My
name is Michael Catrambone. I was a member of Hq. Co., 2nd
Bn., 331st Inf., 83rd Inf. Div. engaged in battle
during the Battle of the Bulge.
During the winter of 1944
the Germans decided to make one big drive to split the Allied forces into
fragments and force us to reorganize our offensive positions. It was
called the Battle of the Bulge. The commander of the 2nd
Battalion, 331st Infantry Regt., 83rd Div. was Lt.
Col. Leniel E. MacDonald, of Tupelo, Mississippi. I was a member of Hq.
Co., 2nd Bn. and the Col. Mac’s radio operator.
Our battalion had just come
through some tough times in Belgium and found ourselves waiting for orders
to leapfrog a company who had just taken the village of Bihain. The plan
was to move into Bihain, secure it and relieve the unit that was there. A
unit from the 329th comes to mind, but I can’t be certain.
However, the Col. decided that he, S/Sgt. Warren O. Fogle (asst. to Capt.
William Waters, the S3), and I would move up to Bihain that evening and
try to get some sort of command post established to facilitate the
battalion move the next day.
Wars are not quiet. There is
always some type of noise: rumbling artillery, sporadic gunfire, tanks on
the move, people roaming from place to place…the result of many men and
much equipment on the move. We arrived in the middle of the night and the
village seemed deserted. There was no one around, no sentries, no lights,
no activity…nothing. It occurred to us that this was very strange but we
had come to set up a command post so we moved into the village. It had
been so heavily bombarded that selecting a safe house was virtually
impossible. We finally came upon a house, which was semi-intact, parked
the Jeep alongside, and after seeing what was left of the interior, made
our way through the rubble to the cellar.
It was one room with a dirt
floor and a huge pile of potatoes in one corner. A table in the center of
the room, some candles, and a few chairs made up the furnishings. Col.
Mac said, “OK boys, this is it.” We set up.
My job was communications.
We wanted to let the rear echelon know where we were and what we were
about to do. I took my 610 radio and went up the stairs and up to the
second floor looking for a good place to stick my antenna out a window.
The house was in shambles, so I went to the attic, punched a few shingles
out of the roof and inserted the antenna. I had just begun to make my
call to Battalion headquarters when I heard gunfire. Someone was taking
aim at my antenna. I quickly took it down and waited. After what I
thought was an eternity, I tried raising the antenna again. More gunfire,
only this time it was a machinegun and the rapid b-r-r-r-r-r-r-r was
unmistakable…it wasn’t one of ours.
I hurried down to the cellar
and told Col. Mac and Sgt. Fogle what had taken place. We didn’t know
exactly what had happened because we were under the impression that we
were there to relieve our troops in the morning. I moved back up to the
attic, peered out and saw the street crawling with Krauts. I hurried
down and reported my discovery. We were trapped! They had seen our Jeep
and were waiting for someone to show up.
It took several hours to
make contact with our backup troops. When we did, we found there had been
a miscommunication. The company we were to relieve in the morning left
that evening instead. The Germans saw what happened and moved back into
Bihain. Of course, we became a strategic listening post and we were able
to direct the attack from within the village. In hindsight, although the
three of us were in a difficult position, it was an extraordinary
situation. It took our troops 3 days to force the Germans out again. In
the meantime, we holed up in the cellar while the Germans tried to get us
out by firing their tank canons into the house. The only thing that saved
us was the fact that they could not lower the guns enough to fire into the
cellar windows. Why they didn’t try to rush us was a question we asked
ourselves over and over. I made many trips to the attic but learned how
far I could shove my antenna without being seen. Our contact was good and
we were relieved to know help was on the way. We never dreamed we would be
there for 3 days. We tried to sleep in shifts a few hours at a time,
learned to pray a lot and after we ate our rations, found that raw
potatoes weren’t too bad. On the third day the boisterous sound of GI’s
entering the village was music to our ears.
The three of us were
awarded bronze stars. |