In 1943, the Swett family was living at 301 So. Spring Ave., La Grange, Illinois. I was 17 and graduated from LTHS in June. While a senior I had taken the A-12/V-12 “IQ” tests and passed, so was accepted into the ASTRP program to study engineering. I and friend classmate Ralph Leavitt were sent in August to the U of Wis, Madison. We were not yet 18, so were in the reserves, wearing the ROTC uniforms with blue collars. Until the next term started in Sept. we did physical exercises and marched in close order drill. Ralph and I were room mates in Kronsage Hall, along with a tall thin fellow from Centralia, 111., Bill Williams.

We marched to our first class in the morning, but were mostly on our own after arriving in the academic area. Saturdays were workdays but Sunday we were free until supper time when we were expected to show at the dining room for cold cuts, cheese, crackers and bread. After supper it was back to the books. At least once, Ralph and I went to a Congregational Church which was just south of campus. We may have made Sunday services more than once, but we were not regular attenders.

There were several other 1943 LTHS graduates in the Navy V-12 program. They were billeted not far from us and we bumped into them infrequently. Several of our high school buddies visited us one weekend, but other than these intermissions, we were very busy studying. We were told that we were taking almost twice the course load of a normal student in normal times. On weekends the student union showed foreign films. When I could I would attend these. Thinking back on these days, we did work hard but we had moments of fun and relaxation. After a few days of classes we started to sing as we marched to our first class – nothing fancy – “I’ve been working on the railroad”, “You are my Sunshine”, etc. We were in a beautiful spot next to Lake Mendota, and the campus with its hill(s) offered interesting and beneficial hiking. Madison was a good place to be with so much of the world on fire.
At the end of this first quarter, Ralph and I had both become 18, but as Bill was still 17, we had to say good-bye to him. We all went home for Christmas. After Christmas Ralph and I went to Ft. Sheridan where we took additional aptitude tests and both were assigned to the Infantry school in Ft. Benning, GA. We were told that because we were so swift, we would be taking a 13 week basic course in 10 weeks. Looking back on the history of these times, I wonder if they put us through basic in a hurry as they were planning for an invasion back up.

Ralph and I were assigned to different training companies so I didn’t see him again until our next move. On one of my first mornings at Ft. Benning I was detailed to start a morning fire in our barracks. They must have known that this city boy wouldn’t know anything about starting a wood fire in a furnace so they sent Walter A. Petersen, “Bud”, with me to show me how it was done. Bud, I was to find out later, grew up mostly in the North Woods of Wisconsin and Minnesota, with a brief period during high school years in San Francisco. His mother died when he was quite young (before San Francisco). He was the younger of two brothers with a father that was a prison guard. The San Francisco experience occurred when his father was transferred to Alcatraz. Without a mother, but an older brother. Bud was left many of the household duties, such as cooking and cleaning. His two most active hobbies were guns and cameras, about which he was very knowledgeable. Of course, he showed me how to make a furnace fire, but I was never called upon to do the task again.

Bud had been accepted by the ASTP program and had finished his basic in the group before us, but had been held back as cadre to help train our group. History indicates that the decision to terminate the ASTP program had already been made and therefore no one was being sent to colleges to study engineering. My experience in basic was good – training was hard but what we needed. I became an expert marksman with the M-l, and the machine gun, but with the slight chance we were given with the 45 cal. hand gun, I was not able to hit the broad side of a barn. With the constant exercise and good plentiful food (the breaded fried egg plant was great) I went from a 150 Ib. weakling to a 180 Ib. man of muscle. My speed and strength were tested on the obstacle coarse and along with push-ups and chin-ups of the required number (I think it was 30 each) I won the coveted Expert Infantry Man’s Badge, which increased my monthly pay from $21 to $26. We had a very little snack shop near our parade grounds in the Harmony Church area. It was here I was introduced to the Krispy-Kream donut, which I believe were $.10 for a package of two. I would go to the snack shop on our morning breaks.
In March our training was over and most of us were assigned to the 106th Div. which was still on Tennessee maneuvers. Bud and I were assigned to H Co., 423rd Reg., 3rd Platoon. Ralph was assigned to a rifle Co. in a different Battalion so I was not to see him again but only once or twice in our training with the 106th at Camp Atterbury, Ind. A few days after we landed at the Camp, the regulars came in from weeks on maneuvers, worn out, dirty – most, utterly exhausted. Their ranks had been depleted by many being sent overseas as replacements. They knew most of us were wet behind the ears, but they seemed to tolerate us fairly well.

Bud was assigned as part of a mortar crew (the 3rd Platoon of a Heavy Weapons Co. consists of 81mm mortar squads – the other two fighting platoons consist of30cal. water cooled machine gun squads). Because of my experience as a car owner and shade tree mechanic, I was assigned to the motor pool, driving the 3rd Platoon leaders Jeep. I was to see less of Lt. Thomas than the walking members of our Platoon as he always preferred to march with the troops rather than ride in his Jeep. And I was noted to be a careful driver.

Bud and I would go to Indianapolis on weekend passes, mostly to look at photographic equipment in the camera stores and to enjoy the freedom found outside the camp. Over time I became friendly with the acting company clerk, and found that he could write me a weekend pass that would allow me to go home to La Grange. While the pass was fake with a fictitious officer’s signature, I had no problems with using it until one weekend I was delayed getting back to camp because of a freight train wreck on our track. On this trip I was “lucky” to find a seat (many times on these trips to Chicago, we had to stand – once I went to sleep on the platform between cars) but it was next to a high ranking officer. He could sense that I was disturbed by our delay, so he quieted my fears by saying that we could get off at a special station where a staff car would be waiting to take us to camp. It worked out just as he had said. The entire Company was standing at reveille when the camp adjutant delivered me in his staff car. No one ever questioned my tardiness or my whereabouts. What good fortune.

We trained together as a unit from early April until early October. One 35 mile overnight march was the only physical exertion I was subjected to. We did go down to a state park south of the camp where a high pier had been constructed. We jumped off as if we were abandoning ship. For this exercise we wore full field pack and helmet but no boots. That was good as the boots would have been ruined in the water. I believe no one drowned – at least not in our Company. Another group of replacements was sent out of our units, to be replaced by people from the Air Corps and some fresh from basic training. This occurred in late August or early September. We left for Camp Miles Standish, Mass. in early October so we didn’t have time to fully integrate these new troops.

We left Miles Standish as a Regiment, and on Oct. 17, 1944, we left New York Harbor on the Queen Elizabeth, advertised as the largest and fastest ship afloat. Our trip to Scotland was zigzaggy and took five days. The food was so bad and the chow lines so long that many of us elected not to eat. We had nine soldiers and their gear in each stateroom which would be used for two people in civil peacetime.

The people of Scotland greeted us with open arms. Unfortunately we spent very little time with them as we disembarked from the Queen Elizabeth directly onto trains that took us overnight to Toddington in England. After several days there (my notable remembrance of that place was from my first view of the “Honey Dippers” in action) Bud and I were transferred to the stables behind the country estate of Batsford Park, owned by an official of the Imperial Tobacco Company. Bud was chosen because of his vast knowledge of small arms. He chose me to help him run the armory to which all the Division officers had to turn in their weapons. We had a cozy room on the second floor and slept with the guns. Bud taught me haw to play Parcheesi and I taught him Chess. After a few weeks they opened a small USO type room across the hall from us – even brought in a piano. This gave me the opportunity to play some of the pieces I had memorized over the many years of music lessons. I remember no one else taking the opportunity to use this instrument.

Bud and I were issued permanent passes with the idea we could use them as we wanted to as long as one of us was in residence at the Armory. We honored this concept for a while, each spending much time in Oxford, but as we realized we were getting close to our departure to the continent, we traveled together several times to Oxford. During our several months in England, Bud and I would go to the village dances which occurred almost every evening in the nearby town of Moreton-in-Marsh. Neither of us danced but we were entranced by several beautiful English lasses – my heart flutterer was Dorothy Church, who lived only a block away from the dance hall which stood in the middle of the main street. There was one middle aged English couple that everyone watched as they went through their tango routine. Most of the dance floor was cleared when they came out to dance.
One small incident that occurred at one of these village dances. There was a teenage English male that seemed to be at least slightly drunk. He had the idea it would be good to get Bud or me out in the dark individually. Bud and I suspected that he had some accomplices out there that thought it might be proper to do in an American soldier. Among the English “4-Fs” there was a considerable amount of hostility toward American GIs mainly due to the competition for the limited number of females. Bud and I asked him if he needed assistance and that we would both be glad to help. We went out into the air-raid proof darkness, one on each side of him. We ended up down the street and into a back ally, each of us standing on either side of him at the public urinal. Nothing more happened.

From the huge military vehicle depot, all the drivers in our company were issued new Jeeps, with a new weapons carrier for our motor pool sergeant. Bud and I had returned to Toddington by way of Cheltenham S.P.A. on November 20. After all our equipment was cleaned and organized we left in a convoy for Southhampton on Nov. 30, Bud with the other troups on trucks while I drove my new Jeep solo. When we arrived at the docks on Dec. 1, we loaded the second battalion’s vehicles on LST #344, with the drivers staying with their vehicles. The foot soldiers loaded onto troop carrier ships. For the next nine days the most unusual saga of my military carrier took place. For all intents and purposes I was in the U.S. Navy for those nine days, eating Navy chow which was the best in my two years of Army duty. As a PFC I did have some duties to perform, the only significant one that I remember at this point (2005) was guard duty on deck.

LST 344 arrived outside the harbor of Le Havre sometime early the next morning but the harbor was so crowded the we had to take a position outside, dropping anchor to await our turn at the beach or dockside. Several days later we received instructions to move up into a new position. I was on guard duty with my carbine, standing on the port side watching the weighing of the anchor. As the top of the anchor broke the surface, the last link in the chain broke, and the anchor dropped to the bottom of the English Channel. We changed our position and dropped our stem anchor in order to keep this position. This anchor held for at least a day, maybe more, but the cable gave out with a bang. I was in the fantail mess room when this happened, but I’m sure the sound reverberated so that everyone in the ship heard the report. We held our position in the area of the harbor for several days by running the engines.

The word came down to us that there was a problem with one of the engines so we were returning to Southampton. We did, and transferred all of our vehicles to another LST which had two good engines and two anchors. We left Southampton for the second time and arrived at the beach in La Havre with almost no delay. Our disembarkation and start through France was on Dec. 9, 1944.

The trip to Division location was uneventful. We stayed overnight in a French forest. There was snow on the ground. Rather than try to clear a space for my sleeping bag on the ground, I elected to sleep sitting up in the Jeep – passenger side, I recall. Waking up fairly stiff, we were back in convoy on our way to the environs of St. Vith, which is where 106^th Division headquarters was located. Breakfast had been a “K” ration — cold. We arrived in Bom either late morning or early afternoon, Dec. 10.

Because the 2^nd Battalion, 423^rd vehicles had been delayed crossing the Channel, they had put the entire Battalion in reserve, stationed mostly in Bom. I was assigned to a two story house which seemed to be fairly new. We had a number of “H” Co. troops on the second floor, none of which I can now remember so they couldn’t have been from our 3^rd Platoon – no close buddies. Bud Petersen had arrived with the foot soldiers eight or nine days before us with the troop transport 2-1/2 ton trucks. He was well settled in a farm house that was closer in toward the center of town. He had already made friends with the family that owned the house, attached barn, and livestock. He was able to get some fresh eggs and was living quite well with only minimal reliance on our Company kitchen. The “old” man of the farm had a short wave radio which was also at Bud’s service. Obviously I spent most of my free time at Bud’s place, only retiming to my billet way after dark. We were located in what was called a non-strategic area, with not much chance of combat action this close to the end of the war. We were warned that there had been encountered some German patrols in the area and that we should be careful of crossing them. I remember trudging through the snow on my way home from Bud’s place, with only a dim light and my carbine held by both hands at the ready. I don’t believe any of the civilians living on the first floor of my house were awake on my return. There were one or two of the fellows in our second floor dorm who had not yet drifted off, so lights were still on.
All went smoothly back in the reserve area. I don’t remember the field kitchen meals. They were regular but evidently not spectacular. Two facts kept us alert. Nightly the V-l rockets would go overhead on their way to England. Early on we would shoot at them with small arms fire as they seemed to be traveling at a low altitude. This was officially stopped as we were needlessly using up ammunition with no apparent affect on the V-ls. The other thing that concerned everyone (we were to learn much later, even our top officers were worried) there was noise from the movement of heavy equipment on the German side of the Ardennes. This was noticeable in the daytime but was particularly worrisome at night when it continued and was almost the only sound that could be heard. We learned later that our Division officers were told that being new to the war we were just unnecessarily jumpy. It would soon be reveled to all what had been going on in Germany.

At 5:30 on Dec. 16,1944, we were awakened by a distant rumbling and the word that we must be on our way at once as the enemy was shelling our lines with the possibility of a ground attack coming soon. I remember thinking that I would dress warmly but leave the remainder of my equipment in my duffle bag in the sleeping room on the second floor of our billeting home as we would probably be back by evening. What a mistake. I never saw any of my personal items or clothing again. The greatest loss was my Waltham watch given to me as a graduation present from High School and the silver dollar with my mother’s birth date, 1890, given to me by Dad just before I left for the service.

Our convoy stopped in St. Vith before proceeding to the front – possibly to receive detailed (?) orders. After much starting and stopping going basically east, we ended up well east of Schonberg and near Bleiauf pulling in between an artillery battalion and the Germans at a very late time in the night. Our mission was to hold off the enemy until the artillery people could extract their pieces and move them toward the rear. Research would probably give me this units name but at that time all we knew was that it’s personnel was black (negro) and that we had a job to do. It was after midnight before all but one 155mm were removed. The one piece not removed was too mired in the mud to get out.

The remainder of that night and much of the next two and one half days and two nights is a blur in my memory, with some notable events standing out but I am unable to place them in a firm order. The problem of retaining precise memories is at least partly due to the weather – it was constantly raining, sleeting or snowing with always low visibility — probably less than a quarter of a mile. There was no sun to guide us and we lowly privates had no compasses. We were instructed who to follow in a convoy, or given instructions for short one or two road trips. Some of the events I do remember were: The road from “Purple Heart Comers” to Auw was along a ridge and open on the side facing the enemy. It was down hill and open on the German side and open fields. On our side (still in Germany) also went down hill but there was the cover of a forest only a few hundred feet below the ridge. Our motor pool sergeant Jacob Antonovich thought we should be down near the trees in what turned out to be a very soft muddy field. All of our vehicles had to be winched out of the mud. Sarg’s weapons carrier may have been the only one that moved out on its own power. It was a good thing that we didn’t have an emergency evacuation.

Another exciting event took place on what road I don’t remember, but we were in convoy, stop and go, when a plane flew over strafing the vehicles. I was right behind a truck carrying ammunition which must have been hit as it started to smoke. Both vehicles in front and back of me were very close, leaving no room to turn around or turn onto the shoulder. My thought was to remove myself from the scene of a gigantic explosion. I jumped out of my Jeep and hopped on a six wheeled armored truck going in the opposite direction. It took me back to our Company H. The truck never exploded and I still feel it was Lloyd Diehl who retrieved my Jeep for me.

When we were together as a platoon in the forest and near the Engineer’s Cutoff, several German prisoners were brought to our area. They had been separated and one was being interrogated, so we had a good chance to observe the one we were guarding. He appeared to be very young, perhaps 14 or 15 years old. He had a deep vertical slice in his back, perhaps 12 inches long and down to his rib cage. He had been given a cigarette and seemed to be unconcerned about his condition. Probably he was in a state of shock. He had evidently been treated by a medic as the wound seemed clean and free of fresh blood. These were events that I saw first hand, I heard many other stories from buddies that were very interesting, but I do not intend to include in this bio. any events that I can not verify by my own observations.
The sharpest memory still with me after all these years (I am now almost 82, and this all took place over 60 years ago) are the events that took place on the evening of December 18, and the day of the 19^th, the day we were surrendered. As it was getting dark, we received orders to form up our vehicles on the Engineer Cutoff to attempt a run down the Bleiauf/Schonberg road in order to make a breakthrough to the 3^rd Battalion, giving us a better chance to fight our way through the encirclement and work our way back through Schonberg and hopefully, back to St. Vim. All 2^nd Battalion vehicles were lined up ready to go as darkness fell. As it was almost pitch black we shoved off to drive as fast as we could down the enemy held road. At comers many of our captured field pieces were pointing down the road directly at us. I must have been near the front of the line, as nearly as I made out my jeep wasn’t hit by enemy or friendly fire. Ken Smith claimed to be riding on my ammunition trailer, but was thrown off on a comer before we reached 3^rd Battalion on a hill just outside Schonberg. I was stopped by 3^rd Battalion personnel and told to dump my jeep in the river as the Germans were on the low side of the road and occupied Schonberg. After detaching my trailer which had some 81mm mortar ammunition in it, I drove to the right and down to the river, and as best I could determine in the dark, dropped off the bank and buried the radiator in the river bank. After doing this I was told that the Germans held the river also.

Going back up the hill I fell into a large hole. I went down so suddenly that I fell out from underneath my helmet. For what seemed like many minuets, I felt around for it. I could not locate it, so climbed out of the hole and went up the hill and laid down. It was drizzling, cold and damp. I hadn’t slept in three nights so didn’t much care where I slept or under what conditions. This was a deeply forested area. The shells from the German 88’s were exploding in the trees above us. I got some sleep this night but several stray pieces of shrapnel from the 88’s hit my face and hands (wrist), caused some bleeding of surface wounds, but didn’t cause me to lose much sleep. I was bone tiered and didn’t much care at that point if the enemy got a direct hit on me.

The next morning, December 19, we had no meal (most of us hadn’t eaten since dinner on Dec. 15) but went to work defending our hill. I soon discovered that only two of our Battalion vehicles made it through the intense fire on the German held Bleiaulf 7Schonberg road on the previous evening. The other vehicle was an “H” company headquarters jeep driven by Ramey Boetcher. Days, months and years later I learned many of the stories of the demise of the other unfortunate vehicles, how they were shot up, went off the road, missed turns and some were captured. God must have had future plans for me as he guided me safely down that road.
I spent the morning hauling 81mm mortar rounds up the hill from my trailer to the one 3^rd Battalion mortar which had been set up in a clearing over the crest of the hill. During the day, someone noticed my lack of helmet and gave me one that had a bullet hole right through the side. I was told its previous owner had no further use for it. As I was carrying mortar shells up and over the hill, there was a tall lean fellow digging himself a foxhole just to the right of my path and near the forward side of the hill. When he finished his hole he got into it and nothing could pry him loose. As I passed him for more than an hour as he was digging. (Years later at a Division reunion I was telling this story to other members of”H” Co, 423^rd, and Ramey admitted he had been the one who had dug his hole and wouldn’t be moved out. He said, “I was going to stay out of the way of those 88’s”)

At approximately 3:30PM, we were out of ammunition, had been for some time. A loud speaker came up from the base of the hill, and a voice with no trace of German accent said, “Your officers have surrendered you. Come down off the hill and form up on the road.” This was repeated a number of times and the lack of firing of any kind (very quiet) indicated this was probably the end of the war for the 3^rd Battalion. (Later we were to learn that it wasn’t only the 3^rd Battalion, 423^rd, that had been surrendered, but our commanding officers Col. George L Descheneaux of the 422^nd, and Col. Charles C. Cavender of the 423^rd, had indeed surrendered our two regiments.) When the truth of the situation sunk in, I had the immediate job of taking my hand weapons apart and throwing their parts as far as I could into the forest. I could see troops already forming up on the road as I came down the hill.

As I came onto the Bleialf/Schonberg Road, I noticed a headless GI lying in the ditch. His body was the shape and size of one of our husky privates. Later I learned our husky private had survived and was in fine shape. Ramey’s jeep was still sitting in the middle of the road and Sgt. Webb was sitting upright in the back seat, dead. The motor was still running. Soldiers I didn’t know, brought a badly wounded fellow dragging between them. They set him on the far side of the ditch, gave him a cigarette, he took several puffs and died. We were surrendered to an SS troop, and while nothing was said, many of us recently free soldiers may have had some worries as to how they would treat us. Evidently, the German officer in charge knew or felt the war was almost over, or perhaps he was one of the few SS officers who was more humane than what we had been led to believe, we will never know which, but we were not treated badly. His troops lined us up on the road and after a half hour or so, we were marched the six or eight miles to Bleialf. It was just getting dark when we arrived in Bleialf. We slept in the church yard that night (Dec. 19). I still had my heavy GI overcoat, but it was cold and damp and as we had no food for several days and little or no sleep since Dec. 16,1 was all set up for one of my winter colds.
On the morning of Dec. 20, we were lined up on the road opposite to the one on which we had arrived the previous evening, ready for the 25-30 mile march to Gerolstein. Still no food. By this time Bud Petersen and I had been reunited and we marched together on our way to the rail junction at Gerolstein. Four or five miles from the start of our march we entered to city of Prum. Other than the central church, every other building had been reduced to rubble. For me it was a very depressing sight. This was really the first physical affects of war that most of us had witnessed – bricks and stones piled haphazardly and flowing into the street.

We had yet many miles to go, marching until dark, arriving in Gerolstein an hour or so after sunset. I remember little of the details of this march as I had awakened that morning with a raging fever. I kept throwing my coat off, Bud kept picking it up and putting it back on me or carried it himself. This probably was a life saver for me. I will always feel I owe Bud more than I can ever repay. We slept on the soiled ground at the bottom of a sheep shed that night. We did have a roof over our heads, however. Still no food.

The next morning (Dec 21) they say we had some thing to eat, maybe so but I have no memory of what it might have been. Sometime during the morning we boarded a string of 40/8 boxcars. These are small cars and it was very possible we had more than forty prisoners on each car. We had a can to use as a latrine and an open window (very small covered with barbed wire) to facilitate the release of deposits. The can was used very little – nothing going in so nothing coming out. We had received no food or liquids for days.

Our train’s progress was very intermittent – stop and go. We never knew where we were at any time but learned much later (mostly after we returned home) some of the high points of this trip. We were in the same boxcar from the morning of Dec. 21, until the morning of Dec.25, never being let out or offered food or drink. We tried to sleep but there wasn’t enough room for all of us to sit down, much less all lie down at once. The biggest excitement to occur on this short-distance-long-time trip happened in the Koblenz rail yard the night of Dec. 23/24. British Mosquito light bombers bombed the rail yard extensively. One soldier in a nearby car was shouting at the top of his lungs to God for deliverance. I shouted back that God could hear us without shouting. Several cars were hit with some injuries and deaths, but our car wasn’t touched. The rail yard just to the east of us in Limberg must have been the British main target that night as their casualty rate was much higher and the tracks were so disrupted we never saw the prison camp there to which the Germans originally intended for our train load.

Sometime early in the morning of Dec. 25, Christmas Day, before daylight, our train stopped. We had arrived in Bad Orb. As soon as their was any light from the dawn, we could see a few scattered German officers standing and walking on the platform. They were dressed in natty uniforms all in light pastel colors. At this time we didn’t know where we were. As soon as it was fully light, we were let out of our boxcars and lined up in a nearby street in columns of four. The Germans soon had us organized and we were marched up the town’s main street, up the hill, approximately one and one half miles, to our new home, Stamlager IX-B, or for short, Stalag IX-B. We were the first Americans to arrive at this camp.

INTERNMENT: Much has been written about These German POW camps so I will only include the high points as I was impressed. This memoir was started in another century, and it is now (2010 AD) 65 years since these events took place.

The camp was not too full upon our arrival. It had been used to house combatants that were not fully covered by the rules of the Geneva Convention. There were Russians and other Eastern Europeans soldiers as well as French underground fighters. The French seemed to be in charge of the kitchens which turned out to be not a great benefit to us Americans. After a few weeks this was changed and we took over our own kitchen. Our daily diet consisted of a cup of ersatz coffee in the morning, a piece of bread along with some margarine (sometimes) with a ladle of very weak soup for lunch, and some kind of tea for supper. I weighed 180 Ibs. going into the camp. Three and one/half months later I was down to 105 Ibs. In our last month and one/half, we received four Red Cross boxes. Each box was distributed to so many inmates (the first went to 11, the second to 13, the last two to 5 and 6) that they were not noticeable in staving off starvation. These individual boxes were sized for one person, or two at the most.

Our (Bud Petersen and I) first barracks was quite large with two large rooms on either end for sleeping in triple bunks, and a wash room with a cold water tap in the buildings center. Each large sleeping room had a hole in the floor for nighttime toilet use. During the day we were to use a large pit outdoors which had an A frame built over it with horizontal poles running down each side. If you had to defecate you would back up to one of these poles so you were sitting over the pit. This was all open air, no sides, no floor, no roof. Fortunately with not much in the way of solids going in, this pit got little else but urine.

After three or four weeks, with more prisoners coming in (Americans, British, South Africans, Australians) our squad, including Bud and I, were moved to a smaller barracks which had no bunks, so we slept on the floor. We shared blankets so that we could have one under us and one over. The blankets were never cleaned and as we never received a clean change of clothes or had no shower for at least three months, we lived in a total condition of filth and stink. I found that my personal biggest problem was the growing colony of lice in my pants and underwear. When this problem became unbearable we would take off our clothes and search out the little critters, ending our misery by popping the guts out of them. That must have ended their misery also.

The division of the bread each day was a special ritual. We had eight or nine in our squad and either Walter A. (Bud) Petersen volunteered to be the bread cutter (squad leader) or we elected him. Every day he cut the bread into equal(?) portions and he was the last to have a choice, – he took what was left. No one ever questioned his work as he did such a fine job. On his grave stone in northern Wisconsin is engraved, “He cut the bread fair and square”. There was not much to occupy our time, and as bread was the only solid food we received each day. Bud had the most important job in the squad.

I had a piece of sheet steel about seven inches long that I had sharpened on a stone. This was my knife and after I received my bread I would spend at least an hour, generally more time than this, to cut my bread into minute pieces. Then I would spend almost as much time eating the pieces one by one. Other time occupiers for me was reading. I must have read the New Testament at least twice and a history of the de Medici family by some English author. This book was loaned to us by some English suppliers to the Red Cross. The book was informative but very poorly written and boring. As our energy levels continued to fail, there was less that we wanted to do and less that we could. The Germans early on tried to give us small tasks but even they became undoable as our abilities ebbed.

There were three or four substantial stone buildings just down the slope from our main gate. Bud and I were given the job of carrying arm loads of wood down to these units which were being used to house wounded German soldiers being rehabilitated. Between loads, Bud and I stood side by side between two of these buildings, looking down into the woods below us. We had no guards with us. We discussed the possibility of escaping into the forest. Our tracks in the snow would have been a great path for our captures. We decided it would be a worthless endeavor, – a bad idea.

Later in our stay, we were told that there was a real chance that we would be bombed by our own air force, and that we should help in digging bomb shelters. By this time I was so weak that I couldn’t lift the shovel from the bottom of the hole to its top edge. Our guards soon gave up on this project. The only brutality that I witnessed happened soon after we arrived at Bad Orb. I think it happened the day after our arrival. Dec. 26, 1944. Upon being interrogated those of us who refused to give anything other than our name, rank and serial number (all that we should have been required according to the Geneva Convention) a group of 40 to50 of us were stood at attention outside in the snow without coats or hats. One of our group who had been injured in his hand, put the bandaged hand inside his shirt front in an effort to suspend it and keep it warm. A guard saw that this wounded soldier was strictly not at attention, so in walking past he grabbed the soldier’s hand ,• pulled it out and hit it with the handle of his pistol. Some in that group of Americans said we stood out there in the cold three hours. I think it may have been more like one hour. There were penalties meted out for infractions of the rules but nothing that seemed unfair.

Conversations revolved about food. When you are starving you don’t think of anything other than eating. I was able to save a small address book in which I recorded important events as they happened, and FOOD. I have a list of every candy bar that anyone could think of, some that I had never heard of. It also included favorite recopies. The southerners in our group, and we had many, invariably included peanuts in their favorites.

Some couldn’t give up smoking. It was more important to some than food. These folks would trade food, money, anything for smokes. Of course most of these people died of malnutrition a month or two after arriving in the camp. Cigarettes eventually became the camps monetary medium of exchange, each cigarette being valued as $5.00, and $5.00 was worth then what is worth $20.00 or more today (2010 AD).

Easter came on April 1, 1945, April fools day. Early on April 2, a light armored contingent from Patton’s Third Army, “broke down the front gate”, representing our liberation. I was too weak to go out and welcome them. Our liberators brought us plenty of food, but the wrong kind – too rich. Those of us who could eat the new rations developed diarrhea, and were soon back on our old prison diet. The Red Cross brought in one of their donut trailers. One of our number who thought he had a cast iron stomach went over to the trailer and reportedly ate a dozen. He died shortly thereafter. Why would the RC allow him to eat all those donuts? I was too weak to make it over to the RC trailer.

Before liberation, George Thompson was enjoying the spring weather and laid down on a slope to contemplate his world. George developed a grand case of pneumonia and Bud and I placed him between us on the barracks floor so we could keep him covered during the night. This worked out (not very well) for only two or three nights and then George was taken to our dispensary, which was staffed by several medics, Don Candy, a neighbor from LaGrange being one, and perhaps an American doctor. Anyway, George died on April 1, 1945. We had his funeral on April 4, with Bud and I leading the honor guard. A movie of this funeral procession and the grave side burial was taken by some officer and I have a grainy copy of it. I still can’t reason how I had enough energy to walk the quarter mile out to the cemetery and back. By this time reporters from the “Stars & Stripes” and other publications were swarming over the camp so Bud and I had numerous photos all over the world.

After almost a week after liberation, it seemed that transportation would soon be organized to get us out of Stalag IX-B. One morning, about this time, they set up sick call and several members of our squad thought! should go and find out the source of my constant cough. So I did – walking pneumonia. That same morning I was taken to a nearby air field and transported by C-47 to a field near Camp Lucky Strike in northern coastal France. I was at once placed in the camp hospital for “rest and rehabilitation”. The food was wonderful. Soon my stomach had adapted to steaks and other great American treats. After a month in this hospital, during which time FDR died, I was offered a pass to Paris, but was told I might miss the first ship home if I took it. No sir, I wasn’t going to chance missing that first ship.

The hospital ship was a converted Liberty ship, the SS Marine Devil. We had only approximately half the maximum number of patients the ship had been designed for, so the kitchen was not overworked. I can remember having as many as six custom fried eggs for breakfast, many of the candy bars we had talked about in Bad Orb, and of course, many steaks. It took us two weeks to get from Southhampton to Boston, during which time the war in Europe was officially over. I took a train to Chicago and another one to LaGrange and home to 301 So Spring.

After a very eventful 90 days at home on R&R, I went to Miami Beach for reassignment. That was a pleasant week with not much to do but visit relatives and swim in the hotel (White House) pool. I didn’t yet have enough points to allow me to be discharged (the war with Japan was over by this time) but the reassignment clerk said he would send me anywhere I might want to go, except the Air Force, as there was already way too many people in the AF and they couldn’t let them out fast enough. I chose to go to the Engineers as that profession was what I had decided on and that is what the Army had staifed me on in the ASTP at the U of Wis. They sent me to Ft. Belvoir, the Army Engineers school, which is just outside Washington, DC. I had a varied experience here on the cadre under the direction of a tech sergeant that was old enough to be my father. At this time I had received my second stripe so I expected all the privileges of a noncommissioned officer. However they were short of privates on base, so corporals had to pull KP. But in the two months there, my name never came up for KP duty. I worked with a survey crew laying out the lines for a new drill field, became a projectionist, was taught to instruct in laying booby traps and demolition explosives, as well as making signs advertising my bosses girlfriend who was singing in a Washington club.

I left for home and discharge in late November. My boss took me to the Non-Com club on base and bought me my first drink. I was just 20.

I was a replacement the day after Christmas. I was made a machine gunner, 30 caliber liquid cooled. Four days later, on New Year’s Eve, the Germans attacked. They were all dressed in white. This was my first introduction to combat, and it was the Battle of the Bulge. We did not lose one inch of territory, but the Germans lost plenty. We recaptured the Maginot Line, crossed the Iller River, the Danube and the Rhine.

We were crossing the Iller River when the Germans sent in an armor piercing shell that landed about 20 feet from our assault boat. Our boat capsized and I had to swim in the icy water to the German side. It was so cold that if I took off my pants they would have stood up by themselves. Later that night, the engineers, with the help of a tank, put a tree across a blown out bridge two miles down from where we were. Some riflemen came and got us. Then we had to inch across the tree using our arms and legs, holding on for dear life until we reached our side again. I was immediately taken to a field hospital for about ten days. While in the hospital, our battalion was caught in the Fern Pass in the Alps, and we lost half our men.

When I got out of the hospital, I rejoined my company in the Brenner Pass. We went into Italy and linked up with the 10th Mountain Division, which ended the war for us. We were then told to go to Otz, Austria, until we were sent home. We were scheduled to go to Japan for the invasion there, but the atomic bomb was dropped, thus ending the war. The 44th Division was de-activated and I was discharged.

Joe’s citation for his Bronze Star

OFFICE OF THE COMMANDING GENERAL
44th INFANTRY DIVISION
CAMP CHAFFE, ARKANSAS

17 NOVEMBER 1945

 GENERAL ORDER
NUMBER            65

SUBJECT:  AWARD OF BRONZE STAR MEDAL
CITATION:  PFC JOSEPH A. MINTO     31469604

On the 15th of February 1945 in the vicinity of Remeling, France the 71st Inf. of the 44th division attacked the strongly fortified town of Remeling.  M Co. was to be the leading Co in the attack. During the first hour of the attack M Co was held up by four German Royal Tiger tanks. It was at this time that Pfc. Jos. Minto, a machine gunner of M Co abandoned his machine gun temporarily and picked up the bazooka of a fallen comrade. Crawling forward under the intense fire from the 88’s and machine guns of four German tanks Pfc. Jos. Minto at great personal risk worked himself into a favorable position and open up on the four Tiger tanks with his bazooka. After 10 minutes of concentrated bazooka fire three of the German tanks were knocked out and the fourth was forced to withdraw. It was then that M Co could resume its advance and Pfc. Jos. Minto could return to his beloved machine gun which he had sentimentally named “Hun Killer”

But his gallantry was not to end, for three hours later that morning after half of Remeling had been taken by the 71st Inf. the Germans launched a strong counterattack. It was during this counterattack that Pfc. Jos. Minto disregarding all personal safety mounted his gun on the roof of the city hall where he was exposed to all enemy fire but where are all the enemy was exposed to his fire. It was here that Pfc. Jos. Minto broke up the enemy counterattack by killing 78 Germans and wounding almost 100 more. It is men like Pfc. Jos. A. Minto who stand out in the annals of the United States Army and who are a tribute to their army and country.

 By Order of Lt. General Reese

 Commanding Gen. 44th Inf. Div.

 CR/JD

My father enlisted in the U.S. Army at 17 and lied about his age so that he’d be accepted. Like many sons and daughters of military personnel, I rarely had the opportunity to discuss my father’s World War II duties, experiences or exploits with him, and when he passed away in late November 2001, there were many unanswered questions about the wound he suffered to his knee, the photos of concentration camps he tucked away in a shoebox in his closet and the medals he received while serving our country for a brief time in 1944 and 1945.

Click here to read the article written by Carl Danbury, which appeared in the June 2010 issue of the Points North Magazine, Atlanta, GA

A Side Bar. I note in my photo album that on Dec. 15 a USO troupe headed by comedian Frank McHugh put on a performance for the 2^nd Armored Div. troops. The next day things would change rapidly.

Dec. 16 – Morning Staff Meeting. The Corps G2 opened the meeting and quickly reported that a major German attack had begun during the night. Gen McLain probed the G3 and G2 officers as to the status of our three divisions and locations. Our line was quite thin, covering many miles of front…. The G2 officer said that he had just gotten a report that a German plane with American markings had just been shot down. The German soldiers in it were wearing American uniforms…. I remember, I think it was the G3 officer, telling us that the day’s password would be changed every two hours. Everyone had better know who won the World Series last year, etc.

As the meeting was ending, I remember Gen. McLain saying something to the effect that he would never be taken alive. That was something to have your general make such a startling pronouncement. It was to be a fight to the death. That really hit me as to how serious the situation was. As the meeting closed, Gen. McLain said he wanted to see me. He ordered me to get a photographer and go immediately to the downed plane and get pictures that might be needed at some future time.

Skipping breakfast, I took a still and a movie man.  In less than half an hour we were at the downed plane with American markings.  Dead Germans lay in and around the plane.  I went up to one dressed in American uniform.  His jacket was partly unbuttoned.  I saw something in his shirt pocket, a picture of a girl.  On the back was her name and Heerlen, Holland.  The Germans expected to be in Heerlen that day.  The Germans had done a masterful job in disguising their troops.We had trouble with our cameras being so cold the oil in them stiffened and slowed the shutter speed on both movie and still cameras. Many of our troops were not equipped for 10 below zero.

Another picture in the album is of my weapons carrier (like a Ford pickuptruck only built sturdier) that I had named Sweet Sue. What a coincidence. Four years later I married Mabeth Sue Stewart, whom I lovingly call Sweet Sue. There’s more of a story behind that from my 1937 trip to Holland to attend  Fifth International Boy Scout Jamboree. When we were enroute and stayed a couple of days in Brussels, Belgium, one Sunday afternoon in our hotel where the orchestra was playing dinner music, an American tourist girl requested that the orchestra play Sweet Sue. It broke up the dining room of staid Belgium diners. Also it made an impact on me, a 17-year-old Boy Scout. Hence Sweet Sue has had a special place in my memory.

January 2010. A World War II buff, in going thru my photo album, saw a Jan. 31, 1945 picture of me in Sweet Sue going by the destroyed town of Houffalize, Belgium with the battered town sign in the background. He called that picture a classic. Earlier I had actually stayed one night in the little hotel in Houffalize before Dec. 16 but now wanted to see how badly the town had been hit during the battle.

Submitted by Gary D., Associate member who attended the Battle of the Bulge Veterans Reunion in Columbus Georgia,  Sept 2011. I was searching for members that were in the 535th AAA Battery D. We went because earlier this year I found a diary from a solider from the 535th AAA  Btry D. I had it out for display as the Corporal was in the Battle of the Bulge.  I am copying the daily logs from the Battle of the Bulge for everyone to read. The diary has hand drawn maps pictures, and more. I plan on getting the diary printed. Both of my grandmothers were French. My paternal Grandma was a war bride marrying a US solider. She was from the village Avaux sur Aisne.

The Diary of John Rafalik, 535th AAA, Battery D

6 June 1944 trip across channel rather quiet broken only by two submarine alerts. depth charges were dropped and we proceeded on towards the coast. at 0800prepared to disembark. final inspection of packs, equipment. ship struck a mine at 0750stern has been badly hit and she is afire amid-ship. 0840 left ship for British destroyer escort. transport is already awash and burning fiercely. many are still left on board.Susan B Anthony rolls over and goes down at 0932 hours left destroyer for landing craft hit the beach sugar red at 1235 minus equipment and rifles. Picket up and used German equipment.dug foxholes 200 yards from beach. enemy artillery fire was very light. ME 109’s were over staffing the area a number were shot down. P47 dive bombed German positions 1000 yards to our right violent explosions resulted. Enemy was over at intervals during the night. snipers were active and paratroopers were reported in the area.Heavy and small arms fire went on all night. 88’s sank a number of ships in the anchor area. Mine fields were very heavy and were many casualties. the navy pounded away at German positions steadily throughout the twenty four hour period

13th dec Heavy concentrations of artillery fire, no air action.

14th dec Krinkelt bombed at 1300 hours, artillery fire continued, no air activity

15th dec 1944 Little of note recons over, artillery fire was light.

16th dec. Enemy artillery fire began at 430 hours continuing all day. Damage was extensive, artillery action was violent.

17th dec. Enemy attack was launched with heavy air and tank support (SS). Intense artillery preparation preceded the assault. General withdrawal began about 1600 as enemy columns broke through. Went into anti-tank positions. Casualties were heavy. Retreat began at 1700 hours, general withdrawal all along the lines.

‎18 dec 1944 regrouped much material lost set up in new positions with 370th FA A battery at camp Elsenborn. Enemy artillery fire was very heavy all day

19 dec 1944 enemy drive continues artillery fire was particularly heavy all day 16 fw 190’s over at 1700 4 downed

20 dec heavy artillery action all day many hostiles were over

‎21 dec 1944 inclement weather no air action artillery fire continues
22 dec 1944 bad weather again enemy artillery fire continues
23 dec 1944 enemy aircraft were over heavy artillery fire continues some bombs fell in the area

‎24 dec 1944 clear weather heavy concentrations of our bombers were over German flak was heavy a number of our aircraft were shot down. P47 strafed our position today.German aircraft were up in strength over our sector

‎25 dec 1944 large scale air activity by both sides two me 109 were destroyed at 1100 today me 262 and fw190 were over night activity by the germans was reported bed check charley was over at intervals heavy counter battery fire

26 Dec 1944 Continuing air assaults numerous German aircraft up. V1’s and 2’s were over P47machine guns the positions.

27 Dec 1944 Air assaults continue a number of me 109’s over at 1045 three were destroyed. P47 ‘s dive bombed field artillery positions at 1500. Counter Battery fire was heavy.
28 Dec 1944 Heavy German artillery fire. section received two near misses. 50 Cal was knocked out. Enemy aircraft were over during the night.

29 Dec 1944 Enemy aircraft were over , artillery exchanges were sharp.

30 Dec 1944 Enemy aircraft were over at intervals bombing field artillery installations. Heavy artillery fire continued.

31 Dec 1944 two me 262 over at 1100 hours bombed artillery positions. artillery fire was heavy on both sides.

1 Jan 1945 German aircraft were up in strength a a number of ME’s 109 were over at 0835,0850,0910. seven were shot down. Heavy counter battery fire though out the 24hr period

2nd. Bomber and fighter formations were over. numerous German aircraft were up through out the 24 hour period. heavy artillery duals continued.

3rd. Inclement weather single FW 190 over at 1420, FA bombed.

4th. Bad weather prevails bomber formations were over at 1200, 1300-1340 hours. 88mm air burst overhead.

5th. Inclement weather restricted air activity. two p47’s strafed our positions at camp Elsenborn.

6th. Low ceiling again. Hostile aircraft were over during the night. Artillery action was light to medium.

7th. ME 262 over at 1225 hours , bombed 1st division 105’s. Artillery action continued as before.

8th Little of note, continuing artillery action V-1s were over

9th Inclement weather held activity to a virtual stand still

10th Little of consequence. no major action to speak of

11th. Increased counter battery fire, a number of bombers were over

12th. There was heavy artillery coupled with intense small arms fire. German patrols were active.

13th. Four FW 190’s were over at 1407. Intense 88 fire towards Elsenborn. Air activity was increased somewhat.

14th. Inclement weather. two ME 109’s over at 1534 hours.

15th. Bombers and fighters formations over. P38’s bombed enemy installations one mile east. Artillery exchanges continued.

16th. Increased air activity., two MK seven Spits down at 1548, 1615.

17th. Counter battery fire increased during morning hours. Flying bombs over at various intervals.

18th. Driving snowstorm. V bombs were over. Incoming mail was of large caliber 170 or 210mm.

19th Weather again restricting most activity.

20th. Inclement weather. nothing but artillery fire and v bombs.

21th. Enemy aircraft were over at intervals. artillery was limited to harassing fire. V bombs were over

22nd. P47 down at 1010 hours . Heavy aerial activity and an increase in counter battery fire. 2130 V bombs over

23rd. Relatively quiet. Light artillery exchanges.

24th. Light 88 fire, heavy machine gun fire to the east.

25th Nothing of note, sporadic artillery fire

26th. inclement weather, a few fighter bombers were over

On the morning of 16 December, the well-orchestrated German attack in the Ardennes “Wacht am Rhein” was launched.   The name was a subterfuge to hide their offensive intentions behind a pretended defense. Hitler suspected a security leak within his Wehrmacht and so he limited disclosures of the attack plans to his most trusted generals.  He was unaware that the British had broken his Enigma Code, even though some of his advisors had suggested that this may have happened–“Impossible” said der Fuehrer! There were so few radio intercepts concerning the upcoming Ardennes offensive that our top level commanders were caught off guard—even though many of us at lower levels were antsy about all of the enemy activity in the Ardennes.  In general, the Wehrmacht followed the mandated radio secrecy  orders,  but  there  were  enough  slip-ups  by  their  air  force  and  civilian transportation units to have given our commanders sufficient insight had they not been so overconfident. About then, we heard that Glenn Miller had been lost in the English Channel on 15 December—a sad, sad day! About 10 December 1944, as a nervous .tag-along-member of a six man patrol from the 38^th Cavalry Squadron—forward of the front near Bullingen and east of Malmedy—we found plenty of German activity across the bottom of a tree-filled canyon. Trees were being cut down with saws and axes, and tanks and other heavy motorized equipment were moving around over straw covered trails, to muffle their sounds.  While watching this activity from a concealed position two hundred yards away across the canyon, we listened to the big tank engines and sensed that “something unusual was afoot”. On our return the cavalry troopers used pull-igniters to anti-personnel three Tellermines left by a German patrol that was chased off the previous night, while attempting to infiltrate their lines.  Several enemy were killed when they tried to reclaim those mines.

When  information  regarding  all  of  this  German  activity  was  sent  to  higher headquarters, their response was that this was only a feint to trick us into pulling our troops away from our planned offensive in the Hurtgen Forest near Schmidt.  If it had not been so serious, an almost comical ploy at that time was our leaders attempt to enhance our apparent troop strength in this area of the Ardennes to draw more Germans troops from the front further north at Aachen. They conjured up a non-existent infantry division to further promote that deception (HEARD, But NOT VERIFIED).

As a result, our high-level commanders were not suspicious when the Germans began bringing in more and more troops prior to the Bulge–this is exactly what our leaders had hoped—and they happily believed that their scheme was working to perfection.  There surely were more than a few red faces at the higher headquarters when the axe finally fell!  We at the lower levels were unaware of these machinations, but were kept on edge by all of the rumors that were floating around. My 3rd Platoon; B-Co, had laid AT mines along the road shoulders near Bullingen a few weeks earlier, but that was probably done to deter small-scale penetrations or counterattacks.  Bullingen was on the route taken by Kampgruppe Peiper and was where his force captured a large quantity of American gasoline before heading west through Malmedy towards the Meuse River

Our 146th Engineer Combat Battalion was bivouacked at Mutzenich Junction, three miles west of the front at Monschau–which was at the northern shoulder of the German build-up. Captain Arthur Hill–H & S Company commander; CWO Wm Langhurst–Assistant S-l; and CWO Al Sarrach–Assistant Motor Officer; dropped in at their favorite Malmedy restaurant on 16 December for dinner. This was the first day of the Bulge and the situation had not yet been sorted out.  It was still being viewed by higher headquarters as a limited action to offset- the pressure of our attacks further north near Aachen. The restaurant- owner had just gotten in fresh steaks that afternoon so they all ordered steak. While waiting to be served, the owner requested that they move their jeep around to the rear so that the German soldiers who had seen in the vicinity would not shoot up his establishment. They complied, polished off their steaks in a hurry and then took off in a high lope for the bat talion about fifteen miles northeast.  This was a smart move, as Malmedy was on the proposed route of Kampfgruppe Peiper!

At 1520 hours 16 Dec, V-Corp’s Colonel Pattilio called Major Willard Baker our S-3 and ordered 146ECB to immediately furnish a company of engineers to serve as infantry; to be attached to the 38th Cavalry Squadron at Monschau.  A-company was in the Line at 1700 that evening, where they furnished support  for the outnumbered troopers. The 38th Cavalry was at the northern flank of the Bulge and just north of the 3rd Battalion, 395th Regiment, 99th Infantry Division–who managed to hold their ground even though the remainder of the division was badly chewed up, and much of their command was shifted to the 2nd Infantry Division.

The aggressive patrolling of the 38th Cavalry Squadron was a key element in their defense of the Monschau area during the Bulge, when they repulsed a number of attacks by vastly superior German forces. Their aggressive patrolling allowed them to establish the likely enemy avenues of approach, while keeping the Germans from coming close enough to determine the cavalry’s defensive positions. While I occasionally had patrolled in areas forward of our front lines, I had never patrolled with the audacity of these 38^th Cavalry troopers. They were fearless and not at all concerned about bumping into the enemy–in fact they may have welcomed the opportunity!

For several days this small force; plus 3rd Platoon, A-Co, 112ECB and attached 105mm and 155mm artillery, fought off several attacks by vastly superior enemy forces.  Several times they called in artillery on their positions to thwart the attacks. Canister rounds (a cannoneer’s shotgun) were used with devastating effect when they were about to be overrun. For their stout defense,  all three units were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation–the nation’s highest unit award. According to “Cavalry on the Shoulder”, the 38^th Cavalry was the only cavalry squadron to be so honored in WWII. The 146th Engineer Combat Battalion had received a Presidential Unit Citation for D-Day on Omaha Beach, so this added an oak leaf cluster to A-Company’s PUC.

At 1525 Hours on 16 December, Colonel McDonough—the commander of the 1121 Engineer Combat Group—called our headquarters and ordered another engineer company to be deployed as infantry. The three B-Company platoons moved into position the next morning, and for several days formed a barrier line, a short distance behind the front between Monschau and Elsenborn. Our purpose was to slow the advance of the 6th Panzer Army, should they manage to penetrate our lines.  The 3rd Platoon covered a 600 yard front in the snow, until relieved on 23 December.  We set up three machine guns in defensive positions and patrolled between them, but being in a semi-wooded area we had inadequate fields of fire and would have been captured or bypassed by any determined enemy attack in force.  Sylvin Keck manned a daisy-chain roadblock that was located on a nearby road.  These are AT mines roped together, so they can be pulled across the road at the approach of enemy vehicles;  but they are not effective unless adequately supported by covering fire. Several trees had explosives rigged to drop them and form an abatis on a nearby road.

While on outpost duty, the 3rd Platoon had no clue as to the German’s intentions or what was actually taking place nearby at the front.  We were located in a sparsely woody area away from our headquarters; but the wealth of rumors and the actuality of the paratroopers and reports of Skorzeny’s men dressed in American uniforms kept us alert. Unconfirmed rumors abounded! Anyone moving around was challenged–this even included easily recognized generals.  Lt Leonard Fox,  a C-Company platoon leader,  was taken prisoner by a patrol from the 38th Cavalry Squadron.  He had not received the password for the day.  After six hours, while his legitimacy was being confirmed, he was released. His problem was compounded by having grown up in Cuba and so did not have proper answers for his questioners regarding sports or hollywood personnel.

Lt Refert Croon led a patrol of Joe Manning, Marvin Lowery, Warren Hodges and about ten others, in looking for the paratroopers.  Lowery was killed in an ensuing firefight that killed two Germans and wounded several more—the rest surrendered. A total of nine enemy were killed and about sixty were captured—all of these by C-Company and HQ-Company–as A-Company and B-Company were deployed elsewhere as infantry. In another action, Fred Matthews was captured by the paratroopers, but he managed to escape during a later firefight.

In Operation Stosser, Lieutenant Colonel Frederich-August von der Heydte’s 1,500-man parachute- force dropped into the Hohes Venn on the night of 16/17 December—a swampy area that is at the headwaters of the Roer River,   in November, three of us tried to cross through this swamp. With our Jeep flat out in four wheel drive, we travelled 50 yards, before dropping it down to the floorboards. We then jacked it up and built a corduroy road to get back on solid ground.  His parachute forces had fought several vicious engagements with the 101st Airborne Division in Normandy and again in General Bernard Montgomery’s Market Garden offensive in September 19444-as portrayed in “The Band of Brothers”.

The paratroopers were a day late because of glitches in having their gasoline delivered and in getting assembled.   They were widely scattered from Eupen to Malmedy because of the wind, inexperienced pilots and minimal advance notice of the mission—as dictated by Hitler as a security measure. The twin “Jumo” engines of their planes were unsynchronized–thus giving them a slow beat frequency sound-  We were ordered not to shoot at them, which would give away our defensive positions. Many parachutes were found after the drop- I rescued an undamaged white one, also a large section from a brown and green camouflaged model—both appeared to be silk. The camouflaged silk made fine neck scarves and several still reside in my dresser drawer.

General Dietrich’s 6th Panzer Army included four Panzer Divisions equipped with the latest tanks and weapons—including 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler–from which the 30 year old Colonel Joachim Peiper’s Kampfgruppe Peiper was to launch the lightning strike to the Meuse River near Huy, Belgium. He then would move north to Antwerp—thus enveloping our northern armies. Initially Dietrich’s forces were to have reached the Baroque Michel crossroads—midway between Malmedy and Eupen–on the 16th, which was to have been captured then by the paratroopers—but both failed to meet that time-table.

Had Dietrich been able to force his way through Monschau, he very well may have rolled up our front and then captured the large gasoline dumps near Eupen. This would have been a replay of their successful 1940 breakthrough in the Ardennes that had trapped the French and British armies. The 38th Cavalry’s stand at Monschau blunted this effort, so all of Dietrich’s forces were directed south toward Elsenborn, Bullingen and Malmedy. Had they overran Monschau, the German armies could have moved almost unimpeded north to Antwerp, and Hitler would then have been trumpeted as a great tactician. Despite all of the negative opinions about the stupidity of launching the Ardennes offensive by removing troops and materiel from the Russian. front; honesty must conclude that with just a few fortunate breaks, the Bulge could have been a phenomenal German success!

Also, had the Hofen pillboxes not been blown up with TNT and bulldozed full of dirt by our battalion, the enemy may well have reoccupied them during one of their forays into Colonel McClernand  Butler’s  3rd  Battalion,  395th  regiment,  99th  Infantry  Division positions in Hofen and would then have been difficult to dislodge.   Some of these attackers appeared to have been heavily into their schnapps and were oblivious to the withering rifle and machinegun fire. They kept coming until large numbers were killed, wounded or captured–or they may just have been fiercely loyal, highly motivated young soldiers–who is to say?

Early on the morning of 17 December, Sergeant Henri Rioux sent Nettles and another radio man “called Indian” to the battalion for breakfast.  Later, we heard that the paratrooper’s planned assembly area was this battalion radio shack, six hundred yards from our bivouac area. It was located some distance away to keep from drawing artillery fire on our headquarters. When the two radio operators had not returned as expected, Rioux told Julius Mate and James France to go to breakfast and determine what had happened to them.

On their way, they saw a parachute with an attached bag hanging in a dead tree. Seeing evidence of the paratroopers was not surprising since they had heard the planes overhead the previous night.  Mate attempted to recover the chute by pulling on the lines, but the rotten tree broke and the trunk fell across his ankle, pinning him to the ground. After working free, they continued on toward the headquarters and breakfast and then saw Nettles ahead acting very strange. When they ran up to ask what was happening, six paratroopers with machine pistols stepped out of hiding, took them captive, disarmed them and then threw their M-l Garand rifles into a nearby creek–where they were found later that day by a patrol led by Lt Refert Croon.

Nettles and Mate were directed to make a double-pole support to carry a paratrooper who had compound fractures of both legs. At the end of the day. Mate’s ankle was very swollen and painful, so France and Nettles then carried the wounded trooper. This small group kept moving during the day and slept under fir boughs at night.  After wandering about for two days, they joined the main body of about 150 paratroopers and were then interrogated by a German officer who spoke impeccable English. He had studied at a Texas university and so not only knew the language–but also the American idioms and customs.

They were combined with twenty others who had been captured from a laundry unit near Eupen. At night they slept in a tight pile to keep warm, as it was very cold. After a time, when the body parts against the ground were growing cold, they all turned at a given signal. They kept up a running conversation to warn of the importance of moving, toes and fingers to avert frostbite. One of the captives, who understood German, heard their captors discussing how they should dispose of the Americans by throwing grenades into their midst while they slept. When a patrol from the 1st Infantry Division flushed out the paratroopers, the captives ran out waving their shirts and yelling “Don’t shoot-­were Americans”.

The winter of 1944 was one of the coldest in many years, often dropping well below zero degrees Fahrenheit. However, except for those foot-freezing GI boots, we managed-­even when touring around in Jeeps, always with the windshield folded down. Our battalion had few medical problems during this period, although some who failed to change their socks often, contracted trench foot—but none from the 3rd platoon. It was easily prevented by  keeping  a  spare pair  of  woolen  socks  tucked inside  of  one’s  pants.

Body heat dried them out, and they could then be swapped several times a day, while at the same time giving the feet a thorough massage.

During the Bulge our armies lost many men to this malady and especially men from the infantry who—because of an innate desire to keep from being spiculed, could not move out of their foxholes and exercise to keep warm.  Our new battalion medical officer—Captain Goldman—reported several cases of combat exhaustion that he treated with a combination of sedatives and rest, followed by several days of heavy labor within the sounds of battle near the front. Apparently it was successful. To warm themselves, a group of B-Company men built a flimsy cardboard shack with a diesel-fired steel drum stove located in the middle of the floor. When one man tried to force his way into an already full shack, he was unable to do so and no one offered to swap places with him.  Not to be deterred, he yelled “I’ll show you sons of bitches”, and he then threw a clip of M-l ammo into the flames. The mad scramble for the entry almost demolished the shack, after which the perpetrator was run down and pounded.

We must have been a bit odoriferous, as we rarely had an opportunity to shower. Whore baths—water heated in helmets over an open fire—was our only option for washing face, ears, neck, underarms, crotch and feet in that order.  Our helmets then took on a dingy hue. We were usually able to shave daily—though our razors were not the sharpest ones on the planet.  I often fantasized about luxuriating in a tub of steaming hot water, followed by a professional barber’s shave.  When the opportunity arose later for a German barber to do the job, I had to mentally restrain myself to keep from bolting from his chair when I realized how close to my throat his straight-edge razor was operating! At night, I removed my boots and swapped socks before, crawling into a bedroll of several wool blankets, supported by a generous layer of interlaced pine boughs to provide insulation from the cold ground.   During the coldest weather I slept in all of my clothes, changing underwear whenever possible.  One morning I woke to find that a heavy wet snowfall had compressed the pup tent down around my body.  Surprisingly, although we were often half frozen from riding in jeeps—always with the windshield down—or from sloshing about in the snow; few of us were ever sick with colds or flu. After most of the Bulge fighting was over and the weather had improved, we finally were issued insulated shoe-pacs in lieu of those foot-freezing leather boots. In his book “Citizen Soldiers”, Stephen Ambrose said the American command gambled that the war would be over in 1944 before we required shoe-pacs—in retrospect an error in judgment, but C’est la Guerre— you can’t win ’em all!

About 23 December while working on a large anti-personnel minefield near Elsenborn— designed to deny the Germans access to a natural infiltration corridor; a flight of British “Typhoons” came roaring in and rocketed a woods 800 yards to the east. We were a bit jumpy as their flight path was almost directly overhead and we thought that they might have mistaken us for Germans.  That would not have been too unusual, considering the chaotic conditions along the front at that time.  We saw no indication that German forces were there, before or after the strike, but since we were close to the front, that is a distinct possibility. A prominent radiator bulge under the engines gave them a distinctive appearance, and their engines made an unusual roaring noise–not at all like the sharp exhaust crack of the Rolls Royce Merlins in the Spitfires and Mustangs. I was told that these engines had 24 cylinders—four banks of six—as compared to the twelve cylinders of the Merlin. The twenty four exhausts blended the sound into the unusual roar—SINCE VERIFIED.

Christmas day 1944, on the way to our AP minefield, a doe and a yearling crossed in front of our truck 80 yards away.  We stopped and I told the men in back to shoot her. After ten or more rounds had been fired, I yelled “cease fire”,  just as the deer disappeared into the brush, because the firing may have been interpreted as a fire fight with a German patrol that would have initiated a wasteful response.   The doe then wandered back across the road, so I shot her. There was a single hole in her hide–another indication of our superb American marksmanship!

The fresh meat was a welcome change from our recent diet. Several weeks previously, B-Co’s various work parties returned to the company bivouac area one evening with five hogs, two cows, and a deer. Someone had suggested that we have fresh meat, but had not coordinated the effort. The animals were a nuisance around minefields, walking into the trip wires, detonating the mines and killing themselves in the process—we only hastened their demise.  The hogs were fried first and the pork fat was then used to fry the rest of the meat. The meat was chewy and tough—but the change of diet was appreciated. When we were able to get to our company kitchen for a hot meal, I piled most of the food together in my mess-kit (shit-skillet in GI parlance). Breakfast might include stewed prunes, oatmeal with reconstituted dried milk, scrambled powdered eggs, bacon and toast with jam. It did not look too appetizing when so intermingled- -but it tasted better than it looked, and it had a definite edge over those early gruesome K-rations. Also, having the food piled together helped keep it from freezing. Our cooks were artists in their ability to take smelly powdered eggs and powdered milk and turn them into something reasonably palatable. I am not sure what they used to perk up the powdered eggs, but added a bit of vanilla and a pinch of sugar to powdered milk. A vastly improved K-ration showed at about this time. It was far superior to the original—the crackers of which looked and tasted like lightly seasoned sawdust.

On the night of 26 December 1944, our bivouac area was shelled heavily for about thirty minutes.  We were in an area of large trees, so there were many tree bursts. Heading for a safe refuge in a culvert (he called it a tin horn), Platoon Sergeant Homer Jackson ran into a truck tailgate and chipped off the corner of an upper front tooth. It was a tight squeeze as twelve others had beaten him there.  I flattened myself on the ground at the base of a large pine tree away from the direction of most of the tree bursts, and was happy when the shelling ceased. We believed that the damage was done by our captured 105mm howitzers. The shelling probably stopped when the Germans ran out of ammunition. 99th Division 105s were overrun close-by near the Wahlersheid Crossroads and these may have been the culprits.  They must have had forward observers—probably paratroopers—as they took very few rounds to register on our area. We believed that our position may have been pin-pointed by the paratroopers, because their designated assembly point was the forestry shack being used by our battalion radio operators—the three who had been captured.

Several trucks had flat tires and the driveline of one truck was completely severed. A shell fragment smashed through the front panel of a headquarters desk drawer and spinning around inside made a mouse nest out of the papers within. A number of shell fragments pierced the aid station tent—one striking Ernest K Hansen in the chest as he was holding a plasma bottle over one of our wounded. Although a number of men were wounded there were no fatalities. Lt Colonel Carl Isley was the most seriously wounded— wounded as he made the rounds to check on our casualties. He told Dr Stanley Goldman, our medical officer, “that last one really knocked the air out of me”.  He was covered with blood and was given plasma, as blood for transfusions was unavailable in WWII. battlefields.  His recuperation required many months in a stateside hospital.   That night, the battalion was moved to Henri-Chapelle per Isley’s orders, before he was evacuated. Colonel Skorzeny’s “Americans”—who had infiltrated our lines and were captured wearing American uniforms and driving captured Jeeps—were executed by firing squads at Henri-Chapelle a few weeks later.

I arrived late at our bivouac area, but the only cover I could find was in the haymow of a barn.  I did my best to find a spot to spread out, but as the space was completely filled with bodies, I could not find a bare spot. After someone offered to loosen all of my teeth if I didn’t quit stepping on him, I crawled back out and shivered in the Jeep until dawn. The next morning B-Company returned to our original bivouac area, and we continued working on the AP mine field. New Year’s Day morning 1945 was clear and very cold. While we were adding the metal red triangles to the barbed wire perimeter fence—to indicate an American anti-personnel minefield—the sky was suddenly filled with twenty eight Messerschmitt ME-109s flying northwest at 1000 feet. We later learned that they were part of Operation Bodenplatte–the plan to attack our airfields and destroy our planes on the ground—a continuation of the Bulge. A number of our airfields near the front in Belgium and Holland were successfully attacked that day, and several hundred of our planes were destroyed on the ground. German losses were about a third of ours but their losses–and especially losses of trained pilots–were losses that they could ill afford.   Luckily for us, our P-47s were rendezvousing near Liege for a strike of their own, and they caught these Germans by surprise as they were coming in.  It must have been some dogfight, but we saw only the tail end of the action from our work area.

In twenty minutes, as we watched in fascination, five ME-109s were shot out of the sky. The first one fell 1500 yards away, and they kept dropping closer and closer until the last one was only 300 yards from our work area. The script was almost the same in every case. The ME-109 pilots, who were flying southeast and very close to the deck heading for home, were being slaughtered by the P-47s. Our pilots were definitely more aggressive and must have had superior training and experience.  We didn’t see any parts being shot off the 109s, but two were spewing smoke—before they crashed and sent up big black pillars. The fourth downed plane hit 600 yards away, and several of us headed out to see what we could find–such as 9mm Lugers or P-38s!  We had just started off, when another 109 came limping toward us, smoking and losing speed and altitude. The P-47 kept boring in and firing short machine gun bursts. The 109 was hidden by a group of pine trees when the pilot finally hauled back on the stick in an attempt to gain enough altitude to jump.  His plane rose only a few hundred feet and came back into our field of view and then stalled just as he bailed out. We charged down the hill to the crash site, fully expecting to find a dead pilot in or near the wreckage, since we were sure that he had lacked sufficient altitude to eject safely.

The pilot could not be found, but the ME-109 wreckage was on fire and its magnesium castings were burning brightly.  We poked around in the wreckage until the machine gun and cannon shells began to cook off,  and then cleared the  area.  We searched the surrounding area and finally found the pilot’s chute in a pine tree about one hundred feet back in the direction from which we had come.  Landing in the tree surely kept the pilot from being severely injured or killed. The pilot had slipped his chute and had laid low until we passed and then had backtracked up our trail in the snow. We followed his tracks, but lost them at dusk in the area where the snow had been heavily trampled. After escaping death in such a remarkable exit by parachute, we were saddened the next morning to find the young pilot dead within our AP minefield.  He had crawled under the wire barrier and suffered modest wounds when he detonated one of our anti-personnel mines. We surmised that he believed he would freeze to death before morning, so he killed himself with his 9mm P-38. (Mentioned in battalion records of 03 January 1945.)

By early January, we were gaining control after the Bulge had been suppressed; some of the captured Germans dressed in American uniforms from Colonel Skorzeny’s force had been executed by a firing squad at Henri-Chapelle, a few miles north of Monschau; and the paratroopers had been rounded up and shipped off to the PW cages.  Our infantry was gaining control in the St Vith area and we had heard of the successful relief of our troops at Bastogne by General Patton. Although the news that funneled down to us seemed to be more favorable, all that it took to journey back to reality was to observe the graves registration men picking up the dead. One memorable corpse in the snow in front of a nearby pillbox was a big football lineman type infantryman. He was about 6’4” and 2501bs–probably a BAR candidate.  Only stockings were on his feet so he probably was wearing shoe-pacs as no one would have gone to that much trouble to get those foot-freezing G I boots.  At the site of one big tank battle near Bullingen, I had reason to be thankful that I was not a tanker. The bodies that were being removed from knocked out Sherman tanks—Ronsons by their deprecators, since they never failed to light when struck–were wrapped in sheets that looked like oversized diapers.  The corpses were so badly burned that some had no apparent arms or legs.  The stench of burned human flesh is an odor that is not easily forgotten!

General Bernard Law Montgomery’s self-serving news conference to the British press, emphasizing in detail how he had rescued Omar Bradley’s 1st and 9th armies containing eighteen American divisions—finally sifted down to us.  This was during the Bulge, after the German thrust had formed a deep salient into our lines requiring an immediate restructuring of the command, because the Bulge had separated Bradley’s headquarters from his divisions. There is no doubt that Elsenhower’s decision was proper but that—coupled with  Montgomery’s  grand  pronouncements—rankled  Bradley,  causing  dissension  between British and US commanders that almost gave Hitler a victory of sorts by splitting up the allies. Although Montgomery’s presentation was a bit too self-glorifying, it may have been Bradley’s thin skin and wounded ego that was a large part of the problem.’

I was then saddened to learn of Lt Trescher’s death just before the Bulge. He was platoon leader of the 2nd platoon B-Company, and was killed by artillery while attempting to determine the location of that enemy battery by analyzing the artillery burst patterns in the snow.  I found it hard to believe that he was gone.  He was such a fine caring gentleman who watched over his men like a doting mother–thus his nickname “Mother Trescher”.  He was very old—about 32—and was a civil engineering graduate from MIT-Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Trescher had been at the Assault Training Center near Barnstaple in North Devon when I joined the 146ECB in December of 1943.  He was also the QIC of Gap Assault Team #D on Qmaha Beach at dawn on D-Day, so we had been together for a year.  He was more of a gentleman than the rest of us raunchy lieutenants—and although he usually tried to ignore our dirty jokes, he enjoyed a good laugh and was a fun fellow in his quiet droll way.   R.I.P. “Mother Trescher”—you will be remembered always with fondness.

In January 1945, plans for a new Allied offensive were taking shape. In preparation for a proposed crossing of the Roer River, we built a quantity of duckboards that were to be used over pontoons in that assault. When our infantry outflanked the German positions and captured that area, the duckboards were not needed.  Meanwhile, Ranger patrols were making nightly forays into enemy positions across the Roer River. On one trip, they found three Germans soldiers asleep in a Siegfried bunker. The two men on the outside were knifed, and the one in the middle was left untouched.  Imagine how that poor soldier would feel upon awakening and finding out that he was alive only by a shake of the dice? That was a heavy-duty mind game, and one that would unnerve any normal human being!

In mid-January an infantry lieutenant was wounded near our work area by an “S-mine”–“called a Bouncing Betty”–and his men requested that  our men sweep the area for additional mines.  They became impatient with our slow mine-sweeping technique and ran on ahead down to where their lieutenant was lying. I carefully followed them, stepping in their tracks to avoid being an additional casualty.  We each then grabbed an arm or a leg and carried the lieutenant to safety by retracing our footsteps. He was vomiting and one man kept his head turned to the side to keep the intracranial fluid from running out through the hole in the side of his skull.   He was semi-conscious, and would have remembered nothing. I hope that he had a complete recovery.

That winter, I had seen an almost perfectly formed hemisphere of white brain tissue lying in the snow.  A German soldier had been killed and apparently then had a mortar or artillery round burst nearby, which had blown away the side of his skull and dumped out the delicate white brain tissue.  Had the brain tissue not been frozen, it would not have been so well delineated as unfrozen brains are not all that sturdy. The detail was almost as good as the photographs in anatomy books and was a cause for queasiness in this one, who was not an anatomy major!

After the Bulge had been contained and reduced, our offensive to the Rhine began in early February with “THE MAD MINUTE.” where every weapon along the entire V-Corps front fired toward suspected German concentrations for one minute. This included all of our rifles, machine guns, and mortars firing as many rounds as possible. Divisional and Corps artillery fired TOT (Time on Target), where all of their rounds hit the target area at the same time. This devastating fire did not allow any time for the Germans to take cover—it was all over before they could react.

We then worked our way east toward the Rhine and in March, assisted another engineer battalion in building a floating bridge at Remagen. We then passed through Kassel, Halle, Leipzig and on 05 May passed through Grafenwohr–the German army training camp–where Colonel Skorzeny’s “Americans” complete with American uniforms. Jeeps and cigarettes had prepared for their special Bulge mission. We were nearing Pilsen and “VE Day” was just three days away!

January 13, 1945
by John M. Nolan, 30th ID, 119th IR
This was the worst day of my life, and it occurred in World War II as a member of the First Platoon, “G” Company, 119th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division. This January day during the “Battle of the Bulge” included most of the elements of close combat that can ever be inflicted by the Gods of War. Further, it took place in the bitter cold of a Belgian winter over frozen ground covered with a foot of snow. It was miserable.

The 30th Division had been in fierce combat with advancing German forces since December 18 in the Malmedy-Stavelot sector of the Ardennes. At the end of De­cember we were in a defensive position near Malmedy. Below our dug-in position along a railroad embankment there was a factory complex about a quarter of a mile away. Our platoon was ordered to mount a reconnaissance patrol to search this area for enemy activity. When we arrived we found dead American soldiers lying on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs with wire before being killed by German SS troops. Several dead German soldiers in the vicinity provided evidence of the severe fighting at this location. We found a German Panther tank altered in appearance to re­semble a U.S.Army tank and not wanting it recaptured and reused by the Germans, I took a thermite grenade and put it down the barrel of me 75mm tank cannon. The gre­nade melted most of the end of the cannon tube to ensure the tank would not fire its main gun again.

During this time our company and platoon took a well-deserved rest as we waited for the oncoming action. The German offensive had been blunted and a coun­terattack was planned to drive them out of the Ardennes and restore the battle line to its former location. It was cold and we tried to keep warm in our foxholes along the railroad track. Of all the men in our platoon Ernie King and Edward Knocke were the most inventive when it came to digging foxholes. The longer they were in one defensive location the more elaborate their underground “homes” became. This particular foxhole would have won the prize if any prizes were to be awarded. Their foxhole could ac­commodate about six men was covered with a door they had removed from a nearby house. The door was piled high with dirt to protect the occupants from any mortar or artillery hits. A small table, several chairs, and a small stove had also been “requisi­tioned” from nearby houses. This was heaven! We would sit in their abode at night eating our heated K rations, telling, “war stories.” and reminiscing about home, and our lives prior to our present circumstance. This was a time when we “recharged our bat­teries” and rested up for what we knew would be severe fighting ahead. It was also an opportunity to reassure the green replacements we had received, and hope they would meet the test of the coming combat.

By now we were a veteran outfit. I believe the phrase “hard bitten” could ade­quately describe us. The core group of our platoon had been together since early Sep­tember and was a well honed fighting force. Some members had been wounded and had returned to the platoon in time for combat in the Ardennes. Before Christmas day we had collided with Adolph Hitler’s First Panzer SS Division in a severe “bare-knuckle” firefight that caused their retreat. We knew we had met me test of combat and were ready for what was ahead. “Old timers” like us welcomed the new men that filled our ranks, some of them eighteen years old, and scared to death. We were all scared, and as the saying goes “had seen the elephant.” This knowledge gave us an edge, however slight, over the new men in subduing our own fears.

The intense cold added uncomfortable dimensions to our existence. Unlike die days of September, October, or November when we could get by wearing only a field jacket and combat boots we realized that to survive we needed to pile on more clothes. We all carried a heavy load of clothing and equipment that weighted us down. By De­cember I was wearing two pairs of long underwear, top and bottoms, a wool olive drab shirt and matching trousers. Over this was a field jacket, a wool scarf, and a wool trench coat that was long enough to reach the top of my combat boots. To keep my feet warm two pairs of socks and a pair of four buckle “Arctic’s,” sometimes called “ga­loshes” fit over two buckle combat boots. My steel helmet had a white camouflage cover and a knit wool cap underneath to keep your ears warm. I wore wool knit gloves that fit in a leather glove shell. In addition, I was equipped with a gas mask and a haversack, which held a mess kit, K rations, and a sleeping bag. A canteen with can­teen cup, an entrenching tool and first aid pouch was attached to my ammunition belt. I was one of the fortunate few in the platoon to have acquired a blow torch white in a Belgian town we had occupied and carried it in my left hand. The Army had a small stove to heat rations, and our platoon was issued only one and Mullins, our medical aid man, had that one. We were willing to carry the extra weight of the blow torch in order to have hot meals. These were all the clothes’ one could wear, and still be able to move as an infantryman is supposed to move. I could not run fast or very far with my load, but a steady waking pace was possible.

I was armed with an M-l rifle, 8 round semi-automatic, as well as a 10 inch long barrel Luger 9mm pistol on my belt. The Luger pistol was acquired in October from a German soldier Bill dine had shot one night when we were dug-in on a ridge at Wurselen, Germany. For my rifle there were one hundred rounds of 30 caliber ammuni­tion in 8 round clips, and a few extra 9mm rounds for the pistol. A bayonet was at­tached to my pack, and a rifle grenade bag was slung over my shoulder containing four anti-tank grenades and a launcher that fit over the muzzle of my M-l rifle. Under my wool shirt was a sheath knife carried under my left arm fastened to a string around my neck. Remembering how much weight this added during this campaign it is a wonder how I did it. I weighed about 150 pounds men, and I suspect the weight of the cloth­ing and equipment was at least one half of my body weight.

We received orders to dose the “Bulge” and return the line to its December 16 location. Our battalion would attack, moving south from Malmedy, to seize the town of BeUevaux that was situated behind a high ridge. Company “G” would lead the at­tack and our platoon would be the lead unit to carry the assault up the narrow road to the heights above the town. In preparing for the attack our platoon was told to leave sleeping bags in the rear with the company mess truck. The plan was to bring them for­ward that night after we had captured the objective. I decided to put my gas mask in my haversack instead of carrying it slung under my left arm. For a “GI” the gas mask carrier was considered a good place to “stash” personal belongings. In mine I carried letters received from home, writing paper, a shaving brush, razor and soap, and a coal miner’s carbide canister filled with tea bags.

Our platoon moved to the line of departure in darkness and at dawn the attack began with combat engineers moving forward to remove any anti-tank mines. We then were to clear out any German opposition so our supporting tanks could follow us then deploy in the open ground to support our attack. As we moved forward we learned the engineers had discovered an extensive mine field on the road. It was late in the morning before we could move through a foot path the engineers had opened through the mines. We continued the attack up the road to seize and hold the ridgeline until the tanks could catch up. The platoon slowly trudged its way up the steeply sloped, nar­row road that ran a quarter of a mile to the top of the ridge. The snow was a foot deep and it was slow going as we made our way up the hill with combat boots and our four buckle galoshes.

Ernie King’s squad lead the attack, as the platoon sergeant I decided to be up front with Ernie’s squad; the other two squads in the platoon deployed in single file be­hind us. Cletus Herrig was the lead scout with Bob Friedenheimer the second scout. As the platoon approached the crest of the ridge Herrig spotted German soldiers in foxholes and yelled back that they were dug-in some thirty yards ahead. Cletus could speak German so we told him to call to them and demand that they surrender. I thought I could fire a rifle grenade into their position, but when it landed the deep snow cushioned the impact and it failed to explode.

Cletus kept trying to talk them into surrender, when suddenly all hell broke loose! No one who has ever heard the sound of a MG42 German machine gun open fire will ever forget it. This machine gun was pointed down toward the ditch line where we were crouched spraying us with bullets. The first burst hit four of us before we could find cover in the ditch below the machine gun’s trajectory. Herrig was hit along the top of both shoulders, Friedenheimer was hit through the lung, I took a bullet in the back of my pack and was knocked down to my knees. Behind me was Mflton Cohen, a private, one of the eighteen year old replacements that had joined us two weeks earlier. He was hit in me teeth with the bullet exiting his head behind his right ear, and I will never for­get his plaintive call for his mother. Ernie King was the only one of the first five that was not hit by initial burst of fire from the machine gun.
Having been knocked down I immediately thought, “I just got lucky, I am on my way to the hospital and off this damn hill, and hope my wound is not too severe.” My back was hurting and I assumed that I was bleeding from a puncture in my back. I rolled over and took the pack off my shoulders, to see what had happened. To my sur­prise a German machine gun bullet was lying in the hole on my pack with a shred of rubber attached to it. I picked it up, it was still warm, then put it in my pocket as a souvenir of the occasion. Later I opened my gas mask container and discovered that the pack fabric, the gas mask container fabric, the rubber face mask, the metal gas mask canister, and the handle of my shaving brush had slowed the bullet to a stop on the surface of my field coat. It gave me one hell of a thump on my back that was sore for a few days afterwards. This was the only day in combat I had ever carried my gas mask in my pack and it had saved my life.

That first burst of machine gun fire put our platoon down hugging the ground in the ditch beside the road. We were stunned, and began to assess the extent of our casualties; we were grateful to find that no one had been killed. For the wounded among us immediate evacuation to the rear for treatment at the battalion aid station was made more difficult by the sporadic machine gun fire. The “jerries” had us pinned down and we could not move forward in the face of their machine gun fire on the road and ditch line. The phrase “all hell broke loose” again applied to our situation when the Germans began to drop 81mm mortar rounds on our position. There are few things more fearful to an exposed infantryman than incoming mortar or artillery fire. To compound this fear the “jerries” included in their barrage “screaming meemies,” enemy rockets that made a horrendous noise, and caught us unprepared as targets for mis form of artillery. When they came in on us I perceived their sound was comparable to railroad boxcar flying sideways through the air with both of its doors open. I found out later that the German name for this weapon was Nebelwerfer. As a rocket it did not compare with the accuracy of mortar or artillery fire, but its high pitched screeching noise made it all the more terrifying.

The “screaming meemies” did not get us but me 81mm mortars did. From their defensive positions the German’s were masters at pinning down advancing infantry and then raining mortar rounds on them. The mortar shells were falling on the road behind us and on the remainder of our platoon. An 81mm mortar shell fragment hit Vie Kwia-towski in the head seriously wounding him. Mortar shell fragments hit Bob Heider in the neck, shoulder and back. Jones got hit in the head by a fragment that penetrated his steel helmet, and the mortar barrage also wounded the second squad BAR man, Char­les Holverson, Clarence Overton was killed. Our progress halted, we could not go for­ward and were not going to retreat. The immediate requirement was to evacuate our wounded. Smitty, our platoon leader, was in the middle of the platoon column and organized the effort along with the platoon medic to remove the wounded from the hill. Those that could walk moved to the rear. For the more seriously wounded a door was taken from nearby house and brought forward to use as a stretcher for Vie and others wounded from the barrage.
Ernie King and I stayed to’the front keeping down low in the ditch beside the road. We were concerned that the Germans would mount a counterattack on our posi­tion after their first machine gun burst. Artillery support fire began, but we were too dose to our enemy for the artillery to continue and be effective. Any artillery rounds falling short would have landed on our platoon deployed along the road. The tanks would eventually move forward and up the hill to support us when the minefield was cleared. In the meantime we scanned the hedgerow along the crest of the ridge and a row of trees about thirty yards away that ran down the hill paralleling the road. A German soldier was spotted on the other side of the line of trees crawling down the hill in an attempt to outflank our position. Both King and I shot at him, but at the time we could not see whether we got him. We finally received word that two light tanks had moved through the cleared mine field and would support the Third Platoon in its at­tack through the field on our left flank to knock out the machine gun emplacement.

The attack by the Third Platoon was a sight to behold, with a deafening cres­cendo of small arms fire and cannon bursts. Each platoon of Company G had a slightly different character regarding weaponry preference. Our platoon had no par­ticular love for the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR); it was a 21 pound load to carry and a weapon that required constant maintenance to keep it operational. Each of our three squads was issued a BAR. However, the 3d Platoon thought the BAR was a great weapon and almost every third man in the platoon carried one. Sergeant Frank Wease, the Third Platoon Sergeant, carried one and encouraged the weapons use.

In the combined infantry and tank attack up the hill Wease deployed his pla­toon abreast in a line on each side of and between the two light tanks. The tanks were armed with a 37mm main gun on the turret and a 30 caliber light machine gun that protruded from the front of the tank where the machine gunner sat beside the tank driver. There were about 14 men with BAR’S in Wease’s platoon and the remainder with M-l rifles. Coming up the hill with the tanks in the middle of the formation, they were all firing as they moved forward. Each tanks main gun, its machine gun, the BAR’S, and the M-l rifles of die third platoon created a sheet of fire concentrated on the enemy position at the crest of the hill. There was no way the third platoon could be stopped by any counter fire from the entrenched German troops. Wease and his men, with their tank support, surged through the enemy line along the trees on the ridge. The German troops that were still alive immediately surrendered. Several minutes had passed when Sgt. Wease brought some prisoners down the road where we were located. All of us were furious at the casualties they had inflicted on our platoon, and wanted to shoot them, but Wease would not let us. Later, after calming down from the days’ events, I was grateful that Wease had restrained me from taking such a rash act. I had never shot an unarmed prisoner, and didn’t want such a thing on my conscience. After the attack King and I went over to the hedgerow where we had shot at the German crawling down the hill. We found him dead. Someone in the attacking third platoon had taken his pistol as they moved up the hill in the assault.

Late afternoon had come by the time our company had seized the ridgeline above Bellevaux. We received orders to set up a defensive position, the days were short in the middle of winter and night would soon fall. The third platoon was to occupy that part of the ridge they had captured earlier in the day. Our platoon deployed in a stretch of open field to their right where digging a foxhole was very difficult. To get beneath the frozen ground required an extraordinary effort. Fortunately, someone in command had realized this problem and before the attack thought to issue a quarter pound block of TNT with a fuse and blasting cap to every other man in our platoon. Instructions have been given on the proper method to assemble the explosive device: dig a small hole in the ground, put the charge in the hole, light the fuse, and move away quickly before it exploded. The resulting explosion broke up the frozen crust so that a foxhole could be easily dug in the softer ground underneath. We were also told that the blasting cap was volatile and could explode if jarred violently, or exposed to excessive heat. This required that every man carrying a block of TNT. with its fuse and blasting cap, carefully wrap each separately, hoping they did not get hit, or in some way inad­vertently ignite the blasting cap and TNT while they were carrying it.

Those of us in the company that survived this day’s combat were faced with enduring a cold winter’s night on a Belgian mountain. Previous to the attack we were told to lighten our equipment load by leaving our sleeping bags in the rear area. Then after the attack our sleeping bags would be carried forward for use that night; this did not happen. Because of the snow cover and the steep incline of the winding road to our defensive position, our company truck could not move dose enough to deliver the promised sleeping bags. We were in for a very long, cold night of lying in the open on frozen snow covered ground, or in hastily dug foxholes. The rifle squads on the defen­sive line got busy, breaking up the ground with TNT then dug their foxholes for the night. We, in the platoon headquarters were not issued blocks of TNT so lying on top of the snow-covered ground was our only option. Lou LeFever, always a great forager, went down the hill and found a barn with some hay in it. He brought as much as he could carry to our position behind the ridgeline. We scattered the hay in the drainage ditch where previously the machine gun fire had pinned us down. We lay on the hay putting the remainder of it on us. Smitty, the platoon leader, Lou LeFever, the platoon runner, Mullins the medic, and me, the platoon sergeant, huddled together in the “spoon position.” I don’t remember who was in the middle, or who was on the outside of our sleeping “formation,” but I do remember that it was very cold, and we were all shivering and hoping for morning to come quickly.

The next morning “G” Company was ordered to advance over the ridge and down the road leading to the town of Bellevaux, our next objective. The Third Platoon would lead the attack, with the Second Platoon in support. The First Platoon having been severely mangled the day before, followed in reserve, with my position being at the rear of our platoon column. It was a cold dark morning as the remaining members of the platoon reluctantly shouldered packs and rifles to prepare themselves for another day of combat against a determined enemy. As we moved single file down the road toward Bellevaux one of the men from the platoon, Samuel Klugman, dropped out of the column. I walked over to find out why. He pulled off his glove and showed me his right hand, saying his hand felt frozen. The hand looked blue and rigid so I told him to go to the rear for medical treatment. This was our last casualty from the attack the previous day, the worst day of my life.

Comment: The combat strength of Company G, 119th Infantry at 0300 hrs. on January 13,1944 was 140 (134 EM, 3 Off, 3 Medics). At 1600 hrs., at the end of the attack, the company combat strength was reduced to 83 (78 EM, 3 Off, 2 Medics). In a 13-hour period Company G lost 57 men, a 41 % loss rate. Of the 57 losses three men were killed, Clarence Overton, 1st Platoon, Lauren A. Gates, Jr., and James W. Phillis 3d Pla­toon; the remainder were wounded in action.