PITIFUL and hard, even now, months afterwards, as some of these details are to talk of, the value of these events cannot be underestimated.  Lessons were being driven home to all the men wherever they were, whether in fox-holes, on the line or in billets.  They were beginning to learn at first hand and sometimes by bitter experience the importance of the show they were in.  War had finally assumed a grim reality.  Familiarity with war was being bred--but without the slightest tinge in it of contempt.  True, some of the lessons were being learned the hard way.  These were axioms which were to become indelibly stamped in the memories of the men who were taught them.  The lessons would last them to the end of their days!

     There was another way, perhaps an even better way, of judging how well and how soberly these lessons were being heeded. During all of this time, though nothing has been said here of them as yet, the Chaplains had been hard at work.  They were preparing the men in the best possible of all ways for the dangers which were present now and which lay ahead.  The story of their work sounds like an echo from way out in the Pacific where the phrase was first coined: "There are no atheists in fox-holes!"  The consciousness of war had become practically synonymous with a consciousness of death.  The men whom the Chaplains were seeking out were seeking them, too, with almost equal diligence.
     Swiftly, however, this period of watching and preparing, this cat-and-mouse game with the enemy, was coming to an end.   A few kilometers away, at General Patton's headquarters in Luxembourg city, the Third Army's share in a frontal attack on the Siegfried Line [Westwall - U.Koch] was being plotted.   And the 76th Division, new to combat, was to be heavily involved.

THE sky was an infinite cavern seemingly crammed with blinding flashes of light and sound.  Artillery did not merely travel in all directions; there was so much of it that it appeared at times to stop, to simply hang there and roar.  The serenade was in full swing and it kept up loudly and lustily until the small hours of the next day.  Down by the river it was pitch black; it was storming as well and the river was more than ordinarily swollen because of another thaw during the day.  Assault boats were already at the river's edge with the quick flow of the stream waters seeming to stretch and strain at its banks in an effort to reach them and pull them in.
     At 0100 February 7th (Wednesday), the boats were loaded with the first of their cargo.  Silently they pushed off and gradually the group on the far shore grew and grew.  Positions were being assumed.  Machine guns were being set up.  Only two and one half companies were across.  The mission was to take and to hold some high ground about fifteen hundred yards distant from the landing spot.  Commanding their approach were well-organized lines of pillboxes and entrenchment's, but this segment of a battalion, knowing that they were cut off and knowing that it might be hours before help reached them, forged ahead and completed their mission right up to the hilt!

Among the three divisions participating in the initial assault, troops of the 76th were the first to reach their objective.   For thirty-six hours, while the rest of the division supported with every means at its command, the handful of men held their ground, beating off counter-attacks by enemy tanks and taking murderous fire from the surrounding pillboxes.  Isolated, they were never alone. Artillery was on call.  Engineers labored savagely to get a bridge across.   Division artillery liaison planes flew in at suicidal altitudes to drop supplies and ammunition.

AT this juncture the 304th's own Engineers, Company A of the 301st, were called into the picture and given the mission of establishing mobile communications to the other side of the Sauer River at all costs.  Extracts of the stories that have been written of these efforts will tell the tale best of all, for these were the accounts of eyewitnesses.  "On the nights of February 9th and 10th our platoon (1st platoon) was placed in reserve while the second and third tried to put a foot-bridge across the Sauer. The first night they failed . . . 

forced to withdraw as daylight approached . . . returned the next to a similar ordeal . . . having profited from experience . . . they succeeded where several other outfits had failed!"  And from another extract: "That night (February 9th) night Sgt. Monacell, our platoon sergeant called us in and solemnly said, 'Fellas, a battalion of the 417th is stranded across the Sauer River and are in need of food, water and ammunition (and reinforcements). Our job is to build a foot-bridge. In this, six other engineer outfits have failed!'  We started for the river at 2100."
     Finally, in greater length and more complete is the account of this action, written by a member of the 2nd platoon and quoted here in full, "On the evening of February 9th, Lt. Paul Hughes, the 2nd platoon leader, called a meeting of the squad leaders.  'Gentlemen,' he said, 'we are going to bridge the Sauer.  Four other outfits have attempted this job, but failed.  It's up to us now to complete the job.  Sgt. Christy, you will take charge of the river assembly crew.  Sgt. Noyok, make sure that the equipment reaches the final assembly area to Sgt. Christy's near shore assembly crew.  Pick your men and load up in the trucks as soon as possible.'
     "The platoon was given the job of building the foot-bridge with supplies furnished by the 3rd platoon.  By 2100 the men were in the trucks and rolling towards Echternach.  It was a dreary night, the only illumination coming from a lone search-light acting as a beacon.  Upon reaching the town the men detrucked and walked through, meeting large groups of infantrymen carrying assault boats and swearing softly.  The bridge-site had previously been selected by a careful reconnaissance. Lt. Hughes called for the far-shore crew to come forward and man the assault boat, carrying with them at the same time a manila rope to stretch across the 150-foot river.  The plan called for tying a steel cable on the near shore end of the rope when the far shore was reached.  The cable could then be pulled across and fastened securely as the anchor cable.  The first crew consisted of Sgt. Lenges (in charge), T/5 Edgar Wilt, T/5 Anthony Bevecqua, T/5 Cyril Woods, T/4 William Turpin, Pfc. Joseph Babos and T/4 Robert Valois.  These men, incidentally, were the most experienced men in the company and could be relied upon in any emergency.  The river current was estimated at. seventeen miles per hour and tossed the small assault boat around like a twig.  It was so powerful that the men were washed down-stream and failed to reach the far shore.  A second attempt was made by the same crew and again the Sauer was too swift for the crossing.  The men were not easily discouraged though they were under constant 88mm fire.  A third trip was attempted with a new crew consisting of Lt. Paul A. Hughes, Jr, (0485067), S/Sgt. Barney Olsen, (33232837), Sgt. Peter W. Lenges, (35489702), T/5 Clifford L. Duckett, (37445386), Cpl. Lauer and T/5 Roundy.  Upon reaching midstream an undercurrent capsized the boat. Cpl. Lauer and T/5 Roundy returned, exhausted, a few hours later.  The others did not return.  To each of them a posthumous award of the Silver Star was made for their heroic efforts.
     "The platoon retired to the town to spend the remainder of the night, discouraged and dispirited over their failure and the fate of their comrades (who had not yet been given up for lost) but determined to complete the job the following night.
     "M/Sgt. Walling from Battalion Headquarters came to Echternach early the next morning and took charge of the mission.  He summed up the situation carefully and made sure in his own mind of completing the job that night.  At this time the 3rd platoon volunteered its aid in the construction of the bridge.  The men moved out of the town at 1900 towards the position.  Enemy artillery was still very active and several near-misses were experienced by the column.
     "Once more the first step was to be the crossing of the river.  Sgt. Walling called on the most reliable men of the 2nd platoon--Sgt. Noyok, T/4 Muldoon, Cpl. Bayes and T/5 Bevacqua to make the attempt.  The first try was successful.  Bayes picked a hundred-foot cable from the boat carrying it to a nearby tree which was to be used as an anchor post for the steel cable.  Bevacqua covered Bayes during this operation and both men, regardless of and unheeding the possible presence of antipersonnel mines, acted with the swift precision of veterans throughout the entire mission.
     "Sgt. Walling now employed his new rocket gun, an improvised bazooka, to which was attached a length of rope.  Taking careful aim and judging height and distance, he fired--and to and behold!--the first slender thread of communications was now across the Sauer.  Floats and duckboards were rushed down and hastily fitted together by Sgt. Christy's crew consisting of T/4 Sauer, Pfcs., McGaughey, Gurnett, Grawford, Hollander and Pvt. Phil Hollander.  Slowly it took form and by 0100 of February 10th the Sauer was half conquered.
     "Daylight broke at 0645 that morning and the chemical smoke pots provided for such an emergency were set off as a screen for the last details of work on the bridge.  At 0900 the Engineers, weary but triumphant, loaded themselves into their trucks for a trip back to Berbourg and a well earned rest."

SO it was across finally--this time to stay.  Supplies began to pour over the river.  Then men with rifles, machine guns, mortars streamed across.  And the engineers began to work again on another bridge, this time farther upstream, for vehicles and heavier stuff.  The resistance lightened.  The enemy was on the run!
     This is probably the wrong phrase. It would be more accurate, perhaps, to say that he had just retired to his holes shelters long readied for just such an emergency.  Pillboxes remained to be cracked, snipers to be tracked down, pockets to be cleaned out.

     The river had been crossed, the bridge was in and the bridgehead was widening.  Now, for two full weeks the 304th coordinated more closely than ever with the attacking units.  Observation posts worked overtime.  Enemy movement was a matter of prime importance and every breath on the other side had its value.  Each bit of information which could be radioed back concerning enemy dispositions meant, in cold fact, so many more lives saved, that much faster progress and action.  Again and again, picked patrols from the battalions went into enemy territory to determine the location and extent of fortifications, minefields and anti-tank obstacles; to probe the pillboxes, bunkers and exterior entrenchment's of the Siegfried Line.
     Echternach was a sort of "no man's land" as yet, even though it was technically in American hands.  The bridges were over, supplies were flowing, the town was bare of enemy troops.  But it was never quite bare of enemy artillery.  And it was always unpredictable when this artillery would rain in instead of just drizzling.  Despite all this there were still a terrific amount of "sight-seers," some of them on official business, some on semi-official business, and some with completely unofficial (even extralegal) purposes.  The system while in Echternach was to drink in as much of the sights (of destruction and otherwise) as one could and at the same time to keep both ears pricked up constantly for the first sound of 88mm or meemie or anything else untoward.
     It was during one of these visits that Father Kolenda, the Catholic Chaplain, had his first "heavy day of business."  He had gone along with some of the staff on completely official business and that turned out to be one of the days.  It really poured.  Everyone "ducked" into any shelter that was available--that is to say, everyone who was fortunate enough to move in time.  Some didn't. That day Father Kolenda administered the last rites and the consolation of the Church to a dozen men, including the driver of one of the staff vehicles--and he had his first intimate glimpse of what his work would be from that time on out.