Herbert Bachant’s Story

Herbert Bachant was born on December 8, 1909 in Clifton, NJ to Frank Joseph Bachant and Mary Terhune. They had a family of 9 children. The family lineage goes back to the days when the Dutch harbored the French in Holland. The religion of the family was Methodist, and Herbert's father was a printer of Bibles, called a "pressman" in those days. Herbert's paternal grandmother, Melissa Flandreau, was orphaned during the Civil War. Her father, Herbert's paternal great-grandfather, David Flandreau, died at the second battle of Manassas in the NY 79th.

Herbert had only a 9th grade education, as many did in the 30s. He drove a bus and was a mechanic. He also was quite the "ladies’ man" and had a charming personality. He wasn't very tall, only about 5'6” but he had a lot of self-confidence and was always joking and kidding around. He also was a fine artist, and very intelligent. He wore glasses. In 1939, he bought a farm in upstate New York near Kerhonkson. As soon as he left the farm, he was drafted.

He was inducted into the army in May 8, 1941, before Pearl Harbor, did his basic training in the summer of 1941 at Fort Dix, NJ. He was released just a few months after basic when he was called back to go to duty on December 7, 1941. By this time, he was married (in October) to Muriel.

He received more training at Pine Camp in January of 1942 (now Fort Drum) in Watertown, NY and became a Tech 5th on the 94th Field Artillery Battalion of the 4th Armored Division. His specialty was the motor pool, fixing tanks and half-tracks. He was sent to Patton's Mohave Tank Camp in the winter of 1942-1943 where he learned desert maneuvers and had more motor pool training.

In 1943, he was sent for more training with Patton's group, to Camp Bowie in Brownwood, Texas. Muriel saved up her money to follow him to Texas. Muriel arrived in Texas and immediately got pregnant with triplets on July 4th, 1943.

She went home and spent the next months in the hospital.He visited her as much as he could until his orders for deployment.

Back at Orangeburg, NY Camp Shanks for deployment to Europe,Herb visited her one last time when he secretly left the camp, which was nearby NY. They had a bittersweet farewell. She begged him to go AWOL in order to stay with her and be there for the birth of her triplets. He replied that his duty was to his country.

In January 1944, he was sent to southern England, where the troops were getting ready for the Normandy invasion.

The triplets were born on March 30, 1944 at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital amid much publicity and fanfare since 24 hours earlier Muriel's hospital roommate had quadruplets. There were newsreels about the "baby boom."

Pfc. Herbert Bachant found out that his girls were born from the newspaper the Stars and Stripes, April 1st edition. An AP photographer found Herbert in England awaiting the invasion and gave a picture of Muriel and the 3 babies to him. That picture hung in Muriel’s living room for the rest of her life. The army even gave him a mock “dress parade” as if he was a general. He was extremely happy and said in a letter to his wife, “Nothing will give me greater pleasure than watching my little girls grow up.” But that was not to be.

Herbert landed in Normandy at Utah Beach on July 11, 1944, with the 94th Armored Field Artillery attached to the 10th Armored Infantry Division when the Allies were still trying to break out of France. In a lightening-like run through Normandy, his group saw the liberation of St. Lo, and then Avranches on July 31st, 1944. That evening, Patton was in Avranches, nearly charged with the 1st Army command and directed traffic for which vehicles should go where in the center of town. Herbert's half-track, "Belly Button (B-14) was attached to the 10th Armored Infantry and sent down the road to Rennes. In 24 hours, the armored column sped unimpeded to the outskirts of Rennes where they were stopped in their advance by a field full of German Anti-aircraft guns hidden by bulkheads and hedgerows in the farmland of a young man Monsieur Jean Chasle's home.

M. Jean was 23-year-old law student at the time, and saw the funny looking vehicles coming down the road, with stars on them. He was riding his bicycle. He stopped at the commander's jeep, and forcefully told the commander not to go this way…that there were German big guns in his father’s field…that they would be blown to pieces like rabbits, and that they should go around to Rennes, the other way, and they would enter Rennes “like butter.” The officer asked M. Jean to take him to his farm where the German commanders were. Jean did so, but as soon as the American and the Germans were done talking the German SS units opened up on the armored column and leveled their 88s at the column only 300 yards away. Herbert's half-track had driven past this scene, but when the fire was heard, they came back. They all took cover behind a large stone wall and watched as their half-track was blown up. They were then targeted by the huge guns only a block away, and a direct hit on the wall took the lives of all in B-14. A total of 11 tanks and 3 half-tracks were destroyed, along with at least 50 men killed that afternoon

He was reported MIA to Muriel by telegram on August 23, 1944, and then KIA in September 23, 1944. A chaplain and a soldier came to Muriel’s 4th floor walk-up apartment to give her the news.

Muriel Bachant went on to marry a second husband, and the triplets grew up in New Jersey, went to college in Pennsylvania, and each had interesting and productive lives. Janet is a Ph.D. psychoanalytic therapist in New York City, Karen is a retired 7th grade science schoolteacher in London, and Nancy is a retired social worker in Washington State.

In 2013, after Muriel died at the age of 90, her ashes were sent to his grave in Hampton, Virginia, to join the remains of her husband and love of her life. In the last months of her life, she had said that she wanted to be buried with Herbie.

Her daughter Nancy wrote an obituary and that obituary led an amateur historian in Rennes, France, to invite the triplets to the 70th anniversary of the liberation of that city, the capital of Brittany. When there, the by-now 70-year-old daughters were greeted and feted by the French and in 2014 got to meet the now 93-year-old eye witness to the combat at Maison Blanche, who was finally about to help the daughters know the details of the final hours of their father’s life.

Herbert R Bachant