I was in the 16th Field Artillery Observation Battalion, Battery A. We were the eyes and ears of the Field Artillery. We fought our way from Utah Beach to the border of Belgium & Germany at a place named Auw, GERMANY, not a town just a place.  We were there in the winter.  Our area was considered a light fighting area. The heavy fighting was North of us at Cologne, Germany and South of us in Southern France. We were fired on by German artillery and the German infantry was very close.

The Germans fired Buzz Bombs over us frequently. A Buzz Bomb is an unmanned airplane that flew very low and is filled with flammable liquid and shrapnel. We could near the motor as it flew over us and when the motor stopped, we knew it would crash in seconds.  We had three land close to us, but no one was injured. Buzz Bombs killed & injured many Americans.

We were in the Hurtgen Forest in the Schnee Eifel Mountains where the snow was deep, the ground was frozen and we did not have winter clothes. On Dec. 16, 1944 Nazi General Von Runsted made a break thru on a fifty mile front. He came thru with the 5th Panzer Army, the 6th Panzer Army and the 7th German Army. He had brand new King Tiger tanks, new heavy artillery and thousands of infantry, most dressed in white for camouflage. Auw, Germany was in the very center of this onslaught.   We lost much equipment and pulled back to St. Vith, Belgium.  We were overpowered there and retreated back to Bastogne where we were surrounded Many of the American soldiers there were killed, wounded or went insane from the constant bombardment.

When the Battle of the Bulge started, it was cloudy and very foggy.  We could hear Tank treads coming toward us, but could not tell if it was a Nazi Tiger Tank or an American Sherman Tank.  General George Patton ordered the 101st and 82nd Airborne up to Bastogne.  They could not jump from planes because of the fog. They were brought up in 6×6 Army trucks and it took them two days to reach us. A paratrooper ask me where the front line was and I told him he was standing on it_.  Somehow our battery escaped the Bastogne encirclement. Three us came upon a Belgium farmhouse in the middle of the battlefield.  We went inside and there was a father, mother and two children, a boy and girl about 7 or 8 years old.  The mother gave us some soup and black bread and we save them some candy.  This was Christmas Eve.  We sang Christmas songs that night.  We sang Jingle Bells and Silent Night, the words were different, but the music was the same.   We were wet and cold, but we dried off that night.  We could hear machine guns rattle and Artillery shells bursting all night.  We didn’t get much sleep, but we got warm and dry.

We left the next morning and the family didn’t want to see us go, The 16th was badly shot up and the 285th FAOB in the same area was badly shot up.  The two Observation Battalions decided to form one unit, so they could be more effective in the war.  This did not happen, the Nazi SS Troops captured a Battery of the 285th and herded them into an open snowy field and machine gunned them down in cold blood_.  This was not war, this was murder and was known as the Malmedy Massacre.

The clouds and fog started to break up and the Air Force flew thousands of sorties over the area.  They bombed tank positions, artillery positions and machine-gunned infantry troops and supply lines.  We watched C-47 planes fly low over the battlefield and drop by parachute food, guns, gasoline and medical supplies,we were out of everything. We begin to hold our own and gradually fought our way back to Auw, Germany.

On January 30th, 1945 we were at the same location we were on Dec 16, 1944. Up to now were liberators, from now on we will be conquerors.  Over one million men fought in the “Battle of the Bulge”, 600,000  Americans, 500,000 Germans, and 35,000 English, French, Canadians and others.  This is the largest land battle ever fought by any American Army_. We fought our way to Koblenz, Germany, crossed the Rhine River, was at the liberation of the Ohrdruf concentration camp, the first camp liberated on the Western Front, fought thru Nuremberg into Czechoslovakia, met the Russian Army and on May 8, 1945 was V.E. Day.  The War in Europe was over.  From the time we went ashore on Utah Beach, until we met the Russians, I was on the front lines the whole time.  I know that Freedom is not Free!

A Friend in Need is a Friend Indeed
by John P. Malloy, 75^th ID, 291^st IR

I worried and wondered if my best friend, Dean Lusjenski, had survived the recent vicious fighting at Grand-Halleux. Dean was with L (Love) Company in a machine gun section, in the 291st heavy weapons company. That company had sustained serious casualties in that battle. I decided I should find his company and see if he was still ok.

Dean and I had been called to duty on the same day in March 1943. He was a senior at Creighton University in Omaha, and I was a junior there. We had spent the entire war together and had become fast friends. We looked after one another, as soldiers often do. Now I wondered, and worried, what had happened to him during the vicious battles along the Salm River.

The 291 st Regiment had played an important role in counter attacking the retreating German forces. The Gl’s had suffered severe frostbite and trench foot because of the cold and snow. Huddling for days in a wet, cold, foxhole wore men down. This suffering, combined with battle wounds, had taken a severe toll.

I was lucky I was able to track him down. My job, as wire crew chief, gave me considerable independence and freedom of action. I knew my crew would handle any problems while I was gone. Earlier that morning the Third Battalion, Dean’s unit, had attacked a heavily defended hill-casualties were heavy. I knew the current action was centered in a small village about a quarter of a mile to the east. I took our jeep and headed that way. As I approached the village I stopped and proceeded on foot. When I reached the village center, I could see the German defenders had been forced back, perhaps five hundred yards. There was confusion. Medics evacuated wounded. Tanks slowly ground forward. An artillery spotter moved his vantage point.

Infantry units continued the attack. Apparently another unit had just been relieved. Those men were half hidden in doorways. Others hunkered down, waiting, hoping. They were a disheveled, bearded crew. They were exhausted. Most had not been out of their clothes for days. They hadn’t had a truly hot meal for some time. Artillery fire had devastated the area. Buildings were smoking shambles. Some still stood, in others, men sought what shelter they could find. An improvised aid station was operating. Medics treated bloody wounds. There was the awful smell of cordite-a reminder of death.

A winter sun shone weakly on the chaos. Just a month ago a pristine snow had drifted down, providing a beautiful blanket, covering this remote countryside. Now, brown replaced white. Brown clad warriors brought brown tanks, brown trucks, and brown cannon. Brown buildings burned. Dirty, brown soil lay exposed. It was an ugly place. This was not an unusual sight across France and Belgium. Our War Machine destroyed what little the Germans left when they fled.

There was occasional incoming mortar fire now; this was not a safe area. I tried to identify the units present. I could see that some Third Battalion Companies were involved in the firefight but I could not find L Company. I decided my efforts were futile. I couldn’t find my friend so I decided to return to my outfit. I retreated towards my jeep. The late afternoon light was turning to dusk. I worried about the drive. Driving in pitch black darkness was dangerous. I worried I might encounter a trigger happy Gl. He would shoot first and ask questions later.

Then I saw him. He was slumped in a ruined doorway.

“Dean, Dean is that you?”

He looked at me. I moved closer-he had an unfocused, zombie like, gaze. He stared vacantly.

“Lusienski-Lusienski it’s me, John.”

His only comment was,” I’m cold, I’m cold.”

“Dean I’m taking you with me. You need rest and a hot meal inside you.”

He mumbled,” I can’t. I’ve got to get back to my platoon.”

“You are coming with me and that’s that. Don’t give me a hard time.”

I walked him to the jeep. We took off. A commandeered farmhouse served as the Regimental CP. The wire section’s sleeping bags were on a dirt floor in an adjoining barn. I got Dean out of his overcoat. I removed his boots and put him into my sleeping bag. I covered him with an extra blanket. He slept eighteen hours. I brought him a hot meal. He slept again. When he woke he was a different man. We had a good conversation. We exchanged news. He had another good meal. Then it was time to go. His dry clothes and boots were ready. He got into his overcoat, put on his helmet, slung his weapon over his shoulder. I returned him to his company.

I didn’t see him again for several weeks. After the Bulge, the Division headed south and east to Colmar France near Strasburg. There we continued kitting Germans. Dean, in the weeks following the battles in the Ardennes and Colmar, was promoted to Staff Sergeant and awarded the Bronze Star for his leadership in operations in the Rhine River area.

Epilogue: After the war Dean Lusienski returned to his home in Nebraska. He married and had a family/He used the G\ bill to earn a PhD in Educational Psychology at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln. He served for many years as Principal for the world famous Boy’s Town. In later years, I occasionally traveled to Omaha from my home in Milwaukee. Dean and I would have dinner together. We talked about the early years. Dean died several years ago at the age of seventy.

Dean Lusienski was an outstanding example of Brokaw’s “The Greatest Generation”.

I still miss my best friend.

Excerpts from “Combat Engineers in WWII”
by Wesley Ross 3rd  Platoon, 146^th Engineer Combat Bn.

About 10 December 1944, as a nervous tag-along member of a six man patrol from a 38^th Cavalry troop–forward of the front and east of Bullingen, Belgium at the German border–we found plenty of German activity across the bottom of a tree-filled canyon. Trees were being cut down with saws and axes, and tanks and other heavy motorized equipment were moving around over straw covered trails, to muffle their sounds. While watching this activity from a concealed position two hundred yards away on the opposite side of the canyon, we listened to the big tank engines for some time and sensed that “something unusual was afoot”.

When information regarding all of this German activity was sent to army headquarters, their response was “this is just a feint to trick us into pulling our troops away from our planned offensive near Schmidt in the Hurtgen Forest”. If it had not been so serious, an almost comical ploy was our leaders attempt to enhance our perceived troop strength in the Ardennes, in order to draw more Germans troops from the front further north at Aachen. They conjured up a non-existent infantry division to further promote the ruse. (Heard, but not verified—WR)

As a result, our high-level commanders were not suspicious when the Germans began bringing in more and more troops prior to the Bulge—this is exactly what our leaders had hoped–and they happily believed that their scheme was working to perfection. There were a few red faces when the axe finally fell! We at the lower levels, were unaware of these machinations, but were kept alert by the persistent rumors that were floating around. On our return trip from our canyon viewpoint, the cavalry used pull-igniters on three Tellermines left by a German patrol that had been chased off the previous night. Several enemy were killed when they tried to reclaim their AT mines.

While I occasionally had patrolled in areas forward of our front lines, I had never patrolled with the audacity of these 38^th Cavalry troopers. They were fearless and not concerned that might bump into German patrols. They probably would have welcomed the opportunity! My 3^rd platoon had laid AT mines along the road shoulders near Bullingen a few weeks earlier, but that was probably done to deter small-scale penetrations. Bullingen was on the route to be taken by Kampgruppe Peiper and where his forces captured a large quantity of our gasoline, before heading west, towards Huy on the Meuse River. On 14 December the 2^nd Infantry Division launched an attack from the Elsenborn Ridge to capture the Roer River dams–to keep the Germans from flooding the Roer River plain and foiling our advance at Aachen. The “Indian Head Division” was making good progress in a flanking action–thus gaining ground that had been denied us in the September to November frontal assaults in the Hurtgen Forest.

V-Corps called off the attack on the second day of the Bulge–to keep our forces from being decimated by the massive enemy infantry and armored forces that were attacking there. The Bulge was considerably more than a feint–it was a giant leap beyond what any of us could have imagined, and it caught everyone by surprise—even those of us at the lower levels, who suspected that “something unusual was afoot”!

On the morning of 16 December, the well-orchestrated German attack in the Ardennes—that they called the “Wacht am Rhein”— was launched. The name was a subterfuge to hide their offensive intentions behind a pretended defense. Hitler suspected a security leak within his Wehrmacht and so he limited disclosures of the attack plans to only his most trusted generals. He was unaware that the British had broken his Enigma Code, even though some of his advisors had suggested that this may have happened. “Impossible” said der Fuehrer!

There were so few radio intercepts concerning the upcoming Ardennes offensive that our top level commanders were caught off guard—even though many of us at lower levels were antsy about all of the enemy activity nearby. In general, the Wehrmacht followed the mandated secrecy orders, but there were enough slip-ups by their air force and civilian transportation units to have given our commanders sufficient insight had they not been so supremely overconfident. The 14 6ECB was bivouacked at Mutzenich Junction, three miles west of the front at Monschau—which was at the northern shoulder of the German build-up. The 38^th Cavalry was also at the northern flank of the Bulge at Monschau and just north of the 3rd Battalion, 395th Regiment, 99th Infantry Division–who managed to hold their ground even though the remainder of the division was badly chewed up, and much of their command was shifted to the 2nd Infantry Division.

For several days this small cavalry force—plus 3rd Platoon, A-Co, 112ECB; A-Co, 146ECB; and their attached 105mm and 155mm artillery—fought off several attacks by vastly superior enemy forces. Several times artillery fire was called in on their own positions to thwart the attacks. Canister rounds—a cannoneer’s shotgun—were used with devastating effect when they were about to be overrun. For their stout defense, all three units were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation–the nation’s highest unit award. According to “Cavalry on the Shoulder”, the 38^th Cavalry was the only cavalry squadron to be so honored in WWII.

The 14 6th Engineer Combat Battalion had received a Presidential Unit Citation for their D-Day demolition mission on Omaha Beach, so an oak leaf cluster was added to A-Co’s PUC. The battlefield success of the 38^th Cavalry Squadron in the Bulge, was due to a number of elements, including a seasoned cadre that had fought from Normandy—but probably the most important factor was their commanding officer–Lt Colonel Robert 0’Brien–a 1936 West Point cavalry graduate. He was a fanatic in his dedication to patrolling the area forward of his lines–to the extent that his Cavalry Squadron eventually came to own that area! Initially, this was not the case but came to pass after several fierce firefights that inflicted heavy casualties on enemy patrols.

This type of aggressive action was repeated often in the Monschau sector, causing enemy patrols to avoid contact and allowing cavalry patrols to make increasingly detailed reconnaissance reports and sketches of enemy positions. More importantly, it left the German commanders ignorant of the details of the cavalry’s defensive positions. The cavalry’s weapons were carefully positioned, so as to provide interlocking grazing fire along all of the likely enemy avenues of approach. They were further tied into obstacles of concertina wire and personnel mines along these likely avenues. Further, extensive use was made of trip flares to provide early warning of enemy approach. Flares were preferred because they prevented friendly casualties in case of mistakes, and they did not give the false sense of security be associated with an extensive minefield.

All of the weapons were dug in, with overhead cover to survive artillery attack, and they were carefully concealed so that an attacking enemy had to literally be on the position to recognize it as a machine gun position. Finally the positions were integrated into the squadron command and control telephone net. A final point on the preparation of the Monschau defense was a typical characteristic of defense common to the United States army—the thorough integration and abundance of artillery support–105mm and 150mm howitzers, augmented by their organic 60mm and 81mm mortars. “The effectiveness of the artillery support was later verified by a German prisoner. He reported that German troops in the Monschau sector were forbidden to leave their bunkers and foxholes during the hours of daylight. They were reduced to observing their sectors through the use of mirrors in order not to attract rapid and deadly artillery fire.

This dedicated defensive preparation was tested at 0545 on the morning of 16 December 1944, when the intense German artillery barrage announced the start of the Battle of the Bulge. On the night of 16/17 December 1944, the 1,500 man parachute force, under Lieutenant Colonel Frederich-August von der Heydte, dropped into the Hohes Venn in “Operation Stosser”. His group had fought several vicious engagements with the 101st Airborne Division in Normandy and again in General Bernard Montgomery’s flawed Market Garden offensive in September 1944–as portrayed in “The Band of Brothers”. The Hohes Venn is a swampy area on the headwaters of the Roer River. In November, three of us tried to cross through this swampy area. With our Jeep flat out in four wheel drive, we traveled about 50 yards, before dropping it down to its axles. We then had to jack it up out of the mud and build a corduroy road to get back on solid ground.

The paratroopers were a day late because of glitches in getting their gasoline delivered and in getting the troops assembled. They were scattered for 25 miles from Malmedy to Eupen because of inexperienced pilots and the minimal advance notice regarding the mission—dictated by Hitler as a security measure. The unsynchronized twin Jumo engines of their planes generated an interesting slow beat-frequency sound. Many parachutes were found after the drop. I rescued an undamaged white one—also a large section from a brown and green camouflaged model. Both appeared to be silk. The camouflaged silk made fine neck scarves and several still reside in my dresser drawer to be worn occasionally, but I finally gave the white one to the Salvation Army, after it had taken up closet space for more than twenty years.

General Dietrich’s 6th Panzer Army—the main German force in the Bulge–included four Panzer Divisions with the latest tanks, weapons and infantry.  It included the 1st SS Panzer Division–Leibstandarte S S Adolph Hitler.  The lightning strike to the Meuse River near Huy, Belgium was to be led by Joachim Peiper leader of Kampfgruppe Peiper, from this division.  They then would move north to Antwerp and enveloping our northern armies, similar to the 1940 French and British defeat there! In the planning, Dietrich’s forces were to have reached the Baroque Michel crossroads—midway between Malmedy and Eupen—on the 16th, which was to have been captured by the paratroopers by then. The 38^th Cavalry’s stand at Monschau blunted that effort, so Dietrich’s forces were directed south toward Elsenborn, Bullingen and Malmedy.

Had Dietrich been able to force his way through Monschau, he very well may have rolled up our front and then captured the large gasoline dumps near Eupen. Had this come to pass, their armies could then have moved almost unimpeded north to Antwerp. Despite all of the negative opinions about the stupidity of launching the Ardennes offensive and taking troops and materiel away from the Russian front, honesty must conclude that with a few fortunate breaks, the Bulge could have been a phenomenal German success and Hitler would then have been trumpeted as a great tactician!

At 1520 hours on 16 Dec, V-Corp’s Colonel Pattillo called Major Willard Baker—our S-3 and ordered 146ECB to furnish a company of engineers to serve as infantry–to be attached to the 38th Cavalry Squadron at Monschau. A-Company was in the line at 1700 that evening, where they furnished support for the outnumbered troopers. At 1525 Hours, Colonel McDonough—the 1121^st Engineer Combat Group commander—called our headquarters and ordered another engineer company to be deployed as infantry.The three B-Company platoons moved into position the next morning and for several days formed a barrier line, a short distance behind the front between Monschau and Elsenborn. Our purpose was to slow the advance of the the Panzer Army, should they penetrate our lines. The 3rd Platoon covered a 1,000 yard front in the snow, until relieved on 23 December.

We set up three 50 caliber machine guns in defensive positions and patrolled between them, but being in a semi-wooded area we had inadequate fields of fire and would have been captured or bypassed by any enemy attack in force! Several men manned daisy-chain roadblocks on nearby roads. These are AT mines roped together, so they can be pulled across the road at the approach of enemy vehicles, but they are not effective unless they are adequately supported by covering fire. Trees had explosives strapped to their trunks in order to drop them and form abatis, at the approach of enemy vehicles. Engineers have only occasional needs for machine guns, but we had both the WWI vintage water cooled .30 caliber Brownings and the newer air cooled version—as well as the .50 caliber Brownings that were normally ring-mounted on our truck cabs for anti-aircraft fire. Our .30 caliber Brownings were light-years behind the vastly superior German MG-42. In the early hours of the parachute drop, one of our water-cooled Brownings fired one round only and then sat there mute–the water in the cooling jacket had frozen, jamming the action!

While on outpost duty, the 3rd Platoon had no clue as to the enemy’s intentions, or what was actually taking place nearby at the front. We were located in a sparsely woody area away from our headquarters, but the wealth of rumors and the actuality of the paratroopers and reports of Skorzeny’s men in American uniforms kept us alert.  Unconfirmed rumors abounded! Anyone moving around was challenged–this included even our easily recognized generals. Lt Leonard Fox—now a C-Company platoon leader–was taken prisoner by a patrol from the 38th Cavalry Squadron. He had not received the password for the day. After six hours, while his legitimacy was being confirmed, he was released. Lt Refert Croon led a patrol of Joe Manning, Marvin Lowery, Warren Hodges and others, looking for the paratroopers. Lowery was killed in an ensuing firefight that killed two Germans and wounded several more–the rest surrendered. Nine paratoopers were killed and about sixty were captured—all by C-Company and HQ-Company—as A-Company and B-Company were deployed elsewhere as infantry. Fred Matthews was captured by the paratroopers, but he managed to escape during another firefight.

The 291^st Engineer Combat Battalion set up roadblocks near Malmedy. Even more important than establishing the roadblocks was their contribution in slowing Kampfgruppe Peiper by blowing a number of bridges and thwarting his intended drive to the Meuse River. Some of the bridges were destroyed just as Peiper’s tanks arrived on the scene. I believe that their stout defense was a major factor in blunting Kampfgruppe Peiper’s drive to the Meuse River at Huy. The 291^st Engineers, along with the 30^th Infantry Division, were bombed three times by our 9th Air Force during their days in Malmedy. Misdirected air strikes were not too unusual an occurrence when mists and clouds mask events on the ground–or when the front is poorly defined. These fatalities were related by Colonel Pergrin–the unhappy commander of a battalion of combat engineers.

Julius Mate–whom I had not seen since before the Bulge-related the following at our annual battalion reunion in 1993: “Early on the morning of 17 December, Sergeant Henri Rioux sent Nettles and another radio man to the battalion headquarters for breakfast. When the radio operators had not returned as expected, Rioux told Mate and James France to go to breakfast and to see what had happened to them. Later we heard that the paratrooper’s planned assembly area was this battalion radio shack, several hundred yards from our bivouac area—located away to keep from drawing artillery fire on our headquarters.” On their way, they saw a parachute with an attached bag hanging in a dead tree. Seeing evidence of the paratroopers was not surprising since they had heard the planes overhead the previous night and our men had seen their green recognition lights. Mate attempted to recover the chute by pulling on the shroud lines, but the rotten tree broke and the trunk fell across his ankle, pinning’him to the “ground.”

“After working free, they continued toward the headquarters and breakfast and then saw Nettles up ahead acting very strange. When they ran up to ask what was happening, six paratroopers with machine pistols stepped out of hiding, took them captive, disarmed them and then threw their M-l Garand rifles into a nearby creek–where they were found later that day by a patrol led by Lt Refert Croon.” “Nettles and Mate were directed to make a double-pole support to carry a paratrooper who had compound fractures of both legs. At the end of the day, Mate’s ankle was swollen and painful, so France and Nettles carried the wounded trooper.” “This small group kept moving during the day and slept under fir boughs at night. After wandering about for two days, they joined the main body of about 150 paratroopers and were then interrogated by a German officer who spoke impeccable English. He had studied at a Texas university and so not only knew the language–but also the American idioms and customs.”

“They were combined with twenty others who had been captured from a laundry unit near Eupen. At night they slept in a tight pile to keep warm, as it was very cold. After a time when the body parts against the ground were growing cold, they all turned at a given signal. They kept up a running conversation to keep telling of the importance of moving toes and fingers to avert frostbite.” “One of the captives, who understood German, heard their captors discussing how they should dispose of the Americans by throwing grenades into their midst while they slept. When a patrol from the 1st Infantry Division engaged the paratroopers, the captives ran up waving their shirts and yelling “Don’t shoot–were Americans”. Early in the Bulge, Earl Buffington—from C-Company–was riding in Blaine Hefner’s truck, as they won the race with a German tank to a crossroad near Malmedy. The tank halted and began firing at them as they scurried away.

Earl’s arm was injured by a low hanging tree limb and he was hospitalized near Spa, Belgium. The limb also brushed off his “Omaha Beach Trophy Helmet” which sported two clean 8mm holes. The bullet had passed from front to back nicking his ear and the side of his head. He was not seriously wounded, so he considered that a good omen and he refused to swap the helmet for a new one.  However, his Trophy Helmet was never recovered. Soon after Earl and several others were dropped off at the field hospital in Spa, he was told that the Germans were about to overrun the area, so Earl and a group “af patients scurried out the back. In a similar fashion Mugg Pawless, Julian Mathies and eight others fled out the back door of a hospital in Malmedy just ahead of the attacking Germans and later ended up at a temporary hospital in the Grand Hotel in Paris.

In November—at Vossenack in the Hurtgen Forest—Mugg was wounded in the heel by an artillery round. After returning from that infantry support mission, the wound was periodically sore and treatment was ineffective, so he was finally sent to an evacuation hospital. When German tanks were heard snorting around nearby, he was moved to another hospital in Malmedy. Before his treatment could be completed, the Germans also cut short that hospital stay. Mugg couldn’t don a shoe on his sore foot, so he put on seven socks, slipped on an overshoe and walked out into the snow with his fellow patients. The next morning they wandered into a gasoline dump near Spa that was being evacuated. Mugg and Julian rode atop gas cans to Rheims where the Red Cross fed them doughnuts and coffee and took them to a hospital where Mugg’s wound was dressed.

He was sent by ambulance to Paris where his wound was cleaned surgically and he was given penicillin. After a short stop in a Cherbourg hospital where his wound was again cleaned and antibiotics administered, Mugg eventually ended up in a hospital in England. When that doctor asked what the x-rays had shown, Mugg stated that no x-rays had been taken. The doctor was surprised and the follow-up x-rays showed a small artillery fragment lodged in his heel—cause of the pain that had plagued him for months.  It was removed and his recovery was uneventful.

987^th FIELD ARTILLERY BATTALION IN WORLD WAR II (From D-Day in Normandy to VE-Day in Czechoslovakia)
by Harlan Lincoln Harner, 987^th FAB

The 987^th Field Artillery Battalion, minus its 155mm self-propelled guns, left Camp Bowie, Texas 17 February, 1944, and five days later arrived at Camp Shanks, New York, where it prepared for shipment overseas.

On 13 March, the 987^th sailed from New York Harbor with several thousand other servicemen and women aboard the converted French luxury liner He de France, bound for an unescorted crossing of the North Atlantic. After outrunning several German U-boats, the He de France, after nine days at sea, arrived at Greenock, Scotland on March 22^nd.

Upon debarking, the battalion traveled by rail to Camp Bulwark at Chepstow in the south of Wales, where it remained just three weeks before being sent to Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, on the North Sea coast of England. At that location, it worked with the British 50^th (Northumbrian) Division, and waterproofed its vehicles, including its M-12 155mm self-propelled guns mounted on Sherman tank chassis that it received on 2 May, all in preparation for the invasion of Normandy, France.

The First Party, 22 officers and 276 enlisted men, the personnel and equipment needed for operations on the “first wave,” moved 30 miles to Camp R7 at Suffolk, just north of Ipswich, for preliminary briefing, then on 29 May to R6 12 miles south of Ipswich, and on June 1 to Felixstowe, where it loaded onto four LSTs (Landing Ship Tank).

On 5 June, the battalion’s advance party sailed from Felixstowe, past the White Cliffs of Dover and into the English Channel. It arrived on the Normandy coast near La Riviere Harbor at 2000 on D-Day, June 6. Rough seas prevented landing at H hour plus 12, as originally planned. There was a night of fireworks as two Luftwaffe planes attempted to attack along the beach, were fired on from ships and forces on the beachhead, and a British battleship and other naval craft fired on enemy shore batteries and other targets inland. At daybreak, about 30 captured German soldiers were brought aboard and were guarded by members of the 987^th prior to their being taken to a prisoner of war camp in England.

The battalion’s first party landed at King Green Beach in the British Gold Beach sector, about 20 miles east of the U.S. Army’s Omaha Beach, in late morning of 7 June, and took up its first combat position three miles inland, one mile south of Ryes, Normandy, attached to the British 50th (Northumbrian) Division. The war had begun for the 987^th. The rest of the battalion came ashore in the next few days.

The next move for the battalion was to the outskirts of Bayeaux where it was assigned to 5^th AGRA (Army Group Royal Artillery), British 2^nd Army. The 987^th supported the British forces in their effort to capture Caen. On 30 June 1944, the 987^th reverted to U.S. Army command and was attached to V Corps, First Army as corps artillery. In short order, temporary assignment to VII Corps sent the 987^th racing up the Cotentin Peninsula to the outskirts of Cherbourg. But when informed it was not needed it quickly returned to the V Corps sector.

The 987^th supported the 2^nd Armored Division in the 27 July breakthrough at St. Lo and its drive southwest to the coast. The battalion then was part of the race east across France in a major effort to close the Falais Gap and surround numerous thousands of German soldiers to prevent their escape. Many thousands were captured, but other thousands were able to flee east toward the Fatherland. Then, it was on to the French capital. On 30 August the battalion entered Paris with the 5^th Armored Division to wild celebration by French citizens dressed in their finest. There were bouquets of flowers and kisses from French madamoiselles. German snipers still in the city fired on the parading troops, but they were quickly flushed out and killed or captured.

Once through Paris, the 987^th moved northward with the 5^th Armored for that division’s September push through Northern France into Belgium and then to the south and east through Luxembourg and into Germany. With the 5^th Armored, the 987^th‘s 155mm self-propelled guns were the first heavy artillery to crack the Siegfried Line. A heavy German counterattack on 19 September forced the battalion, as part of a combat command of 5^th Armored and 28^th Division troops, from Wallendorf back to Cruchten, where they came under heavy enemy fire, and then back into Luxembourg.

Numerous times the 987^th‘s guns performed direct fire on Siegfried Line pillboxes, well-dug-in, thick, reinforced concrete bunkers manned with machine guns and heavy anti-tank weapons. It knocked out eleven pillboxes in its first penetration of the Siegfried Line, and overall, including a later penetration, the 987^th knocked out about 100 of them.

Platoons and even individual guns of the battalion’s batteries were often separated, supporting different divisions. For instance, at one time one gun of B Battery supported the 8^th Division at Hurtgen, while one platoon of A Battery supported the 104^th Division at Eschweiler, another platoon of A Battery supported the 1^st Division south of Heistein, and the remainder of the battalion was at Rotgen in support of the 78^th Division.

When a German counter-offensive struck on 16 December 1944 in the Ardennes, opening what became known as the Battle of the Bulge, the 987^th‘s gun batteries were separated, supporting various units at Hurtgen, Krinkelt and Elsenborn. On 20 December the battalion moved to a position near Ster, Belgium, the first time the battalion had been together since 8 October 1944.

It was at this time that the battalion sighted the first German “buzz bombs,” self-propelled flying bombs, which flew over the battalion’s position west of Malmedy on their way to Liege, Belgium. One buzz bomb’s motor cut out prematurely and it landed and exploded on a road less than 100 yards from a railroad station being used as B Battery headquarters. The explosion blew out the windows and knocked down the ceilings in the depot, but it resulted in only two persons being slightly injured from flying debris.

The 987^th‘s activity in the Bulge found it supporting the 1^st, 2^nd, 9^th, 28^th, 30^th and 104^th Infantry Divisions and the 7^th Armored Division in the drive to take St. Vith. During December 1944, the 987^th‘s guns fired 7,108 rounds in 271 missions, the most rounds of any month in combat, and nearly 800 more than the previous high in June 1944. The Battle of the Bulge didn’t end until January 24, 1945

Early March, 1945 found the 987^th at Remagen on the Rhine River in Germany helping defend the Ludendorf Railroad Bridge to prevent it from being blown up by retreating German forces. On 9 March, one A Battery gun attached to the 9^th Division crossed the Remagen bridge, the only heavy artillery to do so and the first heavy artillery across the Rhine. By 21 March, the entire battalion had crossed the Rhine on pontoon bridges.

It was at Remagen that members of the battalion first saw German jet planes, which attempted to knock out the bridge to deny its use to U.S. troops. One of our 50-caliber machine guns helped shoot down one of the enemy planes. The German pilot who parachuted was captured by B Battery members.

After crossing the Rhine, the 987^th raced across Germany with First Army, then with General Patton’s 3^rd Army. It moved as far East as the vicinity of Leipzig in eastern Germany. At Werben, near Leipzig, the battalion received its heaviest shelling of the war when German 88mm and 128mm guns of the Leipzig anti-aircraft defense ring turned on our big 155s. On 26 April 1945, the battalion’s two liaison pilots flew two reporters to Torgau on the Elbe River to cover the meeting of the Americans with the Russians.

From Leipzig, the battalion turned south, and on 5 May, crossed the border into Czechoslovakia. On the 7^th, B Battery moved with the 16^th Armored Division spearhead to capture Pilsen, home of Pilsner beer and the Skoda Armament Works. It was on the tankers’ radios the next day, the 8^th of May, that B Battery’s men heard the BBC broadcast that the Germans had surrendered, and the war was over. There was no Pilsner beer to be had, but before leaving Pilsen, a number of B Battery men “liberated” a warehouse full of German brandy, backed up a 2 1/2-ton 6X6 truck and loaded up. The battery commandeer made sure the brandy was shared with the rest of the battalion, which was just outside of the city. The last round fired in combat by the 987^th was on May 4^th by C Battery on the town of Stiebenreith, Germany.

From 31 May to 1 July, 1945, the 987^th was on security guard and road patrol at such places as Mies, Heiligen, Hostice and Horazdovic, Czechoslovakia. It guarded numerous prisoners, including 6,000 members of the SS, and during May, the battalion captured 122 enemy soldiers.

For its part in the war that subdued Nazi Germany, the 987 FA Bn was awarded the Normandy Invasion arrowhead and five battle stars for all the European campaigns-Normandy, Northern France, Ardennes, Rhineland and Central Europe. From 6 June 1944 to 31 May 1945, the 987^th in whole or in part, was assigned, attached to, or in support of the following units:

Armies—Second British, First US and Third US Corps-30^th British; III, V, VII and XVIIIAB US Infantry Divisions-British 49^th and 50^th, and US 1^st, 2^nd, 4^th, 8^th, 9^th, 28^th 30^th, 69^th, 78^th, 97^th, 99^th and 104^th. Armored Divisions-US 2^nd, 5^th, 7^th, 9^th, 16^th and British 7^th Airborne Divisions—82^nd Field Artillery Groups-5^th Royal Artillery, US 187^th, 188^th 190^th, 258^th, 351^st, 406^th and 408^th.

The 987^th traveled some 1,850 miles from the Normandy beachhead to Czechoslovakia, fired 45,058 rounds, including 1,517 captured enemy projectiles, had 9 men killed in action and 74 wounded, and captured 256 enemy soldiers. Air Ops flew 306 sorties totaling 580 hours. One of the battalion’s observation planes was shot down by Messerschmidts in France.

Men of the 987^th were awarded one Distinguished Service Cross, 11 Silver Stars, 90 Bronze Stars, 77 Purple Hearts, 16 Air Medals, one Croix de Guerre avec Palms (French), one Distinguished Service Order (British), and one Military Cross (British). Two sergeants were given battlefield commissions.

Though it was heavy artillery, the 987^th‘s mobility resulted in its often being on the front lines with the infantry. One U.S. general in the Hurtgen Forest, who had never seen the M-12 with its big 155mm gun that could fire and move quickly, called it our secret weapon after he observed it in direct fire on enemy fortifications.

The 987^th Field Artillery Battalion was one of numerous individual units in the European Theatre that fought courageously, with little time out of the front lines but got little of the credit they deserved because they were not part of a specific division. But the men of the 987^th were there when they were needed, impressed not only the enemy but also the American units they supported, and they contributed mightily to victory over an enemy that had brutally killed and enslaved millions.