Peiper’s success in breaking through was heady stuff to the Germans. Even if he was behind schedule, it had been a glorious couple of days. Corporal Bertenrath recalled: “We enjoyed those first days of success, moving forward, taking prisoners and, above all, capturing the wonderful provisions we found in Allied vehicles: chocolate, cigarettes, potatoes, vegetables, meat, and even something for dessert. I asked my squad, ‘My God, how do they manage such things?'” But being behind American lines gave Bertenrath a sense of impending doom, because “on one road through the forest were stacks of shells that stretched for, I would guess, two kilometres both left and right-we drove through an alley of shells. I had never seen the like of it. I told my squad, ‘My God, their supplies are unlimited!'”
At dawn, December 18, Peiper instructed two Panther commanders to charge Stavelot at maximum speed. They drove around the curve, firing rapidly, and penetrated the antitank obstacle at the curve. The Germans followed up with other vehicles, and the Americans evacuated the town. Not, however, before destroying the gasoline dump at Stavelot. Sergeant Jack Mocnik and two others of the 526th Armoured Infantry Battalion drove a jeep up the hill to the gasoline dump, accompanied by two halftracks. Mocnik’s party began firing .30- and .50 calibre machine-gun bursts into jerry cans of gas, and finally they got one to catch fire. As they scrambled away, “the darndest fire you ever saw flared up,” Mocnik recalled. “The cans would explode and fly through the air like rockets trailing fire and smoke.”
Frustrated, Peiper drove at top speed to get to Trois-Ponts (Three Bridges). Once across the Ambleve and Salm rivers, which flowed together in the village, he would have an open road to the Meuse.
IN SOME American headquarters, at supply dumps, and in the field there was confusion if not chaos. Men set to burning papers and maps, destroying weapons, and running to the rear. There was a breakdown in discipline, compounded by the breakdown of some colonels. Among many, fear drove all rational thought out of their mind. Go west as fast as possible was the only thought.
On December 17 the trickle of frightened men fleeing the battle began to turn into a stream. By December 18 the stream was becoming a flood. Waves of panic rolled westwards. In Belgium and northern France, American flags hanging from windows were discreetly pulled inside. In Paris the whores put away their English-language phrase books and retrieved their German versions.
On the third day of the attack, December 19, German armour began to acquire momentum; the greatest gains made by the armoured spearhead columns were achieved that day. As the Germans straightened out their traffic jams behind the front, the Americans in retreat were colliding with the reinforcements Eisenhower had sent to the battle, causing a monumental traffic jam of their own.
The US Army in retreat was a sad spectacle. When the 101st Airborne got to Bastogne on December 19, the columns of reinforcements marched down both sides of the road towards the front. Down the middle of the road came defeated American troops, fleeing the front in disarray, mob-like. Many had thrown away their rifles, coats, all encumbrances. Some were in a panic, staggering, exhausted, shouting, “Run! They’ll murder you! They’ll kill you! They’ve got tanks, machine guns, air power, everything!”
“They were just babbling,” Major Dick Winters of the 506th PIR recalled. “It was pathetic. We felt ashamed.”
Reporter Jack Belden described the retreat as he saw it in the Ardennes on December 17, 1944. There were long convoys of trucks, carrying gasoline, portable bridges, and other equipment, headed west, with tanks and other armed vehicles mixed in. “I noticed in myself a feeling that I had not had for some years. It was the feeling of guilt that seems to come over you whenever you retreat. You don’t like to look anyone in the eyes. It seems as if you have done something wrong. I perceived this feeling in others too. The road was jammed with every conceivable kind of vehicle. An enemy plane came down and bombed and strafed the column, knocking three trucks off the road, shattering trees and causing everyone to flee to ditches.” Jabos in reverse. Then came the buzz bombs, or V-ls. “It went on all night. There must have been a buzz bomb or a piloted plane raid somewhere every five minutes.”