The first unit of the 1^st Battalion of the 385^th to go into action was tile mortar platoon of Dog Company.  Under the command of 1^st Lt. Thomas M. Carey, the third platoon helped support the Echternach crossing of the 417^th.  Here, Cpl. Robert Jack won himself a certificate of merit repairing a wire line under direct observation.

Later, when the 1^st Battalion had crossed the Prüm and started the Regimental left hook by coming down the peninsula behind Irrel, the men of the Company because of lack of observation, had to take it rather than dish it out.  They were the first troops to be fired on by the automatic mortar of the "Katzenkopf", and at one time there were twenty six rounds in the air before the first one landed.

At Prümzurley, D Company caught Jerry assembling for a counter-attack on Company B, and with accurate fire broke up the Nazis completely.

From the Siegfried Line to the Rhine it was the Company's mortar men who did most of the firing.  The first Platoon got in a burst now and then, but the second never fired a shot until well across the Rhine.  Then, in a small town near Erfurt, they had the chance of a lifetime to work a real "school solution".  For here they found two 800 foot hills rising from the flat plains of Thuringia, high enough that perfect overhead fire could be given to support the attacking troops.  And when Company C went into the little town, they did so under a curtain of fire.  And with the pleasant sounds of bullets cracking overhead not at 'em but for 'em.

At Olch, Company "A" ran into a tough little nut to crack at the tag end of one of the long days, and holed up for the night to try again in the morning.  Meanwhile "D" with its heavy weapons went into action and S/Sgt. Harry B. Iverson's 1^st Platoon pumped seventeen thousand rounds into the town from two guns, wearing out four barrels in the process.  And when it was all over and the town was taken, close to one hundred Krauts were carried out feet first.

Nor will the second Platoon forget the town of Helsa.  A mere pin-point on the map that no one had ever heard of, Helsa decided to hold out.  Here the Second ran smack into 400 Wehrmacht regulars supported by everything from scout cars through flak wagons to self-propelled 105's, and thirty three of them at that.  The Krauts had been chased out of Kassel by the 80^th Division and chose Helsa for a stopping place.  Which was indeed unfortunate for Helsa, the Jerries, and everyone concerned.  For Dog it meant hours lying in foxholes, being fired on everytime you moved so much as a little toe.  For the Jerry's weren't fooling and insisted on throwing out everything but the kitchen sink.

Summing up their trek across the Reich, the men of "D" want to go on record as having all the respect in the world for the riflemen.  "We know that you guys were taking everything Jerry had to offer to give us time to do out stuff," they say.  But the respect is mutual.  No one knows as well as the riflemen how Heavy Weapons makes it possible to do so much more.