American Valor Quarterly Issue 12 - Spring 2015 | Page 34

U.S. Army Center of Military History

A MAJOR HUB OF SEVEN ROADS, TAKING BASTOGNE WAS KEY TO THE GERMANS’ SUCCESS IN THE BATTLE OF
THE BULGE. BY DECEMBER 21, 1944, IT WAS COMPLETELY SURROUNDED, THE GERMANS CUTTING OFF EVERY
ROAD - THERE WOULD BE NO RELIEF, NO RESUPPLY, AND NO RETREAT. AND ALSO NO SURRENDER, AS THE
AMERICAN FORCES REFUSED TO YIELD.

Germans immediately reinforced the
bridge so they couldn’t take it. Everyone
on the ground knew at that point,
the operation was done. This meant
there was nothing we could do to help
the people at Arnhem and they lost
8,000 soldiers who were either killed,
wounded, or captured. The operation
was a failure at that point; period. I
have always maintained that there was
no tactical air support to speak of. If
we had tactical air support they could
have obliterated the Germans near that
bridge. One theory I heard recently was
that they dropped them so far from the
bridge because the British airmen were
afraid of all the flak in the area. They
didn’t want to see a plane lost. So for
worrying about a plane lost, they lost
the battle. The war could have been
over at Christmas.

have been. We were there about 70 days
before we went back to France to turn
in our weapons and excess clothing to
prepare for furlough back in the U.S.
It was on Dec. 16th at 4 a.m. when the
sergeant came in and turned on all the
lights, and said, “Get up, get up! There’s
a been a breakthrough and you’re
going.” My initial reaction was, “You’re
full of it. We don’t have any winter
clothes and we don’t have any rifles.”
But sure enough there came semi
trailers with four-foot sides and no tops
on them. We loaded the trucks standing
up and there wasn’t enough room to sit
down. They herded us in like cattle. It
was raining and we traveled about 109
miles this way. I knew then that this
was really serious, but we didn’t know
where we were going or really what we
were getting into.

They kept us on the front line in the
Netherlands longer than we ever should

We got off in a muddy field and
saw a little sign that read, “Bastogne,”

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which we pronounced bos-tog-nee. That’s
how ignorant we were, we didn’t even
know how to pronounce the name and
we didn’t know what country we were
in. They put us in a roughly 20-mile
circumference circle around the town
and we were given our objective. This
time, we were told to stop the Germans
from getting to the airport where our
supplies were going to be delivered.
The Germans intended to take those
supplies on their way to invade
England. Of course, if they had been to
take England we could not have done
anything. We wouldn’t have had a base
to operate from.
Many people have mistakenly heard
that our unit was rescued by Gen.
George Patton’s men. That’s not true.
We didn’t need rescue, but what he
did do was one of the best military
maneuvers that’s ever been performed.
He turned a whole army 90 degrees and
AMERICAN VALOR QUARTERLY