My grand parents on Dad side emigrated from Belgium to Chicago, Illinois in the late 1800. Dad was raised and educated in Chicago. During World War One he was in Belgium and was injured in combat near Ypres, Belgium. He worked for various American companies and in the early thirties he met Lawrence Hammond , who invented the Hammond Organ, which were manufactured in Chicago. Dad was asked to become the general manager of Hammond Organ International, responsible for Europe and Africa.

While in Belgium he met Mother, who was born a Belgium and was one of the youngest Belgians decorated by the King of England for act of valor during World War One. Since Mother was born in 1903 and the war ended in 1918, what ever Mother did was within her first fifteen year. I was born an American citizen and registered at the U.S. Embassy in Brussels Belgium on January 24, 1928. I am the oldest of nine (9) children. Of the four boys, Louis (# 5) and Peter (# 6) finished Captains U. S. Air Force, Peter was a F-100 jet fighter pilot. Butch (#9) last I.D. card read Brigadier General Beaudouin de Marcken, he finished as U.S. Ambassador to Madagascar appointed by President George Bush senior.

I was trained as an infantry soldier in the 9th Infantry Division. For us World War Two started on May 10, 1940, when the Germans attacked Belgium. We were in the second line of defense called the K-W line, we had 18 pill boxes ( small concrete bunkers) on the property. At the entrance of the driveway we had a main anchor of the long line of anti tank barriers called the “Cointet Barriers”. The next think we saw were the British Royal Artillery, they installed a Battery of sixteen (16″) inch guns on our lawn. These were monsters, every time they fired we expected the roof of the house to jump off the foundations. Then came the ” French Zouave” these were fearless fighter coming from Algeria. These infantry soldiers came running bare feet, they had fixed bayonets, and were shouting :” Ou sont les boches ?.” = ” Where are the Krauts ?”.

As a young twelve year old these men literally fascinated me. They carried their booth, which were tied by the shoe laces, around their necks; however they also carried a necklace, it was a string with odd brownish and shriveled pieces strung on the string. After a while I asked one of them :”What is this…?” the response was amazing. The proud Zouave pointed to the rubber looking pieces and said : “Every time I kill a German, I cut off his hears, so I can keep track of my kills.” No need to tell you that these men were not ordinary soldiers. Within four days we were forced out of the house and we were on the road towards France. Dad drove a Pontiac and Mother an Opel. We were very lucky, the German “Stukas” did on purpose to strafe the civilian vehicles, this created havoc and stopped all military traffic, the German planes strafed in front or at the back of us, we were never affected.

By the time we arrived in Azy-le-Vif, in central France the Germans caught up with us. We were forced to head back to Belgium. The first night was spent at our grand mother’s house in Buysingen, Belgium. The next morning Dad and I left to see if our home was still intact. We arrived in the woods of the Chateau de l’ Etoile, were we lived, to find the home occupied by the German air force motor pool. The little German Lieutenant stood on the entrance steps to look down on us. He pointed his arm towards the driveway and shouted in German, by the way Dad knew German fluently, “Germany a big country…the United States a small country… Raus…! In other words get the hell out. Dad drove to the U. Embassy in Brussels, Belgium to ask for assistance and be able to reacquire the house. After all America was not at war with the Germans, we were neutral. It took eight days before we ere allowed back in to the rented house.

The lousy krauts had plugged all eleven toilets, defecated in all the beds, urinated all over the house, and broken all our furniture. What a mess. It took two weeks of cleaning and repairing before we children were allowed in the house. Of course as United States citizens we were not harassed by the German, who were not allowed on our property. Obviously all that changed suddenly on December 7, 1941, when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor and four days later Hitler declared war on the United States. Now we were enemies. It did not take long for the Germans to arrest Dad as he was coming back from work. Luckily the German placed Dad temporarily in a Belgium Gendarme cell.

He Belgian having suffered a great deal during World War One, (Read the book: ” The Rape of Belgium.” Written by Larry Zuckerman. this book has the ISBN – 0-8147-9704-0 ), are very patriotic and anti the German oppression. Two Gendarmes came on bicycle in the dark to notify Mother that her husband would not come home. They told mother to prepare a bundle of warm clothes and some dried food; they also told Mother to enter the Gendarmerie through the back gate, which would be left open for her. At least this way Dad would not be without some change of clothes. Early the next day the Germans moved Dad to the infamous prison of Saint Gilles in Brussels; however when Mother tried to find out where Dad was kept, they refused to answer her questions. Mother knew the stupidity of the German race, which was brainwashed by Hitler, who told every woman that it was her duty to build a large family.

Hitler of course was always looking for more young men to become soldiers. After a whole day searching from one German office to another, Mother got angry and said to the next German paper pusher : ” I am the Mother of Nine (9) children and I wonder what your fuehrer would say if he saw you!” Immediately the German soldier jumped up, he saluted and said ” Nine children ?” “Yes ” said Mother, then the soldier thumbed through a roster and told Mother that Dad was a prisoner at Saint Gilles. A month later was transferred to the Beverloo Camp, which was considered a very lenient camp. While there the Swedish Embassy got a pass for most of the families of the American and British civilian prisoners to once see some members of their family. While Dad was a member of a neutral country he enjoyed the fact that no German was allowed on the property. He was the only person in the village who had a vehicle, which was a small Italian Lancia. Dad and Mother were very patriotic and courageous and obvious took advantage of being protected by the U.S. Government.

On the front door of the house and on the back side window of the car they had a formal affidavit issued by the U.S. Embassy stating that this was property of the U.S. Government. As a result my sister Anne (# 4 ) and I remember very well certain afternoons, when members of the underground would come to the house, they would wait until dark and disappear. We would stay awake and listen, then we heard a plane pass very low over the valley and fly away. We found out after the war that a British plane would come and drop weapons and ammunition over the cow pasture located in the valley. The shipment was hidden and in the next few weeks Dad would deliver them to different underground cells all over Belgium. This of course stopped as soon as the United States became Hitler’s enemy number one. Dad had also built chutes in the rafters of the fourth floor, which was in reality an attic. These were hiding places for allied airmen and other men moving from place to place in their attempt to go through France, cross Spain without being arrested by the Spanish police, who were funded by the German Nazi party, and reach Portugal.

The Portugal people were always ready to help allied airmen get back to England. Dad was weighing 184 pounds when he was arrested the first time, he came home more than two years later weighing 109 pounds. While in the German camps of Tittmoning and Laufen he was never beaten or tortured, the Germans were always afraid of U.S. reprisal; however they did not feed the prisoners, many died of lack of nutrition. The prisoners survived on U.S. special parcels for prisoners and some dry food sent by their families. Mother tried once in a while to send a package of macaroni. One of these packages was never eaten by Dad. Why ?? In Belgium the Italian soldiers were not known for their courage, according to the Belgian the Italian Army had a motto : Fight and run away so as to be able to fight another day !! The Belgians had a pejorative name for Italians, who always waited for the last minute to join the German invaders in 1914 and again in 1940, they were called “Macaronis”. Dad hid the pack of macaroni until the day the Italian Army capitulated, that morning Dad cut up the macaroni in little pieces, he gave them to every prisoner, who stuck the piece on their clothing.

When the German saw this display at roll call, they were furious. It took them a few days to figure out who was the culprit. Dad was punished by being place in an outdoor dark cell for three days with no food and only water to drink. Why was he shipped home ?? As the Germans were wining in Africa, they did not care if American prisoners died in camp; however as the German lost Africa and were not doing well in Italy, the Germans became afraid of reprisals. If a U. S. citizen was ready to die, he or she would be sent home to die. Dad had a kidney removed in 1936, in camp he survive but was not well, this prompted one of the prisoners, namely, Doctor Bobea to tell Dad :” Gus the next time I find out that the Germans have a medical check of the prisoners, I will let you know, you will try not to drink for three days before the test, the last drop of urine will show that your last kidney is deteriorating and the Germans might send you home. The ruse worked. We of course had no idea of this subterfuge. We were at church that Sunday early in November 1943. Note that by respect for any one taken away by the Germans, their seats were never occupied; one has to understand that in Belgium the Churches do not have benches as we have in the States, each individual has his own chair.

This Sunday as always Dad’s chair was empty, Mother was on the next chair and some of the older children, who could walk more than a mile in the cold were also in attendance. During the service a very skinny, hunched, and bearded man, who was wearing a dirty khaki coat came in church and sat in Dad’s chair. Obviously Mother kept her eyes on the altar, while us kids were not that polite, we looked and wonder why this beggar looking fellow would sit on Dad’s chair, when many other chairs were free; within thirty second the hobo looking man took his elbow and shoved it in Mother’s ribs and said in English :” Are you going to kiss me ??” Note that Mother and Father always spoke English amongst themselves. No need to tell you that this was very emotional reunion. Mother did a great deal of sacrifices to get back in half decent health. They resumed their involvement in the ” AL ” = Army of Liberation, which was a well respected underground organization involved in sabotaging the German rail road, the power lines, and communication system, etc… This time Dad was betrayed by a Spanish women working for the Germans. She told the enemy that she had seen Gustave R. de Marcken helping allied airmen escape out of Belgium. The Germans picked up Dad on August 2, 1944. He was condemned to death by firing squad that same evening. However the Germans are very rigid in their bureaucracy, he was scheduled to be executed on September 12, 1944, as far as the Germans are concerned, that order cannot be changed.

So Dad was sent to the infamous prison of Saint Gilles in Brussels, he was on death row in a small one man cell with two other Belgian men, who were also condemned to death for sabotage of German equipment. Dad was again very lucky. The United States troops entered Belgium on September 2, 1944. At two AM the next day the Germans took all the Saint Gilles prisoners, they were about 1,500 women and men all condemned to death, these prisoners were packed up to 108 prisoners per little Belgian Box Cars called 40 and 8. The name of these box cars came about because the Belgian Army had painted on all the RR box cars:” Forty men or eight horses”. Again dad was lucky the Germans had packed his box car with only ninety two (92) prisoners. To compound the luck the three Belgian engineers, ordered by the Germans to conduct this train towards Germany, were all three members of a Flemish underground cell; they knew the Belgian Rail Road system like the back of their hands, the German guards never realize that these three heroes were sabotaging the German orders.

First they leaked out the water out of the steam engine, which force the train to stop to replenish the water tank. Then they told the Germans that one of the wheel bearing was damaged and had to be replaced. During that time they were able to notify their underground headquarters that this train was not a German train but rather a train full of Belgian heroes, as a result the train was never strafed by the P-47 Thunderbolts. Originally what the U.S. History Channel calls the “Belgian Ghost” train, was directed towards Malines, Belgium, from there it was supposed to head for Germany; however the train came smack into the escape route of the German Divisions trying to get out of France. A German General ordered the “Ghost Train” to head back to Brussels, the three train engineers were Flemish speaking Belgians’ who were members of a underground resistance cell, they knew that the train should never end at the Brussels North or South Stations, which had direct tracks towards Germany.

These three heroes manipulated the switches to head the train into the repair shop called ” La Petite Ile.” This shop was known to be a “Cul de sac”, it had a very large turntable capable of redirecting the engines towards the incoming/outgoing track. By the time the German Wehrmacht guards realize the situation, it was too late and they were more interested in saving their own skins than getting the prisoners to Germany. They unhooked the box cars and took off with the flat bed car carrying machine guns. It did not take too long for the prisoners to bust the floors of their box cars and free themselves. They all scattered into Brussels and disappeared. Dad decided to walk back home, roughly fifteen miles through the Soigne Forest. Note that Dad had just gone through exactly one month on death row, he was in a one man cell of the infamous Saint Gilles prison in Brussels. In this little cell the Germans kept three (3) prisoners all of them condemned to death for sabotaging the Nazi armed forces.

Dad was fifty three (53) years old and in very poor heath. By the time he reached roughly two and a half miles from the house, he heard what he thought was a terrible battle, machine gun fire, explosions, etc… Effectively it was not a battle, but rather a beating of the Germans. A long column of German Wehrmacht soldiers were coming from the village of Rixensart and heading for the village of Bierges- lez-Wavre, Belgium. These troops were trying desperately to get back to there father’s land. Their trucks had literally ran out of fuel, they were pulled by beautiful Belgian draft horses, the Germans had stolen from the farms located along their path. Mother, two of my brothers, one sister and I were in the wood, roughly two hundred feet from the road, when suddenly I recognized the sound of U.S. Air Corps P-47 Thunderbolts. Sixteen of them in flights of four came swooping down to strafe the German column.

We ran back home, as we reached the farm yard the P-47 were at tree top level, each plane firing their four 50 caliber machine guns; it was sunny and the sun reflected on the bullets coming out of the machine guns. It was as if copper bars were heading for the ground. The planes flew right over our heads, the noise was unbelievable. Pete and I hugged a large beech tree hoping that the pilots would not mistake us for the lousy krauts. We were so close to the road that we could hear the German soldiers and the horses scream of pain as they were hit by the 50 caliber shells. Obviously after four and a half years of Nazi oppression, hunger, and being scared, all this noise and the trucks full of ammunition exploding were simply music to our ears. During a lull we rushed in the kitchen for more protection. By the way the kitchen was in the cellar,however it could be reached from the out side by means of outside steps, the kitchen also had a window, which was open because it was very warm on that day. We were all in that big kitchen and I will never forget my baby brother “Butch”, who was just four (4) years old at the time, shouting in English :” The next American plane will bring back Daddy.” Difficult to believe, but at exactly the same time the next flight of P-47 passed over the house , Dad came running down the steps. Dad literally fell on the floor of the kitchen, he was green, he looked awful, and he rolled and wiggled in pain.

Poor mother knelt at his side trying to calm him down. We all thought that Dad passing away in front of our eyes. It took months for Dad to slowly recover, his liver had been badly affected and he had to be very careful as to what he was eating. Two days later we were liberated. What a joyful yet scary day!! We children did not know that Mother had made a vow to sew a Unites States Flag, which would fly on the house at liberation. We found out after liberation that at night, when she was sure that the German guard was asleep, she would pull out her little foot pedal activated “Singer” sewing machine and would sew parts of the U.S. Flag, which she would hide under the floor of her bedroom, she had loosen a board in the floor and had a small piece of furniture sitting over the loose board. Mother knew the Flag had thirteen stripes and forty eight stars,(Hawaii and Alaska were not States at that time) however Dad being a prisoner in Germany could not tell Mother that the U.S. Stars were to point up. So I have the only U.S. Flag made during WWII and hidden from the Germans, which has Stars pointing down. What a treasure !!

On 5 September 1944 Mother came back on bicycle, she was all excited. She had heard in the village that the U.S. troops were coming, she rushed home and told me to go in her room, slide a certain piece of furniture aside, lift a floor board and find a U.S. Flag and raise it on the third floor over the front entrance. All of us were so proud to see our Flag on the house for the first time in more than four (4) years. She then quickly went back to Wavre to find the first American soldiers. Within an hour or so she came back in total perspiration, she was pedaling her bicycle as fast as possible. She shouted to me : ” Christian take the Flag down, they are three German tanks at the end of the driveway; luckily for us the driveway was in the woods and was sinuous, the Germans could not see the house from the road. You never saw a skinny sixteen year old climb up three stories as fast as I did. I can tell you that Mother’s Flag was taken down and I did not fold it according to the Flag rules, it was rolled in a ball and shoved under the floor as fast as my two legs could get back in my parents bedroom.

That was a close one !! If the Germans had seen this Flag they would have blown the house down and Mother would have been executed on the spot. In October two (2) Batteries of British Ack-Ack = Anti Aircraft Artillery were moved one in front of out home and the other about a mile at the back of the house. The Battery in front of the house was about fifteen hundred (1,500) feet from our home, this Battery was run by men, while the other Battery was run strictly by British women, who did not know that our home was in the woods. The first morning they fired their three point five (3.5″) inch guns, which have to be cleared every morning, right over the house, what a surprise to suddenly receive a rain of shrapnels. Luckily none of us were injured. Mother took her bicycle and went to see Major John Spence, the commander of the closest Battery, she offered the house as billets for the men. Mother was astonished to see this very young Major pull out his map and very politely say :” Sorry Lady no house is located on my map.”. Mother who was known to be a crack shot and good hunter, was very familiar with maps. She pointed out to the Major that his map was dated 1917 and that her home had been built in 1923. was not there, however I do remember Mother’s comments about her first interaction with Major Spence.

He was most polite, however Mother could read his body English, which said :” This lady does not know what she is talking about. She offering to lodge the men of my battery at her home.” Apparently Major Spence said :” Would you mind if I followed you to the house? He called corporal Ginger and asked him to get the “Jeep” to follow the lady on bicycle. Mother was waiting for the moment he would see the house. It was a huge four (4) story castle with full cellar. Mother always chuckle about John Spence’s reaction when he got out of the “Jeep”. From that day on and until mid December, at six thirty (6:30) AM lorries would come and pick up the day shift of soldiers and at seven fifteen (7:15) AM the lorries (British way to call a truck) would be back in front of the house and the night shift would unload November 1944 saw a great deal of activity. The “V1″ = Buzz bombs were increasingly passing over our area and the two British Royal Ack-Ack batteries were very busy firing their 3.5 inch guns. Christmas eve was very exciting, it was cold, foggy, and very dark, when around six (6) PM we heard a V1 coming at excessively low level, the explosive propulsion device ( It had not engine) was blasting the noise was very unusual. All the British soldiers were shouting :” Get a long the walls…protect yourself…” All occupied rooms has black out curtains so as not to give out our location to the German planes.

We presume, however we will never know, that due to the atmospheric conditions, the freezing mist must have iced up the stubby wings of this unmanned Buzz Bomb. Resulting on the weight of ice forcing the “V1” to slowly propel itself down. My brother Louis jumped on the dining room window sill and placed himself between the curtain and the window pane, while my brother Peter and I ran out the house. Within seconds the “V1” flew at tree top level over the castle and crashed unluckily a half mile down the valley, hitting three (3) little game keeper’s houses, which simply disappeared. We never found a trace of the bodies, which were blown to pieces. When the V1 blew up I saw my brother Pete’s hair go straight in the air; the deflagration was so powerful, it was similar to a sudden wind. We ran back in to the house to find Louis still standing on the windowsill, he was white as a sheet and was covered with glass. The V1 blew many windows that evening. The miracle was to see Louis standing in front of a wide opened space and without a scratch

The news from the battle areas were not encouraging. The von Rundstedt offensive was in full swing, thousands of United States soldiers were severely affected by the intense shelling of Saturday !6 December 1944, these men had lost the ability to speak, they were human zombies, it was so sad to see human bodies both exhausted physically and mentally. The very large “Petit Seminaire” High School in Basse-Wavre, which was only five (5) miles from our home, had sent all their boarding students home and every dorm, class room, and study rooms were full of “Shell Shocked” soldiers. I remember going to Basse-Wavre and not being able to understand the tragic sight. It was awful. At the same time we saw our Ack-Ack batteries dig deep holes and relocate the 3.5 inch guns so that their gun barrels were able to traverse to a level, which would permit them to become anti tank guns.

In other words the allies honestly thought that the Germans were going to cross the Meuse River and head for Brussels and Antwerp. Thanks to the fighting spirit of small teams of United States soldiers, the von Rundstedt Offensive also called the Ardennes Battle or the Battle of the Bulge, by the end of December the German advance was stopped. As an historian I could spend days recounting the exploits of many of these teams; such as such as Lieutenant Lyle Bouch of the 99th Infantry Division, the eighteen men (including Chester Wenc) of the 106th Infantry Division who fought in Spineux, the 82nd Airborne Division ( Including Herbert H. Adams) battle in Cheneux, etc… One should know that I personally disagree with the Washington, DC. “Desk Jockey” who declared in 1945 that the Battle of the Bulge ended on 25 January 1945.

We all know when it started, namely, Saturday December 16, 1944, when the von Rundstedt Offensive started around 5:30 AM. by an intensive shelling of our thinly spread front lines. The end of the Ardennes Battle = Battle of the Bulge was to occur on the day the U.S. Army had pushed the German army back to their original line of attack, which by the way was along and in some place beyond the Siegfried Line, Since I was in Belgium and toured on bicycle most of the Battle Fields and since I know the Belgian language fluently,even to the point that Belgians have a hard time believing that I was born a United States citizen on January 24, 1928, I can assure you that the Battle of the Bulge ended on February eight ( 02/08/1945) 1945, that was the day the last German was pushed out of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg.

World War Two ended on May 8, 1945 or two days short of five (5) years of war for us civilians. Dad returned to the States in November 1945 to restart the Hammond Organ business. At the time one had to turn in his or her passport on arrival and ask to have it back so as to be able to leave the United States. As he asked for his passport Mr. Silverman a typical Washington bureaucrat of the State Department, told Dad that he had been too long out of the States and needed to prove his devotion to Our Country; therefore he had to live at least two years in the States before getting his passport back. Luckily Dad was a good friend of senator Brian McMahon, who accompanied Dad to Mr. Silverman’s office. It should be known that the Senator had a good old Irish temper and his language was full of words usually not used in the company of ladies, The Senator entered the office, slammed his fist on Silverman’s desk and shouted at the top of his lungs : ” Tell me sir what you were doing all through the war, while this man was in concentration camp in Germany and later condemned to death for helping U.S. airmen escape out of Belgium and back to England??.

Let me answer that question for you. You were sitting on your big fat … behind this …… desk doing nothing. Now you get this passport to this hero in two minutes or I will see to it that you are fired.” Dad told us that this bureaucrat only words were ” Yes Senator, Yes sir !” and he handed the passport to Dad. In 1946 Dad built a large manufacturing facility in Bierges. This was an American plant with the very first fluorescent lights in Europe, it consisted of a very modern foundry and a large machine shop, where he manufactured and assembled refrigeration compressors. The name of the company was National Electro Construction, which later sold to Phillips the well know company, whose headquarters are in The Netherlands. Dad would come back to the Unites States at least twice a year. On one of his trips he contacted Mr. Smith the CEO of National Milkers in Des Moines, Iowa and made an agreement to manufacture and sell milking machines in Europe.

Dad built another factory on the outskirts of Wavre, Belgium along the highway leading to Namur. This plant was also called National Electro Construction. In 1952 the U.S. Embassy in Brussels notified Dad that he had been very lucky in WWII, however he was advised to take his family and leave Belgium. At the time the communist regime in Russia was threatening to invade western Europe. Dad decided he had spent too much time behind barbed wires. This was terrible for poor Mother, she would have to leave two daughters, who had married Belgian citizens. In March 1953 the family moved to Lakeville, Connecticut, by June 1953 they had bought a home in Taconic, Connecticut.

By that time the nine children were in or heading for the following: (1) Christian was working as a farm hand in Mill River, Massachusetts. (2) Francoise was married to Ghislain de Halleux, a Belgian Agricultural Engineer, (3) Myriam was married to Jean Moncheur de Rieudotte the youngest mayor of Belgium, (4) Anne was accepted at the University of Connecticut, (5) Louis had been accepted at M.I.T. in Cambridge, MA. (6) Peter had been accepted at M.I.T. in Cambridge, MA. (7) Beatrice was registered Salisbury Regional High School, (8) Jacqueline was registered at the same High School, (9) Baudouin (Butch) was in Brule, Wisconsin completing the eight grade. Dad passed away on March 10 1984 in Taconic, Connecticut Mother passed away on February 6, 1986 in Taconic, Connecticut. Respectfully submitted by Christian W. de Marcken, who has been for the past decade the Secretary & Historian of Chapter XXII, Major Lamar Souter M.D., Central Massachusetts Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge, whose President is Doctor John E. McAuliffe, DDS Ret.