Lieutenant General Harry W. O. Kinnard, USA-Ret

Surrounded by the German army in late December, 1944, the men of the 101st Airborne were determined to hold the city of Bastogne at all costs. The commander of the German forces, confident he would achieve a quick victory, demanded the surrender of the city’s defenders. When confronted with this demand, the American commander at Bastogne, Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, laughed and exclaimed, “Us surrender? Aw, nuts!” McAuliffe’s G-3, then-Lt. Col. Harry Kinnard, thought the remark was a perfect reply to the demand for surrender, and suggested it be sent immediately to the German commander. This one word, “Nuts!”, became the rallying cry for the defenders of Bastogne.

Impressed with Kinnard’s wit, McAuliffe asked him to compose an address to be read to the men of the 101st on Christmas Eve, in order to keep their spirits high. The legendary address read in part:

“What’s merry about all this, you ask? We’re fighting—it’s cold—and we aren’t home. All true, but what has the proud Eagle Division accomplished with its worthy comrades…? Just this: We have stopped cold everything that has been thrown at us from the north, east, south and west…How effectively this was done will be written in history; not alone in our Division’s glorious history but in world history…”

Harry W.O. Kinnard’s words, during some of the darkest days of the war in Europe, served to inspire the men of the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division for not just the siege of Bastogne, but for generations to come.