Forbidden History - Beyond the Battle of the Bulge

Episode Date: August 12, 2025

The Battle of the Bulge, or ‘Hitler’s last gamble’ was described by Winston Churchill as “the greatest American battle of the war”. Nearly 20,000 US soldiers were killed in the battle, some of whom were all too often forgotten African American front-line troops. In this episode of the Forbidden History podcast, we follow a team of conflict archaeologists as they retrace their paths, uncovering the overlooked stories of those who defied racism on two fronts: facing both the deadly advance of Nazi forces and the injustice of serving in a segregated army. Cast List: Dr. Birger Stichelbaut: Conflict Archaeologist Edwin Popken: Military Historian Robert Hudson Jr.: Son of 333rd Field Artillery Battalion Soldier Dr. Peter Caddick-Adams: Author and Historian Dr. Robert M. Citino: Senior Historian, The National WWII Museum Dr. Peter Schrijvers: Military Historian Eric Meyers: Narrator Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to the Forbidden History Podcast. This program is presented solely for educational and entertainment purposes. It contains adult themes. Listener discretion is advised. In Belgium, researchers are investigating the secrets of World War II. The target of their search? Hidden evidence from the front line of the Battle of the Bulge. The Battle of the Bulge was the biggest and deadliest single battle of World War II

for the U.S. Army. Nearly 20,000 U.S. soldiers were killed in the battle, including many all too often forgotten African-American front-line troops. My dad's unit, the 33rd, fought 9 in Dave. He just would tell me, if you want to paint a picture of hell, this was just about it. Can the team discover the remarkable 33rd Field Artillery Battalion's long-lost fighting positions. Deep in the Ardennes forest, along the Belgium border with Germany, World War

2 researchers are using a drone equipped with the latest LIDAR technology to search the woods for long-lost traces of the Battle of the Bulge. Okay, here we go. Take us. So as archaeologist, we really like to use LIDAR because it's a technique where you attach a laser scanner to a drone and the laser scanner sends beams towards the branches of the trees and towards the bottom. You can filter away the trees and then you have a bare model of the earth and that's what's really important for archaeology.

Taking up to 300,000 measurements a second, the LIDAR can uncover features hidden beneath the dense forest and help build an accurate 3D picture of what's revealed. What excites me in doing this LIDA scan today is that using cutting-edge LIDAR technology, conflict archaeology, in military history together actually allows us to better understand one of the largest battle the American Army ever fought during World War II.

Lasting six weeks from December 1944 to January 1945, the Battle of the Bulge was fought on an epic scale. At its peak were the 600,000 U.S. soldiers who were involved in the ferocious fight to stop Nazi Germany's last major offensive. Some of America's most celebrated military units fought in the battle, such as the 101st Airborne Division. But an often overlooked unit, the African American 33rd Field Artillery Battalion also played a key role in the battle. Robert Hudson Jr.'s father was one of the few hundred men who fought in the Battle of the Bulge with the 33rd. The conditions in 1940 were that we were a segregated country,

but because of this epic struggle that we had against Germany, the United States Army had no choice but to utilize African-American soldiers in the fight for freedom. Never forget the United States was a segregated army for the most racist regime in history. Think about that irony. I mean, that's just make your head. explode. In fact, over a million African Americans served in the US Armed Forces during World

War II. But due to discrimination, most were only deployed in service roles behind the front lines. The 3303rd are an unusual artillery battalion in the US Army. Black soldiers tend to be segregated in specific units in the supply lines in a quartermaster general corps. So to find a black American unit at the front is extremely unusual. the research team is trying to find the 33rd's long-lost fighting positions on the former front line of the Battle of the Bulge near Schoenberg in Belgium. So while we know that the 333rd was actually in the Schoenberg area and it's been reported that their firing batteries were on the east side of the river, we really don't know where exactly

they were positioned. So that remains a mystery and that really intrigues me. Although the search of the forest will take time, it will hopefully uncover evidence about the remarkable exploits of the 33rd during the Battle of the Bulge, and the tragic events that overtook them. The 33rd had been activated as part of a new segregated regiment in 1942, once the United States entered World War II. After intensive training in Oklahoma, they landed on the Normandy beaches just after D-Day

in late June 1944, and rapidly earned a formidable reputation. In Normandy, when they landed, the first thing that they were told to do was that there was a German sniper unit in a church people, and they needed to take the unit out. And so they fired two shots. This was about three miles away, and they took out the sniper nest. And so at that point, that's when their reputation started for their accuracy. Within days, they were called upon to fire upon a Nancy Tiger tank nine miles away. They shot four rounds of artillery, three direct hits. That was unprecedented.

That would be great shooting even today with GPS. Along with the rest of the Allied Army trying to liberate occupied Europe, the 33rd then began to fight their way towards Germany. After breaking out from Normandy across France, By late 1944, the Allies forced Hitler's army to retreat all the way to the Siegfried line, a 400-mile long line of concrete bunkers and tank traps, protecting Nazi Germany from invasion. Breaking through the Siegfried line would be a major challenge. So in late 1944, units like the 33rd dug into the frozen ground along the German border

and waited as the Allies built up supplies and military strength. An all-out assault across the Siegfried line into Germany was planned for early 1945. But until then, the troops faced a long, cold winter. Five miles west of the Sigfried line, the research team is closing in on the site that could be the 33rds encampment. While examining the scans, the team noticed some interesting depressions in the landscape. We can do some basic measurements. It's about five and a half meters.

And it probably measures one and a half meter depth. Yeah. So there you have a cross section, an archaeological drawing without the need to do any excavation at all. With the dugouts now revealed in detail, the research team heads into the forest to investigate what's visible on the ground. So here we are at the site

and we can see the remains of some kind of some kind of a shelter. If you want to find some shelter, you dig a hole, you put the earth to the site, you had some overhead covered, this would have been deeper, it's been filled in the last 75 years. Very interesting.

Given the camp's location, it's a strong possibility that it was the 33rd who dug these shelters to use while waiting for the planned invasion of Germany in early 1945. If so, further research may reveal the 333rd's long-lost artillery emplacements hidden in the forest somewhere nearby. This is certainly something that you don't build in a couple of hours. You don't make this to stay here for a couple of days. No, probably you bring some engineers in to actually help you or even build it for you, I'd reckon.

To be here over the winter times, it would be logical to start digging and making these kinds of positions to cover them to them to. from the harsh winter conditions. As it turned out, winter 1944 was one of the coldest winters in decades. But as the 33rd and other U.S. troops sheltered from it in their foxholes, Hitler celebrated. Heavy snow and freezing fog was exactly what he wanted to provide cover for a massive surprise attack to try to turn the tide of the war. The German situation at the time is desperate.

desperate. They've abandoned most of France. In the east, they've abandoned most of Poland, and the Soviets are gearing up for another gigantic offensive. It's now or never for the Germans to launch this attack in the West. Surprise was essential for success. So in December 1944, Hitler secretly moved 200,000 troops and over 500 tanks to an 80-mile attack front just behind the Siegfried line, centered on Schoenberg. in the Belgium Ardennes. Early on the morning of December 16th, 1944, the German Blitzkrieg began with a massive artillery barrage

from over 1,500 heavy guns. The ferocious Battle of the Bulge had begun, and the unsuspecting 33rd would be right at the heart of the storm. The Germans poured through the Ardennes forest. My dad's unit, the 333rd, had no idea of the magnitude of what was coming at them. When Hitler launched the surprise offensive that began the Battle of the Bulge,

Schoenberg became a key battleground because of its crucial bridge over the River Ur. The capture of the Ure River Bridge at Schoenberg was absolutely crucial to the German plan. Schoenberg is practically smack dab in the middle of the German attack, and if there's no early seizure of the bridge, the German follow-on waves are not going to be able to get

to Antwer on day four of the offensive. Reaching Antwerp, 100 miles northwest of Schernberg in just four days, was the German offensive's ultimate and very ambitious target. Antwerp's huge port was critical to the Allied war effort, and Hitler believed its capture could change the course of the war. Why Antwerp, it's the largest port in Europe, and it's where all the Allied supplies are coming into. So if you control it, you shut off all the petrol, all the ammunition, all the rest of the port.

the reinforcements of men, material, everything you need, and the Allied advance will grind to a halt. But speed would be crucial to the success of Hitler's very risky weather-dependent attack plan. The Germans have chosen to attack in midwinter, principally to shut off the Allied control of the air. And of course, sooner or later, the skies are going to clear. If U.S. ground troops, including the 33rd, could delay the German advance towards Antwerp until the weather improved, and allied air power could be used, Hitler's big gamble to save his Nazi regime would be doomed. But initially, at Schoenberg, at least, all went very well for the Germans. The story of the German attacks in the Schenberg area is one of

complete and total surprise and shock on the part of the Americans. And all of a sudden, The sky is lit up by this massive bombardment, followed by tanks and troops who aren't meant to be there at all. What they soon come to realize is that this isn't an isolated local attack. This is happening all along the front. When they call for help, it's not there because the Germans are attacking absolutely everywhere. Sheltering in their forest dugouts, the 33rd were on their own and under relentless attack. They fought for 36 consecutive hours being shelled nine and day by mortars, was known as screaming memis from the Germans.

My father, he said the scariest thing was the shells exploding in the trees, and then the trees, the splinters from the trees, would come and kill the soldiers. That's what they feared more than anything else. And then the other thing he talked about was the sound of the German tanks. and he said they knew they were in trouble because they heard incessant squeaking of gears clashing and clinging, and he said that he knew that they couldn't hold out because they had no tank cover of their own.

And eventually they were overrun. 80 years later, the research team has now finished searching the Schernberg Forest for the 33rds overrun positions. From their LIDAR data, the team think they may well have found the site of one of the gun batteries. But to confirm this, the team heads into the forest. Can they find conclusive evidence on the ground

that they really have found the 3.303's long-lost fighting positions? We continue the search after the break. In the forest near Schernberg in the Belgium Ardennes, the LIDAR research team has made an important new discovery of World War II military positions. But to confirm whether it is one of the 33rds gun batteries, the team needs to search for evidence on the ground. So the LiDAR shows us that one of the first large features is over here.

It's one out of the four huge emplacement. It's something like four to six meters wide, almost two meters deep. They clearly made a deep excavation. And typically those certain embankments of this, that's artillery emplacements, especially there are four of them, a battery mostly consists of four pieces. So those are all clues that point into the direction of being a gun emplacements. The positioning of the artillery emplacements in the forest is another significant clue. The position gives away a little bit. This used to be the edge of the forest during the second World War.

There's now a forest here that wasn't there. wasn't there during the Second World War. Just two meters further, you're outside of the wood. So you're at the edge of the wood, and you're having a clear view outside of the forest. If you take into account the direction, the four artillery emplacements, we're having a clean field of fire towards Germany.

Most probably those are American positions, given that they were around in this area. Scattered on the surface of the forest floor, the team discovers what appears to be conclusive evidence. It's a piece of iron and on the back side it says something green back for and then it says M1 Howitzer, Howitzer, M1 Howitzer. M1 Howitzer.

Okay, that is American artillery. 155mm howitzers were called M1s. That's interesting. It's an interesting clue. Combining the evidence on the ground with the data from the LIDAR scans, the The layout of the newly discovered American gun battery can now be reconstructed by the research team. On the edge of the forest, protected in deep emplacements, four powerful 155 millimeter M1 howitzers faced towards German lines.

While behind them, hidden in the forest, are the log-covered foxholes where the gunners could shelter. But the key question remains. Is it really the 33rd who fought here at this gun battery? We know that the 333rd filter to the battalion was in the Schoenbeck area with the firing batteries here on the east side of the river. And we know that they had 155mm guns. I'm quite convinced that this was a size used by one of the batteries of the 3rd3rd

based on the evidence, it's very, very likely. It's in this very spot that Robert Hudson Jr.'s father may well have fought and been wounded, trying to hold back the German onslaught. My dad's experience was he had fragments from motor fire. His buddy, a gentleman by a name of Lester, was in the foxhole next to him, and he was eviscerated by German machine gun fire. And the rest of his memory was a blur. He said that he was dazed and confused.

He was bleeding profusely from the head and arm, and he just remembered the horrific screams. But he was in and out of consciousness. The next thing he remembers is he was at a prison of war camp. He just would tell me, if you want to paint a picture of hell, this was just about it. So it was a very, very brutal experience for him, but he was able to make it back alive.

Apart from Robert's father, more than 200 men of the 333rd were killed or captured in Schoenberg on the 17th of December 1944. And for U.S. forces in the area, much worse was to follow when inexperienced troops of the 106th Infantry Division tried to recapture Schoenberg's vital bridge. Much of the 106 infantry division are simply swallowed up. They're surrounded and fall into German captivity. It's a disaster of the highest order for the U.S. Army. In total, around 7,000 soldiers of the 106th Infantry Division were captured.

The largest mass surrender of U.S. troops in Europe in World War II. Nearly 300 men of the 33rd were able to carry on the fight, however. After successfully withdrawing west from Schoenberg, towards the town of Sandvite. By the 18th of December 1944, the third day of the German offensive, Saint-Viet still held out. But on either side of Sainte, the Germans continued to advance towards Bastogne and Spa in the north. In the north, the fearsome first SS Panzer Division spearheaded the attack.

Originally founded as Hitler's personal bodyguard, it was very well equipped with nearly 120 panzers, but made slower progress than anticipated. had expected the first SS to make it to Antwerp in just four days, but getting tanks through this part of the dense Ardennes forest proved very difficult. The quality of roads is abysmal, and one of the German commanders afterwards said, essentially you've given me a logging track that a man with a bicycle couldn't get along, much less a panzer army, and that's why the Germans are much, much slower than they ever expect to be.

Further south, though, the Germans were making better progress in their push towards Antwerp, and were closing in on the highly strategic crossroads town of Bastogne. Defended by relatively few U.S. troops, Allied commanders decided that to slow down the German advance, Bastogne must be held at all costs. The renowned 101st Airborne Division were sent in as reinforcements. And in addition, the surviving gunners of the 33rd, who had escaped from Schoenberg, were also rushed in, to join another African-American artillery unit, the 969th. The reinforcements arrived in Bastogne just in time before the Germans encircled the town on the 20th of December, 1944, and the famous siege of Bastogne began.

The Germans were unlucky, really, and it takes them longer to get to Bastogne. than expected, by which time they're way behind schedule, they're exhausted, the weather is appalling, and they hunker down for the night. And in that brief moment, while they're asleep, Bastone has been reinforced, so they miss it by a whisker. And so instead of an easy advance, down the high street of Bastogne, which is now full of Americans who aren't going to let them in, the Germans have to flow either side of the town, and that creates the siege. As it turned out, the firepower of the 33rd during the siege of Bastogne was crucial.

Besides the 101st Airborne at Bastogne, a conspicuous part of the defense was played by the 33rd artillery. Airborne troopers need heavy fire support, certainly for something like perimeter defense against German tanks, and they got it from the 33rd. But completely surrounded and outnumbered, with German panzers attacking Bastogne from all Would the 101st Airborne and the gunners of the 33rd be able to hold out against the ferocious German siege? The remnants of the 333rd play a crucial role in defending the tongue, providing heavy artillery support to the paratroopers in force.

So whenever an attack occurs, whether it is to the east or the northeast, northwest, and so on, each time the paratroopers will resist that attack, helped by the artillery shells fired onto the Germans by these African-American gunners. Already renowned for their accuracy in the heat of the battle for Bastogne, the 3.303s gunners also needed to be very fast. And they had a unique way of achieving this.

The 3333 operated as a team. They operated in unison. They were seeing African-American spirituals and songs and chants when they fired their weaponry. Because of their expertise and rhythm that they got from singing Negro spirituals, they were able to fire the 155 millimeter howitzer at unprecedented speed. With the 33rd in the thick of the action, the ferocious battle for control of Bastogne continued for days, without a backward step on either side,

until the besieged U.S. forces defending the encircled town finally got lucky. Every single day is a desperate day. But then the Americans get their big break, and that is December the 23rd. Up to that point, it had been very grayish, foggy weather. After one week of Battle of the Belch fighting, all of a sudden the sky is clear to a very crisp blue. And this means that now the most powerful weapon of the Allies can be thrown into battle, which is the Air Force. First of all, the troops inside Bostonia are desperate for equipment,

shells, they need weapons, they need food, they need especially medical assistance and so transport aircraft are flown in in wave after wave and parachute in all the help they need. In addition to the transport aircraft, fighter bombers are thrown in and they bomb everything around Bastogne, that even moves and looks German. They're in the air constantly, targets are being radioed in and they swoop down on these German targets time and again, very close to Allied lines sometimes. They use explosives, but also incendiaries like Napalm,

and they put the fear of God into the Germans. Finally, on December 26, 1944, tanks of the U.S. 4th Armored Division broke through German lines on the ground, and the siege of Bastogne was over. The same day, Allied bombing forced the German offensive's leading spearhead to a halt. The 5th Panzer Army had made it less than halfway to Antwerp.

Further north, the elite First SS Panzer Division was also pushed back. Over the next few weeks, as Allied forces continued to retake ground lost, the brutality of Hitler's SS became shockingly apparent. At Malmadi, on the route taken by the First SS Panzer Division, U.S. soldiers found the bodies of over 70 murdered American POWs frozen in the snow. The Battle of the Bulge, unfortunately, was characterized by a number of atrocities on the German side. And there's a number of reasons for it. I think you could say the SS was perhaps brutal by nature and then made more brutal by its

training. But a second factor is the tight timetable of this battle. If you have to get forward to Antwerp in four days, which is probably impossible by any reasonable expectation, and you're a fanatical SS trooper, you don't have to be a very important. You don't have a lot of time for the niceties of prisoner handling and processing and marching them to the rear. The first thought that passes through your mind is to shoot them. Apart from at Malmadi, U.S. troops discovered evidence of other shocking SS war crimes nearby. And worryingly, 11 of the 333rds men had been missing in action for over a month since the German capture of Schernberg.

We continued with the story after the break. Eleven soldiers of the 33rd Field Artillery Battalion had been missing in action since the Germans captured Schernberg on the 17th of December, 1944. After escaping capture, it transpired that they had tried to find their way back to American lines. Ending up lost in German-held territory, a local Belgian farmer kindly gave them shelter, despite the risk of retribution, if the Germans found out. They came upon a house and they were led in by a gentleman by the name of Matthias Langer. The fact that he took the risk of taking into those African-American soldiers, speaks volumes about his courage and empathy in terms of taking in people and strangers from another land that he knew nothing about. He tried to explain to them that they were surrounded by the Germans and he tried to give them counsel on how to escape.

but because of the language barrier, they just didn't get it. Matthias Longer's grandson still lives in the family house in the small Belgium village of Werreth, near Schoenberg, where his grandfather tried to help the 11 African-American soldiers. My grandfather's reaction was without hesitation to open the door. It was, of course, very dangerous. But despite the risk to his family, My grandfather let them in, so they could eat, drink and warm themselves up.

They were frozen and wet. It was in the kitchen that they sat and ate with the family, and my father, who was 12, helped to bring them bread and water. Unfortunately, a Nazi sympathizer in the village had seen the 11 African-American soldiers arriving and informed the Germans. Within hours, they were captured by the Germans. the SS and taken away. Initially the heavy winter snow concealed what happened next, but once the Allies had won back the ground, lost to the first SS Panzer Division, and the weather warmed,

all was revealed. When the fighting was over, my family and grandparents went to the church for the first time. The snow had melted, and they saw the corpses. It was terrible. They were taught Their eyes were gouged out with bayonets. They were run over, bones broken and faces smashed, and fingers cut off to steal their rings. My father never forgot the sight. The discovery of the shocking SS massacres hardened Allied resolve. The Allies continued to retake ground, lost in the Battle of the Bulge, and by the end of January 1945, forced Hitler's army all the way back to the Siegford.

back to the Siegfried Line. Hitler's gamble to try to capture Antwerp and save his Nazi Third Reich had failed. In February 1945, the Allies finally launched their long-planned invasion across the Siegfried Line, and after months of bitter fighting, Germany was at last forced to surrender in May 1945. Nazi Germany's defeat allowed the full horror of Hitler's brutal regime to be revealed to the world. At Nuremberg and at the former Nazi concentration camp of Dachau, war crimes trials were held from late 1945 to 1947. At Dachau, over 70 SS stormtroopers and their commanders were found guilty of murdering more than 80 American prisoners at Malmadi. The

victims of the Malmadi massacre were all white. In stark contrast, the The SS men, who brutally tortured and murdered the 333rds black soldiers, were never brought to justice. The U.S. authorities' official reason for not prosecuting the murderers of the 11 men found killed in Wareth was a lack of evidence identifying the SS individuals who were responsible. Some believe the real reason the U.S. failed to prosecute was racism. But others are prepared to accept it was mainly due to Cold War politics. Well, in 1948, the Army did do a review of all the war crimes, and the War of 11 case was dismissed primarily because at that point,

the U.S. Army officials were concerned about Russia, and they were looking to utilize Germans to help in the new war, the new Cold Front against the Russians. And so it was pretty much written off. basically they said, hey, we don't want to worry about that now. That was yesterday's war. And so the War of Eleven disappeared at that point in 1948. It was just forgotten.

Although U.S. military authorities failed to ensure justice for the Wereth Eleven, the Longer family, who bravely helped them, has raised a monument in their memory. It's placed in the field where the 11 men were killed so that their sacrifice should never be forgotten. There is also a memorial to all U.S. soldiers killed in the Battle of the Bulge, located just outside of Bastogne because of the crucial battle that took place here. And at least in recognition of the 333rd's important role during the famous siege, the unit was officially honored by the United States. The 333rd was instrumental in the defense of Bastogne. When they combined with the 969 Italian, they were awarded the Presidential Citation Award for extraordinary bravery and heroism in fighting the enemy. And that led to President Truman in 1948, ultimately having the confidence to desegregate the U.S. armed forces.

So the 333rd played a crucial role in not only winning the war, but also helping the social fabric of the United States moving forward. Today, the likely discovery of one of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion's gun batteries offers an important reminder. Among the nearly 20,000 U.S. soldiers of all races, colors, and creeds, who lost their lives fighting the Nazis in the Battle of the Bulge for the many often overlooked African-American troops. I think the discovery of the hollow grounds where the 33rd fought is very important. important. It's important for me personally, but I think it's important for generations of American and European citizens. Democracy hung in the balance in December of 1944. And not for

soldiers like the 33rd, we wouldn't be looking at the freedoms that we have today. Thanks for exploring the past with us today. If you like this episode, please be sure to follow for more. New episodes every Tuesday and Thursday. Don't forget to leave a comment below, and feel free to leave us a rating or review. Your feedback helps us reach more listeners like you. And for more from the Like a Shot Network, check out Where Did Everyone Go,

Histories of the Abandoned, a deep dive into the incredible stories behind forgotten places, available now on your favorite podcast platforms. Thanks for listening.