Posted on 12/17/2011 5:48:40 PM PST by InvisibleChurch
Breath taking pics...
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
I was going to say that I've seen many of these pictures before. I've got a lot of books about the Ardennes in my library and most of these pictures are in those books.
"The winning war was over, the losing war had begun. I saw the white stain of fear growing in the dull eyes of German officers and soldiers...When Germans become afraid, when that mysterious German fear begins to creep into their bones, they always arouse a special horror and pity. Their appearance is miserable, their cruelty sad, their courage silent and hopeless. That is when the Germans become wicked."
Initial thread post has been sent off to my Dad.
My Grandfather was a tank battalion commander captured at Stalingrad. Grandma was notified by Soviet Miliary Attache that her husband no longer had the oxygen habit in ‘53 (or so - she didn’t remember when exactly).
Thanks for the ping. Awesome pictures.
Or Von Rundstedt.
You can research US Army records for the time in the Ardennes as well as Belgium archives concerning conditions in the country at the time. To that particularly I’m not sure as to a link how however The Weather Channel(weatherchannel.com) has a documentary series called ‘How The Weather Changed History and I know they did one of weather conditions during The Bulge. It was one of Western Europe’s coldest and snowiest winter in almost eighty years up to that time. Temps ranged as low as minus 20 below. That area of western Europe typically has cold, cloudy and rainy autumns and harsh winters. In fact German General Walhter Model who was given the task by Hitler of planning the attack complained to his aides “H[e] want’s me to make an attack in the Ardennes where it snows all the time, it doesn’t get light until 7 and it’s dark at three in the afternoon!’’.
My dad was in the CBI (China/Burma/India)
My Dad was also in CBI .He would be 94 now.
FReeper Extexasredhead’s Dad was in CBI, Too.
Deserves a bookmark
Deserves a bookmark
Deserves a bookmark
Fantastic!
God Bless him. Did he served with the 9th. Tactical Air Force? I knew a vet who flew a P-47 Thunderbolt providing support for ‘’the ground pounders.’’ He told me they had to light fires under the engines to keep the oil pans and oil pumps from freezing. Funny, now that you mention it a number of these men who saw combat in the Bulge would tell me about the cold and they’d do a quick kind of hunch of their shoulders as if to emphasize the point. I wonder if they were even aware they were doing it. God bless them.
I heard Mel Brooks interviewed once and he was asked about the Battle of the Bulge, which he fought in. He laughed and said, “Oh, it was so loud. You couldn’t even read a newspaper.”
My grandfathers soldier brother lost his life at the Battle of the Bulge.
A guy I served with in Iraq has a grandfather who was an Ardennes veteran. To this day he won’t even have ice in his drinks. He said his grandfather told him, “You can’t know how miserable we were out there.”
Interestingly, his grandfather also told him that he’d rather fight a WWII-style war than what we fought in Iraq any day of the week. The IEDs and all that sucked, but I’d take that over artillery barrages and armored charges any day of the week.
They were remarkable men. This nation did not honor them near enough, in my humble opinion.
It's a shame that cameras were not invented much earlier. It would have been nice to see photos of the American revolution or photos of the Middle Ages. Hell, imagine having photographs of the ancient civilizations of Rome and Greece? That would be awesome.
Battle of the Bulge ping.
Thanks for posting.
“... to this day he won’t even have ice in his drinks”.
I can’t even imagine what they went through but it must have been “hell”. To be home for that long and still not want an icy drink. Bless them all (living and deceased).
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