A TRIBUTE TO THE 82 AIRBORNE DIVISION
By Emile Lacroix
I WAS BORN IN MAY 1940 in the town of Maurage near the French border 13 days after the Germans invaded Belgium, and I was five years old when the war ended. We left my birthplace in June 1944 because of the threat of German retaliation after someone murdered one of their officers. Rumors were flying that they would arrest several men in the town, and maybe kill some or send them to camps in Germany. My parents didn’t wait for the strong arm of the oppressor to reach our home. They packed some light luggage and slipped out of town by train in the middle of the night. We took refuge at the home of one of my uncles in the hamlet of Hambraine near Namur where I am still living now, and never returned to Maurage.
Another uncle was living two houses away from where we were staying. He owned a barber-hairdresser salon that was also a café. A map was pined on the wall of the kitchen on which they followed the military operations from the Normandy landing to our liberation around September 7. I was very often at his home and we watched the soldiers advance.
There, for the first time, I had closer contact with the American soldiers we had watched passing on the main road of our little village every day since the liberation. It was during the Battle of the Bulge, when one unit was billeted in the castle at the edge of the village. Every evening, several GIs came to my uncle’s café to have a drink and listen to the music my two uncles played. They were both musicians, one a fiddler and the other an accordion player. I still remember now the flavor of the chocolates and the chewing gum that I received from those kind, friendly soldiers.
After the war, I religiously listened to the numerous comments and stories the customers of the barbershop recounted as they waited their turn for a haircut. The war, which had ended only a short while ago, was the main subject of conversation including, of course, the Battle of the Bulge.
Each year in December at the anniversary of the Bulge, the local daily newspaper commemorated the battles by publishing serialized accounts, one each day. I read them all several times, paying close attention, and carefully cut them out and saved them. I still have them in a file in my attic. I was very interested by all that had been written about the war since the Normandy landings, and most specifically by the Battle of the Bulge. These two events were the ones on which I focused my attention.
Of course in accounts of the Ardennes battles, the surrounding of Bastogne, the 101st Airborne action, and General Patton’s advance were the main subjects of discussion. The rest of the battles were mentioned here and there, but just briefly, as if Bastogne was about the only area where fighting had taken place. I was very impressed by these accounts, and by descriptions of the town, surrounded by Germans and covered with snow during the special period of Christmas, where the severity of the fighting so strongly contrasted the peace, fraternity and calm to which we all looked forward during the Christmas season.
Much later, in the ’fifties, The Longest Day was published. (I bought the first edition.) The book was then made into a movie. It was more about the 82d Airborne Division, which had distinguished itself in the Ste. Mère-Eglise area of Normandy. I remembered that that same airborne division had also fought valiantly in our Ardennes. I was very impressed by these paratroopers and their battles, and thought that I would some day like to meet at least one of the heroes who had witnessed such tremendous combat, to talk with him and ask about the battles and his frontline experience. But it seemed to be only a dream. How could I ever meet one of those troopers? It seemed to me to be something impossible, but I hoped to have the chance in the future.
Later, in the ’sixties, I visited the sites of the American battles in the northern sector of the Ardennes. This part of the great Battle of the Bulge is less known but, however, more important than the area around Bastogne. I also discovered the little December ’44 Museum at La Gleize, which at that time was an annual exhibition only open during the summer. I became involved in the exhibition-museum, and often went to the area, becoming more and more interested by the history of the battle sector where the 82d Airborne Division had fought, stopped, and defeated the German enemy.