Bradley still thought it an irritant, nothing major. Eisenhower disagreed. Studying the map, he ordered Bradley to send the 7th Armoured Division to St. Vith on the northern flank and the 12th Armoured to Echternach in the south. The 12th was scheduled to attack east of Metz, Bradley reminded Eisenhower, and Patton would be furious at having to call off his offensive. “Tell him,” Eisenhower replied, “that Ike is running this damn war.”
Hitler was certain it would take Eisenhower two or three days to recognize the extent of the threat and assumed that he would not be willing to call off his offensives north and south of the Ardennes until he had checked with Churchill and Roosevelt. Eisenhower proved him wrong on both points. He saw that not only was this a major offensive but that it was the best thing that could happen. The Germans were out of their fixed fortifications, out in the open where American artillery, tanks, infantry, and fighter-bombers would be capable of destroying them.
On the morning of December 17 Eisenhower ordered the 101st and 82nd Airborne, then refitting in Reims, into the battle. He sent the 101st to Bastogne, a crossroads town in the centre of the German thrust. He wanted it held at all costs and ordered a command team from the 10th Armoured Division to join the 101st there. He sent the 82nd to the northern flank, near Elsenborn.
Hitler had thought that it would take Eisenhower days to move reinforcements into the Ardennes. He was wrong about that one too. The airborne divisions could not go to their position by plane, as the weather continued to be foggy, snowy, cold. But Eisenhower had trucks. He ordered the drivers in the Red Ball Express to use all their resources as troop carriers. On December 17 alone, 11,000 trucks carried 60,000 men, plus ammunition, medical supplies, and other materiel into the Ardennes. In the first week of the battle Eisenhower was able to move 250,000 men into the fray. This was mobility unprecedented in the history of war. Not even in Vietnam, not even in Desert Storm, was the US Army capable of moving so many men and so much equipment so quickly.
Still, it took time to recover from the initial blow and regroup. Meanwhile, hundreds of German tanks were loose behind the front lines, free to move in almost any direction.
ON DECEMBER 17 the sky over Belgium was overcast, but the Luftwaffe pilots flew between 600 and 700 sorties in support of the ground forces. A thousand and more Allied pilots were there to meet them over St. Vith and began a daylong dogfight.
Captain Jack Barensfeld led a twelve-plane squadron of P-47s. When he arrived on the scene, he “saw two or three fighters on fire, spiralling towards the ground both sides. I saw a Thunderbolt going down in flames. Enemy aircraft all over the place. Our controller, ‘Organ,’ is calm and calling in a prime target-a pontoon bridge across the River Rur. Many enemy vehicles backed up behind it. A great amount of flak coming up. Three or four of our aircraft received battle damage but no one aborted. We used our bombs and rockets on the vehicles and the bridge, then set up several strafing passes. There were burning vehicles and some damage to the bridge when we left after about 20 minutes.”
On the ground the Germans made their major breakthrough in the centre, in the direction of Bastogne, but had their own problems. Armoured units flowed to the west not in an even stream, but irregularly from traffic jam to traffic jam. The road net in the Ardennes was just as Eisenhower had said it would be, inadequate. Much of the German artillery was horse-drawn, which added greatly to the congestion.
All through December 17 Peiper continued to drive west, avoiding Elsenborn Ridge, looking for bridges, gasoline dumps, ammunition dumps, blasting pockets of resistance out of the way when necessary. By 1600 hours Peiper had reached the outskirts of Stavelot. The town was clogged with American vehicles. He subjected it to a bombardment from his tanks, then sent his armoured infantry to attack the town. As darkness fell, American small arms repulsed the enemy. Through the night Peiper watched as the Americans pulled out their trucks, heading west.