Deeds Not Words: Tribute to a fallen warrior

The American Battle Monuments Commission notes that a Second Lieutenant Edwin J. Bulman, 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Division, United States Army lies buried at Plot E, Row 14, Grave 69 in the Henri-Chapelle American Cemetery, Henri-Chapelle, Belgium having died on 20 September 1944 and having been awarded the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. It also notes that he entered the service from Montana.

The Helena Independent ran a small piece offering news from a number of families with service personnel on 29 October 1944 on page eleven of their Sunday edition. There was a note there from Fred A. Bulman, Verona's father. His son, Second Lt. Edwin J. Bulman, was reported killed in action on September 20th "over Germany". The news item informed readers that E.J. Bulman had been born in Wibaux County and had later left with his parents for Michigan before moving on to Washington. F. A. Bulman stated that his son had entered the service at Bremerton. Indeed, Edwin J. Bulman is listed on the Washington State Role of Honor, Part 4: World War II, A-F.

The tune to "Red Wing" (see previous post) runs through my head as I remember that Edwin was Verona's little brother born five years after she was in Wibaux (pronounced "wee-bow") County in eastern Montana just across the border from North Dakota. Verona told me that they had lived out on the prairie in a tar-paper shack with a sod roof. Once, their father, a farmer and sometime bounty-hunter (animals) who had fought in the Spanish-American War (1898), was away for a time. During his absence, they tried to straighten the curled tails of the pigs. Upon his return he surmised what had been done and obtain a pledge that it would not happen again.

Sometime between 1920 and 1930, the adventure on the plains, which had begun around 1908 according to Margaret Bulman's obituary in the Waukesha Freeman of 7 February 1940, ended. The couple from Eau Clair, Wisconsin, had moved to the city of Flint in Gensesee County, Michigan. According to the 1930 Census, F.A. Bulman's wife, Lena Bulman nee Kunferman (47), was still there with the eldest son, Euguene V. who was twenty-five, and a single daughter, Luella, who was seventeen. Otis (22) and Verona (18) were living in the household as well. According to the Genesee County Marriage Index, they had been married on 9 September 1929. Otis' older brother, Clarence C. Hayes had married Violet F. Wright in the same county on 19 March 1927. Verona's brother, Percy H. (22) was also living in Flint at another location with his wife Vida M. (20) and their son Robert L. (21 months).

Edwin J. (13) and his younger brother, Archie (11) were living at what was to become the family's final farm in Puyallup, Pierce County, Washington. They were living with their father who was fifty-eight at the time and their grandmother, Margaret Bulman, who had been born in Hep Darmstadt, Germany, around 1847. Fred and Margaret would return to Waukesha, Wisconsin, in August 1939 shortly before Margaret's death at the age of ninety-three. Washington State records reveal that Lena Bulman, Verona's mother, had drowned in the Puyallup River at McMillan, Pierce County, Washington on 22 June 1938. She was fifty-seven.

Just a few days before Pearl Harbor, Edwin joined the Army on 3 December 1941 according to the U.S. World War II Army enlistment records data-base for 1938-1946 which was accessed through Ancestry.com. He had enlisted in Missoula, Montana with 2 years of high school and was categorized as being a semiskilled mechanic of motor vehicles. The records also reveal that he was married and that his 5 feet 11 inch tall frame carried 167 pounds. Interestingly, the branch code lists "Branch immaterial--Warrant Officers, USA".

There is a family memory that he was indeed living in Missoula with Verona and Otis when he enlisted. His wife's name or nick-name was Bonnie and their son was named Dennis. Apparently, they were already divorced or separated at the time. There is a faded memory and a missing (temporarily) photograph of him with a 3rd Infantry Division patch on his uniform before he went to England from Fort Lewis, Washington. However, he had been to Fort Benning in Georgia for basic training and, then, to Officers Candidate School (OCS).

This may explain why F.A. Bulman thought he had enlisted from Bremerton (a naval base) in Washington. It may also been the case that he had been designated to become a warrant officer in a mechanized unit with his mechanical background.

We know from the testimony of Sergeant Robert K. Pacios of second platoon, "A" Company, 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, that an Edwin J. Bulman joined this Company and became second platoon leader just five days after Pacios himself had joined the regiment as a replacement on 17 August 1944. They had their first real combat experience as a new company comprised of 70% replacement troops at Liege shortly thereafter.

By 13 September 1944, they were a part of "Task Force X' which stormed the first row of the cement "dragon's teeth" that formed part of the Siegfried Line. They kept moving through German towns and villages such as Oberforstback, Hifeld, Brand and Freund. Eventually, they came to the industrial suburb of Munster-Busch overlooking Stolberg which was a tactical point of interest in the Stolberg Corridor. By 17 September, pitched battles were being fought for control of the area.

Here is how one historian described the conditions under which Edwin died:

As the fighting continued in the Stolberg Corridor, both German and American units wore themselves out. While the 3d Armored Division's CCA [Combat Command A] tried to take high ground about the industrial suburb of Muensterbusch, less than half a mile west of Stolberg, and CCB [Combat Command B] to occupy the high ground east of Stolberg, the enemy's 12th Division and what was left of the 9th Panzer Division continued their futile efforts to re-establish the Schill Line. The result was a miserable siege of deliberate, close-in fighting which brought few advantages to either side.

Attachment of the remnants of the 9th Panzer Division to the 27th Fusilier Regiment made CCA's task at Muensterbusch considerably more difficult. Not until late on 19 September did troops of CCA gain a foothold in Muensterbusch from which to begin a costly, methodical mop-up lasting over the next two days. (MacDonald, page 89)

Edwin died in the intensive house-to-house, urban warfare that constituted the costly "mop-up". According to Sergeant Pacios, the former platoon sergeant, Raleigh F. (Pete) Colbert, Junior, was given a battlefield commission and made a 2nd Lieutenant. He assumed command of the second platoon of "A" Company, 36th Armored Infantry Regiment, 3rd Armored Division, First Army.

Ironically, Edwin J. Bulman was killed some hundred miles from where his grandmother had been born nearly one hundred years earlier.
A 3rd Armored Division web-site with a great deal of information to sort through can be found here. Alternate access to the American Military Cemetery at Henri-Chapelle in Belgium can be found here and here (great ambience and search capability).