Our unit was attached to the XIX Corps and the 115th Engineer Combat Team although we never saw them. It was under General Corlett and I did not see him either and I was told this later! When we crossed the Maas River they were looking on to see if we made it to the first town of Lanaye, Holland. We made it, and on the same day down below us the 1st Division crossed in to Germany South of Aachen.
We worked our way North, up the River to Maastrich, Holland, and were quarted in a dance hall where the platoon slept. Lt. Andrews had 2 beds upstairs with sheets. I do not know where the owner, his wife, and daughter slept. He had asked if we wanted his daughter, and we said no!! It is one of those things you remember!
The next day we headed toward Aachen and after 5 or 7 Miles we stopped at what is now Maregargen Cemetery where over 8000 of our men are buried. Some from the Marketgarden mess that Montgromery started way up in Holland. We made it all the way to Gulpen on those damn cobblestones. Oh, did my ankles hurt!
After Gulpen, we started across country and it was raining again so with my 70 letters I crawled into a hay stack, dug a hole in straw, and read one and discarded one and so on. I was given these a few days ago and could not find the time to read them all. Some Dutch farmer may have found them, as I could not read them all and fight the Germans too.
We lead the attack through Bouchholtz and entered Simpleveld, Holland with 75 or 80 prisoners behind me. There were no more trucks to ride on that close to Germany because we were inching a foot at a time keeping all the ground we captured. We are now entering the last defense of the Sigfried Line with its pillboxes that looked like farmhouses. The concrete post looked like "dragon’s teeth" all along the German border. Here, I had just learned we were reenlisted from the XIX Corps, and I did not feel a thing! We had captured 250 Germans from the 773rd Landeschutzen Battalion, and between Bouchholtz and Simpleveld 80 more were captured.
On the 17th or 18th my men and I were the first in our Division to cross into Germany through the Sigfried Lines into Horback. That night I slept in a German foxhole. It had 2 dirt seats where you could sit and see in a couple directions as well as sleep sitting up. In the bottom was a small drainage hole for water, condensation or whatever. This foxhole was done by the book and in the middle of the “dragon teeth.
The Germans had the civilians almost surrounding Kerkrade, Holland. We were sent up there to separate the German civilians from the Dutch. Out of 45 or 50 thousand, about half were Dutch and they were sent to Spekhozerheide, Holland. I was on that main road protecting an anti-tank gun and they passed my foxhole for the next 3 days.
It seemed like I was running up and down the border every hour! The Germans were sent to Herzogenrath so we could get on with The War. It was now the time to set the stage.
The 1st of October was the planned day for the final push to overthrow the German army. I was now near Terwinselen, Hopel, Spekholzerheide and Imstenraede where I remember the power plant and viewed its smoke stack with my binoculars. There I witnessed a squad trying to over power some Germans on a hill 200 yards away. I kept saying, ”no, go around them, not head on!” If only they could have heard me or seen what I was witnessing! I visited there in 2003 where I again remembered the power plant and this war experience.
We were North of Aachen, Germany and the plan was for my men and I to “jump off” some where between Beautsch, Holland and fight through Horback, Germany and Bocholtz , Holland. We had to to run all the German Army out of Kerkrade,, Holland first. This took us 5 or 6 days to do this!!!
-- Uncle Frank
