Journal Entry February 10 and Cliff Hope

From Cliff Hope's book, 'Growing Up in the Wartime Army'

Feb 10 moved to Bleialf Germany Germany. Surveyed in Siegfried line to Brandscheid past pill boxes & mined fields. Saw HW 14 Jeep-Just a mass of tin.

Cliff Hope: We moved to Bleialf, Germany, at the foot of the Schnee Eifel, on 10 February, and for the first time were living inside Germany at the base of the Siegfried Line. We stayed for three weeks. It was good to leave the large, cavernous barn with its memories of death.

Our party had fairly good quarters in a house in Bleialf--four rooms with a stove in each and plenty of hay from a nearby barn for mattresses. For the first week in Bleialf, my diary reported observation along the Siegfried Line and such matters as washing clothes and taking my first shower in two months.

While surveying from the road junction, Grosslangenfeld, to Habscheid, I took pictures of dragon's teeth (concrete barriers) and pillboxes on the side of a hill and two of a Siegfried Line roadblock.

Lu, in Ray Hight's book:We were now heading toward the siegfried Line. With the immediate objective of the Schnee Eifel Ridge.

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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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