Posted for Old Hickory by Slipdigit

We went on then. Ten days later [14 September] we went into Holland, to Maastricht, the beautiful old city of Maastricht. The Germans were trying to wire a bridge to blow it up. The Holland people told us about it and we captured them before they could blow the bridge. We went around Holland, around to Heerlen, Holland. We stopped in Heerlen, Holland one afternoon. We didn’t know it at the time, but we were going to stay there almost 2 months.

I’ll pick up now in Heerlen, Holland. We had no kitchen and we were trying to prepare our meal. I looked up and coming across the field was a beautiful young lady and a little boy. They came to where we were and they were hungry. They ate with us. After they ate, the young lady took me by the hand and said, “Come.”

I went home with her. She lived a little ways from there. I found out then that she was 16 years old and married. She introduced me to her mother-in-law. I spent as much time as I could with that family for the next 6 months, until we crossed the Rhine River. Every chance I’d get, I’d come back to see them. I became real good friends with the family. This girl was named Philamina Duster, but they said I named her Meg. I don’t remember doing it. The mother-in-law was so good to me. She’d see me coming and she’d come running and called me her American Bebe. She took me in and I really enjoyed that family.



Here is a photo of Megie Duster made in Sept 1944

Most of the time we went out on patrols because we didn’t have much gasoline. We patrolled the area nearby. When we finally got gasoline, we took the city of Kerkrade. Half of it is Germany and half of it is in Holland. The Germans made 30,000 of the citizens go out in the road to slow us up. It was still in the winter time and it you got off the road, you’d mire up in the mud. The Germans knew we wouldn’t shoot the Holland people, but just before we got there, the Holland people got off the road and lay down in the mud and we were able to get through.

We went to end of Siegfried Line The pill boxes, the dragon teeth and some of the engineers figured out that rather than trying to blow the dragon teeth to build a bridge over them. They built a bridge over the dragon teeth.

We’d take the pill boxes and weld the steel doors up or pile up a big pile of dirt with a tank with a dozer on it against the door where they could look out and they couldn’t shoot anybody. And they’d leave the Germans in there. Just before Thanksgiving, the 119th Infantry took pill boxes one day and that night they were relieved by the 102nd division, who were brand new, they’d just gotten there.

The next day the Germans took the pill boxes back. On Thanksgiving Day, they sent the noncommissioned officers from the 119th Infantry down to work with the regimen of the 102nd Division. They took it back and that time they kept it. I think the 102nd became a good division after that.

The first big city of any size was Aachen. We had a hard fight for Aachen. We finally took Aachen. We kept on plundering around and taking cities. The worst torn up place I’ve ever seen was a little ole place in Germany called Ulish [Jülich?]. There wasn’t a building standing more that 6 or 8 or 10 feet high at the most.

One little town there was a fight for everything you got. One little town [we fought over] changed hands 5 times. Old Hickory had it last. I forgot the name of the town, but we stayed there.

The Germans had a time of day when they wouldn’t throw in any artillery so the German people could go and pick up supplies they needed during that time. I was standing in the door of a house one day and saw an old German woman walking down the street. Just about the time she got even with me, her panties fell off. She bent down, stepped out of them, picked them up, wadded them up and stuck them under her arm and gave me the dirtiest look I’ve ever had in my life and walked on down the street. I don’t know why you remember things like that, but you do.

Other cities fell and we crossed several streams and went on trying to get to the Rhine River. We were pulled out of the line on or close to December the first. We were pulled back to Heerlen, Holland. We lived in a coal mine and it had hot showers and everything. They told us that we wouldn’t have anything to do until New Years. The Holland people were giving us a party every night and we were really living it up. I’ll leave it at that.

Thank you and goodnight.

This is the last installment I have for right now. Old Hickory has sent more recollections to his friend to transcribe. As soon as she finishes, she will email it to me and I will start posting again - Slipdigit

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30th Cavalry Reconnaissance Troop, Mechanized
30th Infantry Division