WWII Memories: Local men recount experiences during WWII's Battle of the Bulge
For a change, today's entry into the series is not from the New Bern Sun Journal, but the BLAIRSVILLE DISPATCH. Thank you for reporting it, and thank you to the veterans who recounted their tour of duty.
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Tony Vigliotti of Burrell Township is 90 now and his memory is failing him, yet he continues to be haunted by nightmares of his long season of combat in World War II. "I was a good Catholic," he said recently at his home. "I was very devout. I had thought about becoming a priest. During the war, I prayed night and day to the Blessed Mary; wherever I was, in a fox hole, it didn't matter, I prayed"
"I don't know how I made it," he continued. "God was with me, I guess. I never knew whether I was coming back (home) or not. That's the thing about war. You never know.
"For years I had dreams about the war. I still do, but not as often."
Vigliotti has been married to his wife, Josephine, for 54 years. She recalled nights earlier in their marriage when her husband would spring from bed. She was afraid, sometimes, that he would hurl himself out a window. "It was like someone was after him," she said. "I guess it was about the war."
For all of that, Vigliotti said he was a superb machine gunner. Attached to the 818th Engineer Aviation Battalion, an airfield construction outfit, Vigliotti laid claim to downing two German airplanes.
During the opening salvos of the Battle of the Bulge, as the enemy continued to rumble menacingly toward Marche, Belgium, the 818th's staging area, the unit was placed on full alert.
The guard was doubled and motorized patrols sallied forth to scout the German advance, according to a monthly unit history written in early January 1945 and available online.
In conjunction with First Army Engineers, the unit prepared to blow up a bridge over the Ourthe River, southwest of Malmedy, Belgium, where German troops slaughtered dozens of American POWs on Dec. 17 and left them lying on the frozen earth.
On the day after Christmas in 1944, parts of the 818th were dispersed to Herderen, Belgium, and Nothberg, Germany, close to where an Allied airfield was to be constructed in Luchem, Germany, northeast of Malmedy.
Owing to the possibility of German parachutists descending on the area, the order was rescinded while a handful of men stayed behind to complete whatever preliminary work they could.
About all of this Vigliotti is silent. A former railroader, he clenches and unclenches his gnarled hands as he talks and tries to remember those days so long ago.
Last ditch effort
The Battle of the Bulge was a last throw of the dice by Germany's World War II dictator, Adolf Hitler. Aiming to sweep Americans and British troops from his front porch and drive them back toward Paris and Antwerp, Hitler hoped to so demoralize the Allies that they would sue for peace, leaving him to confront the Soviet Union's Red Army on its march to Berlin, the German capital.
The gamble failed. Exhausted, the German army backtracked on itself and the Allies were once again on the move by February 1945. The war ended in May with a full German surrender.
Also in the fray
During those weeks when the war in Europe hung in the balance, Albert Cresson of Derry was serving with the 315th Field Artillery Battalion, helping to lob shells at German troop and equipment concentrations. Cresson fought World War II with a slide rule.
In charge of determining detonation levels for his battalion's 12-gun battery of 155 mm howitzers, Cresson says mildly that he remained out of harm's way as the fighting chewed up thousands of weary infantrymen.
"We tried to stay about as safe as we could," he said. "We stayed behind the lines but near the front."
Cresson helped to deliver death and destruction on a long-range scale. The 155 mm cannon was about as lethal a weapon as the United States possessed, with the ability to hurtle shells dozens of miles across the battlefield, obliterating both men and machines.
On Dec. 19 1944, the 315th moved by convoy from Bining, France to Godbrange, Luxembourg, a small village in the countryside northeast of that country's capital.
Cresson said he noticed no letup in the battle's intensity during the time his headquarters company was settled in at Godbrange. Day after day, the cannonading continued, he said.
The Cresson family of Derry Borough sent five sons into military service in World War II. Albert Cresson, now 91, was a draftee, joining the Army in October 1942.
Cresson returned to civilian life in December 1945. He says it was a mistake. He says he should have stayed in the service. Life after the Army was not easy. He married and had a son. First his wife left him, he said, and then his son. He has not seen nor heard from his son for "many, many years" now.
"I raised him until he was 15," Cresson recalled.
After falling ill in recent years, Cresson said he is now recovered and feeling "great." He belongs to a veterans group in Armbrust that among other things arranges for its members to drop by personal care homes to spent time with invalid veterans.
"I'm proud of my service in World War II," Cresson said.
Wounded, but walking
Another proud veteran is John Pollock of Brenizer. Wounded in Nancy, France, by a German shell that claimed the life of the soldier walking next to him, Pollock was on a three-day pass in Paris when the Germans began their winter offensive.
"When I got back to my outfit, they were loading up the trucks," Pollock, 91, said. "Someone had gotten my stuff on board. I went off wearing my dress clothes."
"Not committed" to battle in the December-January time period, Pollock saw the worst of war on the drive into Germany in the late winter and spring of 1945.
Tasked with transporting shells and other ammunition to the front lines with his infantry unit, Pollock spoke of a particular bloody episode that took place in front of Germany's World War I defensive perimeter, the Siegfried Line. The fighting took a heavy toll in American dead, and Pollock recalled being ordered to strip ammunition and weapons from the bodies of stiffened GIs, lest they fall into enemy hands.
Along the way he glimpsed two wounded Germans. One was a mere boy, he said. Both were pleading for help. When Pollock came back around a second time the two Germans were dead.
Struck in the right elbow by shrapnel in Nancy, Pollock said he refused evacuation. There was not much bleeding, he said. Besides, he had seen wounded men taken from the scene of battle and knew from experience they were never the same once they returned.
"I felt before being drafted that if I got into an infantry outfit, I would not be coming back," said Pollock. "I guess I was wrong."
Preserved for posterity
Tony Vigliotti of Burrell Township and John Pollock of Brenizer are among more than 90 local veterans whose contributions to the nation's defense in various combat eras are recounted in the recently published "Veterans of Blairsville and Their Stories, Volume 1."
* * *
Tony Vigliotti of Burrell Township is 90 now and his memory is failing him, yet he continues to be haunted by nightmares of his long season of combat in World War II. "I was a good Catholic," he said recently at his home. "I was very devout. I had thought about becoming a priest. During the war, I prayed night and day to the Blessed Mary; wherever I was, in a fox hole, it didn't matter, I prayed"
"I don't know how I made it," he continued. "God was with me, I guess. I never knew whether I was coming back (home) or not. That's the thing about war. You never know.
"For years I had dreams about the war. I still do, but not as often."
Vigliotti has been married to his wife, Josephine, for 54 years. She recalled nights earlier in their marriage when her husband would spring from bed. She was afraid, sometimes, that he would hurl himself out a window. "It was like someone was after him," she said. "I guess it was about the war."
For all of that, Vigliotti said he was a superb machine gunner. Attached to the 818th Engineer Aviation Battalion, an airfield construction outfit, Vigliotti laid claim to downing two German airplanes.
During the opening salvos of the Battle of the Bulge, as the enemy continued to rumble menacingly toward Marche, Belgium, the 818th's staging area, the unit was placed on full alert.
The guard was doubled and motorized patrols sallied forth to scout the German advance, according to a monthly unit history written in early January 1945 and available online.
In conjunction with First Army Engineers, the unit prepared to blow up a bridge over the Ourthe River, southwest of Malmedy, Belgium, where German troops slaughtered dozens of American POWs on Dec. 17 and left them lying on the frozen earth.
On the day after Christmas in 1944, parts of the 818th were dispersed to Herderen, Belgium, and Nothberg, Germany, close to where an Allied airfield was to be constructed in Luchem, Germany, northeast of Malmedy.
Owing to the possibility of German parachutists descending on the area, the order was rescinded while a handful of men stayed behind to complete whatever preliminary work they could.
About all of this Vigliotti is silent. A former railroader, he clenches and unclenches his gnarled hands as he talks and tries to remember those days so long ago.
Last ditch effort
The Battle of the Bulge was a last throw of the dice by Germany's World War II dictator, Adolf Hitler. Aiming to sweep Americans and British troops from his front porch and drive them back toward Paris and Antwerp, Hitler hoped to so demoralize the Allies that they would sue for peace, leaving him to confront the Soviet Union's Red Army on its march to Berlin, the German capital.
The gamble failed. Exhausted, the German army backtracked on itself and the Allies were once again on the move by February 1945. The war ended in May with a full German surrender.
Also in the fray
During those weeks when the war in Europe hung in the balance, Albert Cresson of Derry was serving with the 315th Field Artillery Battalion, helping to lob shells at German troop and equipment concentrations. Cresson fought World War II with a slide rule.
In charge of determining detonation levels for his battalion's 12-gun battery of 155 mm howitzers, Cresson says mildly that he remained out of harm's way as the fighting chewed up thousands of weary infantrymen.
"We tried to stay about as safe as we could," he said. "We stayed behind the lines but near the front."
Cresson helped to deliver death and destruction on a long-range scale. The 155 mm cannon was about as lethal a weapon as the United States possessed, with the ability to hurtle shells dozens of miles across the battlefield, obliterating both men and machines.
On Dec. 19 1944, the 315th moved by convoy from Bining, France to Godbrange, Luxembourg, a small village in the countryside northeast of that country's capital.
Cresson said he noticed no letup in the battle's intensity during the time his headquarters company was settled in at Godbrange. Day after day, the cannonading continued, he said.
The Cresson family of Derry Borough sent five sons into military service in World War II. Albert Cresson, now 91, was a draftee, joining the Army in October 1942.
Cresson returned to civilian life in December 1945. He says it was a mistake. He says he should have stayed in the service. Life after the Army was not easy. He married and had a son. First his wife left him, he said, and then his son. He has not seen nor heard from his son for "many, many years" now.
"I raised him until he was 15," Cresson recalled.
After falling ill in recent years, Cresson said he is now recovered and feeling "great." He belongs to a veterans group in Armbrust that among other things arranges for its members to drop by personal care homes to spent time with invalid veterans.
"I'm proud of my service in World War II," Cresson said.
Wounded, but walking
Another proud veteran is John Pollock of Brenizer. Wounded in Nancy, France, by a German shell that claimed the life of the soldier walking next to him, Pollock was on a three-day pass in Paris when the Germans began their winter offensive.
"When I got back to my outfit, they were loading up the trucks," Pollock, 91, said. "Someone had gotten my stuff on board. I went off wearing my dress clothes."
"Not committed" to battle in the December-January time period, Pollock saw the worst of war on the drive into Germany in the late winter and spring of 1945.
Tasked with transporting shells and other ammunition to the front lines with his infantry unit, Pollock spoke of a particular bloody episode that took place in front of Germany's World War I defensive perimeter, the Siegfried Line. The fighting took a heavy toll in American dead, and Pollock recalled being ordered to strip ammunition and weapons from the bodies of stiffened GIs, lest they fall into enemy hands.
Along the way he glimpsed two wounded Germans. One was a mere boy, he said. Both were pleading for help. When Pollock came back around a second time the two Germans were dead.
Struck in the right elbow by shrapnel in Nancy, Pollock said he refused evacuation. There was not much bleeding, he said. Besides, he had seen wounded men taken from the scene of battle and knew from experience they were never the same once they returned.
"I felt before being drafted that if I got into an infantry outfit, I would not be coming back," said Pollock. "I guess I was wrong."
Preserved for posterity
Tony Vigliotti of Burrell Township and John Pollock of Brenizer are among more than 90 local veterans whose contributions to the nation's defense in various combat eras are recounted in the recently published "Veterans of Blairsville and Their Stories, Volume 1."
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