Editing Battle of the Bulge (section)

==German supporting efforts across the Western Front==
{{Main|Operation Bodenplatte|Operation Nordwind}}
[[File:Y-34 Metz Airfield - Destroyed P-47s Operation Bodenplatte.jpg|thumb|P-47s destroyed at Y-34 Metz-Frescaty airfield during Operation Bodenplatte]]

On 1 January, in an attempt to keep the offensive going, the Germans launched two new operations. At 09:15, the Luftwaffe launched {{lang|de|[[Unternehmen Bodenplatte]]}} (Operation Baseplate), a major campaign against Allied airfields in the [[Low Countries]]. Hundreds of planes attacked Allied airfields, destroying or severely damaging some 465 aircraft. The Luftwaffe lost 277 planes, 62 to Allied fighters and 172 mostly because of an unexpectedly high number of Allied flak guns, set up to protect against German [[V-1 flying bomb]]/missile attacks and using [[proximity fuse]]d shells, but also by [[friendly fire]] from the German flak guns that were uninformed of the pending large-scale German air operation. The Germans suffered heavy losses at an airfield named [[Zutendaal Air Base|Y-29]], losing 40 of their own planes while damaging only four American planes. While the Allies recovered from their losses within days, the operation left the Luftwaffe ineffective for the remainder of the war.{{sfn|Weinberg|1995|p=769}}

On the same day, German [[Army Group G]] ({{lang|de|Heeresgruppe G}}) and [[Army Group Oberrhein (Germany)|Army Group Upper Rhine]] ({{lang|de|Heeresgruppe Oberrhein}}) launched a major offensive against the thinly-stretched, {{convert|70|mi|km|order=flip|sp=us}} line of the Seventh U.S. Army. This offensive, known as {{lang|de|Unternehmen Nordwind}} ([[Operation Nordwind|Operation North Wind]]), and separate from the Ardennes Offensive, was the last major German offensive of the war on the Western Front. The weakened Seventh Army had, at Eisenhower's orders, sent troops, equipment, and supplies north to reinforce the American armies in the Ardennes, and the offensive left it in dire straits.

By 15 January, Seventh Army's [[VI Corps (United States)|VI Corps]] was fighting on three sides in [[Alsace]]. With casualties mounting, and running short on replacements, tanks, ammunition, and supplies, Seventh Army was forced to withdraw to defensive positions on the south bank of the Moder River on 21 January. The German offensive drew to a close on 25 January. In the bitter, desperate fighting of Operation Nordwind, VI Corps, which had borne the brunt of the fighting, suffered a total of 14,716 casualties. The total for Seventh Army for January was 11,609.{{sfn|Cirillo|1995|p=53}} Total casualties included at least 9,000 wounded.{{sfn|Clarke|Smith|1993|p=527}} First, Third, and Seventh Armies suffered a total of 17,000 hospitalized from the cold.{{sfn|Cirillo|1995|p=53}}{{efn|A footnote in the U.S. Army's official history volume "Riviera to the Rhine" makes the following note on U.S. Seventh Army casualties: "As elsewhere, casualty figures are only rough estimates, and the figures presented are based on the postwar 'Seventh Army Operational Report, Alsace Campaign and Battle Participation, 1 June 1945' (copy CMH), which notes 11,609 Seventh Army battle casualties for the period, plus 2,836 cases of trench foot and 380 cases of frostbite, and estimates about 17,000 Germans killed or wounded with 5,985 processed prisoners of war. But the VI Corps AAR for January 1945 puts its total losses at 14,716 (773 killed, 4,838 wounded, 3,657 missing, and 5,448 nonbattle casualties); and Albert E. Cowdrey and Graham A. Cosmas, ''The Medical Department: The War Against Germany'', draft CMH MS (1988), pp. 54–55, a forthcoming volume in the United States Army in World War II series, reports Seventh Army hospitals processing about 9,000 wounded and 17,000 'sick and injured' during the period. Many of these may have been returned to their units, and others may have come from American units operating in the Colmar area but still supported by Seventh Army medical services."{{sfn|Clarke|Smith|1993|p=527|loc=footnote 14}} }}