Contact The Editor
Articles By This Author
Harry Miller was jolted to consciousness by the sound of explosions on Dec. 16, 1944. Stationed with the U.S. Army's 760th Tank Battalion in Neufchâteau, Belgium, the young American soldier could see flashes of light reflecting off cold, dark clouds near the German border.
"We heard all this rumbling in the distance," he said in an interview. "We saw the lights of the explosions on the horizon. We didn't know what was happening, but we thought maybe it was an attack."
The Battle of the Bulge had begun with a massive artillery barrage in Belgium and Luxembourg. Hidden in the Ardennes Forest, 40 German divisions knifed through American and British lines in a desperate attempt to turn the tide of World War II in Europe. The Allies eventually stopped the advance, but not before it claimed nearly 200,000 lives.
"There was rain and snow, and I was never warm," said Frank Cohn, who was a private with a U.S. Army intelligence unit attached to the 12th Army Group, based at Remouchamps in Belgium.
On the 80th anniversary of the conflict, local veterans Miller and Cohn recalled their experiences during one of worst winters in European history. Miller, 96, of Washington, and Cohn, 99, of Fort Belvoir, Virginia, were teenagers caught up in the nightmarish reality of war. They remember battling intense cold, wearing sodden uniforms and trudging through fog, mud and ice while trying to avoid becoming combat casualties.
Miller, also a private, served with the First Army during the Battle of the Bulge, also known as the Ardennes Offensive. He had no winter clothing, so he wore everything he had in an attempt to stay warm.
"It started out rainy and foggy, but it got colder," he said. "Then we had snow up to our hips. I had an overcoat that was like a horse blanket. When it got wet, it was heavy and cumbersome. We slept under tanks or on the ground. It was so cold and miserable."
Historian and author Alex Kershaw has interviewed both men about their experiences in World War II, including during two events this year at the National Archives through the Friends of the National World War II Memorial. Kershaw's latest book, "Patton's Prayer: A True Story of Courage, Faith, and Victory in World War II," focuses on the Battle of the Bulge.
"There are so few World War II veterans left. It's super important that we learn their stories before they are all gone," he said.
The path to war was different for the two veterans. Born in Ohio in 1929, Miller was raised by his sister after his parents died. At 15, he lied about his age and enlisted in the U.S. Army. He was 16 when the Battle of the Bulge began.
"As a kid, I wanted to be a soldier," he said. "That's all I ever wanted."
Miller never told anyone his age for fear of being sent home. He was frightened to be in combat but noticed more mature soldiers were, too.
"I saw that the ‘old men' were scared," he remembered. "They were 28 or 29, so I figured that was normal."
Cohn, born Jewish in Germany, witnessed the horrors of Adolf Hitler's rise to power when his uncle was killed by brown-shirted supporters. He was 13 when his family escaped to the United States.
"I didn't speak English," he said. "I listened to the radio and went to the movies so I could learn to talk without an accent."
Drafted at 18, Cohn was about to be assigned to a combat regiment when the Army learned of his language skills. He was then sent to a unit interrogating German prisoners of war.
In December 1944, Allied forces were thinly stretched across a long defensive line in Western Europe. Hitler's goal was to split the Allied armies in two. Caught off guard, the Americans and British suffered massive casualties and retreated before the onslaught.
On Dec. 16, Miller's unit was ordered to get tanks at a supply depot, where they discovered only broken ones. They pieced together two Sherman tanks and an assault vehicle with a 105-millimeter cannon, then were ordered to engage the feared 1st SS Panzer Division at the Belgian town of Stoumont.
"They were called the Hitler Division,"
Miller said. "They had a bad reputation for killing people for no reason at all."
The gunners of the 760th Tank Battalion knocked out three German tanks and stalled the drive.
"In our first half-hour of combat, we turned around the 1st SS Panzer Division, which had never been done before," Miller said.
Cohn, meanwhile, was hitchhiking to a town near the border. He wanted to show a friend the home of a German officer he had discovered.
They never made it. Roadblocks with military police turned them away. The next day, members of the 1st SS Panzer Division executed 84 American POWs there in what is remembered as the Malmedy Massacre.
"If we hadn't been stopped, who knows what would have happened to us?" Cohn said.
After blunting the German attack, Miller's battalion was sent to help soldiers trapped in a building guarded by a Nazi tank. The Americans blew it up and were ordered to check for other survivors.
"In the basement, we found a Catholic priest with 92 people, mostly old folks and kids," Miller said. "If the Germans had discovered them, they would have machine-gunned the whole group."
Cohn was near the front lines with his intelligence squad, which was ordered to intercept German infiltrators disguised as American soldiers.
"There was an infantry roadblock that had wiped out four people in a Jeep with a bazooka," he said. "We saw the dead bodies and found American dog tags, but there was no question they were Germans. They had explosives and maps with them."
A few days later, when he was taken prisoner by U.S. soldiers, Cohn remembered those dead Germans. His unit had stopped for directions, only to be asked for a password that they didn't know. They were held at gunpoint for seven hours until their identities were confirmed.
The German attack continued for a week, penetrating 50 miles past Allied lines. On Dec. 25, 1944, the weather finally cleared and planes were able to fly again. The U.S. Army Air Forces hammered German positions, stopping the offensive.
The Battle of the Bulge ended a month later.
Throughout the war, Miller's mission was to fight fascism and liberate the people of Europe. As fighting drew to a close, he realized how much more was at stake. Miller visited the Dachau concentration camp in Germany, where thousands of Jews and others were exterminated. He was stunned by the sight of dead bodies, skeletal remains, crematoriums, the stench of death and a dark ash covering everything.
"I saw piles of that gray stuff everywhere," he recalled. "I didn't know what it was at first. I broke down when I realized it was the ashes of the dead. I still wake up in the middle of the night dreaming about that."
Cohn heard about concentration camps but did not visit them. It wasn't until he returned home that he learned the full horror of the Holocaust. Among the 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were some of Cohn's own family who stayed behind in Germany after he left in 1938.
"If I hadn't escaped Germany, I would have died at age 16 when the people from my hometown were taken into a field and shot," he said.
After Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945, both men returned home to get married and have children. Although combat changed them, neither man said he suffered serious depression.
Miller served in the Korean War. Then he left the Army and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force, retiring in 1966 as a senior master sergeant.
Cohn rejoined the Army in 1948 and was commissioned as a second lieutenant. He served with the military police in Germany and Vietnam. He retired in 1978 as a colonel, then took a job with the University of Maryland.
Miller and Cohn consider themselves blessed. Many of the men they served with didn't come home.
Miller shares his combat experiences at local schools. Students are astonished after he tells them he was their age when he went into battle: "They generally have big eyes and say ‘Wow!'"
Cohn volunteers at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, where he speaks about what he saw growing up in Nazi Germany, and how he fought to liberate Europe.
"I owe the United States my life," he said.