When I think of character I think of Max Hebgen, the Montanan who died of pneumonia contracted on the job when he was 45 years old. By then he had designed our early integrated, carbon-free, hydro-electric system and put it into service. He even reached into this own pocket to keep an electricity company going through hard times, because he knew its importance to our young state. He was the first General Manager of a capitalist organization, the Montana Power Company. Thirteen days after he died, the Montana Socialist Party’s newspaper published this salute to Hebgen’s character:

“In the death of Max Hebgen, not only the city of Butte, but the entire state of Montana has lost a good and socially useful citizen. Born and reared in a working class environment and for many years following his trade as a lineman he steadfastly held himself to the purpose of fitting himself for greater responsibilities and wider scope in the exercise of his abilities. He spent most of his leisure hours in the study of electricity, and electrical engineering, and in the course of a few years found himself fitted for the duties of superintendent of the electric lighting and power plant, which was one of the Clark properties in Butte. Nor did he then relax his diligence. On the contrary, with even greater concentration he pursued his studies and increased his knowledge and skill by practical experimentation. He made himself one of the best informed and most reliable authorities in this country, in his chosen field of labor and became the president of the Montana Light and Power Company, which is the largest and most powerful of the electrical industries. Under his guiding genius the operations of this institution were greatly extended and numerous electrical plants in Montana bear testimony to his wise foresight and constructive skill.

Success in his profession never spoiled Max Hebgen. He was, in the best sense of the phrase, a big man. Of vital temperament, he was essentially constructive in his activities. He lived in his work, and his ruling ambition was to create and to make his creations as perfect and enduring as possible. Not exploitation for private gain, but genuine service was his passion, though he would not so have phrased it; perhaps was scarcely conscious of it. Loyalty was another trait in his character, and it manifested itself in his home and all other associations. He was appreciative of good and faithful work on the part of those who worked under his direction, and many are the employees of his company to whom he has opened the way to further advancement. His elevation to a position of power and distinction never destroyed his understanding of and sympathy with the working class. In his dealings with wage-earners he was scrupulously fair and his personal attitude toward the public which his company served was ever generous. He seemed desirous of giving as reasonable rates as was consistent with excellent service, good remuneration for labor and regard for the earnings of capital invested in the enterprises. Not always was he able to execute what he personally favored. The other influences surrounding him in his official capacity frequently overruled; but the will was there.

Yes, Max Hebgen was a truly great man and his life one of social usefulness. He was not what is called a ‘good mixer,’ but the sterling qualities of his nature, his indubitable ability, his indefatigable endeavor toward excellence, his essentially proletarian nature and sympathies greatly endeared him to this who knew best, and the people of Butte, especially the working class, have greater reason for respecting his memory than they, perhaps, have ever known or suspected.”

When Magoo and I drove from Helena to give our presentation in Butte, we followed the Great Falls to Butte Rainbow A and B lines, 126 miles of paralleled, ancient looking towers of angle iron still bearing electricity southwards along today’s Interstate 15., The Rainbow A & B lines were completed in 1910 by crews working for Hebgen, a telegraph lineman turned electricity operations genius. He figured out how to harness the length of the Upper Missouri River extending from a storage lake in the Madison River’s headwaters to the dams of the Missouris waterfalls, once so great that the American Indians riding out of view called them The Sound.” Hebgen’s integrate hydro-electric system supplied power for purifying smelted ore at Black Eagle, smelting ore at East Helena and Anaconda, and mining the unforgiving hard rock beneath the Butte Hill. The lines hanging on those quaint-looking metal transmission towers, like the first ones west of the Mississippi that connected Madison River’s Bear Trap Canyon dams into Butte were always loaded at full capacity. They transmitted millions of kilowatt-hours from a sub-station near the Rainbow Dam in Great Falls to energize four electric motors in the Butte Hoist Compressor Plant near the Missouri Sub-station on The Hill, and motors for giant compressors at The Leonard, The Bell and the Never Sweat mines. Each of these huge electric motors in Butte ran two enormous air compressors for squeezing air to 90 pounds per square inch. When a motor was down for maintenance, backed-out compressed air would bring it up to 75 revolutions per minute before workers turned on its electricity from Great Falls. Like coasting a pickup truck down a driveway to start its motor by catching its gears, using the air motor for starting kept the Rainbow A & B lines from being over-loaded with electric power being drawn in surges for starting requirements. Giant storage tanks or receivers outside the Butte Hoist Compressor Plant were connected to a series of 16 horizontal receivers or air storage tanks a quarter of a mile down The Hill. Miles of eighteen-inch steel lines carried the air across The Hill from these receivers to hoisting engines and to ten-inch air lines going down every shaft. Four-inch air lines carried the air to working places. Large steel air receiver tanks grouped vertically next to each hoisting engine room held sufficient air to cover a stationary twin 2500 horsepower air-powered hoisting engine’s peak energy requirements for moving the many man cages required at shift changes. Heat from the single steam boiler remaining to heat each mine’s locker room, or dry, warmed the compressed air in towers designed to give stationary engineers better control with air that was more responsive. During winter, warmer air in the 18-inch lines criss-crossing The Hill melted their covers of snow, sometimes creating short-cut trails for the miners going on or coming off shift. Butte kids would hang around those miners’ trails hoping to panhandle leftover sandwiches from homeward-bound lunch buckets. A short distance up The Hill above the compressor pant there was an open steel water tank ten feet deep and a hundred feet across. This simple mechanism maintained the hydro-static pressure on all compressed air in The Hill. A column of water dropping from under the tank down The Hill hooked from below into the bottoms of that series of 16 horizontal receivers, as air was being fed from the compressors into the top of the same series of receivers. Thus water pressure maintained air pressure across The Hill, in spite of occasional simultaneous peaking by many hoisting engines. The air pressure could be monitored by watching the rise or fall of water in the hydrostatic tank. Nothing more than stored air energized the hoisting engines of Butte’s eleven largest mines and their rock drills.

This marvel happened because Hebgen had the good judgement to approve the system as proposed by Bruno Nordberg, a compressed air expert from Wisconsin, including increasing the stroke length of the drivers on the steam-powered hoisting engines from 48 inches to 60 inches. This allowed a change of primary energy from coal for steam to water for electricity, which was less expensive and incidentally allowed workers and their families to breath cleaner air in Butte.

When National Defense Authorities ordered all production officials at the various Anaconda Company mines to increase zinc and copper production as rapidly as possible, there began a crash program of facilities enlargement aimed at producing more copper by Spring 1941. Due to submarine interdictions, the U.S. Office of Production Management was more worried in the near term about not having enough manganese or zinc. So, as The Company transferred 400 miners from copper to zinc and manganese production in Butte, in Anaconda The Company started building a manganese concentrator and nodulizer. The output of Butte’s zinc mins rose immediately from 5,000,000 pounds per month to 7,700,000 pounds.

These early pre-WWII preparations included stabilizing the 150 megawatts of electricity supply that would prove essential to The Company’s critically important wartime effort. Stabilizing supplies required helping to form the first eletricity pool in the nation, which in turn required completing a new 161,000 volt transmission line form Grace, Idaho to The Company’s smilers at Anaconda. The new line augmented an existing 161,000 volt line to the smelter from Kerr Dam on the Flathead River. The new power pool gave The Company access to the generation resources of several private companies in other states and electric power generated by the federal government’s Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams on the Columbia River. Everything was renewable, because everything was hydro-electric. This Northwest Power Pool with headquarters in Portland, Oregon, started rescheduling electricity flows in emergencies and during planned maintenance outages.

Throughout WWII these 100 percent renewable electric power flows could be optimized for required uses throughout the combined territories.

Con Kelley had been a boy in Walkerville, Montana. More significantly, he had a solid knowledge of The Butte Hill. During the years he attended law school, he mapped the mines and orebodies of Butte. After his mentor, John D. Ryan died, Kelley waited through the rest of the Great Depression before stepping into the position of Chairman of the Board for The Anaconda Company (The Company). That move was essential to increasing production from peacetime rates to the pitched levels needed for burying the Axis Powers in American guns, equipment, ships and ammunition. A lend-lease program with the United Kingdom (U.K.) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) took shape by March 1941. That’s when Roosevelt proclaimed the United States (U.S.) as the “Arsenal of Democracy.” The U.S. was starting to produce more fighting implements at a modest rate. Tanks, for example, were coming off assembly lines at the rate of 115 a month, while Joseph Stalin was begging for 500 per month.

As German submarines started interrupting normal supplies of chromium, The Company opened the Benbow and Minatt-Sampson chrome mines in Stillwater County and began producing 75,000 tons of chromium concentrate a month.

The crying need for manganese and the uncertainty of interrupted imports by submarine interdiction had already caused The Company to reopen Butte’s Emma and Travonia mines. Each day from June 1941, they produced 2,240,000 pounds of pink rhodochrosite mineral, which was 42 percent manganese, until the demand for manganese abated at the end of WWII. From this lower grade ore, the reduction plant in Anaconda, Montana, annually produced 224,000,000 pounds of 60 percent manganese nodules. Butte and Anaconda eventually produced 537,600,000 pounds of domestic U.S. manganese, enough at 12.5 pounds of hardener and alloy per ton of iron to enable production of more than 43 million tons of U.S. steel. This level of production represented more than 98 percent of the total manganese produced inside the U.S. In 1942, U.S. manganese consumption rose more than six-fold to more than 990,000 metric tons or 2.182 trillion pounds, of which nearly 29 percent was domestic, with the percent growing toward 40 percent. In democracy’s mighty arsenal, Montana’s mines in Butte were critical to the war effort. In the mid-1940’s, the Northern Pacific Railroad published in leading newspapers and magazines that had Butte and its surrounding area been captured or destroyed by enemy forces in 1941, it might have crippled the U.S. war production effort. “The mines in Butte and vicinity worked a miracle of manganese production, using ‘pink ore,’ a former waste material. This manganese has been a mainstay of America’s armament industries.”

And, it wasn’t just manganese for hardening iron into steel. In 1942, for example, while Butte’s miners were annually drilling, blasting, mucking and filling boxes with rocks containing 144 million pounds of manganese, they were also mining 47 million pounds of zinc, and 250 million pounds of copper. As byproducts they also removed 10,000 ounces of gold and 6 million ounces of silver. During all of World War II, as some of the Blue Stars in the windows of hundreds of Butte families turned to Silver for someone being wounded, and Gold for someone deceased, 115 Butte miners were killed while working underground.

Butte’s 12.5 pounds of manganese per ton of steel became part of America’s 29,497 tanks and self-propelled guns, 257,390 artillery pieces, including anti-aircraft and anti-tank guns, 105,054 mortars, 2,679,840 crew-served machine guns, 11,750,000 rifles, 1,956,000 sub-machine guns, 2,832,311 trucks, 99,950 fighter planes, 62,444 light and medium bombers, 35,366 four-engine bombers, 3,918 reconnaissance planes, 23,929 transport planes, 57,623, training and miscellaneous planes, 141 ships that carried aircraft, 27 of which were aircraft carriers over 100,000 tons, 8 battleships, 48 cruisers, 349 destroyers, 498 escort corvettes and frigates and 203 submarines.

Besides 12.5 pounds of manganese for every ton of steel, those ships need cadmium paint on their hulls to keep from rusting and copper for hundreds of components. For example, “Each Iowa class battleship contained 3,058,000 pounds of copper. Just one large bronze propeller used 50,000 pounds, heavy cruisers needed 1,407,000 pounds and light cruisers needed 1,279,000 pounds. Aircraft carriers needed 2,861,000 pounds, while their escorts each required 622,000 pounds. Destroyers contained 463,000 pounds, submarines needed 348,000 pounds and submarine chasers used 58,000 pounds. Even torpedo boats like John F. Kennedy’s PT109 each required 18,000 pounds. And, that copper requirement did not include their big guns for hammering shorelines and beaches. Each 6-inch, 8-inch and 16-inch gun mount and turrent needed 18,800, 29,100 and 66,100 pounds of copper, respectively.

Then there was the zinc required with copper for some aircraft. P-38 Lightning fighters needed 1384 pounds of copper and 72 pounds of zinc, P-39 Airacobras, 938 and 25 pounds, P-40 Kitty Hawks, 1001 and 51 pounds, P-47 Thunderbolts, 660 and 87 pounds, P-51 Mustangs, 681 and 125 pounds, B-17 Flying Fortress bombers, 2958 and 181 pounds, B-24 Liberator bombers, 3025 and 132 pounds, B-25 Mitchell bombers, 2010 and 193 pounds, B-26 Marauder bombers, 1545 and 205 pounds, A-20 Havoc bombers, 782 and 95 pounds, and each C-47 or DC-3 Air Transport required 1569 pounds of copper and 95 pounds of zinc.

What about ammunition?

Ammunition consumed one third of all U.S. copper production. Each million cartridges used 28,000 pounds. A single fighter plane fired 2500 bullets in 15 seconds, A flight of 50 planes could fire a half million cartridges in a minute. One hour of firing a single 105-mm cannon, 36 to an armored division, hurled 1000 pounds of copper. The weight of copper in naval gun shells from each gun, increasing in size was 15.2, 27 and 70.5 pounds. Without copper, no torpedo or depth charge could even function.

As far as ground combat machines used in the Battle of the Bulge, a 90-mm anti-aircraft gun needed 80 pounds of copper in the gun tubes, 400 pounds in the recoil mechanism, and 1,000 pounds in the carriage. Each 81-mm mortar carrier, 105-mm self-propelled howitzer, 75-mm self-propelled gun, and 155-mm gun without vehicle, respectively, needed 164 pounds, 250 pounds, 190 pounds and 1350 pounds of copper. One .50-caliber machine gun required at least 10 pounds of copper, and the 7,000 Garand M-1 rifles in a typical triangular division each, like the one fired by Frank Vukassin, used 3/10’s of a pound. Each of the 300 light tanks and 200 medium tanks in a typical armored division used 500 and 900 pounds of copper respectively.

The Anaconda Company’s mines, smelters and refineries in Montana produced 51.26 percent of the total increase of U.S. copper production during WW II. By 1942, 80 percent of Butte’ miners were working six days a week and opting for higher personal production rates as contract miners. Butte’s mines were operating seven days a week to eventually produce 6,800,000,000 pounds of copper during WWII. Adding to this the 1,513,000,000 pounds of finished copper being produced The Company’s other mines at Mountain City and Battle Mountain in Nevada, employees of The Company produced one-third of the copper available to the U.S. for prosecuting WWII.

To help accomplish these massive tasks, underground in the mines of Butte, Montana, The Company erected trees of “No Smoking” signs in sixteen languages.

We have identified 242 Montanans who fought in the Battle of the Bulge. From available information 77 of them could have fought in any of the battle’s four stages: defending against the initial attack, which involved at least 67 indicated by Blue-in place, Green-rapid reinforcing, Pink-KIA, and Orange-captured dots on the attached map, holding out inside the Siege of Bastogne, which involved at least 35, forced marching in contact under Patton against four defending Divisions to relieve Bastogne, which involved at least 33, or mounting the counteroffensive to clear the Bulge, which involved at least 39 more Montanans. After taking our little book to Montana’s towns, we concluded the number of Montanan’s involved was probably larger than we’ll ever know.

Our tour got us thinking about the fates of the nine Montanans who were captured. As already mentioned Mel Mellinger and Kenny Newton of Glasgow were with the 106th Infantry Division’s 423rd Regiment when it was surrounded and forced to surrender at the village of Schoenberg, as were James Dew of Missoula, Keith Ginter of Richey, Howard Akey of Whitefish, and Tom Lawler. Howard Brecktell of Butte, serving with the 110th Regiment of 28th Division on Skyline Drive near the 106th, was captured with them. Mark Osweller of Lewistown serving with the 80th Infantry Division was later captured during the relief of Bastogne and sent to Stalag17B. We know that Helena’s LT Bob Harrison with the 501st PIR was captured when wounded at Wardin near Bastogne but do not know which Stalag he was trying to escape when he was killed. We know Lawler died in Stalag 4B at Muhlberg, Germany on February 2, 1945, and Brecktell died in Stalag 9B at Bad Orb, Germany, on February 6, 1945. We also know that Ginter was sent to Stalag 4B, while Akey was sent to Stalag IIIA.

In Kalispell we met Howard Akey’s two sons and a grandson. Akey was captured in the Bulge with 2800 men of the 106th Infantry Division. They were being held in seven circus tents in Stalag-IIIA, 35 miles south of Berlin at Luchenwald when he met another Montanan. Steve Warner was from Browning on the other side of Glacier National Park. Warner, a member of the Blackfeet Tribe and the 9th Infantry Division had been captured at Kasserine Pass two years earlier. Another Blackfeet soldier, Fred D. DeRoche, was with the 9th Infantry in the 39th Regiments. He enlisted with his cousin Billy Wolftail and made it as far as the Bulge before being Killed in Action on December 21, 1944. Anyhow, Akey’s sons and grandson said their father and grandfather never spoke much of WWII except once in 1980 at family dinner. One of the sons, watching the Iran Hostage Crisis unfold on television, made some suggestion about sending in the US. Marines to rescue diplomatic personnel. Their father surprised them by saying, “Be quiet! You know nothing of war.”

Their father left behind the notes of a story he’d written, titled Time out of Time. He starts by telling about an SS officer nearly shooting him. His lines include: “The lack of food seems to eliminate any problems that could arise from 2800 men condensed without women.” About being bombed by allied planes he wrote, “The talk naturally is of the air raid the night before. The prison camp is located right on the edge of the rail yard outside of Limberg. An American officer’s barracks suffered a direct hit killing sixty-five men and the entire camp is in utter confusion, There had been air raids before but this is the first hit on the camp, I try to rationalize the absurdity of being killed by our own bombs, and from the receiving end it makes no sense. These men have given their lives and it has gained nothing. The ditches where we had taken refuge beside the road have a light cover of new snow this morning, as does the quarry. The route I had taken through the pit looks impossible to negotiate in the daylight. The area is badly pock-marked with bomb craters. I feel very lucky to have survived. As we near the train I can see our car has made it through the air raid without being touched, Some of the others have been damaged but the train is still on the track and appears to be movable. Near the tracks the Germans have gathered the frozen bodies of the men killed by the bombs and stacked them like a woodpile. As we file past this depressing mound I try not to look at the nearly blue faces. I don’t want to recognize anyone. We climbed back into the car from which we had fled in such terror.”

Akey gradually hardened to all the death. During his first days walking behind enemy lines, he passed a burned American personnel carrier. There were two charred bodies in the back, one slumped over a wooden seat that was nearly burned away, the other hanging with his head down over the tailgate. The upside-down American’s hands couldn’t quite reach the ground laid bare by the fire’s heat. There was another body, unburned ten feet away from the truck’s open cab. He’d probably been shot trying to escape the burning. A little farther on the road he saw a German staff car turned upside down in the ditch with wheels in the air. There was a soldier pinned underneath, with the top half of his body nearly face up in the cold water. Akey remembered, “I am becoming more aware of how permanent death is and how fragile life is” He talked about how survival would not have been possible without a friend.

“Lee and I have been together through this whole ordeal. As a matter of act we have been close friends since I joined the outfit in September of 1943 at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, through maneuvers in Tennessee, a summer of training at Camp Atterbury, Indiana and then overseas. It isn’t surprising that we are now sharing every discomfort and every scrap of food or cigarette butt we can find. Our backgrounds are entirely different. Lee comes from a fairly affluent family in New Jersey and attended a private school in New England until the draft caught up with him. He has never hiked in the mountains or fished, hunted or skied while my knowledge of his lifestyle is equally limited. We tolerate each other’s shortcomings and share a deep desire to get back to our own ways of life. We are a team joined by the basic need to share.”

The Whitefish soldier wrote that Russian POWs in Stalag-IIIA faired poorly. “The only nationality in the camp that does not receive Red Cross food parcels is the Russian. They are not members of the International Red Cross Organization. Very often we see a grave detail carrying another victim of starvation out of the Russian compound. There are stories about the Russians back at Stalag-IIIB on the Oder that when the guards turn the dogs into the barracks to get the POW’s out for roll call, as they do if we don’t get out fast enough, the only thing that comes out are the dog hides hung on the fence. “The Rooskies had soup!”

As bad as this might seem, clearly at least one Nazi political prisoner had it worse:

“Most of the near three thousand men walking along the road are doing so on recently frozen feet. Our route takes us by a political prison camp. These prisoners wear loose fitting pants and shirts and they look like they’ve been starving for months. Most of them are behind the barbed wire but some are outside the camp cleaning up the area around the fences and in the ditches by the road They are very weak looking and move slowly. As we pass close by one man cleaning the edge of the road steps into our group in an attempt to escape. His move goes unnoticed by both his and our guards. His clothes are light weight black and white striped cotton resembling summer weight pajamas the kind my mother use to buy for me and I never wore. His bony ankles show between his too-short pants and his too-large shoes which he wears without stockings. His shirt is soaked by the rain and it clings to his gaunt shoulders and shows his skinny arms and ribs. His backbone makes a knobby line down one of the dirty white stripes. His face shows no emotion. His cheeks are hollow and his eyes are sunken in dark sockets.

We keep him in the center of our ranks and rub mud and dirt on his clothes trying to cover his stripes. He can speak no English and none of us can understand what I believe is the Polish he speaks, but it is evident he is a very desperate man. The two or three hours we walk with this man in our midst has my stomach in a knot. I don’t know if I am frightened for him or for what will happen to us when he is recognized.

The guards are turning us off the road into a large farm-yard. The wooden double gate to the farm-yard is hung from stone and cement pillars in each side of the drive. Only the gate on the right side is open and our column narrows down to two abreast to go through the opening. A guard just inside the closed side of the gate recognizes the striped clothes of our infiltrator, grabs the runaway by his scrawny deck and throws him to the ground. With his heavy boot on the back of the striped shirt he holds the man flat in the mud until another guard runs over and together they drag the prisoner off to, God knows what fate. I dislike myself for doing nothing to stop this abuse, but am too terrified about my own safety to do anything but walk on by as though nothing was happening. I ask, ‘Christ, Lee, what do you think they’ll do to him?’ Lee looks sick and answers, ‘I don’t know; I don’t even what to think about it.’

As the Russians liberated Stalag-IIIA, Akey was able to observe, “The Russian Army, as I see it, doesn’t appear to have any organization. They come in hordes….men, women, children….old and young…some in uniform, some not, carrying every make of weapons I’ve ever seen.” Then, after they arrived, “Shortly after, they run the guards down the street and out the other end of town, three Russians come around a building, two of them holding a third between them. We thought he was drunk but as they got closer he appears to be having a fit of some kind. He is drooling and foaming at the mouth and making odd sounds in his throat. His eyes are rolled back in hushed. They take him into an alley, shoot him and leave him there. We have become adept at blending into the scenery and moving away from apparent danger. I will never be able to understand these peoples’ disregard for human life. We decide to be very careful around the Russians. It looks like we will be around them for a few days before we get back to American control.”

Then Akey spoke for all the American POWs who made it home. “The morning of May 28th, 1945, I am awakened early by men shouting and running up the metal steps to the deck above. We are home. I also run out on the deck to see the New York skyline looming out of the morning mist. There she is, Miss Liberty, just as I had seen her in so many pictures. I stand at the rail for more than an hour thrilled with the sight of America and still not quite able to believe I have made it back. We dock at Staten Island and take a ferry to the mainland. The ferry is an old-timer the army leases just to ferry troops across the bay. The entire crew is the captain and the engineer. There are about 200 POWs on board. Out in the middle of the bay a fire starts where the smokestack comes through to the top deck. The smoke is billowing up and other ferries pull up close to help. The captain stops the boat and he and his crew of one get out the fire hose, but every time they turn on the water someone shuts it off or kinks the hose. Everyone feels it would be great climax to our adventure to sink in New York Harbor, after all there are boats standing all around to take us off. Some of the officer on board, however, get the men under control and we help extinguish the fire. We are definitely back under military control. I walk off the ferry and climb on the waiting troop train. Compared to the German boxcars this is sheer luxury. I stow my bag in the luggage rack and sit in the window seat of the old coach. Looking down at my watch, still not running, I know now it will just be a short time till I am walking downtown to get it repaired. My time will start running again. My war is over….My country is free….I have paid my dues.”

A furious Hitler ordered his generals to capture Bastogne, eliminating this “thorn in the side” and symbol of American defense before proceeding again to the Meuse. At the same time Patton had just reached Bastogne. He was determined to expand the Bastogne pocket and retake its German strongpoints and road networks as a prelude to pushing the Germans back to the Siegfried Line. His Third Army would strike north through Bastogne to Houffalize, as Montgomery’s First Army would strike east and south to meet him there, pinching the Bulge at the waist and then pushing east to St.Vith and the Siegfried Line. Unbeknownst to each other, both the Allies and the Germans planned Bastogne offensives to begin December 30. The Battle of Bastogne had reached its final stages and would become the center of bitter fighting until the end of the Battle of the Bulge.

The fighting took place primarily on two fronts along the eastern and western outskirts of Bastogne. The western side included the outlying villages of Tillet, St.Hubert, Moircy, Chenogne, Remagne, Flamierge, and Mande-St.Etienne. Troy Middleton’s 8th Corps, now under Patton faced the German 47th Corps, consisting of the 3rd Panzergrenadier Division and Fuhrer Begleit Brigade, a regiment of the Panzer Lehr Division and a screen consisting of the 26th Volksgrenadiers and 5th Panzergrenadiers. The eastern side stretched from Marvie and Wardin down to Lutreboi, Vlle’s-la-Bonne-Eau and Harlange. The U.S. 35th Infantry, 6th Armored, and 4th Armored Divisions, joined later by the U.S. 90th Infantry Division, faced the new 39th Panzer Corps, consisting of a Kampfgruppe of the 1st SS Panzer Division, the 167th and 340th Volksgrenadiers and the 5th Fallschirm Divisions.

On December 27 Walter Tipton of Helena, Montana, serving with the 174th Field Artillery, which had fought in General Barton’s defense of Echternach, Luxembourg during the initial phase of the Bulge, found his unit shifted to General Middleton’s 8th Corps at Bastogne. They were supporting the U.S. 11th Armored and 17th Airborne Division assaults. By January 5 he wrote home, “We are right in the middle of this thing. We had our New Year’s turkey a little late. It was frozen and we were too busy to thaw it out. I ate standing in a snowstorm, but it really tasted good.”

On December 30, Middleton’s 11th Armored and 87th Infantry Divisions, with 9th Armored Combat Command A in support, had moved up the west side of Bastogne. Just after beginning they ran into a German offensive south, aiming to cut the U.S. relief corridor at Sibret and Assenois. Tanks and infantry from General Denkert’s 3rd Panzergrenadiers and Panzer Lehr Divisions, and the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade, supported by artillery, unable to break through stopped the U.S. attack and dug-in to strong defensive positions.

Fuhrer Begleit Brigade Commander Remer described this action after the war, saying his brigade, coming from Hotten, arrived in the western area of Bastogne on December 28 and was sent immediately to relieve the 26th Volksgrenadiers and attack Asenois on December 30. Enroute at Chenogne he engaged 30 Sherman tanks from the U.S. 11th and 9th Armored Divisions in a three-hour tank battle, managing to block the Americans in what he called one of the toughest fights he had in the entire Bulge campaign. There were heavy losses on both sides in attacks and counterattacks.

One Montanan named Ivan “Ike” Weinbrenner, drafted out of Augusta, held the rank of a Motor Sergeant for his 11th Armor Division Tank Company, but spent most of his time inside a tank as an armor crewman. He later would tell his daughter what it was like as a tank driver looking through through tiny slots and steering left or right depending on whether his Tank Commander pressed a boot on his left or right shoulder. Obviously a daughter close to her father, she told us “He would follow Patton anywhere.”

Charles “Chick” Gage with the 11th Armored Division, assigned to the 492nd Armored Field Artillery Battalion defending the Neufchateau-to-Bastogne road near Remagne, said that in 11 days of continuous fighting beginning December 31, his battalion fired 25,000 rounds of ammunition. Private First Class Larry Linton of Helena, Montana was with A Battery of the 793rd Field Artillery Battalion in the 9th Armored Division, helped fire 195-pound shells from eight-inch tractor drawn howitzers. He would adjust the bubble on the sights until the gun was level to fire.

Meanwhile, as the Germans attacked down the west side of Bastogne they also launched an attack down the east side from the Marvie and Wardin area, pressing south to create a pincer and cut the U.S. relief corridor near Assenois. In bitter fighting against regiments from the 1st SS Panzer Division brought in from the northern shoulder, the 167th Volksgrenadiers Division from Hungary, and the 340th Volksgrenadiers from Brandenberger’s reserve, the U.S. 35th and 6th Armored Divisions were forced to withdraw before digging in and stopping the German attack with help from the nearby 4th Armored Division backed by proximity-fuse artillery and overhead P-47 fighters. Extremely costly and tough battles took place in this eastern sector at Villers-la-Bonne-Eau and Lutreboi from January 2 to January 10. Private Virgil Stubbs of Sidney, Montana, serving with the 35th Division, lost his life on January 1 in this fight and is buried at Hamm.

On January 1, Patton launched the U.S. 6th Armored and 101st Airborne Divisions to clear out the Bastogne “pocket,” but ran into tough German resistance from Nebelwerfer rockets, 170-mm artillery, and infantry of the 9th and 12th SS Panzer Kampfgruppe at Bizory and Mageret to the east of Bastogne. During this fight Private George Nordberg of Deer Lodge, Montana, assigned to the 502nd PIR of the 101st Airborne, was killed by a tree burst near Longchamps and is buried at Hamm.

On January 1, Middleton resumed what was to be a continuous attack at Chenogne and Rechrival. On that day, the U.S. 11th Armored Division suffered it worst one-day loss of the war, with 661 killed, wounded and missing, along with 53 tanks. Kenneth Brust of Kalispell, Montana, assigned to the 11th Armored, lost his life and is buried at Hamm, Luxembourg. Otto Gummere of Butte, Montana, serving with the 87th Infantry Division, lost his life on January 1 and buried at Hamm, as well. The 3rd Battalion of Remer’s Fuhrer Begleit Brigade was battered on January 2, with only 150 men surviving.

The American perspective of this western Bastogne struggle was provided in an interview with Bruce Waldo, serving with the 513th PIR of the 17th Airborne Division. With no battle experience, they were thrown into the Bulge on January 3 after being brought up from France and being shelled heavily that night. The next morning they were told to move out until they made contact. As they moved up the west side of Bastogne from the base, they encountered the dug-in Fuhrer Begleit Brigade and other Wehrmacht units. They faced fierce machine gun fire while trying to assist neighboring “B” Company, which was also taking heavy fire. Waldo remembered seeing a friend shot in the leg, hearing a bullet strike his own helmet, witnessing “B” Company surrendering behind them, and then being cut off by a German assault and forced also to surrender. Stories are similar from veteran of the neighboring unit, the 245th Infantry Regiment of the 87th Division.

On January 3, the U.S. 87th Infantry and 17th Airborne Divisions, brought into replace the 11th Armored Division, attacked St.Hubert, Tillet, and Flamierge. The 87th was surrounded temporarily, but was the U.S. force for which Remer had the greatest respect. He said they were good night fighters, shouting at German outposts, and, like commandoes, knifing his sentries in the dark. Still, on January 4 the situation looked gloomy for Patton and Middleton as the Germans launched counterattacks that day and the next involving nine divisions. The U.S. 26th Division’s drive north was blocked at Hill 490 on a road winding up from the Wiltz Valley, as U.S. battalions suffered great losses from dug-in panzer and rifle fire. On the western side of Bastogne, the 11th Armored Division, already badly battered at Chenogne, had been making little progress over six days. The 87th had suffered similarly at Moircy and Remagne, with entire units isolated. The 17th Airborne in some battles suffered 40 percent losses, including 42 Shermans, while advancing only six miles.

On January 4 Patton wrote in his diary: “We can still lose this war.” Nine new German divisions had now been thrown into the fight. On January 7, Eisenhower noted in his weekly diary that our troops were making progress in enlarging the salient on both sides of Bastogne, widening the neck, but he added an observation that the Germans were still able to attack with considerable power to regain some lost ground, bringing in forces from Dietrich’s army. He noted we barely pushed back a German threat on January 5 when the enemy almost eliminated Patton’s salient in the west and threatened our progress on the eastern side of Bastogne in the pocket.

There were many new guys from replacement depots fighting tough battles at St.Hubert, Moircy, Remagne, and Tillet, making only yards per day at terrible human cost. In return for minor gains the 17th Airborne took 1,000 casualties per day for three days. At the end of the battle, its replacements amounted to 50-70 percent of the total remaining men. The 17th Airborne Division took Flamierge, but unable to hold it, retook the village January 7.

Attacks and counterattacks in the first week of January around Bastogne generated some of the fiercest fighting and heaviest losses of the Battle of the Bulge. Patton continued to press, knowing it was essential to maintain the momentum. A German high command assessment at the time said the American “enemy is tired, but his air power reveals our basic handicap, and creates a renewal of tension in our troops- - a tension which has already had so much influence in forcing our troops to give up the field from Normandy on.” The assessment concluded that the German soldier no longer believed in final victory, and the infallibility of the supreme command. “We received,” the report said, “the harshest blow the (Brandenberger’s) 80th Corps was defeated in Luxembourg.”

The final German lunge at Bastogne continued into the second week of January, but the tide was turning and the German counterattacks had failed. Eleven U.S. Divisions coordinated their attacks on January 9 and were making progress in all areas as the Germans were forced to start withdrawing. The U.S. 4th Armored and 101st Airborne Divisions focused on Noville from the center moving north. The fresh 90th Infantry Division shocked the German with its power, attacking with the 35th Infantry on its right and 6th Armored on its left, and driving up the east side of Bastogne, near Longvilly in a “battle for billets” in extreme cold. To the southeast, the 90th took Wiltz in tough fighting from January 5 to January 9, and the U.S. 6th Armored and 35th Infantry Divisions trapped the German 5th Fallschirm Division in the Harlange pocket. In the west, Middleton’s force also started making progress, albeit slowly, taking Recogne on January 9 and Flamierge shortly thereafter. The U.S. 5th Infantry Division was clearing out Luxembourg near Ettelbruck, as the U.S. finally took the village of Tillet on January 10 and pushed on to Noville. On January 13, the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade was replaced after suffering 2,000 casualties, including 450 killed and having only 25 operational tanks left from 100 at the start. Brigade Commander Remer said his force destroyed 150 U.S. tanks, shot down 16 planes, and captured 500 U.S. prisoners.

Clearing Bastogne was another bloodland and area of terrible fighting and of attacks and counterattacks by each side. Most of the Montana boys, it seems died in Patton’s Army at this time, late in the campaign. Five Medals of Honor were earned in the fighting around Bastogne, the same number as at Krinkelt and Rocherath in the north. Patton entered into his diary his belief that the battle for Bastogne was as important to World War II as the battle of Gettysburg proved to be for the Civil War.

The U.S. 6th Armored Division fought in the pocket for 23 days, clearing Bastogne as the Germans threw everything at them. The author John Toland praised the Americans, describing the first night near Marvie, the Division had been driven out along with the 35th Infantry and forced to dig in near Lutrebois, a point when, he said, their fear of battle was replaced by anger. Sergeant Cornelius Klomp of Ravalli County, Montana was killed while serving in the 6th Armored at this time, and is also buried at Hamm.

As the First Army conducted its counteroffensive west to north, the 82nd Airborne, with the addition of the 517th PIR and 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion (PIB), led a three -regiment assault to seize Am’comont, Noirfontaine, Bergival, Trois-Ponts, and Reharmont on a three-mile front near the Salm River in hilly wooded terrain fog and two feet of snow. The 62nd Volksgrenadier Division was in defense with 10,000 troops and a heavy complement of mortars and artillery.

Lieutenant George Luening, from St.Xavier, Montana, a decorated veteran of Sicily and Normandy, was serving as a platoon leader with the 551st PIB, leading a movement uphill to the ridge of Herispehe, a killing zone of sniper fire, machine guns, and mortars. As Luening led a company up the hill and called into report that German mines on the approach route were frozen and could be crossed, he was shot and killed by a sniper in what was some of the very toughest fighting in the campaign. Though the entire 551st Battalion was wiped out, it received a Presidential Unit Citation for courage under fire.

Clay Speich of Helena tells how his father, Charlie Speich, joined the Army from Syracuse, New York and was assigned to the 887th Airborne Aviation Engineers, going overseas with the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion. When they were attached to the 82nd Airborne everybody went into combat wearing sleeping bags for overcoats. When the 887th was separated from the 82nd for a while to pull guard duty at Ridgeway’s headquarters in Spa, it snowed every night, and they knew the 82nd were sleeping in foxholes, eating cold C and K rations, and suffering as many casualties from frozen feet as from enemy action. While at Spa, Speich watched German V-1 “buzz bombs” flying overhead on the way to Liege. Later, when he returned to the 82nd Airborne encampment at Soissons, France, he saw what little remained of the unit with which he went overseas. The 551st went into the Bulge with over 900 men, spearheading the U.S. counterattack from the north, and came out with 97 men. The survivors were integrated into other 82nd Airborne units but the 551st itself was never reactivated.

By January 11, the end of the series of sharp battles to clear Bastogne came into sight and the 11th Armored Division was approaching Houffalize. By January 12, it was basically over, ending two weeks of some of the bitterest fighting of the war. Patton’s drive north with the Third and Eighth Corps had averaged barely a mile a day. His Third Army finally arrived at Houffalize on January 16.

Our Belgian guide, Henri Mignon, then a ten-year old boy, still remembers hiding with his widowed mother and nine siblings in the basement of their farm house in Houffalize. The cellar’s door to the outside opened and they all fearfully looked up at a German soldier standing on the steps sweeping his loaded weapon across their up-turned faces. The soldier looked intently behind them and into the shadowed corners of their cramped space, then stepped back up and dropped the door. A few minutes later they all froze with even greater fear as the door reopened. Out of the sunlight came two American soldiers. After taking one look down, they started handing out rations and candy to his destitute Belgian family.

After the two U.S. Armies finally joined at Houffalize on January 16, Hitler authorized a gradual German withdrawal. The Ardennes Offensive had failed and he needed to counter the Russian spring offensive that had started January 12. In the British House of Commons on January 18 Prime Minister Winston Churchill told his countrymen:

“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 State 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 months 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. Care must be taken in telling our proud tale not to claim for the British Army an undue share of what is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war, and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory.”

With a cold-blooded calculus, left over from the World War I strategy of industrialized attrition, he summarized: “The Germans have made a violent and costly sortie which has been repulsed with heavy slaughter, and have expended in the endeavor forces which they cannot replace, against an enemy who has already more than replaced every loss (the Germans have) slaughtered.”

On January 23, Combat Command B of the U.S. 7th Armored Division took St.Vith. On January 28 the Battle of the Bulge officially ended. The period from January 3 to January 28 took as many lives as the initial phase of stopping the German onslaught from December 16 to December 28. In withdrawing, the Germans benefited from requiring less force to mount a defense, choosing the ambush sites and enjoying reduced lines of supply and communication. Most American soldiers by this time were battle-hardened and accepting of the possibility of being killed without slowing down. They had seen their buddies killed and were out to end the war, to get the job done and go home.

During this last phase of the Bulge Montana lost: Private First Class Boyd Frost of Hinsdale, serving with the U.S. 90th Infantry Division, Private first Class Lowell Davis of Sanders, serving with the U.S. 80th Infantry Division, Layton Curtis from Pondera County, serving with the 740th Tank Battalion, Private First Class Sverre Efteland of Cut Bank, serving in a Norwegian-American Battalion of the U.S. 99th Infantry Division, and Gerald Jessen of Madison County, serving with the U.S. 75th Infantry Division. Combat veteran Thomas H. Driver of the 99th Division put it best: “Its a game of attrition- - who kills the most of who, like playing checkers. . .It’s not like you’re shooting people; you’re shooting checkers off the board. Of course, the checkers are shooting back.”

When we returned to Helena from Belgium, we learned more about our hometown’s strong connection to this important American battle. We would occasionally drive past the home of Justice Bill Leaphart, knowing that his father had thrown supplies from his C-47 to 101st Airborne troops below in the freezing foxholes of Bastogne, and returned home to become a prominent trial attorney who thrived on representing the underdog. Not far away are the homes of Stephen Ambrose, who wrote about the Band of Brothers in Bastogne, John C. Harrison, who served on Eisenhower’s staff and investigated the Malmedy Massacre for the U.S. Army, then came home to become the longest-serving justice on the Montana Supreme Court, and local physician Jeff Goldes, whose father Joe served as an officer in Luxembourg with the 4th Infantry, earning a Silver Star. There is also the home of Tim Brabcock, who was with the 99th Division at the Bulge and came back to serve as Govenor of Montana. Near the Court House is the law office of Jim Hunt, whose father, William “Bill” Hunt Sr. made it back from his Engineering Company in the Bulge and served two terms on the Montana Supreme Court. Up on the hill in the middle of town sits Carroll College, where Father James O’Neill, who served under Patton and wrote his “war prayer” asking for fair weather at the Bulge, had been on Carroll’s faculty before the start of World War II.

During our research of newspaper interviews, we found that most of the Montana veterans came back with an attitude that war is evil, but what they did was necessary and they would do it again if called. They shared a sense of maturity and purpose, and seemed to have a survivor’s sense of duty.

There are many homes around Helena where Bulge veterans once lived. Local newspaperman Curt Syness found over 50 Bulge veterans from Helena in 2005. We would occasionally pass a former apartment building, now a market, at 110 North Rodney Street in the older section of town, knowing this is where the mother of Stuart Bethel received a telegram in January 1945 notifying her that her son with the U.S. 106th Infantry Division, had been killed in the Bulge near Bleialf, and remains buried at Henri-Chappel. The family had moved to Helena from Pittsburgh in the late 1930’s and Stuart worked for a while in the Butte underground mines, like so many other who are buried in local cemeteries or in the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Fort Harrison west of Helena. The Montana Military Museum at Fort Harrison has a restored 40x8 French rail car of the kind that carried U.S. prisoners like Ken Newton and Mel Mellinger from the Bulge to German POW camps.

There is an iconic U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph of the fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. As it turns out the U.S. soldier pictured near Houffalize, Belgium, is SGT Frank Vukasin of Great Falls, Montana. He’s bundled in his winter coat, and using his frozen fingers to jam another eight-round clip into his M-1 rifle. As he kneels for the ages, next to him lie two dead white-clad German soldiers.

On the cold winter night we were making inquiries across the Missouri River from Great Falls in Black Eagle, the waitress in “Borries” restaurant informed us, “The name’s pronounced ‘Vukaaasin.’ When my father was alive, he could tell you everything. He knew all those guys. There were a lot of bars around here. When they came back from the war they all hit the bars. Sorry, I can’t help you more!”

A history of Black Eagle, Montana, families says Vukasin had been working in the Anaconda Company Refinery when he got drafted. After returning home, he and his brother traded up through a couple of Black Eagle saloons. He once got a gig as an actor with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges in that poolroom scene of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. In the years after his wife passed he made his living as a gambler.

He died in January 1995 and is buried in Highland Cemetery among hundreds of fellow veterans, not too far from Charlie Russell.

The other fight along this German high-water mark occurred 20 miles southeast of Dinant, a Meuse River crossing. Here, the U.S. 7th Corps under General Collins, consisting of the heavy 2nd Armored Division and most of the 84th Infantry Division, faced the German 2nd Panzer Division, the Panzer Lehr Division, and part of the 9th SS Panzer Division sent to help near Rochefort.

The 2nd Panzer Division’s spearhead had reached Celles just six miles from the Meuse, but they were almost out of gas, and the rest of the Division was unable to catch up to them. Sensing the Germans were in trouble, U.S. 2nd Armored Division Commander, General Harmon, ordered an attack on December 23. The result were devastating to the Germans. All three German divisions were defeated by the 2nd Armored plus elements of the 84th Infantry and by British and American fighter-bombers guided to German targets by artillery observers in small L-4 scout airplanes. Testimonials from German soldiers in letters home during the Bulge reveal the demoralizing effect that American artillery had on the Wehrmacht soldier.

“You have no idea what is going on here. Simply by using his artillery, the Americans are finishing us off here. Such massed artillery fire I have not even seen in Russia. Day after day, the earth is flying around our ears. Slowly, one loses nervous energy. I am amazed that I am still alive and in possession of my limbs.”

The 9th SS Panzer Division was destroyed at Humain, northeast of Rochefort. Panzer Lehr and 2nd Panzer were destroyed as they were running out of fuel in a three-day, moving battle. American troops with supporting tank units, some supplied by the British, were everywhere. The 2nd Panzer was exposed with no flank support. It broke into smaller units, and scattered near Celles and Foy-Notre-Dame. All day long on Christmas Day these smaller unit were shelled and bombed in back and forth battles.

The U.S. 2nd Armored Division took 1,200 prisoners, destroyed 82 tanks, and inflicted 2,500 casualties while losing only 25 Shermans, 17 killed, and 200 missing. This was the effect of American combined arms. Montanan Jesse Long of Laurel and Helena served with the 2nd Armored, pushing across France and seeing action at the Bulge near the village of Ciney, Belgium, where the German offensive was finally halted five miles from the Meuse River. He was awarded the Purple Heart, Bronze Star, and Belgian Forragere medal.

By December 27, the Germans had been stopped in both salients, at Grandmenil in the northwest, the Verdenne Pocket in the center, and the Celles Pocket in the southwest. Manteuffel had come close, but it was too little, too late. The Germans had already thrown in their last reserves. By the 23rd the skies had cleared for U.S. fighters. By the 24th, U.S. and British reserves had arrived and taken positions. The Rundstedt Offensive had ground to a halt and was destroyed from the air or encircled.

The Allies had averted a possible disaster before the Ourthe and Meuse Rivers. Eisenhower reflected later in Crusade in Europe that his fear at the time was that the Allies would be so overwhelmed they would have to throw in units piecemeal as they became available, rather than bringing forward a concentrated large mass to stop the enemy and counterattack. That concern also guided Montgomery, who was attempting to quickly move a new 7th Corps around and behind the 18th Airborne Corps to the Marche area with orders not to engage. The British 51st Highland Division would be behind them. Montgomery wanted the Germans to exhaust themselves and over-extend their supply lines before he counterattacked. The problem was that Collins’ sacred reserve corps included the 3rd Armored and 84th Infantry Divisions, which had already found themselves engaged at Marche by December 19th, countering the quick 116th Panzer Division near the Ourthe River.

At this point, Manteuffel said he knew the Bulge was lost. But Germany had probably lost its chance earlier when they faced the 30th Infantry at Stoumot and failed to take St.Vith and Bastogne in the first week. Too many U.S. divisions had since landed in France. This was the Allied “Materialschlacht” the Germans referred to, the huge supply of men and resources brought into the war from America. In addition, the Russians were preparing for their winter offensive into Germany from Poland. Dietrich had been right from the beginning. It was foolhardy to launch a winter attack in the Ardennes, an area unfavorable to offensive operations, with a poor road network and strong American forces on either flank.

As Middleton put it, “The German drive to the Meuse was a big mistake. They never had sufficient resources to push the Bulge to completion. There was much more back there they wouldn’t have coped with even if they crossed the Meuse.”

The German drive had been stopped, but the lowly U.S. soldier still had sacrifices to endure before the German Ardennes Offensive could be declared defeated. Montgomery was cautious, feeling the First Army in the north was exhausted. He wanted to regroup before driving the Germans back. Eisenhower was nervous that we “must regain the initiative quickly, with speed and energy being essential.” He wanted “a quick counteroffensive,” saying “we must prevent any stabilization of the bulging enemy salient, permitting the German the opportunity of using their panzers at will on any part of the front. The U.S. and Britain finally agreed to launch the final Allied counteroffensive on January 3. First, there was the matter of solidifying and clearing the area around Bastogne, now that it had been relieved.

The German bulge in the American lines was now over 40 miles deep and 60 miles wide, but consisted of two smaller salients. The first, in the central area of the Bulge overran St.Vith and skirted north of Houffalize to create a six mile-wide German advance line at its furthest point between Marche and Hotten on the Ourthe River, 30 miles short of the Meuse River at Huy. To its south another salient had advanced farther west, skirting Bastogne and reaching within ten miles of the Meuse at Dinant. This southern salient’s right tip extended almost to the northern salient at Marche, but there was still a gap. Combining the two salients, German Field Marshal Model had shoehorned a dozen divisions along a 20-mile battlefront. The most pressing threat to the Allies was the Marche-Hotten salient west of St.Vith, where German Panzergrenadiers had crossed the Salm River and by December 22-23 were approaching Marche, Soy, and Manhay near the Ourthe River.

Between December 19 and 22, there was a tough fight at Braque de Fraiture, or Parkers Crossroads, of elements of the U.S. 3rd Armored, 106th Infantry, and 28th Infantry Divisions, and arriving 325th Glider Infantry of the 82nd Airborne Division, against the 2nd Panzer and 560th Volksgrenadiers Divisions. Both sides incurred heavy losses. On December 22-24, the 504th PIR and 325th GIR earned commendations for extreme bravery in actions against the Fuhrer Begleit Brigade and 2nd SS Panzer Division at nearby Regne, Jubieval, Hompre, and Odeigne.

By December 22, a final Allied line of defense under 18th Airborne Corps Commander General Ridgeway had been completed from Trois-Ponts in the north to Marche in the center. At his disposal over a 30 mile front Ridgeway had the U.S. 82nd Airborne and 3rd Armored Divisions. For the immediate threat at Marche he also had use of part of the U.S. 84th Infantry, or “Rail Splitters,” which had raced 75 miles southwest in a blizzard through terrain swarming with Germans. After a five mile gap, the line of defense continued south west to Dinant, where the British were blocking the Meuse River bridges. The U.S. 7th Corps under General Collins, including the U.S. 2nd Armored Division, which had raced from Aachen, and U.S. 84th Infantry Division, with the U.S. 75th Infantry Division in reserve, was responsible for the actual and unmanned line between Marche and Dinant.

The 517th Parachute Infantry Regiment arrived from southern France on December 22, veterans of the Italian campaign before that, many of them were replacements from the First Special Service Force. From December 22 to the 24th, the 517th’s 1st Battalion, in support of the overstretched 3rd Armored Division, turned back the 560th Volksgrenadiers at Soy and Haid-Hits. The 517th also rescued the U.S. 75 Infantry Division at La Roumiere Hill and assisted Task Force Kane of the 3rd Armored Division at Samree, Dochamps, and Freyneaux, slowing the German advance to Manhay. Freyneux was the 517th’s “toughest fight since Anzio.” For nine crucial days of the battle on Marche Plain 517th PIR became Ridgeway’s “fire fighters.” By December 24th the U.S. 75th Infantry Division and the 517th PIR were released by General Collins to help Ridgeway. The Marche-to-Manhay road had become the new U.S. line of defense on the Marche Plain, a gently rolling landscape favorable to tanks and mounted infantry.

On the German left side of that new line near Marche, facing the U.S. 84th Infantry Division, was the 116th Panzer Division. On its right, across from the 51st Engineer Combat Battalion and 23rd Armored Engineer Battalion of the U.S. 3rd Armored Division, the 560th Volksgrenadiers were attacking Soy and Hotten, attempting to get behind the new defensive line and to push their way up the Marche-to-Manhay highway. To their right, across from the U.S. 3rd Armored and U.S. 82nd Airborne Divisions, the 2nd SS Panzer Division was attacking at Parker’s Crossroads, or Braque de Fraiture and Odeigne, and moving toward Manhay. To their right, at the north end of the German advance, the 9th SS Panzer Division, opposed by elements of the U.S. 3rd Armored and U.S. 82nd Airborne Divisions, was moving toward Manhay and Bra.

On December 24, Montgomery ordered the U.S. 3rd Armored and 82nd Airborne Divisions to reduce their exposure and fall back to Manhay, where they joined the U.S. 7th Armored Division survivors from St.Vith, the 517th PIR, and the U.S. 75th Infantry Division. This was just in time. The 2nd SS Panzer seized Manhay on the 24th as the 560th Volksgrenadiers threatened Soy. At Manhay at 1 p.m. Ridgway told his commanders, “We smash the German drive here today on our front, smash the German offensive, his spirit for this war. We lick the Germans here today.”

That afternoon things began to change through Christmas to the 26th of December. The battle had shifted to Manhay crossroads. On December 26th, Ridgeway called on the 517th’s 3rd Battalion again, to help the 3rd Armored Division stop the 2nd SS Panzer movement from Manhay to Grandmenil. Following a rolling barrage as in Italy, three 517th companies battled an SS battalion in what one 517th veterans called a “fair fight.” Two members of the 517th, Norm Allen and King Brady, later reported for smokejumper duty in Missoula, Montana, in 1946. Thirteen U.S. field artillery battalions, using “pozit” proximity fuses, had made shells of 28 Tiger tanks already suffering from U.S. P-38 and P-47 attacks. The road between Manhay and Grandmenil had become a killing ground. As the 2nd SS Panzer discovered, one 155-mm “posit” shell airburst could shred every square foot within a 75-yard diameter.

Further down the highway, the 84th Infantry Division stopped the 116th Panzer Division at Marche and crushed it in the Verdenne pocket, destroying 113 armored vehicles and taking 1,200 prisoners. On the 26th cooks, orderlies, and truck drivers were pushed into the line as the enemy attacked. General Bolling disseminated orders that “this was as far as the Germans would advance. There would be no retreat. This was a fight to the last man.” That day German Tiger tanks attacked single file, unaware that Marche was highly defended. The 84th Rail-Splitters held.

The 325th Glider, 7th Armored, and 517th PIR retook Manhay on the 27th, as the 325th Glider blocked other elements of the 2nd SS Panzer withdrawing to Tre-le-Chesling. Tucker’s 504th PIR of the 82nd drove the 9th SS Panzer from Bra on the German right. The 2nd SS Panzer tried to move from Manhay down to Grandmenil and Erezee on the March highway, but was turned back by the converging 289th Regiment of the 75th Infantry Division, the 509th PIB, 7th Armored CCA and 3rd Armored CCB troops arriving from the northern shoulder.

The 29th Infantry Regiment of the 75th Division, 517th PIR, and 3rd Armored CCA, with CCB arriving, stopped the 560th Volksgrenadiers at Hotton and destroyed the German salient towards Soy and Dochamps at a cost of 139 casualties. During the fight at Soy, General Rose, commanding the 3rd Armored Division, told his commanders, “Stay here or there will be a war fought all over again and we won’t be here to fight it.”

In the three days from December 24th to the 27th, the Germans were defeated in all engagements. But there was always a cost. First Lieutenant Norman Streit of Roundup, Montana served with the 36th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 3rd Armored Division. Streit was one of those killed on Christmas and buried at Henri-Chapelle.

The 508th PIR and 504th PIR fought the arriving 9th SS Panzer and 62nd Volksgrenadiers north of Lierneaux near Salm. The 508th was overrun but stayed in their foxholes to counterattack after the tanks had passed. At the end, the enemy lost 2,500 prisoners, leaving the German commander to observe that Allied resistance usually crumbled under the elan of the 9th SS Panzer, but the 82nd Airborne Trooper seemed a “different kind of soldier.” One of those soldiers, Missoula smokejumper Michael Bober, awarded three Bronze Stars, received a promotion for bravery with the 508th during this series of engagements.

Looking back, Roscoe Blunt analyzed the Marche Plain battle, saying there had been no real front lines. The U.S. had taken towns later retaken by the Germans, including at Grandmenil. Intelligence on both sides was sketchy. “The Germans were everywhere, and so were we.” It was not unusual for platoons to function independently from their companies or for squads to be separated from their platoons. The situation was fluid, with fragmented communications between platoons. Manteuffel’s thrusts in the north and south, in the Dinant, Marche and Manhay sectors, had been separated and broken up into a number of small pockets at Verdenne, Celle, Humain, and Grandmenil, where they were isolated and destroyed. The men of the 84th Infantry Division, Blunt said, began to feel the tide turning. After the battles on the Marche Plan, German soldiers seemed more willing to surrender, also seeing the end. On December 26, the initiative shifted to the Allied side. Manteuffel realized the Bulge was a failure even if Hitler did not.

The Marche Plain was the German high-water mark, the turning point in the Battle of the Bulge, and the last German threat in the European Theater. Manteuffel had made it this far, but his men were exhausted and his units depleted of supplies, fuel and food. Most importantly, the skies had cleared and U.S. P-47’s and British Typhoons were in the air, flying 12,000 sorties in two days before Christmas. American replacements of both men and armor were filling in the reduced battalions and companies along the line. Sherman tanks were, as Fuhrer Begleit Brigade Commander Remer said, “everywhere,” and U.S. artillery was firing from positions on the heights behind Manhay and Grandmenil.

Near Belle Haie we looked out at patches of forest and farmland where the 509th PIB, 75th Infantry Division and Task Force Brewster of the 3rd Armored Division had fought. In an interview long after the war, one scout with the 290th Regiment of the 75th described how his unit was trucked into this area on December 24 and told to move forward until they made contact with the Germans, getting out of the trucks with the Lieutenant saying,”Fix bayonets—No prisoners—Move out.” As he was fighting at Belle Haie, other elements of his regiment were being destroyed in an effort to take La Roumiere Hill. The 290th Regiment took 50 percent casualties in the Manhay sector alone. Looking at the peaceful, gradual-rolling, partially forested landscape, it is hard to imagine the horror. It is only proper that there are markers and memorials honoring the fallen and the survivors.

We drove the Marche Plain to Manhay, Grandmenil, and Braque de Fraiture, and saw the markers honoring American units engaged here at the German high water mark, and viewing the relics of war. There were German Panther and American Sherman tanks displayed in the squares and traffic circles, the German tanks bearing the symbol of the 116th Panzer and 2nd SS Panzer Divisions. Our guide, Henri Mignon, stayed in the car when we stopped in Grandmenil at the marker to the 951st Field Artillery whose batteries had supported all of our divisions engaged in the Manhay-to-Marche area. We learned later that on January 9, during our counteroffensive, the 951st had dropped 6,000 shells on the dug-in Germans in Houffalize, Henri’s hometown. One of those shell may have killed Henri’s father and destroyed the Mignon family farm.

The Chaplain who wrote the famous war prayer for General Patton was from Montana. Colonel James H. O’Neill, who had been for many years attached to the Helena Roman Catholic Diocese as Vice President of Carroll College, wrote the prayer on Patton’s order, asking for dry weather to assist a breakthrough: “Grant us fair weather for battle.” The date of the prayer was December 14, 1944. Two days later, as the prayer was being distributed to 250,000 troops of the U.S. Third Army, the Germans struck with their surprise strategic offensive. By December 23 the skies cleared for six days. Patton eventually pinned the Bronze Star medal on O’Neill, but in the meantime made arrangements to pivot half his army and move north to relieve Bastogne.

On December 22 Patton’s Third Army began its thrust north from the Luxembourg City-Arlon area along a 30-mile front. The 3rd Corps of Patton’s Army under General Millikin turned 90 degrees north with three divisions. The 12th Corps under General Eddy, with another three divisions of the Third Army protected the right flank of Millikin’s Corps by remaining in contact and holding the German Seventh Army along the German border in Luxembourg. Millikin’s attack had three prongs: The Right comprised mainly of the 80th Infantry (“Blue Ridge”) Division. In the center was the 26th Infantry, or “Yankee” Division. On the left, as the western prong, was the U.S. 4th Armored (“Name Enough”) Division.

U.S. 80th Infantry started its drive from the Luxembourg City area and advanced north in two wings, fighting through some of the toughest terrain in the Bulge. They repeatedly faced German units backed by strong artillery placed in villages and on surrounding heights. Although slowed and incurring heavy losses, the 80th Division managed to advance 16 miles, blocking 79th Volksgrenadier attacks south towards the Sure River, while at the same time, containing the 352nd Volksgrenadier breakthrough.

On the division’s right the 318th Regiment advanced to Ettelbruck, bypassed it and pushed north. One member of the 318th Infantry Regiment recalled fighting near Ettelbruck in minus 20 degrees cold, while suffering frozen feet and knowing that if he fell asleep, he would freeze to death. He received a furlough to Paris, where exhausted, he fell asleep for two days. As the battle shifted west, part the 318th Regiment shifted west to assist the 4th Armored Division in its push to Bastogne.

The 317th Infantry Regiment stayed on the right wing and fought at Welscheid with severe losses, followed by a tough three-day “Battle in the Woods” at Bourscheid. Near Kehmen on December 24-26, they dug in and stopped a major German counter-attack by the 79th Volksgrenadiers.

The 319th Regiment formed the left wing of the 80th Division immediately next to the 26th Infantry. At Eschdorf it continued fighting north after ambushing the 352nd Volksgrenadiers at Merzig, but was stopped near Heidercheid where it held on in the face of counterattacks by the Fuhrer Beiglet Grenadier Brigade and 79th Volksgrenadiers. The 80th Division’s regiments kept advancing until December 27, when they regrouped in place and prepared for the planned January 3rd Allied counteroffensive. Montanan Darroll Knudson was killed fighting as part of the U.S. 80th Division and is buried at Hamm, Luxembourg.

The 26th Infantry Division, as Millikin’s center prong, advanced to the west of Martelange near the Arlon-Bastogne highway, and by taking lesser roads over difficult Sure River crossings they made it to Arsdorf and Eschdorf, only four miles from Wiltz. The route of the 26th Division was physically very tough, through steep ravines and gorges, in bad weather, with very few minor trails and roads. On December 24, they ran up against a German Seventh Army counteroffensive pushing south near Eschdorf to stop the Third Army at the Sure River. In this counteroffensive, General Brandenberger expended the reserves given to him by the German High Command-- the Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade and the 79th Volksgrenadiers Division.

The Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade, which consisted of 6,000 mechanized infantry troop, an assault gun battalion and 40 tanks, had fought with the famed Grossdeutchland Division on the eastern front. They were concentrated entirely against the U.S. 26th Infantry Division, while the 7th Volksgrenadiers, also veterans of eastern front winter fighting, focused on the U.S. 80th Infantry Division to the east, starting at Heiderscheid.

There were pitched battles as well with the 352nd Volksgrenadier Division’s advance regiment pushing west near Grobous. As a result, the 26th Division took three days to cross the Sure River, followed by more bitter fighting at Kaundorf and in the Wiltz valley, before finally breaking off near Nothum and regrouping to prepare for the January 3rd Allied counteroffensive. The 26th Division and gone through as grim a fight in bitter cold as any that occurred in the Bulge.

Men died in droves on both sides.

Dean Van Landingham of Michigan, in the Division’s 328th Infantry Regiment, described this action, saying his real “hell” started in Grobous and Eschdorf, where the Germans were not taking prisoners. His unit killed any German wearing a black uniform. The Division “continued the terrific fighting in the hills and river valleys, driving all the time, no rest, with each man just focusing on the next 200 yards to the front at all time.” Van Landingham pointed out that the 26th Division suffered a 168 percent casualty rate, and by the end of the Bulge, only 17 of the 168 guys he arrived with in Europe were still around. Replacements from “repo depots” were being killed daily, “just bodies, so no one got to know them.” It was, he said, best not to think about it, it was too personal.”

A Dillon, Montana rancher’s son, Ed Swetish, was with the 390th Anti-Aircraft Automatic Weapons (AAA) Battalion attached to the 26th Infantry Division in the drive north. He provided his perspective on the battle, saying “Patton was always quick to respond to trouble so off we went from Metz to Luxembourg. The job included ground support missions, but we were needed at Bastogne to ward off Luftwaffe attacks.” According to the Army historian, this included the 390th protecting American infantry crossing the Sure River under Luftwaffe strafing attacks designed to slow them down. Using 90-mm and 37-mm guns and .50-caliber machine guns mounted on half-tracks, Swetish said AAA units were able to shoot down 200 German planes during the Ardennes campaign. On December 23, Swetish was strafed at Clairfontaine, Belgium by 35 ME-109 Messerschmitt fighters, but the 390th shot down 13. The 390th AAA ground support role involved leading the way for the infantry along the narrow, wooded roads, and blasting though ambushes.

Ed gave his greatest tribute to the combat engineers who detected mines, cleared roads, and repaired bridges in combat situations. His message was that no place was safe, even in artillery units. A veteran of Sicily and France, where he was wounded, Ed had seen a buddy killed, “shot through the neck that sent his helmet flying with his body hitting the ground so fast, and with bullets ripping the ground all around.” Like the other veterans of the Bulge, Ed had no regrets. He saw the need to fight Hitler. “It was something anyone would do. I would do it again if I had to.”

The 26th and 80th Divisions together had made it far enough north to thwart Brandenberger’s buildup east of Bastogne in support of Manteuffel. The drive north had turned into a plodding five-day series of repetitive and costly frontal assaults against skilled, determined German paratroopers and infantry, fought in icy, extremely cold conditions. The final 17 miles, from Martelange on, were the toughest. For the infantry divisions, it would turn out to be roller coaster country. Patton’s insistence on bypassing centers of resistance proved to be impossible due to the terrain and weather.

On the left prong of Millikin’s corps was the 4th Armored Division, Patton’s crack unit. It fought north on icy roads in gently rolling farmland resembling the American Midwest, with scattered trees, hills, and plains, and slight rises. The 4th Armored split onto two axes of advance, with the right thrust, Combat Command A, with Combat Command R in support, started east of Arlon and advanced on the Bastogne Highway through Martelange to Bigonville, where another regiment of the German 5th Fallschirm Division counterattacked on December 24. After a tough one-day battle, CCA continued north, to be held up again at Warnach by strong resistance from yet another regiment of the 5th Fallschirm Division. In house-to-house fighting, “the worst of its entire Bulge campaign,” CCA suffered 68 killed and missing, to the German’s 135. By December 24, all three of Patton’s prongs were meeting tough resistance and counterattacks. These continued into Christmas Day.

On the left of the 4th Armored Division, Combat Command B moved up secondary roads west of the Arlon-Bastogne highway. This wing ran into stiff opposition from the German 5th Fallschirm Division at Chaumont on December 23. There, 15 German self-propelled anti-tank guns, including five 128-mm Jagdtigers, or “Hunting Tigers,” executed an ambush, destroying 11 Shermans and stalling the attack for 36 hours.

Combat Command R, which consisted of 20 Sherman tanks of the U.S. 37th Tank Battalion under Lieutenant Colonel Creighton Abrams, the 53rd Armored Infantry Battalion, and a battery of 155-mm howitzers, had the assignment of protecting CCA’s right flank from the nearby Fuhrer Grenadier Brigade. On Christmas Day, CCR was split off from CCA at Bigonville and shifted to the west on the far left side of CCB. Here, CCR made progress, defeating the Germans at Remichampagne and Remonville, and advancing side-by-side with CCB and battalions borrowed from the 318th Infantry Regiment of the 80th Division. Combat Commands R and B moved north to Bastogne with a “fire and maneuver” rhythm, “leap-frogging” each other as resistance was encountered. After days of no sleep and constant German counterattacks all along the line on December 24-25, they became engaged in a tough battle at Assenois. On December 26, elements of the 37th Tank Battalion, of the 4th Armored Division’s CCR finally broke through near Sibret. Using a massive artillery barrage for cover, they created a very narrow corridor and overwhelmed a fortified blockhouse in the Bastogne perimeter to meet up with the U.S. 326th Airborne Engineering Battalion.

Bastogne had been relieved.

Getting to Bastogne had been a costly drive by the 4th Armored. The division had suffered 1,000 casualties during the toughest winter conditions yet seen. During that hard battle on the December 26 breakthrough date for Patton’s units into Bastogne, Private First Class David Manning of Hysham, Montana was killed in action while in Company F of the 318th Infantry Regiment. Twenty-year old Manning graduated from Hysham High School as a prominent athlete and student with the Class of 1942, and left his studies at Montana State University in Bozeman to join the army in May 1943. He was in the Army’s V-12 training program when he and his fellow students were transferred to Infantry to make up severe manpower losses in Europe. In September 1944 he shipped out to England as a replacement machine-gunner and in France was immediately assigned to the 80th Infantry. By November 29, in France, he was awarded the Combat Infantryman’s Badge. His father, Montana State Senator David Manning, who designed and completed many essential engineering projects across Eastern Montana, received the notification of his son’s death on January 19, by War Department telegram as he was leaving a morning legislative session in the State Capitol at Helena.

Patton said that the relief of Bastogne was not only the greatest accomplishment of his army, but “the substantial achievement of the war….forcing the enemy now to dance to our tune, not we to his.” No other army other than his Third, he said, could have moved as far so fast and driven north against heavy resistance and cold, advancing at a night along an unknown route to grapple with a substantial enemy force at close range.

Patton was a veteran field commander with experience in North Africa, Sicily, and France. This is evident from his diary and letters at the time. He wrote December 22 that his start from Martelange was slow, but it is always difficult to get an attack rolling and the Germans, too, could not mount any serious reaction to his move north for 36 hours. He realized he made a mistake in insisting on day and night attacks, saying it was okay for one day, but after that men get tired, and the key factor is the bad weather. It was difficult, too, he said, for Armored Divisions to operate at night. But on January 6, he observed, “Our (German) prisoners have had no food for three days; we are tired but so are the Germans. We will,” he concluded, “have to push men past endurance to bring this war to an end. We have to keep attacking or the enemy will.”

While the 50,000 men of the U.S. 4th Armored, and 26th and 80th Infantry Divisions were driving north against tough opposition, Patton was bringing up and receiving additional replacements he had been gathering since December 20. He knew he would need them to expand the gains made in reaching Bastogne. In fact, it was those fresh divisions, including the 5th, 90th, and 95th Infantry Divisions, which ultimately tipped the scale during the first two weeks of January.

General Montgomery warned General Eisenhower on December 21 that he doubted Patton, despite his boasting, could deliver his three divisions to relieve Bastogne within a few days, saying “I (Montgomery) will have to deal with the German 5th and 6th Armies.” Monty wrote Eisenhower again on the 24th when Patton was stalled, noting that two German Divisions, the Panzer Lehr and 2nd Panzer, were already past Bastogne, tapping against the U.S. and British reserves near the Meuse River, and that Dietrich’s Sixth Panzer Army was breaking off in the north and heading towards the Meuse as well. On December 26th he told Ike it was time to take troops from Patton and the southern front, and create a new line of defense, “hold a shorter front,” near the Meuse. But Ike held out for Patton’s Third Army being the spear from the south, which would ultimately turn the Bulge. Patton’ presence at Bastogne by the 26th turned out to be vital, because Hitler soon began massing divisions there.

In the meantime, as Montgomery forecast, crucial battles were being fought to the west of Bastogne and St.Vith on the new US. line of defense between the Ourthe and Meuse Rivers.