On the morning of 16 December, the well-orchestrated German attack in the Ardennes “Wacht am Rhein” was launched.   The name was a subterfuge to hide their offensive intentions behind a pretended defense. Hitler suspected a security leak within his Wehrmacht and so he limited disclosures of the attack plans to his most trusted generals.  He was unaware that the British had broken his Enigma Code, even though some of his advisors had suggested that this may have happened–“Impossible” said der Fuehrer! There were so few radio intercepts concerning the upcoming Ardennes offensive that our top level commanders were caught off guard—even though many of us at lower levels were antsy about all of the enemy activity in the Ardennes.  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 commanders sufficient insight had they not been so overconfident. About then, we heard that Glenn Miller had been lost in the English Channel on 15 December—a sad, sad day! About 10 December 1944, as a nervous .tag-along-member of a six man patrol from the 38^th Cavalry Squadron—forward of the front near Bullingen and east of Malmedy—we found plenty of German activity across the bottom of a tree-filled canyon. Trees were being cut down with saws and axes, and tanks and other heavy motorized equipment were moving around over straw covered trails, to muffle their sounds.  While watching this activity from a concealed position two hundred yards away across the canyon, we listened to the big tank engines and sensed that “something unusual was afoot”. On our return the cavalry troopers used pull-igniters to anti-personnel three Tellermines left by a German patrol that was chased off the previous night, while attempting to infiltrate their lines.  Several enemy were killed when they tried to reclaim those mines.

When  information  regarding  all  of  this  German  activity  was  sent  to  higher headquarters, their response was that this was only a feint to trick us into pulling our troops away from our planned offensive in the Hurtgen Forest near Schmidt.  If it had not been so serious, an almost comical ploy at that time was our leaders attempt to enhance our apparent troop strength in this area of the Ardennes to draw more Germans troops from the front further north at Aachen. They conjured up a non-existent infantry division to further promote that deception (HEARD, But NOT VERIFIED).

As a result, our high-level commanders were not suspicious when the Germans began bringing in more and more troops prior to the Bulge–this is exactly what our leaders had hoped—and they happily believed that their scheme was working to perfection.  There surely were more than a few red faces at the higher headquarters when the axe finally fell!  We at the lower levels were unaware of these machinations, but were kept on edge by all of the rumors that were floating around. My 3rd Platoon; B-Co, had laid AT mines along the road shoulders near Bullingen a few weeks earlier, but that was probably done to deter small-scale penetrations or counterattacks.  Bullingen was on the route taken by Kampgruppe Peiper and was where his force captured a large quantity of American gasoline before heading west through Malmedy towards the Meuse River

Our 146th Engineer Combat Battalion was bivouacked at Mutzenich Junction, three miles west of the front at Monschau–which was at the northern shoulder of the German build-up. Captain Arthur Hill–H & S Company commander; CWO Wm Langhurst–Assistant S-l; and CWO Al Sarrach–Assistant Motor Officer; dropped in at their favorite Malmedy restaurant on 16 December for dinner. This was the first day of the Bulge and the situation had not yet been sorted out.  It was still being viewed by higher headquarters as a limited action to offset- the pressure of our attacks further north near Aachen. The restaurant- owner had just gotten in fresh steaks that afternoon so they all ordered steak. While waiting to be served, the owner requested that they move their jeep around to the rear so that the German soldiers who had seen in the vicinity would not shoot up his establishment. They complied, polished off their steaks in a hurry and then took off in a high lope for the bat talion about fifteen miles northeast.  This was a smart move, as Malmedy was on the proposed route of Kampfgruppe Peiper!

At 1520 hours 16 Dec, V-Corp’s Colonel Pattilio called Major Willard Baker our S-3 and ordered 146ECB to immediately furnish a company of engineers to serve as infantry; to be attached to the 38th Cavalry Squadron at Monschau.  A-company was in the Line at 1700 that evening, where they furnished support  for the outnumbered troopers. The 38th Cavalry was at the northern flank of the Bulge and just north of the 3rd Battalion, 395th Regiment, 99th Infantry Division–who managed to hold their ground even though the remainder of the division was badly chewed up, and much of their command was shifted to the 2nd Infantry Division.

The aggressive patrolling of the 38th Cavalry Squadron was a key element in their defense of the Monschau area during the Bulge, when they repulsed a number of attacks by vastly superior German forces. Their aggressive patrolling allowed them to establish the likely enemy avenues of approach, while keeping the Germans from coming close enough to determine the cavalry’s defensive positions. While I occasionally had patrolled in areas forward of our front lines, I had never patrolled with the audacity of these 38^th Cavalry troopers. They were fearless and not at all concerned about bumping into the enemy–in fact they may have welcomed the opportunity!

For several days this small force; plus 3rd Platoon, A-Co, 112ECB and attached 105mm and 155mm artillery, fought off several attacks by vastly superior enemy forces.  Several times they called in artillery on their positions to thwart the attacks. Canister rounds (a cannoneer’s shotgun) were used with devastating effect when they were about to be overrun. For their stout defense,  all three units were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation–the nation’s highest unit award. According to “Cavalry on the Shoulder”, the 38^th Cavalry was the only cavalry squadron to be so honored in WWII. The 146th Engineer Combat Battalion had received a Presidential Unit Citation for D-Day on Omaha Beach, so this added an oak leaf cluster to A-Company’s PUC.

At 1525 Hours on 16 December, Colonel McDonough—the commander of the 1121 Engineer Combat Group—called our headquarters and ordered another engineer company to be deployed as infantry. The three B-Company platoons moved into position the next morning, and for several days formed a barrier line, a short distance behind the front between Monschau and Elsenborn. Our purpose was to slow the advance of the 6th Panzer Army, should they manage to penetrate our lines.  The 3rd Platoon covered a 600 yard front in the snow, until relieved on 23 December.  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 captured or bypassed by any determined enemy attack in force.  Sylvin Keck manned a daisy-chain roadblock that was located on a nearby road.  These are AT mines roped together, so they can be pulled across the road at the approach of enemy vehicles;  but they are not effective unless adequately supported by covering fire. Several trees had explosives rigged to drop them and form an abatis on a nearby road.

While on outpost duty, the 3rd Platoon had no clue as to the German’s intentions or what was actually taking place nearby at the front.  We were located in a sparsely woody area away from our headquarters; but the wealth of rumors and the actuality of the paratroopers and reports of Skorzeny’s men dressed in American uniforms kept us alert. Unconfirmed rumors abounded! Anyone moving around was challenged–this even included easily recognized generals.  Lt Leonard Fox,  a C-Company platoon leader,  was taken prisoner by a patrol from the 38th Cavalry Squadron.  He had not received the password for the day.  After six hours, while his legitimacy was being confirmed, he was released. His problem was compounded by having grown up in Cuba and so did not have proper answers for his questioners regarding sports or hollywood personnel.

Lt Refert Croon led a patrol of Joe Manning, Marvin Lowery, Warren Hodges and about ten others, in looking for the paratroopers.  Lowery was killed in an ensuing firefight that killed two Germans and wounded several more—the rest surrendered. A total of nine enemy were killed and about sixty were captured—all of these by C-Company and HQ-Company–as A-Company and B-Company were deployed elsewhere as infantry. In another action, Fred Matthews was captured by the paratroopers, but he managed to escape during a later firefight.

In Operation Stosser, Lieutenant Colonel Frederich-August von der Heydte’s 1,500-man parachute- force dropped into the Hohes Venn on the night of 16/17 December—a swampy area that is at the headwaters of the Roer River,   in November, three of us tried to cross through this swamp. With our Jeep flat out in four wheel drive, we travelled 50 yards, before dropping it down to the floorboards. We then jacked it up and built a corduroy road to get back on solid ground.  His parachute forces had fought several vicious engagements with the 101st Airborne Division in Normandy and again in General Bernard Montgomery’s Market Garden offensive in September 19444-as portrayed in “The Band of Brothers”.

The paratroopers were a day late because of glitches in having their gasoline delivered and in getting assembled.   They were widely scattered from Eupen to Malmedy because of the wind, inexperienced pilots and minimal advance notice of the mission—as dictated by Hitler as a security measure. The twin “Jumo” engines of their planes were unsynchronized–thus giving them a slow beat frequency sound-  We were ordered not to shoot at them, which would give away our defensive positions. Many parachutes were found after the drop- I rescued an undamaged white one, also a large section from a brown and green camouflaged model—both appeared to be silk. The camouflaged silk made fine neck scarves and several still reside in my dresser drawer.

General Dietrich’s 6th Panzer Army included four Panzer Divisions equipped with the latest tanks and weapons—including 1st SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolph Hitler–from which the 30 year old Colonel Joachim Peiper’s Kampfgruppe Peiper was to launch the lightning strike to the Meuse River near Huy, Belgium. He then would move north to Antwerp—thus enveloping our northern armies. Initially Dietrich’s forces were to have reached the Baroque Michel crossroads—midway between Malmedy and Eupen–on the 16th, which was to have been captured then by the paratroopers—but both failed to meet that time-table.

Had Dietrich been able to force his way through Monschau, he very well may have rolled up our front and then captured the large gasoline dumps near Eupen. This would have been a replay of their successful 1940 breakthrough in the Ardennes that had trapped the French and British armies. The 38th Cavalry’s stand at Monschau blunted this effort, so all of Dietrich’s forces were directed south toward Elsenborn, Bullingen and Malmedy. Had they overran Monschau, the German armies could have moved almost unimpeded north to Antwerp, and Hitler would then have been trumpeted as a great tactician. Despite all of the negative opinions about the stupidity of launching the Ardennes offensive by removing troops and materiel from the Russian. front; honesty must conclude that with just a few fortunate breaks, the Bulge could have been a phenomenal German success!

Also, had the Hofen pillboxes not been blown up with TNT and bulldozed full of dirt by our battalion, the enemy may well have reoccupied them during one of their forays into Colonel McClernand  Butler’s  3rd  Battalion,  395th  regiment,  99th  Infantry  Division positions in Hofen and would then have been difficult to dislodge.   Some of these attackers appeared to have been heavily into their schnapps and were oblivious to the withering rifle and machinegun fire. They kept coming until large numbers were killed, wounded or captured–or they may just have been fiercely loyal, highly motivated young soldiers–who is to say?

Early on the morning of 17 December, Sergeant Henri Rioux sent Nettles and another radio man “called Indian” to the battalion for breakfast.  Later, we heard that the paratrooper’s planned assembly area was this battalion radio shack, six hundred yards from our bivouac area. It was located some distance away to keep from drawing artillery fire on our headquarters. When the two radio operators had not returned as expected, Rioux told Julius Mate and James France to go to breakfast and determine what had happened to them.

On their way, they saw a parachute with an attached bag hanging in a dead tree. Seeing evidence of the paratroopers was not surprising since they had heard the planes overhead the previous night.  Mate attempted to recover the chute by pulling on the lines, but the rotten tree broke and the trunk fell across his ankle, pinning him to the ground. After working free, they continued on toward the headquarters and breakfast and then saw Nettles ahead acting very strange. When they ran up to ask what was happening, six paratroopers with machine pistols stepped out of hiding, took them captive, disarmed them and then threw their M-l Garand rifles into a nearby creek–where they were found later that day by a patrol led by Lt Refert Croon.

Nettles and Mate were directed to make a double-pole support to carry a paratrooper who had compound fractures of both legs. At the end of the day. Mate’s ankle was very swollen and painful, so France and Nettles then carried the wounded trooper. This small group kept moving during the day and slept under fir boughs at night.  After wandering about for two days, they joined the main body of about 150 paratroopers and were then interrogated by a German officer who spoke impeccable English. He had studied at a Texas university and so not only knew the language–but also the American idioms and customs.

They were combined with twenty others who had been captured from a laundry unit near Eupen. At night they slept in a tight pile to keep warm, as it was very cold. After a time, when the body parts against the ground were growing cold, they all turned at a given signal. They kept up a running conversation to warn of the importance of moving, toes and fingers to avert frostbite. One of the captives, who understood German, heard their captors discussing how they should dispose of the Americans by throwing grenades into their midst while they slept. When a patrol from the 1st Infantry Division flushed out the paratroopers, the captives ran out waving their shirts and yelling “Don’t shoot-­were Americans”.

The winter of 1944 was one of the coldest in many years, often dropping well below zero degrees Fahrenheit. However, except for those foot-freezing GI boots, we managed-­even when touring around in Jeeps, always with the windshield folded down. Our battalion had few medical problems during this period, although some who failed to change their socks often, contracted trench foot—but none from the 3rd platoon. It was easily prevented by  keeping  a  spare pair  of  woolen  socks  tucked inside  of  one’s  pants.

Body heat dried them out, and they could then be swapped several times a day, while at the same time giving the feet a thorough massage.

During the Bulge our armies lost many men to this malady and especially men from the infantry who—because of an innate desire to keep from being spiculed, could not move out of their foxholes and exercise to keep warm.  Our new battalion medical officer—Captain Goldman—reported several cases of combat exhaustion that he treated with a combination of sedatives and rest, followed by several days of heavy labor within the sounds of battle near the front. Apparently it was successful. To warm themselves, a group of B-Company men built a flimsy cardboard shack with a diesel-fired steel drum stove located in the middle of the floor. When one man tried to force his way into an already full shack, he was unable to do so and no one offered to swap places with him.  Not to be deterred, he yelled “I’ll show you sons of bitches”, and he then threw a clip of M-l ammo into the flames. The mad scramble for the entry almost demolished the shack, after which the perpetrator was run down and pounded.

We must have been a bit odoriferous, as we rarely had an opportunity to shower. Whore baths—water heated in helmets over an open fire—was our only option for washing face, ears, neck, underarms, crotch and feet in that order.  Our helmets then took on a dingy hue. We were usually able to shave daily—though 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 arose later 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 straight-edge razor was operating! At night, I removed my boots and swapped socks before, crawling into a bedroll of several wool blankets, supported by a generous layer of interlaced pine boughs to provide insulation from the cold ground.   During the coldest weather I slept in all of my clothes, changing underwear whenever possible.  One morning I woke to find that a heavy wet snowfall had compressed the pup tent down around my body.  Surprisingly, although we were often half frozen from riding in jeeps—always 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 finally were issued insulated shoe-pacs in lieu of those foot-freezing leather boots. In his book “Citizen Soldiers”, Stephen Ambrose said the American command gambled that the war would be over in 1944 before we required shoe-pacs—in retrospect an error in judgment, but C’est la Guerre— you can’t win ’em all!

About 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 800 yards to the east. We were a bit jumpy as their flight 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 that German forces were there, before or after the strike, but since we were close to the front, that is a distinct possibility. A prominent radiator bulge under the 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 the Spitfires and Mustangs. I was told that these engines had 24 cylinders—four banks of six—as compared to the twelve cylinders of the Merlin. The twenty four exhausts blended the sound into the unusual roar—SINCE VERIFIED.

Christmas day 1944, on the way to our AP minefield, a doe and a yearling crossed in front of our truck 80 yards away.  We stopped and I told the men in back to shoot her. After ten or more rounds had been fired, I yelled “cease fire”,  just as the deer disappeared into the brush, because the firing may have been interpreted as a fire fight with a German patrol that would have initiated a wasteful response.   The doe then wandered back across the road, so I shot her. There was a single hole in her hide–another indication of our superb American marksmanship!

The fresh meat was a welcome change from our recent diet. Several weeks previously, B-Co’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 minefields, walking into the trip wires, detonating the mines and killing themselves in the process—we only hastened their demise.  The hogs were fried first and the pork fat was then used to fry the rest of the meat. The meat was chewy and tough—but the change of diet was appreciated. When we were able to get to our company kitchen for a hot meal, I piled most of the food together in my mess-kit (shit-skillet in GI parlance). Breakfast might include stewed prunes, oatmeal with reconstituted dried milk, scrambled powdered eggs, bacon and toast with jam. It did not look too appetizing when so intermingled- -but it tasted better than it looked, and it had a definite edge over those early gruesome K-rations. Also, having the food piled together helped keep it from freezing. Our cooks were artists in their ability to take smelly powdered eggs and powdered milk and turn them into something reasonably palatable. I am not sure what they used to perk up the powdered eggs, but added a bit of vanilla and a pinch of sugar to powdered milk. A vastly improved K-ration showed at about this time. It was far superior to the original—the crackers of which looked and tasted like lightly seasoned sawdust.

On the night of 26 December 1944, our bivouac area was shelled heavily for about thirty minutes.  We were in an area of large trees, so there were many tree bursts. Heading for a safe refuge in a culvert (he called it a tin horn), Platoon Sergeant Homer Jackson ran into a truck tailgate and chipped off the corner of an upper front tooth. It was a tight squeeze as twelve others had beaten him there.  I flattened myself on the ground at the base of a large pine 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. 99th Division 105s were overrun close-by near the Wahlersheid Crossroads and these may have been the culprits.  They must have had forward observers—probably paratroopers—as they took very few rounds to register on our area. We believed that our position may have been pin-pointed by the paratroopers, because their designated assembly point was the forestry shack being used by our battalion radio operators—the three who had been captured.

Several trucks had flat tires and the driveline of one truck was completely severed. A shell fragment smashed through the front panel of a headquarters desk drawer and spinning around inside made a mouse nest out of the papers within. A number of shell fragments pierced the aid station tent—one striking Ernest K Hansen in the chest as he was holding a plasma bottle over one of our wounded. Although a number of men were wounded there were no fatalities. Lt Colonel Carl Isley was the most seriously wounded— wounded as he made the rounds to check on our casualties. He told Dr Stanley Goldman, our medical officer, “that last one really knocked the air out of me”.  He was covered with blood and was given plasma, as blood for transfusions was unavailable in WWII. battlefields.  His recuperation required many months in a stateside hospital.   That night, the battalion was moved to Henri-Chapelle per Isley’s orders, before he was evacuated. Colonel Skorzeny’s “Americans”—who had infiltrated our lines and were captured wearing American uniforms and driving captured Jeeps—were executed by firing squads 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 did my best to find a spot to spread out, but as the space was completely filled with bodies, I could not find a bare spot. After someone offered to loosen all of my teeth if I didn’t quit stepping on him, I crawled back out and shivered in the Jeep until dawn. The next morning B-Company returned to our original bivouac area, and we continued working on the AP mine field. New Year’s Day morning 1945 was clear and very cold. While we were adding the metal red triangles to the barbed wire perimeter fence—to indicate an American anti-personnel minefield—the sky was suddenly filled with twenty eight Messerschmitt ME-109s flying northwest at 1000 feet. We later learned that they were part of Operation Bodenplatte–the plan to attack our airfields and destroy our planes on the ground—a continuation of the Bulge. A number of our airfields near the front in Belgium and Holland were successfully attacked that day, and several hundred of our planes were destroyed on the ground. German losses were about a third of ours but their losses–and especially losses of trained pilots–were losses that they could ill afford.   Luckily for us, our P-47s were rendezvousing near Liege for a strike of their own, and they caught these Germans by surprise as they were coming in.  It must have been some dogfight, but we saw only the tail end of the action from our work area.

In twenty 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 area. The script was almost the same in every case. The ME-109 pilots, who were flying southeast and very close to the deck heading for home, were being slaughtered by the P-47s. 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 fourth downed plane hit 600 yards away, and several of us headed out to see what we could find–such as 9mm Lugers or P-38s!  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 enough altitude to jump.  His plane rose only a few hundred feet and came 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 in or near the wreckage, since we were sure that he had lacked sufficient altitude to eject safely.

The pilot could not be found, but the ME-109 wreckage 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 cleared the  area.  We searched the surrounding area and finally found the pilot’s chute in a pine tree about one hundred feet back in the direction from which we had come.  Landing in the tree surely kept the pilot from being severely injured or killed. The pilot had slipped his chute and had laid low until we passed and then had backtracked up 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 had crawled under the wire barrier and suffered modest wounds when he detonated one of our anti-personnel mines. We surmised that he believed he would freeze to death before morning, so he killed himself with his 9mm P-38. (Mentioned in battalion records of 03 January 1945.)

By early January, we were gaining control after the Bulge had been suppressed; some of the captured Germans dressed in American uniforms from Colonel Skorzeny’s force had been executed by a firing squad at Henri-Chapelle, a few miles north of Monschau; and the paratroopers had been rounded up and shipped off to the PW cages.  Our infantry was gaining control in the St Vith area and we had heard of the successful relief of our troops at Bastogne by General Patton. Although the news that funneled down to us seemed to be more favorable, all that it took to journey back to reality was to observe the graves registration men picking up the dead. One memorable corpse in the snow in front of a nearby pillbox was a big football lineman type infantryman. He was about 6’4” and 2501bs–probably a BAR candidate.  Only stockings were on his feet so he probably was wearing shoe-pacs as no one would have gone to that much trouble to get those foot-freezing G I boots.  At the site of one big tank battle near Bullingen, I had reason to be thankful that I was not a tanker. The bodies that were being removed from knocked out Sherman tanks—Ronsons by their deprecators, since they never failed to light when struck–were wrapped in sheets that looked like oversized diapers.  The corpses were so badly burned that some had no apparent arms or legs.  The stench of burned human flesh is an odor that is not easily forgotten!

General Bernard Law Montgomery’s self-serving news conference to the British press, emphasizing in detail how he had rescued Omar Bradley’s 1st and 9th armies containing eighteen American divisions—finally sifted down to us.  This was during the Bulge, after the German thrust had formed a deep salient into our lines requiring an immediate restructuring of the command, because the Bulge had separated Bradley’s headquarters from his divisions. There is no doubt that Elsenhower’s decision was proper but that—coupled with  Montgomery’s  grand  pronouncements—rankled  Bradley,  causing  dissension  between British and US commanders that almost gave Hitler a victory of sorts by splitting up the allies. Although Montgomery’s presentation was a bit too self-glorifying, it may have been Bradley’s thin skin and wounded ego that was a large part of the problem.’

I was then saddened to learn of Lt Trescher’s death just before the Bulge. He was platoon leader of the 2nd platoon B-Company, and was killed by artillery while attempting to determine the location of that enemy battery by analyzing the artillery burst patterns in the snow.  I found it hard to believe that he was gone.  He was such a fine caring gentleman who watched over his men like a doting mother–thus his nickname “Mother Trescher”.  He was very old—about 32—and was a civil engineering graduate from MIT-Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Trescher had been at the Assault Training Center near Barnstaple in North Devon when I joined the 146ECB in December of 1943.  He was also the QIC of Gap Assault Team #D on Qmaha Beach at dawn on D-Day, so we had been together for a year.  He was more of a gentleman than the rest of us raunchy lieutenants—and although he usually tried to ignore our dirty jokes, he enjoyed a good laugh and was a fun fellow in his quiet droll way.   R.I.P. “Mother Trescher”—you will be remembered always with fondness.

In January 1945, plans for a new Allied offensive were taking shape. In preparation for a proposed crossing of the Roer River, we built a quantity of duckboards that were to be used over pontoons in that assault. When our infantry outflanked the German positions and captured that area, the duckboards were not needed.  Meanwhile, Ranger patrols were making nightly forays into enemy positions across the Roer River. On one trip, they found three Germans soldiers asleep in a Siegfried bunker. The two men on the outside were knifed, and the one in the middle was left untouched.  Imagine how that poor soldier would feel upon awakening and finding out that he was alive only by a shake of the dice? That was a heavy-duty mind game, and one that would unnerve any normal human being!

In mid-January an infantry lieutenant was wounded near our work area by an “S-mine”–“called a Bouncing Betty”–and his men requested that  our men sweep the area for additional mines.  They became impatient with our slow mine-sweeping technique and ran on ahead down to where their lieutenant was lying. I carefully followed them, stepping in their tracks to avoid being an additional casualty.  We each then grabbed an arm or a leg and carried the lieutenant to safety by retracing our footsteps. He was vomiting and one man kept his head turned to the side to keep the intracranial fluid from running out through the hole in the side of his skull.   He was semi-conscious, and would have remembered nothing. I hope that he had a complete recovery.

That winter, I had seen an almost perfectly formed hemisphere of white brain tissue lying in the snow.  A German soldier had been killed and apparently then had a mortar or artillery round burst nearby, which had blown away the side of his skull and dumped out the delicate white brain tissue.  Had the brain tissue not been frozen, it would not have been so well delineated as unfrozen brains are not all that sturdy. The detail was almost as good as the photographs in anatomy books and was a cause for queasiness in this one, who was not an anatomy major!

After the Bulge had been contained and reduced, our offensive to the Rhine began in early February with “THE MAD MINUTE.” where every weapon along the entire V-Corps front fired toward suspected German concentrations for one minute. This included all of our rifles, machine guns, and mortars firing as many rounds as possible. Divisional and Corps artillery fired TOT (Time on Target), where all of their rounds hit the target area at the same time. This devastating fire did not allow any time for the Germans to take cover—it was all over before they could react.

We then worked our way east toward the Rhine and in March, assisted another engineer battalion in building a floating bridge at Remagen. We then passed through Kassel, Halle, Leipzig and on 05 May passed through Grafenwohr–the German army training camp–where Colonel Skorzeny’s “Americans” complete with American uniforms. Jeeps and cigarettes had prepared for their special Bulge mission. We were nearing Pilsen and “VE Day” was just three days away!

January 13, 1945
by John M. Nolan, 30th ID, 119th IR
This was the worst day of my life, and it occurred in World War II as a member of the First Platoon, “G” Company, 119th Infantry, 30th Infantry Division. This January day during the “Battle of the Bulge” included most of the elements of close combat that can ever be inflicted by the Gods of War. Further, it took place in the bitter cold of a Belgian winter over frozen ground covered with a foot of snow. It was miserable.

The 30th Division had been in fierce combat with advancing German forces since December 18 in the Malmedy-Stavelot sector of the Ardennes. At the end of De­cember we were in a defensive position near Malmedy. Below our dug-in position along a railroad embankment there was a factory complex about a quarter of a mile away. Our platoon was ordered to mount a reconnaissance patrol to search this area for enemy activity. When we arrived we found dead American soldiers lying on the ground with their hands tied behind their backs with wire before being killed by German SS troops. Several dead German soldiers in the vicinity provided evidence of the severe fighting at this location. We found a German Panther tank altered in appearance to re­semble a U.S.Army tank and not wanting it recaptured and reused by the Germans, I took a thermite grenade and put it down the barrel of me 75mm tank cannon. The gre­nade melted most of the end of the cannon tube to ensure the tank would not fire its main gun again.

During this time our company and platoon took a well-deserved rest as we waited for the oncoming action. The German offensive had been blunted and a coun­terattack was planned to drive them out of the Ardennes and restore the battle line to its former location. It was cold and we tried to keep warm in our foxholes along the railroad track. Of all the men in our platoon Ernie King and Edward Knocke were the most inventive when it came to digging foxholes. The longer they were in one defensive location the more elaborate their underground “homes” became. This particular foxhole would have won the prize if any prizes were to be awarded. Their foxhole could ac­commodate about six men was covered with a door they had removed from a nearby house. The door was piled high with dirt to protect the occupants from any mortar or artillery hits. A small table, several chairs, and a small stove had also been “requisi­tioned” from nearby houses. This was heaven! We would sit in their abode at night eating our heated K rations, telling, “war stories.” and reminiscing about home, and our lives prior to our present circumstance. This was a time when we “recharged our bat­teries” and rested up for what we knew would be severe fighting ahead. It was also an opportunity to reassure the green replacements we had received, and hope they would meet the test of the coming combat.

By now we were a veteran outfit. I believe the phrase “hard bitten” could ade­quately describe us. The core group of our platoon had been together since early Sep­tember and was a well honed fighting force. Some members had been wounded and had returned to the platoon in time for combat in the Ardennes. Before Christmas day we had collided with Adolph Hitler’s First Panzer SS Division in a severe “bare-knuckle” firefight that caused their retreat. We knew we had met me test of combat and were ready for what was ahead. “Old timers” like us welcomed the new men that filled our ranks, some of them eighteen years old, and scared to death. We were all scared, and as the saying goes “had seen the elephant.” This knowledge gave us an edge, however slight, over the new men in subduing our own fears.

The intense cold added uncomfortable dimensions to our existence. Unlike die days of September, October, or November when we could get by wearing only a field jacket and combat boots we realized that to survive we needed to pile on more clothes. We all carried a heavy load of clothing and equipment that weighted us down. By De­cember I was wearing two pairs of long underwear, top and bottoms, a wool olive drab shirt and matching trousers. Over this was a field jacket, a wool scarf, and a wool trench coat that was long enough to reach the top of my combat boots. To keep my feet warm two pairs of socks and a pair of four buckle “Arctic’s,” sometimes called “ga­loshes” fit over two buckle combat boots. My steel helmet had a white camouflage cover and a knit wool cap underneath to keep your ears warm. I wore wool knit gloves that fit in a leather glove shell. In addition, I was equipped with a gas mask and a haversack, which held a mess kit, K rations, and a sleeping bag. A canteen with can­teen cup, an entrenching tool and first aid pouch was attached to my ammunition belt. I was one of the fortunate few in the platoon to have acquired a blow torch white in a Belgian town we had occupied and carried it in my left hand. The Army had a small stove to heat rations, and our platoon was issued only one and Mullins, our medical aid man, had that one. We were willing to carry the extra weight of the blow torch in order to have hot meals. These were all the clothes’ one could wear, and still be able to move as an infantryman is supposed to move. I could not run fast or very far with my load, but a steady waking pace was possible.

I was armed with an M-l rifle, 8 round semi-automatic, as well as a 10 inch long barrel Luger 9mm pistol on my belt. The Luger pistol was acquired in October from a German soldier Bill dine had shot one night when we were dug-in on a ridge at Wurselen, Germany. For my rifle there were one hundred rounds of 30 caliber ammuni­tion in 8 round clips, and a few extra 9mm rounds for the pistol. A bayonet was at­tached to my pack, and a rifle grenade bag was slung over my shoulder containing four anti-tank grenades and a launcher that fit over the muzzle of my M-l rifle. Under my wool shirt was a sheath knife carried under my left arm fastened to a string around my neck. Remembering how much weight this added during this campaign it is a wonder how I did it. I weighed about 150 pounds men, and I suspect the weight of the cloth­ing and equipment was at least one half of my body weight.

We received orders to dose the “Bulge” and return the line to its December 16 location. Our battalion would attack, moving south from Malmedy, to seize the town of BeUevaux that was situated behind a high ridge. Company “G” would lead the at­tack and our platoon would be the lead unit to carry the assault up the narrow road to the heights above the town. In preparing for the attack our platoon was told to leave sleeping bags in the rear with the company mess truck. The plan was to bring them for­ward that night after we had captured the objective. I decided to put my gas mask in my haversack instead of carrying it slung under my left arm. For a “GI” the gas mask carrier was considered a good place to “stash” personal belongings. In mine I carried letters received from home, writing paper, a shaving brush, razor and soap, and a coal miner’s carbide canister filled with tea bags.

Our platoon moved to the line of departure in darkness and at dawn the attack began with combat engineers moving forward to remove any anti-tank mines. We then were to clear out any German opposition so our supporting tanks could follow us then deploy in the open ground to support our attack. As we moved forward we learned the engineers had discovered an extensive mine field on the road. It was late in the morning before we could move through a foot path the engineers had opened through the mines. We continued the attack up the road to seize and hold the ridgeline until the tanks could catch up. The platoon slowly trudged its way up the steeply sloped, nar­row road that ran a quarter of a mile to the top of the ridge. The snow was a foot deep and it was slow going as we made our way up the hill with combat boots and our four buckle galoshes.

Ernie King’s squad lead the attack, as the platoon sergeant I decided to be up front with Ernie’s squad; the other two squads in the platoon deployed in single file be­hind us. Cletus Herrig was the lead scout with Bob Friedenheimer the second scout. As the platoon approached the crest of the ridge Herrig spotted German soldiers in foxholes and yelled back that they were dug-in some thirty yards ahead. Cletus could speak German so we told him to call to them and demand that they surrender. I thought I could fire a rifle grenade into their position, but when it landed the deep snow cushioned the impact and it failed to explode.

Cletus kept trying to talk them into surrender, when suddenly all hell broke loose! No one who has ever heard the sound of a MG42 German machine gun open fire will ever forget it. This machine gun was pointed down toward the ditch line where we were crouched spraying us with bullets. The first burst hit four of us before we could find cover in the ditch below the machine gun’s trajectory. Herrig was hit along the top of both shoulders, Friedenheimer was hit through the lung, I took a bullet in the back of my pack and was knocked down to my knees. Behind me was Mflton Cohen, a private, one of the eighteen year old replacements that had joined us two weeks earlier. He was hit in me teeth with the bullet exiting his head behind his right ear, and I will never for­get his plaintive call for his mother. Ernie King was the only one of the first five that was not hit by initial burst of fire from the machine gun.
Having been knocked down I immediately thought, “I just got lucky, I am on my way to the hospital and off this damn hill, and hope my wound is not too severe.” My back was hurting and I assumed that I was bleeding from a puncture in my back. I rolled over and took the pack off my shoulders, to see what had happened. To my sur­prise a German machine gun bullet was lying in the hole on my pack with a shred of rubber attached to it. I picked it up, it was still warm, then put it in my pocket as a souvenir of the occasion. Later I opened my gas mask container and discovered that the pack fabric, the gas mask container fabric, the rubber face mask, the metal gas mask canister, and the handle of my shaving brush had slowed the bullet to a stop on the surface of my field coat. It gave me one hell of a thump on my back that was sore for a few days afterwards. This was the only day in combat I had ever carried my gas mask in my pack and it had saved my life.

That first burst of machine gun fire put our platoon down hugging the ground in the ditch beside the road. We were stunned, and began to assess the extent of our casualties; we were grateful to find that no one had been killed. For the wounded among us immediate evacuation to the rear for treatment at the battalion aid station was made more difficult by the sporadic machine gun fire. The “jerries” had us pinned down and we could not move forward in the face of their machine gun fire on the road and ditch line. The phrase “all hell broke loose” again applied to our situation when the Germans began to drop 81mm mortar rounds on our position. There are few things more fearful to an exposed infantryman than incoming mortar or artillery fire. To compound this fear the “jerries” included in their barrage “screaming meemies,” enemy rockets that made a horrendous noise, and caught us unprepared as targets for mis form of artillery. When they came in on us I perceived their sound was comparable to railroad boxcar flying sideways through the air with both of its doors open. I found out later that the German name for this weapon was Nebelwerfer. As a rocket it did not compare with the accuracy of mortar or artillery fire, but its high pitched screeching noise made it all the more terrifying.

The “screaming meemies” did not get us but me 81mm mortars did. From their defensive positions the German’s were masters at pinning down advancing infantry and then raining mortar rounds on them. The mortar shells were falling on the road behind us and on the remainder of our platoon. An 81mm mortar shell fragment hit Vie Kwia-towski in the head seriously wounding him. Mortar shell fragments hit Bob Heider in the neck, shoulder and back. Jones got hit in the head by a fragment that penetrated his steel helmet, and the mortar barrage also wounded the second squad BAR man, Char­les Holverson, Clarence Overton was killed. Our progress halted, we could not go for­ward and were not going to retreat. The immediate requirement was to evacuate our wounded. Smitty, our platoon leader, was in the middle of the platoon column and organized the effort along with the platoon medic to remove the wounded from the hill. Those that could walk moved to the rear. For the more seriously wounded a door was taken from nearby house and brought forward to use as a stretcher for Vie and others wounded from the barrage.
Ernie King and I stayed to’the front keeping down low in the ditch beside the road. We were concerned that the Germans would mount a counterattack on our posi­tion after their first machine gun burst. Artillery support fire began, but we were too dose to our enemy for the artillery to continue and be effective. Any artillery rounds falling short would have landed on our platoon deployed along the road. The tanks would eventually move forward and up the hill to support us when the minefield was cleared. In the meantime we scanned the hedgerow along the crest of the ridge and a row of trees about thirty yards away that ran down the hill paralleling the road. A German soldier was spotted on the other side of the line of trees crawling down the hill in an attempt to outflank our position. Both King and I shot at him, but at the time we could not see whether we got him. We finally received word that two light tanks had moved through the cleared mine field and would support the Third Platoon in its at­tack through the field on our left flank to knock out the machine gun emplacement.

The attack by the Third Platoon was a sight to behold, with a deafening cres­cendo of small arms fire and cannon bursts. Each platoon of Company G had a slightly different character regarding weaponry preference. Our platoon had no par­ticular love for the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR); it was a 21 pound load to carry and a weapon that required constant maintenance to keep it operational. Each of our three squads was issued a BAR. However, the 3d Platoon thought the BAR was a great weapon and almost every third man in the platoon carried one. Sergeant Frank Wease, the Third Platoon Sergeant, carried one and encouraged the weapons use.

In the combined infantry and tank attack up the hill Wease deployed his pla­toon abreast in a line on each side of and between the two light tanks. The tanks were armed with a 37mm main gun on the turret and a 30 caliber light machine gun that protruded from the front of the tank where the machine gunner sat beside the tank driver. There were about 14 men with BAR’S in Wease’s platoon and the remainder with M-l rifles. Coming up the hill with the tanks in the middle of the formation, they were all firing as they moved forward. Each tanks main gun, its machine gun, the BAR’S, and the M-l rifles of die third platoon created a sheet of fire concentrated on the enemy position at the crest of the hill. There was no way the third platoon could be stopped by any counter fire from the entrenched German troops. Wease and his men, with their tank support, surged through the enemy line along the trees on the ridge. The German troops that were still alive immediately surrendered. Several minutes had passed when Sgt. Wease brought some prisoners down the road where we were located. All of us were furious at the casualties they had inflicted on our platoon, and wanted to shoot them, but Wease would not let us. Later, after calming down from the days’ events, I was grateful that Wease had restrained me from taking such a rash act. I had never shot an unarmed prisoner, and didn’t want such a thing on my conscience. After the attack King and I went over to the hedgerow where we had shot at the German crawling down the hill. We found him dead. Someone in the attacking third platoon had taken his pistol as they moved up the hill in the assault.

Late afternoon had come by the time our company had seized the ridgeline above Bellevaux. We received orders to set up a defensive position, the days were short in the middle of winter and night would soon fall. The third platoon was to occupy that part of the ridge they had captured earlier in the day. Our platoon deployed in a stretch of open field to their right where digging a foxhole was very difficult. To get beneath the frozen ground required an extraordinary effort. Fortunately, someone in command had realized this problem and before the attack thought to issue a quarter pound block of TNT with a fuse and blasting cap to every other man in our platoon. Instructions have been given on the proper method to assemble the explosive device: dig a small hole in the ground, put the charge in the hole, light the fuse, and move away quickly before it exploded. The resulting explosion broke up the frozen crust so that a foxhole could be easily dug in the softer ground underneath. We were also told that the blasting cap was volatile and could explode if jarred violently, or exposed to excessive heat. This required that every man carrying a block of TNT. with its fuse and blasting cap, carefully wrap each separately, hoping they did not get hit, or in some way inad­vertently ignite the blasting cap and TNT while they were carrying it.

Those of us in the company that survived this day’s combat were faced with enduring a cold winter’s night on a Belgian mountain. Previous to the attack we were told to lighten our equipment load by leaving our sleeping bags in the rear area. Then after the attack our sleeping bags would be carried forward for use that night; this did not happen. Because of the snow cover and the steep incline of the winding road to our defensive position, our company truck could not move dose enough to deliver the promised sleeping bags. We were in for a very long, cold night of lying in the open on frozen snow covered ground, or in hastily dug foxholes. The rifle squads on the defen­sive line got busy, breaking up the ground with TNT then dug their foxholes for the night. We, in the platoon headquarters were not issued blocks of TNT so lying on top of the snow-covered ground was our only option. Lou LeFever, always a great forager, went down the hill and found a barn with some hay in it. He brought as much as he could carry to our position behind the ridgeline. We scattered the hay in the drainage ditch where previously the machine gun fire had pinned us down. We lay on the hay putting the remainder of it on us. Smitty, the platoon leader, Lou LeFever, the platoon runner, Mullins the medic, and me, the platoon sergeant, huddled together in the “spoon position.” I don’t remember who was in the middle, or who was on the outside of our sleeping “formation,” but I do remember that it was very cold, and we were all shivering and hoping for morning to come quickly.

The next morning “G” Company was ordered to advance over the ridge and down the road leading to the town of Bellevaux, our next objective. The Third Platoon would lead the attack, with the Second Platoon in support. The First Platoon having been severely mangled the day before, followed in reserve, with my position being at the rear of our platoon column. It was a cold dark morning as the remaining members of the platoon reluctantly shouldered packs and rifles to prepare themselves for another day of combat against a determined enemy. As we moved single file down the road toward Bellevaux one of the men from the platoon, Samuel Klugman, dropped out of the column. I walked over to find out why. He pulled off his glove and showed me his right hand, saying his hand felt frozen. The hand looked blue and rigid so I told him to go to the rear for medical treatment. This was our last casualty from the attack the previous day, the worst day of my life.

Comment: The combat strength of Company G, 119th Infantry at 0300 hrs. on January 13,1944 was 140 (134 EM, 3 Off, 3 Medics). At 1600 hrs., at the end of the attack, the company combat strength was reduced to 83 (78 EM, 3 Off, 2 Medics). In a 13-hour period Company G lost 57 men, a 41 % loss rate. Of the 57 losses three men were killed, Clarence Overton, 1st Platoon, Lauren A. Gates, Jr., and James W. Phillis 3d Pla­toon; the remainder were wounded in action.

Colonel Douglass Dillard U.S.Army (ret.) Recounts some of his Battle of the Bulge experiences

“Recon, you find ’em; engineers, you fixjem; tanks, you fight ’em; and TD’s, you finish em!” With these emphatic, but crystal clear adjurations, LTC Henry L Davisson set the tempo for his task force subordnance commanders. It was 16 December 1944, and the yet-to-be-named “Ardennes Offensive” had exploded. This Kraut’s massive tank penetration now was creating this northern shoulder of what was to be its acquired sobriquet, “The Battle of the Bulge”.

In response, hastily thrown together units from the vaunted 1^st INF Division, “The Big Red One,” would acquire its title “from the aggressive commander of the 634^th T.D. BN.” “Task Force Davisson” was thus quickly formed as a lightly armored, tank-killing reaction force! MAJ Olson, the “TFD” S3 designated the line of march, handed out strip-maps for a southward reconnaissance.    Our armored convey consisted of the 1^st Recon Troop heading out with puny 37 mm armed M-8 Greyhound armored cars. Intermingled came the 1^st Combat Engineer BN’s “A” Co. riding its soft-skinned vehicles. Now came “D” Co. of the 745^th Tank BN with its measly LT Whippert tanks armed also with 37 mm guns, but backed up by its 75 mm assault gun platoon. Spread out and looking for targets came “C” Co. of the 634^th TD BN with their 90 mm rifles, claiming the ability to compete with German armor. All ably supported by “the King of the Battlefield,” our four-man “F.O. Chaste” Arty 2 Observation party (with the common capability to call down Divarty and Corps Arty “barrages or serenades”).

Our battery veterans of the “Lucky 7^th” Arty BN, who had fought German armor in Tunisia, Algeria, the beach at Sicily, and in the fields of Normandy, spoke out in warning to our little observer party: “Be ready. This TF Davisson is outgunned by the huge Panthers and King Tiger monsters reported coming your way. Remember, your tank-destroying force needs to equal or outgun those battle-tested German Behemoths and also mount sufficient armor to protect themselves from the superior German anti­tank weapons. In other words, you better be ‘killer tanks’ rather than tank killers. If not, you will have to stop ’em with indirect 105 mm or 155 mm Arty concentrations.”

Despite these knowledgeable words, we heard only the spumngs of COL Davisson. Quickly, the “TFD” saddled up and cautiously commenced traveling south through snowy Belgium. The lengthy convoy slid out of SourBrodt and Robertville and clanked into Walk and Weimes, small villages recently vacated by U.S. medical units.  The weather was frigid cold and damp, but the fog was dissipating, and for once, Arty would have wonderfully clear observation! Here we were, “The Lucky 7th’s” forward observation party on high ground, salivating at the abundance of lucrative targets! Spotting from our town’s church steeple with our 20-power scopes, German convoys, to include tanks, traveling west across our front from 863-020 to 863-024—an artillery man’s dream!. Compounding our good fortune, our “Lucky 7^th‘¹ Arty BN had recently been supplied with the previously secretive ammo employing “the proximity fuse” constructed around its nose plug, which activated when the emitted radio beam encountered an object within 15 yards! We were going to have the proverbial field day .. and we deserved it!

Our parent organization, “The Fighting First,” was still recuperating from its horrific bloodletting in “The Hurtin’ Forest” this past November, where the Krauts had grounded us into Hurteen Forest and pasi^ Surely now was to be payback time … but the war gods frowned and said no, …. not yet!  The American Artillery ammunition supplies across the entire 1^st Army front were dangerously low, contriving to place “quotas” on all “shoots”! Our radio pleas to FDC for fire missions received a “wait out”! Our frantic telephone messages informed us their priority was to our east. There, our sister regiment, the 26^th INF “Blue Spaders,” were in continuous battle with German armored thrust at Bullingen and Butenbach. There, LTC Derrill, M. Daniels, and his 2d BN would successfully blunt the German COL Piepers’ rampaging westward drive and dream! That portion of the northern shoulder would remain firm!

So now it was to be our turn. The German 1^st SS Panzers, frantically searching for a route on the Rollbahnen to the west, then sideslipped and proceeded to smash at us; “TFD” now intermixed with 3d BN 16^th INF at Weimes/ Our front erupted with tank fire and reported INF advancing plus intensified artillery fire in our immediate front. Our first indication was a flying buzz bomb smashing into the battery area and WIAs three gunners—CPL Homer A .Jerome, T/5 Raymond A. Fink, and PFC Erio Baton. We were further alerted by a commotion reported on our eastern outpost which luckily forewarned everyone in town! Speeding down the only street in Weimes came two G.I. jeeps overly loaded with Krauts. Firing madly and careening widely to escape our firing gallery response, they crashed off the road on the west side of the village.

COL Davisson then ordered, “Recon, send a squad to investigate and recover bodies and/or the vehicles”! LT Cangerosi, our F.O., took over the viewing scopes from our lofty OP as the submachine-armed Recon squad gingerly approached the overturned vehicles. They sprayed the area, righted a jeep, and returned with a WIA spreadeagled on the hood! Another German captive was shoved into the co-pilot’s seat, hands on his head. Arriving at the town square, now crowded with a rubbernecking G.I. throng, the Jerry prisoners held center stage! Looking like “right out of Hollywood” with his peaked hat and black leather topcoat and gloves, in excellent English, he demanded medical attention for his men! In response, someone in the crowd belted him with a rifle butt! He was saved further harm by the NCOs who held back the provoked soldiers. It appeared that in breaking through our outpost, the Germans had hailed in English, then fired and killed and wounded the surprised guards. These angry crowd members were old-time buddies of the soldier killed by this “ruse-de-guerre”!

Later, with his head now bandaged, the German officer was carted off to the 16^th INF Regimental S-2, where subsequent interrogation divulged he was an officer-courier transporting the photographic proof of this German explosive and successful penetration through the American lines. The following day, angered regimental staff members descended and oversaw a search of the snowy jeep accident area and found this valuable film!

These important photos, immediately developed at the rear headquarters, received prominent world attention as the classic “Bulge” combat film showing smilincL German paratroopers as “successfulwarriors in action”! With our shooting priority reestablished and our observation still A-OK, our ARTY observer party initiated fire missions with visibly outstanding results! LT Anthony Cangelosi, our latest F.O., who would break the “bad luck cycle” of officer casualties and proceed to “make it” to the war’s end in Czechoslovakia, took targets under fire. First, we fired on “enemy troops forming for attack,” then followed a mission on enemy vehicles. Finally, we observed for a Divarty TOT on an enemy assembly area. With the horizon ablaze, we continued with harassing fires throughout the night. CPL Maurice Vacher was our instrument CPL who would be promoted and get the Purple Heart the following week. He would return, bandaged, with three new stripes and stories of great chow in the medical rear. Me, now a Tech 5^th (CPL’s pay without the authority) and my cohort, T/5 Rene Cote, our dependable driver, rounded out our crew. At first light, all of us, now professionals after six months on the combat scene, poured destruction on the advancing white-painted enemy armor and accompanying white-clad infantry.   After four missions and 275 rounds expended, we reported “enemy activity ceased and one tank burning”!   Later, during a slow afternoon, CPT Fred F. Chirigotis from the 745^th Tanks asked for our indirect fire observing so they could “use up” their 75 mm ammo. With a total expenditure, their tanks would be able to acquire new 76 mm tubes! Jumping at the chance, I got some invaluable and exhilarating shooting experience and contributed some damage, too!

During another quiet period, on Cote’s watch, he asked, “What the hell are those guys doing?” An engineering squad seemed to be laying a hasty minefield n the road leading south into the town of Faymonyille. Apparently, these engineers must have been short of mines because the engineering Sergeant had his squad scrounge up dinner plates from the nearby Belgium homes. His squad, laden with this ample supply of dishes, were pacing off the distances and placing plates face down on the road and adjoining fields. As viewers, our interest peaked. “Look at him now. He’s putting some real mines amongst those kitchen plates!” Finally, the squad members covered these actual metallic mines with large porcelain dinner platters. “Very clever, these Americans!”    Those porcelain covers will inhibit the mine metallic detectors.” Later that afternoon, as it snowed, our forward area was dimpled with the ingenious defensive preparation.  German counterfire re-intensified and seemed to be directed at our high ground and steeple, so we moved into town to the second floor of the town hall or barroom . .. “kaboom”! The biggest tank you ever saw blew our jeep to kingdom come. No one was hurt, but we sure were happy we had gone to church the previous Sunday! We countered with “purple smoke,” our air strike marking rounds as FDC insisted, “No aircraft available”. A couple of more rounds that “landed first, then whistled after” a nd whew, he backed out of view somewhere back into Faymonville. The troops were understandably quiet as we hurriedly plastered the town with HE and WP and set numerous fires, everyone privately hoping he was through with us good guys!

Our Chief of Detail and my boss S/SGT Joseph Desforge and Motor Sergeant “Shorty” Hofer came up during darkness with a replacement jeep. Besides replacing our food and extra radio batteries, they told us we were stopping an enemy armored attack on the northern shoulder of something called “the Battle of the Bulge”! After that illuminating information, we settled back in, but encountered some new problems. Our “posit” rounds were exploding at their maximum ordinate as premature bursts over our heads! Apparently, the sensitive fuses were set off by clouds! As if that was not enough, SGT Ringer’s howitzer, back in the firing battery area, had a muzzle burst and the gun was destroyed, but luckily, with no gunner casualties. Probably the intense cold on the metal tube and the sudden heat of the morning firing caused it. My remembrance of this December is the bitter cold, with all the troops occupied with ways of keeping warm. The approved method was putting on layers of any clothing! Many brainy GIs wrapped blanket strips over straw around their boots and created an incredibly large footprint in the snow—anything for insulation to stave off trench foot while occupying their foxholes.

During our lengthy and boring time on watch, someone mentioned, “Today’s Christmas! This’ll make our 3″^ Christmas overseas for our ‘Lucky 7^th‘ Arty BN.” Cote reminisces about Christmas ’42 in Africa and on the moors in England on Christmas of ’43. LT Cangelosi celebrated by knocking out an MG position at 864-013 with two direct hits!! The Doughs cheered and waved their arms and weapons, stamping their cold feet, too, in their exposed foxholes! Afterward, when I sneaked down to the chow line in an adjoining cellar, the cooks told us “Boomers” (Arty observers), “You’re doing a bang-up job.” But more importantly, he slipped me an extra helping of meat and potatoes!

From Christmas to New Year’s, .it was just continuous fire—at “enemy troops in the open” and “enemy tanks.” Our records show we averaged over 1,800 rounds per day during the last days of December 1944! This wall of steel both harassed and hampered the enemy’s efforts to exploit and enlarge his armored thrust. Our uninterrupted night defensive fires, requested by our supported 16^th INF, commenced with the coming of darkness and carried over until daybreak! Even so, another strong tank counterattack was repulsed in the vicinity of 053-013 (railroad tracks near Steinback, Belgium) by the direct fire of the 634^th TDs and 74 tankers. The blackened hulks of destroyed German tanks stood out against the snow. The bodies of German infantry were not as easily discerned!

New Year’s Day opened with hordes of German aircraft strafing our positions. As usual, the poor bloody infantry suffered the casualties, and as always, it’s the new replacements! We “boomers” hid in our cellar as the bomb explosions rattled around us, watching the LT celebrate by drinking his liquor ration as we under-aged peons looked on!  Rumors were now flying that we would attack Faymonville the first week of January ’45. So we took under fire all possible EN positions in the town. Methodically, we increased the destruction by dropping H.E. rounds through the roofs, then followed 9 up with W.P. to burn the houses. Most of them, however, were constructed of stone and resisted all our bombardments! Still, slowly, Faymonville was now systematically pulverized.

During that first week of January, we carefully, in conjunction with the mortars, fired in support of a patrol attempting to retrieve the body of LT McLaughin of “L” Co. KlA’d days previously.  LT Cangelosi “had the word” and got us ready by checking our equipment, clothing, and footwear. “I want constant commo while on the attack” he said. “The INF is going to get us on high ground every chance they can and protect us, too.” That’s good, but for me, first I must get and be warm! Layering of clothing was the answer. So it’s long underwear, shirts, jackets, many trousers, ponchos, wrapped blanket strips over straw, and joining the “monster footprint brigade”. With a French Foreign Legion “kepi” look, I covered my helmet with a white pillow slip with a flap covering my neck!!   Then I enclosed myself in a white bed sheet, a snow cape, and emerged through the slit for my head. Finally, I connected up the radio and set it on a German wooden sled with a 50-foot on/off switch for the LT’s use. We were “ready for Freddy”! Threw some cardboard ammo cartons filled with coffee, sugar, and cans of cream on the sled and loaded my pockets with “goodies”!

Now, as the last preparation, I ate everything I could of rations: crackers, cheese, meat and beans, cocoa, sugar, candy—anything for energy! “Now bring on those Krauts. I’m warm, full, and have dry feet. I can shoot, scoot, and communicate!”  On 14 January 1945 with heavy snow falling, the 16^th INF Regiment’s 3^rd BN commanded by LTC Charles T. Homer co-mingled with portions of T.F. Davisson’s tanks assaulted Faymonville! We (with me pulling the radio sled) accompanied “I” Co., than later “L” Co. As we slowly trudged into the northeast portion of Faymonville, mines in the snow took out some of “A” Co.’s 745^th tanks, but the “Doughs’ continued despite incoming mortars. The first reports were 2 KIA and 15 WIA for our 3^rd BN. We stopped at nightfall and ran a line to the nearest Co. To hear reports of 70 casualties for the 3^rd BN. We fired harassing missions and kept everyone awake! The next morning dawned crisp and sunny, and LT Cangelosi returned from BN briefing: “We are going to take Schoppen, the next town to the southeast. Let’s move it!” Trudging again through the snow, we encountered some woods where MG fire erupted. LT Cangelosi quieted it with an H.E. concentration! We held up in these woods with no fires, no hot chow, and tried stomping our feet all night to stay warm! Only good thing was a can of sliced peaches (kept warm in my armpit) for breakfast from my food stash!

The following day (maybe the 15^th of January), we accompanied the 3d BN’s “L” Co., which seemed to be in reserve since we stepped in the footprints of the lead company! The snow was knee deep and snowing fiercely with drifts piling up. Someone passed the word down the line, “We are in a blizzard!” Observation was impossible—we cannot see anything, but better still, the Germans cannot see us either! My day consisted of struggling through the snow, laying a line back on the road, and finally meeting our Arty liaison wire crew; then splicing the line with frozen fingers and hearing the two parties conversing. We, tried bumming rides on the only vehicles moving, “Weasels,” some type of a lightweight covered track vehicle. They seem to be ambulances carrying WIA and flying their Red Cross flags. Everyone on the road now piled on a tank Dozer for a slippery, dangerous ride back, and I followed my line back into a house. Thank God, the troops had fired up a stove, and it was crowded and cozy! While LT Cangelosi and SGT Vacher observed upstairs, I dried up and tried heating my radio batteries on the stove to restore their strength: “Eureka, I think it works!”

The Arty liaison bunch gave me the bad news that “Jonsey,” “A” Bty radioman, was KlA’d when we hit Faymonville. The word was he was hit by a sniper. We were losing a lot of “Doughs,” but they were strangers to me. “Jonsey” was an Arty buddy doing my same job on the |?.0.! I had just returned a quarter-mile reel of commo wire I’d borrowed from him.

We continued through the snow at the proverbial “snail’s pace,” the “Doughs” plodding through snowdrifts, the tanks sliding and slipping off the roads. Noticed sometfops had wrapped barbed wire around their boots for traction; they claimed it worked! My salvation was my sled and wrapped boots. The LT is pleased with his constant commo as I dragged the sled. The troops were pleased with his instantaneous fire mission at any obstacle, seen or unseen. I was pleased with my available food on the sled!  We entered Modersheid and fired normal missions on enemy troops, and then strangely, we gave them four missions of propaganda shells! We continued with 13 missions on enemy troops at CPs and OPs with approximately 70 hits on houses containing troops, with resulting fires. Then we continued with harassing fires throughout the night—nobody sleeps!

The next morning—don’t know the date—we commenced preparation fires prior to forward displacement, meaning “move out and drag the sled”! It seemed to be getting lighter in weight—probably from eating the rations and throwing away the used batteries. Great news! The 16^th INF was squeezed out of the advance by the 18^th INF, so for us, immediate support became general support, and another team took over. We were lucky—the food just about ran out! SGT Vacher quartered us in a large barn while LT Cangelosi checked with 3d BN for hot scoop! We cleaned up the equipment, gassed up the jeep, set up a stove, and cooked some liberated food!  We were in heaven: no observation duties, in a warm barn, bellies full, just radio watch and waiting for the LT to take us home. . . . “kaboom”! A round came through an opening in the front wall and OUT the back wall—with a startling, crackling explosion that showered us with debris. Straw flew everywhere, and we were covered with shards of wood, powdered stone, and animal droppings! No one was physically hurt, but someone had to change their laundry! We moved next door to another barn, smaller, but with stone walls!

It was 31 January 1945, and we were pulling radio watch only while putting in land lines to Arty Liaison. Listening on the Arty net, we heard a rare command given to the guns: “BTY C, continuous fire to the right at 5-sec intervals with a converged sheath” for an expenditure of 45 rounds at the same target! Contact by telephone to my old buddies at Arty BN FOC discloses that a subsequent 18^th INF patrol reports a German 6-gun battery of 150 mm abandoned their positions and guns at the coordinates of that strange concentration!

It was the beginning of February; the sun came out, and it seemed that Task Force Davisson, having halted, then chased the Germans out of Belgium, then simply faded away with the spring thaw!

ARMY DAZE – A FEW MEMORIES OF THE BIG ONE AND LATER RETURNS

By John R. Schaffner

PREFACE

The following narrative of my time spent with the 106th Infantry Division is made possible, in part, as far as dates and times are concerned, by reference to a short history of the 589th Field Artillery Battalion written not long after the end of the war by Francis H. Aspinwall, who was assigned to Headquarters Battery, and either kept a diary and/or had access to records prior to writing his booklet titled “History of the 589th Field Artillery Battalion”. I also used part of Frank’s text as a reference where other units and events are mentioned that I had no knowledge of at the time. We all were cautioned to not keep a journal of our activities, lest it slip into enemy hands and give them intelligence about our unit. A totally unnecessary precaution in my opinion, since upon our arrival at the front we were welcomed to the war by a radio broadcast direct from Berlin. The Germans probably knew as much about us as they needed to, long before we got there. I often wished that I had disregarded this order and written a daily account of my activities. I trust that Frank will not begrudge me the use of his historic material for reference.

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