AMERICAN PATRIOTISM
“If they won’t give us a flag, we’ll make one,” said First Lieutenant Samuel Lombardo, platoon leader Second Platoon, Company I, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Division, during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The platoon made this United States 48-star flag from scraps of cloth sewn on a white German surrender flag.
When Company I crossed the Remagen Bridge, their flag, only one side completed, became the first American flag in the 99th Division east of the Rhine River. During breaks in the battle, working mostly by candlelight, the flag was completed after two and one-half months, on the banks of the Danube River.
The flag is in the collection of the National Infantry Museum, Fort Benning, Georgia.
Back Row: Left to Right: Pfc. Gordon Wetherby, Charlestown, NH; T/Sgt Isadore Rosen, Pittsburgh, PA; Pfc. George E. Bellaire, Dayton, OH; 1st Lt. Samuel Lombardo, Altoona, PA
Front Row: Left to Right: Corp. Cury Beauvais, Chicopee Falls, MA; S/Sgt William Junod, Wyandotte, MI
Published by Lombardo Books, Carlisle, PA 17013
Printed by Beidel Printing House Inc. Shippensburg, PA 17257