Larry Lemberg correspondence, 13 November 2001

Col. Mc Cabe Recollections

I was Col. McCabe's driver overseas so I was probably with him more than anybody. To my knowledge everyone liked him and thought he was a great leader. He was a West Point graduate and knew his job. Just before shipping out, we heard he would not be going with us because of some health problems. That was surprising because he did the 25 mile marches and all the other physical conditioning we did without any indication of difficulties. The story we heard was that he knew Jim Farley who was Postmaster General at the time, and he got Farley to ask President Roosevelt about letting him stay with the battalion. Apparently he did because Col. McCabe was with us when we sailed. I feel that he did a great job overseas. He did a good bit of our reconnaisance and I was with him driving his Jeep. (The armored forces called them Peeps, the command car was called a Jeep). A number of times there was our Peep with a platoon of four tanks heading for "no-man's land". He did that when the Division was advancing because he wanted to select positions for the firing batteries and he chose locations that gave us protection and still made the artillery effective. I personally feel that he was concerned about the safety of his troops with most of the choices he made. Our low casualty figures were a testament to that.

My personal feelings during combat were to try to do the best job with a certain element of fear and I think most of us felt the same way. My biggest fear was land mines. With the Colonel and I leading the column when the battalion was on the move, and with the speed of the advance of General Patton's 3d Army, where we were most of the time, the possibility of running over one was a constant danger. Fortunately we never ran over one or I wouldn't be writing this tale.

Col. McCabe never spoke to me about his personal life. I knew he was married but I didn't know whether he had any children. I have no idea about his in-laws or other relatives. I knew he lived in Beaufort, SC. We had a small rebel flag flying on our Jeep that went through the whole campaign.

Larry Lemberg

PS: This in input from Rose, Larry's wife. One interesting piece of information that Larry told me once is that Col McCabe was only 29 years old at the time and the young fellows called him "the old man".......behind his back, of course.

Cont. Lemberg memories via Lars Lemberg email, dated May 29, 2006