December 1944 I landed in Marseille with an regimental infantry task force. We were attached to Patton’s 3rd Army and were moving toward the Bulge. On the way we were reattached to the 7th Army to defend Strassburg. We were the last American unit on the line, next to the French. The Nazis crossed the Rhine and attack us January 5 with white painted tanks. It was their operation Norwind, led by Himmler. We took a beating and retreated. DGaulle and Eisenhower has a big dispute over defending Srassburg. DeGaulle wanted to defend it at all costs. DeGaulle got Churchill to side with him. The French line troops seemed mostly Algerians. Srassburg held, our line held. When our Division was completed, we advanced toward Germany. The end was near. Thank God.
Eisenhower considered the Ardennes to be a quiet area...very little chance of heavy contact with the Germans, and thus he deployed many newly arrived replacement units to the area..the idea was to get the acclimated to the terrain/weather, and maybe face some small company sized skirmishes...