Battle of Lanzerath Ridge – Weirdness Wednesdays July 8, 2020

I saw this on YouTube today – The Battle of Lanzerath Ridge – How 18 American Soldiers Stopped the Entire 1st SS Panzer Division – YouTube Video Dark Docs https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__DpninsWP4 (about 11:08 minutes long). Thought it was an excellent Weirdness Wednesdays post for this week. I consider it weird, in a positive way, because so few held out against so many for so long. I think the unit deserves recognition for its efforts. I appreciate Lt. Bouck when he was interviewed for this book – https://www.amazon.com/Longest-Winter-Battle-Decorated-Platoon/dp/0306814404 (not an affiliate link) that he had one condition he imposed on the author – that the author talk about the other members of the unit.

I found this battle impressive as 18 – 25 Americans held out for 15-20 hours (depends on the source as to how long they held out) against 500 – 550 Germans on the first day of the Battle of the Bulge. The Americans were part of a unit that was not supposed to engage the enemy as they were an Information and Reconnaissance unit. By delaying the German advance for so long, they helped stop what could have been a bad situation had the Germans broken through much earlier in the day. Even more surprising were the odds against them, estimated at 20-1 to 27-1. In most cases, with those odds, a defending force as lightly armed as the Americans would have been overwhelmed a lot faster.

Other Weirdness Wednesdays posts: https://upsdownsfamilyhistory.wordpress.com/tag/Weirdness-Wednesdays/