The New York Times Book of World War II, 1939-1945

by The New York Times

  American fighter-bombers reported that they had destroyed or damaged 116 German tanks and other armored machines and 778 motor transport vehicles and destroyed twenty-eight horse-drawn vehicles. Ten gun positions were silenced by fighter-bombers, which also destroyed or damaged fifty-six railroad cars, cut twenty railroad lines and eleven highways west of the Rhine and bombed seventeen fortified villages.

  About 2,500 heavy bombers, including Lancasters and Halifaxes of the Royal Air Force Bomber Command, were in the fleet that hammered communications, dumps and airfields.

  The most important development on the ground was a continuation of the American attacks on the southern flank of the German offensive, roughly in the area north of the line Arlon–Luxembourg City.

  The Germans maintained pressure on the nose of their larger and more southern salient, but there has been no change of position here for forty-eight hours and the Allied forces are holding the enemy in check not only, as hitherto, on the flanks but in some areas on the western faces of the two salients.

  FIVE FACTORS IN CHECK

  The check of the German offensive, temporary though it may be, can be ascribed, in the view of this correspondent, to five causes. The first two, which are equally important, are the rapid reorganization of the Americans south of the German advance and their bite into the German side, reaching the area of Martelange, ten miles south of Bastogne, and the great aerial offensive, which for two days has hacked and hammered at the Germans from their armored spearheads in Belgium to their communications on the Rhine.

  Since the opening of the offensive the Ninth Air Force alone has destroyed 288 German planes and destroyed or damaged 261 armored vehicles, 1,874 motor transport and 578 railroad cars. In the same period twenty-three locomotives have been disabled and forty-four enemy gun positions silenced. The American losses for that period are eighty-five fighter-bombers and thirty-six medium and light bombers.

  The three other causes for the halting of the enemy offenses are, in the opinion of this correspondent, the tank action fought by American armor at St. Vith, which averted a union of the two German salients, the gallant and bitter defense of their surrounded positions by American troops in a dozen towns or villages well behind the German spearhead and the pause in the offensive Thursday when, before pressure had been applied in great strength by the Allies on the ground or in the air, Field Marshal Gen. Karl von Rundstedt’s columns began to regroup and the armor slowed its pace while his marching infantry divisions hurried to occupy ground won early in the week.

  PANZERS IMPERILED

  The advance into the southern flank of the German offensive, a “sensitive” area, where any deep penetration would imperil the panzer divisions to the west, has continued well. The Germans report that these forces are from Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton Jr.’s Third Army.

  Martelange has been half cleared of the enemy by these forces and a brisk action is in progress in rugged country four and a half miles to the east of Martelange, near Rambrouch.

  Doughboys pushing across the snow-covered hills have also made gains about two miles north of Grosbous, which is on the Arlon-Vianden highway, seven miles southwest of Eehternaeh.

  American soldiers during the counter-offensive that would become known as the Battle of the Bulge.

  NORTHERN AREA STABILIZED

  The northern salient, too, is fairly quiet, although the Americans at Maubach, nine miles south of Dueren, made local gains. From Monschau to the southwest the line still holds firm, and although the Germans continue to maintain pressure, they have made no important progress. Some enemy forces varying in size from a company to a platoon have infiltrated American positions in the Malmedy area with some success, but the position is not regarded as dangerous. Other enemy attacks have been repulsed.

  Increasing artillery fire and continued German concentration and consolidation in this area, however, indicate that another strong attack is in the making.

  St. Vith was occupied by the enemy after an attack Thursday night, thus ending courageous and skillful resistance there. Stavelot, despite persistent enemy attacks, is again in American hands, but the enemy is still trying to retake the town. More paratroops were dropped in the sector Friday night.

  The Germans have withdrawn the spearhead of this salient, which formerly rested on Habiemont, to St. Oumont, three miles northwest of Stavelot. This is a stronger position.

  Until Thursday noon, the last day on which the enemy enjoyed relative immunity from air attacks, German armor was still attacking hard south and southwest of Bastogne, where the American garrison is still clinging to its positions.

  DECEMBER 25, 1944

  Major Glenn Miller Is Missing On Flight from England to Paris

  PARIS, Dec. 24 (AP)—Maj. Glenn Miller, director of the United States Air Force Band and a former orchestra leader, is missing on a flight from England to Paris, it was announced today.

  Major Miller, one of the outstanding orchestra leaders of the United States, left England Dec. 15 as a passenger aboard a plane. No trace of the plane has been found.

  His Air Force Band had been playing in Paris. No members of the band were with him on the plane. He last led his band in a broadcast Dec. 12. His band, scheduled to broadcast over BBC tomorrow at 7 P.M. [2 P.M., Eastern war time] in the “AEF Christmas Show,” will be conducted by Sgt. Jerry Gray, deputy leader.

  WAS TOP-RANK LEADER

  Bespectacled and scholarly looking, Glenn Miller was one of the nation’s top-ranking orchestra leaders before entering the Army as a captain in 1942. He not only established box-office records with his band but several times achieved first place in national popularity polls. In 1940 his gross income was $800,000. Almost 3,000,000 copies of his records were sold in 1940.

  He was a trombonist and an arranger of exceptional talents. His theme song, “Moonlight Serenade,” was internationally known.

  Two-time winner of The Billboard’s Annual College Music Survey, he was one of the earliest to understand the scoring of a swing arrangement. He contributed prolifically to the libraries of the nation’s outstanding bands.

  In 1942 he enlisted in the Army and was commissioned a captain. He trained and directed service bands, and entertained American troops here and abroad. He was commissioned a Major several weeks ago.

  His wife, the former Helen Burger, was a university classmate. They were married on Oct. 6, 1928. They have two adopted children, a three-months-old daughter and a two-year-old son. He resided at Tenafly, N. J., with his family.

  DECEMBER 26, 1944

  MORE MASSACRES IN ITALY REPORTED

  Members of the Nazi Elite Guard and Italian Republican Fascists have massacred approximately 300 Italian civilians at Monchio, in the Reggio Emilia region, “for sympathizing with the patriots,” according to an overseas dispatch reported yesterday to the Office of War Information.

  Italian Partisans arriving in Florence after a trip through enemy and Allied lines in northern Italy reported the massacre. They declared, according to the dispatch, that the Fascists lined their victims against a cemetery wall in groups of twenty and shot them. Then they set fire to the town.

  “In the near-by town of Cervarolo another twenty-five civilians were also massacred by the Germans for unknown reasons,” the dispatch said.

  The Germans were said to have “devised new means of taking hostages and a new technique of killing.”

  In the town of Emilia they always “keep twenty civilian hostages at hand for instant reprisal,” the dispatch said. It quoted the Partisans as having reported that the latest method of killing civilians was first tried in an “experiment against twenty-five civilians in the region south of the Po.”

  “The victims, with their hands tied behind their backs, are hung from a hook that is inserted into the back of the neck, the point directed toward the brain. Death is slow and usually occurs only after several hours,” the dispatch said.

  DECEMBER 28, 1944

  OUR TROOPS REBOUND TO HAMMER AT T
HE GERMAN BULGE

  Chase Foe Out of Towns Before Meuse—3,000 Planes Blast Enemy

  By DREW MIDDLETON

  By Wireless to The New York Times.

  SUPREME HEADQUARTERS, Allied Expeditionary Force, Dec. 27—A strong American armored force has blasted a path through a ring of German tanks, guns and infantry surrounding Bastogne and relieved the weary, battered but unconquerable American garrison which since Dec. 18 had denied Field Marshal Karl von Rundstedt’s columns the use of that important road and railway center.

  The smash to Bastogne came soon after American forces in the town had beaten off three assaults, destroying thirty-one or thirty-two German tanks and inflicting heavy casualties on the enemy infantry. The advance covered approximately five miles from the last reported American positions around Chaumont and rolled through the village of Remichampagne, four miles south of Bastogne on the way to the beleaguered town.

  The opening of this salient in the southern flank of the German bulge into eastern Belgium, coupled with the steady progress of other American troops along the southern flank east of Bastogne—progress that covered about a mile in most areas on Tuesday—has improved the general situation considerably.

  GERMANS DRIVEN BACK ON WEST

  German spearheads to the west are still within striking distance of the Meuse, but the enemy’s tanks and armored cars have been driven from the area of both Celles and Ciney, four miles southeast and eight miles northeast of Dinant, on the Meuse, by sharp Allied attacks. The enemy continued to hammer the northwestern and northern perimeter of his bulge, but there were signs that American forces in these sectors have been reinforced.

  The Germans are beginning to feel the tremendous weight of Allied air attacks on their supply lines. Seventeen tanks and self-propelled guns have been found abandoned because of lack of fuel, and the enemy seems to be using his tanks more sparingly than a week ago—which is probably due to heavy losses in armor as well as the cutting of supply lines. Today more than 3,000 sorties were flown by the Allied air forces, with fighter bombers pounding German forces on the battle line and to the immediate rear, and American and British heavy and medium bombers blasting the main railroads and roads to the battlefield.

  On the northern flank of the enemy salient the Americans lashed out and retook Manhay (1). Between Hottom and Marche (2) they stood fast in the face of heavy Nazi pressure. The German tank columns that had driven to Ciney and Celles were expelled from the vicinities of both towns (3). On the foe’s southern flank an American relief column broke into Bastogne (4) and to the southeast Hollange and Tintange were won. Fierce fighting raged at Eschdorf, Ringel and Kehmen (5). Closer to Echternach our troops took Haller and Waldbillig (6). The shading shows are taken by the enemy since his offensive began Dec. 16.

  MANY ENEMY VEHICLES DAMAGED

  The Ninth Air Force, which flew over 1,200 fighter-bomber sorties today, destroyed or damaged 140 tanks and other armored fighting vehicles, 590 motor vehicles and 300 railroad cars. Thunderbolts and Lightnings darting down on enemy artillery silenced forty-one gun positions, including nine of twelve 88mm. guns in the Bastogne area. Highways were cut at sixty places.

  More than twenty villages were dive-bombed and strafed, and German troops were attacked in more than twenty places by fighter bombers.

  The Luftwaffe once more made an extensive effort to check Allied air attacks on their ground forces. In air battles from the Ruhr to the Saar ninety-one enemy aircraft were destroyed. Twenty-eight Allied planes are missing, although the pilots of two are safe.

  The salient that Americans have now hacked out to Bastogne continued advances into the enemy’s southern flank from the Arlon Bastogne road east to the German frontier and the failure of German tanks to exploit their push to within four miles of the Meuse indicates that the Allies are slowly regaining control of the battle. The situation is still grave, for the enemy has committed the Fifth Panzer Army and one other armored army as well as the Seventh Army to the offensive, and the danger of a break-through to the Meuse has been by no means averted. Continuation of the pressure on the northern front indicates the enemy may mean to have one more try at pushing through into the Liege Verviers sector to the rear of the American positions along the Roer River on the Cologne plain.

  GALLANT STAND AT BASTOGNE

  The raising of the siege of Bastogne ended one of the most gallant stands in the European campaign, with an equally inspiring advance through an area heavily held by the enemy. German pressure on the town, which is a key to communications throughout the southern sector of von Rundstedt’s push, reached a climax in the twenty-four hours before its relief yesterday.

  The defenders were hit by three attacks, two of them on a large scale. Two regiments of German infantry, supported by a large number of tanks, made the first attack. They were driven back by doughboys in the town, who knocked out twenty-seven enemy tanks with antitank guns and bazookas and took 250 prisoners of war.

  Soon afterward another attack on the same scale was launched, but this too was smashed after some initial gains by the enemy. Later the third assault on a smaller scale was repulsed and four or five German tanks were disabled.

  The supply position in the town was growing rapidly worse despite supplies dropped from planes by parachute. But help was on the way. A strong American armored force flung into battle on the southern flank was hammering its way north. This force apparently broke through the crust of the German defenders around Chaumont, while other troops were biting through German infantry around Cobreville, seven miles to the southwest of Bastogne. According to enemy radio reports, both of these forces are under the command of Lieut. Gen. George S. Patton Jr., commander of the United States Third Army.

  AMERICANS GAIN TO THE EAST

  The column striking along the highway drove the Germans out of Remichampagne during the advance, and some time Tuesday its armored vanguard made contact with the exhausted but indomitable defenders of Bastogne.

  The enemy, whose principal tank losses last week came from air attacks, is now beginning to lose heavily to Allied armor and antitank guns and by the cutting of his supply lines. However, von Rundstedt has committed about 1,200 tanks to the battle, and there is still enough German armor to do plenty of damage.

  DECEMBER 30, 1944

  ‘Nuts!’ Retort by McAuliffe; Taken Up As a Rallying Cry

  By The Associated Press.

  BASTOGNE, Belgium, Dec. 29—The commander of Bastogne’s valorous 10,000 who made history with a single word—“nuts”—was 46-year-old Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe. He was acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division and odds and ends of the United States Third Army’s Ninth and Tenth Armored Divisions that had been thrown in hurriedly to stem the German rush toward Sedan.

  This soldier from Washington and his troops had been in tough spots before, such as the Normandy landings and the airborne penetration of the Netherlands. When the commander of the German forces drawn up in a siege ring around Bastogne sent an ultimatum to surrender, General McAuliffe sent back the reply that may rank with John Paul Jones’ “We have just begun to fight!” It was simply: “Nuts!”

  Then the general told his tough fighters what he had done, and this typical American retort became a rallying call for the garrison of 10,000.

  OTHERS IN ON FIGHT

  Besides the 101st (Screaming Eagle) Airborne and the Ninth and Tenth Armored Divisions, these Third Army divisions took relief roles in the Bastogne drama:

  The Fourth Armored, the Eightieth (Blue Ridge) Infantry and the Twenty-sixth (Yankee) Infantry.

  Two other units, the Fourth (Ivy) and Fifth (Red Diamond) Infantry Divisions, were named today as having aided in the Third Army’s great offensive against the south of the German bulge, operating in northeast Luxembourg.

  The answer “Nuts,” went back to the German lines Dec. 22. Four days later, when the Eightieth Infantry and Fourth Armored Divisions broke through to their relief, the fields before the American lines around Bast
ogne were littered with the debris of 200 German tanks which had butted in vain against the doughboy positions. The Americans had been attacked by five German divisions.

  More of the epic story of American courage at Bastogne was disclosed today. The stand well may have frustrated the well-laid plans of Field Marshal Karl von Rundstedt. Certainly the Germans could not keep the drive toward France going at full steam without Bastogne’s seven highways and one railroad.

  General McAuliffe and his troops told the enemy in terms that fighting men understand that they could not have the roads. The 101st Airborne had been spoiling for a fight, and got one when it was rushed into Bastogne by truck just before the waves of attacking Germans closed around the city.

  “These parachute troopers were the best morale bucker-uppers we had,” said Maj. Charles E. Fife of Los Angeles. “Those boys fought like hell from the word go.”

  Bodies of German soldiers killed while trying to capture the American 101st Airborne command post at Bastogne.

  Chapter 22

  “JAPANESE EXPECTED TO WIN, POLL FINDS”

  January–March 1945

  With the German defeat in the Battle of the Bulge by January 1945, the way was open for the final push to bring Germany to accept the Allied demand of unconditional surrender. On the Eastern Front, after months of preparation, the Red Army renewed a major offensive. “Five Armies on the March” ran The Times’s headline, but these were actually entire army groups. The Vistula-Oder operation from eastern Poland opened with attacks on January 12 by Marshal Ivan Konev’s First Ukrainian Army Group, followed two days later by Marshal Zhukov’s First Belorussian Army Group, which took Warsaw and drove toward Lodz. Against the Red Army’s 2.2 million men and 7,000 tanks, the revived German Army Group Center had only 400,000 men and 1,136 tanks. The disparity explains the ease with which the Soviet armies swept across Poland into East Prussia and by February 2 across the Oder River.