Battle of the Bulge

Today we're in Belgium seeing the Battle of the Bulge sites around Bastogne. Our hotel was on McAuliffe Square, named after the 101st Airborne general. The Germans had the city surrounded and asked McAuliffe if he wanted to surrender his 18,000 men. "Nuts!" was his reply. Most of the town's buildings in the center didn't survive the war.

The Battle of the Bulge was Hitler's last ditch attempt to split the Allied forces, and was the largest battle of the war the Americans were engaged in. In December 1944 the Germans concentrated a large number of divisions and broke through the lines near Bastogne, attempting to reach Antwerp. The American units in the front line slowed the Germans down long enough to allow time for the main armies to arrive, and held strategic points like Bastogne to prevent the Germans from establishing supply lines. Eventually the Germans ran out of steam, less than halfway to their goal, and the American armies encircled and defeated them.

On the edge of Bastogne is the American memorial.

We spent the day roaming around the Belgian and Luxemburg countrysides seeing where the battles were fought. Outside Wiltz we took some back roads through the Ardennes, the dense, hilly woods through which the Germans initially invaded France. It's easy to see why the French didn't suspect the Germans could mount a major invasion through here. And of course lots of windmills.

Had a pleasant lunch in Clervaux, a pretty little town in a valley. I loved how they served the egg yolk for the carbonara. The tomato soup was excellent, and Dad and David had the chicken cordon blu. John had the Werner schnitzel one more time.

Did you know that Luxemburg has its own language, Luxembourghish? Our waitress kindly spoke some for us.

The museum in the castle had a lot of paraphernalia from the war and a Sherman.

Next we drove along what's known as the Skyline Drive, a scenic ridge over the Our river, which is the border with Germany and the front line before the battle. At one point we went down to check out the Our and had a few more minutes in Germany (no sausage).

Continuing on to Malmedy, the site of a gruesome massacre of American prisoners by the SS Panzer division headed by Jochen Peiper. Another museum we didn't know existed that turned out to have a lot of excellent full size dioramas showing what life was like for the soldiers, and a good movie. Peiper was convicted of war crimes (he was involved in a number of other murders) but only served 11 years. Amazingly he went on to become an executive at Porsche and was even briefly heading up US sales, but couldn't get a visa. Eventually someone in France in the 1970s shot him and burned his house down.

We headed across country through scenic valleys to La Gleize, which was as far as Peiper got and now has a Tiger parked by the church.

It was a lot of fun traveling the backroads today. The terrain was a major factor in the battle, and you could get a good sense for what it was like here in 1944. Only instead of snow our weather continues to be perfect.

South to Bouillon, our next overnight stop It's a pretty little town on the river. Napoleon III stayed in our hotel once.

Great pizza for dinner.