The following account by William E. Daws,
C/370, comes from the Fall 2000 issue of the Trailblazer, p 15.
There have been several stories in the
'Trailblazer" lately about the battle for Castle Hill. These stories
remind me of my involvement.
I was a litter bearer with C/370 Med Bn. We were usually attached
to I/276. As we all knew, there was heavy fighting in and around
Castle Hill. I Company had run the Germans off the hill and in so
doing had sustained several causalities. My squad had been ordered
go up to the castle and bring the wounded down. As we approached the
top of the hill, the Germans counter-attacked to our left. They were
coming up the hill by the dozens yelling like a bunch Indians and
firing all around. Unknown to us, an officer in the castle had
called for an artillery barrage on the hill to stop the Germans. We
were caught in middle! I yelled at my squad "Get off the hill." We
ran and fell all the way to the bottom of that hill with Germans
running at us, firing as they came. Just as we reached bottom of the
hill and started up another hill where our troops were dug in, it
looked like the whole side of the hill exploded. The American
artillery was hitting the same spot where we had been just minutes
before.
The Castle at Forbach...
Close to midnight, after a brief rest, one of the officers in
charge ordered us back up the ring the causalities down. We told him
the hill was crawling Germans, but he ordered us to go anyway.
We were about halfway up the hill for the second time when a
German began yelling at us to halt and started firing at us,
clipping limbs off the trees above our heads. Now a litter is not a
very good weapon to defend yourself with, so off the hill we came
again, just about as fast as the first time.
We decided to "hole up" somewhere and wait until daylight to try
the hill again. We found an old building behind the front to await
the coming of day. Much to our surprise the building was loaded with
soldiers from different units who had been run off the hill.
We all waited until dawn and began our journey again; for the
third time. There was a pack train of soldiers, some carrying food
and ammo to the soldiers on the hill, plus several other litter
squads. As we started our climb, we discovered the hill was littered
with dead Germans. The counter attack had been stopped by the
artillery barrage. We brought more than 20 causalities off Castle
Hill that morning, all I Company men. There were several German
prisoners who had been captured the night before. We made them help
us carry some of the wounded.
As we reached the bottom of the hill, there was an opening that
the Germans were watching and would fire at every time we crossed
it. We HAD to cross that draw with our wounded, so we gritted our
teeth and moved out. We had mixed the German prisoners amongst us so
that if the Germans shot at us they would hit some of their own men.
It took some time to get the entire group across that opening. We
were not fired at though so we managed to get the wounded back to
the aid station.
Even war causes some happy moments and so it was at the
Louisville reunion in 1992. I was talking to some of the men from I
Company and mentioned that I had helped carry some of the casualties
off Castle Hill that day. One of the men's face lit up and he
grabbed my hand and began shaking it. He said, "For 50 years I have
been trying to find someone to thank for helping to save my life. I
was one of those casualties!" What a feeling I got from that.
