Marching Orders: The Untold Story of How the American Breaking of the Japanese Secret Codes Led to the Defeat of Nazi Germany and Japan

by Bruce Lee

The report acknowledges that Allied aerial reconnaissance during November “constructed an imposing picture of the German buildup in the north,” including large night movements and daytime enemy columns on the roads. And while the front facing the American VIII Corps was quiet, units of the 4th, 28th, and 106th Divisions reported in the last days before the offensive “increased vehicular activity, the fact that a woman escapee claimed that the woods were jammed with equipment,16 and four prisoners of war in U.S. hands reported that fresh troops were arriving for a big attack around 16 or 17 December, certainly before Christmas. However, only one piece of this information, that about increased vehicular traffic, reached Twelfth Army Group Headquarters in time.”