Category Archives: Veterans’ Stories

The Bulge Soldier

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

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

“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.

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Special Hotel Rate for Gettysburg Bulge Conference

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

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

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

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

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.

BOBA Co-Sponsoring Bulge Conference in Gettysburg

People attending the annual commemoration in the Nation’s Capitol will have the opportunity to extend their trip a little for more Bulge programming. BOBA is co-sponsoring what we hope is the First Annual Battle of the Bulge conference at the site of the US Army’s other greatest battle, Gettysburg, PA.

Gettysburg is only about 100 miles north of the Commemoration HQ hotel and we can work on transportation for people whose S-4 (logistics staff) didn’t arrange transportation. The conference will be held at the World War II American Experience museum on the outskirts of town on January 27.

Two key BOBA officials, historian Jim Triesler and editor Leon Reed, will be presenting at the conference, along with another BOBA member, Tom Vossler.

We hope to get best selling author Jeff Shaara to give a keynote address (and sign some books).

Other speakers and their topics:

Andrew Biggio, author of The Rifle and the brand-new The Rifle 2, will speak about GI experiences in the battle and upon their return many years later.

Stuart Dempsey, licensed Gettysburg guide and owner/operator of Battleground History Tours LLC, will talk about the underdog 106th division

Leon Reed, Bugle editor and by then the author or editor-publisher of three WWII memoirs, will speak about the role of the 80th division in stabilizing the southern flank of the Bulge and the liberation of Bastogne.(He gave an early version of this talk at the 2023 commemoration but it is far advanced since that time.)

Jim Triesler, who works as Education Director for the Virginia War Memorial when he’s not doing his more vital work for BOBA, will speak about 10 victims of the Malmedy Massacre.

Tom Vossler, licensed guide and retired chief of military history at Carlisle, will speak about Ike, SHAEF, coalition warfare, and the incredible leadership skills Ike summoned to keep the entire alliance (mostly) moving in the same direction.

We think this is a powerful lineup and BOBA is proud to be a co-sponsor.

A Bulge Christmas Truce

The following story was found in the records of BOBA’s Ohio Buckeye chapter. The chapter recently closed but the son of the last president thought to contact us to see if we want to have the records sent to us. We are making an arrangement with Jim Triesler to have the Virginia War Memorial serve as the archive of VBOB/BOBA records.

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Christmas Peace

A True Story by Fritz Vincken, 

Found in the papers of the Ohio Buckeye Chapter, VBOB

More than half a century ago, on Christmas Eve 1944, in the middle of the battle about the Ardennes, mother and I had unexpected guests.

On that Holy Eve the infantry division No. 256, having received replacements from Bohemia was fighting left on the Rhine bank. Its six battalions had been regrouped. In the New Year Night they once more attacked the Maginot Line from the area around Pirmasens under the code name ‘Nordwind.’ The casualties of that final German advance in the west are buried on the soldier cemetery at Bad Niederbronn (Alsace) and at Dahn (Palatinate).

At that time I was twelve years old and we were living in a small cottage in the Ardennes, near the Belgian border. Father had used this little house before the war when he had gone hunting on weekends. And when our hometown Aachen suffered more and more under the air raids, he sent us there. He himself was ordered to the 6 km distant border town Monschau for air raid protection. “In the forest you will be safe,” he said to me. “Take care of Mother. You are a man now.”

But one week ago Generalfeldmarschall von Rundstedt had started the last desperate German offensive and whenever I went to the door I heard the battle raging.

When there was a knock at the door on Christmas Eve, Mother quickly blew out the candle. Then she went to the door, I behind her. Outside, before the ghostly background of snow-covered trees stood two men with white steel helmets. The one addressed Mother in a language we didn’t understand and pointed to a third one who was lying on the snow. She conceived quicker than I that they were Americans.

Mother stood – her hands on my shoulders – unable to move. The men were armed and would have been able to force their way in. but they didn’t move and were begging only with their eyes. The wounded man in the snow was more dead than alive. “Come in,” Mother said finally. The soldiers carried in their comrade and put him on my bed. None of them spoke German. Mother tried with French and in this language one of the men was able to communicate to some extent

Before Mother took care of the wounded man, she said to me, “The fingers of both are totally stiff. Have them take off their jackets and the boots and go and get a bucket of snow.” Shortly after, she rubbed off their blue frozen feet with snow. The stocky, dark haired man, we heard, was Jim. His friend, tall and slender, was Robin. Harry was the wounded man who slept in my bed now. His face was as white as the snow outside. They had lost their unit and got lost in the forest trying to find the Americans, always anxiously watching out for the Germans. They were unshaved, but without their heavy coats they looked like tall boys. And Mother treated them accordingly.

“Go and bring Herman,” Mother said to me, “and also bring some potatoes.” This was a deep cutting change in our Christmas program. Herman was a fat cock (named after Hermann Goering, for whom Mother hadn’t any sympathy). He had been fed in the past few weeks in the hope that father would be home at Christmas.

While Jim and I helped in the kitchen, Robin took care of Harry, who had got a shot in his upper leg and was almost bleeding to death. Mother tore a sheet in stripes to bandage the wound.

Soon the smell of the baking cock filled the room. I was just about to lay the table when there was another knock. In the expectation of seing even more Americans, I opened without hesitation. Outside were four men in a uniform well known to me. German soldiers – Ours! I was paralyzed by the shock. Despite my youth, I knew the law. Whoever is hosting the enemy is committing treason. We all could be executed. Mother also showed fear. Her face was white, but she went out and said calmly: “Merry Christmas!” “We have lost our unit and want to wait until day comes,” explained the leader, a sergeant. “Can we stay with you? “Naturally,” mother said with the calmness of desperation. “You can also have a good warm meal and eat as long as something is available.”

The soldiers smiled while sniffing the good smell coming through the half open door. “But,” Mother continued energetically, “we have three more guests here, whom you are not likely to consider as friends.” Her voice was suddenly so strict. I had never hard her speaking in this manner. “Today is Holy Eve and there is no shooting.”

“Who is inside?” the sergeant asked brusquely. “Americans?” mother looked each one in the frost stiffened face. “Listen,” she said slowly, “you could be my sons and they in there too. One of them is wounded and is fighting for his life and his two fellows are lost and hungry like you. In this night,” she spoke to the sergeant and lifted her voice, “in this Holy Night we do not think of killing.”

The sergeant looked at her. For two, three endless seconds there was silence. Then Mother ended the uncertainty. “Enough talk,” she said and clapped her hands, “put your weapons there on the wood pile – and hurry before the others eat everything up.”

Dazed, the four soldiers put their weapons in the box of firewood in the aisle. Two pistols, three carbines, one light machine gun, and two bazookas.  Meanwhile, Mother talked hastily with Jim in French. He said something in English and I saw with astonishment that the Americans also handed over their weapons to Mother.

As now the Germans and the Americans were standing shoulder to shoulder with embarrassment. Mother was in her element, smiling, looking for a place for each one to sit. We had only three chairs but Mother’s bed was large. There she placed two of the later arrivals next to Jim and Robin. Then she continued cooking without taking notice of the tense atmosphere. But Hermann didn’t get bigger and we had four eaters more.

“Quick,” she whispered to me, “go and et a few potatoes and some oat meal. The boys are hungry, and when the stomach rumbles one is easily irritable.” While I was plundering the store room, I heard Harry groaning. When I returned, one of the Germans had put on his glasses and was bending over the wounded soldier. “Are you an ambulance man?” Mother asked. “No,” he said, “but I studied medicine in Heidelberg until a few months ago.” Then he explained, as it appeared to me in fluent English, that Harry’s wound was not infected, thanks to the low temperatures. “He has only lost a lot of blood,” he said to Mother. “He simply needs rest and nourishing meals.”

The pressure was fading. Even I had the impression, when all the soldiers were sitting side by side, that they were all still very young. Heinz and Willi, both from Cologne, were sixteen. The sergeant was the oldest with his twenty-three years. He took out a bottle of red wine from his haversack and Heinz found a loaf of rye bread, which Mother cut into slices. They were all asked to come to table. The rest of the wine was set aside for the wounded man.

Mother spoke the prayer. I saw that she had tears in her eyes when she recited, “Komm, Herr Jesu, sei unser Gast . . .” and when I looked in the round, the eyes of the soldiers were wet too. They were boys again, the ones from America and the others from Germany. All distant from home.

Towards midnight Mother went to the door and requested all to follow her to see the star of Bethlehem. With the exception of Harry, who slept quietly, all stood next to her. And while viewing the Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, the war was far away and almost forgotten. Our private ceasefire endured also the next morning. Harry awoke in the last night hours, groaning, and Mother poured some broth in his mouth. When the day dawned, he was visibly stronger. Mother stirred him one egg, we took some sugar in the rest of the red wine for a powerful drink. We others ate oat meal. Then a stretcher was fabricated for Harry with two sticks and Mother’s best table cloth.

Bent over Jim’s map, the sergeant showed the Americans how they could find back to their troops. In this mobile war the Germans seemed amazingly well informed. He put the finger on a brook. “Go along here,” he said, “on the upper leg you will meet the First Army, which is reorganizing.” The medical student translated everything in English. Mother gave back all the weapons. “Be careful, boys,” she said. “I hope that one day you will get back to where you belong, back home. God Bless you all.”

The Germans and the Americans shook hands and we saw them disappear in opposite directions. When I returned in the house, Mother got the old family Bible. I looked over her shoulder. The book was opened to the Christmas story, at the report of the birth of Christ and the manger and the three men who came from far away to bring gifts. Her finger slid over the line, “… And they traveled back to their land along a different route.”

Postscript from Washington Post article “US and German Soldiers Shared Christmas eve dinner at height of WWII, by Dave Kindy, 12/24/2022

Not long afterward, the war ended, and the Vinckens were reunited. Fritz immigrated to the United States in 1959 and later opened a bakery in Honolulu. Hubert died in 1963, and Elisabeth followed in 1966.

Fritz always hoped to meet the soldiers again, though he knew his chances of seeing the Germans were not good, given their staggering casualty rate at the end of the war. He thought publicity might help, starting with his 1973 Reader’s Digest article, which President Ronald Reagan mentioned in a 1986 speech. In 1995, Fritz appeared on national television, telling his story on “Unsolved Mysteries” to host Robert Stack.

A nursing home chaplain in Frederick, Md., saw the episode and remembered a resident telling a similar story. He contacted the TV producers about Ralph Blank, a World War II veteran who had been a sergeant with the 8th Infantry Division in 1944.

In 1996, Fritz flew to Maryland to meet with Blank, who was 76 and in poor health. They recognized each other immediately and reminisced about their shared evening of peace during a hellish war.

The reunion was filmed and shown on “Unsolved Mysteries” later that year. At one point during the episode, Ralph turned to Fritz and said, “Your mother saved my life.” For the former German boy who was now an American citizen, that moment was the high point of his life.

“Now I can die in peace,” he told the Honolulu Star-Bulletin. “My mother’s courage won’t be forgotten and it shows what goodwill will do.”

Neither man lived to see the 2002 TV premiere of “Silent Night,” a retelling of their 1944 encounter. Ralph died in 1999 at age 79, and Fritz died in 2001 at 69. (The families of both men could not be reached for comment.)

In a 1997 interview, Fritz spoke of the lessons he learned from the Christmas miracle.

“The inner strength of a single woman, who, by her wits and intuition, prevented potential bloodshed, taught me the practical meaning of the words ‘good will toward mankind,’ ” he said, adding, “I remember mother and those seven young soldiers, who met as enemies and parted as friends, right in the middle of the Battle of the Bulge.”

Frank Chambers Celebrates 100th Birthday

Frank Chambers celebrated his 100th birthday on August 9, 2023. Chambers served in the 75th Infantry Division, 291st regiment during the Battle of the Bulge.  He pulled a 105 mm canon behind his 6×6 Jimmy truck.  He earned the Combat Infantryman Badge and Bronze Star.  Dad was awarded the French Legion of Honor in 2010. 

After the service he married Doris Albers, and they had two children, Marjorie Duffield and John Chambers (1956-1984). Frank has 2 grandsons and their wives, and 2 great grandchildren.  .

Much of Frank’s career was with the Farm Bureau organizations in Illinois and Nebraska.  He also had a 19 year career with the Gallup Organization, retiring at age 80. 

He is a life member of The American Legion, and has been active in his church, Scouts, and speaking to public school students about WW2.  He resides with his wife in League City, TX. 

Four generation photo at Frank Chambers’s 100th birthday celebration.

Ben Berry Celebrates 100th Birthday

Benjamin Melvin Berry was born to parents Hester and James Wallace Berry Sr. on September 21, 1923.  He is celebrating this milestone with a party at Philadelphia’s Mission BBQ.

He was one of four children.  He can proudly trace his ancestry back to great-great grandparents Paul and Ameilia Edmonson, whose children Emily and Mary were friends of Booker T. Washington and Frederick Douglass and were active abolitionists in the Washington DC. area in the 1840’s.   Their story is told in the book Fugitives of the Pearl.

Ben was drafted into the segregated US army in WWII in 1943.  He served in Germany, Luxembourg, France, England, and Belgium and was in The Battle of the Bulge, the largest battle fought by Americans in WWII.  His title was Technical Corporal, with duties of providing equipment and supplies to his company, even water for drinking, washing, and cooking.  Blacks were not allowed to fire weapons, but he and his buddies sometimes sneaked and practiced by shooting rats at the dump.  Ben prayed if God let him survive this war, he would serve him the rest of his life, and he has kept that promise.  He’s been a faithful member of First Baptist Church of Crestmont for nearly 90 years.  Ben was honorably discharged in 1945 after serving 27 months.

Ben went to Bok Vocational School on the GI Bill to learn paperhanging.   Although blacks were not allowed in the paperhangers’ union at that time, he became a successful entrepreneur, managing his own business for more than 60 years.  He provided apprenticeship opportunities to young people, some of whom opened their own businesses, and did charity paperhanging from time-to-time, for example papering walls at the Ronald McDonald House.  

 Ben has four children, 9 grandchildren, a host of great-grandchildren, one great-great grandchild, and lots of other family that he loves.   

Two of the many honors he’s received in his life include recognition for 50 years of service as a deacon at his church and election as president of the Philadelphia Paperhangers Guild.  

Ben has many interests, including genealogy, antiques, and veteran’s organizations.  He is on the Board of Aces, a veteran’s museum in Germantown, and is often interviewed about his experiences in the army.

Three things Ben would want you to remember are (1) Serve God and others (2) Save a lot; give some; spend a little (3) Put family first.

One thing I would like you to remember is that everyone has a story that others can benefit from hearing.  It’s important to tell your story.  


Ben Berry in 1944.