Memorial

More information

Sgt Alphonso J. Stabulis graduated from Plymouth High School in 1938. He was employed by the Sanitary Wiping Cloth Company in Wilkes-Barre.

He enlisted in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on 12 January 1943. He trained at Camp Gruber and Fort Sill, Oklahoma, before going overseas in September 1944.

Two of his brothers were also in the armed forces.

He was one of the victims of the Malmedy massacre when German SS soldiers of the 1st Panzer Division captured over 100 American soldiers at Baugnez Crossroads outside Malmedy, Belgium, on 17 December 1944 during the Battle of the Bulge and, under orders to take no prisoners, placed them in an open field and then machine gunned them. When the machine guns stopped, the SS went through the field where some victims were still alive and systematically finished them off with pistols at short range, leaving 84 soldiers dead when they had finished. Fortunately, when the machine guns first started shooting, a number of soldiers ran, and some managed to escape and tell the story of how the Germans had treated the others who had not survived.

His name is mentioned on the monument on the opposite side of the road.