Reflections of My Life by JL Byars – page 21

We had so many places we needed to be we had to divide up our troops so that we could cover most of the places.  Some of these units were completely surrounded and cut off.  It was in one of these battles that General Rose was killed (as usual he was up front with us).  He was one of the greatest generals in the United States Army.  It was an honor to serve under him.

We found out later that we had tangled with some of the best units of Nazi Germany.  They were: the 2nd SS DAS REICH Panzer Division of the 1st SS Leibstandarde Adolf Hitler Panzer Division, and the 12th Hitler Jugend Panzer Division.  We were told that this was the worst weather and the worse terrain that we had ever been in.

After all of this fighting the Germans began to give up.  There were only a few at a time at first.  The greatest picture you could paint would not describe 3000 German prisoners giving up.  There was so many battles during the Battle of the Bulge that it would take a long, long time to just write about it as I would remember it.  Our main objective was to meet up with the Russians, which we did later on.

We came upon prisoners of war that the Germans were using in their factories building and repairing equipment.  The prisoners were so weak they almost dragged themselves to work.  They were fed a diet of four ounces of black bread and a small amount of thin soup each day.  On one day the Germans hanged 32 men and made all of the others watch.  The prisoners then hauled their comrades to German cremation ovens.  When the oven was full with bodies and dry wood, it was lit and kept burning until everything was ashes.  This was more than most of us ever thought we would see.  Most of the prisoners were just skin and bones.  Some did not look like human beings at all.

Final statistics from the Battle of the Bulge: Among 600,000 Americans eventually involved in the fighting – including 29 divisions, 6 mechanized cavalry groups, and the equivalent of 3 separate regiments – casualties totaled 81,000, of which 15,000 were captured and 19,000 killed.  Among 55,000 British – 2 divisions and 3 brigades – casualties totaled 1,400, of which just over 200 were killed.  The Germans, employing close to 500,000 men – including 28 divisions and 3 brigades – lost at least 100,000 killed, wounded, and captured.   As many as 800 tanks were lost on each side, and the Germans lost over l,000 planes.