WE HEAD FOR EUROPE
"THE TRAILBLAZERS"

70th Infantry Division
Co. "I" - 275th Infantry Regiment

Nov.20-24,1944...

We arrive at Camp Miles Standish near Taunton, Mass. from Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri. We all got filled up to the brim with lots of shots; it was two in one arm while another guy got us at the same time with three more in the other arm. There were also dental checkups and complete physicals. Then there were showdown inspections to be sure we had all the right equipment and that it was clean and ready for immediate use. There were lots of drills and orientations.

Nov.25,1944...

Thanksgiving. We must give thanks for a Savior who will watch over us in the months ahead. I had never been seriously concerned about thoughts of my maker until much later, but at times like this, even then I wished that I had been closer to God. We have the usual dinner with all the trimmings. It is very good and we relish every bit of it as it may very well be our last great meal.

Nov.26-Dec.5,1944...

The drills and orientations, inspections and roll call formations continue. We are even allowed a short pass into Boston for R & R. Mostly we are confined to our barracks, with nothing to do but play cards or read. Lost my shirt at Black Jack. Never did learn to gamble.

Dec.6,1944...

Went by train to the pier in Boston, Mass. The U.S.O. passed out lots of coffee and doughnuts. They also gave each of us a ditty bag full of personal care items. Then we boarded the ship as each of us were checked off of a roster sheet. M.P.s everywhere. Guess they wanted to be sure that they didn't leave any of us behind. Left the United States at 4:00 P.M. aboard the ship WEST POINT.

It had been the USS AMERICA, largest American passenger liner to that time, and had been converted to a troop ship. All things considered, it was a very fine ship. We even had a Marine band to play popular music for us on the after-deck. In view of what was ahead of us, it was great for keeping our morale up. We had no other ships with us as we crossed. The Axis submarine potential had by this time been pushed back into the North Sea and the North Atlantic. Even so, we crossed at our top speed of about 29 knots to limit the opportunity for Jerry to get a line on us by a chance meeting. Our first night at sea was quite rough with unbelievably huge swells. Many of us were seasick and hanging on the rail trying to get as much fresh air as possible. In this position I was still fascinated by the flotsam floating by that fluoresced in the moonlight.

Dec.7,1944...

The seas are starting to smooth out but some of us are still recovering from the seasickness of the night before. Meals were served below decks where there was very little ventilation. Many of the guys who couldn't take the hot greasy kitchen smells in their weakened condition opted to skip a meal or two until they got their stomachs under control. We heard later that one of the G.I.s got sick before the ship ever left the dock, and was sick for all ten days of our crossing.

 Dec.8-11,1944...

For the rest of the crossing the seas were almost like glass. We had gotten our sea legs and were enjoying beautiful balmy blue sky weather. There were plenty of PX supplies aboard ship, and the lines to buy smokes and candy were kept humming. We all roamed the decks just being curious about everything. There were a bunch of nurses on the Quarter Deck that added a little interest to our daily deck tours. Unfortunately, the ladders to that deck were guarded by Marines, and only officers were allowed up there. I never did figure out why they assumed that officers were more honorable than us enlisted men. Maybe they figured the nurses were "fair game" for officers only. I guess I was too naive to understand. Anyway when we tired of walking the decks, we just flopped in our bunks or on deck to catch a few winks. Our bunks for enlisted men, at least in my compartment on "D" deck, were arranged four high as canvas hammocks on pipe racks. Like as not, if we did get to sleep, we'd be rousted out for a boat drill, or abandon ship drill. We had to wear a life jacket any time we were away from our bunk. They were a lot of fun.

Then there was the community "Head", or toilet facility. This was up in the bow of the ship, and had a row of stools all connected to a common open flush pipe that exited the side of the ship somewhere below. As the ship would rise and fall in the ocean swells, of course the downward movement would pick up a lot of cold air in the exit pipe and the cold air would come whooshing up the flush pipe and blow a cold draft out of each of the stools. This was sure to put a damper on the proper completion of whatever was taking place there at the time. This was probably just as well, since there was always someone in dire need of your stool waiting in line.

Dec.12,1944...

Another bright morning with calm seas. We have been entertained by dolphins and flying fish just about every day so far. But today we have something new to watch. Believe it or not we have a Navy Consolidated "B24 Liberator" bomber checking our progress regularly. After more than five days of being out here by ourselves in all this water, that plane sure was a welcome sight. But where on earth did she come from with nothing out here but more and more water. Our answer soon showed itself as we came in sight of the Azores, that small group of islands about half-way to our destination. They also gave us a clue as to where we were going: Mediterranean.

Dec.13, 1944...

Today we had more of the same. By night-fall though we picked up a destroyer es-cort. This reminds us that we must be getting closer to our final destination.

The threat to our safety is increasing.We are getting closer to the war. The band still plays on the afterdeck, but the time for fun and games is drawing to a close.

Dec.14,1944...

We passed the "Rock of Gibraltar" today. Looks just like the Prudential Insurance ads, though the word goes around that instead of being such a solid rock as the ad says, it is really all honeycombed with a very porous structure inhabited by Barbary apes. Actually, the "rock" has been reinforced with a lot of concrete and made into a rather formidable fortress by the British, so maybe the term "rock" is not too far off base after all. Anyway the sight of real dry land is heartening, except for the fact that it is not the U.S.A. and it is just a lot closer to whatever fate has in store for us.

Dec.15,1944...

Our destroyer is still with us and adds to the heightening tension among us. We stay directly behind him and we take heart from the fact that he screens us from mines and listens for any subs in the area. We must be getting very close now. Where will it be?

Dec.16,1944...

We arrive at the port of Marseilles, France at 8:00 in the morning. There are old fortress turrets looking down at us from high bluffs. Sure am glad they were silenced before we got here. There was evidence of much destruction of harbor facilities as well as in the town itself. A number of ships seemed to have been scuttled to avoid capture. This was our first sight of a war torn country and it left a lasting impression on all of us.

Dec.17,1944...

The condition of the harbor forced us to disembark from the WEST POINT some distance out in the bay, and jump into small lighters that bobbed alongside to go ashore. We finally landed early this morning about 2:30 A.M., and then were trucked 20 miles through town to a high plateau area "CP-2". I remember thinking how strange it was to see only plastered houses, all painted in pastel colors of blue, green, yellow, pink and purple. Where I came from in Ohio, most of the houses had wood siding and were painted either white, cream, or ivory with bright colored roofs. The houses I knew about had only false shutters for decoration only. These houses in France all had their real window shutters closed and locked. Just another spooky reminder that we were in a foreign land, and that we were being drawn ever closer into the shooting war that we had all trained for. Still we had not yet had cause to feel real fear. Our immediate problems of pitching tents and bedding down on top of the plateau in the mud and rain was far more real than the shooting war. A really miserable mess.

Dec.18,1944...

The rain continues. The mud gets deeper. Setting up the normal field kitchen is near impossible. Rumor has it that these difficulties in the kitchen has led to the burial of many steaks. True or not the rumor persists, and does not help morale one bit. Two men are sent sick to the hospital:

Pvt. Edgar R. Gougeon -- Pvt. Melvin C. Holtorf

S/Sergeant Bob (Roy) Cantrell came by my tent and asked if anyone in my squad was willing to trade off their 45 pistol for Elmer Martins M-1 rifle so that he could go on a wood detail unencumbered by his heavy rifle. I was willing so Elmer and I traded weapons for the day. I learned much later, (1988) that the funny part of the trade was that the "wood detail" turned out to be a trip to Marseilles to visit the bars. Those non-coms sure knew how to take advantage of us kids.

Dec.19,1944...

We have a pass for a day in Marseilles. We are warned that the city has 14,000 regis-tered "Ladies of ill repute". That's just the ones they have in their records. So beware! Just to walk the streets of this town, is to fill one with revulsion. The filth and corruption seem to be everywhere. Every doorway has its sleazy character trying to sell me obscene postcards. "Feelthy peecture, Joe?" I only hope that this is just a symptom of the war-torn world that these people have been forced to endure for so long that they have forgotten society's rules of decency. Maybe it is now their only means of survival, waiting only for the return of a normal economy. Maybe it's just France. There were French sailors to be seen with their white flat-top caps with the red pompom in the middle of the top. We also saw Senegalese troops wearing red fezzes who had crescent shaped scars on each cheek. More reminders of the foreign environment and the war.

Dec.20-22,1944...

We pack up and try to leave as much as we can of the "CP-2" mud where we found it. We board a very smallish (by American standards) 40 & 8 box car in a train behind a dinky engine. Our entire Weapons Platoon of 33 guys with all of their gear were aboard one car. The cars were very drafty which led to a great many colds and with the immo-bility of the confined space of the small box cars, the stage was set for the later injury to so many feet by the cold which disabled so many of us. Meals were "ten-in-one" rations warmed over a Coleman squad stove.

Dec.23-25,1944...

It is bitter cold in the train. We pull into sidings often to allow trains of higher priority to pass carrying war supplies north. We are following up the Rhone River valley through Avignon, Valence, Lyon. Then up the Saone valley and the towns of Macon, and Dijon. "Merry Christmas" in a boxcar. Like I said, it's times like this that make me wish I had spent more time with my God. Along the way Pvt. Jim F. Lantz of our platoon has to relieve himself in the middle of the night while we are stopped in a siding waiting for one of the hotshot trains to go by. So he hops over several guys and slides the door open. Without looking he jumps into the dark night to the track below and is promptly struck by the hotshot as it flies by. Miraculously, the guy gets off with a busted collarbone, leg and arm fractures, but otherwise he survived the ordeal. He was sent to the local hospital in Valence, France and probably did not see combat action. We never saw him again. Another funny thing happened on the way up through France. We were struggling up a hill behind our tiny little engine when it finally stalled completely. We backed up and tried another run at the hill to no avail. Finally we all had to get off the train and help push it up the hill where we reboarded and continued our journey. Such was the condition of the French railway system after being plundered and bombed nearly out of existence. Some of the tracks in the railway yards reminded me of the tracks in the Toonerville Trolley cartoon. Finally we passed through Epinal and on to Brumath where we detrained.

Dec.26,1944...

We move by truck to Gries, and spend the night there. We bed down in an old brick firing oven; a circular building with openings spaced around the outer wall, and with a round firing chamber inside; a ring shaped room which one would think would provide some relief from the cold. However, the mass of brick in the structure seemed to hold the cold, so that even with all of our bodies inside, it just never did warm up. Sure wish I had one of those huge bed rolls the officers have. My blanket sack just doesn't do the job. I'm cold. Several Free French troops passed our bivouac area today. These Free French troops had no uniforms, just regular clothes with an armband to show they were FFI. They may have been resistance fighters now free to oppose the Germans in open combat. Another reminder that we are even closer to the war. I learned much later that we were adjacent to the French who were defending Strasbourg. The order comes down to release 10-15 percent of our privates and P.F.C.'s for service up north.

Dec.27,1944...

The Officers march us 11 miles to within 1000 yards of the Rhine river. Our positions are near La Wantzenau where we arrive about 8:00 P.M. Our Company Command Post is in a farm house. The lady of the house is no friend of the "Bosche", so she lets us sleep in her barn. The barn was like all farm barns and smelled of manure, but it had a huge pile of straw in it, and I enjoyed my first sound sleep in a warm straw bed.

Dec.28-29,1944...

Our front is very quiet. We only hope that it will stay that way. We are spread out very thin along the back side of what seems to be a flood dike. My machine gun is set up next to a circular stone structure. I have no idea what it might have been built for, but it made a fine observation post on top of the dike for one or two of us. That may well have been its reason for being there as part of the French Maginot Line. On reflection though, we decided that it was probably zeroed in by the German forces across the Rhine, so we kept away from it. We have riflemen on either side of us, but they are spread so thin (one man every 75 yards or so) that if we are hit by enemy action, there is no way that we can stop them. We have very little in reserve behind us either. As it turned out, the forces opposing us were apparently just as thin. The rifle platoons send patrols up to the Rhine to insure that the enemy is not trying to exploit our weak position, and to learn all we can about the area to our front in case of later action.

We use those times when we are not actually manning our positions on the dike to clean both ourselves and our equipment. This means heating water in the old steel helmet, then washing ourselves and a few personal bits of clothing, wringing them out and hoping they will dry in the sub-freezing weather before we need them again. Then comes brushing out the crud from our blankets, and cleaning and oiling our weapons. As crude as all this sounds it sure was a welcome opportunity to do just that. Then there was even time to write a few lines to the folks at home. There wasn't much we dared talk about because of security. But just to know that we were still able to write was good news for those at home. All of these things done, next comes boredom. We sit around trying to keep warm and wondering how we will do if and when we come under hostile fire.

I have indicated that as we sat around in the static defense north of LaWantzenau, boredom was beginning to take it's toll. We thought of the impending combat that we were sure to become engaged in and our morale was beginning to suffer. So on occasion we take a potshot at the wood ducks that fly over now and then. Can you imagine trying to hit one on the wing using a 45 Colt automatic? Then one of the riflemen would squeeze off a round at a German sentry we spotted walking back and forth on top of a concrete bunker across the Rhine. Then we'd duck behind the dike while the German took at potshot at us.

Dec.30,1944...

Our good woman of the farmhouse has prom-ised us a roast goose dinner tomorrow to celebrate the New Year and the eviction of the "Bosche" (as she says it).But that is not to be. Shortly after noon we load up in amphibious trucks and travel in convoy to a school-house in Schirrhoffen. We rest here for the day. We got rations of beer, candy and cigarettes, and some even got a letter or two. I thought that was a real tribute to the excellent mail and supply system enjoyed by our troops. At my tender age I had not learned to appreciate a drink of beer to any consequence yet, so as usual I traded off my beer for cigarettes and candy.

CHAPTER - 14

THE FIRE-FIGHT BEGINS

Dec. 31,1944...

New Years Eve! Maybe the new year will bring an end to this madness that we are engaged in. Captain Bill Long and all of the 3rd Battalion staff officers have left for a meeting with the 62nd Armored Infantry Battalion staff at Philippsbourg. We are to relieve the 62nd, since our three infantry regiments (Task Force Herren) have been attached to the 45th Infantry Division. Our rest is short lived and by 8:30 P.M. we were again in a truck convoy headed for Niederbronn. Lieutenant Dave Turner, our Exec., is in command of "I" Company until Long returns. At Niederbronn we try to get a few more winks in a bombed out foundry building. But sleep doesn't come easily with the big artillery guns booming nearby. They signal that all is not well up at the front where we are headed.

Jan.1,1945...

The New Year is here and still the big guns sound their roar of death. We load up on trucks once more before daybreak for the last few miles to Philippsbourg. There will be no reprieve. Oh God! How I hope I don't let my buddies down when it is my turn to do what I came here for. But I'm scared. I hope it doesn't show. We dismount about a mile from Philippsbourg and hike the rest of the way to a field beside the road. We are in sight of the village now. We drop our packs in rows in the field as though we were on parade. If this is the front, what the hell are we doing out here in the open in parade formation? We hear that most of our officers, who had gone ahead to check out the troops we were to relieve, had been in danger of being captured and we would have been without leadership before we ever got started. Rumor? Facts blown out of proportion? Fact is one of our jeeps had gotten lost in the melee and rejoined us much later.

They tell us to change our shoepacs (not good for hiking) for regular combat boots. We are told we still have some serious hiking to do before we contact the Germans. This would prove later to be a mistake. Still no word from Captain Long. The temperature is below zero. Captain Long returns at 4:00 P.M. and we make pre-parations to move up the road. Our column moves up through Philippsbourg with "I" Company leading and "K" Company following us. We take the center road that heads northwest at the intersection at the north end of the village; the road to Bitche and as it turned out it sure was. The company was strung out in extended order back down the road for maybe 500-600 yards with 4 to 5 paces between us, a single file on each side of the road.

Our rifle platoons were taking turns at the point of the column. The 3rd platoon had just dropped back and the 1st had taken the lead. My Weapons platoon came next. We were in the vicinity of Lieschbach when we ran straight into a machine gun ambush at a bend in the road. The German machine guns opened up on the 1st platoon up ahead and had the road and the ditches on either side covered back down the road through our column. Since we had not expected to have any action so soon our machine guns were still in the weapons jeep. I turned to see where the jeep was, but it was high-tailing it back down the road with tracer bullets skipping between its wheels. That left me standing there with nothing but the 45 Colt pistol strapped to my hip. This road was no place for me.

There was a shoulder high stone wall on my left, but somehow I cleared the wall with no trouble at all. I landed in a yard behind the fence that looked like a sort of corral with some open sheds for animals. This put a house between me and the in-coming fire. Elmer Flink and the ammo bearers must have been there with me. I can't be sure although I do remember that my squad Sgt. Fielden Miller was with me. There was a lot of firing coming from the head of the column, but without our machine guns we were of no help, so we waited there for a few minutes waiting for orders as to what we would do next. Sgt Miller got word from Lt. Turner that we were to withdraw so we withdrew behind the cover of the houses until we became exposed again crossing an open field. I ran from pothole to pot-hole in the field. But when I looked back at the tracers flying at me, the potholes became nothing more than shallow dips in an otherwise flat field. Funny how a bit of moonlight and shadow can do tricks depending on your viewpoint. In the withdrawal I had gotten wet up to my knees crossing a small stream.

We reformed our squad near a farmhouse back down the road where I caught up with my machine gun and the ammo to feed it. Again waiting to learn where we were to go, I laid the machine gun beside the road near a manure and junk pile at the corner of the farmhouse. The house was connected to a barn by a sort of open breezeway. Through the breezeway and behind these buildings was another barn. Some of the guys had gone into the house. I was in the area behind the house when a fire fight started back out on the road. I did not want to be caught again without my machine-gun, so I ran back through the breezeway to the road to retrieve the gun. I couldn't tell where the fire was coming from. It seemed to be from the south, and I suspected it might be sniper fire from an old water tower in that direction. To be on the safe side I crawled from the protection of the house out to the road to where I had left the gun, not sure whether I was being observed or not. As it turned out the only difficulty I ran into was to get my gas mask caught in some barbed wire in the junk pile.

I decided to "lose" the gas mask and get my butt back to the cover of the house. As I got back to the rear of the house, one of the guys came out the back door and said that our Section Runner, Homer Boeve, was killed by one of our own guys as he came to get us with orders to move up on a hill next to the farmhouse where we had assem-bled. Homer had very poor hearing. We all told him back at Fort Wood that it would get him killed. But he just liked the idea of being a runner. He just did not hear the challenge as he approached our guy in the dark. Bill Rathkamp had carried him into the house, where Homer said that we were needed on top of the adjacent hill. He died there in the house. When we got to the hill, Harry and Howard Mumm took their gun on top while Flink and I took our gun around the nose of the hill above the road about halfway up. Sergeant Miller, my squad leader had been alerted to a group of German troops gathered in the shadows of some farm buildings in the valley across the road. He pointed them out to me but in the dark I could not see the sights well enough for any real accuracy, so I simply flipped the sight down and eyeballed the barrel for my first burst. After that it was just watch the tracers and correct. I fired at shapes in the moonlight. They really were not human beings at all. Just targets. I did what I was trained to do. We alternated fire with the Mumm squad on top of the hill to keep the barrels cool. We really evened the score a bit after being cut up so badly in the ambush. Someone at the top of the hill hollered at us to "cease fire, that's not a machine gun target". But from their position on top they could not see the action below the hill that we saw. The Germans were bringing a heavy machine gun or mortar directly toward the road and under our position on the hill. Our platoon sergeant Ed Harper had us fire a few more rounds, but we finally had to break off our fire and moved up on top of the hill to join the rest of the guys.

We got there just as another fire-fight developed as the Jerrys came up after us. It didn't last long since the Germans decided that we had them out gunned. We left a few more of them dead on the hill. We learned later that we had killed seven and wounded a number of others. Our morale sure needed the boost.

Communication was such a problem in the mountains. The walkie-talkies were useful only for short distances. Keeping wire strung was impossible with the incoming mortar and artillery tearing it up as fast as it was laid. The big radios couldn't seem to keep in contact with our com-mand posts since we had lots of mountains between us. Nobody at Battalion seemed to know what was going on at the front, and we couldn't tell them. We could not even keep in contact with our flanks except by sending out scouts, and with the wide area we were trying to cover that became impossible too. We withdrew further back into Philippsbourg to count our losses and to regroup. Being a machine gunner and supposedly skillful with all manner of machine guns, I was told to man a 50 caliber gun in an open top "Priest" tank while the tankers got some rest. Some joke! I had never fired a 50 before. Being young and dumb though, somehow I figured it would be neat to climb aboard an armored track vehicle again. I had taken my first basic training with the 8th Armored Division where I had learned to drive M-4 Sherman tanks. I don't think there could ever be a colder place to be that night than in that heavy metal monster. It was like sitting on top of a block of ice inside a deep freeze. Sure wished I could be grabbing some sack time with the rest of the guys.

Results of action as follows:

KILLED IN ACTION

Robert R. McLeron (T/5)
Virgil E. Neller (Pfc)
Homer E. Boeve (Pfc)
Homer L. Henning (S/Sgt)
Harry B. Strawser (Pfc)
Lilburn H. Clark (Pfc)
Burdette H. Gerken (Sgt)
Harry A. Warner (Pfc)
Paul E. Reynolds (Pvt)

WOUNDED IN ACTION

Cecil A. Rutter (Pfc)
Henry J. Cauwells (Sgt)
Clare E. Kleinhans (Pfc)
Rudy M. Senser (Pfc)
Robert L. Crawford (Pvt)
James W. Mercer (S/Sgt)

MISSING IN ACTION

Stanley J. Lambert (Pfc) P.O.W.
William C. Schaefer (Pfc) P.O.W.
Jewel H. Monds (Pfc)
Yen K. Hom (Pvt) P.O.W.
Walter Fulkerson (Pvt)
Walter H. Cunningham (Pfc)
Ralph A. Morey (Pfc) P.O.W.
Arthur B. Wallace (Pvt)

Jan.2,1945...

The temperature is now well below zero. We found some relief from the cold in the basement of the church where they had set up a couple of G.I. cans with immersion heaters in them to heat up some cans of "C" rations. It was served pot luck. Whatever can came up in the dipper was what you got. I got lucky and had ham and eggs. I tried drying my socks a bit over the heat from the G.I. cans, but it was mostly steam so I didn't really expect too much. Sure could have used some more dry socks. At about 9:00 A.M. that day we again head north out of Philippsbourg. But this time we take the fork to the right through Mambach and then swing north again on the road that leads to the left of the hill Falkenberg. We pass a platoon of "M" Company digging in their heavy machine guns along the road through Mambach. Then we took three prisoners who simply came off a side trail wav-ing white rags tied to the muzzles of their rifles. We soon run into another large group of German troops who want to surrender further up the road. We proceed up the road and then stop while our forward scouts carefully call out the new group one at a time until we have 15 of them including one women assembled and on their way to the rear under guard of a Sergeant and 5 riflemen. While we are waiting, my squad is positioned directly opposite three dead German soldiers lined up against the far side of the drainage ditch at the side of the road. They all were left facing the road without their helmets. This might not have seemed so unusual except that each of the Germans had the neatest bullet hole squarely in the middle of their forehead. Hardly combat wounds. It made me wonder about our high and mighty motives for being in this war.

We finally moved up a trail on our left to the top of a forested hill just north of Philippsbourg. The hill was later to be called "Hill 30". It is now about 5:30 P.M. We set up a defensive perimeter. My machine gun was set up between two trees and covered a field of fire which I guessed was generally toward the northwest. As Elmer and I dug our way down through the snow, ice and frozen soil, we soon ran into the roots of the trees and rocks. We managed to provide our position with only shallow slit trenches. We felt fairly secure with the trees covering us pretty well and still affording a wide sweep out in front of us.

We had just about finished digging in when we started catching incoming artillery and mortar rounds. It seemed like from both sides. Lt. Bill Breidinger of the 2nd platoon had just started out with a patrol to check out what was happening down below the hill when the first few rounds came in. They all hit the deck, but in that position a piece of shrapnel took a chunk out of the Lieutenant's behind. He was evacuated back to Philippsbourg. Biver had brought up ammunition and was ordered to move the jeep back into Mambach and get it out of sight. They sent John (Ed) Fridley and James George with him to help guard it. As it turned out their party of three was soon overpowered and captured by the German forces that were surrounding us with tanks and other heavy weapons at that very moment. We are cut off from the rest of our Regiment. A light snow continues to fall. We hope it will cover the evidence of our digging.

MISSING IN ACTION

Clements N. Biver (Pfc) P.O.W.
John E. Fridley (Pfc) P.O.W.
James George (Pfc) P.O.W.

Jan.3,1945...

The snow fall has worsened and we are now in the midst of a blinding snow storm. We have no food and little water. We cannot make a fire to warm ourselves for fear of giving away our position. We feel that so far we have not been discovered. The Ger-mans are being kept busy with their fighting in the valley below. We are greatly outnumbered with little chance to get out of our predicament. We have the high ground, but without communication we have no idea of who is who in the valley below. We also have very little in the way of heavy weapons. So for now at least we will wait and see what develops in the see-saw battle below. One of our patrols killed one German, and captured another who told us that he had found William C. Schaeffer in a farmhouse with a face wound. The German soldier had been a first aid man and had given some aid to Schaeffer's eyes and had him evacuated. He also told us that his eyes would be okay. He also said they found eight of our men dead on the road after the ambush. I met Schaeffer in 1988 and learned that the bullet had caught him in one ear and passed clear through his head and come out the opposite cheek. What a miracle.

Jan.4,1945...

The artillery continues each day without letup. It seems that neither theirs nor ours can get down on their respective targets without hitting the trees on top of our hill. We are catching a lot of air bursts above us as a consequence. Limbs and shrapnel fill the air most of each day. Elmer Martin, Sgt Merlin McDuffee, and Lt. Abe Glass took off on another patrol and ran into 6 Germans in an artillery observation post. As they looked up, Elmer yelled and jumped up firing his 45 grease gun. Four of the Krauts fell down the hill and the two others got away running. Elmer reloaded and shot up the radio, and grabbed up a map case and a burp gun. Later the same day, a two man German patrol came straight into my field of fire. It seemed to me that the riflemen on my right and left could handle these two easily without alerting every German for two miles around as my machine gun would do. However, in order to be ready for a larger force that might be following them, I slid the bolt of the gun back to load a round into the chamber. Whether they heard or saw that action, I don't know. I think they just became aware that they had wandered into the midst of a superior force, and I will never forget the scene in front of me as long as I live. The one young lad (He couldn't have been over 15) threw down his helmet and rifle, threw his hands as high over his head as he could get them, and hollered "Nicht schiesen! Nicht schiesen!" I felt there was a pleading for mercy in his voice. And yet one of our riflemen put a bullet squarely through his chest. He was dead. I heard that soldier's cry for mercy many times in my dreams after that. The other soldier got away, running a zig-zag path down the hill through the trees. I was always sort of glad that the other kid got away.

We are all weak from lack of food, water and sleep. The tension of the con-stant artillery fire is taking its toll. But our biggest problem is the bad condition of our feet. The forced inactivity, the wet feet, and the below zero weather has combined to cause all of us to suffer frostbite and trenchfoot in varying degrees. We are no longer an effective fighting force.

Jan.5,1945...

We begin to hear sounds of heavy motor vehicles. Are they ours or theirs? Artillery and mortar rounds are still coming in and seems to be intensifying. Elmer Martin, Sgt. McDuffee, and Lt. Glass patrol to our rear toward Philippsbourg to see if they can find out what is going on. Germans are withdrawing. Will they be counterattacking through our area? Will friendly fire be landing on top of us? We keep our heads down and hope for the best. Meanwhile, the artillery continues. Our own artillery catches all three of the guys in the patrol

WOUNDED IN ACTION

Abraham M. Glass (2Lt) 026 780
Elmer F. Martin (Pfc) 13 130 329
Merlin L. McDuffee (S/Sgt) 860

"A" Company, 274th Infantry broke through to us and gave us what extra food they had, and took out our wounded. James K. Castle (Pfc) was sent to the hospital with a foot wound (N.B.C.). Capt. Long went after rations and in returning his jeep hit a mine. He went to the hospital with blood coming from his eyes, nose and ears and suffering from shock. (He suffered from Alzheimers disease later in life.) If the explosion contributed to his later problem is conjecture. Bill Long was a cattle rancher from Abilene, Texas.

Jan.6,1945...

We withdrew from the hill at 1:00 A.M. to the sawmill. We all came down the steep hill with great difficulty since most of us could not feel our feet. We slid, fell, stumbled, and generally just bounced our way down until we got to a road that led back to Philippsbourg. Snow was everywhere but there was not a clean white patch of it to be seen. As far as you could see it had been dirtied by the massive artillery bombardment. Along the way we passed yet another sight that stayed in my memory for many nights thereafter. There in the middle of the road was an old wooden farm hay wagon typical of Europe. It was headed north and drawn by an ox on one side and a horse on the other. It appeared as though one of the animals had been killed, and the old man had dismounted to remove the harness from the animal when he himself was killed and was laying over the animal. Then the woman also had dismounted to comfort the old man and she too was dead and laying over him. By this time the other animal was also dead. These two old people must have been in their eighties or more. Here they were, dead in the road not far from their home, caught up in a conflict that they sought to avoid. I thought of my own grandparents back home and thought how lucky they were that their country had not been overrun by ambitious madmen.

The remains of the Company was to assemble at the sawmill south of Philippsbourg. Before moving through town we all took our turn at the Battalion Aid Station in the basement of one of the buildings for foot inspection. I never made it to the sawmill. They hung a tag on me that said "Trench foot, Move to the Evac. Hospital". They put me on a stretcher and carried me outside to a waiting army ambulance truck. There were to be four of us and I had one of the top slots. With a bit of squirming around I could catch glimpses out the front or the back.

The roads were very icy and at one point I was watching out the front when we started to spin around like a top going down the hill. There was a turn to our left about halfway to the bottom of the hill and as we approached the turn we were going backwards. With nothing to stop us, it looked for sure like we would go over a 30 foot embankment tail first. I'm in the top litter next to the roof where there is no reinforcing in this metal box we're in. We must have been doing something right that day, because out of nowhere a lone tree just happened to hit us square between the rear doors and kept us from going over the embankment. The driver let out a sigh of relief, regained the road and we continued without further incident. It felt good to lie down in a real bed at the next stop. At the same time, I began to have guilt feelings when I thought of the guys that we had left back at Philippsbourg. A great bunch of guys. I hope they will be O.K.

In addition to the 25 or so men who left the company back in Gries, the 23 we lost in the ambush at Lieschbach and the 3 captured at Mambach, we now sent ninety nine (99) more men off the line with frostbite and trenchfoot. By January 6 our original rifle company of 187 men was now no more than a platoon. Combat and below freezing weather had taken a bitter toll in "I" Co.

With only 33 men and 3 officers, "I" Company moved up to protect Cannon Company. I was not to return to the company until the middle of June 1945. By then the war would be over.

CHAPTER - 15

EVACUATION AND HOSPITALIZATION

Jan. 6, 1945...

As we withdrew down the road, it was hard not think of the guys that we left behind. They would have to continue the fight. Still there was the pastoral scenes of the French countryside to distract us. That helped, but where were we going? With little detailed knowledge of French geography, the road signs didn't help much. We finally pulled up in front of a grey stucco building that looked like it had seen better days. It was the 9th Evacuation Hospital. As I remember it seems like it was two or three stories high with at least six concrete steps to the front door. They got us out of the ambulance and carried our litters up to the top floor, where they found beds for us. It seemed like my whole company was there. The weather sure knocked out a bunch of us. They turned up the covers from the bottom of the bed and had us stick our feet out the bottom. There were no windows in the building and it had cross ventilation. It was cold. They wanted our feet to thaw out slowly. So we had to keep the covers pulled up to our necks to keep a little bit warm. We were not feeling our feet anyway.

After a couple days of this, I had had enough of the bedpan. I called the orderly over and asked him if he could help me into the toilet down the hall. He did not think it was a very good idea, but he was probably the one who got to empty the bedpans so he agreed to let me try. However, he told me to wait until he got another orderly to help. I didn't understand all the fuss; why couldn't we do it with just the two of us. As soon as my feet touched the floor I found out why. My feet had started to thaw pretty well and the pain was so intense that my legs just gave out under me. Like it or not I needed both of them like he said. They crossed arms and made a seat for me, and away we went to the toilet room. In Europe if you ask for a bathroom, they assume you want to take a bath. They are not ashamed to say they must use the "toilet" over here. So having arrived at the "toilet", I got a startled awareness that things are different in Europe. They had cleaning ladies working in there. There were no stalls, no doors, just an open room with stools along the wall. It didn't seem to bother the cleaning ladies. So I thought, "Oh well! If that's the way they do it here then who am I to care." You can loose your vanity pretty quick when you compare it to bedpans.

Jan. 11, 1945...

After thawing out for several days, they put us into ambulances again and took us to a railroad loading platform. It was equipped inside to hang our litters along each side of the car. As I recall the cars were more like the baggage cars of the U.S. railroads. I felt sorry for one poor guy opposite me in the car. He must have had both of his legs or pelvis broken or both. Anyway they had him plastered from his toes to his armpits. There was a bridge strut fastened between his legs that held his legs about three feet apart. They had one of his legs propped up against the wall so he'd fit into the litter. Every so often during the trip he'd ask the nurse to turn him so he could lay on the opposite side. That sure was a project for the girls. The girls were all so compassionate to all of us.

We couldn't see where we were going, but we wound up in Paris. Back into the ambulance and we rode through the town. It seems we were going up the Seine River. I remember passing Notre Dame Cathedral and through a park. There was snow on every-thing and there had been an ice storm, and it was dark. The street lights along the winding road through the park made the ice on the trees and bushes just sparkle. It was all just beautiful. We were taken to a hospital way up on a high hill across the Seine. We were in the 51st Evacuation Hospital. I'm really not sure just where in Paris we were, but the hospital was a welcome sight. The walls were painted a pret-ty pink with white trim. In this setting all of the beds had dark blue blankets with a white collar of sheets turned down. It sure looked good. The first thing they did though was to draw a pint of blood from each of us. A heck of a note, but I guess the guys we left to do the fighting might need it more. Small thing for us to do for them. I guess I didn't have blood to give, because they only got half a pint when it started to bubble. Try as they might, they couldn't get any more. After that they brought us a full blown holiday dinner. I thought I must have gone to heaven. Then I discovered that it was all in vain. I had eaten only part of a small dish of fresh peas and couldn't eat any more. My stomach had shrunk so much it was just no use. And all that good looking food in front of me. How embarrassing. The nurse came by and told me I had to force down as much as I could manage to get my appetite back. Sure was tough forcing myself to eat what I would have otherwise relished before. My toes are all black by now. Fielden Miller lost some toes, and Rathkamp one of our ammo-bearers told me later that his toes lost all their feeling and then curled up on him. I was lucky, and recovered mostly, except that I had shooting pains in them for many years after.

Jan. 19, 1945...

We were there until about the 19th waiting to be taken to England. At one point it sounded like they were going to fly us over. I was looking forward to that since I had never flown before. As it turned out the weather was socked in so we went by train. We were taken to Cherbourg and put on a small British hospital ship. We were below decks and couldn't see out but otherwise they treated us quite well. The only trouble was that they felt they had to keep filling us with English tea. The English always drink their tea with milk which didn't turn me on too much, but it was something to do to kill the boredom. Finally we had all been filled to the brim with tea and started calling for the bed ducks (Urinals). After beating a path up and down the ladder to empty them a few times, the orderly said "You Yanks piss more than anyone I ever saw". We all laughed and told him to stop the tea service and we'd try to cooperate.