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'Lost ' World War II Battalion Gets Presidential Unit Citation |
The 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion may have been lost to history when it was disbanded in February 1945, but no one could miss the unit's 40 or so surviving members as they spilled out of the Pentagon's fifth-floor auditorium on Feb. 23.
The overflow crowd that showed up to watch them receive the Presidential Unit Citation forced Pentagon officials to open two additional rooms with remote television sets so that all family members could watch the ceremony.
Charles Miller, of Rancho Cucamonga, Calif., brought almost his entire extended family along. The 24 family members, from four states and representing four generations, were there to honor the man whose wife said was among "about three men" of the 551st left standing after the Battle of the Bulge.
1997 Book
"He was glad we all came , just really excited," said Miller's 20-year-old great nephew, Dathan Miller, of Mill Spring, N.C., surrounded by aunts, uncles, cousins and his hero.
The son of another survivor spurred the effort to recognize what became known as the "lost battalion." Gregory Orfalea (whose father rarely talked of his war experiences) began interviewing other members of the 551st, which suffered some of the highest losses of any unit in World War II. More than four-fifths of its 643 members were killed or wounded between December 1944 and January 1945.
Orfalea wrote "Messengers of the Lost Battalion: The Heroic 551st and the Turning of the Tide at the Battle of the Bulge," which was published in 1997.
The battalion became "lost " shortly after it captured the town of Rochelinval, France, on Jan. 7, 1945, forcing Hitler into retreat. With so few survivors, its members were dispersed among other elements of the 82nd Airborne Division. In the final months of the war in Europe , the battalion's records were lost.
Two attempts to garner a Presidential Unit Citation were spurned by the Defense Department for lack of proof of the soldiers' gallantry. It was the publication of Orfalea's book that convinced the survivors to try once again, this time in Congress.
Help From the Hill
At the Pentagon ceremony , an emotional Maryland Rep. Constance A. Morella recalled the first visit from representatives of the 551st in May 1999 and their protest of the "injustice for these soldiers not to be recognized." But it was the evidence gathered by Orfalea, especially its eyewitness accounts, that convinced Morella to take the case.
She said she agrees that it was the "accounts in the book that convinced the military awards branch to review the battalion's case for a third time"--the review that finally won the recognition the veterans had sought for so long.
At the ceremony, the 551st veterans sat quietly as Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric K. Shinseki called them "genuine heroes of the greatest generation" and a "source of pride and inspiration for today 's young men and women in uniform."
Six veterans, wearing the maroon airborne beret, stepped forward to drape steamers over the 551st unit flag as Shinseki said it was time to "rectify a 46-year-old oversight to present the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism in a unit under extremely difficult and hazardous conditions."
In addition to turning back the Nazis in the Battle of the Bulge, the unit also is credited with participating in the first European-Theater daylight combat drop at Nice, France, two months after D-Day and with capturing several high-ranking German officers at Draguignan.
During the Battle of the Bulge, the 551st was ordered to capture Rochelinval, where the bridge over the Salm River offered a last possible escape route for the German Army in the northern sector of the "bulge" that pushed into American lines. On Jan. 3, 1945, Company A of the 551st moved against the Germans, losing 40 percent of its men in the first two days of fighting. A desperate bayonet charge on Jan. 5 began to turn the tide, and two days later the troops took Rochelinval. Hitler's retreat began Jan. 8.
On Feb. 10, 1945, barely a month later, the 551st --whose commander, Lt. Col. Wood Joerg, had been killed in the fight for Rochelinval--was disbanded.
'Wounded...Kept Fighting '
The Miller family wants a Purple Heart awarded to Charles, a medal he turned down in haste 55 years ago.
"I was wounded three times , bandaged myself up and kept fighting," said Miller. When he was offered a Purple Heart, he said, "I turned it down when I saw a man whose arm was blown off." He said he doesn't want any compensation, just the recognition that he served with the 551st and was wounded in battle.
Miller's wife Millie, carrying a file she hoped to present to a Defense official, said he was hospitalized in England with shrapnel wounds as well as frozen hands and feet. "He should have had [a Purple Heart] so many years ago," she said. "It's been 55 years!"
"For the amount of men in our unit, our outfit has the least amount of awards in World War II," Miller said .
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