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Dear Sir,
Thank you very much for the pictures of Longchamps. You thought it was about as cold as it was Christmas 1944. You might be wrong. In my memories it was much colder 65 years ago. I lived and still live in the Southern part of the Netherlands. South-Limburg what in my opinion can be called the Promised Land. In winter in the Ardennes the temperature is some degrees lower than in South-Limburg and also there is more snow in the Ardennes.
How do I remember Christmas 1944 as I was a young boy of 9+?
In our house Scottish soldiers of a High Land Division (nicknamed the Black Watch) were embedded. They fought Rommel in Africa. A Christmas tree was not common in our hamlet. We had a Christmas stable. The images and the skeleton were stored on the ceiling. A couple of days before Christmas they were taken down and the “creating” of the stable could begin.
New straw was needed for the roof. This was no problem because we lived in a “farmers hamlet”. We also needed moss and ivy. The moss was used for the floor and the ivy to create an “ivy-grown” stable. The gathering of moss and ivy was a job for my sister and me. We were lucky to know where moss and ivy could be found because we had to remove the snow first. With help of our dad the stable was made. I remember very well how the soldiers liked the stable.
The evening before Christmas my dad and I went in a meadow where we knew there was an apple tree with mistletoe in it. We took some mistletoe, not too much because there must be left for next year. You understand that this was a good preparation to get the Christmas mood. The soldiers made their Christmas preparations as well. The cooks were very busy in their kitchen baking and cooking.
Christmas evening the whole family went to church for the Night mass. This was a walk of half an hour and I remember that it was very cold.
As we came home from Night mass, happy that soon we should be in our warm kitchen, we saw the soldiers very busy with packing and loading the trucks. The soldiers told us that they had to go to the Ardennes because the Germans had started an offensive action in the Ardennes in the hope that they could reach the harbor of Antwerp.
I remember my fathers words as he said : “Pray that the Germans do not succeed because if they do they soon will be back here and let us feel their anger.”
About how cold it was.
Imagine you are one of these soldiers on an open truck. (Open because they had to leave the trucks immediately in case of an air attack or an ambush.) Can you imagine that you get frost flowers on your belly ?
About the 17th Airborne Division.
Many troopers, if not all, had trained in, what they called, “the frying pan” and now they had to fight in the snow. Do you think the time in Britain was long enough to acclimatize ? That day Christmas changed to me. Christmas without remembering that special day in 1944 is impossible. A couple of years ago we visited an exhibition of Christmas stables in Germany. It was just on the border with Belgium in the region where the German attack began (Hergesberg – Losheim). In this exhibition I saw a very thrilling painting. I took a photo of it.
Maybe you agree.
I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.
Joseph
Dear Joseph
On one side, during the Battle of the Bulge, they used to say “Gott Mit Uns”. On the other side, it was “In God we Trust”. Both sides had to faces a winter that Belgium didn’t have again since December 1944. It is a little like God would have make sure to no one that was involved in this part of the Second World War would be never able to forget the
December 1944 – February 1945 winter.
And, in fact, no one that was here during this particular winter didn’t forget the roughness of this period. Wind, Snow, Frozen Ground, Blizzard, became the third side of the Belgian Bulge until someone, could be God, decided to turn the light on and allow the sun to get trough the clouds and rewarm all these bones buried soldiers in their foxholes.
In fact no one will forget it and even those like me that were born after the war (1955) never uses therm like : it’s colder like in 1944.
Sure we don’t know what we are talking about but we know that this would be the most terrible way ever to say : its cold outside today.
Gunter,
Thank you Joseph
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