Buddy's War #57- At the End of March

    ▪    80th Armored Medical Battalion
    ▪    After Action Report: March 1945

Clearing Station Report

Personnel Casualties:
Killed: 0
Wounded: 1 officer, 2 enlisted men
Missing: 2 enlisted men
Reinforcements received: 1 officer, 34 enlisted men

And, as usual, what might be needed to make things better. This reflected the change that occurred in March when the 10th moved right out of Third Army territory into the Seventh Army,

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

On March 12 I posted a quote from the book Battalion Surgeon by the late Dr. William McConahey from Mayo Clinic. Captain McConahey was part of an infantry battalion surgeon medical corps from D-Day through the end of the war. I also discovered a lengthy interview from 2003 with McConahey online as part of the Library of Congress’s stories from the Veterans History Project. Here are some excerpts that helped me find out a little more about the situation Buddy was facing on a daily basis. This was life on the front lines of the war:

Well, they call you a battalion surgeon. I did no surgery, really. I was simply trying to save lives. They bring in the wounded to the Aid Station, first thing is to stop bleeding. And then give lots of morphine for pain. We used a lot of that, sometimes intravenously. And set fractures, and cleaned out the wounds, which were mess. Often they were filled full of dirt and debris and grass and torn uniforms. Cleaned them out good. Now we had no antibiotics in the days, except we had some sulfa powder. No penicillin. They had it back on base, in the hospital behind us, but we didn't have any. We'd sprinkle some sulfa in on the wound and put on a sterile dressing and pack it wide open and send them on back. We also gave tremendous amounts of blood plasma. We had no whole blood, but these were, we had cases of one bottle of sterile water packed under pressure and a bottle of blood plasma powder packed under vacuum. See, this was blood plasma with no red cells, but just dried protein part of the blood which gave the body and brought them back out of shock. They put these two bottles together with double ended needle and stuck the water bottle into the plasma bottle and in about 30 seconds you had a bottle of blood plasma. We put it intravenously and we gave that by the bucket full. We have hundreds and hundreds of those things in the Aid Station. And that would get them out of shock in a hurry and that's what saved lives time and again, was the blood plasma we had.

I had 32 men in my medical Aid Station and one officer, assistant battalion surgeon with me, another captain. Then these 32 enlisted men. Of those, 12 were company aid men. These guys lived up on the front lines with the company. [The aid men] would lie in the foxholes with the rifleman and they'd say "medic" and they'd run to the aid of the wounded and they would put on a doggone as good dressings I ever saw, lying on their bellies and the bullets going over their heads. How they did it, I don't know. Did quite a job. And then they would let us know in the Aid Station if there was some wounded up on the front line with walkie talkie radio we had. So I'd send up a litter squad, four men on a jeep, and a jeep driver, and he would take them as far as he could forward, then they would walk across the fields until they found the wounded man was. See, no helicopters then. So they'd put them on a litter, haul them back to the Aid Station and bring them back to me and we'd take care of them. So we had these twelve men on the front lines, eight litter bearers, two jeep drivers, and ten technicians to help me in the Aid Station. They would help clean wounds out, give plasma, all the rest, helped me a great deal in the Aid Station. That's what we had in our group.

Question: Now, how far were you from the actual fighting, in the Aid Station?

We'd try to find a house to get into, or a shed, or something, because you couldn't work out in the cold. … So we got as close as we could to the front lines so we weren't under actual fire. Maybe about a quarter a mile behind the front line, something like that. And then we would go to work and they would bring the wounded into us on the Aid Station there. And once they were in good shape, we put them in the ambulance and send them back to the Collecting Company, the next group behind us, which is about five miles back. And then they would look them over. If they were okay then, back to the Cleaning Company, ten miles to the rear, and that was almost a small hospital, with a couple of surgeons. They could do emergency surgery if they had to at that time.

[Note: This would explain why the location for Company C was almost always given at a distance behind the front. It is also important to remember that all of these were part of the company. I have no way of knowing at this point where Buddy was assigned. As a “surgical tech” I would guess it would have been in the Collecting or Clearing Company, but I am not sure.]

If they weren't badly wounded, they stayed in the Clearing Company for maybe a week or so, if they were back in good condition, send them back to the front. If they weren't, they would go on back then to an evacuation hospital or a field hospital, something behind maybe 30-40 miles to the rear and be taken care of there. And then, if even more badly wounded, they'd take them on back to England. And they might be there for a couple months, get them fixed up, then ship them back to the front, go back to duty. If they were badly hurt, send them on back home, sometimes, then too after that. 

[Note: Next comes the question perhaps most often asked of medics- did you carry a gun?]

Oh no.

Question: Or did your men carry guns? You had no protection, then, really.

No, we didn't carry guns because the Germans had signed what they called the Geneva Convention, in which they said they would not try to shoot at Aid people. So we all knew that and we had red crosses painted on our helmets on all the four sides. We had red crosses on our arms. Our jeeps carried red cross flags. I know that my life was saved many times by Germans not shooting at us. We didn't carry any weapons and they knew that. And often they had me in their sight, they wouldn't fire. It happened, I know, several times. I had been fired at, [?] one man took a shot at me and missed me by about four inches. That happened now and then, but usually they did not shoot at us. So we were safer to be without arms than to be carrying them.

[We] all were marked this way. Well, one time I just briefly mentioned this. I went behind lines by mistake one time. I was trying to find the Aid Station after I had gone back to check with the Collecting Company. I was coming back in the jeep and I missed a turn-off. I went back behind German lines by two miles, didn't know it. I came around a corner and down the road the German had a tank gun, pointing right at us, ready to fire the thing, the first tank or trunk that turned the corner. They didn't shoot. They saw the Red Cross flag on the jeep... they didn't shoot because we were medics... [and] all around us and the sides of us were little German soldiers digging foxholes, the guns right beside them. They looked up and wondered what was going on. Well, the driver jammed the jeep in reverse, went back up and around the corner and out of there, but they could have killed us, captured us, but they didn't, because they saw we were medical corps people.(Link)

As March ended, the 80th Medical and the 10th Armored were in the midst of their final month of combat. VE Day was less than 40 days away. Their movement over the next few weeks will get them in their final position, but also remind them of the ghastly evils that were everywhere to be found in this horrific war.


    •    Saturday, March 31, 1945

Got up at 9.30.  Went to the butcher shop. Baked. Had a letter from Buddy and Ruth. It was cool tonight.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

Buddy's War #52- A Busy Week

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    25 February 1945

Left Perl Germany at 1520. Traveled 9 miles via motor convoy to Kollesleuken, Germany. Set up Clearing station. Closed bivouac area 1620. (MR)

▪    25 February: Press Communique

The Tenth Armored completely cleared the Saar-Moselle Triangle in four days of slashing attacks, thus setting the stage for a new offensive east of the Saar.

It appears that Company C remained west of the Saar until the next day, no doubt due to casualties and evacuation of patients.

    •    Monday 26 February

Got up at 10.30. Mrs. B fixed my hair. Gee I am afraid we are going to have a flood.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    26 February 1945

Left Kollesleuken 1620. Traveled 6 miles via motor convoy to Serrig, Germany. Crossed Saar River 1745. Arrived 1800. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. 117 casualties treated and evacuated. (MR)

This is one of the few times that any casualty numbers are given in the Morning Report. I wonder if that was a way of noting that Company C had that number of evacuations on the same day as a company movement. The way it is written would seem to indicate that the evacuations occurred at Serrig after having arrived at 6:00 pm. In cross-referencing with the monthly After Action Report, the whole battalion reports 130 evacuations that day. It is possible that Company C moved when it did because its clearing station was needed. This would also be indicated by the apparent movement past Beurig where they will return the next day.

    ▪    27 February 1945
The 94th Infantry and its engineers had constructed heavy duty pontoon bridges at Saarburg. This gave one continuous bridgehead from Ockfen to Taben. (See map below)

According to Province’s timelines in Patton’s Third Army, all three of the Division’s Combat Commands were active during this period. By the 27th the 10th will be just 6 miles south  of Trier and by the 28th, within a mile.

    ✓    Company C Morning Report
    ✓    27 February 1945

Departed Serrig at 1350. Traveled 3 miles to Beurig, Germany. Set up clearing station and billeted troops. (MR)

27 February- CC B was located on the heights overlooking Trier from the east. Their covering action appears to have been a life saver for many. Part of what CC B managed to do was, through the initiative of Colonel Roberts, "locate and make passable a cut-off that help speed up the attack." Originally the downhill route had to "navigate a sharp left turn and go uphill- all in the face of withering anti-tank fire…. Tiger vehicles, wrecked and burning, were mute testimony to enemy marksmanship." The cutoff with a sudden turn ended up fooling the Germans who were expecting the Division to continue on toward the Rhine. (Nichols)

  

  ▪    28 February: Press Communique

Tonight the Tenth Armored “Tiger” Division stands on the threshold of Trier- leading elements at a late hour were less than two miles from the city- with four task forces moving steadily along the high ground overlooking this important communications and supply center. Behind the imminent nature of Trier lies a story of bold tactical operation. Eight days ago the division was given the sole mission of clearing the Saar-Moselle Triangle- a mission that was accomplished in two days, catching the Germans so completely by surprise that orders were suddenly issued for the Tenth Armored to cross the Saar…  

Tonight… the entire division is now moving up the southern approaches within striking distance of Trier.

    •    Wednesday, February 28

Got up at 10. Went to the store. Received 3 letters from Buddy of Jan 27 and 28 and Feb 2. The ice went out of the river.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

~~~~~~~~~
End of the Month
While there are a few more days before Trier is captured, I will pause here to give a quick glance at the end of this month in 1945.

After over a month of waiting, February thrust the full 10th Armored/80th Medical back into war. The 80th Armored Medical Battalion’s end of the month After Action Report shows the change that occurred in battle at the end of February. From 1 February to 22 February the battalion’s clearing stations had 715 admissions with approximately a 40% return to duty. (This is only an approximation.) The last six days of the month saw 1019 admissions with only a 3% return to duty. As would be expected the largest number  of admissions were seen on the 27th and 28th of the month as the Tigers headed toward Trier after clearing the Saar-Moselle Triangle. Hence my comment above on the day Company C arrived at Serrig.

Of the troops of the 80th, three enlisted men were listed as wounded. I am not sure whether any of these were from Company C. The Morning Reports are a little bit unclear and might indicate one such battle casualty. There were no deaths. During the month the 80th received 19 reinforcements- one officer and eighteen enlisted men. Company C reports they received at least 11 of those reinforcements with 9 coming from the 94th Medical Gas Treatment Battalion. This was the battalion that ran the Army Air/Rail Medical Evacuation Holding Unit which was located near Thionville. My guess is that as the Bulge ended, the Allies held more territory, and the war became a more mobile action the ability to evacuate more quickly ended the need for this type of a holding unit.

The recommendations made in the AAR included a call for a “practical system of collecting bodies from the Division clearing stations.” An automated every other day collection by graves registration was suggested. There were 11 deaths in the clearing stations in February. That number would double in March.

Rick Atkinson in The Guns at Last Light, the third in his monumental trilogy of the Second World War, gives us the background of why this concern may have been raised.

As fresh reserves came forward, legions of dead men were removed to the rear. Each field army developed assembly lines to handle five hundred bodies a day; … Innovative techniques allowed fingerprints to be lifted from bodies long buried and for hidden laundry marks to be extracted from shredded uniforms… Reuniting a dead man and his name was the last great service that could be rendered a comrade gone west.

Interestingly one source connected with the Department of Defense says that currently there are about 73,000 still “missing in action” from World War II. That is about 19% of the over 400,000 killed in action. Another source, also using official DoD statistics, lists the number at 10,000 or 2.5% although that may not include those officially listed as “missing in action”, only those as unidentified. There are, for example, no unidentified soldiers from Vietnam and 150,000 from the Civil War in this source. But whether it is 73,000 or 10,000 the loss of life represented in just those numbers is staggering!

Each life is personal. It is hard to think in such large numbers. That “last great service” of Graves Registration can be overlooked in he great scheme of battles fought and wars waged, but to each family whose family member was identified, it allowed closure. Large numbers can numb us to the true nature of war deaths. It is only those we knew personally, or can identify with that bring him the nature of such conflict. That is as staggering for each person as it is in the overall numbers.

General Patton
The 10th was under the direction of the Third Army and therefore the controversial and very famous General Patton. He was either loved or hated! I remember my aunt, Buddy’s sister, speaking in almost reverent tones when she mentioned his name, even twenty years after the end of the war. Stephen Ambrose in Citizen Soldiers: The U.S. Army from the Normandy Beaches to the Bulge to the Surrender of Germany Jun 7, 1994-May 7, 1945 gives a picture of Patton’s almost monomaniacal approach using as an example this period of the Saar-Moselle Triangle and the attack on Trier.

THROUGH February, Patton attacked, whatever the conditions. He was at his zenith. His energy, his drive, his sense of history, his concentration on details while never losing sight of the larger picture combined to make him the preeminent American army commander of the war. …

Patton's worst enemy was the weather and what it did to the roads. The nightly freezes, the daily thaws, and the heavy traffic combined to make them impassable. Patton at one point in early February was forced to turn to packhorses to supply the front line. Still he said attack.

On February 26 elements of Third Army captured Bitburg. Patton entered the town from the south while the fighting was still going on at the northern edge of town. About this time Patton was spending six hours a day in an open jeep inspecting, urging, prodding, demanding. …

History was very much on his mind. In the evenings he was reading Caesar's Gallic Wars. He was especially interested in Trier, at the apex of the Saar Moselle triangle, on his northern flank. The historic city of the Treveri, according to Caesar, had contained the best cavalry in Gaul. Patton wanted Trier. He inveigled the 10th Armoured out of Bradley and sent it to take the city.

We come to the end of February, the re-initiation to battle for the Tigers of the Tenth Armored. They are on the edge of taking Trier and then moving across Germany to cross the Rhine. A great deal will happen in the next 60 days.

Buddy's War #45- The End of the Bulge

    •    January 1, 1945

New Year. It is a terrible day. It rained and snowed all day. Mabel and Carl came for dinner. Carl went back to Hornell on the train.

    •    January 2, 1945

Got up at 11. Did not feel so good. Father is home. Wrote to Buddy and sent him a box of cigars.
Diary Entries, Beula Keller Lehman

So far for Co. C and for most of the 10th Armored Division, the war has been moments of battle- and then waiting. Since the rush north in mid- December and then the return south to Metz, most of the 10th Armored has not been in battle.

    •    January 5, 1945

Got up at 10.30. Father went to work. Cleaned downstairs. It is not so cold today.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

From the 55th Armored Engineer Battalion (of the 10th Armored) After Action Report (AAR):

The most outstanding characteristic of the operations in which the division was engaged was the impossibility of employing the armored elements off the roads. The soil and weather were such that armor booted down except on the top of hills, and often even there. Although this may seem to be a special case, experience both in the United States and in  France indicates that operations on the roads are the rule rather than the exception. [Difficulty reading the next section, but  it indicates that] until changes in tank design are made to reduce the ground pressure [to less than the] present 13 pounds per square inch, [this will be the case.]

Another from the 55th AAR talked about an

engineer Lt standing on the front of a buttoned up medium tank, beating on the turret with a hammer, and trying to get the tanker to open up so that he could be told to move over for all engineer equipment to come forward past the column.

The AAR, as was customary, ends with reflections on the action from a future planning view. It concludes that while this may have been a unique experience with Combat Commands as much as 50- 100 miles from HQ, they felt it was worth pointing out that many changes were

needed in equipment and operational methods, [it] has brought out very clearly the soundness of the basic training and of the basic doctrine. The principles are sound even though the means for accomplishing them need some revision.

The 54th Armored Infantry Battalion of the 10 Armored AAR reviewed enemy action in mid-month at Bastogne:

When this battalion was committed the Germans winter counter offensive was at its peak. His aggressive high morale was evident on all sides. Employing tanks and infantry with occasional air support, he was able to push forward almost at will. His recklessness accounted for his losing heavily in armor and infantry. The recommendations here reflect the quickness in which decisions had to be made and ways to move more quickly such as wire men be included, more telephones be issued for gun platoons and not lowering the ratio of tanks to infantry. 

 Two other recommendations indicate the distance issue again. With Combat Command B so far away from HQ and the Division support these two became obvious:

When operations where kitchens cannot support [the troops], one cook [should] be assigned to each platoon and that company [and] battalion maintenance stay within supporting distance.

A number of AARs do report, very simply, that the particular battalion or platoon of the 10th Armored had no engagement with the enemy in January.

Even with the 80th Medical Battalion, I found no end of January AAR with hospital admissions and discharges since in the month there probably were few if any. The Company C morning reports indicated that they were involved in “organizational duties.” In February, that will change.

At the end of Bulge, these words of FDR from D-Day strike me. They are a fitting conclusion as well to the biggest battle the American troops faced in Europe.

The road will be long and hard. For the enemy is strong. He may hurl back our forces. Success may not come with rushing speed, but we shall return again and again; and we know that by Thy grace, and by the righteousness of our cause, our sons will triumph. They will be sore tried, by night and by day, without rest -- until the victory is won. The darkness will be rent by noise and flame. Men's souls will be shaken with the violences of war. For these men are lately drawn from the ways of peace. They fight not for the lust of conquest. They fight to end conquest. They fight to liberate. They fight to let justice arise, and tolerance and goodwill among all Thy people. They yearn but for the end of battle, for their return to the haven of home. Some will never return. Embrace these, Father, and receive them, Thy heroic servants, into Thy kingdom. ― Franklin D. Roosevelt

    •    January 13, 1945

Got up at 10. Went to the store and it was awful icy. Did not do a darn thing all day. Today is Carl’s birthday.
Diary, Beula Keller Lehman

[Sidenote: I realized recently that I have not been posting excerpts from my grandmother Beula’s diaries except when they specifically relate to my Dad and Mom or the war. That does not give as full a view of life on the homefront as I would like. I will start doing that regularly.

Buddy's War #39- End of the First Month

After Action Report
80th Armored Medical Battalion
10th Armored Division
1 Nov – 30 Nov 1944

There were 33 officers and 364 enlisted men. During the month one of the battalion was killed and five wounded. Five replacements were assigned. [Note: The member of the battalion who was killed was not in Company C. No death is noted in the company's morning reports.]

At all three clearing stations of the battalion in November 1944 there were:
    •    1962 admissions
    •    319 were returned to duty
    •    7 died in the stations
    •    1581 were transferred and
    •    55 remained in station on 30 Nov

The battalion commander had the following recommendations:

a. In some operations dissemination of information in regard to the tactical employment of the combat units did not reach this headquarters. Direct distribution of field orders and G-3 reports to the medical battalion would aid in the future employment of the supporting medical companies.

b. That all medical companies be employed in each action. ­ There is no useful purpose served by holding one entire company in reserve.

Fredrick D. Loomis
Captain, MAC.,
Battalion S-3

Looking at the daily admissions shows when the battalion's companies engaged in the heaviest battles. Again, from the 21st to the 29th, Company C was near the front.

Buddy and Company C were now back attached to the Reserve Combat Command (CC R). Located at Sierck-les-Bains, they were less than two miles from Division HQ at Apach and still only 12 or so miles west of the front!

Filling in some of the background on the medical battalions and companies:

The Army Medical Department's history describes Collecting Companies as:

...the forward echelon of the Division Medical Service. They were the connecting links in the chain of evacuation between Aid Stations and Division Clearing Stations. Their mission was to:

1) Remove evacuees from Infantry Regiment Aid Stations to Collecting Stations,
2) Prepare evacuees at the Collecting Stations for further evacuation, and
3) Transport evacuees by Ambulance from Collecting Stations to Division Clearing Stations.

Again, from the Army history:

The main task of the Clearing Company was to make decisions about what the next stage of treatment might be. This included such aspects as triage, sorting of casualties according to the nature and severity of their injuries, treatment- administering appropriate treatment to save lives, reduce suffering, and prevent permanent disability and determining which of the slightly wounded casualties could return to duty with their units.

(1) The medical detachment of the tank battalion moves in close support behind the tank companies, and directs its principal efforts at emergency treatment, either in vehicles or on the battlefield….

(3) [The] clearing stations reflect the characteristic high mobility of armor; they are organized and equipped with extremely mobile surgical trucks, and are capable of treating casualties in a short time after movement has ceased.
(pp. 1,2)

---------------
According to the manual for Armored Medical Battalions, they were in three parts:

(1) Division surgeon’s office. [Connected to the 10th Armored Division HQ]

(2) Medical detachments- provide first echelon medical service. [That is, they were at the front, near the battle.]

(3) Armored medical battalion- provides second echelon medical service. [They were behind the front lines, but, as can be see above, still well within battle distance. The greatest range of German artillery was about 18 miles, but they were often hampered by logistics and lack of ammunition.]

The manual continues with more specifics for the battalions:

Standing Operating Procedure
The armored division operates tactically in two or more combat commands… formed for a particular operation. Normally an armored medical company is included in each of the two combat commands and a part or all of the Third Company in the reserve command.

Medical units follow procedures best suited for the medical support of their individual unit. During combat, because of rapidly changing tactical situations, it may be found impractical to follow a predetermined plan. The employment of the medical detachments and the medical battalion is kept flexible and within control so that unforeseen tactical developments may be dealt with promptly.
(pp. 4-6)

A footnote to this history: What we are seeing in the development of this medical organization are the precursors of MASH units. (Wikipedia)
---------------------

Other unforeseen- or unplanned for issues always arose.
The most glaring example in these early months of the 80th Medical Battalion- and most of the medical groups in the area had nothing to do with battle.

It was trench foot.

Poor planning and a sense that the war might not last all that long now that the Allies were fully engaged led to one of the most surprising, unexpected medical concerns- trench foot. By all accounts, the fall-winter of 1944-45 was the coldest and wettest in years. Trench foot did as much damage to the Allies as the enemy due to its duration of disability and its tendency to recur. Inadequate winter supplies only added to the crisis. During November and December 1944 the total number of cases of cold injury on the Western Front was more than 23,000. This was the size of one and a half infantry divisions.

Gen. Omar Bradley Commanding General of the 12 Army Group wrote that this had seriously crippled the United States fighting strength in Europe. Medical officers estimated to Bradley that the majority who were evacuated from the front lines would never return to combat. At times this would reach as such as 38% of all hospital admissions to the 6 hospitals in the Paris area!  This obviously added to the burden at collecting companies like Company C and the 80 Medical Battalion! (Medical Department of the United States Army in World War II)