One War's One-Month Twilight: WWII Veteran Hoby Rosen To Speak At Curley's This Tuesday

This week's featured poet and artist, Hoby Rosen, will be sharing his recollections of his military service during the grueling closing winter months of World War II in Western Europe. Launched on December 16, 1944 in a rash attempt to break up the American/British/French alliance by crippling Allied supply channels, Hitler's surprise Ardennes Offensive became more widely known as the Battle of the Bulge for the bulge it created in the Allies' front line.

Me-262 "Swallow" jet fighter-bomber

From the misery of trench foot and the historic, if ineffectual, introduction of the first jet-propelled fighter, to the melancholy of wartime holidays and the atrocity of the Malmédy Massacre, the conflict, involving the biggest engagement of the war by U.S. forces, (600,000 soldiers) and costing more than 190,000 lives all around, encapsulated the pyrrhic confusion of horror, hope, suffering, ingenuity and cruelty that characterizes all wars. 

POW massacre, Malmedy, Belgium, 1945

Hoby went on to study at Johns Hopkins and the University of Southern California, where he concentrated on writing, drama and film production.

Soldiers exchanging Christmas gifts, 1944

PoemAlley member and sculptor--with studio space at Stamford's Loft Artists Association (one of numerous art organizations with which he is affiliated), Hoby enjoys working in wax for bronze casting, though he also dabbles in treated paper, glass casting and wood. Click here to see some of his work. He can be reached at hobyart@aol.com.