Battle of the Bulge - The First 24 Hours

By DECEMBER 1944, World War II had been under way for more than five years. The anti-fascist alliance headed by the 'Big Three' of the United States, the Soviet Union and Great Britain had recovered from earlier reverses against a seemingly invincible German army to inflict a steady series of reverses on Adolf Hitler's forces. On the eastern front, Soviet forces had launched a winter offensive in the Ukraine on Christmas Eve 1943 and this had led to disaster for the Germans. In mid-February, the battle of Korsun-Shevchenkovsky ended with the rout of substantial elements of the retreating German forces: thousands of men drowned in a panic-stricken attempt to cross the Gniloi Tikitsch. The Sixth Army suffered fearful attrition in the Nikopol salient-and the once-unstoppable German army was in the unenviable position of suffering two major reverses at once.
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