XI. RUHR VALLEY

We pulled back and settled in houses in a small village. While there, we were ordered to search houses for weapons and cameras. I didn't know why cameras.

We were paired off to search the houses. My buddy and I went into one house to search and was about ready to leave, when I saw a sheet like hanging on the wall down low. I pulled the cloth back and there was a hole in the wall with a steel box. We lifted the box out of the hole and opened it. In the box was a beautiful Leika camera and a 7.65 Walther automatic pistol. My buddy said he wanted the pistol. I told him how valuable the camera was and I was taking the pistol. Later on I got the second 7.65 pistol in a shake down of prisoners.

One day, we were out in a field taking a mine class, when I heard a swoosh. I looked around and here came a jet German plane about 50 feet off the ground going at a tremendous speed. He went on in to town, strafed the Battalion Headquarters only, and kept going. He knew where he was going. That was the first time I ever saw a jet plane.

One night another G.I. and I were on guard in a foxhole. We were standing back to back on a dark, dreary night when I heard someone or something coming. I leveled my carbine at it and yelled, "Halt!" It didn't stop. I yelled "Halt" again and at the same time started squeezing the trigger, when the guy yelled his name. I told him he was stupid because I almost killed him for not answering the "Halt". I was really upset.

Two incidents happened while we were waiting to cross the Rhine River.

One, I was sitting on the toilet one day when a guy walked in. I pointed at the top of my thigh and told him that it was a good place to get hit. That's where I eventually got hit.

The second time I was dreaming about a passage of scripture in the Bible. I had no idea what scripture it was. When I got out of bed the next day, I opened my Bible. It fell open to the 23^rd Psalm and that was what I dreamed about. I still have the Bible.

One night the sky lit up as far as we could see. It was our artillery bombarding the other side of the Rhine River. It lasted for hours.

The next night we crossed the Rhine River in our vehicles on a pontoon bridge. It had runners on it that the wheels of the vehicles ran on. (Typist's note: A neighbor at Sebring, Florida, was talking of his army experiences and his job was to build pontoon bridges and he helped lay the pontoon bridge across the Rhine River. (Earl Ody). Mr. Ody just recently (2004) died at Sebring. He was a nice guy.)

XII. THE RUHR POCKET

On the other side of the river after daylight, what a sight!

The bombardment had just left stubs of trees. They were splintered.

I saw some Germans lying with the top of their heads blown off, leaving the bare skull.

We were attacking one town when a mother and young firl came running out of their house with their hands up and the roof on their house was on fire. I motioned to them to go on and that they wouldn't be hurt. Hitler had them believing that we were monsters.

My squad was told to post a guard on the east side of town. I found a house which I thought was an advantageous spot. We went in and told a man and woman to get out and that we were taking over the house. He asked me in broken English if he could leave his father in the house and that he was unable to move. I said where is he? He took me to the back bedroom. When I opened the door, an old gray-headed man raised up in bed, with my flashlight in his eyes, he looked scared to death. I could understand the man telling his father that we were Americans and that was good.

We were told that the 2^nd Armored Division was swinging around to the left, the 4^th Armored Division was swinging around to the right, and the 8^th Armored Division, us, were going up the middle to draw their armor.

One night the squadron leader told me to take two men and go until we contacted Germans. Two of my squad volunteered to go with me. We started up the side of the road when we heard somebody come out of a house. We crept up the ditch to where there was a small bridge leading into the back of the house. I heard somebody coming down the road. I tilted my helmet so I could see him. When he got where I could see him, I could see he was a German soldier wearing hob-nail boots. I pulled my little 7.65 pistol out of my holster and as he went by I could have grabbed him by the leg. My two buddies were right behind me lying in the ditch remaining quiet. After the German went by, we could hear him changing guards. I motioned for my buddies back out. We slipped back along the road and reported to the leader where we had contacted Germans. I was glad the guys stayed quiet and I didn't have to kill the German because it would have served no purpose.

We attacked the town the next day and it was full of German soldiers. We fought all day and night before we took over the town.

Our Mess Sgt. had the mess truck up there early morning to serve breakfast. As I walked out a ways to find a place to eat, I stumbled over something. I looked down, it was a dead German soldier that wasn't as lucky as I was. I moved down the wall a step or two and ate my breakfast.

We broke out and were making about 25 miles a day. We drove all the way to Magdeburg, Germany, with little resistance. Then we were ordered to stop so the Russians could take Berlin.

On our drive toward Berlin, we went through a lot of towns. But one town or city stands out in my mind. We had to wind around from street to street to get through it. The bombers had turned the city to rubble. Very seldom would we see anybody. You could smell the dead German bodies buried under the rubble. I had forgotten the name of the city until I saw it on the History channel recently (l-l4-01). The name of the city was Dresden.

On Easter Sunday l945, I heard there was going to be Easter services in a German pub. I decided I would attend. It was a comforting service and I made a vow, whenever possible, I would always attend church on Easter Sunday.

We started mopping up in the Ruhr pocket. We attacked a town and we took it over. There cattle and horses lay dying in the barn lot. I saw a displaced person bent down over the horse lying dead. I looked a little closer and he was cutting a big hunk out of the rear leg of the horse. I couldn't understand why he wasn't getting his meat from one of the cows.

In a little bit, I was talking to Lloyd Parish, a Huron boy. I asked him what he was doing up there and he said his half-track had been knocked out. Lloyd was a half-track driver. He said he was supposed to stay in the rear until he received another half-track, but he wanted to stay with his squad. I told him he was silly and should stay to the rear.

We had a hard time taking the next town, so we decided to slip into the town at night. I took my squad to a barn and got in the loft in the hay. I posted guards at the corner of the barn on the outside. In the night I heard some small arms firing. I didn't know what had happened until the next day. I guess what had happened was a squad of Germans had walked up on our guards outside the barn. The guards weren't sure who they were until one of the Germans called out (something like "Bosch".) The guards realizing they were Germans opened fire killing two (I heard). They must have wounded one because in the night I could hear somebody yelling for "help". Evidently neither side would go to get him. I slept as good as anyone could under the circumstances but when we woke up the next morning, the stuff hit the fan. Germans were all around us.

We heard a Tiger tank in the edge of town. I had dropped my 59mm anti-tank gun long before this because it was more trouble than it was worth.