World War II veteran nearing 100th birthday

Chuck Menige's timing was not good when he was shipped overseas to fight in World War II. After two years of deferments and 17 weeks of training, he didn't enter the war until December 1944.

The 22-year-old Army soldier was among much-needed replacement troops in the Battle of the Bulge in Belgium.

Chuck, who will be celebrating his 100th birthday June 26, was a member of the 84th Infantry Rail Splitters and was assigned to accompany tanks heading to the front line. He arrived in the middle of fighting on Christmas Eve 1944 during one of the costliest battles for American troops during the entire war.

“Tanks were the first target of the Germans, so we were constantly jumping off, scattering and finding cover,” he said.

Weather conditions were abysmal, with freezing rain, deep snowdrifts, heavy fog and record-breaking sub-freezing temperatures.

He said he spent his first night in a freezing foxhole. “We wore as many clothes as we could find. I had on two shirts and two pairs of pants with a heavy overcoat,” he said. “So many men had frostbite.”

The Germans had dropped troops behind the Allied lines who were dressed as American GIs and spoke English, in an attempt to infiltrate and create confusion.

Chuck said soldiers on watch were given code words to use. To this day, he can remember his word, which was whiskers. “And the answer was bristles,” he said.

Some units also used trivia questions about American life, sports and movies.

“It was hard, but we never gave up an inch. We stopped them dead and they never moved closer,” he said.

The battle ended Jan. 25, 1945, and the Allied victory paved the way to the end of war, which took place five months later, May 7.

Chuck stayed with his unit as they moved into Germany. “It was bad and just like you see in movies. Every building was demolished,” he said.

But three days into their march, Chuck suffered a hernia and spent the rest of the war in an English hospital bed. He returned to his unit three months after the war ended and was assigned to patrol along the Danube River in occupied Austria. “We were on one side of the river and the Russians were on the other,” he said.

In April 1946, he was shipped back home.

On the other side of the world, his brother, George, was fighting in the Pacific Theater. He was wounded during the Battle of Saipan in the summer of 1944 and carried shrapnel in his chest for the rest of his life.

Working on war ships

Chuck, who was the first resident of The Lodge at Truitt Homestead near Rehoboth Beach, grew up in the Philadelphia area, where he lived for 80 years. He joined the family plumbing business, and one of their jobs was installing plumbing at all of the rest stops along the new Philadelphia Turnpike.

In early 1941, he said, a shift to a wartime economy started and he took a job at the shipyards in Chester, Pa.

“I was working 10 hours a day, seven days a week on ships,” he said. “I came home with a bundle of money and bought a 1941 Chevy brand new for $954,” he said.

After the Dec. 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, a shipyard closer to his home opened. He went to work there, leading a crew of 40 men installing copper pipe.

“For two years, we worked on a battle cruiser. I was able to stay out of the draft because my job was essential to the war effort,” he said.

As the war intensified, no deferments were granted to men under the age of 26; Chuck was 22 at the time.

He was drafted into the Army and attended a 17-week training camp in Florida before being shipped to Belgium.

Chuck and his wife of 75 years, Lillian, have two daughters who both live in Lewes. With his daughters, Mame and Linda, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren not close to Philadelphia, he and his wife decided to move to Rehoboth Beach in 2003. His wife passed away in July 2017.

In 2020, he sold his house and moved into the The Lodge, which will host a birthday party for Chuck June 26.

Battle of the Bulge

The Battle of the Bulge, Hitler's last-ditch offensive, was fought along an 85-mile front in the Ardennes Forest. Initially, American troops were caught off guard and were heavily outnumbered. As Germans advanced, a bulge was created in the Allied lines, hence the battle's name.

The Germans’ Blitzkrieg comprised 200,000 troops and 1,000 tanks.

Once the Allies mobilized, the tide turned. On Christmas Day, the fog lifted enough for American planes to begin bombing missions.

Half of the 1 million soldiers in the battle were Americans. More than 19,000 troops were killed in action, 47,000 were wounded and another 23,000 were missing.