The Battle of the Bulge
The post D-Day Allied assault that swept through France was halted by Hitler’s unexpected counter-attack through the Ardennes, resulting in a confrontation named the Battle of the Bulge.
The Allied battle front in the autumn of 1944 made an end to the war by Christmas look likely. They had liberated most of France in a matter of months, and were now marching towards the Ruhr River, which was the gateway to the heartland of Germany. However, the Allies had moved so far so fast that their supply lines had not caught up with them. The closest dock was where they had landed on D-Day, and the need for a closer port became more persistent everyday. During the Overlord campaign, which was the landing in France, the Allies had bombed railways extensively to weaken the German defenses. With no railway, roads and trucks were the only way of transporting supplies. This supply problem led to the conclusion by General Dwight D. Eisenhower, supreme commander of the Allied forces, that a closer coastal port needed to be opened. He chose Antwerp, Europe’s largest port, which was located along the Schelde Estuary (Keegan 436-437).
Field Marshall Sir Bernard L. Montgomery, commander of the northern front, wanted a quick victory. He proposed continuing on into Germany, across the Ruhr, and destroying Hitler’s means to make war by demobilizing the numerous factories in the area. Reluctantly, Eisenhower agreed, and Operation Market Garden began on September 17, 1944. The plan called for Allied paratroopers to secure key bridges and establish a foothold in the area so that armed divisions could move in safely. The First Allied Airborne Army, composed of the 82nd and 101st divisions of the United States and the 1st division of the British, were to be used in the operation. The Americans job was to capture the bridges at the towns of Eindhower and Nirmegan. They succeeded in doing this very quickly with minimal casualties. The British, however, encountered more difficulty. Their job was to secure the more distant bridges at Arnhem, but their tank support that was supposed to relieve them was delayed. The Germans there, consisting of the 9th and 10th SS Panzer divisions, trapped the British soldiers, killing one thousand and capturing six thousand (Keegan 437).
The failure of Market Garden proved to Eisenhower that the supply issue must be addr...
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...y Christmas Day in 1944 Operation Autumn Mist was coming to a halt.
Reinforcements sent down from Belgium blocked what remained of Dietrich’s 6th Army Group, and the divisions sent up from Patton’s 3rd Army helped to relive the 101st in Bastogne. The weather cleared for a short period of time, allowing Allied air support to be effective for this first time in the battle. Therefore on January 8, Hitler ordered the withdrawals of the remaining forces.
In one month’s time, the Allies lost 34,000 men to either death or capture. Germany, by contrast, lost 100,000 men and 800 tanks. Hitler has failed to recognize the manpower resources of the American army and had misinterpreted the effect that Autumn Mist would have on the front. In reality, all it did was delay the impending break into Germany by a few months time. With Russia getting closer to Berlin by the day and the Rhine the only obstacle in the way of Montgomery, Hitler’s time was running out. The Battle of the Bulge is best concluded by Sir Winston Churchill, who said “It was without any doubt the greatest American battle of the Second World War and it will, I believe, always be considered as a great American victory.”
The prelude to the Battle of the Bulge began on a winter day in mid-December of 1944. Three powerful German divisions, were the last German offensives in the west at that time during World War II. They began after the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Allied had forces swept rapidly through France but became stalled along the German border earlier that year in September. On December 16, 1944 taking advantage of the weather, which kept the Allied aircraft on the ground, the Germans launched a counteroffensive through the semi-mountainous and heavily-forested Ardennes region in Germany, and advanced 31 miles into Belgium and northern Luxembourg near the Meuse River. Their goal was to trap four allied armies, divide the Americans and the British to force negotiated peace along the western front, and retake the vital seaport of Antwerp in Belgium. Thinking the Ardennes was the least likely spot for a German offensive, American staff commander chose to keep the thin line, so that manpower might concentrate on offensives north and south of the Ardennes known as the "bulge" in the Allied lines. These American lines were thinly held by three divisions in the Allied Army and part of a forth division, while fifth division was making a local attack and the sixth division was in reserve. Division sectors were more than double the width of normal defensive fronts, therefore there were more men scattered along a larger area. The German advance was halted near the Meuse River in late December. Even though the German Offensive achieved total surprise, nowhere did the American troops give ground without a fight. Within three days, the determined American stand and the arrival of powerful reinforcements insured that the ambitious German goal was far beyond reach. In snow and sub-freezing temperatures the Germans fell short of their interim objective- to reach the rambling Meuse River on the edge of the Ardennes. But they managed to avoid being cut off by an Allied Pincer movement.
Operational leaders see how the individual components of an organization fit together and use those individuals work to make a larger outcome. When they focus on a problem, they think of what works best within the process and systems to make an impact on the situation. These types of leaders play a big part in making sure that things get done in an effective and functioning manner. According to the Army Doctrine ADP 6-0, the Army over time has strayed away from operational leaders and adapted Mission Command, which gives leaders the ability at the lowest level the capability to exercise disciplined initiative in an act of carrying out the larger mission . Mission Command is made up of the following six steps: Understanding, Visualize, Describe, Direct, Lead and Assess, in which a commander is responsible for. General Patton understood the intent of the Battle of the Bulge on different levels, he was able to form a mental image for the course of actions for the allies, enemies and lead his Army into combat while guiding his officers and soldiers to succeed in meeting his intent. The Battle of the Bulge is where General Patton gained one of his greatest military achievements by using his tactical leadership and logistical genius, which in return helped him turn around the main forces and forced the Germans to drive back in their final counter-offensive. General Patton strongly exercised Mission Command by understanding, visualizing, leading, and commanding what was known as the largest and bloodiest battle during World War II.
In the late May in 1918, the German forces put together four divisions and launched the Aisne offensive. The bombardment began at one in the morning on May 27th. The British and French front lines were torn apart by the current waves of German infantry and artillery. Both armies began to disintegrate before the might of the Germans, and were unable to halt the advancement of their awesome force. The Germans didn’t press further after the Marnes River, giving the French time to call in reinforcements and American assistance. When the American forces arrived, a French office asked Marine Colonel Wendell C. Neville if a tactical retreat would be in order, he replied with th...
General Blaskowitz, Commander of German Army Group G had an extremely challenging task of balancing operational factors to achieve his organization’s assigned objectives. The German leader, Adolf Hitler, and his German armed forces high command OKW had a desired end state of German dominance of Europe. In order to achieve this desired end state the theater strategic objective for OB West, the German theater command was the defense of France, both from the ongoing Allied invasion in Normandy and an anticipated Allied amphibious assault in Southern France. General Blaskowitz’s operational objective, as directed from Hitler and the German high command, was to defend Southern France, with the mission of “holding the coast at all costs.” (pg. 16)
With World War II lasting six years, there were many battles that had taken place. Three major events that are famous from this war are D-day, Pearl Harbor and Battle of Iwo Jima. D-day, which is where Saving Private Ryan begins, is known as the largest amphibious attack in history. Before the attack could take place though there was a lot of planning done. In months before the attack, General Dwight Eisenhower led allies in an operation to make Germany believe that their main target of invasion was Pas-de-Calais, along with a few other locations. The operation that led Germany to believe this was carried out by fake equipment, a phantom army located in England, counterfeit radio transmissions, and double agents. Once Eisenhower knew Germany was mislead, he led the troops into battle. This attack began with British, American, and Canadian forces landing on five different beaches all along the coast of Normandy on June 6, 1944. By the end of the first day approximately 156,000 al...
“The Battle of the Bulge, fought over the winter months of 1944 – 1945, was the last major Nazi offensive against the Allies in World War Two. The battle was a last ditch attempt by Hitler to split the Allies in two in their drive towards Germany and destroy their ability to supply themselves” (Trueman).
The cell is the most basic unit of life, defined as “The fundamental ... structural and functional unit of all living organisms” (Oed.com, 2013). The prokaryotic cell is typically composed of a plasma membrane and cell wall, containing within it the cytosol and a structure known as the nucleoid. This is a single piece of circular or linear DNA that floats freely in the cytosol of the cell (Thanbichler et al., 2005, pp. 507).
The relationships between mothers and daughters is a topic that authors often call upon to tell a story. It is an important part of every culture, which makes the topic relatable to any reader who picks the book up. Junot Diaz understood the universality of mother/daughter relationships and incorporated it in his novel The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. Although the book is mainly about Oscar, an overweight Dominican boy from New Jersey and his quest for love, the book also spends a lot of time exploring the relationships between Oscar’s sister Lola and their mother Beli and Beli’s relationship with her mother figure La Inca. Junot Diaz does not write mother/daughter relationships in an honest way and focuses on the conflict in the relationships
Eukaryotic cells, whether from animals, plants, protists, or fungi, are the most structurally advanced of the major cell types. Eukaryote are single-celled or multicellular organism whose cells contain nucleus and any other structures (organelles) enclosed within the membrane that perform specific functions. The surface of the cell is covered with a thin film or plasma membrane, which is the boundary that separates the living cell from its nonliving surroundings. Plasma membranes are composed mostly of proteins and lipids (Simon, 02/2012, p. 59-60).
On May 10, 1940, the Wehrmacht (German army) rapidly conquered Belgium and the Netherlands with their lightning-speed blitzkrieg tactics while three Panzer corps invaded France through the Ardennes Forest rather than their heavily fortified Maginot Line. German forces swept through France in days and confined the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), three French armies, and the remainder of the Belgian army along the English Channel at northern France. In the wake of this military disaster, a plan was immediately drawn up - Operation Dynamo - with the lofty objective of withdrawing all Allied forces from Dunkirk across the English Channel lest they be captured or killed.
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Gen. Heinrich Freiherr von Lüttwitz′s, commanding the XLVII Panzer Corps under the directive of Hasso von Manteuffel, commander of the 5th Panzer Army; was given the responsibility of capturing the town of Bastogne. On the morning of the 16th of December the German offensive opened up, attacking American positions on Elsenborn Ridge and Losheim Gap in an attempt to break through to the town of Liège. By the 19th the Americans had issued resistance to German forces yet were fighting an uphill battle through undesirable weather and were low on ammunition, fuel and rations. Due to these conditions General Bruce Clarke held out in the town of St. Vith until the untimely collapse of that post which led to the encirclement of the 101st Airborne and the 10th Armored Division's Combat Command B at Bastogne.
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