Chapter 11 - Medendorf to be Home

We circled about and went through France and Belgium and took our position several miles in front of St. Vith, Belgium. We were in Belgium at a little village called Medendorf, on the German border almost up against the Seigfried line. We were in mountainous and rough territory very winding and narrow roads, hills and valleys, lots of woods, a very rural area known as the Loshiem Gap, made famous during World War One, as the Battle of the Hurtzen, or Black Forest.

We set about the task of establishing a holding position for we were informed that there would be very little action in this area. We established our OP's (Observation Posts) C batteries OP was in a little village called Roth about three or four miles forward of the guns, by winding road. It was located in an old two story school house, which had an attic and a basement. The only other OP I ever visited was B Batteries at a village called Krewinkel. I spent more time at Roth than I did at the battery area.

We had two crews that manned the OP, an officer usually Lt. Alex Bernhard  (on right)(El Paso, Texas) and three enlisted men. I can't remember who was in each crew except that Sgt. J.C. Smith, (on left) (Alexander City, Ala.) my best friend throughout my service days, and I were on the same crew. The other crew was made up of Edward Stamps, Kenneth Biggs, and Sgt. Jake Jekelis along with Lt. Bernhard. The reason I remember that crew better is because they were captured together the first day of the Bulge.

We were in the First Army and stayed in this holding position from Oct 15th until we were forced to leave Dec 16th, 1944, a day that I'm sure no one in the 275th will ever forget.

We worked hard at making our fighting or living quarters better, a mess hall was built out of slabs from the Second Division sawmill, enough lumber was obtained to build bunks and tables. Every section dug themselves a dugout. Our dugout was I'll guess about ten feet square and about eight feet deep, covered with logs and dirt, it would have taken a direct hit to have hurt you in it. I'll have to give my Sgt. Hull and Sal Oliva credit for digging and building it for us, since I was spending most of my time at Roth. The three of us had wooden bunks with straw to sleep on a small pot-bellied stove to heat with, and would you believe?, an electric light bulb swinging from the ceiling. At least one or more men in the battalion had been electricians by trade and they had wired into the Belgian system and provided us with juice. Of course, we had to be very careful to cover all light from outside at night. Even though there was very little action, it was still a war zone.

A very sad thing happened at this position. One day Sgt. Wolvernez was doing a gun inspection in the mess hall. One of the men, who was a driver, and was issued a submachine or "grease gun", let his bolt forward with a clip in it at the wrong time, and shot Sgt. Wolvernez three times before he could get his finger off the trigger. The awful impact of three 45 caliber slugs picked that big man up and slammed him to the ground, as if he weighed nothing. Surprisingly, Sgt. Wolfvernez lived a couple of days. He really was a tough man. He was sorely missed by everyone in C Battery. There was no way this could have been called anything but an accident, and I'm sure that private suffered very much from this. The army quietly and secretly transferred him to another outfit, which we were told was according to army rules and regulations. That way he would not have to bear the guilt or possible recriminations among his fellow soldiers. Sgt. Mike Shanahan was promoted to First Sgt. A few weeks later, Mike received a Battlefield commission and was transferred to Headquarters Battery and Sgt. King was promoted to First.

Sgt. James Pesaro (Now lives in Orlando Florida) became our new Mess Sgt. James was really not mean enough to be a typical Mess Sgt., but we were glad to get along with him. and our chow immediately got one hundred percent better.

As I've said before I spent most of these two months up at the OP in the big old school house in Roth. We would take turns during the daylight hours manning the scopes and watching for any enemy activities. Our communications sections had run telephone lines to all OP's so we could talk to the battery area any time we wanted to. We also used field radios to communicate back and forth, we practiced sending and receiving messages in code, but I don't believe we ever got into using "Ditto DA Ditto DA" in combat. Most of our transmissions were in plain English with a few secret code words and signals thrown in.

We were pretty relaxed up at Roth and skipped a lot of the duties and details going on back at battery area. We did most of our own cooking which consisted of heating "C" rations. One day an old brown leghorn hen got a little too brave, so we caught and dressed, her and cut her up for frying. She must have been very old because she had spurs. Anyway, we fried her up nice and brown and were looking forward to some good old southern fried chicken with gravy. My buddy, J.C.Smith, volunteered to make the gravy since he was the only one who knew how. We tried to eat the chicken, but you couldn't have gotten off a bite with a chain saw. Talk about disappointment! The gravy was rather tender though.

We rarely ever saw enemy activity, so we became rather excited one day when about six white clad Germans were spotted crossing an open field about to enter a wooded area in the distance. We hurriedly called for our big guns to fire battery one round on them, which they did, but after the patrol had entered the woods and we could not see the results. This reminded us again that we really were at war even though it was very quiet at the time.

In this particular position we had everything plotted and surveyed and we had certain checkpoints "Zeroed In". This meant we had only to name the checkpoint to the fire-control officer and he knew the exact elevation and deflection to give the guns. We knew we could hit this particular spot because we had already hit it or proved through survey or map measurements that we could. The checkpoints were plotted in a 360 degree circle. This meant that we could if necessary turn our guns completely around and still hit targets. Since our 105's had an effective range or distance of better than four miles we could lay down quite a curtain of steel. Each forward Observer in each OP could fire just his battery or the entire Battalion on any target of his choosing, and as many times as he deemed necessary, subject to getting some higher UP's permission usually the Battalion Fire-Control Officer or Battalion Executive Officer usually one and the same.

A firing battery had six big guns and there were three firing batteries so that meant a forward observer had the option of firing one gun or as many as eighteen guns on any particular target. Many times, and this is what we would do if time Permitted, fire one gun and try to get it close enough to see it hit. And make adjustments towards the target from where the shell lands. You would try to get one longer than the target, and one shorter, This was called bracketing the target. And then splitting the difference should put your shells close enough to the target area. Artillery was not accurate enough to hit targets exactly over long distances. The idea was to get it close enough to the target or enemy to knock them out of action.

For the benefit of anyone not familiar with Field Artillery or Howitzers the people actually shooting the guns rarely if ever saw what they were shooting at. They had to depend on the forward observers to tell them where to shoot, and when the forward observer crews got back to the battery area, the gun sections were always anxious to hear about what had been happening up front.

A forward observer always wanted his OP as high up as possible, top of the hill, attic of a house or barn, anywhere that would give him a wider field of vision. I guess all Artillery units lost more forward observers than the personnel in any other job. We had developed a vast array of targets in almost every direction. In our position there at Medendorf we had the Eighteenth Calvary holding a line almost exactly in front and to the left of our position. The Second Division was also in front but also to the right of our position.

Along about the tenth of December the high command moved the Second Division, a battle hardened, tough, and seasoned fighting unit, out of the line and moved them into a sector farther north. They were replaced by a brand new division, the 106th, fresh from the States and made up of former ASTP students. (You remember that I had tried to be an ASTP student, how lucky that I didn't make it.) They had been rushed and had received the bare minimum in infantry training.

One writer later wrote "The 106th Infantry division, when they crossed the English channel had several first's. They had the youngest average age, the highest IQ rating, and were the most seasick of any American division to ever cross the channel".

I had spent, I believe, two weeks at our OP in Roth, because someone in the other crew had been sick. We normally only spent one week at a time.

I had been relieved, if memory serves me correctly on either Dec. 14th or 15th and had returned to the battery area for at least a week or so I thought. I was enjoying the new dugout that Hull and Oliva had labored so hard in constructing. It was great to be able to write a letter at night by an electric light, and stay warm and cozy by our little pot-bellied stove. The night of Dec. 15th I drew guard duty up at what we called the main gate, there really was not a gate, but we had a little shelter there to stay in, and check all incoming or outgoing vehicles and personnel.