Battle: Story of the Bulge by John Toland

Author:John Toland [Toland, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Tags: Military History
Published: 2015-07-03T16:00:00+00:00

Twenty-five miles to the east an even more decisive battle was reaching its climax all along snow-covered Elsenborn Ridge. For the third straight day Sepp Dietrich was trying to drive a hole to the north.

At 9:00 a.m. the 99th Division section of the line was a hell of exploding 88s, 105s, and screaming meemies. The GIs huddled in their foxholes, hoping they would be alive when this preliminary to attack ended.

Sergeant Jim Revell was going from foxhole to foxhole. Two days before, during another heavy barrage, he had found himself in a state of exultation. "Lord," he had said, "you know what to do with me. If you want me to live, I'll live. If you want to take me, take me."

He had lived. And now he was dedicated to the service of God. When the war was over he would become a preacher. But Elsenborn Ridge on this morning was his first pulpit.

Word had spread in the company that Revell's life was charmed. No matter how much he exposed himself, apparently no bullet, fragment, or shell could hit him. Every foxhole wanted him as a guest.

Revell, once the butt of the company, crawled from hole to hole on his self-appointed mission. The men—even the officers—listened to him and tried to keep him in their holes as long as possible.

He was talking to Lieutenant Faraday. "You remember the words of Jesus to Nicodemus: 'Ye must be born again.'"

"Look, Jim," said Faraday earnestly. "I feel a good life is enough to get into heaven."

"But you need the experience of salvation."

"Well, I may be wrong, I don't know." Faraday dismissed the subject with a wave of the hand. "I just want to go back and be the best insurance man in my home town." Revell now started back for his own hole. A shell exploded beyond, then in front.

"Hey!" A soldier raised his head from a hole and beckoned.

Revell was amazed. It was one of his greatest ridiculers. Once while drunk he had broken Revell's nose. Although Revell asked the court to be lenient, the man had been reduced to private and fined.

"Come on in here, boy, and read your Bible to me."

Revell crawled into the cramped hole and read from his

Bible for a long time. Finally the other man shook his head

slowly. He closed his eyes and said, half to himself, "Is it

possible I've been as bad as I have?"

Suddenly the shelling stopped all along Elsenborn Ridge and along the 1st Division defenses in front of Butgenbach. Tigers, Panthers, and waves of infantrymen charged forward.

The 99th and 2nd Division lines held, but to their right the 1st Division lines were pierced. A dozen Panthers and Tigers began shooting down rear-echelon troops in Butgenbach. More tanks and infantry poured through an 800-yard gap in the lines.

For several hours it looked as though Dietrich finally had his breakthrough to the north. But other 1st Division GIs rushed into the gap, destroying tanks with bazookas and picking off the white-clad grenadiers. The 800-yard hole was sewed up and every one of the German breakthrough tanks became a funeral pyre for its occupants.

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