The Battle of Hürtgen Forest was a series of battles fought from 19 September to 16 December 1944, between American and German forces on the Western Front during World War II, in the Hürtgen Forest, a 140 km2 (54 sq mi) area about 5 km (3.1 mi) east of the Belgian–German border. It was the longest battle on German ground during World War II and is the second longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought after The Battle of Bataan.
The Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive campaign on the Western Front during World War II which took place from 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945. It was launched through the densely forested Ardennes region between Belgium and Luxembourg. The offensive was intended to stop Allied use of the Belgian port of Antwerp and to split the Allied lines, allowing the Germans to encircle and destroy each of the four Allied armies and force the western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis powers' favor.
The Malmedy massacre was a German war crime committed by soldiers of the Waffen-SS on 17 December 1944 at the Baugnez crossroads near the city of Malmedy, Belgium, during the Battle of the Bulge. Soldiers of Kampfgruppe Peiper summarily killed eighty-four U.S. Army prisoners of war (POWs) who had surrendered after a brief battle. The Waffen-SS soldiers had grouped the U.S. POWs in a farmer's field, where they used machine guns to shoot and kill the grouped POWs; many of the prisoners of war who survived the gunfire of the massacre were killed with a coup de grâce gunshot to the head. A few survived.
Joachim Peiper was a German Schutzstaffel (SS) officer and war criminal. During the Second World War in Europe, Peiper served as personal adjutant to Heinrich Himmler, leader of the SS, and as a tank commander in the Waffen-SS. German historian Jens Westemeier writes that Peiper personified Nazi ideology, as a purportedly ruthless glory-hound commander who was indifferent to the combat casualties of Battle Group Peiper, and who tolerated, expected, and indeed encouraged war crimes by his Waffen-SS soldiers.
The Siege of Bastogne was an engagement in December 1944 between American and German forces at the Belgian town of Bastogne, as part of the larger Battle of the Bulge. The goal of the German offensive was the harbor at Antwerp. In order to reach it before the Allies could regroup and bring their superior air power to bear, German mechanized forces had to seize the roadways through eastern Belgium. Because all seven main roads in the densely wooded Ardennes highlands converged on Bastogne, just a few miles away from the border with neighboring Luxembourg, control of its crossroads was vital to the German attack.
The 99th Infantry Division briefly existed, but never deployed, in the closing days of World War I, was reconstituted as a reserve unit in 1921, was ordered into active military service in 1942, and deployed overseas in 1944. The 99th landed at the French port of Le Havre and proceeded northeast to Belgium. During the heavy fighting in the Battle of the Bulge, the unit suffered many casualties, yet tenaciously held its defensive position. In March 1945, the 99th advanced into the Rhineland, crossing the Rhine River at Remagen on March 11. After fighting in the Ruhr area, the unit moved southward into Bavaria, where it was located at the end of the war.
Battle of the Bulge is a 1965 American widescreen epic war film produced in Spain, directed by Ken Annakin and starring Henry Fonda, Robert Shaw, Telly Savalas, Robert Ryan, Dana Andrews and Charles Bronson. The feature was filmed in Ultra Panavision 70 and exhibited in 70 mm Cinerama. Battle of the Bulge had its world premiere on December 16, 1965, the 21st anniversary of the titular battle, at the Pacific Cinerama Dome Theatre in Hollywood, California.
The 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler or SS Division Leibstandarte, abbreviated as LSSAH, began as Adolf Hitler's personal bodyguard unit, responsible for guarding the Führer's person, offices, and residences. Initially the size of a regiment, the LSSAH eventually grew into an elite division-sized unit during World War II.
The 212th Infantry Division was a German infantry division that fought in World War II. It was destroyed in Lithuania, and reconstituted as the 578th Volksgrenadier Division before being renamed the 212th Volksgrenadier Division.
The I SS Panzer Corps was a German armoured corps of the Waffen-SS. It saw action on both the Western and Eastern Fronts during World War II.
The Battle of Elsenborn Ridge refers to the northernmost German attacks during the Battle of the Bulge. The area from Elsenborn Ridge itself to Monschau was the only sector of the American front line attacked during the Battle of the Bulge in which the Germans failed to advance. The battle centred on the boomerang-shaped Elsenborn Ridge east of Elsenborn, Belgium. In this region, Elsenborn Ridge marks the westernmost ridge of the Ardennes, rising more than 2,000 feet (600 m) above sea level; unlike the uplands further north, east and south, it has been extensively logged. West of Elsenborn Ridge, where the land descends in gentle hills to the cities of Liège and Spa, was a network of Allied supply bases and a well-developed road network. The Germans planned on using two key routes through the area to seize Antwerp and force a separate peace with the United States and Britain. Capturing Monschau, the nearby village of Höfen, and the twin villages of Rocherath-Krinkelt just east of Elsenborn Ridge, were key to the success of the German plans, and Hitler committed his best armored units to the area.
Lyle Joseph Bouck, Jr. enlisted in the Missouri National Guard at age 14. During World War II, he was a 20-year-old lieutenant in charge of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance Platoon, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division. On the first morning of the Germans' advance during the Battle of the Bulge, his 18-man unit along with four forward artillery observers held off an entire German battalion of more than 500 men for nearly an entire day, killing or wounding 92, and significantly delayed the German advance in a vital sector of the northern front. Every single member of the platoon was later decorated, making it one of the most decorated platoons in all of World War II. Bouck was one of the youngest commissioned officers in the U.S. Army.
The Battle of Lanzerath Ridge was fought on December 16, 1944, the first day of the Battle of the Bulge during World War II, near the village of Lanzerath, Belgium, along the key route for the German advance on the northern shoulder of the operation. The American force consisted of two squads totalling 18 men belonging to a reconnaissance platoon and four forward artillery observers, against a German battalion of about 500 paratroopers. During a day-long confrontation, the American defenders inflicted dozens of casualties on the Germans and delayed by almost 20 hours the advance of the entire 1st SS Panzer Division, the spearhead of the German 6th Panzer Army.
The Wehrmacht forces for the Ardennes Offensive were the product of a German recruitment effort targeting German males between the ages of 16 and 60, to replace troops lost during the past five months of fighting the Western Allies on the Western Front. Although the Wehrmacht was keeping the Allied forces contained along the Siegfried Line, the campaign had cost the Wehrmacht nearly 750,000 casualties, mostly irreplaceable. However, the rapid advance of the Allied armies in August and September after Operation Overlord had created a supply problem for the Allies. By October, the progress of the Western Allies' three army groups had slowed considerably, allowing the Germans to partly rebuild their strength and prepare for the defense of Germany itself. Adolf Hitler decided that the only way to reverse his fortunes would be to launch a counter-offensive on the Western Front, forcing both the United States and Great Britain to an early peace, and allowing the Wehrmacht to shift its forces to the Eastern Front, where it could defeat the much larger Soviet Red Army.
The 395th Infantry Regiment was an infantry regiment of the United States Army, part of the 99th Infantry Division during World War II. It was organized with the rest of the 99th on 16 November 1942 at Camp Van Dorn, Mississippi. During the Battle of the Bulge, the regiment—at times virtually surrounded by Germans—was one of the few units that did not yield ground to the attacking Germans. On at least six occasions they called in artillery strikes on or directly in front of their own positions. Their success in defending Höfen resulted in the 395th Infantry being repeatedly assigned to other divisions for difficult assignments during the remainder of the war, earning them the sobriquet, Butler's Blue Battlin' Bastards. The unit was inactivated after World War II, then became a reserve unit, and was redesignated as the 395th Regiment in 1999.
The Battle of St. Vith was an engagement in Belgium fought during the Allied advance from Paris to the Rhine in World War II. It was one of several battles on December 16, 1944 constituting the opening of Germany's Ardennes counteroffensive.
The 825th Tank Destroyer Battalion was a tank destroyer battalion of the United States Army active during the Second World War. It was organized as a towed battalion, with 3" anti-tank guns, and initially saw service during the Battle of Normandy as a rear-area security unit. Parts of the unit were sent into combat as part of an ad hoc task force on 16 December 1944, on the northern flank of the Ardennes Offensive, where it defended Amblève river bridges at Malmedy and Stavelot. It returned to security duties at the end of January 1945, and served in rear areas for the remainder of the war.
Operation Greif was a special operation commanded by Waffen-SS commando Otto Skorzeny during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The operation was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler, and its purpose was to capture one or more of the bridges over the Meuse river before they could be destroyed. German soldiers, wearing captured British and U.S. Army uniforms and using captured Allied vehicles, were to cause confusion in the rear of the Allied lines. A lack of vehicles, uniforms and equipment limited the operation and it never achieved its original aim of securing the Meuse bridges. Skorzeny's post-war trial set a precedent clarifying article 4 of the Geneva Convention: as the German soldiers removed the Allied uniforms before engaging in combat, they were not to be considered francs-tireurs.
Heinz von Westernhagen was a SS-Obersturmbannführer in the Waffen-SS during World War II. He was a member of the Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler (LSSAH) and commander of the 501st (101st) SS Heavy Panzer Battalion.
The Battle of Heartbreak Crossroads was fought, beginning one day prior to the start of the Battle of the Bulge, at a vital three-way junction near a forester's cabin and former border post named Wahlerscheid, astride the Siegfried Line (Westwall). The road ran along the Höfen-Alzen and Dreiborn ridges, about 5.6 miles (9.0 km) north of Krinkelt-Rocherath, Belgium. In early December 1944, the U.S. V Corps trucked the experienced 2nd Infantry Division from positions it had held in the south to Krinkelt-Rocherath, twin villages adjacent to Elsenborn Ridge and near the southern tip of the Hürtgen Forest.
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