Positivity: Battle of the Bulge Memorial Dedicated at Arlington National Cemetery

The Battle of the Bulge is called the Army’s greatest land battle. It is certainly one of its most important. The Arlington Memorial is the culmination of 61 years of work by veterans (HT Debbie Schlussel):

A tribute to heroes
Valley veterans earn praise, monument
Tuesday, May 09, 2006

WASHINGTON, D.C. | Harold G. Kist of Easton had a front-row seat for the Battle of the Bulge. The 83-year-old Easton resident might have preferred otherwise.

Kist and his fellow soldiers, riflemen with the U.S. Army’s 394th infantry regiment, Kilo Company, 99th Infantry Division, were searching for the remnants of a German platoon they had engaged the previous day. Rather than find a few dispersed Germans, Kist and his brothers in arms witnessed an endless onslaught of Nazi troops and armored Panzer divisions.

Surprising U.S. commanders, dictator Adolf Hitler ordered three German armies, an armored force of 200,000 men, into the Ardennes region of Belgium and Luxembourg. Hitler planned to break through Allied lines, drive Nazi forces across the Meuse River and occupy Antwerp, cutting off four Allied armies to the north.

Ultimately, thanks to Kist and the tenacious veterans of the Battle of the Bulge, Hitler’s daring western offensive didn’t pay off. Nazi forces pushed U.S. soldiers back but never broke through American lines. Gen. George S. Patton Jr. and his Third Army reached Antwerp before the Nazis ever did.

Kist on Monday recalled fighting at Elsenborn Ridge, where U.S. soldiers stalled the advance of the Sixth SS Panzer Army.

“At that point, the American Army was one soldier deep,” Kist said. “There was no reserve, no platoon, no company behind us. We had to stand there and hold, and we did.”

61st Anniversary of V-E Day

Kist and his fellow veterans of the Battle of the Bulge traveled Monday to Arlington National Cemetery, outside Washington, to commemorate the German surrender to Allied forces in World War II and to witness the unveiling of a new memorial dedicated to veterans of the Army’s greatest land battle, a ferocious confrontation that inflicted 83,000 U.S. casualties, including 19,000 dead.

The Battle of the Bulge monument, labeled “Triumph of Courage,” was authorized by Congress. It surpasses in size and visibility an existing plaque near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

The new memorial was funded by the Kingdom of Belgium and the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, two European nations where American servicemen are revered for the toughness they displayed in the winter fighting between Dec. 16, 1944 and Jan. 25, 1945.

“The only hope of the Old World lay overseas: America,” Guy Verhofstatdt, prime minister of Belgium, told the gathering of veterans at Arlington on Monday. “And you did not let us down … For us, you are more than soldiers. You are heroes.”

Lt. Gen. Harry W.O. Kinnard, a retired Army veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, praised the citizens of Bastogne, a Belgian municipality, for doing everything they could to sustain the 101st Airborne Division. When surrounded by the Germans and facing desperate odds, the 101st relied upon the people of Bastogne for food and medical support.

“They produced a factory, a warehouse, full of flour, and pancakes became standard fare of the siege,” Kinnard recalled.

U.S. Rep. Christopher Smith, R-N.J., also spoke to the crowd, because he had pushed legislation to authorize the new, larger monument honoring the Battle of the Bulge veterans.

An emotionally charged Kist said he was awed to hear the praise, 62 years after the fact, from the European visitors who praised the U.S. valor.

“I was never more proud to be a veteran and never more proud to be an American,” Kist said.

On the front line now and then

The Lehigh Valley contingent saluted the flag, the national anthem and the visiting dignitaries. They remembered the fighting they had seen as young men.

“We were right on the front line, and we stopped the Germans,” said 84-year-old Lionel Adda, of Macungie who fought at Miescheid, Belgium.

Morris Metz of Forks Township, 81, president of the Lehigh Valley chapter of the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge Association, fought in an antitank platoon that was part of the 94th Infantry Division. He called Monday’s ceremony “just overwhelming.”