Both Bradley and I believed that nothing could be so expensive to us as to allow the front to stagnate, going into defensive winter quarters while we waited for additional reinforcements from the homeland.
The responsibility for maintaining only four divisions on the Ardennes front and for running the risk of a large German penetration in that area was mine. At any moment from November 1 onward I could have passed to the defensive along the whole front and made our lines absolutely secure from attack while we awaited reinforcements. My basic decision was to continue the offensive to the extreme limit of our ability, and it was this decision that was responsible for the startling successes of the first week of the German December attack.
In early December, General Patton, with his Third Army, was making preparations to renew the attack against the Saar, the assault to begin December 19. Patton was very hopeful of decisive effect; but, determined to avoid involvement in a long, inconclusive, and costly offensive, Bradley and I agreed that the Third Army attack would have to show tremendous gains within a week or it would be suspended. We knew of course that if it was successful in gaining great advantages the enemy would have to concentrate from other sectors to meet it, and therefore Patton’s success would tend to increase our safety elsewhere. On the other hand, if we should get a considerable number of divisions embroiled in costly and slow advances we not only would be accomplishing little: we would be in no position to react quickly at any other place along the front.23
In the meantime the First Army’s attack against the Roer dams had gotten off as scheduled on December 13, but relatively few divisions were engaged. Early in the month the weather, which had been intermittently bad, took a turn for the worse. Fog and clouds practically prohibited aerial reconnaissance and snows began to appear in the uplands, together with increasing cold.24
The German Sixth Panzer Army, which had appeared on our front, was the strongest and most efficient mobile reserve remaining to the enemy within his whole country. When it arrived on our front it was originally stationed opposite the left of the Twelfth Army Group, apparently to operate against any crossing of the Roer. When the American attacks on that front had to be suspended early in December, we lost track of the Sixth Panzer Army and could not locate it by any means available. At that time some Intelligence reports indicated a growing anxiety about our weakness in the Ardennes, where we knew that the enemy was increasing his infantry formations. Previously he had, like ourselves, been using that portion of the front in which to rest tired divisions.25
This type of report, however, is always coming from one portion or another of a front. The commander who took counsel only of all the gloomy Intelligence estimates would never win a battle; he would forever be sitting, fearfully waiting for the predicted catastrophes. In this case I later learned that the man who predicted the coming of the attack estimated, during its crisis, that the enemy had six or seven divisions of fresh and unused reserves ready to hurl into the fight.
In any event the fighting during the autumn followed the pattern I had personally prescribed. We remained on the offensive and weakened ourselves where necessary to maintain those offensives. This plan gave the German opportunity to launch his attack against a weak portion of our lines. If giving him that chance is to be condemned by historians, their condemnation should be directed at me alone.
Chapter 18
HITLER’S
LAST BID
ON DECEMBER 16, 1944, GENERAL BRADLEY CAME to my headquarters to discuss ways and means of overcoming our acute shortages in infantry replacements. Just as he entered my office a staff officer came in to report slight penetrations of our lines in the front of General Middleton’s VIII Corps and the right of General Gerow’s V Corps in the Ardennes region. The staff officer located the points on my battle map, and Bradley and I discussed the probable meaning.1
I was immediately convinced that this was no local attack; it was not logical for the enemy to attempt merely a minor offensive in the Ardennes, unless of course it should be a feint to attract our attention while he launched a major effort elsewhere. This possibility we ruled out. On other portions of the front either we were so strong that the Germans could not hope to attack successfully, or there was a lack of major objectives that he could reasonably hope to attain. Moreover, we knew that for a number of days German troop strength in the Ardennes area had been gradually increasing. It was through this same region that the Germans launched their great attack of 1940 which drove the British forces from the Continent, and France out of the war. That first attack was led by the same commander we were now facing, Von Rundstedt. It was possible that he hoped to repeat his successes of more than four years earlier. We had always been convinced that before the Germans acknowledged final defeat in the West they would attempt one desperate counteroffensive. It seemed likely to Bradley and me that they were now starting this kind of attack.
On the north of the critical region General Hodges’ First Army, in its attack against the Roer dams, had as yet engaged only four divisions. On the south of the Ardennes front General Patton was still concentrating and preparing for the renewed attack against the Saar which was to begin December 19.
Bradley and I were sufficiently convinced that a major attack was developing against the center of the Twelfth Army Group to agree to begin shifting some strength from both flanks toward the Ardennes sector. This was a preliminary move—rather a precaution—made in order to support the seventy-five-mile length of the VIII Corps front, providing our calculations as to German intentions should prove correct.
We called a number of the SHAEF staff into our conference room; among them were Air Chief Marshal Tedder, and Generals Smith, Bull, and Strong. The operational maps before us showed that on each flank of the Ardennes the bulk of a United States armored division was out of the front lines and could be moved quickly. On the north was the 7th Armored Division commanded by Major General Robert W. Hasbrouck. In Patton’s army on the south was the 10th Armored Division under Major General William H. Morris, Jr.
We agreed that these two divisions should immediately begin to close in toward the threatened area, the exact destination of each to be determined later by Bradley. This meant postponement of preparations for the attack in the Saar and we knew that General Patton would protest. His heart was set on the new offensive, which he thought would gain great results. But to Bradley and me there now appeared to be developing the very situation that we had felt justified in challenging because of the location of our concentrations on the flank of the weak Ardennes front. We had always felt the risk to be justified by the conviction that in emergency we could react swiftly. The critical moment, in our judgment, was now upon us. In addition to directing these preliminary moves Bradley alerted all army commanders in his group to be ready to provide additional units for the battle that he expected to develop.2
With the staff we carefully went over the list of reserves then available to us. Among those most readily accessible was the XVIII Airborne Corps under General Ridgway, located near Reims. It included the 82d and the 101st Airborne Divisions, both battle-tested formations of the highest caliber. They had shortly before been heavily engaged in the fighting in Holland, and were not yet fully rehabilitated. Moreover, they were relatively weak in heavy supporting weapons, but these Bradley felt he could supply from the unthreatened portion of his long line.3
The U. S. 11th Armored Division had recently arrived and the 17th Airborne Division was in the United Kingdom ready to come to the Continent. The 87th Infantry Division could also be brought into the area within a reasonable time.
In the British sector, far to the north, Montgomery was preparing for a new offensive. At the moment he had one complete corps, the 30, out of the line.4 With the resources available to us, we were confident that any attack the German might launch could eventually be effectively countered. But we were under no illusions concerning the weakness of the VIII Corps line or the ability of any strong attack to make deep penetration
s through it. We agreed, therefore, that in the event the German advance should prove to be an all-out assault we would avoid piecemeal commitment of reserves. The temptation in such circumstances is always to hurl each individual reinforcement into the battle as rapidly as it can be brought up to the line. This habit was a weakness of Rommel’s. In the face of a great attack it merely assures that each reinforcing unit is overwhelmed by the strength of the advance. We knew that even if we should finally succeed in this fashion in stopping the advance there would be nothing available for a decisive counterstroke. On the other hand, it would be necessary to assist the VIII Corps rapidly with sufficient forces so that it could withdraw its lines in orderly fashion and save the bulk of its own strength.5
We went over, again, the limit of the penetration that we could, if necessary, permit in that region without irretrievable damage to ourselves. This line covered the cities of Luxembourg and Sedan on the south, followed the Meuse River on the west, and covered Liége on the north. Farther back than this we would not go, and we would of course stop the enemy earlier if possible.6
One factor that caused us a special concern, even anxiety, was the weather. For some days our great air force had been grounded because of clouds and impenetrable fog. The air force was one of our greatest assets, and now, until the weather improved, it was practically useless. As long as the weather kept our planes on the ground it would be an ally of the enemy worth many additional divisions.
Following the conference, Bradley returned to his own headquarters in the city of Luxembourg, whence he kept in almost hourly contact with me by telephone during the next few critical days.
Bradley’s first task was to bring up reinforcements to help in the withdrawal of the VIII Corps. In the meantime both Bradley’s headquarters and my own would begin to gather up and assemble reserves for whatever action might be indicated as more exact information became available to us.
Middleton’s divisions, employed along the front of the VIII Corps from north to south, were the 106th Division under Major General Alan W. Jones, the 28th Division under Major General Norman D. Cota, and the 4th Division under Major General Raymond O. Barton. The 9th Armored Division, under Major General John W. Leonard, was also part of Middleton’s corps.7
The morning of December 17 it became clear that the German attack was in great strength. Two gaps were torn through our line, one on the front of the 106th Division, the other on the front of the 28th. Reports were confusing and exact information was meager, but it was clear that the enemy was employing considerable armor and was progressing rapidly to the westward. All Intelligence agencies of course worked tirelessly and we soon had a very good picture of the general strength of the German attack.
For the assault Von Rundstedt concentrated three armies. These were the Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies and the Seventh Army. Included were ten Panzer and Panzer Grenadier divisions and the whole force totaled twenty-four divisions with their supporting troops. Some of this information did not become available until later in the battle, but by the evening of the seventeenth Intelligence agencies had identified seventeen divisions and were certain that at least twenty were involved in the operation.8
In two important points the enemy had gained definite surprise.9 The first of these was in timing. In view of the terrible defeats we had inflicted upon him during the late summer and fall, and of the extraordinary measures he had been compelled to undertake in raising new forces, we had believed that he could not be ready for a major assault as early as he was. The other point in which he surprised us was the strength of the attack. The Sixth Panzer Army was the mobile reserve we had lost track of earlier, a fresh and strong unit only recently arrived on our front from Germany, but we had already badly mauled the Seventh Army and the Fifth Panzer.
In gaining this degree of surprise the enemy was favored by the weather. For some days aerial reconnaissance had been impossible, and without aerial reconnaissance we could not determine the locations and movements of major reserves in the rear of his lines. The strong artificial defenses of the Siegfried Line assisted the enemy to achieve strength in the attack. The obstacles, pillboxes, and fixed guns of that line so greatly multiplied the defensive power of the garrison that the German could afford to weaken long stretches of his front in order to gather forces for a counterblow.
Although with regard to the strength of the forces engaged on both sides the Kasserine affair was a mere skirmish in proportion to the Ardennes battle, yet there were points of similarity between the two. Each was an attack of desperation; each took advantage of extraordinary strength in a defensive barrier to concentrate forces for a blow at Allied communications and in the hope of inducing the Allied high command to give up over-all plans for relentless offensives.
Surprised as we were by the timing and the strength of the attack, we were not wrong in its location, nor in the conviction that it would eventually occur. Moreover, so far as the general nature of our reaction was concerned, General Bradley and I had long since agreed on plans.10
To carry out our general scheme successfully it was vitally necessary that the shoulders of our defenses bordering upon the German penetration be held securely. In the north the critical region was near Monschau, an area over which Gerow’s American V Corps of the First Army was attacking toward the Roer dams at the moment the German offensive began. In Gerow’s corps the veteran 2d Division under General Robertson and the new 99th Division under Major General Walter E. Lauer were initially struck by the German attack. Our lines were forced back by superior numbers. The 2d Division and portions of the 9th met the issue with great skill and during the ensuing three days fought one of the brilliant actions of the war in Europe. The attack caught the divisions while they were advancing toward the Roer dams. General Hodges, First Army commander, at first did not sense the extent of the threat and directed the American attacks to continue. But General Robertson, on the spot, soon sized up the situation and acted decisively.
Robertson had first to select a line on which his division could conduct an effective defense. The troops then had to occupy the line while under pressure, and ready themselves to receive heavy assaults. All this the division succeeded in doing, in the meantime gaining some added strength from portions of neighboring units, which were partially assimilated within the ranks of the 2d.11
The German threw heavy attacks against the division but the Americans stubbornly refused to give way. It is doubtful, however, that the 2d Division could have held out alone throughout the thirty-six hours before reinforcements reached its vicinity except for the courageous action of the 7th Armored Division at St. Vith.
When the 7th Armored Division came down from the northern flank on December 17 the situation was still far from clear. It pushed forward with the purpose of supporting the left of the VIII Corps and finally became semi-isolated in St. Vith, some fifteen miles south of Monschau. St. Vith was an important point on the road net of that area and necessary to the German spearheads attempting to push to the west. Joined there by remnants of the 106th and 28th Divisions, the 7th Armored hung grimly on in the face of repeated attacks. Its battle at St. Vith not only divided the German effort in the north but prevented quick encirclement of the Monschau position.
Finally the continued and heavy pressure of the Germans tended further to isolate the 7th Armored. A concentrated attack by several divisions on December 20 drove it to the west, in the area north of St. Vith. Consequently it was ordered to withdraw the next day to join the Allied lines which were now building up on the north flank of the German salient. But the great stand of the division had not only badly upset the timetable of the German spearheads: its gallant action had been most helpful to the 2d Division at the vitally important Monschau shoulder until the 1st Division, under Brigadier General Clift Andrus, and the 9th, under Major General Louis A. Craig, came up to its support. Thereafter, with these three proved and battle-tested units holding the position, the safety of our northern shoulder was practically a cer
tainty.12
As early as December 17 the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions were released from SHAEF Reserve to General Bradley. Immediately arrangements were made to utilize the 11th Armored Division, just arrived, and to begin the transfer to France of the 17th Airborne Division.13
General Lee, commanding the great Services of Supply organization, was directed, with available engineers and other detachments, to prepare to defend the crossings of the Meuse, including the blowing up of bridges if this should be necessary. The reason for this order was that the task was largely a precautionary and static one and I did not want to employ mobile divisions for this kind of work. The SOS responded promptly and within the American area began the work of providing strong defenses for the Meuse line. General Montgomery, in the British area, also took this early precaution to protect the dumps and depots in the rear.14
The German’s advance, in spite of his failure at Monschau, was very rapid through the center of the break-through. As the advance continued it gradually began swinging to the north and northwest, and it was evident that the enemy’s objective lay in that direction. We believed that his first purpose would be the capture of Liége. We reasoned that even if he had the more ambitious objective of Antwerp he would have to depend partially upon supplies he might capture at Liége. We arrived at this conclusion because from the beginning we had counted upon the German deficiency in supplies, particularly the difficulties he was certain to encounter in transporting them to the front. Consequently we believed that his continued advance would depend, almost regardless of countermeasures of our own, upon the capture of one of our great supply depots.
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