On Christmas 1944, Gus Epple was at the wheel of an Army Jeep, stuck in a traffic jam many miles long leading to the German lines. Dysentery forced the 19-year-old to abandon his Jeep every 15 minutes to relieve himself along the side of the road. Each time, he trudged through the snow and wrestled with an overcoat, field jacket, two layers of uniform pants and longjohns worn against the bitter cold. That night, his unit started a fire in their stove, a more compact version of a Coleman, to keep warm. Their folly quickly became apparent.

“You couldn’t believe how brilliant that little gas stove was,” said Epple, now an 88-year-old living in Cape May Court House. “We left it on for five or 10 seconds and shut it down again. It could’ve given away the position of the entire convoy.” Epple was one of an estimated 610,000 Americans who served during the Battle of the Bulge, Adolph Hitler’s last major offensive of World War II. By the end of fighting, which began Dec. 16 and ended Jan. 25, 1945, about 81,000 would die. Germany would surrender just more than four months later. And that year became the “winter without a Christmas” for the soldiers who returned home.

Decades later, however, Epple and a group of local vets have banded together due to their shared experience. Their numbers have dwindled and some are now confined to nursing homes, but a hearty few still unite throughout the year, most poignantly at Christmastime. They are the brothers of the Bulge.

It all started in 1999, when a couple of veterans — both deceased now — organized a luncheon for a local chapter of the national Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge. At the time, the quarterly meetings attracted a group of about 50 said the 88-year-old Army rifleman. “There’s a common bond there that means something to us.” The Cape May Court House resident, who lives near Epple, spent Christmas 1944 south of Bastogne in Belgium. The days run together in memory, but he was probably in a foxhole, hoping German soldiers didn’t stumble upon his position.

When possible, Umbenhauer would try to dig a trench to lie in, but one night it wasn’t possible. Instead, three soldiers huddled together in a snow bank, their warmth and body weight creating a depression in the snow. “I was just lying there in the snow. Several miles away I could hear German Panzer tanks driving back and forth,” he said. “If they decided to come after us, I wouldn’t be here — we were totally unprotected.”

Umbenhauer joined the local group several years after it formed, after reading about it in the newspaper. One of the members mentioned the 8th Armored Division. “Hey—that’s my division,” he said. Many of the members’ experiences intersect. For instance, Ewing Roddy, another survivor, was a machine gunner who flew six missions over the course of the battle. “I like to say they were fighting the Germans on the ground while I was fighting above ground,” Roddy said. The 89-year-old now lives in a Linwood nursing home with his wife, but he tries to make the group’s annual Christmas luncheon — on Wednesday this year — and stays in touch with other veterans, sharing news and remembrances.

Like most groups, Epple said, the Bulge veterans’ numbers have dwindled with time. Today, about five of them still meet regularly, with several more attending when their health or transportation allows.And Umbenhauer said the remaining active members are always on the lookout for new blood. “If they find a veteran from the Battle of the Bulge, they practically drag you to the meeting,” he said, with a laugh. He knows from personal experience, of course.

But a funny thing happened in recent years. Although the ranks of actual veterans have diminished, the group has welcomed relatives of deceased Bulge vets and soldiers from other battles and conflicts. The group’s current president, 70-year-old Ed Steinberg, was a New Jersey Army National Guard reservist — he responded to the Newark riots of 1967 — and the son of a Bulge vet who died in 1992. His own father, Albert, was close-lipped about his experiences, but Steinberg enjoys hearing the experiences of other World War II vets. “I would rather connect and sit down with these guys than people of my own generation,” he said.

Steinberg, who lives in the Rio Grande section of Middle Township, took over when Epple needed a break from the constant scheduling duties. “I was sort of hoping it would just fold and we’d quit,” Epple said. “I didn’t think it would last this long.” But Epple added that there’s real value in continuing the legacy of the Battle of the Bulge, and remembering the Christmas that never was.

During the battle, Epple and the rest of the soldiers were eventually ordered to abandon their overcoats because they could be too cumbersome if they had to run. Most of the Germans kept their coats. Epple remembers one fled as his crew fired mortars around him. “I’d never seen such a sight,” he said. “Trailing out the back of him was the overcoat. He must’ve gone at a pretty good speed.”

Umbenhauer said he likes to tell people that he spent that Christmas in a foxhole singing “I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas.” Of course, that quip doesn’t reflect the reality he and many of his friends lived that day. They already had more than enough snow. “For us, it was another night,” he said. “We couldn’t help but think about Christmas, but for us it was another unpleasant night.”

by Wallace McKelvey, Staff Writer
Atlantic City Press, NJ

http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/communities/lower_capemay/battle-of-the-bulge-veterans-remember-winter-without-a-christmas/article_102460e0-659f-11e3-a641-0019bb2963f4.html

THE BULGE

The first sign of something big that was on the menu began on December 19^th at the
noon-day meal.
Our Colonel of the 39 Signal Company was looking for wire – one hundred miles by the reel.
We six truck drivers were called aside for a ride to the airport in Metz,a waste of time with no answers to the Colonel’s request.

Back at the barracks, a headquarters’ lieutenant had news of a German breakthrough in our defensive line.
From December 16^th into the 23^rd Nazi tanks and infantry had successful time.
The 106^th and 28^th Infantries felt the heat of this punch taking the brunt of a fall
A forty mile trek was the result of the German’s call.

We drivers were on the road again for a blackout ride to a depot for that wire,
Communications for the 20^th Infantry Division were dependent mile reels for orders
given at Headquarters’ desire.
Sixteen miles per truck were secured before the slow drive back
A twenty mile drive without directions in the murky black.

Over coffee we heard our objective to stop the Germans was Bastogne, a city that had been reached that day,
Bastogne would become famous whenever the term “The Bulge” came into play.
After four hours sleep by eight AM, we started a seventy mile trek, mostly bumper to bumper for most of the way.

If Hitler had only known for forty road-clogged miles the U.S. 3^rd Army was moving with General Patton, the top Command,
He’d show those S.O.B.s how this three division force would change the German’s battle plan.

It was stop and go through the towns of northern France with villagers showering us with schnapps, cookies and pie,
An early Christmas greeting before the snows descended upon us in the Ardennes from a darker sky.

On December 22^nd the 26 Infantry Division met the German panzers near Grosbus, the southern flank’s first forces connection,
Then a steady pursuit through Eschdorf and over the Sur River toward Wiltz, the Division’s objective.

The Bulge by mid-January had made the Wiehrmacht into a crippled disaster in theEuropean west,
After five years of Nazi domination the Americans at the Bulge put their battle
superiority to rest.
The United States’ fighting forces stepped in the mantel of equality and justice for all
showed the world our way of life is still the best.

Jacob G. Zimmerer 39^th Signal Company 26^th Infantry Division

I feel like a lucky bystander, being a target several times, but always missed. I thank God for bringing me home safely. The following are excerpts taken from my WWII Memoirs written in 2004 for the Veterans’ History Project at the Library of Congress, Washington DC. Operation. Nordwind was the last major German assault, roughly two weeks after Dec.16.

After Basic Training and a furlough at home in San Antonio, Texas, I was sent to Europe with 5,000 others on the Queen Mary, converted into a troopship, leaving New York on Columbus Day, 1944. After about one month in Replacement Depots in England and France, I was in the 44^th Infantry Division Replacement Depot in an orchard near Luneville, in Alsace France. It rained much of every day, making the ground very muddy. My combat boots were always wet and my feet were swollen.

On November 19^th at assembly an officer called for everyone having trouble with their feet to step forward. The eight of us who responded were assigned to KP duty in the 44^th Division headquarters kitchen, in Luneville.  This got us out of the mud and rain and our feet improved rapidly. Being on KP while preparing and serving Thanksgiving dinner had both advantages and disadvantages. Just before Thanksgiving the 44^th Division liberated the city of Saarbourg. After serving Thanksgiving Day dinner, the headquarters, including the kitchen and KPs relocated to Saarbourg, on the Saar River, Nov. 24^th. The kitchen, supply depot and post office were all located in the Saarburg Town Hall, where we slept on the floor.

One night the replacements with whom I would have been, if not on KP, were quartered in another building and were killed by a shell from long range German artillery. (I never complained about KP after that.) The KP detail were issued a new shoe type, shoe-packs, consisting of a rubber bottom shell which turned up to be sewn to the leather top, supposedly to keep our feet drier; they were at least two sizes too wide for my size 11AA feet, requiring me to wear both pairs of wool and cotton socks (all four pair I was issued) at the same time, in an attempt to fill up the shoes. This left me with no change of socks to dry out.

After two weeks on KP, Dec. 5, 1944, I left the 44^th Division Headquarters kitchen by truck to be assigned to a rifle company. As we entered a small village Northeast of Saarbourg, a German fighter plane strafed the two-truck convoy I was in. We all bailed out of the trucks and headed for the shelter of the buildings.  No one was hit, and the plane did not make a second pass. About 30 minutes later in the next town, Sarralbe, I was introduced to the 1st Platoon, Co. G., 2nd Battalion, 71st Infantry Regiment. I was replacing one of the two casualties, which they suffered in combat during the previous week. I spent that night with the rest of my squad, sleeping on the concrete floor of one of the houses in the small town. This would be as good as it got for the next month, except when we were lucky enough to sleep in a barn, on hay.

We marched from town to town, in a northeasterly direction, with the Germans retreating, offering only occasional resistance. One day we advanced toward a town about 1/2 mile ahead. Two P-47 Thunderbolts dived over the town and dropped bombs, probably on German tanks in the town. They flew around and started a strafing run, with the second plane close behind and to the right of the first. I commented “They’re too close together” and a couple of seconds later the first plane was hit, went up and to the right, into the path of the second plane. They both went down, killing both pilots. I didn’t know at the time that these would be the only deaths I saw in WWII, and I really couldn’t see the pilots at that distance.

Another regiment of the 44^th Division was the first U.S. unit to reach, and send a patrol across the Rhine River when they and a French Division captured the Alsacian city of Strasbourg. The 44^th Division commander wanted to cross the Rhine and advance north along the east bank of the river, cutting off the German army’s retreat. But our supply lines, already too long, would have been unable to keep up, leaving the 44^th Division stranded behind enemy lines.

Our advance was turned  toward the back side of the French Maginot Line, near the German border, at the Ensemble de Bitche. These pill-box forts protected each other with overlapping fire and were supported by military farms which had supplied food and dairy products. On Dec. 14^th the Battalion made an afternoon Infantry assault on the masonry buildings of the Freudenberg military farm, defended by German snipers and mortars. We took all buildings of the farm, with no casualties that I knew of. The pill boxes of the Maginot Line, just a hundred yards or so beyond the farm buildings, were shelled repeatedly by our 105mm and 155mm artillery, only occasionally chipping off very small pieces of concrete. This artillery barrage continued for two days, supplemented by an air strike of fighters dropping 500 pound bombs, still only chipping small pieces off the concrete.

Early in the morning of Dec 17^th our squad attacked the pillbox nearest to the farm, receiving machine gun fire from the left flank where I was assigned. The Kraut bullets were falling short, but kicking dirt onto my shoulders and helmet as I was lying flat on the ground. I couldn’t see the other pillbox because of a low ground fog. Two old German soldiers, about the age of my grandfather, surrendered the pillbox after a smoke bomb and a fragmentation grenade were dropped down the air vent. Our platoon sniper, with his Springfield bolt-action rifle & scope, climbed into the steel turret of the pill box and shot several Germans who attempted a counter-attack.

G Company went into reserve, and celebrated Christmas in Saarguemines, France, a city at the German border. The town had been liberated from the Germans, only during the previous week by the Third Army. We were quartered in homes with the French families.  The family living in the two-story house my squad was assigned to spoke no English and none of us spoke any French or German. They weren’t too happy about our taking over their home. On Christmas Eve we started singing Christmas carols, beginning with “Silent Night”; but because that was a German carol the French family didn’t look too happy about it. But “O Come All Ye Faithful” became their “Adeste Fidelis” and they joined in, singing in Latin. Because I had taken Latin in high school and had learned Adeste Fidelis, I switched to the Latin words and the French family really beamed with joy, we were now mon ami !

A turkey dinner on Christmas Day was served from kitchen jeep-drawn trailers in the middle of the street, with the temperature in the 30s, with no sun. The watching civilians thought our white bread was cake. All parts of the meal went into our mess gear, the roast turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes, gravy, carrots, greens, with apple pie on top of it all. We enjoyed it anyway, since it was much better than the usual C rations. What little was discarded in garbage cans was sought after by the civilians who had little to eat. After eating Christmas dinner, that evening we moved back to the front.

Operation Nordwind:

After taking pillboxes of the Maginot Line, the mission of the 44^th Infantry Division was changed from offensive to setting up new defensive positions about ten miles West. When the Battle of the Bulge started on December 16, 1944, many units of the Third Army were moved from the left flank of the Seventh Army to rush to Bastogne to stop the German advance. The Seventh Army spread out to the West to fill the vacancy left by the Third Army’s move. The Seventh was now occupying much of a two army front, with only two thirds the number of Divisions which had been there just a day before. Each division defended over a 15 mile wide front.     A cold front brought bitter cold and snow to the Vosges Mountains in northern Alsace just after Christmas. The ground was frozen, under about a foot of snow, making it almost impossible to dig a foxhole with only our entrenching tools. It was well below freezing during the day and near zero during the nights, with a strong North wind.

The 2nd Battalion was spread thin along the border, across what should have been a regimental front, with almost everyone on the line, along a series of ridges overlooking the France-Germany border. Our intelligence warned us that a German attack in force was probable. Unlike the Huertgen Forest assault, where the Germans did not use radio communications when building up their forces, they did use radio when assembling units for Operation Nordwind and we were expecting the assault.

On the morning of Dec. 31^st, from Brandenfingerhof Farm, 12 men of the First Platoon of Company G were sent as an outpost near Obergailbach near the border with Germany, on the battalion’s forward left flank, in existing fox holes about 100 feet apart along a thin hedgerow, with my hole on the open left flank; about 150 feet farther to the left was a reconnaissance jeep with a radio and 50 caliber air-cooled machine gun. We were probably at least 300 yards in front of the nearest U.S. forces. Each foxhole had 2 riflemen and a third with an automatic weapon, either a BAR or a submachine gun.

In the afternoon I was assigned to a 4-man patrol to see if the Germans had evacuated the town of Obergailbach, behind the ridge in front of us. The patrol found no German soldiers in the town, only civilians. Back in our foxhole we ate our dinner K rations, which included a can of beef & pork loaf with carrot and apple flakes, and a bar of dark chocolate. I shaved the chocolate bar into tiny flakes onto a piece of paper to make hot chocolate the next morning. It got dark about 1630 (4:30pm) and daylight around 7:00am.

About 2200 (10:00 PM) we could hear a train enter Obergailbach, behind the ridge in front of us. With the wind blowing from the North, the frigid air carried the sounds of German commands, whistles, etc. as they unloaded troops and marched up into the woods on the ridge about 300 yards in front of us.

After all units had reached the ridge, our artillery opened up on the woods with continuous fire for what seemed like about an hour, then, as the Germans advanced out of the woods, at about 2345, the artillery followed them with high explosive and white phosphorus shells which lit up the hillside, creating quite a fireworks display for a New Years Eve celebration!  We could not see the enemy, who were dressed in white against the snow, but their use of tracer ammunition gave their positions away, bringing more U.S. artillery fire. Just as dawn was breaking the reconnaissance jeep fired several machine gun bursts and after a few quick words on their radio, they pulled back. We hadn’t seen anything to shoot at. There was frequent U.S. rifle, BAR and machine gun fire over 300 yards to our right-rear, coming from F Company’s area, but from our 3-man foxhole we saw no positive enemy target within range to shoot at with our BAR, grenade launcher and M-1 rifles, and none of the other members of the outpost had fired their weapons, even as daybreak illuminated the valley before us.

A couple of short bursts from a German machine pistol, or “burp-gun”, several 100 feet behind us, was our first indication the Germans had gotten behind our outpost. About that time Sergeant Gasperino ran up behind our hole yelling to follow him, the outpost had been pulled back over 15 minutes earlier, but the orders hadn’t been passed on to us in the last foxhole. I grabbed my M-1, with its grenade launcher, and grenades and took off, cussing because some @#$%&#$ German soldier was going to get my chocolate bar shavings which were left behind! As we ran in retreat through a wooded area we heard another burst from the machine pistol, but we were not hit, and we returned the thousand yards back to Brandenfingerhof Farm.

We later learned that, as part of “Operation Nordwind” a full regiment of the 17^th SS Panzer Grenadier Division had attacked our Second Battalion front, attempting to reach Saarbourg and Nancy, the railhead about 50 miles to our rear.  Over half of the Germans were killed or wounded by the artillery barrage before they even started the attack on that first night. Our artillery had just been issued proximity fused shells which, instead of hitting the ground before exploding and having little effect on prone soldiers, exploded at about 30 feet above the ground, spraying shrapnel down onto the prone soldiers. The U.S. 44^th Division was attacked by the 17^th SS Panzer Grenadier Division, 36^th Volks Grenadier Division and 19^th Volks Grenadier Division. New faster firing machine guns and semi-automatic assault rifles had been issued to the German units. Operation Nordwind, ordered by Hitler as a follow-up of their Heurtgen Forest breakthrough, involved about 15 German divisions against six U. S. divisions and one French division along a front extending along the French-German border from Saarguemines east to the Rhine River and south along the Rhine passed Strasbourg to near Colmar.

We moved to defensive positions, a secondary line of resistance, behind E and F Company and H Company, which caught the main force of the German attack, with E and F Company withdrawing and elements of H Company being surrounded. Other platoons of G Company had been moved up to help F Company during the night. With attacks and counterattacks, using tanks and other armored vehicles, by both sides, the battle moved back and forth during most of January 1^st. U. S. machine guns, mortars and artillery killed and wounded several hundred Germans, with U.S. battalion losses less than two dozen killed or wounded.

We marched back to Moronville Farm. The First Platoon joined a force of at least 100 men of G Company, six 81mm mortars from H Company, with three Sherman tanks and three tank destroyers in support, defending the Moronville farm compound, consisting of two-story buildings continuous around a square, about 200 feet across, with gates on opposite sides. Many families lived here, with each living quarters next to their barn, with hay stored on the concrete second floor. F Company was driven back to the farm by repeated German attacks. The Germans attacked the farm after midnight, setting the hay in the buildings on fire with their tracers, 20mm cannon  and mortars. The second floors of the whole community was on fire when we were ordered to pull out; my squad was assigned to accompany the last two tanks who covered the retreat. We were warned as we climbed aboard, not to touch the tanks with bare hands, only gloves, because our skin would freeze to the cold metal. We moved back to a new line of resistance about 800 yards south of Moronville Farm.

In the afternoon of Jan. 2^nd, the First Platoon, with support from two tanks and a tank destroyer (with 90mm gun), retook a ridge overlooking the town of Gros Rederching, which the 44^th Division  had previously taken but was now occupied by the Germans.  Several foxholes had been dug along the bare ridge; three German soldiers jumped out of one hole and ran down the other face of the ridge, with about 5 of the nearest GIs firing quickly at them but there were no hits. The other holes were empty. We spread across the top of the ridge, using available holes, but all I could find on the left flank was a shallow shell hole, not more than 8 inches deep in the center.  An L-1 artillery spotter plane hovered overhead to direct artillery fire onto resistance from the town.  Sporadic rifle fire came from the town, about 200 yards away in the valley.  We were ordered to return the fire, without any specific targets.  I fired three rounds at various windows, selected at random (the only shots I fired during the war).  The Germans ran a rolling mortar barrage from one end of the ridge to the other and back again, with shells hitting about 50 feet apart.  They got closer and the next one would be very close; I heard it coming in, but with an unusual fluttering sound. Instead of coming in straight it was spinning end over end. It landed within three feet of my head, kicking dirt and snow over me from the impact, but it did not explode! Every other shell in the barrage had exploded on impact with the ground.. When the barrage ended we pulled back off the ridge, apparently with no one injured. My feet hurt from blisters on my heels as we marched back to our line of resistance.

My squad spent that night in a snow covered clearing, in deep fox holes which had been dug by a supporting artillery unit; they and their guns had been pulled back to a safer location. The bottoms of the holes had been lined with empty brass 105mm shell casings, which offered a little protection from the icy bottom of the holes, that is until the ice broke, the shell casings sank and our shoes were 4 inches into the icy water. It was really hard to get to sleep standing up, with cold, wet feet I could hardly feel the blisters on my heels.

The next morning, Jan. 3^rd,  I complained to Sergeant Gasperino of the blisters on my heels where all four socks on each foot had worn through (the seam between the rubber bottom and the leather top of the shoepacks was in a bad location). He sent me to the aid station in Rimling, about a 1/4 mile walk. As they treated my blistered heels I asked where I could get more socks.  The medic answered, “In the hospital; you have trench foot,” and put me on a stretcher and into an ambulance with another trench foot and two yellow jaundice cases. During this period the U. S. forces had more casualties from trench foot and yellow jaundice than from enemy action.

During the night of Jan. 3rd, F Co. was moving into Gros Rederching, then thought to be held by the French, when the Germans in the town opened fire. Before the Americans could withdraw several G.I.s were hit and were carried out, but in the confusion in the dark several Germans fell into line with the withdrawing Americans and were captured.         The 71^st Infantry Regiment and the 44^th Division had stopped the units of Nordwind that hit us, but U.S. divisions to the east and along the Rhine River were pushed back from 10 to 20 miles. Three U.S. Divisions which had just arrived in Europe and had no battle experience were fighting back and forth almost continuously, inside towns [sometimes with U.S. troops and German troops occupying different parts of the same building overnight] and through woods and open fields, with infantry, tanks and artillery, suffering high casualties on both sides, for over three weeks before the Nordwind assault in their areas was finally defeated. Sometime years after the war the Nordwind offensive, and the Seventh Army resistance to it in Alsace was added to the Huertgen Forest (Battle of the Bulge) campaign star, to be added to the ETO/ North Africa Theater Medal ribbon.

I spent the next five weeks in the 21^st General Hospital in Mirrecourt, France, recovering from trenchfoot, which is a breakdown of tissue cells from being cold and wet over a period of several days or more. Usually it can be prevented by daily drying and warming the feet and then putting on dry socks. Because my shoepacks were so oversize that I had to wear all four pair of socks there was no way to dry them out when I was wearing them, and during the last several days there was no opportunity to go without my shoepacks on my feet.. In the hospital I got warm, in addition to getting my first shower and haircut since leaving the United States, almost three months earlier.

by (Pfc) Harold L. Eiserloh, 1st Ptn, Co G, 71st Inf. Regt, 44th Inf. Div., 7th U.S. Army.

Some books about the resistance of U. S. Seventh Army forces against Operation Nordwind in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace, France: 

The Final Crisis-Combat in Northern Alsace, January 1945 by Richard Engler, 1999. The Aberjona Press, Bedford PA.     

When the Odds Were Even – The Vosges Mountains Campaign, October 1944-January 1945  by Keith E. Bonn, 1994. Presidio Press, Navato CA     

Ordeal in the Vosges by Donald C. Pence and Eugene J. Peterson (Out of print)

Happy New Year Yankee Bastards By Vincent Priore, MSgt., F Co.,71st Inf. Rgt.,44th Inf.Div. (Out of print). 

The information contained has been corrected and redrafted from the original to correct spelling, formatting, grammar and usage from the original whose creator is unknown to me. Therefore any information contained in this account may or may not be factual however it is believed by me to be true and accurate. Dec 20, 2013.

Officially we got our start as an army unit on May 1, 1943, at Camp Bowie, Texas. We, of course, mean the men of the 838th Ordnance Depot Company. By the first of June most of the men had assembled from their various induction stations. We found it rather hot in Texas, but we didn’t realize then just how hot it could get under a Texas sun. During the next thirteen weeks we did more sweating than ever done in our lives. Yes, we had thirteen weeks of Basic Training with all the trimmings.

By the middle of September we were hard at work operating a depot at Camp Bowie and servicing Third Army units. Two months later, November 13, 1943, we left Camp Bowie, Texas for the Louisiana Maneuver Area, now known as Fort Polk. The work that followed, the 838th company endured three months of cold, rain, mud, etc., while participating in maneuver problems. For one month after, training ended the 838th company operated a Base Depot at Camp Polk, Louisiana. By this time we were good overseas material and were placed on alert for movement on March 13, 1944.

On March 30, 1944, eleven months after activation, the organization departed from Camp Polk for Camp Kilmer, N.J. late in the evening of Easter Sunday, 1944, we boarded the ocean liner “Queen Mary” and the following morning we saw the last of the Statue ‘ of Liberty as we sailed out of the harbor into the Atlantic Ocean.  The trip overseas was uneventful except for a little rough weather, then April 16 1944 early in the evening we dropped anchor in the Firth of Clyde, Scotland. The next morning we were deployed ashore at Greenock, Scotland, where we boarded a train bound for England.

Late that -night we arrived at Camp Northway, As-church Gloucestershire, England. While in England we were assigned to provide Services of Supply and worked at the U.S. General Depot G-25, Ordnance Supply Section. The work was hard and the hours long but now and then we got a day off and so were able to see some of England’s scenery.

On June 2, 1944, we were relieved from Services of Supply assignment and assigned to the Third United States Army although we did not leave G-25 and Northway behind us until July 19 when we went to Stanton, England. Once in Stanton, England the 838^th et al began to prepare for movement to the Continent. Our convoy left Stanton, England on August 2, 1944 en route to the marshalling area two days later on August 4, 1944 all units embarked from Weymouth, England. August 5 1944 part of the organization arrived in France and the rest August 6, 1944.

We landed on Utah Beach and proceeded on to our first bivouac area near Bricquebec, France. We followed the fast movement of the Third Army across France and were on the jump most of the time until we moved into Nancy, France, where we stayed for nearly six weeks, leaving on November 15, 1944.

After several more moves in France, the combined units crossed the border into Belgium and ‘set up at Athus, Belgium Christmas Eve 1944. We all made many friends during our stay in Belgium; we were treated royally by the Belgian people.

However, January 19, 1945 found us on our way again, this time into Luxembourg. We made several moves through this small Duchy, “a village ruled by a Duke or Duchess” and on March 14, 1945, we entered Germany. Our first stop in conquered territory was at the City of Trier, Germany.

The 838^th et al, moved on across Germany, crossing the Rhine on March 28, and finally bivouacking near the village of Cham-rôles, on April 29, 1945. It was while there that we received the official news that the European War had ended, and we began to dream wildly of coming home.

On May 24, 1945 we moved into German barracks at deggendorf, Germany, apparently to operate a depot there. Our stay here did not last long, however, because early in June 1945 we were again alerted for movement somewhere-whether home or the Pacific we did not know. Finally we received the great news that we were on our way home for a thirty day furlough.

Finally on June 1945 we left Germany by train, arriving at Camp Twenty Grand in France on June 20, 1945. While we there the 838^th company went through the necessary processing for shipment stateside. It was a great feeling to handle good U. S. money instead of the foreign “wallpaper” we had been using for so long.

On June 27, 1945 the 838^th et al organization boarded trucks and was transported to Le Havre where the Liberty Ship “Trist ram Dalton” is moored waiting our arrival. We sailed that day from Le Havre and spent many days looking at nothing but water. On July 9, 1945 we saw the good old U. S. A.

So, after fifteen months away from our native land we again set foot on its soil on July 10, 1945, and were taken to Camp Shanks, N. Y. Our processing there included a fine steak dinner with all the trimmings and we all did it justice. Our furlough papers were most welcome but the most welcome news of all was the end of the Pacific War which came while we were on furlough. Twenty-one months after leaving Camp Bowie, Texas, we again assembled there to await further orders.

The 838th Ordnance Depot Company was officially Deactivated at Camp Bowie Texas, October 19, 1945.

Submitted by Ronald J. Regan, Associate, in Memory of George W. Schemanske, 838th Ordnance Depot Co) Deceased 11 Nov 2013 95 YOA.

College Bound, Sept 1943-March 1944
by Sheldon Tauben, 75th ID, 289th IR, 2nd Bn HQ

A precursor to the post war “G.I. Bill/’ that remarkable and exemplary legislation that enabled veterans to obtain low-cost home mortgages and gave thousands the opportunity to secure a free college education, the US Army, in the summer of 1943, began a new educational endeavor, “The Army Specialized Training Program.” With its distinctive shoulder patch, a gold oil lamp of knowledge on a blue background, this special unit directed thousands of soldiers fresh from basic infantry training including air force cadets washed out of flight school and other services, to collection depots for testing and eventual assignment to colleges and universities throughout the United States.

The Citadel, a military school in South Carolina renown for its officer training and tracing a proud heritage back to the early 1800’s, was the major depot in the Eastern United States. All of the soldiers selected for this assignment had one thing in common- an “AGCT” score of 130 or higher. Upon entering the service each person underwent an extensive written examination with the final score prominently entered on his manila service file. The “Army General Classification Test” was an I.Q. exam used to direct personnel into jobs (MOS) or military occupation specialty that would be most appropriate for his on her level of intellectual ability. I had just completed 15 weeks of basic training at Seymour Johnson Field (Air Force) in Goldsboro, NC when I received orders to report to the administration center at the Citadel for further assignment.

After a week or so of inactivity (we did some sight-seeing in Charleston, SC) everyone received new orders directing them to any of the dozens of educational institutions within the program. By luck of the draw I was assigned to the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn, a renowned school of engineering located in the heart of downtown Brooklyn. A few days later I arrived in Brooklyn just in time to begin the fall term in September Of 1943. We were housed in the Fort Green housing project, a brand new Federal low cost development and were the first tenants. Bunker beds, desks, chairs and bookcases were provided-two men to a room. If not for the G.I. uniforms, it appeared much like a typical college dormitory. But the comparison ended just there. This was a military unit and run by the book.

6:00 a.m. reveille followed by formation in ranks by battalion in the courtyard, roll call and then dismissal for breakfast. 7:00 a.m. we formed up again by battalion and marched off in a sprightly military manner, each “student” carrying an over-the-shoulder mussette bag-books! Our route took us from the project down Schermerhorn Street and then to 99 Livingston where we lined up in the street in front of Polytechnic some 25 minutes later. Initially, it was a novelty to early morning Brooklynites and we were observed closely. Who doesn’t love a parade?

Formations broke up as we headed to our assigned classrooms for lectures in the usual freshman engineering curriculum plus some liberal arts courses in English, History and Geography. At 12 noon the entire unit again fell into ranks and marched back to the project for lunch. By 2 p.m. we were back at school ending the day with a 5:30 formation and return to our quarters for dinner. All meals were cafeteria-style served and eaten quickly, and no K.P. The basement of one of the buildings was converted into a cafeteria and served about 300 men at a time. After dinner we were expected to study the work assigned. AS I remember there was time for playing cards and craps. As long as we kept reasonably in order we were not bothered by “management.”

School continued for 5 days per week with weekends off on a pass unless some infraction of the rule caused the privilege to be withdrawn. These were pleasant weekends spent mainly with family as we lived in Jamaica about 1 hour away by train. On some weekends we attended local entertainment conducted by the American Red Cross. No hard liquor but lots of Coke and donuts. The girls that joined us were a motley crew from the local neighborhood, which in those days, close to the Brooklyn Navy Yard, was not exactly Park Ave.

One bright spot was the Commish’s Inn on Myrtle Avenue a few blocks away. It was run by my Uncle Irving, the black sheep of my father’s family, who had operated a speakeasy in Broad Channel during prohibition. Family legend had it that he used a black Cadillac hearse to run booze down from Montreal-passing through customs easily-who wants to bother a stiff I Uncle Irving was always good for a beer and pretzels and I saw him often at the time. I was never at a loss for company as 3 or 4 of my buddies also liked free beer. He kept a live monkey in a cage and had one of the first TV sets in NYC-about a 4″ screen in a 6ft high cabinet. Weekly fights and wrestling occupied a few hours at night. Uncle Irving was my father’s youngest brother. He had no children and took a liking to me, buying me my first baseball glove and a “Daisy” air rifle when I was 10 or 11. The odd name of his bar traced back to prohibition days when many of the NYC commissioners were his friends and customers. “Popularly known as “Brooklyn Poly” the name was changed in 1985 to Polytechnic University relocated form 99 Livingston St. to 333 Jay St. and now upgraded to “#6 Metrotech Center.” I still prefer the old names and address-you knew it was not in the Bronx and it favored important persons in American history!

College Bound Part 2

Going to classes 5 days a week for 7-8 hours a day was a difficult regimen|j but it took us through about two years of college “hours” between Sept 43 and March 44. After the war I was able to transfer some of the credits to a BA degree at Adelphi College (class of 49). I really wasn’t interested in engineering but managed to “hang on” while the program lasted. One of my buddies was Ralph Bono. He hailed from the Bronx and introduced us to the pleasures of pizza. Near the Commish’s Inn was a storefront, family-run “pizza parlor,” as they were generally known. Great deep dish, strictly cheese pizza-no fancy toppings but a taste to remember.

George Harris was another Gl from New Harmony, Indiana, deep at the southern end of the state. If it were difficult to locate a spot where the south and the north blended it is likely/ffafc New Harmony would fit the bill. Founded in the early 19^th century as an English Utopian Commune, it soon dropped its pretensions and “grew up” as a small southern rural town. George’s family lived in an “honest to goodness” log cabin- outdoor toilets-no central heat and a kitchen pump added only as a recognition of modernity- not 100 yards from the Wabash River.

As fate sometimes dictates, I got to know George’s family well. His mom, Effie, sister, brother-in-law and niece welcomed me months later when I was stationed in Camp Breckenridge, KY with the 75^th Inf Div. George had a disability form a poorly set broken elbow which left him on limited duty. He spent the war at desk jobs and while in New York visited my family on the same weekends that I spent in New Harmony with his. That spring and early summer of 1944 hold memories of southern fried chicken, mashed potatoes, iced tea and watermelon served on a wood plank table in the Harris’ front yard. They welcomed me warmly as George’s friend even though they may have wondered privately, what a nice Jewish boy like me was doing in a place like this!

Back to School!

Our Geography professor was a Dr. Fraim who had taught, before the war, at the University of Rangoon in Burma (now “Myannar”). When the troops learned this esoteric fact they recognized Dr. Fraim’s unique background with a monstrous battalion-sized shout of “RAN GOON” each morning as formations in front of Polytechnic broke up for classes. I think we all received “A’s” in Geography. The course work ran through Chemistry, Physics, Mathematics, blueprint drawing etc using text books usually written by the professor. Polytechnic was home to some of the top men in their fields. I never had the nerve to ask but I wondered what they thought of education by the numbers. Eight hours each day-5 days a week!

Through the winter of 1943-1944 we continued the daily grind. However, in mid-March our idyllic military careers came to a screeching halt. While it was all well and good to keep the colleges and universities functioning and give deserving Gl’s a shot at college studies, the manpower needs of the army came first. An infantry troop build-up was in the works and the ASTP was shut down except for some very limited programs in medicine and dentistry. We didn’t know it then but plans for the June 6,1944 D-Day landings in Normandy were well on their way.

Within a few days we were loaded into railroad cars (no Pullmans) and on our way South to Louisiana. Most of our group wound up in 75^th Inf Div, then training at Camp Polk where we were assigned to various units. I drew the 2^nd Bn HQ Co 289^th Inf regiment and remained with them through the extensive training at Camp Polk, then Camp Breckenridge, KY. We departed for Europe in Sept 1944 and wound up in the Battle of the Bulge in Dec 1944. But that’s another story.

One small incident remains in my memory of our days at Brooklyn Polytechnic. During one of our daily “parades” through downtown Brooklyn, on a cold and clear morning we marched in strict military formation passing by a corner drug store. It had 3 steps leading up to the entrance. An older woman, bundled up, stood till, waving her handkerchief to us and called out “hurry back boys/’ She mistakenly thought we were headed to Bush Terminal, a nearby troop embarkation facility. A smart-ass PFC in the front ranks turned to her and replied so all could hear “It’s ok, lady, we’ll be back right after lunch!”

My Battle of the Bulge; Before and Beyond
by Chester Pokusa, Battery B, 90^th ID

After two months training near Birmingham, England we were sent to Newport, Wales where we boarded the troopship “Enochtrain.” We were sent around the cape several miles into the English Channel to rendezvous. At 1600 officers gave us our briefing. As expected, it sent a spark of terror in most of the men. I can say I held my composure fairly well. This was all happening on June 6, 1944, D-Day. Ike called for us follow the 4^th Infantry Division as we landed on Utah Beach. I mean truly, I’ve never seen so many landing craft and very large battleships blasting German forts above us. It was a very successful venture when the 90^th met the 4^th and 82^nd. As we drove into Normandy we were very successful. I was wounded during the fight for St. Lo when a German Messerschmitt dove on us while we were at the base of a cliff. He missed us but hit the rocks above us and I was hit by a falling rock.

I returned to action quickly in time to be part of the trap of the Germans at Falaise. We were very successful when we met the Polish and Canadians to capture the German 7^th Panzer Army. After we gave them two opportunities to surrender they refused. The sight and smell was terrible as we completely slaughtered them.

The 90^th Division was put on 24 hour watch of ninety miles of front and we enjoyed an early full Christmas dinner in 1944. The very next day General Patton called us up on the line and said he needed one of his favorite divisions to follow his 4^th Armored Division to Bastogne and free Gen. McAuliffe who was surrounded there. At that time he told the Jerrys “nuts” to their demand to surrender all our forces to them. It took Patton two days to rout the Jerrys with all of our fire power and help from other full divisions. It had been a surprise attack by the Germans and they caused a lot of damage to men and equipment. We went in and stopped them cold and reversed their onslaught. So it was overpowered on our part.

On one occasion as we approached Bastogne my artillery gun was chosen for “high angle” readiness. After we fired one round and word came back from our forward observer that we had a hole in one – a round right down the turret of the large tank. We had a field day demolishing that German column.

I must tell this true story of my Malmedy. Capt. Johnson called me in for a confab. He directed me to pick three other volunteers. He said we have a weapons carrier ready to take you and the other men to witness the murders of 86 prisoners of war the bastards had of ours. The Jerry commander had our guys line up and he told them he was going to release them because the war was almost won by the U.S.A. Instead, he backed two trucks full of machine guns. He ordered them to fire into them and grenade them, our defenseless men. Then they went among the terrible slaughter to shoot anyone that moved. When we got there the bodies were frozen and snow was being uncovered from over them.

I found out later that two men escaped – one had his eyes open and didn’t breathe. They shot the man next to him, just to show his importance even though the man was already dead. I traced that man that escaped – he lives in Beaver, Pa. just a few miles from where I live. One of my men couldn’t take it and backed away crying and vomiting at the same time. I cried for two days after this terrible experience. I can say at that time I wound up with a terrible urge to kill every Jerry I would run across. We had a temporary order not to take any prisoners. That order was lifted after about a week. I did not obey that order.

We were part of a contingent that captured Hitler’s salt mine loaded with all his loot of paintings, gold bars, and money stolen from the countries he captured. We did not encounter any watchdogs or guards patrolling the main entrance or any of the other two small hidden entrances. I believe it was called the Merker Salt mine. I was a good spectator.

General’s Eisenhower, Patton, Collins, Lear, and others eventually came to inspect, padlock and secure the mine. My buddy, Cpl. Thompson, and I had the best hillside position overlooking the main entrance about a hundred yards away. My buddy decided to leave and join the rest of our artillery battery. I stayed and witnessed history as it was happening. The Generals stopped as they left the mine entrance and had a pretty long sustained talk about their plans, paying no attention to what was going on around them. I noticed a German fighter in the far distance and it seemed that it was turning toward us. He turned once and went around to line us up for a run. I had suspicioned one box car sitting on the rail siding about 25 yards away was full of explosives so I took it on my intuition to warn off the generals and shouted for them to get down. Gen. Collins ran over to me to question what I was doing there.

At first he wanted to arrest me and put me in the brig. After reasoning with him and looking at the German plane closing on us, Gen. Collins decided it was best that the others take cover but he took my name, rank, and serial number and told me that he would have me court marshaled if I was wrong. He then told me to get the hell out of there toots sweet. I just started to high ball it over the hill when I heard the big roar of the jet plane go right over me. It was Germany’s new jet and he had angled into the box car with two large rockets. I was in the clear and saw the pilot and I thought I was a goner. As I suspected, the box car was full of explosives. The whole area shook and the ground trembled. Smoke was so thick that it took about 20 or 30 minutes to clear. The pilot must have chosen to spare me. I heard some of our anti-aircraft in the distance and thought they had shot down the plane. The plane was beautiful and red in color. None of our men at the mine entrance were injured.

We, the 90^th, cut Germany in two and met the Russians in Czechoslovakia where the 11th German Panzer with all its equipment would only surrender to the 90^th Division. I was awarded the bronze and silver star in addition to a Purple Heart and Presidential citation for my service.

CCR of the 4th Armored Division pierced the Bulge at Bastogne on the 26th of December. Increased pressure on all sides of the Bulge caused the German Army to surrender or retreat back towards Germany. Then the armored units turned east to pursue the retreating enemy. The 188th. Engineer Combat Battalion along with other combat engineer battalions were held in the Bastogne-Houfalize Area to restore the highway system to a serviceable condition. The road system was never constructed to handle the pounding of tracked vehicles and heavy highway trucks. No highway system could withstand the conditions that the present roads were called on to withstand the beating they were subjected to. Most of the roads were nothing but a sea of mud, water and ruts. We worked day and night restoring them to a condition where they could be used again.

We constructed many sections of corduroy roadway, as the sub-coarses of the road had disappeared. A corduroy road is constructed of sections of tree trunks covered by the rubble of destroyed buildings and homes. A corduroy road is a poor substitute for a paved surface but we did not have that option. A corduroy road will provide the necessary traction for the vehicles so necessary in a war zone. Maintenance is constant and never ending.

We turned east and moved through the Seigfried Line into Germany. Bridges were built and roads were repaired and land mines and anti personnel were removed or destroyed as we continued our move through German cities, towns and villages. The civilian population had abandoned their home farms and livestock and moved farther into Germany at the approach of the American army. The abandonment of these towns and villages continued for a short time and then stopped. With the approach of the American Army from the west and the Russian army from the east there was soon no place to go. Some of the German civilians told us they had been told by their government officials that we would rob, rape and murder them. We did none of these things, but we did milk their cows and savored the fruits of our labors. Did you ever hear the pitiful mooing of a cow that needed to be milked?

We moved steadily east where our next big mission would be crossing the Rhine River. Training for the crossing was underway. Selected platoons in our Battalion received additional training in the operation and use of motor boats. All of our bridge building, road repair and mine removal work had been completed in this area and we awaited our orders for the Rhine River crossing which was awaiting our Battalion. With the receipt of orders the Battalion was off for Kaiserlauten, where we were to join the XX Corps. Enroute our orders were changed and we stopped at Oberthal. The German civilians were ordered to vacate their homes and when the Battalion arrived  they were able to move in . Overnight the crossing was  cancelled in this section and we were reassigned to the 1107th Group. So we are off again, this time in the direction from which we had just come. When we arrived at a wooded area near Braunshorn we started to prepare for the crossing. After a final preparation with the motors, we were ready for the Rhine River crossing.

Reconnaissance of the area between St. Goar and Oberwessel for suitable landing sites had been made by Staff Officers and all was in readiness. Orders for the crossing were received and at 2AM on Sunday the 26th. of March we moved to the river. The artillery opened fire on the far side of the river and the mission was underway. The assault boats entered the river for the crossing to Wellmich, St. Goar and Oberwessel. The initial wave of boats were paddled and succeeding waves were powered. The assalt boats were manned by combat engineers of the 168th Battalion. The crossing at St. Goar was strongly resisted, with lighter resistance at Wellmich and Oberwessel. With the infantry clearing the far side, the construction of ferries began. Once built they were placed in service. The motor powered ferries would carry troops and supplies to St. Goar, on the east side of the Rhine and return within our wounded and German prisoners, but not on the same trip.

During the day our B Company had two of its jeeps knocked out with resulting casualties. A Navy Duck, operating on the river, sideswiped and swamped a ferry,drowning one of our combat engineer soldiers. He was a very recent replacement in Company B of our Battalion. In war, death can overtake you in many different ways. The construction of a log boom, to protect the floating bridges, had to be abandoned after eight attempts. The current was too strong and the logs anchored to the cable were torn away at mid river and beyond. Fortunately the Germans did not launch any floating mines.

After the two floating bridges were built it was time to move on to the east. The front line was now many miles ahead of us and and we had quite some distance to cover to catch up to to the Fourth Armored Division. When we did catch up to them our main assignment was to repair and maintain their MSR (Main Supply Route) as they made their drive to capture the city of Gotha, Germany. The MSR, for the most part, was on the Autobahn Highway and we were strafed daily by enemy planes and suffered many casualties. Fortunately we did not suffer any fatalities as a result of these straffings.

As we moved deeper and deeper into Germany we occupied German homes for our dwellings. We no longer had to sleep in our pup tents and that was a great relief for all of us who were out in weather all day and our personal belongings and spare clothing were protected from the elements. The Germans were told to leave their homes before we moved in. This had been the policy since we entered Germany and it would remain in effect during and after the war. To the victor goes the spoils of war seemed to be the policy for all as far as I knew at the time.

The highways were crowded with the slave labor that had been freed or escaped from their captors and German soldiers who had surrendered or given up the battle. They lined both sides of the highways single file towards the rear of our position and headed in a westerly direction and hoping for a free meal. However; we did not have the means or the desire to host a dinner party for the German Army. We told them to continue walking west and someone, someplace would take care of them. Most of the battalion assignments were on the Autobahn      building and repairing bridges of all types of construction and repairing roads. There were numerous shell craters and tank traps that had to be filled. The speed of our advance was so great that we had crews working around the clock to keep the highways in service, and the Autobahn was the most important of them all.

While in this area we received word that a slave labor camp had been captured and the occupants had been set free. I decided to visit the camp and accompanied by my platoon sergeant and another squad leader from my platoon, we drove to the nearby town of Ohrdruf, Germany to take a look at the camp. The concentration camp was close by and we parked the jeep and walked through the main entrance. The gates and some fencing had been smashed by the armored force that had liberated the camp. The camp was fenced on all four sides. Prisoners dressed in striped pajama type uniforms were to be seen at many locations in the camp. The walking cadavers would approach you and stare aimlessly with glassy eyes. Some attempted to make conversation, asking for cigarettes which we gave them. They may have asked for other things, but we could not understand them. We continued to walk through the camp and entered one of the barrack like buildings that housed the prisoners. There were both live and dead prisoners in the building. The odor was terrible and took your breath away.

We quickly exited the building and did not enter any of the other barrack type buildings. In another area we saw the naked bodies of men and women stacked in rows like cordwood. Here and there a body had fallen from the stack and lay on the ground like a piece of wood which had fallen from the stack. On some of the stacking’s of bodies an attempt had been made to throw a layer of what appeared to be lime. Naturally we did not touch anything. Now and then I absentmindedly stuck my hands in my pockets to keep them out of harms way. Most of the stacks did not have any lime on them.   We moved on in this chamber of horror. In another area there was a large open ditch like excavation. Dozens and dozens of naked bodies of men and women had been haphazardly thrown into the excavation where they lay uncovered and exposed to the elements and animals.

We had seen more than enough and left the slave labor camp at Ohrdruf, Germany. A few days later the site was visited by Generals Eisenhower and Patton and other Generals It is my understanding General Eisenhower dispatched someone to the nearby town of Ohrdruf and they brought a town official to the camp and ordered him to gather the town citizenry to report to the camp with shovels to bury the dead bodies.  A few days after my visit to the camp at Ohrdruf another concentration camp was liberated at Buchenwald Germany. I did not visit that one as I had no desire to revisit the horror I had seen at Ohrdruf. “Mans inhumanity to fellow man”

Several times while doing repair work on the Autobahn Highway we saw jeeps bearing Russian Army Officers accompanied by American Army Officers traveling west. An occasional wave and sometimes a smile from them as they moved through our work area. Seeing the Russians we thought end of the war was at hand. However that was not the case.

C Company constructed a bridge across the Salle River, south of Vena, Germany, which marked the completion of one mile of fixed bridging in the ETO by our Battalion. This does not include the unfinished bridge at Keskastel in the Saar Valley constructed by B Company. We were on the job and would have completed the bridge that day. Then we received orders to cease construction and return to the company area and prepare for the move north to fight in the Battle of the Bulge I often wonder if there is someone out there who knows the rest of the story. What engineer outfit did finish he Bridge at Keskastel in the Saar Valley.. I wonder.

On the 6th of May the Battalion was placed in support of the 89th Division for a river crossing operation at Ave, Germany. On May 7th the operation was called off as negotiations were underway for a German surrender, ending the war. Later that day word was received that negotiations were completed and the Germans had surrendered. The war with Germany was over. May 8th was the day the war was officially over. I do not remember any large scale celebrations of the event. We were very relieved of course, but we all realized that there was an ongoing war with Japan and some of us would probably see some of that war,

We were now an Army of Occupation and the American Forces were to move to the American Occupation Zone in Bavaria. I was a member of the group that was dispatched to Bavaria to locate living quarters for our Company. We were to locate in an area near Regensburg, Germany. We surveyed the area for the most desirable quarters consistent with our future work as a member of the Army of Occupation. The most suitable quarters for our company were found in the city of Regensberg .   It was a multi storied apartment building and would suit our needs. The civilian occupants were given orders to vacate the building and this was accomplished quickly.

The site we had chosen had a large athletic field adjacent to our living quarters.   We used the field for military drill exercises and it was also used for our daily program of physical training to keep us in top physical shape. The field was also used for our softball games when we had free time. A volley ball court gave us another outlet to expend our excess energy. The athletic games soon attracted the attention of group of young boys living in the neighborhood. These boys all about 10 years of age and younger became regular fixtures at all of our outdoor activities including meal times when we ate our meals outdoors. The mess sergeant offered the leftovers one day to the boys if they would provide a container to be used to carry the food away from our area. They disappeared and quickly returned with containers of all sizes and descriptions. Apparently they had hidden the containers nearby in hopes of being offered the leftovers someday. The kitchen leftovers were quickly augmented by food from the soldiers mess gear. When the containers were filled or all of the spare food had been parceled out, they headed for their homes to share the food with their families.

Kids are the same worldwide, even German youngsters. That is until they enter the German youth programs of Adolph Hitler. Then they become a very different person. I have seen both and I recognize the change in their character. One of our assignments in the Army of Occupation was to repair a bridge over the Danube River at a town east of Regensburg. The repairs included repairing two damaged masonry piers and placing steel members to bridge the gaps between the piers. Repairs to the approaches and other road work in the area had to be performed and then the bridge was returned to service.

One of the assignments we were given in the Army of Occupation was the establishment and operation of a railhead. Building material was being collected for the construction of barracks for the troops that were to remain in Europe as a part of the Army of Occupation. The railroad tracks and railway equipment was severely damaged as a result of the aerial and artillery bombings during the seven (7) years of war in Europe. Slowly the reconstruction of rails and rolling stock was returning some of the railway system to an operating status. The freight cars we would be using to ship the building materials, namely, flat cars, box cars, hoppers and gondolas of various lengths and capacities. To realize the maximum value of this equipment we would have to be selective in the loading of the building materials.

We were assigned the use of four stub ended tracks coming off a ladder track which was connected to the main track serving the rail yard. It was a good location, readily accessible to the highway and with a large area to permit the delivery trucks sufficient room to maneuver into place to unload the building materials to the freight cars. When we had enough cars loaded, a switching crew was called to remove the loaded cars and assemble them into a train for delivery to a barracks building site. This involved switching out the loaded cars and placing the partially loaded and empty cars on one of the stub ended tracks.

The switching crew usually consisted of a conductor, a brakeman and a locomotive engineer. They were German civilians and they did not speak the English language. One of the soldiers in our platoon Willie K., had been born in Germany and had emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was three (3) years old. His parents used the German language at their home in conversations with their family. Willie K. the American soldier was very fluent in the German language and he was called on for his services by other officers in the battalion.

The request for a switch crew had to be made at least twenty four (24) hours in advance of the day they would be needed. I had made such a request for a switch crew but Willie K’s services were required by one of our staff officers that morning and so I was without an interpreter when the switch crew arrived. So I attempted to give the instructions to the crew myself. My skills in the German language were very limited but I had no other alternative but to try to get the job done. The usual procedure was to make a list in duplicate of the loaded cars to be shipped that day. The original was given to the conductor and I kept the duplicate. The conductor, interpreter and I would then check the loaded cars against the list and then the switching crew would cut the loaded cars out of the mix and assemble them on an empty track to build the outbound train for the shipment to the consignee. Then the crew would rearrange the remaining cars plus any empties that they might have delivered to us that day.

On this particular day when I gave the conductor the instructions for that days work in my limited ability in the German language he and I were unable to understand each other. He asked me if I could speak French. I advised him that I could not but that I had a soldier in the platoon who could speak French. The soldier was summoned to the scene and so I told him in English what I wanted the crew to do. He then gave this information in French to the conductor who then instructed the engineer and brakeman in German on the moves to be made. But if the engineer or brakeman had a question or did not understand then it all ended back with me to attempt to unravel. What came back to me was not the same set of instructions that I originally gave to the French speaking soldier. Words in the original set of instructions sometimes stray in their meaning as they are translated from one language to another.

After several attempts I could see that we had an Abbot-Costello “Who is on First” vaudeville scenario. Any further attempts to get the work done in this manner seemed hopeless. So I decided to try another approach to get the days work finished. The conductor, platoon sergeant and I identified each loaded car on the list of cars I had given him and the platoon sergeant circled the number of that loaded car with a piece of chalk for quick identification so those cars could be drilled from all the other cars and switched to an empty track for the assembly of an outbound train. All of this the conductor and crew understood and we did get the train dispatched to the consignee that morning.

Austrian composer Johann Strauss wrote the very beautiful song “The Blue Danube Waltz.” But the waters of the Danube River are a dirty brown and not blue. I know because I saw it every day for three or four weeks as we repaired the bridge.

In July of 1945 the 188th Combat Engineer Battalion was deactivated. Those with the required (60) points were returned to the United States to be discharged. The rest of us were assigned to other engineer units that were retained in the Army of Occupation. I was assigned to the 243rd. Engineer Combat Battalion which was to remain as a member of the Army of Occupation. I was only with the 243rd. for about a month and then I was ordered to report to an assembly area in Regensburg for transport to Camp Lucky Strike in Le Harve, France. I traveled for two days and nights in a box car. The box cars were were named,” 40 & 8″ box cars. Those numbers meant the capacity of the box car was Forty Horses or Eight Men. It certainly was not the Broadway Limited of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The accomodations included two buckets for sanitary use and several cases of rations. The rations were C Ration, K rations or 10 in 1 type. Fresh water you carried in you canteen. There were eight or ten occupants assigned to each 40 & 8 box car. This is how I remember it sixty five years after the event.

On arrival at Camp lucky Strike we were assigned to a tent enclosure for eight or ten people. We were at Camp Lucky Strike for about ten days. The rumor mill ran wild all day and every day. Then the Japanese surrendered and it became a whole new ball game. We were then told that we would be going to the States and given a leave of absence after which we would   be assigned to another unit or be sent to a Repo Depot.    Early one morning in the middle of August we were told to prepare to board a Liberty Ship named the John Cropper at noon. We gathered our gear and were taken by a buses or trucks to the dock at Le Harve and loaded aboard The John Cropper. One of our shipmates who was assigned to the same quarters as me told me that he was sea sick on every voyage he had ever made and expected the same for this trip. Yes,He was. We departed from Le Harve, France at 5 o’clock on August 18,1945 and set sail for the United States.

There were about 325 of us plus the crew on board.  About the third day at sea we encountered a heavy storm and the ship bounced around like a cork. Most of the 325 passengers were seasick but fortunately I was not one of them.   Thirteen days after departing Le Harve, France we entered New York harbor.   I was preparing my gear for docking. It was 9AM on August 31st. when I heard a voice exclaiming “There is the Statue of Liberty”.   I hurried to get on deck to see the Lovely Lady of Freedom. I heard another voice shout “We are Home”. This was confirmed a short time later when I saw and heard a band playing and the Red Cross ladies waving and welcoming us home.

In 1944 as we fought our way across Europe, I often heard a fellow soldier say “Back Alive in “45”. Yes indeed, it had all come true.

Wilfrid R. Riley
188th. Engineer Combat Battalion
Third Army

In mid December the Battalion was performing all the tasks that are peculiar to being a combat engineer. However work on all of these projects ceased when we were ordered by Third Army Headquarters to join the other units that were ordered north to stop the massive German penetration of our lines in the First Army area.

We departed from Keskastle in the Saar Valley on the morning of December 20th. and joined the thousands of American soldiers heading for Belgium. Several times during the move north we had to move to the side of the road and permit armored units to pass through us. Armored units were apparently needed ASAP. During one of these halts I was asked about our final destination and said that information had not been given to me before our departure. The look of concern on his face told me that he was very concerned. I told him-someday “Grif” if we survive all of this we will be sitting in our rockers with our favorite libation in our hand and we will smile as we remember moments like this. I hope he did because I have.

We stopped for a day in Longuyon, France and then on to Marteiange, Belgium on the borders of France and Luxembourg. Marteiange was to to be the base of our operations in the the Battle of the Bulge. That night B Company was given the assignment of outposting Martelange as the next town north, Bigonville was held by the Germans. A company to build a Bailey Bridge across the Sure River to provide two way traffic across the river. C Company was to be held in reserve.

My platoon moved out of Martelange toward Bigonville with the arrival of darkness and as we neared our assigned location to set up a defensive position we were commanded to halt. In the darkness I could not see the source of the command. Then a voice commanded the soldier wearing the long coat to move forward. That was me and after a few steps I was again ordered to halt. Then there was the request for the password followed by questions about cities in the USA and questions about baseball etc. When the challenger was satisfied he told me to advance once again. I did as commanded and very soon I saw an American battle tank sitting next to a small building under a tree, well concealed for such a large unit. Looking up I saw the muzzle of the cannon and in my minds eyes it was at least twenty four inches in diameter. The voice coming from the tank said “Soldier if I was in your shoes I would get rid of that long coat you are wearing because in it you sure as hell look like a German soldier” In the freezing weather I could not discard the coat so I tucked it into my waist and inquired if that looked better. An affirmative reply was received. {Our supply sergeant gave me a mackinaw coat to wear the next day after I told him the story} I was given permission to move on by the voice that I never did see.

We moved on to our assigned location which was close by and the platoon was soon located in the best positions to defend the area around the road crossing. Nothing unusual occurred during the night but at first light a column of tanks approached us from the East and stopped when they saw us. Up went the hatch on the lead tank and an officer asked our identity after identifying himself. He asked if we had seen our heard any thing during the night. He was told that we heard a lot of vehicle movement in Bigonville during the night. With that the hatch closed and tanks proceeded toward Bigonville. In a very short time the sounds of battle were heard. We remained alert for whatever might happen.

The first group of prisoners the armored infantry brought out of the town included an officer, a captain. He was dressed in a dark red uniform and wearing an overseas cap of the same color. He seemed to be dressed for a classroom rather than a battlefield, all of the other prisoners were in battlefield gray uniforms and wore a steel helmet or were bareheaded.

Other groups of prisoners were brought out of town and into the midst of of the area we were defending where they were thoroughly searched by the Fourth Armored Division soldiers. Later they were loaded into trucks and taken to a collection point and that is an assumption on my part. They did not say and I did not ask. In mid afternoon the town was in the hands of the 4th Armored Division and our mission was finished and we returned to Martelange for the night.

On December 24th., Christmas Eve the 188th. Engineers and the 249th. Engineer Battalions were placed in the line east of Martelange. The 4th. Armored Division had progressed nearly to Bastogne and was ready to breech an opening in the German defense. The two Engineer Battalions and two Artillery Battalions were to take the positions now occupied by the 4th Armored Division. When the Engineer and Artillery Battalions were in place The 4th Armored units would move back thru them and move east and sweep around the left into Bastogne. We began the process of digging in which was very difficult if almost impossible as the snow was thigh deep and the ground was frozen solid. Where is the TNT when you really need it?

All night the friendly fire from the Artillery was reassuring and especially when the familiar sound of incoming whistling shells was not heard throughout the night. However the Germans did launch flares all night long and they illuminated the area as if it were daylight.   We froze in place to avoid detection. The Germans did not attack and we were perfectly satisfied to hold our position. At noon on Christmas Day we were relieved by elements of the 6th Cavalry Division. We moved to an area in the rear where our mess personnel had a wonderful Christmas dinner prepared for us.

The maneuver of the 4th Armored Division of moving out as we moved in was a successful one. The next day December 26th, they smashed thru the German defenses and the siege of Bastogne was ended. On that day we were briefed on our next assignment, but that is another story for another time.

Let s start when I left Boston Harbor in October 1944, on the USS Wakefield I cruise ship, Manhattan), destination Liverpool, England. I am trying to recall dates from my memory, but I do recall not staying in Liverpool for long. We picked up our equipment and we left England, were put on that a landing craft infantry and headed for Europe. The English Channel was a little rough and land mines were a float, so we were delayed while mine sweepers were called in to clear the way.

We landed in France and went by trucks to an area outside of St. Vith, Belgium, and we set up our two man tents for the night. It started to snow about 11:00 PM and sometime in the night we were greeted by a German patrol, as they left a note on our tent (written in the snow) “Welcome 106^th to the front”. The next few days we were sent to St. Vith (note: picture enclosed) to our headquarters, which was set up in a Catholic Church, (the plaque in picture was dedicated to the 106^th Division in 2010) Picture notes: The picture from left to right: Daniel Reiland, president of Disable Veterans Luxembourg. Lady was the only person in family to survive at 105 attacks by our division artillery. She was saved by a German trooper who fell dead on top of her. She was only seven (7) years old at that time. Her husband stands next to me and by the plaque. Her name is Johanna Gallo and her husband is Hubert. As Johanna told us her story It inspired me and to this day she has only the highest regard for troops and vets.

To continue with the story, my wire crew was sent to Schoenberg, Belgium, where we set up in a home near four (4) corners of the town on a river. This was around the 10^th of December, 1944. We conducted our operations from here. Laid wire for the division on the evening of the 15^th, from 11:00pm to about 1:00am. We were bombarded by a V-2 rocket, which landed about 300 yards from where we were working. The explosion was so great that it blew us and the truck we were working with, off the road and into the ditch. No one in our company or any trucks was hurt or damaged. When we returned, I was told to get some sleep, as I was to operate the switchboard early in the morning around 4 am.

When I started my watch, the Germans were shelling the City of Schoenberg. The commander in St. Vith called and told us that we were under attack, but we were to hold our position until 5 am. We stayed until 6 am at which time our Sgt. told us to start packing the gear and shut down operations.

Now as we were leaving for St. Vith a German tiger tank was coming down the hill, with his gun pointed directly at us. A 81^st engineer Sgt. climbed onto that tank and put a grenade down its turret and stopped them from firing. We then proceeded to St. Vith and arrived at our headquarters. That same night we were surrounded by the Germans! Army headquarters sent the Airborne Troops to get us out. Note: My life and many others will always be thankful for their help.

I was later sent to the North into the Netherlands with six (6) new 2^nd Lieutenants (field commissioned). Our F/Sgt. from headquarters was one of them. Later I went to Velamen, then to Stuttgart, Manlier, Wenham, Frankfurt, and onto Paris, France. I was assigned to the 17^th base Post Office (parcel post and rewrap). When Germany surrendered and the shooting ceased, I was able to see a lot of Germany and France, while traveling for and with the Army.

I waited on the Gare de L’Est Station platform. The train to Rheims would leave momentarily. I stayed at the far end, worried about M.P.’s. I had been AWOL, absent without leave, for two weeks. As soon as I boarded that train I would be safe. There was constant confusion due to troop redeployment. I would just slip back into the crowd at Camp Boston; no one would know I had been gone.The war had ended in August. Thank God, Harry Truman had them drop the atomic bomb. That was one of the greatest things that had ever happened to men in the U.S. military. Like most infantrymen I had expected to die on the beaches of Japan. Millions of Americans were headed home. The redeployment camps shifted into high gear, shipping everyone back to the States. Tens of thousands arrived and departed these camps weekly. This huge shuffle of men and units made for massive confusion and clerical errors.

My combat unit, my wartime family, had been deactivated months earlier. We were transferred from one paper unit to another as the army was contracted. We had no duties. You sat in a tent among hundreds of other tents. Some days the weather was clear. More often, as the fall progressed, it was dreary, overcast and depressing. You could sleep all day. You could read, play cards; go to the PX – what ever you chose to do. It was a boring, uneventful life. Due to the constant shuffle of men from one unit to another you knew no one, you had no friends. It could drive you crazy. You waited in limbo. You were in a time warp.

Rather than going stir crazy in camp I had spent recent weeks partaking the joys of Paris. Three-day passes were plentiful. After a while though going back and forth became a nuisance. Why not just stay in Paris? I had nothing else to do but sit in a tent and wait. But how to do it? The answer: liberate a blank pad of passes and write my own liberty passes. Everything was so screwed up who would ever know.

As a result I had a wonderful time in recent weeks. Paris sun-lit cafes were full. The company was great, the French girls exciting and accommodating. There was lots of wine and cognac. Money was available through the black market. As the song goes: “Summer time, life is easy and the days are long.” What more could a twenty two year old want? Don’t worry about tomorrow. Live for today. Now I had to get back to camp. I knew I was stretching my luck. Once there I would be OK. My immediate danger was Military Police on the look out for AWOL’s.The train’s engine whistled. It was time to go. I hurried to board. Two M.P.’s appeared-l hadn’t spotted them. “Soldier-let’s see your papers”. I gave them the pass I had forged a couple of days earlier.

“This says you were due back in Camp Boston at noon today. It’s two PM now. You’re kind of late aren’t you Malloy?” “I’m on my way on that train. I’ll be in camp by four. There won’t be a problem.” The other MP, said to his partner,” He’s absent without leave by his own admission.” The first MP, “I think you better come along with us. We’re going to check you out.”

I got in their jeep. We traveled a couple of miles and arrived in front of an old, forbidding looking, fortress-like, building. It must have been two hundred years old. We went inside. They stood me in front of a tall desk. An older be-speckled Gl looked down at me. “What have you got him for?” “AWOL by his own admission.” “Book him.'” “OK Sarge.” They took me to another area. “Empty your pockets of everything you got on you.” They searched me. They took my billfold, my watch, my barracks bag and some other things. They sealed them in a package. I signed it. “Take off your shoestrings.” “Why?” “Shut your mouth and do as you are told.”

They walked me down a long, dark passageway, the high walls cold and dank. A cell door  as opened. They shoved me in. The gate to freedom clanged shut behind me. I entered my cage. There were nine other prisoners. I spotted the spare bunk and climbed into it. What happens now? Here I am-how do I keep it together? All I had were the clothes on my back and the small bag the MPs had confiscated. A Pfc. in the infantry didn’t have much or need much. Uncle Sam took care of him.

The cell was a bleak, barren space. There were eight double bunks. The ceiling was high, the single window barred. There was a sink and toilet stool in the corner-no walls or door. You had to do your job in full view. Three light bulbs, hung from the ceiling, provided light. .

We were in a holding tank. The Military Police gathered those violating military law and held them here until transferred back to their unit. Their company commander would confer punishment-from minor detention, to a major court martial with prison time. It was clear the key to getting out of this place was to make your unit aware you were held here. Most men would leave in less than a week.

My problem was I had three new company commanders who had come and gone. No one in command at Camp Boston knew me. The turnover among all personnel was constant. No one knew anyone. When men arrived, some shipped out immediately; all had to wait until their number came up. My hope now was that some one at Camp Boston would know me and get me transferred back there. I didn’t know who that person might be. Nothing happened for two days. On the third day a guard shouted through the door. “Malloy, front and center.” A guard walked me to an office. A Gl clerk sat at his desk. “Sit down. I want you to tell me what outfit you really belong to. We couldn’t find you in Camp Boston. And don’t lie to me. It will only make it worse.”

I explained I had been transferred in name only to different outfits. That was normal procedure. Soldiers with too few points for discharge were transferred on paper to a new unit. I had given up trying to keep track of all that. I told him, “With all the confusion in Camp Boston the best bet would be to try to track me through my former combat outfit, the 291st Regiment.” I could tell he thought I was lying. Back to my cell, this time for days. Three weeks crawled by and still no word. I felt a terrible isolation. Depression swallowed me. As time passed I fell into the black abyss of despair. Now I understood why they took my shoestrings, they wanted to prevent an attempt at suicide.

As the days passed, I went to the window and pushed my hand out as far as I could-at least part of me was outside this hellhole. Still no word. I lost track of time. I gave up hope. I would rather die than live like this. I heard a bird one day. Oh to be a bird. One day: ” Malloy, front and center!” They took me back to the clerk. I signed for my personal effects. They gave me my bag. They told me nothing. “Get in the jeep.” We drove east for two hours. The M.P.’s ignored me. What now? There it was-Camp Boston-home. The M.P.’s turned me over to the company clerk. He signed a receipt for his prisoner.

A Captain I had never seen appeared. He looked at me. “So you are Malloy, the guy who has been AWOL for more than a month. You and your buddies have cost me more trouble than you will ever know. I have had my ass chewed out because of the likes of you. I’m going to make an example of you. It will put the fear of God into anyone else who thinks like you.” The Captain called out, “Sergeant Eisenberg come out here.” My God, it was my old First Sergeant from the 291st. All at once I saw hope.

“This is one of that AWOL crowd. See this bum is put under guard. I’ll deal with him when I return from Paris next week.” “Yes Sir,” Eisenberg said. Eisenberg didn’t acknowledge me. I kept my mouth shut. A guard took me to my tent. I knew no one. I sat on my cot. It felt good. Now what? Several hours later a corporal appeared.” I’ll take over,” he told the guard. “Grab your gear, Malloy, all of it.” He had a jeep. We drove for an hour.

We arrived at Camp Baltimore. We went to Company Headquarters and found the First Sergeant. “Sergeant I’m delivering this fellow from Camp Boston. Eisenberg said he had talked with you about him.” “OK, I’ll sign for him. Welcome to your new outfit, Malloy. Eisenberg and I are old buddies. He gave me a good report on you.” The Corporal turned to leave. “Malloy keep your mouth shut. Eisenberg said to tell you good luck. He also told me to tell you to walk the straight and narrow from now on.”

Army officers give commands but the Army is run by the noncoms. I was free and clear-Hallelujah! After all these years, I still have a special place in my heart for Eisenberg. I still can feel cold fear in my bones when I recall that desolate old French prison. I’ve walked the straight and narrow for more than sixty-five years. I learned recently Eisenberg, like so many of my comrades, had died. Time marches on.

Browse Malloy’s book at Amazon.com “Making John A Soldier.”
John P. Malloy 291^st HQ Co. 75^th Division
Contact author: mapj12@gmail.com

COMBAT ENGINEER BACK ALIVE IN 45′

CCR of the 4th Armored Division pierced the Bulge at Bastogne on the 26th of December. Increased pressure on all sides of the Bulge caused the German Army to surrender or retreat back towards Germany. Then the armored units turned east to pursue the retreating enemy. The 188th. Engineer Combat Battalion along with other combat engineer battalions were held in the Bastogne-Houfalize Area to restore the highway system to a serviceable condition. The road system was never constructed to handle the pounding of tracked vehicles and heavy highway trucks. No highway system could withstand the conditions that the present roads were called on to withstand the beating they were subjected to. Most of the roads were nothing but a sea of mud, water and ruts. We worked day and night restoring them to a condition where they could be used again.

We constructed many sections of corduroy roadway, as the sub-coarses of the road had disappeared. A corduroy road is constructed of sections of tree trunks covered by the rubble of destroyed buildings and homes. A corduroy road is a poor substitute for a paved surface but we did not have that option. A corduroy road will provide the necessary traction for the vehicles so necessary in a war zone. Maintenance is constant and never ending.

We turned east and moved through the Seigfried Line into Germany. Bridges were built and roads were repaired and land mines and anti personnel were removed or destroyed as we continued our move through German cities, towns and villages. The civilian population had abandoned their home farms and livestock and moved farther into Germany at the approach of the American army. The abandonment of these towns and villages continued for a short time and then stopped. With the approach of the American Army from the west and the Russian army from the east there was soon no place to go. Some of the German civilians told us they had been told by their government officials that we would rob, rape and murder them. We did none of these things, but we did milk their cows and savored the fruits of our labors. Did you ever hear the pitiful mooing of a cow that needed to be milked?

We moved steadily east where our next big mission would be crossing the Rhine River. Training for the crossing was underway. Selected platoons in our Battalion received additional training in the operation and use of motor boats. All of our bridge building, road repair and mine removal work had been completed in this area and we awaited our orders for the Rhine River crossing which was awaiting our Battalion. With the receipt of orders the Battalion was off for Kaiserlauten, where we were to join the XX Corps. Enroute our orders were changed and we stopped at Oberthal. The German civilians were ordered to vacate their homes and when the Battalion arrived  they were able to move in . Overnight the crossing was  cancelled in this section and we were reassigned to the 1107th Group. So we are off again, this time in the direction from which we had just come. When we arrived at a wooded area near Braunshorn we started to prepare for the crossing. After a final preparation with the motors, we were ready for the Rhine River crossing.

Reconnaissance of the area between St. Goar and Oberwessel for suitable landing sites had been made by Staff Officers and all was in readiness. Orders for the crossing were received and at 2AM on Sunday the 26th. of March we moved to the river. The artillery opened fire on the far side of the river and the mission was underway. The assault boats entered the river for the crossing to Wellmich, St. Goar and Oberwessel. The initial wave of boats were paddled and succeeding waves were powered. The assalt boats were manned by combat engineers of the 168th Battalion. The crossing at St. Goar was strongly resisted, with lighter resistance at Wellmich and Oberwessel. With the infantry clearing the far side, the construction of ferries began. Once built they were placed in service. The motor powered ferries would carry troops and supplies to St. Goar, on the east side of the Rhine and return within our wounded and German prisoners, but not on the same trip.

During the day our B Company had two of its jeeps knocked out with resulting casualties. A Navy Duck, operating on the river, sideswiped and swamped a ferry,drowning one of our combat engineer soldiers. He was a very recent replacement in Company B of our Battalion. In war, death can overtake you in many different ways. The construction of a log boom, to protect the floating bridges, had to be abandoned after eight attempts. The current was too strong and the logs anchored to the cable were torn away at mid river and beyond. Fortunately the Germans did not launch any floating mines.

After the two floating bridges were built it was time to move on to the east. The front line was now many miles ahead of us and and we had quite some distance to cover to catch up to to the Fourth Armored Division. When we did catch up to them our main assignment was to repair and maintain their MSR (Main Supply Route) as they made their drive to capture the city of Gotha, Germany. The MSR, for the most part, was on the Autobahn Highway and we were strafed daily by enemy planes and suffered many casualties. Fortunately we did not suffer any fatalities as a result of these straffings.

As we moved deeper and deeper into Germany we occupied German homes for our dwellings. We no longer had to sleep in our pup tents and that was a great relief for all of us who were out in weather all day and our personal belongings and spare clothing were protected from the elements. The Germans were told to leave their homes before we moved in. This had been the policy since we entered Germany and it would remain in effect during and after the war. To the victor goes the spoils of war seemed to be the policy for all as far as I knew at the time.

The highways were crowded with the slave labor that had been freed or escaped from their captors and German soldiers who had surrendered or given up the battle. They lined both sides of the highways single file towards the rear of our position and headed in a westerly direction and hoping for a free meal. However; we did not have the means or the desire to host a dinner party for the German Army. We told them to continue walking west and someone, someplace would take care of them. Most of the battalion assignments were on the Autobahn      building and repairing bridges of all types of construction and repairing roads. There were numerous shell craters and tank traps that had to be filled. The speed of our advance was so great that we had crews working around the clock to keep the highways in service, and the Autobahn was the most important of them all.

While in this area we received word that a slave labor camp had been captured and the occupants had been set free. I decided to visit the camp and accompanied by my platoon sergeant and another squad leader from my platoon, we drove to the nearby town of Ohrdruf, Germany to take a look at the camp. The concentration camp was close by and we parked the jeep and walked through the main entrance. The gates and some fencing had been smashed by the armored force that had liberated the camp. The camp was fenced on all four sides. Prisoners dressed in striped pajama type uniforms were to be seen at many locations in the camp. The walking cadavers would approach you and stare aimlessly with glassy eyes. Some attempted to make conversation, asking for cigarettes which we gave them. They may have asked for other things, but we could not understand them. We continued to walk through the camp and entered one of the barrack like buildings that housed the prisoners. There were both live and dead prisoners in the building. The odor was terrible and took your breath away.

We quickly exited the building and did not enter any of the other barrack type buildings. In another area we saw the naked bodies of men and women stacked in rows like cordwood. Here and there a body had fallen from the stack and lay on the ground like a piece of wood which had fallen from the stack. On some of the stacking’s of bodies an attempt had been made to throw a layer of what appeared to be lime. Naturally we did not touch anything. Now and then I absentmindedly stuck my hands in my pockets to keep them out of harms way. Most of the

stacks   did not have any lime on them.   We moved on in this chamber of horror.   In another area there was a large open ditch like excavation. Dozens and dozens of naked bodies of men and women had been haphazardly thrown into the excavation where they lay uncovered and exposed to the elements and animals.

We had seen more than enough and left the slave labor camp at Ohrdruf, Germany. A few days later the site was visited by Generals Eisenhower and Patton and other Generals It is my understanding General Eisenhower dispatched someone to the nearby town of Ohrdruf and they brought a town official to the camp and ordered him to gather the town citizenry to report to the camp with shovels to bury the dead bodies.  A few days after my visit to the camp at Ohrdruf another concentration camp was liberated at Buchenwald Germany. I did not visit that one as I had no desire to revisit the horror I had seen at Ohrdruf. “Mans inhumanity to fellow man”

Several times while doing repair work on the Autobahn Highway we saw jeeps bearing Russian Army Officers accompanied by American Army Officers traveling west. An occasional wave and sometimes a smile from them as they moved through our work area. Seeing the Russians we thought end of the war was at hand. However that was not the case.

C Company constructed a bridge across the Salle River, south of Vena, Germany, which marked the completion of one mile of fixed bridging in the ETO by our Battalion. This does not include the unfinished bridge at Keskastel in the Saar Valley constructed by B Company. We were on the job and would have completed the bridge that day. Then we received orders to cease construction and return to the company area and prepare for the move north to fight in the Battle of the Bulge I often wonder if there is someone out there who knows the rest of the story. What engineer outfit did finish he Bridge at Keskastel in the Saar Valley.. I wonder.

On the 6th of May the Battalion was placed in support of the 89th Division for a river crossing operation at Ave, Germany. On May 7th the operation was called off as negotiations were underway for a German surrender, ending the war. Later that day word was received that negotiations were completed and the Germans had surrendered. The war with Germany was over. May 8th was the day the war was officially over. I do not remember any large scale celebrations of the event. We were very relieved of course, but we all realized that there was an ongoing war with Japan and some of us would probably see some of that war,

We were now an Army of Occupation and the American Forces were to move to the American Occupation Zone in Bavaria. I was a member of the group that was dispatched to Bavaria to locate living quarters for our Company. We were to locate in an area near Regensburg, Germany. We surveyed the area for the most desirable quarters consistent with our future work as a member of the Army of Occupation. The most suitable quarters for our company were found in the city of Regensberg .   It was a multi storied apartment building and would suit our needs. The civilian occupants were given orders to vacate the building and this was accomplished quickly.

The site we had chosen had a large athletic field adjacent to our living quarters.   We used the field for military drill exercises and it was also used for our daily program of physical training to keep us in top physical shape. The field was also used for our softball games when we had free time. A volley ball court gave us another outlet to expend our excess energy. The athletic games soon attracted the attention of group of young boys living in the neighborhood. These boys all about 10 years of age and younger became regular fixtures at all of our outdoor activities including meal times when we ate our meals outdoors. The mess sergeant offered the leftovers one day to the boys if they would provide a container to be used to carry the food away from our area. They disappeared and quickly returned with containers of all sizes and descriptions. Apparently they had hidden the containers nearby in hopes of being offered the leftovers someday. The kitchen leftovers were quickly augmented by food from the soldiers mess gear. When the containers were filled or all of the spare food had been parceled out, they headed for their homes to share the food with their families.

Kids are the same worldwide, even German youngsters. That is until they enter the German youth programs of Adolph Hitler. Then they become a very different person. I have seen both and I recognize the change in their character. One of our assignments in the Army of Occupation was to repair a bridge over the Danube River at a town east of Regensburg. The repairs included repairing two damaged masonry piers and placing steel members to bridge the gaps between the piers. Repairs to the approaches and other road work in the area had to be performed and then the bridge was returned to service.

One of the assignments we were given in the Army of Occupation was the establishment and operation of a railhead. Building material was being collected for the construction of barracks for the troops that were to remain in Europe as a part of the Army of Occupation. The railroad tracks and railway equipment was severely damaged as a result of the aerial and artillery bombings during the seven (7) years of war in Europe. Slowly the reconstruction of rails and rolling stock was returning some of the railway system to an operating status. The freight cars we would be using to ship the building materials, namely, flat cars, box cars, hoppers and gondolas of various lengths and capacities. To realize the maximum value of this equipment we would have to be selective in the loading of the building materials.

We were assigned the use of four stub ended tracks coming off a ladder track which was connected to the main track serving the rail yard. It was a good location, readily accessible to the highway and with a large area to permit the delivery trucks sufficient room to maneuver into place to unload the building materials to the freight cars. When we had enough cars loaded, a switching crew was called to remove the loaded cars and assemble them into a train for delivery to a barracks building site. This involved switching out the loaded cars and placing the partially loaded and empty cars on one of the stub ended tracks.

The switching crew usually consisted of a conductor, a brakeman and a locomotive engineer. They were German civilians and they did not speak the English language. One of the soldiers in our platoon Willie K., had been born in Germany and had emigrated to the United States with his parents when he was three (3) years old. His parents used the German language at their home in conversations with their family. Willie K. the American soldier was very fluent in the German language and he was called on for his services by other officers in the battalion.

The request for a switch crew had to be made at least twenty four (24) hours in advance of the day they would be needed. I had made such a request for a switch crew but Willie K’s services were required by one of our staff officers that morning and so I was without an interpreter when the switch crew arrived. So I attempted to give the instructions to the crew myself. My skills in the German language were very limited but I had no other alternative but to try to get the job done. The usual procedure was to make a list in duplicate of the loaded cars to be shipped that day. The original was given to the conductor and I kept the duplicate. The conductor, interpreter and I would then check the loaded cars against the list and then the switching crew would cut the loaded cars out of the mix and assemble them on an empty track to build the outbound train for the shipment to the consignee. Then the crew would rearrange the remaining cars plus any empties that they might have delivered to us that day.

On this particular day when I gave the conductor the instructions for that days work in my limited ability in the German language he and I were unable to understand each other. He asked me if I could speak French. I advised him that I could not but that I had a soldier in the platoon who could speak French. The soldier was summoned to the scene and so I told him in English what I wanted the crew to do. He then gave this information in French to the conductor who then instructed the engineer and brakeman in German on the moves to be made. But if the engineer or brakeman had a question or did not understand then it all ended back with me to attempt to unravel. What came back to me was not the same set of instructions that I originally gave to the French speaking soldier. Words in the original set of instructions sometimes stray in their meaning as they are translated from one language to another.

After several attempts I could see that we had an Abbot-Costello “Who is on First” vaudeville scenario. Any further attempts to get the work done in this manner seemed hopeless. So I decided to try another approach to get the days work finished. The conductor, platoon sergeant and I identified each loaded car on the list of cars I had given him and the platoon sergeant circled the number of that loaded car with a piece of chalk for quick identification so those cars could be drilled from all the other cars and switched to an empty track for the assembly of an outbound train. All of this the conductor and crew understood and we did get the train dispatched to the consignee that morning.

Austrian composer Johann Strauss wrote the very beautiful song “The Blue Danube Waltz.” But the waters of the Danube River are a dirty brown and not blue. I know because I saw it every day for three or four weeks as we repaired the bridge.

In July of 1945 the 188th Combat Engineer Battalion was deactivated. Those with the required (60) points were returned to the United States to be discharged. The rest of us were assigned to other engineer units that were retained in the Army of Occupation. I was assigned to the 243rd. Engineer Combat Battalion which was to remain as a member of the Army of Occupation. I was only with the 243rd. for about a month and then I was ordered to report to an assembly area in Regensburg for transport to Camp Lucky Strike in Le Harve, France. I traveled for two days and nights in a box car. The box cars were were named,” 40 & 8″ box cars. Those numbers meant the capacity of the box car was Forty Horses or Eight Men. It certainly was not the Broadway Limited of the Pennsylvania Railroad. The accomodations included two buckets for sanitary use and several cases of rations. The rations were C Ration, K rations or 10 in 1 type. Fresh water you carried in you canteen. There were eight or ten occupants assigned to each 40 & 8 box car. This is how I remember it sixty five years after the event.

On arrival at Camp lucky Strike we were assigned to a tent enclosure for eight or ten people. We were at Camp Lucky Strike for about ten days. The rumor mill ran wild all day and every day. Then the Japanese surrendered and it became a whole new ball game. We were then told that we would be going to the States and given a leave of absence after which we would   be assigned to another unit or be sent to a Repo Depot.    Early one morning in the middle of August we were told to prepare to board a Liberty Ship named the John Cropper at noon. We gathered our gear and were taken by a buses or trucks to the dock at Le Harve and loaded aboard The John Cropper. One of our shipmates who was assigned to the same quarters as me told me that he was sea sick on every voyage he had ever made and expected the same for this trip. Yes,He was. We departed from Le Harve, France at 5 o’clock on August 18,1945 and set sail for the United States.

There were about 325 of us plus the crew on board.  About the third day at sea we encountered a heavy storm and the ship bounced around like a cork. Most of the 325 passengers were seasick but fortunately I was not one of them.   Thirteen days after departing Le Harve, France we entered New York harbor.   I was preparing my gear for docking. It was 9AM on August 31st. when I heard a voice exclaiming “There is the Statue of Liberty”.   I hurried to get on deck to see the Lovely Lady of Freedom. I heard another voice shout “We are Home”. This was confirmed a short time later when I saw and heard a band playing and the Red Cross ladies waving and welcoming us home.

In 1944 as we fought our way across Europe, I often heard a fellow soldier say “Back Alive in “45”. Yes indeed, it had all come true.

“TASK  FORCE  DAVISSON”

“Recon, you find ’em; engineers, you fix..:.em ; tanks , you fight ’em; and TD’s, you finish -em!”  With  these  emphatic ,  but crystal  clear  adjurations ,  LTC  Henry  L.  Davisson set the tempo for  his task force  subordinate commanders .  It was  16 December  1944, and the  yet-to-be-named  “Ardennes  Offensive”  had exploded.    This  Kraut’s  massive tank penetration now was creating this northern shoulder of what was to be its acquired sobriquet , “The Battle of the Bulge”.
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G.G. Cooper was born on 11 July 1923 in Lafayette, Tennessee. C.G. decided to leave home after graduating high school to wander America. He ended up becoming a welder at Kaiser Shipyards in California. The draft board finally caught up with him and on 28 June 1943, just shy of his 20^w birthday, G.G. was inducted into the United States Army . He went through basic training at Camp Lee, Virginia and when asked by the Army what he wanted to do, G.G. basically said ‘anything but cooking’. Needless to say, G.G. wasn’t laughing-when he was told that he’d be designated as a cook and would go through Bakery & Cook School. He graduated from Bakery & Cook School as a 1^st cook and told he would be behind the front lines with plenty of food and warmth and placed in Company E,  289^th Infantry Regiment , 75^th Infantry Division.

G.G. was supposed to be quartermaster but because of his excellent marksmanship and
the need for more men to fight the elite German forces wreaking havoc on the European front, was chosen to be on the front lines as a rifleman. Wherever his company went, G.G. was either fighting alongside them or cooking food for them. G.G. received further training at Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky and went overseas from there. He recalled when they gave the 1st cook position to another guy who knew nothing about cooking, much less for an army of men! The new guy asked G.G. the proper amount of beans to prepare for all the men. G.G. told him to figure it out since he was now the cook and especially since he was receiving sergeant pay (G.G. was a Pfc).

The sergeant cook, as I will call him, cooked 30 pounds of beans for 200 men, when only 14 pounds were needed! Beans, beans, and more beans! The company of men the sergeant cook prepared them for were none too happy with his lack of portion control, as they had to eat them for every meal over the days that followed until every last bean was gone! This was due to the fact that the food was considered Army property and improper disposal of Army property could lead to being court-martialed!

Around this same time period, G.G.’s wife Patricia who was back in Knoxville, Tennessee, was about to give birth. She was a very small lady and the doctor was concerned that she might have difficulty during the delivery. Like any concerned husband and soon to be papa, G.G. wanted to be with her. He was told that if he left he would be court-martialed. This warning did not deter him. Instead, G.G. made his way to the Red Cross and asked permission to go telling them that if they denied his request he would climb the walls and go anyway.

The phone rang and it was the doctor in Knoxville saying that G.G. needed to come immediately. They finally gave him permission and he began his trek by hitch hiking. At one point he was stranded in the rain. Thankfully someone stopped and offered him a ride. Unfortunately the vehicle was a motorbike. G.G.’s brother had been injured whileriding one so he was a bit apprehensive. He ended up accepting the offer however. He got off in Nashville where his father lived and then caught a bus on to Knoxville. G.G. was supposed to be back on the base that Sunday, but decided to stay in order to hold his baby in his arms. (All had gone well with the delivery.) Of his decision to stay he said, “I didn’t know if I’d live to ever see him again or not.”

On Monday he got orders to go to HQ as he was considered to be AWOL. G.G.’s service record indicates his one AWOL, but it was a decision he never regretted. His son was two weeks old when he left for the battlefields from New York on 22 Oct 1944. His ship arrived at in Liverpool, England on 3 Nov 1944. The men then traveled on to South Wales and finally crossed the channel to France. Once on French ground the men headed to Paris where G.G. says they were treated like heroes. Then it was on to Bastogne, Belgium where they spent their first night in battle with the enemy. This brutal battle would become known as The Battle of the Bulge.

Despite the area having its coldest winters on record up to that time, Allied leaders chose not to send appropriate winter clothing with G.G. and the other men, saying that they would only be involved in a few skirmishes. These leaders were wrong and their decision could have spelled disaster for the Allies. Fortunately our men pulled through like the troopers they are. The men were given C and K rations so there would be no need for cooks on the front lines. G.G. was put in charge of guarding the kitchen and ammo truck on the first night while the other men were enthralled in battle. The driver of a jeep came up to him saying that a German tank was headed his way and not to let it through.

“What will I do?” G.G. remembers thinking back then. Ideas began swirling in his mind… .the .45 pistol on his hip… his rifle. He grabbed a carbine, machine gun, bazooka, grenades, and ammo belts from the truck he was guarding. “I was a walking arsenal”, he said. The ideas continued in his mind… a grenade… no, that won’t work… a Molotov cocktail… no, that won’t work… blast it with a bazooka (he recalled watching a training film that showed a bazooka being used to blast the tracks off a tank)… no, I have no ammo for it. At this point, the tank is right in front of him and his mind is frozen. In the chaos, G.G. slipped falling in the tanks’ path due to the slick mud. Providence was with him as the tank rolled right over him, straddling him and continuing on its path.

The next morning he found out that some of his buddies had been killed. G.G. said it was a gruesome sight, the bodies strewn about the battlefield’, the Germans had succeeded in surrounding them and they were now cut off from replacements and supplies. G.G. ate dry hog bran from a farm and was happy with that discovery. He also managed to find a turnip in the root cellar. Another group of the Allies eventually pushed the Germans back and rescued the previously surrounded men. They regrouped and received replacements, some of whom were only teenagers. On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 1944, a heavy snow had covered everything and G.G. said it was a beautiful sight to behold. Suddenly all heck broke loose with dogfights in the sky and heavy artillery shelling on the ground. He never forgot that Christmas Dav.

At one point, G.G. was sent to the hospital due to his frostbitten toes. This was a common occurrence with the lack of appropriate clothing for the extreme weather conditions. While lying in his hospital bed, the soldier on one side said to the soldier on G.G.’s other side, Joe, I’m dying. Tell my folks how much I love them. G.G. later found out that the two men had fought alongside the Russians who had given them poisoned liquor for some reason. (After a while, soldiers would call one another Joe because by the time you learned someone’s name, it seemed you died or they did.) The soldier who asked his buddy to give the message to his parents, died later that day and his buddy soon suffered the same fate, blind and calling out for loved ones.

That same morning, soldiers were lined up to be seen by the doctor. Many of the men were there for frostbite and the doctor told most that the affected appendages needed to be amputated. When it was his turn, G.G. put his hand up to jaw and moaned. The doctor asked what was wrong with him and he said he had a toothache. The doc told him that he was in the wrong line and off G.G. went. He remembers thinking, “I came over here with all my body parts and IF I get to go home, I wanna go home with all my body parts… all together.”

From the hospital he hitchhiked back to his outfit. He went to the kitchen truck and told his company commander that he had been on the front lines and knew what it was like. “If you’ll give me permission to have a truck and driver, I would like to take hot chocolate and donuts to my buddies in the foxholes.” Permission was granted and G.G. began making preparations. “While making up the donuts the tent was hit. There was shrapnel all in the donut mix. I picked it all out and continued on,” G.G. shared. He fried the donuts and prepared the hot chocolate, the latter which he put into insulated containers to keep it hot. The refreshments were loaded on the truck and the two men headed to the front lines. On the way there they were caught in the crossfire between both sides. There were bullet holes in the hot chocolate and the truck, with hot chocolate spilling everywhere. G.G. was in the back sliding around with the containers. Thankfully neither he nor the driver was hit.

The driver soon stopped, having taken C.G. as close to the front lines as he could get him. He told the driver it was fine as he knew where the fox holes were located. G.G. carried the refreshments to each of the fox holes and they were sure a welcomed treat. The men would hold out their steel helmets and G.G. would pour in some hot chocolate and throw in some donuts. Mind you, the soldiers’ helmets were a versatile tool. Not only did they protect their heads or hold food and drink, but they were also used by the soldiers to relieve themselves so they wouldn’t have to leave the safety of their fox hole.

After serving everyone, G.G. made his way back to the truck. The driver said that they were going a different way back since they had come under fire on the way up. It was dark and there was no GPS for them to conveniently use. Suddenly the driver shouted, ‘We’re behind German lines! Look at all those Krauts! What do I do now?’ G.G. told him to push in on the clutch and the .gas at the same time to make the engine roar. The driver did so and G.G. threw his arm out the window saluting Hitler and yelling, “Heil Hitler! Comrade, Comrade.”

Once again Providence was on their side as the Germans actually allowed them to pass through safely. Eventually the two men made their way back to camp where they told of what happened. Some of their fellow soldiers were unsure whether or not to believe what they were hearing. A few days later, the 75^m captured some of those same German’s and asked them why on earth they had allowed the Americans to pass. The German’s response, ‘We didn’t know what you darn yanks were up to.’

After awhile, the 75^th and others were pulled back from the front lines and billeted in Belgian homes for a rest. At the home G.G. stayed in there was a pot bellied stove. “Oh I could not wait to get my boots off,” G.G. said of his delight at having a stove. His feet were so swollen that he couldn’t get his boots off. The ladies of the house offered to assist him and were eventually successful after much tugging and pulling. Immediately they saw how black his feet were. They would each get under one of his arms and walk him outside to wash his feet over and over again in the snow. “Thanks to those ladies I still have my feet and toes,” G.G. said of their nursing care.

Communicating with the Belgians was difficult and it was only through hand signals and motions that they were able to understand one another. He was asked his name and told them Cooper. They said ‘Jackie Cooper’ (American Actor) and he nodded uh-huh (the two men were the same age and build). The women went into town telling everyone they had a celebrity in their home. Everyone came over with writing tablets wanting an autograph. “What else could I do? They had been so good to me, so I signed ‘Jackie Cooper’,” he said of the experience.

A 90-day wonder (second lieutenant), as the men would call them, decided that a kitchen truck would be put on the front lines and serve hot food to those in the foxholes. “We didn’t think that was too bright of an idea but after all, he was our officer,” said G.G. Snow was everywhere and the kitchen burners weren’t working properly. He had to take them outside and tinker with them. During this time, some of the fuel spilled out and caught fire. There they were in the Ardennes forest with flames shooting up through the trees giving away their position. Heavy artillery began to rain down on the men, busting trees to pieces and causing them to become spears hurling at incredible rates of speed hitting some of the men. G.G. took cover behind the kitchen truck and thankfully was not hit. Unfortunately the second lieutenant who put the kitchen trucks on the front lines was hit. G.G. never saw him again and believes he didn’t make it.

G.G. made another trip to the hospital, this time for a bleeding nose and lips. His nostrils were extremely swollen and he couldn’t breathe through them. At hospital they put him in a barber type chair then placed hot towels on his head and a curved steel cup below his ears and mouth. To thaw him out they placed long steel rods up his nostrils and switched out the towels as they cooled with fresh hot ones. All kinds of bloody ‘corruption’, as G.G. called it, came oozing out his facial orifices until finally he could breathe better. His breathes were still shallow so they wrapped up his chest with an adhesive tape bandage and let him go. Just outside the hospital was a gully which G.G. tried to jump. He was unsuccessful and fell in. Thankfully someone saw what happened and carried him back into the hospital where they loosened his chest wrap a bit.

G.G. told of a facility the soldiers entered that appeared to be a slave labor camp. Nude bodies were lined up 4 – 5 feet high and roughly 20 feet long. “What a horrible sight,” G.G. said, “Some were barely alive…just skin and bones, didn’t have the strength to move. They were a pitiful sight.” One of the camp guards had a pistol and whip on his hip that was likely used on the prisoners. G.G. relieved him of his weapons and kept the whip as a souvenir. It wasn’t long before G.G. became disgusted with the whip and the pain it had induced on innocent people so he got rid of it. He said of the item, “I got sick of that whip and what it had done. I did not even want it as a souvenir, its bad memories.”

G.G. spoke of the mental effect the war had on many of the soldiers, “Some of the soldiers had seen so much horror that they became zombies of sorts. It was as if their spirit had already left their body. Some of them just kept on walking, on into enemy fire. I felt like when they did get shot down, they did not feel the pain of the bullet. They were not in that body anymore…their spirit had left them. Oh, how horrible.” He recalled another horrible experience, “One guy next to me had been hit pretty good. (It) left him like scrambled eggs. I waved my hands in the air and said, ‘Thank you Lord. Joe. No more cold. No more pain. … Why me Lord? Why am I still here?'”

The 75^th pushed the Germans back and the medics headed out to help their wounded on the battlefield. Later on the next day or so, G.G.’s unit found their medics stripped of all clothing, tied to trees, and their bodies mutilated. Soon thereafter the 75^th believed they had captured some of the Germans responsible for the mutilated medics. Recalling what happened next G.G. shared apprehensively, “It’s not easy to talk about the Germans were hollering ‘Mercy, Mercy!’ as they were cornered in a barn and the flamethrowers ending their lives as they hollered ‘Mercy, Mercy!’ They showed no mercy to our fellows Oh Lordy. How cruel a human being can be. one to another.”

Back and forth both sides pushed each other in the Ardennes. Dead German soldiers and American soldiers were piled up on top of one another, covered by the never ending snow. The bodies were frozen stiff. G.G. remembered when they did pick up their dead; they would throw them into the back of a truck like you would a log of wood. All piled up there together, Germans and Americans. In death it did not matter that the two had fought as bitter enemies.

One time when he went to eat his K-rations, he sat down on what he thought was a log. Something was sticking him in his bum so he began digging around in the snow to see what it could be. “It was a Germans belt buckle. I was sitting on a corpse,” G.G. said. He will never forget the bitter cold and ground frozen so hard you couldn’t even dig a foxhole. The men would sleep standing up. One wouldn’t think it possible but G.G. said that 4 of them would huddle together in a circle, putting their arms around each other’s shoulders and actually catch a few winks and maintain some warmth. He also remembers some of the men sleeping as. they were walking due to their extreme exhaustion. Being hungry at the same time didn’t help and they often stumbled, falling into the snow which became the final resting place of some.

On one night in the battle, G.G. heard someone holler real loud and then a shot was fired. A soldier had chosen to shoot himself in the foot rather than continue on fighting in hell. He was unable to convince his superiors that it was an accident because of him hollering before he actually shot himself. The soldier ended up receiving some bad time and going without pay for a spell. That night “so many of us got killed,” said G.G. Many officers were among the dead and some of those who made it through told-G.G. Thev were going to make him a second lieutenant. G.G. wanted no part of it because so many of the officers died. Another soldier ended up receiving the promotion. G.G. laughed as he said, “Would you know that sucker made it through every battle fought from then forward and made it back home.”

Near the Belgian barracks where G.G. was staying at the time, he came upon a cow and thought to himself, ‘I haven’t had milk since we left the states I’m an old farm boy… .I’ll just sit my gun in the corner and milk her.” He patted her on the head and called her Bessie in an attempt to calm her down and placed his steel helmet beneath her udders. As he milked her she continued to moan, which G.G. latter believed was because she hadn’t been milked in so long.

He successfully retrieved a helmet full of milk which he then placed in the snow to cool it. When he went to drink it some of the other soldiers said, ‘You’re not going to drink all that blanket blank milk yourself to which he turned up the helmet and began guzzling it. He continued with the story, “It was so good but it had no more hit my stomach than it came back out both ways. I was so sick! That milk wasn’t fit for human consumption because poor old Bessie had it in her bag for so long that it had become contaminated.”

As the men managed to push the German’s back once again, they moved forward gaining ground. They came upon a huge beautiful home and G.G. wondered if he might find any dry, clean clothes inside. He and a buddy went to check it out but he couldn’t find any men’s clothing. “There must have been a great big ole woman living there ’cause I found a great big ole pair of bloomers.” He began to laugh as he recalled what he did next, “They were clean so I put them on. I also found a petticoat and put it on too.” This only illustrates how cold our men were.

His buddy hollered from across the room to look at what he had found. Lo and behold, that soldier had found a tuxedo and top hat. The soldier put on his find as well but left the top hat and off the two goofiest dressed soldiers went back into battle. G.G. couldn’t get the petticoat tucked into his britches so he just left it out. He said that the sight of himself and his buddy made him laugh uncontrollably at the time.

At one time the men were low on rations. One soldier who had been a butcher at a packing company in civilian life told G.G. that the two of them should go out that night and butcher the cow. G.G. thought it a great idea and the two headed out in a Jeep to procure the meat. G.G.’s buddy took his position in front of the cow, raised his knife, and took a good hard swing to cut the cow’s throat. Unfortunately, the young man managed to miss the cow and instead cut his own thigh. G.G. took over from that point, as he too had spent some time as a butcher, and slaughtered the cow. He then tied it to the Jeep and drug it into a nearby building where he butchered it. During that time, someone began knocking on the big metal door of the building. Thankfully, the person soon went away and G.G. was able to finish the task at hand. The men cooked up their meat and everyone wanted a portion, even the inspector general! G.G. knew that he and his buddy could have been court-martialed for their actions. However, they didn’t regret their actions and their buddies were sure thankful for a reminder of what real food tasted like instead their boxes of rations.

AT one point after the 75^th had been fighting in the Ardennes for some time, the French needed help in Colmar, France. The men were loaded into ‘forty & eight boxcars’, which got their name during the Great War because they could carry forty men and eight horses. G.G. said they had a lot of men packed into those boxcars like sardines. G.G. was in the middle of the boxcar next to a big container used by the men to relieve themselves. “Oh Lord,” he said laughing, “I didn’t like sitting there.” He continued on describing his ride in the forty & eight saying, “I thought to myself, ‘If I could just work my way back to the corner of this boxcar, I could lean up against the side and rest my head and back. How nice that would be.'” So G.G. began shrugging and pushing, which the other men cussed and fussed at him for. Finally he made his way to the corner he had eagerly scouted out. He leaned back, putting his head to one side and all he could hear was ‘bump, bump bump, bump…’ There was no sleep for this soldier. G.G. remembered the train coming up off the tracks for a split second and then slamming back down.

That’s how the 75^th crossed into France to fight with the French 1^st Army, who had been struggling against the Germans, in the battle of Colmar Pocket. “Oooh boy. Those Germans really let in on. us,” recalled G.G. He was unsure if he would make it through the battle so he kept a picture of his wife and little boy next to his heart thinking that if he died, maybe they would bury him with it. He did make it through that battle and was awarded the Croix de guerre for his efforts. Food was scarce at times and one of the things the French soldiers would do was to put chicken coops on their armored tanks and then go out to local farms to gather whatever sources of meat they could find, including chickens and pigs. They would then put the animals in the coops and tie the coops back to the tanks, taking the animals into battle with them.

The men soon headed into Holland where G.G. says the war had been quite tough. He recalled a pub whose owners had left because of the intense fighting but who didn’t lock it up on their hasty retreat. The men went on in and enjoyed the variety and wealth of drinks and snacks to be had. G.G. snotted a radio set which he turned on to see if there was anything worth tuning in to. The broadcast just happened to be the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, Tennessee. Uncle Dave Macon and his son Dorris were performing.

That same evening, in a big farm house, the men drew straws to see who would go out on a recon mission and report back where the enemy was and so forth. One of G.G.’s pals ended up as one that drew a short straw and that fella was downright angry about it. Not that he was trying to shirk his duty but rather because he had this nagging feeling that he wouldn’t make it back alive. In his eyes it was a death sentence. The soldier decided to write a letter home telling his family how much-he loved them and such. He asked G.G. to mail it, explaining the 6^th sense about his death that he had. G.G. told him that he couldn’t send a letter like that and that he would safely return. The next morning, the rest of the men headed out and found the young man dead, his goodbye letter covered in blood. G.G. said he wishes to this day that he had at least gotten the contact info of his buddy’s family so he could tell them that story.

For roughly 7-10 days, the men fought in a fierce battle and finally made their way to the river Rhine. “Those combat engineers… .1 gotta give them credit,” G.G. said. They went up on the bridge and tried to repair it so the men could cross into Germany. G.G. would watch them at night Time after time he saw a body fall off the bridge and into the river below, having been shot by the enemy. On one night in particular, he recalls standing in a building watching through a window as the night skies lit up like a 4^m of July celebration in America. Suddenly a plane came along and was firing tracer ammo beneath his feet. Thinking to himself, ‘This is a little too close for comfort’, he ran and^jove.beneath a bed which had a spring sticking out that scratched his back to pieces. One of his fellow soldiers ribbed him about these injuries ‘received in action’ saying that G.G. could get himself a purple heart. G.G. told the guy he didn’t want any part of a Purple Heart, especially for such minor injuries. He explained that he now had a little boy back home and one day that little boy would be asking his daddy how he got that Purple Heart G. G. did not want to be in such a predicament.

The 75^w fought for an extended period in the area. All the time the men had been building a pontoon bridge, which is how the men ended up getting across the river Rhine into Germany They headed out early one morning that was thick in fog and on the other side of the river there was yet another horrible sight that would leave its mark on the memory of all those who witnessed it. The trees had no leaves on them whatsoever but something was hung in the branches. Upon getting a closer look the men realized it was the flesh and body parts of the dead strewn about throughout the branches, As the men made their way through various German towns, G.G. said that many of the Germans willingly surrendered because they were as sick of the war as the Allies were.

When the 75^th came into one German town, they found a barbershop where some of the men decided to stop in to get a haircut and shave. One of the group would stand watch over the others while they, were getting some proper grooming. The soldier, who was standing guard while G.G. and another were in the barber chairs, left his post early when a chair became available but before someone else could keep guard. G.G. said he was a bit nervous that the German barbers might cut their throats with the razors and drag them out back with no one the wiser. Thankfully nothing of the sort occurred and the men tipped the barbers VERY well for the services provided.

At this time it was coming into spring and the snow was beginning to melt. C.G.’s group needed to get their kitchen truck across a stream but it was too deep to simply drive through, So G.G. decided to take one for the team and wade across the stream, whose waters were still freezing, in order to hook a winch cable from the truck to a tree. While he was doing this, an enemy plane began strafing them. Bark was flying off the trees as they were hit and G.G. was behind one of those very trees, He ended up diving into the water for safety and it worked!

When the war with Germany ended, G.G. was assigned to occupational forces in France, while awaiting orders to head out to Japan. “Thank the Lord for the Atom bomb,” CO commented. During his time with the occupation forces, he and the other Allies got to know their one time enemy. G.G. was a part of every battle from the Battle of the Bulge on to Berlin (where they stopped outside and allowed the Russians to take over) and was among those who safely returned home but not without some physical and many emotional scars.

The 75^th also fought alongside the British and G.G. remembers how every afternoon round the same time they would have a spot of tea. Bullets would be a flying but the British would still take time out to have their tea. “I don’t know if they were tough, crazy, or if they just loved their tea,” G.G, said of this tradition

The Division fought through France and came to the Siegfried Line on or about September 12. 1944 After weeks of battle in this area , we were sent to combat in the Huertgen Forest near Vossenack and Schmidt. During this battle companies were reduced in manpower by 50% or higher. Replacements kept coming and some did not stay long. The entire Division was reduced We were relieved of this position on November 15th.

The regiment was sent to Bastendorf Luxembourg for rest and relaxation and again to receive new replacements. It was necessary to train some of these men because they were not familiar with the weapons of our company. Most of them were trained as riflemen back in the United States.

In December, we were sent to the Ardennes.Since this was considered a “dead” front the Division was scattered over a lot of territory.The main purpose was to patrol and contain the enemy east of the Our River. This front was approximately 25 miles. Our company was scattered over a ten mile stretch. The 1st section of the 2nd platoon of which I was a member(about 12 men) and 2 machine guns occupied a village by the name of Heinerscheid in Luxembourg. The second section (the same strength) was located in Marnach, about 5 mile from us. This was about December 10. Also in the village were some riflemen and a squad (6 men) and their 81 mm mortar.
Our group occupied a four or five room house. In one of the back rooms we had a machine gun mounted in the window that was surrounded by sandbags. Outside near the house, our two jeeps were parked in sheds. We blacked out the windows in the kitchen and other room so we could have some light from candles at night. We were told to stay on the street and walks since some of the yards and other grassy areas were possibly mined It wasn’t advisable to walk around at night since there was a possibility you might get shot since the enemy was not far off and infiltration was very possible even though there had not been any activity in this area for some time.

At Heinerscheid, our two jeeps in connection with two jeeps in Marnach had patrol duty. A jeep with one mounted machine gun on the dash area and two men besides the driver would go from Heinerscheid to Hostengin and report if everything was O.K. Then backtrack and on to Marnach to do the same.The route covered was about 15 or 20 miles round trip. The route for the men in Marnach was similar. The entire road known as “Purple Heart” Road was under German observation most of the trip. The trip was taken every two hours, the groups alternating from daylight to dusk. Needless to say, you felt like a duck in a shooting gallery because of the sight of blown up trucks and jeeps along the road. Many a driver and crew had a few “Schnapps” beforehand to help out. We were told by intelligence that there were only some “old” men across the Our River and not to panicky. They may have been old men, but we felt they probably had some young men doing the spotting and firing.

After several days of this duty,we were suddenly awakened on the morning of December 16 and were told that enemy patrols were seen crossing the river and coming towards us at about 0800 hrs. Every one hurried to get additional ammo from the jeep trailers. The Germans started to attack about noon and gun fire was getting closer. From our gun position we could see the enemy advancing. We asked for mortar fire about 2 PM and were told we would have to direct the fire since they could not spare anyone to do it. Even though I had never done it, I gave the directions by phone for the target. Since they were limited on their ammo, they could not keep up with it. Along about 4 PM the attack seemed to halt. We of course kept on guard at our gun position and the front door of the house. We had short hitches on our guard duty so as to have alert personnel watching for any movement. Our other darkened room was lit by candles and there the men came in after guard duty and drank coffee that was made on a small gasoline stove issued to us and smoked cigarettes by the pack. Everyone was jittery and knew the odds for the next day.

While I was on duty with a buddy, we saw in the distance huge searchlights, not shining up, but they were horizontal.We could hear trucks and tanks moving about in the valley and knew they were getting organized. We also could here th Germans in front of, they were hollering and laughing and could see them lighting cigarettes. They were about 500 yards from the house.We didn’t dare fire at them since they would have seen our position and that would have been it for us.
We called our Company Headquarters and told them these happenings. All they said was “sit tight something is brewing at regimental”. We felt that if we could pull back a ways where moire men might be located, we would stand a better chance. Since the riflemen had gone, we were now in a jam. In a way we were glad to see daylight after a dreaded dark night. We felt sure that some of the Germans went around us. About 8AM,we heard tanks and thought they were Jerrys, but we saw they were ours, as they went by our house towards Fischbach, we counted about 25 light tanks. We were happy as we now had hope. Soon firing began by our men as Germans were spotted near the house. We then heard a tank coming and we yelled as it was retreating from Fischbach. The commander hollered “This is the only tank left” Our hope was fading fast. Our Sergeant told me I could take some of the men in my jeep and go back where there were more troops. I told him it was impossible because we were cut off from my jeep by several Nazi machine guns. He didn’t seem to believe me, but when he looked out the front door, bullets were chipping off bricks above his head. He agreed with me this time.

The situation was getting worse by the minute. Just then, one of our men hollered and said that there was German tank up the road headed our way. We knew we could not go out the front door and the rear door was in the direction of the push. We tried a locked door going to a side room that we had never been in before. We used an axe that we had to chop open the door. There we saw another door that would lead us out the side of the house. We got it open and the Sergeant said “Every man for himself.” We ran across the yards of other houses. A wire fence about 4′ high was no obstacle. I had on a long overcoat and 4 buckle artic boots and I cleared that fence with no problem, like a track star. When you’re scared you can do strange things and this was one of them. Soon we had to run on the street and wean zigzagging since machine gun bullets were zinging off the pavement.

We the ran through an orchard and an 88mm shell hit nearby wounding one of the men. We ran into a barn where we found three other comrades. We went back for the fallen man and brought him to the barn and gave him first-aid as best we could. Tanks again!!! This time they were American. There were three of them, but two turned and left, the third one was hit by a Jerry tank destroyer. One man jumped out and came in the barn. He was wounded and said he was the only one left. Again a temporary patch up was necessary. We then decided to destroy our weapons and just as we did, were noticed several Germans passing by the window and a Tiger tank turned its gun into the window.
The only thing left to do was to hold up a white handkerchief by the window.A couple of the Germans appeared to be 15 or 16 years old and very cocky. It really teed us off to be captured by a couple of kids. Of course their comrades were older. They searched us and marched us up the road and soon we were joined by other men from our outfit. As we went on we saw that most of the houses were shelled and burning and “our” house was really a mess. We sure was glad that we had gotten out of there when we did. When we walked past Fischbach it was the same shape, shot to hell. Next they took us behind a building and searched us again. This time they took cigarettes.matches, lighters and any type of food that you might have on you. They next told us to line up against a wall with our faces toward it. We all thought that this was the end of our existence. But, we lucked out as they just searched us more thoroughly.

Once more we started walking along “Purple Heart” Road and we were in a column of three’s. I was one that was in the last row. The guards stopped us and then motioned to us to go to the front of the column. Shortly we were on our way again when a mortar shell hit near the rear of the column where I had been moments before. We then ran to ditches until it was over. We felt that it was American mortars mistaken us for Krauts. A few medics came and helped those who were wounded. Others were left there. All along the way we could see more Germans,Mark V and Tiger tanks moving up. It was an eerie sight.

As we walked along the road, I noticed a jeep with two German soldiers in it driving past us. They had the windshield up and there painted on the windshield was “KNAPPENBERGER”. It was my jeep that I had to leave behind in the shed. It sure made me mad to think of the enemy driving it. We endured numerous shelling from our artillery along the way. They marched us to Marnach and put us in a crowded room in a house. There they searched us again. We figured they were looking for maps or other information that we might have. They took our watches and mine was a new one that my Mother and Father had sent to me a month or so previous. One German soldier tried to take a fellows wedding ring, but the only thing he got was a sock in the jaw from a German officer. Evidently this officer had some feelings. I had a few photos in my wallet of family and a friend, but they didn’t take them.They also let me keep my pocket sized New Testament that! always carried in my shirt pocket.

During the night, our Platoon Commander, a Lieutenant, was brought in and he was surprised to see me as someone told him that I was killed. He had a few chocolate bars on him that he managed to keep somehow and he gave them to a couple of us and said “You need these worse than I do”. We really appreciated it since we had not eaten for about a day and a half.

The next day they started us marching toward Germany and our future “home”

As was always the case, the foot soldier never was informed of anything beyond what he vas supposed to do in the immediate area. We rarely knew where we were located and, more importantly, where the enemy was located and in what strength. Our world was limited to what we could see and when it was snowing, that wasn’t very far. Following our arrival in Belgium, we were separated into separate combat units and given very vague details about what our objective was to be and the time frame in which we were to accomplish our mission. On either 12/27 or 12/28, our entire regiment (347th) moved out across snow-covered fields in a northeast direction. A battalion of Sherman tanks had been assigned to work with us.

What happened during the next few days could easily fill the pages of a book. We had not traveled very far when we came in contact with a large enemy force consisting of infantry and many German Tiger tanks with 88mm guns. For a couple of days (and nights) there were intense artillery barrages, tank battles, rifle fire and machine gun bursts. The weather prevented any air support. Within my immediate area, we lost 3 tanks from 761st Tank Battalion and countless casualties. Losses on both sides were heavy and we paid dearly for the little ground we gained.

It was either January 1 or 2, 1945 that we occupied a small hamlet of several hundred people, known as Bonne Rue. We did not learn until days later why this little village was so important and so viciously defended by the Germans. It was located adjacent to a highway that ran east and west from the area of Bastogne to St. Hubert, which was a main supply line for the advancing German forces in their drive to capture the main Belgium port of Antwerp and divide the British and American forces.

Little did we know what a hornet’s nest we had stirred up. As long as we held Bonne Rue, the Germans had to use longer and secondary routes to funnel their supplies to their advancing troops. We were truly a most unwelcome thorn in their southern flank. After occupying Bonne Rue, there was a continuous attempt to push us back south of the highway. Somehow, we managed to hold the little town. We had a large force of infantry foot soldiers around the town that repeatedly repulsed German attacks. We had 3 of our 57mm AT guns setup plus a number of bazookas to counter any tank attack.

On the morning of Jan 6th, we heard the unmistaken sound of approaching tanks. We had the AT gun set up in a small barn yard so that it couldn’t be seen until a tank was within 20 yards. We manned the gun, as we heard a tank coming down the street. I stood behind the barn door with a Thompson sub-machine gun, about 10 feet from the gun. We sent two guys around back of the barn with a bazooka. As the approaching tank came around the corner of the barn, his progress was stopped by a disabled German assault gun sitting in the street. In order for the tank to get around it, they would have to make a sharp maneuver through the barnyard. It stopped and one of German tankers opened the hatch cover and stood up so that his whole upper body was exposed. I waited for our guys to fire the AT gun, but nothing, happened. All I heard was the G— d thing won’t fire.

With that I opened up my machine gun and emptied a whole clip at the tanker. He fell from sight. The tank started to backup. I ran to the hay loft and looking down from above could see I had a perfect opportunity to lob a hand grenade in the open turret. It exploded, the tank stopped for few minutes and then slowly began to back off. Obviously there must have been a survivor. Behind the barn and house, we heard a couple of loud explosions. Our two guys with the bazooka (Walter Cassidy & Arthur Goldschmidt) had caught a tank broadside, destroying it.  (Note: That tank sits there today as a memorial to our squad and that battle.) Later I learned the reason our gun would not fire was due to the fact they forgot to release the safety on the firing mechanism.

In hind sight, it was probably a blessing because at such close range the exploding shell from our gun could well have injured or killed us with flying shrapnel. Our other two 57mm guns were destroyed by tank fire with a number of casualties. We were surrounded by infantry, but when one tank was destroyed and another seriously damaged, there was a general withdrawal to several hundred yards out of town. We had stopped a major attempt to reach the highway. The two men (see above) who destroyed the tank with the bazooka were awarded the Silver Star and given promotions to rank of sergeant. I was awarded the Bronze Star. After things had quieted down and we realized just what we had been through, we all experienced an after shock of severe shakes that lasted for several hours some people call it combat fatigue. During the engagement, you never think about the danger you are facing. It is only after the fact that you realize that it could have been your final moments on earth. Under cover of darkness, we were relieved and took off to St. Hubert. We arrived about the same time as the Free French Forces of The Interior (FFI) and shared in the liberation of St. Hubert. We were elated that none of our squad of eight was injured or killed.

Footnote: As of today, the residents of Bonne Rue remain grateful for what we did in liberating the town for their parents and grandparents. One local citizen is writing a book about the events of those winter days in 1944-5. I have had the pleasure of exchanging information with him via e-mail and regular mail. It is gratifying to know our mission has not been forgotten after all these years.