Jules Crittenden, Thank You For Remembering WWII’s The Battle of the Bulge

Please take time today and visit Jules Crittenden  as he recounts one of the most famous and important battles of WWII ,  The Battle of the Bulge. The Battle of the Budge has always had significant and personal meaning to me as being a history major in college and my namesake having taken part in the battle as he serving under General George S. Patton’s Third Army. He would never go into great detail of these days that left a lasting mark on him the rest of his life. It was not until later on in his life that he would open up and recount some of the stories. Please take a moment to remember “the Greatest Generation” and what they sacrificed for our freedoms. The tern heros is used all too often these days and without merit. Those that sacrificed across the battlegrounds of Europe and in the South Pacific … they are truly deserving of the word hero. 

The Battle of the Bulge began  December 16, 1944 …

It began at dawn on Dec. 16, 1944, 64 years ago today, with rapid assaults through the Ardennes forest, as the Germans blitzed one last time, hoping to split the Allied armies and take Antwerp. As Guderian reportedly liked to say, “Man schlägt jemanden mit der Faust und nicht mit gespreizten Fingern.” You punch with the fist and not with the fingers spread.

Hitler’s hope was to cut supplies to the Allied armies, divide the Brits and Americans, get a separate peace in the West and turn his full attention to the Russians. The Germans punched a bulge in the Allied line deep into Belgium, giving the battle its name. But the bulge wasn’t nearly big enough, and they quickly got bogged down well short of their objective. The battle took on the qualities of a strange Teutonic nightmare. 1st SS Panzer Division elements executed 88 American prisoners in the snow at Malmedy, survivors being finished off with headshots, … read much more