On December 16 1944, the Germans launched the last major offensive of the war, Operation Mist, also known as the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern France to northwestern Belgium. The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans created a “bulge” around the area of the Ardennes forest in pushing through the American defensive line, was the largest fought on the Western front.
The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard. American forces bore the brunt of the attack and incurred their highest casualties of any operation during the war. The battle also severely depleted Germany’s armored forces, and they were largely unable to replace them.
Rather then going into too much details about the battle it is better to show it in pictures.
American engineers emerge from the woods and move out of defensive positions after fighting in the vicinity of Bastogne.
Three members, of an American patrol, Sgt. James Storey, of Newman, Ga., Pvt. Frank A. Fox, of Wilmington, Del., and Cpl. Dennis Lavanoha, of Harrisville, N.Y., cross a snow-covered Luxembourg field on a scouting mission in Lellig, Luxembourg, Dec. 30, 1944. White bedsheets camouflage them in the snow.
German troops advancing past abandoned American equipment
American soldiers of the 3rd Battalion 119th Infantry Regiment are taken prisoner by members of Kampfgruppe Peiper in Stoumont, Belgium on 19 December 1944.
An American soldier escorts a German crewman from his wrecked Panther tank during the Battle of Elsenborn Ridge
British Sherman “Firefly” tank in Namur on the Meuse River, December 1944
Belgian civilians killed by German units during the offensive
U.S. POWs on 22 December 1944
German field commanders plan the advance.
An American artilleryman shaves in frigid cold, using a helmet for a shaving bowl,
nfantrymen fire at German troops in the advance to relieve the surrounded paratroopers in Bastogne
GIs of the 413th Infantry Regiment, 104th Infantry
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