 |
| "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] |
Bad
weather really hampered Patton and let the Nazis get way ahead. We [the 363rd
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] |
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
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]
 |
| “Jabot” by Lucien Lelong, Paris, 1939 Alice kept this bottle, still containing some perfume, until her passing. |
 |
| 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. |
[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.
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