Men slept on their rifles to keep them from freezing. On bitter mornings they urinated down the barrels of automatic weapons to thaw them out… Some Yanks cut holes in their sleeping bags, wearing them underneath their overcoats and knee-length snow capes while sleeping and fighting.
YANK correspondent, Sergeant Ed Cunningham, filed this report concerning all that he saw during the earliest stages of the German counter-attack in Bastogne; some Americans were leaving, some were staying, new ones were arriving – and all the while the Belgian townsfolk watched in confusion and hoped for the best.
This is the 1947 review of Robert Merrian’s history on the Battle of the Bulge, Dark December; the reviewer, T.E. Cassidy, had served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in the Ardennes:
Merriam is at his best analyzing the actual confusion that was rampant from the very beginning of the German drive on December 16th. I know his handling is expert here, for I was in the midst of the chaos, and can vividly recall, for example, the blank stares I met at various headquarters when I would ask what road net was clear, and to what point. It was really no one’s fault, after the first day or two. People simply did not know what was happening. And it was days and days before there was any concerted agreement among the different levels as to just what was going on.
This is the 1947 review of Robert Merrian’s history on the Battle of the Bulge, Dark December; the reviewer, T.E. Cassidy, had served as a U.S. Army intelligence officer in the Ardennes:
Merriam is at his best analyzing the actual confusion that was rampant from the very beginning of the German drive on December 16th. I know his handling is expert here, for I was in the midst of the chaos, and can vividly recall, for example, the blank stares I met at various headquarters when I would ask what road net was clear, and to what point. It was really no one’s fault, after the first day or two. People simply did not know what was happening. And it was days and days before there was any concerted agreement among the different levels as to just what was going on.
