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Jan 18, Cliff Hope

Interactive map 1/18/45


We moved from Sibret to Rouette on 18 January and I was back to bitching in my diary. I could see no logical reason for the move to the partially destroyed village northwest of Bastogne. We were still about 10 miles from the front, no closer than we were at Sibret. Elting, Okie, Ziegler, Bruno and I had a room above the aid station, about a block away from Thompson and the rest of the party. Okie nailed up a window and we sawed wood for the stove and got a coal oil lamp. a lot of the time we just sat in the room and stared into space. I decided we were all beginning to suffer from a sort of fatigue.

The weather was terrible. Standing guard for an hour or more in the dark in a blizzard wasn't anybody's favorite thing. We'd start out to survey, drive about half a mile and come back. The visibility was 20 feet or less. In between attempts to go out, I read Time. (Magazine)

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