THE BULGE
The first sign of something big that was on the menu began on December 19th at the
noon-day meal.
Our Colonel of the 39 Signal Company was looking for wire – one hundred miles by the reel.
We six truck drivers were called aside for a ride to the airport in Metz,a waste of time with no answers to the Colonel’s request.
Back at the barracks, a headquarters’ lieutenant had news of a German breakthrough in our defensive line.
From December 16th into the 23rd Nazi tanks and infantry had successful time.
The 106th and 28th Infantries felt the heat of this punch taking the brunt of a fall
A forty mile trek was the result of the German’s call.
We drivers were on the road again for a blackout ride to a depot for that wire,
Communications for the 20th Infantry Division were dependent mile reels for orders
given at Headquarters’ desire.
Sixteen miles per truck were secured before the slow drive back
A twenty mile drive without directions in the murky black.
Over coffee we heard our objective to stop the Germans was Bastogne, a city that had been reached that day,
Bastogne would become famous whenever the term “The Bulge” came into play.
After four hours sleep by eight AM, we started a seventy mile trek, mostly bumper to bumper for most of the way.
If Hitler had only known for forty road-clogged miles the U.S. 3rd Army was moving with General Patton, the top Command,
He’d show those S.O.B.s how this three division force would change the German’s battle plan.
It was stop and go through the towns of northern France with villagers showering us with schnapps, cookies and pie,
An early Christmas greeting before the snows descended upon us in the Ardennes from a darker sky.
On December 22nd the 26 Infantry Division met the German panzers near Grosbus, the southern flank’s first forces connection,
Then a steady pursuit through Eschdorf and over the Sur River toward Wiltz, the Division’s objective.
The Bulge by mid-January had made the Wiehrmacht into a crippled disaster in theEuropean west,
After five years of Nazi domination the Americans at the Bulge put their battle
superiority to rest.
The United States’ fighting forces stepped in the mantel of equality and justice for all
showed the world our way of life is still the best.
Jacob G. Zimmerer 39th Signal Company 26th Infantry Division