The Story of the 10th Armored Division cont.
The night of Dec. 21, the pincers met and closed west of the city. Bastogne became the "hole in the doughnut."
In the center of the hole, the 10th assembled a highly mobile reserve force to strike in any direction. Bastogne's "Fire Brigade," as it was called, fought wherever the battle flamed hottest. This force was Bastogne's indispensible backbone of steel.
The remainder of the epic, like the beginning, is a tale of the individual soldier's raw courage.
The Tigers saw the fanataical enemy press in from all sides; rocked beneath terrific artillery barrages and repeated bombing; froze in ice-filled fox holes and along the snow-covered alps; watched supplies and ammunition dwindle. Threatened with extinction, they echoed Maj. Gne. Anthony C. McAuliffe's reply of "Nuts" to a German surrender ultimatum. Men of the 10th stood, fought, died.
Fourth Armd. Div. tanks cracked the ring Dec. 26, but CC B's fight wasn't over. The weary, triumphant Tigers did not take their final ride through Bastogne's rubble-strewn streets until Jan. 18.