The
only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
- Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, First Inaugural Address March 4, 1933
© 2005
Tracey Attlee
419th Vets, left to right:
- Frances Rausch
- Kenneth Manning
- Gerry St. Amand
- Herman Dalke
- Frank Gruden
© 2005 Tracey
Attlee
Dear Mother, This X-mas Eve is certainly different from all the others I've spent. We're fighting hard to stop the German offensive and drive him back into the river. We hit them in one sector, smashed them back into the river, and have been shifted to another sector when we are driving them back. It was rather hectic at first. This Bn. was sent in to support a strange unit and the lines in front of us collapsed. We fought for two days in the very front lines with the Jerries attacking constantly. We absolutely murdered them. A prisoner told us that we completely decimated two infantry Battalions with the artillery fire from this Battalion. We killed 350 in one area in two minutes of firing. Our guns were too hot to touch with bare hands for 48 straight hours. Everyone along that part of the front says that the 419th held the Jerries back from breaking through. Hope the Battalion can get some kind of citation for its work because it really fought them to a standstill.
-Col. Robert C. McCabe, December 24, 1944 Luxembourg
