Chapter 11 - On and On

By the time we left the site of the dam it was April 8, 1945 and we had been on the move for fourteen days and in action for all but three of these days. We had been getting little sleep during the night, eating limited rations, and I was constantly on the verge of physical exhaustion because of my combat load of approximately 100 pounds. When we finally left the Ruhr on April 13, the last five days in the Ruhr were a blur to me. The high points of these five days that I can still remember I'll describe: however, the order in which they occurred I can't remember.

After moving mounted all the day after leaving the dam, we finally paused at nightfall and moved in a dismounted column farther forward about a half mile. After we halted, we had been resting for a half-hour when I looked up the hill to the north of us and barely made out the black blob of a tank. It was so dark that we couldn't be sure if it was German or one of ours, so Ray and I started crawling up the hill to see if we could identify it. We had been working up the hill for approximately twenty minutes when a voice from the tank asks, "What the hell are you guys doing." We muttered something and beat an embarrassed retreat.

During the past two weeks I had discovered that if you put an egg on top of a can of C ration hash and heated it in a burning building it made a great meal. Since nobody liked the cold hash I was able to collect a hoard of cans of hash. This lasted almost until we left the Ruhr. One of my squad finally asked what I was doing running into the nearest burning buildings whenever we halted for any time. I finally told him what I was doing, and that ended my cornering of the hash market.

I can remember watching the little forward observer aircraft circling over us when we were leading the column. Once, as I watched, an antiaircraft gun started shooting at the little plane. As the path of the exploding shell converged on the little plane flight path, he suddenly started a steep diving, turn and the antiaircraft gun missed. The plane started circling again with the same results only, just as the observer plane started his evasive move two P-47s came bursting on the scene and pounced on the antiaircraft battery. They fired both their 50 caliber guns and launched Tiny Tim rockets they were carrying. A large black cloud soon rose from the gun site and the little plane went calmly about his business unmolested.

One night we were sleeping out in the open in the rain and I decided to keep my carbine in my sleeping bag for the night to keep it dry. The next morning someone yelled to mount up and move out. I hurriedly crawled out of my bag, shook the water off of it, rolled it up and threw it into the track. I grabbed my carbine and climbed up into the track using the track suspension and mine rack for foot holds. As soon as I swung over the side we started moving. I looked back over the field and the mortar track had thrown its track and stopped. It tended to do this frequently after hitting the crater in the culvert next to the Rhine.

As we drove away we could see the mortar squad jumping out of their track to examine their plight. I then looked down at my carbine and found that the heat and moisture of my body during the night had caused it to rust. It looked like hell and I spent the next hour as we moved along trying to wipe it clean. The mortar track caught up with us the next day and I never asked how they had been rescued. I think they were mad at us for not stopping.

One afternoon we were dismounted and preparing to attack across a field with a slight rise. The field was about four hundred yards wide and recently plowed. There was a small patch of brush and a log slightly more than half way across the field. We were receiving sporadic small arms fire as we spread out in a scrimmage line. I was already tired from previous action of the day, and I wasn't looking forward to running across the field under fire. The word to charge was given and I fired several burst of about twenty rounds and heaved myself up and began running after the rest of the platoon who were using marching fire as they trotted up the slight slope. By the time I reached the log I had caught up with the rest of the platoon.

My lungs were bursting ,and my legs felt dead. I had run more than two hundred yards across a plowed field carrying nearly a hundred pounds, and I was finished for the moment. I staggered up to the log and sat on it facing back the way from which we had come. Ray yelled for me to get down or I'd get shot. I replied, "'Good, maybe I'll only get nicked." One of the infantry squad sergeants yelled, "For Christ's sake Odgers get down behind the log." I replied, "If I ever get down on the ground I may never be able to get up." Ray pulled me down off the log and I lay there trying to catch my breath. The platoon moved off as I lay there exhausted. Ray stayed with me and in about five minutes I was able to get back on my feet and follow the rest of the platoon. Ray and I walked the rest of the way across the field because most of the enemy firing had ceased. I was getting so tired that a minor wound would have been a blessing.

This incident I remember, but I can't place when it happened. We were attacking a small town and had moved up to the first houses on the edge of town dismounted. We were sitting next to a house when we heard the sound of hushed voices coming from the cellar of the house. One of the guys who spoke German yelled down the cellar steps for the people to come out with their hands up. Nothing happened, so he yelled down again. Still nothing happened ,so I took a hand grenade and tossed it down the steps. It went thump, thump down the stairs and then blew up. Smoke came billowing up the steps and there was some child like crying. To my horror some women and children soon came staggering up the steps.

About fifteen came up the steps before they stopped coming. I rushed down the steps to see what I could do for the wounded and, as my eyes became adjusted to the darkness, I looked for the causalities I knew must be lying there. I looked around, and the cellar was bare. I couldn't believe my eyes. They had all been sitting around the periphery of the room, and the grenade had rolled into a slight depression in the center of the dirt floor. The main force of the explosion and all of the shrapnel had been directed into the cellar wall just above the women's heads. I heaved a sigh of relieve and climbed back into the daylight and gave the good news to the rest of the squad.

A few days after we left the dam we were moving dismounted for nearly a mile over fairly rough terrain. Plessala's assistant gunner was almost at the end of his endurance, so Plessala was carrying the gun and his assistant was carrying the tripod. We came to a hill that rose five hundred feet in a half-mile. As we started up the hill we came under rifle fire from some houses at the top of the hill. We returned the fire and then started charging up the hill. Plessala, who was smaller than I by about twenty pounds, was carrying his own gun, and, as we started up the hill he fell behind. Big Al dropped back and grabbed the gun from Plessala. He went running by me, waving the machine gun in his left hand and firing his M1 like a pistol with his right hand. He made a sight that should have been recorded for history as he charged up the hill by my side yelling and shooting as he went.

When we got to the top of the hill the rest of the company caught up to us as we paused to catch our breaths. Soon a colonel arrived in his peep. A conference was then started to decide how to assault the next hill that was being defended by a strong force of infantry with tank support. It was decided to call in an air strike from our tactical air support group. I was standing in the middle of a field about 150 feet from the nearest house looking out toward the next hill that was about a half-mile away. Soon three P-47s appeared overhead and began circling between the two hills and at an altitude of 1000 feet. I thought this was great since I never had our support aircraft so close. As I waved at them their leader did a wing over and started a long shallow dive towards me. I thought this guy is really friendly to come down and give me a close look. Then I saw smoke coming from both his wings and some debris dropping out of the bottom of his wings. It took me about a half second to realize the son-of-a-bitch was trying to kill me. Thank God he was a rotten shot because it took me at least five seconds to dash back to the nearest house and plunge head long down the cellar steps.

I slid down the steps on my stomach and came to rest on the dirt floor of the cellar. Sitting around the edge of the cellar were about ten other GIs. We sat there for five minutes while the slugs from the planes penetrated the wall on one side at ground level and went whistling across the cellar to bury themselves in the opposite wall just above our heads. While we sat there, there was evidentially frantic radio traffic between our forward air coordinator and the planes because they soon quit shooting and flew away. The colonel's peep had been demolished, but I don't think anybody was seriously hurt. From that day on we always had a white tank with the forward air controller and if the planes couldn't find the tank for target vectoring, they didn't shoot unless they could positively identify their target.

One night after moving forward most of the day, a number of us were gathered in the largest room of a small house. Some one wanted to send out a night patrol because we had lost contact with the enemy. Lt. Simino told one of the Sergeants to lead the patrol and picked the rest of the patrol by pointing to each saying ,"you, you, you and you". The last man he pointed to was a new replacement who on being picked turned pale and looked ass if he was going to faint. I said I'd go in his place and we headed out the door. I left the machine gun with Ray. It was a bright, moon lit, night and we easily made our way through some trees and onto a road. The road's surface glowed like a silver ribbon as we started down it. We quietly walked for about a half mile down the road and found nothing. We returned ,and while the others pulled guard the guys from the patrol got to sleep all night.

Not all of the German civilians behaved well towards us; though, in general they seemed inclined to be civil. We were driving through a town in a column with our platoon back in reserve. The buildings were multi storied and built right up to the sidewalk. People were hanging out the windows watching us pass when the tracks at the front of the company were fired on from the buildings. It took several minutes and several shots to locate the source of fire. Two women were leaning out a second story window waving at us while a third was firing at us with a rifle from between the skirts of the others. The sergeant that discovered this swung a ring mounted fifty-caliber machine gun around and chopped the window and the women out of the building. We continued on without any further trouble.

The last day of our fighting in the Ruhr we were moving dismounted into a small city. We had moved up to an intersection with a fountain in the middle, and I was told to secure the intersection with my gun team. The rest of the platoon moved deeper into the city while we sat in the middle of the intersection. After standing there for a few minutes a crowd of Germans began gathering in a side street about a block from the intersection. I started getting nervous when the crowd had grown to about twenty five people who were looking up the street towards the three of us. The crowd was talking to each other and occasionally gesturing towards us. After watching this for several minutes I decided that enough was enough and I needed to disperse the crowd. I waved at them to clear the street but this had no effect. I dropped down behind my gun while they watched and carefully fired a five-second burst into the buildings behind them and about five feet over their heads. This had the desired effect, for the whole bunch ran for cover.

We stayed there for about twenty minutes longer before a runner came back and told us to move up to the rest of the company. To this day I don't understand what the crowd thought it was going to do. They hadn't sent a spokesman to me. I couldn't see any weapons among them and, without weapons, they certainly weren't going to try to rush us. A group of twenty to thirty people milling around in the streets discussing who knows what wasn't gaining any friendly thoughts from me. I guess my shots made them decide that there were other more important things to do than stand around staring at some heavily armed enemy soldiers.

When we reached the center of the city we were told that we were going into corps reserve and to fall out, clean our weapons and rest. Within an hour I was sound asleep on the sidewalk in the city square. I must of slept several hours before the Sergent awakened me and told me that the kitchen truck was just down the street, and I was to take the gun crew down for the first decent meal we had had for three weeks. After we ate we returned to the square and went back to sleep. I slept an uninterrupted sleep of 12 hours and only awoke when I was nudged and told to eat again and then mount up and prepare to move out. The half-tracks had come up that night and were lined up in the street next to where we had been sleeping. Several had clattered by within a few feet and I hadn't stirred. I was as tired as I had ever been. The battle of the Ruhr pocket was over for the Eighth Armored Division. We were to move east toward Berlin. We heard that President Roosevelt had died, and I can't remember that among the platoon it was considered a great tragedy. Certainly nobody shed any tears, and there wasn't any ceremony held. We were too damn busy for that. We had being seeing people dying horrible deaths for weeks, so some older man dying in bed didn't impress us much.

We mounted up and began moving towards the northeast. We soon left the industrial area of the valley of the Ruhr and moved into the rolling tree covered hills. In the mid-afternoon we passed through the town of Hamelin of Pied Piper fame. The town was nestled in the valley of the Weser River. It was a pretty little town and wasn't as badly damaged as the towns of the Ruhr. Since our destination was the city of Braunschweig, a trip of nearly 150 miles, we didn't arrive until late that evening. As I remember, the weather was moderate, and the country we were passing through was peaceful. We arrived in Braunschweig after dark and were directed to park the platoons tracks next to a block of multistoried apartment buildings which were our billets.