Engineer Memoirs
The Battle of the
1944
Q ..
Do you have any comment about the support that was given to [Courtney] Hodges'
First Army, of which you were a part at this time? Was supporting [Bernard]
Montgomery as opposed to supporting [George] Patton farther to the south a wise
decision or not?
Since I was hospitalized from the time of the breakthrough at Saint Lo until after lines
A
had pretty well been reestablished with the capture of Aachen, I don't have personal
knowledge that would indicate one way or the other the actual distribution of supplies.
Stripes
My only knowledge would have come
reading the reports in the
and other papers. By the time I got back to my unit, we were not critically short of
and other supplies. Nevertheless, as I've indicated, the supply lines weren't well
established and only through such things as the Red Ball Express were we able to
maintain the required ammunition and other supplies needed for the continued
offensive.
Q ..
What was the reaction when things began to turn around and the Germans mounted
their counteroffensive?
A
Well, the thing that I remember before the Battle of the Bulge was being in a relatively
quiet sector making preparations for crossing the Roer River and further attacks to the
east. We heard on the radio, both
and
that a German
counterattack had started in the Ardennes. It was only a few hours afterwards that we
got orders to be prepared to turn our sector over to a mechanized cavalry unit, and to
proceed south to stabilize the northern flank of German breakthrough. I left
immediately to go to V Corps headquarters (to which we were being attached) to get
further
and, particularly, a supply of maps for our units and to meet them
as they arrived in the new area. So I was thus engaged during the first evening at a time
when the movement of our troops came under fairly heavy German air attack. Actually,
in my own war experience, it was probably the heaviest air attack that I experienced.
It did disrupt, to a fair degree, some of our convoys. In some cases inexperienced
drivers simply stopped their trucks and took off. The major problem was getting these
people rounded up and keeping the traffic moving. Even with the disruption, we were
able to get the maps into the hands of the units as their advance attachments arrived.
Our division moved in three columns into Malmedy and the little villages to the west
of Malmedy along the north flank of the German breakthrough. One of the units (the
119th Infantry, to which B Company, 105th Engineers was attached) came head-on
into one of the German columns and fought a very decisive battle in the vicinity of
and Trois
along the Ambleve River. This stopped the Germans in any
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