Key to Maps
Unit identifiers are located on the right-hand side of the unit symbol. The upper line is the unit number, or an abbreviated version of the unit’s name if it did not have a number (eg. RTR for the Royal Tank Regiment, Gds. for the Guards Armoured Division, or Pz. Lehr for the Panzer Lehr Division). The lower line contains additional information about the unit. This can be the nationality of the unit for British commonwealth armies (Pol. for Polish, Can. for Canadian, and Brit. for British), or an indication of its type (eg. SS for Waffen-SS, VG for Volksgrenadiers or AG for Assault Gun). Ad hoc formations are marked with the abbreviation TF for Task Force (US) or KG for Kampfgruppe (German). The symbol (-) indicates that one or more of a formation’s component units had been detached.
Occasionally there will be a set of numbers on the left-hand side of the symbol. These indicate the parent unit (if marked on a regiment, for example, they would indicate the brigade that the regiment was part of).
Dedication and Acknowledgements
Dedication
This book is dedicated to the heroes of the US Army’s 291st Engineer Combat Battalion, who at the moment of crisis blew the strategic bridges on 18 December 1944 to stop the advance of SS-Obersturmbannführer Jochen Peiper’s Kampfgruppe at the height of the Battle of the Bulge. Men like Corporal Fred Chaplin, who pushed the plunger to blow the bridge at Habiemont as Peiper’s tanks bore down on him, were in the vanguard of turning back Hitler’s Waffen-SS panzer élite, so freeing Europe of Nazi tyranny for good.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the following for their help during the researching and writing of this study: Neil Tweedie and Micky Brooks for their assistance in providing an understanding World War II Blitzkrieg strategy; the records staff of the Imperial War Museum in London for their help with research into German World War II documents; the British Army Staff College, Camberley, for allowing me access to rare German World War II records in their possession; Stewart Fraser for proof-reading my text; Pete Darman, of Brown Partworks, for at last giving me the opportunity to fulfil my long-held ambition to write about the Waffen-SS; and, last but not least, Major Hasse Resenbro of the Danish Guard Hussar Regiment for his help retracing the escape route of Kampfgruppe Peiper from La Gleize.
Chapter 1:
The failure of a desperate gamble in December 1944.
Christmas morning 1944. Just under 800 cold and half-starved Waffen-SS men emerged from the morning gloom to pass through the frontline German trenches to safety. At their head was the charismatic 29-year-old SS-Oberstürmbannführer Jochen Peiper, who had led them for almost two days through thick woods, pursued by American patrols and spotter planes. The Waffen-SS officer was still joking with his men, slapping their backs and encouraging them to keep moving.
Only eight days before, Peiper had led a Kampfgruppe (battle group) of some 5800 men forward into battle. They had at first swept all before them, penetrating deep behind enemy lines, before their luck and petrol had started to run out. Captured American petrol dumps kept Peiper’s 100 Tiger II, Panther and Panzer IV tanks moving for the first few days of Operation Autumn Mist, as the Ardennes Offensive had been codenamed by Hitler. In the heady days of the advance, the Kampfgruppe ensured its eternal notoriety when it machine-gunned a group of unarmed US Army prisoners of war in a field outside the town of Malmédy.
Peiper drove his men hard. He was often seen at the head of his huge column of tanks and vehicles, sorting out traffic jams, or exhorting them to attack yet another American position blocking their route to the River Meuse, the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler’s objective.
Heavy mist, snow slurries and incessant rain kept the Allied fighter-bomber squadrons at bay most of the time, but it made life miserable for the Waffen-SS men, shivering in their freezing tanks or open SdKfz 251 armoured halftracks. Few men got any sleep as the column weaved its way along single track roads and around hairpin bends. The key to victory was the handful of bridges that crossed the swollen rivers of the Ardennes.
The bad weather and the element of surprise worked in Peiper’s favour for the first couple of days. They stormed past confused and disorganized American troops, capturing bridges and supply dumps with ease. One US general was just able to flee his command post less than half an hour before the arrival of Peiper’s panzers, much to his chagrin.
As the Americans regained their composure, they started to rebuild their defences. Time and again, Peiper’s men found their route blocked by dug-in and determined defenders. On three occasions, for example, the Americans managed to blow up a vital bridge just as a group of Waffen-SS panzers was coming into view. Slowly Peiper found his options being closed down, one by one.
On the defensive
A week into the advance, Kampfgruppe Peiper was badly battered by almost constant fighting. Its ammunition and fuel was nearly exhausted. The 1000 or so men still capable of fighting had not eaten a proper cooked meal since they had left Germany on 16 December, at the start of the attack. Peiper realized his attack had run out of momentum and started to pull his men back to the hilltop village of La Gleize to make a last stand. American tank columns were pushing against his force from the west, north and east. The Luftwaffe attempted to make a supply drop to the beleaguered Waffen-SS men, but most of the containers of ammunition and petrol ended up behind American lines. Peiper repeatedly radioed his divisional commander, SS-Oberführer Wilhelm Mohnke, asking for permission to break out.
La Gleize had been turned into a fortified strongpoint by Peiper’s men. Tiger II tanks with massive 88mm cannons blocked all the approach routes, making it impossible for the lightly armoured US Shermans to get through. Waffen-SS panzergrenadiers were posted in the woods around the town to stop US infantrymen infiltrating. Attack after attack was repulsed with heavy American losses. The solid Belgian houses of the village made safe havens from the almost hourly American artillery bombardments that were raining down on La Gleize. Hundreds of captured Americans were hiding in the cellars, alongside the steadily increasing numbers of German wounded. Peiper was often seen touring the improvised field hospitals to raise morale among “his boys”. The English-speaking Waffen-SS officer struck up a rapport with a senior American prisoner, Major Hal McCowan. Even as he was planning the escape of his decimated Kampfgruppe, Peiper was still maintaining to McCowan that Germany was winning the war and that the Führer’s new secret V-weapons would turn the tide of the conflict in the Third Reich’s favour.
On the evening of 23 December, Peiper was finally given permission to break out from La Gleize. He convened a swift meeting of his senior commanders. There was no way to get any of the Kampfgruppe tanks or vehicles past American lines, so the breakout would have to be made on foot. Anyway, there was no fuel left. The wounded would be left behind and tasked with destroying the undamaged tanks, artillery pieces and halftracks. This was not to begin until Peiper and the main body of men were safely away from the village, so as not to alert the Americans that the breakout was under way. By 02:00 hours everything was ready. Peiper was still outwardly confident, and even made McCowan sign an agreement that the Americans would release the wounded Germans remaining in the village, in return for the freedom of the US prisoners who were being left behind. McCowan was forced to march along with Peiper’s column to ensure the Americans complied with the “agreement”. To help with the navigation in the woods south of La Gleize, two unfortunate Belgian farmers were press-ganged into service as guides.
Breakout from La Gleize
As the Germans left the village, moonlight reflected off the frost that covered the ground. The 800-strong column snaked along a sunken track southwards in silence. Peiper’s first objective was the River Amblève and the cover of its heavily forested valley. After a half-hour march, the column reached the river and crossed a small road bridge in the shadow of the demolished large railway bridge. They then turned sharply southwards and started to climb up the steep sides of the heavily forested Mont St Victor feature.
By 05:00 hours they were at the top of the feature. From there, they were able to hear the first explosions below in La Gleize, as the stay-behind teams started to set off demolition charges in the 90 or so vehicles that had been left behind. This alerted the Americans that something unusual was happening, and patrols were sent forward and were soon in the centre of the town, freeing the 150 or so GIs that had been held by Peiper. Around 300 German prisoners – all wounded or medical personnel – were captured as the US troops combed the village for Peiper and his men. The only serious resistance came from a group of 50 panzergrenadiers who did not get the codeword, “Merry Christmas”, to join the escape column. They fought to the last man on the outskirts of the village. US commanders then ordered up Piper Cub spotter aircraft to find their elusive foe.
Watching this activity below, Peiper decided to lay up in the huge forest during the next few hours of daylight until the next phase of his escape could unfold. He had originally intended to cross the railway bridge at the village of Coo, but from his hilltop perch, Peiper could see it had been demolished. Now his column would have to march southwards and find another crossing to get them over the River Salm. After managing to remain undiscovered until nightfall, the weary Waffen-SS grenadiers roused themselves from their uneasy sleep and prepared for one last push for freedom.
They marched on along a forest track in the darkness until an American sentry called out “Halt!”. In silence, the Germans went to ground. The sentry repeated the challenge three times and got no response. Then he fired three shots. Thinking he must have been hearing ghosts, the sentry gave up on his hunt. Minutes later, whispered orders were issued for the column to turn around and move off in a new direction. Peiper’s luck continued to hold as the column moved southwards again and allowed them to cross a major road undetected.
In the early hours of Christmas Day, the column ran into a large patrol from the US 82nd Airborne Division. This time the Americans were more alert and a brisk firefight ensured. Peiper’s men dived for cover in the undergrowth and started to exchange fire. The Americans called in mortar fire. A pitched battle was the last thing the Waffen-SS commander wanted. His officers were slowly able to regain control of their men through the use of a lot of shouting. Gradually, they melted back into the woods and were able to regroup. No Americans followed up the action because word of the German escape attempt had not been passed to the 82nd Airborne Division by the units in La Gleize. In the confusion, the captured American officer, McCowan, and the Belgian guides were able to make their escape.
Now the column had only a few more kilometres to go to the outposts of their Leibstandarte comrades, but the men were at the limits of their mental and physical endurance. Anything heavy, such as large packs or Panzerfaust antitank rockets, was dumped by the forest trails. The Germans scooped up handfuls of snow to try to fight off thirst. The worst danger was the effect of sleep deprivation. When the column halted, the Waffen-SS men had to physically shake many of their comrades to wake them from the deep sleep they immediately fell into when their bodies touched the ground. In spite of this, when the column reached the banks of the Salm and found there was no bridge, morale did not crack. The stronger men waded into the river to form a human chain for the remainder to pass along. By dawn, they were only a few hundred metres from German lines. A brief skirmish with American troops ensued, but again they did not seem to know who they were fighting and did not press home their attack.
Peiper’s losses show
At 10:00 hours Peiper reported to his divisional commander that he had managed to bring out 770 men from La Gleize. In his epic 20km (12-mile) march, Peiper lost only 30 men. By force of personality alone he kept his column together and navigated it to safety. Eight days before, he had led 5800 men across the German border. While some wounded had been evacuated early in the battle, the majority fell into American hands. In total, some 5000 Waffen-SS men had been killed or captured during Peiper’s brief sortie against the US Army. For a few days, he had seriously unbalanced the American command in the Ardennes region, but once they brought their overwhelming firepower to bear on his small and poorly supplied Kampfgruppe, Peiper knew its days were numbered.
Immediately after the war, Peiper entered popular mythology as “GI Enemy Number One” because of the actions of his grenadiers at Malmédy. The odyssey of Kampfgruppe Peiper summed up the fate of the Waffen-SS panzer divisions in the West during the final year of the war. The Waffen-SS officers showed dynamic leadership and battlefield flair against opponents who had material superiority, but limited tactical experience. In adversity, the Waffen-SS panzer divisions showed that they could absorb staggering levels of casualties and still keep on fighting. They may have been good soldiers and commanders, but incidents such as the Malmédy massacre showed there was a dark side to the Waffen-SS. The Nazi indoctrination meant they were not just ordinary soldiers, but the élite battlefield spearhead of Hitler’s murderous regime. What kept men like Jochen Peiper fighting was their faith in Hitler’s racist ideology, and their belief that Germany’s opponents were not up to the task of defeating the Third Reich. Peiper and his men were the guardians of evil. In the snowy valleys of the Ardennes, Peiper’s faith in his leader’s crazy war was tested to the full. After his escape from La Gleize, he was evacuated back to Germany, now physically and mentally exhausted. In his heart he knew Germany’s days were numbered.