Manuel Gularte, Arroyo Grande, 965th Artillery Battalion

The 965th provided fire support at the town of St. Vith for the 7th Armored Division and the 106th Infantry Division. Their fire and the resistance of the two divisions stalled the German attack at its onset, which later took its toll as German tanks and trucks began to run out of fuel—by now, Berlin taxis were running on firewood. Oil had never been a German resource, which led to HItler’s Russian debacle. This was his Western Front disaster.

Art Youman, Arroyo Grande, 101st Airborne

The “brothers” were Easy Company, 506th Parachute Infantry, 101st Airborne, and Youman, before the war a firefighter at Camp San Luis Obispo, was among them. He’d been promoted to Sergeant by Easy Company commander Dick Winters in Holland in September, and now the 101st was being asked to hold Bastogne, a Belgian town awash in the German advance. Their stand, during the coldest winter in Europe in thirty years, was, like St. Vith, a critical fight, diverting German forces determined to wipe the Americans out. They failed.

(Above): A 101st machine gunner in his foxhole; 101st soldiers in the 1944 foxholes their comrades had dug. This photo was taken 75 years after the Bulge.

James Pearson, Paso Robles, 455th Bomb Squadron, 323rd Bomb Group

(Above: Houffalize, Belgium; a German Panther tank in the town center suggest this town’s importance in the Battle of the Bulge.

Another key turning point in the Battle of the Bulge was the lifting of a stubborn overcast, which allowed American airpower to assert itself. One medium bomber that participated in this effort, a Martin B-26 Marauder, had a crew that included 1st Lt. James Pearson, the navigator. On December 26, 1944, that aircraft, “Mission Belle,” was shot down over this beautiful town. There were no survivors.

(Below): B-26 Marauders from Pearson’s bomb group–the “White Tails”–over Germany. The video’s music is touching, as is the sight, far below the Marauders, of P-38 fighters, which have connections to the Central Coast. You hope they are safely headed home.