You can change the width of the story text shown below:
Use how much percent of the screen width?
Options: Plain text or PDF (fanclub only!) version | Mark story | Mark author
Don't forget to vote for this story, in the yellow voting box below the story!
War and Love - The Ardennes' Forester's Lodge
© JoeMo1619 - May 2025 ff.
Prologue: The Wehrmacht's offensive in the Ardennes, in English named 'The Battle of the Bulge', was the last (part-)successful German attack of WW2 and surprised the US-American troops entirely. Starting on December 16th, 1944, massive German attacks through the thick forests of the Ardennes in Southern Belgium cut off many US units from their supply lines. In principle the German attacks - repeating the successful strategy of 1940 - could be stopped at December 27th, but it took another month fighting under strongest winter conditions with heavy snowfall and ice-cold temperatures to finish the German attack off.
The Battle of the Bulge was by far the largest battle of the US Army during WW2 and resulted in the largest numbers of US-American POWs captured by the Germans. Many US soldiers had to suffer in German POW camps until the final end of the war.
"Only seven days until Christmas," I said to my passenger, Corporal Charles Winters, as I carefully steered our Army truck down the partially snow-covered country road east of Bastogne in the Belgian Ardennes.
"That's right," grumbled the usually very quiet Corporal. We both belonged to a unit made up exclusively of soldiers who were Black or of other dark-skinned backgrounds. U.S. Army units were still largely segregated by race, but the rumor that Black units were more often assigned to especially dangerous missions was not something I could confirm from my own experience. "And I have to admit, I'm not feeling the Christmas spirit at all." Then the Corporal fell silent again, and I turned my thoughts inward as I gripped the steering wheel, which demanded a lot of strength.
I, Private First Class Omar Bendley from Parkersburg, West Virginia, was about to experience my first wartime Christmas far from home. Our unit had been moved from Britain to France two weeks after the Normandy landings. Since then, I had driven my truck as part of a supply battalion all across northern France and Belgium. I had even driven right through Paris, which had left a lasting impression on me. Unlike many of the large and small cities in France that our Army and its Allies had fought to liberate from German troops, Paris had remained completely unscathed. Even in the English towns where we had prepared for the liberation of Europe for months, I had seen far more war damage. Now, after nearly six months of continuous combat duty, our unit — part of the 1st U.S. Army — had been moved to quieter positions to recover, resupply with weapons, ammunition, equipment, and fresh personnel, and prepare for the continued advance across the German border. When we left the main depot in Bastogne, we had heard that there were heavy battles going on further east along the American-German front, but aside from a "drive carefully and stay alert," we weren't given any detailed information on our way back to base.
We were just driving through a rather remote forest area, typical of the snow-covered Ardennes landscape, when a pressing need from an overfilled bladder forced me to stop. "I'm pulling over at the next forest path to take a leak," I informed my Corporal, who grunted his agreement. Parking partially on the road, I jumped out of the cab and walked a few meters toward the edge of the woods to relieve myself. I had just finished and was buttoning up my pants when I heard a whistling sound behind me, followed by a powerful explosion whose shockwave threw me into the snow between the trees. When I lifted my head and looked toward my truck, I saw it destroyed and engulfed in bright flames. Just seconds later, from my hiding spot in the woods, I saw two German tanks coming up the road. They maneuvered past my burning truck and continued at high speed toward Bastogne.
"German tanks," I murmured in utter shock. "What's going on here?" Seeing no further enemy movement, I tried to get back to my burning truck to check what had happened to Corporal Winters. But I could only get within ten meters of the vehicle—it was too hot, and the fire had now spread to the entire load.
Click here to read the rest of this story (1042 more lines)
Options: Plain text or
PDF (
fanclub only!) version for easy saving or printing
ESmail: Click here to send a private message to JoeMo619 (with ESmail, the site's internal message system)
Profile for JoeMo619, incl. 3 stories
Email: cocosi@gmx.net
Add this author to your favorite author list
Add this story to your favorite story list