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Camp Constitution Press.

First Scout forGeneral Patton

by Robert Kingsbury



Foreword

The following letter from Bob Kingsbury to Professor Ganz about

Bob’s World War II experiences and some of his other observations and

commentary, is another primary source document coming to you by way of

Camp Constitution Press. From the moment when the “men” of the high

school class of 1944 are dumped into Army Basic Training, until their

liberty ship is back in New York, we get to experience with Bob and his

squad, the heightened experiences of that very troubled time.

As in the previous publication in which Frank Vanderlip, banking

tycoon, revealed for the first time the secret machinations conducted by the

big bankers in order to hoodwink the representatives of the people of these

United States into accepting a central bank called the Federal Reserve, in

this revealing document the careful reader will find, in addition to aninteresting narrative, new insights into the fraud of warfare.

There are many things revealed about the “last good war,” which give

the lie to that expression. Yet, Bob Kingsbury is so convinced of the

rightness of the good leaders, especially General Patton, that even after the

horrors that he has seen and suffered, if Patton were here to call, and he here

to answer, he would do it all again. Extraordinary! In places, for accuracy,

he has to use language that might otherwise be repugnant, but he balances

that with his very real portrayals of the friendship, bravery, and dedication of

the men to each other and to that “greater love” theme of the Bible.

By way of editing, we have endeavored to tighten up the narrative as

needed, to explain some of the military jargon and abbreviations, and to

verify details, where possible, of the events, food, clothing, weapons, and

geography of the time.

We have enjoyed the process as we hope you will enjoy the product!

-- Hal Shurtleff, Director,of Camp Constitution and its Press

at Boston, Massachusetts, July 2, 2013

-- Ruth Harper, Editor and Teacher,

based in Grand Rapids, Michigan,

for Camp Constitution at Rindge, NH



Ohio State University Newark Campus

1179 University Drive Newark, OH 43055-1797

Phone (740) 366-3321

Lt. Col. Robert P. Kingsbury

PO Box 1099Laconia, NH 03247

26 April 2006

Dear Colonel Kingsbury,

Thank you so much for the copy of Byrnes' History of the 94th

Infantry Division. It will be very

useful to me, and I feel I should compensate you somehow for it??

Perhaps General Patton was right to castigate the officers of the 94th about the trench foot issue, but that

doesn't reflect on the division itself-the "corporals and sergeants" as you say. Nor was the division CG,

General Malony, relieved; several others were. General Patton was often quite outspoken, sometimes for

dramatic effect, and in some cases came to regret his words.

Certainly the 94th had a proud record in fighting formidable German forces like the 11. PD and in the

bitter fighting at the Orscholz Barrier in the Saar-Moselle triangle. I've driven the terrain -beautiful for

peacetime tourism, but incredibly rugged for offensive operations. And with skillful and stubborn

German defenders…."Nowhere was the going easy," says Charles B. Macdonald in the official history

volume The Last Offensive, p. 245.

I'd be interested in your own experiences as a GI in a rifle squad: how rations were gotten forward(company jeep at night?), how WIA were evacuated, how you kept warm, what weapons and

equipment were most -or least effective, how scouts would feel out the enemy, how a patrol was

organized and conducted, how POWs were treated, how an attack left the LD, etc. Specific incidents,

locations, dates would be useful-though some of these might be painful to recall ....

I marvel at anyone who survived the infantryman's combat experience in the ETO!

Yours Sincerely,

A. Harding Ganz

Assoc Prof, History



Bob KingsburyPO Box 1099

Laconia, NH 03247

May 8, 2006

Dear Professor Ganz:

Itwas great to hear from you. As long as you are interested in

listening, I’d be happy to talk. So, to your questions:

Where do I start? Of the things there are to say, what do I say?

In 1944 we high school graduates walked off the graduation stage into

an Army Camp, every one of us that could possibly serve and many who

were not qualified to serve but who were needed to fill some draft board's

quota. I went in August 1944. All of us went into the Army, well almost all.

Of the hundred and fifty or so draftees who responded to the Cleveland,

Ohio draft call at the same time I did, maybe two went into the Navy, and

maybe six went into the Marines. None that I know of went into the Army

Air Corps.

The nation had suspended voluntary enlistments because it was

simpler to take everybody, and to assign them to the various services as

needed, and in the summer of 1944, the only need of the nation for

servicemen was for replacement riflemen. Also, for all practical purposes,

no one volunteered to be a rifleman, so enlistments had been suspended.

Everybody went and essentially everyone went into the Army and into

Infantry Basic Training Centers to be trained as replacement riflemen.

I graduated from Cleveland East Technical High School. Among

other scholastic achievements, I was a half miler on the track team. Myteam won the Ohio State Track Championship. The points for the

Championship were actually won by the sprinters, the hundred yard dash

runners, the 220-yard runners, the 440 runners, and the several relay events,

but it was nice to have been on a Championship team.



Later it seemed that those who had been on a sports team were more

likely to survive combat than those who had not participated in team sports.

The top class, which was called "1A" in the draft, consisted of young

and single men. The lowest were those considered physically unable toserve, or the "4F" class. In most cases, it was considered an insult to be

classified 4F. Unlike later wars, everybody, every family, in WWII was

treated equally. There were no deferments and we all went. The fact that

the war applied equally to everybody made all the difference in the public's

support of the war effort.

We June 1944 newly graduated 18-year-olds were the last group of

"men" available to the nation until a year later when the next high school

class would graduate; but, as it turned out, by then the war in Europe would be over.

Basic training was supposed to be 17 weeks. However the Battle of

the Bulge occurred while my class was in training, so we only got 15 weeks

of training. After a five-day delay en route rather than the more common

ten-day delay en route [to allow time for a final visit home before going off

to war ], we ended up in Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, if I recall correctly,

where we were held for about a week while we waited for a ship. That five-

day delay en route included train travel time, so I got about two days at

home.

On January 1st, I shipped out on the RMS Queen Elizabeth–which

had been built as a luxury cruise ship, but was put into service in 1940 as a

troop ship. There were about 20,000 men who shipped out on that ship. My

berth was about 7 decks down, in the hold, below the water line. We were in

‘pipe berths.’ My recollection is that there were 7 berths in a stack, with

about 18 inches between berths. Most of the state rooms were set aside for

officers and for women (Women's Army Corps – or WACs–if there were

any. I never saw any women or officers; we just heard about them. The

officers and the women had their meals in the ship's regular dining room.

We enlisted men were served in a large room, at chest-high tables,

where we stood to eat our meals. In order to avoid seasickness, I thought it



best to be busy. So I volunteered to be a table waiter. I also volunteered

because I was hungry. Table waiters got four meals a day; everyone else got

two meals a day. A table held maybe 10 or 12 men. There were maybe 8 or

10 "sittings" of a half hour each, for each of our two meals. About 2,000

men "sat" at a meal. The breakfast meal started about 6 AM and endedabout 10 AM. The afternoon meal started at maybe 4 PM and ended at

maybe 8 PM. My being a table waiter meant I could eat both before and

after every meal. That’s how I got to eat 4 meals a day. I felt I needed all 4

of them. Being a table waiter also meant I avoided details such as cleaning

out the latrines.

On the Queen Elizabeth, when we had barely left the dock and were

still in New York Harbor, and while there was almost no motion on the ship,

the rails of the ship were already lined with soldiers who were seasick. The

ship quickly got into the Gulf Stream and we sailed in very calm, peaceful

waters and in tropical warmth, even though it was January in the North

Atlantic Ocean. The normal peacetime trip was 4 days eastbound for the

Queen Elizabeth. But because of the constant zigzagging, to avoid torpedo

attack, it took us 6 days to get to Scotland.

Conversely, on the way back, I sailed on a Liberty Ship – maybe the

USS Jonathon Edwards. There were about 700 of us on that ship. It wasotherwise without cargo, or “in ballast,” so it bobbed like a cork, but in

going home there was no seasickness among us, even though we went

through three major North Atlantic winter storms. On some days, the storms

even drove us back toward Europe, so we made negative progress toward the

United States on those days. The waves were monstrous – much higher than

the ship. They seemed to be a 100 feet – maybe a120 feet high – about

twice as high as the ship.

We’d sailed from Antwerp on January first and we got into New York Harbor on January 25th. Twenty-five days westbound for what was

normally about a 10-day trip in a Liberty Ship! Still, no one got seasick. So

seasickness has to have a mental component. In going over, there was an

anxiety about what we were about to get into, but on the way back there was

no anxiety.



After the Battle of the Bulge, the Army had an enormous need for

replacements for the rifle squads. For replacements the Army drew down

10% of the rear area troops in Europe. I have read that after the 10% were

taken out, the rear area troops performed at a much higher and better level.

More tons were moved, etc. Also, the Army made an offer to prisoners inthe stockades that if they would volunteer to serve in the infantry, their

prison records would be expunged. My squad got those men. One was out

of a stockade, one had been a permanent KP [ Kitchen Patrol ] at an Army

Air Corps field in England, one had been an MP [ Military Police] in Paris,

and so forth. The nation was running out of men.

When I got to the regiment, it was in a French Army Barracks for the

Maginot Line, in Veckring, France. The replacements were assigned to

Companies and we were assembled in groups out on the parade ground,

Company by Company. After we had all been de-trucked, and placed in our

Companies, we replacement groups looked like we were a regiment of

companies assembled for a regimental review parade. My Company got

about ninety replacements as did most of the companies in the regiment. I

have since been back to Veckring. It was difficult to find, because it is not

listed on most of the road maps. It is very close to the German border.

The soldier who had come from a stockade had an Italian last name.His first name was George. He had been a crew chief on a B-17 ground

crew. The B-17s flew daylight missions. The ground crews of the bombers

worked all night and slept as best they could during the daylight hours.

During the night the bombers had to be serviced and prepared for the next

day’s bombing run. There were fourteen 50-caliber machine guns to clean

and reload, the ammunition feeding tracks for each gun had to be reloaded

for the next day's run, each of the 4 engines had to have its 64 sparkplugs

checked and, as necessary, replaced, not to mention loading the bombs,

aviation gas, oxygen tanks and any deficiencies the bomber crew had

reported. Being on the ground crew was a demanding job.

George's airfield was scheduled on short notice for a minor ranking

general who was coming to visit and George was told to turn out his ground

crew to be a part of an honor guard for the visiting general. George refused



to turn his crew out for such a purpose. There was a major argument

between George and the First Sergeant. In the heat of the argument, the

First Sergeant said, “George, you goddam Wop –” and, in response, George

“decked” the First Sergeant. George got four months in the stockade. At the

end of the four months, George was sent back to the same unit. When he

reported in, the First Sergeant strutted around his desk and said, “That'll

teach you a lesson, you goddam Wop.” POW! George, a powerfully built

six-footer, decked the First Sergeant again. Next came four more months in

the stockade. Shortly after that event, came the offer of expunging the

records for anyone who would volunteer for duty as a rifleman. George

volunteered. George and I joined the squad at the same time, January 29,

1945.

At that time, Tony Rao was the Squad Leader we were assigned to.

The Rao family had immigrated to the United States from Portugal in 1929,

when Tony was just 4 years old. Tony's father went to work as a fisherman

in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Tony went to sea himself in 1937 when he

was 12. Tony had sinews like spring steel. He was the single strongest man

I have ever known. In one of our more difficult marches, Tony ended up

carrying the packs or the rifles of five of the men in the squad. Shortly after

George and I joined the squad, Tony Rao was promoted to be our Platoon

Sergeant. Since there were no officers, Tony Rao was also the acting

Platoon Leader.

A short note on Tony Rao: Tony had been just another ‘happy-go-

lucky’ kid during the Division's training in the States. He and the Platoon

Medic became good friends. Later, during the service of the Division in

Brittany to contain the Germans in the submarine bases on the Atlantic

Ocean, the platoon was ordered to see if they could occupy the next field

over – it was hedgerow country. The first three men got out into the next

hedgerow field and were caught in a burst of machine gun fire. They were

wounded and fell to the ground. Being in a hedgerow, the machine gun

could not depress its barrel enough to hit the ground. The wounded men

called for the Medic and of course he responded. He had Red Crosses inside

a large white circle on all four sides of his Helmet, and Red Cross armbands



on. At a later time medics were given a fingertip-length, white smock that

covered most of their uniform and it had very big Red Crosses on it.

The medic was carrying only a ‘musette’ bag [backpack ] with his

bandages in it when he got out to the wounded men. He bandaged one of them, and as he stood up to go to the next man, the German machine gunner

opened fire and cut him to pieces. Tony Rao crawled out under the cone of

fire of the machine gun, and one at a time, dragged back all three wounded

men and then the body of his dead friend. Later, Tony got the Silver Star for

recovering those men. More importantly that burst of machine gun fire cost

the Germans the war, at least as far as the war in our little area of the

battlefield was concerned! Tony became walking death to any German

soldier who wanted to fight. Even so, when there were Prisoners of War,

Tony accepted all surrenders, and turned the POWs over to the rear area

troops. Overall Tony turned over about 200 German soldiers to the rear area

troops. To my recollection, Tony was not decorated for obtaining any of

those surrenders.

Tony's father was lost at sea in March 1945, and Tony was sent home

on a compassionate leave. In many respects it was an honor to have been a

First Scout for Tony, and I do feel honored to have known Tony.

As for George, any soldier who would not “take any shit” from a First

Sergeant was just the kind of man we needed to “not take any shit from the

Germans.” Day in and day out, or, as they now say, “24/7,” Tony Rao and

George are the bravest men I have ever known. I also feel honored to have

been a First Scout for George.

George and I were the only men, of the ten who had been in the squad

on January 30 who were still on our feet on March 23, our last day in

combat, and still serving in the squad. Tony Rao and his assistant squad

leader Robert Morrison had been promoted to be Platoon Sergeant and

Platoon Guide, so they were no longer in our squad. The seven weeks that

George and I served in combat were the record in our squad. Nobody else

served as long as seven weeks in combat with the squad. The typical

replacement served about one day [before being killed, wounded, or



otherwise becoming unfit for service – hence the constant need for

replacements].

In my squad during those seven weeks, there were 29 men wounded

by shell fire, 3 men killed in action by machine-gun fire, 3 who could nothandle combat, 3 wounded by a single Schu Mine, 2 promoted out of the

unit, and the 2 of us who lasted all 7 weeks. The three of them who were

killed by machine gun were killed during the six days I was in the hospital.

It was our B.A.R. man [ Browning Automatic Rifle man] who stepped

on the Schu Mine. A Schu mine was a small wooden box, easily covered by

snow, with about a quarter pound of explosive in it – just enough to blow a

man's foot off. Even in the daytime we rarely saw them until after someone

stepped on them.

He was walking in my footsteps when it happened. From the Bayous

of Louisiana, he had never been to school. Our then Assistant Squad

Leader, Robert Morrison, read the man’s letters to him and wrote the BAR

man's letters back to his family. The BAR man had grown up doing nothing

but hunting and fishing. He was deadly accurate with fire from his

Browning Automatic which he fired only one shot at a time. He also had

discarded the bipod and flash hider from the muzzle end of the BAR.

During a nighttime movement, the man just a step in front of him was

plastered with splinters up and down the backs of his legs. He was evacuated

and we never saw him again. The man behind him was also plastered with

splinters up and down the front side of him, some of which hit him in his

eyes. He was blinded. (Our Division lost hundreds of riflemen to Schu

Mines. –“Schuh” is German for “shoe,” and these mines apparently took

their name from the shoe-sized boxes they were in.) When I returned from

the hospital you can not imagine how fast I was returned to the First Scout

position in the squad.

George and I were always the first two men in an attack. We always

attacked single file. All the other men followed us by walking in our

footsteps. George and I survived while those who followed us became



casualties. The job of First Scout was best described by John George in the

story of his service with Merrill's Marauders:

During his service with Merrill's Marauders in the Pacific, John

George was a Lieutenant. Before the war, John George had been a teenagemarksman and a “Camp Perry” competitor. He was a superbly accurate with

a rifle. (Many years later, during some of my matches at Camp Perry in

1964, I fired shoulder-to-shoulder with then LTC [Lieutenant Colonel] John

George. In his book, Col. George said that First Scouts in Merrill’s

Maurauders were called “ Nambu bait.” The machine gun used by the

Japanese was the Nambu. So the main job of the First Scout is to find the

machine guns, and to keep the Squad Leader from being gunned down by

fire from a machine gun.

Both my squad leaders survived. As of this writing, Tony Rao still

lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and George died only a few years ago in

Cumberland, Rhode Island. George was 24 when he was in our squad, so he

was 6 years older than most of the men in the squad, including me.

As for survival, men who were good marksmen usually survived.

Men who were poor marksmen most often became casualties. An exception

to the rule was that BAR man from Louisiana who stepped on the Schu

mine. Rao and George were both good marksmen. I was a good marksman.

In later years I became the Service Rifle Champion for the State of

Ohio, a shooter on the All Army Rifle team and a member of the

“President's Hundred” – the hundred most accurate target shooters at Camp

Perry. I had learned to shoot when I was 12. The records show that being

able to shoot accurately is a lifesaver for those who are in combat and a

major factor in the successful leadership of combat troops. General Patton

was an accurate enough shooter that he represented the United States in the

1912 Olympics. He came in 5th in the military pentathlon.

General Douglas MacArthur's father, Gen. Arthur MacArthur, had

served on Indian Reservations when Douglas was young, so Douglas

MacArthur had started shooting when he was 5!



Colonel Thurston, the Commander of our Third Battalion was a good

enough shot that he picked up a German Karabiner 98 and did some superb

shooting at 800 yards during the time when we crossed the Saar.

We in the Second Battalion envied the soldiers who were in the ThirdBattalion with Colonel Thurston. In referring to them we called them

“Thurston's Raiders.” During the time I was “on line,” I saw only two

officers who got as close to the shooting as I was. One was Colonel

Thurston, and the other was Captain Brightman of L Company, and they

were not even in my Battalion. Thurston's Third Battalion Raiders took the

Bannholz for the 4th and final time.

Our Battalion relieved them after they won the battle. I took over

Captain Brightman's foxhole. He told me that he had foxhole strength of just24 men (out of the 120 riflemen that a Rifle Company was supposed to have,

deducting the 4 men in each of the platoon headquarters and a few machine

gunners, left about one man for each of his nine rifle squads). His company

was then filled up with 80 or 90 replacements. That meant that each combat

experienced squad leader had 9 or 10 new recruits in his squad, which he

alone had to lead. About two days later when we got to the Saar River,

Captain Brightman was killed in action. In my opinion he was killed trying

to get the replacements to function well enough to make a river crossing. Inever saw my own Company Officer nor any of the officers in the Second

Battalion while I was on line.

We had gotten a second officer in our company when Sergeant

Nathaniel Issacman was given a Battlefield commission. Sergeant Issacman

was the only man in the company to knock out a Panzer with a bazooka. It

was in the Third Battle for Nennig, about January 17, or shortly before

George and I were put in our squad. The Panzer was in front of the house

his squad was in. As it turned its main gun around to blast the men whowere in the house, Sergeant Issacman climbed through a hole in the roof of

the house and fired essentially straight down into the top of the Panzer.

E Company had lost 107 men in that battle – all the riflemen plus

some machine gunners. But at the end of the battle, the few men in E



Company were the only ones still on their feet, so they won the battle that

day.

Twelve days later, George and I became replacements for two of the

losses in that battle.

Other examples of good shooters who succeeded in combat are Audie

Murphy and Sergeant York. Later, I was on an Army Rifle Team with

Sergeant York's nephew.

People who do not learn to shoot when they’re young (ages 5 to 12)

never learn to shoot well. In combat they make two major errors. First they

are terribly scared of things that should not frighten them, and second, they

are oblivious to dangers that should “scare the pants off them.” So they

make all kinds of major mistakes. If they are riflemen, they do not survive

the battlefield. If they are officers they make far too many tactical mistakes

and lose far too many of the troops they command.

General Patton, a good shooter, had about half the casualties of any

other general in Europe. In the Pacific there were two major theaters, (the

“Southwest Pacific” under the command of good shooter General Douglas

MacArthur); and the “Central Pacific.” Both theaters were up against the

same enemy, and the same conditions. Of the two theaters, MacArthur started first, did more, and went further than the Admiral commanding the

Central Pacific. The “Hey Diddle Diddle, Right Down the Middle” Admiral,

however, had ten times more dead and wounded than did MacArthur (and he

accomplished less), TEN TIMES MORE DEAD AND WOUNDED! for no

other reason than that the Admiral himself was a poor shooter.

Unit training was another discriminator. I was fortunate. My regiment,

the 376th, had been pulled off line to allow General Patton to talk to us on

January 30, 1945. During the time we were offline, my squad leader, TonyRao, on his own initiative, conducted night patrols with us. Those two or

three little bits of unauthorized, informal unit training probably helped save

my life when we went back on line a few days later. Those few days at the

end of January, into the beginning of February, were the only days our

regiment was to be off line. However if small units had been pulled off line



when they got replacements and given maybe only two or three days of

squad training before they went back on line, our casualty rate would have

been cut, maybe cut in half.

After the war, a number of us who were sitting around a table begandiscussing how come we survived. It turned out that all of us had been First

Scouts of a Rifle Squad. First Scouts tended to survive. Among other things

First Scouts tended to be more alert to the silences of the battlefield, more

tuned in to the spooky feelings that permeate a battlefield. Battlefields are

normally absolutely silent. Those who make noises get shot up or shot down

immediately, before the noise they made stops echoing. Therefore there is no

place more silent than a battlefield, at least at the infantry level and on an

Infantry battlefield –until "all hell breaks loose."

I have been back to visit our battlefields three times during the 1990's.

Today there are no ‘spooks’ on our battlefields.

On the other hand I was at the battlefield of the Little Big Horn –the

General George Custer battlefield –early one evening. The Little Big Horn

battlefield is spooked. It is spooked because the 7th

Cavalry was betrayed

somehow, someway. One can feel the spookiness there quite easily.

The other place I have been that is spooked is the Officers Club at thesubmarine base in New London, Connecticut, where the New England

Chapter of the 94th

Infantry Division Association had lunch one time. Those

submarine spooks are happy spooks; they are reliving their days in training

and the happiness they felt there at that time. They all served honorably and

it shows in the way they continue to enjoy happiness in the Officers Club.

Our Navy lost 64 submarines in WW II. Percentage-wise that was a

heavy loss.

Often, it was our ability to "feel" spookiness that saved our lives on

the battlefield. Time after time when we were on the battlefields in the

Triangle and in Germany, we avoided machine gun fire because the German

gunners were “thinking” about us. We “felt” their thoughts and became



more alert, alert enough to avoid the line of fire of their machine guns. At

least we who survived did.

As for the replacements, normally they were sent up to us while we

were on line. We would pair them off with an experienced man and tell themto do just what the veteran would do. Even so most of them would become

casualties in our first firefight. So we five men would get 5 replacements.

Then for maybe as long as a day (24 hours) our supposedly 12-man squad

would be up to the strength of 10 men. However without some unit training,

the replacements had little or no hope of surviving, and very few did.

Every once in a while one would survive, and just about as often, one

of the “old timers” would become a casualty. So all we normally had in our

squad were just five men. All the “great things” the Third Army did, weredone with squads of about 5 men.

Equipment: All of us in the Infantry had summer time shoes. The

Army had acquired enough winter serviceable, warm and waterproof, LL

Bean Maine Shoepacs so that every man in a rifle squad could be issued a

Shoepac. All of them were purloined by those back in the supply system

and none of them got up as far as we were. The General in command of the

Communications Zone “Comm Z” was JCH Lee. At my level his initials

were translated to “Jesus Christ Himself” Lee. Even General Eisenhower

referred to him as a “bit of a martinet.” When it came to discipline of either

his troops or himself, he was a total washout.

I read somewhere that at one time during August 1944 (while I was

just entering the service) that General Patton was desperate for supplies.

General Lee chose that time to move his headquarters from one part of Paris

to another. This took some 250 trucks and an enormous amount of time and

fuel.

An armored cavalry unit had occupied the Siegfried Switch Line (the

part where we had our 500% casualties) in August. But without fuel and

supplies, on or about September 7, 1944, General Patton had to pull the

cavalry unit back out. In retaking what we had once occupied, we had some

500% casualties in our rifle units (15,000 casualties among the riflemen).



(300% in my squad while I was its First Scout). All of our casualties

occurred because Gen. JCH Lee found a more elaborate set of buildings in

Paris to use for his headquarters and he put his comfort and pomposity,

ahead of the lives of the soldiers in the infantry. (As the British would say

The Poor Bloody Infantry.)

Is there a Hell? I feel certain that General JCH Lee is roasting there.

Operation Market-Garden was part of the core curriculum at the Army

Command and General Staff College when I was there. Eisenhower

initiated Montgomery’s plans on September 1st and by Sept 17, 1944, the

paratroopers were dropped. Unfortunately the furthest group out was made

to land some 14 miles away from the bridge it was supposed to seize, and

the Germans got to that bridge first. The paratroopers were counter-attacked by the then “resting” 2nd Panzer Division and after a heroic resistance of

several days, the parachutists had to surrender. Operation Market-Garden is

memorialized in the book (1974 by Cornelius Ryan) and movie (1977) A

Bridge Too Far . All the parachute drops were made on a road leading

north into Holland. The hundreds, maybe thousands of airplane trips needed

to drop 3 Divisions of parachutists used up [and/or prevented delivery of any

available] aviation fuel in the European Theater. The tank engines used

aviation fuel. But with the air drops of Operation Market -Garden, there wasno more aviation gas in Europe to give to our tank units. So all of our

armored units ran out of gas and had to be pulled back until the aviation fuel

stocks in the Theater had been refilled. Operation Market-Garden also was a

factor in our losing 500% of our riflemen. Even if they had been successful

in holding the bridges, the road to Holland went “no-where” except back

into the North Sea and would not have made much difference in winning the

war. Operation Market-Garden was done under orders from Eisenhower.

On casualties in a Division: For all practical purposes all casualtiesoccur in the Rifle Platoons. Essentially none occur at the Company level, or

any higher level. Company mortars, for example, are located behind the first

line of cover as are the Company Headquarters. Serving in them was

perfectly safe in comparison to serving in the rifle units. Our Division had

16,000 men when at full T/O&E [Table of Organization and Equipment ]



strength. In our Division we had 1,000 men killed in action, 10,000

wounded in action and 4,000 cases of “non-battle” trench-foot. So, 15,000

casualties against a 16,000-man Division is nearly 100% casualties.

However there are only about 3,000 men in the rifle units (243 squads if at

full strength with 12 men is 2,916 men) and 15,000 casualties in 3,000 menis about 500% casualties.

As an aside, General Patton is roundly criticized for the “slapping”

incident on Sicily. At a later time when General Eisenhower faced a similar

problem he had the soldier –Private Slovak –shot. Of the two events, in

my opinion, General Eisenhower was far more wrong than General Patton.

Three of the soldiers who were assigned to my squad could not handle

combat. One of them was perfectly willing to be with us and would doanything he was told to do, but when he was on his own he became sort of

paralyzed. Sergeant Rao was our squad leader then, and he merely wrote out

a tag and sent that soldier back to the aid station, before he became just

another body to carry off the battlefield. The second man who could not

handle combat shot his right index finger off. He was evacuated. The third

“ran like a jack-rabbit” three times. The rear area MP's or the medics, I do

not know which, maybe both, failed to put him through the reclaim process

for those with “battle fatigue,” or he would not have run the second and thirdtimes.

Tanks: the M4 was a good light tank, in that it was mechanically very

reliable. Most of them were powered by air cooled aircraft engines. The

aircraft engines required very flammable aviation grade gasoline. When our

tanks were hit by gunfire, the aviation fuel immediately caught fire. The

Germans called them “cigarette lighters.” We called them “iron coffins.”

The surviving tank crews got to be very careful because they knew the

vulnerabilities of their tanks. Every once in a while one sees pictures of a

tank carrying a number of infantrymen on the outside of the tank. We were

riding on the outside of the tank because we had “battlefield smarts” and

tank crews did not. So the tanks would only go forward if we infantry were



available to ride on the outside. If we jumped off, the tanks stopped and

waited until we got back on.

The tank division assigned to our Corps (the 10th

Armored, the 20th

Corps) was normally billeted in Thionville some 50 miles to our rear. Theywere rarely in combat. However a battalion or more of their TD's (tank

destroyers), had been co-located in Bastogne with the 101st Airborne unit

and were essential in keeping the German Panzers off the Airborne troopers

during the Battle for Bastogne. At a later time we were up against the 11th

Panzer Division and I knew what infantry could do against Panzers. To me,

it was the TD's of the 10th

Armored Division who won the battle for

Bastogne. After the Battle of the Bulge, General Eisenhower put the 10th

Armored in Theater Reserve, and we saw them only rarely.

The M-4's 75 mm gun was technically a gun (the barrel of a gun is a

barrel that is more than 30 calibers long) but it was a low-powered gun. The

three different kinds of TD's had three different kinds of guns, some TD's

had a 76mm gun, others had the very similar 3" Naval gun, and still other

TD's had a 90 mm anti aircraft gun (our 90 mm gun was essentially identical

to the German 88). The guns on the TD's were much more effective against

German armor than the 75 mm gun on our tanks.

On two occasions we were ready to put a bazooka round into one of

our own M4 tanks. On the first occasion, the tank crew refused to help us

make a counterattack to rescue some of our own men. One of our Squad

Leaders was on the external phone of the tank. When he was told that the

tank crew would not help make the counter attack, he used words that made

the tank crew change their minds and to do exactly as he told them to do.

Had they not “obeyed” our squad leader, they and their tank would have had

a bazooka round right up their tail pipe. The squad leader walked and talked

the tank crew through the battle using the same kind of counterattack tacticsthat the Panzers of the 11th Panzer Division had previously used against us.

Due to the success of his unauthorized counterattack, that Sergeant –

“Tech 5” Ramsey–was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross. At that

time we were up against very excellent mountain troops who were fresh



from occupation duty in Norway, and who were running all over us. They

had no tanks and we had one tank. Our counterattack succeeded enough for

us to successfully rescue our troops from the trap they were in and get them

and us off the battlefield. So for that day the German Mountain Troops won

the battle. The Mountain Troops were the Second Mountain Division andSixth SS Mountain Division.

In later days I met one of the men who had been in that SS Mountain

Division. He bragged to me that he had knocked out 4 of our tanks using

Panzerfausts. A Panzerfaust was a sort of German copy of our bazooka. It

was a much more effective weapon than our bazooka in that it was much

larger diameter and would explode no matter at what angle it hit the tank. In

my meeting with that German SS veteran I came away with the impression

that the Norwegians must have really suffered from being under the

occupation of that SS Mountain Division.

The other occasion where we might have put a bazooka round into

one of our own tanks occurred when we had just taken a town. The tank unit

from the 11th Armored Division joined us after the fighting was over.

(Tankers almost always waited until we were safely settled in before they

moved into town.) One of the “tankers” was showing off a German pistol

he’d bought from some GI. In doing so, he shot one of our guys. We ran toget a bazooka, but the armor unit radioed each other and they quickly

motored their way out of town before we could shoot the bazooka.

What did we think of the M4 Sherman tank? It was a very limited

piece of equipment. Later, during the Korean War, it was up-gunned to a 76

mm gun, and as the M4-E8 (Easy 8) it was a much better piece of

equipment.

Our artillery was the only weapon that was reliably good. When we

had the chance, we took our helmets off to our artillerymen. They and the

fighter-bomber pilots were the only ones we took our helmets off to. After

the War, General Patton said, “The artillery won the war.” We who were

there could not have agreed more with him.



When it came to stopping German Panzers the most successful

weapon we had were our airplanes. Of the 1,000 Panzers that were knocked

out on the Third Army front in February, some 990 were knocked out by the

fighter-bombers of the 19th

Tactical Air Force.

We were told to rely on the bazooka. In my squad every man who

carried the bazooka was killed in action, and none of them ever stopped a

German Panzer. A bazooka was a clumsy hunk of iron pipe. The bazooka

round had to hit at almost exactly right angles in order to even explode.

When the round did not hit at right angles it simply bounced off the tank

much like a tennis ball might. In the Third Battle for the Bannholz Woods,

February 10 by our Companies F and G, the two counterattacking Panzers

were hit with 14 and 19 bazooka rounds, none of which did any damage.

In that battle I saw 300 men go out in the morning at about 6 AM and

I saw 30 men come back in the late afternoon at about 4 PM. E Company

was the Battalion reserve Company. General Eisenhower had limited

General Patton to attacking with only two Companies at a time. By 8 AM

we knew that the attack was in trouble. The Battalion “powers that be” had

to beg through all the Army “channels” up to Eisenhower to get permission

to commit their reserve company–us. By the time they got that approval

back from General Eisenhower, it was 4 PM and much too late. The fewattacking troops that were left had already pulled back to our lines. They

were more covered with mud than any men I had ever seen either before or

after. Their web equipment was gone and many of them had no rifles. I was

horrified when I saw the condition they were in.

In an earlier battle in January in a different regiment, we did have one

bazooka team that knocked out five Panzers (Mark 4's) in one battle. To me

that bazooka gunner deserved a Congressional Medal of Honor. What he

was given was a Silver Star. (The story is in the 94th History, and he was ineither the 301st or 302nd Regiment.)

We carried the Ml Rifle. However as far a rifle was concerned, after I

had been on line for a few days I was seriously looking for a BAR. Even

today I am sorry I was not able to get hold of one. (There was one BAR to a



squad, and nobody, but nobody, would give up their BAR. As far as other

BARs were concerned, I did ask, but no one could produce one.)

Rations? We had K Rations almost exclusively. They were gotten up

to us by our squad leaders. However all of the “good” K Rations that werehad been pilfered. All the K Rations that had coffee in them (instant coffee)

had been pulled by guys in the rear so they could have coffee, and we got

none of the better (breakfast and supper) coffee-containing K rations. That

left us with the lunch K Rations that had only a small can of processed

cheese, four crackers and a package that one could make lemonade from.

Lemonade in the wintertime? Cheese, crackers and lemonade for breakfast,

lunch, and dinner, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day! It took me years before I

could eat cheese again. Even today, when possible, I avoid processed cheese

During my first ten days on line, we had one “hot” meal once. It got

dark at about 4 PM. The cooks showed up at about 6 PM in jeeps. There are

nine squads in a rifle company. We had to make a "tactical" exchange of

positions allowing one squad at a time to go through the chow line. We must

have been the last of the nine squads. We finally made it to the chow line at

11:30 PM. The meal was pork chops, mashed potatoes and gravy. The

“mermite” cans that the food was in were not that good at holding heat and

by the time we got fed, the food was quite cold. Never again, did our cookseven try to feed us while we were on line.

At one of our reunions, one of the men who had been in our mortar

squad said words to the effect that the 5-in-1s were good rations.

I responded that “The 5-in-1s never got as far forward as we were.”

He became very quiet after that. I wondered if he might have been

one of those who had intercepted the 5-in-1s so that there were none that got

up forward to us. Mortar squads had a jeep with a trailer and could “loadup” on the good things like 5-in-1 rations! There were also 10-in-1 rations.

As far as I know, infantry units never saw any of the 10-in-1s at any level. I

don't know, but I think the 10-in-1s were reserved for the tank crews.



There were also three kinds of "C" rations; a drab Meat and Potatoes

ration, another drab Meat and Potato Hash ration, and a so-so can of beans

for a ration. It was winter and all the C Rations were frozen solid. Since any

fire would draw instant artillery fire from the Germans, we could not build a

fire to thaw them out so we were not issued C Rations. Our kitchen crewcould have put cans of C Rations in a big GI Can, used the immersion

heaters to heat them up to a boil and brought them forward in a jeep after

dark, but they did not do that either.

There was also an emergency ration called a D Bar. It was

unsweetened dark chocolate that seemed to have been mixed with something

like dry oatmeal. Today you can approximate it by getting a bar of Bakers

chocolate, melting it, mixing a goodly amount of dry oatmeal into it and

casting it into bars. One had to eat a D Bar by gnawing on it. Later I read

that those in charge of selecting the recipe for the D Bar wanted a bar that

the rear area troops would not care to steal, so they selected the most

unappetizing bar of all of them that were submitted for testing.

To eat a D Bar, one gnaws on it much like a squirrel gnaws on a nut.

When I first joined the squad, all the old timers offered me their D Bars and

I couldn't figure out why. After a few days or so of gnawing on them

between meals I could not eat another one either.

If there is a Hell, my idea of a fitting reward for that selection

committee is for them to be put on a diet of D Bars for an eternity. I can

think of nothing more Hellish than to have to eat D Bars, the way we did.

PX Rations: On one occasion, while still in Veckring, France, we got

a PX Ration. Each of us got four Hershey Bars–not the 7 Hershey Bars a

PX Ration normally contained. I first asked the veterans about how we

should handle our 4 Hershey Bars. They told me any way you want.

However, when I looked around at the veterans and watched how they

handled their Hershey Bars, I noticed that every one of them ate all 4 bars

right away. From that, it was certain that there was no point in saving them

for the future, when for most of us, there was to be no future. We never got

another issue of the PX Ration Hershey Bars. Among other things, Hershey



Bars were not only good to eat, they could also be exchanged on the "black

market" for money or for sex. Most of the PX Rations that were destined for

the men on the front lines were purloined by rear area troops and never made

it to anyone up front.

Being the First Scout, I led all squad movements. Due to the Germans

being on top of the hill in front of us, we could only move at night. In

making those night moves in dark, low overcast rainy weather, I was the one

who found all of the empty foxholes. We were in a wooded area at the

bottom of the hill, so all of our foxholes quickly filled with water unless

someone was in the hole and baling it out rather constantly to keep the water

level down. Being low overcast, it was very dark at night. I found theempty foxholes by stepping in them. After I stepped in them my one leg got

soaked all the way up to my thigh. Both legs got soaked in turn. I should

have been sent back to the rear to get dried out and warmed up. However,

that did not happen. The Old Man– our platoon sergeant–was just 19. The

rest of us were 18, and none of us knew that much about winter warfare.

The dark low overcasts protected us from being subjected to German

gunfire, and I got to feel the feeling that darkness was my best friend,

despite the foxholes.

From putting my leg into empty foxholes and not having any chance

to dry out or warm up, I got what the doctors called “tenosynovitis, acute,

bilateral.” My Achilles tendons swelled up until they looked like golf balls

and I was terribly lame. After 10 days on line where I had had only cheese

and crackers for each meal, three meals a day, 7 days a week, I was hungry.

At the Hospital I was just another anonymous “dog face.” Anonymous

enough that I could go through the hospital chow line time after time without

being noticed! I ate 9 meals a day: 3 breakfasts, 3 dinners, and 3 suppers,

every day for the first five days I was in the 100th Evacuation Hospital for

the walking wounded in Luxembourg City. On the 6th day, I slowed down

to six meals a day, and the doctors sent me back to my unit. I was still

hungry, but the Army was out of men, and any warm body that could serve



was needed in the rifle units rather desperately. I was evacuated from my

unit on February 21. I’d spent 6 days in the hospital and I bummed

transportation to get back up to my squad on March 4. As far as healing was

concerned, it was June or July before my Achilles tendons were back to

normal.

Our supposedly 12-man squad usually had only 5 men in it. Our

squad leader Tony Rao, would leave three men–the 2-man BAR team and

the assistant squad leader – to hold our section of the line while he and I

would go on patrol, just the two of us, leaving three men behind to hold a

12-man sector. He and I might scout to the right to see where our next squad

was; we might scout to the left to see where that squad might be; and we

would scout directly to our front to get some kind of an idea where the

German lines might be.

Only once did I patrol behind the German lines. It was something of a

fluke because we went through the lines in the daytime and accidentally

went through a place where there were no German soldiers. Our specific job

was to locate the German lines. Once back of the German lines we

intercepted a German Army truck. The driver stopped exactly where I

motioned him to stop. The truck was loaded with 20mm ammunition.

(20mm rounds are slightly bigger than our 50 caliber rounds and theGermans used a lot of 20mm ammo.) We directed the truck and driver back

to our lines using the way we had come. Shortly after that we were called

back, because whatever the German truck driver had told the officers at our

Company had scared the pants off them, or so it seemed to us. Today I

might not feel that way, because we had no ability with the German

language and could not talk with him. Had we talked with him we might

have felt very scared too.)

When there were WIA (Wounded in Action), we were told to leavethem be and to let those following us to take care of them. Most of our

wounded were “walking wounded” and they made their own way back to the

Battalion Aid Station by themselves. If they needed more help than that, our

Squad Leaders did what was needed, such as put a tourniquet on a leg when

a Schu Mine had blown a foot off. At times we used German POWs as litter



bearers to hand carry the wounded back to the Aid Station. Essentially all

movement between the “lines” and the Aid Station was by walking.

When I had my Achilles tendon problem I walked all the way –4 or 5

miles– back to the Aid Station by myself. At a later time, March 23, I waswounded by a shell fragment in my leg, and I walked about a mile back to

the Aid Station then also. I walked back with another First Scout. He had

been fired on by a machine gun. The first few rounds missed him and he was

alert enough to dive into a wheel rut. The men in his squad were alarmed to

see the machine gun bullets shoot his pack all to pieces. After they were able

to recover him they counted 42 burn marks on the rim of his helmet, his

shoulder blades, his buttocks and his heels. But the skin was not broken. He

and I walked back to the Aid Station together. I was hospitalized for the

shrapnel wound, but only for a few days–maybe 6 days again.

How did we keep warm? I wore a set of cotton “skivvies” to keep the

itchy wool off my torso; two sets of Army winter wool underwear –long

johns: two tops, two bottoms; two pair of Army wool pants; and two Army

wool shirts; a wool sweater –they were very nice;a wool “Ike Jacket”; a

copy of the British Army battle jacket– a very welcome piece of clothing. I

would like to have one even today–a field jacket; an army overcoat which

was very heavy, but not very warm, and only barely worth wearing; anArmy rain coat, because it drizzled constantly; a steel pot[helmut]–the only

place where we could keep anything like toilet paper and matches “dry,” was

under the liner in our steel pot; and rubber overshoes over our “combat

boots.” That is four layers of clothing on my legs, and 10 layers of clothing

on my torso. I do not remember having any gloves or mittens but that was

alright, as gloves the Army normally issued were not worth wearing.

We were desperately cold and constantly “chilled to the bone.” At

night when we were not on patrol, we were on 100% guard duty. We were

paired off and we took turns being alert and sleeping. When it was our turn

to “sleep,” we would stretch out beside our foxhole and doze off. We would

“sleep” for about 20 minutes before we started shuddering so violently from

being cold, that sleep was no longer possible. So my buddy and I would



change over, the one on guard would rock from side to side to try to warm

up. Warming up that way never worked all that well.

During my first week on line, I accumulated only 4 hours of “sleep”

for the whole week, 20 minutes at a time. We were on line for ten days. Atthe end of those ten days, we were marched back to a house somewhere in

our rear. It was a four-hour march with extreme agony in our every step. It

was on this march that Tony Rao ended up carrying either the pack or the

rifle of five of the men in the squad. Four hours of agony. On one of my

three visits back to our battlefields, I clocked that distance with a car. It had

taken us four miserable hours to “march” about a mile. That is what I mean

by “exhausted”– so exhausted that we could barely put one foot in front of

the other. Four hours of agony to move a distance of not much more than a

mile. Just a year earlier I could run a mile in only five-and-a-half minutes.

Now it took me 4 hours of misery to go a mile.

In deference to our officers, our Company was the same as the other

rifle companies; we had only one officer who of course was the Company

Commander. The officers who were at the Battalion level were essentially

worthless when it came to troop welfare. At the Company level, the three

Rifle Companies in a battalion were supposed to have 18 officers six to a

company. Our battalion had just 4 officers–not 18– for the 3 riflecompanies.

POW's? We just motioned them to walk to our rear and we let

someone else take care of them. We accepted all who wanted to surrender

and we turned every one of them over to those in our rear. I remember only

that we simply motioned them to keep on walking to our rear. One of the

reasons that more German soldiers surrendered to the Third Army might

have been that they knew that they had a better chance of making it all the

way back to the POW cages in the Third Army than with our other Armies.

When I was in the hospital ward in Luxembourg City, I was stunned

to find that there was a wounded German soldier in our same ward, not a

half a dozen beds away from my bed. I was stunned because only a few

hours earlier we were both doing all we could to kill each other, and now we



were both in the same hospital ward and we were doing all we could to save

his life. It was one of the most stunningly unexpected experiences of my

then young life.

In Rheingonheim (outside of Ludwigshafen), we had a German POW. Wewere keeping him in the basement of a house with us to keep him safe from

the gunfire of his own Army. A Lieutenant from the Division Quartermaster

Company had been sent down to us. He was appointed to be the Platoon

Leader of our platoon at about 8 AM. We don't know what happened; maybe

he was showing off to us as to how brave he was, I don't know. What we do

know, he pulled his 45 and after gesturing with it for a while he shot the

German through the head. It was at about 10 AM when he did that. When we

heard about that, we refused to serve under him. If the German had

deserved shooting we would have shot him. We did not need any help in that

kind of matter. I recently asked my Platoon Sergeant Tony Rao about this

event. He claimed not to remember it, and said, “I merely took his radio

away from him.” Which in itself is a pretty humiliating thing to do to the

one who was supposed to be in command. That Lieutenant was removed and

we never saw anything of him ever again. No one ever mentioned anything

about a Court Martial of either him or us. However the Lieutenant got back

at Tony Rao later, it seems.

Ludwigshafen was surrounded by hundreds of anti-aircraft 88s. The

German 88's there had merely lowered their barrels and had defeated the

previous attacks of the 10th, 11th and 12th Armored Divisions. The 88s just

blew their tanks and half-tracks off the map. One tank battalion was

reported to have very quickly lost 25 tanks before they called off the attack.

We had no such vulnerability and our artillery neutralized the 88's.

I was wounded there by shrapnel from an 88 at about noontime,

March 23, 1945. That afternoon, Tony Rao, our Platoon sergeant who led usto refuse to serve under that Lieutenant attacked in such a way and with such

skill that he punched a hole through the German line and in so doing, he

unhinged the entire German defense line. His attack saved the day for our

Army. He was written up for a Distinguished Service Cross.



The award was approved by the Battalion Commander and the

Regimental Commander. When it got up to Division, the Division

Commander gave it to a committee to review. The committee was a Signal

Officer, the Division Chaplain, and a Quartermaster Officer. The committee

downgraded the award to a Bronze Star. In recent years I asked Senator Kerry of the State of Massachusetts to introduce a bill to award my Platoon

Sergeant Tony Rao, his very much deserved Distinguished Service Cross.

Tony still lives in Gloucester, Massachusetts. The Senator's staff responded

that the Bronze Star was enough.

And so it goes.

Back to the Siegfried Line battles, not only was the area defended by

the 11th Panzer Division, we also were up against the pillboxes of theSiegfried Line. I was the first American soldier to reach six of those

pillboxes. Fortunately for me, all of them were empty. If the German Army

had put the men from the 2nd

and 6th

Mountain Divisions in the pillboxes,

rather than holding them in reserve during all of January, February and into

March, chances are, we never would have gotten through the Siegfried

Switch Line–or the Orschulz Switch Line as the Germans called it. Our

being up against a fully manned Siegfried Line would have slowed our

Army down enough so that the Germans would have gotten more jet fightersin the air, their jets would have cleared the air of our airplanes and without

airplanes it would have been a different war. All of our “victories” were

paper-thin. All of them were closely fought affairs, and removing our air

support could have thrown the balance the other way.

Even as it was, little areas of the Siegfried Line changed hands

something like 15 times before we finally held. There are 27 rifle companies

in an Infantry Division. Usually it was a different company each of the 15

times in any one area. Nennig was taken and retaken 3 times, the nearbyBannholz Woods were taken and retaken 4 times, and so it went.

I do not remember how many attacks I was in, maybe a dozen, or

maybe two dozen. Nor do I remember how many times I was the first man

out in an attack. Normally there were never any American Soldiers in front



of me. Some days we made an attack every day. One day we made two

attacks in one day. We attacked at any hour, day or night, 10 PM, 2 AM,

4 AM, 6 AM, 2 PM. I much preferred to attack at night. I think poorly of

officers who order daytime attacks, for the sole purpose of “seeing" what is

going on. We crossed the Saar River at about 3 AM. We got across withouta problem even though we were noisy enough that there was machine gun

fire. We got across safely because it was nighttime, and because there was a

very dense late winter fog. Others who crossed in the daytime were not so

successful as we were. They had “lots” of casualties.

Going into an attack takes a substantial amount of mental preparation.

It is not an easy thing to mentally prepare yourself to make an attack. I am

now of the opinion that every man in a rifle squad who is in an attack should

be given a Bronze Star –a Bronze Star for Valor, not a “meritorious Bronze

Star” for every attack.

Combat is a largely emotional experience. The English language has

a paucity of words that express emotions. And of those words that might be

used, most are regularly misused. Take the word “hate,” for example: The

first President Bush (George H.W.), was quoted as saying “I hate broccoli.”

So there goes one word that might have conveyed an emotion that we can

never again use. We have no words in our vocabulary to describe thefeelings that occur to those who are in combat. There are no words that

describe the cold fury that the assassination of his friend the Platoon Medic

generated in Tony Rao, and with which he fought against the Germans.

There are no words that describe the resoluteness with which George fought.

Those two men did almost all of the actual fighting that was done by our

squad. And later, by Tony Rao, in his leadership of the platoon. Those two

men did most of the actual fighting.

My only claim to fame is that I put one foot in front of the other. Inthe 250,000 man Third Army there were about 2,000 of us who were first

scouts of a rifle squad. For decorations, I have a Purple Heart, a Combat

Infantry Badge, and a "meritorious" Bronze Star. Due to the paucity of

decorations that were then given out to the infantry, after the War the Army



gave every holder of the WW II Combat Infantry Badge an automatic

"meritorious" Bronze Star.

My main memory of combat is one of essentially complete physical

exhaustion.

In our chain of command, Company, Second Battalion, 376th

Infantry

Regiment, Division, there was no officer other than Tony Rao, until we got

up to General Patton who “gave a hoot” about the well being of us privates,

the riflemen, who carried the war into Germany.

Exhausted or not, we stormed the gates of hell for General Patton, and

if called to do so, and if General Patton were here to lead us, we would do so

again.

After the war was over we served a short period of time in occupation

duty in Wuppertal, Germany. We then were transferred to Czechoslovakia

and placed on the Russian Army demarcation line. We were placed on a

trail in a pine woods with nothing to do but look at pine trees all day. During

that time, the recollections of battle paraded through my mind. And the

question, “What was this all about?” also went through my thoughts. So I

vowed to learn all I could about why we had gone to war. Today I think I

have some answers.

I am gathering material, and I plan to write a novel about WW ll. It

has to be a novel because the facts are too outrageous to be presented as

facts.

While we were in Wuppertal, the war became officially over. The

hospitals emptied out, and our Company ended up with four First Sergeants,

12 Platoon Sergeants and about 50 or 60 other over-strength enlisted men.

(but no additional officers). For a time our T/O&E strength of 176 men was

greatly exceeded, and we had well over 200 men in our Company.

Next week, we who were in the 94th

will get together for lunch in

Connecticut, maybe about 30 of us who are in the New England Chapter of

the 94th

Infantry Division Association. The emotions we feel from having

been in combat together have no language that expresses our feelings to



those who were not there with us. So we meet quietly, often almost

wordlessly. We say little more than “What unit were you in?” To us the

answer to “What unit?” gives volumes of information that are poignant with

very deep feelings. At the end of May, the Division will get together in

King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, for a Division reunion. There will be four or five hundred of us there. We Third Army riflemen are arguably one of the

most successful groups of killers that the world has ever seen. However,

here in civilian life, none of us has ever been violent, ever again. Many of us

stayed active in the Army Reserve, but our nation never called on us again. I

graduated from the University of Maryland in June 1950. Two weeks later

the War in Korea started. I re-enlisted for Infantry OCS (Officer Candidate

School). I served States-side, coming out as a Company Commander. My

staying active in the Army Reserve is how I got promoted to being aLieutenant Colonel. People often wonder what it is that keeps us veterans

together after all these years. I'll venture three things:

First, all of us who survived did so because of those who followed one

of the “new commandments” that Jesus gave: “Greater love than this hath no

man, that he lay down his life that his friends may live.” All of us who

lived, lived because someone else died that we might live. As the Biblical

teaching goes, those who would save their lives, shall lose them, and those

that lose their lives shall save them. We all know a lot of men who are notwith us, but who Biblically, “Saved their lives” by giving them up so that

we, their friends, might live. We meet in memory of them.

Second, we followed the Third Commandment, “Thou shalt not take

the name of the Lord thy God in vain,” much more than we are given credit

for. As a result, when we promised to do something we did it. We kept our

word even though it often meant dying. We kept our word, or we died trying

to keep it.

However, here in civilian life, men – meaning adult males – rarely

keep their word. As nearly as I can tell, all members of Congress – whose

oath requires them to defend and support the Constitution of the United

States – violate their oath, and, therefore, the Third Commandment

repeatedly, frequently and often, every day of their political careers.



When they violate their oath of office, which ends, “...so help me

God,” that violation means they have blasphemed God. From time to time I

wonder why they can blaspheme God so publicly and so frequently and stillremain as members of Congress, or as members of the State Legislature, in

good standing in the eyes of the editors of the Associated Press, and of the

big newspapers, and of society in general.

Third, in the Gospel according to Saint John, Chapters 14, 15, and 16,

in Jesus’ Last Sermon which He gave at the time of the Last Supper, Jesus

revealed details about the Holy Ghost, who is "The Spirit of Truth and who

is our “Comforter” until Jesus shall return. While we veterans might have

operated in very lethal surroundings, we kept our word to each other andtherefore we lived in a truthful society. We meet now and then, in grateful

memory of once having been privileged to have lived in a truthful society.

As veterans, our main regret is often that we have no words to tell

anyone exactly what it was like. The "hot fury" as portrayed in the Rambo

movies is “all wrong,” Hot fury only gets one killed. It was more like “cold

fury” but the words we have to describe the feelings we experienced give a

poor rendition of the depth and breadth of feelings that occur during combat.

Until next time,

Best regards,

Bob Kingsbury,

Once a Rifleman, First Scout of a Rifle Squad for General Patton



Col Kingsbury was drafted at 18; walked off the High School Graduation stage

and entered the Army as a private and served in the 94th Infantry Division as

a rifleman for General George Patton and Infantry Company Commander during the Korean War after

graduating from Officers Candidate School.

He is featured several times in the "Patton's Ghost Corps" documentary on Disc 2

of the 20th Century Fox Cinema Classics Collection DVD where: "In May of 2004, 63

WWII Veterans from the 94th Infantry Division of General George S. Patton's 3rd Army

told their story for the first time."

Col Kingsbury was a qualified parachutist and was one of the last soldiers

to receive the Victory Medal. He also received the President's 100 Award presented

for accuracy in marksmanship and has been awarded the Bronze Star, Purple Heart,

Meritorious Service Medal and many more decorations and awards.

Col Kingsbury was born on May 5, 1926 and raised in Dacator, Illinois.

Along with his wife Madelyn they raised four daughters and

is the proud grandfather of three grandsons. He is a member of the American Legion,

Veterans of Foreign Wars and Disabled American Vets, and The John Birch Society

Col Kingsbury is a graduate of the University of Maryland and went through military

training including Officers Candidate School. In his spare time he enjoys reading

Dr. Suzette Haden Elgin who authored a series of books on the Gentle Art of Verbal

Self-Defense. He also serves as a Chapter Leader in The John Birch Society in Laconia, NH

and served one two-year term as a New Hampshire State Legislator.

- 1st scout rifle squad undergen patton

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