Soldiers of ’44

Chapter Eleven

December 16, 1944. The Ardennes. Saturday, 0530 Hours.

In the first half of December, 1944, a number of intelligence summaries and statements were distributed to appropriate units in the American and British and German sectors of the Ardennes.

United States Army Intelligence, on December 10th, 1944, submitted its daily report to Eisenhower headquarters at SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces), Versailles, France. The report conceded that “beyond vague rumors, there is no further news of General Josef ‘Sepp’ Dietrich’s Sixth SS Panzer Army.”

The daily Allied Intelligence report for December 12th, 1944, concluded: “It is now certain that attrition is sapping the strength of German forces on the western front. The crust of defenses is thinner, more brittle and more vulnerable than it appears to our troops on the line. A German collapse may develop suddenly and without warning.”

December 16th, 1944: At an early morning staff meeting of Allied general officers at Twenty-first Army Group headquarters, British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery summed up enemy options and capabilities in these words: “The enemy is at present fighting a defensive campaign on all fronts. His situation is such that he cannot stage major offensive operations. Furthermore, at all costs, he has to prevent the war from entering on a mobile phase; he has not the transport or the petrol that would be necessary for mobile operations, nor could his tanks compete with ours in the mobile phase.”

At midnight on December 15th, 1944, this message from Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was read to all commands of German Army Group B: “Soldiers of the western front. Your great hour has come. We gamble everything. You carry with you the supreme obligation to give all to achieve the ultimate objectives for our Fatherland and our Führer.”

Operation Christrose was launched on December 16th, 1944, approximately three hours after the following United States Army Intelligence summary was released at General Eisenhower’s headquarters, SHAEF. It was a one-line report which read: