My Service in Europe:

The Railsplitters

The Battalion's initial encounter with the enemy in the Ardennes, commonly referred to by the Americans as "The Battle of the Bulge" took place in December/January 1944.

We were ordered to engage and stop the German counter attack that was headed for Amsterdam.  It was near a fairly large town called Rochefort where we were fired upon and we immediately left the vehicles we had ridden in from Ostende Belgium to engage the enemy.

After some time, we took over a group of buildings overlooking Rochefort.   When things quieted down somewhat and our Typhoons seemed to be engaging the enemy on the far side of town, I was told to scout ahead alone to see if the enemy had left Rochefort.

I can't imagine why I was chosen, other than I seemed to be out of grace with certain people in charge and fell heir to quite a few questionable tasks.  As I had no signaling equipment, I had no way of advising back what I would encounter so someone slipped up in that regard. I was not amused!

Moving towards the town as inconspicuously as possible I made it safely to the main street.  Looking down a deserted street I saw a hotel (the Grand Hotel de l'Etoile) with two bodies stretched out on the stairs leading up to the entrance.  In time I made it safely to the entrance of the hotel and on entering discovered more bodies strewn about and still not a sound!

Not wanting to push my luck too far I just ventured a few paces down one hallway and peeked into a room. There I saw the body of a man in a position that looked like he was trying to get out of bed and just managed to reach the floor with his arm. 

The situation was eerie as there wasn't a sound and I could not see what had killed all these men. This was enough for me and I made it safely and quickly back to our lines, reported what I had seen and went and joined my buddies who were occupying a house.  

As nothing seemed to be happening immediately, and as I was utterly wasted from the stress of my sortie earlier, I made it up the stairs  to a back bedroom not facing Rochefort, foolishly  removed my shoes, flopped on the bed, and fell asleep immediately.  Removing one's shoes is a no-no when in combat.  Why I did so can only be imagined.  I can only think the bed was so clean looking I didn't want to soil it.

I was awakened by one gawd awful explosion. My eyes flew open just in time to see the room door being torn off its hinges in splinters, and the plaster ceiling was on its way towards me! I don’t know when I was so confused. I grabbed my shoes and staggered for the open doorway and stairs only to be met by my buddies laughing at the sight of me all covered with white plaster and shoes in hand.

Apparently while I was dead to the world a battery of 5.5 heavy artillery formed up in a row behind the row of houses housing the battalion, and the one of them in the backyard of the house I was sleeping in. The muzzle of the 5.5 just cleared the roof and was in line of the window of the room I had chosen! That taught me a hard lesson.

The shelling and attacking Typhoons soon took care of the enemy apparently on the far outskirts of Rochefort and we soon pressed on to more exciting times.

I never did learn what took place at the hotel in Rochefort but I did remember the unit logo worn on their tunics.

One day the incident came to me and I wondered if I could discover via the Internet, the name of the unit, and perhaps learn what had happened to catch so many seemingly unprepared soldiers off guard.

Describing what looked like a log of wood in the shape of a "Y" I finally had an old US soldier identify it as belonging to a group called "Railsplitters" 84^th Division.

Elated, I wrote to the 84^th Div, told my story, and excitedly awaited an answer to my story.  Below is part of the reply I received:

I cannot begin to express my disappointment at this reply. Not a mention about what I referred to and the questions I asked.