My father, John W. Edwards, was one of the replacements in the 28th infantry, first battalion, mentioned above as the primary unit facing the German onslaught. He was rotated into combat in August 1944, and fought as the leader of a squad that specialized in taking out pillboxes during the battle for Huertgen forest.
On December 16, 1944, his unit’s position was overrun, but he led a group of men that fought the Germans while trying to fall back to the allied lines. He was captured on the third night of the offensive. He spent the rest of the war in a German prison camp, where he lost about half his body weight.
He did not dislike the Germans, despite his experiences with them. He thought the average German soldier was just there doing a job, like he was. He did develop a strong distaste for the French, though. He said the French would tell the American troops where the Germans were, but would run when asked to accompany the troops to point out their exact locations when the troops attacked.
You would have to get him pretty drunk to extract the more gruesome stories he had to tell of his experiences in the war.
My father passed away in August 2004, at the ripe old age of 84.
TheConservator:
God bless your father! He had the good fortune not to fall into the hands of the SS, but likely into the hands of the regular Wehrmacht and “normal” Germans who despite more that a decade of Nazi education were raised by German Christian Lutheran and Catholic families.
All:
In 1991 in Germany I met a German soldier who fought in the Battle of the Bulge, likely an officer by his bearing. He was a first cousin, Georg, of my wife’s mother. My wife’s mother’s brother, Karl, had fought opposite Georg on the US side in the Battle of the Bulge!
Cousin Georg greeted me with an icy stare when I met him, unlike the other elderly German cousins who were apologetic even in the 1990’s over the German roll in WWII, leading me to believe that Georg may have been a Nazi party member.