Alamo in the Ardennes
Focusing on the opening of the Battle of the Bulge, this book tells the story of the men who bore the brunt of the initial German onslaught. Heavily outnumbered and out-gunned, it was up to them to delay the enemy sufficiently to allow the American Army time to react to the German’s surprise offensive. Without them, there would have been no epic battle of Bastogne, and the Allies might have gone on to suffer a great defeat. In exchanging their lives for precious time, they helped ensure the ultimate defeat of Hitler’s last gamble.
Although “Alamo” is used in the title, there is nothing of an American icon here–no Spanish mission, no immortal names such as Crockett, and Travis. There are just ordinary men, who, when caught up in a damnable situation, responded by doing their duty. If they are unknown to us now, it is because many of them ended their lives in a score of now forgotten “Alamos.”
The author has the head of an historian but the heart of a writer. He brings order into the chaos of a confusing and fluid battlefield, while not losing sight of the desperate, frightened, and heroic men immersed in it.