Chapter 1 Beginnings

A few year ago I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia on a Press Trip. One of the things I did while there was to visit that City's excellent Maritime Museum. In that Museum there is a model of the Cunard four stack ocean liner, Aquitania. It was a sister ship to a whole series of famous ocean liners including the Lusitania sunk by a U-Boat during World War 1 and the Mauritania which held the speed record for Atlantic crossings for many years.

The Aquitania served in two World Wars as a troop ship and between wars as a luxury ocean liner of Cunard-White Star Line until finally being scrapped in the early 1960s.

For me the Aquitania stirred a good many memories. Like millions of other young Americans I was a soldier in World War II and like so many others I went to Europe for what General Eisenhower later called the "Crusade in Europe".

The Aquitania was the ship that carried me along with most of the 106th Infantry Division to Europe in October 1944. We sailed alone, unescorted, depending on the ship's 25 knot speed to protect against prowling U-Boats.

Of the actual crossing, color my memories in shades of grey. A grey ship, grey skies of approaching winter and grey seas flecked as often as not with white caps.

In tiered bunks with stretched canvas for mattresses we were crowded, ill fed and often sea sick. My best recollection is sitting topside wearing all the clothes that I possessed since the smells below created instant nausea.

The North Atlantic chill topside was much preferred to dank warmth below. Our course took us far north in the Atlantic. I remember sitting in the lee of a bulkhead watching the snow flakes as they drifted past me. Being from San Francisco it was the first snow storm I had ever seen.

Incredibly, on a ship with some 12,000 other soldiers and I have no idea of how many crewmen, I still remember how alone I was in my solitary nest out of the wind against that bulkhead. I spent the better part of the six day voyage sitting in that one spot.

I was just one month into my 19th year and I had only joined the 106th at Camp Atterbury, Indiana one month before as a replacement, one of many to bring the division up to strength.

I was just days away from being in the Army exactly one year. In that length of time I did my basic training at Camp Callan in San Diego in anti-aircraft artillery. At the end of our basic training most of us were immediately shipped off to the South Pacific. Some others, this writer included, were transferred to the Infantry and sent to Camp Chaffee in Arkansas for further training.

To this day I have no idea on how the decision was made that sent some to the South Pacific to remain in anti aircraft artillery while the rest of us went to the Infantry.

At this time in the War, the Spring of 1944, the Army needed more foot soldiers and at Camp Chaffee we were indeed a mixed bag with men from many branches of the Army and from many places. Some now found themselves as Infantrymen after years in branches like the Signal Corp or Administration. It was a difficult challenge for the older men to meet the demands of our Infantry training at Camp Chaffee during an Arkansas summer. For us 18 and 19 year Olds it didn't seem to make much difference. We were just out of high school and still just boys, single, away from home for the first time, and it was all an adventure.

While at Camp Chaffee we heard that the paratroops were looking for volunteers. Three of us marched over to Company Headquarters one day to put in our names. The Company Commander, a Captain older in years and with some wisdom, demanded to know why the hell we wanted to do something like that. Anyway he told us to stay put; that in all probability we would be seeing action all too soon--and indeed he was right.

The short life span of the combat infantry replacement soldier had received so much bad publicity that finally Congress decreed that replacements must be 19 years of age. Since many of us were still 18 we remained at Camp Chaffee assigned to meaningless tasks until such time as our 19th birthday arrived.

So it occurred that on September 3, my birthday I found myself on a troop train en route to Camp Atterbury to join the 106th division. At the time we were considered fortunate as it seemed a better assignment than being shipped directly overseas as a replacement in a combat division for some luckless casualty.

The Aquitania docked in Inverness, Scotland on a day of brilliant sunshine. It was 38 years before I saw those incredibly green hills for a second time.

For every single soldier aboard that ship, from the commanding general of the division to the privates like this writer, the events of the next few months would provide some of the most searing, unforgettable moments of our lives.

Chapter 2 England

In the month we were in England I did not get to do much sight-seeing. I had a one day pass to Oxford which was near our billets. Fresh from the U.S. wartime England seemed a grim place especially since it was raining much of the time.. I wandered around the famed University and wondered if I would ever be a student at some college. At the time the prospects did not appear to be good.

I was with Bob Clyne on this Pass and there wasn't much to do. Pubs seemed to be the only source of entertainment and one beer was about all we could manage in the way of alcohol.

As we approached the time we would be moving on, each man was granted a four day pass to London. This proved to be a time of great frustration for me. I was scheduled to go and then pulled guard duty instead. Then I was again scheduled to go and my leave was canceled for some obscure reason. And then it happened yet again. It was this type of thing that really made me hate Army life. As often as not one could never get an answer or reason for something that occurred.

I had been very lucky in a poker game and won a lot of money. More than I had seen in many months. With so much extra cash I was eager to get to London.

Men in our Platoon were granted passes a few at a time. Since I had much of the platoon's money I was loaning money to others as they went on their leaves. When my turn came time was getting short and my pass was for only 48 hours. Larry, one of my platoon conrades, and I left together.

About this short trip to London I wrote a long letter home describing what I saw and did. Cynics will say that what I wrote home and what I actually did would be wildly different. However this was not the case.

Larry and I were young and certainly not the aggressive type with girls and that is an understatement. That we met and were able to spend a few hours with two equally young English girls was, in itself, amazing to me.

The two girls were not from London but had moved there to obtain work. They were living in a hostel. Their names were Ileen Fawn and May Brown. I was very much taken with Ileen Fawn. She was a quiet, serious girl and, I thought, very pretty.

Here is the letter I wrote about this weekend.

"Saturday December 2, 1944

?

"Dear Mom & Dad,

"Well, we're on the move again. However before we moved I got a two day pass to London. The first day was spent by traveling and looking around. That evening we went to a couple of English pubs. Most of the Pubs are dull places. They have no juke box or pin ball machines as American taverns have. Instead they have their game of darts. How anyone could get excited about a game of darts is beyond me. However after looking around we found a pub that had a juke box so we stayed there.

"We met a couple of English girls at the Pub and talked with them. I was with another fellow that is in my platoon. After the Pub closed we took the girls home and then went down to Piccadily Circus. We slept at the Red Cross' Eagle Club. It cost us two shillings apiece. We had good beds and clean sheets.

"It sure was good to sleep between sheets again. In England instead of the U.S.O. they have the Red Cross. The Red Cross has clubs and places for G.I's to stay in all the big cities in England.

"The next day Larry and I took the two girls we had met the night before out so they could show us London. However it rained all morning so we just fooled around here and there. The girls had to go to work in the afternoon so we took them home again. I took some pictures and had a civilian take a picture of the four of us.

"That afternoon after we left the girls I went on a taxi tour of the principal sights in London. You sign up for the tour at the Red Cross. It cost six shillings. Larry didn't want to go so I left him with a soldier we had met at the Pub.

"On the tour I saw St. James Palace, Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, where I had my picture taken in front of one of the lions. Next we went to Westminster Abby. Here we were given 15 minutes to look around inside. I also had my picture taken in front of the Abby.

"After that we drove past No. 10 Downing Street, Scotland Yard, The Admiralty, The War Ministry and other places of interest. Then we crossed the Thames via London Bridge, went past the new Waterloo Bridge and recrossed the Thames on the Tower Bridge.

"Right there by the end of the Tower Bridge is the Tower of London. I also got a picture of it. Next we went to St. Paul's Cathedral. We had 15 minutes to look around the Cathedral and I had a picture taken in front of it as well.

"From St. Paul's we went past Fleet Street and then back to Piccadily Circus and the Red Cross. The tour was well worth the six shillings ($1.20). We took the tour in Taxis with five G.I's to a cab.

"I would have liked to see all these places on my own but it can't be done in two days. I hope I visit London again sometime with enough time to really look around in Westminster Abby, see the changing of the guards at Buckingham Palace and go through the Tower of London. Oh well, two days are better than nothing.

"By the time the tour was over it was time to catch the train back to camp. Of course I saw a lot of bomb ruins while I was in London. I guess you're wondering what I think of England. The people are o.k. but they seem to live for the past instead of the future as we do. They think too much about their traditions."

"Love,

Joey"

"P.S. I just found out that it is o.k. to tell you that we are going to France."

My frustration at getting cheated out of two days of my leave was even greater after meeting such a wonderful girl as Ileen Fawn. We only spent a few hours together wandering around London. I had plenty of money and there were so many things we could have done together if those other two days had been available to me. Anyway that is the way I viewed it at the time. All too soon I had other things to think about.

I did not get back to London until 1985. The changes were dramatic and I thought it, and still do, one of the most exciting cities in the world. This time I was able to experience the City on my own. Strangely I made no attempt to visit any of the places I had visited so long before.

My first visit, well, it was just history.

There was one exception to this. One of the things I did do in London as a soldier was find Baker Street. I had read all of Sir Arthur Colan Doyle's stories of the great London detective, Sherlock Homes, before I was 16 years old. Of course there is no 221 Baker Street but I did have my picture taken with a London Bobby in front of the Baker Street signpost.

When I returned to London in 1985 it just happened that my Hotel was within a short distance of Baker Street. And again I had to walk that thoroughfare which is famous throughout the world thanks to the Holmes stories.

Chapter 3 The Ardennes

We were awakened from our miserable bivouac before dawn with our Platoon Sergeant bellowing out "Oh, what a beautiful morning" from the musical, "Oklahoma", then the big hit on Broadway.

It was anything but a beautiful morning since it had rained all night and was still raining. This meant that we had to break camp with our pup tents and everything else we owned, including the clothes on our backs, soaking wet. After some days spent in an open field outside La Havre we were again on the move.

Word finally seeped down that this move would take us into combat but as all who have served 'in the ranks' know, it is hard to tell fact from rumor.

Anyway after a hasty breakfast served from the field kitchen in the rain we were loaded onto the typical two and one-half ton GI truck, standard throughout World War 11 to haul either troops or material.

As we traveled all day through France it seemed to get colder and colder since the trucks with canvas covered beds offered only slight shelter from the weather. With all of us wet we were a truly miserable lot.

Our infrequent stops were made for the men to relieve cold activated kidneys and bladders. When we jumped from the truck we found we could hardly move. Stiff in joint and muscle, with feet like blocks of ice, we were a sorry group indeed.

Of course no one told us where we were really going or how long the trip would take. It was the 10th of December 1944 and with the shortest day of the year almost upon us daylight did not last long.

We were able to see that the flat countryside of France was giving way to the hilly forests of Belgium. As dusk approached we heard our first sounds of war, distant artillery fire.

As we left the trucks for the last time we were handed a K ration and finally were told that we were in the Ardennes Forest close up to the prewar German border and that we were to replace the 28th,'Keystone' division, so named for its distinctive insignia, but called by its men the "Bloody Bucket". in the line.

The 28th Division received lasting fame by being chosen to March in Review following the liberation of Paris just months before.

A Sergeant from the 28th, acting as our guide, took half of our squad, six of us, to our position. En route he told us how fortunate we were since they had been in this line for a month with almost no action. There had been little more than patrolling activity in that period of time. All this was of great relief to the men of their division who had seen hard action in France.

Fortunately for us the rain had stopped and here in the forest there were patches of snow, the whiteness in stark contrast to the deep gloom of approaching night.

I was in the third platoon, third squad of Company B, 422nd Infantry Regiment. The Sergeant led us to a dugout roofed with raw logs and covered with the sod removed from the pit. It included a makeshift stove made from a five gallon can with number 10 cans improvised for a chimney pipe. Also four bunks, again made from raw pine poles, covered with chicken wire.

His duty done the 28th Division Sergeant left us with a cheery good-by and good luck. The drill for the six of us was two men on guard duty, two hours on-four hours off, the other four using the bunks depending upon need for sleep.

We soon discovered that the stove seemed mostly for show since we never could get much heat from it and the makeshift chimney pipe of Number 10 cans smoked badly most of the time. No one got much sleep that first night. We did manage to make some hot water using the instant coffee packets of the K rations for a much needed hot drink.

Slowly our clothes dried on our bodies making for a steamy atmosphere of wet wool in the dugout.

My first tour of guard duty that night was cold but uneventful. The 28th Sergeant had warned us not to move much until daylight because booby traps made from grenades tied to trees with trip wires were in place in front of the position.

We did have some sun that first morning which helped in giving us some orientation as to where we were.

It seemed that our half squad of six men were in a position that was the extreme left flank of the whole company. We were almost at the top of the forested knoll with a thinned forest of pine and fir trees sloping down to what we presumed to be the German lines.

In the whole week that we occupied this position I never did learn just how far down that slope the Germans were or if they were on some unseen knoll out of our view.

To our left was an open meadow, still completely covered with snow. I was never told who or what was on the other side of that meadow. It seems unbelievable to me that so little information was given to us.

Looking back I can only account for it by reminding the reader that we were green, untried troops and this was true for the noncoms and officers as well as the men.

Also by the fact that as the 28th  Division Sergeant told us so little had happened there. There were no shell holes or evidence of the violent conflict of war. I think all this lulled one and all with a false sense of security. This was to change very quickly.

The fact remains, however, that no one either at our platoon or company level ever gave us anything like a true picture of our positions.

Our one link with the rest of the platoon and eventually Company Headquarters was a path with one string of plain wire strung from tree to tree acting as a guide when traveling at night. The only time we used this path or left our position was for chow. For breakfast and dinner we paired off two at a time moving down this path to the field kitchen which had been set up at Company Headquarters.

This was as far as I ever got from our position which besides the above mentioned dugout also included four fox holes and a second dugout that was used only as a defensive strong point for one or two riflemen.

Our half squad was commanded by a three stripe Sergeant, Schell by name, and included four riflemen armed with the regulation M1 rifle, one Browning Automatic Rifle, always called the B.A.R, and one man armed with a Sniper rifle which was the old bolt action Springfield rifle equipped with a telescopic sight.

Behind our position on the very top of the knoll a lookout platform had been built by the previous occupants overlooking the meadow which was quite large in size. It looked very much like the tree house some buddies and I had built in San Francisco when we were about 14 years old.

One day a Lieutenant who I had never seen before and a Sergeant carrying a radio came past our position and went up to the tree platform. Being off duty I followed until they reached the spot when the Lieutenant sourly told me I was off limits and to get back to my position. The Sergeant gave me a wide grin and an expression that read: "See what I have to put up with".

Since the meadow was surrounded by deep forest I doubt if they could have seen much. For our group Schell said it best: he just hoped they weren't spotted which would make things very unpleasant for us if the Germans lobbed a few shells in our direction.

I always meant to climb the platform myself when no one was around who could object but I never got the chance.

On the third night at this position I had just been relieved from guard duty by Sherm, a 19 year old from Massachusetts, and was barely in the dugout when a mortar shell exploded very close. This was followed by a cry of pain and "I'm hit, I'm hit."

Since I was still fully dressed I was first out of the dugout to find Sherm on the ground clutching his leg. A piece of shrapnel had sliced through the back of the calf of his leg. It was not a serious wound though no doubt quite painful.

We soon had him in the dugout and a bandage in place. While not life threatening it was decided one of us should get back to platoon or company headquarters to report it and perhaps get a real aid man on the scene. That mortar round was something of a mystery. It was only one of two rounds ever fired in our direction at this post. The other round, fired another night, landed harmlessly in the meadow leaving an ugly brown stain on the otherwise white field of snow.

I was dressed and said I would go. The night was overcast and in the forest about as dark as it can get. Only the patches of snow gave any contour to the ground or surroundings.

As I stated earlier our path had the guide wire strung alongside for just such occasions. However the mortar shell explosion had torn it loose as well.

In trying to find the path without it I wandered off the path and tripped one of the wires attached to a grenade which was secured to a stout fir. I knew exactly what I had done and could hear the fuse. I had just five seconds to throw myself to the ground on the opposite side of the tree.

The grenade exploded and the shards went singing over my head but I was unhurt. The explosion of course brought everyone out of the dugout and our B.A.R man, Mac, told me later he just did hold back from firing a burst at me.

Once all this activity had subsided I once again started for headquarters, this time finding the path where the wire was again present.

I went all the way to company headquarters where the Captain was present although by now it was close to midnight. I explained the situation and he decided to wait till first light to send an aid team for our wounded man. While I had taken my rifle with me on this excursion I did not have on my cartridge belt. The Captain, L.L. Littlejohn, pointed this out to me stating I was out of uniform. By now I was so used to being "chewed out" for something or other it did not bother me. Like most of our officers our Captain was from civilian life, a professor at a University in South Carolina before the war.

So my wandering around the forest at night and tripping a grenade in the process was all for naught. It did not escape me however that I had been very lucky to have missed some injury from that explosion. My night vision might have been a fault but at least my reflexes were all right.

The next morning Sherm was carried away with everyone congratulating him on his 'million dollar wound'. I never saw him again either then or after the war.

We were now five instead of six at our outpost and no effort was ever made to replace Sherm. However at about 11 a.m. that morning both the Company Commander and the Lt. Colonel commanding our Battalion showed up at our outpost. Obviously the events of the previous night had received some attention. The Colonel looked around and ordered wire and a telephone for our position connecting back to Company HQ.

While having no solid information about the true position of our outpost (I think in an earlier war we would have been called pickets) we always had the feeling we were 'way out in left field.' If they thought we needed a telephone then it only confirmed our worse suspicions on the subject.

After their summary inspection of our outpost the Captain and Colonel went on their way. It was my last look at the Battalion Commander. He was killed a few nights later by an enemy shell during the bombardment that opened the German Ardennes offensive and what has become known as the Battle of the Bulge.

Beyond our guard duty there was really very little for us to do. Our predecessors had spent much time in preparing the positions and with consideration to some small facilities for comfort. There was little we could add to it. The duty was wearing enough since no one was getting more than three hours sleep at any one time. We slept fully clothed of course but after sentry duty during the cold nights it took awhile to get warm and make sleep possible. And chow calls and camp chores made much sleep during the day a slim possibility as well. Plus we now had one less person for sentry duty.

On the plus side we had been blessedly free from "authority" almost since the time we landed in France. Our bivouac in a French field had left us with much free time. We were in shelter-half tents, two men each carrying half the tent and then sharing the result when buttoned together. These tents were supposed to be water proof but if you touched the inside of the tent during a rainstorm that spot would soon be dripping water.

One of the more enterprising soldiers in our squad found a local French farmer who would sell us straw for the floor of the tent since the tents did not have any type of covering to place on the ground. The currency for this transaction was American cigarettes. This same chap also discovered another French farmer who had hard cider to sell again using cigarettes as currency.

I did not particularly like the hard cider but it was better than nothing and helped to pass the time. Since it rained a lot we needed some way to while away our time in our uncomfortable tents. If you sat up in the tent your head would hit the ceiling and soon water would be dripping.

Our first days in Ardennes were quiet and we had sunny skies which made sitting outside quite comfortable. And again with our squad Staff Sergeant away we enjoyed our "freedom from normal Army life." With only five of us we knew what we had to do and when without Schell having to remind us or think up ways to keep us busy.

Schell had an easy, competent style of command. We knew he was in charge.

But he never made a big thing of it. He was a vastly superior person to our Squad Sergeant who was a braggart and a man I could not imagine having anything to do with in civilian life.

We would sit in the sun, see to our weapons, write letters or just loaf.

None of the letters that I wrote during this period ever reached home. The last letter my Mother received from me was written when we arrived in France on December 4. I dated that letter Monday, December 4, 1944, Somewhere in France. However the postmark on the envelope is dated December 19.

I do not know what the second Lieutenant who was our Platoon Leader was doing at this time. I cannot recall that he ever visited our Outpost. And no one complained about that.

During this period a call came through one day for some volunteers to make up a patrol. I volunteered for this more out of curiosity to see something beyond the limits of our outpost than any idea of getting at the Germans.

While waiting we cleaned our weapons. Our B.A.R. man, Mac,(B.A.R. meaning Browning Automatic Rifle), also volunteered, and then nothing happened. Hours later word was sent down that the Patrol had been canceled.

I did talk during chow one day to another B.A.R. man in our Platoon who actually did go out on a Patrol. He said they had sighted a group of Germans out woodcutting in the far distance. While the range was long the Lieutenant in charge had ordered him to give them a couple of bursts. He did so and then heard some yelling indicating that at least one had been hit or so they thought.

Chow time was about the only time we ever got any news at all. It was here too that I learned that our squad leader, the Staff Sergeant had been pulled out for being diagnosed with a case of VD. So much for the wonderful time he had in London which he never stopped talking about.

A dark incident occurred during one chow run which made me realize that all men are not good men. Normally we always carried our rifles and did so to the field kitchen and then just parked them against a tree. The field kitchen was open except for a tarp over the cook stoves and as often as not we ate standing up balancing our mess gear and canteen cup the best way we could.

Upon returning from chow I checked my rifle more out of habit than anything else and noted it was not mine. They all looked alike of course and one could only really tell by the serial number.

First I checked with the others at my outpost but they all had the right weapon. On finding I had a different rifle the first thing I did was break it down and check it for cleaning and to see if it was operating properly. It wasn't. A steel pin in the trigger assembly was missing. This showed that the switch had been deliberate. Someone wanted to get rid of that rifle and I was the unfortunate victim.

My first thought was to go to Company Headquarters and report the incident. However after some tooth sucking with the others at the outpost we hit upon a solution. Every soldier soon learns that dealing with "authority" is never a very good idea. Out of sight, out of mind, invisible in the ranks, was almost always our philosophy. We decided that we could fashion a new pin from the wire that was available at the Outpost.

This we did and it was a good fit too. And the rifle worked as it should. Schell helped with this and taking everything in account was a good soldier and a good leader for our small group. However the rifle switch did leave a rather nasty taste in the mouth and we all agreed it was a lousy trick.

Being so new to the outfit I did not have time to make close friends or to actually get to know even the men in my own squad very well.

Mark was a boy of the deep south and had the sniper Springfield rifle. Like me he was also 19 years old. Schell, Mac and Larkin were older, maybe in their late twenties but certainly no older than that.

While not being on truly close terms with any of my fellow soldiers at the Outpost, I did have confidence in them and knew that I could depend upon them if need be. I hope that they felt that way about me as well. The few close friends I had were in other platoons of the company.

At the Outpost we took what we were doing seriously and there was little of the usual banter that one usually associates with army life. Thinking about it now I do not believe we had a single truly outgoing person in our small group.

I do not think any of us had the "wind up" to use an English expression and we took whatever happened quite calmly. For myself I do recall dreading the long nights and the long hours in the cold on sentry duty, I believe more from discomfort than fear.

Sentry duty at night was demanding because we did not want to show movement and make any kind of a sound since if a German patrol was in the vicinity we wanted to hear them first. Standing still in the cold for two hours was trying.

Schell suggested we take one of our blankets with us to throw over our shoulders on top of our overcoat. This did help and if we needed to move quickly we could just slip the blanket off in seconds.

Actually until the night of December 16th the nights were mostly still, often without a single shot or explosion.

Later we realized that the Germans were quietly going about their business of preparing the attack and needed no diversions.

That changed on the morning of December 16 when a fierce bombardment commenced. It was still dark and a few hours before dawn. I was on sentry duty at the time standing outside the dugout. The shells were all screaming far overhead destined for the rear areas. Not a single shell landed within miles of us. But of course the noise brought even our most ardent sleepers out of the dugout to see what was going on. We knew that the enemy must be making a move but what and where? Later that day we were told it was this bombardment that killed the Battalion Commander Lt. Col. Thomas Kent.

The afternoon of the l6th a brief fire fight had taken place in one of the other platoons of our company. A small group of Germans had attacked. It had been beaten back but in that first action our company executive officer, First Lieutenant Wm. B. Brice had been killed instantly with a bullet to the head.

The only other noteworthy event of this skirmish was how a German had been wounded and was lying between the lines. He had been hit by B.A.R. fire. He lay out there crying in pain and the man who shot him went out, completely exposing himself to enemy fire, and carried him into our positions. The Germans seeing what was happening did not fire.

He was badly wounded and died at our aid station. The one telling me the story said he was only a boy. But then that could be said for a good many of us as well.

After a night when no one got much sleep word came to us to prepare for an enemy attack. No one left for chow and eventually K rations were sent down to us.

Again this day Schell showed his worth. He very carefully decided how to man our positions such as they were. We were only five men and I don't believe any of us believed we could stop a serious German attack. He placed our B.A.R. in the best defensive position but because of the trees there was no effective field of fire.

This was on December 17 and we spent all day in our fox holes and positions waiting for an attack that never came. I was assigned the bunker position and was there by myself. Schell apologized for having me in a position that really required two men but we both knew there was no alternative. The man who had been wounded three nights previously, Sherm, would have been the one to share my position.

The runner who brought us our rations also brought some mail, the first we had received since leaving France. I remember getting a couple of Christmas cards from relatives including one from an Uncle which included a five dollar bill. I set my mail on a shelf that divided the dirt walls from the log ceiling and left them there. It was days before I remembered and then they were gone forever.

Early on the morning of December 18 we received orders to move. We were to prepare our packs for marching while leaving our Barracks Bags and the rest of our belongings behind. I remember in my Barracks Bag I was also carrying the Platoon football which had not seen any action since we left England.

I don't remember if we had any breakfast that morning. We joined the rest of our Platoon and the Company was together again for the first time since being deployed at the front.

Soon we were on the march on a muddy dirt track. It was overcast but not really cold though it would still freeze at night. We marched most of the day on hilly terrain and before the day was out a good deal of gear was abandoned from the packs of many of us. And surprisingly neither noncoms or officers said anything about it.

Again very little information was forthcoming except that the Germans had advanced to the side of us and we must move to keep from being surrounded. Up to this point no one in our Platoon had even seen an enemy soldier or fired their rifle. As usual the march was stop and go and once we were held up in deep woods because of some shell bursts ahead. We were stopped for some time and took advantage of the delay to get some much needed rest. Our packs were heavy and I was carrying a bandolier of ammo for Mac's B.A.R. I had two grenades still in their packs as well. These had been handed to me by one of the Sergeants just as we started that morning. He emptied a whole box of grenades in this way catching whatever soldiers he could find to carry them. We had also been issued three boxes of K rations that morning.

No shells dropped close by so we again moved off. There was a heavy overcast this day and it was impossible to maintain any sense of direction. Unfortunately I did not have one of the G.I issued compasses which generally were carried by squad leaders and above.

Years later I still wondered why I had not bought a compass of my own. At Camp Callan I had received extensive training in map reading, setting azimuth courses and moving cross country. But then no one ever gave us even a glimpse of a map from the time we had arrived in France.

At dusk they told us we would stay in this bit of forest till morning. No tents, no fires, no smoking, the Germans were on the other side of the ridge and we would attack in the morning. We just laid on the ground, fully clothed, (we were all wearing our Army overcoats), and used the blanket sleeping bag which had been issued to us in England. There was no snow on the ground here but it was still a very cold, uncomfortable night.

At first light which did not arrive till almost 7 a.m. at this time of year we formed up and started moving up the hill toward the ridge. We left our packs stacked in a pile under some trees. Our platoon leader had two squads up front and our squad in the rear as reserve, this probably because we were already short two men.

As the first men reached the ridge the firing started with most of it coming from the Germans sitting on the high ground. We just hit the dirt being some 70 or 80 yards further down the slope. The Lieutenant from the second platoon was hit in the arm almost immediately but not seriously. He had been standing upright moving along the ridge and there was a good deal of automatic fire coming over.

I'm afraid he did not get much sympathy from us, the feeling being he was lucky not to get his head taken off exposing himself so obviously.

The attack stalled almost before it had begun in our company and we were ordered to back down the slope and then regroup.

Here we were in the Vee of a long valley which was completely open and free from trees. We moved to our left, leaving our packs behind, for some distance and again were ordered into battle formation. And again my squad was given the rear reserve position.

The company almost immediately came under fire from German 88mm guns, mounted on tanks. This was the word passed down the line. When the artillery fire started it was directed to the men in front of us so we found a convenient creek bottom, that had cut deeply into the hillside, for cover.

Then again almost before the attack could get started the men in front were moving up the hill with their hands up over their heads. We could hardly believe our eyes.

In our squad we had only two choices--to move up to the ridge with our hands up in surrender or go back the way we had come. And the latter was what we chose to do.

At the bottom of the hill we met C Company and the Company Commander told us that the order was to surrender and to move back up the hill. Meanwhile the artillery fire on our positions had stopped. However across the Valley in a grove of trees the fire continued and we could hear the screams of men being hit from tree bursts. Much later I learned it was K Company that caught it and that I had a boyhood friend that was wounded there. I will relate his story at a later time.

Half way up the hill Mac, Schell and I again paused by the Creek. I noted with no particular interest that there was a dead sheep in the water. Finally with no alternative we threw our weapons in the creek and walked up the hill with our hands on our heads.

The German soldier who met us at the top was as young as I and carrying an automatic machine pistol that we called "a burp gun" because it made a staccato sound when fired. He wore a wide grin and was very pleased with himself and events. He also reeked of alcohol, which Schell identified as Schnapps.

We were now prisoners of war. It was about the last thing I ever would have imagined happening to me. Wounded yes, killed perhaps, but the role as a PW had never occurred to me.

Almost the whole company had already gathered at the top of the ridge when we reluctant sluggards arrived. While we were walking the last 100 yards or so we passed some our people carrying up the bodies of those that had been hit by the 88 fire.

The view of a human body that has been torn apart by artillery fire is not something anyone can ever forget. And these were people from our own platoon.

Schell, Mac and the rest of us in the third squad had our romantic sergeant and Sherm's million dollar wound to thank for being held in reserve and out of the strike zone of the German artillery.

I must admit that I was in a total state of shock at being captured. I think my main emotion was one of anger and frustration at not being able to put up any semblance of fight. And I spoke of this to Schell and he perhaps put in it in its proper prospective. He pointed out that we were still alive and not among those torn and disfigured bodies that were now laid untidily in a row.

On top of the ridge besides the German tanks and infantry there was a large stone barn. The kind that can be seen to this day all through the Ardennes and as well as in Germany. Most of our Company were put into the Barn making it convenient for the Germans to use as few men as possible to guard us.

It was here that I learned that the order to surrender came from the Colonel of our Regiment and that all of the men in the Regiment were now prisoners. He had decided that we were indeed surrounded and that resistance against the German armor would have been futile and only cost a good many lives. In hindsight I cannot disagree with his decision although many, both officers and enlisted men did on that day.

Wiser heads among us advised to hide a wrist watch if you had one since the Germans were taking them if seen. I did just that and it may have well saved my life at a later date.

If there is anything I wish to convey in all this is how little the average foot soldier knows about what is going on. Your world is narrowed to the men around you and a few feet of ground. Each man is only a pawn to be moved here and about in an unseen plan that often as not is never revealed.

By noon on December 19, 1944 the war was over for us. We spent the whole afternoon in the Barn until before dark we were marshaled outside to be joined by almost 1,000 other soldiers of the Regiment. An English speaking German officer told us we would soon be marched to a rear area and that anyone attempting to escape would be shot. And so it was that as dusk turned into night we began our long walk into Germany.

It had been only 15 days since we landed in France.

Chapter 4 The Men

I did not find the Army basic training at Camp Callan at all distasteful. For one thing I was placed in a group that was destined to continue training in a variety of occupations and skills. We 18 year olds were eager and anxious to learn and the older men all were from civilian occupations that rated them above the ordinary.

At Camp Callan the food was excellent and we had officers that we could respect. I made friends readily at this Camp which certainly had location in its favor. Today the land is occupied by the Torrey Pines Golf Courses situated on bluffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean.

We were only minutes away from La Jolla and a half hour bus ride to San Diego. And if the physical training was hard, and it sometimes was, we had a hospitable climate.

For us youngsters it was one long Boy Scout adventure. We were always playing pranks on one another. I recall one of the first inspections we had. As the Officer reached me with the Sergeant at his elbow he said: "Soldier, when did you shave last? I replied in complete innocence: "Two weeks ago, Sir". He replied: "From now on you shave every week." Later the Sergeant had a few words to say to me about this episode.

When it came time for those of us to take special training I chose Scouting and Reconnaissance. This meant scrambling all over the countryside using compasses and making map overlays. I enjoyed it all except for the poison oak which actually sent me to the base hospital on one occasion.

Our Platoon leader was an outstanding young man from Massachusetts, not much older than us, named Lieutenant Sullivan. He was always approachable and available if we had a problem with some of the courses we were taking.

When the training was finished and it was announced most of the Battalion would be going to the South Pacific I was very disappointed that I would not be going with all the new friends I had made.

About 200 of us had been transferred to the Infantry for further training.

Camp Chaffee was a rude awakening in many ways. Being from San Francisco racial prejudice was unknown to me. Those first signs I saw in Arkansas that read "Colored People Only" were a big cultural shock for me.

Then too when we were finally assembled in Platoons and Companies I soon realized that, with some exceptions, I was with a group of people completely different from those I was familiar with at Camp Callan.

There is no question that the military services are a giant social mixer. I was now living, eating and working with types of people I would have avoided in civilian life.

"Barracks language" was rare in our Platoon at Camp Callan. Here it was rampant and many appeared unable to express themselves without four letter words.

Aside from work a group of us 18 year olds stayed together. I wrote home on several occasions that with the exception of this group there was no one in our Platoon I would ever want to go on a Pass with.

At Camp Chaffee morale was terrible. The training was very hard and the climate of an Arkansas summer made everything we did doubly difficult. In our regiment of 3,500 men we had over 100 AWOL at any one time. One week we had five absent without leave from our Company. This made the Company Commander drastically reduce the number of weekend passes.

None of these discipline problems existed with us 18 year olds which is probably why the Company Commander laconically dubbed us the "Young Virgins".

Physically we were up to whatever demands the training required or too proud to admit otherwise. On some of the tough long marches we would often add the rifle of another soldier to our own if he was struggling to keep up.

And we were still too young to have developed the many bad habits and behavior we saw every day in some of the older men. Certainly they set an example that none of us ever wished to follow.

This is not to say that all the older men were crude and ruffians. I made good friends with some of them and often their advice and counsel was needed and heeded. It is merely a fact that at Camp Chaffee they appeared to be in the minority.

An example of this huge gulf that existed between some of the men comes to mind. Oswald Castellanos was a cultured man and one with a wonderful artistic talent. He had trained as an operatic tenor and had a wonderful voice.

He was a good deal older than me but my love and appreciation for classic music and opera created a bond between us. He was always in demand to sing at special functions held for officers and their wives at the Officers Club.

Also in our barracks and as things would have it located in the bed next to Oswald's was one of the most despicable men I ever encountered in the military. He had been in the peacetime army and was no stranger to the Stockade. He delighted in telling of his experiences with the low life in the many places he had been. Selling his body to homosexuals for money, rolling drunks, his adventures with whores in a variety of places, these were all part of his repartee as well as his trips to the Stockade for any number of offenses.

For me he was a curiosity. The question being how did one sink to such depths in the social order

Years later, after the War, when I read "From Here To Eternity", by James Jones this man immediately came to mind.

He took to heckling Oswald at every opportunity and this cultured man did not know how to respond. Finally a few of us suggested to our Platoon Sergeant that moving Oswald to a different location in the barracks could help. And this was done.

Both these men after finishing their six weeks of training were transferred to Fort Mead and then to Europe as infantry replacements. I received a few letters from Oswald Castellanos and then no further word. I have no idea if either survived the war. I would like to believe that Oswald Castellanos did. I would have loved to see Oswald play Don Jose in Carmen or Radames in Aida but as an infantryman in World War II he was miscast.

Throughout my two years in the army I got along well with almost everyone. If they were not my kind of person I worked with them but otherwise we went our separate ways.

I was involved in only two altercations with other soldiers in those two years. The first took place at Camp Callan and came about strictly by accident. Part of our training was boxing matches. We would pair off in twos, put on the gloves and spar for a round or two.

One day I was paired with another 18 year old from our Platoon. We were fairly evenly matched except he was taller and had a longer reach. We lost our tempers as blows were struck and were soon in a serious bout. Others seeing what was occurring stopped to watch us.

Our Sergeant let us fight awhile then said we could go another round and we did. By this time we had a large audience including some of the officers of the company.

When it was over, from sheer exhaustion, there had been no knockdowns but we both were marked up some as the result. Later in life I was a sports writer and scored quite a few professional boxing matches. In honesty I would say he won on points.

But when it was over there were no hard feelings. In fact we both apologized for letting our tempers get the best of us. We had not been close friends before and we were not after. But we were not enemies either. We continued as before as if it had not occurred and in future boxing matches were careful to select other partners.

That night I had guard duty and was certainly not feeling my best. I had bruises on my face and in fact hurt all over. I said nothing about this but the Officer of the Day, a Lieutenant Colonel, who I had never seen before, came up to me and said I could take one of the bunks and sleep in. They would mount the guard without me. I thought it a nice gesture and was very grateful.

The other event took place at Camp Chaffee and occurred completely without provocation or warning of any kind. The man was from New Jersey, older, stocky in stature and heavy in build. I doubt if I had ever had a conversation with him though he was in our barracks.

He was a morose, silent man, who kept to himself, never smiled and appeared to be filled with bitterness.

That evening I had gone to a movie and upon my return to the barracks was greeted with loud banging and the clatter of foot lockers being kicked. Most of the men were already in their bunks trying to sleep.

It was one of those humid, hot nights which we came to accept as the norm for an Arkansas summer.

Hearing the noise as I moved to my bunk I asked in a normal tone of voice: "What's going on?" The man than charged me without warning knocking us both over a bed with the occupant still in it. He landed on top of me and immediately had his hands at my throat chocking me.

Everyone was now awake and others quickly pulled him off me but I have always had the feeling that he actually wanted to kill me that night. And without cause or reason. I was not hurt but shaken and very angry.

I told the Platoon Sergeant that I refused to sleep in my own bunk that night with that crazy son of a bitch on the loose. That was one occasion when I used many four letter words myself. The sergeants seemed to agree with me. They had their own rooms. One had an extra bunk and I slept there that night.

Nothing more was ever said to me but the New Jersey man was transferred to another barracks the next day. I never spoke to him again or he to me. There was never anything like an apology from him.

At the end of the course he was shipped off to Fort Mead and then on to Europe. In my two years in the Army he is the one man that I can say, if he didn't get back I could care less.

Chapter 5 War, Always a Mystery

War is a gigantic lottery and only fate seems to determine who survives and who does not.

In individual combat skill can make the difference as with pilots of fighter aircraft. But skill as often as not means little for the individual foot soldier. Literature, both fact and fiction, is full of stories of soldiers who die in their very first military action.

There appears to be no answer to why one soldier may endure days, weeks, even months of combat and survive. While those around him are killed and wounded in ever increasing numbers.

Sherm was hit by mortar fragments before we ever caught even a single glimpse of an enemy soldier. And he had relieved me on sentry duty probably no more than five minutes when the shell exploded.

The Executive Officer of our Company, First Lieutenant William B Brice, was a graduate of West Point and was killed in the first minor engagement that took place on our Company front.

One of the things that disturbed me most after capture was how little use all my training had been. Between the time spent at Camp Callan and Camp Chaffee I had been through 36 weeks of intensive training. At the time it seemed that I had wasted a whole year of my life for nothing.

In training I had fired every weapon available to an infantry company. This included the rifle, carbine, BAR, 30 and 50 caliber machine guns, Bazooka, light mortars, the one man flame thrower pack as well as drills using live grenades.

At Camp Chaffee one of our number figured that we hiked an average of 10 miles a day over a six week training course and this under an Arkansas summer sun.

About this time the Army announced the Badges that would distinguish an infantry soldier. There was the Expert Infantryman Badge for those that completed a special course in training and the Combat Infantryman Badge for those that had come under enemy fire. The Expert Badge was worth a $5 a month increase in pay; the Combat Badge a $10 a month increase.

In a letter home I listed what the requirements were for the Expert Badge which we were going to test for the following week. They included running 300 yards in 45 seconds, running 70 yards in 20 seconds carrying another soldier, 33 pushups, a nine mile march with 9 pound rifle and 45 pound pack in two hours and a 25 mile march in eight hours with the same equipment.

There were also tests in patrolling, scouting, first aid and digging fox holes, firing the rifle for a certain score as well as firing mortars.

A letter home told how all this turned out.

"In the Infantryman Badge tests Junior and I passed everything till the nine mile in two hour forced march. Only 18 men out of 84 in our Company made it on time. Gordon and I made it in two hours and three and one-half minutes but they said it had to be in two hours so we were disqualified.

"I sure wish I had movies of the fellows coming in from the field that night. They were the sorriest looking sight you could imagine. Everyone was limping or staggering or just plodded along like every step would be their last.

"Junior and I were sure mad about coming in three and one-half minutes late. If we had a watch we could have made it on time easily. I haven't been wearing mine because of my poison ivy and Junior's watch is broken. Five minutes after the hike started there was no formation. The men were stretched out along the road for miles and miles.

"Junior and I stuck together but before we knew it we were all by ourselves. Everyone has bruises on their backs from the heavy packs. Some men passed out during the hike, and others were laying in ditches alongside the road too tired to go any further. Finally they had to get trucks and go pick them up.

"The officers had to take the hike with us and were just as tired as we were. Today higher authority canceled the rest of the schedule so no one will get the Badge and no one is feeling bad about that."

Perhaps all this physical activity was to the good since I was in excellent physical condition when I was captured.

But if I felt such frustration, at capture, one can only imagine that of some of the officers of the division who had spent most of a lifetime schooling themselves for war and combat in leadership roles.

In just 10 days the 106th Division had for all practical purposes ceased to exist. That so many of us were able to survive as POWs rather than battlefield casualties was due to decisions made by individual commanders under great stress.

This is a personal account of one foot soldier but if the reader wishes a full history of the short life span of the 106th Division he should find the book entitled "Death of a Division" by Charles Whiting.

Chapter 6 An Overall look at events

As I have stated when we were captured on December 19, 1944 we had no idea what the tactical situation was or objectives of the German offensive or indeed what our own defensive position was in Belgium.

In actual fact the people in the U.S. and my parents in San Francisco knew by early January more about our division, its assignment in the Ardennes and its ultimate fate during the Battle than any of us who were still marching ever deeper into Germany as prisoners.

At this time I will reprint a news story which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner on Monday January 22, 1945.

"One of the major battles of the war burst upon the 106th Division just six days after it took up positions on what was supposed to be a 'quiet' sector of the Ardennes.

"The Division was spread pitifully thin along a 27 mile front.

"By December 19 two regiments and supporting artillery and armor of the Golden Lion Division were wiped out.

"(Until Sunday censorship had forbidden transmission of the details).

"(On January 18 Secretary of War Stimson announced that the 106th suffered 8,663 casualties in the German offensive in the Ardennes, including 416 killed and l.246 wounded. He said most of the division's 7,001 missing were presumed to be prisoners.)

"The men of the 422nd and 423rd Regiments were engulfed by the overwhelming weight of the German breakthrough spearhead.

"The attack against the 106th started at 5:50 a. m. in the foggy predawn of December 16 with a tremendous artillery barrage against their line that curved northward from the center of the Schnee Eiffel, a rocky wooded ridge 10 miles long and two miles wide astride the Siegfried Line.

"By daybreak on December 17 the Germans had thrown two divisions into this part of the front. By midmorning enemy columns swamped the 422nd and 432rd Regiments and the 424th was force to withdraw.

"The two regiments continued to send back reports of the fighting until radio contact was lost. At 3:35 p.m. December 18 the radio sputtered that all units of the two regiments were in need of ammunition, food and water. Because of the fog, parachuting supplies was out of the question.

"The last message came from the 422nd at 4 p.m. that day and from the 423rd at 6 p.m. Both said: 'we are now destroying our equipment.' That was all.

"The Germans then headed for and occupied St. Vith at 11 p.m. on December 21."

In September 1945 I received a letter from the Adjutant General's office addressed to "former members of the 422nd Infantry Regiment". It is far more accurate an account of events as it should be since the European war was now over.

Again I will quote from this letter in its entirety.

"The 422nd Infantry went into combat in the Schnee-Eiffel area of Germany on December 10, 1944. On December 16, the regiment was hit by the German Ardennes counter-offensive, and was quickly cut off. Several sections of the regimental zone received heavy artillery fire and ground attacks, all of which were repulsed.

"On the night of December 17 the Second Battalion was swung around facing north, to meet a threat from strong enemy forces which had outflanked us. On December 18 orders by radio from Division Headquarters directed the 422nd Infantry, in conjunction with the 423rd Infantry to attack and destroy enemy forces at Schonberg, and continue along the Schonberg-St. Vith road and clear the enemy from that road, which was originally our principal supply route.

"Meanwhile, the 7th and 9th armored Divisions were committed in the vicinity of St. Vith, where the 106th Division headquarters and other installations had been located, but they were unable to stop the German drive at that point.

"The 422nd Infantry made an extremely well-executed cross-country withdrawal during the day and night of December 18, to assembly position southeast of Schonberg, and attacked toward Schonburg on the morning of December 19.

"They quickly came under small arms and artillery fire from several directions and the First Battalion, on the right, was attacked by tanks and part of the Battalion was cut off and captured.

"The Second and Third Battalions continued the attack toward Schonberg and came under intense fire from several types of weapons of a large enemy antiaircraft unit, which inflicted heavy casualties and knocked out a number of our mortars and machine guns.

"The 423rd Battalion on our left had sustained heavy casualties, was badly disorganized and later was almost entirely captured or surrendered. In the afternoon of December 19, having no resupply of food or ammunition, or evacuation of casualties for the past four days, Colonel Descheneaux decided to surrender that part of the regiment.

"Parts of the First Battalion , Company G, Company H and men from other units found their way to the Regimental Motor Park, and held out until December 21. Company L escaped almost intact through the German encirclement, and moved west, but ran into enemy positions on the night of December 20, and were captured after sustaining many casualties. The majority of the vehicles and personnel of Regimental Headquarters Company, AT Company and CN Company, which had remained in the assembly area, tried to force a way out to the west, but ran into mine fields and artillery fire and were captured or surrendered.

"Of the 422nd Regiment all were killed, wounded or captured except for nine officers and about 70 men."

In the correspondence I received from the Adjutant General's office a letter from the Commander of the 422nd Regiment, Colonel George L. Deschenlaux, was included.

At that time Col. Deschenlaux was hospitalized in Fitzsimmons General Hospital, Denver, Colorado, as the result of tuberculosis, which he contracted while a POW.

The Letter is here included in its entirety.

"Members of the 422nd Inf. Regt:

"The war in which we took such a brief and tragic part is over. Most of us were fortunate enough to have returned to our families and friends. Time will dim but never entirely erase the memory of our trying experiences. I have found, through conversations with many former members of our regiment confined in this hospital, that information as to our mission and the circumstances leading to our capture are not fully known. Events happened so fast and under such difficult circumstances that it is understandable why such information did not reach everyone. I hope that this bulletin will serve to clarify that undesirable situation.

"As to our part, after we were cut off we were ordered to leave our position on Schnee-Effel and to attack and destroy a German Panzer Combat Team on the Schonberg-St. Vith Road, after which we were to proceed to St Vith and then west from there.

"We were almost entirely surrounded and in order to reach Schonberg we had to move across country. I was separated from you not long after capture, and with few exceptions, have seen none of you since. It was only after my arrival here, and through correspondence with officers and men of the various companies, that I have been able to get a fairly complete picture of many details of the attack.

"We ran into a trap near Schonberg and were subjected to heavy fire from nearly all directions and by tanks and artillery. By the afternoon it became evident that the accomplishment of our mission was impossible. It became further evident that there was little we could do to help any operation.

"The paramount question became that of saving the lives of as many of you men as possible and every possible action to accomplish this was discussed. Our situation was rendered hopeless by our great distance behind our lines, the weather, our ammunition supply, and many other factors. And so, though my spirit revolted against such a decision, surrender seemed to be the only solution to avoid needless loss of life and further suffering. I am convinced that there was nothing else to do and I know that opinion is shared by most every one of you.

"It is my sincere desire, and that of all our officers, to secure the recognition and awards which so many of you richly deserve for gallantry and meritorious service. This may be slow, due to administrative difficulties, but you may be sure that many deserving cases will be recommended for awards as soon as full information can be secured in proper form.

"The Combat Infantryman Badge was awarded to all Infantrymen of the Regiment and the Medical Badge to members of the Medical Detachment, and Regimental Colors of the 422nd Infantry recently were appropriately decorated as a Combat Regiment at a Division Review in the ETO.

"I wish all of you the best of luck in whatever course your lives may take in the future. I thank you all from the bottom of my heart for having made it possible for me to as proud of his officers, men, and regiment as any commander ever could be."

Sincerely,

George L. Deschenlaux, Jr.

Colonel, Inf.

Chapter 7 The 106th Division

It might be well here to explain what makes up an army infantry division. Like all World War II Army Infantry Divisions the 106th had almost 14,000 men. The 106th Division was activated at Jackson, Miss., in March, 1943. At that time Major General Alan W. Jones told the division: "You're brand new; you have no past history to live up to, and no past sins to live down."

The following is from a newspaper story dated January 20, 1945:

"The 106th Infantry Division, decimated in the Germans' crushing offensive in the Ardennes, was a unit of typical American draftees, assembled from nearly every state and schooled in combat lessons brought back from North Africa, New Guinea and Stalingrad.

"Army officials said the 106th had received "the works" in training before its departure overseas.

"From infantry replacement centers came farm boys from the Midwest, city boys from the East, range-riders from the West. Officers up to regimental commanders of infantry and artillery battalions, assistant general staff officers and some special staff officers were provided by the 80th Infantry.

"The filler replacements had reached 3400 in March and two months later the 106th received its shoulder patch--the head of a lion denoting strength and power, the blue background signifying the infantry, the red border representing artillery support.

"In the Schnee Eiffel, a rocky wooded ridge, the 106th was in almost an identical defensive position to that which it had held during Tennessee maneuvers in March 1944, when it did so well the referees had to call time."

A Division has three regiments, in the case of the 106th Division, these were the 422nd, 423rd and 424th. Both the 422nd and 423rd were surrounded and surrendered to the Germans. The 424th escaped entrapment and after the Bulge had been contained was used in France to guard captured German soldiers.

An Army regiment has three battalions. Each of these battalions has four rifle companies, a headquarters company and a heavy weapons company.

The companies had letters for designation--the first battalion with Companies A,B,C and D. The other two battalions with letters further into the alphabet.

Each company was made up of four platoons, three platoons of riflemen and one weapons platoon. The Platoon was broken down to three squads of 12 men each plus a Second Lieutenant as Platoon leader and Platoon sergeants.

The Company Commander had the rank of Captain and his executive officer the rank of First Lieutenant. The top ranked enlisted man in each Company was the First Sergeant who carried out the administrative orders of the Company Commander.

The Regiment also had its own companies: Headquarters, Service, Antitank and Cannon companies.

A division had its own artillery batteries, Signal and Quartermaster companies as well as medical and engineer battalions.

In short the division was designed to be a self contained fighting unit.

As privates our world was limited to the squad and platoon to which we were assigned and to some extent to the other platoons of our company. Orders came from on high, as often as not without explanation, and we did as we were told.

Chapter 8 The March

It was 41 years before I again saw the Ardennes Forest and the part of Belgium where I fought my short war. I was in Europe as a journalist covering the annual convention of the Alcohol Beverage Merchants of California which was being held in England.

I left California before the convention, flew directly to Paris, rented a car and preceded to cover the "old ground" as it were from those events of so long before.

My visit to St. Vith and Schonberg and surrounding region I will leave to a later chapter but one incident brought to mind much of that March into Germany as a Prisoner of war.

Gerolstein is a small town in Germany located in a deep valley between two high ridges and one part of the town is occupied with large railroad marshaling yards. It was that way in 1944 and it had not changed when I viewed it again 41 years later.

In fact as I drove toward Gerolstein in my rented Renault I stopped above the Valley with a view down to Gerolstein and the memories came pouring back and some of the terror too.

It is a fact that as a prisoner of war I was exposed to more fire from bombs, shells and strafing than I did before my capture.

We started our March from that hilltop Barn the night of December 19 and continued to walk in a long silent column all through the night stopping only in the early hours before dawn. We huddled in an open field and tried to get some rest and sleep.

In England we had a lecture on being captured, what to expect, the Geneva conventions on the status of prisoners of war, and what the chances were for escape. One thing I had remembered of all this was that if an escape had a chance of success you must make the attempt as soon as possible after capture, before being moved too far into Germany.

That first night we were not guarded closely and with dense forest on each side of the road we were taking a few of us thought it might be possible to slip away. Schell and I talked about it with a few others. The problem was none of us had a compass. One Sergeant in the Company we knew did have one and still had it as a prisoner. However when Schell asked him for it he refused.

Without a compass any chance of getting back to our own lines seemed futile

and in truth I don't think we would have had much a chance in any event.

Our packs had been left before our final attack effort and so we were with only the clothes that we were wearing when captured. It also meant we lost access to the K rations in our pack. I was fortunate in that I was wearing a lot of clothes. Being from San Francisco I was not used to the cold weather we had been experiencing.

I was wearing long johns under my wool pants and had on a sweater, field jacket and standard issue overcoat, and the issued wool cap under my steel helmet. Also I was wearing the overshoes that were issued to us in France.

Some of the more unfortunate men had discarded their overcoats for one reason or another. Also when I had discarded my rifle and cartridge belt into the creek I had kept my canteen, slipping it into my overcoat pocket. That proved to be a fortunate decision.

Mac and I huddled together in that field which did produce some degree of warmth. Sometime after daylight we were again on the March. We were already in Germany and sometimes curious civilians would stand beside the road as we walked by.

The second night we stopped at what appeared to be an extensive farming complex. Being a City boy I had no practical knowledge of rural living. However fortunately one of our small group, which had stayed together to this point on the March, had been raised on a farm. He took us to an outbuilding that had very recently been home to livestock and our noses told us that.

But he pointed out that manure generates heat and the stuff which was generously spread on the floor of the barn would guarantee us a warm nights sleep. And he was right. It was the first time I got warm in about three days.

After another day of marching we were housed in an old empty warehouse and it was also the first time we were given anything to eat. A thin soup of unknown origin was ladled out to us with a piece of dark German bread. The warehouse had shelved bins along the walls and many of us climbed into one of these bins for the night. So again I got some sleep minus the cold experienced earlier on our outdoor bivouacs.

The next day we arrived in Gerolstein. This had involved a march of some 50 kilometers or 30 miles. I remember two remarkable acts of kindness on this part of the March. One by a young German girl of about l7 years of age. She had carried two large containers of raw milk out to the side of the road and was giving each of us a cup of that milk. I remember she poured a cup of milk into my steel helmet which I drank immediately.

One other time we had been stopped along a road and we were sprawled on each side getting what rest we could. An old German man came out of his house and motioned to a group of us and pointed to a dirt mound he had beside his barn. By example he showed us that it contained carrots and indicated that we could each have some. I was certainly grateful since I always loved raw carrots as a boy.

Upon reaching Gerolstein we were loaded into box cars, 40 men to each car. This was in late afternoon but we never moved. That evening some of the men in our box car did a very foolish thing. Some of the wooden slates on one side of the car were loose and they pried them off and tried to build a fire.

This brought a group of guards shouting and screaming at us and we were all unloaded from that car. They then pushed 20 of us into two other cars which already had their complement of 40 men. With 60 men in the car everyone was jammed together making for much pushing and cursing and making a place to lie down difficult to come by.

That night came one of the moments of terror I associate with Gerolstein. We were attacked by British fighter bombers which bombed and strafed the marshaling yards not knowing of course that many of those box cars were filled with American POWs.

We of course could see nothing and the doors of the cars were locked shut. The planes would start their strafing run and you could just feel each man draw into himself as an act of imaginary defense. Being in a Valley between two high ridges the sound of the attacking planes and the resulting gunfire and explosions were amplified intensifying the feeling of complete helplessness. I was reminded of this horrible feeling of claustrophobic defenselessness when I saw the movie, Das Boot, where the crew suffered through the depth charge attacks. It really is an experience that defies description.

At least one of the other cars did suffer some casualties but our car was not hit. The next day we remained in place, locked in the cars. Obviously the lines and some rolling stock had been damaged. That evening we were removed from the cars and once more walked in a long column into the night.

I was wearing regular GI shoes and as I mentioned earlier the waterproof overshoes. Not used to walking in the overshoes any great distance I developed some blisters so that this night I fell behind and became separated from my companions limping along quite gingerly.

I was not alone in having a physical problem and there was a group of us now bringing up the rear of the long column. The guard would urge us along but was not belligerent about it.

Quite unexpectedly a Germany lorry came up behind us, not much different from the two and half ton trucks we were used to. The guard spoke to the driver and then motioned us into the truck. There was about twelve of us. In the truck were four German soldiers and a large stack of loaves of bread.

One of the soldiers soon started carving up a few loaves in generous pieces and passed one to each of us. In this way we passed the whole column of POWs and soon arrived at an unoccupied group of army barracks. Here we were unloaded, remembering to say "danka" to the soldiers for the bread.

Someone pointed to one of the buildings, which although unheated was better that being outdoors in the first hour of dawn. A few hours later the whole column filed into the Camp.

As daylight arrived I was able to take a look at my feet and give them some much needed air. Also I fluffed up my socks and performed some first aid to the blisters which were on my heels.

Watching all of this one of the men I had been with in the truck suggested that I carry the overshoes over my shoulder, if I wanted to keep them, and that my feet would then be o.k. This was good advice so when we left this Camp I was able to walk with no further problems.

One ugly incident occurred at this Camp. The Germans had prepared, in huge pots, a turnip soup and the men formed a immense line to get a ladle full. Since most of us no longer had our mess cups most just had the soup poured into the steel helmets they were still wearing.

Some of us looked at this huge line from our barracks window for a long time before finally joining it. It was a cold, blustery day so I never did leave the barracks to get in that line. Thanks to the generous German soldier in the truck I had a large piece of that dark, heavy German bread to munch. Those of us that had arrived by truck were the privileged few since we were the only ones actually allowed in the barracks. The mass of the column, which must have numbered close to 1,000 men, just milled around the Compound and stood in that massive line for the soup.

But watching from the window I noticed that a few from my Company were going back and standing in the line a second time. The result of this was that the soup ran out and those remaining in the line received only a small slice of bread instead.

I could find no justification for this act. Perhaps they thought they were only cheating the Germans but actually they cheated their own. I said nothing about this to anyone, but it made me realize for the second time in a few days that the world is truly filled with all kinds of people. I did wonder if one of them was the man who had switched rifles with me.

That night we were on the March once again. It was December 24, Christmas Eve, and it was snowing lightly. I was now back with the main column but I could not find Schell and the others who had been with me earlier.

We walked all night and as dawn arrived the snowfall had stopped and we were in a small town which I believe was Mayen. Here we were herded into an area which looked very much like a shipping dock complex, roofed but open on one side.

Here for the first time the Germans conducted an actual count of us, separating us by units, 106th division men in one area, 7th and 9th Armored divisions men in another.

This place was most memorable by the theft of my overshoes. I was not wearing them but had carried them slung over my shoulder as had been recommended. In making a trip to the latrine I left them where I had been resting and upon my return they were gone. At the time I just shrugged it off as one more lesson learned. It was also a result of my being separated from the men of my own platoon. Again I looked for Schell and some others but in the huge mass of men stretched out in that shipping area I could not locate them.

Here we were given a ration of the German bread and I had a chance to refill my canteen with water.

That night we were again on the March.

Sometime in the night we reached the Rhine River and word passed down the column was that we were close to Koblenz. I was having trouble with diarrhea about this time seemingly from the German bread which rumor had it was made with a good part sawdust. I was not alone. All along the column men could be seen moving to the side of the road, dropping their pants and then moving on.

Toilet paper was a luxury that had come and gone.

We arrived in the outskirts of Koblenz at first light and then were directed to a large complex of three story buildings which were part of some kind of school or college. Before occupying the buildings some of the men were conscripted to moving the furniture out of the buildings into one storage area. The furniture mostly consisted of chairs and desks.

Fortunately I missed out on this detail. At this time physically I was worn down from the diarrhea and mentally from being separated from any one I knew. The day again had a heavy overcast and we considered ourselves fortunate to be indoors for a change.

We all just staked a spot on the floor of one of the rooms. I was on the third floor of the building and looking forward to some sleep. Early that afternoon the air raid sirens sounded. The German guards indicated that we were to move down to the cellar of the building which acted as an air raid shelter.

Most of the men moved out, I stayed put believing that not much would come of it all. I could not have been more wrong. Soon bombs were dropping and some quite close. About this time I decided to join the others below ground. I was on the landing of the second floor when I heard the sound of a descending bomb. I dived for the corner just seconds before it hit.

That quick action saved my life. The building was well constructed and each floor had double steel doors with chicken-like wire embedded in the glass for reinforcing. They were very popular in the U.S. as well and indeed my high school had similar doors.

The suction from the explosion tore those doors off their hinges. They came crashing down missing me by inches. Unhurt I jumped up and took the remaining flights of stairs down to the cellar at top speed.

There was a long corridor tunnel that went from one building to the next. I found a spot against one of the concrete walls there. The bombs continued to fall and the concrete at my back would tremble as in an earthquake.

Finally after the bombing was over we moved outdoors. The main buildings had not suffered a direct hit except the one building where all the furniture had been stored just hours before. There was nothing left of it.

This seemed to please some of our men greatly, especially those who had toiled moving the furniture into it.

As evening approached we were again formed up for the March. As we moved along the road we could see the effects of the bombing everywhere. Indeed we passed holes where houses had been and others that were now only shells. At some of these civilians were moving among the ruins trying to salvage what they could. As we passed some would pick up a handy loose brick to throw at us.

The German guards shouted on them to stop and they did so, used to obeying the orders of authority. In fact personally I could hardly blame them. After all we were the enemy, true not the ones that had destroyed their homes but symbolically culpable none the less.

That night March was very physically wearing for me and many others as well. We had not gotten much sleep or rest thanks to the bombing and we now left the Rhine River and Valley and moved over some headlands where the road climbed steeply in places.

Soon word passed down the column that we had a few newcomers. They were crewmen from B-17 bombers that had taken part in the afternoon raid and had been shot down. We learned that because of the heavy overcast the bombers had just used their radar and bombed without seeking individual targets.

The ones that joined us were the fortunate ones. Later as a POW I would watch raids and see the planes hit by flak and start their final plunge to earth. We would carefully watch for parachutes and cheer when we saw one.

Unfortunately hardly ever were more than two or three crewmen able to escape from the plummeting plane. And again by nightfall, if they had not been injured, often they would be new arrivals in the camp.

The March from Koblenz was a long one and it was well into the next day when we finally reached Lemberg. Like Gerolstein, Lemberg is a rail center and once again we were moved into box cars. The March was over and we would now ride, perhaps.

Once in the box cars red cross parcels were distributed, one box for every six men. This did not amount to much food. My share was half a tin of uncooked bacon and some biscuits. Fortunately I had filled my canteen at a creek en route sometime in the night.

Our guards for several days had been older men, some older than my father and I am sure the Marching was as hard on them as on us. Perhaps more so. They were in no way mean spirited and were very tolerant when men had to peel off for natural functions or in my case when I motioned that I would like to fill my canteen at the creek.

We were placed 40 men to each box car which was very much better than the 60 we had been forced to have at Gerolstein. I was unlucky in that I was placed in a car that had last carried coal and the coal dust was everywhere.

Before we left that car five days and nights later we all had coal dust ground into every inch of our clothes and physically we resembled nothing so much as a group of coal miners.

The one positive thing at Lemberg was that I was reunited with Bob Cline.

We had been together at Camp Chaffee as 18 year olds and moved on together to Camp Atterbury to join the 106th division and as luck would have it both of us were assigned to B Company, although in separate platoons.

Bob was from Flint, Michigan and when we managed to get a three-day pass from Camp Atterbury we both went to visit his parents in Flint. They were wonderful people and in many ways so like my own parents that it was almost like a homecoming for me as well.

Bob had an older brother who early in the War had volunteered and joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. And he was now 'Missing In Action over Germany'. I am sure it must have been very difficult for Bob's parents, knowing that now a second son would soon be on his way to combat as well.

Not much can be written about the five days and nights we spent en route to Stalag IV in the box cars. It was very cold and it was during this time that I froze my toes on both feet. I had on regular G.I. shoes and was wearing only one pair of thin socks when captured. And after the long March they were rather the worse for wear. On the March I wondered why I had not thought to stuff an extra pair of socks or two into a coat pocket when we left our barracks bags behind before capture.

It was at this time that I missed the overshoes that had been stolen from me earlier.

It was very much a stop and go journey. We would roll some during the nights and generally be placed on some siding during the day. The doors of the box cars remained locked almost the whole time and one corner of our car was made the latrine. Thirst became the big problem for all of us. I had my canteen but many of the men did not.

Even with my canteen munching on raw bacon and bacon grease and dry biscuits created a very big thirst. I can remember only once, during one day when on the siding, men were allowed out of the box car a few at a time to drink from a nearby water pump.

Because the Allies ruled the skies I don't believe any German trains were moving during daylight hours at this time. It was probably for our own good that we remained on sidings until dark. Of course the cold would be more intense at night and the cars were unheated and quite drafty when we were moving.

We were all very relieved when we finally arrived at Stalag IVB one evening about 9 p.m. Here we were lined up for our official registering as Prisoners of War. And it was here that a chance meeting with a sergeant of the Royal Canadian Air Force helped Bob Cline and myself.

Seeing the blue uniform Bob Cline explained that his brother was in the RCAF and currently listed as missing. Did the Sergeant know him, or anything about him? The answer was unfortunately negative but the Sergeant did ask us our rank, which for both of us was Private First Class.

The Sergeant explained that as privates, under the Geneva Conventions, we could be required to work, while noncommissioned officers did not. So he requested our paybooks, which we were carrying, and on the spot promoted us to Corporals, grandly initialing our promotions with the name of our Company Commander, L.L.Littlejohn.

And it worked. When we finally reached the desk of the English speaking German Feldwaval or Sergeant we passed him our paybooks and were promptly entered as Corporals. We were also issued our POW dogtags. I still have mine which has only my number on it, #306050 and "Stalag IVB". Here we were also required to surrender any money which we might have on us.

Actually I had quite a bit. I had almost $120. on me in Occupation Francs and this I handed over and was given a receipt for the total amount.

I managed to hold on to this receipt the whole time I was a POW and upon my return sent it to the proper authority in the Army and was reimbursed.

The reason I was carrying that much money which amounted to about two months pay was the fact that I had been lucky in a poker game just before we left England. In fact I had won much more than that. At that time everyone was given a four day pass for London and since I had a good deal of the platoon's cash I loaned much of it to my fellow soldiers.

Of course I never got any of this money back with one exception. One soldier in my platoon handed me the $20 he owned me shortly after our capture.

Our processing at Stalag IVB also included a bath. And we certainly needed that. When we unloaded from our box car on arrival at Stalag IVB we were greeted with laughter from our men and German guards alike. With our black faces we were a sight to behold. In fact some of the German guards, laughed and shouted to us, "Schwartze", which is German for black.

While the bath did something to get us clean our clothes were another matter. As soon as we put back on those coal dust saturated things we were dirty again.

It was January 5, 1945. It had been a journey of 17 days and nights, afoot and by rail to get us to our present destination which was in the eastern part of Germany. Stalag IVB was located at Muhlberg, south of Berlin.

Chapter 9 Stalag IVB

I never really had the opportunity to experience what life was like in a regular Prisoner of War camp. I was at Stalag IVB only a short time before I became very ill. Those first days, I recall we would stand parade morning and evening while being counted by a German guard. Then waiting for the one hot meal, served at noon, which was almost always rutabaga soup.

At the Camp we had been issued a tin mug which served for all eating and drinking purposes. Breakfast was a slice of that dark German bread and ersatz coffee, which had a taste that was certainly unique. The only thing that could be said for it was that it was hot.

Our barracks Sergeant had been a prisoner for some time and of course knew the "drill" very well. One day he had an interesting story to tell us of events that had taken place just a couple of months before.

Stalag IV was located next to a rail siding and one could see the siding through the tall barbed wire fences that surrounded the Camp. A long train of box cars arrived one morning in November in a cold driving rain. Soon guards opened the doors and women were herded from the cars and made to stand in the driving rain.

The ground was a sea of mud and many of the women were without shoes. Others dressed in only light summer dresses. None had anything except the clothes they were wearing however inadequate for the beginning of Winter. The women remained standing in the rain for some hours. Watching from the Camp American and British POWs became so outraged that they began shouting obscenities at the guards in both German and English. These were not the guards of Stalag IV but some that had arrived with the Train.

Somehow the POWs learned that the women were Polish and had been locked in the box cars for many days. The scene became uglier and had all the makings of a riot. After consulting with the POWs the American senior officer went to see the German Camp Commandant. He explained that Americans were not used to seeing women, any women treated in such outrageous fashion.

The American Officer explained that many of the men, both American and British, had volunteered to donate some of their own clothes to the women. To alleviate what could become a nasty, unwanted confrontation for both Germans and the POWs, he suggested that the men be allowed to pass over the clothing to the women and that they be moved out of the inclement weather as soon as possible.

The German Commandant saw the wisdom in this and it was done. This was no small offering by the POWs since all had only the clothes they were captured with and another winter was upon them.

No one seemed to know what the future held for the Polish women once they were finally marched away but the Sergeant guessed it was to be used as laborers.

Chapter 10 The Home Front

My Mother received the following telegram at 9 p.m. on January 13, 1945.

"The Secretary of War desires me to express his deep regret that your son, Private First Class Joseph G. Hilbers Jr., has been reported missing in action since the 16th of December in Germany. If further details or other information are received you will be promptly notified" Signed Dunlop, Acting the Adjutant General.

A few days after our arrival at Stalag IVB we were given Red Cross Post Cards so we could communicate with our families back home.

I wrote my first "Kriegsgefangenenpost Postkarte" on January 10, 1945.

It read:

"Dear Mom and Dad, I am now a Prisoner of War. I am safe and well and I am uninjured. Try not to worry to much about me. Contact the Red Cross as to Food Packages and letters. I remain as always. Joey."

When this arrived at the Post Office in San Francisco it was for delivery the next day. However our Mail Carrier knew I was "missing in action" from the letters that were being returned to my Mother. So that evening he called my parents to read them the post card. I have always thought that was a most sensitive action on his part.

Besides the post cards we were also allowed to write short letters, again on a special style letter form that folded three ways. The first one that I sent is reprinted here and is postmarked in Germany as January 23, 1945.

"Dear Mom and Dad, I hope it wasn't to much of a shock for you when you received that telegram. It has been hard for me to think of you worrying when actually I have been safe and well all this time. I was captured with a large group of others. Cline was also captured but is also o.k. It is cold here but we aren't doing anything and are able to stay inside the barracks most of the time so it isn't so bad. We are being treated as well as can be expected. The chow is plain but we receive Red Cross packages which really help out. We are supposed to receive 1 package a week but sometimes we only get one to 4 or 5 men if the packages are slow in coming. Life is not so bad here. The days are short and time goes fast. I think and pray for you always. Home is actually all I think of. Here's hoping all this will be over soon. Love, Joey."

My mentioning Bob Cline in the above letter turned out to be most fortunate. My parents quickly sent a letter to Cline's parents in Flint, Michigan. It was the first word they received that Bob was alive and well rather than "Missing in Action." My folks also sent them a photo copy of the above letter.

It saved Bob's family a great deal of anxiety.

That started a correspondence between my Mother and Bob Clyne's Mother that lasted through the War and for a few years after as well.

The Government was very slow in giving my parents official word that I was a POW.

They received the following telegram on April 11, 1945. It read:

"The Secretary of War desires me to inform you that your son PFC Joseph G Hilbers Jr. is a prisoner of war of the German Government based on information received thru the Provost Marshal. Further information received will be furnished by the Provost Marshal." Signed Ulmo, The Adjutant General.

For the record let me include a few more of the post cards which I sent home. On January 25, 1945 I wrote two cards. The first read:

"Dear Mom and Dad, Hope you are well. I am O.K. Don't worry about me. The food here is plain but you can live on it. We are being treated O.K. Last week we received one Red Cross Package for seven men. Of course, the thing I miss most is food. Time goes fast here. I am not doing any kind of work. Don't forget I want letters and packages. Hope you went to the Red Cross. With love, Joey."

The second card written the same day, January 25, read:

"Dear Mom and Dad, I hope you have received the two cards and one letter I have written so far. I am well and I am getting along O.K. Of course I am waiting eagerly for a letter from you. I hope you did not have to wait to long before you found out I was a Prisoner of War. I can imagine what you went through. With love, Joey."

As it turned out I never did receive any letters from my parents or packages either. They sent some but they never arrived. At home they had received special letter forms from the Red Cross which looked little different from the ones I sent them.

All were returned stamped: "Returned to Sender By Direction of the War Department. Undeliverable as addressed."

The last card my parents received from me was dated February 9, 1945.

Everything I wrote my parents after January 10 was a lie since I was very sick for much of the time past that date. I marvel now how I had the strength to write as much as I did considering my physical condition.

Chapter 11 A very sick soldier

One afternoon I started feeling very ill and took to my bunk. It was still early in January. During that night I had a really high fever. I recall that I would waken as from a dream and reach for my canteen. The ice cold water in the canteen would clear my head temporarily and then I would be back in a semiconscious state.

I had a hard time making roll call in the morning and our barracks Sergeant suggested I go on sick call. This I did and was finally ushered into a bare unheated room where an American medic took my temperature.

On reading this he told me to be seated until the doctor could see me.

Let me explain a little about Prisoner of War Camps. When at all possible you are under the control of your own senior officers or noncommissioned officers. Prisoner of War Camps of all nations work on this premise.

Services such as medical attention are also provided by one's own personnel, who are also prisoners, whenever possible. At Stalag IVB the medical staff, doctors and medics, were all from the 82nd Airborne Division, captured in the ill-fated Arnhem campaign championed by British General Bernard Montgomery.

The problem at Stalag IVB and probably most of the Camps during that period was a lack of medical supplies. The personnel were highly competent and trained but without basic medicines there was often little they could do.

When I did see the 82nd Airborne Doctor, his quick diagnosis was Lumbar Pneumonia. I was immediately moved from my barracks to what was termed the hospital, actually just another barracks with single bunks with the usual covered straw mattress. In the regular prison barracks the bunks were always double decked.

I remember little of the next week or so. I continued to have the high fever and the pain on my left side was such that I could not bear any pressure against it. I could eat almost nothing, certainly not that dark German bread ration.

The doctor came by each day and the medical orderlies faithfully took my temperature morning and night and recorded it.

I was just about as sick as one can be without dying. I was delirious much of the time and took little notice of what was going on around me. I could eat almost nothing. For the patients here breakfast was hot oatmeal, sometimes just with a dark coarse sugar, other times if Red Cross parcels were available, it was served with Klim, a powdered milk product which often was included in the parcels.

Somehow they knew I was Roman Catholic, although I do not remember telling anyone so. However religion is one of the things listed on Army dogtags. There was a French Priest that came by to see me a few times. He spoke only a few words of English.

Stalag IVB, like all the prison camps, had a thriving black market. The currency was cigarettes. I had only one thing I could sell and that was my watch. I gave it to one of the medics and asked him to trade it for whatever food products he could find. He came back with an American K ration chocolate bar. These were thick bars and supposedly full of high energy. He also had some cigarettes left over from the transaction and these I divided up with him evenly.

I remember nibbling on that chocolate bar, seemingly for days. It was the only thing I could keep down. My daily ration of German bread I could not touch so on one of the Priest's visit I told him to give it to others. By this time I had about five days worth stacked behind my head on the bunk and I had been too sick to even think of them.

One day, after the doctor's visit, one of the medics came by with a large mug of water and six tablets. He told me they were sulfonamides and the last six tablets they had. He carefully made me take all six with lots of water and told me I must drink plenty of water for the next few days.

Whether those six tablets were the difference between dying or getting well I do not know.

Drinking lots of water was no problem for me since my fever kept me constantly thirsty. And I still had my canteen. However it did make more work for the orderlies. GI steel helmets were used almost exclusively for bed pans and while I would do almost anything to keep from using one, some days during this period I was simply too weak to get out of bed.

About one third of the patients in our barracks-hospital had chronic dysentery and to accommodate their constant activity the barracks had a closed-in porch. On this porch was located a portable latrine which looked much like a sedan chair. Like a sedan chair it had long handles, both front and back, so it could be moved about.

The barracks had one stove which was at the opposite end of the room from me. The amount of fuel allotted to the barracks was rationed so that generally there was no heat at night. Remember it was mid January and very cold. To conserve heat the shutters would be placed over the windows during the night but this did not entirely solve the problem.

Because it was such a hardship on the men with dysentery to go out to that cold porch at night the moveable latrine was placed inside the barracks during those hours. There were a good many bunks in the barracks and the aisles very narrow.

The placing of the latrine therefore required a good deal of thought.

Logic dictated that it be placed among men who would object the least or whose condition was such that it really didn't matter.

Those men in the worst condition were in my corner of the barracks. I was among them sometimes lucid, sometimes in what I can only describe as a high fever induced stupor. So every evening at dusk the latrine would be placed next to the four bunks in my corner.

The odors, the noises, the constant comings and goings as well as the groans of men suffering the worse kind of intestinal cramps, I will leave to the reader's imagination. And all of this was taking place probably no more than three or four feet from where I lay.

At this time I could only lay on my back or right side because of the pain on my left side. Fortunately when laying on my right side I had my face to the wall.

The remarkable thing was that I was in such poor shape that I didn't care, complain or really give it much thought. It was just the way things were. Obviously they had selected the right place for the latrine.

It was about the middle of February when I finally was over the worse of the Pneumonia. The pain on my left side was slowing receding and while I was still running a fever nightly it was not nearly as high as before and I was again thinking clearly.

For a reason which was never explained orders came to move to a different barracks. By now, though very weak, I was able to move about from my bunk. On moving day an old four wheel wagon was provided for moving the men. Those that couldn't walk were placed in the wagon. I elected to walk, hanging on to one side of the wagon. It was pulled by the medics and some volunteers from the camp.

It was a raw winter day, overcast, snow on the ground and a cutting wind. I was wearing all my clothes including my overcoat and wool cap but still felt the cold keenly. We really did not have far to go. I would guess no more that two or three hundred yards but it seemed a long way that day.

Our bedding, we each had been issued two coarse fabric blankets, was moved for us. I remember that during that whole month I was completely dressed in bed except for my field jacket and overcoat which served as an extra blanket.

The new barracks could hardly be distinguished from the one we had just left except that it was larger and had upper and lower bunks. Perhaps the "hospital" had more patients and needed more space. This time I was assigned an upper bunk. The main result of this move is that my fever immediately climbed again. In fact I ran a fever every night for the next month.

However I was not as sick as before and I did have some appetite. In fact I really began to look forward to the oatmeal which we were still being served for breakfast as well as the bread and noontime soup which again was almost always rutabaga, occasionally turnip.

On Sundays we were given a thin potato soup. This was considered a real treat. At home I would never touch a turnip and I didn't even know what rutabagas were until I reached the prison camp.

As I pointed out earlier my clothes were still in a sorry state because of the coal dust. One day an Orderly suggested something might be done about it. Since I still had some cigarettes he said I could probably get someone to wash my clothes for me using the cigarettes as payment.

I readily accepted, and except for my overcoat, everything came off and was handed over for a much needed cleaning. I don't know for sure but believe it was a Pole or Russian who did the actual washing and received the cigarettes in payment.

Certainly he had a big job on his hands. My underwear was unspeakable and the longjohns no better. While all of this did not help my physical condition it did help my morale greatly. The month I was in this barracks I was in bed almost all the time getting up only infrequently for nature calls or sometimes the noon meal. I was still very weak and had no energy at all.

All this time in bed did one thing for me. It was the best possible treatment for my frozen toes. The blackness wore away and new nails could be seen growing but very slowly.

I lost a great deal of weight. When I was captured I weighed 160 pounds but after two and one half months I could not have weighed more than 125 pounds. It was very painful for me to lie in one position for very long because of my hip bones digging into me.

After one month at this location we were to be moved again.

The Russians were closing in and Stalag IVB would be evacuated.

Chapter 12 Hospital at Leipzig

When the evacuation from Stalag IVB took place in March of 1945 I was still quite ill. My fever would still climb each night then drop to normal during the day. Moving about was very much of an effort.

Those of us from the hospital were loaded into the usual German box cars. We had no idea what our destination would be. The only efforts made for our well being en route was some straw on the floor. There were only about a dozen of us in each car. It was the last we saw of the American doctors and medics who had tried so hard to provide for us in the previous months.

I cannot remember much of this journey or how long it took. Only one incident stands out in my memory. I was still troubled with bouts of diarrhea. It was night and we were stopped at a siding once again. The door of our car was unlocked and partially open.

There was an old man with a rifle as our guard and he was standing alongside the tracks. I indicated to him that I had to relieve myself and he motioned me out of the car.

When I was finished I tried to climb back into the car but was too weak. Seeing this the guard called to the other men in the car to assist me. Two grabbed my arms to pull and at that moment I fainted.

I don't believe for long, maybe 30 seconds or so. When I again knew what was going on I was still being pulled from above. The guard seeing that this wasn't working called some men out of the next car and between them shoving and those above pulling I crawled back inside.

Our destination was Leipzig and we arrived there on a day that indicated that winter was receding. We were transported to a building quite close to the railroad tracks which appeared to be a two story factory. It had whole banks of metal trimmed small paned glass windows much like those seen in the U.S. during the same era.

Once inside we found ourselves in a real hospital. The whole second floor was one huge ward equipped, not with bunks, but real hospital beds with mattresses. The beds were also equipped with the mechanical apparatus to raise the patient to a sitting position.

After an examination by a doctor I was assigned one of these beds. This was a new doctor. He spoke English fluently but I never did learn his nationality. Here for the first time the doctor wore the familiar white jacket of his profession.. At Stalag IVB our American doctors were just in their uniforms during examinations or on their daily round visiting patients.

This place had served as a POW hospital for a long time before our arrival. It was well organized and the patients included both British and Americans. While at Stalag IVB almost all the patients were victims of disease of one kind or another. Here we had many with actual war inflicted wounds. This was especially true for the British and American airmen and more arrived during my stay there.

The food was somewhat better than I had experienced before but the portions were very small. I can only remember Red Cross parcels being distributed once or twice and then divided among five or six men. German transport was breaking down throughout the country making distribution of the Parcels ever more difficult.

I think this Hospital saved me. I was there only a short time when my fever disappeared for good and I was able to leave my bed and more around a bit. But we had some very sick people here. I became acquainted with an American soldier, my own age, who was only two beds away from me.

I believe he also had Pneumonia. He did not arrive with our group from Stalag IVB but was already in the Hospital when we arrived. He was very weak and when I was able to get out of bed I would go over to visit with him.

He was from Texas and a fine young man. But one morning I noticed that his bed was empty. The orderly explained that he had died during the night. I felt very badly about this although our acquaintance had been brief.

The most memorable thing that happened here was an air raid we experienced. The RAF, which always flew at night, staged a raid on the railroad marshaling yards adjacent to our Hospital. No effort was made to move us to a shelter. We just stayed in bed while the bombs exploded. We could see the flashes through the darkened panes of our factory style windows.

None of the bombs exploded close by but they did start a good many fires which brightened the whole sky. Then we had a tremendous explosion very close by that blew out many of the windows scattering glass over the beds and blankets of some of the patients. I was far enough away from the windows on that side of the building that no glass reached me.

Amazingly no one in our building received even a scratch from all that flying glass. Being tucked in bed under blankets had offered the needed protection.

The next morning two RAF airmen from that Raid were in our Hospital. Both had received injuries from hard parachute landings. One of the men revealed to us that our Hospital was well known to the RAF, marked on their maps as a POW site. The huge explosion was from burning box cars filled with ammunition and artillery shells.

Chapter 13 The Hospice

About the middle of March a group of us from the Hospital were judged to have recovered enough to be moved. We were loaded onto a quaint bus that was actually powered by charcoal gases. This was one way the Germans coped with the fuel shortage that was now widespread.

The charcoal burning unit was in a small trailer attached to the rear of the vehicle. Surprising to us was the fact that it actually worked. We were driven to the outskirts of Leipzig on a fine sunny Spring day.

Our destination was a group of brick buildings located on a hilltop, surrounded by farm land. This was a Hospice for convalescing POWs. It was on this short ride that I met one of the finest men I ever encountered in all of my Army life. His name was John McGrath and he was from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He had been with the 9th Armored Division and his unit was one of many committed in the effort to hold St Vith. The effort failed and John was captured.

At our new home (if it had a name I never learned what it was) we were assigned to one of the buildings. They were not large but each was a complete unit. Outfitted as barracks they contained upper and lower bunks with each bunk being double width. Two men shared each of these double bunks. The room also included a long table with benches on both sides which would seat 14 or 16 men. Across from the table was a large iron stove.

Just inside the entrance to each barracks was the latrine and a wash room. Our barracks had bunks for 20 men. We were the late arrivals at this Camp. Here was a diverse group of men; POWs from Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Australia and the U.S. They even included a couple of Greeks who had fought with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

Most seemed to be in better physical condition than we late arrivals.

I was no longer ill but I was very weak and with the food we were receiving there was no opportunity to gain back any of the weight I had lost the last three months.

John McGrath was a tall man, over six feet, and like me, now would have made a good double for a scarecrow. He had also been very ill and was now in the convalescent stage.

John and I became partners and buddies in this Camp and shared the double bunk together. John was a good deal older than I, age in the early thirties, was married and had a young child at home.

With the double bunks this pairing of two men was the norm and developed some very wonderful friendships. In British Army slang such a close friend or buddy was a Mucker. And so John and I became Muckers.

With a good deal of time on our hands we soon learned almost everything about each other. Being older, John had gone through some tough Depression years when he first graduated from High School. And being older he also had many more experiences to relate than I did. For me there was little to tell. I went right from High School into the Army at the age of 18.

He had held a variety of jobs. One was with a collection agency and he had some very amusing stories about attempts to repossess automobiles from people that had missed their car payments.

I learned all about how he met his wife, Mildred, their courtship and their life together before the Army took him away.

The British soldiers in our barracks had their customary initial reserve but we found our roommates from the Dominions were much like ourselves. We were quickly accepted which was very necessary. In such a small barracks we were together 24 hours a day; sleeping, eating and using up the daylight hours in that one large room.

On sunny days that were heralding Spring we were allowed outside the barracks which were set in a small compound. Every morning we were mustered outside to be counted by a German guard. The whole compound was surrounded by a high wire fence but an escape attempt was a remote possibility for we all had physical infirmities of one kind or another.

One American soldier was an example of courage for all of us. He was blind. How this injury occurred I never learned since he was not in our Barracks. But in the Compound he was always cheerful and always smiling. A few of his fellow soldiers were with him, guiding him when exercising in the Yard. His demeanor in the face of such a disability was truly remarkable.

This Camp had a British Officer in nominal command but the Germans were more in evidence here. The German Officer commanding was the perfect cartoon caricature of a Prussian military person. He was very short in stature but strutted around our small Compound like he was The Kaiser reincarnated. He wore Cavalry boats which didn't just shine but positively gleamed.

The few times I saw him, when we were in the exercise yard, he always wore an expression of extreme displeasure and disdain which seemed to say, "Look what scum I am forced to command."

Some of our British comrades had been prisoners for years having been captured in the Fall of France or, in the case of a couple of our Canadians, in the ill-fated Dieppe Raid of 1943.

However their stories of Prison Camp life in the first years of their captivity were not bad. For one thing Red Cross parcels came regularly and included uniforms, blankets and other amenities besides food. And they kept a formal military atmosphere in their Camps.

There were no thefts in the Camps. Certainly I experienced none in any of the places I was kept. One Englishman did relate an interesting story of a thief at a former Camp. Things disappeared on a regular basis for some time but finally the thief was identified and caught.

After what amounted to a trial by other prisoners, it was decided to throw him in the latrine and lock him out of the barracks. In cases like this the Germans never interfered. They left policing of such incidents to the prisoners themselves.

In this incident the British commander alerted his German counterpart to what the punishment would be. The Thief had a rope tied around his waist to keep him from drowning in the muck. In he went and when pulled out was released.

It was during a period of inclement weather and all barracks were barred to him. He pleaded with the German guards but they ignored him. It was a lesson that demonstrated that theft of any kind would not be tolerated.

Our mattresses here were the usual straw stuffed into a porous type of rough cloth. It made a great home for both lice and bed bugs. It was the first time in my life I had ever encountered either of these critters. John and I were not alone with this condition of crawly things in our clothes and bites from the bed bugs each morning.

Aware of the problem the Germans gathered a group of us and marched us a short way to what looked like some kind of industrial plant. Here we were allowed to shower and our clothes placed in a room where they were blasted with high pressure steam.

This process did alleviate the problem with lice but nothing could be done about the bed bugs. The delousing of my clothes did have one unfortunate result.

On a leave in London I had with me a small fixed focus camera which used Kodak 828 size film. It is no longer used but then Kodak marketed it as a film, slightly larger than 35mm, in an eight exposure roll.

I used two rolls of film while on this 48 hour pass but there was no opportunity to ever get the rolls developed. And censorship forbid sending undeveloped film in the mail.

Unfortunately I forgotten the rolls were tucked in one pocket of my Field Jacket, or it may have been I did not realize just what the delousing technique would be. At any rate the result was that the two rolls of exposed film were irretrievably lost.

The camera I had thrown into the creek along with my rifle before walking up that hill to surrender. Later I regretted this action. If I could have kept the camera from the Germans it would have been saleable in the Prison Camp black market. Fortunately both John and I did hold on to our leather wallets while the delousing process was taking place. My GI gloves, which had leather palms, were in my overcoat pocket and became a useless shriveled mass from the super heated steam. As things turned out this was no loss.

This was a British POW Camp and we Americans were a small minority. John and I were the only Americans in our barracks. Some of the British soldiers had been in the peace time Army and were captured in 1940 when the Germans swept through France.

These men still continued their army routine and indulged in what John and I considered unnecessary "spit and polish". They took great pains with their clothes but then their uniforms were certainly in better condition than ours.

None of them ever said anything to John and I about our total lack of military bearings or physical appeara