With the Germans seemingly on the run everywhere in Europe, the Allies had hoped WW 2 would be done by year’s end 1944. Those hopes were shattered when the Germans launched their largest counter offensive on the western front, the Battle of the Bulge. A frustrated Tom Carr, who served as a scout, had warned his officers for weeks that the ermans appeared to be preparing a sneak attack, only to be ignored. The Germans weren’t the only enemy American GIs faced. Samuel Erlick recalled it was all he could do just to stay warm and avoid frozen feet. Still, David Kitchen was grateful for the bitter cold that kept the war dead that littered the Ardennes Forest refrigerated avoiding the stink and maggots that would have been present otherwise. German soldiers dressed as American GIs tricked David Kitchen’s squad into giving them their rifles. Frank Caruk recalled that when German soldiers dressed as American GIs were caught they were summarily executed. Mevlin Biddle took out three German snipers and three machine gun nests single handedly his actions earned him a Medal of Honor, though Biddle did not want to celebrate the killing he had done. The Bulge desensitized a young Ross Rasmussen who afterwards was ashamed of his callousness recalling eating his lunch on the frozen corpse of a German soldier. Separated from his unit, Murray Shapiro escaped German capture thanks to an old German woman. Stan Davis spent 30 nights in his tank protecting Bastogne. Their stories in more in this 11th podcast of Always Remember – World War II Through Veterans Eyes.

Tom Carr

Samuel Erlick

Frank Caruk

Melvin Biddle

Murray Shapiro

Stan Davis

As the Allies embarked on their island hopping campaign growing ever closer to the Japanese mainland, they soon discovered that their enemy in the Pacific was adept at presenting new challenges on every island. Tarawa, Saipan, Tinian, Peleliu, Leyte would all forever be ingrained in WW 2 veterans memories - and in their nightmares. Richard V. Morgan remembers Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman,, who stood atop a heavily garrisoned Japanese bunker directing demolition charges despite his being mortally wounded. Bonnyman would receive the Medal of Honor posthumously. For Dennis Olson, his poems helped him cope with the horrible losses he endured at Tarawa. Later, at Peleliu, 19 year old Arthur Jackson volunteered to secure a position in the shallow enemy trench system wiping out 12 pillboxes and killing 50 Japanese soldiers. He would receive the Medal of Honor for his actions from President Truman himself one year later. In the Philippines, a young L.W. Clark and his buddies lose their appetite as 100 Filipino villagers stumble across the rice fields towards their dispensary seeking medical help after having been bombed by the 11th Airborne, who believed Japanese soldiers were still hiding in the village. Amongst them, a soldier carried a still baby whose guts were hanging over the side of his body, his stomach ripped open by a mortar shell.

Richard V. Morgan

Lieutenant Alexander Bonnyman, Jr.

Dennis H. Olson

Arthur J. Jackson

L.W. Clark and his wife Ella

The African Americans who served on the USS Mason destroyer had already endured 90 mph winds and 60 foot waves that split the Mason's deck as they shepherded convoys to safety in the Atlantic when their beloved Captain Blackford was replaced with a racist captain who claimed the African Americans sailors he led smelled, couldn’t swim, and were hard to educate . 1st Lieutenant Vernon Baker, also an African American, destroyed six machine gun nests, two observer posts and four dugouts at Castle Aghinolfi in Italy only to see Captain Runyon, his white commanding officer who abandoned the firefight, receive the Silver Star. An illegal immigrant to the US, Jose Lopez, a Mexican American, saved his company at the Battle of the Bulge by single handedly taking out over 100 German soldiers with his machine gun fire. Iva Ikuko Toguri, a Japanese-American who had the misfortunate of being in Japan when the war broke out, found herself nicknamed Tokyo Rose and accused of being a traitor even as she tried her best to help the American POWs and fighting force anyway she could behind enemy lines. Ira Hayes, a Native American, raised the American flag at Iwo Jima, but afterwards could not dispel the terrible combat memories that haunted him when he got home. Hattie Brantley joined the Army Nurse Corps to see the world, but was instead imprisoned under the harshest conditions in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in the Philippines for almost the duration of the war. Their stories and more in this 10th podcast of Always Remember – WW 2 Through Veterans Eyes.

James Graham

Lorenzo Dufau (left) and James Graham (right)

Medal of Honor recipient Vernon Baker

Vernon Baker later years

Medal of Honor recipient Jose M. Lopez

Iva Ikuko Toguri

Ira Hayes

Hattie Brantley in the Philippines

Hattie Brantley's tombstone