History of the Second World War (111 page)

In regard to the planning a number of key points deserve emphasis, and should be borne in mind throughout the narrative of the operations in this Ardennes offensive. The first is the importance of cloudy weather in German planning. The German leaders were well aware that the Allies could, if necessary, throw over 5,000 bombers into the battle, whereas Goring could promise only a thousand aircraft of all kinds for air support — and Hitler, by now wary of Luftwaffe promises, watered the figure down to 800-900 when presenting his plan to Rundstedt. In the event his estimate was fulfilled only on one day, and that when the ground battle had already been decided.

A second factor was that, after the July Plot, no German general could, or would, categorically oppose Hitler’s plans, however foolhardy these were; the most they could secure was to persuade him to accept technical and tactical modifications, and here he was susceptible only to suggestions from those generals in whom he had special trust.

Other important factors were the whittling away of the strength originally promised, and role proposed for the flanking armies; the effect of the American attacks in November around Aachen in absorbing divisions originally earmarked for the German counteroffensive; the postponement of this counteroffensive from November to December, when conditions were less suitable; and the many differences of an adverse nature between the 1940 and the 1944 Blitzkrieg.

Much depended on a quick advance of Dietrich’s 6th S.S. Panzer Army which was nearest the Meuse on the key sector. Airborne troops could have been most valuable for opening the way here, but they had largely been used up in defensive ground fighting. A mere thousand parachutists were scraped up, barely a week before the offensive, and formed a battalion under Colonel von der Heydte. On getting in touch with the Luftwaffe command, von der Heydte found that more than half the crews of the aircraft allotted had no experience of parachute operations, and that necessary equipment was lacking.

The task eventually assigned to the parachute troops was, not to seize one of the awkward defiles ahead of the panzer advance, but to land on Mont Rigi near the Malmedy-Eupen-Verviers crossroads, and create a flank block to delay Allied reinforcements from the north. But on the evening before the attack the promised transport did not arrive to take the companies to the airfields, and the drop was postponed until the next night — when the ground attack had already started. Then, only a third of the aircraft managed to reach the correct dropping zone, and as von der Heydte had only been able to collect a couple of hundred men he could not gain the crossroads and establish a blocking position. For several days he harassed the roads with small raiding parties, and then, as there was no sign of Dietrich’s forces arriving to relieve him, he tried to push eastwards to meet him, but was captured on the way.

Dietrich’s right-hand punch was blocked early by the Americans’ tough defence of Monschau. His left-hand punch burst through and, bypassing Malmedy, gained a crossing over the Ambleve beyond Stavelot on the 18th — after a thirty-mile advance from the starting line. But it was checked in this narrow defile, and then cornered by an American countermove. Fresh efforts failed, in face of the Americans’ rising strength as reserves were hurried to the scene, and the 6th Panzer Army’s attack fizzled out.

On Manteuffel’s front the offensive had a good start. In his own words:

My storm battalions infiltrated rapidly into the American front — like rain-drops. At 4 o’clock in the afternoon the tanks advanced, and pressed forward in the dark with the help of ‘artificial moonlight’.*

* Liddell Hart:
The Other Side of the Hill,
p. 459.

But after crossing the River Our they had to get through another awkward defile at Clervaux on the Clerf. These obstacles, combined with winter conditions, caused delay.

Resistance tended to melt whenever the tanks arrived in force, but the difficulties of movement offset the slightness of the resistance in this early stage.*

* Liddell Hart:
The Other Side of the Hill,
p. 460.

On the 18th, the Germans came close to Bastogne — after an advance of nearly thirty miles, but their attempt to rush this key road-centre on the 19th was checked.†

† Not entirely by the defenders — for a spearhead commander confessed to me in later discussion that at this vital moment he dallied with a young American nurse, ‘blonde and beautiful’, who held him spellbound in a village his troops had overrun. Battles are not always decided in the way that the military textbooks teach!

Eisenhower’s two reserve divisions had at last been released, and were rushed to the front on the 18th. But they were then at Reims, a hundred miles away — and, worse still, the one intended for Bastogne (the 101st Airborne) was mistakenly sent north, through a staff error. But thanks to a traffic jam and a chance enquiry of a police sergeant, it turned aside on a southerly circuit, and thus came into Bastogne on the crucial morning of the 19th. Its fortunate arrival cemented the defence.

During the next two days successive German thrusts were foiled. So Manteuffel decided to by-pass Bastogne, and push on to the Meuse. But by now Allied reserves were gathering on all sides in a strength much exceeding that which the Germans had put into the offensive. Two of Patton’s corps wheeled northward to the relief of Bastogne, and counterattacked up the roads to Bastogne. Although temporarily held in check this countermenace caused an increasing subtraction from the forces that Manteuffel could spare for his own advance.

The days of opportunity had passed. Manteuffel’s swerving thrust towards the Meuse caused alarm at Allied Headquarters, but it was too late to be really serious. According to plan, Bastogne was to have been gained on the second day, whereas it was not reached until the third, and not by-passed until the sixth day. A ‘small finger’ came within four miles of the Meuse at Dinant on the 24th, but that was the utmost limit of progress, and the finger was soon cut off.

Mud and fuel shortage had been important brakes on the advance — owing to lack of fuel only half the artillery could be brought into action. While the foggy weather of the opening days had favoured the German infiltration by keeping the Allied air forces on the ground, this cloak of obscurity disappeared on the 23rd, and the scanty resources of the Luftwaffe proved incapable of shielding the ground forces from a terrible pummelling. That multiplied the toll for time lost. But Hitler was also paying forfeit for choosing to give the principal role to his northern wing, the 6th S.S. Panzer Army — in which his favoured Waffen S.S. were predominant — regardless of the fact that the ground there was much more cramped, while the Allies’ forces were thicker, and reserves closer.

In the first week, the offensive had fallen far short of what was hoped, and the quickened progress at the start of the second week was illusory — for it only amounted to a deeper intrusion between the main road-centres, which the Americans were now firmly holding.

After this broad outline of operations, it is desirable to deal in more detail with some of the key phases of the battle on the different sectors.

In Dietrich’s 6th S.S. Panzer Army — which had the main role but a relatively cramped front — the plan was for three infantry divisions to punch a hole on either side of Udenbrath, and then to swing north-west to form a hard shoulder facing north (reinforced by the two other infantry divisions), while the four armoured divisions drove through the gap, two by two, and made a dash for the great city and communication centre of Liege. These consisted entirely of the Waffen S.S., the 1st, 12th, 2nd, and 9th S.S. Panzer Divisions, forming the 1st and 2nd S.S. Panzer Corps. They had about 500 tanks, including ninety Mark VIs, Tigers. It deserves mention that Dietrich himself had wished to make the breakthrough with two of his panzer divisions, but had been overruled by Model — who considered that the sector was too difficult for tanks, in such a task.

This sector was held by the U.S. 99th Infantry Division, the most southerly of General Gerow’s 5th Corps, and was about twenty miles wide — as were those of the divisions of Middleton’s 8th Corps south of it. That was a lot to be allotted to any division — and showed how little any German attack was foreseen.

The bombardment opened at 5.30 a.m., but the German infantry on this sector did not start advancing until about 7 a.m., on December 16. Individual posts were overwhelmed one by one, but many put up a great fight against heavy odds, inflicting heavy casualties on the Germans — and delaying the advance of their armoured divisions. Although the Germans were able to push westward on the next two days the tough American defence of the key Berg-Butgenbach-Elsenborn area prevented the Germans capturing the north shoulder as they had planned, and it remained in American hands for future use. Day after day, the defenders were to resist heavy German attacks. That was a great performance on the part of Leonard Gerow’s U.S. 5th Corps — which had hitherto been engaged in the American offensive on the Aachen sector, but been switched back, and south, in the emergency. (This repulse did much to damage the credit of the S.S. troops, and to cause Hitler’s decision, on the 20th, to switch the main role in the offensive to Manteuffel’s 5th Panzer Army.)

On Manteuffel’s Army front, a quick breakthrough had been achieved on the right wing — nearest Dietrich’s front. This sector, in the Schnee Eifel, was just over twenty miles wide, and held by the newly arrived U.S. 106th Division along with the 14th Cavalry Group. It covered the approaches to the important road centre of St Vith. The remarkable feature here was that the attackers lacked any such overwhelming strength as had been deployed in the north — it comprised mainly the two infantry divisions of Lucht’s German 66th Corps, with a brigade of tanks. But it succeeded, by the 17th, in surrounding two regiments of the 106th Division in a pincer movement, and forced the surrender of at least 7,000 men, probably 8,000-9,000. That was a tribute to the way that Manteuffel’s new tactics had been applied. It was on Manteuffel’s front that assault detachments were already inside the American positions before the barrage opened. By the verdict of the American Official History, the Schnee Eifel battle was ‘the most serious reverse suffered by American arms during the operations of 1944-45 in the European theater’.

Farther south on Manteuffel’s front the main thrust was delivered on the right by Kruger’s 58th Panzer Corps and on the left by Luttwitz’s 47th Panzer Corps. The 58th, after crossing the River Our, drove towards Houffalize, with the further aim of gaining a bridgehead over the Meuse between Ardenne and Namur. The 47th, after crossing the Our, was to capture the key road centre of Bastogne, and drive on to gain crossings over the Meuse south of Namur.

American outposts, of the 28th Division, had imposed some delay on the Germans in crossing the Our, but could not halt them, and by the second night, that of the 17th, they were approaching both Houffalize and Bastogne, and the lateral road between these two road centres — which they needed in order to deploy fully and develop their westward sweep.

In the extreme south, Brandenberger’s German 7th Army of four divisions (three infantry and one parachute) had the task of offensively protecting Manteuffel’s thrust by advancing through Neufchateau towards Mezieres. All of its divisions managed to cross the Our, and the 5th Parachute Division on the inner flank thrust forward as far as Wiltz, a dozen miles westward, in three days. But the right wing of the 28th Division only gave ground slowly, while the other two divisions of Middleton’s 8th Corps, the 9th Armored and the 4th Division, checked the attack after it had gone three to four miles. By the 19th it was clear that the southern shoulder of the German attack frontage was now firmly held. It was clear, too, that it would soon be reinforced by Patton’s 3rd Army, wheeling north from the Saar, and on that day the German 80th Corps went on the defensive.

Manteuffel had appealed for a mechanised division to be given to his neighbour, the 7th Army, to enable it to keep with his own left wing, but it had been refused by Hitler himself. That refusal may have been crucial.

On the northern front, Dietrich’s front, the panzer thrust only got going on the 17th, when the elite 1st S.S. Panzer Division drove forward in an effort to outflank Liege from the south, now that its path had been cleared. The leading column, ‘Battle Group Peiper’ — which had most of the division’s 100 tanks — pressed on almost undisturbed in its drive to seize the Meuse crossings at Huy. On the way it achieved notoriety by massacring, with machine-gun fire, several batches of unarmed American prisoners, as well as of Belgian civilians. (Peiper claimed at his post-war trial that this was done in fulfilment of an order by Hitler that the thrust should be preceded ‘by a wave of terror’. Peiper’s unit, however, was the only one in the whole offensive that acted in this brutal way.) Peiper’s battle-group halted for the night on the outskirts of Stavelot, still forty-two miles from the Meuse — although there was little reason why it should not have taken the vital bridge there, and the great fuel dump just north — which held over 2½ million gallons. Both were scantily guarded at that moment. The U.S. First Army H.Q. at Spa, the inland watering place, was also close by. American reinforcements reached the area overnight and next day Peiper was kept at bay by a barrier of burning fuel, and then at Trois Ponts, three miles beyond, the bridges were blown in his face. Peiper then tried a detour down the flanking valley, but was checked, and held in check, at Stoumont only half a dozen miles beyond. Meanwhile he also learnt that his advance was isolated, and well ahead of the rest of the 6th Panzer Army.

To the south, on Manteuffel’s front, the pressure increased on the key road-centres of St Vith and Bastogne — possession of which might be decisive for the prospects of the offensive. The first attacks on St Vith (twelve miles behind the front on the opening day) were made on December 17, but only in small strength. By next day the bulk of the reinforcing U.S. 7th Armored Division arrived on the scene. On the 18th the outlying villages fell, one after the other as the German assault built up, and it was this pressure that prevented any relief of the two trapped regiments of the 106th Division. Moreover, panzer columns were outflanking St Vith both from the north and the south, and had to be pushed back, while a German panzer brigade was moving forward to reinforce the attack.