Explosion

On a 60-mile front, from gloomy, blood-soaked Huertgen Forest to the eastern bulge of Luxembourg opposite Trier, the Germans finally smashed back. They struck with more weight and fury than they had mustered at any time since their ill-fated attempt to break the Allied line at Mortain, in Normandy.

On the Roer River, north and south of Dueren, an explosive situation had been built up. It was like a gas-filled room waiting for someone to light a match. General Bradley's First and Ninth Armies occupied 27 miles of the river's west bank. The Ninth, which had reached its positions first, had been relatively quiet for a fortnight, obviously accumulating strength for a leap across. Now assured of a gory niche in military annals, the Roer was the toughest water line in front of the Rhine -- the key barrier in this sector which both sides clearly regarded as crucial. The Germans had fought viciously to prevent the Americans even from reaching the muddy shore, and they could be expected to try even harder to disrupt a crossing.

General Hodges of the First Army struck the match. He attacked at Monschau, 20 miles southwest of Dueren, where he was already across the Roer headwaters in the hills. Since this area is walled off from the Dueren sector by the Huertgen Forest and other difficult terrain, it did not seem that Hodges was attempting to roll up the German line, but to draw German strength from the north, thus reduce the enemy pressure at Dueren and Juelich.

"Your Great Hour." But Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt was thinking too. His converse idea: to take off the Allies' pressure in the Dueren-Juelich sector by a full-out attack even farther south. Just past his 69th birthday but by no means a tired old man, Rundstedt was reported to be at Coblenz, where he had assembled his best tactical brains in one headquarters. To his troops he proclaimed :

"Your great hour has struck. Strong attacking armies are advancing today against the Anglo-Americans. I do not need to say more to you. You all feel it. Everything is at stake. You bear the holy duty to ... achieve the superhuman for our Fatherland and our Fuehrer." After a short spell of bad weather which grounded Allied reconnaissance and attack planes, Rundstedt struck. Crack German armored and infantry divisions drove in behind massive artillery barrages. German paratroops landed behind the U.S. lines, tried to snarl communications. Buzz-bombs, rockets and a new, undescribed V-weapon came over the lines.

In clearer weather, the resurgent Luftwaffe showed a burst of offensive strength. Hundreds of German bombers and fighters, supporting the ground attack, were engaged by the U.S. tactical forces, aided by British fighters from The Netherlands. In a wild series of dogfights the Germans lost 143 planes, the Allies 35.

"Paris by Christmas." Heaviest German thrust was delivered in the heart of the Ardennes, east of Malmedy, where they overran the U.S. forward positions entirely, advanced five miles into Belgium.

Rundstedt also attacked, drove desperately and skillfully at Monschau, at the northeast corner of Luxembourg, and at two points farther south, not far from the Moselle. First Army headquarters declared that some penetrations were "sealed off" (a familiar cliche in German communiques), but the enemy slid away from the seal-offs, advanced alongside. Prisoners, of whom the First seized more than a thousand the first day, said they had been told they would be "in Paris by Christmas.'' Some Germans were so inflamed with savagery by the switch from retreat to attack that they murdered U.S. prisoners and wounded (see below).

Heavy bombers from Britain tried to hamstring the push by attacks on the supply railheads at Cologne, Coblenz and Mainz. While SHAEF clamped a blackout on the exact locations of the fighting, Berlin claimed major breakthroughs and progress in Luxembourg and Belgium.

Disconcerting, at Least. Generals Bradley and Hodges had been surprised and caught off balance. They now seemed to expect more blows before the feverish explosion of enemy strength petered out. Until it did, they would probably yield in one place, try to hold in another, to make the push as costly for Rundstedt as they could. But U.S. casualties would rise as the drive was broken down.

Beyond the cost, it was disconcerting that the Germans were willing and able to put on such a show at this stage of the war. It seemed to indicate more clearly than ever that they were determined to throw everything into a defense in front of the Rhine (TIME, Dec. 4). It might make the Rhine much harder to reach than the Allies originally expected--but it would simplify, and perhaps even hasten, Allied victory in the west.

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