Posted on 09/29/2021 11:07:37 AM PDT by UMCRevMom@aol.com
World War II veteran, 95-year-old Vincent Speranza, took his final jump. His first jump out of an airplane in over three decades. (Via U.S. Army Recruiting Twitter account).
Even as the World War II Allies pushed the German Army back toward their homeland in 1944 and 1945, victory was never a sure thing. Nothing illustrated that fact more than Nazi Germany’s 1944 suprise counterattack through the Ardennes Forest. It threatened to cut the Allied army in two, cut them off from their supply center at the port of Antwerp and destroy four armies in the field.
“The Battle of the Bulge,” as it came to be known for the large bulge that protruded in Allied maps of the front line, was Nazi Germany’s last grasp to force the Allies into a negotiated peace. And that’s where Vincent Speranza made an epic beer run for a wounded comrade.
Speranza was a member of the storied 101st Airborne, 501st Parachute Infantry Company and was in the American-held city of Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge. Within five days of the German surprise attack, Bastogne was surrounded and under siege. The only defenders of the city were the 101st Airborne, the all-Black 969th Artillery Battalion, and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division. An Army veteran didn’t know his epic beer run was World War II legend for 65 years
Vince Speranza. (US Army)
These soldiers would not give up the city despite being completely surrounded and cut off from the rest of the Allied forces. It would be nearly a week before Gen. George S. Patton’s Third Army would arrive to relieve them. When the German asked for American terms of surrender, commanding Gen. Anthony MacAuliffe famously replied, “Nuts!”
While that makes for a great story some 80-plus years later, for the men on the ground in Bastogne in December 1944, things were looking pretty grim. Toward the end of the siege Vincent Speranza was helping tend to the wounds of his fellow soldiers. He recognized one of the wounded men, his friend and assistant machine gunner Joe Willis.
“I found him,” Speranza told the Springfield, Illinois State Journal-Register. “And asked ‘How you doin?’ He said, “I got a couple pieces of shrapnel in my leg. It’s not too bad.′ I asked if there was anything I could do for him. He said, ‘Yeah, go find me something to drink.’”
By this time, Bastogne had seen a lot of fighting and was in shambles. Many of the city’s defenders were wounded and some had been massacred by the Germans. But Speranza went out in search of a drink for his buddy anyway. He left the church where Willis was resting and found a bombed-out tavern. Inside the tavern was, of course, a beer tap.
When Speranza pulled the tap, beer actually came out. So Speranza did what he said he would, filling up his helmet with the liquid and bringing it back to his buddy Joe. When other wounded men saw Joe Willis having a beer, they wanted one too, so Speranza went to fill up his helmet once more.
Pictured: Vincent Speranza.
When he came back with the second beverage, he was confronted by a regimental surgeon, who threatened to have him shot if he kept up the beer runs. Beer might kill some of those wounded men. Vincent Speranza was just giving aid and comfort to the wounded, but he didn’t want to kill anyone.
The Siege of Bastogne was eventually lifted, the Allies won the war and Vincent Speranza returned home. Some 65 years later, he returned to Bastogne to commemorate the anniversary and a new museum of the battle.
While there, he met two European tank officers, one from Belgium, the other from the Netherlands. He told them the story of his World War II beer run, and they looked at him incredulously.
“You were the GI who gave beer to the wounded?” they asked him. “You’re famous in Europe!”
Speranza had no idea what they were talking about until the two men ordered him an Airborne Beer. The beer was designed by a local brewer 20 years before to honor the legend of the GI who made a beer run for his friend, but no one realized it was real until Vincent Speranza told them the story.
The waiter brought the men a bottle featuring a U.S. soldier carrying a helmet full of beer, and a bit of it served in a small ceramic helmet. The locals of Bastogne and the brewer of Airborne Beer were shocked to actually meet the legendary paratrooper, but no one was more surprised than Vincent Speranza.
MASH (my only source for Korean War information) did an episode on this. Hawkeye asked our British allies not to give tea to their wounded soldiers. Those gut-shot were getting sepsis.
Good thing Ol’ Liver Lips taught the Limeys a lesson, as they had only gone through two World Wars recently treating their wounded.
Well, we don't know that - it was just his LATEST jump.
“...maybe he just wanted a salty snack”
What I’ve been told is, he didn’t actually say, “Nuts!”
He said, “Balls!”
Great story!
Thank you for posting that wonderful story and thank you, Vincent Speranza!
Hahahah love it!
Well played!
bttt
You made my day-THANK YOU!
7.5%! Good stuff.
Sometimes, when I think I just don't feel like logging in (but do) and I come across threads like this and Yo-Yo's "When General MacAuliffe made his legendary comment “Nuts!”, maybe he just wanted a salty snack to go with Vincent Speranza’s beer..." it reminds me again of why I come back to, and pay money for, my spot on Free Republic!
Thank goodness. Sometimes the other stuff brings me so far down, I need things like this to buoy me up! (Again, a thank you to you, JR!)
Best thing I’ve read all day. Five o’clock can’t get here soon enough!
Cool :)
Keep your feet & knees together, GI!
I was going to say that we have better documentation for Sgt Speranza's feat of brauhaus heroism than their is for BGen Anthony MacAuliffe's pithy quote. I've always believe an airborne general would probably have said something unprintable when asked to surrender.
“7.5%! Good stuff.”
Some lack of clarity on if it’s beer or ale....
It says ale on the label.
“The only defenders of the city were the 101st Airborne, the all-Black 969th Artillery Battalion, and Combat Command B of the 10th Armored Division.”
Also, for what it’s worth, the Belgian do know how to brew beer.
General MacAuliffe was an artillery officer: he was in command while the CG of the 101st was home on leave.
Have my own story of illicit drinking - while I was in Vietnam, anything alcoholic was hard to get where were, but one of my buddies snagged a gallon size can of pineapple from the mess hall. We poured the juice into a large glass bottle and threw a handful of yeast into it.
Three days later, it was well fermented and we drank the whole thing while a corpsman stood by with an aid bag, in case.. Great stuff!
Hah! How are you, Chainmail? Funny, your name popped into my head while I was driving home, and for some reason it immediately translated into Charlie Mike...:)
There is something about military people and all things pineapple, including the juice. When I read your account of creating that primitive fermented brew, it brought back memories...:)
When I was a kid, my dad used to serve us pineapple juice all the time, but...since then, the only time I see it is when I seek it out. Nobody in the civilian world seems to drink it.
Just last week, my weight just dipped down below 185 for the first time in at least 35 years, and that particular weight made me think of when I was aboard ship as an 18 year old, I got sent for a month or so to the Chief’s Mess. Those guys always had the best food on the ship, and I had been 165 before I reported to duty there.
I was eating like a hog! When I was working in the scullery, I remember taking those huge shallow aluminum baking trays, full of pineapple upside down cake with the cherry in the middle of each ring on each square, and using a spatula to scrape them off into that huge garbage disposal that was at least a foot wide. As I tilted it on edge to shove them into that gaping black hole, I grab off great handfuls of that cake and shove it in my mouth, eating the whole time! (such a shame to put it down the disposal, but...that was what was done. I guess they didn’t want to keep it around or share it with anyone else)
Then one day, as I sat eating breakfast, I looked down towards my feet and realized with horror...I had a huge gut! I weighed myself, and I weighed 185 lbs!!!!
Well, when I got out of Mess Hall duty, I did drop back to about 170, but my days of being 165 were gone forever!
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