We hear voices from the past coming in many forms: Books, recordings and even in memories. Perhaps the most personal are letters from loved ones telling of danger and adventure in far off places. Such is the voice of Lt. Col. Glen Roswell Weikert, a World War II commander communicating with his parents in letters addressed, “Dear Dad and Mommy…Words of Love and Kisses.”

Lt. Col. Weikert was commanding officer, 794th Ordinance Co., 94th Infantry Division between May 1944 to February 1945. The letters he wrote to his parents passed to his sister, and now are in the hands of her grandson, Tim Yoder of Fountain Hills. Yoder’s family has long been a familiar name in Fountain Hills; his dad, Tim, and grandfather, Fred, building many homes in the community from the early days. Fred’s wife, Dorothy, is the sister of Lt. Col. Weikert.

This article will not reflect the letters; that is for young Yoder to do in a presentation at the Community Center in January, titled as Weikert addressed the letters to his parents. This story will tell of Weikert’s service and that of another great uncle of Yoder’s – two men with a future connection who very nearly crossed paths as the U.S. Army swept into Germany late in 1944 after D-Day.

Fountain Hills has been home to Tim Yoder for 46 years. He taught history in the local school district, is a local historian and an alumnus of Arizona State University with a Master of Arts degree in German Literature. He studied in Germany, living with a family not far from where his uncles fought 75 years ago.

“This is a story about my family – typical, everyday Americans,” Yoder said. “It’s the story about two of my great uncles – one from each side of my family – who both served the United State in General George Patton’s 3rd Army 75 years ago in the Battle of the Bulge.”

Lt. Col. Weikert, known as Roswell to friends and family, was an Ohio native, grew up there and graduated Wittenberg College and it is in that state where he died in 1968.

He worked for International Harvester after college and was 40 years old when he was moving across Germany with Patton’s army. His background with IH, where he was in charge of material handling and industrial safety, proved useful as an ordinance unit commander – a group that provides support for soldiers in the field. The ordinance companies were responsible for supplying, maintaining all light vehicles, weapons and ammunition.

Weikert and his company arrived in England aboard the Queen Mary in August 1944, a ship that on a single voyage transported 16,000 to the war theater. In early September they landed at Utah Beach, the sight of bloody fighting on D-Day just three months earlier.

Weikert’s division established a base in Brittany in the northwestern region of France around Lorient and St. Naziere. Their goal was to contain German troops in the region, numbering about 60,000. Weikert’s role had him traveling the area working with other company commanders and French locals with the goal of obtaining necessary transportation, parts, fuel and supplies for the division.

The same day Weikert arrived at Utah Beach the U.S. 26th Infantry Division also landed at Utah Beach. The division had bypassed staging in England and went directly to Utah Beach. Among the soldiers with the 26th was Private Paul Phillips, another of Yoder’s uncles to serve during the war.

Phillips was a rifleman and .50 caliber machine gunner. His 26th Infantry Division was assigned to Patton’s 3rd Army around mid-October. They are only 100 miles from the German border when Phillips’ 328th Infantry Regiment were about to experience heavy, brutal combat.

According to the history of the 26th Infantry Division researched by Yoder, about Dec. 11, 1944, some of the soldiers from Phillips’ unit were among the first to set foot inside Germany while on patrol near the town of Obergailbach.

They would pull back into France to rest, gather and train reinforcements before being sent north into Luxembourg and Belgium. It was in this area on Dec. 16 that German troops launched the counter offensive that turned into the long and bloody “Battle of the Bulge” in brutal snowy, freezing conditions.

On Dec. 20, Phillips was walking point when he stepped on a landmine. Yoder writes that Phillips lay wounded in such a position that German troops passing left him for dead. American troops retaking the area found him and rendered aid.

“If not for the new wonder drug of penicillin and careful recuperation in a hospital in England his foot, or more, may have been lost,” Yoder said.

Late in December or early in January 1945, Weikert and the men of the 94th were reassigned to Patton’s army. After being relieved in Brittany they traveled 600 miles to enter combat in the border area of France, Luxembourg and Germany.

By mid-January the men of the 94th were engaged in back and forth combat – taking and retaking towns and villages in the area. There were hundreds of frozen dead with no time to bury them, so the men of the 794 Light Ordinance Company took to stacking bodies along the road and in abandoned farm houses to be buried later.

“The sight of this was …‘attention grabbing’ for the enemy in those cases where they took back ground that was won by Americans and wherein the Americans stacked the frozen dead,” Yoder said.

Turning back the German army at the Battle of the Bulge allowed the Americans to turn attention to offensive efforts to cross the Rheine River with designs on capturing Berlin.

The final letter Weikert sent to his parents was dated Feb. 6, 1945, although he served out the remainder of the war and for a time in post-war duty in Czechoslovakia.

Phillips was released from the hospital and returned to the states in June 1945.

Yoder recalls the two men never met until attending a family wedding years later.

Yoder will present the program of personal records and letters from England, France and the Battle of the Bulge on Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2020 at 2 p.m. at the Community Center. There will be limited seating.