Pasquale(Pat)Colantuoni 424AT

:)Hello Bill:

Excuse my delay for replying to your message. Some surgery was performed on me recently and that’s my excuse for being late in a reply to you.

The duration of the Bulge Campaign was 16 December 1944 to 26 Jan. 1945. Some G.I’s declared “It was 41days and nights of freezing hell.”

For the 106th Division, the first seven to ten days were very brutal ones. The introduction to the Battle, by the German Army, was a tremendous artillery barrage all along the Divisions’ front. The duration of that hail of fire was a good two hours long.

When those artillery missiles ceased to fall on our battle stations, the German Infantry and armor appeared out of the morning fog advancing toward our lines. We held our fire until one could almost see the whites of their eyes. At that moment the Germans were greeted with a deadly hail of rifle and mortar fire from us.

Yet on they came, wave after wave of them, all day. The bloodshed the Germans suffered that day was unbelievable.

From your message, I believe your Father’s experience was in those first few days of the Bulge Campaign. There is no doubt, in my mind, that his “Anti Tank Crew knocked out two tanks in the early days of that battle.

By the end of the 2nd or 3rd day of the B.O.B. the 422nd and 423rd Regiments surrendered to the German Army, because they were surrounded and they had ran out of ammunition and food.

We (the 424th Regiment) had no choice but to withdraw from our battle stations. Five of us became separated from our company. We walked all that night, through a forest full of German Soldiers before we finally located our Regiment the next morning. It was a miracle that we survived that ordeal without losing a man. Xmas eve, I became separated from my Company and walked, in the forest all night trying to find them. The onslaught by the German Army was so overwhelming to us that consequently, many American Soldiers became "stragglers" and were trying to locate their Company. In isolated groups, on more than a number of instances, they fought the Germans when they met them.

There is no question, in my mind, that this same situation happened to your Father. Many men were wounded, yet continued fighting. They had no other choice, other than to surrender to the Germans. Their wounds may have been flesh lacerations, (this happened to me). Maybe the wound was treated or maybe it wasn’t. It all depended on the situation at hand. A Company medic wasn’t always available when they were needed.

During the first seven to ten days of the Bulge Campaign, our troops were sometimes outnumbered by the Germans ten of them to one of ours. Those first few days, in the heat of battle, the front lines were whatever direction a Soldier faced.

I was wounded twice. The 1st time, there were no witnesses and I didn’t report it. The 2nd time, I refused a write up for a Purple Heart because it was only a flesh wound and, I wasn't with my Company at the time; so, there is no record of the incident.

The bottom line is, I was informed, “Sorry,it isn’t on your record - - - , we can’t help you. Whoever is in charge of issuing Purple Heart medals requires 250% proof of wounds received in action.

I know of men that received the medal and didn’t deserve it. Example, “One man slid under a jeep during an Artillery barrage; in the process he cut himself on a “C” ration can. He was awarded a Purple Heart.

I was too soon dumb and too late smart, to say the least.

I’m not sure if this will help you, or comfort your feelings; yet that is the way it was in the B.O.B. Campaign for many men of the 424th Regiment many years ago.


Floyd,
424th Regiment