"THE Medics, having given first aid in the field wherever possible, were still faced with the problem of evacuation of the wounded that night. An advanced 'collecting station' had been set up under the last ridge and the Corpsmen worked all night changing dressings, administering morphine and trying to make men as comfortable as possible until the exhausted litter bearers could carry them out."
The Prüm had been crossed and one of the first phase lines achieved. 2nd battalion was on schedule and still ready to move on to the next with just time enough out to catch their breaths and do a little hurried reorganization. What the above extract does not mention, by the way, is that the "advanced collecting station," set up under the last ridge, was really an advanced advance collecting station. 301st Medical Battalion, Company A, had provided regular collecting stations, one at Ferschweiler and another at Schankweiler and both within dangerous range of enemy artillery. They too, under extremely adverse working conditions (the only ones available), were laboring overtime (thirty-six hours at a stretch) to care for wounded as they were being evacuated. The only trouble consisted in the river in between--and the answer was found and applied by the Medical Section of the 2nd battalion--set up and administer by themselves the temporary collecting post until such time as regular channels could be relieved and speeded up. And it worked!
Also not mentioned in the above account is the story of the Mine Platoon of Anti-Tank Company. They were attached to 2nd battalion at Ferschweiler for the Prüm River crossing. Ordinarily a motorized outfit, in this engagement "they marched-and fought-with riflemen through Holsthum, Alsdorf, Meckel and Gilzem. Each man in addition to his regular equipment carried eight anti-tank mines weighing forty pounds. The mission was to provide against mechanized counter-attack and to clear mines from the paths of troops. During the four-day attack the platoon, under the leadership of Lt. Robert J. Walters and T/Sgt. Chester Blades, put out many road blocks covering all possible avenues of enemy mechanized attacks."

All of the above quotations are from eye-witness accounts. They are authentic, vivid and as accurate as is ever possible under such circumstances. It is interesting to consider the same first-hand reactions of another person who was not an infantryman himself but traveled with them and saw substantially the same things as were seen by these others. The diary of an artillery observer gives us the opportunity to do this. Thus, on February 23rd: "We moved our location to a wooded area near Ferschweiler today. The company marched but we went ahead in a jeep. Found out that the battery was only a short distance from the company. Went there and got some mail and ate chow with them. Saw a captured Jerry landing field in which were some wrecked JU 88s. (February 24th) . . . a last-minute check-up of all our equipment . . . ready to go at a minute's notice. We got the orders for the attack this afternoon . . . cross the Prüm River right after the 5th Division and then move forward making a front of our own . . . river was very high from recent rains. (February 25th).

"THE crossing was made near Schankweiler. Met no resistance and moved up the high hill in front of us. Must have been 800 ft. high with a forty-degree slope, covered with forest and heavy undergrowth. It was very difficult carrying the seventy-five pound radio. Had a hard time staying with the infantry, but we managed somehow and reached the level ground at the top about daylight. We took some prisoners whom we caught napping. Continuing on to our objective we moved down a deep draw and caught some Jerry mortar fire. Kirk had a tree burst less than twenty-five yards from him but he didn't get a scratch. Moved up the side of the draw and had a sniper take pot shots at us. Two men were hit, but we finally located him and made one more good Kraut. We continued on and were then pinned down in a tongue of woods overlooking an open field about 150 yards wide. They had machine-gun cross-fire on us and a direct-fire artillery piece was giving us fits with tree bursts . . . I moved to edge of woods with another 536 (radio) and brought artillery fire on the enemy artillery gun. Capt. Brown (our battery) then fired artillery preparation on the entire woods opposite us. The company, after spraying the woods with machine-gun and small-arms fire, kicked off across the open field at 1400 hours, Kirk and I following with the weapons platoon. Despite heavy machine-gun, sniper and mortar fire the Company moved forward about 700 yds., mopping out the woods as they went and dug in a defensive position about nightfall. Saw Capt. Brown and he had received a head wound from enemy shell fire. He, after making up fire plans against enemy counter-attack moved to the rear for first aid. Talked to Capt. Mayberry (commanding E Company) then and found out that the company had suffered heavy casualties. One platoon . . . badly shot up and Lt. Lemarr . . . wounded. Kirk and I set up the radio and fired unobserved fire on the Kraut mortars which were again shelling our positions. After the mission we damaged the radio while taking it down. With no radio communication except through the infantry radio, we dug in and managed to get a few hours of restless sleep."

The other sectors, in the meanwhile, were no less active. 1st battalion elements had pushed off, part of them in the vicinity of the 2nd battalion, crossing near Schankweiler, and the rest of them well below the town of Holsthum. The timing and the close coordination of the separate flank attacks were the special features of this move. 3rd battalion, after leaving Ferschweiler, was still proceeding in a straight line towards Holsthum on the western bank of the river, where it would take over and occupy positions previously held by the 10th Infantry. Here they would sit, figuratively crouched on their haunches like a cat swishing its tail pendulously, waiting for a mouse to scurry into sight. Actually the entire move resolved itself practically into a complete encirclement.

HOLSTHUM was a village built--or rather sprawled--on two sides of a river. To the west it had merely a few scattered houses dotting the side of the slopes which ran down to the Prüm. Then, at the river's edge itself, it had a few more buildings. Chief amongst these was the one which cam e immediately to be known as "the Castle at Holsthum." Directly across from this point was what could be called the main town with houses crammed together close to the river and then climbing in a thick cluster from here up into the high ground beyond. Some two hundred yards upstream there had been a bridge--but this was blown by the retreating Germans. And right at the spot where the town straddled the stream was another smaller stream pouring into the Prüm. This was the Enz and it too had had a bridge across it only recently, connecting the castle with the other bank. All it now possessed was a very rickety, makeshift, yard-wide foot bridge which trembled and wavered with the step of each man who set foot upon it.
Civilians were still living in these houses on both sides of the rivers. War had certainly not passed them by. They were even now right in the thick of it. But they seemed to have grown inexplicably accustomed to it and even apathetic. Or, perhaps, it was that they had a strange confidence in the thickness of the walls of their houses and the safety of their cellars. God knows they had need of this blind faith within those few days. For brimstone and fire literally poured in on them. The enemy still occupied east Holsthum. Their machine-gun positions were dug in around the high, outside perimeter of the town. They were in the town itself. From the Castle their men could occasionally be seen even in daylight skulking from house to house, seemingly on reconnaissance--or, perhaps, acting as a bait, as a feeler towards the other shore.
Two and a half days before the attack jumped off a squad of the regimental I & R platoon moved into this sector. In order to reach it they had needed to come a circuitous route from Ferschweiler. About two miles away from the Prüm the road began to wind down towards the river in the middle of a fairly thick woods. At one spot here, American artillery must have caught up with German artillery in a big way. Horses lay stiff and grotesque at the side or in the middle of the road wherever they had been hit. A little further on trees had been felled so as to cut off passage along this path--and these blocks were as full of mines and booby traps as a Christmas tree is of ornaments. A way had to be made through the forest around this to the next apparently safe spot on the road. No one could be sure as to just how safe the forest itself was.
With all this cleared safely the I & R men reached the fringes of the town by nightfall and secured a billet in one of the houses from which they could have the best observation of the terrain to the east and north. From the two attic windows they could see a great deal--but not across the Prüm and into the other part of town. One half of the squad, therefore, was detailed after a hurried supper of K-ration to work down closer to the river's edge and set up a forward observation post. With reels of wire, radio and phones, this little group of four took off in the company of a guide from the 10th Infantry who was also on a message trip to one of his company's outposts. With him they silently proceeded down the road, skirting one tremendous shell crater, across the rickety footbridge over the Enz, and, with a little detour, into the back yard and barns of the Castle. It did not take them long to decide that here was the best possible spot they would find for observation.

This was a ringside seat if ever there was one-the ideal kind, where someone always gets knocked out of the ring and into the laps of the audience.. The third floor (just below the roof, which several artillery hits had already air-conditioned) was a loft through the windows of which all the town on the other side of the river could be plainly seen. It commanded a good stretch of the Prüm River and the closer high ground around and behind the town. From here it would be possible to see the actual action of encirclement. Seventy-five to a hundred feet away was the other shore--and the Germans. There men were at a key point here for it was through Holsthum that a good deal of the regimental flow of supplies and men would take place.