At 5:30 in the morning on December 16, 1944, First Lieutenant Lyall Bu Jr. lay in a foxhole on a frozen hillside in eastern Belgium, watching the forest below him disappear into fog. He was 20 years old, one of the youngest officers in the United States Army. And in less than an hour, he and 17 other American soldiers would face the entire spearhead of Adolf Hitler’s last desperate offensive.

 The hill was called Lanzerath Ridge. It overlooked a small village of the same name, a cluster of stone farmhouses along a single road that led west into Belgium. Behind Bou, the Arden forest stretched toward the Allied lines. In front of him, somewhere in that fog, were the German positions. The temperature had dropped to -15° C overnight.

 Icecoated the branches of the pine trees. The ground was frozen so hard that a man could walk across it without leaving footprints. Bu commanded the intelligence and reconnaissance platoon of the 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division. His men were not regular infantry. They were scouts specially selected for their abilities. Each man had been chosen for expert marksmanship, peak physical condition, and high intelligence.

 Many were former army specialized training program students who had been studying at colleges across America before the army needed them as combat replacements. Several spoke foreign languages. They were organized as two nine-man reconnaissance squads trained to observe and report enemy movements, not to hold defensive positions against armored assaults.

 They carried M1 rifles and a few machine guns. They had no artillery support, no anti-tank weapons, no reinforcements within miles. Their job was to watch and report, not to fight. What Balk did not know, what no one on the Allied side knew, was that the German army had massed over 200,000 soldiers and nearly a thousand tanks in the forests across the border.

 Three entire German armies were about to launch the largest German offensive on the Western Front since 1940. The operation was called Wed Amrin, Watch on the Rine. History would remember it as the Battle of the Bulge. And the road through Lanzerath was the primary route for the first SS Panza division, Hitler’s elite armored formation, to break through American lines and race for the bridges over the Muse River.

 If those bridges fell, the German army could split the Allied forces in two and potentially capture the vital port of Antwerp. 18 Americans stood directly in their path. Lyall Ba had never expected to be an officer. He had enlisted in the Missouri National Guard at age 14, earning $1 per drill day to help support his four siblings during the depression.

He came from a workingclass family in St. Louis, Missouri. His father was a carpenter and World War I veteran who moved the family frequently looking for work. College had not been in the plans, but the army saw something in the young soldier. He was intelligent, capable, and a natural leader.

 By 16, he had been promoted to supply sergeant. They sent him to officer candidate school at Fort Benning, Georgia, where he graduated fourth in his class of 57 officers on August 25, 1942. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant before turning 19. By the time he arrived in Europe in late 1944, Bu had been promoted to first lieutenant and given command of the intelligence and reconnaissance platoon.

It was an unusual assignment for someone so young. Most platoon leaders in combat units were in their mid20s. Bu was barely old enough to vote, but Bu had earned the respect of his men. He trained alongside them, shared their hardships, never asked them to do anything he would not do himself. The men of the I and R platoon trusted their young lieutenant.

 That trust would be tested on December 16 in ways none of them could have imagined. The 99th Infantry Division had arrived in Belgium in early November 1944. They were new to combat. The division had been activated at Camp Van Dawn, Mississippi in November 1942 and spent two years training in the United States before shipping overseas.

 Most of the men had never heard a shot fired in anger. They called themselves the checkerboard division because of the blue and white checkerboard pattern on their shoulder patches, a design derived from the coat of arms of William Pit, the British statesman after whom Pittsburgh was named. The division had trained at Camp Maxi in Texas before deploying to Europe.

 The sector they occupied was considered quiet. The Arden was a rest area, a place where battered divisions came to recover and green divisions came to learn the basics of frontline duty. The forest was too dense for major operations, the terrain too difficult for tanks. At least that was what Allied intelligence believed.

 The same intelligence had made the same assumption in 1940 when German armor smashed through the Ardens and conquered France in 6 weeks. The German plan for the Arden offensive was the brainchild of Adolf Hitler himself. He hadconceived it in September 1944 during the darkest period of the war for Germany.

 The Allied armies were advancing from the west. The Soviet Union was pushing from the east. Germany was being crushed between two massive forces. Hitler believed one massive counterstroke could change everything. If German forces could break through the Allied lines, capture the port of Antworp and split the British and American armies.

 The Western Allies might be forced to negotiate. It was a desperate gamble, but Hitler was a desperate man. The offensive required total secrecy. German units moved only at night, hiding in forests during the day to avoid Allied reconnaissance aircraft. Radio communications were forbidden. Troops were told nothing about their destination until the last moment. The deception worked.

 American intelligence detected no significant buildup in the Ardens. Three German armies would participate in the attack. the sixth SS Panza army in the north, the fifth Panza Army in the center, and the seventh army in the south. Together, they fielded over 200,000 soldiers, nearly a thousand tanks and assault guns, and almost 2,000 artillery pieces.

The first SS Panza division was the spearhead of the sixth SS Panza army. Its mission was to break through American lines, race for the Muse River bridges, and open the road to Antworp. Speed was essential. The German army had limited fuel reserves. If the Panzas did not capture Allied fuel depots quickly, the offensive would stall.

 Hitler himself had stressed that the attack must succeed within the first few days or it would fail entirely. The road through Lanzerath was critical to this plan. It was one of the few routes through the dense Ardens forest that could support armored vehicles, tanks, and halftracks needed solid roads. The narrow forest trails would bog them down.

 Whoever controlled the road controlled the pace of the advance, and the fastest route to the muse ran directly through Lancerath. Balk’s platoon had been in position on Lanzerath Ridge for several weeks. Their mission was simple. Watch the road. Report any German activity. If the enemy came in force, they were supposed to fall back and let the regular infantry handle it.

 They had established their foxholes in a line along the military crest of the hill. positioned to observe the road below while remaining hidden from direct observation. The positions were well camouflaged with branches and snow. But there was a problem. There was no regular infantry behind them. The 820th tank destroyer battalion had a platoon positioned near Lanzeroth to provide support for the sector.

 On the morning of December 16, just as the German offensive began, they received orders to withdraw. No one told Bu. No one told him who was replacing them. The tank destroyers pulled out, leaving the I and R platoon alone on the ridge. That evening, Bu sent Private Firstclass William James Takanikas down to the village to find out what was happening.

Sakanikas, who everyone called Sak, was a 19-year-old soldier from White Plains, New York, with a reputation for being resourceful. He made his way down the hill through the darkness and found the village almost deserted. Sakanikas came back with disturbing news. The village was nearly empty.

 A tank destroyer platoon from the 820th tank destroyer battalion was still there with four towed 3-in guns and about 55 men, but they had orders to withdraw in the morning. A handful of men from the 14th Cavalry Group were also present. That was all. Bunimental headquarters using the SCR300 radio. The radio worked intermittently in the frozen weather.

 Batteries lost power quickly in extreme cold. When he finally got through, he reported the situation. The response was to hold his position and continue observing. Hold his position. With 18 men on a hill overlooking the main road into Belgium, with no support, no artillery, and no infantry backup, Bu asked the tank destroyer crew if they would move up to support his position.

 The crew sergeant refused. His orders were to stay in the village. He would not move without authorization from his own command. That night, the temperature dropped below minus20° C. B’s men huddled in their foxholes, wrapped in every piece of clothing they had. They wore their standardisssue wool overcoats, over field jackets, over wool shirts.

 Some had wrapped their feet in burlap sacks to prevent frostbite. The ground was frozen solid. They had dug their positions weeks earlier, but the cold made the earth feel like concrete. Some men could not feel their feet. Others shivered so violently they could not hold their weapons steady. Private First Class Risto Milosvich was one of the soldiers in the platoon.

 He was 21 years old from East Los Angeles, California. He lay in his foxhole that night listening to the silence. The forest was too quiet, he thought. No animal sounds, no wind, just the creaking of frozen branches and the distant rumble ofsomething he could not identify. It sounded like thunder, but the sky was clear.

 Sergeant William Slape was the platoon’s senior non-commissioned officer. He was an experienced soldier who had been in the army for years. Slape knew what combat sounded like, smelled like, felt like. He knew the silence that came before an attack, and he did not like what he was hearing. or rather what he was not hearing. Private First Class Luis Khalil was from Mishawaka, Indiana.

 He was manning one of the platoon’s two 30 caliber machine guns. Khalil had a quick wit and an easy smile. He was popular with the other men. Now he lay in his position, gloved hands wrapped around the handles of his weapon, waiting for something he could not see. Sergeant Slapper checked the line throughout the night, moving from foxhole to foxhole, making sure everyone was awake, making sure no one had frozen to death.

 Just before dawn, the forest erupted. At 5:30 on the morning of December 16, 1944, German artillery opened fire along an 80m front stretching from Monshaw in the north to Ectanak in the south. Approximately 1,600 artillery pieces fired simultaneously. The barrage was the largest the German army had launched since the invasion of France in 1940.

Shells screamed through the air in continuous waves. The sound was beyond description, a rolling thunder that shook the earth itself. The Germans had positioned their artillery under cover of darkness. Moving the guns forward in total radio silence to avoid detection. Many of the gun crews had never been told what they were preparing for.

 They learned their targets only hours before the attack. The artillery was aimed at American command posts, communication centers, supply dumps, and road junctions. The goal was to blind and paralyze the American defenses in the opening minutes of the attack. The bombardment was designed to destroy American communications, disrupt supply lines, and create panic among the defenders.

 Telephone wires were cut by shellfire. Radio antennas were destroyed. Command posts were hit along the entire front. American units lost contact with their headquarters. Confusion spread as commanders struggled to understand what was happening. On Lanzerath Ridge, the shells screamed overhead. Most of them aimed at targets further west.

 The ridge itself was not a primary target. The Germans did not know the position was occupied by American soldiers, but the noise was overwhelming. The ground shook. Trees exploded into splinters. The sky turned orange with muzzle flashes reflecting off the low clouds. Snow cascaded from branches. The air filled with the smell of cordite and burning wood.

 Balks men pressed themselves into their foxholes and waited. There was nothing else they could do. They could not see anything through the fog and smoke. They could only hear the continuous thunder of the bombardment rolling across the forest. Some men prayed, others simply held on, their fingers gripping the frozen earth.

Slape and Sakanikas were manning the 50 caliber machine gun, the platoon’s heaviest weapon. The concussion waves from distant explosions pressed against their bodies even when no shells landed nearby. The shelling lasted approximately 90 minutes, ending around 7 in the morning. When it stopped, the silence was almost worse.

 The ringing in their ears made it hard to hear anything else. The forest seemed to be holding its breath. Then came a new sound. Engines. Many engines moving through the forest below them. The sound grew louder as vehicles approached the village. Shortly after 7, Bal raised his head above the edge of his foxhole and looked toward the village.

 What he saw made his heart stop. German soldiers were emerging from the treeine near Lancereath village. They were paratroopers, members of the third parachute division, wearing their distinctive rimless helmets and camouflage smoks. These were falser, elite German airborne troops who had fought in citric and Italy.

 They moved in column formation along the road, hundreds of them walking openly as if they expected no resistance. Bou counted them as they passed. 100, 200, 300. The column kept coming. He could see officers on horseback directing traffic. He could see trucks and wagons loaded with ammunition and supplies. Behind the paratroopers came vehicles, halftracks, trucks, a few armored cars.

 The symbols on their sides made Ba’s stomach drop. The double lightning bolt runes of the Waffan SS. This was not a patrol. This was not a probing attack. This was a full-scale offensive. Bu got on the radio again. He reported what he was seeing. Enemy infantry and battalion strength, possibly regiment strength, moving west through Lanzeroth.

 Armored vehicles following. Request immediate artillery support. Request permission to withdraw. The response came back garbled. The radio was failing in the cold. Bu he heard the word hold. He was not certain. He tried again, more static. The battery was dying. He lookedat his men, 17 soldiers, a few rifles, two 30 caliber machine guns, 150 caliber machine gun against what looked like an entire German division.

 The smart thing to do was fall back. That was what their training said. Scouts observe and report. They do not engage superior forces. They certainly do not try to stop an armored offensive with small arms fire. But if B’s platoon fell back, there was nothing between the Germans and the American rear areas. No defensive line, no prepared positions, no troops at all for miles.

 The artillery was gone. The cavalry was gone. They were the last Americans between the Germans and the open road to Belgium. Bu made his decision. They would stay. He passed the word quietly, crawling from foxhole to foxhole. Hold fire until the enemy reaches the base of the hill. Let them come in close. Make every shot count, and when the ammunition runs out, they would fall back through the forest. The men nodded.

Some of them were scared. All of them understood what Boke was asking them to do. They would stand against an army because there was no one else to do it. Four artillery forward observers had joined Balk’s position the previous day. They were from the 371st Field Artillery Battalion, led by First Lieutenant Warren Springer.

 With him were Sergeant Peter Gaki, technician fourth grade Willard Wibbon, and technician fifth grade Billy Queen. They had a working radio and were supposed to call in artillery support, but when the attack came, there would be no artillery to support them. Springer and his men decided to stay and fight alongside the platoon.

 That brought the total to 22 Americans on Lanzerath Ridge. The Germans reached the edge of the village. They stopped milling around the empty houses. Apparently confused by the lack of resistance. Officers shouted orders. The column began to reorganize. Some paratroopers began searching the buildings. Others sat down to rest, lighting cigarettes.

 Then a German officer looked up at the ridge. He pointed. He had seen something. Maybe movement. Maybe the glint of a weapon in the morning light. He shouted. The paratroopers began moving up the hill. Buou waited. The first assault came around 10:30 in the morning. The Germans came closer, walking in a loose formation. Rifles at the ready.

 200 y, 150 y, 100 y. They were confident. They had seen no opposition. They expected none. He gave the order. Open fire. The two 30 caliber machine guns opened up simultaneously, their reports shattering the morning silence. The 50 caliber joined in a second later, its deeper voice adding to the chorus. Rifles cracked along the length of the platoon’s line.

 22 Americans fired as one. The effect was devastating. The Germans had been walking uphill in the open, bunched together on the road. The first burst cut down the front ranks like a sythe through wheat. Men fell screaming. Others dove for cover behind trees and rocks. Some tried to run back toward the village only to be cut down in the snow.

 Khalil swept his machine gun across the German formation, traversing left to right, then back again. The weapon vibrated in his hands, spitting brass casings onto the frozen ground. He could see Germans falling, tumbling down the hillside, their camouflage smok staining red. The first attack broke within minutes. The Germans retreated to the village, leaving their dead and wounded on the slope.

 The snow was marked with dark shapes that did not move. Bu checked his men. No casualties. Ammunition expenditure was high, but manageable. They had stopped the first assault, but he knew this was only the beginning. The second attack came 30 minutes later. This time, the Germans were more careful.

 They used the trees for cover, advancing in short rushes, laying down suppressive fire as they moved. Machine guns in the village opened up on the American positions, forcing Bu’s men to keep their heads down. Bu’s men held their positions. The machine guns hammered away. Succas worked the 50 caliber, sending heavy rounds tearing through tree trunks and bodies alike. The noise was incredible.

A continuous roar of gunfire that made communication impossible. Milosich fired his M1 rifle methodically, picking targets, squeezing the trigger, working the bolt, finding another target. He had grown up hunting deer in the forests of Minnesota, the skills transferred. Lead the target. Account for distance.

Squeeze. Do not pull. Private first class James Fort was feeding ammunition to Khalil’s machine gun, ripping open cases of belted rounds, and keeping the weapon supplied. His hands were bleeding from the metal edges of the ammunition boxes, but he did not stop. The second attack also failed.

 The Germans fell back again, dragging their casualties with them. Between attacks, Bu tried the radio, static. He sent Sakanikas to find a working communication line to reach anyone who could send help. Sakanikas crawled through the snow toward the rear, disappearing into the forest. Thethird attack came from a different direction.

 The Germans had flanked around the left side of the ridge. Moving through the dense forest, trying to hit the platoon from an unexpected angle. Sergeant Slape spotted them first. He saw movement among the trees, glimpses of camouflage against the white snow. He swung his rifle and opened fire, shouting a warning. The platoon shifted to meet the new threat.

 This attack pushed closer than the others. Germans reached within 50 yards of the foxholes before being driven back. Hand grenades flew through the air. The crump of explosions mixed with the rattle of gunfire. A bullet hit Slape in the leg. He wrapped a bandage around the wound and kept firing.

 Private First Class Jordan Robinson took a round through the arm. He switched his rifle to his other shoulder and continued shooting. By midm morning, Bu’s platoon had repulsed three major attacks. German bodies littered the hillside. The snow was stained red in expanding patches around the fallen. But the situation was deteriorating.

Ammunition was running low. Several men were wounded. The radio was dead. No reinforcements were coming. And the Germans kept coming. The man commanding the German forces below Lanzerath Ridge was Colonel Helmut von Hoffman, leader of the 9inth Parachute Regiment. His regiment had been given a critical mission.

 clear the road through Lanzerath and open the route for the first SS Panza division. The entire offensive in this sector depended on his paratroopers taking that hill. Von Hoffman had served in the German military since the 1930s. He had commanded parachute units in multiple campaigns. His men respected him. He had earned his rank through combat experience, not political connections.

But Lanzeroth was not going according to plan. Von Hoffman was frustrated and embarrassed. His paratroopers were part of the third Falcher Jagger Division, which had been virtually destroyed at the Fallet’s pocket in Normandy just months earlier. The division had been rebuilt with replacements, many of them young and inexperienced.

 But they were still trained as elite soldiers, still wore the distinctive rimless helmets and camouflage smoks of the German airborne forces. They were being stopped by what his scouts estimated was a company-sized American force. maybe 150 to 200 men in prepared defensive positions with overlapping fields of fire.

 He had no idea he was facing 22 soldiers. Von Hoffman studied the American position through his binoculars. He could see the muzzle flashes from the machine guns, could trace the lines of fire that had torn apart his first three attacks. The Americans had chosen their position well. Any approach up the hill was exposed to fire from multiple directions.

 The snow made movement slow and visible. He considered calling in artillery support, but the guns were needed elsewhere along the front. The offensive was happening along an 80m line. Every unit was screaming for fire support. A single hilltop position, no matter how stubborn, did not rate priority. Von Hofman decided to overwhelm the defenders with numbers.

 He would commit his entire available force to a single massive assault. Fonhofman ordered a fourth attack, this time with every man he could gather. The first battalion of his regiment, approximately 500 paratroopers, formed up at the base of the hill. They were reinforced by about 50 soldiers from the 27th Fuselier Regiment of the 12th Folks Grenadier Division.

 Machine guns were positioned to provide covering fire. Mortar teams prepared to support the assault. On the ridge, Bu watched them assemble through his binoculars. He could see the officers organizing the attack, pointing at the American positions. He knew his ammunition would not last through another major assault. He told his men to make every bullet count.

 When the ammunition ran out, they would fix bayonets. The fourth attack began at approximately 1100 hours. The Germans came up the hill in waves, firing as they advanced. The sound of their weapons filled the forest. Books machine guns answered, but slower now. Khalil’s weapon was overheating, the barrel glowing red despite the freezing temperature.

 The 50 caliber had jammed twice already, forcing the gunners to clear the action under fire. Milosvich felt a round snap past his ear. He ducked, then rose again to fire. There were too many targets. The Germans kept coming despite their losses. Technical Sergeant Mahhei took a bullet through the shoulder. The impact spun him around, but he stayed in his position, firing his rifle one-handed.

 Private James Silva was feeding ammunition to one of the machine guns when a German bullet found him. He slumped over, blood spreading across the snow. The Germans pushed closer. 60 yards, 50 yards, 40 yards. Khalil’s machine gun ran dry. He had fired over 2,000 rounds. His ammunition was gone. He pulled out his 45 caliber pistol and kept shooting.

Then, incredibly, the Germans stopped.They had taken too many casualties. The dead and wounded covered the hillside. The survivors could not force themselves up that final slope into the American guns. They fell back for the fourth time. The restbite was brief. Von Hoffman was now receiving pressure from higher command.

 The first SS Panza division was waiting behind his regiment, unable to advance because the road was blocked by a handful of American soldiers on a frozen hilltop. The division commander was SS Obusenfura Yoakim paper. He was one of the most aggressive officers in the German army. A true believer in national socialism who had fought on the Eastern front and earned a reputation for ruthlessness.

 He commanded KF grouper paper, the armored battle group that was supposed to be the spearhead of the entire offensive. His tanks and halftracks were lined up for miles behind the battle, burning precious fuel while they waited. Piper wanted to know why a single American position had not been eliminated. He wanted to know why his panzas were sitting idle while paratroopers failed to clear a country road.

 Every hour that Buk’s platoon held the ridge was an hour the Germans could not advance. Every hour gave Allied forces time to recognize the offensive and begin organizing a response. Every hour burned fuel that the Germans could not replace. The fifth attack came in early afternoon. This time the Germans brought up 81 mm mortars.

 The first shells landed among the foxholes. Earth and ice erupted. Men screamed. The concussion waves slammed through the positions, stunning the defenders. Private first class Joseph McConnell was hit by shrapnel from a mortar round. The metal tore through his jacket and into his side. He pressed his hand against the wound and kept fighting.

 The mortar fire continued, walking up and down the ridge in a methodical pattern. The explosions threw up geysers of frozen dirt. Trees shattered into splinters that flew like arrows. The air filled with smoke and the smell of high explosive. Under cover of the barrage, German infantry advanced again.

 They moved in short rushes, hitting the ground when the mortars paused, then sprinting forward when the fire resumed. Balk’s men kept firing even as shells exploded around them. They had no choice. If they stopped, the Germans would overrun them in minutes. Milosvich felt something hot tear through his jacket. He looked down and saw blood spreading across his chest.

The wound was on the right side between his ribs. He could feel blood running down his stomach. He did not tell anyone. He kept shooting. The fighting became hand-to-hand in places. Germans reached the foxholes on the left flank of the American line. Men grappled in the snow, stabbing with bayonets, swinging rifle butts, fighting with fists and knives.

 Private First Class Robert Preston killed a German paratrooper at point blank range. The muzzle of his rifle pressed against the man’s chest when he pulled the trigger. Sergeant Slape, despite his wounded leg, pulled a German soldier off Mehei and shot him with his pistol at a range of 3 ft. The line held barely.

 The Americans threw the Germans back once more, but Ba’s platoon was finished as a fighting force. Half his men were wounded. Ammunition was nearly exhausted. The machine guns had fired their last belts. Most of the men were down to their final clips of rifle ammunition. The perimeter was shrinking.

 Dead Germans lay within feet of the American foxholes. Some positions had been abandoned when their occupants were killed or too badly wounded to fight. As dusk approached, casting long shadows across the bloodstained snow, Bou faced a decision. They could try to withdraw through the forest under cover of darkness. Some might make it to American lines, or they could stay and fight until they were killed or captured.

 He looked at his wounded men. Silva could not walk. Milosvich was losing blood steadily, his face pale. Mgei could barely lift his rifle. Several others were in similar condition. If they tried to withdraw, they would have to leave the wounded behind. The Germans would kill them or leave them to freeze. Bu would not abandon his men. He made his decision.

They would stay. They would fight as long as they could. The final German assault came as dusk fell. This time, approximately 50 German soldiers successfully flanked through the dense woods, approaching the American position from an unexpected angle. The Americans, exhausted and nearly out of ammunition, could not defend against attacks from multiple directions simultaneously.

 The platoon’s ammunition ran out within minutes. Men threw grenades until the grenades were gone. They fired pistols until the pistols were empty. Some fought with bayonets and knives. Bu was hit multiple times as the Germans overwhelmed his position. A round struck his face, another his leg. He collapsed in his foxhole, bleeding heavily.

Artillery observer Billy Queen was killed in the final assault, the onlyAmerican fatality at Lanzeroth. When it was over, every American on Lanzeroth Ridge was either dead, wounded, or captured. The Germans moved through the positions, collecting weapons and prisoners. A German medic found Bou and treated his wounds, probably saving his life.

 The 18 men of the intelligence and reconnaissance platoon, along with the four artillery observers who had fought beside them, had held their position for hours against repeated assaults. They had faced an entire German parachute battalion, approximately 500 soldiers reinforced by additional troops supported by mortars and machine guns. German records indicate that the fighting at Lanzerath cost the attackers 92 total casualties, including 16 killed, 63 wounded, and 13 missing in action.

 The Americans had inflicted significant losses on a force that outnumbered them more than 20 to one. But more important than the casualties was the time. The delay caused by Lanzerath was nearly 20 hours. The platoon had held the Germans in place, disrupting the carefully planned German timetable. In military operations, especially offensive ones, timing is everything.

 An hour of delay can mean the difference between catching an enemy off guard and finding them dug in and ready. 20 hours was catastrophic. During those 20 hours, American commanders finally recognized that a major offensive was underway. The initial reports from the front had been confused and contradictory. Communications were disrupted by the artillery barrage.

Entire units had been overrun before they could send word. It took hours for the scope of the attack to become clear. General Dwight Eisenhower, Supreme Allied Commander, was meeting with his staff at Versailles when the first reports arrived. He initially dismissed them as exaggerated. A major German offensive seemed impossible.

 Where would Hitler get the troops? Where would he get the fuel? By evening, the truth could no longer be denied. This was not a local counterattack. This was a massive offensive involving multiple German armies. Eisenhower released his strategic reserve and ordered reinforcements toward the Ardens. The 101st Airborne Division began loading onto trucks for the emergency movement to Bone.

 The 82nd Airborne followed shortly after. Every hour of delay helped. Every hour gave American forces time to react, to organize, to prepare defensive positions at critical crossroads. The delay at Lanzerath threw the entire German timetable into chaos. KF grouper paper was supposed to be across the Muse River by the end of the second day.

 Instead, Piper did not pass through Lanzeroth until after midnight on December 17, nearly 20 hours behind schedule. That 20 hours would prove decisive. The fuel piper burned, waiting at Lanzeroth could not be replaced. The German army had gambled everything on speed. They did not have enough fuel reserves for a prolonged campaign.

 Every hour of delay increased the chances that the panzas would run dry before reaching their objectives. The time Piper lost could not be recovered. American units that might have been caught unprepared had hours to dig in. Bridges that might have been captured intact were prepared for demolition.

 Reinforcements that might have arrived too late had time to reach critical positions. On December 17, the day after Lanzeroth, soldiers under Piper’s command committed one of the worst atrocities of the European campaign near the town of Malmidi. They captured approximately 150 American soldiers from battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion.

The prisoners were assembled in a field. Then SS soldiers opened fire with machine guns. 84 Americans were murdered in what became known as the Malmi massacre. Some prisoners escaped by playing dead. Their testimony would later be used to prosecute those responsible. The massacre sent shock waves through American forces.

 Word spread quickly along the front. Units that might have considered surrender now fought with renewed determination. The Germans had shown what they would do to prisoners. The only option was to fight. Piper never reached the Muse River bridges. His battle group ran out of fuel near the town of Laglaz on December 24.

 Surrounded by American forces and unable to move his vehicles, Piper led the survivors out on foot, leaving behind tanks, halftracks, and artillery. The failure of campfr Piper meant the failure of the entire northern shoulder of the German offensive. Without the spearhead, there could be no breakthrough. The German army had committed its last reserves to the Ardens. There would be no second chance.

The Battle of the Bulge continued until late January 1945. It was the bloodiest battle American forces fought in Europe with over 19,000 American soldiers killed, over 47,000 wounded, and over 23,000 captured or missing. German losses were even higher, but the German offensive failed. The planned breakthrough to Antwerp never materialized. The bridges over the Museremained in Allied hands.

 Within four months of the Arden’s offensive, American troops would cross the Rin River into Germany itself. None of that would have been certain if the road through Lanzeroth had fallen on the morning of December 16. The survivors of Ba’s platoon spent the rest of the war in German prisoner of war camps. Their journey into captivity began immediately after the battle.

 German soldiers marched the wounded Americans down from the ridge and through the village they had defended. Some prisoners could barely walk. others had to be carried. The Germans interrogated the prisoners that night, trying to determine the strength of American forces in the area. When they learned that the position had been held by just 22 men, some German officers refused to believe it.

 They assumed the Americans were lying, that reinforcements must have arrived during the battle. The truth seemed impossible. Bou himself was badly wounded. The bullet that struck his face had damaged his jaw. Another wound in his leg made walking difficult. A German medical officer treated his wounds roughly but effectively, stopping the bleeding and preventing infection.

 The prisoners were transported east by truck, then by train, moving deeper into Germany as the front lines shifted. They traveled in cattle cars with no heat, little food, and minimal medical care. Some men developed frostbite during the journey. Others succumbed to infections from untreated wounds. Balk was held at Stalag 13d near Nuremberg, then transferred to Stalag 7A at Mooseberg.

As the American armies advanced, the camps were overcrowded and undersupplied. Prisoners received minimal rations. Disease spread quickly. Many men lost significant weight. Bu was liberated by American forces in April 1945. Weighing less than 120 lb. He had lost nearly 50 lb since his capture. Milosovvich survived his chest wound.

German medics extracted the bullet in a field hospital before sending him to a P camp. The surgery was performed without proper anesthesia. He spent the remaining months of the war as a prisoner, recovering slowly from the wound that should have killed him. Sakanikas, the scout Bou had sent to find help, was captured separately.

 He had made it several miles toward American lines before being intercepted by a German patrol. He spent the rest of the war in a different camp than most of his platoon mates. Slape, despite his wounded leg, survived captivity. The wound healed poorly without proper medical treatment, but he remained mobile.

 Of the 22 Americans who fought on Lanzerath Ridge, 21 survived the battle and the P camps. Only artillery observer Billy Queen was killed in action. That survival rate was remarkable given the severity of the wounds many sustained and the harsh conditions of German captivity in the final months of the war. After the war, Buk returned to the United States.

 He briefly worked as an army recruiter in St. Louis before using the GI Bill to attend Missouri Chiropractic College, graduating in 1949. He practiced as a chiropractor for nearly 50 years, retiring in 1997. He married, had children, and lived a quiet life in suburban St. Louis. He rarely talked about Lanzeroth.

 When people asked about his war service, he gave vague answers. He would say he was in the infantry, that he served in Europe, that he was a prisoner of war. He did not mention the ridge or the battle. Most of his neighbors had no idea what he had done. On December 16, 1944, the men who served with him went back to their own lives.

Milosvich returned to California. Slate returned to active duty and continued his army career. They scattered across the country, keeping in touch through occasional letters and phone calls, gathering for reunions when they could. For decades, nobody officially recognized what they had accomplished. The Battle of Lanzerath Ridge was barely mentioned in official histories.

 The afteraction reports were incomplete, written in the chaos of the ongoing offensive. Many records were lost. The platoon stand was overshadowed by larger battles by Baston and St. Vith and the desperate defense of the twin villages of Rosherath and Crinkl. The men themselves did not seek recognition. They had done their job.

 They had held their position until they could not hold any longer. That was what soldiers did. In 1966, Bu received a belated Silver Star for his actions, renewing some interest in the battle. Historian John Eisenhower interviewed BU and included his account in his research. In 1969, John Eisenhower, son of the former president and himself a military historian of note, published the bitter woods, a comprehensive account of the Battle of the Bulge.

 He included a detailed chapter on Lanzerath, calling it one of the most remarkable small unit actions of the war, but full official recognition was still years away. Lyall Bou spent years trying to obtain proper acknowledgement for his men. He wrote letters to the army, contactedcongressmen, provided testimony and documentation.

 The bureaucracy moved slowly. Files had been lost in the decades since the war. Witnesses had died. Key records were missing or incomplete. Verification required years of research. Bu was not seeking recognition for himself. He wanted medals for his men, for the soldiers who had stood beside him on that frozen hillside and fought until they had nothing left.

 He believed they deserved recognition that matched their sacrifice. In 1981, the army finally awarded Bu the Distinguished Service Cross, the nation’s second highest award for valor. President Jimmy Carter had signed public law 96-145 in December 1979, waving time limitations to allow these delayed decorations.

 On October 26, 1981, the surviving members of the intelligence and reconnaissance platoon and the attached artillery observers received their awards in a ceremony at Fort Meyer, Virginia. Secretary of the Army John Marsh presented the medals. 14 of the 18 platoon members attended. Four men from the I and R platoon received the distinguished service cross along with all four artillery observers.

 Five men received the silver star. The remaining nine members received bronze stars with V device for valor. It was one of the most decorated platoon for a single action in the history of the United States Army. Bu was 57 years old at the ceremony. He watched his men, now middle-aged with graying hair, receive the medals they had earned nearly four decades earlier on a frozen hillside in Belgium.

 Some of them wept, others stood at attention as best they could, straightening their shoulders the way they had when they were young soldiers. Private First Class William Sakanas, the soldier Bou had sent to scout the village on the night before the battle, received the distinguished service cross. When the medal was pinned to his chest, he saluted crisply, the gesture automatic after all those years.

 Risto Milosvich, the young soldier from California who kept fighting despite a bullet in his chest, received the Distinguished Service Cross. He had never told his children the full story of what he had done in the war. Louie Khalil, the machine gunner from Indiana who held his position until his ammunition ran out, received the Silver Star.

 He had worked for years after the war, never mentioning his combat service to colleagues. Not all the platoon members lived to see the ceremony. Several had died in the intervening decades, their service still unrecognized at the time of their deaths. Their medals were presented postumously to children and grandchildren who had never known the full story.

 After the ceremony, a reporter asked Buk why he had stayed on the ridge when retreat was clearly the safer option. Bu thought for a moment before answering. His voice was quiet but steady. There was nobody behind us. He said, “If we left, the Germans would have had a clear road all the way to the moose.

 We were the only thing in their way. We were all that stood between them and the rear areas.” He paused, his eyes distant, seeing something nearly 40 years in the past. “Those were my men,” he said. I could not ask them to do something I would not do myself and I could not leave them behind. Lyall Bou Jr.

 died on December 2, 2016 at the age of 92. He died of pneumonia at his home in Sunset Hills, Missouri. He was buried at Sunset Memorial Park in Afton, Missouri, choosing the family plot over Arlington National Cemetery for which he qualified. His obituary mentioned his distinguished service cross. It mentioned his service in World War II as the commander of an intelligence and reconnaissance platoon.

 It mentioned that he led the most decorated platoon for a single action in army history. What it could not fully capture was the weight of that morning over 70 years earlier when a 20-year-old lieutenant looked at a German army coming up a hill and decided to stand and fight because there was no one else left to do it. Every year on December 16, a small ceremony is held at Lanzerath Ridge.

Belgian villagers and American visitors gather at the memorial that marks the sight of the platoon’s foxholes. American flags fly alongside Belgian flags. The names of the 22 soldiers who fought there are read aloud in the cold morning air. The people of Lanzerath have never forgotten what the Americans did for them.

 For decades, they have maintained the memory of the battle and welcomed the families of those who fought there. The forest has grown back over the shell craters. The foxholes have filled in with decades of fallen leaves and forest debris. The road is paved now, lined with modern houses. Cars drive past without stopping. Most of the drivers have no idea what happened there.

 But if you walk up the ridge from the village, following the path the German paratroopers took that December morning, you can still see the terrain that gave the Americans their advantage. You can understand why 22 men were able to hold off hundreds for somany hours. The ground itself helped them fight.

 But the hill remembers and the village remembers and the families of the men who fought there remember. Sergeant William Slate stayed in the army after the war. He served in Vietnam and retired as a command sergeant major in 1969. He always said Lanzerath was the worst day of his life and the proudest. Risto Milosvich returned to California after the war.

 He rarely spoke of the war, but he kept a small box of photographs and letters from his army days. His children found it after he died in November 2011. Among the photographs was a faded image of a young soldier standing in snow smiling at the camera. On the back was written, “Lanzerath, Belgium, December 1944. The memorial at Lanzerath, dedicated on May 12, 2005, bears a brass plaque.

 It reads, “Uncommon valor was a common valor. In honor and memory of all soldiers who fought here, December 16, 1944. I and R platoon, 394th Regiment, 99th Infantry Division. That is how wars are won. Not only through grand strategies and decisive battles, but through small groups of soldiers who refuse to give ground when everything tells them they should run.

 Through men who hold their positions for one more hour, then one more hour after that, buying time with their blood for victories they may never see. through lieutenants who choose to stay because there is no one behind them and because they will not abandon their men. 18 American soldiers and four artillery observers stopped an advancing German force for nearly 20 hours.

 They were not trying to be heroes. They were doing their job. They were scouts who became infantrymen because there was no one else. And in doing their job, they changed the course of a battle and perhaps the course of a war. If you found this story as compelling as we did, please take a moment to like this video.

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