70 years ago, they boldly hold their lines in biting cold, frozen fox holes and deep snow, facing a tremendeous challenge from the german army, heavy tanks, bad ass SS troops, 5th column infiltrated troops, sturmgewerhs, snipers and tree splitting artillery fires.

Kudos to the battle of the bulge GI's, and especially to the 101th airborne warriors whom fought in Bastogne and probably saved the march of the western allied armies to Berlin.

The Greatest generation...my sincere thanks to them.

AMEN!

What a job done, such sacrifice.
We owe so much.

Never forget!

My buddy John was on the northern edge of The Bulge.

He was on a water cooled Browning Thirty crew, but for some reason they did not have the 30 to use in this instance. There was fresh snow. The moon was out. They had built a dugout inside a wrecked barn from the timbers and the roofing, and had a fire going. John said you could cut off the top of a 1 gallon gas can, put 6 inches of melted snow at the bottom along with an inch of gas and the fire was enough to keep the dugout pretty warm. A blanket kept the door sealed and kept the fire from showing.

Sometime after midnight the SS started coming across the field in front of the barn. They were perfectly invisible in their white snow suits except for the black leather straps holding up their ammo belts. They crossed right over the heart, and all you had to do was aim for the center of the "X." John's squad put wet rags over the muzzles of their M1's to hide the muzzle flash.

The SS kept pouring into the field until first light, and John said he and his buddies had the best night of their lives aiming for the little "X"s moving in the moonlight.

When daylight came, John said they could have walked across that field on dead Germans without touching the ground.

John repeated that story a lot to me over the last years of his life. You could tell he brooded on it a lot. When he first told it to me it was as though the whole thing had been done as a lark. By the time he died in 1997 the story had become pensive, and the part about it being the best night of his life would cause him to choke up. He always told it to me as though he was telling me for the first time, and I never let on he had told me before.

Currahee Brothers!

About 10 years ago, I was talking with my folks on a Sunday. The kids were over, and they were asking questions about "Battleground," that was on TV at the time.

[video:youtube]l_gQV6hro3w[/video]

All of a sudden Mom piped in. "McAuliffe? You mean Nuts McAullife?"

"Yes," I replied.

"Daddy used to play golf with Nuts McAuliffe." she said. She meant my grandfather. She then launched into how my grandfather knew Nuts McAuliffe. It turns out they both ended up working for American Cyanamid after the War. From what I gather "Nuts" was not something you called him to his face, but everyone knew him as Nuts McAuliffe. McAuliffe was head of Personnel. Grandad was an executive VP of the Formica Division.

I watched Battleground with my buddy John once. John was not Airborne. He was regular Army on the other side of the salient. He had no idea the movie existed. He was mildly impressed, but was not all that moved by it.

I'm glad he did not live to see Band of Brothers and the 88's in the forest. The worst I ever saw John get was when he'd start dwelling on the 88's and how the Germans learned to shoot tree bursts. He said living through an attack from the 88's was the worst, because you had no protection in your foxhole or dugout. The trees would fall on you or the shrapnel from the 88's would tear you apart-- all from above. John saw the most number of his buddies torn up from 88's. When John would start talking about the 88's, you knew you were in for a long night. From listening to his stories about the 88's I could barely stand to watch that episode of BofB.

One last thing, and then I'll leave you alone.

Here's an interesting account of the Nuts incident by Nut's nephew:

http://www.army.mil/article/92856

Thanks shaman for the posts.

This is where it began.



I've known three different soldiers who were there. One was a paratrooper with the 101st Airborne Div., the other two were regular infantrymen. The stories they've told certainly illustrated just how horrible was the fighting there.

L.W.

Such bravery from so many.



Casualties at "the Bulge."

Killed in Action 10,276
Wounded in Action 47,493
Missing in Action 23,218
Total for 6 weeks of battle: 80,987


L.W.

Great stuff on our main TV stations about the battle, great footages and testimonials. Some vets came in Bastogne last week end for the commemoration days.

Jim, I still dream to make you kill a wild boar on that battlefield ...

And these are just the US casualities. There were also about 1400 brits, from 65k to 100k Germans and 3000 killed civilians.

We still owe so much.