The+Stories

The Stories of World War 2
 media type="custom" key="5483763"

The American Experience
@http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/rss/media/WWII_01.mp3
 * by: Richard C.**

**Lou Novotny** It was around December 28, 1944, in the vicinity of the town of Humain, Belgium. The morning was bitterly cold and foggy and the snow was about two feet deep with the fir trees covered with snow.

Our platoon was the point as we reconnoitered through the dense forest towards our objective, the high ground overlooking a snow and fog covered valley. The enemy lines being about 400 yards to our front. We dug our fox holes securing our position until the orders came to attack the enemy.

The fog was heavy, visibility was only about 20 yards. Darkness began to set when the platoon leader met me. He was about to place concertina barbed wire in front of our defense positions.

The platoon leader was to make contact with the platoon on our left flank. I was to contact the platoon on the right flank. We separated, with the fog getting dense and darkness falling rapidly. I thought I had walked more than far enough to contact the platoon on the right flank, so we could start setting up the barbed wire in front of our defensive position.

Getting near, I started to walk more slowly. I did not want to startle anyone as I came upon them out of the fog, thinking I was the enemy and be shot at.

Wondering when I would make contact, I slowed down considerably, walking in the wrong direction. Approaching enemy lines, I heard German voices. Visibility in the thick fog was about six feet. From the sounds I heard, I calculated that I was twenty yards from an enemy machine gun position.

If I had made a sharp step or sound, I would have been riddled with German gun fire. Not knowing exactly where the enemy was, I listened again for their voices. When I heard the Germans speaking again, I slowly and quietly turned around and walked back safely to my platoon's position.

It seemed like ages before I made it back.

In December 1944, I departed for LeHavre, France, and entered combat on December 24, 1944. During our combat period, we were strafed by planes and attacked by the German 88's. We did not remain in a position for more than one or two days, as there was a great need for our guns.
 * Joseph "Jack" Jagodinski**

During one of our firing positions, the 88's zeroed in on our gun position. One shell hit the cooks' tent, which was just to the rear of our gun, causing a death and injuries to our cooks. As the shells were zooming in, a fellow crewman by the name of Private Friel suggested we dash out to our howitzer and return the unfired shells into a nearby dugout. Hurriedly, the two of us moved the shells under cover. The 88 shells were dropping around our guns. Fortunately, [there were] no further hits on us. Orders came through to pack up and move to another position.

During the snow storms, our prime mover with howitzer attached was not winterized for snow travel, and in traveling up or down hills, we were forced to take our winch, pull it to the top of the hill, tie it around a tree, and pull up our vehicles. During our missions, we fired from positions located at Longwy, Beyern, Goesdorf, Galhausen, Wiltz, Andler, Bastogne, St. Vith and many more.

We were across the Saar River in Dellingen, where the Battle of the Bulge started. That was where Axis Sally told us about the Bulge. The Germans had a loud speaker back in the woods and she was talking on that. They played a few American records first. I don't remember everything she said. She said, "Your wives and girlfriends are probably home in a nice warm building, dancing with some other men. You're over here in the cold." It was cold and it was snowing.
 * Dent Wheeler**

She said, "There was a big push on up North; you might as well give up. The war's over, the German army captured 50,000 Americans. They are going all the way to Paris." We didn't believe her. We pulled back across the Saar River, then made a day and night march to Saeul, Luxembourg, where we fought until the Bulge was eliminated. We were attached to the 90th Infantry Division. The Highland Division had been moved down to Belgium from Holland around Christmas 1944 to support the US Army in its defence against an enemy counter-attack in what was later called the "Battle of the Bulge". The Americans had heard rumours that there were some enemy units which wore US uniforms and had US arms and vehicles and so they were very vigilant and, at roadblocks, the sentries tended to ask all kinds of questions to catch out the invader, such as "Who won the World Baseball Championship in 1942?" or "What contest did the Cleveland Rams win last year?" These would, of course, stump most Germans, but it would also stump most of the Jocks, most of whose knowledge of sport was limited to "fitba", and then only when concerning Rangers or Celtic, and so there were many rather tense moments when US sentries failed to recognise British uniforms and vehicles or strong Scottish accents!

At that time, the weather was very cold and although I was wearing log woollen underpants and vest, two sets of battledress, a greatcoat, a leather jerkin and a waterproof cape, I still felt frozen stiff; strangely, I never suffered a cold or anything worse at all then or at any time I was in Europe.

My Battalion spent most of the time there in reserve and it was fairly quiet for us; however, on one evening I was walking through a village having collected my Platoon’s rum ration in a mess tin, when two American fighters dived down and sprayed the village with machine gun fire. I had to choose between throwing myself flat to avoid the chance of being shot or keeping going without spilling the rum to avoid the certainty of being regarded as a "right sassenach" by the Platoon for causing them to go without it. The Platoon got their rum, but only because I refused to lie down on a frozen road just because some stupid pilots couldn’t, map read! We all wore a fluorescent orange patch on our backs to identify us as friendly, but they just couldn’t have been looking.

Maureen Worby
I was born late in the war, my parents, brother and I lived in Ipswich england. All I can really remember is going to the cellar during a bombing raid. The germans were launching the last of their buzz- bombs. The V-1 buzz bomb was an unmanned flying bomb. It had a single rocket engine on the top and 1,870 lb warhead full of TNT. The German army launched these weapons using a 50ft. launch-ramp that was angles at a 20 degree angle. The bomb could only travel a maximum of 150 miles and could easily reach London from Germany. The British didn't have the technology to destroy the weapons so one pilot, flying a Gloster meteor placed his wing under the buzz-bomb and flipped it out of the sky. Back to me, when we went into the cellar we could hear the aa guns opening up and the buzz-bombs smashing into the ground.