trucks and move to Bastogne to hold and await resupply. Against very long odds the 101st held successfully with dwindling supplies, once famously telling the German commander "Nuts" in response to a surrender request. Several movies have been made concerning the "Battle of the Bulge." The 101st moved on to lead the way into Germany and eventually take Hitler's Eagle's Nest before meeting up with the advancing Red Army. Gibbons served in the European campaign until the end of the war. Shortly before German forces surrendered, Capt. Gibbons was promoted to Major; however, a communications delay prevented Gibbons from learning of his promotion until after he had been honorably discharged. Upon returning home to Florida he authored a memoir of his wartime service, I Was There. Gibbons was awarded the French Medal of Valor in 2004 at the Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial during the 60th anniversary of D-day. Political life Gibbons was a member of the Democratic Party and he served in the Florida House of Representatives from 1953 to 1958. While in the state legislature, he spearheaded the effort to create the University of South Florida. He then served in the Florida Senate from 1959 to 1962. He was elected to the United States House of Representatives in 1962 from a newly created district based in Tampa after defeating segregationist Sumter de Leon Lowry Jr. in the Democratic primary and runoff elections, and was reelected 16 times. Gibbons voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, but in favor of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. The district changed numbers three times during his tenure, from the 10th (1963–1967) to the 6th (1967–1973) to the 7th (1973–1993) to the 11th (1993–1997). He usually skated to reelection in what was generally reckoned as the only Democratic bastion on Florida's Gulf Coast. However, in 1992, he was held to only 52 percent of the vote by Republican Mark Sharpe. Two years later, he defeated Sharpe again, only winning by 4,700 votes. With Sharpe priming for yet another rematch in 1996, Gibbons opted not to run for an 18th term. He thus retired having never been defeated in 44 years as an elected official. He was succeeded by State Representative Jim Davis, whom he'd endorsed as his successor. Gibbons was acting chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee from 1994 until the Democrats