92-year-old Bulge vet reunited with dogtag
Boris Stern got a package from Jean Paul Mandier of France recently – it contained a dogtag that he had lost in the opening hours of the Battle of the Bulge in December, 1944 according to Fox13;
A collector of relics, Mandier bought the dog tag from a friend. Searching for Stern online, he discovered he lived in the United States.
Mandier contacted another friend in Cincinnati to help him locate Stern. She came across a newspaper article, found out he lived in Tampa, and was able to track down a phone number.
“I was a very lucky guy to get this,” said a humble Stern. “I’m even more lucky because everybody seems to think it’s a big deal. I’m just happy I got it. It just brings back a lot of memories.”
Last Year, Mr Stern told the Tampa Bay Times;
“I was right on the line when the [Battle of the Bulge] attack first happened,” Stern said, talking over the noise of the annual Veterans Day parade at the James A. Haley Veterans’ Hospital.
Two days after the attack, he was sent to a town called Winterspelt, where he was assigned to take charge of the regimental food and ammo dumps.
“I did that during a war game in Indiana before I went overseas and got an award for it, so they sent me to Winterspelt,” he said with a laugh.
That’s where he was on the morning of Dec. 16 when more than 200,000 German troops and nearly 1,000 tanks launched Adolf Hitler’s last-ditch effort to win the war. Stern was in the Ardennes, a 75-mile stretch of the front marked by dense woods and few roads, held by four inexperienced and battle-worn American divisions stationed there for rest and seasoning.
Stern was sleeping in the basement of a “dump hotel with my clothes on, obviously” when there were “tremendous explosions.
“We didn’t have any idea of what was happening. I went up to the second floor with field glasses, looked around and saw Germans setting up mortars.”
Stern said he called down to a lieutenant on the first floor and told him about the Germans.
“He called in an artillery strike and wiped them out,” said Stern, who later wound up in the town of St. Vith, a key target of German forces.
Thanks to HMC Ret for the tip.
Category: We Remember
Pretty amazing someone would go to the trouble to track down the person associated with the name on a dog tag. BZ to Jean Paul Mandier for the effort, and a heartfelt thanks to Boris Stern, for his part in freeing Europe from the clutches of an evil dictator.
Mr. Stern is looking mighty fit for a man of his age. May those dog tags bring no foreboding nuance or innuendo.
Nice story and many thanks to Mssr. Mandier for his thoughtfulness.
Nicely done. Live long and prosper, Mr. Stern.
Too bad we have forgotten and put snowflakes in charge for eight years….
*****
“I learned a lot,” he said. “The basic thing I learned is that if you get in a war, you win. Don’t tell me what I can or cannot do. I’d still be in jail if they had the same rules back then as they have today.”
I asked him to elaborate.
“We caught three Germans dressed in American uniforms trying to go through our lines in a jeep. We started asking questions. ‘Where were you born?’ ‘What is the name of the baseball team?’ ‘Who is the mayor?’”
The men in the jeep had trouble answering.
“We caught them lying and shot them on the spot. I don’t know if we could do it today.”
“…shot them on the spot.”
I understand rather a lot of this occurred, mostly if a captured German was a card carrying Waffen SS member.
And I’m good with that.
I believe the rules of war allowed either side to shoot a member of the opposite army who was found in the uniform of his enemy.
During the Battle of the Bulge there was a lot of times the Germans would dress in U.S. uniforms to mislead or cause confusion. Those caught were shot immediately. We had neither time nor facilities to make them POWs. The Germans often used men who could speak English very well, so the Americans would ask things like “Who is Popeye’s girlfriend?”, “Who is the pitcher for the ____?”, etc.
The wrong answer could really ruin a guy’s day.
How I recollect my father telling it.
See? There are still good people all over the world. Yeah, it feels good to read about them from time to time instead of the constant “news” we get about the ugly.
Awesome.