Sun, 19 Dec 2004

Anniversary of Battle of the Bulge

While historians remember the events of December 1944 today, I remember my father. He was a Tech Corporal in a tank brigade of Patton's Third Army, and was part of the unit that raced to the relief of Bastogne. That's him, John Haxton, in the photo above, taken somewhere in eastern France in September or October of 1944 by an Army photographer for a military newspaper. The picture eventually hit the wire services under the caption "Johnny Gets His Gun", and was published in his hometown paper, The Delaware (Ohio) Gazette.

He talked frequently of this action, so much so that I often wondered if he ever really recovered from the war. He was wounded in southern Germany in March of 1945, just a month before the end of hostilities. I met a few of his surviving comrades in arms at his funeral in 1998 - The Greatest Generation, indeed.

AP - World War II-era jeeps and trucks rumbled through this town Saturday in ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of the deadliest battle in American history, the Battle of the Bulge.

(link) [Yahoo! News: Top Stories]

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