Today in history...........

[jnyork]

Hitler's last offensive collapses:

December 26, 1944

Patton relieves Bastogne
On this day, General George S. Patton employs an audacious strategy to relieve the besieged Allied defenders of Bastogne, Belgium, during the brutal Battle of the Bulge.

The capture of Bastogne was the ultimate goal of the Battle of the Bulge, the German offensive through the Ardennes forest. Bastogne provided a road junction in rough terrain where few roads existed; it would open up a valuable pathway further north for German expansion. The Belgian town was defended by the U.S. 101st Airborne Division, which had to be reinforced by troops who straggled in from other battlefields. Food, medical supplies, and other resources eroded as bad weather and relentless German assaults threatened the Americans' ability to hold out. Nevertheless, Brigadier General Anthony C. MacAuliffe met a German surrender demand with a typewritten response of a single word: "Nuts."

Enter "Old Blood and Guts," General Patton. Employing a complex and quick-witted strategy wherein he literally wheeled his 3rd Army a sharp 90 degrees in a counterthrust movement, Patton broke through the German lines and entered Bastogne, relieving the valiant defenders and ultimately pushing the Germans east across the Rhine.

[Ysabel Kid]

Good post!

[awp101]

And according to the fellows in the 101st, no "rescue" was needed*.

I used to have a link to a timeline of "This Day in WWI" but I can't find it now.






*101ABN(AASLT) Alumni...Yup, I was a Dope-on-a-Rope!

[Otto]

Brigadier General Anthony C. MacAuliffe met a German surrender demand with a typewritten response of a single word: "Nuts."

I don't know if this is true, but I remember reading somewhere that BGEN MacAuliffe's actual response was more, um, blunt. When the story got out, the press couldn't print the quote, so it was changed to the more G-rated "Nuts."

[JustaJeepGuy]

I've been reading and hearing that it was "Nuts" for decades. This is the first time I've read otherwise.... I wonder what the actual, real truth is?

[Doc Hudson]

I've been reading and hearing that it was "Nuts" for decades. This is the first time I've read otherwise.... I wonder what the actual, real truth is?

I suspect that a tough old soldier like MacAuliffe would probably have no qualms about answering profanely, or perhaps even obscenely. But am I unsurprised the response was censored to fit the language guidelines of radio and newspapers of the day. After all, a resounding "Nuts! would fit the headlines better than "Bleep you you blank-dashed bleeping bleeper!"

But all suppositions aside, the answer "NUTS!" is so deeply ingrained in history, supposition is counter-productive. Now if it had been Patton making the response, everyone would have known from the beginning that "Nuts!" was a bowdlerization of the real response.

[JohndeFresno]

I've been reading and hearing that it was "Nuts" for decades. This is the first time I've read otherwise.... I wonder what the actual, real truth is?

"NUTS" is what he said. The Book "Band of Brothers" talks about it, I believe. The DVD "Band of Brothers" shows it - and this series features the real paratroopers involved, with their true stories, unvarnished.

And... just by chance I watched the old movie "Battleground," via a Netflix rental, last night! It was based on the Bastogne incident and actually features some of the real paratroopers involved as extras in some of the scenes. You see a young Richard Jaeckel (always in those war movies), James Arness, a VERY young Ricardo Montalban (barely recognizable, but for his voice) and other young actors in the beginning of their careers. It's a little cheesy by today's standards, but it is pretty factual, and was filmed not too many years after the end of the war - 1949.

One reviewer writes:
"This is it, the greatest of the post second world war combat films, and fifty years later it still holds up, not only as a first rate piece of filmaking, but as a historical record as well. There is more truth to this movie in its 118 black and white minutes than in the years and years of war flicks that followed, including that overblown piece of Cinemascoped trash, "Battle of the Bulge" wherein the panzers were defeated on the arid plains of Spain."

OK - in that movie, the reply was also - "Nuts!" End of argument!

[Ben_Rumson]

Upon seeing the German terms MacAuliffe did say "Nuts!" According to his XO (I saw the XO's interview) MacAuliffe wondered out loud to those gathered there what his response should be.. The XO piped in and said that he thought what MacAuliffe first said would be good.. "Nuts!"