Gift of life: Desertion in the Ardennes 1944

Epilogue

1

United States Army, Combat Command Bravo, Staff Sergeant John Webster

When the GI came back to consciousness and opened his eyes slowly, he looked into a gray sky, framed by tall pines. Some of the top halves had been blown off. He remembered the armed attack, the detonations in the tree tops and the detonations of the grenades, which reached the ground. The first scattered mercilessly millions of metal splinters onto the soldiers, and also the holes in the ground offered no protection against them. The others had shredded the bodies of his comrades and thrown some into the air. He saw two coats hanging in the branches. The soldiers, who had belonged to them, were lying in the dirt, where people do not actually belong, and the silently falling snow covered slowly, mercifully their mortal wounds.

He lay on his back and felt no pain. All around him it was strangely quiet. He was glad to have survived the shelling. Laboriously he raised his head and his torso and looked down at himself. His right leg ended in a blood clot on his knees. His leg was three feet in front of him in the snow. The leg was severed and his foot with the shoe was totally twisted in the dirt. Horrified, he dropped back.

My comrades are looking for me, he thought. But he could not know that the men to whom he thought and he waited, were long dead.

The governments had decided to bring more sacrifices for the victory. Bad luck! They belonged to the winners. Nothing is more honorable than to die for the fatherland! What idiot had said that?

Why did he not feel any pain? This was a bad dream, which had made a fool of him. He felt exactly as if he could move his feet. He straightened up, but his body defied his command, because something did not seem right.

They will come to fetch me. My comrades will not let me down! I'd be lying if I said I had no fear. I do not want to die. Until a year ago I still firmly believed in being able to grow old, but since my time in the army my chances have changed. Even if it could have hit me, I hope to have a few good decades ahead of me. There is still so much to do; I have enough plans to fill my life.

His eyes wandered through the treetops.

When will my comrades come for a visit? The weather is not particularly inviting. Well, it could be worse. That's a damn cold land here, I had already been informed. It snows frequently, but yesterday it was colder, much worse. I do not know what the weather report says.

He closed his eyes for a moment. He saw his home.

"The winter weather at home in Piedmont in North Carolina could be pretty cold. It was known for sleet and freezing rain, which could turn so violent in some storms that trees and power lines broke together under the weight. But on the coast the winters were actually always pleasant and often without snow. The nearby Atlantic caused the stability in temperature. Before his eyes he saw suddenly his mother.

Do not run so fast, John, you're breaking your legs, darling, she cried. She was a wonderful mother and always worried about him and his little sister.

Let the boy alone, said his father, if a real boy is to become of him, he needs motion. As always he held a tool in his hand to repair anything in the house.

Running hadn´t harmed him in life. Only marching let him take paths that he had better never have seen. Through France and Belgium he was half-drawn, always running behind the victory. Since June 1944, he had been with the victorious Allied troops who followed the Germans, who stormed towards home. This was now different. The damn Krauts had turned the tables around. The last few days were hell.

He thought rather to the wonderful days of their Holidays in South Carolina when they were in Summerton with Granma and Grandpa in the countryside. He saw the mountains and forests in front of him, the boat trips on the Lake Marion, which reflected the summer sky with stunning blue. Boss, the Labrador was looking forward to him and he was looking for the dog.

If there is peace again, I will get me a dog. His thoughts were jumping from the past to the future. He was twenty-two years old. Since real life still lay ahead of him.

My comrades should come soon. Funny, I do not feel cold. In contrast, nice and warm.

He felt wonderful. Perhaps he had been hit and injured, but it was not so bad. One had already heard that people are said to have hallucinations if they lose blood. It was not supposed to be so bad; after all, he could still think clearly. I'll get some sleep and dream. It's wonderful how bright and beautiful the world can be when you are dreaming.

He did not know how long he had slept, but when he woke up again, it froze him. It was snowing softly, his breath formed little clouds in the air. Suddenly he heard someone say his name. That could not be. It was Mary´s voice, his Mary and was far away in Carolina. But clearly he heard what she said.

You have to be awake, John!

I'm awake, he said, blinking his eyes. He saw Mary only blurred. That did not surprise him, since it could only be a spirit. He liked to kiss her anyway.

It's good that you're here, Mary, he said.

I hope so, she laughed her silvery laugh that he so loved in her.

Mary, I play with the idea to kiss you, but the memory of the pain when I move, keeps me from it.

In the past you had better excuses, John.

What's wrong with my leg?

What should be, John? She stood abruptly and vanished into the snowy air. See you! He thought he had once heard her voice.

He was disappointed and turned his head to the side. A warmth rose again in him and he closed his eyes. He was just glad that his concern for his leg was not necessary; otherwise Mary would certainly have said something.

They need so much damned time, he thought before he fell asleep.

Two days later German soldiers found him under the snow.

Bled to death, said one, Frozen to death, another. His body was frozen stiff when they tried to carry him away.

Look, said one, tears running over his face.

A dead man who is crying?

You're crazy! The dead do not cry.

But his companion had seen correctly: the fine ice deposits at Johns eyes had defrosted first and it looked as if he was crying.

They grabbed him by the shoulders and the one leg that was left to him. They picked him up like a piece of wood.

Put him to the Americans, said one.

What's with the leg asked one.

Don´t ask stupid questions!

"Then they threw him to the others on the dirty lorry bed. The leg they threw afterwards.

2

The Battle of the Bulge

Perhaps you have already heard of the Battle of the Bulge. Do you not know what that means, you could actually forget about it, because it lies back for seventy years.

It could also be good to remember that in December 1944 the bloodiest battle of WW2 took place in the rolling hills of the Belgian Ardennes and many people were forced into the abyss. Friend and foe, soldiers and innocent civilians, old people, women and children, were all carried off. What are their torments? What makes the difference between the grief of all, friend or foe?

It could have happened also in another place, at another time, and with other people in the course of human history, and it can happen again. At all times and in all places. The military experts think that, and it sounds tempting in theory, but in practice it is nothing else than inhuman violence.

On 16 December 1944, in the morning at five thirty the German artillery began with an hour-long barrage along a front of one hundred kilometres.

One night, almost without sleep, was behind us. There was concern for the morning. We did not know what it would bring, but we had good reason to fear the worst.

For our division had been planned as follows: The Division was to break through on a broad front, to get free of the American lines around the road Habscheid – Steinenbrück - St.Vith. To the left should be a Grenadier Regiment in Großlangenfeld, on the right another regiment would contest Heckhuscheid and in the middle a regiment, as a mobile advance detachment had the mission of breaking through above Winterspelt - Steinebrück onto St.Vith.

The intention was a surprising assault on the town of St. Vith, and the occupation of the station, ensuring the conquest and securement of American transport trains with fuel. In theory not a bad plan, but rather difficult to put into practice.

It was wintry weather, with temperatures 3 degrees below freezing, and at night -10, and all this with 10cm of snow.

December 16, 1944; 3 clock early morning awakening. 4.45 clock command output from commander all the way down to the corporal. At exactly 5.00 clock the night was illuminated by searchlights with artificial light. It dazzled our own troops and made it impossible to attack the enemy. A crazy idea!

As at 7.00 clock from the Grenadier Regiment 190 at division headquarters, the message was received that the edge of the forest northwest Eigelscheid was achieved and the enemy resistance had subsided, the mobile division, which was to push through to St.Vith Steinebrück, was set in motion. In the forest along the road to Winterspelt grew new resistance, which had to be broken. We were able to use heavy mortars and attacked with both our disposal assault guns. A short time later we received renewed fire behind Eigelscheid. The shelling came from the direction of Winterspelt. From the front, we heard sounds of chain armor. Our next target was now Winterspelt.

Up to nightfall the mobile detachment were arriving at the solitary farms north of the forest in sight of Winterspelt, in a semicircular arch. Here heavy fighting took place during the next few hours. It lasted until midnight, when the first parts of the Grenadier Regiment were able to gain a foothold in Winterspelt.

Only on the second day were we able to take Winterspelt where resistance had been ongoing in the western part. We captured a US regimental command post. At the onset of darkness, the village was taken and the enemy moved away. But still the regiment 190 was still fighting for Großlangenfeld and Regiment 183 was in the fight for Heckhuscheid. Even in the western part of Winterspelt there were repeated enemy combat patrols. On December 18th, the Winterspelt western part was still not completely free of the enemy, we received gunfire from the direction of Elcherath. The resistance at Langenfeld and Heckhuscheid subsided. The battle for Winterspelt was hard and there were heavy losses on both sides. The American resistance in Steinebrück was particularly persistent, and the GIs allowed us no rest. They kept coming forward once more and fought house to house before we moved again forwards to regain ascendancy.

A report of this nature sounds very sober and is in no way an insight into all the suffering of those involved, it says nothing about the fears and thoughts of men when they are in action.

In reality, it was a bloody massacre. There was nothing with heroism. Since the pieces of flesh flew and stuck to the walls of houses. I saw how the blood ran through a front door and the dirt on the podium on the steps to the street had soaked out before it ran down the steps and the side dripped from the podium in the snow on the grass and coloured it red.

Two hundred dead alone in the struggle for Winterspelt. Those were our own losses, in addition came the myriad of wounded. The American lives that were lost, can only be estimated, because the Americans assumed permanent responsibility for their wounded and carried their dead away quickly before they could fall into our hands. Then there were a high number of civilian deaths, because no one took the population into account. They tried to hide in the cellars and bunkers to survive, while the soldiers destroyed their homes, schools and factories.

3

War Diary Sergeant Helmut Schreiber

I will begin by writing our operations, in my own eyes. My name is Helmut Schreiber and I just turned twenty-one in November 1944, I was born in 1923, corporal in the Wehrmacht.

My vintage plays a big role in my life, as in general the time in which we are born, is important for our personal development. They were not favorable conditions for the commencement of human life at that date and time.

My parent´s house, also my cradle, stood namely in Eupen, which is a special place in Europe. When I was two years old, I became a Belgian, for my beautiful hometown, where my parents lived in Germany, had become Belgian after the First World War in the Treaty of Versailles. I learned German and French, in addition I speak even a comprehensible school English. I visited the Collége High School in Eupen, where my father was a teacher. In May 1940 the Germans were in Eupen again on their way to France. I was allowed to become a soldier in 1942 after my graduation. German soldier is clear! No matter what, I would rather have stayed as a civilian.

He who lived in Germany during this period and was born between 1920-1928, came to this world to suffer from indoctrination that prevented him from real life in his youth. He was admirably to abuse its virtues for such wonderful things as country, folk and camaraderie. He was chosen to show the world what racial characteristics he had received, great traits such as diligence, bravery and obedience that, rightly used in their combination built a truly explosive mixture found to