Western Europe at the end of 1944 was a bit like Eastern Europe!
The whole of Western Europe suffered a cold winter that had not been seen in fifty years. The biting cold wind and fierce blizzards made people wonder if they had arrived in Russia.
The winter of this year came very early and the snow fell heavily.
It was only November and it was snowing heavily in northern France.
Although the snow was heavy and the weather was cold, people's hearts were boiling.
On June 6th half a year ago, the Normandy landing began. In just two months, the Allies quickly liberated large areas of France and Belgium from the Germans.
The Allies were shrouded in the aftermath of victory. The overwhelming victory made some people in the Allies begin to think that the war was about to end. It seemed that it was only a matter of time to advance into the homeland of the Third Reich.
In just half a year, the German army lost 450,000 soldiers on the Western Front and also lost a large number of weapons. For the "vultures", the loss of the German army was obviously a good thing - the battlefield was full of abandoned weapons and ammunition.
Vultures are the French derogatory name for the Allied Command Task Force, not because of their phoenix armbands, but because these guys, like vultures, will pick up the weapons and ammunition left behind by the German army on the battlefield as soon as the battle is over. Not to mention tanks, even the scattered ammunition chains in the foxholes will be picked up one by one.
"They are like vultures, greedily searching for everything left on the battlefield!"
But now, their good days are over - the Allied offensive has encountered the coldest winter in nearly 50 years, and it has been stuck in a quagmire near the Siegfried Line along the German border and has come to a halt. From Saarland to Aachen, a series of bloody battles have been fought, but no progress has been made except for the increasing number of casualties.
The Allied offensive was frustrated, and the task force naturally had no way to clean up the battlefield. They could only stay nearby and wait until the Allied offensive resumed before carrying out the search mission.
On the road to the Ardennes Mountains, George, sitting in the jeep, looked out the window at the snow-covered mountains and forests, his brows furrowed.
Ardennes...
While repeating this word, George's mind was thinking of the Germans' final counterattack on the Western Front - the Ardennes Counterattack!
That was Sandzi's last counterattack and the last chance.
How arrogant was the mustache - using 250,000 troops to attack 750,000 Allied troops, and what was the most fatal thing?
It was that he almost succeeded.
If the bad weather could last a few more days, if the US military could collapse like the French, instead of resisting stubbornly, perhaps, he would really succeed - once again drive the Allied forces into the sea.
But in the end, the mustache still failed.
Well, these have nothing to do with George. Now he came to this area to withdraw the sixth, ninth, and thirteenth search teams.
Three search teams, that is a team of 6,000 people.
30% of the entire task force is in this area. In order to collect as many weapons as possible, the search team has been following the Allied forces. The Allied forces are advancing quickly in Belgium and Luxembourg, so the task force naturally invested more forces in the northern region.
As a result, they arrived in the Ardennes. Now the three search teams are counting ducks in the Ardennes Mountains.
"We must withdraw them all quickly."
Wrapping up his M43 windbreaker, George calculated the time in his mind.
It is November 27th now. Historically, the German army launched an attack on December 16th, which means that he has about 20 days.
"As long as the troops are withdrawn to Metz, they will be safe. Let's leave the fighting to the US military!"
Thinking so in his mind, George saw a road sign through the car window.
"Bastogne."
Seeing this road sign, George frowned. This is his destination.
In another world, Bastogne is famous. Anyone who knows a little about World War II knows that this is the key to the entire Battle of the Ardennes. This Belgian town has become the focus of attention of both sides since the beginning of the war. The rapid mobility of the German mechanized forces must rely on roads, and the seven roads in the Ardennes Mountains pass through Bastogne, so the Germans must capture this place and the Allies must defend it.
The reason why George came here is that the search team must pass through Bastogne to withdraw.
"Bastogne..."
He muttered this place name, and for some reason, George felt uneasy.
"It's okay, there are still twenty days!"
Thinking so in his heart, the convoy continued to drive towards the town.
Fifteen minutes later, a convoy of jeeps and trucks slowly drove into Bastogne, which is just a small Belgian town.
Unlike the continuous offensive of Patton's Third Army on the northern front of France, the Ardennes region is a "ghost front". In this cold and quiet place, artillery shells are often fired for calibration, and patrols detect enemy lines only for training. Although they are within the range of each other's rifles, the Germans quietly watched the Americans eat, and the Americans watched the women slip into the bunkers of the Siegfried Line in the evening. For more than two months, both sides have been resting, observing each other's words and expressions, and avoiding provoking each other.
Here are six divisions of the US military. But three of them are new recruits, and they were sent to the Ardennes region just to "get some injuries". In other words, these three divisions need to experience some small battles in areas with low combat intensity before being sent to participate in big battles. As for the other three divisions, they are all exhausted and have been seriously injured in previous battles. They come here to rest.
Because it was a place to rest, there were almost no troops stationed in the small town of Bastogne, only a US military company was stationed there. After a brief communication, George's convoy drove into the town.
When the independent convoy arrived in front of the cafe opposite the town hall, one of the jeeps drove out of the convoy and stopped at the town hall. After getting off the car, George looked up at the town hall in front of him and ordered Lin Xuede beside him.
"Okay, let's set up the headquarters here."
"Yes, sir."
Then the task force members on the jeep and truck jumped off the truck.
Looking at these soldiers in US military uniforms, the locals on the roadside were stunned and said.
"Asians?"
For the people in the town, Asians are rare, but in the next few days, the task force that withdrew along many roads gathered in this small Belgian town.