I always remember this After Action Report I read from the Nat Archives after the Normandy Invasion. Several American tanks were in an attack and 4-5 got knocked out right quick and the attack withdrew leaving burning tank crewmen and unknown to the other tankers and infantry some crew had escaped injured into the brush. One tank commander was blown out of the top of his tank and one of his drivers escaped and they were both badly injured, the driver more so. So here these two guys are and the commander pulls the driver away from the burning tanks which are still have ammo exploding. Later that night the Germans advance and a squad of German infantry find these two and patch them up real quick and pull them out of the attacking German armors path and tell them to stay here that likely the Americans would be coming along in a day or so and will find them. Apparently the Germans were just counter attacking as a rear guard delaying action and were not going to hold the ground. Later in the early morning the commander gets worried about the drivers injuries and decides to leave to find help and he crawls away due to his injured legs crawling is all he could do. After a bit he hears laughing and looks up and he’s crawled down the barrel right to within a few feet of a German mg42 machine gun nest and these 5 German have been watching him crawl right to them. They point to him and in broken english tell him to go the other way to the American lines. He drops his head and decides to hell with it just shoot me already and these two Germans come out and drag him off and back to where the driver was and give him some sausage and water and tell them to wait there. Hours later the American infantry escorting mechanics looking to see what could be salvaged from the tanks finally come across them and they are rescued.
The Ardennes Offensive failed due to not only the allied fighting spirit but also pure bad luck for the Germans. They actually came to within a couple hundred yards of the largest fuel dump in Europe and didn’t know it, that could have supplied their armor all the way to the coast easily. Also a dozen or so American engineers are 50% responsible for stopping the German armor when they blew up a few small bridges when they happen to be at the right place at the right time and left the far superior German armor wandering around the backroads and towns looking for a way to pass until they just ran out of fuel and had to be abandoned.
Bump!