I have read that we lost more men in the battle of the bulge than in the entire Pacific campaign. I have no idea if that is right or not.
Actually I don’t think we fought them to a standstill in the Bulge unless you consider the combat engineers to have stopped them by blowing bridges, often just before the Germans were to cross them.
Running out of fuel also helped to stop them but that was because they got behind on their timetable.
At first they were planning on by-passing Bastogne but after it got so much publicity, Hitler ordered them to take it. Of course they never did but they went way beyond it.
>> I have read that we lost more men in the battle of the bulge than in the entire Pacific campaign. I have no idea if that is right or not.
Good question.
Battle of the Bulge: 19,000 killed,47,500 wounded,23,000 captured.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge
Pacific war: 111,606 killed, 253,142 wounded, 21,580 POW.
Source: http://pwencycl.kgbudge.com/C/a/Casualties.htm
So it appears that we did NOT lose more men in the BotB than in the Pacific campaign.
Stopped them dead in their tracks and pretty much destroyed the German army on the western front.
Oh yeah, there were some engineers who did their duty and blew bridges, and the Germans had a problem with gas too.
And yes, we lost more men in the Bulge than in the Pacific.