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The Rhine
the third, where we finally got the CP tent set up well after dark. We were in a
grove of trees, at the bottom of a deep ravine. I had not been on this reconnaissance, so I
did not have the locations of the firing batteries clearly in mind.
I made up the schedule of H & I firing for the night and sent the data down to the
executive of C Battery. Pretty soon my phone rang. It was Capt Lew Fauble,
commanding C Battery. "Hey, Bob, what do you think you're doing? It's not our turn for
H & I. We had it night before last!"
"Yes," I said, "and B and A batteries both had it last night, so it is your turn. Now
stop arguing and start shooting. "
Fauble said, "All right, you bastard, I'll do it. But you aren't going to like it!"
I should have felt sorry for those cannoneers who had to stay awake and fire the
cannon, because they must have been tired. But no more tired than I was. I went out and
crawled into my sleeping bag, not even taking time to blow up the air mattress.
KAH-WHAM! The first round lifted me and the sleeping bag at least a foot off
the ground. C Battery, it seemed, was located right behind the CP, and the howitzer that
fired must have been about twenty feet away. In the bottom of the ravine the sound and
blast were confined and magnified.
Well, I told myself, that was only the first one, and I wasn't braced for it. I'll get
used to this. I squirmed into a better position and dozed off.
KAH-WHAM! It was no good. I wasn't going to get used to it. I was sure Lew
Fauble had chosen the howitzer nearest to me to do the night's firing, but I was also sure
that the other three were still too close. By the time the third round came, I was already in
the CP tent, putting in a phone call to Upstart Charley Guns. "Cease firing. I'll see if I can
get the Cannon Company to fire it. "
Then one morning our infantry deployed along the outskirts of the city of Bad
Kreuznach, and the 915th went into position to support them.
The 4th Armored Division had encircled Bad Kreuznach, effectively cutting off
the garrison inside the city, and the job of the 359th RCT was to clean it out. They did, in
about two days.
[Note: In 1950, as a student at The Armored School at Fort Knox, I heard a
presentation on that campaign. When the presenter stated that CCB captured Bad
Kreuznach, I felt compelled to get to my feet and object that they were able to do it only
because most of the work was accomplished by an attached infantry regimental combat
team larger than all the rest of CCB put together. He listened courteously, then went on as
if he had not been interrupted.]
Bad Kreuznach, it turned out, was important to the German war effort because it
was a center of the optical glass industry, with a huge factory manufacturing lenses and
accompanying equipment. US Army authorities seized the plant and sealed it to prevent
looting, but not before several hundred, if not thousand, souvenir cameras, magnifying
glasses, binoculars, etc. were in the hands of our noble troops.
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