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A Sherman tank, knocked out of action in December 1944 during "The Battle of the Bulge," sits today in the central square of Bastogne, Belgium, in honorary defense of the city.

A Dedicated Mission

After six weeks in Maastricht, the 129th Anti-Aircraft Artillery Gun Battalion (Mobile) were given a mission to defend a small city in Luxembourg.

Differdange, Luxembourg, had been occupied by the German Wehrmacht forces who utilized the city's numerous steel mills for their war-making efforts, no doubt subjecting the local population to slave labor in the plants. When the Wehrmacht fled the Allied advance, they uncharacteristically did not destroy the town in their wake. The Allies — in particular, the US Army — turned the steel mills' output to their own benefit, hopefully not subjecting the locals to dire conditions for their trouble. The 129th, among other anti-aircraft and infantry units, were positioned in and around the town to protect the mills.

"The Ardennes breakthrough" is what became known in World War II history as "The Battle of the Bulge," in which, on 16 December 1944, the Wehrmacht launched an attack out of the Ardennes Forest against a weak front between the US First Army and the US Third Army in the area of Bastogne, Belgium — approximately 40 miles north of Differdange — in an effort to push through to the port city of Antwerp, Belgium, to close the port there to the Allies' resupply and reinforcement missions. The battle to push the Germans back east into the Ardennes lasted five weeks. Dad's and the 129th AAA Gun Battalion's action, in addition to defending the skies around the Differdange, included support near Bastogne in the effort to squelch the Wehrmacht offensive out of the Ardennes.

During his time in the city, Dad met and befriended two sisters who happened to speak the same dialect of Italian — Abruzzese — that Dad could speak at the time, thanks to his mother and half of his hometown of Chicago Heights, Illinois, who had all immigrated from Castel di Sangro in central Italy. While this personal experience in Dad's time in Differdange did not affect the 129th's impact on the war, it is such a touching story that I cannot ignore it. However, rather than retell it here, I will suggest a visit to my other, older, practically defunct blog here, here, and here for the entire story.