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The blunting of the 1st SS Panzer Division’s attack is among the 35th Tank Battalion’s most significant achievements (the masterful attack at Troyes, spearheaded by C/35 under the command of Captain Crosby “Dick” Miller, also being near the top of the list). I wish they were all that dumb.” The achievements of the 35th Tank Battalion were often overshadowed by the more famous exploits of their sister tank battalions in the division (Creighton Abrams’s 37th Tank Battalion, and Albin Irzyk’s 8th Tank Battalion). Recalling his unit’s achievement after the action was completed, Kingsley stated, “If that German tank company commander isn’t dead I wish they would make him a battalion commander.

It was Kingsley’s understrength company of six Sherman tanks that artfully ambushed the Mark IV’s of the Leibstandarte (B Company had arrived at the Bulge with 14 tanks, and had seen its numbers whittled down to six after eight days of continuous action). On that 30th day of December, Lieutenant John Kingsley was the commander of B Company, 35th Tank Battalion. There is one account that sticks out in my mind as being particularly worth telling. I am certain your readers would find the American point of view to be of equal interest.

Reynolds places much focus on some of the personal accounts from the German side of the hill. As the author of Patton’s Vanguard: The United States Army Fourth Armored Division, I read with great interest Major General Michael Reynolds’s article (March 2007 issue) regarding the 1st SS Panzer Division’s attack against the east side of the Bastogne relief corridor.