What’s so special about the Battle of the Bulge? Well, much as it pains a Gettysburg resident to admit this, it’s the largest and most consequential battle ever fought by the U.S. Army. But, more, it was the ultimate soldier’s battle. There were plenty of heroics and soldier decision-making on Omaha Beach as well, but D-Day and much of WWII was a war of hardware and planning. The Bulge was raw soldiering, the GI’s greatest triumph.
Many people think of Bastogne, “Nuts,” “3 divisions in 72 hours,” and the Weather Prayer when they think of the battle, but there would have been no fight for Bastogne except for little groups of surrounded and outnumbered men who held their ground the first few days of the battle.
A single Intelligence and Reconnaissance platoon – scouts, not even fighters – who stopped an entire German battalion – and all the divisions stacked up behind them – dead in their tracks for the first day of the offensive. By the end of the first day, the main German strike force was nearly a full day behind schedule, thanks to Lt. Lyle Bouck and his 31 men.
LTC William McKinley (the president’s nephew), ordered to defend a vital crossroads with his battalion to allow an entire division to escape a trap, telling his company commanders, “Our mission is to defend the crossroads at all costs. When you return to your companies, make sure that everyone in your command understands exactly what ‘at all costs’ means.” Of 600 men who went to defend the crossroads, 217 returned 3 days later.
For Bulge veterans, no matter how much combat they experienced, the Battle of the Bulge remained the formative experience of their lives. In 1990, Bert Morphis, a veteran of the 1st Division, recalled, “I think everyone’s most vivid memories are of the numbing cold. Mine certainly are! The cold was enough of an adversary without the Germans. Just staying alive took all of one’s ingenuity. I remember being on an outpost right in front of the German lines where the choice seemed to be between moving and being shot, or lying perfectly still and freezing to death. Somehow we survived.”
These brave men are answering their final roll call with the same dignity and grace with which they faced Hitler’s Panzers and built the world we live in. We lost one of our greatest ones recently. J. David Bailey died peacefully, as he lived for 103 ½ years. A veteran of the 422nd regiment of the 106th Division, David had a hair-raising escape when his entire regiment surrendered en masse. Many years after the war, he did such a distinguished job leading the Battle of the Bulge Association that he was the only president in its 44 year history to earn the “president emeritus” honorific. Most WWII veterans say, “I wasn’t a hero but I sure knew some, the ones we left buried in Franc and Luxembourg.” But some of those heroes made it home – and are marching off to join their buddies.
