Background Information

Background from the Stars and Stripes pamphlet, The Story of the Century (1945):

The battalion bumped into a stone wall of resistance when it reached Lemberg. Although the town was encircled by nightfall, the beginning of a bitter four-day struggle was underway. Artillery pounded Lemberg as 399th's three battalions pushed ahead to take high ground surrounding the town. Nazis fought doggedly under a "fight-to-the-last-man" order. When 2nd Bn. cut the Lemberg-Bitche road and railroad Dec. 8, 1st Bn. ripped into the town. After house-to-house fighting during the night and early morning, the battalion completed occupation and mopping up of Lemberg.

Against bitter opposition, the regiment surrounded the town Dec. 6, blasting it with artillery. Next day, in the face of heavy mortar, automatic weapons, and small arms fire, 1st and 2nd Bns. entered the town and spent the next two days cleaning out lingering enemy resistance. After Lemberg's fall, 398th passed through the 399th and moved northward toward Bitche and the Maginot Line to carry the brunt of the division attack. The 397th continued to drive east abreast of the 398th.

And from the Century Division web site:

One of the soldiers of Company L, Private First Class Maurice Lloyd of Rock Island, Illinois, fired his Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) against the onrushing Grenadiers until he was shot through the head. During the bitter fighting withdrawal of his platoon to its next defensive position, no one realized PFC Lloyd was gone, and by the time the Americans recovered their lost ground later in the winter, new snow had fallen, concealing the body. PFC Lloyd was listed as Missing in Action until 1976.

In that year, a French hiker taking a cross-country path through the woods found PFC Lloyd's remains, still in his foxhole . . . and still clutching the BAR with which he had so defiantly spat death at the attackers over 31 years before. PFC Lloyd's remains were finally laid to rest in honored glory amongst his comrades in the Ardennes Cemetery.

The grateful people of Lemberg erected a monument at the site of PFC Lloyd's three-decade long vigil in 1995.

The Veterans of the U.S. 100th Division Guests of Honor at May 8 Ceremonies

In spite of the rain and the wind, the celebration of the liberation from occupation on May 8, 1945, had a particular highpoint in Lemberg thanks to the presence of a dozen veterans of the U.S. 100th Division, liberators of the community during the Second World War. Mr. Guilbot, president of the French remembrance society, and his color bearer were also present. In front of the monument to the war dead, only the snapping of the flag, whipping in the wind, gave an answer to the American and French anthems, played by the Saint Maurice Harmony, under the direction of Joseph Neiter. While the Mayor of Lemberg Fernand Henrich laid a wreath at the foot of the monument on which were counted out the names of the victims of this greatest tragedy of the last century a religious silence fell. In the faces of these veterans, one could see lines, souvenirs of a somber but also heroic period.

Difficult to contain emotion before Nat Gattinella of Seattle, Robert Heller of New York, or Bill McNut(sic) of Columbus, all aged 17 to 20 years old at that time, living witnesses of the desperate combat that unroled all around Lemberg. The group is led by the Reverend Bill Glazier, his immense height, his well-defined silhouette, and his face engraved by time. A long meditative silence was observed before the monument to the dead beside the town hall in memory of a liberation dearly acquired.

The Carved Memorial of a Compatriot

Before the official ceremony in front of the town hall, the American delegation met in the forest near Lemberg at the monument to their compatriot Maurice Lloyd, fallen under German fire next to the railroad between Bitche and Lemberg. His bones were discovered in 1976 in what is called an individual hole or a hole of a fox, which served as protection during the war. Identified thanks to his identification number, he rests from now on in the American cemetary in the Belgian Ardennes. September 17, 1995, during the 50th Anniversary ceremony of the liberation, a stone memorial carved by Justin Guebl was deddicated with teh assistance of the Club Vosgienne in the exact spot where the body of the soldier, who was part of the U.S. 100th Division, was discovered.