BELGIUM
GERMAN “KING TIGER” OR “TIGER ROYAL” heavy tank passing a line of captured U. S. soldiers being marched to the rear (top). U. S. prisoners of the enemy taken during the early fighting in the Battle of the Bulge (bottom). Two U. S. regiments near Saint-Vith were surrounded and most of the men were taken prisoner before U. S. reinforcements could arrive on the scene. The enemy attacks on Elsenborn Ridge were stopped by these U. S. reinforcements on 17 December, but this help came too late to save from capture the men shown above and those of an artillery battery who were caught by an enemy armored column south of Malmédy.
BELGIUM
AN INFANTRYMAN PAUSING IN HIS ADVANCE through the forest. During the first ten days of the battle confusion reigned as hastily shifted troops arrived to reinforce the efforts of the isolated units attempting to halt the enemy attack.
BELGIUM
A BATTERY OF 155-MM. HOWITZERS M1 being emplaced (top). Members of an airborne division moving up through the forest (bottom). On 18 December German patrols passed through a gap between Malmédy and Saint-Vith and continued as far west as Werbomont. Other enemy troops tried to push north through Stavelot but were stopped by a blown bridge over the Ambleve River and by an improvised task force consisting of U. S. infantrymen, engineers, and tank destroyers. Engineer demolitions and effective use for the first time of the new proximity fuze by artillery strengthened the north shoulder of the growing salient. During the first week of the Battle of the Bulge most planes were grounded because of extremely poor flying weather.