The Battle of Moncourt

"Read your article (this is the one the writer is referring to)and couldn't agree with you more. I was with F Company of the 328th and we too had a wonderful stroll through the woods. Nobody told us what was going on and as you say they just wanted the young and fit who did what they were told. I too was an ASTP student and didn't we get screwed on that deal. This was my baptism of fire as a 19 year old "bazooka man". I'm glad you put the story of Moncourt Woods in print. Thank you."From a reader by email dated January 4, 2002.

During my entire time in combat I was in innumerable attacks against the Germans, about 2 retreats from an attack and about 3 defensive positions guarding the artillery.

In addition I did countless night patrols, theoretically behind enemy lines, but I never believed that then and do not believe it now ( I always thought they were fakes; inside our own lines). In each and ever night patrol I carried up the rear, the most dangerous position of all.

Each battle was different and not one duplicated the other one. Each was unique.

In all the battles I remember fighting the following were the most common characteristics:

No one ever briefed us on what we were supposed to do or to accomplish.
As a forward scout I never got instructions except "points out" accompanied by an arm waving my direction.
I do not remember ever being told of what forces were in front of us. No one ever estimated the size or nature of the enemy we faced. It was the enemy and that was it! We had zero intelligence of what we faced.
I do not remember anyone ever giving me any indication of any kind of where the enemy might be or where we might draw fire.
I know that when we drew fire it was always a surprise.
I was always terrified but I could function, almost, cold bloodedly.
CHAOS does not adequately describe combat in any way at all.

The battle of Moncourt Woods (north west of Nancy, France, I think but am not sure) in which I participated took place on the 22 of October, 1944 (I know the exact date since it is on my Bronze Star citation).

I have lived with my memories of this battle for almost each and every day of the past 55 years and then some. Many of my frequent nightmares concern this battle. I have relived and refought this battle for most of my adult life; any combat veteran will testify to that!

It has never been a question of remembering but rather a question of trying to forget!

These are not new memories but very old memories revisited and reaffirmed; the source of too many nightmares about which I have been unwilling to talk about or discuss until just recently. My experiences were burned into my memory and I have never been able to erase them although I have tried and would be delighted to do so! Who needs night terror?

IT WAS A DISASTER FROM BEGINNING TO END. NOTHING WENT RIGHT AND MANY DIED NEEDLESSLY.

I was in Company A of the 104th Regiment, 1st platoon, 2nd squad of the 26th Infantry Division.

At about 05:00 we were moved into position. The entire company was standing up waiting to find out what we were doing in the position.

No one had been briefed and no one knew that we were in front of the German lines at the moment.

We had not removed the safety catch from our weapons and everybody was just standing there, waiting. I thought we were being moved into a position, I did not know we were at and on the front!

All of a sudden the sun came up and the entire Company was standing on its feet except that
something had told me to drop to the ground just a few seconds before! There stood the entire company silhouetted in the morning sunrise right in front of the German lines! We did not know it at the time but we were about 50 yards in front of a German Machine Gun Company which was being relieved from the front by another German Machine Gun Company! In other words we were facing two German Machine Gun Companies!

All hell broke loose and the firing of multiple machine guns from the German lines was unbelievable. My squad was on the left flank of the positioned GI’s and they were raked with machine gun fire at slightly below the waist level.

I, fortunately, had already hit the ground so I was not hit by the machine gun fire but I remember vividly that the C rations in my pack were hit and they dribbled down on me. I hugged the ground as much as I could as was totally and completely aware that machine gun bullets were ripping the pack off my back. I dug in as much as I could, kept my right cheek to the ground and did not move a muscle!

At about the same time as the machine gun fire from the German lines opened up German mortar shells began to explode among us. And so simultaneously we were hit by both machine gun fire and mortar shells all of which were deadly accurate. A mortar shell went off about 2 feet away from me on my right side. I not only felt it explode but saw it explode. I did not get hit by anything since I was in the shrapnel free zone of the explosion (there is a phrase or word that describes that zone but I do not and my fellow combat friends do not remember the phrase).

ASIDE: Later on the communications non-com ( a little short guy about 5’8”) came up to me crying his heart out and said (it is as if it was yesterday) “Pierre, you have to tell them that I did not order the artillery fire that fell short. It was not me. That was German fire and everybody is blaming me for calling in friendly fire that fell on our own troops”. END OF ASIDE.

Within seconds our casualties were enormous as they would have to be since the troops had been on their feet silhouetted by the sun! I cannot think of or conceive of a worse situation! If memory serves me correctly most of my platoon was wounded or killed. The enormous casualties in the first few minutes were completely the result of the incompetence of the Commanding Officer (he was killed almost immediately [poetic justice]) and the Commanding Officers.

We were never informed that we were that close to the German lines and we were never informed that the Germans were in front of us. We knew that we were moving into a position for an attack but NEVER WERE INFORMED IT WAS AT THAT MOMENT. In hindsight I believe that the information was intentionally withheld from us.

Friendly fire from our own artillery began to come in and it was quite effective. Mortar fire from our division began to come in as well and the still living were returning the German rifle and machine gun fire.

As soon as the machine gun fire walked away from me I started to fire my BAR. I did not have any targets but was aiming at the woods in front of us. My sights were about a foot above the ground since I figured that was where the Krauts had to be. I must have fired about 100 rounds ( 5 magazines) when I decided to move forward. I lay there, fired some more, and waited to get the right moment to move.

The fire fight was enormous and nothing was happening in the way of movement except Lt. Winters was now calling for me to secure the left flank! First he called on our Platoon Sergeant to secure the left flank but he said "not me". Winters then called on my squad leader (I forget his name) to secure the left flank and he told Winters, "not me".

Lt. Winters then called out "Rinfret, go secure our left flank" (since I did what he ordered I assume that is why he awarded me the Bronze Star for valor).

As I moved to do what he ordered me to do I saw, from the corner of my eye a GI (he had been in the same platoon, same squad and same company in the 104th regiment in World War I and had done combat then!) move into the woods, saw him fire his rifle, turn to wave us in, heard a single shot and he was killed instantly on the spot.

I now started to run forward in a crouch to get through the breech and saw that Al Weiss had been badly wounded (he had gotten a huge piece of shrapnel through his cheek and he was bleeding from both sides of his face). I laid down next to him, bandaged him up with my first aid kit, talked to him, made sure he was ok and moved out. Al Weiss has survived and was a volunteer in my gubernatorial campaign!

The GI from WW1 was responsible for the breakthrough. "A" company survivors poured into the breech as I did and we captured two German Machine Gun nests. The German soldiers were disarmed, stripped down and moved to the rear.

No one knew where we should go or what direction we should take and so we just went forward without any guidance or instructions. There were a pair of German binoculars on the ground, I looked at them and refused to touch them thinking they were booby trapped. They were and a GI picked them up and was killed instantly. We all decided to continue down the paths in the woods and pursue the enemy (rather stupid but we did). The entire situation was chaos (total and complete chaos) and no one knew what we were doing, where we were supposed to go, how far we should go or what our objective was and should be.

We penetrated deeply into the woods. We had surprised the Germans since radios that worked were on the ground, food was cooking over wood fires and it was obvious that the German retreat had been quick and sudden. After about one half hour or so we ran up against heavy machine gun fire which we returned.

From then on it was one fire fight after another and was typical battle in the woods, fire, advance, hit the ground, fire, advance etc. etc. Some of the survivors of the attack in Company A would just lay on the ground, refused to shoot their weapons and were almost immobilized. This was when I saw a German potato masher (nick name for grenade) bounce off a tree limb, come down to my left and go off without scratching me one bit!

They were almost all frozen into place.We again lost a large number of men since no one knew what was going on. We still did not know where we were supposed to be heading. Remember that I was a forward scout and had never been given any objective or compass direction. We finally got to the edge of the woods (with a clearing in front of us and more woods beyond the clearing) and stopped there since we did not know what to do. After several hours of securing the edge of the forest, the largest part of which was without any further progress, we dug in for the night.

All night long we listened to bogus cries for help from so-called American wounded but it was bogus and we all knew it. It was far in front of us, beyond the clearing but we had not penetrated that deeply. The cries of so-called pain and suffering went on all night and never stopped. I did not believe a single cry as authentic but as a suckers trap. I remember calling out to ignore the cries since they were phoney and I heard Lt. Winters do the same.Nobody tried to go out to "rescue" those crying out. We might have been dumb but not stupid. There were fire fights all night long with occasional mortar fire but no heavy artillery.

No one was in command and no one knew what to do next. I remember that on the next day the attack was halted and I went on a patrol through the woods we had captured with an officer in charge of the patrol ( I do not remember who he was). We came across shelters made of logs, smoldering fires, a "back pack" radio on the ground (still working), canned food (disgusting looking and full of fat [I cut one tin open] and digging equipment.

I picked up the back pack radio (after I got some distance away from it to test it for booby traps) , stepped into the shoulder straps and took it with me (German was spouting out of it). When I got back to our command post the officers were not the least bit interested in it since no one spoke German. I suggested it be given to Battalion but they laughed. I left it on the ground in disgust and returned to my fox hole.

We were relieved on the third (or fourth) morning and the new troops pushed through us.

"Reaching the finger of woods, we relieved what was left of A and B companies of the 104th infantry, hardly a full platoon (PAR note: 36 men). They had just come to a stop and were barely dug in." This is from a letter received by a young man researching how his uncle died in combat.

We returned to the rear open ground from which we had launched the attack and dug in for the day. Later that day we received replacements for the troops wounded and killed. The replacements came up to where we were and were standing around talking to each other. All the old troops started to yell at them to get into their fox holes and the replacements laughed at us when in came an enormous barrage of German artillery fire. Most of the replacements were killed immediately.

In the morning of the fourth day we were removed from our front line reserve position and assigned to another front.

Who relieved us from the front line? I have no idea. I did not know then nor do I know now.

In the kick off the Captain of the company was killed. I got the Bronze Star for knocking out a German Machine Gun nest. Our Squad leader, Sergeant K0S survived that battle only to get badly wounded later on (I bandaged him, drove him in a battered jeep [ I had never driven before this incident ] to the aid station and has just died of old age). Our casualties were enormous and the company was a shadow of itself. Two officers had turned yellow and had been relieved. Lt. Winters was magnificent.

From beginning to end it was a disaster and the worst disaster of my combat days . There were many, many disastrous days later on but war is hell and none of them compared to the incompetence, the stupidity or the ignorance of Moncourt Woods.

Whomever planned, executed and directed the attack on Moncourt Woods was a first class fool as well as a moron.

I understand that the Commanding Officer of the 104th Regiment, Colonel Colley, was awarded the Silver Star by our regimental commander (Colonel Tranquada [sp]) and Colonel Colley awarded our regimental commander the same thing!

They decorated each other; I guess you would say that one ass hole covered the other ass hole.

They both should have been shot but instead they gave each other medals! Colley and Tranquada were the same idiots who caused the death of 20 GI's in the Cumberland river on maneuvers in Tennessee! They were a disaster in the states and a worse disaster in combat. A plague on both of them and may they rot in hell.

This is written more than 55 years after the event. I have not talked to anyone about this battle except for my ammunition carrier , Henry Wick and my opposite number, Al Weiss. He was in the first squad and carried a BAR also. Both are alive (albeit both were badly wounded) and we are in communication but have NEVER, EVER, discussed any of these events except in passing references.

I am sure that I have made tons of errors in this recitation but I have tried to tell it just as I remember it. Colonel Colley passed away recently I heard and my comments about him may or may not be fair. They said he was badly wounded in the Moncourt Woods Battle but I happened to see him in a hospital later on and he did not look badly wounded to me. When I saw him he was sitting up in bed, I saw no bandages and he was as conscious as could be! I thought he was goofing off.

Email me about anything that interests you and I promise an answer and who knows, we both might enjoy the exchange!

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