Russ Cloer, Capt., I & R Platoon Leader, 7th Inf., 3rd Inf. Div., VI Corp., 7th Army US Army

I was born in Jersey City, N. J. on January 4, 1921. All four of my grandparents were born in Germany and emigrated to the U. S. in the late 1800's. My parents were both born in this country. They lived in the Jersey City - Hoboken area, popular with other German immigrant families. My father was the youngest of five children, my mother, one of six. Neither of my parents was educated beyond the 6th or 8th grade because they had to go to work at an early age to help support their parents and siblings. My father became a toolmaker, my mother a seamstress and after marriage, a homemaker. My paternal grandfather was a carpenter and lived to the age of 91. My maternal grandfather was a construction worker and he died in his late 30's when he fell from the roof of a building. There was no Social Security in those days, no unemployment insurance, no workman's compensation, no child labor laws, and in immigrant families, no relatives on whom to lean for support.

My earliest recollections go back to my first 4 years. We lived in a 3rd floor "railroad" type walk-up apartment in a wood frame apartment building in Jersey City, N. J. And we shared a bathroom with the adjacent apartment on the same floor. We had no telephone, no radio and no car. Nor did many of our neighbors, in those early 1920's. But my father had a red Indian motorcycle with sidecar that he kept in a nearby rented garage. On summer Sundays, my mother, my younger sister and I would pile into the sidecar and we would go for a ride, usually to visit one of my many aunts and uncles, all of whom lived within easy driving distance. In winter, my father stored the engine and transmission under his bed, when he wasn't working on it on the kitchen table.

When I was four years old, my parents bought a very old 2 bedroom wood frame house on a 50 by 100 foot lot in Roselle Park, N. J. We thought we were living in the country! We were happy there, despite the constant home maintenance required. The school system was good, the neighbors were amenable, stores were just around the corner and the railroad, which took my father to work, was only a 3 or 4 block walk. (Or run, if he was late, which was more often than not.)

I entered kindergarten at age 5, and since the cut-off date was January 1 and my birthday was January 4, I was the oldest kid in my class all through school. This had certain advantages for a boy! The only ‘disadvantage' was that I would graduate from high school one year later. (And as it turned out, enter the Army one year later!)

My childhood was a happy time, even though I didn't have many of the things my friends had. Despite growing up during the Great Depression, I don't remember ever going hungry nor lacking suitable clothes for school. Of course Christmas and Birthday gifts were pretty sparse and most of my few toys (precious to me) were home made or second hand. And I wasn't alone. That was the norm during the Depression. (Home-made scooters made from a discarded roller skate, a 2 x 4 and a discarded orange crate; home-made wooden stilts; sling shots from slices of an old inner tube and a Y shaped tree branch; rubber band guns from slices of the same inner tube and a piece of wood; a bag of scratched marbles and a "nickel rocket" baseball that we would wrap with friction tape when the seams broke.

In 1933, my father was laid off and there was no longer a pay envelope on Fridays. Our mortgage payments on the house were $22 a month and my parents didn't have it. We were in danger of losing our house, our place to live. But the mortgage holder couldn't resell the house in those Depression days, so he agreed to accept interest only, no payment of principal, "until times got better." The payments became $11 a month and we hung on. I distinctly remember being entrusted to take the $11 in cash to the bank once a month. Of course we had no checking account. I remember my father leaving the house every morning at the same time, to look for work. And returning in late afternoon with a haggard look. Machine shops at that time would hire workers only when they got a contract, and when the deliveries were completed, they would lay off the workers. Somehow we struggled through until war clouds loomed and the economy began to recover in 1939.

Also in 1933, a new Boy Scout Troop was formed in our small town. I had just reached my 12th birthday and was invited to join. But joining required that I have a Boy Scout uniform. The uniform cost $7 and my parents didn't have it. (Plus $3 for the hat which was optional. I knew only 3 boys who had a hat!) But somehow the uniform, (less hat,) appeared and I became a Boy Scout. The troop was sponsored by the local Rotary Club, and I suspect they had a hand in making the uniform available. I was active in Boy Scouts for 5 years and it was one of the greatest experiences of my life! I know of no better way to instill a set of worthy values in our youth. "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law. To keep myself physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight." "A scout is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent."

And when I grew old enough to notice girls, I had to look no further than the house next door. Living there was Beverly, the girl of my dreams who is now my wife of 59 years!

I always did well in school, making the Honor Roll every year, but in those times there was no thought of going to college. Few people had the money. I remember when I entered High School, (9th grade) in 1935, having to choose between the "College Course", the "General Course," or the "Commercial Course." Like 80% of my classmates, I elected the "General Course." For electives, I chose what I thought would help me get a job when I graduated: Bookkeeping, Typing, Shop, Junior Business Training, etc. My parents didn't have sufficient education to give me much guidance and no one else offered to.

But a wonderful thing happened to me near the end of my second year! My History teacher told me she had been looking at my grades and wondered why I was not taking the "College Course." I told her we couldn't afford college. Actually, I had never given it any serious thought for that reason. She said she thought she could get me a scholarship when the time came and she would help by guiding me through the application procedures. I didn't even know what a "scholarship" was at that time! She arranged for me to take two years of a language and two years of algebra as electives in my last two years to meet minimum college entrance requirements. I am eternally grateful to that lady.

In my third year of high school, my algebra teacher, who was also coach of the track team, suggested I "come out" for track." "You're tall and skinny," he said, "just the right build for the high jump." I took his advice and won the high jump in 10 out of 10 dual meets that season. I was elected captain of the track team in my senior year, won the State high jump championship and set a new State record for the event. I think that too, may have had a bearing on the scholarship award.

I graduated from high school in 1939 as valedictorian of my class of 128 graduates. I applied for academic scholarships at two colleges, with help from my teacher "angel", and was offered a full tuition scholarship at both. I chose Rutgers University.

In high school, competence in sports was the key to popularity. At my 50th High School Reunion, everybody remembered my track record. Only one person remembered that I had been valedictorian. She was the salutatorian and she introduced me to her husband as follows: "I'd like you to meet Russ Cloer. He's the one who beat me out for valedictorian!" And then, by way of explanation, she added: "They always chose a boy in those days."

When I registered, I was asked in which College of the University I wanted to enroll. I told the advisor. " I want to be a Mechanical Engineer." She said, "There is no way we can admit you to the College of Engineering. You're lacking too many prerequisites. In fact, we are making an exception in admitting you at all, only because your high school grades are so good."

"What is the closest you can give me?" I asked. And she said, "I can admit you to the College of Arts and Sciences, with a major in physics and a minor in math." So that's what I did. She suggested the alternative of going back to high school for a post graduate year to get the needed prerequisites, but the scholarship would not carry over so I couldn't do that.

I started at Rutgers in September 1939. The scholarship covered only tuition and fees, not room, board and books. So I commuted the first year, lived in an inexpensive rooming house for the second and third years and in a college dorm for my last year. I worked part time during the school year in the College bookstore, as a typist in the Personnel office, as an usher at football games, as a free lance typist and as a Physics lab assistant. I worked summers as a YMCA camp counselor, for the college bookstore, and in the Assembly Department of the Western Electric Company. These jobs, along with a what help my parents could afford, paid for my books, room and board.

My jobs paid only minimum wage, which at that time was 40 cents/hour. But the tuition and fees of $330/year were covered by the scholarship. Room and board of about $350/year is what I had to earn.

Rutgers was a land grant college, which required all physically fit male students to take two years of basic ROTC. (Military Science and Tactics). Fifty students would be chosen from among those who volunteered for Advanced ROTC. Those who completed the four years of ROTC would go to a 6 week summer camp for field training between the 3rd and 4th years and would be commissioned 2nd Lieutenants in the Reserve at graduation. Each week, there were three hours of class room work and two hours of close order drill, in uniform. (3 credits/semester). The Rutgers ROTC staff was Infantry only at that time, but we were told that we would be allowed to choose our arm of the Army when we graduated. A reserve commission in ordnance or signal corps appeared attractive to me because of their utilization of engineers. I volunteered for Advanced ROTC and was accepted. There were no financial awards offered for ROTC at that time, but we did get one complete officer's uniform, tailor made.

When War was declared, the rules were changed, one at a time:

1. The six week summer camp was abolished.

2. Instead, we would have to go through Infantry OCS (Officer Candidate School) upon graduation, and those who made it would then be commissioned. Those who didn't, would be sent to Infantry Replacement Training Centers with the rank of Corporal.

3. We could no longer choose our Arm of the Army. We were needed in Infantry. We were pressured to volunteer for the ERC (enlisted reserve corps) and we would go on active duty on campus as Infantry privates for the last semester, then be ordered to Infantry OCS.

4. Anyone that did not volunteer for the ERC would be dropped from the ROTC program upon graduation and would have to register with his draft board at that time. (Not previously required because we were considered Reservists.)

Spending the last semester as an Infantry Private on campus made no sense to me, so I was one of five Advanced ROTC seniors (out of 50) who declined to volunteer for the ERC. We five spent the last semester as civilian members of the ROTC. The other 45 were privates in the Army, assigned to a barracks in one of the dorms, and fed in a section of the college cafeteria set aside as a mess hall. They couldn't leave campus without a pass signed by the ROTC Major. Just before graduation, we 5 were asked again to join the ERC. If we joined now, we would receive orders to report to Ft. Benning Infantry OCS along with the other members of our ROTC class. If we did not volunteer for this alternative, we would be dropped from the program and would be required by law to register with our respective draft boards. Two of the five, including me, signed on and reported to Fort Benning with the rest of our ROTC class. The other 3, to the best of my knowledge, never served in the military. Of the 21 Rutgers 1943 ROTC graduates who were commissioned 2nd Lieutenants, Infantry, on September 20, 1943, eleven were killed in action by War's end.

I entered the Army 6/15/43 after 4 yrs of Infantry ROTC at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, N.J.

90 Day Wonder

WWII Infantry OCS, (Officer Candidate School), at Ft. Benning, Georgia, was a 13 week training program turning out Infantry 2nd Lieutenants at the rate of 140/day. Those graduates who did not measure up to expectations when later assigned to units, were disparagingly referred to by their men as "90 Day Wonders", due in part to the limited duration of their training.

I reported to OCS Class #298 on June 15, 1943, along with thirty of my classmates who had volunteered for Infantry OCS after four years of ROTC at a land grant college. I was in civilian clothes and it was my first day in the army. Ninety-seven day later, twenty-one of us from my college ROTC class were commissioned 2nd Lieutenants, Infantry. By War's end, eleven of the twenty-one had been killed in action. I have no way of knowing how many of the rest of class #298 were lost in the War, but I have no reason to believe that the same 52% loss rate did not prevail.

I remember OCS as being one of the most intense episodes of my life, aside from infantry combat, which of course was what it prepared us for. Our determination to successfully complete the program was the primary goal of our young lives. Our TO (Tactical Officer) jotted down notes about our performance in his little black book, but we were never told how we were doing. Those of us that he decided couldn't hack it were ordered to report to the orderly room, without explanation, at the end of the next daily morning formation. When we returned to the barracks at the end of the day, the space on the floor where their cot and foot locker had been was bare. It was quite motivational!

I remember running the uphill bayonet course under the hot Georgia sun in mid-July. Bayoneting straw dummies or breaking their heads with a "horizontal butt stroke." I remember following a compass heading in the middle of the night through three miles of pitch black woods, while falling into ravines and avoiding simulated enemy lurking in the dark. And qualifying with every infantry weapon on its respective range.

I remember believing that the 37mm anti-tank gun would penetrate the armor of a German tank. And I remember my first 60 mm mortar round overshooting the target by 150 yards. Then correcting range and direction to see the 4x6 foot orange canvas target disappear in the smoke of the second round's impact. I crawled under double apron barbed wire carrying an LMG on my forearms, with live machine gun fire four feet overhead. While hidden school cadre threw OD pineapple grenades at us with their safety spoons gone and 4 second fuses hissing. We didn't know that the bursting charge had been removed, but exploding 1/4 lb. blocks of buried TNT added sufficient realism. I remember running the obstacle course against a stop watch with the TO yelling FASTER, FASTER! And swinging hand over hand across the Chattahoochee River on a rope stretched between the banks. Running the village fighting course, firing our rifles at pop up targets in doors and windows. Being ambushed in a ravine by live overhead machine gun fire which tore up the opposite bank and seeing the student leader of our patrol sit on the ground and cry. (He was gone next morning!) Marching back into the company area at the end of each day, exhausted in our sweat soaked green coveralls, but maintaining perfect formation at quick step march, with heads held high while loudly singing, "I've Got Sixpence."

And how well I remember my college ROTC and OCS buddies, Cox, Dupuis, Everett, Hutcheon, Lipphardt, Pangburn, Potzer, Schweiker, Stavros, Thompson, and Young. They too earned their gold bars, but they never came back from Italy, France, Germany and Okinawa.

I think the Army did a good job with Infantry OCS. The program was carefully planned, well implemented by a trained school cadre and managed by a capable staff of officers. The emphasis was always on leadership skills, consistent with the OCS motto, "Follow Me." It instilled in the officer candidates an intense need to destroy the enemy and to care for their men. The result was not perfection, but it provided the best possible leadership training in the short time available, while weeding out the unfit and developing good leadership qualities in those who showed promise. My class started with 200 men and 140 infantry second lieutenants were commissioned 97 days later. And as best I can remember, a new class started every day. (Overlapping).

Three months after graduating from OCS, I shipped out as an overseas replacement and was assigned to the Division that saw the most combat of any Division in the U. S. Army (3rd Infantry Division, 7th Infantry Regiment) on the Anzio Beachhead in Italy. And to the best of my knowledge, I was never referred to as a "90 Day Wonder."

And yet the term "90 Day Wonder," disparaging though it was intended to be by some, is really quite accurate when taken literally. When our country was suddenly attacked on two fronts by massive forces of tyranny, we were far from ready to defend ourselves and other free people of the world against this treachery. But the American people reacted swiftly and Infantry OCS was but one of many such programs of selection and training which made it possible for us to defeat the best armed, best trained and most experienced armed forces in the world at that time. We could have done even better with more time, but there was no more time. Schoolboys whose experience was limited to the Boy Scouts and high school sports rose to the challenge and became leaders of men in a life or death struggle. And the results of that effort and sacrifice, which was truly a "Wonder," is now a matter of recorded history. I was a "90 Day Wonder" and I say that with pride!

Hey Soldier, Where Ya From?

I met lots of people and made many friends during my army years in WWII. But they weren't friends in the way that we think of friends in civilian life. These were fleeting rather than lasting relationships. Perhaps a more fitting term would be buddies. Some might even use the word comrades, but that seems too stilted, like something out of a WWI novel. These friends were a port in a violent storm, an oasis on an endless desert of boredom, an island on a sea of loneliness and apprehension. They were someone to lean on, with whom to share the misery and uncertainty, or just kindred souls who briefly filled the lonesome void.

"Hey, soldier, where ya from?" These are among the saddest words I know, the words of a lonely, homesick soldier. He reaches out for a buddy who will ease the terrible loneliness with talk of home. These friendships might last for only a minute or two, for a day, or at most a few weeks, before the soldiers are sent their separate ways. The one thing they had in common was that once they parted, they rarely saw each other again.

I met John Rahill when we dumped our gear on adjacent cots at Ft. Meade, Maryland. I'd been in the Army for just six months. We were on the second floor of a barracks at the overseas replacement center. We shared the dubious distinction of being infantry replacement 2nd Lieutenants, headed we knew not where. Rahill had been plucked from the 10th Mountain Division in Colorado. I had been sent from the 13th Airborne Division in North Carolina. In neither case did we know why we were chosen, where we were headed, nor what the future held.

"Hey Lieutenant, where ya from?" we discovered that our homes were both in New Jersey, in towns only 20 miles apart. Rahill was tall and rangy and had played football at Caldwell High School. I had been captain of the track team at Roselle Park High School. We got along well and a tentative bond began to develop. As we went through our overseas processing, we joked with each other, with forced bravado, as we reaffirmed the beneficiaries of our G.I. life insurance and made out our last will and testament. All at the age of 22.

On a January night in 1944, we boarded a troop transport carrying a cargo of 5,000 replacement infantrymen out of Newport News, Virginia. Each of us felt alone. Rahill and I made a point of finding bunks in the same compartment in the hold. As we zig-zagged our way across the Atlantic to Casablanca, we gave a lot of private thought to what probably lay ahead. Foremost in our thinking was our determination to override our fears and carry out our responsibilities honorably, as we had been trained to do. "Follow me" was the motto of Infantry Officer Candidate School and we both knew what that meant. Between these periods of dire introspection, we swapped paper back books and forced ourselves to make cheerful conversation. Upon arrival in Casablanca, we were trucked to a tent studded replacement depot outside the city where we found bunks in the same eight man pyramidal tent. Rahill and I ignored the restriction to camp and went through a well worn hole in the fence after dark. Having seen the hit movie Casablanca, we hitchhiked into the city to see the real thing. We felt an urgent need to make the most of the time left us.

Next morning, about 1,000 of us boarded a long freight train composed of ancient 40 and 8's. (Freight cars with a capacity of 40 men or 8 horses). Rahill and I disregarded our car assignments and boarded the same box car for the three day trip across the Sahara Desert to Oran. Then, after a few days in yet another tent city, we boarded a small British steamer headed for Naples. We were part of a priority shipment of replacement infantry lieutenants urgently needed in Italy. Once again we were restricted, this time to the replacement depot at a race track north of Naples. Ignoring the order, we took off next morning and hitchhiked to Pompeii where we toured the ruins of that historic civilization. (What could the Army do to us? Send us overseas?)

A few days later, I was ordered to report to the 7th Infantry on the Anzio Beachhead and I boarded my LST for the overnight trip. I vividly remember trudging up the ramp and seeing large white letters over the gaping entry maw which read, "GATEWAY TO GLORY." (A patriotic gesture? Or a swabby's gallows humor?) I was alone now. My buddy Rahill did not yet have an assignment. We parted at the "repple depple" and I never saw him again.

That might well have been the end of this story, but in early 1946, now a civilian, I went to work as an engineer for the Curtiss-Wright Corporation in their Caldwell, N. J. plant I was in an office separated from the next room by a six foot high, wood and frosted glass partition. The next room was occupied by 6 or 8 Engineering Assistants, young college women hired during the War to perform some of the more routine engineering work. One of my co-workers, who had been a draft deferred engineer at Curtiss-Wright throughout the War, entered my office and I said, "Hey George, what's all the laughter about next door? Sounds like they're having a party."

"Yeah," he grinned, "One of the girls who worked here during the War came back for a visit and they're reminiscing about old times. Her name is Clarissa Rahill.

I was suddenly very attentive. Hey soldier, where ya from? I remembered that John Rahill was from Caldwell. Wouldn't it be great to see him again, to compare the experiences which followed our separation in Naples two years ago? We had some reminiscing to do too. My spirits rose in anticipation.

"Does she have a brother named John Rahill?"

There was a pause, then George said, "She did, but he was killed in action in Italy." Then another pause as George read my reaction. "Did you know him?" he asked somberly? I was stunned! I should not have been surprised that he had been KIA knowing the horrendous casualty rates suffered by Infantry Lieutenants in Italy, but the War was over, the killing had stopped and this was now. Rahill was my buddy! The coincidence of all this information coming together so suddenly at this place, at this time, with Rahill's sister in the next room was mind boggling. I said nothing, but George was perceptive and he knew the answer. After a further pause he said softly, "Would you like me to introduce you?"

My mind raced. What can I tell her? I wasn't with him when he died. I don't know where or how he died. Those are the things she would want to know. She's enjoying this moment of happiness. Why dredge up those painful memories of his death, which time has healed at least in part? What good could it possibly do? And I said, "No George. Let it rest." He understood and never mentioned it again. But I wonder to this day if I did the right thing. Hey soldier, where ya from?"

Addendum: 1/3/03

I was able to make contact with John Rahill's family via the Internet during the past year. His nephew, Major Roger W. Rahill sent me the following article which appeared in the 5/28/02 issue of "Herald Union", which is printed by the "Stars & Stripes" in Germany. I will be 82 years old tomorrow. - Russ Cloer

Article honoring Lt. John Grant Rahill, CO Baker Company, 1/1-179th Infantry, 3 Purple Hearts, Silver Star

***

I was commissioned a 2nd Lieutenant in the Infantry on 9/20/43 at Ft. Benning, Ga. Inf. OCS. Of the Twenty-one Rutgers Class of ‘43 ROTC grads commissioned 9/20/43, Eleven would be KIA in World War Two.

I was assigned to the 13th Airborne Division, 190th Glider Inf., Ft. Bragg, NC. on 10/10/43. Then I was reassigned to Ft. Meade, MD Overseas Replacement Center about 1/4/44 as replacement 2LT.

I left Newport News, VA about 1/23/44 aboard SS General Horace A. Mann, with 5,000 Infantry replacements. After brief stops at Repple Depples in Casablanca, Oran and Naples, I was assigned to 7th Inf. Reg't, 3rd Inf. Div. on the Anzio Beachhead. I was assigned platoon leader of the Intelligence & Reconnaissance (I&R) platoon out of Hq. Co. late Feb. 1944. Our primary assignment was recon, working out of Regimental HQ. I led one of the 1st patrols into Rome on 6/4/44.

A photo of me, on the left, in one of my recon jeeps, taken on the Anzio Beachhead in early 1944. The driver's name was Leo Perrault.

The Road to Rome

I had just turned 23 when I arrived on the Anzio Beachhead, 30 miles south of Rome, and was assigned to the 7th Infantry, 3rd Division. It was February 1944 and I was a replacement Infantry Lieutenant. Vivid memories of the combat which followed were etched in my memory forever. At night, the constant rumble and flutter of artillery overhead, theirs and ours. The rattle of machine gun fire, ours slow, theirs rapid. The ricochet of brilliant tracers skyward; ours red, theirs green or white. The wavering light of a parachute flare, lighting the flat and desolate landscape. The solid mass of white searchlight beams and red antiaircraft tracers over the harbor during air attack.

Outnumbered by the enemy two to one, with our backs to the sea. The sheer terror of incoming 88 mm fire from a German Tiger tank. The haunting cry of "Medic!" echoing through the night. And on a rare quiet night, the sound of the Krauts singing Lili Marlene. Bloated corpses and black flies. The sickening odor of death. Cold C or K rations. No sleep. Rain. Mud. Trench Foot. Malaria. The incredible loneliness. The joy of a letter from home! Sixty-seven days without a change of clothes. Horrendous casualties! More than 100% in the 7th Infantry Regiment plus an equal number lost to malaria and trench foot. Thousands of good men died there, three thousand in the 3rd Division alone.

And finally, reinforcements and the "breakout" at dawn on May 23, 1944. My Division lost three thousand men killed or wounded in the first three days. We fought our way through the battered town of Cisterna at night. Fires were everywhere from artillery and white phosphorous mortar fire. We choked on smoke, cordite, and cement dust from the shattered concrete buildings. A Sherman tank supported us, obliterating enemy strong points with its 75mm cannon at point blank range. The streets were littered with corpses lying where they fell, abandoned weapons, destroyed vehicles and collapsed buildings. This was what Hell must be like.

We fought our way north through the mountain villages of Cori, Giulianello, Artena, Valmontone, to Pallestrina. The fighting was savage. We left a scene of desolation behind us, burning tanks and vehicles, dead men and horses bloated in the Italian sun, their eyes and wounds covered with swarms of huge black flies, the odor indescribable. Fire, smoke and collapsed buildings destroyed by tanks, artillery and fire. Abandoned weapons, helmets, ammo and equipment of every description littered the landscape. Columns of Kraut POWs trudged to our rear in shock, helmets and weapons gone, hands clasped above heads bowed in submission. The residue of war.

Twelve days of bitter fighting and on the night of June 4, 1944, I reported to Colonel Wiley O'Muhundro's dugout, as ordered. "Lieutenant, there's a rumor that the Krauts have declared Rome an open city and are pulling out. I want you to take a patrol into the city and find out if it's true. And get back here fast. I'll have the 2nd and 3rd Battalions on trucks. I want my Regiment to be the first to enter Rome." I took four jeeps with 50 caliber machine guns and headed toward Rome with15 men. It was pitch dark. Smoke made visibility worse. We passed burning American tanks and recon vehicles, and dead soldiers along the Appian Way. We met no resistance. We saw nothing alive.

After five miles, we entered the city which was ominously silent. No trace of light anywhere. We saw no Krauts, no Americans, no civilians. In the total darkness, we expected to be ambushed at every corner. It was deathly quiet. Spooky. I had a street map, but I dared show no light to read it. We pressed on but were soon lost amid the narrow winding tunnel-like streets. Until we rounded a bend, entered a huge cobblestone piazza and there before us stood the Coliseum, silhouetted against the first blush of pink light in the eastern sky! It was a sight I'll never forget! The thrill of a lifetime! I stood in the midst of 2,000 years of history and I felt a strong sense of having added to it.

My driver found the way back and I reported to the CO. "How far into the city did you go," he accused? "As far as the Coliseum," I told him. He grinned and ordered the 2nd and 3rd Battalions in on trucks. Two days later the Allies invaded Normandy. We were no longer fighting alone.

Our decimated Division garrisoned Rome for one week. I visited St. Peters, the Vatican, the Sistine Chapel, the Catacombs, the Aqueducts, the Coliseum, the Forum, a wealth of history. Only one other Lieutenant from my group of twenty-one junior officer replacements, who joined the Regiment on the same day, made it to Rome. -- It was good to be alive!

Initiative

In May of 1944, during the Breakout from the Anzio Beachhead in Italy, the Third Infantry Division suffered twenty-eight hundred battle casualties in the first three days of the attack. The ancient town of Cisterna, which controlled access to NS Highway 5 (The Appian Way), was the initial objective. Having taken that objective, the next problem was to move northeast through the Alban Hills which surrounded us on three sides. Only in Italy would these be called hills. They reached 3,000 feet and had only a few unpaved roads running EW on which to bring our tanks, artillery and supply vehicles forward. The entire Beachhead force, some seven Divisions and their supporting units, took to the few roads available and conditions quickly became chaotic.

As Platoon Leader of the Intelligence and Reconnaissance (I & R) platoon, I was ordered to patrol to the northeast and report on road conditions, traffic and the fighting. At dusk, I left the 7th Infantry CP, which would soon be abandoned on the basis of my report on conditions ahead. Before we reached the first rise in the ground, my jeep was stopped by a line of traffic all trying to move eastward on the single, narrow, unpaved road to Artena. Field artillery, tanks, antitank guns, engineers, medics, wiremen, and service company trucks carrying ammo, rations, water and gasoline were parked in a seemingly endless line at the side of the narrow, unpaved road. I was impressed with the training and discipline of the drivers. Although there was no traffic coming toward us, not one of the hundreds of eastbound drivers tried to move up by driving on the left side of the road. They all pulled over and turned off their ignition switches. We waited like everyone else.

Around midnight, we saw and heard a small airplane with a muffled engine coming toward us from up ahead. As we watched, I could trace the trail of a Feisler Storch, a German light reconnaissance aircraft similar to our Piper Cub, by following the tiny blue flames from its single engine's exhaust stacks, a few hundred feet overhead. The Storch was easy to recognize because of its two unusually long landing gear struts, which gave it the appearance of a stork in flight, hence the German name Storch. It was flying very low, very slow and very quietly. It flew directly above the road headed west, no doubt counting the tanks, trucks and artillery pieces of the advancing American Army. When it had disappeared from sight, I thought to myself, "He's got to come back this way to get to his base. He'll probably come back down the same road for a second look."

I told my driver to move the jeep about 50 yards into the cleared field on our right and park it. The jeep had a 50-caliber machine gun mounted on a pedestal in the center of the vehicle. I checked to be sure it was ready to fire and that the feed had a full box of ammunition. I then pointed it at the spot over the road where the Storch was likely to reappear, if he did in fact come back. And I watched and I listened and I waited.

About five to ten minutes later, I began to hear the same muffled engine noises as before. Then, the blue exhaust stack flame became visible. I took careful aim, leading the target by a plane length to compensate for its forward speed. I fired about 30 rounds while swinging the muzzle to the right. The Storch went into a violent left bank and disappeared in the darkness. I didn't bring him down, but I may have put some holes in his airplane and apparently terminated his observation for the night.

Next morning at daybreak, the column began to creep forward slowly, in fits and starts, as we climbed into the hills. The narrow, unpaved road, through the wooded hillside, was littered with dead Germans, dead horses, wagons and equipment of every description. (A German Infantry Division at that time had more horses than men. They were draft horses, not riding horses.) I vividly remember seeing my first German Mark VI Tiger tank up close. It was huge! The tracks seemed at least three feet wide and its fearsome 88mm gun, with its characteristic muzzle brake, seemed impossibly long. The tank appeared to have been abandoned at roadside because of mechanical failure or lack of fuel. Those were the only things that could stop the 72-ton Mark VI Tiger with its eight inches of armor plate! After another half mile, the column stopped again and the drivers dutifully pulled over, turned off their engines and settled in to wait.

Even though only a 2nd Lieutenant at the time, I felt I should be doing something to help untangle this mess, but I didn't know what. I was reluctant to go forward, to pass all the stopped drivers doing what they had been trained to do. Fortunately, there was no air threat, or we would have been strafed. Our Air Corps had complete air supremacy. In fact, there was a story going around at that time about a Kraut replacement being indoctrinated by his sergeant. "Look up," the sergeant said, "always look up! If you see silver airplanes, they're American. If you see camouflaged airplanes, they're British. If you don't see any airplanes, it's the Luftwaffe."

In Infantry OCS we had been taught to exercise initiative and to be decisive. "Even a bad decision is better than no decision at all," we were told. I decided to have my driver take me forward in the left lane, despite standard operating procedure. My objective was not to get a better place in line, but to see if there was anything I could possibly do to help break this logjam.

Steele pulled out and we made our way forward past some pretty mean looks from the parked drivers, who were now spending their second day in line. "Lookit that smart-ass 2nd Lieutenant movin' up to the head of the f---in' line! Who the f--- does he think he is!" One more mile and the woods ended. There were rolling fields ahead and the sound of heavy rifle, machine gun, and incoming artillery and mortar fire assaulted our ears. Just inside the last patch of trees, two jeeps were parked off the road and two Lt. Colonels were studying a map spread out on the hood of one of the jeeps. Several staff members were standing around at a respectful distance. Small arms fire crackled overhead. I had Steele park close enough so I could see and hear what was happening. It became obvious that the column of vehicles had caught up to the rifle companies and could go no further. One of the Colonels was an Infantry Battalion commander agonizing over the fact that his attacking battalion was being chewed up by the Krauts because he had no artillery support. The other colonel was the Artillery Battalion commander who could offer no help because all of his guns had bogged down in the traffic jam, while attempting to move up within firing distance.

I walked over to the two Colonels, a lowly 2nd Lieutenant with a single tarnished gold bar, and said, "Sir, I'm Lt. Cloer, 7th Infantry Recon Platoon. If you tell me which artillery unit you want, I'll pull it out of that traffic jam and get it up here." They looked doubtfully at me and each other but their demeanor said, "What have we got to lose?" The artillery Colonel said, "I need any vehicles from the 10th Field Artillery. The guns are being towed by 1 ½ ton trucks with gun crews and ammo aboard."

Steele and I hurried back down the column. We knew, of course, that the Army used a uniform marking system on its vehicles which made it easy to identify the unit to which they belonged. On the front and rear bumpers, the unit designation was stenciled in white on an olive drab background, in this case, "3-10FA," Third Division, 10th Field Artillery Battalion. We hurried back down the column, slowing only when we identified a 10th Field truck. I yelled, "10th Field only, pull out and move to the head of the column!" Response from the drivers was magnificent! In the first mile and one half, we sent four trucks forward, towing their 105mm howitzers, complete with gun crews and ammo. We then went forward again, but this time I got no dirty looks from the drivers still waiting in line.

When we returned to the edge of the woods, the first two guns were firing. The Artillery Colonel had marked out positions for the remaining two and they too were firing within a few minutes. I felt really good about what I had done. Not only was it essential to continuing our advance on Rome, but it almost certainly saved American lives as well. And nobody else had thought of it! Or perhaps they had, but their training, discipline and the old adage, "Never volunteer," were too ingrained for them to act. It takes a certain amount of guts for a 2nd Lieutenant to walk up to two Lt. Colonels in a critical situation and tell them what they should do next.

The word "Thanks" is not one you hear very often in the Army, and never by a Lt. Colonel to a 2nd Lieutenant. And I didn't hear it this time. It just wasn't done. If you did something right, it was considered nothing more than what you had been trained to do. But the Artillery Colonel walked over to me after the fourth gun was firing and his words still ring in my ears, "Lieutenant, you sure earned your pay today!"

A Visit by the General

Following the breakout from the Anzio Beachhead on May 23, 1944, the 7th Infantry fought its way north through Cisterna di Littoria. By May 27, in hard fighting, we were still pushing north about 1 ½ miles NW of Artena. The Regimental forward Command Post was located in a gully recently vacated by the 1st Bn. C.P. It was about 200 yards off the unpaved road leading to Artena. We had been advised by 1st Bn. that this area was under enemy observation and any activity between the ravine and the road would bring accurate enemy shellfire into the ravine. Any vehicle which found it necessary to approach the C.P. in daylight was to stay on the road and turn off at a wooded area which provided a concealed path back to the ravine.

As platoon leader of the I & R platoon, I was responsible for C.P. security along with my Intelligence and Reconnaissance duties. I was also responsible for the movement of enemy POW's from the three Bn. C.P.'s, back to Regiment for interrogation and then on to Division. To this end, I had two of my men assigned to each Bn. Hq. Co. on a rotating basis. One of these men was Sam Aldrich, an easy going southerner, always agreeable, always good natured. He smoked an old corn cob pipe, which when not in his mouth, was stuck stem down in the top of his combat boot. He was kidded unmercifully by the other men because the acrid ‘juice' from the bowl had to be seeping down into the stem and then into his mouth when he lit up. Sam took it all good naturedly and just grinned.

The day before we moved forward into the 1st Bn. C.P., Sam's partner came back guarding two Kraut POWs with the news that Sam had been hit by 88mm shell fire, had lost his leg at the knee and had been evacuated. When we moved forward into the former 1st Bn. C.P., one of the first things I noticed was a bloody human leg, severed at the knee, lying in the bottom of the ravine. There was an old corncob pipe stuck in the top of the combat boot. It was Sam's leg and I had the men bury it. It was a very sobering experience.

I had the men dig two man foxholes deep in the sides of the ravine and after seeing Sam's leg, they needed no encouragement. They dug like ferrets! My platoon runner, PFC Bigler, dug a hole for me and himself at a location I designated. The colonel and his immediate staff moved into a sandbagged room-size bunker built into the side of the ravine earlier, either by the 1st Bn. or by the Krauts before them.

We hadn't been there long when one of my lookouts announced that there was a jeep approaching across the field via the most direct route from the road. We had been warned not to use this route in daylight because it was under enemy observation. As the jeep drew closer, we could see that there were three people in it and there was a one foot square red placard on the front bumper with a large silver star in the middle designating that one of the occupants was a General. My lookout swore softly. The jeep pulled up to the rim of the ravine, the General scrambled down the steep 25 foot slope and headed for the C.P. bunker at a very fast walk. The other two people were his aide, a major, and his driver, a sergeant, Neither of them followed him into the bunker. They stood in the bottom of the ravine to await his return.

As the jeep approached the rim, I had yelled for my men to take cover in their foxholes. I then waited just long enough to see that the General was in fact a General and had entered the C.P. bunker safely. I then ran to my foxhole. My runner, PFC Bigler was already in it. It took maybe ten more seconds before the first shell came in. It was terrifying! The 88mm high velocity, flat trajectory shell travels so fast that the first sound you hear is the ear-splitting crash of the shell burst. This is followed a fraction of a second later by the fearsome crack of its supersonic flight and then by the soft boom of the muzzle blast a half mile or so away. I wasn't counting the shell bursts but there must have been about five and they were all inside the ravine!

There was then a lull of about 30 or 40 seconds and Bigler said, "Lt., shouldn't we be checking to see what we can do for the wounded? Nothing was further from my mind! How did we know the 88 was through firing? I waited another 10 seconds and then my sense of duty forced me out of our hole to check the ravine. All of my men were in their deep foxholes and seemed OK. But the General's aide and his driver had no foxhole. The sergeant was sitting on the floor of the ravine exploring his face with his hands. As I came up beside him, I saw in profile that he had no face! It was gone, from his eyebrows to his neck! The eyes, the nose, the mouth, the chin, nothing was left but a bloody red maw which he pawed at, fully conscious and trying to understand. He was choking from the blood in his throat. What can you do for a man like that? You feel helpless and frustrated because you know there is nothing you can do!

I moved to the major who was lying on his back. He had a bloody hole in the center of his chest, but he too was conscious. There was no arterial spurting, but blood was leaking out steadily. He asked for water. Perhaps he shouldn't have it with a chest wound. But I didn't have the strength to deny it. After warning him of that, I tilted my canteen and let an ounce or two drip into his mouth. He asked me to lift his head so he could swallow it. He couldn't raise his head alone. I did.

About then, a medic showed up from the bunker. He gave the sergeant a shot of morphine and began wrapping his head in white gauze, from his neck up to the top of his head, round and around and around. By this time, the sergeant was unconscious. The Regimental Surgeon now showed up from the bunker. He had called for an ambulance by radio or field telephone. I asked him if he thought the sergeant would "make it," our euphemism for "survive." His answer was a soft, "I hope not." We now found out that one of my men, Corporal Fennell, had been wounded in his foxhole. A shell fragment struck him in the buttocks and went on through to tear up his intestines.

The ambulance, with enormous red crosses on a white background, now came up the road and turned off to cross the same shortcut the General had taken. I thought to myself, "Oh man! Here it comes again!" But he parked right next to the General's jeep on the lip of the ravine and nothing happened. The three badly wounded men were loaded aboard and he then drove back to the road and wherever they take wounded men in that condition. The German gunner didn't fire. I know what the Geneva Convention says about firing on medical personnel but the rules were observed only sporadically.

I wonder to this day if the General's trip was worth the cost. And whether the German gunner could see the General's ostentatious silver star on the red plaque through his binoculars. And whether the General knew that he should not have approached the C.P. by that route, or if he thought rules don't apply to Generals and besides, if he moved quickly, he could make it to the bunker before the gunner could fire. He destroyed the lives of three other men making his point, whatever it was.

Later in the day, the Regimental Surgeon asked me if I wanted a Colt 45 caliber pistol. I was not authorized to wear one. My weapon was the 30 caliber carbine. But it was a comforting feeling to have that reserve firepower on your hip and I hastened to say yes. I was to carry it for the rest of the War. It was only after I noticed the fresh red blood stains on the top of the brown leather holster that I realized where it came from.

HUMOR & MORALE

In May 1944, an aging 2nd Lieutenant joined the 7th Infantry Regiment as a replacement officer on the Anzio Beachhead in Italy. He was in his late thirties and in civilian life he had been a school teacher. Because of his age, he was not assigned to a rifle platoon, but rather, was made a Liaison Officer on the Regimental Staff. Lt. White, was a rather prissy individual and being the junior officer on the staff, he was singled out as the butt of jokes on those rare occasions when timing and environment made jokes acceptable. Some thought him rather strange because of his huge handlebar mustache which he kept waxed and carefully groomed with the tips curled up into half circles. His small, perfectly round, steel-rimmed G.I. glasses rounded out his bizarre appearance.

Jokes and horseplay were a rare commodity in an Infantry Regiment, what with the maiming and dying that went on daily. What little humor there was, was of the black variety, as illustrated by Bill Mauldin's cartoons in the Stars and Stripes, the Army newspaper. They were pertinent, subtle and timely, poking fun at the Army, the rear echelon, officers, and the hardships of the Infantryman's lot. The men regarded Mauldin as one of their own, which he had been as a private in the 45th Infantry Division. He showed a remarkable insight into the mind of the Combat Infantryman. That type of humor, frequently misunderstood or not understood at all by outsiders, gave the men a much needed chuckle and a release from the terrible stress and pressures of War.

"I need a couple guys what don't owe me no money fer a little routine patrol"

After the Anzio breakout and the taking of Rome, the Third Division, decimated by battle casualties, moved from Rome to a wooded area near Naples for a few weeks, to take on replacements and to train for the amphibious assault on Southern France. During one of these training exercises, Lieutenant White was assigned as loading officer for a group of LCTs (Landing Craft, Tank) taking aboard thirty-five ton Sherman tanks. The first LCT pulled up to the dock, bow first, and lowered its ramp onto the concrete at a twenty-degree angle. There was no convenient bollard to tie up to, so the Navy crew applied forward thrust to hold the LCT against the dock. Lieutenant White, in charge of loading, waved the first tank forward. When the tracks were half on the ramp and half on the dock, the climb proved too steep and the engine stalled. The driver restarted, shifted to a lower gear, raced the engine and let out the clutch. The thirty five-ton tank leaped forward, and with the rubber padded steel tracks gripping the concrete dock rather than the slick metal ramp, the tank pushed the LCT away from the dock, continued on, and with an enormous splash, sank in fifteen feet of water. Fortunately, all hatches were open and the tank crew members bobbed to the surface like so many corks.

The next day, Lt. White was served with a "Statement of Charges," an Army form used to enforce the regulation which held a soldier personally responsible for the cost of any piece of government property lost, damaged, or destroyed as a result of the soldier's negligence, or neglect. The form read as follows: "Lt. White is held responsible, as loading officer, for the loss of one (1) Sherman tank due to his negligence during a loading exercise in the Bay of Naples, Italy. The tank is valued at $75,000. Lt. White is hereby held liable for repayment of this sum to the government of the United States. Toward this end, eighty per cent of all pay and allowances due or to become due will be withheld from said officer's monthly pay until such time as this debt is satisfied."

Lt.White didn't have to be a mathematical genius to figure out that eighty percent of $150 per month is $120 or $1440 per year and it would therefore take him fifty-two years to pay off this debt, assuming no interest charges.

Of course, he knew about Statements of Charges, but they were never used in combat. Soldiers routinely threw away government property; gas masks, ponchos, camouflage capes, mess kits, ammunition, leggings, and none had ever been served with a statement of charges in combat. But we weren't in combat now! We were training in a rear area and many high ranking sticklers for regulations routinely enforced rules in rear areas that the combat veterans thought unnecessary. Besides, this document was signed by the Regimental Commander, a West Point full Colonel, a no-nonsense leader, fair but not known to make jokes or even to smile. (Colonel Wiley O'Muhundro). The story spread rapidly while Lt. White worried himself sick. After allowing a few days for the story to complete its rounds, the Colonel told Lt. White it was only a joke and the entire regiment had a morale boosting laugh at the Lieutenant's expense. The butt of the joke was a member of the Regimental Staff, not a front line soldier, and he was a junior officer besides, which made the joke all the more enjoyable for the dogfaces. And the Colonel came out of it with recognition that he was a regular guy, a human being after all. The affair had a salutary effect on morale just when it was needed most, on the eve of a bloody amphibious assault landing in Southern France.

We made the D Day landing in Southern France at H+40 minutes near St. Tropez.

D Day - Southern France - 0800 - August 15, 1944

When the victorious 3rd Division marched into Rome on June 5, 1944, it was decimated after four months of vicious fighting on the Anzio Beachhead and the breakout to Rome. In those four months it had suffered 9616 battle casualties (killed, wounded or missing) and 13,238 non-battle casualties (mostly trench foot and malaria). (Ref. Division History.) Many of the survivors were inexperienced replacements or hospital returnees who were still on the mend. Average Division strength during that period was about 10,000 men which meant that the replacement rate was 230%!

The Division was given one week of R & R in Rome, then trucked to a wooded area north of Naples (near the town of Pozzuoli) to integrate replacements and to train for an assault amphibious landing. It would be on the coast of Southern France, although we were not told the location nor timing for security reasons. We slept in tents, washed in outdoor showers and ate hot food in an outdoor chow line. And we took an Atabrine pill every day to suppress the symptoms of malaria with which most of us had been infected in the Pontine Marshes on the Anzio Beachhead. There was a curious procedure for this. Since some soldiers apparently preferred malaria to infantry combat, an officer stood at the head of each chow line with a can of pills. As each soldier went by, he opened his mouth, the officer inserted the Atabrine pill on his tongue, and the soldier then took a swallow of water from his aluminum canteen cup. The officer was responsible to see to it that each man swallowed his pill. Once back in combat, the Atabrine pills disappeared.

On the other end of the chow line there were three large garbage cans. The first was for any food left over after the soldier finished eating. The second was hot soapy water in which he swished his empty mess kit to clean it and the third was very hot clear water to remove any soap and sterilize the mess kit. In Italy, there were usually a half dozen ragged Italian kids, each holding an empty gallon can that the kitchen crew had disposed of, begging for scraps of food before the soldier emptied his mess kit into the garbage can. Two rather famous cartoons came out of this. Bill Mauldin shows "Willie" in his combat regalia, holding his full mess kit while a ragged little girl with an empty gallon can looks up at him hopefully. The caption is "The Prince and the Pauper." The other was, I think, a "Sad Sack" cartoon. The first frame shows a similar scene. But the following frames show the little girl carrying her full can home and dumping it into the hog slop behind her house.

We had excellent maps and an accurate 20 foot sand table model of Red 1 beach on which we would land near Cavalaire-sur-Mer. There were detailed lectures on what we could be expected to encounter and how to cope with the defenses. We practiced endlessly loading and debarking from our landing craft, LST's, LCT's, LCI's and LCVP's. The landing craft were not noted for their speed. (There was a joke, popular at the time. How fast is an LST? It actually has four speeds. Ahead slow, reverse, full ahead and flank speed. Each of these is about six knots!)

The Generals gave us pep talks on how weak the enemy opposition would be and on the overwhelming strength of our Navy and Air Corps support. The chaplains were kept busy leading us in prayer and the attendance at services grew as the date of departure approached. Of course, the date and location were kept secret, but we knew we were getting close when a concertina barbed wire stockade was erected in the Regimental area and about 50 GI's, who were potential AWOL suspects, were confined under armed guard until they could be loaded aboard ship. Business picked up at the Aid Stations as a rash of self inflicted gunshot wounds broke out. Most claimed to have shot themselves in the foot while cleaning their weapon. We were issued gas masks and told to discard them once ashore if there was no gas. Service personnel would pick them up later. It's the only time throughout the War that I remember having to carry a gas mask except for the trip overseas and then we turned them in at the replacement depot before being assigned to a unit.

Shortly thereafter, we were told to pack up and we were trucked to the docks in Naples. The Italian civilians told us we were headed for Southern France, not the Balkans as some suspected. That was fine with me because I spoke French fluently at that time. No word from our superiors until we were told to turn in all our Italian Occupation Lire in exchange for Occupation French Francs. (Two for one.) A Lire was worth 1 cent American, a Franc 2 cents American. Possession of American money was illegal. We were assigned to landing craft and we climbed aboard. My company of approximately 150 men was assigned to an LCI (landing craft infantry). The medium sized LCI had a pointed nose, but narrow ramps on either side of the prow which could be dropped on the beach to exit. As we slowly drew away from Naples and out to sea on August 9, 1944, I remember looking back over the fantail at the thin trail of smoke rising from Mt. Vesuvius and wondered who would and who would not survive this one.

We had been told that the convoy was enormous; battleships, aircraft carriers, cruisers, destroyers and more landing craft than were landed in Normandy on June 6. But the convoy was so spread out that we could only see four or five ships from our position through the thin haze and smoke. Six days after leaving Naples, the convoy arrived off the beaches between Cavalaire-sur-Mer and St. Tropez. The assault was made by three Infantry Divisions, the 3rd, 45th and 36th, all of which had compiled stellar combat records in Italy and Sicily. Naval guns saturated the shoreline before H Hour which was 0800. Return fire, both artillery and small arms was lighter than expected. But there were mines and tetrahedrons in the shallow water and three of my Division's LCI's were blown up with a loss of 60 men Missing In Action. This caused some changes in plans and my platoon, which was scheduled to hit the beach at Hour + 40 minutes, was held up for almost an hour.

D Day Southern France, 0800, 8/15/44

(Smoke covered beach from LCI ramp)

We watched as the small LCVP's circled until all were present for a given wave and then they separated and headed for the beach in a more or less straight line parallel to the shore. This tactic avoided concentrations of men and landing craft which would have made the enemy's job easier. Shellfire from our Navy's big guns rumbled overhead. Nearby were flat bottom LCT's whooshing off rockets row after row with terrifying screams as each rack went off. Small Navy ships (destroyers?) equipped with smoke generators raced back and forth along the beach. The beach was covered with smoke so the Krauts couldn't see what was coming at them.

A rope cargo net was thrown over the side of our LCI and one of the smaller LCVP's (landing craft, vehicle, personnel) came alongside. Because of LCI losses to mines, a change of plans had been made. We clambered down the rope cargo net which had been thrown over the side of our LCI (hold the verticals dummy, or your hands will be stepped on!) and jumped into a small LCVP which was bobbing up and down below us. Once aboard, we joined the circle, became a line parallel to the beach and then our wave went in.

I stood up front right behind the raised loading ramp and my 35 man platoon crowded in behind me. Enemy mortar, artillery and rocket fire caused water spouts which we could see above the high sides of our LCVP and small arms fire crackled overhead. We couldn't see the beach. The front and sides of the LCVP were too high. I saw no fear shown by anyone. Nor enthusiasm. We had a job to do, we had been trained to do it and Army discipline took over. Military discipline is a hard thing to explain. We knew what was expected of us and we would do it to the best of our ability regardless of the dangers. We had stopped independent thought when we boarded the LCVP. Our minds went into a different mode. Our actions were programmed and we would follow the script.

D Day Southern France

88mm gun on beach

My first surprise was that the Navy Coxswain ran the LCVP right up on the beach, dropped the ramp and I stepped off onto dry sand! Didn't even get my feet wet! This was very unusual because of the Navy's fear of mines in shallow water. We had been trained to "GET OFF THE BEACH!" because that's where the mortar and shellfire was falling. So I ran forward with a loud "Follow Me" and found that the 50 yard wide strip of trees between the coast road and the sand, unlike our sand table model, had all been felled toward the water, creating an almost impassable barrier! I got my 3rd surprise when I looked back for the first time and saw my men in single file, jogging after me in my footprints! If someone was going to step on a mine, let it be the Lieutenant! Some of these men had made as many as five previous landings under fire, Casablanca, Sicily; Salerno, Italy and Anzio. I quickly found a passage through the felled trees that someone had gone through before and therefore seemed less likely to be mined or trip wired. We took up firing positions along the slope of the slightly elevated coast road with one of the rifle companies.

Resistance at this stage was surprisingly light. Instead of a solid wall of concrete bunkers like those encountered in Normandy, we met only scattered small arms fire and intermittent artillery and mortar fire on the beaches. There were a few 88 mm guns in log surrounded emplacements, but it appeared that the crews had fired a few shots at the landing force and then fled. The POW's we took fitted the mold we had been told to expect. Lots of older men and young boys with a large percentage of Russian and Polish volunteers who had apparently accepted this assignment in lieu of forced labor in German POW camps. And one fairly large group of German soldiers that I saw, had small rectangular black mustaches under their noses, just like Adolph Hitler's. It was not apparent whether they were doing this voluntarily as a show of support for the Nazi cause, or whether they had grown the mustache under orders from their superior officers. By the time my platoon landed, about an hour after the first wave, the beach area had been pretty well cleared of enemy resistance by our Battle Patrol. Despite the lighter than expected resistance, my Regiment lost 58 men KIA and about 250 WIA. Many of these were from mines rather than aimed fire. The 3rd Division took 1627 enemy POWs on D Day.

The stiffest resistance was met at Cape Cavalaire, a promontory jutting out into the sea and capped with artillery, mortars and machine guns covering the landing beaches. This was similar to Point Du Hoc in Normandy. The relatively light casualties in the 7th Infantry in taking this vital strong point, were largely due to the bravery of one man, Sergeant James Connor of the Battle Patrol. Conner was knocked down and seriously wounded in the neck by the same hanging mine that killed his platoon leader. Refusing aid, he urged his men across several hundred yards of mined beach under heavy fire from mortar, 20 mm flak guns, machine gun and rifle fire. Taking over as platoon leader, Sergeant Connor inspired his men forward. He received a second painful wound which lacerated his neck and back, but he refused evacuation and impelled his men to assault the enemy gun positions on the hilltop. His third grave wound, this one in the leg, felled him in his tracks, but still he urged his men on from the prone position. Less than 1/3 of his original 36 man platoon remained, but they took the enemy position, killing 7 and capturing 40 of the entrenched enemy. They stopped all enemy fire on the landing beach from this vantage point. Sergeant Conner was awarded the Medal of Honor.

The principal mission of my platoon the first day was to move about a half mile inland, establish and secure a new Regimental C.P. ashore and to assist the rifle platoons in the guarding and evacuation of the many POW's by loading them aboard returning LCVP's. Engineers swept the beach for mines and marked cleared paths after which our vehicles started to come ashore.

We moved inland rapidly against relatively light resistance. We were told that a radio intercept had ordered the Krauts to delay their counterattack until they were out of range of our naval gunfire. D-Day objectives were achieved by noon of the first day. Our vehicles came ashore and we moved rapidly northeast toward Avignon and the Rhone River Valley which was the primary road, railroad and river route north toward Besancon, Montelimar and the Belfort Gap. My recon platoon was on the move almost continuously, feeling out the next defensive stand of the fleeing enemy. We were overwhelmed with Kraut POW's, many of whom seemed glad to have the opportunity to surrender to the Americans. When one of my recon jeeps with four men was late getting back from what I thought was an easy mission, I went looking for them in another jeep. I found them eating ripe melons at the side of a road which bordered a huge melon field. The weather was beautiful and you would think they were on a picnic!

We bypassed the ports of Marseilles and Toulon and left the mop up of enemy, who were now completely cut off from retreat, to the French forces which had landed on our left. The town of Montelimar was a key early objectives because it controlled the entrance to the Rhone Valley passage north. This escape route was choked off early by our artillery, infantry and air force and the retreating enemy forces were trapped between our attack and the Rhone River. Twelve miles of roadway was covered with thousands of dead horses, smashed carts, burned out vehicles and blackened corpses. It later served as an introduction to War for replacements coming into Marseille and moving up to join us in the Vosges Mountains and the Colmar Pocket. At that time, August 1944, the Germans had more horses in an Infantry Division than they had men. These were draft horses pulling carts, wagons, and artillery pieces. There were some vehicles, but the Germans were critically short of gasoline and diesel fuel. Many of the military vehicles and most of the confiscated civilian vehicles were run by charcoal burners which piped a combustible gas to the engine. What little fuel was available was apparently saved for tanks and aircraft.

Montelimar, France - August 1944

(Remains of German 19th Army fleeing north.)

We fought our way north against relatively light resistance in what the G.I.s called the Champagne Campaign. Little did we realize what bitter fighting lay ahead in the Vosges Mountains and the Colmar Pocket.

Il y a des Boches en bas!

(There are German soldiers in the cellar!)

Another jeep Recon patrol in Southern France on a beautiful Indian summer day in 1944, this time to find a suitable location for the forward displacement of the Regimental CP. I took all four of my jeeps and fifteen men, since we carefully marked the route for others to follow, eliminating the need to go back. There were no front lines, as such. The Krauts were slowly withdrawing to the north, stopping only to defend favorable terrain. The situation was "fluid" which means in this case that neither side knew for sure where the enemy was.

We drove through a small French town to the continuous ringing of church bells. French civilians of every age and description lined the road, cheering, throwing flowers, offering wine and fruit, many crying with joy after four years of brutal occupation. A very pretty young woman danced up to our jeep on the driver's side. Steele braked to a stop, and she gave him a big hug and a kiss. I was riding in the front passenger seat. She leaned forward between Steele and the steering wheel and was about to give me a kiss too, when she suddenly recoiled and backed away into the crowd. I couldn't imagine what I had done to cause this reaction. I turned to Steele and said, "What do you suppose that was all about?" He gave me a salacious grin and said, "I squeezed her titty!" I said, "Steele, you may be the best jeep driver in the company, but you're no gentleman." To which he replied, "You got that right, Lootenant."

I found a large chateau in late afternoon in the area that the Colonel had designated on his map. I reserved the main house for the War Room, the Colonel and his staff. There were a number of small workers' cottages on the land and after setting up defensive positions around the CP, I occupied the northern most cottage with Steele and my platoon runner, Bigler. The house was on the side of a hill abutting a small lake which was surrounded by trees. The rest of my patrol moved into other isolated worker's cottages within a few hundred yards.

I enjoyed conversing with the farm worker and his wife in their language. My four years of French language study served me well. It was almost dusk and they invited the three of us to have dinner with them. We offered to share our C rations, much to their delight. The woman went down the cellar stairway to get some potatoes and several minutes later returned with an apron full. But her face was as white as a sheet! She whispered in my ear, "Il-y-a des Boches en bas!" "Combien?" I asked. "A-peu-pres douze!" "Est-que-ils a des fusils?" "Oui, beaucoup de fusils!" She was telling me that there were twelve armed German soldiers in the cellar!

I acted reflexively. "Bigler, cover the cellar door with your Thompson. Steele, round up as many men as you can find quickly, including Nessman with his machine gun. I'll cover the cellar door and windows from outside. Move!" In a few minutes we were in position. It was almost dark. Corporal Nessman was fluent in German and I had him shout at the outside cellar door, "We know you are in there. Drop your weapons and come out with your hands up." No response! Could the woman have been mistaken? Not likely. Once more, in German, "Kommen sie hier mit der hande hoch, Raus!, Schnelle!, or grenades are coming in through the door and windows!"

After a brief hesitation, we heard shuffling noises and then "Kamerade!" the standard Kraut expression for surrender. Three Krauts came out with their hands clasped overhead. Where were the other nine? The lead Kraut then told Nessman that their sergeant, having seen us enter the area, hid them in the cellar and was waiting for dark to escape. When the French woman entered the cellar, they held her as long as possible without alerting us to their presence, then went out the window nearest the woods. Three decided to give up and lagged behind. I checked out the cellar and the rest were gone.

They could just as easily have crept up the cellar stairs and killed the three of us before we realized we were in danger and then made their escape through the woods. They had rapid fire machine pistols, while our weapons were stacked in a corner, except for the 45 caliber pistol on my belt. In retrospect, I think they may have been a Recon patrol like us, with orders to get information but to shoot only if fired upon. Or possibly, they were a combat patrol left behind to shoot up what was a likely command post location. But after seeing the four jeeps with 50 caliber machine guns, they decided that their chances of escape were better if they didn't start a firefight.

Motorcycle Mystique

My earliest recollection of a motorcycle goes all the way back to 1925 when I was four years old. My parents, my sister and I lived in a second floor apartment in Jersey City, New Jersey. We had no car, but my father owned a red Indian motorcycle with a side-car which he kept in a nearby rented garage. On a pleasant Sunday, my mother would sometimes say, "Let's take a ride up to Sussex County for a breath of fresh air." My father would get the motorcycle while my mother fixed a picnic lunch and off we would go to spend the day in what was then sparsely populated farm country. In winter, my father removed the engine and transmission and stored them under his bed when he wasn't overhauling them on the kitchen table.

So, not surprisingly, my first ride on a motorcycle was a very memorable event. It took place in France in 1944. I was platoon leader of the 7th Infantry I & R platoon and I spoke French quite fluently at that time. We had just liberated another French farming village and the villagers crowded the roadside to offer us hugs, kisses, fruit and wine. But one old farmer heard me speaking his language and came over to my jeep to begin jabbering away, as the French were wont to do. He had a greater gift to offer. He told me that the Germans had left behind a motorcycle in apparently good condition, because they had run out of gasoline, a constant problem for them. He had put it in his barn with the intention of turning it over to the Americans. We had a policy of not using enemy vehicles because we had enough of our own and to drive Kraut equipment was an invitation to death by "friendly fire." Besides, we had an image to maintain. We were an advancing American Army, not a bunch of gypsies!

But there is a certain mystique about motorcycles. My curiosity and pleasant memories of the old Indian demanded that I at least go look at the German machine. I told the farmer to climb in the back of the jeep and he guided us to his barn. I wheeled out the huge BMW (Bavarian Motor Works) machine and was fascinated by it! It radiated raw power and superb German workmanship. It was painted in the Wehrmacht light earth/dark earth flat camouflage colors and it was beautiful! I turned to my jeep driver. "Steele, how about getting that spare jerry can of gas off the back of the jeep and let's see if we can start this monster." We filled the tank, I turned on the ignition, kicked the starter crank, and was rewarded with the throaty roar of the engine. It was sweet music to my ears and my spine tingled. I familiarized myself with the controls. The temptation to ride it was just too great.

I had never ridden a motorcycle before, but I convinced myself in no time at all, that years of experience on a bicycle were sufficient training. I shifted to low gear and sedately cruised out of the driveway and onto the paved road. For the next half hour, I rode serenely through the beautiful French countryside at a leisurely pace. The feeling of exhilaration, the joy of the wind in my face, the sensation of controlling such power, and the complete sense of freedom I felt is indescribable. It was truly a one of a kind experience.

I took a different route on the way back and soon found myself on an unpaved road. I drove slowly and carefully, but as I leaned into one curve, the wheels slid out from under me and I found myself sliding down the road on my hands and knees at about 20 MPH. I picked myself up and sat at the edge of the deserted roadside for five or ten minutes and examined my scrapes, cuts and bruises while the shock wore off. The knees were gone from my wool O.D. trousers and both knees were raw and bloody. But my hands were worse. Both palms were lacerated and bleeding. The BMW was lying on its side, stalled out, but apparently no worse for wear. I cursed it soundly, stood it up and climbed back on. No piece of Kraut equipment was going to get the better of me! I started it up and the engine responded with a smooth musical burble which I took as a welcome apology. I drove back to the barn and told the farmer to hold onto the Hog and give it to the rear echelon troops which would follow us. Only then did I stop at the aid station to have the cuts and abrasions cleaned and sterilized.

But by far the worst part of the experience, was facing the men of my platoon. The story had traveled like lightning, and although no one said a word, I knew what they were all thinking. "How the hell could the Lieutenant do such a damn-fool thing? We would never have fallen off!" But we moved out the next morning, the lacerations healed and the motorcycle adventure was history.

I never rode a motorcycle again. The closest I came was on a Bermuda vacation, forty years later, when my wife and I rented Honda mopeds to tour the island. The moped was a far cry from the BMW and doesn't even count as a motorcycle. But I do remember passing a teen age native on his beat up moped. As I breezed by, he shouted after me, "GO, GRANDPA, GO!"

Vagney, France

From Maxonchamp, the 7th Infantry cleared Remiremont and pressed on toward Vagney, France and the Vosges Mountains. In early October 1944, our CP was established in a large two story stone house in an open field on the edge of Vagney. A two-lane road on our left led into the center of town. To the left of the road was heavily wooded high ground. Fighting had been heavy and we hadn't moved in several days.

Early one morning, I was ordered to lead a small patrol into the center of town and check the condition of the 1st Battalion CP, since all communication had gone out during the night. This was vitally important because with no communication from the Battalion CP, the rifle companies had no direction and Regiment and the Field Artillery could provide no support. I was also ordered to be on the lookout for "stragglers," a term used to describe men who had become separated from their company, for one reason or another, and were in no hurry to get back. Some were careful to not go far enough to the rear to be considered deserters, just close enough to be able to claim that they were trying to find their way back. They wanted a few days to collect their senses. Thankfully, I wasn't called upon to do this very often because I hated it! It was a Military Police function but there were no MPs this close to the rifle companies.

I took PFC Bigler, my platoon runner, and another man with me and we went in on foot. We crossed the destroyed bridge leading into town which was lying on the bottom of the shallow stream bed. Soon thereafter, we came upon a storefront with all glass gone from the windows. I looked inside and saw about a dozen GIs sleeping on top of six foot long restaurant tables. It was cold and they were all covered with their blankets. They hadn't even posted a guard! I walked inside and noticed that they had pulled the blankets over their heads and since the blankets weren't long enough, their combat boots stuck out the bottom end of the blanket. This was a very disagreeable assignment I had been given and I would have preferred to walk right on by. But, I couldn't ignore it. It was my duty to find out what was going on here. I drew the blanket back from the head of the nearest man and as I stared at his face, I realized that he wasn't sleeping. He was dead! I checked one more with the same result. I then realized that the battalion was using this restaurant as a collecting point for KIAs so that Graves Registration would have no trouble finding them. Here were a dozen men who had given their lives for their country and I had suspected them of malingering! That was a hard fact to live with and I never looked for stragglers again, orders or no orders!

We continued on through to the center of town. There was an American Sherman tank motionless and silent in the middle of street and three or four GIs wandering around where the CP was supposed to be. One of the men was a sergeant and seeing the silver bar on my helmet, he told me what had happened. A German patrol, consisting of a Mark IV tank and an estimated 30 infantrymen, came into the town during the hours of darkness, right down this same street. A firefight erupted and the GI's could hear, but not see, the German tank which moved forward in the darkness and stopped repeatedly. An American Sherman tank was hidden behind a house around the corner behind the CP. The tank platoon leader, 2nd Lieutenant James Harris, came forward on foot in the darkness to investigate. He was severely wounded by a burst of enemy machine gun fire and the man with him was killed instantly. He crawled back to the corner and directed his tank forward. He didn't have the strength to climb aboard. When the two tanks were head to head in the middle of the street, about thirty yards apart, they still couldn't see each other. A German light machine gun, off to one side of the street, opened fire on the American tank. The Sherman tank machine gunner immediately fired his machine gun on the source of the German tracers. The German tank, having now located the American tank by the source of its tracer bullets, fired three quick rounds from its high velocity 75mm main gun using armor piercing shells. (See photo). The three projectiles went clean through the heaviest armor plate on the Sherman, killing three men inside and severely wounded the fourth. Other GIs, firing from the street and windows, were hit by the Kraut small arms fire from other members of the patrol. The Kraut tank then began firing at the CP building with its main gun. There were further casualties and all communication was knocked out. Their job done, the Krauts then withdrew.

A medic found Lt. Harris in the street between the two tank positions, still conscious. The Lieutenant insisted that the medic look after the men in the tank first, only one of whom turned out to be still alive. The medic later returned to the Lieutenant and found that his leg was shot off at the hip and he was bleeding profusely. Lt. Harris, (756th tank battalion), was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for saving the Battalion CP from destruction, with all of the attendant effects on the battle.

A photo I took early that morning of the K.O.'d Sherman tank. Note the three holes in the front in the heaviest armor plate. That could be an unexploded rifle grenade on the ground although I don't remember. I don't know the sergeant's name. We used to say we had the best tanks in the world except for the Germans, the Russians and the British. It's a good thing we had so many. The 1st Bn. CP is to the right rear where you see the vehicles.

I found the Battalion CO and he confirmed what the sergeant had told me. He said he had wire men stringing wire back to the Regimental CP and expected to be in communication with the Regimental CO shortly. I returned to the Regimental CP and reported. We used the say that the American Army had the best tanks in the world, except for the Germans, the Russians and the British. It was true!

When I got back to the Regimental CP, I beefed up the defense and made arrangements with the 601 TD battalion, to get a Tank Destroyer (an armored vehicle that looked like a tank but had a more effective 90mm antitank gun, rather than the Sherman's 75mm gun) and stationed it out of sight behind the CP building. I was concerned that the Krauts, after their success at the 1st Battalion CP, might decide to take a crack at the Regimental CP. Late that afternoon, we came under attack. We were hit with mortar fire first and then machine gun and rifle fire from what appeared to be about one under strength Infantry platoon. My platoon was dug in, in positions surrounding the CP building, and we returned the fire with our rifles, BAR's and two light machine guns.

The Krauts were firing from the edge of the woods about 150 yards away. Suddenly, a German "flak wagon" poked its nose out of the woods and opened full automatic fire on us with its 20mm exploding shells. The "flak wagon" was a self-propelled vehicle with four 20mm antiaircraft guns which the Krauts used with equal effectiveness against ground troops. The crew was protected by a single sheet of armor, effective only against small arms fire. Our tank destroyer, which had been hidden behind the building, lumbered around the corner and scored a direct hit on the "flak wagon" with the first shot from its 90mm gun, tearing the "flak wagon" to bits. It then reloaded with HE (high explosive) shells and went to work on the enemy Infantry. The fight was over in minutes and the remaining Krauts withdrew into the woods carrying their wounded with them. We remained in our defensive positions throughout the night, but they didn't choose to challenge us again.

The Venerable Jeep

If the 2 ½ ton (6x6) truck was the workhorse of WWII, (and it was), then the jeep was the cavalry horse of the same era. The jeep's real name was truck, 1/4 ton, 4x4, G. P.- {G. P. for general purpose, hence the acronym jeep}. Its classic lines, its capabilities, reliability, durability and versatility will live forever in the minds of we who knew it.

I was platoon leader of the 7th Infantry I & R platoon in Italy, France and Germany. We had four jeeps which were essential to our reconnaissance missions. They were rated as having a load capacity of 1/4 ton (500 lbs). Mine carried four men with their weapons and equipment, a 50 caliber machine gun on a central pedestal plus ammo boxes, sandbags lining the floor in hope of some protection against a mine, a second spare wheel and tire hung on the wire cutter welded to the front bumper, and spare 5 gallon water and gas cans. Its cargo probably weighed in at twice the recommended max load yet it never once broke down even though traveling over some of the worst roads in Europe and cross country on no roads at all.

It had four wheel drive and an optional low range transmission which made it unstoppable by mud, snow and steep inclines, despite its having only a simple four cylinder engine. I never saw its canvas top. And the windshield was always down flat on the hood in its canvas cover so as not to obstruct firing to the front or cast reflected light which might give away our position. Comfort was not a factor. The canvas windshield cover served as a waterproof foot locker for the driver's personal belongings, which usually meant that any glass remaining in the windshield was cracked or shattered by a restless bottle of vino or some other hard object.

My jeep did have glass in the windshield for a very short time while we were out of the line near Naples. My driver drove me into the city one evening to deliver some documents to Division Headquarters. On the way in, the windshield was down and covered of course, which made things quite chilly at 35 miles per hour in the cool night air. I mentioned this to my driver. When we rode back about an hour later, I noticed that the windshield was up, it had clear glass in it and it was quite comfortable. I said nothing, but early next morning I saw the driver in the motor pool with a can of olive drab paint, painting out the words U. S. Navy on the metal panel just below the glass. The jeep windshield frame is fastened to the body with only two large wing nuts. He had obviously exchanged windshields with an unattended Navy jeep parked in the street. Better I shouldn't know!

The jeeps were made by Willys and Ford. Some had ignition keys, but most did not. A simple on-off switch precluded the embarrassment of losing one's keys. This, of course, made jeeps a priority item for theft in rear areas by both soldiers and black marketeers. The drivers had a habit of removing the distributor rotor when they had to leave their jeep unattended. But a really good driver always carried a rotor in his pocket. That way, if someone stole his jeep, he had only to put his rotor in the nearest unattended jeep and steal someone else's to replace it. On his next trip to the motor pool he would paint over the serial number on the side of the replacement jeep's hood and stencil in the serial number of his assigned jeep. A little touch up on the front and rear bumper unit designations completed the transition.

There were no springs in the seats, just a felt pad with a canvas cover on a heavy steel plate. It was a bone jarring ride at best, but it offered the advantage of not trying to eject you when the hard suspension hit a hole in the road, as did the Command Car, a larger and more luxurious vehicle used by some generals. There were no seat belts, sides nor doors on the jeep, and nothing for the passenger to hold onto. But one developed a sense of balance after awhile, almost like riding a horse, lessening the chances of being unceremoniously thrown out. I remember once seeing a jeep driver speeding back to the battalion aid station in France with a soldier in the front seat whose foot had been blown off, apparently by a mine. His lower leg rested on top of the hood, presumably to slow the loss of blood. The shin bone rattled audibly against the steel top of the hood. The driver steered with his left hand while cradling the wounded man's shoulders so he wouldn't fall out.

One of the reasons that the jeep was so reliable is that the drivers were trained in routine maintenance. Each driver was responsible for his jeep's condition and no one else was allowed to drive it. The drivers were young men, products of the Great Depression, one of whose first goals in life was to own their own jalopy. The jeep was their first car, their pride and joy , and they looked after it lovingly, just as if it really was their own. I only drove a jeep once. Officer's rarely, if ever, were seen driving. But I muscled my driver, on a trip once, to let me try it. He did and it was fun. But he appeared so nervous while I was driving that I turned the duty back to him after only a few minutes at the wheel.

In Southern France, we were making our way very slowly along a road lined with cheering French civilians after just having liberated their village. An especially attractive young lady danced over to the driver's side of my jeep and we came to a stop as she gave my driver a big hug and kiss. She then leaned forward between the driver and the steering wheel to give me a kiss too. But just before we made contact she recoiled and backed away into the crowd. I couldn't imagine what I had done wrong. I said to the driver, "What do you suppose that was all about?" He gave me a salacious grin and said, "I squeezed her titty." I said, "Steele, you may be the best driver in the company, but you're no gentleman!" His response: "You got that right Lootenant!"

When a Jeep Runs Over a Mine

My driver, PFC Steele was one of the best. He was alert, had exceptional night and day vision, and an uncanny sense of direction. I still marvel at his getting us to the Coliseum in central Rome on a midnight patrol to see if the Krauts had pulled out yet. And then finding his way back, with no wrong turns, and no map because we dared show no light! Through six campaigns, he never struck a mine which I attribute to more than luck. Thanks to his good driving, I was only in a vehicular accident once and it almost caused me serious injury. For some reason Steele was not available and I was riding with a substitute driver who wasn't paying attention. We were in the city of Strasbourg, France which we had just captured. There were no civilian vehicles on the streets and only a very occasional military vehicle to be seen. As we approached a major intersection with clear visibility in all directions, I noticed a military 2 ½ ton 6x6 truck bearing down on us from the road coming into the intersection at right angles to us. I didn't say anything because my driver had to have seen him and besides officers don't tell their drivers how to drive nor do they want a reputation of being a "nervous Nellie." So we crashed in the center of the intersection at considerable speed, the truck hitting us just forward of dead center on my side and driving us sideways for about 50 feet. Had the high bumper on the 6x6 not cleared the top of our hood and held the right side of the jeep down, it would have rolled us over and crushed us beneath the open topped jeep or under the wheels of the truck or both. Since there were no sides on the jeep, the truck's left front fender struck me in the right rear and broke two of my ribs. When we finished our mission, I stopped at the aid station and the "doc" taped my ribs and told me not to do any heavy lifting for a few days. The hardy jeep fared better and needed no repairs at all nor did the careless driver.

The 6.00 x 16 tires were sometimes a problem even though ruggedly built and usually in adequate supply. Both sides shelled the roads incessantly, particularly key intersections, when supplies were being moved up at night. The razor sharp shards left on the road were a constant menace to vehicle tires of all types.

The jeep was not fast but it could be pushed up to 60 MPH if necessary. During occupation duty, immediately after the war in Germany, we were riding on the autobahn at close to 60 on a downhill stretch. The drivers had never seen roads like this! Suddenly we heard the unmistakable blast of a 2 ½ ton truck horn right behind us. The damn fool wanted to pass! My driver looked into his rear view mirror and saw nothing. After a few more impatient beeps, an olive drab Piper Cub airplane, flying about 10 feet off the ground slowly passed us on the left, then picked up speed and left us behind, its crazy pilot grinning and waving wildly. These airplanes, which were capable to flying low and slow, were used for artillery spotting in combat. Some of the pilots, bored and anxious to be sent home now that the war was over, would mount a standard truck horn on their airplane and perform the maneuver described above to relieve their boredom.

There are still a few of the old olive drab wartime jeeps around, now much cherished by classic car collectors. When I occasionally see one on the road, the memories come flooding back.

I was promoted to Executive Officer, Hq. Co. (1LT) + I&R Platoon 12/1/44. Then we fought South to Colmar, Alsace (1-2/45).

Bloody Colmar Pocket

(Ardennes-Alsace Campaign)

By December 20, 1944, the 3rd Division had moved out of Strasbourg, and the 7th Infantry CP moved south to the tiny Alsation village of Hachimette. The German Ardennes offensive was five days old and the Krauts were still advancing steadily. Although we didn't know it, we were on hold. At General Eisenour's Headquarters, they were waiting to see if the German offensive in the Ardennes could be contained. If not, then the 3rd Division would either go north to attack the German southern flank of the Bulge or if it looked really bad, we would fall back and take up defensive positions in the Vosges Mountains. Strasbourg and Hachimette were both now surrounded on three sides by the Wehrmacht. We faced them in the east across the Rhine and they were 40 to 50 miles west of us to both north and south. But after less than a week in Hachimette, the German Ardennes attack in the Bulge began to collapse. Hitler then triggered "Operation Nordwind," an attack to the north out of the Colmar Pocket and south out of the southern flank of the Bulge. Its objective was to cut off the American Strasbourg eastward bulge of which we were part. We were sandwiched between the southern flank of the German Ardennes Bulge and the northern flank of the German Colmar Bulge.

The Colmar Pocket

Click for Larger Image

The First French Army was on our right, holding a line surrounding the Colmar Pocket, which was a bridgehead some forty miles long and twenty-five miles deep on the west bank of the Rhine River, still held by the Germans in strength. The French had proved incapable of driving them back across the Rhine. The First French Army was a collection of "Free French" from North Africa, made up mostly of Moroccans and Algerians under French officers. They were outfitted by the Americans, using American vehicles, weapons, uniforms, rations, artillery, and ammo.

The French were having trouble containing the Colmar Pocket, let alone eliminating it. As the German offensive in the Ardennes faltered, and German Operation Nordwind began, the American Third Division was temporarily assigned to the First French Army to help them destroy the German bridgehead on the west bank of the Rhine. The plan was that the Third Division would punch a hole through the northern edge of the German bridgehead and then the 2nd French Armored Division would go through them to sweep south and cut off the German retreat across the Rhine bridge at Neuf-Brisach. What actually happened was that the Third Division did, in fact, punch a hole through the German line as ordered and the French armor poured through. But instead of heading southeast to cut off the Germans at Neuf-Brisach, they went southwest to occupy the city of Colmar. We never saw the French after the first day of the attack. When we had cleared the last German from the west bank of the Rhine, the French government awarded the entire Third Division the Croix de Guerre which authorized everyone in the Division, to wear the red and green fourragere over the left shoulder. Not to be outdone, the President of the United States awarded us a Division Distinguished Unit Citation, one of only four awarded during the entire War. The other three went to the 101st Airborne (Bastogne), the 4th Armored (relief of Bastogne) and the 1st Marine (Guadalcanal). I visited our old battle area many years later while on vacation in Europe. I saw several War Memorials to the gallantry of the French soldiers in liberating Alsace and never a mention of the Americans.

Lt Cloer - Colmar

The Colmar Pocket was in the heart of Alsace. Most of the people spoke both German and French. The names of the towns gave an indication of the turbulent history of this border area. German names like Ostheim, Kunheim, Beisheim and French names like Ribeauville, Hachimette and Neuf-Brisach. The people were not friendly, but neither was there any overt resistance by civilians. This was farm country and the people were very poor. And the campaign was fought in the dead of winter, January and February 1945, in about a foot of snow at sub-freezing temperatures, the worst winter in fifty years! We rarely saw the civilians. They stayed in their cellars where they were relatively safe and didn't have to associate with us. We had no qualms about taking over their houses, but since this was technically still France, we allowed them to remain in their cellars. Later, in Germany, we often ran the occupants out. And the Wehrmacht soldiers that faced us were as tough and battle-wise as any we had ever encountered. They were initially flushed by the early German success in the Ardennes, by their belief that this was to be the offensive which would lead them to final victory, by the fact that their backs were to the Rhine and the next battle would be in their homeland.

Before leaving Strasbourg, we had received replacements and I became quite friendly with two young second lieutenants assigned to the Battle Patrol. Sharing the same house, I got to know Lt. Richard Brown, a friendly young man, quiet and unassuming. Lt. Stanley Petropolis, also billeted with us and was more the outgoing, self-confident type, but also very friendly. The third officer of the Battle Patrol, a direct opposite of the other two, was Lt. Bill Moeglin, a "man of the world" from Brooklyn, N.Y. His big concern at the time was that he had contracted a case of V.D. and if he reported for treatment, he would be transferred back to his former unit, Charlie Company. These three officers were all killed in action in the first ten days of the attack!

At the start of the attack, I remember trying to move through the French 2nd Armored Division in a small village near the city of Selestat. It was snowing, bitter cold and late at night. The roads were a sheet of ice. As I led the CP advance party into the village, I found the streets and roads almost completely blocked with French vehicles of every description; tanks, halftracks, trucks and jeeps. Many of them were in roadside ditches, having slid on the ice and then been abandoned. Every house in town was occupied by French troops, (Moroccans and Algerians). I found a French officer and demanded that he vacate one house for our Regimental CP. (I spoke fluent French at the time.) He refused! I demanded to see his senior officer and he agreed to take me to him. As we negotiated the icy streets on foot, a French tank came along, (an American built Sherman with French markings). He was moving slowly because the road was solid ice. As he approached a slight downward grade, the tank started to slide. The driver applied the brakes and the tracks locked. Nevertheless, the tank continued to slide slowly down the hill, all thirty-five tons of it, gradually picking up speed. It finally crashed through the wall of a house at the foot of the hill, the floor collapsed and the tank fell into the cellar! What a circus! The French officer took me to his CO who was more understanding. He ordered the junior officer to vacate whatever building I chose for our Regimental CP. We got out of there the next day and I never saw the French Army again until the War was over.

Progress was slow and the Germans fought back fiercely. Artillery fire was very heavy on both sides, and the villages in our path were almost completely destroyed. The weather was awful and the rifle companies, who for the most part could not take shelter in the buildings or their remains, suffered severely from the wet and the cold. Evacuations for trench foot and frostbite were very high.

My principal responsibilities during this period were recon patrols and CP defense. It was becoming almost impossible to find a building for the CP that was relatively intact and we were grateful that the Europeans used nothing but stone in their construction. On one of my Recon excursions through a town whose name I can no longer remember, I was subjected to my first German TOT (Time on Target). This was a deadly technique used by the artillery of both sides. What they did was aim every piece of artillery within range, perhaps several hundred guns, at a single target and all guns would fire simultaneously at a time which was predetermined to the second. Hundreds of rounds would come crashing in on the single target with no advance warning. The results could be devastating because there was no time to take cover. Fortunately I wasn't hit, but it was an experience one never forgets!

While I was still out on this recon, the direction of advance was changing and the Colonel wanted another recon to the village of Ostheim to set up an advance CP in that town. (I will never forget Ostheim!) Since I was not available, and the Colonel was not willing to wait for my return, he sent my CO, Captain Alarie and the Communication Officer, WO Keough, on the recon which would otherwise have been mine. When I returned to the CP, I was told that both Captain Alarie and WO Keough had been seriously wounded in Ostheim, both with shell fragment wounds in the neck, and both had been evacuated. (Neither returned until the War was nearly over.)

I was now the sole surviving officer in Headquarters Company! Brown, Petropoulos, and Moeglin had been KIA and Alarie and Keough had both been WIA and evacuated. We had lost five of our six officers in ten days! I was appointed Acting Company Commander and was ordered to take over the job that Captain Alarie and WO Keough had been attempting to do. I took Sergeant Anderson, the senior non-com in the Communications Platoon, and we set out for Ostheim with two jeeps and six men.

There was not a single building in the town of Ostheim left standing. The location I chose was not a building, but rather the largest pile of rubble in the area which still had an entrance to the cellar. Sgt. Anderson brought up some more men, set up a switchboard in the cellar and put men to work running lines to the Battalion CPs. I brought the rest of my platoon up and set up a defensive perimeter in the surrounding rubble. We were under heavy enemy shellfire and scattered small arms fire throughout this operation.

Many years after the War, I sought out Ostheim during a vacation trip to Europe. The village had been completely restored and I couldn't find the spot where I had located the CP. There was, however, one destroyed building left untouched as a memorial. The entrance was marked with a plaque headed "A Nos Mortes," which in English means "To Our Dead." Only two partial walls and part of a chimney were standing and it could have been our old CP. My eyes teared and I can't describe the emotion I felt upon seeing that memorial. I had my camera with me, but it seemed sacrilegious to take a picture at that moment.

We stayed in Ostheim for two days and then moved forward again to the village of Kunheim. The advance had ground to a halt with the rifle companies deployed in the farmland between Kunheim which we held and the next town, Beisheim, which the Germans held. The towns were less than a mile apart. Our CP was in a farmhouse at the southern (forward) edge of Kunheim and I had part of my platoon in another farmhouse across the dirt road. Sergeant Anderson became 2nd Lieutenant Anderson and a couple of days later, Captain Brink, a burned out rifle company commander, was made CO of Headquarters Company. I moved back to 1st Lt., Executive Officer and Platoon Leader of the Recon Platoon. Having no aspirations toward an Army career, this arrangement suited me just fine.

We were so far forward at the Kunheim CP that most of the artillery fire was going over our heads and landing behind us in the center of the village. We were, however, subjected to flat trajectory tank fire and SP 88mm fire. During the first night in Kunheim, we took direct hits on both buildings, fortunately on the second floor. And hits on nearby trees, which spattered the buildings with shell fragments. The windows had wooden shutters which we closed at night and covered with blankets to serve as blackout curtains. There was no electricity of course, but we did use candles after dark. Just before the shelling, I had been sitting at the table opposite a window writing a letter by candlelight. Sergeant Duprey was at the cellar door dealing with some problem with the owner of the house who had come up the stairs with a request or a complaint. I got up and went over to the cellar door to find out what the problem was. When the first shell burst, a large shell fragment came through the top of the wooden shutter, smashed the glass lighting fixture over the table, left a hole in the back of the leather chair in which I had been sitting and lodged in the wall behind the chair. Had I not moved, it would have killed me. Across the street in the War Room, another large shell fragment came through the window shutter and split the table around which the Colonel and several members of his staff had been studying a map. The next day, he had me get someone to brick up the window.

The Battle Patrol was billeted in the house behind mine and their jeeps were kept in the courtyard adjacent to the house. An exhausted foot patrol came in early in the morning after an all night patrol, went up to the second floor where they were billeted and began to shed their gear. One of the men took off his cartridge belt and webbed suspenders, with two grenades attached by the pull rings, and dropped it on the floor. The jolt of hitting the floor was enough to dislodge the safety pin, the spoon flew off and a live grenade rolled across the floor, its four second fuse hissing. Another of the men quickly scooped it up and threw it out the window. It landed in the courtyard below and exploded wounding four men. I remember the incident clearly because I can still visualize one of the wounded with a perfectly square hole in the bridge of his nose exactly between his eyes where a fragment of the "pineapple" grenade had lodged. He showed no emotion at all, just waited patiently for his turn to be treated and hopefully evacuated. (And thankful to still be able to see).

I had two men assigned to each Battalion CP to evacuate POWs. During the fighting for Beisheim, "Ike" Clanton and another of my men assigned to 1st Battalion, headed for the rear in total darkness with twelve German POWs under guard. They were ambushed by a German patrol and were captured. The Krauts then sent them to the German rear under guard by two of the former POWs. While en route, they were ambushed by an American patrol from the 1st Battalion and the guards again became POWs and vice-versa. This time they arrived without incident. It was wild!

Beisheim finally fell to the 2nd Battalion on February 4 and some 500 German prisoners were taken. The rifle companies moved on toward Vogelsheim and Neuf-Brisach, the last two towns before the Rhine River bridge across which the Germans were escaping before blowing it up. The Regimental CP was moved forward to Beisheim. On the road between the two towns, which were about a mile apart, there stood a jeep with an American major and his driver, both dead and frozen stiff, sitting upright in their seats behind a bullet riddled windshield. The vehicle was not from our Regiment and I could only conclude that the major was lost and had driven through Kunheim during the night and run right into the Krauts.

On a European vacation trip, long after the War, I visited Kunheim briefly during the same side trip to Ostheim. I looked for our old CP without success. The village had been completely restored and the two lane dirt road separating the CP from the building that I occupied, was now a wider paved road. Our location had been at the very edge of Kunheim, but Kunheim had now expanded for about a quarter mile into the farmland between it and Beisheim. I could find no familiar landmark. There was no memorial here as in Ostheim, but there was one on the outskirts of town. It was an American Sherman tank with all French markings sitting on a concrete base. There was a large plaque which credited the French 2nd Armored Division with the liberation and told of the intense fighting. There was no mention of American participation! I saw no French troops anywhere near that area when the fighting was going on. Just one more example of the politicians rewriting history.

It took four more days to clean out the remainder of the bridgehead and the "Colmar Pocket" was now in American hands, except for the city of Colmar which had been occupied by the French. The 7th Infantry Regiment took up positions along the Rhine overlooking Germany and the Regimental CP was moved back to Kunheim, which was more centrally located for this mission. We stayed in these positions for about ten days after which the decimated 7th Infantry moved north by truck to an area one hundred miles north of Nancy, (a town called Dieulouard) to absorb replacements and prepare for the invasion of the German "Fatherland" and the crossing of the Rhine.

Next we motored to Nancy, then fought north and east into Germany. We breached the Siegfried Line and came up on the Rhine.

Loneliness

My wife and I have been married for 60 years and we had a boy friend-girl friend relationship for 10 years before that. In the 58 years since I returned from overseas service in WWII, we have rarely been apart for more than a day or two. But I remember well those years when we were apart and they were the loneliest times of my life.

My first Army assignment after OCS was to an Airborne Division at Fort Bragg, N.C. We married and rented a room on a cotton and tobacco farm owned by a caring elderly couple, the Elliots. Those were among the happiest days of my life. But after only eight weeks, it all came crashing down around me. Because of staggering battle losses in Italy, Infantry replacement officers were in desperate need. As junior officer in my company, I received orders, along with several others, to report to a Port of Embarkation. In record time, I was on my way to the Anzio Beachhead in Italy. There were 5,000 Infantry replacements aboard our troop transport. I didn't come home for 2 years! Five hundred of the others never came home at all!

In Infantry combat, life takes on an intensity unmatched by any other form of activity. There is fear, and there is valor in overriding the fear to do what has to be done. There is awesome responsibility. Responsibility not only for the mission but for the lives of the 35 enlisted men under your command. There is enormous satisfaction in doing the job well. A whole gamut of emotions sweeps over you with an intensity that cannot be imagined. And one of the most powerful of these is loneliness. Men fall around you and you can't help but wonder when your turn will come. The statistics your brain takes aboard tell you that you can't possibly survive. You will never see home and your loved ones again. But there is no satisfactory alternative to going on and doing what you have been trained to do. There is no end to the War in sight. You have no doubt that you will go on until you are killed or so badly wounded that you can't be patched up and sent back to your unit.

You write often and treasure the letters from home. Your wife at home is in your thoughts at every quiet moment. A hopelessness comes over you because you know that no one in this Regiment is going to make it to War's end, an event which is not even on the horizon. Common sense tells you that. And yet there is that thread of hope that you reach out for. Maybe it won't happen to me. You know it will, but maybe, just maybe . . . And you go on, and on, and on.

You are surrounded by hundreds, maybe thousands of men, yet you feel alone. The only ones you see are the men in your own platoon and even they are spread out so you see only a few at a time. Your training tells you that you are responsible for these men, for their well-being, for their very lives. They're not friends, not buddies, there is no familiarity. You call them by their last names. They call you "Lootenant," pronounced with two o's. They are your charges. The Army has arranged things so that you exist on two different levels, officer and enlisted man, even though you share the same foxhole, rations, clothing and blanket. The Army tells them that they must respect you and follow your orders without question. The Army tells you that you must earn their respect by looking after them, keeping them fed, clothed, and as safe as is reasonably possible consistent with performing the mission. You both take that charge very seriously. Your lives depend upon it.

What about the other officers in your company? Can't you make friends there? Somehow or other it doesn't seem to work out, primarily because you are physically separated most of the time. It's not like an Army post in the States. There you see each other at reveille formation, three times a day in the mess hall, at the officer's club after duty hours and perhaps in the BOQ. In Infantry combat, there are no formations, and meals are eaten alone right out of the C ration cans you carry on your back. There is no officers' club, no BOQ.

I have heard it said that officers and men alike avoid making friends because it only hurts that much more when your friend "gets hit." In my experience, that line, and others like it, come only out of a movie script. Aside from physical separation, the reason Infantrymen don't make friends is because of the high rate of turnover. People come and go constantly and they all remain strangers. In my regiment, wartime battle casualties came to 500% of average strength and non-battle casualties (