Stubbornly proud, officers and men of the 101st Airborne Division long after the war maintained that they had not been in need of any rescuing by the Third Army when it broke the German siege on 26 December 1944. But, as I show in my book on Bastogne, the postwar testimony of their acting commander, General Anthony McAuliffe, tells a slightly different story. On 30 December 1944, just four days after the siege was broken, and at a time when German forces were fanatically hurtling themselves against Third Army reinforcements, Patton shrugged off the danger that threatened to wash over the fragile corridor into Bastogne. Incredibly, the army commander decided the time had come to risk a quick dash to the Belgian town. He insisted on personally decorating the most outstanding airborne commanders of the siege. McAuliffe was dumbstruck to see the commander of the Third Army climb out of his vehicle in the midst of the cauldron. Several decades later, McAuliffe, known for his rather sedate demeanor, recalled: “When Patton arrived, I embraced him. I dragged him to my jeep and made a tour of the town. I guess I wasn’t thinking clearly anymore.”
