The FReeper Foxhole Remembers Wyatt E. Barnese: My First Day in Combat (11/25/1944) - July 6th, 2005

Military History Quarterly | Spring 1999 | Wyatt E. Barnese

[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.
.

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for all those serving their country at this time.

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My First Day in Combat

A retired soldier recounts the fear and excitement of his first day of combat as a nineteen-year-old GI in November 1944--and how his desire for a souvenir almost turned that first day on the line into his last.

We travel-worn replacements were adopted by F Company, 318th Regiment, Eightieth Infantry Division, on November 13, 1944. Our induction was without ceremony, as befitted such a routine event, for there had been several similar infusions of bewildered replacements in the period after the division's heavy losses during the Lorraine battles of October and early November. My own odyssey, that of a nineteen-year-old GI, had begun six weeks earlier on the quay in Greenock, Scotland, where I debarked from Queen Elizabeth along with fifteen thousand other American soldiers. We then entered the replacement system's sluice, which dumped its contents into the hungry divisions on the line.

As I traveled through the replacement pipeline, the few friends I had made during the crossing went to other units. I knew no one in the group who joined F Company, now in reserve building its strength in the village of Haute-Vigneulle in Lorraine. There were occasional shell bursts, but the unit was not seriously bothered by them. I was impressed by my warlike surroundings, though the veterans were unaffected. They had seen much worse and now luxuriated in the relative peace.

This idyll was about to end. On November 24, an officer told us that the next morning we would descend the south slope of a nearby valley and cross a small stream, destroying whatever enemy we encountered. We would then drive up the north slope and seize its crest. The two Maginot Line bunkers glaring down from that promontory, sited for all-around defense, need not trouble us, he said; artillery would deal with them. Difficulties were minimized, and the briefing ended.



The officer did not disclose the purpose of the drive. In any case, the men of F Company did not care. The immediate front, not high strategy, was our real concern, and we replacements worried most about how we would endure the utterly new experience that awaited us. Actually, it was a major effort, involving the whole of the Fifth and Eightieth Infantry divisions against the Falkenberg Stellung (Falkenberg Position), defended by the Thirty-sixth Volksgrenadier (People's Infantry) Division. The Thirty-sixth was understrength and not well-equipped, though it was augmented by a battalion or two from the 347th Infantry Division. The Americans would attack with three infantry regiments, a tank battalion and two tank destroyer battalions in close support. A five-minute artillery bombardment would precede the operation.

Late that afternoon we were led to the top of the south slope and told to dig in just below the crest in two-man teams. Excavating the thick, clayish soil, soaked by weeks of rain, was an ordeal. The day soon became night. When my foxhole companion and I had to answer the call of nature, we slid out of our hole as best we could. A faint light suffused our surroundings, for the heavy cloud cover could not completely hide the full moon. While we attended to our needs, there was a blinding flash and a shattering explosion. An enemy mortar had zeroed in on our position; its alert crew must have seen faint movement and dropped a ready shell into the barrel. It was almost a direct hit--all that saved us was that glutinous clay that had made our digging so difficult earlier in the day. The shell buried itself, exploded, and rained clumps of clay upon our prostrate forms. It was a narrow escape. A Hollywood war movie would have had us philosophizing at length over the meaning of this adventure in light of the experience we were to undergo the next day. Drenched and miserable, however, we exchanged scarcely a word as the two of us slithered back into our hole. We huddled in our watery shelter and awaited the dawn.



When it came, F Company assembled in the slowly gathering light and moved down the hill in a skirmish line. The rain had almost stopped, and the valley ahead could be seen through the trees. In the dimness, I could make out other companies on our right. As we moved forward, our shells were striking the north slope and its bunkers, but this activity and the closer sounds of machine guns and rifles went almost unheard by me. I was intent on keeping my place in the line and navigating the slippery slope with its brush and trees.

I did feel adequately equipped. I carried five or six eight-round clips for my M-1 rifle, a first-aid packet, a canteen, and a shovel on my cartridge belt. Slung over my shoulders were my gas mask and two bandoleers, each containing six additional clips of M-1 ammunition. In my raincoat pockets were one concussion grenade and two fragmentation grenades. My augmented combat pack, containing items of varying value, weighed thirty-five pounds or so. I was as prepared as possible for whatever destiny might demand.



We reached the valley bottom to find that the "small stream" the briefing officer had mentioned was not merely a simple bubbling brook. Rain swollen, the stream had become a swift torrent four or five feet deep. We lowered ourselves into it and gained the opposite bank. After we crossed the stream, the open fields of the valley floor, laced by barbed boundary fences, lay before us. The whole north slope, including the two German bunkers, was in sight.

Soon I saw my first enemy soldiers. On my right some twenty yards away, fifteen or twenty men in yellow raincoats moved about. The sight struck me as incredible. Here I was, trudging through a marshy field, climbing barbed-wire fences, drenched to the skin, trying to focus on all that was happening around me, and worrying about sticking to my unit, and then, suddenly, there was the enemy. But then I hesitated. Were they our own men who had unexpectedly gotten in front of us? The fear of firing on comrades was in my thoughts during my entire time on the front line; I could imagine nothing worse. Pushing aside my uncertainty, I fired at the left-most raincoat-clad soldier. He fell. Then, perhaps moved by the excitement of my first shot fired in anger, I fired four more rounds into his presumably lifeless body. The other soldiers in yellow were giving up. We moved on.



Continuing across the valley, I fired the three rounds left in my rifle at nothing in particular and inserted a fresh clip. Steady artillery fire hammered the two north-crest bunkers. Then their garrisons ran outside with white flags, and the shelling ceased. That was a relief; if the garrisons had fought seriously, we would have suffered heavily. Hugh Cole's The Lorraine Campaign notes that "these works were now in a poor state...[and] the Germans had little time to familiarize themselves with the Maginot system."

[Iris7]

Years ago I knew the Garand nomenclature. Can't remember a syllable nowadays!!

The M1 was, for me, easy to hit with out to 300 - 350 yards. (Wish I could shoot properly nowadays, don't know why, eyes, concentration, something, is just gone.) It was heavy and long enough to damp out "adrenaline" shakiness well, compared to short and lightweight modern arms.

There is a sensation, don't know what other people call it, I use "hang", where the weapon points easily and the front sight is steady. The weight is in the left hand, not in the right as with an M16. The weight is not all in the center of the piece but in either end making the front sight steady.

Rifles always have been this way unless they were too lightweight. The last military arm that balanced like I describe, at least somewhat, was the FAL.

Try a Springfield Rifle Musket replica. A Winchester 94 (excellent arm, excellent design), or an original US Army Krag, or any full weight full bore iron sighted rifle with a correct stock for iron sights. Modern sporting arms usually are designed for telescopic sights, with stocks that will not "hang" or point properly and so require a rest. African rifles are an exception.

The CMP is selling Garands for very little if you want a few. Clinton had many fine arms destroyed to appease his constituencies, and so the old stocks are being rapidly dispersed into the hands of people who will take care of them. A worthy cause. The next Dem president will probably be much worse even than Bill.

[E.G.C.]

BTT!!!!!!!