McAuliffe’s finest hour came in the winter of 1944, during the Battle of the Bulge. The 101st was posted to the Ardennes Forest to rest and recover after taking heavy losses in Market Garden. The area was believed to be quiet and safe, as the poor road network in the heavily forest region was believed unsuitable for armored advances, and thus safe form any German counterattacks.
Naturally, this belief turned out to be entirely wrong when Hitler launched Operation Wacht am Rhein (“Watch on the Rhine”), his last major counterattack on the Western Front, directly through the Ardennes. The road and railway hub town of Bastogne suddenly became a vital point in the war: if the Germans managed to capture it, they could use it to move their troops through the forests much more quickly.
Elements from the 101st Airborne, the 10th Armored Division, the 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion and 755th Field Artillery Battalion were rushed to Bastogne to defend it. Maxwell Taylor, the commanding officer of the 101st, was in the United States on a conference, so McAuliffe, normally only in charge of the division’s artillery, had to step up to the plate and command the defense effort. |