The Battle of The Buldge
As 1945 approached it seemed, to most, that Germany's surrender was only a matter of time. The Allies, having been on the offensive for so long, had an all time high determination and morale. The idea that Germany could muster the supplies, troops, or will to launch an offensive seemed crazy. In fact, many were already asking the questions of when and where the assault on the Rhine should be launched. Hitler, utilizing his talent of strategic vision, noticed a hole in the Allies defenses. He saw the Ardennes Forest of Belgium was lightly defended. The Ardennes Forest had traditionally been thought of as impassible to tanks and there fore not an option for either side. The Allies left only four divisions to defend a front of over eighty miles. Because the Germans had now been pushed back almost to Germany, and in some places were already fighting on German soil, the Allies lost the important intelligence on troop movements provided by French and Belgium residents. As a result Germany was able to do major troop movements and buildups right behind the front lines. Hitler secretly assembled the twenty-one divisions that would later take place in The Battle of The Bulge with out the Allie
On December 27 von Manteuffel received the reinforcements he had been waiting for, but they were too few too late. Even if they would have arrived on time he lacked the fuel to put them to good use. The Battle of The Bulge was over Hitler's last offensive had failed, but there were significant losses on both sides. The Americans could replace the weapons and tanks lost ,Germany could not. All said, The Americans lost 76,890 men, the Germans 81,834, over 700 US tanks were lost as opposed to Germaney's 324 and 590 American planes were downed compared to 320 Germans. World War II Trevor Hall and Gerald Hughes, Smithmark Publisher, New York NY, 1998 Microsoft Encarta '95 1992-1995 Microsoft Corporation Battles of the 21st Century Ivor Matanle, Canon Publishing, London England, 1989 By December 24, Christmas Eve the bad weather had cleared and the allied airforces mad up for lost time flying 17,000 sorties in the next three days. von Rundstedt once again requested that the whole offensive be called off, Hitler refused. By now the defenders at Bastogne were almost defeated but knew that reinforcements would arrive soon. On December 25th Christmas day German tanks made a last ditch effort to break into the town, but remarkably the 101st held out. At 4:46 Pm on the 26th the US 4th Armored division broke through and made contact with the exhausted troops at Bastogne. By the 24th Patton's counter from the south was pushing the German 7th army back. The 7th army and von Manteuffel's 5th Panzerarmee combined but were still not strong enough to stop Patton. Hitler released the 9th & 15th Panzer divisions from reserves, but even they were not enough to stop the counter attack by General Collins. On December 26th he retook Celles just five miles from Hitler's goal, the Meuse. This was the turning point of the battle. At 5:30 in the morning of December 16, 1944 with the benefit of fog and clouds keeping Allied planes on the ground, Hitler attacked a 90 mile American front between Monschau and Echternach using twe
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1372
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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