The story of the division is the sum of fifteen thousand personal experiences. The historian can gather the statistics that record the ground gained, the cities captured, the prisoners taken and the Germans killed; and he can, if he is skillful enough, sketch in the terrible background against which we moved and lived and fought. But he can never tell the whole story as you have lived it.
Some of your personal experiences have come to my attention; there are many among you whose conspicuous gallantry has earned official recognition. But there are hundreds of others whose quiet heroism went unnoticed in the confusion of battle, whose stories must remain untold because no one came back to tell them.
This little book, produced while we are still fighting, cannot presume to record the battle history of the division. It can only hint at the heroism and horror you have known. Much of it will seem old and trite to you. The historian can only set down what he was told. You were there.
This book, then, is designed to be sent home, to tell others some of the things you have done. It is to those final recipients that I have really addressed this foreward. There are no words that express the feeling I have for all of you.
Harry L. Twaddle
Major General, Commanding
This is one in a series of G.I. Stories of the Ground, Air, and Service Forces in the European Theater of Operations, to be issued by the Stars Stripes, a publication of the Information and Education Division, Special and Information Services ETOUSA. Major General Harry L. Twaddle, commanding the 95th Infantry Division, lent his cooperation to the preparation of the pamphlet, and basic material was supplied to the editors by his staff.
The Story of the 95th Division
The American infantrymen of Maj. Gen. Harry L. Twaddle’s 95th Division had to be the "bravest of the brave" to move as they did in the face of heavy enemy machine gun and mortar fire down into the exposed city (‘Saarlautern’), which lies like a goldfish bowl between the high ridges on either side of the Saar. This battle-tried division had crossed the Moselle to help capture Metz and was now up against the principal river between the Moselle and the Rhine.
— JOSEPH DRISCOLL, N.Y. HERALD TRIBUNE
That was written on the day before the Saar was crossed. On Dec. 3, 1944, Joe Driscoll had a bigger story, because the way the river was crossed without loss of a man was one of the war’s slickest tricks.
At 0545, the first wave of the 1st Bn., 379th Inf., slipped across the river in boats manned by Co. C , 320th Engrs. Not a shot was fired. No one slipped or got hurt. Across the river, doughs turned south toward the approach to the main highway bridge across the Saar. Here they hit a German armored car in which a radio operator was frantically pounding out a message. He was bayoneted. A second Kraut sprinted for the demolition switch on the bridge. He missed — crumbling in his tracks, five feet short.
Star of the show was Battalion CO Lt. Col. Tobias R. Philbin, Clinton, Mass. He and Col. Robert L. Bacon, Harlingen, Tex., 379th CO, hatched the scheme which, on paper, didn’t have the proverbial snowball’s chance on succeeding — then Col. Philbin went along to make sure it did. Among other things, he took care of the German heading for the switch.
At 0721, Col. Philbin’s men hit the bridge and began cutting all demolition wires. They were nine minutes to the good. German engineers were on their way to blow the bridge. The German schedule was set for 0730.
By the time 320th Engrs. had located 6000 pounds of explosives, the enemy realized what was happening to his prize bridge. All hell broke loose from every machine gun and pillbox within range. Germans splattered mortar shells after losing the initial counterthrust. Heavy artillery cut loose to pulverize the bridge.
Meanwhile, 3rd Bn., 379th, had renewed its attacks at Saarlautern and reached the south side of the bridge. Both ends of the crossing were secure, but nobody felt much like using it for a while. Although the bridge was a hot spot for more than a month, every Joe in the Victory Division got to cross it sooner or later.
It was the only bridge across the Saar in this area. That’s why the 95th needed it — intact.
The operation won a nod from the War Dept. when Under-Secretary of War Robert P. Patterson told a press conference:
"The 95th Division performed with great distinction in taking, intact, the Saarlautern bridge"
On both flanks, the 377th and 378th were mopping up final pockets of resistance to the Saar. The river was the front line in the division zone. While 377th took Wallerfangen, 378th swept Lisdorf, a Saarlautern suburb.
This was the way it had been at Metz, where the 95th and the 5th Divs. shared the history-making reduction of the bristling fortress. This was the way it had been in the push to the Saar and subsequent fighting in the Siegfried Line. The 95th Joes were living up to their name <nobr>–</nobr> Victory Division.
The 95th jumped off for the Saar Nov. 25. Troops instinctively knew the goal. The German border was about 25 miles to the east, and the whole team was looking forward to the day when it could write "inside Germany" on letters home.
Beyond stretched the Siegfried Line, an obstacle which everyone knew would be tougher to crack than Metz forts. No one was disappointed.
The 377th Inf., under Col. Fred Gaillard, Greenville, Tex., spearheaded the division’s main effort. The 378th held the right flank with the 379th in reserve. The going was mild but still no walkaway that first day. Dough-feet met nothing heavier than mortar fire, and the division moved its line forward four miles, chewing up 12 towns.
Resistance merely seemed light because of veterans like Pfc. Willie Bishop, Jacksonville, Fla., Co. E., 377th Inf., runner. He was advancing with the lead platoon across an open field when the Krauts opened up with mortar and machine gun fire. With his CO and others wounded, Bishop took over. He crawled back to direct the company away from the zeroed-in area, then returned to give first aid to his CO. Next, Bishop reported the company’s position and called for artillery and mortar support. He stuck around to observe shell bursts, called in corrections, then asked for a smoke screen.
When the smoke screen came over, he evacuated the seriously wounded, led others to safety behind a knoll. After reporting to the battalion commander, he rejoined his outfit. He now wears the Distinguished Service Cross.
Next day, the two regiments pushed ahead, bothered as much by mined roads and fields, blown bridges, and culverts as by sporadic mortar fire and scattered machine gun nests. Withdrawing Germans used concrete emplacements of the Maginot Line as temporary shelter, but there was no sign of a stand in this once-powerful string of fortifications.
Although resistance stiffened, the division grabbed Valmunster, Velving, Eblange, Bettange, Remelfang, Bouzonville, Tromborn, Alzing, Chateau Rouge, Oberdorf, Coume, Flack and Varsberg during the third day of the fresh offensive.
The big day came <nobr>Nov. 28</nobr>. Shortly after midnight, 377th patrols crossed the German border. At 0945, <nobr>Co. F</nobr> blasted Krauts from Leidingen, a village squarely astride the French-German border. By day’s end, the 377th had added six more German towns to its list –Bedersdorf, Ittersdorf, Guerstling, Ihn, Kerlingen, and Rammelfangen.
Advancing troops looked for boundary markers along the road. Germany didn’t look any different than France. The people didn’t look different either. They had been pushed back and forth between the two nations so long that both languages came naturally. The 95th merely muttered, "We’re in Germany," and went on fighting.
The deeper the 95th penetrated into Germany, the harder Krauts fought. The Germans were going all out to cover their main withdrawal back across the Saar. On Nov. 29, the two regiments rocked under ten counterattacks, six of them in the Falck area. One of the roughest was the tank-infantry scrap at St. Barbara. When the 377th’s 1st Bn. finished, the town was levelled. The division now was near enough the Siegfried Line to retaste artillery — from 88s up.
As November faded, division elements could look down from the high ground near Oberlimberg, Duren and St. Barbara and see the Saar. Across its banks, in towns and villages, farmhouses, fields, and woods, were the guts of the German West Wall.
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