Britain’s Battle of the Bulge:
The Story, Part One
By Vincent Kamer
June 2021

Germany’s Supreme Leader Adolf Hitler believed in fate. More particularly he believed in his own fate. Even as events in the war turned against him in 1944, he saw this as part of his story. Had he not miraculously survived another attempt on his life in July 1944? He was the Führer. He had been put on the planet to lead Germany to greatness, of that he was absolutely sure. This in turn continued to inspire those who fanatically followed him.

In his world he was much like one of his heroes: Frederick the Great. Frederick was the Prussian king and military leader who ruled the Kingdom of Prussia from 1740 until 1786. Prussia greatly increased its territories and became a leading power in Europe under his rule. It had not been easy sailing. The king had faced an overwhelming coalition of enemies including Austria with the Holy Roman Empire, France and Russia. He suffered some severe defeats and his kingdom suffered repeated invasions, but he always managed to recover. It needed the “Miracle of the House of Brandenburg” to turn a desperate situation around and split the alliance of enemies and lead to final victory.

That was the ultimate idea behind the new offensive which Hitler had secretly started planning in September 1944. In his typical style he declared to a small circle of hand-picked top military leaders on 16 September 1944 in his “Wolf’s Lair” headquarters in Eastern Prussia: “I have come to a momentous decision. I shall go over to the counterattack!” A bit later he followed this with: “Split the British and American armies at their seam, then a new Dunkirk!” Splitting the Allies in the West, making them sue for a separate peace, allowing him to then fight the already very depleted Soviets to a standstill and in doing so create another miracle victory. This was the decision. The Führer had spoken!

Nothing impresses the ladies like a captured Tiger II tank.

But to do so he would need an army with which to split them. After the defeat at Stalingrad, he had officially declared “Total War” in a well-publicized speech by his propaganda minister Josef Goebbels on 18 February 1943. Since then, the Nazi economy had been mobilized as never before, not only through extensive rationalization and streamlining, but also an even further reallocation of resources from civil to military production, an increase in production capacity through a longer working week from 48 to 60 hours and mobilizing all sources of labour from women, to foreigners to prisoners to slave laborers. At the same time production was relocated across many more locations. While quality undoubtedly suffered the increase of quantity was gigantic with the total military production in 1944 peaking at a level three times as high as that of early 1942. And this was achieved while suffering a steadily increasing aerial bombardment which according to estimates of Speer, his armaments minister, reduced production capacity across the board about 25 percent.

At the same time military recruitment stations pulled in more and more people: professionals, younger men, older men, “ethnic Germans” of dubious Germanic heritage from occupied territories. All of this allowed the Wehrmacht to rebuild the Western Front from September to December 1944 and field three well-equipped armies with a total of about 212,000 soldiers and about 700 tanks and assault guns. These armies would go on the offensive with for Operation “Watch on the Rhine” or perhaps the less ambitious alternative, Operation (Autumn Mist.” The preparations had been done with such attention to secrecy that the Allies were taken completely by surprise.

The Allied commanders would also have been surprised to learn of the ultimate objective – Antwerp! The German commanders were equally surprised by this ambition. While it made sense at a strategic level, as capturing it would cut off between 20 to 30 Allied divisions from the U.S. 1st and 9th Armies and the British 21st Army Group as well as knock out the major supply port of Antwerp, which had only become operational in late November and was critical for Allied supply efforts, it did seem a very long way to go. Along the way the Germans needed to cross the Meuse River, a major obstacle with few bridges. Just getting there would be a major success. Many commanders argued for the “small solution,” which would wipe out most of 1st and 9th Army around Aachen and Liège, and then push on to Antwerp later. But Hitler would have none of it. He expressly forbade any planning for the “small solution” and kept personal control for the release of reserves so that they would be used as he intended. He knew he was staking everything on one card and that suited him fine. Fate was on his side. Win or Die!

A PzIVH of the 2nd "Vienna" Panzer Division

Thus, the initial task would be a breakthrough to the Meuse River. For the 5th Panzer Army, the objective was to get there in four days. As a spearhead, 2nd Panzer Division targeted bridges close to Dinant. The most direct way was using the road from Dasburg to Clervaux (over the river Clerve), then onto Bastogne, from there to Ortheuville (over the river Ourthe) and Marche-en-Famenne, Ciney and finally Dinant. It had been done before. In May 1940 Rommel’s 7th Panzer Division had made the crossing of the Ardennes to Dinant in three days, but then conditions had not been the same. In fact, a large part of the surprise came from the plan to attack through the Ardennes in mid-winter – that combination had not been tried before. On the plus side the expected bad weather would mean that Allied air superiority would not be as much of a factor. On the downside the Ardennes road network and terrain were even less suited to armored (or infantry) operations in winter, giving the defenders an advantage on the battlefield and making supply lines hazardous. Speed would be even more of the essence.

As always things would not go to plan. Second Panzer Division started the offensive early on 16 December with the re-building of the bridge at Dasburg, which promptly collapsed after a driver error by one of the first tanks that tried to cross it. It took them until well into the day to repair it again. The first American defenders they met were the battle-hardened veterans of 110th Infantry Regiment of the 28th “Blood Bucket” Infantry Division. These were ordered to stand and fight, which they did until two days later when 92% of their strength were either dead, wounded or captured (including the regimental commander Colonel Hurley Fuller, who subsequently escaped). The Panzer division then picked up speed, smashing through the “green” CCR of 9th Armored Division which hardly delayed them at all (out of three task force commanders, one was killed and another wounded and captured).

These Brits have caught themselves a Jagdpanther tank destroyer.

From there the “Vienna” Division pushed on to Noville, north of Bastogne, where they got into a fierce fight with more veterans from Team Desobry, part of CCB of 10th Armored Division, and the 1st Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, part of the 101st Airborne Division which had been rushed there in the nick of time. Once they had pushed these back on the 20th (wounding and later capturing Major William Desobry and killing the 1st Battalion’s commander), they moved on towards Ortheuville where the bridge was captured by surprise under the nose of the 158th Engineer Combat Battalion in the middle of the night. The hard work had been done, the road to Marche-en-Famenne lay open, but the supply line for fuel had been stretched to the limit. The muddy wintery Ardennes road network clogged with vehicles slowed the arrival of new fuel supplies to a trickle. The fact that Bastogne had not been captured did not help either. And to think that 24 hours earlier elements of 116th Panzer Division had been at the same spot, only to be ordered back because they were on the “wrong rollbahn.” Was the offensive about to succeed despite German command incompetence?

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