![]() Nine roads and one railroad converged at the town, and in order to advance through the dense, rolling Ardennes Forest to the Meuse River, the Germans needed those thruways. Occasionally the sound of an exploding shell pierced the calm, but the night was comparatively quiet for the men of the 502nd, who had been surrounded since December 18, when they had raced the Germans to Bastogne, beating them there by mere hours.įor the last six days, the Wehrmacht had been stubbornly trying to punch through the American perimeter into Bastogne. In the château’s stone chapel the 502nd’s headquarters staff celebrated Christmas Eve mass. ![]() In Rolle, northwest of Bastogne, snow covered the 16th-century château that served as the headquarters for the 101st Airborne Division’s 502nd Parachute Infantry Regiment, and the stables and haystacks surrounding the three-story building were crowded with paratroops- some wounded, some simply trying to stay warm on that clear, cold night. In the villages around Bastogne on December 24, 1944, American and German commanders braced for battle. In villages leading into Bastogne, two American battalions stave off a massive panzer assault.
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