The FReeper Foxhole Remembers the Battle for Kesternich (12/1944 - 01/1945) - Mar. 23rd, 2005

World War II Magazine | November 1996 | Edward G. Miller

[SAMWolf]

Lord,

Keep our Troops forever in Your care

Give them victory over the enemy...

Grant them a safe and swift return...

Bless those who mourn the lost.
.

FReepers from the Foxhole join in prayer
for all those serving their country at this time.

.................................................................. .................... ...........................................

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Desperate Hours at Kesternich

Control of a village near the Hürtgen Forest meant control of the Roer River dams. Without the dams, the American push to the Rhine might be thwarted.

Major General Edwin P. Parker, Jr., commander of the new 78th "Lightning" Infantry Division, was worried. His battalion attacking Kesternich was in trouble. The fight for the little farming village, about 15 miles southeast of Aachen, Germany, had started before daylight on Wednesday, December 13, 1944. Now it was evening, and Parker was one of many officers who had no idea what the situation was. The battalion commander whose men were locked in combat had no idea either. He was in a shell crater just outside the town, out of contact with his own command post and company commanders.

Lieutenant General Courtney H. Hodges, commander of the First U.S. Army, was upset as well. Reports from his liaison officer at Parker's headquarters indicated a "confused situation and lack of knowledge" among Parker's senior leaders. Hodges was worried the new division would "get itself smacked by the Boche," and he bluntly told Maj. Gen. L.T. Gerow, the V Corps commander, to "get the thing straightened out."

Unfortunately for the First Army, it would be some time before things were straightened out. The village of Kesternich and its resolute defenders swallowed up two battalions of infantry and made a third pay a high price for its capture six weeks later. What happened? What was so important about Kesternich, and why is it virtually unknown now?

The Roer River was the last major natural obstacle between the 12th U.S. Army Group and the Rhine River. The First Army had been trying since September 1944 to secure Roer crossing sites by attacking through the Hürtgen Forest. Weeks of very brutal fighting in the gloomy woods had brought little more than several thousand casualties, and in December the First Army was still on the west bank of the Roer.


Pfc Thomas W. Gilmore from Company A, 121st Infantry, photographed near Hürtgen on December 7, 1944. The winter of 1944-45 was a long one for First Army troops trying to drive to the Rhine.

Kesternich was important because of its location. It was perched on a high ridge above the Roer Valley and its two largest flood-control dams, the Schwammenauel and the Urft. The dams were under German control. The issue was simple: Control the dams and you control the level of the Roer. The Americans would be foolish to put a single soldier across the river unless they had the dams. Unfortunately, they had not been a stated target of the First Army. Air attacks in early December had failed to breach the dams, and the First Army had no choice but to have V Corps take them by a ground attack through the so-called Monschau Corridor. This was rolling farmland studded with villages such as Kesternich, as well as a thick band of West Wall (Siegfried Line) bunkers and anti-tank obstacles called "dragon's teeth." The area was far better for maneuvers than the adjacent Hürtgen Forest, but it was also known as a "fine practice range for German artillerymen." The 78th Division would attack the Schwammenauel Dam, while the 2nd Infantry Division attacked the Urft Dam. No senior officer in V Corps had any illusion that the battle would be easy; however, most of the officers were surprised at how difficult the task turned out to be.



Parker's staff developed a three-phased plan to clear the Monschau Corridor and hit the Schwammenauel Dam from the northwest. Kesternich and nearby Simmerath would fall in phase 1. In phase 2, the division would take Konzen, Eicherscheid and Imgenbroich to protect its vulnerable right flank. The towns of Schmidt, Steckenborn and Strauch were targets of the third phase. The ground assault on the Schwammenauel Dam would come last, but only after all the villages were in American hands.



Bone-chilling cold and a dense ground fog marked the dawn of December 13. The 2nd Battalion, 309th Infantry, moved on Kesternich from the northwest and hit trouble minutes after it jumped off. Company F, for example, ran into a thick belt of wood-cased anti-personnel mines. The flashes of the explosions were a signal for the German mortar crews to open fire on the survivors. Shells poured in, hammering the ground and simply erasing some soldiers.

The men of Company E, meanwhile, were riding tanks of the 709th Tank Battalion, attached to the 2nd Battalion. These men soon found themselves in a pasture covered by deep snowdrifts. German anti-tank gunners fired on the struggling tanks. The infantry dismounted amid plumes of muddy earth and continued on foot without tank support. Those who lived called it "a fight between Company E and the German army." The men who made it through the mines, mortars, anti-tank and automatic-weapons fire to the first buildings in Kesternich were cut off from reinforcement. They had no radios with which to call for fire, and most of the tanks were still outside the town. The battalion commander, Lt. Col. Wilson L. Burley, Jr., had started the battle riding on a tank, but had ended up in a shell crater near the main road leading into town from the west. Contact with his company commanders was intermittent, and he knew only as much about the battle as he could see from the crater. He was not sure of the location and strength of the German defenses, and he had no idea where most of his men were. His command post had no idea where he was. He finally reached the commanders of the two lead companies by radio and had them withdraw their men a few hundred yards to the west. There was no more progress that day. Burley was last heard from early on the 14th, after he had gone into Kesternich to assess the situation. His body was later found in the town. The executive officer was presumed dead, though his body was never recovered. The commander of Company H, Captain Douglas P. Frazier, took command. The day had gone generally well elsewhere, but there was nothing good for Parker to tell Gerow about Kesternich. They decided to reinforce Burley's battalion. Time was critical. As one participant later said, "There was no hope here, just death lurking in every shadow, every hollow, every house."



Parker ordered Lt. Col. Byron W. Ladd's 2nd Battalion, 310th Infantry, to attack at 6 a.m. on December 14. Ladd was ordered to clear and hold Kesternich and block the roads leading into the town from the east. The battalion had spent December 13 moving forward but out of contact, and Ladd's staff had not used the time it had to prepare plans for commitment. The battalion also did not conduct a thorough reconnaissance, a shortcoming the unit later paid for dearly. Much damage was inflicted on the battalion by a machine gun firing from a large, undetected, concrete bunker that covered the western approaches to Kesternich. Reportedly, in the days leading up to the attack, the battalion intelligence officer had not prepared a terrain analysis of the area, though the battalion had excellent, specially produced maps. Finally, Ladd knew only that a battalion of the 309th badly needed help. Like Burley, he knew little about the German defenses.



Companies E and F of the 310th made the main effort on the 14th. Company F had an attached platoon of tank destroyers, and Ladd held the attached tanks in battalion reserve. The German machine gunners reacted quickly to the figures wading through the snow-covered fields. When members of Company E tried to escape the fire, they touched off anti-personnel mines. This was the cue for the German artillery observers to call in a rain of shells. Company G, in reserve, was so close behind the attacking companies that it also suffered several casualties from the same fire that hit Company E. Division artillery refused Ladd's call for supporting artillery fire because of concerns about injuring soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 309th Infantry, who might still be in town. But it mattered little in the end because no one could locate the forward observer.

[SAMWolf]

Ladd halted the attack shortly before dusk in order for the battalion to reorganize and resupply. The battalion also used the cover of darkness to begin an agonizingly slow evacuation of the wounded, who had remained in the open throughout the day. Shock was a serious problem, and several men died before they could be evacuated to the battalion aid station. The company commanders estimated the first day's casualties in Ladd's battalion at 25 percent.



The attack of the 2nd Battalion, 310th, had also done little to assist the remnants of the 2nd Battalion, 309th. Company E, for example, was down to about 40 effectives and was still without tank support. The attached tankers had told the infantrymen that the German fire was too intense for them to move into the town. They also wanted a tank-dozer or a bulldozer to clear the road of snow and debris. The commander of Company E and the commander of the 774th Tank Battalion were arguing about this when a shell hit nearby and wounded several men. When the bulldozer finally arrived, it reportedly "would not advance in front of the tanks and the tanks would not advance without a bulldozer in front." Therefore, nobody advanced except the infantry.



An infantry lieutenant got up to lead an attack, but a German shell literally cut him in two. When an American soldier fired a bazooka at an approaching enemy armored vehicle, the round bounced off and return fire killed the soldier. Captain Frazier later reported that Company E had been "virtually annihilated." Troops dubbed the battalion command post "88 Junction," so intense was the enemy fire.

That night, patrols maintained contact between the scattered elements of the 2nd Battalion, 309th Infantry, and 2nd Battalion, 310th. The V Corps commander, General Gerow, told General Parker of the 78th Infantry to "do something about Kesternich immediately." At about 1 a.m. on the 15th, the executive officer of the 309th Infantry, Lt. Col. Creighton E. Likes, took control of both battalions.

Companies E and F of the 310th Infantry renewed the attack about dawn, and there was finally some progress. Company E skirted the bunker on the west side of Kesternich. Moving toward the southeast to skirt the town, Company F was well underway until mortars and mines stalled its attack. Some of the men eventually made it to Kesternich later in the day. The ensuing house-to-house fight caused the company to separate into several groups of men carrying out uncoordinated, though occasionally successful, close-combat assaults. Soldiers would throw grenades through holes in the walls and then burst through the doorways, firing constantly. Armored support, however, remained a problem throughout the day. For example, when an attached platoon of tanks reached the town, anti-tank fire and mines knocked out two or three tanks and the rest withdrew. They returned later to join a few tank destroyers that had also reached town.



A unit is most vulnerable in the minutes immediately following seizure of an objective. In the case of the 2nd Battalion, 310th, losses among officers had been high, and many soldiers, understandably shaken after the last two days of bitter combat, took shelter in houses without contacting other soldiers nearby. By midafternoon, many squad and platoon leaders no longer knew where their men were. Within a few hours they would desperately wish that they did.

The American attack worried the commander of the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division, Maj. Gen. Eugen König. Loss of the commanding high ground at Kesternich would split his division, which had its back to the treacherous Roer Valley. König had no reserve, and every available soldier was busy holding the line against the 78th Division's multiple attacks. Worse still, the German Ardennes offensive was to begin in less than 48 hours, and loss of the Monschau Corridor would jeopardize the north flank of the attack. On December 14, König told his staff to plan a counterattack to begin at 3:30 p.m. the next day.

The artillery preparation began on time, hitting the Americans in the east end of town and then shifting west. The Volksgrenadiers moved out from a heavily wooded draw about 300 yards from the Americans. Three "Hetzer" self-propelled guns and a quad 20mm self-propelled flak wagon provided support.

Meanwhile, Ladd and his company commanders were meeting when a breathless messenger arrived and reported the counterattack. Ladd told the company commanders to get back to their units. The phone lines were already out, and by the time the artillery observers had word of the counterattack, it was too dark for them to see. This might not have been a critical problem had there been pre-planned targets on which they could fire. Unfortunately, there were none. The commander of Company E reported "an endless line" of German infantry approaching and supported by an assault gun or tank. Many riflemen left their foxholes at the edge of Kesternich and headed for the cellars of the town's buildings. Seventy men from Company E managed to hold a few buildings at the western edge of town. The next morning, after taking another beating from automatic weapons and self-propelled guns, the 56 surviving men surrendered. Company F temporarily halted the Germans in its sector, but it, too, eventually buckled under the pressure. Ladd led several men from Company G in a futile stand near the battalion command post. The Germans took most of this group prisoner. Captain Adolf Thomae, a battalion commander in the 980th Grenadier Regiment, could not believe the enormous amount of materiel taken from the Americans. "We tried out a portable radio. We could hear and understand the Americans, as they were near us for several hours," he later recalled.

[SAMWolf]

To this day, no one is really sure what happened in Kesternich on the night of December 15-16. None of the patrols from Company E, 310th, sent to contact friendly elements to the west returned. Isolated fighting continued throughout the night, and on the afternoon of the 16th, the 3rd Battalion, 309th, with a few men from the 2nd Battalion, 310th, re-entered the western part of town. One officer said later, "Very few men from the [2nd of the 310th] were found in any of the houses, none [of them] were alive." This force withdrew to the western edge of town. Estimates of losses in the 2nd Battalion, 310th Infantry, alone were six officers and 63 enlisted men killed and five officers and nearly 100 enlisted men wounded; nearly 300 officers and men were missing. Seventy-five men sustained non-battle injuries, mostly trench foot. Losses in the 2nd Battalion, 309th, were just as high. The authorized strength of a rifle battalion, less attachments, was 871. In three days, the 78th Division had lost well over 1,000 men, most of them at Kesternich, and had failed to clear the Monschau Corridor. The Battle of the Bulge began on the 16th and ended for the time being any more attacks on Kesternich and the Schwammenauel Dam. The division did not participate in the Battle of the Bulge. Rather, it spent this time learning the lessons of its brutal indoctrination to combat.



The 78th Division was part of the Ninth Army's XIX Corps during its second attack on Kesternich. The detailed plans called for each rifle squad in the attacking battalion, the 2nd Battalion of the 311th Infantry, under Lt. Col. Richard W. Keyes, to take a specific building. The maps had each building designated by number. The town was divided into nine sub-objectives to ease reporting and command and control concerns. The 736th Tank Battalion and the 893rd Tank Destroyer Battalion provided support. Captain Thomae's battalion was still in position and formed the major element of the German defense.

The American plan called for Company G, commanded by 1st Lt. Clyde H. Trivette, to lead at first, on the battalion right in a column of platoons. Company F, led by Captain William J. Curran, and an attached platoon of tanks would move on the left with platoons on line. Once in town, Company F would allow Company G to pass through and follow the main street. Company E, led by Captain John V. Rowan, Jr., would then pass through the gap created by the other companies to take the eastern end of town.


78th Infantry Division
"The Lightning Division"

The attack began at 5:30 a.m. on January 30, 1945. Unfortunately, the detailed plans quickly fell apart. Snow covered the landmarks. Many tanks lost traction on the frozen earth and could not keep up with the infantry. Other tanks hit mines--usually no tankers were injured, but infantrymen always were. Company F lost precious time bringing up equipment to breach a wire obstacle, and the leader of the company's assault platoon climbed aboard a tank that was still in action and directed it himself until it hit a mine. The concussion threw him to the hard ground, but he soon found a Bangalore torpedo and blew a gap in the obstacle. He was later wounded leading soldiers while mounted on a tank. At about 7 a.m., Company F reported that some of its men had entered houses in the town, but that the unit was receiving heavy small-arms fire. By 9 a.m., Captain Curran reported he had men on Kesternich's main street.



Direct fire, meanwhile, had knocked out at least two of the attached tanks. One crewman, Sergeant Leonard S. Kizzer, dismounted to repair his tank, and, after several hours dodging rounds, got it back into action. Company G's lead platoon exploited the gap made by Company F, entered the town and started to swing south. Unfortunately, the next platoon ran into a minefield and also took flanking machine-gun fire; only 15 men survived. Ladd committed Company E in midmorning, but heavy machine-gun fire halted it in the center of town. Colonel Chester M. Willingham, commander of the 311th Infantry, told Keyes to "keep pushing, [the troops are moving] too slow," and not to hesitate committing the reserve tank platoon. Keyes then went forward to check the situation and found that radio communication between the infantry and the tanks was beginning to fail. Keyes later recalled that the situation was confusing: "The battle had lost its coordination and the fighting had become piecemeal....It was very difficult to pick out specific buildings indicated on the sketch. Most of them had either been demolished completely, or had lost their form....Many elements of the companies were scattered and difficult to control....The tank-infantry coordination was not favorable. The tanks seemed to expect the infantry to lead them and the infantry was prone to wait for the tanks."

Keyes rejected Captain Rowan's suggestion to halt and reorganize the battalion. Instead, he ordered the company commanders to renew the attack at 3 p.m. "Advance by marching fire," he added.



Although the battalion was tired, continuing the attack kept the Germans from taking any rest. The infantrymen had to root out the defenders from the rubble while dodging snipers and running from one water-filled crater to another. One officer later remembered, "Where there were two buildings, one behind the other, [a] tank would fire at the first building and, as the infantry started to mop up, the tanks would open fire on the second building." Keyes halted the attack at dark. In some places, the two lines were only 150 yards apart.

The attack continued at 8:30 a.m. on the 31st, and at least 15 more buildings fell within three hours. But Company G hit a strongpoint, and the frustrated Keyes was prepared to take it by "weight of numbers rather than by fire and maneuver." It finally fell to massed tank fire. During this phase of the battle, a soldier yelled that German tanks were approaching from the rear. Another soldier, riding on a tank, yelled for the tank commander to traverse his gun and fire. He did--and a high-explosive round hit the front slope of an American tank destroyer not more than 100 yards away. There were no injuries to the crew. According to one report, some German soldiers who had apparently captured an American radio broadcast during the battle in broken English, "Tankers....What are you trying to do, fight the war yourselves?"



Several soldiers, including Colonel Keyes, mounted tanks to direct their fire. To get the attention of a buttoned-up tank commander, they often had to bang on the turret or cover the periscope. The infantry found that the phones mounted on the rear of the tanks had usually been torn away by shell fragments. Clearly, there were significant tank-infantry coordination problems, but under the circumstances the tankers probably did the best they could. Colonel Willingham, however, later stated, "Hesitation and lack of aggression on the part of this tank unit, in my opinion, resulted in over 50 unnecessary casualties. A tank unit that is not aggressive is a detriment to the infantry."



German indirect fire streamed into Kesternich all morning, though the Germans had lost most of the town by midday. Staff Sergeant Jonah E. Kelley, a squad leader in Company E of the 311th, had been wounded in the back and left hand, but had refused evacuation. Unable to hold his rifle with both hands, he rested it on rubble or on his forearm. Despite the wounds, he rushed a house alone and killed three Germans on the 30th. On January 31, he again ordered his men to remain under cover while he charged a building. He was hit several times as he ran across open ground, and he fell mortally wounded just yards from the enemy. Before he died, he killed the enemy soldier who had shot him. He was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.



The 224 additional men who fell at Kesternich in late January brought the 78th Division's casualty total to more than 1,000. But at least Kesternich was in American hands, and the way was finally clear for the final attack on the Schwammenauel Dam, which fell on February 9.


272nd Volksgrenadier Division

The troops called it "Little Aachen." Keyes called it a "dog-eat-dog fight." Without Kesternich, the Americans could not have safely crossed the Roer River. The bitter fighting at Kesternich has been overshadowed by the Bulge and assault crossings of the Roer and Rhine. A new division had paid a high price for its blooding at Kesternich, but it had done very well indeed.


Having finally captured Kesternich, men of the 311th Infantry pause next to the body of a German soldier on February 1, 1945.

Almost a half century later, in June 1993, elderly German and American veterans gathered in Kesternich to dedicate a small monument to the 78th Infantry Division and the 272nd Volksgrenadier Division. Few of the Americans had been to Germany since the war. Many veterans of both sides had spent years trying to forget the events that had originally brought them together. The large crowd of veterans, their families and residents of Kesternich listened reverently first to Alte Kamaraden, then to taps. There were speeches. Young German and American soldiers stood with their national colors unfurled. And nearby, German school children listened silently as the elderly warriors reminded those present that they should not forget what happened in that little farming village in the miserable winter of 1944-45.

Additional Sources:

home.scarlet.be/
www.hurtgen1944.homestead.com
users.adelphia.net
e.herr.home.att.net
gateway.ca.k12.pa.us
www.army.mil
www.5ad.org
www.ncweb.com
www.techwarrior.cx
2rct.valka.cz
www.ordinateurslaval.ca

[SAMWolf]

Stretching north-east from the Belgian-German border, the Hürtgen Forest covers an area of about fifty square miles within the triangle formed by the towns of Aachen, Duren and Monschau. From September to December 1944, 120,000 American soldiers advanced upon the Germans through this forest. Other battles in World War II have been more dramatically decisive, but none was tougher or bloodier.



Close-ranked fir trees, towering 75-100 feet made the Hürtgen Forest a gloomy, mysterious world where the brightness of noon was muted to an eerie twilight filtering through dark trees onto spongy brown needles and rotted logs.

In the winter of 1944, the ground was alternately frozen hard and then slushy. Snow covered it in deceiving peacefulness. Beneath the snow lay a network of ingenious booby traps and mines. The infantry had to take it. It was simply American men against German steel, and the cold, bitter weather.



There was no more deadly fire, from the viewpoint of the infantryman, than that which burst in treetops and exploded with all its hot steel fury downward to the ground, shattering minds and bodies. Men quickly learned that the safest place when mortar or artillery fire hit treetops, was to "hug a tree".

The following American infantry divisions - the 1st, 4th, 8th, 9th, 28th, 3rd Armored, 78th and the 83rd - fought in the forest. The 9th Division, in effect, fought there twice. Numbers of supporting tank, tank-destroyer, cavalry, chemical, medical, and artillery units, also fought in the forest.



Approximately 120,000 Americans, plus individual replacements augmenting that number by many thousands fought in the battle. More than 24,000 Americans were killed, missing, captured and wounded. Another 9,000 succumbed to the misery of trench foot, respiratory diseases and combat fatigue. In addition, some 80,000 Germans fought in this battle and an estimated 28,000 of them became casualties.

What was gained in this battle? The Americans conquered 50 square miles of real estate of no real tactical value to future operations, and they had destroyed enemy troops and reserves, which the other side could ill afford to lose. The Germans, on the other hand, with meager resources, had slowed down a major Allied advance for 3 months. At the end of November, vital targets, dams along the Roer River, the importance of which were not realized until late in the fighting in the the Battle of Hürtgen Forest, were still in German hands.



Had the First Army gone for the Roer River Dams early in the fighting, there would have been no battle of Hürtgen Forest. That men must die in battle is accepted, and some fighting will always be more miserable and difficult than others. If there had been a push directly from the south to take the Roer River Dams, the cost of lives could have been just as costly. However, if that had been done, at least the objective would have been clear and accepted as important.

Those who fought in the Battle of Hürtgen Forest fought a misconceived and basically fruitless battle that could have, and should have been avoided. That is the real tragedy of the Battle of Hürtgen Forest.

[SAMWolf]

Veterans for Constitution Restoration is a non-profit, non-partisan educational and grassroots activist organization. The primary area of concern to all VetsCoR members is that our national and local educational systems fall short in teaching students and all American citizens the history and underlying principles on which our Constitutional republic-based system of self-government was founded. VetsCoR members are also very concerned that the Federal government long ago over-stepped its limited authority as clearly specified in the United States Constitution, as well as the Founding Fathers' supporting letters, essays, and other public documents.

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Actively seeking volunteers to provide this valuable service to Veterans and their families.

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We here at Blue Stars For A Safe Return are working hard to honor all of our military, past and present, and their families. Inlcuding the veterans, and POW/MIA's. I feel that not enough is done to recognize the past efforts of the veterans, and remember those who have never been found.

I realized that our Veterans have no "official" seal, so we created one as part of that recognition. To see what it looks like and the Star that we have dedicated to you, the Veteran, please check out our site.

Veterans Wall of Honor

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UPDATED THROUGH APRIL 2004



The FReeper Foxhole. America's History. America's Soul

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[Soaring Feather]

Good morning everyone.

[snippy_about_it]

Hey early bird. In before the ping I see.

[snippy_about_it]

"FALL IN" to the FReeper Foxhole!



Good Wednesday Morning Everyone.

If you want to be added to our ping list, let us know.

If you'd like to drop us a note you can write to:

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[Mudboy Slim]

"Right's Winning this Culture War in a ROUT!!"

"Maybe you can tell me exactly how. So far, all I see is the continuing destruction of the US Constitution and the loss of our personal rights, liberties and freedoms."

My oh my, I'm glad somebody finally asked my opinion on this...LOL!! Lemme git myself another Jack and Ginger and I'll elucidate..............git ice cubes, mix drink, run back up the stairs...I'm back!!

Alrightee now, How is the Right Winning the Culture War in a ROUT?! Good question. Let's start with Natan Sharansky's book "The Case Fer Democracy"...it's a must-read. It speaks to the transformational power of Liberty and self-determination. Look at what's happening in the Mideast...the Sheeple are rising up and demanding that Authoritarian Rule be abolished in favor of Leaders who are forced to be accountable to the people. FReedom is breaking out all over the Planet, and will continue to do so.

Still, how does this help America thrive?! Won't these burgeoning economies just drive up our fuel costs and further pollute the planet? Won't the ThirdWorldNations simply steal our jobs that they can accomplish at one-tenth the cost to greedy employers?! Balderdash!!! When ThirdWorldNations become self-sufficient and enact capitalist reforms, the World Production Pie will be expanded to the benefit of all Nations!! FReedom is an unmitigated GOOD!!

Still, we know that the DemonRAT Party/Lib'rals/Leftists/Progressives/Moderates support ever-expanding Big Guv'ment Tyranny...how can this international march to FReedom benefit the Republican Party?! Who cares?! The Pubbies have displayed a propensity to buckle when the RATS demand that we retain the Status Quo!! Heck, Dubyuh and the GOP keep growing thew Federal Leviathan at a rate that would make Slick Willie envious. Still, there are REAL conservatives in the House, and they can propose legislation that the RINOs are gonna haveta line up as FOR or AGAINST!! Thereby, they will be exposed as the RINOs they are and they can be dispatched in future primaries. Weeding the GOP of its RINOs must be a high priority!!

Still, you ask, "How are we gonna whup the RATS in a ROUT?"

The DemonRATS are the Party of Big Guv'ment...I think the GOP is salvageable and we can be fer Smaller Guv'ment!! As the people see the GOP's sincerety in shrinking the Federal Leviathan, they will flock to support them, and the DemonRAT Party will fade into irrelevance.

Regards...MUD

[Samwise]

They are still heroes. Great pix, SAM.

[Samwise]

We're thinking about driving to Wright Patterson over spring break. Been there?

[Aeronaut]

Good morning Snippy.

[E.G.C.]

Good morning, Snippy and everyone at the Foxhole.

[GailA]

Good morning. I hope today is better than yesterday weather wise..we had rain most of the day followed by T storm warnings going into Tornado warnings.

[alfa6]

Hump day bump for the Freeper Foxhole

Regards

alfa6 ;>}

[The Mayor]

March 23, 2005

Open Bible

Read:
Psalm 119:41-48

I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. -Psalm 119:46

Bible In One Year: Judges 16-18

Many hotels in countries around the world have a Bible in each room. Just open a drawer and you'll find it.

But during a recent hotel stay, I was surprised to see an open Bible placed prominently on a table in the lobby. And when I reached my room, instead of the Bible being in a drawer, it was lying open on the desk. My guess is that the owner decided to draw people's attention to the presence of God and His Word as they travel-often alone and sometimes in great need.

This caused me to ponder my own response to the Scriptures. Is the Bible open in my heart for people to see? Do my actions give evidence that I'm meditating on God's Word?

Psalm 119 is filled with praise for the wonder of God's Word, along with the writer's promise to live by it and share it with others. "I will walk at liberty, for I seek Your precepts," he wrote. "I will speak of Your testimonies also before kings, and will not be ashamed. And I will delight myself in Your commandments, which I love. . . . And I will meditate on Your statutes" (vv.45-47).

Since every life is an open book, let's seek to demonstrate the love and power of God's Word, the Bible, for everyone to see. -David McCasland

We are the only Bible
The careless world will read;
We are the sinner's gospel,
We are the scoffer's creed. -Flint

Of all the commentaries on the Scriptures, good examples are the best. -John Donne

FOR FURTHER STUDY
The Greatest Story Ever Told
How Can I Understand The Bible?

[Valin]

On This Day In history


Birthdates which occurred on March 24:
1188 Ferrand of Portugal earl of Flanders/son of Sancho I
1441 Ernst I elector of Saxon (1464-86)
1630 José Saenz d'Aguirre Spanish cardinal
1703 José F de Isla [Francisco de Salazar], Spanish Jesuit/writer
1755 Rufus King framer of US constitution
1809 Joseph Liouville St Omer Pas-de-Calais France, discover of transcendental numbers
1814 Galen Clark US, naturalist, discovered Mariposa Grove
1821 [George] Hector Tyndale Brevet Major General (Union volunteers)
1834 John Wesley Powell US, geologist/explorer/ethnologist
1834 William Morris England, designer/craftsman/poet/socialist
1835 Josef Stefan Austria, physicist (Stefan-Boltzmann law)
1855 Andrew W Mellon founder (Mellon Bank)/US Secretary of Treasury
1866 Jack McAuliffe US lightweight boxing champion, hall of famer
1871 Sir Ernest Rutherford nuclear scientist
1874 Harry Houdini [Erik Weisz] Budapest Hungary, magician/escape artist
1874 Luigi Einaudi economist/1st President of Italy (1948-55)
1887 Roscoe "Fatty" Arbuckle Smith Center KS, actor (Keystone comedies)
1893 George Sisler baseball hall of fame 1st baseman (257 hits in 1920)
1895 Arthur Murray dancer (Arthur Murray's Dance Party)
1897 Wilhelm Reich Austrian-US psycho analysist (character analysis)
1898 Dorothy Stratton organizer (SPARS-women's branch of US Coast Guard)

1903 Malcolm Muggeridge English writer (Observer of Life)

1906 John Cameron Swayze news correspondant, Timex spokesman (It takes a licking, an keeps on ticking)
1907 Lauris Norstad US General (NATO commander)/CEO (Owens-Corning Fiberglass)
1907 Lucia Chase US ballerina/co-founder (American Ballet Theater)
1909 Clyde Barrow bank robber (of Bonnie & Clyde fame)
1910 Akira Kurosawa, Japanese film director (Living, Rashomon, The Seven Samurai), was born
1911 Joseph Barbera animator (Hanna-Barbera)
1912 Werner von Braun, rocket expert
1914 Lilli Palmer Posen Germany, actress (Boys From Brazil, Sebastian)
1919 Lawrence Ferlinghetti author (Coney Island of the Mind)
1922 Dave Appell singer/musician/songwriter (In the Midnight Hour)
1923 Edna Jo Hunter expert on military families & prisoners of war
1924 Norman Fell Philadelphia PA, actor (Mr Roper-3's Company, The End, Graduate)
1930 Steve McQueen Slater MO, actor (Wanted, Dead or Alive, Blob, Bullitt)
1932 Yuri Anatoyevich Ponomaryov Russia, cosmonaut (Soyuz 18 backup)
1943 Jesus Alou baseball outfielder (San Francisco Giants)
1944 Denny McLain baseball pitcher (Detroit Tigers, 31 wins in 1968)
1944 Patti Labelle singer (Phoenix, Tasty, Chameleon)
1947 Mike Kellie rock drummer (Spooky Tooth-It's All About)
1947 Paul McCandless Musician (Torches on the Lake)
1951 Kenneth S Reightler Jr Patuxent MD, Commander USN/astronaut (STS 48, 60)
1954 Robert Carradine Los Angeles CA, actor (Slim-The Cowboys, Wavelength)
1957 Scott J Horowitz Philadelphia PA, PhD/Captain USAF/astronaut (STS 75, 82)
1970 Lara Flynn Boyle Davenport IA, actress (The Practice, The Temp, Twin Peaks)

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Deaths which occurred on March 24:
0809 Harun al-Rashid caliph of the Abbasid empire (786-809), dies at 44
1369 Pedro the Cruel, King and tyrant of Castile and Leon, murdered
1400 Florens Radewijns Dutch priest/leader Modern Devotion, dies
1455 Nicholas V [Tommaso Parentucelli] Italian Pope (1447-55), dies at 57
1471 Sir Thomas Malory author (Le Morte d'Arthur), dies at 55

1603 Elizabeth I Tudor [Maiden Queen] UK queen (1558-1603), dies at 69

1877 Walter Bagehot English economist/critic/banker, dies at 51
1882 Henry Wadsworth Longfellow US poet (Song of Hiawatha), dies at 75
1894 Robert Prescott Stewart composer, dies at 68
1905 Jules Verne sci-fi author (Around the World in 80 Days), dies at 77
1909 John Millington Synge Irish dramatist/playwright/poet, dies at 37
1946 Alexander A Aljechin world chess champion (1927-35, 37-46), dies at 53
1953 Mary [Victoria of Teck] queen of Great Britain/North-Ireland, dies at 86
1969 Joseph Kasavubu President of Congo (1960-65), dies at about 55
1976 Bernard L Montgomery British General, defeated Rommel, dies at 88
1978 Brackett Hamilton Leigh [Douglass], author (Ginger Star), dies at 62
1980 Archbishop Oscar Romero assassinated while conducting mass in San Salvador
1982 Ace Goodman Kansas City MO, comedian (Easy Aces), dies at 83
1984 Sam Jaffe actor (Dr Zorba-Ben Casey), dies of cancer at 93
1990 An Wang computer manufacturer (Wang), dies at 70 from cancer
1990 Ray Goulding comedian (Bob & Ray), dies from kidney failure at 68
1990 Rene Enriquez actor (Hill St Blues), dies from pancreatic cancer at 56
1992 Friedrich A. von Hayek (92), British economist, Nobel winner (1974), died. (Road to Serfdom (1944) “The Constitution of Liberty” (1960).)
1993 John Hersey Pulitzer prize author (Hiroshima), dies at 78
1995 Joey Long blues/cajun guitarist, dies at 62
1995 Trevor Oswald Ling religious Studies Professor, dies at 75

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GWOT Casualties
Iraq
23-Mar-2003 34 | US: 30 | UK: 4 | Other: 0
US Sergeant Nicolas Michael Hodson Southern part Hostile - vehicle accident
US Captain Christopher Scott Seifert Camp Pennsylvania Non-hostile - homicide
US Specialist Jamaal Rashard Addison An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US 2nd Lieutenant Frederick Eben Pokorney Jr. An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Sergeant George Edward Buggs An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Master Sergeant Robert John Dowdy An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Private Ruben Estrella-Soto An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Private 1st Class Howard Johnson II An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Specialist James Michael Kiehl An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Chief Warrant Officer Johnny Villareal Mata An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Private 1st Class Lori Ann Piestewa An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Private Brandon Ulysses Sloan An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Sergeant Donald Ralph Walters An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Specialist Edward John Anguiano Southern part Hostile - hostile fire - ambush
US Sergeant Michael Edward Bitz An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal David Keith Fribley An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Corporal Jose Angel Garibay An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Corporal Jorge Alonso Gonzalez An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Staff Sergeant Phillip Andrew Jordan An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Thomas Jonathan Slocum An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Brian Rory Buesing An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Corporal Randal Kent Rosacker An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Michael Jason Williams An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Patrick Ray Nixon An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Sergeant Brendon Curtis Reiss An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Private 1st Class Tamario Demetrice Burkett An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Lance Corporal Donald John Cline Jr. An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Private Nolen Ryan Hutchings An Nasiriyah Hostile - friendly fire
US Private Jonathan Lee Gifford An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
US Corporal Kemaphoom "Ahn" Chanawongse An Nasiriyah Hostile - hostile fire
UK Flight Lieutenant., Pilot Kevin Barry Main Southern part Hostile - friendly fire - jet crash
UK Flight Lieut., Navigator David Rhys Williams Southern part Hostile - friendly fire - jet crash
UK Sapper Luke Allsopp Al Zubayr Hostile - hostile fire
UK Staff Sergeant Simon Cullingworth Al Zubayr Hostile - hostile fire


Afghanistan
75 03/23/03 Maltz, Michael Master Sergeant 42 Air Force 38th Rescue Squadron Accident - helicopter Near Ghazni, Afghanistan St. Petersburg Florida
74 03/23/03 Hicks, Jason Carlyle Staff Sergeant 25 Air Force 41st Rescue Squadron Accident - helicopter Near Ghazni, Afghanistan Jefferson South Carolina
73 03/23/03 Archuleta, Tamara Long 1st Lieutenant 23 Air Force 41st Rescue Squadron Accident - helicopter Near Ghazni, Afghanistan Belen New Mexico
72 03/23/03 Plite, Jason Thomas Senior Airman 21 Air Force 38th Rescue Squadron Accident - helicopter Near Ghazni, Afghanistan Lansing Michigan
71 03/23/03 Stein, John Lieutenant Colonel 39 Air Force 41st Rescue Squadron Accident - helicopter Near Ghazni, Afghanistan Bardolph Illinois

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On this day...
0752 Pope Stephen II was elected to succeed Pope Zacharias; however, Stephen died 4 days later.
1026 Koenraad II (Conrad II) crownes himself king of Italy
1550 France & England sign Peace of Boulogne
1603 Scottish king James VI becomes King James I of England
1629 1st game law passed in American colonies, by Virginia
1645 Battle at Jankov Bohemia: Sweden defeats Roman Catholic emperor Ferdinand III
1664 Roger Williams is granted a charter to colonize Rhode Island
1721 Johann Sebastian Bach opens his Brandenburgse Concerts
1743 George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Messiah" London premiere
1743 George Frideric Handel's oratorio "Messiah" London premiere
1765 Britain enacts Quartering Act, required colonists to provide temporary housing to British soldiers
1775 Patrick Henry makes his famous plea for independence from Britain, saying, "Give me liberty, or give me death!"
1792 Benjamin West (US) becomes president of Royal Academy of London
1801 Aleksandr P Romanov becomes emperor of Russia
1828 Philadelphia & Columbia Railway (1st state owned) authorized
1832 Mormon Joseph Smith beaten, tarred & feathered in Ohio
1837 Canada gives blacks the right to vote
1855 Manhattan Kansas founded as New Boston KS
1860 Clipper Andrew Jackson arrives in San Francisco, 89 days out of New York
1865 General Sherman reaches Goldsboro, NC
1880 Tobacco Growers' Mutual Insurance Company incorporates in Connecticut
1882 German scientist Robert Koch discovers bacillus cause of TB
1883 1st telephone call between New York & Chicago(damn telemarkters)
1887 Oscar Straus appointed 1st Jewish ambassador from US (to Turkey)
1898 1st automobile sold
1906 "Census of the British Empire" shows England rules 1/5 of the world
1910 83ºF highest temperature ever recorded in Cleveland in March
1920 1st US coast guard air station established (Morehead City NC)
1924 Greece becomes a republic
1930 1st religious services telecast in US (W2XBS, New York NY)
1930 Planet Pluto named
1934 US declares the Philippines to become independent in 1945
1935 Major Bowes' Original Amateur Hour goes national on NBC Radio Network
1937 National Gallery of Art established by Congress
1941 German troops occupy El Agheila Libya
1941 Glenn Miller begins work on his 1st movie for 20th Century Fox
1944 76 Allied officers escape Stalag Luft 3 (Great Escape)
1944 In occupied Rome, Nazis executed more than 300 civilians
1945 Largest one-day airborne drop, 600 transports & 1300 gliders (Operation Varsity)
1947 Congress proposes 2-term limitation on the Presidency
1947 John D Rockefeller Jr donates NYC East River site to the UN
1949 Walter & John Huston become 1st father-and-son team to win Oscars (actor & director of "Treasure of Sierra Madre")
1955 1st seagoing oil drill rig placed in service
1955 British Army patrols withdraw from Belfast after 20 years
1958 Elvis Presley joins the army (serial number 53310761)
1959 Iraq withdraws from the Baghdad Pact
1960 US appeals court rules novel, "Lady Chatterly's Lover", not obscene
1961 New York Senate approves $55M for a baseball stadium at Flushing Meadows
1962 Benny Paret, KO'd in a welterweight title, he dies 10 days later
1962 Mick Jagger & Keith Richards perform as Little Boy Blue & Blue Boys
1964 Kennedy half-dollar issued
1965 US Ranger 9 strikes Moon, 10 miles (16 km) northeast of crater Alphonsus
1966 Selective Service announces college deferments based on performance
1967 University of Michigan holds 1st "Teach-in" after bombing of North Vietnam
1972 Great Britain imposes direct rule over Northern Ireland
1973 "Handsome" Harley Race beats Dory Funk Jr in Kansas City, to become NWA champion
1975 Muhammad Ali TKOs Chuck Wepner in 15 to retain the heavyweight boxing title
1976 Argentine President Isabel Perón deposed by country's military
1978 Wings release "With a Little Luck"
1980 ABC's nightly Iran Hostage crisis program renamed "Nightline with Ted Koppel"
1981 Colombia drops diplomatic relations with Cuba
1982 US sub Jacksonville collides with a Turkish freighter near Virginia
1986 NASA publishes "Strategy for Safely Returning the Space Shuttle to Flight Status"
1986 Suriname army Captain Etienne Boerenveen arrested for cocaine smuggling
1986 US & Libya clash in Gulf of Sidra Navy-2 Libya-0
1989 Worst US oil spill, Exxon's Valdez spills 11.3 million gallons off Alaska
1991 In liberated Kuwait, banks reopen
1991 Wrestlemania VII in Los Angeles, Hulk Hogan pins Sergeant Slaughter for championship
1994 F-16 collides with C-130 Hercules above AFB in North Carolina,120 die
1997 Australian parliament overturns world's 1st & only euthanasia law
1989 Stanley Pons and Martin Fleischmann, Univ. of Utah scientists, claimed they had produced atomic fusion at room temperature.
1999 NATO commences air strikes against Yugoslavia with the bombing of Serbian military positions in the Yugoslav province of Kosovo.
2000 Germany completed a $5 billion agreement on how to allocate funds among surviving forced laborers and other workers in Hitler's concentration camps.
2000 Pope John Paul the Second paid his respects at Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust memorial
2002 Girls in Afghanistan celebrated their return to school for the first time in years
2003 5th day of Operation Iraqi Freedom US-led warplanes and helicopters attacked Republican Guard units defending Baghdad while ground troops advanced to within 50 miles of the Iraqi capital. The 507th Maintenance Company was ambushed after it made a wrong turn into Nasiriya; 11 soldiers were killed, seven were captured, including Pfc. Jessica Lynch.
2004 The Rev. Sun Myung Moon declared himself the Messiah during a ceremony at the Dirksen Building in Wash., DC. Over a dozen US lawmakers attended the reception. (How very nice for him, I'm sure)

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Holidays
Note: Some Holidays are only applicable on a given "day of the week"

Laos : Army Day
US : Agriculture Day
US : Chocolate Week (Day 4)
US : Straw Hat Week (Day 4)

National Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Month

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Religious Observances
Roman Catholic : Commemoration of St Gabriel, patron of postmen, telephone workers

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Religious History
1774 Anglican clergyman and hymn writer John Newton wrote in a letter: 'What a mercy it is to be separated in spirit, conversation, and interest from the world that knows not God.'
1818 American statesman Henry Clay wrote: 'All religions united with government are more or less inimical to liberty. All separated from government are compatible with liberty.'
1940 Dr. Samuel Cavert of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America officiated at a Protestant Easter service in New York City. It was the first religious program to be broadcast over television, and was carried by local NBC affiliate TV station W2XBS, in NYC.
1980 El Salvador's leading human rights activist, Archbishop Oscar Romero, 62, was assassinated by a sniper while saying mass in a hospital chapel.
1982 Five congregations in the eastern San Francisco Bay area became the first to declare themselves publicly as sanctuary churches, in an effort to help refugees from Central America establish themselves in the U.S. during political and military unrest in their native countries.

Source: William D. Blake. ALMANAC OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH. Minneapolis: Bethany House, 1987.

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Thought for the day :
"God made rainy days so gardeners could get the housework done."

[PzLdr]

My Dad fought in the Huertgen Forest with the combat engineers of the 4th Infantry Division. His battalion was sent out to make contact with another unit that had gotten surrounded, and Pop's unit was ambushed. Dad jumped into what he thought was a foxhole - turned out to be a well. By the time things got sorted out, Pop got devised to England with frostbite of the feet and legs.

In England, Eisenhower inspected the hospital where my Dad was, looking for troops healthy enough to send back to the front (By now, the 4th was on the southern flank of the Battle of the Bulge. Pop didn't rejoin his unit until early '45 at Worms.

My Dad hit the beach at Utah Beach on D-Day.His was the first ground unit into St. Mere Eglese on D-Day. He was at St.Lo, and I believe Mortain. He ended the war in Bavaria.He told the funniest (mostly) war stories you ever heard. He read "Crusade in Europe" because Eisenhower "was my General" (and the first but not the last Republican he ever voted for). He loved his family, his country and the Yankees, and taught me that service and honor mean something.Pop passed almost four years ago. They don't call them the "Greatest Generation" for nothing

[Darksheare]

Morning!

[SAMWolf]

Morning Feather. You even beat Snippy. :-)

[SAMWolf]

Good morning Snippy.