Battle of the Bulge
Called “the greatest American battle of the war” by Winston Churchill, the Battle of the Bulge in the Ardennes region of Belgium was Hitler’s last major offensive in World War Two against the Western Front.
When was the Battle of the Bulge?
Lasting six brutal weeks in raw winter conditions, from December 16th, 1944 to January 25, 1945, some 30 German divisions attacked battle-weary American troops across 85 miles of the densely-wooded Forest.
When the Nazi’s unexpected offensive swept into the Ardennes, the Allied line buckled and pulled back in the appearance of a large herniated bulge, which gave the battle its everlasting name. The formerly serene region of Ardennes was hacked to pieces by brutal fighting against the German advance at St. Vith, Elsenborn Ridge, Houffalize and Bastogne, leading U.S. Army soldier Charlie Sanderson to write of the event:
“Did you ever see land when a tornado’s come through? Did you ever see trees and stuff, twisted and broken off? The whole friggin’ forest was like that.”
Belgium townspeople put away their Allied flags and brought out their swastikas, not knowing which side would ultimately win the battle. Hitler’s mid-December blitzkrieg banked heavily on the strategic nature of bad weather, subjecting American troops to freezing rain, thick fog, deep snowdrifts and record-breaking low temperatures, resulting in more than 15,000 “cold injuries,” such as trench foot, pneumonia and frostbite.
“I was from Buffalo, I thought I knew cold,” reflects baseball Hall of Famer and World War Two veteran Warren Spahn. “But I didn’t really know cold until the Battle of the Bulge.”
Supreme Allied Commander Dwight D. Eisenhower and George S. Patton Jr. led the American defensive to restore the weakened front, sending in 230,000 soldiers and airborne units into Bastogne, where the Germans had surrounded thousands of Allied troops.
When the Germans sent a message demanding the surrender of the 101st Airborne Division on December 22, 1944, they got a one-word response from its commander, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, and that word was “Nuts!”
Who won the Battle of the Bulge?
Three days later, Patton’s Third Army finally arrived to push back the German line and rescue the surrounded troops. Germany’s failure to divide American forces embedded in the Ardennes paved the way to victory for the Allies, but only at an egregiously high price.
One million plus Allied troops fought in the Battle of the Bulge, with approximately 19,000 soldiers killed in action, 47,500 wounded and 23,000-plus missing and forever unaccounted for. The Germans suffered almost matching losses, making the Battle of the Bulge one of the bloodiest events of the war.