COMPANY A, 276TH INFANTRY IN WORLD WAR II FRANK H. LOWRY Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 94-072226 Copyright © 1991, 1994,1995 by Frank H Lowry Modesto, California All rights reserved ACKNOWLEDGMENTS This writing was started in 1945 in Europe following the cessation of hostilities that brought about an end to World War II. Many of the contributors were still together and their wartime experiences were fresh in their memories. It is the first hand account of the men of Company A, 276th Infantry Regiment, 70th Infantry Division which made history by living and participating in the bitter combat of the Ardennes-Alsace, Rhineland and Central Europe Campaigns. I humbly acknowledge my gratitude to the many veterans of those campaigns who provided valuable contributions to this book. A special note of appreciation goes to the following former soldiers of Company A who contributed significantly to this work. Without their input and guidance, this book could not have been written. Richard Armstrong, Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota Russell Causey, Sanford, North Carolina Burton K. Drury, Festus, Missouri John L. Haller, Columbia, South Carolina Daniel W. Jury, Millersburg, Pennsylvania Lloyd A. Patterson, Molalla, Oregon William J. Piper, Veguita, New Mexico Arthur E. Slover, Salem, Oregon Robert I. Wood, Dallas, Texas The assistance of Edmund C. Arnold, author and Chester F. Garstki, photographer of “The Trailblazers,” was very helpful in making it possible to illustrate and fit the military action of Company A into the overall action of the 70th Infantry Division. A word of thanks goes to Wolf T. Zoepf of Pinneberg, Germany for providing significant combat information from the point of view of those soldiers who fought on the other side. Eddie Tsukimura of San Pedro, California and Peter W. (Tex) Bennet of San Antonio, Texas provided the art work and sketches which vividly depict the life, moods and experiences of the combat infantryman. Frank H Lowry ii This work is dedicated to my comrades-in-arms, all of those combat infantrymen of Company A, 276th Infantry Regiment, who fought on the distant battlefields of France and Germany in 1944 and 1945. It is especially dedicated to the memory of those thirty-four young men who made the supreme sacrifice by giving their lives for the cause of freedom. They rest forever among their fallen comrades in graves under white crosses and stars at Epinal and St. Avold, France and throughout the United States. May they rest in peace. iii iv S/Sgt. Frank H. Lowry Germany 1945 v vi CONTENTS FOREWORD................................................ 1 1. THE TRAILBLAZERS. 5 2. PORT OF EMBARKATION................................. 15 3. USS WEST POINT........................................ 21 4. FRANCE -- DELTA BASE CP-2 ............................. 31 5. FORTY AND EIGHTS..................................... 37 6. OUTPOSTING THE RHINE................................. 43 7. OPERATION NORDWIND ................................. 61 8. WINGEN-SUR-MODER.................................... 69 9. LES VOSGES - HILLS 403 AND 358 . 119. 10. LORRAINE ............................................ 157 11. OETING............................................... 175 12. FORBACH............................................. 181 13. FORAY IN THE FOREST................................. 215 14. MARCH INTO THE UNKNOWN ........................... 223 15. VICTORY ............................................. 231 FIFTY YEARS LATER....................................... 241 vii APPENDIX I MEN OF COMPANY A, 276TH INFANTRY REGIMENT KILLED IN ACTION OR DIED OF WOUNDS ................. 263 APPENDIX II COMPANY A, 276TH INFANTRY REGIMENT COMPANY ROSTER December 31,1944 ...................... 265 APPENDIX III Recollections of Wolf T. Zoepf, 12th Regiment, 6th SS Mountain Division (NORD): ........................................ 271 GLOSSARY . .275 INDEX. 277 BIBLIOGRAPHY........................................... 283 viii FOREWORD The brotherhood of COMBAT INFANTRYMEN included a cross section of ordinary young citizens from every corner and crossroads of the United States. They were very young, mostly between the age of nineteen and twenty-three. They were the weary, unshaven, mud-slogging dog face soldiers with sore feet and aching backs. The grunts of the Army. They did not resemble the lads who a short time before were either at home or on the farm wearing civilian clothes and perhaps attending high school dances and football games, going to college, playing sports, or working at their first jobs. Not only their appearances changed but their thinking was transformed from that of paving the way for their future to that of existing in the present. Those young men willingly made many sacrifices and put their freedoms on hold so that they could ensure that future generations of Americans would enjoy the freedoms made possible by the bloodshed of their forefathers. There were many good ones and some bad ones, smart ones and a few not so smart, doers and goldbricks, and leaders and followers. All were comrades-in-arms, fighting together for the same end. In deadly combat, the infantryman's life depended on the actions of his comrades and that nearly always brought out the good in everyone. That bond or comradery is the primary reason that many an infantryman survived under the tremendous physical and mental tensions that he was obligated to deal with day after day. The bonds that he developed with his fellow men on the battlefield so many years ago remain with him to the grave. The infantryman was compelled to exist, face death and die on far away battlefields of snow, ice, rain, mud, din and stench. He slept fitfully on the hard cold COMPANY A 276TH INFANTRY1 FOREWORD ground or often in a foxhole. He exercised every means at his disposal to kill or maim his enemy, yet he was not nor would he become a killer per se. The man who experienced brutal combat, the smell of gunsmoke and the stench of death does not care to see or participate in violence again. His goals were to carry out his mission to the best of his ability, see the fighting end and return to the life he left behind. He started out hating no one, but when he saw his best friend killed, he hated the men who did it. After it was all over, the hate was gone. Destiny placed him where eyeball to eyeball confrontation with the enemy took place and left him to use his own judgment whether to fight or die, kill or be killed. Perilous situations were commonplace but he rarely avoided them for fear of further jeopardizing the lives of his comrades. He was more disposed to protecting his fellow men than he was to saving his own life. The Combat Infantryman's experiences were so horrible that when the war was over, he wanted to totally forget about his role in the brutal carnage, death and bloodshed. When he returned home, he refused to talk about his battle experiences because it brought back bitter memories and he felt incapable of adequately relating his experiences. He sensed that no words could make anyone grasp the horror and inhumanity that was commonplace on the battlefield without their actually having been there; not only to witness, but to experience the terror, endure the constant pain, hear the deafening gunfire and cries of the wounded, see friends being blown to pieces, and smell the sickening stench of the dead. Only those who have lived it can ever know what it was truly like. The Combat Infantryman learned to fight and kill, yet as hard as he fought, he did not return home with a chip on his shoulder. He had his share of violence and longed to put it all in the past. When engaged in combat, the foot soldier was only aware of the military action that took place in his immediate proximity. Most often he had no reliable concept of the "big picture." Seldom did he know how and to what extent his squad, platoon or company fit into the general military objectives of the battalion, regiment, division, corps or army. For all he knew, the entire war was taking place within a few yards of his foxhole. The squad leader, platoon sergeant and platoon leader were cognizant of very little more than were their men. At times those leaders were hardly aware of enough about what was happening to effectively lead their units in executing orders passed down to them from higher military authority. From the time the combat soldier disembarked on foreign shores, he seldom had access to newspapers or radios; consequently his knowledge of the progress of COMPANY A 276TH INFANTRY2 FOREWORD the war was never up to date and was sketchy at best. His main source of information was the Armed Services Newspaper Stars and Stripes. On the front lines, copies were infrequently available and were often received long after they were printed. Author Bill Mauldin's famous cartoons depicting two grubby GIs, Willie and Joe, were very popular with the soldiers. A Mauldin cartoon was often the first thing a man looked for when he got his hands of a copy of Stars and Stripes. Mail from home was by far the most important reading material and morale builder that reached the men at the front. They were starved for something to read and often passed around months-old hometown newspapers. Most of the time the infantryman did not know where in the world he was, but perhaps later found out where he had been. Troop movements were made by truck or on foot, without advance notice, and usually under the cover of darkness. Thus, the infantryman was nearly always left without the faintest idea of his location or destination. The names of French, Belgium and German villages and locales meant little or nothing to one who was unfamiliar with the geography. Those were, for the most part, "far away places with strange sounding names." He was forever preoccupied with enemy action, the bitter elements, sore feet, aching backs, and countless other discomforts, that he had no time to concern himself with his geographical location.