Able Battery, 455th AAA, 1 Sept. 1945

Let's turn back the clock. Now and again it pulls up our personal morale considerably to once more relive those hours, days, and years spent as a member of the fightingest of the fighting teams. It all began away back at Camp Sewart. Here we learned to at least look like a soldier. We got a glimpse of a band of 90 day wonders. Later we wore out an early morning oath to Point 1/2 on C Range. Those grub-stumping days... the endless dry-runs on that Bofors... the stripping of the piece... those never-to-be-forgotten field problems, which became more frequent than that good-nite kiss at home... the fact that our cooks had not yet mastered the art of doing something with the GI chow... the difficulty of obtaining a pass to Savannah - all these things burned deep into our Army make-up and prepared us for the task ahead. We wanted to burn that camp, but it made soldiers out of us.

Early February saw us a-trucking to Fort Benning. Here was the big time... Real Army... Class! Our stay here polished us,,, made us part of the hardest-hitting Army in the World. We felt our strength, and knew we were ready for Camp Shanks and that trip across the Atlantic. We had to make two attempts to reach Scotland... Nova Scotia loomed up as paradise after having nearly capsized in mid-Atlantic. That walk to the "Queen Elizabeth" with all our equipment... no foot-lockers, but just about everything else... Some of us still carry the marks on our backs. We will all admit that the "Queen" is "out of this world".

A month or so later - a pitch-black night - Kettering and an air-raid right off the bat. Recall Sgt. Vaughan's dashing off the train grsbbing Lt. Fewell's arm with "Hey, are we getting into it tonight? Where are our 40's?" Yes, we looked at those English skies for ten months. Wanted to fire so bad at those "Hun" planes we could taste it, but they came in too high, or a "Hold Fire" would come from the ATS Girl at the British Control Post.

We water-proofed... and de-water-proofed! - and re-water-proofed, and finally sailed for France. Utah Beach was ready for us - and we for it... The Americans were not too far inland... it looked as if we would be in this war yet! Many think that La Haye Du Puits was our worst spot, but it might have been because it was our first sight and smell of death. The German 88's became a reality. What if they were throwing 150 mm's at us during the St. Lo breakthrough? Skies were blessed with 3000 American planes... it was the beginning of that race to the "Fatherland".

We can still hear Lt. Jefford's voice at Chartres when he utterd those famous three words "Hold Yo' Fire". Most of us were in fox-holes, deep and shallow. It was as dark as inside of a glove... Fire? Hell! Where and at whom? If you started to lend a hand, a 30 caliber would cut the air close to your ear. The coming of the sun found us weighted down with 48 Jerries and several big trucks. Souvenir hunting... deluxe... was then and there born to the Battery.

Time passed... we learned how to sleep in a sitting position in a 6x6... we got battle-wise... many of the men could smell a 190 or a 109 at 2000 paces... others knew by the sound when to get going on the multiple-50s. Headquarters Platoon had a ring-side seat at Verdun. Time and again Adolf's Luftwaffe tried to bomb the bridge - our crews threw everything into the air but the breech block. We ate Thanksgiving Dinner off a window sill in Germany. The Saar valley was good to us. New Year's Day found the radio net to Battalion so hot with Category I Claims, that Battalion threatened to bring out a stronger word that "Priority". We lost Bill Sims near Saarlautern, one great guy.

The that rat-race to the Rhine and Mainz! What with all the shooting on that river you'd think the ETO was having a special celebration. We did have a drink on them there - come to think of it.

The Luftwaffe had us firing 40 mm in quantity from the columns of the 6th Armored as we fanned out all over Deutschland. Lots of gun crews had young wars of their own. It was not uncommon for a gun crew to ring the Btry. switchboard at four in the morning with something like "Mannheim #7 - we have 22 Jerries ready for disposition also two dead ones - come on up tomorrow and see our collection of Lugers and P-38s - that's all."

We lost Sgt. Bell and Lt. Paden through capture by the Huns - for twenty minutes. They managed to turn the tables on their captors, even though they didn't breathe quite right for a day or so. They showed the stuff the 455th was made of.

The war was petering out. As VE Day neared we were deployed across the Inn river, near Braunau, Austria (Hitler's birthplace), one platoon in Germany, the other platoon in Austria. Sgt. Koch made the usual phone call to Capt. Parsons "Austria calling Germany... is that you, Red 5 - Sir - the line is in". The 1st platoon moved to Passau just before VE Day, where it shot down the last enemy plane credited to the Battalion just four hours prior to the final cessation of hostilities in Europe.

Pöcking, where we assembled after VE DAy, was dull... there we were to be rehabilitated... and there we were introduced to that familiar old thing... the training schedule.

Eggenfelden proved to be more in keeping with our expectations as conquerors. We started to "flirtinize". Then it got to be the old stuff and we started to go fishing... or go to the movies or play ball. Then we hauled our stuff up to Marklhofen... and lost some of our best friends in the readjustment process. Then we lost our guns and finally our rifles. We became alerted... a magic word... "alerted". We started to sweat it out. We will soon part company with our buddies... and men, it's not going to be as easy as you think it is... three years of history-making with a great bunch of boys. It does something to you.