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The Ardennes Offensive, officially named the Battle of the Ardennes and known to the general public as the Battle of the Bulge, started on December 16, 1944. It was supported by subordinate operations known as Hermann, Greif, and Wahrung, by the Germans. The goal of these operations were to split the Allied line in half, capturing Antwerp and then proceeding to encircle and destroy four Allied armies, forcing the Western Allies to negotiate a peace treaty in the Axis' favour. The "bulge" refers to the extension of the German lines in this battle, forming a growing salient into Allied controlled territory, seen clearly in maps presented in newspapers of the time.

Although the German objective was ultimately unrealized, the Allies' slow response to the penetration set their own offensive timetable back by months. The offensive was also counter-productive as many experienced units of the German army were left depleted and in a poor state of supply outside the defenses of the Siegfried Line. In numerical terms, the Battle of the Ardennes was the largest land battle in the history of the U.S. Army.

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Anniversaries

January 17

• 1781 - American Revolutionary War: Battle of Cowpens - Continental troops under Brigadier General Daniel Morgan defeat British forces under Lieutenant Colonel Banastre Tarleton at the battle in South Carolina.
• 1873 - First Battle of the Stronghold in the US Modoc War.
• 1966 - A B-52 bomber collides with a KC-135 Stratotanker over Palomares, Spain, dropping three 70-kiloton nuclear bombs near the town and another one into the sea.
• 1966 - Carl Brashear, the first African American United States Navy diver, during the h-bomb recovery suffers an accident on deck which crushes his leg, which is later amputated.
• 1991 - Gulf War: Operation Desert Storm began early in the morning. Iraq fires 8 Scud missiles into Israel in an unsuccessful bid to provoke Israeli retaliation.

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Equipment

The M998 High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle is a highly durable military motor vehicle. It has largely supplanted the role formerly served by the Jeep and other light trucks with the United States military.

There are at least 17 variants of the HMMWV in service with the United States armed forces. HMMWV serve as cargo/troop carriers, automatic weapons platforms, ambulances, M220 TOW missile carriers, M119 howitzer prime movers, M-1097 Avenger Pedestal Mounted Stinger platforms, MRQ-12 direct air support vehicles, S250 shelter carriers among many others.

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Benjamin Franklin Tilley (March 29, 1848 – March 18, 1907), was a career officer in the United States Navy who served from the end of the American Civil War through the Spanish–American War. He is best remembered as the first Acting-Governor of American Samoa.

Tilley entered the United States Naval Academy during the height of the Civil War. Graduating after the conflict, he gradually rose through the ranks. As a lieutenant, he participated in the United States military's crackdown against workers in the wake of the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. During the Chilean Civil War of 1890, Tilley and a small contingent of sailors and marines defended the American consulate in Santiago, Chile. As a commander during the Spanish-American War, Tilley and his gunship, the USS Newport, successfully captured two Spanish Navy ships. After the war, Tilley was made the first acting-Governor of Tutuila and Manua (later called American Samoa) and set legal and administrative precedents for the new territory. Near the conclusion of his 41 years of service, he was promoted to rear admiral, but died shortly afterwards from pneumonia.

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