Bastogne Celebrates "Nuts" Day, 2013.

Here's video of the parade in the Belgian town of Bastogne celebrating "Nuts Day", Dec, 26, 2013.



For those that don't know, "Nuts" was the answer that Brig Gen Anthony "Tony" McAullife, the acting commander of the 101st Airborne Division (The Screaming Eagles) sent to the German commander when he demanded the surrender of the important communications and road intersection of several major highways in eastern Belgium.  Bastognians have been celebrating this holiday for decades...while we ignore the heroism displayed by the 101st Airborne Division and Team SNAFU (remnants of the 28th Infantry Division of the Penn Nat Gd--"Bloody Bucket" or "Keystone Div.") and the CCB of the 10th Armored Division, CCR of the 9th Armored Division, 705th Tank Destroyer Battalion 35th and 158th Combat Engineer Battalions, 58th and 420th Armored Field Artillery Battalions, 755th and 969th Field Artillery Battalions of 8th Corps 

While the list looks impressive, you must keep in mind that there weren't full strength units.  Most often, they were individual platoons an companies that fell back from the Nazi onslaught. These men upon themselves, without out the aide of outside forces, held off the elements of 4 German Panzer Divisions for more than a week.

Hat tip For t he Record blog

Operation Market-Garden, Sep 17, 1944

Today is the 68th anniversary of Operation Market-Garden.  The attempt by Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery, 1st Viscount Montgomery of Alamein, KG, GCB, DSO, PC , to cross the Rhine River and end World War II in Europe by Christmas.  It was "less than successful."  It was in two parts, a massive airborne drop, in fact the largest in history, with a large scale ground assault by Gen. Sir Brian Horrocks, XXX Corps.




The 101st Airborne was to be dropped in the south of the single road corridor near the city of Eindhoven.  The 82nd Airborne Division would be dropped in the centre at Nijmagen, while the British 1st Airborne Division (the Red Devils) would be dropped outside of Arnhem, Netherlands.

From Wikipedia

Initially, the operation was marginally successful and several bridges between Eindhoven and Nijmegen were captured. However, Gen. Horrocks' XXX Corps ground force's advance was delayed by the demolition of a bridge over the Wilhelmina Canal, as well as an extremely overstretched supply line, at Son, delaying the capture of the main road bridge over the Meuse until 20 September. At Arnhem, the British 1st Airborne Division encountered far stronger resistance than anticipated. In the ensuing battle, only a small force managed to hold one end of the Arnhem road bridge and after the ground forces failed to relieve them, they were overrun on 21 September. The rest of the division, trapped in a small pocket west of the bridge, had to be evacuated on 25 September. The Allies had failed to cross the Rhine in sufficient force and the river remained a barrier to their advance until the offensives at Remagen, Oppenheim, Rees and Wesel in March 1945. The failure of Market Garden ended Allied expectations of finishing the war by Christmas 1944.^[18]

The British 1st Airborne suffered nearly 80% casualties in killed, wounded and captured before crossing to the south side of the Maas (Lower Rhine) River...

My father was scheduled to fly as deputy commander of his troop carrier squadron, but ended up with an inner ear disorder and was grounded for several weeks prior and after the operation.  That's a good thing for me, because the pilot that took his place was shot down...and killed, but he  got his stick off before his plane went in.