by Sam Schwartz Landrum and Zach Allen Ferdana, Members

Our journey began with a cup of coffee at Le Select, our father’s favorite cafe on Montparnasse in Paris, the city he lived in for 7 years after the war. Allen Schwartz is believed to have landed in Cherbourg on November 2, 1944 and joined his unit, the US 3rd Army, 11th Armored Division, 778th Tank Battalion, Headquarters Company as a reconnaissance scout, in time to leave for Metz to engage in the battle for that city. He was 21 years old. We, his two sons, arrived in Paris on April 5, 2018, more than 73 years later and 25 years to the month after his passing, to begin the first steps of his war journey across the continent. Our plan: to cover the same ground from the coast of Normandy through the Ardennes Forrest to the Rhine River, using his unit’s history and simple hand drawn map marked with his notes.

Like many war Veterans, our father spoke little about the war in the days of our childhood, each of us carrying a cloudy memory of half told war stories. However, we can substantiate his presence between the English Channel and the Rhine River during the war in two places: Terville, a small French town north of Metz, on Christmas Day, 1944 and 3 days later, in Uberhern, Germany. Our evidence consists of only two photographs of him during the war itself, from his war scrapbook.

Normandy and Cherbourg: The start of it all
The day after our arrival in Paris, we left for Normandy and moved through history at Sword, Juno, Gold, Arromanches, Omaha, Pointe Du Hoque, and Utah. We also visited Cherbourg, the deep-water port that General Eisenhower intended to capture quickly by adding Utah Beach to the D-Day invasion. It was here that we believe Private Allen Schwartz first landed on the continent on November 2, 1944. He never told us this, but the 778 Tank Battalion landed here in September 1944 and his discharge papers indicate his tour of Europe began on that day in November. Looking out across the port and next to a plaque that acknowledged the port’s “fraternity of arms” from 1914-1918 and 1940-1945, we imagined our father’s first steps of the war, almost 5 months after D-Day. His presence intangible, was it filled with fear and in anticipation of the terror awaiting him?

Metz: “reconnaissance was used 
for routes and bridges”
From Normandy we headed to Metz in eastern France, the city where the 778th Tank Battalion first entered combat. Along the way we stopped for the night in Reims to visit the room where World War II Europe ended and surrender papers signed. In Metz we found a lively, industrialized city, our experience and connection to our father increasingly more visceral. Walking the town, it was on a small bridge on the Moselle River that we were struck by our father’s experience somewhere in this city. We pulled out our copy of the “History of the 778th Tank Battalion” we obtained from the US National Archives in Washington DC and read that the battle of Metz in November 1944 was where “reconnaissance was used for routes and bridges.” Moments later, standing on that bridge, we spotted a small plaque commemorating the bridge’s liberation by French forces on November 20, 1944. Was our father, Private Schwartz, here or near here? From the very few stories he told us about the war, he had mentioned being in a reconnaissance unit clearing the way for the tanks of the 778th. He had been in this city, clearing routes and bridges, fighting for his life and the liberation of Europe. Now, on this bridge, we found ourselves closer to his experience decades earlier.

The simple hand drawn map from our father’s war scrapbook was accompanied by the “Vest Pocket History of the 778th Tank Battalion,” a type written listing of the 778th’s war itinerary, dated July 6, 1945. A handwritten note in our father’s writing said that he returned to Paris for a week in late November/early December. We can only wonder what happened and why, after only a few weeks in combat, he went back to Paris and was reassigned as a chaplain’s assistant and driver.

Terville: the search for a school basement
From Metz we drove a half an hour north to Terville to try to find the place where our father’s scrapbook photo was taken on Christmas Day, 1944. Standing beside a Christmas tree with other US soldiers, and French civilians, our father’s handwritten caption is our only clue: “Noel in a school basement. 25 December 44. Terville, France.”

In Terville, we found two schools that survived the war: the Ecole de Musique de Terville and the Ecole Primare le Moulin. We were encouraged to contact the Mayor’s Office to find out more. Because the day was over, we drove to Luxembourg City for two nights to explore and experience the ground of the Battle of the Bulge. Our father wrote that he fought in Luxembourg and Belgium in December 1944 and January 1945. He used to say he fought in the Battle of the Bulge, exactly where and with whom, we do not know. So, we visited the Luxembourg American Cemetery and General Patton’s final resting place, the National Military Museum in Dierkirch, ran a circuit in the hills around Bettendorf and through the southern shoulder of the Bulge marked with old foxholes and GI tree carvings. We also stopped at the General Patton Monument in Ettelbruck, noting that as we follow our father’s footsteps, we follow General Patton’s as well.

The next day we returned to Terville for a meeting at City Hall, where city officials looked at the photo and whisked us into their vehicle to take us to the Ecole Primare le Moulin. They knew instantly which school was the site of the Christmas Day photo. There we met Gilles Leleux, the school’s principal, who welcomed us and led us to the basement where he shared his understanding of the American presence and activity in and around this school during the war. He told us that the school courtyard was filled with American military trucks, and that this basement was where people came when bombs dropped on Terville. Then, what happened next was truly remarkable.

Inspired to learn more, Mr. Leleux made several phone calls and was able to locate a woman who was alive during the war, and she happened to live just two doors down! We entered Ms. Nicolette Zullo’s house with several city officials, the city photographer and Mr. Leleux. She sat on her bed having recently broken her leg. Now in her 90’s, Ms. Zullo looked at our photo, and without hesitation, immediately identified the French civilians as members of the Aime family. She was 17 in 1944, learned to dance from American GIs, told us about how American soldiers first came to Terville, had to leave as the Germans pushed back in, and eventually returned to stay. American soldiers gave the local children candy and gum, she said, and she told of their setting up food lines to feed the local people. She also confirmed that when bombs were dropping, everyone in Terville went to this one school, now the Ecole Primare le Moulin. She did not recognize our father, but remembered Christmas Day in 1944, the lack of food and the miraculous appearance of a turkey in their yard that they captured and ate.

After our visit with Ms. Zullo and our identification of the Aime family in the photo, Mr. Leleux was able to locate and get the youngest daughter of that family on the telephone: Ms. Bernadette Aime, a resident of nearby Thionville. Although she herself was not in the Christmas Day photo, connecting with her brought new life and curiosity into the story behind this photo.

Into Germany: Uberherrn and 
the Rhine at Oppenheim
We left Terville as Mr.Leleux worked on setting up a meeting with the Aime family, crossed into Germany and stopped where our father did, in Urberherrn, long enough to pose for a photo much like he did with the chaplain he was assisting. We drove further on, our goal to reach the Rhine and found our home for the night where General Patton and his men first crossed it, at Oppenheim. “The Vest Pocket History” said the 778th arrived at GauOdenheim on March 23, 1945 and crossed the Rhine somewhere close, quite possibly at Oppenheim, on March 25, 1945. We put our feet in the water of the last major barrier to the heart of Germany, watched barges and kayaks float by, imagining American soldiers, and perhaps our father, crossing here. That night Mr. Leleux emailed us to confirm that he had arranged a meeting the very next day back in Terville with Ms. Bernadette Aime, and her granddaughter who spoke English, to look at our Christmas Day 1944 photo.

Terville revisited: meeting 
Ms. Bernadette Aime
We arrived early for the meeting at the Ecole Primare le Moulin. Mr. Leleux greeted us then took us down into the basement and its most finished room, the room where he and others identified the door in the corner of the 1944 Christmas Day photo. He put us in front of the very wall that our father stood during the war. Chilled by this, the photo’s story suddenly had a sequel.

This former bomb shelter now vibrant classroom, had a table in its middle, with a white tablecloth, a few bottles of champagne, and hors d’oeuvres. This was not just an event or even a strange reunion. It was a commemorative ceremony. The regional press from Thionville arrived, as well as Ms. Frederique Munerol, the Communications Director for the City of Terville, who presented each of us with a handmade ceramic bowl on behalf of the Mayor of Terville. Finally, Ms. Bernadette Merz, formerly Bernadette Aime, and her granddaughter Karin, arrived. Mr Leleux formally introduced the Aime family to the Schwartz family, a reunion indeed, 73 and half years later. Everyone stepped back as Ms. Merz was presented with the photo. Her face brightened, as she identified her family: her sister Felie, age 10, her brother Adolph, age 17, sister Therese, age 22 and her mother, Madeline, age 46. Ms. Merz herself was 7 at that time but was 2 hours away with other family members, she returned to Terville in September 1945. As we talked through translation about the photo and that time of the war, she did not remember hearing about Christmas Day in 1944 and why her family was there in the basement. She then pulled out two photos of her family after the war, including her father and sister Odile, neither of whom were in the Christmas Day photo but all of whom survived the war. Champagne glasses were filled, all three of us stood before the very same wall of the photo, toasting the coming together of our families once again.

Ms. Merz went on to tell us the story of her family and their lives after the war. She is now 81 years old, was married in 1957 and raised 3 children in nearby Thionville. Her older sister Odile was living nearby, but unable to join us on this monumental day. The both of them are the only family members still alive. She then described, in amazing detail, the rest of her family and their lives after the war.

A journalist from the regional newspaper, Le Republican Lorraine, asked about our father’s life, his experience of the war, and his life after the war, including his years in Paris and Europe in the late 1940’s and early 1950’s. We remarked about his reluctance to talk about the war, and our current journey in his footsteps. Like a circle where a different artist begins and another completes it, a loop had been closed that we didn’t think was possible just hours before. We took photos in front of the school and said our goodbyes, aspiring to meet again. The next morning, our basement reunion was Le Republican Lorraine’s front page story.

More photos and footsteps to go
We left Terville for Bastogne, to the center of the Bulge to complete this phase of our journey. There are more photos in our father’s scrapbook, all from the post-war liberation and Allied occupation period. This first part of our journey in our father’s footsteps through the war has given us the opportunity to experience a component of an intangible aspect of our childhood upbringing: the impact the war had on our father, and subsequently on us. As we learned about and experienced these places of history and markers of time, some questions were answered but many more were generated. Why did our father go back to Paris so soon after Metz? Why was he assigned to assist a chaplain, where did they go and what did they do? Why was our father in Terville and what was he doing at the school on Christmas Day? What function did the Ecole Primare le Moulin serve for the US Army at that time? Where was he and who did he fight with during the Battle of the Bulge?

After our return home, Mr. Leleux discovered from the French archives that the governor of the Moselle region sponsored a Christmas tree project in each town of the area for the local children in 1944, the first Christmas since 1938 that France was free. His hypothesis is that our father, in his role as chaplain assistant and driver, was in Terville to support and perhaps participate in this project.

The 778th Tank Battalion’s journey across Europe, after having crossed the Rhine, twisted through southern Germany and stopped in Austria. Our father’s notes mark several of his experiences along the way, and his scrapbook includes photos of Nazi atrocities. After the war ended, he stayed in Europe until March 1946, having spent time in Czechoslovakia, Germany and Austria. With the scrapbook photos, map and Vest Pocket History of the 778th Tank Battalion as our guide, we hope to complete the journey of our father’s path through the war to Ulrichsberg, Austria, where the war for him ended and the occupation began.

As Rick Atkinson said in “The Guns at Last Light,” World War II Europe was over at the signing in Reims on May 7, 1945, but it was not finished. The war in Europe finished the next day, on May 8, at a second signing ceremony led by the Russians in Berlin. We believe our father never set foot in Berlin, the headquarters of the catastrophic delusion that drove this war, but because this is where it was finally finished on May 8, 1945, it is where we hope to finish as well.

by Lester Bornstein, 168 ENGR CMBT BN, Co B

The Bulge began on December 16, 1944 where my unit was assigned to support the Second Infantry Division in the Ardennes, St. Vith, which is close to the German border.

My unit had landed in Normandy in June 1944, and fought with Patton in the areas to recapture the ports of Cherbourg and Brest. We accompanied Patton’s historic battles leading to the liberation of Paris. Our final destination was to the Ardennes where we supported the veteran Second Infantry Division. After a very short period of time, they were replaced by the newly arrived 106th Infantry Division.

We were bivouacked in the woods on the outskirts of St. Vith – our mission was to maintain the few secondary roads leading to the front lines now occupied by the 106th division. Although there was sporadic artillery fire, the area was relatively quiet.

On December 16th 1944, we were suddenly aroused from our sleeping arrangements in our make-shift huts. Non-commissioned officers were shouting, “Grab your guns! Leave all personal items behind! The Germans have launched an offensive!”

The members of our three companies A, B, and C trudged to the area where the enemy artillery was targeting. This was a secondary road connecting the main thoroughfare to St. Vith. It was apparent that the enemy had concentrated its assault on the areas that the 106th had occupied from the Second Infantry Division.

Our unit dug foxholes and set up obstacles to prevent the advance of the enemy. My personal involvement was to join a highly respected sergeant in my company, James Hill. He came from Massachusetts as I did.

We had a bazooka and ammunition to hopefully destroy any tanks coming up the road towards St. Vith (which the Germans expected to capture within twenty-four hours). We could hear the sources of the approaching enemy—artillery and small arms fire. It was apparent that the American defensive line had been penetrated. Within a short time, the enemy tanks were coming towards us and they were accompanied by well armed foot soldiers.

Sergeant James gave me the order to load the bazooka. I removed the first of the four projectiles that I had been carrying. As I inserted the projectile into the bazooka, my hands were shaking so hard that I broke one of the leads that would charge the bazooka shell.
To say Sergeant Hill was upset would be an understatement. He tensely ordered me to put in another round. Once again, with my shaky hands, I broke the second one. By this time, the approaching column had come within twenty-thirty yards of opposition. My heroic buddy inched forward on the edge of the parapet of our deeply dug foxhole and was so careful to await the perfect spot to hit the underbelly of the approaching lead tank. As I dug my head into his shoulder, I whispered a prayer to Jimmy, “Please don’t miss!” As I held my breath, the projectile hit its mark.

To a crunching halt, the tank suddenly erupted in flames—and its occupants were screaming with the fire engulfing them. The foot soldiers accompanying the tank rushed forward with loaded rifles, seeking out what enemy forces could stop this formidable assault group. The sounds of war had stopped and all we could hear was this group of soldiers talking to one another and as they sought out the defending forces on the outskirts of St. Vith, their final destination. My brief knowledge of Yiddish allowed me to understand what the Germans were saying. They were perplexed by any formidable defense forces leading to the town.

Fortunately, our freshly dug foxhole was camouflaged by boughs of tree limbs that had been shredded by artillery fire concealing us from the road. This factor saved our lives. Jim Hill ordered me to get a grenade ready which I did, while I simultaneously grasped the handle to prevent the premature activation.

Suddenly, a German command could be heard shouting,“Kum Tzirick!,” ordering the accompanying ground troops to return to the main force a few hundred yards back.
Many years later, in 2004, I returned to St. Vith with my wife for a ceremony to celebrate the allied victory. Because I wanted to show her the spot where I hit the tank, we drove together up to the outskirts of St. Vith in our car. Suddenly, around a certain bend of the road, I slammed on the breaks and I said to my wife, “This is it, this is where I hit tank.”

Getting out of the car, I saw an old farm house and a woman outside feeding chickens. I wanted to try and speak to her, so I went up to her by myself. The woman told me that her son spoke English, so she introduced me to him. When I told the son about my experience at this road, he told me that he remembered the moment when I shot the tank. At that time, he was a young man and hiding in the basement of his house. When heard the German artillery coming up the road, he was watched the action from the cellar window. He spotted two young American soldiers from a foxhole shoot a German tank with a bazooka. When the Germans turned around, the young man came out and emptied the tank, to see if there was anything valuable. I asked the man to show me where he saw the two young Americans, and he walked me over to my very foxhole. Because I now had a witness to mine and Jimmy’s wartime action, later Jimmy and I were both honored by the US military with medals for bravery.

Soon after receiving the awards, my comrade Jimmy Hill received a letter from a German tank driver, Hans Geng, who had been in that column approaching St. Vith. Geng had relatives living in St. Vith and was visiting them. He was told by one of the residents of St. Vith that there was a monument to a unit that was involved in the defense of the city. Geng found a newspaper article detailing mine and Jimmy’s story. Geng found Hill’s address in Florida and wrote to him, telling him that the bazooka team had made a lucky shot by destroying the lead tank of the assault column.

When my daughter Karen learned of this saga, she felt it was newsworthy and related this story to a friend at NBC. He shared it with Chuck Scarborough, a leading broadcaster at NBC. Chuck saw this as an opportunity to bring these two former enemies together. So he put together a four-night series called “Enemies No More,” and Hans, Jimmy, and I met in St. Vith in 2004 to record the documentary of our reuniting.

To watch the documentary about Lester Bornstein and Hans Geng reuniting, click here to go to YouTube.com

by Thomas D. Morgan

There are many human-interest stories of heroism and sacrifice that have come out of the great Ardennes Campaign of 1944-45. One of the most unusual concerns that of Major Matthew Legler and his U.S. Military Academy 1939 Class Ring. He lost his ring during the hectic days of combat at the start of what Americans call “The Battle of the Bulge.” It was returned to him 40 years later by a young Belgian garbage collector whose hobby was military archeology.

The Quiet Ardennes
On 16 December 1944, Legler was a 28 year old major commanding the 1st Battalion, 393rd Infantry Regiment of the 99th Infantry Division. His battalion was positioned near the twin villages of Rocherath-Krinkelt, just west of the German border in the Belgian Ardennes Forest. The 99th Division was newly arrived from the United States and untested in combat. Since arriving on the Continent in November 1944, the 99th Division had been placed in a defensive sector to gain combat experience. The front lines of the 99th Division ran for 19 miles through belts of timber in the Ardennes that contained rocky gorges, small streams, and steep hills.

At the start of the German Ardennes Offensive, the 99th Division held the right wing of V Corps looking at the German West Wall defenses of the famed Siegfried Line. The Ardennes sector had been quiet for weeks, and the 2nd Infantry Division was attacking through the 99th Division to capture the Roer Valley system of dams. If this attack was successful, the 99th Division was scheduled to follow the 2nd Division and cover its southern flank. It was to be the 99th Division’s first, large-scale operation of the war. Little did anyone know how large-scale it would be.

The Ardennes sector appeared to offer no special risk, because V Corps and the 99th Division had only identified three under-strength German divisions to their front. When Hitler unleashed his Ardennes Offensive on 16 December, V Corps did not know that 12 of approximately 30 German divisions were assembled in front of it, ready to launch the breakthrough attack. The 99th Division was in the path of the 6th SS Panzer Army attack and, in particular, the I SS Panzer Corps consisting of two armored and three infantry divisions.

In late November, Legler had moved his battalion from regimental reserve to be the right flank battalion of the regiment. The 393rd Regiment only had two battalions on line, the 3rd and Legler’s 1st, because the 2nd Battalion had been attached to the 395th Regiment to the north. The 393rd Regiment had demonstrated in front of the German West Wall defenses during the 2nd Division/V Corps attack against the Roer on 13 December. The regiment was deployed along the Belgian-German frontier in the eastern edge of a long forest belt, and the International Highway that marked the border. The 393rd Regimental headquarters was in Krinkelt, and the 1st Battalion held a front of about 500 yards approximately four miles to the east. Of the twin villages of Rocherath-Krinkelt, the Belgian-German border cut diagonally through Legler’s battalion position, and the battalion had a view of the Siegfried Line defenses.

“All Hell Broke Loose”
The night of 15 December, Legler’s right flank units reported tank tracks clanking. Just before dawn on the 16th, Legler said, “all hell broke loose” as artillery, mortars, and Nebelwerfers (rockets) crashed into his positions, and tanks with searchlights ablaze came rumbling through the anti-tank obstacles of the Siegfried Line 300-400 yards to his front. The German gun and Nebelwerfer barrage lasted from about 0525 until 0600. Then, German grenadiers of the 277th Volksgrenadier (people’s infantry) Division advanced out of the artificial moonlight created by the tank searchlights. The other front line battalion of the 99th Division underwent the same type of overwhelming assault. The entire 277th Volksgrenadier Division was destined to hit only three battalions (the 1st and 3rd of the 393rd Regiment and the 2nd of the 394th). These battalions suffered greatly, but by absorbing and delaying the 277th Volksgrenadiers, they held up the entire I SS Panzer Corps.

Most of Legler’s fighting positions were at the edge of the forest belt overlooking the International Highway and generally open ground. That gave them better fields of fire than their neighbor battalions on either side. Legler’s battalion held on, and inflicted a heavy toll on the Germans with their mortar and machine gun fire. None of the advancing Germans got inside of Legler’s position, and the German assault in his sector ground to a halt. Legler credits his initial success to two factors. The battalion had fighting positions for every 1-2 men in addition to their sleeping foxholes; and daily leadership checks of the soldiers’ feet had kept the battalion free of the debilitating trenchfoot that was well-known to soldiers in the damp, cold Ardennes. Nevertheless, regardless of the reasons, it was a heroic action on the part of all of the men.

A Pyrrhic Victory
As the German attack stalled, the commander of the 277th Volksgrenadiers committed his reserve regiment and drove back the American lines about 300 yards in some places. Some of the platoons of Legler’s line companies fell back, and he had to commit his reserve to prevent a breakthrough. By the end of the day, Legler’s battalion still maintained a cohesive defense, but more than one-half of the battalion’s foxhole strength had been lost; and the 3rd Battalion on his left had its right flank pushed back several hundred yards, losing almost as many men as Legler.

About 1030 hours on 17 December, the 393rd Regimental Commander ordered the 1st and 3rd Battalions to move to new positions closer to Rocherath-Krinkelt. The move was completed that afternoon. Just after dark, the Germans overran Legler’s not fully-established command post. Legler and some of his men evacuated the area and spent the night hiding in the forest. The next morning on the 18th, Legler and his staff returned to their former command post area, where he assembled the remaining troops of the battalion. Here, Legler joined Captain Bob McGee, the S3 of the 2nd Battalion of the 394th Regiment on his right flank, and his remaining troops. Together they proceeded west cross-country on the morning of the 18th, taking a few vehicles and those wounded that could be moved. While moving back toward Murringen and the American lines, the remnants of the two battalions met a hail of enemy small arms fire from a village. Communications were sporadic, but an artillery liaison officer with the group called in enough artillery fire from a Corps Artillery unit to enable the group to escape back into the woods. The main body followed a creek bed and, under cover of darkness, entered American lines in the vicinity of Wirtzfeld. On the morning of 19 December, the 1st Battalion, 393rd Infantry dug-in along the Elsenborn Ridge with less than 300 of its officers and men left.

Legler and his battalion remained on the Elsenborn Ridge until the end of January 1945. They formed part of the critical northern shoulder of the “Bulge” along with other V Corps units, the 9th, 2nd, and 1st Infantry Divisions. The 6th SS Panzer Army could not shake this hard shoulder free and the major German role in the Ardennes Offensive passed to the 5th Panzer Army to the south.

The Battlefield Gives Up The Ring
Legler has no recall when he lost his ring, nor when he first realized that he did not have it anymore. The heavy gold ring with an onyx stone was found in an overgrown foxhole in a forested area called the Rocherwald, not far from the village of Murringen. From the location of the foxhole, it would seem that the ring was lost on 17 or 18 December, when Legler and his unit were trying to avoid the Germans and set up a defense. The man who found it, Alain Jacquemain, was a 26-year-old garbage collector from Charleroi, Belgium, who spent his free time going over battlefields with a metal detector, l ooking for military souvenirs. Jacquemain had found many objects in this manner, and he had accumulated an extensive private collection of World War II relics. He even drove a restored World War II jeep as his personal vehicle. In spite of his previous success in ten years of searching on the battlefield, he admitted that Legler’s ring was the nicest thing that he had ever found. Naturally, he was excited with his souvenir and anxious to find its owner.

Finding the owner of the ring is almost a story in itself. Jacquemain found the ring in 1982. While visiting the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) near Mons, Belgium to see a rugby match, Jacquemain asked a British colonel if he could identify the ring’s owner. The colonel immediately recognized the ring as a West Point class ring and saw Legler’s initials engraved on the inside. U.S. authorities at SHAPE researched the USMA register of Graduates and determined that Legler was retired and living in Hilton Head, South Carolina. That got the ball rolling. The author and his commander, Colonel David E. Schorr, USMA 1957, became involved in notifying Legler, and negotiating with the Belgian Gendarmerie and Jacquemain for the return of the ring. It took almost two years to convince Jacquemain to part with the ring. Jacquemain delayed in returning the ring—not because he wanted a reward or to keep it, but because he wanted to be sure that Legler was really alive and that he would receive it. (Jacquemain had heard that Legler had died.) Also, it was Jacquemain’s fondest wish to be able to return the ring to Legler in person. That was not possible, and finally Jacquemain agreed to turn over the ring to the author in a semi-official ceremony at SHAPE. That way Jacquemain would have proof that he had done the right thing. The ring was promptly mailed to Legler, heavily insured, and he had it back almost 40 years after when he had lost it.

The return of the ring was a fitting end to a story that had started in 1938, when First Classman Legler bought his 1939 Class Ring from Tiffany’s. Legler wore his ring during his Firstie Year at West Point, and as a young officer for five years during peacetime and wartime training assignments, before ending up in Belgium in 1944. After surviving the initial stages of the “Battle of the Bulge,” Legler tripped a land mine on 1 February 1945 that resulted in his medical retirement in 1946 as a Lieutenant Colonel. The war was over for him, as well as his career in the Army. A Silver Star and Purple Heart are his souvenirs of the war. Since then, Legler retired a second time from Mobil Oil in 1980, and moved to Hilton Head.

When first approached about his ring, Legler did not seem anxious to return to the scene of the “Bulge.” No doubt the memories of fallen comrades, and the end of his promising military career, had something to do with it. In researching this article, the author was pleased to learn that Matthew Legler had finally returned to the Ardennes in 1989, on a historical tour with noted World War II historian Charles B. MacDonald. The battlefield had given up his ring after 40 years, and Legler had made his pilgrimage on the 45th Anniversary year of the “Battle of the Bulge.”

LTC Thomas D. Morgan, USA, Retired is a USMA 1958 graduate who visited the Ardennes several times while stationed at SHAPE in the early 1980s, and later in the 90s while working for a Defense contractor. The historical background sources for this article were: Charles B. MacDonald’s A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge; Hugh M. Cole’s The Ardennes: Battle of the Bulge, US Army in World War II; and correspondence with LTC (Ret) Matthew L. Legler.

—Submitted by Bob Rhodes, BOBA Vice President Military & Veteran Affairs

by David Bailey, 106 INFD, 422 INF, 3 BN, CO F

A native of Bluefield, West Virginia, as a young recruit I enlisted in the Army in November 1942 and completed my basic training in the infantry at Camp Wheeler, Georgia in April 1943.

After completing my basic training, I qualified for the Army Specialized Training Program (ASTP), which was the brainchild of the Chief of Staff and Secretary of the Army, who believed that the ASTP would provide a pool of available leaders when the war ended.

I studied military government and engineering at Alabama Polytechnic Institute and Clemson College. However, ASTP was later disbanded, in order to provide the Army with replacements to depleted US divisions serving overseas. I was sent to the newly formed “Golden Lions” of the 106th Infantry Division and later assigned to Company F, 422nd Infantry.

Deployed from Fort Miles Standish (near Boston) on November 10, 1944, we sailed on the troop ship Aquitania and arriving in England November 17th, where the Division trained briefly before moving to the European Theatre of Operation. The 106th landed at Le Havre France on December 3rd and were trucked to the front east of St. Vith, Belgium a week later. We were relieving the 2nd Infantry Division in the Scene Eifel sector, a snow-covered ridge of the Ardennes Forest, covering a 27-mile front bordering Germany and northeast of Luxembourg.

The Army used the Ardennes to acquaint newcomers, like the 106th, with some of the milder elements of infantry warfare—such as observing and patrolling.

Needless to say and against all odds, in the early morning of December 16th the Germans launched a surprise attack outnumbering our troops by a “factor of five” in terms of armor and manpower. Our Division had only five days of front-line experience, had no air coverage due to the dense fog, and indeed was cut off from our supply lines. This was the start of the largest and bloodiest battle of WWII, in which there were 81,000 American casualties and 19,000 killed.

The German’s ultimate destination in this last ditch, “all-or-nothing” initiative was the strategic port of Antwerp. So sudden and swift was the attack that it soon punctured a huge hole, or salient, in the Allied lines that gave the battle its name: “The Battle of the Bulge.” Those of us at the 422nd and 423rd who survived this ordeal were able to take part in the reorganization of the 106th Division, which regrouped in northern France and participated in all future European campaigns until final victory on May 7th 1945.

On the following day, May 8th 1945 (known as “VE Day” Victory in Europe), I had a streak of luck and appeared with some of my 106th comrades on the cover page of the Army newspaper The Stars and Stripes, celebrating the happiest day of our lives. We were the lucky ones who were able to return home to friends and family and a life thereafter. In my particular case, I have always relied on my Guardian Angel, in addition to Having Faith! And Going Forward!

In May 1940, after months of inactivity, Germany moved to conquer Western Europe by sending troops into neighboring Luxembourg. Headlines in American newspapers announced, “Luxembourg Brutalized, Enslaved by Germans…” and revealed that “Waves of German bombers and transport planes had launched the newest Nazi blitzkrieg in the dark hours before dawn.” American war correspondent William Bird stated, “Of all the small states that have been overwhelmed by the German war technique, none merits more sympathy than Luxembourg. This principality has been more defenseless than any other, its army consisting of just 250 policemen.”

In preparation for the full-scale invasion, Germany sent soldiers into Luxembourg, disguised as civilians. Once the invasion began in earnest, the purpose of this German “Fifth Column” was to use machine guns and felled trees to block the roads into France and prevent the citizens from escaping the German onslaught. The motorcade carrying Grand Duchess Charlotte and Prince Regent Felix came under attack by the German “civilians.” Their car was the only vehicle from the motorcade that managed to escape into France. Why was it so important to the Germans to prevent the people of Luxembourg from leaving? Hitler announced that Luxembourg was being invaded to maintain its neutrality and to prevent an impending invasion by Britain and France, but Bird stated, “unquestionably what Germany sought most in Luxembourg was not the strategical advantage…, but the manpower and the inhabitants’ personal possessions.” Germany needed workers for their farms and factories, soldiers for its army, and the wealth that belonged to the people.

Luxembourg suffered greatly under German occupation. In 1942, the governments in exile of eight Axis-occupied nations met in London to discuss post-war punishment of German occupation forces, for what British Foreign Secretary Anthony Eden described as “oppression and brutality” imposed on Europe. In Luxembourg, hundreds of thousands of citizens had been sent to Germany for forced labor and nearly two million people had been deprived of their property. Joseph Beck, who represented Luxembourg at the meeting, stated that his country was “suffering terribly under the yoke of an implacable enemy, with the German secret police reigning as master.” According to Beck, “Luxembourg cried out for justice.”

In September 1944, after four years of German occupation, the U.S. Army finally drove the Nazis out of Luxembourg. Grand Duchess Charlotte stated that their love of freedom was “stronger than ever now that the victorious armies of the United States and their Allies have entered the liberated motherland.” The joy of liberation lasted only three months. On December 16, 1944, Hitler surprised the Allied forces in Northern Luxembourg and Southern Belgium with an early morning invasion that would last for six weeks and become known as the Battle of the Bulge.

Justice for Luxembourg and the occupied nations came thanks to the effort of men like John McAuliffe of the 87th Infantry Division. McAuliffe arrived in Luxembourg in January 1945. “I was sent to M Company of the 347th Regiment. A bunch of us came into a barn which was used as the Headquarters and I overheard that there was a German machine gun harassing L Company. That is when reality set in. We were holding a defensive position along the Sauer River and the Germans were on the other side. I had guard duty that first night. There was a foot of snow on the ground and a lot of snow in the trees. I was all alone and I had to be careful. I began to think of my brothers and sisters and the good times I had in high school, like going to football games. I thought, ‘God, what am I doing in this position, alone in the snow at night, with Nazi patrols coming through?’ It was the loneliest day of my life, and my indoctrination into the war.” After four more months of hard fighting by American soldiers like John McAuliffe, the unconditional surrender of Germany was finally received in May 1945.

Each year the people of Belgium and Luxembourg pause to remember and thank the American soldiers who fought to liberate their nation. The Honorable Sylvie Lucas, Ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg to the United States, often recalls the important role that America has played in the history of her country. Ambassador Lucas relates that after the German invasion, the people of Luxembourg no longer had their own identity – they were forced to accept German culture and German language. Streets were renamed with German names. The young men of Luxembourg were forced to serve in the German army. Many chose to join the French Resistance or the British Army. Among those who joined the British Army was Prince Felix, husband of Her Royal Highness Grand Duchess Charlotte and Prince Jean, their oldest son. Prince Jean fought among the Irish Guards that landed in Normandy in June 1944.

In April 2018, Ambassador Lucas was the guest of honor at the 73rd Anniversary of the Allied Liberation of Europe Ceremony at the Virginia War Memorial. During her address, she added a personal story on how grateful she was to the American troops. Her parents were both 9 years old at the time the war began. Her mother had lost her home to the bombing. Her father was injured by a grenade. American soldiers helped her mother’s family get to a safer place and they helped her father get to a hospital, where he could receive treatment for his wound. Her personal story touched the hearts of many in the audience, including 18 veterans from the European Theatre. Ambassador Lucas expressed profound appreciation for what the Americans and the Allied troops did for her family and for her country. As the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge draws near, let us continue to remember the sacrifice of those who worked to liberate Luxembourg and Western Europe.

—James Triesler, Member

James Triesler is Director of Education, Virginia War Memorial, Richmond, VA.

Visit their website: www.vawarmemorial.org

BOBA Veteran Member Guerino “Bill” Jacobini, 83rd Infantry Division, 330th Infantry Regiment, Company G, has received the French Medal of Honor and the Purple Heart. Make that two Purple Hearts, along with eight other medals, including the Bronze Star and the Combat Infantry Badge. He also has a certificate of appreciation from the city of Antwerp, Belgium, for his brave combat during 175 days of continuous enemy air attacks.

At just 18 years old, Jacobini became part of the Third Army of General George Patton, in the 83rd Infantry Division. Exiting the landing craft at Normandy Beach, they were being shot at. Jacobini described the scene: “In water up to my waist, in full combat gear. BAR loaded, grenade rocket and plenty of ammo. Rangers were in front, many gas balloons were in the air for protection from enemy aircraft.” Later wounded in action in France, he was taken to England to recover. When he rejoined the 83rd at the Rhine River in December 1944, he discovered that most of his unit was gone. Jacobini fought in Battle of the Bulge, where he was wounded again and then put on limited duty. Discharged on Dec. 20, 1945, he returned home to West Philadelphia. Jacobini deeply appreciates the honors he has received, but says he is not a hero. “The heroes are the ones that never came home.”

By Carl Hall, 99th INFD, 395th Inf. Regt., Co. C, HQ Co. 1st Bn

It was a cold six hours that we spent on the pier at Southhampton, and to many of us it seemed like we had been there a week. Just before noon we boarded the Queen Emma for our trip across the channel. Most of us slept in hammocks for the first time in our lives that night. We were all worried about falling out, but I guess we were so close together that we couldn’t have turned over if we tried.

Those of us who didn’t get to see the results of the blitz in London got our first glimpse of the destruction brought by war when we sailed into Le Havre, France. There wasn’t a building left untouched. We landed on small boats and made our way through the rubble of the harbor to the trucks that were waiting. That night we travelled in convoy to La Feuillie, where we went into a bivouac area. We stayed there one night and on Nov. 5th (1944) at 0600 we entrucked again and travelled 256 miles to Aubel, Belgium. In a woods just outside of Aubel, we set up a bivouac area.

On Nov. 9th, we again entrucked for the ride that brought us to Elsenborn, and the front lines. It was a miserable day, and before it was finished we found ourselves walking around in a foot of snow. It was the truck ride and the next few days without overshoes that gave many of us a headstart for a bad case of trench foot. As time went on, we came to find out that trench foot and frostbite were going to give us more trouble than the Jerries. On Nov. 9th we relieved the 102nd Cavalry and took up a defensive position in the snow-covered foxholes of Elsenborn. We were on line now and there was an enemy to our front who would kill us all at their first opportunity. Yet the snow seemed so clean and the woods so quiet and beautiful that it was hard to believe at first.

It became a reality, however, on Nov. 11th, Armistice Day, when a recon patrol of 13 men and one officer made contact with the enemy a few hundred yards beyond our positions. In the firefight that followed, 12 of the enemy were killed or wounded and our patrol returned unharmed. The patrol was the first unit in the division to make contact with the enemy, and they were personally commended a few days later by Maj. Gen. Lauer and Col. McKinnsey.

We did a lot of patrolling while we were dug in this defensive position, and only through the good leadership of the officers and non-coms and by the expert soldiering of the men were our casualties kept so low.

The 393rd relieved us on Dec. 11th. We withdrew to an assembly area and on the following day we jumped off into the attack. For the first few days the going was exceptionally rough. In the first day A Co. was in battalion reserve. The battalion advance was made through heavy woods that were littered with fallen trees. The area had been pounded with artillery fire many times when C Co. was giving support to our patrols, and the trees were twisted in every direction. The weather was cold, the terrain was rough, and the ground was covered with a heavy blanket of snow. On “Purple Heart Hill” the artillery fire was extremely intense. At this time, we had no roads up to us and the ammo and rations had to be forwarded by carrying parties.

It has been said that the people who have never been over there and actually been in combat can’t begin to imagine what it was really like. Such a remark is truly an understatement. Probably it is because there hasn’t been a person yet who could write an article and really portray the scenes as they actually happen.

We can say that there was snow on the ground, but we can’t visualize men with wet, cold, swollen feet trudging through the snow-covered woods, expecting any minute to be shot at and maybe killed. We can say that the hill was steep, but we can’t imagine men climbing almost straight up. Wiremen struggling along with rolls of wire, taking one step forward and sliding a half step back. Medics carrying dead and wounded on stretchers, and taking hours to go up or down over the snow-covered hills. Many a wounded man has died because the terrain was so rough that an ambulance couldn’t get to him to evacuate him immediately.

We can say we crossed a small stream, but we can’t imagine how cold it was for the men who waded through the cold water up to their waist, and then shivered and froze the next few days because there were no dry socks or clothes for them to change into. They say in the papers that the action on a certain front was confined to patrols, but they don’t add that half of the outfit were on patrols, and their buddies were sweating out whether they would get back or not. The records read that we withdrew seven miles, but they don’t say that it was at night, in pitch blackness and that the men were stumbling and falling every few steps, and that the fellows hadn’t slept in 24 hours or eaten in just as long. It doesn’t tell about the big fellow who says he can’t go another step and then looks around and wonders what is keeping the little fellow next to him from falling out. It says seven miles, but it doesn’t mention about going cross country, being lost and wading in mud another five miles, or about receiving an inaccurate order and adding another extra three miles more. All those things were omitted, because it is hard to write them and write the truth.

At 0600 on Dec. 17th word came down to prepare to move out. There were many rumors around about a counter-attack that had not been stopped yet. As time went on, we found out that this unchecked counter-attack in reality was the famous Von R. winter offensive, or as it was later called, “The Bulge”. The breakthrough came all along the 99th and 106th division sectors on our right flank. It left us sticking out into Jerryland like a sore thumb, and we were ordered to withdraw before we were cut off. Our next few days were to show us some of the roughest going that we experienced in the entire winter campaign.

The snow was knee deep, all the men were wearing overcoats, overshoes, three or four sets of clothing, and they were carrying two bandolier of ammo, two hand grenades, and full field rolls. At about 1000 we started our withdrawal. It was very orderly when we first started out, but as we went up and down one hill after another, the men became tired and began to lag. The men carrying the machine guns, mortars, flamethrowers and those carrying ammunition began to drop back. The equipment began to get awfully heavy and the men started leaving it along the way. Bed rolls and overcoats were the first things that were discarded, and then some of the men ditched their overshoes. We couldn’t throw away any rations because we didn’t have any. For two days and nights we walked. The first day and most of that night, we withdrew from Hellenthal to Rockerath.

The men were dead on their feet. You heard no bitching, though, nor any of the usual bellyaching. You could have fallen out any time you cared to, but there were no medics behind you to pick you up — just Jerries. It is really amazing what a man can do when all his energy is gone. He can still go a long way on “guts”, and that is what we were travelling on then. We ate what we could pick up along the road. K ration crackers that had been thrown away and trampled on by those who had left before us all tasted good. We passed near an old kitchen dump, and if there was any food at all that looked edible, we picked it up. In one dump, a dog beat me to some hotcakes that were sitting on top of the garbage. Whenever we stopped for a few minute break, we looked in all the foxholes along the way and picked up whatever we could find to eat. All during the retreat we had no water, and water was obtained from the most unhealthful places. Halazone tablets were used to purify the water. I imagine that all this sounds a bit fantastic to some people, but nevertheless it is true. It doesn’t compare, however, with what the men went through who were withdrawing and fighting at the same time.

On the second day, we withdrew another five miles to the outskirts of Elsenborn. It was then we learned that the Jerries had cut our communications and had given us the order to retreat. When this information was received, we turned and traced our steps that night to within a few hundred yards of where we had been that morning. Towards mid-day we ran into sniper fire, but it was soon silenced. We moved again, this time to within sight of our former positions before we jumped off. That night at about 1800 we started out cross country back to Elsenborn. It was the last leg of our rearward journey but at the time we didn’t know it.

The 1st platoon of A Co. was the point for the battalion, and as we withdrew, we passed a few engineers and a couple of tanks. The tanks were to protect our rear and the engineers were laying mines. In combat we were all buddies. Seeing a Col. carrying a Pfc’s BAR didn’t astonish most of the guys. Early the next morning we reached Elsenborn. The houses were silhouetted against the sky that was lit up from the burning villages that we left to the advancing Germans. We can thank our artillery for saving us that night. They threw everything but the kitchen stoves at the Jerries.

Our spirits rose when we saw the houses in Elsenborn. Just think — houses with nice soft, dry, wooden floors. No snow, and walls to break the wind. “This would be great,” we said to each other — but was it? We marched, or should say struggled, down the main street of town. “Our houses must be on the other end of town,” we thought, but we were still going and the houses had disappeared behind us. What now? We just couldn’t go any farther and they said that we were going to Elsenborn. Just out of town, we turned and started across a field. When we reached the other side, they said, “OK men, this is it.” We were stunned. We couldn’t comprehend what was going on, but we were cold, our hands and feet were numb and swollen, so we didn’t try. We just laid down, three or four of us in a bunch to help keep each other warm, and we went to sleep.

In the morning we got a hot meal. I wish that I could write the way we felt, but I can’t. We had the same feeling that morning as we had the day we overran a German POW camp and liberated our American fliers. You get goosebumps all over you, and you try to say something, but you can’t. Instead, you just stare and maybe say a little prayer and thank God that He has brought you safely through the unbelievable nightmare.

When we had finished eating, we read our mail that the mail clerk had brought up on the chow truck, and then we spread out and started digging in. It was a good thing we did, too, because we no sooner had a hole dug than some Jerry planes came over and bombed and strafed us. We stayed in the field another night while the Jerries threw in 88s at their leisure, and on the following day, Dec. 22nd, we moved to the outskirts of Elsenborn and dug in a defensive position around the town. We dug our OP’s in on high ground covering an open field of about 1700 yards. Beyond that were woods and Jerries. On the first two days that we dug in, the weather was foggy and the observation was poor. But when the fog lifted and our movements were observed, the Jerries began to shell us whenever three of us bunched up.

When the weather cleared, our Air Force came out and gave the Jerries a terrible pasting. It was the good weather and the continual bombing and strafing of the German supply lines that turned the Von R. dream into a nightmare. When the “Bulge” was stopped, the job of pounding it back into a pimple began. We were dug in on the northern vein of the “Bulge” and for the next month we remained stationary, while the units on our right pounded the Jerries back against defense.

As the days passed, we improved positions and before long, all the men had made their holes fairly comfortable. Usually the holes were long enough to lay down in and deep enough to sit up in. They were covered with boards or whatever else we could get together to make a roof out of. For Christmas, we had 88s for dessert. We were right in the middle of chow when they started coming in. Some of the fellows hit the snow and spilled their mess kits, with meals going into the snow.

On Jan. 12th (1945), we strung a double apron fence and put up some concertinas in front of our positions. That night it snowed a little, about a foot or so, and it drifted bad. In the morning, the barbed wire entanglements were out of sight and the concertinas were blown around like feathers in the breeze. It was necessary on many occasions for one of the fellows to dig his buddy out in the morning, because in some of the storms, the snow blew into your hole faster than you could shovel it out.

From our positions, we saw a few dogfights in the early morning when the Jerry air force dared to come out. Our ack-ack outfits did a bang-up job and quite a few Jerries came down to earth in flames. One morning, an FW 109 was hit and the pilot parachuted in front of our positions. He got out and started running for his own lines, but when we opened up on him with everything from machine guns to carbines, he quickly changed his mind and surrendered.

On Jan. 26th we left our comfortable quarters and, under cover of darkness, traveled about two miles to relieve the 60th Inf. of the 9th Div. We were still under enemy observation, but this time within rifle range of each other, and it was necessary to stay below the ground during the day.

On the night of Jan. 31st we were alerted, and at 0345 the next morning A Co. moved off into the attack. It was very difficult to see across the open space, covered and drifting with snow. Each man had on a snow cape and some even had their rifles covered with white rags. Reliefs from the different OP’s would occasionally wear white capes when making changes during the day. Movement was generally made at dusk.

At 1500 on Feb. 3rd we entrucked and traveled to an assembly area near Rockerath. The woods along the roads were ruined from artillery, and the fences were lined with crosses of German dead. We were now going back through the places that had been hit the hardest during the “Bulge,” and there was nothing left. Knocked-out German tanks, wrecked vehicles, dead cows and horses, and dead Jerries littered the roads. As the snow melted, there were bodies of Yanks revealed — men who had been killed and snowed under before they could be found.

At 0730 on Feb. 4th we started moving to Hollerath. We were now just before the Siegfried Line. We heard the mission for the day. Twelve pillboxes; six for C Co. and six for A Co. That’s all, just twelve pillboxes. We passed through the many tiger’s teeth and tank obstacles, and by 1715, we had taken our objectives. We spent the night in the pillboxes and at 0800 in the morning we started forward again. At 1700 we again had our objective for the day taken and that night, we dug in on a hill overlooking Hellenthal. We were under direct enemy observation again and couldn’t move from our foxholes in the daytime. We were relieved by the 3rd Battalion and we withdrew to the pillboxes in reserve and remained there until Feb. 11th. After 94 days on the line, we were relieved by the 69th Div.

On Feb. 12th we entrucked and drove to Meyerode, Belgium on the first part of our journey back for a rest. At 0915 on Feb. 20th the company moved out from Meyerode and walked 17 miles to Malmedy. Here we entrucked and rode to Chapelle Des Anges in Belgium. We moved in and before long, we were enjoying the hospitality of the Belgian people.

We left the rest area on Feb. 27th and proceeded to Stolberg, Germany. On the way to Stolberg, we saw Aachen and Duren and they were everything that the papers said about them – just one big pile of destruction. The next morning we rode to an assembly area at Alsdorf, and made preparations for the attack. We all dug in and tried to get as much rest as possible. At 2400 we started out for the forward assembly area near Bergheim, Germany crossing the Erft Canal at dawn. We took up positions in trenches awaiting further orders.
At the time we were in reserve, the 2nd Battalion was pinned down, and the 1st was committed and went out to relieve them. With Baker Company leading, our objective was to clear the woods and then take the town of Hol Fortuna. We passed through the 8th division, and the 3rd armored was deployed on the open terrain behind us. It took us two hours to relieve Fox Company and then on to relieve Easy Company.

Early the next morning, the attack again started and we sent up a platoon to aid in the capture of the town. At about 1200 a factory had to be taken and the two platoons were sent up to take it. As they completed their operation, they noticed the 3d Armored moving across the field on the next objective. It was really a sight to behold, and the armor was on its way to make a mad dash for Cologne and the Rhine.

On March 4th we moved to the town of Anstel and between two moves, we had cleaned up various towns that the armor had gone through. After intense delaying action by the Jerries in front of the town of Delrath, the 1st Battalion finally got to the banks of the Rhine on March 7th.

We remained in this town the next two days and had a chance to get cleaned up and work on our equipment. At various times we would send a platoon out to clear a town that had been overlooked. Then on March 8th we received orders to move, not knowing where, only hoping that it would be a chance to cross the Rhine at Remagen, where a bridge had been established. On the tenth we arrived at Fritzdorf and awaited further orders. They came early the next morning and we started to walk south and east.

At about 1400 we saw the bridge. Shells were coming in fast and aircraft were strafing continually. As we approached, we received orders to run across, and after a twelve mile hike with full equipment, we knew this was the supreme test. Finally, we reached our destination of Ohlenberg —our division was the first full division to get across the Rhine.

On the twelfth of March, B Co. set up a second line of defense behind the 9th Division about 1200 yards out of Ohlenberg. Here we had the flak buzzing around us, in addition to a few bombs dropping around Ohlenberg. Several patrols were then sent to the Wied River from this point, to find a place to cross the river. No such positions could be found, so we waited until a more suitable crossing could be found.

On the 22nd of March we were relieved by the 99th Recon and we moved behind the 2nd Battalion, waiting for them to cross the Wied and follow them up until they hit opposition. Crossing the river early in the morning, the battalion set up roadblocks outside of Rossbach.

On the twenty-fourth we moved from Rossbach to the town of Hochscheid, which was to be a forward assembly area. As the 3rd Battalion finished its objectives, our battalion was given Wallroth to capture. This was an important town as it would cut the superhighway and enable our armor to cut loose. By the next night we had the town, and the armor was well on its way. It was one of those things where one goes to sleep and then wakes up finding himself fifty miles behind the line.

On the night of March 26th we moved to Seishahn and from there we reached out to capture the towns of Roden, Wallinerd, Millsberg, and finally to Wissmar, a town of large size and one that had not been devastated by war. The woods were patrolled, and near the woods a few POWs were flushed out.

The next morning we moved to Heimbach, a point in the drive, and set up outpost and waited for the armor to resupply and break loose again. Then our orders were abruptly changed, and we were shifted to the famed Ruhr Pocket, where the Jerries were not giving up and had plenty of artillery and men, as we soon found out.

Our first objective was the town of Kurlshutte, a factory and several hills. This was the first place that we had very much flak used against us, and it seemed like regular machine-gun fire, until it started to burst. On the succeeding days we captured Kickenback, Allenhunder, Megen and Trichenbech, all against negligible opposition. Then we found ourselves following the 7th Armored again all the way to Kuntrop. Here we shoved off again and ran into opposition outside Imhert, where the pocket gave up. The prisoner toll was immense.

On the 18th of April we received orders to move to the Third Army along with the rest of the Third Corps. We went by truck some three hundred miles. Arriving at Pruppbach, we took a couple days off for care and cleaning and resting. We also received some training for river crossing, which was planned for the Danube in a few days.

This time we found ourselves following the 14th Armored until we hit rivers and canals. Many towns were captured, and by this time every man had a pistol and was a fighting fool. Finally, we hit the Danube at Marching and we were waiting until the 2nd Battalion made a crossing, which unfortunately was not made. We finally crossed where the 393rd had crossed, so we went down there and fought our way back to Setting and Neustadt.
The town of Biebenstetter was taken after a fight with use of tanks. Waking up in the morning, we found ourselves again several miles behind the armor, which had broken loose. We did not catch the armor until we entered Mossburg and found the River Isar to cross. It was a great experience to talk to the liberated prisoners at Mossburg, some from our outfit. The battalion crossed the Isar on April 30th.

On the third of May we moved to Langenvils awaiting further orders — which we knew could not be much, for everyone knew the war was almost over. Then on the 9th of May the news came. I don’t think many of the fellows celebrated— rather, we gave thanks for being alive and were hoping that this war will be the last one.

by Gerald White, 2 INFD, 23 REGT, CO M

It was a very tough, long basic training in the sands of Florida, very difficult for a young, dumb, skinny kid. There were lots of snakes and wild boar. In mid-November 1944, I was given a fifteen-day leave, then reported back to Fort Dix for shipment overseas. On 8 January 1945, we left New York harbor on the Queen Elizabeth with approximately twelve thousand troops. On the ocean trip, we had two sub alerts. We landed at Glasgow, Scotland on 13 January 1945, and were sent directly to a port in southern England for transfer to a port in France. We were loaded on cattle cars (forty and eight) for assignment to forward units.

I was assigned to M Company of the 23rd Infantry of the Second Division on 15 January 1945 someplace in Belgium. It was very cold, with lots of snow. Sometimes there was a lot of shelling by the Germans, and many battles around the Omdemolivildengin Pass near St. Vith, Belgium as part of the Battle of the Bulge. We would cut trees down with C-4 to use for bunkers, as the ground was so frozen that we couldn’t dig foxholes. I was assigned as an ammo bearer, mostly mortars.

On 31 January, while on the Siegfried Line near Wehlerscheid, Germany, I was wounded. I was working KP, but don’t remember that I had done anything wrong to have to be there! I was told to burn up some excess food. So I finished piling up the food, applied some flammable fluid to it and lit it. A tremendous blast resulted, likely because there was an undetected mine beneath where the food had been piled. I was blown away from the food pile. I suffered burns and plenty of singed hair, and was evacuated to Beaujon hospital in Paris, France. Two officers reported that I was MIA, and this was reported to my family. Ten days later I was back with the unit, but my family was never told that I had been located, leaving them in complete darkness about my status!

Our unit crossed the Ruhr River 2 February 1945 on pontoon boats, with lots of action. I rejoined my unit, and we pushed ahead. On 21 March 1945 we crossed the Rhine River five miles south of the famous Remagen Bridge. At this point we were moving fast. I received some advanced training and became a mortarman. We were on mechanized vehicles: half tracks, tanks, etc. We had a major battle outside of Leipzig. Then the tide turned, really turned. We took out a lot of the enemy. At one point, I looked up at an Allied bombing formation. There were so many airplanes that it looked like a big cloud passing over us. We advanced to the Mulde River where we met up with the Russians. The unit moved south to Pilsen, Czechoslovakia. At this point, most of the Germans were giving up. On 8 May 1945 the war was over.

On 10 July 1945 the Division traveled by train to a port in France. On 13 July we were loaded on a ship and departed France. We arrived at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. We were given thirty days leave, then were to report to Camp Swift, Texas. At Camp Swift the Division was to be regrouped for extensive training for assignment to an unknown location. I was home on leave on VJ Day. Happy Days! On 23 August, I reported in at Camp Swift, Texas and started advance training. The day before Thanksgiving, the complete division moved to Camp Stoneman, California by train. On Thanksgiving day, the division marched in a ticker- tape parade through San Francisco. There were very large crowds. The next day trainloads of equipment and troops—me included—were on the way to Fort Lewis, Washington. The division received new people, as the home of the division would be at Fort Lewis. I was at Fort Lewis until 28 June 1946. A long trainload of GIs was loaded for shipment across the USA for discharge. We arrived at Fort Dix on 2 July and I was discharged on 4 July 1946. AMEN!!

I left the service and went to Morrisville College on the GI Bill. I went to work at the Seneca Army Depot as a civilian, working in the surveillance office. I became a munitions inspector, QA Specialist (QASAS), and did this for 37 years. I also served the Army in Korea as a civilian. It was while I was at Seneca that I met Pearl Johnson, the woman who became my wife. Of all the good things that happened to me while serving in or working for the Army, Pearl was the best!

I retired as a QASAS-S Chief of the Missile Branch in May 1985, at Anniston Ordnance Depot, Alabama.

On August 14, 1937, Mrs. Elizabeth Dorsey gave her youngest son a leather wallet as a present on his 16th birthday. She never knew that wallet would save her son’s life in WWII.

Sgt Raymond Dorsey told the story:

“I’d joined the 22nd Inf. of the 4th ID a few weeks before Christmas. We were in the Hürtgen forest of Germany during the Battle of the Bulge. There was lots of snow [Sgt. Dorsey likes to understate things] and so cold there’s just no way to describe the cold!” [Mr. Dorsey said that it was so cold the soldiers had to take socks and other clothing off of the dead to keep warm-those memories still haunt him.] “If it wasn’t the Germans trying to kill us, it was the weather. I fought through the Bulge until mid-January ’45, when it was over. This is when the prisoners started turning themselves in – they were glad to be out of it. There were more of them than there were of us. The fighting was over and they were surrendering. By the middle of Jan ’45, my outfit started to receive a lot of German prisoners. I had to search them – lined ’em up – and they all had wallets full of German money, which was worthless. I didn’t have any money. There was nothing for them to buy, nowhere they could spend it. So I traded them anything I could give them for their money. I ended up with so much of their money that my wallet was full, and I couldn’t carry it in my back pocket, like normal, so I moved it to my shirt front pocket. We took artillery fire during the fighting of the Bulge and up until this time I had several close calls, yet was never hit.

We were moved to the city of Prüm, Germany around Feb 14th 1945. We were told to set up a staging area at the edge of town. The enemy was waiting for us near late evening. They were dropping shells all around us. We had to set up a command post in a house, with two medics in the basement. I was on guard duty when they dropped a shell real close. I was a little away from the house and hadn’t been hit. After those shells dropped, I moved nearer the house to find some cover. I took one step into the house, and when I turned around, a shell landed right in front of me. That’s when my lights went out! The fat leather wallet in my shirt pocket, now over my heart, caught the main hit of shrapnel. That wallet (full of German money which was useless,) that my mother gave me years before, saved my life. I was unconscious and the medics helped save me by stopping the bleeding. When I came to, I was on the floor of a big building, maybe an airplane hangar. The whole floor, from what I could see, was covered with soldiers like myself. Just full of soldiers like me. I wanted a drink of water, but they wouldn’t give it to me. But they did give me a shot of morphine. I hadn’t had a shave or bath since I’d arrived. I must have been a sight! I don’t know how long I was there or where it was – they kept me knocked out. They loaded me into an ambulance, and I remember hearing them say that we were passing the Eiffel Tower, so we must have been near Paris at this time. When I woke up next, I was clean, shaved and in a clean bed with sheets. I don’t know how long I was in France. I next remember waking up in the hospital in England, and they handed me my belongings, including the wallet. It was full of American money. Someone had changed all the German money for American! I felt blessed, because there was enough money in my wallet to send $100 to my wife (which was a lot of money in 1945,) and I kept the rest. My buddies in the hospital were the ones to point out the hole in my wallet and I realized that wallet saved my life! My right thigh was all bandaged up, and they started to unwrap it. They rolled me outside for a long way to the operating room. That’s when they sewed up my leg wound and put it in a cast. When the cast was removed, my doctor came around and asked, ‘How you doing today, soldier?’ I said, ‘Well, they just removed my cast, but I can’t move my knee.’ He went to the bottom of my bed, grabbed my right foot and gave it a heave – like a pistol shot, you could hear it – but after that I could bend my knee again. I can still see shrapnel in my thigh, my ankle and I’ve got a little in my face around my left eye.”

Sgt Dorsey was never able to tell his mom that she had saved his life with that birthday gift. When he was medically fit to be sent home, his mother was terminally ill, and as Dorsey said, “I was able to see my mom just before she passed, as I’d finally been released. She was a good mother. I didn’t talk about the war, never showed them wounds. It was too soon, and people didn’t want to know. I still have to live with it.”

This is a selected excerpt about US Army soldier Charlie Sanderson from My Father’s War: Memories from Our Honored WWII Soldiers, a book of first-hand narratives and photos chronicled by BOBA Member Charley Valera.

Unlike most soldiers who finished their training and were selected to be shipped overseas, [Charlie] Sanderson was rushed over as a replacement and completed his basic training in Salisbury Plains, England, near the white cliffs of Dover—not a pleasant or safe place to be in early 1944.

Sanderson was now official property of the US First Army, 552nd Field Artillery Battalion, 78th Infantry Division, AAA Automatic Weapons Battalion under Major General Edwin P. Parker. Sanderson soon found himself landing on Omaha Beach and would eventually end up in the Ardennes Forest.

Moving forward into Normandy and other parts of France, the troops fired on the towns of Saint-Lô and Sainte-Mère-Église. “Return fire was nonstop. Everything was coming at us.

One time, I looked up over the hill and saw all the tanks lined up,” Sanderson said. “I thought they were American tanks. They were Germans and they started firing at us. We were laying out a position and didn’t know we had gone too far.” The land between the two fighting sides is known as no-man’s-land. Sanderson’s troop had gone too far into German-occupied territory; they had to get out of there in a hurry.

Again, Sanderson was part of the 552nd Field Artillery Battalion. They had three gun batteries: A, B, and C Battery. Their weapon was the enormous, American-made 240 mm Howitzer Cannon that would shoot a 365-pound projectile within a twenty-mile range, using eighty-five pounds of gunpowder per shot. This big weapon of war could also be moved around as needed to advance.

Once a position was established and laid out, Sanderson began to empty his truck for action. He took a big canvas and put it down exactly where the massive Howitzer gun was to be located. The canvas had holes in it with metal grommets, and it took three men to lay it out. Assigned to a twenty-one-man crew, Sanderson was up front first. They’d put the large steel spades attached to the sides of the gun into the ground for support, but needed large enough holes to accommodate the recoil based on the gun’s nose’s aim. When the other part of his crew showed up, all they had to do was start digging. After that, they placed “a thousand sandbags around it,” Sanderson said. “Sometimes you had soft or sandy soil to work with.”

They used prime movers to move the Howitzers around—not a tank. A prime mover is a specialized heavy-duty gun tractor used to tow artillery pieces of various weight and sizes. They took two prime movers and put them at 45 degrees on either side of the Howitzer, cabling the gun to them for further stability.

Each man had his own job. A gunner would sit on a metal seat on one side of the gun and did quadrant lateral settings. Another sat on the other side, configuring the elevation settings. The two spun the big steering wheels for accuracy. When ready, the gunner got on a phone with the commander and yelled, “Set,” then “Ready” and the commander on the other end of the line would tell them when to fire. To work just the gun, “There would be two men on the gun; seven on ram-staff and four to bring the projectile out.”

With seven men on the ram-staff, a twelve-foot manual push rod got the projectile into the gun. “They’d yell, “One, two, three … ram!’ and slam the 365-pound bullet into the barrel of the Howitzer. It all went as fast as you could go … to have a round in the air every minute.”

There was a sergeant in charge of maintenance for all this equipment. The prime movers were all covered in camouflage to hide from reconnaissance planes. “The noise was tough,” explained Sanderson. “You were supposed to stand on your toes, open your mouth, and block your ears. How you gonna do that when you had to measure the recoil on the gun? The gun would recoil sixty-five inches,” he remembered. “The hotter the gun got from firing, the farther back the gun would recoil.”

“We needed cooks, truck drivers, mechanics, and others soldiers’ efforts of the unit to make it all work. Some of the others would be guarding the trucks and facilities during the shooting. You had guard duty, two “on and four off, and sometimes we’d agree to four on and two off to give more people a break or [to] sleep more at night. But you had to be close to your gun. Your pup tent was very close by the gun. When they called a fire mission, you had to be quickly available. Or, if there was a fire mission and you were sleeping … well, at least trying to sleep during all of that.”

Further inquiry about his crew continued. “The sergeant is like the head mechanic; he knows what’s to happen and when to move on. Everything is camouflaged and ready to go when needed. They all carried the carbine rifles with a sling over their shoulders.” He shook his head. “Nobody could believe what it was like.”

In front of the guns was a six-foot pile of loose grass or dirt caused by a vacuum from the firing. “One time, “on and four off, and sometimes we’d agree to four on and two off to give more people a break or [to] sleep more at night. But you had to be close to your gun. Your pup tent was very close by the gun. When they called a fire mission, you had to be quickly available. Or, if there was a fire mission and you were sleeping … well, at least trying to sleep during all of that.”

Further inquiry about his crew continued. “The sergeant is like the head mechanic; he knows what’s to happen and when to move on. Everything is camouflaged and ready to go when needed. They all carried the carbine rifles with a sling over their shoulders.” He shook his head. “Nobody could believe what it was like.”

In front of the guns was a six-foot pile of loose grass or dirt caused by a vacuum from the firing. “One time,” Sanderson recalled with a smile, “there was a half dozen sheep close by. We fired over them and there was a whole pile of loose wool in front of the gun. It didn’t pull it out of them, but loose wool from their bodies was in with the grass. It was kind of funny.”

The food was mostly K rations. The only time their cook was able to provide decent meals was when they got into a quiet zone where they could kind of lie back, with not much going on. They sometimes took the big kettles, which looked like metal garbage cans, and set four of them out. They then took extra gunpowder bags and threw them onto a fire—which got the water boiling in just a couple of minutes. They threw C rations into the water so they could have hot food. But most of the time, it was K rations. The benefits of K rations were for quick eating meals and maximum energy while C rations were more for sustained daily food intake.

K rations were individual portions of canned combat food and provided breakfast, lunch, and supper. According to Wikipedia, a day’s menu consisted of the following:
Breakfast Unit: canned entree (chopped ham and eggs, veal loaf), biscuits, a dried fruit bar or cereal bar, Halazone water purification tablets, a four-pack of cigarettes, chewing gum, instant coffee, and sugar (granulated, cubed, or compressed).

Dinner Unit: canned entree (processed cheese, ham, or ham and cheese), biscuits, fifteen malted-milk tablets (in early versions) or five caramels (in later versions), sugar (granulated, cubed, or compressed), a salt packet, a four-pack of cigarettes and a box of matches, chewing gum.

Sanderson shared some of his memories of the Battle of the Bulge: “During the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans spearheaded around us. We were in the middle, and they had us surrounded. The lieutenant told us, ‘We’re going to fight until the last man. The first man to turn around, I’ll shoot him in the back.’ That’s what the lieutenant told us. Blood and Guts, General Patton, came in with his tanks. When he came by, you could see those tanks rolling around. He saved our ass, you know. We were surrounded.” When asked if he’d ever met General Patton, Sanderson responded with a smile. “I drove past him once. I knew who he was, but he didn’t know who I was.”

From a distant memory, Sanderson remembered another interesting story, detailing what the Ardennes Forest looked like. “Did you ever see land when a tornado’s come through? Did you ever see trees and stuff, twisted and broken off? The whole friggin’ forest was like that. I drove down a road and there were horses hooked to cannons—German horse-drawn artillery. Our men came down through and strafed them. We just had to push them off the road so we could get through. Imagine that—using horse-drawn artillery in World War II. Everything the Germans had, they used. That was the Ardennes Forest.” Sanderson was stunned to see the once-mighty Third Reich reduced to using horse-drawn artillery.

“They called them battles, but to me it was a battle all the way through.”

Sanderson got plenty of special detail. They took him and his assistant driver to a huge field at night so they could run a wire for their phones. “A jeep would drive the wire across the field. They’d say, ‘Here, this is your position.’ It was right next to a row of turnips. The Germans planted huge rows of them. A row of turnips covered in brush used to feed their animals and troops. We were out there to report if they [the German troops] came in by parachute. We were sitting ducks out there in the middle of the friggin’ field. All by ourselves, you know. These kind of details, you don’t mind when you’re back with your men. But when you’re all by yourself, those kinds of detail kind of get scary.”

Sanderson added, “They’d come by and drop those personnel bombs. They’d drop them all over the place and they’d go pop, pop, pop all over the friggin’ place like popcorn. They also dropped flares so they could see. They’d see us sitting ducks next to the pile of turnips camouflaged like it was something else. I was probably nineteen years old.”

“When you can’t see it, you get scared. You don’t know where it’s coming from. Anyone who said they weren’t scared is a damn liar.”

The war had been over for more than seventy years when Charlie and I spoke about his life. The memory of his war efforts is etched in his mind as though they had happened yesterday—just like the others I’ve interviewed, they all seem to remember the war in great details. There was lots of smoke, fire, guns going off, aircraft strafing; it was war, with people being killed on a regular basis.

Charley Valera is the author of My Father’s War: Memories from Our Honored WWII Soldiers, which includes photos and personal stories of a dozen more veterans from every branch and both theaters of WWII. Copies are available at Amazon.com and BN.com. Signed copies of the book are available only at www.charleyvalera.com. You can view many of the 
actual interviews on YouTube at https://goo.gl/4Q1919.

by Benjamin Mack-Jackson, Member

At the 2017 106th Infantry Division Reunion, I was entrusted with an incredible historical artifact by the family of WWII veteran Harold Rhoden. Harold Junior Rhoden served as a Private in the 106th Infantry Division, 424th Infantry Regiment, Company F. He enlisted in the army on November 19, 1943, in Camp Blanding, Florida.
Private Rhoden wrote his wartime thoughts, as well as the names and addresses of his buddies, in this captured German soldier’s pocket calendar. The “Taschen-Kalendar” was most likely taken from a German soldier by Rhoden himself. Before being used by Rhoden, a German soldier had made several entries throughout the book in purple ink, including numbers, names, and dates.
On December 16, 1944, Rhoden and the 424th Infantry Regiment were plunged into the Battle of the Bulge, the largest and bloodiest battle fought by the United States in World War II. Private Rhoden undoubtedly saw fierce
 combat in late 1944 and early 1945, and this pocket calendar was with him all the way. Seeing ferocious and bloody combat for several months, Private Rhoden was awarded 
the Combat Infantryman Badge, a prestigious Army award.
On February 7, 1945, the 424th Infantry Regiment was moved to the vicinity of Hunningen, Germany to conduct defensive patrols. Eleven days after arriving in Hunningen, Private Rhoden was wounded in action, which resulted in him receiving the Purple Heart.
This pocket calendar ultimately survived the war and was brought home from Europe by Private Rhoden as a memory of his time in service. It is a true honor to be the caretaker of this incredible piece of history for educating future generations, and I am humbled that the Rhoden family chose me to do so.
Benjamin Mack-Jackson is the 16-year-old founder of the non-profit organization WWII Veterans History Project (WW2VeteransHistoryProject.com). Throughout the past three years he has interviewed over 50 WWII veterans and created the Traveling Museum of WWII, a mobile history display using artifacts donated by veterans and their families. He has spoken to thousands of people of all ages about the importance of history and remembering the past.

by Bob Sparenberg

I was born in Grimbergen, Belgium in November of 1945 and am the second youngest of three boys and three girls. My family survived 4 years of Nazi occupation. In my early life, I relived the stories of my brothers and sisters fears throughout those years. I listened to my brothers’ stories of dog fights between M109s and Spitfires over our village, as well as, the constant barrage of B17s flying overhead to bomb Germany. My mother explained that when the Germans came into our village, the sound of their goosesteps on the cobblestones could be heard for miles before they even entered Grimbergen. That is when fear gripped the village and they knew what their future would be.

My parents, throughout those years, kept in contact with the Dutch underground in order to assist them whenever needed. They hid in our home, under a carpet which concealed a door on the dining room floor and which was covered by a large table, allied personnel who had been through the night, covertly moved to our home for safe passage out of Belgium. They would then be moved at the most opportune time in the night, to a convent in our village. On several occasions, the Gestapo and the local police who were working for the Nazi regime, entered our home to confront my family. They had heard rumors from local villagers that suspicious activity was going on at the Sparenbergs. My father was a widower when he married my mother. Together, my mother and father had 6 children. However, my father had 3 sons from his first marriage. One of my half-brothers had joined the German army, unbeknownst to the family. In the early part of 1944, my father received a letter on Nazi letterhead, mailed from Russia where my half-brother was fighting against the Russians. This letter proved to be a saving factor for my family being spared from confinement in the local concentration camp or possible execution. One day the Gestapo entered our home and lined my family up against the wall. A black shirt in our village had informed them that the Sparenbergs were possibly helping the enemy. A black shirt was a local villager who sympathized with the Nazis.

It was during this time that my father believed that God spoke to him and told him to get the letter and show them that his son is fighting for the Germans and that they too were in support of Germany. When the Gestapo saw the letter they left them with only a warning. This brought such relief to the family at that time. Several days later they were crawling under the kitchen table as the sound of V2 rockets could be heard whistling overhead. Several months later the Gestapo came back again looking for my father’s other son who they found out had become a Merchant Marine, the opposite of his brother who had joined the Germans. This son was moving supplies throughout the North Sea from England to France. My father was well aware of the dangers connected with war. In WW1 in 1917, he had patrolled the Dutch and Belgian borders on a Harley-Davidson for the Dutch Army in search of deserters between the two countries.

I sometimes reflect back on my brothers’ experiences, one of which was trying to take a 50 caliber machine gun out of a B17 which had crash landed in our village and their failure to do so. However, my oldest brother, Alex, managed to crack off pieces of the cockpit window and carved little B24s out of them which he still has to this day on his living room mantel. In a recent phone conversation with my oldest sister, Betsy, who is now 82, I told her about the men I am working with and the article that I was writing. She said, “Robert, to this day I still have fear. When I see a black PT Cruiser, my mind goes back to the Gestapo who had black sedans with the SS sign and the swastika.” They were the ones who assisted in putting Jewish families from our village, as well as our Jewish neighbors, onto the boxcars which were on the tracks directly across from our home. In the summertime it was hot and humid and there would be days and sometimes weeks with no power. My family would sleep with mosquito nets over their beds. My sister remembers early one morning being awakened by the sound of a German bayonet ripping through her net to see who was sleeping in the bed. They were making sure no Jewish children were being hidden with the local villagers.

One day, the talk in our village was the Americans had entered the Ardennes and were pushing their way into the Bulge. With Providence on the side of America, the German war machine was running out of fuel and ammunition. They were able to secure approximately 50,000 gallons of fuel from the American fuel depot but this was not enough to feed the thirsty armored division. This could have been a turning point of Germany’s success. After our village was liberated by British soldiers, many of them stayed by combat ready, to assist if needed, in the Bulge. (I was named after one of those British soldiers, Robert Seaman.) The impact of the American soldiers fighting in the Bulge was a crucial point in the history of WW2. It was truly the final liberation of the Belgian Ardennes. It left a deep thankful spirit in the hearts of the Belgian people who consider the Americans their heroes. And this thankfulness is celebrated every year since the Battle of the Bulge. Growing up in a grateful family, my passion has been to meet the men who fought those eighty kilometers from our village.

Five years ago, I received a call from my son who was working at a Senior Center in Texas. He had just finished taking the blood pressure of a 90-year old 3rd army anti-aircraft gunner who was stationed in the Luxembourg Ardennes. Soon after he called me, I was introduced to Richard “Tex” Stanley. Richard was nicknamed “Tex” by General Patton and had survived 6 major battles of WW2. This began a friendship and camaraderie that fueled a passion for meeting other veterans who fought in our little country. I soon discovered I can find them by daily looking, in my travels, for those older men who proudly wear their WW2 Veteran hat, which sets them apart from the crowd. Among them is Ralph Garrett, Sr., age 94, of the 106th infantry. Ralph, another Texas native, came to my attention in a Walmart, wearing a WW2 hat, which invited an introduction on my part. “Thank you for your service, sir! Pacific Theater or European Theater?” This always leads into an interesting conversation which ends up in a lasting friendship. In a recent get together of these vets, I introduced Ralph to D-Day +1, 2nd Infantry, 9th regiment, 100-year old, Master Sergeant Homer Cox. They had never met before and yet on December 16th and 17th of 1944, the 2nd Infantry crossed paths with the 106th. They shared a lot of stories after shaking hands that day.

I am privileged to attend once a month in Ft. Worth, Texas, a Veterans’ luncheon, called “Roll Call”. When my veterans are able to attend, I take them to this free luncheon where as many as 70 plus WW2 veterans and their families attend, along with other veterans. I was honored to speak to this group and asked for a show of hands of those men who fought in Belgium. A number of hands went up and after finishing I had the joy of meeting a number of new friends. Among them is Carmen Gisi, age 94, 101st Airborne Division. Carmen had been back to Bastogne on a number of occasions, by invitation. Again, this Belgian boy felt so privileged to be able to sit down and eat with these men and also call them his friends. And I always tell them in leaving that I am here because they were there.

At 72 years old, each day that goes by is one that I enjoy here in America because they were there in that last great battle which ended the terror of that era and provided the freedom for the whole world to enjoy. Today, my wife and I have made it our mission to seek and to thank the men whose boots plowed the snow and the mud of the Ardennes. Thank God for the American soldier.

by Royetta Simmons Doe, Member

When my father, Roy P. Simmons, was on his way to the Battle of the Bulge, he was a young 26-year-old husband and father who had never traveled outside the United States. He was lonely and homesick when he reached the Netherlands in the fall of 1944, but soon found a home away from home when the Army placed him with the Meex family of Hulsberg. They treated him like a member of their family and Roy became especially close with their son Alfons, who taught him some Dutch words, played games with him, and discussed family life.

As part of the 333rd Infantry, Company A, Roy received orders to proceed to the front and join the Ardennes Campaign. He was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge on December 26, 1944 and received The Purple Heart. He was one of the lucky soldiers that returned home. Although he rarely spoke of the war, as a child I remember him speaking with gratitude of the Meex family and of his warm welcome into their home.

After my mother and father died, I inherited a shoebox full of war letters. As I was perusing them, I found correspondence from the Meex family. One letter thanked my father for giving Alfons Meex a pair of boots. The Dutch suffered greatly at the hands of the Nazis and endured shortages of necessities like clothing, shoes and even food. I knew I had to find this family and thank them for their kindness all those years ago.

After writing letters to the townhall in Hulsberg, local churches, and even a letter to the return address on the yellowed envelopes—I finally found them! Unfortunately, the writer of the letters had passed away, but I reached his daughter and a niece and nephew. We are now 
Facebook friends and I hope someday soon to meet them in person. They have offered a tour of the Margraten American cemetery, which contains 8,300 graves of brave Americans who fought and died to defeat Hitler’s forces during their last offensive, and which is near their home. The Dutch have not forgotten the American soldiers buried at Margraten and honor them with a memorial ceremony each year on Liberation Day.

by Thea Marshall, Member

This May 2016 query letter was written by Ann Hall Marshall, Capt. Robert T. Marshall’s wife of over 50 years, and my Mom. Sadly, my mother didn’t live to see this book (Healers and Heroes, publication pending) come to fruition—she died in August, 2016.

Ann Hall Marshall wrote:
“During WWII, while all around them men were killing and being killed, soldiers in the front-line aid station risked their lives to rescue GIs lying wounded and helpless on the smoking battlefield.

When WWII began, Robert Thomas Marshall (1919-1996) was drafted as a buck private during his first semester of graduate school. Four years later, he was discharged as a captain, with a Silver Star, Purple Heart, and four battle ribbons including the Battle of the Bulge. He was a medic in General Patton’s third army.

I have the large, annotated maps on which my husband marked their route.
On his own initiative, my husband kept a log of what went on in the aid station. Surprisingly, that included an overseas romance. Dr. Andy Dedick, commanding officer of the aid station, married Lt. Kate Golden, a nurse from the field hospital. Bob was best man.
I am 95 years old. My daughter, Thea Marshall, and I will soon publish a book titled Healers and Heroes. I will send you a copy. If this is of interest to your (magazine, program, newsletter) please contact me for further information.”

* * *

Although I live in Hawaii and my Mom was in Maryland, we were in close communication about the manuscript development. She advised, informed, and collaborated extensively—I did the legwork, naturally!

Mom found great pleasure and purpose in developing this compelling project that was so dear to her heart. As you can see from the above query, my mother was a fabulous writer (published in her own right!) and in full command of her mental faculties to the end.
Despite many hurdles, it’s a wonderful privilege to continue with the plan that my Mom and I undertook together. I miss her terribly, but I am working hard to fulfill my promise to her and will soon publish my Dad’s front-line account (written post-hostilities in Czechoslovakia, using logs, maps, notes and first-hand accounts).

A bit of further background:
Capt. Robert T. Marshall served with the 26th (Yankee) Division, landing on Utah Beach in September of 1944. They joined the Battle of the Bulge on December 20, 1944.
My father’s duties included scouting strategic locations for their Division’s medical aid stations, then setting up the “facility” in preparation for upcoming battles. As is evident from his own self-deprecating narrative, Dad also rescued wounded soldiers, planned evacuation routes, and organized and carried out a plethora of related actions that advanced the war effort.

My father was wounded and evac’d in late March, 1945—he and his comrades received treatment for their wounds by a medic on the scene, and were then transported to the very aid station they had set up earlier that day at Grossauheim. S. Sgt. Walter German generously contributed to the narrative, filling in the rest of the story until VE Day.
Following is an excerpt by my Dad from the forthcoming book, Healers and Heroes:

Chapter 2 – How a Jew Helped a Nazi
At this time, the regimental aid station was set up only a mile or so behind us on the road leading out of Bures. The crew had dug themselves into the side of the hill, and I know this was the first and last occasion on which they soiled their lily-white hands by digging foxholes. (In all fairness, we soon broke ourselves of the habit as well.) Lieutenant Markham was one of our few casualties when a chunk of masonry dented his scalp during some excitement in the town of Coincourt, where Charlie Company was holding court.
From this area we moved into Rechicourt to relieve the 2d Battalion. This was on November 1, and from the moment we landed, things began to happen. “Coke” and I spent the best part of the day reconnoitering the companies’ positions. Able Company was to take over the southwest slope of Hill 264 and Baker the southwest slope of Hill 253; the Heinies provided occupation forces for the other sides of these respective mounds, while the hilltops made a suitable no-man’s land.

* * *

The enemy was also in Bezange-la-Petite. That day was foggy, so we had no trouble contacting Lieutenant Lehrman of Fox Company and Captain Carrier of George Company, which Baker and Able were relieving respectively. The route to Able would be good: a straight road almost to the company CP. However, the one to Baker involved a bit of cross-country work as well as a good sense of direction. The line companies were not to make the switch until after dark, but we made the aid station swap in the afternoon. We had a couple of downstairs rooms for the station, while the gang slept in the attached barn.
The fireworks started shortly after dark when George Company, which had not yet been relieved, called to say they had a couple of casualties. We went out to find Lieutenant Randazzize (who had been in charge of the officers’ mess at Fort Jackson) shot through the ankle, as well as a couple of enlisted men who were even worse off.

We had gone at first to the George Company CP, but they had not only failed to furnish us guides to (or at least a faint idea of) where the casualties were, they also had moved one of the wounded from the spot where he was hit (fairly close to the evacuation route we had planned) to their own ammo dump, which was quite a piece out of the way. I naturally blew my stack, but we finally wandered all over the damn hill and got everybody collected and started back. During the whole trip back, the least injured of the three was hollering like a stuck pig, until I felt sure the Heinies up the road thought Ringling Brothers’ circus was headed for Bezange-la-Petite. Somehow we managed to get back without drawing any enemy (or friendly) fire.

The next night we got a call from Able and went out to find that a shell had landed in T/4 Joe Cabral’s foxhole. He was one of the aidmen with Able. We dug him out and brought him back to the aid station, but he was dead when we got there (and probably had been when we picked him up). Friday night T/4 Bill Market, a Baker aidman, got a shell fragment in his scalp, so we drove out and picked him up. Larry Honaker from the station went out to Baker as a replacement.

During the time we were at Rechicourt until the attack on November 8, a few odds and ends cropped up to keep us amused. Father Bransfield was staying with us and celebrated Mass each morning in the sacristy of the village church. Indeed, the sacristy was about all that was left of the church. Andy and I went out to pay a social call to Baker Company, and spent most of the trip hitting the dirt when a machine gun opened up nearby. We later discovered that it was a Dog Company gun firing from Hill 296 over our heads into Bezange.
Organizing himself into a one-man commando unit, Maj. Swampy Hilton went out to blow up a German artillery piece that stood between the lines in Baker Company’s sector. He came back and gave a glowing report of the success of this mission—how he had crept under the very noses of the Germans, tied dynamite on the gun, lit it, crept back, and watched the gun blow sky high. We later learned that the gun had already been deactivated by the 2d Battalion, while Honaker, who was an eyewitness, told us that Swampy had confined his efforts to throwing hand grenades at the offending weapon from a foxhole within the safety of our own lines.

Morgan Madden and Herbie Scheinberg were given the task of closing the latrine in our backyard and digging a new one, but they got confused, reversed the order, and dug the new one first. It was lucky for them that they did it thus, for whilst they were digging, a mortar shell dropped squarely into the old latrine and obliterated it. The odd part was that neither was injured, although they were within fifteen feet of the explosion. Rechicourt also saw me—after two long, hard, and faithful years—shed golden bars for those wrought of silver. For a while I had gotten to thinking that the damn War Department had decided to let me remain a second louie for the duration as an awful example to our drafted citizenry not to go to OCS, especially not MAC OCS.

One dark night, Lt. George Winecoff, exec of Baker, came into the aid station humbly seeking our assistance. It seems he was unable to navigate his usual ration route to the company and wanted us to guide him over the one we were using for evacuation—the route we had figured out all for ourselves, and that was a much better one. It tickled us to think that the infantry should come seeking such technical help from the medics whom they usually razzed for knowing so little of such matters. But we pitched in and delivered the rations and kept the gloating to a minimum.

* * *

Finally on the morning of November 8, the 1st Battalion attacked Bezange-la-Petite, which was our small part in the larger picture, the big Lorraine offensive by Patton’s Third Army. The medic plan had been figured out long in advance: We would evacuate Able right from Rechicourt and would set up an alternate aid station in the Chapelle St. Pierre, which was only a short distance behind the Baker CP, directly on our route of evacuation. Before daylight on the 8th, Bruegge, Madden, Jenkins, Geisler, German, Scheinberg, and I (along with one or two more) made our way to the chapel. We listened to the artillery preparation and watched the tracer shells from Geydos’ 57-mm anti-tank guns sailing through the dawn into Bezange.

The Heinies retaliated in kind, landing several shells within ten feet of the chapel and dropping a portion of its roof on Madden’s head, thus giving him his first Purple Heart. But we had gotten our signals crossed and were busily praying to St. Joseph, in whose honor we mistakenly thought the chapel was erected. The saints must have smiled tolerantly at our ignorance and pitched in together to give us a hand, for Madden’s scratch was the only one during the counter fire.

Soon the day had come in earnest, and with it the casualties started pouring in. Baker Company’s task was merely to clear the Jerries from the other side of Hill 253 and this they accomplished in short order and with a minimum of trouble after the artillery barrage had lifted. The enemy left as many dead and wounded as he had inflicted. We ran the jeep forward to the creek that flowed near the base of the hill and hand-carried the casualties down the hill. Back in the chapel, Bruegge and Geisler were busy passing out plasma and splinting, while the rest of us made it our job to bring them the patients. Lt. Joe Senger, our S-4, dropped in for a visit and was soon put to work hauling wounded from the chapel back to the main aid station.

The trip from the hill wasn’t too bad until the Heinies decided to blast Baker from its heights with artillery. A good many shells would just miss the top and would keep on going down into the valley near the stream straddling our evacuation route. Several shells breezed in as we were getting the last of the GI casualties off the hill. One of these chaps had trench foot and exhaustion so bad that two of the boys were carrying him. We hit the dirt, waited for a breathing spell, and then lit out on the double for the jeep before more shells landed. And who should be leading our pack but the crippled exhaustion case— and he beat us all with his shell-inspired sprinting.

Next we turned to the German casualties. It would have done the Jewbaiting Nazi politicians a world of moral good to see Herbie Scheinberg helping one of their fallen warriors across the be-shelled valley floor to the chapel. Indeed, Herbie picked up a hunk of German shrapnel in his arm from a near hit during one of these excursions. It wasn’t serious and Herbie kept going, but I still like to think about how I once saw a Jew earn a Purple Heart helping save Nazi lives. That’s one for the books!

by David R. Hubbard, HQ ADV SECT COMM ZONE SIG

The U. S. Assault Training Center, Woolacombe, Devon, England played a very valuable part in beach landing exercises to be used in the upcoming invasion of fortress Europe, but was not without some very tragic events. We learned of the men being killed when live ammunition was being used to shoot over men after landing on beaches and crawling beneath barbed wire. Some machine gun tripods had been set on unstable soil, and tilted downward. Also, an attempt was made to attach flotation devices around our tanks, so that they could be deployed further out from the beaches. Unfortunately, the devices failed, and the tanks, along with the men inside, were lost. The most horrific incident, however, was not known by any of us until after the war ended. Exercise Tiger was massive in scope, involving 21 Landing Ship, Tank (LST); 28 Landing Craft, Infantry (LCI); and 65 Landing Craft, Tank (LCT); plus nearly a hundred smaller vessels, and escort of warships. All the top brass were watching from shore, including General Eisenhower. Soldiers filled the landing craft scheduled to hit the beach the next day.

At about 2200 hours, nine small German E-Boats—similar to our P. T. boats—left Cherbourg. The E-Boats were undetected until they entered Lyme Bay, but by then they had begun inflicting mortal damage to our LST’s. One torpedo struck a LST carrying nearly 500 men, and two other LST’s were torpedoed. While the men were equipped with life vests, these proved to be more hindrance than help in many cases. These resembled a bicycle inner tube and were wrapped around their lower chests. Many drowned because the tubes caused them to enter the water upside down. The final death toll: 198 sailors and 441 soldiers—greater than the number who died landing on Utah Beach five weeks later. The edict went out from Headquarters that this event was to be kept secret. I imagine it was ordered by General Eisenhower himself. The fear was that perhaps some of the men had seen or might have been in possession of Operation Overlord information.

***

The Assault Training Center’s mission was complete, so on 22 May 1944, I was transferred in grade (T/4) and ordered to report to Headquarters Detachment, Advance Section Communication Zone (ADSEC), Bristol, England, reporting to the Commanding Officer. This was a relatively new organization being formed in an abandoned bakery building. ADSEC was the spearhead to provide all logistical support for the advancing troops, beginning on D-Day. When I arrived on April 23, I joined possibly a hundred or more men being given duty assignments in order to complete staffing of close to a thousand men. My assignment placed me in the Signal Section, Plans, Training & Operations Division (P. T. O.). We were to begin implementing Operation Overlord, issuing orders to Signal Units that were to provide communications beginning on D-Day. Orders had been received to the effect that no one was to gain access to Overlord documents without first being cleared for security beyond TOP SECRET. Those of us in this part of Signal Section were checked and received TOP SECRET B-I-G-O-T designation. (Derivation of this acronym, and reason therefore is printed at the end.) The document, of course, contained very sensitive information, even giving unit departure dates beginning with D-Day. I learned that my unit was to cross the channel on D plus 14. I had scrounged a signal unit radio and learned about D-Day listening to BBC broadcasts. The ensuing storm after D-Day delayed things by a couple of weeks. Most of us were assigned to be billeted in pairs in private homes. About June 28, a Military Policeman came to my location around midnight, with orders to be ready for pickup in half an hour. Arriving at Hq, I was assigned to a two and a half ton truck loaded with bales of invasion money – the very first to be delivered to Normandy to pay the troops. I slept on these bales of currency (printed in French Francs) for three nights, and turned the truck over to another authority in an apple orchard, the day after our July first landing at Utah Beach. We then moved through Carentan and made camp in a Catz, France pasture. I set up my field desk in an abandoned chicken house.

The Germans took a stand at St. Lo, preventing departure from Normandy until after August first. Andy Rooney of Sixty Minutes fame was attached to ADSEC, and spent most of his time in the field reporting for The Stars And Stripes news. He received the Bronze Star Medal for his coverage of the battle to dislodge the Germans from St. Lo, and also linking the story of Major Thomas D. Howie’s death before entering St. Lo. Major Howie was a Citadel graduate and wanted to be the first to lead his troops into St. Lo. His commanding General gave permission for his body to be placed on a jeep and driven into the ruined city, to be placed in the ruins of a church. I took a picture of this church when we passed through shortly thereafter. In typical Andy Rooney style, Rooney described the Bronze Star as follows: “That falls in rank somewhere between the Medal of Honor and the Good Conduct Medal.” He had already been awarded the Air Medal for making five trips on bombing raids. The Eighth Air Force bombed St. Lo relentlessly and in so doing, dropped bombs on our own troops, fatally wounding Lt. General Leslie McNair. Aluminum chaff was dropped to alter the aim of the German Radar, and much of it fell on our area back at Catz.

We followed close behind General George Patton, with brief stops in Le Mans, Etampes and Reims, France; Namur, Belgium; Bonn, Germany, and finally ending up at Fulda, where we celebrated V-E Day. Along the way, I was promoted to T/3 (Staff Sgt.) July 10, 1945, and sent back to Reims and stationed in “The Little Red School House”, where the Germans had surrendered May 7, 1945. This was then Hq. for Assembly Area Command, the center for tent cities around the area, where troops were assembled to await transfer to the Pacific, or back home. More G.I.s were concentrated in these tent cities than in any other spot on earth. I witnessed V. J. Day there, resulting in many thousands of very happy and hung-over G.I.s. The war was over —we were going home.

My service: Continental U. S. A: one month, 11 days; Foreign Service: two years, 10 months, 25 days.

Note: Portion of Exercise Tiger information taken from Article: “Exercise in Tragedy”, contained in May/June, 2014 issue of WWII Magazine.

BIGOT information: There are several derivations given for this Acronym. One being reversal of British Officer’s orders to Gibraltar or: “To Gib”; another is one attributed to Churchill: “British Invasion of German Occupied Territory”. The list of personnel cleared to know details of Overlord was known as the BIGOT list, and the people were known as “Bigots”. The details of the invasion plan were so secret, adherence to the list was rigidly enforced. Note: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia