by TIMOTHY J. THOMPSON

Created on: August 27, 2008

At Precisely 5:30 AM, Saturday morning, December 16 1944, more than 286,000 German troops, supported by 1900 pieces of artillery, rockets, and mortars, and spearheaded by 970 tanks and tank destroyers, launched an all-out attack against United States positions all along an 85 mile front of the Ardennes Forest between the towns of Monschau and Echternach in Southern Belgium.

This entire attack, code-named: Operation Christrose, was Nazi Germany's last and final throw of the dice. It was Adolf Hitler's last gamble to reverse the tide of Wolrd War Two and achieve victory for National Socialism. The overall objective was to take the Belgian port city of Antwerp, which served as the largest Allied supply depot on the continent. If successful, the entire Allied Expeditionary Force would be cut in two and the Western Allies would be forced to Sue For Peace.

Early on, the Germans met incredibly stiff reistance in the Northern sector, by small bands of determined Americans who managed to repulse most of the 6th S.S. Panzer Army's attack. However, in the central sector, and portions of the southern sector,the Germans achieved a complete breakthrough along a thrity-three mile wide front.

The Fifth Panzer Army surrounded three regiments of the U.S. 106th Division and forced them to surrender on the afternoon of December 19th. They then proceeded to surround Bastogne, over run St. Vith, link up with divisions from their comrades in the Seventh Army to their south, and race toward Dinant on the Meuse River. It looked for a time like the Germans would cross the river, but lack of fuel and stiffenning American resistance proved lethal.

The final German drive faltered some 3 miles from the Meuse River, and at Manhay, just 9 miles from the huge American supply depot at Liege. On December 26th, 1944, after 10 straight days of offensive operations, and an overall penetration of 53 1/2 miles which bent back American lines into an arrow-shaped bulge, the Germans were ferociously counterattacked by several crack, and fully refitted American divisions, including the 2nd U.S. Armored in the north, and the 4th U.S. armored in the south. The former proceeded to obliterate the 2nd Panzer Division at the westward most tip of the bulge, while the former drove into the beseiged city of Bastogne and relieved the previously surrounded 101st Airborne Division which had been fighting there since the afternoon of December 18th.

On January 2nd 1945, a massive, well-coordinated American counter attack

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