A Gallant Soldier's Walk into the Huertgen Forest
Robert Knaack
January 10, 2001
Dear Sir,
I have been reading with interest your web page concerning the Hurtgen
Forest. My father fought with the 9th division during September and
October of 1944, so he was right there. He received the Bronze Star
for his participation in the battle. I am sending you his story,
perhaps you'll find it interesting.
Regards
Robert Knaack
Iowa, USA
After the war, my father determined he could make a better living farming than fixing radios, so he bought the farm he still lives on today. He never spoke much of the war, until he finally wrote his memoirs. Now he will generally answer any questions I come up with, although he says, "It's hard to remember something I tried for 50 years to forget." Note in the last photo that he is holding a bronze star. He didn't actually receive that award until he read in a veteran's affairs magazine (sometime in the 1970's) that his unit qualified, so he sent in his name and received the medal.
Again, thanks for your interest, and for keeping the website.
Please send any questions, I'll be happy to answer them if I can.
Robert
Dear Robert,
A great story indeed. I found myself reading
it several times. You certainly have a right to be proud of your
dad.
Sincerely, Ernie Herr
Update on 4-03-03
From: "Knaack, Robert" <Robert.Knaack@pearson.com>
To: <e.herr@att.net>
Subject: Back to the Hurtgen
Date: Thursday, April 03, 2003 10:03 AM
Hi Ernie,
How are you doing? Your site is looking good these days, keep up the good
work. I have some news I thought you would find interesting. My dad, Alfred
Knaack, went back to Germany this past week. He had a guide, a fellow named
Manfred from the historical museum in Aachen, take him out to the area where
the 9th division was located during the Hurtgen forest campaign.
You're not going to believe this, but Dad found the foxhole he dug 59 years ago! He stood on the very spot where he was wounded in September of 1944. The foxholes for the command post, and the three mortar guns were still there on a ridge overlooking the pillboxes he had been firing on. My brother has the whole event on video, hopefully someday I will be able to get some still pictures off the video to send for your website. Amazing, isn't it?
Thought you'd find it interesting...
Regards
Robert Knaack
Bronze Star and Purple Heart awards are displayed proudly by Alfred
F. Knaack.
The World War II Memoirs of
Alfred F. Knaack
Camp Kilmer, New Jersey was our place to get ready to ship across. There we were outfitted with all new uniforms, including combat boots. The combat boots replaced the shoes with leggings we had. Leggings were canvas and went from shoe tops up to the calf of the leg and had to be laced all the way. They took so long to put on, a person wouldn't want to be caught with them off if he had to get away in a hurry. But they did give the legs good support. The new shoes had buckle tops that were easier to put on. Then we were taken on a 12 mile hike to break them in. It was mostly our feet that got broken in. Our new shirts had an extra flap in front behind the buttons. We called them WAC shirts. They were supposed to help keep out gas, and they did keep cold out, too. All these clothes were chemically treated to resist gas. We also got new gas masks that had to be tested by having us go through a room full of tear gas.
After four days of this we had a short train ride to the dock on the Manhattan side of the Hudson. Our ship was the R.M.S. Mauretania, which was one of the larger luxury liners. Both Queens were at docks nearby, so I can say I saw the rare sight of some of the worlds largest ships at one time. They were loading troops too. Not that it was a very festive occasion since we all knew where we were headed, combat. I was listed as a rifleman even if my training was mortarman. What the army needs most, that's what you are. From then on my letters home would be censored.
Our bunch was lucky to be assigned to the promenade deck. That was the one above the main deck. The sides were all open so there was plenty of fresh air. It was a long way down to the water. All around the ship rafts were tied so that cutting or untying a couple of ropes would drop them into the water. Lots of rope ladders hung down from the railings for getting off in a hurry. There were 5 decks below the main deck with troops. The bottom ones didn't even have portholes to see out of. In case of shipwreck those guys would have to climb all the way up and then down the rope ladders to get off. The deck above us was the sun deck, reserved for officers - off limits to us, of course. Otherwise we had the run of the ship, except for the machine rooms and British crew quarters.
The worst part of it was the food. We were fed just twice a day standing at high tables to eat. The whole voyage I never did see any food I recognized as food. Mostly it looked like the slop we fed the hogs at home and smelled worse. I think it was some kind of mutton stew. Good thing the ride was smooth and nobody got seasick. That stuff was hard enough to keep down at best. The US paid the British so much a day to feed us and they, the British, made good money at it. But for five days we could get by.
We slept in hammocks stretched between hooks in the ceiling or whatever you call it on a ship. They hung about as high as your head so it was tricky getting into one of those things and after you got in it was about as tricky to turn over without getting dumped out. They were filthy, probably hadn't been washed since the war began. Every man had a Mae West life preserver. If you are old enough to remember Mae West you can figure out why it was called that. It was to be worn at all times. You never knew when the ship might hit a mine or get hit by a torpedo.
During the day the ship zigzagged all the time. This was to dodge any torpedo some hunter submarine might fire. We had no escort since this ship went too fast for most other ships to keep up. Several five inch guns were mounted on board, but they didn't seemed to be manned, although lookouts were posted at various points. I suppose if something had been spotted, gun crews would have been out. At least I hoped so. At night the engines speeded up noticeably and the zigzagging stopped. It was wide open throttle all night. The whole ship vibrated at that speed. The idea was then we were going too fast for a sub to hit us. We never saw another vessel for several days.
One night I had guard duty. For 2 hours I walked around on the fantail (back end) of the ship, for no reason that I could ever think of. If there had been a submarine out there I would not have known it. It was a nice night and it was strange watching the phosphorescence wherever there was a splash of a wave and especially in the wake of the ship. Like the water glowed.
Our Mae Wests had a D cell battery attached and a flash light bulb. If we were hit and had to jump ship the light could be turned on so rescuers might see the person to fish him out. But since there were no other ships around, that seemed sort of useless. The only ship would likely be enemy and they would probably shoot rather than rescue. We were told that the route we were on the water was so cold a body could only survive for a few minutes. Some troop ships were sunk but few ever made the news.
The fifth day we caught up with a convoy of cargo and warships who escorted us the rest of the way to Liverpool, our destination. There we docked and quickly unloaded ('disembarked' in army talk). A train was waiting to haul us to a secret camp in the interior. There we got a lot of stuff to carry, and a new rifle in a box full of cosmolene. After we got ourselves all messed up cleaning the grease off, we went out to a 1000 inch range and set the sights. A paratroop recruiter gave a speech and tried to get some volunteers for the next jump into enemy territory. To qualify, all any of us had to do was to make five practice jumps. That would be done in one day. I didn't see anyone volunteer, not that we weren't patriotic, but we were headed for combat anyway so why rush things.
Paratroopers were glory boys and that was an attraction. Not to knock them, though, they did serve well, but I met a few of them later and they said they were a bit overrated. Where we walked to a battlefield, they dropped in from the air. A very large back pack was part of our equipment issue. It was filled with a large amount of clothing and all kinds of supplies. Someone found a scales and weighed a pack as filled. It weighed 104 lb. Now we figured it out, we were pack horses hauling supplies across the channel.
The Continent:
Then it was on to Southampton and onto a small troop ship. On the way up the gangplank each of us was given a seasick pill and ordered to take it. Our ship sailed out into the middle of the channel and dropped anchor for the night. The channel is usually rough and that night it was extra rough. The seasick pill was a good idea. Morning finally came and we sailed to our destination, Omaha Beach. D-day had been a couple months earlier, but a lot of the mess was still there. Our ship had to stay a quarter mile or so off the beach, so it anchored there. An LST (landing ship, tank) came out and stopped alongside. Our ship's deck was about 10 feet above the deck of the LST deck. Everyone wondered how we were to get from one to the other. It didn't take long to find out. Rope ladders were tossed over the side, and we were going to have to climb down with 104 lb. on our backs. To make things worse, the water was choppy and sometimes several feet of air showed between the two vessels. One would go up while the other was going down. This was one operation we had not trained for. A misjudgment and a person could easily fall into the water between the ships and be crushed the next time the two ships banged together, which was every little bit.
Some guys started to climb down while the rest of us watched to see how it was done. The rifle was handed down separately so if the man and pack was lost at least the rifle was saved. The trick was to climb down part way and wait until the LST rose up and bumped our ship, then just step off. Easy as pie. All 300 or so of us made it without mishap. The LST then ran up to the beach and we walked down the front ramp and into a few inches of water. Then we could appreciate D-day and what had been done there. There were still a lot of obstacles sticking up out of the water. That route where we had come in was one of only a few that had been cleared. There was only a narrow beach, then a cliff that looked to be a couple hundred feet high. Concrete gun emplacements were still visible along the face of the cliff. It was a miracle that the invasion was successful at all.
Infantry landing on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.
© Robert Capa/Magnum Photos
After everyone was on the beach we were assembled into companies to climb that cliff with those 104 lb. of stuff on our backs. There were only a couple of trails leading up. Then we did appreciate those guys who made it to the top under fire. A lot of them never made it, of course. The enemy couldn't kill them all, and as more and more landed they climbed over the bodies of the ones who had fallen until enough got up to the top to wipe out the enemy firepower. Would it be possible today to get a troop of men with the guts to do that? I don't know. At the top our unit was assigned to a bivouac area where we were relieved of most of our loads and we could pitch our pup tents. Wouldn't you know it, I drew KP right off. For the officers mess, no less.
As usual the officers had separate, much better chow. Rank has its privileges. That was one of the things that bothered me most in the army. Talk about segregation. We were headed into combat but we still had to serve the brass. They even had ice to keep their butter hard. Our guys had no butter.
Next morning we boarded 40&8s and rode to an assembly area somewhere around Paris. A 40&8 is a WW1 vintage rail car on which a sign in French said, "Capacity 40 men or 8 horses." If 40 men had been in the car they would all have had to stand up. We slept on the ground there in a light rain. We must have been fed somewhere along the line. Food was not a big concern. Mostly we wondered where we were going to end up, what combat outfit we would be in. After that it was riding in 6x6 trucks, sitting on our duffel bags we had gotten in exchange for those heavy packs. Some of the trucks were covered, some were not and we rode out in the rain. Even in August you get cold when you are wet. The only stops were to relieve ourselves and get a meal, sometimes hot, more often a sack lunch.
This was the famous Red Ball Express. The trucks went night and day, we slept as best we could sitting on those duffel bags. Our trucks ran mostly with lights on. It was found to be safer to use lights and take a chance on enemy scout planes spotting us than to run blackout. They probably knew our route anyway.
Whenever our convoy went through a town, people lined the streets like we were heroes or something. We found out it was "something". The guys were tossing out candy bars and cigarettes that we had been issued, about like clowns in a parade tossing candy to the kids. Oh, no doubt many were really showing their appreciation for being liberated from the Germans. Our convoy entered Belgium, we didn't know quite when. National boundaries were a little vague, road signs having been removed. MPs directed the drivers often as roads were fixed up. Belgian people were even more enthusiastic with their welcome. Then we turned southeast and crossed into Holland. They didn't want to be called Dutch, that sounded too much like Duetch, the hated Germans. There is a little strip of Holland that extends westward between Belgium and Germany. We could see the German border from here across a wide wooded valley.
Now there were more signs there had recently been a war. Up until now we had seen a lot of destroyed buildings and places where the road had been bombed and the holes filled in. The farther we went we saw more and more burned out blown up vehicles still lying alongside the road. Some were theirs, some ours. In the road ditches many places were stakes with steel helmets hanging on them. We were told those were temporary graves. Some helmets were German, some were U.S. Pleasant thought, that. It was easy to imagine everyone was wondering if that was where he was going to end up. Then we came to the German border. It was plainly marked. Right beside that sign was another that said, "DANGER-mine field". The hole in the Siegfried line was just wide enough for two trucks to pass. All around were the remains of concrete and steel pillbox fortifications with cannons still sticking out in various degrees of ruin. Shell craters had not been filled in and lots of unexploded mines were no doubt around. It was not a place to go for a walk. No problem, our trucks never stopped.
The first small town we came through we knew we were in recently conquered territory. No crowds lined the streets. If you were to look closely at the house windows, you might see someone peeking through the curtains. One incident really told the story. In one yard a little kid was playing. He might have been three or four years old. He ran out and started to wave at us. Right away a woman, likely his mother, came charging out of the house, picked him up and paddled him all the way back to the door. We got the message we were not welcome. I'll not forget that sight as long as I live.
That night we got to sleep in our pup tents for a change. Next day was a little rest. Out came the dice. Whenever GIs have a few minutes and some pocket change they gamble. Since we were not yet assigned to a unit we were paid a partial payment, often dollars. Every time a stop was made in a new country, our money was changed to the currency of that country. Everybody kept a little of the old for souvenirs, so the dice game had British, French, Belgian, Dutch and German money in the pot at the same time. Each had a different value so a lot of figuring was going on besides the odds on the throw. There was no opportunity to spend it so it didn't really matter. There we had our first experience with the enemy. After it got fully dark, one lone plane would come over. Bed Check Charlie we called him. We had been issued two clips of ammo for our M1s. Some trigger happy joker fired off a shot in his general direction. Right away that German pilot swung around and strafed our camp. That was our first time under fire, and because it was the first, we didn't know what was going on until we heard those bullets plopping into the ground. It was all over almost as soon as it started. He didn't come around again that night. No one ever said if anyone got hit, but you can bet no more shots were fired at Charlie.
The next night we had moved up a little farther. Big guns could be heard over the next hill. Surprisingly there was a movie that evening. A projector was set up at the bottom of a natural amphitheater right out in the open. We sat on the ground up on the hillside. There was only one projector so at the end of each reel the show stopped while the operator changed reels. At one point in the middle of a reel someone shouted, "Bed Check Charlie!" Sure enough a plane was overhead. The projector was quickly shut off and cigarettes put out. Everyone sat still and waited. Apparently he had seen something because he circled twice. But he gave up and left. After a wait to make sure he was gone the movie was started up again. That was the only movie I was to see from the time we left Swampy until I was in the hospital.
Next morning we stood inspection, believe it or not, and out in the rain. I was cussed out for having oil on the mechanism of my rifle so it wouldn't rust. In basic we were instructed to do that. The inspecting officer asked me if I was sure my rifle would work if I needed it right now. So I pulled a full clip from my belt and told him he could try it out if he wanted to. There were some snickers in the ranks. He handed it back to me and went on. If he had looked closely he would have found oil on most of the rifles. Turned out all he had ever done in the army was squire movie stars around for the USO. Well, he was in the infantry now.
Into the Fray
After a couple days our assignments came through. I was still on record as a rifleman. My mortar specialty had been lost. A bunch of us were loaded into a 6x6 and hauled off to the front. On the way our truck got stuck in the mud. Those things were not very good in mud when they got off the road. Everyone had to get out and push, but it just mired in deeper. I don't think we were pushing as hard as we could. Artillery shells were passing overhead, ours. We had heard that sound in training, but this was for keeps. People were dying where these landed.
Our truck had a winch and one of the drivers pulled out the cable, hooked it to a tree and the truck pulled itself out onto more solid ground. We couldn't have pushed it out anyway. When we got where we were going, we could hear small arms fire as well as the bigger stuff. The regimental commander came out and gave us a pep talk, about like a coach gives the team at half time. I have wondered what kind of a person it takes to talk to a bunch of people he knew he was sending to possible death. At least a coach gets his players back, win or lose.
Another short ride and we were at what was to be our final assignment. About 10 of us went to the same company. There we were met by another officer who asked if anyone could shoot a mortar. I stepped forward and so did another fellow. I still don't know if that was a good decision. Ordinarily in the army you learn not to volunteer for anything. But I was skilled on the mortar, and I don't mind admitting that since mortars were seldom in direct sight of the enemy, it should be a little less hazardous. On that point I was not necessarily correct. Our mortars were feared by the enemy more than anything else, so we were shot at at least as much as anyone else.
The first day I was put in charge of gun no.3 and was given targets right away. Most of the time we were dueling with enemy mortars. Most of the time we won. The new M1 rifle I had was too cumbersome to carry along with the mortar. There was a pile of weapons nearby that had been left behind by casualties, the wounded and dead. I picked out a pistol and two extra clips of ammo. A pistol is pretty puny if the other guy has a rifle, so I also took a carbine and two bandoleers, and left the M1. A carbine is about half as heavy and shoots almost as far. I carried it when I left the area.
About the second day, we were told there was a hot meal back in a rear area, we could go back and eat. So we took turns manning the guns. When my turn came the right trail was pointed out to me, so I took off in that direction. I hadn't had anything but cold rations for several days. Cold beans are OK but day after day they got boring. On the way I had to go past the bone pile where the bodies were stacked like cord wood, three deep. A quarter mile further on I found the food. There were no cooks around, it was strictly help yourself. I filled my mess kit and took my time eating. On the way back, I decided to take a different path and avoid the bone pile. This path happened to go by a place where a couple days before, a jeep had hit a land mine intended to stop a tank. The jeep and the two men in it were blown into a thousand pieces. Everything had been picked up pretty well. A tape like police use to keep people out of crime scenes was strung around the spot in case there were more mines. But I did spot a finger that had been missed. Also a piece of unidentifiable human insides.
That hot meal didn't taste nearly so good on the way up. It was late in September and the weather was chilly and rainy, which makes living in foxholes less than fun. I still don't care to go camping. One day the sky cleared enough we could have air support. There was an enemy pillbox in our way that we had not been able to knock out even with artillery. When we heard planes coming from the rear, everyone got out of their foxholes and stood up to watch. Two P47's came over the hill and started to dive, throttles wide open. They had to be going way over their design limits. Some puffs of anti-aircraft fire blossomed around them but they kept on boring in. When it looked like they were going to fly into the ground we could see the two 500 lb. bombs they each carried continue down to the ground. Relieved of their loads, those planes seemed to bounce up back to our side of the line. A big cloud of smoke and dust appeared where the bombs had hit and a little later we heard the explosions. The show was over so we went back to our guns. There wasn't any more trouble from that pillbox.
The phone line from our guns to the forward observer who directed our fire were often broken by shellfire. They were just insulated wires laid on the ground. Most of the artillery and mortar shells burst in the trees, scattering shrapnel all around. One day when the line was out, another fellow and I were sent out to repair the breaks. We had just finished and started back when we heard an artillery shell coming our way. Artillery shells you can hear coming two or three seconds before they hit. Mortar shells are silent. After a person hears a few artillery shells he can tell just about where they will land. This one was going to be close.
We managed to both get into a foxhole in time. Shrapnel rattled on my steel helmet but none hit me. My buddy was not so lucky. He caught a good sized piece in his thigh. He didn't make a sound but I felt him flinch. When we were satisfied the shelling was over, I helped him out of the foxhole and half carried him back to the aid station. The medic was gone, probably helping some other wounded, so I cut away his pant leg and there was not a drop of blood. I saw a hole through his leg you could drop a nickel through without touching flesh. That shrapnel must have been red hot. Using his first aid kit I bandaged him up. He seemed to be otherwise OK so I went back to my position.
If you heard an artillery shell coming and it sounded like it was going to land to one side of you, maybe 50 feet away, or behind, not to worry, though you hit the dirt anyway. If it landed in front of you, you were in danger. Their shells burst mostly forward. Our shells burst in all directions equally, at least that's what we were told. If their ordnance had been as good as ours we might have lost the war. Their 88mm guns, on the other hand, had it all over our 75s which tended to equalize things a bit. We feared their 88s more than anything else.
Another day another fellow and I were fixing the wire. On the way back, who should we meet but the regimental boss, a bird colonel. This guy was quite famous, having been written up in one of the major magazines. His regiment had made more miles than any other infantry. It had also sustained the most casualties (over 500% since D-day). He stopped and chewed us out good and proper for not having shaved that morning. Actually we hadn't shaved for about three weeks. What he failed to notice was that neither of us had a gun even though we were only a couple hundred yards from the front line. In basic training a soldier caught in the field without a gun could be court marshaled. Of course, it was a quiet time or he would not have been there.
Life at the Front:
Every second night we had to do guard duty. About all it amounted to most of the time was to watch the telephone for a couple of hours, and if someone came along, to challenge them. There had been some Germans who would sneak through our lines at night, hide somewhere in our area, and direct fire on us by radio. Some of them spoke pretty good English, so every night we had a new password that had to be given when challenged by a guard. If the challenged person could not give the right password, he could be shot on the spot. So anyone out at night had to make sure he knew the word.
One night while I was standing guard, someone came up the path toward me. It was so quiet there in the forest night you could hear a person walking a long ways. It was so dark out there you couldn't see a hand in front of your face, let alone try to recognize someone. I quietly pointed my carbine toward the sound. When I thought he was close enough I called out, "Who goes there?" He answered, "Friend!" By then I was imagining him pointing a gun at me. I took the safety off my gun and said, "Advance and be recognized!" He came a little closer and stopped. My finger went to the trigger and I said, "Give the password." At that point had he been an enemy he couldn't have missed. He answered, "I don't have it." That put me on the spot. Do I shoot or what? Ordinarily you would call the corporal of the guard and let him make the decision, but we didn't have that option out on the line. If he was part of an enemy patrol I could have endangered our whole unit. I was so scared I hadn't been thinking straight. The voice was familiar, it was our battalion aid man. So I said, still by the book, "Pass friend."
When someone was hit the aid man was called and he would give first aid and put the guy on a stretcher. He could give morphine if needed. Sometimes he would call for me to help carry since I was one of the bigger ones in the outfit. Once in a while the wounded case would be out in an exposed place in sight of the enemy. The aid man had his special insignia and the Germans never shot an aid man that I knew of. He was not allowed to carry a weapon either. But I didn't have the protection of that insignia, so I was fair game. It was a little scary knowing that the enemy might be watching. So I carried my loaded pistol in a jacket pocket just in case. It was probably of no use but it made me feel better. The worst part of that job, though, was that the poor guy might die before we got him back to the ambulance pick up point. If that happened we would just put him down where we were and go back after another one.
The gun I fired was a 60mm mortar. It's a pretty simple thing. Just an iron pipe a couple feet long. A cap on the bottom end sits on a swivel on a base plate about a foot square on the ground. The other end is supported by an adjustable bipod. It is always fired at 45 degrees or higher. Forty five degrees is maximum range, a little over a mile. The shell weighs 3 lbs. and contains .3 lbs. of TNT. The tail fins hold the propellant. Charge zero has the primer then there are 4 more powder charges clipped onto the tail fins. Course range is set by taking off one or more of these outside charges. Fine range is set by raising or lowering the adjustable bipod. To fire after the charge and elevation are set, you just drop the shell into the muzzle and duck. When the shell hits bottom it strikes a firing pin in the end cap and goes off. The shock arms the TNT so it will explode when the nose touches something. That means it always has to be set up in an open space.
Even hitting a leaf on the way up could set it off prematurely. It is accurate to 25 feet or better in its range. Trouble was someone had to estimate the distance to start with. The gunner seldom saw what he was shooting at, an observer had to be up where he could see the target and relay information by field telephone. That was dangerous because if he could see the enemy, the enemy could likely see him. We lost more observers that way. Being a gunner at least I was spared actually seeing the people I was probably killing. Since we were in a forest we had to set up in a clearing. The enemy, having just been chased out, knew where the clearings were so they knew about where to shoot at us. Each batch of shells came with a chart showing the elevation and powder charge to use for different ranges.
My job as gunner was to set up the gun according to information from the observer, who could see the target. The 2nd gunner removed the excess powder and the safety pin, then dropped the shell in the barrel. A good team could have three shells in the air at once. Three ammo bearers kept us supplied with shells. One of our bearers had been wounded so I went with the other two fellows once in awhile just to get away from the gun once. On one of these trips we had gotten a batch from a supply about a mile back. Each of us carried 20 shells. They came in kind of a harness that carried like a pack over the shoulders, 10 to a pack. On the way we heard an artillery shell coming our way. It was going to hit close. I still think the Germans had a spotter behind our lines watching us. There was nothing else around us to be a target. We all dropped our loads and dived for cover. You didn't want all that TNT with you if there was to be an explosion. Each of us was carrying 6 pounds of it. That would blow a good sized hole in the ground not to mention what it would do to the person.
I had seen an old foxhole about 20 feet away. A person learned to keep an eye out for such things. We had been walking the prescribed 5 yards apart so we would not likely all get hit by the same shell. I made it OK and so did the guy behind me, but the one in the rear didn't quite make it. I don't remember what his injuries were, some of those details were better forgotten. But we bandaged him up and he walked to the aid station himself. When it was over we put his load with ours then sat down on all that high explosive and had a cigarette. No matter how many close calls you escape, it still shakes the nerves for a while. More than a near accident with a car. It sort of adds up. The first few days it wasn't too bad. I could sit in my bunker and eat my cold beans right through a bombardment.
At first I had a partner but he had been hit early on. So I had the shelter all to myself. Our bunkers were trenches long enough to lay down in about three feet deep or until you hit ground water. Everyday you dug it a little deeper. There were lots of trees lying around blown off by shellfire. Also we had axes and crosscut saws to cut more. We would lay a log on each side of the trench and another across one end, then more crosswise to cover it all. On top of that went the dirt from the trench and then brush for camouflage, though we seldom saw enemy planes in daylight. Sounds like a lot of work but it kept us dry and safe from anything but a direct hit. After enough close calls and seeing others get hit when the shells started falling, I would crawl as far back into the bunker as I could get and as far into the steel helmet as possible. If the steel helmet had been bigger there would have been more of me in it. Everyone else was doing the same.
As a mortarman I didn't have to go out on patrol. Patrols of six or more men were sent out into enemy territory to feel out the enemy forces and to report what they saw. Usually they got into a fire fight and had to fight their way back. It was normal to lose some men in these engagements. Sometimes they would all be killed or captured. It was the most hazardous part of combat. But it was about the only way to get information. Nobody really wanted to go on patrol. And if he got back safely from one he sure didn't want to go on another. If a patrol was sent to a certain area and no one returned it could be assumed the enemy was there. So some information was gained anyway.
The Fateful Day:
Finally came that fateful day. You knew that some day your turn would come. Our little section had already lost a third of our people since I had joined it. One, an observer, had been killed and how many more had died later we didn't know. The only question was how and when. The story was that there was a shell or a bullet out there with your name on it and it would get you no matter what. No use worrying about that one. It was all those addressed "To whom it may concern" you worried about.
German POWs at Aachen, the first major German city to fall to the
Allies.
October 21, 1944 (U.S. National Archives)
We were firing support for another company that was trying to advance. No.2 gun was doing the firing, I was in the bunker at my gun, No.3, with the telephone relaying fire orders to No.2. The guns themselves were out in the open, I never did know why they were not dug in. It would have been safer, and there was lots of time to do it. There was a bunker by each gun but you had to be out in the open to fire. But in the army you do it as you are ordered and don't ask why. There were a lot of enemy shells landing around us. Suddenly the guys on No.2 said they were out of action, I never found out why. Anyway I was ordered to put my gun in play. I had no 2nd gunner out there so I called for one and crawled out to my gun and started firing by myself. That's pretty slow going. My second gunner came out but he was new under fire and chickened out. He wouldn't come out to help. Not that I blame him, he had had a close call coming out there from the safety of his own shelter. He did take the phone and called out fire orders to me. If I had been wiser I'd have been in the hole with him. Sometimes a person had to use his own judgment and save his own hide. There is a fine line between obedience to orders and saving ones self to fight another day.
I had just fired five rounds and the order was for 5 more same place. So I got 5 more ready and had dropped two and had the next two in my hands ready to drop when it happened. Next thing I remember, I was flat on my back looking up except I couldn't see. My hands were numb but everything else seemed to work. Without thinking about falling shells I got up and walked back to my bunker. No need to see for that, I knew the way. So this is what it's like to be a casualty. In a way it was a relief, nearly everyone who is under fire gets it sooner or later. I was one of the lucky ones who was not killed. Some of the men sent to the front lines never did take any risk. They just stayed in a hole and disobeyed orders to come out and do their duty. I don't know if they should be called cowardly or smarter than the rest of us.
The same aid man I had been helping bandaged me and helped me to the pick up point, where a jeep came along and took me to a forward collection tent where there was a doctor. There I was put on a folding cot. There must have been a dozen or so wounded in there. The doctor and a nurse were going around checking everyone. Not one of the wounded made a sound, you would never know there were people badly hurt. In fact I never did hear a wounded man cry out in pain. The doctor and nurse spoke quietly as they went from one to the next. To one the doctor said, "You'll be back with your unit in a week or two." At another cot, "This one goes back on the first load to the general hospital." At another cot no words were spoken, I thought I heard the blanket being pulled up over the man's head. This went on until they came to me. My bandages were checked, then the doc said, "You won't be doing any more fighting." That was the best news I'd heard in a long time. I went right to sleep.
When I woke up I was riding in an ambulance with three German POWs. It seemed our guys had taken Aachen, the first town of size to fall in Germany, and captured many prisoners. After what seemed a long time we reached Liege, Belgium and the general hospital. There my filthy uniform was removed along with all the money I had in the pockets. Those medics had a good thing going robbing the helpless wounded. They had gotten my watch too but I missed that right away and made so much noise it was given back. Such are the fortunes of war. In large cities ambulance people do the same.
The first couple of days were spent sleeping. Sleeping on a bunk for the first time in a couple of months was a luxury. During that time I faintly remember a nurse cutting the bandages off my badly burned hands and re-wrapping them with Vaseline bandages. Apparently an explosion had touched off the outside propellant charges on the shells in my hands and that's what caused most of the damage. They had not awarded me a purple heart right away because the injuries were mostly caused by our own ammunition. That was corrected later on.
