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January 29th Journal Entry and Cliff Hope


Jan 29 Control to St. Vith. Cats & Dynamite clearing debris of RR underpass.

Oudler not too badly hit. Aldrigen & Maldringen bad. Stand in old school house & look at sky.

Marilu: If you recall, the old school house was where they stayed for sometime, their spot being a kitchen in an upper floor. 

Cliff Hope
The next day brought us back through St. Vith. We had last seen it on 17 December while it was intact and still the headquarters for the 106th division. "Saw St. Vith from the top of an embankment--the most destroyed sight I've ever seen," I wrote in my diary. The railroad bridge had been blown up, the track sagging but still hanging together. Engineers were blowing up debris; a bulldozer was hung up on the rubble. It was cold as blue blazes and we stayed out most of the day, although we put in only one station. In doing so we found several of our old stations beneath the snow. We ate partially warmed C-rations. Bliesmer and I were called to Survey Information Center around 9:30 that night to computer four stations.

The mail brought tobacco, two books, film and my sister's Baby Brownie camera. Although I didn't appreciate it much at the time, the camera was really a boon. I was able to take eight rolls of photos by May. Developed after V-E Day, they provided a photographic record of our experiences from late January on, and I was able to give prints to the GIs in our outfit and to other friends.

A symphony of screaming meemies accompanied our surveying from St. Vith two or three miles along the Schonberg road. We went almost to the roadblock and the place where we were surveying on that memorable 16 December several weeks back. "I think I get colder every day when we go out," I noted in my diary. We drove through St. Vith; the center of town was unrecognizable. Throughout the month, the daily log of the January after action report commented on the slow but steady advance of the VIII Corps. It also mentioned various shellings by artillery and mortars and named those who were wounded as a result. Probably the most spectacular, but fortunate, such event occurred on 30 January, when a dud shell landed about six feet from Bob Mason. He was not injured.

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