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WWII History: This is part four of a written memory of WWII. These words were written down to paper in 1994 by Eldon R. Trenary, a veteran of the American 80th "Blue Ridge" Division who fought at the Battle of the Bulge. They appear here courtesy of Mr. Trenary, and provided by Dave Laws of the 3rd Para Bde. This fourth and final part of the interview continues with Pte Trenary's unit having just taken a hill overlooking a crossing point on the Rhine. His unit was dug in waiting while engineers completed a bridge over the river below. |
Eldon R. Trenary
Co. F 317th Infantry
80th Infantry Division
We sat there for several days and watched the proceedings, finally the
bridge was finished, the tanks came across and we all moved on in,
guests of Hitler. There was a pillbox there right over the riverbank where
we landed, but apparently it had been knocked out by artillery before
we ever crossed the river. The first night we spent on this hill after
capturing it.
We waited until dark then went down in that pillbox and got
some steel bunks and used them for stretchers and carried our wounded
down to the river, and loaded them in boats. We dropped a guy who had a
broken arm and he gave us all a cussing pretty quick. We dropped another
guy who had his leg blew off, we apologized to him, and he sez forget
it, I'm getting out of here I don't care if you tie a rope to me and
drag me.
There is a lot of difference in people. This hill we were dug in
on was smoking constantly like it was on fire, all the time we were
there, they had apparently shelled it something fierce with phosphorous
shells, before we crossed over. That's why the pillbox was empty I guess.
The snow was gone and everything was mud, and this smoke was just
spiraling up through the mud. It was still smoking when we left.
While we were dug in there a German came out of nowhere and surrendered
to me. He looked like he was about 14 years old at the most. I was in
this foxhole by myself by this time. Hopkins had gone to the hospital
with some sort of back problem - not a wound. Anyway, I seen to it this
kid wasn't armed and sent him on down the hill - but first I hollered
and told the guys below me he was coming, and I said they are sending the
boy scouts after us. They removed his helmet and a moss of long hair
fell down, he was a girl! That's the only one I ever seen in uniform -
but I heard of others. I just got to thinking that guy with the broken
arm that we dropped must of had more wrong with him than that or he would
have been walking.
Anyway, we moved out of there and went on as before moving in on the
krouts, staying in their holes when they retreated. I always heard in Basic
that when they retreated they always laid "booby traps", I never did
see or hear of one.
One day we walked until we were absolutely exhausted, we walked all day
and most of the night. We ended up out in some woods on a road which
was really just a trail, when they told us to fall out and dig in. We
just split and fell out on each side of the road, and no one dug in.
Falling out on each side of the road was totally stupid, I still don't know
why they allowed that.
I moved about 15 feet off the road, sat down and leaned up against a
tree, and wrapped up in a shelter half and a blanket and went to sleep.
We all got sound asleep and a German patrol came down the road between
us. Somebody heard them talking (Purdy I think) and shot into them. Purdy
was across the road from me, then all hell broke loose. The Germans
were yelling and shooting and GIs were shooting into each other. That is
everybody but me, I laid down flat as I could get and went back to
sleep. This probably didn't last 45 seconds but four or five of our platoon
got killed.
About daylight I stood up and was doing what you usually do that time
of morning when a rifle barrel peaked out of some thick brush right
beside me. It had a white rag tied around it, and someone who was hooked to
it was saying, 'Nicht shutzin', or don't shoot. My rifle was leaning up
against that tree, so I didn't have much to shoot him with. He gave
other indications that he wanted to surrender, so I sez wait until I get
my rifle. I figured that if I was going to take him up to the C.O. that
someone besides him ought to have a rifle. He had been in that patrol
and when the shooting started he crawled off in the brush and he and I
slept out there about 20 feet apart all night. (I'd like to hear his
version of all this.)
Trenary's Unit in Paris, France, September 1945.
This all took place in the early part of February of '45. We blundered
around for another week or so and finally ended up dug in kind of up
above a ravine, which had a small stream running through it. We filled
our canteens out of it while we were there. I got a letter from 'L' while
we were sitting there and she raked me over the coals for not going to a
studio and having a nice picture taken of myself instead of spending
all my money in bars.
Finally the morning of the 18th of February we took off supposedly to
attack another small village. We were going up a hill and were not too
far from the top when it seemed like every machinegun in Germany opened
up on us. We had been walking side-by-side instead of single file, and
firing our rifles as we moved along - from the hip. I remember thinking
my rifle sounded awful puny. We hit the ground when that happened, and
about that time a German tank sitting in a clump of small trees right at
the top of the hill fired up, and tried to move out of the trees toward us.
I could see the treetops shaking, and he gunned his motor but it
coughed and died - then he fired up again. Flanagan was hollering for Purdy
and Proach to move up the hill a ways so they could bear on him with
the bazooka, which they did. But the bazooka would not fire, I thought
they had left their bazooka ammo in a shell hole just to my right, and I
figured Flanagan was going to tell me to take them their ammo cause I
was closest to it, so I got it and started crawling to where they were,
it seemed like it was taking forever to get there so I got up on my
feet and started running.
I took about 2 steps and I get the impression
that a hot stove poker hit me in the butt and knocked me down. I remember
thinking I'm going to pass out, so I jammed my forehead down in the
cold muddy ground, this seemed to straighten me out. As I fell I had
thrown the shells up towards Proach. I looked up to see if they had them and
Proach was lying on his back, with his head thrown back over his pack -
he had a bullet hole over his right eye, and he had brains hanging down
over his eye, he was not dead and was clawing at this head and Purdy
was trying to keep him from doing this and at the same time keep himself
and Proach down low enough to keep from getting shot.
Pte. Trenary
Proach was hollering, 'I did, I did, damnit I did', over and over and
over. I rode to the hospital in the same ambulance as he did and he kept
this up all the way to the hospital. Anyway about this time I figured I
was probably bleeding to death so I slid backwards through the mud like
crab and got in that shell hole which had about a foot of muddy water
in it. I buried my butt in that cold water hoping to stop the blood
(which there wasn't anyway). I was scared by this time, that tank was still
trying to get out of those trees, the engine was still coughing and
spitting, and I was talking to my maker. I learned what fear was that day.
I didn't pee my pants but I would have if it would have helped. I
didn't know but my hip was broke and I figured I couldn't get away from that
tank with a broken hip. A fact is a soldier can't get away from a tank
with or without a broken hip - but I wasn't thinking very straight.
There was another guy in that hole with me - he was a replacement that
had come in that morning and he was almost out of his mind with fear.
He had his rifle down in that mud, it didn't even look like a rifle. He
started apologizing to me for shooting me, his rifle had gone off when I
started running with the ammo, and I went down. So he thought it was
him that shot me.
Finally the tank's engine died again about the fourth time I think, and
Flanagan ordered everyone up and move out forward that is. Those guys
got up and walked through machinegun fire like I couldn't believe except
Flanagan, he got up and waved his arm and hand to move forward and down
he went. He never knew what hit him, they almost cut him in two. The
guys told afterwards.
I laid there until a medic came up and pulled my pants down and I found
out I was hit in four other places. But that one was the only one I
felt. None of my wounds bled much, just a few spatters in my underwear.
Proach was still talking, he was not bleeding either and usually head
wounds always bled, but he didn't. That bullet went in the back of his
head and came out in the middle of his forehead over his eye. I have since
decided that that guy who shot at me must have shot Proach. He almost
had to because Proach had his back to that guy and was facing the tank
and enemy fire.
Anyway, that guy who ever he may be still thinks he shot me in the butt
which is just as well. I got hit with shrapnel, I think our own, but
I'm not sure, I never heard any explosion except small arms fire. The
medic patched me up and asked me if I could walk, I was more than a little
eager to get out of there, so I took off walking. The tank was still
there, the CO just by-passed it.
I walked probably a mile, and while I was walking a piece of shrapnel
came across a field like a rotary lawnmower blade actually cutting
weeds. It crossed the road in front of me, it looked blue and was more than
a foot long I'll bet. A jeep picked me up and hauled me to a place
where there was an ambulance. They loaded me in it, they brought Proach
after awhile and several others. There was a load. Some sat up, I got to
lay down. They took us to a field hospital and finally that night after
dark we were all lined up alongside a railroad track and loaded on a
hospital train and taken to Bar-Le-Duc which is in southern France - warm
and sunny - where I spent 30 days in the hospital.
Poor Proach died from his head wound. I don't see how he lived as long
as he did. I laid in that hospital which was absolute sheer luxury.
Good chow, good care, good weather, nice day room. A master sergeant in
the bed beside me taught me how to play checkers. But I suffered all the
time I was in there, I suffered mentally because I had had a taste of
it. I knew what it was all about. I dreaded going back up there like I
never dreaded anything in my life. I especially dreaded crossing the
Rhine river, every day I listened to the news. Finally it became my time
to go take the lightning thunder and butter milk test. If you could see
lightning, hear thunder, and chew butter milk they told you were a
fighting SOB and sent you back up on the line.
One guy who was in there had been wounded twice before - this was his
third try. It came his turn just ahead of me. He went down town and shot
an M.P. in the leg, did it deliberately for no reason other than to
keep from going back on the line. He said he wasn't going back and he
didn't. I often wondered what they did with him. I felt sorry for him, he
shouldn't have had to go back, enough is enough. I don't think I should
have had to go back. There was plenty of men in the U.S., getting hit
once should have been the end of it. I was a lot more scared after
getting hit than I ever had been before. Its not that I got hurt that bad, I
guess I realized somebody was actually trying to kill me.
I left the hospital anyway and they still hadn't crossed the Rhine, but
they were moving so fast that by the time I caught up with them, not
only had they crossed the Rhine, but they were pretty deep into Germany.
They were holed up in a little town. My oh my how things had changed.
They were sleeping in houses and apartments right in town, no more fox
holes, the Germans were out of artillery. No more walking, they were
riding trucks or tanks, whichever. Most of them if they had anything in
their pack at all had wine. I went through two more 'major' battles but
they didn't amount to much, kind of a cowboy and indian affair.
Germans were giving up in droves, we didn't pay any attention to them,
just sent them down the road toward the rear. We turned south somewhere
around Erfurt and went down through Austria where we met the Russians
on the Inns River, and there the war ended, with the Russians on one
side of the Inns and us on the other. We spent a couple weeks guarding
bridges. The Austrians were supposed to stay put on whatever side of
the river they were on when it ended. The ones on the Ruskie side wanted
to cross over to get away from those wild men. I always stood guard
with Purdy, he and I were guilty of letting several of them across at
different times.| Private Trenary's story as told in his own words was part of the last four newsletters, starting with the 1st Quarter 2002 issue. His story started as a raw replacement thrown into the height of the fighting at the Battle of the Bulge. If you missed one they are all online at www.nwha.org. |
