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Showing posts with the label Battle of the Bulge

Book Review: 'Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge'

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Dust jacket illustration for the U.S. edition of Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge. Design by Matt Yee. (C) 2015 Viking (a Penguin Random House imprint) On November 3, 2015, Penguin Random House UK imprint Viking published Ardennes 1944: Hitler’s Last Gamble , a book by historian Antony Beevor about the biggest battle fought in Western Europe during World War II. Officially known as the Ardennes Counteroffensive, the engagement that began on December 16, 1944 and ended six weeks later is better known by its more popular nomenclature – the Battle of the Bulge. (The battle earned its nickname due to the bulge-shaped salient in Allied lines on situation maps – official and those published in U.S. and British newspapers during that cold, miserable, and violent winter battle.) Published in the U.S. as Ardennes 1944: The Battle of the Bulge, the book is Beevor’s first World War II book that focuses on a campaign that was overwhelmingly a struggle between Adolf Hitler’s We

Book Review: 'Battle: The Story of the Bulge'

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(C) 1999 Bison Books Pros:  Very  readable. Written just 15 years after battle, the account is vivid. Cons:  Missing part of the overall story due to still-existing classification issues. Fog hung thick in the Schnee Eifel on the morning of December 16. The men of the Tank Artillery Regiment of the 1st SS Panzer Division, "Hitler's Own," were tense with excitement. "All batteries ready to fire!" came the report. On a nearby road, tanks of the division were lined up for the attack like a great winding dragon. A commander waved to the man standing in the turret of the next tank. "Goodbye, Lieutenant, see you in America!" The lieutenant laughed. Final checks were made on the range finders. Throats were dry, hands were poised at the lanyards, eyes fixed on watches. Up and down the line the arms of gunnery officers were raised. It was 5:30 A.M. "Fire!" An eruption of flame and smoke burst all along the Ghost Front. For eighty-

A Time for Trumpets by Charles B. MacDonald: A book review

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Pros: Gripping and well-written account of the U.S. Army's greatest battle   Cons: None. The Bottom Line: Although it covers the same battle as "The Bitter Woods," A Time for Trumpets is more focused and benefits from the declassification of the "Ultra" secret. Great read! On December 16, 1944, elements of three German armies -- 14 infantry and five panzer divisions in all -- attacked part of the American First Army along an 80-mile front along Germany's border with Belgium and Luxembourg. The sudden and unexpected counteroffensive hit the Americans in an area the Allies thought would be a nice, quiet sector for combat-weary divisions to rest and refit while green divisions fresh from the States could be acclimated to life on the line: the dark and deep forests of the Ardennes. Planned and ordered by Adolf Hitler himself, this massive onslaught was launched with one objective in mind: penetrate the American lines, pass through the "impassable&