Antony Beevor - Ardennes 1944: Hitlers Last Gamble

Antony Beevor is the author of Crete The Battle and the Resistance (Runciman Prize), Stalingrad (Samuel Johnson Prize, Wolfson Prize for History and Hawthornden Prize for Literature), Berlin The Downfall, The Battle for Spain (Premio La Vanguardia) and D-Day: The Battle for Normandy (Prix Henry Malherbe and the RUSI Westminster Medal). His latest work, The Second World War, has been another No. 1 international bestseller. His books have appeared in thirty languages and have sold more than six million copies. A former chairman of the Society of Authors, he has received honorary doctorates from the Universities of Kent, Bath and East Anglia, and is a visiting professor at the University of Kent. In the United States he received the 2014 Pritzker Literature Award for Lifetime Achievement in Military Writing.

For Adam Beevor

. US infantry advancing through the Siegfried Line, or Westwall, in October 1944

. Fallschirmjger mortar crew in the Hrtgen Forest

. 1st Infantry Division in the Hrtgen Forest

. Medics with wounded soldier

. French troops in the Vosges

. Maastricht meeting with Bradley, Tedder, Eisenhower, Montgomery and Simpson

. German prisoners captured in early December in the Hrtgen Forest

. Generalfeldmarschall Walter Model, commander-in-chief Army Group B (IWM MH12850)

. Field Marshal Montgomery lecturing an increasingly exasperated Eisenhower

. General von Manteuffel of the Fifth Panzer Army

. Oberstgruppenfhrer-SS Sepp Dietrich of the Sixth Panzer Army

. Oberst then Generalmajor Heinz Kokott

. Oberstleutnant Friedrich Freiherr von der Heydte

. Briefing panzer commanders before the Ardennes offensive on 16 December 1944

. Two SS panzergrenadiers enjoying captured American cigarettes

. A Knigstiger tank carrying soldiers of the 3rd Fallschirmjger-Division

. Volksgrenadiers advance loaded down with machine-gun belts and panzerfausts

. The first killing of American prisoners by the Kampfgruppe Peiper in Honsfeld

. SS panzergrenadiers pass a burning convoy of American vehicles

. American prisoners taken by the 1st SS Panzer-Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler

. The 26th Infantry Regiment arrives to defend Btgenbach at the base of the Elsenborn ridge

. Members of the same regiment manoeuvring an anti-tank gun as the Germans approach

. Belgian refugees leaving Langlir as the Fifth Panzer Army advances (IWM 49925)

. As the Germans advance on St Vith, the people of Schnberg shelter in caves

. American medics turned skis into toboggans to drag the wounded back for evacuation

. American troops dig in on the forward edge of a wood (IWM 050367)

. As the Germans advance on Bastogne, townsfolk start to flee in farm carts

. A platoon of M-36 tank destroyers near Werbomont

. Volksgrenadiers taken prisoner in the fighting round RocherathKrinkelt

. Brigadier General Robert W. Hasbrouck receiving the silver star from Lieutenant General Courtney Hodges

. US military police check the identities of Belgian refugees near Marche-en-Famenne

. Belgian refugees rush to cross the Meuse at Dinant

. A bazooka team from the 28th Infantry Division after three days of fighting in Wiltz

. A young SS trooper taken prisoner near Malmdy (IWM EA048337)

. Civilians murdered by Kampfgruppe Peiper at Stavelot

. Vapour trails over Bastogne

. 23 December: the US Air Force send in transport aircraft to drop supplies to Bastogne

. American wounded in cellars in Bastogne

. Bastogne: paratroopers of the 101st Airborne sing carols on Christmas Eve

. Remnants of the 2nd Panzer-Division in a farmyard in Foy-Notre-Dame (IWM B13260)

. Bastogne. General Patton with Brigadier General McAuliffe and Lieutenant Colonel Chappuis.

. American reinforcements advancing in steeply wooded Ardennes terrain

. A patrol from the British XXX Corps in the Ardennes wearing snowsuits

. Soldiers from the 26th Infantry Regiment finally advance from Btgenbach

. La Roche-en-Ardenne in ruins

. Investigators start the work of identifying the American soldiers massacred at Baugnez, near Malmdy

. A very young prisoner from the Waffen-SS

. Joachim Peiper on trial for war crimes including the massacre near Malmdy

The majority of the photographs come from The National Archives in the USA. Other photographs are from: 1, 13, AKG Images; 5, Documentation Franaise; 11, Tank Museum; 12, Bundesarchiv, Koblenz; 67, 18, 20, 256, 3032, 34, 36, 389, 41, 467, US Army (part of National Archives); 8, 23, 26, 40, Imperial War Museum, London; 10, Heinz Seidler, Bonn Bad Godersberg, reproduced from W. Goolrick and O. Tanner, The Battleof the Bulge.

	12th Army Group
	First US Army
	US VII Corps
	British XXX Corps
	101st Airborne Division
	Combat Command B of 10th Armored Division
	335th Infantry Regiment, 84th Division

	Army Group B
	Fifth Panzer Army
	26th Volksgrenadier Division
	Panzer Lehr Division
	3rd Fallschirmjger Division