Tag: Battle of the Bulge

Christmas Eve, 1944

Guest Post by Techno Fog

December 16 – Battle of the Bulge - Museum of The American G.I.

The Ardennes Forest is located in Belgium and Luxembourg and extends into France and Germany. It’s a sparsely populated region of rolling hills and thickly wooded forests, known for picturesque valleys and charming cities, whose shops and cafes and bike paths have slowly grown around ancient citadels and castles and 13th century churches.

In December of 1944, it was an area of intense fighting, as the Allies fought back against a German offensive – the Ardennes Offensive – that would come to be known as the Battle of the Bulge. The German plan of desperation in the face of Western advances was to split the Allies where they were purportedly weak. As said by Adolf Hitler himself: “A blow here [at the Ardennes] would strike the seam between the British and Americans and lead to political as well as military disharmony between the Allies.”

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Battle of the Bulge: The Epic WW2 Battle That Cemented American Confidence

When we think about American GIs in the European theater of World War II, much of our image comes from the Battle of the Bulge. Named so because of the distinctive “bulge” shape of the front lines, this is where so many American men laid down their lives on fields of frozen mud in France.

What Was the Battle of the Bulge?

The Battle of the Bulge was the result of Hitler’s last dying gasp lashing out against the increasing pressure of the Allied forces in France. Hitler’s goal was to drive a literal and metaphorical wedge between the United States and the United Kingdom.

All told, the battle was six weeks of fierce winter fighting in the forests of the Ardennes region of France. The nearly ceaseless combat took place between December 16, 1944, to January 25, 1945, in the bitter, freezing cold. Old Man Winter took 15,000 with trench foot, pneumonia, and frostbite.

Winston Churchill called it the most important American battle of the war. It was certainly the costliest – when all was said and done, over 100,000 American souls were left in the ground in France.

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THIS DAY IN HISTORY – Battle of the Bulge begins – 1944

Via History.com

On December 16, 1944, the Germans launch the last major offensive of the war, Operation Autumn Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a “bulge” around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.

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