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Chapter 13
Our Bloody Nose
Bob Hughes spent the day after he assumed command proving that he was no
foot-dragger. We displaced the battalion three times, for a total of sixteen miles.
And we still had time to do some firing. Just before dusk, we were pulling into
position when Bill Beck spied a German column moving on the road ahead of the 1st
Battalion, 359th Infantry, and called for fire on it. Our fire was so effective that Beck
named the mission a "Miniature Chambois." Fifty Germans were captured and as many
killed or wounded, together with destruction or capture of a number of wagons, trucks,
half-tracks, and tanks.
We were elated. And the following day we were even more elated when the 90th
Division, coming from north of Metz, linked up with the 5th, coming from the south. The
fortress city of Metz was cut off and freed from German occupation! The city and its
surrounding area of Lorraine had frequently changed hands at the end of a war, but never
before because the winner had actually captured it.
The 90th Division, filled with pride over our part in crossing the Moselle and
taking Metz, went on to the west bank of the next major river, the Saar. The weather
continued like most early winter weather in central Europe - nasty - and the river was
nearly as high as the Moselle had been. And this was territory even the French would
admit was Germany, territory the Germans could be expected to defend with tooth and
toenail.
Nevertheless, the 357th and 358th regiments started an assault crossing in the pre-
dawn hours of December 6. Our regiment, the 359th, was not involved in the initial
crossings, being held in reserve, with the additional responsibility of protecting the
division's open left flank, where there was a gap between the Third and First Armies. So
our battalion took a position well off to the left of the sector, across the river from the
town of Merzig, a couple of miles north of Dillingen, the first objective of the Division.
Our CP was in a thoroughly German village named Oberesch, to distinguish it
from nearby Niederesch. [About a third of the villages in Germany have names starting
with "Ober," which means upper. There is always a companion village with the same
ending, but starting with "Nieder," which means lower or "Unter, which means under.
And occasionally there is a third, "Mitter. "]
After we crossed the Moselle, we no longer saw the cheering crowds of civilians
as we had in the "glamour war." This was partly because the weather wasn't conducive to
outdoor demonstrations, but mainly because the civilians here were of mixed loyalties.
Most of them were bi-lingual, a survival characteristic in an area that changed hands
almost every war. [When I was stationed in Metz after the war, my secretary, Genevieve
Schwartz, told me that, as a high school student in Metz during the German occupation,
she was threatened with expulsion for speaking French on the campus.]
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