The Battle of the Bulge

The Ardennes-Alsace Campaign, which would later become known as the Battle of the Bulge, began Dec. 16 at 5 a.m. when German Gen. Von Rundstedt attacked five different places along the 1^st Army front in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium.

Members of Jack's gun crew brave the snow and cold in the Hurtgen Forest.

When Jack’s group pulled back from the Hurtgen Forest, just over the border in Germany, for reassignment to the Ardennes, they had to endure a long trip in very cold weather. “This  was one of the coldest winters on record in Europe, and I believe it,” Jack says. “I almost froze my legs and had to have help to get the circulation up to par.”

But it wasn’t without its humorous moments. “About halfway through the trip, we stopped at a refreshment center set up by the Army with bathrooms, hot coffee, snacks, etc.,” he says. “Other units had preceded us at this stop and had built a log fire inside a small stone house that had the windows knocked out. Everything seemed to be stone, mortar and plaster, and the ceiling was very high. I decided to use the bathroom, and when I opened the door I discovered the bathtub had been used as a commode. It was at least 80 percent filled with ‘honey.’ I have laughed many, many times about that sight.”

The Germans were making their final rally in the Ardennes, and some of the gun crews burned out gun barrel after gun barrel, firing every few minutes that day. Jack confirms this. “At one point we were told to keep our anti-aircraft guns depressed in order to help stop a possible enemy breakthrough.”

 December brought more enemy air actions for the battalion than any other month since the unit went into combat. There was a total of 19 raids, involving more than 100 enemy aircraft…As the German counter-offensive continued to penetrate deeper, the truth dawned on the men that they were in trouble and could be cut off.³⁸

Jack remembers this sense of panic well. “Our half-track got lost at one point, and it was the next afternoon before we found our outfit.”

Along about Dec. 18-19, the 474^th was reassigned to follow the 957^th Field Artillery, a howitzer unit. Capt. Herlihy relates: 

We started in two jeeps with them on a cold, snowy, sleety day, back down the hard-won roads towards Stolberg, below Aachen, Verviers, and Liege. We went back to the Meuse Valley, purported to be the objective of the German push, went through Huy, and headed south toward Marche and Bastogne. The general idea was that the VII Corps would pull back from the Rhineland, swing to the rear of the hard-pressed V Corps, and try to hold the right shoulder of the Bulge, as it was now called. Since the arrow-shaped penetration split the 1^st and 3^rd American Armies of the 21^st Army group under Gen. Bradley, it made good sense for the 1^st Army to pass under control of the British Army Group, which now ran from the Bulge up to the North Sea. It was misinterpreted at home, and also by some of the British troops who came down to join us. They advised us that they had come to save the Yanks. When the Battery caught up to us, we were advised by the field artillery to whom we were attached that C Battery had its own mission now, and was given a small part of the Ourthe River to hold, and that we were not to fall back from this position. Against an armored force, this would be a tall order, but all along the recon route, we had passed 90mm guns, put at isolated crossroads, with the same orders. The German push had to be slowed until the sides of the Bulge could be beefed up. It was cold, icy and miserable, but we already knew of many American units that had been cut to pieces while holding similar crossroads in the path of the attack. We passed many fields of American mines just strewn on the ground, with no time for concealment or burial in the frozen ground. Anything to slow down the push. In the rural areas we were defending, there were few houses, so a typical night was spent on the frozen ground, with the snow scraped off the ground, and pine branches under the sleeping bag, waiting for the sounds of tanks or vehicles. Is there anything colder than an outdoor latrine, behind a tree, in the snow?...Life in the gun sections was just plain miserable, for a good gun position had to have a field of fire, and that meant no wind protection. A fire was a problem. Seats on the guns were the coldest places around, but the guns had to be manned all day. At night, the best move was to pair guns to reduce the need for guards. The weather was miserable. Finally, on Christmas Day, the overcast broke and the Allies put up everything that could fly. What a wonderful sight to see contrails all over the sky. We yelled like kids as the rumble of bombings came from just over the horizon, in Germany, and on targets within the base of the Bulge.³⁹

In a conversation just a few months before Jack passed away, he and son Jack Jr. talked about these days. Jack Sr. was by then living in a nursing home, and Jack Jr. had come to visit, found him asleep and sat in a chair reading until his dad awakened. Jack Jr. was reading No Silent Night: The Christmas Battle for Bastogne by by Don Cygan and Leo Barron. 

"He asked me if the book was about the Bulge, and I said yes. He asked if there were any maps in the book. There were several, and I picked out one that showed the Allied and German lines around Christmas 1944. He studied the map a minute and then pointed to me where his outfit was near Bastogne.

"On the map, he pointed out the importance of Bastogne. It was the rail and communcations center for southern Belgium and Luxembourg. The German's goal was to cut off the Allies from the port of Antwerp, Belgium, now the Allied major supply center. To do that, they had to have control of Bastogne."

In spite of what The Maverick Outfit reported (referenced earlier), Jack told his son they had no winter gear and limited supplies and ammunition. They were also being shelled multiple times a day by German artillery, and their orders were to hold the line, meaning that if the Germans attacked and they ran out of ammunition, fighting would be hand-to-hand. 

"He smiled a bit then and said, 'If you could get over the fact you were in a war, the shelling was the greatest light show I ever saw,'" Jack Jr. related. "He said he and two buddies alternated spending an hour in a burnt-out halftrack to keep warm since it was the coldest winter in Europe in a century. On Christmas Eve night they could hear the Germans singing Silent Night, and the Germans could hear them. 

"On Christmas morning, he said the weather cleared and the Allies were able to air-drop supplies to their armies in the field and bomb the German positions. Also, General Patton's army broke through and attacked the German left flank, thus breaking the siege.

"His remembrance of the details was awesome," Jack Jr. continued. "I felt like I was there. The whole thing was a very special moment."

The Battle of the Bulge reached its climax a few days after Christmas 1944 when the American 2^nd Armored Division blocked the path of the German 2^nd Armored, and the two groups hammered each other for three days. The Americans left 81 panzers smoking in the hills and halted Von Runstedt’s advance. On the third day, the enemy began to fall back, and the 1^st Army launched its drive to wipe out the bulge in its lines that had been caused by the initial German successes.

"Dad's recall of this situation was clear and precise, too," Jack Jr. adds. "He even remembered they had to capture the town of Foy, which had been held by the Germans. They assaulted Foy across an open farm field while the Germans held the town and controlled the field of fire. Surviving that is a miracle in itself.

"Even though dad's health was failing at the time he shared all this with me, his mind was not. He particularly recalled not only the terrible cold and low supplies but also the great courage of his fellow soldiers during what seemed like a hopeless situation. In spite of it all, he said they believed 'everything would work out,' and it did. These guys and their comrades never gave up or gave in. When I think about this, I do know how special this discussion was and how special our dad and his comrades were."

The weather continued bitter cold in the first week of January 1945. Snow fell steadily, piling up on tree branches and covering over those who’d died earlier in the campaign. The half-tracks had to be moved every so often to keep them from freezing in the ground. The 474^th was moving with the 109^th AAA Group and giving protection to VII Corps artillery, so it made a wide circle to the east, then headed southeast toward Bastogne, which was already surrounded.

Jan. 25, 1945, is recognized as the end of this most bloody battle of WWII. This color footage does a good job of showing the conditions our soldiers had to endure.
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