It started with a sound no soldier in the 106th Infantry would ever mistake for thunder. The Ardennes, calm just hours before, erupted as over a thousand German guns opened fire across eighty miles of forest. Snow flew from the trees, the ground bucked violently, and Private Andy Harper clutched his helmet in a foxhole near St. Vith.
“Lie still!” his sergeant yelled.
“It feels like the end of the world!” Harper shouted back.
It was, in a way. Hitler had thrown everything into a desperate winter offensive—the Battle of the Bulge—aimed at splitting Allied forces and capturing Antwerp. In those first hours, his plan worked.
Three days later, in Supreme Headquarters, Eisenhower stared at a map dotted with red arrows slicing through Allied lines. The Ardennes was supposed to be quiet, a place to rest battered divisions. Instead, German forces were carving a deep wound straight through Belgium.
He turned to Lt. General George S. Patton. “George, how long to pivot your army north and counterattack?”
“Forty-eight hours,” Patton said calmly.
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