The Need for Organisational Resilience - Chapter 3

bridge. On the bend before the bridge I was shot up from behind. My Panther went up in

flames. We got out of the tank under machine gun and rifle fire coming from nearby houses.

(Reynolds 1995, 99)

The Americans – thinly spread out in this area – could only retreat, and carry out rear-guard

actions to slow down the German advance and establish a more substantive defence in the area of

Stavelot and Stoumont (Belgium):

Around 15:00 on 19 th December we could hear German tanks ahead of us coming down

the road towards our position … we were dug in on the curve in the road with our tank

support and waited. When the Panther tanks came round the curve in sight of us our tanks

cut loose at them and … the shells hit the cobblestone road and ricocheted up under the

belly of the tanks where their armour was thin and exploded the tanks. Our young and

inexperienced tank crews fired four shells and knocked out three Panther tanks. (Reynolds

1995, 149)

On 21 st December, it dawned on Peiper that his position was precarious. His tanks were running

low on fuel, and American fuel storages had either not been captured or had been destroyed. His

stock of ammunition did not fare much better. To make matters worse, the pressure along his flanks

was increasing, but he could not spare men and material to protect those flanks if he wanted to keep

pushing westwards towards the Meuse.

By Friday 22 nd December 1944, Peiper’s Kampfgruppe reached the most western tip of the Bulge

– halfway to their planned objective, the river Meuse − at a picturesque village called La Gleize, in the

heart of the Ardennes Forest.

Before an attack on a city or village, the Americans tended to ‘soften’ up their objective with a

massive artillery barrage. Over the next few days, the American 30th Division alone spent around

58,000 shells. La Gleize was turned to rubble. Those who took shelter in the church recounted:

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