After the two U.S. Armies finally joined at Houffalize on January 16, Hitler authorized a gradual German withdrawal. The Ardennes Offensive had failed and he needed to counter the Russian spring offensive that had started January 12. In the British House of Commons on January 18 Prime Minister Winston Churchill told his countrymen:

“I have seen it suggested that the terrific battle which has been proceeding since 16th December on the American front is an Anglo-American battle. In fact, however, the United State troops have done almost all the fighting and have suffered almost all the losses. They have suffered losses almost equal to those on both sides in the Battle of Gettysburg. Only one British Army Corps has been engaged in this action. All the rest of the 30 or more divisions which have been fighting continuously for the last months are United States troops. The Americans have engaged 30 or 40 men for every one we have engaged, and they have lost 60 to 80 men for every one of ours. That is the point I wish to make. Care must be taken in telling our proud tale not to claim for the British Army an undue share of what is undoubtedly the greatest American battle of the war, and will, I believe, be regarded as an ever-famous American victory.”

With a cold-blooded calculus, left over from the World War I strategy of industrialized attrition, he summarized: “The Germans have made a violent and costly sortie which has been repulsed with heavy slaughter, and have expended in the endeavor forces which they cannot replace, against an enemy who has already more than replaced every loss (the Germans have) slaughtered.”

On January 23, Combat Command B of the U.S. 7th Armored Division took St.Vith. On January 28 the Battle of the Bulge officially ended. The period from January 3 to January 28 took as many lives as the initial phase of stopping the German onslaught from December 16 to December 28. In withdrawing, the Germans benefited from requiring less force to mount a defense, choosing the ambush sites and enjoying reduced lines of supply and communication. Most American soldiers by this time were battle-hardened and accepting of the possibility of being killed without slowing down. They had seen their buddies killed and were out to end the war, to get the job done and go home.

During this last phase of the Bulge Montana lost: Private First Class Boyd Frost of Hinsdale, serving with the U.S. 90th Infantry Division, Private first Class Lowell Davis of Sanders, serving with the U.S. 80th Infantry Division, Layton Curtis from Pondera County, serving with the 740th Tank Battalion, Private First Class Sverre Efteland of Cut Bank, serving in a Norwegian-American Battalion of the U.S. 99th Infantry Division, and Gerald Jessen of Madison County, serving with the U.S. 75th Infantry Division. Combat veteran Thomas H. Driver of the 99th Division put it best: “Its a game of attrition- - who kills the most of who, like playing checkers. . .It’s not like you’re shooting people; you’re shooting checkers off the board. Of course, the checkers are shooting back.”

When we returned to Helena from Belgium, we learned more about our hometown’s strong connection to this important American battle. We would occasionally drive past the home of Justice Bill Leaphart, knowing that his father had thrown supplies from his C-47 to 101st Airborne troops below in the freezing foxholes of Bastogne, and returned home to become a prominent trial attorney who thrived on representing the underdog. Not far away are the homes of Stephen Ambrose, who wrote about the Band of Brothers in Bastogne, John C. Harrison, who served on Eisenhower’s staff and investigated the Malmedy Massacre for the U.S. Army, then came home to become the longest-serving justice on the Montana Supreme Court, and local physician Jeff Goldes, whose father Joe served as an officer in Luxembourg with the 4th Infantry, earning a Silver Star. There is also the home of Tim Brabcock, who was with the 99th Division at the Bulge and came back to serve as Govenor of Montana. Near the Court House is the law office of Jim Hunt, whose father, William “Bill” Hunt Sr. made it back from his Engineering Company in the Bulge and served two terms on the Montana Supreme Court. Up on the hill in the middle of town sits Carroll College, where Father James O’Neill, who served under Patton and wrote his “war prayer” asking for fair weather at the Bulge, had been on Carroll’s faculty before the start of World War II.

During our research of newspaper interviews, we found that most of the Montana veterans came back with an attitude that war is evil, but what they did was necessary and they would do it again if called. They shared a sense of maturity and purpose, and seemed to have a survivor’s sense of duty.

There are many homes around Helena where Bulge veterans once lived. Local newspaperman Curt Syness found over 50 Bulge veterans from Helena in 2005. We would occasionally pass a former apartment building, now a market, at 110 North Rodney Street in the older section of town, knowing this is where the mother of Stuart Bethel received a telegram in January 1945 notifying her that her son with the U.S. 106th Infantry Division, had been killed in the Bulge near Bleialf, and remains buried at Henri-Chappel. The family had moved to Helena from Pittsburgh in the late 1930’s and Stuart worked for a while in the Butte underground mines, like so many other who are buried in local cemeteries or in the Montana State Veterans Cemetery at Fort Harrison west of Helena. The Montana Military Museum at Fort Harrison has a restored 40x8 French rail car of the kind that carried U.S. prisoners like Ken Newton and Mel Mellinger from the Bulge to German POW camps.

There is an iconic U.S. Army Signal Corps photograph of the fighting in the Battle of the Bulge. As it turns out the U.S. soldier pictured near Houffalize, Belgium, is SGT Frank Vukasin of Great Falls, Montana. He’s bundled in his winter coat, and using his frozen fingers to jam another eight-round clip into his M-1 rifle. As he kneels for the ages, next to him lie two dead white-clad German soldiers.

On the cold winter night we were making inquiries across the Missouri River from Great Falls in Black Eagle, the waitress in “Borries” restaurant informed us, “The name’s pronounced ‘Vukaaasin.’ When my father was alive, he could tell you everything. He knew all those guys. There were a lot of bars around here. When they came back from the war they all hit the bars. Sorry, I can’t help you more!”

A history of Black Eagle, Montana, families says Vukasin had been working in the Anaconda Company Refinery when he got drafted. After returning home, he and his brother traded up through a couple of Black Eagle saloons. He once got a gig as an actor with Clint Eastwood and Jeff Bridges in that poolroom scene of Thunderbolt and Lightfoot. In the years after his wife passed he made his living as a gambler.

He died in January 1995 and is buried in Highland Cemetery among hundreds of fellow veterans, not too far from Charlie Russell.

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