men caused some friction with the old hands in the short term, but the long-term effects were generally positive. Many of the 99th Division's best soldiers were products of the ill-fated ASTP program. Allied forces were fighting their way across France, and fresh units were badly needed in autumn 1944 to continue to press the offensive. The breakout from Saint-Lô, France was accomplished far more rapidly than Allied planners had dared hope, and American units plunged through the French countryside with undreamed of rapidity, far in advance of operational plans. American press reports from the European theater foretold the imminent fall of the Third Reich, and many men in Lt. Col. Butler's battalion thought that the war just might be over before they got there. This did not turn out to be true. Deployment to the front On 1 November 1944, the 99th Infantry Division, comprising the 393rd, 394th, and the 395th Infantry Regiments, was put under operational control of V Corps, First Army. On 3 November 1944, the 395th Regiment disembarked at Le Havre, France. The 395th were moved by train and truck, and finally by foot, to front line positions near the German town of Höfen a few kilometers west of the Siegfried Line and near the Belgium-German border. No one had anticipated such a rapid Allied advance. Troops were fatigued by weeks of continuous combat, Allied supply lines were stretched extremely thin, and supplies were dangerously depleted. While the supply situation improved in October, the manpower situation was still critical. General Eisenhower and his staff chose the Ardennes region, held by the First Army, as an area that could be held by as few troops as possible. The Ardennes area was chosen because of a lack of operational objectives for the Allies, the terrain offered good defensive positioning, roads were lacking, and the Germans were known to be using the area within Germany to the east as a rest and refit area for their troops. Col. Butler went ahead to look over the area they were assigned to defend. He found that his 600 riflemen were assigned an extremely large area about long without any units in reserve. That is three to four times wider than recommended by Army textbooks. I never dreamed that we would have a defensive position of this size without any backup or help from our division or regiment. When I got to