Memos of a GI in the 95th

Loum · Sep 20, 2009

guess its more important to me what dad went through than anyone else

Posting this in honor of my father and the men of the 95th.
This was an article written by my father back in 2007 in his local newspaper titled "War memories of butterfly soldiers". This was sent to me 8/16/2007. Dad's memory when thinking about the 62nd anniversary of the ending of WWII. and he wrote:
It had been a bright night out there with a full moon shining above as we sat in that field listening to our company commander while he laid out the plans for the upcoming battle. The breakthrough had been a terrible default on our side and a lot of men had been lost. Americans and Germans both.
We finally had the enemy on the run and we intended to keep it that way.
After loading up, we traveled from the rest area towards the Saar River. While moving ahead we could hear cannons bursting behind us as our artillery sent shells whistling over our heads towards the font line. It was scary to say the least.
The Germans had put everything they had in that breakthrough. Looking out from the rear of our track, I could see German shells bursting all around us. But we continued on to the intended target.
The trucks we rode eventually stopped for us to unload quickly as German 88's burst all around us. We spread out on both sides of the road and out in the fields. Then we trotted steadily towards our planned destination... the river.
The combat engineers were already there when we arrived, busily completing a pontoon bridge for us to travel over. The Germans had blown up the large bridge a few miles northwest of us a few days back and it lay partially submerged in the water with a freight train still on it.
Well, we had to get across the river and those combat engineers worked with horrification putting the bridge together. We later learned they were there since the midnight hours..fighting and building at the same time and losing some men in the ruckus.
We trotted along with haste along with bazooka teams, while our artillery continued to soften the enemy. We could see some of the German Panzers that were burning, though a few were still firing their cannons to targets unseen by my eyes.
We continued on ahead spread out, moving parallel with that road on the other side as the sun started to rise behind the hill ahead of us, when somebody hollered something about butterflies. “Butterflies?” I thought! Then with my eyes wide open I saw them in the early morning unfolded lightness. They were not butterflies at all but something similar to small white flags waving in the field.
Soldiers? Enemy soldiers that turned out to be German paratroopers with their hands raised and waving white handkerchiefs while hollering “Nicht sheissen! Nicht sheissen! “ Of course some of them were expressing loudly in English too, with words like “Don't shoot! Don't shoot!”
As they approached, they would automatically line up and I would see them relax as they fell in line. We have to holler at them “Hands in ho! Hands in ho!” While doing that, we would gesture our rifles. They knew what we meant and would immediately clasp their hands on top of their heads.
We searched and relieved them of their weapons, consisting of mostly of pistols and grenades. Most of them had “SS” knives, which were similar to the combat knives we have today..except that the handles were adorned with swastikas and the sheathes were in black color.
They were clean looking soldiers as I can remember and dressed differently than the Wehrmacht we were accustomed to seeing with grayish colored uniforms and wore helmets that flared out at the sides.
These were the German elite troops, wearing black, form fitted uniforms, black high top boots and black caps. Everyone of them wore a Luger on his hip.
This went on as our bazooka teams stayed busy knocking out those tanks way over the field to the left of us. Sometimes I could make out a team way up there standing by a damaged tank and see one of them crouched on one knee as he fired toward a Panzer that was moving. It would not get far from us going around in circles after losing a track. The cre emerged one by one with hands raised..some of them bleeding profusely.
Of course there was still more chasing and shooting to do because of the “die hards”., the ones that would give up only “when they had their backs to the wall” so to speak and yet there would be some that would not give up at all. The real “SS” who would rather die than surrender.
I watched expressions on their faces of the prisoners before me, the look of frightened animals. Not cowardly or anything like that, but like their thoughts were possibly not making it to a Prisoner of War camp.
It brought to mind what we had heard a few days earlier about a bunch of G.I.s found in a pit all bound and gagged and dead. It made me sick to my stomach. I remember saying “How can anyone do something like that?” Then one of the guys answered, “Maybe there was no place to take them.” Then Sgt. Shriner said, “They could have let them go! They didn't have any weapons.”
“That's true.” answered Lt. Hamrock, ”but they would have gotten some as soon as they got to their outfit.”
Well, we turned our captives over for proper handling and the medics came in and took care of the wounded, friend and foe alike. We than continued on until we came across a road where we saw them.
Thousands of them! At first we thought they were soldiers, but as they got closer we came to realize that they were refugees walking four to five and six abreast, coming down along that long hill. They approached our line or our direction anyway. I took notice there were no children among them. Just men and women.
I couldn't tell whether they were Jews, Russians or what! All I knew was that there was a hell of a lot of very skinny and emaciated looking people walking down that hill as we went past. We later learned that they had been rescued from concentration camps. We continued to advance as the Germans retreated toward the Rhine. It was nearing the end of the Battle of the Bulge.
Click to expand...

Biak · Jan 7, 2010

Loum,
Did you have the memo's posted? I only see this ; guess its more important to me what dad went through than anyone else. I'd be Very interested in reading.

Tomcat · Jan 7, 2010

It has been edited since then, but if you like I can retrieve the post for you. The member has not been here since September.

Slipdigit · Jan 7, 2010

Looks like the person thought that because no one commented, that no one had read it. It has been viewed 149 times. I high-fived it that very day, as did Lou.

Danged interesting. This was posted at 2100 hrs and edited by 0800 the next day, removing the information. It was barely up 11 1/2 hours and most of that time was while most of our members were asleep.

Tomcat · Jan 7, 2010

I never saw it the first time so I might just revive it.

Biak · Jan 7, 2010

Appreciate it. I'm curious.

Biak · Jan 7, 2010

That is interesting and a good read, to bad he hasn't been back. I'm wondering if his Dad acquired one of those SS knives?

Krystal80 · Jun 22, 2010

I love reading things like that. He is one of the lucky ones that had a family member willing to talk about what he went through.

macrusk · Jun 24, 2010

I also enjoyed reading this and hope he comes back sometime to discover that we did. Thanks for recovering it Robert.

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Memos of a GI in the 95th

Loum Member

Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

Tomcat The One From Down Under

Slipdigit Good Ol' Boy Staff Member WW2|ORG Editor

Tomcat The One From Down Under

Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

Biak Boy from Illinois Staff Member

Krystal80 Member

macrusk Proud Daughter of a Canadian WWII Veteran

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