Summary and excerpts from an official report by James Gavin, Commanding General, 82nd Airborne Division (with emphasis herein on actions of the 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment) and time-parallel personal recollections of then PFC Robert Kemble.
Gavin: The 82nd Airborne Division was located at Camps Suippes and Sissone, France when on December 17, 1944, about 1930 hours, first orders were received to move to the east. I alerted the Division and also instructed the 101st Airborne Division to prepare immediately for movement. Radio news said that a German penetration was directed toward St. Vith. The 82nd was ready for a quick move and, after discussions with 18th Airborne Corps, I decided that the Division would move on December 18th an hour after daylight toward Bastogne followed by the 101st at 1400 hours. The situation was vague but denying the German Panzers the key crossroads in the Ardennes Forest area was obviously critical.
Kemble: After the Holland Campaign (Market Garden) I was newly assigned to Company A, 505 Airborne Infantry Regiment at Camp Suippes. Now off-line, the 505 was housed in drafty old Maginot Line stone barracks built by the French in the 20’s & 30’s. Recently those same buildings had been occupied by the Germans. Eerily, still on the doors were room rosters listing the German occupants and military rank. The December weather was stinging cold and many of us had diarrhea. Still, the cots and potbellied stoves were welcome luxuries. I was still feeling a cracked pelvic bone, especially in bad weather, but was taking full part in combat training. Sadly it was there that I received letters telling me of my beloved and widely admired father’s sudden death at home. I was stricken as never before in my nineteen years. The person who had meant most to me was gone, twelve days deceased, and the message via the Red Cross never delivered.
It was a common assumption that the Division was preparing for a parachute assault across the Rhine in early Spring. The evening of December 17 I was in a little building operated by the Red Cross, listening to music, writing V-mail letters and drinking coffee. When I came out I was stunned to see, in what had always been a totally blacked out area, all camp lights on and vehicles with full headlights moving here and there. My First Sergeant stopped me in the barracks hallway and directed me to take six men and two 2&1/2 ton trucks to an ammo dump near Sissone, some 50 miles away, and bring back full loads of caliber .30 ammunition. (At Suippes there was only enough for guard duty and local security.) Near dawn, after two round trips of moving heavy ammo boxes, my aching-back group was told to quickly get our weapons and bandoliers of ammunition, get into full combat gear and pick up enough cold K and D rations for 36 hours. No one supervised: supply and arms room doors were unlocked and every man simply armed, clothed and equipped himself as he saw fit. We climbed aboard a convoy of British open-top “cattle cars,” long-bed trucks with no seats and four-foot side panels. So, as General Gavin had ordered, somehow the “always ready” 82nd after nine hectic preparatory night hours was on its way to a totally unknown situation.
Gavin: I reported personally to General Hodges (Commanding General First US Army) at Spa at 0900. The first reports of enemy contact were coming in from Stavelot and St. Vith where bypassed and overrun US units were located and a large pocket of the 106th Infantry Division was surrounded. To stabilize that area, General Hodges decided to attach the 82nd to V Corps near Webormont (on what became the north shoulder of the famous Bulge). Civilians were reporting that German forces were moving rapidly from Trois Pont. I drove back to Bastogne to give General McAuliffe instructions for the 101st to hold Bastogne; then I returned to Werbormont at approximately 2000 hours as the 82nd vehicles were arriving. The troops rapidly dispersed, tired from being up two nights. Not long after, the road I had just traveled between Webormont and Bastogne was cut by advanced German forces.
Kemble: While 38 year old “General Slim Jim,” was crisscrossing the Ardennes in a jeep, typically with only his driver and their two M1 rifles, the 505–after a painful ten hours of bouncing around on the floor of the cattle cars–reached Bastogne and stopped, awaiting disposition orders. The Germans had not then reached Bastogne and so we were directed north toward Stavelot, Malmedy, Trois Ponts and Webormont where combat was already active. Malmedy was where the Germans had crowded many new US prisoners into a field and machine-gunned them. [I still have a small leather picture folder in which, for some unremembered reason, I wrote those town names on the inside flap as we passed by each.]
Repeated road snarls and confusion prevailed as various trucks and jeeps driving in the dark in “cats-eye” blackout mode, were meeting counter-traffic trying to get out of the region. At one point a limousine flying French flags, presumably of a diplomatic official, passed in the opposite direction below our truck with horn blaring and lights on. An American MP ordered the car to stop. When it did not he calmly stepped in its path, removed his .45 from his holster and with the butt end smashed all its lights, then waved the gun under the driver’s nose. No more horn. We moved on and I never saw the end of that little drama.
Other than my father’s death, maybe my worst memory of WW II came just a few hours later. As our platoon, about 36 men, was dismounting from the open truck and everyone reaching for his individual weapon stacked in the truck bed corners, a shot was fired. In the commotion our BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle) gunner, a towering, amiable and always smiling guy, was shot point blank through the temple by his own weapon. The trigger was somehow tripped and the safety not fixed. His blood spewed over the weapons stack. We lifted the body down and called for medics but he had died instantly. Then we tried to wipe the blood from our rifles and slings while we took up defensive positions, digging shallow holes in the frozen ground with our small entrenching tools. Thus, even before any enemy contact in the Bulge, our platoon, already weary, was emotionally stunned.
Later that same night we watched the arching paths of V-1 buzz-bomb rockets being fired by the Germans into Liege, Belgium. The V-1 (considerably smaller than the famous V2) was not a precision weapon but could be sufficiently directed to hit large cities such as Liege and Antwerp and cause a great number of civilian casualties.
Gavin: On the 19th, First Army assumed responsibility to hold the general line Stoutamont to Malmedy and counterattack toward Trios Pont to halt the enemy advance. XVIII Airborne Corps took the the Southern sector with the 505 seizing the high ground near Haut-Bodeux. Patrols were pushed to the front to make contact with the enemy. The 504th Regiment drove the Germans from Cheneux and the 505th secured Trois Pont where civilians reported many Germans and much armor had passed through.
“Reconnaissance was pushed toward Vielsalm. Commanders agreed that speed was vital and we had to move without delay regardless of light or darkness. Contact was to be immediately established with those US units reportedly cut off in the area of Vielsalm-St. Vith. 82nd units moved promptly and by daylight were on their objectives, from left to right: 504, 505, 508, 325. Reportedly, the 106th Division was badly chewed up with but one regiment remaining. Also present was a remaining regiment of the 28th Division. Heavy fighting was taking place in the 504 sector and “farther south at Grand Halleux, determined, well planned attacks were being made with increasing strength against the very thinly held front of the 505th.”
On the 21st General Ridgeway, XVIII Corps Commanding General, informed me that only a narrow neck of land held by the 82nd connected St. Vith forces with First Army forces. Its retention would be vital. Along with close combat in other sectors, “the 505th Parachute Infantry was having very hard fighting with the remainder of the 1st SS Panzer Division. The 505th had initially sent a covering force east of the Salm River. . . . Through sheer weight of numbers this small force was finally driven back to the river line where it held. Being very much overextended the regiment managed to hold by repeatedly diagnosing the points of German main efforts and then marshaling all available infantry as quickly as possible, beating off each attack. The process was repeated day and night.”
Kemble: Company A began a series of marches, mostly at night along fire breaks through the forest or on muddy wagon lanes toward Trois Pont. We cursed the mud in the day and then again cursed the frozen ruts at night which made walking difficult. We broke out of the forest near the village of Petite Halleux, just upriver from Grand Halleux. Our advanced patrol had been driven back to the west side of the Salm River–which was actually a deep frozen creek bed with steep banks that could be crossed on foot but which made an effective tank obstacle in most places.
There was one bridge at Petite Halleux. A railroad ran parallel and close to the river. The Belgium civilians had been advised to leave and most had. But I can vividly recall passing a woman with worn features dressed in farm clothes trudging up the road with twin girls about six years old (perhaps granddaughters) brightly dressed in matching purple outfits as if on their way to church services. I wished her a clumsy but heartfelt “bon jour” and she smiled grimly and nodded. When we reached the little stone arch bridge, I was at first happily relieved of a heavy pack of Composition C explosives; but then rather saddened to watch the engineers blow the top span of that graceful arch which must have been a point of pride to the villagers. [Eight years later Helen and I returned to Petite Halleux and next to the still broken stone arch was a rugged, ugly, flat wooden bridge on metal girders.]
The 1st SS Panzers in their black uniforms were in clear sight, ducking in and out of cover, about 400 yards away on the high ground across the river. Sniper shots were exchanged and a squad buddy was hit in the leg. I called directions and adjustments for a series of twelve 60 mm mortar rounds which silenced the SS troops immediately above us. A farm house was near the bridge where the woman with the little twin girls may have lived. A middle-aged farmer, who had a prominent growth on his forehead about the size of half a golf ball, came out as we were digging emplacements just behind the raised rail line embankment. With only a nod he handed me a long handled spading shovel which made the digging much easier. I offered a sincere “merci beau coup,” a chocolate D ration bar and a cigarette. He smiled, refused the D ration but with dignity took the cigarette and returned to his home. Not long after he too climbed the hill on our side of the valley, no doubt wondering if his house would be there on his return. [When Helen and I returned eight years later the house remained. He was gone.]
Gavin: On December 21 I was instructed by the Corps Commander to make a reconnaissance with a view of withdrawing. “I objected to any withdrawal but it was quite evident that if a major German attack developed from the south on the right flank, continued occupation of the narrow salient extending to Vielsalm would prove costly in lives and to no advantage after the overrun US forces in St. Vith were withdrawn. . . . In the following 24 hours enemy pressure built up in intensity all along the southern front.” Throughout the 22nd and 23d a series of major battles and unit movements took place. “I ordered the release of the Division reserve battalion of the 325 (Glider Regiment) to help extend the right flank and hold the critical ridge line. At about this time the Regimental Adjutant of the 2nd SS Panzer Division was captured carrying the orders for their advance. . . . They proved of great value since they gave definite information of the enemy’s intentions. . . to reach Werbomont and move north to Liege.” One company of the 325 was completely overrun and “at this point it was clear that there was nothing to prevent the German forces from entering the rear the Division area, which was now closely engaged along its entire 25,000 yard front.”
Manhay was lost and at about daylight on 24 December XVIII Corps made available Combat Command B of the 9th Armored Division. I ordered General Hoge to hold Malpempre and the 504 was repositioned “since the situation was so critical on the right.” A conference was held at 1330 hours at Headquarters XVIII Corps and orders were issued for voluntary withdrawal to the Corps defensive position. “I was greatly concerned with the attitude of the troops, the Division never having made a withdrawal in its long combat history. . . . Moreover, the German was using every artifice conceivable to create doubt and confusion. He was using our arms, equipment and vehicles, frequently leaving their own abandoned at bottlenecks on the roads. False messages were being sent and German officers in American uniforms were known to be in the rear areas. . . . Even so, in all of the operations in which we have participated in our two years of combat, I have never seen a better executed operation than the withdrawal on Christmas Eve. The troops promptly carried into execution the plans, although they openly and frankly criticized it and did not understand the necessity for it.”
“Christmas Eve was a very cold, bright moonlight night. The enemy was closely engaged with us on the entire front. . . . The withdrawal started shortly after dark. Covering shells were to be withdrawn at four AM. . . .”
Kemble: It was indeed a very bright and cold Christmas Eve and I was a member of one of three Regimental “covering shells.” As I lay with rifle in hand shivering on the frozen graveled embankment of the railroad track in Petite Halleux, I surely was remembering previous Christmas Eves. At the same time I was fully aware that I was also part of the battle-tough 82nd which managed to extract hundreds of disorganized soldiers of the newly arrived US 106 Infantry Division and others: green, panicked troops whose units were badly shot up and fleeing.
Lieutenant Otto was ordered to cover 1st Battalion’s night withdrawal in our sector. He chose fourteen of us to feign being the full battalion. The main battalion elements of over three hundred men for three hours quietly pulled out after dark. We, the so-called shell, slipped (often literally) back and forth, crouching low behind the icy railroad embankment, running several hundred yards to different locations. We would let go a few bursts of rifle, BAR and machine gun fire and then quickly move and fire again to give the impression that there were still a few hundred, not fifteen total, US troops defending the place.
Finally about 2100 hours the Germans became suspicious and began firing illuminating rocket shells. Our small group quickly assembled and–stopping stock still until each successive rocket glare faded–we started up a steep logging trail which cut through two foot snow and often deeper drifts.
Corporal Manny Escabosa was the lead scout. I followed about twenty yards back. The others stayed a hundred yards or so behind as we trudged up the ridge. About midnight, Escabosa suddenly waved and dove into a snow bank. I could see crossing our route on the top of the ridge a column of German troops, two half-tracks and the distinctive silhouette of a German “command car.” They were only a hundred yards or so away. We hid for about twenty minutes until those units had passed, then very cautiously continued. Some time later we were able to alert by radio US forces in the direction the German column was headed. The Americans forces engaged and scattered them and, in the process, released a previously captured and very grateful American major.
Gavin: At about 2300 hours I was on my way to the 505 Command Post. I met a platoon who said they believed there was a large force of Germans in the area and they were looking for them. The Regimental Commander believed that they were a force of about 500 troops. He said that just three 505 platoons had been left to cover the most likely crossings points at separated positions along the entire regimental front; and we were concerned about their being cut off. In spite of the presence of that large German force, we decided to continue the withdrawal as planned. Several hours later a heavy fight ensued near Grand Halleux and an American Major from the 30th Division was released. The German force was 500-800 soldiers attempting to withdraw to their own lines on the east side of the Salm River. The next day, December 25th, we finally realized that we had just withdrawn through a hostile withdrawing force–a rather novel maneuver!”
Kemble: The Lieutenant’s handpicked “platoon” of fourteen paratroopers probably averaged only nineteen years of age. (Less than 15% of our entire regiment was old enough to vote.) Despite the numbing winter conditions, we were teenage resilient and pushed on. After seven hours of steady hiking, we found and entered the security perimeter of our battalion. Amazingly, there was Christmas dinner! Field stoves were keeping warm big pots of turkey, dressing, and potatoes. Equally tempting was canned fruit, real bread and fresh coffee. The regimental kitchens, which had been waiting to the rear, had somehow been resupplied and cooked the food on Christmas Eve; then found their way to the assembly area. It was the not most sumptuous of fare and it was eaten from a very cold mess kit. But it was a far cry from the individual packaged rations of the previous nine days.
Shortly later came a true blessing for us on that Christmas. After ten days of heavy overcast, the skies cleared. Finally the Allied aircraft were able to provide much needed close air support. Like a Hollywood B Movie, they came from England and France in waves of tactical bombers with P47 and P38 fighters. Fascinated, we watched the drama in the skies. When the US and British fighters had to turn back to refuel, the German ME-109’s would come up out of the valleys to attack the bombers, but with only occasional success. On the ground, we sensed we had blunted the assault and instinctively knew the desperate Nazi offensive gamble was beginning to weaken. There was still much combat in store but it was in sum a joyful Christmas Day.
Gavin: For about two days after Christmas, the 62nd Volks-Grenidiers and the 9th SS Panzers continued to attack. The 9th Panzer Division was the better equipped and trained, hitting the 504 and 508 in coordinated efforts. But elements of both those regiments counterattacked and stopped the Storm Troopers with heavy loses. “This ended all major offensive efforts of the German forces in the Battle of the Bulge. About a week later the division attacked, completely overrunning the German 62nd V.G. Division and the 9th SS Panzer Division, capturing 2,500 prisoners including five battalion commanders. It regained its former position on the Their-du-Mont heights.” The most critical actions were now completed and the 82nd withdrew to a rest area.
Kemble: On the 27th of December A Company of the 505 was still holding the positions to which we had withdrawn on Christmas Eve. That afternoon a “runner” from 1st Battalion Headquarters found me. “They want you back at Message Center.” “Who does?” “Battalion Sergeant Major. “ I didn’t ask why. I was instantly certain. This had to be more family bad news. What now? Who now? My mother? My brother in the Navy? For nearly an hour I followed the “land lines” of military telephone wires strung mostly on the ground through the Ardennes Forest before coming to a stone farm house surrounded haphazardly by jeeps, half tracks and ground-mounted antennas. Parts of the roof were missing, blown away earlier by artillery rounds as the area had changed hands more than once. Inside I identified myself to the Sergeant Major seated at a standard olive-drab fold-down field table.
“I suppose you want to accept the appointment to West Point?” he asked curtly. Relieved that this wasn’t bad news, I replied, “You’ve got the wrong guy, Sergeant.” You are Kemble, 17170366?,” the voice of authority boomed. Confused, I nodded. I had never made application to West Point. “Damn it, you’ve got an appointment to the Military Academy and I have to confirm that you want to accept it.“ There was more than a little sarcasm in the Sergeant Major’s voice. “Yeah,” I said. “What do I do now?”
Outdated regulations still required any USMA appointee who was overseas to take a full physical examination before being returned to the US; so I was told to get on one of the medical evacuation ambulances going back to a field hospital “and get that damn examination before you come back.” Around midnight, with my personal gear left in a fox hole miles behind, I found myself sitting in an overloaded field hospital in Verriers waiting to talk with any doctor and feeling guilty to take their time. Finally one who had been watching me softly asked what my problem was–obviously assuming that with no wounds I was a “battle fatigue” case. After I explained and showed him my printed HQs. ETOUSA orders with the stamped Eisenhower signature, he most cheerfully started the required examination saying what a pleasure not to be treating wounds. But at the end he told me that he was not equipped to do the Wassermann test for venereal disease and that I would have to go to the US Army General Hospital in Liege. So around 2 a.m., I was uneasily back in another ambulance carrying severely wounded to Liege–feeling like an useless appendage. Two days later the required exam was completed. Meantime I ate in the hospital mess and slept in my battle fatigues on a canvas cot but I had no toilet articles. A nurse supplied a used kit with comb and razor from a former patient, probably deceased, and I seriously considered boiling and using his toothbrush but just could not.
Meantime the 505 had been repositioned–to where I could not l find out. The 82nd was in Corps Reserve refitting and training for the attack beyond St.Vith, eventually to breach the Seigfried LIne. Knowing nothing, I felt I had to get back any way possible but I could find no ambulances or supply vehicles headed to the 82nd Division. The Germans, moreover, had infiltrated men wearing US uniforms into the rear areas and so all roads and transport were carefully screened. Finally with the aid of a Belgium civilian who spoke excellent English, I flagged down an interurban trolley which took me about twenty miles to a prominent crossroads where US Army vehicles were passing. I showed my orders to an MP directing traffic and the Eisenhower signature suddenly became golden. Duly impressed the MP immediately stopped a 1&1/2 ton truck and ordered the driver to detour and take me back to Verriers. On New Years Eve in Verriers, I enjoyed one shot of “medicinal spirits” with a hospital staff; and layer, once again shamelessly flashing the Eisenhower signature, I found a jeep driver to take me back to the 505th area of operations as they headed toward the German town of Schmidt.
Gavin: The 82nd was ordered from Corps Reserve where it had reequipped. It was committed to the attack east of St. Vith, advancing through deep snow over thickly wooded mountains and overrunning a considerable group of German defensive forces in constant day and night attack. The only roads through the area were snow clogged trails running laterally across the Division sector and these in the hands of the enemy. Progress was hampered by waist deep snow and intense cold. Often the attack was made in a column of files. The lead man broke trail through the deep snow until exhausted and then moved aside for the next to continue.
Kemble: It was now seven days since I had been abruptly ordered away from A Company, 505. After getting resupplied with a sleeping bag, personal items and two changes of socks and underwear, I at last located my platoon walking along a snow packed road. Lt. Otto greeted me with, ”What the Hell are you doing here, Kemble? I was told you were headed to West Point.” I couldn’t resist the opportunity and with straight face said, “Lieutenant, my conscience just wouldn’t let me leave you guys.” Otto called me several varieties of a stupid SOB etc. . . . until I smiled. Then he laughed, shook my hand, and told me to watch my ass.
For about two more weeks I continued with the platoon. Along with fuzzy recollections of sporadic fire-fights and freezing temperatures, three mental pictures remain distinct. I shall never forget the British Sergeant of a nearby anti-tank gun crew who was spun around and knocked down when a sniper bullet hit the canteen on his web belt. He looked straight at me and indignantly pronounced, “By Jove, he is shooting at ME.” And I recall reluctantly bedding down one frigid night in my one-thin-G.I.-blanket sleeping bag in a large cavity in the ground created where a huge pine tree had been uprooted. Amazingly I awoke remarkably warm and well rested only to find I was buried under a full foot of new snow.
And then there was the chance meeting with General Gavin as he strode alone with his trusty M1 down a path toward our positions. I was going up the hill to bring back mortar ammunition. At first glance I thought approaching was a youthful looking Lieutenant. Then the expected bar became stars and Instead it was a very youthful Major General. A quick salute, a smile and “keep it coming, trooper.” Gavin’s unexpected appearances in critical forward areas were legend. And his habit of impromptu “briefings” of units whenever and wherever possible built a base of trust among the troopers for other times when tactical movements might seem questionable.
The previous September another USMA appointee in the 82nd (there were three eventually) had asked to make the jump in Holland. He was killed. Some time in January someone, perhaps Lt. Otto, reminded the Regimental Adjutant that I was still waiting departure orders and I was promptly directed to leave A Company and go back to Regimental Rear, assigned to Headquarters Company. They were getting me well out of probable harm’s way. I didn’t argue.
It was February before the medical papers got to the US and some misdirected orders returned for me to report to Ft. Sheridan, Illinois?. In the meantime I enjoyed by happenstance a warm relationship with a Belgium family. The 82nd “attack front” had narrowed and the 505 was squeezed out and put in Division Reserve in the vicinity of Spa and the village of Theux. Regular units were housed in various buildings and some homes. Unassigned, that evening I walked to the outskirts of Theux to a large double house joined by a second floor connection which housed two large looms powered by a water wheel in the swift creek behind. Knocking, I asked by pantomime if I could sleep inside. Monsieur Peutat, a balding intelligent looking man with a neatly trimmed beard, graciously welcomed me in. I offered Nescafe from my K ration box and we tried to exchange pleasantries. When I said my name was Robert, Mama Peutat, with tears, produced a picture of her Robert (“row-bear”) who was also nineteen years old and a prisoner of the Germans. Later as I was unrolling my slender sleeping bag on the floor of the unheated parlor (only the kitchen coal-burning stove provided any warmth to the home), Mama led me upstairs to the master bedroom insisting I sleep there. As I slipped between the cold sheets, I found a heated and wrapped brick for my feet. Alone with many mixed feelings, I may have shed a tear myself.
To everyone’s surprise we stayed in that location for eight restful days. I became a true part of the Peutat family. After checking in with the First Sergeant each day for incidental duties, I helped the two-man supply truck crew deliver daily rounds of bread, coal, coffee and such. By skillful timing we would end the run at the Peutats with a little extra of almost everything. M. Emil Peutat was a weaver who made bolts of cloth and I joined him in tramping a few miles to his farmer friend where he bartered cloth for food. M. Peutat’s two spinster sisters lived in the connecting house and often took part in their dinners. I usually ate at the Company mess tent or my canned C rations but those were often supplemented by such treats as Mama’s chilled waffles with soft cheese. One day I talked Mama into making hot waffles for breakfast and supplied the G.I. tablets to make maple syrup. The Peutats were obviously but politely not taken by my American breakfast. In talking to each other, we would never try to use my pidgin German but struggled with my very limited French and gestures. Then in a book case I found Robert’s Latin/French school text and dictionary. So, from 9th grade recall, I would look up a word needed in Latin and translate it to French. A slow but helpful aid for communication.
The night our convoy moved out, Famile, one of the spinster sisters, presented me with a winter face mask she had made out of a GI blanket. It had a button-over mouth flap and an open top to fit nicely under my helmet and liner. We all hugged and promised to find each other after the war. [We did. Helen and I returned to Theux in 1952. We met and stayed with Robert who had been released at the end of the war. The Peutat sisters were still there but sadly Mama had died and M. Peutat had moved to Brussels. We exchanged letters with Robert for several years.]
Gavin: The 82nd continued the attack and the 505th passed through the 325th to Honsfeld, maintaining contact with the 1st Infantry Division now on the left flank. On February 3rd the Division repulsed heavy counterattacks. That night the 99th Infantry Division started to relieve frontline units of the 82nd. The relief was completed by February 6th and the Division moved to the Vielsalm area where it was reorganized and refitted. From there it participated in the advance to the Roer River when, subsequently, it was returned to the Suippes-Sissone camps: the same Maginot Line buildings where the 82nd was located when the Battle of the Bulge first began.
Kemble: By then I was en route to the Paris by a makeshift set of moves– including my first personal introduction to the warm camaraderie of West Pointers. The 505th Regimental Adjutant, a USMA graduate, decided, “enough waiting for paper work,” and printed open-ended orders authorizing PFC. Kemble to use whatever transportation was available to return to ETOUSA Headquarters and subsequently to USMA. I hitched military rides to Division HQs where General Gavin (USMA ‘29) shook my hand like a delighted older brother and wished me good luck at the Academy. Then it was on back to XVIII Airborne Corps housed in a chalet near Vielsalm where I found an empty room and slept on the floor. Next morning, still in grungy combat clothes, I rather tentatively presented those orders to the Corps G-1, Col. Crowley. Suddenly I became a celebrity. Crowley (the “goat” of USMA Class of ‘42 who soon became their first Brigadier General) took me to breakfast with Corps Commander Ridgeway (USMA ‘17) and other high ranking staff officers including several West Pointers. All were seemingly genuinely excited for me. [Indeed Colonel John Crowley notified his brother in the Class of ‘46 and a few days after I finally entered USMA in July, Cadet Ed Crowley came to my room to welcome and “recognize” me.]
From Corps HQs. I found my way by supply truck to Chalons and then by train to Paris. A C47 to Scotland and a C54 to Washington D.C. completed the return trip to the USA where, along with sixty or so other USMA appointees from overseas assignments, I was happily diverted to Cornell University to catch up on studies and await entry to West Point on July 1, 1945.
Thus a somewhat bizarre process brought to the United States Military Academy a totally surprised and unlikely candidate from a family with neither political influence nor military background. I was the son of a locally well regarded but politically uninfluential family of wholesale-retail florists struggling through depression times. West Point was a renown but vague and far away place; and before WWII few people in Iowa traveled much farther than Chicago or Kansas City. I recall asking my high school advisor about the Academy only once as perhaps a means to a college education and an honorable profession. But the war came and I, like many young men, enlisted at age 17. My father had hoped I would make application to USMA but, unsure of my true feelings, was reluctant to urge that path. With his death, admiring friends made application in his memory for me. Remarkably Iowa Representative Karl LeCompte, whom my family had never met and with whom I had never communicated, awarded me his principal nomination.
Sixty plus years have not dimmed my awe of that providential series of events and relationships which became a watershed of my life–beginning in the cold and snowy Battle of the Bulge.
The lodge of the USMA Class of 1949 is not only an unprecedented West Point benchmark but also the most common strand in the history of our particular class. Yet why, when and how we fixed on and accomplished that signature project has really never been told. The endeavor formally took flight in 1967 but the complete explanation of how we chose that exacting goal, and its subsequent realization actually goes back to about 1956. According to helpful records and still reasonably acute collective memories, the broad answer embraces several Class of ‘49 sub-stories: the evolution of our official class representation, the development of our class fund and financial capabilities, the sporadic input of thoughtful ideas and ever-expanding visions, and the devoted endeavors of many. And basic from the beginning was a persistent urge to bring recognition to our distinctive class, close-knit and risen from World War II, and to honor our fallen classmates.
Determining what the “new” lodge would be like was an evolutionary process. For starters there was the original lodge and an amount of $700,000 (including management reserve) to enlarge and enhance it. As early as July 1991 the lodge committee notes reflect some discussions on “improvements such as more parking and a park-like environment around the lodge, including a grill and gazebo.” In July 1992, three A&E firms were asked to come up with artist’s concepts of what could be done on that rather formidable terrain for under $400,000 (the goal then under consideration by the Gift Committee). An outdoor pavilion, a barbecue pit, parking, landscaping, and a memorial boulder and plaque were all part of the mix. At that point major construction changes in the lodge itself were not a consideration. Two of the A&Es responded with innovative drawings and one became part of the 50th reunion questionnaire package from the Gift Committee to the class in the fall of 1992. The responses made clear that the class not only supported the lodge component of the 50th reunion gift but that it should be an even larger percentage. Hence the revised total of $600,000 plus $100,000 management reserve.
Perhaps no issue received more careful consideration than the memorial plaque. There was the issue of where to place the boulder. There was the issue of whether or not to have individual names on the plaque and, if so, howto define the list. And there was the issue as to what the message should be. As class scribe Summers took the lead in researching these matters but in the final analysis the resolution, after much intensive deliberation, was unanimous with the committee. As with all of the key decisions the proposed plaque wording was approved by the class Board of Directors. Ultimately it also had to be approved by the USMA Museum, Historical, and Memorialization Committee but not without some minor wordsmithing in the process. The plaque that was ultimately cast and which is displayed at the front entrance to the lodge reads:
By the fall of 1994 there were growing indications that costing out the detailed construction drawings would exceed the stated price goal. Everyone who saw the conceptual design fell in love with it, but in reality it was overdesigned. With Point Construction on board in the fall of ’95, the team embarked on pinning down the construction cost. The bestestimate was an eye watering $150,000 over budget. The committee was adamant that the lodge would not have a cost overrun. Accordingly, everything was put on hold while Zickel and Point Construction and the architect set about to carve out the errant amount. It was an intense and often agonizing effort that consumed most of 1996 but in the end succeeded. A combination of redesigned features, value engineering, and elimination of “gold plating” carried the day. To the casual observer nothing had changed in the external or internal appearance of the new lodge. The disciplined approach paid off.