Skip to main content

Jan 14 Journal Entry-Lu-Cliff Hope, from his book.



Jan 14 Surveyed in Mande St Entiene in morning-all houses burned, cows dead everywhere, flattened like pancakes where G.M.C.S. have run over them. Surv. in Long Champs in afternoon. Big battle on a few thousand yds. off. Wounded brought in on jeeps. Prisoners marched in.

Shelton wounded by mortar frag. Shell hit tank front. (See Lu's diagram of where he was when this happened) Got Purple Heart, but only grazed. Punctured 2 tires on C. Car. (Carters).

Cliff Hope: When we didn't go out on survey in the morning, I sawed wood. Two men from the photographic unit downstairs were seriously wounded the day before when they were taking pictures atop tanks in a battle near Foy. One suffered head injuries, and the other, the one who had taken our pictures only the night before, got it in the back.
One day after going out on the Marche road from Bastogne, we came upon Mane St. Etienne, a thoroughly wrecked town. There were 17th Airborne Division units in town. Equipment, ours and the Germans', was strewn about. Cows and sheep were flattened on the road like so many bearskin rugs.

In the afternoon, I was computer with Bliesmer and Anfuso when we went to Longschamps for several shots. We saw numerous destroyed buildings on the lee side of the hill near the edge of town. a company of tank destroyers passed us on the road to La Roche. One of the destroyers stopped on the crest of a hill.

At about the same time a German anti-tank or mortar shell landed on the other side of the road. Shelton got a small shrapnel wound in his back but no one else was hurt. Bricks and shrapnel fell on Captain Carter's command car, flattening two tires. Many planes were flying overhead and the Germans were sending up a lot of flak. Once again we were lucky to have escaped, and I knew it, but at the moment I was thinking more of Elting's luck. He and Kiser were sent to Wideumont to get the command car's tires and, sure enough, he managed to see Christine again. According to his and Kiser's reports, she was really sweet on him. "Well, I guess I can't have everything," I wrote in my diary, "although, I could still really go for the kid."

That day we heard a rumor that the Huns had slaughtered the citizens of Bande. Years later, I learned details concerning the execution. Bande was the village to which we had retreated on 20 December 1944, after we were ordered to abandon our roadblocks at Champlon. Earlier, at the time of the German retreat across Belgium in September, the Belgian resistance movement (Armee Secrete) ambushed German Troops in the nearby St. Hubert forest. On 24 December troops of the second SS Panzer (the Das Reich) Division were in Bande. With them was a group from the Sicherheitsdienst (SD), The security service of the SS. On Christmas Eve, the SD began rounding up male civilians, interrogating them about the Armee Secrete. Then 32 young men, including four seminary students, were shot, one by one. It was then the villagers remembered the vengeful shouts of the Germans as they left in September; "We'll be back!".

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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. 

July 20 1945 Letter to Mom

Bensheim Germany July 20th 1945 Dearest Mom, I started to get a letter off to you last night about midnight. I was corporal of the guard on duty in the orderly room. But an electrical storm was commencing and I no sooner got paper and pen out than a crash of lightning hit the power relay station nearby and all the lights went out. That storm was a beaut. Great jagged forks of lightning playing everywhere and the thunder sounded like all the artillery in the E.T.O. (European theater of operations) was sounding off in unison. In between flashes it was pitch black but most of the time (for about a half hour) you could read street signs a block away it was so bright. One triple forked bolt lit up the castle up on the hill and really made an eerie scene. You (You) know this is the first place I've seen actual balls of lightning. They looked like balls of fire.  Mail came in at last yesterday. A big batch of it and it was really swell to hear what's going on at hom...

August 29th Journal Entry-Hedgerow Fighting, Plougastel taken

29th SAME- Still eating K's & C's Germans blow 1 span of bridge-Plau. taken Lu from his memoirs: The infantry fighting, as the circle around Brest was tightened, was brutal. This was "hedgerow" country, which provided great defensive cover and a huge obstacle to attack forces. The countryside was covered with a patchwork of small fields, each surrounded by "hedgerows". Over centuries of cultivation dirt collected in the hedges that surrounded each field. The hedges gradually became raised on high walls of soil, some of them eight to ten feet thick. The brush and small trees that formed the hedges were cut, dried and used for fuel to heat and cook with.   Since the stumps and roots were not disturbed, they grew back rapidly, and were an excellent source of energy. There was an entry way to each field, and cart roads back to the farm buildings but it was extremely dangerous for American Infantry to try to attack along these roads and through ...