The German drive only got as far as it did because the terrible weather kept American tactical air on the ground. Once the Thunderbolts got back in the air it was no contest.
Dad was there. Nothing remarkable, but he was there. He was very appreciative that I cajoled him into visiting the WW2 Memorial in DC back in 2006.
Ok, since this is from Ammo, this is probably the most relevant passage:
“The American battles of the Northern Shoulder are considered the most decisive of the entire campaign. Despite being outnumbered five to one, they were able to inflict a casualty ratio of 18 to 1 (in no small part thanks to the 30-06 powered M1 Garand battle rifle) in a battle where 20 percent of their effective force was taken out of the fight.”
A BIG WOWSER ON THE M1!! You always hear how the German weapons were superior.
One serving with the 84th. Infantry Division and another as a combat engineer with Patton's Third Army. The Battle of The Bulge was the largest,costliest and longest continuous single battle the US Army ever fought. From the moment the battle began on December 16, 1944 until it declared ''contained'' on January 25, 1945 there wasn't a day, an hour or even a minute when an American unit was not engaged with the enemy.
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.
Not exactly. That type of attack was launched 20 times or more in the East and often corralled huge numbers of prisoners. It was not some new desperation move. It was a calculated strategic move executed as they had done countless times in the East.
They thought if they could do it, they could negotiate terms.
Patton’s relief of Batstone was the finest moment of his career
The Battle of Hürtgen Forest (German: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) was a series of fierce battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944, between American and German forces on the Western Front during World War II, in the Hürtgen Forest, a 140 km 2 (54 sq mi) area about 5 km (3.1 mi) east of the Belgian-German border. It was the longest battle on German ground during World War II.
Love the gratutitous throwaway at the end "until Vietnam":
1. Korea was the first disappointment in the performance of the American army - the precipitous rout of the Eighth Army when the Chinese Army attacked. And
2. Vietnam was a major display of the courage and flexibility of American forces in the face of a nearly impossible task - protecting South Vietnamese noncombatants while eliminating NVA and VC combatants. Our forces only failed because of a reduction of available effective volunteers and replacing them with substandard draftees (MacNamara's Project 100,000) and active Leftist treason overwhelming support in our home country.
The BoTB is one that need not have happened. IF the Allies had been prepared to execute a more focused effort against Germany they could have been all the way into Germany before the Fall.
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.