A World at Arms (148 page)

There has been extensive discussion in the post-war literature about the delay in production and first introduction of jets by the Germans as a result of Hitler’s decision of May 23, 1944, that the only type of plane
actually about ready for production, the ME-262, also be equipped to drop bombs. This literature ignores not only the overwhelming numbers of Allied planes after the defeat of German fighter defenses in February–March 1944, but also Allied knowledge of German aircraft innovations–in part as a result of intercepting Japanese reports on them–and as a result the possibility of the Allies pulling forward their own employment of jet aircraft.
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If the new jet airplanes were in fact unlikely to produce the results expected of them, the new submarines still remained potentially a major menace to the Allies because there was no way for the convoys to outrun their greater speed or for defending planes and warships to spot them on the surface as they simply remained under water. Even the intermediate step between the old German submarines and the new, the snorkelequipped older models, caused the Allies substantial losses and great difficulties because it enabled the Germans to return to the waters close to the English coast. The totally new submarines did constitute a realistic German hope, but one that was not realized, primarily because, as discussed later in this chapter, the Allied air offensive so disrupted the German naval construction program that none could be made ready in time. Unlike the factories for jet planes, the facilities where portions of the new submarines were built and assembled could not be placed underground and therefore remained vulnerable to air attacks. But, as explained in
Chapter 12
, German strategy on the Eastern Front was in the meantime very much influenced by the need to retain control of portions of the Baltic Sea as a trial and training area for the new submarines. The German soldiers in Courland were ordered to hold out until May of 1945 to enable crews to practice on the submarines, which never saw service in the war.

If neither new planes nor new submarines came to play in reality the role prescribed for them in German plans, that left the army, though it should be noted that careful consideration was given in the planning for a new German offensive to the impact of weather on the role of air power. When anticipating the launching of the great offensive in the West which Germany started after numerous postponements on May 10, 1940, one major factor in determining the timing of the attack had been the assurance of several days of
good
weather so that the German air force could use its great strength to support the offensive and hinder all Allied counter blows. Now it was the other way around. All too aware of the enormous superiority of the Allies in the air, the Germans this time planned to attack when they could hope to have several days of
bad
weather, in order to be secure from interference by Allied planes. But
the main responsibility for the attack itself was to be carried by the German army and the armed formations of the SS.
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The general concept of the German offensive was first to halt the Allies at the old German border with its pre-war fortifications, now quickly being put back into usable form and provided with men and weapons.
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The fighting of October, November, and early December forced the Germans to retreat to the Westwall, with the exception of the American push through it to seize Aachen in the north on the one hand and the Germans holding on to the Colmar area on the left bank of the Rhine in the south; otherwise the old fortifications essentially defined the front in early December and provided the basis for a German offensive. The American offensive around Aachen had however drawn into costly battle a number of the German divisions which were supposed to be used in the great attack, and thereby contributed to a postponement in the intended launching from the last days of November to the middle of December.

The plan for a counter-offensive had originated at the end of July, just as the American break–out from Normandy was developing; had been tentatively scheduled by August 19 for November–when the Allied air forces would be hampered by weather; and had been set for the Ardennes area by September 16.
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Here the Allied front would be split open by a hard and quick blow at the Americans by thirty new and rebuilt German divisions which, in Hitler’s view, could make only a minor difference on the Eastern Front. Crossing the river Meuse quickly-Hitler hoped for the second day–and striking for Antwerp, the Germans could cut off and destroy the 1st Canadian, 2nd British, and 9th and 1st American armies; such a blow would change the whole situation in the war. Either the enemy coalition would break or, at the very least, the victory in the West would make possible a massive shift of troops to the East. This latter was not merely a nominal reassurance for General Guderian, the Chief of the General Staff of the army, who objected to the whole idea of employing Germany’s last reserves in the West, but Hitler’s real intention. He hoped to be done in the West
before
the anticipated Soviet winter offensive could start.

Hitler’s view of the Americans as incapable of fighting effectively and of the American home front as likely to crack under a heavy blow at the front reflected his long-held perception of the United States.
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There is no evidence that Hitler realized or that a single one of his military advisors pointed out to him that, of all the major belligerents, the United
States was the one which up to this point had been
least
damaged by the war and had by far the greatest recuperative powers, so that even a really major defeat was less likely to have a serious impact on its war effort. That what Hitler referred to as a “second Dunkirk” inflicted on the British would, even if accomplished, hardly relieve Germany of major pressure in the West did not occur to any of them either. All debate in the ensuing weeks focused on the details, not the wisdom, of the planned operation.
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The commanders in the West, Field Marshals Rundstedt and Model, preferred an offensive with more limited objectives but could never explain why Germany’s last reserves should be expended on such an operation. They and their subordinates in great secrecy prepared the detailed plans for the operation outlined by Hitler and Jodl. In the meantime, the divisions for the attack were being rebuilt or organized, moved to the front with careful attention to concealment, the commanders to the division level harangued by Hitler, and the last preparations made.
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The main thrust was to be made by the 6th SS Panzer Army on the north and 5th Panzer Army on the south with 15th Army providing flank support on the right and 7th Army on the left. When the degree of completion of the preparations and bad weather coincided in mid-December, some 200,000 German soldiers and six hundred tanks supported by about nineteen hundred guns attacked a front held by approximately 80,000 American soldiers, four hundred tanks, and four hundred guns.

The offensive blow of December 16 struck the American front largely by surprise. Overconfidence combined with an absence of clear intelligence signs, though many had indeed expected at least a spoiling attack. When the Germans struck, the American lines held in the north but buckled in the south. The 6th SS Panzer Army ran into solid American defenses on the Elsenborn ridge and at St. Vith, the latter quickly reinforced at Eisenhower’s orders by the 7th Armored and 82nd Airborne Divisions. In the following days, repeated thrusts by the Germans, with SS armored divisions leading the way, failed to crack the Elsenborn ridge but did succeed in pushing forward some distance and eventually taking St. Vith. This, however, was less than half way to the Meuse river–to say nothing of Antwerp a hundred miles further off–and meant that the intended main thrust of the German offensive had been halted.

Perhaps to make up for their failure to make more than minimal gains, at least one of the SS units, 1st Panzer Division, engaged in an all too frequent SS activity. In what came to be known as the Malmédy Massacre a large number of American prisoners was murdered on December 17; both before and after that date other prisoners and civilians also fell
victim to the SS preference for killing the unarmed.
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News of these atrocities quickly spread among American soldiers, as did stories about a unit of Germans in American uniforms. This formation actually existed, but it was small and proved to be ineffective. It probably caused more confusion by its existence and the resulting suspicion than by its actions; those of its members captured in American uniforms were shot in accordance with standard practice in all armies.
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In the southern portion of the offensive front, 5th German Panzer Army broke through relatively quickly, effectively destroying the two American divisions (106th and 28th) in its path. Driving forward rapidly in bad weather, which kept Allied planes out of the air, the Germans headed for Houffalize and Bastogne. They pushed westwards between the towns, took the former but failed to seize the latter as American troops fell back on this key road junction, which was reinforced at the critical moment by the American 101st Airborne Division.

Although the Germans, seeing the failure in the north and some success in the south, put more resources into the southern push, it too began to slow down. They were experiencing shortages of gasoline, not off-set as much as they had counted on by the capture of Allied stocks, increasing American resistance, especially at Bastogne, and counter-attacks against the weak German 7th Army on the southern flank of the bulge driven into the Allied lines. In bitter fighting, the Germans now tried simultaneously to push forward to and perhaps across the Meuse and also to clear the road junction of Bastogne so that they could nourish their own front and their further attack westwards.

Both German efforts failed. The spearheads of 5th Panzer Army reaching for the Meuse were stopped by American armor east of the river, while Bastogne held out, even when surrounded by German forces. These defensive victories were primarily due to the recovery of American forces on the ground, and soon after greatly assisted by clearing weather which enabled the Allied air forces to intervene in the struggle by attacks on German columns, supply routes, and the transportation system in the rear areas. German units in the bulge found themselves exhausting their strength in numbers, equipment, and supplies as routes were choked behind them. The turn of emphasis from a rapid advance to a siege of Bastogne could only favor the Americans. And the siege was soon broken by an American counter-offensive from the south.

In spite of skepticism by some, General Patton quickly broke off the offensive his 3rd Army was developing south of the bulge, swung forces into a new direction, and struck northward toward Bastogne instead of eastward into the Saar area in the forty–eight hours he had promised at a conference at Verdun on December 19. In a few days, his armored
units broke through the southern portion of the ring around Bastogne and held against a series of furious German counter-attacks. The hope of utilizing what was now an American salient into the bulge from the south for cutting off the whole German spearhead in the western portion of the bulge was, however, thwarted by skillful German fighting and the developments on the northern flank of the bulge.
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There a new command arrangement had been worked out. With Bradley on the southern side of the bulge and often out of touch with 1st and 9th Armies on the northern side, Eisenhower temporarily placed Montgomery in charge of all forces north of the German spearheads.
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This had the advantage of providing a more coherent command structure on the north flank of the bulge and making British divisions available as a reserve behind the American 1st Army front. It had, however, one short–term and one long-term disadvantage. The short–term problem was that Montgomery applied his slow methodical approach to a counter–stroke which came far too late to prevent the Germans from withdrawing the bulk of their forces. As he explained to Brooke on December 22, he had no confidence in the American 3rd Army attack and expected to “have to deal unaided with both 5th and 6th Panzer Armies.”
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Three days later Montgomery was in a complete panic and called for vast withdrawals in the south, including the evacuation of all of Alsace and Lorraine, as otherwise there could be no offensive in the north in the spring or summer of 1945.
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These predictions, which were completely erroneous in regard to the Americans, the 3rd Army attack, and the whole course of the fighting, explain his caution when a very different approach might well have been appropriate.
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The long-term problem was that, as soon as the situation improved and thus confounded every one of his predictions, Montgomery called a press conference on January 7 in which he made a fool of himself by making it appear as if he had personally retrieved with British forces of which practically none were engaged–a disaster created by the Americans.
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By this extraordinarily unwise gesture he ended all hopes he and Brooke still held of permanently attaching substantial American forces to his command. The opportunity provided by the German offensive of pinching off a major assault force as well as of recreating any Allied ground command under Eisenhower had evaporated. The German bulge was squeezed out.

In the last days of 1944, the Germans staged a subsidiary offensive in Alsace, designed to keep the initiative and to take advantage of Allied transfers to meet the offensive further north; but beyond minimal gains and an angry quarrel between Eisenhower and de Gaulle about a possible evacuation of Strasbourg,
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this operation had no substantial effect.
More important in its implications was a massive German air operation on January 1, 1945. Coordinated mass attacks on Allied airfields were designed to strike a major blow at the Allied air forces but had the opposite effect. Although the thousand German planes involved destroyed about 180 and damaged close to 100 planes, they themselves lost 277 planes; the operation left the German air force weaker than ever and incapable of again mounting any major attack.
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