Guard Wars: The 28th Infantry Division in World War II

12. Battle of the Bulge: Stubbornness and Flexibility

211 12 Battle of the Bulge Stubbornness and Flexibility December 16 saw the outbreak of the U.S. Army’s fiercest battle since Gettysburg : the Battle of the Bulge. The 28th Infantry Division was in the middle of the action from the beginning, and its performance highlighted two noteworthy traits of the Army: the flexibility of its organization and command structure, and the fighting skill, leadership, and tenacity of the American soldier. For decades critics from both sides of the Atlantic have derided the GI’s use of firepower, maneuver, and ingenuity. In the middle of the war, for example, the British General Sir Harold Alexander denigrated the American Army: “They simply do not know their job as soldiers and this is the case from the highest to the lowest, from the general to the private soldier. Perhaps the weakest link of all is the junior leader, who just does not lead, with the result that their men don’t really fight.”1 On the eve of the offensive “the Wehrmacht felt it was far superior to the Allied officers and headquarters staff in terms of the tactical and operational leadership of units.”2 Shortly after the war the American author S. L. A. Marshall astonished the public with assertions that only one in four GIs had the gumption to even fire his weapon in the heat of battle.3 In 1959 John Toland wrote, “[M]ost Germans think he was a bumbling enemy. They still firmly believed that what beat them were overwhelming numbers of bombs and shells, a mass of machines and materiel. Many Germans still resentfully insist that is was a slovenly, cowardly, expensive way to fight.”4 An examination of American combat during the Battle of the Bulge brings these assertions into ques-­tion. 212 | Guard Wars Setup for the Battle After wrecking the 28th ID in the Battle of the Hürtgen Forest, First Army moved it to a 25-mile-wide ridgeline that stretched from Lützkampen, Germany , to Bollendorf, Luxembourg, along the Our River. This sector seemed to be a good place for Cota’s men to rest, incorporate an infusion of new soldiers, and practice small-unit tactics. The division had received 3,400 replacements. Colonel Gustin M. Nelson, the new commander of the 112th Infantry, found the morale of his new men to be “high,” commenting that “no one could ask for better material to work with.”5 On Nelson’s right flank, the 110th Infantry Regiment placed its headquarters in Clerveaux, Luxembourg. Hoping for some time to train replacements as well, they had no way of knowing that General Hasso-Eckard von Manteuffel coveted the town’s roads. He needed to take them in order to capture the strategically important crossroads of Bastogne, Belgium. If Manteuffel’s panzers could get through it, they would have open country all the way to Bastogne.6 An opportunity for a German breakthrough existed because the division ’s overall line of resistance was inadequately manned for defensive operations . Only one road, which the Americans called “Skyline Drive,” provided lateral mutual support for the battalions. Because of the ratio of troops to frontage, they actually manned a series of isolated outposts. Their commanders positioned their troops to defend river crossings, turning the villages they held into strong fighting positions.7 The regiment with the widest front, Colonel Hurley E. Fuller’s 110th, had only two battalions because Cota took the 2nd as the division’s reserve.8 VIII Corps was responsible for making the 28th ID defend a front three times greater than U.S. Army doctrine recommended .9 In the opinion of at least one battalion commander, this insufficient ratio of troops to frontage was “the principle [sic] reason for the success of the enemy penetration of December 16–17.”10 GIs knew their front was too wide for one division to defend, “impossible to cover . . . with a solid defensive line.”11 Hitler intended to win a victory against the Allied forces in the West by cutting their armies in half with a thrust that seized the port of Antwerp, Belgium . He believed a successful offensive would instigate enough bickering between the American and British high commands to rupture the Grand Alliance . His generals, however, analyzed the operational challenges of such a largemechanizedcampaignthroughtheruggedArdennesForestandwerenot Battle of the Bulge | 213 convinced that “Wacht am Rhein” would be a successful operation.12 GeneraloberstAlfredJodl ,theoperationschiefatOKW,believedtheGermanArmyno...