The Battle of the Bulge began on this day 78 years ago...

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"Operations Room"

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Always has quality stuff.

My great uncle fought in the Battle of the Bulge. He lost an eye. He did, however, kill a German with a knife and steal his coat.

Meanwhile, the longest continuous battle in American history was wrapping up not far away…

Battle of Hürtgen Forest

We did not know until his death, but my paternal grandfather was there. All he ever said about the war was, “I was in Europe.”

We had a client who just died this year who was a veteran of the Bulge. He trained as a combat engineer but they had a shortage of infantry so they mad him a BAR man. He never said much about it except his ears got frostbit. He stayed in the National Guard after the war and was my Dad's warrant officer. He was in good health physically and mentally almost to the end, apart from being nearly stone deaf. RIP Mr. S.

The US has had some spectacular intelligence failures, Pearl Harbor comes to mind, but the Battle Of the Bulge may be number 1.

While Brigade, Division, Corps and Army staffs were living in castles and drinking champagne and French brandy thinking the war was over, intel from front line units was pouring in the Germans were building up along the Ardennes front.

In some cases US solders could see the Panzers lining up in the days before the attack. Reported and dismissed, all the higher ups were planning their Christmas parties.

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“I was in Europe.”

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I was lucky enough to have a history professor that was a 2nd lieutenant that stormed Omaha beach and was willing to talk about his experiences; he was a true academic and an expert in tracing people's civil war ancestry.

The only time he went on any tangents in class was when a young lady spoke about how horrible America was to drop a nuclear weapon. He went off on a 40 minute lecture giving the entire class a different view of the universe. He laid out his entire war history and how he would have been one of the first to storm the beaches of Japan. I mean it was captivating hearing about his experiences and how the atomic bomb saved his life. To this day anytime someone talks about American's use of those weapons in WWII, I think specifically of him.

My uncle's father-in-law was in Paton's legion that relived Bastogne. All he would say was that he was in Europe too.

My grandfather was in the navy on an air craft carrier assigned to the Atlantic theater.

It is currently 26 degrees Fahrenheit in Bastogne. Low is 18 tonight.

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Lee Smith was an economics prof at La Tech who had been a Navy Fighter pilot in WWII. He would talk about it once in a while.

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Bertram H. Groene

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LINK
This one and only book, I have a first edition signed by the author that has been on my bookshelf for the past 30 years.

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Does anybody know how many are still alive?

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Not many,

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They are dying quickly—according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 167,284 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive in 2022

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