{"id":21429,"date":"2025-06-07T06:47:21","date_gmt":"2025-06-07T10:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/?p=21429"},"modified":"2025-06-07T15:57:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-07T19:57:02","slug":"the-battle-of-the-bulge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/index.php\/2025\/06\/07\/the-battle-of-the-bulge\/","title":{"rendered":"The Battle of the Bulge"},"content":{"rendered":"
Position: 50\u00b010’32.9″N 5\u00b031’19.3″E<\/a><\/h6>\n

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Rather than flog a dead horse<\/a>, here\u2019s what happened with the propellor. It\u2019s been removed and we are patientily waiting for its replacement. As someone said, \u201cIf you use things they break.\u201d And in this case, our poor MaxProp<\/a> was used to death. Partly as a result of (ahem!)<\/em> poor maintenance, but mostly as a result of propelling Aleta around the world a couple of times. Once again on the hard, we decided to postpone our long list of sh*t-we-have-to-do-while-Aleta\u2019s-out-of-the-water and explore Belgium, Luxembourg and Northern France instead.<\/p>\n

Carol asked me if there was anything specific I wanted to see. I said, \u201cI think we should go explore the Ardennes. I think your dad<\/a> would appreciate that.\u201d Coincidentally, a couple of days earlier I ran across Bob\u2019s letter to his kids describing his experiences fighting the Battle of the Bulge. Thus, I encourage you to read his first-hand account as context for this post. You can find it here: Recollections: The Battle of the Bulge<\/a><\/u><\/p>\n

Not So Low Country<\/h6>\n

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Driving across Belgium is a bit like driving across Kansas. Both are as flat as a pancake. Only, Kansas doesn\u2019t have stunning 900-year-old cities to distract you from the tedium of its corn fields. Belgium isn\u2019t a big country, Kansas is seven times larger, so it\u2019s a bit of a surprise when hills appear and the landscape changes to valleys and thick forests. Such changes in topography at the border of any country isn\u2019t surprising. After all, anything that slows down your neighbours\u2019 ability to charge in and grab your land can serve as a natural barrier. After three weeks at sea and moored in the low countries, the hills came as a welcome relief.<\/p>\n

Until I read Bob\u2019s essay, everything I knew about the Battle of the Bulge<\/a> was either from the movie \u2018Patton<\/a>\u2019 or ancient TV ads for low calorie foods. That\u2019s the great benefit of intentional travel and the vast resources of the internet. Thirty years ago, you either had to take Rick Steves\u2019 word for it or go to the library and study. Now you can go all the way down the research rabbit hole and only surface when your battery runs out.<\/p>\n

Yet, third party references only take you so far. If you want to get a real sense of the past, you need to go to where it happened and walk in the footsteps of those who went before you. Gettysburg and Antietam were my first visceral experiences of history. Devil\u2019s Den in Gettysburg and Bloody Lane in Antietam both gave me shivers. So many men had died in such small areas it wasn\u2019t possible all their ghosts had left for good.<\/p>\n

Nuts!<\/a><\/h6>\n

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After the Allies’ success of D-Day and their rapid push through France, Hitler came up with a desperate plan for a counterattack. Starting from the Ardennes, he intended to split the Allied lines by cutting across Belgium in a few days. The challenging terrain was key to Hitler\u2019s plan. The Allies would not expect an attack from that direction, he reasoned. Indeed, the American First Army maintained only a thin line of defence in the area.<\/p>\n

Hard in the grip of one of the century\u2019s coldest winters the Germans mustered infantry and tanks throughout the dense forests and hills. Eisenhower and his generals suspected something was going on in the region but were still unprepared for the attack that began early on December 16, 1944.<\/p>\n

Having fractured his pelvis in a parachute drop during Operation Market Garden, Bob recovered in England for a couple of months. He was then posted to the 505st<\/sup> Airborne Infantry just south of Reims, France. On December 17, orders came to move out for Bastogne, 175kms away, and join the 101st<\/sup> Airborne headquartered there. Two days later with air cover grounded by bad weather, American forces resorted to harrying the Germans on the ground.<\/p>\n

Following in Father’s FOOTSTEPS<\/a><\/h6>\n

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Petite Halleux is an enclave of about twenty houses and farms about 30 kilometres northwest of Bastogne. Seventy metres above a sluggish, meandering creek bed there are rolling fields of wheat and corn and a few cows. Looking southeast across the narrow valley, conifers stood in neat rows flanked by fields of barley. It probably didn\u2019t look much different 80 years ago.<\/p>\n

Leaving Clarice the electric Citroen at the village crossroads, we followed the clearly marked trail towards the bluff that led down to the stream. Walking in Bob\u2019s footsteps, it wasn\u2019t hard to imagine the hills covered in snow and small groups of olive clad GIs darting through the trees. Crossing the creek and walking up the steep slope on the other side, the road cut directly through the cultivated forest. Ordered rows of trees with long, almost bare trunks stretched high up into the dense canopy above. Perfect cover for moving troops.<\/p>\n

Recalling Bob\u2019s words and with a bend of my head I could almost see the shadows of German soldiers making their forward way as silently as possible. Then I could hear the clatter of tank tracks and smell the diesel fumes trapped in the pine tops. Eighty years on, no signs of the war remained.<\/p>\n

From the moment we set foot on the farm track, Carol was almost overwhelmed with emotion. Walking where her dad had fought as a 19-year-old was, for her, nothing short of surreal. Having heard Bob\u2019s stories of the war all her life, she now understood their meaning for him in an entirely new way. And not being able to share her feelings with her dad was especially poignant.<\/p>\n

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