The World War II American Experience museum produced a short video on the conference.
Register ASAP for our January events and Commemoration
Join our Bulge veterans and their families to recognize all those who participated and sacrificed their youth at the Battle of the Bulge. We have exciting events planned including an educational program, wreath ceremonies and a reception at the Embassy of Belgium in DC.
JANUARY 24, 2024 – WWII educational program with speakers, Bulge veterans, and WWII displays! Featured Speakers – Author Andrew Biggio (pictured far right) will share stories from his latest book, The Rifle 2. Books will be available and a book signing with Andrew as well as with Bulge veteran Jake Ruser (pictured in the center) who is featured in the book. Also, BOBA Historian Jim Triesler will host a panel of our WWII veterans who are in attendance and our Bugle Editor Leon Reed will also be a presenter.
JANUARY 25, 2024 – Join us for a guided tour to commemorate the 79th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge with wreath-laying ceremonies at the Battle of the Bulge Memorial, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and WWII Memorial, then celebrate with a reception hosted by the Embassy of Belgium!
REGISTRATION HAS ENDED FOR DC/VA EVENT
REGISTRATION STILL OPEN FOR
JAN 27TH GETTYSBURG EVENT…….
JANUARY 27, 2024 – Extend your trip and attend the Battle of the Bulge Conference in Gettysburg on January 27, 2024! Click here for details and to register.
If you are unable to join us, please consider donating to our Wreath Fund in memory of a Bulge soldier.
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.
urge
Belated recognition of Wereth 11
In belated memory of the Wereth 11, a group of 11 black servicemen who were massacred by advancing German soldiers on December 17, 1944.
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.
Introducing the incoming members of the 2024 Board of Directors
ELECTED OFFICERS
President & CEO: Steve Landry
Executive Vice President: Barbara Mooneyhan
Vice President Membership: Wayne Jacobs
Vice President Chapters: Dr. Andy Waskie
Vice President Military & Veteran Affairs: Doris Davis
Treasurer: Mary Ann Smith
Recording Secretary: Gail C. Larke
ELECTED BOARD MEMBERS
Madeleine Bryant, Chaplain
Kristen Faller
Ken Larke
Jim Triesler, Historian
Betsy Rose
PAST PRESIDENT: John Mohor
JOIN US to remember the Battle of the Bulge
You are cordially invited to join the Battle of the Bulge Association® for our
79TH ANNUAL COMMEMORATION
of the Battle of the Bulge
ARLINGTON, VA and WASHINGTON, DC
Wednesday, January 24 – Friday, January 26, 2024
CLICK HERE FOR THE ITINERARY & HOTEL INFORMATION
After the Commemoration, extend your trip to Gettysburg, PA on January 27, 2024 for the Battle of the Bulge educational conference. Click here for details.
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
Vince Speranza and Bastogne
Came across this nice Bulge story.
Update: Ettelbruck stained glass window
Count on our friends in Ettelbruck to come through. About a month ago, we posted a query requesting information on a stained glass window in the church in Ettelbruck. (See below.) It referred to “Ettelbruck 1944,” so it seemed probable that it was connected with the Ardenns campaign. But how?
Susan Tyson of Ettelbruck’s Patton Museum was the first to come through with information.She wrote telling us the artist was named Probst.
But our member Joseph Dondelinger, a native of Luxembourg who enthralled the audience at our 2023 reunion with his presentation on Luxembourg Then and Now, truly came through with information. His letter is reproduced below.
“The triple window on the right side of the Ettelbruck church is part of the church restoration and significant architectural remodeling done between 1946 and 1948. The church was heavily damaged in the Bulge. The window(s) depict(s) the suffering of the town/parish patron saint, St. Sebastian, and the phases of his martyrdom, linking it to the martyrdom of the town. The bottom shows some of the major and most familiar buildings in Ettelbruck. The Latin inscription reads A FAME MORTE (IN?) BELLO LIBERA NOS DOMINE ETTELBRUCK 1944.
“Regarding the Latin, the translation could be “From a fate of death in war, free our town” (or “free us Lord”). I need to verify the latter.
“The window was designed by brothers Emil and Josef Probst and produced in the shop of the Linster Brothers in Mondorf. (Mondorf is in the extreme south-east of Luxembourg and the location of the place code named “Ashcan” where the top Nazis were incarcerated before their transfer to Nuremberg.)
“Please give all credit to my younger brother Albert who still resides in Luxembourg for tipping me off about the resource to find the answer.”
BOBA thanks both Joseph and Albert Dondelinger for coming through with information.
Stained glass window in Ettelbruck
Legend at the bottom of the window.
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 represents at Carlisle
BOBA made an appearance at Army Expo 23 at the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA. The exhibitors were a who’s who of Army research, fellowship, and advocacy groups, including the US Military Academy, various divisional associations, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Center for Military History, Pennsylvania Military Museum, and many others.
Despite horrible weather, the event was extremely well attended. It provided an excellent chance to promote th upcoming commemoration and Gettysburg conference.
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.
