The Vosges: October - November 1944

The village of Brouvelieures in the French Vosges Mountains.

On October 24 after a period of being in reserve and only three days after my 23rd birthday we were once again going into battle. I had survived two years of war. I had seen many men blown into broken masses of flesh and held together only by their clothing. I had seen men with arms and legs torn away. I had survived murderous artillery and machine gun fire; I had done this in all kinds of weather. I had been on tortuous forced marches and had slain the enemy.

Now at the age of 23 I am known as an old man, not in age, but in experience. The few of us so-called "old men" that were left were like a fraternity that no one else could join unless they had been over the same road.

If a stranger came up when they were shooting the bull he was ignored. If this stranger laughed at something funny we had said, our expressions would freeze and we would slowly turn and stare him down until his stature would shrink and he would slink away.

We old combatants were an exclusive set and if we wanted to be that way it was our privilege. We certainly earned it. New men coming in never quite earn the right to belong to belong to this exclusive clique. Now as one of these old men I was going back into battle.

La Bourgonce

Sgt Beardslee and members of his anti-tank squad pose with their anti-tank gun.

It was the beginning of a nice autumn day as we crossed the line of departure at daybreak. I was feeling good and by that I mean my morale was high and I was ready to go into battle. The cool fall breeze felt invigorating but as we crossed the line of departure all hell was erupting on both sides. I was told the 15th Regiment was fighting on either side and we were passing through a 1,000-yard gap in the German line.

I had seldom heard so much shooting going as the 30th Regiment passed though the gap as though we were driving to the supermarket. We brought our trucks with anti-tank guns and each battalion had six tanks. A little after noon I was sent back to tell the supply officer to come up with our supplies. We had advanced about four miles so this was no minor chore: eight miles round trip.

The colonel couldn't get over the fact that I was now a squad leader. He still thought I was the battalion runner. So off I went to the rear to find S-4 and tell them to move up with their 20 jeeps and trailers loaded with food, water and ammo. I told them to move with caution as we were behind enemy lines and the enemy could pop up at any time. The roads were not improved but rather logging trails through the woods.

After I found the S4 officer and passed on the information I started to return and when I hit the trail the 15th Regiment was still keeping the Krauts occupied and the gap open. As I reached what had been the line of departure there was a man ahead of me that looked like Lt. John Hewitt so I yelled at him to wait for me. It was good to see him. He was just returning from four months in the hospital where he sat with two broken legs caused by our own planes bombing our lines instead of the enemy.

John and I shot the bull as we walked about three miles. He was moving up to take command of B Company. I told him where they had gone and told him to be careful and wished him luck. I left him and turned down a hill in the direction of A, C, D, and HQ companies. I don't know why B Company was so far off by itself while the rest of the battalion moved toward the village of La Bourgonce.

When I caught up with my company it was around 1730 hours. In the woods the light was starting to grow dim. I thought I would take a look around so I went down to what seemed to be a footpath through the woods. When I had gone about a 100 yards I walked passed two men hunched down behind a tree. I asked them, "What the hell are you doing?" They pointed to a spot about 75 yards away at the edge of the forest where a whole platoon of Krauts was coming out of a house. They were putting on their packs getting ready to move out. I wanted to blast them but the two soldiers talked me out of it because we were outnumbered ten to one. I still regret that opportunity to this day. We may have been outnumbered but we had the element of surprise and it was our job to kill Krauts.

I went back to the company area and dug a hole to sleep in before it got completely dark. After that I had a K Ration dinner and then settled down to get some sleep. At around 1900 hours I was told to report to Major Porter. He told me that he needed someone to go to B Company and the reason was they were maintaining radio silence because of our situation behind the German lines and that he needed to know their disposition. They had not hooked up their telephone and no one knew why. I told the major that I had talked to the B Company commander that afternoon and that he was a friend of mine. The night was darker than sin as he told me to take a man with me and go find them.

Finding B Company and Another Bronze Star

French, American and British flags fly freely in Lure, France.

I asked Jake Miller if he would come along and he agreed. We loaded up with lots of ammo and a couple of hand grenades each and off we went into the darkest damn night I had ever seen. The only way we could find our way was to run the phone line through our hands as we went along. We took turns and finally reached the company. We found them sleeping on the trail and nobody was dug in.

I woke up a couple of men as I was trying to find out where John Hewitt was. I was questioning them when three shots fired from an enemy tank went into a house nearby that was the company command post. Someone in the house had pulled a blanket away from the door as they went out and the tank zeroed in. My friend John was killed in that stupid house.

Jake and I tried to rest a little before we started back but after a short time we gave that up and started back anyway. The weather had deteriorated into a downpour so we put on our raincoats and headed back to battalion. Between the thunder and the rain we couldn't tell if there was incoming artillery or not. We had to get back and make our dismal report to Major Porter. We got back to HQ about 4:00 in the morning I woke the Major and gave him my report of which he could do very little to improve the situation at the time. Jake and I went to our foxholes and tried to get some sleep.

I managed to sleep until about 9:00. I was sitting on the side of my foxhole and eating breakfast when I looked through the trees and across a field almost 1,000 yards away. There was a row of houses along a road and beside each one of the houses there was a tank or armored vehicle of some type. I leisurely finished my coffee that I had heated on a Coleman one burner stove. Then I went to our truck and found my field glasses and took a good look.

My initial observation proved correct so I went to Sergeant Trembly and asked him to take a look because this was certainly a prize for the taking and it should be my squad's opportunity to be recognized for doing something big. Sergeant Trembly suggested that we get permission to fire from Major Porter. The major told us to push our anti-tank gun down to the edge of the woods and start firing. When we got the gun to where we could see all the targets, a machine gun opened up on us and the bullets were bouncing off the gun shield.

We were having trouble getting the gun's trails spread and locked. We got one side locked but unless both sides are locked the gun can tip over when fired. Both Taylor and Louis Kottenbrock were hit trying to spread the other side and I only had four men left. I had to get the wounded men out of the line of fire before anything else. I took one man and someone grabbed the other and we dragged them to safety.

I went to Major Porter to see if he had any suggestions. He climbed on a tank that was nearby and took the .50 caliber machine gun and poured about 50 rounds at the enemy machine gun and I went a short distance forward and opened up with my old B.A.R. and the enemy fire stopped. I yelled at the gun crew to get the gun into action and put two rounds into the house that the enemy machine gun was firing from.

I figured that two rounds were enough to clean out that machine gun real good. I told the crew to swing the gun 90 degrees and get the first vehicle before it could escape and after that go right down the line and put in one armor-piercing and one incendiary high-explosive in each vehicle to set them on fire. In three minutes the squad destroyed 11 vehicles. For this action every man in the squad received a Bronze Star medal with V device and Major Porter received a Silver Star even though I think he was firing at the wrong house. Oh well as we used to say "C'est Guerre".

Hometown clipping of the Bronze Star news.

My own award read:

Award of the First Oak Leaf Cluster to the Bronze Star Medal Staff Sergeant (then Corporal) Owen C. Beardslee Headquarters Company, First Battalion, 30th Infantry

For valorous conduct in action against the enemy. On October 25, 1944 near **** France, Staff Sergeant BEARDSLEE rallied his platoon and directed the push by hand of its guns 50 yards through brushy woods in order to bring fire on an enemy motor park 300 yards away. Under constant German machine gun fire, he crawled 25 yards ahead of his guns and remained in an exposed position as he directed fire upon the enemy. Largely as a result of his courageous leadership and skillful fire direction 11 enemy halftracks and trucks were knocked out. The machine gun was silenced, and casualties were inflicted on the enemy

-John W. O'Daniel
Major General, U.S. Army Commanding

Later that day we all moved into the house that I saw the platoon of Germans coming out of the night before. I never told anyone about letting those Krauts live another day to shoot at some of our men. As I said before it still gets to me that I didn't do what I was sent there to do. We stayed in the house one night and the following day we moved closer to the road that ran through the little village so that we could fire on anything coming out of the town where we heard much movement of machinery the night before.

We stayed in another house that was only about 200 yards from the road. It was a very good place to knock off some more vehicles but A Company lost the hill behind us so we were called back. The second night we came back under cover of darkness. We also brought back 10 civilians with us. They were so happy to get away from the Germans.

The following day A Company took the hill back but we never went back to our outpost. Instead we went back to the house at the edge of the woods. On the following day, Sgt. Laeser and I started teasing each other about having enough guts to go into La Bourgonce in the daylight so the following day right after we had eaten lunch we went on our little "who has the most guts reconnaissance".

First we went to a sawmill on the edge of town. We decided that Sgt. Laeser would go up the street and I would approach the house from the rear. As I was going through the field at the rear of the houses Germans on the hill behind must have spotted me because they fired a load of six rockets but fortunately they missed and I went on. When I got to the house we picked to enter I went in the back door at the same time Laeser came in the front.

We scared the people that lived there to death. After we got them calmed down and assured them we weren't going to hurt them we pumped them for information about the enemy disposition but they told us little. Sgt. Laeser could speak German however the people that lived there were French. Nevertheless, the old Sarge got the young lady that lived there to agree to make us an apple pie on the promise that we would return the next day to eat it. The following day we went back with coffee and sugar. We spent almost an hour there and weren't fired on either coming or going so we didn't even get our adrenalin fix for the day, just pie and coffee. On return we got to brag about how great it was and what the rest of the men missed by not going with us.

Sauceray, Vosges

Soldiers of the Seventh Regiment move out from Faucogney, France.

That night we had a rocket barrage come in and Laeser and I lost our old friend John Kovalcik. One of the rockets made a direct hit on his foxhole and John got his fifth, and final, Purple Heart. Laeser and I felt badly about it but we still had a lot of war to fight and who was to say that we were going to last till the end. Our mourning period was short for we moved out the next day to attack the town of Sauceray, northwest of St. Die, in where the Krauts had a strong roadblock that needed to be cracked.

All I remember about that town was that we followed a tank in and the tank took some machine gun fire from a house about 500 yards to our right. We threw a couple of 75mm rounds at the house that it was coming from and proceeded on. We entered the house and found the French civilians that lived there. They were pretty shaken up about their house being shot at. The old man had just gone out to the barn to milk the cow when one of the tank rounds came through the wall and knocked him off his milking stool.

After we arrived the civilians left in a hurry. That night I slept in one of three beds in the house and it was a cold rainy night and I did appreciate staying in a nice dry warm house. Two men were posted at on guard in different locations because we figured the Krauts were in the woods on the hill behind us.

The people that owned the house had all kinds of food we found smoked hams, eggs, potatoes and bread so naturally we had ham and eggs for breakfast. It was the best breakfast we had in weeks. We all wished there was some way we could repay these people but all we could do is pray to God to have mercy on them and we left.

The Third Division continued its way through the Vosges Mountains cleaning out pockets of enemy resistance here and there. This was accomplished mostly by having superior firepower of our riflemen with their M1 rifles that were a better weapon than the German rifles. The accuracy of our artillery also kept us on the winning side. Our artillery observation planes were overhead all the time and each one was directing at least 500 guns. Besides the division and corps artillery we always had our own cannon company.

Our ace was the infantry that had "enough guts to get the job done" as Ernie Pyle wrote. These men developed a casual workshop manner in which they talked about killing. They have made the psychological transition from the normal belief that taking a life is sinful to a professional outlook where killing was a craft. To the dogface infantry soldier there was nothing wrong with killing, in fact it was an admirable thing. A lot of our soldiers lost their lives but in war it just happened and as long as the replacements rolled in we kept moving.

All said and done, the Third Division took more ground than any other division during WWII. When we attacked any place that took artillery preparation we would always try to get as close as we could to the falling shells so that when it let up we could be on top of the enemy in a matter of seconds. We also believed in machines doing the work when possible. One night, north of St. Die, we were moving through the dense woods and underbrush at night. It was raining lightly and it seemed like the brush was holding every drop coming down. I think the guy I was following was a real mean bastard because it seemed like he pulled the branches further back than needed and then let them go with all the force he could to get them to hit me right in the face. After about a half hour of getting hit in the face with wet branches the anti-tank squad was called forward. When we moved to the front of C Company we were the ones snapping the wet branches in the faces behind. At the front of the column there was a truck approaching from the road ahead. I had all three bazooka teams load because in the dark we could not tell if it was friendly or not. We moved closer to the road so we would not miss. Even though we were only about a 150 away we still could not see in the dark so we had to fire at the sound. The first bazooka missed, as did the second and the third. The vehicle sped up as the first team reloaded. Their second round hit and the damn thing blew up right there. It was a truck loaded with explosives and red, blue, green and yellow flares were shooting in every direction for what seemed to be almost five minutes. It was certainly a great show. We just sat and watched the midnight fireworks display.

When it was quiet again, we could hear a Kraut soldier calling for a medic. His wail rang through the night in a ghostly manner that sent chills down everyone's spine. It was really weird, but we finally pressed on and left him in his misery.

Relief

Just before Thanksgiving, around the November 20, we were still deep in the forest of the Vosges Mountains. I had dug a hole and found a partner to pitch a pup tent over the hole. I know this was against my rule of not digging with another person but I needed shelter.

That night there was three inches of wet soggy snow that almost collapsed the pup tent. We got up in the morning and removed the snow with out touching the tent too much because every place it was touched the damn thing would leak.

After eating breakfast we tried to dry things out a little bit. Around 11:00 we were told we were going to be relieved by the 81st Division that had just arrived from the states. Thank God someone else was going to learn how to live like an animal and kill the enemy while doing it.

That afternoon the 81st arrived wearing overcoats. We never wore overcoats because the Germans wore overcoats and we shot at anything wearing an overcoat. Here they came all looking very soldierly with packs made up all the same and everyone freshly shaven, and each one with a gas mask. God they looked pretty. As I sat on the edge of my foxhole watching the soldiers pass by I saw somebody that I thought I knew. It was Kenny McCullough a kid I knew in Jr. High. He was the only student in school that rode an Indian motorbike to school. I think he dropped out of school when he graduated from the eighth grade to work in a sawmill for 50 cents an hour.

I called his name and sure enough it was him. He fell out and came over to my hole. We talked only a couple minutes. I told him about John Hewitt and Bob Harriott and then he had to leave. A couple months later I ran into the same outfit and asked about Ken and they said he was wounded his second night on the line.

When Ken moved on we picked up our gear and moved to the rear. A kitchen had been set up so we got hot food and we settled down in a hayloft. It wasn't very good for the people with hay fever but we were comfy. We were there only about four days. We didn't get showers or clean clothes but we did get some decent food, rest, and our mail. I got a beautiful letter from Patty. I lay in the hay and read it over and over and wished I could be there with her.

She enclosed a picture of herself and God I thought she was so pretty. From then on, I carried that picture with me. If I were killed that picture would be buried with my body. I couldn't help but show it to all the other men that I reminisced about home with which was most of the men in the platoon.

After we moved out of our hayloft home we moved into an area where the enemy artillery was heavy and was raising hell. We were getting a lot of tree bursts that were causing a lot of casualties. I don't think that Major Porter liked it either because he sent me out on a reconnaissance patrol to try to locate the enemy. I was told where to go because other patrols were sent to other locations. I took three men with me as I was told to do because normally I liked to go by myself. When you are alone it is easier to get around and conceal oneself.

We went about a mile down a logging road through the forest and ran into nothing. I came back and reported to the battalion commander that there seemed to be nothing in the direction that we went in. So the following morning Major Porter ordered the battalion with A Company leading to proceed down the rood I had gone down the day before. When A Company had gone as far as I had gone all hell broke loose and they sustained about 30 casualties during the day's fighting.

I felt partially to blame because of my report the day before. Maybe I didn't spend enough time observing but I think the enemy had just moved in after I had observed the area. As we chased the enemy out, the anti-tank caught platoon zeroed in on a mortar crew and fired at the escaping Krauts down the valley. Later we found out that what we had done was against the Geneva Convention rules of warfare but it seemed to be a good idea at the time. The crew didn't hit anyone but I think the got a good scare.

The enemy retreated into a village deep in the valley below. While the Germans occupied the village they still harassed us with artillery fire. The day after the attack Major Porter had a stupid idea to go on a combat patrol in daylight. Why daylight I don't know. Lieutenant John Ellis who had just received a battlefield commission and the guy I had shot in the rear end just before we went to Sicily was in charge of the patrol. Sergeant Laeser, Private Jackson and Private Grounden were to carry and operate a bazooka and I was to take my trusty old B.A.R.

We shoved off at 1300 hours and our objective was a farm house about 700 yards out in the open. It was thought that it was an enemy headquarters but to go out there without the cover of darkness was stupid. We went only 200 yards when a machine gun cut into us from the rear. Lieutenant Ellis was hit in the butt again only this time it smashed his hip and he was unable to walk.

Laeser and Jackson drug him back to where a medic could come up with a litter and move him to a first aid station. I provided rear guard protection as he was moved back. The fact is that the patrol was ill-planned and failed. It was entirely possible to just shoot up the house with our anti-tank gun at night by moving it up to a place where we could see the house in the dusk and sight it. After dark we could have put six rounds into the house in 20 seconds, hooked up the gun to the truck and pulled away in a total of about three minutes.

Twelve Machineguns

The next day my squad was told to take all the .50 cal. machineguns in the platoon and I was given five more from ordinance. I had a total of eight and then we brought up a half-track with "quad 50s" mounted on it so there was a total of twelve guns all together.

We moved back to the top of the hill to an area where there was a large peat bog. In the peat bog there was a small. Cabin. I imagined it had been used to store tools and to escape foul weather because there was a stove in it. We were told to set up the machineguns and fire indirect fire into the valley and the village that the Germans occupied. The village was over three miles away according to our maps and the maximum range for our 50s was four miles so we were really reaching out.

Nobody, including our platoon sergeant knew how to set the guns up for indirect fire and nobody knew how we were to get a trajectory chart for .50 caliber machineguns. In fact nobody seemed to know what the hell they were talking about. Sergeant Laeser and I knew the most so he left it up to me.

This was probably the only time in the history of WW II that machineguns were used to fire indirect fire. I had to take the initiative to get the guns set to fire. I found some paper and pencil, took our trajectory chart that was with our anti-tank guns and with a little high school geometry I worked out a trajectory for the guns. With a pocket compass I lined the guns up to an aiming stake. I used our anti-tank gun quadrant to get the elevation and the compass for angle and I was in.

The rest of the men busied themselves by removing all the tracers from 25,000 rounds of ammo that was brought up. I had no more than finished setting in our eight guns when the half-track pulled up with the quad 50s so I had to turn my attention to help them. The guys in the half-track let me set in. the angle and elevation for the guns but when I tried to tell them a few of the finer points with helpful suggestions they got a little up tight. I told them if they fired short and killed someone in the First Battalion that was down the hill, keeping the enemy away from their butts, I would put an 57mm anti-tank round through their little half-track and let them think that over for a while.

When we were set up ready to fire, Major Porter set up a jeep mounted radio with an operator. We let go with a five-round burst with no complaints from the men on the front. We increased our fire slowly until we had all 12 guns firing a 50-round belt without stopping.

That night a patrol went down to the edge of the town and came back and reported the all rounds had fallen in the town. I felt real good about that. We stayed in this area for eight days and fired into the town 24 hours a day using 25,000 rounds a day for while the quad fifties on the half-track consuming its own 12,000 rounds a day. I remember we used a full two and a half ton truckload each day. Every fifteen to twenty minutes a 50-round belt went through each gun.

My crew lived in the crew shack in the middle of the peat bog. It was only about ten by ten feet but we managed to find enough room with two men on the guns at all times and two hour rotation on and four hours off.

We lived on five and one rations made for tank crews that were much better than our K rations but also Sgt. Laeser managed to get some flour and sugar so we made pancakes for breakfast in the mornings. Our salt and soda army ration toothpaste was used for a leavening agent and with an egg thrown in we had good eatin' pancakes.

We spent an enjoyable eight days even though Sgt. Laeser and I thought we were wasting a lot of .50 caliber ammo and thought it a little ridiculous. We carried out our orders and that was it. After eight days the French Troops relieved us so the Third Division could prepare and plan for an attack across the Meurthe River. The operation was called "Powerhouse" and it looked like it would be a difficult job.

Breaking the Winter Line

Third Division soldiers face off against the "Ostfort" near Strasbourg. German soldiers in the fort refused to surrender and held off for several days before the fort was captured.

The Meurthe River was swollen by recent fall rains and was too deep and swift to be forded by infantry troops. The enemy had developed a winter line, which was a solid chain of prepared defenses running through the forest parallel to the river including eight-foot deep trenches. The trenches included barbed wire and mines in front with pillbox type weapon's pits, anti-tank gun positions and other forms of defense. The line had been under construction for months before the Third Division arrived.

On the day of the attack, November 20, the division was sporting new replacements and everyone was loaded up with ammo, grenades, while praying to God. Our engineers had a footbridge across the river by early evening. The First and Second battalions of the 30th Regiment went across the footbridge about 2:00 AM. We laid in the wet grass waiting. I tried to get a couple of winks before we had to face the enemy guns only about 3-400 yards ahead and prepared for our attack.

We were lying shoulder to shoulder and if the enemy knew our position, just one shell could have taken out 20 men in the tightly assembled group. I managed to sleep about 45 minutes when at 0500 hours all hell broke loose. Our artillery opened up along with our 81mm mortars and 200 .50 caliber machineguns. Everything in our arsenal was firing over our heads. At 0530 everything stopped.

It was still dark and we could just barely see when we charged the German frontline. The lead soldiers pushed Bangalore torpedoes under the barbed wire and blew a hole and away we went as fast as we could run. When we reached the trenches the German defenders didn't have a chance. Everyone dropped hand grenades in the trenches and moved on. The Krauts were running every which way in complete panic. In 15 minutes we had completely broken through their winter defense line.

The rest of the morning was spent shooting Krauts like a good old Texas rabbit shoot. Our planes bombed and strafed ahead as we moved through the forest. We just knocked the bastards for a loop and kept going. This whole operation was the best-designed, best-executed major offensive operation of WWII. After we penetrated the German line I was leading my squad through the forest when all of a sudden from the rear I heard someone yelling and screaming like they were being killed. I turned and ran back to see what was going on. What I saw was a man in my squad running around a tree. His M1 carbine had jammed and he was trying to get it working again. All the time a big Kraut was trying to shoot him with a pistol. I yelled at the German and he saw me standing there with my B.A.R. pointed at him so he stopped the pursuit and threw his hands in the air but continued to hang on to the pistol. As he walked toward me I told him three times to drop the pistol and each time he said "nein-nein" and kept walking toward me. When he got to within 20 feet from me he started to bring the pistol down. When his arm started down my finger tightened on the trigger and my B.A.R. pumped ten rounds into his body. He fell at my feet.

God I hated to kill so close in broad daylight when I could see the expression on the face. It made me feel sick but I knew I wouldn't hesitate to do it again in an instant. Some other men in my squad examined the body and found that the first shot hit the pistol and ruined it. It was a prized 15-shot P38 Walther that was worth $50 when sold to someone in the air force or navy. The ordinary P38s usually went for $25.

Everyone was mad at me for ruining the pistol however the man who's butt I saved thanked me. It wasn't necessary because we saved each other's butts daily just by being there. If the enemy wasn't aiming at me he was aiming at somebody else. We continued through the woods all day shooting and getting shot at occasionally but in the whole operation the whole battalion never lost a man nor did anyone get hurt. However that late afternoon our supply sergeant was killed by a randomly fired round of harassing fire as he was bringing up supplies. He was two miles behind the lines when it happened. It was about 1430 hours when we came to a clearing. Across the field there was a farmhouse. Not only was it going to get dark soon but it was also starting to rain. The farmhouse looked inviting so we went in and found an older couple with a daughter about 18 years old. You could sense that they were up tight about us being there but we were going to stay invited or not. Everyone got busy with their evening meal while I took the first shift on guard duty.

I was standing guard on a porch that faced a barn. It was raining lightly and a low fog hung in bunches so visibility was limited. While trying to see something through this weather I caught movement in the corner of my eye. I continued to look in that direction and finally saw two figures approaching. When they came within 50 yards I challenged them and requested the day's password. They both turned and ran and my B.A.R. went into action.

I emptied a full clip and they kept running. By this time everyone in the house came running out to see what was going on. I slammed another clip in and emptied it and still they ran. I was hoping that the squad would not spread this story around because I would lose my status as battalion B.A.R. expert.

As it turned out, one of the Krauts was a boyfriend of the girl that lived in the house that made us less welcome than before. So I kept a man on guard in the house as well as out. For us the next few days were uneventful and the First Battalion went into reserve.

Unsatisfied, but Successful Revenge

On the 26th of November 1944 1 was a squad leader in the Anti-tank Platoon, First Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment. I always carried a B.A.R. It became "my weapon" ever since I carried it onto Sicily in July 1943. That B.A.R. saved my life numerous times. I felt naked without it. I learned to use it well.

It was common practice to assign one squad from the antitank platoon to go with a rifle company when it went on the attack. This time my squad drew Able Company. After a cold, foggy morning, the day was turning out to be pleasant. The sun was burning into the woods through the overcast. The time was about 1330 hours and A Company was moving along a hard-surfaced road with no resistance. My anti-tank squad was bringing up the rear of the column as usual. The company turned off the road and followed a narrow trail into the woods. My squad was just entering the trail when all of a sudden a Kraut machine gun cut into us from the left flank. We hit the dirt but we were exposed.

I was lying two feet from a young freckled-faced kid who must have been only eighteen years old. I told him to run for the cover of the trees at the end of the next burst. I really didn't think it was a good idea to stay where we were any longer because we were too exposed. After the next burst I got up and ran, I took five steps and looked back to see why he had not responded. His helmet had rolled off his head and I could see the black mark on his forehead that meant instant death. I dove for cover as the next burst came and crawled through the brush until it was safe to stand and get out of the area. As I walked along the trail I became more and more irritated about losing the kid even if he wasn't in my squad. I wanted to do something to get back at those bastards but I didn't know what I could do. After we had gone about 700 yards on the trail, we heard a strange noise that nobody could identify. The sound kept growing louder by the second and coming in our direction.

We found that the hard-surfaced road we had been on earlier crossed the trail ahead. I told my bazooka teams to load and take cover and get ready to blast a very strange sounding tank. After a long minute, around the curve in the road came a team of horses at full gallop pulling a wagon with twin 20mms guns mounted on it. There were also four of Hitler's henchmen bravely riding this tool of destruction. I told my bazooka teams to hold their fire. As the wagon drew within 75 yards I let my B.A.R. loose and emptied a full clip of twenty rounds, and four German soldiers went to Kraut heaven.

The angle at which I had to fire meant both of the horses were wounded and had to be destroyed. Tech. Sgt. Walter Laeser, our platoon leader, who was tagging along with us went to the road and did away with the horses. He had just finished his mission of mercy, when we heard another wagon coming. I signaled for Walter to return in a hurry. He had no more than got back, when the second horse drawn flak-wagon came into view. They also came at a full gallop I let them come up to the first wagon and I emptied a second clip and four more saur kraut eaters were no more. Again Sgt. Laeser went to the road and dispatched the horses, but before he had time to return to our ambush, a German soldier came around the corner of the road riding a bicycle. He was peddling for all he was worth. My B.A.R. spoke again and Adolph's warrior peddled his little bike up the bank at the side of the road and flipped over on his back.

I felt like I was having a great day, but it wasn't over. I had no sooner put the bicycle rider away when we heard a third wagon coming. As it rounded the bend in the road we could see it was a supply wagon because there were no guns mounted on it but there were two of the German Army's great Hun soldiers on the wagon. Again my B.A.R. did the job it was designed to do, and helped them on their way to the happy hunting ground.

I had no sooner completed putting the last wagon riders away when I saw the bike rider trying to climb the bank at the side of the road. I slammed another full clip in old faithful and fed him the whole thing and movement ceased forever. I felt good about clobbering 11 Krauts and getting two flak-wagons, but anguish still burned in me about that young soldier we left back on the trail.

We had moved on another 3-400 yards when it felt like a huge weight was lifted off my back. After so many weeks and months of fighting in the forests, we were looking out over the great expanse of the Rhine River valley. I don't know why, but it came to me as a great relief. I stood there only a few moments drinking in the view of the beautiful valley when I realized that we must be some distance from A Company. They must be at least 20 minutes ahead of us. The next three miles was down hill and there weren't any Krauts about to slow us down.

Catching up with A Company

Aerial photograph of St. Die. The city was burned by them retreating German army.

When we caught up with A Company they had entered the village of Rosheim to the northeast of St. Die. There was some shooting but basically the town was ours. I spotted a car coming toward town when it got to within 500 yards I was going to give him a welcome he wouldn't forget with my old B.A.R. but it refused to fire.

The other men in my squad finished off the car with massive, concentrated Ml fire. I found a place to disassemble my B.A.R. but after an hour I was unable to fix it. Later I sent it to ordnance. A week later I was informed that ordnance was unable to find the problem, so they sent me a brand new B.A.R. still coated with Cosmolene. I will never forgive them for that. One of the mechanics in the motor pool was kind enough to clean it up for me.

The rest of the afternoon was spent messing around with an abandoned half-track the Germans left behind. After much cranking and pushing and pulling of switches and levers not knowing a damn thing about what we were doing the engine came to life much to our surprise. Everyone took turns driving it around town until they tired of it.

I wanted very much to test fire the 88mm gun that we had unhooked from the rear of the half-track but it was folded in the travel position. Nobody was able to figure out how to put it in a firing position so we gave up. I certainly would like to have thrown a few rounds in the direction of the great Wehrmacht.

Later as the chill of the autumn evening was approaching I sat on the curb shooting the breeze with a couple of men in my squad. The time was about 1730 when the battalion S4 and several supply sergeants rolled into town with about five jeeps and trailers loaded with our daily supplies. I was within hearing distance when Major Porter proceeded to jump all over the S4 for being so late.

The S4 said, "If you hadn't left the road completely blocked, with that mess up there on the mountain. I could have been here two hours ago. I had to call the engineers to come up with a dozer to clear the road." Major Porter replied, "What in the hell are you talking about? We didn't leave anything in your way."

Of course the three of us sitting on the curb knew what the S4 officer was referring to and trying to explain. Major Porter was so furiously upset that we thought he would court martial us for blocking the road and aiding the enemy if we told him we were responsible. We thought it best to go through channels but we didn't have an officer in our platoon to tell. we just let the matter die on the vine and said nothing.

Night was drawing near and we needed a house to stay in. Our luck was still holding. We found a place that was clean, dry and warm. Something every infantryman dreams of when evening comes. I hope the men that were with me that day still remember how great it was.

Strasbourg

Third Division soldiers celebrate the first Catholic Mass held in the Strasbourg Cathedral since the German invasion of France in 1940.

Our drive on to Strasbourg was not an easy one. The rifle companies ran into many strong points along the way. For some reason the Anti-tank Platoon was not assigned to any of the rifle companies. We spent our time on roadblocks protecting the rifle company's flanks as they moved forward. Then came the final drive for Strasbourg and Anti-tank was there — bringing up the rear.

When B Company stopped a train going into the city we were right there to find out what was on it. Lo and behold, there were three boxcars filled with five-gallon wooden kegs of beer. So the Anti tank Platoon took about 20 kegs and loaded them onto the one-and-a-half-ton trucks that carried our guns. A couple kegs were even tied to the trails of the guns; I don't know how we could have gone into action very fast with that kind of set up. At this time I don't think we were thinking much about action.

There was no resistance as we entered the city and within an hour we were looking for a place to stay. The Third Division had reached the Rhine River. Anti-tank finally found a place on the edge of town in a German barn.

We stayed in a loft in the barn. It was a huge room where they thrashed grain or something because the floors were polished. It was certainly a clean place but there was no heat but being clean and dry was better than a foxhole and I was ready to stay for the winter. Our company kitchen was set up three blocks up the street.

We spent our days cleaning and readying our equipment for more combat. Our evenings were spent at a nearby tavern were we drank beer and if someone was around that could play the piano we would all gather around and sing songs and talk about home. Private Grounden, was our piano player. Other guys played a lot of poker. In general we all had a relaxing time trying to heal our nerves after the strains of combat.

At about 10:00 pm we all headed back to the barn where I would crawl into my angora goatskin sleeping bag that I liberated from a German supply dump a month earlier. No one else seemed to want the bags and there was a whole pile of them. I was the only one that took one. The long hair was turned inside and the skins were sewn together to make a mummy bag then it was slipped into a light canvas bag to make a protective cover when rolled up it made a very neat package that weighed only about three to four pounds. As the winter got colder it saved my life. I would put hot water in my canteen and stuff it in the bottom of my sleeping bag and sleep very toasty.

Our time in Strasbourg was limited to about seven or eight days and we moved out to find the dirty Kraut's again.

Charles O. Beardslee |  Prelude |  Signing Up |  Africa |  Sicily |  Italy |  Anzio | 
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