Austin Steen honored by countries he helped liberate

"It brought back some memories - a lot of them."

Austin Steen's first visit to Bastogne in 70 years was all he thought it would be, and more.

When the World War II paratrooper from Crosbyton went into Belgium this time, though, he took along his two daughters and five grandchildren in a safety he and other GIs helped establish for the people of Europe.

Judy Cornelius said the trip back to the area where the Battle of the Bulge was fought was a dream long held by her father. "Ever since I was a little girl, he's always said he wanted to go back some day. I don't think he really thought he would get to."

In one of the crucial battles of World War II, Nazi Germany had massed its tanks and troops for an overwhelming assault designed to divide Allied forces and ultimately shove them off the continent.

Steen and others of the 17th Airborne Division were rushed to the battle front in trucks - weather didn't permit parachutes - to stop Germany's advance.

In his trip back to Europe, Steen didn't see German troops, just people who 70 years later still appreciated being delivered from the brutality of the Nazi war machine.

Dusty Cornelius, Steen's grandson, said the type of stories his grandfather used to tell them changed in Europe.

Memories of war

"When we were growing up, he always told us the funny stories, you know. He didn't tell us the bad stuff. But we got to Flamierge in Belgium, and he said, 'Well, this is where we left everybody to die.'

"I asked, 'What are you talking about?' And he said, 'The Germans surrounded us in that town and we couldn't get out. They called in and told us to leave all the wounded there, and to slip out three at a time at midnight - every 20 minutes three more would go.'

"He said the medic told them he wasn't leaving, and stayed there. They also left the German prisoner they had taken. When they came back and fought their way back into the city the next day - and there was a building there - the wounded were lying there dead. The Germans had killed them."

The medic had been taken to a prisoner-of-war camp, and the German prisoner - whom Americans treated well - had interceded fervently on behalf of the wounded, but the German soldiers killed them anyway.

"We never heard that story growing up."

Cornelius said, "There was another time at the Dead Man's Ridge - he said they were going backward because they were getting hit pretty hard, and they were shelling real close. Three of them took cover behind this tree, and the shell hit and killed the guy on either side of him, and he got powder burned.

"He's never told us those stories - I'm 40 years old, and I've never heard those stories."

Steen said the area was still familiar to him. "I recognized quite a few of the places we went to. We saw Bastogne - we spent three days in Bastogne. That was where it was so cold. My feet were frozen there."

Dead Man's Ridge

The grandchildren - Dusty Cornelius, Sandy Wallace, Tabitha Madry, Kristi Beauchamp and Amanda Calvio - walked along the Dead Man's Ridge while Steen and his daughters, Vicki Cole and Judy Cornelius, sat out the miles-long hike along the ridge. He had seen it before, anyway.

Madry and another woman on the tour discovered there were no convenience stores along the ridge, just small villages where houses still had the marks of bullet holes from 70 years ago.

When they needed a rest stop, a woman who couldn't speak English welcomed them inside her home. And in a brief conversation enabled by a kind of sign language, she talked about a basement in the house where she had hidden for two weeks from bombs and artillery shells when she was a 7-year-old.

She later posed for a picture with her arms around the two women.

Whatever else may have transpired in 70 years, the reality of the brutal domination by the Nazis apparently has remained indelibly printed in the minds of the residents of that region. Their children, it was found - even to the second and third generations - are so conversant with the horror of Adolph Hitler's era that they also are deeply appreciative of the American soldiers.

And into that appreciation, Pfc. Austin Steen, a World War II rifleman and message runner from West Texas, walked as a conquering hero.

Fellow soldiers

Sandy Wallace, a granddaughter who lives in Crosbyton, said there were three other soldiers who were taking the tour with her grandfather.

"There was my granddad and one other paratrooper, and then there were two glider pilots."

She said, "We all met up in Brussels just because that's where the airport is. From there, they chartered a bus to Bastogne. Right outside of Bastogne is where the Battle of the Bulge took place.

"I didn't see many houses. They have a few apartment buildings. I think it is more a town, or there they call them villages. They have a huge area - they call it McAuliffe Square - which is named after Gen. (Anthony) McAuliffe," she said of the officer who was given a surrender ultimatum by the German Army, and famously replied, "Nuts!"

"They had everything there dedicated to World War II veterans who fought for their liberation. They have museums and bars. They have Airborne Beer because of the 17th Airborne Division."

Schoolchildren know the story, also, according to Wallace.

"It was an elementary school, and there were third-, fourth- and fifth-graders assembled in the auditorium. The veterans sat at a table up front, and they had allowed these kids to prepare certain questions. The kids knew the history of the war." she said.

"They were in awe when they were told that the soldiers were 19 years old when they enlisted or were drafted into the Army; and that they got only $60 a month for jumping out of an airplane. Those kids ... the respect that those kids have."

At other stops, people would stand in line to get Steen's autograph.

He said, "They treat you like a king or something."

Wallace remembers, "We would have dinners or lunches every day, and people would line up - I mean there would be 100 people in line, and they would wait, whether they wanted a picture, or a signature, or just to shake his hand.

"We were calling him our rock star, and we told him we felt like we were his little groupies."

Soldier's monument

Cornelius said, "In the Ardennes Forest, they had cleared away an area to make a kind of park. They said, 'Austin, can you reach down there and pick up that piece of parachute?' He picked it up, and underneath was a monument with his name on it: 'Austin Steen, 17th Airborne Division.'"

In a restaurant, near the place where Steen had been asked to sit, was another piece of a parachute on the wall, and he was asked to remove it.

On the wall was a picture of Steen, taken when he was in the service at age 19, and below it was a description of who he is.

Judy Cornelius said, "It's written in French on the wall, and they told him it would be there forever."

She noticed that the people didn't just thank him for saving their country. They would always say it poetically and in a personal way:

"Thank you for saving my world."

ray.westbrook@lubbockonline.com

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