My first impression of Holland was quite positive. The city of Val ken berg, for example, which was our destination, had escaped major damage during the war and seemed cheerful and bright. Also somewhat surprising was the strong anti-German feeling by a number of Dutch citizens considering the close ethnic relationships between the two peoples. One Dutch family related to us how they had managed to hide their prized possessions during house-to-house searches by German soldiers. Needless to say, they anxiously waited for liberation by English and American forces which had moved northward after the successful D-Day invasion.

After a brief period for re-grouping and preparation for combat, C Troop was ordered to proceed to a front line village of Linne which at that time was being held by British commandos. Prior to the takeover by our troop, I had accompanied our platoon leader, Lieutenant Russmiller, to a meeting with British officers to facilitate the deployment of our platoon. While Lieutenant Rissmiller went inside a building for his meeting, I waited nearby with our jeep and began chatting with a couple of commandos who appeared to be quite relaxed and unconcerned about some sporadic artillery fire that could be heard in the near distance. Keenly aware that Linne was a front line village, I asked one of the commanders as to the location of enemy position. Somewhat matter-of-factly he pointed to a small island in a river that appeared to be less than a half mile away from where we were standing. "Well," he continued, "the Germans have a machine gun position there and every day at noon they spray this street with machine gun fire." Glancing at his watch, the commando then suggested that perhaps it would be a good idea if I were to move my vehicle to the other side of the building. Needless to say, I wasted no time in complying with his suggestion. Fortunately, there was no machine gun fire that day, but nevertheless, I did appreciate the commando's concern. They were, in my opinion, a cool bunch of guys who were the epitome of military professionalism.

Despite our close proximity to German positions, our stay in Linne was quite brief and uneventful. During the daylight hours, we kept a rather low profile so as not to draw artillery fire. The brief lull came to an end toward the end of February, 1945, when the Ninth Anny began its assault across the Roer River. Shortly before the crossing, however, we were involved in a sweep to clear an area leading to the river. Our platoon remained basically in reserve behind an infantry unit which had jumped off earlier that day. As the night closed in, we were ordered to set up defensive positions and await further orders. Another one of my buddies and I were assigned to set up a 50 caliber machine gun position.

After digging our foxholes, we prepared to settle down for the night. Then occurred something which still lingers on my mind. I suddenly heard the muted sound of an engine running in low gear and I looked up to see a tank weaving back and forth in a nearby field. Apparently the tank was looking for and picking up the dead GI.s who had been killed during the day's fighting. To add to the eeriness of the scene, I could see burning haystacks which had been set afire by artillery fire earlier in the day. Truly, it was a scene that reminded one of Dante's Inferno.

As if the day's events had not been hectic enough, we had barely settled down for the night when we again received abrupt orders to start moving to another area. It is a truism that at our level (grunts), we seldom had the faintest notion of the whys and wherefores of the Army's decisions. To quote a familiar refrain, 'Ours is not to reason why, ours is but to do or die.' Moving toward the German border after crossing the Roer River, my troop was assigned to a task force designated as CCR (Combat Command Reserve). Immediately preceding us was another task force (CCB) which had been given the mission of spearheading a drive to the Rhine River, including the seizure of Rheinberg, one of the last remaining urban strongholds immediately west of the Rhine River.

We later learned that in making the assault on Rheinberg, which was not thought to be heavily defended, CCB ran into a firestorm of resistance which resulted in heavy casualties, including the loss of a tank battalion and many G.I.s killed or wounded. As far as my platoon was concerned, we entered the Rheinberg combat area the next day and as we proceeded down the road, we suddenly came across four or five tanks which were stopped and with their 75mm cannons still pointing, eastward in a firing position. But the tanks were silent and had apparently been knocked out by German artillery the night before.

Approaching the first tank, I glanced at the vehicle's identification number and I was stunned. My God, those are our tanks, I thought. Adding to the horror of the scene was the sight of a blackened tanker hanging halfway out of the tank's turret with outstretched arms. Quite obviously, he had not been able to crawl out of the tank before the flames had engulfed him. Lying on the ground next to the tank in a pool of blood was another tanker whose life had also been violently ended.

Moving on further down the road, we came across some foxholes, each of which contained a dead German soldier. What struck me as rather unusual was the fact that all of them had been shot in the head with the neat bullet holes still visible in their helmets. It was quite evident that the Germans had fought ferociously to prevent our Division from capturing Rheinberg.

Leaving the carnage which we had just witnessed, we resumed our push toward another sector on the Rhine River. After a brief overnight respite, we finally reached an area that had been designated as our objective for clearing out any German forces that might be resisting our advance to the Rhine River.

It was sometime around mid-morning, as I recall, when we began our advance on foot toward some buildings which were thought to be occupied by the Germans. A firefight developed and amidst the confusion and noise, several memories still linger. One was the sight of a German soldier running towards us with outstretched arms and waving what appeared to be a piece of paper or some similar object. He was met with a hail of rifle fire and when his body was examined later, I found out that the leaflet which he was waving was a leaflet that the Air Force had dropped on German soldiers urging them to surrender and guaranteeing them safe conduct if they did so. It was not one of our smartest decisions and our platoon leader was quite adamant the next day during a briefing session that it was not our mission in combat to kill enemy soldiers who were surrendering. It was stupid also because the Germans could turn around and do the same thing to our soldiers in similar situations.

By the end of the day, we had accomplished our mission and began digging in on the bank of the Rhine River. As the night closed in, the sky was lit up with streaks of artillery and mortar fire coming from both sides of the Rhine River. Looking out of my foxhole and gazing down at the glistening waters of the Rhine River, I could not help but think of a photograph that I had seen some years earlier in an illustration book of World War I showing an American soldier performing guard duty on the Rhine River. The picture was captioned 'Watch on the Rhine'. I thought that here we are, a generation later, repeating the same scenario. Was there some truth after all to the old adage that history repeats itself? I continued to think about it when I felt a tap on my shoulder and a soldier from the 75th Infantry Division informed me that his unit was taking over our positions.