8 | February 2020
| SENIOR LIVING
BILLINGS GAZETTE
75 YEARS AGO they fought the Germans, frostbite and Hitler’s desperate gamble to change the tide of World War II
ERIK LACITIS
The Seattle Times
S
EATTLE — They were, for the most part, 18, 19, or 20 years old — some just out of high school — fighting the German army in Central Europe in what many believed were the waning days of World War II. Because of the weekslong battle they waged 75 years ago, Adolf Hitler wouldn’t get the negotiated peace that he had sought from his lastditch, surprise attack on Allied forces. The Third Reich would not live on.
Jack Van Eaton didn’t know he and his fellow soldiers were making history by fighting and winning the battle that would gain its name from the bulge German forces drove into Allied lines. You don’t think history while trying to avoid bombs, bullets and hypothermia. Van Eaton, 95, of Bothell, Washington, remembers being scared nonstop. “You don’t tell your buddies. You know they’re scared, too. You have artillery coming all the time. We knew that any damn second
we could be dead or have a hole in our heads.” The Battle of the Bulge was fought in the middle of winter in subzero temperatures. Many suffered amputations due to frostbite. It remains the largest battle ever fought by the U.S. Army. In the winter of 1944, the Allies were confident that victory would soon be theirs. Six months after the D-Day landings, they were rushing through France and Belgium with surprising speed. But in the early morning hours of Dec. 16, 1944,
against the advice of his generals, Hitler gambled that German troops could split the Allied armies by launching a surprise attack in the Ardennes Forest, a 75mile stretch of dense woods and few roads that straddles portions of Belgium, Luxembourg, France and Germany. The German army had been decimated in three years of fighting against the Soviet Red Army. “Yet, amazingly, the Germans were able to scratch together approximately 28 divisions for the upcoming offensive,”
ALAN BERNER PHOTOS, THE SEATTLE TIMES VIA TNS
Jack Van Eaton, 95, is a survivor of the Battle of the Bulge with two Purple Hearts and the German bullet he took out of his own leg. For years, he wouldn’t talk about his experiences. He’s a life member of the Disabled American Veterans. says an Army history. Facing the Germans were “four inexperienced and battle-worn American divisions stationed there for rest and seasoning,” according to another Army paper. Many units were caught off-guard. Over about five weeks, more than a million soldiers
faced off — 500,000 Americans, 600,000 Germans and 55,000 British. Casualties for the two main forces were massive. For the Germans, there were more than 100,000 casualties (which includes captured and injured) with up to 12,000 listed as killed. The Ameri-
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