When the Battle of the Bulge (also known as the Ardennes Campaign) started on December 16, 19441 was training troops as a Second Lieutenant instructor at the Fort Riley Cavalry Replacement Training Center in Kansas. I received orders for overseas duty just before Christmas 1944, with a five day leave to visit my family in Westfield, Massachusetts on the way to the port of embarkation in New York harbor. I left on January 1, 1945, along with some 13,000 other G.I.’s, on the Queen Mary I which had been converted to a troop ship. Aboard the Queen Mary, to gain space, they had drained the swimming pools and set up hammocks there!
We debarked in Glasgow, Scotland, took a train across the British Isles to Southampton, England, and took an LST (Landing Ship Tank) across the English Channel to LeHavre, France. We then went by rail (40 & 8 cars) to Fontainebleau and finally to Longwy, France. It was in Longwy, France, as part of the Replacement Depot System, that I was assigned to the 6th Cavalry Group, VIII Corps to replace officers killed or wounded in the Battle of the Bulge. (Some 19,000 men were lost in that battle.) We drove in an open Jeep to Wilverwiltz, Luxembourg where the 6th Cavalry Group was headquartered. It was about January 24 and cold! I was 22 years old. I was assigned to Troop B, 28th Cavalry Reconnaissance Squadron, 6th Cavalry Group. The people I remember best were these two: (1) 6th Group C.O. Colonel Joe Fickett, complete with handlebar mustache and always packing a 45 cal. pistol in a holster on his hip and (2) Sergeant Bill Gleffe from Tennessee, lead sergeant in Troop B.
At that time the front along the Our River was quiet. That river runs out of the north to meet the Moselle River and forms the boundary between Luxembourg and Germany to the east. The dreaded Siegfried Line was positioned along the eastern side of the Our River, complete with fortified pillboxes.
On the night of February 1-2, 1945 our Troop B was not on line but in reserve. Since we were in reserve, we furnished the personnel for patrols that night. Night patrols were sent out every night in order to keep track of the enemy. I got to lead the officer-led patrol that night. I met with Major Parody, Squadron S-3 (plans and operations) in a farmhouse kitchen between the village of Hosingen and the Our River. He told me that I would lead a 10 man patrol to reconnoiter the Siegfried Line. Fortunately, I was shown an aerial photograph taken the day before. It clearly showed the area power lines, tree lines, roadways and the Our River. This was so important because with the help of this aerial photograph, I felt I knew the area!
There were conditions put on the patrol leader, like we would leave at 7 PM and return by 5 AM so the artillery could throw rounds into the area at dawn. We were given a radio designed for use in a Jeep, which consisted of three parts: aerial, battery pack and radio. Members of the patrol would carry these separate parts. We were directed to stop every hour, assemble the radio and give a progress report back to Major Parody. I asked how we were supposed to cross the Our River, which was a wide stream. Major Parody was not very helpful! He answered “Oh, swim or build a raft.” They made Sgt. Bill Gleffe second in command for the patrol. That made sense since he was combat-wise having been in combat since the previous July without a scratch! And I was a green Lieutenant, new to combat. We wore white camouflage suits so we blended into the snow, but our boots were black.
We got off on time at 7 PM heading east in single file. We couldn’t send flankers out, to the right and the left, for fear they would get lost in the darkness. The snow was probably 4″- 6″ deep, wet and slippery because it had rained the night before. The temperature was about freezing. The sky was overcast and there was no moon. Progress was pretty slow and we had not yet reached the Our River by about 2 AM. I suggested via radio that perhaps we ought to turn around and return, clearing the area for the artillery fire at dawn. Major Parody instead directed me to keep going until we reached the Our River and he would withhold the dawn artillery barrage.
Soon after that I got the word passed to me that someone had lost the aerial and we couldn’t make any more radio reports. I asked Sgt. Gleffe if the guy who lost the aerial was some kind of a “goof-off who might have lost the aerial “on purpose.” Sgt. Gleffe said no, he was a good guy, and probably lost it out of his mittened hand and didn’t sense its loss. So we stacked the remaining two parts of the radio next to a large evergreen tree, with the intention of picking it up on our way back. So now we were out of radio contact. We finally came to the Our River about 3:30 AM and we could hear the river running full. It was an old river geologically, with steep banks. There was a farmhouse off to the right with haystacks in the back yard. I told the patrol to wait there for me, while I went around the farmhouse to the south to see if there was a better place to cross the river. (At least I could pass this information on to another patrol which might be out the next night.)
I had taken only a couple of steps when we were challenged by a guttural voice (probably their password for the night) which sounded like the German equivalent of “You Son of a Bitch!” There was no way of knowing exactly where the challenge came from, so we all took off running for cover some 50 yards away, where the ground dropped away and you couldn’t be hit by flat arms fire from a rifle or a machine gun. I believe it was a semiautomatic rifle firing and not a machine gun.
I could hear the bullets whizzing by me as I ran and decided I should start to zig and zag in my running, so they wouldn’t get a bead on me! Then I fell head first into the snow and thought what a terrible time to fall! Then I could feel my left leg stinging below my knee and knew I had been hit and driven to the ground by a bullet. I looked up and saw that the other 10 men had made cover and I was the only one hit. Now what do I do? I tried to crawl away on my hands and knees, but they fired (fortunately, over me) every time I moved. I felt that they wouldn’t take wounded Second Lieutenants as a prisoner, so I had to get to hell out of their on my own! I decided to move away on my elbows and ass, leaving my black boots in the same relative position. That seemed to work and I moved away in the darkness without them firing again!
Fortunately, I had seen the aerial photograph the night before and knew where Lt. Lieser and the Outpost Line of Resistance was dug in. I couldn’t walk because my left tibia had been broken by the bullet. I decided to put a tourniquet on my left leg pressure point to stop the bleeding and crawl my way to our lines. I tried to fashion a crutch out of some tree branches which might help me walk some. But that was not successful. So I was stuck with crawling on my hands and knees. It was now daylight and the only thing I had to eat was a Powerhouse Candy Bar which happened to be in my jacket pocket! I ate snow for my water needs. (I found out later that Sgt. Gleffe came out between our lines and the German lines with a patrol during daylight looking for me. We both were being careful during that day – February 2 – and never connected. Eventually the leg froze, because the tourniquet had cut off all blood movement. And that turned out to be a good thing!
As I crawled along I could hear a slight banging noise. I had to stop and find out if there was someone else in the area causing the noise. I crawled in the direction of the sound and finally found the answer. There was an abandoned farm wagon there with metal wheels. The wind had come up and the wind was blowing the evener against the metal wheel. No one here except me and an old wagon! Also while crawling I encountered a small concrete bridge over a small stream, now filled with water from melting snow. It was decision-making time! In crossing to the other side of the stream, I had two choices. I could crawl across the small bridge which was there evidently for the use of cattle. But we were always told to avoid bridges, since they may have been mined by the Germans. The other choice was to drag myself through the small stream, get wet and perhaps freeze to death! The second was no choice at all! So I crawled across the bridge on my hands and knees and it didn’t blow up! Some days you are lucky!
I crawled all day long – mostly up hill – to reach an evergreen woods by nightfall. In the woods the trees were planted in neat rows, with pine needles but no snow on the ground. Decided I c, would try to cover myself with needles and get some sleep. Lcold and got precious little sleep. One surprising thing about that night of February 2-3 was that I could hear bombers going over Germany from England and then returning all night long. Those were big air raids and I felt not so alone – some others were in this war along with me!
When dawn came, I could see our Outpost Line of Resistance where Lt. Lieser was dug in – but I still had a long ways to go! I started down the hill on my way to our lines. But I found I was out of energy and couldn’t crawl any further. So I decided to call for help. So in midmoming I fired my carbine in volleys of three so it wouldn’t be mistaken for combat firing. Then I called, “Send help, Send medic.” I think I did this three times. So I sat on the hillside in the snow, eating snow, and I had kind of “lost it.” I saw no evidence that anyone other than me was in the vicinity. About midaftemoon of February 3 – now 36 hours after I had been wounded -1 heard footsteps behind me in the direction of the German lines. Oh, Oh, remember they don’t take wounded Second Lieutenants as prisoners! I turned in the direction of the foot steps – and joy of joy – it was Sgt. Gleffe with a litter team of four men. They had heard my call for help! The medic among them gave me a shot of morphine. If you ever have had morphine, you know how immediately your cares are gone!
They carried me back on that litter over some high ground, where we could look back and see the pillboxes in the Siegfried Line. They didn’t fire at us – either they didn’t see us or they were short of ammunition. And I had had that shot of morphine so I didn’t worry that much! By the time I was picked up, my wounded left leg was frozen and had increased markedly in size. At the aid station I got good news! The doctor there was sure they could save my leg – no gangrene. I talked with Major Parody and gave him the information we had gained in our encounter with the German outpost in the farmyard haystacks. We had been told before leaving on the patrol that the Germans had withdrawn over the Our River and no longer held ground on the Luxembourg side. We certainly found that to be incorrect intelligence! Major Parody did not seem to be unhappy that we had been unable to reconnoiter the Siegfried Line! I talked to Sgt. Bill Gleffe and he told me how he had led a small daylight patrol on February 2 into “no man’s land” looking for me.
The medical evac system was excellent. They took me by British ambulance to a field hospital in Ciney, Belgium, arriving about midnight. The operating rooms were in the basement of a school house and the recovery rooms were former class rooms. They had used a “mild” anesthesia (sodium pentothal) for the clean up operation and put my left leg in a long leg cast. The next day, February 4,1 was in fairly good shape and able to think. The army nurse caring for me suggested I send a V-mail letter to my mother to try to beat the inevitable War Department telegram she would receive. I also sent a V-mail letter to my girlfriend – later wife -Lila Mae Weaver in Topeka, Kansas. It turned out that my V-mail letter had gotten to my mother 24 hours after the War Department telegram which said that I had been slightly wounded!
After some days in Ciney, Belgium I went to Paris by 40 & 8 car, which had been fitted with litters attached to the car walls as sort of a medical transport vehicle. I got my first glimpse of Paris and the Seine River though the back door of an ambulance. Then I soon moved by air from Paris to a station hospital in Salisbury, in the south of England. That hospital in Salisbury had X-ray equipment and in an X-ray of the wounded leg they found a piece of the German bullet was still in my leg. They decided not to go in to remove it and make the wound unsterile again! In a recent X-ray of my left knee, the bullet is still there! It doesn’t seem to ring bells in scanning equipment at airports! Salisbury, England in late winter (about February 24) has quite mild weather. In wheeling me from ward to ward outside, I noted the grass was green and needed mowing!
At that point in the war, if wounds took longer than 90 days to heal, they would send you back to the USA. If you healed in less than 90 days, then you were eligible to return to combat! At the Salisbury hospital they determined it would take longer than 90 days to heal my wound and I would be sent home. Great words, “sent home”! At Salisbury they decided to send me back to “the zone of interior” (USA) by air because I am 6’4″ tall and the litters on hospital ships are only 6′ long. So I got to go home by air because I am tall!
They flew me first to Prestwick, Scotland to await a plane to fly “the great circle route” back to the USA. This route normally went from Prestwick, Scotland, to Iceland, to Stephenville, Newfoundland to New York. But in the winter time the Iceland stop is changed to one in the Azores. So on February 27, 1945 I flew the “southern route” home in 24 hours. In that 24 hours we went from cold Prestwick, to 72 degrees in the Azores, to canyons of snow thrown up by plows clearing the runways in Newfoundland, to cold Floyd Bennett Field on Long Island. I had been overseas for one month and 27 days!
At Floyd Bennett Field they asked each patient what Army hospital they would like to go to for recovery. I inquired of hospitals close to Topeka, Kansas where my girlfriend Lila lived. The closest was Fitzsimmons in Denver. Then I chose Lovell General Hospital in Fort Devens, Massachusetts, less than 100 miles from my family home.
Lila announced our engagement (with my Alpha Gamma Rho fraternity pin) at her Alpha Phi Sorority at Washbum University on May 7, 1945. The next day. May 8, was V-E Day (Victory in Europe Day). So our engagement was announced on the social page of the same Topeka Journal issue that told the good news of the end of the war in Europe. We still have a copy of that newspaper! A diamond ring for Lila followed! I went to visit Lila in Topeka in June via the railroad. I was on crutches with a long leg cast at the time. In August I met Lila in Chicago and came with her via rail to visit Westfield, Massachusetts over her 21st birthday. By that time, the cast on my leg was gone and I wore a brace. We were married on November 3, 1945 in Grace Cathedral in Topeka, Kansas and I walked down the aisle without brace or cane! We honeymooned in New York City. After Thanksgiving in Westfield, Massachusetts, we took an one room apartment in a home in Shirley, Massachusetts. We do remember that the home was near the Boston and Maine Railroad! Shirley was adjacent to Fort Devens and Lovell General Hospital.
Now enters the question of my receiving the Silver Star Medal for gallantry in action on February 1-2, 1945. It had been 10 months since I had been wounded and I was now a married First Lieutenant and an outpatient at Lovell General Hospital. In early December we went to the records room at the hospital to update my Army records. One gets additional rental and food allowances when married! In the record room the clerk handed me a copy of my officer’s personnel file 201. hi the awards section it said I had received a Silver Star Medal from Headquarters VIII Corps, General Orders No. 40, dated 23 March, 1945.1 returned the 201 file to the clerk and said that I had never received the Silver Star Medal. Her response was, “Did you deserve one?” I had no answer to that question! She went back through my file and found that I had indeed been awarded a Silver Star Medal for my February 1-3, 1945 action. (Only the Army had never told me about it!) The citation reads in part, ” After a period of 36 hours of exposure to extreme weather, exhaustion and severe pain. Lieutenant Bush reached a friendly outpost where he gave a detailed outline of important enemy information before allowing himself to be evacuated. The courage, skill and disregard for personal safety displayed by Lieutenant Bush constitute the finest traditions of the Armed Forces…”
I was surprised to have been honored with this award and I am certainly proud to have been so honored.