Note: We, Jan Ross and Brad Peters, have created a comprehensive web site over the past 10 years to recognize Jan’s father’s unit that fought in the Battle of the Bulge. The web site is www.300thcombatengineersinwwii.com . The following story was published in our winter 2016 300^th Quarterly newsletter and was the result of a recent inquiry to the web site.

Again we have been contacted through the web site asking for information about a member of the 300^th. In January, we received a brief e-mail inquiry as follows. “My name is Roy Sweet. Roy Leslie Sweet was killed on Dec. 23, 1944. I am trying to contact anyone who might know him or what happened on the day he was killed. Any help would be great. Roy.” The name was familiar to us and our records on the web site confirmed this information about Roy Sweet. Since he was in Company B, we contacted Don Richter who was clerk for B Company and a significant contributor to the web site. Don came through as he always does and his detailed memory of 70+ years ago gave us the information requested and more.

What follows is Don’s response.

This is regarding Roy L. Sweet, Tec 4, killed in action Dec. 23, 1944 and buried in Henri-Chappelle Cemetery in Belgium. Roy Sweet was not a close friend of mine but I recall that he was a very quiet man who stayed pretty much to himself always working with the Company B radio equipment. He was Company B mail clerk in addition to being the company radio operator, the primary communication for the company. He always rode in the back seat of Company B Commander, Capt. Falvey’s jeep [Capt. Gene P. Falvey] where all of the company radio equipment was installed.

I do know that when Companies A & B were out in front of the main US Army & British Army defense line along the bank of the Meuse River, we encountered forward elements of the Germany Army advancing through the Ardennes Forest. We had roadblocks with bridges set for destruction upon the approach of the enemy. On December 23, 1944 Capt. Falvey, with his jeep driven by McGowan [Tech 5 Willie D. McGowan] and radio operator Sweet, were out checking on our various defense installations when they were approached by what appeared to be a US Army Sherman tank.

When it began firing on them, they quickly realized that it must be a tank that was captured by the Germans and was now the enemy. The jeep came to a sudden halt and McGowan and Capt. Falvey bailed out and took cover though both were wounded. Roy Sweet was mortally wounded and remained in back seat of the jeep. McGowan though wounded returned to the jeep, found Sweet dead and recovered the map case in which the defenses of Companies A & B were recorded. Capt. Falvey, though wounded, shot and killed a German soldier with his pistol. The two survivors were able to return to B Company where medics treated their wounds. McGowan was hospitalized but later returned to duty.

I know these to be true facts as some weeks later, after I became B Company clerk, I took and typed depositions from both McGowan and Falvey. Both accounts of what happened to them and Sweet on Dec 23, 1844 were almost exactly the same. McGowan received a Bronze Star for returning to the jeep and recovering the map case while under enemy fire and also being wounded he received the Purple Heart. I am sure that Falvey also received the Purple Heart.

After Roy Sweet was killed, B Company clerk Kenneth Funk became B company mail Clerk, I became B Company clerk because I was the only one who could type having learned in West High School and was given MOS Clerk Typist at Camp White. Jerry Barton was transferred from H&S Company to B Company to become radio operator. It took two men to replace Roy Sweet.

I am glad to be able to help with the inquiry about Roy Sweet. I, along with all who knew Roy, mourned his death. Cpl. Don Richter, Company B, 300^th ECB”

Footnote: Warren Chancellor (300^th ECB) Remembers Roy Sweet

In December of 2004, Suzy and I [Warren Chancellor and his wife], along with about 150 other veterans of the Battle of the Bulge, went on a tour of Belgium and Luxembourg to commemorate the 60^th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. The tour was sponsored by the governments of Belgium and Luxembourg. One of the stops on the tour was Ettelbruck, Luxembourg to visit an American WWII Museum. I was wearing a military style cap with 300^th Engr., Combat Bn. embroidered on it. While walking around the museum, the curator noticed my cap and asked me if I was a member of the 300^th. I replied I was. He told me that the museum had an article on display that had belonged to a member of the 300^th and his name was Sweet.

My reply was, “Roy L. Sweet, a radio operator and he was killed by machine gun fire from a tank somewhere near the Belgium/Luxembourg border.” He took me to a glass-covered display of smaller articles of American equipment and there was a canteen cover imprinted Roy L. Sweet, 300^th Engrs. I wanted to take a picture of it but I had left my camera on the motor coach and it was parked away from the museum. What a surprise! Here I was in Luxembourg and the curator happened to notice that I was a member of the 300^th and he remembered that one particular item being there. Small world!”

In March, the younger Roy Sweet wrote: Thank you so much for the newsletter. It is wonderful to have a clear understanding of that day. I will share this with my entire family. Please keep me on the list. I would like to attend any events possible. On behalf of my uncle, my father, his father and mother. Thank you for keeping Roy alive through your organization.

Sincerely
Roy Sweet

submitted by Jan Ross, Associate Member

World War II survivor: from a warm dorm to the Battle of the Bulge

By Tony Doris, Reprinted with permission from The Palm Beach Post

George Fisher landed in Normandy 90 days after D-Day, with the 26th Infantry Division of General Patton’s 3rd Army. His unit climbed past empty Nazi pillboxes and burned-out vehicles. They camped in France for a month of training before being ordered to the front lines in the frozen, forested hills of the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg. The Battle of the Bulge began Dec. 16, 1944 and wore on until Jan. 25, 1945. A turning point in World War II, the Americans held back the German advance but at a cost of 80,000 casualties, 19,000 dead.

 
Fisher, now 91 and retired from the real estate business, lives in Palm Beach and serves as president of the Florida Southeast Chapter of Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. The group, down from 400 members to 165, is gathering in West Palm Beach this weekend to commemorate the 71st anniversary of the battle that’s with them every day.

1. You arrived just after D-Day?
2. We got there by September and by the middle of November we were on the front lines and scared stiff. It was very scary for us because basic training doesn’t tell you anything about being on the front lines. I came from college. They had something called the Army Specialized Training Program. That was supposed to teach us how to rebuild Europe after the war. It was a three-year program. Unfortunately it ended after about nine months. Going from a dorm in a college to a mudfield in Tennessee for basic training was like going from heaven to hell.
3. December in northern Europe?
4. There were 200,000 Germans massed behind the lines and they attacked us at 5:30 a.m. The battle started so quickly we never got overcoats, mufflers, gloves, hats. A lot of the guys got frozen feet. It was a terrible situation.

The reason I’m in Florida: I don’t want to see snow in my life anymore. It snowed for 10 or 12 consecutive days. It was so cold you couldn’t dig a foxhole. We couldn’t light a fire because the smoke would give us away. So there was no way to warm up. We urinated on the rifles in a circle to keep the bolts from freezing. Otherwise the rifles would not work.

1. How did it end for you?
2. The entire thing was just one big nightmare. Luckily I was wounded. Shrapnel went through my legs in January — Jan. 3 to be exact. I spent almost a year in a hospital and then I was discharged.
3. Survivor’s guilt?
4. Most of the guys in my unit were either killed or wounded…. We were 19 and 20 years old…. Very few survived. The ones that did, I’ve been in touch with.
5. Does it trouble you that, as you say, most young people these days think the Battle of the Bulge is a diet?
6. I’ve visited many, many schools. I speak to 10th graders, 11th graders. It’s very important to get the younger generation to know what this is about. Ten years from now, you will never ever see a World War II veteran.
7. You lived to tell the tale.
8. I met my wife in college in June of 1947 and we graduated together. We’re celebrating our 68th anniversary. People ask how we stayed together so long. It’s simple. We go out to dinner twice a week. I go Monday and Wednesday and she goes Tuesday and Thursday and it works out very well.

On December 15, 2015 chapters members get together.

Read article

Very dear friends,

I join here a link for a fabulous site which will interest you…

This is created and followed, with other, by an exceptional friend, Jean-Philippe Speder, an authentic Memory keeper.

Take a look and discover Henri-Chapelle US Cemetery like you have never done.

Have a fabulous day.

Michel Lorquet, Associate

Through a newly acquired friend in Luxembourg, I learned of a fascinating story of his 79 year old mother’s contact with some Third Army troops during the time of the Battle of the Bulge.  Marguerite Groff was only 8 years old at the time.

As such, we are trying to locate four Third Army veterans who befriended the Groff family in Luxembourg in either December of 1944-January of 1945 in the small town of Strassen.  I am attaching Marguerite “Maggie” Groff’s story, “A letter from Luxembourg .”  I hope it will receive wide readership and that someone might recognize one or more of these soldiers and help us learn of the circumstances that found them in Strassen at this pivotal time in history.

Alan Terry Wright
alantwright@sbcglobal.net

We are sorry to report that the 526th Armored Infantry Battalion Association has disbanded, as announced in the November 2015 [final] issue of The Pekan Newsletter. We thank Glenn Damron, President, and Sherrie Morrison, Editor-Secretary/Treasurer, for the great job they have done in keeping the legacy of the 526th alive all these years. We thought it fitting that we reprint these articles from The Pekan Newsletter.

—————

VALIANT WARRIORS “VALIDI MILITES”
by Tom Hanchett, M.A., 526th Historian
Reprinted with permission from “The Pekan Newsletter”

The 526th Armored Infantry Battalion played a unique role in the United States Army’s European Theater of Operations during World War II. First, this battalion was the only separate armored infantry battalion (AIB), as they were usually attached to armored divisions. Second, the 526th was the only AIB to train with the top secret canal defense lights, or “Gizmos”, in the Arizona desert and Rosebush, Wales.

In late October 1944, while in Belgium, the 526th was attached to an intelligence organization called T Force, authorized by General Eisenhower soon after D-Day. T Force was designed to rush into captured towns and seize intelligence information and German personnel.

Company C of the 526th was detached and assigned to provide security to Eagle Tac, the advanced headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, including Generals Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton and Simpson. At the end of the war, they provided security to visiting Russian marshals.

On the night of December 17th, 1944, the 526th convoy headed to blunt the German attack, more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge. A task force comprised of Company A and a platoon from another battalion in T Force, under the command of Major Paul J. Solis, battalion executive officer, was sent to Stavelot. The remaining battalion, under Lt. Colonel Carlisle B. Irwin was ordered to defend Malmedy. As Company B entered Malmedy, some soldiers heard the church bells playing “Yankee Doodle Dandy” to warn the Germans the Americans were coming.

At Stavelot, though outnumbered in an unfamiliar area, Major Solis and Captain Charles Mitchell, Company A commander, set up a strong defense which delayed Colonel Jochen Peiper’s German SS Panzer regiment. Part of a large fuel depot along their retreat route was ordered burned so it would not fall into German hands. Their efforts bought time for American reinforcements to advance, and time for removal of fuel stores.

Throughout December, the 526th fought off the German forces that were trying to take over Stavelot and Malmedy. German Colonel Otto Skorzeny, whose American-uniformed commandos spread confusion behind American lines, led one of these attacks.

Just after New Year 1945, as the Allied command was beginning a large counterattack, the 526th was ordered to attack a German position near Malmedy. In a battle that has gone unrecorded in Battle of the Bulge history books, Company B was ordered to attack a much larger German unit without any support. Company B suffered enormous casualties.

T Force operations commenced again in March 1944 through May 1945, which included seizing the IG Farben plant in Germany. The 526th also guarded top Nazi leaders such as Field Marshals von Rundstedt, Kesselring and Colonel Skorzeny.

————-

A LOVE STORY BEGINS IN LUXEMBOURG 1944 
by Triny Morrison
Excerpted with permission from “The Pekan Newsletter”

In late October 1944 some American soldiers came in to our café to drink and bowl in our bowling alley. I stayed in the kitchen, sometimes peeking into the café. I had turned sixteen years old the month before and was quite bashful. This young soldier, blond hair and blue eyes, would sit so he could look into the kitchen when the door opened and closed. Several times I caught him staring at me, which made me turn red as a beet!

The word got around that the Neuser Café was run by a nice family. A few days later, I was sitting at a table working on my homework with my mother and sister Aline, when that same soldier came in and sat at a table across from us. I wanted to move into the kitchen but my mother told me to sit still, act my age, and be polite. When I looked up at him, he would smile and wink at me. He kept drinking beer, which made him so brave. After a while he leaned over my table and started singing “Night and Day” (a popular American song) to me. While I was turning various shades of red, he asked my mother for my name. Then he looked at me and said, “My name is Frank.” My mother had an English-German dictionary from World War I lying on the table. So, there followed a lot of leafing through the dictionary to communicate.

We were told about a big American holiday called Thanksgiving, so my mother cooked a huge meal for Frank and his friends. That evening Frank asked my mother if he could take me on a date. She agreed only if we were always chaperoned by my older sister! We went to see the movie, “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” starring Charles Laughton and Maureen O’Hara. While we were walking home through our neighborhood Frank spotted a “photo shop” where, a few days later, we had our pictures taken.

Frank would come over often and we would walk around the city, chaperoned of course. I started learning and understanding a few English phrases such as “Hello, Goodbye, Thank You, How are you?, Fine.” Then one day everything changed. The German Army attacked the northern part of our country on December 16, 1944. The Germans were headed north to Antwerp to destroy the American supply ships in that harbor. The Battle of the Bulge had begun. We saw large convoys of American trucks driving through our city on the path to the Ardennes.

General Patton drove the Third Army from France through Luxembourg City up the Skyline Highway to relieve the city of Bastogne. He drove his convoy of trucks and tanks through the streets two blocks from our home. The buildings shook from the tanks rumbling through the streets. We were hearing German Nazi propaganda on our radio, telling us they were destroying the American army all the way into Belgium. German artillery started shooting into our city every evening, attempting to hit the U.S. Headquarters for General Omar Bradley. We were told to stay on the main floors of our buildings because the artillery shots were hitting on the second floors and upwards. It took about two weeks for the Americans to figure out the artillery location – There was an abandoned railway tunnel outside the city about a kilometer away. The German artillery gun was on a railroad flat car. They would roll it out of the tunnel every night after dark and move it back into the tunnel after the artillery barrage.

Then came the day when the Battle of the Bulge was over and the Germans were on the run. Frank told us they were leaving Luxembourg (his Company C had been guarding General Bradley) and rejoining the rest of their battalion in Belgium. He asked for my address and we kissed goodbye All I knew was that he was from California. He asked my mother how old I had to be before he wrote letters. She misunderstood him to ask how old I had to be for marriage! She told him 18 years or older.

The war was over, I had not heard from Frank, and I needed to learn a trade. I went to work in a small workshop, an atelier, to learn how to embroidery on a treadle sewing machine. I was paid for piecework, embroidering handkerchiefs, pillowcases, tablecloths, etc. I came home one day at noon for our supper break, and found the family acting strangely quiet and pointing at a letter. It was a letter from America! It was a letter from Frankie! He did not forget me! It was addressed to “Miss Triny Neuser, c/o Neuser Café, Luxembourg City”, postmarked November 24, 1947.

“Dear Triny, It has been almost three years since I have seen you. I think of you often and miss the swell times we had together. Now that the war is over and things are back to normal I decided to write and see how things are over there. I guess you are having cold weather now. I remember how cold I got on guard duty. Have you guessed who this is yet? Well, dig out your pictures and look me up. We had one taken together. Remember how we used to do your homework in the café? Triny, do you still love me? Guess you want to know what happened to me. From Luxembourg I went to Belgium and then to Germany. I stayed in Germany until December 9, 1945 until I left for the United States. I arrived home on January 3, 1946. I worked on a farm for a while, then went into the bee business, selling honey. Have you ever thought about coming to the U.S. to live? Say, Triny, be sure to write. When I left, you promised to write if I would. With all my love, Frankie

NOTE: Frank and Triny wrote dozens of letters throughout the next year. Frank’s future bride agreed to come to America and marry him. She said goodbye to her family and the only life she knew in Luxembourg. This brave young lady sailed across the Atlantic Ocean on the ship, Cunard White Star S.S. Soythia, docked in Halifax, Canada, and rode the passenger train to California. They were married just a few days later on December 30, 1948. Their first child Edward was born ten months later, then their two daughters Cathryn and Lisa. They are very proud grandparents of six grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. —Sherrie Morrison, Associate, Daughter-in-Law

In 1945, when World War 2 ended in Europe, thousands of brave, Young American soldiers were buried in cemeteries across Europe. Buried in foreign soil without any family attending their funeral.

Captain Joseph Shomon, who was in charge of the 611th Graves Registration Company, and his men had the task to bury American soldiers at the American Military Cemetery in Margraten The Netherlands. When they were finished, more than 17,000 Americans were buried there. Captain Shomon asked a local office worker if it was possible to look after the graves of the more than 17,000 American graves there. The Americans were going home again. That’s when the idea for an adoption program came to mind by this man.

Within a couple of months all 17,000 graves were adopted. People were bringing flowers to the cemetery and placing them on the grave of a soldier whose grave they had adopted.

In 1948 more than 8,000 bodies were repatriated to the United States. Now there are 8,301 American soldiers buried in Margraten. The adoption program still stands, and all graves are adopted. There are 1,722 names of men on the Wall of the Missing. All names have been adopted as well. There is even a waiting list for people who want to adopt a grave, or a name on the Wall of Missing.

It is an honor for people to adopt a grave and bring flowers to it on several occasions. During Memorial Day, Christmas and Easter there are lots of flowers decorating the American cemetery. In Europe, we don’t want to forget what these men did for our freedom—they paid the ultimate sacrifice.

The adoption program started in Margraten, The Netherlands. It is now also possible to adopt graves at the American cemetery in Henri-Chapelle, Neuville-en-Condroz (both Belgium) and in Normandy (OMAHA-Beach). Thousands of graves have been adopted at all these cemeteries. All over Europe, people want to express their thanks for those who gave their lives so we can live in peace.

Lots of Americans are unaware of this. We don’t do this to get a thank you from Americans. We want the people to say thank you to the veterans and those who didn’t come home. They are all heroes to us. It is the least we can do for those men.

Last year, a group of enthusiastic Dutch people organized “The faces of Margraten”. They are trying to find a picture of every soldier who is buried in Margraten. Within a year they collected more than 3,000 pictures. It seems easy but it is very, very difficult to find pictures of these soldiers. If anyone can help locate pictures, it would be highly appreciated. You can find more information on their website: www.fieldsofhonor-database.com.

I would like to end this by saying thank you to everyone who fought for our freedom.
Lest we forget!
by Frank Gubbels, Associate, The Netherlands

————– 

Passionate about collecting the history of the 82nd 
Airborne, I found a jumpsuit model 1942 that belonged to Edward L Mokan, the 504th PIR, at Cheneux in the Ardennes. In 2002 I learned that he was dead.

Belgium, meanwhile, was authorizing the adoption of American soldiers’ graves, so I wrote a letter to the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, to ask if it was possible to adopt the grave of a paratrooper from the 82nd Airborne, 504th PIR.

Two weeks later, I received a letter from the Henri-Chapelle cemetery giving me the name Francis L. Allen. A few days later I went to visit and adorn his grave. Subsequently, I received a certificate of adoption from Belgium.

by Bruno Pollet, Associate, Belgium

———————

VBOB is honoring those fine citizens in Belgium, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands who adopt the graves of our Battle of the Bulge soldiers, by sending them a VBOB certificate of gratitude. Please send the name, mailing address and e-mail of the grave caretaker and the name [and service unit if known] of the Battle of the Bulge soldier.
Send the information to: VBOB, PO Box 27430, Philadelphia, PA 19118.

Contact: tracey@battleofthebulge.org
703-528-4058.

I met Stanley at a 106th Division reunion. We had something in common, as we both were from that division, and we became great friends. He invited me to join the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge, an organization in which he was active, and always saw to it that I was included in their functions.

Stan felt the Battle of the Bulge did not receive enough recognition, so when he became National President of VBOB, he investigated places that would be willing to have a monument installed that would be visible to many. The Valley Forge Military Academy in Wayne, PA was approached, and agreed to provide the space. Several of their graduates had fought or died in the Bulge. Through Stan’s efforts and cooperation from Belgium and Luxembourg, many donations were received, a prominent memorial was installed and a scholarship to the Academy was also donated. Each year at Christmastime, the members of the local Delaware Valley chapter met at the Military Academy for a church service with a speaker about the Bulge, had dinner there, watched the cadets in parade, and laid a wreath at the memorial in honor of those who had died.

Forging ahead, Stan then started a drive for funds to install a stained glass window in the chapel at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, as well as a standing monument in the parade grounds, as a reminder to all students who attended of the importance of the Battle of the Bulge. This window depicting G.I.’s in the Bulge was dedicated on the infamous 9/11/2001.

Among his other accomplishments, he worked with his Congressman for permission to have a larger monument for the Battle of the Bulge installed at Arlington Cemetery, where many wreaths have been laid over the years by members of VBOB, as well as by the Belgians and Luxembourgers. As a result of his close work with them, he was knighted by both Belgium and Luxembourg for his efforts in perpetuating the memory of the Battle. These two small countries show their continual gratitude for what our American soldiers did to free them from their German occupation in WWII.

With boundless energy, Stan kept his local chapter active, talked to schools, and always contributed in a multitude of ways. Stan served as the National President of VBOB for several terms (1995-97; 2006-07), and planned many National VBOB conventions. He was on the committee to erect the World War II Memorial in Washington, D.C. In later years, his efforts went to Wreaths Across America. His abilities were many. He left a legacy of accomplishments. He will be missed.

Read his full obituary http://articles.philly.com/2015-10-01/news/67015526_1_bulge-veteran-world-war-ii-battle

by Lou Cunningham, 106th Recon, National President VBOB 2001-03

Duncan T. Trueman Chapter #57 President Elliot S. Hermon reports that their meeting in May was an outstanding success.

“The turnout was another fairly large one, and although our guest speaker, Lieutenant Colonel Jack H. Moore, US Army (Ret), the Senior Army Instructor at the US Army JROTC at Washingtonville Senior High School, was unable to join us as promised, four of his cadets did come, and provided a terrific slide show presentation on their many cadet activities.

Leading the presentation was Cadet Lt Col Valentin Olingheru, the Washingtonville Sr High School Jr ROTC battalion Commander, ably assisted by Cadet Sgt. 1st Class Thomas Sheboy, Cadet Command Sgt. Major Corey Lisa and Cadet Corporal Jonathan Matsler.”

ROTC Cadets from Washingtonville High School spoke about their activities at the Duncan T. Trueman Chapter #59, Battle of the Bulge Veterans Luncheon on May 21, 2015 at Birchwood Caterers in Monroe, NY.

Photos courtesy Ginny Privitar