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heavy losses of armour attempting to secure the villages with scanty infantry support. German recovery crews achieved their usual miracles in restoring some damaged tanks and tank destroyers to service within hours. Several immobilized German tanks were remanned and used as static pillboxes. But none of this diminished the Panzers’ difficulties, when they found themselves bogged down in village fighting. “I spotted our battalion commander,” wrote Lieutenant Willi Engel, a Panther platoon commander in Rocherath. “His face mirrored dejection and resignation. The failed attack and painful losses obviously depressed him severely. The knocked-out Panzers offered a distressing picture. At that moment, a single panzer approached the Command Post. Suddenly, only about 100m away, it turned into a flaming torch . . . It was later determined that an immobile but otherwise serviceable Sherman had scored the hit . . . Both sides fought with bitter determination.”

Lieutenant Willi Fischer said: “When I reached the vicinity of the church [at Rocherath], a gruesome picture was waiting for me. Beuthauser was bailed out . . . His loader was killed by rifle fire as he bailed out . . . Brodel’s tank stood next to me, burning brightly. He sat lifeless in the turret. In front of me, more panzers had been put out of action and were still burning.” The U.S. V Corps had suffered serious casualties, but could afford them vastly better than the Germans. It had inflicted a notable defeat on one of the best formations in Hitler’s armies. A 12th Army Group staff officer watching reinforcements moving forward experienced an unaccustomed surge of respect and understanding for the American infantryman: “Everywhere there is a feeling of humility—we know that his fight is the only real fight in this war.”

Many of the actions that saved the American front reflected cool professionalism. On the extreme northern flank of the German push the 38th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron laid eighty truckloads of barbed wire, thickly laced with trip-flares and booby traps, in front of its positions. None of its men attempted to fight from houses, which often promised more protection than they provided. The defenders dug or blew foxholes in the steel-hard ground. The squadron lost only fifteen men. Its colonel, Robert O’Brien, said afterwards: “The whole action was an example not of any heroic action, but of what an efficient, active defense can do. There was no great lot of leadership: the men didn’t need it.” O’Brien’s men did not endure the weight of attack that fell on units further south, but as American forces began to recover their balance the Germans found themselves facing ever-increasing attrition. The 37th Field Artillery was supporting the 1/23rd Infantry of 2nd Division. The Americans watched German infantry advancing towards their positions near Murringen. What followed was a textbook affair. The gunners dropped a round right, another left, one short, one beyond the approaching grey lines. Their forward observer in the church steeple, Captain Charles Stockwell, then called: “Fire for effect!” The 1/23rd’s commander, Lieutenant-Colonel John Hightower, wrote: “Everything fired right on target. Charles yelled for them to fire the concentration again, and then once more. He then said: ‘That is perfect. The infantry thanks you, and I thank you.’ ” The Germans fled back into the woods whence they had come. When they regrouped and renewed the attack, they suffered the same fate.

Many American officers on the battlefield maintained cooler heads than those at higher commands. “Headquarters continues to be a madhouse,” recorded Hansen at Bradley’s 12th Army Group on 20 December, “with too many people running in and out—too many telephone calls. Traffic is heavy, too, with the new divisions coming to reinforce our effort . . . they have helped at least to abate the alarmist sentiment that was so evident yesterday.” When officers of reinforcement units asked local headquarters for information, again and again they heard only: “The front is fluid.” The drivers of Allied