MORE BULGE STORIES

One night the troops in the front lines reported cries from a wounded soldier down between the lines. Our litter carriers volunteered to go out in the dark of the night to find and bring him in, even though they could be under fire. 

When he arrived at the aid station on a stretcher he had severe shrapnel wounds to the right leg and the buttocks.  We could not immobilize the leg with a Thomas (metal) splint due to his hip wounds. 

 The buttocks and back wounds prevented us from transferring him on his back. After dressing the wounds, I elected to use the “well leg splint” method, i.e. firmly binding the injured leg to the other leg with bandages and tape.

  

He was then transported face down on the stretcher by our jeep to the collecting company. He had been given additional morphine for his pain. According to regulations he was sent out with the all proper information tags firmly attached to him.

These tags were initiated as soon as the patient was triaged. The tag had all known vital information, including a description of injuries and treatment, and were signed by an officer (me) before the patient left the station.

  

Several weeks later I received an inquiry from division medical command about a complaint from the Inspector General’s office. Apparently, this man had arrived at the field hospital in critical condition without any splint or immobilization.  The only tag with information on him was the one I had initiated.  He had gone from us to a collecting company then by ambulance to a clearing company, all physicians staffed medical units, before ultimately being transported to the field hospital.

Since our tag unaltered, was all that was on him when he reached the hospital, in one or both of these installations no one had apparently examined or treated him. In both of those installations the medics should have added pertinent comments to the existing tag, or initiated a new one.

  

I felt it was unfortunate that I and my aid men should be criticized for their doing a heroic job. Of course, after I responded in triplicate, there were no repercussions.

Strange things do happen in a war.  Once in the middle of combat a soldier came up to me and requested a prophylactic kit. This was an “Argyrol” (organic silver) solution in a disposable syringe that was to be self administered by injection into the penis after intercourse to prevent VD.

Another time we stopped at a farm house that was still intact although twice the war had just  passed by . The farmer’s nubile teen age daughter wanted to show me the space where she had hidden for several days from the Germans. I thought it advisable to decline her offer.

I had gone overseas with two, not my best, briar pipes to smoke. If captured I was not going to let those Nazis have anything of real value. I had broken both earlier in the Bulge and did not smoke or desire cigarettes.

Our men were used to seeing me with a pipe in my mouth.  In one village that we had liberated, my men brought the village mayor to me to give me his well smoked briar pipe. The next day he reappeared and wanted it back since it was his favorite. Instead he offered me a highly colored and smoked ‘clay” pipe. Of course I accepted the exchange and that pipe is still in my possession...

Another night we bivouacked after dark in a house in a small village. A shell landed into the building directly behind the one we occupied, causing several severe casualties. The next morning we discovered that we were on the front side of a hill, facing the Germans.

We had one buck pvt., listed on the T/O as a litter bearer, who was scared to death and was of no value. We finally made him the section “hot chocolate maker”. We needed warm fluids for the wounded   or the aid men when they came in out of the cold. If we halted, even for five minutes when we were moving in column, he dug a personal foxhole.  Since he could dig so fast even though there was knee high snow on top frozen solid ground, and because most of those men had come from around Pittsburgh or West Virginia, I thought he was a coal miner.

Prior to being relieved, we were occupying a house along a main road for our aid station and quarters. This two-story house with the basement was about 50 feet back from the highway. A column of 155 mm heavy artillery canon was passing by. I had never seen anything so massive and was out in the front by the road talking to the one of their officers. 

Suddenly we heard a strange new high pitched noise. I said “Those are rockets aren't they?" "Yes" he replied. I decided it would be prudent to go back into the house if the guns were the target for the “screaming meenies”.  As I entered the front door there was a whirlwind down the steps from the second floor passing me without pausing and into the basement. Our "aid man" had been sleeping upstairs.

The division was sent to an area in Luxembourg overlooking the Our River, and the Sigfried Line. The194th was in reserve in a beautiful intact small hilltop town. Some Italian barbers had set up shop In a nearby school. I decided to have a real shave. The barber stropped his razor, lathered my face and started to shave. He stopped almost immediately and again sharpened the blade first with a stone then the strop. This happened several times. When he was through he shook his wrist up and down, saying that I had the toughest beard he had ever shaved.

I along with several other officers from battalion were allowed to the have a few days R&R.  A personnel carrier took the ten of us to Maastrich in Holland on the Maas River. It was a beautiful and untouched city but pulled in the sidewalks at 8 PM.   

Bored, we decided to go on to Liege. However it was in another Army's area and we had no orders or business to be there. We had to find our own dining and sleeping accommodations.  We found a small private hotel in the center of the city that allowed us to stay for the nights but we had to be out of our rooms by 8:00 am because in the daytime it was used by local business men and their girls. Since we required little sleep, we were really not inconvenienced for the two days spent there, and enjoyed the night life. Incidentally this was the first time any of us had seen much less knew the use of a bidet.

About Feb. 11 the division was relocated for replacements and replenishing to the vicinity of Chalons-sur-Marne. The regiment troops moved by 40 or 8 (Forty men or 8 horses) box cars from Luxembourg to Soissons-le-Petite in France where we encamped in open muddy fields for about 4 weeks, while the allies approached the Rhine. We were now getting real food for our kitchens. Unfortunately, all the good cuts of meat were being siphoned off by outfits in the rear along the supply chain. We received more pork than beef and absolutely no steaks. Since this was champagne country one of our two bottle “monthly” liquor ration was the bubbly. I still am not fond of it.  

This ends the first combat period for the 17th. Some time in the future I will reprint in sequence the invasion into Germany, up to the end of hostilities. I have posted some segments earlier this year.