Can someone explain the Battle of Bastonge?

bouncing the rhine was their job,not stopping to clear up other peoples inabilities.lee
Inabilities??? You seem far to quick to apportion blame to the American Side and seem to ignore other factors. How could you possibly bounce the Rhine when the British Airborne hadnt even secured the Bridge at Arnhem?? You are referring to US paratroopers who are lightly armed troops and which were sent in against an enemy with heavier weaponry, incidentally you of course will be prepared to talk about the British Airborne's inability to secure their drop zones when talking about Allied errors wont you??

 

A notice to all members; please respect others views. You may have strongly held opinions, which is fine, but please argue in a dignified manner. And also please stick to topic - arguments about Arnhem should be in a thread there, not under something about Bastogne.

 

i think my mates wartime experriences should be posted here,this is how he and his friends saw it at the time!.anyway back to bastogne.i was watching band of brothers on nat geo,and i did not notice any 101 troopers making use of branches etc over their foxholes,to give themselves at least some protection against airbursts and so forth.i rekon jerry probably did.

 

i think my mates wartime experriences should be posted here,this is how he and his friends saw it at the time!.anyway back to bastogne.i was watching band of brothers on nat geo,and i did not notice any 101 troopers making use of branches etc over their foxholes,to give themselves at least some protection against airbursts and so forth.i rekon jerry probably did.
I would be very dubious using Band of Brothers as a reference to get a point across. For example the film "A Bridge too far" would not be a good basis for making points about Arnhem.

 

bastyogne was simply a attempt ot retake the ardennes before patten could come to aid the 101st, they denied ever needing any assistance and I believe that by the time the germans would have achieved thier target an offensive from patten would have brought a 'heroes death' to the fighting forces remaining:icon-mrgreenbandit:

 

bastyogne was simply a attempt ot retake the ardennes before patten could come to aid the 101st, they denied ever needing any assistance and I believe that by the time the germans would have achieved thier target an offensive from patten would have brought a 'heroes death' to the fighting forces remaining:icon-mrgreenbandit:
I I may quantify, Bastogne was an important road Junction that was needed by the Germans during the Ardennes Offensive, a last-ditch effort by the Third Reich to deliver a crushing blow in the West to buy time to face the Russians. It had nothing to do with retaking the Ardennes "before Patton could come to aid the 101st". The 101st was deployed to hold Bastogne as (a) it was an important junction and (b) even though lightly equipped the 101st was one of the few reserve units available at that time. I would aslo like to point out that Combat Command B of the (I believe ) 10th Armored Brigade was also in Bastogne and other assorted units so whilst the Defense of Bastogne was primarily undertaken by 101st, other units also contributed and this is sometimes overlooked.

 

Bastogne was an important road Junction that was needed by the Germans during the Ardennes Offensive,

I think the junction in question was referred to by the Americans as '5 points' because there was 5 roads which met at this junction.

 

Marcus there was also a town or village called "Trois Ponts" or Three Points, however I dont doubt you as its not my area of expertise.

 

Trois Ponts was to the north of Bastogne, in the 6th Panzer Army area of advance, Bastonge was to the south, 5th PA area. Bastogne was the junction of 7 roads and holding it directly impacted the ability of the 5th Panzer Army to resupply.

If memory serves me, Trois Ponts were held by "Those damned engineers." Can't remember the unit number and I need to ride bikes with my daughter.

Gothard, it was the 10 Armored Division, not brigade.

Edit It was the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion, who incidentally, built the first pontoon bridge at Remagen, while under fire. This, I did not know.

It was Joachim Pieper who made the "damned engineers" comment after they (the 291st) held up his progress by blowing bridges and making use of good placement and fire from one or two AT guns.

 

Thanks for clearing that up Jeff!! I wasnt sure which it was. My point still stands: that there were other forces in Bastogne helping the Defense of the Town.

 

Thanks for clearing that up Jeff!! I wasnt sure which it was. My point still stands: that there were other forces in Bastogne helping the Defense of the Town.

Oh yes, you are so right, Gotthard.

It irritates me when Bastogne is mentioned and the presence of the 101st is trumpeted but CCB of the 10th Armored Division and the 463rd Field Artillery Battalion are ignored. Their presence was just as vital. Numerically, a CCB was almost as a large as a parachute infantry division; without them and the FA batt., Bastogne could not have been held.

 

The armor was absolutely crucial to the defense of Bastogne. I think they were equipped with some Wolverines? Actually if anyone had any info on the Armor detachment in Bastogne I'd love to peruse it.

 

I find that the 609 TD Battalion was attached to the 10th AD during the the time referenced. I found a site showing that on 1 Jan 1945, the 609th fielded M-18 Hellcats. I cannot find a site yet that list what they had duing the seige. I will keep looking.

edit--the 101st had the 705th attached during the seige. On Jan 1st, they also had M-18s.

 

Bastogne was a cross roads town, seven roads leading in and seven roads leading out. This was vital because if bastogne was lost, the germans could have brought their armour divisions straight through and captured the vital ports that the allies captured during the Normandy breakout and potentially they could have pushed the allies in to the sea. The 101st airborne turned the tide in the battle of the bulge by eventually holding the line at Bastogne and preventing the Germans from breaking through.

 

I think we got that part.

So, does that mean that there were 14 roads total?

 

I can still get a giggle out of some statements made by "junior American members" on their version of how Patton rode to the rescue of the 101st Airborne at Bastogne - which he did try with one armoured division and which the German 7th infantry army ignored and went on their way -

and contrary to other claims that Monty came in at the end of that battle - in MY history book it states unequivically - that Monty on the first day of that incursion by three German armies -he was aware of their intent and by noon of that same day - he had alerted Horrocks of the XXX corps - who was on the coast and the Western side of the Canadian army - to move to the Meuse -

Horrocks with his three divisons at the time then had to make his way OVER the administration "tails" of the three Canadian divisions plus two Polish divisions to arrive on the Meuse by the 21st dec - some four days after the beginning of the battle.

On the way over Horrocks then picked up the extended ( 17,500 men) 51st Highland Div plus the 6th airborne and the 31st tank bde with their 17 pounders and the NEW 3.7 AA gun converted to Anti - tank use.

At Celle - the 3.7's killed four Tigers without any trouble and the battle ended shortly after as the Germans finally had some competition and so withdrew with great losses
-
then Monty got on with the Veritable battle.. a bit disgusted with how Collins and
Ridgeway had dis-obeyed his order to create a counter offensive with four divisions !!!

Mind you - my history book was written in Britian - not Hollywood - or Southern Ireland !

Cheers

 

That 4 Wilts is a interesting character I must say