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  • Douglas Tesner

    Battle of the Bulge Veterans

  • Douglas Tesner

    Battle of the Bulge Veterans
December 16, 2009

TC veterans recall Battle of the Bulge

BY ART BUKOWSKI

TRAVERSE CITY -- Maury Cole's thoughts often drift to the past when snow and freezing temperatures engulf northern Michigan.

Cole, of Fife Lake, recalls how he and thousands of other American soldiers often had no escape from the bitter cold as they fought the Battle of the Bulge from December 1944 through January 1945.

The battle, named for the bulge it created in American front lines stretched from the Netherlands down into Italy, marked the last major German offensive of World War II. About 80,000 Americans were killed or injured.

Cole, 18 at the time, spent several weeks holed up about eight miles from Bastogne in Belgium. He vividly remembers the piercing chill that left several of his friends with painful frostbite on their hands and feet.

"It was hard, but you got used to it," he said. "We were tough and young."

Fighting raged during daylight, and soldiers after dark curled up in dirty, freezing foxholes as German shells pounded around them throughout the night.

"Every time you crawled in the foxhole at night, you said, 'Man, I wish I was at home between two clean white sheets ... If you could, you went to a two-man foxhole, where two guys could sleep back-to-back and figure out a way to keep warm," Cole said.

Cole is a founding member of a dwindling group of local Bulge veterans. They'll meet tonight at Minerva's in Traverse City for a dinner held each year on the anniversary of the battle's first day.

As many as 30 veterans attended the meetings in years past, but just five are expected to be at tonight's event.

"We're all in our 80s and 90s now," said Richard Rizzio, 84, of Interlochen. "We're kind of the last of the Mohicans."

The dinner is meant to honor all the men who fought in the battle, especially those who lost their lives.

"We do this each year in memory of the men that did not return," said Rizzio, a Chicago native and Army veteran. "We were the lucky ones; we were the ones who made it back."

The meal won't be somber. The group chats and catches up, Rizzio said, though the conflict that unites them is never far from anyone's mind.

"We don't talk too much about the battle, but it's one of those things that kind of sits in the background," he said. "Every now and then a story creeps out."

The group usually meets once a month at the VFW post on Veterans Drive near Traverse City. Several veterans groups exist, but they're filled with vets of several ages from different wars. The Bulge group gives members a chance to share their memories with those who saw what they did.

"It's a group of guys that are all about the same age and all have basically the same experience," said Jim Wibby, a Traverse City resident who's been a member for about 15 years.

Wibby, 85, a Detroit native, remembers how he became more battle-hardened as time went on.

"By February (of 1945) I'd been in combat for 123 days. It was kind of old-hat," he said. "But in the first few days, there was naturally a fear that got into you. You're adjusting to the noise, you distinguish from German shells and American shells ... there's a lot of that stuff going on."

Members have in the past spoken with local schoolchildren about the battle. They want to make sure future generations understand the significance of the conflict that wrapped a few months before the German surrender in May 1945.

Wibby, who was positioned in Germany north of the bulge, recalls that spirits were high as troops closed in on Germany.

"The morale going into Christmas was high, because we were making good ground," he said. "As the bulge dragged on, we realized it was going to be more than a hop, skip and a jump."

As with Cole, winter brings back memories for Wibby.

"When the snow and cold come, you kind of automatically think of (the battle)," he said. "It's not a nightmare thing, just a reminder."

Some veterans of the group think more about the war these days, Cole said, particularly with nonstop news of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"You just think of what those guys are doing over there in the holes and mountains; like what we did in the Ardennes foxholes," he said.

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