Posted on 12/17/2004 6:57:45 AM PST by timtoews5292004
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- After 58 years of marriage, Lyle Bouck and his wife, Lucy, are still helping each other down the front walk.
"I didn't think we'd live that long," laughs Lucy.
At one point, Lyle didn't even think he'd make it to the altar.
Sixty years ago, Bouck was a young, whip-smart lieutenant, commanding a U.S. Army intelligence and reconnaissance platoon made up of 18 elite soldiers -- the eyes and ears of a fragmented Allied force pushing through Belgium toward the German border.
By mid-December 1944, they had just about reached the border. But there was a huge gap in the front lines, and Bouck's platoon was ordered to plug an isolated stretch of it, on a hill.
"We weren't trained to occupy a defensive position in the front lines. We were trained to patrol and get information about the enemy," says Bouck.
But the enemy found them.
On December 16, a huge column of German paratroopers got wind of Bouck's platoon, dug in on that hill......
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
Not to take anything away from the story, but the Germans would have lost this battle and the war pretty much no matter what - ie - changes in the beginning of the battle (that went even better for the Germans) would not have significantly changed the outcome in the end.
The Germans threw some 700 men, in three waves, at Lyle Bouck and 17 other Americans.
The GIs had their orders.
"They were told to hold at all costs. Basically that meant 'until you get killed or taken prisoner,'" says Alex Kershaw, whose new book, "The Longest Winter," recounts the story of Bouck's platoon.
But by day's end, hundreds of Germans were dead.
Some Americans were badly wounded, but not one was killed, and they were captured only when they ran out of ammunition.
While he was interrogated inside a house nearby, Lyle Bouck watched a clock strike midnight. At that moment, he turned 21 years old -- and thought of what an aunt had told him years earlier.
"She had said if you live to be 21, you're going to have a good life. I guess ... that was significant," says Bouck.
Bouck and his men didn't realize they had been among the first Americans to confront Germany's desperate final offensive of the war: the Battle of the Bulge.
"Had they not stood and held the Germans and halted their attack, or rather postponed it for a crucial 24 hours, the Battle of the Bulge would have been a great German victory," says Kershaw.
Instead the Allies re-grouped, subdued the Germans and pushed to Berlin.
Bouck and his men spent four months in freezing, disease-infested prison camps -- and were near death when their own Army division freed them.
After he was liberated, Lyle Bouck was too weak physically to file a combat report -- and not of the mind to do it. The 21-year-old hero simply didn't think he'd done anything extraordinary.
"We were in those foxholes and ... what we did was to defend ourselves and try to live through it," says Bouck.
Bouck says he still has no idea why those German paratroopers didn't kill him and his men after their capture.
Alex Kershaw has an idea.
"The paratroopers said, and others have said since, 'We had too much respect for you. We put ourselves in your position and imagine what we would have done: 18 guys, massively outnumbered. You fought like lions,'" says Kershaw.
Sixty years later, an old lion can laugh about it.
If it weren't for units like this and the 101st the battle easily could have been lost as for the war that was a done deal.
A pair of balls and an M1 Garand are a tough combo to beat. The Garand in 30.06 caliber is an extremely accurate and deadly weapon. It was the finest combat weapon of its' time.
Well, if you mean entire US division just "melted away" and the entire US Army airforce just "refused to fly" and the Germans founds large stockpiles of petrol just for the taking - yes - you would have a point.
I disagree. The Germans could have won this battle. Yes, it was a longshot, but they still could have won. Despite being surprised, the Allies to their credit improvised quite quickly.
There is a very good account of Lyle Bouck and his men in "Citizen Soldiers" by the late Steven Ambrose.
It is a debate. I have studied the battle somewhat in depth.
The reserves of the allies was incredible. Even if the Germans achieved all their objectives, they would have been crushed. The Germans just didn't have the supply and units available to hold the ground they would have taken for any amount of time.
And Hitler knew it. The object of the offensive for the Germans was to split the allies. Even he had no illusions of destroying them or retaking France or other Nazi occupied countries.
I think that's about right. They needed fuel and even if Henry Fonda did not save the day {:-), the Germans could not control the supply lines with our air power. They were burning charcoal to propel their trucks. Maybe they were hoping for some kind of a stalemate before we crossed the Rhine so they could focus on Russia. Victory they were not going to get.
Bump for later.
The reserves of the allies was incredible. Even if the Germans achieved all their objectives, they would have been crushed. The Germans just didn't have the supply and units available to hold the ground they would have taken for any amount of time. And Hitler knew it. The object of the offensive for the Germans was to split the allies. Even he had no illusions of destroying them or retaking France or other Nazi occupied countries.
You are correct, sir! KAYOOOO!!! The Allies at absolute air supremacy at that point and as soon as the weather cleared, the Germans found out just how critical that was. The supply lines were also extremely over-extended due to the speed of their advance (they were victims of their own success), dangerous even in bad weather, and with all that air power chomping at the bit to unleash hell, running any sort of column -- supply or armored -- was pure suicide when the sun finally broke through. As you said, even drug-addled Hitler had no illusions about what he could accomplish. His hope was to -- a'la Zarqawi and the Baathists today -- give the Allies a bloody enough nose that the constituents back home would cause enough of an uproar that they would be forced to sue for peace. Which would allow Hitler to concentrate all his forces on the Eastern Front. The Japanese had similar hopes for the Battle of Leyte Gulf.
I'm shocked that CNN didn't report on the scandalous side of this epic fight. I have it on the highest authority that this scout platoons jeeps were unarmored!
And don't forget the massive intelligence failure to discover "Operation Watch on the Rhine" before the German armor started rolling!
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