NEW YEARS 1945

" We have shared the incommunicable experience of war. We felt, we still feel, the passions of life to it's top. In our youth, our hearts were touched by fire" - Oliver Wendall Holmes

 

John C. Alrich next to a burned-out German flame thrower Close call, January 1, 1945 John Alrich's helmet, bullet entered at top and exited the rear

Cpl. John C. Alrich, Co. A, 71st Infantry Regiment and his bullet scarred helmet.

The following essay was written by John C. Alrich regarding his experiences of January 1, 1945. He was kind enough to allow me to reprint it here.

It was in the late hours approaching New Year's, 1945, that the German SS 17th Panzer Division decided to make an attack through our weakened lines. Up until they attacked our sector, we had no idea of the impending danger. Our divisional front, the 44th Infantry Division, General Dean commander, covered three typical divisional fronts because Von Rundstedt's drive had formed a wedge north of us and the troops in that area had to be reinforced quickly by two of the divisions in our sector of the 7th Army, under General Patch. I think one of the divisions shifted was the 87th which, coincidentally, was the one I trained with in the US before I was sent ahead as a replacement for the 44th. I understand the 87th was badly cut-up by Von Rundstedt. Several weeks before the 87th arrived in the European Theater, On October 20th, I disembarked onto Omaha Beach, France as a replacement for early casualties of the 44th. The 44th was chosen to remain and defend our lines as well as possible with the limited amount of men and equipment at our disposal. We were located about a mile from a small town near the Franco-German border on the French side called Obergailbach, and which is near a forest called Bliesbrucken Woods. Saarebrucken is a larger city in the general area.

At very nearly midnight, which ushered in the New Year, I was awakened by my hole-buddy, Grosvenor LeTarte, who was standing his two hour watch in the forward end, the deepest part, of our foxhole (two-on, two off, 24 hours a day) when he heard the distinctive guttural sounds of a German officer's voice giving directions to his men as to where he wanted them to set up their machine gun and other offensive weapons. The sound of his voice indicated he was several hundred yards to our front.

Our squad of 8 men were dug in on the forward slope of a hill in enfilade (i.e., where we could be seen and shot at by the enemy; perhaps we were overly confident) and LeTarte and I were at the apex of our company's defense line. Our squad leader's hole with about three men was about 50 yards to our right and slightly down the hill from us and our assistant squad-leader's was about 40 yards to our left at our same level. The hill's contour was unusual in that the hill dropped off quite suddenly into a shallow gully about 60 yards down the slope from our location forming considerable dead space, space where a man could walk but not be seen by us and therefore was immune from our small arms fire. This space was supposed to have been covered by heavy machine gun fire from another battalion situated on another hill on our right flank. Based on what follows, I doubt the battalion was in place.

Just before our hill dropped away and in full view of our squad we had laid a "hasty" anti-tank minefield; one in which no attempt is made to conceal the mines. One simply lays them in a defense pattern on the ground and prevents their easy removal by the enemy by covering the area with direct small arms fire. The weather was brisk and clear and there were large patches of snow on the ground. LeTarte and I, as was usually the case, were totally unaware of the massive German breakthrough in the Ardennes sector, starting December 16, and in the Saar Salient (ours), starting the first of January.

We could see only the muzzle flash of the weapon as it was fired in short bursts by the machine gunner. He was on the other side of the gully and must have been at least several hundred yards from our position. The bullets were coming in our direction but not close. A slug, exceeding the speed of sound, is heard to make a sharp cracking sound, as if it were penetrating a thin hardwood board, if it comes within a few dozen yards of it's intended victim. Up to that moment this was not happening. After the German gunner started firing, we raised our heads just over the top of our foxhole and fired a number of rounds into the pitch darkness from our semi-automatic M-1's in the general direction of the enemies muzzle blast. No damage seemed to have been done by either side up to this point.

After several hours of intermittent pinging back and forth at each other, our assistant squad leader, in a high state of distress, ran over to our hole and told us that there were three German divisions, about 40,000 men if they were up to strength, attacking our sector and that we were going to have to withdraw just before daylight. LeTarte and I would cover the retreat of the squad from our hole and then the squad would cover our retreat with small arms fire as we made our getaway around the back of the hill to a defilade (protected, on the reverse side of the hill) position. There were several men in the hole to our right and at least one in the hole to our left. Shortly after the Sergeant left our hole, evacuation of the men in our squad began, seemingly without German interdiction. We assumed the rest of our company, Company A, were also taking up new defensive positions behind the hill, which proved to be the case.

However, it was early dawn by the time our withdrawal was complete, except for us, and we were both getting sleepy--in fact, I had dozed off several times already. Just about this time I decided to take another peek and was immediately jarred awake! There were about 30 German soldiers walking in a skirmish line about ten feet apart with their rifles at port arms ( a ready position where the weapon is held across the body but not in a position to aim and fire). They must have been about 30-40 yards away. Obviously they did not know LeTarte and I were still in our foxhole; perhaps they had seen most of our squad leaving and presumed the area was cleared. Unfortunately, by now it was getting light enough so if we had attempted to evacuate our foxhole, we would be silhouetted against the snow and easily shot, not a pleasant thought.

The ravages of time have fogged my memory as to just what happened next, but I think LeTarte and I discussed in whispers the situation. We seemed to have three alternatives--give up and surrender, fight it out, or wait awhile and see what happens. The first option seemed poor since the Germans often killed prisoners; the second option seemed suicidal; so we defaulted to the third. I do remember LeTarte burying some German gear in the back of our hole just in case we had to surrender and we both looked around for something white, to no avail.

Shortly after this first look, one of us must have looked again and the platoon of soldiers was gone! Or at least they were down in the gully where we couldn't see them and they couldn't see us. So we waited. There was sporadic gunfire near us but still no one shooting directly at us. I should mention that in these circumstances, looking out of a foxhole takes about a half-second, only a very limited area can be checked and the time between looks might be some fraction of a minute. This does not give one a clear opportunity to appraise what is really going on. About this time we felt our tention reduced somewhat because it was at least feasible that the enemy troops were simply passing through and not intending to push further into our sector. But circumstances almost immediately showed that we were wrong.

I looked out again. Directly below our hole about 20 yards down the hill was a German light machine gunner with his weapon and tripod in place directly facing our hole. When I raised my head just above the ground level, he fired a short burst at me but the slugs hit the top of the hole which we had covered with railroad ties, dirt and rock as protection. Incidentally, firing a machine gun accurately is notoriously difficult; due to the rapid rate of fire, the barrel tends to sweep upwards causing the slugs often to miss the target. In this situation we worried that it would be a simple matter for the gunner to keep firing bursts over the foxhole to force us to keep our heads down, send someone up the hill with a grenade, drop it in our hole and that would be the end of us. I think it was about this time we shook hands and decided to fight it out.

But they didn't fire bursts as we thought they would. We found we could look up without being immediately fired on. We knew we had to keep looking to avoid the grenade attack although it meant risking getting shot. In fact, later during one of the times I looked up , a sniper in the foxhole to our left fired at me just as I was ducking and put a hole through the top of my helmet and liner, just grazing my wool knit cap, exiting through a rough break in the back of my helmet but leaving my head untouched. (I still have the helmet) So far, our luck was holding.

Some time later when I looked up, out of extreme desperation I squeezed off two shots at the machine gunner and ducked back. I don't know if he was hit or not but when I looked up again, there was a medic and the gunner was lying on his back, obviously wounded or killed. While I was firing at the gunner, the sniper---I learned later he had already killed one of our squad in the hole to our left before jumping into it---again fired at me. He must have had a bolt action Mauser so he could fire only one shot at a time. This time the slug split the upper hand guard on my M-1 and bent the gas operating rod, making the rifle useless. The slug missed my left index finger by about a half inch. Still no Purple Heart! We now had one rifle and one wounded or killed machine gunner. Now our chance of being taken alive as prisoners was nil. Surprise! When we looked up again, everyone was gone except the machine gunner who was still lying on his back--I never did find out what happened to the poor fellow because we never returned to that sector. He was probably just an ordinary, frightened guy doing what he was told like the rest of us, except his luck ran out.

For a short time, it was unusually quiet. It was about 10:00AM and visibility was excellent and our spirits began rising. But within minutes, the Germans began a mortar attack. We didn't know if they were after us or generally just hoping to soften up our lines. Again LeTarte and I conferred. We noticed that the mortar rounds seemed to be coming in bursts; perhaps six or eight rounds, then a delay while they reset their aim, then more rounds and so on. We decided to wait for a lull, then LeTarte would jump out of the hole and around the hill to safety. I would immediately follow and if LeTarte were hit with a single round of sniper fire I would try and pull him back into the hole; if by machine gun fire, my options (if any) were open.

So during the next lull, LeTarte with his rifle, got ready to spring out of the hole and I asked him if he really wanted to be slowed down by his rifle: he paused and said "no". Just then another mortar attack began which might have killed us both if we had been out in the open. We again waited for the lull, LeTarte, without his rifle, leaped from the hole like a young gazelle and I followed several paces behind. We had about 100 yards to clear while we were vulnerable. Not a shot was fired! We immediately found our platoon and began clapping everyone we could find on the back (high fives weren't invented yet); we couldn't believe we had made it. We had our fifteen minutes of fame.

But we nearly didn't survive the last run. We learned later from our heavy machine gunner that when he saw two crazy soldiers off in the distance rounding the hill towards him, if either one had a rifle, the gunner would have assumed it was an attack and would have fired at us. He had already loaded the first cartridge into the chamber. Happy New Year.

Home

Copyright 2002 by Timothy E Blaise