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All prints are sold unframed
(same size as Brothers in Arms)
- A Victory of Faith -
a fine art print by Matt Hall
Only
360 prints, signed and numbered by
artist Matt Hall & 6 veterans including:
- Malmedy survivor Steve Domitrovich
- Ed Mauser, the oldest living
Band of Brothers veteran
-
Brothers in Battle "Wild Bill" Guarnere & Babe Heffron
- Plus two distinguished signers
from our list below!
ALSO
INCLUDES: COA
with
"History Behind the Art" stories/trivia
(CO residents add 4% sales tax)
$275.00 + $45 express airmail
SOLD
OUT
Only
190 prints, signed and numbered by artist Matt Hall
& at least 11 veterans including:
- Malmedy survivor
Steve Domitrovich
- Ed Mauser, the oldest living
Band of Brothers veteran
- Bob Noody, the best recognized Screaming
Eagle of WWII!
-
Brothers in Battle "Wild Bill" Guarnere & Babe Heffron
- Plus 6 other distinguished
signers from our list below!
PACKAGE
ALSO INCLUDES:
- A piece of metal skin from
a P-47 Thunderbolt lost in a Dec. 1944 training mission, the perfect relic
to frame with your print!
- 101st Airborne pin to frame
with your print!
-
Color COA with "History Behind the Art" stories and trivia
SOLD
OUT
Only
140 prints, signed and numbered by artist Matt Hall
& at least 16 veterans including:
- Sharpshooters Shifty
Powers & Earl McClung
- P-47 pilot Bernie
Sledzik
- Malmedy survivor
Steve Domitrovich
- Ed Mauser, the oldest living
Band of Brothers veteran
- Bob Noody, the best recognized Screaming
Eagle of WWII
-
Brothers in Battle "Wild Bill" Guarnere & Babe Heffron
-
Brecourt Manor heroes Buck Compton & Don Malarkey
- Plus 6 other distinguished
signers from our list below!
PACKAGE
ALSO INCLUDES:
- A piece of metal skin from
a P-47 Thunderbolt lost in a Dec. 1944 training mission, the perfect relic
to frame with your print!
- 101st Airborne pin to frame
with your print!
-
Color COA with "History Behind the Art" stories and trivia
A canvas edition of 44 prints may be made available in the future.
of the 101st Airborne:
E-Company
E-Company
Buck
Compton
E-Company
Joe
Drago
326th Glider
Infantry
E-Company
E-Company
E-Company
E-Company
F-Company
E-Company
E-Company
I-Co., 501st PIR
H-Company
the 9th AF who supported the 101st Airborne at Bastogne and beyond!
medics of World War II
P-47 pilot in the
514th Fighter
Squadron, 406th
Fighter Group
P-47 pilot in the 514th Fighter Squadron, 406th Fighter Group
P-47 pilot in the
524th Fighter Squadron,
27th Fighter Group
THE BATTLE OF THE BULGE
When Stephen Domitrovich
speaks to an audience about his WWII days, as one writer put it, "He
lowers his voice as if he is telling a secret." This is because Demitrovich
was in the middle of one of the most horrible atrocities against Americans
in WWII: the Malmedy Massacre.
In December 1944, Domitrovich was a 19-year-old medic in the 575th Ambulance
Company. He had come ashore at Normandy and had been attached to the 101st
Airborne throughout the campaign. Now, he found himself attached to the 99th
Infantry Division and evacuating westward in face of the massive German suprise
attack that began the Battle of the Bulge.
On December 17, at the crossroads near the town of Malmedy, Belgium, the German
1st SS Panzer Division ambushed Domitrovich's truck convy. The SS, under command
of Joachim Peiper, took Domitrovich prisoner and placed him amongst 120 other
POWs from mixed units.
Herded into a field, the SS trained machine guns on the Americans and stripped
them of their valuables. Domitrovich remembered, "Then, a split-second
before the first machine gun opened up, I heard a voice next to me say ‘Fall!’
and I did. I fell but I was not hit. So I decided to play dead. The firing
seemed to last forever, but when it finally stopped, blood-soaked bodies were
piled up all around me.”
Domitrovich closed his
eyes and thought of how his mother would take the news of his loss at Christmas.
Around him, he heard wounded and dying men moan for “God” or “Mom.”
Then, he heard the gun shots as the SS men waded amongst them, shooting the
wounded while “laughing and echoing the dying GIs” as they moaned.
“Suddenly, a big German boot held still next to me,” Domitrovich
remembered. “I felt the cold of a pistol against my forehead and held
my breath. The following couple of seconds must have been the longest in my
whole life…then, for some reason, the SS soldier did not pull the trigger
but went on to the next guy.”
As the SS troops moved on, Domitrovich lay still despite the 0-degree temperature, afraid to move. When he arose, in the field surrounding him lay 72 bodies of men who had been standing at his side, hours before. In the nearby fields, lay another dozen bodies of men who were cut down as they ran.
After a debriefing and medical attention, Domitrovich returned to serve out the Battle of the Bulge in a mobile ambulance company that would support the American breakout from Bastogne and advance through the surrounding Belgian towns.
Today, Domitrovich is one of the last known survivors of the 30 Americans who escaped the Malmedy Massacre and the 88 who died in that tragic event. Every day, Domitrovich thanks God for having spared him. He does what he can to help others and appreciates every second of life. And, as for the promise he made on December 17, 1944, he hasn’t missed a Sunday of mass since.
SCREAMING EAGLE OF WWII!
On the evening of June 5, 1944, at Upottery Airfield, Noody was immortalized in a photo taken of him aboard his C-47 immediately before takeoff. The photo was first published on the cover of an Army Air Forces magazine and it took on a life of its own afterward. In the picture Bob remembers he must have weighed at least 250 lbs., encumbered with his M-1 rifle, a bazooka, three rockets, land mines, and other assorted “necessities.”
Fifty feet of rope hung from his chest, which he later used to lower his leg bag to the ground, easing his fall and ensuring he was ready to fight. He landed behind the mayor’s house at Ste. Mere-Eglise. In the ensuing days, Noody utilized his bazooka to destroy a German tank that threatened his unit outside of Carentan. It was his first and last bazooka usage, as he expended the three rockets he carried into battle. A leg wound at Carentan ended his Normandy adventure.
Noody recovered from his wounds in time to make the Market Garden jump. He fought with Fox Company from Eindhoven to the Rhine. While recovering from the exhaustive Holland campaign, Noody and his unit were rushed by truck to stem the German breakthrough at Bastogne. He froze in regular fatigues, holding the line in the Bois Jacques woods next to Easy Company, above the town of Foy. He survived the patrols and constant shelling only to be wounded during a nighttime recon patrol of Foy prior to Easy Company’s assault on the town. Noody was wounded by friendly fire when a comrade dropped a live grenade while they sought refuge in a small house outside of Foy.
Noody recovered from his wounds in time to join his unit at Hagenau. He vividly recalls lying in a graveyard on the German side of the river at night during an attempt to take prisoners. As fighting ensued a friend whispered, “Boy, what a convenient place to die.” He survived the patrol only to discover that the “Grease Gun” he carried was defective. To this day Noody swears, “I hate guns! I don’t like guns of any kind.”
As the war ended, Noody celebrated with his unit in Berchtesgarden. One day, searching a train hidden in a tunnel, he retrieved a hand-crafted ceremonial sword belonging to Herman Goering. With the help of his friends he managed to get his prize home to America, where it now resides in a private museum collection.
Noody completed his wartime
duty in Zell Am Zee, Austria, and returned to the US where he received his
discharge in November 1945 at Ft. Dix, New Jersey. Today, he enjoys his retirement
with the company of his wife Elizabeth.
EASY COMPANY VETERAN!
On D-Day, Mauser parachuted into the hedgerows of Normandy with Chalk #69. He landed alone before linking-up with Sgt. Robert “Burr” Smith outside the town of Vireville. They soon found themselves in a vicious firefight around a farm house near the town. Although assigned to a machine gun squad, Mauser served primarily as a rifleman throughout the war, trusting his M-1 from the initial fight on D-Day to the Alpine forests of Austria.
During Market Garden, Mauser was one of 23 E-Company men who participated in the famous mission to cross the Lower Rhine on the night of Oct. 22, 1944 to rescue 120 British paratrooper survivors of the 1st British Airborne Division after their battle at Arnhem. That night rescue in German-occupied territory electrified the Allied Command, then reeling after the loss of over 7,000 men killed, wounded, and missing in the Arnhem assault. This daring mission remains one of the most successful operations of the entire war with not one casualty recorded. Mauser remembers guarding the left flank of the river beach, expecting an imminent attack that thankfully never came. His job was to protect the withdrawal of the survivor at all costs.
Following Holland, Mauser made the truck ride to Bastogne, clad in his regular fatigues. He endured the “toughest” battle of the war, “thanks to good fortune and the brotherhood that was Easy Company.” He reports being blessed by having a foxhole complex built by “someone who knew what he was doing.” The sturdy structure with a roof saved his life.
Mauser vividly recalls the breakout battle at Foy. Prior to the fight he, Sal Bellino, Richard Davenport, and John Plesha were sent on a night recon patrol of the town that was successful because “nobody was injured.” Mauser remembers that the battle for the town, which followed, was memorable in that Lt. Speirs demonstrated that his reputation as a fierce combat warrior was true. After Foy was taken, the fighting moved to Noville, where Mauser was wounded in the hand and sent to a hospital in France.
Mauser rejoined the unit
as it moved along the autobahn toward Hitler’s alpine home in Berchtesgarden.
Mauser spent his time there securing homes and farms and enjoying the beauty
of the area in the absence of combat. Later, in Kaprun, Austria, Mauser was
awarded the 85 points he had earned and shipped back to the states. On Sept.
17, 1945 he was discharged from the army in Chicago. Today, Mauser enjoys
his retirement, proud of the fact that he is the oldest survivor of Easy Company
at age 92.
FIGHTER PILOT
Based in Mourmelon, France, in December 1944, Bernie Sledzik remembers swapping souvenirs and attending USO shows with his friends in the 101st Airborne, whose division was bivouacked across the runway from his squadron.
Then, as a dreary December
17th dawned, he was "amazed to find the area that had been occupied by
the paratroop division, completely abandoned." Soon after, Bernie learned
that his Fighter Group, the 406th, would be tasked with providing close air
support solely to their friends of the 101st, now defending the town of Bastogne.
After several days of eagerly waiting for the bad weather to clear, Bernie
took to the air early on the morning of December 23rd. Over the "embattled
town of Bastogne," He jumped ten Bf-109s, shooting down one. In the ensuring
dogfight, his squadron downed five Bf-109s and lost two P-47s.
From that day through the arrival of Patton's relief force, Bernie and the 406th Fighter Group spent "every minute of those daylight hours within a ten mile radius (of Bastogne), attacking the enemy."
These actions earned the 406th their second distinguished unit citation, in which they were cited for having flown eighty-one missions, between the days of December 23-27. During those missions, they destroyed 610 motor transports, 194 tanks & armored vehicles, and 226 gun positions.
Following the relief of
Bastogne, Bernie was sent home having completed 67 combat missions from Normandy
through the Ardennes. He shot down two German fighters, was awarded the Distinguished
Flying Cross, the Air Medal with 12 Oak Leaf Clusters, and five battle stars
among his other decorations.
FIRST
TIME SIGNERS WHO
DEFENDED
BASTOGNE
FIGHTER PILOT
I-Company, 3rd Battalion, 501st PIR, 101st Airborne
Veteran of Normandy, Holland, Bastogne and the Eagle's Nest
H-Company, 3rd Battalion, 506th PIR, 101st Airborne
Veteran of Normandy, Holland, Bastogne and the Eagle's Nest
was "the ultimate test of the company." Beginning at 9 a.m. on January 13, 1945,
the attack to drive the Germans from the village of Foy, Belgium, quickly bogged down.
Encountering stiff resistance from the enemy's 6th Company, 10th Regiment, 9th Panzer Division, Easy’s C.O., Lt. Dike, called a halt to the unit’s progress 75 yards from town in the exposed, snow-covered fields. At times like this, Easy sorely missed troopers like Compton, Heffron, Guarnere, and Toye, all of whom were injured or infirmed and off the line.
From the edge of the Bois Jacques woods, Dick Winters watched with horror as the Germans poured fire into his former company. Winters wanted to relieve Dike and lead Easy himself. He grabbed his M-1, ran from the tree line, and then remembered his duty to the battalion.
Whirling, he came face to face with Lt. Ron Speirs, the right man at the right place and time. Winters shouted, "Speirs! Take over that company and relieve Dike and take that attack on it.” Under artillery fire, Speirs did just that. He barked new orders, got the company on the move, and, to check with I-Company on the other side of Foy, he took off, sprinting alone through no-man's -land.
As 1st Sgt. Carwood Lipton remembered Speirs’ dash, "...he just kept on running right through the German line, came out the other side, conferred with the I Company C.O., and ran back. Damn, that was impressive."
By 11 a.m., Easy, I-Co,
and reinforcements from H-Co had secured Foy and captured some 23 Germans
at a cost of a dozen casualties in Easy alone. But, as Matt Hall’s painting
shows, after the liberation of Foy, the men had something to celebrate; they
had passed "the ultimate test."
14.
Sgt. Don Malarkey remembered an unusual run-in in Foy; "In one house,
as I rushed in, a fellow American soldier was coming out. It was (lieutenant)
Eugene Brown, my old classmate from the University of Oregon, the guy whom
I'd twice forgotten to salute at Toccoa. I wasn't any more formal here. "Hi
Gene," I said. He didn't seem to mind; combat zones lend themselves to
informality. Plus, I think he glanced at the stripes on my shoulder. "Malark,
great to see you!" he responded.
15. The hero of Foy,
Ron Speirs. According to Clancy Lyall, Captain Speirs had the right outlook
on life: "Don't worry about it, you're dead already. You just keep
moving. If it's your time, it's your time."
16. Nicknamed "Chow Hound" for his love of snacks, Cpl. Forrest Guth searches his battered musette bag for candy to share. Forrest famously sewed extra pockets onto his Normandy jump jacket to accommodate extra food. Guth remembered his gear during the Bulge: "We wore our green fatigues and jackets. You didn't have many extra pairs of socks, so you had to be careful not to get wet feet and get frostbite...Everybody was dirty. You smelled...I didn't get an overcoat until the middle of Bastogne and we were resupplied by air.”
17. Ed Mauser, Easy Company's oldest surviving veteran, originally found himself in a horse-based Army Cavalry unit in Jan. 1942. After volunteering for transfer to the paratroops, he served with Easy from Normandy to Austria and holds the rare honor of being among the 23 E-Co men who rescued 120 British paratroopers from across the Rhine after Arnhem. Prior to the attack on Foy, Mauser went on a night recon patrol of the town.
18. E-Company’s kind-hearted George Luz gives a candy bar to two hungry Belgian brothers. Known for his imitations and comic relief, Jack Foley once remarked, "Every unit needs a George Luz." At the 1992 premier of the book Band of Brothers, in New Orleans, George Luz stepped to the microphone with his E-Co buddies in the audience. He said, “Nothing against my wonderful wife, Del, who I've been married to for forty years, but the three years I spent with these men were the best three years of my life.” Then, he got all choked up.
1.
Lt. Jack Foley, identified by the vertical, white bar on his helmet joined
E-Co at the tail end of the Holland campaign. Appointed the leader of 1st
Platoon in the Bois Jacques forest, at Foy, he and Sgt. Martin led a bold
flanking maneuver to attempt to circle the village despite sparse cover and
among haystacks and outbuildings that housed German snipers.
2. The white tic in
the 9 o’clock position of H-Company trooper Ken Johnson’s helmet
signifies that he was a member of 3rd Battalion, 506th PIR, which also committed
I-Company to the Foy assault. Here, he examines a captured P-38 pistol.
3. Lt. Foley remembered
coming across a wounded kid named Smith, from California who was dying and
began his last “confession” to Foley. Foley remembered, "And
what he 'confessed' was that he and two other buddies had come across a PX
ration and taken it. This consisted of Hershey bars and cigarettes! I told
him he wasn't dying as I cut open his pants leg, sprinkled on the sulfa and
wrapped his leg."
4. Representing the
countless medic-heroes of the Bulge is Pfc. Stephen Domitrovich. Domitrovich
traveled with a mobile ambulance company after the breakout from Bastogne.
Just weeks before, Domitrovich, himself, was a victim of shock after he survived
the Malmedy Massacre. There, as a POW, he feigned death to avoid execution
by German SS troops who killed 88 of his comrades. Rescued by an American
patrol, he returned to duty to pay the Germans back by healing his brothers
in arms.
5. German Panzer Mk.
IV, pulled off Eastern front to fight in the Ardennes offensive. Open hatches
indicate that the crew escaped. Rings painted around the barrel by its crew
signify vehicle "kills."
6. Ken Glemby flys
his P-47 "Paula" of the 406th FG. Glemby's unit, based in Mourmelon,
France, was tasked with protecting the 101st in and around Bastogne. Glemby
was friends with several 101st officers prior to the Bulge mobilization; they
would swap souvenirs and attend USO shows together.
7. 1st Sgt Carwood Lipton, one of many NCOs whose courage anchored Easy Company during the Bulge. Lipton wears a German holster that houses an enemy pistol he had retrieved. In February, Winters would see to it that Lipton received a battlefield commission for his leadership in the Bois Jacques forest and the assault on Foy.
8. Having dispatched a sniper in Foy, legendary E-Co sharpshooter Sgt. Darrell "Shifty" Powers passes around his opponent's K-98 scoped rifle. "You know," Popeye Wynn chimed, "it just doesn't pay to be shootin' at Shifty when he's got a rifle."
9. Earl "One Lung" McClung was Shifty's best friend and a fellow E-Co scout in the 3rd Platoon. At Foy, Earl used grenades to root out and capture a dozen Germans who hid in the basement of a farmhouse.
10. Bernie Sledzik flys his P-47 "Coal Miner" of the 406th FG. Sledzik shot down his second German fighter of the war, a Bf-109, over Bastogne on Dec. 23rd.
11. Clancy Lyall remembered the attack on Foy as, "One of the goddam scarriest times I've ever had." But, Clancy carried a new sense of strength after telling a chaplain he was afraid to die. The chaplain asked him, "Do you believe in Jesus?" Clancy said he did. "Clancy, that's what's important," the chaplain told him, "You don't need to worry about dying. You may go home and sit in a chair and die that way. We all die. But everybody has something to do before being taken. You do that."
12. The church in Foy, like most tall buildings in the Belgian countryside, was heavily damaged by both sides, but rebuilt by the villagers after the war.
13. Capt. Dick Winters congratulates Lt. Ron Spiers for leading by example. Don Malarkey remembered how, prior to Spiers' arrival, Easy was hurting after losing Winters to Battalion staff. "He (Dick Winters) had that uncommon blend of smarts and concern for the guys. Cool as a cucumber when the pressure was on. Fair to all. And he was absolutely willing to go through whatever we went through; hell, I always thought he was happiest when he was with us in the foxholes."
Now acknowledged as the rising talent in military art, Matt Hall worked for years under master visionary, Steven Spielberg, at Spielberg’s DreamWorks company! These days, however, Matt no longer paints to serve the icons of Hollywood—he paints to pay tribute to America’s military heroes.
Matt’s artistic training began as a boy in Missouri, when he met an old-time western artist named Bob Tommy, who just moved from Texas. Tommy encouraged Matt to try his hand at painting. When Tommy saw Matt’s “natural talent,” he became Matt’s mentor and taught him the technique he had amassed in his lifetime of work.
In college, Matt studied painting. After graduation, he broadened his skills, painting everything from greeting cards to animation backgrounds. His career changed forever when Spielberg’s DreamWorks company found and hired him. Matt brought and his new bride, Michele, a Texas small-town girl, with him to Hollywood.
At DreamWorks, Matt rose through the ranks, painting concept art. When Steven Spielberg had an idea brewing about the Battle for Iwo Jima,
Matt painted an “epic concept” for him that Spielberg used to pitch the film, Flags of Our Fathers. Soon, Matt was named Franchise Art Director for DreamWorks’ Medal of Honor video games series, one credited with generating interest in WWII history among young people.
Matt grew as an artist through Spielberg’s critiques. “I learned from Steven Spielberg the value of listening to my ‘creative instincts’” Matt explained. “A lot of times, marketing dictates if an idea will be well-received, but Spielberg would often fly against the grain, if he believed in an idea. There was a time when the marketing guys said ‘WWII is done and dead,” but Spielberg followed his instincts and passion and made Saving Private Ryan!”
There, Matt discovered
that he, too, possessed a passion to tell the stories of America’s war
heroes when DreamWorks had him create paintings for the Congressional Medal
of Honor Society. Working from just a citation and a portrait of a long-deceased
MOH recipient, Matt brought their stories back to life. There, he discovered
his calling.
Then, in summer 2008, Matt underwent brain surgery to remove a growth behind
his eye. “It was a wake-up call,” Matt explained. “It got
me thinking, ‘What kind of legacy will my art leave? Will it tell a
story of something important? Will it be something people will appreciate
50 or 100 years from now? It was tough to look in mirror and say ‘maybe
not’ since the art I was doing would be locked away in a vault once
it served its purpose.”
"Breakout from Bastogne" prints.
