With the coming of darkness I quickly set out on an inspection of my men. Uppermost in my mind was the concern that as soon as it grew fully dark, the Germans would sally forth from the town in a determined effort to eliminate our little band. I vowed to organize a solid defensive position.
One of my first moves was to see what had happened to Lieutenant Moustache. After a prolonged search, I found him deep in his foxhole. He had increased the depth of a shellhole to at least six feet and was still burrowing when I arrived. It was only with difficulty that I persuaded him to emerge from his hole so I could outline what I wanted him to do.
Hardly had I finished speaking when he began to shake like a leaf in a gusty wind.
“I’m going back!” he cried. “I can’t take it anymore!”
Shocked, I drew him aside where the men could not hear and tried to reason with him, but it soon became obvious that reasoning was not the way. I grew progressively tougher. In the end, when it became painfully apparent that he intended to disregard my orders completely, I threatened court martial.
He turned on me like a madman.
“I don’t care what you do!” he screamed. “I can’t take it anymore, I tell you. I can’t take it anymore. I’m going back! I’m going back!”
Then he was gone, racing like some wild thing into the darkness back toward the woods line.
I watched him go with mixed emotions. In one way, it was better he left—the platoon would be better off under a capable sergeant than under a lieutenant who was an out and out coward. On the other hand, I resented his actions bitterly. If the rest of us could stay and take it, so could he. The fact that he was an officer made me all the more furious.
I swore that if I got out of this predicament alive, I would court martial the lieutenant, moustache and all.
Choking back a desire to rush after the lieutenant and beat his head into the ground, I turned to the men he had left behind. I laid out the area for defense and made certain each man knew what was expected of him should the Germans attack.
When I got back to the communications trench where I had spent the day, a call awaited me on the radio. It was Captain Freeman at battalion.
“Hey, Boesch,” Freeman said, “send a patrol back to the spot where you jumped off from to pick up rations, water, and the ammunition you wanted. Send a guide back to Easy Company’s CP to meet the litter bearers. And say, send two men back to go to Paris.”
I couldn’t believe I had heard right.
“What did you say?” I asked incredulously.
“General’s orders, Boesch. Two men from every company get to go to Paris.”
I stared at the mouthpiece of the radio. There I was with a company less than one-fourth normal strength, in the middle of an attack, cut off from the rest of the battalion all day, and now they wanted me to send two men back to go to Paris. From some-where the thought came to me that I would be usurping God’s powers if I should tap two men on the shoulder and say “You go to Paris. You live while these others stay here and die.”
I knew I couldn’t do it.
“You can count Company G out,” I said slowly. “None of us is going any place except to Huertgen—or maybe to hell. But wherever we go, we go together, and you can tell whoever thought up such an asinine order exactly what I said. If they don’t like it, tell ‘em to come out here and get me.”
When I hung up, I noticed two of my platoon sergeants had been listening.
“It’s my turn to go to Paris, Lieutenant,” one of them said.
“Mine too,” said the other.
They began to chuckle.
“You got to admit, lieutenant,” said one, smiling, “it sure would be nice.”
Rations and water came eventually—the ammunition was a little slower. The litter bearers failed to show, so I had to send a patrol to try to find them. The patrol located them wandering blindly over the field between us and the woods, searching for us in vain. It was ten o’clock before we finally got the wounded ready to leave for the aid station.
I shook hands with each of the wounded. When I came to the man whose thoughts all day long had centered on Yuletide linens, I paused.
“I hope you get your white sheets for Christmas, fellow,” I said.
“Don’t worry, Lieutenant,” he answered in a voice that showed no sign of strain. “I’ll get them.”
With that, the litter bearers picked up their burdens and headed for the woods and safety. I was immensely relieved. Through my mind ran the question:
“Lieutenant, when are you going to get us out of here?”
Hardly had the wounded departed when I received another call from battalion. It was Colonel Kunzig.
“Boesch,” he said, “I want you to take your men and occupy the houses around the church. Pick out a good substantial cellar for the battalion CP. We’ll be out to join you tomorrow.”
I listened in amazement. Could the man be losing his senses?
“Are you joking, sir?” I asked in disbelief.
“No,” he said curtly. “We got word the Germans have evacuated the town. I want you to move right in.”
“Evacuated?” I bellowed, “Who told you the Germans have left?”
“What makes you think they’re still there?” the Colonel came back.
[TOP] German pillboxes and installations like this one were the heart of the heart of the German defense in the Huertgen
[LEFT] First Sgt. Fred Foy, Whom Lt. Boesch calls one of the best non-coms he ever served with.
Rocket launchers support the 121st Infantry in its attack through the Huertgen forest.
Three Officers who played a prominent part in the capture of Huertgen.[LEFT] Capt. John Cliett, Atlanta, Ga., CO Company F; [CENTER] Capt. Jack Christiasen, who took over the author’s company in the battered town of Huertgen; [RIGHT] Lt. John Terzella, Fords, N.J.
Infantrymen of the One-Two-One advance cautiously through the dank, mine-laden Huertgen Forest where the next step might mean loss of a leg or life.
Tanks made quagmires of the narrow, winding roads of the Huertgen Forest
A scant 500 yards from the fighting, a Graves Registrations unit evacuates American dead while a reconnaissance unit brings up armor to hold the hill taken just an hour earlier.
Companies F and G advanced from the woods astride the road in their attack. Bulls-eye shows where Lt. Boesh and his men were pinned down for almost 48 hours
Once inside the town of Huertgen; the fighting continued from house-to-house, and from room-to-room
[BELOW] A proud moment as Lt. Boesch and three other members of the 121st receive Silver Stars [LEFT TO RIGHT] Capt McKenna, Lt Boesh, Sgt. Barber, Sgt. Hobbs. Several months later , Lt. Boesch was the only one of the four left alive
[ABOVE]Huertgen, after the attack by the 121st Infantry reduced it to a rubble heap. The battered church stands as evidence of the fury of the attack. Inside the church [LEFT] the altar and painting of Christ suffered comparatively small damage.
To some[UPPER LEFT] the fall of Huertgen marked the end of their individual efforts; to others [UPPER RIGHT] it meant the first hot meal in more than two weeks; to still others[LOWER LEFT] it was little more than a stopping point on the road to Berlin; and finally, to some [LOWER RIGHT]it was the end of everything.
Two lieutenants from H Company are Oid Wineland, Alton, Kansas and Macon Roberts
Shortly after the war, Medic Cpl. Theodore Haerich, Hackensack, N.J. visited the grave of Sgt. William F. Hobbs
Remnants of an American Steel helmet as it still stands today somewhere in the Huertgen Forest
“Shooting, sir! Shooting! Somebody in the goddamned town is shooting at me and killing my men.”
“It’s probably a small rear guard they left behind to delay you,” the Colonel said with an air of finality. “We have it on good authority the town is empty.”
“Who’s a better authority than us?” I argued. “We have proof the Jerries are still there every time we stick our heads out of our holes. Can division offer you that kind of proof?”
But no matter how much I argued, Kunzig insisted that we pick our belongings off the ground, sling them across our backs, and march briskly into Huertgen to occupy the houses around the church. I just couldn’t quite get it across to him that we would be marching against deadly fire which had prevented us from moving all day long and much of the night. The realization came to me gradually and maddeningly that Kunzig thought I was lying.
In the end, I gained a concession. He approved my sending a patrol into Huertgen first to check on his information before risking the entire company.
“Okay,” he said impatiently, “but hurry. I’m anxious to report to regiment that the town is ours.”
Assembling a patrol hastily, I pointed out to the men the route which would take them to the center of the town. I personally briefed them to make sure each man understood that they were not to return until they could say one way or the other—had the Germans left, or were they still there?
I spent an anxious two hours waiting for their return. Just when I began to figure they must have gotten lost, killed or captured, they came back. They had, they reported, heard Jerries in some of the houses. Though they had not actually seen any Germans, nor had they been fired on, they were convinced the Germans still held the town.
Reporting the patrol’s findings to Colonel Kunzig, I unwittingly mentioned that from one house the men had heard moans as well as voices.
Kunzig leaped on it.
“That proves it,” he said in triumph. “They’ve pulled out and left their wounded behind. Get into town immediately. Right away. Occupy the houses around the church. Pick out a good cellar for the battalion CP.”
He sounded like a phonograph playing a cracked record. CP, CP, that was all he seemed to care about, an elaborate, shell-proof CP.
I pointed out once more that we still thought the town was occupied and felt that the patrol verified our belief. He still would not agree, but again I argued at such length that he finally granted permission for sending another patrol to attempt actually to occupy a house.
This time I sent Lieutenant Carroll with the patrol to make sure the job was done right. Bill was to occupy a house, leave a portion of the patrol to hold it if possible, then report back. If he did succeed in gaining one of the houses, I intended to move forward rapidly with the rest of the company, enter the town, then come in on the rear of the houses which had been holding us up.
In the meantime, we received reinforcements in the form of two squads of engineers armed with flame throwers. I put them in holes and told them to make themselves as comfortable as possible until Lieutenant Carroll’s patrol returned. Later, chafing at my own inactivity, I decided to use the engineers right away against an isolated house to our left front.
We moved through the darkness toward the house, guided by the outline of the roof limned against the night sky. We made good progress and might have achieved our goal had not one of the engineers opened up too soon with his flame thrower. The burst of flame drew a quick return fire from machine guns, wounding two men. We had no choice but to withdraw.
Lieutenant Carroll and his patrol still had not returned when, later in the night, the section leader of the flame-thrower squads approached me.
“Lieutenant,” he said, “isn’t it time for us to go back? My men are getting cold in these holes.”
“My men have been cold in the same kind of holes for about two weeks now, sergeant,” I explained slowly. “I expect to use you and your men later tonight—you’d better stand by,”
He went back to his hole reluctantly, but before daylight he approached me again.
“Lieutenant, I’d like to take my men now and return to the company area.” The tone of his voice made it clear he and the men had discussed the subject at some length and he had been elected to come back to me with the verdict.
I answered in no uncertain terms that we were planning on using his weapons as an important part of the attack when we launched it. We could not spare him.
“Well, gee whiz, Lieutenant,” the man whined, “they didn’t tell me we were going on no suicide mission.”
“What the hell do you think about the rest of us?” I demanded. “Don’t you think we get a little sick of suicide missions too?”
“But Lieutenant,” the man responded, “you all are infantry.”
I sighed out loud. My God, we were infantry. That apparently meant we were a race apart. Maybe we weren’t supposed to feel, to hurt, to shiver, to be frightened, to react like other human beings. They were engineers, supply clerks, quartermasters, signalmen, ordnance repairmen—they were above this kind of miserable thing. But as for us, we were infantry.
I started to tell the man to get back to his hole, that I wanted to hear no more from him, that he and his men had better be ready when I gave the word to move forward. Then I changed my mind. These men had tasted too much warm food and slept in too many dry spots to be of any real use to us. To hell with them.
“You’re goddamned right we’re infantry,” I said. “As for you, you take your men and your fancy equipment and get the hell back to the rear where you belong. We want no part of whiners. We’ll get along without you. Don’t you worry about that.”
A reluctant dragon, even though it breathed flame, would be more of a burden than a help.
I was still awaiting Carroll’s return when a burst of flame erupted to our right rear around the isolated house which I assumed men of Fox Company had occupied during the day. In a matter of minutes the entire house was in flames, throwing a flickering orange light and a choking smoke across the field.
I could not imagine what had happened. Earlier in the evening I had sent a small patrol to the house in an attempt to contact F Company and had told the men that if they found no friendly troops there, they were to stay and hold the house themselves. What had happened to these men?
I was not to find out until some thirty minutes later when Lieutenant John Terzella, of Rahway, N.J., leading a small patrol from Fox Company, reached our positions. Captain Cliett had sent the patrol forward in an effort to locate Lieutenant Korn’s platoon, with whom he had lost contact during the day. Approaching the isolated house, Terzella had heard noises. Certain that he had been fired on from the house that afternoon, he made no effort to investigate but turned a flame thrower against the house. In the confusion, my men got out uninjured, only to be “captured” by Terzella’s men.
In the end, nobody was hurt, but the burning house silhouetted us to the enemy the rest of the night. Terzella’s arrival also brought the disturbing news that F Company’s attack that morning had gotten nowhere, not even as far as my own, so that now our little band was completely alone in the field.
As the night wore on, Bill Carroll at last came back from his patrol. He had drawn fire, he told me, from several buildings, but had managed to by-pass these and finally succeeded in stationing several men in the church itself. To their surprise, near the church they had come upon men of Company C, 13th Infantry. In fact, they had almost engaged in an internecine fire fight, because neither force had any inkling that the other was in the town.
I was amazed and disgusted. Surely somebody should have had the sense to let us know someone had entered our objective from another direction.
Confusion, I breathed to myself, thy name is combat.
In the face of this development, I tried to contact battalion for new instructions, but our radio had gone dead. Morning was not far away, and if I was going to do anything, I had to do it quickly. I was just about ready to have the whole company trace the route of Carroll’s patrol into the town when I looked up to discover Nick Von Keller hovering over me.
“Hello, friend Boesch,” said the big Russian in a voice that was much too loud for the situation. “I have been sent out by Colonel Kunzig to become the Mayor of Huertgen.”
“You can be Mayor, Nick, and welcome,” I said. “All you have to do is get into town and get elected. But that getting in may be the hard part.”
“But they told me you were already in the town and I was to pick out a good CP for battalion near the church.”
“They probably told you the town was unoccupied too,” I said.
“That’s right,” Nick answered. “Isn’t it?”
“You’ll find out if you stand in the glare from that fire a little longer,” I warned.
Nick, it turned out, was not alone. His entire company was stretched out in the field behind us. Since his communications men also were along and had laid wire as they advanced, he was able to reach battalion by telephone.
“Hello, Colonel,” he said. “I’m sitting here in the palatial CP of Lieutenant Boesch…”
That was as far as he got. His words made me mad as hell, joking or not. We were in mud and water past our ankles, battalion was convinced we were having a pink tea, and now Nick was adding to the confusion.
“Goddamnit, Nick,” I growled, “tell those bastards back there the truth. Tell ‘em exactly what the situation is. They think I’ve been handing them a bunch of crap.”
When Nick saw I was genuinely riled, he sobered in a moment. He told battalion the true situation and asked for instructions. Colonel Kunzig told him to pull back with his company to the edge of the woods. It was growing light too fast to take the town before daylight, and he had no desire to risk getting Easy Company caught in the open without protection.
Nervously, I urged the big Russian to get moving fast. I knew from our experience the day before that if the Germans spotted the company in the open, all hell would break loose. Leaving his telephone behind for my use, Nick rose and promised he’d get away quickly.
Just as it got light enough for me to see that Nick and Easy Company were nearing the woods, a voice came over the phone.
“Lieutenant Boesch, Lieutenant Boesch,” the voice said urgently, “send a messenger after E Company. Have them come back and dig in on your left.”
Noting the rapidly increasing daylight, I could picture the complete confusion which would result should E Company stop, turn around, and attempt to move back across this hostile, fireswept ground. Obviously nobody had made any real plan for the company. Nick and his men simply would be inviting disaster, and even if they got back to our positions before the Germans discovered them, they would merely be in the same predicament as us.
It was my job to carry out orders, not to dispute the judgment of those above me. But I knew that in the deep dugout which battalion occupied nobody had any real knowledge of whether it was sunrise or sunset or high noon.
The voice on the phone was insistent.
“Lieutenant Boesch,” the voice called. “Lieutenant Boesch. Can you hear me, Lieutenant Boesch?”
I listened and I could hear, but I could not bring myself to press the butterfly switch on the telephone which would allow me to answer.
“Lieutenant Boesch,” the voice repeated. “Can you hear me, Lieutenant Boesch?”
I sat there, staring into the growing daylight.
The voice finally gave up.