Ardennes, the Secret War

Some may read this book and pass it off as just another of many retrospectives on events of WW II that seek to portray the Germans in a more positive light - in terms of their military prowess - than they really deserve and the Americans as a bunch of bungling idiots who eventually prevailed due to sheer numbers ... and luck. But the fact is, Hitler nearly pulled off the impossible by assembling a strong armoured force (albeit at the expense of denuding the Eastern front which many in the Wermacht thought was pure insanity - which it ultimately was) opposite what his intelligence told him was a collection of largely green U.S. units with limited - if any - battle experience. And he had his weather experts predict a time of prolonged cloud cover which would limit Allied air activity (the Luftwaffe was then incapable of resisting any sustained air attack so that was essential to his plan). Whether the achievement of his plan - which was to reach the Belgian coast and split the Allied forces in two - would have made any ultimate difference in the outcome is open to conjecture and I have read many assessments that say it would have made little difference since the extended German lines - with the Americans on one side and the British-Canadian forces on the other - could not possibly have held against strong counter-attacks. But at the time, with all the ensuing confusion the attack created at Eisenhower's HQ, no one knew anything for certain because ... well ... what happened wasn't supposed to have happened in the first place according to their own intelligence. The U.S. did suffer huge losses, and there was the undeniable and so-called "big bug out," but in the end they held and stopped the desperate and unlikely advance cold. And Whiting covers this well in his small (5 3/4 x 8 ½) 176-page book which comes with many photos and a few battle maps of the key stages of what is more commonly known as The Battle Of The Bulge. Perhaps the best view of the battle came from Winston Churchill who said this, even as the battle was still raging in January 1945 "I have seen it suggested that the terrific battle which has been proceeding since 16th December on the American front is an Anglo-American battle. In fact, however, the United States troops have done almost all the fighting and have suffered almost all the losses. They have suffered losses almost equal to those on both sides in the battle of Gettysburg. Only one British Army Corps has been engaged in this action. All the rest of the 30 or more divisions, which have been fighting continuously for the last month are United States troops. The Americans have engaged 30 or 40 men for every one we have engaged, and they have lost 60 to 80 men for every one of ours. That is the point I wish to make."