On Dec. 16, 1944, 30 German divisions smashed into U.S. and British forces in the heavily wooded Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg. The Germans counted on bad weather as their ally for this breakthrough. The predicted snow fell, and mists and clouds choked the skies, rendering air support for the Allies impossible at times. Record-low temperatures and freezing rain added brutality to the deadly massive brawl that ensued.
“I was from Buffalo, I thought I knew cold,” Baseball Hall of Famer Warren Spahn wrote years later in his autobiography. “But I didn’t really know cold until the Battle of the Bulge.”
At the heart of what Winston Churchill called “the greatest American battle of the war” was Bastogne, a Belgian town where seven intersecting roads made it vital in the German plan of attack. Typical of countless scenes of the fighting in and around Bastogne was 14-year-old Maria Gillet’s eyewitness account. A wounded American was being carried to shelter at one of the ice-cold, bombed-out buildings. She wrote in her journal: “Where his legs have been, I can see only a shapeless mass of crushed flesh, blood spills onto the floor. My thoughts go to his faraway mother.”
This year is the 80th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Time to remember and honor the boys of Bastogne.
The Big Picture
Though opposed by some of his generals, Adolph Hitler believed that by tearing a hole through the lines of the Allies, his forces could defeat their armies piecemeal. To this desperate attack, he committed more than 400,000 soldiers plus thousands of artillery pieces, tanks, and aircraft. Dependent on a precise timetable of advances, Hitler’s plans fell apart in the frozen landscape of the Ardennes region because of improved weather conditions, U.S. Gen. George Patton’s swift counterattacks with his armored units, and the courageous resistance shown by individual U.S. units against their attackers.
Bastogne proved a key point in slowing and bogging down this advance. By Dec. 20, the Germans had surrounded the town, trapping U.S. forces, chiefly the 101st Airborne Division. Under the provisional command of Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, the Americans were outnumbered approximately five to one and were short on food, ammunition, medical supplies, and personnel.
Until they were relieved by some of Patton’s forces six days later, these U.S. troops defiantly held off the Germans, threw them off their tight schedule, and thwarted their hopes for victory. The attitude of these heroic defenders is best summed up in McAuliffe’s famous reply to a German demand for their surrender.
Lost in Translation
On Dec. 22, two German officers and two enlisted men approached the U.S. lines under a white flag. The Germans brought a written message that stated in part, “There is only one possibility to save the encircled U.S.A. troops from total annihilation: that is the honorable surrender of the encircled town.” The message gave the Americans two hours to arrive at a decision. If they failed to give up the fight, the Germans promised to wipe them out by artillery and infantry attacks.
On being made aware of this note, McAuliffe said, “Aw, nuts,” then went to check on some of his troops. Informed on his return that the Germans were awaiting a written reply, McAuliffe met with his staff, including the Division Operation Officer, Lt. Col. Harry Kinard. Here’s the account of what happened next, according to McAuliffe’s nephew Kenneth McAuliffe Jr.:
“Inside, in the presence of his staff, McAuliffe wondered aloud, ‘Well, I don’t know what to tell them.’ At that point, Kinnard said, ‘What you said initially would be hard to beat.’ McAuliffe asked, ‘What do you mean?’ Kinnard, said, ‘Sir, you said nuts.’ All members of the staff enthusiastically agreed, so McAuliffe wrote it down on a message pad and said, ‘Have it typed up.’
The reply was typed up and centered on a full sheet of paper. It read:
“December 22, 1944 To the German Commander, N U T S ! The American Commander.”
The Germans who were waiting under guard for McAuliffe’s response were baffled by “Nuts” until PFC Ernest Premetz, an American medic who doubled as translator, offered this interpretation for them, “Du kannst zum Teufel gehen,” which means, “You can go to hell.”
News of McAuliffe’s one-word response spread rapidly among the besieged Americans, boosting their morale and helping them hold out until relieved by Patton’s forces four days later. Soon afterward, Patton awarded a Distinguished Service Cross to Anthony “Nuts” McAuliffe.
The Angel of Bastogne
Americans weren’t the only heroes of Bastogne.
Born in 1921 to a Congolese mother and a Belgian veterinarian, Augusta Chiwy was 9 years old when she came with her father from Africa to his hometown of Bastogne, where she excelled in school. She became a nurse in 1943.
During the siege of Bastogne, newly minted Army doctor John Prior was desperate for help. Through volunteer Belgian nurse Renée Lemaire, he learned of Chiwy and asked for her help. The young woman immediately stepped up to the task. Some U.S. soldiers objected to receiving medical care from a black nurse, but Prior quickly informed them they had little choice in the matter and could otherwise join the frozen corpses outside the aid station.
On Christmas Eve, a German aircraft dropped a bomb that struck the aid station and killed some 20 people, including Lemaire. Chiwy, who happened to be in another room, survived the blast with minor injuries.
Though Prior and Chiwy kept in touch after the war, her heroism went unrecognized for decades. Beginning in 2011, after historian Martin King unearthed her extraordinary story, Chiwy received a number of awards and recognitions, including the U.S. Army’s Civilian Award for Humanitarian Service. Of her deeds during that dark time, she said: “What I did was very normal. I would have done it for anyone. We are all children of God.”
The Forgotten Angel of Bastogne, as Augusta Chiwy was dubbed, was forgotten no longer.
Courage Recollected
Nor is the Siege of Bastogne forgotten, at least not in the town where it occurred.
Today, Bastogne boasts several museums and exhibits for the edification of the 150,00 annual visitors who come to pay their respects to the Americans who fought and died there. The Bastogne Barracks features equipment from vehicles to artillery pieces that played a part in this battle. The 101st Airborne Museum contains a panorama of documents, objects, and photos of this fabled outfit, which gained the nickname “The Battered Bastards of Bastogne.” The Bastogne War Museum opened in 2014 for the 70th anniversary; it offers several exhibits, including the newly opened Bastogne War Rooms, which served as U.S. headquarters during the battle.
In this most recent exhibit, there are “immersive scenography techniques and actual historic objects to plunge visitors into a reconstruction of the pivotal moments that occurred at this site, including the Nuts scene.”
U.S. forces paid an enormous price for their victory in the snow-covered Ardennes. The Army lost 19,000 soldiers killed in the Battle of the Bulge, with a total casualty count of 75,000. The Germans not only lost more of their men, but also lost their last hope of winning the war. From that point on until the end of the war in May 1945, the German army was in retreat.
In his book “Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge,” military historian Antony Beevor wrote, “Perhaps the German leadership’s greatest mistake in the Ardennes offensive was to have misjudged the soldiers of an army they had affected to despise.”
In the histories of the war and the museums of Bastogne, the consequences of that miscalculation are displayed in abundance.
Jeff Minick has four children and a growing platoon of grandchildren. For 20 years, he taught history, literature, and Latin to seminars of homeschooling students in Asheville, N.C. He is the author of two novels, “Amanda Bell” and “Dust On Their Wings,” and two works of nonfiction, “Learning As I Go” and “Movies Make The Man.” Today, he lives and writes in Front Royal, Va.
Reprinted with permission from The Epoch Times – ByJeff Minick
The opinions expressed by columnists are their own and do not necessarily represent the views of AMAC or AMAC Action.
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