• Oh sure.

• The name just escaped me altogether. 

• I know at some point though, in the battle, I’m not sure it was the 82^nd, that came in contact with, it was Piper’s group., the 1^st SS Panzer, the tank group that was the spearhead of the…

• Yeah, but that was not us.

• That was a different group?

• That wasn’t our group, no.  That wasn’t our group.  We ran across Panzers but at a little later time.  But it wasn’t the first contact with us, ok?  It wasn’t our first contact.

• Some group of the 82^nd ran right into it.

• Uh-huh.

• What they call a battle group.

• We took a couple road blocks that the Germans had set up.…true fact that one German group came in to surrender, saw we were Airborne troops, turned around and ran the other way.  Wouldn’t surrender.  But that wasn’t necessarily true David.  We only did that because we didn’t have the convenience of having a place to put them, you understand.  I’m sure they would have done the same thing with us.

• That’s why I asked, because I heard the same thing.  You didn’t have food, you didn’t have any means…

• Didn’t have enough ammunition, none of us had enough ammunition.  The 106^th just got the hell beat out of them up in the Battle of the Bulge.  A totally greenhorn outfit…

• Golden lions?

• Uh, I think so, yeah.  Those poor kids, none of them ever seen any combat before, just set on top of these mountains and then the Germans just blew them to smithereens.  They never had a prayer.  Never had a prayer.

• Same situation at the Bulge as you had at Malmady?  The massacre at Malmady?

• Tough things happened, I tell ya.

• So when was it that you froze your feet?

• Pardon?

• When did you freeze your feet?

• That was about the 8^th or 9^th of Dec, of January.  And I went back to the medic and he said to me, “Ralph, you’ve got frostbite.”  I said, “Goddamnit, do something with them.”  He said, “Well I can’t do a hell of a lot with them,” you know.  So they sent me back to town, to St. Vith in the jeep, and we got part way and had a flat tire.  And right along the road comes a medical vehicle, believe it or not.  And I ride in a jeep, and he was coming the same way and there were 2 of us in there besides the other guy, the driver.  And we got into the vehicle and he took us into the hospital, and this is the first case that I ran across this.  We’re in a hospital in downtown St. Vith, ok?  And I wasn’t necessarily a litter patient, I could get up and hobble around, they didn’t really want me to, but I had to go to the john, so I went into the john and standing at the thing and I hear these women talking.  I didn’t see them when I went in, but they’re sitting right there on the bench!  And that’s just the way they do things, you know, they use the same john for man and a woman.  But old Ralph’s not used to that.  Well anyway I went back, went back and went to the room and that next morning we got orders, that next morning we got orders to move us out of the hospital.  So they load us on trucks, on these vehicles, took us out to the, it’s a camp site, medical center, they moved us out there.  As we moved out of the hospital and got out of town, a buzz bomb landed right in the middle of the town.  So I spent the next two days in the hospital.  They decided to move us back to Paris, so they put us on a train.  I had more damn experience trying to get out of that war than to get in it.  So anyway they take us back to the train station, they put us on a train and its loaded with wounded and I had a crutch with me, so I could manipulate myself a little bit, you know keep off my feet.  So we left the Liege, this was in Liege, he took us back to Liege, not St. Vith, he took us back to Liege.  Did I say that the town we went to was St. Vith?  No, we went back to Liege.

• That was a big hospital area.

• Yeah, a big hospital area.  But they took us to the outside hospital after that and then when he brought us back, he brought us back to the Liege train station.  So we get on a train and we are just pulling out of town and another buzzbomb lands in the train station.  Like they’re following me down the road, you know?  And when we get out of town, and half way between there and Paris we are strafed by a P-47.

• Our own fighter plane.

• Our own fighter plane.  Now who’s to know that maybe it might have been a casualty, but what ever, it had crosses all over the train, the guy still strafed it.  They took me  back to the Paris airport, put me back into an airplane, took me back to England.  And I was at the same hospital.

• What did they say to you this time?

• This gal, this gal was real nice, I was about 20 at the time and she’s 28.  And she says, “I’m going to find a way to get you home.”  I said, “Thank you.”  Her name was Arlene Gerril, I will never forget that.  She was a Second Lieutenant.  She just liked me, that’s all, because I was like a brother.  But the major came in, he said, “What in the hell are you doing here?”  I said, “Well, sir, if I could find a way to get home I would go.”  And on the 18^th of January I’m out of the hospital and on my way back.  That quick.

• They got you on a transport?

• They got me on a transport that quick. 

• You got enough.

• Yeah I got enough.  So have a lot of the other guys up there, you know.  Had a hell of a time with my feet for a long time.

• Oh, I’ll bet.

• Sure did.

• Well, right at the Bulge now, did you guys finally go on the attack then, once the Germans started pulling back?

• Yeah, we went on the attack, we went into, we had all kinds of small encounters.  There really wasn’t you know, as I remember, our particular group, we did not have any great big fronts, you understand.  This is all small stuff.  Knock out a company here, there, you understand.  This happened many times.  Until we worked away, cleaned the area out and finally moved into Nijmegen itself, ok?  The Nijmegen, the Nijmegen to me was not near what Normandy was, ok?  Even though this was the biggest drop in history, it was a much easier drop.  Didn’t have near as many killed or wounded, you understand.  Anyway, it still wasn’t good.

• Now in the Bulge, when did you go on the attack?  When the Germans were pulling back from the Bulge, did the 82^nd eventually go on the attack?

• Most of the time that I was there we were on the defensive, ok?   The actual, the actual attack for the Americans didn’t change until the first of the year, and that was like 8 or 9 or 10 days later but we actually got going the other way you understand.  And just getting started is when I froze my feet, ok?  But we had enough action, we had plenty of action.  That little shindig right there, that went on for a hell of a long time.  Sure did.  You could hear this first sergeant in the background, the German first sergeant, screaming at these guys, I mean, there’s a lot of noise going on, and you could hear him just as plain as day.  Hell of a voice, a great big heavy voice, a lot of Germans have heavy voices, but you could hear him forever, seriously.

• Yelling at his troops through all the fire and everything?

• Yeah, uh-huh.  Whatever was going on you could hear that guy yelling at them, you know?  And they came running, boy.  They were doing what he told them to do.  All they’re going to do is get killed.  They never got anywhere near us.  They didn’t get within 50 yards of our position.  He, when he lit up that haystack…

• They were running with that fire burning behind them…

• Yeah, it just lit up like a torch.  We would just take pot shots at these guys, you know.  Stupid.  If I had been him I’d pull them all back.  If I had been commander of his group, because he was going to lose half his people.  He did.  Stupid move, but…

• I mean he just kept sending them on.

• You get fanatics boy and they’ll do whatever they have to do to get the job done.  That’s what I hate about Montgomery.  He had a great group, great army and damn near destroyed the whole Airborne army.  Absolutely destroyed that Airborne army.  That’s what he had.  Anything else, David?

• Thank you very much for the interview.  Really appreciate it, Ralph.

• Ok.

The End