The six-week Battle of the Bulge, which began on Dec. 16, 1944, ranks as the third deadliest in American history with more than 19,000 dead and 50,000 others wounded, captured or missing. The German offensive through the Ardennes forest in Belgium which got its name from how the initial penetration of the Nazi troops had created a “bulge” in the Allies’ lines was Hitler’s last of the war, designed to push the Allies back as they were preparing to invade Germany.