Death in a high place

It was late June 2005, in the Hindu Kush mountain range that snaked between Afghanistan and Pakistan like a gossamer barrier. The border meant very little to the legions of hardened Taliban fighters who would routinely cross over into neighboring Pakistan to escape the Americans who were hunting them. These wild men of Afghanistan were seasoned mountain fighters used to moving quickly through impossible terrain and attacking en masse.
To Navy SEALs Mike Murphy, Danny Dietz, Marcus Luttrell and Matt Axelson it was a mission to be completed. The SEALs were part of a reconnaissance and surveillance team inserted just south of a mountain known as Sawtalo Sar and were tasked with observing, identifying and either killing or capturing Ahmad Shah, a local anti-coalition militia leader.
The SEAL team fast-roped from their MH-47 Chinook piloted by members of the elite US Army Special Operations Aviation Regiment and immediately set out for the summit of the mountain near the village where Shah was thought to be holed up in. It was dark and freezing cold by the time the men arrived at their overwatch position high up on the Sawtalo Sar. The real problem was a lack of vegetation or indeed finding anything larger than a pebble to hide behind, but the resourceful SEALs made due. They stayed in their area until mid-morning when the blazing sun half-baked the men alive in their exposed position. It was around this time that the SEAL team had an unexpected visitor in the form of three local shepherds and their flock of sheep. The SEALs forced the three Afghans to sit down while they debated what to do with them. According to survivor Marcus Luttrell, the team discussed possibly killing the unarmed shepherds to avoid compromise, but no one was comfortable with that idea. In the end, they simply let the three men go and almost immediately regretted it when not more than 30 minutes later, they were under attack by a group of 20-30 enraged Talibans armed with AK-47s and rocket propelled grenades. The battle lasted for several hours in a heroic feat of arms that should go down in history alongside Rorke’s Drift and the Lost Battalion. Slowly, the SEALs began to loose the gun battle and take serious injuries. Although the SEALs are trained and schooled to be the best war-fighters on earth, they are not bullet proof and they can only carry so much ammunition per man. The SEALs made several attempts to contact their combat operations center, eventually getting through by using an iridium satellite phone. Despite the calls for help, the only one left alive was Marcus Luttrell, who was discovered by a friendly Pashtun who gave him shelter in his village.
It was around this time that an even bigger tragedy involving the special operations fighters was happening. Knowing that a SEAL team was in peril, a massive rescue operation was under way. A quick reaction force was launched consisting of several helicopters filled with operators from various SEAL teams as well as SOAR personnel.
As the rescue force closed in, one of Shah’s fighters scored a direct hit with an RPG below the rear rotor of one of the MH-47’s. The rocket propelled grenade took out the transmission and rotor which caused the big aircraft to plummet to the ground like a stone killing all aboard. The loss of the three SEALs, combined with the eight on board the ill-fated helicopter as well as eight Special Operations Aviators was at the time the greatest loss of life in the special warfare community to date.
To the Taliban on the ground, it was a great victory. They looted the wreckage and the dead soldiers for weapons and equipment and even found a laptop with sensitive information on it. All in all, it was a disaster and a stunning blow for the Special Operations Command. In keeping with their creed “No man left behind”, the bodies of the sixteen operators as well as the three SEALs were recovered. Ahmad Shah and his cell of fighters returned to the area of the ambush three weeks later and continued to be a hostile presence in the area until he was killed in a gun battle with Pakistani police in April 2008. For survivor Marcus Luttrell, he owes his life to the friendly Pashtun named Gulab Khan and the other villagers who gave him sanctuary and refused to hand him over to the Taliban. Luttrell, through Gulab, was able to contact a Marine commander based in Asadabad who was finally able to extract him despite the fact that Luttrell had been moved several times to avoid capture. For his efforts in aiding an American, Gulab was threatened with death by the Taliban and was forced to relocate to Asadabad, near the American base. On September 14th, 2006, SEAL Team members, Matthew Axelson and Danny Dietz were posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for “undaunted courage and heroism” Marcus Luttrell was awarded the Navy Cross in a ceremony at the White House and in 2007, Lt. Michael Murphy was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions during the battle on the Sawtelo Sar.

The Witch of November

Captain Ernest McSorley tugged at the collar of his coat and squinted at the fading sun of the cold November afternoon. A veteran mariner, McSorley had over 40 years on the Great Lakes and high seas and was looking forward to retiring at the end of the shipping season to be with his ill wife. He had been captain of the Great Lakes freighter SS Edmund Fitzgerald for three years now and had a seasoned crew of 28 men under his command.
The big ore boat was somewhat of a legend due to her impressive size (729 feet long) as well as her record-breaking performance when it came to ore hauling. One of her former captains, Peter Pulcer, was known to play music and entertain tourists with a running commentary about the “Mighty Fitz” when navigating the Soo Locks on Lake Superior. Generally speaking, freshwater boats were built to last more than 50 years, so having been launched in 1957; the Edmund Fitzgerald was little more than halfway through her service life.
The weather reports for November 9th, 1975 were fairly typical for the Great Lakes but did show a storm system moving south of Lake Superior for the next 24 hours. Lake Superior is the largest fresh water lake in the world with a surface area the size of South Carolina. If it were possible to pump it dry, you could cover the entire land-mass of North and South American with over a foot of water. Its average depth is just over 480 feet although it plunges to over 1,300 feet in certain areas. Suffice to say, it’s a massive fresh water lake that acts as a mini-ocean and has produced some truly horrifying storms.
When the Fitz left Superior, Wisconsin that afternoon, she was carrying her usual load of taconite iron ore pellets that would be melted down into steel in one of the massive smelters near Detroit. She joined a second freighter, the SS Arthur Anderson under command of Captain Jesse Cooper, when both ships got word that a gale warning had been issued for the whole of Lake Superior.
Autumn is a tough season to be a mariner on the Great Lakes due to the high winds that blow across the water during the fall. Often the low pressure systems that fuel these winds pulls artic air from the north and warm Gulf air from the south to form storm systems that wreck havoc on shipping. These storms have the power of a Category 2 hurricane and are responsible for over 350 shipwrecks in Lake Superior alone.
When both the Anderson and the Fitzgerald got word about the “Witch of November” that was forming, both captains altered their course northward to seek shelter near the Canadian side of the lake. At 1 a.m. on November 10th, both the Arthur Anderson and the Edmund Fitzgerald were in the middle of a huge winter storm. As the center of the storm passed over the ships, the wind direction changed from northeast to south and picked up speed once again. The ships were battling huge seas with waves cresting at 25 feet. Tons of water came crashing over the decks of the Edmund Fitzgerald and her captain was starting to worry about making it to retirement.
The Arthur Anderson lost sight of the Edmund Fitzgerald around 2:45 p.m. due to heavy snow. At the time, the Fitz was about 16 miles ahead. Right around 3:30, McSorley radioed the Anderson to report he was taking on water and he had lost two vent covers. His ship had also developed a list due to the tons of water it had taken on. Shortly after this transmission, the US Coast Guard warned that the Soo Locks were now closed and all ships should seek safe anchorage to ride out the ferocious storm. Captain Cooper onboard the Anderson directed the Fitzgerald towards the direction of Whitefish Bay in an attempt to reach a safe location from the raging storm. In a cruel twist of fate, both the Whitefish Point light and the radio beacon were not working, so McSorely was forced to radio any vessel in the area to aid in his navigation. Captain Cedric Woodard of the Avafors spoke with McSorley about 5 p.m. and told him “I have a bad list, I have lost both radars and am taking heavy seas over the decks in one of the worst seas I have ever been in”.
Meanwhile back on the Arthur Anderson, the crew was battling to keep afloat in seas that were now between 25 and 30 feet with 85 mph gusts of wind. The Anderson also reports being struck by a series of massive rogue waves over 35 feet tall. These rogue waves, often called “three sisters” crash onto a vessel in a rapid succession. The first wave hits and before the water can drain off, a second and third wave strike which can overload a deck with tons of water.
At 7:10 p.m., the Arthur Anderson notified the Edmund Fitzgerald of another ship in the area and asked how she was doing. McSorely answered that “We are holding our own”. Minutes later, the Mighty Fitz sank beneath the waves with all hands. No distress signal was ever sent. She simply could not be raised by radio and had suddenly vanished off the radar.
Captain Cooper aboard the Arthur Anderson radioed first the coast guard and then several vessels nearby to report he had lost contact with the Edmund Fitzgerald. At 10:30, the Coast Guard asked all commercial vessels near the Whitefish Bay area to assist in the search for the Fitz. All that was found was some floating debris, a few lifeboats and rafts, but that was all. Contrary to rumor at the time, no bodies of the crew were ever recovered.
On November 14th, 1975 a US Navy aircraft detected a magnetic anomaly in the area where the Fitz was last reported. This was followed by a search using side scan sonar which located two large objects lying close to each other on the lake bottom. In May of 1976, the US Navy unmanned submersible, CURV-III positively identified the wreckage of the Edmund Fitzgerald lying in 530 feet of water. The bow section sits upright in the mud whereas the stern lies upside down and is angled away from the bow. Heaps of twisted metal and taconite ore make up the debris field.
Exactly how and why the Edmund Fitzgerald sank has never been adequately explained although various theories abound. One theory puts the blame on the main hatches not being properly secured or that the clamps were damaged, but this was discounted during various dives to the wreckage which clearly shows the hatch clamps in perfect condition. One of the more plausible theories has the Fitz shoaling or grounding on an unknown shoal which caused the entire ship to bend in the middle or “hogging” in nautical terms. This most certainly would have caused structural failure that could have broken the ship in two and sent her to the bottom in short order. In any event, the loss of the SS Edmund Fitzgerald and her crew of 29 was a shock to the maritime community of the Great Lakes. In the years since the tragedy, various changes have been put into place to further safeguard against further disasters. In 1977, the Coast Guard made it mandatory that all ships over 1600 tons must use depth finders. In addition emergency positioning indicating radio beacons (EPIRB) are now installed on all Great Lakes vessels and all vessels must undergo a yearly pre-November inspection by the Coast Guard to ensure all hatch vent closures are in good order as well as to make sure all vessels have the proper lifesaving equipment.
The Edmund Fitzgerald tragedy was eloquently memorialized by Canadian singer/songwriter Gordon Lightfoot in his moving ballad “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” which is probably one of the most hauntingly beautiful musical pieces ever written about a maritime disaster.

A day of infamy

It was a little before 6 a.m. when Ships Cook Doris Miller reported for duty aboard the battleship West Virginia. Dorie, as he was known, had enlisted in the United States Navy on September 1939 from his home town of Waco, Texas. He was the third of four sons and grew up desperately poor as many did during the 1930’s. For Dorie, being a Black American didn’t win him any favors and he would often get into fights at school over racist taunts. Life in an all segregated Navy wasn’t easy, but at least it provided “three hots and a cot” and being stationed at Pearl Harbor on the Hawaiian island of Oahu wasn’t bad duty for a young man who spent his youth in a dusty, dry Texas town. He was recently promoted to the position of main cook on the West Virginia and spent his days in the hot, cramped kitchen aboard ship preparing meals for the 1,407 officers and men.
The time was a little after 7:45 a.m. on December 7th, 1941 and Dorie was busy collecting laundry from the kitchen when the general quarters klaxon aboard ship began to sound. Suddenly, he felt a shudder run through the ship and when he emerged on deck to reach his battle station, it was like walking into hell itself. The entire battleship row was on fire…….it seemed as if every ship had been hit by some sort of air raid. It took Dorie a few minutes to realize that Pearl Harbor was under attack by what could only be Japanese aircraft. Dorie ran to his battle station, an anti-aircraft battery magazine amidship, only to discover it had been destroyed by an aerial torpedo, which is the shudder he felt earlier. All around him wounded men screamed in agony while the attack continued.
Dorie was a big man at 5’9” and 200 lbs, so he was able to easily move the wounded. As he started to carry his fellow wounded sailors to safer locations, he was order to report to the bridge to assist in rescuing Captain Bennion who had just been mortally wounded by a bomb splinter. Captain Bennion refused all aid and insisted he not be moved from the bridge of his ship. He died from his wounds a few minutes later.
Returning to the deck below, Dorie spied an unmanned .50 caliber anti-aircraft machine gun. He quickly loaded a belt into the big gun, pulled back the cocking lever and started hammering away at the Japanese airplanes that filled the sky around Pearl Harbor. Despite having never been trained on how to use the .50, Dorie kept firing until he ran out of ammunition.
Nearby, the USS Arizona was engaged in a similar fight for her life. It was sometime during the second wave of attacks that a Japanese armor-piercing bomb was dropped onto the Arizona. The bomb penetrated the armored deck and detonated in the main powder magazine. The resulting explosion vented out through the sides of the ship destroying much of the interior structure and over 1,177 crewmembers were instantly incinerated in the fireball. In an odd twist of fate, the massive explosion on the Arizona actually put out all fires on the repair ship Vestal, which was moored alongside. Eyewitnesses saw the Arizona actually leap out of the water as she exploded and debris from the stricken ship fell onto Ford Island nearby.
Back on the West Virginia, the order to abandon ship was given after she was struck by two armor piercing bombs and no less than five torpedoes which flooded the ship and caused her to settle into the mud of the harbor.
In 90 minutes time, the Japanese had managed to destroy and sink four battleships, two destroyers and over 180 aircraft, plus kill over 2400 sailors and marines. Numerous other ships were heavily damaged, but were repaired and sent back into service.
Doris Miller was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary courage in battle by Admiral Chester Nimitz on May 27th, 1942. Many felt that he should have been awarded the Medal of Honor for his heroic actions that day.
On November 24th , 1943 during the battle for Tarawa, Petty Officer, Ship’s Cook Third Class Doris Miller was aboard the escort carrier Liscome Bay when she was struck by a single torpedo from a Japanese submarine. The torpedo set off an explosion in the aircraft bomb magazine that sank the ship within minutes. His parents were notified of his death on December 7th, 1943.

Armistice Day

It was dark when the uniformed men climbed aboard their open-topped automobiles and began their grueling 10 hour drive across the war torn landscape of the Western Front. Seated in five separate cars were German politician Matthias Erzberger, Foreign Minister Count Alfred von Obendorff, Army Major General Detof von Winterfeldt, Navy Captain Ernst Vanselow and two Generals, Weygand and von Gruennel. The unlikely caravan had been quickly assembled by an arrangement between German chief of staff, Paul von Hindenburg and French Marshal Ferdinand Foch. When the five cars arrived at their secret location, the road weary men then boarded a train which took them to their final destination deep in the forest of Compiegne; a private rail car situated at a siding in the woods. Upon boarding Foch’s private train car, the German delegation met with their allied counterparts, Foch himself, General Weygand, French chief of staff, British First Sea Lord Admiral Rosslyn Wemyss, Rear Admiral George Hope, Royal Navy and Captian John Marriot, Royal Navy. For the next three days, negations and the terms of the armistice were hammered out. For Germany, there were no negotiations………they simply were in no position not to sign. Their government had fallen, the Kaiser had abdicated, their armed forces were depleted and their people were suffering. The war simply had to end. Finally as a misty dawn came on the 11th of November 1918, signatures were made on the armistice that would end what was known as the Great War.
The terms of the armistice were brutally clear; termination of military hostilities within six hours of signing, immediate removal of all German troops from France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Alsace-Lorraine, removal of all German troops from the west side of the Rhine plus an 18 mile bridgehead on the right side of the Rhine to be occupied by allied troops, removal of all German troops from the Eastern Front to the 1914 border, Renunciation of the treaties of Breast-Litovsk and Bucharest with Russia and Romania, internment of the German fleet and a massive surrender of war materiel which would effectively disarm Germany.
News of the cessation of hostilities quickly spread via wireless radio throughout the entire front line. The fighting did not end quite as dramatically as gunners continued to shell German positions right up until the last minute to avoid hauling away their stocks of ammunition and soldiers competed to be the last man to fire the last shot of the war. Finally, at 11:00 a.m on November 11th, 1918, all guns fell silent for the first time since August, 1914. An eerie silence pervaded across the blasted landscape of the Western Front. For the soldiers, an overwhelming sense of relief flooded over them. Some wept openly, others laughed and shook hands with their comrades, while some simple sat without saying a word, the enormity of their experience being too much for words. The soldiers of France, Germany, Great Britain and her commonwealth nations, the United States, Austria-Hungary, Belgium, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria, Romania, Serbia, Portugal, Italy, and Greece were finally going home. The human toll for over four years of war was an almost unbelievable 38,880,500 soldiers dead, wounded and missing. To put it another way, 57% of all mobilized men between 1914 and 1918 became casualties. Many towns in France, Britain and Germany were completely devoid of military-age men for years after the end of the war due to such appalling numbers.
As for the site of the armistice itself, Foch’s private rail car, “Le Wagon de l’Amistice” was displayed at the national museum in Paris before being returned to the exact spot in the forest of Compiegne in a specially constructed building. Later, during WW2, the Nazis destroyed the memorial building and removed the carriage which was later burned by the SS as an American armored column entered the town of Ohrdruf, where it was being stored. In 1950, the entire Compiegne site was restored to its original state in 1927 and a replacement rail car, identical in every way to the original, was re-dedicated on November 11th.

The Rat War

For sheer brutality and attrition, few battles in World War Two come close to the horrific carnage that was the Battle of Stalingrad. Originally called Tsaritsyn, the city was renamed in honor of Joseph Stalin in 1925 in recognition of the city’s defense against the White Russians during the 1918-1920 Civil War.

Stalingrad is situated on the western side of the Volga River which strategically makes it a valuable target for an invading enemy thanks to the rail and river shipping hubs, a fact that was not lost on the German high command. Hitler ordered the capture of the city for two main reasons; first, having Stalingrad in German hands would secure the river link to the Caspian sea and Northern Russia and secondly, it would secure the flank of the advancing German armies on their way to the oil rich city of Baku, which would shut off the fuel supply for the entire Red Army. Added to this was the fact that the city bore the name of the leader of the Soviet Union made the capture of Stalingrad a powerful propaganda tool as well.

Hitler, in typical fashion, ignored the advice of his generals and ordered the main army group to be split in two. Army Group South was split into two groups……A and B. Group A was ordered to continuing advancing towards the oil rich Caucasus while Group B was ordered to turn east towards the Volga and Stalingrad itself. This gave the Soviets enough time to bash together a defense force for the city. In fact, the entire city’s grain supply, cattle and rolling stock was moved across the Volga and out of the way of the advancing Germans. This led Stalingrad to be short of food even before the battle started. The Soviets ordered that anyone strong enough to hold a rifle be rushed to the city to aid in its defense. As much as the Germans were determined to capture Stalingrad, the Soviets were determined to defend it.

The battle began on July 17th 1942 with an attack by the German Luftwaffe on the ships and transport barges on the Volga. This rendered the Volga unusable for Soviet shipping. Next, came the heavy bombardment which reduced over 90% of the city to ruins. However, this proved to be a double edged sword as Soviet troops occupied the ruins and very effectively used this to their advantage, particularly when it came to the Russian snipers who hid in the rubble and picked off unlucky German troops by the thousands. One sniper, Vasily Zaytsev, was credited with over 255 kills and was made a hero during the battle despite the fact that two women snipers, Lyudmile Pavlichenko and Nina Lobkovskaya actually scored more kills with 309 and 308 Germans, respectively.

As is typical in most wars, the civilian population suffered horribly during the battle. Thousands of civilians trapped in the city were not allowed to leave under direct orders of Stalin and were put to work digging trenches and other fortifications.

By the beginning of September, the Soviet Air Force had been defeated by the Luftwaffe, so the Germans enjoyed air superiority over the ruined city. It was around this time that the Soviet forces developed a tactic known as “hugging”……that is, keeping the front lines physically close to the enemy so that the Germans were forced into fighting without close air support or artillery out of fear of hitting their own men. The Soviets also took urban fighting to a new level. Bombed out buildings became mini-fortresses bristling with firepower that the Germans could only conquer in horrendous house to house and even room to room fighting. The Germans called this new type of warfare, “rattenkrieg”, or “rat war” which even extended into the sewers under Stalingrad. The German army suddenly found itself at a huge disadvantage with this new type of urban warfare which rendered their traditional tactics of infantry supported armored assaults ineffective in the rubble strewn streets of the ruined city. All front lines disappeared as the fighting raged in the ruins of the buildings and debris clogged streets. The feared German tanks, the finest in the world at the time, simply became bogged down in the massive heaps of rubble and ceased to be an effective tool of war. The battle of Stalingrad became a torturous, nightmarish cauldron of the worst kind of warfare and it was about to get a whole lot worse.

By November, the Soviet Air Force had been reconstituted and was now able to go head to head with the Luftwaffe; however it suffered crippling losses and was ordered to fly at night only. Conditions on the ground got considerably worse for the Soviets. The Germans now controlled over 90% of Stalingrad and most of the waterfront. Ice prevented re-supply by the river, but still the defenders hung on. It was during this time that the now famous battles in the Red October Steel Factory and the Dzerzhinsky Tractor Factory took place.

As winter descended upon Stalingrad, a new misery soon became apparent; the weather. The Germans were simply not prepared to fight in such frigid cold. The Soviet soldier, by contrast, was much better equipped for cold weather fighting. His uniform made from thick, padded cotton could withstand the below zero temperatures much better than his German counterpart. Historians have recently discovered that the Soviet weapons still continued to work in the arctic-like cold thanks to the lubricating grease being mixed with gasoline which kept the grease from solidifying. The Germans, who did not use this trick, suffered serious stoppages in their weapons as the lube would simply freeze up in the intense cold.

It was around this time that the German command began to get worried about their weakening flanks around the city. Most of the troops in the supporting flanks were Italians, Hungarians and Romanians who were not as well quipped or trained as the German soldiers were and thus were vulnerable to attack. Further complicating this dire situation was the fact that Hitler was so focused on the city on Stalingrad itself, he refused to strengthen these flanks which would pave the way for a disaster for the entire 6th Army Group B. That disaster came in the form of Operation Uranus, the Soviet offensive to encircle Stalingrad itself and cut off Army Group B from any reinforcements. This offensive was timed to coincide with the crippling winter weather which meant that the Luftwaffe would have an extremely difficult time resupplying the cut off German ground forces. As the German soldiers slowly starved inside the encircled city, Hitler refused to allow them to surrender.

Conditions inside Stalingrad deteriorated quickly. The tables were now turned on the Germans as it was there turn to suffer the deprivations that they had inflicted upon the Soviets. With the failed “air bridge”, the Luftwaffe was unable to supply food, medicine and ammunition, never mind the much needed cold weather clothing. Soldiers often froze to death on sentry duty with their corpses still standing upright.

On February 2nd, 1943 German general Friedrich Paulus surrendered the remaining 91,000 exhausted, starving German soldiers which included over 3,000 Romanians. In addition, over 22 high ranking generals were also captured, much to the delight of the Soviet propaganda machine. In all, over 1.1 million Russian soldiers and civilians were killed, wounded or simply vanished in the fighting for Stalingrad, the Germans lost over 840,000. Of the 91,000 prisoners taken, only about 5,000 ever made it home to Germany, the rest dying in labor camps of typhus, malnutrition and mistreatment. The fighting for Stalingrad saw the destruction of an entire German army group in some of the appalling conditions of the entire Second World War. For the Germans, it was a defeat that they would never recover from and it marked the end of the high water mark of the 3rd Reich on the Eastern Front. From now on, they would be an army in retreat which would culminate in the Battle for Berlin in April of 1945.

In 1961, Nikita Kruchev, himself at Stalingrad as a political commissar, ordered that the name of the city be changed to Volgrad as part of the Soviet Union’s de-Stalinization policy. The battlefield today is much changed thanks to the heavy rebuilding post war. However in the stepps outside the city, it’s still possible to see evidence of the fighting. Until recently, there were vast fields filled with bleaching bones of both German and Soviet soldiers that went unburied after the fighting ended. Souvenir hunters dug for relics which were sold to collectors worldwide but now that practice is largely frowned upon and new laws have been enacted as to the protection of human remains and war graves. Up on the Mamayev Kurgan, the hill overlooking the city, is the famed Mother Motherland, a colossal statue that rises 160 feet above the blood soaked ground as a memorial to all citizens of the Motherland who were lost during the battle.

Winter Breakout

It was a freezing cold December day in the woods of the Elsenborn Ridge in the Ardennes forest of Belgium. Christmas was a few days away, yet to 36 year old T5 Herb Bean, Christmas was the furthest thing from his mind. He was freezing cold, his feet were perpetually wet and numb and he was afraid. His unit, the 394 Infantry Regiment of the 99th Infantry Division had spent the last seven days in constant fighting with the German 277th Volksgrenadier Division and the 12th SS Panzer Division. Herb had seen things in the last few days that few men would ever see or would ever want to see in a lifetime. He felt like a changed man in many ways and he hoped and prayed that he would live through the next few days.

The airburst artillery was the worst. The German 88mm shells were designed to explode at treetop level which would create horrific wood splinters that could tear a human body into pieces. The only defense the men had was to dig in and cover their foxholes with logs from felled trees. Even that was not enough if a shell were to land directly into ones hole. “We were all scared of the 88’s” Herb said. Even when using a slit trench to relieve oneself was risky. “Suddenly, the 88’s were coming down on us and the bottom of that slit trench looked pretty good to me at that point.” Herbs rushed to his foxhole rather than hunker down in the frozen excrement and withstood another bombardment. The noise was deafening and the concussion from exploding shells could be felt in one’s chest. The men tried to make themselves as small as possible by crawling into their helmets. After the barrage lifted, the men crawled from their holes to a blighted land. Shattered trees lay about the forest floor and the air smelled of cordite and freshly cut wood. Wounded men screamed in pain as the medics attended to them and Herb shivered in his thin cotton field jacket and with his ears ringing and partially deaf from the explosions, said a thankful prayer that he had made it through another attack.

At age 36, Herb was the old man of the platoon. Most of the men were in their early to mid 20’s. He was already a married man and worked as a shipping clerk in the city of Newburport. He was drafted, given a paltry six weeks of basic training and sent to the war. He stayed with an English family when his unit was stationed in the UK before heading over to the ETO. He arrived on Omaha Beach months after the initial invasion and was trucked into Belgium in time for the German offensive in December of 1944. His division, the 99th, was known as the Battle Babies due to their inexperience. They were green troops that suddenly found themselves thrown against the battle hardened panzer grenadiers who attempted to roll right through them. Much to the surprise and consternation of the German troops, they were stopped cold by the “Battle Babies” of the 99th. Supported by accurate artillery fire in the form of mortars and heavy guns, the Germans suffered catastrophic losses. They simply could not push the Americans off the Elsenborn Ridge thanks to the massive concentration of heavy firepower.

In what would become known as the Battle of the Bulge, the German advance through the Ardennes was now stalled. This was not supposed to happen, according to the German high command. The attack was planned for months and relied heavily on surprise and good supply lines to succeed. The initial attack did indeed catch the Americans off guard which resulted in town of Bastogne being surrounded and hammered by the Germans in a type of siege warfare. Unusually cold and snowy weather also hampered the ability of the armies to maneuver about. The Germans in particular had a difficult time in the thick woods of the Ardennes. Their tanks were meant more for open terrain rather than the dark thickets they now found themselves in. In addition, low cloud cover and fog prevented any type of air support from the Americans, which made the German’s job a little bit easier. Over in Bastogne, the 101st and 10th Armored did their best to hold on despite rapidly dwindling supplies of food, medicine and ammunition. At one point, the artillery was down to less than ten rounds per gun. The outlook looked grim…..the allies needed a miracle.

That miracle came on December 23rd. The sky over Bastogne and the Ardennes started to clear. American supply planes started to drop much needed ammo, food, blankets, medicine and a team of volunteer surgeons flew in on a glider to establish an operating room for critically wounded soldiers. In addition, P-47 Thunderbolts flew combat operations against the German troops and tanks to great effect. Up on the Elsenborn Ridge, the supplies started to trickle in……ammunition and warm clothing for the frostbitten troops. “Our boots were the worst” said Herb “All of us had frostbite on our feet, we simply couldn’t get warm!” Around this time, Herb suffered a minor heart attack due to the incredible stress from the nonstop attacks. “They sent me down to see the battalion doctor. He looked me over, listened to my chest and had me do a series of jumping jacks. When I didn’t pass out, he sent me back to the front line……that’s how short handed we were.”

Fighting in the Ardennes would continue through late January, 1945, but finally the German were now fighting within their own borders. Herb recalled looking up one day upon hearing a low rumble and hundreds upon hundreds of Army Air Corp bombers; B-17’s were flying overheard on a daylight bombing raid over Germany. “Everybody cheered, we all knew that the war would be over soon and that we were going to win, it was quite a feeling.” Herb made it through the end of the war and saw first hand the evil of the Nazi regime when his unit liberated a sub-camp of Dachau concentration camp. Later, while serving with the 1st Infantry Division, he would serve as a courtroom guard at Nuremberg, where the worst of the criminals of the Third Reich were put on trial for their crimes. Herb returned home to Newburyport in December of 1946 and got on with the rest of his life. He rarely spoke of his service in the Second World War and often seemed reluctant to discuss it at all. Herb Bean, my Grandfather, passed away in 1999 at the age of 91.

The Christmas Truce

When war broke out in August 1914, it was generally assumed the whole affair would be over and done with by Christmas. Both sides, cocky with their assurance of victory, envisioned themselves back home with their families in time for Christmas dinner. The reality was that this was not to be a quick fight and as weeks turned to months, it became apparent that Christmas would be spent in the trenches of the Western Front.

It was December 24th, 1914 in a sector of the front line around the Belgian town of Ypres. The rain had been falling all morning, but stopped around dusk and the cold set in. Many of the men in Capt Edward Hulse’s regiment were suffering swollen feet from the cold and wet. As darkness fell, the men set about opening their “Princess Mary tins”…small brass boxes containing chocolate, tobacco and a Christmas greeting from the Princess and King George. Over in the German lines, the men were opening their own versions, the Kaiserliche …….pipes for the officers and cigars for the men.

It was now full dark and the sector around the lines had grown quiet. Suddenly, Captain Hulse noticed that four Germans were walking across no-mans land toward his lines. They were unarmed and were walking in full view of all the troops. Captain Hulse and a few of his fellow Scots Guards rose up out of their trenches to meet them and discovered that the men were doing this on their own….there had been no official order of a truce……..the men simply wanted to come over to the British lines as a gesture of good will. From that point, soldiers from both sides poured into no-man’s land to meet with their foe. At first the British and German soldiers just stared at one another, but one, then another cautiously approached the other with a handshake, an exchange of tobacco, perhaps a photograph of a loved one and the men realized that the inhuman foe that they had faced across the wire and mud were very much just like they were. They had families that they missed and they longed for just a few hours of peace on this most unusual Christmas Eve. Hulse noted in his diary: “Scots and Huns were fraternizing in the most genuine possible manner. Every sort of souvenir exchanged, addresses given and received, photos of families shown, etc. One of our fellows offered a German a cigarette; the German said “Virginian?” The fellow said “Aye, straight-cut”. The German said “No thanks, I only smoke Turkish”….it gave us all a good laugh,”

The Christmas Truce of 1914 was observed all along the lines of the Western Front…some more than others. First and foremost it gave men the chance to recover and bury their dead, but it also gave the men a much needed break from the appalling fighting. Both British, German and to a lesser degree, French soldiers met in the neutral area in front of their trench lines to sing Christmas carols, exchange buttons or other bits of kit, share tobacco and food and meet as friends instead of hated enemies. In many areas, football matches were hastily organized and played. In some areas, the truce lasted through New Years. When the British high command got wind of the truce, they were furious. In some cases, entire regiments were withdrawn and reassigned to different areas of the front. The Germans suffered a similar fate when their staff officers learned of the unofficial truce. Tragically, Capt. Hulse was killed in March of 1915.

Amidst the horror of the great charnel houses of the Western Front, the Christmas Truce proved to all that the inherit goodness of humankind could not be snuffed out and that goodwill towards all still existed in the least likely of places