World War II veteran returns

Many people have heard of the Battle of the Bulge but few know the details or the importance of the battle. That information will be easily available when the National Museum of the U.S. Army is completed in 2019 at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, just south of Washington, DC. The museum is currently under construction and when completed it will have displays and artifacts to tell the history of the U.S. Army in peace, during the Cold War, and in our nation's wars.

The artifacts to be displayed in the museum will include large and heavy items that cannot be installed once the walls go up. These items will be put in place and the museum will be built around them. One of these for display is a second-generation Sherman tank. This 38-ton beast has been cleaned up and has had its exterior restored, but under the new paint you can still see the pock marks and scars from the German weapons that tried to stop it. The interior was destroyed when it was crippled on the battlefield in March 1945 and suffered serious destruction when German soldiers set fire to the interior of the tank. This ended the tank's usage during WWII, and it was displayed at an American base in Europe.

In December 1944, American troops had driven the Germans back into Belgium and occupied a forward position at Bastogne. This created a bulge in the U.S. line, and the Germans counterattacked cutting off and surrounding Bastogne and that bulge. The troops in Bastogne had shrinking food and ammunition supplies and were suffering more and more casualties from enemy fire and from the bitter winter weather.

A rescue mission was begun by General George Patton and his Third Army rushed to relieve Bastogne. Among the forces in that rescue was a Sherman tank, the Cobra King, which fought through the German lines firing its cannon and machine guns. This tank was manned by the first Americans to reach the trapped troops in Bastogne. This is the tank being installed at the museum.

Jack Dragoni attended Boston College and served in the U.S. Army in Berlin and Vietnam. He lives in Chaffee, Missouri.