Battered Bastards of Bastogne

by George Koskimaki

  Life was almost back to normal in the 326th Medical Company area at Mourmelon. Capt. Willis P. McKee had duty hours at the General Hospital in Rheims and the men were busy planning Christmas parties. McKee’s rather sedate life was shaken suddenly with a grisly duty he had to perform. He wrote:

  A very depressing event happened at Mourmelon. Early one morning, I was called to Division Headquarters. Colonel Ray Millener, chief of staff, had stood in front of his bathroom mirror, put his service .45 to his mouth and fired. On his bedside table was a copy of War and Peace. Perky (my driver) and I took the body to the General Hospital in Rheims where an autopsy was performed. We then spent the rest of the rainy day finding a military cemetery that was open.

  In his book, Fred McKenzie wrote about the strain on both body and spirit that had affected many of the men.2

  Though it showed outwardly only here and there, many of the officers and enlisted men were still beat in body and spirit. Less than three weeks had passed since their withdrawal from combat. In recent days a staff officer and a master sergeant had blown out their brains with .45 caliber bullets. Mental strain and physical drain had caught up with them at last after the haven of Camp Mourmelon was reached.

  Colonel Raymond Millener had parachuted into Normandy without having completed parachute school. His stick of jumpers had been dropped many miles southwest of the drop zone and the group had successfully eluded the enemy patrols which searched for them. They arrived at Division HQ six days after the jump. On the Holland mission, the members of his stick of headquarters troopers had jumped through the flames as the pilot sought to maintain level flight so the men could exit successfully. The pilot, Major Dan Elam and his co-pilot died when the plane exploded during an unsuccessful belly landing.

  In an entry to a diary he kept during the war, T/3 George E. Koskimaki of the 101st Signal Company noted the tragic passing of Colonel Millener:

  December 7, 1944—Our chief of staff, Colonel (Ray) Millener died early this morning from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. He may have been suffering from combat fatigue.

  In his diary a few days later, Koskimaki was to note the occurrence of more suicides:

  December 11, 1944—I don’t know what has come over some people. A master sergeant (David Harmon) in the next barracks shot himself last night. It was the third suicide in four days.

  Back to Garrison Life

  Anticipating that he would soon receive his convalescent leave to Paris, PFC. James W. Flanagan felt he could put up with marching and drilling once again. He wrote:

  We did some drilling and a short road march—not much as we were not too well equipped at this time. I didn’t mind the drilling and marching. I could put up with it until my leave was approved—and that was a sure thing.

  Squad leader Jack Hampton remembered they were busy getting the new men oriented and fitted into the squads:

  We went back to the basics of drilling and marching just like at Camp Toccoa in 1942. What I learned was that these new guys were aware of the reputation of the 101st and didn’t resent the advice and instruction the old guys from Toccoa days laid on them. They were proud to be assigned to the 101st and especially to the 501st PIR and wanted to fit in, which they did.

  Whenever army units are in garrison situations there comes the inevitable inspection. PFC. Don Straith describes one such inspection at Camp Mourmelon:

  We had the usual Saturday morning inspections in spite of the war. One in particular stuck in my mind. The battalion commander, Lt. Colonel (James) LaPrade, came around followed by our company commander, Captain Meason and a barber. As the colonel walked through the ranks he lifted each man’s helmet; if the man’s hair was longer than regulation, he was ordered to step forward and have it cut on the spot to a half inch in length.

  Pvt. Ted Goldmann was another green replacement who remembered the inspections and the effect it had on veterans of earlier campaign:

  On Saturdays we had some very chicken inspections and a bunch of the boys in the platoon resented the treatment to the extent that five of them took off for Paris, AWOL for the weekend. A lot more would have gone but lacked the finances.

  Sgt. Donald Woodland describes a Sunday church service while the men were garrisoned in Mourmelon:

  Today was an ordinary Sunday in the life of this enlisted man. I recall attending church service in the large auditorium of Camp Mourmelon. We were ‘under orders’ from Capt. Stach to go to church every Sunday and to pray for our lost men. The captain himself was there in his spit and polish uniform. We sat near him but not with him.

  What really made a lasting impression on me was the ceremony at the Consecration of the Mass. Eight paratroopers, immaculately attired in dress uniform, would silently file out and flank both sides of the altar. A quiet command was given and the troopers brought their M1’s to ‘Present Arms.’ At the conclusion of the Consecration, another quiet command was given and the arms were ordered. With rifles ‘at the trail’ the troopers filed from the altar. Today, on every Sunday that I attend church service, my mind goes back to Camp Mourmelon and the presentation of arms.

  The 463rd Parachute Artillery Battalion

  The 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion had gone overseas as the 456th PFA Battalion. It had been a part of the 82nd Airborne Division and jumped into Sicily in 1943. It had fought in Italy as one of the support artillery battalions of the 82nd. When the 82nd was moved to England in early 1944, the 456th remained behind as a support group for the first Allied Special Forces and its designation changed to the 463rd. In August of 1944 the 463rd parachuted into southern France and continued in its pursuit of the enemy into the French Alps. In early December it was moved by truck to Mourmelon. Army planners scheduled them to become a support group for an airborne division which had yet to arrive on the continent.

  At the time of the alert and departure for Bastogne, the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion still didn’t know its status—would it support the 17th Airborne Division which was scheduled to arrive in France in mid-December, or would it become a part of the 101st Airborne Division.

  During the six-day interval when they arrived at Mourmelon and their sudden departure for Bastogne, the 463rd had made an unauthorized change in its TO and TE (Table of Organization and Equipment). Major Victor E. Garrett, the S-3 (Operations officer) for the Battalion remarked:

  Colonel Cooper and I decided that since we’d managed to make all of our gun batteries into six-gun units, we’d fight it out with direct fire and indirect fire in case there was ever a break-through on our positions.

  During conversations with leaders of the other artillery units of the 101st at meals in the officer’s mess hall, the veterans of the Sicily, Italian and southern France and French Alps fighting, related knocking out enemy tanks with direct fire with 75mm pack howitzers. Major Garrett related: “We told them about knocking out a German Mark IV in Sicily. They all doubted us.”

  Having been designated as the battalion commander after the 82nd Division departed for England, LTC. John T. Cooper, Jr., added to that story:

  As you know, the 101st had never heard of the 463rd Parachute Field Artillery Battalion and the members of the officers mess did not care to hear about our war because they had fought the only battles worth talking about.

  In a crowd as large as the artillery officers mess it was nigh on impossible to talk at all. But during a little lull in conversation at my table, the question of knocking out tanks arose and I said, ‘My battalion has knocked out several German tanks.’ That was as far as I got that night as I was told by the other battalion commanders that the General said you could not knock out a tank with a 75mm pack howitzer. You could disable one if you got a lucky hit on a track, but not knock one out. The conversation on Normandy and Holland so overshadowed everything that no further discussion got out. (Author’s note: On Christmas morning, the men of the 463rd were to prove they could knock out enemy tanks with direct fire from the 75mm pack howitzers.)

 
; Belated Thanksgiving Dinners

  Most units had experienced Thanksgiving dinners of sorts in Holland before departure from the Island. They were promised meals that would be remembered once they got settled into the base camp in France.

  What seems to be remembered most is that some of the meals were prepared under less than somewhat sanitary conditions in the new mess facilities. The long awaited Thanksgiving dinner wasn’t all it was “cracked up to be” for some of the men.

  PFC. William A. Druback remembered “the belated Thanksgiving dinner—a lot of us got the runs!”

  In another company but in the same battalion (probably using the same mess hall), PFC. George E. Willey remembered a similar experience: “We had some men get sick on spoiled turkey.”

  For S/Sgt. Robert J. Rader, it wasn’t spoiled turkey but dirty kitchen equipment that caused the problem. He remembered:

  My battalion contacted a dirty, filthy hot chocolate vat at our battalion mess and all of us who participated in the hot chocolate came down with the ‘Aztec two-step.’ The medics fed us a codeine paragoric to stop the spasms of the bowels.

  Pvt. Charles D. Cram provided a more humorous detailed account of the problem at the same mess hall though he had been sneaking into another facility for meals:

  We were eating in battalion-sized mess halls and the 2nd Battalion facility was across the road at some distance from our barracks. When I thought I wouldn’t be recognized by any of the 1st Battalion cooks, I would eat in their mess hall. I did this one Sunday evening and was eyed suspiciously by one of the cooks who had me tagged as being from 2nd Battalion. In any event, I was awakened in the middle of the night by fellow platoon members bailing out of their second tier bunks and tearing out into the company street in a desperate race for the latrines. It soon became apparent that this was a vicious outbreak of the ‘GI’s’ and had infected a large part of the 2nd Battalion. It continued right through reveille with most men dropping their drawers in the company street because they couldn’t make it to the latrines, which were already overloaded anyhow. Now comes the good part. Some might even call it poetic justice. Because I hadn’t eaten in the 2nd Bn. mess I was one of a few that were unaffected by the outbreak. I was drafted to report out in the company street with my entrenching tool and found myself, along with a mortar platoon buddy, John Joyal, on the first genuine ‘shit detail’ in my service with the 506th. We proceeded down the company street to clean the piles left by the unsuccessful evacuees from the barracks. The cooks and mess sergeants would have been better advised to concentrate on food preservation rather than checking for imposters like me.

  And then there was 1Lt. Everett Fuchs who had been wounded during the early stages of the airborne invasion of Holland and had been evacuated back to England and then returned to the rear base near Newbury. He experienced a rarity in that he enjoyed three Thanksgiving dinners—the first at rear base in England, the second aboard a Navy LST returning to the continent and the third with the 377th Parachute Field Artillery Battalion which had recently arrived at Mourmelon from Holland.

  Pvt. Anthony Garcia remembered the Thanksgiving dinner for another reason. He recalled: “being put on night KP during our belated Thanksgiving Day celebration because I didn’t turn in my rifle on time.”

  Delayed Football Season

  After two and a half months without sports, other than a make-up volleyball game or two up on the Island in Holland, men were anxious to take part in various sports. One of those was PFC. George Ricker who needed rest from his work with a heavy mortar platoon. He wrote: “I have fond memories of my work with the regimental boxing team and coming football game against other teams within the Division.”

  Pvt. John G. Kilgore had been a highly-touted football player in Columbus, Ohio and had played in the all-star high school bowl game, the Kumquat Bowl, in St. Petersburg, Florida on Christmas Night in 1939. As a para trooper replacement, he had been assigned to 3rd Platoon of “G” Company of the 506th Regiment. Kilgore ended up on the regimental football squad. He wrote:

  About the third day at Camp Mourmelon, I was sent on a work detail to assist in handing out football uniforms to the players. One of the coaches, 1Lt. John F. Weisenburger, was from Columbus. He recognized me and asked me to play on the team. One of the other players was Pvt. Albert Gray, who was in my squad. The other coach was 1Lt. Lawrence M. Fitzpatrick.

  The fact that one of the football coaches was to be the platoon leader for John Kilgore and Albert Gray would have a bearing on actions in which these two soldiers would have roles.

  PFC. Stan Stasica had been an all-state high school football and basketball player at Rockford High School in Illionis and had gone on to the University of South Carolina before answering the call for service. He was part of the 506th regimental football team and had looked forward to the start of a delayed season after Holland. He wrote:

  When we came to Mourmelon from Holland, we started to talk about a football game in the ‘Champagne Bowl’ against the 502nd Regiment.

  We were really looking forward to it. We had about four or five practices when the Battle of the Bulge broke out. Everything was called off.

  As a former football star at Kansas State University, Capt. Wallace Swanson remembers it wasn’t long after the return from Holland that, along with regular regimental training, preparations began for a long delayed football season for the 502nd team. He recalled:

  When our regimental training program developed into not only battalion, but company, platoon and squad training, we had some extra time for our own and we took up and trained for a football game to be played in Rheims, France on Christmas Day.

  Gambling

  Every company had its compulsive gamblers and with the men having just received their accumulated back pay, some lost it all, along with their desire to see Paris while others reaped the extra benefits.

  A loser at cards, PFC. Carmen Gisi rationalized about the lack of interest in getting to Paris. He wrote: “I lost all my back pay in a poker game. Never got to Paris and didn’t care because I had no money.”

  T/5 Charlie McCallister did his bit to separate the men from their money. He found that his luck ran true to form:

  When we returned from Holland to Camp Mourmelon in France, we were paid up to date, which included some back pay. There immediately followed the usual Army poker game which lasted all night. When it broke up at dawn, I found myself the winner of approximately $1,000 (in French francs).

  We had been promised 48-hour passes to Paris, which had been liberated a couple months previously. We would go by battalions and our 2nd Battalion wasn’t scheduled until a week or so in the future.

  With all that loot though, I couldn’t wait and I immediately began to put on my Class A’s to go AWOL. Two buddies who had contributed their pay to my good fortune were complaining bitterly and in a moment of generosity, I invited them to go with me and help spend the money. As it turned out, they proved to be excellent help.

  So, Jack O’Leary, Bob Cable and I took off and managed to hitch-hike on Army vehicles to the City of Light. We were gone three days and, upon our return, I found it necessary to borrow the equivalent of 72 cents for my weekly PX rations.

  I remember, among other things, being in the Moulin Rouge night club buying champagne for $22 a bottle (you could get it in the country for approximately 90 cents) and going around with a bottle in each hand filling everyone’s glass.

  Anyway, upon returning to camp, I was caught. I don’t remember if it was a summary court martial—I think it was just company punishment of extra duty, which was that I build and maintain fires in the officer’s latrine. The rest of the guys were having it pretty easy as we had begun to receive replacements and renew equipment and really were not yet into a training program.

  Sgt. Duane L. Tedrick learned it was not the smart thing to do to gamble on the sabbath once the troops arrived from Holland. He wrote:

  I learned never to gamble on a Sunday. I went to the PX and got i
nto a crap game and won $800. On the way back to the company I cut across a field filled with air-raid trenches. I jumped too short and fell in a water-filled hole, lost my winnings, ruined my cigarettes and candy.

  U.S.O. Shows

  Upon arrival at Mourmelon, preparations were made for unit recreation rooms where the men could relax in off-hours. The Special Service Office of the Division arranged for U.S.O. shows and the Red Cross ladies did an excellent job of providing writing materials. Men scrounged in the country side for quantities of cheap champagne by whatever means. Battalion commander Major John Hanlon related:3

  At Mourmelon there was no shooting and there were some small pleasures. One of them was the little bar arrangement some of us made. We had taken a vacant room and moved in a table and some chairs and it was our social center, so to speak. Even celebrities came there. One night we had Mel Ott and Frankie Frisch, the baseball people, there. They were on a U.S.O. tour, going around talking baseball to the troops and everyone enjoyed them.

  This night, they came to our place after a long day of appearances. At first they were properly circumspect. But then Mel Ott began tending bar and Frisch began his stories. Before they were done, Ott and Frisch were buying and selling each other’s ball players, paying for them in loads of worthless German marks they had acquired along the way.

  There were the Red Cross girls at our camp and there were sightseeing trips to Rheims and even Paris. There was something called champagne available in quantities: we were in the champagne district, though few of us realized this was why the stuff was so plentiful. It cost about 90 cents a bottle, as long as you brought along an empty to replace the full one. Only the bottles were hard to come by.

  Besides reading and answering long overdue letters and relishing the contents of just arrived packages, PFC. John E. Fitzgerald recalled: