It was the winter of 1944, and Nazi Germany was prepared for one final, last-ditch effort to swing the war back in their favor as the Allies encroached ever closer to Berlin.
Adolf Hitler's counter-offensive aimed to effect a breakout, punching through allied forces in the Ardennes Forest and driving them back toward Antwerp, Belgium. The operation was named Watch on the Rhine by the Nazis but became known as the Battle of the Bulge by American forces when the offensive kicked off on Dec. 16, 1944.
Gen. Eisenhower ordered reinforcements to the region and Gen. Patton swung around his Third Army and quickly flanked the Nazi forces. Paratroopers from the 101st stubbornly held on to the road junction of St. Vith and Bastogne despite days of Nazi attacks.
American forces stymied the Nazi advance, the German war machine finally running low on fuel (literally and figuratively) required for a large-scale military offensive. It was Hitler's last hope to avoid total capitulation to the Allied forces. The Battle of the Bulge ended the next month, in January 1945.
Today, the Battle of the Bulge is remembered as one of the greatest victories in U.S. military history, where American soldiers fought in the freezing cold, facing terrible odds, and uncertainty. "This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory," British Prime Minister Winston Churchill remarked.