ULTRA and the Allied Breakout in Normandy

Soldiers assigned to a cannon company in the 90th Infantry Division fire an M3 105mm howitzer during fighting near Carentan, France, June 11, 1944. 

by Ralph Bennett

By the beginning of July 1944, the invasion was hanging fire. Cherbourg had fallen, but St. Lô and Caen—primary objectives of the Americans and British respectively—still resisted capture and the bridgehead was nowhere more than twenty-five miles deep and occupied only a fifth of the area planned for the first month. It was not yet clear how gravely the British attack across the river Odon (Epsom) had weakened the German armor, nor that it had in fact forestalled their last effort to break the Allied front, and an American attempt to seize the St. Lô–Coutances road as a start line for further operations failed on 3 and 4 July. Churchill was accusing Montgomery of going too slowly and Eisenhower warning him to avoid stalemate—a charge soon to be repeated by newspapers in the United States. The first exhilaration of the landings had passed and a reaction had set in not to be dissipated until the brilliant victories of 25 July which took the Allies to the banks of the Seine before the end of August.

General Patton was Waiting

In early July no one but their staffs knew that Bradley and Montgomery were confidently laying plans for the breakout from the bridgehead (Cobra on the Allied right, prefaced by Goodwood on the left) while Caen was at last falling on 10 July, but on the other hand there was always the risk of a move of German tanks from the British to the American sector, where the main thrust had always been intended. Nor did more than a few yet know that Gen. George Patton and his Third Army staff were waiting ready to spearhead the great advance, but were for the moment lying doggo somewhere in the Côtentin in order to preserve the illusion that he commanded an army group in Kent poised for descent at any moment on the coast round Calais—a deception designed to induce the Germans to retain large forces there to meet an imaginary assault rather than shift them to Normandy to hinder the Allied build-up. Above all, no one at all on the Allied side could know that by the end of June Rundstedt had already concluded that the only sensible course of action left was to sue for peace (for which advice Hitler dismissed him on 2 July) nor that his successor as Commander-in-Chief West, von Kluge—who had at first been more sanguine—and Rommel (until injury removed him on 17 July) were now repeatedly warning the Führer that the cordon stretched round the invaders might soon snap irretrievably. Things like this were only said at high-level staff discussions or in secret telephone conversations, and so remained hidden from the Allied command.

How much, then, did Eisenhower and his immediate subordinates know from their intelligence sources about German hopes and fears as they planned and executed the breakout from the bridgehead and the encirclement of von Kluge’s armies during the next few weeks?

The ULTRA signals (based on the decoding of wireless messages between German headquarters enciphered with the supposedly invulnerable Enigma machine) have been released from the secrecy hitherto surrounding them, and show the Allied command knew Hitler’s plans for counterattack almost as soon as the German commanders themselves.

The account which follows is derived almost entirely from these signals; a considerable number of those quoted were dispatched to Allied commanders in the field within three or four hours of the time of origin of the German messages underlying them, and most of the remainder within ten or twelve hours.

Decodable Enigma Messages

Not until the landings brought mobile warfare were the Germans forced to stop relying on telephones and teleprinters for most of their military communications in France and instead to fill the air with decodable Enigma messages, but even before D-Day ULTRA’s best information had concerned the American sector. This occurred once more when something like siege conditions developed in the British sector round Caen towards the end of June, bringing land lines into use again there while radio was still necessary further west. Battle contacts were establishing the main identities among the opposing divisions along the whole front, but it was a happy chance which provided the absolutely reliable confirmation of ULTRA’s almost daily reports of the whereabouts of corps and divisional headquarters in just the area where accurate knowledge could be of most benefit and at just the time when it was most needed. Thus the enemy’s line-up could be kept under constant review and changes in it noted as soon as they occurred—even sooner if (as often happened) we intercepted, decoded and re-transmitted the order for a division to move from one position to another before the move itself actually took place.

There was an excellent example of this at the end of the first week in July. The German defense had by now settled into a simple pattern: infantry had the task of containing U.S. First Army in the west, while the armor was concentrated round Caen in the belief (constantly reiterated in ULTRA signals) that a British drive towards Paris would soon trigger off the Calais landing which the deception planners had labored to suggest. Meanwhile, the U.S. 8^th Corps’ thrust for Coutances caused great alarm although it did not reach its objective. ULTRA several times reported the German 84^th Corps and 2^nd Parachute Corps or their subordinate divisions complaining that heavy casualties had consumed all their reserves, so that they would not be able to hold the line against superior American infantry if the offensive continued; further, that they were all short of petrol and ammunition and that in the opinion of 2^nd Parachute Corps “German fighters must operate at least for short periods of the day if we are to resist Allied pressure” (a bitter pill for Göring, since this was one branch of his Luftwaffe criticizing another, but even Göring was in the same week compelled to admit that air operations had been restricted by ‘intolerable losses’).

This was encouraging news for Bradley as he planned his devastating stroke. But had his unsuccessful push for Coutances drawn so much attention to this part of the front that von Kluge would accept the risk to Paris and transfer armor from his right wing to his left?

At 1730 on 7 July, it is now known, von Kluge decided to take the risk by moving the crack Panzer Lehr armored division to the American front. At 2300 his decision went over the air in a radio message ordering the division to move to a point west of St. Lô. (ULTRA had been keeping track of it on the banks of the Odon, most recently just twenty-four hours earlier). This message was decoded and transmitted as an ULTRA signal before 0700 the following morning, less than eight hours later. The divisional staff was on the way during the afternoon of 8 July, but the main body did not reach its destination until the following day, nor was it ordered to attack along the Vire–Taute canal until dusk on 10 July. Thus ULTRA had given at least thirty-six hours’ warning of one of the major tactical changes in the battle of Normandy—the first transfer of armor from the British to the American sector. The chance of battle now enabled it to do better still: something delayed Panzer Lehr’s attack until the small hours of 11 July, by which time the ULTRA signal announcing it (which could hardly have been delivered by dusk) had been in Omar Bradley’s hands for four or five hours, long enough for him to prepare appropriate countermeasures. The American War History relates “The Panzer Lehr counterattack had been a dismal and costly failure” which only delayed American operations by twenty-four hours.

The next ten days were filled with battles through the hedgerows for St. Lô and the St. Lô–Periers road, the capture of which were essential in order to secure the revised start line for Cobra. ULTRA’s main contribution here was a series of clear indications that the German defenders, tenaciously though they fought, were nearing exhaustion and were becoming so thin on the ground that they would not be able to withstand the decisive blow. It would be too much to say that ULTRA intelligence guaranteed the sweeping success of Cobra in advance, but fair to suggest that those who launched it could be morally certain that it would blast such a hole in the German front that—since there was no second line of defense—it was a matter of pure speculation where the resultant advance would stop.

On the same day that Panzer Lehr made its abortive attack, 2^nd Parachute Corps “scraped together its last reserves” to build new defenses round St. Lô but felt that it would not be able to repel any more attacks unless reinforced, for 3^rd Parachute Division’s experiences that day had shown how “even the best troops” could not stand up against material superiority but could only hold on to the last as Hitler had ordered and let themselves be shot to pieces at their posts. Four days later 2^nd Parachute Corps struck the same note even more somberly: Casualties had so depleted its ranks that “even the bravest troops cannot prevent a breakthrough” should the attack be renewed. On the 18^th, as the battle for St. Lô rose to a crescendo, 3^rd Parachute Division and 352^nd Infantry Division were so exhausted by weeks of hard fighting that the corps’ left flank was open and unprotected for thirty-six hours until the line could be drawn back to compensate. Finally, in the brief lull between the fall of St. Lô on 20 July and the opening of Cobra five days later, 2^nd Parachute Corps forecast that if the Allies attacked again as violently as before they would certainly break through because there was nothing capable of stopping them.

Over towards the west coast 84^th Corps had the same sorry tale to tell though ULTRA reported it less frequently. Artillery and air bombardment had so reduced its fighting power by 14 July, and casualties among officers had been so heavy, that the corps could no longer guarantee to hold its line and some units were already giving ground. This was after strenuous efforts by battle groups of the 2^nd SS Panzer Division had managed to prevent the front from collapsing but had left the division dangerously short of petrol and ammunition and cost it twenty-two tanks, seven guns and seven lorries.

Confirmation that the infantry lines through which Cobra was to drive a path were extremely fragile came in a series of casualty returns and—most strikingly—in an exchange between the commander of the 2^nd Parachute Corps, Meindl, and Gen. Student, the hero of the 1941 air landing on Crete who now commanded the Parachute Army in Germany; their correspondence was in the hands of Eisenhower, Montgomery and Bradley just as Cobra got underway. Meindl complained on 20 July that the fighting power of his paratroops was dwindling steadily and that two requests for new drafts had gone unanswered; the critical situation of the last few days had forced him to commit the few replacements he had received as soon as they arrived—with the result that ninety percent of them became casualties in a very short time, because they were young, untrained men, most of whom had never thrown a hand grenade, fired more than a few rounds of live ammunition or learned much about machine guns, entrenching tools and camouflage.

Even after making allowance for the pardonable exaggerations of a general anxious to persuade his superiors of his plight in order to get their help, this message had a two-fold value: it confirmed that the divisions, on what would in a few days become the left flank of the American thrust, were incapable of mounting an immediate or effective counterattack, and it also betrayed a gradual decline in the quality of the handful of parachute divisions which now constituted almost the only completely reliable German infantry. Student’s reply can have brought but small comfort: 2,500 volunteers were being sent off, he said, but Meindl must remember that the chief reason for the present difficulties was the constant demand for paratroops on all fronts. Meindl then asked that 1,000 of the men be sent to a training depot at home, so that in the end the 3^rd Parachute Division (which had been sixty-five percent under strength ten days earlier) got only 1,500 replacements before the attack.

It can therefore be confidently asserted that the American commanders who delivered the decisive blow already knew from ULTRA the answers to several of the questions about the location and strength of German reserves and their ability to mount an armored counterattack which the American War History says were exercising the minds of their intelligence officers about 20 July. Moreover, when the plotters’ bomb failed to kill Hitler that same day, they could deduce that von Kluge would now be compelled to keep looking over his shoulder to see what repercussions the hunt for traitors might have on his own chances of survival, and that this, coming on top of his knowledge that the troops at the base of the Cherbourg peninsula were not up to the demands about to be made on them and of the heavy burden (which he had been shouldering since Rommel’s injury) of combining the duties of C-in-C West with those of Army Group B commander, might well mean that his nerve was in no state to meet a new emergency.

Some last-minute shifts of position within the 84^th Corps confirmed that it would be Panzer Lehr and the 5^th Parachute Division which would bear the brunt of the carpet-bombing Bradley devised with such care. When this began on 24 July (because the postponement order necessitated by weather conditions did not get through in time) but was not followed up, the 84^th Corps believed for a little while that its artillery had smashed a major ground attack, but it was already using up ammunition too fast and complained with increasing sharpness over the next few days that re-supply was not quick enough: a shortage of shells for the tank-killing 88-mm guns at the point of the advancing American salient was particularly noteworthy, and by 27 July von Kluge’s chief quartermaster confessed that he had no stocks at all of some other types. Apart from this, however, and reports of the practical obliteration of Panzer Lehr by the bomb-carpet, ULTRA shed no particular light on the first days of Cobra; purely tactical details were never its strongest suit, and it could seldom keep up with the changing fortunes of a swiftly moving battle.

More advantageous to the Allied commanders was the opportunity ULTRA gave them to monitor von Kluge’s reactions to the pressure upon him. To stop the rot that was setting in, he needed more tanks. Would Hitler let him denude the defenses of eastern Normandy and the approaches to Paris still further? The answer provides a good illustration of the patchwork nature of military intelligence and of the judgment required for the proper use of ULTRA.

The nearest of the still uncommitted panzer divisions was 116^th Panzer, which ULTRA had regularly reported between the Seine and the Somme in mid-June. Then it disappeared entirely until 9 July, when it was cryptically told to observe wireless silence until further notice—an order which might (but need not) herald the imminence of a move which it was imperative to keep secret. In fact, the division seems to have stayed where it was but to have remained on the alert until Goodwood led von Kluge to secure Hitler’s permission to move it to Caen on the 19^th. Goodwood was called off almost at once, so the 116^th Panzer Division remained in reserve for ten more days until (as we now know) the mounting crisis in the west caused von Kluge to put together a striking force consisting of the 116^th Panzer and 2^nd Panzer Divisions (then south of Caen) under the control of the 47^th Panzer Corps and direct it to halt the American advance. At midday on 29 July, only twenty-four hours after this decision was taken, a front line report showed that the 47^th Corps had suddenly appeared on the opposite side of the 2^nd Parachute Corps from usual; lest this be no more than an error in transmission, a cautious comment was added to the ULTRA signal reporting it: “No other evidence for transfer of the 47^th Corps from right to left of the 2^nd Parachute Corps.” Positive proof that the transfer had really taken place was not forthcoming until the following afternoon with a new location for the 2^nd Panzer and a statement on the 30^th that the two panzer divisions were under the command of the 47^th Corps.

By this time there was no stopping the Americans’ victorious advance through the gap opened by the collapse of the German front at its seaward end (Avranches fell on 31 July), and a spate of signals told a tale of increasing woe which betokened the disintegration of Seventh Army—“a hell of a mess,” von Kluge called it. ULTRA confirmed the evidence of the victors’ eyes. Ordering all its bombers into the air on 29 July, the 9^th Fliegerkorps impressed on the pilots that maximum effort was needed to close the gap and prevent the Allies from scoring a strategic success. The remnants—only two hundred men—of the 243^rd Division (which had been in the eye of the storm) had lost all their artillery and transport, and even the divisional staff was on foot. Nearby, the 2^nd SS was no better off, and the 116^th Panzer had suffered so heavily that on the morning of the 30^th it had still not been able to carry out an attack ordered for the previous day. On behalf of both divisions, the 47^th Corps kept calling (apparently in vain) for more petrol for stranded tanks, but the 13^th Flak Division painted the most lurid picture of the rout. Engaged in ground fighting at Mortain on 1 August and entirely without infantry support, it despaired of saving the guns of its scattered batteries because of an acute shortage of petrol, ammunition and transport, and forecast that they would have to be blown up or left behind. To cap all, its anti-tank grenades were proving ineffective against the thick armor of the American tanks.

On 1 August the U.S. 12^th Army Group came into being under Bradley, who promptly let Patton and Third Army off the leash. At first he pointed them into Brittany, but as the situation swiftly developed in his favor Bradley transferred Third Army’s weight into the direction where more dazzling success beckoned—south to the Loire and then east towards Paris. This would anyhow have laid the Germans open to attack on three sides, but a retreat which might still have been comparatively orderly was turned into disaster by Hitler’s sudden decision to launch a counterattack between the rivers Sée and Sélune from Mortain westwards in order to paralyze the American advance by cutting its life-line through Avranches. Patton’s account of his feat in passing two infantry and two armored divisions through the town in twenty-four hours over a single bridge (“one of those things which cannot be done, but was”) shows that there was substance in the Führer’s dream, but Hitler had not reckoned sufficiently with either the difficulty of organizing and nourishing so spectacular an armored assault or with the high risk of encirclement if it failed.

Hitler took his decision late on 2 August. Sensing the risk involved, von Kluge at first demurred, but in the aftermath of the July plot he was in no position to sustain his objections for long, and next day he began to make the re-dispositions which were the necessary prelude to an attack on the scale demanded. Since he would in any case have been likely to take steps to bring order out of the prevailing chaos, and since no Allied intelligence appreciations written at this moment appear to have survived, it is difficult to determine whether von Kluge’s moves, which soon became known through ULTRA, were at first seen as preparations for attack or for a fighting withdrawal. Because neither ULTRA nor any other source had yet given the slightest hint of what they portended, a vital clue was denied those whose duty it was to interpret them. Things like the 47^th Corps’ tactical withdrawal on 3 August “to strengthen the resistance of the exhausted troops,” or the 2^nd Panzer being pulled out altogether, may in any case have been settled before Hitler’s order and quite independently of it, and will probably have been read as prudential measures only. On 5 August, however, a clutch of Enigma messages, all of which were retransmitted as ULTRA signals between midday and midnight, showed that something more serious was intended. The first showed the 2^nd SS Panzer being withdrawn from the line to reassemble between Mortain and Sourdeval, while at the same time the 47^th Corps was freed by handing its sector over to the 84^th Corps and the 116^th Panzer was relieved by the 84^th Infantry Division (new to Normandy, and one of several reinforcements which, largely unknown to ULTRA, Hitler had ordered up from the south of France and the Franco-Belgian border the previous week).

Cut the Allies Off

The first positive news that there was to be a major offensive was signaled early on the evening of 6 August, only five hours after the 2^nd SS called for fighter protection for a night attack southwest through Mortain (which the U.S. 7^th Corps had just captured) towards St. Hilaire; another signal a few minutes later showed that this was part of a 47^th Corps drive in which the 116^th Panzer, 2^nd Panzer and 1^st SS Panzer were also to participate, and before long the same formation had revealed the object—to cut the Allies off from their supply base. The importance of the event was underlined by the presence of the 1^st SS Panzer, which had been on the Caen front since June and which had been detected assembling round Falaise as recently as the previous night. Ten minutes after midnight on 6-7 August, we could be even more explicit. Seventh Army was to have launched an offensive that evening from Sourdeval and Mortain with the purpose of re-capturing Brecey and Montigny (in the event, it did not do so until a couple of hours after midnight), so that two of these signals at any rate arrived in time to give warning of what was afoot.

ULTRA intelligence was sent to Supreme Headquarters, Army Group and Army commanders (and their RAF and USAAF equivalents), but for security reasons no lower in the chain of command, unless very heavily disguised; it would be interesting to know how much these three signals influenced the dispositions made by Gen. Hodges of U.S. First Army. For it was resistance like that of the 30^th Division (which took over responsibility for Mortain barely six hours before the German attack cut off one of its battalions on Hill 317 to the east of the town; the battalion’s obstinate defense, although besieged for five days, is well known), together with heavy bombing raids by both air forces (to which ULTRA certainly contributed targets) which blunted the German offensive within a few hours. That ULTRA helped to tilt Bradley’s judgment towards boldness, and thus contributed towards the tremendous success he gained, is almost certainly implied by his remark that although on the morning of 8 August four of his divisions were still held up north of the Avranches bottleneck “I resolved to take the plunge and strike for the annihilation of the German Army in the west.”

His resolve will quickly have been confirmed by an order issued on the evening of 7 August by Gen. Hausser, the Seventh Army commander, demanding a renewal of the attack and a breakthrough to Avranches. Decoding difficulties delayed the ULTRA signal until the following evening, but a few hours now mattered less than the certainty that the German armor would continue to press westwards while Patton raced east to surround it and Montgomery pushed down towards Falaise to narrow the escape route from the trap Hitler was preparing for his own men.

Bradley reckoned that he needed forty-eight more hours to complete the envelopment, and laid on aerial reconnaissance every hour to discover whether the panzers would turn in retreat before he was ready. To know when they did so was valuable; to know whether and when they intended to do so—something aerial reconnaissance could never discover—was priceless, and ULTRA achieved this in the early hours of 10 August. In his capacity as commander of Army Group B, von Kluge had issued an order (the wording of which made the hand of Hitler plain) the previous evening which called for an attack by six panzer divisions and ancillary arms to be delivered by a specially constituted group under Gen. Eberbach “probably on the 11^th,” although it might be postponed.

Agent of His Own Destruction

Eberbach’s objective was to be “the sea at Avranches,” and the fate of the battle of France was said to depend on his success. The signal was in the hands of all the Allied generals concerned by breakfast-time on 10 August—that is, in time to give them twenty-four hours or more to decide how to take maximum advantage of their foreknowledge that the enemy was bent on thrusting his head still further into the noose and so becoming the agent of his own destruction.

This was certainly ULTRA’s greatest triumph of the whole western campaign, for it ensured the historic carnage and destruction of the Falaise pocket, and the loss to Hitler of 50,000 German POWs.

The Author

As a major in the British Army’s Intelligence Corps, Ralph Bennett was responsible for sending signals based on ULTRA decodes to Allied commanders in the field, 1941-1945. President of Magdalene College, Cambridge, his book Ultra in the West, is the only study of 1944-45 based on ULTRA.

Northwestern France, 1944: The Breakout, Operations, 1-13 August 1944.

First Army  Breakout, 24 July-4 August 1944.

Exploitation, 30-31 July 1944.

The crew of a German Tiger I of the 1st SS Panzer Division "Leibstandarte" awaits the advance of Allied forces in a well-camouflaged position. Even when they advanced in the open, the German panzer crews carefully covered their panzers with foliage and tree branches to reduce their exposure to air attack.

British infantry moving up during attacks between Hill 112 and Hill 113 in the Odon valley, 16 July 1944.

Sherman tanks of the Staffordshire Yeomanry, 27th Armoured Brigade, carrying infantry from 3rd Division, move up at the start of Operation 'Goodwood', 18 July 1944.

U.S. infantrymen examine the possessions of German casualties in the town of Notre Dame de Cenilly at the beginning of Operation Cobra.

Elite German Fallschirmjägers of the 5th Parachute Division, such as this one armed with rifle and stick grenade in a foxhole, fought stubbornly against the advancing Americans.

American infantrymen cautiously approach a burning German Tiger I that they have just knocked out of action in the fighting around Mortain. After the battle, the surviving German forces retreated towards Falaise where many would meet destruction.

Exhausted GIs of the 120th Infantry Regiment pose for a war photographer after their tenacious defense of Hill 314 during the Battle of Mortain.

Panzer troops of the German 2nd Panzer Division service their anti-tank gun during the German counterattack at Mortain.

American infantrymen cautiously approach a burning German Tiger I that they have just knocked out of action in the fighting around Mortain. After the battle, the surviving German forces retreated towards Falaise where many would meet destruction.

The 823rd Tank Destroyer Bn., 30th Infantry Division near Mortain, France. The 823rd and 30th Infantry Division units held off the elite 1st and 2nd Panzer Divisions ensuring success of the Normandy breakout and victories at St. Lo.

A patrol of American troops from the 4th Infantry Division moving up through a shattered Normandy town north of Mortain after the German armored counterattack against the 30th vainly attempted to recapture the strategic town in August of 1944. The 4th infantry's 8th Regiment was called out of reserve to reinforce the 30th's left flank north of the See River.

A M8 Howitzer Motor Carriage, most probably of the 113th Cavalry Group, speeds down a road outside of St. Giles, France, July 27, 1944 past the wreck of a German Panther medium tank.  113th was in support of the 30th Division.

A German casualty next to a halftrack destroyed by aircraft, Mortain, August 1944.

An Avro Lancaster leaves the target area (top left), as smoke from exploding bombs smothers the village of Cagny, south-east of Caen, France. 942 aircraft of Bomber Command were dispatched to bomb German-held positions, in support of the Second Army attack in the Normandy battle area (Operation GOODWOOD), on the morning of 18 July 1944.

British 5.5-inch medium gun firing at night during the offensive in the Odon valley near Evrecy, 16 July 1944.

A P-47 Thunderbolt roars over a column of American tanks on a French road. Brig. Gen. Otto Weyland detailed a four-aircraft flight of P-47s to cover each of Patton’s armored columns in Brittany.

German Tiger I tank of 3./s.Pz.Abt. 503 (3rd Company 503rd Heavy Tank Battalion) which was overturned at Manneville during the Allied heavy bombing at the start of Operation 'Goodwood', 18 July 1944.

The Allies enjoyed almost complete air superiority over northern France. The Royal Air Force's (RAF) Typhoon squadrons in particular took a heavy toll on German transport columns during the Normandy campaign. The destroyed column shown here belonged to elements of the German 7th Army which retreated to Chambois while attempting to escape encirclement during the closing of the Falaise Pocket.

German prisoners marching past a Sherman tank of 3rd/4th County of London Yeomanry (Sharpshooters) near Falaise in Normandy. They were captured during the Allied attempts to encircle and destroy the German Seventh Army and Fifth Panzer Army.

A Churchill Mk IV or VI tank awaits possible enemy counterattack in a ruined Normandy village, July 1944

U.S. troops move to the line for Operation Cobra.

U.S. troops during Operation Cobra.

U.S. troops in Operation Cobra.

The crew of an M4 Sherman tank pursues retreating German forces in northwestern France.

Tanks of the 2nd Armored Division pass through the lines of the 120th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division July 26, 1944 near St. Lo, France.

Tanks of the 2nd Armored Division pass through the lines of the 30th Infantry Division and roar into the breach near St. Lo.

U.S. bomber crews inadvertently inflicted casualties on front-line U.S. troops when some of their bombs fell short during Operation Cobra; nevertheless, they shattered the German defenses.

Infantrymen scramble to dig out soldiers trapped in their foxholes after the bombing. 

 

Battle in the Bulge: A Wartime Report

Infantrymen man their .30 caliber machine gun, 84th Infantry Division, Odrimont, Belgium, 6 January 1945.

by Theodore Draper, Sergeant, U.S. Army

If we did nothing else in the Ardennes, we de­stroyed the myth that the woods and hills of that historically famous battle region are “im­pene­trable.” The Ger­mans began the dem­on­stra­tion in 1940 but their feat was too one-sided to be con­vinc­ing. They proved it was possible for an army to go through the Ardennes but they did not prove it was possible to fight through it. They met real opposition only twice and both times it was a fight of a few hours in clearings within the forest. Above all, the Germans carefully chose the very best time of the year, in May, as if to emphasize that special con­di­tions were necessary. In January 1945, however, we had to fight for practically every hill, wood, village, and road, in the very worst time of the year, on ice as slick as grease and in snow waist-high, against skillful and stub­born op­po­si­tion.

The classic, offensive campaign of the Ar­dennes has been fought and we fought it. Nothing that hap­pened in 1940 (or 1914) can be compared to it.

The terrain in the Ardennes is like a jigsaw puz­zle. Somehow all of it fits together but some­how all of it can be taken apart and the pieces fall into the oddest shapes. Each hill and wood is like a separate com­part­ment and tactically each one becomes a distinct prob­lem.

In this rolling country, there is commanding high ground in almost every mile so that an over­night with­drawal from one hill of defense to the next is relatively easy. The villages and frag­ments of vil­lages (the tough­est “village” to take in our of­fen­sive had a sin­gle house) are in­var­i­a­bly astride the roads and inev­i­ta­bly become en­emy strong points. The woods might have been planned by a master strategist to hold pock­ets of resistance. A con­tin­u­ous offensive or defensive line is impossible. Strong points and pockets of re­sist­ance are everything. That is why the battle had such a cut-up, piecemeal character.

The German bulge was hit from three sides. The Third Army came up from the south, from Bas­togne. The First Army came down from the north, from both sides of Manhay. A British corps attacked from the west, from Marche. To get the whole story, then, at least three large phases have to be covered.

The main effort, however, was made by the First Army, from the north. The Third Army’s progress was aided by the pressure the First Army exerted from the north. The British were stalled at the most difficult stage of the drive.

In the First Army’s sector, four divisions were in­volved: the 84th and 83rd Infantry Divisions and the 2nd and 3rd Armored Division. In its con­cep­tion, the action was an armor-infantry job … the 84th Infantry Division was teamed with the 2nd Ar­mored, the 83rd with the 3rd Ar­mored. But the main effort was as­signed to the 2nd Armored and 84th Infantry Di­vi­sions … both Laroche and Houf­falize were in their zone of advance.

This offensive from the north was launched be­tween two rivers, the Ourthe and the Salm. By re-taking the ground between these two rivers as far as Houffalize, we would hammer a huge wedge through two-thirds of the bulge. The area between the Ourthe and the Salm was cut almost exactly in half by the road which ran from Man­hay to Houf­falize (for con­ven­ience, it will be called the Houf­falize Road). This road was the boundary be­tween the 2nd Armored/84th Infantry team and the 3rd Armored/83rd Infantry team, with the first of these teams on the west near the Ourthe, the second on the east near the Salm.

We, the 2nd Armored Division and the 84th In­fan­try Division, were attacking on a front about nine miles wide. The first series of enemy strong points were strung out just below the road from Hotton to Manhay. These strongpoints were Trinal, Magoster, Armonines, Lamor­menil, Frey­neux, Odeigne; less than fifty houses in the largest place. Our objective was Houffalize, about 16 miles to the southeast. The Third Army, in order to get Houf­falize from the bottom of the Bulge, had about half as far to go.

Our zone between the Ourthe River and the Houf­falize Road was cut in half by a small stream, the Aisne. As a result, at least in the first six days, there were two distinct sectors and the 2nd Armored Di­vi­sion started the attack with two combat com­mands abreast … Combat Command A extending from the Ourthe to the Aisne, Combat Command B from the Aisne to the Houffalize Road. In turn each combat command was made up of three task forces. The set-up was com­pli­cated, evidence that the ter­rain was com­pli­cated.

Although our ultimate objective was Houf­falize, a midway objective was the road from Laroche to the vital intersection with the Houf­falize Road (we will call this other road the La­roche Road). The decisive phase of the battle was fought out above the Laroche Road in the first week of our attack. By getting to Laroche and especially to the all-important in­ter­sec­tion, we would deprive the enemy of the only two good roads which he could use to salvage his forces in the bulge. The mouth of his bulge would be re­duced to the danger point at La­roche to dis­as­ter at Houffalize.

The only division in the entire drive which I was able to watch at close range was the 84th Infantry Division, but it happened to be placed at the very center of the main effort. One of its regiments drove down to Laroche and another to Houffalize. And there is something else that must be emphasized. Although originally planned as an armored of­fen­sive, with the infantry in support, the battle of the Ardennes bulge quickly became an infantry attack primarily, with the armor used only as the ground permitted. To that extent, this may be a contribution to the story which is not only typical of the rest but which also traces the line of the main thrust.

D-day was 3 January 1945. H-hour was 0830. The 2nd Armored Division, to which our 335th Infantry was temporarily attached, attacked to the southeast. The enemy was surprised. Some pris­on­ers were cap­tured asleep. Until noon, we forged ahead steadily. The en­emy’s outpost line was broken through without much difficulty. The en­emy’s front was held by three divisions: the 2nd SS Panzer Division on the right near the Ourthe; the 560th Volksgrenadier Division in the center; and the 12th Volksgrenadier Division on the left near the Houf­falize Road.

But that morning, in a more important way, our luck ran out. It snowed. Sleet and rain fell in spasms. From early morning the roads were icy. The tem­per­a­ture shot down till the ground was like steel. Tank treads slipped and slid as if the tanks were drunk. Every time a tank skidded, a column was held up. Sometimes the tanks skidded just far enough to block the road.

Trinal was easy. We went in by 0930. By noon, however, resistance was more highly or­gan­ized and effective. Magoster was harder to crack. After our tanks were held up at several points by enemy ba­zoo­kas and anti-tank guns, we were able to move in and pass through. The main objective that day was Devan­tave. Between Ma­goster and Devantave were a cluster of woods and a hill. The tanks could not get through the woods and our infantry had to push ahead. We got through the woods safely and one company stepped out to cross the hill. Eighty-eights were waiting for them. Eighty-eights and rockets and mortars swept the hill and crashed into the woods. We had to pull back. Light tanks were used to evacuate the wounded; noth­ing else was possible in the snow. At 1500, we again tried to take De­vantave but again we could not get over the hill. We withdrew for the night east of Ma­goster.

Farther west that day, it was the same. One com­pany went into Beffe but had to withdraw at night to high ground above the village. Only on the left flank, between the Aisne and the Houf­falize Road, was our progress easier. By night, we cleaned out the woods above Od­iegne. There was no resistance.

In general, then, the result of the first day’s fight­ing was inconclusive. We had advanced from 1,500 to 2,000 yards, but the enemy’s strong­points at Beffe and Devan­tave had frustrated us. It was clear that the en­emy was making his main defensive effort on our right flank, between the Ourthe and the Aisne, and his heav­i­est op­po­si­tion was reserved for the right sector of the right flank, the hills, woods and villages nearest the Ourthe. This showed that Laroche was the Ger­man commander’s most sen­si­tive point.

It was still snowing. That was more important than anything else. The roads were bad enough. Icy roads were almost impossible. The hills and woods were for­mi­da­ble obstacles. Knee-deep snow on the hills and wood threatened to give us more trouble than anything the enemy could mus­ter.

For four days, we tugged and pulled around Beffe and Devantave. They were the hardest four days the men in this action had ever spent and most of them were veterans of many actions. Then we began to cash in.

The problem of Beffe was typical. It was not so much that the enemy had left strong forces in Beffe itself. It was rather that he was able to pour a deadly fire into Beffe from very favorable posi­tions … from the Consy ridge, about 1,000 yards to the southeast, from the Moulin de Bardonive, about 1,000 yards to the south­west, and from the direction of Rendeux Bas, a tiny village on the other side of the Ourthe in the British sector. His trump card was direct and observed fire. Al­though much of the heaviest fight­ing went on for Beffe itself, the basic problem of this phase of the attack was really the Consy ridge.

The capture of Beffe was also typical. On 4 Jan­u­ary 1945 the village was subjected to an intense ar­til­lery bombardment. At 1105, Com­pany B, 335th In­fan­try, began to move in. Mean­while, Company C, 335th In­fan­try, retook Ma­goster and continued on to Beffe. By 1400, both companies made contact at the southern edge of Beffe and dug in. The vil­lage was practically deserted.

In effect, after holding us up for a day at Beffe, the enemy was content to give it up, only to fall back to another easily defended position a thousand yards behind. From the first, then, his objective was not so much to hold on to any par­tic­u­lar piece of ground at all cost as to delay us and extort the high­est possible price for our gains.

Devantave was another deserted village. After our first right flank, we organized another attempt, this time from Amonines on the left. At dawn 6 January 1945, Company I, 335th In­fan­try, followed by me­dium tanks, and Company K, 335th Infantry, followed by light tanks, jumped off. By 0930, the tanks had reached the edge of Devantave. At 1100, Company I moved into the western half, Company K the eastern half. Re­sist­ance inside the village was light. By 1210, occupation was complete.

With the capture of Magoster, Beffe and De­vantave, a deep hole was driven in the crust of the enemy’s de­fen­sive position on the right flank of our zone. The stage was set for an attack on his most troublesome position, Consy, the “village” with a single house.

Meanwhile, we were still progressing easily on our left flank between the Aisne and the Houf­falize Road. The 3rd Battalion, 333rd Infantry, went into action on the second day, 4 January 1945. Company K was sent into Lamormenil, Company L into Frey­neux and Com­pany I into the woods west of Lamor­menil. All three were taken without difficulty. Tanks went into the vil­lage before the infantry. At nightfall, 5 January 1945, Com­pany C and the 1st Platoon of Com­pany D, 333rd In­fan­try, plus one platoon of a tank battalion, moved out of Le Batty to Odeigne. They met enemy small arms fire but not artillery. The village was completely taken by 1300 the next day, 6 January 1945. We did not suffer a single casualty.

By the time we took Devantave, it was clear that the original plan which gave the infantry a sup­port­ing role was not working out. The terrain and the weather were against it and they won. The victory of the ele­ments gave the infantry the main job.

The Ardennes is neither roadless nor rich in roads. A British source has estimated that thirteen sep­a­rate first-class roads cross the Ardennes from Ger­many to France. There are perhaps three secondary roads for every first-class one and numerous trails. But so many pass through long stretches of woods, so many teeter on the edge of cliffs and wind up and down and around the ines­cap­a­ble hills. In May, too, the possibilities of resistance in the Ardennes would be immense. In January, in snow that keeps piling up from the ankle to the knee, from the knee to the waist, only a little effort is necessary to turn pos­si­bil­i­ties into realities.

All vehicles have to stick to roads to get an­y­where, only more often than not they cannot stick to roads be­cause they are constantly sliding off. The next best thing is to proceed slowly and care­fully but then your vehicles may miss the jump-off by hours and the in­fan­try has gone off alone. Is it curious that a terrain that is con­sid­ered too tough for a tank is never considered too tough for a Doughboy?

As a result of the problems which arose in the first four days for the armor, after Devantave was taken, more clearly defined zones for the armor and the in­fan­try began to emerge. From Devantave, the 2nd Armored Division, with the 335th Infantry still at­tached, veered off more sharply to the southeast to get to Samree through Dochamps, while the 84th Infantry Division assumed responsibility for the drive south­ward to La­roche and for the Laroche Road as far as Sam­ree.

One thing stood out again. When nothing else moved, the Doughboys moved and they moved long and often. And what was it like for them?

It took a good two hours to get through the fro­zen crust of earth. It took two or three hours more to get down as far as three feet. Not only was dig­ging a foxhole a job in which a whole day’s energies could be con­sumed, but it was practically impossible to dig a really good foxhole at least five feet deep. The weather con­tin­ued to get colder and colder until it went well below freezing and stayed there. This meant there was only one thing worse than not sleep­ing … and that was sleeping. The quickest way to freeze is to lie still. Men went to sleep in over­coats, when they had them, and woke up encased in icy boards. It was practically impossible to bring up supplies and rations in anything but half-tracks. Water congealed in canteens. Frostbite was as dan­ger­ous as all the Krauts and their guns put together.

The Doughboys who went into Devantave fought ninety-six hours without a break and they were not through by a long shot.

We took Consy the way we took most of the strong­points … by going around it. When we took Devantave on 6 January 1945, we outflanked Consy on the left. Then we sent two battalions into the woods west of Consy and the enemy was squeezed out in the middle. He did not choose to hold even this com­mand­ing position at Consy at all cost. By 7 January 1945, Consy was virtually cleaned out through the woods on the right flank were not com­pletely safe for another two days.

The turning point of the entire action probably came on 7 January 1945, not where we had to fight the hardest but where progress was still relatively easy. On the left flank, after we took Odeigne on 6 January 1945, the 2nd Battalion, 333rd Infantry, was sent out the next day to cap­ture the vital cross­roads where the Laroche Road and the Houffalize Road meet. The weather was miserable. A snow­storm whipped up during the attack. Nev­er­the­less, by 0930, the cross­roads were ours. Prisoners, fro­zen, hungry, and dis­or­gan­ized, were picked up in small, wandering groups, They said they were sur­prised again. An attack in such harsh weather was completely unex­pected. Our in­ter­ro­ga­tors heard that story almost every day.

As soon as we captured the crossroads, the en­emy was deprived of the only two first-rate roads to the east, the Laroche Road and the Houf­falize Road. From then on, he must have been inhibited in his intentions, though he would never retire without a fight. Nev­er­the­less, he always had to consider that his chances of successfully pulling his forces out of the trap were getting slimmer and slimmer.

Partly because German resistance above the La­roche Road on our right flank was so much stronger than on our left, we were able to cut the road first on the extreme left of our zone at the crossroads. As we gained full control of the road, we continued to move from left to right. Next, one of our task forces came down from Amo­nines to Dochamps and from Do­champs we launched the attack on one of the enemy’s po­si­tion, Samree.

The trip from Amonines to Dochamps was the same old story. The road, though the best in the sec­tor, was so icy and narrow that the tanks were held up repeatedly. Road blocks, which took about two hours each to reduce on the average, some small arms fire but this time very little artillery, represented the en­emy’s main effort to hold us up. Mine fields and trees felled across the road by det­o­nat­ing TNT charges, anti-tank guns and tanks, were effective sources of enemy re­sist­ance. We took the high ground northwest of Do­champs on the night of 6 January 1945, and were able to move into Do­champs the next night. One in­ci­dent was symbolic. After we had spread out in the village, a German tank with sixty to eighty in­fan­try­men sud­denly pulled out from behind the church and made for Samree. Our tank destroyers could not fire a shot because their turrets were frozen, striking example of weather conditions which lessened the effectiveness of our mechanized equipment and threw the main burden of attack and defense on our infantry.

Samree was seemingly impregnable. It was perched on an 1,080-foot hill. First we had to take two other hills, northeast and northwest of it. Our troops had to move through 1,500 yards of rolling ground in knee-deep snow. The enemy had perfect observation every inch of the way. To tell the truth, it was hard to see how we could make it.

At 0630, 9 January 1945, the 3rd Battalion, 335th Infantry, went out of Dochamps to get those hills. By nightfall, it had progressed to the edge of some woods about 1,500 yards from Samree on the west side of the road and had taken one of the heav­ily wooded hills guard­ing the town. Company L was withdrawn and sent around through Dochamps to occupy the second hill on the east side of the road. That night, our ar­til­lery con­cen­trated on Samree. Next day, at 0730, the 3rd Battalion, 335th Infantry, pushed forward to cap­ture the eastern half of Sam­ree and was joined by the 1st Battalion, 335th In­fan­try, which aimed at the west­ern half. This time, tanks went in first, blazing away their guns, a sight a Doughboy loves best, thinking of all the Doughs it takes to work up that much fire­power. By 0925, the village was cleared. We were pleas­antly surprised. The enemy was determined to delay us but as long as we showed our de­ter­mi­na­tion not to be delayed, we could always take what we wanted.

The infantrymen who went into Samree had been fighting steadily for eight days, for 192 hours. They were certainly helped by the fact that the Laroche Road had been cut three days earlier. The artillery con­cen­tra­tion on Samree was ex­tremely effective. But in the end, men had to live in some more freez­ing cold and wade through some more snowdrifts, now as much as four and five feet high, to get Sam­ree for us.

The battle of Laroche is a good example of the battle of supply and the battle of stamina which every battle in the Bulge was.

The roads to Laroche were particularly bad, the hills particularly high, and the woods par­tic­u­larly dense. A few tanks and trucks turned the snow on the roads into ice and the trouble started. The Dough­boys depended more than ever on the en­gi­neer and artil­leryman.

The main attack was launched from De­vantave by the 1st Battalion, 334th Infantry. The first ob­jec­tive was Marcouray. Over a hundred guns softened up the village for five minutes. Then, at 1500, 7 January 1945, the infantry jumped off. The ground was rocky and steep. It was snowing again. Thirty minutes later, all Ger­man resistance in Marcouray was overrun. We found that the enemy positions were carefully pre­pared. Snow was a natural cam­ou­flage. For­tu­nately, we were achieving tactical surprises and much of the preparation was wasted. As prisoner after prisoner told us, the weather and terrain were so bad that our in­fan­try was simply not expected. That is one compensation for “impossible” conditions … they are apt to lead the enemy to drop his guard. The enemy’s surprise at Marcouray was shown by the equipment he was forced to leave behind. We picked up thirty-six ve­hi­cles: eight half-tracks, two command cars, six U.S. jeeps, six civilian-type cars, five six-wheeled re­con­nais­sance vehicles, five U.S. tanks, two German 1½-ton trucks.

When we took Laroche, we sealed the fate of the bulge. Yet in no sense did it mean that the fighting be­came less difficult. The terrain and weather were still the enemy’s chief allies. His forces had more and more hills and woods to withdraw to. Above all, the German com­mand was now fighting for time, time to regroup and reorganize behind the Siegfried Line, time to meet the overwhelming Russian threat.

There were some significant differences be­tween the two phases. As long as our main ob­jec­tive was Laroche, the enemy’s main effort was made on the right flank. As soon as we took the Laroche Road and Houffalize be­came our main objective, the enemy’s main effort was made on the left flank. In the second phase, the 333rd Infantry was tem­po­rar­ily attached to the 2nd Ar­mored Division. The 84th Infantry Division was given the right half of the zone, the 2nd Armored Division the left half. In this phase, we were faced by elements of the 116th Panzer Division and the 130th Panzer Lehr Di­vi­sion.

As far as the Laroche Road, the 333rd In­fan­try had advanced with relative ease. Once beyond the road, it ran into much more trouble. In Les Tailles and at the edge of the woods to the south, an es­ti­mated enemy battalion was dug in. On the other side of the Houf­falize Road, an estimated reinforced company was holding Petites Tailles. The 2nd Bat­tal­ion went out from the Laroche Road to Les Tail­les, the 1st Bat­tal­ion to Petites Tailles. The expe­ri­ences of both were sig­nif­i­cantly sim­i­lar.

To get to Les Tailles, we had to cross some more woods. The German positions were well cam­ou­flaged. The enemy’s fields of fire and bar­rages were well planned to catch us as we came out into the open. At 0800, 12 January 1945, Company F and Company G jumped off. As they came out of the woods north of Les Tailles, they were met by very heavy fire and were held up. At 1500, they began to move again. Ten minutes later, Company G and tanks were entering Les Tailles but the op­po­si­tion was so sharp that the village was not cleared until 2100. About 140 prisoners were taken.

This happened again and again … we had to fight hard for a place but when we took it we gathered in batches of prisoners. Looked at more closely, how­ever, this phe­nom­e­non may tell us a good deal about a German strat­a­gem in fighting this final phase of the war.

From Les Tailles, we had to get to Dinez. To get to Dinez, we had to go through 4,000 yards of woods. To go through these woods, we faced prob­lems which were typical of the fighting in the Ar­dennes forest.

At 0800, 13 January 1945, the 2nd Battalion, 333rd Infantry, jumped off from Les Tailles for the third time in two days. After taking Collas, a little village southwest of Les Tailles, at 1000, it struck out for the woods. Immediately, the terrain became worse than the enemy, though the latter did his best to help. The roads were terrible, barely more than trails. Under the snow, which now had ten days to ac­cu­mu­late, they were invis­i­ble. By 1200, the en­emy’s ac­tiv­ity became more stubborn. By the end of the day, we had pen­e­trated only 500 yards.

The problem of getting through the woods was faced that night. Two narrow trails ran through the woods to Dinez and two special task forces were formed to get through those trails. Both started out at 0800 the next day, 14 January 1945.

The woods, snow, cold and narrow trails made sup­ply evacuation, contact, control and com­mu­ni­ca­tion a battle of nerves. The only sup­plies came in with half-tracks. Mortar am­mu­ni­tion had to be car­ried by hand over two miles. In Odeigne, the 2nd Battalion had cap­tured an en­emy horse and sled. They held on to them and in these woods the horse and sled were their only means of evacuating the wounded. Radios would not work in the woods as it was impossible to lay wires. Visibility was so poor that it was always like night in the middle of the day. Since a small group of five or six infantrymen worked with one tank it was hard to put a company or even a pla­toon together … a trou­ble­some problem for the infantry whenever they work with armor.

Companies F and G rode light tanks part of the way but progress was too slow that way be­cause the tanks were held up so much of the time. By pushing them­selves to the limit, both task forces were able to move through the entire woods by 1600. Without stopping once the woods were cleared, Company F attached Dinez and Company E attacked Wilogne. Surprise paid off again. Both were captured before the night was over and about a hundred prisoners were taken in Di­nez. Most of our cas­u­al­ties resulted from shell fire and frostbite. We were about 4,500 yards from Houf­falize.

Meanwhile, on the right flank, in the 84th In­fan­try Division zone, the enemy was wedged in be­tween the Laroche Road and the Ourthe River. On the whole, progress was much easier but one minor crisis resulted in perhaps the most unusual expe­ri­ence of the cam­paign.

The first important objective was Berismenil. At 0730, 13 January 1945, the 1st Battalion, 334th In­fan­try, moved out from the Laroche Road to take a hill about 1,500 yards north of Beris­menil. Only sniper fire was encountered and the objective was taken by 1100. At 1415, the 1st Battalion went for­ward again to take an­other hill about 750 yards northeast of Beris­menil … one of our battalion com­mand­ers once said wistfully, “Every time I see a hill, I know it’s going to be our next ob­jec­tive.”

By 1800, the 1st Battalion had taken its second hill against light resistance. Nevertheless, the sit­u­a­tion was confused because orientation in the dark was difficult. When a patrol carrying blan­kets was fired on from the rear, it was clear that the battalion was almost entirely surrounded by the enemy. Later that night, a re­con­nais­sance patrol was sent to inves­ti­gate the enemy’s position south of the hill but failed to return. Then the battalion commander, Major Roland L. Kolb, decided to see for himself. Leading another pa­trol, he suddenly observed a German command car pull up to the base of the hill and halt. Two men stepped out and began to walk up the hill. When the pair approached near enough, the patrol jumped out of hiding.

One of their prisoners turned out to be Captain Hana­gottfried von Watzdorf, commander of the 1st Battalion, 60th Panzergrenadiers, 116th Pan­zer Di­vi­sion. Unaware that his main line of re­sist­ance had been penetrated to a depth of more than 1,000 yards, the German commander was out on a tour of inspection. In perfect English, he exclaimed, “I am astonished.” The commander of one battalion had personally cap­tured the com­mander of the enemy’s battalion opposite him and he had to keep him all night before he could de­liver him safely.

Berismenil itself was captured by the 2nd Bat­tal­ion, 335th Infantry. It covered 3,000 yards of trails, thereby achieving a considerable degree of surprise but giving up all possibility of using any vehicles to back up the attack. As a result, Berismenil was captured almost without op­po­si­tion. By the end of the day, 13 January 1945, the enemy had been cleared out of approx­i­mately half the 84th Infantry Division’s zone.

The other half was rapidly cleaned out the next day. Nadrin was occupied by the 1st Bat­tal­ion, 334th Infantry, at 1130, 14 January 1945. Only some ma­chine guns and small arms re­sist­ance was encountered. At the same time, the 3rd Battalion, 334th Infantry, attacked Filly, about a mile south­east of Nadrin. Tanks and tank de­stroy­ers could not use the roads because they were heav­ily mined and the infantry went on alone. Filly was en­tered at 1530 without any artillery preparation and fully occupied a half-hour later. The 3rd Battalion went on to take the last two objectives, Petite-Mormont and Grande-Mormont by 1915.

By this time, the Bulge was practically a mem­ory and the chief interest of every com­mander (company, bat­tal­ion, regiment, and divi­sion) was how to send out the patrol to make the first contact with the Third Army.

We made Houffalize completely untenable on 15 January 1945. At 1100, the 1st Battalion, 333rd In­fan­try, jumped off from Dinez and cap­tured the village of Mont, midway between Dinez and Houf­falize, by 1400. Tanks, infantry, and artillery worked together smoothly. At 1600, the advance was renewed to Hill 430, overlooking Houffalize. It was taken by 1730 without op­po­si­tion.

Credit for going into Houffalize went to the 2nd Armored Division. The 1st Battalion, 333rd In­fan­try, held Hill 430 until 1700, 16 January 1945, when it was relieved by a reconnaissance element of the 2nd Armored Division. By 1745, 16 January 1945, ele­ments of the 2nd Armored Division held the northern part of Houffalize, while elements of the 11th Ar­mored Division held the southern por­tion.

When was the Bulge wiped out? That may never be decided to everyone’s satisfaction be­cause a number of patrols were frantically trying to make contact with a number of other patrols at the same time. I can merely report how and when the 84th Infantry Division closed the Bulge for itself.

A thirty-three man patrol, led by Lieutenant Byron Blan­kenship, representing the 334th Infantry, left Filly at 1100, 15 January 1945. At 1145 they crossed the Ourthe in two 400-pound rubber boats, which they carried. The rest of the af­ter­noon they spent in an old mill on the other side of the Ourthe. Just before dark, Lieutenant Blan­kenship led a small patrol into the village of En­greux, about 1,000 yards from the Our­the, where he expected to meet a patrol from the Third Army. He found the village free of the enemy but he found no sign of the Third Army’s patrol.

Late that night, Lieutenant Blankenship re­ceived word that the rendezvous had been changed. Start­ing off again at midnight, the patrol moved out across some more woods and over a 1,200-yard ridge. At 0220, 16 January 1945, in the dead of night, they stopped at a small Belgian farmhouse. The whole family, papa, mama, a son and a daugh­ter of twenty-two turned itself into a reception committee. There were bread, butter, and hot coffee. The patrol decided the ren­dez­vous had been changed for a good reason.

That morning, at 0930, Private First Class Rod­ney Himes, second in command of the patrol, spied a soldier walking outside the farmhouse. Since the patrol had been ordered to stay inside the house, Private First Class Himes began to “bawl him out” and asked him what outfit he was from.

The answer was a platoon of cavalry from the 11th Armored Division, U.S. Third Army.

The junction was officially achieved at 0945, 16 January 1945, by Lieutenant Blankenship of the 334th Infantry and Lieutenant Lucas of the Cavalry. The Bulge was wiped out after thirteen days of hard, continuous fighting.

The battle of the Bulge was one of the hardest, if not the hardest, fight of the Allied armies in Europe. The weather, the terrain, and the enemy combined to make a campaign of peculiar and bitter difficulty.

M36 gun motor carriage of Battery C, 702nd Tank Destroyer Battalion, 2nd Armored Division, dug in near the Roer River, Belgium, 16 December 1944.

A dead German soldier, killed during the German counter offensive in the Belgium-Luxembourg salient, is left behind on a street corner in Stavelot, Belgium, on January 2, 1945, as fighting moves on during the Battle of the Bulge.