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Excerpt from Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany

Published in 1997

The Allies broke out of Normandy, France, on July 25, 1944. The Allied forces in France were made up of soldiers from Britain, Canada, France, and the United States. Their goal was to fight their way through France and Belgium and into Germany, eventually forcing the surrender of the German forces occupying most of Europe.

Allied forces made great strides throughout the summer of 1944. The French capital, Paris, was liberated from Germany's control on August 25. By December, the Allied advance on Germany was stopped in its tracks because supplies of gas, food, and ammunition were running short. The German army launched a counterattack against the Allies on December 16, 1944. More than 250,000 heavily armed German troops gathered to repel the Allies and capture...