On Saturday afternoon, 16 December 1944, about 1500 hours, the Germans launched a vigorous counterattack on the First United States Army front on the Belgium-Luxembourg border, about fifty miles South of the city of Aachen, Germany. The Germans, under the command of Gen Von Rundstedt, threw a panzer-army against the 106th and 28th Infantry Divisions. Our lines were penetrated and the Germans poured forth into the Ardennes. The situation immediately became so fluid, the definite position of friendly and enemy troops were unknown.

Our next job was to VII Corps, this requiring thirty miles of spiral four cable. We then placed approximately twenty five miles of spiral four to provide lateral circuits between VII and XVI Corps by linking existing open wire and cable facilities.

For the succeeding days, the Battalion worked day and night linking various echelons of First Army and their corps until the situation became stabilized.

The Germans were halted, and the allied began exerting pressure from both flanks and from the West. The communications were in. The job that looked so difficult had been accomplished.

The Strategy behind the Secret:

There have been several names for it: The Von Rundesdedt Offensive, Wacht Am Rhein, and the Battle of the Bulge.

The basic objective was strike down upon allied forces and take back land as far as Antwerp. Antwerp was chosen as a strategic point for the German forces if they were to re-conquer the Atlantic Wall.

They struck 0544 GMT on Dec 16 1944 with a force that shook the exhausted Allied lines into a series of broken links.

With no possibility of air support due to bad weather, the troops were pinned down in scores of pinprick positions all over the Belgium countryside.

Trapped, and with communications lines down all over the Eastern Front, the Allies were left in a desperate situation. Their only recourse was to stay as low as possible, and stand their ground.

The 40th were in Aachen on the day of the offensive, and stayed there for an additional four days. Communication lines were down, meaning that the 40th had a huge responsibility to restore links between the Allied forces all along the Belgian border.

Laying down wire in the midst of heavy fighting and the bitter cold, the 40th were left with an arduous and dangerous duty of restoring the means of the the fighting forces along the front.

The fact that Germany army red spearheads were driving to the West toward the River Meuse was definite, but just how far they had penetrated remained to be the subject of wild rumors.

The problem of communications was playing a major role in the stemming of the German thrust. To assist in the rapid installation of a wire network, the 40th Signal Construction Battalion was loaned to First United States Army. The first assignment given the Battalion was a fifty mile spiral four cable job from Dinant, to Neufchateau, Belgium, to the VIII Corps. The job was practically complete when on the second day it abandoned by order of First Army because of the retrograde movement of our forces.

Of the Battalion efforts, the Signal Officer, First United States Army wrote in a letter of appreciation. - "You've provided the necessary speed without sacrificing quality. In short - you have done an outstanding job".

The next assignment given the organization was one that was "right up our alley". It was a fifteen mile open wire lead from First Army to Red Line Test near Liege, Belgium to provide an alternate routs in case of cable failure at Liege. This build was started on the 29th of December and by the end of the month the job was well under way.