Bastogne: The Story of the First Eight Days - US Army Center Of ...

THE CONCENTRATION ON BASTOGNE 15
in preparations for departure and in partly providing those combat
supplies which had been lost in Holland. Such things as
mortars, riDe ammunition, entrenching tools, arctic overshoes,
blankets and gas masks had fallen far below the normal and
needed amounts in the tables of basic allowances. IS In the great
emergency, Transportation Corps and Oise Base Section acted
with utmost dispatch and nillied truck groups from Rouen and
Paris. Many of the truckers had already been long on the road
when they were ordered to Camp Mourmelon. They were intercepted,
the trucks unloaded on the spot, and the drivers directed
to their new destination. The first trucks arrived at 0900, December
18. The last of the 380 trucks needed for the movement of
11,000 men arrived at the camp at 1720 the same day.19 At 2000,
eleven hours after the arrival of the first vehicles, the last man
was out-loaded. As far as Bouillon, Belgium, the column ran with
lights blazing. It. was a calculated risk, taken by lOlst for the
sake of speed. The night was clear and the stars shone brightly.
Had the Luftwaffe come on then, the story of Bastogne might
have taken a different turn. 20
In Bastogne, General Middleton sketched the situation to Gen­
eral McAuliffe and Colo9-el Kinnard very roughly, telling them,
"Th ere h as b een a major . . penetratIon . . . . "d" an ... certain .
of my units, especially the lO6th and 28th Divisions, are broken."
In the absence of the advance staff party Kinnard tried to function
as a whole division staff during the conference. But after
discussing matters with both the G-2 and G-3 sections at VIII
Corps, he had only the vaguest picture of what was happening
and felt altogether uncertain about both the friendly and enemy
situations. 21 He gathered that some of our armored elements-the
9th Armored Division and 10th Armored Division were mentioned-were
out in front of Bastogne, but he could not pinpoint
the spots where their roadblocks were. Because of their own uncertainty,
both he and General McAuliffe became acutely concerned
over plans for the night bivouac. Further than that, they
worried that the column might be hit while it was still on the
road or that it might even be caught by the German air while
still a long way back. 22