 All together we were on the Siegfried line for about three weeks and my memories of that are pretty much blurred it was mostly mud and cabbages and Every now and then We did have a slight move forward, but for the most part we were just in the foxholes Usually filled with water American soldiers on the whole I believe find it very difficult to hate We spoke of the Germans and thought of the Germans as our enemy, but there was no such thing as violent hatred The non-commissioned officer in the American army is unique He has to be the leader of his men, but many of the men under him can also be leaders one of the chief problems that faces any replacement officer is Measuring up to the opinions the men had of the officers that Commanded them before and after we got all the battalions settled down in their foxholes for the night I Dug out a pair of blue silk pajamas that my wife had insisted that I put in my bed roll and put them on and Crawled in my bed roll to sleep for the night of course this news spread around over the battalion immediately and My purpose was achieved because all of the men Felt that the old man had gotten in his silk pajamas and going to bed that certainly there was no trouble or they weren't in great danger So they relaxed and were able to get a good night's rest These are the men who served in the 84th Infantry Division a division that distinguished itself in a series of critical engagements during World War two Thus this story could be the story of any infantry division where the uncommon virtues of courage endurance and self-sacrifice became the commonplace By the beginning of November 1944 the defeat of Germany appeared imminent To the east Russian armies had pushed their way through Poland in the Balkans To the south Anglo-American forces were moving relentlessly up the Italian Peninsula To the west Allied armies having advanced through France and the low countries now gathered along the borders of Western Germany Good old M1 rifle semi-automatic breech loaded Seems a lot heavier than it did 20 years ago My name is John Shaw. I was with the 84th Infantry Division as a buck private during World War two. I was one of these ASTP boys three thousand of a ship down to the 84th Division in April before we went overseas 1944 and We were trained hard and sent overseas in September and we're in England for a while And then we caught the red ball express and then before we knew it We were right on the edge of the line ready to go into combat and we were all of us Kind of wondering what things were going to be like we could see the the shells going off We could hear them and we were all sort of nervous, but I don't think anyone was really Fully conscious and aware of what was going to happen The men of the 84th Division had managed to penetrate the enemy lines a few hundred yards east of the Dutch frontier But the Siegfried line barred the way to further advance This fortified zone of tank traps gun emplacements and pillboxes had become a shield behind which weary German troops now assembled General Siegfried Westphal chief of staff to field Marshal von Rungstädt had this to say of the situation It was essential for the German high command in the west to gain time in order to Reequip the West fortifications called Siegfried line for defense purposes We had to make every effort therefore to see to it that our troops could maintain this position as long as possible The West fortifications had no weapons the Wyandt-Tengermanns had been dismantled and even some of the keys to unlock the rusty dugouts We're missing the defensive value of these constructions was so minimal That the soldiers preferred to live in the trench under the open sky rather than have the concrete ceiling collapse over their heads We reported this to Hitler who flew into a rage and retorted The whole world trembles in fear of this phenomenal achievement of German technology The 84th division's immediate mission part of a general offensive was to crack the Siegfried line at the town of Geilenkirchen And then established speech heads on the nearby Roar River Beyond lay the main objective the Rhine I'm Lieutenant General Lewis W. Truman During World War two I was a colonel chief of staff of the 84th Infantry Division and Chief of Staff to Alexander R. Bulling the commanding general of the 84th division The intelligence which we received was of the very best The individuals clear down to the squad level Were indoctrinated Instructed exactly what their jobs were to be There is no question, but that we were very had very much confidence that we'd be able to carry out this mission I Know also that the regiments the battalions the companies and the platoons and squads had that same feeling of confidence The 84th division would be supported by the British on the left and the American second armored and one oh second infantry on the right Facing them were several folks grenadier divisions and a number of crack panzer units It precisely five minutes to seven on the morning of November 18th an artillery barrage signaled that the attack had commenced Geilenkirchen was about three miles away from where we were and so happened that our Regiment was leading the attack and happened to be in the first platoon of the first company And I have to be in the first squad of the first platoon and so happened that I was the first scout so I was first and We came through a little woods and out onto a sport plot so we shot across this Clearing and into the outskirts of the town and there was a trench there and we walked up the trench All of us feeling pretty happy at this point and and pretty proud of ourselves for having gotten that far and we Seen to me the whole company was strung out in a one big line and all of a sudden the German in a window of three blocks away but end up on our Column in this trench with a machine gun And of course we all hit the dirt and we just waited there for somebody to do something Finally a British tank Lumbered up the street Off to our side and and fired two shells right into that window That was the end of that I'm Richard K. Hawkins. I was the first lieutenant with a company 334th infantry of the 84th infantry division It was necessary for complete cooperation between various branches of the army And since it was necessary for the infantry men to attack on foot Seize the ground and hold it. It was also necessary for artillery to neutralize these positions Before the infantry men jumped off It was a wonderful show of cooperation between these different branches We got through Guilenkirchen and we started on the road that we thought was taking his right to Berlin We felt great and we were pretty excited about being in the war And after we'd gone about 500 yards up the road the 88th started coming in like fools We ran into a little woods and all of us tried to our best to Dig into the ground. We used our hands that just tried to claw the dirt trying to dig in meantime these shells were coming into the trees and bursting all around us and Our friends were being hit and we're screaming for medics. This lasted it seemed for about half an hour I suppose it lasted about five minutes I am Fritz Kramer. I Was with the 84th division as a rather elderly soldier for my 35th to my 37th year. I do remember very clearly now the feelings We had like all men who go into battle for the very first time We were unsure. We were very unsure of ourselves We knew very well that combat was very different from training and I remember this Excitement and I may frankly say for all soldiers who may come after us You are also full of fear not necessarily fear of the enemy but fear of our own Making it or not making How would we stand up? I think our general told us later That he had been praying in those hours and he committed and then he had trained for the first time for combat. I Know now and we all know now that the battle went well and that our one regiment That was attached to combat proven British forces did well found the praise of the British and we immediately gained Extraordinary increase in self-confidence. We had met the enemy and while we certainly hadn't performed any great heroics We felt our self-confidence greatly increased I'm Donald Phelps. I was a sergeant in the 333rd infantry of the 84th division We found that we could sneak up to pillboxes easily at night hit and run Biggest problem in this type of action was that the Regular emplacements of the German army and pillboxes had everything so zeroed in that all major road intersections were under constant interdicting fire By the 21st of November the Siegfried line had been dented The objectives in and around Guilenkirchen had been taken The 84th now headed for the Roar River a few miles distant General Bowling picked the village of Lenick as the ideal location for the planned river crossing Before our actual combat experience We always thought that engineers were people who came along after we passed through and repaired bridges and so forth We actually had engineer squads with each rifle Function was to place explosive charges and pillboxes and razors This helped a great deal in overcoming this resistance In the murderous frontal attack that followed several discoveries were made All sectors of the German Western Front had strict orders to relinquish as little German territory as possible Every inch of ground was to be defended tenaciously The uncertainty concerning the Allied situation posed an especially conspicuous problem One ever knows what the enemy has up his sleeve one does not know for certain how strong he is One does not know about his disposition many things can only be guessed But there are certain impressions one does acquire We were of the opinion that the American unit Excellently equipped and under good leadership was headed for ultimate success Confident of victory Besides the command was prudent advancing step by step Justly trying to avoid bloodshed wherever possible Fuehrt siegesicher dem Erfolg entgegen Steuertel by the end of November the German defenses west of the Roar have been either captured or neutralized by men of the 84th Division on December 2nd the coveted prize of Lenin fell to the neighboring 102nd Division sum up the actions of the 84th Division in the Guilin-Kirchen area in the Siegfried line It had reduced or captured eight strong points or villages It had captured or destroyed over 112 bunkers It had captured 28 officers and over 1500 enlisted men it had engaged 15 different kinds of German units to include SS troops and Panzer units and We might say as an overall sum up Every mission had been accomplished While the Allies made preparations for the crossing of the Roar a major offensive was about to be launched by the combined German forces The offensive code named watch on the Rhine would be more generally known as the Battle of the Bulge It was Hitler's last opportunity to achieve the initiative on the Western Front and at least 28 divisions would be engaged in this desperate gamble The Field that I am on this afternoon is representative of those around Marsh Belgium that are now being farmed again in December of 1944 much in contrast These fields were not being farmed there were streams of Refugees all through the area again moving out with the because the intelligence was or their rumors were That the Germans again were coming in to the town of Marsh At about nine o'clock on the morning of the 20th of December General Boling along with a couple of staff officers and aid and four MPs Went to Berviers Belgium where the First Army headquarters was He asked what the enemy information was and the only thing they could tell him as it would have blew it Also, he asked for what the mission of the division would be in the Marsh area He was told that there the division should go into an assembly area As the front bows further westward the principal road centers of LaRouche and San V Belgium fell to the Germans Bastogne was encircled and his capitulation seemed certain Unless the town of Marsh Belgium remained in allied hands It seemed probable the Germans could take the River Muse and sweep on to Paris The 84th Division was ordered to withdraw from its positions on the roar and take up a defensive line along the Marsh Houghton Road It was at this time that we got sudden orders to move We were loaded into the army trucks and we started moving back. We heard all kinds of rumors We heard the Germans had broken through we heard there was a big offensive Everything was confused and below all we knew we were on the road and moving again Of course, there's only been a month before that we'd moved up by Truck, so we're kind of used to it, but this was a night move in the dark around the back corners And orders were changed constantly We never knew from one minute to the next what was going on on a way back we ran into Trailers bringing up assault boats to cross rivers with There apparently were for us, but we weren't going to be there to be with them We finally found that at the end of this truck route, which was very circuitous We ended up in the town of Marsh in Belgium And all of our orders were a little unclear. We were told to hold the town at all costs We first had our first snow at this point and digging foxholes in icy ground was a little difficult but We kept always on the move and our company was Seem to be ending up as division reserve So we were sent here and there on little jobs and filling up the gaps and Trying to get situation under control We spent our first night in Belgium Billeted in this huge stone barn with hay and big fat cows and horses chomping around us And we were excited to be where once again there was some life We went down the road and had a nice chicken dinner with some eggs and milk food that we hadn't had it seemed like weeks and weeks and There seemed to be no nervousness about Germans until later on that night when we spotted way across the valley a column of Tanks going up the road and somebody pointed out that those were German tanks And we had been told we were miles and miles behind the front That's when we realized that there was a good deal of confusion In the general picture in Belgium well after that we went by truck to a little town called Wanlan and met a very lovely Belgian woman in a French or Belgian Chateau Who had two daughters and she was just getting them into the car to drive them to Brussels She said they had an appointment with the oculist and it was only later that we realized She was fleeing as fast as she could and she knew that the situation was very bad and Later on that night. We had our first encounter with some German Tanks, which came along and fired at us and we fired back and they went on Back the road that they'd come from but we realized we were in in what they call a fluid situation with Nobody quite certain where the front lines were Least of all us. I'm Major General Bill Sutton and I was a battalion commander in General Bowling's 84th rail splitter division during World War two Arrived at the rear CP of the 84th division in Holland on the 20th of December 1944 and move down with a division to Marsh, Belgium on the 22nd of December Say that the situation was fluid is putting it lightly In Marsh, Belgium Every other house is occupied by Germans There was a firing up and down the streets the 334th infantry Organized positions along the front edge of the marsh hot and ridge Remember that the foxholes were sometimes a hundred and fifty yards apart They've been dug and frozen ground sometimes with the aid of explosives the position was considerably overextended and Various pockets of German Tanks and infantry Existed all up and down the line And during the day the Germans had infiltrated Tanks and infantry into a wooded area back of the front lines and in front of the reserve elements and They were discovered quite by accident by a small unit going up to reinforce a an attack Took the wrong road and ran into this pocket of German tanks and infantry and they backed off and reported this the 84th division artillery fired On this pocket, which was pretty well-defined and they knocked out all of these tanks and killed several hundred Germans When the artillery had finished firing One battalion I remember the 326 had only six rounds of ammunition left We had other ammunition on the way, but no one knew exactly when it would get there And it was a rather touch-and-go situation There are many things imprinted on my mind It will make me always remember the kind of stuff our American soldiers were made of one instant in particular occurred in the Ardent during the Battle of the Bows we were advancing toward Bale, Belgium and The mortar shell came in and wounded several men right close around me It was one man that was almost an arm to reach of me and I could see that he was hit badly It was the back of his head practically bone loss and he was in a state of shock. I Tried to comfort the man prop his head up until the medic could reach him And all this time and I shall never forget this this man was trying to apologize for me for being hit and Sorry almost crying because he would not get to carry on with the battalion and continue to fight The Marsh-Hoten line Situated as it was at the extreme tip of the Balde received the full weight of the German attack Chance had placed the fate of this offensive in the hands of an American infantry division For the men of the 84th. There was no question as to what must be done See it next on the big picture