The night before one of our outposts, consisting of two men on guard, had been captured by the enemy who had taken them by surprise. Thus the request to me to get as much information on the German strength as possible without engaging them in a fire fight. The Captain did caution me that there may be some German patrols in the heavily wooded area where I was to be taking my squad. His precaution was well heeded.

After getting our orders to recon the area, I called the squad together and detailed our mission to scout the area to the north of our position, and learn as much about enemy location and strength as possible. I advised them that we were not to try to capture any Germans, but if circumstance availed itself, we would certainly do that.

We checked our weapons, filled our ammo belts with rifle clips, and each one was given a couple of hand grenades. For the record and to refresh my own memory I will list the names of the members of this patrol:

Staff Sgt. H. Keyes- Squad Leader
Sgt. Hamilton- Assistant Squad Leader
Hill; Buller; Heinerdinger; Sporalsky; Galler; Marvin; Williams; Wolf; Clifford.

Harrell had been my first scout, but he had been killed while we were on the front line, and I don’t recall who replaced him. A squad consisted of 12 men.

Upon assembling my patrol squad, and checking each one to make sure no one had any equipment that was loose and would rattle, or make any noise of any kind while we were scrambling from tree to tree, or from some kind of cover to another as we made our way toward the enemy lines, I briefed them on our mission. As Captain Mundell instructed, we were on an information gathering patrol, and were not required to capture any enemy soldiers. This bit of information was of some comfort to them, but I could see the nervous tension creeping into their voices and actions.

I instructed them that communication would be done mostly by hand signals since voices would carry very well in the quiet forest, thus alerting the enemy of our presence. Our equipment consisted primarily of our weapons, and ammunitions. We did not carry light packs, canteens or communication equipment of any kind that may create noise or hinder our movements. Our patrol was not to be gone for an extended time, so no water was needed for the patrol.

As I recall, we did not have a medic accompany us on this venture. I now wonder why one wasn't assigned to our unit. During the preparation we left all of our valuables, and any means of identification, at the Company CP.

We started on our mission early in the morning, just after daylight, and were required to cross an open area that was covered with about eight inches of snow.

We knew that our outpost guards were occupying the foxholes where two G I’s had been captured a couple of days earlier, but we were still cautious in crossing the clearing. We crossed, one man at a time, until the whole squad had entered into the wooded area. I then sent the two scouts ahead, per SOP (standard operating procedures) with advice to keep as low as possible, and scour the area ahead and on all sides for any sign of the enemy, before moving ahead. After about a half hour of this procedure, I decided we had not advanced very fast or far since the time we had started.

I then took the lead in the column to set a little faster pace, albeit still being just as cautious as possible. This may even have been a safer place to be since the German Army knew our operating procedures as well as we did. They knew that the U.S. Army procedure was to have two scouts lead any scouting mission, and that the squad leader would be the third man back. They used that information to pick off the third person in the patrol with the hope that they were getting the leader of the patrol. However, the way we were scattered out in the forest, it would have been a mere guess to determine which one was the "third" man, and target on him.

Being the dead of winter, there was very little wild life or birds in the area to disturb the silence. This was both a blessing and a detriment. The good part was that we could hear any movement by enemy patrols, but conversely, they could probably hear us if we were careless about snapping limbs, or twigs, etc.

We continued our forward progression following the process of moving slowly from tree to tree, although some were not large enough to conceal your complete body, but would perhaps afford some protection from shrapnel or a gun shot if we were spotted. The reason for the slow movement is that the human eye can pick up a quick movement out of the corner of the eye much better than a slower movement.

I venture to say that we were probably only moving about a hundred yards an hour. Not having any idea of how far from our front outposts the Germans had dug in, we were expecting to spot them any time after we had gone more than a couple hundred yards.

At one time after we had been out about two to three hours we thought we heard some movement off to our right. With an arm signal to get as low as possible, and behind some cover nearby, we waited until there was no more noise, and proceeded on our move forward.

Although there was certainly nothing amusing about our mission, and had we been in another less dangerous situation, I would have been somewhat bemused by the appearance on the face of the man immediately behind me. Evidently he was so frightened that his face, which was normally of a ruddy complexion, was as white as the snow, and his eyes appeared as round as saucers. I went back to him and asked him if he was all right. He said he was, and I proceeded on with our patrol. To me there was no shame in being concerned about being wounded or losing your life.

Knowing that we were without doubt getting closer to the German outposts, our advance became even more cautious than before, if that were possible. We had been on patrol for about four hours, and were probably about 500 yards from our own departure line.

About this time one of my scouts, who was a little to my left and about 20 yards ahead, was crouched behind a tree about 2 feet wide, and was waving his arm to get my attention. After acknowledging his wave, he pointed to our right, and about 150 yards ahead. Through the trees and brush we observed two German soldiers in a foxhole with a mounted machine gun – pointed in our general direction.

My response was to signal to the men behind me to get down and remain motionless. Since my instructions were to see if I could determine the size of the force located there, I felt I needed to get further into the woods, not necessarily toward the gun emplacement, but somewhat past their location.

The two men that we could see, and faintly hear, were not paying a whole lot of attention to what was going on around them. The one nearest to us had his back turned to us, preventing his partner, who was on the other side of him, from seeing us unless he moved aside.

In order to avoid being spotted by them, I slowly backed down into a small dip in the terrain where I was not visible from their position, and moved slowly and cautiously, further in the direction of their expected troop encampment. After advancing about another 50 to 75 yards, I could see only a few more German soldiers, four or five, but not a large force of any kind. Since I had not been provided with a pair of binoculars, I really couldn’t see much beyond a 100 yards through the forest.

As I was contemplating my next action, there was a frantic waving of the arms of the man behind me. He was signaling for me to return to his location. I could see another G.I next to him, but didn’t recognize him as one of our patrol group. I made my way as cautiously, and quickly as I could, since there seemed to be a sense of urgency in their signal.

When I got to them, I recognized the person who was not in my patrol, and I was quite surprised. It was one of Captain Mundell’s Staff Sergeants with a small contingent of G.I.’s with him. He told me that we had been gone so long that the Captain had become concerned about us, and sent him out to see if we were in any trouble.

I apprised him of what we had observed, and that I had not spotted any Germans in platoon or company size, but did see the outpost that I had mentioned above. The Sgt. said that, as they were coming out to locate us, they had seen a German patrol off to our right returning back to their home positions. He said that we should return as quickly as possible. By now it was getting late afternoon, and in the winter the sun goes down fairly early, especially in the forest. Since we knew that when returning we would not likely run into any Germans, our hike back was considerably faster than our advance in the other direction!

Upon returning, I made my report to Captain Mundell, who seemed satisfied with our effort. He then made his report of our findings to Colonel Barten. The Captain thanked us for our effort and information, and, as I recall, we were given a nice hot meal. These hadn’t been too prevalent since we had hit the front lines about 10 or 12 days earlier. It was eaten with a great sense of relief, and feelings of personal satisfaction and accomplishment. Then each of us returned to the cold foxholes from whence we had been summoned for this assignment.

On the night of January 13th, 1945 Co. E was notified that we were going to be replaced, along with the other companies of the 2nd Battalion, to go into reserve. We were to be replaced by the 45th Engineers. They, the 45th, were to come in about midnight and we were supposed to evacuate at the same time. At least this was the information that we received. This was welcome news, but the war was still far from over, and we didn’t know what our next objective was to be. But SNAFU was at work again.

Several years before writing this, I wrote a brief explanation of what happened that night, so I will copy it here as I wrote it then:

"It was about 2:00 A.M. that the First Sgt. sent a messenger around to our snow-covered foxholes to tell us that we were moving ‘out’ in a half hour. The moon was shining, and it was about 20º in the open areas. We were to be relieved by the Combat Engineers, and to the rear area to be held in reserve. We had been on the front lines since New Year’s Eve, and had been through several fire-fights with the Germans, but had held our positions. We learned later, much to our chagrin, that the outfits on our left and right sides had drawn back, leaving us jutting out there on the point like a sore thumb, both flanks exposed. We were glad to be getting this relief.

"We gathered our few belongings, and mine were few because the day before I had hung my ammo bandoleer and mess kit in the tree just outside of my foxhole, and had leaned my rifle against the trunk of the same tree. A ‘tree burst 88’ exploded about 10 feet above them and shredded everything.

"We assembled near the Company quarters, which was an abandoned brick house, and waited for the relief troops to arrive. Naturally the old army game of ‘hurry and wait’ was in operation, and the Combat Engineers didn’t show up until about 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. We had intended to withdraw during darkness to avoid giving the Germans too good a target during this operation. Not to be!!

"The relief troops finally arrived, and we moved out., and as I recall the sky was lighting up in the east. We, being foot soldiers, were to hike back to the rear area to be loaded on trucks, and taken to another staging area. We started our ‘quick time’ pace, keeping the appropriate distances between each GI, and headed for the rear area. We were hiking on a snow covered road located along the edge of a small valley which had trees and hills to our left and a flat open area to our right, which was about a ¼ quarter of a mile across. After we had gone about a mile or so, the sun started coming up over the hills, revealing our position to any one who cared to look. Someone was looking, and soon ‘88’s’ (88 mm mortar shells) started landing in the frozen field to our right. We started double-timing (trotting) at a little faster pace, when "WHAM", something hit me in the right buttocks! It felt like someone had swung a 10 foot 2X4 at me. The shell had landed on the frozen road behind me and to the right, and exploded just as the First Sgt. and Captain Mundell were driving past in a jeep.

"The shell threw frozen dirt, gravel, rocks, etc, all over the jeep, but no one else was hit. The shells started coming in a little faster (it seemed so to me anyway), and since I couldn’t walk, and wasn’t eager to be hit again, I rolled over into the side ditch which was about two feet deep, and had about six inches of water under the ice crust that I broke as soon as I rolled into it. I laid there for about 15 minutes, with the water running down my neck collar opening and soaking my clothes, until the Medics arrived with a jeep, and a litter to take me to the nearest First Aid Station. While I was lying there the rest of the "E" Company was filing by. Someone asked, "Is he dead?"; I assured him I wasn’t, and they kept hustling on.

"The Medics took me to their First Aid tent where they shot me with morphine to ease the pain. Up until that time my whole right side and leg had been numb, so hadn’t really needed anything. As I recall now, I was there about 1 or 2 hours and they loaded me onto a truck with other wounded GI’s and took us away from the front lines to a base hospital located near Lyons, France.

"The doctors removed the shrapnel, and gave it to me as a reminder of my experience. When examining it years later I noticed a little thread jutting from one side of it. I pulled on it and a wad of cloth about 1 / 16th inch thick came off the side. The shell had gone through my heavy G.I. overcoat, jacket, pants, and long underwear before reaching me. All of that was evidently compacted into the side of the shrapnel that had struck me.

"During my stay at the hospital, my attending doctor told me that I had a case of trench foot that would take time to cure. While in this hospital, I noticed a man about 5 beds away who was in a rather bad condition. At first, I thought it was a black GI, because I could only see his feet and ankles showing, and they were coal black. It turned out that he was a white GI with a severe case of trench foot. ‘Trench Foot’ came about by not being able (or too lazy) to change socks, or dry your feet for days at a time. Luckily my case wasn’t that bad. My stay in the hospital was extended beyond the time it took my wound to heal because of the trench foot problem I had.

"After about 4 days in clean white sheets in the hospital we were moved to the coast via the French rail system. This was a memorable trip because of the ‘humping’ and ‘bumping’ during the ride. The train engineers evidently weren’t very experienced, and the more seriously wounded were in agony during the rough ride. From there we were airlifted to England, where I spent about 2 months recuperating."

That is the end of the journal entry of my last days on the front line.

I spent several days at various field hospitals, but being confined like that there was not much of an opportunity to see much of the French country or cities. My first letters to my wife from England were dated Feb. 5th, 1945. We had been sent by rail to the coast, and flown over the Channel. After we had deplaned, we were again loaded on rail hospital cars to be sent to our hospital destinations. As we passed through some of the towns we would stop at the rail station to let passengers off or board. When we stopped at these stations, even though it was quite cold outside, we would let our windows down because there were Red Cross ladies, and other civilian women there to offer the G.I.’s coffee, or, more likely tea, and other goodies.

After I was located in the hospital in Hereford, most of the time was spent prone, on my back or left side, since the wound was on the right buttocks. On Feb. 7th my letter to my wife said that I was issued some shoes, so, I guess that was about when I felt like taking little walks. This was almost a month after being wounded.

My trip back to France has become a blank as to how I got back there. From my letters to my wife, it seems that I landed in France, somewhere, on March 27, 1945. We were (the returnees from England) sent to various camps, called Repo-Depots, for replacement depots. These depots contained all the incoming troops from everywhere, i.e. replacements from the states, returnees from hospitals, etc.

During my return through the many repo-depots we learned that President Roosevelt had died, and that Harry Truman was now President. That was quite a shock to the country because Roosevelt had had the limelight so long, and no one knew much about Harry Truman.

My first day back with Company E was April 21st, 1945.

It was three months and 1 week since I had been wounded and left the Company to continue their battle to the bitter end. They did get into more confrontations with the Germans, but I have no details on that. I know that one man in my former squad was lost while they were trying to cross a fast flowing stream with full packs. They were using a rope strung across the river to hold onto while crossing. This one man lost his grasp on the rope and was swept down the stream. He was so heavily laden with the gear on his back that swimming was impossible. I understand that that they recovered his body next day downstream.

My return to Company E was somewhat bewildering because, when I saw Captain Mundell for the first time he said, "Hi, what do we call you?" I was a little puzzled at that remark, and asked him what he meant. He then told me personally that he had put me in for a battlefield commission, and hadn’t heard anymore about it, so he didn’t know whether I was a 2nd Lt., or a Staff Sergeant. Of course I was still wearing my sergeants stripes, so he was perplexed as to the reason why. I told him that my records had never caught up with me, so I had not been informed of the change in status. He said something about checking into it, and that was the last I heard about it from him. Since the war was practically over, it wasn’t that important to me at that time. However, I now wish I would have pursued it at that time.

When I returned to the company I was assigned to be the platoon Sergeant. Normally that is a Tech Sgt. Rating, but promotions were few and far between now that the war was nearly over. We were billeted in houses in the city of Limburg (cheese), Germany. This town was fairly large, I would guess about 25,000 people, and was located near the Lahn River.

From a letter to my wife dated May 8, 1945, "GERMANY SURRENDERS!!! TO BE ANNOUNCED BY THE ALLIED POWERS SIMULTANEOUSLY THIS AFTERNOON!!!!!!!!"

Although the war in Europe had ended, it would be some time before the G.I’s would be processed to return to the States for discharge. The war with Japan was a long way from finished, and more foot soldiers were going to be needed to make their way from Australia to Tokyo----we thought. Of course we were not privy to the card up our War Department’s sleeve!

In the meantime we had become Occupation Forces, and had the responsibilities of making order out of chaos as it pertained to political reorganization of cities, returning various prisoners held by the Germans to their home countries, etc.

The U. S. Forces needed to control, house, and feed the former prisoners, and even maintain order among the former prisoners, themselves. To do this we formed patrols to prevent pillage, and other destruction of property. It was while on one of these two-man night patrols that my companion and I came upon some Russian civilians roaming the streets after curfew. There were about a half dozen DP’s (Displaced Persons) in this group. One of our tasks was to search anyone for weapons that we found violating the curfew. One of the men in this group turned in a 32 caliber pistol to me, which I managed to bring home. It is of Belgian make, and, although I haven’t fired it, I think it is in operable condition, even after 56 years.

"To the victor belongs the spoils," I guess that has been the credo over the centuries of warring, but I had neither desire nor the opportunity to avail myself of anything of significance. There was an Army Directive against looting, and limiting the weight and number of bags per G.I. for returning to the States. My desire was to just get there with the least hassle as possible.

After about 2 to 3 weeks in Limburg, our Platoon was relocated in a small village named Lindenholzhausen. The name was larger than the town. We did use the houses located there, and I don’t know what happened to the previous occupants.

The sight of the devastation caused by the years of bombing and shelling was heart sickening to observe. What most surprised me was the appearance of the smaller towns outside of Germany that had not been bombed. For the most part they were run-down, and had been poorly maintained. My observations were primarily restricted to France, Belgium, Alsace-Lorraine, and England. I presume that was because of the requirement of the labor forces needed to do this work were needed instead, either to defend their country, or, they had become forced labor for the German’s upon the occupation of their country to do work in factories, etc.

The crossing of the border from France into Germany when I returned from the hospital was most striking. Upon crossing the border of France into Germany the countryside, at least where I observed it, was much more neatly maintained, as well as the smaller towns and cities that I observed. Of course any large German city, or cities that were involved in war production, had been devastated by the Allies bombing and shelling them into nothing but rubble.

I was further surprised when we moved into the little hamlet of Lindenholzhausen, as to the effort made by the residents to keep their living quarters and property as neat and clean as possible under the circumstances. They were out in the streets every day sweeping the horse and cow dung from the streets using implements constructed of branches cut from trees, and tied to make "brooms" of them for the sweeping job. The people doing this were mostly older women, probably because their husbands or sons, etc. were in the German army.

I was never subjected to viewing the horrendous conditions found in some of the German extermination ovens, but I did see how emaciated some of the Russian prisoners had become since being interned after their capture.

When I did get my orders to start my homeward journey, I was still in Lindenholzhausen, Germany, and a record which I kept on a postcard indicates that I was first sent to Hamburg, Germany. From there I was sent to Thionville, France, which was just north of Marseilles. That was a staging area for those being sent home, whether by ship, or by air. Fortunately, because of my number of points (105) on the orders directing my return, I was going by air.

The first leg of our flight took us from Marseilles, France, to Casablanca, Africa, about 1360 miles. We deplaned and were fed our noon meal while the plane refueled. When in the men’s room I was approached by a very ebony black young man who pointed to a fountain pen I had in my shirt pocket, and by gesture, indicated that he would trade a dagger that he had made using a piece of steel, or iron, from some "expired" vehicle, for my fountain pen. The dagger had a handle and sheath that he had made from some kind of leather, I presume it was goat skin, and had dyed it red with some decorative strips of what appears to be some kind of cane. The blade was very rusty (and still is), but when it was sheathed, you couldn’t see that. Since the young man spoke French, and the only French language I knew was "Parlez vous Francais," we had to converse by hand signal. I indicated that the pen did not work, but he insisted on making the trade anyway. I don’t know whether he understood that it didn’t work, but he still wanted it. So, we exchanged possessions.

After refueling both the plane and ourselves, we continued our journey. Our next destination was Dakar, Africa. This was about a 1200 mile flight from Casablanca. Thankfully there wasn’t anything exciting happening along the way, and we landed there again for refueling for the longer flight across the Atlantic to Natal, Brazil. That was when I spent some time in the Plexiglas nose gazing down to the water — about 10,000 or more feet below. It was an exhilarating feeling, both the sight, and the feeling of "going home" after such a long and gut wrenching ordeal. The flight from Dakar to Natal was about 1900 miles. When we landed there for more eating and refueling there was a rumor going around that the plane that was following us was over an hour late in coming in. We never did hear what may have happened to it. I never saw or heard any news headlines about a lost plane, so I presume it all came out all right. From Natal, Brazil we flew to Belem, Brazil — about another 1000 miles, and again refueled. My records aren’t clear as to whether we had any more stops from Belem, Brazil until we landed in Miami, but it appears that the whole journey from Hamburg to Miami was 9,425 miles.

My orders were to proceed to Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas for my discharge. This journey was made by rail, and took about two days to get there. Our route took us through following major cities: Miami, West Palm Beach, Jacksonville, Atlanta, Anniston, Birmingham, Amory, New Albany, Memphis, Springfield, to Ft. Scott, Kansas. I don’t know how many miles that was, but it was a long ride.