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American railroad workers in specially formed units labored to keep men and matériel rolling forward after D-Day.
Here s What You Need to Know: Combat engineers and railway workers recorded a monumental achievement in the summer of 1944.
Historian Christian Wolmar concludes that the two world wars could not have been fought to such devastation without military railways, in his book Engines of War. In wars, from the Crimean to the arrival of the jet engine, railways were a dominant technology. Consequently, the military that best employed its railways to transfer fresh troops and supplies to the point of greatest need usually prevailed.
The hard-fought battle was a solid American victory.
Here s What You Need to Know: A scratch force of an American armored division held a German panzer division at bay north of Bastogne during World War II.
It was December 19, 1944, one day before the Siege of Bastogne. Shortly after 10:30 am, 26-year-old Major William Desobry picked up his field telephone, called his combat commander, Colonel William Roberts, and asked if he could withdraw from the Belgian village of Noville. Desobry had been holding off the entire German 2nd Panzer Division some 16,000-men with more than 120 tanks and assault guns for the last six hours with only 400 men and a handful of tanks and tank destroyers.
Hitler s Last Gamble: The Battle of the Bulge Ended Nazi Germany
In the Bulge, the Germans underrated the tenacity, logistical capability, and courage of the GIs. “When all is said and done,” observed General Montgomery, “I shall always feel that Rundstedt was really beaten by the good fighting qualities of the American soldier.”
Shivering and stamping their feet in the snow, three American soldiers warmed their hands over a small fire at an observation post. They were weary, dirty, and hungry, and a long way from home.
Three other GIs shuffled along to relieve them after a while, and one said, “Merry Christmas.” The first three looked up in surprise, and one of them replied slowly, “We thought tomorrow was Christmas.”
thief in his own driveway while searching for a cigarette inside his car, an unarmed 60-year-old roy middleton was shot at 15 times by two florida sheriff s deputies. someone s trying to steal my neighbor s car. reporter: that 911 call set off a chain of event which is led to two bullets hitting middleton s legs, injuries he ll have to live with for the rest of his life. roy has sustained a severe psychological injury, anxiety, depression. reporter: just last week, the same carriedle wi le wriddled w sat outside his home. this newly released dash cam video shows officers rushing to the scene at 2:30 a.m. on july 27th. the shooting sparked national outrage and a state investigation. i was getting ready to do what they asked me, raise my hands. and i got shot. reporter: months later, a grand jury decleaned to charge the deputies with injuring middleton. middleton s lawyer says his