On Dec. 16, 1944, 30 German divisions smashed into U.S. and British forces in the heavily wooded Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg. The Germans counted on bad weather as their ally for this breakthrough. The predicted snow fell, and mists and clouds choked the skies, rendering air support for the Allies impossible at times. Record-low temperatures and freezing rain added brutality to the deadly massive brawl that ensued.
“I was from Buffalo, I thought I knew cold,” Baseball Hall of Famer Warren Spahn wrote years later in his autobiography. “But I didn’t really know cold until the Battle of the Bulge.”
