Also, in addition, men were to carry a maximum number of rifle grenades, especially M-9A1 ATs. Riflemen were to carry a full belt of ammunition, plus four extra bandoleers. Every man in the platoon was to carry four hand grenades, three fragmentation (MK-2A1), and one white phosphorous (M-15 WP). One day’s K-ration would be issued to each man, gas masks were ordered to be carried, and white camouflage suits (known as spook suits) were to be worn. Weapons in the 3rd Plat included two carbines (M-1) (carried by the platoon sergeant, who was also the acting platoon leader, and by his messenger), four Thompson sub-machine guns (M-1) (carried by the platoon guide and the three squad leaders), and one automatic rifle (BAR) in each squad. Everyone else carried the M-1 rifle, with one rifleman in each squad acting as rifle grenadier.
Dawn of Jan 22, found the members of the 3rd Platoon (Easy-7) eating their last breakfast in the safety of bomb-shattered Kaysersberg. A good part of the morning was spent in the thorough orientation of the squad leaders and their men. Ammunition loads were distributed and the men spent some time contriving to make their leads compact and transportable. To give greater freedom to the individual, both the pack and cartridge belt were worn on top of the spook suits, a method which sacrificed somethings camouflage to the greater need of easy access to weapons and ammunition. For a like reason, it was decided not to wear the hoods of these suits, as it had been proved in the Vosges Mountain positions that the various type hoods issued for protection against the weather worked a very dangerous disadvantage in hearing ability to the wearer.
By noon everyone had stood in the snow line one last time and was ready for the move to a concentration area around Riquewihr, northeast of Kaysersberg. The platoon was to make this move about 1400 hours when the 2/7 moved out behind the other two battalions. Kaysersberg was the initial point for all the three battalions, their order of march being: 1/7; 3/7 and 2/7. While Easy Co’s 3rd Platoon was still making last-minute preparations for its move, troops of the Red Battalion (1/7) at 1000 crossed the IP on schedule. Leaving Kaysersberg behind them, these troops moved east, toward the front lines, as far as the road junction (229) on the edge of Kientsheim, where they turned north towards Riquewihr along an unimproved road which crosses a saddle between the wooded mountains of the Klentsheim Woods and Mont de Sigolsheim. Their movement up this road, which in some places had high banks, was detected from the south by enemy observers, who immediately brought down artillery fire on the road, covering it from the vicinity of the junction to the point where the road disappeared over the first rise. Despite this fire, the 1/7 moved its troops up and ever the hill successfully.
Less fortunate was the Blue Battalion (3/7), which followed behind the 1/7 at 1250. The enemy, now aware of troop movements along the road up over the saddle, were waiting and unleashed heavy fire upon the Blue Battalion troops as they struggled up the hill. Most of the shells landed on either side of the road, among vineyards but a few fell in the road itself, causing casualties and some confusion before the last man had passed the danger zone and disappeared over the hill. The 2nd Bn was delayed some little while by the accident which befell the Blue Bn, but finally, it also moved out of Kaysersberg, to be subjected in its turn to the same interdiction fire. The troops hurried up the hill, struggling in the icy tracks left by vehicles, crouching low as each shell went overhead to plump into the vineyards and snow, occasionally hitting the banks as one came exceptionally close. In this fashion man after man successfully negotiated the slippery track, past the spot where red blood marred the snow and the white camouflage suits on the bodies of 3rd Bn men who had been caught and mangled by shell fire earlier in the afternoon.
Easy Co, with its 3rd Plat in the lead, passed successfully up the shelled road and closed into its concentration area in Riquewihr at about 1800. It was already dark by the time the company reached this area. The night was exceedingly cold and the men had found the dangerous trip over the Kientzheim – Sigolsheim saddle wearing on both their strength and nerves. They sought warmth close to the walls of buildings and in cellars, small groups finding their way into basements filled with old bottles and wine-casks and straw and the stale smell of animals and manure.
The platoon moved out about an hour later when the battalion began the march to its forward assembly area southwest of Guémar. The long trek along the icy roads to this assembly area was completed without further mishap, and by 2100 the battalion had closed into its position. Easy Co found itself dispersed in a field covered with lumber. The 3rd Plat began its wait among the piles of boards, in the snow. However, the cold eventually led all three squads to seek shelter in a huge, hanger-like building filled with the lumber. Here the men found some protection, although not much. Four hours were to be spent here, waiting, while the cold bit deep and deeper. Some of the men finally slept, stretched out on the board piles. H-Hour, 2100, crept past, with few men marking the slow drag of seconds and minutes.
In the blackness towards Guémar, a few shells fell, but all else was silent. Apparently the two assault battalions were being successful in their crossing of the Fecht River. It was not until about 2130 that shelling in the vicinity of Guémar intensified. At this time also an AAA half-track, of whose existence at a nearby position of the men of Easy Co had been unaware, blasted the night wide open with light, and the crack of its guns, firing long-range harassing fire across the Fecht. Gradually, the thump of shells around Guémar fell off, there was left only an occasional sound of far-off small arms fire, crackling faintly for brief periods and then dying away. It was about 0100, already into the new day of Jan 23, when Capt Powell returned to his company and passed word quietly for the platoons to get ready to move out.
In a column of two’s, with five yards between men, the company filed out of the lumberyard behind; its commander and a guide. The troops crossed some railroad tracks and trudged silently down a tree-lined, ice-covered road. They had barely swung into the outskirts of Guémar itself when they turned to the right and, following a high, old-fashioned stone wall, we’re guided by white engineer tape to one of the two footbridges which had been erected across the stream. The 3rd Plat crossed on this bridge in an unbroken silence by either enemy or friendly fire. Once on the other bank of the Fecht River, the platoon found itself confronted by low-rolls off concertina wire, easily crossed, and by an AT minefield, in which the mines had been hastily laid on the surface of the ground, where the snow-covered them. Dark splotches against the snow in this field showed places shells or mines had already exploded that night.
The platoon picked its way cautiously but rapidly across this minefield and covered the rest of a wide meadow, to enter the fringe of the Colmar Forest. So far the platoon had been following snow tracks made earlier in the night by men from the other two battalions and here in the edge of the woods found trace also, in the silent forms of one or two dead Americans, of the earlier crossings. Inside the woods, the platoon threw out two squads on line, tied in its right flank with the 2nd Plat, which had formed a like formation, and began picking its way through the closely spaced trees. Control was difficult in the thick woods, where the snow was deep, the bushes and small trees dense, and visibility poor. When the platoon had progressed about 250 yards, the men crossed a woods road which out immediately across their front. It was evident by this time that a skirmish line of two platoons was impracticable. The 3rd Plat was having difficulty keeping its own two squads on a slow-moving line and had completely lost contact with the platoon on its right.
The platoon leader immediately contacted the company commander and requested permission to shift his platoon by itself out in front of the company, which could then advance in a column of platoons. This permission was granted, and the 3rd Plat, taking up its now position, switched to one squad forward and two echeloned to the rear. The forward squad pushed two scouts out about 15-20 yards, the limit of visibility, while the rest of the squad kept a closed squad column behind these scouts. The two rear squads maintained much a column of files, finding this the simplest means to advance. As the platoon progressed in a direction almost due south, the forest continued to be as dense as at the point of entry and the men stumbled frequently among the snow-covered bushes and logs and gullies on the forest floor.
Sounds of intense small arms fight, off to the east in the woods where the 3/7 zone lay, broke out. The crackle of rifles came sharp and clear, with the swift, sudden rap of German automatic weapons answering while in the lulls of firing could be heard the cries of American, leaders shouting orders. Explosions and flashes of light split the dark off in this area. The 3rd Plat scouts showed a tendency at this point to slow down, to find the enemy in every half shadow and snow-bent bush but the squad leader, Pfc Spaeth, acting immediately behind his scouts and sometimes even taking their place, pushed his squad on under the trees until eventually, the sounds of combat were coming from the platoon’s left rear. A sudden, fierce crescendo came finally to that firing, and then an instant, complete silence from the same area, a silence that told neither of success nor of failure for the friendly unit on the left. Even in a closed column, the men of the lead squad could not see more than four or five of their companions at one time, while the two irregular files drifting like ghosts through the trees to the left rear and right rear were indistinguishable, only a man or two being in view – and that not all the time. Each man’s shoe-packs, crunching in the snow, made the only sound in his world, until he stopped when he could hear the same subdued crunching from the man or men nearest him. The sense of being alone in that vast woods was strong upon them all. There was nothing in that slow-moving handful of shadows to indicate that through all that loneliness a battalion was following them.
