It was the 16th of September 1944. Adolf Hitler had summoned a group of his senior officers to his study in the huge, underground bunker in the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s field headquarters, located deep in a pine forest in East Prussia. Those summoned were his closest and most trusted military advisors. Among them was only one who wore the red stripes of the German General Staff. He was the head of the Operations Staff of the High Command of the Wehrmacht, General Alfred Jodl.
The officers were waiting when Hitler entered. Taking a seat, Hitler instructed Jodl to sum up the situation on the Western Front. During the briefing, Jodl noted that there was one area of particular concern where the Americans were attacking and where the Germans had almost no troops: That area was the region of Belgium and Luxembourg called the Ardennes.
At the word ‘Ardennes’, Hitler suddenly ordered Jodl to stop the briefing. There was a long pause. Then with firmness in his voice Hitler said, "I shall go on the offensive here!" and he slapped his hand down on the map – "Here, out of the Ardennes! The objective is Antwerp!". With those words Hitler set in motion preparations for a battle that was to assume epic proportions: the greatest German attack in the West since the campaign of 1940. Hitler named this Operations Plan WACHT AM RHEIN. He personally selected this name to imply a defensive Operation, rather than an offensive operation, in order to deceive the Allies. During the planning, the German General Staff made numerous changes to Hitler’s original concept for the operation. When the battle began, the German code name for the operation was AUTUMN MIST.
A split second after five thirty A.M. on Saturday, December the 16th an American soldier manning an observation post high on top of a water tower in the village of Hosingen telephoned his Company Commander. He reported that in the distance on the German side he could see a strange phenomenon: countless flickering pinpoints of light. Within a few seconds both he and his Company Commander had an explanation. They were the muzzle flashes of over 2,000 German artillery pieces. The early morning stillness of the fog-shrouded forest was suddenly shattered with the thunderclap of a massive artillery barrage landing on the Americans.
Operation AUTUMN MIST was underway. The onslaught had begun.
The Americans called it the BATTLE OF THE BULGE.
The Battle of the Bulge lasted from the l6th of December 1944 until the 25th of January 1945. It was the greatest battle ever fought by the United States Army. More than a million men participated in this battle including 600,000 American soldiers, 500,000 Germans, and 55,000 British. The American military force consisted of a total of three Armies with 33 Divisions. While the German military force consisted of two Panzer Armies with 29 Divisions. More than 120,000 Germans were killed, wounded or captured during the battle. Each side lost over 800 tanks.
Wars are planned by old men in council rooms far from the battlefield. But at the end of the most grandiose plans of the highest-ranking Generals is the soldier walking the point or manning the outposts. The monument we dedicate today is a monument to those soldiers.
The real story of the Battle of the Bulge is the story of those soldiers and the intense combat action of the small units -- the squads, the platoons and the companies – and the soldiers who filled their ranks. These are the men that made up the fighting strength of the divisions, engaged the Germans in combat and suffered the casualties. Battalion Commanders and Company Commanders – young, lean, tough, battle-wise and toil worn. Fuzzy-cheeked lieutenants, grizzly NCO’s, and seasoned troopers; battle-hardened and disciplined in automatic habits of combat never learned in school. And green replacements, fresh off the ships from home, marched off into battle for the first time and in their hearts was fear of the unknown. Around their necks hung their dog tags and rosaries. On their heads was the steel pot and in their pocket was a picture of the girl back home.
Surprised, stunned and not understanding what was happening to him, the American soldier nevertheless held fast—he was as tenacious as the old junkyard dog until he was overwhelmed by the German onslaught, or until his commanders ordered him to withdraw. The Battle was a very personal fight for them. Concerned with the fearful and consuming task of fighting and staying alive, those men did not think of the battle in terms of the big Picture represented on the situation maps at higher headquarters. They knew only what they could see and hear in the chaos of the battle around them. They knew and understood the earth for which they fought, the advantage of holding the high ground and the protection of the trench or foxhole. They could distinguish the sounds of the German weffers and the screaming sound of incoming German 88s. And they knew the fear of German artillery rounds falling around them without pattern in the snow.
They knew the satisfying sound of friendly artillery shells passing overhead. They were reassured by the sudden stabs of flame in the night as friendly artillery belched bullets into the air, spreading a glow of flickering light above the blackened trees of the snow-covered forest. They knew the overwhelming loneliness of the battlefield, the feeling of despair, confusion and the uncertainty that prevails in units in retreat. They knew first hand the violent pounding of the heart, the cold sweat, the trembling of the body and the stark terror that mortal combat brings.
Even Mother Nature was their enemy with bitterly cold weather and over-cast skies. The days were short —daylight at 8 and darkness by 4. The nights were long and bitterly cold. Snow, knee-deep, covered the battleground. Overcast skies and heavy fog shrouded the snow-covered limbs of the fir trees in the dark forest. GIs, their bodies numb, were blue- lipped and chilled to the bone.
At night, the German ground assault was assisted by artificial moonlight created by giant German searchlights bouncing their light off the low-hanging clouds casting an eerie, ghostly light in the fog, over the snow-covered field of battle. Other nights were ablaze with more flame and noise than one thought possible for man to create.
For a brief moment in history, those men held our nation’s destiny in their hands. In the end they did not fail us. They prevailed and the fires of hell were extinguished. They blew the trumpets that tumbled the walls. Theirs was the face of victory. Super heroes---super patriots. Their legacy – victory in the greatest battle ever fought by the United States Army.
But the cost of victory was high. Young Americans answered the angel’s trumpet call and were sacrificed on the altar of the god of war – brave heroes whose valor in many cases died unrecognized with them on the battlefield. Young warriors whose names the grim reaper carved on marble tombstones across our land. It was a time of great sacrifice and in most cases the dead were hardly more than boys.
19,000 new Gold Stars were hung in the windows back home: Mothers who lost their sons. Wives who lost their husbands. And Children who lost their fathers. Over 23,000 American soldiers were captured during the heat of battle. Prisoners of war who were forced to serve behind barbed wire, in silence and with courage, each in his own way, until the war ended. Purple Hearts were awarded by the thousands. The snow turned red with American blood. The wounds of 81,000 young Americans in that battle left the ‘red badge of courage’ on the battlefield of the Ardennes.
We are reminded of what their journey through life has left behind for us: a great nation, a great state and a City Beautiful with freedom and prosperity unknown in the annals of history. Today, in the quiet of an autumn breeze blowing across Lake Eola, we are gathered here to dedicate a monument and pay tribute to the men that this monument represents. As you look at the monument placed in this beautiful park, also look around you. Look at the old warriors gathered here – they were the vibrant youth of that time -- men who were there on that battlefield 55 years ago today. Men like:
PFC Jim Hendrix who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic action during that battle.
Young, fuzzy-cheeked lieutenants such as John Newell, a tank commander, and Bill Cain, platoon leader. They were in the armored column of old ‘blood and guts’ Patton as they raced 150 miles under the severest of winter conditions in their valiant effort to relieve Bastogne.
Bob Stevenson, "one of those damned engineers", an accolade from the German SS Colonel Peiper, about our engineers for blowing bridges and building obstacles at every turn and bend in the road, obstacles that slowed the advance of his SS Panzer column. Bob has with him today his WW II helmet that he wore during that battle, a helmet with a jagged shrapnel hole in the back of it, a helmet that probably saved him from the scythe of the grim reaper.
And Jim Mckearney, a Mortar Platoon Sgt. in the 101st Airborne Division who just days before had received a battlefield commission while fighting in Holland. As a new lieutenant leading a platoon in the defense of Bastogne, he and his platoon stood as firm as the solid granite pedestal of the monument we dedicate today. To this day he bears the scars of the wounds he received in that battle.
Young American men, hardly more than boys, men such as Harry Meisel and Earl K. Wood, our Orange County Tax Collector, men who wear an Ardennes Battle Star on their European Campaign ribbon for their participation in the battle.
And Angels of Mercy, such as Lieutenant Evelyn Gilberg, an Army Nurse who went to sleep at night sobbing, thinking about the mangled bodies of the young American Soldiers in the field hospital that she had cared for that day.
Men like the lone soldier in Chet Morgan’s outfit, digging a foxhole atop a small knoll beside a road. A vehicle loaded with fleeing American soldiers came speeding down the road heading for the rear. The vehicle stopped and the soldiers hollered to him, "the Germans are coming! Come on we have room for you!" He looked up and in words his mother never taught him, replied: "You can stop now because the Germans aren’t going past this position while I’m alive! This is the 82nd Airborne Division area.
These soldiers, and the thousands of others like them, are the soldiers who stood their ground in the days when the heavens were falling and the battlefield was in flames with all the fire and noise humanly possible for over a million warriors to create. These are the men who in the hours when the earth’s foundation shook like an earthquake, stood their ground. These are the men who followed duty’s call and lived the code of the soldier. They sacrificed and paid the price for freedom. They stayed---and the earth became theirs again. They defended and what was abandoned--they recaptured. They saved the sum of all things we hold dear -- and all this for love of their country—and the meager pay of a soldier.
Ask yourselves now---with head bowed – From where, Oh God, came such men as these?
Our Country was truly blessed.
Today we gather here to dedicate a monument. A monument that stands as a legacy to the Greatest Battle Ever fought By The United States Army and to those veterans who fought and won that battle with their blood and their courage. But let it also stand as a reminder to future generations of the high cost of freedom.
God bless the United States of America.
Thank You.