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Accounts - 275th - Bert Cowan
On February 23 and 24, during the actions in the hills
above Saarbrucken, I was acting communications Sergeant with A/275.
The company started out before midnight going down a steep
ravine and up the other side to the German positions. The front of
the column moved too fast and half of the company was lost and could
not catch up with the front. Jim Barkaszi was in the rear and could
not catch up and was separated with half of the company. By the time
we arrived at our objective (a large building) it was about 1 a.m.
The building had some lights on and we could see a small
tank along the side of the building. I spoke with Capt. Connelly
(our acting company commander) and suggested that we take the
building and tank in a surprise attack since the Germans did not
even know we were there. The tank wasn't even guarded! We figured we
could get to the tank and drop a grenade in.
Capt. Connelly did not agree and had us dig foxholes and
prepare for a daylight attack. You can imagine the noise that we
made digging foxholes at night! After we were dug in the Captain
assigned one hour watches until daylight.
I dug my foxhole next to the CO and fell asleep. I awoke
to a bright, sunny day and when I looked up I saw the turret of the
tank traversing toward us. A shot was fired and I was hit in the
hand.
Without a moment's hesitation I jumped over Connelly and
started running with more shells hot on my tail. I was running,
traveling through enemy territory at full speed when I saw some
retreating German soldiers and fired my carbine at them. I believe I
hit one.
My hand was bleeding but I finally reached our lines and got to
our company CP. I told our First Sergeant Herbst that I was not
going back up to the front lines again. He calmed me down and sent
me to the first aid station to get my hand bandaged. I received the
Purple Heart for the wound. It seems that I was the only one on that
hill who wasn't killed or captured.
The next day (February 24) we once again attacked the same
building. We had a new CO, Captain Renefro, and I was detailed to
carry the 300 radio. This time we came up a road instead of going
cross country. As we approached from the north side of the building,
we received enemy small arms fire.
The Captain, Vickers (our BAR man), and I moved up and took cover
behind the roots of a huge tree that had fallen. The Germans were
dug in on the south side of the building.
The Captain and Vickers were firing at the enemy while I was busy
on the radio trying to get some artillery support going. At this
point.Vickers was shot through his helmet and fell. The Captain ran
out of buuets for his pistol and asked for my carbine, which I gave
him.
I was so involved with the radio that I did not notice that the
Captain had retreated and left me without any weapon. I finally got
through to our artillery and they tried a spotter round but that
fell in our lines. I yelled for them to stop and started correcting
their fire. It took a few minutes before I could direct them to the
correct position but they finally were able to lay in a heavy
barrage.
When the barrage was over, the surviving Germans came out of
their foxholes and surrendered. Many though had been killed in their
holes.
Pvt. Nelson and I laid telephone lines to connect our outposts
with the switchboard, which in turn connected to battalion
headquarters. We stayed in the building and had outposts overlooking
the Siegfried Line until we took off for Saarbrucken.
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