Sunday, 31 December-Cliff Hope

New Year's Eve and we were geographically in almost the same place we had been on December 20. The difference was that we were advancing, not retreating. The VIII Corps offensive was progressing. Rochefort, at the tip of the German salient, was recaptured by American Third Army troops. A day of survey took us from the Recogne road junction to within five kilometers of St. Hubert. That night we moved into a schoolhouse in Libramont. There was a stove but as usual, no lights. Libramont had been bombed often in the past week or so. The old year ended, not with a bang but a whimper in my diary: "My feet are finally beginning to feel the effects of prolonged cold. My toes hurt whenever my feet warm up. Quite a New Year's Eve. Dead tired and no cognac. I should think of something more worthwhile to say, but am too exhausted to do much more than stare stupidly into the gasoline lamp on the table before me."
Our battalion was luckier than most. Since landing in France in mid-August, we had suffered three killed and nine missing in action, a low casualty rate statistically. But that was little comfort to those men and their families.

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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...

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Welcome to Winsor War Notes, the experiences of Luther Snow Winsor in World War Two. Subscribe to experience the day by day journal entries published on the matching day of the year for the time of his deployment to Europe and the Battle of the Bulge. Entries will include scans of the pages of his handwritten notes made at the time with a transcription and pertinent sections of the history he wrote later using these notes to jog his memories. The idea of this project is to publish and read the entries on the days of the year that they were originally written so we can get a feel for the weather setting and of the passage of time as it passed for him as he had these experiences. I will include relevant photos where possible. I suggest viewing Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan if you want a more graphic sense of what he was experiencing. He said that Saving Private Ryan was very realistic to his memories and Band of Brothers depicts many of the same kinds of things ...

November 4th 1945 Embarkation! Headed Home on the USS Westerly Victory ship

Watch for Lu's binoculars in many of his photos. They might be his best used acquisition from the war. This mimeographed newsletter is an interesting view into the voyage home.

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

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