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| PART 11 |
2nd Infantry History p.79
STAFF
SERGEANT HANFORD MAURICE RICE DIARY
1st
Battalion of the U.S. 9th Infantry Regiment of the U.S. 2nd Infantry
Division
November
21, 1944 (Tuesday) “It is Sgt. Cobb’s birthday. Raining
all day. No mail. The war is looking better. I got my watch back
(from the repair shop).”
November
22, 1944 (Wednesday) “Cobb went to Paris. I had the platoon.
Worked on holes. It rained all day.”
November
23, 1944 (Thursday) “Worked on holes. Jerries threw
artillery (at us). Cut wood and wrote some letters.”
November
24, 1944 (Friday) “Jerries threw more artillery (at us). One
of our boys was hit. Good chow and plenty of cigarettes.”
On
November 25, the
first ceremony of American troops on German soil was a 23rd Infantry
parade south of St. Vith. Major General W. M. Robertson, Divisional
Commander, presented decorations for heroism to officers and men of
the Regiment.
23rd
in World War II
In
World War II the 23rd Infantry as part of the 2nd Infantry Division
came ashore on Omaha Beach on D+1 June 7, 1944, and immediately
entered the fierce hedgerow fighting culminating in the seizure of
the city of Brest. The 23rd saw heavy combat across France and held
the line at St. Vith during the Battle of the Bulge. For its
gallantry in WW II the 23rd Infantry was awarded four Presidential
Unit Citations.
In
slow, painful hedgerow fighting, the Regiment inched its way forward
day after day against hard fighting enemy paratroop elements. St.
Georges d'Elle, Hill 192 (which commanded St. Lo), St. Jean des
Baisants, Etouvy, Vire, Truttemer le Grand and Tinchebray were scenes
of bitter fighting up to August when the organized German resistance
in Normandy collapsed. A short respite, the first one up to that
time, was interrupted by an overnight motor march of 210 miles to
Brest. From 21 August to 19 September the Regiment battled the 2nd
German Paratroop Division which fanatically defended the surrounding
hills and villages. Knowing that the fortress seaport, which housed
German U-boats, was greatly needed by the Allies for the purpose of
establishing supply routes into France, Hitler ordered the garrison
to hold for at least 90 days. However, Brest, the scene of some of
the most savage and bitter street fighting of the war, fell in 39
days. Formal capitulation of the Fortress to the 2nd Division
occurred on 18 September, 1944. Its hard-driving leader, General
Herman B. Ramcke, was captured the following day on the nearby Crozon
Peninsula.
Another
rapid motor and train move of 720 miles on 30 September, 1944, saw
the 23rd Infantry crossing France and Belgium to new battle positions
on the German border. Defensive positions were taken up along the
Siegfried Line just north of Luxembourg.
The
first ceremony of American troops on German soil was a 23rd Infantry
parade in November, south of St. Vith. Major General W. M. Robertson,
Divisional Commander, presented decorations for heroism to officers
and men of the Regiment. On 12 December, the Regiment moved 30 miles
north to the vicinity of Sourbrodt, Belgium.
http://www.lonesentry.com/unithistory/23rd-infantry/index.html
November
25, 1944 (Saturday) “Cut more wood. It snowed a little. (It
is) getting cold. Wrote some more letters and got a letter from Hale
(my brother).”
November
26, 1944 (Sunday) “Cobb got back from Paris. Worked on holes
and cut wood.”
November
27, 1944 (Monday) “I got 3 letters. One from ma, one from
Hale, and a card from Vicky. Worked on a new hole.”
November
28, 1944 (Tuesday) “Worked on hole and we are supposed to
move to rest area. No mail.”
November
29, 1944 (Wednesday) “Rained all day. Our hole is nearly
finished.”
November
30, 1944 (Thursday) “Today is Hale’s birthday. We moved
in(to) our hole and it leaks. Good chow.”
23rd Coat of Arms
Somewhere
in Germany
Nov.
23, 1944
Dear
Mother and All,
Here
it is the night before (after) Thanksgiving (as some people say) and see if I
can pen home a note. One year ago from Northern Ireland I sent you a
letter. As I think of this pass year the realization of the many
things I've been through comes to my thoughts and even though this
life I am living is far from human, more than you could or anyone
could ever dream a man could stand, far more than anyone over there
is expected to stand with mud, rain, snow and only a hole in the
ground for a home as of a year ago
– I
still have many things to be thankful for. I realize the prayers of a
praying mother that go with me during the day and through the long
hours of the night, words of hope that give me courage in battle.
Thankful I am here for many have gone.
Well, Mother, it has been pouring rain for three days and this is the third night with a strong wind most of the time. The snow is all gone but gee, is the ground water soaked, which makes plenty of mud.
The mail situation is still the same as it was when I last wrote. I have received letter since that time. A couple Christmas packages have come in to some boys but on the whole no one has received any mail to speak of.
I am over my cold now and feeling a little more on the ball. The weather is so bad that once you catch cold it sure drags you down.
We have had so much rain lately it has run into some of the holes and driven the men out. One fellow was putting on his overshoe in the morning and found it half full of water.
Here is a little joke. One night there was a fellow of Indian descent in my hole writing home a letter, it was about the time we were having so much snow. When I came in from outside he wanted to know if it was still snowing and when I said it was snowing hard he wrote home about it. Here is what he wrote. It's snowing like hell and now already as deep to a tall Indian and by morning we'll have to climb a tall Pine to take a crap. It struck me so funny when he read it I couldn't stop laughing.
The Jerries still send over plenty of buzz-bombs and some of them just about clear the tree tops. One came over the other night and if there had been a tree one foot higher I guess the thing would have hit. I was in my hole in bed and it came right over head. The only way I can explain it when they are coming is like those earthquakes we once had. The fellow sleeping with me said, "Hey Knight did you hear that!" I asked him if he thought I was dead.
I know just about what Sis means when she wrote you how they laugh at her. I'm glad she likes it there. She'll have a chance to see a few things. (His sister, Helen, and her husband has gone to southern Florida to plant potatoes during the winter months. The Southerners must have though her Maine accent sounded very strange.)
Hope you received the money orders I sent for Christmas in time. Let me know how you make out.
Oh yes, I saw Zig the other afternoon but he could only stop a few minutes. Gee, was he muddy. He had been back to rest camp, wanted me to say hello to all for him.
I received a war bond from the mill or the paper to fill out and had it made out in your name as co-owner, it's at the Westbrook bank.
This seems to be all for now so will sign off with love to all. Hope to receive some mail soon.
Love
Charles
Well, Mother, it has been pouring rain for three days and this is the third night with a strong wind most of the time. The snow is all gone but gee, is the ground water soaked, which makes plenty of mud.
The mail situation is still the same as it was when I last wrote. I have received letter since that time. A couple Christmas packages have come in to some boys but on the whole no one has received any mail to speak of.
I am over my cold now and feeling a little more on the ball. The weather is so bad that once you catch cold it sure drags you down.
We have had so much rain lately it has run into some of the holes and driven the men out. One fellow was putting on his overshoe in the morning and found it half full of water.
Here is a little joke. One night there was a fellow of Indian descent in my hole writing home a letter, it was about the time we were having so much snow. When I came in from outside he wanted to know if it was still snowing and when I said it was snowing hard he wrote home about it. Here is what he wrote. It's snowing like hell and now already as deep to a tall Indian and by morning we'll have to climb a tall Pine to take a crap. It struck me so funny when he read it I couldn't stop laughing.
The Jerries still send over plenty of buzz-bombs and some of them just about clear the tree tops. One came over the other night and if there had been a tree one foot higher I guess the thing would have hit. I was in my hole in bed and it came right over head. The only way I can explain it when they are coming is like those earthquakes we once had. The fellow sleeping with me said, "Hey Knight did you hear that!" I asked him if he thought I was dead.
I know just about what Sis means when she wrote you how they laugh at her. I'm glad she likes it there. She'll have a chance to see a few things. (His sister, Helen, and her husband has gone to southern Florida to plant potatoes during the winter months. The Southerners must have though her Maine accent sounded very strange.)
Hope you received the money orders I sent for Christmas in time. Let me know how you make out.
Oh yes, I saw Zig the other afternoon but he could only stop a few minutes. Gee, was he muddy. He had been back to rest camp, wanted me to say hello to all for him.
I received a war bond from the mill or the paper to fill out and had it made out in your name as co-owner, it's at the Westbrook bank.
This seems to be all for now so will sign off with love to all. Hope to receive some mail soon.
Love
Charles
1944 Thanksgiving in the ETO
Cleve Barkley, author of In Death's Dark Shadow: A Soldier's Story where he records his young father’s, Harold Barkley, journey from teenage adolescence to "old man" in little more than two years while participating in the savage combats of the European Theater of war, wrote to me this week to share some thoughts of this time period.
Peter,
Here’s a bit more info regarding the time spent in the Schnee Eifel, The “Ghost Front”. While life there was much, much better than previous actions, it could still be hazardous.
One entry in the 38th Infantry’s Operations Journal for November 20, 1944, states:
Time: 1520; from Surgeon to S-3 (Operations officer) “Joseph Martin, E Company, KIA at showers by direct hit at 1508; only casualty”
(I had noted from my research that at 1507 hours that day, six rounds of flat trajectory artillery hit the regimental rear area – probably 88mm artillery). As you can see, the poor fellow was off the line and enjoying a rare shower in the rear when he was killed.
The 2nd Battalion had spent Thanksgiving Day (Nov. 23) in their foxholes (although the company cooks did provide a hot turkey dinner). On Thanksgiving Day there was snow on the ground in the 2nd Battalion area but a slight warming trend produced mud; a freezing mist was falling which soon morphed into a bone-chilling rain. Dad said the rain sopped the food in his mess kit, but he was grateful to have it. He had no idea it was Thanksgiving Day until the cooks told him.
A November 24, 2nd Battalion, 38th Infantry, entry reports that a truck was hit by an artillery concentration on a road junction at 0945, wounding two soldiers – this figure was corrected three hours later to 2 KIA, 5 WIA.
The battalion had been relieved and was being trucked to billets in the rear when the artillery hit. Dad recalled hearing of the incident, but as far as he knew, the casualties were from a different company of the battalion.
Random entries for this period show a lot of patrolling, both to reconnoiter enemy positions and contact patrols with neighboring US units; receiving a few rounds of harassing artillery/mortar fire then calling for counter-battery fire by supporting artillery or mortars; receiving sporadic machine gun bursts from German pillboxes to their front; etc.
Cleve
38th Coat of Arms
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