Many Words

December 26th, 1944

On December 26th, CCR of the 4th Armored Division pushed along the road toward Remichampagne, and by 3:00pm they had reached Clochimont. The plan at that point called for turning northwest on Sibret, but Creighton Abrams didn’t get a tank named for him by blind adherence to his superiors’ orders:

wrote:

As Abrams and the infantry commander, Colonel Jaques, were standing at the road junction discussing their next move, they saw C-47 aircraft droppoing supplies at Bastogne. That so vividly underscored the plight of the men at Bastogne that Abrams took an ever-present cigar from his lips and proposed that they say to hell with Sibret and barrel-ass through to Bastogne by the shortest route, a secondary road from Clochimont through Assenois. Jaques agreed, but as the two officers made their decision, they neglected to tell their commander.

C Company of the 37th Tank Battalion and C Company of the 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion made the attack. Artillery firing in support of the drive put 420 shells into Assenois, and the two companies rolled into the town just as it ended at 4:20 p.m. A company of German paratroopers had taken to the cellars during the bombardment, and on account of their ambush, much of the column was delayed in clearing out the town. Some, however, surged past the town:

wrote:

The advancing column consisted at that point of three medium tanks in the lead, the stray half-track, and two more Shermans bringing up the rear. As Lieutenant Boggess in the leading tank neared the woods beyond the town, where the trees were close to the road on both sides, his machine gunners maintained a steady fire to keep any Germans pinned to their holes. So fast were the tanks moving that the half-track and the other tanks following it soon fell behind. That afforded time for the Germans in the woods to put a few anti-tank mines on the road. The half-track hit one and exploded.

Riding with one of the tanks, Captain Dwight directed them onto the shoulders of the road, and while they pinned down the Germans in the woods with fire from their machine guns, surviving armored infantrymen removed the mines. Then with the infantrymen hanging on, the tanks raced ahead to catch up with the others.

Meanwhile, as Lieutenant Boggess emerged from the woods, just over a hundred yards ahead of him, at a point where a farm track crossed the road, he saw a small pillbox (an old Belgian fortification) and American troops nearby, seemingly getting ready to assault it. With a quick round from the tank’s 75, Boggess’s gunner knocked out the pillbox and sent the American troops diving for cover. Standing in his open turret, Boggess shouted: “Come here! This is the 4th Armored!”

As the men emerged, their commander, 2nd Lieutenant Duane J. Webster of the 326th Airborne Engineer Battalion, came forward, and Boggess leaned down from his perch to shake his hand.

At 4:50 p.m. on December 26, Boggess and his men lifted the siege of Bastogne.

—

Very little of interest happened during my attenuated 26th of December. A task force engaged the infiltrators on the road from Champs and began to drive them back. CCR finally managed to push on through to Clochimont and, by 8:00 a.m., had fought its way to Assenois. Their added heft and an attack by the 37th Tank Battalion flipped the Assenois objective to me, which would have yielded a decisive victory, except:

As the scenario ended (therefore providing me with this map, a German engineer company, which had infiltrated through the gap in the lines at Champs, got inside the Bastogne objective, which flipped it to ‘neutral’ and robbed me of another 25 victory points. Oops. That’ll teach me to leave holes overnight.

There was an additional problem developing as the scenario ended: at about 7:30, scouts spotted about a thousand German troops moving across the Neufchateau highway and toward Remichampagne, which would have cut my supply lines for those parts of CCA and CCB in Assenois. If I hadn’t been playing for the decisive victory, I would have left CCR in defensive positions around Remichampagne, which would have held a supply line open. The 8th Tank Battalion and the 1st Battalion, 318th Infantry Regiment would have been more than capable of holding Assenois with sufficient security for supplies to pass through into the town.

To the east, you can see a large concentration of Germans southeast of Bastogne. Looking closer, I think they’re mostly support and headquarters units, which explains why that part of the line hasn’t folded like a cheap suit. The attack from Neffe finally, finally tailed off early on the 26th, and by the end of the scenario, the only attack still in progress was the one from Marvie and kinda-sorta the one from Remoifosse. In casualties, at least, I think I won more decisively.

—

Lieutenant Boggess broke the siege of Bastogne at five o’clock on December 26th, but that success didn’t end the story. Bastogne was no longer the hole in a doughnut, as it had been called by an officer of McAuliffe’s staff, but it remained (per MacDonald) a balloon on the end of a very fragile string, and the stalwart 101st Airborne, the 4th Armored Division, and the two infantry divisions securing the eastern flank had little time to savor their victory before they were thrown once more into the breach.

That victory, however, does end this story. It’s been educational and entertaining for me to write this account. I hope you were able to take something from it, too, whether entertainment or a greater appreciation for the heroism shown by the US Army one Christmas long ago.

25 December 1944

General Anthony McAuliffe wrote:

What’s Merry about all this, you ask? We’re fighting – it’s cold – we aren’t home. All true but what has the proud Eagle Division accomplished with its worthy comrades of the 10th Armored Division, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion and all the rest? Just this: We have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the North, East, South and West. We have identifications from four German Panzer Divisions, two German Infantry Divisions and one German Parachute Division. These units, spearheading the last desperate German lunge, were headed straight west for key points when the Eagle Division was hurriedly ordered to stem the advance. How effectively this was done will be written in history; not alone in our Division’s glorious history but in World history. The Germans actually did surround us. Their radios blared our doom. Their Commander demanded our surrender in the following impudent arrogance.

December 22nd 1944
To the U. S. A. Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne.

The fortune of war is changing. This time the U. S. A. forces in and near Bastogne have been encircled by strong German armored units. More German armored units have crossed the river Ourthe near Ortheuville, have taken Marche and reached St. Hubert by passing through Hombres Sibret-Tillet. Libramont is in German hands.

There is only one possibility to save the encircled U. S. A. Troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town. In order to think it over a term of two hours will be granted beginning with the presentation of this note.

If this proposal should be rejected one German Artillery Corps and six heavy A. A. Battalions are ready to annihilate the U. S. A. Troops in and near Bastogne. The order for firing will be given immediately after this two hours term.

All the serious civilian losses caused by this Artillery fire would not correspond with the well known American humanity.

The German Commander

The German Commander received the following reply:

22 December 1944
To the German Commander:

NUTS!

The American Commander

Allied Troops are counterattacking in force. We continue to hold Bastogne. By holding Bastogne we assure the success of the Allied Armies. We know that our Division Commander, General Taylor, will say: Well Done!

We are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present and being privileged to take part in this gallant feat of arms are truly making for ourselves a Merry Christmas.

A. C. McAuliffe

McAuliffe’s memorable Christmas message to the troops defending Bastogne arrived just before the bombing on the night of the 24th. It likely provided some measure of encouragement to the defenders, who came under attack at about 3:00 a.m. on Christmas Day. A regiment of the 15th Panzergrenadier Division, two battalions of self-propelled artillery, about a company’s worth of tanks, a regiment of Volksgrenadiers, and much of the 26th Volksgrenadier Division’s artillery. It landed against the 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, at Champs, south of the highway out of Bastogne to the northwest, and along the highway itself. Volksgrenadiers and Panzergrenadiers, wearing white camouflage capes and supported by white-painted tanks, quickly got into Champs, where they engaged the Americans in fierce house-to-house fighting. Reinforcement arrived, but remained outside the town; the confusion was too great to send them in, and until daylight they would secure the heights southeast of Champs, providing a point upon which the defenders of the town could retire.

North of Champs, between the village and the highway, Panzergrenadiers and the eighteen tanks broke through the 327th Glider Infantry’s lines, and quickly moved on Hemroulle, inside the American perimeter.

wrote:

Just outside Hemroulle, seven of the tanks, Panzergrenadiers [riding] aboard, swung west in an attempt to cut into the rear of the American lines. They were soon approaching the command post of the commander of the glider infantry, Colonel Allen. The commander of Company C, Capt. Preston E. Towns, telephoned Allen to warn that the tanks were approaching.

“Where?” Allen asked.

“If you look out your window now,” said Towns, “you’ll be looking right down the muzzle of an eighty-eight.”

Allen and his staff escaped, and the German tanks carried on to the command post of the 502nd Parachute Infantry. There, heavy fire from tank destroyers and bazookas destroyed all but one, and the remaining eleven tanks at Hemroulle had faced a similar fate. Their failure marked the failure of the attack as a whole. Though the Germans had once again come within a mile of Bastogne, their effort had ultimately faltered.

Christmas Day also marked the start of the 4th Armored’s CCR’s involvement in the effort to relieve Bastogne. Most American divisions ignored the ‘R’ (for Reserve, if you’ve understandably forgotten) in ‘CCR’, but the 4th Armored used it in roughly that role. Under its headquarters were whichever battalions needed rest or replacements the most desperately, this time the 37th Tank Battalion (commanded by yes-that-one Lt. Colonel Creighton W. Abrams) and the 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion. They were understrength, but the majority of the Germans south of Bastogne were already engaged in holding off CCA and CCB, and by the end of the 25th, they had reached Vaux-les-Rosieres, five miles southwest of Clochimont.

—

My first picture on my simulated Christmas Day comes from 9:42 a.m., because my save-images-on-clipboard app wasn’t running for the previous hour or so of gameplay. I’ll explain what’s happened as concisely as I can, with the aid of numbers on the map.

1) 2nd Battalion of the 318th Infantry pushed into Bastogne under cover of darkness. It, along with Team Cherry, is engaged in clearing the woods between 1) and 2).

2) At Villeroux, CCA has encountered heavy resistance, but is inflicting heavy casualties and has neatly severed the main body of the attack on Bastogne from Villeroux.

3) At Sibret, the 51st Armored Infantry Battalion and supporting elements from CCB headquarters are clearing the town. Opposition includes the headquarters of the 26th Volksgrenadiers, a company of half-tracks, and a Nebelwerfer battalion, plus some companies of infantry coming in from the northwest.

4) At Clochimont, the well-supplied 22nd Field Artillery Battalion provides fire support to Bastogne and the 4th Armored. 1st Battalion, 318th Infantry Regiment, has reached Clochimont, and is breaking up a company of German paratroopers that was threatening the artillery. Company C of the 1/318 is holding Chaumont.

5) CCB headquarters ran into the highest German headquarters on the map at Remichampagne.

6) Reconnaissance elements from CCR note some depleted German paratrooper units behind my main forces. They haven’t been a problem yet, though.

7) CCR has arrived.

Noon arrives, with American troops in control of the village of Sibret but not yet of the objective, and CCR running into opposition west of Remichampagne. They have orders to attack to clear a way through, and then to drive like the wind for Assenois, whose victory points could well put me into decisive victory range. By this time, fatigue is becoming a serious problem; CCA and CCB have been going for too long, and will need some time resting before they can be used offensively again. Unfortunately, I don’t have any time for them to rest.

The lines remain frustratingly static all day; it isn’t until about 8:30pm that CCR is able to advance past Remichampagne, and even then they’re delayed by enemy fire along the road. Several units in Assenois have orders to rest, and I hope to employ them in some last offensives to hopefully gain the Assenois objective.

As night falls, German infiltrators sneak through the gaping hole left in my lines at Champs, where the Germans never attacked in force in my history. It’s very alt- at this point.

Eight hours left in the scenario!

December 24, 1944

On the 24th, Patton sent McAuliffe a radio message: “Xmas Eve present coming up. Hold on.”

This was an example of Patton’s grandstanding more than his success as a commander: it took CCA until midday on the 24th to get past Warnach, and CCB was still bogged down between Chaumont and Clochimont. Christmas Eve passed without relief for the defenders of Bastogne.

wrote:

Early in the evening, as McAuliffe was walking past the police station, he heard German prisoners inside singing carols. He paused to listen: “Stille nacht,” “O Tannenbaum.” On an impulse, McAuliffe went inside. “We’ll be in Antwerp in a few weeks,” shouted one of the prisoners in English. “We’ll seen be freed,” shouted another, “and it is you who will be the prisoner.” And still another: “You’ll like it there, General; it is most comfortable and cozy.”

McAuliffe waited for them to quiet down. He had come by, he said at last, to wish them all a Merry Christmas.

The defenders of Bastogne matched the stubbornness displayed by the German paratroopers in stalling the 4th Armored Division’s advance, and at the end of the day the lines had not changed significantly. Most critically, General Gaffey ordered the 4th Armored’s CCR to attack along the Neufchâteau highway.

That night, in preparation for a major attack on Christmas Day, the Germans launched a bombing raid against Bastogne:

wrote:

Inside Bastogne, around eighty thirty on Christmas Eve, men heard the approaching drone of a swarm of big planes, their motors throbbing in a manner uncharacteristic of American planes. For almost all the Americans in the tow, the bombing was a new and terrifying experience. First came magnesium flares that made the night seem brighter than day and anybody caught in the open feel naked; then the bombs.

In two runs over Bastogne, German bombers, most of them Junkers 88s, dropped approximately 2 tons of bombs, low in terms of what American bombers usually delivered (seldom less than 20 tons), but enough to do heavy damage to a town the size of Bastogne. […] A town that had hardly been touched earlier in the war at that point “wore that ghastly air of desolation” that had come to so many other places in Europe.

—

My alternate-history 24th was not nearly so uneventful. By daylight, the bulk of the 4th Armored Division’s CCA took Chaumont, though the headquarters elements were delayed on the Arlon highway east of Burnon. I redirected the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion to attack to give CCA’s headquarters a safe route up to Chaumont, where it could direct an attack on Clochimont.

Overnight, I’d had an inkling that some German units had managed to infiltrate through the leakier line to Bastogne’s north and at two under-defended points in the southwest and southeast. Only when daylight came did I realize how bad it was: a company of infantry and an attached mortar platoon had snuck past the lines in the north, and threatened the 321st and 463rd Parachute Artillery Battalions between Luzery and Savy, a mile north of Bastogne. Two assault gun companies were spotted in Bastogne itself, and a third had broken through the lines of the 327th Glider Infantry Regiment’s 1st Battalion, and sat in Iles-les-Prés directing accurate and deadly fire at any tanks that came near.

Fortunately, overnight I’d formed a new task force from reserve elements of Team O’Hara: B Company of the 54th Armored Infantry Battalion, along with the 54th Armored Infantry’s mortar and assault gun platoons. I’d also recalled Team Cherry from its defensive post on the northwest of the perimeter, and pulled D Battery of the 81st Airborne AA Battalion and C Company of the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion off of the northeast perimeter. I held all of those in reserve in or around the town center, so when daylight hit, they were well-placed to start on the process of evicting the Germans inside the perimeter. Task Force B/54 moved to eliminate the infantry and mortar company, while Team Cherry plus a platoon of tank destroyers cleared out an assault gun platoon from Bastogne by afternoon. The other had retreated south, and spent most of the day lobbing fire to the west.

By noon, elements of the 4th Armored’s CCA had reached Clochimont, only three miles from the Bastogne perimeter, along with the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion and the 8th Tank Battalion. Headquarters units of the 4th Armored and of CCA and CCB held Chaumont and Burnon.

Team Pyle’s tank company, which you can see in the screenshot above behind the German assault gun company in the vicinity of Iles-les-Prés, spent most of the day getting hammered by crossfire from the other assault gun company, and was eliminated by nightfall. The German assault gun platoon south of Bastogne proper attempted to retreat toward Remoifosse, but was forced to surrender by engineers there, and Task Force B/54, plus C Company, 705th TD Battalion and A Company, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment had cleared out the German infantry, leaving only the assault gun platoon that had penetrated from Villeroux inside the perimeter. Team Cherry attacked to close that gap. By twilight, the leading elements of the 35th Tank Battalion had reached Assenois, less than a mile from the Bastogne perimeter, and prepared for an attack to the west to relieve the pressure on the 1st Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry Regiment.

I had originally intended the 318th Infantry Regiment to hold critical road junctions to the south to keep supply lines open, but the situation in Bastogne has been sufficiently critical all day that I decided to send the 2nd Battalion along the road into Bastogne from Assenois to reinforce the defense. The 1st Battalion would go on to guard the flank at Clochimont.

As evening settled in over Bastogne, the town had taken heavy attacks through the whole day, from Villeroux, Remoifosse, and Neffe. In an effort to find more reserves to commit against the incursions from Neffe and Villeroux, I bent the line in the north down into a straighter line, which let me pull two companies from the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment.

Midnight arrived with the situation vastly improved. The northwest perimeter featured a large gap between the 1st Battalion, 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 3rd Battalion, 327th Glider Infantry Regiment, but attached to the 3/327 were an armored car company and C Company, 705th TD Battalion, either or both of which I could detach to use as a mobile reserve. Team Cherry had reached the perimeter and was effectively plugging the gap, while CCA’s attack on Villeroux gained the edge of the town. The 51st Armored Infantry Battalion, operating detached, was marching on Sibret but had not yet seen any opposition. Just south of this picture, the 2nd Battalion, 318th Armored Infantry, was on the way from Clochimont to Bastogne via Assenois.

—

In my version of events, the Germans employed a vastly different strategy to the plan they employed in reality. My Bastogne has experienced heavy attacks almost non-stop at three points, and the infiltration overnight forced me to stretch the troops in Bastogne far more than I was comfortable doing so. I reached Bastogne on the night of the 24th rather than the early morning of the 26th, making good on Patton’s ill-advised promise, but the road to Bastogne was practically undefended. Nearly every unit the Germans could spare was attacking Bastogne.

Last night, Matrix released the Command Ops patch, an effort for which I retract most of my earlier steamedness. Unfortunately, I doubt it’s save-game compatible, so I’ll have to finish this with the halting bug.

December 23rd, 1944

The 4th Armored Division continued its charge toward Bastogne on the 23rd. CCA didn’t make it into the fight until late in the evening, and CCB bore the brunt of the fighting that day. They passed through Burnon without meeting the enemy, and only once they reached Chaumont did they encounter a company from the 5th Fallschirmjäger Division. They made their attack in mid-afternoon, but the slopes above the town had turned soft in the sun, and the tanks bogged down. The 10th Armored Infantry Battalion evicted the paratroopers from the town.

Early that morning, important news had come to both the American Ninth Air Force headquarters in Luxembourg City and the headquarters of the 26th Volksgrenadier Division east of Bastogne. To the Germans came a platoon of Ferdinand tank destroyers (Tiger chassis with long-barreled 88mm cannons in fixed turrets), seemingly by accident. The Ferdinands hailed from a battalion recently pulled from Italy; headed for Alsace, five of them had ended up in the Ardennes by accident. (The mental image of a German tanker scratching his head with his hat and saying, “Wir haben 200 Kilometern zu weit gefahren!” makes me chuckle.) Colonel Kokott, in command of the 26th Volksgrenadiers, didn’t really care where they had come from. With their support, paratroopers from the 15th Fallschirmjäger Regiment were able to retake Chaumont.

The news for the Americans was to have a much greater impact: the weather had finally broken. P-47s and P-38s in vast numbers hit the Germans around the Bastogne perimeter, flying about 250 sorties that day. The total number of sorties flown on the 23rd was north of 1,300 when counting bomber missions, escort flights, and supply drops to Bastogne:

wrote:

Shortly before noon came the unmistakable hum of vast numbers of motors, then the big C-47 transport planes lumbered into view, looking for all the world like pregnant geese against the sky, and the hum became a thunder. As the big planes slowly plowed through the air at little more than a thousand feet above the ground, out of their bellies plunged para-packs with parachutes of red, yellow, orange, blue, and white.

Men watched in awe from their foxholes, others from windows and the streets of the town, and crowds of civilians emerged from their catacombs for what seemed to be a miracle, “resupply coming from the sky.”

95% of the supplies had dropped inside the American lines, and General McAuliffe’s G-3, Colonel Kinnard, allowed as to how that was “close enough for government work.” The drop on the 23rd didn’t meet all the defenders’ needs (in particular, ammunition for the 75mm howitzers was still in short supply, and medical supplies were urgently required), but it was a start.

Kokott ordered attacks on Bastogne on the 22nd, hitting the town from the northwest with a fresh regiment of the 26th Volksgrenadiers, and a regiment of Panzergrenadiers attacked from the southeast. Neither attack made significant progress, and Kokott, von Lüttwitz, and von Manteuffel all did not expect to make that sort of progress without major reinforcement. Supplies would continue to be problematic for the defenders of Bastogne, and the 4th Armored Division’s drive remained critical to the survival of the 101st Airborne Division.

—

Alas, I am forced to play without the patch to fix an irritating bug in the Command Ops engine, wherein units are often caught in a loop of halting and reassessing whenever enemy troops are nearby; attacks that should be over relatively quickly can take two or three times as long as they should. Given that one of the major advantages of mechanized troops is alacrity of action, this has the potential to be troublesome.

Oddly, though, it hasn’t actually been that yet. The battle through the 23rd has progressed relatively well. Unlike the real CCB, I ran into moderate-to-heavy opposition in Burnon: first a single company of the 15th Fallschirmjäger Regiment, then reinforced by a good deal of the rest of that regiment. Fortunately, heavy fighting between the Our River and Bastogne had worn the 5th Fallschirmjäger Division down; the units I’ve had to deal with so far are generally at about half strength.

Bastogne was under heavy attack the whole day, in regiment-plus force from Neffe, just easy of the perimeter. Air strikes, bombardment from the defending artillery units, and the stalwart paratroopers prevented the Germans from penetrating the defensive line, although the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment took 20-30% losses. Attacks in the south came from the Villeroux area and Remoifosse; the 1st Battalion of the 506th Parachute Infantry, less a company which helped plug the gap between the 1st and 3rd Battalions of the 501st Parachute Infantry, had been held in reserve, but I committed it to meet those attacks. Team Cherry was committed to the Rouette area in the northwest to meet a light attack there.

CCA trickled in from about 2:00 p.m. to 3:30. The cavalry reconnaissance squadron encountered a company of paratroopers in Warnach. The whole of CCA fell on top of them, driving them off to the east, and the cavalry reconnaissance squadron forced them to surrender in the early evening. My orders to CCA were to move up the highway to the base of the arrow, then to attack toward CCB.

It took them four hours or so to organize . My pathing orders (I asked them to take the quickest path) made them take the highway up all the way to Chaumont, but to my surprise, it turned out alright: CCA encountered only light opposition on the road, and reached Chaumont by midnight. At about 10:00pm, I ordered the 10th Armored Infantry Battalion to attack Chaumont, and with the 10th Armored Infantry in Chaumont and CCA freed to attack to Clochimont, I may end up somewhat ahead of schedule. Tomorrow, two battalions of the 318th Infantry Regiment will arrive, which I can use to shore up the line at Burnon and Chaumont, freeing more of CCA and CCB for clearing a path for CCR.

West of CCB’s headquarters, B Troop of the 25th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron and B Company of the 24th Armored Engineer Battalion are placed to at least warn against attacks from the northwest, which looked possible earlier in the day.

At Bastogne, the defense is stable. The attack from Neffe, which tailed off early in the night, is now back and being pounded by artillery once again. I’m going to swap D/506th PIR with C/501st PIR, and I might try to find two more companies to take the places of A/501st and A/506th, both of which took fairly heavy losses while blocking the Neffe highway.

As the arrow with the giant question mark suggests, I’m worried about that regiment of German infantry off to the west. It’s only opposed by a battalion, and I’m probably going to scavenge a few more troops to shore up that line, possibly a platoon of engineers from Team Cherry, E Battery of the 81st Airborne AA Battalion (it’s a roughly company-sized unit with six Browning .50-caliber machine guns), and the assault gun and mortar platoons from the 54th Armored Infantry Battalion. I may also pull B Company of the 54th Armored Infantry Battalion off of the front line at Rau de Harzy and use it as a reserve along the road from Neffe; the Rau de Harzy region is not well-suited to attacks.