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

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CHAPTER 9
DOUBTS AND DECISIONS
ON THE WHOLE, that first night in Bastogne, the
situation was good, and it was largely the intuition and
hunch and driving energy of the leaders that had made it so.
The day of the 19th had proved that in the few minutes allowed
him the night before, General McAuliffe had sized up the position
properly.l He had been tossed into a battle in which nearly
all the major facts about the movement of forces were either unknown
or obscure. He had rejected Corps' idea that the lOlst Airborne
Division be assembled to the southwest of Bastogne. 2 It was
a point that didn't give particular concern to General Middleton
so long as General McAuliffe got his troops in where they were
best placed to defend the town. However, VIII Corps Headquarters'
reasoning was based on the long-range thought that after
the enemy found he could not get through Bastogne, his next
important move would be to the southwest. In his hasty reconnaissance
out to the westward with Colonel Kinnard, his G-3,
late in the day on the 18th, General McAuliffe had selected the
ground for his camp from the short-range point of view. He
wanted an assembly area which would place him at maximum
advantage with respect to his own immediate deployments and
the movements of the enemy in the immediate future.s Though
he had no way of knowing it at the time, his center of equilibrium
was on the ground farthest removed from the early dangers
of the encirclement although his two eastward-facing regiments
were pointed directly toward the avenues along which the
Germans would make their first approaches. The first day's results
proved that the angels had been with him as he made his
first decisions.
In the opening arrangements one decision was taken which
worked out adversely. Lieutenant Colonel David Gold, the surgeon
of the WIst Division, and Lieutenant Colonel Carl W.
Kohls, the Division supply officer, had picked out a conveniently
located crossroads to the westward of the Division assembly area
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