This is the continuation of a story begun on our June 2015 Home Page. To go to an archived version of that page, click here: June 2015 Home Page Archive. To return to this month's actual Home Page, click on the Signal Corps orange Home Page menu item in the upper left corner of this page.

continuing...

And so it came as no surprise to Captain Beck when a few days later the reprimand arrived on his desk. As it turned out, the action taken against him ended up being a fine. Even then however, Captain Beck felt he had been wronged, and asked to see General McAuliffe.

General McAuliffe listened patiently, and despite his reputation for being a no baloney commander, expressed his sympathy over the predicament Captain Beck found himself in. Thinking perhaps that whatever the truth, Captain Beck had learned a lesson or two about vehicle maintenance, he had the reprimand removed from Captain Beck’s 201 file. The fine, however, stayed.

All of these years later, it is interesting to note that if it were not for copies of the charges being kept as part of the personal files and records that Captain Beck kept for himself, of his time in the service, no one would know that this incident occurred. Apparently, when General McAuliffe expunged the charges he made absolutely certain that no records of them existed in any format, anywhere, in any U.S. Army records… so that they would not impact Captain Beck’s career. Searching for them today, one will find nothing.

As an aside, this act on General McAuliffe’s part of clearing the records of any negative reviews relating to the charges brought against Captain Beck was part of an approach to Officer discipline that Omar Bradley required of his Senior Commanders. Bradley was of the mindset at the time that very few if any of the Officers then fighting the war were fully qualified for the work they were doing, and as such it was to be expected that many of them would have to be disciplined at one time or another, and that an equal number would even have to be relieved of duty.

Time and again he made the point to Eisenhower and others that if an Officer was derelict in his duty his discipline should be swift and hard… even to the point that if the case warranted it then the Officer should be immediately relieved of duty. Yet in spite of this tough approach, he was equally adamant that everyone involved—from those disciplining the Officer to those who served with him and along side of him—should know and understand that the discipline being given was for the purpose of better pursuing the war, not punishing the Officer.

Thus, if an Officer was relieved of duty and broken to a lower rank it was not for the purpose of teaching the man a lesson, but for the purpose of putting him into a job that he was qualified to do, rather than leaving him in one where he was failing to make the grade.

One byproduct of this was that during WWII Bradley’s approach resulted in fellow Officers thinking nothing negative about an associate that was relieved of duty or broken in rank. Instead, they felt that it was good that their fellow Officer was now in a job he could do, rather than one where he was struggling to master his tasks and his command. They felt it was best for all concerned, even to the point that while they prayed that it did not happen to them, if it did they figured things would be just fine, to the point that they were sure that any discipline they received would not impact their career.

An important element of Bradley’s campaign to relieve underperforming Officers was the fact that just as quick as he wanted his Senior Commanders to be in relieving Officers who were not performing, he also wanted them to be equally as quick in recognize those that did perform well… even those who had recently been relieved of duty. The point being, discipline the entire cadre of the Army Officer corps hard, no matter what a man's rank... General or 2nd Lieutenant... but do so only for the purpose of teaching, not punishing. And when an Officer showed that he had learned his lesson, or was otherwise excelling in his new job, promote him... not necessarily in the sense of the word "rank", but most certainly in the sense of giving him more duties and responsibilities, along with the rank he needed to exercise those responsibilities.

Thus, Officers who were relieved of front line combat duty for doing a lousy job often found themselves being sent to the rear, or even back to the States, where they found themselves in logistic or administrative roles, rather than positions with combat command responsibility. In those cases, what they quickly found was that not only was their having been relieved of duty not held against them, but that if they did their new job well they were quickly promoted back up the ladder… often ending up being at a higher position than they had held only a few months earlier while serving in the field.

For this Bradley was a genius. History is replete with stories of both Junior and Senior Officers who failed in their job during WWII, were relieved of duty, disciplined, and then encouraged to rise to the top one more time… where they would once again find themselves in charge of situations far more complex and hairy than the one(s) that led to their original demotion... but which this time they were qualified to handle.

Bradley was right, the measure of a man is not whether he succeeds or fails at his job, but whether his character is such that he keeps trying, keeps learning, and keeps applying himself, all the while maintaining his integrity and a determination to both serve America well and succeed.

As we all know, General Patton was one of the Senior Officers of WWII who failed at his job, was disciplined, given a lower level assignment as part of his re-education, and not only allowed the chance to rebuild his career from that rear echelon assignment, but encouraged to do so… all without any negative consequence, and most importantly without being stigmatized by his fellow Officers. Thank God that’s the way things worked back then, because as it turned out, America needed Patton, just as badly as Patton needed disciplining.

Compare that if you will to today’s Army. If General Petraeus was still on active duty at the time the story broke of his having given Top Secret information to his mistress, what would have happened to his career? In Bradley’s Army he would have been relieved of duty and demoted, but he would have been given the chance to rebuild that career in short order, and promoted back up the ranks to a position of authority and trust, where his significant skills could continue to serve America well. Not so today. Today, if he had not already been retired from the Army at the time the incident came to light, he would have been toast.

In our view, the way Omar Bradley handled Officer discipline during WWII was far better than the way it is handled today. Bradley focused on training the Officer—through quick and harsh discipline—how to do a better job. In the process he mandated that the Officer’s personal integrity, reputation and honor not be impugned or damaged because of the discipline being handed out. To Bradley it was all about producing more capable Officers, by simply recognizing that many, many Officers of WWII needed extra help and guidance if they were to master the duties they were assigned. Discipline was merely one more tool that could be applied to achieve this goal. But it would not work if in the process an Officer’s fellow Officers looked down on him for being relieved of duty.

As regards our Captain Beck from Class 42-06 of Army Signal OCS, it’s to Captain Beck’s son that we are indebted, as he is the one who made the records of his father's discipline public.

And finally, for those who served in WWII in Europe in the period following the disciplining or Captain Beck and found themselves victims of what seemed to be an inordinate amount of attention being paid by Lieutenants and Captains to vehicle maintenance… now you know where it all came from. As the winter of January 1945 turned into spring and this story made the rounds of the European Theatre of War, every walking Junior Officer got the message that for their own salvation they had better start focusing on vehicle maintenance. So thorough was the lesson learned that within short order the Army ordered that driver’s names be placed on the windshields of their vehicles, and that Junior Officers be graded on the condition of the vehicles under their charge.

- - - - -

While vehicle and other logistical issues continued to keep the men of the 103rd Signal Company on their toes, the war dragged on.

On January 12, 1945, the 103rd Infantry Division went on the offensive. As it turned out, the 411th Infantry Regiment, part of the 103rd I.D., had attempted to capture a small patch of high ground commanding an area in the vicinity of Sarreguemines. The Germans didn’t take kindly to their effort and put up a stiff fight, based in part on the simple fact that they existed in much greater numbers in the area than the 411th Infantry Regiment did. Battered but not beaten, the 411th was forced to withdraw from the positions they took, returning to the lines they held before the offensive.

During all of this Captain Beck had been watching the actions of his First Sergeant, a man named Sweeny. Apparently, for quite a while Captain Beck had thought that Sergeant Sweeny was Officer material, and on the 13th of January, 1945, he acted on it. He granted him a direct, battlefield commission and then promoted the man behind him (Sergeant Finkbeiner) up one notch to become the new First Sergeant for the 103rd Signal Company.

In those days when an enlisted man was promoted on the battlefield to Officer level, he was sent off for a quick course in what being an Officer was all about. In the European Theatre of War what would typically happen was that the newly commissioned Officer would be sent behind the lines to Morhange, France, where he would receive short but intense training on the subject. Considered part of the Officer’s Replacement Depot, at Morhange the men receiving a Battle Field Commission (BFC) would be given training on how to command, and brought up to speed on the details and responsibilities of their new positions. Many of those who went through this fast track training commented afterwards that they were surprised at the extent of deference that the military acceded to Officers as regards comparing an "Officer and a Gentleman" to an enlisted man. That is, for the first time they began to comprehend that which they knew existed, but did not fully understand.

Reading the writings of many of the men from that period, one repeatedly finds comments saying that they could now see that in addition to competence and the other factors that Officers are supposed to have working in their favor, integrity too plays a big role. They said that they could now see that without the entire Officer Corps valuing personal integrity over personal gain, when it came to commanding on the battlefield an Officer could not depend on the words and actions of another Officer. That is, if an Officer on the battlefield solicited, before ordering a combat action, advice or even just comment from another Officer, he had to be absolutely certain that the comments the other Officer offered were trustworthy beyond measure. If not, then there would be no way for those Officers making strategic and tactical battlefield decisions to know if they were doing the right thing or not.

One other result caused by the training given in the Officer’s Replacement Depot was an assessment by the former enlisted men going though it of the value of the new “Officer value system” that they were being introduced to. Generally this took place in the form of a series of BOQ discussions of the advantages and disadvantages of being promoted to Officer level. In particular, they argued over what it would be like if they were sent back to their original unit, and asked to command those they used to be buddies with. In every case these new Officers said that if that happened it would be tough for them to do their job. In this one area we can see today the reason why fraternization with enlisted men is still verboten in the Army. Recognizing this, the Army assured that most of the men given field promotions never made it back to their old units. Instead they were reassigned, usually to another theatre of war.

Finally, while there must have been a few of the men who passed through the Officer’s Replacement Depot training course that regretted their promotion, in doing our research about the men sent to Morhange, France, we could not find one. To a man they all said that they could not have made a better choice than accepting their commission. Now, both they, their life and their career were “on their way”.

As for the battle the 411th had begun in an attempt to take ground in the Sarreguemines area, and which the 103rd Signal Company supported, the final stages saw both sides spent. More from the extreme cold of that particular winter than anything else, the fact was that both sides found themselves hoping for a pause. With resources on both sides down to a minimum, life became primitive, with survival becoming the highest priority.

The German troops were in worse condition than the Americans, and soon began to surrender just so that they could be fed and made warm again. Many froze where they fell, not even having the strength to reach the American lines to surrender. Still, in spite of the hardships and conditions the men of the 411th fought on, and so did the men of the 103rd Signal Company. Finally, in the last few days of January, 1945, the Americans made their way back to the advanced positions they had once held. By the time they did, some 16,000 Americans were KIA, with 60,000 more wounded or captured. As politically incorrect as it is to say so today, fortunately, German casualties were twice those of the Americans.

Some today say that this small engagement was the greatest American battle of World War II. Others claim it was the most costly battle ever fought by Americans, in any war. In support of this, statistics have been published that say that until the battle at Sarreguemines, in the Ardennes, the worst killing field in American history had been at Gettysburg, with 51,000 casualties being listed on both sides. Compared to this, in the Ardennes, American casualties exceeded 76,000, with again, German losses being twice that, for a total loss on both sides exceeding 228,000.

Considered today as part of the bigger Battle of the Bulge, this small engagement contributed its dead to the total German losses of nearly 450,000 men, including 36,000 captives, and the 77,700 battle casualties the Americans sustained. As to be expected, the majority of the dead were infantry men, or "doughs" as the men of the 103rd called them. American doughs.

So involved was the American Army in trying to win this battle that British Prime Minister Winston Churchill went out of his way to make sure that all of Britain knew that if it were not for America’s aid and these men in particular, Britain would cease to exist. He made this point succinctly when he told the House of Commons that for every British fatality suffered, 60 to 80 Americans died to protect England. That, he said, justified calling it “the greatest American battle of the war and a total American victory.”

With the Battles for Sarreguemines, the Ardennes and the Bulge behind them, the 103rd was sent back to fight In Alsace, to the place they had originally been pulled out of when the Bulge heated up. This time they would be tossed into an operation that started when the 103rd first left the area, and was still going on when they returned.

Called Operation Northwind (Northwind), it covered an area known as Bitche-Neunhofen, and was designed, by Hitler himself, to maintain German possession of the area. Strategically, the purpose of the operation was to cut off part of Lieutenant General Jacob L. Devers' Sixth Army Group in the Vosges Mountains (in northeastern France), such that it would “compel Patton to withdraw the mass of his forces which are now seeking to relieve Bastogne...” Hitler felt that if he could turn Operation Nordwind into a success, “the pressure on the [German’s] south flank in the [Battle of the Bulge in the] Ardennes will relax.”

For Hitler, all of this fighting in the Ardennes was about trying to find a way to take the French out of the war. From his perspective, the unstable Free French regime, symbolized in the person of General Charles de Gaulle, would fall if it suffered the loss of Alsace. In its place the Communist Resistance might rise up, and if that happened then it was possible that the Allied lines of supply and communication might be appreciably disrupted. If all of this could be made to happen, then coupled with the recent Allied reverses in the Ardennes, the totality of the losses might throw the Western Alliance into chaos… resulting, as Hitler viewed it, as a possible basis from which the entire Allied coalition could disintegrate. And if that happened, then Germany would win the war.

Eisenhower sensed Hitler’s strategy and worried as to whether General Devers would be able to hold his 200-mile long front line… a line that now stretched from Basel, Switzerland, to the Saar. From a fighting strength capability standpoint, Eisenhower knew something that few others did. And that was that while the U.S. First Army now had a frontage of about 5 miles per Division, General Devers was covering his sector in Eastern France with one Division for every 15 miles.

After much back and forth between Ike and Devers, including strong words and raised voices, Ike told Devers that "On no account [was he to] permit formations [in the deep Lauterbourg salient, that could be] ...cut off and surrounded".

To avoid this, Eisenhower decided it would be better to surrender the land in Alsace to the Germans, rather than fight for it and therein reduce the number of men he had available to consolidate his gains in the Battle of the Bulge and Ardennes forest. From his perspective, while he did not like conceding territory to the Germans, the area in Alsace was of little military importance. In the end, he determined not to get too embroiled in the Alsace sector, and issued orders accordingly.

On a practical basis this meant that General Devers would have to pull his men out of the salient he had been fighting in. This in turn meant that the Germans would be permitted to occupy Strasbourg, for a time… unless the French were willing to fight on their own in order to keep free their own national terrain.

When this was told to them an immediate stir ran through the French camp. Instantly de Gaulle embarked for Eisenhower's headquarters at Versailles, which was exactly what Hitler had been hoping for. So too did Prime Minister Winston Churchill, accompanying de Gaulle more in the role of a mediator than anything else. When they arrived, Ike got straight to the point, explaining that he needed his men to shore up his advances in the Ardennes, and could not send them into a fight to hold territory of little more than emotional value to the French. He reminded them that he had previously warned all concerned that if they did not pay attention to the sore spot called the Colmar Pocket (see our story of the Colmar Pocket in Part II of this series), and consolidate their gains there, they would find themselves at risk of losing Alsace and Strasbourg. Well… they did not pay attention to the Colmar Pocket, and now it was happening, and he was not going to jeopardize his gains in the Ardennes for French feelings. In typically American English, Eisenhower insinuated to de Gaulle that the French had dropped the ball in reducing the German salient there, and were now paying the price.

Notwithstanding his frustration with his Allies' intransigence and failure to act, Eisenhower recognized that he could not let the alliance break up over this incident, as Hitler undoubtedly wished would happen. So, shortly after the meeting was over he telephoned General Devers and ordered that the withdrawal from the salient be immediately canceled. The U.S. VI Corps would hold onto Strasbourg. De Gaulle had won.

To help assuage Eisenhower’s feelings, in early January General Devers moved the boundaries of the U.S. Seventh Army, and the French First Army, to make the French responsible for the defense of Strasbourg.

Not surprisingly, with all of this too and fro going on, the 103rd found itself being pulled hither and yon. On January 19, 1945, they found themselves back in action on the extreme right of the 6th Corps, in the vicinity of Haguenau. There in the biting cold they fought one of the most bitter battles of the winter. An attack by the 411th Regiment on the town of Sessenheim, an attempt to pre-empt the pressure of a strong German force, found itself being countered by even heavier pressure from the Germans. As the battle raged on, it became clear that the Germans had a far superior force, with infantry, tanks, self propelled weapons and “flack” wagons all at the ready. As the men of the 103rd entered the town, they found themselves first facing only moderate resistance, and then without notice facing a very strong counter attack. So strong was the counter attack that the men of the 103rd were driven all the way back to the rear, where their support troops were stationed.

Overall, the men griped that because of top-level confusion and misunderstanding as to the strength of the enemy, and a failure to comprehend what the overall tactical goals were that were driving the Germans to fight, the 103rd­—and especially its Signal Company— was being placed in untenable positions from which more often than not they were being forced to retreat, in terrible weather, at great losses.

Hearing the griping, the 103rd’s Commanders cobbled together a new line of resistance. Established along the south bank of the Rothbach and Moder Rivers, between the village of Rothbach and the town of Pfaffenhoffen, the line was intended to help the unit disengage from the enemy until German intentions could be better ascertained. This line sufficed for only a day or two before a strategic withdrawal was mandated by the higher echelons at VI Corp and Seventh Army headquarters.

On the night of January 21, in a blinding snowstorm, the men withdrew. Surprisingly, as much as they grumbled about lack of a cohesive strategy to take on the Germans, they now grumbled even louder about their withdrawal. The reason was that from the G.I.’s perspective they were abandoning the members of the resistance, the Force Francaise Interieur (FFI), which they had been fighting alongside of. The FFI would now be left to its own defenses, and with most of them having families in the towns that we were be vacated, the withdrawing forces feared that the Germans would massacre all of those left behind. Adding insult to this injury, the men were convinced even as they withdrew that the entire exercise was for naught, as they would only be back in a few days to fight for and retake the very same ground they were now willfully abandoning.

As to be expected, the 103rd Signal Company’s radio units and wire teams were intermixed with the infantry troops, tanks, artillery gun carriages, AA guns, trucks, and other paraphernalia that was being pulled out, with the net result that the withdrawal was a messy one. Much of the time was spent by the men not in their vehicles, but out of them… trying both to police up wire as they retreated, lay new wire in front of the retreating troops, and guide their own slipping and sliding vehicles around the mass of humanity fleeing the area.

Eventually the Allies prevailed, and in the aftermath of the battles in the Schillerdorf area, things settled down for the winter. On both sides, troops settled in for a long, wintry wait, preparing for what they knew would be a tough spring offensive. For their part, the Germans pulled back from their recent gains to what were more defensible positions, seemingly willing to hole up for the winter, rather than attack.

The Allies too, along the entire Western Front—as well as the Russians, along their own front—now set about straightening their lines and preparing their forces for a massive push into the heart of Germany.

As January morphed into February and the Officers of the 103rd Signal Company focused on routine duties to prepare for the spring offensive, Captain Beck took time out of his work to write of his feelings of war. In one passage he tellingly showed the impact of combat on a man’s soul. In it he said “I know very well that wounds and injuries are a daily occurrence. But, when it happens to a close friend or relative, it takes on a different aspect. To see a dead soldier, who is an American, on a battlefield leaves me rather squeamish. When I see that he is wearing the same uniform as I, with its familiar G.I. articles, I feel as if I know him. I have seen many dead Germans. Their appearance, no matter how emaciated or ghoulish, caused no special emotion within. They were like a wrecked vehicle or artillery piece. Inorganic, immaterial.”

This dissociative ability to build a wall between one form of humanity… those men with whom you fight, versus those against whom you fight… is typical of combat. Today we see this as one of the elements that leads to PTSD. To see a human being dead, on the ground, and feel empathy for only those who are dressed in your uniform is typical of war. It’s what makes wars winnable, for if every soldier saw the enemy with the same empathy and passion as he does his own comrades, no man could kill another.

Another thing about being at war… real war… struck Captain Beck as unusual. In March, 1945, he wrote that his Company was spread along a 50 mile front, from end to end. As he thought of what it took to logistically support his unit, and coordinate command and control over his men, it struck him that “More and more I now realize that everything we did back in the States was [just] so much practice. It was all make believe there, and here it is for keeps. No matter what we do I always have that feeling that it's for real. No matter how insignificant the duty, a mistake just cannot be made. After a fashion, it becomes habit forming to do things and make them count.”

One can see from this that his earlier reprimand regarding vehicle maintenance had taken root… he now knew how critical it was for a unit to be in top condition, full fighting form, ready for anything. All those days in America were just a joke compared to this; this was for real.

In February Allied military leaders held a conference to discuss and agree on the final strategic moves that would be necessary to connect the Allied forces approaching from the western and eastern fronts, so that victory could be assured. Looking at a map of the Allied front as of February 8, 1945, one can see that the actions that were planned for the spring would take place to the north of the 103rd Infantry Division’s then present position west of Strasbourg. Timing wise, it appeared that several different phases of the war would be run, suggesting a sequence of assaults would be mounted, starting near the northern limits of the Allied front and moving southward toward the 6th Army Group, eventually ending up in the 103rd Infantry Division's field of battle, at the lower end of the Allied front. One senses from this that the tactical judgment was to concentrate maximum support elements of the various operations behind a concentrated push toward the Rhine river, and the German border.

As to how strong the Allied position was, by the end of February 1945 an overwhelming Allied force was pressing hard against the German border. 4,000,000 men, most of them Americans, were massed into seven field armies composed of 53 infantry and 20 armored divisions, supported by more than 17,500 combat airplanes. The shattered Siegfried line lay behind them. The last defensive barrier, the rain swollen Rhine river, lay ahead of them. Within this whole collection of men and material lay the 103rd Signal Company, out there in a defensive position on the front line of their sector, watching and waiting for any sign of a German probing attack.

- - - - -

And so for a while all was quiet, as the men along the western front waited for spring to come and an offensive to start. Yet that was not what Eisenhower had in mind. Spring hell… there was a war to be fought, and while he would allow a few weeks for units to reassemble and reequip themselves, he intended to mount an offensive as fast as he could.

What Eisenhower saw that few others saw was that, based on the results of the Battle of the Bulge, the Germans were no longer in any condition to defend against an Allied assault, especially one that covered a broad front. In speaking of this to Churchill, Churchill agreed, even liking the idea of a broad front assault of the kind Eisenhower had in mind. Then the Russians did something that threw everything out of kilter: they began to advance towards Berlin. When Churchill saw this he panicked, as if the Russians made rapid advances toward the west and Berlin, and defeated the Germans before the British could, there would be hell to pay for decades after the war was over… with the British having to constantly check Stalin’s goal of subsuming Eastern Europe and making it part of his empire. With this in mind, Churchill and the British Military Staff began to lobby Eisenhower to change his broad front advance to a single, strong thrust advance that targeted the heart of Germany and Berlin.

Hoping to gain a stronger position for post-war control over the divvying up of the spoils, Churchill pushed Ike to accept Montgomery, not Bradley, as the leader of this newly planned assault. This in spite of the fact that the majority of the troops involved would be American. As we all know today, both tactically and politically, this suggestion was not acceptable… not to Marshall, Eisenhower or any of America’s civilian or political leaders.

From a tactical perspective alone, Ike estimated that Montgomery's 21st Army Group, located on the northern edge of the Allied front, would find itself moving through excessively poor tank terrain, mostly composed of a low, marshy plains crisscrossed with streams and canals. As far as he was concerned, mounting an offensive from this area, aiming to take Berlin, could cost as many as 100,000 casualties. For that reason alone, Monty was out… although Bradley, never one to miss a chance to add humor to a tactical decision, opined that doing what the British wanted would be "a pretty stiff price to pay for a prestige objective", in other words, it was too stiff a price to pay just to put a peacock feather in Montgomery’s cap by letting him lead the invasion.

To test the idea that a single, strong thrust advance was doable, Eisenhower tasked Patton with trying to sneak across the Rhine in small units. Believing that the German defensive forces were breaking into separate units and regiments, and moving back across the Rhine in order to not be trapped by the advancing Allies, Ike thought he saw a chance to strike while the Germans were disorganized and not yet fully assembled into a strongly entrenched line of resistance on the eastern side of the Rhine.

Patton took to Ike’s plan like a fish to water. On the 25th of March he sent elements of his 5th Army to test a Rhine crossing via small boats, in an area about 70 miles south of the Remagen riverhead. His plan succeeded, costing him 8 dead and 20 wounded. In just such an instant, Patton made history by being the first to mount a successful amphibious crossing of the Rhine since Napoleon. More importantly, he gave the Allies a second, solid foothold on the other side of the Rhine.

Years later this exercise became known as Patton's "bridging and crossing" operation. As it stood at the time, after the completion of the Battle in The Ardennes, Patton and his Army turned to the south and east attacking toward the Rhine. Without the luck of the 9th Armored Division, further to the north, who were able to capture the only intact bridge across the Rhine at Remagen, Patton's Third Army faced the necessity of bridging the river on their own, with their own resources.

Up to that time there had been a total of 22 road and 25 railroad bridges spanning the Rhine, into Germany, but only one was left standing... the bridge at Remagen. The Germans had successfully destroyed all of the rest, making it necessary for Patton to find another way to cross the river. 

In a special order to his men issued after they had successfully mounted their first bridging and crossing operation, Patton stated that in just the past three months (from late January to late March, 1945), "you have taken over 6,400 square miles of territory, seized over 3,000 cities, towns and villages including Trier, Koblenz, Bingen, Worms, Mainz, Kaiserslautern, and Ludwigshafen. You have captured over 140,000 soldiers, killed or wounded an additional 100,000 while eliminating the German 1st and 7th Armies. Using speed and audacity on the ground with support from peerless fighter-bombers in the air, you kept up a relentless round-the-clock attack on the enemy. Your assault over the Rhine at 2200 last night assures you of even greater glory to come."[1] 

In other areas, as the month of March rolled on, the Allies found themselves with three Allied armies ready to mount a drive into the heart of Germany. As to where to go once they entered Germany, while Berlin was not considered a major tactical goal by most of the SHAEF staff, everyone nevertheless realized that with the Russians only 50 miles from Berlin, either the Allies had to get a move on to get there first, or they would have to concede the territory to the Russians.

While today we wish they had gotten a move on, the truth is that at the time a) it was unlikely that a force from the west could have covered the ground necessary in the time allotted to beat the Russians to Berlin, and b) while few knew it, Berlin had already been designated as a zone that would be deep within the Russian post-war zone of occupation. That being the case, even if the British, American and French forces made a dash for Berlin, they would only have to withdraw once they got there. For the moment then, even though there were disagreements within the western Allies over the policy of letting the Russians have Berlin, it was thought best to focus on defeating the Germans, not the Russians.

With this in mind Ike went back to his favored strategy of a broad front advance. In early March, 1945, he put his plan in action, ordering that his forces move eastward toward Germany, cross the Rhine river, and then move northward toward Denmark, in order to avoid colliding with the Russians near Berlin. In the area of our interest, toward the southern part of Germany, where the 103rd Signal Company was working, the plan was to direct this “southern front” advance south, towards southern Germany and Austria.

On March 15, 1945, The 7th Army started an offensive attack of almost continuous action, one which began then and did not stop until the war in Europe was over.

In preparation for this the 103rd Infantry Division Command Post was located in Imbsheim, France, from mid-February to mid-March. This made it relatively easy for the 103rd Signal Company to provide effective communications for Division HQ, as the installation the unit occupied was the same one they had occupied before being pulled out and sent to help attack the Siegfried Line, and support Patton’s efforts in the Battle of the Bulge.

A Company Report from that time says that… 

“In addition to normal operating functions, technical training was carried on throughout the month by the various communication sections as follows:

“a. Wire Section: Each wire crew was taken individually and given on the job instruction in the installation and maintenance of spiral four cable, and also further instruction and practice in the installation and maintenance of open wire construction.

“b. Telephone and Telegraph Section: A switch was installed at Bouxwiller and one trunk to each regiment terminated at this point. This added additional facilities for training operators. The section installed a telegraph net to include the Division Command Post, Rear Echelon, and the three Infantry Regiments. In addition to the above, the section conducted traffic surveys, signal security surveys, and an intensive education campaign in telephone discipline.

“c. Radio Section: In addition to the normal functions of operating the Division Command Net and the Corps Net, this section operated the telegraph net installed by the telephone and telegraph section for further code training of radio operators. Dummy traffic was transmitted continuously over this net; seventy-five (75) percent of this traffic was encoded in M-209, thereby providing additional training for code personnel; fifteen (15) percent in AFCODE; ten (10) percent in clear.

“d. Message Center Section: Training in the duties and responsibilities of dismounted messengers was conducted in this section for recently added personnel.”

While the Allies were preparing to launch their offensive, the Germans were preparing their own defenses. Known for their engineering prowess, the Germans were no fools. They calculated and prepared fields of fire and sighted-in predetermined settings for their artillery, so that specific road junctions, stream crossings, terrain markers, and more could each be defended to the best possible advantage. As anyone who has sat on a Signal Site in Vietnam and watched Charlie beat himself senseless throwing men at the perimeter knows, troops in defense have a great advantage after a long period of time in preparation for an attack. Done right, and considering the weapons of the time, defense can be much easier to mount effectively than offensive.

On March 15th things began in earnest. The time for preparation was over. It was now time to take it to the Krauts. On March 15th the entire American Army opened up a huge attack along the full length of the western front. From where the 103rd Signal Company was the men noted that for hours and hours U.S. artillery pounded German positions. When Arty fire slowed, the men were ordered to move out and lay wire into the town of Nieffern. One of the Signaleers of the 103rd Signal Company, a man named Tom Brown, noted in his memoires that “Just before the entrance to the town we encountered a blown out bridge which the engineers were in the process of replacing. There was a traffic jam of vehicles waiting for the engineers to finish, and every so often the Germans would shell us with 88's.”

“It was a ticklish situation" he continued, "made more dangerous by the trees that lined both sides of the road, which caused tree bursts when the shells hit them and showered shrapnel downward making shelter in the ditch no shelter at all.

“We were lying in the ditch beside the road. Some GI's argued that in standing up we would make smaller targets for tree burst shrapnel raining downward on us. But others said no, that sometimes the shells came in without hitting the trees and exploded on the ground, which made a person standing up a more likely victim.  So it was damm [sic] if we did and damm [sic] if we didn't. 

“To our relief our Sergeant Lee came up and ordered us out of there and to go back when the bridge was completed. It made sense to me!

“After about an hour or so we went back. I found the place in the ditch where I had been lying and there was an American helmet all bloody with a shrapnel hole in it and some bits of brains in the helmet liner. Some poor guy had taken my place when I left and had gotten killed.

“The town of Nieffern was the most destroyed town I have ever seen. The entire town was nothing but rubble.”[2]

By the end of March the men were well aware that this offensive would not stop until Germany was defeated. For all of them, this was a period of high adventure and drama far more intense than what they had seen to date. With little concern, the German forces fought back as though nothing had happened. In the process, the daily battles created chaotic conditions, with “destruction, pain, suffering, death, injuries to men and animals” all around. Some of the men commented that their encounters “were almost exactly [as they would imagine the] experiences [were of men who fought in] World War One or possibly the Civil War.”

On one particularly hot day, as one wire team from the 103rd Signal Company continued to lay cable, the men came across the remnants of “a retreating horse drawn artillery battalion [that the Infantry] had scattered and destroyed [in] a moving action through a beautiful river valley where the road was just a little higher than a broad meadow and a stream that ran through it." 

“The German unit was composed of about 600 men, 100 wagons, several hundred horses and many horse drawn canons. The wagons were all kinds, flat beds, water wagons, covered wagons, etc.

“They carried everything needed for a self sustaining artillery battalion—food, ammunition, repair parts, hay, blacksmith, wagon repair, and covered wagons emblazoned with red crosses for ambulances.

“One of these ambulance wagons was at the rear of the column that had been overrun and so it was one of the first that we saw. It had apparently been attacked and hit by an advancing tank's cannon.

“The wagon was broken and collapsed in its middle with medical equipment scattered about and mixed in with the remains of several horses and men with their personal equipment. It was a very gory scene but so unusual and surprising because this may have been the first time we had seen such outdated equipment, all of which was so well maintained.

“The ambulance was out in open country away from the river valley. That made it much more startling and dramatic. In addition to that, the fact that the Germans were still using almost the same horse-drawn units that had been common in WWl was a surprise to us.

“When we moved on up into the valley, we could see the terrible results of the task force overtaking the horse drawn equipment.

“Apparently one of the leading elements of the attack was a tank with a bulldozer blade attached that had been able to push most of the equipment, wagons, horses, men and other debris off the road and into the meadow so that our advancing vehicles and equipment could get past. The valley by the side of the road was full of equipment, guns, supplies and horses some of whom were moving about apparently unhurt, but many were dead or dying. 

“We slowly moved past, mile after mile, of this awful destruction until we were almost in the town at the upper end of the valley, Klingenmunster. There in the road was a Sherman Tank that had been painted white for fighting in the snow and in spite of a previous period of warm weather and relative combat inactivity, had not been repainted to be less conspicuous. It had been hit by a German Panzerfaust (Bazooka-like anti-tank weapon) and had one of its tracks blown off and was disabled. The tank was partially burned from the explosion. The crew, in attempting to escape, had been killed. They were draped on the turret or lying near the tank on the road. There had not been an opportunity yet to carry them away.”[3]

As March gave way to April, while the war continued the pace of retreat of the Germans picked up. The Allies clearly had the Germans on the run. Even the Signaleers of the 103rd could see this, as their efforts to lay double wires along roadways proved too slow to keep up with the ever advancing Infantry boys. To try to make things better and keep a line of communication operating to the very front of the advancing Infantry, the Signal men switched to laying single wire. Even then however they found that they still could not keep up, and so the time length for work details was lengthened. For many of the men, work during this period meant going for 48 straight hours, without rest, just to “get the lines in”.

- - - - -

Next month we bring this story of the 103rd Signal Company to a close, concluding Part IV in this series. In it we will see how, as the war drew to a close, the unit made a transition from front line fighting and combat to serving as an occupation force. Of interest will be their encounter with the worst of WWII, as they surveyed the occupation and death camps of the Third Reich. 

Join us then, and read again of the remarkable exploits of the U.S. Army Signal Corps and the 7 exceptional Officers who graduated Army Signal OCS Class 42-06.  

 

 

            

Footnotes

[1]  From the After Action Report for Patton's first bridging and crossing operation, Third U.S. Army, page 313. - To return to your place in the text, click here.

[2] From the memoires and recollections of Tom Brown, Sergeant of one of the wire teams of the 103rd Signal Company. Tom Brown noted in an online blog in 1993 that after discharge he “went back to the Telephone Company. I took flying lessons (had an engine failure in my first hour of solo and had to make a forced landing) and got my commercial license.

“I changed my work hours and went to school in the daytime. I graduated in 4 years 8 months, worked a full time job. I quit the telephone company and took a job with Motorola as a Sales Engineer selling two-way radios. I already had my "ham" license (W4NLI) I got my First Class Radiotelephone license.

“I was promoted to Zone Manager, then Account Executive, then Account Executive Manager. In Bergen County, New Jersey, I started back to school and got my MBA (cum laude no less), then entered the New York University Graduate School of Business Phd program for two years. “ We have five children, four boys and a girl. We have college educated all five with two lawyers, a Mechanical Engineer, a CPA, and (the girl) a graphic designer.

“I learned of a management consultant franchise for sale in Tennessee and bought it, and moved the family to Nashville in 1968. My wife, Priscilla, and I run this business, Capital Business Services, together. We computerized in 1973 and are very computer literate, owning six computers to do our work.  I have also written some of my own programs.” - To return to your place in the text, click here.

[3] Gathered from an online blog expressing the memoires and recollections of Eugene Jones, Sergeant of one of the wire teams of the 103rd Signal Company. Little is known of Sergeant Jones except that he came from Texas.  - To return to your place in the text, click here.

Reference Sources

Various comments on the Battle for Sarreguemines, the Ardennes, and the Battle of the Bulge taken from Fighting in the Val de Moder; Lise M. Pommois, Association Les Amis de la Libération de Pfaffenhoffen; C. Delbecq, 1989 - Alsace (France).  

Many of the comments and quotes in this series, and especially in this article, were taken from the excellent book entitled 103d Infantry Division Signal Company Remembrances; 1918 – 1945, by William F. Barclay. Some portions of the text in this article are a literal rewrite of a few parahraphs of that book. The text of the book is currently in the process of being placed online, and is available in partial form at this link. Of note, text and pictures are being added to the online version by the son of Captain Beck. We have depended heavily in our quoting the writings of Captain Beck, and in using his observations to add color to this story, on information contained in this book, which information most certainly must have come from Captain Beck's son Andy Beck. Our expressed gratitude for his having provided it for inclusion in the 103d Infantry Division Signal Company Remembrances; 1918 – 1945, and for the chance to quote from it here.

In addition to the above, generally, quotations shown, unless otherwise identified, were excerpted and extracted from 103d Infantry Division Signal Company Remembrances; 1918 – 1945, by William F. Barclay. However, because of the extensive use of said book as source material for other deep web sources, from which we in turn extracted data for use here, we can not say with certainty that the material used here originally came from said book. Notwithstanding this, the nature of the quotations and stories appearing in such deep web sources leads us to believe that it was originally sourced from Mr. Barclay's book, and accordingly we wish to provide credit here.

Pictures from various online sources. When shown without identification, no identifying source was able to be found. 

The Patriot Files; dedicated to the preservation of military history; www.patriotfiles.com.

Generally, map graphics and references courtesy www.103rdcactus.com.

Papa's War, Evans, Pierce; Limited Publication, 1995; various online sources.

Report After Action: The Story of the 103rd Infantry Division; Mueller, Ralph; Turk, Jerry; Printing Office, Innsbruck, Austria.

Index of /Sexton/103rd; deep web sourcing.

103D Infantry Division Signal Company History, online as a Pierce-Evans.org project.

103rd Infantry Division, Wartime Press.

Miscellaneous fact checking: The Patriot Files; an online resource dedicated to the preservation of military history.

 

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This page originally posted 1 June 2015