[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 133 (Tuesday, October 5, 1999)]
[House]
[Pages H9315-H9328]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             COMMENDING VETERANS OF THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

  Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the 
joint resolution (H.J. Res. 65) commending the World War II veterans 
who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, and for other purposes, as 
amended.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                              H.J. Res. 65

       Whereas the battle in the European theater of operations 
     during World War II known as the Battle of the Bulge was 
     fought from December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945;
       Whereas the Battle of the Bulge was a major German 
     offensive in the Ardennes forest region of Belgium and 
     Luxembourg which took Allied forces by surprise and was 
     intended to split the Allied forces in Europe by breaking 
     through the Allied lines, crippling the Allied fuel supply 
     lines, and exacerbating tensions within the alliance;
       Whereas 600,000 American troops, joined by 55,000 British 
     soldiers and other Allied forces, participated in the Battle 
     of the Bulge, overcoming numerous disadvantages in the early 
     days of the battle that included fewer numbers, treacherous 
     terrain, and bitter weather conditions;
       Whereas the Battle of the Bulge resulted in 81,000 American 
     and 1,400 British casualties, of whom approximately 19,000 
     American and 200 British soldiers were killed, with the 
     remainder wounded, captured, or listed as missing in action;
       Whereas the worst atrocity involving Americans in the 
     European theater during World War II, known as the Malmedy 
     Massacre, occurred on December 17, 1944, when 86 unarmed 
     American prisoners of war were gunned down by elements of the 
     German 1st SS Panzer Division;
       Whereas American, British, and other Allied forces overcame 
     great odds throughout the battle, including most famously the 
     action of the 101st Airborne Division in holding back German 
     forces at the key Belgian crossroads town of Bastogne, 
     thereby preventing German forces from achieving their main 
     objective of reaching Antwerp as well as the Meuse River 
     line;
       Whereas the success of American, British, and other Allied 
     forces in defeating the German attack made possible the 
     defeat of Nazi Germany four months later in April 1945;
       Whereas thousands of United States veterans of the Battle 
     of the Bulge have traveled to Belgium and Luxembourg in the 
     years since the battle to honor their fallen comrades who 
     died during the battle;
       Whereas the peoples of Belgium and Luxembourg, symbolizing 
     their friendship and gratitude toward the American soldiers 
     who fought to secure their freedom, have graciously hosted 
     countless veterans groups over the years;
       Whereas the city of Bastogne has an annual commemoration of 
     the battle and its annual Nuts Fair has been expanded to 
     include commemoration of the legendary one-word reply of 
     ``Nuts'' by Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe of the 101st 
     Airborne Division when called upon by the opposing German 
     commander at Bastogne to surrender his forces to much 
     stronger German forces;
       Whereas the Belgian people erected the Mardasson Monument 
     to honor the Americans who fought in the Battle of the Bulge 
     as well as to commemorate their sacrifices and service during 
     World War II;
       Whereas the 55th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge in 
     1999 will be marked by many commemorative events by 
     Americans, Belgians, and Luxembourgers; and
       Whereas the friendship between the United States and both 
     Belgium and Luxembourg is

[[Page H9316]]

     strong today in part because of the Battle of the Bulge: Now, 
     therefore, be it
       Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
     United States of America in Congress assembled, That 
     Congress--
       (1) commends the veterans of the United States Army, the 
     British Army, and military forces of other Allied nations who 
     fought during World War II in the German Ardennes offensive 
     known as the Battle of the Bulge;
       (2) honors those who gave their lives during that battle;
       (3) authorizes the President to issue a proclamation 
     calling upon the people of the United States to honor the 
     veterans of the Battle of the Bulge with appropriate 
     programs, ceremonies, and activities; and
       (4) calls upon the President to reaffirm the bonds of 
     friendship between the United States and both Belgium and 
     Luxembourg.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Arizona (Mr. Stump) and the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Evans) will 
each control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump).


                             General Leave

  Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may 
have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks 
and include extraneous material on House Joint Resolution 65.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Arizona?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  (Mr. STUMP asked and was given permission to revise and extend his 
remarks.)
  Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, this country is justifiably proud of the role 
its armed forces played during World War II. A few minutes ago, we 
recognized the relatively few Americans who have been awarded the Medal 
of Honor for extraordinary acts of gallantry. However, Americans 
performed hundreds of thousands of courageous acts wherever they were 
committed to battle during World War II.
  The actions of Americans who fought in the Battle of the Bulge are 
some of the best examples of everyday tenaciousness and bravery of 
American fighting men. Throughout this battle, the largest pitched 
battle ever fought by Americans, tens of thousands of Americans and 
British troops exhibited great courage and determination. Their heroism 
and willingness to endure great hardship resulted in the defeat of a 
desperate, powerful and well-trained German army.
  It is fitting, Mr. Speaker, that we recall today the service of over 
600,000 American combat troops who eventually beat back the last bold 
thrust of Hitler's war machine. This resolution commends all veterans 
who served or gave their lives during the Battle of the Bulge, and I 
urge my colleagues to support it.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.J. Res. 65 and urge the 
Members of the House to approve this measure. I also salute the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the vice chairman of the 
committee, for his leadership on this issue.
  This measure, Mr. Speaker, commends those veterans who fought and 
died during World War II in the offensive known as the Battle of the 
Bulge. It also authorizes the President to issue a proclamation calling 
upon the people of the United States to honor the veterans of this 
battle with appropriate programs, ceremonies, and activities.
  1999 marks the 55th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge, a costly 
and important victory for the United States. It is fitting that we as a 
Nation honor the sacrifices and service of America's veterans who 
fought and sacrificed during this battle. H.J. Res. 65, as amended, is 
an excellent bill; and I urge my colleagues to support this 
legislation.
  Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the vice chairman of the 
committee and the chief sponsor of this resolution.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my good friend, 
the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump), the chairman of our full 
committee, for yielding me this time and for being a cosponsor and also 
extend my thanks to my good friend, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. 
Evans) as well for cosponsoring and for the bipartisanship that he 
brings to the committee.
  I also want to thank a number of other Members. There are 42 
cosponsors of this resolution, including the gentleman from New York 
(Mr. Gilman), the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the gentleman 
from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), and several other Members who are deeply 
committed to remembering all veterans, but in particular those who 
fought in the Battle of the Bulge.
  Mr. Speaker, today the House will rightly honor the Americans and 
allied forces who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. As the son of a 
World War II combat infantryman who fought in the other major theatre 
in World War II, he fought in New Guinea, the Philippines, and several 
islands in the Pacific, I urge all Members to enthusiastically support 
House Joint Resolution 65, which was introduced to recognize the 55th 
anniversary of the largest battle in the history of U.S. modern 
warfare, the Battle of the Bulge.
  H.J. Res. 65, as amended, was marked up in the Committee on Veterans' 
Affairs as well as the Committee on International Relations, and, 
hopefully, will get the unanimous support of this body.
  Let me also thank the veterans of the Battle of the Bulge 
Association, an organization that was formed back in 1981. They now 
have about 10,000 members. And the idea behind it is to perpetuate the 
memory of the sacrifices involved during the battle, to preserve 
historical data and sites relating to the battle, and to foster 
international peace and good will, and to promote friendship among the 
battle survivors as well as their descendants.
  I also want to thank Stan Wojtuski, the National Vice President of 
Military Affairs for the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge for his 
work on this resolution, and Mrs. Edith Nowels, a constituent of mine 
living in Brielle, New Jersey. She has worked very closely in crafting 
this resolution, and I am very grateful for that.
  I think it is very important to point out that Edith Nowels' brother, 
Bud Thorne, was killed in action during the battle, and was awarded the 
Medal of Honor along with 17 others who received that highest of medals 
for their valor and bravery. There were also 86 servicemen who were 
awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for their valor during this 
vital battle.
  According to the citation presented to his family, Corporal Thorne 
single-handedly destroyed a German tank. And in the words of the 
citation, ``Displayed heroic initiative and intrepid fighting 
qualities, inflicted costly casualties on the enemy and insured the 
success of his patrol's mission by the sacrifice of his life.''
  I would like to take just a very brief moment, Mr. Speaker, to 
provide a brief overview of the battle so that my colleagues will gain 
a better understanding as to why this chapter in World War II deserves 
special recognition today. One of the most decisive battles in the war 
in Europe, the Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, 1944, when the 
German Army, in an effort to trap the allied forces in Belgium and 
Luxembourg, launched an attack against what were perceived as a weak 
line of American and allied troops. Their goal was to submit the allied 
forces in Belgium and Luxembourg and race to the coast towards Antwerp.
  Adolf Hitler and his generals knew the German Air Force could not 
maintain regional air superiority, so they were banking on bad weather 
and relatively green and a fatigued American troops, who were greatly 
outnumbered. At the outset of the battle, the German troops, forming 
three armies, numbered approximately 200,000 versus 83,000 Americans. 
Their goal was to capture bridges over the Meuse River in the first 48 
hours of the attack and then press on to Antwerp.
  At the time of their initial attack, the Germans had more than 13 
infantry and 7 panzer divisions, with nearly 1,000 tanks and almost 
2,000 larger guns deployed along the front of about 60 miles. Five more 
divisions were soon to follow, with at least 450 more tanks. Although 
the Americans were caught by surprise, they tenaciously fought back in 
those early days of the attack

[[Page H9317]]

in December, holding the line in the north while the Nazis pushed 
through in the middle of the bulge towards the Meuse River.
  One incident which particularly hardened the Americans and allied 
forces as to the intent of the German Army was the Malmedy Massacre. 
Eighty-six American POWs were murdered by the Nazis as they moved 
towards the capture of the Meuse River. The same German unit which was 
responsible for this infamous massacre eventually killed at least 300 
American POWs and over 100 unarmed Belgium civilians. News of these 
horrific events outraged and further galvanized the will of American 
forces to prevail.
  Recognizing what they were up against, General Eisenhower transferred 
the command of all American troops north of the bulge to British 
General Montgomery. Those south of the bulge were under the command of 
General Bradley. Meanwhile, the Germans were being slowed down by the 
dogged defense of the town at St. Vith by Brigadier General Hasbrouck. 
St. Vith was strategically important due to the number of key roads 
which met in the town and were essential to the German drive towards 
Antwerp.
  General Patton's Third Army, under the command of General Bradley, 
was proceeding north to cut through the southern flank of the German 
bulge in the lines and provide relief to Brigadier General Anthony 
McAuliffe, whose refusal to surrender to his German counterparts at 
Bastogne on December 22 is forever known in history with that famous 
phrase, when he just said back to the Germans, ``Nuts.'' He would not 
surrender. He just said nuts to them, and they wondered what that 
meant.

                              {time}  1100

  He was not going to give in. As more American reinforcements arrived, 
eventually totaling 600,000 troops, they assisted in holding up the 
northern and southern flanks of the Nazi advances. Hitler's generals 
found that they were running out of fuel and that their hope of seizing 
allied fuel supplies was becoming a pipe dream and their race to the 
Meuse river slowed down to a crawl. While Adolph Hitler insisted on 
pressing with air strikes against advancing allied reinforcements, his 
generals knew that they had been beaten, and he eventually authorized 
the retreat of his armies at the end of January.
  Mr. Speaker, the cost in lives from this engagement is astronomical 
and absolutely staggering. The American armies had more than 81,000 
casualties; and of these, 19,000 men were killed in action. The British 
had 1,400 casualties with 200 killed. Both sides lost as many as 800 
tanks each, and the Germans lost 1,000 planes. All told, it was one of 
the largest pitched battles in history with more than three times the 
number of troops from both the North and the South that engaged in the 
Battle of Gettysburg. Three times the size of Gettysburg. In the words 
of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and I quote, in addressing 
the House of Commons, he said, ``This is undoubtedly the greatest 
battle of the war and will I believe be regarded as an ever-famous 
American victory.''
  Mr. Speaker, I hope all Members will support this resolution. The 
veterans of the Battle of the Bulge every year travel to Europe and 
reacquaint themselves with those with whom they fought side by side and 
those that they liberated. They will be meeting again soon in both 
Luxembourg and Belgium. I hope we will go on record supporting their 
efforts, their valor and this resolution puts all of us on record in 
that regard.
  Mr. Speaker, I include a list of Medal of Honor recipients for the 
Record, as follows:

          Recipients of the Medal of Honor--Ardennes Campaign

     Arthur O. Beyer
     Melvin E. Biddle
     Paul L. Bolden
     Richard E. Cowan
     Francis S. Currey
     Peter J. Dalessondro
     Archer T. Gammon
     James R. Hendrix
     Truman Kimbro
     Jose M. Lopez
     Vernon McGarity
     Curtis F. Shoup
     William A. Soderman
     Horace M. Thorne
     Day G. Turner
     Henry G. Turner
     Henry F. Warner
     Paul J. Wiedorfer

  Mr. Speaker, I include the following brochure regarding the Ardennes-
Alsace Campaign for the Record:

                            Ardennes-Alsace


                              Introduction

       World War II was the largest and most violent armed 
     conflict in the history of mankind. However, the half century 
     that now separates us from that conflict has exacted its toll 
     on our collective knowledge. While World War II continues to 
     absorb the interest of military scholars and historians, as 
     well as its veterans, a generation of Americans has grown to 
     maturity largely unaware of the political, social, and 
     military implications of a war that, more than any other, 
     united us as a people with a common purpose.
       Highly relevant today, World War II has much to teach us, 
     not only about the profession of arms, but also about 
     military preparedness, global strategy, and combined 
     operations in the coalition war against fascism. During the 
     next several years, the U.S. Army will participate in the 
     nation's 50th anniversary commemoration of World War II. The 
     commemoration will include the publication of various 
     materials to help educate Americans about that war. The works 
     produced will provide great opportunities to learn about and 
     renew pride in an Army that fought so magnificently in what 
     has been called ``the mighty endeavor.''
       World War II was waged on land, on sea, and in the air over 
     several diverse theaters of operation for approximately six 
     years. The following essay is one of a series of campaign 
     studies highlighting those struggles that, with their 
     accompanying suggestions for further reading, are designed to 
     introduce you to one of the Army's significant military feats 
     from that war.
       This brochure was prepared in the U.S. Army Center of 
     Military History by Roger Cirillo. I hope this absorbing 
     account of that period will enhance your appreciation of 
     American achievements during World War II.
                                               Gordon R. Sullivan,
                       General, United States Army Chief of Staff.

                            Ardennes-Alsace

                    16 December 1944-25 January 1945

       In his political testament Mein Kampf (``My Struggle'') 
     Adolf Hitler wrote, ``Strength lies not in defense but in 
     attack.'' Throughout World War II, attempts to gain or regain 
     the initiative had characterized Hitler's influence on 
     military operations. Thus, when the military situation in 
     late 1944 looked darkest on the Western Front, an enemy 
     offensive to redress the balance of the battlefield--and 
     thereby cripple or delay the Allied advance--should have come 
     as no surprise.
       Hitler's great gamble began during the nights of 13, 14, 
     and 15 December, when the initial assault force of German 
     armor, artillery, and infantry gradually staged forward to 
     attack positions along the Belgian-German-Luxembourg border. 
     This mustered force, with more than 200,000 men in thirteen 
     infantry and seven panzer divisions and with nearly 1,000 
     tanks and almost 2,000 guns, deployed along a front of 60 
     miles--its operational armor holdings equaling that on the 
     entire Eastern Front. Five more divisions moved forward in a 
     second wave, while still others, equipped with at least 450 
     more tanks, followed in reserve.
       On the Allied side the threatened American sector appeared 
     quiet. The 15 December daily situation report for the VIII 
     Corps, which lay in the path of two of Hitler's armies, 
     noted: ``There is nothing to report.'' This illusion would 
     soon be shattered.


                           Strategic Setting

       In August 1944, while his armies were being destroyed in 
     Normandy, Hitler secretly put in motion actions to build a 
     large reserve force, forbidding its use to bolster Germany's 
     beleaguered defenses. To provide the needed manpower, he 
     trimmed existing military forces and conscripted youths, the 
     unfit, and old men previously untouched for military service. 
     Panzer divisions were rebuilt with the cadre of survivors 
     from units in Normandy or on the Eastern Front, while newly 
     created Volksgrenadier (``people's infantry'') divisions were 
     staffed with veteran commanders and noncommissioned officers 
     and the new conscripts. By increasing the number of automatic 
     weapons and the number of supporting assault gun and rocket 
     battalions in each division, Hitler hoped to make up for 
     hurried training and the lack of fighting fitness. Despite 
     the massive Allied air bombardment of Germany and the 
     constant need to replace destroyed divisions on both the 
     Eastern and Western Fronts, where heavy fighting continued, 
     forces were gathered for use in what Hitler was now calling 
     Operation Wacht am Rhine (``Watch on the Rhine'').
       In September Hitler named the post of Antwerp, Belgium, as 
     the objective. Selecting the Eifel region as a staging area, 
     Hitler intended to mass twenty-five divisions for an attack 
     through the thinly held Ardennes Forest area of southern 
     Belgium and Luxembourg. Once the Meuse River was reached and 
     crossed, these forces would swing northwest some 60 miles to 
     envelop the port of Antwerp. The maneuver was designed to 
     sever the already stretched Allied supply lines in the north 
     and to encircle and destroy a third of the Allies' ground 
     forces. If successful, Hitler believed that the offensive 
     could smash the Allied coalition, or at least greatly cripple 
     its ground combat capabilities, leaving him free to focus on 
     the Russians at his back door.
       Timing was crucial. Allied air power ruled the skies during 
     the day, making any open concentrations of German military 
     strength on the ground extremely risky. Hitler, therefore, 
     scheduled the offensive to take place when inclement weather 
     would ground Allied planes, or at least limit their attacks 
     on his

[[Page H9318]]

     advancing columns. Because the requisite forces and supplies 
     had to be assembled, he postponed the starting date from 
     November until mid-December. This additional preparation 
     time, however, did not ease the minds of the few German 
     generals and staff officers entrusted with planning Wacht am 
     Rhine.
       Both the nominal Commander-in-Chief West Field Marshal Gerd 
     von Rundstedt and Army Group B commander Field Marshal Walter 
     Model, who had primary responsibility for Wacht am Rhine, 
     questioned the scope of the offensive. Both argued for a more 
     limited attack, to pinch out the American-held salient north 
     of the Ardennes around Aachen. Borrowing a bridge-players 
     term, they referred to Hitler's larger objectives as the 
     grand slam, or big solution, but proposed instead a small 
     solution more compatible with the limited force being raised.
       Rundstedt and Model believed that Hitler's legions were 
     incapable of conducting a blitzkrieg, or lightning war, 
     campaign. The twin swords that had dominated the field during 
     the 1940 drive across France, tanks and air power, no longer 
     existed in the numbers necessary to strike a decisive blow, 
     nor was the hastily conscripted infantry, even when led by 
     experienced officers and sergeants, up to the early war 
     standards. Supply columns, too, would be prone to 
     interdiction or breakdown on the Eifel's limited roads. To 
     Hitler's generals, the grand slam was simply asking for too 
     much to be done with too little at hand.
       The determining factor was the terrain itself. The Ardennes 
     consists of a series of parallel ridges and valleys generally 
     running from northeast to southwest, as did its few good 
     roads in 1944. About a third of the region is coniferous 
     forest, with swamps and marshes in the northlands and deep 
     defiles and gorges where numerous rivers and streams cut the 
     ridges. Dirt secondary roads existed, making north-south 
     movement possible, with the road centers--Bastogne and 
     Houffalize in the south, and Malmedy and St. Vith in the 
     north--crucial for military operations. After the winter's 
     first freeze, tanks could move cross-country in much of the 
     central sector. Fall 1944, however, brought the promise of 
     mud, because of rain, and the advancing days of December, the 
     promise of snow. Either could limit the quick advance needed 
     by Wacht am Rhine. Once the Meuse River, west of the 
     Ardennes, was gained, the wide river itself and cliffs on the 
     east bank presented a significant obstacle if the bridges 
     were not captured intact. Since the roads and terrain leading 
     to Antwerp thereafter were good, the German planners focused 
     on the initial breakthrough and the run west to the Meuse. 
     The terrain, which made so little sense as an attack avenue 
     northwestward, guaranteed the surprise needed.
       Previous offensives through the Ardennes in World War I and 
     early in World War II had followed the major roads 
     southwestward, and had been made in good weather. The 
     defenses then had always been light screens, easily pushed 
     away. In 1940 the weakly opposed German armor needed three 
     days to traverse the easier terrain in the southern Ardennes 
     in good weather, on dry roads. For Wacht am Rhine, the 
     American line had to be broken and crushed immediately to 
     open paths for the attacking panzers; otherwise, the 
     offensive might bog down into a series of fights for roads 
     and the numerous villages on the way to the Meuse. 
     Precious fuel would be used to deploy tanks to fight 
     across fields. More importantly, time would be lost giving 
     the defenders the opportunity to position blocking forces 
     or to attack enemy flanks. Only surprise, sheer weight of 
     numbers, and minimal hard fighting could guarantee a 
     chance at success. If the Americans fought long and well, 
     the same terrain that guaranteed surprise would become a 
     trap.
       The Ardennes held little fascination for the Allies, either 
     as a staging area for their own counterattacks or as a weak 
     spot in their lines. General Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 
     Supreme Allied Commander, had concentrated forces north and 
     south of the area where the terrain was better suited for 
     operations into Germany. Field Marshal Sir Bernard L. 
     Montgomery's 21 Army Group to the north began preparations 
     for the planned crossing of the Rhine in early 1945. Lt. Gen. 
     Omar N. Bradley's 12th Army Group to the south and Lt. Gen. 
     Jacob L. Devers' 6th Army Group in the Alsace region would 
     also launch attacks and additional Rhine crossings from their 
     sectors.
       Located in the center of Bradley's sector, the Ardennes had 
     been quiet since mid-September. Referred to as a ``ghost 
     front,'' one company commander described the sector as a 
     ``nursery and old folk's home. . . .'' The 12th Army Group's 
     dispositions reflected Bradley's operational plans. Lt. Gen. 
     William H. Simpson's Ninth Army and most of Lt. Gen. Courtney 
     H. Hodges' First Army occupied a 40-mile area north of the 
     Ardennes, concentrating for an attack into the Ruhr 
     industrial region of Germany. Lt. Gen. George S. Patton, 
     Jr.'s Third Army was in a 100-mile sector south of the 
     forest, preparing a thrust into the vital Saar mining region. 
     In between, the First Army hold 88 miles of the front with 
     only four divisions, two ``green'' units occupying ground to 
     gain experience and two veteran units licking wounds and 
     absorbing replacements; an armored infantry battalion; and 
     two mechanized cavalry squadrons. Behind this thin screen was 
     one green armored division, whose two uncommitted combat 
     commands straddled two separate corps, as well as a cavalry 
     squadron and an assortment of artillery, engineer, and 
     service units.
       Bradley judged his decision to keep the Ardennes front 
     thinly occupied to be ``a calculated risk.'' Nor was he alone 
     in not seeing danger. Probability, not capability, dominated 
     Allied thinking about the Wehrmacht's next moves on the 
     Western Front in mid-December 1944. Commanders and 
     intelligence officers (G-2) at every level--from the Supreme 
     Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force (SHAEF), to the 
     divisions holding the line--judged that the Germans were too 
     weak to attempt regaining the initiative by a large-scale 
     offensive. Despite their awareness that enemy units were 
     refitting and concentrating across the line, they concluded 
     exactly what Hitler had intended them to conclude. Knowing 
     that the Germans were concerned with major threats to both 
     the Ruhr and the Saar, Eisenhower's G-2 believed that they 
     probably would use the uncommitted Sixth Panzer Army, 
     suspected to be in the northern Eifel, to bolster their 
     weakening northern defenses, or at least to cripple the 
     impending Allied push toward the Ruhr. Both Hodges' and 
     Patton's G-2s viewed the enemy as a reflection of their own 
     operational plans and thus assessed the German buildup as no 
     more than preparations to counterattack the First and Third 
     Armies' assaults.
       With only enough troops in the Ardennes to hold a series of 
     strongpoints loosely connected by intermittent patrols, the 
     Americans extended no ground reconnaissance into the German 
     sector. Poor weather had masked areas from aerial 
     photography, and the Germans enforced radio silence and 
     strict countersecurity measures. Equally important, the 
     Allies' top secret communications interception and 
     decryption effort, code-named Ultra, offered clues but no 
     definitive statement of Hitler's intentions. Yet Wacht am 
     Rhine's best security was the continued Allied belief that 
     the Germans would not attack, a belief held up to zero 
     hour on 16 December--designated by the Germans as Null-tag 
     (``Zero-Day'').


                              Battle Plans

       Field Marshal Model's attack plan, called Herbstnebel 
     (``Autumn Fog''), assigned Lt. Gen. Josef ``Sepp'' Dietrich's 
     Sixth Panzer Army the main effort. Dietrich would attack 
     Hodges' First Army along the boundary separating Maj. Gen. 
     Leonard T. Gerow's V Corps in the north from Maj. Gen. Troy 
     H. Middleton's VIII Corps to the south, brushing aside or 
     overrunning the V Corps' 99th Infantry Division and a cavalry 
     squadron of the VIII Corps' 14th Cavalry Group before driving 
     for the Meuse and Antwerp. South of the Sixth Panzer Army, 
     Lt. Gen. Hasso von Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army would hit 
     the VIII Corps' 106th Infantry Division and part of its 28th 
     Infantry Division, tearing open Middleton's thin front and 
     adding a secondary effort. Farther south, Lt. Gen. Erich 
     Brandenberger's Seventh Army would attack the remainder of 
     the 28th as well as the VIII Corps' 4th Infantry Division and 
     then cover the advance of the panzers as far as the Meuse 
     River. An airborne drop and infiltration by small teams 
     disguised in American uniforms were added to create havoc in 
     the American rear.
       North of the Sixth Panzer Army, the six divisions of Lt. 
     Gen. Gustav von Zangen's Fifteenth Army had a dual role. In 
     addition to fighting and thereby holding American divisions 
     in the crucial Aachen sector, Zangen would attack southward 
     on order after Dietrich's panzers had broken the American 
     line, a variation of the pincers attack originally preferred 
     by Hitler's generals.
       The Sixth Panzer Army was to attack in two waves. The first 
     would consist of the LXVII Corps, with the newly organized 
     272d and 326th Volksgrenadier Divisions, and the I SS Panzer 
     Corps, with the 1st and 12th SS Panzer, the 12th and 277th 
     Volksgrenadier, and the 3d Parachute Divisions. The 150th 
     Special Brigade and a parachute contingent would seize 
     terrain and bridges ahead of the main body after the two 
     corps broke through the American defenses. Dietrich planned 
     to commit his third corps, the II SS Panzer Corps, with the 
     2d and 9th SS Panzer Divisions, in the second wave. The Sixth 
     Panzer Army's 1,000-plus artillery pieces and 90 Tiger tanks 
     made it the strongest force deployed. Although Dietrich's 
     initial sector frontage was only 23 miles, his assault 
     concentrated on less than half that ground. Relying on at 
     least a 6:1 troop superiority at the breakthrough points, he 
     expected to overwhelm the Americans and reach the Meuse River 
     by nightfall of the third day.
       According to Dietrich's plan, the LXVII Corps would secure 
     the Sixth Panzer Army's northern flank. By sidestepping 
     Monschau to seize the poorly roaded, forested hills and 
     upland moors of the Hohe Venn, the LXVII's two divisions 
     would block the main roads leading into the breakthrough area 
     from the north and east. Simultaneously, the I SS Panzer 
     Corps to the south would use its three infantry divisions to 
     punch holes in the American line and swing northwesterly to 
     join the left flank of the LXVII Corps. Together, the five 
     divisions would form a solid shoulder, behind which the 
     panzers of the I and II SS Panzer Corps would advance along 
     the Sixth Panzer Army's routes leading west and northwest.
       Three terrain features were critical to Dietrich's panzer 
     thrust: the Elsenborn ridge, the Losheim Gap, and the Schnee 
     Eifel ridge. The Elsenborn ridge, a complex series of fingers 
     and spurs of the southern Hohe Venn, controlled access to two 
     of the westerly panzer routes; a third passed just to the

[[Page H9319]]

     south. The 277th Volksgrenadier Division would attack into 
     the east defenses of the ridge, and to the south the 12th 
     SS Panzer Division would debouch from its forest trail 
     approaches into the hard roads running through and south 
     of the ridge.
       Further to the south the Losheim Gap appears as open 
     rolling ground between the Elsenborn ridge to the northwest 
     and the long, heavily wooded Schnee Eifel ridge to the 
     southeast. Measuring about 5 miles wide at the German border 
     and narrowing throughout its roughly 14-mile length as it 
     runs from northeast to southwest, the gap is an unlikely 
     military avenue, subdivided by lesser ridges, twists, and 
     hills. Its roads, however, were well built and crucial for 
     the German advance. Over its two major routes Dietrich 
     intended to pass most of his armor.
       The Sixth Panzer Army shared the Losheim Gap as an avenue 
     with its southern neighbor, the Fifth Panzer Army. Their 
     boundary reflected Hitler's obsession with a concentrated 
     attack to ensure a breakthrough, but the common corridor 
     added a potential for confusion. The Sixth Panzer Army was to 
     attack with the 12th Volksgrenadier and the 3d Parachute 
     Divisions through the northern portion of the gap, while the 
     Fifth Panzer Army's northern corps, the LXVI, would open its 
     southern portions. Additionally, the LXVI Corps had to 
     eliminate the American forces holding the Schnee Eifel on the 
     southern flank of the gap and seize the crucial road 
     interchange at St. Vith about 10 miles further west. 
     Manteuffel wanted part of the 18th Volksgrenadier Division to 
     push through the southern part of the gap and hook into the 
     rear of the Schnee Eifel, the remainder of the division to 
     complete the encirclement to the south of the ridge, and the 
     62d Volksgrenadier Division to anchor the LXVI's flank with a 
     drive toward St. Vith.
       To the south of the Losheim Gap--Schnee Eifel area, along 
     the north-south flowing Our River, the Fifth Panzer Army's 
     major thrusts devolved to its LVIII and XLVII Panzer Corps, 
     aligned north to south with four of their five divisions in 
     the assault wave. Each panzer corps had one designated route, 
     but the Fifth Panzer Army commander did not plan to wait for 
     infantry to clear them. Manteuffel intended to commit his 
     armor early rather than in tandem with the infantry, 
     expecting to break through the extended American line quickly 
     and expedite his advance to the west. The LVIII's 116th 
     Panzer and 560th Volksgrenadier Divisions were to penetrate 
     the area astride the Our River, tying the 106th and 28th 
     Divisions together, and to capture the three tank-capable 
     bridges in the sector before driving west to the Meuse. To 
     the south the XLVII's 2d Panzer and 26th Volksgrenadier 
     Divisions were to seize crossings on the Our and head toward 
     the key Bastogne road interchange 19 miles to the west. The 
     Panzer Lehr Division would follow, adding depth to the corps 
     attack.
       Covering the Fifth Panzer Army's southern flank were the 
     LXXXV and LXXX Corps of Brandenberger's Seventh Army. The 
     LXXXV's 5th Parachute and 352d Volksgrenadier Divisions were 
     to seize crossings on the Our River, and the LXXX's 276th and 
     212th Volksgrenadier Divisions, feinting toward the city of 
     Luxembourg, were to draw American strength away from 
     Manteuffel's main attack. The 276th would attack south of the 
     confluence of the Our and Sauer Rivers, enveloping the 3-mile 
     defensive sector held by an American armored infantry 
     battalion, and to the south the 212th, after crossing at 
     Echternach, would push back the large concentration of 
     American artillery in the sector and anchor Army Group B's 
     southern flank. The Germans had a fairly good idea of the 
     American forces opposing them. Facing Dietrich's Sixth Panzer 
     Army was the V Corps' 99th Infantry Division. Newly arrived, 
     the 99th occupied a series of forward positions along 19 
     miles of the wooded Belgian-German border, its 395th, 393d, 
     and 394th Infantry regiments on line from north to south, 
     with one battalion behind the division's deep right flank 
     available as a reserve. Gerow, the V Corps commander, was 
     focused at the time on a planned attack by his 2d Infantry 
     Division toward the Roer River dams to the north and had 
     given less attention to the defensive dispositions of the 
     99th. This small operation had already begun on 13 December, 
     with the 2d Division passing through the area held by the 
     99th Division's northernmost regiment. Two battalions of the 
     395th Infantry joined the action. Slowed by pillboxes and 
     heavy defenses in the woods, the 2d's attacks were still 
     ongoing when the enemy offensive begin on the sixteenth.
       To the south of the 99th Division the First Army had split 
     responsibilities for the Elsenborn ridge--Losheim Gap area 
     between Gerow's V Corps and Middleton's VIII Corps, with the 
     corps boundary running just north of the village of Losheim. 
     Middleton's major worry was the Losheim Gap, which 
     potentially exposed the Schnee Eifel, the latter held by five 
     battalions of the newly arrived 106th Division. When Bradley 
     refused his request to withdraw to a shorter, unexposed line, 
     the VIII Corps commander positioned eight battalions of his 
     corps artillery to support the forces holding the Losheim 
     Gap--Schnee Eifel region.
       South of the corps boundary the 18th Cavalry Squadron, 
     belonging to the recently attached 14th Cavalry Group, 
     outposted the 9,000-yard Losheim Gap. Reinforced by a company 
     of 3-inch towed tank destroyers, the 18th occupied eight 
     positions that gave good coverage in fair weather but 
     could be easily bypassed in the fog or dark. To remedy 
     this, Middleton had assigned an additional cavalry 
     squadron to reinforce the gap's thin line under the 14th 
     group. The cavalry force itself was attached to the 106th 
     Division, but with the 106th slowly settling into its 
     positions, a coordinated defense between the two had yet 
     to be decided. As a result, the reinforcing squadron was 
     quartered 20 miles to the rear, waiting to be ordered 
     forward.
       South of the Schnee Eifel Middleton's forces followed the 
     Our River with the 106th Division's 424th infantry and, to 
     the south, the 28th Division. After suffering more than 6,000 
     casualties in the Huertgen Forest battles in November, the 
     28th was resting and training replacements in a 30-mile area 
     along the Our. Its three regiments--the 112th, 110th, and 
     109th Infantry--were on line from north to south. Two 
     battalions of the 100th Infantry held 10 miles of the front 
     and the division's center while their sister battalion was 
     kept as part of the division reserve. The 110th had six 
     company-sized strongpoints manned by infantry and engineers 
     along the ridge between the Our and Clerf Rivers to the west, 
     which the troops called ``Skyline Drive.'' Through the center 
     of this sector ran the crucial road to Bastogne.
       South of the 28th Division the sector was held by part of 
     Combat Command A of the newly arrived 9th Armored Division 
     and by the 4th Infantry Division, another veteran unit 
     resting from previous battles. These forces, with the 4th's 
     northern regiment, the 12th Infantry, positioned as the 
     southernmost unit in the path of the German offensive, held 
     the line of the Sauer River covering the approaches to the 
     city of Luxembourg. Behind this thinly stretched defensive 
     line of new units and battered veterans, Middleton had few 
     reserves and even fewer options available for dealing with 
     enemy threats.


                    opening attacks, 16-18 december

       At 0530 on 16 December the Sixth Panzer Army's artillery 
     commenced preparation fires. These fires, which ended at 
     0700, were duplicated in every sector of the three attacking 
     German armies. At first the American defenders believed the 
     fires were only a demonstration. Simultaneously, German 
     infantry moved unseen through the dark and morning fog, 
     guided by searchlight beams overhead. Yet, despite local 
     surprise, Dietrich's attack did not achieve the quick 
     breakthrough planned. The LXVII Corps' attack north and south 
     of Monschau failed immediately. One division arrived too late 
     to attack; the other had its assault broken by determined 
     resistance. The 277th Volksgrenadier Division's infiltrating 
     attacks followed the preparation fires closely. The Germans 
     overran some of the 99th Division's forest outposts, but they 
     were repulsed attempting to cross open fields near their 
     objectives, the twin villages of Krinkelt-Rocherath. By 
     nightfall the Americans still contested the woods to the 
     north and east of the villages. The 99th's southern flank, 
     however, was in great peril. The 12th Volksgrenadier Division 
     had successfully cleared the 1st SS Panzer Division's main 
     assault avenue, taking the village of Losheim in the early 
     morning and moving on to separate the VIII Corp's cavalry 
     from its connection with the 99th.
       South of the American corps boundary the Germans were more 
     successful. Poor communications had further strained the 
     loosely coordinated defense of the 106th Division and the 
     14th Cavalry Group in the Losheim Gap. The German predawn 
     preparation fires had targeted road junctions, destroying 
     most of the pole-mounted communications wire interchanges. 
     With their major wire command nets silenced, the American 
     defenders had to rely on radio relay via artillery nets, 
     which the mountainous terrain made unreliable.
       The attack in the Losheim Gap, in fact, was the offensive's 
     greatest overmatch. The 3d Parachute Division ran up against 
     only one cavalry troop and a tank destroyer company holding 
     over half the sector, and its southern neighbors, the two 
     reinforced regiments of the 18th Volksgrenadier Division, hit 
     four platoons of cavalry. Although some American positions 
     had been bypassed in the dark, the attacking Germans had 
     generally cleared the area by late morning. Poor 
     communications and general confusion limited defensive fire 
     support to one armored field artillery battalion. More 
     importantly, the cavalry's porous front opened the American 
     rear to German infantry; by dawn some of the defenders' 
     artillery and support units behind the Schnee Eifel 
     encountered the enemy. Subsequently, many guns were lost, 
     while others hastily clogged the roads to find safer ground.
       The uncoordinated defense of the 106th Division and 14th 
     Cavalry Group now led to tragedy. The cavalry commander 
     quickly realized that his outposts could neither hold nor 
     survive. After launching one abortive counterattack northward 
     against 3d Parachute Division elements with his reserve 
     squadron, he secured permission to withdraw before his road-
     bound force was trapped against the wooded heights to his 
     rear. This opened the V and VII Corps boundary and separated 
     the cavalry, Middleton's key information source on his 
     northern flank, from the Schnee Eifel battle. Throughout the 
     day of 16 December the 3d pushed north, ultimately 
     overrunning the cavalry's remaining outposts and capturing a 
     small force of the 99th Division. But all of these scattered 
     forces fought valiantly so that by dark the Sixth Panzer 
     Army's route was still clogged

[[Page H9320]]

     by units mopping up bypassed Americans and their own supply 
     and support rains. To the south the 18th Volksgrenadier 
     Division's attack in the Losheim Gap had slid by the cavalry, 
     but failed to clear the open ridge behind the Schnee Eifel. 
     South of the Schnee Eifel the rest of the 18th was unable to 
     push through the defenders to catch the 106th's units on top 
     of the Schnee Eifel in a pincer. Further south the 106th's 
     42th Infantry had blocked the path of the 62d Volksgrenadier 
     Division across the Our River. By dark the 106th had thus 
     lost little ground. It had committed its reserve to block the 
     enemy threat to its south and was expecting Combat Command B, 
     9th Armored Division, shifting from V Corps reserve, to 
     conduct a relieving attach via St. Vith toward the Schnee 
     Eifel. But while the defenders moved to restore their 
     positions, the 18th, by searchlight and flare, continued to 
     press south from the gap.
       South of the 106th Division, the 28th Division fended off 
     the Fifth Panzer Army's thrusts. In the north the 112th 
     Infantry held back the LVIII Panzer Corps' two divisions, 
     while the 110th Infantry blocked the paths of the XLVII 
     Panzer Corp's three in the center. The 110th's strong points, 
     which received some tank reinforcement from the division 
     reserve, held firm throughout the sixteenth, blocking the 
     route westward. By dark, although German infantry had crossed 
     the Our and started infiltrating, American roadblocks still 
     prevented any armor movement toward Bastogne.
       South of the fifth Panzer Army, Brandenberger's Seventh 
     Army also failed to break through the American line. The 28th 
     Division's 109th Infantry managed to hold on to its 9-mile 
     front. Although the LXXXV Corps' two divisions had seized 
     crossings on the Our and achieved some penetrations between 
     the regiment's company strong-points, they failed to advance 
     further. Similarly, the Germans' southernmost attack was held 
     by the 4th Division's 12th Infantry. The LXXX Corps' 
     divisions met with heavy resistance, and by nightfall the 
     Americans still held their positions all along the Seventh 
     Army front, despite some infiltration between company 
     strongpoints.
       Hitler responded to the first day's reports with unbridled 
     optimism. Rundstedt, however, was less sanguine. The needed 
     breakthrough had not been achieved, no major armored units 
     had been committed, and the key panzer routes were still 
     blocked. In fact, the first day of battle set the tone for 
     the entire American defense. In every engagement the 
     Americans had been outnumbered, in some sectors facing down 
     tanks and assault guns with only infantry weapons. Darkness, 
     fog, and intermittent drizzle snow had favored the 
     infiltrating attackers; but, despite inroads made around the 
     defenses, the Germans had been forced to attack American 
     positions frontally to gain access to the vital roads. Time 
     had been lost and more would be spent to achieve a complete 
     breakthrough. In that sense, the grand slam was already in 
     danger.
       American senior commanders were puzzled by the situation. 
     The Germans apparently had attacked along a 60-mile front 
     with strong forces, including many new units not identified 
     in the enemy order or battle. Yet no substantial ground had 
     been lost. With many communications links destroyed by the 
     bombardment and the relative isolation of most defensive 
     positions, the generals were presented with a panorama of 
     numerous small-unit battles without a clear larger 
     picture.
       Nevertheless, command action was forthcoming. By nightfall 
     of the sixteenth, although response at both the First Army 
     and 12th Army Group headquarters was guarded, Eisenhower had 
     personally ordered the 7th Armored Division from the Ninth 
     Army and the 10th Armored Division from the third Army to 
     reinforce Middleton's hard-pressed VIII Corps. In addition, 
     shortly after midnight, Hodges' First Army began moving 
     forces south from the Aachen sector, while the Third Army 
     headquarters, on Patton's initiative, began detailed planning 
     to deal with the German offensive.
       Within the battle area the two corps commanders struggled 
     to respond effectively to the offensive, having only 
     incomplete and fragmentary reports from the field. Gerow, the 
     V Corps commander in the north, requested that the 2d 
     Division's Roer River dams attack be canceled; however, 
     Hodges, who viewed the German action against the 99th 
     Division as a spoiling operation, initially refused. 
     Middleton, the VIII Corps commander in the south, changed his 
     plans for the 9th Armored division's Combat Command B, 
     ordering it to reinforce the southern flank of the 106th 
     Division. The newly promised 7th Armored Division would 
     assume the CCB's original mission of relieving troops on the 
     Schnee Eifel via St. Vith. Thereafter, mixed signals between 
     the VIII Corps and the 106th Division led to disaster. 
     Whether by poor communications or misunderstanding, Middleton 
     believed that the 106th was pulling its men off the Schnee 
     Eifel and withdrawing to a less exposed position; the 106th's 
     commander believed that Middleton wanted him to hold until 
     relieved and thus left the two defending regiments in place.
       By the early morning hours of 17 December Middleton, whose 
     troops faced multiple enemy threats, had selected the 
     dispositions that would foreshadow the entire American 
     response. Already ordered by Hodges to defend in place, the 
     VIII Corps commander determined that his defense would focus 
     on denying the Germans use of the Ardennes roadnet. Using the 
     forces at hand, he intended to block access to four key road 
     junctions: St. Vith, Houffalize, Bastogne, and the city of 
     Luxembourg. If he could stop or slow the German advance west, 
     he knew that the 12th Army Group would follow with massive 
     flanking attacks from the north and south.
       That same morning Hodges finally agreed to cancel the V 
     Corps' Roer dams attack. Gerow, in turn, moved the 2d 
     Division south to strengthen the 99th Division's southern 
     flank, with reinforcements from the 1st Infantry Division 
     soon to follow. The First Army commander now realized that 
     Gerow's V Corps units held the critical northern shoulder of 
     the enemy penetration and began to reinforce them, trusting 
     that Middleton's armor reinforcements would restore the 
     center of the VIII Corps line.
       While these shifts took place, the battle raged. During the 
     night of 16-17 December the Sixth Panzer Army continued to 
     move armor forward in the hopes of gaining the breakthrough 
     that the infantry had failed to achieve. The Germans again 
     mounted attacks near Monschau and again were repulsed. 
     Meanwhile, south of Monschau, the 12th SS Panzer Division, 
     committed from muddy logging trails, overwhelmed 99th 
     Division soldiers still holding out against the 277th and 
     12th Volksgrenadier Divisions.
       Outnumbered and facing superior weapons, many U.S. soldiers 
     fought to the bitter end, the survivors surrendering only 
     when their munitions had run out and escape was impossible. 
     Individual heroism was common. During the Krinkelt battle, 
     for example, T. Sgt. Vernon McGarity of the 393d Infantry, 
     99th Division, after being treated for wounds, returned to 
     lead his squad, rescuing wounded under fire and single-
     handedly destroying an advancing enemy machine-gun section. 
     After two days of fighting, his men were captured after 
     firing their last bullets. McGarity received the Medal of 
     Honor for his actions. His was the first of thirty-two such 
     awards during the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign.
       Ordered to withdraw under the 2d Division's control, the 
     99th Division, whose ranks had been thinned by nearly 3,000 
     casualties, pulled back to the northern portion of a 
     horseshoe-shaped line that blocked two of the I SS Panzer 
     Corps' routes. Although the line was anchored on the 
     Elsenborn ridge, fighting raged westward as the Germans 
     pushed to outflank the extended American defense.
       During the night of the seventeenth the Germans unveiled 
     additional surprises. They attempted to parachute a 1,000-man 
     force onto the Hohe Venn's high point at Baraque Michel. 
     Although less than half actually landed in the area, the 
     scattered drop occupied the attention of critical U.S. 
     armored and infantry reserves in the north for several days. 
     A companion special operation, led by the legendary Lt. Col. 
     Otto Skorzeny, used small teams of English-speaking soldiers 
     disguised in American uniforms. Neither the drop nor the 
     operation gained any appreciable military advantage for the 
     German panzers. The Americans, with their resistance 
     increasing along the Elsenborn ridge and elsewhere, were 
     undaunted by such threats to their rear.
       Further south, however, along the V and VIII Corps 
     boundary, the Sixth Panzer Army achieved its breakthrough. In 
     the Losheim Gap the advanced detachment of the 1st SS Panzer 
     Division, Kampfgruppe Peiper, moved forward through the 
     attacking German infantry during the early hours of the 
     seventeenth. Commanded by Col. Joachim Peiper, the unit would 
     spearhead the main armored assault heading for the Meuse 
     River crossings south of Liege at Huy. With over 100 tanks 
     and approximately 5,000 men, Kampfgruppe Peiper had 
     instructions to ignore its own flanks, to overrun or bypass 
     opposition, and to move day and night. Traversing the woods 
     south of the main panzer route, it entered the town of 
     Buellingen, about 3 miles behind the American line. After 
     fueling their tanks on captured stocks, Peiper's men murdered 
     at least 50 American POWs. Then shortly after noon, they ran 
     head on into a 7th Armored Division field artillery 
     observation battery southeast of Malmedy, murdering more than 
     80 men. Peiper's men eventually killed at least 300 American 
     prisoners and over 100 unarmed Belgian civilians in a dozen 
     separate locations. Word of the Malmedy Massacre spread, and 
     within hours units across the front realized that the Germans 
     were prosecuting the offensive with a special grimness. 
     American resistance stiffened.
       Following a twisted course along the Ambleve River valley, 
     Kampfgruppe Peiper had completed barely half of its drive to 
     the Meuse before encountering a unit from 9th Armored 
     Division and then being stopped by an engineer squad at the 
     Stavelot bridge. Unknown to Peiper, his column had passed 
     within 15 miles of the First Army headquarters and was close 
     to its huge reserve fuel dumps. But the Peiper advance was 
     only part of the large jolt to the American command that day. 
     To the south the 1st SS Panzer Division had also broken 
     loose, moving just north of St. Vith.
       As Kampfgruppe Peiper lunged deep into the First Army's 
     rear, further south the VIII Corps front was rapidly being 
     fragmented. The 18th Volksgrenadier Division completed its 
     southern swing, encircling the two regiments of the 106th 
     Division on the Schnee Eifel. While a single troop of the 
     14th Cavalry Group continued to resist the German spearheads, 
     the 106th's engineers dug in to block the crucial Schoenberg 
     road 2 miles east of St. Vith, a last ditch defense, hoping 
     to hold out until the 7th Armored Division arrived.

[[Page H9321]]

       St. Vith's road junctions merited the priority Middleton 
     had assigned them. Although the I SS Panzer Corps had planned 
     to pass north of the town and the LVIII Panzer Corps to its 
     south, the crossroad town became more important after the 
     German failure to make a breakthrough in the north on 16-17 
     December. There, the successful defense of the Elsenborn 
     ridge had blocked three of the Sixth Panzer Army's routes, 
     pushing Dietrich's reserve and supply routes southward and 
     jamming Manteuffel's Losheim route. South of the Losheim Gap 
     the American occupation of St. Vith and the Schnee Eifel 
     represented a double obstacle, which neither Dietrich nor 
     Manteuffel could afford. With thousands of American soldiers 
     still holding desperately along the Schnee Eifel and its 
     western slope village, the Germans found vital roads still 
     threatened. Further west, the possibility of American 
     counterattacks from the St. Vith roadnet threatened 
     Dietrich's narrow panzer flow westward as well as 
     Manteuffel's own western advance. And from St. Vith, the 
     Americans could not only choke the projected German supply 
     arteries but also reinforce the now isolated Schnee Eifel 
     regiments.
       For the 106th Division's men holding the Schnee Eifel, time 
     was running out. The 7th Armored Division's transfer south 
     from the Ninth Army had been slowed both by coordination 
     problems and roads clogged by withdrawing elements. Led by 
     Combat Command B, the 7th's first elements arrived at St. 
     Vith in midafternoon of 17 December, with the division taking 
     command of the local defense immediately. That night both 
     sides jockeyed in the dark. While the 18th Volksgrenadier 
     Division tried to make up lost time to mount an attack on the 
     town from the northeast and east, the 7th, whose units had 
     closed around St. Vith in fading daylight, established a 
     northerly facing defensive arc in preparation for its attack 
     toward the Schnee Eifel the next day.
       South of St. Vith the 106th Division's southernmost 
     regiment, the 424th Infantry, and Combat Command B, 9th 
     Armored Division, had joined up behind the Our River. From 
     the high-ground positions there they were able to continue 
     blocking the 62d Volksgrenadier Division, thereby securing 
     the southern approaches to St. Vith. But unknown to them, the 
     28th Division's 112th Infantry was also folding rearward and 
     eventually joined the 424th and the 7th Armored Division, 
     completing a defensive perimeter around the town. During the 
     night of 17 December, with these forces combining, Middleton 
     and the commanders in St. Vith believed that the VIII Corps' 
     northern flank would be restored and the 106th trapped 
     regiments relieve.
       On 18 December Middleton's hopes of launching a 
     counterattack toward the Schnee Eifel faded as elements of 
     three German divisions converged around St. Vith. Although 
     situation maps continued to mark the last-known positions of 
     the 106gh Division's 422d and 423d Infantry on the Schnee 
     Eifel, the massive weight of German numbers ended any rescue 
     attempts. Communicating through a tenuous artillery radio 
     net, both regiments believed that help was on the way and 
     that their orders were to break out to the high ground 
     behind the Our River, a distance of between 3 and 4 miles 
     over difficult enemy-held terrain.
       The following day, 19 December, brought tragedy for the 
     106th Division. The two stranded regiments, now behind the 
     Schnee Eifel, were pounded by artillery throughout the day as 
     the Germans drew their circle tighter. With casualties 
     mounting and ammunition dwindling, the 423d's commander chose 
     to surrender his regiment to prevent its annihilation. The 
     422d had some of its troop overrun; others, who were both 
     segmented and surrounded, surrendered. By 1600 most of the 
     two regiments and their attached support has thus been 
     captured. Nevertheless, one battalion-sized group evaded 
     captivity until the twenty-first, and about 150 soldiers from 
     the 422d ultimately escaped to safety. The confused nature of 
     the final battles made specific casualty accounting 
     impossible, but over 7,000 men were captured.
       The tragedy of the Schnee Eifel was soon eclipsed by the 
     triumph of St. Vith. Every senior German commander saw the 
     ``road octopus''--the omnidirectional junction of six roads 
     in the town's eastern end--as vital for a massive 
     breakthrough, freeing up the Sixth Panzer Army's advance. For 
     the Americans, holding St. Vith would keep the V and VIII 
     Corps within a reasonable distance of each other; without the 
     town the enemy's spearheads would widen into a huge salient, 
     folding back toward Bastogne further south. With intermittent 
     communications, the St. Vith defenders thus operated with 
     only one order from Middleton: ``Hold at all costs.''
       Despite a ``goose-egg'' position extending 12 miles from 
     east to west on tactical maps, the St. Vith defense literally 
     had no depth. Designed to fight on the move in more favorable 
     terrain, the four combat commands of the 7th and 9th Armored 
     Divisions found themselves moored to muddy, steep sloped 
     hills, heavily wooded and laced with mud trails. The first 
     action defined the defense's pattern. Unengaged commands sent 
     tanks and halftracks racing laterally across the perimeter to 
     deal with penetrations and infiltrators, with the engaged 
     tanks and infantry holding their overextended lines as best 
     they could. After two days of sporadic attacks, the German 
     commanders attempted to concentrate forces to crush the 
     defense. But with clogged roads German preparations for a 
     coordinated assault encountered continuous delays.
       Although the VIII Corps' northern flank had been at least 
     temporarily anchored at St. Vith, its center was in great 
     danger. There, the 28th Division's 110th Infantry was being 
     torn to bits. After failing repeatedly to seize crossing on 
     the Our, Manteuffel had passed some of the 116th Panzer 
     Division's armor through the 2d Panzer Division to move up 
     the Skyline Drive ridgeline and enter its panzer route. Thus 
     by 17 December the 110th had elements of five divisions bull-
     dozing through its strongpoints along the ridge, forcing back 
     the 28th's northern and southern regiments that were 
     attempting to maintain a cohesive defense. The 2d entered 
     Clervaux, in the 110th's center, by a side road and rolled on 
     westward toward Bastogne; holdouts in Clervaux continued to 
     fight from within an ancient castle in the town's eastern 
     end. To the south some survivors of the ridge battle had 
     fallen back to join engineers defending Wiltz, about 4 miles 
     to the rear, and the southern approach to Bastogne. Even 
     though the 110th has suffered over 80 percent casualties, its 
     stand had delayed the XLVII Panzer Corps for a crucial forty-
     eight hours.
       The southern shoulder provided VIII Corps' only clear 
     success. The 4th Division has absorbed the folded back 
     defenses of the 109th Infantry and the 9th Armored Division's 
     Combat Command A, thus effectively jamming the Seventh Army's 
     attack. With the arrival of the 10th Armored Division, a 
     provisional corps was temporarily formed to block any advance 
     toward the city of Luxembourg.
       The events of 17 December finally demonstrated the gravity 
     of the German offensive to the Allied command. Eisenhower 
     committed the theater reserve, the XVIII Airborne Corps, and 
     ordered three American divisions training in England to move 
     immediately to north-eastern France. Hodges' First Army moved 
     the 30th Infantry and 3d Armored Divisions south to extend 
     the northern shoulder of the penetration to the west. 
     Although Bradley remained the least concerned, he and Patton 
     explored moving a three-division corps from the Third Army to 
     attack the German southern flank.
       Allied intelligence now began to discern German strength 
     objectives with some clarity. The enemy's success apparently 
     was tied to gaining the Meuse quickly and then turning north; 
     however, most of the attacking divisions were trapped in 
     clogged columns, attempting to push through the narrow 
     Losheim Gap and enter the two panzer routes then open. The 
     area, still controlled by the VIII Corps, seemed to provide 
     the key to stabilizing the defensive effort. Somehow the VIII 
     Corps, whose center had now been destroyed, would have to 
     slow down the German drive west, giving the Americans time to 
     strengthen the shoulders north and south of the salient and 
     to prepare one or more major counterattacks.
       Middleton committed his only reserves, Combat Command R of 
     the 9th Armored Division and seven battalions of corps and 
     army engineers, positioning the units at critical road 
     junctions. Teams formed from tank, armored infantry, and 
     engineer units soon met the 2d Panzer Division's lead 
     elements. Outgunned in a frontal fight and disadvantaged 
     by the wide-tracked German tanks' cross-country capability 
     in the drizzle-soaked fields, Middleton's armored forces 
     were soon overwhelmed, even though the fighting continued 
     well into the night. By dawn on the eighteenth no 
     recognizable line existed as the XLVII Panzer Corps' three 
     divisions bore down on Bastogne.
       Late on 17 December Hodges had requested the commitment of 
     SHAEF reserves, the 82d and 101st Airborne Divisions. 
     Promised to Middleton by the morning of the nineteenth, the 
     VIII Corps commander intended to use them at Houffalize, 17 
     miles south of St. Vith, and at Bastogne, 10 miles further 
     south, as a solid block against the German advance to the 
     Meuse. But until the airborne divisions arrived, the VIII 
     Corps had to hold its sector with the remnants of its own 
     forces, mainly engineers, and with an armored combat command 
     from the 10th Armored Division, which was beginning to enter 
     the battle for the corps' center.
       Middleton's engineer ``barrier line'' in front of Bastogne 
     slowed the German advance and bought critical time, but the 
     arrival of Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division, at 
     Bastogne was crucial. As it moved forward, Middleton 
     dispatched three armored teams to the north and east during 
     the night of the eighteenth to cover the road junctions 
     leading to Bastogne. A key fight took place at Longvilly, 
     just a few miles east of Bastogne, where the remnants of the 
     9th Armored Division's Combat Command R and the 10th's Team 
     Cherry tried to block the Germans. Three enemy divisions 
     converged there, trapping the CCR force west of the town and 
     annihilating it and then surrounding Team Cherry. But even as 
     this occurred, the lead elements of the 101st Airborne 
     Division passed through Bastogne to defensive positions along 
     the villages and low hills just to the east of the town. 
     Joining with the CCB's three armor teams and the two 
     battalions of engineers from the barrier line, the 101st 
     formed a crescent-shaped defense, blocking the five roads 
     entering Bastogne from the north, east, and south.
       The enemy responded quickly. The German commanders wanted 
     to avoid being enmeshed in any costly sieges. So when 
     Manteuffel saw a hole opening between the American defenses 
     at St. Vith and Bastogne, he ordered his panzer divisions to 
     bypass both towns and move immediately toward

[[Page H9322]]

     their planned Meuse crossing sites some 30 miles to the 
     northwest, leaving the infantry to reduce Bastogne's 
     defenses. Although Middleton had planned to use the 82d 
     Airborne Division to fill the gap between Bastogne and St. 
     Vith, Hodges had been forced to divert it northwest of St. 
     Vith to block the Sixth Panzer Army's advance. Thus only the 
     few engineers and support troops defending the road junctions 
     and crossings along the narrow Ourthe River west of Bastogne 
     lay in the path of Manteuffel's panzers.


                   command decisions, 19-20 december

       Wacht am Rhine's timetable had placed Dietrich's and 
     Manteuffel's panzers at the Meuse four days after the attack 
     began. The stubborn American defense made this impossible. 
     The Sixth Panzer Army, the designated main effort, had been 
     checked; its attacks to open the Hohe Venn's roads by direct 
     assault and airborne envelopment had failed, and Kampfgruppe 
     Peiper's narrow armored spearhead had been isolated. To the 
     south the Fifth Panzer Army's northern corps had been blocked 
     at St. Vith; its center corps had advanced nearly 25 miles 
     into the American center but was still meeting resistance; 
     and its southern corps had been unable to break the Bastogne 
     roadblock. The southern flank was in no better straits. 
     Neither the Seventh Army's feint toward the city of 
     Luxembourg nor its efforts to cover Manteuffel's flank had 
     gained much ground. Hitler's key requirement that an 
     overwhelming force achieve a quick breakthrough had not 
     occurred. Six divisions had held twenty, and now the American 
     forces, either on or en route to the battlefield, had 
     doubled. Nevertheless, the Sixth Panzer Army's II SS Panzer 
     Corps had yet to be committed, and additional divisions and 
     armor existed in the German High Command reserve. The 
     unspoken belief among Hitler's generals now was that with 
     luck and continued poor weather, the more limited objectives 
     of their small solution might still be possible.
       Eisenhower's actions had also undermined Hitler's 
     assumption that the Allied response would come too late. When 
     ``Ike'' committed two armored divisions to Middleton on the 
     first day of fighting and the theater reserve on the next, a 
     lightning German advance to the Meuse became nearly 
     impossible. Meeting with his commanders at Verdun on 19 
     December, Eisenhower, who had received the latest Ultra 
     intelligence on enemy objectives, outlined his overall 
     operational response. Hodges' First Army would break the 
     German advance; along the southern flank of the German 
     penetration Patton's Third Army would attack north, assuming 
     control of Middleton's VIII Corps from the First Army; and 
     Middleton's Bastogne positions would now be the anvil for 
     Third Army's hammer.
       Patton, content that his staff had finalized operational 
     planning, promised a full corps attack in seventy-two hours, 
     to begin after a nearly 100-mile move. Devers' 6th Army Group 
     would take up the slack, relieving two of Patton's corps of 
     their frontage. In the north Montgomery had already begun 
     moving the British 30 Corps to backstop the First Army and 
     assume defensive positions behind the Meuse astride the 
     crossings from Liege to Namur.
       Eisenhower began his Verdun conference saying, ``The 
     present situation is to be regarded as one of opportunity for 
     us and not disaster.'' That opportunity, as his generals 
     knew, hung not on their own operational plans but on the 
     soldiers on the battlefield, defending the vital St. Vith and 
     Bastogne road junctions, holding on to the Elsenborn ridge, 
     and blocking the approaches to the city of Luxembourg, as 
     well as on the soldiers in numerous ``blocks'' and positions 
     unlocated on any command post map. These men knew nothing 
     of Allied operational plans or even the extent of the 
     German offensive, but in the next days, on their 
     shoulders, victory or disaster rested.
       One unavoidable decision on overall battlefield 
     coordination remained. Not one to move a command post to the 
     rear, General Bradley had kept his 12th Army Group 
     headquarters in the city of Luxembourg, just south of the 
     German attack. Maj. Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg's Ninth Air Force 
     headquarters, which supported Bradley's armies, stayed there 
     also, unwilling to sever its direct ties with the ground 
     forces. But three German armies now separated Bradley's 
     headquarters from both Hodges' First Army and Simpson's Ninth 
     Army in the north, making it difficult for Bradley to 
     supervise a defense in the north while coordinating an attack 
     from the south. Nor would communications for the thousands of 
     messages and orders needed to control and logistically 
     support Bradley's two northern armies and Vandenberg's two 
     northern air commands be guaranteed.
       Eisenhower, therefore, divided the battlefield. At noon on 
     20 December ground command north of the line from Givet on 
     the Meuse to the high ground roughly 5 miles south of St. 
     Vith devolved to Montgomery's 21 Army Group, which 
     temporarily assumed operational control of both the U.S. 
     Ninth and First Armies. Shifting the ground command raised a 
     furor, given the strained relations Montgomery had with 
     senior American commanders. Montgomery had been successful in 
     attacking and occupying ``ground of his own choosing'' and 
     then drawing in enemy armored reserves where they could be 
     destroyed by superior artillery and air power. He now 
     intended to repeat these tactics, planning to hold his own 
     counterattacks until the enemy's reserves had been spent or a 
     decisive advantage gained. The American generals, however, 
     favored an immediate counteroffensive to first halt and then 
     turn back the German drive. Equally disconcerting to them was 
     Montgomery's persistence in debating command and strategy, a 
     frequent occurrence in all coalitions, but one that by virtue 
     of his personal approach added to the strains within the 
     Allied command.
       The British 2d Tactical Air Force similarly took control of 
     the IX and XXIX Tactical Air Commands from Vandenberg's Ninth 
     Air Force. Because the British air commander, Air Chief 
     Marshal Sir Arthur ``Maori'' Coningham, had long established 
     close personal relations with the concerned American air 
     commanders, the shift of air commands passed uneventfully.


                   first army battles, 20-27 december

       Eisenhower and Montgomery agreed that the First Army would 
     establish a cohesive defensive line, yielding terrain if 
     necessary. Montgomery also intended to create a corps-sized 
     reserve for a counterattack, which he sought to keep from 
     being committed during the defensive battle. The First Army's 
     hasty defense had been one of hole-plugging, last stands, and 
     counterattacks to buy time. Although successful, these 
     tactics had created organizational havoc within Hodges' 
     forces as divisional units had been committed piecemeal and 
     badly jumbled. Complicating the situation even further was 
     the fact that the First Army still held the north-south 
     front, north of Monschau to Elsenborn, while fighting 
     Dietrich's panzers along a nearly east-west axis in the 
     Ardennes.
       Blessed with excellent defensive ground and a limited 
     lateral roadnet in front of V Corps positions, Gerow had been 
     able to roll with the German punch and Hodges to feed in 
     reserves to extend the First Army line westward. Much of the 
     Sixth Panzer Army's strength was thus tied up in road jams of 
     long columns of vehicles. But American success was still far 
     from certain. The V Corps was holding four panzer divisions 
     along the northern shoulder, an elbow-shaped 25-mile line, 
     with only parts of four U.S. divisions.
       To the west of the V Corps the 30th Infantry Division, now 
     under Maj. Gen. Matthew B. Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps, 
     marched south to block Kampfgruppe Peiper at Malmedy and, 
     along the Ambleve River, at Stavelot, Stoumont, and La 
     Gleize. To the south of Peiper the XVIII's other units, the 
     82d Airborne and 3d Armored Divisions, moved forward to the 
     area between the Salm and Ourthe Rivers, northwest of St. 
     Vith, which was still in danger of being isolated. By 20 
     December the Peiper force was almost out of fuel and 
     surrounded. During the night of the twenty-third Peiper and 
     his men destroyed their equipment, abandoned their vehicles, 
     and walked out to escape capture. Dietrich's spearhead was 
     broken.
       North of St. Vith the I SS Panzer Corps pushed west. Part 
     of the LVIII Panzer Corps had already bypassed the defenders' 
     southern flank. Standing in the way of Dietrich's panzers was 
     a 6-mile line along the Salm River, manned by the 82d 
     Airborne Division. Throughout the twenty-first German armor 
     attacked St. Vith's northwestern perimeter and infantry hit 
     the entire eastern circumference of the line. Although the 
     afternoon assault was beaten back, the fighting was renewed 
     after dark. To prevent being trapped from the rear, the 7th 
     Armored Division began pulling out of its advanced positions 
     around 2130. The other American units around the town 
     conformed, folding into a tighter perimeter west of the town.
       Ridgway wanted St. Vith's defenders to stay east of the 
     Salm, but Montgomery ruled otherwise. The 7th Armored 
     Division, its ammunition and fuel in short supply and perhaps 
     two-thirds of its tanks destroyed, and the battered elements 
     of the 9th Armored, 106th, and 28th Divisions could not hold 
     the extended perimeter in the rolling and wooded terrain. 
     Meanwhile, Dietrich's second wave of tanks entered the fray. 
     The II SS Panzer Corps immediately threatened the Salm River 
     line north and west of St. Vith, as did the LVIII Panzer 
     Corps circling to the south, adding the 2d SS Panzer Division 
     to its drive. Ordering the St. Vith defenders to withdraw 
     through the 82d Airborne Division line to prevent another 
     Schnee Eifel disaster, Montgomery signaled them that ``they 
     come back with all honor.''
       Mud threatened to trap much of the force, but nature 
     intervened with a ``Russian High,'' a cold snap and snowstorm 
     that turned the trails from slurry to hard ground. While the 
     Germans seemed temporarily powerless to act, the St. Vith 
     defenders on 23 December, in daylight, withdrew across the 
     Salm to reform behind the XVIII Airborne Corps front. 
     Ridgway estimated that the successful withdrawal added at 
     least 100 tanks and two infantry regiments to his corps.
       The St. Vith defense purchased five critical days, but the 
     situation remained grave. Model's Army Group B now had twelve 
     full divisions attacking along roughly 25 miles of the 
     northern shoulder's east-west front. Hodges' army was holding 
     with thirteen divisions, four of which had suffered heavy 
     casualties and three of which were forming in reserve. 
     Montgomery had designated Maj. Gen. J. Lawton ``Lightning 
     Joe'' Collins' VII Corps as the First Army's counterattack 
     force, positioning its incoming divisions northwest of 
     Hodges' open flank, hoping to keep them out of the defensive 
     battle. He intended both to blunt the enemy's assault and 
     wear down its divisions by withdrawing the XVIII Airborne

[[Page H9323]]

     Corps to a shorter, defendable line, thus knitting together 
     the First Army's fragmented defense. Above all, before 
     launching a major counterstroke, Montgomery wanted to cripple 
     the German panzers with artillery and with constant air 
     attacks against their lines of supply.
       The Russian High that blanketed the battlefield brought the 
     Allies one tremendous advantage--good flying weather. The 
     week of inclement weather promised to Hitler by his 
     meteorologists had run out--and with it the ability to move 
     in daylight safe from air attack. The Allied air forces rose 
     to the occasion. Night bombers of the Royal Air Force's 
     Bomber Command had been attacking those rail yards supporting 
     the German offensive since 17 December. In the five days of 
     good weather following the Russian High, American day bombers 
     entered the interdiction effort. As Allied fighter bombers 
     patrolled the roads throughout the Ardennes and the Eifel, 
     the Ninth Air Force's medium bombers attacked targets west of 
     the Rhine and the Eighth Air Force's heavy bombers hit rail 
     yards deeper into Germany. Flying an average of 3,000 sorties 
     daily during good weather, the combined air forces dropped 
     more than 31,000 tons of bombs during the first ten days of 
     interdiction attacks.
       The effects on the ground battle were dramatic. The 
     sluggish movement of fuel and vehicles over the Ardennes' few 
     roads had already slowed German operations. The added strain 
     on resupply from the bombing and strafing now caused halts up 
     and down the German line, making coordinated attacks more 
     difficult. Still, panzer and infantry units continued to 
     press forward.
       From Christmas Eve to the twenty-seventh, battles raged 
     along the First Army's entire front. The heaviest fighting 
     swirled around the positions held by Ridgway's XVIII Airborne 
     Corps and Collins' VII Corps, the latter having been 
     piecemealed forward to extend the First Army line westward. 
     While the XVIII Corps battled the Sixth Panzer Army's last 
     attempts to achieve a northern breakthrough, the VII Corps' 
     3d Armored and 84th Infantry Divisions held the line's 
     western end against the LVIII and XLVII Panzer Corps. These 
     units had become Model's new main effort, swinging wide of 
     Dietrich's stalled attack, and they now had elements about 5 
     miles from the Meuse. Upon finding the 2d Panzer Division out 
     of gas at the German salient's tip, Collins on Christmas Day 
     sent 2d Armored Division, with heavy air support, to encircle 
     and destroy the enemy force.
       The First Army's desperate defense between the Salm and 
     Meuse Rivers had stopped the Sixth and Fifth Panzer Armies, 
     including six panzer divisions. The fierce battles--at places 
     as Baraque de Fraiture, Manhay, Hotton, and Marche--were 
     epics of valor and determination. Hitler's drive for Antwerp 
     was over.


                   third army battles, 20-27 december

       The 20 December boundary shift transferred Middleton's VIII 
     Corps and its Bastogne garrison to Patton's Third Army, which 
     was now moving forces from as far away as 10 miles to attack 
     positions south of the German salient. Bastogne had become an 
     armed camp with four airborne regiments, seven battalions of 
     artillery, a self-propelled tank destroyer battalion, and the 
     surviving tanks, infantry, and engineers from two armored 
     combat commands--all under the 101st Airborne Division's 
     command.
       Manteuffel had ordered the Panzer Lehr and the 2d Panzer 
     Divisions to bypass Bastogne and speed toward the Meuse, thus 
     isolating the defenders. As the 26th Volksgrenadier Division 
     and the XLVII Paner Corps' artillery closed in for the kill 
     on 22 December, the corps commander's emissary arrived at the 
     101st Division's command post, demanding surrender or 
     threatening annihilation. The acting division commander, 
     Brig. Gen. Anthony C. McAuliffe, replied ``Nuts,'' initially 
     confounding the Germans but not Bastogne's defenders. The 
     defense held.
       For four days bitter fighting raged in a clockwise rotation 
     around Bastogne's southern and western perimeter, further 
     constricting the defense within the low hills and patches of 
     woods surrounding the town. The infantry held ground, with 
     the armor scurrying to seal penetrations or to support local 
     counterattacks. Once the overcast weather had broke, the 
     defenders received both air support and aerial resupply, 
     making it imperative for Manteuffel to turn some of his 
     precious armor back to quickly crush the American defense, a 
     large deadly threat along his southern flank.
       Meanwhile, as Bastogne held, Patton's Third Army units 
     streamed northward. Maj. Gen. John B. Millikin's newly 
     arrived III Corps headquarters took command of the 4th 
     Armored and 26th and 80th Infantry Divisions, in a move 
     quickly discovered and monitored by the Germans' effective 
     radio intercept units. In response, Brandenberger's Seventh 
     Army, charged with the crucial flank guard mission in 
     Hitler's offensive, rushed its lagging infantry divisions 
     forward to block the expected American counterattack.
       Jumping off as promised on 22 December some 12 to 15 miles 
     south of Bastogne, III Corps divisions achieved neither the 
     surprise nor momentum that Bradley and Patton had hoped. No 
     longer a lunge into an exposed flank, the attack became a 
     frontal assault along a 30-mile front against infantry 
     holding good defensive terrain. With Bastogne's garrison 
     totally surrounded, only a quick Third Army breakthrough 
     could prevent the brilliant holding action there from 
     becoming a costly disaster. But how long Bastogne's defenders 
     could hold out was a question mark.
       To the east, as Millikin's III Corps moved against 
     hardening enemy resistance along the Sure River, Maj. Gen. 
     Manton S. Eddy's XII Corps attacked northward on a front 
     almost as wide as the III Corps'. Taking control of the 4th 
     Infantry and 10th Armored Divisions and elements of the 9th 
     Armored Division, all units of Middleton's former southern 
     wing, Eddy met greater difficulties in clearing the ridges 
     southeast of Bastogne. Meanwhile, the 35th and 5th Infantry 
     Divisions and the 6th Armored Division moved northward to 
     strengthen the counterattacks. Millikin finally shifted the 
     main effort to the west, where the 4th Armored Division was 
     having more success. Following fierce village-by-village 
     fighting in frigid temperatures, the 4th linked up with 
     Bastogne's defenders at 1650 on 26 December, lifting the 
     siege but setting the stage for even heavier fighting for the 
     Bastogne sector.


               nordwind in alsace, 31 december-5 january

       By 21 December Hitler had decided on a new offensive, this 
     time in the Alsace region, in effect selecting one of the 
     options he had disapproved earlier in favor of Wacht am 
     Rhine. With the Fifteenth Army's supporting thrust canceled 
     due to Dietrich's failure to break the northern shoulder, and 
     with no hope of attaining their original objectives, both 
     Hitler and Rundstedt agreed that an attack on the southern 
     Allied front might take advantage of Patton's shift north to 
     the Ardennes, which Wehrmacht intelligence had identified as 
     under way. The first operation, called Nordwind 
     (``Northwind''), targeted the Saverne Gap, 20 miles 
     northwest of Strasbourg, to split the Seventh Army's XV 
     and VI Corps and retake the Alsace north of the Marne-
     Rhine Canal. If successful, a second operation, called 
     Zahnartz (``Dentist''), would pursue objectives westward 
     toward the area between Luneville and Metz and into the 
     Third Army's southern flank. Lt. Gen. Hans von 
     Obstfelder's First Army would launch the XIII SS Corps as 
     the main effort down the Sarre River valley, while to the 
     southeast four divisions from the XC and LXXXIX Corps 
     would attack southwesterly down the Low Vosges mountain 
     range through the old Maginot Line positions near Bitche. 
     A two-division panzer reserve would be held to reinforce 
     success, which Hitler believed would be in the Sarre River 
     sector. Reichsfuehrer Heinrich Himmler's Army Group 
     Oberrhein, virtually an independent field army reporting 
     only to Hitler, was to pin the southern flank of the 
     Seventh Army with holding attacks. The new offensive was 
     planned for the thirty-first, New Year's Eve. However, its 
     target, the U.S. Seventh Army, was neither unready nor 
     unwarned.
       Lt. Gen. Alexander M. Patch's Seventh Army, part of Devers' 
     6th Army Group, which also included the French First Army, 
     had been among the theater's unsung heroes. After conducting 
     assault landings on the coast of southern France in August 
     1944, the small army had chased a significantly larger force 
     northward; but, much to the chagrin of his commanders, Patch 
     had been ordered not to cross the Rhine, even though his 
     divisions were among the first Allied units to reach its 
     banks. In November the Seventh Army had been the Western 
     Front's leading Allied ground gainer. Yet, when Patton's 
     Third Army found its offensive foundering, Patch, again 
     following orders, had sent a corps northward to attack the 
     Siegfried Line's southern flank, an operational lever 
     designed to assist Patton's attack.
       On 19 December, at the Verdun conference, the 6th Army 
     Group was again relegated to a supporting role. Eisenhower 
     ordered Devers to assume the front of two of Patton's corps 
     that were moving to the Ardennes, and then on the twenty-
     sixth he added insult to injury by telling the 6th Army Group 
     commander to give up his Rhine gains by withdrawing to the 
     Vosges foothills. The switch to the defense also scrapped 
     Devers' planned attacks to reduce the Colmar Pocket, the 
     German foothold stretching 50 miles along the Rhine's western 
     banks south of Strasbourg. Held in check by two corps of 
     General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny's French First Army, this 
     area was the only German bridgehead in Devers' sector. But by 
     Christmas Eisenhower saw a greater threat than the Colmar 
     Pocket opening on his southern front.
       Allied intelligence had confirmed that a new enemy 
     offensive in the Alsace region was imminent. Eisenhower 
     wanted the Seventh Army to meet it by withdrawing to 
     shortened lines to create reserves, essentially ceding 
     northern Alsace back to the Germans, including the city of 
     Strasbourg. Not surprisingly, Devers, Patch, and de Lattre 
     objected strongly to the order. In the end, rather than 
     withdraw, Devers shifted forces to create a reserve to 
     backstop the key enemy attack avenues leading into his front 
     and ordered the preparation of three intermediate withwrawal 
     lines forward of the defensive line designated by Eisenhower.
       By New Year's Eve, with two U.S. divisions withdrawn from 
     the Seventh Army and placed in theater reserve, the 6th Army 
     Group's front resembled the weakened defense that had 
     encouraged the German Ardennes offensive. Patch's six 
     divisons covered a 126-mile front, much of it along poor 
     defensive ground. Feeling that the Saree River valley just 
     north of the Low Vosges would bear the brunt of any attack, 
     Patch assigned Maj. Gen. Wade Haislip's XV Corps a 35-mile 
     sector between Sarreguemines and

[[Page H9324]]

     Bitche, with the 103d, 44th, and 100th Infantry Divisions 
     holding from northwest to southeast, backed by the 
     experienced French 2d Armored Division. Maj. Gen. Edward H. 
     Brooks' VI Corps took up the balance of Patch's front from 
     the Low Vosges southeast to Lauterbourg on the Rhine and then 
     southward toward Strasbourg. Brooks' corps had the veteran 
     45th and 79th Infantry Divsions and the 14th Armored Division 
     in reserve. Patch inserted Task Force Hudelson, a two-
     squadron cavalry force, reinforced with infantry from the 
     uncommitted 14th Armored Division at the boundary joining the 
     two American corps.
       The deployment of three additional units--Task Force Linden 
     (42d Infantry Division), Task Force Harris (63d Infantry 
     Division), and Task Force Herren (70th Infantry Division)--
     demonstrated how far Devers and Patch would go to avoid 
     yielding ground. Formed from the infantry regiments of three 
     arriving divisions and led by their respective assistant 
     division commanders, these units went straight to the Seventh 
     Army front minus their still to arrive artillery, engineer, 
     and support units that comprised a complete division. By 
     late December Patch had given the bulk of Task Force 
     Harris to Haislip's XV Corps and the other two to Brooks, 
     who placed them along the Rhine between Lauterbourg and 
     Strasbourg.
       Despite knowledge of the impending Alsace offensive, the 
     exact location and objectives were unclear. Troop buildups 
     near Saarbruecken, east of the Rhine, and within the Colmar 
     Pocket pointed to possible thrusts either southwestward down 
     the Sarre River valley or northward from the Colmar region, 
     predictions made by the Seventh Army's G-2 that proved to be 
     remarkably accurate.
       On New Year's Eve Patch told his corps commanders that the 
     Germans would launch their major offensive early the next 
     day. Actually, first combat began shortly before midnight all 
     along the XV Corps front and along both the southeastern and 
     southwestern approaches from Bitche toward the Low Vosges. 
     The XIII SS Corps' two reinforced units, the 17th SS 
     Panzergrenadier and 36th Volksgrenadier Divisions, attacked 
     the 44th and 100th Division, whose prepared defense in depth 
     included a regiment from Task Force Harris. The Germans made 
     narrow inroads against the 44th's line near Rimling during 
     fighting characterized by constant American counterattacks 
     supported by French armor and Allied air attacks during clear 
     weather. After four days of vicious fighting the XIII SS 
     Corps' initial offensive had stalled.
       The XC and LXXXIX Corps attacked near Bitche with four 
     infantry divisions abreast. Advancing through the Low Vosges, 
     they gained surprise by forgoing artillery preparations and 
     by taking advantage of fog and thick forests to infiltrate 
     Task Force Hudelson. As in the Losheim Gap, the defending 
     mechanized cavalry held only a thin line of strongpoints; 
     lateral mobility through the rough snowladen mountain roads 
     was limited. The light mechanized forces were soon overrun or 
     bypassed and isolated by the 559th, 257th, 361st, and 256th 
     Volksgrenadier Divisions. The Germans gained about 10 miles 
     during Nordwind's first four days, heading directly for the 
     Saverne Gap that linked the XV and VI Corps.
       Both American corps commanders responded quickly to the 
     threat. Haislip's XV Corps plugged the northwestern exits to 
     the Low Vosges with Task Force Harris, units of the 14th 
     Armored and 100th Divisions, and a regiment from the 36th 
     Infantry Division, which Eisenhower had released from theater 
     reserve. Brooks' VI Corps did the same, stripping its 
     Lauterbourg and Rhine fronts and throwing in Task Force 
     Herren, combat engineers converted to infantry, and units of 
     the 45th and 75th Infantry Divisions to plug holes or block 
     routes out of the Low Vosges.
       While units fought for twisted roads and mountain villages 
     in subfreezing temperatures, Obstfelder's First Army 
     committed the 6th SS Mountain Division to restart the advance 
     on the Saverne Gap. In response, Patch shifted the 103d 
     Infantry Division eastward from the XV Corps' northwestern 
     wing to hold the southeastern shoulder of the Vosges defense. 
     By 5 January the SS troopers managed to bull their way to the 
     town of Wingen-sur-Moder, about 10 miles short of Saverne, 
     but there they were stopped. With the Vosges' key terrain and 
     passes still under American control and the German advance 
     held in two salients, Nordwind had failed.
       Meanwhile, the original SHAEF withdrawal plan, especially 
     the abandonment of Strasbourg, had created an Allied crisis 
     in confidence. Supporting Devers' decision not to withdraw, 
     the Free French government of General Charles de Gaulle 
     enlisted British Prime Minister Winston Churchill's support 
     to amend Eisenhower's orders. Fortunately, Patch's successful 
     defense temporarily shelved the SHAEF withdrawal plan, but 
     Alsace was not to be spared further German attacks. Hitler's 
     armored reserve and Himmler's Army Group Oberrhein had not 
     yet entered the battle.


                           erasing the bulge

       North of the Alsace region the Allied commanders were 
     concerned with reducing the enemy's Ardennes salient, now 
     called the ``Bulge.'' From the beginning of Wacht am Rhein 
     they had envisioned large-scale counterattacks. The decisions 
     as to where and how the attacks would be launched, however, 
     underscored their different perspectives. The theoretical 
     solution was to attack the salient at its base. Patton had in 
     fact planned to have the Third Army's right flank corps, the 
     XII, attack further eastward toward Bitburg, Germany, along 
     what he referred to as the ``honeymoon trail.'' Bradley, 
     however, as the commander responsible for the southern 
     attack, wanted to cover the shortest distance to relieve 
     Hodges' beleaguered First Army units. Overruling Patton, he 
     designated Houffalize, midway between Bastogne and St. Vith, 
     as a primary objective. Middleton's reinforced VIII Corps, 
     the westernmost force, would drive on Houffalize; the middle 
     force, Millikin's III Corps, would remain on Middleton's 
     right flank heading for St. Vith; and Eddy's XII Corps would 
     serve as an eastern hinge. Bradley's choice made the best use 
     of the existing roads; sending Millikin's IIII Corps along 
     advantageous terrain corridors avoided the favorable 
     defensive ground on the successive ridges east of Bastogne. 
     Once linked with the First Army, the 12th Army Group's 
     boundary would revert to its original northern line. Only 
     then would Bradley send the First and Third Armies east into 
     the Eifel toward Pruem and Bitburg in Germany. Bradley 
     further solidified his plan by committing newly arriving 
     reinforcements--the 11th Armored, 17th Airborne, and 87th 
     Infantry Divisions--to the west of Bastogne for Middleton's 
     VIII corps.
       Montgomery had eyed Houffalize earlier, viewing the 
     approaches to the town from the northwest as excellent for a 
     corps-sized attack. His own extended defensive line on the 
     northern shoulder of the bulge and the piecemeal entry of 
     Collins' VII Corps into battle further west did not shake his 
     original concept. Much like Bradley, he saw an interim 
     solution as best. Concerned that American infantry losses in 
     Gerow's V Corps had not been replaced, and with the same 
     terrain and roadnet considerations that had jammed the German 
     assault westward, Montgomery ruled out a direct attack to the 
     south at the base of the bulge. As December waned, 
     Rundstedt's remaining armored reserves were centered near St. 
     Vith, and the roadnet there offered inadequate avenues to 
     channel the four U.S. armored divisions into an attack. 
     Unwilling to weaken his western flank now that his reserve 
     had been committed, Montgomery seemed more prone to let the 
     VII Corps attack from its present positions northwest of St. 
     Vith. Eisenhower raised the issue of committing the British 
     30 Corps. But having deactivated units to rebuild the corps 
     for use in his projected Rhineland offensive, Montgomery 
     agreed to move it across the Meuse to assume Collins' vacated 
     front, a transfer that would not be completely accomplished 
     until 2 January. From there, the 30 Corps would conduct 
     limited supporting attacks. Although Hodges, as First Army 
     commander, would select the precise counterattack axis, he 
     knew Montgomery's repeated preference for the VII Corps to 
     conduct the main effort and also Bradley's preference for a 
     quick linkup at Houffalize. Hodges' decision was thus 
     predictable. The VII Corps would constitute the First Army's 
     main effort, aimed at Houffalize. Ridgway's XVIII Airborne 
     Corps would cover the VII's northeastern flank, and, like 
     Millikin's III Corps, its advance would be pointed at St. 
     Vith. The Germans would thus be attacked head on.
       Timing the counterstrokes also raised difficulties. The 
     American generals wanted the First Army to attack 
     immediately, claiming the Germans had reached their high-
     water mark. Montgomery demurred, citing intelligence 
     predictions of an imminent offensive by the II SS Panzer 
     Corps--an assault he welcomed as it fit his concept of 
     weakening enemy armor further rather than conducting costly 
     attacks. Contrary to Montgomery's tactics, Eisenhower 
     preferred that the First Army attack immediately to prevent 
     the Germans from withdrawing their panzers and shifting them 
     southward.
       Patton's renewed attacks in late December caused the Third 
     Army to learn firsthand how difficult the First Army battles 
     had been. In the Third Army sector the relief of Bastogne had 
     not changed the intensity of combat. As Manteuffel received 
     panzer reinforcements, he threw them into the Bastogne 
     salient before it could be widened and extended northward 
     toward the First Army. Patton's Third Army now encountered 
     panzers and divisions in numbers comparable to those that had 
     been pressing against the northern shoulder for the previous 
     10 days. In the week after Bastogne's relief the number of 
     German divisions facing the Third Army jumped from three to 
     nine around Bastogne and from four to five in the III and XII 
     Corps sector of the front.
       The fighting during the 9-mile American drive from Bastogne 
     to Houffalize became a series of bitter attacks and 
     counterattacks in worsening weather. Patton quickly added the 
     17th Airborne, the 87th and 35th Infantry, and the 11th and 
     6th Armored Divisions to his attacking line, which stretched 
     25 miles from the Ourthe River to the Clerf. While the III 
     Corps continued its grim attacks northeastward against the 
     forested ridges of the Wiltz valley leading toward 
     German escape routes eastward out of the salient, VIII 
     Corps forces added some width to the Bastogne salient but 
     gained no ground northward before New Year's Day. Both 
     sides reinforced the sector with every available gun. In a 
     nearly week-long artillery duel Patton's renewed attacks 
     collided with Manteuffel's final efforts to eradicate the 
     Bastogne bridgehead.
       During the same week German attacks continued along the 
     First Army line near the Elsenborn ridge and in the center of 
     the

[[Page H9325]]

     XVIII Airborne Corps line before a general quiet descended 
     upon the northern front. In many areas the fields, forests, 
     and roads were now covered with waist-high snowdrifts, 
     further impeding the movement of both fighting men and their 
     resupply vehicles.
       Climaxing Wacht am Rhein's efforts, the Luftwaffe launched 
     its one great appearance of the campaign during the early 
     morning hours of New Year's Day. Over 1,000 aircraft took off 
     before dawn to attack Allied airfields in Holland and 
     Belgium, with the objective of eliminating the terrible 
     scourge that the Allied air forces would again become once 
     the skies cleared over the entire battle area. The Germans 
     destroyed roughly 300 Allied machines, but their loss of more 
     than 230 pilots was a major blow to the Luftwaffe, whose lack 
     of trained aviators was even more critical than their fuel 
     shortages.
       Casualties mounted, bringing on a manpower shortage in both 
     camps. Although the Germans continued to commit fresh 
     divisions until late December, the Americans, with only three 
     uncommitted divisions in theater, were forced to realign 
     their entire front. Many units moved from one combat to 
     another without rest or reinforcement. December's battles had 
     cost the Americans more than 41,000 casualties, and with 
     infantry replacements already critically short, antiaircraft 
     and service units had to be stripped to provide riflemen for 
     the line. Black soldiers were offered the opportunity to 
     fight within black platoons assigned to many white 
     battalions, a major break from previous Army policy.
       Despite the shortage of replacements, both Patton's Third 
     Army and Hodges' First Army attacked on 3 January. Collins' 
     VII Corps in the north advanced toward the high ground 
     northwest of Houffalize, with two armored divisions in the 
     lead. Meeting stiff opposition from the LXVI Corps, VII Corps 
     infantry soon replaced the tanks as difficult terrain, icy 
     roads, and a tenacious defense using mines, obstacles, 
     antitank ambushes, and armored counterattacks took their 
     toll. The XVIII Airborne Corps moved its right flank south to 
     cover Collins' advance, and in the far west the British 30 
     Corps pushed eastward. Under intense pressure Hitler's forces 
     pulled back to a new line, based on the Ourthe River and 
     Houffalize, with the bulk of the SS panzer divisions 
     withdrawing from the battlefield. Poor weather restricted 
     Allied flyers to intermittent close support for only three 
     days in the nearly two weeks that VII Corps units fought 
     their way toward their juncture with the Third Army.
       South of the Bulge the Third Army intensified its attacks 
     northward to meet the First Army. Still counting on 
     Middleton's VIII Corps to break through, Patton sent 
     Millikin's III Corps northeastward, hoping to enter the 
     roadnet and follow the terrain corridors to link up with 
     Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps attacking St. Vith. Despite 
     having less than fifty-five tanks operational, the I SS 
     Panzer Corps counterattacked the III Corps' 6th Armored 
     Division in ferocious tank fights unseen since the fall 
     campaign in Lorraine. While the III Corps' 90th Division 
     infantrymen broke through to the heights overlooking the 
     Wiltz valley, the VIII Corps to the west struggled against a 
     determined force fighting a textbook withdrawal. By 15 
     January Noville, the scene of the original northern point of 
     the Bastogne perimeter, was retaken. Five miles from 
     Houffalize, resistance disappeared. Ordered to escape, the 
     remaining Germans withdrew, and on the sixteenth the Third 
     Army's 11th Armored Division linked up with the First Army's 
     2d Armored Division at Houffalize.
       The next day, 17 January, control of the First Army 
     reverted to Bradley's 12th Army Group. Almost immediately 
     Bradley began what he had referred to in planning as a 
     ``hurry-up'' offensive, another full-blooded drive claiming 
     the Rhine as its ultimate objective while erasing the Bulge 
     en route. On the twenty-third Ridgway's XVIII Airborne Corps, 
     now the First Army's main effort, and the 7th Armored 
     Division took St. Vith. This action was the last act of the 
     campaign for the First Army. Hodges' men, looking out across 
     the Losheim Gap at the Schnee Eifel and hills beyond, now 
     prepared for new battles.
       In the Third Army sector Eddy's XII Corps leapt the Sure 
     River on 18 January and pushed north, hoping to revive 
     Patton's plan for a deep envelopment of the German escape 
     routes back across the Belgian-Luxembourg-German borders. 
     Intending to pinch the escape routes via the German tactical 
     bridges on the Our River, the 5th Division crossed the Sauer 
     at night, its main body pushing northward to clear the long 
     Skyline Drive ridge, where the 28th Division had faced the 
     first assaults. By the campaign's official end on the twenty-
     fifth the V, XVIII, VIII, III, and XII Corps had a total of 
     nine divisions holding most of the old front, although the 
     original line east of the Our River had yet to be restored.


                    Nordwind Revisited, 5-25 January

       In early 1945, as Operation Wacht am Rhein in the Ardennes 
     started to collapse, Operation Nordwind in the Alsace was 
     revived. On 5 January, after Nordwind's main effort had 
     failed, Himmler's Army Group Oberrheim finally began its 
     supporting thrusts against the southern flank of Brooks' VI 
     Corps, with the XIV SS Corps launching a cross-Rhine attack 
     north of Strasbourg. Two days later, south of the city, the 
     Nineteenth Army launched Operation Sonnenwende (``Winter 
     Solstice''), attacking north, astride the Rhone-Rhine Canal 
     on the northern edge of the German-held Colmar Pocket. These 
     actions opened a three-week battle, whose ferocity rivaled 
     the Ardennes fighting in viciousness if not in scope and 
     threatened the survival of the VI Corps.
       Sonnenwende sparked a new crisis for the 6th Army Group, 
     which had too few divisions to defend every threatened area. 
     With Brooks' VI Corps now engaged on both flanks, along the 
     Rhine at Gambsheim and to the northeast along the Low Vosges 
     mountain exits, Devers transferred responsibility for 
     Strasbourg to the French First Army, and de Lattre stretched 
     his forces to cover both the city and the Belfort Gap 75 
     miles to the south.
       But the real danger was just northeast of Strasbourg. 
     There, the XIV SS Corps had punched out a 10-miles bridgehead 
     around the town of Gambsheim, brushing off small 
     counterattacks from Task Force Linden. Patch's Seventh Army, 
     reinforced with the newly arrived 12th Armored Division, 
     tried to drive the Germans from the Gambsheim area, a region 
     laced with canals, streams, and lesser watercourses. To the 
     south de Lattre's 3d Algerian Division defended Strasbourg, 
     while the rest of the French First Army kept the Colmar 
     Pocket tightly ringed. But the fate of Strasbourg and the 
     northern Alsace hinged on the ability of the American VI 
     Corps to secure its besieged flanks.
       Having driven several wedges into the Seventh Army, the 
     Germans launched another attack on 7 January. The German 
     XXXIX Panzer Corps, with the 21st Panzer and the 25th 
     Panzergrenadier Divisions, attacked the greatly weakened VI 
     Corps center between the Vosges and Lauterbourg. Quickly 
     gaining ground to the edge of the Haguenau Forest 20 miles 
     north of Strasbourg, the German offensive rolled along the 
     same routes used during the successful attacks of August 1870 
     under Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke. Moltke's successors, 
     however, made no breakthrough. In the two Alsatian towns of 
     Hatten and Rittershoffen, Patch and Brooks threw in the 
     Seventh Army's last reserve, the 14th Armored Division. 
     Assisted by a mixture of other combat, combat support, and 
     service troops, the division halted the Germans.
       While the VI Corps fought for its life in the Haguenau 
     Forest, the enemy renewed attacks on both flanks. During an 
     intense battle between units of the 45th Division and the 6th 
     SS Mountain Division in the Low Vosges, the Germans 
     surrounded an American battalion that had refused to give 
     ground. After a week's fighting by units attempting its 
     relief, only two soldiers managed to escape to friendly 
     lines.
       Although gaining ground, the enemy had achieved no clear-
     cut success. Hitler nevertheless committed his last reserves 
     on 16 January, including the 10th SS Panzer and the 7th 
     Parachute Divisions. These forces finally steamrolled a path 
     along the Rhine's west bank toward the XIV SS Corps' 
     Gambsheim bridgehead, over-running one of the green 12th 
     Armored Division's infantry battalions at Herrlisheim and 
     destroying one of its tank battalions nearby. This final 
     foray led Brooks to order a withdrawal on the twenty-first, 
     one that took the Germans by surprise and was completed 
     before the enemy could press his advantage.
       Forming a new line along the Zorn, Moder, and Rothback 
     Rivers north of the Marne-Rhine Canal, the VI Corps commander 
     aligned his units into a cohesive defense with his badly 
     damaged but still game armored divisions in reserve. 
     Launching attacks during the night of 24-25 January, the 
     Germans found their slight penetrations eliminated by 
     vigorous counterattacks. Ceasing their assaults permanently, 
     they might have found irony in the Seventh Army's latest 
     acquisition from SHAEF reserves--the ``Battling Bastards of 
     Bastogne,'' the 101st Airborne Division, which arrived on the 
     Alsace front only to find the battle over.
       Even before Nordwind had ended, the 6th Army Group 
     commander was preparing to eliminate the Colmar Pocket in 
     southern Alsace. Five French divisions and two American, the 
     3d Infantry and the rebuilt 28th Division, held eight German 
     infantry divisions and an armored brigade in a rich farming 
     area laced with rivers, streams, and a major canal but devoid 
     of significant hills or ridges. Devers wanted to reduce this 
     frozen, snow-covered pocket before thaws converted the 
     ploughed ground to a quagmire. General de Lattre's French 
     First Army would write finis to the Germans in the Colmar 
     Pocket, but it would be a truly Allied attack.
       To draw the German reserves southward, plans called for 
     four divisions from the French I Corps to start the assault. 
     This initial foray would set the stage for the French II 
     Corps to launch the main effort in the north. The defending 
     Nineteenth Army's eight divisions were low on equipment but 
     well provided with artillery munitions, small arms, and 
     mines, and fleshed out with whatever manpower and materiel 
     that Himmler, the overall commander, could scrounge from the 
     German interior. Bad weather, compartmentalized terrain, and 
     fear of Himmler's SS secret police strengthened the German 
     defense.
       On 20 January, in the south, Lt. Gen. Emile Bethouart's 
     French I Corps began its attack in a driving snowstorm. 
     Although its gains were limited by armored-infantry 
     counterattacks, the corps drew the Nineteenth Army's armor 
     southward, along with the arriving 2d Mountain Division. Two 
     days later, in the north, Maj. Gen. Amie de

[[Page H9326]]

     Goislard de Monsabert's French II Corps commenced its attack, 
     led by the U.S. 3d Division. Reinforced by one of the 63d 
     Infantry Division's regiments, the 3d advanced over the first 
     of several watercourses and cleared the Colmar Forest. It met 
     resistance on the Ill River but continued to fight its way 
     forward through enemy counterattacks, subsequently crossing 
     the Colmar Canal and opening an avenue for the French 5th 
     Armored Division. The Allies pushed further eastward in 
     deepening snow and worsening weather, with the 28th and 75th 
     Divisions from the Ardennes following. On the twenty-fifth 
     Maj. Gen. Frank W. Milburn's XXI Corps joined the line. 
     Assuming control of the 3d, 28th, and 75th Divisions, the 
     12th Armored Division, which was shifted from reserves, and 
     the French 5th Armored Division, the corps launched the final 
     thrust to the Vauban Canal and Rhone-Rhine Canal bridges at 
     Neuf-Brisach. Although the campaign was officially over on 25 
     January, the American and French troops did not completely 
     clear the Colmar Pocket until 9 February. However, its 
     successful reduction marked the end of both the German 
     presence on French territory and the Nineteenth Army. And 
     with the fighting finally concluded in the Ardennes and 
     Alsace, the Allies now readied their forces for the final 
     offensive into Germany.


                                analysis

       Hitler's last offensives--in December 1944 in the Ardennes 
     region of Belgium and Luxembourg, and in January 1945 in the 
     Alsace region of France--marked the beginning of the end for 
     the Third Reich. With these final attacks, Hitler had hoped 
     to destroy a large portion of the Allied ground force and to 
     break up the Allied coalition. Neither objective came close 
     to being achieved. Although perhaps the Allies' victory in 
     the spring of 1945 was inevitable, no doubt exists that the 
     costs incurred by the Germans in manpower, equipment, 
     supplies, and morale during the Ardennes-Alsace battles were 
     instrumental in bringing about a more rapid end to the war in 
     Europe. Eisenhower had always believed that the German Army 
     on the Western Front had to be destroyed west of the Rhine 
     River to make a final offensive into Germany possible. When 
     added to the tremendous contributions of the Soviet Army, 
     which had been fighting the majority of Germany's armed 
     forces since 1941, the Ardennes-Alsace victory set the stage 
     for Germany's rapid collapse.
       With little hope of staving off defeat, Germany gambled 
     everything on achieving a surprise operational decision on 
     the Western Front. In contrast, the Allied coalition pursued 
     a more conservative strategy. Since the Normandy invasion 
     Eisenhower's armies had neither the combat power necessary to 
     mount decisive operations in more than one sector nor the 
     reserves; more importantly, their logistical capability was 
     insufficient to fully exploit any major successes. The 
     resulting broadfront Allied advance steadily wore away the 
     German defenses; but, as in the case of the Ardennes and 
     Alsace fronts, the Allied lines had many weak points that 
     could be exploited by a desperate opponent. Moreover, once 
     Hitler's attacking legions had been stopped, the Allies 
     lacked the combat power to overwhelm the German divisions 
     defending their recently acquiring gains. In the Ardennes, 
     terrain and worsening weather aided the Germans in holding 
     off Allied counterattacks for an entire month, ultimately 
     allowing them to withdraw a sizable portion of their initial 
     assault force with perhaps one-third of their committed 
     armor.
       The battle in the Alsace appeared to be less dramatic than 
     in the Ardennes, but was no less an Allied victory. Hitler 
     spent his last reserves in Alsace--and with them the ability 
     to regain the initiative anywhere. Like the Normandy 
     Campaign, the Ardennes-Alsace struggle provided the necessary 
     attrition for the mobile operations that would end the war. 
     The carefully husbanded enemy reserves that the Allies 
     expected to meet in their final offensive into Germany had 
     been destroyed in December and January.
       Some thirty-two U.S. divisions fought in the Ardennes, 
     where the daily battle strength of U.S. Army forces averaged 
     twenty-six divisions and 610,000 men. Alsace added eleven 
     more divisions to the honors list, with an average battle 
     strength of 230,000. Additionally, separate divisional 
     elements as well as divisions arriving in sector at the end 
     of the campaign granted participation credit to three more 
     divisions. But the cost of victory was staggering. The final 
     tally for the Ardennes alone totaled 41.315 casualties in 
     December to bring the offensive to a halt and an additional 
     39,672 casualties in January to retake lost ground. The SHAFE 
     casualty estimate presented to Eisenhower in February 1945 
     listed casualties for the First Army at 39,957; for the Third 
     Army at 35,525; and for the British 30 Corps, which helped at 
     the end, at 1,408. Defeating Hitler's final offensive in the 
     Alsace was also costly; the Seventh Army recorded its January 
     battle losses at 11,609. Sickness and cold weather also 
     ravaged the fighting lines, with the First, Third, and 
     Seventh Armies having cold injury hospital admissions of more 
     than 17,000 during the entire campaign. No official German 
     losses for the Ardennes have been computed, but they have 
     been estimated at between 81,000 and 103,000. A recently 
     published German scholarly source gave the following German 
     casualty totals: Ardennes--67,200; Alsace (not including 
     Colmar Pocket)--22,932. Most of the figures cited do not 
     differentiate between permanent losses (killed and missing), 
     wounded, and non-battle casualties.
       Analysts of coalition warfare and Allied generalship may 
     find much to criticize in the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign. Often 
     common-place disputes over command and strategy were 
     encouraged and overblown by newspaper coverage, which 
     reflected national biases. Predictably, Montgomery inspired 
     much American ire both in revisiting command and strategy 
     issues, which had been debated since Normandy, and in 
     pursuing methodical defensive-offensive tactics. Devers and 
     de Lattre, too, strained coalition amity during their 
     successful retention of liberated French terrain. But in both 
     cases the Allied command structure weathered the storm, and 
     Eisenhower retained a unified command. Preservation of a unit 
     Allied command was perhaps his greatest achievement. In the 
     enemy camp the differences between Hilter and his generals 
     over the objectives of the Ardennes offensive were marked, 
     while the uncoordinated efforts of Obstfelder's First Army 
     and Himmler's Army Group Oberrhein for the Alsace offensive 
     were appaling.
       The Ardennes-Alsace battlefield proved to be no general's 
     playground, but rather a place where firepower and bravery 
     meant more than plans or brilliant maneuver. Allied and 
     German generals both consistently came up short in bringing 
     their plans to satisfactory fruition. That American soldiers 
     fought and won some of the most critical battles of World War 
     II in the Ardennes and the Alsace is now an indisputable 
     fact.

             U.S. Divisions in the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign

       1st Infantry Division, 2d Infantry Division, 3d Infantry 
     Division, 4th Infantry Division, 5th Infantry Division, 9th 
     Infantry Division, 26th Infantry Division, 28th Infantry 
     Division, 30th Infantry Division, 35th Infantry Division, 
     36th Infantry Division, 42d Infantry Division, 44th Infantry 
     Division, 45th Infantry Division, 63d  Infantry Division,* 
     70th Infantry Division, 75th Infantry Division, 76th Infantry 
     Division, 78th Infantry Division, 79th Infantry Division, 
     80th Infantry Division, 83d Infantry Division, 84th Infantry 
     Division, 87th Infantry Division, 90th Infantry Division, 
     94th Infantry Division, 95th Infantry Division, 99th Infantry 
     Division, 100th Infantry Division, 103d Infantry Division, 
     106th Infantry Division.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
     *Elements only

       2d Armored Division, 3d Armored Division, 4th Armored 
     Division, 5th Armored Division, 6th Armored Division, 7th 
     Armored Division, 8th Armored Division, 9th Armored Division, 
     10th Armored Division, 11th Armored Division, Armored 
     Division, 12th Armored Division, 14th Armored Division.
       17th Airborne Division, 82d Airborne Division, 101st 
     Airborne Division.

                       Ardennes-Alsace 1944-1945

                            Further Readings

       A number of official histories provide carefully documented 
     accounts of operations during the Ardennes-Alsace Campaign. 
     U.S. Army operations are covered in Hugh M. Cole, The 
     Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge (1965); Charles B. MacDonald, 
     The Last Offensive (1973); and Jeffrey J. Clarke and Robert 
     Ross Smith, Riviera to the Rhine (1991), three volumes in the 
     United States Army in World War II series. Air operations are 
     detailed in Wesley F. Craven and James L. Cate, eds., Europe: 
     Argument to V-E Day, January 1944 to May 1945 (1951), the 
     third volume in the Army Air Forces in World War II series, 
     and the British perspective and operations are covered in L. 
     F. Ellis, Victory in the West: the Defeat of Germany (1968). 
     Among the large number of books that describe the fighting in 
     the Ardennes are Gerald Astor, A Blood-Dimmed Tide (1992), 
     John S. D. Eisenhower, The Bitter Woods (1969), Charles B. 
     MacDonald, A Time for Trumpets (1985), S. L. A. Marshall, The 
     Eight Days of Bastogne (1946), Jean Paul Pallud, Battle of 
     the Bulge Then and Now (1984), Danny S. Parker, Battle of the 
     Bulge (1991), and Robert F. Phillips, To Save Bastogne 
     (1983). At the small-unit level Charles MacDonald's Company 
     Commander (1947) is still the standard classic. Fighting in 
     the Alsace region has been sparsely covered, but Keith E. 
     Bonn's When the Odds Were Even (1994) is valuable.

  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from 
Mississippi (Mr. Shows).
  Mr. SHOWS. Mr. Speaker, today I rise to address my colleagues and the 
American people about a moment in American history that stands out in 
my family as one of the most crucial there ever was. It is one of those 
moments in our history where the larger story of the American 
experience becomes intertwined with the personal legacy of an American 
family.
  The Battle of the Bulge began on December 16, 1944, and ended on 
January 25, 1945. This enemy offensive was staged to split our forces 
in half and cripple our supply lines. Of course there were 600,000 
American troops participating in the Battle of the Bulge, as we have 
heard awhile ago. 810,000 Americans were casualties, of whom 19,000 
were killed; 33,400 were wounded; and there were 2,000 who were either 
captured or listed as missing.

[[Page H9327]]

  One of these 2,000, I want to talk about this morning. My father, 
Clifford Shows, was one of those captured as a prisoner of war. Today 
in Mosselle, Mississippi, my father is a veteran. He stands tall when 
the national anthem is played, enjoys his family and neighbors, and 
lives out a most American life. It is hard for me to talk about it.
  We must remember the actions of my father and the thousands of others 
who fought then that we might be free now. This year is the 55th 
anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Let us pause, let us remember, 
and let us be thankful. Please support H.J. Res. 65.
  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas 
(Mr. Reyes).
  Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this 
time.
  Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.J. Res. 65 which commends our 
World War II veterans who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. This is a 
great bill because it honors the determination and the courage of these 
veterans in stopping the last great Nazi counteroffensive of World War 
II.
  History tells us that the fighting in Belgium sealed the victory for 
the allies in Europe. Without this victory, many additional months of 
fighting would have been necessary before Nazi Germany's surrender. Our 
troops overcame superior numbers of Nazi troops and harsh weather to 
repel and turn back this last great offensive of World War II.
  Victory, however, came at a terrible price, with about 81,000 
American casualties, 19,000 of which were killed. Each and every 
veteran of the Battle of the Bulge witnessed the horrors of war. One of 
those was my own father-in-law, Victor Gaytan, who today is a disabled 
veteran who lives with the wounds he suffered defending our freedom 
against that threat in Belgium that winter.
  Today, my wife and I are honored to have him live with us. Yes, at 79 
he walks a little slower, moves at times hesitantly and with great 
pain; but when you look into his eyes, there is no doubt about his role 
in saving our country and our way of life. He is a hero to us and was 
one of those great Americans that courageously turned back the last 
desperate attempt of the Nazis to stop Allied momentum toward Germany.
  Mr. Speaker, I believe that we can never sufficiently express our 
gratitude to these veterans, America's greatest generation. But this 
legislation is a proper and fitting way to honor them and their service 
to their country. With this legislation, we honor these American 
soldiers and we ensure that future generations of Americans remember 
the price of freedom in Europe and around the world during World War 
II. I strongly support this legislation and urge the House to 
unanimously pass this great bill.
  Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New 
Jersey (Mr. Smith).
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, just to point out during 
markup, and this was extraordinary, at least four Members came forward 
to speak as the gentleman from Texas just pointed out, his father-in-
law, the gentleman from Mississippi, his dad, and so many others. Few 
battles have touched more people than the Battle of the Bulge. The 
gentleman from Arizona's uncle also fought. He is a combat veteran 
himself, but his uncle fought at the Battle of the Bulge, was there.
  And Joe McNulty, one of our key staffers on the majority side, he 
just came up and whispered to me that his father got the purple heart, 
was wounded in both legs. There are few battles that have touched more 
people and few battles that have done more to save freedom and liberty 
than the Battle of the Bulge. It is amazing how many people in this 
Chamber have relatives and close relatives and perhaps themselves 
actually fought in that very, very famous battle.
  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from 
Wisconsin (Mr. Barrett).
  Mr. BARRETT of Wisconsin. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from 
Illinois (Mr. Evans) for yielding me this time. I rise in support of 
House Joint Resolution 65. I want to pay special tribute to a man who 
was killed in that fight, Bob Kuehn of Rhinelander, Wisconsin. Bob 
Kuehn was raised in Rhinelander, Wisconsin. After graduating from high 
school, he attended St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wisconsin, where he 
was a member of the ROTC program. He graduated in June of 1944 and 
later that month was married to Gertrude Kuehn of Sturgeon Bay.
  They traveled to Camp Fannin in Tyler, Texas; but he was called into 
Patton's Third Army, and he was killed December 17, 1944, leaving a 23-
year-old widow back in Wisconsin. That widow was my mother. 
Fortunately, my mother was able to move on and attended school at the 
University of Wisconsin where she met my father, who also fought in 
World War II and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service.
  My father, of course, was fortunate to meet my mother, and my two 
sisters and I are fortunate enough to have them as parents. But Bob 
Kuehn has never been forgotten. I pay tribute to him and the thousands 
of other Americans who gave their lives to protect our freedoms.
  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio 
(Mr. Traficant).
  Mr. TRAFICANT. Mr. Speaker, it is fitting that we pay tribute to 
those who gave of their lives and served at the Battle of the Bulge and 
to every soldier, every man and woman who participated in the Great War 
to protect our freedoms, protect the independence of this Nation, and 
to promote freedom and democracy in the world. I did not plan to speak 
on this resolution, but I do so now in honor of all of those who have 
served, to remind this Congress that the grave sacrifices they made to 
win the war, we may be losing the peace.
  Last week, they celebrated 50 years of communism in China, parades, 
tanks, missiles, floats, parties. What bothers me is with a $70 billion 
trade surplus they enjoy from Uncle Sam, they paid for that parade last 
week with our cash. Ronald Reagan's great fight was to make sure that 
communism did not spread, and, by God, I am not so sure we are living 
up to the great task and challenge and the example set by those who 
fought in the Battle of the Bulge; I am not so sure we are passively 
turning our back and taking for granted our great freedoms that they 
protected. I think we better look at it. They won the war. Let us not 
lose the peace. I am proud to support this resolution. I commend the 
authors.
  Mr. GILMAN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.J. Res. 
65, a resolution commending our veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. I 
urge my colleagues to join in supporting this worthwhile measure.
  This year marks the 55th anniversary of the German Ardennes offensive 
of December 1944, more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge. In 
the weeks leading up to the Christmas of 1944, it appeared to the 
Western Allies that victory over the German army was near at hand. Many 
thought that one final push was all that was needed to force a total 
collapse of German resistance on the Western front.
  What the Allied commanders were not aware of was the fact that the 
German dictator was planning one final, desperate offensive through the 
Ardennes Forest, in the hopes of splitting the Allied lines.
  The German attack came as a total surprise, and achieved initial 
success. Poor weather prevented Allied air superiority from being 
brought to bear, and the German Panzers took full advantage of the 
respite. Yet, in the end, their offensive failed.
  The offensive failed because American soldiers shook off their 
initial shock and fought with a stubborn tenacity to prevent a German 
breakthrough. The Allied lines gave way, hence the ``Bulge'' 
description, but refused to break. After several days, the weather 
cleared, and the overwhelming Allied advantage in tactical air power 
was finally brought to bear in a concentrated counterattack.
  The resolution honors those courageous veterans who fought in the 
Battle of the Bulge, resulting in a tenacious defense, under horrible 
conditions, against an enemy with superior armored forces. Their 
success in halting the German Ardennes offensive preserved the Allied 
lines, and helped to maintain the offensive pressure on Germany.
  The efforts of our veterans in the Battle of the Bulge, like those of 
all Americans who fought against tyranny in World War II, deserve our 
recognition and respect. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to join in 
supporting this measure, which memorializes the significant 
contributions of the veterans of the Bulge to the ultimate victory of 
freedom over tyranny during the Second World War.
  Mr. GEJDENSON. Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of House Joint 
Resolution 65

[[Page H9328]]

which commends United States Veterans for their heroism in the Battle 
of the Bulge during World War II. The resolution also reaffirms our 
bonds of friendship with our Allies we stood together with during that 
noble cause.
  I commend the bill's sponsor, Mr. Smith of New Jersey, and the 
Chairman and Ranking Members of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, Mr. 
Stump and Mr. Evans for their support. I am proud to be a cosponsor of 
this resolution.
  I would like to take this time to pay tribute in particular to two of 
the 600,000 American troops who served in the German Ardennes 
offensive, known as the Battle of the Bulge. These two heroes who 
risked their lives to defend our freedom come from my home state of 
Connecticut.
  One is Bob Dwyer of Vernon, Connecticut. After serving his country in 
World War II, he now continues to serve his nation in peacetime by 
working for the Veterans' Coalition in Connecticut. Mr. Dwyer plays a 
central role in this group which provides crucial services and 
assistance for veterans and advocates on their behalf.
  Another hero is Gerald Twomey of Norwich, Connecticut. Mr. Twomey 
served in a World War II reconnaissance unit that had already fought in 
North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy before he made his way to this 
momentous battle. In an interview with Bob Hamilton of the New London 
Day last year, Mr. Twomey described his service in Africa and Italy as 
difficult but nothing like the organized resistance he and his comrades 
met in Ardennes. ``That was brutal,'' said Twomey. ``It was very, very 
cold weather, a lot of snow. It was tough. They kept bringing over 
replacements, and they were knocking them off as fast as they could 
bring them over . . . It was much worse than North Africa, much 
worse.''
  Anyone who has studied the accounts of this battle is struck by the 
resilience and courage of our troops at the Battle of the Bulge. Their 
bravery withstood Hitler's last ditch offensive to prevent the Allies 
from closing in on Berlin. A passage from the book Citizen Soldiers by 
Stephen Ambrose serves as a testament to the courage of American 
fighting men in recovering from a withering German attack and summoning 
the strength to respond:

       From the Supreme Commander down to the lowliest private, 
     men pulled up their socks and went forth to do their duty. It 
     simplifies, but not much, to say that here, there, 
     everywhere, from top to bottom, the men of the U.S. Army in 
     northwest Europe shook themselves and made this a defining 
     moment in their own lives, and the history of the Army. They 
     didn't like retreating, they didn't like getting kicked 
     around, and as individuals, squads, and companies as well as 
     at Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force, they 
     decided they were going to make the enemy pay.

  Mr. Speaker, I have nothing more to add except to once again thank 
these American heroes on behalf of my constituents in Connecticut and 
citizens across this nation.
  Mrs. CHRISTENSEN. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my colleagues in 
paying tribute to the courageous Americans who fought during World War 
II, especially those who fought at the Battle of the Bulge.
  The Battle of the Bulge, as you and my colleagues know, Mr. Speaker, 
was a major German offensive in the Ardennes forest region of Belgium 
and Luxembourg that was fought from December 16, 1944 to January 25, 
1945. Over 600,000 American troops participated in the Battle of the 
Bulge, sustaining 81,000 casualties.
  I am proud of my many family members and constituents who served this 
country in the last world war. In so doing, I especially think about my 
cousin John Henry Woodson, Jr., who not only fought in World War II but 
was actually left for dead behind enemy lines. He was reported as 
missing in action for almost three weeks, before he found his way back 
to the American troops. Although he was fortunate to be among those who 
returned home, that terrible experience and others during the war left 
an indelible memory and mark on the rest of his life.
  John served the Virgin Islands Community exceptionally for many 
years, first at the Department of Health and later as a public school 
science teacher and principal. He is remembered by the Virgin Islands 
through the Junior High School, on St. Croix, which bears his name.
  Today, as we remember those veterans who fought at the Battle of the 
Bulge for their service and sacrifice, I lovingly remember my cousin 
Johnny, and the other Virgin Islanders who also served there.
  Mr. EVANS. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. STUMP. Mr. Speaker, once again I would like to thank the 
gentleman from Illinois, the ranking member of the committee, for all 
of his assistance on this bill, as well as the gentleman from New 
Jersey who brought the bill to us in the committee.
  Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back 
the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Sununu). The question is on the motion 
offered by the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Stump) that the House 
suspend the rules and pass the joint resolution, House Joint Resolution 
65, as amended.
  The question was taken.
  Mr. SMITH of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and 
nays.
  The yeas and nays were ordered.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the 
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be 
postponed.

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