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From D-Day to V-Day

December 1944

December 19, 1944 - D-Day + 196

At a meeting of Allied commanders in Verdun, the decision was made to halt the offensive that aimed to reach the Rhine River and focus on reducing the German breakthrough in the Ardennes. The Battle of the Bulge was in full swing and the German army was dangerously moving forward. The aspect of surprise as well as their ferocity, knowledge of the terrain, and the weather that made it impossible for American and British bombers, fighters, and tactical air force to be deployed, all played in their favor.

Field Marshall Montgomery ordered the British Second Army's XXX Corps located in the Nijmegen zone to gather in the Louvain – St Trond – Haselt area and hold the line along the western bank of the Meuse River.

The Ninth Army received an order to go on the defensive. The VII Corps from the US First Army remained at their current positions. Units from the 2nd and 99th Infantry Divisions from the US V Corps deflected additional counterattacks and started to withdraw to new defense positions set up on the Elsenborn Ridge. The 9th Infantry Division, currently without its 47th and 60th Infantry Regiments, took over defensive positions in the 2nd Infantry Division's zone, relieving the division's units as well as attack formations from the 99th Infantry Division. In the course of the day, the 1st Infantry Division stood on the line east of the town of Malmedy. The 3rd Armored Division's Combat Command A replaced the 1st Infantry Division's 18th Infantry Regiment in defending Eupen.

In the course of December 19, 1944, units from the 30th Infantry Division held Stavelot, where combat engineers destroyed the bridge over the Ambléve River. The Americans waged several tenacious battles here for access to the town. To reinforce the 30th Infantry Division, the 3rd Armored Division's Combat Command B was attached to the division. The XVIII Airborne Corps took over the operational zone south of the Ambléve River, including the town of Houffalize and the key highway center between St Vith and Bastogne. The Corps’ mission was to hold the northern flank of the enemy breakthrough.

The 82nd Airborne Division returned to under the command of the XVIII Corps and received an order to take up positions at Werbomont, previously held by the 30th Infantry Division. The 3rd Armored Division, minus Combat Commands A and B, was attached to the Corps and started to convoy towards the Hotton – Le Grand Pré area.

All efforts to free the battalions from the 422nd and 423rd Infantry Regiments under the VIII Corps’ 106th Infantry Division from encirclement in Schnee Eifelu fell apart. The moment was nearing when hundreds of Americans would be taken prisoner by the Germans – one of the most extensive surrenders by US Army members since General Eisenhower's men landed at Normandy.

Units from the 7th and 9th Armored Divisions engaged in heavy defense fighting east of St Vith. The 112th Infantry Regiment was attached to the strongly tested 106th Infantry Division. The 28th Infantry Division received an order to leave Wiltz and withdraw from the Diekirch area. The 101st Airborne Division finally arrived in Bastogne – shortly before the enemy had almost surrounded the town. Together with units from the 10th Armored Division's Combat Command B and part of the 9th Armored Division's Combat Command R, which were now under 101st Division's command, The 101st Airborne took up defense positions on the perimeter around the town. A drama filled with heroism, self-sacrifice and human suffering began, finishing with the celebrated arrival of tanks from Lt. Charles P. Boggess’ 37th Tank Battalion from the 4th Armored Division's Combat Command A on from December 26, 1944.

The memorably designed Bastogne Historical Center, which Prince Albert opened in a May 1976 ceremony, commemorates the battle waged by the men from the 101st Airborne Division for the town of Bastogne. The museum building is in the shape of a five-point star. The spacious interior houses several large dioramas as well as a large number of documents, uniforms, weapons and other objects that commemorate the troops on both sides of the battle lines in the Battle of the Bulge, including the legendary defense of Bastogne by the men from the Screaming Eagles.

The US Third Army set up a provisional corps of units from the US First Army located in the southern flank of the German breakthrough. Units from the 4th Infantry and 10th Armored Divisions (minus Combat Command B) were entrusted with holding the southern flank of the breakthrough and closing the gap between their units and the 9th Armored and 28th Infantry Divisions in the area near Ettelbruck. The XX Corps started to withdraw from their hard-won positions east of the Saar River while the 5th Infantry Division held positions on the eastern bank of the river. The 95th Infantry Division's 387th Infantry Regiment was ordered to withdraw from Ensdorf while the III Corps received an order to prepare to advance northwards and subsequently attack the enemy's southern flank.

Task Force Fickett and the 6th Armored Division were assigned to the XII Corps. Operating in the XII Corps zone, the 35th Infantry Division halted its assault operations and started to reinforce its current positions. Units from the 4th Armored and the 80th Infantry Divisions were reassigned to the III Corps. The army command used all means possible to reinforce its attack formations everywhere where the threat of another breakthrough loomed or where a breakthrough could be expanded. This was a desperate attempt to stabilize the front, return order to the area and protect those units that faced the greatest threat.

The Seventh Army received an order to go on the defensive. The 44th Infantry Division from the XV Corps occupied Fort Simerhof and Fort Hottwiller, which the enemy had already deserted, but the Germans were still able to hold on to access routes to Bitche.

In the eastern sector of the perimeter lying along the circumference of the French port of Dunkirk, a Czechoslovak patrol found the corpse of a Canadian soldier, Private L. Lascell, near the settlement of Ghyvelde. He probably fell during the first days of the Dunkirk siege, and certainly had been reported as missing by his unit. In the Dunkirk area alone, British forces lost dozens of soldiers who disappeared in battle. If their bodies were found without identification markers and they therefore could not be named, “A SOLDIER OF THE 1939-1945 WAR” appeared on their graves. In place of their names was merely the inscription, “KNOWN UNTO GOD.”

The Allies also lost several dozen soldiers in the western Bohemian region during World War II. For example, in February 1944 an American bomber with ten men on board crashed near Nepomuk. Only one of the crew members survived; the others were killed and their remains buried in the nearby village of Prádlo. Their bodies were exhumed and because it was not known who they were, the members of the American investigation committee entered “unknown” under the victims' names. It was not until the early 1990s that a researcher investigating the history of the war in the air over Czechoslovakia found the identification tags of the deceased pilots over ten feet below ground at the location where the bomber fell – thus making it possible to provably return the names to Lt. Goddard's men.