On December 16, 1944 the Battle of the Bulge, or Operation Herbstnebel (Autumn Mist), began. It remains the largest battle the U.S. Army has participated in outside of the U.S. Civil War, and hundreds of books have been penned about it. But it is a German commando operation during the Nazi offensive that has created one of the Second World War's more intriguing mysteries. One that remains unsolved to this day.
In the fall of 1944 Adolf Hitler asked Otto Skorzeny to create a special unit to help spearhead Herbstnebel by capturing key bridges over the Meuse River and sowing confusion and panic
Prologue – Plzen, Czech Republic, Saturday 6 May 2000,
On this warm sunny day, I stood among several hundred people who had gathered on Husova Street; several blocks from Plzen’s Republic Square. 55 years ago on this very day, soldiers of the U.S. 16th Armored Division had rolled into Plzen and liberated its people from six oppressive years of German occupation (pictured here - Photo Courtesy of Jaroslav Peklo). Later on that same day, other soldiers from the U.S. 97th and 2nd Infantry Divisions had arrived to help secure the city.
The failed Axis offensive at Kasserine Pass meant that by March of 1943 the Axis were doomed in North Africa. The Axis were trapped between two powerful armies and reliant on a logistical chain perpetually in crisis, as the Allies enjoyed overwhelming naval superiority and new air bases in Algeria and Libya to launch attacks on Axis shipping. The Axis had maneuvered a quarter of a million soldiers and huge stores of equipment and supplies into a dead end. General von Arnim, commanding Army Group Afrika, actually surmised the odious Axis supply situation meant U.S.
