Wire as a Weapon

Don Young

Description

Observations of a lineman with the 150th Armored Signal company laying wire from 10th Armored Division Headquarters to the forward units in 1944-45.

Sujets

• Historical
• Lettres et linguistique
• Segunda Guerra Mundial
• Biography
• Tank Corps
• 10th Division
• Don Young
• World War II
• Autobiography
• Seconde Guerre mondiale

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 01 juin 1996
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781681623085
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

TURNER PUBLISHING COMPANY
Copyright 1996 Donald Young.
Publishing Rights: Turner Publishing Company.
This book or any part thereof may not be reproduced without the written consent of the author and publisher.
Turner Publishing Company Staff:
Editor: Erik Parrent
Designer: Herbert C. Banks II
Library of Congress Catalog Card No.
96-60044
ISBN: 978-1-56311-283-6
Limited Edition. Additional copies may be purchased directly from the publisher.
WIRE AS A WEAPON
With the Tenth Armored (Tiger) Division, nicknamed the Ghost Division by the Germans because we appeared suddenly behind their lines, many times.
by Donald E. Young
Observations of a lineman with the 150th Armored Signal Company laying wire from 10th Armored Division Headquarters to the forward units in 1944-45.
FOREWORD
This book was an end result of unearthing a batch of censored letters sent home to my parents, along with some news clippings saved by my father. This wealth of World War II material either had to be put in a scrapbook, filed or thrown out. You veterans of foreign wars will understand why this memorabilia could not be thrown out!

Don with the 10th Armored in 1944 .

Complete with Eisenhower Jacket 50 years later .
You can imagine, then, the desire to find out the dates of these various Tenth Armored engagements, and match them up with the writing of 50 years ago. So I sent away to the U.S. Government Archives for the records of the 150th Armored Signal Company and started working on a battle map. Then I was hooked, as I hope you will be!
The start of this project coincided with my retirement, and became more important than the retirement itself. It became imperative to set the record straight; to give more credit to General Patton than he was getting. Also, the valiant Tenth Armored Division was being omitted in some of the history books because we were loaned out to various armies. We were attached to SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters, Allied Expeditionary Force), as most of you know.
For instance, our Combat Command B was sent to relieve Bastogne, made it there in time to block three roads coming in and hold them with about 30 tanks and 500 men each until the 101st came a day later with their contingent of 10,000. Our men were thankful the 101st came before the town was completely surrounded. They were glad our tanks were there.
Corroboration of dates from the Tenth Armored Tiger Division book and our 150th Armored Signal Company history vary by one or two days at most because, depending which combat command we were attached to, from the time we took the town until our wire headquarters caught up was from zero to two days.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
CHAPTER 1 IN THE STATES
CHAPTER 2 CONVOY
CHAPTER 3 GETTING READY FOR BATTLE
CHAPTER 4 ACROSS THE MOSELLE
CHAPTER 5 BEYOND METZ - THE SIEGFRIED LINE
CHAPTER 6 BATTLE OF BASTOGNE
CHAPTER 7 THROUGH THE SIEGFRIED LINE
CHAPTER 8 ARTILLERY AT TRIER
CHAPTER 9 GHOST DIVISION SPEARHEADS TO THE RHINE
CHAPTER 10 END RUN WITH THE SEVENTH ARMY
CHAPTER 11 ON TO GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN
CHAPTER 12 HOME AGAIN
CHAPTER 13 CAMP GORDON BECOMES FORT GORDON, SIGNAL CENTER
HISTORY OF EARLY COMMMUNICATIONS
FORT KNOX
CHAPTER 14 COAST PROTECTION
CHAPTER 15 ARMOR TECHNIQUES OF GREAT GENERALS
CREDITS
RESEARCH MATERIAL
BATTLE HISTORIES
BATTLE MAP
INDEX
C HAPTER 1
IN THE STATES
After a short few days at Indiantown Gap, for induction into the Army, it was off to Camp Campbell, Kentucky, again by train. So far, it had been a rewarding experience, with a 30-day pass to start. Now we were set for three months of rigorous training. Of course, it started with learning what the letters meant: K.P. stood for something we took turns at doing, unless we went A.W.O.L.; then we would get more than our share of K.P., maybe even some time in the guard house. We looked out for, or looked up to, the O.D. (Officer of the Day) - take your choice which! Finally, the letters K.I.A. - we would get the full impact of that meaning...later on.
It was difficult to get water during chow time, so I learned to drink coffee. One cup was enough, to prevent having to go up for a refill pitcher. Fall out meant outside, lined up in our respective squads and platoons. In the morning we had better be dressed in fatigues or in the uniform of the day, with foot-lockers ready for inspection. Guns had to be oiled and ready to present, and we needed to know how to break down our firearm and put it together as fast as possible. We also found out that a good way to get K.P. duty was to break out laughing during roll call.
Only after several weeks could we apply for passes, if there was no white glove inspection or barracks scrub-down. I often thought these duties were designed to keep more G.I s in camp during the weekends to make the camp commander look good if upper echelon brass happened to stop in.
My one overnight pass during basic training was to Nashville, Tennessee. Two girls we met at the U.S.O. dance stopped for us the next evening at the Y.M.C.A., where we stayed, and drove us to the Grand Old Opry. When the bass player s hat somehow fell inside his bulky overalls, we laughed coarsely, but the girls didn t think it was all that funny. It came off OK, since all we had to drink was soda obtained at the corner restaurant where we ate dinner. It was a Southern Hospitality weekend, thanks to Peggy Watts and her friend.
Basic training meant that all GI s had to try for the norm, or average. It was easy if you were in shape! If you thought of training as a series of competitive sports the days went faster and even the rope swing over a mud pit may be taken lightly - that is, if you landed on your feet! It was important to stay on your feet, especially while running the obstacle course from log to log when they re set at various heights like pilings; spaced sporadically like pebbles on a beach.
Crawling through the mud while cradling a rifle in your arms was OK, except before graduation, when we did it to the tune of overhead machine gun fire. Keep your butt down, yelled the sergeant, that s live ammunition. In order to make things more realistic, someone had a sadistic notion to water down part of the course, especially where we swung over a ditch.
I liked the wall we had to climb over, in the obstacle course. A good running start was necessary to get partway up the smooth board surface to maintain momentum for an arm lift at the top. It was quicker to throw a leg over while balanced on straightened arms than to try to force a leg over while precariously hanging on to the edge. The trick was to roll over the edge, do a flip or partial flip, and come down with a push out to a running position.
Of course, there was a modicum of danger in almost everything. For instance, we learned to fall to a prone position with our rifles ready to fire. For Signal Corps personnel the issue was carbines, which were smaller than the Ml rifles. We were instructed to put much of our weight on the butt of our rifles, and occasionally the stock would split, causing sharp splinters to appear close to your face. Breaking the stock was more of a possibility for the larger men, who had to learn to do a barrel roll...knees...stomach; then the rifle butt.
The Army worked as a functioning unit...and my first proof of that, during three months of basic training, was to watch what happens when one person does not adjust to the norm. We had a fellow in our barracks who refused to take a shower. The man on the bunk above him, and the two soldiers on either side, were trying to get him to wash. I was lucky to be three bunks down the line, but the odor was noticeable that far away! Finally, the five who were closest took him into the shower, where there was room for a dozen or more men. The time for pleading was over! They gave him a G.I. bath...complete with soap and stiff-bristle brush that we used to scrub down the barracks floor. After that, everything was back to normal and there was no more odor. I guess there was no more problem with him taking showers...it couldn t be any more embarrassing than what had already happened!
Moving materials was easy with the coordination of many strong backs, working in shifts. Teams from several barracks lifted boxes together to load a couple of boxcars in one night. We learned to flip the boxes to have them land on the side, but eased them down...easier than straight lifting, but still requiring stomach muscles (and strong boxes). Our barracks was the first in line, and I think we were the first ones asleep after we were dismissed.
Sergeants led us on forced training marches, with a view to toughening leg muscles...and most any other muscle that moved. At this time I was pressed into service as part of the medical team, perhaps because I had been attending Amherst College as a pre-med student. Bob Bogardus and I were lucky enough to have to carry 20-lb. first aid kits in addition to a full field pack. We mainly treated blisters, with as many as 20 men lined up at the halfway break. From my Scouting experience I knew how to let out the pus by inserting a needle through the skin at the edge (not in the blister itself). Then I applied a one-inch piece of tape directly over the flattened blister. For an open wound, salve was used to prevent further friction, but a bandaid put too much pressure on the sore and took longer to heal. Ten years of track had added to my blistering background, but this wasn t on my Army record.
Men would sometimes become overcome by the excessive heat; or become dehydrated because they wanted to pack light, and so didn t bring their canteen. Either way, Bob and I would fade back, away from the dust of the column s rear which fluctuated back and forth. We would administer smelling salts to revive them. Invariably, they were still weak. When the pick-up jeep came up from its dust-free position behind, we would help them in, then run to catch up to the main body. We wer