A Medic's War

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A MEDICS WAR


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A MEDICS WAR

One Mans True Odyssey of

Hardship, Friendship, and Survival

in the Second World War

By Tyler Fisher

from the combat and captivity narratives of his grandfather,Hugh Jess Fisher

Aventine Press


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February 2005, Tyler Fisher

First Edition

Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this

publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval

system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission

of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

Published by Aventine Press

1023 4th Ave #204

San Diego CA, 92101

www.aventinepress.com

ISBN: 1-59330-252-5

Printed in the United States of America

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

It seems that when youre young, in your formative years, when

youre raising your own family, youre trying to forget,maybe, the experiences of war,

but as you get older, it comes back to you not that it was ever

out of my mind, but it comes back so clear to me. Thats why I

can relate things that happened in 1944; its almost as clear as

when it happened. Some details maybe didnt impress me for

some reason or something, or maybe just routine, but

most are pretty active in my mind.

Hugh J. Fisher

December 31, 2000


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AUTHORS NOTE

In the early autumn of 2000, I began to record my grandfathers

account of his experience as a World War II medical corpsman

and prisoner of war. Our first session with a hand-held cassette

recorder yielded nine hours of tape over several days. Although

I had heard fragments of his epic narrative throughout my

childhood, this recording was his first attempt to relate the

experience in full from beginning to end, from draft notice to

homecoming. Then began the long process of verifying names

and locations, confirming events, and ordering chronology. Mygrandfather responded to my initial transcriptions with two more

hours of tape, supplying memories that had escaped him in the

first telling. We repeated this process several times. Eventually, I

amassed sufficient information for a full re-telling of his ordeal in

the form of readable chapters interspersed with his wartime letters

and jottings. Lydia Newell of Eastern Washington University

provided scholarly advice and invaluable proofreading.

Currently, an estimated 1,100 American veterans of the

Second World War die each day. With their deaths, we are

losing countless personal histories, gems of insight from one of

our nations greatest eras, stories of extraordinary courage and

sacrifice from ordinary men and women. With this book, I hope

to preserve a small piece of this vanishing history.

Tyler Fisher

December 9, 2004


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The summer and autumn of 1944 saw the death throes of Adolf

Hitlers Third Reich. In the months following June 6, D-Day, the

Allied forces successfully broke through German defenses at the

beaches of Normandy and swept across Western Europe until,

by September, the United States had positioned troops along

Germanys impenetrable Siegfried Line.

At the same time, the Soviet Army was recapturing territory

from Germany in the east and beginning an advance on Berlin.

The Allies seemed set to strengthen inexorably their strangleholdon Germany, but Hitler had no thoughts of surrender. We may

be going down, he raged at his Luftwafffe staff officer Nicolaus

von Below, but we will take the rest of the world down with

us.

The desperate fhrer decided to launch a surprise counter-

offensive against the Allied troops massed at his gates. If the

Germans could drive through to Antwerp and the sea, they could

effectively split the major western Allies, with the British in the

north cut off from the Americans further south. Ultimate Nazi

victory in Europe might yet be achieved.

On December 16, 1944, the Germans began Operation

Wacht am Rhein(Watch on the Rhine) or Herbstnebel (Autumn

Mist). They attacked the thinly spread American line in the

Ardennes region of eastern Belgium and northern Luxembourg.

The United States 106thDivision, which had arrived to relieve

the 2ndDivision in early December, bore the force of the initial

attack. Although taken by surprise, their determined stand

bought precious time for the Allied forces. After a month of fierce

fighting, instead of reaching Antwerp, Hitlers armies succeededonly in creating a temporary bulge in the Allied line.


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For the U.S. forces, the Battle of the Bulge, as it came to

be called, was the largest land battle of the Second World War.

Over one million men fought, and enormous casualties resulted

on both sides, but the Allies withstood Hitlers reckless attempt

to change the course of the war in his favor. By the end ofJanuary 1945, the fighting had consumed most of Germanys air

and ground forces. It seemed that the inevitable, final defeat of

the Reich would come in a matter of months.

Yet by one count, Germany remained superior to the Allied

nations. In the middle of 1944, Germany held over 9 million

prisoners, both civilian and military. To this number were added

23,554 Americans captured in the Battle of the Bulge; and, with

the sting of that defeat still hurting his pride, Hitler was in no

mood to give up his prisoners easily. As the American and

Western European forces pressed forward and the Soviet Armymade ravaging advances from the east, the Germans moved

their millions of prisoners from stalag to stalag, camp to camp,

dodging the Allied incursions.

This is one Americans story of the initial days of the Ardennes

conflict and of his harrowing months that followed in the German

prison camps.

Chapter 1. Medic!1

Chapter 2. The Seventeenth of December17

Chapter 3. Dreams among the Dying23

Chapter 4. Yuletide March33

Chapter 5. M. Stammlager IV-B49

Chapter 6. M. Stammlager VIII-A57

Chapter 7. M. Stammlager XI-B71

Chapter 8. Liberation83

Epilogue. On the Homefront95

Chronology105


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A MEDICS WAR 1

CHAPTER ONEMedic!

Abuzz bomb pointed up from the snow in the ravine, its

dark metal tail frosted with several days snow. A dud, I

thought. Probably been stuck there nose-down in the earth for

a while.

I paused to catch my breath and take stock of my surroundings.

The snowy ravine curved to the right and disappeared into a

thick wood. C Battery must be in the direction of that wood,

the farthest to the right of our encampment and the closest to the

German positions.

I waded through the snow at a safe distance from the buzz

bomb, hoping that this would be the closest I would ever cometo one of those shrieking angels of death. Here in the ravine,

the snowdrifts and pine woods muffled the sound of the artillery

thunder in the distance. The rumblings that had awakened me

before dawn now seemed far away, as though they belonged to a

different time and space far from this snowswept hush.

~~ * ~~

At 5:30 that morning, December 16, 1944, the thunder had

erupted. I awoke and lay for a moment in my bunk, listening to


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2 Tyler Fisher A MEDICS WAR 3

the unfamiliar sound. It was not unusual for us to hear our own

guns setting up their aiming points. There would be a shot, then

silence for a moment, then a blast from another gun, like a delayed

echo. But this new sound was different: a low, resounding,

roaring boom, a deep and distant thunder. Somethings wrongout there, I thought.

I tapped on the bottom of my buddys bunk to wake him up.

Hanson, you hear that?

Yeah. Yeah, I hear it. Hanson rolled over noisily in the

loose straw of his bunk.

Well, I said, thats not our guns.

Oh, I dont know. Go back to sleep, Fisher.

But I couldnt go back to sleep. Something seemed to tell

me to get up and get ready. I put on my uniform, full field pack,

medics kit everything except my duffel bag with extra clothesand personal items and slipped from the bunkroom into the

adjacent room of the German farmhouse that served as our

medical aid station. There we had set up our first aid supplies

and had formed beds by straddling the big cases of medical

equipment with stretchers, ready to receive any wounded. We

made use of two rooms on the ground floor of the farmhouse,

while the German owner and his wife, who was pregnant at the

time, stayed in the remainder. An old Coleman lantern gave a

warm light to the aid room, its gentle roar mocking the rumblings

outside.As I waited in the aid room, I thought of my wife and recalled

the lines I had scribbled to her in letters a couple days earlier.

Dec. 10, 19448:30 p.m.Germany

My Darling Elsie and Johnny Boy!

Hi, my Honey, its me again, or maybe I should say, at last!I imagine that the heading on this letter is quite a surprise to you.

Well, dont let it worry you, Darling. Its a surprise to me inmore ways than one. Ive covered a lot of country in a short time,Darling. Ive had a peek at England, France, Belgium, andnow Germany. Thats going places, dont you think? Right now,

Honey, if I didnt know I was in Germany, I would think I wasout north of Engadine. We have about 4 inches of fresh snow, whichreally makes me feel at home. You can look across the fields andsee the X-mas trees (spruce) all covered with snow and it reallymakes a pretty picture. Reminds me of our days in the little cabinat Gilchrist.

Well, my own little Sweetheart, Ill close for tonight, sorry thatI missed writing for so many days, but those things cant be helpedsometimes. From now on, Ill try to get a letter out every day. Nowdont worry about me, Honey. Ill get along O.K. Im feeling fine

and getting to be a better soldier every day.How is my Johnny boy getting along, big sum of two years now,

good little boy, isnt he?Goodnight, Darling. I love you.Hi, Daddys boy!Millions of kisses.Your lovingHugh

Dec. 13, 19446:00 p.m.Germany

My Darling Elsie and Johnny,Hello again, Sweetheart! Just got through eating chow and

thought I had better write a few lines. Its been a real nice day heretoday, really warm out. Ive been working all day trying to rig upa stove for our room, got one made out of a GI can, but the darnthing smokes too much. Will have to make a few alterations again

tomorrow.


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Ive seen some nice geese and turkeys walking around here today,maybe will be able to manage a turkey dinner for Christmas.

It looks like its going to be a cold night here, also a little noisy.But I havent had any trouble sleeping yet.

I love you, my Darling.Hi, Johnny!Millions of kisses.Your lovingHugh

A lieutenant burst through the door of the aid station, wrenching

me out of my reverie. Gotta get hold of your headquarters, he

bellowed. I just got attacked by Germans past your aid station.

Ambushed just east of the aid station.

We couldnt believe what we were hearing. Ambush? Whatsgoing on out there?

By now, the other men were clambering out of the triple-

decker bunks to get ready, and the day was dawning gray beyond

the tarpapered windows of the farmhouse. Word came over the

telephone that there was a wounded man at C Battery, and C

Battery couldnt locate their aid man for medical help.

Ill go, I said. I was already dressed and ready, and I felt

it was my duty to go, though I didnt know exactly where C

Battery was positioned. The batteries, manning the big 105mm

howitzers, would be arranged in order of A, B, and C. C Batteryshould be located at the northeast end of the artillery battalion.

That much I knew.

I also knew enough not to walk on the road to get there. From

the farmhouse, I set out through six-inch-deep snow, cross-

country in the direction C Battery must be.

The terrain was almost entirely unfamiliar to me. I had

examined a map of the area tacked to the wall of our room in

the farmhouse. It was a crude map, little more than a newspaper

clipping, and it was the only map I had ever seen of our location.The rough drawing outlined two or three main areas: the frontline

near the towns of Schnberg and St. Vith, the Our River, and the

city of Prm to the northeast of our location. With no details of

roads or trails, the map didnt tell us much. Prm, as a railroad

center and German communications hub, was to be our objective

when we would launch an offensive advance in the spring. Untilthen, we were on the defensive, sitting and waiting through the

harshest winter Europe had seen in fifty years.

During those days in the farmhouse aid station, we waited for

word from the commanders. The battery commander and the

battalion commanders had an officers meeting every evening.

Our medical officer, Lieutenant Michael Connely, attended

these sessions. Each night when he returned to the farmhouse,

we peppered him with questions:

Well, whats the deal, Lieutenant? Whats going on?

Nothing for now. Were just going to stay here and getaccustomed to the situation the weather and the climate and

the setup, as if this were a training area. Then well be part of

the offensive when we move in the spring.

Whats in store for us? Whatre the plans?

I cant tell you much, the lieutenant answered, but were

just going to stay put until the weather breaks and we start the

spring offensive.

If the weather had been somewhat better and I had been

somewhat surer of myself, I would have gone out scouting

around during our days of waiting. Generally, we did not leavethe aid station in the farmhouse except for short walks to the

mess hall for meals, and the one time I did step off the trail

near the mess hut, I had tumbled into an old foxhole half full of

water. Soaked through, I had to dry my clothes overnight by our

makeshift stove in the farmhouse. Now as I hurried through the

snow in search of C Battery, I wished that I had ventured out to

see where the batteries were and had learned the lay of the land

nearby.

The wet cold seeped through my combat boots. Our unit hadnot received any overshoes or winter footgear, and our rough


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leather boots with leather straps and double buckle were neither

waterproof nor insulated.

From up ahead, an American sentry hailed me from his

machine gun outpost. I had reached B Battery. This sentrys

gray hair was a familiar sight in our battalion, though I didntknow his real name. He was probably in his mid-thirties, much

older than the rest of us, and the other soldiers just called him

Pop because of his gray hair.

What do you know about C Batterys location? I asked.

All I know is theyd be off in that direction. Pop swung

his arm toward the wooded area in the direction I had supposed

they would be.

They have a wounded man over there, I said. Ill probably

be back through here, taking the wounded man back to the aid

station.I left the outpost, trying to pick the best course where I would

have the clearest vision. I approached another outpost, another

sentry. Here, too, I found a familiar face. The sentry was from

Newberry, Michigan, near my hometown of Gilchrist. He used

to go to some of the same dances as my wife and I.

Its a surprise to see you here, I called.

Yeah.

No time for talk now. Ive got to get to C Battery.

Well, he said, I aint sure where they are exactly, but Im

an outpost for the 592nd.I hadnt realized that the 592ndfield artillery battalion, which

was also a part of our artillery group but had bigger guns, was

positioned so close to us. Evidently, my mental map of the area

was more distorted than I had thought. Im going to follow this

ravine, I told him, and head into that woods over there, where

I assume they are, in that area. I may be coming back this way,

so dont shoot at us coming back out of there.

Oh no, no. Ill watch, he said. Ill watch for you.

I pushed on into the ravine where the buzz bomb, the V-1rocket, jutted from the snow. As I crossed a clearing and entered

the forest at the far end of the hollow, a bombardment shattered

the stillness. Bells screamed, and small-arms fire pelted the

area. To my left, a group of GIs came running out of the pines.

I recognized a couple of them.

Godwins been hit! Medic! Godwins been hit! theyyelled.

Where is he?

Hes back, back in the woods!

And they were gone.

I could only follow their tracks where they had come running

out of the woods. The evergreens here were thick with snow. A

recent barrage of enemy mortar fire had ripped through the area.

Some shells had exploded in the treetops and littered the snow

with a spray of debris. Tree bursts we called them.

A noise, a faint voice, came from my right in the dense trees:Fisher, help me! I turned and saw Private Godwin staggering

toward me, badly wounded.

It was my first experience under such conditions and my first

time treating a severely wounded man. The artillery fire halted

for a moment, but then began again with renewed fury. The

forest was a storm of flying branches and shrapnel.

I pulled Godwin down into a kind of cradle knoll for

protection. The soldier was wearing his overcoat with a jacket,

a wool sweater, and his underwear beneath that. The straps from

his packs still clung to his shoulders, and he clutched at his M1carbine rifle. A trickle of blood ran from the corner of his mouth,

and he writhed in pain.

I lay Godwin down on his back. As a medic, I carried sy-

ringes and capsules of morphine in my pack. I removed the cap

from a needle to inject a quarter inch of morphine. As I had

been trained, I shot the morphine into the fat of the stomach at

the waistline to stop his pain and quiet him down. Then I took

my medical scissors and cut his packsack off. With no time to

unbutton all his clothes, I just cut away the clothes with the scis-sors to get to the wound.


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Blood was still streaming from a gaping hole in the left side of

Godwins chest. I sprinkled sulfanilamide powder in the wound

until the opening was covered with the white, antibacterial

powder. The wound required one of the largest compresses I

had, a four-by-six inch compress. I pushed this into the hole

along with several smaller compresses to stanch the bleeding.

Then I struggled to secure the compresses in the wound with

tape.

The shrapnel, the mortar or artillery shell fragment that had

pierced Godwins chest, had exited through his back. I rolled

him over onto his stomach to access this wound. A hole twice

as large as the first yawned near his shoulder blade. I followed

the same procedure, cut away more clothing, stuffed the wound

with compresses, and tried to wrap a bandage from front to back

in order to hold the compresses in place.By now, Godwin was unconscious from the morphine and

loss of blood. With the wounds dressed, his bleeding slowed. A

little blood still seeped from beneath the bandages, but the blood

was no longer gushing out with such force, so I knew that no

main arteries had been hit.

I have to get him out of here, I thought, but there was no one

to help. The other GIs who had been with Godwin at the time

of the bombardment had fled from the forest. I would have to

carry him out alone. Taking him by one arm, with my arm under

one of his legs, and still with my full field pack on, I carried him.He weighed at least 150 pounds to my 170, but he was short and

stocky. I was able to walk with him.

I knew we would have to re-cross the first little clearing where

the soldiers had come running out of the pines. I also knew that

Germans were in the woods now. At the far end of the clearing, I

could see at least two or three German helmets among the snow

and trees.

My own steel helmet bore the Red Cross symbol on its front,

back, and sides a circle of white with a red cross painted upon it.Like all the other medics, I had painted it myself just days earlier.

One guy had refused to paint his. Im not putting anything like

that on my helmet. Its nothing more than a good target! But

as we neared the front lines and heard artillery rumbling on the

horizon, he scurried around to find some paint and a brush to get

his helmet painted.

Gotta depend on that red cross now, I thought, and I struck out

across the clearing. The German soldiers respected the symbol

on my helmet and armband and held their fire.

The weather was worsening and my strength could not hold

out much longer. I carried Godwin into an area of dense woods to

a little hut that C Battery had erected. Inside, out of the weather,

Godwin started to come around again. He moaned in pain, so

I gave him another shot of morphine. Other wounded men had

gathered in the hut, but they were all what we called walking

wounded. They had flesh wounds in their arms or legs but nobroken bones; they could still walk.

I would need help getting Godwin to a medical aid station. He

would have to be carried out on a litter, and there was nothing in

the hut that could be used as a litter. Fortunately, the telephone

lines from the hut to the aid station were still intact. I telephoned

the aid station and begged them to send somebody with a litter

as quickly as possible.

I have one man who needs to be carried out, plus some other

walking wounded. Whoever comes can follow my tracks to the

hut.None other than my buddy Harland Hanson arrived in answer

to my call. We loaded Godwin onto the folding litter that Hanson

had brought and started out with our little group of wounded,

back through the ravine and past the old buzz bomb that lay in

the snow.

I had sighted the sentry post for the 592nd, when bullets sud-

denly began whistling around us. Zing! Zzzing! like maddened

hornets.

I snatched off my helmet and waved it over my head. Theshooting ceased. When I reached the sentry, I cursed. What are


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you doing shooting at us? But it wasnt the same man I knew

from Newberry. They had changed sentries while I was gone,

and two new soldiers now manned the post.

We rested there for a minute or two and then headed on again,

following my tracks back to the gray-haired sentry, the one they

called Pop.

We rested again and talked with Pop. He didnt know any

more than we did about what was going on.

Sounds like all hells breaking loose. Wherere you

headed?

Weve got to get this guy to the aid station as soon as

possible.

We set off again.

We hadnt gone a hundred yards when Karooom! a shell

burst behind us, its whistle and explosion sounding simultane-ously. It must have been an 88 shell, a direct hit on the old mans

post. There was no use in going back to help him because there

was nothing left. A smoldering crater now marked where the

machine gun outpost had stood. We could only continue on to

the aid station.

When we reached the aid station, we found that it too had been

shelled. The roof was blown in, and our supplies lay splattered

and splintered around the room. Staff Sergeant Gordon and our

medical lieutenant, Lieutenant Connely, were nowhere to be

found.A place shelled once can easily be shelled again. I grew

frantic. What am I going to do with this man? He needs a

plasma transfusion to counteract the shock, and we have no

plasma. Ive got to take him further back for care.

The only place nearby that had not been hit by artillery fire

and still promised some shelter and warmth was our mess hall.

The mess hall, set up about two hundred yards away from the

farmhouse, consisted of a two-and-a-half ton, two-by-six wheel

army truck with a canvas cover and a trailer for food supplies.When arranging our camp, we had backed the truck into position

and strung another large sheet of canvas over poles so that about

fifteen soldiers could sit inside for meals. Ours was nearly

identical to the mess hall that the division we were replacing had

used and, like it, was all covered with pine boughs that left only

a few patches of the trucks hood visible.

We pulled aside the series of hanging blankets and boughs

that camouflaged the mess hall entrance and eased Godwin in

on the litter. Inside were heating units and a raised platform,

something like a little stage higher than ground level, on which

we would normally set our mess kits for meals. We left Godwin

on the litter and simply laid him on top of the platform. I covered

him with blankets and continuously took his pulse. Some time

during that afternoon, I gave him another shot of morphine.

The early dusk of a German winter fell quickly, and our

medical officers still had not arrived. I could do no more forGodwin. There was no way to take him back beyond the fighting

for proper care.

After dark, Lieutenant Connely and Sergeant Gordon finally

returned. They had driven to the town of St. Vith to the west to

pick up fresh supplies, but by now, there was not much they could

do for Godwin either. He had lost too much blood. Godwin died

later that evening.

Outside, the chaos was increasing, and still nobody seemed

to know what was going on. Our leadership was in disarray,

and communication was almost nonexistent. Near midnight, anofficer arrived in a jeep with word that a reserve group, the 2 nd

Battalion of the 423rd Infantry, was coming in to assist with an

artillery withdrawal and to replace us. We were pulling out. The

officers asked Hanson and me to help load a weapons carrier

with some of the important documents and paperwork from

headquarters.

Headquarters was another farm building that served as a base

for the division officers. Hanson and I began loading the weapons

carrier parked at the side of the road in front of headquarters.The night was black and thick with low clouds.


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By now, the advancing Germans had moved in closer to our

position with their machine guns. Their Schmeisser machine

pistols sprayed bullets with a signature snarl in the darkness.

They were firing right down the road, not aiming at any particular

target but effectively covering the road so that anything on it

would be hit. With every third or fourth round of firing, they

would launch a tracer bullet. Bullets from the machine guns

sounded like bing bing bing-bing-bing, while after them came

tracer bullets, like flares racing off through the dark: light and

noise and darkness, a terrifying rhythm in a predictable pattern.

After several rounds of shooting, we had mastered the rhythm

precisely, timing our runs to the weapons carrier to fit between

rounds. As soon as the road was clear, wed run out and toss a

load of documents into the truck and sprint back. Then tat tat

tat-tat-tat the bullets would pelt the road again. When we hadloaded most of the stuff into the truck, it sped away.

It was now the middle of the night. Exhaustion was beginning

to catch up with me, but adrenaline still pushed me on.

Fisher, I want you to go to C Battery again, Lieutenant

Connely said.

I hesitated. C Battery was hard enough to locate by day. It

would be nearly impossible for me at night. What kind of

wound have we got, Lieutenant?

I dont know. Report says theyve got a wounded man who

needs first aid.Well, I hesitated, it would be foolish for me to try to

get there in the dark I know how difficult it is to get there in

daylight. But if you insist, Ill go.

I had my hand on the door when the wounded man from C

Battery staggered in. A bullet had grazed his arm, but the gash

was not deep and he seemed to feel little pain. We doctored the

wound with sulfa powder and bandaged it up. The mans name was

Fike, another soldier I knew from Michigans Upper Peninsula.

He was from Sault Ste. Marie, northeast of my hometown. As

I wrapped the bandage over his wound, I shuddered to think of

what could have happened if I had gone stumbling out in the

dark to C Battery again in search of a wounded man able to walk

himself to first aid. It was one of many instances in which I felt

divine protection.

~~ * ~~

The 423rd Infantry arrived under the command of a boisterous

colonel to support the withdrawal of our artillery. Now that

Ive got my boys here, the colonel bragged, those Krautsll

know that theyve got more than artillery folks to contend with

come daylight.

The soldiers in the artillery battalions, of course, were not

equipped to fight man-to-man. They carried carbines limited in

their range and effectiveness. And not everyone had a carbine.The officers had pistols, 45s.

The colonels infantry began digging into their new position.

They had mortars and mini-machine guns, the weapons needed

for fighting on the ground, soldier against soldier. We did not

know where the Germans were moving or how hard they were

attacking, but we decided to try to get back to the town of

Schnberg behind the Belgian border with whatever equipment

we could transport.

A lieutenant pulled up in a jeep. He was heading to St. Vith,

he told us, a city even further back than Schnberg, and he

needed to take men with him to act as route markers. He needed

soldiers who would stand like military police at intersections in

order to direct any convoys to the right road leading away from

the frontlines. The lieutenant chose Hanson and me and one

other man for this job. The three of us piled into his jeep.

The lieutenant dropped me off just beyond Radscheid, a little

two-building German town at the entrance to Engineer Cutoff.

Though considered a town, Radscheid was little more than a few

houses and outbuildings among the jumbled hills, with barnsattached to the farmhouses. The army engineers had constructed


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Engineer Cutoff here earlier in the fall when the 2 ndDivision had

moved up into the Siegfried Line. The Cutoff provided a shortcut

on the route to and from the Line, allowing our military convoys

to avoid a sharp intersection to the south known as Purple Heart

Corner, a favorite target for German artillery barrages.

The route across the cutoff was a corduroy road like those

I knew so well from my boyhood in the woods of Michigan.

Early in the autumn before the heavy snows, the loggers of the

North American timberlands would lay down long poles side by

side on top of a road they had cleared through a bog or low area.

The poles would freeze in place in the winter and form a solid

surface for the horses pulling loads of timber. Sometimes, the

loggers bound the poles together with ropes or wire; sometimes,

they drove stakes into the ground to hold 25 to 30 poles in place.

The army engineers built similar roads for hauling equipmentand vehicles through the rough, snowy country of the Ardennes

region on the Belgian border.

The lieutenant dropped Hanson off at a little bridge that

spanned a deep ravine so that he could warn our trucks about the

narrow crossing. The third man stood at an intersection along the

road between Schnberg and the town of Bleialf, ready to point

the convoy to the right, just below the position of our Service

Battery. I was to stand at the entrance to Engineer Cutoff and

direct the trucks toward it when the convoy carrying equipment

and supplies from our 589thfield artillery battalion evacuated.Standing out there alone in the night in the barren hills beyond

Radscheid gave me an eerie feeling. There was continuous

close firing, and a constant rumble of artillery echoed from the

southwest. The Germans shone powerful searchlights skyward.

Low clouds reflected the light, illuminating the woods and hills

like bright moonlight. Even with the help of this unearthly light,

I could make out very few details of my intersection, though I

could see the black scar of a ditch along the road.

Suddenly, I could tell that the close firing was coming closer

to my position. Too close. I threw myself into the ditch. The

weight of my body broke the thin layer of ice on the ditchwater,

and I felt the water seeping in around my waistline. My feet

were soaked. I lay there face down, keeping my mouth out

of the water, while a barrage of artillery fire, shells and white

phosphorous, covered the intersection. The barrage seemed to

continue forever, though it probably lasted only ten minutes.

When it ended, I got up and checked myself. Though wet and

cold, I was all right.


15/59

A MEDICS WAR 17

CHAPTER TWOThe Seventeenth of December

Soon after I had crawled out of the ditch, I heard a vehicle

approaching from the direction of Purple Heart Corner. A

six-by-six American army truck appeared and rolled to a stop at

my intersection. An officer jumped out and approached me in

the dark. Like all vehicles, the truck used no headlights. Only

the slits of its cats-eye lights gave off a faint glow. The officer

must have noticed the red crosses on my helmet. Ive got a

bunch of wounded men in the back of the truck, and Ive got to

get to first aid.

Youll have to go to Schnberg or to the medical collecting

station at Andler, I answered. There you can get aid.He asked why I was directing traffic here.

Weve got some trucks coming up from our position, and

were going into a new position. Thats all I could tell him.

Thats all I knew.

He didnt say much, but climbed back in the truck. They

turned and drove up Engineer Cutoff as I had instructed them.

There had been something furtive in his mannerisms, and when

I later heard about detachments of English-speaking German

soldiers who had disguised themselves as American GIs and

used captured American vehicles to infiltrate our positions, I


16/59


wondered if this mysterious officer had been one of them. I was

relieved that I had been unable to tell him anything more.

About half an hour later, the trucks I had been waiting for

arrived. It must have been near 3:00 in the morning, though

time meant little during that long night. I directed the first truck

through, then the second, and the rest followed, one behind the

other. I jumped onto the last vehicle, and we headed over the

corduroy road.

We crossed the little bridge where Hanson was posted, passed

through our Service Batterys position, and rumbled on toward

Schnberg. Hanson and I had no idea what the plans were at

this point, though we assumed we would move to a new position

in order to support the 422nd Infantry, the same force we had

been supporting earlier but with whom we had lost contact

immediately when the German counter-offensive began.To reach the new emplacement, the trucks carrying the guns

turned onto a narrow road through the woods. I was soaking

wet and cold, so when the trucks stopped, I made my way with

Hanson and four or five of the other men to a little house near

the road.

Two elderly women met us within the house. They couldnt

speak English but made us understand through gestures that they

wanted to give us something to eat. It was a warm, comfortable

house, though not very big. I wasnt as hungry as I was wet.

While the two kind women were bringing food for the soldiers,I took my boots and socks off and tried to dry them near the

hearth. Whats going to happen now? I wondered. Whats going

to happen now?

I leaned toward the window to look beyond my own reflection

in the glass. By the gray light of dawn I could see our weapons

carrier parked outside. I couldnt hear our guns firing outside,

so I knew there was no further artillery fire, but the noise of

confused activity continued in the woods. I pinched my socks

hanging near the hearth. Warm but still wet through.

Get out! Get out! Germans coming down the road! someone

shouted at the window.

I pulled on my boots without taking time to lace them up.

Snatching up my aid kit and all, I ran outside where GI trucks

were tearing by. Someone leaped into our weapons carrier

parked outside the house and started it up. I barely caught the

tailgate and crawled in as it pulled away. A few GIs, including

Hanson and me, crouched in the back of the truck.

We were hurtling toward St. Vith by way of Schnberg. I

recalled the steep hills on the road down to Schnberg, having

driven there just two days earlier. We rounded the first two or

three sharp, hairpin curves on these hills, and then I dont know

what happened. The driver may have been hit, for the truck

suddenly slid out of control and tipped over on its side. Hanson

and I tumbled out onto the road and were met with a barrage ofbullets. Small arms fire rained down around us from the high

bluff that surrounds Schnberg.

A house stood directly on our right as we faced the town.

As the bullets whistled and ricocheted by us, we fled into the

house, where a well-dressed, young couple met us wide-eyed

inside. They clung to a small child between them, a cute little

girl probably no more than three or four years old. We tried to

explain what was happening, but they werent waiting to listen.

Perhaps the family slipped away to an outdoor cellar or some

other prearranged refuge from the hail of debris and projectiles,but they left the house like ghosts, and we found ourselves

suddenly alone.

I began to take stock of the houses layout to determine which

room would be safest for us to wait out the artillery storm. In

one room, I came upon a fellow soldier rummaging through the

familys drawers, stuffing his pockets with jewelry and trinkets

and any small items he could conceal in his clothes. He turned,

startled, like a rat caught in an empty attic when I entered the

room.


17/59


What do you think youre doing? I screamed. Youve got

more to think about here than that!

He never had a chance to give an answer. At that instant, as if

to reinforce my words, another squall of roaring shells shook the

house. It was artillery fire from both sides. We plunged into a

fruit cellar beneath the house and huddled among the stacks and

shelves of fruit jars. Thinking foolishly that I could somehow

remain protected in the cellar and still make a hasty exit if the

house caught fire above us, I scrambled over shelves to be near

the cellar window. Hanson crouched close behind me.

Some shells exploded just outside the small window. Frozen

earth and glass and shrapnel blasted in. A shard of flying glass

or shrapnel struck me just below my kneecaps. I hardly felt the

gashes below each of my knees at first, but during a lull in the

firing, I noticed the blood running down my legs.Why arent we getting some help?we wondered. Why isnt

relief coming from St. Vith? There was still time. The Germans

arent yet here with such a force of troops that they couldnt be

routed.

When the shelling ceased, we left the house, and the first

person we saw was a man we knew well. It was Melvin Pollow

from our detachment, the aid man to Service Battery. Captain

Brown is in the area, Pollow told us, and he knows a trail to

get across the Our River by a little bridge south of Schnberg.

Not much use staying round here really. Our guys cant holdSchnberg much longer. Youre all welcome to come along with

us, if youre ready to wake up from this nightmare.

But before we turned to accompany Pollow to the river, one

of us noticed a Red Cross banner flying further uphill among

some buildings on the ridge above Schnberg. We knew it had

to be an aid station, so we climbed up toward the flag.

There in a barn we found our officers whom I hadnt seen

since leaving headquarters to serve as a route marker: Sergeant

Gordon, Medical Lieutenant Connely, and Sergeant Jerasky.

They were treating a wounded officer, Captain Cagle of Service

Battery, who was wounded in the buttocks, and a man from

another outfit who was badly wounded and struggling for life.

I recognized another soldier there named Bill Debolak, a quiet

man who lived on a farm not far from me back home. We traded

names and addresses and vowed to each other that if one of us

returned home and the other did not, we would contact wife and

relatives to tell them exactly what had happened.

As it grew dark, we could tell by the signs of activity below

the ridge that the Germans had occupied the Belgian town of

Schnberg in force. We could see them milling around in the

streets of Schnberg, arranging weapons and equipment. We

realized it would be only a matter of time before the Germans

would come up the hill to take us prisoner.

We gathered in the kitchen of the farmhouse connected to the

barn. As at the last house, a mother, a father, and their youngdaughter had remained in their home. The girl looked about

thirteen or fourteen years old. We had difficulty communicating

with them, but they understood that the tides of war had changed

again. The Germans were back and probably would arrive at the

farmhouse soon. With somber faces, the three crept out into the

snowy night.

Collect any weapons, Lieutenant Connely ordered. We

gathered all the weapons from the wounded men so that we could

not be accused of having arms. By the Geneva Convention,

medics are not allowed to bear any firearms of any kind. Wetook two or three carbines and several knives. Anything that

could be considered a weapon we hid under the hay in the barn

at the side of the house.

No sooner had we finished collecting and hiding the weapons

than Germans entered the farmhouse. Two SS troop officers

strode in. One spoke very good English. He asked first for

proofs of identity.

As medics, we wore an identification tag around our neck

with our dog tags. I passed the identification tag bearing my

photograph to the SS officer to prove that I was a medic.


18/59


You have lost weight in these last days, no?

He looked from me to the photograph and back again.

Of course, I probably had lost weight. With high anxiety and

lack of food, a man can shed weight rapidly.

I have been in America before the war. The SS officer

tossed the tag back to me. The deaths-head emblem of the SS

leered at us from the collar of his dark uniform.

He talked about Newark, New Jersey, where he had lived

before the war. And that was it. He examined each of our tags

and commanded us to stay there. It was a great relief to us that

we had been captured by an officer who could speak English.

At least he was not the kind who would sooner shoot than take

prisoners.

Then, it was all over. We found a place to curl up in some

hay in a stall of an old barn that stood separate from the house,and fell asleep to the same artillery thunder that had awakened

me two days before.

CHAPTER THREEDreams among the Dying

T

hat night I dreamed of home and of my wife Elsie. I saw

her standing at the screen door of our log cabin home in

Gilchrist, Michigan. The white door behind her showed off her

dark curls, and she wore a light yellow dress, tied at the waist

the same dress she had worn on the day I was called up by the

draft. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

Hugh and Elsie, last furlough before deployment overseas,October 1944


19/59


Almost ten years before I met Elsie, my father had built the

log-and- plaster cabin a short distance away from my parents

main house. I remember walking down through the gardens

when I was ten or eleven years old to help him hold the logs in

place while he fastened one end to the other, doing whatever a

small boy could to help. My mother rented the cabin out to deer

hunters and summer tourists, and Elsie and I lived there for the

first years of our marriage.

Then my dream shifted abruptly, or another one began,

for I found myself no longer in Michigan but racing along the

muddy roads at the Belgian border in an army jeep. My wife, vis-

ibly pregnant, clung to the seat beside me. With the prescience

peculiar to dreams, I knew she was about to give birth. Lieu-

tenant Connely checks on the German farmwife every day, I

cried out in my dream. Hell know what to do. The jeep flewthrough Schnberg and up a crooked, narrow road, up the ridge

and through a forest, past Engineer Cutoff, over to Radscheid,

and on toward our makeshift aid station.

In reality, our son had been born two Decembers before I

ever saw the snowy ruins of war-torn Europe. And I was there

when John Robert Fisher, our little Johnny, arrived. My wife

always said that, in my excitement, I had trouble starting the car

to drive to the hospital, but we did manage to start the car and

drove forty miles to the hospital where the baby was born. That

was December 7, 1942. I had received my draft notice a monthearlier, and it seemed inevitable that I would soon be sent where

the war was raging in Europe or the Pacific. Like nearly every

able-bodied young man in our town, at twenty years old I felt

ready and willing to go, but I only wished that I could stay home

until after the baby was born.

My father-in-law suggested that I contact a lady named Lydia,

head of the county draft board, to see if my departure could be

deferred until after the baby was born. I was overjoyed when

the board granted me a three-month deferment. I would see my

babys first few months before I left in March.

Hugh with little Johnny

Successive dreams came in a blur that night in the Schnberg

barn, but one dream stood out among the rest for its arresting

clarity. It was the afternoon of my birthday, just as I remembered

it from the previous spring. My buddy and fellow medic

Harland Hanson and I were nearing the end of our training inthe Armys Tennessee Maneuvers, camping with our tent-like

shelter halves in the Appalachian Mountains. Each of us soldiers

pitched his shelter half with his buddys, so that when buttoned

together, they made a full tent for two. And each soldier had

two blankets. We doubled one blanket to cover the ground, and

doubled another blanket on the other side so that we still had two

blankets remaining to cover us. A rolled up jacket or sweater or

sometimes even our shoes served for a pillow, but most of the

time I kept my shoes at the end of the tent to keep them warm.


20/59


We had all our gear in the tent, too: our packsacks, shaving

stuff, soap, and toothbrushes.

My birthday was a beautiful day. The sun came out, burning

away the fog and clouds that wrapped the mountains. Hanson

and I had a lot of dirty clothes to wash, so we went down to a

river and washed our clothes with soap on the smooth, mud-

smelling rocks. We scrubbed our underclothes and socks and

hung them to dry on tree limbs where the water cast webs of

waving light. Every few minutes, a fish at the far side of the

river leaped up to somersault in the sunshine. Hanson talked

about duck hunting on the Mississippi River.

I had stripped down to my undershirt while washing my

clothes, and by the end of the day, my shoulders were bright red

from the sun. Sunburn was a novelty for me, having grown up

in Northern Michigan.Hansons birthday fell three days later on March 29, the day

we left Tennessee for Camp Atterbury, Indiana. The weather

could not have changed more dramatically. On the day we

left, we wore our wool coats, wool knit caps, and gloves. It

was snowing and raining when we left the mountains. Hanson

reached over and shook my sunburned shoulder. The Germans

are giving out soup down in the town.

I felt straw at the back of my neck. Hey, Fisher! Were

gonna head down to the town where theyre giving out soup,

Hanson repeated.I realized I was no longer dreaming.

A German guard came from the sentry posted a short distance

from the barn and marched us down into Schnberg. Along the

way, the guards added to our ranks other captured GIs held in

other houses until there were nearly one hundred of us lined up

along a main street of the town. A horse-drawn wagon rolled up

with a pile of brown tin cans and an enormous pot of vegetable

soup. The Germans scooped the cans into the soup and

distributed them, each with a piece of black bread. The bread

looked like a loaf of sawdust and had a soggy, sour line along

the bottom, which we later called the vinegar line. All German

soldiers carried a half loaf of this same bread with them in their

pack as rations. Despite the acrid taste, we devoured the bread

greedily. This was my first taste of food in days. Afterward, they

collected the cans and marched us back up to the barn, where we

slept another night.

~~ * ~~

In the late afternoon of the following day, December 19, the

guards took Hanson and me down to the town. They told us we

would have to help care for some of the wounded and led us to a

large building that the Germans had converted to a field hospital

or aid station.

The building reminded me of the old town halls or socialcenters in the States, with their large, open floor space for

parties and dinners and dancing, with an elevated area at one

end like a stage. In a little anteroom at one end of this building,

Lieutenant Connely, Sergeant Gordon, and a German medical

officer performed operations, doing what little they could for the

wounded. On the main floor of this field hospital, approximately

fifty or sixty wounded German soldiers lay on one side of the

hall, and about the same number of American wounded lay on

the other side. These men had been brought in or had walked

in and were lying on the floor with only the clothes they had on

their backs. Only a lucky few had blankets.

My own knees were bothering me, but I kept myself cleaned

up with gauze and sulfa powder and was able to ward off

infection.

Usually, the first thing wounded men call for is water. In the

Schnberg field hospital, their dry lips turned nearly white as

their bodies dehydrated. We knew it was dangerous to give the

wounded water, especially if they had an intestinal, stomach,

or lung wound. We could not give them water to drink, butwe dipped handkerchiefs and bandages into water and rubbed it


21/59


on their lips. We went from one soldier to another and tried to

comfort them in this way.

One young fellow, an infantryman from the 422ndor 423rd,

could only say to me, Take my ammunition, Medic. Please

take my ammunition. He had a couple clips of M1 bullets on

his cartridge belts and in his pockets. I gently slipped them from

him and set them aside. The ammunition was no use to him and

no good for me, but it was uppermost in his mind, even above

the seriousness of his wound, because there was a shortage of

ammunition, and that was all he could think about.

There was also a Negro soldier, the first I had seen in the

battle area. He was wounded badly, and his face contorted with

pain as he cast fevered glances toward the German side of the

hall. You cant hate a person who helps you, he gasped. You

cant hate a person who helps you. A German had helped gethim to the field hospital in Schnberg, and like the infantryman

in his delirium, he could repeat only one thing. The severity of

his wounds made me doubt if he would survive the night.

Hanson and I continued from soldier to soldier,

administering water to their lips, morphine for their pain, and

dressings for their wounds. This went on late into the night until

a guard came and ordered us back up the hill to the barn.

Our shifts at the town hall field hospital continued for

four nights. As always, Hanson and I acted as a team, even when

performing unpleasant duties. Sometimes a wounded soldierdied during an operation in the anteroom. Whether the dead

were German or American, the attending officers would call for

us to carry the body away. Often the German medics would

take away the German dead, but there was little effort toward

preserving such a distinction, and we carried out our share of

Germans as well.

We took the bodies to another smaller building about fifty

yards from the town hall. We carried them inside and lay them

on their backs against the wall, piling them on opposite sides of

the building, Americans on one side and Germans on the other.

Despite the gravity of the task, something struck us that we

would not otherwise have thought about.

Well, Fisher, Hanson said, I wonder which side of the

building will have the highest pile when we come with the next

one. And this went on for the four nights we worked there. In

the end, we noted with some morbid satisfaction that there were

more Germans piled up on the one side than there were on the

American side.

The operating table where our officers and the German doctor

worked was only a litter, like the one on which we had carried

Godwin through the snow. Beneath the litter was a bushel basket.

When amputating a wounded leg, the doctors did not take time

to remove overshoes or combat boots. They simply cut the leg,

fastened the clothing away from the wound, and dropped the leg,

boot and all into the basket. Along with the bodies, Hanson andI had to carry the amputated limbs away from the building. That

was a hard job, but we did it. Somebody had to do it.

Lieutenant Connely, who directly assisted the German doctor,

soon noticed that if there were a slight wound on an American

soldiers arm or leg, a wound which probably could be treated

with soap and water or sulfa powder to prevent infection, the

German doctor was quick to amputate the limb. I recall one

American captain in particular. He was wounded severely near

St. Vith, and they immediately amputated both of his legs when

he arrived at the town hall.Keep the fellows in the barn, Lieutenant Connely whispered

to me when we were alone for a moment. Dont bring them

down. If they arent suffering from infection already, just keep

an eye on the wound.

We did manage to keep several men with minor wounds

safely in the barn and other outbuildings on the hill. Our

wounded Captain Cagle, for one, was never sent down to the

field hospital.

Not far from the barn was another shed where wounded

American soldiers were held prisoner. Some of these men were


22/59


badly wounded and already feverish with infection, but they had

somehow heard of the careless amputation of legs and arms in

Schnberg and were terrified of being moved to the town hall

field hospital. Lieutenant Connely eventually had to go up to the

shed and bring down those who needed treatment. Hanson and I

accompanied Lieutenant Connely. We almost had to wrestle the

wounded men onto the litter to carry them back to the town hall

and save their lives.

I never knew what happened to these soldiers, for I had no way

of recording their names without paper and writing instruments.

Even those names I tried to memorize vanished from my mind

in the coming months.

Each night, the guard took us back to the barn after our turn

at the town hall. He walked with us as far as the German sentry

post on the hill and then sent us on alone to the barn. He knewthat escape was impossible, for there was nowhere for us to run.

The Germans were thickly entrenched around Schnberg.

On the second day when we trudged up the winding road

from the town hall to the barn, the guard stopped at the sentry

post as before and ordered us on ahead. As we continued toward

the barn, there in the road three-quarters of the way up the hill,

we came upon our very own Dodge weapons carrier. Its back

end was facing us, completely unguarded, and it was empty

except for my duffel bag and Hansons duffel bag, labeled with

our names and filled with all our extra clothing. Even better, wefound four blankets with the bags. Hanson took two and I took

two.

This is a godsend, Hanson! I crowed. Have there ever been

two luckier guys? All we had until then were the clothes we had

been wearing when we were captured, our helmets, and medical

kits. But in the duffel bags were extra socks, our overseas caps,

wool knit caps, handkerchiefs even a few cigarettes and the

French phrase books the army had issued us.

How do I look? Hanson cocked his overseas cap over one

eye in the military manner and struck a jaunty pose.

I removed all the clothes I could possibly carry from my bag,

cramming as much as I could in my pockets and aid kit, but

we couldnt take everything. I had to leave the one Christmas

present that had reached me from home before our capture. It

was a folding stationery kit with paper and little pockets for

pens, from my brother-in-laws wife Thelma.

Just as we retrieved our precious duffel bags from the weapons

carrier, bullets began rattling around us. They were stray shots

from our own men from the 422ndor 423rdtrying to gain ground

near Schnberg. We dashed to the barn, unharmed, and remained

indoors until our next shift at the town hall.

That night as we lay in the barn, we heard the drone of

airplanes in the distance. We didnt know if they were our planes

or enemy planes, but it gave us a moment of hope to think that

our air force might yet come to our rescue.


23/59

A MEDICS WAR 33

CHAPTER FOURYuletide March

Around noon on December 23, the guards announced that

we were to be evacuated from Schnberg and moved toGerman prison camps. Upon hearing this news, my first thought

was rather silly. Well, people say Germans like sauerkraut, so

if they have a ration of sauerkraut, I want mine because I love

the stuff.

The guards marched us all down into town, all hundred or so

GIs who had been taken prisoner in the area of Schnberg. We

waited at the junction of the road that came down from the ridge

and the road from St. Vith, while more captives streamed in from

all directions. By the time we left Schnberg that afternoon,there were 1,800 prisoners of war waiting to march with us back

into Germany.

Hanson and I each had our two blankets draped over our

shoulders, but another prisoner informed us that the Germans

would soon confiscate the blankets. Hearing this, we took our

bandage scissors from our medical kits and cut armholes in the

blankets and wore them like jackets. With big holes in them now,

we figured the Germans wouldnt want them. The holes seemed

to work, for the guards showed no interest in our blankets.

They lined us up, five abreast, and started the march. Therewere prisoners as far as I could see, hundreds streaming down


24/59


from the hills where their outfits had been overrun in the initial

days of the German offensive. Behind me and before me, we

were a dark, human river coursing among the snow-covered

hills.

We marched to the tiny town of Andler where our medical

collecting station had been only a week earlier. Little remained

of the medical tents now, their contents strewn across the snow,

their canvas hanging in shreds from the wreckage. In the cluster

of farm buildings that constituted the town, there was no sign of

life.

I thought back to when I had come here to the collecting

station on December 15 with a wounded man from Service

Battery. Andler had been swarming with activity then. Around

noon that day, Sergeant Jerasky had asked me to drive him to

St. Vith by jeep for additional medical supplies. I knew vaguelythe route we would have to take from our farmhouse aid station

between Schlausenbach and Laudesfeld, passing through

Schnberg, to St. Vith about 15 miles to the west. My mental

picture of the route was dim. I could recall some of what I had

seen from the back of a weapons carrier when our convoy had

moved into our positions on December 9: a narrow blacktop

road receding behind us as we moved at a rapid pace along high

ground past Schnberg. A dark evergreen forest shaded our left,

while fields spread out upon our right, dotted with farms and

steeples, patches of woods, streams and vales. We had enteredan area wooded on both sides, and then another area of open

fields and sky where the convoy finally groaned to a stop, and

the officers announced that we had reached our location. Still,

despite my cloudy recollection of the route back to St. Vith, I

thought I would be able to find the way with Sergeant Jerasky.

We drove the jeep across Engineer Cutoff, clattered over the

corduroy road and the narrow bridge over the deep ravine, and

reached our Service Batterys position. We paused at Service

Battery to see if they might have the supplies we needed and

save us a trip to St. Vith.

While we were stopped there, a staff sergeant from Service

Battery was busily putting together a little gas motor to run a

generator. It looked like a gas motor from a washing machine.

As the motor sputtered to life, a piece of metal from the flywheel

snapped off and shot through the sergeants knee, like a rifle

bullet passing from one side of the knee out the other. Sergeant

Jerasky and I gave him immediate first aid, bandaged the wound,

and attached a tag to his uniform to indicate the type of injury

and other pertinent information. We loaded him into the jeep and

made a detour to the medical collecting station at Andler, north

of Schnberg. There he could receive further care before being

transported further back to the hospitals and medical clearing

station.

Turning the jeep around again, we headed on to Schnberg

and Division Headquarters at St. Vith for supplies. St. Vithhad been an imposing town at the junction of railroads and

highways. Among the remains of its few buildings that had

withstood repeated bombings, I caught glimpses of Belgian

civilians poking along the streets.

The wreckage of St. Vith in wartime


25/59


Like our mess hall near the farmhouse, the division headquar-

ters was draped with pine boughs, its entrance covered with a

series of blankets and heavy canvas to mask the light of its bus-

tling interior. The scene that met us within was a mass of of-

ficers running in all directions, with others barking orders from

rooms off to the side captains, lieutenants, and colonels com-

ing and going.

As we packed the jeep with medical supplies, I grew

increasingly concerned. Night would come quickly, and we did

not know the password to get back into our area without being

challenged by a sentry in the dark. I hope we can get back

before nightfall, I hinted not too subtly to Sergeant Jerasky.

We finally left St. Vith, and I sped the jeep up the crooked,

narrow road along the ridge, hurtled through the evergreen

woods, past Engineer Cutoff and Radscheid until I sighted thechurch steeple of Laudesfeld to the northwest and knew that we

were nearing our position. We made it back to the farmhouse

without being challenged for the password. It was the evening

of December 15.

Now, as I marched through the shattered remains of Andler in

a river of prisoners, I wondered about what might have happened

if Sergeant Jerasky and I had not left St. Vith in time to return

to our position. We would have been far enough back that the

initial German attack that awakened me the next morning would

not have affected us. Yet, even St. Vith was in ruins by the endof the Germans Ardennes offensive.

The guards kept us on the main roads beyond Andler. We met

German military vehicles driving to the western front: tanks,

trucks pulling guns, 88s, and foot soldiers. As we passed them,

the German soldiers would give us a goofy grin, but they never

mocked us or made an obscene gesture.

A short distance from Andler, we left the main road and

turned to the right onto a narrow, cross-country cow path. Still

we marched in columns, five abreast as the guards required for

ease of counting. We could see that there had been some kind

of traffic along the cow path before us, for we were following

a trail of debris and tracks to where it crossed a rushing stream.

Although the stream was knee-deep, we had no choice but to

plunge in with our combat boots and layered socks. In addition

to the numbing cold that seized our feet and legs, we soon learned

that wet feet blister easily.

We traversed a region of steep, knobby hills. As my section

of the column reached the crest of a hill, I looked forward

and back at the mass of captives. No more than three guards

marched along the line, rifles slung over their shoulders. Only

three guards were necessary, for even if we could escape the

guards, we were too weak and disoriented to run anywhere.

The knobby knolls eventually evened out into gradual, rolling

hills. We left the cow paths and began following another road,along which, in the gathering dusk, we could see half-track

tanks dug in on the side of the hills. The tanks were part of our

14thCavalry, an armored outfit that had been overrun when the

Germans made their breakthrough at the little town of Auw and

advanced toward our position. The Americans had abandoned

their tanks and other equipment along the road.

Soon we entered the badly battered town of Auw. With 1,800

prisoners, the guards could find no place to put us all under

cover for the night, so they led us to the bombed-out ruins of the

largest building in the town, now a mere shell of naked walls.There were so many of us packed between the walls that I could

not lay out flat. I slept with my back against a brick wall of the

shattered building, the open sky above our heads.

The next morning as they started marching us, we entered

an open area. Still five abreast, we took up most of the road. I

figured we were now marching to the northeast of our original

location where the American forces had been routed. Once in a

while, we would come across an American vehicle upside down

in the ditch. We saw one truck on its side in the ditch near a


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telephone pole. A man from the battalions wire section had

been climbing the pole when he was shot. His body still clung to

the base of the pole, frozen the way he had fallen. His comrade

lay in the same position on the ground beside him. It was one

of many similar scenes we saw as we marched deeper into the

Reich.

Our greatest difficulty while marching was the lack of water.

We crossed no other streams, and the guards seemed unable

to find any place where we could get drinking water. A man

can go without food, but he cannot go long without water. As

we continued marching cross-country, we entered a cluster of

farmhouses where two women staggered out to the roadside

with a washtub full of water for us. A cheer went up from the

prisoners. We who were on the outside of the column near the

tub started dipping into it with our helmets as we went by. I gotabout half a helmet full and passed it around to the four or five

guys nearest me. But the guards saw what was happening, and

they ran up the line shouting curses. They kicked the tub into

the ditch and struck at the women with the stocks of their rifles,

knocking them to the ground. The women fled back into their

house.

Since I had been wearing my full field pack when captured,

I still had my canteen. With Hanson and I sharing the canteen

between us, our initial water supply lasted the first day and

night, but then we had to start looking for water wherever wecould find it. I quickly learned to march on the outside of the

column as often as possible. As medics, we had a supply of

water-purification tablets with us. Sometimes there would be

a trickle of water in a ditch from the rain or melting snow, and

I would scoop ditch water into the canteen. Then, I would add

two or three purification tablets, shake it well, and let it settle for

a while. In this way, we had something to drink.

We couldnt simply pack snow into our canteen for drinking.

The snow along the German roads was soiled with the constant

traffic: trucks and refugees with horse-drawn wagons, teams of

horses pulling big guns or trucks. Facing a shortage of fuel to

continue the war, the Germans had resorted to horses for pulling

vehicles to the front lines. The snow on the roads was beaten to

slush, while that on the roadside was coffee-colored and littered

with debris. Conditions were worse when we passed through

towns. Even if we had been able to pack some clean snow into

the canteen, it would have taken hours for it to melt, hugged

against our body under our clothes. Dipping into the ditch

and adding purification tablets was the best method we had for

wetting our lips.

Getting water from the ditch could be hazardous. If a guard

saw anyone step out of line, he would come running to give the

offender a blow in the ribs with his rifle butt. And shortly after

scooping up water from one roadside ditch, we found a deadhorse lying bloated in the same ditch upstream. Still, the water

looked clean enough to us. I put in a double dose of purification

tablets as a precaution, and we drank it anyway.

We didnt know where we were going, but rumors rippling

through the line said we were heading toward the high ridge

above Prm, the town that was to have been our objective in the

spring offensive. From the top of the ridge, we could see behind

us for several miles. We looked down upon Prm and across a

patchwork of German farmland and forests.

It was December 24th, Christmas Eve, our first full day ofmarching after being marched to Auw on the first afternoon.

Some of the captives began saying things like, Were going to

get a train. Theyre going to put us on a train when we get to

Prm. We marched down into the city, down the main street of

Prm, where the rubble from ruined buildings was ten feet deep

on either side. The column wound its way among the wreckage

from one side of the city to the other.


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the biscuits in the water from the ditch. That was our ration for

December 25, 1944. That was our Christmas dinner.

Were marching, someone shouted. Resume the march.

We were still hungry, but we forced our cold and blistered feet

back on the road. Rumors now reported that the guards would

make us cover at least fifteen miles a day. We marched for the

remainder of Christmas Day.

Just before dark, we reached a small town. As usual, I was

on the outside of the column, marching on the left side this time.

The guards stopped us in the town for some reason, and while

we waited for further directions, I noticed two women walking

along the road to church. I dug into my pocket to find something

I might trade with them for food and chose a metal soap dish. It

contained a fragrant bar of faded red Lifebuoy soap that I had

partially used. Only three quarters of it remained, but it stillgave off its aroma a fresh, pungent aroma. As the women

passed by, I slipped the cover from the soap dish. They acted as

though they had never seen soap like it. Through broad gestures

and ridiculous pantomime, I made them understand that I would

trade them the soap for something to eat. One woman hurried

away, leaving the other beside me. She returned with half a

pie. It looked and tasted something like a banana cream pie or

a coconut cream pie always one of my favorites. The women

were equally thrilled with their bar of soap, though I kept the

metal dish. One of them carefully wrapped the little luxury ina cloth and put it in her pocket. Hanson and I had a quarter of

a pie apiece, and we gulped it down. It seemed like I had never

tasted anything so good in my life.

The column started forward again, and we trudged away from

the little town. We slept in a barn that night, which was better

than a brick warehouse or a factory building, and the guards

gave us each a ration of three or four little potatoes the next

morning. The potatoes were steam cooked with the skins on.

If they were clean, which they generally were when they were

steamed, we wouldnt even bother to peel them. We would eat

them, skins and all.

It was now December 26, and we still did not know where

we were going. We still had not caught a train. Along the line

of prisoners, we heard rumors about catching a train just around

the next bend, and then we would hear about the railroads being

bombed. So, we marched on.

We followed a gravel road in fairly open country now, where

the snow was about five or six inches deep. Again, American

planes appeared on the horizon. We feared they would mistake

us for bedraggled German troops and open fire. As the shadows

of the fighter planes overtook us, we broke ranks and ran. I ran

into a field with one group of prisoners who were stomping out

U.S.A. in enormous letters in the snow. The German guards

joined us in making the snow letters, because they knew if thefighter pilots got the message, they would be safe too.

The pilots waggled their wings to acknowledge us and did not

shoot. They sped on toward the east while the guards reorganized

us.

Before we resumed marching, one of our military vehicles,

driven by a German, roared past our scattered ranks. It was one

of our battery mess trucks, according to the number on its back:

C Battery, 589th. Oh, how it hurt us to see that! But about that

time, one of the fighter pilots returned and spotted the truck. A

short distance down the road from us, he blasted it. Loud cheerswent up from the captives. Later, when we were reorganized

and marching on the road again, we passed the burning remains

of the battery mess truck.

We marched until nearly dark and came to another little town

where a railroad track crossed the road. Evidently, the same

fighter planes had bombed this track because the Germans had

captive laborers working with picks and shovels to repair it.

The guards escorted us to what looked like military barracks

in a vacant German camp. There were half a dozen one-story

buildings arranged in a horseshoe shape where we were to spend


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the night. As in the warehouse and factory buildings on previous

nights, there were no means to heat the barracks, but Hanson and

I still had our blankets, and the building served to cover us from

the elements. We had a roof over our heads, but Hanson said,

Lets get under that table in the corner and see if we can get

some sleep under there.

During the night, Allied planes flew over on night patrol to

take out the freshly repaired railroad track again. Some of the

bombs hit the roof of our building, so we were thankful to have

the table covering us too.

In the morning, we lined up again to march out of the little

town.

That day, with the air attacks foremost in everyones mind,

the guards avoided the roadways and led us through the fields.

I was near the middle of the column, where I could again seehundreds of men ahead of me, winding their way through the

farmland, and the same thing behind me.

Some of the prisoners discovered little mounds of dirt covered

with snow in the fields. The soldiers who had grown up on

farms figured there would be something in the mounds, maybe

potatoes, rutabagas, or turnips. Those at the front of the column

started digging into the mounds with their hands to uncover the

vegetables. By the time the guards could chase them away, they

had the treasures exposed.

We rushed to fill our pockets with raw potatoes, carrots,rutabagas, turnips, beets, or whatever was under the mounds.

We ate the vegetables as we marched, though we had no way

to cook them. We simply sliced them up however we could.

Hanson and I used a scalpel from our medical kit. The mound

raids occurred several times, and each time the guards would

chase us back into line.

There were two or three Negro soldiers in our group, marching

in the same part of the column near Hanson and me. In my

customary position near the outside of the line, I noticed that the

German civilians in the countryside were more apt to throw these

soldiers something to eat, simply out of curiosity, as though they

were animals on parade. As the order of the column reshuffled

at various stops, I made a point to march directly behind one

of the Negro soldiers to catch what food he might miss. This

happened numerous times. I would pick off the road whatever

he didnt catch. It was one of the things we learned to do as we

went along.

It became difficult to keep track of days, but it must have been

December 27 when we came to a beer hall at the edge of a town.

The Germans put us up there for the night. The beer hall was

far more comfortable than our previous lodgings not warm but

not drafty, well-built and clean. I felt like we were walking into

a church. We had a good nights sleep there.

The next morning was the usual routine. We all lined up

outside the hall while the guards counted us. We had nothing toeat that morning unless we had saved some of the raw vegetables

from the mounds. Again we marched cross-country avoiding

the roads.

Some pilots captured from the Allied air force joined our

ranks. Their planes had been shot down, and the Germans

had taken them prisoner immediately. They marched with the

column dressed in their leather flying suits with fleece linings. It

was difficult for them to march in their thickly padded suits.

By this time, the column of captives faced widespread

dysentery, the result of contaminated food and water. Thanksto our purification tablets, Hanson and I had no problems yet,

but many of the prisoners did. Occasionally, I would see one of

them leave the line to squat by the road while a guard prodded

him impatiently, but the sick man had to relieve himself. We

relieved ourselves wherever and whenever we could. We had

no choice.

That night, we stayed again in a barn and slept in the hay. At

dawn, we received some potatoes and a brew they called coffee,

prepared by the farmers. The drink tasted nothing like coffee,


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but it was wonderful to swallow something besides purified

ditchwater.

Now there was no more talk about trains as we continued

traveling north. We crossed the Rhine River where a city strad-

dled its banks. This must be Cologne, I decided. The people of

Cologne peered out at us from upper story windows, and many

hurled trash at our column. Captive airmen were special targets.

The townspeople saw the aviators among us and recognized that

they were from the hated airplanes. Terrorflieger! the Ger-

mans shrieked. Terror flyers!

They pitched rocks at the airmen, some hitting us. I pitied

these airmen above all, because it was hard enough for them to

march in their flying uniforms and clumsy, padded boots.

Beyond the Rhine, we came to the edge of another town. It

might be Gerolstein, we supposed, though we had no way ofknowing for sure. A web of railroad tracks converged here,

crowned with an old brick building tumbled in upon itself. Only

a shred of roof and a couple walls remained standing. Little

narrow-gauge tracks ran into the building, making me think it

must have housed some kind of loading apparatus for the trains.

The guards ordered us to take cover between the walls for the

night.

That late December night was one of the bitterest we had ex-

perienced. Many of us already had frostbitten feet. Like Han-

son and me, most of the captives had no footwear appropriate forwinter, and our combat boots, lacking insulation, did not keep

our feet warm. Worse still, many of the prisoners had wounds or

writhed with dysentery. We were exhausted and starving.

The Germans distributed a ration of bread in the railyard that

night. It was the same sour, black bread with the vinegar line

that we ate on our first day in Schnberg, but the bread seemed

to taste better now that we were hungrier. We also received

part of a Red Cross parcel. By some miracle, the Germans had

obtained Red Cross parcels. Unfortunately, the parcel from

which I received a portion contained only foods like rice which

I could not eat raw. We had no way of cooking such food and

nothing to put it in to boil it.

When some of the men tried to build little fires within the

building to warm their hands and feet, the guards were outraged.

They cursed and swore and kicked the fires out. With jabs from

their rifles, they made it clear that they would start shooting if

we made any fires. The smallest light could bring down a rain

of fire and brimstone upon us all from the ever-strengthening

Allied air force.


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A MEDICS WAR 49

CHAPTER FIVEM. Stammlager IV-B

Long after daylight the next morning, the guards started

loading us into boxcars, fifty men to a car. The boxcarswere not as large as those in the States. They were single trucks

with only four wheels on each car, and they did not ride smoothly;

every joint in the track jolted us inside. It was rough riding, but

that was hardly the worst of our problems.

The guards loaded fifty men into each boxcar, where

thirty-five would have been too many. We had only enough

room to sit with our backs wedged against the wall, our knees in

an upright position with our feet to the middle of the floor. The

men on the other side of the boxcar sat in the same way with

their feet against ours, shoulder to shoulder along the walls and

across the ends of the car.

More than half of the prisoners, including me by now, had

succumbed to severe diarrhea. We had to relieve ourselves, but

we could only accomplish this by crawling across one another

to the sliding door of the boxcar. We could not open the door

because it was locked from the outside, but there was space near

its base large enough to see out. There we would squat and

relieve ourselves through the gap along the door. The guards

never opened the door during the entire ride. In the sub-freezing


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temperatures, our waste quickly froze in a pile along the door. It

was unavoidable. Personal hygiene was simply nonexistent.

The journey by boxcar lasted about three days and

three nights. If timekeeping had been difficult during our long

march from Schnberg, marking

A Medic's War

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