One day of Battle at Houyire Hill, January 3, 1945

This presentation is an attempt to give you an overall picture of “B” Company’s attack, its failure and possibly an explanation of what happened and why.

By December 24, 1944, the 1st S.S. Panzer Division is kaput. The 526th has helped to stop the best the Germans could muster in 1944. We have paid the price in men and blood for our battle star and Combat Infantry Badge.

 For the 526th and especially “B” Company the worst is yet to come. The German Army is not defeated and behind Colonel Peiper lay a veteran division pulled out of Norway for their drive into Belgium. They had taken the city of St Vith and now they were dug in on the high ground above Baugnez, Geromont, Otaimont and Hedomont. They are well equipped, well deployed and well dressed in their grey-green and white reversible uniforms.

The story really starts on the morning of January 2, 1945 when Colonel Irwin is notified that quote “in two or three days the 526th will conduct a raid using approximately 50 men.” End of quote. The company chosen for the attack is “B”.

 At about 11:30 the same morning the battalion is notified it would not be a raid but quote “A limited objective attack of company strength on Houyire Hill at 810007. The attack will be tomorrow January 3rd.

At 2 P.M. that day, Colonel Irwin reported to the 30th Division H.Q., here he was briefed and then went to the Regimental H.Q. of the 120th Regiment, our parent organization. There he received orders for the attack. It is now 3:30 P.M. At 6:15 P.M. he returns to Battalion C.P. and at a meeting of staff and Company C.O.’s issues orders for an attack at 8:30 A.M. January 3rd.

Also accompanying is in the attack area is “I” Company of the 120th Regiment. This is of considerable interest to us for two reasons.
1. We are now a part of and entered in the history book of the 120th Regiment and
2. The part played by the tanks assigned to “I” Company

I now quote from the history book of the 120th. “Company “B” 526th was to drive through Hedomont and Baugnez for the hill called Houyire 1500 yards S.W. of Baugnez. It was to be supported by artillery fire from the 1st Battalion and to be prepared to withdraw on orders. Company “I” of the 120th was to attack the area southeast of Otaimont. Its orders were to take prisoners and withdraw on orders to regular position.

Still quoting from their history. At 8:30 A.M. both companies moved out on schedule. The day was foggy, snowing and observation was difficult. Company “I” made good progress until they were well into German lines when the enemy opened up from well camouflaged positions that had been covered with snow. The tankers speeding through the town helped flush out the enemy and the company was able to extricate itself. Company “I” took many casualties and at 7:30 P.M. with 3 prisoners according to plan withdrew.

Resistance proved stiffer for Company “B” 526th. They reached Hedomont but just beyond ran into withering machine gun fire which made it clear the Germans intended to hold Houyire at any cost. Company “B” with at 5:30 P.M.”. End of report and quote.

Now let’s return to our story and the morning of January 3rd. We had been issued white long johns and white towels to put over our uniforms. We were issued extra ammo. I remember we commented about what good aiming points the green and white made. The C.P.’s have been set up; medical half tracks are placed for casualties.

Communication is to be by radio except for a wire line that is to be with Lieutenant Bernstein and the 1st Platoon. Captain Wessel will ride a tank with radio communication to others. It is cold, foggy, and snowing on occasion and visibility is limited. Our artillery from 1st Battalion 120th starts firing on predetermined targets and we are moving out.

At 8:30 A.M. and 8:40 A.M. the 2nd Platoon under Lieutenant Batt and 3rd Platoon under Lieutenant Halbin leave the line of departure in an area named Floriheid at 790033. They skirt a mine field at 790031 and head for Hedomont. The 2nd is on the right and the 3rd on the left.

Captain Wessel on his tank with the radio communication is to meet the infantry near Hedomont at point 795022. He arrives there too soon and is fired upon and withdraws to await the infantry. The 2nd Platoon has already taken three casualties from or own artillery and it has put a light machine gun out of action.

The infantry continues the attack and a German outpost starts firing and Joe Farina, the pointman, is killed. Felix Garcia returns fire and kills the German. The rest of the line moves forward until a machine gun opens fire. Warren Watson with Crugar and Gardiner giving covering fire kills the two machine gunners. Nearby another German jumping from behind a tree empties his burp gun hitting no one and is killed by bullets from several men.

It is now 9:15 A.M. and the infantry is in part of Hedomont. Captain Wessel on the tank platoon leader tank has made contact with them. He is to communicate with the C.P. using their SCR 238 radio. He has had no communication with Lieutenant Bernstein or the 1st Platoon. Apparently he has had none with his C.P. Time is taken here for reorganization of the 2nd and 3rd Platoons and the attack is continued.

At Baugnez 1st Platoon of “A” Company under Lieutenant Beardslee at 8:30 A.M. proceeded to 814020. They take two casualties from enemy artillery at 808023 but move on to set up flanking protection in a semi circle from 814012 to 814020. They are to receive intermittent small arms and mortar fire all day. They are finally ordered to withdraw at 8 P.M. and the last get back to their area at 10:15 P.M.

Things have gone very poorly with 1st Platoon under Lieutenant Bernstein. They leave Geromont proceed up the road to 810020 where they head south toward the objectif 810007 Houyire Hill. Enemy artillery hits soon after we leave the road. John Lopez is killed and Sergeant Magnuson is knocked for a flip but not hit by shrapnel and recovers.

We proceed on to 808015 where we are met by heavy machine gun and mortar fire from the woods ahead of us. The front line Johnny Hess, Ralph Iverson, Bill Duncan, D. J. Johnson and others are dead. The attack continues and one machine gun is captured and the two men are made prisoners. Some want to kill them but fortunately they are taken back otherwise 13 of us later captured would be dead.

Some are now in the woods and some of us are on the hillside in the snow. Art Allen come along side of me with his light machine gun. He is also out of ammo. He has already lost two loaders he tells me. John Bush is trying to work his way forward in front of us. He flops over in the snow dead. Art decides to go back for more ammo and a loader. I decide to try for the woods. It takes a couple of dive in the snow to escape an machine gun but somehow I made it. I later discovered the pants pushed under the long johns on my back have several holes in them.

It must be 9:30 A.M. Part of the platoon is in the woods and the rest are scattered over the hillside dead, wounded or pinned down. Back at Hedomont, the reorganization completed, the attack is continued and ordered. You continue about 200 yards to 797019. Here the leading squad becomes victim of a machine gun off to the right in a barn. Sergeant Schuster has been killed earlier by a hand grenade and now Sergeant Haefs, Bernard Ward, Warren Blankenship, Oliver Love, and Warren Watson are all hit. Sergeant Black returns fire with his machine gun but is also wounded with a bullet through his right eye.

The tank with Captain Wessel moves up to fire a couple of rounds at the barn with no result noted. The attack continues as far as 799017 but now we come under fire from another machine gun at 805016 which has also hit the 1st Platoon. Again the tank fires a couple of rounds with no results. We are pinned down and enemy mortar rounds are starting to drop around us. Artillery is called for but refused because men from 1st Platoon are in that area.

It is now 11:30 A.M. and Captain Wessel has had no contact with his C.P. in the rear at 790033 nor has he heard anything from 1st Platoon. He returns to the C.P. to make contact with Battalion. He is told to hold and defend Hedomont. He is also told the tanks will withdraw at dusk. He returns to Hedomont with the orders at 2:30 P.M. and then returns to the company C.P.

Meanwhile men of the 2nd and 3rd are trying to find any cover they can. Felix Garcia with bullets thumping around him decides to make a run for a barn. He makes it but his canteen doesn’t. In the barn are Sergeant Black and Walter Volinski both wounded. Joe Ricks from the medical detachment exposes himself to pull a man back to the cover of the dirt road. Just before he gets to the road near Lieutenant Halbin an enemy bullet kills him. Wounded men like Watson are trying to work their way back to the C.P. and medical assistance. Sergeant Horvat helps a badly wounded Sergeant Fazio back and returns to Hedomont with supplies. Lieutenant Halbin with a badly dislocated knee returns to the C.P. on way to an operation in Liège.

At about 11:30 A.M. when everything seemed to be stalled Colonel Irwin calls Lieutenant Batt away from 2nd Platoon and sends him to find out what happened to Lieutenant Bernstein and the 1st Platoon. He takes 3 men and goes to Baugnez. There he contacts Lieutenant Beardslee and 1st Platoon “A” Company. No one has heard from Lieutenant Bernstein since 8:30 A.M. Lieutenant Batt starts up the hill and contacts 3 men crawling back down who have been under the machine gun at 805016. They are from 3 different squads. One is a machine gunner who is out of ammunition. Lieutenant Batt asks how many men have been lost. They don’t know and say a lot. He can hear a fire fight going on up in the woods. He continues working his way up the hill and met some men with Lieutenant Johnson. None of these people had seen Lieutenant Bernstein since 8:30. Lieutenant Batt started to return and was pinned down for a time by machine guns at 805016 and 805018. They worked their way out and reported to Colonel Irwin. Lieutenant Johnson and the men and they build on the right flank of 1st Platoon “A” Company.

We in the woods find it is no sanctuary and we are trying to find any cover we can. At the same time with burp guns and hand grenades the Germans are trying to bring other machine guns in on us. Swanstrum and Sciarra working their machine gun help to discourage them. They are both to end up with shrapnel souvenirs. We are trapped and with no communication. We keep looking for the tanks or the rest of the company.

Finally Lieutenant Bernstein sends Warren Clutter out to make contact. He doesn’t get far before he is cut down. I just heard this year that he did make it back. Then Bernstein takes off heading down the hill but a bullet in his posterior puts him in a shell hole and he is later captured.

As we all remember shortly before dusk, the Germans started their counter attack with a barrage of mortar, rocket and artillery fire. The bombardment lasts 20 minutes. To those of us in the woods it was tree limbs, snow and metal coming down followed by hand grenades and burp guns. I take a bullet through my left foot and one through the right shoe. Near By Jim Coslett is cut up by four bullets and will die as a P.O.W. Behind me Sergeant Leo Day and Ralph Russel are killed. Sergeant Magnuson finally calls out Commeradon – the firing stops.

We are relieved of our cigarettes, candy, food, watches, etc. A German soldier about our age helps get my shoe off. We put the bandage on and he makes a tourniquet to slow the bleeding. We are marched back to an area where a medic looks at us but doesn’t do anything. There are 13 of us left. Eight of us have collected Purple Hearts.

We are sat in a semi-circle then taken to a small farm house where we are interrogated by a German officer who speaks very good English. He already knew more about us than we did. He told Lieutenant Bernstein “My men wish to honor your men for the bravery with which you fought but you never had a chance”. For us the battle is over.

 It is not over for the rest of you. Shortly before the barrage starts Ray Holderman, who has already collected one piece of mortar shell, decides they aren’t in a very secure place along side a small hedgerow. McCaslin, Morrow, Wood and Gattis all agree that the machine gun and mortars are getting too friendly and they manage to get back to safer ground. Cotton Potter discovers that the machine gun he has been packing all morning really wouldn’t have worked as a piece of shrapnel has destroyed the operating mechanism. Everyone is hunkering down now trying not to become a target. The cold is beginning to make itself known. Captain Wessel has a new radio and is just leaving the C.P. for Hedomont.

Now comes the bombardment and the tanks take off refusing to wait for any of our wounded. The counter attack comes. There are about 130 white clad Germans. They are hard to see. Orders are given to withdraw and by 5:15 P.M. we are back to the original line of departure. Lieutenant Jacques will spent most of the night trying to account for everyone and get the casualty lists.

When it is over “B” Company has captured 4 Germans from the 2nd and 3rd Companies of the 293rd Regiment of the 18th Volksgrenadiers. The official after action report says we killed approximately 25.

Our attack was a feint, not a main attack, but we were sacrificed to get the Germans to commit their reserves to our area. I understand it worked and they did commit them but we paid quite a price.

 Some conclusions I have reached on what went wrong.

 I – There was very poor intelligence and apparently very little organization. It appears the attack was conceived without real preparation. No one seems to have known what the enemy had or where it was located. We went from a 50 men raid to de done in two or three days to a two company attack the next morning with less than six hours of preparation.

 II – There was a real problem with communication. This is also a planning problem but apparently none of the equipment was tested or put together until we were in the attack. Lieutenant Bernstein was supposed to have a wire phone. What happened to that I don’t know but apparently there was no backup unit. Captain Wessel never heard from Bernstein after 08:30. Yet Battalion, if it knew the problem, did nothing until about noon when it took Lieutenant Batt from his platoon. Why not someone in H.Q., From the after action report quote “It was now 11:30 and because there had been no contact with his rear C.P. up to this time, Captain Wessel returned to his C.P.” He was starting to return with a 509 radio when the counter attack began.

III – The artillery and tanks. Others than the initial barrage on the prepared targets, we could apparently get no further help from the artillery. There is some question about the tanks. We supposedly had one platoon of medium tanks from the 743rd and one Tank Destroyer gun from the 823rd T.D. Battalion. Did we have them and if so what did they do? Even the SCR 538 radio, Captain Wessel tried to use apparently didn’t work. They wouldn’t even take our wounded back.

Remember I quoted from the 120th history. “”I” Company had become entrapped but the tanks hurrying through Otaimont had moved the Germans out so the company could extricate itself”. Well it seems we got a different kind of tankers? They sure didn’t contribute much to our attack or defense.

IV – The weather.

I suppose we can say the weather is the same on both sides of a field, so it didn’t contribute to our defeat, but the Germans were not open and exposed so they probably benefited the most. We all agree the weather was terrible and the Krauts were better prepared for it than we were.

V – We were green. This was our first attack.

Final Conclusion. 

It is interesting to note in this game of chess called war, if you are the General or player who gets to move the pawns, you can do the same thing over and over until you get it right or run out of men.

Let me quote you from the history of the 120th Regiment. “On January 13th the 3rd Battalion of the 120th of the 30th Division was sent in deep snow to take Houyire. The casualties sustained by all three companies reached a new high. They finally took Houyire. Company “I” strength was now that of a strong platoon.”

Source:  http://www.battleofthebulgememories.be/

AMERICAN PATRIOTISM

“If they won’t give us a flag, we’ll make one,” said First Lieutenant Samuel Lombardo, platoon leader Second Platoon, Company I, 394th Infantry Regiment, 99th Division, during the Battle of the Bulge in World War II. The platoon made this United States 48-star flag from scraps of cloth sewn on a white German surrender flag.

When Company I crossed the Remagen Bridge, their flag, only one side completed, became the first American flag in the 99th Division east of the Rhine River. During breaks in the battle, working mostly by candlelight, the flag was completed after two and one-half months, on the banks of the Danube River.

The flag is in the collection of the National Infantry Museum, Fort Benning, Georgia.

Back Row: Left to Right: Pfc. Gordon Wetherby, Charlestown, NH; T/Sgt Isadore Rosen, Pittsburgh, PA; Pfc. George E. Bellaire, Dayton, OH; 1^st Lt. Samuel Lombardo, Altoona, PA

 Front Row: Left to Right: Corp. Cury Beauvais, Chicopee Falls, MA; S/Sgt William Junod, Wyandotte, MI

Published by Lombardo Books, Carlisle, PA 17013

Printed by Beidel Printing House Inc. Shippensburg, PA 17257

The Bulge with the 38^th Cavalry Squadron
and the 146^th Engineer Combat Battalion

On the morning of 16 December 1944, the well orchestrated German attack in the Ardennes (Wacht am Rhein – a subterfuge hiding their offensive intentions behind a pretended defense) was launched.  Because Hitler suspected a security leak within his Wehrmacht, he limited disclosures of the attack plans to only his most trusted generals.  He was unaware that the British had broken his secret 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 high level commanders were caught completely off guard even though many of us at the line level were antsy about all of the enemy activity nearby along our front.  In general, the Wehrmacht followed the mandated radio secrecy orders but there were enough slip-ups by their air force and civilian transportation units to have given our top-level commanders sufficient insight had they not been so over-confident that they discounted these critical intercepts.

At 1520 hours on 16 December, Colonel Pattillo from V Corps called Major Baker S-3 of the 146th Engineer Combat Battalion and ordered a company of engineers to be immediately attached to the 38th Cavalry Squadron at Monschau, to serve as infantry.  “A” Company was in the line at 1700 that evening where they supported for the out-numbered troopers.  The 38th Cavalry was at the northern tip of the Bulge and just north of Lt Colonel McClernand Butler’s 3rd Battalion, 395th Infantry Regiment, 99th Infantry Division, at Hofen.  (The 395th held their ground and so was not involved in a command restructuring which placed the remainder of the 99th Division under command of the 2nd Infantry Division.) 

For several days this small force — including 3rd Platoon, “A” Company, 112th Engineer Combat Battalion, and attached 105mm and 155mm artillery fought off several attacks by vastly superior enemy forces.  Several times they called artillery fire onto their own positions to thwart these attacks.  Canister rounds 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.  According to Cavalry on the Shoulder, the 38th Cavalry was the only mechanized cavalry squadron to be so honored in WWII.  The 146th Engineer Combat Battalion had received a Presidential Unit Citation for their D-Day anti-boat obstacle demolition mission on Omaha Beach, so this added an oak leaf cluster of “A” Company’s PUC.  “A” Company, 612th Tank Destroyer Battalion fought nearby and was told that they were awarded a Meritorious Unit Citation — Unconfirmed.

The battlefield success of the 38th Cavalry Squadron in the Bulge was due to a number of elements, including a seasoned cadre who had fought from Normandy, but probably the most important item being their commanding officer — Lt Colonel Robert O’Brien — a 1936 West Point cavalry graduate.  He was fanatical in his dedication to patrolling the area forward of his lines — to the extent that the 38th came to “own the area between the fronts”!  Initially, this was not the case, but came to pass after several fierce firefights that inflicted heavy casualties on enemy patrols. 

This recounting of the Monschau defense is from Cavalry on the Shoulder:  “An example of the quick and deadly fights initiated by patrols is the instance at the end of October, 1944, when a “B” Troop patrol lead by First Lieutenant Weldon J. Yontz, fought a sharp action against a German patrol in the thick pine forests of the Ardennes.  The cavalry point man, Private Herbert H. Whittard, spotted the enemy first and motioned the cavalry men into position to spring an ambush.  Waiting in cover, the cavalry troopers engaged the enemy patrol at close range that killed or wounded all 22 of them.” 

 “Prisoners later revealed that this enemy patrol was handpicked from the reconnaissance company of the opposing German infantry regiment.  This type of aggressive acting 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 preparation of the defense at Monschau may rank as one of the most thorough defenses by an American battalion – size unit in U.S. Army history.  The cavalry men, taking stock of their equipment, time available, and the aggressive spirit of the troopers, quickly established the defense which made maximum use of all available assets.  The defense was unique in many respects.  First, the establishment of patrol dominance denied the enemy detailed knowledge of the squadron’s disposition and strength.  Thus any attacking enemy would be forced to guess where the units were deployed, and where the squadron was weak and where it was strong.”

“A second aspect of the defense was the unusual attention to ensuring integrated command, control and communications.  To this end the squadron employed 16 radio nets, incorporating over 60 radios.  The high number of radios – several times the number found in an infantry battalion – supplemented a remarkable wire communications system consisting of 65 telephones, 50 miles of telephone wire, and six switchboards.  The wire command and control system integrated all squads, platoons, troops and supporting artillery into a single web.”

“This effort is even more amazing, considering the fact that the squadron was not authorized communication specialists.  The system was designed to function even if a portion of it were destroyed.  It also permitted very small units, in some cases individual four-man machine gun positions and two-man artillery observer teams, to continue to function and receive orders even when cut off from their immediate headquarters.  Additionally, all of the wire was buried deep to protect it from enemy infiltrators, accidental cuts and enemy artillery fire.  Finally, the entire wire system was duplicated, so that each line had a back-up in the event of failure.  This communication system would provide essential to the coordinated defense across such a large sector of front (about six miles) by so small a unit.” 

“The third unique factor which characterized the defense of Monschau was the extremely precise and effective positioning of the available weapons, obstacles and units.  Machine guns were one of the keys to the defense.  The 38th Cavalry dismounted .50 caliber and .30 caliber machine guns from terrain surrounding the town.  The 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 associated with extensive minefields.”

“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 machinegun 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 U.S. Army — the thorough integration and abundance of artillery support — 105mm and 155mm howitzers, augmented by their organic 60mm and 81mm mortars.”

“The effectiveness of the artillery support was later verified by a German prisoner of war.  He reported that German troops in the Monschau sector were forbidden to leave their bunkers and foxholes during the hours of daylight.  The German troops 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.” 

 At 1525 hours on 16 December, Colonel McDonough, the 1121 Engineer Group commander, called our headquarters and ordered another engineer company to be deployed as infantry.  The three “B” Company platoons moved into position the following 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 German advance should they manage to penetrate our lines.  The 3rd Platoon patrolled a 2,000 yard front in the snow. 

 We set up three machine guns in defensive positions and patrolled between them, but being in a semi-wooded area we had inadequate fields of fire and would have been overrun or bypassed by any determined enemy attack in force.  Sylvin Keck, from the 2nd Platoon, manned a daisy-chain road block on a nearby road.  These are AT mines roped together so they can be quickly pulled across a road at the approach of enemy vehicles – but they are not very effective unless adequately supported by covering fire.  A number of trees had C-2 explosives attached for potential road abatis. 

 While on outpost duty, the 3rd Platoon had no clue as to the German’s intentions.  We were positioned in the woods away from our headquarters but the wealth of unverified rumors, the actuality of the paratroopers and the reports of Skorzeny’s men in American uniforms kept us alert.  Unconfirmed rumors abounded!  Anyone moving about was challenged and this included even easily recognized American generals.  Our reconnaissance officer, Lt Leonard Fox, was taken prisoner by a patrol from the 38th Cavalry Squadron because he had not yet received that day’s password.  After six hours at their CP while they checked on his legitimacy, he was released. 

Lt Colonel von der Heydte’s parachute force was dropped nearby on the night of 16/17 December.  Their initial objective was capturing the Baraque Michel, a road junction midway between Eupen and Malmedy and ten miles west of Monschau – a brushy, timered area with streams and swamps forming the head waters of the Roer River.  The paratroopers were a day late because of glitches in delivering their gasoline and in getting their forces assembled and were also widely scattered because of inexperienced pilots and minimal advance information concerning their mission. 

The initial plan called for the General Sepp Dietrich’s forces to link up with the paratroopers at this road junction on 16 December — an intended replay of their successful breakthrough in 1940.  Had Dietrich been able to push his way through Monschau, he very well may have captured the big gasoline dumps near Eupen and then moved almost unimpeded north to Antwerp.  That would have made the 101^st Airborne stand at Bastogne a non-event! 

 The twin “Jumo” engineers of the German planes were unsynchronized, and so had a distinctive uneven “yummm-yummm-yummm” beat-frequency sound as they flew overhead at night.  We believe that they were for aerial resupply of the paratroopers.  We were itching to turn our machine guns on them, but this was specifically forbidden as it would have divulged our defensive positions.  Several V-1s (Buzz Bombs) that landed nearby were said to have contained food and medicines instead of explosives but I saw one. 

 Early in the Bulge, Earl Buffington 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 that also knocked off his Omaha Beach “Trophy Helmet”, which sported two clean 8mm holes.   The bullet had passed through the front and out the back of the helmet, nicking his ear and the side of his head.  That he had not been seriously wounded was considered a good omen so he refused to swap it for a new one.  However, his trophy helmet was never recovered!  Earl was a volunteer from the 2nd Infantry Division for our anti-landing craft demolition mission and was wounded D-Day morning.  He was the only 2nd Infantry Division volunteer who returned to the 146th Engineer Combat Battalion after his hospitalization. 

 Engineers have only occasional need for machine guns, but we had both the WWI vintage water-cooled .30 caliber Brownings as well as the newer air cooler version and the .50 caliber Brownings (ring-mounted on our truck cabs for anti-aircraft).  Our .30s were light years behind the vastly superior German MG-42.  During the early hours of the paratroop drop, one of our water-cooled Brownings fired just one round, and sat there mute – the water in the cooling jacket had frozen, jamming the action. 

 Lt Schindler, who spoke German, led a reconnaissance patrol on one cold winter day, seeking information for V Corps on a German Panzer Division: “The infantry said that we were stupid for going beyond their outpost.  Claude Dobbs and Sergeant Roy Durfey were in Lt Schindler’s jeep, and Norman Lightell and the rest of the squad were in the truck driven by Robert Richardson.  Tom Wilkins manned the ring-mounted .50 cal machine gun.  As they approached a house they saw a German soldier run inside.  The men in back jumped out while Rom remained on the machine gun.” 

“Schindler’s jeep backed up and he called out in German for those inside to surrender.  Thirty-seven of them did so and were captured without a shot being fired.  They were then led away to a PW cage.  Later Schindler, Cecil Morgan and Roy Durfey returned to a nearby house from where smoke had been seen coming from the chimney and where Durfey had noticed a mule hooked to a two-wheel cart outside.  Morgan kicked in the door and stepped inside with a Thompson sub an 38 more surrendered.  Not a bad for a lieutenant and one squad of engineers!  Before taking the prisoners away, Durfey unhitched the mule and turned it loose.” 

On 23 December, while working on a large anti-personnel minefield near Elsenborn, designed to deny the Germans access to a natural infiltration corridor, a flight of British “Typhoons” came roaring in and rocketed a woods 80 yards to the east.  We were a bit jumpy as their path was almost directly overhead and we thought that they might have mistaken us for Germans.  That would not have been too unusual, considering the chaotic conditions along the front at that time.  We saw no indication of German forces before or after the strike; but since we were close to the front lines, there is a possibility that German armor was located there. 

 A prominent radiator bulge under their engines gave them a distinctive appearance, and their engines made an unusual roaring noise — not at all like the sharp exhaust crack of the Rolls Royce Merlins in Spitfires and Mustangs.  I was told that these engines had 24 cylinders — compared to the twelve cylinders of the Merlin — and the 24 exhausts blended the sound into the unusual road. (Since verified) 

 Christmas Day 1944, on the way to our AP minefield, a doe and a yearling crossed in front of our truck so I told the men in back to shoot her.  After a dozen or more rounds had been fired, at a distance of about 80 yards, I yelled “cease fire” as the deer disappeared into the brush.  The firing might have been interpreted as a fire fight with a German patrol, initiating a wasteful response.  The doe then sauntered back across the road so I shot her.  There was one hole in her hide.  That’s less than 10% accuracy for our “American Marksmen.”  Our company cooks then served up the fresh meat, which was a welcome change to our regular diet. 

 Several weeks previously, “B” Company’s various work parties returned to the company bivouac area one evening with five hogs, two cows, and a deer.  Someone had suggested that we have fresh meat, but had not coordinated the effort.  The animals were a nuisance around our AP minefields, as they hit our trip wires and detonated the mines – killing themselves in the process.  We only hastened their demise.  The hogs were fried first, and the pork fat was then used in frying the rest of the meat.  The meat was tough and chewy, but still much appreciated! 

On the night of 26 December 1944, our bivouac area was shelled heavily for about 30 minutes.  We were in an area of large pine trees, so there were many tree bursts.  Heading for a safe refuge in a culvert (which he called a tin-horn), Sgt Jackson ran into a truck tailgate and chipped off the corner of an upper front tooth.  I flattened myself on the ground at the base of a large tree away from the direction of most of the tree bursts, and was happy when the shelling ceased.  We believed that the damage was done by our captured 105mm howitzers.  The shelling probably stopped when the Germans ran out of ammunition.

Several trucks had flat tires and other holes, and the driveline of one truck was completely severed.  A shell fragment smashed through the front panel of our headquarters desk drawer, and spinning around inside, made a mouse nest out of the papers within.  A number of artillery fragments riddled the battalion aid station tent – one striking Ernest K. Hansen in the chest as he was holding a plasma bottle over one of our wounded. 

 Lt Colonel Isley was the most seriously wounded.  The battalion was moved to Henri-Chapelle that night – per Isley’s orders before he was evacuated.  Several of Colonel Skorzeny’s men who were captured wearing American uniforms after infiltrating our lines were executed by a firing squad at Henri-Chapelle a few weeks later. 

 I arrived late at our bivouac area, but the only cover I could find was in the haymow of a barn.  I tried to find a spot to spread ut, but the space was completely filled with bodies.  I did my best to find a bare spot, but after some offered to loosen all my teeth if I didn’t quite stepping on him, I crawled back out and shivered in the jeep until dawn.  The next morning 3rd Platoon – and possibly all of “B” Company — returned to our original bivouac area, and we continued working on the AP minefield. 

New Year’s Day morning was clear and cold.  While we were adding the red triangles – indicating a minefield — to the barbed wire fence around the AP minefield, the sky was suddenly filled with 28 ME 109s flying northwest at 1000 feet.  “Operation Bodenplatte” was the plan to attack our airfields and destroy our planes on the ground — a continuation of the Bulge.  A number of airfields near our front were successfully attacked that day, and several hundred American planes were destroyed on the ground.  German losses were only one-third of our but their losses — and especially their losses of trained pilots – were those that they could ill afford.

Luckily for us, our P47s were rendezvousing near the Liege air-fields for a strike of their own, and they caught these Germans by surprise as they were coming in.  It must have been a dog-fight, but we saw only the tail end of the action from our work area.  In 20 minutes, as we watched in fascination, five ME-109s were shot out of the sky.  The first one fell 1500 yards away, and they kept dropping closer and closer until the last one was only 300 yards from our work party.

The story was almost the same in every case.  The 109 pilots, who were flying southeast and very close to the deck heading for home, were being slaughtered by the P47s.  Our pilots were definitely more aggressive, and must have had superior training and experience.  We didn’t see any parts being shot off the 109s, but two were spewing smoke — before they crashed and sent up big black pillars.  The third downed plane hit 600 yards away, and several of us headed out to see what we could find of interest, (read Lugers or P38s)!  We had just started off, when another 109 came limping toward us, smoking and losing speed and altitude.

The P-47 kept boring in and firing short machine gun bursts.  The 109 was hidden by a group of pine trees when the pilot finally hauled back on the stick in an attempt to gain some altitude to jump.  His plane rose only a few hundred feet, coming back into our field of view, and then stalled just as he bailed out.  We charged down the hill to the crash site, fully expecting to find a dead pilot near the wreckage, since we were certain that he had lacked sufficient altitude to eject safely. 

 The pilot could not be found, but the plane was on fire and its magnesium castings were burning brightly.  We poked around in the wreckage until the machine gun and cannon shells began to cook off and then made our made exodus.  We searched the surrounding area and finally found the pilot’s chute in a pine tree 100 yards back in the direction from which we had come.  Landing in the tree surely saved him from severe injuries or death.  He had slipped his chute and hid until we passed, and then backtracked in our trail in the snow.  We followed his tracks, but lost them at dusk in the area where the snow had been heavily trampled. 

After escaping death in such a remarkable exit by parachute, we were saddened the next morning to find the young pilot dead within our AP minefield.  He crawled through our wire barrier and suffered modest wounds from an anti-personnel mine.  We surmised that he believed he would freeze to death before morning, so he killed himself with his 9mm P-38. 

The winter of 1944 was one of the coldest in many years, often dropping well below zero degrees Fahrenheit.  We slept in pup tends in the snow and motored about in our jeeps with the windshields folded down to be out of the way in case of an ambush or a firefight and slithered around in the snow in lose foot-freezing GI leather boots. 

 Our battalion had few medical problems during this period, although some, who failed to change their socks frequently, contracted trench foot (but none were from the 3rd Platoon).  Our armies lost many man/days to this malady during the Bulge.  It was easily prevented by keeping spare woolen socks ducked in one’s pants.  Body heat dried them out and they could then be swapped several times a day — meanwhile, giving the feet and toes an energetic massage.  Infantrymen, occupying foxholes out in the open and under fire, did not always have that option and so suffered many cases if trechfoot.   Dr Stanley Goodman treated several combat exhaustion cases with sedatives and rest — followed by several days of heavy labor.  Having all of this happen within the sounds of artillery and other battle noise near the front apparently did the trick. 

 A group of “B” Company men built a cardboard warming shack with a diesel drum stove in the center.  When one man tried to force his way in near the stove in an already full shack, he was unable to do so, and no one offered to swap places.  Not be deterred, he yelled, “I’ll show you sons of bitches,” and threw a full clip of M-1 ammo into the fire.  The mad scramble for the doorway almost completely demolished the shack — after which the perpetrator was run down and pounded. 

We must have been a bit odoriferous as we barely had an opportunity to shower.  “Whore baths” — water heated in helmets over an open fire was our only option for washing faces, ears, neck, underarms, crotch and feet — in that order.  Our helmets then took on a dingy hue.  We were usually able to shave daily — often in cold water — but our razors were not the sharpest ones on the planet.  I often fantasized about luxuriating in a tub of steaming hot water followed by a professional barber’s shave.  When the opportunity later arose for a German barber to do the job, I had to mentally restrain myself to keep from bolting from his chair when I realized how close to my throat his straightedge razor was operating. 

 Surprisingly, although we were often half frozen from riding in jeeps – with the windshield down – or from sloshing about in the snow, few of us were ever sick with colds or flu.  After most of the Bulge fighting was over and the weather had improved, we were issued insulated shoe pacs in lieu of those foot-freezing GI leather boots.  Citizen Soldiers by Stephen Ambrose noted that the American commanders gambled that the war would be over before we needed shoe pacs – in retrospect an error in judgment but  “C’est la guerre” – you can’t win all!

Source:  http://www.battleofthebulgememories.be/

My part in the Battle of the Bulge could be said to have started 75 miles north of Marche, Belgium, when my anti-tank platoon was attached to the thinned ranks of G Company, 2nd Battalion, 333rd Regiment, of the 84th “Railsplitter” Infantry Division.

We entered the front line into German-dug foxholes on the night of December 15, aided by low light of British searchlights playing onto the sky. I carried a bazooka, but had it knocked from my left hand when a piece of shrapnel hit the bazooka and the tips of my fingers, leaving my fingers numb for hours. We spent three days and three nights in those holes in 38° light rain and mud except to brave snipers and scattered artillery shells in order to evacuate wounded, bring up rations, or whatever. We were shelled heavily twice each day.

Some hours later, early morning of the 16th, Hitler’s armies launched their surprise attack through the Ardennes forests of Belgium, taking a heavy toll of our young soldiers. Our General Boiling got word to get the 84th to Marche and to hold the Marche to Hotton roadway “At all costs”. Bolling got there by 7 p.m. on the 20th, and the 334th Regiment began arriving by 10 p.m., followed by the 335th, and lastly by my 333rd, which had still been on the front lines near Geilenkirchen on the 18th. We were held in reserve until we got new men and re-organized.

General Eisenhower in his Crusade In Europe said “The northern flank was obviously the dangerous one and the fighting continued to mount in intensity.”

Author Charles B. MacDonald in his A Time For Trumpets adds that “As General Boiling readily deduced, the Germans needed Marche, for the town was as much a road center as was Bastogne.”

On the 22nd of December elements of our 2n Bn., 333rd, were strung out along a sloping road with five 57 mm anti-tank guns, dozens of bazookas, several 50 caliber machine guns, and several 30 caliber machine guns trained on a small bridge which had been mined to be blown if necessary. We were still holding that area on Christmas day and a few days afterward. The weather had turned terribly cold. Fires were forbidden except for small gasoline burners to heat coffee. Canteens froze solid and burst open. We tried to sleep, huddled together sharing blankets. We learned to keep an extra pair of socks tucked under our shirts to keep them warm and dry. It snowed and got deep. By some accounts the temperature dropped into the low teens.

Nights were long, starting about 4:30 p.m. and light came about 7:30 a.m., making guard duty trying and dangerous. Two hours on guard and four off was the usual, causing intermittent sleep, at best. Just keeping warm a problem. Sheets of newspaper slipped between layers of clothing were great windbreakers.

Germans in American uniforms and driving our vehicles were behind our lines. We were ordered to stop all vehicles and question the occupants about things we would know but Germans might not. We worked in pairs, one approaching the vehicle, the other hidden. Colonels and generals found themselves answering who was Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend. Then-we heard about the Malmedy massacre, and in our rage, we swore to take no prisoners. Actually, that didn’t hold later on.

When we first moved into Hotton, the enemy was close, but we didn’t know how close, so motor engine noise was kept low or off entirely and our 57’s were manhandled into position without talking and made ready next to one of the houses. Nothing. Next morning as we waited in the kitchen, an artillery shell blew in part of the wall and knocked over the pot-belly stove next to us. No injuries. At midnight of New Year’s Eve Jack and I were on guard nearby with a “daisy chain” of anti-tank mines. Tied about 18 inches apart they were in the ditch on the side of the road, and we had the end of the rope on the other side. If a tank came, we were to pull the mines onto the road, and run. No tanks, but exactly at midnight both our and German artillery let loose with a barrage at the other that was like nothing we had ever heard. Heavy artillery whistled over our heads in both directions. We heard the gun blasts and the explosions on both sides of us. By the 26th the whole front was quiet, and then the British came into Hotton and took our positions.

In his memoirs Winston Churchill wrote, “The wheel of the Fifth and Sixth Panzer Armies produced bitter fighting around Marche, which lasted till December 26, By then the Germans were exhausted, although at one time they were only four miles from the Meuse and had penetrated over sixty miles. Balked of their foremost objective, the Meuse, the Panzers turned savagely on Bastogne…..”

It took a few days to get re-organized, but on January 3, 1945, the 84th was paired with the 2nd Armored while the 83rd was paired with the 3rd Armored for the start of our-counter-offensive to choke off the tip of the German penetration. Our pincer move was to start at Manhay and end at Houffalize where we were to meet the Third Army coming from the south,, only about half our distance. The following days are confused in my mind, for we seemed always on the move from one short stay here or there to another place with a name. I remember Odeigne. During a lull we walked up a hill to a small one-room schoolhouse and just missed being hit by a mortar shell tree-burst. I took a little time to inspect the classroom. I found many French translations of our fairy tales and cowboy stories. In the cellar of the schoolhouse we found about forty civilians crowded into a space too small for ten. As I came down the path again I stopped to look at a dead G.I. nearly covered with snow. His arm and part of his head could be seen. I wondered whether his mother would ever see the watch still on his wrist. The next day it snowed and kept on snowing. Roads became almost invisible, and vehicles slid into ditches. Tanks made the hard surfaces slick as ice.

In a blinding snowstorm our E and F Companies launched an attack to take and secure the La Roche Road. No tank support. The snow was too deep and the terrain too difficult for them. An F Company patrol secured the vital crossroads where the La Roche Road and the Houffalize Road met. This feat had deprived the enemy of the only two first-rate roads to the east, and has been considered the turning point of the Ardennes operations. The enemy had been taken completely by surprise.

It was near here that a patrol of eight of us were sent to bring in a group of about 35 or 40 German prisoners being held by two GIs. I was the third man, sent along as interpreter. We waded through waist deep snow for some distance and then onto bare ground which had been blown clear. The Lieutenant, in the lead, saw the Germans just inside a grove of pine trees and started into the grassy area.. There was an explosion and I felt a puff-of air on my face. The sergeant two steps ahead of me had stepped on a German Shu mine and lost his foot. I backed out; the lieutenant re-traced his steps and got out. What to do? He ordered two of the biggest men to get the sergeant out. There was another explosion and another foot gone, while the third man had shrapnel up and down his right side. The second man was laughing. He was going back to a nice warm hospital bed. The lieutenant called for a jeep and they were all taken back to the Battalion Aid Station.

We found a path around the mine field and using my Pennsylvania German, I got the prisoners lined up, yelled some bad words at them, and marched them off to the La Roche-Houffalize crossroads, where the MPs took them back. Foxholes were not always safe havens. Just before the minefield incident

I vividly recall what it did to one’ German. He was no deader than many others, but his torso was frozen solid and half hanging on the edge of the hole. His head was gone, his insides had slid to the bottom of the hole, and his chest cavity was blown open. I couldn’t help thinking how nice and clean and pink and shiny the cavity was.

In Laroche, our squad found protection in the basement of a building mostly destroyed by artillery and by a fire. It had a concrete first floor and one wall in danger of falling down the stairwell, so we knocked more of it down and descended into the basement. Nice and warm from the heat of the first floor. Then we began to be too warm,, so we peeled off some outer clothing. Then our shirts. I don’t recall going any farther. Oh, but it was great to be warm for a few hours.

Again, we moved a lot. The war for the ordinary foot soldier is only just where he is and how far he can see around himself.

Battle in The Ardennes (Battle of the Bulge) ended officially on January 25, 1945. But the front line was still not back to where it had been before the 16th of December, 1944. So the 84th was put to work again to erase the holdouts east of Houffalize. Beho was our Battalion’s last objective to help in that effort. On the way there, through Bovigny, every vehicle in the convoy bogged down in the deep snow. It took hours to get to Bovigny and then start for Beho. There was still enemy resistance, but our slogging riflemen accomplished the task.

I can never say enough for those men who walked into the face of the enemy knowing they could be wounded or die at any time. They were the heroes. I was just one of the lucky ones. I can claim nothing spectacular; but I was there.

Source:  http://www.battleofthebulgememories.be/

On December 16, 1944, I was in Reims, France as a member of the 325th Glider Infantry Regiment, 82nd Airborne Division.  On 20 December, 1944, I was in Arlon, Belgium, as a rifleman replacement as part of CCA (Combat Command “A”) of the 4th Armored Division “Old Blood and Guts’ had ordered Hugh Gaffey to haul ass up the Arlon-Bastogne road to break the encirclement of the 101st in Bastogne.

 After a hellish ride from Reims to Arlon in a “deuce-and-a-half” we loaded in some half tracks and about 1600 hours started north out of Arlon on the Arlon-Bastogne road.  Progress was slow and we did not close on the blown bridge over the Sure River at Martelange until about 1300 hours, December 22nd.  We had covered about 20 of the 28 miles from Arlon to Bastogne.  While we waited for the engineers to finish the bridge over the Sure, we had a feast when one of the guys pilfered a ten in one ration off one of the tanks.  I drew guard duty about 0400 hours.  It was a bright moonlight night – – I thought I would be less of a target if I stood in the shadow of a tree.  While leaning up against a small tree I could feel this lump on my back.  I found out it was about 10 pounds of TNT wired to the tree with primer cord so that in case of retreat the engineers could blow the trees as a form of a roadblock.  I chose some other place to stand to finish out my tour of guard duty.  As we were closing on Martelange in the half tracks, as we rounded a curve and climbed a slight rise, as we emerged from a cut in the road, it seemed like were a hundred 105’s on both sides of the road which all opened up at the same time.  The sky suddenly became bright as day and the noise was deafening.  It was at this time that I had the first of my laundry problems.  To the uninitiated, that means that I was scared “s———.s

 About 0800 hours we got across the Bailey bridge over the Sure and we fanned out.  CCA was given the main Arlon-Bastogne road.  CCB was on the left flank using the secondary roads as its route to Bastogne.  CCB was flanked on its left by the green, newly arrived 76th Infantry Division CCA was flanked on its right by the ‘Blue Ridge Mountain Boys’ of the 80th Infantry Division.  We rode along on the backs of the Shermans.  I had on my G.I. “Long johns,” O.D. pants and shirt, two pairs of socks, jump boots, four buckle overshoes, knit sweater, banana cap, helmet, “tanker overalls,” and extra pair of socks under each armpit, my “K” bar knife, my G.I. gloves, I had thrown away my gas mask, I had an ample supply of toilet paper inside my helmet, and my pockets were stuffed with “K” rations, candle stubs, cigarettes, grenades, and 2-½ pound blocks of TNT complete with fuse to blow myself a hole in the frozen ground, if necessary. I had my good old M-1 with the regulation belt load of eight clips ball and two clips A.P. four and one on each side, bayonet, canteen, first-aid pouch, two extra bandoleers of ammo, and three bazooka rounds.

 By now it had snowed and just about everything was hidden by this white blanket.  As we rode on the backs of the Shermans, we stood on one foot and hung on with one hand for as long as we could stand the cold, and then we  switched hand and foot and tried to get some circulation going in the hand and foot we had just used.  This was made more difficult because the tank turret was being constantly traversed from right to left and left to right.  The tank I was riding on and three others fanned out in the fields left of the main road.  Suddenly the tank I was on, the lead tank, stopped and the sergeant “volunteered” another G.I. and I to investigate what appeared to be a squad of German soldiers moving along in extended order.  “They” turned out to be a row a fence posts, but to this day, I was sure at first, that I had seen my first “krauts.”  Another laundry problem.  One of the other tanks broke through a barbed wire fence and a strand of barbed wire slapped a G.I. across the face, turning his face into raw hamburger.  A G.I., wearing an unbuttoned overcoat, jumped off his tank and when the coat tails billowed out behind him they caught in the tracks and sucked his legs into the bogie wheels of the tank.

 Suddenly the tank I was ridding on stopped and one of the other tanks fired a whole belt (200+ rounds) of tracer ammunition at a haystack along side a barn about 200 yards in front of us.  No sooner did the tracers bounce off the haystack when the other two tanks opened fire and destroyed a German tank that had been trying to hide in the haystack.  I guess that the tankers had learned from experience that tracers do not bounce of haystacks.  We moved forward about another 20 yards and the tank I was tiding on got mired down in a small stream that had become hidden due to the heavy blanket of snow.  All I could think of at the time was to get away from the tank and I took off running as best that I could with the way I was dressed, with what I was carrying, and the deep snow.  (Oh, yes, by the way, it was a least 20 degrees below zero at the time.)  I must have managed about 50 yards when the fire from a German Nebelwerfer began falling around the stuck tank.

They assembled us foot troops back on the road (there were 26 of us in this one bunch) and we started north again toward Warnaco, a wide spot in the road about two miles further ahead.  We walked strung out in a line in the ditch on the right hand side of the road so we wouldn’t be such good targets for those damned 88’s.  A little way up ahead was an American 2-½ ton truck nosed down in the ditch and it had a big red Nazi flag with a black swastika on it across the front of the radiator.  We had to climb the road embankment to get around the rear of the truck and as I passed by the cab of the truck I could see another good Kraut sitting behind the wheel with the top of his head blown off.

 About another 500 yards up the road we came upon three tanks surrounding a farmhouse where they had a sniper trapped.  The sniper had already hit three GI.s and they said the sniper was a woman and by the way that she fired she must have an M-1 with plenty of ammo.  The three tanks proceeded to blow the farmhouse into a pile of rubble.  I don’t know if they ever got the sniper or if the sniper was a woman.  Our orders were to “get to Hell to Bastogne” so we took a break in a pig pen to get out of the cold.  There were a half dozen pigs and some sheep in this pen about 20′ by 20′.  There was also a dead pig and two dead sheep in paid any attention.  I mean the GI’s or the pigs.

 The town of Warnaco was where the Germans had set up their command center.  If you were passing Warnach in a car and sneezed, you probably would miss it altogether.  To enter Warnach, you make a right turn off the main Arlon-Bastogne road.  I was walking along behind a tank taking full advantage of the warm air from its radiator when suddenly I had this funny sensation in my ears and the sky turned red.  (It was about 0400 hours)  Then the same thing happened again.  A Hidden German S.P. gun in an orchard ahead had hit the tank twice and set it on fire.  I saw two GI’s jump into a ditch along side the tank and start to get one of those new folding bazookas ready to fire.  They didn’t have much luck and one of them yelled, “Let’s get out of here,” and they jumped up and ran.  I was young but my mommy didn’t raise no dummy so I proceeded to ‘haul freight,’ too.  In the process, my feet became entangled in some old chicken wire in the ditch and when I started to run I fell forward on my face.  To this day, I don’t know how I did it, but my guess is I broke that wire with my hands.

As I ran back toward the Arlon-Bastogne road along a brush filled ditch to my left, I heard somebody yell, “Hey, infantry.”  I hope that that tanker realize how lucky he was that I didn’t shoot him, but he told me he had a fellow tanker man whose right hand had been almost severed and was only hanging by some skin.  I put the wounded tanker’s left arm over my shoulder and his buddy did the same with the mangled one.  We would walk three-four steps and the wounded tanker would pass out.  We would drag him three-four steps and he would come to and take three-four steps and pass out again.  We managed to get him to a medic.

 I got back to my squad who had assembled along side a barn and when I got there I saw about a dozen German prisoners standing with their hands against the side of the building.  All but one of the German prisoners were Wehrmacht soldiers but the one on the right end was an SS Panzer soldier dressed in black coveralls.  He was a handsome S.O.B. with a head wound and blood running down the left side of his face.  None of the Wehrmacht soldiers had guts enough to turn around and ask for some gloves to cover their hands, but not the SS Panzer soldier.  He turned around and in perfect English demanded gloves for his hands.  A small American G. standing close by said, “I’ll give you some gloves you Kraut son-of-a-bitch” and poll-axed the SS trooper.  They all turned around and put their hands back on the wall.  The GI with the Thompson offered to return the prisoners to a POW camp to the rear but they wouldn’t let him go because he had just gotten word that his brother had been killed in the South Pacific.  Later we watched about 12-15 P-47’s doing their job on some German columns.  They were too far away to hear but we could sure see them plain enough.

 We were told we were going to spend the night here and by the time I got the message the only place I could find to lie down was at the top of the stairs.  All I took off were my four buckle overshoes and I used my helmet for a pillow.  It seemed like only a couple of minutes but was really several hours when a sergeant came running in yelling that a bunch of German paratroopers had landed to our rear.  Everybody engaged in organized confusion (or SNAFU).

It was about 0400 so I sat up on the top step and started to put my overshoes on when I got the damnedest cramp in the calf of my leg that I have ever had.  But being smart I figured that by the time I got the other overshoe on the cramp would have gone away.  When I started to put the other overshoe on, I’ll be damned if I didn’t get a cramp in the calf of that leg.  I beat on them with my fist to no avail and they finally went away.  We were told that we were going to attack Warnach again.  By the time we got started it was daylight and this 90 day wonder Louie wanted someone to use the .50 cal on top of the tank to rake the roadside and ‘scare the hell’ out of the Germans.  I was getting smarter by the minute and I remembered the old Army adage ‘Don’t never volunteer for nothing.’  After about 100 rounds the .50 jammed and the GI bailed down off the tank.  As we turned a corner to the right, there in the middle of the road sat one of those German motorcycles with tracks at the back as a sort of a road block.  The 90 day shave tail told the sergeant that he would back off a bit and then blast the motorcycle out of the way just in case it was booby-trapped.  No sooner did the tank fire when a hidden German S.P. gun to perdition.  Suddenly somebody yelled and two Krauts broke out of a copse of trees about 200 yards further down the road where it took a half dozen steps and then retreated to the safety of the trees.  The other one ran along the fence for about 200 feet, calmly climbed over the fence just as you or I might do it today, and started to run up the road.  Another 20-25 feet and he would have been safe, but all of a sudden he went about ten feet in the air, came down face first and never moved.  When the two German soldiers broke out of the trees, we all started to fire at them – -M-1’s, Thompsons, BAR’s, carbines, grease guns, and maybe a couple of.45’s, too.

 An officer came running over and ordered two other GI’s and myself to search this farmhouse.  As it turned out, I was the only one with any grenades left and I had bent the pins over to make sure one of them did not come out while the grenade was in my pocket.  Because of my cold hands, I couldn’t get the pin out so I tossed the grenade to one of the other GI’s.  He got the pin out, but as close as he was to the door, he should have lobbed it underhand but instead he threw it overhand and missed the doorway.  The grenade hit the edge of the door and bounced back into the yard.  The GI yelled, “I missed the door” and took off.  I knew what to do, too, so I hauled ass behind a pile of rubbish in the corner of the yard.  It seemed like forever and the grenade hadn’t gone off.  I stuck my head up to see what was going on just as the grenade went off.  I guess I was just plain lucky.  I had an M-1, one of the other GI’s had an M-1, and the third guy had a Thompson sub.  I was second through the door in front of me.  The other M-1 emptied his through the door to his left and the Thompson emptied his clip up the stairway to his right, and there we three stood just like the Three Stooges.

 As we stepped back out into the yard, a Sherman started to rake the side of the building with .30 cal starting at the eves and working his way across the building and then down and across again.  Then all of a sudden when he was about six feet off the ground he quit and took off.  I am almost certain that I managed to hide my whole body under my helmet while the tanker was hosing down the wall of the house.  Suddenly, out of nowhere a cow came around a corner of a nearby burning building followed by an old woman who looked to be in her nineties and carrying a switch with which she was chasing the cow.  The cow and then the old woman in pursuit disappeared around the other corner of the building and was gone.  Where she came from I don’t know and where she went I don’t know.

 I got mine on Christmas Eve; had to wait over four hours to be evacuated.  I was supposed to be air evacuated back to England but the friggen fog had come back in so I wound up in a field hospital in Commercy, France on Christmas day, naked as the day I was born with a small Red Cross package sitting on my chest.

 The records show that the taking of Warnach cost America five Sherman, 68 GI’s killed or wounded.  The Germans lost 135 dead on the streets and in the houses with a like number either wounded or taken as POWs.

Source:  http://www.battleofthebulgememories.be/

The End—The Beginning

  Subtitle:  The End of the truck driver’s World War Two military service—The Beginning of the veteran’s civilian life.

 Time:  May, 1945 after surrender of Germany Places:  Germany, France, USA    War in the European Theater was finished.  Hitler’s Nazi regime surrendered unconditionally on May 8, 1945.  Victory in Europe Day (VE Day) was the cause for great celebration. The combat days of Cannon Company, 291st Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division were over—in this part of the world.

    The first critical Allied task was restoring law and order in occupied Germany.  Troops were assigned Military Government (MG) duties.  The 291st Regiment (including Cannon Company) was stationed near the resort city of Bad Driburg, famed for mineral springs and baths.

    In taking over its assigned area of control, the Regiment issued orders and instructions for the Companies to follow in their respective areas.  Units were to establish Military Government by: appointing non-Nazi officials; posting and enforcing proclamations, laws and ordinances; enforcing curfew 2030 to 0630 military time (8:30 PM to 6:30 AM); collecting arms and ammunition; maintaining road blocks; establishing camps for displaced persons and Allied POWs and permitting no circulation outside the town limits without Military Government permits. 

    The truck driver and his buddies read through the precise wording of their MG duties.  Carrying out those orders and instructions appeared nearly as difficult as fighting a war.  They realized strict security measures were needed to protect the troops from Nazi sympathizers. Appointment of non-Nazi officials was the top priority. 

    Cannon Company’s assigned area included a German brewery that continued to operate.  A 24-hour military guard provided security at the brewery, security against the thirsty Allied soldiers. 

    The truck driver’s Company chow line was set up on trestle tables on a quiet street.  The aroma from the cooking food spread over the occupied German neighborhood.  At chow time the soldiers walked down the chow line, filled their mess kits to overflowing and ate most of the contents. When finished, nearly every mess kit contained scraps and bits of food.  Those leftovers were to be dumped into a large barrel for disposal.

     As the truck driver and his buddies approached the disposal barrel, several small German children met them.  Those children were holding little pails, pleading for the soldiers to dump leftover scraps into those pails.  Those big, pleading eyes, framed by gaunt faces, were heart-rendering sights.  The truck driver vowed that he never wanted his children or grandchildren to ever be in a similar situation, begging for food scraps.  He also vowed to share this experience upon his eventual return to civilian life. 

    The duties of Cannon Company and 291st Regiment were changed a few weeks later.  The troops were assigned new responsibilities.  With the conclusion of the war in Europe, all efforts were directed westward to the Pacific Theater of Operations.  The Allied forces had moved from island to island, ever nearer to the Japanese mainland, suffering many casualties during bitter hand to hand combat. Fresh troops in large numbers would be required to wage a successful campaign against the Japanese Empire. 

    Those millions of troops in Europe must be transported to the Pacific without delay.  To accomplish this momentous task, the Army established the Assembly Area Command (AAC).  Seventeen camps were built near the French city of Rheims for this purpose.  The camps were named for American cities, such as Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, etc.  The 291st Regiment, including Cannon Company, was assigned to Camp New York. 

    The AAC camps collected European based troops and processed them for Pacific duty.  Soldiers with long military service, especially the D-Day survivors, were granted furloughs in the States and then shipped to the Pacific.  Troops with less service were immediately loaded on ships and sent directly to the war zone. Everyone was thrilled that the war in Europe had ended, but preparing for the Pacific journey was quite sobering.  No one would dare speculate as to the end of that war. The Allies were making some progress, however slowly, across the Japanese-held territories.  Every day was critical in moving troops from Europe to the Pacific.  

    The truck driver’s location, Camp New York, was a ninety minute drive from Paris.  Every evening he and his driver buddies provided transportation to the bright lights of Paris, returning before midnight.  He strolled through the streets of Paris, often standing under the Arc de Triumph, to absorb the atmosphere and magnetism of the “City of Light”.  He climbed the stairs of the Eiffel Tower to view the vast panorama.  German soldiers had carved their names into wooden areas of the breathtaking structure.  Paris museums were retrieving their valuable works of art from secure war time locations.  An occasional visit to the interior of historic Notre Dame was another point of interest for American troops.  Of course Paris’s Place Pigalle and Folies Bergeres were favorite destinations for the soldiers. 

    July 4th, 1945 was a unique opportunity to celebrate American Independence Day in Paris.  French citizens reminded the American troops that French General Lafayette played a major role in the battle for Independence, serving as General Washington’s personal aid and advisor.  The day gave everyone the excuse for an inebriated celebration—as if an excuse was needed. 

    July 14th witnessed major celebrations throughout France.  Bastille Day, 1945 was the first opportunity for the French to celebrate this event since the liberation of Paris from the Germans.  The reveling was beyond description.  The truck driver had considerable difficulty in getting his passengers back on the truck for the return to Camp New York.  Reporting in before curfew was critical.  Curfew breakers lost many privileges, including that important Paris pass.

    In late July, the truck driver was ordered to report to his Commanding Officer.  With considerable trepidation, he promptly responded to the summons.  Sensing his discomfort, the CO put the truck driver at ease and handed him an armband containing sergeant’s stripes.  A very surprised truck driver accepted the stripes which identified him as “acting sergeant”.  The company’s long time motor sergeant, a career soldier, was being sent to the States on furlough.  He had recommended the truck driver be selected to fill that position.  Without saying, the truck driver was quite appreciative of the new assignment.

    Even though the armband designated “acting sergeant”, the truck driver was officially a Private First Class.  The CO stated that all promotions were frozen until further notice.  So the truck driver had the authority without additional pay.  Some benefits came with the armband, including private quarters and being relieved of driving his truck on that evening trip to Paris, now riding in the passenger’s seat.  He also was on 24 hour duty as the chief dispatcher of the company’s trucks to meet incoming troops at the rail station.  Although with new duties, the acting motor sergeant would always be a truck driver at heart.

   In early August, 1945, the truck driver and his buddies heard welcome news:  two week furloughs were announced.  They had the choice of the French Riviera or Switzerland.  The truck driver selected Switzerland because he wanted to buy Swiss watches for his family.  The soldiers were permitted to carry a maximum of $100.  The reason given for this limit was to avoid inflating the Swiss economy with a sudden influx of American dollars. 

 The vacationing troops entered Switzerland at Basel and had a fabulous journey on the famous Swiss electric railways.  Beautiful snow-capped mountains, verdant valleys and brilliant blue lakes were beheld by the travelers.  What a contrast to the war torn cities of France and Belgium!  Their final destination was the resort city of Wengen at the base of the famous Mt. Jungfrau.

 Those two weeks in the Swiss Alps were amazing in many ways.  The food and accommodations in the resort’s chateau were more than first class. The picturesque Alps could not be described in ordinary language.  The snowy summit of Jungfrau was reached by an underground two mile cog railway.  The truck driver celebrated his 22nd birthday on August 9th, 1945 on the peak of the mountain.  He and his friend, Floyd, were photographed holding snowballs in August.  They were standing on “The Top of Europe”.

 The most astounding event on this trip was earth shaking news from the Pacific.  The vacationing troops heard that bombs as powerful as 20,000 tons of dynamite had been dropped on two Japanese cities!  The secret atom bomb had been unleashed!

 Speculation was rampant.  Would Japan surrender?  Would this war finally end?  Would the troops come home soon?

 Returning from Switzerland, the truck driver heard more news:  JAPAN SURRENDERED!  The official ceremony would be held on the battleship Missouri on the 2nd of September.  The Army newspaper, The Stars and Stripes, contained pictures of great jubilation throughout the U.S.  Times Square in New York City was the scene of parades, dancing in the streets and servicemen kissing available females. 

 Now the mission of the military quickly changed. A program for troops to return to the States for discharge from service was put in place.  Points were awarded for total months of service, months of overseas service, designated awards and honors and specific battle campaigns.  The truck driver learned that his Combat Infantryman’s Badge was worth considerable points.

   With separation from service imminent, the troops realized they would be leaving their buddies.  Tight bonds of friendship were formed when soldiers fought the enemy.  They began discussing plans to continue those friendship ties as civilians.  One method was to form an association of veterans that would hold reunions in years ahead.  The truck driver was invited to participate in an association planning meeting of 75th Infantry Division troops.  The two day meeting was convened at the French city of Chalons sur Marne. Returning to his Company, the truck driver explained the purpose of his trip.  He began enrolling his buddies in the fledgling 75th Infantry Division Veterans Association.

 Late December, 1945, found the truck driver on the first stage of his journey home.  His accumulated service points placed him at the French port of LeHarve.  “Camp Lucky Strike” was the assembly point for troops awaiting home-bound ships.

 January 7, 1946 dawned.  The truck driver boarded the “Gustavus Victory” for the Atlantic voyage.  This Victory ship had huge rusty areas on its hull from many months of sea duty.  Regardless of appearance, the vessel was heading in the right direction—home. Crossing the north Atlantic in January was an unforgettable cruise.  Huge waves caused the small Victory ship to toss and tumble.  The vessel seemed to ride over the top of every wave instead of slicing through the water. 

 Suffering considerable seasickness, the truck driver wondered if this journey would ever end.  The troops had difficulty eating from their trays.  Every time the ship rolled to one side, the food trays would careen to the low end of the counter.  The next roll would bring them crashing back at high speed with food flying everywhere.  The Army’s famous Spam was the main food item. The truck driver promptly lost his appetite for Spam—for years to come.  He sought out a bunk in the deep hold of the ship.  The pitching and tossing was tolerable in this location.  Seasickness was soon forgotten.  Next stop was the United States!

 As “Gustavus Victory” approached the States, the truck driver yearned to see the Statue of Liberty again.  He recalled “Wave Goodbye to the Lady” as his outfit departed New York harbor in October, 1944.  He was prepared to lead more cheers upon sighting the Lady after fifteen months in Europe.

 This Statue of Liberty sighting did not happen.  The Victory ship came into port in New Jersey.  Not seeing the Lady was just fine with the truck driver.  He was now on American soil.  Several hours later, he entrained for his separation center—Camp Grant near Rockford in northern Illinois. 

   Twelve hours on the Illinois-bound train afforded the truck driver considerable thinking time.  Those thoughts first focused on his youth and the events leading to his military service.  He recalled his father relating that World War 1 had not resolved the problem with Germany.  While the Armistice of 1918 stopped that war, Germany was rearming under Hitler’s guidance.  (Story #1.Bells of 11/11). 

   The bombing of Pearl Harbor and the launching of World War 2 was the second highlight.  (#2. That Sunday in December).  In a few months he was inducted into the military. His 75th Infantry Division headed for Europe.  (#3. Wave Goodbye to the Lady).  After arriving in Europe, that war took a turn. (#4. A Sudden Change of Plans).  Hitler made a desperate move. (#5. Into the Heat of Battle).  The war in Europe was finally over. (# 6. The Year 1945: More War? World Peace?)  and finally (#7. The End…The Beginning) was in progress as the truck driver was approaching the end of his military service.  (See Summary of Stories).

   More recollections came to the truck driver while on that train. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean bound for Europe; driving into the dark and threatening Belgium battle front; freezing in the Ardennes cold and snow; retrieving the snow-covered bodies of fallen comrades; dining with Manny Knoops’ family in their Dutch home; milking the farmer’s cows in the war zone; seeing German children begging for leftover food; the trips to Paris; celebrating his 22nd birthday on the top of a Swiss mountain; the news of Victory in Europe and the surrender of Japan.  

 Completing several days of routine checkups, including physical exams, the truck driver was honorably discharged from military service.  Length of service was three years minus five days.  He boarded a train to Chicago, then another train to Springfield, Illinois.  From there, a short Trailways bus ride brought the veteran to Jacksonville, Illinois where his family met him with open arms.  His brother and sister had certainly grown in those three years.  Brother Jim was now in high school, sister Evelyn was preparing to enter nurses training.

 After a heartfelt family reunion with grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins, the veteran pondered options for his future.  Should he resume his education at the University of Illinois? He had completed three semesters at Illinois in pre-veterinarian studies.  Another option was to enroll at Illinois College in Jacksonville in a liberal arts curriculum. The “G I Bill” would pay for his education.  College classes would start next fall, so it might be a good idea to find a job for the next seven months.  

 The veteran learned that two friends from a neighboring farm had recently received their discharges. On a cold January day, he drove over to see the Albers brothers, Russ and Jim.  Russ had been stationed in the Pacific Theater for four years and most recently in the Philippine Islands.  He had served those four years without having a home furlough since his induction in 1942.  The bitter January weather in Illinois was a drastic contrast to the tropics of the Philippines. Russ spent several days hovering around the big heating stove in his family’s living room.  His body was slowly becoming adjusted to the winter climes. 

 Russ’s brother, Jim, had returned from Air Corps duty in North Africa and Italy. The three veterans shared “war stories” and experiences while in the military.  The Albers brothers’ goals were establish their own farming operations.  Their father was an excellent farmer and had imparted those traits to his sons.

 Back in the living room of his Illinois farm home, the ex-truck driver/veteran began the serious task of charting his future.  His first goal was to purchase an automobile. To pay for this vehicle, he had deducted a war savings bond each month from his military pay. Perhaps the pages of his future would unfold in coming weeks.  He was truly beginning a new life.

 Finally, he was most thankful that the Lord has seen him safely through the events of the past three years.  

 Truck driver/veteran/narrator:

     Frank Chambers, Cannon Company, 291st Infantry Regiment, 75th Infantry Division

  Dates and places of military significance were verified in official records relating to the 75th Infantry Division.

 Frank’s comments:  This concludes seven stories relating to my military service in World War Two.  I dedicate the series to my wife, Doris, to my daughter and son-in-law, Marjorie and Bruce Duffield, and to my grandsons, Andrew and Timothy Duffield and their respective families.  This is in memory of our beloved son, John Chambers, 1956-1984.

 I also wish to honor the memory of my father, Wm. J. Chambers, who served in France in World War One with the US 58th Balloon Company, American Expeditionary Forces (AEF).  He, too, was a military truck driver.

  Final personal comment:  My wife, Doris (Albers) and I were married in 1951.  Doris is the sister of my neighbor friends, Russ and Jim Albers, mentioned in this final story.