[Illustration: BELGIUM A MEMBER OF AN 81-MM. MORTAR CREW listening to firing orders from a battalion command post.] [Illustration: BELGIUM INFANTRYMEN ADVANCING UNDER ENEMY SHELL FIRE. On 15 January 1945, on the left of the First Army zone, an attack was begun from the Butgenbach-Malmédy positions. By 19 January First Army had secured the defiles southwest of Butgenbach. The attack launched toward Saint-Vith continued to gain ground, and on 23 January Saint-Vith was recaptured.] [Illustration: BELGIUM FIRST ARMY TROOPS, wearing snow camouflage capes, advance.] [Illustration: BELGIUM MEN OF AN AIRBORNE UNIT preparing to board trucks which will take them to a rest area after being relieved at the front. On 24 January the First and Third Armies’ boundary was shifted north in the general line Saint-Vith-Losheim-Ahr River and attacks were to be renewed on the Saint-Vith-Bonn axis. First Army was to breach the West Wall and secure the high ground in the vicinity of Blankenheim, while Third Army was to attack with its left wing to cover the First Army.] [Illustration: GERMANY AN M5 LIGHT TANK guarding a road in the U. S. Ninth Army area, 22 January. With the collapse of the German salient in the Ardennes, preparations were made for the offensive to the Rhine by 21 Army Group. The Germans held the triangle south of Roermond between the Meuse and Roer Rivers. This was a serious threat to the left flank of the Ninth Army and had to be eliminated before the army could advance across the Roer to the Rhine plain. The task of eliminating this salient was assigned to the British Second Army and by 26 January was completed.] [Illustration: FRANCE SEVENTH ARMY TROOPS entering a fortress of the Maginot Line, near Bitche, France, which had been taken in the December fighting. Reduction of the strongly defended forts of the Maginot Line was halted when the Ardennes fighting began. The new Seventh Army front included the three following areas: the Saare Valley in Lorraine; the low Vosges mountains; and the northern Alsace plain between the mountains and the Rhine.] [Illustration: FRANCE MEMBERS OF A SEVENTH ARMY ARTILLERY UNIT unloading powder charges for their 240-mm. howitzer (top); 3-inch gun motor carriage firing on enemy positions at night (bottom). On 20 December 1944 the 6th Army Group abandoned its offensive and relieved the Third Army in the region westward to Saarlautern to defend against any enemy penetration in Alsace-Lorraine. The offensive was stopped even though many pillboxes in the West Wall had been taken, and during the last ten days of December the Seventh Army regrouped its forces and deployed its troops.] [Illustration] [Illustration: FRANCE