My father Bernard was the first child born to Hugh White Arnn and Janie Burch Arnn of Callands, Virginia, on April 6, 1917. My grandparents owned a country store and they had a small farm. My father grew up with six siblings, Norman, Landon, Roland, Selma, Mildred and Margaret. My father was the oldest of the seven children. In his younger years he attended local schools. Although the Depression affected everyone in those days, the Arnns were fortunate in owning their store and having a large garden and farm animals. My father eventually graduated from Callands High School in 1934.

Graduated from High School he took a job in Martinsville, Virginia at Pannill Knitting Mill but also enrolled in a business class from which he received a certificate of completion in 1936. While working at the textile mill, Bernard met Goldie Barnes. They were married April 16, 1938. The newlyweds first lived in Danville, Virginia while Bernard worked as a bookkeeper for a tobacco company. Then they moved to Chatham, Virginia, when he was employed by the Bank of Chatham as assistant cashier.

After the outbreak of WWII, my father wanted to enlist in the Air Corps, but he was colorblind and turned down. On 26 August 1943 he enlisted in the Army in Roanoke, Virginia after being drafted. He trained in Alabama and Oklahoma before being shipped out from New York in September 1943, leaving his beloved Goldie who was pregnant by that time.

My father was a prolific writer, frequently sending letters to Goldie, his parents, family members, and bank friends. The letters were positive and pleasant during his US training. In the letters they received after his deployment to the European front, he always asked for prayers for his safe return.

My father's battalion was constantly engaged in heavy fighting. Slowly but steady they fought their way through Europe towards Germany. The battalion's mission was changed on November 29 1944 to direct support of Company A which was attached to the 4th Infantry Division to assist in the final clearing of the Hurtgen Forest, and to force the enemy to the east side of the Roer River. This mission was to prove to be the most nerve-wracking and costly, from the personnel viewpoint, of all missions in which the 47th Armored Infantry Battalion participated.

On 29 November 1944 my father's commanding officer Captain, Joe M. Beisenstein's A Company, 47th Infantry Battalion, pushed toward Kleinhau, working to the left of the Hurtgen-Kleinhau road. Captain Beisenstein was twice wounded and twice refused evacuation, He continued to lead his company until he was killed by a German artillery shell during the attack. By early afternoon both infantry companies had broken through to Kleinhau and helped the tanks outpost the town.

That night, 29 November 1944, the 8th Infantry Division moved into Kleinhau to relieve the two heavily hit 47th Infantry companies. The tanks stayed in the town until the next afternoon, and then pulled out of Kleinhau into the woods west of the town. Artillery and mortars continued to fall steadily. During all of this action the 95th Artillery Bn. continued to blast German positions with counter-battery and support fire.

Task Force Hamberg stayed in the woods west of Kleinhau until it received orders on 1 December to take the town of Brandenberg, three miles south of Kleinhau. It was the start of another bitter, cruel fight against mines, artillery and the ever-present German snipers. It was most probably during these fights that my father was killed in action by enemy mortar fire, but because of heavy fighting and constant troop movements my father was reported Missing in Action for the next fifteen days ... In the mean time his pregnant wife Goldie was back home, still completely unaware of the fact that she would have to raise her still unborn child by herself, without her beloved husband Bernard ...

General Dwight D. Eisenhower said that veterans who participated in the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest place that struggle at the top of their list of hard fighting. Without hesitation men of the Fifth Armored put that ordeal at the head of their list. The month in the Hurtgen Forest was the darkest period in the division's combat history. In this dense and somber forest of pine, men battled snow and mud and frigid weather as well as an entrenched and fiercely resolute enemy, were prevented from maneuvering or deploying by the trees, the mud, the ravines and the extensive mine fields.

Advances had to be made in bitter yard-by-yard struggles against the well-placed Germans who fought here with savage tenacity. The attackers were subjected to tremendous concentrations of artillery and mortar fire directed from observation posts on high ground, across the Roer River. Foxholes offered little protection since the shells burst in the tree tops and sprayed the ground below with their fragments.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower said that veterans who participated in the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest place that struggle at the top of their list of hard fighting. Without hesitation men of the Fifth Armored put that ordeal at the head of their list. The month in the Hurtgen Forest was the darkest period in the division's combat history. In this dense and somber forest of pine, men battled snow and mud and frigid weather as well as an entrenched and fiercely resolute enemy, were prevented from maneuvering or deploying by the trees, the mud, the ravines and the extensive mine fields.

After each long, miserable and sleepless night spent in the icy foxholes, men numb from the cold climbed out at dawn to begin another attack. As they pushed forward through the thickly sown mine fields, the bursting shells and sniper fire, they watched their numbers dwindle. Each gain of a few yards exacted a frightful price in dead and wounded. And to the collecting stations in the rear flowed the heartbreaking procession of the wounded, some walking and the others on litters.

While the 5th Armored Division was fighting its way through the Hurtgen Forest and across the approaches to the Roer River, the Germans on 16 December began their last desperate attempt to attain victory on the Western Front ... the Battle of the Bulge had begun. On that day my father was found by his comrades and he was listed as Killed in Action. A sad and devastating loss to my mother, but nothing is worse than having a loved one Missing in Action. At least it was possible to put an end to the uncertainty, although that was just a very small comfort, because is also puts an end to that little bit of hope one has when a loved one is reported Missing in Action.

In February 1945, just two months after my father's death I was born to my mother Goldie ... my father's daughter, a daughter he had never been able to see.

By the time I was born my father had already been laid to rest in the largest temporary US Army cemetery in Europe, the temporary American Military Cemetery in Henri-Chapelle in plot KK, row 4, grave 71. My uncle Paul (Goldie's brother) visited Henri- Chapelle while he was stationed abroad after the war.

When the American government gave people back home the option to bring their loved ones home, my mother decided to bring my father's remains back home to Callands to have him buried close to his family. He was repatriated in 1947 to his church cemetery in Callands, Virginia across the road from the country store operated by his father. These days my father is still resting in that same cemetery where he is remembered, visited and honored by his loved ones. He is also honored by every visitor of the In Honored Glory website.

Special thanks to Bernard's daughter Bernadine
and to his wife Goldie for making this digital monument possible.