On 16th December 1944 Hitler launched his great assault on the West. In what became known as the Battle of the Bulge, three American divisions tried to stop three German armies, but within a week those divisions were decimated and the surprise German counter-attack developed into the greatest land-battle fought by the US in this century. But was it a surprise counter-attack, as Eisenhower always claimed? This reassessment of the battle contains evidence which indicates that the American Supreme Commander deliberately used the three divisions at the front as bait to lure the Germans out of their Siegfried Line fortifications. The price was high; 20,000 young Americans were killed, captured or wounded, and half a century later the author found when researching for this book that, despite the US Freedom of Information Act, doors were closed to him.