THEY HAVE US SURROUNDED, THE POOR BASTARDS.

 The American soldiers fled in a panic. Running, they dropped their weapons screaming "They're killing everyone! Run for your life!" Walking the other way was a group of men, battle hardened, wearing summer clothes in the middle of the worst winter in Europe in over one hundred years. Occasionally they would stop to pick up the ammunition the green American soldiers were dropping in panic. Sometimes they would ask for the panicked GI's winter coat and sometimes they would get it. They had dropped into Normandy (where Eisenhower had been told before D-Day that he could expect their casualty rate to be over 90%- which it turned out not to be- they were too good)  and into Holland in Operation Market Garden. Each time they had faced off with the best of the Germany army, professional soldiers all, they had beaten them mano-a-mano. They were the best America had to offer and they may well have been the best America ever had to offer. 

They were the men of the 101st Airborne division and they had been ordered by General Eisenhower into the "bulge"- the German surprise advance that pushed the allied lines back, creating the famous bulge. Eisenhower had looked at a map and his gaze was drawn to Bastogne, a small town in the Belgium Ardennes forest. It was in valley surrounded by mountains and it contained the crossroads of highways that the German Panzers needed. "We stop them here" Eisenhower said, and sent in the only divisions he had available- the Airborne divisions of the 82nd and 101st. They did not have a full complement of ammunition. They did not have winter clothing. They were about to enter the largest battle of WWII. 600,000 American soldiers. 20,000 would be killed. 20,000 would be captured and 40,000 would be wounded. 

Having decided  to hold the line at Bastogne, Eisenhower deployed his secret weapon: mobility via the Transportation Corps manned mostly by African American soldiers driving trucks  in the segregated Army. On December 17, 1944,  11,000 trucks carried 60,000 men, plus ammunition, fuel, medical supplies and other material into the Ardennes. 

Two days later, trucked in through France and then Belgium,  dropped off a few kilometers outside of Bastogne (the paratroopers called it a "bumper jump" jumping only out of the back of a truck), the 101st did not have long winter underwear, or wool socks, or warm jackets. Their boots were not lined or weather proof. Facing off against 25 German divisions, including the best soldiers of the Wehrmacht, the 101st was undermanned, insufficiently armed and inadequately clothed. It would not matter. As they marched into Bastogne, the citizens handed them warm cups of coffee. Their orders were simple. Hold Bastogne. Period. Stop the German offensive. 

On the nights of December 19 and 20, as the temperatures fell below zero, the rifle companies of the 101st dug in. Outside of Bastogne,  near the town of Foy, the 506th rifle company of the 101st Airborne was attacked by the Wehrmacht's Second Panzer division. When it ended, the Americans had lost 13 officers and 199 men. The Germans had lost 30 tanks, and close to 1000 men. The 101st had held the line. 

On December 20, it began to snow. The temperature would not climb above freezing for a month. One paratrooper, returning from the front lines to the town to pick up some supplies was told by a medic:  "Have you heard? The Germans have us surrounded, the poor bastards."  In the fields outside of Bastogne, runners went into town and returned with empty flour sacks that the paratroopers, dug into fox-holes, fashioned into coverings for their summer boots. They ate partially frozen K rations and cold navy beans as they manned outposts in dark woods, facing German Panzers with their rifles, a few grenades, ingenuity, and a fighting spirit that could not, and would not be broken. The airborne had beaten the Germans every time they had faced off. Lack of ammo and subzero temperatures were not going to change their ability to prevail. These were the best Americans of their generation. They had never let Eisenhower down, they had never let their country down, and they were not going to do it now. 

And it was about to get worse. Part II tomorrow.