“I don’t have any trouble at all remembering this,” 86-year-old Hart said.
On Dec. 17, 1944, Staff Sgt. Hart, 21 at the time, and two other soldiers, corporals Slim Wallen and Jack Nyquist, were sent out before daybreak to fix a telephone line.
The day before was the start of the Battle of the Bulge, the last Nazi offensive attack in efforts to split the Allies during World War II, according to www.historylearningsite.co.uk.
Hart, Wallen and Nyquist were following a telephone wire in a jeep, checking for ruptures in the line.
Wallen was driving the jeep but stopped once he turned a corner. A German tank was pointed directly at them.
“Surprise - we didn’t know it was going to be there,” Hart said. “All he (the tank driver) had to do was hiccup and the jeep and these three guys would be history.”
German soldiers slowly walked out of the house that was next to the road, knowing that the American soldiers were unable to escape because of the tank.
The Germans confiscated Hart and his friends’ weapons and compass. One German soldier took a dime out of Wallen’s wallet - a dime that he had held on to since he was deployed to Europe.
“I was so glad he let us keep our wool caps,” said Hart - the temperature was below freezing.
Hart, Wallen, Nyquist and the German soldiers waited two to three hours for a translator. However, the information that the German soldiers were looking for was written on the front bumper of the jeep - 2X 2S, which stood for 2d Infantry Division, 2d Signal Company.
“When they found out, it scared the pants off of them,” Hart said. The German soldiers had battled this division previously and lost.
The translator never arrived, but an American P-47 Thunderbolt military plane did, Hart said.
“It was really a fearsome thing,” Hart said.
The pilot of the P-47 flew the plane directly over the location of the three American and German soldiers. The Germans took shelter under the Americans’ jeep.
“It was like covering themselves with a newspaper; it just wouldn’t work,” Hart said.
Hart, Wallen and Nyquist ran into a nearby forest.
The soldiers were unable to tell which way to walk until they heard the sound of a V-1 flying bomb, commonly called a buzz bomb, headed for American lines. The soldiers headed in the same direction as the buzzing sound, walking in silence.
“We were really good friends. We would work together laying down (telephone) lines; we wouldn’t say a word for an hour, Hart said, noting Nyquist and Wallen were two of the closest friends he made during World War II.
After trekking across part of Belgium back country, the soldiers eventually ran into an American guard.
The guard called Hart, Wallen and Nyquist to a halt and asked for the password, which was handed out to soldiers after the trio had left on their mission.
Since they were unable to supply the password, the guard asked if they knew the name of the New York City mayor.
Hart’s reply might have saved the lives of his two fellow soldiers and himself: “I am from Texas and I don’t know one mayor in all the world, but I do know the coach of the University of Texas.”
The name D.X. Bible was enough to get him and his fellow soldiers into American protected territory. The soldiers found refuge in a kitchen, where they took food and shelter.
In addition to the Battle of the Bulge, Hart also survived the Normandy invasion. “I think that was the scariest day in human history.”
Also, Hart said, his safety during the war was attributable to a Higher Power.
“I was raised in the church. I felt like I was in the hands of the Lord looking back. I must have been; I made it,” said Hart, who survived 24 World War II battles and has no wounds to show for it.
After the war, Hart attended the University of Houston. The veteran has been married twice and both wives preceded him in death. Hart has five children, two sons and three daughters, and 11 grandchildren.
Annette Kristynik, who now takes care of her father, said he told her and her siblings about his experiences overseas. He also told his children how thankful he was for central heat, something he did not have much of in Europe.
“My dad, on a cold winter day, would look outside the window of our home and say, ‘You just don’t know how glad I am to be in a warm house, and that I don’t have to sleep out on the ground.”
Hart’s military legacy lives on in one of his sons, Bobby Dawn, and two grandsons, Dustin Dawn and Paul Kristynik.
