My Father’s battalion was cutting timber in the Ardennes when the battle started. They were sent to a position to block the Germans but ended up seeing almost no action in that battle.
They later saw plenty.
“In those days, they gave every enlistee an IQ test, maybe they still do.”
When I enlisted in ‘60 the tests had been expanded to include science, math, English, secretarial apptitude, electricity, electronics, memory and other subjects which I have since forgotten.
The results of the tests steered you to where you should be, more or less.
Two of my uncles were on the ground in the Battle of the Bulge. One of them, I learned to never ask him about it again after asking the first time. Dad was in the Pacific at Okinawa. He did not detail any battles. That stuff was really nasty and war IS hell.
I got the idea to research this aspect of the battle when I saw Band of Brothers. At this one point they were attacked by the Germans with tanks and immediately the show cut away from what happened next. Easy company would be wiped out if they didn’t have their own heavy artillery or tanks. Something was missing here. The below letter fills in the blank.
Seventy-five years ago, on December 16, the Germans launched the Ardennes Offensive, which proved the bloodiest American battle of WW II with 89,000 casualties including 19,000 dead. At the center of the offensive beleaguered Bastogne featured the 101th Airborne withstanding a German siege.
However, these 10,000 paratroopers did not alone forge the severe impediment presented to 500,000 Germans troops attacking with tanks. Contributions from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions, and the 28th Division’s 109th and 687th Field Artillery Battalions provided needed firepower. Remnants of the 9th Armored CCR including the 73rd Armored Field Artillery retreated into the town. The CCB of the 10th Armored was detached and ordered to occupy Bastogne ahead of the Nazi’s. It took heavy casualties along the way but arrived with 30 tanks and the 420th Armored Field Artillery Battalion. The 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion was ordered forward and arrived with 36 powerful 76mm long cannon.
Overall General Anthony McAuliffe, as former division artillery commander for the division, directed eleven artillery battalions and tanks from two armored divisions as well as his paratroopers. The paratroopers alone would probably have been annihilated and not have withstood the siege. The tanks and artillery alone could not have prevailed against the combined arms of the German assault without this airborne infantry support.
No wonder at the Battle of the Bulge McAuliffe could say “nuts” when the Germans demanded his surrender.
Partial Bibliography:
A Time for Trumpets by Charles B. MacDonald
Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in WW II by Belton Y. Cooper WWII Armored Division http://xbradtc.com/2008/10/24/wwii-armored-division/
10th Armored Division (United States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._10th_Armored_Division http://www.combatreels.com/10th_Armored_Division.cfm
9th Armored Division (United States) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._9th_Armored_Division
Battle of the Bulge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge
Siege of Bastogne http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Bastogne
705th Tank Destroyer Battalion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/705th_Tank_Destroyer_Battalion
The made it over to LeHavre, France - then were put in a “quiet” section of the Ardennes forest. That area became known in history as the Battle of the Bulge. His Sergeant was killed in action, so my uncle was field-promoted to Sergeant.
He survived the Bulge and continued to fight across Belgium. His Division was the first to cross the Rhine into Germany “en masse” at the Remagen bridge. He was shot and killed in action two days later.
Dave Brubeck was a grunt destined for D Day but at last minute he was plucked from ranks because his musical talents were needed elsewhere.
That was my father’s story. He was a tech sergeant, trained as an artilleryman, assigned to Division because he could type. The artillery unit lost its guns, he retreated with division hqtrs ahead of the thrust though Belgium.
They trained an uncle of mine to be a radioman, only to make him second scout in a rifle squad. As the Germans began the Ardennes offensive, his unit was hustled from NW of Düren to near Kalterherberg on N shoulder of the "Bulge," so his participation in the "BotB" was basically a stationary defense, repelling a few smaller attacks and - IIRC - rounding up the stray Germans who were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
His previous three months on the edges of the Hürtgenwald were, by contrast, intense and horrific.
My oldest brother was in a engineering battalion that put the first Bailey bridge across the Rhine and then defended it against the Germans sending boatloads of explosives down river. They set up machine gun positions to stop the boats until a ricochet killed a American Col on the opposite shore. My bother in law was in a 9th air force engineering battalion building airfields for P47s & P51s and was commanded to take a truck load of 5 gallon “Jerry cans” of gasoline to Patton in the Battle of the Bulge because he had out run fuel supplies. He was ordered to leave his truck and report back to his unit and asked how and was told to take a Jeep from the motor pool only to find out he had taken one of Patton’s personal Jeeps. I just read the book “First Across the Rhine”
My other brother was a POW of the Germans after his B17 was shot down over Wiesbaden Germany on Aug 15th 1944 and it was General George Patton that liberated that camp. I am now reading “The 303 Bomb Group The Hells Angels”
I am 86 and I still get emotional thinking about it all...