Bastogne - The Battle of the Bulge

Trip Start Apr 15, 1981
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Trip End Jun 30, 1981


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Flag of Belgium  , Baden-Württemberg,
Sunday, April 19, 1981

A historic transportation hub in the beautiful rolling hills of the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. Still a small city, Bastogne played a pivotal role in the German Winter Offensive of 1944 - "The Battle of the Bulge". Desperately needing to slow the encircling Allied armies, Hitler transfered some of his best and most experienced troops from the Eastern Front and used them to attack through the Ardennes Forest with the hopes of recapturing the port of Antwerp and slowing the advance of the Western Allies, or better, creating a stalemate which would allow him to refocus his efforts against the Russians.
At first, the Allies were completely surprised (This was afterall, only the third time the German Armies had done this in the same place in thirty years!). Although completely surrounded, the Americans in Bastogne, reinforced by airborne troops and cut off from air support because of weather, held on until they were relieved by the US 3rd Army under General George Patton.
The German's loss of men and materiel greatly diminished their ability to continue the war, which was to end just four months later.

I stayed with a kind elderly lady, whom as a young girl was barricaded in the basement of her house with her family and neighbours for weeks as the fighting raged in the street above.
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