Download - 70th Infantry Division Association

usually had a doctor back there. They would bring the wounded back and look at them and if they could
give any temporary aid they would do that. If the person was serious and needed further medical
treatment, they would put that person in an ambulance in a convoy and ship them to another hospital.
That meant they went from a tent to a building where they had facilities for surgery.
They kept the Battalion Aid Stations as close to the front lines as possible so they could give aid as soon
as possible. The hospitals where they performed surgeries were further back in regimental areas which is
four battalion o. The ones that were really bad off were evacuated from the area and usually sent to a
place like England where there were regular hospitals. If the hospitals in England were not equipped to
take care of a particular injury, the person was shipped back to the States. It was possible that if you were
wounded on the front line, within a matter of seven days you could be in a hospital bed in Indiana or
Cleveland, Ohio. They would rush you right to the rear and keep you right on moving until you got to the
facility that could help you.
On January 23, we again had quite a few wounded and we were transferring people back and forth. The
position we held was getting some wounded while sitting on the front.
By the 25th of January we transferred three sergeants to the 45th Infantry Division and, of course, had
many men transferred to the general hospital from the sick battalion. When we went up that gangplank
the previous December, we had 190 men and six officers. I can tell you from reading the reports that our
T. 0. (technical operation) strength was down considerably. I can remember when this occurred.
Theoretically, we should have had 12 men to a squad. At times you might be down to only 3 men per
squad. Where you had 40 or more men to a platoon, you might be down to only 12 men. We were getting
down to the bare minimum where we were not functional. We could not stand an attack.
On January 16, we had to take eight enlisted men and transfer them to task force Herren, which was a
special task force, a combat unit. Now, we were really hurting. My First Sgt. Manuel Figeira got a battle
field commission and was appointed to Second Lieutenant. Richard Schummacher was promoted from
Tech Sgt. To 2nd Lt., and we had two platoon sgts. and one 1st. sgt. who were battle field commissioned
to 2nd Lts. and transferred to the second replacement depot in Thaon, France. They took them to the
rear, pinned on their gold bars, read them the articles of war and then sent them back to the outfit. They
were gone several days. This procedure made several openings in our outfit now, because we were short
of non-commissioned officers. Also, on January 27th, fourteen men were transferred to Company A of the
276th Infantry Regiment. They were peeling our outfit down and we had practically no one left. It was also
at this time we had a man by the name of Robert Toomey listed as AWOL (as of 7:15 January 26).
Toomey was later cleared of those charges when it was determined that he had been taken as a prisoner
of war.
They were using our outfit as replacement personnel for those lost or killed in other outfits in our regiment
and soon we were down to a handful. Yet, troop morale was indicated as good and we were digging in.
The third platoon, which was a supporting platoon of our company, laid protection wires from our left flank
to E Company which was on our right flank. This wire was called constantino (concertina – ed.) wire,
barbed wire entanglement that the Germans would encounter if they attacked. The wire was strung from
company to company. The third platoon also cut timber for the first, second and weapon platoons to
improve fox holes. We were digging our holes deeper and getting timber on our roofs. We were getting
ready to sit for a while and defend our action because we were going it alone. Nobody was going to help
us and everybody was getting excited about this deal now, wondering what's going to happen. Somebody
was getting ready to do something.
January 28th we were taking casualties in our outfit and we had three guys taken back to the 19th
headquarters 23rd general hospital. We were sending guys to the hospital and still sending out patrols at
8:00 in the evening to observe Forbach, France. The report stated the mission was accomplished at 1:00
in the morning; all the E.M. returned and no enemy activity observed. When I read a report like that, it
sounds like the patrol crossed through our lines, went out so far, laid down on their bellies and stayed
awhile. The enemy was out there and they just didn't want to go out any further than they had to, with the
intention of putting in their time and avoiding a shooting match with the enemy. I don't know this, but I am