Gunslinger

Hitler launched his last offensive on 16th December in the Ardennes on a scale much greater than his 1940 offensive in the same place against the French Army. He achieved complete surprise. American intelligence in the Ardennes estimated the German forces as four divisions, however by December 15 the Wehrmacht had twenty five divisions in the Eifel, across from the Ardennes. The surprise was achieved because the offensive made no sense. Hitler was using up his armour in an offensive that had no genuine strategic aim, and one that he would not sustain unless his tankers were lucky enough to capture major American fuel dumps.

The surprise was also achieved, like most surprises in war, because the defenders were guilty of gross over-confidence. Even after the failure of Market Garden the Allies believed the Germans were on their last legs.

The battle began on a cold foggy dawn on 16th December. The Germans achieved a breakthrough at many points in the thinly held lines. Hitler had counted on bad weather to negate the Allies’ biggest single advantage, which was air power. Hitler had also counted on surprise, which was achieved, and on a slow American response. He figured that it would take the Allies two or three days to recognize the magnitude of the effort the Germans were making, another two or three days to call off the Allied offensives north and south of Ardennes, and then two or three days to start moving significant reinforcements into the battle.

His last assumptions were wrong as on the morning of 17th December, President Eisenhower made the critical decisions of the entire battle and did so without consulting anyone outside his own staff. He declared the crossroads city of Bastogne as the place that had to be held no matter what. Bastogne was in a relatively flat area in the otherwise rugged hills of the Ardennes, which is why the roads of the area converged there. Because of his offensives north and south of the Ardennes, Eisenhower had no strategic reserve available, but he did have the 82nd and 101st resting and refitting and thus available. He decided to use the paratroopers to plug the holes in his lines and to hold Bastogne.

Eisenhower ordered all of the trucks belonging to the army to drop whatever they were doing and start hauling his reinforcements to the Ardennes. By the next day some 11,000 trucks and trailers carried 60,000 men plus ammunition, gasoline, medical supplies and other material into the Ardennes.

At 8.30pm on 17th December, Eisenhower’s orders to the 82nd and 101st was to proceed north toward Bastogne. The word went out to regiments, battalions, down to companies – get ready for combat, trucks arriving in the morning, we’re moving out. Frantic preparations began. Mourmelon did not have an ammunition dump, and the company only had the ammunition they had taken out of Holland. E Company did not have its full complement of men yet or equipment. Some men did not even have helmets. The company was missing a couple of machine guns and crews. The men had not received their winter clothing, their boots were not lined nor waterproof, and they had no long winter underwear or long wool socks.

They scrounged what they could, but it was not much. Even their K Rations were short. When E Company set out to meet the Wehrmacht on the last, greatest German offensive the company was under strength, inadequately clothed and insufficiently armed.

By 9am on 18th December, the first trucks and trailers began arriving in Mourmelon. The last of the 380 trucks needed for the movement of the 11,000 men of the 101st arrived at the camp at 5.20pm. By 8pm the last man was loaded onto a truck.

The companies were packed into the trucks like sardines. The trucks had no benches and damn little in the way of springs. Every curve sent men crashing around, every bump bounced them up into the air. Whilst the trucks were on the road, the Corps command resolved that the 82nd would go to the north shoulder of the penetration, whilst the 101st would go to Bastogne.

The trucks carrying E Company stopped a few kilometres outside Bastogne. The group jumped out of the trucks and relieved themselves, stretched, grumbled, and formed up into columns for the march into Bastogne. Dana had to sneak into a bush to relieve herself, with Pagliaro standing guard.

The columns marched on both sides of the road, toward the front. As they marched, defeated American troops, fleeing the front in disarray, came down the middle of the road. Many had thrown away their rifles. Some were in a panic, staggering, exhausted, shouting.
“Run! Run They’ll murder you! They’ll kill you!”
“That’s confidence boosting”, Dana murmured to Pagliaro.

E Company and the other companies in the 2nd Battalion marched into Bastogne and out again.
“Where the hell’s the ammunition?”, Johnson asked. “We can’t fight without ammo!” Some of the retreating horde supplied some, and the others were frisked by the company for any usable items.

Second Lieutenant Donald C Chalmers, of the 10th Armored Division learned of the shortage. He jumped in his jeep and drove to Foy where he loaded the vehicle with cases of hand grenades and MI ammunition, turned around and met the column coming out of Bastogne. He passed out the stuff as the troops marched by, realized the need was much greater, returned to the supply dump at Foy, found a truck, overloaded it and the jeep and had his men throw it out by the handfuls. Dana and Brian and the others scrambled around on their hands and knees for the clips of M1 ammo.

*************

As E Company moved toward Foy, the sounds of battle became intense. The 1st Battalion of the 506th was up ahead in Noville, involved in a furious fight and taking a beating. Colonel Harper decided to push 3rd Battalion to Foy and to use 2nd Battalion to protect its right flank. E Company went into an area of woods and open fields, its left on the east side of the road to Bastogne, Foy and Noville. F Company was to its right, and D Company in reserve.

Sounds of battle were coming closer. To the rear, south of Bastogne, the Germans were about to cut the highway and complete the encirclement of the Bastogne area. E Company had no artillery or air support. It was short on food, mortar ammunition and other necessary equipment. They lacked winter clothing even as the temperature began to plunge below the freezing mark

When E Company went into the line south of Foy as one part of the ring of defence it was, in effect, one of the wagons in the circle. Inside the circle were the 101st Airborne, Combat Command B of the 10th Armored, plus the 463rd Field Artillery Battalion. Against this force, the Germans as launched as many as fifteen divisions.

The fighting was furious and costly. During the 19th and 20th of December, the 1st Battalion of the 506th, supported by a team of the 10th Armored, engaged the 2nd Panzer Division at Noville. When the battalion pulled back beyond Foy on the 20th, it had lost thirteen officers and 199 enlisted men out of 600. However, they had managed to destroy at least 30 enemy tanks and inflicted heavy casualties. Most importantly, they held out for 48 hours as the defence was being set up around Bastogne. E Company, and the other companies, badly needed this time to set up their defence.

E Company’s position was in a wood looking out on a grazing field that sloped down to the village of Foy. The trees were pines, 8 to 10 inches in diameter, planted in rows. The men dug foxholes to form a main line of resistance.

At dawn on 20th December, a heavy mist hung over the woods and fields. Dana rose from her sleep, shivering, and looked around. To her left she saw a German solider in his long winter overcoat emerge from the woods. He had no rifle and no pack and he walked into the middle of the clearing. O’Shea and Pagliaro, with whom she was sharing a foxhole, instinctively brought their rifles to their shoulders.
“Wait a minute. See what he does”, Dana whispered. Her eyes widened when he took off his overcoat, pulled down his pants, squatted and relieved himself.
“Jesus, he’s taking a crap”, Pagliaro whispered. When he was finished, Pagliaro hollered at him in German to come over. The soldier started, then put his hands up and walked over to them to surrender. O’Shea went through his pockets; all he had were a few pictures of his family and the end of a loaf of hard black bread. After handing him over to Battalion HQ, Dana was sitting with Pagliaro.
“Damn, he went to take a crap, got turned around in the woods, walked right through our lines, past the company CP. That sure was some line of defence we had last night.”

Later on that day, Dana and Brouchard’s assistant Hoffman attempted to get to Bastogne to scrounge up some medical supplies. At the aid station, Hoffman managed to obtain some items that they needed for the first aid kits. They took the opportunity to grab a hot meal, and with darkness coming on, they set out for the line.

“Why don’t we take a shortcut across the woods”, Dana suggested. “It will save time getting back.” Hoffman agreed and they set off. As they were walking, Dana suddenly fell into a hole. As she began to move to pull herself out, she heard a voice call out from underneath her “Hinkle, Hinkle, ist das du?”

“Holy shit!” Dana came barrelling out of the foxhole and took off in the opposite direction, yelling “Hinkle your ass, Kraut!” She and Hoffman got reoriented and finally found the E Company CP.

As they sat with the men during dinner time, the cook handed out what looked like stale pancakes that smelt to high heaven.
“Tell me the truth, Joe. What the hell are these things? They smell like my armpit!”, O’Shea grumbled.
“At least your armpit’s warm”, Brian grumbled. They were interrupted by Brouchard asking if anyone had spare morphine surettes from their kits.
“Ask Hinkle, he might have one”, O’Shea responded.
“Hinkle sweetie I’m home”, Pagliaro said in a terrible German accent. Dana just shook her head and laughed. She and Hoffman had not been able to live this down yet.

On 21st December, at least 12 inches of snow fell and blanked the area in white. The temperature fell to well below freezing, and the wind came up. Everyone was colder than they had ever been in their lives. They had only their jump boots and battle dress with trench coats. They had not been supplied with wool socks or long underwear. Runners went to Bastogne and returned with flour sacks, bed sheets and thin blankets. They could not light fires to keep themselves warm as this would give away their location.

As Dana patrolled the next day, she noticed Private Chavez sitting in his foxhole in his bare feet, trying to dry his waterlogged socks.
“Where the hell are your boots?”, Dana asked him.
“In Washington up General Ripley’s ass”, came Chavez’s sharp retort.
“Put them back on, and get Brouchard to check your feet”, Dana ordered.

As Dana turned to continue her patrol, she heard the tell-tale whistle of incoming enemy artillery, and she turned to run toward her foxhole. She heard the shells getting closer, and knew that she wouldn’t make it back to her foxhole before they hit.

She was startled when arms grabbed her and pulled her into a foxhole just as the artillery came down.