I didn't get the chance to go by our dugout and retrieve my personal things, but thanks again to my section buddies they packed up most of it.

We hit the road about eight P.M. or in Army time about 2000 hours. The narrow roads were crowded and forward progress was at a snail's pace. I believe that headquarters, service, and A Batteries had already withdrawn to the rear so that A Battery could resume firing, while B and C were moving. This was called in army lingo," Leapfrogging", It was supposed to confuse the enemy by not giving away the information that you were moving.

We traveled all night, mostly sitting in the road for hours at a time, then moving up a few yards and sitting more hours, with an occasional enemy shell landing so close that everyone would find a ditch to dive in. It was indeed a long night, and we reached our destination about daylight and the guns went into firing position.

At this time a Lt. Harold Dean commandeered my jeep and me, as the driver, and we started out on a mission to try to find out what was happening up front. I don't remember Lt. Dean before that day, but fate was to make us spend a great deal of time together after that.

We began to retrace our steps from the night before, but using different roads and sometimes going across fields, avoiding being seen by the rapidly advancing Germans and their tank columns. We found our way back to a hill overlooking our old position at Medendorf and hid our jeep in a clump of trees and the Lt. directed fire back on our old position, when he could get priority on the use of the guns, which was not easy because there was a great demand for artillery fire in almost any direction. The German tank and infantry columns were moving rather briskly down all major roads towards St. Vith.

Of course we didn't know at this time, but their orders were to take St. Vith the first day of the Bulge, so they could take advantage of the railroads, and highways leading out of St. Vith. This would greatly enhance their ability to advance their battle to the north and their objective of cutting the British out of the war, and then negotiating a peace treaty with the Americans. Thanks to the fighting 275th, and a little handful of stragglers, the capture by the Germans was delayed another three days and according to some of their military historians. This one thing did more to destroy Hitler's last grand move than any other factor.

Lt. Dean and I stayed up on that hill until about the middle of the afternoon, when we received a call from the battery that they were going to have to move back, and that we also should move back, and try to locate the new battery position. They could by no means tell us what their position would be, because the enemy was probably listening. We didn't realize until we started back how almost completely surrounded we were.

We drove through fields and farmyards and barely used roads, staying out of sight of the enemy forces rattling along the main roads. An armored column be it your own or the enemies really makes a tremendous amount of noise moving down a paved road. You could hear the tracks clanking about as far as you could hear the motors. It was a very scare producing sound, and especially knowing if you were spotted, you had hardly any chance to escape being killed.

We circled here and there, successfully staying out of sight, and working our way back to the west in search of C Battery. We finally found our way back and on arriving at our gun position, Capt. Brundage yelled to hold that jeep for his use. Lt. Dean left me sitting behind the wheel and left. When the Capt. arrived and jumped in saying "Let's go," nothing happened because I had dozed off. He immediately asked when I had had any sleep, I answered about two days and one night ago. He told me to stay there and sleep and he would get Sgt. Hull to go with him.

Sometime, I believe the next afternoon, Capt. Brundage walked back into the battery area, and said he had to abandon "Mine Bait", my jeep, and that Sgt. Hull had been injured, but he didn't think seriously.This proved to be wrong for a few days later we received the sad news that Sgt. Hull was dead.

A replacement was obtained for" Mine Bait"- an old beat-up Ford model, but no replacement was immediately found for my friend Sgt. Hull. I was asked to fulfil his duties until a replacement was named. There I was a PFC temporarily doing a Staff Sgt.'s job! What the hell! There was a war going on!

Most of the time a forward observer crew consisted of an officer, a driver, and a radio operator. In C Battery this was usually Lt. Dean, or later Lt. Breckenridge, myself and Sal Oliva. Of course, there were others who occasionally went on a mission. Sometimes only two would go on a mission.  Cartoon by John McWilliams,  (A Battery); Depicts, McWilliams - Radio Operator, Orlando Mancarella - Driver and Lt. Bob Schnulle - Forward Observer.

 I remember one such mission in particular. Lt. Dean and I were attached to C Company of a Paratroop battalion for the purpose of supplying artillery support. One night after it had become dark we received orders to join another company their headquarters or CP (Command Post) in another small village several miles from there. We loaded our jeep in the swirling snow and freezing wind, and started Out in eight or ten inches of snow. It was virtually impossible to see the road in the dark, without lights and in the driving snow, We laid our windshield down on the hood to improve our vision, but that let the wind and snow hurt even more.

I had gone but a short distance when I ran off the road and became stuck. Lt. Dean snorted and raised a little hell about my running off the road. Finally friendly troops came along, and helped us get back on the road. Lt. Dean said," to hell with army rules (an officer was not allowed to drive an army vehicle) I'll drive this damn thing". We started out again and a very short distance down the road he piled it into a ditch. He apologized for getting on to me, by saying , "you really can't see that damn road can you". Once again we had to wait for help to get back into the road again. By this time we both were nearly frozen.

Lt. Dean decided that the best way to get to our destination was for him to walk in front of the vehicle with a blackout flashlight and for me to follow the dim blackout light. That gave me the only option of sitting behind the wheel of that creeping jeep while he was getting warmed up by walking. When we finally arrived at our destination, gave the proper password to the perimeter guard, and received directions on finding the company CP, we drove in front of an old dilapidated half torn up house. My hands were so near frozen that I had trouble removing them from the steering wheel.

We started into the house, and the warm air hitting my face was the last thing I remembered until I woke up laying beside a big hot pot-bellied stove with a bunch of paratroopers standing around. They had been rather concerned about my condition, and told me" that big old Lt. with you picked you up and brought you inside, as if you were no bigger than a baby". Of course, I thanked him for seeing about me, and from then on had a much better feeling about working with him.

Another time that I remember we were assigned to this same C Company of paratroopers (I wish I could recall the name of their battalion, but I'm just not able to. I do recall that they were a "Bastard" or separate battalion just like us, and they had more than one hundred combat jumps under their belt. I believe an infantry company was supposed to have about one hundred or one hundred twenty five men to be at full strength. When we last worked with them they had less than forty. Only four of them were in the company when it left the States some three years earlier. One of the original four was badly wounded the last day we worked with them.) There were three of us in the party this time, Lt. Dean, Sal Oliva, and I. We spent the night in a basement which was being used as the company CP. We were subjected to enemy small arms fire all night, with an occasional mortar round thrown in. There was an old elevated railroad just a few yards outside the CP door, and this kept the enemy from getting a good shot at any of us, with their mostly harassing fire. Sometime the next morning Lt. Dean sent Sal back to the gun battery area for something, and I'm not sure what, but of course, he took the jeep and we kept the battery pack jeep radio, since it would operate just as well without the jeep, but was rather heavy to lug around.
 

Thanks to John W. McWilliams who drew the cartoon shown  above.             In the cartoon, McWilliams is shown in the back of  the jeep.	Radio Operator
LTC (Ret) Robert L. Schnulle, Forward Observer Thanks to Bob Schnulle for sharing  the "Christmas '44" cartoon.	Orlando A. Mancarella Observer Team Driver