On the morning of 22 December 1944, four German soldiers walked toward the American lines outside Bastogne under a white flag. They carried a typed letter.
The town had been surrounded for two days. Inside it were the 101st Airborne Division and whatever other units had been caught there when the German offensive swept through the Ardennes. The letter, signed by General Heinrich von Lüttwitz, said that the encirclement was complete and that there was only one way to avoid annihilation: honorable surrender. The Americans had two hours to think it over. After that, an artillery corps would open fire.
“Aw, nuts”
The letter was passed up from a glider infantry company to the division command post. The 101st's commander was away in the United States, so it reached his deputy, Brigadier General Anthony McAuliffe.
McAuliffe read it and said, according to those in the room, “Aw, nuts.” Then he sat down to write a proper reply and found he did not know what to say. One of his staff officers, Lieutenant Colonel Harry Kinnard, pointed out that he already had.
The answer was typed out in full:
To the German Commander. NUTS! The American Commander.
Lost in translation
Colonel Joseph Harper, who commanded the glider infantry regiment holding that part of the line, took the paper back to the waiting Germans. The German major read it and did not understand. Harper explained: in plain English, it meant go to hell.
The choice of word was not a joke for the newspapers. McAuliffe's aide later said he was the only general he ever knew who did not swear, and that “nuts” was simply part of the way he talked.
The threatened artillery bombardment never came in the form the letter described. The attacks did, and the Luftwaffe bombed the town at night. The 101st held until 26 December, when tanks of the 4th Armored Division broke through from the south.
The set
COBI's Battle of the Bulge 1944, set 2065, is a 75-block diorama with six figures from both sides of the Ardennes winter — among them a 101st Airborne paratrooper with a bazooka, an M1 carbine and the Screaming Eagle patch on his shoulder. Sets 2064 Battle of Berlin, 2063 Monte Cassino and 2061 Stalingrad are six-figure scenes from the same series.
It is available to pre-order. The expected shipping month is shown on the product page, and you can cancel any time before it ships.
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