Crossing the bridge at Remagen

James Wayne Camp
9th Infantry Division
Lee's Summit, Mo.

DEDICATION TO MY DAD

by Judy Rinkenbaugh

Dad, you were a young farm boy from Sullivan County, Missouri, when you enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944. After the war, you married Doris Jean Smith and had three daughters (Sharon, Shirley, and myself), nine grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. While I was growing up, you only spoke about your combat experiences on rare occasions. Being the middle of three girls, I don’t remember ever asking you much about those years, as I was not very interested in war stories or the historical events of the world. Later in my life, when you did talk about the war, it was usually instigated by questions from a son-in-law or a grandson. I became amazed at the stories that unfolded about "the mighty endeavor." As I have gotten older and more reflective, I realize just how those events shaped and impacted the lives and character of those who survived them. I suspect that I, as one of your descendants, have in turn, been affected in ways that I do not yet fully appreciate or understand. But I do know that I am now extremely interested in the "greatest generation" that you are a part of. This project is a result of that interest.

The more I read and discover, I am continually in awe that you miraculously survived this tumultuous time. I am also continually struck by all of the historical circumstances that fell into place at just the right time in order for the American army to get across the Rhine River at Remagen. Your infantry regiment crossed the Rhine, against very heavy artillery, and became the first infantry regiment to battle across the Rhine barrier since the Napoleonic Wars. Somehow, you also miraculously survived the hedgerows of France, Hurtgen Forest, Battle of the Bulge, Seigfried Line, Cologne Plains, and many other very fierce battles that involved numerous casualties. You also were put into special services, guarded a prison in Bolbec, France, and helped free a POW camp in Castle, Germany. You started this adventure in LaHarve, France and only stopped when you had reached the Elbe River in Magdeburg, Germany and met the Russians. After the war was over, you had to stay and guard troop trains as they returned prisoners from France to Germany.

I know you saw many horrific sites in this journey that simply cannot be put into words. These world-changing events that you were involved in have made me aware of the desperate conditions that you had to endure and the incredible selfless actions you took in defense of the freedom that I now enjoy.

While serving in the 9th Infantry as a machine gunner, on several occasions you distinguished yourself by heroic and meritorious achievement and service. It is said that courage is not the absence of fear, but the endurance regardless of the fear. You were, and continue to be, a very courageous man. I believe that you should be acknowledged and recognized for your commitment to stand at a very young age in the face of great adversity and tribulation. I know it has been very difficult for you to relive those years that I am sure you would like to forget, but I greatly appreciate your cooperation in this project. I wanted to do this for your children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren and any future generations that God sees fit to bless our family with. I have learned that history is more than just the accumulation of names and dates; it is our attempt to connect ourselves to people we may not know in order to learn more about ourselves. I have gained a more complete sense of who I am and who I want to be through this experience.

Dad, you have served your God, family, and country well. You deserve, and are due, the highest degree of respect and admiration and the deepest gratitude that I can bestow. I am extremely proud of you and very thankful for the freedom that you helped secure for my family. Thank you Dad!

ENLISTMENT AND TRAINING

I was about 17 years old when I graduated from high school, and at that time I lived on a farm in Sullivan County in Northern Missouri. When I graduated, they needed people in the service real bad. The war started in about 1941 when Pearl Harbor was bombed, and it had been going on for about two or three years so I enlisted. I thought I’d do my duty, but it wasn’t long until I wished I was back on the farm.

FORT McCLELLAN, ALABAMA: INTELLIGENCE PLATOON

When I went into the service I had just started dating a girl from North Missouri. We had dated awhile when they sent me to Fort McClellan, Alabama. That was probably the biggest city I had been in. It was a city of about eight thousand people. When they sent me down South it was new to me as I had hardly been out of Sullivan County. I spent 17 weeks down there in basic training. I did pretty well on an IQ test they had given us, but the reason I had done good was that there were a lot of true and false questions. I had a 50% chance, and I lucked out. Well, they called me up and put me in an intelligence platoon. I even had to ask someone whether that was a pretty good deal or not, but they encouraged me and I went in. I trained in that platoon for two weeks. They didn’t issue us rifles in this platoon, and boy, I thought I had it made. After about two, maybe three, weeks they called us and said, "We’re disbanding this platoon as we need replacements. The positions that you are being trained for now aren’t getting killed. We need replacements overseas.” So they put me in an infantry platoon.

The first morning, they called us out. The whistle blew, and we sauntered out. We didn’t even have arms. There was a captain standing out there who called us to attention, and we kind of straightened up a little bit. We didn’t know what attention meant. That captain walked a path right in front of us explaining to us that when that door opened and that whistle blew, he wanted that door open and not closed until the last man was out. He wanted to see a cloud of dust. When the dust settled, he wanted to see four rows of statues. A lieutenant started telling him that we didn’t know what he was talking about, and he said, "Would you take these guys and see that they do know." He wasn’t kidding. So I spent 17 weeks at Fort McClellan. As a matter of fact, I think that base is closed now.

Meanwhile, I had broken a foot in training, but I had still walked 25 miles on that broken foot, because I didn’t want to take that training over. Well, I can tell you, in a couple of months I wished I was still back there. I wished I had taken the training over again.

They sent me home for close to 11 or 12 days and called it a "delay en route." I was home, and I enjoyed those days.

CROSSING THE ATLANTIC OCEAN

FORT MEAD, MARYLAND & BOSTON HARBOR

After training, they sent me to Fort Mead in Maryland. I spent a day or two there, and they sent me up to Boston. We boarded a ship in the Boston Harbor. They had small ships, but this was a large one. I had been told how bad it was on the ocean and how sick I would be. During the first three days the ship was just as level as a board. I thought, boy, I have got this made. This is nice. About the fourth day we were out across the middle Atlantic when a storm came up. The ship would go up, and I would brace for it to go down. It didn’t take more than two or three days until things began to happen in my mind, but it didn’t stay there long either. It went to my stomach, and it didn’t stay there long. That was probably the sickest that I had ever been. I had been hurt at different times but that was the sickest I had ever been. I just wanted on level ground, solid ground - something that didn’t move. And I got that.

GOING INTO FRANCE

LEHAVRE

Bear with me; this was 53 or 54 years ago. I went into LeHavre, France. The ground was solid, but there was someone there to meet us. It was kind of rough. In fact it was pretty rough for a young kid. Sometime during that time period I turned 18.

A CASTLE

Not too far inland we came to a castle. It was located on a cliff, and there was no way to get up or down that side of the castle. I don’t know how else to explain it or how else to describe it, except to say that it was medieval. It was made out of huennen stone. The backside was straight up and down I’m going to guess probably 200 feet. There was a large moat around the other three sides, but there was nothing in it but grass and weeds. The moat was dry, but there was a drawbridge across it. At the time I was there that bridge was solid. That’s where they put us up. In a different time situation I would like to go back and see that place again. It was interesting. Way down in it there were rooms where they had tied prisoners. There were shackles where they had driven armbands in the wall, and they were still lying around. They issued us new rifles there, and we went into this moat and set up a firing range. The moat was wide enough that we zeroed in our rifles and machine guns to adjust their sights. I don’t know why they issued us equipment as we had full equipment already, but they gave us new rifles and new machine guns.

One of the interesting things about this castle was the bathrooms there. They had big stone rooms, stone floors, stone all around, and there were holes in the stone. I don’t know how deep the holes were, but there were footprints on each side of the holes. That was their bathroom.

ST. LO

From there we started across France. Some of these places have kind of blurred in my mind over 50 years, but we started across France out of St. Lo. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that, but it was a pretty tough place. It made the headlines at that time, and I think it’s in some of the history books.

THE HEDGEROWS

My group went across the hedgerows of France. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard about those, but there were large hedgerows. They were big, long mounds. The Germans would be behind those, and you couldn’t see them. There was no way to see them except there be open ground, and we were wide open. It was pretty devastating until some engineers came up with an idea. They took something like a bulldozer that had a V shaped blade that would cut those hedgerows out. They put the blade on the front of several tanks and opened up the pass some. You couldn’t do much to a tank with small arms fire, but these tank drivers would open this pass and they helped a lot.

GOING INTO BELGIUM

BASTOGNE & MALMEDY MASSACRE

I went into Northern Belgium, to a place called Bastogne. I was not in the town, but I was just outside of it. General Patton was trying to get to Bastogne to break out. (There weren’t too many of those officers left.) During that period of time there were over 200 American soldiers captured right outside of the town. There was a place called Malmedy that had a German name. They lined 200 of these soldiers up in a group and surrounded them with tanks and shot them. We were close enough that my group was not involved directly, but we were the men they were trying to capture.

At that time orders came out that we were "not to take prisoners." Probably the government at that time would have denied it, but for a while there were no prisoners taken. I think there was one, maybe two, men escaped from the 200 who were shot with machine guns and tanks. Things were pretty hairy for a while, but we moved on.

We couldn’t take any prisoners because there were bad feelings that those 200 GI American prisoners had been massacred and shot. The rest of the military and the Army were upset about that, and they said we were not to take any prisoners and we didn’t take any. There were no prisoners taken for a while, and things were pretty rough there. Feelings ran pretty high over that incident of the German’s killing a whole company of American prisoners. Later it kind of calmed down, and we started taking prisoners again. Actually, after we got into Germany they began to surrender in large groups, and prisoners were taken.

REPLACEMENT

When I went in with the company as a replacement, there were only three or four men in the platoon when there should have been 50. When they brought in replacements, they brought in six, which was almost a complete squad. Before we came, the squad leader was all that was there. I was the youngest and the smallest. I was at the end of the squad. I was an ammunition carrier. Two weeks later I was the second machine gunner. That was how long you lasted there. (I could go on and on.) One of the ideas was that if you could wound or disable a solider it was better than killing him, because it took supplies and people to treat him and take care of him in a hospital. It was better for them, but believe me they tried to kill you also. Believe me.

GOING INTO GERMANY

SIEGFRIED LINE & TIGER’S TEETH

From there we went into the edge of Germany where there was a place called the Siegfried Line and the Maginot Line. The Siegfried Line was between France, Belgium, and Germany, if I have it correct and if my memory is working right. Nothing could penetrate this line of troops, foot soldiers, and tanks. They had what they called "tiger’s teeth" concrete, and they staggered them in a long, wide line all across the country. In between them they had land mines so you couldn’t walk, and a tank couldn’t go through. Again the engineers came up with an idea, and they put bulldozers on the front of the tanks. We made it through that with a lot of casualties.

I always walked. That is the reason I am so stooped over now, because I stayed as low as I could. Our training was to stay low and keep our helmet down. Once you got there, they didn’t have to tell you. You learned fast.

KASSEL; POW CAMP IN COLOGNE PLAINS; ESSEN; COLOGNE

I went through Germany to a place called Kassel where there was a POW camp. We rescued the captured Americans and freed them. There were American, English, French, and British POWs. It wasn’t a real nice sight. Their clothes just hung on them. It was bad. They called it Cologne Plains.

We crossed Essen. There are several towns that I remember that we went through. We went through Cologne, which was very near in fact it was just off the Rhine River. We ran into quite a bit of resistance there on the Rhine River just outside of Cologne. I believe Remagen was just a little bit south of it. It wasn’t a large town, but it developed quite a name.

RHINE RIVER; REMAGEN

When we came to the Rhine River, maybe the largest river in that part of Europe, we were worried about crossing it. We thought it would be like another D-Day Landing, and it probably could have been. We came to a town called Remagen, which was pretty famous at that time. When we arrived there we were surprised. There was still a railroad bridge across the Rhine River. Our orders were to stop at the Rhine until we regrouped and found out from a higher order what to do. It wasn’t my company, but there was another company’s lieutenant that had to decide. There this bridge sat, and he gave the order to cross it. And we crossed that Remagen Bridge.

It had been bombed, and it had been artilleried. They couldn’t run trains across it, but you could cross it on foot. We had to pick our way across it. We did it quickly. A few of us established a bridgehead and we found that there were a couple of German soldiers that had been left to blow up that bridge. The explosives were set all along it. All they had to do was push a plunger.” That was their job. That was the reason they were left there, to do that. To this day I don’t know why they didn’t. I have never heard why they didn’t blow that bridge. It gave us a foothold on the other side, but they couldn’t get supplies to us. They couldn’t cross it except on foot, and the next day, the Germans bombed it. They took it out. It felt kind of lonely with just a few of us across there, and we knew they were coming at us to counter attack. The engineers put a pontoon bridge across that Rhine River, and they did it night and day. I don’t remember exactly, but I believe it only took them a night and maybe a day and another night. It was quite a feat. They were up where they were taking fire, but they put a pontoon bridge across. The trucks would go over it and it would go like that gesture, but they could get more reinforcements and more supplies to us. To us it was a famous bridge, and I think it is used in history books.

The first time I ever saw a jet plane was at the Remagen Bridge. When we were across, we saw four planes that were different. They had smoke coming out of the tail and they didn’t have normal engines in them. They were strafing us, and they were fast. We had heard of a Messerschmidt 262, and we knew they had them. The first time I saw one was there at the Rhine River just as we crossed. It is a little bit chilling when you were out in the open and the plane is strafing. You could see the dirt jumping from the bullets, and they were coming right at you in a pretty wide swallow. There’s not much you can do. You can’t get in the ground. You can’t get under it. When we were in the rail yards, I dived under rail cars. It sounded like hail hitting, but they didn’t hit us. They did take nine of the engineers out at one time.

NIGHT FIGHTING

From there we moved on through Germany. Just after we broke out of the Rhine bridgehead, we started fighting more at night, which was an experience in itself. There were a lot of friendly people - our own people killed, but we moved a lot faster and did more damage at night. It was a bit chilling. I saw our own GIs killed, because we couldn’t see to tell who was who.

TANKS

Once we cleared the Rhine and got out of the real bridgehead there, we moved fairly fast with the tanks. We had support from the tank companies. They came up and we moved with them, about as fast as we could walk. We ran into resistance and had some pretty heavy fights, but we were glad for those tanks around us being with us. One of the things that surprised me a little was that those tanks were really glad that we were there. They were glad to have us, and they would offer us rides, so we would hook a ride on the tank. They wanted us up there, because we would ride with our machine guns. We could see more than they could, and we had some protection too. When we got into real tank fights the tanks didn’t fare to well against the German Tiger Tank. Our tanks were out gunned. The German Tiger Tank had an 88-millimeter cannon. It had the highest muzzle velocity of any artillery piece at that time. They used them on their artillery, as well as, on their tanks. That is one of the most chilling, goose-bump raising sounds you could hear. Most artillery you could hear coming in, but the 88 you couldn’t hear. If you heard it, you were all right. It was already past you. You would hear it fire, and then you would hear the report that it went by. During the later part of the war our tanks had 90 millimeters, and they had some real battles. They were evened up and maybe even a little better.

ARTILLERY

Our artillery had the German artillery beat. At that time the Germans never perfected air bursts with their artillery. Our guys perfected it to where they could have an explosion just a few feet off the ground. If you were in a foxhole or undercover and this explosion was just above the ground, the foxhole didn’t help you. If you were in a foxhole or undercover with the German’s artillery and you missed the actual explosion, you were okay. The Germans tried it, but they never could perfect it. Our guys perfected it good to where a foxhole didn’t help.

I might say that the Germans had civilians behind them digging their foxholes all down the highways. Ours were dug just as quick as we could get underground, but they had some nice ones already dug. As the Germans retreated back they had these foxholes already dug to move back into. They were 5 to 6 feet deep and they could stand up in them and shoot. Our foxholes were small ones that were dug just as fast as we could dig them. If we were there one or two days, we would have time to make ours bigger.

After we crossed the Rhine, we ran into artillery that we called "coffee grinders." That was our nickname for them. There were not to many of them but it was an artillery piece that had multiple barrels on it. To fire it they would start the barrels rolling and then there would be a grinding sound. Just the sound of it would make you run. It wasn’t too accurate, but they were hair raising.

FIREARMS

The Germans probably had better firearms than we did. Their small firearms had a 9-millimeter that we called burp guns. They were probably something like the M16s that we have today. They were fed by a clip that went up from the bottom and curved down to fire. If you got hit by one, you would be hit six times. They were that fast. That was the reason they called them "burp guns." We had only one really good weapon. We had the M1 and the 30 caliber machine guns. I was on the machine gun.

GERMAN ARMY

The German military got to the point that they were using real small boys in their Army, not in their SS or their elite, but in their regular army. They were using 12 and 13 year olds. Even though I was young, maybe 18 going on 19, it’s a little tough to shoot a 12 or 13 year old. As a matter of fact, it is a little tough to shoot anyone but at that time we felt like there was not much choice. They were young soldiers. They were very young.

GRENADES

The Americans had what we called a hand grenade.” A grenade you hold in your hand, you pull a pin, you throw it, and it explodes. The Germans had what we termed a potato masher. A potato masher back in my younger days was a round wooden piece that had a handle on it. You cooked your potatoes and to mash them you used this. Then you whipped them. The Germans had this grenade that was round, long, and had a handle on it. It looked like a potato masher, so that is where that term came from. They would take that handle and really lay it where they wanted it.

My first experience with a potato masher involved some young kids. We had stopped along a highway to take a break from walking, and I saw one coming directly at us. This potato masher rolled right down in between my legs. The reason it didn’t kill anyone was that I saw it coming and was able to catch it and get it out of there. That was my first actual experience with one. It was a split second decision, but I got him, and they were hurt. He was a soldier, a solider in uniform, a solider equipped. It was shoot to kill or die. The German soldier, the Germany army was top notch. They fought and they fought. They hit and they fought some more. (I kind of get wrapped up in this even today.)

ELBE RIVER; BERLIN; RUSSIANS; GERMANY SURRENDERS

After the Rhine we moved across the Western plains of Germany. We went to the Elbe River, which was just outside Berlin. It wasn’t that easy, but we finally made it there. When we got fairly close to the Elbe, the Russians were coming into Berlin from the east. Well, the German civilians started coming our way. They wanted to surrender to the Americans, but we just sent them back. We couldn’t handle all of the civilians, so we just let them go back. The Germans had the Russians on the east. They took France, but there was not much left at this time. We made it to the Elbe River, which was just west of Berlin, but we stopped for political reasons. I knew it was for political reasons, because a deal had been cut with the Russians to take Berlin. There we sat for a few days. The Russians took Berlin, and they came on through. They came up to the Elbe River on the east side. We were on the west, and they were on the east side of the Elbe. The Elbe River at this point was not very large. We were not to cross, and they were not to cross. If you know American GIs, some of the 9th went across, and they got into a little trouble. When they came back, they had this canoe. Well, the Russian soldiers were upset so they undertook to sink that boat with their rifles, and they did. We were still full of battle equipment, and we still had our machine guns. So we had a little firefight with the Russians at Berlin. That was my only meeting with the Russians. It was there on the Elbe River about the time the Germans surrendered.

BACK TO FRANCE

COMBAT INFANTRY BADGE

There were a lot of things that went on through those two or three years of my life. They set up a point system to send men back after that war ended. They were going to send them back to the States and let them stay in the States for 30 days, then send them to the Pacific because the war was still going on there. I didn’t get a lot of declarations5. I had some battle scars, a combat medal, and a few things like that. I also had a medal from Belgium that I don’t know how to pronounce. Probably my most prized declaration is the Combat Infantryman Badge,,and it did count on points. The only thing I had going for me was that combat badge and combat time in, time on the battlefield. I was single, but if you had children or were married you received so many points. Anyway, I was one of the first ones moved back. They moved me back to France and lined me up with the State of Missouri. They were going to send me to the Pacific - not that I wanted to go.

JAPAN SURRENDERS

The next morning we were to move out. They called us out, lined us up, and said we had to wait a day. We didn’t know why, but we were on hold. The next day they called us out again, and we were told we would know more about it in the morning. We were still on hold. There was something going on, but we didn’t know what. This went on for I don’t know how long but at least three days, maybe four or five. Then one morning they called us out, lined us up, and said we were not going. They said, "There has been some type of a bomb dropped in Japan, and we think Japan has surrendered. We don’t think we are going to need you." It took that long for the atom bomb information to get to the military in Europe. There wasn’t instant communication.

BACK TO GERMANY

ENGELSTADT, GERMANY; DANUBE RIVER; CHARLEMAGNE'S FORT

So I stayed in France awhile, and they moved me back to Germany where I pulled some duty. They moved me to Engelstadt, Germany, on the Danube River. That is kind of down in the southern part. We came to another old fort.

There are two places, in fact a lot of places that I wished I could have taken pictures of, but of course I couldn’t. One was the old castle in France and one was an old military fort in Germany. When I got to Engelstadt there was an old fort there with a big round courtyard in the center. On the edge of it and the side of it, there were big mounds or tunnels. You would have to say it was underground, but it was man made mounds. They made these tunnels by mounding dirt and they appeared as tunnels. They had put big long stones probably a quarter of a mile long, where they had stored their rifles and their ammunition. It was still full of German ammunition. We stayed there in this fort. There was a big round building made out of stone. There was a ramp that went up to different levels. There was a courtyard, and we would have formation out in this courtyard. The gate had been made for horses, and it was huge. That gate was still working. On the outside of each one was what I suppose they called cannons. There was a big round tube with one on each side. I don’t know how they ever fired them. Although my dates and times may be wrong, I do know the name. I remember the name up over this entrance was Charlemagne. I always did remember the name, because I had studied about Charlemagne in high school. At that time everything fell into place.

QUESTIONS

Wasn’t there a movie about the Bridge at Remagen?

Yes, there was. It was an experience. It was an experience I wouldn’t go through again. I wouldn’t take anything for the experience, but I wouldn’t give a million to do it again either. I wouldn’t take a million.

What do you think about the Americans dropping the atomic bomb?

Harry Truman’s political view and my political belief are at opposite ends, but I think he did the right thing. I was behind him. Being in the service I know there were a lot of civilians killed, and there were also a lot of civilians killed outside of the bomb. I don’t think you can have a war without killing. I know we are in a war now, and we are trying to carry on this bombing and this war without killing people. I think that is good, but I don’t think it can be done. I don’t know how else to say it. That is my opinion. That is my feeling about the bomb. I think most military people and most service men will tell you the same thing. I also know that other people have a different opinion.

I was in Germany when the news came that President Roosevelt had died. We didn’t march or group up, we were walking in a single file line and staggered. We were going into a town, and we thought we were coming into resistance so we were pretty somber. There was a jeep that come up to the tail end of the column and told the last man to pass the word down that President Roosevelt had died. The only reaction was that there was no reaction. We just passed it on to the next man in front. That’s what I will always remember. I know the field. I know where I was at when that happened, but I can’t tell you the town. I just know we were walking and we were expecting a fight right ahead of us when that news came out.

Were you really excited, and thrilled, and just partied hardy, and celebrated a lot when they dropped the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima?

We really didn’t know the impact of it for a long time. It was quite awhile before we knew much. We really had never seen or heard of anything like that. We didn’t know what it was. We didn’t know the extent of the damage. We celebrated that we were not going to have to go over there, but as far as the bomb itself we really didn’t know much. Communication was just not what it is today. We had walkie-talkies, but they didn’t work very well.

How long did you have to stay there after the war was over?

About six months I think. By the way, that girl that I started dating when I was 17, is now my wife. She’s hung on about 52-1/2 years.

What did you do over there for the six months?

Well, I had several duties. After awhile they started releasing German prisoners, and they had a lot of them in France. They put them on troop trains and sent them back to Germany to their homeland. On several of these trips it was my lot to volunteer to ride these troop trains to escort these prisoners back. You knew they weren’t going to try to escape. I had pretty good duty escorting those prisoners back when they turned them loose. There would be three or four of us on a whole troop train, and we all had rifles and ammunition. We were still soldiers. We didn’t worry much because the prisoners wanted to go home, and that’s where they were going.

Then I was in Bolbec, France for quite awhile and got put into special service there. They had a large POW prison camp there, and I was there guarding those prisoners. I think that’s where I left from, but the actual occupation probably changed later when other guys went over there.

What do you think about the fact that we’re going into war now? Do you think there’s a good enough reason for us to be fighting a war now?

You know, I don’t have a good answer. I don’t think we really have a mission there to know what we are doing. We don’t have a goal. No, I don’t want to see troops go in, but I don’t think it can be done without them. I have seen a lot of bombing. I saw the B-17s just blanket Germany. I saw the destruction after, but they were not trying to save anyone. I saw it, and I know what it can do. And we’re so much more sophisticated now than we were then. It’s just my opinion that we can’t do it without troops. I think this has been going on for quite awhile, but I just had not heard much about it. I think there are two religions involved, the Muslims and the Christians. I don’t believe in what went on over there as it reminds me of the Germans and the Jewish people. Maybe I don’t understand the extent of it, but that is what entered my mind when I thought about it.

By the way, after the war I saw two of those camps. You know there are people that say this didn’t happen, and that we don’t know that this did happen. I wish they could have been there. We do know. I saw one of the camps and part of another, so I know it happened. I know it.

I don’t have an answer. I think we need a plan to even go in there. I think we need goals there. I think we need to know how we’re going in, how we’re going to get out, and what we’re going to do. It can’t be done without people dying. I wouldn’t want that, but I guess that’s the reason that I’m retired from managing a warehouse and not the President.

I think the Gulf War was carried out well. I only have one fault with it, and that’s when we stopped. We went in with force and there were not too many people killed. When it came on the news that they had stopped, the first thing I told my wife was, "Why? Why? Why?"

Bush was President then, and I know why he did it, why he stopped. He stopped because we had not had many people killed. He had done what he said he was going to do, but you see where we’re at now. I think it just made sense. But, again, he was the Commander-in-Chief, and I wasn’t even in the service.

Did your wife work during the war?

She was a schoolteacher. It was a long two years. We corresponded some. We weren’t allowed to write very much about anything. I would write her a letter, but I didn’t know what she got of it. I know that what I would get would be marked up. After I was there awhile I knew what I could and couldn’t put in. I knew the lieutenant that censored it. It got so that most of mine he would just glance at and send. I didn’t try to write very much. There wasn’t any point. The only thing I could say was that I was somewhere in Germany or somewhere in France. That was about it.

What was the most significant battle that sticks out in your mind?

I probably couldn’t pick one. I remember a lot of them for different reasons. They were all important to me, because I could tell you different things about each of them. The most important one, I think, or one of the most, was Remagen for the advantage it gave the whole army.

Outside of Remagen was the bridgehead. We had to cross a bridge where there were woods on each side of it. I could hear German machine guns on each side. But we had to go over it. It was open. I knew they were sending people ahead of me, and I knew they were lying out there. When I got up there, I said, "Sergeant, is there any other way of going around here?" And he said, "We’ve got to cross it." Well, there was a man by the name of Walker from Texas who was the first gunner. I was second gunner on a water-cooled heavy machine gun. There was a first and second gunner on the heavy machine gun that was on a tripod. The first gunner carried the tripod. The second gunner (which at that time was me) carried the receiver, the water cooler, over my shoulders. Walker, the first gunner, had his part of the gun over his shoulders. He started out there and I knew I was going to have to go before long. You could see the tracers. The tracers wouldn’t bother you too much. It was the others. But, Walker got about half way across and he just went down. Just like the life was out of him before he hit the ground. (Being from a farm I had hunted rabbits, and I knew what an animal looked like when it was shot and killed.) I just knew he was dead. And they said, "Go." I know that I have to get that gun and tripod. I have got to get all of this machine gun across there. Well, the nearest that I ever came to being hit was probably when I was running. I had come really close by artillery and different things, but this was the closest that I ever came to small arms fire. They had us in a crossfire..

I found out something new. When a bullet gets close to you it doesn’t zing or zap, it snaps. I could feel the wind. I jumped down and plowed down beside Walker. I wanted the rest of that machine gun and that tripod. I got down there, and he looked at me. Before I had got down there, I was just so sure he was dead. I said, "Where are you hit?" He said, "I’m all right." I said, "What are you doing down here man?" They were still on their machine guns. He said, "I want to make them think I was hit." And I said, "You made me think it, but what are you doing out here? Don’t stop here. It isn’t going to help." I grabbed the tripod and left. I didn’t want to stay out there. In a little while here he came, and he made it. Oh, the shock when I saw him.

I don’t think I could pick out just one battle. I kind of get real tight thinking about it. One of the closest times I ever came to getting shot was with our own artillery in the Hurtgen Forest. The Germans were dug in a ditch in the woods. We came in, and we dug in. Well, the artillery came in. I just made me a hole and piled dirt on the edge of the hole to make it safer. I jumped in and laid face down. The artillery observer had called in our artillery to go further down on top of the Germans, except it hit real close to us. Well, he had brought the artillery back and dropped it right on us. He was going to fire again, but I stopped him. One of our 105s had gone off in the hole that I had dug. It went off right on my field jacket, right on my field clothes. It just felt like someone grabbed me by my jacket, lifted me up, and slammed me down. It shook the wind out of me, but I wasn’t hit. If I had been standing up, I wouldn't have had a chance. It made the foxhole bigger than it was. It had gone off right on the edge of the hole in the dirt that I had pilled up around it. After all was calm, the sergeant came walking by and shook his head. "Anyone hurt?" He looked at that hole, and he looked at me, and he said, "That was close wasn’t it?"

OTHER MEMORIES

Dad was a machine gunner and was called forward when special services were needed to handle certain hostile situations. This occurred whenever they expected that they were going to come into heavy fighting. At times, he was attached to the rifle company and the tank company and knew most of the men in those companies. They welcomed the machine gunners and liked to travel with them.

MONSCHAU

Dad remembers his unit being held up for about a week in the town of Monschau. His unit came to a house/barn where a family was living. There were no men there except for an elderly grandfather who was dying. All of the other men were somewhere fighting. The grandfather was there with his wife, daughter and grandchildren. Dad’s unit overtook the house and stayed there held up in their barn for about a week. When the unit first got there, they used some of the family’s eggs for food and they milked their cows for milk. This upset the family. Their Sergeant told them to stop using the family’s food, as he didn't want to make enemies out of the civilians. He was real firm with them that they were not to bother or upset the family. Although the men in the unit treated the family good, the woman there hated them. The men and the Sergeant had a disagreement about the food, but they did stop using the food.

The grandfather died during the week they were there. It was a very cold winter and the ground was frozen solid. The women of the family tried to dig a grave, but they were not able to dig it. The men in the unit tried to help, but they were not able to dig a hole either. The men then took two or three sticks of their explosives and blew a hole in the ground so that the women could bury the elderly man.

TOWN OF HURTGEN

Dad remembers there was heavy fighting going on in the town of Hurtgen. The Germans were all over the streets in the town. His unit was held up in a building and he was in a window on the machine gun. Our artillery was ordered to come down around them. It came to about 25 feet from where his unit was. Their line stopped right outside of their building. In the street there was a German tank and men ready to fire on them. Dad could plainly see them and the German’s saw him. The tank came right toward the window that dad was in, and was turning around to focus directly on him. Our own artillery was ordered to come on in even closer. The order came from Sergeant James Waits, the man that was standing next to dad giving him orders. There was some disagreement among the unit about ordering the artillery in closer. The artilleryman didn’t want to do it, but Sergeant Waits ordered it to be done. Dad said the building started coming down right on the top of them and pieces of plaster started falling on them. They could hear the artillery all around them. All of the men in his unit were ordered to the basement of the building, except dad. Dad had to stay in that window ready with his machine gun. Their only chance of survival was to get the tank. Sergeant Waits stayed right beside dad and tried to keep him calm. He kept telling him to take it easy and kept repeating to dad to hold your fire, hold your fire, hold your fire. Dad said he had to wait for what seemed like a long time to him until Sergeant Waits gave him the word. And just as the tank had turned and was focusing on them, Waits said to cut them down. which dad proceeded to do. He said he turned the machine gun loose on them. He was able to stop the tank and his unit was saved. Dad said that he had a lot of respect for Sergeant Waits who stayed right there beside him all of the time. He said Sergeant Waits remained very calm and cool and never showed any fear at all during that time. He said Sergeant Waits had come with the unit all through Africa and was one of the first ones to go home after the war.

HURTGEN FOREST

Dad told me about the eerie darkness of the dense Hurtgen Forest and said that he often couldn’t see more that a few feet even at noon. He told me about the Bouncing Betty’s and how they would pop up out of the ground a moment before detonation. He told me about all of the tree bursts and the many strange noises he heard all night. It was so dark that he couldn’t see anything and there was no way of knowing what was happening out there. The jets had destroyed much of the forest and at night the wind would blow and tree limbs would crackle and break off.

In the Hurtgen Forest dad went from ammunition carrier to 2^nd machine gunner. Dad was injured a couple of times while in this battle and was one of only a few survivors of his unit. He was subjected to heavy artillery bombardment and thrown to the ground by a concussion of exploding shells. During one of them his helmet was blown off and he was cut in the face. He also suffered other cuts and abrasions to his body. He never filed any report of his injuries. Some of his comrades encouraged him to do so, but he decided not to. Dad said that other men there were hurt much worse and he didn’t think deserved it at the time. He told me he had been hurt just as seriously on the farm. Dad said there were a lot of men lost in this forest.

THROWING CANS

Dad remembers he saw one soldier stick his head up from the hole of a tank to look around and his head was blown off. They started throwing cans out of the hole to see if anyone was around before they attempted sticking their head out. (That is perhaps why the tank company liked to have the infantry ride with them.)

COLD COFFEE

Dad remembers the first time he had ice-cold coffee was in bivouac in the field somewhere. It was in a canvas bag that sat on a tripod and had several spigots around it. Most of the men liked it and said it had a sweet taste. Dad still preferred hot coffee.