I bet these guys would have loved to have a bunch of women help them. They are building a bridge across the Rhine.
Posted on 12/15/2015 6:15:43 PM PST by OKSooner
December 15, 1944. All is mostly quiet along the western front in France, Belgium, and Luxembourg. It's cold, and the nights are dark. So dark that GI Joe, sitting and waiting, can't see his hand in front of his face.
Four divisions of the US army are parked at a 75-mile front along the western frontier of Germany. The American commanders believe that the German Wehrmacht is finished and not capable of offensive operations.
They either haven't been talking to some of the GI Joes in the front lines, or they aren't taking GI Joe seriously. He has been hearing the sounds of heavy equipment moving around.
There's a rumor that some German engineers have been captured while building a bridge, and that they're being interrogated...
For the artillerymen attached to the 110th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Division, Pennsylvania National Guard, which has been assigned to its spot on the front in Belgium for rest after taking heavy casualties in the Hurgten Forest in the autumn months, something just doesn't seem right...
Business goes on as usual, though, all are holding out hope that the American commanders, particularly Eisenhower and Bradley, are correct in their assessment that the worst of the European war is past, and it will all be over in the spring. All the Americans will have to do is walk into Germany, or whatever is left of it after a winter of strategic bombing by the 8th Air Force, and after the Russians have finished with it...
Those four divisions, spread across a 75-mile front, are the only thing between 200,000 German troops and two strategically crucial crossroads, one in the south at the Belgian town of Bastogne, and another in the north at Saint Vith.
In later years much will be written about The Bulge, and movies will be made about it too, particularly about the defense of Bastogne.
History will neglect the point, however, as PFC Robert Phillips of the 110th Regiment would later write in his book "To Save Bastogne", that there would be a Battle of the Bulge before The Battle of the Bulge - the delaying action fought by those four outnumbered divisions in the first three days to slow the advance of the German Wehrmacht until reinforcements could arrive and engage the enemy, importantly at the two crossroads towns of Bastogne and St. Vith and along the entire front, which formed the shape of a bulge on the map as the Germans advanced.
Seventy one years ago tonight, GI Joe was settling in for a good night's rest - the last one he'll have for awhile. Many will never have a good night's rest, or a good meal, or any other comfort again. They won't be going home.
Suggested reading on the opening days of The Bulge:
"To Save Bastogne", Robert Phillips:
http://www.amazon.com/Save-Bastogne-Robert-F-Phillips/dp/0812829077/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387698685&sr=1-1&keywords=to+save+bastogne
"Alamo in the Ardennes: The Untold Story of the American Soldiers Who Made the Defense of Bastogne Possible ", John C. McManus:
http://www.amazon.com/Alamo-Ardennes-American-Soldiers-Bastogne/dp/0471739057/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1387698783&sr=1-1&keywords=alamo+in+the+ardennes
Thanks for posting this, OKSooner.
This should never be forgotten and always appreciated.
Go Army!
I just finished “A time for trumpets”
Excellent book. Dispels a lot of myths.
Biggest one is that the Americans ran away or surrendered - they fought hard for every mile. Even burnt out National Guard units.
The Germans really had no chance. Even if everything went their way, which it didn’t, their plan to capture Antwerp and split the allies had no hope of success.
That battle is where the combat engineers proved their value.
According to Joachim Peiper, it was “those damn engineers” who stopped them.
Good post!
You can read online or download the entire US Army Center of Military History’s official history “The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge,” by Hugh M. Cole.
http://www.history.army.mil/html/books/007/7-8-1/index.html
S.L.A. Marshall’s “Bastogne, the First Eight Days” is online at:
http://www.history.army.mil/books/wwii/Bastogne/bast-fm.htm
I also recommend Charles MacDonald’s “A Time for Trumpets,” and John Eisenhower’s “The Bitter Woods.”
Janice Holt Giles’ “The Damned Engineers” is about the 291st Engineer Battalion (Combat) previously mentioned in this thread.
‘I just finished “A time for trumpets”
Excellent book. Dispels a lot of myths.
Biggest one is that the Americans ran away or surrendered - they fought hard for every mile. Even burnt out National Guard units.
The Germans really had no chance. Even if everything went their way, which it didn’t, their plan to capture Antwerp and split the allies had no hope of success.’
____________________
I logged in to mention and recommend this book and you beat me to it! It is a very different depiction of the Ardennes Offensive than we get in popular culture. More desperate and determined defense by American units, often fighting to the point of annihilation if they did not have permission to withdraw, or more commonly did not get the word that they could.
Close range tank battles, obsolescent ATGs making the difference in close quarter fighting, a unit of engineers that kept being in the right place at the right time. The author takes the battle’s perspective all the way from a Belgian teenager hiding in a root cellar, to the highest chain of command in Germany, and conversations between Churchill and Eisenhower.
A great read, highly recommended. Get yourself some good maps alongside; the e-version didn’t have any. Available as a kindle download. http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/182138.A_Time_for_Trumpets
Yes, the same unit, over and over.
...and just think how well our engineers can do now that the gals will be assigned.
Thank you.
I bet these guys would have loved to have a bunch of women help them. They are building a bridge across the Rhine.
Just switch this guy to a girl and you would never notice the difference.
Anything a man can do a girl can do better.
Precisely. That style combat is a young man’s game.
For the rest of the war, Waffen SS troops had little chance of becoming prisoners....they were just shot for the principle of it. As those who fought alongside my dad in Vietnam said: Payback's a M***********.
The Green Books!
Ping
Omar Bradley badly misjudged this one. Interesting that Patton pretty much saw it coming and repositioned his troops accordingly.
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