Article Contributed on: 7/21/2007 9:23:33 PM
I am an 82-year-old veteran of World War II, having served on the front lines of France, Germany and Italy in the European Theater of Operations. I am one of those World War II veterans who are dying at a rate of over 1,000 a day. One battle I was in which has had a profound influence on my life was the Battle of Rittershoffen in Alsace in northeastern France.
During the Battle in January 1945, I was a 19-year-old Staff Sergeant, squad leader of a rifle squad of Company A of the 68th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 14th Armored Division.
Our mission was defensive, to prevent the Germans from spilling out over the lip of the Battle of the Bulge and advancing over the Alsatian Plain onto the city of Strasbourg. For two weeks we held our positions. Our company went into the battle with about 250 men and left two weeks later with considerably less. The others had been killed or wounded, or were otherwise unaccounted for.
After the War, United States Army General
Jacob L. Devers, former commander of the 6th Army Group, attested to the ferocity of the Battle when he said, "At Rittershoffen and Hatten, the 14th Armored Division fought one of the greatest defensive battles of the War, the greatest tank battle on the Continent."
Briefly, my memories of the Battle begin with our departure from a Maginot Line fortress near a little Alsatian village. We covered the several miles distance quickly on foot, but as we reached an orchard on the western outskirts of Rittershoffen, our battalion was pinned down by fire from all kinds of German weapons -- bullets from rifles and machine guns, shells from tanks, artillery pieces and mortars, and rockets from screaming meemies.
I made myself as flat as possible and I believe I dug into the ground with my belly so as to afford the Germans as small a target as possible. My companions all around me were being hit. I saw one of them being picked up by some of our fellow soldiers and as he was being loaded onto a stretcher, I saw him reach down and bring his nearly-severed leg onto the stretcher with him.
It was snowing and the ground was frozen. As daylight faded, we fell back behind the orchard and dug foxholes for protection during the night. The next morning my squad fought its way into the very edge of town, driving some determined German soldiers out of a house and occupying it. Our occupation didn't last long, however, because a shell from a German tank collapsed the house on top of us.
My squad left what was left of the collapsed house and occupied a nearby barn where we stayed for the rest of the two weeks. We would be ordered several times a day to sneak out of the barn and to go on reconnaissance patrols thorugh the town. Our objective was to keep the Germans busy.
During our time in the barn we had only K-rations to eat, except for the times a brave driver would drive his Jeep over a sniper-infested road to bring us hot food from the rear. He was a real hero and I have never forgotten how much we appreciated the food he brought.
After two weeks of living hell, we were ordered to abandon the town. It was snowing hard, and to confuse the enemy, we were ordered to leave at 30-second intervals, walking through the knee-deep snow toward our tracked vehicles which were waiting for us several miles away.
I will never forget the Battle of Rittershoffen.