Well it was pretty much a running fight most of the time.  You run into some really fierce fire fights, you had to be very cautious, you could find them anyplace, just like in Normandy.  In a house or a building or in a small squad or a platoon or whatever.  This just happened all the time.  But we didn’t really have any heavy combat until about the 3^rd day, in Holland.  We were pretty well organized.  We knew where we are at we knew where we were going to go.  As we started to work our way into the towns, then it got a little heavier.  In fact we spent some, the outfit spent some 60 days out there.  That was our longest combat term, to be in combat at one time.

  Where did you go after you were wounded?  Were you sent back to France?

Well, they sent me back to France, I went back to Paris, to the airport in Paris, they put me on an airplane, flew me back to England, and I went to the same hospital I went to the first time.  Which is about 60 miles south west of London.  I’ll think of the name of that town pretty soon.  Well I walked back into the place and one the nurses said, “Are you back again?  Why don’t you go home.”  The guy that was a major there, was one of the doctors, said, “I don’t believe you are back here, tell me what’s happened.”  So I told him what we went through.  “All right,” he said.

Where had you got hit?  Physically where was the wound?

Well, first time I got hit in the face, and then I got hit in the knee, hurt my back, but I was up in the Bulge I froze my feet, got hit in the cheek of the ass.  Not bad, but the frozen feet were worse then anything.  We moved out of the mountains, out of Bulsen valley, along that ridge, and we came down and went across a creek, and I'm the last man across on the iceberg, and its almost up to my knees.  0 weather, boy I’m telling you.  Had a hell of a time with that.

How long were you in the hospital after Holland?

I spent about 3 weeks I think.  I came back to Nottingham at that time, and as I got back they were getting all prepared to jump again.  So I got to get back in physical shape now, and I worked my butt off just to get through training.  But see when we came back from Holland we didn’t go back to Nottingham, we went back to Sissone, France.  When I got back to Sissone there was a rumor that something was going to happen, we didn’t know what it was.  We thought it was going to be another drop some place.  So then the Jerry’s (German’s) surprise us with the surprise attack in the Bulge.  But I wasn’t in very good shape at the time.  I was young, still had a lot of energy, but I needed a lot of physical work, so we did calisthenics trying to get ourself in condition to go into battle.  I’m glad we did, it got fierce after a while.  But the thing up there, up in the Battle of the Bulge, when that was all designed to happen, the 101 was really designed to go St. Vith, the 82^nd was going to go to Bastogne as we were told.  Somewhere in route they changed their minds, now we’re going to go to St. Vith, the 101^st, they’re going to go to Bastogne.  We didn’t know what was going to happen at that point.  We passed through this, I’m not really sure but I think it was Metz, in Luxembourg and we’re in trucks, we didn’t jump in there, and we’re in trucks and its colder than blue blazes.  And we find out after we went through Metz, we went through another town north of Metz, as we were going through the town we talked to a couple civilians, one of the guys could speak French and they found some Germans just went through right in front of us, going the other way, on the other highway.  One highway going this way, we were going north, and we passed them going the other way.  So we get up near Werbomont, right at the foot of the mountains.  And it was a long hike up there.  I remembered it like it was yesterday then. 

That was on December 19^th and the 20^th.  Germans broke through on the 16^th.

They broke through on the 16^th, we heard about it on the 17^th, we got orders that night on the 17^th to get ready to go and that was about 8 or 10 o’clock at night.  That next morning on the 18^th we pulled out.  We got there the next night.  This map here shows a bit more.  See here Vielsam right here.  The 2^nd Battalion was right here, here is where we are right here.  That little mountain ridge up in this area right here.  The highway went right down below there like an Autobahn and there’s mountains on both sides and everybody would taking pot shots at each other.  You had Germans shooting form one side and there’s got to be a 1000 yards, didn’t have a chance, and all you would do would be to take pot shots.  But one night during that time, we were up there I think, we climbed the mountain, we had to go up the mountain, we parked on the Senile River and we had to walk up the mountain, and by the time we got up the mountain with all the equipment we had, carrying all the equipment, everyone was dripping.  We were young people – really in good condition and we were all absolutely worn out.  Really had any sleep since we left.

The snow and the cold.

The snow and the cold, but there really wasn’t much snow on the ground at that point.  But it started to snow.  By the next night I had a sleeping bag and we dug a trench, you know a slit trench or a foxhole, get down in the foxhole get in your sleeping bag, try to get some rest.  I woke up that morning with 18 inches of snow on top of me.  Just warm as toast.  The minute I opened that bag I knew I was in trouble.  But that’s what happened.  And that’s part of the Bulge.

Now where did you go in the Bulge, where did the 82^nd end up?  What was your mission there?

St. Vith.  Our mission for our regiment was Werbomont.  Now what happened after we got up on top of the ridge, we spent about 3 or 4 days up on top of that ridge, as I remember Germans were coming in full force.  Now first of all, we were not ready for winter fighting.  We didn’t have winter clothes necessarily, we didn’t have arctics, seriously.  Which we needed.  In fact I’ll tell you a funny little story about the arctics.  We finally got arctics.  So about the 3^rd or 4^th day on top of that ridge we got orders to organize a withdraw, so come off the Vielsalm Mountains, that’s where I got across these waters and lowlands and stuff like this.  Move down near Chevron and set up a defensive position.  And that went on in the 20^th, the 21^st, I spent my birthday there, no I’m sorry my birthday was on top of the mountain, because I got a telegram from my brother, or rather a cablegram.  Mind you, I am only 20 years old at the time and he says in the telegram he says, “Does it take 21 years to make a man?  Signed: Love, Brother John.”  Now he thought I was 21, but I wasn’t.  But I still got the cable.  Anyway, we moved out of there after my birthday and we moved down near Chevron, set up a defensive position and it went something like this. 

What’s involved in the defensive position? 

Well, we got the high ground number one, and this is a country road.  Another country road came down like this.  And mind you this is probably 4 or 500 yards across here.  There’s a big line of trees here.  And there’s a lake right here.  The second battalion of F Company, F Company was right in here.  Along that road.  Right out in the middle of that field is a hay stack that these farmers had put there at whatever time.  We were all cold as hell, we needed arctics and didn’t have any.  So we went on a patrol and the company commander told me to go find, see what we could make contact of some kind.  So we went down the road, across the field, dart across here, and this road here came from around here.  And here comes an American vehicle.  A big truck.  And we waved him down, it’s a black guy, the driver.  I said to him, “What you got on board?”  He says, “I can’t tell you what I got on board.”  I said, “What you got on board?”  I wanted to argue with him then, maybe something we could use.  So I had Thompson set up and I’m looking at him, and told him, “Well I tell you what you need to do.  You either get out and open up the back of the truck or we’re going to do it, so you might as well do it.”  So he gets up and opens it up and there’s a whole damn truckload of arctics.  I just said, “Throw them on the ground.”  I went down got all the guys and everyone got a pair of arctics.

These are boots?

Yeah boots, with rubber and shoe tacks, the old type.  Well anyways on Christmas night, because they know how we like Christmas, these Germans in the woods back here attacked our position between here and the 3^rd battalion down here.  So we had a little guy named Clay, who’s a machine gunner, and I told Clay I said, “Clay, if anything happens, whatever happens, you set that son of a bitch on fire, ok?”  <the haystack> The Germans came by here, and we’re up in this area, right in front of us.  And he set that Jasper on fire, lit it up like a torch, and we stood there and shot Germans until they all went to hell or went to heaven.  And I was sitting in a little position right here, so we were protected on the flank by the lake right here, because we had some guys sitting here to protect that side.  The next morning we found 33 or 34 dead Germans in the field.  And ones of the guys name Clevenger, or not Clevenger, but Joe Kanansee, Joe says, “I’m going to go up and see what I can find out there.”  Like wristwatches or whatever.  He was that way.  So he trucks out here, goes down to where these Germans are laying and some sniper shot him in the shoulder.  Now mind you, all he did was bruise him, that bullet just nicked him, he thought he was shot dead or something.  So we had one of the guy looked at him, and he said, “Joe you’re really hurt bad.”  But he wouldn’t look at him, he got his hands on top of it like this and kept bitching about it.  “You better go see the medic.”  By this time he thought he got a trip home, you see.  He goes back and the medic started laughing at him.  He said, “Joe, I’ll give you a band-aid to put on that.”  Joe was so mad at us.  Anyway he shouldn’t have been out there.  He went out looking for guns, looking for watches, whatever he could find. But after we left here we spent the next couple three days here and after we left here we went into reserves for a while, spent about two or three days in reserve.  The next little town we get was, you’ll have to excuse me, the name…