First Mission - Moselle Crossing

Base Camp		Base Camp

Our first battleground was in the forested Eifel highland as the 89th was committed on March 12. [NOTE: It is not my intention to repeat here the history of the 89th Infantry Division in combat. This is available in it's official history published in 1948, as summarized and highlighted in the division website www.89infdivww2.org/ created by my son Mark and myself with the backing of the 89th Division Society, and in publications of The Rolling W, the Society magazine. Rather, it is just my personal remembrances and experiences related in as much detail and accuracy as time and memory permit.] As we were the Service Battery for an artillery battalion, we were not usually in the forefront of things. Normally, we brought up food and shells for our 563rd Batteries. When there was a major obstacle to overcome and a massing of infantry was necessary, such as in major river crossings, our trucks would be pressed into service to move the troops and ammunition to the riverbanks.

Our first call soon came to provide transportation to the infantry for the assault I across the Moselle at three points. We approached the assigned sectors under heavy fog on the morning of March 15, watching our "passengers" jump down off our truck, assemble, and take their positions before climbing into boats and silently paddling across the river. In my heart was admiration for their courage and probably some relief that I was not amongst them. By the 16th, the Engineers had completed the Moselle span between Alf and Bullay and troops, armor and artillery poured across. I vividly remember walking down the heavily shelled front street and looking into ground floor of a battered storefront where a dead Gl lay, his head laid wide opened by a bullet or shell. By this time, I had seen many dead Germans but this was the first American and it really shook me. That could be me. Instantly, the war changed from being something removed to something very real and close. It was the beginning of a rough but rapid maturity for this soldier.

I don't remember much detail of what happened in these days as the Germans were scrambling to get back to the Rhine for the next, and last it turned out, organized attempt at defense. On March 20 the 89th took its largest bag of prisoners to date, capturing 354 and entered Worms on the Rhine the following day.

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