 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
 |
Upstarts
And a little while later, Capt Donald Thomson was hospitalized with flu.
Wilbourn replaced him as Assistant S-3. Thomson was soon back with us, but Wilbourn
stayed on, so there were now three officers in the FDC. I suppose that made one of us
redundant, but I never thought that I was the superfluous one.
I don't remember much about the rest of that campaign, although the names of
Niederwampach and Oberwampach stick in my mind, and I remember the Our River.
I also recall that we ran up against the Siegfried Line once more, and that our
infantry was getting sick of having to do it all over again. But this time it was not so
difficult. There were several reasons why it was easier: (1) after their losses from the
Battle of the Bulge, the Germans did not have enough troops to man the pillboxes
adequately, (2) our infantry had done it before, (3) the Our River was less of an obstacle
than the Saar (smaller, and mostly frozen over). Also, I like to think (4) that the 359th Inf
did better with the 915th FA Bn in direct support.
We found a good deal of equipment left behind by the 106th Infantry Division:
helmets with the Golden Lion insignia, mess gear, clothing, even weapons and radios.
The "Hungry and Sick" Division, as it was cruelly nicknamed, had a sad history. It had
been a green outfit, put into a defensive position over a broad front in a quiet area, to get
a little seasoning before being committed to heavy combat. Unfortunately, the area
abruptly stopped being quiet, as a whole German Army surprised them, broke their
thinly-held line, and stamped on them as it blitzed on through. Two of their three
regimental combat teams were completely destroyed: killed, wounded, frozen, or
captured. The division was never refilled with replacements; it had lost too much of its
framework. It continued to fight, but was always mentioned in orders as the "106th
Infantry Division (-)." The minus sign meant minus two-thirds of its combat strength.
A battle-hardened outfit might have done better, but not much. No single division
holding a wide front could have stopped that heavy onslaught. They were in the wrong
place at the key time.
One of the items they left behind was a 2 1/2 ton GMC truck, the same kind that
we used to pull our howitzers. It looked to be in good condition, but it was hard to know
for sure, because it was located right between our front line and the Germans'.
Word of this prize got back to Lt Gerald Greak, our battalion motor officer. He
came forward for a look, and what he saw made him drool. So after dark that night, he
brought up the battalion wrecker (a tow truck with a hoist) and its crew, and they drove
out into No-Man's Land, hooked onto the derelict, and hauled it back to the rear, where it
could be put back into driving condition.
Luckily for Greak and his men, the truck was not booby-trapped. However a lot of
other things were, some by our side before they withdrew, and some by the Germans
before they did. None of our people were injured, so far as I heard, but Capt Jacobs
insisted on moving the CP out of one area that was full of them, before we even finished
setting up.
192
|
 |
|