In October 1944, our entire division of approximately 15,000 men was ordered to go to Europe. We made a short term stop at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey, which allowed time for a pass or leave to visit our families. The whole division sailed on the original Queen Elizabeth, which was converted from a luxury steamship to a troop transport. The ship, unescorted, arrived in Scotland after five days, zigzagging its way speedily across the Atlantic. My unit stayed two weeks at a small town in Northern England, called Congleton, then moved to Monmouth, South Wales, where we spent two weeks renovating a camp for future use of troops coming there after we were to leave.

By the end of November, we shipped out to LeHavre, France. We were immediately taken to Alsace-Lorraine, where we were to begin combat assignments as part of Gen. Patton’s Third Army early in the morning on 11 December. The Third Army used a method for foot soldiers going into an attack called assault fire. This meant that a long line of men, a few feet apart from each other, side by side, and facing the enemy, walked straight ahead at a rapid pace. Every alternate man would take a few steps forward, while the men beside him would stand still, aiming their rifles straight ahead. This would then be switched so the previously stationary men would walk ahead, while those who had advanced would stop and aim their rifles. This process continued, allowing the whole line to move. Since it was very cold that day, we wore our backpacks over our coats.

That day, I found that a bullet had gone through the front of my coat, and a second bullet had gone through the backpack. This must have occurred as I stood sideways, aiming my rifle during the alternate pauses in our advance. Neither bullet had touched my body.

As our movement developed that day, a buddy and I became separated from our unit as we moved closer to buildings on top of an open area of a high hill. We encountered two German soldiers and took them prisoner. I communicated with them in my high school French.

All of a sudden, we were being shot at from all directions while we were exposed in a clearing on top of this hill. A second personal miracle took place when the shooting stopped after I waved bandage gauze in the air in desperation. The two of us quickly moved back towards the rear of our lines, with our two prisoners.

We found a sergeant from our company lying on the ground, seemingly in shock, having been injured in the knee. With the aid of our prisoners, we were able to carry the sergeant back with us to a place where we could leave him with medical personnel for his evacuation to a hospital. Before we turned over the sergeant, we met the captain who headed our company. He insisted on walking back alone, without our help, even though wounded in his stomach or abdomen. We took our prisoners to a command area, and then my buddy and I rejoined our unit that night. We later learned that one of our four platoons (40 men) from our company had been captured by the Germans that first day.

The 87th was pulled out of the Saar after the German major Ardennes offensive into Belgium. On December 29th we were moved by truck to the “Belgian Bulge” vicinity to help break up this attack. It became much colder with a tremendous amount of snow which remained all around us as we had to stay outdoors on strategic hills, day after day.