Kiosk tells story of 'secret heroes'

The Ardennes Offensive of December 16, 1944 — more commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge — was the bloodiest encounter in World War II for American forces. It began when Hitler's armies launched a surprise attack on the Allied line, with the goal of splitting it in half, and ended with 19,000 American troops dead, another 23,000 captured.

Much of history's focus has been on the 101st Airborne Division, which rushed to the tactically critical Belgian municipality of Bastogne. But it was actually the 10th Armored Division — the Tigers, whose slogan was "terrify and destroy" — that rode to make first contact with the Germans in Bastogne, part of a secret operational strategy engineered by Gen. George S. Patton.

That strategy involved having the soldiers of the 10th remove their arm patches. As a result, their sacrifices were not known until after the fall of the Third Reich — and still are not well known to this day.

A new kiosk at Fort Knox's Patton Museum aims to bring these heroes some long-overdue credit, using multimedia and interaction to tell the story of the 10th.

advertisement This story and all of our great free content is supported by:   AdFlow Networks  Available anytime, anywhere. Drive sales and enhance the customer experience by delivering targeted messages where they matter most - at the point-of-purchase.

‘Terrify & Destroy'

In 1948, the 10th Armored Division formed its own veterans' association. At its peak, it boasted a roster of 5,000 members; today, owing to the attrition of time, there are about 1,800.

CeroView built the 10th Armored Division's memorial kiosk with its Grand Rex enclosure model.

But the association found that it needed to spend some money before it closed its doors — in order to realize a tax benefit — and Bubin decided to build a kiosk to commemorate the first tank division to land in Europe.

"We wanted something extraordinary to tell our story," he said. "I felt that it would be dramatic to use a kiosk to tell our story."

Bubin searched the Internet for suppliers, and ended up choosing Irvine, Calif.-based CeroView. In particular, he was drawn to the "Grand Rex" model, an imposing juggernaut of a machine built around a high-end 40-inch Sony LCD display and a gaming-class PC.

"I was impressed with the look of the kiosk," he said. "I wanted it to stand out, and I wanted it to look solid. This is about an armor division, after all."

Derek Fretheim, chief executive of CeroView, said his company built the application for the kiosk in about a week. The content is drawn from a documentary DVD commissioned by the 10th's veterans association. Museum patrons can use the kiosk to view more than an hour's worth of content – two in-depth analyses of the events of the battle and a look at Bastogne today.

Generals William H. Morris (left) of the 10th Armored "Tigers" and Tony McAuliffe of the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagles" were decorated with the Croix de Guerre and the Presidential Citation for their units' heroic defense of Bastogne, after Germany's surrender. Both also received the Distinguished Service Cross, one of the highest American military awards.

The final reunion of the 10th Armored Division was held in Louisville, Ky., on Sept. 1, 2006. Part of the "final salute ceremony" included a visit to the Patton Museum where the kiosk made its debut. Approximately 100 surviving members of the 10th were on hand, and many of them got tears in their eyes when they used the machine.

"I'm happy with it," Bubin said. "These men deserve the attention. They deserve to be remembered like this."