In addition, intelligence reports suggested that the only German divisions stationed in the area were weary, and in the weeks leading up to the assault, no Allied commander saw reason to believe that an attack was imminent. Bastogne, a hub city that commanded several important roads in the area, was defended mainly by the 28th Infantry Division , which had seen continuous fighting from 22 July November, before being assigned to this relatively quiet area.
The Allies believed only an infantry division was present opposite the 28th Infantry, and they believed any attack along this sector would be limited in scale. In the town of Bastogne, Belgium, there are seven roads in and seven roads out of the town.
These roads were important for the movement of German armor, making Allied retention of the roads imperative. The Allied forces were gathered into small groups at major villages, with outposts along the river manned only during the daytime. The forces were too thin to maintain an even battle line, they focused their attention on the four roads that crossed the Our. Due to heavy rain preceding the German attack, only one of the roads was in good enough condition to be used as a crossing point — the northernmost road, which crossed the Our at Dasburg on its way to Clerf and Bastogne.
Siege of Bastogne
Therefore, he ordered the Panzer-Lehr Division' to push forward to Bastogne as soon as his other troops had crossed the Clerf River. On the evening of 15 December, the 26th Volksgrenadier established an outpost line on the west bank of the Our, something they did routinely during the nighttime. At , engineers began ferrying men and equipment over the river where they began assembling at the departure point, quite close to the American garrisons. At , the German artillery began bombarding the American positions, knocking out telephone lines, as the infantry started to advance.
The Germans attacked swiftly, their advances made possible by sheer weight of numbers. In Weiler , one American company, supported by some mortars and a platoon of anti-tank guns, lasted until nightfall against repeated attacks from multiple German battalions. German engineers completed bridges over the Our before dark, and armor began moving to the front, adding to the Germans' vast numerical superiority. But in the end, the Germans were significantly delayed by the American defenders —- their plan to cross the Clerf River by nightfall on the first day was delayed by two days.
On 19 December, the 28th Division command post transferred to Bastogne from Wiltz , a large village to the southeast. At Wiltz, the division put up its last stand; 3rd Battalion of the th—supported by armor and artillery—arrived at the city around noon of that day.
The 44th Engineer Battalion was set up north of the town, but they were soon overwhelmed and retreated into the city, blowing up a bridge behind them. This small force—numbering no more than in total—held out until the evening, when their position became completely untenable and they retreated to the west. With the th Infantry completely destroyed as an effective combat unit, it would be up to the rest of the Allied army to defend Bastogne.
Despite several notable signs in the weeks preceding the attack, the Ardennes Offensive achieved virtually complete surprise. By the end of the second day of battle, it became apparent that the 28th Infantry was near collapse. Troy H. George Patton, commander of the 3rd Army was not happy about giving up the unit right before he planned an offensive near Mainz but Gen.
Omar Bradley , commander of the 12th Army Group, ordered Gen. Patton to release the unit.
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Meanwhile, Gen. Dwight D. These were veteran troops that had served with distinction since the parachute drops in Normandy and were resting and re-equipping after two months of combat in the Netherlands. Both divisions were alerted on the evening of 17 December, and not having transport automatically assigned for their use, began arranging trucks for movement forward.
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The 82nd—longer in reserve and thus better re-equipped—moved out first. Much of the convoy was conducted at night in drizzle and sleet, using headlights despite threat of air attack to speed the movement, and at one point the combined column stretched from Bouillon , Belgium, back to Reims. The th followed shortly thereafter, its 1st Battalion was sent to Noville to re-enforce Maj Desobry's team from the 10th Armored CCB while the other two battalions were ordered to act as reserves north of Bastogne.
The nd PIR marched north and northwest to establish a line from Champs east to cogne, while the th GIR, newly arrived, protected the division service area southwest of Bastogne until the German intentions could be surmised.
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William R. Desobry , a battalion-sized tank-infantry task force of the 10th Armored Division assigned to defend Noville [7] located north-northeast of both Foy and of Bastogne just 4. With just four [7] M18 tank destroyers of the th Tank Destroyer Battalion to assist, the paratroopers attacked units of the 2.
Panzerdivision , whose mission was to proceed by secondary roads via Monaville just northwest of Bastogne to seize a key highway and capture, among other objectives, fuel dumps — for the lack of which the overall German counter-offensive faltered and failed. Worried about the threat to its left flank in Bastogne, it organized a major combined arms attack to seize Noville. The attack of 1st Battalion and the M18 Hellcat tank destroyers of the th TD Battalion together destroyed at least 30 German tanks and inflicted , casualties on the attacking forces in what amounted to a spoiling attack.
The 3rd Battalion was ordered forward from a reserve position north of Bastogne to ease the pressure on 1st Battalion by occupying a supporting position in Foy to the south. The heavy losses inflicted by the tank-destroyers [7] induced the German commander into believing the village was being held by a much stronger force [7] and he recoiled from further attacks on the village, committing a strategic error while seeking tactical advantage — significantly delaying the German advance and setting the stage for the Siege of Bastogne just to the south.
After two days, the 2nd Panzer Division finally continued on its original mission to the Meuse River. As a consequence of its involvement at Bastogne, and its failure to dislodge the airborne forces, the column ultimately ran out of fuel at Celles , where it was destroyed by the U. By the time the 1st Battalion pulled out of Noville on the 20th, the village of Foy half-way to Bastogne center had been captured from the 3rd Battalion by a separate attack, forcing the 1st Battalion to then fight its way through Foy.
By the time 1st Battalion made it to the safety of American lines, it had lost 13 officers and enlisted men, out of about troops, and was assigned as the division reserve. Team Desobry lost a quarter of its troops and was reduced to just four medium tanks when it passed through the lines of 3rd Battalion. The st Airborne formed an all-round perimeter using the nd PIR on the northwest shoulder to block the 26th Volksgrenadier, the th PIR to block entry from Noville, the st PIR defending the eastern approach, and the th GIR scattered from Marvie in the southeast to Champs in the west along the southern perimeter, augmented by engineer and artillery units plugging gaps in the line.
The division service area to the west of Bastogne had been raided the first night, causing the loss of almost its entire medical company, and numerous service troops were used as infantry to reinforce the thin lines.
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Desobry , Team Cherry Lt. Henry T. Cherry , and Team O'Hara Lt. James O'Hara in delaying the Germans, formed a mobile "fire brigade" of 40 light and medium tanks including survivors of CCR 9th Armored Division and eight replacement tanks found unassigned in Bastogne. Three artillery battalions were commandeered and formed a temporary artillery group.
German panzer reconnaissance units had initial success, nearly overrunning the American artillery positions southwest of Bastogne before being stopped by a makeshift force. All seven highways leading to Bastogne were cut by German forces by noon of 21 December, and by nightfall the conglomeration of airborne and armored infantry forces were recognized by both sides as being surrounded.
The American soldiers were outnumbered approximately and were lacking in cold-weather gear , ammunition, food, medical supplies, and senior leadership as many senior officers, including the st's commander—Major General Maxwell Taylor —were elsewhere. Due to the worst winter weather in memory, the surrounded U. However, the two panzer divisions of the XLVII Panzer Corps—after using their mobility to isolate Bastogne, continued their mission towards the Meuse on 22 December, rather than attacking Bastogne with a single large force. They left just one regiment behind to assist the 26th Volksgrenadier Division in capturing the crossroads.
The XLVII Panzer Corps probed different points of the southern and western defensive perimeter in echelon, where Bastogne was defended by just a single airborne regiment and support units doubling as infantry. This played into the American advantage of interior lines of communication; the defenders were able to shift artillery fire and move their limited ad hoc armored forces to meet each successive assault.
The 26th VG received one panzergrenadier regiment from the 15th Panzergrenadier Division on Christmas Eve for its main assault the next day. And yet, for decades, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer people rarely ever saw displays of affection.
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