Editing Battle of the Bulge (section)

==Allied counter-offensive==
{{more citations needed|section|date=December 2018}}<!--only 2 footnotes-->
[[File:p41(map).jpg|thumb|Erasing the Bulge—The Allied counterattack, 26 December – 25 January]]
[[File:Allied counter-offensive Ardennes.jpg|thumb|Map: Allied Offensive against Ardennes salient]]

While the German offensive toward the Meuse had ground to a halt by the end of December, they still controlled a dangerous salient in the Allied line. Patton's Third Army in the south, centered around Bastogne, would attack north, Montgomery's forces in the north would strike south, and the two forces planned to meet at [[Houffalize]] to reduce the bulge, and push east back toward the offensive start line.

The temperature during that January was extremely low, which required weapons to be maintained and truck engines run every half-hour to prevent their oil from congealing. The offensive went forward regardless.

Eisenhower wanted Montgomery to go on the counter offensive on 1 January, with the aim of meeting up with Patton's advancing Third Army and cutting off German troops at the tip of the salient, trapping them in a pocket. Montgomery, refusing to risk underprepared infantry in a snowstorm for a strategically unimportant area, did not launch the attack until 3 January. In addition, a series of renewed German attempts to re-encircle and seize Bastogne using units moved to the southern shoulder of the salient from the north, put Patton in a desperate fight for the initiative, with the German maintaining offensive operations in sectors north and east of Bastogne until 7 January, and resulting in heavier fighting than during the 21–26 December siege of Bastogne itself; in addition, Patton's Third Army would have to clear out the "Harlange Pocket" east of Bastogne on the Belgian-Luxembourg border.<ref name="christerberg">{{cite book |last1=Bergstrom |first1=Christer |title=The Ardennes, 1944–1945 |date=19 December 2014 |publisher=Casemate / Vaktel Forlag |isbn=978-1-61200-277-4 |pages=351–376 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LfhDBgAAQBAJ |access-date=10 November 2022 |language=en}}</ref> One of these fierce actions around Bastogne occurred on 2 January, the Tiger IIs of German Heavy Tank Battalion 506 supported an attack by the 12th SS Hitlerjugend division against U.S. positions of the 6th Armored Division near Wardin and knocked out 15 Sherman tanks.{{sfn|Schneider|2004|p=274}}

At the start of the offensive, the First and Third U.S. Armies were separated by about {{convert|25|mi|abbr=on|order=flip}}. American progress in the south was also restricted to about a kilometer or a little over half a mile per day.

On 7/8 January 1945, Hitler agreed to gradually withdraw forces from the tip of the Ardennes salient to east of Houffalize to avoid being cut off, but the Germans continued to resist in the salient and were only gradually pushed back otherwise. Considerable fighting went on for another 3 weeks, with Third Army and First Army linking up on 16 January with the capture of Houffalize. Sixth Panzer Army left the Ardennes and ceded its sector to the Fifth Panzer Army on 22 January, while St. Vith was recaptured by the Americans on 23 January, and the last German units participating in the offensive did not return to their start line until February.{{sfn|Bergström|2014|p=379}}

[[Winston Churchill]], addressing the House of Commons following the Battle of the Bulge said, "This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory."{{sfn|U.S. Army CMH, ''Battle of the Bulge''}}

<gallery widths="200" heights="200">
File:After holding a woodland position all night near Wiltz, Luxembourg, against German counter attack, three men of B Company, 101st Engineers, emerge for a rest. - NARA - 531349.gif|Americans of the [[101st Engineer Battalion (United States)|101st Engineers]] near [[Wiltz]], Luxembourg, January 1945
File:6th Armored Division in Belgium 1945.jpg|U.S. 6th Armored Division tanks moving near Wardin, Belgium, January 1945
File:First-Third-Armies-linkup-Houffalize.jpg|M8 armored car on patrol from U.S. [[11th Armored Division (United States)|11th Armored Division]], U.S. Third Army links up with soldiers of the U.S. [[84th Division (United States)|84th Infantry Division]] of U.S. First Army west of [[Houffalize]], Belgium. 16 January 1945.
</gallery>