The first week of December 1944 saw the 103d Division, and other elements of the 7th Army concluding the battle for Selestat and gaining control of main road junctions that could lead to pushing the Germans back toward their western border and possibly make it possible for Allied forces - primarily the French First Army -to exert pressure on the German forces in the "Colmar Pocket".

 The Germans still were able to maintain a defensive perimeter, or "pocket" fairly deep in the most southern Allied Front, in a position to press an attack on the flank of any possible Allied advance in that area.  This unfortunate condition existed right up to the very end days of the war and continued to be a source of contention. among Allied leaders.

 A reorganization and relocation of the military units was also taking place.  Task Force Selestat continued and then concluded the assault on the Germans at Selestat before moving northward to rejoin other elements of the 103d division and the 7th Army for a brief rest.

OUR MEN: DONLAN - Friday, December 1, 1944
 Washed clothes before we pulled out around 3 p.m. for Division advance.  We went through quite a few towns.  Fog and mist hung heavy below many of the hills.  We see many crucifixes along the roads.  We passed many stalwart road blocks constructed by the Nazis and cleared by our engineers.

 We also passed tank columns and lines of Infantry -- and many dead Germans strewn along the road.  We finally got away up front to a town.  We set up in a sock factory and availed ourselves of the opportunity by securing several pairs.  Operated the radio set from 9 till 12 p.m., with little traffic.  Felt good on the key.

 On Saturday, December 2, 1944 - We were at Dambach La Ville.  I worked on radio shift all morning.  C Ration chow (per usual).  Cleaned out the radio truck, cleaned my rifle.  By noon the whole Division had moved up and set up the C.P. in a factory.  Our set was remoted as N.C.S. (Net Control Station) in the factory boiler room.  That gave us an idea.  It was cold, so we started a fire in the boiler.  The "J" area was set up on the road near the town arch, which was Dambach La Ville.

  Off to the east was a first view of the Rhine River plains and no mountains.  Could also see fires off in the flat lands from artillery.  Slept in the boiler room on radio duty.

 On Sunday, December 3, 1944 - I was on radio duty on remote by the boiler from 12 to 6 a.m.  Not much traffic.  Slow day.  Read and wrote mail and covered shifts.  Couldn't connect with church service in town.  On the next day, I awakened at 6 a.m. to relief, an operator on the truck.  It was raining and miserable out.  Waited without relief, and finally at 9 a.m. we pulled out the remote and got ready to move out.  We had to drag a trailer along (not unusual), but it gave us some trouble.  We got lost from the convoy and had to proceed alone.  We went through Epfig, Barr, Molsheim and finally Gugenheim, the new Division C.P., as the 103d continued to move ahead in the Vosges.  Gugenheim is about 45 miles north of Dambach.  We stopped for pretty good chow at quartermaster.  Rich farming country with vineyard poles and many grapevines.  The Divisions moved north for regrouping and reassignment from 6th to 15th Corps.  This time "J" Area set up in a beer hall (getting better!).  Slept in a barn with a good hot stove.  Enemy planes overhead and we heard ack-ack around 8 p.m.

OUR MEN: BECK - letter home
 I think you once asked me if we were on the front lines.  Hell, we haven't been out of the front lines yet!  From the time we landed on the beaches at Marseille (what seems like ages ago) we've been at it.  And they used to say that the 103rd would never leave Texas!

 We came into a town a short while back that had just been taken after some pretty heavy fighting.  Most of it was quite beat up.  Our headquarters was going to set up there for a while so I had to find a place for my company.  The people speak German here and since I was still struggling with my French, I had a hard time.  I did finally salvage a house after a great deal of arm waving and gesturing, using French, german and English in one sentence.

 The woman, incidently, had just had her brother taken captive by the Nazis before we moved in.

 Just being overseas and being in combat overseas are two different things really.  Just being overseas is like being the states except your family is so far away.  Being in action is when it really counts.  It's hard to say exactly how one feels.  First, there is a terrific strain, a kind of pressure on your mind.  It's a strain that merely wears you out with doing anything.  It gets lonely - we all get homesick.  Mail becomes such a big item - packages from home also rate very high.  Everything at home seems to take on a new and greater meaning, much deeper and sincere than ever imagined.

  I think that when these boys go back home they will be the best citizens the country had.  Morale is usually very high in a fighting unit.  It's high without the frivolous things that are necessary in the states, such as dances, movies, athletics, passes and service clubs.  Comradeship literally juts to the fore - and that's how they live - and die.

PFC. ROGET
 On December 3, we were pulled out of the line to get a little rest and to get cleaned up. We moved back to near Rumerscheim. A Quartermaster Corp. mobile shower unit, designed for use in the tropics, was set up in an open field. A semi-truck pulled the trailer containing the showers, plumbing and heating elements of the unit. Adjacent to the trailer was the undress area, a canvas perimeter two feet off the ground that did little to stop the cold wind coming off the Vosges Mountains in early December . There were benches to sit on while undressing, a large and growing pile of dirty clothing and a dirty wet board walk leading into the elevated trailer bed.
 After the hot shower, there was another board walk "protected" by a four-foot canvas to a tent where we drew clean clothes, then out into an open area to put them on! By that time you sure had a frozen ass.

 We were billeted in barns. The kitchen outfits set up in the courtyards, as far from manure piles as possible. Some of us found better quarters in houses by cooperating with the local folks.

 Our infantry and support troops made rapid advance toward the Franco-German border through open but wet country, rolling hills and small mountains in an area that had been prepared over years for defense of the borders. The French Maginot Line that we encountered was facing in a direction to repel an advance by the Germans. They were now retreating back through it and we were attacking them from the blind side of the fortifications. The Germans were not able to occupy and defend those concrete barriers, so they established their defenses just beyond the normal fields of fire that extended beyond the forts.

     The French had not built their fortifications for a defense-in-depth so that when our infantry was able to push the enemy beyond the shallow defense corridor, the forts were no longer a factor in the fighting. This situation favoring our forces would not prevail when we very soon were to encounter the German Siegfried Line defenses.

OUR MEN: "SMITTY'
 On the 4th of December we moved to Wasselheim, and five days later, to a cement factory in Hockfelden.  On the 14th we arrived in Woerth near the Hagenau Forest.  This was the first tavern to be occupied... complete with beer on tap.  One noncommissioned officer appointed himself bartender... his name won't be mentioned because he is still living.  Perhaps this explains why we didn't move out until the day before Christmas.

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS - DECEMBER 4, 1944 GOUGENHEIM  4 NIGHTS
 This was the most romantic of all our Set-Ups, and one that we will always remember (1991, ANANIA and Barclay, the only men from Jones' team still around, say that certainly is so).

 We stayed with the "Familie Mueller", but to us Gougenheim will always be "Mary's House".  These folks were really anxious for us to stay with them.  They came out while we were still driving around looking for a place to stay but we passed them by once.  At this time, in this section of Alsace, we still had to ask the people if they would be willing to share their houses (barns, etc.)with us.  Most of the folks were glad we were in the area, but sharing, was not often offered, and at times there were lots of good or bad excuses.

 To have people come out and invite us in as this family seemed willing to do was exceptional.  When we circled back to their house to stay, we found out how exceptional this family was.

 Mary seemed to be the head of the household.  She and her family did everything in their power to treat us just like we were members of the family.

 There were feasts that lasted four or five hours made up of whatever they could beg or borrow locally and we could beg or steal from the Company Kitchen (a lot!).  There was wine and schnapps and ersatz coffee with chicory one time, it was terrible) and then plenty of good GI coffee when we realized these folks hadn't even smelled  the good-stuff for years.

 Mary was a widow lady.  Her husband had died before the war, with 2 children and her father-in-law and perhaps another adult all living together.  Crowded as it was before 6 of us came, they seemed to make room and comfort for us.

 Mary cut the German blankets (that Rudy and Bill had picked up) and sewed them into our field jackets which had not been very warm.  She told us, and we knew, that this material was not nearly as good as the GI Army blankets that we had, but it just was not possible to get one to cut up.  She looked after us like a bunch of chicks.

 On our last night, this family and some of their neighbors, had a very special entertainment dinner for us.  They were all dressed in very colorful local costumes and best dress clothes, brought small accordions to play, dance and sing with, had special desserts, and made every effort to make us feel special.  The special folks that night were the local citizens.  We came back to this wonderful place from the next Set-up and again several times from Imbsheim months later and many miles away.
  Each time they could almost sense us coming, as if they were looking down the road, and each time Mary and her family made it seem just like home.

 It was near Gougenheim that we just missed our first attack by the German airforce. We had gone down to the wire dump (storage area for wire supplies) to pick up several reels of 1 mile of W110B communications wire that we would need to continue with our line laying activities.  We were not too anxious to be out working and took some extra time in loading and rearranging the equipment on the truck.
 When we finally got under way, but were still at the edge of town, three ME109s came down fast and low and started to shoot up the traffic that was out on the open road.  They did some damage but were driven off by nearby anti-aircraft fire.  If we had been more efficient in our loading, we certainly would have been out there with some of those who were hit.

 The threat and reality of air attacks on members of the Signal Company working close to the front line troops increased the thrill of daily toil.

 This sector of the Rhine valley of Alsace had a very good network of roads that made attack and counter-attack much easier  than had been previously possible in the areas of 103d action.  For the first time, we were in danger of being attacked by the German airforce and on December 10, two ME109 and a F.W. were shot down by our defending antiaircraft units near Pfaffenhofen.

OUR MEN: DONLAN -
 Tuesday, December 5, 1944 - Gougenheim
 Breakfast interrupted by ack-ack and machine guns.  We hit the dirt!  It was enemy ME-109's firing at an artillery column and our C.P.  The rat-a-tat-tat was scary.  One of the planes was reported downed.  Sat around the fire on a rainy day and sipped hot cocoa.  Most of the people around here speak German, wear wooden shoes, drink schnapps and say they hate the Germans -- Nazis.

 On the next day, I lucked out and had hot cakes on my birthday soon after our set (Sgt. Lake's) relieved the 411th set so they could come in for a motor check.  We sat without traffic, wrote letters, listened to music in the rain and helped early birds finish their Christmas package treats.  Not much sleep because I pulled air raid alert guard from 10-12 p.m.  C'est le guerre.
 

(1995 Editor's note: Donlan's reference to "Sgt. LAKE" as the leader of a radio operating crew, when I can find no reference to this operating unit is probably a result of the fact that there were, from time to time, groups of men who were assigned to work together in special situations but were not a recorded part of  our "very comprehensive "Table of Organization". It is also likely to be a result of lapse of memory of a few of us and/or the "Fog of War" a term usually defining important stuff such as what Eisenhower, Beck, or Natoli did at a particular time.

    COMPANY REPORT DECEMBER 1944 - EXCERPT

  On 6 December 1944, in this vicinity, the Signal Company troops were initiated in another phase of modern warfare; namely, strafing from the air, this being the first time that enemy air activity had been encountered.  An enemy aircraft and alert systems were established at this time whichserved to alert the Division CP forces as soon as the alert warning was broadcast by the Anti Aircraft (AAA) battalion  Bn.  This has served very satisfactorily in the CP area, but the signal man in the field still has to rely on aircraft identification, and maintain a state of alertness and readiness, and be prepared to dive for the nearest hole, or behind the nearest fortification, be it tree, bridge, vehicle, or dung pile.

 On December 5th, northern Alsace passed from the control of the 7th Army XV Corps to the VI Corps to which the 103d Infantry Division was assigned.  On December 6th, the 103d relieved the 45th Infantry Division in the vicinity of Gougenheim.*MODER

OUR MEN: BECK - France  5 Dec 1944.
 This morning a couple of Stukas tore loose out of the sky and went belching their machine-guns at tree-top level.  They come in so fast it's hard to spot them.  The ack-acks caught one in the nose and it went down in flames.  I watched the proceedings from behind a wall 3 feet thick - of concrete.  In air-attacks like that the only thing for someone like me to do is get out of the damned way.  Every time I hear a motor I get anxious and uneasy.  When I get back to the states I'll jump every time I hear a plane.

OUR MEN: TOM BROWN
 One day we were laying wire when we heard a strafing airplane coming our way.  We unloaded and rolled into the ditches.  I looked up and said, "That's not a German ME-109, its an American P-51."  The pilot made a deadly mistake.  Instead of strafing away from our lines he strafed toward our lines.  This made him a hostile aircraft, and we were instructed to shoot at all hostile aircraft.  When I saw him, the quad 50 anti-aircraft guns were working him over.

 As he passed out of range of one another would pick him up.  All of a sudden at about 500 feet altitude the plane rolled over and plunged into the ground, where it exploded into huge ball of fire and smoke.

 HILLARD  went over to the wreck and reported that the pilot, a young lieutenant, was a ball of burning flesh.  We guessed that the pilot had been an operational type out to get in his monthly flying hours,   when he decided he wanted to kill some Germans.  The only problem was he didn't know the rules of the game.

 In accordance with SHAEF's plan the 103d turned to the north. Part of the 410th entered Mertzwiller on the 7th of December. On  10 December the 411th was  near Gunderschoffen, the 410th cleaned out Mertzwiller, and then entered the western edge of the Hagenau Forest.

 During the night of December 7/8, 1944, the 103d relieved elements of the 45th and 79th divisions on the Zintel river from Uttenhofen to Mertzwiller.  There is active German resistance all  along the front facing us.  The enemy is giving up ground very slowly, defending every possible position along the road at junctions, and other places defensive positions can be built in  anticipation of our advance.  The preparation time gives the defenders a great advantage.

 In areas where there are trees by the roadside, they have had explosive charges wrapped around them and  detonated to cause a jumble of tree trunks and debris on the road that the advancing foot soldiers have to work their way through with the assistance of the mine sweeping engineers. Before any vehicles (like ours) can pass through the construction engineers must clear the roads.

PFC. ROGET
 We were back into the action on the night of December 7th. It rained on us all night. At dawn we made a charge across the sodden ground of an open field, and up into a slightly wooded area. The mortar shells that had been falling on us in the field, were now coming in flat. Some of them were sliding on the wet ground and not exploding. Sgt. Weslowski was to my right about 10 feet when I saw his left arm disappear as a 120mm mortar took it off without exploding. Another landed two or three feet to my left without exploding. Weslowski hollered for help.  I didn't think this jerk ever helped anyone, so I told him, "Help yourself, you son-of-a-bitch! Then I yelled, "Let's go!".  Everyone followed.  We overran the mortar crew and captured a large number of prisoners.

OUR MEN: DONLAN -
 Friday, December 8, 1944
 Midnight radio shift, sick with dysentery and word that we were to move again!  We went through the towns of Wasselnheim, Hoch Feloen (quite large) and Ettendorf.  Our C.P. ended up at La Walch.  The towns around here aren't badly damaged and are fairly neat.  Now our C.P. is in a lumberyard.  Our crew went into a cold upstairs room in a home, but we got two soft feather tick beds -- tried to converse a little with the people downstairs in German (so-so).  Radio silence, so we got a good night's sleep.

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS - DECEMBER 8, 1944 LAWALK 5 NIGHT
 We are just across the river from Pfaffenhoffen.  This is the setup where we began to have trouble with the evil of drink.  DORTMAN and TISCH had too much of the schnapps that Mary gave us and both of them were too sick to work and so we had to leave them behind for a day or so.  This was a fairly minor problem, for the most part all of us were trying to do our best for the team and the army.

 We were now out into more open country and there seemed to be some advantage from time-to-time to just pull the wire off of the reels and to drag it across fields rather than to drive around on the road to reach a point we could plainly see.  This seldom really worked as well and efficiently as we hoped.  It could also be dangerous to use unusual procedures.

 One morning we laid a line by truck and by dragging in the fields to the other side of a little town that was in the direction of the combat front without going through the town and then returned to our starting point until afternoon.

 After lunch, we went back out to complete the job.  While we were still on a hill overlooking the area of our morning  work we were surprised to see a lot of combat activity in and around "our town".

 Our infantry was moving forward toward the town and were receiving at lot of fire from an area that was in the field about 500 yards from where we had left the end of our line in the morning.  We stood on the hill and watched the machine gun tracers and the mortar shells and other projectiles flying back and forth just a stones throw from where we so innocently walked during the morning.

 The Germans seemed to have an observation post set up in the top of  the church steeple in the town.  Just about the time we arrived, the 614 TD crews arrived with their 3 inch guns drawn by half tracks and we had a first hand view of the operation.
 There were two gun crews of about 10 men.  They towed the guns into firing position on the road, detached them, unloaded a few shells for each, and then moved the towing half-tracks back to safer positions. It seemed that it was just minutes from their arrival that they were firing at the church steeple and another target in the fields with great accuracy and good results.

 These 'WARRIOR' (their combat code name) boys were plenty good.  This was a time before the integration of the negro (black) men into all of the units of the army and for the most part they were used in transportation and other service units, seldom in combat outfits.

 Some of the men who had joined the army from the South even when they recognized the ability and character of the negro (black) fighters, seemed to think that they must be very unusual and not typical.

 Most of the soldiers however after a short period of time and experience in the field and in action with these troops modified their opinion to a real respect for the competence, character, and truly good spirit of the men of the 614th and the very few other negro (black) men we saw.

 On December 9th, Taskforce FOREST drove through the Hagenau Forest in the early stages of an attack to breakthrough the German West Wall (Siegfried Line).  The Taskforce was composed of an unit of the 103d Reconnaissance Company, a 409th rifle company, a company of the 756th Tank Battalion and Company A of the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion. The 614th TD was a Negro unit.  It had five white battalion officers and the remainder of the staff was Negro and all the Company officers were Negroes too.  It had landed at Utah Beach on 8 October.  The Battalion was first committed to action 28 November in the Moselle sector. It was assigned to the 103d Division on 5 December.*MODER

 When the war was over, it was written about this Battalion: "First it proved to the world that the negro soldier could and would fight.  Other battalions had done more in this war than the 614th, but the 614th had done well everything that had been asked of It and had won the esteem and affection of the 103d Inf.Div. with which it was associated for so long.  It had won respect of Corps and Army commanders and their staffs.  It had merited a visit from the Commanding General of the Seventh Army, Lieutenant General Alexander M. Patch.  Its exploits had been publicized in the newspapers.  It had also proved that when men demonstrate their worth, racial troubles are largely ended and the colored man is accepted.  No friendship could be stronger between groups of men than the friendship that existed between the colored gamecocks of the 614th TD and the white officers and soldiers of the 103d division."
 The attack by Taskforce FOREST was followed by additional pressure by the 103d division.  The Germans were driven back across the flooded Zinser River into and through Mertzwiller and Utterhoffen. By December 11, the German resistance was still falling back, but not at Climbach. *MODER

(1995 Editor's note: The United States and its Armed Forces have come a long way since this description was appropriate or necessary - fortunately.)

OUR MEN: EVANS
 The 103d Division relieved elements of the 45th and 79th Divisions along the Zintzel River. An hour before dawn on Dec. 9th, a coordinated barrage of field artillery, cannon company fire, 60mm mortars, 81mm mortars, tanks and tank destroyers opened up on the positions that we were about to attack.  Many of the 81mm mortars were throwing in white phosphorous shells.  They gave the barrage the look of a July 4th fireworks display but is purpose was deadly. It was a terrifying sight, far more frightening in the dark than the contrived firepower demonstration we had seen back at Camp Howze.  It significantly softened up the defenses on the Kraut side of the Zintzel River but they still fought tenaciously for Griesbach.  Advancement was slow at first but then we advanced more rapidly through Eberbach and Woerth.

 It was in this area that we ran into one of the most expensive mistakes ever made, the Maginot Line.  Before the start of World War II, the French built a wall of underground fortresses along its border with Germany to defend against the Germans if they should ever attack France.  At ground level there were heavy concrete bunkers and pillboxes protecting machine guns and artillery pieces.  These were all exposed on hill tops to intimidate the Germans and had clear and overlapping fields of fire with barbed wire strung in front of them.
 
 

 These fortifications were all interconnected by tunnels with electric trains to permit rapid movement of troops from one place to another.  There were comfortable underground sleeping quarters, bath rooms, kitchens, -- every thing needed to make life comfortable for the French soldiers and miserable for the Germans if they should be foolhardy enough to make a head on attack against these fortifications called the Maginot Line.

 The Germans in their blitzkrieg attack on France at the start of the war on the Western Front were not that foolhardy.  They simply attacked around the end of the line through Holland and Belgium and flew over the Maginot Line dropping thousands of paratroopers behind the line in France.

 This new kind of warfare in which fast armored columns raced around the flanks of defenses and paratroops were dropped behind prepared defensive positions was called blitzkrieg, or "lightning war".  It was invented and named by the Germans and forever changed the way that wars on the ground would be fought.

 The guns of the Maginot Line could not be turned around to fire the other way so the Maginot Line was useless.  France had been easily defeated.

 As the 103d Division pressed forward, the Germans chose not to defend any of the Maginot Line fortifications for the same reason.  Everything pointed the wrong way.  They did however make good use of the fields of fire that the French had cleared in front of their bunkers.  Our troops had to attack over open ground with no cover or concealment and it slowed our advance considerably when the attack had to carry across this kind of exposed terrain.

 For a while, the Krauts seemed to be fighting just a holding action to permit them to fall back in an orderly fashion to previously prepared defensive positions along the border.  On their side of the border lay the fortifications that Germany had built to protect against an attack from French soil.  It was called the Siegfried Line and its concept was quite different from that of the Maginot Line.

 The Siegfried Line consisted of groups of camouflaged machine gun emplacements concealed in the mountainsides.  There were usually three or more of such strong-points laid out to provide protective fire for one another.  Unlike the Maginot Line, there was not just one main defensive line, but layer after layer of hidden defensive strong points. The idea behind the Seigfried Line was that the attacking forces would take such heavy losses that they would simply have to give up the attack and retreat.

OUR MEN: DONLAN -
Sunday, December 10, 1944
 Stayed in Message Center while monitoring (warm there).  Went with another operator to a high mass at the local church.  It was packed with G.I.'s and quite cold inside.  Hearty singing in German.  Beautiful woodwork and stained glass.  We were placed on a tank and armored net in the afternoon.  We now have a Radio Control Room with three nets remoted from the trucks.  Pulled the 6 to 9 shift and slept in the truck all night.  We were strafed again today and I dived into an outhouse!

 On Monday, December 11, 1944 -  We are in Gundershoffen.  I had another early shift, chow and moving again.  Pulled out after noon, moving up through Ingweiler and to the C.P. in a town named Gumbrechtshoffen (or Gundershoffen?) with a curving main street.  This time "J" Area was in an abandoned sawmill -- long way to Message Center.  Worked the remote with another fellow 6-12 p.m. -- not much traffic.

 On Tuesday, December 12, 1944 - Woerth.  Morning shift on radio truck.  Buildings in town are partially destroyed by shelling.  The Nazis always pull down commercial telephone lines to prevent our using them.  Columns of Nazi prisoners marching through the streets.  Moved again through several small towns and pulled in at dusk to fairly large town of Woerth -- closer to the German border.  "J" Area in a tavern and slept there on a mattress after 6-12 shift on the truck.  A cold and rainy night took the energy down.

 Great morning chow in the Woerth depot.  Found out that a counterattack by Germans gave our C.P. quite a threat, but it was repulsed.  This town has been pretty well shelled.  Felt good to wash up before pulling out in the afternoon -- southeast to Gunstett.  Worked remote and slept in radio control from 6 p.m. to 12 p.m.

 On the 11th the 409th and 411th captured Woerth and Walbourg. On the 12th, the 103d took Surbourg.  The 103d fought to Climbach on the 14th.  Other elements of the 103d entered Rott on the 13th and the Wissembourg area on the 14th.  On the 15th at 1305 hours, the 411th crossed the German border. *R-R

 Beyond this line, was the German Siegfried line.  This well laid out and strongly constructed series of fortifications would be facing our advancing troops and manned by dedicated soldiers who would be defending "homeland" for the first time after having been previously fighting on  territory for which they had little regard or respect.

OUR MEN: BECK
 Some of us were discussing narrow escapes which is always a favorite subject of combat soldiers.  They talk about their escapes like a hypochondriac talks about his operations.  We reminisced about the time Lt. BUTLER was on a CP selection party.  I happened to be there, too, so I can vouch for the story's veracity.

 During our initial assault on the outer defenses of the Seigfried Line last December, we entered the town of Woerth, France.  There was a great deal of resistance from Jerry who was determined to stop our advance at all costs.  When we got into the center of town about the time the main line of resistance had been forced back. [sic] There was a little harassing sniper fire but it wasn't too bad.  Butler was standing by a building showing us how he would park some of the jeeps.  There was a series of small garden houses about five feet from where he was standing.  He looked in one and said he thought it would make a good garage.

 After we had tramped around the area for a while, a couple of doughboys cut loose with a machine gun against one of BUTLER's "garages".  In one of those little huts sat two grizzled Krauts peering behind a .50 caliber machine gun!  Why they never fired at Butler is a mystery that will never be solved.  Butler was too scared to take the trouble to find out.  Hell! he was too busy with his laundry!  Naturally the Jerries are Kaput!

[Andy Beck note:  This story certainly conflicts with the notion that Signal Company Headquarters was "rear echelon"!]

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS - DECEMBER 13, 1944 GUNDERSHOFFEN 1 NIGHT
 This is the town where some 'murmuring' among the members of the wire crew started.  Our crew of about 6 men ate, slept, worked, and were TOGETHER! almost all of the time.  At each of our over night stops we would find a house or other building to move into for a very short or sometimes longer period of time.  In most situations, we would be removed some distance from our control point which was the main switch board for the division wire communications network.  We had to be constantly available to go out and work or respond for other purposes.  That meant that it was necessary for us to always lay a short line to our sleeping area.  Sgt. JONES had a responsibility to keep in touch with our leaders.  There were times when all of us were so cold, tired, hungry, and in such poor spirits that we hated it when he felt that he had to initiate a call to let Sgt. FRAZIER or someone else know we were available.  The contemptible expression "Hello, Wirehead - what's up?" started when we were just a little disgusted with our brave and true leader Jones for trying to score points.  Of course he had to do his assigned job. The rest of us just had to be mean spirited because we felt like it.

 It was as a result of one of these "volunteer calls" by JONES that we went out to lay a line at night.  The GIs on the road are very jumpy which is rather unusual. We think that we must be operating pretty close to the front.  The truck and its crew are moving so slowly through the very dark night that the two police-up men catch up with them and we are all moving forward as a very cautious unit when the truck being driven by ANANIA almost runs into a German anti-aircraft trailer.

 We stop on the road with the muzzles of four German 50 caliber machine guns pointing at the windshield of the truck from a distance of about 10 feet.  Fortunately the German gunners had abandoned their firing position a short time before.
 

 DECEMBER 14, 1944 GRISWALD 1 NIGHT - We started moving faster following our more aggressive infantry as we approached the border between France and Germany. Closer to the action, we came upon a jeep that had shortly before our arrival hit a mine.  It was badly damaged and the lone driver was dead, a sorry sight.

 We bedded down late at night in a lonely deserted house.  In the morning we found that the whole corner of the house was missing.  Imbedded in the ground, near the destroyed corner, was a very large, unexploded shell that had landed before we had arrived.

 By December 14, 1944, there was solid opposition on a front along the Lauter River from Bobenthal, Germany to Wisembourg across the river in France.  Climbach in a flat valley in front of this line was a very strong defensive strong point with preset 88mm canons on the high ground, some Mark IV tanks in protected positions, and lots of mortars and machine guns manned and ready.

 A direct assault on the town of Climbach, without some way of diverting part of this powerful force was not possible.  A platoon of the 614 TD Battalion was chosen to create that diversion.

 The platoon with four 3 inch guns drawn by half tracks was an important and very effective part of the assault on the German defenses. By positioning their guns to draw fire and distract the Germans from the coordinated drive of our Motorized Infantry, Combat Engineers, and a platoon of tanks, the 614 T.D. sacrificed 3 of their guns and gun crews to make it possible for our assault to drive onto the high ground and into the strategic position of Climbach itself.

 The 614 T.D. had 50% casualties, three of their four guns destroyed, lost two half-tracks and two jeeps. During the battle the fourth gun crew ran out of cannon ammunition and was not able to return fire with their heavier weapon. The men had little choice but to stay in place and defend their position with small arms fire only.

 One of their drivers of a support 2 1/2 truck that carried the cannon ammunition would not be deterred from driving toward the gun position that was receiving heavy fire until his truck was hopelessly mired in the mud far short of his goal. The surviving members of the gun crew and others carried the heavy cannon shells across the exposed area to put the remaining cannon back in action.

PFC. ROGET
 We were in the woods outside of Climbach on the night of December 13th preparing for the coordinated attack the next morning.  We would be backed up by the 614th Tank Destroyer Battalion, so we felt that this must be a very important assignment. There was a massive artillery barrage during the night by our rear support guns

 During the daylight hours of the assault, a flight of P-47 airplanes of the Army Air Corp came over in a strafing air attack on our positions.  We were confused at first, but then decided they might be 'planes captured and flown by the Germans.  When they swung around for another pass at us, the AckAck and other air defense guns began to fire at them.  One of them went down, smoking, about half a mile in front of us, behind some trees.  Later, we came up to where it had gone down.  When it hit the ground, its huge engine had slid along the ground and had partially fallen into a fox hole, killing the GI in it.  It was still smoking as we passed by.

 The 103d official record said, "Near Climbach, a flight of P-47s strafing German installations, lost directions and flew over friendly troops. They appeared to be about to dive on the Division CP at Drachenbronn when the 534th AckAck lookout put up a yellow smoke grenade to warn the pilots they were over friendly territory. It is apparent that the historian was no where near the action.

 (1993 Editor's note: This is one of a number of reports of air attacks on our friendly forces contained in this report. I believe this one is probably the most accurate and credible.)

OUR MEN: EVANS
 We were in Wingen on the left flank of the 411th Infantry Regiment's zone as the battle for Climbach began. Col. Donovan Yeuell quickly moved his advance CP to a house on the side of a mountain looking straight up the valley toward Climbach where he could see the battle unfold and give prompt commands when the situation demanded it.

 The attack on Climbach was a difficult problem. It was necessary to advance up open terrain. There was a road along one side of the path of advance but the Germans had zeroed in on every foot of the road and had done the same thing with the open terrain as well. They held all of the high ground and their artillery pieces were well protected and looking right down our throats. An all-negro tank destroyer(TD) outfit (the 614th Tank Destroyers) was deployed in a relatively exposed position to keep the German artillery busy. It was a bloody battle in which the 411th took heavy casualties. Relatively speaking, the 614th TDs suffered even heavier casualties, but they fought gallantly and earned a Presidential Unit Citation for their efforts that day.

   The men of the 614 T.D. made it possible for the rest of the attacking force to be successful in defeating the enemy and capturing the strongly defended town of Climbach.

 The resolve of the enemy was broken and on December 15, the men of the 103d were the first troops in the 6th Army Group (a number of armies in addition to the 7th Army) to enter Germany across a very small stream near the Lauter River.

OUR MEN: GILL
.....Our first incursion into Germany, at Rechtenbach, proved to be quite noisy but not life-threatening.  For a few days they lobbed lots of 88's (with screamin' Meemies, of course) over, not into the village.  We figured that since they were now on home ground they didn't want to tear up their neighbors' goodies.

OUR MEN: EVANS
 We were now right on the German border and they fought tenaciously for every foot of ground.

 On Dec. 15, 1944 at 1305 (1:05 p.m.) 411th Infantry Company I (Item) crossed the German border followed about five minutes later by Company L (Love). These were the first American soldiers in the entire 6th Army Group to enter Germany.

 In just one month from its initiation into combat, The 103d Infantry Division had proven its mettle and was now spearheading the drive of the 6th Army Group into Germany.

 The Heinies defended bitterly. The first of the Seigfried Line strong points was encountered on the 16th and little progress was made all day but the 411th held onto its foothold inside Germany. They pushed forward bit by bit paying for every bit with casualties.

 The 409th Infantry Regiment also entered Germany near Wissembourg and found it slow going. By Dec 21st, the 409th and 411th Regiments had ground out German territory inch by inch as the capture of one Siegfried Line strong point only revealed another. It was like peeling an onion -- take off one layer and there is still a whole onion underneath.

 It was beginning to look like we would have to slug it out for every inch. There would not be a major breakthrough anywhere along the line. The 103d Division would pay dearly for every square foot of German soil it captured.

OUR MEN: SEDENSKY
 One time BROWN and GALLAGER  were "some place else" and I had to fill in at a general-staff meeting.  "We will be moving out about 60 miles in that direction - we want that wire line in by--. I said YES SIR!

  I was worrying and fretting, knowing that our crews (magnificent as they always were, the very best) and field wire just was not going to do that job
.
 When Colonel Brown arrived and I filled him in, he said,"Tell that old A--H--.." I didn't think that a lieutenant should really do that.

OUR MEN: DONLAN -
 Thursday, December 14, 1944 - Merkweiler
 These towns all have church steeples above the partial destruction.  We moved around noon to Merkweiler, several miles northeast.  The town, including a rail yard and refinery has been almost completely demolished by 100 of our bombers.  We had to lay camouflage nets over our trucks in the "J" Area.  Long walk to only fair chow.  Slept in the truck off duty and got up to start the truck for the generator and batteries.  We stole a goose at night for tomorrow's dinner.

 The next day at noon to move again.  Went several miles northeast to set up in part of an abandoned hospital (by Nazis).  Radio H.Q. had a whole house by itself.  Not long after we got there, a German 88 shell landed quite near, so we all headed for the cellar.  "J" Area in the woods and slept in truck.

PFC. ROGET
 We were again moving toward Germany and one memory of that segment of fighting stands out vividly.  By December 15 were in German near Hagenau.  This is hilly country, and we had been moving along with skirmishes but constant digging in and moving up.  On December 20 our platoon, B company, Second Platoon, was at the edge of the wood with a slope down to a road on our left front.  Glen and I were up at the front edge of the woods looking up the road when we noted to Tiger tanks moving gradually with some infantry toward us.  I ran back and got a bazooka with some rounds and hollered to an artillery Fire Observer about 50 yards to my left what we saw through our field glasses
.
 C Company was on our right spread out.  I could hear the F.O. yelling into the field phone the coordinates of the tanks.  The first four rounds salvo came over,  unfortunately one of the shells was short and landed in among C Company.  I could hear the F.O. screaming into the phone, "You have one gun with a loose trailing arm!"

 Just then the second salvo of 105s came in - and the horrible half second sound before the explosion of a shell among us!  It landed about 15 feet in front of me - Glen was to my right and slightly back about 15 feet.  Others of the platoon and company were scattered out behind us.  After my head cleared a bit and I got out of the dirt, I turned back to where someone was hollering, "Medic! Medic!, I'm hit!" - I ran back to check him, it was a slight wound.  Someone else was crying for a medic, I suddenly thought of Glen.  A top of a tree was down on the ground and under it was activity, the branches were moving about.  I ran over, pulled off the big branch, and found Glen Hansen bleeding in great spurts from a shoulder wound that had all but taken his arm off.

 As I was trying to help Glen, I heard the F.O. scream, "Stop all firing!" - then he turned toward us, and screamed, "Too late, another salvo is on the way!".  The gun with the loose left trailing arm dropped its destruction almost on top the F.O. He was killed immediately and his sergeant wounded.

 Working with Glen, I kept calling for a medic, but I remembered the surgical instruments I had picked up from a German ambulance a few days earlier.  Another fellow, not the medic, kept the pressure on the bleeding area while I dug the instruments out and clamped two of them on the brachial artery.  Glen looked as pale and gray as you could imagine.

 The artillery rounds that did get to their destination turned back the tanks and may have gotten one - I am not sure.  Glen was more important right then.  A medic finally came forward and we were able to put Glen on a stretcher and move him rapidly back down the slope to a medical jeep.  Glen was in very bad shape but partially conscious most of the time.  Later arm  was removed - too much bone, nerves and vessels gone. I still have one of the hemostats we used; the aid station gave it back later!

 Later during this same series of operations, our stupid company commander, wanted us to charge up a hill into the face of a well established enemy.  There wasn't any way to could be done effectively, they started the charge a couple of times, but were thrown back with a number of losses.  Finally, one of the men shot the captain, who was lying in a prone position, the bullet went in along his back and came out his shoulder.  Some of the men had talked about this type of action when we had first gone into combat and the captain's decisions had been fatally flawed, but he was never near enough to the action to be at risk.  I thought that sergeant Karsener was going kill him a couple of times after he had made very bad mistakes.

 After the captain was hit, a lieutenant took command of the company, moved it laterally a short distance and we came up on the flank of the enemy guns and eliminated them quite easily.

OUR MEN: TOM BROWN
 Our troops were now fighting in the Siegfried Line.  We laid wire to the town of Bobenthal, and the Germans shelled the town the entire night.  We were holed up in the basement of one of the houses sweating out each shell.

When daylight came the shelling stopped and we crawled out of our holes.  We went to our truck and found the windshield holed by shrapnel and all of our reels of wire had been sprayed with shrapnel and ruined.  We had to go back to the supply dump and get a new load of wire.  Our truck is pictured on page 103 of the Division History "Report After Action."  The photo was taken the day before the shelling.

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS - DECEMBER 15, 1944 GUNSTEDT 1 NIGHT
 Moving very fast.  Laying wire and busy but losing a lot of sleep. Situation seems very mobile.

DECEMBER 16 MERKWEILER 1 NIGHT - A swirl of activity!  The assault on the Siegfried Line by the 103d Division and its supporting units continued December 17 into December 18, 1944.  Small gains were made against the very strong defenses of the well defended bunkers and in-depth fortifications.  The Germans were able to use the rugged terrain beyond the forts to prepare a well organized and determined defense.  Progress was very slow and losses were increasing for the GIs. The German defensive effort in our sector seems to have increased.

 For some reason, we can not figure if we are coming or going- literally.  We are hearing stories of strong enemy action everywhere.  The infantry men are being pulled out of the line and we are preparing to move in another direction.

During this chaotic period, OUR MEN, and hundreds of thousands Allied and German men were being thrown into the events of the Battle of the Bulge.  The eventual role for the 103d division, and some other units of the U.S. 7th Army, would be to provide support for the southern edge of Patton' 5th Army while they dashed northward to help repulse the massive German force that had made a surprise attack in the Ardennes forest.

 Our "pull out" from the positions attacking the Siegfried Line was a series of abrupt and disorderly affairs.

Gathering our equipment and personal items, loading, and heading northward without really knowing just where, when, or how we would be stopped was physically and emotionally straining.

 The official and personal records for this period of time seem to reflect this confusion and anxiety as well as the movements of groups of men looking for the answer to the question, "What's happening!?".

OUR MEN: DONLAN
- Saturday, December 16, 1944
 Morale low -- poor chow, no mail and strong artillery duels.  The 103d and 45th Divisions were first in 7th Army to enter Germany yesterday -- good news.  Big battles up north, according to Stars & Stripes -- in First and Third Army areas.  There are some Maginot line fortifications around here -- all heaps of trash now.  Our artillery is really pounding the Siegfried Line.  Morale goes up and down -- no mail recently.

 On Sunday, December 17, 1944 - Gassed up in morning and got a closer look at the Maginot line.  They are poor structurally, but well designed, going eight stories below ground and interconnecting.  They had complete living quarters on the bottom floor.  Some air activity around C.P. tonight.  Radio duty in advance truck at night.

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS - DECEMBER 17/18 KRIEGSLAZARETT, DACHENBRON??
 The team moved into a hospital that had been taken over by some of the Division HQ troops.  This was the place where we saw the first bathtub we had seen since we landed in France. We had a wood burning stove for hot water so we all took some baths.  This was an event of no small importance because most of us hadn't had all of our clothes off at one time since we left Marseille, and that was long ago.

 DECEMBER 19, ROTT 3 NIGHTS - We had a nice place here with Sgt. JACK CONN and his wire team until the Division Signal Officer, LtC. BROWN, took it over and we moved out to sleep in an old German barracks.  We went into Germany for the first time from this town and it was a rough trip too, laying wire down a muddy canyon with all kinds of vehicles running over it.

OUR MEN: DONLAN - Tuesday, December 19, 1944 - Rott
 On the move again -- northeast past Maginot line pillboxes.  We entered the well-named town of Rott -- really filthy!  We are very close to the German border now.  We set up in a German barracks -- had to clean them out and set up for noon chow.  This place is really quite a mud hole!

 The next day, I took the remote end radio shift 11 to 6 p.m.  A fairly good treat for supper -- a goose!  Locally-procured (or requisitioned!).  Morale back up -- warm floor to sleep on and a good mail call.
 
 

 (1995 editor's note: Fifty years after the events of these experiences, there are being produced radio and television programs that review the historical period for our children and grandchildren, and some older folks also.  Some the material for this description of the "Battle of the Bulge" came from a Public Broadcasting System program of that same name.)

 In August of 1944, it seemed that the road to Berlin ran downhill. Paris was liberated: Allied forces would easily overrun the Wehmacht; the war in Europe was coming to an end. Rumors were circulating that soldiers would be back home for Christmas.  Headlines in Washington spoke of the challenge of peace-time conversion.  Arms production in the United States was allowed to slow down for the first time in three years.

 The initial invasion on the beaches of Normandy and the drive eastward toward the German border had gone well.  The invasion by the 7th Army of southern France had also been a success.  The period following the two invasions had seen the allies advance more rapidly than had been expected or planned for.  In the period following Thanksgiving 1944, it became that apparent the distances from the ports of supply now caused an untimely pause in the advance.  The Allies were short of supplies.  They had outrun gasoline, ammunition, spare parts and food.  An infantry division required 650 tons of supplies each day.

 In the relatively static and well ordered period at the end of the year 1944, just before a surprise attack by the Germans, President Roosevelt, the chiefs of staff, and the congress had been considering promoting the senior officers of the Army, Navy, and Army Airforce.  In spite of Marshall's influence, he was against it, Congress in December 1944 approved a bill creating new 5 star ranks for the top generals and admirals.  In order of seniority, Leahy, Marshall, King, MacArthur, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Arnold and "Bull" Halsey, named later, would hold ranks equivalent to field marshal.

 Marshall felt that the existing American "Flag Ranks" were adequate to deal with the situations in the American staffs and the joint British/American staffs.  He also objected to the new ranking because he thought it would dim the recognition of General of the Armies John Pershing.  Marshall wanted nothing to give offense to the ailing old soldier, chief of staff during WWI and after, who was in Walter Reed hospital and soon to die.*MARS

 Generals Marshall and Eisenhower discussed and reach agreement on the promotion of other officers on Eisenhower's staff. Ike's promotion to 5 star general opened the way for other deserving officers to be promoted. Eisenhower suggested the promotion of Omar Bradley to 4 star general as recognition of his excellent service and a reward for having endured the egotistical and wrong headed actions of Montgomery before and during the Ardennes battles.

 Marshall agreed to this promotion and suggested four other officers to be promoted to 4 star rank including George Patton commander of the 5th Army and Jacob Devers commander of the 6th Army Group. Ike agreed to the promotions, although he considered one of Marshall's nominees, Devers to be less capable.*MARS

 All of this recognition was overshadowed by the attack on December 16, 1944 in the Ardennes forest by a German force of three-to-one superiority in men and a four-to-one advantage in tanks the panzer tank units stave in 3 American divisions, then burst into the  rear.

 Hitler had used the pause forced upon the allies as time to organize 24-36? divisions into a counter offensive through the Ardennes forest in Belgium.  On Saturday, 16 December 1944, a fog and heavy clouds covered the proposed battle front - ideal conditions for the German surprise attack.  Low visibility on the ground to obscure troop movements and skies that would prohibit the Allies from using their air forces for bombing, supplying and observation.

 The front was held by green untried troops getting experience on a "quiet front" and a few soldiers who had seen more that their share of fighting and needed some rest.  The American men in the front lines were in lonely outposts, hunkered down in cold, wet foxholes, cut off from each other.

 The first sound of alarm was the first bursts of one of the largest artillery attacks of the war.  The German field guns in some sectors outnumbered the Americans 10 to 1.

 When the Germans swept forward behind their artillery preparation, they quickly overran the inexperienced 106th Infantry Division that had been committed to be in this "quiet area".  There was no thought that they would be required to "hold an active front against a strong aggressive enemy".  4000 officers and men of the 106th were forced to surrender to the Germans after a very desperate but brief fight.  These men had been on the line 8 days and combat 3 days.  Major General Allen Jones lamented, "I have lost a division faster than any other general in the US Army!"

 Only the surrender of American troops on Bataan in the Philippines during the opening days of the War in the Pacific was larger in numbers.
 The month-long Battle of the Bulge was to be the biggest and bloodiest battle American soldiers ever fought before or since.  With attention focused on crossing the Rhine, the Allies were surprised and unprepared for the 30 German Panzer divisions that roared across an 85-mile Allied front on December 16, 1944.

 The surprise attack by a massive German force in the Ardennes forest far to the north of our positions in Alsace started the "Battle of the Bulge" which required a large and very rapid re-deployment of most of the Allied force on the Western Front. These were black days for our commanders and troops.  What was happening shocked and sobered the military leaders and the general public who were anticipating an early victory in Europe.

 German production had reached its highest in the fall and winter of 1944.  Underground factories in Germany were turning out tanks, trucks, artillery pieces and ammunition in record amounts.  The Allied strategic bombing had not been effective to stopping production.

 This great battle was Hitler's own idea, his generals were against it as a hopeless effort that would produce terrible losses and hasten the German defeat.  Hitler was gambling not for short range gains but for the huge Allied stores and fuel dump at Liege, and the harbor at Antwerp that lay beyond.  Were his two panzer armies of the best trained and best equipped troops remaining in the battered German war machine successful, they would drive a wedge between the British on the north and the Americans on the south, Perhaps, just perhaps, he could gain a stalemate in the West and sue for peaceThe Germans drove forward on an eighty mile front from southern Belgium down to Edelbrook??? in the middle of Luxembourg.  If the Germans could cause discord between the Allied political and military leaders it might be possible to get a favorable peace agreement on the western front and let the Germans turn all of their efforts to defeating Russia in the east.*MARS
 Many millions of Germans had been killed, wounded or taken prisoner before Hitler pushed his Volks Grenadier (people's infantry) into this last massive assault.  These combat groups composed of cripples, convicts, children and grandfathers were accompanied by Hitler's best troops - the Waffen SS.  These elite forces were distributed among "the masses" to give support and direction.  The SS enforced a "dedicated service" and "no retreat policy".

 The commander of the German forces opposing the 7th Army in Alsace, where the 103d division was operating, had orders to defend the area south of the West Wall (Siegfried line) until the beginning of the Ardennes offensive (the Bulge).  However, German reverses at the 7th Army front (the 103d had led the way into Germany for the 7th Army) and the  commencement of the Ardennes offensive (on the 16th of December) prompted the German commander Balk, to withdraw his forces to the West Wall line.  The order given to the local general was followed by a warning "... the West Wall was to be the final German position---there you die."  As a result the German resistance at the West Wall increased and the 103d and other 7th Army units withdrew to France on 22 December. *R-R

 In response to the Ardennes attack by the Germans on the 19th of December, Eisenhower had met with Devers, Bradley, and Patton at Verdun. The Allied armies under the command of Montgomery including the US 1st Army were directed to move toward the south in an effort to cut-off the drive of the German forces and if possible to prevent their retreat back into Germany when and if the attack could be blunted.
 

 The US 3rd Army, part of an Army Group north of the bulge in the Allied front under the command of Lt.G Bradley, was directed to move north to form the bottom edge of a "pincers action" and to close the gap through which the Germans would have to pass in attack or retreat.  The 3rd Army (Patton), on the south of the bulge was to arrange to counter attack the Ardennes salient theatening Bastogne on its southern flank.

 It was not apparent immediately, but the American units in the middle of the German assault against the Allied lines were able to hold and the German panzer forces were forced through a relatively small hole in the front and their angle of attack was deflected southward on the very few available roads rather than westward and they ran into very poor conditions of terrain and roads for the operation of the very heavy panzer tanks.  The German attack was held up long enough for Eisenhower to be able to commit his reserve armored divisions to the vital crossroads of St Vith and Bastogne and the 101 airborne division to Bastogne as well.  Funneled south to these two road junctions still in American hands the German attack began to pile up.

 The 101st and 82nd Airborne divisions were the only experienced and partially rested reserves the Americans had to rush to the rapidly expanding front.  Both were far behind the lines in rest area after having been engaged in almost continuous action since the Normandy landings.

 The 101st was rapidly moved by trucks to an area of major road junctions near the southern edge of the Bulge at Bastogne.

OUR MEN: EVANS
 The weather could only be described as lousy over a wide area -- cloudy and ground fog every day.  This favored the Germans in their Ardennes counter attack,  by now generally known as the Battle of the Bulge.  Allied planes could not see targets so they were grounded and the German Panzers pressed the attack without fear of reprisal from the air.  The battle was going well for them except for one snag.  They were held up by the courageous men of the 101st Airborne "Screaming Eagle" Division at a small but strategically important town in Belgium, Bastogne.
  Their Division Commander, Major General Maxwell Taylor, was in Washington when the counter offensive began and there was no way that he could get back to Bastogne so the 101st Airborne was being temporarily commanded by the Assistant Division Commander, Brigadier General Anthony Mc Auliffe.  When the General commanding the German forces encircling the city sent in a representative with an ultimatum demanding the surrender of Bastogne, Mc Auliffe answered,"Nuts!" --and his men dug in for a continuing fight and took a horrendous pounding from the German tanks and artillery.

 McAuliffe and his men stood their ground and became known as "The Battered Bastards of Bastogne".

 On 21 December 1944 it began to snow on the fighting men and their support groups.  It is interesting to note that this was the first experience most of these American soldiers had with very cold weather and snow.  The troops of the 103d division and the US 7th Army who had fought through the Vosges Mountains (that's some of OUR MEN) had this unpleasant experience almost from their first hours of combat.

 These men of the Bulge would now have the same problems our infantry soldiers had suffered through.  They did not have winter clothes or shoes for more than three weeks after the snow started to cover the battlefield and even then they was not adequate for the severe weather conditions.

 Patton's US 3rd Army was turned from its drive eastward toward the German border and ordered northward 100 miles to support the thinly space troops on the southern edge of the Bulge.  He sent word to Bastogne which had now been surrounded by the Germans, "I'll be there by Christmas".
 Devers 6th Army Group was to occupy the area vacated by the 3rd Army units, halt all offensive operation ie: the West Wall offensive.  The 7th Army sector was thus expanded. Patch ordered the 103d Division to a new location west of the XVth Corps. (The 103d was being moved from near the southwest end of the 7th Army to the position on the northeast edge of the 7th Army.) *R-R
 

  The 103d Division was withdrawn from the Siegfried Line and moved around the rear areas of the 7th Army and north-westward to the flank of the Bulge into a position near the left flank of the 7th Army with the 106th Cavalry Group between it and the 3rd Army, where the very intense fighting was taking place, to fight a holding action while the Bulge was contained and reduced.  The French/German border is on a northwest-southeast line in this area.

 As might be expected, there was some confusion during the time of the northwestward movement.  Some of the Signal Company units may have been moving ahead of the reserve-support infantry in the safe rear areas in order to setup command and communications locations near the new positions to be occupied by the infantry front line elements. In the normal situation, the infantry men would have had to be there first to make the area "safe for women, children, and rear area soldiers"!

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS - DECEMBER 22, FRANCALTROFF 1 NIGHT
     We are in a loose knit motor convoy of lots of our infantry men being carried in trucks borrowed from transportation units.  A large assortment of support troops moving also.
     We brought along our own chicken to the house where we stayed and the folks here cooked it for all of us to share, it looked like a sparrow in the stew.

OUR MEN: DONLAN - Friday, December 22, 1944
 Awakened to go on radio shift 3-8 a.m.  We put the net in radio silence just before moving.  Backtracked through several towns in convoy.  I again saw the destruction wrought in Merkweiler by our planes.  There was one large smokestack left standing.  Have noticed a few more railroads since we left the mountains -- but most of them are out of business.  We really froze in the back of the trucks.  The sun was out, but gave no heat.  We went through Wort and Seur with a beautiful, large cathedral -- also Froschweiler and Niederbronn (fine residential town -- large and hilly).  Noticed several coal piles and oil wells along the way.  Also -- a large herd of sheep -- new sights after the mountains.  This land is fertile and well-tilled.  Wooden-shoed farmers pull carts along.  Some move, most don't -- Oberbron, Finsweiler, Offweiller, and Rot Bach came next as we moved almost due west.  We went for miles past well-timbered forests with many wood piles stacked up.  Ingweiler had a beautiful cathedral -- these church towers are high above everything else.  Pierre Le Petite, Rauweiler, Inimingler, Liningen and Alberstaff as our convoy snaked through town after town.  Towards dark we entered a small, largely-destroyed town.  We pulled our rolls into a broken-up house.  We picked up a stove today, so two guys slept in the truck -- now with a wooden shell around the radio equipment.  We are in town of Frankaltroff.  Noticed a large lake on our way today -- also miles of full shell boxes along the roads.  We are now about 15 miles behind the lines.

 On Saturday, December 23, 1944 - Frankaltroff   Worked all day finishing boarding in our trucks as the weather definitely turned colder.  At night we took some rations into some people's house and they cooked them up for us -- along with some potatoes and pork of their own, making a good meal.  We talked with them all evening.  They really hate the Nazis.  One young fellow named Josef was a deserter from the German Army.  We ran a speaker inside and had music.  We slept in the living room by the fire and it was cold and windy outside.

OUR MEN: FADER
 ....Then the German Ardennes offensive and we were suddenly ordered North toward Metz--bitterly cold, standing up next to truck fenders eating out of our mess kits and careful not to touch metal lest our hands stick to the frozen surfaces and constantly reminded to be on the lookout for German parachutists in American uniforms.

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS - DEC. 23, 1944 ST JEAN RHORBACH - 23 NIGHTS
 The province of Lorraine, where we finally stopped, is a sister province of Alsace where we had been fighting.  On December 24, Christmas eve, the 103d was in its new active defensive position.  These movements had extended the 7th Army line of defense to 103 miles, with the major part of its force in the northern sector - this was to create defensive problems in the area of Alsace we had left weakened.

 The Germans soon would take advantage of that weakness to recover much of the important area that the 103d had fought for and won in the early weeks of December 1944.

 After the motor-march from Alsace, we moved into one of several buildings that could have been a boarding school and hardly settled into a very small room for all of the men of the wire team when we were out laying a few lines to attached units.

OUR MEN: KRAFT
 The 103d Division was here and there on the Western Front for several months.  At one time, when the Battle of the Bulge took place, our Signal Co. and Repair & Supply Group was pushed back into a town called Phalzburg.  We stayed there about six weeks, while the Radio and Construction Units of the Signal Co. did their job along with those of the Message Center people to keep Communications together.

 The 103d Division Band was also in Phalzburg taking care of the mail, etc.  Christmas 1944 was one truck load after another of mail for the whole Division which had to be sorted and sent to each of the other Units in the Division.  Due to poor lighting in that town and the boys having to work with flashlights, we ran a line to them from our PE-95.

 Before we were shipped over to France, my job (T/4Frank Kraft) was a one man transfer to Supply and Repair, CWO. HOPPEL's group.  This was an important part of our Headquarters Section.  We supplied the whole 15,000 man 103d Division with service and supply  of radios, batteries, etc.  Also the units - radio, phones, little switchboards and telegraph sets were our jobs.  Sgt Grant's group did all radios and mine detectors.

 Sgt. WILLIBRAND's group did teletype, telephone, switchboard and telegraph sets. All of this repair and replacement and supply work was done by just 17 men, including our drivers.
 The Construction section ran the trunks lines between all the distant points. The T&T did all the local lines in each Command Post.  That is to our Commanding General, the Chief of Staff, etc.
 During the rapid movement of the division before Christmas, our section ended up in a fairly large town behind the lines somewhere and we were mixed in with a lot of other elements of the division.  One of these groups was responsible for the sorting and distribution of the mail that had been addressed to our APO (Army Post Office).

  On Christmas Eve there was to be a massive distribution of mail that the Army may have held up just for this time, or had not been able to work on because of the movement and confusion.

 Just before Christmas, 1944 I had eaten some bad pork and had terrible cramping and no appetite. As luck would have it, the city power went down, so our mail people, with all the Christmas mail were in the dark trying to sort the mail using flashlights (9 dim ones). Outside as I noticed later there were very many 2 1/2 trucks that had yet to be unloaded.  They were in trouble. This mail center was in the building next to ours.  The man in charge was a Captain. This Captain knew all of our Signal company group would be willing to come and help with the lights, but, except for myself, the rest had gone to the movies, first one any of us had been near.

 Guess who go the job to run some power in their building?  Gut cramps and all, I managed 2 lines of six lamps each in the mail room.  This almost croaked our PE95 3KW power plant, but it hung in really well.  All concerned were really happy.  The Captain treated me with a double shot of Seven Crown  whiskey. Next day my cramps were all gone.

 One day later, we had been on the run for two weeks, day and night.  Mr. Hoppel was very ill with a bad cold and much fatigue.  So upon my 2 stripe authority, I put him to bed with heavy lemon and whiskey toddy.  He slept 10 hours and did recover. I saw him in Dallas last year and he did not remember it at all.

 Two days before Christmas, the weather cleared, the supply and fire support airplanes began to fly over the battle area and the German offensive began to stall.

 After the Germans were stopped, the task for the Americans was to close the very large chasm between the US 1st Army on the north of the Bulge and the US 3rd Army on the south.  General Patton wanted to drive straight across the extended German forces while the 1st Army drove south to meet him thereby trapping most of the Germans and putting them out of action.

OUR MEN: EVANS
 The 101st Airborne beat off attack after attack before tanks from General George S. Patton's Third Army broke through the German lines and reached Bastogne on Dec.26, 1944.
  At first we heard the sound and within minutes the sky from horizon to horizon in every direction was filled with four engine bombers; B-24 Liberators, B-17 Flying Fortresses, along with British Wellingtons and Lancasters that usually took the night missions,--and more.  Each V-formation was tucked in behind the V preceding it and had another V tucked in behind it.  The formations were wing tip to wing tip as far as the eye could see.  Some of them were pounding Saarbrucken and we could see enormous shock waves radiating out from the bomb bursts.  It was a most impressive sight, probably the most impressive sight of my life.

 P-47s, P-51s, Hurricanes, Spitfires, and B26s flew low level sorties against the panzers and ground troops of the Wehrmacht and they broke the back of the German columns.

   COMPANY REPORTS DECEMBER,1944 - EXCERPTS
  On arrival in division assembly area in new section XV Corps area near Francaltroff, a minimum essential administrative wire network was established and maintained  until establishment of Division CP at St Jean-Rohrbach.  All available personnel of communication sections within the division were immediately assigned to wire salvaging assignments which were continued to the end of the month.

  Telephone and Telegraph Communications:  Normal combat and administrative wire nets were installed at following locations during the month of December:  Gougenheim, La Walck, Gundershoffen, Woerth, Gunstedt, Merckwiller, Drachenbronn, Rott, Francaltroff, and St Jean-Rohrbach.

  A telephone traffic survey was conducted while the division CP was located at St Jean Rohrbach which revealed that a total of 2700 calls were handled every twenty-four hours through the Division Signal Company operated switchboards even though the division activity was more or less in a static condition.

  Radio Communications:  The regular S.O.P. radio nets were installed and continuity of service maintained with all elements 100% of the time.  An additional function was added to the normal duties of this section; namely, the Aircraft Warning Alert System mentioned in paragraph 2.
  Messenger Service:  Scheduled and special messenger service to all division elements, Corps, and attached units involved daily mileage of 406 miles.  Fifty percent of this daily mileage is driven under blackout conditions, which to date has resulted in one minor motor vehicle accident.
  Rear Echelon installations were made and operated at Marlenheim, Woerth, and Morhange by the Rear Echelon signal operating section.

   1.  The activities of the 103d Signal Company for 1945 began in St. Jean Rohrbach, France, where the division was occupying a holding position in the line in the sector of the XV Corps.  Due to the relative inactivity and lack of movement of the regiments, very little wire construction was required after the initial installation.  All lines to regiments and service elements had been 'over-headed', thereby reducing line troubles to a minimum.

   2.  This relative inactivity of the front line troops left considerable time open for Signal construction troops.  The time was utilized for further training.  It had been previously observed that in some cases wire teams had failed to utilize to the utmost availability commercial lines running in the vicinity of the attached units.  This time was used for on the job of training wire teams in open wire construction and repair.  This respite period was also used to conduct on the job training for reinforcements added to the T&T operations section, namely, switchboard operators.  Also it was used to increase operating efficiency of some previously trained operators.

From Christmas,1944 to about January 14,1945 the 103d Division was in a typical defensive arrangement.  The infantry men were in holes and bunkers along the eastern front of our sector and the Signal Company sections were behind them supplying communications and support as were numerous other service units.  This was a time of resupply, training, recreation and routine work for most of the Signal Company.  There were adventures and misadventures as mentioned later.

PFC. - SGT. ROGET
 At Christmas time in the Provence of Lorraine, our company had been well decimated. I was pretty much running the platoon, I was still only a private first class, but was soon to be promoted to buck sergeant.  Sgt. Karsner, the regular platoon sergeant was out with trench foot, all of the other squad sergeants had been killed or wounded.  I was in charge of a 3 man squad, each one about 18 years old.  I was the only person around who could act as the platoon sergeant.
 Acting as platoon sergeant, I lead four soldiers out to relieve the men in the outpost bunkers of the sector we were defending.  Our front line boys had taken over German bunkers that had been built in the snow fields and had just turned the gun slots around to face the enemy lines.  The men had brought in hay and some old blankets to cover the openings to keep the cold out.  They had field telephones connected back to the company CP so they could keep themselves and the commanders informed.

 The first bunker that we relieved had a frozen dead German in the corner of an anteroom with a candle on his head.  I asked if it wouldn't be better to throw him out back. "No, we are used to him, besides he is frozen into that sitting position and we can't hardly get him out the crawl hole."

OUR MEN: BECK - 17-23 December 1944
 We are operating as a well oiled machine now.  Everyone plays his position that he knows best.  If it brings victory then what the heck, we'll all go home.  The boys are starting to feel like combat veterans.  They acquire that tough, arrogant, rough and boisterous complex.  As for me, I never seem to change.  I always feel that I am the same guy.  Maybe I have acquired that mean slanted look, or maybe I have become a bit softer than I was.  I really don't know.  You'll have to tell me when I get back to the states.

 We are not starving nor are we freezing to death.  I think that the government has done and is doing a splendid job of equipping and feeding us.  We don't get steaks or fancy dessert with our chow.  It's all a plain basic ingredient of a ration, usually the same thing.  But, it's food, wholesome and nutritious.  We may get tired of it - but that's only natural.  You should see what the Krauts have to eat.

 And now I see that it's time for me to crawl into my sack.  My sack, incidentally, now consists of the following:  a thick G.I. canvas roll as the outer cover, my own sleeping sack with two blankets in it atop the air-mattress, and inside the bag an all wool sleeping sack with another blanket zippered all the way to my forehead, all enclosed in a waterproof cover.  I wouldn't call sleeping in that rough at all.

 That phrase "since I've been in the lines", kinda gets me.  When the hell am I going to get out of the lines?

 It's rough alright, but one gets used to it.  Remarkable how the human mind and body can adapt itself.  Feels just like home.  Oh yea!!  At least now I can tell my grandchildren that I didn't fight the war in Texas - at least a good part of it I didn't.

OUR MEN: TOM BROWN
 On the evening of December 23rd we worked on a troubled line until about 3:00 AM the next morning.  Since we had ended up at a CP located in a shelled out tavern, we parked the truck outside the tavern front door, got out our sleeping bags, unrolled them on the straw on the floor and went to sleep.  When we woke up the next morning our truck was gone.  We lost everything, duffle bags, Christmas presents, heavy clothing, etc.  Since Germans dressed in American uniforms were in the area, we assumed that they had stolen our truck.  However, before we could even catch our breaths we were ordered to move out on long road move to the north into Third Army territory.  It started to snow with the temperature falling to near zero.  The roads iced up, and many of the trucks ended up in the ditches.  We travelled all night in the back of a two and a half-track damn near freezing to death.

 We arrived at our destination about 7:00 AM Christmas morning.  And that was the worse Christmas of my life!  Since we had no truck we three were assigned to Staff Sgt. LEE's,  wire crew to lay wire for one of the regiments.

 About two weeks later I was working on the wire when Capt. BECK, the CO of the Signal Company, walked up.  He said, "Brown, for losing that truck you must sign this statement of charges."  I looked at the statement and it read, "Quantity 1 Three Quarter Ton Truck with winch -- amount $1,875.00." (I will never forget that stupid statement, particularly that winch, which stays burned in my memory) I said, "Captain, that was a combat loss.  The Germans stole that truck, and I refuse to sign."  With my $30 per month army salary I figured it would take me twenty years to pay the damm thing off.   If the Colonel insists then I will request a court martial hearing."  Captain Beck fumed a bit and walked away and that was the last I heard of the matter.

OUR MEN: WALDREF
 Let's see, Klingenmunster was the town, and I parked my truck right close to the cafe that they were using as the headquarters and went to bed.  Fortunately, I took my TO weapon with me, which is a grease gun and my own .45 automatic, which I normally just carried around.  Next morning the truck was gone.  So, I was a bit embarrassed, I had a few quarts of liquor on it, I was sorry I was losing that!

So they called me into the orderly room and asked me, "Why didn't you take the rotor out of the distributor cap?"  I said, "We haven't done it, nobody has told me to do it."  There is no key on the truck, they just have a switch.  There is no ignition key on these trucks.  So they said, "You've lost a truck!"  I think I saw them over a couple of days.  BERNIE said to me, "Now how are you going to pay for this truck?  Do you have any money?"  I said, "No Sir.  You can take it out of my salary."  That was the end of that basic discussion.  A week or two later they called me into the orderly room again.  Bernie said, "Waldref, I'm going to put you on company punishment for losing that truck."  I said, "Yes sir, but what am I supposed to do?"  "Well, come down and make a fire in the orderly room before everyone gets up and then go over and help the cooks."  A week long KP job.

 So, I went down, built the fire.  A couple of days later my T.O. weapon, which was a grease gun was spread out on one of the tables.  There were several tables.  I had my grease gun all apart and I was cleaning all the bullets so they would come out of the clip real easy if I had to use it.  I was aiming up toward the ceiling when in comes the cook sergeant, S/Sgt COREY.  I didn't realize it, but he thought I was threatening him with this gun, kind of on the table!  There wasn't anyone else around and I really frightened him.  I put my gun back together and they start going.  He said to me, "Waldref, would you like to clean one of these stoves?"  He has two guys there.  "Carry this stove out here for Waldref to clean."  I carried the stove back there, cleaned it up.  "How is this sergeant?"  "Oh, fine."  Then he gets the other two guys to carry the stove back.  I realized later that he thought I was going to shoot him, that's why I had the grease gun out!  I couldn't understand why he was giving me such deferential treatment.  So, this went on for a couple of days and I finally figured out that he was really shocked and thought I was threatening him.  I wasn't, I had no idea.  I was just sitting there and cleaning my gun.

 I realized later on, after the war, that BERNIE put me on this company punishment so that I could not be tried twice.  I think he was doing that for me.  In other words, if you're tried and punished for a crime, you can't be tried and punished a second time.  So, I think that's why he had me specifically on company punishment for the loss of that truck.  So, I think without telling me, he was basically doing me a favor, to get me out from paying for the truck.

(1995 Editor's very personal note: It is not surprising to me that Beck and Waldref were on a familiar first name basis, ie. "Bernie" and "Jerry".  One or the other of them may have been the most pampered person in the company.
 

OUR MEN:DONLAN -
unday, December 24, 1944
 I was awakened at 4 a.m. to stand guard because of danger of paratroop attack.  Germans have been pushing hard through Ardennes up north into Belgium against First and Third Armies.  Pulled guard, awakened at 7 to pull out and our crew go on relay.  Took off after chow and, even though our truck (Sgt. LAKE) is boarded in, we still froze.

 We passed many ruined towns and came to the one in Lorraine where we were to stay Christmas Eve.  I can't remember the name.  We got a room in a priest's house and warmed up and remoted the radio in there -- and were on silence all day.  Saw several shells land nearby and send up spires of black smoke -- another fellow and I looked around the devastated town and went into a church for Christmas Mass.  The church tower was partially destroyed, the marble altar ruined and the church roof was off, setting the altar under the open, starry sky.  There was a Christmas crib set up and a grotto outside still intact.  We attended service and went back to our room to cook up our rations.  On the remote from 3 to 6 p.m.  Wrote letters, decided I was homesick this Christmas Eve, and reported into Radio Net at 1 a.m. Christmas morning.

OUR MEN: "SMITTY"
 It was on the 24th that a lone German fighter plane flew within a few hundred feet of our truck.  As it turned out, he was the only armed enemy that I ever got to see.

 On Christmas Eve we moved to Lening, France, somewhere near Metz.  It was about this time that stories of German parachute landings abounded.  There were many nervous American troops, especially MPs at intersections.  I was told that they often asked questions of troops, questions that were designed to detect Germans wearing U.S. uniforms.  Who won the last world series game?  The prospect of having to establish my identity by answering baseball questions was worrisome... I didn't know one league from another, to say nothing of the outcomes of any games.  Fortunately, I was never challenged.

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS
 It was the Christmas season and this country really looked the part, all snow covered old fashioned buildings, open fields, farm animals in the village - and lots of military hardware, confusion, and occasional sounds and sights of pain and  suffering.  The Signal company sections had found shelter, many of us, including Sgt. Jones' wire team were staying in a complex that may have been a boarding school.

 On Christmas Eve there was a distribution of mail that the Army may have held up just for this time.  There were a few letters from home and one or two packages for our group.  Bill received a Calculus book and a bunch of lessons from the Army School System that he completely forgotten had been ordered early in the year when time for study may have been available back in USA and in the peaceful Camp Howze.

     We worked Christmas morning but that just gave us appetites for a really swell Christmas dinner.  All of us hoped that it wouldn't be like our poor Thanksgiving meal, and it wasn't.
  Somewhere not far from our warm circumstance, GIs were hunched down in holes and bunkers and were not reached by the best efforts of the cooks and their helpers.

OUR MEN: BECK - 25 Dec 1944  France.
 Unfortunately we served Thanksgiving dinner on the run.  Today, Christmas, was a little better.  My mess is situated in an abandoned school-house.  It is large enough to accommodate all the men.  The boys were enthused to fix it up just a wee bit.  To make it something different.  They used old cabinets tipped on the sides for tables.  Someone found pink and purple cloth.  And so we had pink table cloths.  Some weeds were gathered and that added a little color.  The menu?  We had 428 lbs. of roast turkey, cranberry sauce, peas, pears, nuts, candy, jam, coffee and bread and butter.  Our ragged old mess kits couldn't hold it all.  It was a Christmas, because of its atmosphere, its setting, the circumstances, that the boys will never forget. It was a Christmas - an American Christmas dinner in France.

 I really don't know how serious the various shortages are at home.  If there actually is a serious shortage it can be attributed to overseas shipments.

 Not insinuating that we, here, eat like kings.  I refer to such varied articles as cigarettes, gum and foods for special occasions such as turkey.  I have cigarettes and gum pouring out of my ears.  But, I'll swap places with any civvy back in the states.

OUR MEN: DONLAN - Monday, Dec. 25, 1944 - Christmas - St. Jean-Rohrbach
 On the set from 6 to 10 a.m. and warmed up by the stove.  The priest was very nice to us.  We got word we were moving back to the C.P. at St. Jean Rohrbach.  We got back in time for a great turkey dinner -- on tables for a luxury.  We all felt better now.  Worked on the truck and slept on the floor of the truck after warming up in front of a roaring fire.  Heard our Division is now in a holding position.  We exchanged Christmas greetings far from home.

 Wednesday, December 27, 1944 - We uncrated a power unit in the motor pool weighing several thousand pounds.  It gave us trouble.  Christmas packages from home rolled in -- much to my delight.  We all shared.  New rule -- all those found without rifle, belt and proper uniform will be fined if caught.

 On Thursday, December 28, 1944 - We're in holding position and life getting monotonous.  Worked on truck and washed clothes.  Slept at night in a cold, boxed-in trailer.  But, these G.I. bed rolls (sleeping bags) are warm.

 On Friday, December 29, 1944 - Most of day cleaning up new power unit and trailer.  Miserable night with cold and touch of flu.

OUR MEN: JONES' BOYS
 The weather at times was really rough, and right in the middle of such a period, Major GALLAFHER the Asst. Division Signal Officer who had come to the army from Michigan Bell Telephone, gave all of us a day of schooling on how to hook our field wire into existing commercial telephone wires.  It was one of the roughest days we spent at this set up.

 The fiercest battle of the war was going on in the northwest of our positions; in our sector in the area of Sarrgeuemies, the Germans did not choose to attack.

 This was just a defensive set-up and once the wire lines were in, most of our time was spent picking up wire and goofing off.  We picked up a mile or two of wire almost every day.  On the icy back country roads, we would try to find any kind of a structure that resembled a sled; section of fence, old door, sign board, etc. which would support one or two men.  When this "towed transportation unit" was tied to the back of the truck by 25 yards of wire it was a great source of recreation until it would self destruct leaving bruised bodies in the debris.

 There was a battalion aid station near here where the wounded men were brought for treatment and emergency operations if needed before being evacuated to the rear hospital.  Some died during treatment from their injuries, while others were patched up and returned to service.
 A large pile of discarded clothing that had been removed during the course of treatment was there in the snow.  Some of it had been cut off of the men, but there were a few things that looked very service able, even if a little dirty.

 Bill found an older style olive-drab field jacket that was much warmer, less bulky, and a better fit than the green jackets that most of us had been issued.  It appeared to be in very good shape with no apparent damage.  Perhaps the soldier had been wounded in the lower part of his body.  Bill took it and put the jacket on and  used it for almost a week before taking it off.  Casually examining it, he saw, there in the middle of the back, between the shoulders was a bullet hole surrounded by a blood stain.  The former owner may not have been as lucky as we had assumed.

   We also picked up a Browning Automatic Rifle that the crew had for a few days until it became an instrument of nuisance and got us into some trouble.

 One of the officers (Lieut. SWEENEY,recently promoted from Master Sergeant) suggested that he had a friend out on the line with the infantry who just might be able to put the B.A.R. to some better use for fighting the Germans, so we gave it to him to pass on.

 A possible reason the B.A.R. was at the aid station in the first place was that the former operator had become an attractive target for the enemy.  About a week later, the officer told us that the man to whom he had given the rifle was killed the day after he put it into action.  The "real war" was still a very mean and deadly experience for many of the infantry men.

     We saw a few motion pictures - a first time experience since being overseas.

OUR MEN: HARLON CHAFFEE
 I don't remember just where we were, but it was Christmas time, we were in a brick building and had a sheet metal army stove set up in the room. Seems we were there for quite a while. When we would come in at night we would play cards and talk about what we had did that day.

OUR MEN: BECK - France  30 Dec 1944.
 My company has been commended on several occasions by Generals officers.  No credit to me.  The boys just do a good job, that's all.

 The weather is freezing, of course.  The mud has turned to rock.  The dew freezes so solid that it is a blanket of snow all day.  I am well dressed for the cold, my dear sister.  Below all my layers of clothes I wear my long johns, then comes my wool uniform, a heavy G.I. sweater, an all wool muffler that wraps completely around me, a combat jacket (like a field-jacket), then my combat coat which is water repellant and has a blanket wool lining all around (whew!) and buttons up to the neck.  On my head I have a wool knit cap that covers my ears.  Then comes my parka hood that is attached to the coat.  The hood covers everything except my eyes nose & mouth.  On top of that comes my helmet liner, then my steel helmet.  Now, for the feet.  First comes a pair of light-wool socks, on to of which are a pair of ski-socks.  My feet are then covered by a pair of shoe pacs with wool shoe pads inside that are an inch thick.  The shoe pacs come up to my knees.
 Now, can you picture me?  The description I just gave you is for extreme cold of about 30o or 40o below zero.  It hasn't gone below 10o below zero  - yet!

OUR MEN: DONLAN -
Sunday, December 31, 1944
 Greeted by light snowfall in the morning and snappy air.  The town takes on a different appearance, with the snow hiding its trash and battle scars.  The town cathedral can be seen with its rounded and pointed steeple....

 Monday, January 1, 1945, was perhaps the worst single day in Eisenhower's career in Europe as the Supreme Commander of Allied Forces.  Ike awoke to the word that more than a thousand German planes had struck Allied airfields in a surprise raid at dawn.  More than 200 planes had been destroyed on the ground; even Bernard Montgomery's personal C-47 Dakota had been wrecked.  From the Ardennes, too, there was little to cheer him.  True, the Germans had been stopped short of the Meuse River, but they now seemed hell-bent on capturing Bastogne.  Elements of 10 German divisions were attacking the perimeter of the Belgian town from all sides.*WWII

 That same day, the Allied hierarchy of command was wallowing in its greatest crisis of the European war.  An old problem, British Field Marshal Montgomery, was again pestering Eisenhower to make him overall ground commander.  So nagging had become his insistence on this course, coincident with highly inflammatory criticism about his handling of the battle in the Ardennes, that Eisenhower nearly decided to relieve the Briton of command.*WWII
 

 Part of the controversy was the conduct of the war in the Alsace region of France and all along that front extending toward Switzerland - the US 7th Army area, "our theater of operations".
 The Germans were launching attacks in Alsace in hopes of diverting allied forces from the battles in the Ardennes.  The scope and consequences of NORWIND, the German campaign, and the response of the Allied leaders, American, British and French, will be covered in more detail in the chapter, BACK TO FIGHT IN ALSACE - OPERATION NORTHWIND.

 The British were interested in having the Germans pushed back across the Rhine River in the Alsace area, and then wanted the American forces to return to a concentration on  one combined assault in the north area where the Germans had been driven back from the Ardennes battle. Their priority was a grand assault across Northern Germany toward Berlin and the end of the war with the western Allies, and particularly the British occupying all of that territory.

 The Americans wanted to  establish a very strong force in this southern area of Alsace and then to push the attack into Germany on two fronts. The American political and military leaders felt that the drive into the Bavaria region of Southern Germany and Austria should not be limited by an "all out force" (under a British commander) in the north consuming most of the available men and supplies on the western front.

 All of this behind-the-lines, top-level discussion and planning may have been a problem in the strategy and support of our local fighting men. It could not have been much help at a critical time.

 Russian  forces driving hard on the Eastern front to also conquer, command, and occupy as much of Eastern Germany and the Baltic states as possible were of great concern to the British.  Churchill was suspicious of the Russians - believing them to want to push as far into western Europe as they could for strategic and political advantage after the inevitable victory. Ike saw no military importance in pushing deep into Germany or fight in Berlin when that area of post war control was already assigned to the Russians.

 President Roosevelt was sick and weak and left more of the decisions to his aides.  His trusted military adviser, General Marshall, agreed with Ike.  Eisenhower saw the battle as an opportunity to use up the German forces and supplies and to produce a victory that would win the war for the Allies even before they entered Germany.  By January, Eisenhower decided this was the Allies' chance to lop off entire divisions of the German army and end the war once and for all, the Germans would be pushed back toward their border by the use of reinforcements which now became available.

 More that half a million young men were thrown into the cause, fighting across the rolling hills and dark forests of Belgium and Luxembourg.  More than 80,000 Americans were killed, maimed or captured in the battle.  Many of the American soldiers who determined the outcome of the battle were barely out of high school, 18-19 years of age.  Most of these young men had little field experience much less ever seen combat.

 During the worst European winter in memory, 500,000 mostly American men dug out, pushed and pursued the Germans back through the bleak terrain.  This was some of the most difficult fighting of the Battle of the Bulge.  The Germans had fought through Russian winters, they understood winter warfare.  They set up positions on the high ground and in the warmth of the towns - The Americans lived out in the woods, trying to make the hard frozen ground their protection.

 The Germans were able to set up strong defensive positions that the Allies had to advance upon through fields covered by German artillery fire.  Half of all the American casualties in the battle were caused by artillery.

 Even Patton's usually fast moving forces were advancing only a mile each day, the forces on the north were slower.

 The suffering of the troops was terrible - half way through the whole battle, proper winter clothing and shoes had not reached the front line men.  15,000 GIs had been pulled out of service with frost bite - some with feet black as coal or blue steel.
 

 Eisenhower, who had earlier given control of the American units on the north of the Bulge to "Monty", was not able to get Field Marshal Montgomery to execute his half of a pincer movement to be coordinated with Bradley and Patton.  Montgomery directed (or misdirected) the type of operation for which he had become notorious.  He was on the northern side of what could have been a massive pincer movement but he refused to act.  He kept "tidying up his rear" preparing for a dramatic action and all the time complaining that Eisenhower was not a good land commander and should be just an over-viewer and he, Montgomery, would take charge of the land forces on the western front.

 The British continued to complain about Eisenhower's leadership and they wanted a ground commander appointed, they suggested that Field Marshal Sir Allen Brooke would be a very capable commander. General Marshall had some doubts about Eisenhower's resolve in dealing with the British, his handling of the Battle of the Bulge and his repeated calls for infantry reinforcements when Marshall thought better use could be made of the available forces and perhaps Eisenhower was losing control of the SHAEF command. Of Marshall knew that replacements from stateside just were not available.

 During this crucial period of time Montgomery's complaining and failing to become a part of the necessary combined British/American effort finally became too much for Eisenhower to tolerate.  Eisenhower drafted a letter to be sent to the Combined Chiefs of Staff telling them they would have to select either Montgomery or Eisenhower to be the SHAEF commander, he was no longer going to endure the present conditions. *MARS

 When that information was revealed to Montgomery, he realized that the Combined Chiefs of Staff would certainly support Eisenhower and he sent a letter to "Dear Ike" that he was going to be "his faithful servant forever."

 There was going to be a meeting of the political heads of state and the Joint Chiefs of Staff at Malta. Marshall asked Eisenhower if he could meet with him for one day at Malta before Marshall went on to that combined meeting. They met on January 28,1945.

 They discussed again the possibility of Eisenhower combing his support units for men to become replacements in the combat units.  Marshall outlined the lack of available replacements from any other source. Marshall hinted that perhaps Eisenhower had lost his sure grip on commanders, the French Ist Army, part of the 6th Army Group, refusal to obey orders to withdraw from Strasbourg in January and shorten the lines of defense was symptomatic of a problem of control. So too was French Marshall Alphonse Juin's assertion that his eight divisions were too exhausted to fight on.
 After much discussion between Marshall and Eisenhower, Marshall approved Ike's two stage plan to end the war, that is, first to bring his armies up to the Rhine and to cross at two separate points. Marshall told Eisenhower that as long as he was chief of staff, there would not be any separate ground commander appointed to work under Eisenhower and interfere with his concept and his control of the SHAEF armies.*MARS

 Infantry men were approximately 10% of the total army but they suffered 70% of the casualties!  In six weeks there had been about 20,000 casualties.  All of the rear areas and the nearby support units were searched for replacements for rifle men.  (See the experiences of SMITTY, DONLAN and others during this period.)

OUR MEN: "SMITTY"
 The Ardennes offensive caused the Army to comb its service units for replacements in the line companies.  I don't remember all the details but I was told to report to a medical facility to take an examination...I presume in preparation for putting a Garrand or a BAR back in my Hands.  The facility was with in Lening or Morhange. I remember standing in line for the eye exam.  The same old chart with the letter E was on the wall.  There was a lot of tension in this room...after all things were rumored to be disastrous in the Ardennes. and here were these signal men and others, getting set up to battle those German Panthers with Springfield Armory-1906,.30 caliber rifles! I supposed that my low rank and maybe my former army specialty...rifleman...triggered my presence in this line.  My turn came.  The medic covered my left eye. There was something that he didn't know.

 My left eye was the only one that I could see out of. My right eye  had a congenital defect that afforded me 20/400 corrected vision...not enough to distinguish a German helmet from an American at 20 feet!  In fact when I was in Company L of the 409th, I shot the M1 left-handed with those hot casings arching over the bridge of my nose.  Further, I imagine that when I told the medic I couldn't see the second line, all eyes in that room would be turned on me, a potential malingerer...so I asked the medic to do my left eye first.

OUR MEN: BECK - France  1 Jan 1945
 Our Chaplain arranged to have some movies for us last night.  He set up a projector in one of the old prisons here, put up a sheet and presto!  We saw movies.  The picture was "Four Jills and a Jeep."  Although I wouldn't rate it a ½ star in the states, it was 4 stars over here.  The men had a good time.  When Martha Raye came out in that tight fitting gown with her bust looking like hill 409 with a shadow, the place was bedlam.  The other picture was a short - "The Three Stooges."
 I suppose you are wondering how we can see a picture on the front lines.  It is quite simple, Roz Honey, and it is done many times.  The war goes on, and shells keep zooming high overhead.  Of course, not everyone in the CP goes at one time.  We go in shifts.  Naturally, the activity must be under control.

 They tell me that movie stars tour the front-lines.  Maybe they do.  But I haven't seen any.  This is a little too far forward for entertainers, really.

OUR MEN: BECK - France  3 Jan 1945.
 Had the occasion to decorate one of my men, (S/Sgt. BILL DONOHOE).  He got the bronze star.  Did a nice job of getting wire to an isolated CP.

 On the other side of the fence my First Sergeant, FINKBEINER, has been out of action for quite some time.  I still don't know when and if he's coming back.  Most of it was his own fault.  Quite sometime ago, he and I were checking a factory area as a possible CP.  Finkbeiner spotted a Kraut potato-masher that laid in a precarious position.  Instead of leaving it for the Engineers to detonate, he had to do it himself.  As I was trying to make myself understood to an Alsatian about 20 feet away, we hear this loud report.  At first, I thought it was another damned sniper who had bad eyesight.  But there was me old "first sarge" holding his face.  The damned thing had an extra large dose of powder in the detonator.  It didn't exactly explode the TNT as that had fallen off.  He wasn't hurt bad.  Just a lon