Witness to History
After my mother passed away in 2017, I took over custody of all the letters my dad wrote to her while he was overseas in WWII. My mom had kept them all. Over the next two years I transcribed them (they were in cursive), scanned them, then shared them with my brothers, and our families. The entire project was so meaningful to me. I learned many things, one of which was my dad was a gifted writer.
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| My Dad, Roscoe |
When I saw this topic “Witness To History” I knew that I would write about one particular letter he wrote while traveling through the aftermath of the Battle of the Bulge (the forested Ardennes region in Belgium, Luxembourg and France). The battle lasted one entire month from mid December 1944 to mid January 1945. My dad Roscoe traveled through much of this area in the US Army Medical Corps in May 1945.
At first I thought I would recharacterize what he wrote, but when I reread his letter, he said it much better than I ever could. So here is the letter my dad wrote to my mom on May 8, 1945. This date he wrote it is also a historic day. It was Victory in Europe Day (V-E Day), the day that Germany surrendered to the Allies.
“In your v-mail letter, I’m sure I got your mental telepathy because I was thinking of you all day. That is the day I visited Liege, and went through Maastrich, Holland, and the day before I was in Luxemburg. So in two days, the first of which the war was unofficially announced as being over I was in two countries, Luxemburg and Germany, and on the official day I was in Germany, Belgium, and Holland, and two of the countries I was never in before those two days. That is something to remember, isn’t it? The sights I saw ranged from extreme to extreme. I saw the evidences of the terrific struggles between armed forces which had taken place, and what now seemed peaceful, but at the time it happened the country was deep in snow and ice, and every step taken was perhaps thought to be the last by the man taking it.
“Dear, I can’t begin to describe it to you in writing, but I will when I get home. You can now visit ancient battlefields such as we did at Gettysburg, but can’t vividly picture what took place, because all evidences of battle have long ago vanished. But here is what I saw (I’m speaking of the battle of the Ardennes forest) (Carol adds - also called The Battle of the Bulge) you could see the evidence which had not long ago been produced. You could see the trees in various sectors shot to hell, see the old trenches, pillboxes, masses of concrete now a disheveled heap of twisted concrete and steel, a rifle here and there, many tanks burned and smashed. Cars riddled by bullets, trucks overturned by the roadside, shells, many unexploded, the remains of a machine gun nest, belts of machine gun bullets still unexploded, a big gun emplacement torn to bits, an American soldier’s overcoat and also German overcoats, roads now chopped full of ruts from traffic which once were good roads, bomb crater after bomb crater, and innumerable other factors. With hardly a tree intact in some places for almost an acre at a road point junction, some shot off right above the ground, others just the tops shot off but all the limbs, etc. it can readily be pictured the magnitude of the struggle. Those forests are not filled with trees that are huge like we are used to, but trees ranging from four inches in diameter to a foot. They are a spruce-like tree, have very much foliage, but because of the density of the trees, they are straight and stately, up to their tops of 50 to 75 feet, I would guess. Underneath the trees the forest is dim, damp, and dull from the lack of light able to penetrate through the foliage at the top. The forests are dark in daytime, comparatively speaking, and I don’t believe there would be a darker place on earth than in these forests at night with no moon.
“The forests are not one continuous growth of trees as we have in America in National forests, etc. but are usually interrupted at frequent intervals by road junctions and fields. In other words their forests are spotted in nature. So imagine the difficulty of a bunch of men crossing an opening to try to take another fortified forest or stronghold. One does not dare penetrate very far into the forests even when we were there a few days ago, because of the fear of mines. We stopped to eat our C rations at a road junction where a big battle had taken place, and started fooling around, but were very careful not to go too far. In fact I was almost afraid to get off the road, and wouldn’t except where there was evidence of other people having recently treaded.
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| December 1944 Battle of the Bulge image |
“Then probably the most touching of all was the fact that at frequent intervals one would see three of four crosses marking the grave of a comrade along the road. At one place, where we stopped, I saw at the edge of the road, it looked like ten thousand ants worming and working the surface of a square foot or more of earth, carrying out maggots, etc and which might have perhaps been one of our men who will go down in history as missing in action. Dear, when you see all this, as perhaps you will never see, it brings the war so close to you that your heart beats very fast, it is difficult to swallow, and you just don’t know what to think or do. Then you will come to a small settlement, and find every building demolished, practically all bridges of all sizes gone and now being used only temporary bridges the kind you see on detours. But as you pass through the country side, you see another picture; you see some of the most beautiful country you have ever seen; rolling hills, valleys, streams, actually the majority of which has never been touched by war, because wars are fought around roads and communications. So you wonder who is master after all.
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| Image of an area of the Ardennes forest in Belgium many years later. |
“It is impossible to destroy nature, even the scars of battle are soon erased by nature, I mean the damage done to nature itself. But the havoc caused on human accomplishments such as ruined cities will be there for ages unless corrected by man. I don’t know how I ever carried this discourse this far because I never dreamed I would ever try to write this much, and I realize it is a feeble attempt in describing it, but I hope you get something out of it. Now this paragraph still continues because the start of this was intended to give you my thoughts on these two days. (Carol adds - I have added a few paragraph breaks above to make the reading a bit easier) All the first day, we could tell as we passed through each village that the war was about over, and we gathered from the people still around talking in huddles of four or five, that the end was about near. All this time, I was thinking of you and wondering how you would react if you could see it all, but the more I saw, the more I wished you would never be subjected to war.
“On the official day, I saw people who were rejoicing over the war being over. I described to you before the scenes in Belgium. People were happy, but it seems that we are getting to realize more and more each day that the thing here is really over. Probably the difference here is that we still see the results of the war, while in America, they don’t. Consequently, we see the big job ahead more clearly than probably you can ever realize. Even in the peaceful town of Liege, you see plenty of evidence of war. The excitement was great, and your mental telepathy was bound to have reached me, because I was wishing with all my heart that I had you by the arm to hold on to and to sense the real liberation and good feeling that was felt by peace.”
Roscoe
That is the end of this particular letter. A few weeks later, the Army moved the medical corps he was in to Marseille France for one month. Then my dad boarded a Navy ship bound for the Philipines. So his service to the Army and country was not yet finished. He was aboard this Navy ship in the middle of the Pacific Ocean when the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan 8/6/45 and 8/9/45. On August 14, 1945 President Truman announced that Japan had surrendered to the Allies. Truman’s address to the nation was broadcast that same day on his ship for all to hear.
After reaching the Philippines in early September, my dad spent a few months at that location, and then in Japan as part of the Army of Occupation. He returned safely to the US on December 10, 1945, returning to the loving arms of his wife, my mom.
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| Roscoe and Dot, a few years after WWII |