What German Soldiers Found in American Supply Depots SHOCKED Them

Echoes from the Battlefield "December 19th, 1944. 0430 hours. Near Stoumont, Belgium. Oberleutnant Friedrich Hartmann stood in the pre-dawn darkness, staring at what his reconnaissance patrol had just discovered. Behind a hastily abandoned American defensive line lay something that would fundamentally challenge everything the Wehrmacht understood about warfare, logistics, and the industrial capacity of their enemy.

"What the German soldiers found wasn't just supplies. It was a revelation that would shatter their conception of how wars could be fought and won. The contents of these American depots would expose the terrifying truth about the conflict they were losing—not through lack of courage or tactical skill, but through an industrial disparity so vast it rendered German resistance mathematically futile."

"The German offensive that would become known as the Battle of the Bulge had begun five days earlier on December 16th, 1944. Operation Wacht am Rhein represented Adolf Hitler's desperate gamble to split Allied forces, capture the port of Antwerp, and force a negotiated peace in the West. The initial assault achieved tactical surprise, with three German armies comprising over 200,000 men crashing through thinly held American positions in the Ardennes Forest.

"Kampfgruppe Peiper, the spearhead formation of the 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, had penetrated deepest into American lines. Under the command of Obersturmbannführer Joachim Peiper, this battle group consisted of approximately 4,000 men, 600 vehicles, and 100 tanks. Their mission was simple in concept but brutal in execution: drive west at maximum speed, seize bridges across the Meuse River, and create chaos in the American rear.

"By December 18th, Kampfgruppe Peiper had advanced nearly 40 miles, leaving destruction in its wake. But the rapid advance had created a critical problem documented in German military records. Fuel consumption had exceeded planning estimates by 300%. The Panther and Tiger tanks, while formidable weapons, consumed gasoline at rates the Wehrmacht's collapsing logistics network could no longer sustain. Each Panther tank required 270 liters of fuel per 100 kilometers. Each Tiger II consumed even more, approximately 450 liters for the same distance."

"German planning documents captured after the war revealed the offensive's fundamental flaw. Operations planners had calculated that fuel supplies would be sufficient for the first 48 hours only. After that, German forces were expected to capture American fuel depots and use enemy supplies to continue the advance. The entire operation hinged on seizing American logistics infrastructure intact."

Hegseth Is Giving Fort Bragg Its Name Back… With An Upgrade

Signaling the end of the Biden Error

 The Lid

    The new name pays tribute to Pfc. Roland L. Bragg, a World War II hero who earned the Silver Star and Purple Heart for his exceptional courage during the Battle of the Bulge.

"Without asking the troops how they felt about it, Joe Biden threw the activists in his party a bone by scrubbing the names of some ‘problematic’ military bases.

"A simplistic reading of history reduces the question to Confederacy and White Supremacy. While we can’t ignore that part of history, we can’t erase the implications of how a fractured nation looked for ways to stitch itself back together again — as Lincoln would phrase it ‘with malice for none’.

"But Joe Biden embraced a 1619 Project ahistorical reading of history, maximizing American culpability, negating anything that would elevate and ennoble it. The propaganda, energized by the George Floyd riots and the pulling down of Confederate statues motivated him to change the long-established name of some American bases.

"The name and tradition of Fort Bragg has taken on a life and identity of its own, quite apart from the man whose name it originally bore. It has stories of its own, and a culture of its own.

"An arbitrary rebrand, late in the game, with words like ‘Liberty’ or ‘Freedom’ ignores the fact that tradition and history is part of the beating heart of military tradition.

"Pete Hegseth has rejected the 1619 Project worldview, and with it, the negative view of history and tradition. As a result, Fort Bragg is getting its name back… more or less."

Malmedy Massacre - What Happened? Rare Original Film (WW2 Documentary)

Battle Guide  "On 17th December 1944 Hitler’s famous ‘Last Gamble in the West’ was one day old. Leading the northernmost of his westwards thrusts through the Ardennes were the SS troops of Kampfgruppe Peiper. Blocked and slowed at every turn by determined American defenders, they exacted a horrific toll on any who fell into their hands. This is the story of just one such event during the Battle of the Bulge, which took the name of the Malmedy Massacre."

Written References:

• D. Parker, Fatal Crossroads (2013)
• S. Remy, The Malmedy Massacre: The War Crimes Trial Controversy (2017)
• C. Whiting, Massacre at Malmedy (2007)
• J. Weingartner, Crossroads of Death (1979)
• D. Cooke, Kampfgruppe Peiper: The Race for the Meuse (2005)

General Sources:

• Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)
• Imperial War Museum Sound Archive (IWMSA)
• US National Archives (NARA)
• British Newspaper Archive (BNA)
• The National Archives, Kew (TNA)
• Google Earth Pro & Web Versions
• Maptiler Pro (Desktop Version)

Eighty years ago: the Battle Of The Bulge; The Wereth Eleven

80th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge

National Archives Museum

German Propaganda Footage about the Ardennes Offensive- 4 January 1945  "The Ardennes Offensive, in English also known as “Battle of the Bulge”, officially called “Operation Wacht am Rhein” was one of the last major German offensives of WWII.

"Driven by wrong political and diplomatic conclusions, Hitler believed that the Coalition of the Western Allies was close to collapsing in mid/late 1944, and all that was needed was one crucial victory. He therefore ordered the last German reserves to be mobilized for a large offensive in the Ardennes region, which was planned from September 1944 onwards. The goal was to inflict a major loss on the Allies and capture the important port of Antwerp. "Three German armies, the 6th and 5th Tank Armies and the 7th Army, totaling around 220,000 soldiers, 550 tanks and 700 assault guns, attacked on December 16th, 1944, in the Ardennes region in Belgium/Luxembourg. "The Allies, who didn’t thought Germany was still able of launching a major offensive, had only weak forces in that area, around four divisions and a few other units, most of them fresh units with little to no combat experiences, around 85,000 men. They further failed to recognize the German troop movements, largely because the Germans kept their plans on a tight security level, with most orders being given via courier, instead of radio, so that the Allies were unable to intercept these messages. The Germans had supply shortages, especially fuel, so they planned to capture Allied fuel depots during their offensive. "The Germans initially made some progress but failed to capture large Allied fuel depots and encountered stiff Allied resistance, especially at the famous Siege of Bastogne and the less famous, but even more important Battle of Elsenborn Ridge in the northern section of the offensive. "Ultimately, the Allies were able to bring in enough reserves and the initial surprise quickly wore off, so the Germans had to stop their offensive in late December 1944. The Allies recaptured all their lost territory until February 1945. "Both the German (17,200 killed,16,000 prisoners 530 tanks and 800 aircraft ) and Allies (19,200 killed, 21,200 prisoners, 800 tanks and 1,000 aircrafts) suffered heavy losses during the offensive, but the Allies were able to replace these losses in a short time, the Germans weren’t. " "Thus, the Battle of the Bulge wasted the last substantial reserves the Germans had and ultimately sped up Germanys already unavoidable downfall. "This is footage from German propaganda newsreels, showing the initially successes of the Ardennes offensive. "It was shown in the German Newsweek, a German propaganda newsreel, on January 4th, 1945."

The Wereth 11 Massacre During the Battle of the Bulge - Warfare History

 Network  

Belgium: Monument to the Wereth Eleven

"When German prisoners of war arrived at Camp Gruber, Tech. Sgt. William Edward Pritchett was compelled to deliver a concern to his captain. The men of the 333rd noticed the POWs were fed better than the 333rd and that white GIs showed more courtesy and respect for the Germans than to their fellow black comrades. McLeod forwarded those remarks to Kelsey, but they were shooed aside. 

In that regard we have become so much better now that we were then. These are the people to whom reparations are owed, not the Joy Reid's, Al Sharpton's and Letitia James's who grate on America's ears today. TD 

P-47 Thunderbolts vs. German Tiger Tanks

 Ed Cottrell and the Battle of the Bulge

"Ed Cottrell was a young airman serving with the US Army Air Forces’ (USAAF) 493rd Fighter Squadron, 48th Fighter Group at the time the Ardennes Offensive kicked off. He and his comrades were given one task that was to be repeated over the course of the battle: support the Allied ground forces by targeting German tanks and equipment from the sky.

"To do this, Cottrell piloted a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt, which he’d nicknamed “Our Mary.” .  .

"As a decorated United States Army M1 Abrams tank commander it is heartwarming to see at the end of this film the two adversaries come together with respect and admiration for one another and finally in decency and friendship. What a wonderful story with a very satisfying ending. Kind of reminds me of my days in the early 1980s in The former West Germany, a place where I have very many happy memories serving with the third infantry division based in Aschaffenburg am Main on the front lines of the Cold war. I was so grateful that two former adversary nations had come together in friendship and mutual camaraderie to keep the world at peace together. My hat's off and my love and admiration for the German people as in my older age now I wish to return to my former Garrison town and say hello once more. Peace and love to all."

Ed Cottrell and the Battle of the Bulge | War History Online

When Everything is Racist There's No Room for Reason

  Opinion (newsweek.com)    

A free corporate media, presenting multiple sides of an issue and allowing for an open exchange of ideas on opinion pages, has given way to mob- and media-approved narratives and calls to silence and banish all dissent to the outer rim." . . .

. . ."This is the unfortunate place our country is in today. For the Left, the connective tissue that runs through every issue is the noxious claim of "systemic racism." It takes on many forms, such as critical race theory, intersectionality, and the accusation that everything is a relic of the Jim Crow era. There is no debate or defense because the accusation is designed to skip the trial and move straight to sentencing. If it's a symbol it is torn down. If it's a person they are deplatformed, silenced, fired and doxed by the Twitterati. If it's a business or corporation it will be listed in The New York Times.

" 'It's no surprise that calls for Carlson's firing came from the usual woke mob. But even the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), an organization that should have a solid handle on what racism is, decided to insert itself in the middle of a legitimate debate about immigration. It forcefully came down in favor of cancel culture by sending a letter of condemnation to Fox News demanding Carlson's termination.

"The letter referred to Carlson's monologue as a "full-on embrace" and "open-ended endorsement of white supremacist ideology." Despite writing, "we believe in dialogue and giving people a chance to redeem themselves," the ADL concluded that "this is not legitimate political discourse." This letter marks the ADL's unfortunate transformation into just another arm of the ever-expanding progressive Left. After all, the ADL and the progressive wing it parrots aren't merely trying to cancel Tucker Carlson. Their goal is to quash the debate on immigration entirely." . . .

Far-left Rep. Ayanna Pressley accuses Walgreens of racism over Boston store closure (msn.com)    I was laid off at work once. Was that racism?

Here are all the innocuous things that suddenly became racist in 2017 | National Post

Case in point: Dunkirk. Yes. Dunkirk.

"Dunkirk dominated box offices everywhere from Japan to South Africa to Germany. Still, it weathered a barrage of critical complaints, most notably that it was somehow racist for featuring only white male characters – despite the fact that the actual Dunkirk evacuation was pretty white and male itself. The U.K. would eventually win the Second World War with one of history’s most ethnically diverse military alliances, but in the spring of 1940 it was still mostly a low-melanin conflict."

In "The Battle Of The Bulge", I noticed all the SS troops were played by white actors. TD

Internet wants Joy Reid fired as she claims 'White Christian' Iowa Trump voters want people of color to 'bow down' before them (msn.com)

Christmas 1944: The Battle of the Bulge

Legal Insurrection

Heroism on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day in the snow and cold in the Ardennes Forest.

. . .

"Here’s an excerpt from his story (emphasis added):

In December 1944, Ginther became one of the 23,000 Americans captured or missing by the end of the Battle of the Bulge, Germany’s final and ultimately unsuccessful offensive on the Western Front.

He began a 150-mile march into Germany 67 years ago this month. He remembers feeling humbled in defeat, even more so as the POWs met German artillery pulled by horses or one truck pulling another on its way to the front….

The column of POWs passed through a countryside devastated by war and damaged by Allied bombing. At one village, the POWs had to clear rubble so German artillery could pass through. An American bomber pilot joined the prisoner ranks.

“The people seemed to be more hostile to airmen, whom they blamed for being bombed,” Ginther said.

Germans harassed the downed pilot. They’d rush the sides of the column, trying to grab him.

The villagers were starving, exhausted and angry.

When the hostility was at its worst, all the prisoners had reason to be afraid — though none so much as the captured bomber pilot.

Yet at that moment, an American in the ranks began singing “Silent Night.”

“Pretty soon the Germans were singing ‘Silent Night’ too, so it calmed things down,” Ginther said. “Halfway through the first verse, you could hear the German words, too.”

If not for the song, which for one moment brought a measure of peace to a one small corner of Germany, “I don’t really know what would have happened,” he said. “The guards would have tried, I guess, to protect him.”. . .

 THE WERETH 11, A LITTLE-KNOWN MASSACRE DURING THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE

"WASHINGTON – As we near the 69th anniversary of one of the decisive battles in Europe during World War II, U.S. Reps. Jim Gerlach (PA-6th District) and Chaka Fattah (PA-2nd District) have introduced a resolution that would formally recognize the valor and sacrifice of 11 black soldiers captured, tortured and ruthlessly executed by Nazi troops in a pasture in Wereth, Belgium on the second day of the Battle of the Bulge.

"The resolution, H. Con. Res. 68, also calls on the U.S. Senate’s Armed Services Committee to revise a 1949 subcommittee report to include an appropriate recognition of the massacre of the 11 black soldiers of the 333rd Field Artillery Battalion of the U.S. Army who were beaten, stabbed and shot multiple times at the hands of their Nazi captors almost seven decades ago on December 17, 1944. The original subcommittee report documented a dozen similar massacres during the Battle of the Bulge, but did not include any reference to the killings in Wereth.". . .

The Wereth Eleven   

*

History – U.S. Memorial Wereth

Our President, the Pathological Liar

Jeff Crouere

It is too dangerous for the United States to be saddled with such a president. If he does not resign, Republicans must begin impeachment proceedings when they take control of the U.S. House of Representatives in January. 

"The sad reality is that the President of the United States, Joe Biden, is a pathological liar. This is not a new personality trait for our Commander-in-Chief, but a characteristic that has been apparent throughout his 52-year political career. 

"Biden has been telling lies, including massive untruths, for decades. It is a major reason he had to exit the 1988 presidential campaign. He lied about his law school grades and plagiarized speeches from United Kingdom Labor Party leader Neil Kinnock. 

"Regularly, Biden lies about his childhood, his family, his academic career, and his record as a politician. 

Does anyone really believe that, as a young lifeguard, he faced off with a “bad dude” named “Corn Pop” who had a “bunch of bad boys” armed with “straight razors?” Biden claimed he used a six-foot chain to force the gang to leave. 

"Biden pretends he was a tough guy and has boasted that in high school, he would have taken Donald Trump “behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.” 

"He likes to embellish his career as a college football player and lied about being on the University of Delaware team that beat the Ohio Bearcats. He said he quit the team to date the woman who would become his first wife, but, instead, he was forced to leave due to bad grades.

"This week, Biden told a series of lies that are impossible to reconcile. At a town hall meeting with U.S. veterans in Delaware, Biden told a story of awarding a Purple Heart to his uncle, Frank Biden. He said that his uncle had served heroically in the Battle of the Bulge in World War II, and had earned the Purple Heart, but never received it.". . . 

Biden Tries to Impress Veterans with Story About Uncle at Battle of the Bulge ... Then Someone Did the Math

Western Journal  "Joe Biden seems to dole out a new falsehood every other month about his personal biography, and he’s done it again with the claim that he awarded his uncle with a Purple Heart for his service in WWII.

Speaking to veterans in Delaware on Friday, Biden, who was elected as Barack Obama’s vice president in 2008, went off script again with yet another fake story about his life, according to the New York Post.

“My dad, when I got elected vice president, he said, ‘Joey, Uncle Frank fought in the Battle of the Bulge.’ He was not feeling very well now — not because of the Battle of the Bulge — but he said, ‘And he won the Purple Heart, and he never received it. He never got it. Do you think you could help him get it? We will surprise him,'” Biden said.

. . ."The thing is, Biden lies like this over and over again, at nearly every event where he speaks off the cuff. He seems to do this to ingratiate himself with any audience and to pander to them by putting himself and his family in the shoes of the people to whom he is speaking.

"Biden has delivered an avalanche of false stories this year alone.

"In October, for instance, he lied claimed that gasoline was over $5 per gallon when he took office. In fact, it was under $2.50 at the time.". . .

22-second video clip shows why you never trust a Biden

Biden Claimed He Created 1 Million Jobs. Actual Number, 10,500  "What’s a little rounding error between a corrupt hack and the country he’s running into the ground?

“In the second quarter of this year, we created more jobs than in any quarter under any of my predecessors in the nearly 40 years before the pandemic,” Mr. Biden said on July 8.

“The economy created more than 1.1 million jobs in the second quarter, or around 375k jobs per month,” the White House said in a statement on July 22.

"A million or ten thousand. Come on, man. Who’s keeping track?". . .

The Wereth Eleven; Battle of the Bulge

HistoryNet

Members of an African American artillery battalion went from being hated to revered to tortured and killed by the SS at Wereth during the Battle of the Bulge. The crime remains unsolved.

Sacrifice: The 333rd Field Artillery at the Battle of the Bulge | The National WWII Museum | New Orleans (nationalww2museum.org)

At Christmas, Remembering the Battle of the Bulge

Men of the 504th Parachute Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division, supported by a tank. The division fought hard to hold the Germans in the area under thick layers of snow in December 1944

Power Line  "Victor Davis Hanson recalls the Battle of the Bulge, which I hadn’t realized was the bloodiest battle in U.S. history:

Seventy-five years ago, at the Battle of the Bulge (fought from Dec. 16, 1944, to Jan. 25, 1945), the United States suffered more casualties than in any other battle in its history. Some 19,000 Americans were killed, 47,500 wounded and 23,000 reported missing.

The American and British armies were completely surprised by a last-gasp German offensive, given that Allied forces were near the Rhine River and ready to cross into Germany to finish off a crippled Third Reich.

The Americans had been exhausted by a rapid 300-mile summer advance to free much of France and Belgium. In their complacency, they oddly did not worry much about their thinning lines, often green replacement troops or the still-formidable German army. After all, Nazi Germany was being battered on all sides by Americans, British, Canadians and Russians. Its cities were in ruins from heavy bombers.

Yet the losing side is often the most dangerous just before its collapse.

"The Battle of the Bulge has a special resonance for me, because my father almost died in it. He was a college student when World War II broke out. He graduated, then enlisted in the Army. He was sent to one of the big Army bases in the South for basic training. In those days, they gave every enlistee an IQ test; maybe they still do. My father’s performance on the test was good enough that he was pulled out of the ranks and sent to graduate school to become an engineer. (Drill Sergeant, with privates lined up: “Hinderaker! Who’s Hinderaker?” My father, wondering what he could have done to get in trouble already, stepping forward: “I’m Private Hinderaker.” Drill Sergeant: “Congratulations, Private Hinderaker. You just got the highest score on the IQ test of anyone who has ever gone through this base.” That is how my mother told the story, 40 years ago.)

"Many, if not most, of those who qualified for the engineering program were Jews, and my father, who came from a town of 200 in South Dakota, became a lifelong philo-Semite. All proceeded according to plan until June 1944 and the D-Day invasion. The Army concluded that the war wouldn’t last long enough to need another class of engineers, so they terminated the program and sent its participants to the front.

"My father found himself in Belgium, assigned to divisional headquarters. One morning he was eating breakfast in the mess tent, along with many others, when someone ran breathlessly into the tent and shouted something like: “The Germans are attacking! The front has crumbled. They will be here in a matter of hours. Get to the rear any way you can, every man for himself!” My father was in the midst of eating the first real eggs he had tasted since joining the Army, so he delayed a few minutes before following the order." . . .

Cold killers: ‘Boy’ SS soldiers, Nazis stealing boots from dead US troops and innocent civilians gunned down – harrowing images from new book show cruel reality of 1944 Battle of the Bulge, which inspired TV's epic Band of Brothers

Thank you, veterans who saw buddies die.

Terrell AfterMath

Five Battle of the Bulge Museums You Must See

My Father’s D-Day Memories

By Karin McQuillan at American Greatness

". . . A Quintessentially American Story "Here are the roots of my Dad’s optimism.  He was born in a small house with a dirt floor in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in the Soviet Union. His father escaped the Communists, made his way to America, and after several years, had earned enough to bring the family to join him.

"My Dad was 9 years old. He excelled in public school and won a place in the Bronx High School of Science, but had to drop out during the Depression to help his family. He never finished school. He did serve in the Civilian Conservation Corps in Oregon as a firefighter and a logger. Back home, he was a self-taught photographer with his gang of Jewish friends in the Bronx, taking girlie pictures and selling them to cheap magazines for a few dollars.

"When America entered World War II, my father, armed with his portfolio of photos, signed up immediately.  He was assigned to be a combat photographer with the Army Signal Corps.

Phil Schultz with his camera. (Photo courtesy of the author.)

"He soon shipped out to England, to prepare for the Allied invasion of Northern Europe. He was with the 165th Signal Photo Company, 29th Infantry Division. This was the “Band of Brothers” division that took Omaha Beach, the lead troops in the invasion that began on June 6, 1944.

"Being a combat photographer meant he served on the front lines of World War II from Omaha Beach to the liberation of Paris, including the Battle of the Bulge, as well as the battle to take the Remagen Bridge that led into Germany and ultimately Berlin.

"His films of the action are in the Library of Congress. During the war, they were edited by the Army and shown as newsreels in cinemas across America. . . "

. . . "And I know, experienced already, that if a tank is firing, someone is going to shoot back. I get my pictures and I leave, go around the corner. And my officer, he went to the spot where I was and got killed. You get that streetwise—battlewise. You are there, you do a job, and get out" . . .

Remember These Fighting, WWII, Hollywood Idols? “Hollywood’s greatest–Compare them to today’s simpletons.”

Jeffrey A. Friedberg

Brigadier, and Then Major-General James Stewart

• . . . George Gobel comedian taught fighter pilots, I believe it was in Oklahoma. Johnny Carson made a big deal about it once on the Tonight Show, to which George said, “The Japs didn’t get past us!”
• Sterling Hayden, US Marines and OSS. Smuggled guns into Yugoslavia and parachuted into Croatia.
• James Stewart, US Army Air Corps. Bomber pilot who rose to the rank of General.
• Ernest Borgnine, US Navy. Gunners Mate 1c, destroyer USS Lamberton.
• Ed McMahon, US Marines. Fighter Pilot. (Flew OE-1 Bird Dogs over Korea as well.)
• Telly Savalas, US Army.
• Walter Matthau, US Army Air Corps., B-24 Radioman/Gunner and cryptographer.
• Steve Forrest, US Army. Wounded, Battle of the Bulge.
• Jonathan Winters, USMC. Battleship USS Wisconsin and Carrier USS Bon Homme Richard. Anti-aircraft gunner, Battle of Okinawa.
• Paul Newman, US Navy Rear seat gunner/radioman, torpedo bombers of USS Bunker Hill.
• Kirk Douglas, US Navy. Sub-chaser in the Pacific. Wounded in action and medically discharged.
• Robert Mitchum, US Army.
• Dale Robertson, US Army. Tank Commander in North Africa under Patton. Wounded twice. Battlefield Commission.
• Henry Fonda, US Navy. Destroyer USS Satterlee.
• John Carroll, US Army Air Corps. Pilot in North Africa. Broke his back in a crash.
• Lee Marvin US Marines. Sniper. Wounded in action on Saipan. Buried in Arlington National Cemetery, Sec. 7A next to Greg Boyington and Joe Louis.
• Art Carney, US Army. Wounded on Normandy Beach, D-Day. Limped for the rest of his life.  

•  Raymond Burr, US Navy. Shot in the stomach on Okinawa and medically discharged.
• Eddie Albert, US Coast Guard. Bronze Star with Combat V for saving several Marines under heavy fire as pilot of a landing craft during the invasion of Tarawa.
• Charles Durning. US Army. Landed at Normandy on D-Day. Shot multiple times. Awarded the Silver Star and Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts. Survived Malmedy Massacre.
• Don Adams. US Marines. Wounded on Guadalcanal, then served as a Drill Instructor.

Fighting for the Americans, Captured by the Germans, Freed by the Soviets

How a Jewish-American soldier in WWII survived in a POW camp—and even managed to celebrate Passover under the Nazis’ noses

Milton Feldman  "I was 19 years old, a Brooklyn kid two semesters into college at Penn State, when I was called up for service in the Army in 1943. For a while, I was lucky; I was sent to school for training as an engineer rather than training for the beach landing of D-Day. But in 1944 that program ended, and in December of that year I was shivering in the snow in western Germany, just across the Belgian border

"On December 16, early in the morning, we heard a bombardment, the first real action we’d seen. Orders came back to the cooks: “Make all the food. Get the men up to feed them and do it fast.” We had a banquet. We had French toast and pancakes and eggs. We were going into battle.

"War historians have examined the events that led to the Battle of the Bulge and the miserable days that lay ahead for me and for thousands of my fellow soldiers in the 423rd Regiment, which was part of the 106th Infantry Division. We were unprepared for winter fighting. WWII bombers were mostly effective in clear weather, and low cloud cover had limited our most valuable weapon. And the Allied generals thought the Germans were in retreat, falling back to defend prewar German borders. It didn’t occur to them that the Germans were capable of—or interested in—mounting a major counterattack.

"The shelling we heard was that counterattack on a massive scale. To both the north and south of our position, German troops were advancing incredibly quickly—creating the Bulge. We were being surrounded." . . .

At that same time and place; Jews were not the only people the Nazis hated and murdered.

The Wereth 11, a Little-Known Massacre During the Battle of the Bulge

. . . "The 11 soldiers massacred, known as the “Wereth 11”, were: Curtis Adams of South Carolina; Mager Bradley of Mississippi, George Davis Jr. of Alabama; Thomas Forte of Mississippi; Robert Green of Georgia; James Leatherwood of Mississippi; Nathaniel Moss of Texas; George Motten of Texas; William Pritchett of Alabama; James Stewart of West Virginia; and Due Turner of Arkansas.

“ 'Our country shall be forever grateful to every member of the ‘Greatest Generation’ who contributed to the defeat of fascism in Europe and laid down their lives so that future generations could enjoy the blessing of freedom,” Gerlach said. “Every now and then, it takes history a while to accurately reflect the monumental moments that have helped chart its course. That’s certainly the case with these 11 black soldiers who courageously fought on the front line in the Ardennes against a relentless enemy and eventually made the ultimate sacrifice for their fellow soldiers and our nation." . . .