By David Fleet
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Goodrich — In the early morning hours of Dec. 16, 1944, Roy Stacey, a U.S. Army Tech. fourth grade with the 134th AAA gun battalion on duty in Bullingen, Belgium was awoken by the sound of enemy shells passing over his head.
“At midnight on the 16th we got word to move out. We marched at 3 a.m.,” said Stacey.
“At the time we didn’t realize the extent of the attack from the Germans coming toward us– but we knew it was not a great situation.”
Then 20-year-old Stacey was unaware the mid-December commotion was the early hours of the Battle of the Bulge, the final major battle before the conclusion of WWII.
Monday marked 80 years since the Battle of the Bulge, one of the costliest of WWII with more than 80,000 casualties, according to the U.S. Army. Among the thousands of troops who participated, locally Stacey who was later hired by the Goodrich School District in 1951 as a social studies teacher. Two years later he became high school principal where he served for 23 years. He also was middle school principal for 10 years until his retirement in 1986. In 2005 Stacey, who passed away in 2010, shared his experience at the Battle of the Bulge with The Citizen newspaper.
Following the allied invasion of France in June 1944, troops were pushing across Europe toward Germany with general success. However, just nine days before Christmas during one of the coldest and snowiest winters in history, three powerful German armies turned on allied troops entrenched in the forested Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg. Before it was completed more than 1 million troops–500,000 German, 600,000 Americans and 55,000 British would engage in the worst battles–in terms of losses to the American forces in WWII.
Stacey’s trek to the frozen Belgium countryside in the teeth of the Nazi resurgence started nearly two years earlier in the small northern Lapeer County village of North Branch.
Born in 1924, Stacey graduated from North Branch High School in 1942. He was drafted into the US Army in April 1943 and sent to Fort Custer near Battle Creek. He was trained on 90 mm anti- aircraft guns in several locations including: Camp Wallace, Texas, Fort Sheridan, Ill., and Ft. Bliss, Texas. His unit also practiced in remote areas of Louisiana.
During the summer of 1944 Stacey boarded a troop ship in Boston Harbor bound for Glasgow, Scotland and the war in Europe.
“We were part of a big convoy of about 50 ships,” he recalled. “Destroyers went along with us across the Atlantic. A troop ship is a lousy place to be–there’s a lot of sea sickness. You’ll be eating and someone will throw up on you. The troops are all packed in this ship, bunks are stacked four high.”
In Europe, Stacey’s battalion moved from Scotland to Folkstone, England on the English Channel. In early September 1944 his group then headed across France to Bullingen, Belgium with the allied troops heading toward Germany.
The relatively quiet march across Europe for Stacey and other troops ended on the bitter cold December morning.
“We retreated several miles back from Bullingen to Eupen, Belgium. During the retreat we passed thousands of infantry along the road. It was very cold. The region was a desolate area like northern Michigan with lots of scrub brush, forests and many small villages.”
“As soon as the battle started it seemed to snow everyday,” he said. “It was absolutely miserable, we did not have galoshes–just shoes. You would get wet–a lot of men suffered from frostbite. There was mass confusion and a great deal of anxiety–you could hear machine guns firing all the time.”
Gun batteries from Stacey’s gun battalion stayed in contact with the Germans and used their 90 mm guns for shooting at Nazi tanks and field artillery. The headquarters and Stacey moved back to an abandoned schoolhouse in Eupen.
“I was very fortunate to have a place to stay–men were freezing to death out there,” he said. “It was very overcast. The weather added to the problem–no allied planes could get into the area of the battle. Supplies, including food and ammunition were running very low.”
“But on Christmas morning the skies cleared after weeks of clouds and all of a sudden waves of allied planes started flying over–we now had some hope. It was a good sight to see. Your spirits really picked up when all those planes came over.”
The battle ended on Jan. 25, 1945 and Stacey would return home to North Branch in January 1946. He would enroll at Michigan State College and study school administration and education before his long stint at Goodrich Schools.
Carol Powers was a student at Goodrich Schools from 1951-1964 and worked as a central office secretary from 1981-2001 recalled Stacey.
“Mr. Stacey was an institution at Goodrich for many years,” said Powers. “Everyone admired him, many kids were afraid of him. If you did something wrong at school, Mr. Stacey would eventually see one of your parents uptown and then you would be in trouble at home, too.  No one questioned what Mr. Stacey said.  He always had the very best interest of the student in mind with all his decisions.”
He was strict but very kind, she recalled.
“He was at all the school events supporting the students,” Powers recalled.  “A while after I graduated, I came back to the school as an employee and he was the same, kind person to work with. He guided hundreds of students during their school years and they were blessed to have him as their principal.  He never mentioned that he was a war hero to any of us.  But, he was a hero to the Village of Goodrich in many people’s eyes.”