Page 82 - Anthology

4 Camp Atterbury, IN: Camp Atterbury, near Edinburgh, Indiana, USA, is a training base of the
Indiana National Guard. It was planned just months before the U.S. entry into World War II.
Originally surveyed and researched by the Hurd Company, the present site was recommended to
Congress in 1941. Construction commenced shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor. More than
1,500 wood frame buildings were constructed, sized to hold more than one army infantry division.
It also contained the 47-building, (concrete block, 2-story) Wakeman General and Convalescent
Hospital, the largest hospital of its kind in the US in the 1940s. It was known for its progressive
plastic eye replacements. During World War II, the U.S. 39th Evacuation Hospital, the 101st
Infantry Battalion (Separate) and four U.S. Army infantry divisions, the 30th, 83rd, 92nd, and
106th, trained here. The 106th left Camp Atterbury on 9 October 1944 and two months later was
on the front lines, crossing into Belgium on 10 December 1944. Spread over a 28-mile (45 km)
front, they bore the brunt of the Battle of the Bulge with more than 7,000 total combat-related
casualties (combined missing, killed, or wounded in action.)
5 422 Infantry Regiment: The division's 422nd and 423rd Infantry Regiments were encircled and
nd
cut off from the remainder of the Division by a junction of enemy forces in the vicinity of
Schonberg. They regrouped for a counterattack but were blocked by the enemy and lost to the
Division on 18 December 1944. The two Regiments surrendered to the Germans on 19
December 1944. The Germans gained 6000 prisoners in one the largest mass surrenders in
American military history. Nearly 50% of the division's strength was brushed aside in the first
days of the Battle of the Bulge.
6 Battle of the Bulge: The Battle of the Bulge (16 December 1944 – 25 January 1945) was a major
German offensive campaign launched through the densely forested Ardennes region of Wallonia
in Belgium, France and Luxembourg on the Western Front toward the end of World War II in
Europe. The surprise attack caught the Allied forces completely off guard and became the
costliest battle in terms of casualties for the United States, whose forces bore the brunt of the
attack. It also severely depleted Germany's war-making resources. The battle was known by
different names. The Germans referred to it as Unternehmen Wacht am Rhein ("Operation Watch
on the Rhine"), while the French named it the Bataille des Ardennes ("Battle of the Ardennes").
The Allies called it the Ardennes Counteroffensive. The phrase "Battle of the Bulge" was coined
by contemporary press to describe the way the Allied front line bulged inward on wartime news
maps and became the best-known name for the battle.
7 Stalag VIII-A: Stalag VIII-A was a German World War II prisoner-of-war camp, located just to the
south of the town of Görlitz, Lower Silesia, east of the River Neisse (now Zgorzelec, Poland).
Originally a Hitler Youth camp, in October 1939 it was modified to house about 15,000 Polish
prisoners from the German September 1939 offensive. By June 1940 most of the Poles had been
transferred to other camps and replaced with Belgian and French troops taken prisoner during the
Battle of France. At one time there were over 30,000 jammed into facilities designed for 15,000.
In 1941 a separate compound was created to house Soviet prisoners. In 1943 2,500 British
Commonwealth soldiers came from the battles in Italy, and later in the same year an undefined
number of Italian soldiers came from Albania. Finally in late December 1944 1,800 Americans
arrived, captured in the Battle of the Bulge. On 14 February 1945 the Americans and British were
marched out of the camp westward in advance of the Soviet offensive into Germany.
8 Atomic Bombs: The atomic bombings of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan were
conducted by the United States during the final stages of World War II in August 1945. The two
bombings were the first and remain the only use of nuclear weapons in wartime. Following a
firebombing campaign that destroyed many Japanese cities, the Allies prepared for a costly
invasion of Japan. The war in Europe ended when Nazi Germany signed its instrument of
surrender on May 8, 1945, but the Pacific War continued. Together with the United Kingdom and
China, the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in
the Potsdam Declaration on July 26, 1945, threatening "prompt and utter destruction".