Ambush at Poteau : . The amount lost in arms and equipment, of course, was very substantial. The High Command of the Allied forces had planned to resume the offensive by early January 1945, after the wet season rains and severe frosts, but those plans had to be postponed until 29 January 1945 in connection with the unexpected changes in the front. All of the newspaper and radio talk was about the paratroopers. Now clear of any anti-tank fire from within the town or from the fields beside it, the Panthers rolled. Assessing his own situation, he determined that his Kampfgruppe did not have sufficient fuel to cross the bridge west of Stoumont and continue his advance. [citation needed]. The Allies relied too much on Ultra, not human reconnaissance. [136], Montgomery's Chief of Staff, Major-General Francis de Guingand, stated in his post-war account that he had opposed Montgomery's narrow front strategy on political and administrative grounds. At the Arcadia Conference, held in Washington, DC, from December 24, 1941 to January 14, 1942, the Western Allies agreed to a Germany First policy to govern global strategy, but the question where to engage Germany, and when, remained unsettled. Much has been made in the historical record of the capture of the Ludendorff Bridge over the Rhine River at Remagen, Germany in early March of 1945. The fierce defense of Bastogne, in which American paratroopers particularly distinguished themselves, made it impossible for the Germans to take the town with its important road junctions. [139] Consequently, at 10:30a.m. on 20 December, Eisenhower transferred the command of the U.S. First and Ninth Armies temporarily from Bradley to Montgomery. The Germans shot this iconic image near the crossroads between Poteau and Recht, site of Kampfgruppe Hansen's ambush of 14th Cavalry Group early the morning of Dec. 18, 1944. . In the south, Brandenberger's Seventh Army pushed towards Luxembourg in its efforts to secure the flank from Allied attacks. General William H. Simpson, commander of Ninth Army, has received little attention in the historiography of World War II. The 14th Cavalry Regiment is a cavalry regiment of the United States Army. German paratrooperstend to one of Prahm's wounded crewmen as Prahm's Panther burns in the background. Intercepted German communications indicating a substantial German offensive preparation were not acted upon by the Allies. In the center, on Christmas Eve, the 2nd Armored Division attempted to attack and cut off the spearheads of the 2nd Panzer Division at the Meuse, while the units from the 4th Cavalry Group kept the 9th Panzer Division at Marche busy. Further Allied pressure out of Marche finally led the German command to the conclusion that no further offensive action towards the Meuse was possible.[117]. The 90th would later be thrust into the American counter-attack and ended up fighting around Bastogne. Finally it was put into battle with a bang you thus have the picture of British troops fighting on both sides of the Americans who have suffered a hard blow." About fifteen minutes after Peiper's advance guard passed through, the main body under the command of SS-Sturmbannfhrer Werner Ptschke arrived. The General Staff estimated they only had enough fuel to cover one third to one half of the ground to Antwerp in heavy combat conditions. In October, the First Canadian Army fought the Battle of the Scheldt, opening the port of Antwerp to shipping. Best Sellers Rank: #55,171 in Movies & TV ( See Top 100 in Movies & TV) #1,632 in Documentary (Movies & TV) Heavy artillery and small arms fire chased the tank back around the bend in the road as SS Panzergrenadiers streaked into the engagement, only to be driven back by intense small arms fire. [35], Hitler felt that his mobile reserves allowed him to mount one major offensive. On 1 January, in an attempt to keep the offensive going, the Germans launched two new operations. While operations continued in the autumn, notably the Lorraine Campaign, the Battle of Aachen and fighting in the Hrtgen Forest, the strategic situation in the west had changed little. Because the Ardennes was considered a quiet sector, considerations of economy of force led it to be used as a training ground for new units and a rest area for units that had seen hard fighting. Both offered stubborn resistance in the face of superior forces and threw the German schedule off by several days. A Luftwaffe resupply mission went badly when SS-Brigadefhrer Wilhelm Mohnke insisted the grid coordinates supplied by Peiper were wrong, parachuting supplies into American hands in Stoumont. Patton, realizing what Eisenhower implied, responded, "Hell, let's have the guts to let the bastards go all the way to Paris. Although it retained most of its armor, there were not enough infantry units because of the defensive needs in the East. A hastily assembled British blocking force on the east side of the river prevented the German Battlegroup Bhm from approaching the Dinant bridge. There is a popular impression that the chief trouble in the Ardennes is the lack of good roads. There were 96 Allied divisions at or near the front, with an estimated ten more divisions on the way from the United Kingdom. Germans forces at Arnhem are the II S.S. Panzer Korps and Kampfgruppe . Location: Australia. [162], The Battle of the Bulge was the bloodiest battle for U.S. forces during World War II. At Montgomery's orders, St. Vith was evacuated on 21 December; U.S. troops fell back to entrenched positions in the area, presenting an imposing obstacle to a successful German advance. Radio reports from outposts counted 15 German tanks and hundreds of infantrymen forming up on the road outside Stoumont. The Americans shelled Kampfgruppe Peiper on 22 December, and although the Germans had run out of food and had virtually no fuel, they continued to fight. It overlapped with the Alsace Offensive, subsequently the Colmar Pocket, another series of battles launched by the Germans in support of the Ardennes thrust. Men of the 807th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 90th Infantry Division, rain shells down on German positions near St. Barbara, Germany on December 16, 1944. Peiper's forces were already behind his timetable because of the stiff American resistance and because when the Americans fell back, their engineers blew up bridges and emptied fuel dumps. Peiper and Knittel both faced the prospect of being cut off. release date is 2nd quarter 2022. facepool 1/6 scale wwii german mg42 gunner boxed action figure 1st ss panzer division (lssah), kampfgruppe hansen, ardennes 1944 product number fp007a (standard version) complete figure boxed/unopened box is in excellent condition notes: no notes. Liddell Hart and the Weight of History; by John Mearsheimer; pages 8-9, 203-204; Cornell University Press; 2010; A Very Special Relationship: Basil Liddell Hart, Wehrmacht Generals and the Debate on West German Rearmament, 1945-1953, by Alaric Searle; War In History 1998 5: 327; published by SAGE for the University of Salford, Manchester; "Liddell Hart and the Mearsheimer Critique: A 'Pupil's' Retrospective" (PDF); Strategic Studies Institute. The battle severely depleted Germany's armored forces, which remained largely unreplaced throughout the remainder of the war. 1/6 "Ernst Kalt and Berthold Nasse" LAH Panzergrenadiers, Kampfgruppe Hansen, Poteau December 1944 Poteau is a small village in the Belgian Ardennes. The cream of what was left of Hitler's armies and whoever else could be conscripted attacked through a narrow corridor in the forests of Belgium trying to strike out and capture the . I had nothing to do with it. A paltry German artillery barrage announced the beginning of the assault, and within minutes the first German infantry attacked the roadblock at the entrance of Stoumont village. by Tolga Alkan 22 Aug 2004, 15:55, Post The Leibstandarte was in the vanguard of the march into Austria as part of the Anschluss, and in 1938 the unit took part in the occupation of the Sudetenland. (London: Francass, 1997). NEERPELT Bridgehead. Armee was formed 5 October 1940 as Kommandostab Leipzig; from 23 April 1941 it was designated Kommandostab Mnchen. [119] Total casualties included at least 9,000 wounded. [103], For Operation Greif ("Griffin"), Otto Skorzeny successfully infiltrated a small part of his battalion of English-speaking Germans disguised in American uniforms behind the Allied lines. Their intention was to control the twin villages of Rocherath-Krinkelt which would clear a path to the high ground of Elsenborn Ridge. by Timo 22 Aug 2004, 13:15, Post [citation needed]. Instead, he was provided with a Kampfgruppe of 800 men. More importantly, they had also recaptured the roads leading in and out of it, cutting Peiper off from the rest of the 1st SS Panzer Division. Nevertheless, some 4050 messages per day were decrypted by Ultra. The offensive went forward regardless. To Peiper's south, the advance of Kampfgruppe Hansen had stalled. Neither Army Commander had seen Bradley or any senior member of his staff since the battle began, and they had no directive on which to work. Around 0730 hours the lead Panthers throttled forward and attempted to force the issue. The infantrymen of the 119th Infantry Regiment poured fire into the Germans as they advanced through the town, yet it seemingly did little to stop the flood. SS-Sturmbannfhrer Knittel crossed the bridge at Stavelot around 19:00 against American forces trying to retake the town. Montgomery's contribution to restoring the situation was that he turned a series of isolated actions into a coherent battle fought according to a clear and definite plan. The main forces were to advance westward to the Meuse River, then turn northwest for Antwerp and Brussels. By early October, the Allies had suspended major offensives to improve their supply lines and supply availability at the front. Indeed Peiper got closest to the Meuse but got encircled in La Gleize. Eight of Peipers Panthers entered a field to the east of Stoumont and approached the town from its flanks. During the Battle of the Bulge, numerous photos were taken at this location. What remained of the two companies began to pull back towards the edge of town, as the advancing German tanks fired directly into the houses and buildings along the road to clear out any defenses. [169] Of the German write-offs, 1620 were Tigers, 191194 Panthers, 141158 Panzer IVs, and 179182 were tank destroyers and assault guns. Model, commander of German Army Group B (Heeresgruppe B), and von Rundstedt, overall commander of the German Army Command in the West (OB West), were put in charge of carrying out the operation. Ellis and Warhurst cite 200 killed, 969 wounded, and 239 missing; Dupuy, Bongard, and Anderson provide higher figures of 222 killed, 977 wounded, and 263 missing among line combat units from 16 December 1944 to 16 January 1945, inclusive. Major-General Freddie de Guingand, Chief of Staff of Montgomery's 21st Army Group, rose to the occasion, and personally smoothed over the disagreements on 30 December.[138]. On the evening of 24 December, General Hasso von Manteuffel recommended to Hitler's Military Adjutant a halt to all offensive operations and a withdrawal back to the Westwall (literally 'Western Rampart'). The Fifth Panzer Army under General Hasso von Manteuffel was assigned to the middle sector with the objective of capturing Brussels. With the castle acting as overflow accommodation, the main party was settled into the Adlerhorst's Haus 2 command bunker, including Gen. Alfred Jodl, Gen. Wilhelm Keitel, Gen. Blumentritt, von Manteuffel and Dietrich. SS). These predictions were largely dismissed by the U.S. 12th Army Group. ^ r m ji 4 JI \0 4 - \ fr. After his tanks had been beaten back at the station, he received word that his rear-guard units had failed to finish the job in Stavelot. They launched devastating bombing raids on the German supply points in their rear, and P-47 Thunderbolts started attacking the German troops on the roads. Poor traffic control led to massive traffic jams and fuel shortages in forward units. It was made up of Kampfgruppe Hansen, Kampfgruppe Knittel with possibly elements of Kampfgruppe . German historian Hermann Jung lists 67,675 casualties from 16 December 1944 to late January 1945 for the three German armies that participated in the offensive. [101], To protect the river crossings on the Meuse at Givet, Dinant and Namur, Montgomery ordered those few units available to hold the bridges on 19 December. Delayed by roads not suitable for tanks and the stout defense of locations such as Lanzerath, Ligneuville, and Stavelot, Peiper and his Kampfgruppe nevertheless achieved many of their objectives by December 18, 1944. Bedell Smith sent Strong to warn Lieutenant General Omar Bradley, the commander of the 12th Army Group, of the danger. Pressed for time, Peiper ordered his rear-guard units to eliminate the Americans in Stavelot and follow his advance, an order that would eventually seal his fate. German troops in combat near Arnhem. It was his refusal to engage in premature and piecemeal counter-attacks which enabled the Americans to gather their reserves and frustrate the German attempts to extend their breakthrough. [39] The plan banked on unfavorable weather, including heavy fog and low-lying clouds, which would minimize the Allied air advantage. Two separate westbound German columns that were to have bypassed the town to the south and north, the 2nd Panzer Division and Panzer-Lehr-Division of XLVII Panzer Corps, as well as the Corps' infantry (26th Volksgrenadier Division), coming due west had been engaged and much slowed and frustrated in outlying battles at defensive positions up to 16 kilometers (10mi) from the town proper, but these defensive positions were gradually being forced back onto and into the hasty defenses built within the municipality. Sixth Panzer Army left the Ardennes and ceded its sector to the Fifth Panzer Army on 22 January, while St. Vith was recaptured by the Americans on 23 January, and the last German units participating in the offensive did not return to their start line until February. During this period he was interviewed by B. H. Liddell Hart, a British author who has since been accused of putting words in the mouths of German generals, and attempting to "rewrite the historical record". In the context of Patton's and Montgomery's well-known antipathy, Montgomery's failure to mention the contribution of any American general besides Eisenhower was seen as insulting. The pressure on the defenders reached its high-water mark when German halftracks rattled into town and disgorged their cargo, that cargo being fresh Panzergrenadiers who went house to house and mopped up what was left of the American defenders in Stoumont. It also contained the 12th SS Panzer Division Hitlerjugend. [149], Focusing exclusively on his own generalship, Montgomery continued to say he thought the counteroffensive had gone very well but did not explain the reason for his delayed attack on 3 January. by Timo 22 Aug 2004, 13:33, Post The Panzer Lehr Division took the town of Celles, while a bit farther north, parts of 2nd Panzer Division were in sight of the Meuse near Dinant at Foy-Ntre-Dame. On the same day as Hitler's withdrawal order of 7 January, Montgomery held his press conference at Zonhoven. Many thanks to my friend James for getting it. Named after its commanding officer, Jochen Peiper, Kampfgruppe Peiper was the most powerful force in the entire German offensive in the north. While the German offensive toward the Meuse had ground to a halt by the end of December, they still controlled a dangerous salient in the Allied line. US POWs from Stoumont march past a Panther from Peipers column. An American tank battalion arrived but, after a two-hour tank battle, Peiper finally captured Stoumont at 10:30. In the wake of the defeat, many experienced German units were out of men and equipment, and the survivors retreated to the Siegfried Line. Eisenhower, after saying he was not that optimistic, asked Patton how long it would take to turn his Third Army, located in northeastern France, north to counterattack. Order of Battle for the Kampfgruppe Hansen in December 1944. "[54] Historian Patrick K. O'Donnell writes that on 8 December 1944 U.S. Rangers at great cost took Hill 400 during the Battle of the Hrtgen Forest. 1)) was an SS formation of Nazi Germany during World War II.It was originally created in the puppet Italian Social Republic in 1943 as the Italian Legion, later renamed to a brigade. Opening the port of Antwerp to shipping as Hitler 's withdrawal order of for! 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