Battle of the Bulge 1 - Malmedy, Stavelot and Trois Ponts

Finished up today in the Ardennes and went through a few towns that had a dramatic few days in December 1944 as the Germans launched a last desperate assault in the West.

Quick precis of the the Battle of the Bulge as it became known.

The Allies had broken out of Normandy in later summer. Paris and Brussels are liberated. The attempt to secure a crossing over the Rhine using airborne troops has been a tragic failure - a 'Bridge Too Far'. It is winter, the allied supply lines are stretched, the feeling is nothing much will happen until the spring.

Then we get the last mad gamble of the increasingly out-to-lunch Adolf Hitler. He plans an attack that will split the British and American forces, drive all the way to the Channel at Antwerp and somehow force the Allies to negotiate armistice terms. At this point it is fairly safe to say he had lost the plot entirely.

Despite this the Germans were able to muster an impressive amount of men and tanks. They lacked fuel. Part of the plan was to 'liberate' fuel from captured American fuel dumps. As I say he had lost it.

The other part of the plan I should mention is that is through some of the worst terrain possible for conducting mechanised warfare. Steep, wooded hillsides. Single track roads. Bridges at key points that can be blown up.

At least they had surprise on their side - as this was truly bonkers no-one was expecting it. Oh yes and it was snowing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge

I will pick up one key story line from the battle - that of Kampfgruppe (battle group) Peiper and it's thwarting by the US engineering corps.

Peiper's battlegroup was a strong one - lots of tanks including really big ones like the Tiger 2. It had lots of specialist support too - engineers, anti-aircraft guns etc. Only problem was they all had to go one behind the other pretty much along the single track roads in the Ardennes. Starting from close to Germany their objective was the Meuse river. It went a bit wrong from the start with huge traffic jams on the roads. In good conditions his 5000 man group would take up 10 miles of road. Eventually they got as far as Bullingen and then rather surprisingly turned southwest to Stavelot. To get there they would have to go through Malmedy. And overlooking Malmedy is the crossroads at Baugenz. Peiper's advance elements surprised a column of American troops. Many were killed in the initial onslaught. Others surrendered. They were later shot. A total of around 80 died - either in the initial fight or in the massacre afterwards.

This is the monument today to the those who lost their lives in this infamous action.

Peiper's battlegroup battled on down and the up the valley through Malmedy and into Stavelot. There were heroics here from small groups of American personnel who delayed the advance against overwhelming odds. It gave the Americans at Trois Ponts just enough time.

The name is for 'three bridges' and without them intact Peiper and his group were going nowhere. There was a desperate action in the village - you enter through a narrow cutting in the railway embankment. One Nazi tank was knocked out here almost blocking the road. Another one forced its way past. Just enough time was bought by this to allow the US engineers to blow one of the bridges. Peiper's group had to try for the other crossings - but suddenly these were blown up too!

He had no option but to retrace his route back to Stavelot and another way to the Muese.

The rebuilt bridge over La Salm at Trois Ponts.

Peipers on going efforts to find bridges to take his tanks were dogged by the US engineers and their just in time efforts to blow them up!

There are more incidents after this one.