On September 15, 1944. we moved off the Liberty ship and walked onto Omaha Beach. I was struck by the German fortifications on the bluff which were looking down on the beach when the first invasion troops moved ashore. It seemed like an impossible task to move up and capture that bluff to establish a bridgehead. Whenever I see those invasion pictures on the History Channel, I still can't believe it was done.

We traveled across France in trucks. Training over, home far behind, the Division moved to eastern France and bivouacked from 1 to 14 October near Norriey-Le-Sec preparing to enter the combat line. The Division now became a part of Lt. Gen. Patton's Third Army, a part of the 20th Ghost Corps. Soon after our division reached eastern France, we were assembled as a division in a large field one afternoon and General Patton rode up on a halftrack with a large entourage. He stood up on his halftrack and addressed us through a loudspeaker that had been set up for his pep talk.

I can only remember him saying "that the Germans were on the run, they were now down to old draftees and young men whose nuts hadn't dropped yet!"

The 95th Division entered the line in 19 October in the Moselle River bridgehead sector, east of Moselle and south of Metz. They patrolled the Seille River near Cherminot and were repulsing enemy attempts to cross the river.

The Metz drive started rolling on 8 November '44 with separate pushes by the 2d and 3d Bn, 377th which wiped out the Nazi pocket extending east of Maizieres to the Moselle. For a week, elements of the division plowed through mine-sowed fields under a rain of mortar fire, blasting at Germans deeply dug-in in thick-walled farmhouses.

Meanwhile, the 1st Bn, 377th Joes (my battalion) crossed the flooded Moselle at Uckange under heavy fire, and made a bridge-head of the high ground of the east bank. We crossed early in the morning before daybreak in small assault boats, each carrying 8-10 men, and using small canoe-type paddles.

My outfit, Company A, moved into a small farm village on the far bank. It was about 30 stone houses on each side of a road. One of our company's platoons of about 50 men was sent to scout out the woods about a thousand feet ahead up a slight slope of farmland. At dusk we could see a small German column of men and tanks moving along a road in front of the woods.

We knew our platoon that had moved there earlier must have been surrounded and probably became prisoners of war. It was only four days later when we were reinforced and chased the Germans back that we found one of our men safe and sound, but hungry. He had hid in a chicken coop while the Germans were there. Later that night, several halftracks moved into the village, firing into the buildings with heavy machine guns. They didn't do much damage to the sturdy stone buildings and one of our men knocked out one of them with a direct hit with a bazooka.

But a flood, the worst in 29 years, threatened their food and ammo supply, and the isolated troops had to be a supplied from the air by divisional artillery liason planes, which made 104 trips the first day. By 12 November, the Moselle had subsided enough for supplies to be transported by assault boats. Next day, the rest of the 1st Bn crossed to the east bank, pushed on to and captured Bertrange and Imeldange. Then Nazi infantry and armored reinforements cut off the Yanks in the two towns. After two days of savage fighting, the pressure was relieved by Task Force Bacon.

My outfit, the 1st Bn, 377th Infantry, then became a part of Task Force Bacon together with the 95th Rcn Troop and Co D, 778th Tank Bn. There followed a drive from town to town down the east bank of the Moselle to Metz. Resistance was tough, but one obstacle after another was cleared. The fortress city of Metz was within sight, and part of the 377th got to Sansonnet, a Metz suburb, on the night of 17 November. At 1000, 18 November, elements of the 377th poured into Metz. The main part of the German Army had retreated and it became a battle against the German snipers who had remained in the city.

In our sector, each day a different company would be the point of the column. We moved along the road until there was some first upon us from machine guns or mortars. Then we would spread out to the sides to encircle the troops firing upon us. Then back on the roads until we hit resistance again. One of the things I remember in these first few days was when we were the point company and we came upon engineers ahead sweeping the road with portable minesweepers. As we approached, they would move aside to let us pass. Supposedly, any mines in roadways would only be detonated by the weight of a vehicle, not by an individual soldier.

One of our company platoon leaders, Sgt. Ford, and several others were downed by machine gun fire. As I think back, it seems strange not to know how seriously they were wounded, as the unit keep moving forward as medics ran up to attend to them.