Ice, Snow & Blood

One day the temperature went down to 9DEG above zero. When the blizzards stopped, the wind blew and the snow drifted. Water froze in canteens ; motorized troops on the move built fires on the steel bottoms of their trucks. In the dark mornings the doughboys climbed out of their foxholes, sleepless, stiff-legged and red-eyed, to fight another day. The wounded died where they fell unless they were quickly picked up. The medics kept their morphine Syrettes under their armpits to prevent congealing.

When the thaw came, fog settled. On most days Cub artillery spotters could get off the ground, and some days heavy bombers were able to attack rear bases and communications by using their "mickeys" (radar bombsights). But for ten straight days, Allied tactical air support was pinned to the ground, except for a few ineffective sorties.

Fine Weather. It was fine weather for a withdrawal, and canny Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt made the most of it. Volksgrenadiere in trenches took up the fight, while armor and SS infantry pulled out. In some sectors, the punching, pushing Allies encountered aggressive "counter-reconnaissance screening forces"--in others, only mines in the snow, unguarded roadblocks and the eternal booby traps. Around Bastogne, Rundstedt counterattacked persistently to shield the swelling stream of German tanks and transport flowing east through Houffalize and Saint-Vith.

The Berlin radio announced that the Germans were evacuating Saint-Hubert. When the Allies entered the town a day later, it was empty. The U.S. 2nd Armored and 84th Infantry found only nine Germans in Laroche. The British, pushing against the nose of the salient, suddenly discovered nothing ahead of them, swept up 100 square miles in two days.

Rundstedt had to hold apart the Allied pincers north and south of Houffalize--and he did. But in the "box position" which jutted southeast of Bastogne, the Germans were mauled. The area had been shelled by heavy Allied field guns 24 hours a day ever since Dec. 27. Finally, General Patton attacked the box simultaneously from west and south, trapped a sizable enemy force, captured 3,400, killed other thousands, chased the rest into the woods.

At Last, Airplanes. At week's end the 30th Infantry and 82nd Airborne delivered a massive blow at the German bulge northwest of Saint-Vith. The enemy reaction was instant and furious : the Yanks were rocked back by counterattacks with infantry and tanks. But U.S. troops took the blow, and shoved forward again. The weather cleared at last, and a huge swarm of Allied fighter bombers set out to smash the enemy columns on the roads. It was good hunting, though probably too late to inflict more than superficial wounds. Even when the Yanks cut the main highway between Houffalize and Saint-Vith, the Germans still had a net of secondary roads to move on. Rundstedt seemed in good shape to hold a more easterly defense line, or to go all the way back to the concrete fastnesses of the Westwall.

Some 4,000 Allied bombers and fighter escorts, profiting by the weather break to attack oil plants deep in Germany, raised a swarm of Luftwaffe interceptors. At least 232 German fighters were downed, while the first count of Allied losses showed only 45 planes missing.

The Wasp and the Fire. Meanwhile, the Germans, kept up their diversionary offensive in Alsace-Lorraine. This show was commanded by a rough-&-tumble general named Hermann Balck, who had distinguished himself in the Nazi retreat up the Rhone valley in France, and who had been built up in German popular esteem as a successor to the late Erwin Rommel. When the U.S. Seventh Army held and shoved back the German bulge south of Bitche, Balck attacked at Rimling, on the west shoulder of the Bitche salient. He also renewed his attacks on the French from the Colmar pocket, drove to within ten miles of Strasbourg. Considering the relatively small forces involved, Strasbourg's recapture would be a juicy political plum for the Nazis.

This week Balck was thrusting with tanks and flamethrowers into the Seventh Army's Maginot Line positions near Haguenau. It seemed likely that these harassments would continue at least until the Ardennes situation was stabilized. To Eisenhower, Balck's offensive was like a wasp snarling around a man who is trying to put out a fire.

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