4.   ON TO LE HAVRE FOR MORE SERIOUS BUSINESS

Our troop movement to the seacoast went very smoothly, and all loading procedures were accomplished without any serious hitches, even down to our stolen vehicles that were loaded without too many questions to be answered. Our personnel were warned that we should expect some rough weather in crossing the English Channel, but as it turned out, it really wasn't as bad as some of the days we had on the Samaria earlier. There was an evident air of caution among us as we felt the impact of the things we would soon be facing. In training, a G.I. would have a tendency to play the scene lightly; but now, we would soon be putting into practice the things we had long been trained to accomplish. The Battle of the Bulge was already in its clean-up stage, and our 8^th Armored Division would be picking up from a point in the extreme north of France and would be one of the first American units to battle the German forces on their own soil, namely, the Siegfried Line.

I would like to insert an interesting story at this point. My wife's uncle, Stanley Kielbasinski, a veteran of World War I, had re-enlisted in World War II, at an age that was about 50 years. He lived in Gloucester City, N.J., and was employed for many years with the Armstrong Cork (floor covering) Co. He had become their chief shipper, and he felt that he could be using this ability in the Army. His son, Stanley, Jr. was with the Marines in the South Pacific where he was wounded in combat; I think this also had a bearing on his strong desire to get into the world foray. To get on with my story, I learned later that Uncle Stanley was directing the unloading of equipment at Le Havre when our 8^th A.D. unloaded there. He knew I was with the 8^th A.D., but as luck would have it, he missed seeing me. He was a Captain at this time. He had been in France since the third day of the Normandy Landing. He was a determined military man.

We immediately moved up to an open encampment at Marseille (pardon my spelling throughout this epistle remember, I am a high school dropout), where we slept in our sleeping bags on the frozen and icy earth, the temperature being about zero degrees. It was an eerie feeling we all experienced here as we observed the convoys of ambulances returning from the fields of action. We were also warned that we could expect nighttime strafing from the German Luftwaffe; fortunately we were spared this.

After two days here, we moved forward, and very soon we were in the Alsace-Lorraine territory just short of the German border in a town named Sierke. Here, our strategy was being laid for what we could expect in the way of enemy action, etc., and to me, it was grossly downplayed. We were told that we would be more or less holding ground, and in the meantime endeavor to gain some ground in the direction of Trier. This was to be our baptism of fire, so to speak, but no one told us it was against the seasoned troops of the 11^th Panzer Division.

The Eighth Armored Division was now under the command of Brig. Gen. John M. Devine who took command just before we broke camp at Polk, and we have now become part of General George Patton's Third Army. Patton once said that he never wanted any division under his command that was trained in Louisiana, but in our case, he had no choice, and he was damned glad to get us. Besides, he was a rather close friend of Gen. Devine, and he knew we were in very capable hands.

Capt. Finley told me to stay back at Sierke until he would send for me; so, at 0400 hours (4:00 A.M.), 21 January 1945, with the temperature reading minus ten degrees and with snow and ice covering the ground, Company A became the first unit of the entire 8^th Arm'd Div. to go into combat at Nennig, Germany.

Our first fatality was a Robert Johnson, of Salt Lake City. It was a weird thing that took place when he was killed. I was told that he suddenly ran ahead of his squad of the 1^st Platoon threw down his rifle and said that he would kill no one! As he stood in an open area, he became an easy target for a German sniper. He was a Mormon, but until that time, he never gave any indication he would not take an active part in combat. Later in combat three other men of that squad were killed. One was a Protestant, one was a Catholic, and the other was a Jew kind of an odd coincidence wouldn't you say? This was a 12-man squad.

On Jan. 23^rd, the Capt. sent for me because a C.P. (Command Post) was now established in this small village of Nennig, and I would be used as a messenger, guard of the C.P., and in other way I could be used. For instance, our 2^nd Platoon was on a high ridge behind our C.P., and the light machine squad had a faulty trigger/firing pin on their air-cooled 30 cal. Mach. Gun. Finley was upset by this as they held an important position for preventing an enemy counter attack. I told Finley that I could fix their machine gun in about ten minutes. I had noted a frozen water-cooled 30 cal. Mach. Gun in the back yard of our C.P., and as an armorer, I knew the trigger assembly was interchangeable with the air-cooled gun. I quickly disassembled the trigger mechanism, and carried the assembly up the steep hill to the 2^nd Plat Machine Gun Sqd. It was a precarious climb up the icy slope, since at the same time as I was going uphill, a barrage of mortar shells were coming in. The gun was quickly put back into action just in time to avert an attempted counter attack a couple of hours later.

About our 4^th day at Nennig, our kitchen mess truck came up to us with some hot breakfast food. I remember having some hot cakes placed on my mess kit, and then, after I walked about 25 feet to a place where I could enjoy them, they had already frozen quite solid with the extreme cold weather. I also remember Sgt. George Jefferys, a cook from Philadelphia, who was going to carry a Mormite jug of coffee (this was a WWII thermal type of jug) up the hill to many men of our 2^nd Plat. A Co A rifleman, named Luckfield, told Jefferys that he would take the coffee up the hill for him. He only got part way up the hill when a barrage of concussion type rockets landed near him and he was killed; these rockets were known as "Screemin-Meemies". They were launched by the Germans from an assembled group of tubes; each tube contained its own rocket, and there were about five tubes in each group. They were aimed in a general direction since there was no high degree of accuracy involved. They created severe results by their detonated concussion, and any one within a 35-foot diameter of the explosion would most likely be killed instantly.

Our casualties ran very high during our first week of combat, and most of it was for frozen feet for which most were hospitalized back in England. Our company of 242 men suffered about 60 per cent casualties, some of who were fatalities, a very high price for our initial combat experience. I remember sitting in a house in Nennig during the night with four other of my buddies of Co. A. It was about the fifth day of combat, and after we had suffered many losses. Willie Cope said to me, "Bopp, do you still have that harmonica you took off of the German prisoner?" I said that I had, and Willie asked me to play taps on the harmonica, which of course I did! It was indeed a very solemn moment in the darkness of that bombed-out room as the musical notes seemingly resounded even from that harmonica. By the way, at that time, Willie really didn't know that I was the Co. A bugler. It kind of makes me smile now as I write this account. Permit me to add, that back in 1987, our Co. A had a reunion at the Cherry Hill Inn, Cherry Hill, N. J., and at the Saturday night banquet of that occasion, I was presented with a genuine WWII Army bugle with my name, rank and serial number engraved on it. I have remained the Co. A bugler for many years, because since 1945, I have maintained a contact with over 60 men from my original group by sending newsletters, etc.

Our battle weary men of Co. A were taken off the Siegfried Line, and a few days later we were taken to a small town Wijlre (pronounced Will-ray) Holland. Here, we would receive replacements and much needed supplies and medical checkups. The German Army had occupied Wijlre for five years, and the Americans had liberated them only two months before our entrance. The Germans stripped the entire town of everything of value, even to the stripping of church bells from the Catholic Church.

The priest of the church there told the people, during their occupation period, that someday the American Army would liberate them. So, he said that he would teach all that he could to speak the English language; this was done in the underground unknown to the Germans. He also told the people that when the Americans came, they should give their beds to the soldiers, and that they, the people, should sleep on the floor. He further instructed them to share whatever food they had, and they should also wash the clothes of our G.I.s. I can truthfully say that these great people of Wiljre did exactly as they had been instructed, and I shall never ever forget their sacrificial generosity. They displayed, in a thousand ways, their deep appreciation for the things that we Americans had done for them.

From a personal standpoint, I am indebted to the Bessems family who chose me as their responsibility and who took me into their home. They included three children: Dora (21); Matje (15) & Theo (11). Papa Bessems was spared from being sent into Germany as a slave laborer because he worked as a coal miner. I remember the daughter Dora celebrating her 21^st birthday during our Co A's brief stay in Wijlre. It came at a time when several of my Christmas packages had just caught up with me, so I was able to contribute many "goodies" towards the birthday occasion. As a special gift, I gave Dora a bar of Cashmere Bouquet soap, and upon receiving this wartime valuable gift, declared she would save it for her wedding day. It was perhaps a year later when she married her longtime sweetheart Sjief (Jeff) Van Kan of Valkenberg a diesel mechanic, and I am sure she smelled as nice as any bride on her wedding day.

I kept in touch with the Bessems family through their youngest son Theo these many years since WWII, and at this writing date of August 1990 (45 years later), Theo, now 56years old, and his wife Leny have four children of their own plus two grandchildren. I had the recent grand and happy occasion (July 20, 1990) to drive from my home in Maple Shade, N.J. to the Baltimore-Washington International Airport, where I greeted Theo and Leny on their very first visit to our U.S.A.; they were my house guests for the two weeks they were here in the states. Yes, it was quite a reunion, and yes, I gave them my personal bed while I preferred to use a folding type of cot/bed.