SOME NONSENSE

 I know that the winter of 1945 was the coldest I ever encountered. But I can never remember a colder day the yesterday.

But believe it or not we were warm compared to much of the nation. Thornville near Columbus Ohio has closed its schools for the past two days and they will again be closed today. That has been a universal happening in that part of the nation. Between this Artic vortex and recent snowstorms the have already exhausted their “snow days”.

Down South in Roanoke my daughter told me that it was 1degree Tuesday morning and never got over 10. Fortunately tomorrow should be above freezing.

Somehow yesterday became a  lazy house cleaning  straightening  my den day. I did not fix on a subject for today's blog. So back to repeating  a few anecdotes of the winter of  Jan. 1945.


At one point our regimental colonel fondly(?) known  as the "Greyhound"; appropriated an abandoned armored vehicle. He proudly led the column in it until a land mine blew off a tread. During that time, he had the entire regiment in column following his command vehicle along ridge lines in the deep snow. Often the column would stop. One time Father Combs a priest from the tri-cities area of New York said to me “What is that damn fool doing? Trying to get us killed?” We also had a Southern Baptist minister assigned to our regiment. He traveled everywhere in his Jeep with his driver who could play his folding organ. During combat he was fearless out among the fighting troops comforting the wounded.

Airborne divisions do not have armored vehicles or even heavy guns other than the 75 mm sawed off or pack canon. Rocket launchers were just beginning to be supplied to us. We were happy to have attached to us the separate 761st tank battalion, a now famous black Afro-American unit.  They were crazy men who would run their tanks full blast down icy hilly village streets and lock the tread on one side to make a 90 degree turn at a corner. Often they had to bounce off a building to make the turn. They were replaced by Co.C 15^th Tk Bn (6^th Armd.Div).

The snow was knee deep and the cold so severe during the Bulge that many of the troops suffered from frostbite. The American troops in Europe had not been issued adequate winter equipment, especially snow boots and gloves. Their availability would have prevented the massive amounts of frostbite that we encountered. Indeed we did not get “Artic gear” until we were at the end of the Ardennes campaign.  Since the manpower in the trenches was being drastically depleted, we were finally ordered not to send anybody to the rear who could still function despite potential loss of frost bitten fingers or toes. To this day I am bothered by a large toe that suffered mild frost bite encountered during that period. We were issued gloves and scarves knitted by American Red Cross volunteers. I had a scarf that must have been knitted by an enthusiastic volunteer who was so engrossed in her work that she did not know when to stop. I could wrap it around my neck twice and both ends still reached my boots. It was so cold that we, like the Germans before us, used every building that we could find as shelters and the rooms for latrines. No one wanted to be caught dead by a sniper with their pants down.

Once I was ordered to set up an aid station in a small town (I don’t remember the name) which I was assured had been secured. Therefore, I moved in with one jeep and a few aid men into a house along the main street.  About an hour later we noticed the point of A company coming down the street. Apparently, we had been the first Americans into the town. 

Our rations were cans of C rations, similar to today's canned Chef Boyardee or Campbell Beans or Meat Stew. Most of the time we ate C rations cold not heated. Very often we ate the K rations. The latter were in small cans and looked like today’s meat pate or cat food; the same size can. Some of our favorites were the chopped egg and the devilled ham. K rations did not have the laxative effect of the C ration. The other packaged ration, for emergencies use, was D rations, a very highly concentrated chocolate bar that caused diarrhea if too much was eaten. 

When we received a hot meal it came up from the rear to each company or platoon after dark. Of course it was served in the dark. By this time most of us had lost at least half of our mess kits and some utensils. The spoon was the most important one not to lose.  I can’t recall many intact kits in our outfit by the end of the campaign. It was not unusual to have mashed potatoes, stew, or gravy and chocolate pudding in one mass. Truly the term mess kit was appropriate