Armageddon - Max Hastings [170]
The Bulge crisis provoked a hasty combing of rear areas for service corps personnel who might replace the heavy infantry casualties. Private Charles Felix, an artilleryman, was stricken by despair when told in late December that he was being transferred to infantry. An unwilling draftee, Felix had been relieved to see his papers stamped “Limited Service” because of poor eyesight. He was correspondingly crestfallen to be sent overseas at all. On arrival at his battalion, he seized the opportunity to claim non-existent radio experience and to his overwhelming relief was posted to battalion CP rather than to a rifle company. Omar Bradley liked to tell a story of a man who kept telephoning the Stars & Stripes Paris office for news of the battle. After repeated calls, he was asked which commander he was calling for. “I don’t represent any general,” the man responded gloomily. “I’m one of the Com-Z people slated for transfer to infantry.” At one moment during the frantic search for reinforcements, Eisenhower asked Washington to make available 100,000 Marines, an extraordinary admission of desperation. His request was rejected.
IN THE NORTH in the last days of December, 2nd Armored Division from Hodges’s First Army met its German counterpart 2nd Panzer Division just west of Dinant, and destroyed almost every one of von Manteuffel’s tanks that had not already run out of fuel. 2nd Panzer started the battle with 116 tanks and assault guns and ended it with virtually none. Far southwards, in front of Patch’s Seventh Army, the German Army Group G launched a second offensive in the Saarland, designed to increase pressure on the Allies, and make it harder for Eisenhower to reinforce the Ardennes. The initial assault gained a little ground and inspired a resurrection of Hitler’s hopes. But this German assault, too, faltered and died in the first days of 1945.
On 27 December, SHAEF Intelligence recorded: “The tempo of the enemy’s efforts has slowed almost to nothing.” Corporal Iolo Lewis, a Welsh wireless-operator in one of Montgomery’s Shermans, waiting for the Germans with XXX Corps above the Meuse, watched the enemy’s tanks advancing in extended line, infantry among the panzers. The British felt relaxed and confident, their own tanks deployed hull down in overwhelming strength, as backstop for the American front. “As the sun came out, we knew the Germans were finished,” said Lewis. “When the Typhoons came down on them, you could see crews jumping out of the panzers even before they were hit.” On New Year’s Day 1945, the Luftwaffe made its last big effort on the Western Front. Its fighters destroyed on the ground 140 Allied aircraft, including Montgomery’s personal transport, in a series of surprise strafing attacks on airfields. But the German pilots suffered punishing casualties they could not afford, while Allied losses were quickly made good.
Since 24 December Guderian had recognized the failure of the Ardennes offensive, and begged Hitler in vain to allow the panzer divisions to be withdrawn east, in readiness to meet the Soviet onslaught which OKH, army high command, knew was approaching. Only Hitler’s personal folly maintained the Ardennes battle, encouraged by Jodl, who persuaded him that maintaining pressure in the west was dislocating the Anglo-Americans’ offensive plans. Indeed, it was Jodl who ordered the subsidiary attack in Alsace-Lorraine at this period, in defiance of Guderian’s insistence that the vital priority was now the Vistula Front. Only on 3 January did Hitler belatedly