Outside Forbach, France, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 1945

E and F Companies jumped off just past midnight, going up against furious enemy opposition.

By 2 a.m. they had captured the first row of hostile trenches. By 5 a.m. they had seized the anti-tank trench on hill "Zebra," dug in and prepared to hold the ground. Companies G and K moved up the MLR in the wee hours of 6 February, within eye and earshot of the ongoing hill "Zebra" operation.

It was bitter cold with driving sleet. Visibility was nil. We wore white arm bands for identification. Our line of departure was from a small copse bordering a narrow valley at the base of Fahrenberg Hill ("Yolk"). Our objective was to take the nearby village of Oetigen.

At 6:30 a.m. we jumped off with the 93rd Armored Field Artillery Battalion laying down a creeping barrage which we attempted to follow up the hill. The slope was extremely precipitous with mud, snow and sleet making traction very difficult, with us under heavy loads. Opposition was immediate with heavy enemy small arms and machine gunfire.

The 2755th Combat Engineers removed scores of the devices and marked cleared paths with white tape. These fellows did a perfect job when blowing the concertina barbed wire with the bangalore torpedoes.

After six and a half hours of nearly hand-to-hand, we secured the crest of Fahrenberg. We would work down the trenches, toss a grenade into each side dugout, and I would "hose it down" with Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) fire. Once inside their defensive system, they had every foot zeroed in, and they kept up a continuous bombardment of artillery and mortar rounds.

At this point, the high command realized Phase III could not be accomplished as the initiative had passed to the Germans. About dusk, we took another pasting from artillery and mortars, and I figured it was prep for a counterattack. But nothing transpired.

Despite the ordeal, 3rd Squad was intact - replacements and all. Just after dark, Bruno Wachulus, the assistant squad leader, deployed me and my gun crew into the lower trenches to set up for the coming morning counterattack.

As night fell, the rain mixed with snow continued and standing in knee-deep mud and icy slush, I opened a C-ration can of spaghetti and meatballs and settled down for a night of anxiety and fear, with flares popping overhead and white tracers stabbing the darkness. A beaten company hunkered down to accept the consequences of their defeat.

Wednesday, Feb. 7, 1945

The rain and snow let up just before dawn. My legs were like two frozen stumps with little or no feeling.

Just before daybreak, as I was finishing another C-ration, the German artillery, mortars and direct fire from assault guns blasted our positions, filling the air with screaming shards of shrapnel. Movement on our part was all but impossible.

The Germans, masters of infiltration, infiltrated the flanks and rear of the 2d and 3rd platoons, using this gun support, and severed Company "K" from our support.

A frontal assault demonstration was then made on our position. Only one out of three weapons would fire as they were clogged with mud. My BAR was no exception. On the first squeeze of the trigger, the bolt would not slide forward to fire. I removed the trigger group and "peed" into the receiver, washing out some of the mud. I could fire single shots at the advancing "Iandsers," (front line troops) who went to ground and returned a ton of automatic gun fire.

With my attention in front, the infiltrators overran the position from the rear, literally jumping onto my back, pushing me down into the flooded trench, BAR and all. In the darkness, they probably thought I was another German until they grabbed my web harness equipment. Then they realized I was an American. They were undoubtedly seeking protection from their own supporting self-propelled cannon fire that was raking the area, in addition to the American small arms fire.

In the gloomy dawn we stood on the parapet of the trench, one American POW with hands up and half a dozen German troopers, small arms fire cracking about us. I dropped all of my combat gear while the Germans went through my pockets, taking all the grenades I had left in my field jacket. The Germans had a discussion on who was going to take charge of the POW. The NCO detailed a "gefreiter" armed with a machine pistol.

As the battle continued to rage around them, White and his guard moved toward the center of Oetigen. White's guard asked the commanding officer of a passing Panzer Grenadier company for directions. At the same moment, American artillery began pulverizing the area. White's guard suddenly lost interest in White in favor of saving his own skin. White had no choice but to follow him.

The guard and I "bugged out" for the nearest shelter - a church cellar, which we entered just as the steeple above was dissolving in concentrated shellfire. The cellar was occupied by half a dozen German soldiers attached to a signal group. They were manning radios and telephones.

We pressed on through the smoke and shelling and came upon another assault gun attempting to back out of a house where it had been firing through the windows. One set of tracks had fallen through into the cellar, immobilizing the gun. The SP commander was on the ground giving directions to the crew extracting the vehicle. The guard made another inquiry but only received another "brush off' and a finger pointing in the general direction off to our left.

Just as we were about to leave the knoll, a creeping barrage of artillery started to sweep the area. A cyclone of hot, screaming metal fragments swept the area. The bare trees were pruned of their branches and we both went to the ground trying to be as insignificant as possible. When it seemed safe to move, we made a dash to the house.

The trooper deposited me into a large, warm room with a roaring fire in the stove. Numerous German soldiers were attending to their duties.

Here, White was interrogated by a major; either the unit commanding officer or the intelligence officer; who finally realized that White could add nothing to his intelligence.

After the major departed, I sat down by the stove to take in the warmth and finally started to get back some feeling in my legs, one of which was starting to hurt like fury. I noted that on the back of my boot something extremely sharp - a splinter or bullet fragment -had gone clear through and cut the heel of my foot. This insignificant injury was my nemesis during captivity. Poor hygiene, deplorable sanitary conditions and many miles of road marches resulted in an extended stay in the hospital upon liberation.

A very old "hauptman" ( captain) came over and gave me the remains of a bottle of wine he was working on. He also told one of the gefreiters to bring me some food, as I might be hungry. The landser brought me a meat sandwich made with two slices of thick black bread. The German medical boy indicated I might need some first aid on my foot - it was cut, but did not look like much, as the skin had been immersed in water for an extended period and become very shriveled, was partially frozen and was now starting to thaw.

The boy shook some powder on it (looked like talcum) and made a bandage of what looked like toilet paper and some kind of tape. I threw my thawing socks into the fire and put on my last dry pair, which I had kept between my woolen shirt and longjohn undershirt.

With the wine, the sandwich, the first aid and warm fire, I was starting to doze off when the door flew open and three German soldiers pushed in my assistant gunner, ammo bearer and the 2d Squad scout, along with three GIs from "K" Company - all replacements!

Forbach was a couple of miles to the north, where White was interrogated once again at a bunker. Later, he joined the other paws, and the guards lined them up in columns of two and started them marching east on the Metz Highwary toward Germany. The weather worsened then, freezing rain and snow fell.

About dusk we arrived at Altsting, the headquarters of Germany's 347th Infantry Division. The street was lined with all kinds of military equipment and personnel. As we passed a horse-drawn artillery unit, a German trooper leaning on a gun greeted me with, "Lousy (very American expletives) weather, isn't it, Mac?" in very fluent American English. He was one of the thousands who had lived and worked in the United States, returned to Germany just before the war broke out, and ended up being drafted into the German army.

At the division headquarters building, our guards turned the paw group over to the G-2 interrogators.

They parked us on a bench in a long, poorly lit hallway with plenty of foot traffic moving up and down. Every so often a soldier would come out and select a GI, take him into one of the rooms and we would never see him again. The interrogation interviews were long and drawn out, and my selection never seemed to come up. So I passed the time listening to the conversations between German personnel. The wait was becoming very long, everything hurt, I was hungry, tired, and fell asleep.

Somebody woke me. Everyone was gone and a soldier directed me into a nearby room. I was the last to be interrogated, so I figured I would be in for some "arm twisting." But it was the usual name, rank, serial number, and some "yes" or "no" questions to which I did not have answers.

He was fishing for some very specific information on an armored scout vehicle used by the American recon forces. He had photos, diagrams, etc., and was looking for my input on the subject. I had never seen one in operation or otherwise, so could be of no help in this quest. 

The interrogator was a senior NCO, maybe in his late 30s. He had lived and worked in Young- stown, Ohio, and went back to Germany before the war. He had me fill out a card for the Swiss Red Cross regarding POW's condition and whereabouts. He wished me luck on my travels in Germany and called a guard to take me to the POW billet.