On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the United States’ entry into World War II, American veterans talk of their experiences at Pearl Harbor and how they hope the next generations will not forget the history of this war. “I was just a young kid,” reminisces one veteran. Another one remarks, in the understatement [...]
An emotional Corporal Harry Hudec of Cleveland, Ohio, respectfully kisses the marble cross on the grave of his lieutenant, Joseph Duffy, at the American World War II cemetery in Margraten, The Netherlands. Joe Duffy, a married man from Pittsburgh who left behind also several brothers and sisters, was 24 when a sniper killed him during [...]
Before the start of the German counteroffensive in the Ardennes on 16 December 1944, this densely forested region of Belgium and Luxembourg was described as a ghost front, an area where nothing much was happening, a quiet sector. But on 21 October 1944 this is where Lieutenant and nurse Frances Slanger’s life was cruelly cut [...]
Some time ago, I was involved in the making of an exciting documentary on the Battle of the Bulge. Belgian television maker Chris Michel interviewed a dozen veterans who had traveled to Bastogne with Forever Young, an American wish organization that had paid for the men’s travel to Europe. Second from left in this picture [...]
Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, the chubby GI in the middle of the picture, was an affable man from Knoxville, Tennessee, who liked to crack a joke with his men, and they loved him for it. But the laughter quickly died when their regiment, the 422nd Infantry, became encircled on the Schnee Eifel during the first [...]
Cheneux, Belgium. No helmet. No body armor. No Sherman tanks or Hellcat tank destroyers to seek protection from. Yet here, on 21 December 1944, Walter Hughes of the 82nd Airborne Division, armed with nothing more than a Tommy Gun, is storming into a hail of fire in the Ardennes as his 504th Parachute Infantry takes [...]
