Where's Waldo?

My 96-year-old father lives in an assisted living facility (ALF, for short). Thursday night he fell and cut his head.

The ALF sent him to the ER. His health care provider has a close working relationship with both the ALF and the ER. Their on-call doc decided Dad should be sent to a recovery facility for observation and evaluation. No major medical issues apparent; preliminary diagnosis was "general weakness and recurring falling."

No argument there. The "general weakness" has been noticeable for the last few weeks, along with increased time spent sleeping and 'sundowners syndrome' (sleeps during the day, awake during the night). I've got a feeling that he's in the midst of a general winding-down. He is, after all, 96.

The problem was that the ER just noted that he was released - didn't note where or to who (whom?). So when I called the ALF Friday morning to check on him, they said he was still at the ER. When I called the ER, they said he had been released, but didn't have any more info. In other words, Dad was MIA.

Oops.

We finally tracked him down to the recovery facility. All is well - or at least as well as things can be for a 96-year-old.

The reason I mention this (aside from the natural concern of a son for his father) is because of the proximity of this event to D-Day. Dad was a Combat Engineer who went ashore at Utah Beach. His unit was tasked with clearing mines and other obstacles while under fire. He made it through that okay. Later. as part of the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, he was wounded at St. Vith during the Battle of the Bulge.

The defenders of St. Vith, the 168th Engineer Combat Battalion, remnants of the 81st Engineer Combat Battalion, and elements of Combat Command B, 7th Armored Division which reinforced the engineers on the second day, didn’t get the press coverage that the surrounded 101st Airborne Division did at Bastogne. Part of the reason was that the beleaguered defenders of St. Vith were eventually ordered to withdraw and St. Vith was ceded to the Germans. Those who could really tell the story of what happened at St. Vith were either killed or captured.

The engineers understood they had been ordered to hold this position “at all costs”, but it seemed to Lt. Bill Holland, commander of Company B, 168th Engineers, that “everyone else seemed to have orders to withdraw.” Numerous division and corps artillery units, which had been ordered to displace to the rear, withdrew through the engineer position...

...about 8 p.m. the Germans resumed their attack with several tanks accompanied by infantrymen straight up the road to St. Vith and into the engineer defensive position. The engineers opened up with everything they had – M-1 rifles, and both .30 and .50 caliber machine guns. (Over their months since Normandy they had acquired quite a few more machine guns than they were normally equipped with.) The lead Tiger tank was hit by a bazooka and brought to a halt. Another enemy tank, accompanied by infantry, came up through a fire break in the woods. A detail from Company C pulled a “daisy chain” of mines across its path, while the rest of the company drove off the infantry with small arms fire. Fierce fighting continued for a couple of hours, with the platoon of Company C immediately adjacent to the road taking the heaviest casualties.

The engineers had incurred considerable casualties. Troop B, 87th Recon had 30 men left from its original 125. Company A of the 38th Armored Infantry was less than a quarter of its initial strength. It was evident to the commanders that a strong enemy assault would now be stopped only with the greatest difficulty.

(Later) ... German armor rolled down the Schoenberg Road past the command post and on toward St. Vith. Behind them came a solid column of German troops. All that remained of the Prumerberg defense was that part of the line held by the 168th Engineers, which had never been penetrated.

... when it became clear that the Germans had finally succeeded in breaking through, orders were sent to those still in position, including all of the 168th Engineer companies, to form into small groups and attempt to infiltrate back into friendly lines.

It took Lt. Holland and the other officers several hours to notify all the men on line that they would be pulling out. They formed into small groups in the early morning light, the wet flakes of a heavy snow storm stinging their tired eyes. They held onto each other’s belts or coats to try to keep together.

There was an extreme quietness of the battlefield, Lt. Holland later recalled. Although exhausted from six days of fighting and practically no sleep, a few of the men managed to make it back to friendly lines. Most, although they evaded German patrols and sentries all that day and the next night, were taken prisoner by the Germans.

Eventually, these engineer, infantry, armor units as well as the rest of Clarke’s Combat Command B, 7th Armored Division, would receive Presidential Unit Citations for their heroic stand in defense of St. Vith.

Dad made it through the German lines. He was awarded the Bronze Star and Purple Heart as a result of his actions during the battle. However, the confusion and the impression that the Engineers had been hung out to dry on their own soured him somewhat on officers and the 'higher-ups' (a trait he passed on to his son...). He refused a battlefield commission and remained a cantankerous NCO throughout the remainder of his almost 30 year military career.

I took Dad a commemorative issue of Time honoring the 70th anniversary of D-Day. I just hope he can stay awake long enough to read it.

And now we play the waiting game...