NOVEMBER 1944 - OUR WAR BECOMES REAL
By
Jim Harris
The Ozark 102nd Infantry
Division was activated Sept. 13, 1942 at Camp Maxey, Texas to take part in WW2. At that
time the war was not going well for us. The German troops were advancing in Stalingrad,
Rommels tanks were on the move in Africa, our mighty carrier Wasp was sinking in the
waters of the Solomon Islands where the Japanese had reinforced Guadalcanal; so time was
short for training the Ozarks. They were needed now. However, not all of the Ozarks went
to war. .Replacements were needed for men lost in the fighting and many were taken from
the Ozark Div. to replace those men.
The remaining were sure
they were now safe. Back to the everyday routine of chow lines, beer at the PX,
inspections, hurry-up-and-wait, endless salutes, drill, long lines at the movies, and read
about the war. Safe in Texas.
At this same period of
time the ASTP (boys) were happy to sit out the war
in college. They trained with slide-rules as they went to class and read about the war in
the papers. Sit down meals and clean warm beds. Then the bubble burst, the ASTP program
was curtailed and the young college kids were on their way to Texas and the Infantry.
The Ozark Division
suddenly discovered that their ranks were to be filled with young college kids all with
high IQs. The remnants of the 102nd Div. moved quickly to fill all vacant positions of
noncoms and prepared to teach those young college kids about the real soldiers of the
Infantry. When the young college kids arrived there were 3,250 from all across the country
and all were privates in march 1943.
Fun and games for the
old timers, but after a quick refresher of a couple of months, they became a real Ozark
Division and were prepared for war. In June the Ozarks shipped out for the departure for
the war. A short stay to fight the battle of the street cars in Philadelphia and a short
visit to see the sights of New York City then onto the ships for a nice ocean cruise to
Normandy but no war yet. Patton has broken through the German lines and all our trucks are
needed to haul gasoline and supplies, so we pitch our tents in the hedgerows and wait. Try
a little cognac and see the local sights. Nice weather also, but no war. We hear it is
going our way now and there is some talk of home by Christmas.
Finally in October we
say good bye to Cherbourg as we pack into 40 and 8 boxcars and the rail road trip takes a
few days to get us into Holland near the German border. The land of windmills and wooden
shoes, then the sight seeing is over as we move into the front lines, foxholes prepared by
the 29th Division. Now we are very close to the war. We settle in and wait. A few patrols
into German lines but few casualties.
November 1944 brings a
bit cooler weather. K 407 safely in our foxholes at Teveran as the Ozarks defend a line
from Kreuzrath through Birgden, Hatterath, Gillrath, Teveren, Briel to Waureichen. Our
only real action is a few patrols into German lines .For about two weeks the Ozark units
are regrouped as they are shifted a bit to the southeast and finally we get the word that
we are going into action and attack the German lines. Now the real war comes.
The small towns of
Apweiler, Immendorf Geilenkirchen, Beeck, Welz, Geronsweiler, Roerdorf, Flossdorf, and
Linnich were our objective as we advanced to the Roer River. The Germans were determined
to stop us and blood flowed freely as the roar and whistle of artillery, mortars, machine
guns and bullets filled the air and many good men fell. Smoke filled the air and when we
finally reached the Roer we realized what real war was all about. When we finally dug in
we had time to think and realized what had happened to us. Almost every front line unit
had lost half or more of their men and suddenly Berlin seemed a long long way off. To most
of us on the front the question was no longer would it be over by Christmas. Most of us
believed it was just a matter of time until we were hit, now we just hoped it would only
be a simple wound and only serious enough to get us out of the war.
It was many years later
before most of us realized who our German opponents were. This was the
10th SS Panzer Division, one of best
divisions in the German army. All of us down at the bottom at the level of privates and
non commissioned soldiers were never given information on the enemy opposing us. This
information was for the top brass only, and all too often even they did not know. This was
evident at the start of the Ardennes offensive which became known as the Battle of the
Bulge. We did know that we had severe casualties and we still had the Roer to cross. I
certainly do remember how all of us dreaded crossing the Roer for another blood bath like
we had in November. I am sure you all remember that.
You, the survivors, know the
rest of the Ozark story as we went all the way to the Elbe river and final victory. When I
was discharged I wanted to get on with my life, and did so. Never joined the VFW, Legion,
or the Ozark assn. I did exchange notes with a few at Christmas and that was all. Time
went by and in 1975 someone sent me a notice of a planned two week tour of Europe that
included a couple of days visiting our former war areas and also visits to Paris,
Switzerland, etc. I joined the Ozark Assn. and we went on the tour. Fantastic it was.
Although Welz was not
included in the tour, I asked to stop there. Hal Ryder of Galaxy tours was with us and
said no! Jim Limbaugh spoke up and said he also wanted to stop at Welz so we
did. Jacob Rainer who owned the brewery treated us all to beer and now this is a regular
stop on all tours. Here is where I heard about the 10th SS and became interested.
I then met General Heinz Harmel who was the commanding General of the 10th SS during the
war and became friends. We have exchanged letters and I began to learn about the war from
his side. I also met Hans Kramp who was a member of the 8th Kavallerie Division der Waffen
SS who lives in Linnich. Kramp wrote the book RURFRONT 1944/45 and has the German side of
the battle for Linnich. Harmel lived in Krefeld until his death in Sept. 2000. I have
learned a bit about the 10th SS and have promised John Emerich that I would write a little
about this for those who are interested in hearing that story.
I asked Harmel where he
learned to speak such good English, his wife also speaks good English. Harmel's reply was
that he was the guest of the King of England for two years after the war and did not have
too much else to do so he learned English. Since Harmel was an SS officer he remained a
POW until it was apparent that he was not involved in any war crimes. Harmel explained
that the SS had two main branches; the Waffen SS who were in the war as elite combat
soldiers and the Political SS who were the ones who operated the concentration and
extermination camps.