Finally, Eisenhower blasted Hitler's assumptions by bringing into play his secret weapon. At a time when much of the German army was still horse-drawn, the Americans had thousands and thousands of trucks and trailers in France. They were being used to haul men, materiel, and gasoline from the beaches of Normandy to the front. Ike ordered them to drop whatever they were doing and start hauling his reinforcements to the Ardennes.
The response can only be called incredible. On December 17 alone, 11,000 trucks and trailers carried 60,000 men, plus ammunition, gasoline, medical supplies, and other materiel, into the Ardennes. In the first week of the battle, Eisenhower was able to move 250,000 men and 50,000 vehicles into the fray. This was mobility with a vengeance. It was an achievement unprecedented in the history of war. Not even in Vietnam, not even in the 1991 Gulf War, was the U.S. Army capable of moving so many men and so much equipment so quickly.
Easy Company played its part in this vast drama, thanks to the Transportation Corps and the drivers, mostly black soldiers of the famous Red Ball express. At 2030, December 17, Ike's orders to the 82nd and 101st to proceed north toward Bastogne arrived at the divisions' HQ. The word went out to regiments, battalions, down to companies—get ready for combat, trucks arriving in the morning, we're moving out.
"Not me," Gordon Carson said. "I'm getting ready to play football on Christmas Day."
"No, you're not," Lieutenant Dike said. Frantic preparations began. Mourmelon did not have an ammunition dump, the men had only the ammunition they had taken out of Holland, there was none to be found. Easy did not have its full complement of men yet or of equipment. Some men did not have helmets (they did have football helmets, but not steel ones). The company was missing a couple of machine-guns and crews. The men had not received a winter issue of clothes. Their boots were not lined or weatherproof. They had no long winter underwear or long wool socks. They scrounged what they could, but it was not much. Even K rations were short. When Easy set out to meet the Wehrmacht on the last, greatest German offensive, the company was under strength, inadequately clothed, and insufficiently armed. It was also going out blind. As not even General McAuliffe knew the destination of the 101st as yet, obviously Colonel Sink could not brief Captain Winters who thus could not brief Lieutenant Dike. All anyone knew was that the Germans had blasted a big hole in the line, that American forces were in full retreat, that someone had to plug the gap, and that the someone was the Airborne Corps.
Weather precluded an airdrop, and in any case it was doubtful if enough C-47s could have been gathered quickly enough to meet the need. Instead, Transportation Corps, acting with utmost dispatch, gathered in its trucks from throughout France but especially in the area between Le Havre and Paris. M.P.s stopped the trucks, Services of Supply forces unloaded them, and the drivers—many of whom had already been long on the road and badly needed some rest—were told to get to Camp Mourmelon without pausing for anything.
The process began as darkness fell on December 17. By 0900 on December 18, the first trucks and trailers began arriving in Mourmelon. The last of the 380 trucks needed for the movement of the 11,000 men of the 101st arrived at the camp at 1720. By 2000 the last man was outloaded.
Just before Easy moved out, Malarkey went into a panic. He remembered he had $3,600 in his money belt. He asked Lieutenant Compton for help; Compton put him in touch with a division fiscal officer, who said he would deposit the money, but if he did, Malarkey could not get at it until he was discharged. That was fine with Malarkey; he handed over the money and took the receipt. He climbed into his trailer with the happy thought that after the war he could return to the University of Oregon and not have to wash dishes to pay his way.
"We were packed in like sardines," Private Freeman remembered. Captain Winters used a different image: "You were just like an animal in there, you were just packed into that trailer like a cattle car." As the trucks pulled out, Carson thought about the football practice he had been anticipating with relish, contrasted it with his actual situation, and began singing "What a Difference a Day Makes."
The trucks had no benches, and damn little in the way of springs. Every curve sent men crashing around, every bump bounced them up into the air. It was hard on the kidneys—relief came only when the trucks stopped to close up the convoy—and on the legs. The trucks drove with lights blazing until they reached the Belgium border, a calculated risk taken for the sake of speed.
As the truck-borne troopers were on the road, VIII Corps command decided where to use them. The 82nd would go to the north shoulder of the penetration, near St. Vith. The 101st would go to Bastogne.
The trucks carrying Easy stopped a few kilometers outside Bastogne. The men jumped out—a tailgate jump, they called it— relieved themselves, stretched, grumbled, and formed up into columns for the march into Bastogne. They could hear a firefight going on. "Here we go again," said Private Freeman.
The columns marched on both sides of the road, toward the front; down the middle of the road came the defeated American troops, fleeing the front in disarray, moblike. Many had thrown away their rifles, their coats, all encumbrances. Some were in a panic, staggering, exhausted, shouting, "Run! Run! They'll murder you! They'll kill you! They've got everything, tanks, machine-guns, air power, everything!"
"They were just babbling," Winters recalled. "It was pathetic. We felt ashamed."
As Easy and the other companies in 2nd Battalion marched into Bastogne and out again (residents had hot coffee for them, but not much else), uppermost in every man's mind was ammunition. "Where's the ammo? We can't fight without ammo." The retreating horde supplied some. "Got any ammo?" the paratroopers would ask those who were not victims of total panic. "Sure, buddy, glad to let you have it." (Gordon noted sardonically that by giving away their ammo, the retreating men relieved themselves of any further obligation to stand and fight.) Still, Easy marched toward the sound of battle without sufficient ammunition.
Outside Bastogne, headed northeast, the sound of the artillery fire increased. Soon it was punctuated by small arms fire. "Where the hell's the ammo?"
Second Lt. George C. Rice, S-4 of Team Desobry of Combat Command B, 10th Armored Division (which had fallen back under heavy pressure from Noville through Foy), learned of the shortage. He jumped in his jeep and drove to Foy, where he loaded the vehicle with cases of hand grenades and M-l ammunition, turned around, and met the column coming out of Bastogne. He passed out the stuff as the troopers marched by, realized the need was much greater, returned to the supply dump at Foy, found a truck, overloaded it and the jeep with weapons and ammunition, drove back to the oncoming column, and had his men throw it out by the handfuls. Officers and men scrambled on hands and knees for the clips of M-l ammo. The firefight noise coupled with the panic in the faces of the retreating American troops made it clear that they were going to need every bullet they could get. Lieutenant Rice kept it coming until every man had all he could carry.2
2. Rapport and Northwood, Rendezvous with Destiny, 462.
As Easy moved toward Foy, the sounds of battle became intense. The 1st Battalion of the 506th was up ahead, in Noville, involved in a furious fight, taking a beating. Colonel Sink decided to push 3rd Battalion to Foy and to use 2nd Battalion to protect his right flank. Easy went into an area of woods and open fields, its left on the east side of the road Bastogne-Foy-Noville. Fox Company was to its right, Dog in reserve.