The Impact of the Battle of the Bulge and the 60th Division's Crossing of the Roer River

By Donald Stibitz

 

 

 

    While not in the direct path of the advancing German Army, being on the fringe of the Battle  of the Bulge was bad enough. After leaving the rehabilitation Center at Cherbourg , December 26th, 1944 , I rejoined I Company on January 1st and was part of a combat patrol on the outskirts of the town of Dreiborne . The purpose of this patrol was to capture and make prisoners of some German soldiers who were known to be in this area. We spent practically the whole month scouting for them but were never successful in capturing any of them.  

   The company was in that position four or more weeks. I was there a little over three. The battalion was sending out patrols every day to try and capture a German patrol to try and get information about the German troops to our front. There was usually six on a patrol. Two from each of the rifle company's. I must have been respected or easy to push around. I was selected to be on two or three patrols a week. We would walk to a small building, in the middle of nowhere to meet and have a critique.

 

    We wore snow suits. A white slip over garment that would cover our whole body, so we couldn't be seen in the snow. The snow was up to our knees and we had to hike about half a mile. You had to lift your foot up quite high to walk. Not easy. We would then lay in the snow for up to two hours. Then hike back. Very good exercise. After three weeks of not catching any German patrols, Battalion decided to go out on a combat patrol.

 

    I was also one of the selected ones for that patrol. Lucky me. 42 troops, One Lt. as patrol leader, one lieutenant artillery observer and his radio man, four squad leaders with six men each, I was one of the squad leaders, and 11 other riflemen as backups. Four of us had gone out previously, past the point where we had gone before to a point approaching a blacktop road.

 

     We found two semi detached houses on our side of this road and a large two story building on the other side of the road about 35 yards from the road. We had observed what appeared to be a company of German soldiers. Our objective was to search out the four houses and if we found any soldiers to capture them and return. If none were found, to cross the road and raid the large building and take prisoners. this was to be done at night as were all of the patrols. How does this sound to you. 42 men to raid a building and capture some Germans out of an estimated company of soldiers. We got there about 9:30 thirty at night.

 

    We had walked over 3/4's of a mile in the deep snow to get to this point. The four Squad Leaders took their men and searched the four houses and found nothing. The rest of the patrol was in back of a hedge row about 100 ft at the back of the houses. The four squads lined up in back of hedges in the front yard and prepared to cross the road then sneak up to the building and try to capture a few Germans without alerting the rest of the company.

 

     About the time we were going to cross, we heard singing on the road to our left and heard the sound of hob nailed boots hitting the hard road surface, It was a platoon a platoon marching and singing at the top of their lungs. I found out later from one of our men who understood German, they were singing " All is forbidden, all is forbid, 6 years in Russia , all is crazy and sad."

 

    In my lousy German language. " Alla's verboten allas forbide sechs yar in Ruski, allas fericht and faloren" They had definitely been drinking and were very Happy to be out of Russia . They were not going into the building, but marching by, probably going into the town.

 

    One of them was about 20 feet behind the rest and staggering all over the road. As he got in front of us, he staggered toward the hedge. One of the guys,  who had never seen combat got frightened, stood up and fired his rifle. It didn't go off. the bolt must have frozen. The German swung his rifle in our guys direction and tried to fire. His rifle didn't go off.

 

    Miracles of miracles He started to run, slipped and fell and left out the most guttural screaming I had ever heard. As you could imagine, his platoon turned and ran back toward us and started firing. When that occurred, the rest of our patrol started to fire over our heads, we got off a few shots and decided to get back to the patrol. With all that firing over our heads from both directions, I was afraid I would never see another day. I stood up to run back and then decided it would be wise to hit the ground. I was flat on the ground and practically swam back through the snow until I reached our patrol.

 

     I made it back without being hit. I assume the rest of our patrol kept the Germans firing at them, instead of trying to hit us. Talk about miracles. No one in the whole patrol had been hit. I don't know about the enemy. We were given a few minutes to catch our breath. In that time our lieutenant ask the observer to have the 105's fire on our position. Since they were already zeroed in, they were quick to fire and as we started moving back we could hear the shells coming in.

 

     We didn't get any prisoners. But I was damned happy we all got back without casualties, but I did manage to end up frozen feet. This gave me five days in the Division  hospital and twelve days serving in the kitchen unit before I was able to make it back to my unit. The food was good so it was a nice experience. However, I did manage to get myself into another predicament.

 

    The kitchen people as me if I ever boxed. I said yes. I had a year with the Knights of Columbus, learning to box with a youth program they had. I thought I did well with the 15 and 16 year olds. They said they had boxing gloves, how about putting them on with Joe. He was about my size and weight. Being stupid I said OK. Big mistake, his gloves were in my face all of the time and I don't believe I laid a glove on him even once. Everybody there  seemed to have had a great time at my expense. It so happened that the fellow they matched me up with was a New York golden glove champ. The was the final chapter in my Battle of the Bulge experience.                                                    

 

    By late January, we moved out of the bulge area and pushed on to try to take  Dreiborne.  When we reached a crossroad in front of the town, we were happy to find that the place had already been taken. But then the Germans counter attacked with a couple of tanks ahead of their infantry and really raised hell. We managed to drive them back after a violent skirmish so they retreated. This was early evening. We were told to dig in so I got my shovel out and tried to do just that but the ground was frozen as hard as a rock.

    So, having a brilliant idea, I removed a half pound of nitro starch and scraped a small hole in the ground with just enough space to partially bury the explosive. I attached a blasting cap with a three minute fuse and then packed some ground over it and lit the fuse. When it blew, the rest of the company thought it was a counter attack and it scared the hell out of them. The end result was that it didn't work anyway since everything went up and it nothing was disturbed underneath. What surprised me was that I expected to be crucified for doing this but no one said anything.

 

     There was a dead horse near by  so I crawled between its legs for some protection and tried to get some sleep. The next day we took Dreiborne in some pretty fierce combat and had a number of casualties. We then headed toward Hasenfield and again the Germans put up a fanatical defense but to no available as we took the town anyway.

 

    Our next assignment was to cross the Roer River . We advanced to a dirt road which overlooked the river and led down to it. At that point, we could see the river was very swift. The 3rd Battalion had been given the job of crossing. When we tried to get closer to the river we found it impossible because the German mortars from the other side of the river were zeroed in to points all the way down the road.

 

    There were a few houses on both sides of the river. The engineers had cleared a narrow path of mines through the woods, down to the river. I found out later that this area was the most heavily mined area of Germany . I was given six men to set up an outpost about half way down to the river. The rest of the Company was in the houses at the river. Germans were in the houses on the other side of the river. Both sides could see each other if they came out or moved around.

 

    We strung a telephone wire from my post to the Command Post at the river. Now the fun begins. Not very funny. First of all, the engineers came down every evening to try to find a way to get a at least a foot bridge across. During the week they had about 4 0r 5 casualties, some with legs blown off from mines. I don't believe there were any fatalities.

 

    From day one, I believe every one and his brother decided to take a look at the crossing  point. The Battalion Commanding Officer, the Regimental Commanding Officer and their parties. Even the CORE Commanding Office and a couple of his staff. They would arrive and then most of the groups would stop at my post for information.  When they left, mortars would start falling along the road as the Germans tried to hit their jeeps. They must have had a number of mortars zeroed in at different parts of the road. They didn't hit one vehicle all week but they came very close a much of  the time.

 

    They were shelling us in the hole area all the time. This really destroyed our communication wire down to the Command Post. I was going out, sometimes 3 or 4 times a day, because I lost touch with the CP. I would take one guy with me, find the break, sometimes more than one and splice it together. I would come back and maybe twenty minutes to an hour I would have to do some patching again. Please, believe me. I lost three guys to shrapnel wounds that week, I wasn't hit. I was beginning to really believe I led a charmed life. The wire got so chopped up after a while that I had to string a whole new line all the way down.

 

     The first night our guys tried to get a boat across, they were swept away and the boat capsized. However, the guys managed to make it back to our side about 1.4 mile down stream. The next night, they looked for a very strong swimmer to try to swim across carrying a line. He couldn't do it. The third night they tried with a boat again with four strong guys with paddles figuring they could make it across. They launched their boat quite a bit above the point where they wanted to land figuring that they might end up down stream quite a bit. Since this was done in total darkness, they were extremely happy when the hit land. They quickly jumped out, lost the boat and then found out they had landed on a little island in the middle of the river. Thank god they still had a hold of the line and were able to get back.

 

     Some one got the idea to shoot a grappling hook across with a line attached. It worked. they had rigged some kind of a sling shot to send across with a light rope. They went to work  and by the next evening they had a foot bridge across. In the mean time, about a mile above us, they had gotten across before us, and that drew all the Germans across from us to that site. We walked across with no one in site. That was some week. Those crossing on the bridge a mile above us had to step across the dead soldier shown here.

 

`  When we reached the other side of the river, things may have been looking up for us but our war was far from over. A short distance after crossing the Roer River , we were in a small mountain area. We were in a heavy wooded area and came to a bare ridge about

75  yards to another wooded area. We were about 25 yards out and one of the scouts was hit with rifle fire. The platoon Sgt. was hit and also the platoon guide. They made it to the

other side, but the rest of the platoon hit the ground and froze. I was the last man and still only a corporal and assistant squad leader. I looked to both sides and the ground rose on both sides and the platoon was open to fire from both ridges. I jumped up, ran past the whole platoon screaming lets get the hell out of here. The rest of the platoon followed me and no one else got hit.

    The CO came up add wanted to know who brought the platoon over. A number of them pointed to me. He asked my name and said “ you’re the new platoon Sgt. I bypassed three squad leaders. I was put in that day for Staff Sgt. and  the next day for Tech, Sgt. Much later I found out from the Co. clerk that I was also was written up for a Silver Star. I never got it.   Our outfit moved out again and we were advancing rapidly through many towns and were finding little resistance. In one of the towns we passed through, there was something that I found very interesting. We entered an area that had many, what we call, row houses, in this case about a dozen that were joined together.

 

    I sent a squad down to the far end of the buildings and sent another squad to the near end to search and meet in the center. While I waited, suddenly I could hear screaming and crying and I wondered where it was coming from since I hadn't heard anything from the troops that were searching the buildings.  I ran into the center house and opened the cellar door and found about twenty women and children who were hiding there. It took me a long time to convince them that we were not going to kill or rape them.

 

    When they finally calmed down, some of them started to chatter and point at me and to call out for one particular woman to come over and look at me. When she came up she put her hands on her chest and started to cry. Later I found out that they said I looked just like her son who was in the German Army and that she hadn't seen or heard from him for several years.

 

    She wanted me to stay in her house that night and to please an old mother, I agreed. She made up a bed with clean sheets, great pillows and a blanket. I had asked her to wake me at 5:30 next morning. When she woke me, I could smell the bacon, eggs, potatoes and ersatz coffee that she had made for me. I thanked her, gave her a big hug and left. To this day I regret not getting her name and address.