32 A Winter of Snow and Sugar

In the winter of 1945, part of Jack’s tactical reconnaissance squadron spent two months in France photographing German tanks, railroads, and troop movements. Much of the time they waited for good weather. Locals claimed the snowfall was “unprecedented,” and officially it was the heaviest in 175 years.[1] It was cold, too, and local children took advantage of the ice to go sliding. Jack and his buddies joined in the fun.

Ice sliding in Giraumont

Christmas presents were finally delivered from storage in Lique and Armand’s home in Belgium. Aside from new photos of Alice, food, especially food made with sugar, topped the list of much-appreciated gifts.

One of the treasured photos of Alice

France, Jan. 16, 1945

Dearest Alice

Honey I am really very, very happy tonight darling as today was Christmas for me. Gosh honey I’m really delighted with those swell pictures of you. Oh darling I just felt like crying when I saw them. Darling you really mean everything to me. If only I could be as close to you tonight as those pictures are to my heart everything would be perfect. One of the boys went up to the other base [in Belgium] & I had Wink send my Christmas pkgs. down [to Giraumont, France]. Wink says he is fine but wants us to get back soon as he is getting lonesome for us Ha. Well darling I recv’d all four pkgs from you. I just can’t get my mind & eyes off of those swell pictures of you. Boy with all the candy I got in those pkgs I shouldn’t run out for a long time Ha. I also recv’d pkgs from Your folks (M^cFarlanes [candy]) my folks (Fruit box) Dave & Eunice, playing cards, tooth brush, figs, fruit cake & another box from them with nut rolls in it like the ones you sent. Boy am I going to chow up! A fruit cake from Ed & El. [Jacobson], cookies & maple sugar from your Cousin Miriam & Norman [Hadley, in Vermont].[2]

P-51s on the pierced metal airfield at Giraumont, France

The crew of "BallZout"

Snowfall on the field

As Jack wrote to Alice midmonth, Hitler was holed-up in his Berlin bunker, and the U.S. First and Third Armies linked up from the north and south, pinching off the German incursion into Belgium. By the end of the month, Soviet troops had entered Warsaw and liberated Auschwitz and Birkenau concentration camps. The Nazis’ atrocities against Jews and other “unacceptable” peoples were revealed to the world. Franklin D. Roosevelt was sworn in for a fourth term as U.S. President.[3] Jack, ever the joker, shared with Alice a prank he played on local Frenchmen.

France, Jan. 28, 1945

Dearest Alice

Honey I just recv’d that swell box of M^cFarlanes candy & those packs of gum you mailed on Dec 4. Darling those candies just melt in my mouth and all the fellows are enjoying them here. Several of us went up to a café tonight and had a couple of beers, but they weren’t very good as it just tastes like water. I guess it’s better that way tho. They were having a dance there so I had some “loaded” cigarettes and I passed some of them out to the Frenchmen and boy they sure got a big kick out of them Ha. We got a bigger kick out of it tho because when they would speak to us in French & try to give us hell and we would say “no compree” which means I don’t understand. Boy what a laugh. Gee darling when I watch some of them dance I sure get lonesome for you.[4]

To see how exploding cigarettes work, click here.

 

Jack, right, and his pilot Bud Bellon with
"Pat and Mary Pat"
"Alice" was painted on the other side of the plane.

By the end of January the Battle of the Bulge was over. U.S. forces suffered nearly 90,000 casualties out of over 600,000 troops. Some 8500 were killed, making it the bloodiest WWII battle of the American participation.[5]

France, Feb. 3, 1945

Dearest Alice,

Honey I just reread your Christmas Eve letter and you said you hoped I was brave. I had one of the biggest lump[s] in my throat again at Christmas time but I thought of all the fellows who would never return to their loved ones and then I thanked God for everything and mostly for you and then I felt a lot braver than before.[6]

On pass at the Eiffel Tower, Paris

The Palais de Chaillot, Paris

 As Jack wrote the following letter, Belgium had been cleared of German forces. With the end of German aggression in sight, the “Big Three” (Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Josef Stalin) met in Yalta that day to discuss post-war spheres of influence. On a very personal level, Jack told Alice about his friendship with some French children, one of them a Polish refugee.

France, Feb. 4, 1945

Dearest Alice,
Derrick and I and several other fellows went up to the café tonight and had a couple of beers. Boy, you might as well drink water as the beer you get here. They had a dance up there and we did not dance but we watched them. Honey some time ago I told you about going sliding here with a bunch of the little French kids, well tonight some of them were up at the dance and they were real glad to see us again. Honey I sure do have fun with those little fellows. They are about 9 to 14 years old. There are four of them that are really pals of mine. Their names are Teddy, Joseph, Edward and Roger. Teddy is the youngest and quite a character and a real swell kid. They are all small for their size [age], I really feel kind of affectionate towards them. Teddy is a Polish refugee and he was telling me tonight about his mother, brother & father being prisoners of the Nazi. Boy people don’t realize what war is until they run into situations like that. We gave them chocolate and gum and they really enjoyed it. We gave Roger, the oldest some loaded cigarettes to pass out and we really had some good laughs and some big explosions Ha.[7]

Big Three at Yalta[8]

France, Feb. 6, 1945

Dearest Alice,

I just got my laundry back. One of the boys that speaks French here has been taking our laundry down to a French lady & she does it for whatever we give her. I gave her two oranges, 2 chocolate bars & two packs of cigarettes. It sure is worth it to me to get it done. She irons it and makes it look real nice just like Leke does for us.[9]

Next to Alice, Lique represented home, and Jack looked forward to returning to Belgium for her hospitality. During the second week of February his detached service component finally reunited with the entire 160^th Squadron back in Beauvechain.[10]

Alice at her parents' home, waiting

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[1] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, February 1943–August 1945 ([unknown place]: [unknown publisher], printed by A. Roßbach, Eschwege, Germany, [1945]), 91. Probably written by the squadron historian, this account of the 380^th Fighter Squadron (later the 160^th Tactical Reconnaissance Squadron) of the U.S. Army Air Force was written right up until the squadron was about to return to the U.S.

[2] Jack J. Kellar (France), letter to “Dearest Alice” [Alice (Streeter) Kellar], Santa Rosa, California, 16 January 1945, excerpt.

[3] “Timeline of World War II (1945–1991),” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_World_War_II_(1945%E2%80%931991)#January_1945 : accessed 23 July 2018).

[4] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 28 January 1945, excerpt.

[5] “Battle of the Bulge,” Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Bulge : accessed 25 July 2018), paragraph 5.

[6] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 3 February 1945, excerpt.

[7] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 4 February 1945, excerpt.

[8] “Conference of the Big Three at Yalta makes final plans for the defeat of Germany. Here the ‘Big Three’ sit on the patio together, Prime Minister Winston S. Churchill, President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Premier Josef Stalin, 2/1945,” U.S. National Archives, Archives.gov (https://catalog.archives.gov/id/531340 : accessed 24 July 2018) > Record Group 111, Records of the Office of the Chief Signal Officer, 1860–1985 > Photographs of American Military Activities, ca. 1918–ca. 1981 > National Archives Identifier 531340, Local Identifier 111–SC–260486.

[9] Jack J. Kellar to “Dearest Alice,” 6 February 1945, excerpt.

[10] 380^th Fighter–160^th Tac. Rcn. Squadron History, February 1943–August 1945, 96.

31 An Unexpected Christmas, 1944

"We had a white Christmas"

Decades later Jack recalled his participation in the Battle of Ardennes, known also as the Battle of the Bulge. His aerial reconnaissance group was instrumental in discovering Nazi troop and tank movements during this major turning point of the war. That put quite a damper on his Christmas plans.

In the winter of 1944 we were stationed at Beauvechain, Belgium. The year before, 1943, we were on our way over there. Naturally there were no Christmas presents that year, so this year the Christmas treats had been planned. Some presents had arrived, but we would not open them until Christmas. When we got food packages from home they were opened immediately and shared with all, but the Christmas presents were stored in in Lique and Armand’s house in Beauvechain. We were really looking forward to having our Christmas.

Jack's group was part of the Ninth Army (above the bulge). He would be on
detached service at Giraumont, near Metz, France (bottom of map).[1]

 In mid-December 1944 Hitler threw everything he possibly had into one big push west. They bulged the lines out, and that’s why they call it the Battle of the Bulge. He had all of his tank units and everything there. They pushed into Belgium and into France, too.  It was a big front, and that’s when General Patton (Third Army) made his push and stopped him.

Bad weather really hampered Patton and let the Nazis get way ahead. We [the 363^rd Group] were now a tactical reconnaissance outfit, taking pictures with the large cameras installed in the fuselage of our planes. (They still had two twenty-caliber machine guns so if they did get jumped they were able to fight their way out of it.) Most of our intelligence came from photos taken during these flights: where the troops were and their movements, where the fronts were, and how many tanks they had. We were flying those missions to find out what was going on, and then they developed the film, and told HQ.

The town of Noville, Belgium, winter 1944, in the type of aerial photo
Jack's P-51 pilot would have taken[2]

 It had been impossible to get our planes off the ground for about two weeks because of heavy fog. Wink, Derrick, and I were in Tirlemont [French for Tienen, 15 kms. from Beauvechain] on a pass about December the 20^th, when an MP said, “Get back to your base immediately.” The Nazis weren’t too far away. I guess they were around Liège in Belgium then, not too far away

Then about midnight, they raced a jeep down through the area where we were living with the siren going, and everybody got up to see what was the matter. It was a scary time. They told us to pack our stuff: we were leaving at six o’clock in the morning to go to Metz, in France. Pack a musette bag (that’s a small bag with your toothbrush and so forth), and plan to be gone about three days. They had information that they could get the planes off the ground for a certain amount of hours on the morning of the 23rd, and they wanted the crew chiefs down at Metz when the planes got down there. Here we were in the north of Belgium, so we went by truck through Belgium and Luxembourg, down to Metz in France. Instead of three days, it turned out to be about two months.[3]

From top to bottom, where Jack was stationed in Belgium, the Nazi push toward the west,
and Metz where the weather was good[4]

 

Derrick on "Torque Jockey," Christmas Day
The other side was painted with his wife's name, "Camille."

France, Christmas Day 1944

Dearest Alice,

            Hello my sweet mummy. How you? Merry Christmas & I really hope you did have a merry one. Of course being we are down here I didn’t get a chance to bring much more than my clothes, I am wearing & my bed roll so I haven’t seen my Christmas gifts yet altho I guess it won’t be too long until we will go back to where we were & then I’ll be able to open them. I hardly knew today was Christmas as we worked pretty hard all day & I am on guard duty tonight. We can say that we had a white Christmas tho. There is several inches of snow on the ground & it is cold, altho the sun shone all day & it really was nice. I took some pictures today of Derrick & also had him take some of me. I

“Jabot” by Lucien Lelong, Paris, 1939
Alice kept this bottle, still containing some perfume,
until her passing.

sure hope they turn out good. We had turkey for supper tonight & it was really good. Aramond gave me a bottle of wine just before we left for four of us for Christmas but being some of us were on guard last night we couldn’t sample it but we may tonight. Ha Gee I sure hope they fly some mail down for us soon as I haven’t heard from you for quite some time. I never did hear if you got the perfume I sent or not. I sure hope you did. I sure enjoyed going to church last night & hearing them sing the Christmas Carols. It really was beautiful. Gee I’ll bet you & all the kids are excited today. I can well remember how excited I use to get at Christmas Time. Boy we were really busy today. We have a nice warm place to sleep tho so it isn’t too bad.[5]

 

Jack and his pilot Bud Bellon's "Pat and Mary Pat," Christmas day
The other side of the plane read "Alice."

On the night of the 25th of December of 1944, I was on guard duty, a clear, crystal night, [the] moon was shining, and way in the distance we could hear a drone of a plane. We knew it was not one of ours because our drones are different than theirs. Here it was a JU88 that came over, quite low, made a big circle, went back where he had come from, in that direction, and all of a sudden we heard the drone again. This time the AK-AK, the artillery, was ready for him, and we could see the tracer bullets going into the plane and stopping, because he was real low. Evidently he was on a bombing mission. All of a sudden we watched the plane go up in the air, sputter, I mean go up, directly, high, at a right angle from where he had been flying, and come down and hit the ground, and that was the end of that plane. A few minutes later the officer of the day came down and got us to take us back to where we were staying in our tents, and we asked him if he could take us over there, which he did. I have a swastika and a belt buckle off one of the pilots, there, that was in the plane, dead. They were both dead.[6]

The tail suggests this is not the JU88 that went down Christmas night,
but the activity around it is similar to what Jack experienced.

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[1] “Erasing the Bulge, 26 December 1944–25 January 1945,” map created by the U.S. Government and printed by the U.S. Government Printing Office, public domain, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:P41(map).jpg : accessed 20 July 2018).

[2] Hugh M. Cole, The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge (Washington DC: Office of the Chief of Military History, Department of the Army, 1965), 41, “Noville, a town in the Ardennes”; digital edition, US Army Center of Military History (https://history.army.mil/books/wwii/7-8/7-8_3.HTM : accessed 20 July 2018).

[3] Jack J. Kellar and Alice (Streeter) Kellar, interview by Judy Kellar Fox, December 1993; cassette tape recording and transcription held by the author. Also, Jack J. Kellar, “Autobiography,” 1998; two ninety-minute cassette tape recordings; held and partially transcribed by the author. Excerpts from both interviews lightly edited.

[4] “Beauvechain to Metz, 20 December 1944,” Google My Maps (https://www.google.com/maps/ : designed 20 July 2018).

[5] Jack J. Kellar (France), letter to “Dearest Alice” (Alice [Streeter] Kellar), 25 December 1944, excerpt.

[6] Jack J. Kellar and Alice (Streeter) Kellar, interview, December 1993. Excerpt, lightly edited.