The fighting was brutal, and the 761st Tank Battalion Shermans and 87th Division infantry had to struggle against bitter resistance every step of the way. Their objective: the town of Tillet in Belgium, about twelve miles west of the vital crossroads of Bastogne, defended by German tanks and troops of the elite Führer Begleit Brigade. The tankers were too valuable to be left alone for long, however, and at the beginning of January 1945 they were sent into action again. As a result, the 761st was not committed to the fight in the first days of the German Ardennes offensive that began on December 16, and became known as the Battle of the Bulge. These were hard to come by, and many of the new men assigned to join the Black Panthers were raw and untrained or-being rejects from other units-totally unfit for duty. By this point the unit was down to a mere handful of functioning tanks, and desperately needed personnel replacements as well. Pushing ahead, 761st Tank Battalion Shermans crossed the border into Germany on December 14. That division was pulled out of the line on December 9 for a rest, but not so the Black Panthers, who were now assigned to the incoming 87th Infantry Division. Up to this point the 761st, like other tank battalions working in tandem with the infantry, had supported the 26th Infantry Division. In the initial attack the Germans had an almost two-to-one advantage in manpower and for the first time on the Western Front outnumbered the Allies in terms of tanks and other armored vehicles.Tanks of the 761st Battalion being recovered, winter 1944-1945. It was a good time to take a break, and then you had a huge blizzard."īy contrast, the Germans were very prepared and had amassed more than 400,000 men, and just over 1,400 armored vehicles including tanks, tank destroyers and assault guns.
They (the Americans) were out of food, ammunition and gasoline. But from the American perspective, the Germans were going to be defeated – it was just that the Allies' supply lines couldn't keep up. "It was in many ways a colossal failure of intelligence, and the Allies misread the tea leaves. "There was a certain amount of hubris involved," Ulbrich added. Ulbrich, program director and associate professor in the Master of Arts in History and in Military History at Norwich University in Vermont, told Fox News. "If you look at where the Allies were – after fighting through the hedgerows of Normandy and racing across France, to them the Germans looked bloodied and beaten," David J. Thought that was interesting to point outSome other things that I feel were realy good on the Battle of the Bulge were 1.In the beginning of the movie were Col Hessler is showed all the dreams and ideas some of the German high command have along with some tanks and fresh troops to still try and win the war2. 6, 1945 file photo, American tanks wait on the snowy slopes in Bastogne, Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge.
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