Germany

The 300th moved through Aachen, Germany on January 25, 1945. Aachen is best known as the location where some U.S. troops, moving quickly toward the German border as the Battle of the Bulge was being fought, first crossed into Germany. Aachen was an historic city where Charlemagne had been born and later crowned Holy Roman Emperor. A German commander evacuated most of the 160,000 civilians and offered to surrender the city on September 13, 1944. Hitler wouldn't have anything to do with surrender. He had the commander arrested and transferred several thousand troops to hold the city. The ultimate battle was in the streets involving every building and at times every room within the buildings. The Americans poured 5,000 artillery shells per day into the city followed by tons of bombs. After weeks of battle, Aachen, and segments of the Siegfried Line around it, were secured. The price was high. 2,000 U.S. troops were killed but the Germans lost 5,000 troops and another 5,600 were taken prisoner. An unconditional surrender was signed on October 21, 1944 and Aachen became the first German city to fall to the Allies.

Randy Hanes looks back at the city of Aachen, Germany:

Known for its treasures of medieval art and architecture, Aachen was the capital city of the Holy Roman Empire ruled by Charlemagne. The city was heavily fortified and fanatically defended by the Germans due to its religious significance. The resistance resulted in almost total destruction including seventy-five percent of the cathedral. A miracle or divine intervention - Charlemagne's marble throne was not damaged, not even a scratch. This is where I saw my first dog fights. P-47 Thunderbolts and P-38 Lightnings were doing air battles with the German Luftwaffe - what few the Germans had left. We were observing from a German hospital on the outskirts of Aachen. We were bivouacked there remodeling sections of it to be used as a field hospital.

His assignment changed, Don Richter went to Battalion headquarters where he missed his buddies:

I had just finished my breakfast and was stowing away my mess kit and cup when Lt. Campbell called to me, "Richter you have a new assignment. Cpl. Funk is going to take Sgt. Sweet's place as mail clerk and you are going to Personnel Section at Battalion Headquarters as B Company Clerk." I tried to object that I was a line engineer and needed to stay with my buddies in Third Squad but had second thoughts since this might be a chance to get in out of the cold. Lt. Campbell said, "No use trying to get out of it this time. You are going to be Company Clerk so get into Cpl. Borego's jeep with all of your gear and get going." I told Sgt. Ruffin that I was sorry to be leaving, waved good bye to my buddies and then got into the jeep with Borego to go to my new assignment in Personnel.

Upon reaching Battalion Headquarters at a large chateau, I reported to S/Sgt. John Poteet, Personnel Sgt., who greeted me, "Well Don. I have got you at last. Couldn't get out of it this time could you." He introduced me to the other clerks and then to Branford Brooks, Personnel Officer, who said we had already met in England. Mr. Brooks proceeded to tell me all about the job of Company Clerk stressing that being custodian of all Service Records of Company B enlisted men and keeping them safe and up to date was most important. Doing the monthly payroll and getting it signed by each man was of almost equal importance. I would also be responsible for preparing all company correspondence and company orders along with taking care of all personnel needs of the men of Company B.

Mr. Brooks showed me my desk which was sort of like half of a steamer trunk and contained all that I needed. There were two drawers of Service Records on one side and a drawer for supplies on the right side with two shelves for paper above and space for a portable typewriter. Mine was a Royal. The door of the desk let down for a surface to work or type on. I moved my desk next to Cpl. Haney Tyus who seemed the more friendly and helpful of all the clerks and it turned out to be a good choice. I opened the desk seeing the Service Record drawers were labeled A-L and M-Z so I opened the M-Z drawer and found my Service Record in a white little book about four by eight inches and a quarter inch thick. Poteet came over and suggested that a good way to get started might be to type up an new company roster with First Sgt. first followed by each rank listed by alphabetical order ending with buck privates. I thought I might find an old copy of one in the desk which I did and got busy typing four copies.

Co. B operating a quarry. Photo: Army Signal Corps

Aaron Glenn describes moving through Aachen:

Our tank was coming out of a block in Aachen and I guess he was guarding the town. The German tank was trying to come in and he was firing on this American tank. It was a light American tank and its shells would hit and bounce off that German tank. Then there was an American tank that came in from the south and he stopped that German tank by hitting the tank in the side. You couldn't take the German tank from the front, it was so armored. He came in from the side and hit him and stopped him.

At the end of March, 1945, the 300th moved to Remagen, Germany. First Army troops came to the outskirts of the town on the west bank of the Rhine River on March 7, 1945. Scouts observed German troops retreating across the Rhine on a railroad bridge. Built in 1916, the Ludendorff Bridge was designed for war and had been used for years by the Germans to move troops across the Rhine. It originally included chambers to house explosives so it could be destroyed if necessary but the French, years earlier, had filled the chambers with concrete.

Removal of a bridge over the Roer River, 5 March, 1945. Photo: Army Signal Corps

Remagen was taken easily with the Germans escaping across the bridge. U.S. troops waited for the Germans to destroy the bridge but much to their surprise, the Germans were slow to string explosives along the bridge. The Germans botched the job and the explosives failed to bring down the structure. U.S. troops stormed across the bridge, and in heavy fighting, drove the Germans back and immediately began to move Allied troops and equipment across the Rhine River. Reconnaissance Officer Lt. Shoop and Sgt. John Durant made a reconnaissance probe that took them over the bridge reporting this back to Company B HQ.

300th Engineer William F. McAlexander describes crossing the bridge at Remagen:

Lieutenant Taylor came up about daylight and said, "Load up right now, we're going across the Rhine River." So our group crossed the Ludendorf Bridge at Remagen. We didn't go through the tunnel on the other side. We took a right and went over where we joined the 7th Armored Division again.

When we crossed the Ludendorf Bridge, it was quiet over there. We didn't have any opposition and were just sailing along. We didn't know the bridge fell in right behind us. We had no idea. We went way inland before I heard the bridge fell in. All of our groups didn't go across the bridge. Most of them went across on a Treadway bridge.

John Durant tells of crossing the Rhine River:

I remember crossing the Rhine River, I certainly do. We had something to do with the Ludendorff Bridge at Remagen. I remember Archie Menard, the jeep driver and myself crossing that bridge because there was a tunnel on the other side. I remember crossing the bridge and we came back. This was before it collapsed and they put the other bridge across. I don't remember for sure but I think it may have been a Treadway Bridge. Yes, I remember crossing the Rhine River.

Yet again circumstances had changed the history of the 300th. They had been assigned the critical mission of building the bridge across the Rhine, a job for which they had been training for months. With the Ludendorff bridge still standing, the 300th was assigned other missions. They followed other Allied troops and moved over the Rhine and deeper into Germany.

Road Sign to Co. A with Feliciano Rodriquez on right. Photo: Harold Palmer

Engineer battalions spent the next ten days attempting to repair the badly damaged Ludendorff Railroad Bridge. Four welders from the 300th were also sent to help with the repair work. It was on March 17, ten days almost to the hour from when American troops first set foot on it, that the bridge collapsed without warning crashing into the Rhine River killing 28 men with many more were injured.

The 300th supported the Allied troops during the Battle of the Bulge from mid-December, 1944 through the end of January, 1945 during a long, harsh winter. They traveled to numerous locations including: Filot, 2 Jan; Xhoris, 5 Jan; Louveigne, 7 Jan; Born, 1 Feb; Lichtenbusch, 6 Feb; Roetgen, 21 Feb; and Abenden, 4 Mar.

The activities of the 300th during the winter of 1944-45, included: bridge construction, maintaining airstrips, operating gravel pits, removed ice/snow/debris from roads, guarded bridges and cleared and maintained roads while assigned to various groups.

Don Richter remembers the bridges over the Rhine River:

After the German Army had been pushed back out of the Belgium Bulge, I was now B Company Clerk and in the Personnel Section with the 300th Headquarters. The Germans were falling back rapidly after the Siegfried Line had been broken through and we were moving almost daily until the front reached the banks of the Rhine River. The battalion headquarters was billeted in a small castle on a high hill overlooking the Rhine Valley at Berkum.

A few days prior to our arrival here Lt. Charles Shoop came into Personnel Section in the evening, as he often did after a day of reconnaissance. He said to us, "Men, what would you say if I told you that I had crossed the Rhine River and returned today?" None of us could believe him as we all knew that we had a mission to build the first bridge over the Rhine, a Floating Bailey Bridge. Then Shoop went on to say that the Ninth Armored Division, for which we were providing engineering support, had luckily captured a railroad bridge intact at Remagen. The Germans had waited too long trying to get most of their army back across the river before setting off the explosives that had been planted on the bridge. So we had lost our biggest bridging job of the war.

We stayed at Berkum, from 9 March to 24 March with A, B and C Companies keeping roads clear of rubble and repaired so that traffic could keep flowing across the Rhine while the German Army continuously bombarded Remagen with all they had including a V2 rocket which leveled several blocks over Remagen. Personnel and most of the men of headquarters had a fine time in our lovely billet keeping up with our work and then enjoying a movie up in the attic each night.

I volunteered to go into Remagen one day to help with installing traffic signs in the town but mostly just to see in person the bridge had captured and allowed us a crossing of the river without our having to secure a bridgehead and construct the Floating Bailey. A Treadway bridge had been constructed under artillery fire to supplement the captured railway bridge. Some of our men, I understand, were involved with helping the 291st Engineer Combat Battalion on that job. We went as far as the near side of the captured bridge with our sign installation and then traveled back up out of the river valley toward our billet. When looking back, we saw that the railroad bridge had collapsed into the river due to damage from artillery shelling and bombing. We could hardly believe that the bridge was gone only about 10 minutes after we had been near the end. It was fortunate that the Treadway had been completed before this happened.

Berkum, Germany, March 1945. Back: Sgt. August Namken, Cpl. Rosinaldo Borrego, Cpl. Don Richter, Maurice Fener. Front: Sgt. John Morrison, Cpl. Louis Clausen, Cpl. Haynie Tyrus. Photo: Don Richter

From the After Action Report for the month of February 1945 of the 17th Tank Battalion:

Due to the melting of the snow and frequent rains during the early part of the month, the roads in the area had almost become impassable by 11 February. On that date a detail of 56 man from the headquarters company and each of the medium tank companies and 42 men from the light tank company were sent to the area south of Aachen in the vicinity of Walheim and Rotgen to work on the roads. The work was supervised by officers and noncommissioned officers from the 300th Engineer Battalion.

The men were transported to and from the work each day by trucks from our Service Company. The men who worked on this detail were rotated so that each man would have an opportunity to receive some of the training which was being conducted in the battalion area. In addition to the men used on the road detail, which was supervised by the 300th Engineers, we were compelled to use approximately 15 men from each company to work on the roads in their respective company areas in order to keep the roads open. Therefore, we had only a very small number of men available for training each day. However, a training program was conducted for these men who were not engaged in the road repair work.

During the period from 11 February through 22 February, the men who were working on the roads remain billeted in the battalion area and were transported to and from work each day. However, on 23 February, these men were moved to billets in the town of Rotgen and remained there until 28 February, the date on which the roadwork was terminated.

At the beginning our "tankers" didn't like the idea of being converted into Engineers but when they realized how vitally important it was to keep these roads to the front open they performed their duties cheerfully.

John F. Wemple
Lt. Colonel, Infantry,
Commanding

Randy Hanes "Welcomed" into a German home:

When we would enter into a small village and needed billets for a night or more, I would approach a civilian and ask, "Wo ist der Burgermeister?" (Where is the mayor?) They would point to his house. I would say very demandingly, "Get him!" We would take every other house allowing them a little time to get their necessities and then we would move in doing a thorough search for weapons of any kind.

In one particular house in southeast German in March, 1945, I selected an upstairs bedroom for myself. I opened a door into the attic and was amazed at how much meat of all kinds were hanging on hooks - sausages, hams braunschweiger, etc. Before I could shut the attic door this hysterical frau came screaming at me cursing and screaming for me to leave her meat alone. She wouldn't relent pointing her finger in my face and screaming the "Godt in Himmel (God in heaven) would see me in Hell for this." I finally had enough of this shrieking and stuck my Tommy gun right in her belly and shouted, "If you don't get the Hell out of my face I'm going to send you to Hell right now!" She got the message, spun around, and went down the stairs about four steps at a time still screaming and cursing.

That was the most plush bed I had ever slept in - sank down about a foot deep. I know I slept better than the screaming lady next door.

Randy Hanes with a young girl, Michelle, sledding in Belgium during the winter of 1944-45. Photo: Randy Hanes

Co. A breaking rocks with air-compressors at a quarry in Walheim, Germany, 14 February 1945. Photo: Riel Crandall

110 foot triple, double Bailey Bridge constructed by Co. A, 9 March 1945. The bridge was built on an existing by-pass of railroad overpass to provide two-way traffic on a MSR (main supply route). The bridge is located southwest of Euskirchen, Germany. Photo: Riel Crandall

Civilians at Fritzdorf, Germany repairing a culvert under the supervision of Co. C, 18 March 1945. This view is before the repairs are complete. Photo: Riel Crandall

Ditch repair and drainage work being done by civilians under supervision of Co. A, 19 March 1945. Photo: Riel Crandall

Co. B repairing a road shoulder and constructing a drainage ditch near Fritzdorf, Germany, 19 March 1945. Photo: Riel Crandall

Road entering Edkendorf, Germany after repair and drainage by Co. C, 19 March 1945. Photo: Riel Crandall

Don Richter recalls good times in Germany:

On 24 March 300th Headquarters, including Personnel Section, moved across the Rhine River over the Treadway bridge and proceeded a short distance down the Rhine Valley to a lovely little village of Reinthreibach where we billeted in what had been a lovely large home that had been occupied by a doctor, his wife and teenage daughter. They had moved into a very small dwelling out in the back garden. Most of their belongings had been thrown out of the main dwelling which had also served as the doctor's office by the German Army which had used it as headquarters. The US Army advancing combat forces who had gone on before we arrived there also used the house.

House at Rembeitbach, Germany where 300th billeted after crossing Rhine River, photo pre WWII. Photo: Don Richter

I felt so sorry for this family who had lost so much in the fighting and who had a son somewhere in the German army. The cute little fraulein seemed so happy to have all of us there even though we were the enemy. Our file clerk August Namken, was very fluent in German and she would hang around speaking with him and others of us would try to carry on a limited conversation. The doctor and wife stayed back in the far end of the garden in their little house and away from the enemy who occupied their lovely home.

One day, Haynie Tyrus, C Company Clerk and I, after we had caught up with all of our paperwork, somehow secured a bottle of very good Rhine wine and took it up a winding stairway to an observation deck up above the roof and began consuming the wine. We could see all over the village and as far to the east as the river itself. Haynie and I became a bit tipsy as the level of the bottle lowered rapidly and when the resident fraeuline came back down the street with a few of her pretty friends, they saw us up there calling out to them and whistling at them. We all had a really good time at a distance while avoiding the non-fraternization rule and the wrath of Capt. Hugh D'Anna. It was mindful of the song back home, "Standing on the corner watching all the girls go by."

Too soon we all had to load up all of our equipment and belongings on the truck and move out to keep up with the line companies that were providing engineering support to the armored troops that were rapidly advancing deep into Germany. The combat troops would advance each day while Headquarters stayed stationary keeping up with our paperwork. We loaded up in the evening and moved out during the night to catch up passing by the destroyed vehicles and destruction and then stopping and finding a place to get some sleep before doing the same thing again the next day.

The battalion participated in cutting off a large portion of the remnants of the once powerful German Army in what was called the Ruhr Pocket in the great industrial part of Germany. It was here that we learned of the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and we were all very sad over that. It was on my 21st birthday that we received word that we were being transferred from the First Army to Gen. Patton's Third Army and would be traveling in convoy from northern Germany many miles down to Bavaria where we would find ourselves near Czechoslovakia and Austria at a small village of Schoding, Germany where we were able to celebrate the end of World War II in Europe.

Road maintenance on Route 2, southwest of Weiszenburg, Germany, 1945. Photo: Riel Crandall

Front row: Raphael Cuellar (left), Louis Pellitteri (center), and Charles Tobelman (right) with Melvin Lenz (second row center) enjoying a snow fight with local German children in Germany. Photo: Louis Pellitteri

Destroyed hangar and aircraft, most likely in Germany. Photo: Harold Palmer