Douglas Harvey Pvt. Antitank Platoon, 1st Battalion, Headquarters Company, 334th Regiment, 84th Infantry Division

December 20, 1944

We had just ended our first month of combat in and around Prummern, Beeck, Leiffarth, and Wurm.  These are villages in the Siegfried line North of Aachen, Germany where our casualty numbers nearly exceeded the initial number of men in the Battalion.  As we got ready to leave, December 20, 1944, it turned out to the Bulge; we thought our unit was going to a rest area to reorganize the Battalion.  Our convoy traveled for two days stopping for at least two night’s rest.  I remember spending a night in a large chateau, sleeping in what appeared to be the upper floor under the roof.  The windows in the room were of the so-called dormer type.  The large room was unfinished with the roof rafters showing.  On returning to Belgium many years later I tried to locate the building but failed.  We also slept on a concrete floor in what appeared to be a school.  Our truck traveled most of the time with the headlights on.  This made us feel that we were many miles from any action.  It also somewhat supported the rumor of going to a rest area.  We had little information at the squad level.  The road signs and village names indicated Belgium or perhaps Luxembourg.  We did not know that the German Army was charging toward us.  At the end of our two-day drive we stopped in the small Belgian village of Bourdon.  There were rumors that Germans had been seen along our route.  This I doubt as the route we traveled was North and West of the German advances.  On the way to Belgium we passed through Pallenberg, Alsdorf, Aachen, Verviers, Durbury, and then stopped in Bourdon.  At the time I never heard anything about Germans posing as GIs in rear areas.  Most history books cover this to a great extent.  There are claims that it caused much trouble.  Actually there were almost no Germans in GI uniforms; it was mostly rumor.  Even the German paratroop attack was a failure.  The closest German troops to our route were those in Hotton, probably 3 miles away.  When we arrived in Bourdon we, at least I, had no idea of why we were there or what was happening.

Bourdon in the Belgian Ardennes seemed remote, safe, and distant from all the living hell we had left a few days before.  As usual, there were more rumors than facts.  We billeted in a barn and collected rumors.  Depending on which were true the German Army was in the next town or miles away.  I don’t remember hearing gunfire but I was a very sound sleeper and could have been sleeping through any.  In fact the German Panzers were approaching Verdenne just over the hill south of Bourdon.

The afternoon of December 24th, Bob Davies and I were ordered to make up a daisy chain.  We used eight mines from the stock carried on our Dodge 6 by 6 truck.  A commandeered Belgian rope was used to connect the mines together.  Our squad leader led us to a position before the first switch back in the road leading up a hill toward woods to the southeast.  Later I found the forest up the hill between the villages of Bourdon, Verdenne, and Marenne was the location of the 116 Panzer infiltration. Our roadblock was only a short distance from the comfortable barn hayloft billet where we spent the previous night.  Orders were if attacked; let the first two tanks go by and pull the mines in front of the third tank.  Our position was in the open with no possibility of cover.  The hillside was totally bare, not even a small bush.  This was truly a mission impossible.  There were no ditches or structures within 150 yards.  Any enemy tank coming down the road would see us immediately on turning the upper switch back a short distance away.  It was possible they would have been so startled by our pluck or stupidity that they would have backed off thinking it was a trap of some kind.

Approximately a half-hour before dark a Divisional M8 Greyhound armored reconnaissance vehicle appeared from the direction of Bourdon.  An officer was waist high out of the turret hatch.  The vehicle went around the first switch back and on up the hill.  An M8 Greyhound is a six-rubber tired armored vehicle with a 37-mm gun turret.  We wondered where it was going and why.  Any way we had no information to give the officer had he asked.  It did not even slow down as it passed us and disappeared around the switch back.  Within a minute the vehicle came back around the upper switchback and down the hill with the throttle wide open.  No one was in sight and when it reached our position.  The vehicle stopped sliding all six tires.  A small part of the officer’s head appeared in the turret hatch shouting, “there are ten German tanks coming down the road, hold at all costs”.  Gears clashed and the engine roared as the vehicle disappeared down the road into Bourdon.

I learned later that the Germans were using captured M8 vehicles to lead some attack columns.  This possibility never entered our minds when we saw the vehicle coming past us.  We only had a vague idea of which way the Germans might come from.  At the time I felt Bourdon was south of Verdenne.  I had been given no map or compass; as privates our only responsibility was to take orders and follow the leader.  After the report and order from the Cavalry Lieutenant there was no doubt about the direction to the Germans.  I have determined since then that we were in the exact center of enemy’s main attack.  Orders to the 116 Panzers were to cut the Marché-Hotton Road that was to the north of our position.  In fact this road could be easily seen from our elevated position.  With heavily defended Marché on one end and Hotton on the other Verdenne and Bourdon were the logical points to attempt a breakthrough.

I have attempted to find an origin for the phrase “hold at all costs”.  I could not find any authority that traced the history of the statement.  It was used in the American Civil War and in the First World War.  I feel that almost all Officers that gave this order immediately left the area in the direction away from the enemy.  It is positively un-American to accept a suicide mission.  Suicide missions generally involve religion.  Persons volunteering for these missions feel they will get some reward in an afterlife.  Not wanting to disgrace their family or let the Emperor down was the motivation for the Kamikaze pilots in the Pacific.  I had already shown that I was not a coward, but none of the factors leading to a voluntary suicide mission applied to me.  I was not going to hold at all costs if my life was the currency.  Considering our position the only cost to the Germans would be a few machinegun cartridges.

After the M8 armored vehicle passed I quickly scouted the area for some cover.  Digging a foxhole in the possibly frozen and hard ground in the time that seemed available was out of the question.  The nearest good cover was down the hill in a railroad track siding.  There was a railroad car weighing scale pit.  Our rope was too short to reach the pit so we just stood by the side of the road and hoped for the best.  If we pulled the rope ahead of the first tank I think we would have had at least a 5% chance of one of us making the railroad pit.  If we waited for any tanks to pass the first one would have used its machinegun on us.  It was so quiet that we felt the reconnaissance officer may have just been seeing things.  We stayed on this position until well after dark but heard no tank engines and no tanks appeared.  I knew from my experience in Leiffarth, Germany that tanks could not approach undetected as the noise of the engine and the flop-flop of the treads can be heard from some distance.  The road on the hillside had two switchbacks after it came out of the woods.  We easily heard the recon-vehicle as it approached the switchback up the hill above us.

The tanks were there, as I discovered many years later, in the area now known as the Verdenne Pocket.  It is also reported in Heinz Gunther Guderian’s book, “From Normandy to the Ruhr With the 116th Panzer Division World War II” that their orders were to cut the Hotton-Marché road, which was down the hill and across the railroad track from our position.  Our two-man roadblock was the only defensive position in the way of this objective.  Since that time I have pondered reasons why an attack was not made down the hill.  The most probable is the German Commander Johannes Bayer did not want to sacrifice his men to a lost cause.  Fuel and other supplies were also a problem for the somewhat cutoff group.  I learned later that they had broken through our thinly manned foxhole line between Marché and Hotton to occupy the woods.  Also the 116 Panzer Division had driven our troops out of Verdenne.  A rifleman from one of our units described this attack to me.  Our heavy 30 caliber water-cooled machine guns were able to each fire only one round.  Water in the cooling jackets had frozen so the mechanism could not function.  The rifleman escaped down the back yards of a street in Verdenne with a enemy tank following him.  He vaulted over the back yard fences, which the tank was easily knocking down behind him.

We reported the incident of the recon-vehicle to our squad leader and as usual, he did nothing.  I will probably never know if whoever was directing our movements in this area received a report from the officer in reconnaissance vehicle.  However, the action of Company K 333 indicated they didn’t know.  As usual, the so-called fog of war was very thick.  I also do not know whether any one was on our position when Company K 333 took this road up the hill thinking it was the way to Verdenne.  A platoon from company K was assigned the task of recapturing Verdenne.  I feel sure that our antitank squad members would have told them about the reported enemy tanks up the road.  When the Platoon from Company K came on the German tanks in the woods they thought they were their support tanks to aid them in retaking Verdenne.  When one of them rapped on the side of a tank to let them know that they were ready to advance on Verdenne the answer was “Vas ist los”.  The excursion of K 333 past our position is covered in the Leinbaugh/Campbell Book.  “The Men Of Company K”.  See pages134-144

In the fight with the German tanks and their supporting infantry several of the men from K 333 were wounded.  However, most of them got back down the hill. Of course the tanks that the reconnaissance officer told us about at least six hours before were the ones found by K 333.  Why there was not better transfer of information was probably due to military protocol.  The reconnaissance officer was from some attached cavalry unit.  He would have reported to his unit commander who would report of someone in division headquarters who might possibly pass it down.  Davies and I reported it to our squad leader; we had no other possibility or responsibility.

We left the position when relieved by two others from our platoon around ten.  We told them about the reported tanks.  I feel they must have left the position, as they would have reported the possibility of German tanks up the hill.  We were relieved around two hours before K 333 men passed.  The first time I learned of the Company K 333 venture up the hill was when reading Leinbaugh’s book over 50 years after the event.

After a little sleep that night, we were awakened around midnight to prepare for the recapture of Verdenne.  We did find the correct road and entered around 0200 December 25 1944.  This road went up the hill with the woods on the left that was the location of the pocket (referred to in Guderian’s book as the hedgehog).

Guderian also reported that General Hasso Eccard von Manteuffel, head of the Fifth Panzer Army, was in Grimbiemont two miles to the southeast on December 24, 1944.  He was there to order an attack on the Marche Hotton Road.  This attack if made would have of course gone through our roadblock.

Draper reported in his book “The 84 Infantry Division in the Battle of Germany”, that the retaking of Verdenne started at 0100 25 December 1944.

“As soon as the German position was sized up a second attack was launched at 0100 25 December.”  (Draper wrongly considered the aborted excursion up the hill by K 333 as the first attack on Verdenne.  They were more than a mile away.)  Draper goes on:  “This time by the 333rd’s Company L and the 334th’s Company K, the later down to approximately 40 men.  It was now, Christmas morning. Our attack began with a heavy artillery and mortar barrage.

While shelling was still going strong, Company L entered.  The first two platoons to go in were temporarily outnumbered and were engaged from three sides.  One enemy tank began to move in close.  A rifleman S/Sgt. Edward T Reineke, took careful aim, chose the tank commander as his target, and killed him.  The tank stopped, Reineke ran toward it, jumped, dropped a grenade into the turret, and finished the job himself.  This one-man victory turned the tide.  The two platoons swept through the town and dug in on the opposite side while the rest moved to mop up.  It was dark and many Germans were left.  Another tank showed up and terrorized the town until daylight.”

When we arrived in Verdenne less than an hour after the start of the attack we saw the tank that Reineke had attacked.  From the location of the dead Commander we felt he was probably standing on top when hit.  It may have been getting ready to move or just standing there waiting for something to happen.  Reineke single-handed killed the crew and put this tank out of action.  Many have gotten a Congressional Medal of Honor for less.  Reineke did get a Silver Star for his aggressive action.  At least two Germans were dead inside the tank.  One was in the turret and the other in the machine gunners seat.  The engine was off.  I feel they were getting into the tank and were surprised by the attack.  This tank was later started and driven down toward the pocket by a GI with the intention of firing the turret gun at the German positions in the woods (the Verdenne pocket).  This never happened and later the tank was disabled by blowing off the end of the turret gun with an explosive.  Chuck Car of our platoon climbed in the tank and removed the radio and used it for listing to radio broadcasts from the US armed services network.  Later when listening to this liberated radio he was the first in our unit to hear of President Roosevelt’s death.  This same tank is pictured in publications covering the 1944 battle in and around Verdenne.  the Book was published as part of the 50-year commemoration held in and around Verdenne.

I still don’t know what our mission was during the attack on Verdenne.  We were an antitank unit, but were not called on to fight the tank that Draper’s book indicated was terrorizing the town that early a.m. of Christmas day.  As usual the rifle platoon leader was not told of our presence.  I felt at the time that the German Troops did not expect any action on Christmas and were possibly partying.  A lot of prisoners were taken during the 25th and we helped in searching and guarding them.  By midday our trucks brought up our 57-mm antitank guns and the trucks were used to transport prisoners to Bourdon.  The road from Verdenne to Bourdon passed near the woods occupied by the Germans, the so-called Verdenne pocket.  Each time we drove the road we were fired on by automatic weapons.  The trips were made after dark and no one was hit.

During the 25 and 26 December most of the Antitank Platoon were in Verdenne on the North side of town.  Unknown to us at the time, we were only yards from the Verdenne Castle and the battles around it.  Sometime in the afternoon of the 26 a German tank was reported as crossing the field southeast of Verdenne.  The time agrees with the German Task Force Bayer’s breakout from the pocket at 1800 hours.

One of the tanks turning right (southwest) was most likely the one reported to us.  Our support tanks (Shermans) refused to go southeast down the street to engage the German tank, a Mark IV.  Several from the antitank platoon, myself included, volunteered to push our 57mm gun down the street and fire on the tank.  We moved our gun around 100 yards to a point where the tank was in sight in the open field to the south.  For some reason it had stopped, perhaps it was out of fuel or had mechanical problems.  We set the gun trails on the hard surface street and aimed the gun.  Several looked through the telescopic sight.  I found a stick to fire the shell as without the trails dug in the gun jumps back several feet from the recoil.  A 57mm antitank gun is usually fired from a kneeling position.  Elevation is by a crank screw and direction from a shoulder frame.  Sergeant Cable was about to fire the gun kneeling as I approached with the stick shouting to get back, don’t fire it that way it will back over you.  I think then he realized what would happen and moved clear.  I hit the firing pad with the stick and the gun jumped at least six feet back from the recoil.  Immediately, the view of the tank was obscured by a dust cloud from the muzzle blast.  One of the riflemen watching from across the street shouted, “You hit it, you hit it”.  Several more shots were registered on the tank from our gun.  Then one of our Shermans came roaring down the street fired a round as it came to a stop and then backed rapidly up the street.  It was the tank that refused to engage the German tank earlier.  I’m sure it reported that it knocked out the tank.

The crew of our gun all received Bronze Star awards for hitting the tank.  The citation read as follows:

“For meritorious service in connection with military operations against the enemy in Belgium, December 26, 1944. As a member of a gun crew occupying a position from which effective fire could not be placed on an enemy tank which was firing on friendly forces, Private First Class Harvey, completely disregarding his own safety, in full view of the enemy and under direct fire, together with four other soldiers, moved an anti-tank gun by hand a distance of approximately 50 yards and from this new position delivered fire which destroyed the enemy tank.  The dauntless, daring action, disdain for danger and exemplary conduct displayed by Private First Class Harvey enabled his unit to continue its advance and reflect the highest credit upon himself and the service of the United States.”

We were not fired on and I felt other actions that I was in were more worthy of the award.  The German tanks that retreated that day had to pass through our defense, which was essentially an ambush.  In our sector Hitler’s “Wacht Am Rhein” was stopped and had had gone on the defense.

References:

Draper “The 84th Infantry Division in The Battle of Germany”, The Viking Press, New York, 1946.

Leinbaugh/Campbell “The Men Of Company K” William Morrow and Company, New York, 1985.

Guderian “From Normandy to the Ruhr With the 116th Panzer Division World War II” English Translation, The Aberjona Press, Bedford, Pennsylvania, 2001.

click here to read my story

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.