Belgium Remembers: Fiftieth Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge
The ceremony commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge was to be held on December 16, 1994, in Bastogne, Belgium. My wife and I were invited to attend by Docteur Jean Lewalle, a friend we had met at several international orthopaedic surgery meetings. He and his wife Nicole hosted our visit, and we stayed with them at their home outside Brussels. Jean was 14 years old and living in Liege, Belgium, during the World War II battles.
We went with the Lewalles to Bastogne several days before the ceremonies were to take place. There we met two of their closest friends, André Burnotte and his wife, Monique. André was 13, living in Chenogne, near Bastogne, when the 11th Armored Division battled for that village.
Lieutenant Colonel Emile Engel, a Belgian Army historian and expert on the Battle of the Bulge, interpreted for us as the Burnottes drove us through some of the areas where my company had fought.
In the village of Bercheux where we had returned several times for rest and to repair our tanks, I recognized a house where some of us had stayed with a Belgian family. We knocked on the door, and the woman who answered was Marguerite, the daughter of the family, who was 19 when we stayed there. She invited us in and called her sister, Anna, on the telephone and we talked briefly with Colonel Engel interpreting.
Hosts for Jean and Ted Hartman’s return to Belgium for the December 1994 fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge. Back row, left to right: Monique Burnotte, André Burnotte, Nicole Lewalle. Front row, left to right: Françoise Neven (deceased), Ted Hartman, Jean Hartman, and Jean Lewalle.
The Hartmans and hosts are greeted by Marguerite Fortemaison at her home in Bercheux, Belgium, where soldiers (including Hartman) stayed in 1944.
Leaving Bercheux, we went to Sibret, Morhet, and on to Houmont. These villages were all in the path of our first vicious fighting. I recognized much of the terrain as we drove through the fields and ended up on a hill that overlooked Chenogne. It was here that the Germans shelled us so mercilessly on New Year’s Eve, 1944, as we poured gasoline into our tanks. The next day, New Year’s Day, we took the town from the Germans. Twenty-nine out of thirty-one homes and the village church had been destroyed during the battles. Today, Chenogne is a lovely pastoral village that has been completely rebuilt.
The weather had become quite cold and was intermittently raining and sleeting, reminiscent of December 1944. We proceeded to Noville, where we saw the rebuilt church and the crossroads from which a German antitank gun had hit one of our company’s tanks, disabling it and blocking our path for retreat. In 1945, the road was barely wide enough for one tank to pass; today it is a three-lane highway.
We found the remains of the apple orchard where we had coiled while we made plans to get back to our own lines. In 1945, our tank had dropped into the foundation of a burned-out house. Fifty years later, a house had been built on the foundation. The hedgerow in front of the house was familiar, and from there we could see the route that we had followed through the deep snow from Noville.
At Foy, we went to a cemetery for the German soldiers killed in battles in this area. It was very dark and bleak. There were many dark-gray marble crosses with three names on each side, presumably meaning six bodies in each grave. Many of them were only 15 and 16 years old.
That evening, the Burnottes took us to their lovely home in the country outside Liege, where we had dinner with their family and spent the night. The next morning, we returned to Chenogne with André and Monique and attended a memorable Mass in the rebuilt church. After the service, a ceremony was held to dedicate a memorial to the citizens of Chenogne who died in the fighting in 1944 and 1945, one of whom was André Burnotte’s aunt. During this ceremony, the mayor, speaking in French, began telling some of my war history and how honored the village was to have me return. After the “Star Spangled Banner” and “la Brabanconne” (the Belgian National Anthem) were played, the entire group moved to the village school, where I was made an honorary citizen of Chenogne. This was quite an emotional experience for me. I was also given a beautiful pewter dish with the seal of the district on it and a book about the Luxembourg District of Belgium. Many of the local citizens had signed it and written messages. I was asked to relate my recollection of the battle for Chenogne. They seemed very interested in hearing this. Colonel Engel interpreted.
Ted Hartman is presented with honorary citizenship of Chenogne, Belgium, by Mayor Michelle Detaille on December 11, 1994.
Several days later, Jean Lewalle took us to Liege, his hometown. We went to the American Cemetery at Henri Chapelle. It was strikingly beautiful, light and airy. The crosses and Stars of David marked the graves lined in neat rows when viewed from any direction. This was in sharp contrast to the German cemetery at Foy. Many of the soldiers killed in the Battle of the Bulge were buried here. A computerized record of the location of every soldier buried in an American cemetery is maintained at all American cemetery offices. I asked at the office about the location of my buddies who were killed in the Battle of the Bulge. I was told that the remains of many had been returned to the United States. Of those still in Europe, all but one was buried in the Luxembourg American Cemetery at Hamm, Luxembourg. At the cemetery in Henri Chapelle, we learned that many Belgian families have adopted the graves of American soldiers. They tend the graves and bring flowers on any special day of commemoration.
The Mardasson, a stunning star-shaped memorial built at Bastogne by a grateful Belgian nation, is dedicated to the enduring friendship of the people of Belgium and the United States. The 50th-anniversary memorial service in memory of those men killed in the Battle of the Bulge was held here.
Later that week, we returned to Bastogne to participate in the ceremonies marking the fiftieth anniversary of the start of the Battle of the Bulge. We stayed at the home of Françoise Neven, a friend of the Lewalles. During dinner that evening, we could hear the guns practicing for the following day’s ceremonies.
On the morning of December 16th, we awoke to cold and snowy weather, much like it had been exactly fifty years ago to the day. Similar weather had not occurred on that date in any of the intervening years. We dressed warmly and went to the church for the start of the ceremonies. The church was filled with veterans of the Battle of the Bulge and their families who had returned for this meaningful event. Mass was conducted by the Bishop of Bastogne and a Catholic priest from Providence, Rhode Island, who had been a combat soldier in the Battle of the Bulge. It was a beautiful service. At its conclusion, we were taken to the Mardasson, a handsome star-shaped memorial to the American soldiers killed in the Battle of the Bulge. We had seats under awnings and were provided with wool blankets to keep warm.
The King of Belgium, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Madeleine Albright, the commanding general of the American Forces in Europe, and other dignitaries entered. Once they were seated, wreaths were presented, the national anthems of Belgium and the United States were played, and several speeches were given. The ceremony was closed by a touching rendition of taps performed with an echo. It was a moving ceremony.
Next, those present went to the General Patton Memorial. Schoolchildren joined us here, and each child took the hand of a veteran. Two cute sixth-grade boys took our hands, and we marched with them several blocks to McAuliffe Square, named after the American general who refused to surrender Bastogne to the Germans. A Sherman tank stands on a pedestal in the square.
Afterward, we went to the city hall. From the balcony we watched a dramatic reenactment of the Battle of the Bulge on the street below. The pageant included people fleeing from the Germans in horse-drawn carts, a simulated air raid and bombing, the first arrival of American troops and tanks followed by their retreat, and then the final return of the Americans.
The next morning, André Burnotte took us to the caserne, an army barracks, where a number of privately owned tanks were on display. I had the opportunity to climb onto a Sherman tank and to stand in the commander’s hatch in the turret. When they drove off in a big roar, I was reminded anew of how terribly noisy they were.
We returned to Chenogne to visit the Burnotte family farm. André showed us the field where his mother had taken him, four siblings, and six cousins to lay in the snow for four hours during the height of the battle for Chenogne.
We saw the family home and the beautiful little chapel that their father had rebuilt after the previous one was destroyed during the fighting. They showed us a tree by the roadside that had a large hole cut in it. The German plan had been to place an explosive in the hole, blow up the tree, and block the road. However, they were driven out of town before the explosive could be put in place.
Sherman tank recovered from a battlefield near Bastogne, Belgium, was used in the 1994 re-enactment of the Battle of Bastogne. Ted Hartman stands in the tank commander’s hatch.
This return visit to Belgium was memorable. Seeing the battlefields where we fought was fascinating and at times emotional for me. Meeting and getting to know a number of the Belgian people in their own setting was most rewarding. They are a people forever grateful to the United States for bringing them their freedom, as we were told many times. It was a wonderful experience.