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Peiper was now loose behind American lines. The only Americans in the vicinity were service troops, drivers, medical personnel-nothing to stop an armoured column with such firepower.

By 0800 Peiper had gassed up his vehicles with captured fuel. Then he headed west towards Malmedy. Peiper was running parallel to Elsenborn Ridge, the dominant physical feature of that part of the Ardennes. The nature of his thrust, meanwhile, was pushing men of the 99th and 2nd divisions back towards the ridge. The ridge was unoccupied, undefended. Whoever got there first would have the high ground and thus the decisive advantage.

Peiper's breakthrough was one of many that morning. The sheer weight of German numbers could not be denied. Americans continued to fight, but without ammunition resupply they couldn't do much. Many surrendered. Two regiments of the 106th surrendered-7,500 men, the biggest mass surrender in the war against Germany. Everywhere Major Skorzeny's disguised, English-speaking units began to spread panic, issue false orders, switch road signs, and otherwise carry out their missions, but the units assigned to take the Meuse bridges failed in their task.

BRADLEY SPENT most of December 16 driving from Luxembourg city to Versailles, so he was out of touch. At the Trianon Palace Hotel, Eisenhower's headquarters, he found his boss in a good mood. Eisenhower had just received word of his promotion to the rank of five-star general. At dusk an intelligence officer arrived with news. There had been an enemy attack that morning in the Ardennes. Bradley dismissed it as of little consequence, just a local spoiling attack. But an hour later another report came in-there were at least twelve German divisions involved.

Bradley still thought it an irritant, nothing major. Eisenhower disagreed. Studying the map, he ordered Bradley to send the 7th Armoured Division to St. Vith on the northern flank and the 12th Armoured to Echternach in the south. The 12th was scheduled to attack east of Metz, Bradley reminded Eisenhower, and Patton would be furious at having to call off his offensive. "Tell him," Eisenhower replied, "that Ike is running this damn war."

Hitler was certain it would take Eisenhower two or three days to recognize the extent of the threat and assumed that he would not be willing to call off his offensives north and south of the Ardennes until he had checked with Churchill and Roosevelt. Eisenhower proved him wrong on both points. He saw that not only was this a major offensive but that it was the best thing that could happen. The Germans were out of their fixed fortifications, out in the open where American artillery, tanks, infantry, and fighter-bombers would be capable of destroying them.

On the morning of December 17 Eisenhower ordered the 101st and 82nd Airborne, then refitting in Reims, into the battle. He sent the 101st to Bastogne, a crossroads town in the centre of the German thrust. He wanted it held at all costs and ordered a command team from the 10th Armoured Division to join the 101st there. He sent the 82nd to the northern flank, near Elsenborn.

Hitler had thought that it would take Eisenhower days to move reinforcements into the Ardennes. He was wrong about that one too. The airborne divisions could not go to their position by plane, as the weather continued to be foggy, snowy, cold. But Eisenhower had trucks. He ordered the drivers in the Red Ball Express to use all their resources as troop carriers. On December 17 alone, 11,000 trucks carried 60,000

men, plus ammunition, medical supplies, and other materiel into the Ardennes. In the first week of the battle Eisenhower was able to move 250,000 men into the fray. This was mobility unprecedented in the history of war. Not even in Vietnam, not even in Desert Storm, was the US Army capable of moving so many men and so much equipment so quickly.

Still, it took time to recover from the initial blow and regroup. Meanwhile, hundreds of German tanks were loose behind the front lines, free to move in