The Allies captured the port of Antwerp intact in the first days of September, but it was not operational until 28 November. [citation needed], Senior Allied commanders met in a bunker in Verdun on 19 December. War II. This image contains digital watermarking or credits in the image itself.The usage of visible watermarks is discouraged.If a non-watermarked version of the image is available, please upload it under the same file name and then remove this template.Ensure that removed information is present in the image description page and replace this template with {{Metadata from image}} or {{Attribution . As anyone on the ground will agree, the Ardennes has a fairly good road system. [143] The announcement resulted in headlines in British newspapers and Stars and Stripes, which for the first time mentioned British contributions to the fighting. [159], However, American historian Stephen Ambrose, writing in 1997, maintained that "Putting Monty in command of the northern flank had no effect on the battle". Dec 18, 2018 - Explore Herzog's board "Kampfgruppe Hansen" on Pinterest. They were disarmed and, with some other Americans captured earlier (approximately 150 men), sent to stand in a field near the crossroads under light guard. The 29th Armoured Brigade ambushed the Germans knocking out three Panthers and a number of vehicles in and around Foy-Ntre-Dame. 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. Only about 100 of his weary men finally reached the German rear. Since the German plan called for the capture of St. Vith by 18:00 on 17 December, the prolonged action in and around it dealt a major setback to their timetable. Army Group A provided the southern advance. Americans come out of their defensive positions and surrender to Panzergrenadiers in Stoumont. The Panthers, under the cover of smoke, reversed course and entered the eastern side of Stoumont via a sunken lane. The National WWII Museum Digital Collections. ; by Jay Luvaas; 1990; pg 12-13, UK National Archives HW 13/45, "Indications of the German Offensive of December 1944", Part C, para. [192][193], For its part, Hut 3 had grown "shy of going beyond its job of amending and explaining German messages. In Germany such orders were typically transmitted using telephone and teleprinter, and a special radio silence order was imposed on all matters concerning the upcoming offensive. He gave some priority to Montgomery's northern forces. [112], On 23 December the weather conditions started improving, allowing the Allied air forces to attack. [83][84] Peiper detoured north towards the villages of La Gleize and Cheneux. SS Panzergrenadiers and German paratroopers mop up in Stoumont. While operations continued in the autumn, notably the Lorraine Campaign, the Battle of Aachen and fighting in the Hrtgen Forest, the strategic situation in the west had changed little. The 12th SS Panzer Division, reinforced by additional infantry (Panzergrenadier and Volksgrenadier) divisions, took the key road junction at Losheimergraben just north of Lanzerath and attacked the twin villages of Rocherath and Krinkelt. I positioned British troops as reserves behind the First and Ninth Armies until such time as American reserves could be created. Kampfgruppe Peiper. LSSAH, fighting in Kampfgruppe Hansen. He was not allowed to use his own regiment because their movement might alert the Allies to the impending counterattack. Despite it being a Heer unit commanded by a Heer officer it was subordinated to II. In the initial days of the offensive, Kampfgruppe Peiper rolled through the Ardennes like a slow-moving train. The 109th and 110th Regiments of the 28th Division fared worse, as they were spread so thinly that their positions were easily bypassed. As the first Panther rounded the bend in the road and took Stoumont station into view, a round from a camouflaged 90mm gun screamed down the road and slammed into the Panther, penetrating the armor and exploding. This included SS-Gruppenfhrer (Major General) Kurt Meyer, commander of the 12th SS Panzer (Armor) Division, captured by Belgian partisans on 6 September 1944. [55][pageneeded]. Columns of armor and infantry that were supposed to advance along parallel routes found themselves on the same roads. The General Staff estimated they only had enough fuel to cover one third to one half of the ground to Antwerp in heavy combat conditions. [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". The British Prime Minister Winston Churchill found it necessary in a speech to Parliament to explicitly state that the Battle of the Bulge was purely an American victory. The photos and film of him were shot in Poteau, Belgium on December 18, 1944, after Armsbrusch's unit recently destroyed . With his fuel situation at a critical level, he ordered his Panthers to retreat back to Stoumont. Men of the 807th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 90th Infantry Division, rain shells down on German positions near St. Barbara, Germany on December 16, 1944. Near the center of town, the SS Panzergrenadiers stopped and collected themselves. Release date : March 15, 2016. Conditions inside the perimeter were toughmost of the medical supplies and medical personnel had been captured. Location: Australia. . SS-Sturmbannfhrer Knittel crossed the bridge at Stavelot around 19:00 against American forces trying to retake the town. 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. 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. Then, we'll really cut 'em off and chew 'em up." In France, orders had been relayed within the German army using radio messages enciphered by the Enigma machine, and these could be picked up and decrypted by Allied code-breakers headquartered at Bletchley Park, to give the intelligence known as Ultra. Sixth Panzer Army commander Sepp Dietrich ordered Hermann Priess, commanding officer of the I SS Panzer Corps, to increase its efforts to back Peiper's battle group, but Prie was unable to break through. In early February, the Allies launched an attack all along the Western front: in the north under Montgomery they fought Operation Veritable (also known as the Battle of the Reichswald); east of Aachen they fought the second phase of the Battle of Hrtgen Forest; in the center, under Hodges; and in the south, under Patton. 5 Kampfgruppe (4) 5 Kavallerie (12) 5 Kavallerie-Division 1 (2) 5 Korps-Abteilung D (1) . Stab (fully motorized): ----staff with 115 men. Stills from it are in all the histories of the battle. Seventh Army casualties: "As elsewhere, casualty figures are only rough estimates, and the figures presented are based on the postwar 'Seventh Army Operational Report, Alsace Campaign and Battle Participation, 1 June 1945' (copy CMH), which notes 11,609 Seventh Army battle casualties for the period, plus 2,836 cases of trench foot and 380 cases of frostbite, and estimates about 17,000 Germans killed or wounded with 5,985 processed prisoners of war. The powerful Waffen SS Panzer Divisions, Leibstandarte and Hitler Jugend were expected to burst through the American lines along what would be called the Northern Shoulder and blast their way to the port of Antwerp. The Germans shot this iconic image near the crossroads between Poteau and Recht, site of Kampfgruppe Hansen's ambush of 14th Cavalry Group early the morning of Dec. 18, 1944. . The Russians retreated. by Andy H 22 Aug 2004, 12:22, Post To Peiper's south, the advance of Kampfgruppe Hansen had stalled. [112], Despite determined German attacks, the perimeter held. [72][73] After a brief battle the lightly armed Americans surrendered. Even Dietrich believed the Ardennes was a poor area for armored warfare and that the inexperienced and badly equipped Volksgrenadier soldiers would clog the roads the tanks needed for their rapid advance. An American tank battalion arrived but, after a two-hour tank battle, Peiper finally captured Stoumont at 10:30. BBC correspondent Chester Wilmot explained that "my dispatch to the BBC about it was intercepted by the German wireless, re-written to give it an anti-American bias, and then broadcast by Arnhem Radio, which was then in Goebbels' hands. Planning for the "Watch on the Rhine" offensive emphasized secrecy and the commitment of overwhelming force. [119] Total casualties included at least 9,000 wounded. )[6] T.N. The narrow corridor caused considerable difficulties, as constant flanking attacks threatened the division. Pressed for time, Peiper ordered his rear-guard units to eliminate the Americans in Stavelot and follow his advance, an order that would eventually seal his fate. This destruction hampered the German response to the invasion, but it proved equally hampering to the Allies, as it took time to repair the rail network's tracks and bridges. Heavy artillery and small arms fire chased the tank back around the bend in the road as SS Panzergrenadiers streaked into the engagement, only to be driven back by intense small arms fire. [69], At 12:30 p.m. on 17 December, Kampfgruppe Peiper was near the hamlet of Baugnez, on the height halfway between the town of Malmedy and Ligneuville, when they encountered elements of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, U.S. 7th Armored Division. . The British 29th Armoured Brigade of British 11th Armoured Division, which had turned in its tanks for re-equipping, was told to take back their tanks and head to the area. St. Vith World War II. Max joined the NSDAP, Nr 478376, on 01-03-1931 and the SS, Nr 27813, on 01-08-1931, he was apprenticed to a locksmith. I Abt SS-Panzer Artillerie Regt 1 "LSSAH". While having the effect of keeping the Allied aircraft grounded, the weather also proved troublesome for the Germans because poor road conditions hampered their advance. 560 was assigned to Kampfgruppe Kuhlmann (12. As a result, the start of the offensive was delayed from 27 November until 16 December. American forces bore the brunt of the attack. These soldiers were to be dressed in American and British uniforms and wear dog tags taken from corpses and prisoners of war. General Omar Bradley was briefly detained when he correctly identified Springfield as the capital of Illinois because the American MP who questioned him mistakenly believed the capital was Chicago. He began his career conducting oral histories and research for HBOs miniseries The Pacific and holds the distinction of being the first historian hired by the Museums Research Department. The rumors,which were true,of Kampfgruppe Peiper executing American POWs in the previous daysmade the decision to surrender difficult for those who were unable to extricate themselves from their defensive positions as the Germans rolled past them. Additional Allied airborne units remained in England. [120] First, Third, and Seventh Armies suffered a total of 17,000 hospitalized from the cold.[119][l]. Patton, realizing what Eisenhower implied, responded, "Hell, let's have the guts to let the bastards go all the way to Paris. In a personal conversation on 13 December between Walter Model and Friedrich von der Heydte, who was put in charge of Operation Stsser, von der Heydte gave Operation Stsser less than a 10% chance of succeeding. Little to no resistance was expected ahead of Peipers vehicles. The next day GIs who relieved the Rangers reported a considerable movement of German troops inside the Ardennes in the enemy's rear, but that no one in the chain of command connected the dots. The Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler, who since December 1941 had assumed direct command of the German army,[18] believed that achieving these objectives would compel the Western Allies to accept a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor. The American TD gunners attempted to fire off more rounds at the Panthers but were soon overrun by SS Panzergrenadiers slowly moving up the road and into the village. As Prahms Panther rounded the corner of the main road and entered Stoumont, the last remaining American anti-tank gun opened fire. 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 . Most of its armor was lost early in the battles, but the Grenadiers of the Division fought . On the same day as Hitler's withdrawal order of 7 January, Montgomery held his press conference at Zonhoven. In loyalty to their commander, 150 men from von der Heydte's own unit, the 6th Parachute Regiment, went against orders and joined him. Their intention was to control the twin villages of Rocherath-Krinkelt which would clear a path to the high ground of Elsenborn Ridge. by Tolga Alkan 22 Aug 2004, 15:55, Post Knittel pressed . Thus McAuliffe wrote on the paper, which was typed up and delivered to the Germans, the line he made famous and a morale booster to his troops: "NUTS! Operation Stsser was a paratroop drop into the American rear in the High Fens (French: Hautes Fagnes; German: Hohes Venn; Dutch: Hoge Venen) area. All of this meant that the attack, when it came, completely surprised the Allied forces. By December 19, the surprise of the German assault had worn off. 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. The German casualty reports for the involved armies count 63,222 losses from 10 December 1944 to 31 January 1945. Published: 27 July 2013. The lowest German estimates include 10,749 dead, 34,225 wounded, and 22,487 captured or missing. 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. When the relief force was unable to penetrate the Allied lines, he decided to break through the Allied lines and return to the German lines on 23 December. Food was scarce, and by 22 December artillery ammunition was restricted to 10 rounds per gun per day. Liddell Hart and the Weight of History; by John Mearsheimer; pages 8-9, 203-204; Cornell University Press; 2010; A Very Special Relationship: Basil Liddell Hart, Wehrmacht Generals and the Debate on West German Rearmament, 1945-1953, by Alaric Searle; War In History 1998 5: 327; published by SAGE for the University of Salford, Manchester; "Liddell Hart and the Mearsheimer Critique: A 'Pupil's' Retrospective" (PDF); Strategic Studies Institute. He entrusted them with carrying out his decisive counterattack. It included the most experienced formation of the Waffen-SS: the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler. 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. The National WWII Museum Digital Collections. It also contained the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. [186], At Bletchley Park, F. L. Lucas and Peter Calvocoressi of Hut 3 were tasked by General Nye (as part of the enquiry set up by the Chiefs of Staff) with writing a report on the lessons to be learned from the handling of pre-battle Ultra. If successful in capturing Stoumont and defending Stavelot, Peiper would be able to break out of the Ambleve Valley, acquire American fuel, and continue his drive to the Meuse with wide open roads ahead. Named after its commanding officer, Jochen Peiper, Kampfgruppe Peiper was the most powerful force in the entire German offensive in the north. [38][106] This was the standard practice of every army at the time, as many belligerents considered it necessary to protect their territory against the grave dangers of enemy spying. The phrase 'Battle of the Bulge' was coined by contemporary press to describe the way the Allied front line bulged inward on wartime news maps.[46][47]. The SS Colonel assessed his situation and quickly realized he was in dire straits. The division lost about 20% of its effective strength, including 465 killed and 2,524 evacuated due to wounds, injuries, fatigue, or trench foot. The farthest west the offensive reached was the village of Foy-Ntre-Dame, south east of Dinant, being stopped by the U.S. 2nd Armored Division on 24 December 1944. Adolf Hitler personally selected for the counter-offensive on the northern shoulder of the western front the best troops available and officers he trusted. Model and Manteuffel, technical experts from the eastern front, told Hitler that a limited offensive with the goal of surrounding and crushing the American 1st Army would be the best goal their offensive could hope to achieve. It was hoped that Soviet leader Stalin would delay the start of the operation once the German assault in the Ardennes had begun and wait for the outcome before continuing. in large blank spaces on the G-2 maps in the American headquarters. Finally it was put into battle with a bang you thus have the picture of British troops fighting on both sides of the Americans who have suffered a hard blow." [176], Churchill was elated at Stalin's offer of help,[177] thanking Stalin for the thrilling news. The National WWII Museum Digital Collections. 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. The Fifth Panzer Army under General Hasso von Manteuffel was assigned to the middle sector with the objective of capturing Brussels. 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