Operation Northwind, planned by the Führer himself, hurled eight German divisions, three of them S.S., against the thinly held American line in the Alsace-Lorraine region.

Few except those who fought it know anything about this second Battle of the Bulge, which cost the Americans and their French comrades-in-arms nearly as many casualties and almost destroyed the alliance.

Because Eisenhower determined to evacuate Strasbourg, for a few days, while American troops fought for their lives in the snow-bound hills of Alsace-Lorraine, it looked as if the Franco-American alliance might be broken apart and France thrown into something akin to revolution.