Desert Warfare, German Experiences in World War II, Ma Gen Alfred Toppe, US Army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-6900
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Sep
01
2009
Although D-day gave the western Allies a beachhead in northern France, it took them almost two months of bitter fighting to break out of the Normandy hedgerows. After the breakout, Allied armies raced across France, liberated Paris, and headed toward the German frontier. The rapid pace of the advance placed a severe strain on Allied logistics, which, along with bad weather and stiffening German resistance, slowed the offensive. By mid-December, American armies had reached the Roer River inside Germany and the West Wall along the Saar River in eastern France. Between these two fronts lay the Ardenne, a hilly, densely forested area of Belgium. The Germans had attacked France through this supposedly impassable region in 1940. In early December 1944, five American divisions and a cavalry group held the 85-mile-long Ardenne front. The difficult terrain of the region and the belief that the German army was near exhaustion had convinced the Allied commanders that the Ardenne sector was relatively safe. Thus, three of the divisions were new, full of green soldiers who had only recently arrived on the continent; the other two were recuperating from heavy losses suffered in the bitter fighting in the Huertgen forest farther north. In addition, the heavy demand for American troops in some sectors had forced Allied commanders to lightly man other portions of the front .
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Feb
15
2009
This is the wartime story of an American GI. In fact, this is the story of a GI like many other GI’ stories. It’s about friendships, cold, winter, rain, snow, mud, blood, war and dead. But this story has something else. It is the story over one of these GIs who were in Verviers and Liège during the period September 1944 to December 1944. This GI, Orville Iverson – Ivy – had built a strong friendships with the Jacquet Family from Verviers. Especially Claude and Ninette.
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