Posted on 12/24/2014 4:46:51 AM PST by Homer_J_Simpson
That is so sad. At least they went quick and probably in shock, once they hit that water! I have fallen in the water off a dock in Maine in the summer and been momentarily paralyzed when the water was only 55 degrees!
“INDIA: The Japanese fly their last bombing raid against Calcutta.”
Unbelievable that they are still able to and inclined to bomb Calcutta!
“During the night of 24/25 December, a Japanese bomber destroys a 100,000 U.S. gallon (83,267 Imperial gallons or 379 kiloliters) aviation storage tank at Hill Field on Mindoro Island. As a result, flight operations are restricted from this base for several weeks.”
On second thought after reading the above, and considering that B-29’s recently bombed bases on Java and Sumatra from Calcutta, I guess the Japanese trying to knock out the B-29 base makes a lot of sense of you can hit an aviation fuel tank!
Homer,
I’ve been waiting until Christmas Eve to reply to your question about which part of Patton’s Army my dad served in. I’ll let his words tell the story. While he lay in the hospital dying, he decided to dictate his life story. He was a college boy who wore glasses, therefore he was not drafted until the very end of WWII when the Army needed more recruits. They were not planning to put him in the infantry, but when he arrived in Wales, he was told that at Fort Dix the issue should have been resolved....so...
“...I went overseas with Company E of the 290th Regimen, 75th Infantry...Around November (1944), we were tranported to a big field and stored our duffel bags for later delivery. Suddenly in December the Germans mounted a serious attack on the Belgium-German border...It was at that point the 75th Infantry Division joined the battle... we were trucked up to an area to try to stem the attack. On Christmas Eve in 1944, we hiked the last 5 miles at night and then finally sat down to rest until daybreak. then at daybreak, my Company E, my Squad, was directed to proceed to attack a town that was being occupied by the Germans. We left our knapsacks in the woods and proceeded with our rifles to a roadway that was supposed to lead to the town. The Major was there because this was going to be the first attack by any portion of the 290th Regimen and Company E, specifically, of which I was a part. As we stood by the road the Major said, “Ok, well that’s the place to go” and then he stood around and waited for somebody to do something. Finally, I stepped forward and said, “Well, fellas, if we have to go, let’s go.”. The minute I walked down the road, the Lt. [sic] came running up and walked beside me and we began walking down this road....[this is characteristic of my dad]. The Squad came under heavy fire from field artillery and so the Lt. directed us to encamp in a hillside wood and dig foxholes until we could notify the Major where we were and perhaps get some rescue teams. I didn’t like the idea very well because I didn’t like the idea of being in the wood with .88 Howitzer shells blasting all around and most assuredly wasn’t happy about having to sit there and dig foxholes in the hard dirt because it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. [He was a son of immigrant Jews, btw]. It was my job to be the Communications between the Lt. and the Major, for which I had a walkie-talkie. Unfortunately the walkie-talkie didn’t work, so I volunteered to go back...the Lt. said, “No, it’s too dangerous, I can’t let you do it.”. I said to the Lt., “Well, Sir, I have a pretty good sense of direction. I think I know where the Major would be stationed so please let me go.”. ..so he said, “Well, all right if you think you can make it.”. So I set off and finally found my way back to the Major. As it turns out, that night they had been bombarded incessantly so when they were rescued the next day, everyone who was in the encampment had to go back to the base camp because they were so shellshocked. As for me, I wandered around in the woods looking for the rest of my Company and I finally fell asleep under a tree. I was so tired This was the night of Christmas Day. When I woke up the next morning, they told me there had been a heavy bombardment in the woods where I was, I never got a scratch, I never knew a thing, I was so dead tired, I just slept right through it. Finally I found the Major who told me they were going to rescue the rest of the Squad. It was very cold Christmas Day 1944 and unfortunately we did not have adequate protection. The result was it started raining, my feet got all wet, and within a few days my feet were so sore that I had frozen feet...I was sent to a hospital in Leige, Belgium, where they were going to amputate some of my toes. There I lay on a cot with my feet exposed so that perhaps the air would allow my circulation to begin again, which it did. The difficulty with being in this hospital is that the Germans had a rocket called V-2 and one had hit the hospital just the week before and created tremendous damage.”. He told me the next part of the story because I suspect laying in a hospital was bringing back this memory. He sais that laying for a week in the hospital in Leige listening to the rockets overhead was the most frightening experience of the War. So much so that he convinced the doctors that he was well enough and needed to get back to his Company, and they reluctantly let him go early. While his Company was fighting in France, his glasses got caught on a tree branch and broke, so he spent the last part of the fighting back at the Base waiting for replacement lenses. His Squad eventually crossed into Germany where my father was tasked with convincing the reluctant German citiizens to leave their homes [he spoke Yiddush, not German]. One old lady told him she renounced Hitler, but he saw her hide a photo of Hitler under her arm while being escorted out.
This is his story. He had some stars which he never spoke about. He revered Patton. That is the strongest emotion he communicated about his service in the War, Patton was his hero. Merry Christmas.
The Westerner
Merry Christmas to you, and to all.
May your day be blessed, as we remember the Child Who came to live, and to die, and to rise again, to redeem us all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DbGCuGVdRI
Howard Grittani story about WWII in the Canadian Navy, Christmas Eve, 1944.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQsCshSK3tw
Excellent. Thanks, and Merry Christmas.
Great story. Thanks for sharing it and God bless your father.
Thanks for posting. The minor liberty taken in the Patton movie in putting the General’s conversation with the Third Army chaplain during the drive to relieve Bastogne is justified since it was during that drive that the prayer for relief from “immoderate” weather was answered.
“The minor liberty taken in the Patton movie in putting the General’s conversation with the Third Army chaplain during the drive to relieve Bastogne is justified since it was during that drive that the prayer for relief from “immoderate” weather was answered.”
It should be noted that Patton’s December 8th request for the prayer was in part actually his already knowing preparation for the Third Army’s participation in the Battle of the Bulge.
Brigadier General Oscar W. Koch and his G-2 staff had been keeping Patton and his staff well briefed on the threatening buildup of German forces opposite of the First Army’s VIII Corps through the month of November. By November 26th, 1944, the potential for a German offensive through the Ardennes and against the VIII Corps was a serious enough threat for Patton to begin his preparations to meet such a German Offensive on the flank of the Third Army.
However, Eisenhower’s headquarters were already committing the Third Army to an offensive towards Frankfurt that was scheduled to begin on 21 December 1944. So, Patton had to bide his time in November and December to prepare the Third Army for both eventualities. He ordered an unprecedented plan to pull an entire Field Army out of an offensive in one direction and change the axis of advance 90 degrees in another direction and across existing lines of communications in the middle of one of the worst winter seasons for military campaigning in modern military history.
On December 8th Patton orders the chaplain to prepare the prayer for the Third Army.
On December 9th, Patton, his Third Army Staff, staff members of the VIII Corps, and others met in a conference to discuss the latest intelligence about the German capabilities. BG Koch and his staff reported their findings and intelligence while emphasizing the apparent German preparations for an offensive against the First Army’s VIII Corps. Patton then ordered the formal preparation of the contingency plan for a redirection of the Third Army away from its offensive operations towards Frankfurt and move into a meeting engagement and counterattack against a German offensive against the VIII Corps.
It can fairly be said that Patton’s request for the prayer on December 8th was preceded by Patton’s knowledge and appreciation that he could expect the Third Army to become engaged in a major and historic battle in the month of December in a counterattack against a major German offensive on Patton’s northern flank with the U.S. First Army.
Homer,
Yesterday, I posted the story of a green recruit, my father, on this auspicious day in 1944. I’m copying it here with formatting. I want to thank whoever added the story of another infantry man who stated that my dad’s squad saved his own, but suffered “tragic losses.”. Yes, the few things my dad said about his war experience is that almost all the men in Company E were “shellshocked” badly and my dad was spared. I have often wondered whether my dad was cowardly or simply smart for what he decided to do on Christmas Eve, 1944, in some Belgian town in WWII? Here is his story in his own words:
At the age of 75, as he lay in the hospital dying, he decided to dictate his life story. He was a college boy who wore glasses, therefore he was not drafted until the very end of WWII when the Army needed more recruits. They were not planning to put him in the infantry, but when he arrived in Wales, he was told that at Fort Dix the issue should have been resolved....so...
“...I went overseas with Company E of the 290th Regimen, 75th Infantry...Around November (1944), we were tranported to a big field and stored our duffel bags for later delivery. Suddenly in December the Germans mounted a serious attack on the Belgium-German border...It was at that point the 75th Infantry Division joined the battle... we were trucked up to an area to try to stem the attack. On Christmas Eve in 1944, we hiked the last 5 miles at night and then finally sat down to rest until daybreak. then at daybreak, my Company E, my Squad, was directed to proceed to attack a town that was being occupied by the Germans. We left our knapsacks in the woods and proceeded with our rifles to a roadway that was supposed to lead to the town. The Major was there because this was going to be the first attack by any portion of the 290th Regimen and Company E, specifically, of which I was a part. As we stood by the road the Major said, “Ok, well that’s the place to go” and then he stood around and waited for somebody to do something. Finally, I stepped forward and said, “Well, fellas, if we have to go, let’s go.”. The minute I walked down the road, the Lt. [sic] came running up and walked beside me and we began walking down this road....[this is characteristic of my dad].
The Squad came under heavy fire from field artillery and so the Lt. directed us to encamp in a hillside wood and dig foxholes until we could notify the Major where we were and perhaps get some rescue teams. I didn’t like the idea very well because I didn’t like the idea of being in the wood with .88 Howitzer shells blasting all around and most assuredly wasn’t happy about having to sit there and dig foxholes in the hard dirt because it was Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. [He was a son of immigrant Jews, btw]. It was my job to be the Communications between the Lt. and the Major, for which I had a walkie-talkie. Unfortunately the walkie-talkie didn’t work, so I volunteered to go back...the Lt. said, “No, it’s too dangerous, I can’t let you do it.”. I said to the Lt., “Well, Sir, I have a pretty good sense of direction. I think I know where the Major would be stationed so please let me go.”. ..so he said, “Well, all right if you think you can make it”.
So I set off and finally found my way back to the Major. As it turns out, that night they had been bombarded incessantly so when they were rescued the next day, everyone who was in the encampment had to go back to the base camp because they were so shellshocked. As for me, I wandered around in the woods looking for the rest of my Company and I finally fell asleep under a tree. I was so tired. This was the night of Christmas Day. When I woke up the next morning, they told me there had been a heavy bombardment in the woods where I was. I never got a scratch, I never knew a thing, I was so dead tired, I just slept right through it. Finally I found the Major who told me they were going to rescue the rest of the Squad.
It was very cold Christmas Day 1944 and unfortunately we did not have adequate protection. The result was it started raining, my feet got all wet, and within a few days my feet were so sore that I had frozen feet...I was sent to a hospital in Leige, Belgium, where they were going to amputate some of my toes. There I lay on a cot with my feet exposed so that perhaps the air would allow my circulation to begin again, which it did. The difficulty with being in this hospital is that the Germans had a rocket called V-2 and one had hit the hospital just the week before and created tremendous damage.”.
When I visited him in the hospital, he told me the next part of the story because I suspect laying in a hospital was bringing back this memory.... He said that laying for a week in the hospital in Leige listening to the rockets overhead was the most frightening experience of the War. So much so that he convinced the doctors that he was well enough and needed to get back to his Company, and they reluctantly let him go early.
Some time later, his Squad was fighting in France, his glasses got caught on a tree branch and broke, thus he spent the last part of the fighting back at the Base waiting for replacement lenses. His Squad eventually crossed into Germany where my father was tasked with convincing the reluctant German citiizens to leave their homes [he spoke Yiddush, not German]. One old German lady told him she renounced Hitler, but he saw her hide a photo of Hitler under her arm while being escorted out. And that’s all I know. He reproached me that day for never asking about his war experience. What he forgot is that like all soldiers, he wouldn’t say much when asked.
He had several stars in his bureau drawer he wouldn’t talk about. The one thing that was clear was he revered Patton. That is the strongest emotion he communicated about his service in the War, Patton was his hero. His pride in serving under Patton instilled in me a lifelong love of my country and the brave men throughout our history who fought for Her.
Merry Christmas.
The Westerner
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