Posted on 12/22/2004 6:06:36 AM PST by Infantry Grunt 1968-69
Just one of the many WWII heroes we have to be thankful for.
"To the USA Commander of the encircled town of Bastogne. . .There is only one possibility. . .the honorable surrender of the encircled town." The German Commander at Bastogne
"To the German Commander: Nuts! The American Commander." Maj. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe - Dec. 22, 1944
I hear they throw nuts at the parade every year over there.
http://www.army.mil/cmh/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_19.htm
Page 468
Armored and the 7th Armored (so vague was information inside the perimeter) were on their way to Bastogne; to the men in the line this was heartening news.
What may have been the biggest morale booster came with a reverse twistthe enemy "ultimatum." About noon four Germans under a white flag entered the lines of the 2d Battalion, 327th. The terms of the announcement they carried were simple: "the honorable surrender of the encircled town," this to be accomplished in two hours on threat of "annihilation" by the massed fires of the German artillery. The rest of the story has become legend: how General McAuliffe disdainfully answered "Nuts!"; and how Colonel Harper, commander of the 327th, hard pressed to translate the idiom, compromised on "Go to Hell!" The ultimatum had been signed rather ambiguously by "The German Commander," and none of the German generals then in the Bastogne sector seem to have been anxious to claim authorship. [14] Lt. Col. Paul A Danahy, G-2 of the 101st, saw to it that the story was circulated-and appropriately embellished-in the daily periodic report: "The Commanding General's answer was, with a sarcastic air of humorous tolerance, emphatically negative." Nonetheless the 101st expected that the coming day-the 23d-would be rough.
The morning of 23 December broke clear and cold. "Visibility unlimited," the air-control posts happily reported all the way from the United Kingdom to the foxholes on the Ardennes front. To most of the American soldiery this would be a red-letter day-long remembered-because of the bombers and fighter-bombers once more streaming overhead like shoals of silver minnows in the bright winter sun, their sharply etched contrails making a wake behind them in the cold air.
In Bastogne, however, all eyes looked for the squat planes of the Troop Carrier Command.
snip
In 2000 i got to march in the MESA Friendship March which commemorates the liberation of Bastogne. i was never more proud to be the legacy of what our grandfathers accomplished over there. the people of that area are great people that do remember what america's young men died for. they wouldnt allow us to pay for food or drink and we were hugged and kissed by elderly women and men alike. it is a million miles away from the attitude towards american military in the rest of europe.
I know the older ones remember..
Glad you got to take part!
I know the older ones remember..
Glad you got to take part in the March!
I was told once by someone with close connections in the U.S. military who was a young adult during the war that the word out was that the expression he used was not "Nuts!" but rather an expression most would rather not see on a nice family site like Free Republic.
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