On December 23, 1944 the newscast reported the German breakthrough in Belgium had finally been contained and the Allies front had finally stabilized. Hitler's gamble had been lost! But to us in the 325th GIR, the pictures wasn't that clear. A few days before most of the radio section in the 1st Battalion had been killed or wounded in a violent German attack. So I was sent from regimental HQ to be the Bat. Commanders radio operator. The Bat. CO was Lt. Col. Richard Gerard. He was one of the finest officers I was ever to serve under. The battalion was in a typical Belgium village, winding streets, public pump, cattle, piles of horse manure, stone buildings, house and barn together... things were fairly quiet. 2 days before, this battalion, as well as the whole division, had taken the best the German Panzers could throw at us, and in spite of rather heavy casualties, were now in a position to attack. And yet, the civilians kept asking us if we were leaving. In my fractured French I told them, "Nous sommes ici et nous reston." (We are here and here to stay). And I sincerely believed it.
The Germans had told these people that they would be back by Christmas and right now they were only a few miles away. In fact, on the day before Christmas, I went out with the Bat CO and crawled along a stone fence in front of our last outpost in a small village as Colonel Gerard looked over the terrain. He was planning an attack over this area the next day. But, late in the afternoon, after being shot at several times enroute back to the CP, we received orders to withdraw. That hurt. The 82nd hadn't yielded one inch of ground once captured in this war! Every man in this outfit was proud of that record. And now we were to leave. Orders were orders. What we didn't know was that apparently while the 82nd's front was stable, our flanks held by other units had given way and we were in danger of being surrounded by 2 powerful German units.
We packed our stuff quickly and quietly, some of us had been invited to parties that evening, and we took turns in attending and leaving. We did such a good job of assembly, few if any civilians knew we were leaving. At 2100 the long column of silent men started moving down the road behind the Colonel and his staff. Around 2200 the moon came up. I shall never forget that evening. It was a still, crisp, winter evening with a beautiful full moon adding to the magic of the scene. The ground was covered with snow. The evergreen forest on each side of the road was dusted with snow and looked like sentinels watching the 2 long lines of men hurrying down the winding moonlit road. Some engineers were tying explosives around the bases of trees next to the road in order to drop them when the last unit passed. The serenity was finally broken as arty salvos arched over our heads and exploded miles behind us, covering our withdrawal.
Around 2300 we took a 10 minute break. Men collapsed right where they stopped on either side of the road. I began to wonder if I could get back up when it was time to go on. I was wearing my full pack on my chest, a heavy overcoat, and carrying a SCR 300 radio on my back. I cursed that radio all the way to hell and back, not knowing it would save my life some days later.
We passed the arty that laid down the barrage to cover our withdraw. Their trucks were all lined up and ready to hook onto the field pieces and pull out. By midnight we had left the deafening rumble and blinding flashes behind. There had been few words spoken since we had left. Each man walked or stumbled alone with his thoughts, memories, fears and hopes. There wasn't much to say and most of us would rather save even the effort of words. Somebody said it was 12 midnight. A few turned to their nearest belaboring comrades and in tones half in reverence and half in jest said, "Merry Christmas." The rest silently struggled along that road.
Mile after mile we numbly stumbled forward. I don't think there were many who felt confident that they could go another step and yet no one fell out. The engineers were now falling the trees and blowing up bridges behind us. Around 0400 we entered a valley and spent about one hour climbing up the side of a mountain in the cold and dark. A man would fall down the icy path and knock 2 or 3 men down.
