Battle of the Bulge Trip

[housil]

I did a three days trip into Belgium, visiting some certain "Battle of the Bulge" WWII places I read a lot about.

The very first thing you can see while approaching the former battle area are the Dragon teeths of the "Westwall"



These were designed to stop tanks.



The situation at Dec. 16th was, that the Germans did a main counter attack against the US lines in the Ardennes forest

causing a bulge into the front line.

First place I want to see was the tiny village of Hürtgen where fierce fights of the Hürtgen forest took place in Dec 1944.
I got a great DVD about that, called "You Enter Germany" that I can highly recommand



That´s the aerial view of the area where the "Kall Trail" is:


That´s a US map about that area.


Read about the US Lt Raymond Fleig that tried to advance via the very (!) steep Kall Trail with Sherman Tanks to attack the village of Schmidt (Kommerscheidt)

That´s a today military map (UTM map) of that area

with the (red) trail I walked

and that´s the profil how steep that Kall Trail is

[housil]

Start with a nice (english) video about the Kall Trail:


The guy wears a current Belgian uniform









Note: At this very steep trail they drove down with Sherman tanks!!!

[housil]

That´s the trail I walked

[housil]

At the second day, we made it into "Elsenborn Ridge" where you can still see the German and US positions



















See that little video I made

[housil]

Kept going to the "Battle of the twin village place" of Rocherat



Having a MRE lunch there...









The memorial about the battle




Made it to Malmedy where that massacre took place

[housil]

Our last place of that day was the tiny village of "La Gleize" where the US troops could at least stop the spear head of the "(SS) Kampfgruppe Peiper".

Due they ran out of gasoline, they abandoned all their tanks and made it back into their own lines




69ton King Tiger

[housil]

Third and last day, we made it to "Lanzerath".
Lanzarath is another tiny village where the very first fights of the "Battle of the Bulge" took place and where just 18 men of an I&R platoon could withstand the attack of the Kampfgruppe Peiper with tanks and 500 airborne troops.

That´s the book I read about



That´s a video about the I&R platoon



An 1944 aerial view of the place


The same place today




A scetch of the US foxholes


A German military map of that assault (our Hotel was in "Losheimer Graben", just behind)





That was a nice three days and 1.100km trip

[jaminphx]

Housil,

What a great post, thank you. I will be looking more (in depth) at this post later but just had to thank you fast!

Will you give us some more details on the Trail or hike? How many miles a day did you cover, is there resupply/food/water along the way. Can anyone do it?

By the way, have you lost a little weight?

John

[cavguy]

Spent a few years in 2ID stateside. I am not familiar with that monument though, maybe one day I will get to check it out in person!

[Name_not_found]

Great post housil!

69tons thats about 150,000 pounds hard to imagine!


You should host a tv show about your vacations when you retire