Dark and early on the morning of March l, C Company left Bracterbeek behind and fell into the CCR convoy at Sittard, Holland. We soon reach the German border where we halted for several hours, while the reconnaissance felt out the enemy's positions.

It was late in the afternoon when we resumed our advance. The sun set as we sped along the road and with darkness our forward elements joined with the enemy in battle. Before us lay the Roer River which the Germans had previously flooded by blowing two dams above us. Now the flood waters had receded and it was our task to cross the river. It was the German's plan to keep us from crossing. Between us and the river were part of the Siegfried defenses and they were in depth. As we went along, the towns and villages were turned into roaring-bonfires lighting our path. Above the Roer River the darkling sky was alive with graceful tracers appearing from the distance like giant Roman candles. Above the clouds anti=aircraft shells were bursting, their muffled explosions resembling thunder, the flashes from them like lightning. The few German reconnaissance planes seemed to crowd the air with their sound. During the daytime they hardly ever appeared.

Progress was at snail's pace most of the time. The forward elements slowly slugged their way through the formidable Siegfried defenses. Our battle column stretched like a great iron serpent across the country. Sometimes on main highways, mostly on narrow country roads, we finally arrived at the Roer River and crossed on a swaying pontoon bridge in the small hours of the morning. A ghostly fog veiled the face of the earth. It seemed to us as though the night would never end.

The sun was brilliant the morning of March 3 and so were the maneuvers of the boys. Our division captured Lobherich seven miles southeast of the Maas strongpoint of Venlo. The first platoon rejoined the company after having cleared roadblocks, mine fields and booby traps for Battalion Headquarters. The first thing they did was to take over the house of a wealthy tobacco merchant and liberate its extensive wine cellar containing everything from Scotch whiskey to Florida grapefruit juice, evidently collected by a connoisseur with influence. J. O. Campbell, Hartz and Friend of the second platoon went them one better and located a distillery which besides its regular stock of wine, had French champagne and cognac, Italian vermouth and brandies, Spanish wines and German schnapps. Thenceforth, to the end of our stay in Germany, the company was never dry for long. For years the Nazis had systemically looted all the liquor from subjected countries, Now the American Army was reaping the benefit of their efforts.

As the convoy moved forward, it was discovered that many of the houses and towns along the way had not been thoroughly "screened." Thus, at every pause men erupted from vehicles and raced for the nearest house. Soon most of the men were wearing the black silk toppers and swinging the canes that the European affects for formal occasions. And all were "rich" with billions of marks of the l920·24 inflationary currency.

L. E. O'Brien, Oral White, Frank Zelichowski, John Brown, Harry Asklof, Hank Pacyna, Bill Reiling and Gerald Bazan, cooks all, confiscated a civilian car. Elmer Jorgensen and Virgil Denny soon had the motor tuned up like new and the cooks rolled along in style. Woody Engle followed their example and hooked a coupe. Elmer Scheidt, Ray Daniels, Norman Dahl and Ken Johnson loaded the Brockway with "liberated" bicycles.

In the meantime, the third platoon working with the 4U5th Field Artillery cleared several mine fields. Most of the mines were dug in and carefully camouflaged, quite dangerous to remove. John Coakley solved the difficulty by getting German men (civilians} to do the finding and lifting of the mines and booby traps.

Upon reaching Lohberich a reconnaissance revealed that a huge mine field and several roadblocks lay along the road to Grefrath, holding up the entire CCB advance. The third squad of the third platoon under Ted Bielfeldt was sent up to take care of these obstacles. The mine field covered the road for about a half a mile and all of this was zeroed in by mortars and 88s. Covered by elements of the 88th Reconnaissance and carrying buckets of TNT, Bielfeldt, John Bogash, Loyal Ruhl, Pop Shiring, Bay Mamen, Angelo Manzo, Twisty Gedvilas, Charles Levy, Clarence Hitchy, Tony Genovese, Henry Kraus and Uncle Henry Rawson ran along the road setting a charge with a short fuse on each mine literally blowing their bridges behind them. For their efforts the squad received considerable publicity back in the States.

The first platoon worked over the town of Tuschenbroich, removing booby traps, a charge from beneath the floor of the village church and, with the none too willing assistance of some of the local gentry dug up sixteen Riegal mines and their first glass mines.

Sometime after midnight the company moved into Grefrath, rounded up stray snipers and started kicking the civilians out of some houses chosen for billets.

The unerring nostrils of h.q. platoon's billeters, Richard McKean, Bill Gall and 1/Sgt. J. J. Rajchel led them to choose the local *pub" as a likely sleeping place. Not only was there good beer on lap at the bar but a further examination (in the cellar of course) brought to light a lovely horde of bottled liquors of various vintages and flavors, several fifty gallon keys of "ye old malt" and one delightful gam bereft of any covering whatsoever. The owner of said gam was sleeping "a la natural" in the cellar with a few other members of the weaker sex, owners of the premises. Needless to say J.J.R.'s complexion turned to rosy red. Also, needless to say, the current drought in h.q. platoon was brought to a happy conclusion.

Our advent into Grefrath began a new era: the age of looting, glibly referred to as liberating. Under the guise of looking for lugars, P=38s, any concealed weapon, a host of men would descend on a house and search it minutely from top to bottom. If, when they left, there were any watches, money, jewelry, radios or eggs left in the house, it was purely accidental. Soon our vehicles were loaded down with more loot than equipment.

A certain group of characters were incorrigible looters. No matter how long they had been without sleep, nor how tired they were, upon reaching "green pastures," another town, they set about looting.

The looting, of course, went too far. Houses had to be screened for weapons and stray Jerries, but far too many houses were wrecked, too many civilians, young and old, were stripped of all their valuables. Most of the men rationalized that the Germans had done the same in all the countries they had conquered, which was probably true. But we put ourselves on the same plane as the Nazis, for we took watches, jewels, money from old people at the point of a gun. Often we broke into houses, tore up furniture, smashed windows, took what we wanted and destroyed the rest. We acted much the same as the raiders of Genghis Khan, the Persian hordes and all the rest of the worlds would be conquerors up to and including the Nazis and the Nippos. Nor did rank mean anything when it came to looting. Captains, majors and colonels had their vehicles filled with loot. If anything, they were worse for some actually pulled their rank on EM to take some choice item the latter had come across.

Early the next morning, March 5, we ups and away on one of those delightful dry runs. We returned to Grefrath late in the evening after chasing all over and finding nothing but surrendering Germans, the 35th and 84th Infantry Divisions, the latter having cut across our front. The whole front was in a state of collapse. Our troops were running wild capturing huge blocks of enemy troops everywhere. It was on this historic march that John Koropsak and Julius Hilinski, our supply personnel, decided to win the war. Separated from the CCB convoy they roared along in another convoy and when it stopped, they kept going. Arriving at a small town, they were waved down by an officer who asked them where in thunder they thought they were going. "To rejoin CCR," was the reply. "You won't find it up there," snapped the Officer. "The Jerries are in those houses," said he pointing up the road and ducking for cover. Koropsak does not remember it, but somehow he turned his 2 and 1/2 around and with Ed Kriger, the-mail clerk, mouthing imprecations and prayers with the same breath in the rear of the vehicle, took off like the proverbial large ended bird.

That same day one of those once in a lifetime events occurred. It concerns "souvenir" hunting by two members of the third platoon. Harold Meling in his adventures fell upon a packet of bills that would strangle a man eating shark. Neatly rolled and tightly tied, the bundle upon a cursory examination appeared to be the usual worthless reichmark notes of fantastic denominations. His pockets already bulging with such, Meling nonchalantly tossed them aside. John_Bogash, Meling's partner in crime, picked them up and put them in his overcoat pocket with the intention of sending them home to young relatives who would get a big kick out of playing with them. Back in his vehicle, Bogash pulled the roll out to separate the bills into their various denominations, and to his utter amazement and to Meling's great chagrin, upon opening the bundle, Bogash found 8OO lovely, negotiable Dutch gulden worth about two hundred and forty dollars concealed in the center of the roll!

On March 7 the first platoon took off for Rheinburg to join the 88th Cavalry Reconnaissance Battalion to which they were attached. Jack Winters in his "After Combat Report" described their adventures in this fashion: "Nobody knew what the deal was exactly, we only knew that the 88th had a job for the Engineers, and we were to cut out for Rheinburg to latch on the 88th. We took off shortly before noon, in the middle of a drizzling rain, natcherly. A couple miles out we turned up the wrong road and as a result ended up in the front yard of Joe Smultz' sauerkraut mines. Who says Texans don't blush?

"At any rate, we were about a mile and a half outside of Rheinburg when we came to a halt to inquire of an Inf. Officer headed in the opposite direction as to just what was up ahead. 'Hell, you can get through. There's a couple knocked out tanks on the road but you can get around them OK.' That sounded simple enough but just at that moment pfftiang pow! "Them goddam 88s." 'Oh yes,' said the Inf. Officer, taking off like a big bird in his peep, 'I forgot to mention that the 88s are zeroed in on that stretch into town.' Imagine that!

"Well, we weren't making any money there, to borrow a phrase from Shakespeare and it was a cinch we couldn't turn around so we made a run for it. The Inf. Officer made a gross understatement when he said that there were a couple of knocked out tanks on the road. Actually, there were nearly a dozen TDs, ,M4s, and light tanks sitting on and off the road. A peep could easily get around them but for our two and a half ton trucks, half tracks, and A Co's Brockway which was pulling the dozer trailer, it was another story.

"As a matter of fact, the Brockway did have some trouble and it narrowed down to the point where the driver had to either knock a TD out of the way or plow over a couple trees. The latter was the most feasible but it took up some time and those of us at the head of the column stopped to wait for him. All this time, the shells were flying in like mad necessitating a very hasty dismounting. Witnesses state that Charlie Desmond perfected a dive from a half track to the ditch that is out of this world and really showed the youngsters how it's done.

"We screeched to a halt inside the town and took cover in buildings while Lt. Burch went to find the 88th. While we were waiting, a Col. wheeled up to the curb in his peep and buttonholed the most intelligent looking soldier nearby to query, 'Where's the 35th's CP?' The soldier with his ever present prolific acumen replied; 'Beats me, sir, I'm a stranger here myself.' (Who's writing this anyway?)

"It turned out that the 88th was in Linfort instead of Rheinburg so we took off for there but not before we fixed a couple flat tires on the dozer trailer. While the tire changing was going on, a slew of P=5ls were strafing installations across the river (Rhine) and presented quite a sight as they dived in for the attack against heavy enemy ack-ack.

"The next day, 7 Mar., we found out what the big deal was. An 88th half track had stumbled into a mine field and had a wheel blown off. So the second squad (under Fred Cohen with Anderson, Howe, Ebner, Walls, Pearson, Desmond, Dick, Moore, Adams, Saylor and Tedesco) with the Brockway and dozer went out to clear the mines. A total of 87 Riegal mines were cleared from the road and fields on either side of the road. The dozer operator found the mine field through the simple process of running over it. Of course, his track was blown off in so doing, but he found it anyway. We had some great sport setting off the mines in piles ranging from five to nine. A few windows and roof tiles were disintegrated in the process and the German civilians were scared witless but it's tough all around these days."

Near Rheinburg, John Wilson, Ed McGoldrick and Carl Maves while digging fox holes kept hearing bees. Finally the bees got too close and from deep within his hole McGoldrick said in an awed voice, "Somebody's shooting at us."

After viewing the Rhine River and the half a hundred plus burned out, shot up tanks and their grisly contents that had that morning, led by a "brilliant" major, been a part of the 36th Tank Battalion, the first platoon rejoined the company at Grefrath.

The 8th Armored had been "aided" in its drive to the Rhine by the 35th Infantry Division and the 5th Armored Division. With the collapse of the Nazis the whole area west of the Rhine River and north of Cologne was ours. We now settled back to readying ourselves for the thrust across the Rhine River.

It was at Grefrath that 2/Lt Fred Stoughton was notified that he had been upped to 1/Lt. Having no silver bars, Fred improvised and wore large tinfoil epaulets. Quiet, shy Donald Rose was promoted to Pfc. Captain Rickard returned to assume command of the company. Hank Womastek was reluctant to leave for he had enjoyed his brief tenure of office immensely. Charley Desmond, corporal of the guard one night and just 'slightly' inebriated, waxed eloquent at the wrong moment and to the wrong person (W.O.R.) thereby joining the ranks of the privates and falling from the exalted. Songbird Peter Raymond stepped in to fill the vacancy. And speaking of guards, Grefrath was the site where each night found 67 men on guard. The guards were so thick that it was worth one's life to stick his head out the door after dark. The third platoon organized an orchestra with such artists as Donaid Oliver, Jonn Kolsun, Albert Jensen, Eugene Bingman and Tony Mastaler. Insomnia laid waste the company. Mark Lynch in trying to locate the laundry house walked in on a group of ladies taking a bath. Frank Mach, on guard in an old warehouse in use as the company's motor pool, heard "ghosts" and cut loose with a machine gun. There was a hot time in the old town for a while.

Pay call was at 0830. What with 67 men on guard the night before and entitled to sleep until 0930, and a faulty communication system to boot, there was a poor turnout. Deeply perturbed, Captain Rickard closed up shop and issued an edict to the effect that everyone that had missed pay call must hand in a written letter of not less than one hundred words explaining his absence. Many and varied were the letters but among the best was Pop $hiring's. Following is its contents:

"Captain Rickard:

Years ago when I was a boy I had to do this sort of thing in school, and now instead of being a grown man and the father of two children and trying to help win a war, I find myself again a little boy who must write a letter to the Company Commander, apologizing for being late in collecting his pay; but then I guess we live and learn or do we?

"Although my pay was nine days late reaching me, nobody wrote me a letter explaining why it was late, but then I am only a buck private and should not expect those things.

Signed:
Pvt. Edgar A. Shiring"

It was at Grefrath that the company received some replacements, among them was Ed Battjes, a quiet, personable chap. Bruno Oliaro returned from a seven day furlough (he was gone 24 days) to London. Several men including Sleepy Conaway and Ed Kramer enjoyed three day passes to gay Paree. The second platoon spent a night maintaining a bridge so that the whole division could make a dry run in total darkness in preparation for the Rhine. The first and second platoons set up a training area and gave lessons to various infantry battalions on the delicate art of clearing enemy mine fields. The way our boys handled Regal mines not only scared the living daylights out of the infantry but caused all the Germans within eye range to take to their cellars. The Nazis had given up making and handling Riegals as they were considered too dangerous (each mine contained twelve pounds of TNT and a half a dozen little devices to set if off). A lot of softball was played to the bewilderment of the natives who could not understand the antics of the crazy Americans. Harold Lewis, Joe Starcevitch, Highpockets McClung and Captain Rickard visited Brussels. In an impressive ceremony General Divine, Commanding General of the 8th Armored Division, awarded Bronze Stars to Sgt. Vincent E. Mashio and T/4 Fred Schmidt for the meritorious action under enemy fire mentioned in the chapter dealing with Holland. Bingman's squad, Al Jensen, Hank Piotrowski, Crutch O'Brien, Tony Mastaler, Harold Meling, Sleepy Conaway, Jesse Adams, Tony Abari, Gabby Cathers, Red Stahl, Rubber legs Fahey and You-all Mach fixed up their 2 and 1/2 ton truck with electric lights, telephones connecting the cab to the truck bed and other improvisations subject to the term, Yankee Ingenuity. Big Norman Dahl fell off of a moving truck, went to a hospital and was heard from no more.