By Patricia O’Leary-Treat
This month marks the 81st anniversary of the World War II “Battle of the Bulge.” It was the bloodiest battle of the war, with a record of up to 83,000 casualties between Dec. 16 and Jan. 28, 1944. While the Allies prevailed by the end of the battle, their victory came at high cost.
Among those casualties was Orange’s own, the late “Bud” Smith.
Known to most Milford-Orange residents as the genial owner-operator of the Orange Hills Golf Club, Smith’s obituary after his death in 2022 noted his tremendous love of family and friends.
In an article profiling Smith in 1915, journalist Randall Beach cited his philosophy of life: “Hardship Builds Character.” Smith said that among those hardships was his Army experience. When he was alive, though, he did not want to dwell in print on his experience as a prisoner of war after he was captured in the Battle of the Bulge.
Recently, Smith’s son Jud and his daughter Judy said they would welcome the chance to learn a little more about their father’s army experience. That prompted me to dig out the notes I made in 2020 for an article about him which he said he preferred not to see in print while he was still alive. He did not care to relive the pain he remembered.
Two years before he died, Smith told me that after he graduated from Hillhouse High in 1941, he tried to enlist in the Merchant Marines, but his parents refused to sign their consent. When he turned 18, no longer needing their consent, he enlisted in the Army Infantry. After basic training, together with 15,000 other GIs, he shipped out for Scotland on the Queen Mary.
Smith said the rumor spread onboard that Winston Churchill was on their ship, and he snuck up to see for himself if it was true. Churchill was aboard; Smith and his mates heard the leader’s famous oratory.
Not long after the new recruits arrived in Scotland, they were sent to Ardennes to form part of the long line of Allied troops guarding the territory that had been designated for rest and recruitment of battle-weary veterans of the Second Infantry.
In what was to be their final offensive of the war, the Germans took advantage of the thin defensive line the Allies formed at that point to take back Antwerp and surround Allied forces in order to seek separate peace terms from the British and the Americans. Aided by foul weather that kept Allied air reconnaissance from learning of their advance, the Germans successfully killed and captured some of the new infantrymen, including Bud Smith.
Smith lost 30 pounds in the five months he was a prisoner of war before he was repatriated.
Once back home, he enrolled at the University of Connecticut in engineering, received his degree in 1949, and at his father’s behest, began working for him at the golf club whose name was changed from Rolling Ridge to Orange Hills. Smith said his experience in the school of hardship came in handy when he slowly and stubbornly added nine holes to the course.
In the short time I knew him, Bud Smith was truly a gentle man whose love of his children and grandchildren was palpable. He also deserves to be remembered as noting “the uses of adversity” and as one of the veterans to whom we all owe a debt of gratitude.
Patricia O’Leary Treat is an Orange resident and a former Milford-Orange Times columnist.