Black Dragons over Europe written by Bert Ballengee

BLACK DRAGONS OVER EUROPE by
Bert Ballengee

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PROLOGUE 

CHAPTER 1: 38343070, Sir!

Where’s Fort Sill, Anyway?

Troop Trains 

CHAPTER 2: Camp Butner, North Carolina

Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning 

CHAPTER 3: Fort Bragg, North Carolina 

And Then it was Down to Business 

Last Stop: The Big City

The Aquatania

CHAPTER 4: “This Blessed Plot, This Earth, This Realm, This England” 

CHAPTER 5: D-Day, 6 June 1944 

Normandy and Apple Blossoms

Autumn in France

Our Nemesis Across the River 

The New Artillery Shell

The Messenger Caper

The Debacle of the Bath

 I’m Sorry, I Didn’t Hear You

CHAPTER 6: The Winter of Our Discontent

Digging in for the Fall 

 PHOTOS 

CHAPTER 7: The Battle of the Bulge

Bastogne and Malmédy

CHAPTER 8: Remember, Pillage Before You Burn

CHAPTER 9: Ending a War 

German Generals

The Ball Begins

Discharging.

After the Ball was Over

The Tour Begins

To the Mountain Top

One More Move 

CHAPTER 10: Where Does One Catch The Bus?

 I Say, It’s England, Isn’t It? 

CHAPTER 11: Camp Detroit 

Oui, It’s Brussels

France and the Riviera

Home on the Antioch Victory 

CHAPTER 12: The Last Hurrah 

CHAPTER 13: Conclusions

ADDENDUM 1: A Note on Field Artillery Organization and Command Structure

ADDENDUM 2: Charles Leidenfrost ... The Rest of the Story

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

PROLOGUE

It would have been more scholarly to interview all my friends and the others with whom I served so all my facts would be completely straight, but it just wasn’t possible. Rather, I chose to write my story as I saw it and as I remember it today. I chose to do it this way because every one of us looked at this war with a different pair of eyes. We recall the same incidents in different ways. It wouldn’t surprise me if those of my old Army outfit, the 270th Field Artillery Battalion, would say, “I don’t remember it that way,” or “He must have been involved in a different war than the one I knew,” or “I always thought he was one brick short of a full load.” So, for better or worse, here is the way I experienced the war, or at least the way I remember it. As we get older, our memories start getting hazy. Certainly, I could have some facts wrong. But it makes little difference because the substance is here, as best I can recall it forty-eight years after the fact.

I have great admiration and respect for all those I had the privilege of knowing and serving with in our battalion. It goes without saying that Lt. Colonel James C. Gabriel holds a special place in my memory. Major Robert D. Hannah, with whom our Fire Direction people worked, is due much more recognition than I gave him in these pages. Captain Fillmer, our Battery Commander and Communications Officer was a special breed to whom leadership came easily. Lieutenant Esposito was a fine gentleman and became a good friend. Lieutenant Sinclair had more energy than anyone. He was outspoken, but he was also one of the most loyal people we had. All the men greatly respected captain George W. Howze. He knew when to be tough, but he also knew when to be friendly and kind. We could never have made it without the knowledge and ability of Captain Robert Ray and Captain Fred Perry. Captain Ray’s down south Virginia accent, e.g., “aboot the hoose,” always got my attention. Both of these officers had great organizational ability and all the leadership qualities for which anyone could ask. Lieutenant Culberson, later a Captain, was a man to whom the others looked for advice and counsel.

I cannot fail to mention my admiration and respect for that small group of men in the Fire Direction Center who became so close during the war. The FDC was almost a unit within itself. Glynn Waldrop became one of my closest friends — but not at first. We competed for the top job that carried the rating of Staff Sergeant and he was chosen. I was a bitter man, but I came to respect his leadership and wise decisions. Billy Joe Watkins was as smart as a tree full of owls. I would have trusted him with anything I owned. J.J. Cosgrove was very special to me. J.J. was older than the rest of us and had the advantage of being considerably more patient. A plumber in civilian life, he wasn’t behind the door when they passed out the brains. Neither was Paul Anderson. A true intellectual, Paul had the innate ability to do the right thing at the right time. I’ll always remember the morning I got up and looked around outside my pup tent. I saw Paul, still asleep, with his hair frozen to the ice just behind his head. Ray Spruitt was a quiet young Michigander who was always available when he was needed most.

Leo Wisneski was our First Sergeant. A coal miner from Pennsylvania, his was one of the first persons I saw when I got off the truck at Camp Butner. Along with him was Harry Nichols, the Sergeant Major of the Battalion. Sergeant Nichols was a small, slender, and impeccably well-dressed man. His pencil mustache and coal-black hair made him look like one of the movie stars of the day. Charles Kelly was the battalion Personnel Sergeant. His good humor never failed him. When I needed a lift, I could always go to Charlie Kelly. He knew every Army regulation for every possible situation, which kept us out of a lot of trouble. Charlie, in his own inimitable way, would say, “Stick with me kid and you’ll wear diamonds.”

Dell McCuistian in the radio section was quiet and reserved most of the time, but he became one of the best- loved men in our battery. Time proved his character. He took it as his personal responsibility to organize the reunions after the war. What can one say about Charlie Hamm? He drove his wire truck unlike anyone else. Every unit needed someone who saw the lighter side of things, and that was Charlie. I don’t think we ever laughed at him, but we spent a lot of time laughing with him. He was one of our most unforgettable characters. Without the wire and radio sections, we would have been blind. Those guys laid wire in the worst conditions you can imagine. We owe our undying gratitude to Luke Provenzano, Harry Bennett, Don Schmeider, Noel Cummings, Andy Myers, Irby Slaughter, A.D. Porter, John Eitson, Bell McCann, and Taz Irwin.

My friend George Henderson spent a lot of time putting together a short history of the battalion. Nothing personal, but he gave all the facts concerning dates and places. I would be remiss if I did not acknowledge his contribution to these pages.

I could spend a lot of time trying to get everyone’s name into this narrative, but I’m afraid I would still forget someone I liked and admired. Read and enjoy, or disagree if you prefer. If I didn’t get your name into these pages, it’s because I have a bad memory. So be it.

Amarillo, Texas 3 February 1993

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CHAPTER 1: 38343070, Sir!

Going to sleep was hard even though I was tired and the next day was a school day. My room was in the northwest corner of our home at 1715 Lincoln Street. While it lacked amenities that would have made it elegant, this was where I lived, studied, and dreamed. I had pictures of football players pasted along the walls near the ceiling in a kind of rough border.

I had just gotten home from a football spring practice. Somehow I felt at loose ends, so I went over to Moon Ott’s house. Moon was my best friend, and lived at 1706 Pierce Street. We went over to Kirk’s Drug Store on West 16th just to see who was there. It was a slow night, because we couldn’t find anything that interested us in the least. We guessed everyone had stayed home to study for finals. You see, it was May 1940. So, I walked on home, turned on the radio and went to bed.

The war in Europe had been going on since 1939, and all the boys seemed to have a great interest in it. We were enamored with the thought of flying fighter planes, shooting down another Red Baron, and becoming famous for our efforts. I knew of no one that didn’t side with the British in this affair. We had all heard the ranting of Hitler on the radio. I suppose those of us who were fairly well-read knew about the First World War. My Uncle Gene Ballengee, my father’s brother, had fought in that war and told me a number of stories about it.

My small table radio was an art deco delight. The case was made of dark brown Bakelite. It had a lighted dial. I spent many hours late at night listening to it. “Ah yes, it’s Glen Gray and his Casa Loma Orchestra coming to you from the Glen Island Casino” ... or “Welcome to Frank Daly’s Meadowbrook just outside Pompton Lakes, New Jersey where Glen Miller and his Orchestra are playing for your dancing pleasure.” “And here, ladies and gentlemen, is Shep Fields and his Rippling Rhythm coming to you from the Trianon Ballroom.”

Just after I turned on my radio, and made sure it wouldn’t wake my parents, there was a sudden interruption in the dance music. One of the CBS news announcers, possibly Bob Trout, I’m not sure, came on and announced a special news bulletin. The German army and air force had begun their attack on the Netherlands, The French 7th Army, and Belgium. It was 10 May 1940. He also reported that Neville Chamberlain had resigned as Prime Minister and been succeeded by Sir Winston Churchill. The German attack began with the capture of several key bridges by German paratroops. The next day the Dutch fell back westward and took with it the French 7th Army. By noon 12 May the Germans were on the outskirts of Rotterdam. On 13 May the Dutch surrendered.

At the same time the attacks on Belgium by four German army corps went on relentlessly. The Albert Canal and its defenses were breached by the Germans on 10 May. Belgium fell on 15 May. Meanwhile the French were withdrawing from exposed positions alongside the Belgians and Dutch.

The decisive operations were those of General von Rundstedt’s Army which attacked all along the Ardennes, and by 15 May, it became apparent that the French and British had real problems. The Germans moved quickly through huge gaps and were able to make 30 to 40 miles a day. By 4 June over 300,000 British, French, Belgian, and Dutch troops were evacuated at Dunkirk.

The experience I remember was on Friday 10th of May 1940. The Germans and British had been locked in a deadly sea combat near Narvik, Norway on the tenth and thirteenth of April. Earlier in the year the British had discovered a German support ship, the Altmark, with about 300 British prisoners taken from ships that were sunk in the South Atlantic, primarily by the Graf Spee. The British went to get them and were successful. After the battle the British summarily withdrew. The British discovered that the Germans had prepared well for the invasion of Norway. German troops, with air and ground support, were sufficient to overwhelm the British. Then, to top it off, bits and pieces of information began to come in about a large German attack on the lowlands, i.e. the Netherlands and Belgium.

It was late that night when I first realized this war was for keeps. In my own immature way, I wondered how long it would be before we were called to the rescue one more time. World War I, the war to end all wars seemed remote and out of reach now.

Time went by, our high school graduation was near the end of May, and I went to work for Pinkney Packing Company shortly thereafter. Those experiences have been recounted in another narrative, my memoir Movin’ Around (1993).

Moon Ott and I decided to go to Texas A&M, because we both felt a taste of the military would stand us in good stead when we were called up. I think we all knew it was just a matter of time. We duly reported to A&M in College Station in September 1942. We went down on the train with one suitcase and a footlocker. It didn’t take us long to learn to obey commands and march in step with everyone else. That was a major triumph for me. College was not all that hard, although I didn’t do very well in Algebra. Just to make up for that, I had an “A” in Trigonometry. This is only important because Trig was one of the basic things one needed to know in the Field Artillery. I didn’t know it at the time, but that was where I was bound.

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While Pearl Harbor had come and gone, it was not forgotten. We were fighting both the Japanese and the Germans all over the world. There wasn’t much good news on the war front, but all the guys had confidence that we would overwhelm them eventually. We felt we had to buy a little time to get prepared and that seemed to be what we were doing.

In early January 1943, a number of us got letters from our draft boards classifying us as 1A, meaning we would be drafted very soon. After one semester at A&M we packed our bags and came home. Since the draft board told us we would hear from them when the time came, we all went to Amarillo College and enrolled. This served a dual purpose in that we could continue our education and enjoy a social life we didn’t have at A&M. All the fellows older than we were had already gone, so we felt like we were kings of the hill.

Not one of us opened a book. We thought we would be gone in a few weeks. Amarillo College had instituted a wartime policy, giving automatic credit for any unfinished courses when a student went into the military. Our problem was that February had come and gone. 15 March had come and gone. We ran the risk of flunking out of junior college unless we were inducted soon. After consultation down at the pool hall in the Oliver-Eakle Building, a few of us went down to the draft board and volunteered for induction. They said they would be happy to accommodate us. I left Amarillo on 25 March, to take a physical in Lubbock. After that we came home for another week. The fun really started early on the morning of 1 April.

One of the things we learned at A&M was that it was not manly to serve in a non-combatant role in the army, or the navy for that matter. This meant that it was something less than honorable to be in the quartermaster Corps, administration, or the MPs, to name only a few. With that knowledge, right or wrong, implanted deeply within us, we were determined to pick a branch of the service that did the fighting. We weren’t told that they also did all the dying.

My eyes were always myopic, and I had always worn glasses. The rumor was that if you couldn’t read at least 20-40 without glasses, you were bound for some desk job for the remainder of the war, indeed, a fate worse than death. I became anxious as I went through the physical examination, and it came time for the eye exam, I was terrified. They called my name, and I went through a door labeled “Eyes.” Between the time I entered the room and walked to the line where I was to read the chart, I memorized the first five lines of the standard eye chart—and I still remember them to this day! E-FP-TOZ-LPED-PECFD. I just took off my glasses and repeated them to the examiner. He stamped “General Duty” on my file and yelled “Next.” I got out of there as quickly as I could. That was a big moment for me.

Where’s Fort Sill, Anyway?

On 1 April we reported to the Potter County draft office at 7th and Taylor, in the old library building at 0600 hours, where we were put on a bus bound for Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

Fort Sill, Oklahoma, was one of the old Army bases. It had been the formal home of the Field Artillery for many years. Located just outside Lawton, Oklahoma, it comprised many thousands of acres, much of which was devoted to artillery firing ranges. They managed to have all kinds of terrain from near desert to dense foliage, from rolling plains to mountains. There was a state fish hatchery on the northern boundary of the fort, which furnished fish for the officer’s mess. It was here at this famous old post that I was to receive my first indoctrination.

Our records accompanied us along with one corporal. I never really knew what purpose he served. As soon as we arrived at Fort Sill, my world, as I had known it, came to an end. We were taken to a barracks and given a bunk. We stashed what little gear we brought with us, and then we were called outside and ordered to “fall in.”

I couldn’t help but feel sorry for those who had absolutely no experience with foot soldier commands. Arthur Ball, a friend who had gone to Texas A&M with me, and I were the only ones who knew what to do. The corporal in charge of this rag-tag outfit noticed immediately that we knew a little more than the others.

In quick succession, we had another medical examination, were issued all our army clothing including shoes, received our dog tags, were given a GI haircut, meaning a real burr all over, and taken back through the medical facility for shots. Since it seemed we needed our Army Serial Number every time we looked up, it was pretty easy to memorize. Mine was 3 8 3 4 3 0 7 0, a number I will always remember. We entered this long narrow building, walked down the single hall, and were greeted by a needle in each arm as we passed a doorway. Not only that, but at the next doorway we were vaccinated again. Following all that it was time to eat, and we were taken to the mess hall where we were introduced to Army chow. I really thought it was pretty good, but I didn’t think it compared to the great food we had in Sbisa Dining Hall at A&M.

Early the next morning we were rousted out for reveille. After washing up rather quickly, we fell into ranks again, and some officer looked at us with great disdain, turned on his heel and walked off. The corporal told us he would divide us into two groups. The group on his left would be taken out to fight range fires caused by artillery

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firing. The other group would be taken to the kitchens to work KP. Then he said, “Oh, by the way, does anyone here know how to type?” I weighed the consequences very carefully. I could work KP, since I was in that group, or I could take my chances on the typewriter. I had learned it was usually not best to volunteer for anything, but I decided that anything was better than scrubbing pots and pans.

I told him I was the best typist the Army ever had. So, he gave me a note and told me to report to Lt. Beauregard at the staff headquarters building. It was in the area where all the recruits were housed, so it was not hard to find. Lt. Beauregard was, as you might suspect, from Louisiana. He was nice enough to turn me over to some sergeant who took me to a desk with a typewriter and gave me a stack of records. Then he explained to me that I would be typing orders for the recruits to be sent out for their permanent assignments. He told me to pick out twenty-eight for Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and thirty-two for Fort Ord, California. Then he gave me a list of the number of recruits requested by forty or fifty bases including Navy and Army Air Corps.

The guy at the typewriter across from me asked my name. He gave me his and said that since we were doing the orders, we would have the opportunity to pick our branch of service and the post to which we would be assigned. That sounded great to me. So we agreed that when our names showed up, we would pick our spots and assign all the rest as we had been instructed. I typed orders for a couple of days, and on the third-day, my name appeared on the list as having completed all the indoctrination, medical exams, and clothing issuance.

My other typewriter friends and I looked at all the available postings, and I chose the 270th Field Artillery Battalion in Camp Butner, North Carolina. This was a brand new unit, one of three that had just been formed. The other two were the 269th and the 272d. I don’t recall who commanded the 269th, but I do remember that Lt. Colonel Wallace Wade commanded the 272d. Col. Wade was the noted football coach at Duke University. I didn’t know that at the time I chose the 270th, or I would probably have chosen the 272d. I’m glad it turned out the way it did, because they didn’t do too well, I’m told. All three battalions were in one area together at a new base, Camp Butner.

I chose field artillery because this was the branch I was in at A&M. We had studied basic artillery gunnery techniques there, and I felt more familiar with that branch than any other service branch I had seen.

Troop Trains

The next morning I boarded a troop train made up of 24 Pullman cars, each of which held 36 men. I never did know the exact route we took, but I do know we meandered around the central United States for three days. We would stop at various Army posts along the way and drop some of our new recruits. I do remember Rantoul Air Base, Illinois, later to become Chanute Field, Fort Campbell, Kentucky, and I know there must have been some others but they have faded in the mists of my memory.

One of the most interesting things that happened on the train was that we stopped once a day, and were allowed to get off to stretch our legs. The first day we stopped in Indiana at the small town of Princeton. I imagine it was a town of 2500 or 3000 people. We were herded off the train, made to fall in to something loosely akin to ranks, and marched down to the town square. The whole town turned out and greeted us as though we were returning heroes. They had prepared long tables with cookies, cake, ice cream, and gallons of ice tea, coffee, and other goodies. I have never been treated so royally as I was in Princeton, Indiana. If I ever go back there, I’ll drop in and thank them for their hospitality.

Troop trains were a new experience to all of us. Most of us had never been in a Pullman car before. Since my father was an employee of the Santa Fe Railway, I used to get passes, and rode the trains quite a bit, even to California on occasion. The sleeping cars were unknown to me. Those of us who were not paying passengers didn’t sleep anywhere but in the seat we had. Dining cars were unknown, because we were not permitted to go to the diner. While we didn’t enjoy all the amenities the paying passengers received, I always enjoyed the guy who came through selling big juicy plums, candy and other goodies. I felt no hardship.

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CHAPTER 2: Camp Butner, North Carolina Oh, How I Hate to Get Up in the Morning

Camp Butner, North Carolina was located about half way between Durham and Raleigh, North Carolina. We arrived in Durham about 2000 hours on the third day. The corporal in charge said that this was the end of the line for us. We got off the train, picked up our duffel bags (which were heavier than I thought), and marched down the road towards two GMC 4x4s. We crawled aboard and rode about sixteen miles to the camp. Eventually, the trucks stopped and we were told to dismount. I jumped out the rear of the truck into about six inches of soft, red, gooey mud.

This camp didn’t even have roads. We were interviewed by a couple of officers, assigned to a barracks, and sent to the mess hall to eat. They tried to find out something about us, since they would assign us our first duties the next day. They wanted to know about education, background and work experience.

I could not believe my ears. I was sleeping soundly and suddenly heard the most terrible racket I have ever heard. It was so loud it hurt my ears ... but it also got my attention. The lights came on and when I looked down at the end of the barracks, Sergeant Leo Wisneski, the First Sergeant, had a shovel, and he was beating the life out of an empty barrel. “Rise and shine, you miserable SOBs, today you find out what the Army is all about.” In a pig’s eye. I didn’t learn anything the first day. At least that’s what he told me. He was a quiet ex-coal miner from Pennsylvania and had all the muscles to prove it. It turned out he was a good friend, but that took a year or more to find out.

I won’t attempt to go into all the details of basic training in our army at that time, but I will say that it was six weeks of pure hell. We all looked forward to the end of basic training. We were greatly disappointed when we were told we would do it again. We always thought it was because we didn’t do it right the first time, but the real reason was a delay in getting our new howitzers, about which we knew nothing. I always said later that I wanted to see North Carolina, but I didn’t know it would be one shovel full at a time. We dug holes all over that state. After that, some of us, maybe all of us, were promoted to Private First Class, and we thought we were pretty sharp with that stripe on our sleeves.

In the beginning it was decided that I would make a good truck driver. Maybe that was true, but I didn’t want to be a truck driver. Endless hours in the motor pool doing first echelon maintenance on our vehicles was a very unrewarding and boring experience, so I looked for ways to improve myself.

During a field exercise, I was driving a truck carrying some men and Lieutenant Hecker, one of our officers. We got out into the country; and went diagonally across a plowed field. Those guys got the best ride they ever had. I took off across the furrows just fast enough to almost bounce everybody out. The truck rattled and the engine groaned, but I kept on going. When we got to the campsite, Lt. Hecker told me to get out of the truck. He put another guy in the driver’s seat, and that fellow drove trucks for the rest of the war.

As summer began, we discovered a number of the guys liked to play baseball. That was my consuming passion at the time, and I joined some of the others in playing frequently. Some of us were able to join a team in Durham that played their games at night in the local baseball park. I don’t even recall its name, but the grounds were well kept; and I was glad to be able to play.

I remember one game in which I played center field. I really liked it out there. I could cover a lot of ground and had a good arm, so I felt at home. Some guy hit a long drive into left center and I ran it down. The warning track was gravel, and I hit it full speed just before I caught the ball. I ran into the fence going full speed and ran right through it. Two of the boards splintered, and I wound up outside the fence. The big argument was over whether I caught the ball inside or outside the fence. The opposing team claimed, of course, that I caught the ball outside the fence, and therefore, it was a homerun. My position finally prevailed but not before a considerable hassle.

Every Army unit had misfits; we certainly did, but I don’t remember much about them, because they didn’t last very long. A case in point was Lt. Batten. He was a large man, somewhat older than our other new officers. He wore thick rimless glasses. I don’t think his glasses helped much, because he was one of the most inept men I’ve ever seen. Without being disrespectful even at this late date, he suffered ridicule at the hands of the other officers as well as from the enlisted men. Lt. Batten could not read a map. He could not keep in step when we marched around the parade ground. Being in the military just defeated him. I believe he was reassigned to a desk job at Post Headquarters.

I really wanted to be in Fire Direction, the brains of any artillery unit, and that’s where I wound up. This was fascinating work. The Fire Direction Center (FDC) always knew when orders came down. We were the first to know when we were going to move, and where. We knew what the targets were and where they were located; and we knew the results of our fire. We gave the commands to fire the 105mm Howitzers, which had been issued to our

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Battalion, and enjoyed the actual firing very much. It involved firing tables, math, and the ability to find coordinates on a map. A lot of training and long hours of study were required, but we felt it was worth it. Our guys in the Fire Direction Center became a very close-knit group of young men. We stayed together the rest of the war.

Major Robert W. Hannah, a slender dark-haired Virginian from Richmond was the S-3 of our battalion. That meant he was the officer in charge of operations. His duties included the operation of the FDC. I think he also bore the title of chief gunnery officer, and while we were in training, he was the training officer. I thought the Major was a delight. His Virginia accent set him apart, yet he had steel in his voice when it was needed. He was never one to get overly excited about anything, but I know now he must have churned inside on a number of occasions when we made obvious mistakes.

I never liked to work KP, but all of us did and made the best of it. Usually we were awakened about 0430 and were in the mess hall by 0500. Working the Officers’ mess was much better duty. It wasn’t nearly as crowded, and they had white china plates. We waited tables, took orders, and did those things all waiters did, but without tips.

I recall one night at dinner we had steak and French fries. I waited on a table occupied by Lt. Esposito, an Italian from Hackensack, New Jersey, and five other officers. He was a good-looking guy and considered one of our better officers. As I leaned over to put the plate in front of the officer next to him, I spilled the French fries down Lt. Esposito’s back. He had on a clean shirt and tie, and I’m sure, was on his way to town. Well, those fries were probably the greasiest French fries that ever came out of a kitchen. Grease marks ran all the way down his back.

A couple of other officers saw it and broke into uncontrolled laughter. I was totally embarrassed. I didn’t know what to do; so, I tried to get the grease off his back with my little towel. Lt. Esposito turned to me and said quietly, “Don’t worry about it, I’ve got other shirts.” He went up about eight notches in my book then and there. We later became good friends and did some fine work together. He became one of the two best forward observers in the battalion.

One night in early October 1943, I went to bed in my bunk as usual. Sometime during the night I became ill. I threw up till there was nothing more to throw. My first sergeant, Leo Wisneski, had a little room at the front of the barracks. He was well aware of my dilemma. So, after reveille, he asked if I wanted to go on sick call. I was doubled over in pain by that time, and I told him I did.

I reported to the medics for sick call. When our battalion surgeon looked at me, he snorted and said I was “gold bricking” and told me to get back to my unit. I was dumbfounded. I stumbled back to the orderly room and told Sgt. Wisneski what had happened. He went to Captain Fillmer’s office, and then he and the Captain came out. Captain Fillmer was livid. He told me to make myself as comfortable as I could, and he would be back. In about fifteen minutes he came back with Lt. Colonel James C. Gabriel, our battalion commander. By that time I had nearly passed out.

The Colonel put me in his jeep with Sgt. Wisneski and took off for the post hospital closely followed by Captain Fillmer in his jeep. Colonel Gabriel stormed into the hospital and saw to it that I was admitted immediately. The doctor took my temperature and some blood, and announced forthwith that I must be operated on immediately for a ruptured appendix. They hauled me into the operating room, gave me an anesthetic called a spinal block, and started cutting. It was obvious to me that the spinal block didn’t work. It was too late then. The surgeon had four big orderlies hold me down while he completed the job.

I survived, but I sure caused some folks a lot of trouble. The so-called battalion surgeon we had was demoted from Captain to Second Lieutenant and shipped out to some foreign port. The medical technician who mixed the spinal block incorrectly got a summary court martial, was busted to private and shipped overseas immediately. A colonel, who commanded the hospital, came to my bedside and offered a formal apology, witnessed by Lt. Colonel Gabriel.

Sometime after my recovery I was promoted to Corporal. I thought I had the world by the tail. No longer would I have to wait in line at the mess hall. Ah, how sweet it was! Power, raw power. Now I got to tell other lesser humans what to do. About two hours after I had sewn on the stripes, evidencing my new authority, I found that life was not going to be much different after all.

Staff Sergeant Bill Steward, who was nominally in charge of the radio section, was not one of my favorite NCOs. He soon vindicated my judgment to the fullest. He saw me as I was leaving the barracks, and in his best command voice barked, “Corporal, the stoves in the barracks need to be cleaned and painted with stove blacking. Why don’t you just run along and do that for me.” It was not a question, but a statement. I replied, “Yes sir, I’ll take care of that for you, Sergeant.”

So, I went into the barracks and ordered two of my buddies (who hadn’t as yet received their stripes) to clean and paint the stoves in the barracks. That work detail lasted about five minutes. I’m sure Sergeant Steward was waiting to see what I would do. He came in and said, “Corporal, there’s something about this you don’t understand. I didn’t ask you to get someone else to do it. I told you to do it, and I meant it. So, get on with it.” “But,” I sputtered,

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“you can’t do that, Sergeant, after all, I am now a corporal.” “Not for long,” he yelled, “if you don’t get your tail in high gear and get it done, now.” I did it, but my pride was deeply wounded. I learned a good lesson from him though. Don’t assume anything until you know it’s a fact. Although we worked well together when the occasion demanded it, our relationship was strained for a long time.

Painful as it was, this event didn’t matter much, because in a week or two we had enough corporals around that we had to wait in line again at the mess hall. In about a week word was passed down that we were to move to Fort Bragg, North Carolina.

The 269th, 270th and 272d Battalions had been issued 105mm Howitzers when the units were first formed. We learned our artillery on the weapons. They were relatively inexpensive to operate but were also fast and quite effective. One develops a kinship with his weapon just as we did with the M1 Carbines we were issued.1

1 Not to be confused with the M1 Rifle. The M1 Garand Rifle (named for its inventor, John C. Garand) weighed 9 1/2 pounds and fired the ubiquitous .30-06 cartridge. The M1 Rifle was the primary weapon issued to front-line infantry. The M1 Carbine, on the other hand, was developed as a light rifle firing the much smaller .30 Carbine cartridge. The M1 Carbine weighed only 5 1/2 pounds and was intended for issue to officers and support troops, including the Field Artillery. By the end of World War II, nearly 6 1/4 million M1 Carbines were built, making it the most prolifically produced small arm in American military history. I loved my Carbine!

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CHAPTER 3: Fort Bragg, North Carolina

And Then it was Down to Business

About the first of November 1943, we got orders to move to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, an old Army fort that had been around for many years. Fort Bragg was located near Fayetteville, North Carolina, a distance of about 75 miles from Camp Butner.

We sent an advance party, loaded up and had a big convoy all the way. Our quarters at Fort Bragg were much improved. They were two story standard army barracks and fairly well insulated against the cold. We still used coal stoves for heat, but we got used to the acrid smell of the soft coal we used for fuel.

Our biggest surprise occurred the first morning after we arrived. Colonel Gabriel called a battalion meeting in the post theater. About six hundred men crowded the entire building. There was a pall of cigarette smoke in the air, but it did nothing to cloak the air of grim expectation permeating the theater. Each of us sat in absolute silence, together with his friends and comrades and yet strangely alone.

Up on the stage, Major Hannah caught a glimpse of movement near the front entrance. He arose in a soft fluid movement. “Ah-tench-hut”, he yelled.

We snapped to rigid attention as Colonel Gabriel strode toward the stage. The Colonel nodded once to Major Hannah, then he turned to face his battalion. “At ease!” A tiny, almost invisible, wave of relaxation rippled through the building.

He got down to business very quickly, and told us we now had in our possession 240mm howitzers and would begin our training immediately. These were huge weapons that broke down into two loads, but were transportable over most any road. We found that we could roll into a firing position, put the weapon in place, and begin firing in just under two hours. We had a totally new toy to play with here. It was absolutely fascinating from fire direction’s point of view.

I don’t recall how much the 240 weighed. The tube was carried on one transporter pulled by a tank with the turret removed. The gun carriage rode on another transporter the same way. In addition each battery had a big self- propelled crane used to dig the recoil pit and spade holes for the howitzer. Usually, it was also used to lift the gun carriage off the transporter and put it into place on the ground. Next, the tube was lifted off and placed on the gun carriage. Our guys learned to emplace the guns without the crane, but the crane sure speeded things up. Each battery had two howitzers and one crane. We found that we could keep up with the tanks in an armored division in a straight run along the roads of Europe.

We knew we had to learn to shoot again, but the principals remained the same; we just used a different technique. I remember somebody built a small, simulated firing range in one of the buildings. It must have been one of our predecessors who occupied this area. When one observed fire using this training tool, it looked as though you were looking out over the terrain. There were houses, roads, vehicles and other buildings all built to a scale you might see at four or five thousand yards. We got to run the machine from underneath. It consisted of a long pole marked off in hundreds of yards. Another device gave us the angles. As the officer fired at his target, we would squirt a small puff of white smoke above the point of impact. He would then adjust his fire until it was on target. The game was to hit the target in the smallest number of rounds possible.

While the principals were much the same, the technique used to accurately fire these weapons was totally different. Not only did we consider temperatures, humidity, and wind direction at various altitudes; we also had to calculate an effect for the curvature of the earth and erosion of the tube, which occurred every time we fired a round. By the way, the shell weighed 360 pounds and was about 9 1/2 inches in diameter and about 3 1/2 feet long. We could fire the shells up to about 24,000 yards, but we were most effective between 17,000 and 20,000 yards.

It was stressed that we must learn the weapon quickly, because we would use it in combat. It was during this time that we were shaking out the misfits and trimming down to a size that allowed us the maximum flexibility as long as we had the right people in all the positions.

I recall one soldier who decided he didn’t want to go; so, he became partially blind overnight. He walked around the area and squinted everywhere he looked. We knew he was lying, because he could read snake eyes on a pair of dice from across the room. Each man had to qualify on his personal weapon, in our case, the M1 Carbine. We were all taken to the range where we practiced, then shot for our score.

I was one of the first shooters. It was easy, and I fired a good score. I don’t recall what it was, but my score was just under “expert” by a few points. When my group finished, we were sent down to the target pits, and the other group went back to fire. We knew Byrd, the fellow who didn’t want to go with us overseas, was in the group. Lt. Sinclair let us know by phone where Byrd, was and which target he would shoot. Byrd pointed his Carbine

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everywhere but at the target, yet when the results came up from the pits, we placed a big red circle over the bull’s- eye or a four, possibly a three.

Byrd was absolutely livid. He knew that he had been tricked, and we let him know that night that it would not be so easy to get out of his duty. He eventually went AWOL (Absent Without Leave) and took a court martial to keep from going overseas. So, Byrd was transferred to an infantry outfit and he went overseas anyway. We never heard from him again.

It was during the time of qualifying on the Carbine that I applied for OCS (Officer’s Candidate School). Although I was younger than most, I felt I had the tools to become a good officer. My application was duly processed, and one morning I was called to Battalion headquarters to be interviewed by a board of officers. I was dressed in my best uniform, and reported as ordered. When I walked into the examining room, I was confronted by three bird (full) colonels, the one in the middle, and in charge, was black. I knew that now was the time to salute that uniform, and I did so without hesitation and reported. In those days blacks were normally segregated in their own units, and we seldom saw them in other than support jobs.

I won’t forget the first question they asked me. It was “Corporal, what is one-seventh of one-eighth?” I managed to respond “One fifty-sixth, sir.” After that they relaxed and things went quite well. We adjourned later and went to the parade ground where I drilled a platoon for about fifteen minutes. The black Colonel thanked me and said that I would hear from them within two or three weeks.

While I was still in basic training, I applied for ASTP (Army Specialized Training Program). This would have allowed me to go back to college and study toward a degree at Army expense. A few days after my OCS interview, papers came through assigning me to the Citadel in South Carolina. My Battery Commander, Captain Fillmer, called me in and we discussed the possibilities at length. He persuaded me that I had already invested too much in the 270th to leave now. He also told me he could get the assignment canceled if I would agree. Influenced by the fact that I had made many friends in the 270th, and was beginning to enjoy my work, I told him to cancel my ASTP application.

About this time, Billy Joe Watkins, from Rockwall, Texas, and I got weekend passes, boarded a train and went to New York City. Our train arrived at Penn Station early on Saturday morning. We walked across the street to the Pennsylvania Hotel, and I told the desk clerk we wanted a room. He said, “Fine, that will be $37.50 a day. How long will you be staying?” Billy Joe looked at me, and I looked at him. The guy behind the desk knew we couldn’t pay that much so, he offered us an alternative. He told us the Lincoln Hotel just down the street had rooms set aside for soldiers like us.

Billy Joe and I hot-footed it down there. We got a room for something like $12.00 a day. That was too high, but we took it. New York was a fascinating place then. Billy Joe and I gawked at the tall buildings. We went to the top of the Empire State Building. We went to a show at Rockefeller Center Music Hall featuring the Rockettes. We ate hot dogs on the street, and we spent hours walking up and down the sidewalks. I don’t recall too many of the specifics, but we had a great time. We returned on a train Sunday night and got back to the post about 0230. We were up and at ‘em the next morning, but I must confess, I didn’t need to be rocked to sleep the next night.

Part of our conditioning training had to do with seven to twelve mile marches without water. One day after lunch, we fell in and were told to get our gas masks along with our field packs. That afternoon we did fifteen miles, about half of which was done wearing gas masks. We were given no water during the march. All of us were dehydrated, but some of us survived it better than some of the others. When we returned and had been dismissed, I went into the barracks, put on my class ‘A’ uniform (required to go to the post exchange), and went to the PX. I ordered six bottles of 7-Up, lined up those little fellows up and drank every one of them. The first two were taken down without swallowing. That was a day to remember.

I could never figure out Captain Fillmer, our Battery Commander. He was in the lead on these marches, but when we came in sopping wet with sweat, he always appeared as though he just stepped out of the pages of Esquire magazine. His uniform would be impeccable. The creases were still in his trousers. One could detect no sweat marks, even under his arms. He looked as fresh as he did when we left. We tried to figure out how he could have left us somewhere, gone to the barracks, showered and put on a fresh uniform. We decided to keep an eye on him, but we never learned his secret. He just didn’t sweat like the rest of us.

Christmas 1943 was a great disappointment to me. I was not granted any leave, and I worked at whatever jobs needed to be done during the holiday. I was extremely bitter, because the fellows who got leave were all married. All the single guys had to stay. That was a good decision. Had I been in charge, I would have done the same thing, but it wasn’t received very well by those of us who were single. We lived over it.

From a physical standpoint I have never been in such good condition. We ran through the hills a lot. The obstacle courses, while primitive by today’s standards, built real muscles. I could do thirty-three push-ups with a

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field pack weighing over thirty pounds on my back. Incidentally, this was one of the Colonel’s requirements. He said he wasn’t going to have any soldier giving up because he couldn’t hack it physically.

We inherited a second First Sergeant at Fort Bragg. Sergeant Kane had been in the Army for nearly fifty years, the last ten or so of which he had spent in Puerto Rico. It was here he found the girl of his dreams, married, and was living the good life. Then the Army got in the way and demanded he spend his last three-year hitch (enlistment) in the United States. He came back and was assigned for duty with the 270th. Sergeant Kane didn’t make reveille or retreat or take any of the training. Sergeant Kane did exactly as he pleased.

Sergeant Kane’s pampered existence grated on Major Arnold, our Battalion Executive Officer. After all, the Major was a West Pointer, and no enlisted man was going to get out of his normal duties. Major Arnold was contemplating putting Sergeant Kane on report one day when a Major General and two Brigadier Generals drove up to Battalion Headquarters. Major Arnold was apoplectic. You could see his mind working—”What did I do? What didn’t I do? If not me, who’s in trouble? Maybe it’s Colonel Gabriel, ha ha.” Well, these three Generals just dropped by to see Sergeant Kane. What Arnold didn’t know was that Kane had broken these Generals into the Army way of doing things many years ago. He was their hero. Major Arnold also didn’t know that Sergeant Kane was an acquaintance of Colonel Gabriel dating back to World War I.

Kane was in the barracks, and these generals came looking for him. The barracks came alive when the Generals came in the door. Kane greeted them warmly, and they went into his little room. I overheard one of the generals ask him if anyone was giving him a hard time. He said, “No, there’s nothing I can’t take care of.” We knew that Arnold had written Kane a memo telling him he had to stand retreat. We also found out later Sergeant Kane had written “Go to Hell!” on the back, signed it, and sent it back to the Major. That was the last we ever heard of it. Kane liked to go to a place called the Bloody Bucket and drink beer with the guys. He was one of the true blue old soldiers we’ve all read about.

Colonel Gabriel was from Crawfordsville, Indiana. He had one son as far as I know, and he had a lovely wife who stayed home in Indiana. He was one of the world’s great characters. He had served in World War I, left the Army, and then returned when war clouds were gathering in 1940. Six-foot-three and slender, with a medium sized handlebar mustache, he commanded with great flair. He was respected by all the men who served under him. His voice was like a foghorn. Make no mistake about it, when he roared, there was never any doubt about his identity. It was said that he was the oldest Lt. Colonel in the army. I believed he was fifty-seven at the time. I have since learned he was much younger than I thought.

One afternoon I was called to battalion headquarters. Colonel Gabriel himself wanted to talk to me. I arrived in record time and reported to him. He looked at me, and said, “Sit down. This is informal, and I want to talk to you.” I had never been invited to sit by a Lt. Colonel before, and I was wondering what would happen next. The Colonel lit a cigarette. He peered at me with steel gray eyes. I thought he was looking right through me, but then he said, “Your application for OCS has been approved. I wanted to tell you personally, because I don’t want you to go.”

“But, Colonel, this has been my ambition for a long time. It would be difficult to give it up, especially since I’ve been accepted.” Colonel Gabriel took a deep breath and said, “Look, you would make a fine officer. I know that, but do you know why they are going through the troops looking for candidates?” I said I didn’t, but I had thought it was a good opportunity. The Colonel replied, “It would be a good opportunity if it were any other time than now. You see, young man, the artillery has been losing too many forward observers, and they are looking for a lot of FOs in the south Pacific. I think too much of you to let you go.” “And besides that, damn it, I need you here in our fire direction center. We’ve got a good team, and I don’t want to ruin it. We’re going overseas soon, and I want you to be a part of the 270th.”

“Colonel, that is a great compliment to me, and you really believe it’s the best thing for me to do?”
“I sure as hell do,” he responded.
“Well, Colonel, if that’s the way it is, I’m staying.”
Without batting an eye he said, “OK, that’s settled. Now, pass the word to the fire direction crew that I want

them to meet me Sunday afternoon at 1300 here at Battalion Headquarters. I’ll make arrangements with the kitchen for a picnic lunch, and we’re going out on the firing range. By God, I’ll make artillerymen out of you boys if the last thing I ever do. You are dismissed.”

We went out to the artillery range with him Sunday afternoon. We spent about three hours listening to him talk about artillery. He taught us a lot about estimating ranges to various points, and how to use our fingers to estimate mils.2 We had a lot of fun at the range. The colonel told stories about WWI. It was a tremendous afternoon for all of us, and convinced us we had the best Commanding Officer in the Army.

2 “Mil” is short for milliradian, an angular measurement equal to 1/6400th of a circle. It takes 17.778 mils to make one degree. The width of my finger from my eye turned out to be 20 mils.

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Captain George Howze was our battalion S-2, or Intelligence Officer. One day he asked me to meet him at headquarters about 1430 hours. Captain Howze introduced me to another captain and told me he was from Military Intelligence. They asked me to be on the lookout for dissidents and fifth columnists. I asked incredulously, “You mean I’m supposed to look for spies?” He laughed and said, “Yes, but it’s not likely you’ll find any. There are, however, certain elements in our country that disapprove of the Army, and I know for a fact that some of them have gotten into the military. Your job is to root ‘em out.”

As though I had a choice, I agreed to serve, and they gave me a name and address to which I was to make a report every two weeks. The address was a fictitious aunt in Durham. I wrote her a letter every couple of weeks including the words “nothing to report” in the middle of a paragraph. I never did find any subversives, and the whole exercise seemed like a waste of time.

Last Stop: The Big City

On 27 March 1943, we boarded a train for Fort Slocum, New York. We had packed all our equipment, and the guns had been shipped by rail a few days earlier to New York. The rest of our equipment was in boxcars and rode along with us on the troop train. This was a much different train ride from the first one I had been on when we were raw recruits. Everyone was laughing and talking. Physically, we were in about as good shape as a group of men can be. We had been cautioned about talking to anyone outside the train, and that led to a few incidents as the train went through Richmond, Philadelphia and New York City. A few decided that rules were for someone else. They didn’t reckon with First Sergeant Leo Wisneski.

We disembarked in New Rochelle, New York and went to Fort Slocum by boat. It was located on what is now called David Island. Fort Slocum was an old Army post that was used only for ceremonial purposes until the war started. Now it served as the jumping-off point for many troops going overseas.

What a strange place it was. A small island covered with old red brick buildings. We could see the lights of New Rochelle across the sound. The second night we were there, Floyd Waldrop, Billy Joe Watkins and I went outside to get a breath of fresh air. We were looking across the water when we heard dance music from the Glen Island Casino. It too was an island located between Fort Slocum and the mainland. This was the same Glen Island Casino I had heard many times on my radio at home.

We spent the next several days getting all our shots updated, having classes on Europe and how to behave towards “all those foreigners.” One interesting thing we did was to test our gas masks by going into a room full of mustard gas, relying completely on the masks for air. They worked. While we were here we changed all our money to British pounds. In those days, a pound was worth $4.035. After awhile, we got used to pounds and pence, guineas and florins, and of course, six-pence.

The last shot was the toughest one. We marched over to the infirmary, walked into a large room, and when our name was called, received the shot. Then we walked out a door on the opposite side. I was one of the first to go. I got the shot and noticed nothing. I got up, walked across the room and out the door. The four or five, had gone before me, were sprawled on the ground. I took four or five steps and then joined them. The shot had a delayed reaction of about 30 seconds. It took about half an hour to get over the shock. I’m not sure, but I think it was an inoculation for yellow fever.

The Aquitania

6 April dawned dark and gloomy. It had begun snowing just before daybreak and continued even as we ate our last meal in the USA. After breakfast we loaded up, packs on top of our overcoats, and boarded a boat, called a lighter, for New York harbor. We sailed down Long Island Sound around the tip of Manhattan to one of the piers on the Hudson River side of New York. It was there that we got our first glimpse of the ship that would take us to Europe.

At first, we could just make out the lines of a big ship. Then as we got closer, we saw the name on the stern. It was the Aquitania, a 45,000-ton ocean liner owned and operated by the Cunard Line. The Aquitania was quite a ship. Built in 1913, it could steam at speeds up to 23 knots. An average Atlantic crossing took just over five days. In our case, it would take seven, because we zigzagged to avoid U-boats, which increased the distance. It had been a luxury liner that had plied sea-lanes all over the world, but principally between New York and Great Britain. At the pier it was still snowing very hard, as we unloaded onto the pier and went under the cover of a big roof. We formed up looking about as sad as any group of men you ever saw.

Each of us had on his steel helmet, overcoat, full field pack, rifle, and carried a duffel bag over one shoulder. Since I had been ordered to work in the Colonel’s office and help to publish a daily newspaper for all the troops, I

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carried a typewriter as well. I found it very difficult to get up the gangplank. A sailor took us to our quarters. We were in the stern located on “E” Deck just above one of the ship’s screws. The bunks were stacked about five high with roughly eighteen inches in between. Although the Aquitania had been built as a luxury liner, all the luxuries had been stripped out to make room for steel bunks. There were roughly 6,000 American troops aboard.

Colonel Gabriel was rated as the senior Army officer aboard, and he became the Commander of U.S. troops aboard ship. This exalted rank permitted him a private cabin near that of the ship’s Captain.

I reported to the area designated as the publication office. There was room for a small desk and a mimeograph machine. I immediately went to work recording the goings on aboard ship. The first thing I did was put together a little story identifying all the troop unit names aboard ship. When I showed it to Warrant Officer Martin for approval, he said, “Dammit, you can’t do that. Nobody is supposed to know who the troops are”. So, I rewrote the story and just gave the number of troops representing “several different units.”

The ship sailed about noon. We gathered at the rail as the tugs moved her out into the river. There was no confetti. There wasn’t even anybody on the dock to wave good-bye. We just left. Maybe the snow prevented well- wishers from viewing our departure. From what was piled on deck, I estimated about five inches had fallen.

About five hours after we sailed, the sun broke through, the snow melted, and it turned into an absolutely gorgeous day. I left the rail and went back to my little cubbyhole to publish my paper. As I was typing on the stencil, I noticed the typewriter move to my left. Then it moved back to my right and pulled slightly away from me. I thought I knew that seasickness was responsible for my queasiness, but it didn’t seem to matter. I worked until the paper was printed and given to others to distribute.

I became seasick. I went to my bunk, fell into it and found that as long as I stayed flat on my back, I could do pretty well. It wasn’t long after that we had the first lifeboat drill. We had to go up on deck and line up beside our assigned lifeboat.

I felt better when I got outside in the fresh air and could see the horizon. It was only when I was surrounded by four walls and had no frame of reference that I would get deathly ill. The newspaper went out of business. I believe most of the troops felt like I did. I spent the next four days more or less flat on my back in my bunk listening to those giant screws propel us through the water. Our route took us nearly to Bermuda then northeast almost to Iceland, then southeast to Greenock, Scotland.

We were fed twice a day in shifts. The British sailors ran the kitchens, and the food left a great deal to be desired. Since I was seasick, I wasn’t a very good judge of the cuisine, but there were a few that told me kidney pie was exaggerated. As for myself, I existed on chocolate bars and Coca-Cola. That was all I could keep down. I’m glad the trip lasted only seven days. I gave my all and had no more to give.

A few of the British cooks figured out how to make some money. They offered to prepare bacon and fried eggs for twenty bucks a plate. They got lots of takers. As good as it sounded, my queasy stomach wouldn’t allow it.
On the second day I was delivering the last issue of our newspaper. Officers got personal service. When I

arrived at the Captain’s cabin, I found it didn’t have a door, but a rather heavy green velvet curtain. His “batman”, or valet, let me in. It was a large cabin about twenty feet square. On two sides were large windows that looked out over the ocean. This gave him a tremendous view. About that time the Captain walked in. He looked about sixty, with just a wisp of snow-white hair. He had a pair of the best snow-white mutton-chop sideburns I’ve ever seen. From his accent it was obvious he was a Scotsman.

I took advantage of the opportunity to visit with him for a few minutes. He couldn’t have been nicer. He had worked for Cunard for about forty years and, had retired, but was called back when the war began. He had also served as Captain of the Mauritania before he retired. The Mauritania was the sister ship to the Aquitania. Both had been built at the same time in the same shipyard at the Firth of Clyde.

The third day out, one of the officers in a tank destroyer outfit disappeared. He was presumed lost at sea. All the enlisted men knew better; and I suspect the officers did too. He was one of those officers whose men literally hated him. It was said that he was abusive, not only to the troops, but also to lower ranking officers. It seems that he was clobbered over the head and put into the garbage chute. It was emptied every morning at 3 AM. The only comment I heard from the guys in that unit was that it was good riddance. That is the only incident of that kind with which I became familiar.

We sailed into the Firth of Clyde and anchored near Greenock, Scotland late in the afternoon of 13 April 1944. All of us were relieved that we made the crossing successfully without escorts. That was the advantage of a big ocean liner. They could usually outrun the U-Boats.3 We spent our last night on board the Aquitania. After a hasty breakfast the next morning, we prepared to disembark.

3 The crew of the Aquitania knew the maximum speed of U-boats and how long it took to aim and fire a torpedo. Of course, the U-boat crews also knew the speed of the Aquitania. With these facts in mind, the Aquitania’s crew knew exactly how long

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CHAPTER 4: “This Blessed Plot, This Earth, This Realm, This England”

—Richard II, Act II, Scene 1

Wisps of fog lay just above the dark and oily waters of the harbor. Each time a boat disturbed the silent waters, the fog parted almost grudgingly. Yet, as the sun rose in the sky, the fog magically disappeared, and we were greeted by a cool and sunny morning.

Lighters descended upon the Aquitania. After they were tied alongside, we unloaded once again with our duffel bags, rifles, and whatever else we had in our possession. The lighters were run by civilians, and as they shouted orders to one another, I noticed I couldn’t understand a word they said. It wasn’t as if it were a foreign language, but rather the words were just words I had never heard before.

Someone stole the typewriter I used on-board ship, so I didn’t have to carry that ashore. I was almost grateful, except for the fact one of my buddies said I would have to pay for it since it was issued to me. I never did. We thought it was probably stolen by one of the British crew, but no one knew for sure.

Greenock is located on the western side of northern Scotland just north of Glasgow. It has been at the heart of the British shipbuilding industry for many years. The town is strictly a working-class blue-collar community with a fierce pride in what they do. To say that they were thrilled to see us would not be an exaggeration, except for the British soldiers, sailors, and airmen. GIs were too much competition for the favor of the young ladies, and they did not take kindly to us at all. It seemed to me that half the town turned out to see us disembark and board our special train.

A band serenaded us as we boarded, including bagpipers. All the pipers wore the traditional kilts of tartan plaid. I remember one of them to this day. He was a big fellow, probably over six feet tall. Judging by his bulbous red nose, reminiscent of W.C. Fields, he had spent a lot of time in the local pub. He played the big bass drum. As the band marched up and down the platform, he stood out because of his purple knobby knees. I can’t adequately describe them except to say I’ve never seen any like them since that day.

I was thrilled that we were in Great Britain. I was enthralled with the countryside. Everything seemed so green. We could see many small stone fences dividing the fields. Sheep were grazing in some while cattle fed peacefully in others. Every one of us was “all eyes” when we came to the towns and villages. Every village seemed to have a church with a tall steeple. To a young man like me, they seemed quaint and reminded me of villages I had read about.

It was apparent these folks were serious about the war. One didn’t see many younger men like us, unless of course, they wore a uniform. There were a good many British servicemen around the train stations. It was the first time I had seen the Royal Air Force uniform up close. I thought they were good looking. On the other hand, the army uniforms left a lot to be desired. They were even more olive drab than our own. We didn’t stop for lunch. They served a meal on the train. I don’t remember much about it, except that we walked a long way to get it, and by the time we returned to our seats, it was cold.

We passed through Glasgow, Carlisle, Lancaster, Crewe, then and southwest into Wales. It was about 2300 hours when we stopped at our destination. Someone said it was a town called Pontllanfraith. No one could spell it. We had never heard of it, and we supposed it must be at the end of the world. We knew it was our destination, because the word was passed to “get all your gear together, douse all the lights, and get off the train.” We were anxious to see what our new “home” would look like. That was the blackest night I have ever seen. We couldn’t see a foot in front of us. I heard one of the officers yell that we should get in single file, put our hand on the guy’s pack in front, and follow him. We trudged about 1/2 mile when we stopped and got on some trucks.

The trucks drove away, but I have no idea how they knew where they were going, because there wasn’t a light on anywhere. The trucks growled and shifted gears; braked and speeded up. Finally we started a long climb and eventually stopped. We were told to dismount, move away from the trucks a few yards, and go to sleep. They didn’t have to ask twice. I awakened the next morning to the smell of bacon and eggs, albeit the synthetic kind. Powdered eggs became the de facto standard in Europe at that time. Spam was another product that originated in WWII. It’s still around today.

When I looked around me, I found the most wonderful thing. We were near the top of a rather large mountain. It looked off into a valley that was greener than anything I had ever seen. A freight train was coming around a curve, snorting steam and blowing a quaint little whistle I had never heard before.

they could sail in a straight line without zigzagging. One could set his watch by the number of minutes they sailed before a zigzag.

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A mess hall had already been built, and that’s where we ate breakfast, but not without some admonitions from the mess officer. He told us to take all we wanted, but we must eat all we took. In other words, we would not throw any food away. He explained to us that food was hard to come by and most of it was imported into the country. There was a barrel located at the exit to the little building. It was there that one of the officers had the duty to watch each of us as we cleaned our mess kits. It really did make a difference in how we ate, the portions we took, and what we put in our mess kits.

After breakfast was finished, we fell in for roll call as usual. We were all assigned a tent, and each of us helped erect quite a few pyramidal tents. These were to be our homes for a few days. Our heavy equipment was to arrive in Swansea, one of the Welsh ports, in a few days. We were kept busy cleaning what equipment we had, mainly our rifles and going to classes where we studied about the German army. They were generous with passes that let us go to the nearest town. I believe it was Blackpool. That was fun. They talked funny, and I might add, they felt the same about us.

About a week later we received word that our guns had arrived in port. All the men who were in the firing batteries, and all the truck drivers from headquarters battery went to Swansea to pick them up. They drove them back to our camp. By this time, we had struck camp and were ready to roll. That was some convoy. The British looked at those big guns and invariably waved to us. It must have been comforting to know they were no longer in this war alone.

Our route to Packington Park, located halfway between Birmingham and Coventry, took us through Hereford and Cirencester. I could not get enough of looking at the countryside, the small country lanes, and the thatched-roof houses. It took our convoy of about 125 vehicles in all sizes and descriptions several hours to reach our new camp.

If I told you we were in the middle of England, I would be close to the truth. About half a mile from our camp was a roadside plaque that announced that this spot was the geographical center of the country. It was here in this quiet countryside that our training began in earnest. D-Day was only a couple of months away.

One could sense the anticipation. Certainly, the British were eager to get on with it. The evidence of the early 1940-41 bombings was all around. We went to Coventry on passes and saw the famous Coventry Cathedral. It was a mess. No effort had been made to repair or replace it, and it lay in ruins just to remind us of what our mission really was.

The only experience we had with bombings was the V-1, which came in occasionally. I think it is interesting to note the V-1 was the first jet engine we ever saw, and the Germans had developed it. The V-1 was the precursor of the jets we know today. I recall that while on a pass to London, we saw a V-1 glide down the street and crash into a building about three blocks away. We were told it carried about 1,000 pounds of TNT. The building it hit was completely destroyed, as were several others around it. 4

Our training regimen became even more thorough and to the point. They brought in German prisoners, who still wore their uniforms, so we could see what they looked like. The truth is, they looked just like we did. We had a couple of artillery shoots down at Sandhurst, the British equivalent of West Point. They also had a first class firing range there. The artillery shoots were a lot of fun.

I discovered very early in my army career that I couldn’t drink hard liquor. I tried, but only succeeded in making myself sick. It was a disorienting experience. I decided that it was OK not to drink. I went along on forays into the city, but I was the one who made sure everybody got back to camp, what you might call the “designated driver” today. I took care of the money. I talked them out of trouble if it came. On one occasion, Corporal Steppke and Pfc. Hess, an Oklahoma Indian, asked me to go into the city with them. I agreed to go, and we boarded one of the trucks that took the men into Birmingham.

They gave me their money and their passes. We must have visited half a dozen bars when I looked at my watch and told them it was time to go. As always, they wanted to argue, but I was adamant that it was time to leave. After some further words, we left and went to the place where the trucks were scheduled to pick us up. The trucks were gone. We knew we had about sixteen miles ahead of us, so we started walking down the road. There was no traffic on the roads at night, unless it was official business, like troop movements.

We had walked a mile or so, when we heard a jeep coming in the distance. Steppke and Hess walked out into the middle of the road and refused to move. The jeep stopped, and we discovered it was two British MPs on some official duty. Steppke and Hess each took and MP and unceremoniously tossed them in the ditch alongside the road.

4 Goebbels, the German propaganda minister, named the rocket V-1 (V for vergeltungwaffen — vengeance weapon). The V-1 was about 25 feet long and had a wingspan of about 20 feet. It was launched from catapult ramps and carried a 2000-pound warhead at 350 miles per hour. It was powered by a pulse jet that used a cycling flutter valve to regulate the air and fuel mixture and used an automatic guidance system to reach the general area of its target before running out of fuel and crashing. The V-1 was similar to modern cruise missiles, but not nearly as accurate.

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We got in and left for camp. I kept explaining to them that they were in big trouble. We needed to go back and get them. I said, “Let me do the talking, you jerks, and I’ll try to keep you out of the stockade. That’s exactly where you’ll be when Captain Fillmer hears about this.” We finally turned around and went back for them. I got out and approached them carefully, because they had drawn their weapons.

I said something like, “Look, I know what these men did was wrong, but they are desperate to get back to Packington Park. They’ve never been in trouble before, but I told them if they persisted in stealing your vehicle, they’d never see the light of day. I think I can get them to give it back, if you guys will just take us by our camp and let us off. I’ll sure appreciate your help in taking care of these nuts. I know my Captain will also be grateful.” Well, they worked on me awhile, and kept a wary eye out for Steppke and Hess. By this time, they were both asleep in the jeep. Finally, one of them said, “Yank, if you ever tell anyone we did this, we’ll deny everything and charge all three of you with resisting arrest. Is that clear?” “Yes sir,” I said. So, they took us back to camp.

One does not do that kind of thing and get away with it. The British called Colonel Gabriel. Colonel Gabriel called Captain Fillmer. By ten o’clock in the morning both of them shoveled sand from one pile to another, and I had been severely reprimanded. It was somewhat humiliating, since I thought I was home free with my agreement. It was a long time before they did that again, but that’s another story.

There were a number of occasions when we could leave the camp and go into Birmingham or Coventry just for fun. That was heady stuff for a nineteen-year-old soldier from the high plains of Texas. The favorite place was a bar called The Lounge. Birmingham was a big city. There were shows of all kinds, dance halls, and other more educational forms of entertainment. I recall meeting a young lady in one of those places, but I don’t remember which one.

I do recall that on a subsequent occasion I took her to see the British adaptation of Arsenic and Old Lace.5 We went to dinner at a very nice restaurant she picked, and then she took me home to meet her folks. He was a manufacturer of small arms. I found him to be a very interesting fellow. Oddly enough, I still remember his name, Percival Rose.

We also had the opportunity to go to Stratford-on-Avon, a fascinating experience. They have the Shakespeare Memorial Theater (or Theatre if you are British). We saw Macbeth and Hamlet. It was said the acoustics were so good that you could hear a pin hit the floor if it dropped anywhere in the theater. Of course, we visited Shakespeare’s birthplace, Ann Hathaway’s cottage, and a variety of small shops, all of which claimed to have been there in Shakespeare’s time. Just a short distance from the theater, there was a guy making a speech to anyone who would listen. His theme was that Shakespeare was a fraud. He claimed that Sir Francis Bacon wrote all of Shakespeare’s works. I found out later that there is an organization in Britain called the Sir Francis Bacon Society. It’s still around today. That was an interesting hypothesis, but I didn’t want to believe them.

George Henderson was in the Personnel section. He actually worked for the Operations Sergeant, John Lewandowski, but I think most of the time it was the other way around. George was a mysterious character, indeed. Tall and slender, he had a large roman nose that dominated his features. I found George to be one of the smarter and more intellectually stimulating people I’ve ever known. He was certainly streetwise, having been made so because he once lived in Chicago and was somehow connected to the mob through bookie joints. He was also well educated. I believe he graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and I know he had at least one degree. He made a mistake and fixed a race in Chicago. After he got out of the hospital with two broken legs, he was invited to leave Chicago and not return. He never went back.

His army experience was unusual to say the least. He told us he joined the Army because of threats from someone in New Jersey. He signed all his property over to his wife and enlisted. George was the least physical guy you ever saw. One could not help but laugh as he attempted to march with the others. His concentration was enormous, but as he walked with his arms akimbo and just couldn’t stay in step. Eventually, it was silently agreed that when serious marching was to be done, George needed to be somewhere else.

His interest in the horses never flagged; he was a bookie himself and worked for others at tracks in Florida and New Orleans. He told me his job was to lay off big bets for other bookies in the east to protect them against someone who knew too much about a certain race.

Just before Kentucky Derby in May 1944, George decided it would be fun to book the race. I was his runner. George would give me the odds on each horse, and I would take bets from the guys on little slips of paper, along with the money. I returned these to him, and he would sit down at night and level the book. This meant he would change the odds so that no matter who won, we came out ahead. We had a few happy soldiers after the race, and a lot of unhappy ones, but George and I pocketed a substantial amount of cash for our efforts.

5 Arsenic and Old Lace, the stage play. By Julius J. and Philip G. Epstein. The 1944 movie of the same name starred Cary Grant, Raymond Massey, Peter Lorre, and Priscilla Lane.

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After the war, George returned to the states and was discharged. He and his wife moved to New Orleans and settled there. I suppose George returned to his old haunts and, once again, laid off bets for other bookies. I never saw him again, but I understand he died from natural causes about 1955.

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CHAPTER 5: D-Day, 6 June 1944

6June 1944, dawned a cool and cloudy day. The air was heavy with moisture, and we knew it would rain soon. I was just coming back from the mess hall, when I heard some low-flying aircraft. I looked up, and there were about a dozen P-47 fighters roaring off to the south. They were painted a dark olive drab, except for three black and white stripe painted on the wings and around the fuselage.

We had never seen stripes like that before. Although we didn’t know it, the stripes were a sign that the invasion had started. We learned later that the stripes were “invasion stripes” painted on all allied aircraft to enable quick identification.

There was a lot of soul-searching that day. We all wanted to find out what was happening, but without communications it was hard to do. One of our GIs ran into an old woman near the base who said that she had a radio. A few of the guys went over there and heard the news reports on the radio. Meanwhile, the weather started to worsen around us. It began to rain, and became a dreary day, but there was an undercurrent of excitement wherever we went. Everyone I knew was grateful he had not been sent to France on the first day of the invasion.

On 15 July, we moved from Packington Park to an assembly area in southern England. Our convoy moved steadily southward till we came to a place called St. Giles, in Dorsetshire. We bivouacked here for a few days. Last minute preparations were made. Last letters were written. Equipment shortages were made up. Vehicles were finely tuned. Gas tanks were filled, and extra gas was drawn and taken in our own tanks. Field rations were issued, and it was determined that we were as ready as we ever would be. From St. Giles our convoy moved into a marshaling area from which we boarded LSTs6 with all our equipment, including our guns.

Weymouth Harbor, near the famed Portland Bight,7 was choked with a fleet of ships of all sizes and kinds. Each one seemed to have a purpose as it moved around the harbor. It wasn’t long before we were loaded, and sometime during the evening of 22 July, this armada of LSTs moved out of the harbor and crossed the Channel. The departure date seemed significant to me at the time, because it was my 20th.birthday.The weather was agreeable, but the LST, while a fine ship, was flat-bottomed and pitched and yawed at every opportunity. The corkscrew motion made unpleasant sailing for those of us with sensitive inner ears.

Normandy and Apple Blossoms

The following afternoon we knew we getting close to our destination. We were told we would land on Utah Beach near the base of the Cherbourg Peninsula. There were five beaches assigned to the Allied forces. The British had Gold, Juno, and Sword, while the Americans had Omaha and Utah.

We finally arrived an hour before sunset. We dropped anchor just off shore. The LST was to be beached on the sand the following morning. There were a great many ships lying-to just off the coast waiting to land the next morning. It was quiet. I listened for gunfire, but couldn’t hear any. We lay around on deck and talked about what we thought lay ahead of us. Later in the evening everyone was quiet and alone with his own thoughts. Some slept, others just sat and stared out at the coast of France. It was an eerie feeling.

Around midnight, we heard the crackle of anti-aircraft fire. When we looked into the sky and saw tracers beginning north of us but getting closer.

Everything quieted down pretty soon, and most of us went to sleep on deck.

Make no mistake about it, there had been a real battle fought here, and the evidence of it was everywhere. The only wrecks moved were those that impeded traffic off the beach. We saw a lot of covered machine gun nests and artillery positions that had been overwhelmed. The Colonel was beside himself as he ran up and down the beach telling everybody how to drive. We got off in good shape, and drove off the beach onto a road that led through the first real French town we had seen. It was Montebourg. Later we came to Valognes. Both of these small towns had been nearly obliterated. Rubble was everywhere. Only the road was cleared for the heavy traffic that went on twenty-four hours a day. It was D-Day + 48.

We arrived at our first bivouac late in the afternoon near a village called Bricquebec. We pulled into some fields outside the village and set up camp. Guard duty took on a whole new meaning. As nervous as we all were, one

6 The LST (Landing Ship Tank) was built to haul troops, tanks, equipment and supplies to American and Allied troops wherever they were fighting. There were 1051 built all over the United States. It was 328 feet long, had a beam of 50 feet and weighed about 1653 tons (4080 fully loaded). There were no comforts except for the crew.

7 “Portland Bight” is a British expression for Portland Harbor and the surrounding shores. I do not know why it was “famed”, but that’s what the British told me. It was thought that Sir Francis Drake kept the Armada here in 1588.

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was well advised to know the password and give it fast. We all dug our slit trenches, ate a field ration, and settled in for the night.

I believe we were all totally surprised by the terrain. Giant hedges, known as “bocage,” enclosed each small field. The total height was between twelve and fifteen feet. It was impossible to see more than one small field on each side. There could have been a German within a hundred yards, and we would never have known. The Army engineers rigged up tanks that went in and shoveled out paths between the hedgerows. I’m sure the hedgerows served a useful purpose for the French, but they didn’t do much for the Army.

I will never forget the fragrance of the field where we were camped. It had been, and I suppose still was, an apple orchard. The apples were in blossom and their aroma was almost overpowering. Whenever I smell an apple blossom, even today; it takes me back to that first night on French soil.

About 2200 hours we heard the noise of a single airplane. It was a different sound from what we were used to hearing. Someone shouted that it was German. I was very apprehensive, and I knew that Kraut pilot was looking right at me. We could hear some gunfire in the distance and even saw a few tracers in the sky. Later we learned that this was a Bf-109, flown by some crazy German, who insisted on flying over the U.S. troops at night. He had relatively little risk, but caused the new troops like us some anxious moments.

On the 25th of July, Operation Cobra began with a saturation bombing attack along the whole front. Operation Cobra, formulated by General Omar Bradley, was designed to achieve a breakout on a narrow front west of St. Lô along the road to Periers. Twenty-five hundred planes dropped approximately 4,000 tons of bombs in a rectangular box 7 miles long and two miles wide. We watched the bombers. They flew in a path about two miles wide, and the bombs fell for a couple of hours. The sound was like a constant roll of thunder.

The bombing achieved its desired effect, devastating the Panzer Lehr Division, but off-target bombs killed over 100 GI’s and wounded about 500 others. One of those killed by the bombs was Lt. General Leslie McNair. 1 August found the 270th a part of General Patton’s Third Army Artillery. The Third Army was activated on this day and was assigned the task of exploiting the breakthrough at St. Lô. We were put in the middle of the 4th Armored Division and went south through Coutances, Avaranches, and on to the outskirts of Fougeres.

We were astounded to see the number of horses the Germans used in their military. We had always thought of them as being the best-equipped army on earth. After all, the Blitzkrieg proved they could move quickly and exploit territory in a hurry. Yet, as we traveled the roads of France, we saw endless cases of horse-drawn transportation immobilized, because the horses had been killed. I came to believe they had at least one-quarter as many horses as they had men. Some of this, no doubt, was due to the lack of fuel for their trucks, but I got the idea they relied pretty heavily on horse-drawn vehicles.

The evidence of war was everywhere as we roared down the roads of France. Smoke from burning vehicles eddied over the road adding an acrid tang to air already tainted by diesel fumes and the sickly sweet smell of high explosives. Bodies were visible near the burned out vehicles, and horses, with their legs stuck rigidly up into the air, gave mute evidence to the violence of the fighting that had taken place just a few hours before.

Since the Germans were in full retreat, we didn’t fire a round. We just traveled as fast as we could and tried to keep up with the 4th Armored Division. We pulled out of a column on the road, and after consulting a few maps, Colonel Gabriel and Captain Howze along with their jeeps, drivers and a weapons carrier with a .50 Caliber machine gun rode off to reconnoiter our assigned bivouac area outside Fougeres. I went along as a guard in the back of the Colonel’s jeep. We got to the area about 1600. The weapons carrier and four men were left to guard the area and see to it that no other Third Army unit tried to appropriate our assigned bivouac area. The Colonel said he would go back and start the battalion, and that they should arrive before sundown.

I was one of those assigned to guard a tree-lined field where Headquarters Battery was assigned. Colonel Gabriel dropped me off there and dropped the others at their locations. It was a sunny and warm afternoon in late July. It was also very quiet. We could hear no traffic or other noises coming from the roads around the area. I sat down under a tree and relaxed for the first time in about a week. As time passed I started to get a little nervous. My associates were down the road, but I couldn’t see them.

Six o’clock came — no battalion. Then seven, eight, and nine. By this time dusk had settled over the fields, and it was hard to see very well. Usually, the sun didn’t really set until nine-thirty or ten o’clock, so it was not unusual to have dusk at that late hour. I walked down to the road, and it was deathly quiet. In the distance I heard small arms fire and the stutter of a machine gun. I decided it must be German, because it seemed to fire much faster than our .50-caliber. I learned much later that it was probably a German MG-42.8 As I stood there along the

8 The MG-42 fired at a cyclic rate of 1200 rounds per minute. Our .50-caliber machine guns fired at a cyclic rate of 750 rounds per minute. I don’t remember the rate for our .30-caliber machine guns, but I believe it was similar to the .50. After hearing them a few times, one could tell instantly whose weapon was firing. The MG-42 sounded like tearing canvas.

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road, I felt abandoned. The battalion should have arrived by five o’clock. After all, the Colonel himself said they would be there. Therefore, something bad must have happened. About that time I heard what sounded like a platoon of soldiers walking down the road. A few seconds later, I heard them talking. I recognized it as German. They were just walking along loosely in ranks.

I lay down in the ditch and tried to disappear. If it had been daylight, I would have been spotted at once. Since it was nearly dark, they didn’t even look my way, but just kept on walking down the road. I was extremely nervous. After they had gone, I left my post and went down to where the other guys were waiting with the .50-caliber. They were hidden in the woods nearby and had created a good field of fire. They had also heard the Germans come by. We decided it would be appropriate to set a perimeter defense with the machine gun in the center to give us some protection.

A little after ten o’clock we heard the familiar sound of our tanks, and we knew they had finally arrived. Meanwhile, the Colonel and his staff had arrived at the field I was supposed to be guarding. I wasn’t there, but I appeared in a few minutes. The Colonel was furious. “By God, you left your post. I ought to court-martial you right now.” He didn’t give me a chance to say anything. His parting shot was to bust me from Sergeant to Private immediately. To say that I was angry would be an understatement. I did have mixed emotions, however, I was glad to see my outfit, but I was furious at my treatment.

I went on over to my section. Nobody said much. I got my mess gear out and opened up a C-Ration. I had not eaten since noon, and in addition to everything else I was famished. Captain Fillmer, HQ Battery Commander and the battalion Communications Officer, came over and sat down next to me. “What happened?” I told him the whole story, and he was visibly perturbed. He said, “ O. K., go ahead and eat, and I’ll take care of it.”

The next morning, the Colonel yelled for me to come over. “Yes, Sir,” I said. “Why the hell didn’t you tell me what happened last night?” “Well, Colonel, Sir, you weren’t in much of a mood to listen.” “Well, we got held up by a lot of road traffic, and it delayed us for awhile. Sergeant, I still say you’re useless as pee on a plate. Uh, why don’t you just forget what I said last night? It was my mistake.”

After eating a hurried breakfast, we mounted up and took off again. We came to Laval and then LeMans. LeMans is now the home of “The LeMans Grand Prix 24 Hour endurance race. We didn’t see much of the city, because we kept moving. Some 30 miles north of LeMans we fired our first rounds in anger. It didn’t mean much to us, but the interesting thing was that we ran out of maps, and were forced to use Michelin road maps to find our way across that part of France.9 There was a network of roads in and out of the Forest De Perseigne. We were given the job of firing interdiction missions on those roads and locating them with road maps.

We did so successfully even while using the road maps. We felt we had some small role in dislodging elements of the German 7th Army that were hiding in the woods.

As we progressed northward, we learned that we were starting to trap the whole German 7th Army and other units. The British were holding one side, and we raced around the south side. We planned to meet at Falaise. Indeed, this became known as the Falaise-Argentan Pocket or “Gap.” We pulled into the small village of Barville and pounded the roads in the area for some time. Although some German troops escaped the trap, most of them were captured or killed in their attempt to escape. I don’t think I ever witnessed any greater mass destruction than what was inflicted on the German army. The roads were almost impassable with all kinds of vehicles such as tanks, trucks, cars, wagons, dead horses and men. It looked like Armageddon.10

At that time the war seemed to be a fleeting thing. We drove as fast as we could through the countryside, stopped, and fired a few rounds of artillery into an unseen enemy. Some of the men went so far as to call it a “tour of France, courtesy of the U.S. Army”. We were not supposed to fraternize with the natives, but most of us did anyway.

I recall stopping near a farm somewhere near Fougeres. Having lived on canned rations for some time, we were all hungry for fresh meat. Glynn Waldrop, saw a goose nearby. Waldrop, in his own inimitable way, suggested that the goose sure would be a welcome relief from C-Rations. A couple of the guys agreed and liberated the goose. The poor goose suffered great indignity having his feathers removed before his neck was wrung. With geese, I understand that is the only way to remove the down and all the feathers.

9 The more things change, the more they stay the same. During the invasion of Grenada in 1983, Army Rangers lacked adequate maps of the island and were forced to rely on tourist road maps.

10 The Germans fought to keep a corridor open for retreat, but the advancing Allied armies ultimately closed all but one avenue of escape. The remnants of the German 7th Army and 5th Panzer Army succeeded in breaking through between 16 and 19 August. Some 240,000 men, bereft of equipment, eventually reached the Seine River. They left 50,000 dead and 200,000 prisoner. For Hitler, the Falaise pocket was the worst defeat since Stalingrad. When General Eisenhower saw the aftermath, he wrote: “It was literally possible to walk for hundreds of yards at a time, stepping on nothing but dead and decaying flesh.”

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After the goose was killed, one of our Cajuns, who spoke passable French, took the bird, along with three pounds of sugar, and negotiated preparation of the goose in exchange for the sugar. The farm woman was delighted. She hadn’t seen any sugar for three years. We hoped she didn’t recognize the goose, because we thought it might have belonged to her.

That night we gathered around and had baked goose for dinner. It was the first time the officers saw fit to join the enlisted men for dinner. All the feathers were carefully picked up and relocated under a shock of grain.

Autumn in France

We felt that the closing of the Falaise Pocket meant the Battle of Normandy was over. Allied troops were in Cherbourg and had Brest surrounded, so it was just a matter of time until all of Northern France was liberated.

We proceeded deeper into France, where we were given the job of destroying German positions on the north side of the Seine River near the city of Mantes-Gassicourt. It was near these positions that we had our first encounter with the German Luftwaffe. We assumed the artillery was hurting them badly, because they came after us. They used Focke-Wulf 190s primarily, but they also sent some Junkers JU-88’s as well.

We had anti-aircraft support assigned to corps artillery group, and they had a field day. They shot down two or three aircraft. That doesn’t sound like many, but it caused the Germans to quit the attack. We finished our support of this operation on 29 August as soon as the First Army had completed a bridgehead over the Seine River at Mantes- Gassicourt.

The Third Army then turned its attention to the east. We could have taken Paris two or three weeks before it finally fell, but for political reasons the Free French 2d Armored Division was allowed to enter Paris first. French General Le Clerc received the German surrender on 25 August. After the French entered Paris, all the French soldiers disappeared, very likely to visit friends and relatives in the city. They found their vehicles and tanks, but the men were gone. Paris became one giant party. It took his command about two weeks to roundup all the French soldiers and return to the war. There was still a lot of fighting to be done.

As for the 270th, we proceeded to Fontainebleau, made a left turn, and camped just outside the small town of Gastins, and north of Nangis. We drove all the vehicles into a perimeter around a field, as was our custom. The trees and large shrubs bordering the field provided cover from enemy aircraft.

The following morning, 1 August, the eastern sky had brightened from pitch-black to a much lighter, pink- tinged gray-a sure sign that sunrise wasn’t far off. I was strolling toward the mess truck with Ray Spruitt, when I heard an airplane overhead. I looked around and a P-51 was flying by just to check us out. Unfortunately, one of our men on a machine gun didn’t recognize it as a U.S. warplane and fired at it. I will swear to this day, I saw a tracer bounce off the canopy surrounding the cockpit. The pilot was very low, and made a big circle, flew by about twenty- five feet off the ground. As he passed, I saw him wave...wait, he wasn’t waving. He was wagging his finger at the guards around our bivouac. He seemed to say, “Don’t even think about doing that again.” And the war goes on.

A few of us were given passes to Paris. As luck would have it, Steppke and Hess were among those on the truck. Paris was a city in perpetual celebration at the time. Everybody was your friend. That didn’t last long, but it was nice while it lasted. We made a point of going to all the tourists’ places first. We went to Notre Dame, the Eiffel Tower, Napoleon’s tomb, and a number of other places. Steppke and Hess seemed quite interested until they both announced that they had a mighty big thirst.

We had been to several bars, but the one that stands out in my mind was the last one. It was crowded and noisy, as most bars are. We found one of those very small tables and sat down. Steppke and Hess began to drink, but I must give them credit. At no time did they get out of hand or do anything that brought discredit upon themselves, the U.S. Army, or me.

I heard someone say something, and I turned around. Some drunk at the table next to us clipped me on the side of the head and knocked me in under the table. My marbles were scattered pretty good. The next thing I knew, Steppke and Hess had destroyed this guy, but in the process had turned over a few tables and upset some of the other customers. It took only a moment or two and the whole bar were engaged in a massive fight. I was pretty well protected by the table, but I did run the risk of being trampled. The bartender-owner went berserk. He called the Military Police and ran around screaming his head off.

Meanwhile Steppke and Hess got me out from under the table and half-dragged, half-carried me out of the bar. When I finally got my wits about me, I realized we were riding in a jeep. I asked where they got it, and they said, “Well, Sergeant, you don’t really want to know that.” So, I told them to go back and park it near where they found it. They drove back to the bar and parked it across the street. I didn’t know it until we got out, but it was a jeep belonging to the MPs. Those two nuts were laughing up a storm about what a good time they had. There was no doubt in their minds but that I would have been a goner if it hadn’t been for them. They said that bar was destroyed

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as no other they had ever seen. I think that was true, because when I looked from across the street, all the glass was broken and numerous arrests were being made. We high-tailed it out of there and caught our ride back to the outfit. We didn’t get to go to Paris again until the war was over. I was glad. Paris was soon forgotten as the war moved on.

While I don’t recall exactly where we were, I do remember we got orders to move one night about 2330 hours. There was a full moon, and it was a very clear and warm evening. I was assigned to be a road guard. Road guards were stationed at various points on the route of travel, and they were taken there ahead of time. When the convoy came, they directed them to the proper road. The last truck in the convoy then picked them up. In this case, I drew the first position. That is to say, I was the first one off the truck.

While it was late, the moon was shining brightly, and I could make out some houses down the road from the junction where I was standing. I will admit to being a little sleepy, but after I had been there awhile, I heard the crack of a rifle, and a bullet missed me by a few inches and crashed into a concrete culvert near where I was standing. I dived off the road into the grass around the culvert, and then slowly peered out to see if I could see my attacker.

I was not only scared, I was mad. I took the safety off my carbine and leveled it towards the houses down the road. I thought the round had to come from an upper window, and I fired off a magazine or two into the top floor windows of about four of the houses. I believe the houses were about two hundred yards away. I didn’t expose myself again until the convoy came by. Then I jumped out into the road and waved them to turn right in my best imitation of a Military Policeman. The last truck picked me up, and as we passed the houses, I fired a few more rounds directly into the upper windows.

Since I was the first one off the truck, I was also the first one to get back on. The convoy moved along for a while, and suddenly, I noticed that we hadn’t picked up any more road guards. I also noticed a burning tank, a farmhouse that was aflame, and most of all; I heard the sound of a firefight ahead. I started to get nervous. The thought occurred to me that, in my fear and anger back at my corner, I might have turned the convoy in the wrong direction. If this road was taking us toward the German lines, I was in a lot of trouble.

Well, it wasn’t long until they picked up the next guy, then I knew I was home free. The reason there hadn’t been any guards picked up earlier was that they were on every corner in the next village we came through. I was the most relieved guy you ever saw.

I believe it was 1st Lt. Sinclair, our Assistant S-2, who saw me the next morning and asked me why I fired off those rounds the night before. I told him my story. He really took it seriously. We got out the map, and I showed him exactly where it happened. He called back to Group, relayed the information, and they sent a squad in there to check it out. Sure enough, they found four Krauts in one of the houses, and one was badly wounded.

We did not leave this town until about 2330 hours the next day. It had been a warm humid day, and I recall the huge cumulus clouds that seem to foretell rain. We spent most of the day cleaning our equipment and doing other necessary chores. It was different from most of our bivouacs in that we appropriated housing from the locals. We slept inside for the first time in nearly two months. During that time we had seen a lot of Normandy and France.

Colonel Gabriel had an unusual practice when we came to one of these small towns built along a road junction; the Colonel always drove around the town before he decided on a place to put his headquarters. I, along with some others, finally figured out the reason. He knew that the best house in town always belonged to the Mayor. He also knew that the house with the biggest manure pile in front would be the Mayor’s house. I don’t know if that is universally true or not, but I don’t think I ever saw it fail during our travels across France and Germany, as well. Somehow it seemed appropriate to him that his headquarters should be in the home of the leading citizen of the community.

I recall one town we came into one day. It was a typical small community of about 1,500 people. They gathered in the street as we passed cheering, laughing, and shouting, “Vive la Amerique, Vive la France.” They would usually toss flowers. This day the convoy paused to make sure of our directions, and the Colonel asked his driver, Calvin Smith, from New Iberia, Louisiana, to ask one of the locals where the Mayor lived. A young lady heard him and stepped up to his jeep and said in a voice ringing with emotion, “Mon General, do not fret yourself. Some of us speak English. I, myself, teach the language in our school.”

The Colonel, having been here in another war, realized the importance of being able to communicate with the natives. For that reason, he deliberately selected most of the key drivers in Headquarters Battery from a group of Cajuns that had been assigned to our battalion. They spoke French, or at least the Cajun dialect of French.

Not only that, but we found they had the best sense of direction of anybody. It was impossible to lose one of them in the woods, at night, or any other time. The Colonel said it was because most of them made their living fishing and trapping in the bayous among the trees and swamps of southern Louisiana. In addition, they were a delightful group of men. They were always ready to laugh, and they were also very emotional. If insults were cast their way, they would demand justice very quickly.

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We left the small town about 2330 hours in a convoy bound for wherever our orders took us. While it had not rained yet, the clouds had dropped lower, and it was extremely dark. Soon we heard the sound of artillery and mortar fire. Flashes were clearly visible, and we began to get a little nervous. The trucks would move slowly up the road and then stop. I found myself caressing my carbine as though it was the only friend I had. The farther we went, the scarier it got; and then suddenly, we pulled off the road, and it was announced that we would bed down here for the rest of the night.

No lights were allowed, and it was very dark. We stumbled around, got our bedrolls and tried to find a place to put them. Floyd Waldrop and I stumbled into a fence, so we put our sacks (bedrolls) down, rolled them out and promptly went to sleep. I was pleased to find a small mound at the head of my bedroll that served as a nice little pillow. Usually, I rolled up my field jacket and used it as a pillow. My “sack” had a flap on the top that was used to cover my face if it rained. Since it didn’t rain, it served as my pillow on top of the small mound.

We went to bed and slept a troubled sleep. The firefight going on around us was somewhat disconcerting, but as time passed, I became comfortable and dozed off. I awoke just before daylight when the First Sergeant came around and quietly woke us up. I got up and rolled up my “sack.” As I rolled it up, I noticed something very strange. The small mound I had used as a pillow was a cow chip. It never happened again.

From the vicinity of Nantes we proceeded east to Nogent, then north to Sezanne, then east again to Verdun. My imagination ran wild. I had read all the stories about World War I and the prominent place that Verdun had played. The Battle of Verdun was one of the bloodiest battles of all time. The city did not appear to have sustained much damage when we arrived. The Cathedral was still intact, along with most of the city. We went on through Verdun and stopped at a former Maginot Line fort called Fort De Landrecourt.

After a quick inspection, we decided to stay in the fort. It was the beginning of fall, and nights were getting pretty cool. I remember looking out the observation port of the fort and seeing a riot of color as the trees started to turn. Later on, we realized this was the last warm place we would see until March 1945.

I thought the fort was an interesting place. One could see how futile it was to hold the Germans back by hiding in huge concrete bunkers. The Germans just bypassed the place. Camping out in the fort, it didn’t take long before we discovered a whole battery of German 150mm Howitzers. In addition we found a cache of several hundred rounds of ammunition. You don’t have to have much of an imagination to know what happened next. We found the German firing tables and set up a fire direction center along with an observation post. Then we started shooting the German guns back at the Germans. We felt that was poetic justice.

Sometime during our stay of about a week, the Second Cavalry sent a reconnaissance platoon into an area between this fort and the Moselle River. Meanwhile we were happily shooting away without regard for ammunition supply or any restrictions. One of the cannoneers got the bright idea of forcing a C-Ration can around the nose of a shell, and then screwing the fuse in to hold it. We fired that round, and it made the most terrible noise you ever heard. The cavalry patrol thought the Germans had invented a new weapon and reported to their headquarters. We received a telephone message asking if we had heard it. Our guys decided that if it upset our troops that much, it must really be demoralizing to the Germans, so they set about fixing a number of rounds that way, and we fired the whole battery. That was the weirdest noise I have ever heard. The Colonel professed to be angry about it and made us stop, but I think he enjoyed it as much as we did. From this day on, the forts around Verdun and Metz became our main concern.

Our Nemesis Across the River

Fort Driant was one of many which ringed Metz and was built for the express purpose of keeping the Germans away from the old city of Metz. It was located about half way to Metz, which was a larger city on the east bank of the Moselle River. We moved to positions about nine miles from Metz and emplaced our guns behind some hills so they could not be seen from the forts that protected Metz. While it doesn’t even appear on most maps, the village of Buxieres became very important to us, because we were located about a mile outside of the village. Our mission was to shell a number of the forts that protected Metz. Troops from the 5th Infantry Division had forced a crossing of the Moselle, but the Germans were putting up stiff resistance, and our job was to get them out of those forts. It was a formidable task. On 9 September the war really started for us.

Our guns had been emplaced the night before. We had fired registration rounds, and had the area on the other side of the Moselle pinpointed. Meanwhile, we set about establishing our headquarters. Most of the time, the fire direction center, and the Colonel’s headquarters were one and the same. It was true in this instance. We cleared off a place in the forest, leveled it as best we could, and then erected a pyramidal tent. We had a small generator and established the necessary lighting within the tent. To enhance, the available light, we also painted the inside of the

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tent white. The tent leaked like a sieve when it rained, so we had to get another one. That is just one example of a good idea that didn’t work.

Glynn Waldrop and I had a “pup” tent for our living quarters. We dug down about eighteen inches, and put the tent over the hole, making it considerably roomier this way. Waldrop knew how to put saplings together for bed frames. Then we got some camouflage garlands, wove them into the frame, and voila, we had beds! We also got a powder can from one of the gun crews. After we cut out the end, we dug a hole from the outside into our tent. The powder can went in with the opening cut just large enough to put in small twigs and other things that would burn. We also used some of the extra powder left after some of our missions. We added these to the flames very carefully one or two at a time. They delivered a slow but very hot fire. We found it pretty cozy to have a fireplace in our tent. Most of the other fellows did the same thing.

Hulen B. Gentis, our supply sergeant, erected the supply tent after digging a hole about four feet deep. The large tent went over it. It was used as a supply tent and telephone switchboard room. A lot of poker was also played in the supply tent.

The New Artillery Shell

One Saturday morning in late October, Major Hannah told Waldrop, Lt. Esposito to go with us. He said further that Gabe (Lt. Col. Gabriel) had his own transportation and would meet us.

We thought this must be something very special, and so it turned out to be. Major Hannah got a weapons carrier; we piled in and drove to somewhere southwest of Metz. While I can’t remember exactly where it was, I do know we were positioned on a hill about 2,000 yards from some rolling countryside, one section of which had some rather dense woods.

There must have been two or three hundred other people there as well. After the assembled men quieted down, General Walton Walker, commanding General of XX Corps, got up and made an opening statement. He welcomed us and said the Army had obtained some new toys (his expression, not mine) that would be of great help in defeating the “damn Krauts.” Following him was a Brigadier General, whose name I do not recall, but he was XX Corps Artillery Commander. After a blustery speech, (he felt he had to be as commanding as General Walker) he introduced us to an Ordnance Major, who gave us the real scoop on these new toys.

Army Ordnance had come up with a new artillery fuse. The Major called it a Proximity Fuse. Upon firing, the shock broke a small vial of acid, which activated the radar. Indeed, that’s what it really was, a radar fuse. The signals it sent out bounced back to it, and when it got a prescribed distance from the ground, say 50 feet, it exploded in the air. There was a quiet murmur among the crowd, for everyone saw the immediate advantage to such a fuse.

We would no longer be concerned with the mechanical fuses we used at present. We had to estimate the time of flight and set a couple of seconds short of that on the fuse. This was known as “cutting the fuse.” In addition, we had to be aware of the contour lines on the map. Should the target be above or below our guns, we had to compensate for the difference.

After a short question and answer session, the major turned it over to General Walker, who announced that he had arranged a demonstration to show the effectiveness of the new shell. He used a battalion of 155mm Howitzers. The terrain in front of us was rolling hills and valleys. The battalion set these shells to explode at about 50 feet. As expected the shells burst above the ground, but the remarkable thing was that as they moved the fire down into a small valley, the shells continued to burst 50 feet above the ground. As they ascended the next hill, the bursting shells followed the terrain eat exactly 50 feet elevation.

The fields over which the shells burst looked like plowed fields. They had been thoroughly torn up. Our guys were enthusiastic about the possibilities. Colonel Gabriel said, “We’ll hit ‘em with the radar fuses, and when they jump into a hole, we’ll hit ‘em with WP (White Phosphorus). There’s no place to hide.”

We went back to the battalion and made plans to use these fuses as soon as they became available. They were very reliable, and we used all we could get from that point on.

The Messenger Caper

A lot of rounds were fired on the forts just across the river. Fort Driant was the nearest target. Occasionally we could see Germans on top of a cleared concrete gun emplacement sunbathing during the afternoons. One day about noon, we noticed a string of them coming out and strolling down one side, then back behind the fort. After watching fifty or sixty come by, we noticed heat rising from what we decided was their cooking equipment.

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After looking closely at our maps, we calculated the location of the area where we thought they were having lunch. Once the coordinates were determined, it was a simple thing to put one gun on the target and fire. We noticed ambulances coming up from the rear areas to the fort the rest of the afternoon. They never did it again.

We had a forward observer with the 80th Infantry Division who held the area immediately in front of our battalion down to the river’s edge. Very early one morning our forward observer heard a motorcycle coming down the highway on the other side of the river. He spotted the motorcyclist and saw him turn on a road leading up to the fort. This happened three days in a row. So, we decided that we would give him a big surprise the next morning.

The evening before, we registered a gun on the road junction. We obtained a direct hit, so, we knew we could do it again the next morning. Sure enough, we heard the motorcycle coming as though he was on a schedule. We knew the time of flight of our shell was 48 seconds to the point of impact. We estimated how long it would take the motorcycle to get from a certain point to the intersection. At that point we fired the weapon. Sure enough, he rolled up to the intersection, and just as he arrived, so did the shell.

Smoke and dust were everywhere, and as the wind moved the dust away, he was seen dusting himself off. He got his motorcycle up and running and went on to the fort. The infantry guys really let us have it. “Hey, whaddya got in that thing, powder puffs?”

The next morning the infantry sent a patrol down to the river, and when the motorcyclist arrived, they took him just as he got to the turn in the road. The Germans never sent another motorcycle down the road.

The Debacle of the Bath

The advance toward Germany stalled on the Moselle River. It proved to be extremely difficult to get across and maintain a bridgehead. September flew by. Fort Driant continued to be a pain in the neck, but no less so than Fort Jean d’Arc. There were also two other forts of a group known as the Grand Fortresses Verdun. We fired on all of them with a lot of observed effect, but they never quit shooting back. The Air Corps came over and dropped a bunch of 500-pound bombs on them, but that didn’t do the job either. It became apparent that it would be necessary for the infantry to get over there and root them out.

As November came the weather began to deteriorate drastically, and it began to snow. The wind seemed to blow most of the time, and it was very uncomfortable. For reasons known only to themselves, the brass determined that we should be pulled out a few at a time and sent back somewhere near Verdun for a bath and new clothing.

A truckload of us arrived at the baths with great anticipation. We found the Quartermaster had chopped holes through the ice in a stream, put in pumps and heaters, and established a large shower room in a long tent. We put our personal belongs in a little bag, then went through a line where we were issued a new set of clothes. We then went into the shower. It really felt good as we bathed away the dirt and grime of the last couple of months. It seemed like a good thing at the time.

After we came out of the shower, we dressed in our new clothes and boarded the truck to go back to our unit; something seemed out of place. Suddenly, we all realized we were freezing. We had been out in the cold for over two months, and the shower was too much of a change. We finally decided that we had clogged all our pores as defense against the cold. At the same time, our clothes became saturated with dirt and sweat and served as a shield against the wind.

After that experience, as nice as it was, I didn’t take another bath until March 1945, nor did any of the rest of the men. It was too much of a jolt. I can only add that I didn’t notice anyone who turned his nose up when I came around. I can only conclude that not having a bath didn’t hurt a thing. Maybe there was a certain therapeutic value, because I didn’t have a cold or sore throat the whole winter.

I’m Sorry, I Didn’t Hear You

In late September on an unusually quiet day, Lt. Sinclair invited me, along with Billy Joe Watkins, to go up to our OP (Observation Post). We wanted to have a look at the terrain and see how it compared to our maps with which we had become very familiar. We left with the Lieutenant and his driver in a jeep about 1000 hours.

We drove for a while, parked the jeep, and then scrambled up and over the ridge at the top of a hill. It was wooded and the chances of being seen by the enemy were slight. After a short stroll we came to our OP. It had been dug into the ground. We had equipped it with a 510 radio and a telephone. In those days we used telephone communications whenever we could, because they were more reliable. Our wire crews had laid WD110 wire throughout the battalion and up to any OPs we had. Unless the wire was severed by a stray shell or run over by a tank, it provided very reliable communications.

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We stayed at the OP for several hours, firing a few missions and seeing our shells burst on or near the targets. It was a good day for us, for even though we fired the guns all the time, we were in fire direction and never had the opportunity to see the result. Sometime during the afternoon some German 88s fired on our position. After the first one, we could sense them coming, and we ducked down into our hole. On one occasion, I ducked down but left my fingers on top of the parapet. A fragment just nicked my left index finger, and I carry the scar to this day.

Driving back down the mountain, we wound along the road just as you would today. When we were nearly to the bottom, the road curved around one of the guns emplaced in B Battery. Just as we passed about fifty yards in front of the gun, the number one man pulled the lanyard. The concussion from the muzzle blast lifted our jeep off the road and put it in a ditch. Nobody was hurt except we couldn’t hear anything for a while. The Colonel was furious. If Billy Joe and I couldn’t hear, we couldn’t function in fire direction. B Battery Commander caught a lot of flack for that.

I thought the gun crew was innocent. Fire direction had given out a bunch of fire missions to be done at the battery’s discretion. They were interdiction missions on roads and the like. The idea was that the rounds needed to come in at any time, but not scheduled. Nonetheless, it took three or four days before we could hear very much.

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CHAPTER 6: The Winter of Our Discontent Digging in for the Fall

The days grew shorter as September turned into October. Early October saw all the leaves fall to the ground. We lived in the forest outside Buxieres for so long it almost became home. We built walks between the main tents and set up fields of fire for a perimeter defense. Our winter gear had been issued, and we were ready for a cold winter. Indeed, we learned later it was to be the coldest winter in Northern Europe for the past hundred years. We saw our first snow in early October.

We were encouraged, because we knew our enemies were suffering more than we were. We suspected, and later confirmed, that their living conditions were very primitive. Difficulty in getting supplies from the rear was the main reason for their discomfort. There were two reasons for this: (1) During the daytime, the Air Corps flew many missions to keep the railroads from running and destroyed most ground transportation on the roads, and (2) at night, the artillery and fired a tremendous number of rounds at road junctions. The results were gratifying. Our successes were confirmed on a daily basis by flights of our reconnaissance planes, known in military parlance as L-4 Grasshoppers.

Lt. Cy LeBlanc was one of our pilots. The FDC guys loved to fly with him and did so every time we got the chance. On a number of occasions the Germans refrained from firing on his airplane, because of the intense artillery fire that would result if they did. The threat of return fire didn’t always dissuade them. Our other aircraft was shot down, and we lost two fine men, Lt. Vern Emberts, and his observer, Lt. Anspach.

17 October was a good day for us. Lt. LeBlanc was flying up and down the river finding targets of opportunity. He observed a tank going east on a road leading away from Fort Driant. He called in a fire mission. “Codger, this is 62. I have a tank at 35.2-41.7. He’s moving slowly east. He will probably slow even more at the intersection up ahead. Let’s nail him.” We plotted his location, calculated all the data, and then called one gun from “C” Battery. “Fire Mission. HE, Fuse Delay, Charge 3, Elevation 457, Azimuth 1546. Fire when ready.” The response soon came, “On the way.” This was substantiated by the deep boom of the gun as it fired.

We reported to the Lieutenant that the round was “on the way” and the time of flight was 43 seconds. When it landed, he noted the position, made an adjustment, “Left 50, Add 100, Fire for Effect.” The adjustment was made very quickly, and the round, once again, was reported to him “on the way.” His response came back, “Hey, you ain’t gonna believe this, but I think we dropped that one in the top of the turret. It has exploded. Scratch one Tiger.”

One morning the Group Commander called Colonel Gabriel. “Gabe, I’ve been given the job of firing on a new series of forts north of Metz and into the city itself. We’ve got a battery of 8” Guns, but I need a battery of your 240s. Can you help us?”

“Hell, yes. When and where do you want ‘em, Colonel?”

“Well, no later than noon tomorrow. I need them at coordinates ______. Tell you what I’ll do, Gabe. I’ll give you a battery of captured Schneider-Creusot 155mm howitzers to play with, as well. We captured them last week, and you might as well put them to good use.”

“Colonel, I will detach Able Battery under the command of Captain Fred Perry. I will instruct him to report to you by phone before he leaves his present position. We look forward to having a good shoot with you.”

“Thanks, Gabe, see you soon.”

Well, Able Battery moved out as soon as they could and joined 90th Division Artillery. This was an unusual move. The 270th was controlled by the Third Army and XX Corps, but the 90th Division had its own artillery. We were just attached for this mission. They reported that they had lots of targets and fired more rounds than they had during our entire time in France to date.

One of the more interesting shoots involved a rail gun the Germans kept in a tunnel near Metz. They would roll out the gun, fire into our rear areas, and then roll it back into the tunnel. Battery “A” undertook the mission of silencing that gun. They fired at both ends of the tunnel and collapsed a considerable amount of rock around the entrance. The Germans came in at night and opened up the track.

Eventually, the 90th Division Commander got tired of the continuing harassment from the gun, and called in the Air Corps. P-47’s armed with 500 pound bombs permanently closed both ends of the tunnel. It was dug out later and found to have been a gun that could shoot up to fifty miles but with very little accuracy. Anybody that got hit with it wouldn’t agree with that assessment.

Our days were filled with lots of fire missions. The 90th and 95th Divisions were having a difficult time crossing the Moselle River. Meanwhile the weather worsened. We had several days of cold rain followed by sleet and snow. While we had nice weather during the first two weeks of October, we really saw what a European winter

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looked liked the first week of November. That was when we packed up our gear and moved about thirty miles north to Thionville.

Our Command Post (CP) was set up in a schoolhouse. We ran all the communication lines through a window, hooked up our little generator for lights and became very comfortable. We even found places to put our sacks up- stairs in the same building.

1st Lt. John Hummer was one of our best officers. A former high school football coach in Hershey, Pennsylvania, Lt. Hummer knew how to relate to all the young men in our battalion. While he was older than we were, he was still a pretty good athlete, and he performed all the physical exertions of the younger men.

Just after we arrived in Thionville and set up our Fire Direction Center, Lt. Hummer went off with one of our wire trucks. I think Harry Bennett was the driver. The mission was to set up a forward observation post close to the river. Lt. Hummer selected a protected place behind a wall at the river bend. As they pulled wire down the road, they were seen by the Germans and fired upon with mortars. Harry dived into a hole, and Lt. Hummer fell in on top of him. Harry didn’t know the Lt. was wounded until he felt blood running over his shoulder. It was too late. 1st Lt. John Hummer died doing his duty. I never served under a finer officer or gentleman.

In one of our firing locations, our guns were shelled by German counter-battery fire. While they didn’t do any permanent damage, it was not pleasant to be on the receiving of an artillery barrage. I recall that some of our gun crews made a rectangle out of six of our shells and slept between them for protection against enemy shrapnel.

Metz had become an increasing source of irritation, just as it had for hundreds of years before to others who tried to take the “Fortress City”. XX Corps, of which we were now a member, was given the unenviable task of taking Metz. Despite the many wars that had raged around its portals, Metz had been taken by storm on only one occasion-in 451 A.D. by Attila the Hun! Instead of a frontal assault, Allied planners believed it would be easier to cross the Moselle River both north and south of Metz avoiding its ring of forts.

Our main task was to give general support to the tanks and infantry crossing the river, but we also engaged in one of the most interesting bits of action during the war. Selected personnel from “B” and “C” Batteries took over a fortress on the west side of the River. Its name was Guentrange, one of the Maginot Line forts overlooking the valley in the vicinity of Thionville. There were two batteries of guns installed in the fort, roughly equivalent in size to our 105mm and 155mm howitzers. When we looked at the site, we realized that we could pour observed fire all along the east bank of the Moselle, much to the chagrin of the Germans, who were trying desperately to hold it.

At one point in the battle, our Fort provided the only artillery support available to units of the 90th Division as they forced a crossing of the river. Earlier, our Battalion CP and Fire Direction Center had been established in another Maginot Line fort named Immerhof. The battle raged for several days, but in the end we prevailed. As our troops circled around Metz to the east, the Germans trapped in the city had great difficulty escaping.

The 270th packed up once again and crossed the river at Thionville. We turned north and spent a cold, rainy Thanksgiving Day in a muddy bivouac near Kirsch-les-Sierck. Here we experienced our greatest difficulty in getting our guns emplaced. The mud was atrocious. We had to build a couple of roads into the firing positions using saplings tied together with wire. I saw some of our equipment buried so deep that even the tanks and bulldozers couldn’t get them out. It was a mess.

We eventually succeeded in getting the guns installed, and at 1641 Hours on the afternoon of 24 November, we fired the first round at a target within the prewar German border. The honor of pulling the lanyard on “A” Battery’s No. 1 Gun went to Prince Consort Felix of Luxembourg. While we were still in Northern France, our location was but a stone’s throw from his royal palace in Luxembourg. Since I was down in FDC, I didn’t get to see Prince Felix’s shot, but the guys in “A” Battery said he seemed well pleased with the honor accorded him. His parting comment was, “You are the black dragons over Europe.” Maybe that’s not profound, but that’s what he said.

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PHOTOS

Just after finishing the obstacle course with live fire from .30-caliber machine guns. L to R: Bert Ballengee, Charles Kelly, and Francis Roussell. Sgt. Kelly never allowed himself to do anything that would get his clothes dirty.

The Aquitania as she looked coming into Greenock harbor, 13 April 1944.

  L to R: Zeb Wilson, Glynn Waldrop, and Dub Lewis ham it up in front of our hut at Packington Park. The hut was filled with double-decker steel cots. We could have lights at night, but the small push-out windows had to be kept closed

During basic training at Camp Butner. L to R: Bert Ballengee, Paul Davis, Eugene Lockwood, and Ridgley Moise.

Farmers came out of the hedges to cheer us on. They often gave us cognac or flowers if we slowed down. The smoke is coming from a burning German tank

As we turned south from Coutances, this scene greeted us. It was the smashed vehicles, guns, and other matériel were everywhere. complete and utter destruction of a German unit. Dead horses, men,

The M-35 prime mover could, and did, tow its load at 45 mph during the breakout from St. Lô in July 1944.

 

Horses and wagons seemed to make up a large part of German transportation. It hurt to see hundreds of dead animals lying beside the road.

The M-35 prime mover had a hard top that fit over the empty turret position to provide some protection from the weather. It came complete with its own .50-caliber machine gun.

 

Good shot of a 240 being towed by an M-35.

This photo shows both the tube and the gun carriage on their respective transporters. 

One of our tubes on its transporter. I can’t quite make out the name painted on the side. This photo gives some idea of the relative size of a 240.

The code name for our battalion was “Codger.” This L-4 Grasshopper observation plane, call sign “Codger 62,” was flown by Lt. Cy LeBlanc.

 

This well-known photo from the National Archives depicts a 240mm howitzer belonging to the 697th FA Bn in Italy. It’s definitely not one of ours — we were not allowed to put our fingers in our ears! The No. 1 man (with his fingers in his ears) controlled the elevation of the tube. The man sitting on the left controlled the azimuth and deflection of fire The men in the background loaded shells and powder. The cameraman would have moved to the gun’s flank before firing.  blast at the point where the photo was taken would have been intolerable.

Cannoneers of the 269th FA Bn ram home a shell.

 

We had a battery of anti-aircraft guns attached to our battalion. One of their weapons was a quad-.50-caliber machine gun like the one shown here. The battery was commanded by Capt. Kane, who was promptly nicknamed “Killer.”

Cpl. Edwin Dement drove the command car for our battalion executive officer, Maj. Arnold. The major received a Silver Star for leading the battalion across France. Dement thought he should have received the Silver Star, too, because was in front of the major all the way. Everybody agreed with Edwin.

 

Baker Battery cannoneers posing near Thionville. This was the muddiest place we encountered. I regret being unable to identify any of the men.

In small French villages, the house with the largest manure pile invariably belonged to the mayor. This piece of information was valuable. If we were going to stay in the village for a while, Lt. Col. Gabriel liked to get acquainted with the mayor. The Colonel always got the best accommodations and the best cognac. The troops shared in the mayor’s largess.

 

L to R: Bert Ballengee, Elmer Nolen, Lewis Pool, and Billy Joe Watkins

somewhere in France. We look as though we hadn’t had a bath in a month. We hadn’t.

Empty a trailer, cover the inside with a tarp, heat water with a mess kit washer, pour the water into the trailer, and voilà, a bathtub. Use only in summertime.

 

George Henderson and I pocketed a substantial amount of cash for our efforts making book on the 1944 Kentucky Derby. “Pensive” was the winner, by the way

Don Carter, from Clayton, New Mexico, looks over the remains of a 150mm German howitzer we destroyed north of Metz.

 

Stan Standarsky with “his crane.” Believe me, it was his crane. One had but to ask him. He treated that crane like a child. It never failed him.

Lt. Col. Gabriel’s trailer. I don’t know who liberated the trailer, but the Colonel made it his quarters most of the time after Hersfeld.

 

Lt. Col. Gabriel in his office at Bad Aibling, Germany. While he didn’t showvery often, he had a dry wit and a sparkle in his eye. To the outsider, he was all it business.

Lt. Col. Gabriel beside his command car, 3A-270FA-1. It was equipped with an SCR-608 vehicular radio and operator, who also rode shotgun.

 

Staff Sergeants Bob Burgoyne (left) and Bob McDonald. Both Michiganders part of the original cadre of the 270th FA Bn.

Yours truly, basking in the sun on VE Day. We were a pretty happy group.

 

Carl Stone (right) from Sherman, Texas, was one of our Jeep drivers. That’s me on the left. We are standing in front of a pseudo-Greek temple in Hersfeld. I remember the stone having a greenish color. We camped nearby awaiting orders that turned us south towards Regensburg.

Most of the Fire Direction Center crew. Standing, L to R: J.J. Cosgrove, Gerhard P. Steppke, and Bert Ballengee. Front row: L to R: Paul Anderson,Blackie Armor, and Elmer Nolen. How Blackie got in there, I’ll never know. Elmer drove our truck all over Europe. I guess Floyd Waldrop took this picture.

 

Glynn Waldrop’s German paratrooper boots display their shine on VE Day. The odd purple color may have been shell cordovan, but at that late date in  the war, they were probably ersatz something or other.

Charles Leidenfrost reading a newspaper in Regensburg. He wore one of our uniforms with all insignia removed and a white band around the right sleeve.

 

We had about 3,000 German nurses and “Flak Wacs” in a separate laager in Regensburg. Flak Wacs were women recruited to operate anti-aircraft guns. The toughest job was keeping the men in the other laagers from getting through the barbed wire and paying a visit to the ladies.

These Germans have been processed and are on their way home, courtesy of the U.S. Army. These were ordinary German soldiers with no ties to the SS.

 

Floyd Waldrop (left) was not happy in this photo in Regensburg. One of the PWs had just made him mad and he wanted to talk about it. I told him where to find the chaplain.

Looking out from the picture window shown in the photo at left. The building had been thoroughly looted. Even chunks of plaster had been torn off the walls as souvenirs.

 

This Russian Orthodox Church was located on a small island in Lake Königsee. The only access was from the electric boat on which we toured the lake.

I am sitting on the terrace outside Hitler’s den, the big room to my right, at Berchtesgaden. Thousands of GIs carved their names and other graffiti on the stucco walls. The view of the Austrian Alps was beautiful.

The man who piloted the electric boat on Lake Königsee played Bavarian folk tunes on his cornet. The notes reverberated off the granite walls and across the lake.

The ballroom of the Yacht Club at Herrsching. Hardwood floors and ship models were the most prominent features.

 

Billy Joe Watkins was one of the smartest and most trustworthy guys I knew. This photo was taken sometime after his erstwhile fencing match with Charles Leidenfrost.

The thirty-foot motor launch reserved for use by the mayor of Herrsching. I renamed it “Rattlesnake,” code name of the 36th FA Bn, and had the name painted in white-on-red along the side of the boat.

 

Glynn Waldrop became one of my closest friends. I don’t know when he became known as Glynn. We called him Floyd. I’ve used the names interchangeably in this book.

Len Kunze from Cleveland, Ohio. Len was one of my tech sergeant friends in the 242d FA Bn. He was an 80th Division Infantryman that survived.

The hotel where my new outfit, the 36th FA Bn, lived in Starnberg. Ray Spruitt and I lived in Herrsching. We had complete freedom to do what we wanted over there. 

One of our 240s, nicknamed “Bob’s Babe” for Capt. Robert Ray, permanently emplaced along the Artillery Walk at the Museum, Fort Sill, Oklahoma. The serial numbers on the carriage (B-47745YZ) and tube (D4768182V) 

CHAPTER 7: Battle of the Bulge

The 16th of December came just as any other day. We fired the usual number of rounds at targets pre-selected by XX Corps Headquarters. It was still cold. Snow was everywhere. Military vehicles could barely move, even in four-wheel drive. Everything was absolutely miserable. We got a message from our forward observer with the 10th Armored Division that something was afoot just north of them. They didn’t know what, but we were requested to be on the alert.

A few minutes later our switchboard lit up like a Christmas tree. A major battle had been joined just north of us in the Ardennes forest. We were told the Germans attacked in some force, as yet unknown. We were also told to double the guard on our outposts. We were to do the preliminary planning for fire missions to the north of our positions. This would necessitate moving our guns about thirty degrees (660 Mils) to the left of their present location so we could meet the new threat.

The 10th Armored Division was ordered to dig in and hold their positions. Our battalion was on the southern shoulder of the attack. We were not to allow it to spread to the south. Later, as communications got a little better, we learned the Germans had, indeed, attacked through the Ardennes. They had used the same route in World War I under the Schlieffen Plan (as modified by Moltke) and again earlier in this war, when Guderian drove his panzers through the area during the Blitzkrieg invasion of France in 1940. This time they chose to attack because the area was populated by some of our newest troops, not yet blooded in battle, along with veterans who had been pulled out of the line for rest and new equipment. The Ardennes was also located at the junction between the First and Third U.S. Armies.

Meanwhile the weather continued to deteriorate. Low clouds hung over northern Europe and made flying impossible. It was at this time that General Patton called in the Third Army Chaplain and said, “Padre, I want you to write a prayer for better weather, so we can kill some Germans.” The Chaplain was somewhat taken aback and responded, “Well, General, that is not the normal way to pray. We never pray that we may be allowed to kill human beings...defeat them, yes, but kill them, no.” General Patton looked at him with narrowed eyes and said, “Padre, I want that prayer by 2300 hours tonight. It will be published and sent to all the troops. Now, if you feel you can’t do that, then you are relieved, and I’ll get me another Chaplain who can.” He got the prayer, and it was duly published and sent to the whole army. We got it on 24 December 1944.11

With the development of the battle, the U.S. Third Army was ordered to turn its attention to the north and attack the German southern flank. We were located on the southern edge of the attack, the shoulder as it were. Further plans for the development of the bridgehead over the Saar River were abandoned, and we were ordered to withdraw across the river and take up defensive positions along the west bank.

The weather, our real enemy, had turned abominable. We withdrew, but the trucks and tanks had great difficulty on the icy roads. We were in that portion of the Third Army assigned the task of making life miserable for the German flank. Colonel Gabriel kept our mission in mind as we withdrew. He was pretty testy during the trip, because he never liked the idea of withdrawing from anything. He made every effort to get in touch with General Patton and convince him that we needed to be in the middle of the tanks moving north toward Bastogne.

We set up our headquarters in a small village called Waldweistroff on 21 December. There we found a barn that was surprisingly warm. I think the cattle resented our intrusion, but c’est la guerre. Winter descended upon us in earnest at this point. I recall when we went to our outposts; we wore everything we could get our hands on. General Patton passed the word that it was good to pin an extra pair of socks under your armpits, and wrap a wool scarf around your stomach.

Our Battalion Surgeon, Captain Roger Michaels, had been an Obstetrician and Gynecologist as a civilian. He made a habit of going to the mayor of every town or village we entered. He would ask him if there were any pregnant women in the town and offered his services for both pre-natal and post-natal problems. Almost invariably there were two or three who needed some kind of attention. On this occasion there was a mother-to-be ready for delivery. The Captain took a couple of medics and went to her home. There he delivered a healthy boy. The following day some of the ladies in the town brought a beautiful cake to him and told him they had named the baby Roger Michaels Dessault. Captain Michaels was very touched by the attention.

Another interesting thing we discovered was that the only bakery in our town normally supplied about five or six surrounding villages with bread. Since we allowed no French on the roads at that point, one of our wire-truck

11 “Almighty and most merciful Father. We humbly beseech Thee, of Thy great goodness, to restrain these immoderate rains with which we have had to contend. Grant us fair weather for battle. Graciously, harken to us as soldiers who call upon Thee that, armed with Thy power, we may advance from victory to victory, and crush the oppression and wickedness of our enemies, and establish Thy justice among men and nations. Amen.”

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drivers named Charlie Hamm was given the job of driving bread to the other villages about every other day. He took on the job with great relish. It was only after the third day when he didn’t show up at the bakery that we found out why he was so enthusiastic. It seemed he was charging each of the villages a bottle of cognac as his delivery fee.

That was all right, I suppose, but what got him in trouble was that he tried to drink it all. I thought the Colonel was going to skin him alive. The Colonel said, “By God, Hamm, you go to your quarters and don’t you come out until I tell you to. If I had a stockade here, you’d be the first occupant. By God, I may just transfer you to the infantry, but they probably wouldn’t have you, you low-life, bow-legged, bug-eyed son-of-a-soldier. Get outta of my sight before I throw up.”

We missed Charlie three days later. Somebody went to a little room on the third floor of a house where he stayed. He was in the room. He had nothing to eat, and he looked like death warmed over. The Captain went to see the Colonel and ask him if we might get Hamm out, feed him, and put him to work digging latrines or something. The Colonel had completely forgotten about him. He relented, but he did tell the Captain that if Charlie ever even looked like he was going to do that again, he’d have him shot.

Sometimes, when the weather got unusually bad, there was little if any fighting. Everyone just tried to survive the bone-chilling cold. I recall one day a storm hit us sometime in the afternoon. Snow came down heavily for two or three hours, after which it changed to an icy sleet. The temperature was near zero. I didn’t have a thermometer, but I know it was very cold. The only warm place was in the CP, and that wasn’t very comfortable. We scrounged a coal stove and found some coal to use. It was reasonably warm as long as you could stay within a few feet of it.

We were a nervous group. We were well aware of the events just north of us. While we had every confidence that we would drive them back, we did not want the Germans turning south. The rumor of a slaughter at Malmédy, which turned out to be true, didn’t help matters any. We also learned of General McAuliffe’s response to the German ultimatum to surrender Bastogne. His response of “Nuts” will long be remembered. We knew there were other words he said to them that were probably unprintable. So, we fired lots of ammunition every day and hoped to convince the Germans not to come towards us. Even so, we were faced with beefing up our own security just in case the unthinkable happened.

We maintained outposts around the town, and each of us had guard duty on some schedule made up by the First Sergeant. I drew a shift from 2000 to 2200, which was very good, because I knew I would get a good night’s sleep. Nobody in his right mind would try to fight on a night like this one. Yet, it was on a similar night that the Germans started the Battle of the Bulge with an attack through the Ardennes.12 I went in and put on all my clothes- nearly everything I owned, got my carbine, and headed out with A. D. Porter, a radioman, who was to stand guard with me. In our hole, we had a .50 Caliber machine gun, but it was so cold I doubted it would operate.

Nonetheless, I identified myself to Harry Bennett and John Heath, whom we relieved. They were anxious to get back, but they did take the time to tell us there was absolutely nothing out there tonight. I felt a great deal of apprehension anyway.

The gun pit was about three feet deep and about two-thirds filled with snow. The wind howled and blew straight into my face. The sleet continued to come down, although I don’t think it fell as much as it was blown parallel to the ground. I noticed that drifts were beginning to form. Even when Harry was there we had trouble talking above the howling gale. It was difficult just to stand up. Incidentally, one of the guys, I don’t remember which one, tumbled into a snowdrift and nearly suffocated, because he couldn’t get up. He had on so many clothes it made movement almost impossible.

Looking around, I thought it was impossible to imagine a more desolate place. The cold wasn’t just some minor annoyance. It tore at you, slapped you across the face, and made you feel that nature didn’t want you here. All the elements conspired to tell you to go away, get out of the wind, sleet and snow. I first felt the cold in my feet, and I knew I hadn’t been out there more than fifteen minutes.

While we both wanted to curl up in the bottom of the hole and protect ourselves as well as we could, we knew it was impossible. We couldn’t see anything but white. The tree line, which was about a half mile away, was invisible. I couldn’t imagine anyone being out on a night like this with intent to do me harm. After all, I reasoned, they had to be as cold and miserable as I was. But, what if they were out there somewhere? So, A.D. and I took turns standing and looking into the night while the other dropped down in the hole for fifteen minutes at a time.

We had to stay alert to warn our guys. Every fifteen minutes we had a telephone check. I felt I was on some hostile planet until the phone rang. Then I was jerked back into the reality of the present.

Two hours later, when J.J. Cosgrove showed up with Bob McDonald, we were nearly frozen solid. Both of us walked back to the CP on frozen stumps. I know I couldn’t feel anything. When I went inside and shed some of my

12 It was 14°F at 0530 when the battle began on 16 December 1944. The battle ultimately involved 600,000 German, 500,000 American, and 55,000 British troops.

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outer clothing, I felt a peculiar stinging sensation on my face. Steppke saw me and yelled for a medic. It seems that the sleet had sliced open the exposed portions of my face. The blood had frozen immediately; when I came in from the cold, it started bleeding again in the warm air. My face had a lot of small red lines. As I recall I got a minor frostbite on some toes that night.

That may have been the occasion when General Patton sent down a command that each man was to get a buddy, sit down facing him, and rub each other’s feet. He also demanded we put on dry socks every day. I still think the part about rubbing the feet is a good idea.

Even while the Battle of the Bulge raged, plans were being made to take the offensive again and clean out the Saar-Moselle triangle13, a portion of which was still held by the Germans. Sometime in January, the Germans brought in their famed Gespenster, or Ghost Division, noted for its ability to move quickly, maul an opponent, and then steal away before a counter-attack could be organized. It didn’t work quite the way they intended. Eventually they withdrew so badly decimated they were hardly recognizable as a division.

While the weather was ever present in our thoughts, it began to get a little better in January 1945. As the weather improved, so did our spirits. We had been in Waldweistroff long enough, and we were eager to get on with the job.

We began to move once again, and this time our job was to support the 94th Infantry Division and the 10th Armored Division as they commenced a drive to take Saarburg and Trier, bridge the Saar River again, and press on across the Palatinate. We moved very quickly to Ritzing, France, then on to Dittlingen, Germany, and from there to Saarburg. After the triangle had been cleared, we crossed the Saar River and set up shop in the village of Oberemmel.

We were moving pretty fast at the time, but we entered the little town and set up business in one of the quaint little buildings. I had worked all night the night before and was permitted to sleep much of the day. About 1600 hours I arose, ate something, and wandered down to the switchboard to see what was happening. It was dug into a small basement. It was not unusual for a poker game to be in progress, so I thought I would play a few hands before I went back to Fire Direction.

Someone sat a glass of water down in front of me and in due time, I took a big swallow. It wasn’t water. It was potato schnapps, which looked innocent but carried the wallop of a tank. I gagged and spit, but the damage was done. Everybody got a good laugh. I got up and left. The CP was a busy place. There were Germans all around, and we were attacking wherever we could. I jumped into fire direction and went to work. About 2300 hours, I became deathly ill. Floyd Waldrop took over for me, and I went outside. I recall a small garden. I just lay down and threw up. As I became a little more comfortable, I just went to sleep. To this day I don’t know why, but I did.

The Germans attacked the town around midnight. We were ordered to withdraw immediately and proceed to Wawern. The men packed all our gear, and threw it in the trucks. Meanwhile, I slept on, blissfully unaware of the drama unfolding around me. At the last minute, J. J. Cosgrove and Glynn Waldrop remembered where I was, and they carried me to the truck. They poured me over the tailgate, jumped in, and we took off. As the Germans came in one end of town, we left from the other.

I woke up enough to know we crossed a small stream and eventually came to Wawern. Once again, our gear was unloaded, and we set up business in another building. Major Hannah said I looked like hell, and told me to get some sleep. When I returned, the situation had stabilized. We fired a number of missions, and then moved once again.

From this location we offered fire support to the 10th Armored Division, and the 94th and 26th Infantry Divisions. Our “C” Battery was detached from us while we were here, and assigned to the 243rd Artillery Battalion. This battalion had 8” guns as its primary weapon. Those guns could be fired 36,000 yards, but without a much accuracy. At the same time, they sent us their “A” Battery which consisted of two 8” Guns. We had a lot of fun firing them. I noticed a tremendous “Crraacck” when they fired, not the big deep “Whooom” we were used to hearing.14

13 XX Corps Commander, Major General Walton Walker, called General Patton and suggested that with the addition of an armored division and one infantry division, he could clean out the Saar Triangle and take Saarburg. He got them. He then proceeded to take Trier as well. This was the beginning of the Palatinate Campaign. See Patton, War as I Knew It, p. 388, “Earning My Pay” (1946).

14 Artillery weapons can be divided into guns and howitzers. “Guns” are generally considered high velocity, low angle weapons fired with single charges (although they can be fired with variable charges). “Howitzers” have lower muzzle velocities and fire variable charges at both high and low angles.

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Bastogne and Malmédy

These two words evoke many emotions in those who were there and in those who were reasonably close. Bastogne symbolized the ultimate in American fighting skills. All those who were there refused to give up. They refused to give a square inch of Bastogne to the Germans. Malmédy, on the other hand, evokes a sorrow that still lingers today. To be taken into a field and shot is something we cannot forget. After Malmédy the Germans found the war became much more difficult. The moral of the story is: Don’t ever arouse American anger, or you will pay dearly for it. When the battle of Bastogne began, it was not known that Bastogne would be the critical point at which the German offensive would grind to a halt. The ultimate goal of the Germans was to rush through the Belgian Ardennes, cross the Meuse River, and take the port of Antwerp. Antwerp, with its port facilities, was the point at which the Allies brought in military equipment, men, and matériel, including great quantities of gasoline.

The Germans knew all this; therefore, they intended to block the port and destroy it, preventing any further use by the Allies. They also needed gasoline in the worst way. They planned to take several depots to re-supply themselves and keep their tanks and trucks moving. Initially, they had some success, but as it became more obvious what their plans were, fuel dumps were moved or destroyed on the spot.

Success of this operation, called “Wacht am Rhein” by the Germans, depended on the ability to move quickly, exploit the element of surprise, and capture all the fuel dumps possible. The Battle began on 16 December at 0530 hours. The temperature was -10o C (or 14o F) Most of the pressure for the success of the German battle plan rested on the 6th SS Panzer Army of General Sepp Dietrich and the 5th Panzer Army of Hasso von Manteuffel. Dietrich was one of Hitler’s favorites. He was merciless, and during his tour in Russia, he was alleged to have ordered the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Kharkov. Hitler brought back Dietrich specifically for this operation

One of Dietrich’s minions was 29 year-old SS Obersturmbannführer (the SS rank equivalent of Lt. Col.) Jochen Peiper. He commanded a regiment in the 1st SS Panzer Division. His troops had earned the nickname of “Blowtorch Battalion” after burning their way across Russia and slaughtering hundreds of civilians in two separate villages. On 16 December, Peiper’s troops spotted a truck convoy of Battery B of the 285th Field Artillery Observation Battalion. They opened fire, disabling the leading vehicles. The outgunned Americans abandoned their vehicles and surrendered.

The captured soldiers were herded into a field. An SS tank commander ordered an SS Private to shoot the prisoners. This set off a wild killing spree as the SS opened fire with machine guns and pistols on the unarmed, terrified PWs. Survivors were killed by a shot in the head, in some cases by an English-speaking SS officer who walked among the victims asking if anyone was injured and needed help. Those who responded were shot. A total of 81 Americans were killed in the single worst atrocity against U.S. troops during World War II in Europe.

After the SS troops moved on, three survivors reached American forces at Malmédy and reported the massacre. News quickly spread among U.S. troops that “the Krauts are shooting PWs.” This made the German position even more difficult. American troops held positions they might otherwise have given up. Since the war, rumors have circulated that after the discovery of the bodies at Malmédy, American troops were ordered to take no SS prisoners for one week. These rumors have never been substantiated, but certainly there was plenty of animosity towards the SS.

By January 1945, U.S. troops then reached the sight of the massacre, now buried under two feet of snow. Mine detectors were used to locate 81 bodies, which had rested undisturbed since the day of the shootings and had frozen into grotesque positions. Forty-one of the bodies were found to have been shot in the head.

After the surrender, 74 former SS men, including Jochen Peiper and Sepp Dietrich, were tried by a U.S. Military Tribunal for war crimes at Malmédy. The trial included testimony from a survivor who was able to identify the SS soldier who fired the first shot.

All the defendants were found guilty. Forty-three, including Peiper were sentenced to death, and twenty-two, including Dietrich, were sentenced to life imprisonment. In typical fashion, Cold War political considerations intervened, and the sentences were commuted. Dietrich was released in 1955, but rearrested and charged with further murders under German law. Released for the last time in 1959, he died of a natural causes in Ludwigsburg in 1966.

Peiper was released in 1956. Unable to escape his past, he was forced to leave a series of jobs in Germany. He immigrated to the French village of Traves in 1972, calling West Germany “a morally bankrupt society.” In June 1976, Peiper began to receive anonymous death threats. He was not intimidated. On 14 July 1976 (Bastille Day in France) Peiper’s house was destroyed by fire. Firefighters responding to the blaze found their water hoses had been cut. His body was found inside, next to a pistol and rifle that had been fired. Despite evidence of a crime, no one was prosecuted for his death. This was a fitting end for the commander of the “Blowtorch Battalion.”

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CHAPTER 8: Remember, Pillage Before You Burn

It became obvious to us that the war just couldn’t last much longer. With each passing day we saw more prisoners headed toward the rear area. Sometimes there would be a hundred or more led by a military policeman in front and one bringing up the rear.

I recall thinking about the fact that many of the Germans looked much like we did. They were obviously tired, hungry and, I’m sure, had a strong desire to get home. Some of them were only about twelve or thirteen years old. Some were old men in their sixties who had been conscripted at the last moment for Der Deutscher Volksturm,15 a loose translation of which is “German People’s Militia.” We wondered how these sorry-looking, dirty, unkempt men could call themselves soldiers, to say nothing of “Supermen.”

Early in March, the remaining elements of the German Army, which occupied the area I have called the Palatinate,16 found their positions untenable. Our part of the Third Army, which included the 94th, 65th, 80th, and 26th Infantry Divisions, along with the 10th Armored division and XX Corps Artillery (of which we were a member), was running unchecked throughout the area.17

Sometimes we became careless. One day we were halted in a small German village. Our trucks were in column, since we didn’t anticipate staying very long. There were very few people visible up and down the street. We saw an old man, stooped and bent with age limping along the sidewalk. He didn’t even look at us in our trucks. When he reached the end of the street, he turned left to cross the street. He limped out into the middle of the street, stopped, and began to pull a rifle from his trousers. Somebody saw him struggling with the rifle. A shout went up and one of the guys in the lead truck jumped up to the -mounted .50-caliber machine gun on the right side of the truck.

He jacked a round into the chamber of the .50-caliber. Several of the men yelled at the old man to stop, but no one was close enough to reach him. He finally got his rifle out, turned towards the column and started to shoot. It was the last thing he ever did. I don’t remember who fired on him with the machine gun, but he almost cut the old man in two.

It was hard for us to imagine anyone with the raw courage of this old man. He was obviously a real patriot in his own eyes, and he refused to give up no matter what the odds. We supposed that he just didn’t want to go on living and decided this was a good way to end it all. We didn’t feel very good about the incident.

The Germans were once again in full retreat, trying to scramble back across the Rhine. Nobody had crossed the Rhine in hundreds of years, and they deluded themselves into thinking they would be safe there. I think they believed they would have time to rest and rearm for the next phase. It’s a pity how their propaganda machine convinced them that secret weapons would save them from the Allied onslaught.

The role of my battalion became one of trying to keep up with the rapidly advancing armored divisions, just as we had done in the opening weeks of the breakout in Normandy. We crossed the Saar River again in the vicinity of Ober Zerf, then south to Bergen and Nunkirchen. We made a rapid advance east to Alsweiler, at which time we abandoned the chase and went into a bivouac at the village of Mackenbach, just a few miles northwest of Kaiserslautern. After a couple of days’ delay, we moved up to within 6 kilometers of the Rhine, going into position near the village of Ober-Olm, just a short distance from Mainz.

It was here we fired into the last pockets of German resistance on the east bank of the Rhine. These were the last rounds we fired in the war. The last round of our war was fired on the German held village of Barstadt at 0600 hours on the morning of 29 March. Twenty minutes later the village surrendered.

The following morning we left the control of the XX Corps Artillery and reverted to control of U.S. Third Army. At long last the need for heavy artillery had passed, so we moved to a spa called Bad Kreuznach where we were assigned to the Provost Marshal, and prepared our big guns for storage. The last I saw of them was the day in

15 The Volksturm included all males aged 16-60. The Volksturm was armed with whatever military weapons were available, often with captured weapons. The common assumption today is that the Volksturm didn't really amount to much. It is actually untrue to claim that the Volksturm was totally ineffective. Volksturm troops fought extensively on the Eastern Front, particularly in East Prussia, Breslau, along the Oder River and in Berlin. While often ineffective in prolonged combat, some Volksturm units fought well in local defense from static positions.

16 The word “Palatinate” describes either of two historical districts and former states of southern Germany. The Lower Palatinate — with which we are concerned here — is located in southwestern Germany between Luxembourg and the Rhine River. The Upper Palatinate is located in eastern Bavaria. Both places were named because they were once under the jurisdiction of “Counts Palatine,” officials of the Holy Roman Empire sent to report on remote regions owned by the crown and later made responsible for general governance and judicial administration.

17 Official Army unit designations use Arabic numbers except when referring to corps and armies. Corps are identified by Roman numerals (XX Corps), while army numbers are spelled out (Third Army).

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Bad Aibling when they were driven into an aircraft hangar-cum-warehouse and parked along with their prime movers.

Bad Kreuznach was a beautiful little city in a beautiful setting. A great many Germans came there every year to “take the waters” and relax for a few days. The waters were reputed to have therapeutic value. As far as I could tell, they just smelled of sulfur.

A stream ran through the town. There were a good many apartment houses. All the ones I saw were furnished. We took what we deemed to be the best one and made ourselves at home. I staked out a big German bed replete with a feather comforter. The only problem was I couldn’t go to sleep. The bed was too soft. Finally, I gave up, rolled my sack out onto the floor and slept like a baby the rest of the night.

John Heath found a beautiful set of silver. It was ornate with all kinds of filigrees and figurines engraved into it. I have no idea of its value, but it must have been worth thousands of dollars even in 1945. I suppose John thought that since we were the conquerors, we could take the spoils. He didn’t try to hide his conquest; but he showed it to anyone who expressed an interest.

John’s acquisition amounted to nothing more than looting. It was wrong. While Colonel Gabriel had left for a couple of days leave, Major Arnold, the executive officer who was in charge, issued an order that the appropriated silver should be brought to him, and that he, Major Arnold, would keep it safe from looters. No one believed that one. Major Arnold intended to take the silver and send it home. He would have done it, too if John let him get away with it.

John reasoned that if he couldn’t have the silver, nobody else would get it either. So, he got in his truck and drove off into the woods and up a mountainside. You’re right! He threw that silver set all over the side of the mountain one piece at a time. When he returned, he reported that he no longer had the silver and, therefore, could not comply with the order.

We received new orders the next morning, and the silver was a forgotten issue. The Battalion found itself operating some temporary Army Prisoner of War enclosures, first at Ecklsheim, a few miles southeast of Mainz; then at Oberursel, just north of Frankfurt and very near Bad Homburg. Our next stop was Hersfeld. I only remember Hersfeld, because it was on the highway to Berlin and was the northernmost point in Germany reached by our Battalion.

New orders took us to Laucha, on the autobahn between Eisenach and Gotha, and Kulmbach, a few miles north of Beyreuth (we spell it Bayreuth) and only about twenty-five miles from the Czechoslovakian frontier. Beyreuth is an interesting old city. It was the birthplace of Richard Wagner and the home of an annual festival conducted at the Festival Playhouse. The Playhouse is a memorial to the greatness of the German composer. Wagner is buried alongside the house where he lived and composed. I can’t say that I like his music very much, but he interested me in that he was the favorite composer of Adolf Hitler.

We also learned that Franz Liszt is also buried in the city. You see, the war started to turn into a holiday tour as soon as the fighting was over. While the war wasn’t yet officially over, there were only a few scattered pockets of resistance left. The German people I encountered were resigned to their fate. A few said they knew the war was over the day the Allies bombed Berlin. My response was that if that were true, they could have saved a lot of lives by quitting then and there. I was greeted with a shrug of the shoulders and the answer, “But it was Hitler, mein Herr.”

We traveled through Nuremberg en route to Regensburg where we were to set up one of the major prisoner of war camps. Nuremberg was also an interesting city. It had been almost totally destroyed by Allied bombing. Rubble covered every inch of the town except the streets. Usually, there was only room for two vehicles to pass along any of the streets. One could see women and old men cleaning bricks and stone, stacking it in a convenient place. I became convinced they intended to rebuild their city much the same as it was before.

You may recall the images of the stadium in Nuremberg as being the huge edifice where the Nazis liked to hold their big rallies. The stadium would, I suppose, hold perhaps two hundred thousand people. As I gazed at it I could almost hear the roar of the masses as they paid homage to Hitler. “Sieg Heil, Sieg Heil. Heil Hitler.” Hitler himself stood on a huge reviewing stand in front of the entire gathering. Those who helped him come to power, Goebbels, Goering, Hess, Speer, Heydrich, Himmler, and many others surrounded him. At the appropriate moment, the lights went out, and then other lights came on to illuminate thousands of German swastikas carried by the Hitler youth. Massed bands blared forth with Deutschland Über Alles.

At the end of the music, Hitler would step forward into a spotlight and began to speak. He raved and ranted, waving his arms about. While he paused for the cheering of the crowd, he would thrust out his chin and just stand there. He was a good orator, too.

When we went into the stadium, weeds had started to grow in the cracks of the concrete. The bombers had destroyed part of it. I have seen the newsreel photos of the first troops to the stadium. They planted explosives at the

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base of the huge swastika behind the reviewing stand. It was blown off its foundation and fell, broken into pieces, much the same as the empire Hitler dreamed about.

While I can’t explain why I did it, I walked up on the huge platform and stood at the very spot Hitler must have stood when he spoke to all those people. It was there that I could almost hear the roar of the huge crowd. When I returned from my reverie, I could hear only the wind blowing through all the rubble. “ A thousand years,” he said. Not likely. He lasted twelve years, and the only thing the German people had to show for it was a country decimated of young men, its industry completely destroyed, and hunger and disease raging throughout the land.

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CHAPTER 9: Ending a War

The Battalion was split up into four different units, each unit of which had responsibility for a number of prisoners. Headquarters was established in some buildings near the Regensburg airport. It had been bombed severely, both runways and buildings, and would not be used as an airport for some time to come. It was decided that this was an ideal place to put a prison camp. Our survey crews went to work and laid it out. Each pen, or “laager”18 as we called them, was to accommodate 10,000 prisoners. We were told to lay out eleven laagers. We ultimately received about 60,000 prisoners at this facility.

This seems simple enough, but one must remember when we took them prisoner, we also took the responsibility for feeding them. So the prison was laid out as shown below.

All the laagers were completely enclosed in barbed wire with only one exit. No housing was provided. The prisoners were responsible for their own tents, bedding, and any other personal items we let them keep. Upon their entry into the laager, all knives, cameras, and any other items considered to be good trading material were confiscated.

One must consider the problem of waste from 60,000 people. The camp design was such that laagers backed up to one another and a road ran down the middle between them. This road became known as “Honey Bucket Lane.” The Colonel and Captain Fillmer went into Regensburg and informed the Mayor that the city would be responsible for all waste removal. If they chose not to do that, the prisoners would carry it and dump it in the middle of the square at the site of the Mayor’s office. The Colonel’s threat was sufficient motivation, and the next day there were about twenty or thirty wagons lined up for hauling waste. Incidentally, they hauled it out to the fields and dumped it on the crops growing at the time. That seemed to be customary for Europeans to use that disposal method. We saw it throughout all of Europe, except in England.

Feeding 60,000 people was quite a chore. Luckily, we found two warehouses near Regensburg that were full of black bread, a German staple. Hundreds of thousands of loaves were stored there, each layer covered with sawdust. In an adjacent warehouse, we found tons of cheese. These foodstuffs were quickly appropriated and used to feed the prisoners. We also found a warehouse full of potatoes. Between the potatoes, bread, and cheese, we had adequate food for everybody.

Ten of the laagers were intended for German enlisted personnel. Our Command intended to process these people as soon as possible and transport them to a point near their homes. The eleventh laager was reserved for SS Troops. That was one of my interesting experiences in the war. We received a prisoner the first day that proved to be one Colonel Scholz, the former commander of the German equivalent of West Point. It was located near Bad Tolz, which became General Patton’s Headquarters.

Colonel Scholz was a tall slender man about thirty-five years of age. While his hairline was beginning to recede, he was quite handsome. His uniform was impeccably tailored, and he wore all his decorations, which were quite a few in number. Not only that, but he spoke excellent English. As we interviewed him, we discovered what a gem he really was. We told him we expected several thousand SS troops and that we would expect him to command them in the prison environment. He indicated he would be glad to do so.

The following day we were brought about two or three thousand SS. Even though they had been through hell, they marched into the camp in ranks with their heads held high. They duly reported to the Colonel, and he instructed their officers as to how they were to be organized in the laager. By nightfall, they had erected all their tents, including a larger tent for the Colonel. The tents were measured and aligned with adequate walking space in between. Even though they were prisoners, they had the best discipline I’ve ever seen. Within a few days we had our full complement of 10,000 SS troopers.

We hesitated to use them on work details at first, but Scholz convinced us they would be the best workers we had. Events proved his statement to be true. We sent them in to Regensburg to pick up rubble, and perform other jobs of manual labor. One day the corporal of the guard reported to me that one of the men had been seen stealing a C-Ration. He duly noted who it was, but didn’t say anything at the time. Upon returning to camp he told me about it, and I told the officer of the Day. As I recall it was Lt. Sinclair. We went down to the laager and confronted the Colonel. Colonel Scholz was absolutely livid.

Within ten minutes or so, the man was digging a four-foot by four-foot hole. The Colonel was a practical man. He needed his own private garbage disposal pit. The man dug furiously until it was finished. I thought it was a work of art. The sides were perpendicular, and it was an exact cube. After he finished, he was instructed to dig a hole next

18 The word “laager” comes from the Afrikaans, meaning a travelers’ encampment protected by a circle of wagons. Today, the term is used to refer to a military encampment or defensive position protected by a ring of armored vehicles. In hindsight, I’m not sure why we called the pens “laagers,” but that is what we called them.

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to it for a fence post about eight feet long. After he had emplaced the post and tamped down the earth, he was told to take off his shoes. A bucket was placed next to the post, and he was required to stand at attention on the rim of the bucket barefooted, his head against the post.

He was there all night. Early the next morning, he was taken down, put in his tent and confined to quarters for three days with nothing but water to drink. We never had another instance of an SS Trooper stealing anything.
As I remember, sometime the next day Colonel Scholz sent his regards to Colonel Gabriel along with an

invitation for him and the staff to be his guests at a program the SS would put on that night at 1930 hours — just about dusk. Somehow, they got enough wood to build wooden benches for us to sit on. After we arrived, the men who constituted the glee club formed and sang a program of choral music accompanied by a sergeant playing an accordion. It was a great program, and we enjoyed it immensely.

After it was over, Colonel Gabriel told him what a fine program it was and how impressed he was with the discipline displayed by the SS troops. Then he said, “Colonel, it is my duty to tell you that this performance in no way relieves these troops of the terrible obligation they have to our society, and if you think for one minute we’ll let up on them, you’ve got another think coming. Beginning at 0800 tomorrow morning we will interview each of your soldiers to determine the war crimes, if any, for which they are responsible. If found guilty, they will be hanged, shot, or receive long prison sentences. You will be the first to be interviewed. Do you understand me?” Colonel Scholz stood, came to attention, and said “Jawohl, Colonel.”

Well, it turned out that Colonel Scholz was a military aide to Joachim von Ribbentrop, when von Ribbentrop negotiated the fateful treaty with the Soviet Union in 1939. Scholz was one of the most trusted in the inner circle of Nazi officers. I can’t remember for sure, but I believe he received a sentence of 90 years for his efforts. All of which goes to prove you can’t tell a Nazi by his uniform.

We had one laager made up entirely of Hungarian prisoners. I suppose they had been conscripted and placed in the German Army. As a matter of fact, I still have a pair of binoculars of Hungarian design, which I got at the time. I thought they were much better for shooting artillery than the standard- issue binoculars we had.

One day we went down to the Hungarian laager and inquired whether anyone spoke English. There were many that did, but we chose a young fellow who spoke not only English, but five other languages as well. His name was Charles Leidenfrost. We needed an interpreter in carrying out our daily duties. It helped a great deal to be able to communicate quickly and accurately. Charles turned out to be a great delight. His family was of the Hungarian nobility. He had been to a university for six years to earn a bachelor’s degree in agriculture. When the war came, the ancestral lands were taken away, and Charles became a Lieutenant in the Hungarian army.

Charles was an instant hit with our group. He had a ready smile and would do anything to accommodate us. We took him out of the Hungarian uniform and put him into one of ours. The only distinguishing mark was a white band around the sleeve. It is hard to explain how much help he really was. He was not a turncoat, quite the contrary. In his own quiet way, he did everything he could to make his fellow Hungarians’ lot in life a little better. He was not quite so charitable towards the Germans.

I found a camera sealed in a tin can full of oil in one of the incoming prisoner’s backpacks. I really didn’t know what I was going to do with it, but I thought it might be valuable, so I confiscated it. After I told Charles what I had, he said he knew a couple of “Hunkies” who were camera experts, and might know how to fix it. They looked it over and said they could repair the camera as good as new. They succeeded. We set them up in a lab, and they processed all our film.

Charles had a thin scar on his face. When I asked him where he got it, he said, “I fought a duel for the honor of a lady, and tasted the blade.” “What did the other guy get?” I asked. “Well,” he said, “It was not so very pleasant for him. He did not know I was a member of the 1936 Hungarian Olympic fencing team.” We decided we wanted to learn to fence. So, Charles went downtown and found the local equivalent of sporting goods store, and came back with a full set of fencing equipment, including masks and epées.

We gathered around as he began to teach us the rudiments of fencing. Billy Joe Watkins said, “OK, Charles. That’s enough talk. Give me the sword and let’s get it on.” Charles politely gave him the equipment, helped him put it on, and walked away about twenty feet. He then faced Billy Joe and said, “En garde.” Billy Joe said, “Huh?” By that time Charles had bounded through the air once and had the epée resting against Billy Joe’s throat. That took care of the demonstration.

It was a sad day when we lost Charles. Higher headquarters decided that he should be repatriated to Hungary along with the rest of the Hungarian troops as part of Operation Keelhaul.19 We tried to stop it, but we couldn’t get to first base. Charles knew the only way he could get to America was to have a sponsor. He told us he had a cousin

19 Operation Keelhaul was the name given to the forcible repatriation of all Russians and eastern European from Allied prison camps to the Soviet Union and Soviet-controlled countries.

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who lived in New York who might be willing to serve as Charles’ sponsor. His cousin was an artist for Life Magazine named Alexander Leydenfrost. When we got back to the states, I tracked down Alexander and talked to him on the phone. It took a couple of days to find him, but the call finally went through. I told him who I was, and told him all about Charles. He was very polite and asked me quite a few questions about him. Then I told him Charles needed him as a sponsor, so he could come to America. I further told him that all the men in our outfit, including Colonel Gabriel, would recommend him. Alexander said, “Hell no!” and hung up. I heard from Charles once after that. He was in trouble with the Commies, as we all knew he would be. I never heard from him again.

German Generals

We had one large house in which we housed German Generals. They came in all sizes and shapes. Some wore their very best uniforms, certainly gaudy by our standards. Some were a silver-gray with large gold epaulets and all kinds of gold braid, topped off with a four inch red stripe down the trouser legs. Others wore riding boots with the appropriate “Ice Cream” trousers, as we called them at A&M.20 Still others had on dark blue trimmed in silver, while the less-stylish among them wore their version of olive drab fatigues; however, the German version was more of a grayish green.

I was not in awe of these men, but I did have a certain amount of respect for the jobs they held. Most of them were very bright, knew what was going on, and accepted their fate. I used to visit with them. I think that, more than anything else, they were hungry for news. They used to pump me for information anytime I got close — “What’s going on today? Where are the Russians? Will you fight the Russians when this war is over? We would like to volunteer to be in the American army and fight the Russians with you.

A few of them expressed an interest in me and what I was going to do when I went home. I recall one silver- haired General who said wistfully, “I had a son about your age.” Without thinking, I asked, “Where is he now?” “No,” he said. “His ME-109 crashed into the channel. They never found him.” “General, do you believe this war was worth it? I am touched by your sorrow, but think of the thousands, even millions of others who have suffered just as you are suffering now. Why didn’t the military take control of the madman and keep this from happening? You could have done it at one time, you know,” He thought for a moment then sighed and said, “Ja, but we thought we could win.”

Other than General Patton, the maddest General I ever saw was a little pot-bellied German. He was almost completely bald and had the traditional dueling scar on his cheek. His pale blue, almost reptilian eyes rarely blinked behind thick, wire-rimmed glasses. His puffy, thin-lipped face seemed permanently set in a sour scowl. He had only one arm. The other had been shot off by one of our planes when he was driving down a road somewhere in Normandy.

I think he blamed me personally for his problems, but I didn’t give him a lot of help. I used to bait him a little when I would ask, “General, would you feel better if it had been the other arm? I know a guy who flies P-47’s, and when I get home, I’m going to raise hell with him for not aiming better. You just ruined my whole day.” He would point his finger at me and say something in German real fast, then stomp off into another room. Oddly enough, he wouldn’t wear his full uniform, only the trousers and boots. He wore only a shirt and sometimes only his underwear.

We did not allow the generals to associate with any of their troops. I don’t really think they wanted to anyway. Most of them felt very guilty about what had happened. I never found out how their soldiers really felt about the officers. Most enlisted men were sufficiently intimidated that, even then, they would not reveal their true feelings.

20 These trousers were traditional cavalry riding pants or jodhpurs, cut full through the hips and close-fitting from knee to ankle. “Ice cream” alluded to the white leather patches sewn on the inside of both knees to protect the rider’s legs from chafing and provide a better grip on the saddle. Senior cadets at Texas A&M still wear these pants today.

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The Ball Begins ... Discharging

Our officers impressed upon us in the beginning that our job was to get these people processed, discharge them from the German army, and get them home. By far the largest majority of their troops were draftees, just like we were. There were good soldiers among them, but they were not professional soldiers. They did their duty as long as they could, and then gave up.

Counter Intelligence sent us one man, a 2d Lt. Laing who was fluent in German. It was his responsibility to examine each man, and if there was nothing singular about him—if he wasn’t recognized for some crime—if he was just an ordinary German soldier doing his job; then we gave him proper honorable discharge records. We took his “Soldbuch,” (his military record book), and booked him on the next truck nearest his home.

The Army supplied us with one, maybe two, truck companies. One of them was a French trucking company out of their 2d Armored Division. If you know anything about French drivers, you can appreciate our problem. They were, indeed, a wild bunch of drivers, most of whom knew nothing about gears, only stop and go.

On one occasion we loaded several trucks with processed German soldiers, and instructed the French drivers to take them to a city — we’ll say Frankfurt since I don’t remember which city. We had a rather unique way of loading prisoners on the trucks. Ordinarily, a truck would hold about twenty-five men, but with our method, we could get thirty-five to forty in a truck. We would line up the prisoners in two columns, after which we would load until it looked pretty full. Then we would have the driver put the pedal to the metal for about fifty feet. Meanwhile, the remaining prisoners were made to run after the truck. When the driver got up to his maximum speed in fifty feet, he slammed on the brakes. This packed the loaded prisoners more tightly into the front of the truck.

The other prisoners, who had been chasing the truck, immediately jumped in over the tailgate and filled it again. Well, no one could sit down. They were packed in like sardines, but the important thing was they had a ride to a town somewhere within fifteen or twenty miles of their homes. They were content to stand packed in so tight it made breathing difficult.

One day, we sent four truckloads out in the French trucks. They took off at high speed, barreled out on the highway, and were off to wherever we sent them that day. Somewhere along the way they had to take one of the narrow secondary roads, but they didn’t slow down very much. One driver failed to negotiate a turn and his truck ran off the road. He regained some control out in a field, but just as he turned to miss a huge tree, the largest limb was swept into the men standing in the back. They couldn’t duck. The result was eight killed and twenty-three wounded. I don’t know what happened to the driver, but when they returned, they didn’t seem remorseful. After all, they were only “le Boche.”

Every now and then Lt. Laing would talk to one of them who didn’t give him the right answers. The offender would be pulled out of line and put in a special holding cell. One day Lt. Laing became absolutely livid with what appeared to me to be an ordinary young German soldier. Lt. Laing dragged him through the barbed wire fence and worked him over pretty good before sending him to the holding pen. I asked him about it. He said, “Sergeant, they will try anything. That innocent looking young German private was really an SS Lieutenant who killed a number of French civilians in Nancy. They want him real bad.” They got their wish.

After the Ball was Over

We received news of President Roosevelt’s death on 12 April 1945. Every one was sad that he didn’t have the opportunity to be at the end, which we knew could come at any time. That day things were rather quiet and, as I recall, there wasn’t much levity in the group.

The Russians were knocking at the door of Berlin, and Hitler now knew he was a failure. He committed suicide, along with Eva Braun, his wife, Joseph Goebbels and his family, and a large number of his staff on 30 April, just after we had completed the Prisoner of War Camp in Regensburg.

It was amazing how quickly the camp began to fill. I recall one night I was Sergeant of the Guard. One of the guards waked me about 0330 hours and told me a German officer wanted to see the Commandant. I went out to see what was happening. To my surprise a whole German regiment commanded by a German Colonel had arrived in their vehicles, still fully armed. While they wanted to surrender, the German Oberst said he would only surrender to the Commandant, meaning Colonel Gabriel.

I took the position that nobody ever waked the Colonel in the middle of the night. And if Herr Oberst insisted on surrendering to Colonel Gabriel, it would have to be after breakfast the next morning. In the meantime, I suggested that they stack their arms alongside the road and get whatever sleep they could. I said I would bring the Colonel out about 0830 the next morning. He agreed and gave orders for his men to stack arms. I left and went back to our headquarters.

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The next morning Colonel Gabriel went out and accepted his surrender. He received the Oberst’s 9mm Luger, a beautiful piece I would have liked to own myself. Well, Rank hath its privileges. The column was composed of slightly over 3,000 German soldiers and all their equipment. I don’t know what we did with all that stuff, but we destroyed all the rifles and machine guns; disabled all the mortars, and took their trucks somewhere.

The reason for this willingness to surrender became apparent when the prisoners talked about how much they hated and feared the Russians. There were many prisoners who came over in groups from the Eastern Front just to surrender to the Americans. I recall one ME-109 that flew into the area and crash-landed near one of the runways where the camp was located. He had been on the Russian front, and when he saw the end, he just flew over and surrendered to us.

On 8 May, a few of us were lying out in the sun. Floyd Waldrop had found a new pair of German paratrooper boots in some warehouse. They were dark purple, which looked odd to me, but he put a shine on those boots that made them look like twin mirrors. I remember his standing there while we commented on his boots. Suddenly, someone shouted that they had just received word at the switchboard that the war would be officially over at midnight. And so it was.

Not long after that, we turned over the camp to someone else, who must remain unknown, and moved to a point about thirty miles southeast of Munich to a town called Bad Aibling. There was a pretty large German air base located there. Since we had such good luck with putting a prison camp on an airfield near Regensburg, we thought we would try it again. The same routine was established, and in a short time we had another 110,000 prisoners in a new camp. This was quite understandable since the Germans had several million soldiers under arms. It was apparent it would take awhile to get them all discharged and sent home.

The Tour Begins

We were at Bad Aibling until the end of June. While we were there we were given leave occasionally. I recall going to Munich just to see what a large German city looked like. It had been bombed severely. We got to see the beer hall where attempted a “putsch” in 1923. We also went to Landsberg and on the way stopped at Dachau.

That was one of the saddest things I’ve ever seen. If anyone had told me this was possible and, indeed, was occurring, I would not have believed it. I’m not sure any of us really knew what was going on. We had heard rumors, but they were discounted as being just that-rumors. General Patton, when he arrived, forced all the citizens of Landsberg to come and see what they had done. Naturally, they denied any responsibility for what had happened. They claimed they didn’t know what was going on there.

Those who survived were skin and bones. They had, obviously, been deliberately starved nearly to death. They all had on the striped prison garments. Some were too weak to stand. The furnaces where the dead had been cremated were, I was told, the most efficient that could be built. When I was there, stacks of bodies were still lying out in the open waiting their turn in the furnace. I don’t think I need to go into a lot of detail. The Holocaust has been described many times before, and my description would be no different.

To the Mountain Top

One weekend, we took a jeep and went to Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s home in the Alps. It is one of the most beautiful places in Europe. I’m sorry it was necessary to bomb it, but the word was that Hitler wanted to retreat to what he referred to as the “National Redoubt,” and that was to include his home and his bunker, otherwise known as “Eagle’s Nest.”

Luke Provenzano was one of the best soldiers I ever saw. He was a tall, slender, dark-skinned guy. His ancestors were Sicilian, but Luke wound up in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I would guess he was a year or so older than I, but we became good friends. We shared a common bond in our curiosity about Shakespeare, English history, and the European mystique in general. So, when the opportunity came for us to take a weekend trip into the German Alps, we jumped at the chance. We checked out a jeep, and recruited two more tourists. Glynn Waldrop and Paul Anderson thought it might be fun, too.

It was a beautiful summer morning. The Alps could be seen rising up into the clouds. A few showers could be seen in the distance, but the weather looked as though it would clear before we arrived. As we drove southeast, we passed through a number of German villages. Everything seemed quiet and serene. The war was over, and they accepted it. About thirty miles from Bad Aibling, we came to a lake known as the Chiemsee. It wasn’t a large lake, but the shoreline was magnificent. Homes could be seen through the trees. We surmised that some of the German elite had lived in the area.

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The Chiemsee is famous only because “King Ludwig II,” also known as the “Mad King of Bavaria” built one of his castles on a small island in the middle of the lake. Most tourists are familiar with Mad King Ludwig’s Schloss Neuschwanstein, the fairy-tale castle that inspired Walt Disney’s castle at Disneyland. He also built Schloss Herrenchiemsee, a miniature replica of the Palace of Versailles. Much of the interior is made of pure gold, including the bedroom, which was completely done in gold — the bed, the chairs, the dresser, and the whole thing. It was said that he stayed there a total of two or three days.

We drove on down the road and saw a mountain off to the right that looked as though the top had been sliced off. While we too far away to see it, there was a large resort hotel on top. We went up there later on and visited the hotel, called Bad Reichenhall. Many Germans availed themselves of their facilities. It must have been four or five acres including the grounds. The most remarkable thing I found was that the only way up or down was by way of a cable car. No roads had ever been built to the top.

It wasn’t long until we came to Salzburg, Austria, just across the border from Bavaria. Salzburg has a long and storied history. The Romans first established a settlement on the site in 696 AD. In the late 1200’s the city became an ecclesiastical center. All its bishops were known as Princes of Rome. Indeed, much of the architecture in the city shows the Italian influence, even today. It is probably best known as the birthplace of Mozart. His birthplace at No. 9 Getreidegasse still stands, and is used as a museum. The Salzburg Festival is one of the most famous music festivals in the world. I recall when we were there; one could hear music on the streets, in the cafes and restaurants. In fact, it seemed to permeate the city.

As we left Salzburg, we really started to go up into the mountains. The road was narrow and curved. I’ll bet there wasn’t a quarter-mile stretch of straight road all the way to the top. I don’t recall seeing any road of that was above the tree line; so, one could only assume the mountains were not all that high. They did seem very rugged, though. Berchtesgaden itself is located on a small stream in a deep valley surrounded on three sides by Austrian territory. It has a long and difficult history because of the salt mines nearby, which were first opened in the 12th Century. The little town is linked to Hitler’s home by a cable railway. Incidentally, some of the other high-ranking Nazis had homes there as well. Goering, Bormann, and other Nazi leaders liked the view. They also had their own bodyguards, air raid shelters, and barracks for troops. All this together put quite a few people at the top of the mountain.

It was a breathtaking view, or at least it would have been had it not been bombed. We really couldn’t understand why it was bombed, but we heard later there was a rumor that Hitler had fled Berlin and was going to hole up in this house. Apparently, they didn’t see fit to allow him that privilege. We had to walk a short distance to come to the house.

My memory could be faulty about this, but I remember being surprised that the house was not an ornate castle- like structure. To the contrary, it was gray stone with white trim. Part of it was stucco. The GIs who preceded us let everyone know they had been there. Initials and names were scratched into the stone and carved into the window facings. While the bombing had damaged it, the structure was still intact. All the furniture was gone, and the windows had been blown out.

I was especially attracted to the large window in what I assumed was the living room. This room was about forty feet long, twenty-five feet wide. The windows looked out upon a vista of the Alps that few were privileged to see. Mountains were on both sides, but the central view was down a slope into the valley. Lakes glinted in the sunshine, and one could make out threads, which turned out to be roads down on the floor of the valley. No wonder he liked it here. It was absolutely beautiful. The house, surrounded by trees, was almost a part of the mountain. Just to one side of the large room was a terrace upon which Hitler spent a good deal of time.

Behind it and far above was the secret hiding place. An elevator ran from inside the mountain up to the small house at the top. This, we were told, was Eagle’s Nest. The elevator was out of order, and we were not allowed go to the top. Well, once we had seen it and imagined we were there when Hitler was showing Mussolini the view with one hand while he was picking his pocket with the other, there was nothing left to do. We picked up our jeep and headed home. The drive down the mountain was just as spectacular as the drive to the top.

A few miles down the road we came to a small lake called Königsee, a narrow body of water cut into the sheer granite walls of the surrounding mountains. The water was a deep icy blue and just as cold as it looked. At one end of the lake were a small sandy beach, a restaurant, and a place that sold tickets for rides in an electric boat. We decided that sounded pretty good. The man who operated the boat was a real alpine native, complete with his dark green lederhosen, or short leather britches. His hat was typical alpine-style with the small feather attached to the band. To complement his outfit he wore a large walrus mustache. Small gold rim glasses and ruddy cheeks completed the effect.

After we left the dock, we noticed the lake water was almost glassy smooth. The reflections of the tops of the mountains and the white clouds above was almost mirror like. Since it was an electric boat, it was very quiet, and

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suddenly we noticed the ten or twelve people aboard had become very quiet. The sheer granite walls of the mountains came straight down to the water. The lake was very narrow and about two miles long. Halfway up the lake we saw a small church over against the bank with no apparent road leading to it. It was beautiful with its small golden cupolas reaching for the sky.

As we reached toward the other end of the lake, the boat slowed and came to a stop. The old man who piloted the boat took a cornet from under his seat and started to play a number of Bavarian folk tunes. Pure notes came forth and reverberated off the walls of granite, back and forth across the lake. The echoes seemed to grow and harmonize as he played. And when he stopped, it continued fading gently away. It was very quiet the rest of the trip. It was a very moving experience.

One More Move

We felt we had a very good operation at Bad Aibling. Soldiers were brought in; civilians were sent home, and it was working. The war criminals that tried to hide behind a private’s uniform were found out and quickly jailed for further action.

One afternoon the word was passed that we were moving to Linz, Austria. Linz was about a hundred miles east northeast of Bad Aibling. Our mission, as specified by Third Army, was to assist in the repatriation of thousands of civilians brought to Germany from the east to labor in the factories and the mines. Linz is a rail junction midway between Munich and Vienna. Linz was also the last major city before we crossed what amounted to a border controlled by the Russians.

We found total chaos when we arrived, and it took several days to get the people all sorted out and arrange transportation for them to their homes. Many of them did not want to go back, since they were well aware the Russians had overrun their country. We had Hungarians, Bulgarians, Gypsies (usually from Bulgaria), some Russians and a great many Czechs.

We found it difficult to get trains. There were no passenger trains, so we settled for all the freight cars we could get. There were many more women and children than one would have imagined. Most of the men had been conscripted into the army. I’m sure we had a great many of them in the prison camps, but they had not as yet been reunited with their families.

We classified the people, sorted them into groups depending upon their destination, fed them, and tried to help any way we could. After we obtained a train and engine, we loaded it with people for whatever destination we could find nearest their homes. We did discover that most of them were delayed in Vienna, while the Russians decided when and where they would go. One of the most interesting incidents happened one day when we sent a train, with a U.S. locomotive, to Vienna. Here, it was to be sent on to Budapest with a Russian locomotive. Meanwhile the U.S. locomotive was to be returned with a train of empty cars to make up another load.

The train didn’t return. After the second day, Colonel Gabriel, along with another officer and two men, drove to Vienna. He was mad. They drove up to the Russian headquarters in Vienna. He had the driver stop in front of the building. Some Russian MP was frantically waving to them that they couldn’t park there. The Colonel ignored it, parked anyway, got out and stomped up the steps into the building. The Russians looked at him hardly knowing how to handle it. He found some Russian officer and barked, “I want to see the Russian Commandant, now.” The Russian said he didn’t speak English. The Colonel told him in no uncertain terms to find someone who could. Shortly, a young Russian came out and told the Colonel he spoke English.

Colonel Gabriel launched into a tirade that made the Russian blanch. He told him he wanted to talk to the commanding officer. He told him he was mad as hell. He told him he demanded satisfaction. He told him he wanted it now. The young Russian had not heard anything quite like this before, and he was visibly upset. He was afraid of the tall slender American with a booming voice, and he was afraid of his commander. Suddenly, a Russian colonel poked his head around the corner, and Colonel Gabriel ordered him into the conflict. When the Russian found out what the problem was, he asked if he could have a few minutes. The Colonel said he would give him five minutes, at the end of which he was going to take the place apart.

It was strange how they responded to his kind of command. The Colonel came back in about three and a half minutes and told him the engine and empty cars would leave Vienna by 1700 hours or 5 PM that night. We could expect it in Linz no later than 0400 the next morning. Colonel Gabriel made a big thing out of getting his name. He asked where the train was at that moment. He said he wanted to see it before he went back to Linz. He further told him that should his train not show up as promised the United States Third Army would immediately come after it. “Do you understand what I just said”, he asked. He said he did and that we could rest assured that General Voronov himself would see the train leave Vienna. It arrived at 0200 the next morning.

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CHAPTER 10: Where Does One Catch The Bus? I Say, It’s England, Isn’t It?

To be completely fair, the Army devised a point system called the “Adjusted Service Rating” (or ASR) for each soldier, airman, sailor, and marine. Points were awarded for years of service overseas, medals and other commendations received, campaign battle stars earned, and so forth. In the beginning, the magic point total for being sent home was 85. Many men had more points, and those with the most were sent home first. Following are some of the criteria used to award points, although this list is probably incomplete:

• −  Bronze Star winner = 5 points per award

• −  Number of battle stars earned by unit = 5 points per star

• −  Number of children = 12 points per child

• −  Number of months in the armed forces = 1 point per month

• −  Number of months overseas = 1 point per month

• −  Presidential Unit Citation winner = 5 points per award

• −  Purple Heart winner = 5 points per award

• −  Soldier's Medal winner = 5 points per award

• −  Congressional Medal of Honor winners could go home any time they wanted (that seemed fair enough to

  me)

  My own ASR score as of 2 September 1945 was 71. When the army looked around, they probably found 500,000 people with 71 points. They felt it was practical to start shuffling people around and put those with similar point totals together. This was supposed to make it easier to get them home.

  I sincerely regretted not putting in for the Purple Heart based on the scratch I received near Metz. I was told that I had been recommended for a Bronze Star, but I didn’t receive that either. A Bronze Star didn’t mean much, but it did mean another five points.21 It was about the middle of June when we were told the 270th would be deactivated the next day. We were given new orders and told to report to our new outfits as soon as we could get there.

  My “old outfit” died without a whimper. No celebrations were held. No parade was given. No bands played, no speeches were made, and no one said thank you for a job well done. Nothing. I know we all felt strongly about each other. I know the officers felt the same, but thought uppermost in our minds, the idea that took precedence over everything else, was the real possibility of going home.

  We received new orders and accepted them the same way all other orders were taken. They were obeyed. There was one final wave as the truck pulled out to take me to my new destination. That was all. It was over. My new unit was the 36th Field Artillery Battalion, an old regular Army unit, located about thirty miles

  southwest of Munich in a town called Starnberg. Ray Spruitt, one of my Fire Direction buddies, was also assigned to the 36th. A truck was provided to take us over there. We both wondered what it was going to be like, but felt that certain that, we were on the way home.

  When we reported in to the 36th, you couldn’t help but notice the place was in complete disarray. Most of the officers had gone and those who remained wanted to be somewhere else. Discipline was pretty lax, but like army units for a hundred years, we were made to feel at home almost at once, since everyone there was in the same boat as we were. The first thing to happen was that I heard someone calling my name. I answered, and the guy came over and said, “Your name has just been drawn in a lottery, and you have received ten days leave in London. You will leave by truck tomorrow morning.”

  I asked for my leave papers, because I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a joke they were playing on the new guy. It was true and I did, indeed, leave on a truck the next morning for Munich. There I caught a train in Munich that was to go across France and terminate at one of the channel ports, Le Havre. The passengers on the train were unusual to say the least. Civilians and military were all mixed together on the train. Our railway car was divided into compartments. Each compartment opened on the outside of the train, and an aisle ran down the other side of the car.

  21 Lt. Col. Gabriel recommended several others and me for the Bronze Star on 11 September 1944 for “meritorious achievement in connection with military operations against the enemy in France between 7 August 1944 and 29 August 1944.” Although an onionskin carbon copy of the recommendation still exists, I never got the medal and have been unable to find any record of either the recommendation or its disposition in my military personnel file.

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I will always remember the little German girl who was in our compartment with her mother. She was small and very blond. Even her eyebrows were almost white, and she had big blue eyes. We didn’t speak the same language, but since she was only about three years old, language was not a problem. We traveled the better part of three days to get to Le Havre. One might wonder why it took so long, but traffic on the railroad was heavy and everybody had precedence over a passenger train.

Le Havre was a very busy seaport. We were housed for a day in one of the cigarette camps, called Lucky Strike. There were a number of these camps scattered around and all bore the name of one of popular brands of cigarettes of the day. The next day we were taken down to the docks where we boarded another LST, just like the one that brought me to France a year before. We sailed off to England and arrived in due course. I had always heard of Dover, but in my meandering about England, I had never been there. The cliffs are really almost white, hence the song, “The White Cliffs of Dover.”

Upon landing we boarded a train for London. It was a much better train than the one we rode in Germany and France. This one really moved. I remember that it was about 2200 hours when we arrived; and we took a cab to the Continental Leave Office. There, our leave papers were validated, and we were assigned housing. The Army had taken a number of apartment houses in the area around Marble Arch, and they were reserving them for soldiers coming to London on leave. We took our duffel bags, and walked over there. We reported to some civilian flunky who kept the register and asked for our rooms.

This was interesting to me, because there were no locks on the doors. As a matter of fact there were no doors on the rooms. Inside I found three bunks, two of which were already occupied. It was getting late, and I was tired from all the excitement, so, I went to bed. In strange places like that, we always took the precaution of putting our billfolds inside the pillowcase, and sleeping on it. Generally, this afforded sufficient protection against having our billfolds stolen.

The next morning I awoke to find my billfold was gone. There was a twelve-inch slit in the end of my pillowcase, and I saw my billfold lying in the corner against the baseboard. Nothing was missing except the thirty- six pounds ($145.26) I had converted the night before. The only money I had left was ten shillings out of the pound note I use to pay for the room the night before.

Well, there I was. Ten days leave in London and no money. I dressed quickly, and walked down to Piccadilly Circus. I don’t know how I knew, but I knew the Red Cross had an office just off the circle. I walked in and met a man who looked to be in charge. His name was Hugo Otopalik and he was from Ames, Iowa. I don’t know why I remember his name, either. After I explained my sad story to him, he said, “Nobody told you, but there are about 3,000 ex-GIs here in London. Nearly all of them are deserters. They survive by stealing from soldiers who come here on leave. You are just one of the many victims.”

“Well,” I countered. “There must be something I can do. I’m supposed to catch a train for Scotland late this afternoon. Can the Red Cross loan me the funds to be repaid as soon as I can have my folks wire me the money?” “No, I’m sorry, but we cannot do that. The best I can do is supply you with chits so you can eat and have a place to stay.” “Mr. Otopalik, would you be interested in a good camera, which I removed from the person of a high-ranking Nazi officer?” He said, “What kind is it?” “It’s a Leica with an f1.8 lens. If you are interested, I’ll let you have it for a mere £8 pounds.”

To make a long story short, he bought the camera and paid me £8. Some years later I saw the obituary of Hugo Otopalik, who died in 1953. He had been a first sergeant in France during World War I in addition to his Red Cross service in Europe during World War II. He was the men’s wrestling coach at Iowa State University from 1924 until his death, and was a pioneer in promoting collegiate wrestling in the United States. He was posthumously named a distinguished member of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame in 1976. Sometimes it is a small world.

I wired home for money and ate breakfast there at the Red Cross, and then I wandered back toward my apartment house. When I arrived, I heard the unmistakable sound of dice being thrown against a wall and the usual patter that goes along with it. “Come on dice, seven up and stop – eight skate and donate – eighter from Decatur, county seat of Wise –snake eyes ain’t healthy – box cars – niner from Carolina – Little Joe-Fever – Sister Hix, baby needs a new pair of shoes!”

I had a five-pound note and three one-pound notes, so I decided to get in the game with the three one-pound notes. After all, how much worse could it get? I don’t remember the details, but I do remember it took me less than two hours to make £31 10s. In short, I now had on my person £40 pounds, which was more than I started with when I left Munich. At that point I tried to buy back my camera, but I discovered that my friend, Mr. Otopalik, really wanted it, so I left it with him. I wandered around downtown London for a while. I walked down Oxford Street and looked in all the windows. As I recall Regent Street was just a block over, and I did that one, too.

Late that afternoon, I boarded the luxury train, the Royal Scotsman for Edinburgh. My plan was to go there, look around, and then take local trains on the way back to London. I did it that way, and had a real good time. On

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the way back, I stopped in Birmingham, my old stomping grounds, and renewed acquaintances at the Lounge. It wasn’t the same, and I was disappointed in the experience. If my trip sounds as like a lonely experience, that was far from the case. I ran into a couple of guys doing the same thing I was; so we got together and became good friends in no time at all.

When we returned to London, we found an East Indian Restaurant just off Oxford Street. I had never been in a place as nice as that one. The waiter treated us royally, and gave us a table overlooking the street as it curved toward Piccadilly Circus. I thought the food was excellent. The curry and English chutney were extremely good as well.

It was 10 August when we returned to London. The following day I awoke feeling as though I had gotten the flu or something. I told the other two I wanted to go to the aid station, which was next door to the leave office. They went with me and saw to it that I was properly attended. The doctor said he thought I should be in the hospital, and he promptly had an ambulance take me to an Army hospital just south of London. I don’t remember its name.

My fever went down pretty soon, but they kept me in the hospital for five days. I knew I had to get back to Starnberg, because my leave was up on the 16th. So, I reported in to the leave office on the morning of the sixteenth and requested air transportation back to Munich. The young lady behind the counter, said, “Yank, we have just received the news that Japan has surrendered. I think you are due another five days leave to make up for the five days you spent in the hospital. And besides that, I feel good about the end of the war and everything.”

Well, I had another five days; so, I spent it running around London looking at the usual sights tourists are supposed to see. One thing did occur that was really fun. I ran into another soldier who expressed an interest in going down to Wimbledon and looking at the famed tennis courts. We learned which one of the tubes went to Wimbledon, and sure enough, we found it. All the gates were locked at the time, but we ran into one of the old retainers. (At least he looked like one of the old retainers.) I told him I had wanted to see Wimbledon all my life, and it seemed such a waste to get this close. The more we chatted the closer we got. Finally, he let us go in and we looked it all over. We saw all the trophies. We saw the dressing rooms.

Finally, I told him how much it would mean to me if I could just hit a couple of balls on Centre Court. He laughed and said, “Well, Yank, you’ve talked me out of everything else. Come on.” He took us in and got a couple of rackets and some practice balls. The net had been removed, but that made no difference. We actually hit a few balls on the historic old Centre Court at Wimbledon. Not many tennis players can make that statement.

The five days passed rather quickly, and I reported back to the leave office to get transportation back to Munich. I was determined to fly this time. Three hours was a lot better than the five days it took to get to London. I approached a staff sergeant with a clipboard in his hand and told him my sad story. He said, “Look, there a couple of thousand people who would like to fly to Munich today.” “So,” I said, “I’ve got a better reason than most of them.” I told him my story. Somehow, he believed me and told me there was a Colonel due to board an eleven o’clock flight. If I would agree to carry his bags aboard, I could go along.

Everything worked out, and the Colonel had the best bag carrier the Army could provide. We flew in a C-47, otherwise known as a “Gooney Bird.” There were steel-bottomed seats along both sides of the aircraft. We realized the seating was designed for paratroopers. Anyway, it got cold on the way over, but I was looking forward to getting back. When we landed, I got off the plane and went into the small terminal reserved for Army personnel. I saw a sign that said, “Sergeant Ballengee, report here.” I went over and got the surprise of my life. I told the MP who I was, and he told me it was his duty to place me under arrest and escort me back to Starnberg where I would be placed in the stockade for being absent without leave (AWOL).

I had no choice. There was no point in arguing with him. He had just come over from the states and hadn’t had a chance to figure out what was what. We drove down to Starnberg, and I was taken to Battalion Headquarters. We went in, and my MP announced he had captured the prisoner. A captain, whom I had met only once, looked at me, and said, “What the hell happened, Sergeant?” “Sir,” I replied as I gave him the best salute I could give, “I became ill in London. I was sent to the hospital and released on the sixteenth. The leave office gave me another five days. I took it. At the end of that time, I caught a plane and returned as soon as I could, Sir. Here are all the papers verifying what I have told you, Sir.” He scanned them rather quickly and said, “They look good to me. I didn’t think you would screw up when we’re on the way home. Dismissed!”

The next day, I was told to report to the battery commander. He told me that the Army was short of military government people, and he was assigning me to a little town a few miles away. This town bore the name of Herrsching, and it too, was on a lake. This lake was about a mile wide and ten miles long. The town was on the east bank towards the middle of the lake. I was told to report there the next day.

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“By the way,” he said, “I am promoting you to Tech/Sergeant as of today.22 The order is in the first sergeant’s hands, and he’ll give it to you as you leave. Good luck.” I thought that was nice. I always did like the symmetry of the five stripes. I lost no time in getting the order and enough pairs of stripes to put on all my clothes.

They gave me a jeep from the motor pool, and I got Ray Spruitt to go with me as my number one assistant. It wasn’t more than twelve miles over there, and I walked into what appeared to be City Hall and asked if anyone spoke English. A lady came out from behind a desk and told me she spoke English. I noticed that she had only one arm. She also looked at me with an unmistakable hatred in her eyes. I told her I was to be the new Burgomeister (Mayor) for a time until all the city services were once again functioning. She showed me to an office upstairs which had to have been the Mayor’s office.

The first thing I noticed was Hitler’s picture hanging behind the desk. Without saying anything to her, I walked around the desk, took the picture and smashed it on the corner of the desk. I told her those days were over, but I was sure we would get along fine as long as we approached our problems in a spirit of cooperation. She nodded her head and translated for the others present.

In about a week she started to loosen up. I discovered she was, or had been, a countess, and had lived in a chalet on the side of the mountain. Like the general at Regensburg, she lost her arm in an air raid. She was probably forty-five years old and looked every year of it. Her husband was lost on the eastern front. She didn’t know whether he was alive or dead, but she suspected the latter. I told her I didn’t want to be there any more than she wanted me. I told her further that I would be gone as soon as we became convinced the town could function on its own, providing the same municipal services as before the surrender. We did not intend to mistreat anyone, on the contrary, we would be very happy with any successes they had without our help. She accepted that very well, I think, and our relations became more cordial.

It wasn’t all business. I found that traditionally the Mayor was also the Commodore of the Yacht Club. Sure enough, they had a Yacht Club, and it was a nice one too. The ballroom was lined with glass cases containing models of ships. There was a thirty-foot motor launch reserved for the use of the Mayor. I immediately renamed it “Rattlesnake,” the code name of the 36th Field Artillery Battalion. I had it painted in red along the side of the boat. The most fun was going out in the small sailboats. Ray Spruitt was a sailor who got his training on Lake Michigan. I was glad he knew something about sailing, because I knew exactly nothing. One day, the wind and a thunderstorm came up so quickly we couldn’t get off the lake before it hit us. I thought we were in trouble for a while, but Ray did a workmanlike job of getting us to shore.

One of my jobs was to settle disputes between the citizens. On one occasion a farmer had rescued his neighbor’s cow during the winter when snow covered the fences. He took care of her and when spring came, he didn’t offer to give her back. The other farmer felt deeply wronged. They came to the Mayor’s office to settle their differences. I listened to both sides through my interpreter, the Countess. After it was over, I made the decision that both sides were due something. So, like Solomon, I said I thought the cow should be slaughtered and half of the cow given to each of the parties. Oddly enough, they both thought it was a good decision, and they set about carrying it out.

I was able to spend a good part of the summer in this idyllic location. I was never able to make friends with the town barber. I didn’t trust that old rascal. When he put a sheet around me and got his razor out to trim my hair, I was nervous. I would take out my .45 automatic and keep it pointed at him from under the sheet. I think he knew what I was doing, but he didn’t say anything. Nothing went wrong, but I felt I was as ready as I could be. And, I did need a haircut from time to time.

I didn’t see much of my new battalion while I was in Herrsching. Once in awhile we would drive over just to see what was going on. One day an announcement was made that everyone was being transferred out of the 36th. I went back to Herrsching and announced that I was leaving and had been authorized to tell them they would no longer have a military government. It was up to them to elect or appoint their own leaders. After some good-byes, Ray and I left with all our gear and went back to the 36th.

There was considerable excitement when we returned. We saw a number of trucks loading supplies. Men were scurrying back and forth. It looked a little like the old days when we had a mission. Upon reporting to the First Sergeant, we were told the 36th had new orders to return to Fort Sill, Oklahoma and be reconstituted as one of the permanent field artillery battalions. It was to be re-equipped with the latest weapons. A new cadre23 was being formed in the states and would join the unit in Ft. Sill. Oh, yes, one other thing. We wouldn’t be going with it. The

22 A Technical Sergeant was the second-highest enlisted rank in the Army at that time, just below Master Sergeant/First Sergeant. The rank would be equivalent to Sergeant First Class/Platoon Sergeant in the Army today.

23 A cadre is a group of key officers and enlisted men assigned to a new unit as a nucleus for its formation, administration, and training.

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staff officers were the only ones going with the battalion. We were being transferred once again to another unit. “Let’s see, you are going to the 242d Field Artillery Battalion in Würzburg. Your orders have been cut, and you are to leave immediately on the next available transportation. Good luck.”

This was not quite the reception I had imagined. It happened so fast that we had to make some real adjustments in our thinking to absorb it. There were no good-byes or so-longs or see you stateside. There were no addresses exchanged. Everyone just wanted to take the next step towards going home. We really didn’t much care who was around us.

The Army provided transportation to take us to our new assignments. It was a little like bus service, except we used GMC 4x4 open trucks. Würzburg was the name of the little town where the 242d was located. It was somewhere north and east of Munich. I recall the small town had no more than 1,000 citizens. It was located on a rolling plain completely surrounded by...nothing. It reminded me of some of our Texas Panhandle towns like Vega or Dimmitt.

Oddly enough, we were housed in what had been a ski manufacturing building. All the equipment was still intact, and much of the raw lumber stock was still stored there. We were told that the owner would not be back, because he was a Nazi and had already been arrested. From what we learned he was due to spend a good many years in prison.

In this pastoral setting we had nothing to do. We just waited for the day when orders would be given to move out. I ran into one of my old 270th buddies, whose name now escapes me, just after I got off the truck. He had arrived the day before. He told me this was the unit with which we were going to return to the states, so it was unlikely we would move again until the whole unit went back to one of the city camps.

We took long walks around the town. We probably knew more about every field surrounding the little town than the people who lived there did. We spent most of August and September there. The people didn’t have much to do with us, which created a few awkward situations. Non-fraternization was still the Army policy, but I did not think it was justified at this late date. Many of us ignored it anyway. Nonetheless, the language barrier was ever- present, making it somewhat difficult to communicate. Most of us picked up a few words of German, and that made it easier.

The latter part of September came, and we were still ensconced in the ski manufacturing facility. It seemed that life had stopped. We were comfortable and had plenty to eat, but it was almost as if we were being held prisoners. It was the epitome of boredom.

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CHAPTER 11: Camp Detroit

Orders came for the 242d Field Artillery Battalion to proceed back to France somewhere near Reims. It was

here that the army had established the “city” camps. This particular one, located northwest of Reims, was

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called Camp Detroit. By this time we had become pretty well acquainted with everyone in the outfit. It just

so happened there were four other Tech Sergeants in Headquarters battery. Every one of them was considerably older in rank than me. Once again, I was the new kid on the block; therefore, if there was any work to be done, I was elected.

Something happened to the First Sergeant. I think he went to the hospital or was returned home early because of a hardship situation. The five top ranking noncoms got together and decided by a vote of 4 to 1 that I would be the acting First Sergeant. They presented that proposal to the Captain. He agreed, so I assumed some additional responsibilities I had not had before. Since I knew about morning reports and some of the other administrative work, it was not too burdensome. It had the added advantage that I was the one who wrote out all the passes for weekend leaves. Before our stay in Camp Detroit was over, my good friends who had elected me began to have second thoughts about their choice.

My duties were pretty simple. I caused reveille to happen every morning; conducted roll call, and led calisthenics. (Either I led them, or I appointed one of my good buddies to do it.) The rest of the day was spent examining reports, checking the equipment we still had with us, and preparing it for shipment.

It wasn’t long before the routine was pretty well established. One of our problems, or perhaps a blessing, was that it was hard to find an officer. They were gone all the time. I got the idea pretty quick, so, I met with my compatriots, and we decided on a fair schedule of duties so we could get in on some of the fun.

Oui, It’s Brussels ... France and the Riviera

A couple of us decided to go to Brussels. It was convenient to get there from Reims, and we hadn’t been there before. As we approached the motor park where the trucks were scheduled to leave, we ran into some Frenchmen who wanted to exchange our French francs for Belgian francs at a rate of 2 Belgian francs for each French franc. That sounded good to us. When we went to the motor park in Brussels on the return trip, we ran into a group of Belgians who offered to trade us 2 French francs for each Belgian franc. We did it again. It was only later that we discovered these guys were both dealing in counterfeit francs. We were giving counterfeit French francs for counterfeit Belgian francs and vice versa. Our trips to Brussels didn’t cost us a dime, or better yet, a franc.

Brussels is a beautiful city, and we enjoyed going up there. The food was good, and the hotels we stayed in, while spartan, were clean and comfortable. It was a great joy just walking the streets and seeing how other people lived. All in all, I concluded it was pretty much the same.

One weekend we took a jeep and trailer and left for the Riviera. We had all heard of it, so we thought it only fitting that knew we go down there, take in the sun, and see what it was all about. It took us a day and a half to drive down there. It seemed we were stopped about every 50 miles by an Army roadblock just to make sure we had passes. We arrived in Nice sometime in the afternoon. As we were driving through the city, we saw a small hotel that looked pretty promising. The concierge was not very friendly. He really did not want us to stay there. The price he set made it completely unreasonable. We were arguing with him when an old man came in. He listened for a moment, came over and told the concierge to let us have a room and bill it to his account.

Although he was French, he spoke good English. We enjoyed talking to him about his experiences during the war and comparing them with ours. He worked with the underground helping to get Americans and other “enemies of the Reich” out of France to safety. Usually, they handled escapees from German prison camps and airmen who had been shot down over France. This entailed a lot of personal danger but he said it was worthwhile. His wife had died early in the war, so he devoted his life to the cause.

Later, we drove on up the coast to Cannes and found it was about the same as Nice. There were many good restaurants there, and we enjoyed the ones we visited. We were free of all constraints. We let ourselves go and did whatever came to mind, including a romp on the beach. The trip back to Reims was a good one, too. We drove up

24 After the Allies secured the French harbor of Le Havre, the Americans began constructing camps to serve as staging and assembly areas for new troops arriving in the ETO. The staging-area camps were named after various brands of American cigarettes (the “cigarette camps”), while the assembly area camps were named after American cities (the “city camps”). Most of the cigarette camps were located between Le Havre and Rouen, while the city camps were located near Reims. The wartime plan was for incoming units to first pass through cigarette camps, then to the city camps, and then on to the front. By war’s end, however, all of the city and cigarette camps were used to house departing troops.

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through the French Alps, went through Dijon and eventually came to Nantes. I remembered Nantes because this was the southern-most in the Third Army area of operations. Everything south of Nantes was in the 7th Army area of operations.

The same highway that took us through Nantes also brought us up the Moselle River valley. It was the strangest feeling to drive up the highway on the east side of the river for which so many of our guys had fought and died. We took a short detour and drove up to Fort Driant. The evidence of our shelling was everywhere. Our shells had been able to penetrate some of the bunkers and destroy whatever was inside. I found some strong evidence in the trees behind the fort that our lunchtime fire mission was on target. The trees were ripped to shreds, and the ground was torn up for a hundred yards or more. As I looked across the river to where I our observation post had been located, I could not see a thing. This spoke well for our efforts to camouflage our positions.

The road leading up to the fort — the one where we caught the messenger as he turned the corner — had not been repaired. The rounds we fired into the intersection were absolutely perfect. We couldn’t have placed it any closer to the middle of the road. It will always remain a mystery to me why the guy wasn’t blown to bits, but c’est le guerre.

We turned westward just north of Metz and drove back to our beloved Camp Detroit. Nothing had happened since we left. The guys we left in charge of the battery were glad to see us. I’ll bet we hadn’t been there thirty minutes before they announced they were leaving!

When they returned, we took off again, this time for Paris. Paris is a large city, and a strange one in many ways (at least it seemed so to me at the time). The war had been over just a few months, and things had not gotten back to normal. A lot of old scores were being settled. The French resistance had been well-organized and resisted efforts to disband it. In addition, some of the French had been collaborators. Those in the resistance were determined to root them out and make them pay. I saw women having their heads shaved for being a little too friendly with the Germans. It must have been a bitter time for all of them.

We spent several days in Paris. I suppose we went to see everything there was to see. The Louvre was quite a large museum, and I’m afraid my cultural taste for art didn’t last too long. It took about three hours to see all we cared to see. Besides that, some of the best art had been taken away and hidden while the Germans were in town.

The Basilica of Sacre Coeur stands on a hill at the end of Monmartre. All the nightclubs seemed to congregate in this area. Here Degas did much of his painting and Toulouse Lautrec painted all the can-can girls. The girls were still there, and I came to believe they were the same ones. It was difficult to imagine this sleazy run-down area as being the heart of Paris at the turn of the century. All of which goes to show that change is the only constant in life.

I came to believe the Parisians had had about as much of the outside influences of soldiers from other countries as they could stand. They seemed to be as ready for us to go home as we were.

After we returned to Reims, you could feel fall in the air. It was autumn once again, but certainly different from the year before. Our quarters were relatively comfortable. The tents, all of which were pyramidal, were fairly well weatherproofed. Each tent had about eight cots, and we had just enough room to navigate between them. In addition, we had a coal burning stove that kept out the chill. These tents were also equipped with wooden floors, a big improvement.

When we learned that we would be leaving soon, everyone had the chore of policing his area and making it look as though he had never been there. It was a good thing to do, because other troops were coming, and they were entitled to as good a place as we got when we arrived. The truth is, we really needed something to do and the men started cleaning with a vengeance.

We left Camp Detroit on 8 November 1945 for one of the cigarette camps near Le Havre, a place called Camp Pall Mall in the town of Étretat. I’m not sure we moved as fast as we did when we were advancing against the Germans. Nevertheless, we finally arrived and found ourselves in a rather soggy holding facility. There we were able to change our francs into dollars, but only about $150 worth, so most of us wound up leaving good French francs with the port personnel, who gathered around like vultures.

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Home on the Antioch Victory

Our ship, the Antioch Victory, docked our second day there. The following day we boarded. I don’t know how many men we had, but the bunk space was very small. While I was still the acting First Sergeant, the only thing I had to do was make out a morning report. Each day, everybody came on deck for a lifeboat drill, and we had reveille at the same time. Those who could eat did so, and then went back to their bunks. We found some room to have a poker game. It sounded like fun to me, and I joined in with great gusto. While we were in Europe, I learned the finer points of playing poker and found it to be a stimulating and challenging pastime.

When we started to play, and put our bets on the table, suddenly something was very wrong. It wasn’t the same. It took me a few moments to realize that my problem was that we were using real U.S. dollars, not some foreign paper money whose value always seemed trifling. I knew exactly what those dollars were worth, and it bothered me a great deal to put them on the table. I quit playing poker seriously then and there.

The fifth day at sea we ran into a terrible storm (or it ran into us). The bridge reported that we made three nautical miles that day. It was all the ship could do to maintain headway. Many of the men were afraid the ship would broach and maybe even founder. It didn’t help when we saw crewmembers coming down the passageway with portable welders on two-wheeled trucks.25

The ship groaned and snapped every time the bow pitched into the air and then dug into the green water on the way down. I looked out at one point, and I’m sure the waves I saw were higher than the deck of the ship. I found myself looking UP at these huge waves. I didn’t feel very well, but neither did anyone else. However, fear took over and being sick was put into the background.

Eventually, we weathered the storm. It took about three days, but the weather finally cleared, the seas calmed, and we gathered on deck to take in the sun and get some fresh air. I recall some nut from Pennsylvania who kept us all laughing most of the time. He was an Italian and his accent was a pure delight. It turned out that he was a table tennis champion in Philadelphia. The ship had a table tennis table, which we put up on top of one of the cargo hatches. He proceeded to challenge anybody and everybody. A number of us took him on, but he made short work of everyone. Then he started giving points. He gave me fifteen on one occasion— which turned out to be one too many. It was really a lot of fun and relieved the boredom for a while.

Sometime on the tenth day, we knew we were getting close to New York. We felt ground swells, which are the worst for making one queasy. We also saw some birds and some trash in the water. Late the following afternoon we approached the harbor. It was a cloudy day. Rain came down steadily and there was a dense fog over most of the harbor. We had our cameras ready, but none of us thought we would get to see the Statue of Liberty. We were wrong. There, partly hidden by the rain and fog, was the most beautiful sight I’ve ever seen. She held the torch up, and as far as I was concerned said, “Welcome home.”

We docked somewhere on the west side of Manhattan about 1800 hours. We were taken off the ship, loaded on a train, and taken directly to Camp Shanks. There we were assigned to a barracks, and I had to set up the orderly room and see to it that our Battery Commander was comfortable. I didn’t have much trouble getting help for that. After we ate dinner, word was passed that reveille would be at 0800 the next morning. Then out-processing would begin and the men would be sent to a discharge center near their homes.

One of the other sergeants, Len Kunze, and I decided to go into the city. We weren’t going to carouse, just look around and enjoy being home. Winter was coming on, and it was cold as only New York can be. I don’t remember how we got into town — it may have been by train and subway — but we noticed that everything seemed to be open no matter what time it was.

While we were walking around, we came across a Turkish bath. I had never been in one, nor had my friend. We went in and the guy began to tell us all the things we could do. He told us about the bath, a rub down, time in the steam room, and while all this was going on, he would have our clothes cleaned and pressed. I recall the price for all this was $7.50. That was when all the kinks came out. It was one of the best things I did while in the Army. A couple of hours later we came out looking as though we were on a recruiting poster. Since it was cold, we jumped on a train, or subway, and went back to the camp. I can recommend that experience to anyone.

25 The Antioch Victory was a “Victory” ship, a 15-knot design intended to replace the older “Liberty” class of transport by the War Shipping Administration. With roughly 15,000 tons displacement, she was about one-third the size of the Aquitania. The Antioch Victory was launched on May 1945, so she was fresh from the shipyard, which probably accounts for all the welding.

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CHAPTER 12: The Last Hurrah

The last thing I ever imagined was that I would be the one to turn out the lights. Yet, that’s what happened at Camp Shanks. The Battery Commander and I were the last ones left in the 242d Field Artillery Battalion, Headquarters Battery. We had to stay long enough to sign over all our equipment and verify its condition. The Army had once again become a stickler for paperwork. Every “i” had to be dotted, and every “t” had to be crossed. Signatures must be in this certain area, and one was not permitted to write above or below the designated space. I assume some grand poobah had the magic pen that finally deactivated the battalion.

The men were already on a troop train ready to leave. I was given the files of the 36 men in my car. These files were known as the soldier’s 201 File. If he didn’t have that file, he was in for a great deal of difficulty. When we boarded the train, I knew we were going to have a pretty rowdy bunch. Of course, responsibility does have its privileges. Since I was in charge of this Pullman car, I got the compartment. I had a little more room and my own bathroom. I really didn’t have to worry about space. We lost some of the guys every time the train stopped.

Before the train pulled away, I yelled for everybody to “knock it off,” and I made my speech. “Now look, I really don’t care whether you ever get to Fort Sam Houston or not. I’m not going to bother you about whatever you choose to do between here and Texas, but I will say this, I have every one of your 201 Files, and if you are not in San Antonio when I get there, you may not ever get out of the Army. Is that clear?” “Whatever you say, Sergeant,” came back loud and clear to me.

I had no idea where the train was going when we left, because it left New York, it turned north along the Hudson River. We had been gone for several hours when I noticed the Erie Canal out of my window. I had never seen it before, and it seemed pretty insignificant to me. Yet, I remembered that this historic canal had helped develop industry in New York, and had, indeed, had a role in making New York City the financial capital of the world. The canal was finished in 1825. It ran from Troy, through Utica, Syracuse, Rochester, and to Buffalo on the western end where it emptied into Lake Erie. Governor De Witt Clinton was responsible in large part for the project. Many people laughed at him, and the project became known as “Clinton’s Ditch.” Nevertheless, he persisted and completed the canal just eight years after the first shovel full of dirt was turned.

When our train got to Buffalo, I lost a couple of my men. They knew the rules, so I didn’t worry about it. We left Buffalo and followed Lake Erie west to Cleveland, Ohio. It was here that the ladies of Cleveland came to the train with all sorts of cookies and sandwiches. They even provided cartons of milk. I hadn’t really realized how much I had missed a cold glass of milk. I lost four more men in Cleveland. Our train went on through Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati. From Cincinnati we went almost due west to Springfield, Illinois, then turned south for St. Louis, Missouri. I lost a couple of more men in St. Louis.

Finally, we arrived at Texarkana, Texas. I lost six men here; all of whom claimed their homes were within rock-throwing distance. I don’t remember exactly where the train went from that point. I do recall that we arrived at Fort Sam Houston about 1500 hours the next afternoon. As we pulled into the station, there were quite a few people waiting on the platform. When we got off the train, every man I “lost” on the way from Camp Shanks, greeted me, and fell in with the group. Someone from the post met us and took charge of the files I had brought. We were given a barracks where we spent the night.

The next morning we had our final physical and received our mustering-out pay and a pin identifying us as a discharged veteran. The pin was fondly called the “ruptured duck.”26 They also tried to encourage us to stay in the reserves. Sometime about 1430 hours we were officially thanked for our service, and formally discharged from the Army. After the short formal ceremony, we just milled about. The Army was through with us, and it was up to each of us to arrange our own transportation home as best we could.

I knew that getting from San Antonio to Amarillo was almost impossible; so I ran into a guy who had gotten out a couple of weeks before. I made a deal with him to go to Fort Worth, where my brother Luther and his family lived. We found four other guys in about ten minutes, loaded our gear in his car, and left for Fort Worth.

An interesting thing happened about half way between San Antonio and Austin. The guy, who was sitting on my left in the middle of the back seat, suddenly pulled a gun and announced that he was going to relieve us of our money and the car. He ordered the driver to pull over and turn down a dirt road. The fellow on the other side in the back seat had his arm up across the back of the seat. It just so happened someone had left a tire tool there. He didn’t

26 The pin depicted an eagle inside a wreath. Some folks thought the eagle looked more like a duck having difficulty taking off. The ruptured duck was issued to service personnel who received an honorable discharge and allowed them to wear their uniforms for up to thirty days after they were discharged, since there was a clothing shortage at that time. The ruptured duck showed the MPs that the discharged veterans were in transit and not AWOL. It was worn on uniforms above the right breast pocket.

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hesitate at all. He grabbed the tire tool and hit the would-be robber in the back of the head. He dropped the gun, and I grabbed it. We stopped the car, just as he had planned, dumped him in the ditch and drove off. He wasn’t hurt badly, but he did have quite a cut on his head. I’ll bet he had a headache, too.

We debated about the gun. I had possession. On the other hand, I also had two pistols in my duffel bag, a .45 caliber M1911 and a Sauer 38H 7.65mm (.32 ACP) automatic that I had liberated from a German. I finally decided that the guy who owned the car needed it more than I did; so, I gave it to him, and he knocked off half of our agreed fare. We laughed about the incident until one of the guys said, “What would you have done if that tire tool hadn’t been there?” We may have been robbed, at the very least, and murdered at the very worst.

Upon my arrival in Fort Worth, I caught a city bus to where Luther’s home. They treated me like a king. I spent the night, but told them I wanted to go home the next day. Luther had an old Chevrolet two-door sedan that he was trying to sell. He insisted that I drive it home and bring it back after a couple of weeks. I never had that kind of an offer. I took him up on it and left the next morning. It was Friday, 10 December 1945. Just before I got to Vernon, Texas, sometime after lunch, the car threw a rod. I thought the whole engine was coming apart, and it nearly did. I limped into town and stopped at the Chevrolet dealer on the corner across the street from the Vernon Hotel.

The man at the garage gave me the bad news. “We’ll work on the car tomorrow, but we need a bearing, and I’ve got to have to order from Dallas. There’s no way I can get you on the road before Monday morning.” I had my heart set on being home that night, but since the folks didn’t know when I would arrive, I decided to stay at the hotel and let the time crawl by. I don’t think I have ever been so bored. My hotel room was just that. No telephone. Just a bed, a chair, and a small table. They rolled up the sidewalks in Vernon about eight o’clock on Saturday night. I couldn’t even find a theater downtown.

There was a drug store near the hotel, and I bought plenty of candy bars and some magazines. There I was, 180 miles from home and no way to do anything but wait. Monday morning finally came, and I was at the dealer’s by seven o’clock. My car was ready about ten. I paid him forty dollars and took off for Amarillo. The job he did was temporary at best, but it got me home. The rod was in the process of going out again as I drove up to the house. (By the way, we had the car properly repaired, and a couple of weeks later, I drove it back down to my brother.

The circle had been completed. I had been over half the world, gotten a little older and quite a bit wiser. Inside I felt about the same. Mom had always instilled in me the idea that I would go on to college. I never dreamed of doing anything else. But that’s another tale.

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CHAPTER 13: Conclusions

Some things about the war seem to stick in my mind for no apparent reason. In this concluding chapter, I have collected a number of anecdotes that didn’t seem to fit elsewhere.
We had our CP in a small schoolhouse near Thionville. Billy Joe Watkins and I had worked all night and were allowed to sleep during part of the day. I was just crawling out of my sack, when I heard the roar of an airplane and people started yelling. Suddenly there was a big bang as a bomb went off. I looked up and saw Billy Joe standing in the window in his long-johns ready to jump out into the snow. Turned out it was one of our B-26’s that made a mistake. The pilot heard about it when he got back.

Colonel Gabriel called Colonel Cole, 12th Artillery Group Commander. Colonel Cole called the XX Corps Commander, Lt. General Walton H. Walker. The next thing you knew, the incident made its way to General Patton himself. I was not privy to General Patton’s conversation with the General who commanded the air arm in our area, but I will bet it was not a very pleasant time for the Air Force General, or those under him.

That year (1944) was the only time I ever ate Thanksgiving dinner in the rain. While the rain poured down, we squatted on the ground and ate turkey and dressing with all the trimmings. It was a little soggy, but it was also very good. They must have spent money to serve hot Thanksgiving dinners to all the troops.

While making the run out of Normandy, we got a gun carriage stuck under a bridge. Colonel Gabriel went up to find out what happened. The men were letting the air out of the big flotation tires. This would lower the carriage just enough to allow it to pass under the bridge. About that time, we heard sirens and saw General Patton roaring down the in his command car along with a leading jeep and a couple more following him.

He went by us like a shot and pulled up next to the bridge. When he got out, he started yelling that we were holding up the 4th Armored Division, and “By God, somebody would be court-martialed!” Colonel Gabriel heard him, turned and stalked back toward him. He saluted General Patton. After Patton returned the salute, he said, “Hell, Gabe, I didn’t know it was you. What the hell’s the matter?” “General, if you’ll just get your ass back there where you belong, I’ll have this thing out of here in ten minutes. I ain’t holding up the Third Army.” General Patton looked at him with a baleful eye, and said, “That’s good enough for me Gabe. Get on it.” Then he turned around and left just as he had come.

We had a small one-lung generator that provided lights in the CP. It ran out of gas about every two hours, and we took turns filling it. I never figured out why we didn’t set ourselves on fire along with everything else. Invariably, we spilled gasoline on the cylinder head. It seemed to boil off but never exploded or caught on fire.

The powder for the 240’s came in silk bags. There were four charges (four bags) in a can. The powder pellets inside each charge were about an inch long, half an inch wide and had six symmetrical holes in the middle. You could set a pellet on fire out in the open, and it would burn much like a candle. But if you put a can over it, it would explode in all its fury. Powder was made differently for different weapons, German 88’s were one of the most feared weapons they had. We were looking at some that were captured, and opened one of the shells. The powder they used was about like an eighteen-inch long string of spaghetti in 30 strands.

The smell of a battlefield is unforgettable. We usually came by some hours after the battle was over, but fires were still burning and bodies were still lying where they fell. The smell of burning rubber, charred steel, bodies in the first stage of decomposition, dead horses, all made for a unique smell that will always remain those who were there.

As I looked up at the planes going over every day, I couldn’t help but think that they had eggs and bacon for breakfast this morning, and they slept in a warm bed last night...and there was no justice in that!

I recall an occasion when they made the trucks wear cerise (hot pink) panels so our planes could identify friendly forces. When we bivouacked for the night we put these panels out in plain sight on the ground. I guess it saved us, and if it did, it was a good idea, but we felt a little foolish with all the camouflage around, and yet, right in the middle of everything, so it could not be missed, were these hot pink panels that could be seen for miles.

I didn’t know anyone named Kilroy, but I do know that everywhere we went there was always a sign painted on a post, building, fence, or house that said, “Kilroy was here.” It seems Americans always find an amusing way to make things a little easier.

Luke Provenzano saved my life. One night at Fort Bragg when we got the news that we were headed overseas, there was a big beer bust. I’m not sure, but I think it was in our recreation room. I had the flu or something. I know I felt lousy, and I decided to pass. So, I stayed in bed. My cot was on the first floor half way down the center aisle. Hess, the big Indian, would fight at the first opportunity after drinking a few beers. He came into the barracks. Seeing me, he demanded I get up and go to the party with him. I explained there was no way I could go. I was really sick, and go away and don’t bother me.

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That didn’t faze him at all. Hess came over and was about to turn my bed over and make me go when Luke walked in. Luke said in a very reasonable and quiet way, “Hess, leave him alone and get out of here.” That was a red flag to him, and he charged. Luke hit him with a right hand that smacked as though it had hit a side of beef. Hess’s eye was split and the blood started to run. I thought that would finish him, but it didn’t. They fought up and down the aisle in front of me for sometime. Finally, Hess had enough and left. Luke was tired. That much was evident, but other than that he was just smeared with Hess’s blood. I decided that if I ever got in real trouble, I would like to have Luke beside me.

Captain Michaels was our Battalion surgeon. There wasn’t much military in him, but he was a good obstetrician, I’m sure. He stayed out of the way, unless he was needed, but he was always available if one called. When we were passing through some French town, he saw this little dog. He picked him up and took him with us. Captain Michaels named the dog “Lionheart.” He was a black and white mutt and just as cute as he could be. Lionheart trotted around the area with his little tail up in the air. He was king of all he surveyed. On those occasions when another dog showed up, and he heard him barking, he would yelp, run, and jump into somebody’s arms. He would then try to hide as best he could.

I don’t know when Glynn Waldrop became Glynn. We called him Floyd most of the time.

One of the questions most often asked throughout the years has been the old standard: What was war really like? From my standpoint it seemed to be composed of endless waiting plus a good deal of boredom punctuated with moments of sheer terror.

Could we, or would we, have traveled to all those marvelous places had it not been for our Army experience? Well, maybe, but most likely many of us would never have had the opportunity. It was wonderful to find out that we lived in the best country on this earth, even with all its imperfections.

Did the war really solve anything? I can’t speak for anyone but me, but, yes, I think so. It taught me a lot about myself. I think I began to find out my strengths, and it certainly magnified my weaknesses. I don’t know that it did anything for humanity. We only repeated the errors of the past. Much like the First World War, this one was supposed to be the last one. If that were true, then it was worth all the sacrifices, all the deprivations, and all the dying. The only trouble is that humans are still humans, and we fail to learn anything from the past. Therefore, it seems, we are doomed to repeat it.

I believe I got an appreciation for those who lived in other parts of our great country. They were just as sincere and hard working as I was. It was nice to know we were really all alike.

When it was over and I was turning in all my equipment, the three blankets I had in my sack had to go. I had sewn them in; so, I unzipped my sack and folded it out to daylight. The blankets were a too long, so I had folded them over about eight inches. In those eight inches were a remarkable number of things, from wheat grains, to dead insects, a few coins, pieces of paper, and stubs of pencils. Small dirt clods were also prominent. I even found part of an old K-ration breakfast bar and three rounds of .30-caliber ammunition. I threw the canvas sleeping bag cover away. It would never make it home.

I hope it never happens again, but I know it will. I’m sure the next one won’t be protracted like the one we fought. Technology has made the war I knew a thing of the past. I have come to the conclusion, however, that air power alone cannot win the next war. Some poor old foot-slogging infantryman will have to go in, just like he did in my war, and take the territory. I wish him well.

I learned another thing, too. American soldiers are the best in the world, because they are the smartest. They are smart enough not to blindly follow some spellbinding orator. They are smart enough to ask why. They are also loyal enough to follow a leader they respect anywhere he wants to go, as long as they understand what it’s all about.

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ADDENDUM 1: A Note on Field Artillery Organization and Command Structure

When I came to Camp Butner, North Carolina, for basic training, our unit was made a part of Second Army. I don’t know for sure, but I think Second Army was designated as the training army for all of us in the states.

When we embarked for the UK, we were made part of First Army, and they were the control until we got to France. Third Army, under General Patton was activated on or about 25 July 1944, and we were assigned to XV Corps, where we remained for just a few days. Then we were assigned to XX Corps, Major General Walton H. Walker, commanding. He tried very much to be like Patton but didn’t have much success, although he was a reasonably competent general. Third Army Artillery was a group of heavy artillery battalions that just didn’t fit into a division, but were subject to being used by any division needing heavy artillery support. The way they organized it was to put the 270th Field Artillery Battalion into an organization known as either 8th or 12th Artillery Group. This included battalions of 155mm guns, 8” guns, 8” howitzers, and 240mm howitzers.

The heavies were then allocated to the divisions as required. Division Artillery, as I remember it, consisted of units, or battalions of 155mm howitzers, and a number of battalions of 105mm howitzers. I don’t remember how many battalions there were, but I think each regiment had a battalion of 155s, and three battalions of 105s. They were mobile and fast to set up and fire. Many units were also equipped with self-propelled 155s. Normally, there were three regiments in a division. Each division had a lot of firepower and could call for a lot of additional stuff from Army Artillery. Any artillery battalion was setup as follows: HQ Battery, three firing batteries (Able, Baker and Charlie), and a Service Battery. Each battery had roughly 120 men in it, so five batteries per battalion meant about 600 men.

HQ Battery was the residence of the Battalion Commander and his staff. He had a Battalion Executive Officer, nominally the No 2 man, an S-1-Personnel Officer, usually a Warrant Officer; an S-2 Intelligence Officer, S-3 Operations and Training Officer, and S-4 Supply Officer. While we were in training, the S-3 was the Training Officer and commanded the Fire Direction Center (FDC). That’s where I worked. Headquarters Battery had a Commanding Officer. He was responsible for the care and feeding of all those sections within his battery, i.e., Communications, both wire and radio, Personnel, FDC, and other assorted folks like the Mess Sergeant, etc. Each firing battery and service battery had a commanding officer that reported to the Colonel or his exec. These were all Captains, and they had two Lieutenants who ran the two guns we had in each battery.

Our FDC was run by Major Hannah, the S-3. We had a Horizontal Control Operator (HCO), a Vertical Control Operator (VCO) [that was my job], and three computer operators, one for each firing battery, plus backups. We had a Tech Sergeant who was supposed to be in charge of all the enlisted men, but he was an older guy and just couldn’t keep up. Call that ineffective. We also had our own GMC 4x4 truck, complete with driver and .50-caliber machine gun. The computer operators I mentioned did most of the math with pencil and paper, but they also used slide rules made for the 240. Our wire crews (called “wire dogs”) were responsible for the primary communications net with all the batteries, and with the next higher HQ, the Group I mentioned earlier. The radio section duplicated their work, but with radios. We found wire to be much more reliable than radios. We also had two Piper L-4 “Grasshopper” observation aircraft with pilots to match. The L-4 was a militarized version of the J-3 Piper Cub. These planes became an integral part of FDC since we fired many missions called in by the Forward Observers riding with our pilots.

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ADDENDUM 2: Charles Leidenfrost ... The Rest of the Story

In Chapter 9 of this book, I mentioned Charles Leidenfrost, our friend and interpreter whom we rescued from the Hungarian laager in Regensburg.

While working on the first draft, my son Ben and I talked about Charles. Ben suggested that we try to find him. I said, “I’m trying to get this book finished, but if you want to try, go ahead.” I’ll let Ben pick up the story from there:

Dad told me that Charles had a cousin named Alexander Leydenfrost who was a well-known illustrator for Life magazine in the 1940s. I ran an Internet search on ‘Leydenfrost’ and found a website maintained by Alexander’s granddaughter, Tina St. Paul, selling prints of Alexander’s artwork. I wrote Tina about Dad’s story. She wrote back that the original family name was spelled ‘Leidenfrost,’ and that Alexander had changed the spelling when he came to the United States. She did not know Charles, but had a cousin in Hungary named Gyula who might know about him. After corresponding with Gyula, I learned that Charles had successfully immigrated to the United States in the 1950s, but Gyula did not know what had happened to him after that. I ran a search on the name (now spelled ‘Leidenfrost’) in one of the Internet phone books and found about 70 people with that name, but only three Charles Leidenfrosts. I sent letters to all three explaining my interest in contacting Dad’s old acquaintance. About a week later, the phone rang and it was Charles, now a spry 80-year- old, saying, “Ben, you’ve got your man.”

As a result, Charles called me and we had a reunion on the phone. This is the story of what happened after we lost contact. He was briefly attached to another unit as a translator, but after a few months the authorities prevailed and he was forcibly repatriated to return to Hungary, now under Communist control. His assets were confiscated by the Communists and his home converted to a school. He was left with nothing and worked as an auto mechanic just to get by.

At some point he married and became the father of two daughters. He got in trouble with the Communists, as we knew he would, and was imprisoned for two years. He was released in early 1956, the year the Hungarians revolted. The Russians brought in tanks and brutally put down the rebellion.

Charles talked things over with his wife and they decided to get out. With things in turmoil in Hungary, they were able to cross the border with their daughters, but with little else. They went to England where he worked at odd jobs and accumulated enough money to reach the United States.

I do not know how he came to Maryland, but he eventually was employed by the University of Maryland as an agronomist, became an American citizen, and I would like to say, lived happily ever after. That was not the case. His wife longed to go back to Hungary and made the decision to do so even if it cost their marriage. This break left Charles with his two daughters, American citizenship, and a good job.

Later he met and married his second wife, Nancy. And they lived happily ever after. His story doesn’t quite end there. In due time he became a grandfather as his daughters married and moved away. Charles worked for the University for forty years before his retirement in 2000.

After retiring he worked on a book of his experiences in the war. He sent me one chapter, which described his work as a translator and the things that happened to him after we left.

Charles and I visited by telephone and quickly got reacquainted. While he was eighty years old at the time, he had lost none of the charm and wit with which we were all enamored. He explained his cousin’s reaction when asked to sponsor Charles. It seems Charles held the nobility rank of “Barsi” and his cousin did not. There seemed to be a little jealousy because of that fact.

His wife was scheduled to come to Austin in the summer of 2003 to make a presentation at a convention, and we had planned to meet in person at that time. Once again fate intervened. Charles died from leukemia in October 2002. In addition to all his other talents, Charles was a poet. The following poem was included in his funeral notice:

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© Copyright 2000 by Charles B. Leidenfrost. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Life is a Dream

Words for the Intermezzo of Cavalleria Rusticana.

Life is dream, surpassing understanding Its waves like the waters flow. Tides keep changing,
Our lives keep rearranging Though why, we’ll never have a chance To clearly see or know.
Life has secrets, a thousand and more, Life makes changes we never asked for. Yet life, this passing scene,
Is still the only dream we know.
All we have in life seems at first important Then things change and lose interest: Why do passions falter?
Why the best things alter?
All these are brought on us by TIME. Giving sense to our quest.
There is no way
To break away
To avoid life’s great test.
We cannot choose
But learn to lose
Till the end gives us rest.
But when it comes
And how it comes,
We’ll never know...

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

 

1945                                    1988

Bert Ballengee was born Delbert Homer Ballengee in Trinidad, Colorado, in 1924. The youngest of three brothers, his name was chosen by his eldest brother Luther. The rationale put forth in support of the name “Delbert Homer” was that (1) Luther’s best friend was named Delbert, and (2) Luther had recently studied the epic poems Iliad and Odyssey and felt that naming his brother for the blind Greek poet was an appropriate way to pay homage. The name was not, alas, popular with its owner, who began trying to change it in high school. Although he never legally changed his name, he began signing and introducing himself as Bert. His efforts succeeded in 1952, when he was listed in the Amarillo City Directory for the first time as “Bert” rather than “Delbert.” Members of his battalion still know him as “Delbert,” however, and typically refer to him by that name at reunions.

Delbert was honorably discharged from the Army at the rank of Technical Sergeant on 6 December 1945. He later joined the Army reserve, serving as an artillery instructor at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, until his resignation in 1962 at the rank of Captain.

Despite his pre-war enrollment at Texas A&M College, he enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin after the war, graduating with a BBA in 1948. Absence of military routine, the presence of female students, and a baseball scholarship with the Longhorns under Coach Bibb Falk were the reasons cited for the change. Concluding that a professional baseball career was not in his future, he left the team and worked at three jobs to make ends meet: pumping gas, night janitorial work at the Bureau of Business Research, and waiting tables at a boarding house in exchange for meals. After graduation he returned to Amarillo and spent a difficult year trying to sell life insurance. Concluding that a sales career was not in his future either, he took a job in the customer accounting department of Southwestern Public Service Company (SPS) in 1949.

Bert retired as Chairman of the Board of SPS in 1989 after a distinguished career. At that time, he was the only non-engineer to serve as Chairman. Career highlights included Director of Personnel, Director of Data Processing, and Financial Vice President. Within the industry, he served as a director and member of the finance committee of the Edison Electric Institute. In 1988, he was selected as one of Business Week magazine’s “Corporate Elite,” and in 1989, he was named one of the top three utility executives in the United States by Financial World magazine for corporate performance among utilities with less than $1 billion in revenue.

Bert also participated in numerous civic activities, including the boards of directors of the Amarillo Area Foundation, the Amarillo Club, the American Red Cross, the Boy Scouts of America, the Harrington Foundation, St. Anthony’s Hospital, and the United Way. He has held a number of leadership roles including Chairman of the Amarillo Chamber of Commerce, Chairman of St. Anthony’s Hospital, and Chairman of the United Way of Amarillo, as well as Vice Chairman of the Amarillo Area Foundation. In recognition of his contributions to the community, Bert was elected to the Sandie Hall of Fame in 1985, an honor reserved for distinguished graduates of Amarillo High School.

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