Battle of the Bulge & the Maginot Line

Went for another run with the Regos this morning. Our hotel is the new European Union section of Luxembourg City. There are numerous buildings of modern architecture, most of which seem empty or nearly so. Clearly there is a ton of development money being poured in here. We ran by these buildings, across a bridge spanning a deep gorge and into the center of town. Luxembourg City is relatively small and the center of town has a quaint feel to it.

After breakfast, we boarded our coach and headed for Bastogne. We weren't quite as rushed, didn't need our parkas and didn't ride on the back of bone-jarring trucks like the paratroopers rushed into Bastogne at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. It was a nice sunny day, 22 degrees Celsius and we rode in a comfortable air-conditioned coach with reclining crushed velvet seats.

Our guide for Bastogne was Henri Mignon, a survivor of the Bulge - he was 9 years old in 1944 and lived in the town of Houffalize just 20 km north of Bastogne. He has been the best guide of our tour, sharing many personal stories and possessing a wealth of knowlege about the battle, the participants and their weapons. BTW, the locals don't call it the Battle of the Bulge, they call it "the von Rundstedt" after the German general in charge. I think its meant as a slight against von Rundstedt as he didn't want anything to do with what he thought was an impossible plan. The Bulge was Hitler's last ditch effort to win the war in the west. He sent three divisions with 240,000 men, 1,000 tanks and artillery through the Ardennes forest where the allies did not expect a counter-attack and were totally unprepared. The experienced German troops quickly over-ran the Allied (mostly American) lines and drove an 80-mile salient deep into recently liberated territory. They bypassed Bastogne, but later came back to finish it off as American resistance was increasing and Bastogne was a key cross-roads point. With the town surrounded and Americans heavily outnumbered, the German commander sent an offer for the Americans to surrender. General McAuliffe sent a short message back: "NUTS!". Henri gave us a little more background on this response. Originally the German offer seemed liked they were offering surrender. When the Americans realized it was quite the opposite, McAuliffe said, "Oh, nuts!" and went back to work. Hi staff told him that he needed to respond and he didn't really know if he should send a verbal or written response or what he should say. His G3, second in command, told him his first response was most appropriate. "What was that?", the General asked. "Nuts!", his second responded. The Germans didn't know quite what to make of this response, but figured out that it basically meant GTH. The battle was fought in December and January 1944. It was snowing and bitter cold. Many of the troops had gone into battle without proper winter gear due to the urgency of blunting the German surprise attack. Moreover, the paratroopers had left their medical unit outside the town and it had been captured - they had precious few doctors, medics or medical supplies. Fortunately, some werre able to enter the town in gliders and some supplies made it in by parachute drop. As an aside, it became fashionable with the locals after the war to wear scarves made out of parachute silk. The defenders were desperately short on everything from ammunition to clothes to food to penicilin to gasoline. Everything was severely rationed. If a driver had to go 5 km for his mission, he would be given 1 liter of gas. Little did the Americans know that the Germans were in very similar straits. The battle for Bastogne was desperate for several weeks with heavy losses on both sides. Some of the fiercest action took place on Christmas Eve 1944. During the battle, the Americans had 80,000 casualties with close to 20,000 killed-in-action and Germans had 120,000 casualties with similar numbers of KIA. There were larger numbers of POW's on the German side as they realized the end was near and were thankful it was over.

In the afternoon we went back to France and stopped at Fortress Hackeberg, the largest fort in the Maginot Line. The Maginot Line was constructed by the French in the interwar period to protect their border with Germany. Hackenberg is comprised of 19 blocks which are at least 45 meters and up to 96-m below ground. The blocks are connected with more than six miles of underground galleries. The guns turrets raise up on hydraulics to fire and then descend again for protection. On the sides they have 75-mm Howitzers behind steel blast shields. The forts were interconnected so they protect each other with crossfire. Unfortunately, this fortification, nicknamed "the Monster" was simply bypassed by the attacking German army in 1940. The went through the low countries of Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg and attacked France's northern border. In the weeks leading up to France's capitulation, the Germans did attack and the French defenders unloaded 10,000 shells on them - mostly to make sure the ammunition didn't fall into enemy hands. The fort was then occupied by the Wehmacht and in an ironic twist of fate Block 8 was taken out by a French gun used by American attackers on German troops in a French fort. The photo shows the results of the Americans third and succesful attempt to breach the walls. They fired 155-mm howitzers at essentially point-blank range (2000 yds) and were able to penetrate the walls at their weakest point (only 1.5 meters thick) which was on the side facing France. Our guide here too, was a veteran of the war and had a great deal of passion with which to share his stories about the fort. Imagine this 80+ year old jumping off the train we were riding before it came to a stop! Our two guides today definitely made history come alive.