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July 04, 2008
'Love and Memories' For WWII Vet On Independence Day
By Jim Richmond
The snow was 2 feet deep, and Europe was having its worst winter in 50 years.
Twenty-three-year old Curtis Canard, fresh from the farm fields of Northwest Arkansas, was a member of the U.S. Army’s famous 82nd Airborne and a long way from home, cold to the bone, and after wearing the same combat clothes for a month, smelled as bad as he looked.
Canard found himself stuck in the snow, and in the middle of the biggest battle of endstage World War II: the Battle of Bulge.
The battle dragged on from December 1944 to January 1945, and was the last German offensive in the west during World War II. It pushed a "bulge" into Allied lines in Belgium and Luxembourg.: Over 75,000 Americans were killed, maimed, or captured at the Battle of the Bulge
The Allies would eventually cut off the German advance near the Meuse River and the Germans withdrew, suffering heavy losses.
On January 7th, Canard was part of a patrol, sent to check on an Allied outpost and to set up a road block against the Germans advance on the western side of the Salam River. Canard would be the only patrol member to fight on.
“We scrunched down in deep snow beside the road, when suddenly we saw 5 German tanks and about 200 infantrymen approaching us.
Curtis Canard, right, on leave in France,1945, with unknown Army buddy..
"The patrol opened fire, and the tanks killed two of us; a third took off running over a hill. I laid unobserved in the deep snow, in a ditch, when the Germans passed. They were close enough to spit on me,” he recalled.
In later combat, Canard would fight hand-to-hand with the Germans outside a farmhouse, injured by artillery fire, and be awarded 3 Bronze Star medals by war’s end.
Returning home, Canard helped on the family’s 370-acre farm near Mountain View, Arkansas, “milked cows, and grew wheat, corn and potatoes – all the food we ate,” Canard said.
“We didn’t have any heat in the part of the farmhouse where we (Canard and his six siblings) slept, no electricity early on, and just an outhouse.”
Canard met Betty Hopper and the couple married in 1949.
Like many others from the rural south, the Canards soon moved north to Michigan to find better jobs and a better life. They settled in Kalamazoo.
Betty and Curtis Canard. Outside Kellogg Company’s Porter Street Plant in Battle Creek, where Curtis worked for 25 years.)
Fifty-nine years later, the couple is still together, with five grown children, 14 grandchildren, and 8 great grandchildren.
Both are retired.
Curtis worked at the Kellogg Company’s Porter Street plant for 25 years. Betty was employed with the James River paper company in Kalamazoo, where she worked for 34 years
.“Especially on July 4th, we shouldn’t forget the War,” Canard, now 86, said. “So many Americans gave their lives to save democracy back then.”
On Independence Day, 2008, some of the Canard’s grown children have gathered at the family home near Richland to visit their parents.
This isn’t rural Arkansas, but there still was no heat or electricity (because of the recent storm) at the Canard’s home. The family said they didn’t mind.
Today, they’re sharing a lot of memories. And love.
Youngest daughter Colette, and her family are here from New York.
“My parents have always had high expectations for us. But they also have big, open hearts. Hard working people. Full of warmth. Integrity. And forgiveness,” Colette said.
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Comments
Jim, I do like reading your articles. You bring stories with interesting aspects on life.
thank you
fred
Posted by: derfsnave | July 04, 2008