A great variety of vessels were used in crossing the English Channel from the ports of Southampton, Portland and Weymouth. The troops preferred the LST, but there weren't enough of that type for all of the men. Marshaling of troops proceeded according to vessel capacity rather than tactical unity. In the case of those units who accompanied their own vehicles, such as the 76th Reconnaissance Troop, the accommodations were comfortable and the food excellent. The Division MP's were another lucky group to cross by LST. They drove right off the boat into the port of Rouen. On the small, crowded steamships that carried only troops with their individual equipment, conditions were different. It required several days to evacuate Bournemouth, and it was tough going. The weather was bitter, and after a cramped train ride to the embarkation point many of the troops experienced a rugged march through snow, in the dark, over icy roads and carrying full field equipment plus a duffle bag crammed with prescribed belongings.

France was covered with snow . . . We moved east . . . First impressions of the Continent -- cold . . .

S/Sgt George Macris, of the 417th Infantry Regiment, reached back into his memory. "Goodbye England, hello France. Came the day when we crowded the train to Southampton and after the customary long wait at the pier in zero weather boarded a Lim ey special. It shouldn't happen to a dog. That tub was so lousy my patriotism dropped thirty points. It was a cold, wintery trip across the Channel. Very grateful we didn't go for a swim. The swim was to come later . . . . ."

No troops or equipment were lost through enemy activities during the Channel crossing.  The entire operation was carried out in the utmost secrecy.  Very few knew the port from which they would depart or their destinations.  Rumors have a way of spreading and growing to alarming proportions, and before the division pulled out for the Continent some insisted that preceding divisions had lost a lot of strength

Marshaling area. . The small fires were too few and too small . . .

divisions had lost a lot of strength to enemy mines, torpedoes and gun fire. It was generally felt that the danger in crossing the Channel was greater than it had been on the Atlantic.

Battle scars . . .
The sight of them somehow made us think more and say less . . .

"We didn't see much of Le Havre; we walked right through the place.  It was cold, colder than hell.  As far as that goes, all "Dog"  

Company remembers France only as cold, wintery country. Traveling on foot for mile after mile on the slippery roads was a disheartening task. It wouldn't stop snowing and we kept trudging on and on through the late evening and well into the night. Finally we arrived at a marshaling area where we were to be loaded on trucks and carried happily on our way! We built small fires, fires that did no one any good because fifty men tried to get around one at the same time. We waited . . . and waited . . . and waited. Sometime during the early morning a Red Cross Clubmobile drove up with hot coffee and doughnuts. They weren't very good doughnuts I decided after my sixth time through the line.

"Finally they secured some trucks (open ones so that we could see the panorama of snow and sleet) and we were piled in. In crowded formation, naturally. Off we went -- for about two miles. We repeated this process again and again all through the next day. We were frozen and numbed to the point where we felt nothing, cared for nothing . . ."

In a few speeding days ONAWAY personnel had collected, sorted and distributed the varied paraphernalia which are part and parcel of the infantry division's tactical and administrative composition. Lacking only some pieces of heavy engineering equipment and a few vehicles, the 76th Division was all set to move to any part of the ETO under its own power. And it did. Ten days after landing in France, preceded by a strong advance party, the division, under Fifteenth Army control, moved in continued freezing weather to the vicinity of Beine, east of Reims.

That move won't be forgotten either. Of course we were now definitely in the war -- if nothing else, the way we always bung our rifles real close when we braved an airy slit trench proved that -- but whisking along in an open, frigid truck under a leaden sky that might, we felt, rain bullets at any moment seemed like a particularly cruel way of spending what might remain of one's life. Some of the men traveled by "40-and-8's" which they boarded at Auflay. They entered the town on foot or in a convoy of trucks and waited along the tracks in snow and freezing rain for the box-cars to arrive.  In the village square, where stood the bold,  

Some of the men travelled by "40 - and - 8's" . . . Keeping warm was really a problem . . .

Finally the box-cars arrived. The tired GI's moved mechanically to a nearby straw-pile and carted heavy bales to the rolling stock. The straw was great for sleeping, but after forty hours of creeping along, of halts when you wanted the train to speed, of crawling when you wished the train would stop, even sleeping was a bore. They had heard of Germany's transported slave-laborers who had to relieve themselves in sealed box-cars. The Yanks were more fortunate -- they did it right out the open door . . . . .

The trains were hours late . . . Men roamed the siding, bored of sleep . . .

While organizations were moving on Beine, the advance party had been called to Assenois, Belgium, just west of Neufchateau. There they received instructions which attached the division to VIII Corps and Third Army. As a result, Beine became just a one night stand on the road to a zone only a few days earlier the nose of the celebrated Belgian Bulge. As the troops moved northeast towards St. Hubert, signposts proclaimed the closeness of the front. Houffalize! Bastogne! Heavier snow and worse roads were encountered.

We moved into Luxembourg in trucks . . . More snow and colder winds . . .

Organization commanders immediately prepared plans for participation in the Corps attack. Many such plans had been prepared before, but now the enemy (although far from enjoying prosperity) was just around the corner. Heinie helmets atop crude wooden crosses dotted the roadsides. On the same day, 23 January, staff officers and organization commanders visited the front where the 17th Airborne Division was engaging the nazis. They studied the battle scene. ONAWAY's day was drawing closer.

Within twenty-four hours after the division closed at Champlon, orders came to move south. Within two hours after orders, the first elements were on their way. The division followed without wasting any time. The new assignment placed the 76th in the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, attached to XII Corps, with the mission of relieving the 87th Infantry Division in a defensive position along the Sauer and Moselle Rivers in the vicinity of Echternach. The enemy was about to sit up and take notice. Action was in the offing.