Groovy, looking forward to it. 

Part Three
Wolfschanze (Wolf’s Lair), Field Headquarters
East Prussia
September 1944

A massive, drab concrete Bunker sat, concealed in a swampy pine forest. Surrounding the bunker was an entire regiment of Waffen SS troops. Inside Adolf Hitler stared at the huge map of Europe mounted on the wall of his bunker headquarters.  The 8 by 12 foot wall map showed a Third Reich in decline. The Russians were relentlessly pressing in from the East. The Anglo-American armies were approaching from the west. His generals, increasingly pessimistic, were suggesting peace talks. Some in the army had even entered into a plot to assassinate Der Fuhrer in July.

Yet Adolf Hitler still saw hope. Or professed that he did. Despite the terrible losses in battle, Germany still had nearly ten million men in uniform.  And there were still others who could be pressed into the fight, deferred students, non-essential government workers, older and younger men. There was no threat from internal dissent. The air raids and demand for unconditional surrender had cemented the will of the German people. The secret police eliminated any troublemakers.
However damaging the Americans believed that their B17 raids were, they failed to prevent German industry from maintaining a remarkably high rate of production. Industries were decentralized, or simply moved to the vast territories in the East, safely out of the range of American bombers.  Using those methods the Germans achieved wartime production highs in ammunition, artillery pieces, rifles, etc. Only in tanks was production in decline.

Despite losses in the East, the Russians were still hundreds of miles from any objective vital to German Survival. In the West, while the enemy was much closer, terrain, and fortifications favored the defender.

Still, German industry was no match for the Americans in the long run. The Nazis could not win a war of attrition. Space in the East, and difficult terrain in the West thus spelled time, but in the final accounting, time alone was not enough. To stand on the defensive while his enemies gradually strangled Germany was no solution. Hitler needed to go on the offensive. He needed to strike a blow that would change the dynamic of the war.

Hitler felt that he needed time. Hitler put great stock in new weapons such as the V2 rocket. He also saw the jet fighter as a game changing innovation. Jet propelled fighters three times faster than anything the allies flew were already coming into production. Once the new jets arrived in large numbers, they would sweep allied planes from the skies.

During the difficult summer of 1944, Hitler discreetly withdrew many of his best troops from the agony of combat. Four SS Panzer divisions were pulled from the line, without telling even his generals the reason, and refitted and trained in Germany. Despite pleas for reinforcements throughout the summer, Hitler continued to add troops and equipment to his offensive force.

But, the question of where to strike remained. Hitler studied the map and frowned. The East did not look promising. There was no hope of launching a decisive blow there. A few extra divisions would just get swallowed up in the vast expanses of Russia. So, he turned his attention to the West. There he noticed that the Americans were in a strong position in the south. The British and Canadians in the north.

Then Hitler had an idea. If he could drive a wedge between the allied armies, the Germans could isolate and destroy the British and Canadian Armies. The British, an empire in decline, would not be able to replace their losses. They would be reduced to defending their island nation. Would the Americans fight on alone? Hitler thought not. The Americans, after all were nearly single-handedly fighting the Japanese in the Pacific. If he could just deliver this blow, Hitler could conclude a peace in the West. Then, released from the demands of a two front war, he would be free to turn all of his strength on the Russians.

In order to destroy the British, Hitler knew that he must cut them off from the Americans.  And he also needed to cut them off from the sea, and their lifeline to Britain. So, Hitler decided that the port city of Antwerp was the strategic objective of this battle. But, where to start this offensive? Hitler’s eye fell upon the quiet region called the Ardennes. From the Ardennes to the strategic objective of Antwerp was a little over 100 miles as the crow flies. It was an alluring possibility. Of course, the Ardennes were impossible. They were heavily forested, and mountainous. The roads were few and narrow. In the villages narrower still.  Moreover, the winter weather in the Ardennes was some of the worst in Western Europe. Rains, mists, even heavy wet snow was common. It was totally impractical for offensive operations.

Hitler paused at the map. The Ardennes were,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, perfect,
He concluded.

Although Hitler was aware that he could muster no such power as he had in 1940, particularly in the air, he saw means of overcoming that. By waiting until winter Hitler could count on a period of prolonged bad weather.  He could assemble his forces hidden from allied planes in the dense forests. This would allow his vaunted Panzer armies to be well on their way to Antwerp before allied planes could interfere.

So, each of the negatives was actually an advantage for the Fuhrer’s plan. The Eastern part of the Ardennes was in German hands. There they could assemble their army under cover and invisible to the eyes of allied planes. By the time the offensive started, the bad weather would likely ground the allied air forces altogether. The  heavy fog, rain, and perhaps snow would negate the allied advantage in airpower. True, the limited road network could slow offensive operations. But it would likewise make it difficult for the allies to bring up reinforcements. And if the Germans could capture some key crossroads like,,,,,,, the little town of Bastogne, the Nazis could  break into open country, and move with ease.

Finally, the area would be lightly defended. Yes, it was to be the Ardennes.

Hitler assembled his generals.
 “I have made a momentous decision”, he announced to the group. The die was cast.

And so, the Nazis readied their desperate offensive, and set in motion a battle that was to achieve epic proportions. The battle was destined to involve over a million men and to precipitate the greatest crisis the American army faced since Lee invaded Pennsylvania. It involved the most egregious failure in the history of American battlefield intelligence, and would become the greatest battle ever fought by the United States Army. It was not to be a battle of well-planned maneuver, or grand strategy. No, it would be a battle of improvisation, desperate effort, and undaunted courage under the worst possible conditions. 

In short, the Ardennes was about to become the most dangerous place on earth.

 And Smitty was standing right in the middle of it.

Part Five
Hell comes for breakfast.
Honsfeld, Belgium
December 16, 1944

Well to the south of Skyline Drive Joachim Peiper stood in the turret of his Panzer tank contemplating his fortunes.  Handsome, well-connected, and resourceful, Joachim Peiper at the age of 29 brought to the Ardennes long months of combat experience in Russia where he managed to advance to command of the 1st SS Panzer army’s leading regiment. He had earned his nation’s highest honor, the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross, and had earned the admiration of his troops for both bravery and ruthlessness. Peiper personally led a night attack on the village of Pekartschina and burned it to the ground. Peiper’s command claimed over 2,500 Russians killed and only 3 captured, which was testimony to the brutality and fanaticism of war as Peiper practiced it. 

Peiper received orders for what his superiors called the “decisive role of the offensive”.  The orders were simple. Peiper was to use his Tank force of about 6,000 men and break through the American lines, get through this damned forest, and to break out into the open country beyond. The rest of the 1st SS Panzers would follow behind and exploit the breakout.  For this he assembled a special force, Kampfgruppe Peiper, that included three types of heavy tanks, Panzer Grenadiers riding in armored half-tracks, and ground forces. Hand-picked for both skill and brutality these fanatical SS troopers represented the best of the best. Or, rather, the worst of the worst.

Speed and brutality were to be the two keys. Hitler himself said that the offensive represented “the decisive hour of the German people”, and was thus to be conducted with a wave of terror and fright, and without “humane inhibitions”. That order was to have the most tragic consequences for hundreds of American soldiers and Belgian civilians. A private recalled later that not only were they instructed to take no prisoners, but “civilians who show themselves will be shot without mercy”.

Peiper’s  force was incredibly powerful. The major German advantage in the battle was in the quality of German tanks vis a vis those of the Americans. The standard American tank was the 33 ton Sherman, most equipped with a short barrel 75mm gun. It’s low velocity shell often simply bounced off german armor unless hit at close range and from behind. By 1944 the Sherman would have to be considered nearly obsolete. It’s only advantages to the German tanks being greater mobility as compared to the lumbering German monsters (American tankers said that at least the Sherman could get out of trouble nearly as quickly as they got into it) and the fact that American industry was turning out so many of them. German industry could simply not keep up.

The German workhorses for their vaunted Panzer divisions were the Mark IV which mounted a long barrel 75mm gun, and the 47 ton Mark V. The Germans also had behemoths, namely the 68 ton King Tiger tank, heavily armed and carrying a lethal 88 mm gun. A tiger advancing with machine guns blazing or 88 blasting was a near paralyzing sight. The Americans were about to be subjected to a terrible onslaught.

Peiper rejected the idea of an artillery bombardment in his sector prior to the attack. He wanted to achieve complete surprise in the dawn fog. And surprise he achieved.

An America Lieutenant was dozing in a chair in a house in a small village. At the sound of tanks he snapped awake. “Those don’t sound like ours”. Just then machine gun fire erupted all around him. German tanks and half tracks were upon the Americans as they were lined up for chow, or were curled up under blankets. Some returned fire, some managed to flee on jeeps or other vehicles. But others, caught completely off guard had no choice but to surrender. Peiper’s tanks rolled on, leaving troopers to round up the prisoners. 

Peiper kept moving quickly to the West. Speed was everything. Speed to exploit the breakout. Speed to gain the open country. Speed to change the course of the war. Putting everything into that effort, Peiper cared little about what was happening behind him.

It was just behind these tanks that the murder started. From one house in Bullingen an SS officer prodded eight sleepy Americans, some barefoot, into the street, lined them up and then mowed them down with a machine gun. From another house five Americans emerged under a white flag. A group of German soldiers opened up with their rifles killing four. The fifth soldier, wounded lay in the street until a German truck ran him over. The murderous scenes were repeated all along the advance of the 1 SS Panzers.

Men who escaped to the  woods reached American units and told their story.  The captain of an antitank company came upon two wounded men. They told him that they had been captured by the SS, lined up against a wall, shot and left for dead. There were reports from a squad of the 23rd Infantry that men had been summarily executed, and of SS troops bayoneting wounded Americans in an aid station.

It was near the village of Malmedy that the largest atrocity took place. The Germans stumbled upon an American convoy of trucks of Battery B, of the 285th Field Artilley Battalon in a jam of traffic. They raked the column with machine gun fire, and captured the column easily after a brief fight. The Germans assembled their prisoners in tight rows. There they stripped the Americans of personal items, rings, cigarettes, and gloves – the Germans were very interested in gloves. An officer gave the order, “Machen alle Kaputt”,
And the Germans opened fire. The firing seemed to go on for an eternity. After these Germans moved on, for hours afterward men on passing vehicles amused themselves by firing at the bodies.

Almost miraculously, a few men survived by playing dead to tell the tale. A few nights after what came to be known as the Malmedy massacre a heavy snow fell, offering the men a sort of burial. Eighty-six Americans were murdered in this single incident, the most heinous crime inflicted on American troops in Europe. Forty three men somehow survived. The massacre would be addressed in war crime trials after the war. But, there were more immediate consequences.


Word of these incidents spread as only word can spread among men fighting for their lives. But it did not have the effect that the Germans might have hoped for. Americans did not panic and flee. Anger was incited rather than terror. The Americans dug in, and they gave no quarter. As a matter of fact, from this point until the end of the war, any German trying to surrender while wearing an SS uniform was taking an enormous risk. 

Last edited by Goose (7/17/2016 9:34 am)

Part Seven
Those Damned Engineers

Joachim Peiper looked at the swollen river before him and swore under his breath. His panzers might be the kings of the battlefield, but  there was one thing that a  German tank could not do: swim.

The Ardennes were dominated by mountains, and thick fir forests. They were also criss-crossed with multiple winding rivers. While one would not consider them to be great waters, the rivers featured steeply cut banks, and beds of bottomless mud that prevented a tank from fording even the smaller bodies. Peiper needed bridges for his tanks . The Germans brought bridge building teams with them. But building a bridge to accommodate a 50 ton tank was a time consuming project. And time was the one thing that Peiper did not have. 

To keep his juggernaut going, Peiper needed to capture standing bridges before the Americans could blow them up. He needed to secure those bridges, and break out of the Ardennes.  For the tank is an open country weapon. Plains and rolling hills were an environment in which the tank’s speed and firepower could overpower an opponent. The Ardennes was not open country. It’s forests, steep ridges, narrow roads with hairpin turns, and stone villages with numerous alleyways were great terrain for ambush.  A Sherman tank could be hidden in an alleyway. A three man bazooka team would fire from a bedroom window to pick off a tank and then disappear, only to fire again from another hiding spot. The hunter could become the hunted. And that was exactly what was happening to Peiper’s force in the Ardennes.  Peiper shook his head in amazement at the thought of small teams of men, with no more armor than a helmet, hunting his tanks. The Americans were not running away.  And they sure as hell weren’t surrendering.  The Americans were filled with a terrible resolve. The word started spreading. We fight and die here.

So, every crossroads was defended. Every village was a citadel, every copse of trees a possible ambush.

They were retreating in good order, and gradually bleeding Peiper’s force in the process. He needed to keep up his momentum. He needed to stop wasting valuable time and gasoline looking for crossings. He needed bridges.

The job of destroying those bridges fell to American engineer battalions.. American engineer battalions, trained to fight as infantry as well as their engineering duties were to prove a hidden reserve, and the undoing of Peiper’s force.

It was impossible to blow up every bridge in the Ardennes. And, even if it were possible, it would put the Americans at every bit as much of a disadvantage as the Germans. German intentions were unclear to the Americans. And units that could hold needed those same bridges to bring up ammunition and fresh units. Units retreating needed the bridges to evacuate men and equipment.  So, the engineers played a deadly game of holding a bridge until the situation was hopeless, waiting for the Americans to get across and blowing the bridge in the face of the advancing enemy. It took guts.

For example, at Stavelot the engineers prepared two bridges for demolition, and then defended the bridges so that American troops could retreat over them. A four man crew manned a 57 mm antitank gun. When the first German tank appeared at the corner, the crew was to fire, thereby providing the engineers time to clear and then blow the two bridges. It was a suicide mission, and the men involved had to know it. Just after 11AM on the 18th the first of Peiper’s tanks appeared. The crew of the antitank gun fired. The range was so close that they could hardly miss. But so puny was the weapon that there was little likelihood of knocking out the Panther. 
Miraculously the first shot damaged a track on the tank, but not its gun. With one round the German tanked killed the four man gun crew. But, by the time the Germans could manuever around the disabled tank, the last of the American defenders amnaged to scurry across the bridges to safety.  Behind those men the two bridges went up in a great blast. The Germans would not cross here.

These small battles were repeated time and time again, forcing Peiper to waste both time and gasoline looking for crossings, or waiting for his own bridge building teams to do their work. And that time was put to good use. American leadership was finally appreciating the danger posed by Peiper’s deep thrust of the 1st SS panzers. American tanks, and soldiers were on the way.

Peiper himself was at the head of a column as it approached the bridge at Habiemont.  At the end of a very difficult day, Not two hundred yards away he could  see Americans near the bridge and ordered his tanks to open fire. The men scurried to the far end of the bridge, and a young lieutenant turned the key on a detonator. A streak of blue light was followed by the site of the bridge first heaving up and then collapsing into the river.  

Joachim Peiper reputedly pounded one knee with his fist in sheer frustration, and muttered: “The damned engineers! The damned engineers”
 

Last edited by Goose (7/19/2016 4:59 am)

Part Nine
The End of Peiper’s Command

Joachim Peiper drove his Panzers on and on through the snow, his troops without sleep without hot food. And the Americans continued to bleed his force white. A bazooka team here, a dug in Sherman there, an anti-tank mine. All the while fuel was running critically short.

Peiper looked behind, and did not like what he saw.  Or rather did not see. A key feature of his plan was that, after blasting a hole in the American lines, he would continue to move on and infantry and supplies would simply follow him. But, the Americans weren’t crumbling. Forces that the tanks had bypassed rallied. And the hole Peiper blasted was closing in behind him. Supplies were not getting through as they should. Increasingly, Peiper's command was being isolated from the rest of the army.

And the forces in front of Peiper were changing. The defense was no longer makeshift. Troopers of the 82nd arrived in good order. Also powerful artillery was being brought to bear. Finally, America armor was arriving in great numbers. Peiper was not gong to make it to Antwerp. He was going to be lucky if he survived.

Frustration and fatigue took it’s toll. In what would become Group Peiper’s last major engagement, the Nazi commander looked in horror at a sight he had never seen before; he saw the incredible spectacle of his panzers backing up. He managed to rally the tankers by quite literally threating them with death. But the die was cast. The Group continued to lose heavily. The stands by American troops had denied Peiper support from other panzer units or a reliable supply line.

Critically short of gasoline his tanks were forced to take up defensive positions, and became  stationary targets, rather than mobile hunters. By the 23rd Group Peiper was reduced to a shadow of itself. And they were cut off from their own army.  The infantry did not advance. The rest of the 1st SS Panzers were being diverted to other parts of the line to deal with other crises. That night the able bodied men of Kampfgruppe Peiper abandoned their vehicles, including their last four tiger tanks for lack of fuel, and retreated by foot to the east, hoping to break through the Americans and return to their line. The abandoned tanks littered the battlefield like the carcasses of ancient monsters.

Kampfgruppe Peiper had gone into battle with over 400 tanks and 6,000 men. When the survivors staggered  back to the German lines they numbered 800, with only such equipment as they could carry on their backs.

Last edited by Goose (7/21/2016 6:03 am)