21 Mar 2000

I remember your father, Mike, very well. The 275th was formed in April of 1943 in Camp Phillips, Kansas. Your Dad was one of a cadre of 80 non-coms that came from an outfit in Panama to form the nucleus of the new battalion.

Your father was made chief of the first section of Truck Drawn 105 MMs. He was excellent in peacetime with the new 18-year-old recruits we got mainly as high school graduates from the South. He was excellent in training his section and the other three sections to handle the duties of gunners and also many other military facts he knew well.

After maneuvers in the south, we went to Camp Campbell and became an armored artillery battalion with six sections to each battery. Which meant an additional two guns or six in the battalion. Your father was again chief of the first section. We went to England in July of 1944 about six weeks after D-Day. Got on the Continent and went through France, Belgium and the Netherlands and wound up in what essentially was a rest area or training area for new divisions. So we had three months or so in this position just holding the line. Prior to a massive attack that was planned. Surprise, surprise, on December 16th the Germans did the attacking and started the battle of the Bulge.

A few weeks before this, Colonel Clay our Battalion Commander, asked for recommendations for NCO's to be given a battlefield commission. Your father was now First Sergeant of C-Battery to replace Sergeant Wolvernez who was killed shortly before. I recommended your father of course for the battlefield commission and the battalion staff agreed wholeheartedly. Two other sergeants were recommended from other batteries and we had a dinner at headquarters dinner mess hall to celebrate their promotion and give them the bars.

Shortly after this the Germans struck and of our six forward observers two were captured with drivers and radio operators. One was badly wounded and the others got back to the battery. The luck of the Irish brought me back from the OP on the 15th to take a group on R and R to Paris. Needless to say, this trip was postponed a couple of months. The new Lts. were needed immediately as forward observers.

We left off at the beginning of the Bulge on December 16th, 1944. Our position at that time was Medendorf, Belgium, right on the German border. The people spoke German.

We were supporting the 14th Cavalry Group and the 106th Division, a new division, which replaced the 2nd division, who had used it as a rest area. The Germans hit them with armored divisions and passed us on our left flank to the north. The 106th was decimated and captured. The 14th scattered and were captured by the Germans. We established forward observers closer to the battery and fired on the advancing Germans.

That night, since there was no one left to support in front of us, we displaced south to the town of St. Vith, Belgium, which still had a scattering of troops holding a ridge to the east of town. The next day combat command B of the seventh armored division joined a few engineers and gave us a believable defense. At this point, the battalion sent six officers and men as forward observers for the seventh armored. Your Dad was one of these observers on the right or southern flank of the division. I was an observer on the left northern flank. We held out here for five days or until the 21st of December. Then the town of St. Vith was captured behind us and it was here and sometime between the 17th and 21st that your Dad was captured.

One of the observers was wounded and sent back and two others were captured. Three of us, including myself, walked back through the German lines that night and returned to our battalion which had retreated west to Comanster. I heard your father was captured a week or so later, but that is all that I know about it until we heard he had been freed from German prison and was returning home.

It had been snowy and cloudy, but on the 22nd of December it cleared up and our Air Force attacked the German penetration in great force. General Patton came up from the south with the Third Army and other support came in to drive them back over to Germany. We fought until May when we reached the Elbe River and Germany surrendered.

Regards,

                 Frank Brundage