This news column reported on the efforts of American Tank Destroyers (TD) in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge:
“We had started out from divisional command post above [the town of] Stavelot in search of an advanced tank-destroyer unit – part of the regular TD battalion of three companies of 36 guns attached to the division. For TDs, we knew, were playing a major roll in meeting the German breakthrough. The reason was that for the first time since the Battle of Normandy the Nazis were using tanks according to the book – to smash clean holes through the Allied lines and thus pave the way for armored infantry… The TDs met the tanks head on. And down there in Stavelot on the northern edge of the [Amblève] river there were three TD spearheads that had seen plenty of action. Already they had turn back nearly a dozen vicious counterattacks, some led by up to fifteen tanks, but now it was impossible for us to reach the unit because of German small-arms fire from the south side of the river.”
Click here to read about the equipment and training of American tank destroyers during the Second World War.
