War Stories of the Battle of the Bulge - Hardcover

The powerful German counteroffensive operation code-named “Wacht am Rhein” (Watch on the Rhine) launched against the American First Army in the early morning hours of December 16, 1944, would result in the greatest single extended land battle of World War II.

To most Americans, the fierce series of battles fought in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium and Luxembourg from December 1944 through January 1945 is better known as the “Battle of the Bulge.” Almost one million soldiers would eventually take part in the fighting. At its high point, the German crescent-shaped bulge was sixty miles deep by eighty miles wide behind American lines.

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill would state in the House of Commons on January 18, 1945, that the Battle of the Bulge was “undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever famous American victory.” The Battle of the Bulge was not appropriately named, though, because it consisted of numerous battles spread over a fairly wide area at different times.

The battle officially ended on January 28, 1945. On that date, the Western Allies had pushed the German military machine back to their original December 16, 1944, starting point. The price paid by the Western Allied forces was terribly high. The Allies lost nearly 80,000 men to all causes, and all but 1,400 were Americans. Estimates on German casualties range from 90,000 to 120,000.

War Stories of the Battle of the Bulge is not intended to be yet another history of the battle. Rather, the authors tell the story of this important period in history with first-person stories from the American soldiers, both officers and enlisted personnel in their muddy and frozen foxholes or in their Sherman tanks, people who faced this powerful German military onslaught that nearly threatened to turn the tide of battle in Western Europe and successfully repelled it with their courage and blood.

These are the stories of the desperate land battle
that made the American GI an enduring World War II icon.

That night, what seemed like an entire German battalion hit our positions. Our entire line opened up in continuous fire until we were down to a few clips. . . . I was reloading the bazooka when I thought someone had hit me in the face. When my ear started bleeding, I realized that I had been hit by shrapnel.

The next day we were ordered to move out. . . . The field in front of us was filled with the frozen bodies of dead and dying Germans. On the way out they mortared our positions. I hit the snow and heard a thump. I closed my eyes and figured, Stein, you’ve had it. . . . I looked to my left and saw a dud mortar round about three feet away from my head.

—Allan H. Stein, F Company,
508th Parachute Infantry Regiment,
82nd Airborne Division

In the middle of this terrifying battle I heard a voice inside my head say, “squeeze the trigger.” I took careful aim at one of the charging Germans through my gun sight, and squeezed the trigger. He flung his arms up over his head and fell down dead, shot through the head. I felt a sensation surge through my whole body. . . . I was alive, and for the first time I felt that I had a chance to come out of this battle.

—Harry F. Martin Jr., L Company,

424th Infantry Regiment,

106th Infantry Division