Veterans Day

By Frank Vetere

The United States of America declared war on Japan and Germany after the Pearl Harbor attack by Japan on Dec. 7, 1941. All domestic activities turned to manufacturing military equipment and supplies. I had to register for the military draft long before my high school graduation in June 1942.

I left for military duty Feb. 23, 1943, and became a bridge building combat engineer. I entered combat after D-Day, June 6, 1944, at Utah Beach and fought through Normandy all the way to South Belgium and Holland. Cold sub-freezing weather slowed American advances in late November and early December.

Meanwhile, German armies were assembling many Panzer tank divisions with thousands of foot soldiers greatly outnumbering the American forces. On Dec. 16, 1944, with predicted overcast skies, the German forces began to attack through the Ardennes Forest between Luxemburg and Southern Belgium. Their aim was to regain Antwerp’s fuel and munitions supply port in Northern Belgium. Undermanned American troops held the German forces to no more than a 40-mile penetration until U.S. forces on the northern and southern flanks, in bitter cold, came to assist. This was to become known as the Battle of the Bulge. German forces were held. On Dec. 23, 1944, the skies cleared and hundreds of American bombers and fighter planes ended the attack. By Jan. 25, 1945, the German armies had retreated. In those 40 days, Allied troops had 81,000 casualties, of which 19,000 American soldiers died. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister, said “This is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war, and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever famous American victory.”

Americans kept the Germans in retreat. Our group arrived at the Elba River at Magdeburg, 60 miles west of Berlin. Russian troops captured Berlin and the war quickly came to an end. Over 1,200 German soldiers surrendered to our group. Our battalion then received orders to move to Marseilles, France, on the Mediterranean Sea for redeployment to the Pacific theatre, via the Panama Canal, when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan’s city of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. I disembarked in Massachusetts, was discharged from military duty from Camp Grant, IL, on Nov. 9, 1945. Among other medals I received, I was awarded a European Theatre Medal with four battle stars. On July 11, 2004, in a ceremony in downtown Seattle, celebrating the 60th anniversary of World War II, I received a special United States congressional recognition for participating in the Battle of Normandy and the liberation of France and Europe. I am now 86 years of age and reside in Federal Way. KEEP AMERICA SAFE.