Pearl continues. “After we retired, Vern and I traveled. We enjoyed going to the 508^th Parachute Infantry Regiment Association reunions.

The first reunion we attended was in Fayetteville, NC. Vern always remembered his emotional meeting with Glenn Sommerville, his WW II Section Sergeant who lost an eye and arm during the Battle of the Bulge. 

Vern had helped carry “Slim” to a stretcher, and for many years believed he was dead.” 

Vernon Tharaldson joined Hq1 July 1944 in Nottingham, England. He was assigned to the 81mm Mortar Platoon and served therein for the remainder of this military career.

After a short orientation and training period, Vern parachuted into a German occupied field near Nijmegen, Holland.

Following months of combat around the Nijmegen Bridge and its high-way approaches, the men of Hq1, carrying their equipment, marched 22 miles to rendezvous with trucks which carried them to Sissonne, France. 

Life in Sissonne was good, living  in an old French Artillery Post with dry rooms, good food and with very little training.

Some Hq1 men even had three-day passes to Paris. However, it all end-ed on December 17, 1944, when the Germans launched a massive surprise attack through the Ardennes, trying to reach the English Channel.

The 508^th PIR was alerted and on December 18, loaded into large open trucks and moved to Belgium. It was a long, cold ride, no food, and very brief rest halts. 

At Werbomont, Belgium, Hq1 worked throughout the night and the following day to establish a defensive position. During the next few days, the 508^th PIR maneuvered to find the strongest positions from which to stop the advancing German armored and infantry forces.

Finally, the 508^th PIR was ordered to Vielsalm, a town on the Salm River, to establish an escape corridor for the survivors of the 106^th Infantry Division and 7^th Armored Division that were fleeing in front of the German forces. These desperate troops had been severely mauled in the surprise German attack. They had sustained numerous casualties and the loss of essential leadership. Their situation was desperate.

In the next few days, hundreds of men, trucks and tanks, transited the 508^th PIR corridor to safety.