My Life in the Army by Thomas Yeseta

8/6/2019 My Life in the Army by Thomas Yeseta

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My Life in the Army Thomas Yeseta

A personal recollection of thelife and times of Thomas Alexander Yeseta

of his years in the U.S. Army1943-46


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Thomas Yesetas hand-written memoir is copied here in its entirety,supplemented by verbal stories, recollections,

and personal photographs.

Text copyright 2010 by Thomas YesetaDesign copyright 2011 by Carmela Yeseta


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The 80th Infantry DivisionThe Blue Ridge Division

Most of the men of the 80th come from Eastern states of the U.S. around the BlueRidge Mountains of Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia, and Ohio.

We saw 274 days in combat.

:: Prelude ::

Well, you know, it was the greatest adventure I ever had.

I forgot a lot, but a lot of things I never forgot. I tell you a lot of times, Id wakeup at night and think about it.


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Company B 305th Combat Engineers with 318 Infantry Regiment, 80th Division


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In the following pages, I will try to tell about my life in the Army. At rst a little aboutmyself, but mostly of the men in the engineers and infantry.

The 80th Division was involved in four major battles1. Northern France

2. The Ardennes Offensive (the Battle of the Bulge)3. The Rhineland4. Central Europe

One other way to describe the situation is that we fought in the dust of France, the snowsof Belgium and Luxembourg, and the mud of Germany.

:: Foreword ::


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Just after D Day Staging area near Omaha Beach Atcherbourg

England between Liverpool and Manchester

Getting ready for rst battles at St. Jores, Carentan, Avranche, Argentan, and Le Mans


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At North Texas State Te

Thomas Yeseta

On February 1943 I was attending Los Angeles City College taking math and engineering classes.The country was getting more involved in the war. A lot of guys were enlisting in the Navy. Somany, that the government put a stop to it. No one was joining the Army. At about this time I gotmy Greetings letter from the President of the U.S.

It was such a large group that we did not report to Fort McArthur in San Pedro. We were told toreport to the Union Station in downtown Los Angeles. We were told not to bring any extra clotheswith us just what you were wearing. There were so many guys that we lled up the whole train.The train left Los Angeles and arrived in Utah in the Wasatch Mountains at 3 am the next morn-ing, snow on the ground and freezing temperatures. Most of us had short-sleeved shirts. We quicklygot into some barracks to warm up. There we were given a barracks bag and they started to issue usclothes to ll it up to the top. Then we were assigned a bed.

The next few days they quizzed us about our life andschooling. They had us take an IQ test, plus others.Here the guys went in different directions. A big groupof us went on a train heading south. I remember going through the Royal Gorge a beautiful trip. The Gorgewas very narrow, only wide enough for the train plusa narrow river, but 1000 feet deep. No such trains gothrough anymore. But they conduct tours from one side,and you can take a tour now driving from Cannon City,Utah, to the rim. There you ride a cog wheel train downto the river at a platform, stay for fteen minutes, thenride up to the top.

Now coming back to our Army train ride heading south: We ended in Texas in the Panhandle. We found ourselvesin Camp Bowie in north Texas a lousy place. Here wetook basic training, then we moved south to Fort Hood,the largest camp in the U.S. Now we were in the tank destroyers. Here we took extensive training.

My Life in the Army


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At North Texas State Teachers College

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My Life in the Army

After a while, they had me go to college. I went to Denton, Texas, where I attended North TexasState Teachers College (now called North Texas). After one semester, I got cabin fever. I got tothinking that Im going to miss out of the war. So on a weekend pass to Fort Worth I went to an

Air Force recruiting station and told them that Id like to take pilot training. After some questionsand tests, I went back to school. A week later they called me and had me go to Yuma, Arizona,

to wait for a school to enter and take pilot training. After waiting for more than a week, they toldme that they suspended all pilot training.

So at about this time the 80th Division was leaving Arizo-na from desert maneuvers. So they placed me in the 80thwith the 305th Combat Engineers, Company B. Here Ifound myself on a train heading east. We arrived at Tren-ton, New Jersey. After a day or so, we found ourselvesboarding the Queen Mary. Our whole division boarded,plus many other units totaling more than 16,000 men. 1

A normal passenger count is a little over 9,000 persons.Most of the rooms were small, so most of us did not havean assigned bed.

Walking around inside the ship, I came across the playroom for the British sailors the dart room. I askedthem if I could sleep on the oor. The answer was yes,so I curled up on the oor next to the wall. It just hap-pened that the darts target was above me. The sailorswere pretty accurate, so I felt safe. It was very warm inthe room, so I did not need any blankets. This was mybed for seven nights. Yes, it tookv seven days to cross the

Atlantic Ocean; in peace time it took just 3 days.

The reason for the seven days is that the ship zigzaggedacross the ocean every seven minutes. Once the Queen Marygot going, no other ship could keepup, so that meant we got no escort. We didnt know it at the time, but Hitler offered any U-Boatcommander 1,000,000 marks if he sunk the Queen Mary.We were not issued any life vests.

There were so many men aboard that the kitchen could only serve two meals a day. British food!So the meals were not appetizing. Most of the time it was mutton and hash. When you rst joined the chow line, you walk from one end of the ship to the other end and go down severaldecks back and forth. It took about one hour to get food. But we had to eat something.

Our going across the Atlantic was in July and the weather was good. Finally reaching Great Brit-ain, we could not dock at the London harbor because it was too crowded. So we headed up the


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Skip, Chuck, and me

Chow!

T h e d o r m s o f N o rt h T ex a s St a t e, C o k e H a ll

Mc P h e r s on, a k a M ont an a

Thomas Yeseta

scrapbook

North Texas State Teachers Colle


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John Paha

Tom Guida m

Doc and me

A r m on d B i a g i ann i

Montana and me

J o hn O z y

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scrapbook Army Friends and Buddies


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L e f t t o r ig ht: V l a d o V u k o ja, m e, J o hnn y R a sc h

T ony C hi rola

Tom Lockridge

F o rt D ix | L e ft m ost:m e;r ig ht m o st : D a br io

Peter Meyer

J o e L o u r et o v ic h

Andy and Johnny Orzurovich

Ivan Bullu


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Somewhere along the time, I painted a sign in front of the jeep and below the windshield

Los Angeles City Limits

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My Life in the Army

Western coast and docked in Greenock, Scotland. Therewe disembarked and got on a train waiting for us andheaded south to an open grass area for a day. I rememberthat at 10:30 pm it was still light. I didnt realize that wewere so much farther north than Los Angeles. Now it was

time to leave England and head for France. So we foundourselves leaving the East Coast of England and on an LCI(landing craft infantry) heading towards France. I lookedback and saw the famous White Cliffs of Dover.

The LCI hit the beach and the ramp in front went downand we all got off. Now this was in July, so there was noopposition as yet. But there was still an American soldiersbody oating at the beach.

:: ~ ::

Now we all gathered at Argentan and St L. We stayed there about a week waiting for morethousands of soldiers to land at this area at OmahaBeach. After the Army felt that there was enoughmen to make an attack we were ready to goforward. 2 As we pushed forward we took the ancientwalled city of Metz. 3 General Patton was happy,as he was a historian. Oh, I forgot to mention thatbefore we started the famous St L breakthrough,Patton was leaving the North African desert andcame over to the St L area and formed the new 3 rd

Army. We were originally in the 1 st Army. Now wewere in the 3 rd .

After leaving Metz behind, we pushed forward andat the same time, we bypassed a large group of

Germans that were surrounded. We left another American division to circle them and not attack them, but to starve them. Finally, the Germans gave up.

Every day we pushed forward, gaining new ground. Things were moving pretty fast as theopposition was not too heavy. Sometimes it was hard to tell exactly where the front line was. Atthis time a group of us were huddled around a jeep and its driver. We were in the open eld and


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Thomas Yeseta

the Germans saw us. Soon the Germans shells were landing around us. All of us ran to a ditch forcover. The jeep was still exposed, so I jumped up, ran to the jeep, started it, and drove it to a lowarea, not to be seen by the Germans. Someone told the C.O., Capt. Marshall, about this and I wascalled in about this. The Captain wanted to know if I wanted to be the new jeep driver. I accepted

Captain Marshall . . . I think he was a nephew of General Marshall, the big general. So hisname was Robert Marshall, and he was out of West Point, so he was really gun-ho at the

time. . . . He was very inquisitive. Because I saved the jeep that time, he thought I was gun-

ho. He didnt know I was scared to death all the time.

You know, about that time there was an editor of theL.A. Times or Examiner, I forgot which, and he wrotearticles of Los Angeles, and that was his heading Los Angeles City Limits. So I decided to paint that on thefront of it, just for fun. It identi ed me from other guysbecause as I drove to di erent parts, Id get a guy holler

out, Hey, L.A.! Because he was from L.A., too.


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Tom Guida at left; rightmost, another wartime frien

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My Life in the Army

and drove the jeep during the rest of the war.

As I said before, the land was kind of open. At this time, Capt. Marshall wanted to seesomething in another part of the front. So he wanted to have me drive him to this location. Wealso had my best friend Tom Guida sit in the back seat, as an extra ri e. We drove on this dirt

road to the edge of a vineyard. We walked forward from the jeep to the edge of a village. Thenarrow dirt road 4 was on our right and the vineyard to the left. The rst house was in the frontof us about ten yards. We were crouched in a depression and looking to the house.

The three of us were huddled together. All at once my buddy fell over to the right. I looked athim and saw a hole on his left temple. He died instantly.

I did not hear a shot, but it came from the vineyard. I tap the captain on the shoulder to alerthim. Without saying anything, he jumps up and goes to the rst house so I follow him. All atonce a group of about ten black men appear in front of us. They are all over six feet tall and

each one has a machete. The captain takes off running back to my jeep. I decided not to ask them what army they belong so I also run back to my jeep. 5 I started the engine and we wentback to our company. That night I could not sleep at all. I had lost my best friend.

:: ~ ::


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A little schnapps

Thomas Yeseta

From now on, we kept advancing forward, taking over town after town. Every town had a churchwith a steeple. As the Germans retreated, they usually left a man in the steeple to shoot at us. Whenthe tanks came up, we had them shoot at the steeple. Now it was a common practice every steeplewas knocked out from now on. As we fought through the town and liberated it, many of the peoplewould come toward us, carrying all their belongings to the town behind us probably to their ownhome. As we had left these behind, the houses were mostly destroyed.

A lot of people from that town we had just liberated all theirbelongings were coming back towards us, because I guess

their houses were what we left. We just left that town. So thesepeople carry all their belongings on their back, and nobody

had anything to eat. The only people who had something werethose on the farms. In the cities, everybody was starving to

death. Very sad to see those people, because theyre starving,they didnt have a house. No place to go.

All these people had little toeat. The people in the farmhouses had a little more foodthan the ones in town. Iremember once in a woodedarea, we were having some hotfood late in the afternoon. As Iwas nishing my dinner, a nunappeared with a small bucketand dipped it into our garbage container to get some food and then disappeared to where shecame from. We got hot food depending on the situation. At other times, we were given 3K rations.This was the case when we attacked in the morning and did not know where we would be thatafternoon.

Once in a while when we took overa small town or village, we wouldgo down into their basement to seewhat they had. As I said before,the country people had some food.They would put up food fruit and

vegetables in glass jars. But none of us took any; we had our own food.Once we found some schnapps and

decided to try some but only if itpassed our test: We poured a coupleof drops on the table and lit itwith a match. If it burned with ablue ame, we drank a swig of it.

There were a lot of displaced people during the war. Really, the Eu-ropeans, they know what war is; because it was right on their ground.

Right in their towns. Over here in America, we dont know.


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Mess Hall

Food and Rations in the Army

K Rations came in heavy brown wax cardboard boxes, inthe shape of a 1 lb. butter box, but a little larger.

What are 3K rations?

Its a box, little bit bigger than one pound of butter. You know how butter comes in a little card-board box. These were a little bit bigger with real thick cardboard with wax on it, real tight. Really hard to open up. You almost needed a bomb to open them up!But they had three rations: one for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Like I said, if we didnt know where we were going to be after an attack, they gave us three of those. The middle one alwayshas a can. So for breakfast, it was scrambled eggs in a can. At lunch, solid cheese. A lot of cheese ina can; it was like a tuna can. And then the dinner ones had meat in it. One of them had cigarettes,another had toilet paper. They had candy in there and crackers, things like that.

The mechanics and thecooks were the same people.Ill say this ahead of time: Ithink when they were cook-ing, instead of using oliveoil, they used 10-30 penn-zoil. Im exaggerating, but it tasted like that.

We never did have Spam. A lot of other guys in di erent out-ts, they had Spam and they complained. But we wish wehad Spam. Of course, you canbuy it now in the grocery store.

Its pretty good!

Actually, when we rst cameto France, we were getting

some canned goods, but they told us they were from World

War I. One can was beans,and another can was mush. It

didnt taste too good, but it was still okay.

After a hot meal we would throw our scraps into can #1,then dip our mess kits into the hot water, one after one.

garbage leftovers hot, boiling water - no soap breakf

lunch

dinne

round can of scrambled eggs and cigarettes,toilet paper, etc.

round can of cheese and candy, etc.

round can of potted meat,

etc.


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Adopted boy, second from

Adopted boy, center; Peter Meyer, rightmost; me, leftmost

Thomas Yeseta

As we advanced through France, one afternoon whileresting a young boy of about 12 years of age kepthanging around. Every day he came over to us. Soon

we adopted him. Our supply sergeant had some Armyclothes cut down to his size. He looked cute. He stayedwith us the rest of the war. We took care of him kepthim in the rear all the time. We gured he had noparents.

When we had to leave up in Pilsen, when we oc-cupied it, we had to leave. We were really sorry. He

couldnt come with us. He wanted to come withus. We were leaving to come home, and he couldnt

come with us.

Here is another side story: While we were in France andin a farm area we spotted some cattle. At rst glance wesaw some cows. At second glance we saw T-bone steaks. Wechoose a tender-looking one. I had a rope around his neck and held him steady. One of our guys got a sledgehammer


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My Life in the Army

We never built a Bailey Bridge ourselves; that wasnt our job. We just got the infantry across on our pontoon bridges with the boards on top. When

we got enough infantry across on the other side to move forward, maybe 100 yards or so, then the bigger engineers came and built the big bridges. The

big bridges, they had to put them on fast because they needed tanks and jeeps and trucks to go over and get us some supplies.

from our truck while I held on to the rope. My friend swung the sledgehammer and hit the cowon the forehead no reaction. Again, a second time no reaction. A third time and the cow fell tothe ground. My friend (who was a farmer in the States) got his knife from his belt and then slit thecows throat. As the blood was gushing out, he cupped his hands to scoop the red warm blood anddrank it. I guess this is a delicacy to farmers. So we cut up the cow for steaks and made a re and

had a bar-b-que. But we were disappointed they were tough. The problem was that the meat wastoo fresh, not aged at all. The farmer who owned the cows complained to our captain, so we weretold not to do that anymore.

We kept taking town after town and getting closer to the border. Soon we were getting close to theMoselle River. This river separates France from Germany. As we fought our way to the west sideof the big river, we stopped and had to plan our crossing. It was our job to take the infantry across.This meant building a foot bridge. We had toin ate rubber oatation boats and then putwooden boards on top so that the infantry

could walk across to the other side. All of uswere exposed to the Germans. We were shotat with ri e re, German machine guns, andmortars. 6 I laid down as at as I could on mystomach, my face looking away from the river.

All at once a piece of shrapnel landed onefoot from my face a real jagged piece andpure white. As it cooled it went from white to

yellow to orange to red and nally to black.I thought it was cool, so I picked it up and

burnt my ngers.

After about two hours of hot metal ying around, we nally got to the other side and kept pressing forward. The Germans put up a big ght because we set foot on German ground. We kept pressing forward for several miles so that the big engineers came up to build a bridge for tanks and trucksto get across. The engineers put up the Bailey Bridge; it is a British invention. It was put up like anerector set. At Christmas time in the U.S., some boys got an erector set to build. Same idea to buildthe Bailey Bridge. The other engineers started by extending the parts until it went over the riverand so on.


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Thomas Yeseta

Since we were now on German soil, the ghting got tougher. But we set a pattern that didnt quitemake sense. At dawn on every morning, our artillery would open up with a barrage of 75 mmshells. After about 15 minutes, the shelling stopped, and the infantry, engineers, and tankers took off to attack. This was the scary part. We were exposed to the enemy while the Germans wereable to hide as they defended themselves. This pattern never changed. They knew we were coming

every day. But we kept this up every day and gained new ground.

As we fought forward we passed many bodies Americans and Germans. The German bodieswere on the ground longer so their skin turned a deep purple color (there were no morticians onthe front lines). I even noticed water squirting from a guys hand.

We were always moving forward and taking newground. Quite often wemoved laterally to take

another divisions position.Sometimes to the left andalso to the right. We foundout later that these divisionswere not moving forward.

I remember once that we were replacing a unit it was after sundown and damp with aslight drizzle coming down. I came to this wooded area a little later than my friends. Most

of the ideal spots to bed down were occupied so I found a spot next to a dead German. I

placed my sleeping bag next to him with myhead next to his feet. There was no odor as theweather was cool.

I could tell that these other American soldierswere here a long time because of the elaboratefox hole they made. They dug a hole vefeet by six feet deep. They made steps on oneside and then a right turn. They placed treebranches on the top, plus leaves and mud.

At the crack of dawn we moved forward totake more ground. As time went on, we keptlosing men, either killed or wounded. So wekept getting replacements, usually young boyswho had no experience. After a while the Army

You see, when you die here, you go to a mortuary and they drai your blood. But of course, in the war, you cant drain the bloo

so if youre dead for a few days, you turn purple. The bo would get big. Ive seen Germans where their bodies would get s

big, their buttons were almost ready to burst. And Ive seen littlsquirts of water coming out of guys hands. Its a very ugly sigbecause, well, its just ugly. You got dead bodies all over the plac

What Im saying here is that they were thereso long not moving forward, that they had a ve-foot-by- ve-foot deep hole, and they built it up with steps to go down and they had threebranches on top. They were really completely safe, except for a direct hit. They were never moving forward, so they must have been therea long time. In fact, I never dug a fox hole.Never. All I would do is lay down as at as pos-sible and hope for no direct hit.

We were always moving laterally, left to right;these divisions were not moving, so we went and took over for them. Wed mix in withthem; next morning, wed take o and gain new ground. Thats why General Patton said we were his best infantry division.


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decided to change the name from replacements to reinforcements for morale reasons.

Once I had to go back to the rear for some reason. I saw the G.R.S. at work. GRS stands for GraveRegistration Service. Two guys had a stake bed truck where they threw the American bodies on.One soldier would grab the hands of the dead soldier and the other soldier would grab the dead

soldier by the ankles. They swung the soldier back and forth then on the third time, throw him onthe stake bed truck til it was full.

:: ~ ::

We kept pressing forward every day til we reached the Moselle River. This river separated Francefrom Germany. This was a good-sized river. Now we had to prepare to put the infantry across. TheGerman resistance stiffened. Oops, I think I wrote about the river crossing a few pages back.

Once again we had to cross the border at another location. This time, on dry land. We were

approaching the Maginot Line. On the French side were pill boxes. These are concrete buildingsabout the size of a room. These pill boxesfaced Germany. The French-facing side wassolid concrete. The German-facing side had anopening like a door and windows but no glass,of course. I was selected to be the ame thrower.This consisted of a large gasoline tank on myback with a connecting pressurized hose for meto handle. As I walked to the pill box or bunker,I was ready to shoot gasoline on the bunker. But

lucky for me there was no opposition. And thereis a reason for this the bunker was facing theGermans.

So we took over the Maginot Line. Now we hadto prepare to take the Siegfried Line. The Siegfried Lineconsisted of thousands of small concretepyramids about three feet high and placedclose enough so that a tank would get stuck in it. So now we had to plan a way to gothrough. Our division has one company of tanks (which equals to four tanks). So fortwo days we planned an assault with oneof the tanks. It was our job to attach a long snake a exible pipe about three inchesin diameter to the tank. Then as the tank

They would shoot that 88 and hit the ground. It wouldnt make too big a hole. Just a small hole,

but the hole would go like that, and all the shrap-nel would make a pattern. And when I see that pattern next to me or close by, I jumped up and

went closer to the Germans, because the pattern was going that way, the shrapnel was going that

way, so I felt safer by going that [other] way.

The main German artillery piece was thedreaded 88. It was very versatile. Some were

armour-piercing. Some made a big hole ina wall. Some exploded with shrapnel ying

around.

As I noticed the direction of this shrapnel, Imoved toward the Germans to avoid it. These

shells were the most common. Some shellsexploded above ground. Some shells that ex-ploded above ground threw out small balls of

re. One exploded above my head.


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The Maginot Line

Thomas Yeseta

Our idea to go through the Sieg-fried Line was to tie on a steel conduifull of explosives, like a big long snakand tie it onto the tank. And when thetank would attack to go through the

Siegfried Line, he would go to theSiegfried Line and go parallel to it andthen we would explode this long snake and blow a hole in the line to get through.

Well, during that time, we knew these in fact, it was the 602 Company, I remember the number. We knew these guys, got acquainted real well because we were practicing for a few days with whato do about this explosive snake. And then after the battle I happened to nd that tank and there was a hole right in the the thickest part of the tank. Well, this armour-piercing shell, it made a hole, the same size as an 88, went right through. I mean, thats powerful, to go through without breaking it up. Just like you got a drill and drilled a hole. And of course, it killed all the guys insid And we knew these guys. We practiced with them for about a week.

took off to the German line it was our job to set it off to explode at the line to blow a hole inthe line so that our tanks can go through. Well, it worked. Our infantry tanks and engineers

got through to the other side andcontinued forward through theafternoon.

Then at one point, we decided to stopand rest. Our mechanic cooks came


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My Life in the Army

forward and cooked us a hot meal then it was rest time. We didnt do much the rest of the dayand into the night. But we were always vigilant. The Germans did not counterattack; they werealso tired.

But almost every night at about midnight, a slow and low-moving German airplane would y over

hoping that one of us would light up a cigaret and expose our location so that he could drop asmall bomb on us.

Oh I forgot to mention that we werealways in fear. Sometimes it was easygoing, but most of the time, very scary.Especially when we would attack andthe bullets, mortars, and shells weredropping around us. I remember once when the toughest guy in our company was lying nextto me while the shells were dropping close by. I heard him whimpering. He was scared too.

From then on, I never felt ashamed to be scared.

:: ~ ::

Well, every day was about the same thing. Our artillery would open up with a barrage of shellsgoing overhead and towards the Germans. Then we would attack infantry, tanks, and engineers.

Now we were approaching the Oure River. It was a steep decline to the water. I was chosen to goacross with three other soldiers, but at the last minute I was called off to do another job. They wereto get across on a rubber boat and start to build a foot bridge. I learned later that two were killed,

but Bob Siegrist was wounded. Bob was a good friend of mine. 7

After a couple of days, I found myself crossing this river down stream on a small bridge that wasnot destroyed. I was driving my jeep on this narrow dirt road towards a slight hill. On the rightside our boys were pulling out the anti-tank mines. Myself and a friend of mine came to a fork inthe road. He told me to turn right. I questioned it and drove straight on. I drove up this slight hill.

When I reached the top of the hill, I came across a U.S. soldier in a fox hole. He told me to movefrom the spot where I stopped, as the Germans had this place zeroed in. I could see a short distancethat there was an open eld but a clump of trees at one spot. I presumed the Germans had an 88cannon in the trees.

One of the tanks followed me up the hill. I turned my jeep around to go downhill and the tank stopped at the location I left. Then a big bang. The Germans had knocked out the tank. As Icontinued downhill, we heard a very large explosion. It came from the area which I did not go to

from that fork I did not take. I drove to that area to see what happened. A jeep that we had seenearlier had run over a German anti-tank mine. Right next to the jeep was an American tank on its

Late in the afternoon, everybody took a rest, even theGermans. They wanted rest, too. They were tired.

We thought they might attack in the night, but they never did. ... But they always had an airplane, we

called it Midnight Charlie.


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Left Saar Basin in latenight behind lines and b

embourg. This was the o front lines from

Enns River

Thomas Yeseta

side also a victim of a mine. The explosion was so great that the jeep was totally destroyed. It wasa sad sight as all three boys were killed and dismembered.

The war zone was a very sad sight dead Americans and dead Germans.

:: ~ ::

On December 16, the Germans found a weak spot in the North. This was the beginning of the Ardennes Offensive, commonly known as the Battle of the Bulge. At this time we were very fareast in the Saar Basin near Saarbrcken. The Germanspenetrated deeply in Belgium and Luxembourg. Rightaway, General Patton told his boss General Marshall

that he was putting his two best divisions, the 80thand the 4th Armour, to come back west to engage theenemy divisions with our 80th Infantry and the 4th

Armour in the front lines in Belgium and Luxembourg.

At this point in the Saar Basin, we left our position andheaded west. We had left all the ground we fought for.

We drove all night. Trucks came to pick up the infan-try, and we all drove back west in caravan fashion. Atabout daybreak we swung around and took over the city

of Luxembourg again. It had been raining at this time,but now it got cold and snow was falling. This battle inthe snow lasted for ve weeks. It was 15 below zero, 47

below freezing.

We did not have many meals. About this timeit was Christmas, but I did not know the

day of Christmas. But soon the com-pany clerk drove up with mail. It

had to be sometime around

Christmas. I received a lotof packages, but some

guys didnt get any. Ikept one package andgave all the others tothe other boys. It wasa good thing we got mail as we didnt have any food to eat.

The Ardennes Offensive


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My Life in the Army

The cold weather made it uncomfortable; my feet were verycool. Some boys got gangrene and had to have their toescut off.

We didnt have any food to eat, no water. I had to eat snow.

Sleeping bags were not too good. In the war after us, they haddown bags, but our sleeping bag consisted of one blanket layer and then a cotton sheet over it, and that was it. And during theBattle of the Bulge we were there in Edelbrock. There was a

Im just fortunate. I really shouldvebeen hurt. The law of averages,

you know.But I did go back during the Battle of the Bulge to see a doctor because my

toes were frozen. A lot of the guys, they got gangrene and had their toes cut o . And I thought I was going to get that,

so I went back to the rear one day. Ihad an hour to go back, and they looked at my foot and they said it wasall right. I just couldnt feel, I couldnt feel my toes they were so cold. And then what they did we had leather shoes at that time, and some would leak water and some wouldnt, depending on if they had greaseon them good enough. Then they gave some of the guys rubber bootsand that was kind of a mistake because when they froze, their

feet got sweaty in rubber, and then they froze, and then they got gangrene. So that was not a good idea. They would have been

better o by having leather shoes. I had leather shoes, though

boots. But I wore two pairs of socks and even then I wasfrozen. .........

Cold and Hard

Memories from the Ardenn


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Bill Held and

Thomas Yeseta

Most of the guys were from back east,Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and so forth,and there was one guy, we called himLucky. He was from West Virginia, wasa real hillbilly. Never wore shoes until he came inthe Army, and he couldnt write or spell or whatev-er. He spoke, but you had to listen hard. He spokehis own English. I mean, really di erent. You had to listen real hard to nd out what he was saying.

And then Bill Held, he was from Pennsylvania, and he was thecompany clerk. Thirty- ve years old and a grandfather, and wecouldnt gure that out. But, boy, this guy was older than thehills. Thirty- ve years old! Thats really old! We were twenty- years old, see? But Lucky, he had a girlfriend back home, andhis girlfriend used to send him a letter. Lucky couldnt readit and he couldnt write. Bill Held was a good friend of his.Bill Held would write love letters for him to send back to hisgirlfriend....

[Bill Held] stayed with the headquarters and didnt get intoreal action on the very front lines. He got near, but not realclose. He was pretty well protected, which was good for him.

He was a nice guy, and he was a company clerk, he was a mail-man, and everything. He was the guy that delivered the pack-ages at Christmas with all the cookies I got and everything.Like Santa Claus! Somebody drove in with his jeep, and his jeep was full of mail. ...

So we had cookies for three days. Cookies, that kept us alive.

chateau, so we thought lets go inside the chateau. It might be warmer in there. And the Germanssaw us; they were snapping shells right at the entrance where we were going in. We got inside andthere were a bunch of guys, about 20 of us in there. And so we had to sleep someplace. The chateahad a marble oor, and so we put our sleeping bags on there on the marble oor, and, boy, was that ever cold . While we were in the chateau and slept there one night, we got thrown out because

another out t came in with a captain. He out -ranked us, so he threw us out and he slept insidethe chateau . The chateau had a toilet in there. And thats a luxury. So when we got thrown out,the guys ooded the toilet, so the captain of thenew out t couldnt use it. So we showed him!


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Me, Dabrio, and Doc after combat in Austria

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My Life in the Army

Bastogne they got a lot of credit, because thats wherethe 101st got surrounded. And they said they didnt need any help. Now we were just south of there in Edelbrock. Andtheyre both equal. They were both equal in importance.Both cities had ve highways going into it. People think that

tanks can go over anything, but theyre always looking for a road to go on. So if you could control those two cities, youreally control a lot of things, because you got ve highwayscoming in. So a tank always wants to go on a road all thetime. Once they got o the road they always got stuck. Wehad a 2 ton trucks, a lot of them. Each squad, thirteen guys,sat on a truck. First of all, I was in one of those trucks until Igot the jeep driver job.

So the 101st was surrounded, they got a lot of credit when

being surrounded in Bastogne. They said they didnt needany help, but we sent up one company of infantry up thereto help them to get them out of the jam. But nobody knowsabout that.

:: ~ ::

I forgot to mention earlier that as we were heading

toward Paris to liberate it, General Eisenhower had usdiverted to the south. He had the French troops go intoParis rst no doubt a political move.

We kept pressing forward and getting close to Austria. We were told to stop at the Enns River, and likewisethe Russians to stop at the Enns River. We got to theriver about three days before the Russians. Myself anda friend decided to cross the river on this small bridge. Idrove over and around and then decided to come back

across. As I came to the same smallbridge, there was a Russian soldierguarding it. I talked to him for awhile as he was suspicious of us. Af-ter a couple of minutes, I drove overthe bridge to join our boys.


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Russians GIs Near Liezen, Austria

King Ludwigs Linderhof Castle

Thomas Yeseta

Recollections

Stories from the War

One time we captured this little town anddecided, myself and this other guy decided that

we were going to take this house and sleepin this house for a change. So I got into this

house, and the woman of the house comes up tome and is bawling me out. Now you guys come

over in your airplanes and you bomb the city,and then evidently you miss because the air eld

is next door. So you had to come back the next day and bomb the air eld. So she was giving

me hell. But, hey, Im not driving the airplane!

Actually, you know what. I didnt like theregimentation back in the States. Back inthe war, it was di erent. There wasnt that much regimentation . I dont know how to say this, but I liked it better in the war, without all the regimentation saluting this, that,stand in line, stand straight. They didnt have none of that in the war. The offi cers and themen were all equal at that time. Nobody was better than the other guy. In fact, the offi cersthere were scared, too. They took o their insignias so they wouldnt be recognized as a primetarget. So then they blended in with us.

I had a chance to become a lieutenant, but I didnt want to go into another out t, so I stayed with the jeep. I likedthe jeep, and so I was what they call a T5, like a corporal with a T. T means technician. So I stayed with the jeep. I knew all the guys where I was.


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American bomber with German markings.We found this plane in a valley in Austria

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My Life in the Army

At about this time and to the rear, General Patton came over to see us and to thank us for doing agood job. We stayed around this area a while, but eventually we went to the Czech Republic to oc-cupy it. Some of us stayed at the Pilsen Airport. After a few days my captain asked me if I wanted

to go to London to school to take some college courses.I said yes, so I went to London to join some other boys

and stay at a hotel in downtown London. On weekends, Iwould take a bus to tour other parts of England. I got tosee Bouremouth (a popular beach town). Also the stone-henge and other parts of the country. Also the famousthatched roof huts or small homes.

After several weeks at school I had to go back to Pilsen.Now we were to leave Europe and go home. We formeda convoy of jeeps, trucks, etc. and started to drive outof Czechoslovakia. It was now winter and as I was driv-

ing, ice formed on my windshield. I couldnt see where Iwas driving so I had to reach over the windshield andscrape with my thumbnail a small opening about the sizeof a quarter to see ahead. As we left Pilsen we dropped inelevation; there was no more ice on the windshield. We

drove on to France and stopped for the night at the site of the cemetery of World War I.

The next day we drove on to the coast of France at LaHavre. There we boarded Americas larg-est ship, the U.S.S. Washington. I was assigned a bed down below and next to the side. I could hearthe water splashing on the outside. I started getting seasick before the ship left the dock. It took us

about seven days to cross the Atlantic, and I was sick all the time. Just before we landed I crawledto see the doctor aboard and he gave me a pill. I think it was an aspirin. Very soon I felt better and

just in time. We were entering the harbor and going past the Statue of Liberty. All the guys aboardwent to the left side of the ship to see the Statue of Liberty. She was waving to us. All eyes were onher. All was quiet nobody said a word. I think we docked at Trenton, New Jersey. We all walkedoff the ship to a staging area. That night late, at midnight, we were treated to a steak dinner.

The next day we were segregated into different groups depending on our location to home. I wasassigned to the group going to Los Angeles. The next day we were put on an airplane 8 the C47,otherwise a DC3. This was the most famous airplane ever built and some are still in existence. Ittook three days of ying time to cross the States. First day to Indiana and then to Texas. The planetraveled the south route because it only ew at 8000 feet elevation. It could not go over the tops of the Rocky Mountains. But ying so low we got to see lots of country.

Finally after three days, we landed in Long Beach. There we were let to go home on our own. Iwent out on the street and hitched a ride. I got a ride right away. This man gave me a ride all the


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Huge Parage Ground Nrnberg

Thomas Yeseta

At the very end of the war, we were at theborder of Germany and Austria and the town

was called Braunau. Hitler was born there.So we capture this town and my buddy, my

friends, and myself say were going to take

over this house and sleep on this bed, so we went into this house. I put my sleeping bag ontop of this bed, and he [my friend] comes in,

and he says, Tom, quick, take a look outside.So I left my sleeping bag, looked outside,

and the man of the house hung himself in theback yard. And he thought we were probably

going to kill him. And we never hurt anybody.Its too bad; we would have never hurt him. We were just going to take over his house.

I remember after the war I was in Europe. I think it was Germany, and I found a place to sleepin this house. They had a room for rent. And so I was in there, was looking out the window. Andthis is after the war, so things were scarce. Nobody had much food. And there was I think a cow

going by pulling a wagon. See, the Germans got desperate. They were losing their vehicles, sothey were having to use horses to pull their wagons with the 88 on it, or even a cow could pull oneof their cannons. Well, anyway, one of these cows by itself went by and the cow drops some of histurds on the ground. Well, two boys from inside come running over with their dust pans and try tobeat each other to pick up the turds. Because thats very important because they needed it for fertil-izer for their garden. Thats how important that is I never forgot those two kids. This was after the war and still things were scarce and these two kids were ghting for turds.

We captured one little house that must havebeen Party headquarters of the Nazis. Andit was a building ... like a double-story build-ing, and I went up to it. We had taken thistown; its our town now. And I went upstairs

to a big hall that was just full of Nazi ags,insignias, and all kinds of stu like that.


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My Life in the Army

Paris

On the Town


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Pete Meyer

On the coa

Thomas Yeseta

We could come in and take anything we wanted. Now, if I was dishonest and I had the biggest UPS truck there was, I could ll it up with all kinds of stu .

One time we captured this town, and Pete Meyer,hes German so he spoke the German language, so he

says, lets have some fun. So he calls in German to oneguy, and he says, Bring over the burgomeister. Theburgomeister comes running over to us, saying what could I do for you, and all this and that, and Pete Meyer says in German, he speaks to him and tells him (and theonly people left there are woman and older men; all the younger guys are in the Army).

So he says, I want everybody to bring over all their gunsthey got, bring them over here. So the burgomeister gets back and told

everybody, all the men to bring over their guns. They brought over, gee, they brought over beauti-ful shotguns. There was a whole pile of shotguns on the street. Oh, man, take your choice. Likeif I had a UPS truck and I brought those home, I could have sold them for hundreds of dollars. Imean, beautiful German workmanship, you know. Beautiful! Beautiful shotguns. They were not ri es; all mostly shotguns. They do a lot of hunting. And he says, OK, take em back.


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Juarez Mexico - January 19, 1944

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way to the front of my house I think he went out of his way to do so. I was still in the Army as Ihad to have a service-connected operation. I had the operation at a converted hotel by the suicidebridge at the Arroyo Seco.

Previous to this and after landing in Long Beach, I was with a few men in San Pedro. A group of

us were in this room sitting on benches. I was sitting in the front row center. As the door in frontof us opened, in walks General Eisenhower followed by many of cers. All the other soldiers stoodup right away, but I still was sitting down. General Eisenhower comes right up to me and asks meabout what branch of Army I was associated with. He was so close to me that I couldnt stand up.I didnt mean no disrespect but I think he understood. I think I may have reminded him of thetired characters in Bill Mauldins cartoons in the Armys Stars and Stripesnewspaper. After he walkedout followed by all the other of cers they all gave me a dirty look.

When I was nally let out of the Army, it was in February 1946 three years to the month.


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Me and my niece, Jojo Metvovich

Frances Yeseta : Do you remember where your mother was when you camehome?Tom : Yeah, she was in the kitchen.F : Did she know you were coming home that day?T

: No. No F : Must have been the happiest day in your mothers life.

Thomas Yeseta


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Notes

1. An infantry division has about 12,000 men. A tank division has about 10,000.2. Generally speaking, the Army regulations say that to attack, you should have a 3-1 advantageover the enemy simply because its easier to defend than attack.3. The walled city of Metz was safe from its enemies for hundreds of years.4. Ninety-nine percent of the roads in Europe were narrow and dirt.5. I still dont know who these black men are, but maybe they came from North Africa from landthat the French controlled.6. We could easily tell the difference from our machine guns to the Germans guns. Ours went put-

put-put , one bullet at a time. Theirs went burrb-burp-burp, many bullets at a time.7. Many years later Marie, Stuart, and I had lunch with Bob Siegrist and Pete Meyer in Europe.8. This view is looking from back to front.

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seats

foor

wings

airplane fuselage

We sat facing each other; very small, un-comfortable three days.


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Thomas Yeseta buddy, friend, husband, father, grandfather a quiet soul and once a young soldier under a brave command in a brave war.

From those back home, thank you.

Thomas Yeseta


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About Tom Yeseta

Thomas Alexander Yeseta was born in Los Angeles,California, in 1923 to Mate and Maria Yeseta, who hadimmigrated to the United States from Croatia. After the war, Tom married Frances Yeseta. They have twochildren and two grandchildren. Tom and Francescelebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 2003 andstill enjoy a happy marriage together. He loves to trav-el, enjoy good food and wine, and spend time with hisfamily and friends. He and his wife live in La Caada,

California.


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My Life in the Army by Thomas Yeseta

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