Maison de tourisme de Bastogne - Tourism

Description

On the Moselle front, as General Patton’s 3rd Army prepared to launch a major attack on the defences of the Siegfried Line, on 19 December ’44 the American High Command ordered him to move his divisions ninety degrees towards Bastogne. But unfavourable weather conditions, the state of the roads, and harassing fire from German units, made the going rough for General Patton’s troops. The men were exhausted and “frozen to the marrow”. Finally, the sky cleared and enabled Allied air operations to resume as well as the re-supply by air-drops of those besieged in Bastogne, and also facilitated the advance of Patton’s troops. In the afternoon of 26 December, on orders from Patton, tanks of the 37th Tank Battalion under the command of Lieutenant Charles Boggess, pushed-on towards Assenois and succeeded in breaking the German cordon around Bastogne, linking-up with the 326th Engineer Combat Battalion of the 101st Airborne. A column of ambulances immediately exploited the “Assenois corridor” to Bastogne then returned with the wounded to evacuate them to field-hospitals. In the following days, the American troops made every effort to maintain and roaden the “corridor” despite numerous German attempts to close the breach. (text source by Guy Blockmans/OPT)