Good things all! For those of you who are thinking that five things is just about vehicles, it's not. This is going to be a quick little video giving you five things about the battle of the Bulge. That is always with an emphasis in some of the lesser known facts. You don't need me to tell you that MacGull have said not, for example, it's in most of every other Bulge video out there. So, onwards! 1. Bastonia was not the decisive battle. There are actually three major fights, which were critical to holding the German offensive. Bastonia was the only one of them. I go be the most important was the central objective of San Viet. Also a major road junction, and it sat on the only railway line from Germany into Belgium. This was held by 7th Armored Division and some of the 9th. Much of the 106th Infantry Division, some helped from a regiment of the bloody bucket, which had become separated from its division, and was backstopped by the 82nd airborne. To the north, two of the four main roads the Germans were looking to use were under the purview of the 99th and 2nd Infantry Divisions, later backstopped by the 1st and 9th, holding the Elsenborn Ridge. All major German thrusts found themselves hopelessly behind schedule or otherwise confounded, none managed to reach the Merse River. 2. The most decorated small unit of the war fought in the Bulge. The 442nd Regimental Combat team is often cited as the most decorated unit in US military history, but that's for a unit of its size. Fewer people, however, are aware of the intelligence through a reconnaissance platoon of the 394th Infantry Regiment check-board division. On 16th December they weren't just doing reconnaissance, they were the first obstacle to be cleared to allow the first SS Panzer Division to launch its thrust. To do this, a battalion of the 9th Falschmjäger Regiment was tasked to clear the town of Lanzaroth where Lieutenant Lyle Buk and his 18 men would be found, in company with four artillery observers. Aided by the fact that the German power troopers from reality and even button poorly trained, Lieutenant Buk and his men denied artillery support but overarmed with weapons and ammunition scrounged in excess of the official table of organization, held against repeated attacks until dusk when they finally ran out of ammunition. When man was killed, the rest captured. German records indicated 33 killed in 80 wounded, plus very angry leadership in the first SS whose advance had been held up for most of a day courtesy of this American platoon. Lieutenant Buk celebrated his 21st birthday hours after being captured. As nobody from the American side of the fight was around to tell the story of the battle until after the war, and because one platoon could easily get lost in the multi-armic campaign, this action went generally unremarked for decades after the war. In 1981, the platoon received the presidential unicitation and between them, the members earned four distinguished service crosses, five silver stars and nine bronze stars. 14 of the men were present for the awarding. 3. The supporting units. The Hearstown talk, what held the line were strongly pressed in three units defending desperately against the German armored spearhead. This is true, but the focus on this imagery only is to overlook the numerous supporting assets which were to be found. Before the 101st arrived in Bastogne, combat command B of 10th armored division took up the line and stayed with the power troopers until the end. Also, making into Bastogne before the encirclement, two tank destroyer battalions, the 609th and the 705th, whether M18s and M10s, did exactly what TD units were supposed to do, relocated high speed, the threatened sectors under heavy enemy armored attack. 1 M18 claimed five panthers with six rounds. Further north, the battle at Elsenborn Ridge belonged to the artillery. Over 23 battalions worth of artillery were assembled on the ridge, the largest concentration of artillery in all of American military history. The new VT fuse designed to air burst above target was also released for use. The effects, as they often were when US artillery fired in response to enemy attack, were utterly devastating. Imagine a 20 minute fire mission on a single town averaging five rounds a second, such as happened at Crinkult Walker Rath on the 19th of December. The engineers similarly found themselves thrown into the fight as riflemen for a while holding the center of the line of San Vith, until 7th Armored arrived. The engineers also had an additional important function, which brings us to item 4. It's all about bridges. There were a number of waterways, which the Germans had to cross in order to even reach the mousse, all of which needed intact bridges. This was sufficient to concern that though the Tiger 2s were designed to be the breakthrough asset of an armored unit, the German commanders tended to place them at the rear of the column so that it would be less likely to cause trouble for the rest of the unit. It was however a Yagpanzer, which saw the end of Papers March westwards. I should explain. American engineers seemed to have this thing about never seeing a bridge which they hadn't built, but that they didn't want to blow up. And below bridges they did, particularly at the town of Troopon, translated as three bridges, no guessing it's why it had the name. Blowing the bridge near Stubbelow was a major hindrance to paper, blowing the bridges at Troopon meant that he had to take a long detour. The final straw was the aforementioned Yagpanzer 4, which tried to cross the one remaining bridge over the Omblev, just east of Troopon. The bridge collapsed, and with it the last truck route which could be used to send supplies to Papers tanks, which could proceed no further. 5. Monty's Speech Monty managed to royally annoy the Americans twice in one battle. First, by overruling Matt Ridgeway, and ordering that the forces defending around St Amvith be with the Jerome to behind 82nd Airborne lines. Ridgeway, a pirate trooper, was inclined to leave the St Amvith forces in place, even if they became isolated like the one of first, proposing that they be supplied by air if necessary, just like Asbestonian. Though it is to be observed that at Bastonian, the defenders were mainly infantry with some armored support, while at St Amvith it was mainly armored units with infantry support, so the practical reality is dropping fuel and tank ammunition seemed questionable. Either way, the idea of giving up ground gained by American blood was something of an ennathema to many Americans. Monty actually ordered Ridgeway's forces to withdraw twice. The second time he shortened the 82nd's line. Jim Gavim, the commander of 82nd, was in two minds about this. He acknowledged that the shortened line was far superior, both for defense and preparation to counter-attack, but also that the move backwards was highly unpopular with the troops. The big one though was Monty's press conference of the 7th of January. The original intent of the conference was to address the criticism, mainly in the British press, of General Eisenhower's leadership, which Monty felt was unwarranted. He had run a copy of his proposed speech past Ix Office for approval, and it passed. Unfortunately there were two problems. First, his tone cannot be conveyed by a typed document. Secondly, he decided to ignore the document anyway and say something else. Some things which he did say included a forthright defense of Eisen He made a public tribute to the American fighting man as a quote first class soldier, as demonstrated in the battle, and called out at length the exploits of several US units, including the two airborne divisions, the women of 6th infantry and the 7th armored. However, he did not make mention of any US generals by name other than Ike, and he arguably overemphasized the British troops involvement in the battle. And also there was quite a lot of I did this and I did that. Nothing he said was factually incorrect, but either intentionally or not the way it was said was troublesome. After the conference Monty's chief of intelligence stated that the text was innocuous the presentation appalling. The officer involved in writing the official British history of the campaign said that though it was a handsome tribute to the American army, its general tone and certain smugness of delivery undoubtedly gave deep offense to many American officers. However, despite that the conference itself was generally well received by the press on both sides of the Atlantic. It would likely have blown over had it been left alone. When actually caused the rift, it wasn't so much what Montgomery had said, or even how he said it. It was what the Germans said. The day after the conference, those listening in on one of the BBC's frequencies heard a report of the press conference which basically gave full credit of the handling of the battle to Montgomery. The Americans who heard it were furious. It was also heard by US monitoring services and was reacted to with indignation by the American media, giving widespread coverage to the insult which Montgomery had given to the US. The only problem, it wasn't a BBC broadcast. It was broadcast by the German psychological operations machine designed to give the impression of being a BBC broadcast with the intent of causing a split between the US and the UK. In this, it succeeded. By the time the announcement had been identified as a fake on the 10th of January, the damage had been done from New York to the headquarters of Bradley or Patton. So there you go. Five things you can use to dazzle your friends and relations at the Christmas dinner table. Hope you found it interesting and informative. I'll talk you on the next one.