Ardennes 1944: Hitler's Last Gamble Read Online Free PDF Page A

the 30th Div. They fear it that much.’
    On the Elsenborn ridge, American artillery continued to pound the villages and towns below with white phosphorus and high explosive, even after the main attacks had petered out. The small town of Faymonville on the southern side, occupied by a detachment of the 3rd Fallschirmjäger, had been targeted day after day. The local priest begged a German officer to arrange a ceasefire so that non-combatants could be evacuated.On the morning of 23 December, the Germans instead simply ordered the 600 civilians trapped in Faymonville to leave for Schoppen, a village further behind the German lines. An officer told them that anyone who tried to walk towards American positions would be shot. The priest urged them to think again, but the Germans replied that they would start shooting his parishioners, five at a time, if they refused to leave.
    At 11.00 hours, the terrified townspeople set off into the open. Unfortunately, the pilot of an American spotter plane saw the column trudging with difficulty through the deep snow, and identified it as an enemy concentration. American artillery on the Elsenborn ridge opened fire. As shells began exploding all around, the old men, women and children panicked, running in all directions. The priest ran back to Faymonville to ask the Germans to radio the Americans to cease their firing but they refused to do anything. Eight or so were killed or died later and many others were injured, before they reached the relative safety of Schoppen.
    The German besiegers of Bastogne somehow still believed that the Americans were hoping to escape the encirclement. On 23 December, they tried to strengthen their presence on the west side of the town, continuing the attack round Senonchamps and Mande-Saint-Etienne to tighten the ring and to cut off any further ‘attempts to break out’. Hitler, refusing to believe ‘Manteuffel’s report that he could not take Bastogne with the forces he had’, sent an officer to check on 23 December. He, however, supported Manteuffel’s assessment.
    The defenders were certainly very short of food, but they still appear to have been better fed than Kokott’s volksgrenadiers, whose supply situation was so bad that ‘up to ten men had to share half a loaf’ . And while American paratroopers suffered in the extreme cold from their lack of winter uniforms, they at least had villages round the perimeter in which they could warm up. Their volksgrenadier opponents were even worse off, which was why they stripped American bodies of boots and items of clothing for themselves. And in the continuing tension caused by the Skorzeny commandos, this led to the shooting of some of those who wore American kit when they surrendered. Apart from weapons, the only piece of German equipment which American soldiers hankered after was the German army’s brilliantly simple knife–fork–spoon combination.The Germans had also proved more foresighted by issuing snow camouflage suits, while the Americans had to improvise.
    ‘The first enemy fighter-bombers’ , Generalmajor Kokott recorded, ‘appeared towards 0900 hours, swooped down on communication roads and villages and set vehicles and farmyards on fire.’ Unfortunately for the paratroopers on the south-western perimeter, little air support appeared. The drastic drop in temperature during the night froze the turret-traverse mechanism on many of their supporting tanks and tank destroyers. Even anti-tank guns could not be moved as they had been frozen into the ground. Cross-country movement for infantry was also difficult, with a hard crust on the top of half a metre of snow.
    The main German attacks that day to break the ring were mounted against the Flamierge sector in the north-west at noon, and another later against Marvie on the south-east side by the 901st Panzergrenadier-Regiment from the Panzer Lehr Division. Towards the end of the morning, however, an unexpected threat appeared from the south. The