Christmas Eve at Bastogne

The 101st Airborne reached Bastogne on December 19, 1944, and by the 21st every road out of the town was in German hands. For two days low cloud sat on the Ardennes and nothing could fly. Ammunition ran short. Surgeons worked without plasma. On the 22nd the German commander invited the garrison to surrender and General McAuliffe answered with one word.

On the morning of December 23 the sky cleared. C-47s of IX Troop Carrier Command came over the perimeter at treetop height and the snow filled with colored parachutes — ammunition, rations, medical supplies. The drops continued through Christmas Eve.

That night German bombers hit the town and a direct hit destroyed an aid station. Patton's tanks reached the perimeter on the afternoon of the 26th.

A sergeant stands up out of the foxhole line and waves at the sky with his whole arm. Below him the riflemen stay down, eyes on the treeline, because the drop has not changed the war yet. The sunset and the burning farmhouse share the same orange, and against it the parachutes hang like ornaments — the only softness in a picture built from shattered pines and frozen crust. The eye rises with his arm to the C-47s, then falls back to the rifles.