Rogers State University Assistant Professor Dr. David Ulbrich will present a lecture titled “Those Damned Engineers in the Battle of the Bulge” to mark the 70th anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge.
Dr. Ulbrich’s lecture is scheduled for 6 p.m. in the Baird Hall Performance Studio on the RSU Claremore campus on Thursday, January 15.
The lecture will be followed by a question and answer session. It is free and open to RSU students and faculty, veterans and the general public.
Dr. Ulbrich teaches classes on “War and Society,” “The Vietnam Conflict,” and “World War I” in the Bachelors of Arts in Military History program.
Ulbrich is co-author of Ways of War: American Military History from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-first Century. Before coming to RSU in 2013, Ulbrich worked as a historian for the U.S. Army Engineer School at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri.
Some 70 years ago, the German Army launched a surprise attack against the American forces in Belgium. More than 200,000 German soldiers and 1,500 tanks came roaring out of the wintry dawn to overwhelm the American soldiers on the front lines. The success of stubborn American defense of Bastogne is well known and deserves attention. However, about forty miles north along the Elsenborn Ridge, other desperate fights took place. American combat engineers faced off against the mighty German King Tiger tanks and stopped them in their tracks. These engineers held bridges against enemy capture or blew bridges that blocked the German advance. This lecture will discuss some of the officers and enlisted soldiers of the 291st and 51st Engineer Combat Battalions that saw action. Their courageous efforts are indicative of so many American sacrifices and successes in the Battle of Bulge. January 15, 2015, marks the anniversary of the end of this bloody engagement in 1945.