Convoy from France Remembered

[floydragsdale]

Hopefully, this is the appropriate place fot this. It is a brief summary of my memories from the convoy to the front lines & the end of the War. The story will be attached.

Floyd
G Co. 424th Regiment

Attachments:

[floydragsdale]

Staff Sgt. John Lord, was !st. Sgt. when I joined G Company late August 1944. Capt. Cohen was our Company Commander. He was wounded at Manhay, Belgium Christmas morning 1944. A fellow Soldier of our Company said, "Capt. Cohen's legs were severely wounded Christmas morning.

Sgt.Griffin looks familiar, yet I cannot associate his name & picture.

I do not recognize anyone else in the picture. Consequently, I believe the photo was taken approximately July 1944, before so many men left G company & were sent over seas as replacement for the many casualties that the U.S. Army experienced on D day & the Hedge Row Battles in France just after D Day.

Floyd

[floydragsdale]

Many folks with gray hair and some with no hair will remember the Pearl Harbor event of seventy-one years ago this December. Multitudes of WWII Veterans have left the stage of life. Since you are a Veteran of that War, you are a walking history book relating to that colossal event;
also, you’re still here to write about it - - - do it. My intuition prodded at me.

Consequently, here goes.

The following story will be written as if you, dear reader, are there!
You are a member of Company G, 2nd Battalion, 106th Infantry Division, of the U. S. 1st. Army. The month and year are December 1944. Almost the entire 106th Infantry Division is in a U.S. Army Truck Convoy, traveling from Le Harve, France, to the front lines in Belgium. It is the final segment of a five day journey from the starting point at Le Harve.

Around mid day the Convoy is halted. It is not ten-minute brake time. This is as close as the trucks can travel to the front lines. Destroyed war making equipment line both sides of the road with bodies of dead enemy soldiers (German) scattered between the debris.

Sounds of American out going and German artillery incoming missals pierce the air above your head.

Your Battalion will remain there for the Balance of the day and all night. The location is a part of the Ardennes Forest, in the Country of Belgium.

The 11th of December, G Company (your outfit) hiked over hills and valleys to relieve, from their front line duties, a company of the Veteran U.S. 2nd Infantry Division who are located on a high ridge, on the German/Belgium Border, called “Schnee Fifel.The view from

Schnee Eifel Ridge is breathtaking. A thousand yards in front of the ridge is the German Siegfried Line, a fortification of bunkers, trenches and tank traps that spread as far as the eye can see.

You remember seeing these things from newsreel film clips, in movie theaters, back in your hometown.

Soon, your attention is diverted to your mission which is relieving Troops of the 2nd Infantry Division from their Combat Posts.

Among other things, they inform you that, “This is a ghost front, there’s nothing going on up here, we haven’t lost a man in six weeks. Shoot at em (German Soldiers) once in a while, just to let them know that you are here.”

That’s the way it will be for the next four days. All is quiet in this sector of the Western Front.

You have just completed doing several hours of trench duty before daybreak on the morning of December 16th. You are inside of a Bunker, made of sandbags and logs, getting some rest.

Suddenly wholesale destruction breaks loose. German artillery shells begin exploding all over the area, in every direction.

You leave the bunker, dashing for your combat post. An abnormal light illuminates the sky, even though daylight is several hours away. It seems



as if the very foundations of the earth are shaking. Exploding artillery shells send trees crashing to the ground in the Ardennes Forest.

The G Company Soldiers intestines are churning, as their ice-cold fingers grip their rifles, waiting for the German Infantry to follow when the barrage is lifted .

The stage is being set for forty one days and nights of freezing hell, from December 16, 1944 to January 26, 1945.

By the end of the second, or third day, your Division (106th Infantry) will loose 9,000 men of its’ 15,000 soldiers.

Although you and your fellow soldiers do not realize it, your division is outnumbered by ten German soldiers to one American Soldier.

Before that battle is over, you, the American Infantry Soldier, will know what it is to march so many miles that you go to sleep while walking; stand in a foxhole for hours at a time in twenty-five degree below zero temperature; endure two and three days at a time without food; wear the same clothes 24/7 for weeks at a time; see your comrades fall, mortally wounded and furthermore, you hear the cry of a wounded Soldier pleading with an Army Medic, “Let me die, I don’t want to live this way." His arms and legs were mutilated from artillery shrapnel.

When that battle is over, in spite of what you and your fellow soldiers have gone trough, you and many troops in your Division have a guilty feeling of letting the Army down. The 106th Infantry Division didn’t win that Battle. Yet, you did not lose it either.

Why the feeling of guilt, then?

By reason that many United States Army Infantry Divisions battled from the beaches of Normandy, France to the German border without a major setback. In its’ initial two or three days of battle, the 106th Division lost thousands of their troops, in the Divisions’ first days of armed conflict.

Many of the 106th Divisions’ Soldiers were wounded, taken prisoners of war, or killed in action. Those statistics were very humiliating to the men of the Divisions’ battle weary veterans, including you.

Weeks, months and years after the end of WWII, history has established the following facts about the gigantic battle the 106th Infantry Division was involved in. - - - Briefly, here a few of them:

A - The Division was out numbered by 10 German soldiers to 1 American Soldier
B- At the start of that conflict there were 400,000 German Soldiers to 80,000 American Troops.
C – U.S, Army Regulations specified that an Infantry Division was to cover five miles of front line
D – The 106th Division, at the start of the Battle, was spread out for twenty-seven miles of front line.
E – The American Air Corps was grounded for the 1st seven days of the Battle, due to almost zero visibility at ground level and up.
F – Soldiers of the 106th Infantry Division, participated, endured and many of them survived the greatest land battle, The Battle of the Bulge, ever fought and won by the United States Army.

Ultimately, after years of pursuing facts pertaining to the Battle of the Bulge, by Army Historians, the 106th Infantry Division was given credit for disrupting and severely delaying the German Army plans to drive as far as the English Channel and split the American and English Armies;
that event never happened, thanks to the courage and intestinal fortitude by the Soldiers of the 106th Division.

Life, at times, can seem harsh and unkind, even though one is striving to do their best.

Reputation is made in a moment; character is built in a lifetime. Furthermore, the greatest possession we have is the twenty-four hours directly in front of us.

When you entered the United States Army you pledged an oath to defend and protect your Country and its’ citizens. You obeyed that oath, did what was expected of you and at times, went above and beyond the call of duty.

What more appropriate service can a Soldier render to his Country?

Floyd Ragsdale,
Co. G
424th Regiment