Artist Rob Brun

On December 16, 1944, the Germans launched the last major
offensive of the war, Operation Autumn Mist, also known as
the Ardennes Offensive and the Battle of the Bulge, an
attempt to push the Allied front line west from northern
France to northwestern Belgium.

The Battle of the Bulge, so-called because the Germans
created a “bulge” around the area of the Ardennes forest
in pushing through the American defensive line, was the
largest fought on the Western front.

American troops man trenches along a snowy hedgerow in
the northern Ardennes Forest during the Battle.  

An American artilleryman shaves in frigid cold, using a
helmet for a shaving bowl.

An American tank moves past another gun carriage which
slid off an icy road in the Ardennes Forest during the
Battle of the Bulge.

Belgian residents of a northern Ardennes hamlet flee the fighting during the
Battle of the Bulge.        
        
       

At the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the
Great War ended. At 5 a.m. that morning, Germany, bereft of
manpower and supplies and faced with imminent invasion,
signed an armistice agreement with the Allies in a railroad car
outside Compiégne, France (above).

On November 10, 1928, the first installment of All Quiet on the
Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque’s acclaimed novel of
World War I, appeared in the German magazine Vossische
Zeitung.

Remarque died in 1970 with his wife, the actress Paulette
Goddard, at his side.

Erich Maria Remarque
(22 June 1898 – 25 September 1970

CARLATA BRADLEY

FROM LEFT: JOHN ALLEN MUHAMMAD, LEE BOYD MALVO

Corporal Doss receiving the Medal of Honor from
President Harry S. Truman.

Private First Class Desmond T. Doss of Lynchburg, Virginia,
was presented the Medal of Honor for outstanding bravery
as a combat medic, the first conscientious objector in
American history to receive the nation’s highest military
award.
 

When called on by his country to fight in World War II, Doss,
a dedicated pacifist, registered as a conscientious objector.

Eventually sent to the Pacific theater of war as a medical
corpsman, Doss voluntarily put his life in the utmost peril
during the bloody Battle for Okinawa, saving dozens of lives
well beyond the call of duty.

Desmond Thomas Doss
(February 7, 1919 – March 23, 2006)

The 2016 film directed by Mel Gibson focuses
on the combat experiences of Desmond Doss.