If You Survive

by George Wilson

  With the attack aborted, we were isolated way off on the right flank of the battalion. Thank goodness for the experience and the cautious nature of Lieutenant Lloyd and myself, for we didn’t just stand around waiting for battalion to make another move or give us orders. Instead we had our men dig in at once as deeply as they could. We were down to about sixty men, or about one third full strength, and we shaped our defense in a rough horseshoe reaching to the edge of the woods at the top of the ridge we were on. The hardwoods gave us some protection and a feeling of comfort and security we sorely needed. The area to our right and to our rear beyond the edge of the ridge was wide open farmland. We also decided to place a small outpost on our left flank, between us and E Company.

  The late afternoon light was quickly fading, and we’d managed to get our foxholes down only about a foot when the men on the outpost rushed in yelling, “Germans!” The Krauts came right in on their heels firing rapidly, and one of the outpost men was the first casualty.

  For the next half hour we had some of the toughest small arms fighting I’d ever been in, and I was proud our new men held on so well.

  These were very stubborn, determined Germans, and they kept right on coming. By then it was completely dark; we couldn’t see the enemy, and they couldn’t see us. We kept firing at the flashes of their rifles and burp guns; every now and then we could see a shadow moving.

  We had the advantage, for a change, in that we were partly below ground and were firing slightly downhill. Also, we were able to toss out grenades as the Germans got closer, and they must have been very damaging to the exposed enemy. For some reason, the Krauts didn’t use grenades on us. We were lucky. This was a life-and-death situation, and we didn’t have time to think, only to react. The constant explosions of rifle fire and the mad drumming of the burp guns wore on our nerves, but we couldn’t stop fighting.

  When the Krauts were in real close, within fifteen or twenty yards, they began to yell something that sounded like, “Kamerad Hände hoch.”

  Lieutenant Lloyd knew German and told me they were yelling at us to surrender and come out with our hands up. I said to tell them to go to hell, so he yelled back what sounded like: “Nix, you schweiner hundt!” This made them furious, and for the next few minutes they gave us all they had while we ducked low and fired back.

  Suddenly the Germans shot up two small white flares, and we were caught in the glare. I was sure it was to mark us for artillery, and I began to think in terms of moving somewhere, but it must have been a signal to withdraw, because the firing ended abruptly and the Germans disappeared.

  We checked everyone and found we had one dead, four wounded, and one missing. All the wounded were able to walk back by themselves to the aid station in Osweiler. One man didn’t look or act like a seriously wounded man as he walked up and asked if he could go to the aid station. When I asked where he was hit, he opened his shirt and showed me a bullet hole and then turned around to show me where it came out his back. It had missed his heart by very little. He said he was positive he could make it to Osweiler with the other wounded, so I sent them on their way. They all made it.

  The body of the missing man was found later by Graves Registration. Apparently he had taken off during the heat of the battle and, in trying to find safety, had run into some Germans instead. Many weeks later when his folks wrote me for details of his death I simply told them that he had died quickly from bullet wounds.

  Now that the Germans had left, we went back to completing our foxholes. No one needed urging. We were out of grenades and low on ammunition, but fortunately the enemy didn’t know how vulnerable we were, and they left us alone all night. Within an hour new supplies of grenades and ammunition arrived, so we felt a little more secure.

  Of course, I didn’t know we’d be undisturbed, so the balance of the night passed very slowly for me. I studied every shadow, every movement of the wind, every noise of the field and forest for warning of the enemy. My nerves would not relax.

  With the first faint light of dawn we made out some odd mounds or lumps to our front and left flanks, and these were German bodies. Two of them were almost on top of us, only five to ten yards out, and several others were scattered behind them. Someone said he’d counted ten altogether, which seemed about right. Normally seven or eight are wounded for every man killed, so the grenades and all our firing might have accounted for seventy or eighty casualties, not including the KIAs left behind.

  We had probably been hit by a rifle company, though I doubt that in the darkness they were able to concentrate their strength on us. One of the bodies was that of a young, fair-haired lieutenant; possibly the loss of this leader led to their withdrawal, for they had almost had us overrun.

  Fortunately for me, I did not know our true situation at the time. Sometime later I was looking at the tactical map, which showed F Company to be the absolute extreme tip of the entire Allied holding position at the lower southern edge of the Bulge. To our east and north were nothing but Germans: on the east was Germany itself, on the north was the seventy-five-mile gap in our line made by the German penetration. The edge of this bulge ran roughly northwestward from my position and about fifty miles deep. To the south was Osweiler, held by battalion Headquarters and H Company plus a platoon from Third Battalion. Between us and Osweiler was a large gap through which the enemy could have encircled us at any time. Only to our west, with E and G companies, was there any reasonably close help. In our new line of defense we were holding the bottom hinge to the gate the Germans had opened in our line—the one known as the Bulge.

  The defense of this small salient was still my responsibility, and my experience and Lieutenant Lloyd’s came in very handy. Together we studied the terrain and the map, and we both felt the area east of Rodenhof was the most likely approach route for a major enemy attack. The only way we could stop the Germans in this hostile country was through artillery, so we carefully marked off and numbered on our map twenty of the most promising target areas they might attack, then radioed the coordinates back to our artillery. If we ever wanted to direct fire on those targets, we had only to pass to artillery the prearranged target number. We very thoroughly covered Rodenhof and its eastern approach valley. That done, we put it all aside and hoped we’d never have to use it.

  The weather suddenly became a vicious enemy. The soft, clean, beautifully white and pure snowflakes that the poets love so well settled down on us in abundance. Over a foot of this loveliness accumulated in twenty-four hours, and we were miserable. We had no shelter but had to keep pushing the stuff away to keep it from melting on us and, above all, on our weapons. Then the weather turned bitterly cold at night, dropping to as low as ten below zero.

  Our hardworking and usually reliable supply people had not yet caught up to us with winter equipment. The trunks of our bodies were not too bad off, because we did have long johns, wool uniforms or fatigues, field jackets, and wool overcoats—to keep warm, we wore everything we had. Our heads suffered, however, because all one had under the steel helmet besides the plastic liner was a small wool beanie. No earmuffs, no hood, no face covering, no scarf. Our hands also suffered with only wool finger gloves. No mittens, no outer shells. Of course, none of our things were fur-lined.

  The other extremities that were in trouble were our feet. We did have four-buckle overshoes on top of our regular GI leather shoes, but we were very uncomfortable with only one pair of cotton socks.

  Worst of all were the long, cold nights when all we had were chilly foxholes from which we’d scooped out the fresh snow. No blankets reached us, no shelter halves, no sleeping bags. We were undergoing the type of weather reserved for mountain troops or ski troops but without their superb winter equipment. Winter wear did not reach us until early January, 1945.

  Lastly there was the general malaise of gradually losing one’s resistance to everything, of never being able to get warm, day after day after day. Perhaps there’s a medical term for this ailment, but I think the word “misery” wil
l do. It must be experienced to be understood.

  The merciless cold and our inability to move about and stimulate circulation soon led to a nasty new problem. Trench foot became near epidemic. This commonplace, rather colorless name hid the truly hideous nature of the disease: Cold, damp feet in tight boots caused poor circulation, and blood stopped flowing to toes and feet, causing tissue decay—and for many, unless circulation could be restored, the only remedy was amputation. Some victims lost toes, some lost a foot. For these people the war was, in effect, over, and they were safe. But there was always the lingering, unprovable suspicion that some men deliberately gambled on this variation of Russian roulette.

  The battalion medics quickly sent us instructions on how to cope. We conducted daily foot inspections during which we looked for swelling or discoloration. We warned the men about tingling sensations or numbness and urged them to massage their feet as much as possible. Of course, we explained that trench foot was only a problem of circulation, that the worst things were coldness, dampness, and the tourniquet effect of tight lacing. And everyone was issued an extra pair of socks and was ordered to change socks every day. Despite our precautions, we had our share of trench foot casualties.

  Probably the most vulnerable man in the entire company was me; I’d only recovered from frostbite a few days before. After all the combat I’d been through, I was damned if I was going to set this example as a way to get out of the fighting. I rigidly followed the medics’ suggestions. I didn’t have soap, but I rinsed my feet in cold water in my helmet once a day, drying them with my old socks. Then I put on my fresh socks and washed out the old ones, wringing them as dry as possible and then putting them inside my shirt against my body to dry. They had to be turned inside out several times, but they eventually did dry. This laundry method could have given me pneumonia, but fortunately it didn’t.

  Water itself was a problem. We had only treated water brought up in five-gallon cans from about three miles back. The cans were so cold that even during that short haul ice formed on the surface. We usually got by on two canteens a day. The first canteen was for a warmish cup of coffee or chocolate in the morning and for washing in our helmets. The second canteen had to last the rest of the day.

  Canteens that were carried in the normal position on the hip were useless because the water froze, so some of us got wise and carried our canteens under our coats and thus had some water for later in the day. Some of the men ate snow directly, and some melted the ice by holding their canteens between their legs for a while.

  Since we were in such exposed positions on the front line, we were not able to build wood fires, and our only source of heat was the burning of our K-ration cartons, which were slightly larger than Cracker Jack boxes. Such cooking was a tricky business, and we learned it by trial and error.

  First one got a cup of water. Then he got out of the wind in the foxhole and opened the ration box at one end only. Next he used the key and slightly opened the can, which held eggs for breakfast, cheese for lunch, or meat for supper. Meanwhile, he emptied the other stuff out of the waxed carton and then lit it carefully at one end, nursing the flame to burn gradually around the lip of the box just like a wick.

  With the oven going, one hung the partially open can of food by its key, which was hooked over the lip of the canteen cup, and carefully held both over the small flame. In the few minutes it took the fire to exhaust itself a cup of coffee or chocolate became piping hot, the food got warm enough to eat—and one’s hands thawed.

  As in most culinary art, little things made the difference. If, for instance, the K-ration box was stood on end and was turned to burn slowly, it would give off a good deal of heat; but when torn into pieces and gradually fed into the fire, it gave off very little heat.

  We also developed other refinements in the art of survival. Our foxholes were just wide enough for two men to sit up facing each other with each one’s feet shoved under the other guy’s butt. They were deep enough to give our heads about a foot’s clearance below ground level. In this way we escaped the surface wind and also trapped enough warm breath and body heat for continued survival.

  At night we took our arms out of our coats and hugged our bodies, and that seemed to help. Perhaps, to complete the scene, it should be mentioned how we handled the normally routine calls of nature. This would become a particularly urgent personal problem during times of enemy action, such as shelling, or when the prevailing west wind was too penetrating and freezing to expose a bare derriere. (Try it yourself sometime in a gale.) The choice at times would be a form of constipation or, in cases of extreme emergency, measures too indelicate to mention.

  Somehow and by some grace, most of us got through the beastly weather for five long days and five very long nights from December 19 to Christmas Eve, 1944.

  F Company’s earlier role as decoy in Second Battalion’s attack changed abruptly as we found ourselves in the forefront of an incoming attack. Our lookouts were shocked to discover a swarm of German tanks and infantry coming out of the Rodenhof valley headed directly toward us. It looked to be at least a full battalion attack with double tank support. Those monsters crunched over the snow with ease, with some of their infantry riding on the tanks, some following. They clanked along relentlessly right out in the open, as though they didn’t care whether we saw them or not. They looked like a bunch of steamrollers to us. A chill went down my spine, and my scalp tightened as though my hair was standing on end.

  After a second’s initial paralysis, I grabbed the radio and reported the attack to Colonel Kenan. I asked that he clear all radio channels to the artillery. He wished me luck and immediately ordered everyone else off the air.

  Next I sent the invaluable Lloyd, then my only officer, up front about fifty yards with a walkie-talkie to be our forward observer. Then I got out the map and radioed to artillery the numbers of the prearranged targets that covered the Rodenhof valley.

  From then on Lloyd and I became spectators to the greatest show ever. It seemed like only a minute before we heard over our heads the sibilant gurgle of shells plowing through the air. Ah, but it was such sweet music! Moments later we saw the electric flash and quick spumes of smoke and debris as the 105 and 155 shells landed among the enemy.

  When I had earlier called our 105 artillery battery and given them the map coordinates for targets to our front, it apparently passed the coordinates on to the division 155mm Long Toms, 4.2mm mortars, and the cannon company. Later, when I requested fire on a particular target number, all units laid on salvo after salvo. A salvo called for each gun in a battery to rapid-fire four rounds—i.e., sixteen rounds from each battery on each target. In addition, H Company’s forward observer, Sergeant Smith, directed his 81mm mortars at any target he saw. As the Germans moved about trying to avoid our artillery I just called in another number—within moments fire was screaming down on them.

  It was a dose of Hürtgen hell for the Germans, but we were almost savagely ecstatic as we enjoyed every moment while our artillery shelled them. Artillery at its best was flying in the right direction, and even though some of those rounds seemed to rock our treetops in their passing, we were too happy to care.

  To us the artillery strike was more deliverance than conquest. Those people could have killed us all. They had overwhelming strength. Without even bazookas and with only our rifles, our position was both helpless and hopeless.

  Hundreds and hundreds of explosives had hit those Krauts, and I didn’t see how they could take much more. After fifteen or twenty minutes they gave up and pulled back out of view and out of range. Ours was the deepest gratitude for our artillery, and when Colonel Kenan and the artillery commander later called us, we told them our feelings. It was great to have a team.

  During that night and the next one we heard the clanging noise of horses and wagons going out into the battle area to collect the dead and wounded, and probably to salvage whatever equipment they could. Actually, the tending of wounded had begun as soon as the shelling ha
d stopped, with the German medics and stretcher bearers getting right out there. Anyone left on the field overnight would have frozen to death. Meanwhile our 4.2mm and 80mm mortars continued to shell Rodenhof and set several buildings on fire.

  The Germans never seemed to give up, and soon they began to shell us again. This time the target was Osweiler, where they must have known our headquarters to be. They were not using ordinary artillery, but rather the six-barreled rockets that quickly earned the name “Screaming Meemies.”

  These spine-chilling things were launched with a piercingly shrill, eerie screech that by itself scared the devil out of us. The awful sound carried for miles, it seemed, and was so widespread we couldn’t pinpoint its source of trajectory, though we knew it must have arced up pretty high.

  The new German rockets were larger than our 155mm shells. They had an awful wallop and were causing havoc for Colonel Kenan and his people. He had to keep moving his headquarters from cellar to cellar and once took a direct hit but was saved by a reinforced concrete basement.

  The colonel was fed up with the murderous things, and one night he radioed us to ask if we had any inkling where those damned rockets were coming from. Lloyd and I already had a pretty good idea, because we had been watching the sparks from their tail assemblies as they streaked overhead. We had also seen their muzzle flash, and I had taken compass readings and timed it from the first flash to the explosion in Osweiler.

  Colonel Kenan was delighted and asked if we’d like to take a shot at them. He said he’d talked to Division Artillery and that they’d put some Long Toms—155mm artillery—at his disposal when he had a target.