The sadness and confusion of war — a local priest remembers

A self-explanatory commentary.

Editor’s note: Last Tuesday marked the first day of the month-long 70th anniversary commemoration of World War II’s Battle of the Bulge. The horrific event, which claimed the lives of 19,000 American military and saw another 89,000 wounded, began on Dec. 16, 1944, and officially ended on Jan. 25, 1945. Twenty years ago, during the 50th anniversary of the battle, I interviewed and published a column on the reminiscences of the Rev. Henry A. Dougherty, a local priest who had served as a U.S. Army chaplain during that battle. At the request of the many readers who remember Father Dougherty and that column, I’m rerunning it here today.







The silver-haired priest stood in front of the altar last Sunday — Christmas morning — reverently distributing Communion while a long line of parishioners inched their way toward him to the soft strains of “Silent Night.”


Behind him were sculpted figures of the manger in Bethlehem, Still farther back were rows of brightly decorated Christmas trees.


To each of the dozen or more small children who reached the altar — some walking behind a parent, others in a parent’s arms — he offered a kindly word and bestowed an individual blessing.


It was a typical Christmas morning scene that parishioners at Levittown’s Queen of the Universe Roman Catholic Church have grown accustomed to during the 14 years the Rev. Henry A. Dougherty has been with them.


Yet watching him, I couldn’t help but wonder if Father Dougherty’s thoughts might somehow have drifted to another Christmas he had spent in a distant land a half-century before.


It had been 50 years ago to the day from Dec. 25, 1944, when then-28-year-old Capt. Dougherty, a member of the U.S. Army’s Chaplain Corps, was celebrating Mass and trying to bring Christmas to hundreds of lonely, battle-scarred American soldiers deep inside Belgium’s Ardennes forest.


Dougherty had enlisted in the Army in June 1943, just two years after his ordination. He was one of 66 priests from the Philadelphia Archdiocese who would serve in the military during World War II.


Six of those men would never make it back.


Assigned to an armored, or tank, unit, Dougherty landed in France eight days after D-Day and participated in the breakout from the Normandy beachhead.


During the next six months, as the Allies pushed forward, his unit would see action from Saint-Lô to the Ardennes. By mid-December, with the enemy in full retreat, it appeared the war would soon be over.


Then, on Dec. 16, the Germans struck back.


In a massive counterattack, hundreds of enemy tanks and tens of thousands of its infantry burst through the Ardennes forest, taking the Americans completely by surprise.


It would become known as the Battle of the Bulge and, pitting seasoned German troops against many “green” American forces, it would be the largest and most confusing battle fought on the western front during World War II.


German soldiers in captured American uniforms and speaking almost-perfect English infiltrated the lines. Others commandeered American tanks and turned their weapons on unsuspecting American boys.


In the ensuing panic, Americans shot at other Americans, mistaking them for the enemy.


Dougherty vividly recalls one incident when he and several other men were moving through the forest to join a new unit. They were suddenly confronted by an American sergeant who challenged them to give the password.


Dougherty identified himself as an American chaplain; unfortunately, the password had been changed and no one in his group had been given the new one.


The now-suspicious sergeant trained his rifle on Dougherty and, offering him one last chance to prove he and the others were not German infiltrators, asked him where he lived in the United States.


“Philadelphia,” replied the nervous chaplain.


“How close is that to Pittsburgh?” questioned the sergeant.


“Three hundred miles, on the nose,” Dougherty replied.


Lowering his rifle, the sergeant let them pass.


Recalling the incident today, Dougherty is certain that had he not given the correct answer, he and the others would have been shot.


Almost as threatening as the German attack was the weather. The winter of 1944 would see the most-severe European weather of the century. Uniforms became soaked in freezing rain and sleet. Boots and socks were impossible to keep dry. Soldiers on both sides suffered from severe frostbite and many froze to death huddled in their foxholes.


“The weather was terrible,” Dougherty recalls. “We sometimes said several Masses a day, usually outdoors on improvised altars such as the hood of a Jeep. Sometimes, it was snowing; sometimes, it was raining; and it was always bitterly cold. Yet the men were so anxious to attend Mass or talk to a priest.


“The weather didn’t stop them. After all, it might be the last priest they would ever get a chance to see.”


Then, another stark reminiscence:


“We lost so many of our finest boys over there,” he said wistfully. “It was such a tragedy.”


Following the war, Father Dougherty spent two years as a member of the 82nd Airborne Division and 17 years as a chaplain with the Pennsylvania National Guard. In 1991, he quietly celebrated his 50th anniversary in the priesthood, and now lives in retirement at the Queen of the Universe rectory.


Reflecting on the past, he says with a soft smile: “I’m certainly glad that I knew the distance between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.”


Note: Father Dougherty would remain at Queen of the Universe for another seven years before retiring to Villa St. Joseph in Darby, Delaware County, where he would die on May 12, 2005.

http://www.theintell.com/opinion/columnist/jerry-jonas/the-sadness-and-confusion-of-war-a-local-priest-remembers/article_8faf07b8-fefa-565c-9bdd-829d99a0e216.html