McAuliffe is a kind, plainspoken man. He is that rare West Point graduate and general army officer who doesn’t sprinkle his conversation with swearing. And he is pragmatic. These shattered soldiers are clear evidence that the Krauts, as American soldiers call their Wehrmacht opponents, are hardly defeated. They have already slaughtered thousands of Americans in just four days.

The Krauts will be striving mightily to slaughter the 101st, as well.

*   *   *

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. The 101st had been pulled back to rest after months of hard fighting. They were quartered in Reims, one hundred miles behind the lines, where they were awarded leave in nearby Paris and allowed to catch up on their sleep. There was no hurry to supply them with winter underwear, galoshes to keep their boots dry, or even extra ammunition. The 101st didn’t need it. They were not expecting to see action until after the winter.

But that was then. Now they are on the move. They are supposed to be enjoying some well-earned rest after being dropped behind the Normandy beaches back in June, and then again at Operation Market Garden in late September. But Dwight Eisenhower desperately needs them on the front lines. Some were resting in their barracks when their orders arrived. Others were actually pulled, drunk or hungover, out of Paris’s brasseries by military police. They travel in a special caravan made up of almost four hundred vehicles. Many drive with headlights blazing. This is normally forbidden in a combat zone, but now allows them to travel at a quicker speed. The downside is that if German planes are flying overhead, any member of the 101st would be butchered from the air, their silhouettes standing out in the snowy fields beside the roads, completely visible to the Nazi pilots.

But the calculated gamble is paying off. The skies are leaden with clouds and fog. The Luftwaffe is not flying tonight.3

Freezing, the American soldiers are lined up “nut to butt” for hour after hour in the swaying trucks. When the mass of retreating men slow their caravan, members of the 101st call down to them, asking for supplies. Ammunition is hurled up to them. Helmets. K-rations. Even rifles.

But not heavy winter coats. Not wool socks. And certainly not long underwear. Those in retreat will not part with them.

“What’s going on up there?” a chorus of men yell. “How many Krauts are there? How close are they? Do they have tanks?”

To which one of the retreating men simply replies, “You’ll all be killed!”

Undaunted, the 101st moves ahead. Any man can break. But the advancing Americans know they don’t have that luxury. Just like the Roman legions who once fought off the Germanic hordes on this same stretch of land, they hold the fate of Europe in their hands.

Despite the last-minute call to arms, General McAuliffe and the 101st are more than ready to fight. When a captain in the command of one column of defeated men inexplicably blocks the road and refuses to move his trucks so that the 101st can pass, the paratroopers reach for their fighting knives.

An airborne officer promptly defuses the situation by unholstering his pistol and promising to put a bullet through the captain’s head.

Thankfully, the captain sees “the wisdom in prompt obedience,” in the words of a unit chaplain.

“No one would have missed him,” chimes in a paratrooper.

And so the 101st rolls on.

But Brig. Gen. Tony McAuliffe, West Point Class of 1918, never makes it to Werbomont. Nor does the 101st Airborne.

Instead, they are diverted to a tiny hamlet that is no more than a speck on the Ardennes map. The Germans call the village a “road octopus” because seven different highways sprout in seven different directions from its center. The key to success in Operation Watch on the Rhine means controlling the local roads, which allow heavy tanks to travel more quickly. Thus, the Germans covet this town.

The road octopus is more commonly known as Bastogne.

Until a few days ago, McAuliffe had never heard of it. But now, for better or worse, he is here. As his jeep roars into the town center, he finds a miserable scenario. There is little natural charm or beauty to Bastogne under the best of circumstances. But now it is a scene of utter devastation. There is no power, and the centre ville is choked with refugees and dray carts piled high with the possessions of the fleeing. Ongoing German shelling has reduced most of Bastogne to rubble.

Yet McAuliffe must defend this horrible little burg at all costs. He sets up his command post in the basement of a hotel across the street from the train station and impatiently awaits the arrival of his troops. A quick glance at the situation map boards erected along the compound walls show how desperately the Germans want to capture Bastogne: they have committed three divisions and parts of four more. McAuliffe’s eleven thousand paratroopers and Combat Command B of the Tenth Armored Division numbering three thousand tanks and soldiers are on the verge of being surrounded by a force numbering fifty-five thousand Wehrmacht fighters and Panzers.4 Once the Germans close the noose, there will be no way for the Americans to escape. Their only hope to survive is for Gen. George Patton and his Third Army to break through and rescue them.

“Now, Tony, you’re going to be surrounded here before too long,” says Maj. Gen. Troy Middleton, briefing McAuliffe before hightailing it out of Bastogne. Middleton is commander of the U.S. Army’s VIII Corps, and McAuliffe’s immediate superior. He is pulling his headquarters back to the safety of a town named Neuchâteau. McAuliffe can’t help but notice that VIII Corps is so eager to pull out that they are leaving behind their ample liquor stores.

“But don’t worry,” Middleton emphasizes. “Help is on the way from Patton.”

With that, Middleton hurries to his staff car and quickly drives out of town, knowing the Germans are just two miles away. He has performed admirably since December 16, but the arrival of the 101st means that it no longer serves any purpose for him and his headquarters staff to remain in Bastogne and potentially become captured.

Soldiers of the 101st Airborne Division marching in Bastogne, Belgium

McAuliffe now assumes the full weight of command. He is distinctly aware that many might see the situation as the 101st’s version of Custer’s Last Stand.

But McAuliffe does not believe this will be the case.

Or as a medic in Bastogne’s field hospital sums up the situation, “They’ve got us surrounded. The poor bastards.”

*   *   *

Meanwhile, fifty miles northeast of Bastogne, as the sun rises over the Elsenborn Ridge, the Germans attack.

Firing from a forest, they zero in on the frozen American force dug in on the ridge, almost two thousand feet above sea level. Members of the Ninety-Ninth Infantry Division hear the thunderclap of a single 88 mm shell being fired. Its flight is short and intense, screaming louder and louder as it finds an American foxhole. Dirt, snow, blood, and body parts erupt into the sky. Instant death. The men of the Ninety-Ninth press their frostbitten bodies deeper into their fighting holes. For the better part of a week, the Ninety-Ninth have held the Elsenborn Ridge, knowing that sooner or later the Germans would attempt the frontal assault. Now it has begun.

That lone shell is the first of hundreds. The Germans barrage the Americans for over an hour. There is no pattern to where the shells fall. Some American soldiers become nauseated when the shells explode close by. Their ears ring. Some wet themselves without knowing it, and quietly revel in the brief sensation of warmth on this subzero day.

And then silence.

But only for a short time.

At 9:00 a.m. the German army’s Third Panzergrenadier Division emerges from the tree line near the Schwalm Creek Valley. The hardened Nazi soldiers sprint toward the American foxholes.