P.F.C. Benny Cohen, WWII 101st Airborne Division, 401st GIR, Co. B
A
Frozen Hell as
told by Benny's son, Mike - 2011
As the son of a WW2 combat veteran I can remember the many stories my Father told me about the Battle of the Bulge which took place in December/January of 1944.
With every story he always mentioned how cold and miserable the weather was during the entire battle. When he wasn't fighting he was preoccupied by trying to stay warm and dry. Benny always told me that the most important piece of equipment for a "dogface" other than your rifle were your feet. He said he spent many a cold and snowy night in his foxhole with his boots and socks off massaging his cold and wet feet. And he stated that whenever a new replacement came into his platoon he would stress to them to keep a pair of dry socks at the ready so as not to fall victim to trench foot.
What amazed me most about my Father was the basic combat knowledge he had in order to stay alive during this most difficult battle. The rigorous training he received while in the 101st kept him alive along with a very strong dose of good old fashion luck!
I have heard other 101st veterans say that they always avoided new replacements in their units as they were always the first ones to get it! My Father had the opposite reaction. He told me that he was usually assigned the new kids to stick with him. I think he felt obligated to help these young scared men (really boys) to stay alive.
One such incident occurred on one of many frozen fields my Father fought on around Bastogne. He was assigned a green replacement trooper during one move. The field they were told to dig into was frozen and was as hard as granite. It was virtually impossible to dig a foxhole. However, my Father told me that he noticed in the field up against a fence line mounds of freshly drifted snow. Upon further investigation he found frozen enemy soldiers bodies under these drifts. Without hesitation he told his new replacement buddy to help him grab the frozen bodies and carry them over to the location of where their foxhole was to be dug. This process was repeated many times till they had built a wall of frozen bodies in front of their position on the battle field.
I asked my Father if this bothered him to have the frozen corpses of German soldiers shielding his position. He replied to me that it didn't in that the following morning the Germans mounted a heavy counter attack against this position and that the frozen human wall probably saved their lives. The Battle of the Bulge was indeed a frozen hell on earth for those brave young soldiers !
Bunker at Assenois, Belgium
where the siege of Bastogne was broken on 26th December 1944
(photo Screaming Eagles of WWII Foundation)
Thank you again Mike, for sharing with us. These pages are dedicated to the memory of your Dad and his comrades-in-arms.
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