Eighty years ago this week the German army and Italian PoWs in Scotland roll the dice for the last time

 

 The German launched a counter-attack in the Ardennes with 13 infantry and 7 armoured divisions with around one thousand tanks and assault guns. These were almost the last reserves available. The strategic goal was unclear; Hitler imagined that it would be possible to recapture Antwerp; von Rundstedt and the other generals knew this was too ambitious. Ultimately the rationale did not go far beyond hoping that a major breakthrough would somehow seriously compromise the Allied offensive. The Germans achieved complete tactical surprise, mainly because poor weather had stopped allied aerial reconaissance. The human intelligence on German dispositions which had been plentiful during the advance through France and the Low Countries had also disappeared now that the Germans were operating from their homeland. The allies did not expect an attack in the sector whose terrain favoured the defenders and it was manned by tired or inexperienced US units. 

V-2 rockets were being targeted on Antwerp to disrupt its use as a port supplying the allies which had just begun. One struck the Rex Cinema there killing 567 people, half civilians and half Allied servicemen, more than half of the audience for the "The Plainsman" with Gary Cooper. This was the most lethal V-2 hit of the entire war. 

97 Italian prisoners of war broke out of a camp at Doonfoot in Ayrshire despite freezing cold and snow through a clandestine tunnel that they had dug. This was more than the RAF PoWs who broke out of Stalag Luft III in the "great escape." The camp held dedicated Fascists categorized as "non cooperators", as distinct from the vast majority of Italian captives in Britain who caused no difficulty. Apart from removing red patches on their units which denoted their PoW status, little had been done to prepare for the next stage of the escape. All were soon recaptured and it is doubtful any even got out of Scotland.