Battle of the Bulge

 

To thousands of American GI's spread thinly across the Ardennes forest that December of 1944, it was the front where nothing happened. Occasional patrols over the snow blanketed hills and valleys of eastern Belgium and Luxemburg came across little sign of enemy activity.  For these bored, cold and often disgruntled GI's the action was obviously elsewhere.

That illusion was to be brutally shattered at precisely 5:30am on Saturday, December 16, 1944.

 

Suddenly, with no warning a massed German artillery assault began.  To the well concealed German soldiers it was "an earth-shaking crescendo". To the stunned Americans it was a horrific morning suprise.