©2014, Aaron Elson
Retired Colonel Arnold L. Brown of Owensboro, Ky., was a company commander in the 90th Infantry Division.
When I returned from being wounded, I was assigned to Company C of the 358th [Infantry Regiment]. This company had the best non-commissioned officers. They had good morale. In other words, they’re combat-trained now, they know what they’re doing. And believe me, that helped boost my morale, too.
I had a few skirmishes, but the first major thing of importance to tell about was the period of time when [the Third Army] ran out of gas [in late September and early October of 1944].
We were in a bivouac area. And the rumor was that we were going to bed down for the winter and make a spring attack. I realized later that this was just a ploy to fool the enemy but we were even cutting down trees and building log cabins and hauling straw in so it would be comfortable for the men. All the activity that was going on was just some patrolling by each side, and we thought, well, we’ve got it made until spring.
While we’re going through all this, we get a message from the regiment, "All officers report back to the division rear." So we all go back and they had a building back there, some kind of a sports arena where they have all of the officers in the entire division. I thought that’s quite a chance, what if somebody dropped a bomb? There was a stage up front, and we’re all waiting to see what’s going to happen.
The first thing, here comes old General Patton walking across the stage. He walked from one end of the stage to the other, then he walked back and stopped, and he said, "Men, this is it." I’m not going to quote all his curse words. He said, "We’re going to cross that damn Moselle River at 2 o’clock in the morning."
He said, "I want to tell you a little bit about the enemy over there. Now, in these fortress battalions, the Germans don’t have their best troops. Their armored forces, their crack troops, they’re back in reserve." But he said, "Some of the fillers in these fortress battalion are old men." He said, "Kill the sonofabitches. Some of them have been slightly wounded in combat, or maybe they’ve got a cripple leg or one arm missing, but they can man those machine guns in these forts." He said, "Kill them sonofabitches."
Then he said, "This business about taking prisoners. When you accept an enemy as a prisoner, you’ve searched him and disarmed him and he’s in your possession. You treat him according to the Geneva Convention. Now there’s nothing says you can’t shoot the sonofabitch before you’ve accepted him as a prisoner. What I mean is, some of them snipers, they’ll take camouflage in a tree, and some of them are going to let you pass and are camouflaged behind you, and they’ll kill a few of your men. Then, when you locate his position, he wants to come out and surrender. Don’t accept that sonofabitch." He said, "Kill him."
Oh, let me tell you, you talk about putting blood in your eyes.
The Moselle River was flooded at that time, and the ground was wet. We had to carry those assault boats from our covered position, to keep it secret from the Germans that we were going to make this surprise attack. The boats were way back in covered positions. And my command group, we were carrying loads of wire, radios, other stuff. I helped carry that boat. And there was rough terrain, you’d carry along that boat and all the rest of them step down in a hole. My shoulder was black and blue for two or three weeks.
We finally got down to the river, and launched our boat. Now since this was a surprise attack we had radio silence until contact with the enemy was made. And they were laying wire all the time so we could plug in our telephone and communicate with the battalion if we need to.
When we got down to the river we had to plug in a large cable that was insulated and waterproof, and it was maybe an inch and a half in diameter. We plugged that into our telephone line, and when we got into the boat to row across this river, as we’d roll this cable off from the rear of the boat, the current, plus this cable, kept swinging us downstream. These men weren’t skilled oarsmen to begin with. My company’s crossing up here and here I am going way downstream, and I said, "Throw that damn wire overboard!" When we got across we were maybe 100 yards from where the company was. It’s a good thing there was no enemy there, and it was a complete surprise because we had to wake the Germans up to tell them we were over there. So the strategy worked out, but nobody thought about how strong the current was.
We were attacking Fort Koenigsmacher, and my mission was to take the village of Bessehahn at the foot of the fort, where the battalion would move in and set up. We did this, and after the second day the other two companies, A and B, made the attack on Fort Koenigsmacher, and they had so many casualties that they couldn’t go forward. Now they’re going to commit me, and also G Company on the other side. So, should I tell this story? Do you want me to tell everything, good and bad?
This is the first time I’ve made this public.
Prior to us making this crossing, they were doing away with the old cannon company. The regimental cannon company was artillery, and some of its officers were sent to the infantry. So they sent me a lieutenant from cannon company, his name was Lieutenant Gordon. I put him in charge of my support platoon. I didn’t want to let him lead a platoon into combat right away. But when they were getting ready to make this attack on Fort Koenigsmacher, with other additional forces, I took all of the officers on a reconaissance into the area that A and B had already captured and occupied, to see what the situation was and get ready for this attack.
When I got back and issued an attack order, Lieutenant Gordon was missing. I reported it to the battalion commander. So we did capture Fort Koenigsmacher, and right after the capture we started setting up our defenses, because the Germans have a habit of trying to attack you before you get organized on your objective. Just as we got organized, I got a message to call the battalion commander.
He said, "We located Lieutenant Gordon. He ended up back at cannon company. He claimed he was shellshocked. Do you want me to send him back up there?"
I said, "If you send the sonofabitch back up here I’ll shoot him myself."
"Then I guess I’d better not send him up there."
Now, while we were on that reconaissance there were a few harassment artillery shells, but none of them hit really close to us, so how could he have gotten shellshocked? I’ve seen men shellshocked. They’re just as likely to go forward as backward, they don’t know what they’re doing, and he knew what he was doing.
So they sent me a questionnaire to fill out. The last question was this: "Even though this officer is unqualified for combat, do you think he’s qualified for some rear area job in administration, supplies, communication, etcetera."
I said, "No."
They said, "If your answer is no, state why."
"In my opinion, the purpose of Army officers are to lead troops in combat. There’s only one test of that ability. If they fail that test, they do not deserve a commission in any capacity, period."
So what do you think happened? He was some big shot’s son back here in the States, so they assigned him to a rear area job.
Then one day I was reading an article in Stars & Stripes. It was on how to fight the Germans in the city. I said, "This is very good. This is the way I’ve been coaching my troops."
Who do you think signed it? Lieutenant Gordon. You talk about wanting to go back there and shoot him myself, and all he knew about it was what I briefed the company there when we were going across the river there to take Bessehahn.
Now I’m going to tell you another incident that stands out very strongly. The battalion commander called me back and said the division is organizing a special operation, and that they need one rifle company. He said they requested that the 358th Infantry Regiment supply the rifle company, and that they specifically suggested that I take the mission.
This was a guerrilla warfare type operation. They would assign me an objective behind the enemy lines, and my mission was to take this rifle company to that location, take that objective at night, and the division would attack, when I say division they would designate somebody from our battalion to attack at daylight the next morning. And the mission they assigned me was supposed to aid their success.
I suppose that I was successful in these operations. If I had not been successful I wouldn’t be able to tell the story. On one of those operations, so many unusual things occurred that I would like to present it in detail.
My mission at this time was to sneak through the German lines at night and occupy a piece of critical terrain that was overlooking a German village that sat behind the dragon’s teeth in the Siegfried Line. The battalion would attack at dawn the next morning to capture this town. I would be in a position where when they started the attack, I could fire into this town and also deny the Germans use of this critical terrain should the Germans decide that they were going to occupy that position where I was.
Before I departed on this mission, they sent me a new artillery forward observer. I received a call from battalion, regiment and division that this was this lieutenant’s first experience in combat, and for me to look out for him, that he was a general’s son.
I had made a map reconaissance during daylight, to be able to guide this company to its location. There was no road or trail, so I had to do it from the outlines of the vegetation, the trees, and the contour of the land.
It so happened that this particular night was one of those nights that was so dark you literally could not see your hand before your face. And since I’m the only one that can get this company to that location, we proceed in one line, by holding hands. So I’m leading this company, now can you picture, 150 men lined up behind me holding each other’s hand?
As we moved up through the first wooded area we had to go through, there were evergreens. If you’ve ever been around evergreens at night, on a moonless night with no stars, can you realize how dark this is? As we were moving through this group of evergreen trees, we heard some Germans approaching our position. And by the sound of it, they were going to cross somewhere in this line of troops behind me. I cannot give orders, that would give our position away. All I could do was whisper to the man behind me for them to take care of these Germans wherever they crossed. Of course, you know how sound travels when it’s loud at night. It sounded to me like, my god, I believe they’re walking over my troops already, and I was thinking maybe I’d better yell back and do something.
About that time I heard a few muffled rifle shots. So these men had lain there in a prone position and let these Germans, I don’t know if it was two or three of them, walk right on top of them, and gut-shot them. These Germans were carrying some hot chow down to one of their security posts that we had bypassed. So the story the men told me was that the guys that shot those Germans sat there on their bodies and ate those hot sandwiches. This is the way it happened in combat.
Then we get up after this and move out, and we come to the end of these evergreens. Now we have an open field to cross before we get into this high ground and wooded area which was our objective.
But I looked and listened before I moved out from the cover of these evergreens. I realized that even though it’s dark, we could possibly be silhouetted against the skyline. And I could hear a group of Germans talking in clump of bushes to my right front. So I called up two men with automatic rifles. I said, "Do you hear those Germans jabbering over there in that clump of bushes? When we start across this open field, I want you to spray it."
Being in the service I knew, what do these Germans do, they’re going to do just like anyone would do, if somebody suddenly opened up on me, I’m going to hit the ground and head for cover. So these automatic rifles started spraying that clump of bushes and we moved across that open space to those other trees and they didn’t fire one round at us. And I said, "Look, we’re behind their lines. They don’t know whether this is one of their own units making a mistake or what." So I begin to realize, I’ve been on two of these operations previously, that actually this is a lot better behind their lines than it is attacking a fortified position when they’re waiting for you with their guns zeroed in, so in a way, if you don’t get too scared it can be fun.
We got in position on the edge of those woods, this high ground that sloped down into this village that was our battalion objective at dawn the next morning. All we’ve got to do now is sit there and wait for daylight.
While we were waiting, a group of Germans left that village, it was only a small patrol but they were approaching our position. Now this is going to give us away before we want our presence to be known. I said I have to do something. So this was my solution. I called up three men that had rifle grenades and had them put phosphorous grenades on their rocket launchers. I put them in position and gave them the angle, my idea was that I was going to fire these phosphorous grenades where they would land behind this group that’s approaching us, and this field had some grass and stuff growing, it would set that on fire, and that way we could see them and they can’t see us. And sure enough the rifle grenades exploded behind them. They didn’t shoot one round at us. So those that weren’t killed dashed back to the village. Well, they know we’re here now.
Later on, there was a German straggler, or he was worried about his friend, he’s coming up from that village, and as he’s approaching where we were in those woods. He was hollering for somebody by the name of Heine, Heine, Heine, walking right into our laps. Well, here again, I can’t holler, I just know these men are trained, the first guy he’s going to come to down there will capture him or kill him. And lo and behold we had one recruit, this was his first day out, and if this wasn’t the one he approached, and the recruit froze. Then the squad leader jumped up and hit that German over the head with his rifle butt and captured him.
At daylight they started sniping at us, and do you know, the only one they hit was that German, he was laying there on the ground, and let me tell you where they shot him, right between the legs. I never heard anybody groan and moan so much. There was nothing we could do except give him a shot of morphine, and one of the men said, "Don’t worry about it, your own men shot you." You know, very cruel. And he died.
Now I get a call from battalion. They say that they’re not going to launch this attack. I’m behind the enemy lines, my neck’s stuck out and they’re gonna leave me there. And the reason was, after we got in position I could hear tanks and there was a big crowd down in that village rolling around and jabbering, tanks and vehicles. They said intelligence had reported that that position had been reinforced with a German armored division and we cannot take it. They said stay up there and withdraw under cover of darkness. Well, this sounded good if the Germans would cooperate.
But now the Germans know we’re there. So they started firing 120-millimeter mortars, you know how wicked those things can be. And we’re so close to them that we could hear the mortars popping out of their tubes. So I sent a man to the right flank and another man to the left flank to shoot an azimuth, where they could hear the mortars coming out of the tubes. They brought those azimuths back and I plotted them on a map, and it showed a bunch of gullies in that area, so I figured that would be a good place to set those mortars up. Then I gave that location to this artillery forward observer I was supposed to look out for. He went up and established an observation post, and he observed those artillery fires and got them on those gullies. And the Germans stopped firing.
There was a bunker there, so we had the command post set up in it, and the lieutenant came back down to the bunker, and we were just sweating it out now, hoping that they don’t bother us anymore so we can bug out when night gets here. Later on that afternoon, those mortars open up again, and I hear them popping out of the tube. They were about in the same place, so I told this lieutenant to refire that concentration. They had already zeroed in on that location, and we’d given it a number, and all he needed to do at that time was call and say, "Fire concentration, 235," and then go up to the observation post. Instead, he went up to the observation post first. And on his way up, one of those mortar rounds landed between his legs. I went up there and I talked to him. At that time, shock hadn’t set in. I said, "I’ll have a medic come up to take care of you."
When the medic got up there, he came back and told me he was already dead.
To this day I don’t remember the lieutenant’s name, and General Patch lost a son in the war about that time and putting two and two together it could possibly have been General Patch’s son.
The Germans didn’t bother us anymore after that. We fired that concentration, and the mortars stopped shooting. Then we just waited till night, and they told us to bring all of our equipment and bring our casualties back. So this lieutenant was 6 feet tall if he was an inch, I can see him now, and he graduated with honors from college and got an appointment to West Point, his father’s a general, he’s general material, he needs to get this, we call it punching their ticket, combat experience, and then to get killed on his first day out, it’s embarrassing for me, but how can I stop this? It’s his time, that’s all there was to it. I’m around that area where the mortars were firing, why didn’t one of them fall between my legs? How do you understand these things?
The next thing that occurred to me, the battalion commander called me down to the battalion CP and said — no, I’m sorry. My senior citizen’s mind is working. Now we’re going to approach Dillingen. That was the Saar River. So we cross the Saar River, our objective was Dillingen, Germany. We crossed it on assault boats. And it was at nighttime. And in taking the first building that we approached, there’s a stairway outside the building, and this squad went up the stairs through that building. And I heard somebody running down those steps just as hard as they could go, and I’m wondering what the heck happened. I started stepping down the foot of the stairway, about that time I’m hit on the shoulder and there was a German running down there, and before I could get my gun up to get him he ran out through the dark.
In this little suburb of Dillingen, I forgot the name of it, there was a pillbox. So I assigned one platoon to knock out this darn pillbox. They assaulted the German pillbox and came under fire from a second pillbox. So I took my support platoon, and we maneuvered up through these buildings, and we got up into the second story of a building and we could look across and down onto this pillbox. There was a German in a trench outside the pillbox with a rocket launcher, so I told my automatic rifleman to get in the window and shoot the German. He shot at the German and missed.
Now the German is swinging that rocket launcher around to fire into the room where we are. So I didn’t have time to take any other action except to take him out myself. And I shot him with a .45 pistol. And there was another German who shot back at me, because I felt the wind from that bullet as it went between my neck and right shoulder. And I shot through a plate glass window, that’s about 70 yards, and the effective range of a .45 pistol they say is 50 yards, so I had my guardian angel helping me there, although I was an expert pistol shot.
When I felt that bullet go over my right shoulder, I turned around, and there’s a soldier dead behind me. He was looking over my shoulder and it got him angled up through his chin and he was dead before he even hit the ground.
Then we cleared out these buildings on this side of a large railroad track. This railroad yard was two or three hundred yards wide. There was one German pillbox setting right out in the middle of the tracks, and the Germans occupied the buildings on the other side. So we had a little wait here, since they hadn’t gotten the bridge across the Saar River, and even the Army Times gave us a writeup as the longest bridgehead without getting any rations. We all laughed about that, and the reason was this. There was a meat packing company in this part of the town, so we were cutting off choice steaks and having steak and eggs three times a day. But eventually we were going to cross the railroad to take the rest of the buildings. So I’m walking up and down the front line of my company trying to boost morale, check positions like any commanding officer would be doing, and I come across a building which I thought would give me good observation into the German occupied part of the city. So I went up two flights of stairs, and I said it was a good observation post because there was an artillery team up there. There was an artillery forward observer and a radio operator, and they were observing for targets in enemy territory. And just as I arrived at that position, I saw a vision. It was just like observing a wide angle TV screen. I can see these Germans, in their uniforms, with their distinctive steel helmets. I saw they were resecting that radio position. The radio was on and it was letting out beams, and they were beaming in on it, according to my vision that I could see. It was all in my mind, nobody else could see it but me, but it was just as clear as watching a TV set. I saw them transmit this information to their fire direction center. I could see the German fire direction center communicating. I saw them send it out to one of their guns, to fire this mission. I could see these Germans getting ready to fire that gun.
I hesitated. I said what should I do? Should I tell these men to move? I said if I tell them to move and nothing would happen, they’d think I was cracking up and I wouldn’t be effective as a commander. And then if you analyze a little further, it was only for my eyes, apparently. So when I hesitated I felt something pushing me toward the stairway, just like wings, pushing me at the top of the head, the bottom. Well, when that occurred, I didn’t hesitate. When I got down off the last step of the stairway, there was an artillery shell exploded in that room that knocked out the radio and killed both of those men. So this was my evidence that I was going to survive this war, and I did have a guardian angel.
Now I’m going to inject a thought. If I turn that TV on, you get a picture up there and you get noise, and you see these people just as plain as if they’re over there. I can switch it to another channel and I can get the same thing. The image can travel for several miles through the air, or over a wire, and you can pick it up here as real, the sound and the image both. And if you’re tuned in properly, why can’t you do that? And that’s exactly what happened. I was tuned in, and I got the message.
Now these other things that I will tell you or have told you, you can mark them down as lucky or coincidence. But that one wasn’t, was it?
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Arnold Brown is one of the veterans featured in "9 Lives"
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