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. 

DARRELL SHIFTY POWERS

On December 19, 1944, the 506 Parachute Infantry Regiment, along with most of the 101st Airborne Division entered the line near a  previously unknown small town in Belgium  called Bastogne which was nestled in the vast green emptiness of the Ardennes Forrest. 
The Germans had attacked with surprising force- new Panzer divisions that the Allied command did not think existed. The Allied troops on the front lines were a mixture of new-green troops, and wizened veterans mostly in the armored divisions under General Patton's command of the Third Army. 
As Allied forces fell back on all fronts, there was the real possibility that Germany would recapture the port at Antwerp, cutting off a vital supply line and allowing the Germans to sue for peace so they could turn their attention to Stalin's massive red army plowing through eastern Europe on its way to Berlin. 
Into this gap-called a "Bulge" General Eisenhower threw his most experienced troops who were able to mobilize quickly and engage the enemy- the Airborne. 
As members of the 101st walked into Bastogne- (they called it a truck jump because they were trunked into battle and "jumped" from the back of trucks driven mostly by African-American transport drivers in the segregated Army)- they encountered panicked soldiers running for their lives dropping their weapons and ammo along the way. The Paratroopers- wearing only their summer battle fatigues and boots without warm socks and without sufficient ammo- stopped to pick up the discarded rifles and ammo as they walked into battle in what was going to be the coldest European winter in 100 years. Among these troops was Easy Company of the 506th PIR. Author Stephen Ambrose in his book "Band of Brothers" that chronicled their exploits wrote of Easy Company of the 506th: "At the peak of its effectiveness in Holland in October 1944 and in the Ardennes  in January 1945, it was as good a rifle company as there was in the world."

Easy and the rest of the 506th and the 101st moved into the gap, formed a semi-circle of defense and the Germans swarmed around them, causing a paratrooper to remark "They have us surrounded, the poor bastards."    On the 19th and 20th of December, 1944, the Germans attacked at Noville, northeast of Foy with their 2nd Panzer division. Paratroopers who had dug into frozen ground defended the attack, with the 1st Battalion of the 506th losing 212 of 600 men, while inflicting upwards of 1000 casualties and along with some US armor destroying over thirty Panzers and holding the line. 
On December 21, the temperature dropped to zero and it began to snow and did not stop. Easy Company had no wool socks, no long underwear. Cooks sent up used burlap sacks that the men made into clothing. 
The Germans continued their relentless attack at all hours of the days and bone chilling nights. And the paratroopers using rifles, mortars and grenades repulsed the armored attacks again and again, refusing to give ground. Three times the men of the 101st met in combat the best the German Army had- On D-Day in Normandy, in Holland during operation Market Garden, and in the Ardennes Forrest in the winter of 1944-45. And three times the men of the 101st prevailed. They were, are, and always will be America's Finest. 
Among those men was private Darrell "Shifty" Powers, a simple young man raised with his rifle shooting in the woods of Virginia. Shifty was blessed with almost super-human eyesight. He was the most accurate rifleman in Easy Company. As recounted by Ambrose in his book, on the morning of December 29, Shifty awoke in his foxhole and saw without binoculars- about two kilometers away no less- that "there was a tree up there toward Norville that wasn't there yesterday." He reported his findings to his sergeant who using binoculars couldn't see anything unusual among a large grouping of trees. How could Shifty know one of the dozen of trees was out of place?  After several minutes of observation the sergeant finally saw the barrel of an anticraft gun, and then another, and then  another. The Germans has moved an artillery battalion over the night and placed a tree to camouflage their guns, but Shifty had recognized something amiss. An artillery strike was called in and the area erupted as the German guns and shells went up in flames. 
On January 13, 1945, when Easy was attacking Foy, the company was pinned down by a sniper. No one could see him in the thick woods surrounding the town. Eventually Shifty fired his rifle and the shooting stopped. Later the company located the sniper with a bullet hole between his eyes, causing one of his friends to later remark "It just doesn't pay to be shootin at Shifty when he has a rifle in his hands."
Darrell Shifty Powers. March 3, 1923- June 17, 2009. A child of the depression. A young man at war. Married for 60 years after the war, he raised a family as a machinist before retiring. A citizen-solider. A true American Hero. 

THE BEST OF THE BEST

In the early morning hours of December 16, 1944, under snow heavy skies and zero temperatures, 30 German Divisions attacked Allied armies in the Ardennes Forrest area of Belgium, Luxembourg and France.  The Allies, caught by surprise, the weather having limited the ability of arial surveillance, and overconfidence, fell back under the onslaught, creating a "bulge" in the Western Front. 

The German plan was the smash the Allied armies, re-seize the port of Antwerp, which would have delayed the end of the war by years. Banking on the war weary British and Americans having little appetite for another three or four years of war, Hitler thought he could sue for peace, and then turn his attention and new war machines, like the jet fighter plane, against the Russians on the eastern front. 

A lot hung in the balance as allied troops fell back across a wide swarth of land. But in a few places, the allies refused to yield.  In Belgium, the battle hardened 28 infantry division held the crossings at the River Our and despite being spread perilously thin, held on. This allowed the 101st Airborne Division, which Eisenhower immediately summoned, to be trucked into Bastogne, before it was surrounded. As the 101st marched in, wearing summer pants and shoes- their winter clothes were being sent in other convoys, they met green allied troops fleeing in a panic, many of them screaming that the Germans had them surrounded.  More than one grizzled paratrooper chuckled that meant the 101st had the Germans just where they wanted them. 

What followed in the following days was some of the most miserable, bloody, freezing, fighting of WWII.  The 101st dug into the freezing ground on the outskirts of Bastogne. They were shelled unmercifully. Fighting subzero temperatures at night, German Panzers by day, the 101st held Bastogne. These men, who grew up in the depression; who volunteered for the airborne and survived the toughest training the army could devise; who jumped at night into Normandy and made their division famous, and who jumped into a disaster in Holland during operation Market Garden and again distinguished themselves- these men- simple American boys- cold- far from home- did what made them the greatest generation. They fought for each other. It was unthinkable to run. They all had trench foot- which entitled them to be relieved and removed to a warm tent at the rear- but that meant leaving a buddy behind, so they stayed, and endured the terror of the shelling, and the freezing nights, and fought and held on and won. 

You can find many battles where Americans distinguished themselves. But you would be hard pressed to find another battle, in such horrific conditions, against all odds and superior forces, where a group of men showed just what American Exceptionalism- whatever that may really be- is. 

We really can't do justice to the heroes of the Battle of the Bulge. Read Stephen Ambrose's excellent Band Of Brothers for the best account of the 101st at Bastogne. 

But when you are warm and safe in your bed tonight, remember that almost seventy years ago- the best of the best our nation ever produced, hung on, fought bravely against all odds, and made being and American something to be damned proud of.