A 91-year-old former paratrooper who fought in Italy, France and the horrific Battle of the Bulge in Belgium is the latest profile in the Secretary of State’s “Washington Remembers” project honoring World War II veterans.

The online profile on Bob Hart can be viewed here: http://1.usa.gov/1RYNAm7

“Bob Hart’s story provides an inside look at one of the most brutal battles of the war,” said Secretary of State Kim Wyman. “He is a shining example of an American who made sacrifices under conditions most of us can’t fathom.”

Hart, a Tacoma native who lives near Shelton, was a 20-year-old machine gunner. He and a pal signed up for the paratroopers at Fort Lewis in 1943, reasoning they wouldn’t have to do much walking. Sixteen months later, Hart landed hard in a farmer’s field in the foothills above the Côte d’Azur, and tramped 50 miles through hostile countryside on a broken foot. Though the last large-scale night jump of World War II was off to a bumpy start, the “Battling Buzzards” of the Army’s 517th Parachute Regimental Combat Team—some of the fittest, most resourceful soldiers in the annals of warfare—did what they were trained to do: regroup, improvise as needed and engage the enemy. They proceeded to throw the Germans “into a state of chaos,” repulsed a counterattack and dug in as artillery duels “echoed through the valleys of the Maritime Alps,” their proud colonel wrote afterward.

Hart shakes his head at the memories. “There’s not many of us left who remember that,” he told John C. Hughes, chief historian for Legacy Washington.

The Battle of the Bulge was German dictator Adolf Hitler’s last-gasp attempt to halt the Allied advance. On the cold, foggy morning of December 16, 1944, “We were getting ready to go on R&R in Paris when all hell broke loose,” Hart remembers. Two-thousand artillery pieces opened fire as hundreds of tanks and 250,000 German soldiers swept through the Allied lines. The “bulge” quickly grew 60 miles deep and 40 miles wide. At Bastogne, a vital crossroads, the 101st Airborne Division found itself encircled and heavily outnumbered. Their commander’s laconic American response to a German surrender demand, “Nuts!”—shorthand for “Go to hell!”—is now legendary. Hart has one word of his own for the stand by the 101st at Bastogne: “Incredible.”

Hart’s outfit sped north to secure and hold at all costs other crossroads towns. Winter boots were in short supply. The 517th had none. “I’d taken my shoes off maybe once or twice in two weeks. I was on guard duty at midnight the night we finally got our sleeping bags. So instead of leaving my shoes on I just wrapped the sleeping bag around my feet and stood watch. The next morning when I tried to put my shoes on, my feet were way bigger than my shoes. They called it ‘frozen feet.’ No feeling whatsoever.” He was lucky they were able to evacuate him that day. “Some guys were losing toes that turned black.” And some soldiers would lose their feet.

After three decades as an airline mechanic, Hart and his wife Kathleen retired to Lake Limerick. Bob had been a volunteer firefighter; he donated blood for 40 years and volunteered at the American Lake Veterans Hospital near Tacoma. He was a stalwart at the Saints’ Pantry Food Bank in Shelton.

Legacy Washington is honoring veterans ahead of the 70th anniversary of the conflict’s end. It will next release a special profile on Seattle’s Clayton Pitre, one of the first black Marines since the American Revolution. In August, the project will launch an exhibit in the Capitol Building featuring a diverse group of veterans and a survivor of the Holocaust.

Editor’s note: For more information about Hart’s profile, contact Hughes at john.hughes@sos.wa.gov or (360) 704-7141.