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Christmas was the turning point. As darkness fell the next day, a sentry spotted several U.S. Sherman tanks rolling down a ridge from the south. He alerted the outposts ; captured Shermans had carried Germans up to the lines before, and sentries had been shot down.
The Big Break. Out of the leading Sherman's turret popped a bandaged head. The man with the bandage and the big shiner on his right eye yelled the proper password. He was Lieut. Colonel Creighton ("Abe") Abrams, commanding the 4th Armored Division's rescue spearhead.
Bastogne's ordeal was not entirely over. That night the Germans cut the narrow shaft Colonel Abrams' men had carved, and Bastogne got more shells from the other sides. But the narrow path was cleared next day and General Patton's tanks lanced on into the German bulge while Bastogne's wounded & weary went out to safety in a convoy of ambulances and trucks.
For the 101st Airborne's men there were two surprises: their regular commander, tall, 43-year-old Major General Maxwell Davenport Taylor, had ridden into Bastogne with the relief outfit (he had been in the U.S. for consultation, had reached the front from Washington in less than two days); the Screaming Eagles were being relieved while there were still more Krauts around to kill.
The 101st Airborne and the others, along with a sky full of trigger-happy pilots, had created another epic of U.S. arms at Bastogne. They had never let the enemy seriously penetrate their outposts. They had punished him severely. The ground forces alone had destroyed 148 tanks and the German dead were counted in thousands. Bastogne's defenders had made possible a tactical success that might be turned into a large-scale victory.
History would probably award Bastogne a high place in the important battles of 1944. But the men of the 101st Airborne were confused by the adulation poured upon them. Snorted one: "What the hell —everybody in this outfit is just crazy, including me. If we weren't we wouldn't be in it."