by Gerald Astor
“After this short period of torture, he took a knife and some tweezers. I remember he said, ‘This is really going to hurt.’ Right, Doc, it did. They counted forty-eight pieces of shrapnel, plus whatever is still in there. They put a bandage and sling on my arm, patched up my face, and the surgeon said, ‘You’re on your own.’ I knew he would catch hell about the paperwork, but he just answered, ‘Get a couple of Krauts for us.’ I gave him some real German marks one of the Krauts had loaned me. He was quite a man and one hell of a doctor.
“I knew if I went back to battalion headquarters, Block would kick my ass, so I took off up that damn Germeter trail again. It hadn’t changed—slick, slippery, slimy. It’s one dark, cold, snowy night. My ass is dragging when I get past Purple Heart Corner. I go into our beat-up old house and it’s empty. The charcoal fires are out and the platoon is gone. I realize they have gone to relieve B Company without me. It’s twenty-four hours since I left. My hand and face hurt and I still can’t hear. I’ve had about all of this bullshit I need.”
Edlin staggered back to battalion headquarters, where he learned Rudder had left for a meeting with higher-ups. Someone took pity on the exhausted platoon leader and told him to take the colonel’s bunk for the night. Another Samaritan brought some hot food from the mess, even cutting bite-size pieces and offered to feed him. Surgeon Block inspected his hand and face, then chewed him out for not remaining in the rear. When Edlin asked for a painkiller that would enable him to rejoin his men, Block ordered him to remain in the bunk, where he drifted off to sleep.
“When I woke it was still dark, but it was twenty-four hours later. Colonel Rudder was dozing in a chair while I was using his bunk. They just don’t make colonels like that.”
While the 8th Division’s 121st Regiment endured a frightful bloodletting, the two brother organizations, the 13th and 28th Infantry Regiments, pursued somewhat less onerous paths, assuming holding missions. The 13th moved to a static line facing a ridge where the embattled town of Schmidt was still in German hands. The 28th Regiment occupied the Vossenack area, site of the 28th Division’s reversal of fortune. During the first days of the offensive that the 121st began on 21 November, these regiments coped mainly with the steady downfall of artillery and mortars—the 28th reported 5,000 incoming on 20 November—and mines that threatened any movement and the menace of trench foot.
While the 8th Division challenged the German defenders south of him, George Wilson, as the CO of Company F, along with the other men of the 22d Regiment, endured frightful days in the forest before the objective of Grosshau. German mortar bursts relentlessly maimed or killed, with a sliver of shrapnel penetrating an inch into Wilson’s arm. He yanked it out himself, and after a medic sprinkled sulfa powder and bandaged him, he continued his duties. After one of their sorties toward the objective, the rifle companies began to dig in, only to suddenly receive automatic fire from the rear.
Wilson said, “The men on the rear line were only partly dug in, and they dove for the ground. These were mostly replacements, and they were shocked and nearly paralyzed by the suddenness and fierceness of their first action. Very few of them even attempted to fire back.
“Lieutenant Caldwell and I began firing our rifles and yelling at the men to start shooting. Then I told Caldwell to keep trying to get them to shoot while I went up to the front—actually back to the front—to get more men.
“Bullets cut through the branches and zipped all around me as I ran back. Every damned man I came upon was trying to hide in his foxhole or under a tree, making no attempt at all to fight back. I rousted a bunch of them out and got them to follow me, running as low as possible under the whizzing bullets.
“It was easy to tell where the Krauts were from all their firing, and I led the dozen or so of my men out to the side and killed a couple of them [Germans], wounded three, and took a prisoner. A few managed to get away.” The raiders had been a small but heavily armed combat patrol. Although routed, they had killed a newly arrived replacement lieutenant and severely wounded others, including a man who died later from his wounds.
The flow of fresh fodder continued; Wilson’s company absorbed 100 enlisted men and one officer, bringing the complement up to 150. Among the raw, superficially trained recruits, Wilson chose a pair who claimed some civilian experience to serve as radio operators. To his dismay, both tried to fake the symptoms of battle fatigue. “Instead of seeing the humor or allowing for circumstances, all I felt was a sickening shock. I knew that everyone had a breaking point, but I had just assumed that everyone naturally was doing his best up to that point. This may seem a bit naive, but I do think it was the way most of us felt. Most of the men I knew in World War II seemed to accept their role to fight for home and country without complaint. I don’t recall a single person who questioned our involvement. We were not gung ho but quietly went about our duties. Perhaps that is why the occasional shirker stood out.
“I have witnessed real emotional breakdown under enormous physical and mental pressure of combat, and for those cases, I have the most heartfelt sympathy. It is awful to see men go into convulsions, froth at the mouth, gibber incoherently. Many later responded to rest and treatment, and some were returned to the front—time after time. Some of the poor guys never did make it back to normalcy, even long after the war. But I knew of only two men who ever made a completely successful return to the battlefield.
“Our Thanksgiving dinner [23 November] was hand-carried up to us by men from the service company. Our cooks had put together giant turkey sandwiches, and they were a treat compared to K-ration Spam, even though we, of course, received none of the usual trimmings. It wasn’t all celebration, however, for we learned that some of the food-carrying party had been hit on the way up. Though this happened all of the time, we never quite learned to accept it.”
Ernest C. Carlson, inducted in 1943, originally trained with the 78th Infantry Division, but the demands for replacements shipped him to D Company, 1st Battalion, 28th Regiment, 8th Division, as a radio operator for the 81mm mortars in a heavy weapons platoon. He first saw combat on 8 July 1944. On 17 November, his outfit relieved GIs from the 28th Division outside the town of Huertgen near Vossenack. “They did not ever retrieve their base plates or tubes for their mortars. The base plates were buried in mud and half frozen in place.”
Less than a week later, the men celebrated the November holiday. “On Thanksgiving Day our group was brought a hot meal. The kitchen help that brought the meal parked their jeep next to the mines piled at the base of a tree. Engineers had placed white tape around the mines. The food was served, and the first sergeant ordered men to carry the containers back to the jeep and trailer. One of them was a person who never got out of his foxhole since we took up our position. He, along with the sergeant, two cooks, the jeep driver, and two other GIs from our platoon, were loading food containers into the jeep and trailer, when this man who never got out of his hole set one container he was carrying on top of those mines at the base of the tree. The very large blast knocked people twenty yards away off their feet. From the carrying party of seven, two survived, the first sergeant and one pfc. All that was left of the soldier who caused the blast was his belt, part of his pants, and rear pocket, with wallet enclosed, which landed in a tree branch above me. I don’t think the soldier who put the container on the mines ever knew they were there, because he never got out of his hole long enough to know better.”
In the 8th Division’s 22d Regiment, Paul Boesch, dealing with his company commander, who had broken under the stress, was incredulous when advised by field phone that he would need to send out carrying parties to bring up a semblance of the traditional big dinner. He pleaded with his battalion commander to postpone the meal, but the division headquarters insisted. As the food arrived and the troops reluctantly left their foxholes to receive it, a tank destroyer chose to demolish a nearby abandoned tank that may have provided cover for German infiltrators. The fiery explosion alerted German gunners, who promptly brough
t down shells upon the GIs. Men died and others incurred painful, disabling wounds because of the misguided notion of a morale-building portion of turkey. However, Edward Miller, in his book A Dark and Bloody Ground, calls the modest Thanksgiving feast “a stunning failure of senior commanders to understand the conditions at the front.”
Hodges celebrated the holiday with a tour of the front. Sylvan wrote, “The Gen., accompanied by Gen. King, started early this morning with the 8th Div., where he met Gen. Collins and Gen. Gerow and Gen. Stroh. To the latter he said he was not satisfied with the progress being made. The minefields had not proven to be as much an obstacle as people feared. Progress or rather the lack of it made by the division showed lack of confidence and drive. He made it quite clear he expected better results tomorrow. As if to prove his point that the division was not going ahead as it should, one battalion had captured ninety prisoners.
“From the 8th Div. both generals went to the 4th Div., where they joined Gen. Barton for a conference and Thanksgiving dinner. None of the generals attended a Red Cross party, which they had promised to attend, but the chefs put on a magnificent spread at the homes, in addition to decorating the house and the cake. The Gen. consented to relax and see the gay movie Jeanie.”
The news stories about the Huertgen campaign, which passed through army censors, spoke of “toe-to-toe slugfests with German infantry and armor” and “German counterattacks and last-ditch resistance.” One account said, “When the full story is told of its cost in men and materials, the name of these woodlands probably will rank alongside the Argonne Forest in the First World War and the Battle of the Wilderness in the Civil War.” But the people at home heard little of the details of the ordeal and the terrible casualties while the campaign raged, even though the country’s most celebrated writer, Ernest Hemingway, accompanying the 22d Regiment, could have observed and written from a foxhole seat. The novelist-turned-war correspondent for the magazine Colliers had become friendly with the 22d Regiment CO, Buck Lanham, a West Pointer with a reputation as a poet and occasional writer on military affairs.
Jack Crawford, who held a battlefield commission and was leader of an intelligence and recon unit for the 12th Regiment, briefly encountered Hemingway. “I had been in the hospital for treatment of my eye and had been put in a ward filled with head wound cases. It was too much and I decided to leave, even though I still had an IV. I disconnected it, put on my uniform, and left. I bummed a ride to Spa and walked into a bar there.
“I saw Hemingway with Colonel Lanham sitting at a table. Lanham knew of me and he invited me for a drink. I was very excited meeting Hemingway. I had read all his books. But when we started to talk, he turned out to be a horse’s ass. I felt he was full of it and this really wasn’t his war. He was telling tales of high jinks in Paris. I got pissed off and said something like, ‘If you want to see combat, come up with me to the Huertgen.’ Lanham said, ‘You’re out of line, lieutenant.’ I answered, ‘Yes sir,’ and ‘Fuck you’ to Hemingway.”
Crawford rejoined the 12th still stuck in the Germeter-Vossenack sector. “We went on a patrol to get some prisoners. We met with six Germans. We killed four, wounded one, and captured one. My sergeant killed the wounded man, which pissed me off. Then they started firing on us and we hit the ground. The sergeant hit a Bouncing Betty [mine], which killed him and wounded me in the leg, blew off the stock of my weapon, and left me with only hand grenades. I was sure they would come to finish me off. But I was picked up by aid men, given a Syrette of morphine, and taken to the aid station.” Treated at a series of hospitals, first in Paris and then in the States, he received his discharge in December 1945.
Robert L. French, a surveyor’s assistant, enlisted early in 1942 and, because of his background, earned a commission in the engineers. Assigned to C Company of the 4th Combat Engineer Battalion, French made the D-Day landing and the subsequent Normandy campaign. While in that area, he first saw Hemingway. “I was impressed by Hemingway at first,” said French, “a man with combat experience [as an ambulance driver on the Italian front during World War I], but after two weeks in Normandy, no longer. Other correspondents were unarmed and wore an armband, but Hemingway carried a .45 pistol and a cartridge belt. It was as useless as an officer’s carbine but easier to carry.
“I saw Hemingway in the Huertgen Forest with the 22d Infantry Regiment and his friend, Edwin Lanham. We remarked on his appearance in a white sheepskin jacket, a most flamboyant garment, which made a mockery of any pretense at camouflage. The rest of us had to spend some time at least in places where that jacket would be fatal to the wearer, and we resented it as a reminder that its owner had no intention of sharing in the dangers of war. Hemingway ate with us in the officers’ mess, but I never recall him anywhere but at the colonel’s table.” French compared Hemingway unfavorably with the correspondent Ernie Pyle, who visited the front lines regularly, “was obviously fearful,” and spent his time among enlisted men and lieutenants rather than the brass. Hemingway filed a story on the 22d’s initial encounter with the Siegfried Line but never reported on the Huertgen experiences. His description of the campaign as “Paschendale with trees” is curious, because he was not present at that battle during World War I, nor from the evidence did he witness much of the Huertgen battle.
Quite apart from his observation on the war correspondent, as a combat engineer, French recalled his responsibility to provide satchel charges for demolition of pillboxes. “C Company had an order for 3,000 pounds of TNT made up into pole and satchel charges. When everything was ready, I went back to load the trucks for the 22d Regiment. We had two or three trucks. I rode in the lead with the driver. I also carried two or three little wooden boxes, which had holes drilled inside to carry the detonators. They were more powerful than dynamite fuses because TNT is much harder to set off.
“The drivers were nervous because we had to pass through some intersections in the dirt roads through the Huertgen Forest. In retreating, the Germans had been careful to insure that they had zeroed in on each intersection. A day or two before, trucks carrying replacements for the infantry had been caught at a crossroads. Most of the soldiers were wounded and evacuated without ever seeing the units they were sent to join. I calmed [the drivers] down as best I could by assuring them that TNT is very hard to detonate and that shrapnel would not cause an explosion. The shell would have to explode on the surface of the TNT and that was unlikely in the forest. If one came that close, we wouldn’t need the TNT. The only sensitive explosives were the detonators, and I was carrying them.
“We made it to regimental headquarters. I told the men to unload everything and put it in a barn across the road. I went in to tell Colonel Lanham that I had his satchel and pole charges. He asked where I had put them. ‘In the barn across the road.’ ‘Are you crazy? Get them away from here!’ He was no more comfortable with TNT than any other infantryman.”
During this period, French led a five-man squad on a minesweeping expedition. All of the enlisted men were wounded and evacuated following a protracted spate of shells. Perhaps as a result of such experiences, he collapsed on Thanksgiving Day. His pulse raced at 136 beats per minute, and he showed all the signs of a cardiovascular problem. However, he was diagnosed as another victim of combat fatigue.
Jim Wood, the platoon leader in the 16th Infantry who had combined the handful of men from his unit and that of the wounded and captured John Beach during the attack toward Hamich, said, “We were relieved on Thanksgiving Day, a week after [Beach was] captured. What was left out of the company had to crawl prone out of their foxholes, creep by the dead bodies of their comrades to get far enough back to stand up. It was an awful sight. I had to crawl over the bodies of men I had drunk with, played cards with. In the trench at company headquarters, we saw fifteen dead men, including the old man [Briggs] himself. Some had been dragged there after being wounded and died because they couldn’t get to the aid station.”
An angry Bill Kull, who came to the 12th Regiment as a repl
acement, recalled, “The official history says the turkey was for breakfast and it ‘boosted morale.’ Some half-wit from the motor pool or some group back there sends up sliced white turkey meat on white bread. White turkey meat on cold, stale white bread and water to drink. Happy Thanksgiving. As hungry as I was, I don’t know if I ate it all or not. It was hard going down. It made me angry because I reasoned that if they could bring up sandwiches, they could bring up something better.”
13
COSTLY SUCCESSES
The first three days of engagement by the 121st Regiment resulted in about fifty killed in action and almost 600 wounded, reducing the regiment’s strength by close to 20 percent. While the “repple depples” (replacement depots) fed in replacements, the offensive faltered, the ultimate objective of the banks of the Roer was three hard miles off, and the key towns of Huertgen, Kleinhau, and Bergstein were unconquered. In response to the criticisms of Hodges, heads began to roll in the 8th Division, beginning with company and battalion brass. On 25 November, Stroh stripped Col. John Jeter of his command and named Tom Cross in his stead.
A day earlier, Cross sat in on a meeting dealing with plans by the V and VII Corps for a coordinated drive that would introduce a new element, CCR (Combat Command Reserve) of the 5th Armored Division. Cross recorded in his diary, “Meeting was dominated by Gen. Collins, as usual. Col. [Glen H.] Anderson, the CCR CO did not radiate much enthusiasm for the job ahead in the morning.” (While his diary entries connote a distaste for Collins, after the war Cross spoke well of the VII Corps commander to his son Dick, who served with the 11th Airborne Division in the Philippines and retired as a colonel after a career that extended into the 1960s.)