We pulled patrol duty in small recon details and in full-platoon strength. One of them will never be forgotten. Four of us were assigned to reconnoiter on a route that required us to move through the area occupied by Co. F of the 274th. The Intelligence officer who briefed us was a former platoon sergeant from our company who had received a battlefield commission.

We thought that it was understood that Co. F would not fire any mortar flares over us while we were gone. The route to their outpost that we would clear through was marked with toilet paper and ran through a mine field. It also had a telephone line on top of the ground.

We cleared in the rain and it was dark as pitch, sometimes requiring that we hold on to each others belt to maintain contact. To signal whether we made our assignment, we were to either open or close a door on a pill box that could be monitored by aircraft. It turned out to be unoccupied.

We were finally pinned down by a machine gun nest that, it turned out on debriefing, to belong to the 274th Heavy Weapons Company. In the midst of getting clear of that situation, Co. F threw its first mortar flare. (We never did forgive the lieutenant!)

When returning we missed the outpost in the dark and got behind it in an area that was a maze of water-filled foxholes. John Masters fell in one and on the way down squeezed the trigger on his Thompson machine gun.

No one was hurt but F Company threw two more mortar flares. By that light, fortunately, we found the toilet-paper-marked path and the telephone wire in the leaves and followed them back to the outpost where we were challenged by inquiring if we were Americans.

Now we were forced to stay in that crowded outpost until almost morning while the Co. F CP got a partrol out of the woods hunting for the enemy behind them.

Looking at the attack maps on Forbach, it does not take much study to realize that the 2nd Battalion's efforts were largely in attachment to the other two battalions. E Company was committed when I Company became deeply involved with the Forbach Tower and was attached to the 3rd Battalion. Our mission was to attack and secure the German army compound on the left of Co. I.

Our squad found resistance at the very first building which was their mess hall. Under a base of fire from the BAR and a couple of riflemen we got into the building but the enemy had left by the back way. The cookers in that kitchen were as large as those on the USS West Point and two of them were filled with chicken feet.

While clearing the balance of barracks area Masters and Pat Daniel along with others were laying down covering fire while three of us were clearing from the basement to the second floor, rising to the next floor on signal. Finding an obstruction in the hallway of the basement in the second or third building Frank Hutchison handed me a phosphorus grenade which I must have thrown on top of an explosive as it blew all of us out of the building. Almost immediately an air burst of 88 artillery got both Masters and Daniel.

Daniel was killed instantly and we attempted to evacuate Masters on a set of bed springs that we found in the barracks. He was in considerable pain but remained conscious and talked to us. When we met a litter squad the sergeant in charge said he was dead. I protested because he had been talking to us just minutes before.

When we later went back to Cochem, to reserve, the company clerk asked me to sign a statement that Daniel was dead. I refused and he didn't press the point so the casualty report for that month reported him as missing in action. It was learned later that civilians found him where we had left him beside the wall and buried him.

THE next day was more of the same, sometimes pinned down by small arms and ducking artillery and mortars all the time. The only water available was that found in pipes in the houses and it had to be drained out as there was no pressure. A couple of civilians were left in most blocks and they were to open houses for us. But we didn't feel we had time to wait so we shot out thousands of dollars worth of locks. They even locked their interior doors. The last house was a real thrill. We went in with a rush over a hedge row and through a damaged front door to find an unmanned machine gun in the front room. If they had wished they could have butchered our entire group.

We heard a noise in the basement. We were used to finding civilians there so we yelled: "American soldiers!" Seven Germans surrender.

We stripped them of their gear and put them in charge of our platoon runner to take them back to the collection point for prisoners. They had just got to the front yard when there was an incoming barrage of 88 artillery. They all hit the ground without a scratch on any of them. A prisoner handed Bill Andell, the runner, his rifle and they were on their way.

We spent the night there with the resident French family who had two very small children. There was a skylight in the roof that we used for observation. White phosphorus was being fired into the enemy position so we had a chance to try out the 30-06 Springfield rifle with six-power scope that we had just received.

There we had a share-the-food plan. Troops got a hot meal about 3:30 p.m. and leftover food from the company mess was rotated among the families we were living with. When it was our family's turn Grandma would insist that Masters and I eat with them.

Between our first entry into Forbach and the second, our company was attached to the 274th for a brief period at Stiring-Wendel. This was a wooded area with two huge pillboxes that had been part of the Maginot Line and faced Germany. One was to our immediate front as we had taken possession of enemy entrenchments. Things were relatively static until some unit ran a combat patrol of about 30 men through us to check out the pill box in front. They had no more than cleared our position when they were fired on. So they ran back to our trenches like a bunch of turkeys. I suppose they found out what they had come for and left the area.

A dud panzerfaust round landed on the bank of our trench. Keezer, seeing the danger if it were hit, picked it up and ran behind us and put it behind a tree. On his return he grabbed all the rifle ammunition bandoleers he could drag as we were getting short. I asked that he be awarded the Bronze Star for his heroics and he got it.

After a brief respite in Oeting, in reserve, we were committed to finish the job in Forbach. We worked our way past our armor that was stalled by mines in the railroad track area. We took up positions in the edge of town. Here we learned that Lt. Adrian Bieker, our platoon leader who had just recently been assigned as CO of G Company, had been killed. This is the only time that I can recall morale being at absolute rock bottom. He was a highly respected man and one of the best officers I have ever known. The Simon Mine was to our right front as we moved into the woods in the rain, meeting little resistance except artillery and screaming meemies. We passed by the wall that had been knocked down by rockets on several members of the Weapons Platoon.

We kept inching forward in attack until we came to another railroad embankment that was a formidable enemy defense. The banks had been tunneled in from the opposite side and up between the ties and rails. There were at least two tanks that had been dug in until their gun barrels rested on the rails. I heard that Col. Morgan, Regimental commander, offered a fifth of Scotch to the team that would get one of them. Some trial runs were made.

I understand now that we can give credit to Capt. Roger Conarty for not attacking this barrier head-on. I must say he was not the only one interested in the consequences of such a move. So we went into a defensive posture. The reason was the danger of slaughtering civilians who had taken refuge in Forbach University and Simon Mine. We spent several days digging bunkers.

One evening very late but after a hot meal had been served with beer ration (one of the few we got) a number of our tanks approached the Simon Mine and opened fire. When a recon patrol found no resistance we were ordered to push the attack toward the Saar River. We walked all night, by-passing Petite Rosselle, and arriving at Clarenthal on the bank of the river. Continuously we could hear the bombers going both ways as they leveled Saarbrucken. When dawn broke we were again looking at the impossible task of crossing the river and attacking the high bluffs on the other side.