[Jims5543]

George visited Paris once and went to the Folleys-Breagere. The price of admission was a pack of cigarettes. By December, 1944, the 9th (and George) was at the German Border, near the Rhine, in the Ardennes Forest in Belgium. It was thought by many that Germany would surrender, and the war might be over by Christmas. But on December 16, 1944, the Germans counterattacked through the Ardennes Forest. The Germans had extremely large numbers of troops and equipment, much more power than anyone thought they had left. They drove a huge Bulge (Battle of the Bulge) in the American lines surrounding Bastogne, and drove almost to the Sea (Antwerp), where they would have split the American and English Front.

It turned out to be the biggest battle of the war with Americans dead, wounded, and captured running close to 100,000 men. It was the costliest battle that the United States had ever fought. Many of the Americans that were defending that line were new recruits who had never seen any action.

George’s jeep was behind enemy lines and he was almost captured. His buddy was Jewish and was very worried about being captured by the Germans. At one point, an artillery explosion knocked George out of his jeep and he was unconscious and hurt his shoulder, but was not considered wounded. Eventually they made their way back to the American lines. Bastogne was a city in the middle of the bulge and it never fell. General McAuliffe defending the city, gave the now famous “NUTS” reply when the Germans demanded his surrender. George had a buddy from Fort Bragg days, who always worried about being killed. Everyone told him he wouldn’t be, but at Bastogne, be was absolutely convinced he would be killed. He had several close calls at Bastogne, but he survived. He also survived the war and returned to Long Island, where George met him years later.

The buddy went on a tour of European Battle grounds on the 50th Anniversary of the end of the war and went to mass on Sunday in Bastogne. He received communion and on returning to his seat, collapsed of a heart attack and died.

George never had any interest in returning to Europe. He told me that he always said that if he got home safely, he’d never leave the United States. I don’t think he ever did. He also told me that when he came home from the war in “on piece”, he vowed that he would count every day of his life as a “Bonus” or icing on the cake and would be thankful for having it.

The Air Force and Army (the 9th) counterattacked and the German Bulge was broken. The Germans pushed back to their December 16th lines by early January, 1945. The German casualties were enormous and it was clear that Germany couldn’t fight on too much longer. Many of their generals wanted to surrender, especially to the Americans, rather than fight on and perhaps have to surrender to the Russians, who were coming from the East. Hitler would not surrender.

The Americans were again on or near the Rhine, and the next step was to cross the Rhine into Germany. It was clear that the Germans intended to fight virtually to the last man. They did and there were continuing huge casualties on both sides.

In January, 1945, the Germans began bombing all the bridges across the Rhine into Germany, in order to impede the allied invasion of the German homeland. One bridge, although heavily damaged, had not yet collapsed. It remained heavily defended by the Germans and they planted explosives under it on an almost daily basis. It was the Bridge at Remagen. Late in January, I believe it was, a unit of the 9th division reached the bridge and fought their way across. The 9th troops in the area were rallied and began crossing the bridge En Masse, George among them.

A beachhead was established on the East side (German side of the Rhine). This of course was a major break through and from the beachhead, allied troops led by the 9th began pouring into Germany.

George was billeted in a German farmhouse with other soldiers near the Town of Remagen. An old German couple who lived in the house stayed upstairs in what was like an attic. The soldiers invited them down to share their “K Rations” (The German people were starving at this time). The Germans ate and went to a closet and brought out a bottle of wine they were saving for their grandson’s return from the war. They had recently learned that he would not be coming back. The old woman said the war was not the people of Germany’s fault, but it was the fault of Germany’s leaders. She said “you Americans are nice boys, just like my grandson”. This woman remembered the Americans from the 1st World War, who crossed the same Remagen Beach in 1918. They also brought food. A few days after crossing, the Remagen Bridge collapsed.

As the allies crossed Germany, some towns surrendered, but the people were afraid of the Americans, expecting to be killed by them. George told on story of a German kid who came out of hiding and accepted the K Rations they gave him. He kept coming back for food, so the soldiers gave his a case of K Rations to take home. It was about 24 cans of food. The boy’s mother, realizing the food was not poisoned, kept 3 cans for her family and distributed the rest to neighbors. At this time, German soldiers were beginning to surrender in small groups, but at the same time, some German soldiers, mostly young 15 and 16 year old boys, were so indoctrinated by Nazism, they would fight on fanatically from the basements, halls, and ruins of homes. Georges said they were quite dangerous. Sometimes, older German soldiers would come out and surrender and make arrangements to go back into their shelter and encourage the young zealots to come out before they were killed or before they killed more Americans.