Category Archives: Veterans’ Stories

Christmas Gift: Bulge Christmas Memories

Bulge, Bulge Bugle, Christmas story, Veterans' Stories

80 years ago. Christmas 1944, Ardennes Forest. Collected booklet of Christmas stories of Bulge veterans. 60 pages, $15, including shipping. PayPal or Venmo leonsreed[at]gmail[dot]com. Proceeds to BOBA.

For any veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, Christmas was never again just another holiday. Nine days after the commencement of von Rundstedt’s offensive, Christmas Day occurred while the battle was at its peak fury. By Christmas Day, everyone knew they were dealing with an all-out German counteroffensive and most of the units that were going to be engaged had arrived in the theater of action. And, for the most part, the battle continued to rage as if December 25 was just another day.

The common denominator of memory for Bulge veterans was the relentless, unforgiving cold. The bone-chilling cold that sank into your soul. The 24/7 losing battle to keep your feet dry. The impossibility of digging a foxhole. Wearing every scrap of clothing you could dig up and still being cold. The fear of frostbite and trench foot.

There were other demons as well. The ever-present fear of German tanks, “screemin’ meemies,” and tree burst shrapnel. The fear that every American GI you didn’t know was one of Otto Skorzeny’s men, an English-speaking assassin or saboteur, someone whose directions would send you straight into a German trap.

For most GIs, the memory of Christmas 1944 was the memory of just another day of fighting, perhaps interrupted at some point during the day with the realization that, “Hey, some Christmas, huh?” But for some, there were genuine moments of tenderness, joy, and “goodwill toward men.” For some, the day brought special joy. A few had an opportunity to show kindness to civilians or received kindness from them. Some remembered a tiny detail that brought back memories of better days: a scraggly Christmas tree with improvised decorations, or singing Christmas carols. Some made it to a church or some other facility temporarily converted for religious usage and had a special spiritual experience.

Christmas dinner, sometimes delayed, was for some a real feast, “best Christmas dinner ever,” while for others it was a mostly frozen drumstick shoved into their hands by an equally chilled GI, headed on toward the next foxhole. A few salvaged some moments of joy in the midst of the combat.

And for all GIs, there was the universal longing for the end of the war and a return home to a normal life. Staff Sgt Frank Lembo could have been speaking for all GIs in a series of letters to his fiance, all written around New Years Day.

“New Year’s evening and now all the holidays are gone, and my fondest hope now in this coming year we will be able to get back together again. … When I’m on a boat and heading home, then and then alone will I believe this is over with.”

“I was just thinking about that last day together that we had, and how perfect it was, and how long a way I’ve come since then. I can remember that boat ride to England, our trip across the Channel, going into action and suffering a thousand deaths when we heard our first artillery shell, the mad dash across France – a ride with its wine, flowers, ripe tomatoes and eggs – the storming of our first river and the fighting beyond, Christmas in Belgium, New Year in Luxembourg… Yes we’ve come a long way. We’re a little tired, a little older, and a little bitter. We fight hoping each battle is the last one with thoughts of going home and enjoying a peaceful life. Our thoughts run to our sweethearts who we long for, each letter being a five-minute furlough with the one you love ~ yes darling just thinking.”

The memories the old soldiers kept were as varied as the old soldiers themselves. For some, there were the memories of the nice moments. Others remembered the not-so-nice moments but used the occasion to be grateful for their current blessings. Many expressed pride in a job well done while others recalled “the real heroes,” the ones who didn’t make it home. With the passage of time, memories softened for some and some opened up and described their experiences. But many others never got beyond the ghosts of 1944, and for them, Christmas season remained a lonely struggle. But one way or another,there were few Bulge veterans for whom Christmas season didn’t involve a return to the woods of Belgium or Luxembourg.

Jake Larson featured in NBC documentary

Bulge, Veterans' Stories, Video

BOBA’s Jake Larson was the star of a documentary on American veterans broadcast by NBC during the Olympics. The documentary is titled “In the Company of Heroes” and first ran about 5 pm (EST) on Saturday, August 3.

Jake was filmed meeting a family that he has befriended over the years and also got the coveted “old veteran stands on the beach and reflects” slot.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zBGkeKoh-YU

Malmedy massacre victim’s daughter reflects

Bulge, Veterans' Stories, Video


Their experience in World War II had a lasting impact on the men who served, but that’s not the limit of this war’s effects. The children of World War II soldiers also grew up in the shadow of this war. None were affected more profoundly than children whose fathers perished. In this video, BOBA’s treasurer and invaluable volunteer Mary Ann Coates Smith reflects on the father she never knew, killed in the Malmedy Massacre.

The Bulge Soldier

Bulge, Veterans' Stories

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.

David Bailey’s story

Bulge, Christmas story, Veterans' Stories, Video

One of the fun things about being “the new guy” is that you get to be amazed by stories that are probably commonplace to everyone else. I ran across David Bailey’s amazing survival story in the VBOB book, Battle of the Bulge: True Stories from the Men and Women Who Survived. His niece, Carolyn Truesdale, mentioned this video of his reunion many years later with the woman who saved him.

A VBOB Christmas story

Christmas story, Veterans' Stories

“In a Small Church,” by Michael V. Altamura, 750th Tank Battalion, originally printed in VBOB, Battle of the Bulge: True Stories from the Men and Women Who Survived, Aperture Press, 2014.

We were in a picturesque, snow-covered valley in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944. It was Sunday morning. A small Catholic church stood on a slight slope overlooking the snow-covered fir trees. At the other end of the valley was a coal-fueled electric power plant. Every once in a while a German buzz bomb came over attempting to knock out the power plant. A group of tankers and infantrymen decided to attend church that Sunday morning. We stood in the back of the church with our guns slung over our shoulders as the priest gave the mass in Latin. The congregation was kneeling in prayer.

We heard the “put-put” of a buzz bomb overhead, and then the sound cut off. When the sound ceased, we knew the rocket engine had stopped propelling the airborne buzz bomb and it would fall, exploding when it hit the ground. The congregation looked upwards as if to accept their fate. Th priest’s intonations stopped. We stood in the rear as if accepting our fate. The bomb hit pretty close to the church. The ground shook; a few of the stained glass windows cracked. No one moved or said a word; the priest resumed his mass in Latin. I thank God for sparing us that Sunday morning in a small Belgian church during the Ardennes battle.

urge

Special Hotel Rate for Gettysburg Bulge Conference

Public Outreach, Veterans' Stories

Best Western Hotel in Gettysburg has agreed to give people attending the Bulge conference a special room rate of $85 a night. The Best Western is a new hotel and very nice, right on Gettysburg’s glittering “Strip,” Steinwehr Ave.

As of Sunday, January 14, seven rooms were still available and the hotel will honor the rate as long as the rooms last. Guests should call the hotel at (717) 334-1188 and say “Battle of the Bulge conference”

or use the following URL:

https://www.bestwestern.com/en_US/book/hotel-rooms.39139.html?groupId=7I4YL9V

The official conference will take place at the World War II American Experience, which is located a few miles northwest of town. A pre-conference activity is being planned at the hotel the night before. Stay tuned for more details.

LR/12.25

Eisenhower’s Tribute to the Soldiers Who Fought in the Battle of the Bulge

Veterans' Stories

In his memoirs, Ike reflected on what we owe the American GIs who fought in the Battle of the Bulge:

“More than the constant threat of imminent death, our men had overcome all that the unbridled elements could inflict on them in the way of snow and ice and sleet, clammy fog and freezing rain; all the pain of arduous marches and sleepless watches. They had given up their wives and children, or set aside their hope of wives and children, overcome luxuries or poverty, fought down their own inclinations to rest their tired bodies, to play it safe, to search out a hiding place.

“I believe we can always rely, even as I had to in the Battle of the Bulge and the concurrent winter fighting from the North Sea to the Italian Alps, on the willingness and readiness of Americans, including young ones, to endure greatly in their country’s cause.”

Bulge Commemoration at Gettysburg

Bulge Monuments, Veterans' Stories

Nice program in the national cemetery in observance of the 79th anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Bulge. Eisenhower National Historic Site ranger Dan Vermilya led the program. He observed that Gettysburg “is hallowed ground not just for what happened here in July 1863, or in November 1863.” He noted that Gettysburg is one of few places “where you can see in a small area the grass of people who died defending freedom in 1944 and in the Pacific and in World War I through Vietnam.”

Dan will be on of the speakers at our Gettysburg conference on January 27. Two other speakers, BOBA member Tom Vossler and Bugle editor Leon Reed, also attended.

Register for Gettysburg Bulge Conference

News, Public Outreach, Veterans' Stories

January 27, 2024. Extend your trip for the Commemoration. Come to Gettysburg for a power-packed speaker’s lineup. Single-day conference. Speakers include:

Stuart Dempsey, licensed battlefield guide and owner-operator of historic tours company., speaks on the106th Division.

Leon Reed, BOBA editor and author, gives a GI-level presentation on the 80th Division’s role in breaking the siege of Bastogne;

Jim Triesler, BOBA historian and Education Director of the Virginia War Memorial, speaks on the Victims of Malmedy;

Dan Vermilya, supervisory park ranger at Eisenhower Historic site, speaks on the WWII dead of Gettysburg National Cemetery.

Tom Vossler, licensed guide, former chief of military history, and Eisenhower Society trust, speaks on Ike and leadership

https://square.link/u/a5YWKBnB

Remembering James Hampton Coates

News, Veterans' Stories

Today, October 17th, PVT James Hampton Coates would have been 101 years old. Instead, James sadly was one of 86 servicemen who was killed in the Malmédy Massacre in Belgium during the Battle of the Bulge. He served in the 13 FAOB HQ from 1942-44. During that time he landed on Utah Beach D-Day+1 and was injured in July by a mine or dud, but stayed with the battalion under field medical care. In October 1944, he joined 285 FAOB BTRY B, and two months later he was killed in the massacre.

James left behind a wife and two children: a 2-year-old daughter and 7-month-old son. He was buried in Henri Chapelle Cemetery, Belgium and later reinterred in his hometown of Kilmarnock, Virginia. His daugther, Mary Ann Coates Smith, is currently the President of BOBA’s Virginia Crater Chapter.

Read a detailed account of the massacre from a solider of the 30 INFD when he arrived with his unit at Malmédy.