This excerpt from a speech given at the 2001 35th Division reunion by Brig. Gen. William Carlson provides a fine description of the role of the American GI in this brutal battle.
The speech is found on the Division association’s outstanding and comprehensive web page.
http://www.35thinfdivassoc.com/Ardennes/carlson_speech.shtml
“The real story of the Battle of the Bulge is the story of these soldiers and the intense combat action of the small units: the squads, the platoons, the companies, and the soldiers who filled their ranks. For the most part they were children of the 20’s – citizen soldiers, draftees – young men hardly more than boys.
“Resourceful, tough, and tempered as hard as steel in the crucible of the Great Depression, these men were as tough as the times in which they were raised. These are the men who made up the fighting strength of the divisions, carried out the orders of the Generals and engaged the Germans in mortal combat:
Battalion commanders and Company commanders — young, lean, tough, battle-wise and toil-worn.
And Second lieutenants – newly minted officers and gentlemen, some still sporting peach fuzz on their upper lips – too young to require a razor.
And Grizzly NCO’s with faces chiseled and gaunt by the gnawing stress of battle and the rigors of a soldier’s life in combat.
And seasoned troopers, scroungy and unkempt, but battle-hardened, competent and disciplined in the automatic habits of war never learned in school. …
The battle was very personal for them. Concerned with the fearful and consuming task of fighting and staying alive, these men did not think of the battle in terms of the ‘Big Picture’ represented on the situation maps at higher headquarters. They knew only what they could see and hear in the chaos of the battle around them. They knew and understood the earth for which they fought, the advantage of holding the high ground and the protection of the trench or foxhole. They could distinguish the sounds of the German weffers and the screaming sound of incoming German 88’s. …
They knew the overwhelming loneliness of the battlefield, the feeling of despair, confusion and uncertainty that prevails in units in retreat. And they knew that feeling of utter exhaustion — the inability of the soldier’s flesh and blood to continue on, yet they must, or die.
Even Mother Nature was their enemy with bitterly cold weather. The ground was frozen solid. The skies were gray. The days were short, with daylight at 8 and darkness by 4. The nights were long and frigid and snow, knee-deep, covered the battlefield. GI’s, their bodies numb, were blue-lipped and chilled to the bone. …
When the chips were down and the situation was desperate, the American soldier, molded in the adversity of the Great Depression, proved to be unusually adept at taking charge of the situation and “going into business for himself” on the battlefield. GIs on that battlefield were craftier than crows in a cornfield.
These are the soldiers who, when their officers lay dead and their sergeants turned white, held the enemy at bay in the days when the heavens were falling and the battlefield was in flames with all the fire and noise humanly possible for over a million warriors to create.
For a brief moment in history, these men held our nation’s destiny in their hands. They did not fail us. Theirs was the face of victory. Super heroes—super patriots. Their legacy – victory, victory in the greatest battle ever fought by the United States Army.
But the cost of victory was high. There, on that cold, brutal field of battle, 19,000 young Americans answered the angel’s trumpet call and had their rendezvous with death.
Back home in America, Western Union telegraph lines hummed with those dreaded messages of sadness: “The Secretary of War regrets to inform you” — telegrams that forever shattered the lives of the innocent, bringing tears and sadness to homes across our land. Aged mothers and the youthful wives must bear the burden of grief throughout the remainder of their lives.
We muster here tonight to honor and pay tribute to all those brave young warriors who served with honor and won that battle. We are reminded of what their journey through life has left behind for us.
The warriors of “the greatest generation”, a generation that is taking their final curtain calls and soon will leave the stage of life. They have passed “Old Glory” on to the next generation unsoiled, their swords untarnished, their legacy a great nation under God, with liberty, justice and freedom for all.
