Death Traps: The Survival of an American Armored Division in World War II (21 page)

My Driver, White, Is Wounded

As CCB moved into the Hotton-Soy area, it relieved some of the pressure on CCR, which had been severely battered. Company C of the maintenance battalion moved into Werbomont to give CCB closer support. Werbomont was south on highway N15 between Harz and Grandménil.

I decided to spend the night at headquarters company and join C Company the next morning. My driver, White, wanted to visit some of his buddies, and I told him it was okay, so long as he was ready to move out at a moment’s notice. I returned to the section of the building next to Major Arrington’s trailer and put down my sack there.

That night, lying in my sack, I reflected on Christmas Eves past. I didn’t think about where I would be next Christmas, or if I would be. I don’t suppose anyone ever understands what goes on in a soldier’s mind in combat. We conjure pleasant memories of the past, think about the present in a fleeting moment, skip over the immediate future, and dwell on long-range possibilities. In this way, we can do what is necessary yet at the same time maintain a low anxiety level about the immediate future. This is how the soldier survives physically and emotionally. This process must be magnified many times for the combat infantryman or tanker who is constantly exposed to enemy fire. It mounts up, in various levels, for those of us in maintenance who are exposed to direct fire only periodically.

Before I went overseas, my mother sent me a small book titled
Prayers for the Day
. It was divided into 365 days, each dated with a separate section of scripture and a prayer for each day. My mother could open her copy to a given date and read the same prayer I was reading. That night, I was comforted by reading the Christmas story about the birth of Christ, and I thought what a beautiful idea it was for my mother to give me the book with excerpts for us to share. I was thankful to almighty God that my parents had taught me Christian values. The faith based on these values was essential to my survival both physically and emotionally.

After chow the next morning, I went to find White. The Jeep was gone and White was nowhere around. Some of the men who had been with him said that Warrant Officer Macklin had come over around midnight and asked White to drive him to division headquarters rear to deliver a report. Neither White nor Macklin had returned, and no one knew where they were.

I was angry that Macklin had taken my Jeep without asking. He knew that liaison officers had to be prepared to move out at any time. Checking with headquarters company, I found out that White had been seriously wounded and had been evacuated to the army hospital. My first thoughts were that White had died. Because it was extremely difficult to get information about wounded evacuated to an army hospital during combat, it was several years after the war before I heard that White had survived. Here is what happened.

The Luftwaffe had committed well over a thousand planes to the Ardennes offensive. As in Normandy, it concentrated its attacks at night. This was the first night with clear weather, and the planes attacked every target site, as our planes had done during the daytime.

Because the roads were covered with ice and there were no leaves on the trees, my Jeep must have looked like a dark object moving across a mirror. As it approached a crossroad on its way to division headquarters, a rocket-firing ME109 came screaming down in a strafing run. A rocket exploded alongside the Jeep on the driver’s side. The blast blew the Jeep off the road into the ditch, and some of the fragments struck White behind his left ear at the base of the skull. Fortunately, there was a Red Cross ambulance at the crossroads, and Macklin and some of the aidemen loaded White into it. Macklin was apparently uninjured, but the Jeep was damaged. I felt terrible about White being wounded, particularly not knowing at the time whether or not he had survived. We had developed a bond that is understood only by soldiers in combat who live together on a daily basis and depend on each other for survival. I would miss him.

A Problem with Frostbite

For the next few days, the division consolidated its position. The 2d Armored Division to our west was mopping up the 2d SS Panzer Division, which it had caught on the road at Celles and virtually annihilated. Our maintenance people worked feverishly to get everything ready for a new offensive. The maintenance effort was complicated because we had no buildings or hard ground to work from. Company C, located in Werbomont, was scattered in this small village and set up shop in the rolling fields between the farmhouses. It was bitterly cold; if a mechanic tried to grab a hand tool without his gloves, his skin would stick to it. Yet wearing heavy gloves while working with hand tools makes it hard to get down in the small recesses on a tank engine.

Even under these conditions, the maintenance people were lucky compared to the combat infantrymen and tankers trying to hold the line. The continuous cold weather had frozen the ground, and it was difficult to dig a foxhole. In some cases the infantrymen and combat engineers used grenades to penetrate the ground.

By this time, the driving was becoming hazardous. The constant packing of the snow by the tanks and other vehicles had created sheets of solid ice. Even with the metal grousers, some tanks would slide like a sled if they attempted to stop on a slope. We constantly used our wreckers to get tanks out of the ditches and back onto the roads. For several days, it snowed almost constantly, and the buildup on some of the little-used side roads would reach two to three feet.

Major Arrington issued me a new Jeep to replace the damaged one, and I was assigned a new driver. Private First Class Wrayford, a tall country boy from Louisiana, was a good driver and mechanic and took a great deal of pride in keeping the Jeep in first-class condition. He transferred the contents of the damaged Jeep to the new one. From the looks of the driver’s side on the old Jeep, White had apparently lost a great deal of blood and it was a miracle that he had survived.

In transferring to the new Jeep, I was surprised to find how much equipment and other articles I had accumulated. We had two bedrolls, two backpacks, a wooden map box with a thermite grenade inside, two ponchos, my binoculars, a case of 10-N-1 rations, and a case of K rations. I was issued a .45-caliber 1911 automatic pistol and shoulder holster. Wrayford had a .30-caliber carbine mounted in a bracket on the windshield. In addition we had one 1903 Springfield bolt-action sharpshooter’s rifle, two .30-caliber M1 Garand rifles, a box of hand grenades, and two German 100-meter
panzerfausts
. Whenever we overran a German column, we would find some
panzerfausts
lying around. An excellent weapon for an individual, it could be fired one time and then discarded. It did not have the range of our bazooka, but it had much greater penetrating power. I explained to Wrayford that in the event of imminent capture, we definitely wanted to get rid of the
panzerfausts
, because the Germans had been known to kill American soldiers if they found German weapons on them.

I had also accumulated various other loot, such as German cameras, pistols, binoculars, and many miscellaneous items picked up along the way. (Technically, all of these items came under the classification of military contraband and thus were legal.) We traded these items constantly with other soldiers to upgrade our stock.

The snow continued to fall as we drove. We came to a snowdrift about three feet deep on a small side road and thought we could get through it. Wrayford put the Jeep in low-low gear and we started out, but the buildup of snow in front of the Jeep formed a wedge and eventually lifted the wheels right off the ground. The Jeep wouldn’t budge in either direction. We got out and started digging until a command and reconnaissance car with a winch on the front came down the main road near us and we flagged it down. One pull of the winch and we were free. I told Wrayford that I hoped we’d learned a lesson; if this had happened when we were following the combat units, we would have been in deep trouble.

The Belgian château at Pair that the headquarters maintenance battalion had moved into was the most luxurious quarters we’d had to date. During this part of the Ardennes offensive, when the situation was somewhat static, we would put the Belgian family in one part of the house and take over the rest. In this way we could get our men inside and at the same time take care of the civilians.

The Belgians were usually cooperative and welcomed us. They realized that we were fighting for them, and if the Germans had been occupying the area they would have probably been thrown out in the cold. Even the combat elements in forward areas tended to concentrate around the small villages, in order to keep as many men inside as possible. The men living in foxholes on the line and in the outposts suffered terribly in this cold weather.

During the early part of the Ardennes campaign, the soldiers were equipped with combat boots with a heavy composition sole, an unfinished heavy leather upper, and a smooth leather extension on the top that buckled about halfway up the calf. With one or more pairs of heavy GI cotton socks, the boots were adequate for normal conditions. They were, however, completely inadequate for the frontline soldier standing in a foxhole. In the constantly alternating sleet, rain, and snow, the foxholes often filled with water. Standing in the water for many hours at a time, without being able to walk around, caused serious circulation problems in the feet and lower legs. Wet feet would begin to swell, and severe pain would incapacitate the soldier. This was known as trench foot, which caused many casualties. In some cases the swelling became so severe that gangrene set in, and some men lost parts of or, in extreme cases, both their feet.

At first, the army was completely unprepared to cope with this. It wasn’t until almost the end of the Ardennes campaign that we received shoepacs, which were much better. They had a heavy rubber bottom and sides, similar to an overshoe, a one-inch heavy felt innersole, and high leather tops that extended halfway up the calf. They were completely waterproof at the bottom. Worn with extra socks and sized to provide plenty of room for our feet to move around, they worked well. The Germans wore a similar boot that had been developed after their experience on the Russian front.

One night at Pair, I was getting ready to get in the sack and had removed my combat jacket, shirt, trousers, and boots. All that was left was my long underwear and socks. I never took off my socks unless I could change into a new pair. New socks were rare, so this wasn’t too often.

My feet were usually numb during the day when I was outside in the cold, but they would warm up and the feeling would return once I got inside. I would rub my feet with the socks on before getting into the sack. This night I noticed that my feet were unusually sore, particularly on the bottom. On removing my socks, I noticed large black splotches on the ball and heel of both feet.

The next day, Captain Myzak, our battalion surgeon, examined my feet and told me I had bad frostbite spots and should go to an army base hospital for treatment. Apparently, the constant exposure of my thin-soled boots on the steel floor of the Jeep had caused the frostbite. I pleaded with the captain not to send me to an army hospital, because I was afraid I would be temporarily transferred out of the division and might never get back. I felt just the opposite of Brer Rabbit in the briar patch.

He offered to treat me at the combat aid station. With a scalpel he gently peeled the outer callus layer of skin from the spots on both feet. The spots consisted of dried blood from ruptured capillaries; it had come to the surface and frozen. I supposed this was nature’s way of protecting my feet from further freezing. Then he swabbed my feet and bandaged them with gauze soaked in antiseptic. I was cured after lying flat on my back for the next couple of days, and I went back to duty wearing the new shoepacs.

The (VT) Proximity Fuse

All of our plans were proceeding for a major counterattack. VII Corps of First Army was to attack southward along highway N15 from Grandménil toward Houffalize while Third Army attacked northward from Bastogne to Houffalize. The meeting at Houffalize should cut off any remaining German troops west of there.

VII Corps consisted of the 75th, 83d, and 84th Infantry Divisions and the 2d and 3d Armored Divisions. The 3d Armored Division on the east and the 2d Armored Division on the west were to pass through the 75th Infantry Division and, supported by the 83d and 84th Divisions, make the major attack southward toward Houffalize. With the U.S. Army’s only two heavy armored divisions supported by three first-class infantry divisions, VII Corps had the maximum available capacity.

One of the best-kept secrets of World War II, next to the atomic bomb, was the proximity fuse, or VT fuse—or pozit fuse, as it was commonly known. It was an improvement on the traditional overhead time-fire fuse, which until then had been considered one of the deadliest fuses.

The traditional time-fire fuse contained a series of annular powder rings that could be adjusted in length to provide a fairly exact time when a shell was supposed to explode. This adjustment was made by inserting the head of the fuse into a fuse cutter, which changed the length of the powder train so that the fuse would explode at the proper time. By knowing the range and the velocity of the shell, according to the number of charges used, the gunner could look at a chart and tell the exact setting to get the shell to explode at a prescribed number of feet in the air.

When a shell exploded in the air, a cone of fragments struck the ground with a devastating effect on the soldiers in the exposed area. Even soldiers in foxholes were vulnerable to this type of fire. To get the shells to explode at the optimum height overhead, an observer had to see the shell exploding and adjust the time fire accordingly by radio. This meant that the attacking group must have the enemy under observation.

The proximity fuse contained a small battery-powered radar system that was armed when the projectile fired from the tube. As the projectile approached the ground, the radar bounced the signal back and caused the fuse to detonate at the desired height. This was much more reliable than the traditional time-fire fuse. It also did not require an observer to actually see the explosion. This fire could be directed deep into the enemy’s rear against artillery and other targets that were not under observation.

The proximity fuse had been developed and used two years earlier by the navy in the Pacific. It had been effective against Japanese aircraft. Any rounds that failed to fire fell harmlessly into the ocean. To the best of our knowledge, neither the Japanese nor the Germans knew about this fuse.

The decision had been made to use the proximity fuse in the opening assault of this counterattack. It would be the first time it had been used in massive artillery barrages.

On New Year’s Day, Major Arrington called in the liaison officers and briefed us on the new fuse. We were to contact the artillery units in our combat commands and brief them. I contacted the 391st Field Artillery in CCB and told them about the new fuses, which were to be drawn at the ammunition point that day. I passed along all the technical data I had, which was relatively simple. The fuse was to be used in place of the time-fire fuse and required no further adjustments. Upon firing, the impact of the propellent charge armed the fuse. When the round reached a certain height above the target, it would automatically detonate. If the projectile was fired into a wooded area, tree branches might set off the fuse. I didn’t tell them anything about the radar system; the less they knew, the better, in case they were captured.

The next morning, the day before the counterattack was due to start, people from the division G2 section brought a civilian down to the forward line. He was dressed as a typical Belgian farmer with heavy boots and a greatcoat that hung almost to his ankles. He wore heavy wool mittens and a wool cap with flaps that pulled down over his ears. He had a small, thin radio mounted on his belt but also supported by shoulder straps. The straps had slip-type loops, so if he raised his arms as if to surrender, the loops would disengage the belt and the straps, and the radio would fall, hopefully undetected. He also carried several large envelopes filled with some type of chemical powder. He said he could rub this powder on his coat along with dry snow and the reaction would change the coat’s color. He had the password and parole for the next several days. After being briefed by the commander of the forward infantry company, he passed through our lines and wandered off into the woods between the German outposts.

His mission was to infiltrate German lines and radio information back to us about their positions. This was courageous, because the Germans would summarily execute him if he was caught. This is just one example of the many instances in which the Belgian underground assisted the U.S. Army.

The proximity fuse had been issued to all the artillery in both the First and Third Armies. The attack on the morning of January 3 was preceded by a horrendous artillery barrage. Using the proximity fuse, we got airbursts with 155mm and 8-inch shells directly over Houffalize. Although our forward elements were still five to eight miles from Houffalize, the Germans thought we had already broken through and were less than a mile from the city. We would have to have been that close to get direct observation from the surrounding hills. This created a panic among the retreating German troops and further added to the terrible congestion trying to jam through the narrow streets of Houffalize. This panic fed upon itself, and the traffic jams created further targets for the devastating airbursts.