Evening star., 1947-09-14

southeast of Nancy.
But the next day the gas supply
again dried up. Only $4,000 gal
Ions were received, flown IN by
XIX TAG bombers.
That was the end.
The aX fell officially on Sep
tember Is.
Early that day Bradley tele-
phoned Patton that Eisenhower
had ordered Sd Army to assume
the defensive That is, to sit
down in place.
1t was day of black tragedies
for Lucky.
Shortly after Bradlevs message.
SHAEF ordered VIII Corps trans
ferred to 9Th Army and XIV Corps
to 7th Army, Ninth had Just be-
come operational in Brittany and
VIII Corps, still fighting at Brest,
was its only unit. Third Army was
not only sat down, but quilted. The
transfers left it with only two
corps, XII and Xxx.
In the line, the lean combat
units received the news of the sit
down and loss of the two crack
corps with tight-lipped anger.
That grim reality the troops saw
and understood very vividly.
New Lease for Hitler
Third Army was held in leash
from September 25 to November s.
SHAEF restrictions permitted
limited objective attacks, to i'm
prove local positions. Nothing
more. And to insure that nothing
more was undertaken. gas, ammuni-
tion and other supplies were rigidly
Curtailed.
In the battle lines, the situation
was equally sour.
From the Channel to the Swiss
border, the Germans were on the
defensive. But throughout the far
flung front, they were holding the
seven Allied armies at bay.
Montgomery's offensive had been
stopped dead in its tracks.
The tragic Arnhem assault ended
In welter of blood and death and
defeat.
1t was a double defeat. In the
north. it was defeat for Montgom-
cry at the hands of the enemy. In
the south, it was defeat for Sd
Army at the hands of SHAEF.
Hitler had won his hairbreadth
race for time.
On the brink of annihilation,
had given him the chance
10 gain the respite he so desperately
needed to reconstitute his forces and
prolong the war.
Montgomery had triumpned in the
inner councils of SHAEF and Hitler
had won a new lease on life.
Command Failure
The Battle of the Bulge was a
costly and tragic disaster that was
wholly unnecessary; due entirely
to failure of command on the part
of SHAEF, Headquarters 18th U. S.
Army Group, and Headquarters 81
rr,ou pr;t
The Ardennes catastrophe was
due solely to failures of command,
and negligence of the
senior commanders involved. They
ignored and disregarded the first
of military training and
leadership. They we're surprised in
the face of the enemy.
And thousands of other men paid
off for these failures of command
in blood and death.
The Battle of the Bulge has been
widely assailed as intelligence dis
asters, They were. But not in the
sense generally believed.
The failure was the commanders,
and certain G-2s', who did not act
on the intelligence they had, But
despite their scandalous made
quacies, the intelligence system
effectively and ac-
Ample information was availabls
not only to have, averted disaster,
but to have turned the tables on
the enemy. surprised him, and sent
him reeling in smashing defeat
The conclusive proof on the Bat
tie of the Bulge still is in the unre-
Vealed records locked in the re-
cesses of tightly controlled archives.
Warnings Ignored
The Nazis' capability to launch a
large-scale counteroffensive was
stressed repeatedly in the Co. re-
ports of every Army Headquarters
in the ETO. From early October
right down to December Is. the day
before the Germans struck, these
carried numerous warm
Ings of the dangerous threat.
But while the G-2s of Sd and
Ist Armies and VIII Corps were
becoming increasingly apprehen-
'ive, SHAEF, Hq. 18th Army Group
and Hq q Army Group British were
oooh- pooling the warnings Hq.
18th Army Group, particularly,
switched its tune
With SHAEF and 81 Army Group
British, it now argued blandly that
there was no reason for outcrv and
concern.
Why. in the face of the strategic
and tactical situations and all the
detailed enemy information that
was known. totside persisted so
fxedly in the view that the Ger
mans would not attack is a mystery
that still is unclarifed. There have
been alibis, but no real explanation.
Montgomery made a categoric
refutation OF the outcries from