"These signs pointing toward Malmédy and Saint-Vith, Belgium, testify to another barbaric episode in the war.
In a last desperate ploy to avoid defeat, Hitler sent as many men and tanks as he could muster against the Western Allies in the Ardennes in mid-December.
Near Saint-Vith, the Sixth SS Panzer Army encountered fierce American resistance, which halted its progress.
In frustration and in blatant violation of the rules of war, soldiers in the First Panzer Division at Malmédy turned their guns on the Americans they had captured, killing 86."
"Hands lifted in surrender, American soldiers march before their German captors.
The last great German offensive of the war was designed to split in two the Allied armies on the Western Front.
Helped by foggy weather, which kept American and British planes grounded, the Germans were initially successful.
But their advance ended when reinforcements arrived for the Allies and planes could resume their bombing of German supply lines."
"Still in civilian dress, a group of recruits joins the Jewish Brigade at Meir Park in Tel Aviv, Palestine.
Wearing armbands designating them as "volunteers," they seek to join Jewish forces already sent from Palestine a month earlier to fight in the Italian campaign.
Some members of the Armée Juive, the Jewish Resistance in France, had already fled across the Pyrenees to Spain the previous year, intent on making their way to Palestine to continue the fight for freedom."
"The Jewish Brigade was a British Army regiment comprised exclusively of Jewish volunteers from Palestine.
Officially established in September 1944, the group fought in the Italian Theater of the war and later assisted illegal Jewish-immigration efforts to Palestine.
"The forerunner of the Jewish Brigade, the Palestine Regiment, was created in August 1942.
It consisted of four battalions: three Jewish and one Arab.
Pressure exerted by the World Zionist Organization, as well as support from Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt, resulted in the creation of the independent Jewish Brigade.
Led by Brigadier Ernest Benjamin, the brigade employed the Zionist flag as its standard.
Five thousand Palestinian Jews served in the brigade.
"The idea of creating a Jewish regiment was initially dismissed by the British for fear of antagonizing the Arab populace in Palestine.
Wartime contingencies, however, compelled the British government and military establishment to change their minds."
That would have been correct on December 15-16. Uncle B's 47th Inf had finally gotten to where they could "(urinate) in the Roer" (or at least a parallel millrace), when they were directed sometime on the 16th to go help deal with what was going on to the south. They arrived on the 17th and by nightfall were reinforcing a unit that had been sharply engaged (the 38th Cavalry Sqn, if I recall correctly). Two days hence they are up around Kalterherburg helping to keep the northern shoulder jammed tight.
Ironically, uncle's obituary said he participated "in the Battle of the Bulge," but there was no mention of his Roer River fighting or even the Remagen bridgehead. Someone must've thought it "read" better.
Mr. niteowl77