons the Mürringen Position
VI. THE GERMAN NORTHERN SHOULDER IS JAMMED	107
....The 2d Division Withdraws
....The 1st Infantry Division Sends Reinforcements to Butgenbach	112
....The Defense of the Twin Villages, 18 December
....The Last Attack at Höfen Fails, 18 December	119
....The 2d Division Withdraws to the Elsenborn Line, 19 December
....The Enemy Tries the Western Flank, 19-23 December	128
VII. BREAKTHROUGH AT THE SCHNEE EIFEL
....Introductory Note	136
....Dispositions of the 106th Infantry Division
....Enemy Preparations for Another Cannae	142
....The Attack in the Losheim Gap
....The Attack Hits the 106th Division	151
....The 424th Infantry and CCB, 9th Armored
....Cannae in the Schnee Eifel	161
....The Question of Air Resupply
VIII. THE FIFTH PANZER ARMY ATTACKS THE 28TH INFANTRY DIVISION	173
....The 110th Infantry Sector, 16-18 December
....The 112th Infantry Sector, 16-20 December	193
....The Fall of Wiltz
IX. THE ATTACK BY THE GERMAN LEFT WING: 16-20 DECEMBER	212
....The 109th Infantry Defense on the Sauer and Our Rivers, 16-20 December
....Elements of the 9th Armored Division Battle at the Sauer, 16-20 December	227
X. THE GERMAN SOUTHERN SHOULDER IS JAMMED
....The German Thrust Begins	240
....Southern Flank-A Summing Up
XI. THE 1ST SS PANZER DIVISION'S DASH WESTWARD, AND OPERATION GREIF	259
....Kampfgruppe Peiper on the Move
....Operation Greif	269
XII. THE FIRST ATTACKS AT ST. VITH
....The 7th Armored Division Move to St. Vith	273
....The Enemy Strikes at the St. Vith Perimeter
XIII. VIII CORPS ATTEMPTS TO DELAY THE ENEMY	294
....CCR, 9th Armored Division, and the Road to Bastogne
....The Advance of the XLVII Panzer Corps	298
....Team Cherry on the Longvilly Road
....The 101st Airborne Division Moves Into Bastogne	305
XIV. THE VII CORPS BARRIER LINES
....Middleton's First Moves	311
....The Gap North of Bastogne
....Defense Southwest of Bastogne	322
....Renewed Drive Around Bastogne
XV. THE GERMAN SALIENT EXPANDS TO THE WEST	330
....The 30th Division Meets Peiper
....The West Flank of the XVIII Airborne Corps, 20 December	352
....Action in Front of the XVIII Airborne Corps Right Wing, 20 December
....The Net Closes on Peiper	359
XVI. ONE THREAT SUBSIDES; ANOTHER EMERGES
....The Attempt To Relieve Peiper's Kampfgruppe	368
....The 3d Armored Division Is Checked, 21-23 December
....The Fight at the Baraque de Fraiture Crossroads, 23 December	388
XVII. ST. VITH IS LOST
....The Defenders of St. Vith Pass to the XVIII Airborne Corps	393
....The Enemy Closes on the St. Vith Salient
....The Final Withdrawal From the St. Vith Sector	407
XVIII. THE VII CORPS MOVES TO BLUNT THE SALIENT
....Division of the Battlefield	423
....The VII Corps Assembles
....German Armor Advances on the VII Corps	435
....The Main Battle is Joined, 24 and 25 December
XIX. THE BATTLE OF BASTOGNE	445
....The Initial Deployment East of Bastogne
....Bastogne is Encircled	459
....The Enemy Begins a Concentric Attack
....The Battle on Christmas Day	478
XX. THE XII CORPS ATTACKS THE SOUTHERN SHOULDER
....The End of the Defensive Battle, 22 December	482
....The XII Corps Moves to Luxembourg
....The XII Corps' Counterattack	489
XXI. THE III CORPS' COUNTERATTACK TOWARD BASTOGNE
....Preparations for the Attack	509
....The Ezell Task Force
....'Drive Like Hell'	515
....The 80th Division Advance
....The 26th Infantry Division Attack	520
....The 4th Armored Division Attack
....The 80th Division Battle in the Woods, 25-26 December	532
....The 26th Division Fight for a Bridgehead on the Sure, 24-27 December
....The 4th Armored Division Reaches Bastogne	547
XXII. THE BATTLE BEFORE THE MEUSE
....The Meuse River Line	556
....The Meuse Seems Within Reach
....The Celles Pocket	565
....The Fight at Humain
....The Fight at Verdenne	574
XXIII. THE BATTLE BETWEEN THE SALM AND THE OURTHE: 24 DECEMBER-2 JANUARY
....The Battle at the Manhay Crossroads	583
....The Fight in the Aisne Valley
....The 2d SS Panzer is Halted	595
....The 82d Airborne Withdraws From the Salm River Line
....'The Sad Sack Affair'	601
....The Elsenborn Shoulder
XXIV. THE THIRD ARMY OFFENSIVE	606
....Widening the Bastogne Corridor
....The Opposing Grand Tactics	610
....The Sibret-Villeroux Actions
....The Two Attacks Collide	617
....The Forces and the Plans
....The Contact	619
....The III Corps Joins the Attack
....The Lone Battle of the 26th Division	637
....The VIII Corps' Attack Continues
XXV. EPILOGUE	649
....The Weather
....The Opposing Troops Strengths	650
....The Opposing Weapons
....The Artillery Arm in the Ardennes	656
....The Air Weapon
....Logistics	663
....The Turning Point in the Ardennes
....The Place of the Ardennes Offensive in World War II	673

Page

A. TABLE OF EQUIVALENT RANKS
B. RECIPIENTS OF THE DISTINGUISHED SERVICE CROSS	678

BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
GLOSSARY	682
BASIC MILITARY MAP SYMBOLS

Maps

1. The Western Front, 15 December 1944	52
2. The XVII Airborne Corps Meets Kampfgruppe Peiper, 20-25 December 1944
3. The XVIII Airborne Corps West Flank, 20 December 1944	355
4. Bastogne, 25-26 December 1944
I. The Ardennes Counteroffensive: The German Plan, December 1944
II. The Sixth Panzer Army Attack, 16-19 December 1944
III. The LXVI Corps Attacks the 106th Infantry Division, 16-19 December 1944
IV. The Fifth Panzer Army Attacks the 28th Infantry Division, 16-19 December 1944
V. The Seventh Army Attack, 16-19 December 1944
VI. Bastogne, 19-23 December 1944
VII. The XVIII Airborne Corps Sector, 21-23 December 1944
VIII. Between the Salm and the Meuse, 24-27 December 1944
IX. The Southern Shoulder, 22-26 December 1944
X. Widening the Bastogne Corridor, 24 December 1944-2 January 1945

Illustrations

Adolf Hitler	2
Generaloberst Alfred Jodl
Generalfeldmarschall Gerd von Rundstedt	23
Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model
Noville and Stolzemberg	41
Lt. Gen. Bradley, Air Chief Marshall Tedder, General Eisenhower, and Field Marshal Montgomery
Maj. Gen. Troy H. Middleton	55
Panther Tanks on the Way to the Front
Generaloberst der Waffen-SS Joseph Dietrich	76
Snow Scene Near Krinkelt
Losheimergraben	84
Constructing a Winterized Squad Hut
Camouflaged Pillbox Serving as Command Post	100
Maj. Gen. Leonard T. Gerow
2d Division Infantrymen on the March	108
26th Infantry Area Near Butgenbach
Captured German Tank Crewman	118
99th Infantry Division Vehicles Moving Through Wirtzfeld
Gun Positions on Elsenborn Ridge	124
Wrecked German Tank Showing 'Bazooka Pants'
American Prisoners	169
General der Panzertruppen Hasso von Manteuffel
General der Panzertruppen Heinrich F. Leuttwitz	174
German Troops Passing Abandoned American Equipment
Clerf	189
Ouren, Showing Bridges
Wiltz	210
Ettelbruck
Cave Refuge for Civilians	227
Wallendorf
Belgian Woman Salvaging Burned Grain	233
Breitweiler
Lt. Gen. Courtney H. Hodges	259
Kampfgruppe Peiper
Massacred American Soldiers Near Malmédy	263
Traffic Jam in St. Vith Area
Railroad Yards at Gouvy	287
Antitank Gunners Guarding a Crossing, Vielsalm
Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe	306
Paratroopers of 101st Airborne Near Bastogne
La Roche and the Ourthe River	314
Combat Engineer Setting a Charge
Amblève River Bridge at Stavelot	338
Maj. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway and Maj. Gen. James M. Gavin
346
Stoumont
Mined Bridge at Malmédy	360
German Tank Disguised as an American Tank
105-mm. Howitzers M7 in Action Near La Gleize	375
Baraque de Fraiture
St. Vith	394
Chérain
Tanks of the 7th Armored Division Near St. Vith	408
Car Bearing General Bradley Fords a Belgian River
Maj. Gen. J. Lawton Collins, Field Marshal Montgomery, and General Ridgway	426
Hotton
MP's Checking Vehicles Near Marche	432
Captured German 88-mm. Gun
Bastogne	446
Casualties in an Improvised Emergency Ward
Supply by Air	469
A Bastogne Street After Luftwaffe Bombardment
Maj. Gen. Manton S. Eddy	485
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, Jr.
5th Infantry Division Troops Moving Toward the Front	491
A White Phosphorus Burst
Scheidgen	498
White-Clad 11th Infantry Troops Attack Toward Haller
Müllerthal	502
Berdorf
Maj. Gen. John Millikin	510
Heiderscheidergrund Bridge
Watching a Dogfight Between American and Luftwaffe Planes	527
4th Armored Division Rolling Toward Chaumont
Esch-sur-Sure	547
American Troops in Tintange
German Prisoners Carrying Wounded	550
British Tank Patrolling the Meuse at Namur
Civilian Refugees at Dinant Bridge	562
Marche
2d Armored Division Infantrymen Moving to New Positions	573
Prime Mover Towing 8-Inch Howitzer
Manhay Crossroads	584
Elements of 3d Armored Division Advancing Near Manhay
Troops of the 84th Infantry Division Digging In	588
Destruction of Grandménil
Supplies Moving Through Bastogne	608
Massed Half-Tracks
35th Infantry Division Machine Gunners	624
Bed Sheets Used as Camouflage
6th Armored Division Tanks in Snowstorm	634
Medics Removing Casualties, Lutrebois
A Town En Route to Kaundorf	639

All illustrations are from Department of Defense files, with the exception of the photograph on page 76 (General Dietrich) reproduced through the courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency, and the one on page 174 (General von Luettwitz), taken from captured German records in the National Archives.

Foreword

During most of the eleven months between D-day and V-E day in Europe, the U S Army was carrying on highly successful offensive operations As a consequence, the American soldier was buoyed with success, imbued with the idea that his enemy could not strike him a really heavy counterblow, and sustained by the conviction that the war was nearly won. Then, unbelievably, and under the goad of Hitler's fanaticism, the German Army launched its powerful counteroffensive in the Ardennes in December 1944 with the design of knifing through the Allied armies and forcing a negotiated peace The mettle of the American soldier was tested in the fires of adversity and the quality of his response earned for him the right to stand shoulder to shoulder with his forebears of Valley Forge, Fredericksburg, and the Marne.

This is the story of how the Germans planned and executed their offensive. It is the story of how the high command, American and British, reacted to defeat the German plan once the reality of a German offensive was accepted. But most of all it is the story of the American fighting man and the manner in which he fought a myriad of small defensive battles until the torrent of the German attack was slowed and diverted, its force dissipated and finally spent. It is the story of squads, platoons, companies, and even conglomerate scratch groups that fought with courage, with fortitude, with sheer obstinacy, often without information or communications or the knowledge of the whereabouts of friends. In less than a fortnight the enemy was stopped and the Americans were preparing to resume the offensive. While Bastogne has become the symbol of this obstinate, gallant, and successful defense, this work appropriately emphasizes the crucial significance of early American success in containing the attack by holding firmly on its northern and southern shoulders and by upsetting the enemy timetable at St. Vith and a dozen lesser known but important and decisive battlefields

The hard fighting that preceded the Battle of the Bulge has been recounted in two volumes, The Siegfried Line Campaign, and Dr. Cole's own earlier work, The Lorraine Campaign. Events after it will be related in The Last Offensive, now in preparation. Two other volumes in this subseries, The Supreme Command and Logistical Support of the Armies, Volume II, are useful supplements to the Ardennes volume.

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In re-creating the Ardennes battle, the author has penetrated 'the fog of war' as well as any historian can hope to do. No other volume of this series treats as thoroughly or as well the teamwork of the combined arms-infantry and armor, artillery and air, combat engineer and tank destroyer-or portrays as vividly the starkness of small unit combat. Every thoughtful student of military history, but most especially the student of small unit tactics, should find the reading of Dr. Cole's work a rewarding experience.

Washington, DC 15 June 1964

HAL C. PATTISON Brigadier General, USA Chief of Military History

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The Author

Hugh M. Cole received his Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota in 1937 in the field of European military history. He taught military history at the University of Chicago until 1942, when he joined the Army as an intelligence officer. After graduating from the Command and General Staff School he was assigned to the staff of the Third Army during its operations in Europe. At the close of hostilities he became Deputy Theater Historian, European Theater of Operations. From 1946 to 1952 Dr. Cole directed the work of the European Theater Section, Office of the Chief of Military History, wrote The Lorraine Campaign, a volume that appeared in this series in 1950, and undertook much of the work that has culminated in this volume on the Ardennes Campaign. He joined the Operations Research Office of The Johns Hopkins University in 1952 and has continued his active interest in military history and his service to the Army both as a scholar and as colonel in the US Army Reserve.

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Preface

This volume deals with the crucial period of the campaign conducted in the Belgian Ardennes and Luxembourg, generally known as the Battle of the Bulge. Although the German planning described herein antedates the opening gun by several weeks, the story of the combat operations begins on 16 December 1944. By 3 January 1945 the German counteroffensive was at an end, and on that date the Allies commenced an attack that would take them across the Rhine and into Germany. The last phase of operations in the Ardennes, therefore, is properly part and parcel of the final Allied offensive in Europe, and so the course of battle beginning on 3 January 1945 is described in another and final volume of this subseries.

The problem of the level of treatment is always difficult in the organization and writing of the general staff type of history, which is the design of this volume. In describing a war of movement, the solution usually has been to concentrate on tactical units smaller than those normally treated when the war of position obtains. Thus the French General Staff history of the summer offensive in 1918 abruptly descends from the army corps to the regiment as the appropriate tactical unit to be traced through this period of mobile operations. The story of the Ardennes Campaign is even more difficult to organize because of the disappearance, in the first hours, of a homogeneous front. Churchill's dictum that the historian's task is 'to allot proportion to human events' applies in this instance, although there are limits to the amount of expansion or contraction permissible. Thus the reader is introduced on 16 December 1944 to battles fought by companies and platoons because they are meaningful and because the relative importance of these actions is as great as operations conducted by regiments or even divisions later in the story. As the American front congeals and a larger measure of tactical control is regained, the narrative follows battalions, then regiments, and then divisions. The building blocks, however, are the battalion and the regiment. In US Army practice during the war in western Europe, the battalion was in organization and doctrine the basic unit, with both tactical and administrative functions. The regiment, in turn when organized as a regimental combat team was the basic maneuver element combining the arms and having staying power. Also, the regiment was the lowest infantry unit to have a name and a history with which the soldier could, and did, identify himself.

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The Ardennes battle normally was 'fought,' in the sense of exercising decisive command and directing operations, by the corps commander. The span of tactical control in these widely dispersed actions simply was beyond the physical grasp of higher commanders. These higher commanders could 'influence' the battle only by outlining (in very general terms) the scheme of maneuver, allocating reserves, and exercising whatever moral suasion they personally could bring to bear. In other words, 'tactics came before strategy,' as Ludendorff wrote of the March offensive in 1918.

For the early days of the Ardennes Campaign the narrative opens each successive stage of the account by a look at the enemy side of the hill. This, in fact, is mandatory if the story is to have cohesion and meaning because the Germans possessed the initiative and because the American forces were simply reacting to the enemy maneuvers. The account in later chapters shifts to the American camp in accordance with the measure to which the American forces had regained operational freedom.

This volume represents the most exhaustive collection of personal memoirs by leading participants ever attempted for a general staff history of a major campaign. The memoirs take two forms: interviews with American participants shortly after the action described, and written accounts prepared immediately after the end of World War II by the German officers who took part in the Ardennes Campaign. The use of the combat interview in the European Theater of Operations was organized by Col. William A. Ganoe, theater historian, but the specific initiation of an intensive effort to cover the Ardennes story while the battle itself was in progress must be credited to Col. S. L. A. Marshall. The enlistment of the German participants in the Ardennes, first as involuntary then as voluntary historians, was begun by Colonel Marshall and Capt. Kenneth Hechler, then developed into a fully organized research program by Col. Harold Potter, who was assisted by a very able group of young officers, notably Captains Howard Hudson, Frank Mahin, and James Scoggins.

The story of the logistics involved in the American operations is treated at length and in perceptive fashion by Roland G. Ruppenthal, Logistical Support of the Armies, in two volumes of this subseries. In the main, therefore, the present volume confines itself to the logistical problems of the German armies. Readers interested in following the course of Allied relationships at high levels of command, and particularly the operations of Allied intelligence on the eve of the German offensive, are referred to Forrest C. Pogue's The Supreme Command, another volume in this series. Unfortunately the interest of the United States Air Forces in tactical support of ground operations was on the wane in the period after World War II and, as a result, a detailed air force history of air-ground cooperation during the battle of the Ardennes remains to be written. To introduce in full the effects of the tactical role played by Allied air power during the ground operations here described would require a volume twice the size of this

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one. I have tried, however, to keep the role of the air constantly before the reader, even though the specific actor often is anonymous.

As in my previous volume in the European subseries an attempt is made to include all awards of the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross. The reader will recognize that deeds of valor do not necessarily coincide with the focal point of a particular action, as this is selectively seen and described by the historian; so it has been necessary to relegate to the footnotes and cover in very cursory fashion many of these individual acts of gallantry.

The reader will find no reference to 'lessons learned.' This is not because the history of the Ardennes Campaign is so antique as to lack a useful application to modern military thought or planning for the future. On the contrary, the operations in the Ardennes show in real life tactical forms and formations which (in such things as dispersal, gaps between units, counterattack doctrine, widths of front, and fluidity of movement) are comparable to those taught by current Army doctrine and envisaged for the future. Nonetheless, the most valuable lessons which might be derived from the study of this campaign would lead inevitably to a consideration of special weapons effects and their impact on military operations, which in turn would result in a restrictive security classification for the volume. I hope, however that the Army service schools will find it fruitful to make the extrapolation that cannot be made here.

The maps consulted by the author were those in use at the end of 1944 They include the US Army reproductions of the maps prepared by the British Geographical Section, General Staff, in the 1: 25,000 series (G.S., G.S. 4041), the 1:50,000 series (G.S., G.S. 4040), and the 1:100,000 series (G.S., G.S. 4336 and 4416). The most useful German map proved to be the 1:200,000 Strassenkarte von Belgien, a copy of the French Michelin road map, issued to German troops as early as 1940 and, in an English version, used by American armored units. Some of the terrain in question is familiar to me, but this personal knowledge has been augmented by an extensive use of photographs. Shortly after World War II pilots of the 45th Reconnaissance Squadron, USAF, under the supervision of Maj. John C. Hatlem, flew photographic missions designated by the author, over terrain in Luxembourg and Belgium. In addition some special ground photographs were made. The total collection numbers two hundred and sixteen photographs and has proved invaluable in writing this story.

References to clock time are on the twenty-four hour system. Fortunately for the reader (and the writer), the Allies converted to British summer time on 17 September 1944 and the Germans vent back to middle European time on 2 October 1944; as a result both forces used the same clock; time in the Ardennes. Sunrise on 16 December 1944 came at 0829 and sunset occurred at 1635 (using Bastogne, Belgium, as a reference point). The brevity of daylight is an important tactical feature of this

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history, and the reader should note that dawn and dusk (morning and evening twilight) each added only thirty-eight minutes to the hours of light.

A host of participants in the Ardennes battle have answered questions posed by the author, provided personal papers, and read a part or the whole of the draft manuscript. Their assistance has been invaluable.

Although this volume took an unconscionably long while to write, my task was made much easier by the initial efforts of Captains Blair Clark, Howard Hudson, Robert Merriam, and George Tuttle, who spent several months at the close of the war in gathering the sources and preparing first drafts for a history of the Ardennes Campaign. In the Office of the Chief of Military History, Mrs. Magna Bauer, Charles V. P. von Luttichau, and Royce L. Thompson worked over a period of years in gathering data and writing research papers for use in the volume. The reader of the footnotes will obtain some slight measure of my obligation to these three.

In preparation for publication, Mr. Joseph R. Friedman, Editor in Chief, OCMH, has given this volume devoted attention, and Mrs. Loretto C. Stevens of the Editorial Branch has shepherded it through the final steps of editing. Mr. Billy C. Mossman prepared the maps, Miss Ruth A. Phillips selected the photographs, and Miss Margaret L. Emerson compiled the index.

Finally, I am indebted to my secretary, Mrs. Muriel Southwick, without whose exhortations and reminders this book might never have been completed.

For any errors of fact or flaws of interpretation that may occur in this work, the author alone is responsible.

Washington, DC 15 June 1964

HUGH M. COLE

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