This week marks the sixtieth-fourth anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. That battle, known to the Germans as the “Ardennes Offensive,” started in December 1944 and was the last major German offensive on the Western Front during World War II. The German army sought to cut the Allied line in two, capture Antwerp, Belgium, and sweep north to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, with the hope of forcing the war-wearied Allies to sue for peace.
Although it ended up being unsuccessful, the offensive nevertheless tied down huge amounts of Allied resources, and the initial slow response of the Allies to the resulting gap (“bulge”) in their lines cost them many months in the timetable to finally wrap up the war in Europe. Despite several years of war, and the general feeling following the success of the Allied push starting months earlier with D-Day that the war with Germany was in its final stage, the surprise Battle of the Bulge ended up being the largest battle the United States Army had fought up to that date.
At the start of the battle on December 16th, the American forces in the zone numbered 80,000 men, 400 tanks and 400 guns. The Germans outnumbered the stunned Americans at the start of the offensive with 200,000 men, 600 tanks (which were superior to ours in all accounts), and 1900 heavy artillery guns. When the battle officially ended on January 15th, 1945, the American/Allied forces sustained 78,000 casualties with 8,607 dead, 21,144 captured or missing and 47,139 wounded. 733 tanks were lost. The Germans suffered 68,000 casualties with 17,236 dead, 16,000 captured or missing and 34,439 wounded. The Germans also lost 700 tanks, leaving many deserted on the battlefield for lack of fuel.
On December 16th, recently recovered from a Dec. 2nd Purple Heart wound, a young Camille E. Pepin of Woonsocket, RI found himself in the thick of some of the heaviest fighting in the European theater- facing the German enemy at its most desperate point, willing to do almost anything to defend the final approaches to the Fatherland. He describes the situation. “You went on with so much fear… So much thought of never coming back. You didn’t want to be reminded of home because you didn’t think you were coming back. I remember the screaming shells all around. The rockets at night- every night… and the smell. The smell of powder and burning pine. There was death all around. Landmines everywhere. You needed to follow paths with wires to avoid stepping on one. It really was, as they say, HELL WITH ICICLES… the surrounding woods, no matter where you were, were filled with dead, frozen bodies.”
Young Pepin spent an extended period of heavy combat in and around St. Vith during the Bulge and continuing after into the German heartland, all the way through to the end of hostilities in Europe. Fighting in the Bulge was actually a part of the larger campaign in which he participated- one less famous—but in fact, more deadly– that had been going on for many weeks prior to the start of the German offensive.
“The Battle of Hurtgen Forest (German: Schlacht im Hürtgenwald) is the name given to the series of fierce battles fought between U.S. and German forces during World War II in the Hurtgen Forest, which became the longest battle on German ground during World War II, and the longest single battle the U.S. Army has ever fought in its history. The battles took place between September 19, 1944, and February 10, 1945, over barely 50 square miles, east of the Belgian–German border.”
When it was all said and done, over 33,000 Americans had been killed or incapacitated.
The online encyclopedia further tells us that Hurtgen was fiercely defended by the Germans
“for two reasons: it served as a staging area for the Ardennes Offensive (what became the Battle of the Bulge) that was already in preparation, and the mountains commanded access to the Schwammenauel Dam at the head of the Rur Lake (Rurstausee) which, if opened, would flood low-lying areas downstream and deny any crossing of the river.”
Pepin recounts his first days of real combat, starting in November of 1944 as a replacement in the Eighth Infantry Division, 121st Regiment: “At first, when you get there, you’ve got your gun, but probably couldn’t kill someone even if you had to. But that goes away and then the want for survival kicks in. After a while, you got dangerous… you have to survive, so you live in a different way.” By December 16th, Private Pepin had lived through some severe fighting in the forest and had already seen more death than he could ever imagine.
On December 20th, while on patrol with his fellow scouts behind enemy lines, he was captured. In a while, a scuffle broke out and someone shot their captor in the face. Pandemonium broke out and several escaped. Of the 12 men on the mission, six escaped- including Cam Pepin, thankful to be able to note his twentieth birthday the next day, December 21st, 1944.
When discussing this yesterday, he told me this: “You got so scared, it wasn’t funny. And let me tell you, there were no atheists in the foxholes—it’s true. It was indescribably dangerous and, looking back, it’s hard to believe you did that. Not because you were a hero. It’s because you were there, and just had to do it.” He still wonders why he lived, and so many others did not. “It was life and death all the time—From the sky, and the ground. Ahead of you, and in back. It was all around you.”
Whenever I have such talks with Mr. Pepin, I cannot help but stand in awe of the many men and woman like him, who, when the Nation called, stepped up and served—both back then, and today. It is thanks to them that we get to celebrate this most special time of year in relative peace and security. I asked what Christmas, 1944, was like. “It was mostly rockets, and shooting, from both sides. Some of the shells from the Germans didn’t explode. That was good. And then three Germans came along during the night. ‘We don’t want to fight any more,’ they said, in German.” My father-in law continued, “Neither did we, really, but we did…”