World War II vet returns to the scene of the Battle of the Bulge

Ninety-year-old Charles McGowan long had wanted to return to the battlefields of Europe where he helped defeat the Nazis in World War II.

Circumstances prevented it until this June when the resident of Villa St. Benedict in Lisle and his son, Tom, joined four other World War II veterans with their relatives and friends in an 11-day tour of Normandy and the countryside where McGowan survived the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle Americans fought during World War II.

McGowan served in the 99th Infantry Regiment.

"The 99th had the most casualties in the Battle of the Bulge," he said. "I found the most pleasure in going through the area and rehashing what we did there."

Nicknamed the Battle Babies for their inexperience in combat, the soldiers of the 99th helped defeat Germany's last-ditch Ardennes Offensive that sought to divide the American and British lines late in the war.

The 99th was sent to Belgium to push back against the northern shoulder of the German advance. McGowan spent four months in combat, sleeping in wet foxholes and surviving several close calls with death, before being wounded.

Duty calls

McGowan might have avoided active military service. He was living in Villa Park and enlisted in the Army Reserve when the draft went into effect. He had an exemption because he was caring for his widowed mother.

But as he saw more and more of his friends go off to war, McGowan felt guilty. He wrote a letter to get his draft status changed and a month later received his notice to report to the U.S. Army.

"I figured it was my duty," he said.

Placed in an engineering program, McGowan hoped to build on the college education he began before entering the Army, but the program was discontinued because of the need for troops. A severe illness that included mononucleosis should have kept him out of combat, but McGowan didn't learn that fact until he was ready to be discharged.

Instead, McGowan arrived in Belgium in early November 1944 in the beginning of what would be one of the worst winters Europe had seen for a long time.

"From Nov. 5 to the first week in February, we never had the opportunity to take our uniforms off," he said. "We were wearing two wool uniforms, a combat jacket plus our field pack and weapons."

The German shelling began Dec. 16. Ordered to withdraw and set up defensive positions at Elsenborn, Belgium, the soldiers were able to sleep one night in a barn hayloft instead of their wet foxholes.

"It was the first we had been able to sleep with any kind of protection," he said.

Even when artillery fire started and some of the other soldiers urged McGowan to get out of the hayloft, he slept on. When he did get himself up from his hay bed, he saw an end of the barn had been blown off.

"I saw what I had missed," he said.

On Christmas Eve, while he was on guard duty, he left his foxhole to check out what proved to be a replacement soldier who was lost. Artillery fire began and they hit the dirt.

When McGowan got back to his foxhole, his sleeping bag had shrapnel holes and he had to dig his injured buddy out of the rumble.

On Christmas morning, McGowan heard that a Catholic priest was saying Mass at Elsenborn and set off to go, but he had to duck into a trench on the way.

"One of the shells came right over me and hit on the other side of the road," he said.

On Feb. 1, McGowan's unit was given temporary relief from combat duty and went into town for showers and new uniforms. They spent a month logging and repairing roads before being sent back into the fight.

After crossing a bridge on the Elbe River, McGowan was caught in an artillery barrage that caused a tree to burst. Two men were killed; McGowan was injured in the leg and foot.

Put out of commission, McGowan was sent to the hospital. He recovered and had a one-day pass to go to Paris when the surrender of Germany was announced in early May 1945. McGowan didn't make it back to camp that night.

"I said no one's going to miss me," he said. "I just stayed on and celebrated with the rest of the Persians and other troops that were there. Had a grand time."

Trip stirs memories

Tom McGowan, who accompanied his father, said he had heard parts of his dad's stories over the years, but the elder McGowan had not talked much about his experiences until a decade ago.

"When we were on the trip, he was in a very nostalgic, storytelling mood," Tom McGowan said. "I heard much more in that week than I had heard the rest of my life."

Part of a group of 29, the McGowans said the first part of the trip took them to Normandy for the 65th anniversary celebration of D-Day. They visited St. Mere Eglise, the French town where American paratrooper John Steel got his parachute caught on a church spire and escaped capture by feigning death until the town was taken by the Allies the next day.

While they were in Normandy, they attended a Mass led by a bishop dressed in vestments made from a World War II parachute that had been dyed, Charles McGowan said.

"They were beautiful vestments," he said.

French and Belgian World War II re-enactors came up to the vets with T-shirts and helmet liners for them to autograph.

"A number of the French people would want us to pose with them and have our signatures," the elder McGowan said.

Tom McGowan said it didn't matter to the French that his father had not been part of Normandy's liberation.

"All of these guys (World War II veterans) were like gods to the locals," he said. "Even people too young to have lived through it, the next generation, had the same reverence for the vets."

The McGowans visited Utah Beach, Omaha Beach and other places of intense fighting in Normandy. Because his father had not served there, he initially seemed less interested in Normandy, but he was moved by the experience, Tom McGowan said.

"He was very pleasantly surprised by the Normandy part of the trip," he said.

The McGowans also visited Monschau in Germany, where German SS troopers massacred about 50 captured American troops at the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge.

Their group was accompanied to 99th battlefields by one French and two Belgian "diggers," who dig up the remains of soldiers missing in action and send the remains to be identified.

In Belgium, Charles McGowan was not able to get up close to where he had his foxhole because it's now a test field for artillery. He could see the hills he helped take only from a distance.

At Henri Chapelle American Cemetery in Belgium where many of the 99th are buried, McGowan paid respects to his fallen comrades by laying a wreath, reciting "In Flanders Fields" and singing taps, his son said.

"He brought people to tears," the younger McGowan said. Next year, the elder McGowan hopes to return to Europe to a site of happier experiences. He wants to see the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau, Germany, where he spent several weeks after the war was over.

"It was very interesting," he said. "I'm looking forward to it if I can make the grade."

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