Posted on 11/13/2021 10:51:18 PM PST by ammodotcom
When we think about American GIs in the European theater of World War II, much of our image comes from the Battle of the Bulge. Named so because of the distinctive "bulge" shape of the front lines, this is where so many American men laid down their lives on fields of frozen mud in France.
What Was the Battle of the Bulge?
The Battle of the Bulge was the result of Hitler's last dying gasp lashing out against the increasing pressure of the Allied forces in France. Hitler's goal was to drive a literal and metaphorical wedge between the United States and the United Kingdom.
All told, the battle was six weeks of fierce winter fighting in the forests of the Ardennes region of France. The nearly ceaseless combat took place between December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, in the bitter, freezing cold. Old Man Winter took 15,000 with trench foot, pneumonia, and frostbite.
Winston Churchill called it the most important American battle of the war. It was certainly the costliest – when all was said and done, over 100,00 American souls were left in the ground in France.
(Excerpt) Read more at ammo.com ...
My dad fought in The Battle of the Bulge and earned 2 or 3 Purple Hearts (we’re not clear on that. He has 2 medals and think the third one was lost). 26th Infantry Yankee Division. He will be 96 on December 28. He graduated from high school, enlisted and went right into boot camp. He turned 19 on the Queen Mary on his way over. He’d had a bad burn scar on his leg from a bonfire accident when he was a young boy which the doctors were going to defer him over but he insisted they not do that, saying he ran track in high school and he could handle combat and long marches. That was a different generation from this Millenial generation, and even from our Boomer generation.
I’m finishing Ripples of Battle, then I have the hardback of The Second World Wars to read. I’ve already watched all the lectures. His insights into the weapons development and logistics are very, very good.
(Hand salute)
As is typical throughout history, the enemy was underestimated.
After the breakout from Normandy, and the successes of the falaise gap encirclement, the allied armies got what the Japanese had called ‘victory disease’...a phrase used to describe theIr early conquests in the Pacific.
The debacle of market garden should have been a clue that the Wehrmacht was certainly not yet defeated, but it was ignored
Ike, Bradley and Monty should have known that wacht am Rhein, or something similar, was coming. Their arrogance did not allow them to consider that such an offensive could still be launched by the Germans at that point in the war
This is correct
bkmk
Agree. There was an intelligence failure that lead to the BoTB.
Not to diminish or denigrate that part of the battle but the same thing was going on not far to the north at a place called St. Vith, and the delaying action, frankly the sacrifice of the 28th Division and others, is what made it possible for defensive positions to be set in the opening days.
Recommended reading: "To Save Bastogne" by Robert Phillips, and "Alamo in the Ardennes", by John C. McManus.
"Alamo" was the right word...
They're mostly all gone now.
“How do I feel about being rescued by Patton? I’d feel real peachy about it, except for one thing....we didn’t need to be $@*(#@! rescued by Patton, you got that?”
-Joe Toye (Band of Brothers)
I knew a guy in the 28th who was at the Bulge. He said one thing movies and tv shows cannot convey was the smell of rotting human corpses. He said that was overwhelming.
Thanks to Patton's "prayer".
I’m reading a book on the bombing of Bari, Italy and the Brits had Victory Disease. They claimed the Luftwaffe was finished. The Germans bombed the harbor which released mustard gas that was being transports by US ships. That one raid set back the offensive for 4 months.
“No mention of the vital role the Combat Engineers had in blunting the advance of Hitler’s armored forces (blowing key bridges in their faces, destroying and channelizing with mines and bazooka and antitank gun fire) and the seizure of critical high ground in the German’s path.”
“Those damned engineers!”
Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper
Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler
Patton actually listened to the intel reports, and wasn’t worried about pussyfooting around British fee-wings or intimidated by their claims of strategic genius. He had to. He let the Bastogne garrison know the 3rd would be there for drinks on Christmas Day, turned out it was early in the morning on the 26th. :^)
The Germans had to use crossroads of the better roads to move effectively, so knotting up and holding crossroads at great cost stymied the German offensive. Somewhere around here there’s a book about a group of US military engineers who were in the right place at the wrong time, were told to trench and sandbag, resist at all costs, and stoppered ‘em up in that area.
The Germans had conjured 26 divisions seemingly out of thin air, but had to prevail in a pretty short time frame because such a large op couldn’t be sustained.
Whoops, what you said!
Here a good brief of the US Engineers role in the Battle of the Bulge
https://www.jstor.org/stable/26304241?seq=1#metadata_info_tab_contents
Thanks!
Gen Patton had requested a weather prayer BEFORE the Battle of the Bulge began. After campaigning in near constant rains for most of October and all of November in the area of Metz, where he was ordered to halt so his fuel could go to Market Garden.
The true story of the weather prayer was written up by its author, Msgr. James H. O’Neill, several years after the war.
Msgr. O’Neill’s full account can be found at:
http://pattonhq.com/prayer.html
Here are the first few paragraphs:
The True Story of The Patton Prayer
by Msgr. James H. O’Neill
(From the Review of the News 6 October 1971)
Many conflicting and some untrue stories have been printed about General George S. Patton and the Third Army Prayer. Some have had the tinge of blasphemy and disrespect for the Deity. Even in “War As I Knew It” by General Patton, the footnote on the Prayer by Colonel Paul D. Harkins, Patton’s Deputy Chief of Staff, while containing the elements of a funny story about the General and his Chaplain, is not the true account of the prayer Incident or its sequence.
As the Chief Chaplain of the Third Army throughout the five campaigns on the Staff of General Patton, I should have some knowledge of the event because at the direction of General Patton I composed the now world famous Prayer, and wrote Training Letter No. 5, which constitutes an integral, but untold part, of the prayer story. These Incidents, narrated in sequence, should serve to enhance the memory of the man himself, and cause him to be enshrined by generations to come as one of the greatest of our soldiers. He had all the traits of military leadership, fortified by genuine trust in God, intense love of country, and high faith In the American soldier.
He had no use for half-measures. He wrote this line a few days before his death: “Anyone in any walk of life who is content with mediocrity is untrue to himself and to American tradition.” He was true to the principles of his religion, Episcopalian, and was regular in Church attendance and practices, unless duty made his presence Impossible.
The incident of the now famous Patton Prayer commenced with a telephone call to the Third Army Chaplain on the morning of December 8, 1944, when the Third Army Headquarters were located in the Caserne Molifor in Nancy, France: “This is General Patton; do you have a good prayer for weather? We must do something about those rains if we are to win the war.” My reply was that I know where to look for such a prayer, that I would locate, and report within the hour. As I hung up the telephone receiver, about eleven in the morning, I looked out on the steadily falling rain, “immoderate” I would call it — the same rain that had plagued Patton’s Army throughout the Moselle and Saar Campaigns from September until now, December 8. The few prayer books at hand contained no formal prayer on weather that might prove acceptable to the Army Commander. Keeping his immediate objective in mind, I typed an original and an improved copy on a 5” x 3” filing card:
Almighty and most merciful Father, we humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for Battle. Graciously hearken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies and establish Thy justice among men and nations.
I pondered the question, What use would General Patton make of the prayer? Surely not for private devotion. If he intended it for circulation to chaplains or others, with Christmas not far removed, it might he proper to type the Army Commander’s Christmas Greetings on the reverse side. This would please the recipient, and anything that pleased the men I knew would please him:
To each officer and soldier in the Third United States Army, I Wish a Merry Christmas. I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We march in our might to complete victory. May God’s blessings rest upon each of you on this Christmas Day. G.S. Patton, Jr, Lieutenant General, Commanding, Third United States Army.
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