Personal Narrative Essay: We Are Now Enclosed By German

Moving past the 1920’s, the stock markets crash of 1930’s, and the Second World War, we enter into a new world for many people, post war. The war ended in 1945 and the soldiers were sent home to their loved ones to marry and start families. Many of the fashions after the war remained the same as what was worn during the war. Many men continued to wear uniforms even at home as their way of adjusting to post war life. Another way soldiers adjusted to life after the war was by taking jackets like the Eisenhower jacket, named after President Dwight D. Eisenhower, worn during the war by wearing it as an everyday look (Welters 2015). My great grandfather, Frank Blair, on my mother’s side of the family was one of those soldiers who returned home to

Sadly, their weapons did not have the ability to cut all the wire and destroy deep German trenches or knock out all enemy guns. It also could not provide a useful bombardment for the infantry attack. On July 1, the artillery drifted away from the German front trenches and left the infantry unattended. Nobody was

they attempted to break contact. An AC-130 was able to provide covering fire and enabled the

On April 24, I managed to drift off to sleep, but a scream awoke me. Ahead of us, an unbroken wall of gas crawled towards the trenches at ground level. Someone down the line had fallen, clutching his chest. Bullets whizzed, shells roared and soldiers fell. Screams were cut off as the gas sucked the life out of the victims. They struggled to suck oxygen into their corrupt lungs. Attacking their bronchial tubes, the chlorine leaked fluid into their bloodstreams. The victims suffocated, drowning in their own fluids. The Algerians' eyeballs were white, coughing until glue came out from their mouths. The gas roamed the ground, giving the German snipers and machine gunners a clear aim at the sprinting soldiers. While the alley men opened fire at our backs, I bolted away from that hell containing abyss. I dragged myself off the muddy battlefield. My lungs burned with chlorine and my hip was torn by shrapnel. To neutralize and protect me from the gas, I urinated on my handkerchief and shielded it to my face. This is not civilization, it is madness.

In 8th grade, instead of baking cookies or cake in cooking class or drawing pictures in art, I took German 1 to put myself in the position to be placed in AP German my senior year. My freshman and sophomore years of high school I took Photography to work towards taking AP 2D Studio Art along with other AP/accelerated sciences, maths, and english classes. Certainly, there are other students that took just as difficult of courses that I did, but I pushed myself to excel in other courses that others may not have taken.

Lt Col Wise described as he received several reports of the Marine successes in the battle as reports of objectives gained came in. Also several German prisoners were taken. The Germans put up a good fight with their machine guns but as Capt. Wass, one of Wise’s officers said,

I don’t quite remember the date, but it was cold, bitter, and snowing too. All I could think about was my dire hunger. Our cabin commander ordered us to get out of bed. I didn’t hear this right away, but I was told later that I was the last one to get up. I just kept dozing off, shivering and cold. Then I felt piercing pain in my chest, then head, then everywhere. Finally, I got up, with my chest and head throbbing.

Germans were positioned with ground advantage, machine guns, and an open firing range of men.

With Peiper engaged in the north, von Manteuffel’s 5th Panzerarmee brought good news to the German army when they broke through the US 106th Division. The 5th army had forced 7,000 allied men to surrender the following day after breaking through. Down south, the 58th and 47th Panzer Corps each made great progress to their goals of Hoffalize and Bastogne. The US First Army HQ needed to be moved because the 6th Panzerarmee was only a few miles away. The 47th Panzer Corps reached Bastogne on December 19, however, so did the Allied forces, the 101st Airborne Division. Back north, the 30th Division was sent to reinforce the 99th division at Stavelot. The two divisions were able to separate Battle Group Peiper from the rest of the German army, with the help of air attacks, and they began to force them to retreat. By December 24, they had completely run out of fuel. The group was forced to abandon their trucks and tanks and walk back through the Ardennes Forest.

On 23 December the Allied forces conducted aerial attacks on German supply hubs/routes, devastating the German offensive. German Commanders asked for permission to retreat on December 24th, which was denied by Hitler. Following this, Patton’s men broke through Bastogne on December 26th. General Patton’s 3rd Army moved north through Bastogne and was headed toward Houffalize, in an attempt to trap the Germans, as Montgomery was pushing south to Houffalize. Delays from Montgomery’s Army allowed the Germans to escape, leaving behind their equipment and vehicles. The United States 1st and 3rd Armies were able to link up near Houffalize, Belgium on 16 December 1944. German offensive operations ceased by January 25, 1945. (Ent, 2005)

The German 5th Panzer Army led by General Hasso Von Manteuffel along with the 7th Panzer Corps and several thousand German Paratroopers, infantry, and heavy artillery had been mobilized to retake the city. The ultimate goal of the German Army was to secure the major road junctions in the city of Bastogne, cut off Allied forces, disrupt logistics and ultimately annihilate the Allied Forces if they failed to surrender. The German Nazi Infantry forces started advancing quickly into the city in their numbers but was subsequently slowed down by one American Company supported by a mortar platoon. Bad weather also delayed their advancement. This foiled the German Army’s plan of entering the city within a day even though they eventually broke through the frontlines in two days. The 101st Airborne led by General A. McAuliffe along with, CCB of the 10th Armored Division led by Colonel William L. Roberts, troops from the 110th Infantry and other supporting elements were ordered to hold the city until reinforcements could arrive. The U.S Forces spread in a large defensive formation around the city of Bastogne in order to stop the German Forces advances to overrun the

(Drez) They were supposed to secure the valley path that led to Vierville. It was the paved path that also connected to Point du Hoc. The Company’s casualties jumped to almost 66% of their force. Within fifteen minutes of landing, they couldn’t keep fighting. Company C of the 2nd Rangers Battalion, arrived a bit after with 64 men. They were supposed to arrive with Company A and attack the Charlie section of the beach. One of the landing boats was shot up and the other was getting peppered as the Rangers were getting off. When they had managed to get cover at the bottom of the cliffs, they had lost over half their men. Company G was supposed to land in the Dog White section, but they were pushed by the current two sections over to Easy Green. The Germans had started some small bush fires east of the Les Moulins path. One half of Company G easily made it around these with little fire against them. The other half ran into more fire, but they only lost 14 men, and still moved on toward the Les Moulin Valley. But because they were blown off-course, they didn’t know what to do next. Company F landed near the Les Moulin path and charged forward against the German defenses. They were downwind of the small fires, so they weren’t massacred. But some parts of Company F sustained up to 50% casualties. Only 2 boats landed in Easy Red, but they didn’t run into a lot of German defenses. About half of the soldiers

They called in for fire and with the fast and accurate fire support from the 105mm and 155mm howitzers, the infantrymen could gain a solid position to engage

heavy German counter attacks while only a third of them were left standing at the end still able

Some action has occurred. The enemy trench has tried using gas against us. We managed to put on out masks in time, so none of us got injured.