Posted on 12/17/2015 8:23:55 AM PST by WhiskeyX
Generals At War: Episode 06 The Battle of the Bulge The Greatest battle America ever fought was against Hitler's Army when it staged one of the last offensives of the war in Belgium against American troops who were alone and unprepared for the Nazi onslaught. Despite overwhelming odds American troops defeated the German Blitz preventing history from repeating itself as it did when Hitler first invaded Belgium in the begining of the war.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
“Some “brilliant Geniusâ€, (was it Omar Bradly?) decided the “War Will Be Over By Christmas†and put the men’s winter gear in storage, not shipping it to the front lines as would have been prudent.”
They made a judgment call on how to use the limited amount of transportation capacity that was available to the frontlines; ammunition, gasoline, and reinforcements to pursue the German Army over the Rhine River before it could mount an adequate defense or truck uniforms for a less mobile and less armed combat force. The decision proved to be too little too late to avoid the emergency demand on logistics resulting from the German counteroffensive.
You’re right. Great book.
“General George S. Patton was the only WW 2 Commander who knew it was going to happen.”
[Excerpt]
After capturing Metz, General Patton ordered a powerful drive into the Siegfried Line, which he called, “A monument to the stupidity of mankind.” Using this attack, he planned on fighting its way into the coal mining region of Germany. The Third Army was forced to give up this attack because of a problem that developed in the First Army’s area to the north.
German General Von Rundstedt started an attack against the First Army’s VII and VIII Corps on the 16th of December. Von Rundstedt’s forces hit quickly and gained the element of surprise. Because of this, his soldiers were making excellent progress.
Eisenhower and his staff at SHAEF began to worry that they had underestimated the ability of the Germans. They feared that the Germans might be able to use this massive offensive to go to the north and west to capture the cities of Liege and Antwerp.
Liege was extremely important because the Allies had large supply dumps there. If the Germans managed to seize those supplies, they could possibly push the Allies back to the coastline, causing them to lose all the ground they had gained.
Antwerp was important because it was a port city. If captured, the Germans could use it to bring in badly needed supplies.
At a special meeting of all the highest ranking generals in the American, British, and Canadian armies, it was decided that the toughest job would go to General Patton and his Third Army. They would have to relieve the soldiers who had been surrounded by the Germans at the Belgian city of Bastogne.
After the meeting, Eisenhower, who had just been promoted to the five-star rank of General of the Army, was talking with General Patton. He remarked, “George, every time I get promoted I get attacked.” Patton shot back with the comment, “And every time you get attacked, I pull you out!”
The 101st Airborne Division, commanded by Major General Maxwell D. Taylor, was holding out and fighting off the fierce attempts by the Germans to overrun Bastogne.
The Third Army had to stop a full scale attack they had started to the east, pull back the entire army, swing around ninety degrees to the north, and then begin another full scale attack on the southern flank of the German forces. Nothing like that had ever been done in the history of warfare. Everyone thought it was impossible except General Patton. He knew his men could do the impossible.
It only took three days for the Third army to perform that massive maneuver. Today, military historians readily admit that only Patton’s Third Army could have accomplished a maneuver like that and make it look easy. Patton always demanded more from his soldiers than other commanders did and they never let him down.
One of the reasons the Third Army performed so well is because they expected the German attack. While Eisenhower and his friends were playing cards in London and the First Army turned part of their area into a R & R (Rest and Recuperation) area, Patton’s intelligence officers were hard at work.
The events leading up to the Battle of the Bulge have, like the Falaise Gap and Operation Market-Garden, become controversial issues. Many people believe that Eisenhower’s staff at SHAEF made poor decisions when they ignored Third Army reports about a possible German offensive in the Ardennes.
Colonel Oscar Koch, head of Third Army’s G-2 Intelligence department, had sent intelligence reports warning SHAEF that the Germans were probably planning a major attack against the First Army’s R&R area. His report was ignored. They refused to believe the Germans could collect the mass of weapons, men, and material to launch a large attack. It was a classic case of under-estimating the enemy. At Colonel Koch’s suggestion, General Patton gave the order for his staff to design two separate plans in the event of a German attack. General Patton believed Colonel Koch and considered him to be the best G-2 in the European Theater of Operations.
When Patton attended the meeting with the other Allied commanders he told them he could attack in two days with at least two divisions. Everyone thought he was crazy, but he told them that he had already set plans in motion before he left his headquarters. All he had to was place a phone call. When it was finally decided that he should attack as soon as possible, he phoned his headquarters and said, “Nickel.” The attack was on.
The General never returned to his headquarters. Instead, he and his driver, Sergeant Mims, began traveling along the roads where he knew he would meet his soldiers heading north. He gave orders on the spot and told everyone he met to head north and kill Germans. Sergeant Mims once said to Patton, “General, the army is wasting a lot of money on your staff officers. You and I can run the whole war from your jeep.”
While watching his men heading toward the Germans surrounding Bastogne, he said, “No other army in the world could do this. No other soldiers could do what these men are doing. By God, I’m proud of them.”
On the 26th of December a 4th Armored Division Task Force, commanded by Major General H.J. Gaffey, made contact with the soldiers at Bastogne.
http://www.pattonhq.com/textfiles/thirdhst.html
yes, it did. It also suffered from the fact that Peiper was out in front of the rest of the advance, and thus his flanks were dangerously exposed.
Fuel was certainly an issue with Peiper, as well.
You're right about never knowing for sure, but many people in the know, like Churchill, thought Hitler's hash was settled after he declared war on the U.S. It was like an excellent heavyweight boxer deciding to fight three equally tough fighters at the same time. The final result was inevitable.
The only thing that might have saved Hitler would maybe have been if he had a sufficient supply and much more powerful V2 rockets. The Allies had nothing like that. Even Germany's use of jet planes wouldn't have been a deciding factor as the Allies were pushing them into production during the late stages of the war.
Hitler just took on too much. He underestimated the production capabilities, the manpower, and the determination of the Allies to see him dead.
LOL
DITHF.......a blast from the past.
Hilarious.......I had a gut feeling that one of the oldtimers was gonna mention DITHF.
..and the williams dig was a nice touch, too.
(I think he was at Brandywine Creek, Gettysburg, the Somme, and Normandy, also, as well as Khe Sanh)
The armed forces tended to send Germanic-heritage soldiers to the Pacific. My gramps was on the Hancock, for example.
Spring Awakening in Hungary wasn’t much of an offensive.
As Gen. Sepp Dietrich put it: They call us the 6th Army because we have only six tanks left.
Precisely. The German offensive objectives had no chance once the weather had cleared as the Allies had overwhelming air power. The other major factor working against the success of the German offensive was their chronic lack of fuel. Their powerful Tiger tanks were notorious gas guzzlers.
Most of AH’s top generals were against the plan. But AH hated playing defense and loved to take wild and reckless gambles.
The Germans always had the impression the Americans were weak and would throw in the towel if punched in the nose.
Hitler should have thrown everything at the Soviets.
Wrong. The V-2 was a total waste of time and money as a weapon of war. For the cost of the V-2 program, Hitler could have built a huge fleet of heavy bombers or Tiger tanks. Even if he had had 10000 V-2's it would not have made any difference at all on the outcome of the war.
Which is why a number of Allied leaders hoped to win the war quickly. They didn't know for sure how many V2s Hitler had or if he could have made them more powerful and more accurate.
In the end he didn't have enough, and they weren't powerful enough nor could they be guided as accurately as Hitler wanted.
Very overstated, Germany was acquiring a lot of potential war material production up through 1942. That much of this went either unutilized or under utilized says much about the ability of the Nazis to co-opt others. There were factories in France that went from making ammunition for French weapons in 1939 to making ammo for German weapons in 1941, and in 1945 were making ammo for American weapons.
Another important if often under appreciated factor in the stalling of the allied offensive near the Franco-German border was that the allies had out-stripped their supply lines, the weather had gotten unfavorable, and the Germans had re-organized and re-equipped after the Falaise Gap. A lot of Frenchmen spent the fall and winter of 1944-45 repairing and rebuilding the French rail network which along with the reopening of the Atlantic ports improved the allied supply situation.
I don’t think so. I don’t think the offensive would have had much of impact on the Eastern Front, as the Soviets had such overwhelming superiority by then.
The Germans did correctly pick the right area to attack, the Ardennes Forest was the most lightly defended area on the Western Front.
I think the offensive could have succeeded if the Germans had adequate air support and fuel supplies.
Since they did not, it was simply a waste of scarce resources.
Ummm, its his brother?!
My father was there, too (First Army, 9th Inf. Div.).
His stories always started with the nasty cold, then his buddies who died, then the vacant stare. Occasionally he would add other details for me. His last night of being able to speak, he told his nurses the whole story. They stayed past shift until I arrived the next morning to ask me if it was true. And then some. He left me his battlefield diary.
I believe you are correct. Norwind was around January 5 and was an attempt to recapture Schweinfurt. We lost a good many people before the effort was halted. I was in Task Force Linden which consisted of the regiments from the incomplete 42nd Division.
That is a common mis-conception. The only ethnic group that was sent to the opposite theater was the 442nd Infantry Regiment that consisted of 2nd & 3d generation American born Japanese. They went Italy and then Southern France. Some ethnic Japanese were sent to the Pacific, but were generally in intelligence/translator jobs.
Also, one ton of explosives per shot was not very much when allied heavy bombers could deliver at least 5 to 10 tons per plane and in 1944 thousand bomber raids were common for both the US AND Royal Air Forces. A missile needs a force multiplier like a nuke to make them more threatening with the guidance technology available in WW2, and Germany was not even close to being able to build a nuke, and the V2 could not carry it anyway. It's direct descendent, the US Army Redstone, could, but it did not go into service until the mid 1950's.
Hitler would have been better served by using what went into the V-2 program building heavy bombers or tanks.
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