The Battle of the Bulge

As the German armies retreated, Hitler and his generals planned a major counteroffensive through the Ardennes against the ground forces of the western Allies. Hitler's goals were to capture Antwerp, divide the Allied armies, and ease the immediate threat to the Ruhr industrial area. The plan depended on surprise, speed, and bad weather for several days so Allied air power could not interfere.

On December 16, 1944, the Germans attacked on a front between forty and sixty miles wide, using more than 200,000 men and as many tanks as they could muster. Driving a wedge between the U.S. First and Third Armies, they pushed on toward the Meuse River. Many American troops, surprised and confused, fell back or surrendered; however, some troops fought on and delayed the enemy just long enough to allow the Allied commanders to react. In the north, the U.S. 7th Armored Division blunted the German offensive at St. Vith, and U.S. airborne troops held out at Bastogne. In the south, Lt. Gen. George Patton turned his Third Army ninety degrees and drove into the German flank.

The enemy had accumulated a sizable air force to support its drive, but clouds and snow prevented either side from using air power effectively in the first week of the battle. But in spite of the weather, both sides flew sorties. On December 17, the Germans flew more than 600 sorties in sup- port of their ground forces, most of them in the vicinity of St. Vith. The same day, the United States also launched over 600 sorties in support of Allied ground troops. Many of the fighter-bombers had to jettison their bombs and engage in air-to-air combat with the Germans. At the end of the day, the Americans claimed sixty-eight enemy aircraft destroyed at a cost of sixteen losses. On December 18, U.S. pilots, flying in very bad weather and under an exceedingly low ceiling, found and attacked a Ger- man convoy, destroying thirty-two armored and fifty-six motor vehicles. That same day, the Eighth Air Force sent almost 1,000 heavy bombers against marshaling yards at Koblenz-Lutzel, Cologne-Kalk, Ehrang, and Mainz. In addition, the Eighth attacked choke points between Luxembourg and the Rhine.

When the weather cleared on December 23, the battle began in earnest. The Germans committed over 800 fighters to support their forces and to attempt to gain local air superiority. The Allied response was over- whelming. Hundreds of fighters, fighter-bombers, and medium and heavy bombers from the Eighth and Ninth Air Forces and RAF Bomber Command filled the skies over Europe. They engaged the Germans in air-to-air combat and strafed and bombed enemy positions, troop concentrations, tanks, motored vehicles, trains, bridges, and artillery, in effect, isolating the battlefield. They defeated the Luftwaffe in the air, and the German armies, although fighting tenaciously on the ground, had to retreat to the lines they held before the battle began. The extent of the defeat was staggering: between December 16, 1944, and January 31, 1945, the Allies claimed to have destroyed 11,378 motor transports, I, 161 tanks and armored vehicles, 507 locomotives, 6,266 railroad cars, 472 gun positions, and 36 bridges. The claims also included 974 rail cuts and 421 road cuts. Still the Germans fought on.

While savoring the victory, some Allied air leaders were questioning how effective the air war had been. The Allies had bombed Germany from one side to the other, destroyed large parts of its cities and many of its factories, and devastated its transportation system and oil refineries. But, somehow, the Germans had still been able to mount a major counteroffensive. Despite the bombing, the Germans were sending up increasing numbers of jet aircraft, developing new submarines, and refining oil. Arnold told his intelligence staff to reevaluate the bomb damage assessment and he asked Spaatz for a "glimmer, alight, a new thought, or something which will help us to bring this war to a close sooner." Spaatz, also some- what pessimistic, wrote of recasting the strategic air war and perhaps directing the bombers toward the destruction of the enemy's field armies. Both men underestimated the damage done by the Allied bombing. Neither realized at the time that the Germans were using the last of their carefully hoarded resources, and that Germany's development of new weapons was a futile gesture, amounting to too little and coming too late.