October 15th, Sunday -Good Food-Lots of Sickness

10/15/44 Check survey turning blades angles over on RR track-
Hike back-after wool knit cap
Chicken dinner courtesy Okie & Farshee-French Fries & corn to boot
Wine bottles of all shapes and flavors too, but I don't drink.

Oh, Kahner reminded me of his famous cigar box maneuver while passing through Mayon-
Lots of boys sick even Shelton & Gindel.
Bliesmer & Shelton tried to puke in same can at same time-

Cliff Hope: It seemed to be official policy for our convoy ... to speed up through all the towns of any size. As we were swishing through Noyon, Ed Kahner, suffering from an acute case of the GIs, had an urgent need to relieve himself. There was no stopping the BMC truck. Some of those whith him in th erear of thtruck located an empty cigar box. Using it with admirable accuracy, he did what had to be done.

Cliff Hope from his book:
Although we talked of living in a New York tenement the schoolhouse was considerable warmer and drier than the Gotterdammerung. Okie and others built bunk beds for all of us. Often we fixed our own supper rather than make the trip to the official battery mess facilities in the neighboring village of Maldigen. The school provided a good place for nightly bull sessions. To celebrate "come in out of the cold," Bruno and I went to Mass at the village church on Sunday, 15 October. Then a group of us took showers in the shower tent operated by an engineer battalion at Gouvy. While there, we bought schnapps and wine and returned to our schoolhouse for a dinner of fried chicken, frech fries, and creamed corn, prepared by Tommy Fourshee, Emery Bliesmer and Okie. It was some party. We had bottles of all shapes, sizes and contents and every one of us, man and boy, got drunk. (Marilu:Not EVERY man and boy...)

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August 28th 1944 Journal Entry-Rain and Rations

Aug 28th RAIN RAIN and mud Lu from his memoirs: We settled into a routine of extending and improving our control surveys and existing on "K" and "C" rations and sleeping in soggy pup tents. There was lots of rain and mud and finding ways to improve living conditions was a constant challenge. As Cliff pointed out in his book, we had some talented buddies with inventive minds. Tom Fourshes, of Cadiz, Kentucky built a compact, wood fired cooking stove on which we could heat our rations, spread hot cheese on crackers, and boil eggs obtained from farmers. We found straw and dry grass to put under our bed rolls, but we never found a way to keep the water our of our fox holes. We didn't have too much incoming artillery, but I noted on August 26 'Priebe hits fox hole as I leave it going for mine as shells land in river' We also began a close relationship with our Field Artillery gun battalions. The 561st next to us were equipped with "155 Long T...

September 29th Journal entry continued-Last day of travel to Ardennes

Sept. 29- Convoy 0830 Cloudy windy day-Saw Tiger tank-Montigny, Guise, La Cappelle, ?, Trelon (Belgium Border) Chimay, Petigny, Givet (Back in France) ( Briefly-mc ) Dinant, Chigny, ? and Bastogne. Bivouac area about 3 km out in edge of beautiful spruce forest. Hope, Bliesmer & Peltz- got kissed in Petigny. Marilu: I traced this route in google maps to confirm spellings of the sequential towns. I wasn't able to find all of them, but I could see that when they went through Givet they went through a little outcropping of the French border and out again. Fun to see him referring to the kiss Cliff Hope describes in more detail in his book, quoted in the other entry for this day. From www.warhistoryonline.com The Tiger Tank was without a doubt the tank which was most feared by the Allied forces during the Second World War. The thing that made this tank so feared and respected was the 88 mm gun, which could destroy a Sherman tank at ranges up ...

Oct 25th, Wednesday-Journal Entry-Bombs and Guns

Oct 25-Lellig to Matternach- Tied in with Party 1 on R.R.- Lt Jones & G. S. scared out of house by civilian in sports roadster0 In at noon- Transferring notes to correct notebook all afternoon- O1:20 Big Buzz Bomb barely 200 ft. overhead-going south Thundering 400 M.P.H. Machine guns fire but miss. Buzz Bombs going into 1st Army positions Lu from Rae Hight's book : For quite a while, we surveyed the areas back and forth between and through Belgium, France, Germany and Luxembourg. Though the distances were not great, the continued movement required a certain amount of reorganizing each time. By the end of October we were in the Mompach-Berbourg area of eastern Luxemboug, near the front. It was not long before German shells landed not too far away. Our main reminders that the army was just a few kilometers away were the nightly visits by "Bed Check Charlie," buzz bombs that whizzed overhead each night about midnight. The V-1 flying bomb...

Winsor War Notes-Luther Snow Winsor's WW II experiences

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