Tom Barnes's Blog: Tom's 'RocktheTower' Blog - Posts Tagged "battle-of-the-bulge"

This Week
Battle of the Bulge WW II
MFC Becalmed in Antarctica
Writers Notebook: Truman Capote

World War II
The American and Allied forces stormed the beaches at Normandy on June 6, 1944 and from that day forward they continued to beat the Germans back on every front.
By December the German situation was becoming desperate, and at that time Adolph Hitler devised a bold counteroffensive in the west. On December 16th 30 German divisions hit the Allied lines in the Ardennes region. Frigid cold and overcast weather prevented use of Allied air power and gave the Germans an early advantage.
That was the beginning of the Battle of the Bulge. Max Schwartz a member of the US Army’s 1306 Engineers gives us a close up look at one of those frigid days.
A Day with an Army Engineer in the Battle of the Bulge
By Max Schwartz
As Sgt. Schwartz drove with his Colonel north on N-9, the main road to Bastogne, they saw the tanks ahead in trouble. They were sliding sideways off the icy road into the gullies. Rushing back to their bivouac base, the Colonel immediately ordered all available men to spread sand to slippery road surfaces.
Sgt. Schwartz spent long cold hours shoveling and throwing sand under tank treads from the back of trucks and from stockpiles dumped in advance at critical locations.
Dammit. It’s cold,” he cursed, standing ankle-deep in snow and mud. His overcoat, wool gloves and knit cap failed to keep out the wind. He exhaled a white cloud of vapor whenever he stooped to fill his shovel and throw the sand under a tank’s treads. Then he scooped up another shovel full, ran in front of the steel behemoth to throw sand again, and repeated the exercise for hours.
They’ll never believe this back home,” he muttered. “A bunch of Army Engineers playing nursemaid to Patton’s vaunted armor.” When he looked up at the warmly dressed tankers taunting him from the protection of their turrets, he became even angrier.
You poor dogfaces, they shouted. “ You should have joined the Armored Corps.”
Its OK, tanker,” Sgt. Schwartz answered. “You guys have to go through the German lines to reach Bastogne.”
Go to hell, dogface,” they laughed. Actually, Sgt. Schwartz was proud of the tankers and hoped that someday he would be able to say he helped liberate the 82nd Airborne Division trapped in Bastogne.
As Sgt. Schwartz shoveled and threw sand, he could see the road ahead was deteriorating. The surface had turned to mud under the traffic, particularly from the treads of the 35-ton tanks and the wheels of the 70 ton loaded tank retrievers. The asphalt paving had given way and bulged up between the treads and wheels. He could see the raised ridge rupture and yellow clay base ooze through.
As he threw sand, he saw that many of the tanks had welded cleats on their treads to improve traction, but the cleats dug into the road surface, which were then plowed up by the trucks that followed. This completed the destruction of the road.
When the heavy rains came, applying sand to the road surface became a thankless job. The road to Bastogne became so impassable that fighting units were supplied by parachute. One Engineer officer complained to the Colonel, "I know you told me the roads would go to pieces, but, hell, you can't even see the pieces."
It was cold, miserable work but fortunately, Patton’s Armored forces reached Bastogne and broke the back of the Bulge …with a little help from the Army Engineers.

MFC Becalmed in Frigid Antarctic Waters

Sleet was changing to a freezing mist as a dreary dawn struggled to break through the heavy overcast. Ragged underbellies of the clouds were so low at times they touched the waters. Waters cluttered with brash ice ranging in size from a bobbing apple to that of a full grown pumpkin. Ominous thumping noises caused by frozen chunks hitting the sides of the hull were underscored by the steady beat of a crew working the bilge pump. Those were the sounds they heard above an almost still ship that lay as near to dead in the water without being so as you would ever see. Ocean currents gave more movement to the ship than did the jibs and spanker, the only sails that were set.
Captain Foster, Fritz Cheny, Hank Jensen, Gabe Toombs and Tungee all stood on the quarterdeck in the teeth chattering cold, their hands stuffed deep into their pockets. No one said anything. They waited, watched and listened. But for what, none of them was quite sure. Two nights had passed since they'd had a clear shot at the stars with their sextant. Navigation anywhere near the South Pole was a tricky business at best. And considering the wild compass swings down in that region along with merging currents of the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans pushing and pulling in contrary directions you were left with only one formula for navigation, dead reckoning. And under their present circumstances that was almost worthless.
Foster and Cheny were both schooled in navigation, but neither of them had a real fix on their present location and they were worried.
Gabe Toombs asked, "What do you make of the ice, Captain?"
Foster thought for a moment. "We may be too far south, Gabe."
"What does that mean?"
"We get too deep into these freezing waters we could get hung up."
"You mean ice bound."
"That's what I'm saying."
Gabe Toombs rubbed his hands together, spat a mouthful of tobacco juice over the side and drawled, "Gawd."
Fritz Cheny was less pessimistic. "We're not in trouble yet and if we get a break in this overcast we won't be."
"Do you think we're south of the Drake Passage?" Tungee asked.
"To be honest, I'm not sure. I doubt that we're that far south, but all this ice makes me wonder," The captain said bleakly.
"Then you think the ice may have drifted farther north than is normal," Tungee commented.
"I think that is just the case," Fritz Cheny said. "The way I see it, the wind hasn't been strong enough to carry us to longitude sixty. But the currents, on the other hand, are something else."
"Then we could have drifted faster and farther than we've sailed."
"That's the rub, Mr. Cahill," Foster cautioned. "With the running seas we've experienced for the last two days and nights along with no chance to shoot the stars, we're guessing. Damn I hate to admit that, men. But we're reduced
to calculations based solely on an educated guess."
"Better In nothin' I suppose," Gabe Toombs said dryly.
The youthful voice of Gene Blakely called out from the bow. "Yo, there on the quarterdeck, listen up."
Captain Foster moved toward the kid and the others followed. As they walked forward the captain demanded, "Avast, you men on the bilge pump."
After the noise of the pump ceased and the captain's group arrived at the bow, they all stood looking at Blakely.
He had just crawled back from the bowsprit and stood stark still with his hands cupped behind his ears. He was looking and apparently listening in a direction off the port bow. He finally took his hands down and while he cleaned his glasses with a handkerchief he almost whispered, "Breakers, Captain. Way off in the distance."
The earlier conversation came to Tungee's mind and he wondered if they were south of longitude sixty and hearing waves pounding the shores of some small Antarctic island. Could that be the real reason for all the brash ice? There was an eerie stillness in the air and the kid may have heard breakers, but no one else did.
"Mr. Jensen," Captain Foster said quietly, "go and get my long glass from the chart room. Mr. Cahill, you and Mr. Toombs get the chains and find what kind of depth we've got."
Jensen scooted for the captain's long glass while Gabe and Tungee removed the lash from the measuring chain and began to play the lead out over the side.

Writers Notebook:

Review: Music for Chameleons
Music for Chameleons and Hand Carved Coffins is a diverse collection of short stories written by Truman Capote.
Music sets the mood in Fort de France on the island of Martinique as a silver haired aristocrat plays a Mozart sonata on a piano to the delight of the skittering chameleons.
Then there’s Mr. Jones the blind wheelchair bound Brooklyn rooming house resident that turns out, in the end, to be nothing short of a human chameleon.
On a cold winter’s night TC was fortunate to seek shelter and a phone in the house with the ‘Lamp in the Window’ and a homeowner that was nocturnal, lonely and trusting.
‘Hand Carved Coffins’ is billed as a nonfiction account of an American crime set in an unsophisticated farm and ranch community. However, the string of murders apparently perpetrated by one person was anything but unsophisticated.
Truman Capote is as comfortable walking down Second Avenue with Mary Sanchez, the cleaning lady in ‘A Day’s Work’ as he was with friends at a posh reception in Turtle Bay.
The preface to the book gives an insight to the writing discipline TC exacted upon himself.
Keep a copy of ‘Music’ as reference to a writing style you’re not likely to see again.

Tom's Books and Blogs:
Tom Barnes -- Actor, Writer and Hurricane Hunter.
Check out my website for books, blogs, western legends, a literary icon, reviews and interviews. Also my novels Tungee's Gold, The Goring Collection and Doc Holliday’s Road to Tombstone along with a non fiction remembrance of The Hurricane Hunters and Lost in the Bermuda Triangle.

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