Sunday, December 21, 2014

Battle of the Bulge: Dec 21, 1944

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3600/3564971132_625c0b5ddd_z.jpg 

On its 70th anniversary, 11 maps that explain The Battle of the Bulge
Map #4: Dec. 21, 1944: "The German main advance through the center of the Ardennes sector has moved in a narrow corridor northwest to Marche after bypassing Bastogne. The 84th Infantry Division has moved to block the German northwestern advance."

[December 21, 1944], HQ Twelfth Army Group situation map.

18th Airborne Corps Sector map; December 21-23, 1944.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/d6/18_ABC_SECTOR_MAP_DECEMBER_21-23_1944.png 


The Germans advance on Marche   "At 0800 hrs. December 21, 1944, five days after the German offensive in the Ardennes commenced, the 84th Division transferred from our positions in the Siegfried Line to set up defenses in the far Northwest corner of the Bulge around Marche-en-femenne, Belgium." ...

At 0800 hrs. December 21, 1944, five days after the German offensive in the Ardennes commenced, the 84th Division transferred from our positions in the Siegfried Line to set up defenses in the far Northwest corner of the Bulge around Marche-en-femenne, Belgium. The mission: hold the Marche-Hotten Line at all costs to prevent the German panzer columns from crossing the Meuse River and turning toward Antwerp. We were to remain in Belgium through January 1945 when the Bulge was finally closed and the German Army driven back into Germany. For my unit, Company K, 335th Infantry, it was a challenge even beyond what we had confronted in the Siegfried Line around Lindern. For many the war would end in death, severe wounds, frozen feet, or other infirmities. A few would be captured, but unlike at Malmedy, an anomaly, they would survive and spend the rest of the war in German prison camps. One of these men would form a close friendship with a German guard that would last the rest their lives.
The Company K story of the Bulge makes up three chapters (Chapters 13-15) encompassing 116 pages of the memoir, “Dear Captain, et al.”http://bookstore.xlibris.com/Products/SKU-0001001003/Dear-Captain-et-al.aspx
A personal diary of the battle for Bastogne

Defense of Marche's area   "Statement by Lieutenant Leonard R. CARPENTER  On the counter-Reconnaissance Screen, 23-24 December 1944 to T/5 Jack SHANK   
"Historical Section, 84th Infantry Division."

The official online home of Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge

84th Infantry Division (The Railsplitters)  "Tried by Fire - Winter battles by 84th Infantry Division in Battle of the Bulge, crossing of the Roer and Rhine, and the desperate race to the Elbe." ...



http://www.thelastjump.com/images/Bulge.jpg

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