| Christmas Eve, Past and Present |
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| Sitting here today, 62 years later, playing a tape of World War II music brings back a lot of memories of those times many years ago: being away from home for so long, the loneliness, the sorrow and not being able to hear from your folks at home for months at a time. In combat, most of my overseas time, I could not tell them where I was or where I might be going next. All you know is when the time comes and your unit is needed, you go there to fight the enemy and hope you survive; then you go to the next mission, and you do this until the mission is completed and your unit is relieved. |
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| Looking back, I think of my time in combat in two different wars, WWII and Korea, and I think about bad and sad things that happened to my buddies and me. Those times are something I shall never forget, but most of all, I just think of things we did for each other and the comradeship we had. You depended on your buddies, and they depended on you. You did this in order to survive. I will always remember the sad, lonely and scary moments, but also the fun times we shared with each other, even in time of war. |
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| Shortly after high school, I was fighting with the 82nd Airborne Division on the beach at Anzio in Italy. Next, I parachuted into Holland during Operation Marked Garden. We were there until the last of November 1944, then back to our base camp in Sissonne, France, for some much needed rest and thinking about the coming Christmas, with turkey instead of K-rations. This was short lived when the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge. |
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| Our division was one of the first to be called back to action on the December 17 to meet the German army head on. Fighting in the Bulge was probably the most severe and frightening battle I was in during WWII or the Korean War, mostly because of the extreme cold weather, the dense forests, the heavy snow, tanks and artillery. |
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| On Christmas Eve 1944, late evening, my squad was called to take a patrol into enemy territory to lay a roadblock with land mines to halt the German tanks from advancing into our sector. There were eight of us, each carrying two anti-tank mines. After going through our outposts near the village of Bra in Belgium, and upon approaching the crossroad as we were preparing to lay out the mines, there was a bright flash and a huge explosion, which picked me up and hurled me into a nearby ditch. |
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| After the shock, I found that all the men either killed or wounded. Two were killed instantly (Pvt Albert C Middlemiss and Pvt Elmer Boyers) and two died of wounds later that night (Lt Melvin Ullrich and Pvt Stanley Symin). All the other men were wounded. My platoon leader, Lieutenant Ullrich, lost both legs and later died of shock, but he most likely saved my life because when the mine he was carrying exploded, his body shielded me from most of the shrapnel. |
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| My first thought of what had happened was that a German tank had fired on us, but later we found that an enemy 120mm mortar shell had hit in the midst of us and exploded the anti-tank mine the lieutenant was carrying. |
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| If this not bad enough, the next morning, Christmas Day, although slightly wounded myself, I had to go back to the site of the explosion to help recover the bodies of my two friends we were unable to bring back the evening before. That day I sat in shock and in tears, thinking of what had happened the night before. |
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| I had seen friends killed and wounded before, and that was sad enough, but to have this happen on Christmas Eve, and then have to go back up there and recover their bodies on Christmas Day, was just too much. These men were not just men in my squad, but some had gone through parachute training with me, and some were among the 25 of us who had volunteered to go overseas to join the 82nd Airborne Division in Italy. They fought and died beside me. They were like brothers to me. |
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| So, late in the evening on Christmas Eve, December 24, 2006, I will be sitting here listening to those WWII oldies, having a glass of champagne. I will be thinking of my buddies and will most likely shed a few tears, remembering that cold Christmas Eve, December 24, 1944, when they were killed or wounded at a crossroad near the village of Bra in Belgium, and I will say a prayer for them and for those young men (and their families who are now serving this great country of ours, and especially those who will also be fighting an enemy on this Christmas Eve. |
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Cpl Obie WICKERSHAM
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"C" Company
307th Engineers
Airborne Battalion
82nd Airborne Division
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| Campaigns |
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Battle of the Bulge,
Belgium
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