Rhineland

On Feb. 4th our rest was over and we went through Eupen into Germany at Lammersdorf. Germany was where we wanted to go in the first place. It was on the way home.

The next day it was rainy and muddy and we fired 92 rounds.

According to the radio on Feb 6th American troops were back in Manila and the Russians crossed the Oder river on the eastern front. We fired 122 rounds. We were close to Aachen.

The next day we moved up to a place that was "really blown to hell". On the 9th we got rain, snow, sleet and hail.

The 9th Division took some dams on the 10th. This was good because the German's might have blown them up before we got there but for some reason didn't.

Two unexpected rounds landed near us on the 13th. On Feb. 14th I got my Christmas card from my brother Bert.

On the 16th we went back to Eupen, Belgium where service battery worked on our motor. The M-7, same as the M-4, had an air cooled motor which was also used in some aircraft. I think it was called a "Wright Cyclone" engine and the cylinders were around in a circle. When it got hot it was hard to shut off. The driver could turn the key off but the motor would keep running. This is called dieseling now but I don't remember that term from back then. We saw a couple of movies while we were at Eupen.

On the 19th we received news that we were in the 9th Army. The next day we went through Aachen into Holland and then back into Germany. We rejoined the outfit near the front line.

I got two Valentines on Feb. 25th. We were moving up pretty steadily during this period. We crossed the Ruhr River on Feb. 28.

On March 2nd we went through Venlo back into Holland. We tried to dig fox holes but water would run into the hole faster than one could dig the dirt out so we gave up on that. It was standard procedure to dig fox holes just as soon as you could after arriving in a new position. We were right up with the infantry and this week we encountered a lot of German's with white flags.

We linked with Canadian troops on March 5th. On the next day my diary says Headquarters lost a tank. I can't remember that happening more than once.

We were in a tough battle on the 7th but news was good "Yanks take Cologne." It was payday. We were way north of Cologne moving toward Wesel.

Something sad happened on March 17th. We had some kind of a shelter and Kestner had an argument with the men in the section and they all moved out except me. This had been building up for a while and I notice I had some trouble with Jack Jones a week or so before this. We were all tired and tempers were short. The war was getting to all of us. Things didn't get any better so Kestner asked Lt. Dofflemyer to have a "pow wow" with our section. Duffy gave us all a chance to say our piece. Apparently it was Kestner and I against the rest of the crew. I remarked that I had thought that Donald Elmore and I were good friends. He responded that we were good friends as long as he was doing things for me.

From his point of view he could have been correct. It was Donald who knew how to make snow cream. When we tried to cut fire wood together back at Napoleon's artillery range Donald could cut more wood in ten minutes than I could cut in an hour. I couldn't get the axe to hit the same place twice. He knew how to clean a chicken, cook, build a fire, wash clothes and a dozen other things better than I did so he did help me a lot.

But the main trouble seemed to be between Jack Jones and me so Duffy decided to send me to the 2nd Section and Jones somewhere else. I hated to leave Kestner but on March 20th I moved to the "mine sweeper because it was the first heavy vehicle in the line of march. Sgt. Penn was my new chief-of-section. We had been together at Camp Campbell so it worked out pretty well.

We were getting ready to cross the Rhine. The Germans blew up a bridge on March 24th which slowed us some. There was much allied air power softening up resistance.

On Sunday morning March 25th We sent a tremendous mass of artillery fire across the Rhine. The sky glowed with the fires that caught on the other side.

Around dawn we crossed the Rhine on a floating bridge that the Engineers had put up. I wonder how the Army Engineers could build a bridge across the Rhine River in a matter of hours and 40 years later it takes three years to build a bridge over Kincaid Creek. I guess the Engineers didn't belong to the union and didn't take coffee breaks.

There were reports that a couple of German's had swam across the Rhine to escape the barrage on the east side. Who knows?

We kept moving up. The diary says that on March 27th we "shot hell off the hinges". We were moving up with the 8th Armored Division. The notation for March 29th reads "Displaced to good looting position. Got wine and champagne. Got bawled out". We had it coming.

The next day shells landed within 50 yards of our position and we saw sixteen German planes. It wasn't over yet.

April saw us continuing to move up. Sometimes we drove all day. We were very tired. We had the Germans in a pocket and the pocket was getting smaller. On April 8th we were in a position in a wood which reminded me of Rock Creek Park back home.

On April 12th President Roosevelt died. I remember reading an account of his passing and funeral and trying to conceal that I was all choked up. My father had been a Republican all his life but Roosevelt had been our president a long time and was our wartime leader. For whatever reason I was very sad.

I started feeling bad around April 15th. The next day was nice but I had chills. My diagnosis by Dr. Kelly on the 17th was "measles." I was sent to a tent hospital and confined to bed. Kestner probably said that I had found a new way to get out of work.

I really felt bad at the hospital. Here were all of the men with battle injuries and recently liberated prisoners of war and all I had was a childhood disease. It must have been German measles, right? I remember seeing one young fellow brought in with one of his arms severely wounded and saying to the attendant. "Don't tell my mother." The most pitiful were the ex POWs. The Germans didn't even have enough food for their own civilians so you know their prisoners didn't have much. Their arms and legs weren't much thicker than broom handles. One poor fellow kept crying out night and day. However, he seemed to be getting better.

They allowed me to get up on April 20th. The next day I felt fine and the Russians were reported to be four miles from Berlin. By the 22nd I was ready to go back to duty but there was no transportation. I rejoined the outfit in Garrison on the 26th. I called it a "chicken setup" because we started having reveille formations and drilling.

We were housed in a big house which must have been a luxurious place in peace time. I was on guard duty on the 27th and Pvt. Monday got drunk and had a pistol and was threatening people. He chased somebody up the stairs but I don't remember who. The same day American troops and Russian troops linked up.

Ballenhausen wasn't such a bad town. My book says "Learning to speak Deutsche". This also is an exaggeration because in the next few years I would take two years of college German and still couldn't speak it much.

On May 2 my diary says "Sang with Bunn." This would have to be Marcus Bunn who was about as short as R. F. Jones. I sent Marcus a Christmas card after the war and heard from his wife that he had been killed in a car wreck. Seems ironic.

On May 4th there was some kind of Battalion formation for awards. My diary doesn't have any details. In early May my book says we "raided" several towns: Niederniesa, Gross Schneen among them. We went through civilian houses looking for weapons and contraband. I picked up a good pair of binoculars. I guess we were supposed to turn them in but I didn't. When we got back to the states I forgot and left them on a high shelf on the ship. I remembered them but we were already in line moving off the ship. Some sailor got a good pair of field glasses.

May 8 V-E Day. Sounds good to me!

DeLoyd Cooper is the Historian for the 275th Armored Field Artillery Battalion Association.
Copyright © 1999 DeLoyd Cooper. All rights reserved.
Revised: November 4, 2004