World Battlefronts: Body Blow

At first everything was wild confusion. Germans suddenly appeared over the crest of hills and shot up towns. They overran rear-area supply points, pounced upon U.S. artillerymen before they could get to their guns. Germans surrounded a field of artillery-spotting planes, whose pilots were fast asleep. U.S. divisional generals found their command posts the centers of battles, their defenders hastily armed cooks, clerks, medics, runners. Trucks filled with German soldiers dashed through areas where rear-echelon G.I.s went about their routine tasks.

Field Marshal Gerd von Rundstedt's skillful breakthrough had had the first great element of success: surprise. He had struck the thinnest sector of the American line. He had cleverly begun with light attacks, concealing his intentions, playing upon the Americans' underestimation of his strength.

Then, savagely, the full force of the German blow was unleashed. Its suddenness, its underrated force, sent the Americans reeling like a boxer who has taken a terrific punch to the solar plexus. The Germans followed through, hoping to corner the Americans, to knock out the U.S. First Army.

By this week it was clear that Rundstedt's blow had come perilously close to wrecking the sensitive supply and communications systems by which entire armies and sectors are held together. How successful he had been in splitting the western front, how close he still might come to paralyzing the Americans' power for future offensives were questions to be answered in the vast battles raging this week.

Two Flying Days. Rundstedt had achieved a big initial victory. The German victory might, by skill of American generalship and G.I. fighting qualities, be turned into a defeat. But if Rundstedt were able to hold the initiative, could consolidate his gains, he might already have won his minimum objective.

By this week the ability of the Americans to come back from the first heavy damage, to overcome the worst of the blow, perhaps to set up the enemy for a smashing defeat, appeared to be a matter of time and clear skies.

Through most of last week the Americans battled mainly for time. But by week's end they had braced, were fighting back with an aggressiveness that matched the Germans' savagery.

After a week the Americans got two days of clear skies, turned them to telling account. On the second day the Allies flew more sorties than D-day's historic 11,000. On the day before, 4,500 planes had been out. Some of the known results of that first day's work were a portent of what close-up air support could do: 57 tanks and self-propelled guns knocked out; 53 vehicles smashed.

There was another portentous result: 187 German planes destroyed. The Allies could much better afford their 60 which failed to return. Given clear skies, Allied air power might be the tide-turning factor.

Opportunity. The Luftwaffe's show of strength early in the offensive had not been great enough to help Rundstedt fully achieve the first object of any decisive breakthrough: to fan out behind an enemy's lines, to destroy or seize his supplies, to keep him from moving his reserves into defensive battle, to send him into confused retreat.