Table of Contents

Chapter 12. The Final Offensive -- 1944 to 1945

The Second World War’s culmination is reviewed with the failure of Adolf Hitler’s Ardennes Offensive (Battle of the Bulge). Tours of two separate regions are described. The first covers the actions of the German Kampfgruppe led by SS-Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper and his efforts to escape American force in the Amblève River valley. The final tour reviews sites around the town of Bastogne, Belgium where the crack German Panzer Lehr division, commanded by General Fritz Bayerlein, faced General McAuliffe’s 101st Airborne Division’s heroic defense of the surrounded town; and where General George Patton’s dramatic actions broke the encirclement.

#50 Ardennes Offensive -- 16 December 1944 to 28 January 1945
---- Kampfgruppe Peiper -- 17 to 24 December 1944
---- Siege of Bastogne -- 19 December 1944 to 6 January 1945