The following account is by James
McCullough, Jr. (G/274) and appears in the Winter 1997 issue of the
"Trailblazer", page 28.
It was a hill behind the German lines,
Winkersknopf, where they had a bunker of some kind. Col. "Bob"
Cheves had formed the 4th Bn I&R Platoon of volunteers, and I was
the volunteer first scout. Wasn`t it wonderful how bullet-proof we
thought we were at l9.
We were to go on a night reconn patrol
down the road, which was supposed to have the shoulders mined. This
was to check out an area where someone else's patrol had circled
back into our line unexpectedly and got badly shot up. We were to
see what was on top of Winkersknopf.
We got down the road OK and found where
the other patrol had got hit. One man of our patrol picked up a 45
automatic that had clear plastic butt plates with picture's of the
guy's family under them. Someone else found a Thompson sub-machine
gun, but could not get the safety off.
We
then crossed pasture land and a road that we had been told was used
by some Russian POW's with a horse and wagon to haul food to the
Germans in their foxholes. We found no sign of them at this time. More pasture, with only a couple
of rolls of stretched concertina wire to be seenon the way to the
top of the hill. At the top wefound a concrete building that had
been banked with earth except at the door and a couple of little
windows. We didn't know then that there was a cupola on the top that
the Germans hadjacked up and blocked so that it gave them a
360-degree field of observation, if not fire.
I was covering a little window around
the corner to the left of the door and the patrol leader and some
others were at the door. After listening for a while and not hearing
anything, the guy with the submachine gun decided to knock the
safety off by hitting it on the corner of the building. That started
something. I think I heard a German inside say, "Was ist los? Wer
ist da?" (What's up? Who's there?) That tore it.
I was in the best place to cover our
retreat, so I waved them on their way, then followed very quickly.
Now I am pretty short in the legs, but I cleared two rolls of
concertina wire running with no trouble at all.
Next night Battalion decided to send a
big combat patrol up there and try to take the hill. We might at
least have gotten up there, but there were some fellows in the
patrol whose nerves had taken a beating and there were some green
replacements. All went well, though, until we had passed through our
lines. Then someone lost the bazooka ammo. Ok, we go on without. Got
into the meadow below the upper road and I heard the wagon coming. I
signaled to get the men down and lay there watching for the wagon. I
never did see it, because I looked back and it was as if the whole
patrol had gotten up and was milling around. I asked the second
scout to go back and contact the patrol leader, Lt. Krumm. He came
back up and said it was no use trying to control them. I was to come
on back and lead the way back to our lines. Under the circumstances
I was very glad to do just that. We got back with no trouble.
Unfortunately, when G Company of the
274th had to take the hill the next day in the fog (page 174, "The
Trailblazers"), there were casualties. And
there were more during the German counter attack that night. But
that is another story.
