Tonight, we will be talking about the 75th anniversary of the battle of the bulge. Tonight is also probably my farewell introduction, if that isnt a contradiction in terms, for the ongoing signature series with the History Department of the general staff college. The director of the command school, scott green, is here tonight. Scott, can you wave your arm . Thank you. [applause] in uniform, at the back of the room. This lecture series, which is about great military events, great commanders and sometimes great controversies in the art of war, has been ongoing since almost the beginning of my tenure 15 years ago. It has been our great series on in the library. This is probably my last introduction, because i have been drafted by the president , so, if you can identify with that, to go to washington to save the republic, which as you know needs saving. But as i always like to say, the command school is the intellectual center of the army. It is selfcritical, selfaware, it plays no favorites and is the best place to learn from the experience and history of the battlefield and with extraordinary teaching and technology, to learn from todays battlefields and commanders. It is also a school for our allies and partners and the future military leaders from around the world, a place where the future chief of staff of the Pakistani Army might rub shoulders with a future defense minister from india. A place where future communication might and indeed has been incubated. It is a place of impeccable scholarship, socratic learning, and i see a few regular audience members, as you know, frequently, expressing itself with a fine sense of humor. I want to thank our early sponsors and creators of the series. None of whom i think are here tonight. I have to say this because this may be my one chance, bob, bud, jim wilbanks, for starting and sustaining this great series, a series which will never die. Thank you. Tonight we have the return of one of our favorites. Mark gerges has the distinction of the highest number of views in our archived programs, with only the exception of a nationally televised popular cable show which i wont talk about. As a single lecturer, he has the highest number of views on our website, 91,000 views. 91,000 people have watched mark explained the fall of france. Explain the follow france. I will guess tonights lecture will generate similar interest. I have my own little tiny battle of the bulge story. My father turned 18 during the battle of the bulge. The sudden turn of the war, the need for men and material led to shortened training periods, and this spooked my grandmother so much that she forced my father to quit high school before graduation and join the navy. This desperate expedition might expedient might not have worked out well as my father ended up on a ship in boston harbor, destined for the invasion of japan when the bomb was dropped. He didnt end up in the ardennes, although tonight, we will. Professor gerges has served 20 years with armored units in europe, the balkans, the middle east, commanded a tank company during desert storm, and he has a bronze star with a valor device on it. He received a phd from Florida State with a dissertation about the duke of wellingtons cavalry. A previous lecture on napoleon is anthologized in the great commanders book published by the combat studies institute of Fort Leavenworth of lectures given at the kansas city public library. In the epigraph, professor gerges quotes thomas hardy, saying war is unraveling good rattling history. It is that and lessons for our , time. Mark . [applause] mark thank you very much. Good evening. Before i get started, i want to do an introduction of my own. I normally do napoleonic history. I rarely, ok never, have veterans in my napoleonic classes but i want to recognize two members of the audience. Ken, who was in the 106th Infantry Division. We will talk about that. Man. . Senior bands one of the key divisions we will talk about tonight. Also, we have clarence, who was in the 505th parachute regiment, jumped into holland and was in the 82nd airborne during the battle of the bulge. Do we have any other veterans of the battle of the bulge here, or world war ii veterans . Can we just give these men a round of applause . [applause] if you were here four years ago when i gave a talk on the fall of france in 1940, i started with a rhetorical question. What is a nice napoleonic guy like myself doing in the 20th century . I talk about my time in armored units in germany, and at the time, the Armored Branch at fort knox was steeped in history. We went through the basic course, one of the things we did is we would go to the museum after reading about the campaign and they had huge map that came down off the top of the ceiling from this one room, and you had armor officers who fought in the Fourth Armored Division talk about that and discuss what they had done with these young impressionable officers. When i arrived to my First Armored battalion in october 1984, the second battalion 33rd armored regiment, which had been part of the third Armored Division during the battle of the bulge, i was a brandnew Second Lieutenant. There is not much more of an intimidating feeling than to walk into a tank battalion, at that time, many senior noncommissioned officers were vietnam veterans. They had all been there together for a long time. You walk in knowing no one, and knowing how little you know about what the army is about. You go in and you go to the battalion and you report and they tell you which company you will be assigned to. This particular battalion had a strong sense of the history of what it did. The Battalion Commander handed two pieces of cloth. One was the president ial unit citation, the blue square that goes on your uniform. That was awarded to the battalion in 1944 for its actions on the germanbelgian border. He hands you a belgian corded rope that you hang on your sleeve and the battalion got it because it had been awarded that twice. It had been mentioned in the orders of the day the belgian mark belgian army. The first time for the liberation of belgium in september and october 1944, the second time for its fighting during the ardennes offensive. I was a new lieutenant, didnt know much about the army, and im getting pulled into what soldiers had done 40 years before in my particular regiment. A friend of mine and i decided to go and visit the ardennes during the 40th anniversary celebrations in 1984 and i was a little disappointed. If you have been to gettysburg, you see monuments. You drive through the ardennes, it is beautiful countryside, there are few markers of anything. You dont know something monumental happened in these woods. We were there on the 15th and 16th of december. Ognexpected that in bast there would be some sort of huge ceremony and it was nothing. We didnt know what the time that they have what is called nuts weekend, a huge weekend commemorating the veterans that is done the first weekend in december because of the weather and the christmas holidays. As we are driving out, we are driving out to the south of Luxembourg City, and in this little town, suddenly we come up on this little town. There are cars parked everywhere alongside the streets. We get out of the car to see what is going on. There are people walking to the center of town. In the center of town, we arrived just as they were doing a ceremony to mark the 40th anniversary of the liberation of this village by Pattons Third Army on the first day of the battle of the bulge. What struck us as we stood there with this gentleman, i didnt know who he was, he was either luxembourgish or belgian. He was wearing Second Lieutenant bars and a third Armored Division patch. My friend and i were both Second Lieutenants in the third Armored Division. We were standing there, and here is a civilian reenacting what people in our battalion did 40 years before. That kind of hooked me on the battle of the bulge, being interested in the ardennes offensive. As an armored officer you read , about the regiment and units that were in there. I have been fortunate, my college sent me back five times to do staff rides with the officers through the ardennes. Last time i was there was this last february. I walked through the ardennes and i was able to study the actions of american and german officers. There is a certain fascination. If you know anything about the battle of the bulge, you probably know about the german attack in the middle of winter. You probably know about the defensive the bastonne. Troy by the hundred first air division. Troy middleton, the court commander of the corps that takes the brunt of the german offensive, says you dont have to be a genius to understand the importance of these two road bastogne. H and what is interesting as you know very little about the other crossroads. We will talk about the influence of the other crossroads. A general of panzer troops, his army will fight against the americans in bastonne and st. And st. Vith. It is not his ego to make battle one better and the other. He takes place, his troops fight in both of them. In 1945 he says that of the two of them, he says st. Vith was a more important crossroads for the success of the german offensive. In 1951, he writes a letter to a friend of his him and he says he doesnt really understand in all these new histories coming out, focusing on the battle of the bulge, everything is emphasizing bastogne. And he doesnt know why there is no emphasis on st. Vith. If i ask most people who havent studied up before the lecture what went on there, you probably know very little. We will talk about that and talk about the importance of it. To give you a little bit of the scale, the pig the picture. Bastogne has been written to siege for a week. The 20th through the 27th. There is a regiment that will encircle the 101st airborne division. At the same time period at st. Vith, the seventh Armored Division and 106th Infantry Division will fight nine different divisions from two different armies. It is a much greater scale of what is going to go on. Lets talk about how we got here. The American Army and the allied forces are doing a broad foreign offensive in fall 1944. They get near the german border. We start to run out of scene. A number of things have happened. One, the logistics lines, we havent open enough ports. The logistics are coming from normandy across france, so logistics are stretched to the utmost. The weather turns bad, and we get to the german border, and the other part is what they call the miracle in the west, what the germans call the miracle in the west. During the advance across france, we destroy large numbers of german troops, particularly in a counterattack. We destroy equipment, and most of the soldiers will walk back. They have a cadre of trained soldiers and officers and when they produce tanks and equipment, they will be able to refill their forces very quickly. We expect when the weather improves, when the logistics improve, we will go on the offensive again and it will be in two different places. In the north, the 21st army group and the ninth and first armies up towards the ruhr off the map to the north. In the south with the third army and seventh army crossing the rhine. In the center is this not impassable, but very rugged ground known as the ardennes. It is beautiful countryside today, a tourist haven, beautiful little towns with wandering brooks, the roads are alongside these brooks and they are very narrow. In 1944, we will end our offensive into germany on the edge of the siegfried line. We have four divisions, part of the u. S. Eighth corps, the 106th Infantry Division, the 28th we will talk more about them in some detail. The 28th Infantry Division, the ninth infantry and fourth infantry. The area of the ardennes the u. S. Forces are using is for two purposes. One are the units that have been so bloodied, they put the troops in there and refilled them with new replacements. The 28th and fourth Infantry Divisions are experienced divisions that fought across france and have gone into the forest, they lost about a third to half of their strength and are being refilled from their bloody fighting in october and november. The other divisions, the ninth armored and 106th, are new. The 106th are so new, they have gone to the front, taken over the second infantry four days before the german defensive will start. Theyre just settling in. The other division to the north is the 99th infantry. That division has only been on the line for approximately three weeks. You get a number of very inexperienced divisions and lots of bloodied divisions in this area. That is ok because we dont expect anything will happen. We are looking at this with what we call confirmation bias. We will be doing something to the germans, we will go back on the offensive after the losses and advances through the fall. How could they possibly do anything other than husband the resources for when we invade the homeland in great detail . The only thing going on is the second Infantry Division is doing a limited attack into the ruhr river and that will start before the fighting on the 16th of december. The german planning for this offensive begins in september. In the early part of september, the german losses have been so bad on the western front that they have 100 operational tanks. To put that in perspective, when they attack on the 16th of december, they have 1800 tanks they will bring and assault guns. They are in terrible shape. Hitler gives a briefing, and the chief of the wehrmacht is talking about the retreat into holland and alsace and when he mentions the word ardennes, hitler slams his hand and says, i have made a momentous decision. We will attack out of the ardennes with the goal of antwerp. He seized upon the gap between the british 21st army group and the u. S. 12th army group. He wants to use the ardennes and move rapidly across the river, seizing bridges like he did in 1940, then move to antwerp, isolating the 21st army group and hopefully creating another dunkirk. If he can isolate the 21st army if he can destroy the 21st army group, written written army he hopesain , that will knock britain out of the war. If it doesnt knock them out totally, it will stem the United States into action. He can take troops and put them into what he considers the real threat, the Eastern Front against russia. To do this, he will select three armies. Speed will be paramount to the german success. The sixth panzer army is made up it will eventually get the ss panzere sixth army. It is made up of ss troops, and that will be the main effort. It will be the army that will come sweeping through here, take the area and go up to antwerp. Supporting the flank will be the fifth panzer army, a shaping operation. It is supposed to take a critical crossroads near st. Town of st. Vith no later than the second day and in the south, the seventh army, an infantry army, the weakest of the three armies, only 40 assault guns with the bulk of tanks and assault guns to the north to protect the flank of the fifth panzer army. German preparations became known, it has a defensive name. It seems like they are going to be defending, not attacking. Where they position the troops looks like where you would position troops when the u. S. And british offensives start again for counterattack, and all of this goes into the plan the germans are trying to do. They mask three rebels and 300,000 soldiers 1800 tanks , and guns, 1900 artillery pieces against this front. You can see the numbers, 11 divisions in the north versus eight divisions and the fifth panzer army and seventh army but those numbers are a little misleading because of the type of troops in the sixth panzer army. Facing them will be 83,000 soldiers, 250 tanks. We teach when you go on the offensive you need three to one odds for the offensive to be successful. Where the germans decide they will penetrate, they have 81 odds in infantry and 41 odds in Mechanized Forces and tanks and assault guns. They have clearly massed their forces to be able to do it. There are two commanders of the armies we will talk about tonight. One of them is the commander of army group b. He will be the operational level commander. We will talk quite a bit about the panzer commander tonight. Of the two armies, when you look at the u. S. Infantry divisions versus the german division, the u. S. Division is a little bigger. You have to look at the german Divisions Division by division to be able to see how good they are. That is because the older division, the volksgrendadier, have about 14,000 soldiers. Some of the new grenadier divisions the newer only have 80 of that strength. Between 800010,000 soldiers. That confuses part of how we look at the order of battle from the germans. The German Panzer divisions are supposed to have about 160 tanks while our divisions have 186 medium tanks, then 77 light tanks. Most german divisions have less than that. Some of the key German Wehrmacht divisions have 80 tanks. Those numbers are closer to what the actual strength of the ss divisions, the elite German Forces. This is where they will put their main effort. Divisions that have almost 19,000 soldiers in them, and as we talked through tonight, this is the panzer, the tiger one, the panther, tiger one, tiger two, their medium tank, the equivalent of our sherman, and these are assault guns. We have two Armored Vehicles that will play a key part. One is the tank, the sherman tank. Tanks are designed to kill people, not kill other tanks. Tanks are designed, exploitation, go after headquarters, supply units. Part of our doctrine at the time is that tanks go after and do the exploitation, and to defeat enemy tanks we have a tank destroyer. The tank gun is low velocity, not good for fighting against german tanks where we have 76 or 90 millimeter tank destroyers. Two to have the big gun and be fast on the battlefield and move around, it has one thing a tank doesnt have and that is good armor protection. The tank destroyers, there is no top on the turret, so they can see out over the top and move their vehicle effectively. When you look at the divisions, the type of divisions we will have, the Infantry Division, when we start to create an army, we will finally have 89 divisions altogether. The 106th is one of the last divisions that will be set up in the summer of 1943. It has about a year of training stateside, then the casualties from the Normandy Campaign and the drive across france start to hit the army. We havent calculated the number of infantry casualties. What will end up happening is, the first 3000 soldiers in lowerlevel noncommissioned officers will be taken from the 106th division. A few weeks later, another 3500 will be taken. Within a short time in summer 1944, they will lose almost 7000 trained infantry and get new replacements, but they wont begin in the time to really integrate them into the unit and train. They will be shipped overseas in october, have 19 days of training in england, then they begin to transit over to france. They get on the ships and they have a storm in the channel, and they spend four days unable to land, seasick on board. They get to france, and there are no trucks waiting for us. They spend a day and a half waiting in the fields for trucks to show up. They get on these open top trucks and spend two days crossing france in wet, rainy weather. They finally pull into the st. Vith area in december, taking over from the second Infantry Division. They are pretty happy. The second infantry has created these foxholes with overhead cover. They have, they are using the pillboxes, so the 106th division thinks they are in good shape. They are commanded by Major General allen jones and they are alan jones. They are organized with three infantry regiments. The other key thing about the divisions at this time, when mcnair is standing up the army he makes every Infantry Division look the same. What that means is, this division could be going to europe or north africa or the jungles of the South Pacific without any changes. What they decide to do is give the divisions extra units to be able to help them do their mission. Tank battalions are usually assigned to an Infantry Division from a pool, as our tank as is tanks does tank destroyers, but the 106th doesnt have a tank battalion as it takes over the line because they dont think in the ardennes, they will need it. Armored divisions of the time have a different philosophy. The armored force only came into existence in july 1940 after the fall of france. George c marshall stood up the armored force and what they and up doing is taking all this mechanization work being done across branches, send it to fort knox and create the armored force. They think about how they will use it, they are meant to be offensive weapons, meant to change the organization. The Armored Divisions of the Second World War dont have a set organization. The Infantry Divisions have three regiments, each regiment has three battalions. They always work together. The headquarters are what is called combat command. There is combat command a, combat command b, and combat command r. You mix and match the numbers and assign them to combat commands based on what the situation is. As the unit takes losses and needs to be rebuilt, it is rotated into combat command r and the units in r rotate to the front. When they set up the organization, combat command r only has eight officers in their entire organization. Few of the divisions actually operate this way. Most of them beef up the headquarters of combat command r and use the three combat commands as headquarters to move their forces in and out. They focus on being able to change their tasks on the fly and be able to mix and match. It makes the seventh Armored Division almost a perfect division for fighting that will take place around st. Vith. The key leaders, Robert Hasbrouck was a combat commander in the seventh Armored Division. The Division Commander had been relieved, so he rises up to be the Division Commander. Bruce lee clark comes to take comes tocooper clarke take over combat command b. Clarke is a brandnew general and just getting to know his unit as the fighting starts. When you look at the actual german offensive, this area that you can see with this kind of yellow line is where the actual german penetrations will be. If you notice, almost no penetration is by the sixth panzer army. All of the success of the german offensive will take place in the fifth panzer army. We will be talking about st. Vith and why the sixth panzer army does not get a chance to move forward. The other officer i need to talk about is furniture dear general william hoke. Brigadier general william hoke. He builds part of the canadian and american highway and commands a special engineer brigade clearing demolitions from the normandy beaches. When they sender one of the brandnew divisions up. He is a relatively senior officer to both clarke and Robert Hasbrouck. If you look at the relationship, alan jones, being a Major General who commands all of the forces. But that is not how it will take place. As we focus in, we will focus on that square of the area around st. Vith and the actual fighting that will happen there. The jernigan the german offensive starts at 5 30 in the morning on the 16th of december. Lookouts are in water towers and church steeples. They will notice all of these flashes of light and they do not know what is going on. They see all this light and they start calling the headquarters saying something is going on. 90 seconds later they realized it was german artillery rockets, 1800 different pieces of artillery firing that will start impacting across the front. Further u. S. Forces, because there are so few soldiers over the 83 miles of this eighth core, it is an advantage. The soldiers are spread out so the artillery has less effective fire than it normally would have. The german plan is based on speed. They have to take st. Vith by the end of day to and day two museastgne to cross the river by the end of day four and get to antwerp. To get that speed what they will do is lead with infantry forces to create a penetration and then patch their Armored Forces in that will drive to the rear. They plant the offensive for december when the weather is bad, the weather in the ardennes , especially in the north has been in the upper 30s to low 40s. There is a foot of snow on the ground, but the ground is not frozen well. A vehicle or two passing through turns it to mod. In the middle part of the fighting, it is sleet and rain. Preventfog that will the Army Air Forces from playing a role in this, just what hitler plans. Speed and the ability to take these two rotator sections. These roads are important, because to be able to sustain the speed you have to bring up lots of supplies, particularly fuel and and you nation and ammunition. The st. Vith area has six roads that come together and it also has the only eastwest railroad line. If you would turn this into a little success to a major offensive, you need to be able to take that so your logistical convoys can move forward to supplier forces. Division is going to be on this area, and we talk about this with a couple of key pieces of terrain. One is the snow plateau. Today it is the high ground where you can walk, hike, and it has some ski hills on the german side. I heard someone say that there is a place that you want to see hansel and gretel, it is there. The time that i have been in the ardennes between november and february. You go in the water is dripping off of the trees. It is damp and dark. This is where the border is and the west wall fortification. The losheim gap is the historic invasion route. This idea that no one things you can come through the ardennes is one of those myths that have grown up because german troops have come through the ardennes again and again. The losheim gap is open farm country that will move back vith in they st. Open area. Down throughes this area. The two major bridges are in schonberg and stein broke. Vision occupies these divisions, you have the 14 calvary that will guard the lotion gap the losheim gap. It is the border between the fifth and eighth corps which makes it a dangerous area. You would not pass if you put a corps area pounding on a highspeed area of report. The 160 the infantry regiments will be on this tremaine this terrain. You look at this ground and say you do not want to defend it. One of the major problems is at the road networks, around behind it and come together in schonberg. If schonberg falls all of these troops will be trapped up there. There is one other regiment, the four 24th infantry just off this map to the side. As you get back to strawn v st. Vith, the one bridge, the single road, and then a piece of what it high ground a mile to the east of st. Vith. And then the town of st. Vith. It is not a large town. In 1944 it has 2000 inhabitants. Gne has about 4000. This is not a defense position, this is just where we stopped. We just do not want to capture the west wall again. The morning of the 16th, German Forces, the volksgrendadier has been patrolling and identified the new division in the area, and identified where the flanks and will come in through the flanks of the two resume regiments that will be trapped. By nightfall, they are coming up to two towns. One is adler, on the road and the other one is in that area. At that point, the defense is holding well. The two regiments have only been hit by patrols, and for brandnew troops they think they are doing well. They push back german patrols and are still holding. As you look at the front, the threat is that they will be surrounded and if schonberg falls, that will trap them in the area. Middleton is troy getting concerned. He sees the width of the attack, and he has heard Major General alan jones talk about what is going on. At 10 00 at night they have a phone conversation. The germans are jamming the radios so they cannot have direct communication. The artillery has cut most of the phone lines that we put in. They have to use a belgian telephone system, and they are concerned that they will be overheard so they will use a bunch of codewords. They talk about the ninth Armored Divisions as the big boy coming to the rescue. And, using these codewords they absolutely confuse each other and do not have the same understanding. Phoneton gets off of the and he basically says, i have told Major General jones that he has the authority that if the position is untenable, that he can pull the troops off. He is the local commander and knows what is going on and he can pull those troops off. Jones hangs up the phone and says we have been told we have to hold on, we will lose those troops. The two of them have come up with different opposite actions that they think of what is going on at that time. And yound of the day, talk about what is going to go on, and what makes the u. S. Army successful, it is the Amazing Movement that will take place. Hashe end of the day, jones begun to move a brigade of the ninth Armored Division down to the st. Vith area. Armyhen have, at the ninth into the third army, eisenhower began moving the seventh army and the 10th Armored Division up to bastogne they will also move the 101st and 82nd airborne up into the region. Day,e evening of the first 18 hours after it started, you see all of this movement coming together to these two key road intersections in the ardennes. About howlk successful, what the germans expect and what is the offense going to be like . The First Ss Panzer Division is what the germans expect. On the day of the 15th 16th, the German Parachute Division is going to fight the 99th division, open a whole, and on on the morningn of the 17th, they will punch through. They will have gone 26 miles deep into the american lines. Notice the onend road intersection, they will come through. At the same time as they are moving 26 miles into the american lines, the seventh Armored Division is beginning its move towards the south. There are two routes coming from holland and germany. They have a 70 mile trip. Portions of the division will come down this route. Followed by the division artillery, and the second route with combat command a and r will come down this restaurant western route. After that, combat command b will cross through. The instructions he gives to clarke are vague. And meets to bastogne with troy millerton and say that jones has trouble. Up there and get tucson the at 10 30 get to at 10 30at st. Vith in the morning. Just as there seventh Army Divisions artillery is diverted. It will take them two days before they get into the fight. Of course, today marks the 75th anniversary of the massacre, where a convoy, Field Artillery observation italian not assigned to the seventh Armored Division, supporting them is coming down the road where the blue line is, they get to the corner and start to turn, and a group comes around the corner and will shoot up the trucks and line up 130 soldiers in the field and massacre them in the field. Inwill recapture this area january and find american soldiers, a total of 86 will be found buried. If you follow that group along the entire route, it is nothing but massacre and atrocity after atrocity as it goes 26 miles on this first day. Let us go back to what is happening in the st. Vith area. The volksgrendadier will be successful, but the infantry has been too successful. You have two converging routes coming to one bridge and you will see the problems they have of massive traffic jams. They will begin moving forward towards st. Vith about four miles away from it. Alan jones will make the last real effective decision for this offensive. He sends two engineer companies, one from his own 81st engineers and one from the core battalion time ng him at that supporting him. Begins tome, clarke give directions. Originally command will counterattack this way, jones was told that the entire seventh Army Division is coming, he diverts the ninth Armored Division to secure the flank of the fourth infantry regiment. The problem is that all of the core units have begun to move backwards to get out of the path of the german offensive, and the seventh Armored Division starts getting into huge traffic jams as they are moving back between st. Vith and the other city. The germans start the germans are starting to get through big traffic jams. Is trying to get through. Road islane wide stuffed with vehicles. He walks forward trying to figure out what is happening. He gets to schonberg, he will find german officers and one guy in the middle yelling and pointing and trying to get things unscrewed. That is the field marshal, his boss. He is playing cop trying to unscrew the traffic jam. This is one of the key things the german will see. There is no good route other than this winding road along the river. There are logging trails but they have a hard time being generating being able to generate combat power. With the regiments surrounded, the german volksgrendadier has to lose two regiments to make sure that they do not counterattack into their flank, and, with the road network, the artillery is somewhere back here find german lines and unable to support the front. Jones and clark will meet in their office and clarke reports that he sees a headquarters packing up. They are burning their secret documents and taking down their maps. Alan jones is sitting in his office. He is not taking any reports and not making any decisions. Sends much after clarke the companies, machinegun fire starts to break out. Tothat point joan says clarke, i have donated throne and everything i have. It is your fight. The 106th division will move back here. The seventh Armored Division has this fight. Just quickly to go through the actual daytoday fighting, seventh Armored Division arrives, and the first two days are ad hoc. They are a series of crisis and they are thrown into the line. This is going on throughout what becomes known as the north shoulder and the eisenborn ridge, and american divisions are extending out this line. You start to see what becomes the elongated goose egg and you and you start to see the bulge starting a farm as germans continue to drive forward. By the 18th the line is not really a line. The seventh Armored Division and the 106th division is defending a circular horseshoe that is 52 miles long. Normal division frontage is five miles. The 106 division was holding 21 miles. The entire corps was holding 83 miles. Here is a seventh armored and the 106th holding 52 miles. The positions are really independent, not tied into themselves. Hasbrouck knows that there are German Forces by passing to the north. German forces by passing to the south, as well as trying to attack him, both in the 18th, and it will become the 62nd. On the 18th volksgrendadier area, and will become the 62nd volksgrendadier. The 19th ended up being a quiet day for the americans. What has happened is that the germans are having so much problems trying to unscrew their traffic jams that they cannot build a combat power. At this time, the others will meet. There has really been no action other than to combat piper in group piper in the north. And the fifth panzer army will get the most effort. Including what is known as the escort brigade. Its a brigade that has a Light Division type of strength. Unfortunately, even though you have given it to them, they are still trapped miles behind in a town, trying to come forward. December 20 is when things will start picking up again. You start to see element of the escort brigade coming in, and a certain pattern starts to develop in the fighting. Most armored combat takes place at about 800 yards. Really, because of the guns and the sites, and what ends up happening is you can see the enemy starting to master the attack. You can see movement before they get to the direct fire range, so the advantage the americans will have are the Field Artillery. Is the Field Artillery. Those in the artillery are in the back, nodding their heads yes. But the american Field Artillery that will be able to fire. By the 20th, three of the seventh army come around. When you look at how much the Field Artillery is doing, the single Field Artillery they had for the first day fires in a single day, 4000 rounds with six guns. You say, how much is that . Its 270 fire missions. It is so Many Missions so rapidly that the paint blisters on the guns. They try to cool the barrels down by pouring water down the barrels. As they pour the water down the barrels, at the breach end, it comes out as steam. No water actually comes down. So the german commander is going to say that any time anything moved artillery fire came down very, very rapidly. The other thing he will say is that there are tanks everywhere. From the german perspective he thinks he is fighting an armored corps. Anytime they move, or tanks start to mass on him. What is happening is that clarke and the seventh Armored Division are keeping infantry and engineers forward and maintaining a reserve of Tank Companies and tank destroyers. And so, wherever the germans start to mass, they are able to move rapidly. They call the tactic racetrack. The racetrack pattern. What happens is tank destroyers will get a reverse slope. German tanks come over the hill and start firing at the tank destroyers who have longerrange guns and the better guns that can hit the frontal armor of the tanks. While that is happening, american tanks will race around to the rear and try to come around and destroy those tanks. At the same time artillery is coming in and taking away infantry that are supporting the attack. Once that particular attack is defeated, the germans retreat, you recock and put the reserves back in there and are ready to do it again the next time the threat comes in. The situation for the seventh Armored Division and the 106th is kind of dire. They are also fighting a battle they are going to be in a 270 degree defense which means artillery fire is massing on them on all five on all sides. They are also fighting a running biodel battle about 20 miles deep. They are 20 miles behind, somewhere over here, behind me, and they are fighting off patrols from the divisions. They have had the take the soldiers, the cooks, the supply clerks. They had to take the vehicles being repaired. They had to take any tanks that have come up as replacements and man 12 roadblocks to be able to actually fight and defend their positions. And hasbrouck is able to be confident about the northern flank but the southern flank is weak. He has got i this time two regiments working together. And this relationship i talked about earlier with command and control, combat command b was technically working for the 106 division. But really its a handshake between clarke and others. This is the 112th. The 28th division was in front of bastogne. When the germans hit it, one regiment takes the blows head on. One goes to the south and starts to form the southern flank of the penetration. The 112th infantry regiment has fought a retreat for 30 miles crosscountry on foot against german pressure. Its an absolutely astounding work to be able to keep together, and then they come into this elongated goose egg. This is what it looks like by the 20th of december. You see because of the holding, the german offensive has narrowed down, with almost no and almost no success here, and it is starting to shift down to the south, where they are finding less resistance and more movement to the rear. The 21st ends up being a critical day for the division. The german attacks start. They are fought off for most of the day, after dark. Five german groups will come straight up the road. They will fire a high velocity flares. They will blind the five american tanks. They will knock them out very quickly. With the american tanks gone, the tiger twos start to go after individual foxholes and they open up the penetration. They begin to roll down into st. Vith. They finally got the penetration that they wanted. Clark orders his men to begin to retreat back to a new line they are going to have to form. This also forces the ninth Armored Division to move out to a new line. This is where most of the losses for combat command b will be. They will lose four out of five Infantry Companies and 800 soldiers when the germans actually break through. And of course once again, as you , look at this, all the roads lead to a chokepoint. And so, even though the germans have had the success of taking st. Vith, all the roads, 62nd and the 18th grenadiers and the escort brigade, they all come together at st. Vith, and at the south part of town, there is a roundabout and there is a huge traffic jam again. The other issue they start to have is german soldiers, as they capture american positions, start to loot. Its cold, its rainy. They finally have some shelter and they start finding american rations, american cigarettes. So it delays them once again as they get into st. Vith and the penetration does not go forward. But as you can see, all around the front, there are major actions. The logs that day are almost constant. It is almost constant attacks everywhere. That is being reacted to very, very quickly. On the 20th of december, the northern half of the bulge comes under field marshal montgomerys 21st army group command. Bradley is in Luxembourg City and he cant communicate with the forces on the north. And as forces start to come in, the 82nd airborne will start coming in a long the salm river. Matthew ridgway, commander of the 18th Airborne Corps will take command of the seventh Armored Division and the 106th. The question is, do you fight surrounded, or do you withdraw . On the 20th of december, bastogne has been surrounded. 101st troops. Matthew ridgway is an infantryman. He does not like giving up ground. He wants to hold every inch of ground and he wants to stay and defend this. The night before, hasbrouck, who cannot communicate with the 8th corps, thats 50 miles away, will send a letter up to his friend check to building it up in the First Army Headquarters and talk about a situation that says our northern flank is strong, we are getting artillery fire, we have not had fuel and logistics, and ammunition come in in two days. The two infantry regiments in the south are weak. They are at about 50 . I really think we need to withdraw. And Matthew Ridgway comes down to meet hasbrouck with the this letter in his hand. He walks into the headquarters of the seventh Army Division kind of irate and says, did you read this letter before you sent it . Hasbrouck looks at him, hes been fighting for six days now, constantly, and he says every , word. And that kind of diffuses ridgeways tension. And hasbrouck goes through and talks about what the situation is in the seventh Armored Division. Despite that, ridgeway still wants him to defend. So they will go forward to bruce clarks headquarters. Pretty much tells ridgway the same exact thing. We need to withdraw and get out of there. Ridgeway still wants them to stay. It is only when he goes down to a west point classmate, who he trusts and knows, he goes down there and tells him, will, we will get you out of here. His friend looks at him and says, i do know how youre going to do that. At that point, ridgway understands how bad the situation is. The last thing he will do is go up to the headquarters of the 106th division and get briefed by Major General jones, and jones gives him a pretty optimistic point of view that we can stay, we can hold this. And at that point ridgeway understands that jones really doesnt understand the situation. And he will be relieved on the spot. At that point, all the forces in that pocket come under hasbroucks control. Also in the 22nd, montgomery, who sends up these officers, young officers, usually captains, who go around with the radio vehicle and they could go and basically spy on any headquarters and call up montgomery and talk directly. He has these officers all throughout. He has a great feel of whats going on in the battlefront. He understands its time for the seventh Army Division to withdraw. He will send the message down to to first army and then hasbrouck, saying, you have accomplished your mission, a mission well done. The problem is, how will they withdraw . The germans are starting to understand that it is close. They are going to get one last supply convoy that comes through on the 22nd with fuel and ammunition. It had to take two days to get there. They have had to go back through the 84th division, back to the third Armored Division and come in there. There are three routes that they can withdraw. Mme, b throughso , the woods and up to villesommes, and c, up along the river. The problem is you have to stay on the road. Clark has had his engineers improving this road. Still a dirt road today, and he is improving it by cutting down trees and making a corduroy road. The day before, his jeep slid down, and it took the 12 soldiers to lift it out of the mud and put it on the road. So the fear is that they will not be over to get out, and it will only be the middle of the night on the 22nd of the winds start to change. Certainly, what comes in is what is known as a russian high. Temperature drops down to the 20s. 5 00 a. M. , they finally get the order to withdraw. Clark walks out of his headquarters at 7 00 a. M. , and the mud is freezing. The ground is freezing. At that point, they understand they can get out. What will happen is the withdrawal i have heard it described as a sock turned inside out. Basically, the ninth Armored Division goes back first on this route, and then the other units peel back and get across on the line that the 82nd airborne has salm river. G the clark will talk about he never had defensive lines. He just had strong points. He will be able to counter attack and do it. He is so tired by the end that his drivers had tied him into the seat so he does not fall out as they are moving him around. He talked all that. Here is the cost. Seventh Armored Division loses about 40 strength and about half its tanks. Infantry loses two of its regiments and has the largest the 106th infantry loses two of its regiments and has the largest surrender of u. S. Forces in the european theater of operation. We can ask some questions about closing the bulge. But here is the overall cost, about 80,000 american casualties 100,000 german casualties. , we lose 730 tanks, they lose about 500 tanks. The difference is we can make up our losses within weeks. And the germans are never able to make up their losses. So what is the overall effect . The overall effect of the ardennes offensive is this is germanys last attempt to influence and seize the initiative in the war. With the success of the defense, with the losses, they can no longer fight the mobiletype warfare that the allies can do. At st. Vith in particular, it stops the german main effort. By the fourth and fifth day, the germans are running out of fuel. Second ss panzer divisions have to tow vehicles because they have run out of gas. And the focus becomes just getting to muse as opposed to getting to antwerp. Russell, in his book, will say that the st. Vith defense epitomizes the american application everywhere in the ardennes of the armys tactical doctrine for countering such a breakthrough. But more perhaps than any of the other defensive stances, it was the battle of st. Vith that brought the time required to recapture control of the battle. When you look at the ardennes, when you look at the fighting there, i really cannot add more than charles mcdonald. We are going to be able to go from 83,000 soldiers in the ardennes to two weeks later having 600,000 soldiers. We moved 29 divisions and six mechanized groups, an absolutely amazing display of american prowess on mobility that shocks the germans. Charles mcdonald will write a book, the time for trumpets. He was a Company Commander in the second Infantry Division. An Army Historian for his career when he retires. He decides to write this magnificent book on the ardennes. And his closing of the book really, i think, summarizes the sacrifices that went on, not just at st. Vith, but across the ardennes. Except for a few individuals, the frontline american soldier stood his ground. Surprise, stunned, unbelieving, incredulous, not understanding what was hitting him, he nevertheless held fast until his commanders ordered withdraw or until he was overwhelmed. Hitler saw the american soldiers as the weak component of the western alliance, the products of a society to heterogeneous to fill a capable fighting force. At many a place, in the low shying gap, the american soldier put the lie to hitlers theory. His was a story to be told to the sound of trumpets. Thank you very much. [applause] mr. Kemper if you have a question, come up to the microphone so they can record the question. Wasnt the ardennes the site of a major battle in world war i . Prof. Gerges we are going to have the offensive that will come up, but not really a major battle in the first world war. Of course may, june 1940, the german offensive in there will take place. I have always been interested in the relationship between the wehrmacht and the ss paramilitary groups. Did they have a problem coordinating with each other . Because obviously the wehrmacht had a different culture. I do not think they would have massacred people like they did there. But my basic question is how did the ss and wehrmacht interact during this battle . Prof. Gerges poorly in many ways, i say that because the wehrmacht is the german army, and then there is this nazi army, if you will. Very elite. The look of themselves as better, as handpicked. You see over and over again. Weve been in this campaign i didnt get a chance to talk about it you see ss units ignoring orders from army units, deciding to go into the armys areas just because they could and they upset the timeline. And they caused more traffic jams on that area. Thank you. Two anecdotes that i know personally. One, my wife early in her teaching career had a colleague whose husband was in one of the two regiments that surrendered. He did not talk about it, but she told us that he walked east for many days and that was at the various different places. When he came home, i dont know if she knew him yet, he preferred to eat his meals alone in his room back home in suburban chicago. So that was the fate of those two regiments. The other is this gentleman here said he was a bandsman. My fatherinlaw in the 99th division was a bandsman. During the bulge, they basically said put down your tuba, and the remember the weapon you learned, pick it up. [laughter] advance was cut off. They were not very far from there. Prof. Gerges the two of you should talk after this because he probably knew your father in law, since he was a senior bandsman in the 99th division. But good. Thank you. I read a book on the 106th, 84. I was in germany in it talked about how the troops in the two regiments were ordered to surrender. They hated jones after that. What kind of condition where they actually in when they finally surrendered . Prof. Gerges part of the problem is they are going to come back i should mention i put up a couple of recommended books. Two on the left side are by veterans of the battle of the bulge. The two on the right are new books on the battle of the bulge. One that just came out the first of november on the seventh Armored Division. It is the only book focusing on the seventh Armored Division. The troops had gotten some confusing orders. They were initially told to stay in their positions and hold and prepare for 360 degree defense. Then they are told to break out to the east. That the seventh Armored Division is coming, and to meet them. Then they are told to counter attack, take the bridge and reopen the route. So they are given some contradictory orders. The problem is they are running out of food and ammunition. There is no evacuation for the casualties. And i cant remember which one of the regiments, but when they actually start their attack, there is no overall commander appointed for the two regiments. So the two regiments do not cooperate as they begin to move. One comes up over the hill that looks down on the road. And when they come up over this ll these are what we would consider today light infantry. They get everywhere on their boots. They are carrying a rifle, they have towed artillery and bazookas. They come over the hill and they see the german traffic jam. Its Armored Vehicles, three abreast as far as they can see. Left and right. At that point, they realize they cant actually break out. The one other anecdote there, the person who actually has to go forward to negotiate the surrender has a local connection. Major william garnow. Of course, his grandfather was buffalo bill, a leavenworth native. Air pilots played a big part in the United States military since the 1980s, and it has been a big part of my experience in the military. Can you talk about how the air power played in this particular battle . Prof. Gerges initially, it is exactly did rj put you up to that question . [laughter] ok, good. Some of my students back over there. When the russiann high comes in, the weather drops down. When clark works out at 7 00 in the morning. When the sun comes out at about 8 00, it is a beautiful, beautiful blue sky, not a cloud in the sky. The first time it has been that way for the week. It has been cloudy, overcast, foggy. So on the day that they were actually trying to break out, the airpower clears. Thats when the american fighterbombers are going to be able to start treating German Forces. It will help the seventh Armored Division break contact. When at the time when instead of pursuing, they are having to worry about whats coming around that next corner as Additional Air fights come in. So it is going to play a huge role after the weather break in that time period. Its my understanding that there was a second bulge created on january 1 by the germans. It was called operation nord wi nd, and they were under a lot of pressure. I actually lost one of my uncles in that battle. When they were coming across, he he was toward aachen, killed. I went there before they began to tighten up security at leavenworth. But i got copies of the battle plans, and it showed where my uncle was, and where he got killed. I went there 10 years ago and picked up soil from the spot approximately where he was. I brought it back and gave it to his son. So prof. Gerges what a neat tribute that you were able to do that. Operation nord wind, the germans are going to try to restart the offensive. But not in the actual ardennes, but slightly south in the seventh army area. The operation lasts only for two weeks. It does push the seventh army back. They also do what is known as the hangover raid. They mass about 1000 aircraft on early in the morning on the first of january when all the airmen should be hung over in their barracks, and they were going to attack the Army Air Force on the ground. They destroy about 450 american aircraft on the airfield. They are going to lose 270 aircraft to antiaircraft fire. However, they cannot make up those 270. The 460 pilots were not in them because they were on the ground. So, new aircraft were able to reconstitute very quickly. Just by chance, i met this family, and found out that the womans father was in the french first army. And i had been in contact with him until he died. He died january 2, a year ago. He talked about being in the resistance movement. One of his best friends, they were about 14, they were walking along in some village in france, and his partner made some comment about the nazis. And they called them both in and determined who had said the snide remark. And he said when he went back the next day, his friend was hanging on a meat hook in the middle of the square. At any rate, he was not too far from where my uncle had been killed. So, we exchanged a lot of info. That was all i wanted to say. Prof. Gerges thank you. [indiscernible] i will stick around if anyone has any other questions. Yes, sir. Coming out of groomersberg, 21, 22 tank battle. Do you have any anecdotes about that . Their drive into st. Vith . Prof. Gerges just that the germans will come down the hill. That fight is fascinating. The officer who commands it is a Lieutenant Colonel riggs. He had been an allamerican at the university of illinois before the war. 28 years old. He gets captured there. His account of what happens to him, he is captured, he walks east, he is put on trains, gets put into a prison camp. He is there for a couple of weeks, refuses to cooperate. Giving anything, his name, rank, serial number, they move into another prisoner camp in poland. He escapes from that camp, marches until he is picked up at the polish resistance. Spends a couple days or about a week in warsaw, rebuilding the infrastructure, then he is moved east to the russian army, where he is given to a soviet tank regiment of that has u. S. Equipment, so he fights with the soviet army for about a week. Then he is put on a train to odessa. Goes on a ship to istanbul. At that point, he talks his way onto a british ship to alexandria, which he then talks his way onto another british ship to naples, reports into the u. S. Facilities there. He is told, you are a state prisoner so you get a 60 day furlough. He says no, i want to go back to my battalion. So he gets on another ship. When he is there, that is when the submarine is still being held out. The 106th division and its one regiment is guarding them. He walks into his Battalion Headquarters three months later, his battalion xo is the acting Battalion Commander and basically says hi, im back. , [laughter] it is an absolutely amazing story that is in there. 81st engineer battalion. 81st engineer battalion. All right, well, thank you so much for coming out. I will stay if you have any other questions. [applause] youre watching American History tv, all weekend and every weekend on cspan3. Twoext, historians discuss wartime efforts to plan for the postworld war ii economy. The 1944 Bretton Woods conference in the 1945 proposal put forward by u. S. Treasury secretary henry morgantown jr. Where the conference tried to stave off flashes of let the one that engulfed italy and germany, the morgenthaler plan focused on plaintiff meas