Chapter 12 - All Hell Has Broken Loose
I had gotten off guard duty and had hit the sack on
the morning of the 16th, and was sleeping a sound sleep when someone shook
me awake and said, get up, we need you to carry ammunition." I replied,"
not me, I've been on guard duty and besides I'm not in the gun sections."
The Sgt., with a few choice words, said to get my butt out there with everybody
else including the cooks to keep ammunition hauled up to the guns.
I nor anyone else at that time realized that the 275th
was now engaged in Mortal combat, and it's very life was at stake.
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THE VALIENT 275TH AFABN IN THE BATTLE OF BULGE |
It started December 16th, early in the day
The 275th was dug in, squarely in their way.
We were outnumbered, probably a thousand to one as we held them in
abatement,
But to say we actually had them surrounded would be an
overstatement.
The heinies found the 275th a real thorn in their side,
As through the Loshiem Gap they started to ride.
Old Hitler almost became unraveled,
As we made them pay dear for every yard they traveled.
We were a bunch of green boys mostly in our teens,
But we had been trained and equipped to be fighting machines.
We shot our 105's as automatics and then we shot some more,
The tubes of our guns got so hot, we poured water down the
bore.
One high German General was supposed to have said,
There must be several divisions blocking our way ahead.
But if he had been told, he would have lost his medallion,
That what he thought was several divisions was only one little
"bastard battalion".
Several times a day we had to be march ordered",
It was the only way we could avoid being cut, drawn and
quartered.
We never referred to moving to the rear as retreat,
It was strategic withdrawal to get back on our feet.
Some of the bravest acts you'll ever see,
Was a forward observer calling back an order "fire on me"
A young private with every chance to run,
Stayed in his foxhole and made the Krauts pay forty for one.
The Bible says something about no greater love hath another,
Than one that gives his own life to save his brother.
The Nazis were ordered to capture St. Vith in a day,
But the high brass hadn't figured the 275th would be in their
way.
It took them four more days to accomplish their goal,
As we slugged it out in the snow and bitter cold.
This put a damper on old Hitler's "Master Plan",
Of going all the way to the sea at Amsterdam.
Christmas dinner, the army promised, would be turkey and dressing,
But the 275th was late receiving this blessing.
So our Christmas spirit was greatly elated,
When we were served white Leghorn chickens that were
confiscated.
Sometimes we had to camouflage our tanks by putting them in a thicket,
And cover with mud our proud emblem called "Jiminy Cricket".
General Bruce C. Clark, Combat Command B's boss,
Said that without 275th support they would have been at a
loss.
We turned the Krauts around about December 26th,
And started them back like a dog in front of a switch.
Publicity we lacked because we were not well known,
The 101st Division got it all fighting down at Bastogne.
The pressure on us lessened and we also felt like saying "Nuts",
As we sent those Krauts running with some badly whipped
butts.
We were a proud fighting outfit, and needed no explanation,
Why we deserved and received a presidential citation.
If you ever had doubts about our being over there,
Ask the king of Belgium why he gave us the Belgium
Fourragere.
And when Gabriel blows his horn for our final retreat,
St. Peter will say the 275th couldn't even spell the word
"defeat"! |
BY: DELOYD COOPER |
(This little poem was written many, many years later
but I think it gives the reader some understanding of what the 275th went
through in the Battle of the Bulge. I'm sure there are as many versions of
the things that happened in the next ten or twelve days, as there are men
left to recall it. The only version that I can write about is the way I
personally remember what happened. I would not stake my very small fortune
on the exact accuracy of anything that I might write about, that happened
some forty four years ago, but I am certainly trying to be as accurate as
I can possibly be. In other words, there are no big old made-up lies contained
here.)
I got myself up and reluctantly got dressed and got
on down to the guns and sure enough, everyone was there including the cooks,
with a 105 shell in their arms struggling up to first one gun then another.
The gun crews were firing them so fast that they seemed almost automatic.
"Gosh what a noise!" I quickly decided that this job was a lot like work,
and was delighted when Capt. Brundage called to me to go get my jeep and
drive for him. we took off for our OP at Roth, knowing that Lt. Bernhard
had telephoned that they were being attacked by large numbers of white clad
enemy. The Germans wore white sheets over their uniforms and covered their
vehicles with white sheets which made them very hard to see in the snow covered
background.
One of the first things the enemy did was to cut the
telephone lines from the OP's to the battery areas. Once this was done the
only means of communication were the field radios. Our field radios were
not very powerful and were easily jammed. Capt. Brundage thought that we
should get as close to Roth as possible and act as a relay from Lt. Bernhard
to the gun battery, and this we were trying to do.
We drove into a very small village (I believe it was
called Rittenhauser) about half way to Roth on the top of a large hill, and
met one of our own M4 Sherman tanks from Headquarters Battery at the crest
of the hill. Naturally both vehicles had to stop on that narrow road, and
the tank crew jumped out and informed us that the Germans had an anti-tank
gun just around the bend and had knocked out their lead tank. They had turned
and hustled back into town amidst a hail of bullets. They informed us that
a C Battery wire crew, Cpl. Howard Wilson and Pvt. Harold Johnson, in an
old dodge weapons carrier had been badly hit and Cpl. Wilson had been killed,
and Johnson captured.
There were several of the headquarters battery men
killed or captured. The driver of the tank, who I much later found out was
named Rob W. Walton, (Memphis Tenn.) began complaining about having a headache.
He removed his skull cap and I said," I don't wonder since you have a bullet
sticking out your head". We rushed him off to an aid station and I never
saw him again for something like forty years.
The day wore on and we would skirt about the back
roads and fields trying to find out what was going on, trying to stay out
of view, but still be able to see. We relayed by jeep radio messages from
Lt. Bernhard to the guns as long as we could hear them. The last message
that we picked up was of Lt. Bernhard saying, "FIRE ON ME", which meant using
the school house at Roth as a target. We learned years later that Bernhard
and crew were in the basement and the Germans were inside the schoolhouse
looking for them. Therefore firing on the schoolhouse should do a lot more
damage to the enemy than it would to them. Anyway all five of them came through
this, were captured, and we never saw any of them until much later after
the war was long over.
Our big guns had been firing almost continually all
day. Some sort of record must have been established for the number of rounds
fired in one day, but who had time to keep a record? (I have learned later
that C Battery alone fired almost eight thousand rounds) The Capt. and I
stayed up front most all day. We still did not know the magnitude of the
German attack. The high command back in England didn't know
either.
Luckily we had stockpiled a large amount of extra
105 ammunition, which was really very wise on someone's part since so much
of it was fired that first day. The troops up front were taking heavy casualties
and a great number of them were abandoning their positions and running like
hell towards the rear, some of them through our battery areas.
The Capt. and I stayed up front until almost night-fall,
and on returning to the C Battery area he had me stop on a little hill about
one thousand yards (as the crow flies) in front of the battery. He said,"
Coop, you sit here with your radio on very low and listen behind you. If
you hear anything coming, it will definitely be enemy troops, so call in,
and high-tail it home." He said," I'll walk back to the battery and help
prepare them to march order. When we get ready to go I'll call you the message,
'Come Home.' That will be your signal to fall into our march column." I don't
have to tell anyone that was almost two hours of pure unadulterated hell".
There were trees all around on either side of me, and I could imagine the
enemy sneaking up on me from any direction, but I stayed with the job and
kept my cool, but I won't lie by saying that I was not scared. And that call
to "Come Home" was the sweetest music I had ever heard.
