Infuriated by the delay, Peiper relayed direct orders to his tank commanderWerner Poetschketo get his men going in any way necessary. An Abteilung was not an ad-hoc formation like a Kampfgruppe, and it was much smaller than a dmi-brigade, too. In the center, von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army attacked towards Bastogne and St. Vith, both road junctions of great strategic importance. A team of volunteer surgeons flew in by military glider and began operating in a tool room.[116]. They thus developed alternative, less ambitious plans that did not aim to cross the Meuse River (in German and Dutch: Maas); Model's being Unternehmen Herbstnebel ('Operation Autumn Mist') and von Rundstedt's Fall Martin ('Plan Martin'). [40] Hitler originally set the offensive for late November, before the anticipated start of the Russian winter offensive. Stab (fully motorized): ----staff with 115 men. He could not have been more incorrect. Now clear of any anti-tank fire from within the town or from the fields beside it, the Panthers rolled. An incredibly thick blanket of fog hung low over Stoumont and the Amblve valley on the morning of December19. Knittel pressed . The order of battle below is from the NARA records, and dated 11 November 41. From there, after handing over its remaining tanks and artillery to the Frundsberg Division, the division was to be transported by rail to Germany for a . Instead, he was provided with a Kampfgruppe of 800 men. They believed he had belittled themand they were not slow to voice reciprocal scorn and contempt. Eisenhower wanted Montgomery to go on the counter offensive on 1 January, with the aim of meeting up with Patton's advancing Third Army and cutting off German troops at the tip of the salient, trapping them in a pocket. By December 19, the surprise of the German assault had worn off. Peiper's unit was delayed and his vehicles denied critically needed fuel. The answer to both questions isyes 8), The LSSAH Kampfgruppen you mean? [85] He learned that Stoumont was strongly held and that the Americans were bringing up strong reinforcements from Spa. Rundstedt later testified that while he recognized the merit of Hitler's operational plan, he saw from the very first that "all, absolutely all conditions for the possible success of such an offensive were lacking."[44]. These units, which operated under the command of Generals Robert W. Hasbrouck (7th Armored) and Alan W. Jones (106th Infantry), successfully resisted the German attacks, significantly slowing the German advance. On the same day as Hitler's withdrawal order of 7 January, Montgomery held his press conference at Zonhoven. [citation needed], Senior Allied commanders met in a bunker in Verdun on 19 December. Their job was to go behind American lines and change signposts, misdirect traffic, generally cause disruption and seize bridges across the Meuse River. While Peipers men made their way back to their former positions, the Americans of the 30th Infantry Division along with elements of the 3rd Armored Division and 82nd Airborne Division poured men in and around the areas of Stoumont, La Gleize, and Stavelot. What remained of the two companies began to pull back towards the edge of town, as the advancing German tanks fired directly into the houses and buildings along the road to clear out any defenses. [53] Strong had informed Bedell Smith in December of his suspicions. [187] E. J. N. Rose, head Air Adviser in Hut 3, read the paper at the time and described it in 1998 as "an extremely good report" that "showed the failure of intelligence at SHAEF and at the Air Ministry". Hargimont was captured the same day, but Marche-en-Famenne was strongly defended by the American 84th Division. Units of the corps which fought in the Ardennes were the 51st (Highland) and 53rd (Welsh) Infantry Divisions, the British 6th Airborne Division, the 29th and 33rd Armoured Brigades, and the 34th Tank Brigade. . The Allies captured the port of Antwerp intact in the first days of September, but it was not operational until 28 November. Joined: Wed Oct 23, 2002 1:48 am. Near the center of town, the SS Panzergrenadiers stopped and collected themselves. Due to the news blackout imposed on the 16th, the change of leadership to Montgomery did not become public information until SHAEF announced that the change in command had "absolutely nothing to do with failure on the part of the three American generals". [citation needed]. [140] Command of the U.S. First Army reverted to the U.S. 12th Army Group on 17 January 1945,[141] and command of the U.S. Ninth Army reverted to the U.S. 12th Army Group on 4 April 1945. It was formed from January 1944 onwards from various units of elite training and demonstration troops (Lehr = "teach") stationed in Germany, to provide additional armored strength for resisting the anticipated Allied invasion of . German historian Hermann Jung lists 67,675 casualties from 16 December 1944 to late January 1945 for the three German armies that participated in the offensive. When the Germans launched their last major offensive on the western front, Unternehmen: Wacht am Rhein, the heaviest portion of their initial assault force lay in the northern sector of the offensive. ASIN : B00I2TDL8E. Further Allied pressure out of Marche finally led the German command to the conclusion that no further offensive action towards the Meuse was possible.[117]. It came to me as an order complete to the last detail. It overlapped with the Alsace Offensive, subsequently the Colmar Pocket, another series of battles launched by the Germans in support of the Ardennes thrust. Men of the 807th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 90th Infantry Division, rain shells down on German positions near St. Barbara, Germany on December 16, 1944. by Timo 22 Aug 2004, 13:33, Post . The Germans attacked a weakly defended section of the Allied line, taking advantage of heavily overcast weather conditions that grounded the Allies' superior air forces. Actually Arnhem was only intended as a meeting point for the 9th SS-Panzer-Division Hohenstaufen, which in the meantime consisted of less than 3,000 men. The Allies relied too much on Ultra, not human reconnaissance. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were out of men and equipment, and the survivors retreated to the Siegfried Line. Dupuy's review of German records suggests casualties among divisions and brigades alone (excluding attached elements, corps and army-level combat support, and rear-area personnel) totaled 74,459 from 16 December 1944 to 16 January 1945, inclusive: 11,048 killed, 34,168 wounded, and 29,243 missing. [90] Historian John S. D. Eisenhower wrote, "the action of the 2nd and 99th Divisions on the northern shoulder could be considered the most decisive of the Ardennes campaign."[91][92]. Training time, equipment and supplies were inadequate during the preparations. Two days earlier, on December 17, an order had been issued to the veteran American 30th Infantry Division to deploy into position in the vicinity of Eupen, to block the thrust of Kampfgruppe Peiper and prepare to form and hold a defensive line from Malmedy to the small town of Stoumont. [187] The report concluded that "the costly reverse might have been avoided if Ultra had been more carefully considered". On the same day, German Army Group G (Heeresgruppe G) and Army Group Upper Rhine (Heeresgruppe Oberrhein) launched a major offensive against the thinly-stretched, 110 kilometers (70mi) line of the Seventh U.S. Army. In the context of Patton's and Montgomery's well-known antipathy, Montgomery's failure to mention the contribution of any American general besides Eisenhower was seen as insulting. Yes, got closes to its target if you understand how i mean. The group began moving again at dusk at 16:00 and was able to return to its original route at around 18:00. The offensive went forward regardless. by Timo 22 Aug 2004, 13:49, Post The Panzer-Lehr-Division, commonly known as Panzer Lehr, was a German armored division during World War II, one of the most elite units in the entire German Wehrmacht. [96], Following the Malmedy massacre, on New Year's Day 1945, after having previously received orders to take no prisoners,[97] American soldiers murdered approximately sixty German prisoners of war near the Belgian village of Chenogne (8km from Bastogne). There were 96 Allied divisions at or near the front, with an estimated ten more divisions on the way from the United Kingdom. [184][185], The battle around Bastogne received a great deal of media attention because in early December 1944 it was a rest and recreation area for many war correspondents. Drawing broad conclusions was for the intelligence staff at SHAEF, who had information from all sources," including aerial reconnaissance. As the battle ensued, on the northern shoulder of the offensive, Dietrich stopped the armored assault on the twin villages after two days and changed the axis of their advance southward through the hamlet of Domne Btgenbach. Then, we'll really cut 'em off and chew 'em up." [169] Of the German write-offs, 1620 were Tigers, 191194 Panthers, 141158 Panzer IVs, and 179182 were tank destroyers and assault guns. APR 03, 2017 . Most were shot where they stood, though some managed to flee. A footnote in the U.S. Army's official history volume "Riviera to the Rhine" makes the following note on U.S. American progress in the south was also restricted to about a kilometer or a little over half a mile per day. Involved units are tanks from 7./SS-Pz.Rgt. While the German command did not reach its goals, the Ardennes operation inflicted heavy losses and set back the Allied invasion of Germany by several weeks. As the Ardennes crisis developed, the U.S. First Army (Hodges) and U.S. Ninth Army (Simpson) on the northern shoulder of the German penetration lost communications with adjacent armies, as well as with Bradley's headquarters in Luxembourg City to the south of the "bulge". Montgomery requested permission from Churchill to give a press conference to explain the situation. The struggle for the villages and American strong points, plus transport confusion on the German side, slowed the attack sufficiently to allow the 101st Airborne Division (reinforced by elements from the 9th and 10th Armored Divisions) to reach Bastogne by truck on the morning of 19 December. After a fierce tank battle the next day, the Germans finally entered the town when U.S. engineers failed to blow the bridge. Modern mechanized armies need a robust logistics chain to provide fuel, ammunition, and other sinews of war to sustain combat operations. [196], Five copies of a report by the Chief of the Secret Intelligence Service Indications of the German Offensive of December 1944, derived from ULTRA material, submitted to DMI were issued on 28 December 1944. The 21.Panzer-Division was still in France when the Allies launched their invasion of Normandy in June of 1944, and the division was thrown into action against the Allied positions as the only Panzer unit to do so on the 1st day of the attack, June 6th. Thus Peiper was without reinforcements, ammo or fuel and forced to retreat, escaping by sneaking through the American encirclement, leaving all equipment behind. "[150], Many American officers had already grown to dislike Montgomery, who was seen by them as an overly cautious commander, arrogant, and all too willing to say uncharitable things about the Americans. In the south, Brandenberger's Seventh Army pushed towards Luxembourg in its efforts to secure the flank from Allied attacks. They took 36 hours to advance from the Eifel region to Stavelot, while the same advance required nine hours in 1940. Of the two bridges remaining between Kampfgruppe Peiper and the Meuse, the bridge over the Lienne was blown by the Americans as the Germans approached. [163], The German High Command estimated that they lost between 81,834 and 98,024 men on the Western Front between 16 December 1944 and 25 January 1945; the accepted figure was 81,834, of which 12,652 were killed, 38,600 were wounded, and 30,582 were missing. [133], Eisenhower based his decision on various military and political realities. Schnellgruppe Knittel was forced to disengage from the heights around Stavelot. The Fifth Panzer Army under General Hasso von Manteuffel was assigned to the middle sector with the objective of capturing Brussels. Many historians have written about the famous Buffalo Soldiers of the all-Black 92nd Infantry Division, who fought with distinction during World War II. Kampfgruppe Hansen made an attempt to break the encirclement but failed. The battle severely depleted Germany's armored forces, which remained largely unreplaced throughout the remainder of the war. In fact, their horse-drawn artillery and rocket units became a significant obstacle to the armored units. This was done by increasing the number of flak (Flugabwehrkanonen, i.e., anti-aircraft cannons) in the area and the artificial multiplication of radio transmissions in the area. The firefight was short and fierce with the Shermans fire delaying the Panthers progress. Nearly 10 hours into the assault, one of the German V-2 rockets destroyed the Cine Rex cinema in Antwerp, killing 567 people, the highest death toll from a single rocket attack during the war.[60]. The noose had been drawn. The Ardennes offensive was also named Rundstedt-Offensive, but von Rundstedt strongly objected "to the fact that this stupid operation in the Ardennes is sometimes called the 'Rundstedt-Offensive'. At the Arcadia Conference, held in Washington, DC, from December 24, 1941 to January 14, 1942, the Western Allies agreed to a Germany First policy to govern global strategy, but the question where to engage Germany, and when, remained unsettled. During the Battle of the Bulge, numerous photos were taken at this location. approx. The following is some intense research on the names and assignments I have found so far. To preserve the quantity of armor available, the infantry of the 9th Fallschirmjaeger Regiment, 3rd Fallschirmjaeger Division, had been ordered to clear the village first. Peiper's Panthers flank Stoumont from the fields east of town. As a result, by the end of October, the supply situation had eased somewhat. The temperature during that January was extremely low, which required weapons to be maintained and truck engines run every half-hour to prevent their oil from congealing. Waffen-Grenadier-Division der SS (italienische Nr. Battle is a mixture of confusion and disorder. Patton and Eisenhower both felt this was a misrepresentation of the relative share of the fighting played by the British and Americans in the Ardennes (for every British soldier there were thirty to forty Americans in the fight), and that it belittled the part played by Bradley, Patton and other American commanders. By moving around the town with the Panthers, the Germans were able to engage the American spotters in the church steeple, and engage and destroy the 90mm that had knocked out Prahms tank earlier. With the castle acting as overflow accommodation, the main party was settled into the Adlerhorst's Haus 2 command bunker, including Gen. Alfred Jodl, Gen. Wilhelm Keitel, Gen. Blumentritt, von Manteuffel and Dietrich. Mohnke ordered Hansen to throw his Jagdpanzer tank destroyers against Company E 505 at Trois-Ponts on December 21 in an attempt to capture the damaged bridge there, repair it and . Apr 5, 2016 - This German soldier, whose face is now one of the most famous images from the Battle of the Bulge, is generally believed to be Walter Armsbrusch, a member of the 2nd Company, 1st SS Panzergrenadier Regiment, 1. Lack of fuel held up the advance for one day, but on 23 December the offensive was resumed towards the two small towns of Hargimont and Marche-en-Famenne. This view was opposed by the British Chief of the Imperial General Staff, Field Marshal Alan Brooke, as well as Field Marshal Montgomery, who promoted a rapid advance on a narrow front under his command, with the other allied armies in reserve. To Peiper's south, the advance of Kampfgruppe Hansen had stalled. [83][84] Peiper detoured north towards the villages of La Gleize and Cheneux. [180] A total of 708 black Americans were killed in combat during World War II. ; by Jay Luvaas; 1990; pg 12-13, UK National Archives HW 13/45, "Indications of the German Offensive of December 1944", Part C, para. In Pursuit of Military Excellence; The Evolution of Operational Theory'; by Shimon Naveh, pg 108-109. Poor traffic control led to massive traffic jams and fuel shortages in forward units. Peiper turned north and halted his forces in the woods between La Gleize and Stoumont. As Prahms Panther rounded the corner of the main road and entered Stoumont, the last remaining American anti-tank gun opened fire. T.N. The assault, despite initial success by its tanks in penetrating the American line, was defeated and all the tanks destroyed. On our team, the captain is General Ike. . As the German infantry continued their push, Peipers artillery dropped smoke in the field to the east of town to cover the advance of the Panthers that had earlier deployed there. Number of discs : 1. [citation needed], Despite a lull along the front after the Scheldt battles, the German situation remained dire. By this time the German Army suffered from an acute manpower shortage, and the force had been reduced to around 30 divisions. At Montgomery's orders, St. Vith was evacuated on 21 December; U.S. troops fell back to entrenched positions in the area, presenting an imposing obstacle to a successful German advance. The rapid advance by the German forces who surrounded the town, the spectacular resupply operations via parachute and glider, along with the fast action of General Patton's Third U.S. Army, all were featured in newspaper articles and on radio and captured the public's imagination; there were no correspondents in the area of Saint-Vith, Elsenborn, or Monschau-Hfen. [39] The plan banked on unfavorable weather, including heavy fog and low-lying clouds, which would minimize the Allied air advantage. [176], Churchill was elated at Stalin's offer of help,[177] thanking Stalin for the thrilling news. Poised on the opposite bank of the Amblve River, Peiper forced his way across the river and rolled past Stavelot, never fully securing the town, determined to make his way out of the Amblve Valley and across the Meuse. The Germans could field a total of 55 understrength divisions. This had the short-term goal of opening the urgently needed port of Antwerp and the long-term goal of capturing the Ruhr area, the biggest industrial area of Germany. In an indirect, secondary role, the Fifteenth Army, under General Gustav-Adolf von Zangen, recently brought back up to strength and re-equipped after heavy fighting during Operation Market Garden, was located just north of the Ardennes battlefield and tasked with holding U.S. forces in place, with the possibility of launching its own attack given favorable conditions. More than 2,000 black soldiers had volunteered to go to the front. SS-Oberfhrer Mohnke ordered Schnellgruppe Knittel, which had been designated to follow Hansen, to instead move forward to support Peiper. As he withdrew from Cheneux, American paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division engaged the Germans in fierce house-to-house fighting. Much has been made in the historical record of the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany in early March of 1945. [197] It sets out the various indications of an impending offensive that were received, then offers conclusions about the wisdom conferred by hindsight; the dangers of becoming wedded to a fixed view of the enemy's likely intentions; over-reliance on "Source" (i.e. He believed a critical fault line existed between the British and American military commands, and that a heavy blow on the Western Front would shatter this alliance. Units of the British XXX Corps were holding the bridges at Dinant, Givet, and Namur and U.S. units were about to take over. In the 12 years he was Manager of Research Services, Seth and his team increased the oral history collection from 25 to nearly 5,000 oral histories. The unit was upgraded to division status on 10 February 1945. As they did, the Panthers continued their advance on the flanks of town while at the same time the German paratroopers and Panzergrenadiers pushed through the center of the town clearing house after house. Dupuy, David Bongard, and Richard Anderson list battle casualties for XXX Corps combat units as 1,462, including 222 killed, 977 wounded, and 263 missing to 16 January 1945 inclusive. [192][195] Lucas and Calvocoressi "expected heads to roll at Eisenhower's HQ, but they did no more than wobble". He later moved to Spain and South America.[38]. After their defeat, Germany would retreat for the remainder of the war. [172][173], In response to the early success of the offensive, on 6 January Churchill contacted Stalin to request that the Soviets put pressure on the Germans on the Eastern Front. The battle was militarily defined by the Allies as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, which included the German drive and the American effort to contain and later defeat it. The Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross (Ritterkreuz des Eisernen Kreuzes) and its variants were the highest awards in the military and paramilitary forces of Nazi Germany during Wor Considerable fighting went on for another 3 weeks, with Third Army and First Army linking up on 16 January with the capture of Houffalize. Meanwhile, the Allied air offensive of early 1944 had effectively grounded the Luftwaffe, leaving the German Army with little battlefield intelligence and no way to interdict Allied supplies. SS Panzergrenadiers and German paratroopers mop up in Stoumont. The Kampfgruppe Hansen in December 1944 was finally constituted by the bulk of the motorized infantry in trucks of the Leisbtandarte division and therefore was organized as follows: I Battalion of the 1st SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment. As a result, they made little progress throughout the battle. At precisely the same time as Prahms Panther was knocked out, four Shermans from the 723rd Tank Battalion arrived and pushed into Stoumont from the opposite direction. [178], During World War II, most U.S. black soldiers still served only in maintenance or service positions, or in segregated units. Both offered stubborn resistance in the face of superior forces and threw the German schedule off by several days. These 30 newly rebuilt divisions used some of the last reserves of the German Army. The infantrymen of the 119th Infantry Regiment poured fire into the Germans as they advanced through the town, yet it seemingly did little to stop the flood. The National WWII Museum Digital Collections. The 29th Armoured Brigade ambushed the Germans knocking out three Panthers and a number of vehicles in and around Foy-Ntre-Dame. Model, commander of German Army Group B (Heeresgruppe B), and von Rundstedt, overall commander of the German Army Command in the West (OB West), were put in charge of carrying out the operation. Capitalizing on his success and not wanting to lose more time, Peiper rushed an advance group toward the vital bridge at Trois-Ponts, leaving the bulk of his strength in Stavelot. The Germans lacked the overwhelming strength that had been deployed in the north, but still possessed a marked numerical and material superiority over the very thinly spread 28th and 106th divisions. On the following day of 26 December the spearhead of Gen. Patton's 4th Armored Division, supplemented by the 26th (Yankee) Infantry Division, broke through and opened a corridor to Bastogne. The two field marshals combined their plans to present a joint "small solution" to Hitler. The Germans also referred to it as Ardennenoffensive ('Ardennes Offensive') and Rundstedt-Offensive, both names being generally used nowadays in modern Germany. By this time, the town of Bastogne and its network of 11 hard-topped roads leading through the widely forested mountainous terrain with deep river valleys and boggy mud of the Ardennes region was under severe threat. [93] After more than 10 days of intense battle, they pushed the Americans out of the villages, but were unable to dislodge them from the ridge, where elements of the V Corps of the First U.S. Army prevented the German forces from reaching the road network to their west. Kampfgruppe Von Allworden S.S. Capt. When Alexander took command on February 20, 1943, one of his first tasks was to assess II Corps combat readiness after its setbacks during its early engagements around Kasserine Pass. While the Ardennes Counteroffensive is the correct term in Allied military language, the official Ardennes-Alsace campaign reached beyond the Ardennes battle region, and the most popular description in English speaking countries remains simply 'Battle of the Bulge'. These weapons were used in the attemptto stop the oncoming German armor, to no effect. [111], By 21 December the Germans had surrounded Bastogne, which was defended by the 101st Airborne Division, the all African American 969th Artillery Battalion, and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division. The converse was equally damaging; daytime movement of German forces was rapidly noticed, and interdiction of supplies combined with the bombing of the Romanian oil fields starved Germany of oil and gasoline. There are a lot of photos of this group, the convoy of American vehicles around them, and a little bit of data on where they are from. The gunners placed four rounds in rapid succession on Prahms Panther, only to have the rounds ricochet off the mantlet and spin off into the distance. The battle lasted for five weeks from 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945, towards the end of the war in Europe. These bodies lie some 100m from the main site of the shooting and are believed casualities of the initial battle for the cross roads. Indeed Peiper got closest to the Meuse but got encircled in La Gleize. This captured M8 Greyhound armored car was knocked out during the pivotal fighting for St. Vith, Belgium. The weather cleared the next day and supplies (primarily ammunition) were dropped over four of the next five days. Unknown to the other officers present, before he left Patton had ordered his staff to prepare three contingency plans for a northward turn in at least corps strength. All of this meant that the attack, when it came, completely surprised the Allied forces. 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