"The Hole in the Doughnut"

Bastogne (normal pop. 4,500) suddenly became important. If the left prong of the German offensive were to be slowed in its thrust toward the Meuse it would have to be done there, where the Liege-Arlon highway meets six other roads.

To Bastogne, soon after the German offensive began, hurried parts of two U.S. armored divisions--the 9th and 10th of Lieut. General George S. Patton's Third Army. In speeding trucks came almost the full strength of the 101st Airborne Division, the "Screaming Eagle" paratroops and glidermen whose toughness and contempt fot danger are legendary. Back upon Bastogne fell straggling groups from U.S. outfits that had been chewed up.

The U.S. command had given one order: hold Bastogne at all costs. The Americans (some 10,000) worked like devils to make some sort of defense. On a perimeter about two miles out of the town they set up a line of foxholes, manned by the 101st's paratroopers. Stationed nearby were groups of tanks and tank destroyers. Just outside the town was a last-gasp inner defense circle, manned largely by the stragglers. Slight (5 ft. 8 in., 135 lb.), salty Brigadier General Anthony Clement McAuliffe, the 101st's acting commander charged with holding Bastogne, called them his "Team Snafu." Inside the town was a reserve force of tanks and tank destroyers, to dash out against a major enemy attack. "Tony" McAuliffe called this force his "Fire Brigade."

Bad Breaks. On Tuesday, Dec. 19, the Germans rolled up from the east and collided with the American tanks, which had gone out to meet them at neighboring villages. A shuddering, small-scale battle developed and the Americans lost many a tank. But the Germans halted momentarily. Then the main weight of the enemy veered around the milling fight, probed at other entrances to Bastogne. Wherever the Germans poked there were Americans. The Germans kept on wheeling around the town, by the next day had it surrounded, a little island fortress in a swirling sea of gunfire. Headquarters, hoping for a weather break for air attack, radioed Bastogne for its positions. Replied Bastogne: "We're the hole in the doughnut."

On the first night one of the worst things that could befall an island of besieged happened to Bastogne: the Germans captured its complete surgical unit. Bastogne's wounded would have to get along without amputations, without fracture splints, without skilled care at all.

Through Wednesday and Thursday Bastogne battled almost continuously on its perimeter, suffered tortures in the overcrowded town. Shells poured in from all sides. Some 3,000 civilians huddled in cellars with the wounded. Food was running low--the Germans had also captured a quartermaster unit. Ammunition was dwindling--an ordnance unit had been taken too. Gasoline was down to tricklets --the Fire Brigade, to save fuel, did not keep engines running, clanked off to hot spots on cold motors.

By Friday Bastogne was a wrecked town, its outskirts littered with dead. There had been at least four fighting Germans to every American--the elements of eight enemy divisions. The dead were probably in the same ratio. Bastogne had already cost the Germans dearly, in time as well as troops. On one day alone the enemy had lost 55 tanks and hundreds of men who tried to infiltrate the lines against the G.I.s' Tommy guns and mortars. The Germans were sick of "crazy Americans." They tried a surrender offer.

Air Breaks. Through the lines on Friday came an enemy envoy carrying a white sheet. He delivered an ultimatum: two hours to decide upon surrender. The alternative: "annihilation by artillery." The German commander appended a touching appeal to U.S. instincts: "The serious civilian losses caused by this artillery fire would not correspond with the well-known American humanity."

General McAuliffe did not hesitate. He had been touring the aid stations, had heard the wounded beg him, "Don't give up on account of us, General Mac." He sat at a debris-littered desk, printed his reply with formal military courtesy: "To the German Commander--NUTS!--the American Commander." So there would be no misinterpretation, an officer translated for the blindfolded German envoy: "It means the same as 'Go to Hell.' "

McAuliffe's reply was mimeographed, passed around to his troops. With it went his Christmas message: "The Allied troops are counterattacking in force. ... By holding Bastogne we insure the success of the Allied armies. We are giving our country and our loved ones at home a worthy Christmas present and, being privileged in taking part in this gallant feat of arms, are truly making for ourselves a Merry Christmas."

There was little else merry about Bastogne's Christmas, but the war soon looked up. On the 24th there had been a weather break. Tony McAuliffe could report to the Ninth Air Force that its Lightnings and Thunderbolts had done a "simply tremendous" job of messing up enemy tanks and guns. Trains of C-47 transports had come over to parachute supplies (eventually more than 1,500 tons were dropped). A surgeon arrived by Piper Cub. More medical help was coming. There was a heart-warming Christmas gift: air pictures showing a ring of burning enemy tanks and vehicles all around Bastogne.

The beleaguered did what little they could about Christmas. Some who had shelter in houses brought in fir trees, decorated them with paper and any sort of bright bit that stuck out of the rubble. Pfc. William Horton hung on one tree a tiny celluloid doll--one of its eyes had been punched out. His buddies called the doll "Purple Heart Mary." To the accompaniment of bombs and ack-ack Major Charles Fife puffed out tunes on an ocarina, and the men hummed carols.

The Germans made Christmas grim with heavy shelling and more attacks. A bomb hit a house used as an aid station. In it were more than 100 wounded. The house flamed into a furnace before more than a few of the wounded could be carried out. But there was vengeance on the perimeter: the wily paratroops let German tanks filter through to ambush by the tank destroyers. The day's score in tanks: 32.

Christmas was the turning point. As darkness fell the next day, a sentry spotted several U.S. Sherman tanks rolling down a ridge from the south. He alerted the outposts ; captured Shermans had carried Germans up to the lines before, and sentries had been shot down.

The Big Break. Out of the leading Sherman's turret popped a bandaged head. The man with the bandage and the big shiner on his right eye yelled the proper password. He was Lieut. Colonel Creighton ("Abe") Abrams, commanding the 4th Armored Division's rescue spearhead.

Bastogne's ordeal was not entirely over. That night the Germans cut the narrow shaft Colonel Abrams' men had carved, and Bastogne got more shells from the other sides. But the narrow path was cleared next day and General Patton's tanks lanced on into the German bulge while Bastogne's wounded & weary went out to safety in a convoy of ambulances and trucks.

For the 101st Airborne's men there were two surprises: their regular commander, tall, 43-year-old Major General Maxwell Davenport Taylor, had ridden into Bastogne with the relief outfit (he had been in the U.S. for consultation, had reached the front from Washington in less than two days); the Screaming Eagles were being relieved while there were still more Krauts around to kill.

The 101st Airborne and the others, along with a sky full of trigger-happy pilots, had created another epic of U.S. arms at Bastogne. They had never let the enemy seriously penetrate their outposts. They had punished him severely. The ground forces alone had destroyed 148 tanks and the German dead were counted in thousands. Bastogne's defenders had made possible a tactical success that might be turned into a large-scale victory.

History would probably award Bastogne a high place in the important battles of 1944. But the men of the 101st Airborne were confused by the adulation poured upon them. Snorted one: "What the hell --everybody in this outfit is just crazy, including me. If we weren't we wouldn't be in it."

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