Saturday, the 7th of August 1999 This Saturday I
met with Cliff
Grasman (in the picture standing in the middle in Rocherath), an
gunner of the 535th AAA (40mm Bofors), attached during the Battle of
the Bulge to the 99th Inf. Div. His outfit had seen already a lot of
action during the Normandy Campaign, and the Huertgen Forrest. And now
they where placed into a "quit" area at the Frontline.
He did some "practising" with his gun, firing on
"Buzz-Bombs", and on German Messerschmitts, but not all of these ME-'s
came flying over without a "souvenir" out of the 40mm barrell. Cliff,
his son, who lives in Belgium, had arranged this meeting with me, so
his dad could see once again the old battle field. Cliff's wife and
mother too did make the trip to Bütgenbach, were we started.
Here Cliff's outfit was on December 17th and
traced the way back to Sourbrodt, where they ended their fall back on
December 19th. So we moved from Bütgenbach to Büllingen,
where Cliff had a big foxhole, right outside the town. He told me that
they had done a lot of digging so they could be really in it. They had
some logs on top of it to protect them against shelling. When the
Germans drove them out, he really hated it to leave this bunker, and
lateron when they came back to Büllingen again, Cliff raced
towards his bunker, to find out that the Germans had re-modified his
Bunker; pictures of Adolf Hitler, everywhere telefonelines going in
every direction. The Germans made a HQ of it.
We drove on to Krinkelt and Rocherath (the Twin-Villages). There Cliff
was surprised by the monument which was erected to honour the 99th Inf.
Div. and its attached units. On top of these attached units is the
535th AAA..... We walked around, looked at the "Kalpers-House" which is
still the same as it was, but rebuild again. On the other side of the
road a house was nicely decorated with all kind of shells out of the
area. We moved on to Wirzfeld and to the Elsenborn-Ridge, and finally
to Elsenborn camp.
Here it was where Cliff had been on Camp
Elsenborn too, so we drove to the maingate. I asked the guard if we
could spend a few minutes on the Military Camp, and told him we had an
US veteran with us who fought here in 1944/45 for our freedom. It was
Amazing to see that the gate opened, and we could go on the Military
Camp. We drove around, and Cliff had his mind back to 1944. Finally he
even persuaded the Guards to be with him on a picture, as they did.
The last place to visist was Sourbrodt, where
they ended on 19 December 1944. Here was not much Cliff recognised, as
they marched and drove most of the time at night. Here our tour ended,
and we drove back to Bütgenbach where my wifes friend had reserved
lunch. here I had a small souvenir for Cliff; two shells of a 40mm
Bofors gun, found in the area of Rocherath/Krinkelt, where he had seen
action with his Bofors. The both will be in his house as a souvenir of
todays trip. When Cliff and his family left, I stood talking with my
friend for a while, and an old man who had been looking to us quite a
while came to us. Talking to my friend in a kind of own language, I had
no idea where they where talking about, as suddenly the man asked me if
I wanted a souvenir out of his house, where during the battle in
Bütgenbach both US and German troops had been fighting. He came up
with German boots, two steel helmets (rusty) and a grenade box.....
