The Art of Manliness - Duty, Honor, and the Unlikely Heroes Who Helped Win the Battle of the Bulge

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast

00:00:11.060 the battle of the bulge commenced on the morning of december 16th 1944 the allies were ill prepared

00:00:17.360 for this last desperate offensive from the germans and the campaign might have succeeded 1.00

00:00:21.420 if a few things hadn't gotten in their way including a single green 18-man platoon who

00:00:27.380 refused to give up their ground to the nazis alex kershaw shares the story of these men in his book

00:00:32.420 the longest winter and with us today on the show he first explains the background of the battle of

00:00:37.240 the bulge and how an intelligence reconnaissance unit that had never seen combat ended up in the

00:00:42.140 thick of it and he describes the platoon's 20-year-old leader lyle bauck who was determined to carry out

00:00:46.940 his orders and hold a position despite being massively outmanned and outgunned and how his

00:00:51.560 men fought until they were down to their last rounds alex then shares how what bauck thought

00:00:55.660 was a total failure being captured as pow's after just a day of combat turned out to have been an

00:01:00.660 effort that significantly influenced the outcome of the battle of the bulge and how an unlikely

00:01:04.780 platoon of heroes who initially went unrecognized for their valor became the most decorated american

00:01:09.340 platoon of world war ii you'll find such an inspiring lesson in the show about living up to your duty and

00:01:14.440 holding the line after the show's over check out our show notes at awim.is battle of the bulge

00:01:19.740 all right alex kershaw welcome back to the show hi great to be with you so uh we're coming up on

00:01:39.120 the 80th anniversary of the battle of the bulge i'll be next year and you wrote a book two decades ago

00:01:44.860 about the battle of the bulge it's called the longest winter and what i love with your books

00:01:50.200 that you do about world war ii is you always find a small story you find a individual soldier a unit

00:01:56.680 that you can talk about the stories of these individual people in the the broader context of

00:02:02.400 this epic conflict that happened with world war ii and in this story you follow an 18-man platoon

00:02:09.560 from the u.s army they are facing the main thrust of the entire german assault at the battle of the

00:02:18.720 bulge how did you come across this story well i would written a book called the bedford boys that

00:02:24.120 appeared in 2003 and did fairly well that was about d-day focusing on a company that had been

00:02:33.900 activated first of all as a national guard unit from one small town in virginia bedford

00:02:39.520 and anyway my editor said to me can you pick another small group of guys and thrust them

00:02:47.520 into the middle of a very big battle in world war ii and the anniversary of the battle of the bulge is

00:02:53.680 coming up maybe you could find a unit that accomplished amazing things during the battle

00:02:57.980 of the bulge and i i just put a phone call through to a friend of mine who worked at the eisenhower center

00:03:02.740 in new orleans university of new orleans and i said look i'm looking for a small group of guys like

00:03:09.000 the size of a football team maybe ideally and i'm looking at the battle of the bulge can you make

00:03:14.380 any recommendations about any unit that i could look at and he's like immediately said uh inr platoon

00:03:20.500 in the 99th division commanded by a 20 year old called lao balk and here's his telephone number and i

00:03:28.380 literally a few hours later called up lao balk this is over 20 years ago now almost 20 years ago now

00:03:34.080 and um he answered the phone he was in st louis and i answered the phone and i said look i really

00:03:41.220 don't want to disturb you but i'm really keen on writing about you and your platoon and and he he

00:03:46.460 was okay with it i was like amazed that he's it was very polite and agreed to me writing about him

00:03:52.860 and his platoon but he had one condition which was that i had to write about every single member of the

00:03:57.720 platoon that was there that day on the 16th of december 1944 first day of the german attack during

00:04:04.440 the battle of the bulge and you know the cut long story short that platoon became the most decorated

00:04:10.900 of world war ii most decorated u.s platoon i should add and i gave him my word i said yeah okay i'll

00:04:17.400 do my very best to write about every guy in the platoon and of the 18 that served in

00:04:22.440 in the battle of the bulge i think there were 11 still alive when i began my research and i managed

00:04:27.800 to interview all 11 amazingly and not one of them is breathing today as i speak to you i mean i

00:04:35.340 imagine that's one of the hard things with your jobs even you started writing about world war ii

00:04:39.960 right when these a lot of these guys were they were still alive but those numbers have been

00:04:43.900 dwindling every year yeah i started interviewing seriously world war ii veterans in the

00:04:52.140 late 90s and you know 16 million americans served in uniform in world war ii and there are

00:05:01.200 less than 120 000 alive today so you know you'd have to be 98 99 to have served in world war ii i mean

00:05:09.960 some people lied about their age i met a guy just a few days ago who was actually 16 during the battle

00:05:17.860 of the bulge a guy called harry miller but he lied about his age but you'd have to be 98 99 and that

00:05:24.860 there aren't many 98 99 year olds around but that's the youngest you could be you know so yeah i i there

00:05:32.340 are very few of the dozens and dozens of world war ii veterans that i interviewed who are still with us

00:05:38.860 you know so we're going to talk about the story lyle bauck he's an amazing character amazing person

00:05:44.000 and we're going to talk about his story and what he did with his unit at the battle of the bulge but

00:05:49.160 what's interesting about your book your book doesn't start at the battle of the bulge it actually

00:05:53.620 starts in july of that same year of 1944 in the wolf's lair and this was hitler's prussian headquarters

00:06:01.700 why start the story of the battle of the bulge here well i wanted to start with a really dramatic

00:06:11.300 scene and that was the planting of a bomb by count von staufenberg it was the what ended up being a

00:06:21.120 failed assassination attempt of hitler one of many but it it really shook hitler up it wounded him

00:06:26.960 badly he was injured almost killed by the blast it was in a conference room that was actually had open

00:06:33.440 windows so if the windows had been closed and it hadn't been things could have been otherwise

00:06:39.020 hitler could have been easily killed but anyway after that he started to think about how he might

00:06:46.560 change the course of the war and and in the following months couple of months after that july

00:06:52.360 assassination attempt he developed what became known as wacht amrein the code word for an attack through

00:07:00.200 the ardenne in december of 1944 so i wanted to start with this very dramatic moment when a prussian

00:07:08.500 aristocrat leaves a bomb in a suitcase and almost kills hitler and then examine how hitler after that 0.54

00:07:16.360 near death event in desperation developed a plan that he hoped would end the war on his terms in the

00:07:25.320 west that would change the outcome of world war ii so but i also wanted to meet my platoon members before

00:07:32.140 they shipped out from the u.s so i i switched from hitler's near death to camp maxi in texas where the

00:07:42.840 iron r platoon were being trained under the leadership of lao balk who was then just 20 years old so that's

00:07:50.620 how i started and then they get you know they get shipped out to the uk and i believe the early fall

00:07:56.840 of 1944 and then arrive in belgium in november of 1944 and they were literally on the line for just a

00:08:04.200 couple of weeks before the battle erupted you know totally green troops it's supposed to be an elite

00:08:11.440 unit an ir unit is an intelligence and reconnaissance platoon they're not supposed to be engaged in

00:08:16.100 heavy combat quite the opposite they're supposed to be the eyes and ears of a infantry regiment you

00:08:22.760 know if they're spotted and they end up in a firefight that's bad news because they're supposed

00:08:27.260 to be patrolling secretly unobserved behind enemy lines and feeding intelligence back to regimental

00:08:33.420 headquarters so you know when they were attacked on the 16th of december they were not a standard

00:08:38.900 infantry unit and it was only because they had great leadership and they brought in a couple of

00:08:45.380 extra 50 cal machine guns and mounted them on jeeps that they had any real firepower

00:08:51.300 so yeah that's how i started with hitler and then following these guys to the front lines in

00:08:57.600 the ardennes okay so yeah put this in the bigger context hitler at this point the nazis their backs

00:09:02.200 were against the wall this is after d-day the allies were making progress in france and then

00:09:07.700 we're heading to germany and as you talk about in the book this assassination attempt it wounded him

00:09:13.460 it kind of shook him up but it also in a weird way enlivened hitler he kind of started liking his

00:09:18.940 own supply he's like i'm awesome look they didn't kill me i'm invincible so maybe i can do this and

00:09:24.620 he started looking at portraits of frederick the great and kind of talking with frederick the great

00:09:29.500 saying i can do what you did and that's how he came with this final attack yeah and basically he

00:09:35.340 you know he hadn't been killed and therefore he thought that providence or god had saved him for

00:09:40.500 greater things and that fortune was on his side so yeah that's how he developed his actually very

00:09:46.480 daring and you know really quite audacious plan at what became known as his last great gamble you

00:09:54.020 know in the west so yeah then after that you switch over to to camp maxi to this unit this platoon

00:09:59.940 i just said they're a reconnaissance platoon and you talk about how the guys who were selected for

00:10:05.120 this unit they were handpicked what were the characteristics that the leaders were looking for

00:10:10.420 for this i and r platoon um well you know i it's interesting that you asked that question because

00:10:16.880 a fair few of the guys had never expected to be in combat they been in a special training program

00:10:23.360 for you know college kids what were called whiz kids that where they were you know heading towards

00:10:30.120 positions in intelligence units or some kind of duty that was not in a foxhole on the front lines

00:10:37.820 but because of the manpower shortage in the fall of 1944 the astp program as it was called was

00:10:45.260 was cancelled and all these guys that were you know they very smart highly educated guys were sent

00:10:53.180 into infantry units and um much to their dismay and disappointment um and so several of the guys in

00:11:02.640 balk's intelligence and reconnaissance platoon were very smart very you know highly educated and uh

00:11:09.740 didn't want to be there but hadn't had much choice so they were a formidable bunch they came from all

00:11:15.340 over the united states they came from different backgrounds they were a diverse group different

00:11:20.840 ethnicities they were you know truly an all-american unit in that sense yeah i mean you had you know

00:11:26.480 one vernon leopold he was a german jewish refugee yeah part of this unit you had i think it's

00:11:32.080 hernandez a mexican immigrant in there as well yeah from all over yeah there was a guy called

00:11:38.540 milosevic who for those who remember the bosnian war his distant relative was milosevic in recent times

00:11:46.860 so he was a serbian uh the son of serbian immigrants so hernandez the guy you mentioned he was

00:11:53.420 you know he uh grown up in texas i actually managed to interview his widow in el paso

00:11:59.320 when i was researching the book guys from the midwest from cities from rural america a couple

00:12:08.080 of really good athletes so it was a real mixed bunch real you know a really interesting range

00:12:15.080 of americans that laobout was commanding he was the second youngest in the platoon there was a

00:12:21.120 guy called bill james who was 19 years old who was his runner but imagine that you've got

00:12:26.640 you know 18 guys that you're in command of and you're the second youngest so you haven't seen

00:12:32.820 combat before and you look like a kid i mean laobout looked very young so the question is you know why

00:12:40.260 should any of these guys pay you any respect or carry out your orders when you've you've never been

00:12:44.840 at war and you look like a boy so right well and balk has an interesting background i want to talk

00:12:50.840 about him because he's a big part of the story yeah so he was young he was 20 years old but he

00:12:55.900 actually like he got involved in the military like when he was 14 i think with the national guard he

00:13:01.120 joined the national guard when he's 14 i actually have i think i have a photograph in the book or

00:13:04.820 somewhere else but where i show a picture of him when he was just 14 in a whole group of other

00:13:10.760 guys in the national guard and you know so he was very patriotic and it wasn't just because

00:13:17.020 he received some pay when he turned up for drills etc he he was from the start he wanted to serve his

00:13:25.760 country and by the time you know he got to europe to the ardenne in the fall of 1944 he'd actually been

00:13:35.800 wearing a uniform for almost six years so you know it wasn't like he just came out of high school and

00:13:41.740 ended up as a lieutenant he went through officer training school he was seen as having great

00:13:47.920 potential by his commanding officer a guy called major crease and felt really proud that he'd been

00:13:53.760 sort of singled out for leadership potential and given command of this iron opportunity it was a big

00:14:00.180 deal to lyle balk he felt very honored by that did he show potential for like a capacity for leadership

00:14:05.420 yeah he did definitely yeah i mean you know you go through officer training school they can work out

00:14:10.940 pretty quickly whether you have what it takes to lead guys well you never know though i mean this

00:14:15.400 is the this is the big issue which is that it doesn't matter how well trained you are you know

00:14:20.660 when the bullets start whizzing by only then do you know whether you've got it or you haven't and

00:14:25.720 that's something that every combat veteran will tell you that it's not until you actually get into

00:14:30.300 combat that you realize who you are or or what what you can do or whether your leaders are any good or not

00:14:38.440 that's always a big question mark you know so you've got 18 guys under this young man's command

00:14:43.900 none of them know either what will happen in combat because none of them have been in combat before either

00:14:49.960 so lots of questions you know when people start to try to kill you how do you react and they all found

00:14:55.940 out on the 16th of december okay so uh this unit they should get shipped to europe and i when they

00:15:01.960 were in camp maxi they didn't know where they were going yet they were i think you see this a lot

00:15:05.900 in a lot of these world war ii stories these guys are at camp and then they get the order to load up

00:15:10.580 in a train and they're on the train they're like all right is this going to go east or is this going

00:15:14.800 to go west yeah because if it goes east we're going to go to europe if it goes west we're getting

00:15:19.940 shipped off to the pacific theater and the same thing happened with these guys they didn't know

00:15:23.260 until they got on the train and it started heading east yeah and you know i would say that by that

00:15:30.240 stage of the war by the fall of 1944 most gi's would much rather go to europe than the pacific

00:15:38.420 because the pacific was just a you know it's a different kind of war it was much much darker

00:15:43.520 much more brutal japanese refusing to surrender just a really atrocious barbaric series of islands you 0.95

00:15:51.300 have to hop from one to another and i i think most gi's thought that you know if they were fighting

00:15:56.580 against the wehrmacht if they're fighting against even the ss hitler's you know most about 0.82

00:16:02.900 followers that they sort of good chance of being taken prisoner that they might not be headed that

00:16:09.120 you know if the worst came to the worst and they did end up as pow's that they could survive the war

00:16:14.280 whereas you know the idea of being taken prisoner by the japanese in the pacific was almost as horrific 0.82

00:16:19.680 as fighting them okay so they end up in europe and they end up in belgium in the ardenne forest

00:16:24.080 when this is late november early december give us an idea because i think maybe people have seen

00:16:29.880 band of brothers the battle of the bulge scene like it was cold what i mean give us an idea what

00:16:35.360 what were the elements like in this area what were they up against well they're in kind of very hilly

00:16:41.480 terrain in the ardenne very thickly forested areas and then some pasture but it was the coldest winter

00:16:50.300 in living memory so you know people always look at movies like the battle of the bulge and

00:16:55.760 pattern and uh you see those beautiful couple of episodes from band of brothers i think they're

00:17:01.880 my favorite and it is it does look extremely cold in fact it was colder than usual so people weren't

00:17:09.580 kidding when they said it was literally people were freezing to death that you in foxholes unless you

00:17:16.160 hugged your foxhole buddy to share their body warmth or you took really you know serious precautions

00:17:22.080 you did stand a good chance of of of not waking up of being frozen in your foxhole so we're very cold

00:17:29.280 the for the first few days of the battle of the bulge the skies were overcast it snowed in different

00:17:35.580 areas and then finally the skies cleared at the 23rd of december after about a week but the conditions

00:17:42.600 were miserable you were out there not getting hot food subsisting on k rations you know having to

00:17:49.380 spend every night in a foxhole maybe you had a blanket over you and if you were lucky to cover

00:17:54.540 the foxhole and you wake up and it would be like stiff as wood in the morning and you did that night

00:17:59.120 after night after night and it was extremely exhausting it was very very very harsh indeed and you were

00:18:07.740 constantly worried about getting trench foot it was mud slush just a very very difficult fighting

00:18:14.920 conditions and in fact probably some of the most difficult of world war ii in the pacific there were

00:18:20.500 horrendous conditions but i think the battle of the bulge every veteran will tell you that the thing

00:18:25.760 they remember most is is just how goddamn cold it was you know yeah and in addition to to the harsh

00:18:33.000 weather conditions the troops were just they were inadequately supplied and you know they're just

00:18:37.500 generally unprepared in a lot of ways for a big attack we were running out of men in the fall of

00:18:44.760 1944 so because of the broad front strategy pursued by the allies which meant that we had a front line

00:18:52.860 running from you know the dutch border right through to italy was thinly manned we didn't have enough

00:18:59.380 divisions to put on that very long front line and the ardennes was the most thinly manned part of that

00:19:07.480 broad front the divisions that were there were green they hadn't seen combat before or they were being

00:19:13.920 rested after the battle of the hurtkin forest which was a real meat grinder so thinly manned not seen combat 0.89

00:19:21.740 before harsh conditions and not expecting an attack the position of the allies in late fall of

00:19:29.280 1944 was that they were going to man this line and then gather new infantry regiments material and

00:19:36.620 other supplies and then launch a spring attack into the heart of the third reich they had no idea

00:19:42.680 absolutely no idea the average soldier that is that the germans were capable of launching such a 0.99

00:19:48.820 massive surprise attack and in fact although intelligence suggested that some kind of attack could occur

00:19:55.080 at the very highest levels of the allied command the attack took them completely by surprise i mean it

00:20:02.740 was stunning i mean it caused panic and chaos you know over 200 000 germans suddenly attacking you in 0.99

00:20:08.900 a place that you least expected in really difficult terrain they did not expect that at all quite the

00:20:15.420 opposite how are they able to hide that i mean at this point hadn't we cracked the enigma and so we were

00:20:19.940 able to decipher codes and things like very good very good point and that goes to a broader issue which

00:20:25.520 is that we over relied on uh having broken the german codes and you know enigma information we kind of

00:20:34.120 got lazy we thought we knew everything the germans were up to but before the battle of the bulge 0.92

00:20:40.720 hitler had stated that there should be no radio communication that orders should be written by hand

00:20:48.460 those who knew about the the plans for the battle were to keep it within a very tight circle

00:20:53.660 anybody found relaying information about the forthcoming plans was to be executed the way that

00:21:01.080 the germans actually gathered those 200 000 soldiers and you know over 500 tanks over a thousand

00:21:09.240 artillery pieces how they gathered them along the front line in the ardennes is one of the great

00:21:14.120 achievements of hitler's forces in world war ii it was miraculous almost they so they um you know

00:21:20.320 the germans strafed allied positions to cause a distraction while tanks and other men moved to

00:21:28.540 the front lines they did so after dark because it could be spotted by allied air forces during the day

00:21:34.580 they muffled the tank tracks they had vehicles go over straw that had been laying on roads they made

00:21:42.520 sure that the ammunition in many cases was carried to the front by hand again trying to avoid being

00:21:49.680 spotted in vehicles they even went so far as to ban soldiers from having fires with wood they used

00:21:57.180 charcoal instead so that they wouldn't create smoke so that we couldn't spot them everything was done

00:22:02.420 in the in utmost secrecy and to avoid detection so yeah they did a did a superb job of gathering

00:22:10.820 those forces in all three armies well over 200 000 troops gathered and when they attacked

00:22:19.540 at 5 30 that was null hour zero hour 5 30 a.m on the 16th of december they took everybody by surprise

00:22:29.420 i should add to that that there were intelligence reports coming back to the allies that strongly

00:22:35.500 suggested that some kind of attack was in the making you know the iron r platoon itself laubauk's

00:22:42.580 platoon had detected strange noises and had reported back that something was going on but at high levels

00:22:50.140 there was a really serious complacency they just thought the germans were incapable of launching this

00:22:56.380 kind of scale of attack that they were really a spent force in the west and didn't see it coming and

00:23:02.440 didn't expect it who was uh leading the attack on the german side the overall commander was von

00:23:07.780 runnstedt he was the overall german commander and then you had various wehrmacht divisions and then

00:23:14.560 ss divisions the the main strike force the main or rather the spearhead of the german attack was to be

00:23:22.080 entirely ss so you know ss stands for schutzstaffel that's hitler's private army they're above the law

00:23:29.560 they are responsible for carrying out many of the atrocities of the second world war committed by

00:23:36.080 the germans they ran the concentration camps and within the waffen ss which is the army ss if you 0.96

00:23:42.680 like they were the troops that hitler trusted most toward the end of the war especially after

00:23:49.040 a wehrmacht general von stauffenberg had tried to kill him so hitler didn't trust his wehrmacht generals the

00:23:57.340 standard army officers and generals didn't trust them and therefore the main responsibility for

00:24:05.660 success in backdam ryan in the attack in the ardennes that rested on the shoulders of ss 0.94

00:24:13.240 officers and generals and in particular a guy called jockin piper who was in command of what was

00:24:20.460 called kampfgrouper piper that was a task force special task force that went ahead of the an ss panzer

00:24:27.480 army and was tasked with breaking through american lines and reaching the muhrs river within 48 hours so

00:24:35.900 really the success of the campaign of the battle rested just on one guy's shoulders and that was

00:24:44.580 lieutenant colonel jockin piper who led that spearhead of ss troops that attacked on the 16th

00:24:52.940 december you know and he was told you got to get here by this time you know don't mess around don't

00:24:59.140 take prisoners you know if you get there then we've got a chance if you don't the war's lost so huge

00:25:06.280 responsibility for anybody to be carrying on their shoulders and without jumping too far ahead jockin

00:25:11.780 piper you know almost managed it it was mission impossible but he almost got there we're gonna

00:25:17.660 take a quick break for your word from our sponsors and now back to the show okay so let's talk about

00:25:26.440 the battle of the bulge so it started december 16th 5 30 in the morning how did it start when did

00:25:32.080 bauck realize because again bauck is like in the middle of this like he's at the front line

00:25:36.880 him and his unit they're there they had seen some german soldiers in the area but they didn't know

00:25:42.040 there was a big attack coming when did they realize oh my gosh this is a big giant attack

00:25:48.120 well the barrage that preceded the attack that began at like 5 30 was one of the biggest barrages of the

00:25:55.040 second world war so germans just shelled the hell out all the american positions along you know the front

00:26:00.560 line would have been around about 50 miles long the northern shoulder of what became the battle of

00:26:07.180 the bulge was manned by the 99th infantry division in the center you had the 106th infantry division and

00:26:13.080 then the 28th infantry division and to the south you had other american forces that both of those

00:26:20.480 shoulders on the north and the south they performed pretty well they withstood you know incredible

00:26:26.100 pressure but the south that the center of the line folded pretty quickly so the first time that

00:26:32.040 bauck knew what was going on was when you know the skies lit up at 5 30 and he and his his platoon all

00:26:39.300 jumped into their foxholes and took shelter you know it was a very very powerful barrage and uh

00:26:45.060 that was the same all along the line so that the barrage was the first it was the wake-up call the

00:26:50.960 signal and then after that ended around about eight o'clock in the morning the front lines of the

00:26:57.600 german attack the advanced troops started to break through american positions and it was around about

00:27:03.400 that time in the morning that the iron platoon spotted their first first germans who were paratroopers

00:27:09.440 that had been sent ahead of jock and peiper's ss troops the paratroopers were there to sort of it was

00:27:16.800 believe mop up very light american resistance because the barrage would have done its work the

00:27:22.680 lines were thinly held it was hoped that there would be so much chaos and confusion and panic

00:27:28.200 that there would be very insignificant american resistance and that actually was in many cases

00:27:34.820 the care you know that happened to be true but they didn't count on lao balconist platoon

00:27:42.320 carrying out their orders which were to hold their positions at all costs and that's what they did

00:27:48.860 they did and again they just had their their rifles and they had that 150 caliber on a g yeah they

00:27:54.640 actually had i think i think they had two 250 calibers and and then you know m1 rifles and

00:28:00.640 bow could have had a carbine which was the standard issue for an officer but um so yeah they they manned

00:28:07.440 positions above a small village called lanzarath which was you know right in the middle of the

00:28:13.120 northern part of the shoulder but more importantly it was a overlooking a road which the germans had 0.97

00:28:19.220 labeled roll barn b that means route b and that was the route that jock and peiper was going to take

00:28:26.200 to break through american lines and hit his objectives so they happened to be in the you know the worst

00:28:33.100 possible place at the worst possible time uh just 18 of them in the platoon and they were confronting

00:28:39.760 you know a force of several hundred paratroopers and then behind those paratroopers were jock and peipers

00:28:47.700 ss troops and you know dozens and dozens of tiger and panther tanks what's really amazing about this story

00:28:55.840 is that under that kind of pressure right being so outnumbered so outgunned balk and his men they

00:29:03.160 would have been really tempted to run you know to retreat but they didn't they stood their ground

00:29:08.060 yeah i mean when he got the orders he decided to carry out his orders but there were several guys in

00:29:14.520 the platoon that you know weren't quite so happy about that because they thought they were didn't stand

00:29:19.980 a chance that you know they were up against this massive force and that what difference did it make

00:29:24.720 if they went down fighting and you know took a few dozen or whatever with them some of them thought

00:29:29.800 maybe it would be a better idea to pull back and regroup and form a better line of defense that

00:29:34.120 why sacrifice their lives for you know really no good reason they were massively outnumbered after all

00:29:40.660 but you know laobout was a good officer and an order was an order and he told his men that we're staying

00:29:45.880 and you know no one's no one's going to leave later in the day when they got into really serious

00:29:52.280 combat they were attacked actually in all four times by the germans and held their positions but

00:29:57.840 later in the day as the situation became increasingly hopeless he did say if you want to go you can go

00:30:04.680 i'm staying but if any of you guys want to go you can go and you know try and escape the german 0.60

00:30:10.660 penetration and join other americans and fight another day but none of the platoon actually did that

00:30:18.900 they all stayed put there were many cases in the first hours the first couple days in fact of the

00:30:24.860 battle of the bulge where the americans did turn and run you know that that was understandable they

00:30:29.680 were you know petrified they were up against a much greater force and they they turned tail and uh

00:30:36.540 you know that that may have been a lack of courage or it may have been very sensible because

00:30:40.780 you know they wanted to carry on fighting and they thought by retreating they might stand a better

00:30:46.780 chance of putting up a good fight so but that was not the case for the iron opportunity they all

00:30:50.780 they stayed they stayed where they stood and they fought extremely well yeah you wrote about

00:30:55.460 balk he returned to this place in 1969 and he said that he realized perhaps the one factor above all

00:31:02.200 their youth had explained why he and his men had stood and held that older men fathers wiser more

00:31:08.260 cautious adults would surely retreated as soon as the germans appeared in such superior numbers 1.00

00:31:12.600 so his youth probably played a role in that yeah and i think he was you know this is the first day of

00:31:19.500 of real combat i mean they'd been patrolling behind enemy lines that they had a few close shaves but they

00:31:25.160 actually hadn't engaged with the enemy before so this was the first true test and uh i think laobat

00:31:33.000 wanted to prove himself you know he was young everyone was watching him looking at him thinking well what's

00:31:37.460 this guy got and he wanted to show that he had the right stuff and he did you know yeah they they were

00:31:43.300 attacked frontally they were on a hillside near a tree line foxholes are still there you can actually

00:31:50.220 go i was back there in may i went to actually went to laobat's foxhole so they were along the tree line

00:31:56.960 well placed and they balk had done his best to reinforce the positions he'd done what he could

00:32:03.240 and the paratroopers that attacked them were badly led and they ran at them across an open field

00:32:10.780 open slope it was a barbed wire fence that bisected the field and as they were trying to climb over the

00:32:16.700 fence the 50 cows literally just mowed them down i mean some people say that you know there were 500

00:32:22.600 germans that were killed or wounded some people say it's more like three or four doesn't it doesn't

00:32:27.620 matter what did happen was that four times the germans attacked up this hillside near the village

00:32:35.500 of lanzarath and these 18 guys in the iron iron platoon repulsed them every time you know they were

00:32:43.000 they're running out of ammunition by the time it was all over it was like sort of getting dark around

00:32:48.640 about four o'clock in the afternoon people forget just how long darkness lasted in that part of the

00:32:54.340 world on in december 1944 you almost have 16 hours of darkness so got lights around about 8 8 30 in

00:33:02.360 the morning got dark around 4 4 30 in the afternoon and by around four o'clock in the afternoon many of

00:33:08.840 the platoon were literally down to their last rounds they'd been firing in firefight for a lot most of

00:33:15.180 the day a couple of them were seriously wounded and miraculously only just a couple but um literally

00:33:22.640 you know with a few more minutes half an hour maybe it would have been dark and they had nothing

00:33:28.320 left to fight with and so it was at that point that bauck said you know if you want to try and get

00:33:33.280 away now's the time to do so undercover darkness he still was going to stay and then finally the

00:33:40.100 paratroopers got smart and realized that these full frontal assaults up this hillside were disastrous

00:33:46.780 and they decided to try and outflank the platoon's positions and so they came in in from the flanks

00:33:53.720 through woods and started to seize each of the foxholes and the way they did that was that they

00:34:01.300 fired at them they threw grenades and then when they got close enough they would shout out you know

00:34:05.580 in german get out get out or rouse rouse is what they actually said get out and they literally pulled

00:34:13.900 several of the platoon members out of the foxholes by hand and these guys you know didn't give up

00:34:19.860 easily they uh in a couple of cases they literally had fired their last rounds and what role did this

00:34:27.660 stand that balcony's unit that they made that day what role did it play in the battle of the bulge for

00:34:34.640 the allies well you know uh with bout what happened was that he was beside bill james his runner

00:34:39.340 in his foxhole and suddenly the barrel of a machine pistol was thrust through a slit at the front of

00:34:46.560 the they created a really good well-defended command post and covered it with logs and so there was a

00:34:53.400 slit about you know two or three feet wide by maybe six inches high and suddenly a barrel of a german

00:35:00.340 machine pistol came through and it was pointed right at balk and instinctively i mean he didn't have time to

00:35:07.320 think about it instinctively he pushed it to the side and the german opened fire and and fired

00:35:12.760 unfortunately right into bill james's face so unbelievably bill james wasn't killed but he took

00:35:18.800 a lot of rounds in his face later on i think he had to have over 20 plastic surgery operations to try and

00:35:25.600 repair his face really badly disfigured and bleeding everywhere at the time you know balk thought he was

00:35:32.020 going to die very quickly so balk was pulled out with james james is like you know in and out of

00:35:40.180 consciousness balk doesn't surrender quickly enough with it put his hands in the air rather after it's

00:35:46.340 being pulled out of his hole and it's shot in the leg and then he has to try and prop up his buddy

00:35:52.340 but bill james who was a good friend of his too and is marched down the hillside towards a cafe in

00:36:00.400 nanzareth and you know he passes german corpses the barbed wire fence is sort of piled high with 1.00

00:36:07.040 dead or dying germans or bleeding germans and uh as he's staggering down this hillside after dark with

00:36:13.800 a german pointing a gun in his back he hears this click and he thinks to himself oh the guy's shot me

00:36:20.080 i'm dead this is what happens when you're dead you you know i'm i'm dead but i'm still on this hillside

00:36:25.620 but in fact it was just the german messing with him trying to scare him by pressing the trigger on

00:36:30.480 his empty barrel at least that's what our theory is today so to cut a long story short you know none

00:36:35.740 of the platoon were killed there was a forward artillery observer that was attached to the platoon

00:36:40.020 there were three guys i think there were forward artillery observers that found themselves in the

00:36:44.760 position that day and a guy called gacky was killed so he was the only fatality but none of the actual

00:36:50.820 platoon were killed a couple of them seriously wounded you know obviously bill james

00:36:55.020 you know really had his face almost blown off and they're put in the cafe cafe schultzen which is

00:37:02.720 the building's still there after dark and balk's sitting there with his buddy bleeding out

00:37:08.360 you know his uniform soaked in his blood and he's thinking himself okay i've had one day in combat it

00:37:15.640 was a complete and utter disaster you know i carried out my orders but i've got two of my platoon shut up 0.64

00:37:21.920 and we're all going to be prisoners of war you know what what a great achievement i think less than

00:37:26.200 24 hours of my first day of real war and i i messed it up completely and so he was very you know they

00:37:33.560 were sent into plw camps a very bad time to be sent into plw camps in the third reich when

00:37:39.680 there was very little food and the third reich was collapsing you know they weren't treated particularly

00:37:44.880 well they lost a lot of weight and all throughout that winter and the spring of nine you know winter

00:37:51.160 1945 and spring of 1945 bout was haunted by what happened in lanzarath he felt like a complete failure

00:37:59.380 he felt like he you know the one thing he'd wanted in his life since he was 14 was to serve as an army

00:38:05.360 officer and to you know win honor and maybe not glory but to do his duty and he felt like he completely

00:38:11.180 failed and was very depressed it's depressing being a plw anyway it wrecks your mental health 0.96

00:38:18.080 but he just he felt like he really had achieved nothing and and had failed miserably and so it was

00:38:26.460 only many years after the war in the 60s when bill james who did survive the war even though his face had

00:38:33.200 been you know almost blown off he went into surgery in the third reich and was operated on without

00:38:38.220 anesthetic etc and german doctors managed to save his life but in the 60s bill james read a book by

00:38:46.060 john eisenhower who was allied supreme commander dwight eisenhower's son and john eisenhower wrote a

00:38:51.680 book called the bitter woods which was about the battle of the bulge i think it was published in 1965

00:38:56.600 and it was a really good in-depth study of what happened during the battle of the bulge and in it he

00:39:02.960 recounted the actions of the platoon he interviewed bill james and others that were in the vicinity and

00:39:10.780 you know bill james read the book and he called up lao bauke out of the blue and he said you know what

00:39:15.700 i know that you've always felt that we shouldn't talk about this we shouldn't you know revisit that

00:39:22.300 terrible time but in fact what we did was amazing because we actually held up the main strike force

00:39:28.600 the spearhead of the german attack during the battle of the bulge and by holding our positions

00:39:34.680 carrying out the orders doing our duty even though it seemed insane and pointless at the time

00:39:41.760 we delayed piper's strike force by maybe 24 hours and that 24 hours that was a very critical time that we

00:39:51.160 you know we we threw the ss off their timetable and if you've only got 48 hours to get somewhere and

00:39:59.480 you lose 24 hours then you got real problems and that's exactly what happened you know piper was 0.73

00:40:05.020 delayed by the inr platoon by other units too but predominantly by the inr platoon's actions that day

00:40:11.180 and that totally messed up the the critical german schedule and made a big difference to the outcome

00:40:18.040 eisenhower argued and others would argue to the outcome of the of what happened on the first and

00:40:25.040 second day of the battle of the bulge which was the the really important point of that battle you

00:40:30.420 know there were objectives that had to be reached if they weren't reached the battle yes it would

00:40:34.960 continue but ultimately it would fail it was all about getting somewhere quickly in the first 48 hours

00:40:40.540 and so you know james said that you know we what we did was amazing we were in the wrong place at the

00:40:46.100 wrong time but boy by carrying our orders we actually made a big big difference to that vast

00:40:52.680 battle and it is the biggest battle ever fought by the u.s fought by the u.s army in world war ii

00:40:58.560 almost 800 000 americans involved in some way i think the merzenogon offensive in the first world war may

00:41:05.180 have come close or you know historians can argue about which was the larger number of men involved but it was

00:41:11.020 certainly the most lethal battle for the u.s in world war ii more americans were killed in the

00:41:15.500 battle of bulge than any other single battle in world war ii i think some 19 000 lost their lives it

00:41:21.280 lasted from the 16th of december through until officially the 16th of january the bulge in the

00:41:29.860 allied lines was erased at hufolies so it's a month-long slugfest and very high casualties 19 000 deaths 0.88

00:41:38.240 a very bloody difficult battle indeed so yeah they made a big difference they made a really big

00:41:43.320 difference to that that last great battle on the western front in world war ii so you mentioned

00:41:49.080 john eisenhower wrote a history and he he concluded that balk and his platoon they played a big role

00:41:57.060 in giving the allies time to regroup from the surprise attack but the thing is these guys they

00:42:05.080 didn't get any recognition they didn't receive awards immediately for their efforts on december

00:42:10.280 16th why is that why didn't they get any awards uh it was because the the importance of their actions

00:42:17.580 weren't recognized until eisenhower wrote his book that came out in 65 and then you know bill james

00:42:25.780 called up balk and said you know we we did something quite extraordinary it was very important

00:42:30.780 and persuaded balk to try and you know get some kind of recognition for the platoon that was a long

00:42:38.980 long process it was a very difficult process you know to to award medals after an action long after

00:42:47.020 an action it's very difficult you have to pass legislation through congress you have to have

00:42:51.360 affidavits it has to be very very well documented and to his credit lao balk um led that campaign because

00:42:57.940 he wanted his men to be recognized it wasn't in it for himself at all but he wanted his men to be

00:43:02.960 recognized and i think that was a way of him coming to terms with that sense of failure that he'd felt

00:43:08.400 and a public recognition of what his men had actually done would have erased that sense of of regret and

00:43:15.220 failure and so in the late 70s the efforts to get the platoon recognized succeeded the platoon were

00:43:24.080 awarded medals and when you add up all the bronze stars with valor the silver stars the dscs for the

00:43:32.660 18-man platoon they actually became for a single action the most decorated u.s platoon of world war ii

00:43:39.000 so a long campaign but ultimately successful and you know lao balk was very proud most of the platoon was

00:43:46.380 still alive when they received their awards in washington dc and i think it was 1978 before

00:43:55.180 the first game of the season they appeared at yankee stadium on the mound and lao balk throughout the

00:44:01.880 first pitch and their night their names appeared in lights at yankee stadium when it was sort of

00:44:08.160 hollywood ending you know these guys had had done their duty had suffered greatly had survived the war

00:44:14.300 as powws had come back started families worked really hard and then you know more than 30 years 1.00

00:44:22.120 later were finally recognized and had their names in lights and had this wonderful absolutely a

00:44:28.980 hollywood ending to this very unlikely story so as you took a deep dive into the lives of these men

00:44:35.800 did you get any life lessons from them i think same kind of life lessons you get from talking to

00:44:43.320 anybody that has been in combat whether it's world war ii or not um that you know the route to

00:44:50.220 contentment lies through service to others so i i think that they all felt incredibly all of the

00:44:56.640 world war ii veterans i've ever interviewed obviously were proud of their service did not boast about it

00:45:02.520 did not think they'd done anything particularly special they did their duty they served their country

00:45:07.500 and were just lucky to come home felt blessed that they did get to come home and have long lives

00:45:15.040 and i think they also felt very fortunate that they had got to survive but they'd also been at a moment

00:45:22.360 in world history when their actions had counted you know encountered a great deal in terms of the

00:45:28.600 platoon that was was absolutely the case you know they they were only in combat for maybe you know

00:45:34.420 eight o'clock in the morning till four in the afternoon but those 18 men what they did in those

00:45:39.640 hours really made a huge difference in terms of you know us being able to vote today us being able to

00:45:45.620 live in democracies in terms of defeating the third right but those were vital hours so the life lessons i

00:45:52.240 i should have learned by now and i haven't learned enough other you know helping other people being

00:45:58.040 unified putting aside your differences working for others serving others that's where you get real

00:46:04.300 contentment from and i think the older you get the more you realize that you've got to find some kind

00:46:09.600 of cause in life that's bigger than your own ego bigger than yourself and the best way to do that is to

00:46:16.060 help other people you know well alex this has been a great conversation where can people go to learn

00:46:20.540 more about your work at my website www alexkershaw.com that's the best place to go or you can go on amazon

00:46:27.740 and and buy my books alex kershaw plug it into the uh search engine but yeah um you know um just google me

00:46:36.560 fantastic well alex kershaw thanks for time it's been a pleasure oh my my pleasure thank you so much

00:46:41.740 yet again for having me on you're wonderful you got an amazing podcast there thank you very much

00:46:46.240 thank you my guest today was alex kershaw he's the author of the book the longest winter it's

00:46:52.240 available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can find more information about his work at

00:46:56.120 his website alexkershaw.com also check out our show notes at aom.is battle the bulge

00:47:01.280 where you find links to resources when you delve deeper into this topic

00:47:04.240 well that wraps up another edition and another year of the a1 podcast thank you all so much for

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00:47:21.300 really means a lot that you choose to spend some time with us thank you for listening thank you for

00:47:25.740 your continued support we really do appreciate it also want to take some time to thank some people who

00:47:29.840 work behind the scenes here at the show first kate mckay she's my wife and the producer and editor of 1.00

00:47:34.220 the podcast kate works really hard to make sure the final episode that you all listen to is the

00:47:38.940 best it can be and beyond producing the podcast kate's also contributed a lot of great articles at

00:47:43.460 art of manliness.com so thank you kate for all that you do for art of manliness also want to thank

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00:47:57.240 we're taking a break for the rest of the year to celebrate the holidays with our family

00:48:00.620 we'll be running some rerun episodes from all of us here at art of manliness merry christmas

00:48:04.940 happy new year we'll see you in 2024

00:48:07.620 you

The Art of Manliness - December 20, 2023

Duty, Honor, and the Unlikely Heroes Who Helped Win the Battle of the Bulge

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