Chapter 28

Foothold in France

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Cherry, it is a matter of record. We stayed in combat six months and seven days
and were finally relieved on the Rhine River. Most of that time we would go for
days and not hear a shot fired. Then we would catch up with some of their units
and it would be rough until they retreated again. Also they formed several defense
lines that would hold us up.

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At first we were split up into smaller units and scattered on “mop up” missions. Our
bunch headed into Northeast France. We went into the Alps around Grenoble.
That part of the Alps was very rugged. In fact, the Alps would put a lot of our
Rocky Mountains to shame as to beauty and etc.

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Our original mission was to go in and cut and hold Brenner Pass to keep the Germans
from using it for a supply line and to keep them from using it to retreat out of
Italy. One time they said we could see into Switzerland. All of the mountains
looked alike to me and I didn’t see any signs so I couldn’t verify that. As it turned
out, the war was going well enough for the Allies in Italy they decided it wasn’t
necessary to cut and hold Brenner Pass. Brenner Pass was about in only logical
route from Italy to France. We probably would have been better off in the long
run if those orders had held. We come back to the other troops, which were then
well up in France.

Our orders then were to go in and cut and hold the Rhone River Valley. The
Germans 19th army was retreating up it. They sent two regiments of Infantry, two
battalions of Artillery, and a few tanks and attached troops through the mountains
and down into the valley. Being in the job I was, I usually knew more about the
situation than most. I was sweating this one out. The German 19th Army was
composed of several divisions. We were approximately two-thirds of one division
and were supposed to stop them. We did stop them because we got in there and
couldn’t get out.

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Rhone valley in France
As I told you before, they sent approximately two thirds of one Division in to stop
the whole German 19th army from retreating up it. I never knew how many whole
divisions were in the German 19th but I do know there were too many. As luck would
have it, we got in and cut it after about a third of them had already passed. When
we got into the valley, the ones who had passed turned and come back on us. The
two-thirds we had cut off hit us on the other side. Then they sent troops around
the sides so we were cut off. Some damn fool from headquarters said we had them
surrounded. I guess we did as they shot at us from all four sides. We held them,
but the only reason we did was because we had no choice.

The last night we were down to less than twenty rounds for 105’s. The Infantry
was dug in right under the muzzles of our guns. From where I was I could hear
their tank motors running and I could tell they were getting closer. They sent the
other one-third of our Division to hit one side from behind, and other troops up in a
hurry to try to get us out. About that time, some of our tanks broke through to us
with ammo, food, and etc. If I had had time, I would have personally hugged ever
one of those tank crews.

We had a few of the old men to “flip” after that and have to be shipped out. After
that they got parts of some other Divisions and the rest of ours in. We got in
position with plenty of ammo and zeroed in on a narrow place that the Germans had
to pass. We got revenge. I will look up some of the figures on how many we
stopped at that spot and pass them on. I am not proud of how many, but we had to
do it.

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