In supervising the photo finishing operations, I noticed that a lot of the films coming in from the soldiers for processing didn’t have anything printable on them. This was because they were buying advanced Leica and Rolleflex cameras at the PX but didn’t know how to use them. I took some of the bad rolls of film down to the Armed Forces Radio Station in Munich and showed them to the manager. He got the idea right away.
“Why don’t we set up a weekly program where you can talk to the GI’s about operating their cameras and taking good pictures,” he suggested. That was what I had in mind.
Within a few weeks our new half hour program “Fun with Film,” debuted on AFN Munich-Stuttgart. Later it expanded to include almost all of the AFN stations in Europe.
The station assigned Alan Bergman, an experienced announcer/disc jockey to work with me on the program to ask questions so I could offer helpful hints on how to operate various cameras and take better focused and composed pictures.
I also visited the Leica camera works at Wetzlar and a film manufacturing plant in Munich and described these operations on the program. Being on the radio was not only a lot of fan but I was happy to note that there was a noticeable decline in the the number of unprintable films received at the Munich Photo Plant.
As we neared the end of 1947, I was offered the job of regional manager of Army Exchange photo operations but this would have involved relocating to offices in Frankfurt, Germany. I preferred Bavaria. Besides, I figured that the U.S. Army presence in Europe was not going to last much longer so I had better go home, finish my interrupted college education and get a long-term job. So I declined to sign a new contract.
My interpreter, secretary and administrative assistant for the past two years had been Elizabeth Oeser, and we had been privileged to fall in love.
Now that I was leaving, we began making arrangements for her to come to the U.S. as my fiancee under a new law that allowed fiancees of U.S. military personnel to visit the U.S. for a limited period if they did not get married, or to stay permanently if they did get married.
Qualifying under this law was no easy task. It took six months to complete the necessary interviews and investigations to prove that she was not a former Nazi party member, as well as numerous physical exams and x-rays to prove that she was in good physical and mental health. Compared to today’s immigration standards, it was ridiculous.
Nevertheless, she finally cleared the bureaucratic hurdles and arrived in the U.S. aboard the good ship George Washington on a sweltering day in July, 1948. I met her in New York and we returned to my parent’s home in Ohio where I had been living since my return from Europe. We were married in Elyria, Ohio on September 1, 1948, culminating my European venture which began with joining the U.S. Army in 1942 and entering active service in 1943.
We are married still.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Monday, June 29, 2009
The Munich Photo Plant
In the beginning, to provide immediate service, we contracted with a German photo finisher who had a plant in the small town of Bad Wiesee on the shores of Lake Tegernsee, about 30 miles south of Munich. However, as a result of what was known as the "denazification project" instituted by the Allied Forces to rout out former members of the Nazi Party, it was discovered that the photo plant owner had been a Party member. His plant was taken over by the government and Narkus became responsible for daily operations in running the plant.
It was obvious that demand would soon outstrip our ability to supply from the Bad Wiesee plant, so Narkus decided to build a new state-of-the-art plant in Munich with all new Kodak and Pako equipment shipped from the United States.
We took over a large three-story building that had housed a photographic school in Munich and was relatively undamaged by Allied bombing, After we had begun construction to repair and modify the building it suddenly occurred to us that there was a major problem. The only electrical service available in that sector of Munich was 440 volts DC. The new American equipment that was already in transit was designed for 110 volts AC. Now what?
A study of the electric grid serving Munich revealed that the nearest alternating current was in a 5,000 volt underground cable several blocks from the proposed new photo plant. After scouring the country, we finally came up with a 5,000 volt transformer that could step the power down to 110 volts. But how do we install a cable for several blocks under the city streets? The over populated prisoner of war compounds in Munich provided the answer.
Narkus somehow got a document from the Burgermeister permitting us to dig up the city streets to install the cable. We also found out that the prisoners of war were readily available to work on civic clean-up projects. All I had to do was send around a 6x6 Army truck each morning and check out 25 to 50 prisoners to dig the underground trench. In the late afternoon I would have to return and check-in the same number of prisoners.
The first week, we started with Hungarian P.O.W.'s, still in their country's uniforms, of course. The men enjoyed getting out of the crowded camp and sang as they dug up the street, inserted the heavy cable and refilled the trench. When we went to pick them up to start the second week, we found that they had been shipped out on their way back to Hungary.
"How about some Italians?" the prison commandant asked. So we picked up a truckload of Italian soldiers. They surveyed the scene and were not impressed.
"Is that all that the Hungarians could dig in a week?" they asked. "We can beat that!"
And they did.
Unfortunately, when we went to pick them the following week, they were being loaded up to be shipped back to Italy.
“I guess you’ll have to settle for some German prisoners, “ the commandant said, “but you’ll have to guard them closely.”
Fortunately we had recently been assigned another American civilian employee and a Dutch civilian employee so we let them alternate as guards, armed with our .45 caliber pistol.
The Germans contemptuously looked over the digging done by their predecessors and said they could do better than that. Which they did!
As we neared the end of the digging, our Dutchman went out one day to take over his afternoon turn at guard duty and encountered a surprising sight. The German prisoners were singing and digging with great gusto under the watchful eye of another prisoner, a German army sergeant who was armed with our .45 caliber pistol!
“Where’s the American?” the Dutchman inquired. “Oh, he’s upstairs with a blonde across the street,” the German prisoner explained.
Anyway, none of the prisoners wanted to escape and we completed the cable installation with no problems.
The new automatic film developers, electric eye controlled photo print makers and huge drum dryers were successfully installed and operated fine on our new source of electricity.
The photo plant in Bad Wiessee was shut down and most of the employees transferred to Munich. We had built dormitories on the top floor of the photo plant so that the skilled people from Bad Wiesee could stay in Munich during the week and go home for the weekends.
In addition, we hired more than 100 new employees and trained them to handle the new American equipment. Soon we were churning out as many as 25,000 to 30,000 black and white prints a day. (Color film was not yet available at the PX’s.)
Shortly after everything was running smoothly, Narkus’ employment contract expired and was not renewed, so he returned to the U.S. I was promoted to Munich Photo Plant Manager and signed a new one-year contract, to be effective after a 30-day furlough to my home in the U.S. It turned out to be a rather uneventful year as our business was good and we ended up making a profit -- which went to the United States Treasury.
It was obvious that demand would soon outstrip our ability to supply from the Bad Wiesee plant, so Narkus decided to build a new state-of-the-art plant in Munich with all new Kodak and Pako equipment shipped from the United States.
We took over a large three-story building that had housed a photographic school in Munich and was relatively undamaged by Allied bombing, After we had begun construction to repair and modify the building it suddenly occurred to us that there was a major problem. The only electrical service available in that sector of Munich was 440 volts DC. The new American equipment that was already in transit was designed for 110 volts AC. Now what?
A study of the electric grid serving Munich revealed that the nearest alternating current was in a 5,000 volt underground cable several blocks from the proposed new photo plant. After scouring the country, we finally came up with a 5,000 volt transformer that could step the power down to 110 volts. But how do we install a cable for several blocks under the city streets? The over populated prisoner of war compounds in Munich provided the answer.
Narkus somehow got a document from the Burgermeister permitting us to dig up the city streets to install the cable. We also found out that the prisoners of war were readily available to work on civic clean-up projects. All I had to do was send around a 6x6 Army truck each morning and check out 25 to 50 prisoners to dig the underground trench. In the late afternoon I would have to return and check-in the same number of prisoners.
The first week, we started with Hungarian P.O.W.'s, still in their country's uniforms, of course. The men enjoyed getting out of the crowded camp and sang as they dug up the street, inserted the heavy cable and refilled the trench. When we went to pick them up to start the second week, we found that they had been shipped out on their way back to Hungary.
"How about some Italians?" the prison commandant asked. So we picked up a truckload of Italian soldiers. They surveyed the scene and were not impressed.
"Is that all that the Hungarians could dig in a week?" they asked. "We can beat that!"
And they did.
Unfortunately, when we went to pick them the following week, they were being loaded up to be shipped back to Italy.
“I guess you’ll have to settle for some German prisoners, “ the commandant said, “but you’ll have to guard them closely.”
Fortunately we had recently been assigned another American civilian employee and a Dutch civilian employee so we let them alternate as guards, armed with our .45 caliber pistol.
The Germans contemptuously looked over the digging done by their predecessors and said they could do better than that. Which they did!
As we neared the end of the digging, our Dutchman went out one day to take over his afternoon turn at guard duty and encountered a surprising sight. The German prisoners were singing and digging with great gusto under the watchful eye of another prisoner, a German army sergeant who was armed with our .45 caliber pistol!
“Where’s the American?” the Dutchman inquired. “Oh, he’s upstairs with a blonde across the street,” the German prisoner explained.
Anyway, none of the prisoners wanted to escape and we completed the cable installation with no problems.
The new automatic film developers, electric eye controlled photo print makers and huge drum dryers were successfully installed and operated fine on our new source of electricity.
The photo plant in Bad Wiessee was shut down and most of the employees transferred to Munich. We had built dormitories on the top floor of the photo plant so that the skilled people from Bad Wiesee could stay in Munich during the week and go home for the weekends.
In addition, we hired more than 100 new employees and trained them to handle the new American equipment. Soon we were churning out as many as 25,000 to 30,000 black and white prints a day. (Color film was not yet available at the PX’s.)
Shortly after everything was running smoothly, Narkus’ employment contract expired and was not renewed, so he returned to the U.S. I was promoted to Munich Photo Plant Manager and signed a new one-year contract, to be effective after a 30-day furlough to my home in the U.S. It turned out to be a rather uneventful year as our business was good and we ended up making a profit -- which went to the United States Treasury.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Hooray! Out of the Army at Last
After several months of this work, I was asked by the Colonel if I would like to keep doing the job as a civilian employee of the Exchange Service. "Naturally," he said slyly, "it would require your immediate discharge from the Army and would pay more money."
Actually, immediate discharge from the Army was all I needed to hear.
I signed up for a one-year contract to work as a civilian with privileges equivalent to an army captain. At the time, they were just beginning the civilian employment program in Europe and no one was quite sure how to discharge me from the Army in Germany and retain my rights to transportation back home to Ohio.
Finally, they set up a discharge facility in Bayreuth, Germany, and it was there that I returned to civilian life with an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army dated the 18th day of December, 1945.
Now -- after three years, three months and 23 days in the U.S. Army -- I was a private citizen again. Yet it would be another two full years before I returned home to Ohio.
As a civilian employee of the Army Exchange Service stationed over seas, I was entitled to lodging and rations equivalent to that of an Army Captain and had to wear an officer's style uniform.
Instead of the insignias of rank and organization that customarily adorn the lapels, sleeves and epaulets of the uniform, the civilian version was a set of embroidered dark blue triangular patches containing the letters "US." I was assigned to work for another civilian, Walter J. Narkus, a tall lanky fellow who was well qualified as an expert in commercial photo developing and printing. He had run large photo finishing plants in the U.S. and had most recently installed large photo finishing operations in Great Britain to serve the American troops there. Now his job was to build new facilities to develop and print the black and white photographs taken by the occupation troops stationed in southern Germany, Austria and northern Italy.
To provide technical support he had brought along an Englishman, George Seagrove, to serve as a mechanic, electrician and general handy man.
Clerical, accounting and secretarial services were provided by a young German woman, Elizabeth Oeser, who lived near the Third Anny compound.
I rounded out the crew with an assignment to procure all of the necessary supplies to keep the operation running.
Actually, immediate discharge from the Army was all I needed to hear.
I signed up for a one-year contract to work as a civilian with privileges equivalent to an army captain. At the time, they were just beginning the civilian employment program in Europe and no one was quite sure how to discharge me from the Army in Germany and retain my rights to transportation back home to Ohio.
Finally, they set up a discharge facility in Bayreuth, Germany, and it was there that I returned to civilian life with an honorable discharge from the U.S. Army dated the 18th day of December, 1945.
Now -- after three years, three months and 23 days in the U.S. Army -- I was a private citizen again. Yet it would be another two full years before I returned home to Ohio.
As a civilian employee of the Army Exchange Service stationed over seas, I was entitled to lodging and rations equivalent to that of an Army Captain and had to wear an officer's style uniform.
Instead of the insignias of rank and organization that customarily adorn the lapels, sleeves and epaulets of the uniform, the civilian version was a set of embroidered dark blue triangular patches containing the letters "US." I was assigned to work for another civilian, Walter J. Narkus, a tall lanky fellow who was well qualified as an expert in commercial photo developing and printing. He had run large photo finishing plants in the U.S. and had most recently installed large photo finishing operations in Great Britain to serve the American troops there. Now his job was to build new facilities to develop and print the black and white photographs taken by the occupation troops stationed in southern Germany, Austria and northern Italy.
To provide technical support he had brought along an Englishman, George Seagrove, to serve as a mechanic, electrician and general handy man.
Clerical, accounting and secretarial services were provided by a young German woman, Elizabeth Oeser, who lived near the Third Anny compound.
I rounded out the crew with an assignment to procure all of the necessary supplies to keep the operation running.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Epilogue
'
Photo: Aerial View of part of bombed-out Munich.
The streets were cleared quite rapidly but it took years to tear down
many of the buildings and rebuild them. Much of the rubble
was hauled to the edge of town where a small mountain was created
near what is now the site of the 1972 Olympic Games.
When I left Germany in 1947, there were still people
living in some these wrecked structures.
Now that the war was officially over and Hitler was dead we had the sudden feeling of being “all dressed up and no place to go.”
We were sent to a bivouac area near Wasserburg for a few days, then moved to Sauerlach a few miles south of Munich, and finally to a former German army barracks in Munich. These were pretty nice quarters with good beds, a good kitchen and a riding stable full of horses.
Captain Kelly and the other officers thought that they would be going home soon since they had been in the regular army for several years prior to the war and would probably be among the first to be discharged under the point system that the government was developing.
Captain Kelly was well aware of my journalism background so he suggested that I write an account of B Battery’s actions during its two year existence.
He offered to make available the Battery’s daily logs and reports to Battalion headquarters so I could get all the necessary facts. I agreed and began typing up a first draft with the help of the rest of our communications section, who offered suggestions and did research for me.
One day we had a surprise inspection by a Colonel from Third Army headquarters. At the time, I was in the barracks office working hard to type up some of the information we had developed. The Colonel looked into the office and after I jumped to attention and saluted, he complimented me on my touch-typing skill. Then he asked, “What’s your name, rank and serial number, Soldier?” Of course, I told him. Two days later the Battery received a directive transferring me to Third Army Headquarters.
I had to say good-bye to all the fellows I had served with through the combat days with Battery B, gather up my duffel bag and move to McGraw Kasern on the southeast side of Munich. This had been a major German Army base with excellent accommodations and had sustained very little damage during the war.
I spent the next several weeks typing endorsements on a variety of correspondence going to General Patton requesting approval for certain actions and then typing his approval as a directive “By Command of General Patton.”
General Patton’s forward headquarters was located at a villa at Bad Tolz about 25 miles south of Munich but most of the work was done at his rear headquarters in Munich. When I first started my job at headquarter, I reported to a captain who directed my activities. As the weeks went by, my supervisors successively received transfers back to the States and were not replaced, so I reported to their former superiors. Thus in a matter of weeks I reported to a captain, a major, a lieutenant colonel and a full colonel.
The colonel soon observed that I was qualified for things other than typing all day and decided to offer me a job running the post exchange warehouses in Munich. He also decided that one of my associates, Sgt. Winograd, should take over a new task of procuring photographic supplies for a photo processing plant that the Exchange Service was establishing.
He called us both into his office to let us know his decision. Sgt. Winograd smiled and stated that he would be very pleased to accept the assignment to travel through Germany seeking supplies of photographic chemicals and paper for the processing plant. Where, he asked, would he get his command car and driver? The colonel pointedly informed him that, yes, he would get a command car or light truck but that he would have to do the driving himself.
Winograd’s response, though hardly earth shaking, would change the rest of my life.
"I'm sorry, sir, but I don’t know how to drive!” he said.
The colonel shifted his gaze to me. “Can you drive?” he asked.
“Of course,” I replied. And so it came to pass that Winograd took the job running the PX warehouses while I became the new procurer of photo supplies.
Friday, June 26, 2009
The War in Europe Ends
The news from the German front in Stars & Stripes indicated that the end of the war was at hand. As luck would have it, the Cease Fire Agreement ending hostilities was signed at General Eisenhower’s headquarters in Reims, France on May 7 -- the day before I was supposed to fly back to rejoin Battery B and the 14th Armored.
Fortunately, the flight on the 8th was canceled since everyone was celebrating and the pilots probably had too much to drink.
The next day, the plane was to depart at 1 p.m., which it did. The problem was that it did not get very far. After take-off, we noticed that the pilot was doing a lot of circling to the left, and finally we were skimming alongside the ominous hills at the airport and came in for a landing back where we had started. The co-pilot jumped out and removed an aileron chock that restrained the right aileron, or wing flap, from moving while the plane was parked on the ground. Someone had forgotten to pull it off before our take-off and without the flap the pilot was only able to fly in circles to the left.
The second time was a charm.
However, most of the plane was loaded with Army nurses and I guess the pilots wanted to impress them. Anyway, instead of flying at a more normal altitude, he flew low -- just a few hundred feet above the tree tops. This gives the impression of greater speed. It also scared the hell out of farmers and livestock on the French and German farms we flew over on the way back to Nuremberg.
All the passengers on board had their fingers crossed, thinking what a shame it would be if we had survived the war but were killed in a plane crash the day after the armistice. But we arrived safely.
I finally located Captain Kelly and the Battery B half-tracks near the airport at Landshut, Germany, where they were helping to process liberated American, English and French prisoners of war for flights back to their homelands.
Naturally, my buddies wanted to know what kind of close relationship I had with General Patton that enabled me to be vacationing on the Riviera when the war ended. I had no answer for that question.
But I did have some answers to other questions.
How long had we been on combat alert since landing in France? Answer: 281 days.
How many miles did we cover?
Answer: 3,350 miles-at least that was the mileage on the odometer of Captain Kelly’s jeep.
Fortunately, the flight on the 8th was canceled since everyone was celebrating and the pilots probably had too much to drink.
The next day, the plane was to depart at 1 p.m., which it did. The problem was that it did not get very far. After take-off, we noticed that the pilot was doing a lot of circling to the left, and finally we were skimming alongside the ominous hills at the airport and came in for a landing back where we had started. The co-pilot jumped out and removed an aileron chock that restrained the right aileron, or wing flap, from moving while the plane was parked on the ground. Someone had forgotten to pull it off before our take-off and without the flap the pilot was only able to fly in circles to the left.
The second time was a charm.
However, most of the plane was loaded with Army nurses and I guess the pilots wanted to impress them. Anyway, instead of flying at a more normal altitude, he flew low -- just a few hundred feet above the tree tops. This gives the impression of greater speed. It also scared the hell out of farmers and livestock on the French and German farms we flew over on the way back to Nuremberg.
All the passengers on board had their fingers crossed, thinking what a shame it would be if we had survived the war but were killed in a plane crash the day after the armistice. But we arrived safely.
I finally located Captain Kelly and the Battery B half-tracks near the airport at Landshut, Germany, where they were helping to process liberated American, English and French prisoners of war for flights back to their homelands.
Naturally, my buddies wanted to know what kind of close relationship I had with General Patton that enabled me to be vacationing on the Riviera when the war ended. I had no answer for that question.
But I did have some answers to other questions.
How long had we been on combat alert since landing in France? Answer: 281 days.
How many miles did we cover?
Answer: 3,350 miles-at least that was the mileage on the odometer of Captain Kelly’s jeep.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Back to the Third Army
Again, for unknown reasons, we were transferred from the Seventh Army back to the Third Army as the final phase of the war was at hand.
This time we were in the Third Corps of the Third Army along with the 14th Armored Division.
By this time organized resistance had practically ceased and the Third Army was rolling ahead 15 to 20 miles per day. Despite this growing lack of resistance on the ground, we were amazed to find that the Luftwaffe was becoming active again - perhaps because we were so close to some of their main airbases.
On April 16, two ME-109's came in on bombing and strafing runs and our gunners reported hits on both planes. The following day, a flight of 20 ME-109's appeared over Altdorf but were driven off by our heavy firing. Although no planes were knocked down, the engagement turned out to be profitable as 74 enemy soldiers, impressed by our display of firepower, came out of a nearby woods to surrender. Jet propelled planes also showed up for the Luftwaffe's last stand and one was shot down by the sections guarding Division headquarters.
On April 25 we reached the Danube River near Ingolstadt but the main bridge had been blown up by the Germans. While we were waiting for a pontoon bridge to be put in place, a message arrived from Battalion headquarters concerning me. It directed me to proceed to the airport at Nuremburg, which was now safely in American hands, and catch a plane to Nice, France, for a 10-day furlough. It seems that I was about the last of the Battery's troops to get any time off from combat alert since we landed at Utah Beach, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to Nice.
I caught a C-47 airplane at Nuremburg and we flew nonstop to Nice.
The weather on the Mediterranean Sea was warm, clear and sunny when we arrived. Visibility was excellent and we were a little perturbed at our first sight of the Nice airport. It was flanked by sheer mountainous hills on the north side and it was easy to see the wreckage of quite a number of airplanes plastered against the hills. We hoped that our Air Force pilot had been here before and knew how to land!
I was assigned to a good hotel in the center of town and learned that we could tour around the area of Nice and Monte Carlo and the perfume factories at Grasse during our stay. Cannes was off limits to enlisted men inasmuch as it was reserved for officers. This was a good idea as our separation from the officers eliminated the need for constant saluting as we walked down the streets.
The beach at Nice was still off limits as it had not been entirely cleared of barbed wire, X-shaped steel girders, mines and other defensive equipment that the Germans had installed to discourage Allied landings. However, we were able to go into the countryside on tours and to see the gambling halls at Monte Carlo and to sniff the perfumes at Grasse. In the evenings there were band concerts and entertainment to keep us occupied.
This time we were in the Third Corps of the Third Army along with the 14th Armored Division.
By this time organized resistance had practically ceased and the Third Army was rolling ahead 15 to 20 miles per day. Despite this growing lack of resistance on the ground, we were amazed to find that the Luftwaffe was becoming active again - perhaps because we were so close to some of their main airbases.
On April 16, two ME-109's came in on bombing and strafing runs and our gunners reported hits on both planes. The following day, a flight of 20 ME-109's appeared over Altdorf but were driven off by our heavy firing. Although no planes were knocked down, the engagement turned out to be profitable as 74 enemy soldiers, impressed by our display of firepower, came out of a nearby woods to surrender. Jet propelled planes also showed up for the Luftwaffe's last stand and one was shot down by the sections guarding Division headquarters.
On April 25 we reached the Danube River near Ingolstadt but the main bridge had been blown up by the Germans. While we were waiting for a pontoon bridge to be put in place, a message arrived from Battalion headquarters concerning me. It directed me to proceed to the airport at Nuremburg, which was now safely in American hands, and catch a plane to Nice, France, for a 10-day furlough. It seems that I was about the last of the Battery's troops to get any time off from combat alert since we landed at Utah Beach, and I was lucky enough to be able to go to Nice.
I caught a C-47 airplane at Nuremburg and we flew nonstop to Nice.
The weather on the Mediterranean Sea was warm, clear and sunny when we arrived. Visibility was excellent and we were a little perturbed at our first sight of the Nice airport. It was flanked by sheer mountainous hills on the north side and it was easy to see the wreckage of quite a number of airplanes plastered against the hills. We hoped that our Air Force pilot had been here before and knew how to land!
I was assigned to a good hotel in the center of town and learned that we could tour around the area of Nice and Monte Carlo and the perfume factories at Grasse during our stay. Cannes was off limits to enlisted men inasmuch as it was reserved for officers. This was a good idea as our separation from the officers eliminated the need for constant saluting as we walked down the streets.
The beach at Nice was still off limits as it had not been entirely cleared of barbed wire, X-shaped steel girders, mines and other defensive equipment that the Germans had installed to discourage Allied landings. However, we were able to go into the countryside on tours and to see the gambling halls at Monte Carlo and to sniff the perfumes at Grasse. In the evenings there were band concerts and entertainment to keep us occupied.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
We cross the Rhine
Photo: General George S. Patton's first pontoon bridge over the Rhine River near Worms. Earlier in the war we had guarded this bridge while it was still on trucks in Normandy. The night that the engineers installed the bridge, our outfit was part of a diversion several miles south of the site where we pretended to set up for a river crossing in the dark.
While mop up operations along the Rhine were continuing, we heard that the actual Rhine crossing was supposed to be made by General Montgomery's British Army, the Canadian Army and the U.S. Ninth Army somewhere in the north. The British were planning it almost like another D-Day with thousands of troops boats, paratroops and pontoons involved. However, this became somewhat academic on March 7th when elements of the 9th Armored Division of the First Army discovered a railroad bridge still standing at Remagan and established a bridgehead on the other side of the Rhine.
View Germersheim, Germany in a larger map
The Third Army continued to push southward on the west side of the Rhine and on March 22 its 10th Armored Division made contact with the Seventh Army just south of Worms. That night, our Battery was one of those sent down to the banks of the Rhine to make a lot of noise and show enough lights and activity to make the Germans think we were attempting to cross the river near the city of Germersheim.
Actually, the crossing was being made very quietly further up the river at Oppenheim by the 5th Division of the Third Army, who established the first pontoon bridge over the Rhine. Patton's troops put two more bridges across in the next few days. Our turn to go across came on Easter Sunday when we went over the pontoon bridge at Worms. It was quite a spectacular sight to see the tanks and half-tracks move across the wide river on steel gratings attached to dozens of floating pontoons. In fact, it may have been the bridge we had guarded for a few days when it was on trucks back in Normandy.
After making the crossing, we turned northeast up the east bank of the Rhine and went through Darmstadt, Aschaffenburg, Lohr, Bruckenau, Neustadt and Schweindorf.
On April 12th we received via BBC radio the sad and disquieting news that President Franklin Roosevelt had died at Warm Springs, Georgia. We did not think that the change to President Truman would affect our war effort as we believed that the damned war was nearly over anyway. However, (he lead tanks of the 5th Armored were less than 60 miles from Berlin and we were sorry that Roosevelt had not lived to witness Hitler's surrender or demise.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Entering Germany for the first time
For the next weeks the front remained static in our area, except for patrol actions. The Battery moved with the 500th Artillery to Guedertheim in support of the 36th (Texas) Division, to Uttwiller in support of the 103rd Division and then to Ettendorf to rejoin the 14th Armored. At Uttwiller, our gunners engaged two ME109’s and shot one of them down. Otherwise, action was light with the biggest battle being fought against deep snow and biting cold.
In the north, the Third Army was beginning to run wild again as it launched its Saar/Palatinate campaign. On March 15, the Seventh Army joined the fray, kicking off from its Moder River line against light opposition and driving to the German border again. The Battery entered Germany for the first time at 6:30 a.m. on January 23 a few miles west of Wissembourg and plunged into the mountains for an end run against the Siegfried Line at that point.
Here a Negro tank destroyer battalion leading the column had surprised a German horse-drawn convoy on the road and created a "Valley of death." Dozens of horses were killed or broke loose from their hitches to run panic stricken along the roads, which were covered with dead Germans and enemy equipment of every description. Many of the horses had been pulling tanks which were out of fuel -- a testimony to the effectiveness of Allied air raids on German fuel supplies. From the surrounding forest, hundreds of German soldiers were emerging with their hands behind their heads to surrender.
The tank destroyer battalion was one of the few Negro combat units active in Europe.
I talked to a couple of the fellows who were sitting in their tank destroyer reading the latest issue of the Army newspaper, Stars & Stripes. They had just read that Hitler was forming a new homeland defense force to be known as the “Volksturm.” These people would be senior citizens armed with such weapons as shovels, clubs and pitchforks.
“Pitchforks!” one of the tankers exclaimed. “Man, they’re sharp! I don’t want to meet up with any of them Krauts with pitchforks.” I had to laugh at the irony of that remark coming from someone who had just helped shoot a well-armed German column to smithereens.
Our advance continued for the next two days as the Division overran Herxheim and Bellheim to reach the Rhine River. Battery personnel aiding in the mop-up operations gathered in more than 100 prisoners in three days.
At one time, we had three German soldiers sitting on the hood of our jeep as we drove around looking for some MPs to take charge of them.
The Division then retired to the vicinity of Berg Zabern and Wissembourg for five days of regrouping and resupplying. This gave us a chance to inspect some of the pill boxes and fortifications of the famed Siegfried Line. Some of them were quite spacious. One had an automated mortar firing system with the mortar shells attached to a conveyor belt that would drop them into the firing tubes at quite a high rate of speed. The mortars were already zeroed in on various key spots surrounding the pillbox.
These could have been formidable weapons but we had driven right past them because they were unmanned. The German soldiers who should have been manning them had probably been captured when we surrounded the German 7th Army in France last August.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Meeting the ME-262
The road on which we had retreated seemed to be in pretty good shape so we kept going, headed back to Barenthal. About a mile from there we were beginning to think that we would make it when a couple of low flying P-47’s buzzed us. As we stopped to watch, one of them circled around and began a high speed dive directly toward us. A few hundred yards from us he released two bombs which sailed over our heads and landed about 500 yards in front of us. Machine gun antiaircraft fire erupted from the Germans up ahead as he sailed past them. We spun the jeep around in record time and headed back down the road from which we had just come. That was the end of our attempt to rescue our belongings.
Meanwhile the German attack on our front had shifted eastward as their tanks came over the border from Germany to reach the towns of Hatten and Rittershofen, not far from the Rhine River. Our Battery moved to Reimerswiller guarding the 500th Artillery Bn., whose guns mauled the enemy during one of the fiercest tank battles of the war. Hatten and Rittershofen became a graveyard of German and American tanks, and the towns themselves were virtually wiped off the map. Fighting was from house to house and even room to room. We were close enough to hear the noise of the battle and also to hear an unfamiliar noise as some of the Luftwaffe’s secret new ME-262 jet fighters made their first combat runs.
The ME-262 jets could carry enough fuel for only about 15 minutes of full throttle flying so they were stationed just across the Rhine where they could reach our front lines. In order to conserve fuel, their tactic was to climb high into the noonday sun, then cut their engines and come diving down at high speed with their rapid-fire cannons blasting at their targets. Our gunners had never seen anything traveling that fast. They could not aim far enough ahead of the planes to score any direct hits. On the other hand, the ME-262’s were largely ineffective at hitting anything because of their high speed. One of them had aimed at our half-tracks and we could see the marks in the snow where each round had hit the ground-they were about 20 yards apart.
The next day we were ready for those fast flying jets! Battalion headquarters had sent each of the antiaircraft crews a new map marked with numbered grids (or squares) of our local area. As soon as anyone saw or heard an ME-262 they were to get on the radio and report what grid he was seen in and what direction he was heading. Based on that information, all guns in the direction he was heading would commence firing into the air in hopes that the plane would fly into the curtain of bullets. Surprisingly, the system worked! One of the ME-262’s was shot down while being fired at by both Battery A and Battery B of our 398th AAA Battalion. Our Battery also claimed the destruction of two ME-109’s on that day.
On January 20, the Seventh Army (to which we were then attached) decided it wasn’t ready to attack Germany’s West Wall fortifications and opted to pull back to a more defensible line along the Moder River in Alsace. We received orders to proceed to Hatten and Rittershoffen along with the artillery and a platoon of tanks to protect the rear of the withdrawing forces from the possibility of a German advance.
This was a very sad operation. The roads were clogged with civilians who had heard about our withdrawal and didn’t want to greet the Germans on their return to the Alsatian villages we had liberated. There were old men pushing wheelbarrows loaded with family possessions, young women pushing baby carriages and children scampering along with our retreating columns.
We took up firing positions on the outskirts of Hatten and waited for the last of our troops to clear. Then the engineers set off plastic explosive charges attached to the trunks of trees lining the highway so that they would fall across the road from each side. As the last of the engineers pulled out, we began our slow journey away from what had been the frontlines. All guns on the half-tracks and tanks were pointed to the rear, as we expected that a German tank column would try to follow us.
But all was quiet. We found out later that the Germans, also, had decided to retreat. They were withdrawing northeastward to their fortified lines while we were withdrawing southwestward to the river!
Friday, June 19, 2009
We Beat a Hasty Retreat
Back in Barenthal, on January 1 the New Year was ushered in with two bottles of PX beer and a chorus of Auld Lang Syne on New Year’s Eve and a hail of flying bullets the next morning. The Germans, their offensive in the north halted and turned back by the Third Anny, now struck southward and our 14th Armored task force was among the units that absorbed the initial fury of the attack. Tracer bullets carved fiery paths through the first light of dawn and artillery and mortar shells struck the main street in front of the building where I was sleeping. Rudely awakened by the explosions, all available personnel were sent out to man roadblocks and machine gun outposts.
At noon, just as our New Year’s Day turkey was browning on the stoves in the school house, the first white-cloaked Germans burst from the snowy woods that surrounded the town.
The Battery half-tracks turned their multiple machine guns and cannons on the enemy infantry and inflicted heavy casualties. Their action gained precious time for the rest of us to begin an orderly withdrawal. I hopped into the Battery Headquarters half-track and we pulled out without taking time to hitch-up the trailer that contained all of our barracks bags and personal belongings. At the road fork at the edge of town, a full bird Colonel of the 14th Armored was directing traffic to move the vehicles out as orderly as possible. As I looked back, I saw two white-clad Germans entering the school house where our New Year's turkeys were nearly ready to be served.
In the course of this engagement, Pvt. John O’Malley was creased between the eyes by a bullet fired by a civilian woman, T/5 Tom Creegan added a cluster to his Purple Heart medal when a bullet struck his hand as he trained the half-track’s guns on the attacking enemy, T/5 Nathaniel Rushing had a piece of shrapnel pierce his ear while defending a road block, and Pvt. Walter Sadler was shot in the arm by one of our own men who mistook him for an enemy in the early morning confusion. As the battery pulled out of town, Pvt. Arthur Crochiere was injured when the tank on which he had hitched a ride was overturned. Yet, considering the ferocity of the engagement, casualties were relatively light.
For their outstanding work in standing by their guns and helping to smother the attack, Bronze Stars were later awarded to Sgt. Elton Johnson, Sgt. Gus Sherwinsky, Cpl. Jake Mandel, Cpl. Charles Moalli, and T/5 Jewel Sharp.
Eventually reinforcements in the form of more armor and infantry arrived and the Wehrmacht failed to break out of the mountains to the flat plains of Alsace.
At noon, just as our New Year’s Day turkey was browning on the stoves in the school house, the first white-cloaked Germans burst from the snowy woods that surrounded the town.
The Battery half-tracks turned their multiple machine guns and cannons on the enemy infantry and inflicted heavy casualties. Their action gained precious time for the rest of us to begin an orderly withdrawal. I hopped into the Battery Headquarters half-track and we pulled out without taking time to hitch-up the trailer that contained all of our barracks bags and personal belongings. At the road fork at the edge of town, a full bird Colonel of the 14th Armored was directing traffic to move the vehicles out as orderly as possible. As I looked back, I saw two white-clad Germans entering the school house where our New Year's turkeys were nearly ready to be served.
In the course of this engagement, Pvt. John O’Malley was creased between the eyes by a bullet fired by a civilian woman, T/5 Tom Creegan added a cluster to his Purple Heart medal when a bullet struck his hand as he trained the half-track’s guns on the attacking enemy, T/5 Nathaniel Rushing had a piece of shrapnel pierce his ear while defending a road block, and Pvt. Walter Sadler was shot in the arm by one of our own men who mistook him for an enemy in the early morning confusion. As the battery pulled out of town, Pvt. Arthur Crochiere was injured when the tank on which he had hitched a ride was overturned. Yet, considering the ferocity of the engagement, casualties were relatively light.
For their outstanding work in standing by their guns and helping to smother the attack, Bronze Stars were later awarded to Sgt. Elton Johnson, Sgt. Gus Sherwinsky, Cpl. Jake Mandel, Cpl. Charles Moalli, and T/5 Jewel Sharp.
Eventually reinforcements in the form of more armor and infantry arrived and the Wehrmacht failed to break out of the mountains to the flat plains of Alsace.
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Who was Joe DiMaggio?
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Finally, we moved forward with an attack that took the towns of Pfaffenhofen, Surbourg, Soultz and Wissembourg, where the Battery fired at two ME109's that went over high. Wissembourg was very close to the border of Germany and the beginning of Hitler's fortified west wall. We could see some of the pill boxes and dragons teeth tank barriers in the distance. One day a group of A-20 American bombers came over on a daylight raid to bomb the pill boxes. We couldn't see how much damage their bombs did, but two of the A-20's were shot down by German anti aircraft batteries. The pilots and crew bailed out but their parachutes came down in German territory where we couldn't reach them.
This area of France was known as Alsace-Lorraine and it had been fought over by Germans, French and others for centuries. It was quite interesting hearing some of the stories of the residents. Both French and German were spoken here. Some of the families had sons or daughters in both the German army and the French army. This was a little disquieting to find that you were staying in the house of a family with a son fighting in the German army. However, everyone seemed very friendly and I don't recall any problems due to this divided loyalty. The reason that we could occupy houses in these border towns was that we were now in the Seventh Army. We could not have done it if we were still with the Third Army. General Patton required his troops to stay outdoors. When asked about this policy by newspaper reporters, Patton explained that he expected continuous movement forward and didn't want his troops to get too comfortable in one spot.
One of the things of interest during our stay near Wissembourg was the Germans' use of huge cannons mounted on railroad cars. During the day, the cars would be parked inside railroad tunnels on the other side of the Rhine to escape our warplanes and then brought out about midnight every night. They were aiming at road junctions several miles to our rear. We could hear the boom of the big guns when fired and then hear the huge shells passing over head with the sound of an express train. Later we saw some of the deep holes where the shells had landed but as far as I could see no roads were hit.
It was now December 18, and in the north a major German counter offensive was in full swing in the Ardennes Forest area. The strength of this offensive against the U.S. First Army came as a great surprise to General Eisenhower and his staff. However, we were at a considerable distance from this action as we were on the right flank of the Third Airny or the left flank of the Seventh Army, depending on your point of view. Some of our units were guarding an area where elements of the 101st Airborne Division had been recuperating from their unsuccessful Arnhem venture, and we guessed that something serious was afoot when they loaded up and pulled out on December 17 to head north. Then we heard that much of the Third Aimy was swinging toward the north to help stop the thrust of General von Runstedt's German troops in what came to be known as the Battle of the Bulge.
Supplementing their new offensive in Belgium, the Germans had dropped SS troops dressed in American uniforms behind our lines. Their job was to string thin piano wire across the roads, tied to trees on each side. This wire could decapitate unwary jeep riders who went down those roads, so immediately all of our jeeps were taken to a maintenance area where a 4-foot high wire cutter was welded onto the front bumper of each jeep. Also, since Germans in American uniforms were expected everywhere, all of our sentries and MP's became very strict in enforcing passwords and asking questions that only an American would know. For example, even if you gave the right password when challenged, you might still be asked what team Joe DiMaggio played for and what position he played.
As a result of the Battle of the Bulge, the 14th Armored's front was broadened to cover some of the area previously occupied by Third Army units. Battery B moved westward as part of a task force that was to hold the mountainous terrain southeast of Bitche near the German border. On December 24, the Battery arrived in Barenthal, a sleepy little hamlet nestled by a lake between high hills. Our Christmas dinner was celebrated here and all was peaceful and quiet as we read in Stars and Stripes about the battles raging around Bastogne in the north, and the bad weather that had grounded our air forces.
But back in Surburg where two sections of the Battery were guarding the 14th Armored Division's supply trains all was not so serene. On December 30, a flight of what appeared to be American P-47 Thunderbolts circled the area and then attacked. Their bombs wrecked the heart of the little town and killed T/5 Robert Gorman as he walked down the street with another member of his crew. Similar planes of American design wearing American insignia but apparently flown by Germans attacked Division headquarters a short time later.
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The 14th Armored Arrives
On November 20, the Second Platoon moved from Luneville south to Janmenil, where it was assigned to the 500th Armored Field Artillery Bn. of the newly arrived 14th Armored Division. On Thanksgiving Day the Second Platoon was joined at St. Quirin by the First Platoon which had been relieved from its assignment with 44th Division, which was then advancing on Sarrebourg.
It appeared that our sort of nomadic existence as a free-lance anti aircraft outfit had ended and that from here on we would be firmly attached to a single armored division -- the 14th.
The 14th Armored got its baptism of fire attacking through the Vosges Mountains to reach the Rhine River. The heavily forested Vosges Mountains were a terrible place for tanks and armored vehicles. The weather was cold,the roads were narrow and blocked by fallen trees toppled by the retreating Germans, and the woods were full of snipers. We finally burst out of the confinement of the mountains into the Rhine River valley of the Alsace region. We took the towns of Obernai and Neidernai and then sweated out two days of heavy shelling. The enemy guns were so close that we could hear the slamming of the breach blocks and the German commands to fire, giving us just enough time to drop into a foxhole before the shell arrived.
The 14th Armored Division was nearing the town of Selestat on December 1 when we were ordered north for what was supposed to be a 10-day rest at Geisweiler.
But there was never any rest for the anti-aircraft crews. The Battery remained on air guard as usual. At night we were quartered in a house near the center of town and the men spent the time playing poker or hearts. The Germans routinely shelled the town with long range guns in a very predictable fashion. We could hear the shells landing on one side of the town about every 10 minutes and slowly working their way across town in our direction. When we heard them hit in the next block we would all move down to the cellar until the threat passed and the shells were hitting in the next block. Then it was upstairs again and back to the poker and hearts games.
It appeared that our sort of nomadic existence as a free-lance anti aircraft outfit had ended and that from here on we would be firmly attached to a single armored division -- the 14th.
The 14th Armored got its baptism of fire attacking through the Vosges Mountains to reach the Rhine River. The heavily forested Vosges Mountains were a terrible place for tanks and armored vehicles. The weather was cold,the roads were narrow and blocked by fallen trees toppled by the retreating Germans, and the woods were full of snipers. We finally burst out of the confinement of the mountains into the Rhine River valley of the Alsace region. We took the towns of Obernai and Neidernai and then sweated out two days of heavy shelling. The enemy guns were so close that we could hear the slamming of the breach blocks and the German commands to fire, giving us just enough time to drop into a foxhole before the shell arrived.
The 14th Armored Division was nearing the town of Selestat on December 1 when we were ordered north for what was supposed to be a 10-day rest at Geisweiler.
But there was never any rest for the anti-aircraft crews. The Battery remained on air guard as usual. At night we were quartered in a house near the center of town and the men spent the time playing poker or hearts. The Germans routinely shelled the town with long range guns in a very predictable fashion. We could hear the shells landing on one side of the town about every 10 minutes and slowly working their way across town in our direction. When we heard them hit in the next block we would all move down to the cellar until the threat passed and the shells were hitting in the next block. Then it was upstairs again and back to the poker and hearts games.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Charmes...LuneviIle...Foret de Parroy
A week later the re-united Battery was back in Charmes for three days protecting the bridge there before returning to Luneville to guard the 267th Field Artillery and their gigantic 240mm howitzers. The shells for these guns were almost 10 inches in diameter and the noise was almost overpowering when they were fired. After three days, the Platoons were re-attached to the 961st again, now on the east side of Luneville near Croismare. Here the 79th Infantry was engaged in a bitter battle to take the Forest of Parroy. This turned out to be the biggest artillery duel we had ever seen. As we pulled into position ahead of our artillery, I heard a tremendous explosion and looked up to see a Colonel, his driver and his command car thrown about 10 feet into the air after driving over a mine in the ground about 50 yards from us. This commotion attracted some incoming artillery shells so we had to lay low for awhile as they fell around us.
Later in the morning, a really breathtaking event occurred. All of the artillery in the area was programmed for a Timed-On-Target exercise -- and there was a lot of artillery. The objective was to carpet the area above the forest with air bursts of artillery shells, all of which would arrive on target at the same time. This meant that the 155mm Long Toms located up to 10 miles away would fire several minutes before the 105mm howitzers, which were only a few hundred yards from the forest, and the other gun sizes in between would be scheduled to fire at appropriate times. At 11 o'clock we could hear the whine of the long distance shells coming our way just as the near-by 105mm howitzers fired. The area over the forest lit up like a malevolent Christmas tree as about 100 shells burst at once a little bit above treetop level. The noise of the airbursts was deafening. The leaves on the tops of the trees were shredded as the shrapnel rained down to the forest floor below. Then it became eerily quiet.
We moved around the forest to its northern side and waited for a couple of days as the battle-scarred 79th Division was given a much deserved rest and was replaced by the newly arrived 44th Division. On October 20 both of our Platoons were assigned to protect the 156th and 157th Field Artillery battalions of the 44th Division. The Germans seemed to sense that a change was taking place and moved forward to shower our positions with shells. The withdrawal of the battle-hardened 79th was delayed for a few hours to steady the green troops of the 44th Division but eventually the line held and we did not have to pull back. Several of the camouflage nets covering our half-tracks were blown down and the half-tracks dented by the shrapnel but we did not sustain any casualties. I spent a good bit of time lying in my foxhole and twice I was lifted out of it by the air from the concussive force of nearby shell explosions.
Enemy planes remained scarce, although three were engaged on November 8 while we were moving to Manonviller. It was at Manonviller on Armistice Day, November 11, that the Battery experienced its costliest single day of the war.
We had just moved past a small bridge near the edge of town and were ordered to stop there to spend the night. Our bivouac area included the remains of a shell-blasted old church and a small apple orchard. Most of our communications crew decided to bed down at the base of the walls of the old church, which would offer some protection from wind and from strafing planes, if there were to be any. I told them that I felt safer in a foxhole out in the open field, not too close to an apple tree. My experience had shown that shells can land quite close to your foxhole and the shrapnel will pass harmlessly overhead. But if the shell hits a tree or a building, the shrapnel can shoot downward, even into a foxhole. So I dug in, wriggled into my sleeping bag and spent a comfortable night.
Just after daybreak, German artillery shells began falling around us. Since the shells were landing one at a time about three or four minutes apart it seemed likely that the Krauts couldn't see us but were just shooting interdictory fire at the road over the bridge. I stayed in my foxhole. Soon there was a shell explosion closer to the church, followed by an ominous thump. The shell itself had done no damage but the concussion had caused the weakened wall of the church to collapse and bury the sleeping soldiers at its base. Killed instantly were Staff Sergeant Anthony L. Gerardi, T/5 Joseph Kapral, Pvts. Norman Gaudette and William Gage.
Shortly after the wall fell, the Germans noticed the cloud of dust it released and threw in a barrage of shells to harass rescue workers, but there were no further casualties at that time. Sporadic shelling continued all day and in the afternoon a shellburst near one of the half-tracks wounded Cpl. Francis Calabrese, T/5 Thomas Creegan and Pvt. Joseph Ortaglia. The latter two returned to the Battery after recovery but Calabrese was evacuated to the United States.
Later in the morning, a really breathtaking event occurred. All of the artillery in the area was programmed for a Timed-On-Target exercise -- and there was a lot of artillery. The objective was to carpet the area above the forest with air bursts of artillery shells, all of which would arrive on target at the same time. This meant that the 155mm Long Toms located up to 10 miles away would fire several minutes before the 105mm howitzers, which were only a few hundred yards from the forest, and the other gun sizes in between would be scheduled to fire at appropriate times. At 11 o'clock we could hear the whine of the long distance shells coming our way just as the near-by 105mm howitzers fired. The area over the forest lit up like a malevolent Christmas tree as about 100 shells burst at once a little bit above treetop level. The noise of the airbursts was deafening. The leaves on the tops of the trees were shredded as the shrapnel rained down to the forest floor below. Then it became eerily quiet.
We moved around the forest to its northern side and waited for a couple of days as the battle-scarred 79th Division was given a much deserved rest and was replaced by the newly arrived 44th Division. On October 20 both of our Platoons were assigned to protect the 156th and 157th Field Artillery battalions of the 44th Division. The Germans seemed to sense that a change was taking place and moved forward to shower our positions with shells. The withdrawal of the battle-hardened 79th was delayed for a few hours to steady the green troops of the 44th Division but eventually the line held and we did not have to pull back. Several of the camouflage nets covering our half-tracks were blown down and the half-tracks dented by the shrapnel but we did not sustain any casualties. I spent a good bit of time lying in my foxhole and twice I was lifted out of it by the air from the concussive force of nearby shell explosions.
Enemy planes remained scarce, although three were engaged on November 8 while we were moving to Manonviller. It was at Manonviller on Armistice Day, November 11, that the Battery experienced its costliest single day of the war.
We had just moved past a small bridge near the edge of town and were ordered to stop there to spend the night. Our bivouac area included the remains of a shell-blasted old church and a small apple orchard. Most of our communications crew decided to bed down at the base of the walls of the old church, which would offer some protection from wind and from strafing planes, if there were to be any. I told them that I felt safer in a foxhole out in the open field, not too close to an apple tree. My experience had shown that shells can land quite close to your foxhole and the shrapnel will pass harmlessly overhead. But if the shell hits a tree or a building, the shrapnel can shoot downward, even into a foxhole. So I dug in, wriggled into my sleeping bag and spent a comfortable night.
Just after daybreak, German artillery shells began falling around us. Since the shells were landing one at a time about three or four minutes apart it seemed likely that the Krauts couldn't see us but were just shooting interdictory fire at the road over the bridge. I stayed in my foxhole. Soon there was a shell explosion closer to the church, followed by an ominous thump. The shell itself had done no damage but the concussion had caused the weakened wall of the church to collapse and bury the sleeping soldiers at its base. Killed instantly were Staff Sergeant Anthony L. Gerardi, T/5 Joseph Kapral, Pvts. Norman Gaudette and William Gage.
Shortly after the wall fell, the Germans noticed the cloud of dust it released and threw in a barrage of shells to harass rescue workers, but there were no further casualties at that time. Sporadic shelling continued all day and in the afternoon a shellburst near one of the half-tracks wounded Cpl. Francis Calabrese, T/5 Thomas Creegan and Pvt. Joseph Ortaglia. The latter two returned to the Battery after recovery but Calabrese was evacuated to the United States.
Monday, June 15, 2009
Dreux...Houdan...Nantes
By August 19 the Battery had sped through the villages of Dreux and Houdan on the heels of the 5th Armored Division and we suddenly found ourselves on the crest of a hill looking down on the Seine River at Mantes-Gassicort, thirty miles northwest of Paris. As we stopped for the evening, everything seemed to be quiet. Then about midnight we could see German and American tracer bullets flying back and forth across the river below us. By morning, the infantry of the 79th Division had a foot hold on the opposite bank and the engineers were installing a floating pontoon bridge to carry 5th Armored tanks across the river. We were also notified that we were now attached to the 693rd Field Artillery Battalion, armed with 105mm howitzers. They were a very short-range artillery outfit assigned to help protect the bridge and establish the first American bridgehead over the Seine.
I was sitting under a tree near the river having breakfast when I noticed a large flight of aircraft appearing over the horizon. They didn't look like the B-17 Flying Fortresses that I was accustomed to see going high over our heads toward targets in Germany. No they definitely were not B17's But weren't there too many of them to be enemy aircraft? Then suddenly someone shouted, "They're all krauts." And 32 of them came buzzing toward us- the biggest contingent of enemy planes we had ever seen There were a number of different kinds of planes and they broke into groups as they tried again and again to reach our bridgehead area We reported enemy planes overhead almost continuously from 1000 to 2100 on August 21 Our gunners claimed one definite kill and three planes damaged. The next day it was more of the same. The Germans, whose radio reported erroneously that the bridgehead was held by American paratroops counter attacked vigorously on land and threw in additional air support in a desperate effort to smash the bridge. Flights of ME-109's and FW-190's cnss-crossed the area from 0830 to 2230 trying to blast the bridge with bombs and rockets. Even some slow-flying, outmoded Stuka dive bombers were called in without success.
In the fierce melee, which continued all day, the Battery half-tracks on both sides of the Seine fired nearly all of their available ammunition. We claimed the destruction of 10 enemy aircraft which either blew up in the air or went down trailing smoke and flames. Not a single bomb or rocket reached the pontoon bridge. One of our half-tracks had its motor blown out of commission and two others were damaged by bullets but there were no casualties among the Battery's troops. For its work, the 398th Battalion, along with six other battalions, received commendations from Major General Wade H. Haislip, commander of the XV Corps, for its part in the destruction of 45 enemy planes and the damaging of 15 others in that two-day period. On August 23, American airplanes again appeared in the skies after an unexplained absence of three days, and enemy air activity diminished. However, there was one raid at 0930 in which one plane was shot down and hits claimed on three others. Nevertheless, the troops had time to relax and we were able to take our first bath of the campaign-a refreshing swim in the Seine River.
On August 24, we were notified that our Battery was now under control of the First Army rather than the Third Army and the following day we left the Mantes-Gassicourt bridge and headed for Paris. The German general in charge of defending Paris had defied Hitler and agreed to surrender in order to avoid destruction of that beautiful city. The surrender was made on August 26 to the French 2nd Armored Division, commanded by General Leclerc, and the U.S. 4th Division. Like us, the French had been transferred from the Third Army to the First Army for political reasons. While news releases reported that the French were part of the First Army, their troops didn't mind telling everyone they saw in Paris that they were really in the Third Army.
There was still sporadic fighting in Paris when we arrived on the 27th and in some places cobblestones had been dug out of the streets to make road barriers. In spite of this, the streets were overflowing with women and bicycles. I had never seen so many bicycles in one place at one time. Our halftracks had to proceed cautiously because people were climbing up on them to shake hands and offer gifts of flowers. We found that it was pretty nice to be considered a conquering hero!
General Eisenhower had evidently concluded that organizing a victory parade through Paris would be the simplest way of avoiding the gridlock of car and bicycle traffic in order to get troops to the other side of the city So we were included in the parade, which started at the Arc de Triompf and proceeded down the Champs Elysee. The poor GI's in the infantry had to march on foot but we rumbled down the Champs Elysee in our half-tracks jeeps and supply trucks. At the end of the parade, we did not stop but continued on through Paris into the countryside. We moved through Etampes and Fontainbleu to Nangis, where we would bivouac for eight days about 30 miles southeast of Paris.
We were back in the Third Army again and this exasperating delay was due to the fact that supply lines to Patton's onrushing spearheads were stretched almost to the breaking point. Also, it was rumored that large quantities of fuel and supplies were being diverted to General Montgomery's Bntish forces, who were still facing tough going in their sector of the Allied front near Caen. The British wanted him to break out to capture the launching sites for the German V-2 rockets which were still bombarding England. Despite the acute shortage of gasoline, we were able to drain the tanks on the half-tracks and get enough gasoline to power our jeeps for trips into Pans. More than a quarter of our personnel were able to visit Paris on 6-hour passes and join the local citizenry in celebrating their recent liberation. Upon our return to Third Army command, we were reassigned to guard the 961st Field Artillery battalion. We escorted them to new positions at Rambouillet before leaving them for a new assignment with the 989th Field Artillery battalion.
On September 93 we began our push toward the Rhine and, curiously, the Battery was split in half, much to Captain Kelly's consternation. The First Platoon was attached to the 276th Armored Field Artillery battalion and the Second Platoon to the 250th Field Artillery battalion of 105mm howitzers. This battalion was supporting Combat Command L of the French Second Armored Division. The Second Platoon and the French Second Armored promptly disappeared from our radio range and even the French were not sure where they were, except that they were supposed to capture Epinal on the Moselle River within five days. Captain Kelly, with Todesco and I in his jeep, stayed with the First Platoon for five days and then took off for Epinal to join the Second Platoon.
Captain Kelly, with Todesco and I in his jeep, stayed with the First Platoon for five days and then took off for Epinal to join the Second Platoon.
As we arrived at Epinal, it appeared to us that the French had done a very poor job of cleaning up the road. There were still large trees lying across it so that we were forced to drive around them through a large field in order to enter the town. Large white bedsheets were still hanging on the front of houses lining the main street. These were customarily hung out by French civilians as a trace symbol in hopes that their homes would not be shot up As we were commenting on the large number of sheets still remaining in place, we noticed a couple of French women ninning toward us shouting "Boche, Boche," and pointing up the street. Fortunately, our command of French was good enough to know that "Boche" meant "Germans " Then it dawned on us that the French Second Armored had been delayed and that somehow we had gotten ahead of them. We were, in fact, the first Americans to enter Epinal. Todesco almost spilled us out of the jeep in making a fast U turn and heading back out of town. As for the Germans they were apparently happy to have us leave peaceably.
Finally, we located the Second Platoon at Dompaire, where they had just arrived after fighting their way through Contrexeville, Vittel and Vaudricourt with the happy-go-lucky Frenchmen, Actually, the French 2nd Armored included a large number of black Algerians, who preferred to wear berets instead of helmets, and who looked for the nearest bar to celebrate as soon as they had captured a town. This allowed the enemy to regroup, so during the past five days our men had been completely surrounded once and at another time had been caught in the middle of a fierce tank battle. But, ironically enough, our only casualties occurred when a half-track collided with a tree, injuring Norman Giguerre, Warren McKinnon, Harold Whitworth and Granville Hunt All later returned to duty.
We were quite happy when the orders came through relieving the Platoon from the French assignment so that someday we could get our two platoons back together again. General LeClerc, commander of the French 2nd Armored, was well pleased with the Second Platoon and, in recognition of its work, Captain Kelly, as Battery commander, was later awarded the prestigious Croix de Guerre by the French Government.
Captain Kelly, Todesco and I continued to ride our jeep, shuttling back and forth between the two platoons since the Captain was still responsible for both of them. The First Platoon had drawn a more stationary assignment guarding critical gasoline storage areas at Lusigny, St. Dizier, Germay and Rapey. The Second Platoon had been assigned to guard the 87th Engineer Battalion for a week. This outfit was carrying one of the large pontoon bridges designed for spanning Ihe Rhine River, and would have been a choice target for the Luftwaffe if they could have located it. After moving through Charmes to Gerbeviller, we left the 87th and their future bridge to take over defending the XV Corps existing bridge at Luneville After sweating out Germany artillery barrages aimed at the bridge for a week, the Platoon was re-attached to the 961st Field Artillery on September 28 and was joined by the First Platoon the following day.
Then for reasons unknown the entire XV Corps, including us was transferred from General Patton's Third Army to the U.S. Seventh Army commanded by General Alexander Patch. The Seventh Army had moved from Italy to a landing at the port of Marseille in southern France and then fought their way northward to join the right flank of the Third Army.
I was sitting under a tree near the river having breakfast when I noticed a large flight of aircraft appearing over the horizon. They didn't look like the B-17 Flying Fortresses that I was accustomed to see going high over our heads toward targets in Germany. No they definitely were not B17's But weren't there too many of them to be enemy aircraft? Then suddenly someone shouted, "They're all krauts." And 32 of them came buzzing toward us- the biggest contingent of enemy planes we had ever seen There were a number of different kinds of planes and they broke into groups as they tried again and again to reach our bridgehead area We reported enemy planes overhead almost continuously from 1000 to 2100 on August 21 Our gunners claimed one definite kill and three planes damaged. The next day it was more of the same. The Germans, whose radio reported erroneously that the bridgehead was held by American paratroops counter attacked vigorously on land and threw in additional air support in a desperate effort to smash the bridge. Flights of ME-109's and FW-190's cnss-crossed the area from 0830 to 2230 trying to blast the bridge with bombs and rockets. Even some slow-flying, outmoded Stuka dive bombers were called in without success.
In the fierce melee, which continued all day, the Battery half-tracks on both sides of the Seine fired nearly all of their available ammunition. We claimed the destruction of 10 enemy aircraft which either blew up in the air or went down trailing smoke and flames. Not a single bomb or rocket reached the pontoon bridge. One of our half-tracks had its motor blown out of commission and two others were damaged by bullets but there were no casualties among the Battery's troops. For its work, the 398th Battalion, along with six other battalions, received commendations from Major General Wade H. Haislip, commander of the XV Corps, for its part in the destruction of 45 enemy planes and the damaging of 15 others in that two-day period. On August 23, American airplanes again appeared in the skies after an unexplained absence of three days, and enemy air activity diminished. However, there was one raid at 0930 in which one plane was shot down and hits claimed on three others. Nevertheless, the troops had time to relax and we were able to take our first bath of the campaign-a refreshing swim in the Seine River.
On August 24, we were notified that our Battery was now under control of the First Army rather than the Third Army and the following day we left the Mantes-Gassicourt bridge and headed for Paris. The German general in charge of defending Paris had defied Hitler and agreed to surrender in order to avoid destruction of that beautiful city. The surrender was made on August 26 to the French 2nd Armored Division, commanded by General Leclerc, and the U.S. 4th Division. Like us, the French had been transferred from the Third Army to the First Army for political reasons. While news releases reported that the French were part of the First Army, their troops didn't mind telling everyone they saw in Paris that they were really in the Third Army.
There was still sporadic fighting in Paris when we arrived on the 27th and in some places cobblestones had been dug out of the streets to make road barriers. In spite of this, the streets were overflowing with women and bicycles. I had never seen so many bicycles in one place at one time. Our halftracks had to proceed cautiously because people were climbing up on them to shake hands and offer gifts of flowers. We found that it was pretty nice to be considered a conquering hero!
General Eisenhower had evidently concluded that organizing a victory parade through Paris would be the simplest way of avoiding the gridlock of car and bicycle traffic in order to get troops to the other side of the city So we were included in the parade, which started at the Arc de Triompf and proceeded down the Champs Elysee. The poor GI's in the infantry had to march on foot but we rumbled down the Champs Elysee in our half-tracks jeeps and supply trucks. At the end of the parade, we did not stop but continued on through Paris into the countryside. We moved through Etampes and Fontainbleu to Nangis, where we would bivouac for eight days about 30 miles southeast of Paris.
We were back in the Third Army again and this exasperating delay was due to the fact that supply lines to Patton's onrushing spearheads were stretched almost to the breaking point. Also, it was rumored that large quantities of fuel and supplies were being diverted to General Montgomery's Bntish forces, who were still facing tough going in their sector of the Allied front near Caen. The British wanted him to break out to capture the launching sites for the German V-2 rockets which were still bombarding England. Despite the acute shortage of gasoline, we were able to drain the tanks on the half-tracks and get enough gasoline to power our jeeps for trips into Pans. More than a quarter of our personnel were able to visit Paris on 6-hour passes and join the local citizenry in celebrating their recent liberation. Upon our return to Third Army command, we were reassigned to guard the 961st Field Artillery battalion. We escorted them to new positions at Rambouillet before leaving them for a new assignment with the 989th Field Artillery battalion.
On September 93 we began our push toward the Rhine and, curiously, the Battery was split in half, much to Captain Kelly's consternation. The First Platoon was attached to the 276th Armored Field Artillery battalion and the Second Platoon to the 250th Field Artillery battalion of 105mm howitzers. This battalion was supporting Combat Command L of the French Second Armored Division. The Second Platoon and the French Second Armored promptly disappeared from our radio range and even the French were not sure where they were, except that they were supposed to capture Epinal on the Moselle River within five days. Captain Kelly, with Todesco and I in his jeep, stayed with the First Platoon for five days and then took off for Epinal to join the Second Platoon.
Captain Kelly, with Todesco and I in his jeep, stayed with the First Platoon for five days and then took off for Epinal to join the Second Platoon.
As we arrived at Epinal, it appeared to us that the French had done a very poor job of cleaning up the road. There were still large trees lying across it so that we were forced to drive around them through a large field in order to enter the town. Large white bedsheets were still hanging on the front of houses lining the main street. These were customarily hung out by French civilians as a trace symbol in hopes that their homes would not be shot up As we were commenting on the large number of sheets still remaining in place, we noticed a couple of French women ninning toward us shouting "Boche, Boche," and pointing up the street. Fortunately, our command of French was good enough to know that "Boche" meant "Germans " Then it dawned on us that the French Second Armored had been delayed and that somehow we had gotten ahead of them. We were, in fact, the first Americans to enter Epinal. Todesco almost spilled us out of the jeep in making a fast U turn and heading back out of town. As for the Germans they were apparently happy to have us leave peaceably.
Finally, we located the Second Platoon at Dompaire, where they had just arrived after fighting their way through Contrexeville, Vittel and Vaudricourt with the happy-go-lucky Frenchmen, Actually, the French 2nd Armored included a large number of black Algerians, who preferred to wear berets instead of helmets, and who looked for the nearest bar to celebrate as soon as they had captured a town. This allowed the enemy to regroup, so during the past five days our men had been completely surrounded once and at another time had been caught in the middle of a fierce tank battle. But, ironically enough, our only casualties occurred when a half-track collided with a tree, injuring Norman Giguerre, Warren McKinnon, Harold Whitworth and Granville Hunt All later returned to duty.
We were quite happy when the orders came through relieving the Platoon from the French assignment so that someday we could get our two platoons back together again. General LeClerc, commander of the French 2nd Armored, was well pleased with the Second Platoon and, in recognition of its work, Captain Kelly, as Battery commander, was later awarded the prestigious Croix de Guerre by the French Government.
Captain Kelly, Todesco and I continued to ride our jeep, shuttling back and forth between the two platoons since the Captain was still responsible for both of them. The First Platoon had drawn a more stationary assignment guarding critical gasoline storage areas at Lusigny, St. Dizier, Germay and Rapey. The Second Platoon had been assigned to guard the 87th Engineer Battalion for a week. This outfit was carrying one of the large pontoon bridges designed for spanning Ihe Rhine River, and would have been a choice target for the Luftwaffe if they could have located it. After moving through Charmes to Gerbeviller, we left the 87th and their future bridge to take over defending the XV Corps existing bridge at Luneville After sweating out Germany artillery barrages aimed at the bridge for a week, the Platoon was re-attached to the 961st Field Artillery on September 28 and was joined by the First Platoon the following day.
Then for reasons unknown the entire XV Corps, including us was transferred from General Patton's Third Army to the U.S. Seventh Army commanded by General Alexander Patch. The Seventh Army had moved from Italy to a landing at the port of Marseille in southern France and then fought their way northward to join the right flank of the Third Army.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
LeMans ... Ballon ... Alencon
Advancing again behind the speedy armor, the Battery swept through LeMans, a city of about 75,000 population famous for its auto races.
Cheering crowds lined the narrow streets, throwing flowers and fruit and blowing kisses to the GI's on the passing halftracks. At the same time, German snipers were still firing into the streets from buildings and treetops and the chatter of American machine guns answered back.
Outside LeMans, more snipers. The Battery sent out a small task force to check suspected positions, and gunner Vincent Smith was slightly injured when his 37mm gun blew up while firing at a house where snipers were still holding out.
From LeMans, we swung north along with the Long Tom artillery through Ballon and Bourg le Roi to Alencon on August 14. It was during this drive that we came face to face (or perhaps nose to nose) with General Patton. I was driving the Captain’s jeep and had just entered the oncoming traffic lane to pass some artillery guns when I spotted a jeep speeding toward us. It did not take more than a glance to know whose jeep it was! It was clean and gleaming, and bolted to its front bumper were three large red plaques bearing gold stars - the symbol of a three-star lieutenant general.
General Patton was in the passenger seat, waving vigorously for us to get the hell out of his way. I immediately drove into the ditch and we all saluted vigorously as he whizzed past.
It had been just two weeks since the breakout at Avranches and the allied forces now had almost the entire German Seventh Army surrounded in what came to be known as the Falaise Pocket. There was only a small gap between the Third Army on the south and the First Army on the north. The Germans were abandoning much of their equipment in the pocket and scurrying out on foot through the 15-mile gap that was still open. The 155mm Long Toms of the 731st Artillery went into action there bombarding the fleeing German columns up to 15 miles away.
Our halftracks were deployed a few hundred yards in front of the big guns and the noise was deafening, day and night. It was not just the “boom” of the big guns that bothered us but the whine of spinning brass safety rings that flew off the shells right after they left the muzzles of the guns. (The shells were disarmed by these rings for normal handling but were armed and ready to explode after the rings flew off.)
On August 13, Patton was directed not to let his troops advance further into the pocket but to wait for the British, Canadians and Polish troops to close the gap from the north. When the gap was finally closed on August 19, the German losses are said to have reached 240,000 killed or wounded, 210,000 taken prisoner, 3,500 guns, 1,500 tanks and a large number of vehicles of all types. It was a crushing defeat. However, by that time, we were long gone from the Falaise Pocket. We had been detached from the Long Toms and reassigned to the 961st Field Artillery Battalion. This unit was armed with 155mm howitzers, which were shorter range and much more mobile than the Long Toms, which was an advantage as we headed east.
We left the Falaise gap at dusk on a grueling all-night convoy (without lights) over dusty, almost impassable roads and stopped at dawn in a large wheat field northwest of Chartres. Most of us could hardly see because our eyes were streaming tears and caked with a thick layer of dust. Under combat conditions, no windshields are in place on the vehicles so the dust cloud kicked up by the vehicle ahead of you comes right back in your face.
While the medics were going down our column passing out ointments to treat our eyes, there was a sudden roar and a German ME-109 came over a line of trees to the east of us. He wasn’t strafing or dropping bombs - he was just taking off from an airport there. As the unsuspecting pilot roared toward us, a couple of gunners leaped into action and shot him down as he passed over our road. Later another ME-109 and an FW190 took off and were promptly shot down. One pilot was captured alive. It seems that because of our speedy overnight advance, the Germans had no idea where we were and were sending up reconnaissance planes to look for us. None of them had a chance to report back what they had seen
In the same area the next day the Battery was strafed at 0930 and 1700 without casualties and shot down another FW-190.
Cheering crowds lined the narrow streets, throwing flowers and fruit and blowing kisses to the GI's on the passing halftracks. At the same time, German snipers were still firing into the streets from buildings and treetops and the chatter of American machine guns answered back.
Outside LeMans, more snipers. The Battery sent out a small task force to check suspected positions, and gunner Vincent Smith was slightly injured when his 37mm gun blew up while firing at a house where snipers were still holding out.
From LeMans, we swung north along with the Long Tom artillery through Ballon and Bourg le Roi to Alencon on August 14. It was during this drive that we came face to face (or perhaps nose to nose) with General Patton. I was driving the Captain’s jeep and had just entered the oncoming traffic lane to pass some artillery guns when I spotted a jeep speeding toward us. It did not take more than a glance to know whose jeep it was! It was clean and gleaming, and bolted to its front bumper were three large red plaques bearing gold stars - the symbol of a three-star lieutenant general.
General Patton was in the passenger seat, waving vigorously for us to get the hell out of his way. I immediately drove into the ditch and we all saluted vigorously as he whizzed past.
It had been just two weeks since the breakout at Avranches and the allied forces now had almost the entire German Seventh Army surrounded in what came to be known as the Falaise Pocket. There was only a small gap between the Third Army on the south and the First Army on the north. The Germans were abandoning much of their equipment in the pocket and scurrying out on foot through the 15-mile gap that was still open. The 155mm Long Toms of the 731st Artillery went into action there bombarding the fleeing German columns up to 15 miles away.
Our halftracks were deployed a few hundred yards in front of the big guns and the noise was deafening, day and night. It was not just the “boom” of the big guns that bothered us but the whine of spinning brass safety rings that flew off the shells right after they left the muzzles of the guns. (The shells were disarmed by these rings for normal handling but were armed and ready to explode after the rings flew off.)
On August 13, Patton was directed not to let his troops advance further into the pocket but to wait for the British, Canadians and Polish troops to close the gap from the north. When the gap was finally closed on August 19, the German losses are said to have reached 240,000 killed or wounded, 210,000 taken prisoner, 3,500 guns, 1,500 tanks and a large number of vehicles of all types. It was a crushing defeat. However, by that time, we were long gone from the Falaise Pocket. We had been detached from the Long Toms and reassigned to the 961st Field Artillery Battalion. This unit was armed with 155mm howitzers, which were shorter range and much more mobile than the Long Toms, which was an advantage as we headed east.
We left the Falaise gap at dusk on a grueling all-night convoy (without lights) over dusty, almost impassable roads and stopped at dawn in a large wheat field northwest of Chartres. Most of us could hardly see because our eyes were streaming tears and caked with a thick layer of dust. Under combat conditions, no windshields are in place on the vehicles so the dust cloud kicked up by the vehicle ahead of you comes right back in your face.
While the medics were going down our column passing out ointments to treat our eyes, there was a sudden roar and a German ME-109 came over a line of trees to the east of us. He wasn’t strafing or dropping bombs - he was just taking off from an airport there. As the unsuspecting pilot roared toward us, a couple of gunners leaped into action and shot him down as he passed over our road. Later another ME-109 and an FW190 took off and were promptly shot down. One pilot was captured alive. It seems that because of our speedy overnight advance, the Germans had no idea where we were and were sending up reconnaissance planes to look for us. None of them had a chance to report back what they had seen
In the same area the next day the Battery was strafed at 0930 and 1700 without casualties and shot down another FW-190.
Saturday, June 13, 2009
St. Hilairc ... LaChapelle Rainsouin
The afternoon of August 5 brought our first daylight air raid as the Battery escorted the 731st Field Artillery Battalion with their 155mm Long Tom cannons through St. Hilaire - about 16 miles east of Avranches. There was no warning but the sudden crackle of German machine guns as a flight of Messerschmitts (ME-109's) swooped low over the convoy with their guns blazing. Although Battery gunners were boxed in by buildings along the street, they filled the air with tracers and appeared to score some hits before a flight of American P-47 Thunderbolts roared by in pursuit of the Germans.
Steel slugs from the ME-109's had raked the street and left some holes in our equipment but we suffered no casualties.
Fortune was less favorable that night. The Luftwaffe on its evening patrol spotted the Battery's supply trucks still on the road at 2300 and plunged to the attack with bombs and bullets. Our cook, Staff Sgt. Oscar Nigle, was killed almost instantly, his kitchen truck damaged, and his kitchen crew severely shaken up by the bomb concussions.
An hour and a half later, bombers located the main groups of the Battery dispersed around the 155mm Long Toms a few miles away. Flares from the bombers, hanging by small parachutes, glowed like golden balls of fire, illuminating our positions with a pitiless glare. Above the glare we could hear the uneven throb of the bombers' engines as they circled overhead.
Then came the bombs! As I frantically tried to scoop out a foxhole with my folding shovel, two trucks carrying 155mm shells were hit and began to explode. The whine of hurtling fragments from the large shells added to the din and the danger of the falling bombs. Meanwhile, following strict orders not to fire at aircraft at night, the Battery's guns remained silent. Some men sought shelter in adjoining hedgerows, some in foxholes, some just hugged the ground, and others sat in their half-tracks cursing the falling bombs.
Almost miraculously, it seemed, our crews were unscathed although the artillery troops were not as fortunate and sustained several casualties.
On August 7, we advanced through Fougeres and Mayenne to La Chapelle Rainsouin, arriving there at dusk. It was soon discovered that there was no one between the artillery and the German infantry so the Battery's half-tracks were deployed for ground defense. About midnight, orders came to pull back three miles since a German tank-led counterattack was expected and our tanks would move in where we were. Later on, we could hear some of the ensuing battle before dawn, and when we moved forward the next morning we saw that our previous positions had been overrun by the Germans before they were intercepted and driven back by our armor and infantry.
Steel slugs from the ME-109's had raked the street and left some holes in our equipment but we suffered no casualties.
Fortune was less favorable that night. The Luftwaffe on its evening patrol spotted the Battery's supply trucks still on the road at 2300 and plunged to the attack with bombs and bullets. Our cook, Staff Sgt. Oscar Nigle, was killed almost instantly, his kitchen truck damaged, and his kitchen crew severely shaken up by the bomb concussions.
An hour and a half later, bombers located the main groups of the Battery dispersed around the 155mm Long Toms a few miles away. Flares from the bombers, hanging by small parachutes, glowed like golden balls of fire, illuminating our positions with a pitiless glare. Above the glare we could hear the uneven throb of the bombers' engines as they circled overhead.
Then came the bombs! As I frantically tried to scoop out a foxhole with my folding shovel, two trucks carrying 155mm shells were hit and began to explode. The whine of hurtling fragments from the large shells added to the din and the danger of the falling bombs. Meanwhile, following strict orders not to fire at aircraft at night, the Battery's guns remained silent. Some men sought shelter in adjoining hedgerows, some in foxholes, some just hugged the ground, and others sat in their half-tracks cursing the falling bombs.
Almost miraculously, it seemed, our crews were unscathed although the artillery troops were not as fortunate and sustained several casualties.
On August 7, we advanced through Fougeres and Mayenne to La Chapelle Rainsouin, arriving there at dusk. It was soon discovered that there was no one between the artillery and the German infantry so the Battery's half-tracks were deployed for ground defense. About midnight, orders came to pull back three miles since a German tank-led counterattack was expected and our tanks would move in where we were. Later on, we could hear some of the ensuing battle before dawn, and when we moved forward the next morning we saw that our previous positions had been overrun by the Germans before they were intercepted and driven back by our armor and infantry.
Friday, June 12, 2009
Periers ... Coutances ... Avranches
The night was uneventful, but on Sunday, July 30, the Battery's halftracks moved forward to take up their first firing positions, defending a field artillery bivouac area at Sortosville before moving on the next day to Periers. Periers turned out to be a fresh battlefield, filled with the stench of death. The fields were dotted with bloated dead cows, burned-out tanks, abandoned equipment and dead German soldiers. Most of the dead were temporarily covered with earth but here and there an arm or a leg could be seen protruding from the shallow graves.
Elements of what would soon become the Third Army were exploding into action under the direction of General Patton. Unlike his predecessors who believed that an attack should be led by infantrymen supported by tanks, Patton wanted his armor to lead the way, followed by the infantry. The results of this philosophy would soon be seen, surprising Hitler and the German high command.
The 4th and 6th Armored Divisions led the attack converging on the pivotal coastal city of Avranches. The fantastic speed of the attack and its constantly changing directions threw the Germans completely off base. The 4th Armored roared on through Avranches several miles south and captured intact the bridge over the Seune River at Pontebault. The breakout from Normandy had been achieved. Over this one bridge, Patton tunneled seven divisions in the next 72 hours!
Finally free from the choking hedgerows of the Normandy peninsula, the new Third Army could fan out both east and west. One column led by the 6th Armored headed west for the Atlantic coast while our Battalion headed east as part of Maj. Gen. Wade E. Haislip's XV Corps. The Germans were about to learn a lot about this major unit of Patton's army!
The night was black as ink as we moved through Coutances and down the road to the pivotal road junctions at Avranches. This area had been fiercely contested, and as we turned the corner to head east we could see piles of German dead, stacked almost like cordwood alongside the road.
We stopped a few kilometers down the road and paused while the tanks and infantry cleared away German resistance in front of us. While we were stopped, several Luftwaffe bombers made their appearance overhead as they sought to destroy bridges in our 10-mile wide supply corridor. At 0100 the Battery's guns went into action for the first time. A Junkers JU-88 bomber silhouetted against the moon was hit and sent plunging to the ground. Now the gunners were confident of their skills, any self-doubts and stomach butterflies were gone and the men of the Battery were really ready for action!
Elements of what would soon become the Third Army were exploding into action under the direction of General Patton. Unlike his predecessors who believed that an attack should be led by infantrymen supported by tanks, Patton wanted his armor to lead the way, followed by the infantry. The results of this philosophy would soon be seen, surprising Hitler and the German high command.
The 4th and 6th Armored Divisions led the attack converging on the pivotal coastal city of Avranches. The fantastic speed of the attack and its constantly changing directions threw the Germans completely off base. The 4th Armored roared on through Avranches several miles south and captured intact the bridge over the Seune River at Pontebault. The breakout from Normandy had been achieved. Over this one bridge, Patton tunneled seven divisions in the next 72 hours!
Finally free from the choking hedgerows of the Normandy peninsula, the new Third Army could fan out both east and west. One column led by the 6th Armored headed west for the Atlantic coast while our Battalion headed east as part of Maj. Gen. Wade E. Haislip's XV Corps. The Germans were about to learn a lot about this major unit of Patton's army!
The night was black as ink as we moved through Coutances and down the road to the pivotal road junctions at Avranches. This area had been fiercely contested, and as we turned the corner to head east we could see piles of German dead, stacked almost like cordwood alongside the road.
We stopped a few kilometers down the road and paused while the tanks and infantry cleared away German resistance in front of us. While we were stopped, several Luftwaffe bombers made their appearance overhead as they sought to destroy bridges in our 10-mile wide supply corridor. At 0100 the Battery's guns went into action for the first time. A Junkers JU-88 bomber silhouetted against the moon was hit and sent plunging to the ground. Now the gunners were confident of their skills, any self-doubts and stomach butterflies were gone and the men of the Battery were really ready for action!
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Lucky Strike
As the sun came up, I faced an amazing sight. Right in front of me was a huge billboard, like the kind that advertised Lucky Strike cigarettes in the States. On the billboard in large letters was printed something like the following:
This is Third Army Area
That was the first inkling we had that General George S. Patton, Jr. was in France and was organizing a new army. Hitler and the German high command had been led to believe that he was still in London, preparing to lead another invasion across the Channel to the Pas de Calais area of France.
We had a breakfast of cold K rations and were just preparing to move out when suddenly there was a loud bang heard inside the headquarters half-track. It was a shot! A shot that resulted in Battery B's first casualty.
It turned out that the half-track driver was picking up his Thompson sub machine gun when the safety catch caught on a piece of canvas enough to release it at the same time that his hand accidentally hit the trigger. The resulting shot sent a .45 caliber slug into the chest of First Sergeant Pearce, who was sitting in the right front seat of the vehicle. The medics were on the scene quickly and took him by ambulance to a field hospital but the wound proved to be fatal. We had been in France less than twelve hours and already had our first fatality!
By 8:15 am, the Battery's vehicles were winding their way in a convoy over narrow, dust-choked roads ... through St. Mere Eglise, where we had seen some of the fighting in newsreels at home ... through Montebourg ... through the dust that once was Valognc ... to Briquebec where we settled down for the rest of the day and night. Here a few civilians showed up to greet us and offer our first taste of calvados, a powerful apple-based drink for which Normandy is well known.
Later, a wizened little old Frenchman beckoned to me to follow him to what appeared to be the ruins of his home. In what would have been the front room of the little farmhouse, he pointed to a white, writhing mound of something that looked vaguely familiar. Maggots! Thousands of huge white maggots were arrayed on the floor in the shape of a donkey, although you couldn't see any of the original remains of the animal.
Apparently, the farmer had brought the donkey into the house in an effort to shield it from bullets and shrapnel. An exploding shell had killed it where he found it on his return after the battle. Now he was appalled by this mass of maggots and wondered what to do. I searched through the remains of his barn and found a bag of lime, which we sprinkled over the pulsating mass. Within minutes the maggots were dead and the pile was shrinking. I decided that there was not much more I could do and returned to our halftrack. But the mental image of that donkey-sized mass of wriggling maggots would live with me forever.
This is Third Army Area
- Fine for not wearing helmet $25.00
- Fine for not carrying gas mask $25.00
- Fine for not saluting officer $40.00
That was the first inkling we had that General George S. Patton, Jr. was in France and was organizing a new army. Hitler and the German high command had been led to believe that he was still in London, preparing to lead another invasion across the Channel to the Pas de Calais area of France.
We had a breakfast of cold K rations and were just preparing to move out when suddenly there was a loud bang heard inside the headquarters half-track. It was a shot! A shot that resulted in Battery B's first casualty.
It turned out that the half-track driver was picking up his Thompson sub machine gun when the safety catch caught on a piece of canvas enough to release it at the same time that his hand accidentally hit the trigger. The resulting shot sent a .45 caliber slug into the chest of First Sergeant Pearce, who was sitting in the right front seat of the vehicle. The medics were on the scene quickly and took him by ambulance to a field hospital but the wound proved to be fatal. We had been in France less than twelve hours and already had our first fatality!
By 8:15 am, the Battery's vehicles were winding their way in a convoy over narrow, dust-choked roads ... through St. Mere Eglise, where we had seen some of the fighting in newsreels at home ... through Montebourg ... through the dust that once was Valognc ... to Briquebec where we settled down for the rest of the day and night. Here a few civilians showed up to greet us and offer our first taste of calvados, a powerful apple-based drink for which Normandy is well known.
Later, a wizened little old Frenchman beckoned to me to follow him to what appeared to be the ruins of his home. In what would have been the front room of the little farmhouse, he pointed to a white, writhing mound of something that looked vaguely familiar. Maggots! Thousands of huge white maggots were arrayed on the floor in the shape of a donkey, although you couldn't see any of the original remains of the animal.
Apparently, the farmer had brought the donkey into the house in an effort to shield it from bullets and shrapnel. An exploding shell had killed it where he found it on his return after the battle. Now he was appalled by this mass of maggots and wondered what to do. I searched through the remains of his barn and found a bag of lime, which we sprinkled over the pulsating mass. Within minutes the maggots were dead and the pile was shrinking. I decided that there was not much more I could do and returned to our halftrack. But the mental image of that donkey-sized mass of wriggling maggots would live with me forever.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Our Life in Combat Begins
Across the English channel in France, the Allies had captured the port of Cherbourg at the end of June but the main battle front was still only a few miles from the original landing beaches. And we still had no inkling of what our assignment was to be, even on July 27 when we got the word to proceed to Southampton to load onto a ship bound for France.
Our impression of England was very fleeting as we drove south in our own jeeps, trucks and half-tracks, detouring around London and on to the marshaling area at the port of Southampton. It soon became apparent that we were not going to be among the first to land at the docks in Cherbourg-our ship was an LST (Landing Ship-Tank) with huge doors in its prow that opened to drop a ramp in shallow water at a beach so that tanks and other vehicles could drive off under their own power.
By mid-afternoon, we were loaded onto LST 328 under the direction of a very competent U.S. Navy crew. After pulling away from the dock, we headed out into the English Channel for a rendezvous with several other LST's and navy ships which were there to protect us from submarines and airplanes. We had a blimp-like balloon attached by a cable to the bow of our ship. It floated several hundred feet in the air and was meant to discourage torpedo bombers and strafing aircraft from flying over our convoy at low altitude.
It was late evening when we began to head for shore. The sun glowed orange-red on our silvery barrage balloon as the LST threaded her way through a tangled breakwater of sunken ships and grounded her flat bottom on the sandy shores of St. Martin de Varreville, now known as Utah Beach.
German bombers were circling in the clouds overhead and we could hear a few not-too-distant explosions as the massive jaws of the LST opened wide and tanks and halftracks began driving onto the beach. It was 11 p.m., July 28th, 1944, and we were in France! I was riding as a radio operator in a jeep with our commanding officer, Captain William Kelly, Jr. that night with his driver, Frank Todesco. Captain Kelly in true military fashion decided not to leave the ship until all his troops were ashore, so we were to be one of the last vehicles off. Todesco and I viewed the situation with some trepidation for two reasons: the tide was coming in so the water was getting deeper at the end of the landing ramp, and the "karump, karump, karump" sound of exploding bombs seemed to be getting closer.
Sitting there in a jeep on the open deck of an LST and watching bright streams of anti-aircraft fire slashing the dark sky to ribbons, I was glad I was not in the Navy. There is no place to dig a foxhole on a ship! The Navy crew understood this very well and were getting anxious to back off the beach and get out of there. Finally it was our turn to exit. We drove down the gangway and the jeep promptly disappeared into the submerged hole dug by the tanks and half-tracks that had preceded us. Fortunately, the jeep was equipped with special exhaust equipment that permitted the motor to run under water.
Todesco floored the gas pedal and, with the four-wheel drive working, we rose up like Neptune emerging from the sea and churned across the sand to an exit marked by beckoning military police who were there to direct us. We drove on in the fading light past shattered pillboxes and rubbled houses to a large area designated as Assembly Area B. It was a large field with pre-dug foxholes, which we immediately dove into since the bombs were now falling close enough so we could hear them whistle. Not a good sign. So I slept in my foxhole until dawn.
Our impression of England was very fleeting as we drove south in our own jeeps, trucks and half-tracks, detouring around London and on to the marshaling area at the port of Southampton. It soon became apparent that we were not going to be among the first to land at the docks in Cherbourg-our ship was an LST (Landing Ship-Tank) with huge doors in its prow that opened to drop a ramp in shallow water at a beach so that tanks and other vehicles could drive off under their own power.
By mid-afternoon, we were loaded onto LST 328 under the direction of a very competent U.S. Navy crew. After pulling away from the dock, we headed out into the English Channel for a rendezvous with several other LST's and navy ships which were there to protect us from submarines and airplanes. We had a blimp-like balloon attached by a cable to the bow of our ship. It floated several hundred feet in the air and was meant to discourage torpedo bombers and strafing aircraft from flying over our convoy at low altitude.
It was late evening when we began to head for shore. The sun glowed orange-red on our silvery barrage balloon as the LST threaded her way through a tangled breakwater of sunken ships and grounded her flat bottom on the sandy shores of St. Martin de Varreville, now known as Utah Beach.
German bombers were circling in the clouds overhead and we could hear a few not-too-distant explosions as the massive jaws of the LST opened wide and tanks and halftracks began driving onto the beach. It was 11 p.m., July 28th, 1944, and we were in France! I was riding as a radio operator in a jeep with our commanding officer, Captain William Kelly, Jr. that night with his driver, Frank Todesco. Captain Kelly in true military fashion decided not to leave the ship until all his troops were ashore, so we were to be one of the last vehicles off. Todesco and I viewed the situation with some trepidation for two reasons: the tide was coming in so the water was getting deeper at the end of the landing ramp, and the "karump, karump, karump" sound of exploding bombs seemed to be getting closer.
Sitting there in a jeep on the open deck of an LST and watching bright streams of anti-aircraft fire slashing the dark sky to ribbons, I was glad I was not in the Navy. There is no place to dig a foxhole on a ship! The Navy crew understood this very well and were getting anxious to back off the beach and get out of there. Finally it was our turn to exit. We drove down the gangway and the jeep promptly disappeared into the submerged hole dug by the tanks and half-tracks that had preceded us. Fortunately, the jeep was equipped with special exhaust equipment that permitted the motor to run under water.
Todesco floored the gas pedal and, with the four-wheel drive working, we rose up like Neptune emerging from the sea and churned across the sand to an exit marked by beckoning military police who were there to direct us. We drove on in the fading light past shattered pillboxes and rubbled houses to a large area designated as Assembly Area B. It was a large field with pre-dug foxholes, which we immediately dove into since the bombs were now falling close enough so we could hear them whistle. Not a good sign. So I slept in my foxhole until dawn.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Leek on Blackshaw Moor
On the 29th of June the coast of Ireland came into view and we entered the Firth of Clyde, finally dropping anchor off Greenock, Scotland. This was a major port that served Edinburgh. It was obviously a popular place as we were surrounded by vessels of all types. The Queen Mary was there along with hospital ships, submarines, aircraft carriers, cruisers and destroyers. As it turned out, we could enjoy the sight all evening since it wasn't until the next morning that we were loaded onto a ferry and transported to shore where a British train was waiting for us.
The train was certainly different than anything we had experienced in the States. Each car was divided into several compartments; each with two facing seats, and the corridor was on the side of the car, not in the middle like in the U.S. Also, the windows were clean! We could watch the rolling Scottish countryside as the train zipped past miles of stone fences and little stone cottages with thatched roofs.
It was night when we reached our destination at a place called Leek on Blackshaw Moor. Trucks were standing by to whisk us, without lights, through the inky blackness to a barracks in Leek. The beds there offered us new experience. They were handmade wooden frames criss-crossed with steel strapping on which was a white tick filled with straw on which you could spread out your sleeping bag.
In the morning our equipment began arriving and everyone was busy with solvents and rags cleaning off the cosmoline that coated every piece of metal for weather protection during shipment.
On July 9, our jeeps, trucks and half-tracks were ready to roll and we convoyed south to a place called Blandford. Here we lived in tents for than two weeks as continued to receive and process supplies and equipment such as tools, gasoline, rations, ammunition, camouflage nets and paint.
The paint was for putting a distinctive name on each half-track such as Fighting Lady, Berlin or Bust or Kasserine Pass in memory of one of the Army's first battles in Africa.
In the evening we played softball until after midnight. Because of our northern location, double British summer time, and the longest days of the year, the sun did not go down until after midnight.
There was a military hospital near our location and several GI's from the 101st Airborne Division who had been wounded on D-Day came over to visit with us and recount some of their adventures. They didn't mind taking off their shirts to show us the bullet holes in their backs and chests. Thanks to sulfanilamide treatment they had healed well and the holes were now just half-inch pink circles on their white skin. The presence of the Purple Heart winners was a grim reminder of what we might face in the days and weeks ahead.
The train was certainly different than anything we had experienced in the States. Each car was divided into several compartments; each with two facing seats, and the corridor was on the side of the car, not in the middle like in the U.S. Also, the windows were clean! We could watch the rolling Scottish countryside as the train zipped past miles of stone fences and little stone cottages with thatched roofs.
It was night when we reached our destination at a place called Leek on Blackshaw Moor. Trucks were standing by to whisk us, without lights, through the inky blackness to a barracks in Leek. The beds there offered us new experience. They were handmade wooden frames criss-crossed with steel strapping on which was a white tick filled with straw on which you could spread out your sleeping bag.
In the morning our equipment began arriving and everyone was busy with solvents and rags cleaning off the cosmoline that coated every piece of metal for weather protection during shipment.
On July 9, our jeeps, trucks and half-tracks were ready to roll and we convoyed south to a place called Blandford. Here we lived in tents for than two weeks as continued to receive and process supplies and equipment such as tools, gasoline, rations, ammunition, camouflage nets and paint.
The paint was for putting a distinctive name on each half-track such as Fighting Lady, Berlin or Bust or Kasserine Pass in memory of one of the Army's first battles in Africa.
In the evening we played softball until after midnight. Because of our northern location, double British summer time, and the longest days of the year, the sun did not go down until after midnight.
There was a military hospital near our location and several GI's from the 101st Airborne Division who had been wounded on D-Day came over to visit with us and recount some of their adventures. They didn't mind taking off their shirts to show us the bullet holes in their backs and chests. Thanks to sulfanilamide treatment they had healed well and the holes were now just half-inch pink circles on their white skin. The presence of the Purple Heart winners was a grim reminder of what we might face in the days and weeks ahead.
Monday, June 8, 2009
On leave before leaving
Photo: The Aquitania waits for us in Boston Harbor, June 21, 1944.
The answer came the next morning when we were all given furloughs to go home and visit our folks. I went back to Elyria, Ohio, where Mom and Dad had just moved into a new house on Denison Avenue. Dad was working a lot of overtime driving trucks for the Beiter Line between Elyria and Cleveland. The flow of war supplies produced by local manufacturing companies was just tremendous, and I was impressed by the way the "home front" was supporting its fighting men. Dad took me over to the trucking company offices (resplendent in my Army uniform) to say hello to Mrs. Ann Beiter, who ran the outfit like a man -- or maybe better!
A few days later the newspapers and radio reported the momentous news that the D-Day invasion of France was taking place on June 6, 1944. It was going ahead without us! I guess most of us in the 398th Battalion had mixed feelings about this, but our folks were certainly glad that we were home and not charging up some beach in Normandy.
Upon returning to Camp Edwards we had another week of training exercises and target practice out near the tip of Cape Cod before we packed up and marched down the street to another waiting train. This time we headed north to camp Miles Standish just outside Boston. We went through the whole processing routine again and finally on June 21 we were trucked to Boston Harbor to rendezvous with our ship. This time there really was one!
It was the Aquitania -- a four-stacker that was the fifth largest ocean liner in the world at the time. She weighed 45,647 tons when she was launched in Clydebank, Scotland on April 21, 1913. The Aquitania and her sister ship the Mauritania were both luxury liners that had also served as troopships in World War I.
We applauded when we saw the huge liner sitting in the harbor because we knew the trip to England would take only a week. A smaller ship would have to travel in a convoy with other ships escorted by warships and would be on the ocean at least two weeks. So far, the German submarine packs had been unable to target any of the large ocean liners like the Queen Mary or the Aquitania because they were too speedy to be chased down by the subs.
Despite its large size, the ship did not provide much space on board for the individual GI's. After we struggled up the gangplank loaded down with a huge duffel bag, a field bag, cartridge belt and bayonet, canteen, gas mask and M-1 rifle, we looked for our "cabin." This turned out to be a huge open area filled with bunks stacked five high. There was less than two feet of open space from the bottom of my bunk to the bottom of the bunk above me, so it was not possible to sit up in bed. But the British crew told us we were lucky -- the ship was not double-loaded this time. When this happened, they said, there were two men assigned to every bunk so that one slept while the other was on deck and vice versa.
Anyway, we finally got things stowed away and took a nap so that we could be on deck when the Aquitania pulled away from the dock at 11 p.m. on June 21. After we cleared Boston harbor and hit the open sea, it soon looked like our helmsman was intoxicated. At least he didn't steer a straight line. Then someone in the crew explained that the course was changed every few minutes in order to zig-zag so that an enemy submarine could not lie in wait ahead of us because its captain would not be able to predict where we were headed.
The cuisine on the Aquitania will probably never be forgotten by anyone who sailed on her during wartime conditions. There seemed to be kidneys and mutton cooking in the galleys 24-hours a day so just the smell was enough to kill any desire for food. Fortunately, they only served two meals a day, although coffee was available at all hours. After tasting the coffee it became clear to us why the British drank tea. For my part, I really couldn't stand the kidney smell so I subsisted on U.S. Army K Rations during most of the voyage.
Editor's note: My dad till this day thinks he hates lamb though my mother has been able to sneak it on to his plate on occasion.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Hurry up and wait
April 10, 1944 had dawned clear and calm at Camp Edwards and the late afternoon sun shown brightly as we marched more or less smartly away from our barracks to the beat of a band playing "Dixie" and "There's No Place Like Home."
The streets were line with other GI's who expected to follow us someday and with the girls from the PX who were losing a good part of their customers until our replacements came in. Packs, rifles, gas masks and heavy overcoats weighted us down but we eventually made it to the railroad siding where our special train awaited.
In those days, the railroads on the East Coast were jammed with freight cars moving toward the ports so our progress was pretty slow. It wasn't until the following morning that our train arrived at our destination: a place called Camp Shanks.
The camp was located in a wooded area looking down on the west bank of the Hudson River near the village of Nyack, New York. The camp consisted mainly of many tar paper covered barracks that had been rather hastily assembled to shelter the troops while they awaited the call to board their ships in New York harbor about an hour's bus ride downstream.
Our first day was spent scrubbing the barracks, standing in endless chow lines, getting medical instructions and shots for various diseases. In our off time we eargerly read the walls of the latrines. In addition of the usual "Kilroy was here" signs, the walls were covered with the signatures of the troops who had preceded us overseas from Camp Shanks. Many had also noted the dates of their arrivals and departures so it was easy to figure out that their stay at Camp Shanks had ranged from three to ten days, with the average at about five.
For us, time plodded along as our processing continued with movies, lectures, boat drills, exercises and policing up the campgrounds. After five days we were eligible for twelve-hour passes from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. so practically everybody took off in the evening for New York or Nyack.
Nyack was pretty much unknown to most of us. It was a sleepy little town on the banks of the Hudson River and had been made famous by the lyrics of a popular song: Let's take a kayak to Quincy or Nyack -- let's get away from it all!
Although I admired the hills and valleys and pine forested scenery around Nyack, I could never have dreamed that 11 years later I would have a German wife and two children and we would be building our first house a few miles up the river from where Camp Shanks had stood. But for now, I preferred going into New York City.
The days went past and still there was no word as to when or where we were going or which ship was to take us. Rumor had it that we were headed for the First Army and would provide air defense for the invasion forces. But this was strictly rumor. Every day we welcomed new units arriving at Camp Shanks and waved goodbye to others departing for their ships. But nothing was happening to us.
We soon broke the ten day record for residence at the camp and then set the record for twenty days. It was getting embarrassing. Our main occupation now was moving piles of small rocks from one end of the parade ground area to the other during the day and going to New York or Nyack in the evening for "one last night" on the town.
Finally our orders came!
We read with disbelief that we were not to proceed to the harbor to board our ship. Instead, we were directed to gather our belongings and march to the railroad station for the train trip back to Camp Edwards ... of all places!
When we arrived back at Cape Cod there was no band to greet us; the PX girls were working; and a good many of the GI's who had lined the road for our original departure had themselves been shipped out to a port of embarkation. What now?
The streets were line with other GI's who expected to follow us someday and with the girls from the PX who were losing a good part of their customers until our replacements came in. Packs, rifles, gas masks and heavy overcoats weighted us down but we eventually made it to the railroad siding where our special train awaited.
In those days, the railroads on the East Coast were jammed with freight cars moving toward the ports so our progress was pretty slow. It wasn't until the following morning that our train arrived at our destination: a place called Camp Shanks.
The camp was located in a wooded area looking down on the west bank of the Hudson River near the village of Nyack, New York. The camp consisted mainly of many tar paper covered barracks that had been rather hastily assembled to shelter the troops while they awaited the call to board their ships in New York harbor about an hour's bus ride downstream.
Our first day was spent scrubbing the barracks, standing in endless chow lines, getting medical instructions and shots for various diseases. In our off time we eargerly read the walls of the latrines. In addition of the usual "Kilroy was here" signs, the walls were covered with the signatures of the troops who had preceded us overseas from Camp Shanks. Many had also noted the dates of their arrivals and departures so it was easy to figure out that their stay at Camp Shanks had ranged from three to ten days, with the average at about five.
For us, time plodded along as our processing continued with movies, lectures, boat drills, exercises and policing up the campgrounds. After five days we were eligible for twelve-hour passes from 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. so practically everybody took off in the evening for New York or Nyack.
Nyack was pretty much unknown to most of us. It was a sleepy little town on the banks of the Hudson River and had been made famous by the lyrics of a popular song: Let's take a kayak to Quincy or Nyack -- let's get away from it all!
Although I admired the hills and valleys and pine forested scenery around Nyack, I could never have dreamed that 11 years later I would have a German wife and two children and we would be building our first house a few miles up the river from where Camp Shanks had stood. But for now, I preferred going into New York City.
The days went past and still there was no word as to when or where we were going or which ship was to take us. Rumor had it that we were headed for the First Army and would provide air defense for the invasion forces. But this was strictly rumor. Every day we welcomed new units arriving at Camp Shanks and waved goodbye to others departing for their ships. But nothing was happening to us.
We soon broke the ten day record for residence at the camp and then set the record for twenty days. It was getting embarrassing. Our main occupation now was moving piles of small rocks from one end of the parade ground area to the other during the day and going to New York or Nyack in the evening for "one last night" on the town.
Finally our orders came!
We read with disbelief that we were not to proceed to the harbor to board our ship. Instead, we were directed to gather our belongings and march to the railroad station for the train trip back to Camp Edwards ... of all places!
When we arrived back at Cape Cod there was no band to greet us; the PX girls were working; and a good many of the GI's who had lined the road for our original departure had themselves been shipped out to a port of embarkation. What now?
Prologue: The Basics
Photo: Commincations Section: 398th AAA AW Bn (SP)
Top row, left to right: Gaudette, Ross, Beck, Fingerhut.
Bottom row, left to right: Todesco, Euart, Funk, Tighe.
It was April of 1944, when the long awaited orders came for my U.S. Army unit to cease its training activities and to head for the Port of New York for embarkation. We were going to Europe!
It seemed clear that the anticipated "second front" to invade Hitler's fortress Europe would soon be opened, and we were needed!
By "we," I refer to the 150 men of Battery B, 398th AAA AW BN (SP). The alphabetical mishmash was our mailing address. More formally, were identified as the 398th Anti-Aircraft, Automatic Weapons Battalion (Self-Propelled). Our assignment would be to shoot down any low flying enemy planes that would attempt to bomb or strafe our armored or infantry columns, artillery positions, bridges or supply depots. For this purpose, we were armed with quadruple .50 caliber machine guns and rapid-fire 37mm cannons attached to revolving turrets. These electrically operated turrets were mounted on armored half-tracks -- that is, vehicles equipped with two rubber tired wheels in front and tank-type tracks in the rear. The units were quite fast, extremely mobile and offered tremendous fire power.
When the call to action came, we had been practicing with these half-tracks for about six months at Camp Edwards, a large military base on Cape Cod, south of Boston. Cape Cod is supposed to be a beautiful summer vacation area. Our experience had been that it was hellishly cold in winter with freezing winds that blew in snow and sleet from the frigid waters of Buzzards Bay on one side and the open Atlantic ocean on the other.
Fortunately, I had found it to be an interesting change from the climate where I had undergone the Army's basic training. That was at Fort Eustis, Virginia, near Williamsburg. That is also supposed to be a beautiful vacation area -- but not, of course, in midsummer when I was there taking 20 miles hikes and running obstacle courses in the sultry, steamy swamps of the Charles River.
Between these two extremes, I had spent a delightful three months at the Army's signal corps school at For Monmouth, near Red Bank, New Jersey. The instructors there were men from the RCA Corporation's nearby research laboratory where they were working on some newfangled electronic device called "television," which we had never seen.
We were taught the basics of AM and FM radio and how to use vacuum tubes, resistors and condensers in electrical circuits. After graduating from this course in basic radio operation and repair, we each had an interview with an instructor who offered us two options for further technical training. He told us that we could specialize in either FM radio repair or something that sounded to me like "Rate R." I decided to go with the RM radio training since it seemed to be a technology that could be valuable after the war.
Later, I found out that the instructor's pronunciaton was bad and that what I understood to be "Rate R" was really something called "Radar," a new technology being used by the British in the air battle over Britain. I also found out that if I had selected Radar I would have gone into the army air corps as a radar operator and would have spent the winter training in balmy Palm Beach, Florida, rather than being in an armored anti-aircraft outfit in icy Cape Cod.
But that was history. Now we were on our way to Europe.
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