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Play MovieBattle of the Lost Battallion
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Earlier, when you were talking about Italy where you ate all of those clams, you referred to your buddy. Is that Lieutenant Ito?
Yes, yes. He's my long time buddy and I talk to him almost every day.
Where did you meet him?
I met him when I was in Camp Shelby. And I chose to be in the field artillery rather than the infantry. He was the group leader of what they call the Detail Section, which was, it's kind of a misnomer because the Detail Section is in charge of fire control and location of the howitzers and doing all the map work. Doing all that was part of our job.
Was he with you during the Battle of the Lost Battalion and the liberation of Dachau?
Yes. You see the way in which the forward observers are, or the way in which the batteries are designated to support the infantry is, we had three firing batteries. These firing batteries are the ones that had the guns. And it was A, B, and C. Now the infantry had companies, or rather, regiments that we supported. And so a regiment is comprised of three battalions, and so C Battery supported the Third Battalion because they were designated First, Second and Third Battalions. Since we supported the Third Battalion of the infantry and we came from C Battery, then both Ito and I were called out to be forward observers for the rescue of the Lost Battalion, and that's how that came about.
Where were you stationed during the Battle of the Lost Battalion?
Well, the field artillery was always moving, most of the time, but during the time of the Lost Battalion, we were very close to Burrier because the Battle of the Lost Battalion was in the Vosges Mountains near Bruyéres. Bruyéres is the main city along the arterial highway and railroads that come between the Vosges Mountains on one side, and the Black Forest on the other side. And so the Germans had control of that area. It was a very significant area in France because whoever controlled that area, controlled all of the arterial highways.
Could you explain that battle and why you were fighting it?
Well it's about the risk of the Lost Battalion. My good friend Marty Higgins, who was the colonel, not the colonel, but the captain that was in charge of the battalion - he was the ranking officer I should say - of the 136th division, 141st regiment of the 36th division of the Texas Division.
Apparently, they were supporting part of the liberation of Bruyéres, and that's what we did. We came in, and when I say "we," it was the 442nd Regimental Combat Team, came in and concentrated on liberating Bruyéres, or capturing Bruyéres for the army. Somehow or other, the 36th Division was a little north of us, northwest of us, and somebody let down, somehow or another, their flank got left open. When I say their flank, one of the people that were supporting them on one side, it got left open, so the Germans came in and surrounded them. They weren't really lost. That's what that Marty keeps telling me, "George, we weren't lost." He said, "We knew exactly where we were, we just were surrounded." So he says that "lost" is a bad name. That's how they got surrounded. There were 223 of them and there would have been three captains in charge. Well, Marty was the ranking one of the three so he was their leader. But they were all in foxholes, by this time, when we went in to rescue them.
Earlier you mentioned that you were Forward Observer, could you please explain what that means?
A Forward Observer, the acronym for that is F.O. Well, and so they're always identified as "F.O." An F.O. is usually an officer and he has with him a party of 3 men and one might be a scout corporal or radio operator and either a radio operator or a telecommunication person—that's a communication person—and then a scout. So that party will go with one of the companies to support them when an infantry company gets bogged down, pinned down by mortar fire, whatever arms that are coming in to prevent them from moving on, then they'll call in the field artillery and ask for support to either get rid of snipers or mortar crew, or whatever, machine gunners. And so the hard part of it was to locate the enemy target, right?
Because the trees were so thick and it's in the mountains and you couldn't see anything... of course it was dark and raining most of the time. But that was the job of the Forward Observer. Now, a Forward Observer...you asked me what is a Forward Observer...and sometimes a Forward Observer's job is not like it is on the ground right in the combat. It may be in a stationary...another acronym is O.P. That's observation post. You might have a place which is safe and just use as an observation post and look around, and would have good visibility and you could look around and find your target. But the mobile type Forward Observer may be on a Jeep or in some other vehicle with his party and they may be roving all the time. But in the case of the Lost Battalion, you're on foot.
How did the Battle of the Lost Battalion help you to advance towards Dachau?
Well, in the first place, by winning and rescuing the Lost Battalion, we had broken through the main resistance of the...these were the SS troops, Hitler's elite Schutzstaffeln I think they called them. We had defeated them and so we got control. That provided the army.
Will you bring us as quickly as you can into your story?
After the rescue of The Lost Battalion, we had very few soldiers left, so we had to regroup and get replacements. And so we did, but that was done on the Riviera in Southern France, and so that was called a "Champagne Campaign." And we held the border. The French and Italian Alps defined the border between France and Italy. And those Alps there are 14,000 feet high, and so it's cold up top, but it's oranges down on the coast. Well, we did regroup, the infantry regrouped and got us replacements. The infantry was called out to go back to Italy and their purpose was to reach the Gothic line, which was bogged down and all of the American forces couldn't take that in three months time. Well, they took it in one night...and field artillery...that was too rugged a terrain for us to go to, and there were too many steep mountains and our guns would be shooting straight up. So because of our expertise and good record, the army chose to, or the military chose to send us to help bridge the Sigfried Line in Germany, which was supposed to be impenetrable.
After we held the line between France and Germany...I mean Italy all winter, in March of 1945 we were chosen to go to France...I'm sorry, Germany...and start in at a place called Kleinblitersdorf was about 30 or 40 kilometers from Saarbrüke. And then from there we headed to Mannheim–Heidelberg. First of all, we crossed at Worms, it's pronounced "Vorms," but it's spelled Worms, river at the town of Worms, or "Vorms." And then from there, we went to Mannheim–Heidelberg where the university is. From there, we went to, when I say 'we,' the field artillery got attached to whoever needed us in the third and seventh army, so I'm not sure who we were with then.
We were then headed out towards a place called Ulm, U-L-M, and there was nothing left of Ulm. It was just totally flat, except one church. This church was a very, very big church that had this spire, I could still see it. This spire, sticking out of the ground, is a very pointed, high pointed spire, and it was on the Danube River. So we followed the Danube River south, and that's when we started coming to a number of different factories. And some factories were building aircraft parts and they were camouflaged by having plywood trees. They'd take a sheet of plywood and cut a tree out of it and paint it green and then they turned them all different directions, so when you were coming along, it'd look like a forest.
