This is a newspaper article that Gilles sent to Captain John Fallon of the 36th Engineers. John mailed it to me so I could scan it, on the condition that I return it to him. Not a problem.
Gilles is featured in one of the photos.
It tells about the many vehicles including jeeps taking part in the festivities celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Military Vehichle Conservation Group Saturday in Biere.
This morning on C-SPAN a retired US Army officer was making a comparison between the current 'insurgents' in Iraq and the "Werewolves' of post-war Germany to make a point. He said that "thousands of American soldiers and German civilians were killed by these diehard nazis in 1946." Without getting into another subject I have always heard that the werewolves were never able to cause much damage and the death toll from them was in the low hundreds (or less) at best. I know they executed a few town Mayors for collaberating with the Allies and killed some troops using roadside bombs and boobytraps, but were never considered a serious threat to the Allied Victory. Certainly the figures I have heard were not in the thousands.
Title : Meurthe River Crossing Conducted by Seventh Army, VI Corps, 3rd Infantry Division: Offensive, Deliberate Attack, River Crossing, November 1944,
Corporate Author : ARMY COMMAND AND GENERAL STAFF COLL FORT LEAVENWORTH KS COMBAT STUDIES INST
Abstract : Powerhouse I was the name given to the crossing of the Meurthe River in the Vosges of France on November 20, 1944. The commander of VI Corps, Major General Edward H. Brooks, ordered the 3rd Infantry Division to conduct a major assault crossing of the Meurthe between Claire Fontaine and St. Michel. As objective training in river crossing operations progressed over five days, the artillery laid on harassing fires with an effective cover plan. Clear weather also allowed XII TAC to provide close support. Against light opposition, the 3rd Infantry Division crossed the Meurthe on footbridges which were speedily installed by the Engineers. Construction of Bailey and treadway vehicle bridges soon followed. The crossing of the Meurthe River by the 3rd Infantry Division was one of the most successful large-scale river crossing of World War II. Careful preparation, good plans, training, engineer and artillery support combined with weak enemy opposition to assure the success of Powerhouse I and the subsequent disintegration of the German Winter Line.
Descriptors : *MILITARY OPERATIONS, *CASE STUDIES, *HISTORY, MILITARY FORCES(UNITED STATES), EUROPE, MILITARY FORCES(FOREIGN), CLOSE SUPPORT, INFANTRY, BATTLEFIELDS, ASSAULT, TERRAIN, FRANCE, ENGINEERS, TACTICAL ANALYSIS, ENEMY, RIVERS, BATTLES, CROSSINGS, MILITARY TACTICS, TACTICAL WARFARE, ARTILLERY, GERMANY(EAST AND WEST).
Subject Categories : HUMANITIES AND HISTORY
MILITARY OPERATIONS, STRATEGY AND TACTICS
Distribution Statement : APPROVED FOR PUBLIC RELEASE
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Japanese search for soldiers' remains on Aleutian island
MASS GRAVES: Government wants to recover thousands of bodies that remain at site of bloody WWII battle.
By JEANNETTE J. LEE
The Associated Press
Published: July 17, 2007
Last Modified: July 17, 2007 at 01:45 PM
The Japanese government has resumed a search for the remains of World War II soldiers said to be buried in mass graves on the island of Attu at the western tip of the Aleutian Islands, U.S. officials said Monday.
More than sixty years after one of the deadliest battles of the war, the bodies of nearly 2,500 Japanese soldiers still lie beneath the muskeg and throughout the hills of the perennially fog-draped island, according to estimates by the U.S. Department of Defense.
Last week, a group of Japanese and U.S officials made a four-day trip to the tiny island and used hand shovels and pickaxes to verify the location of burial sites mapped by the Japanese government in 1953, and by the U.S. Navy.
Japan's Ministry of Health and Welfare is studying the feasibility of excavating the remains from the distant island and transporting them back to Japan for reburial, said Maj. Christopher Johnson, a policy advisor in the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office at the Pentagon.
BONES RECOVERED
Chief Warrant Officer Robert Coyle, who commands 20 Coast Guard members stationed on Attu, found two left boots made of rubber containing foot bones and a leather pouch that soldiers may have used to hold bullets. The group also found an old wooden cross in a valley thought to contain the bodies of 501 Japanese soldiers. The Coast Guard crew members are the only people living on the island.
After a short ceremony to honor the dead, Japanese officials reburied the remains, said Johnson, who was also on the expedition.
Calls and e-mails to the Japanese embassy in Washington, D.C., were not immediately returned.
Japanese forces landed on Attu and the neighboring island of Kiska on June 7, 1942, in the only land invasion of the U.S. during World War II.
BATTLE FOR THE ALEUTIANS
American soldiers arrived the following May. Most of the fighting involved hand-to-hand combat in horrific weather -- 120 mph winds, driving rain and dense fog. The battle lasted for more than two weeks before the U.S. retook the island.
Attu is considered the second-deadliest battle of the Pacific theater behind Iwo Jima. The oval-shaped island is 15 miles from north to south and 40 miles east to west, Coyle said.
Of the roughly 2,500 Japanese troops on the island, only 28 were taken prisoner. Most died in battle or chose to commit suicide by holding grenades to their chests, according to the Park Service, which manages the Aleutian World War II National Historic Area.
American soldiers used bulldozers to bury the Japanese in mass graves on the treeless island, marking them with wooden posts, Johnson said. The burial sites lie in roadless areas covered with high grasses and boggy ground that could contain unexploded ordnance, officials said.
Coyle said an excavation would be difficult and require heavy equipment to be flown out to the isolated island, which lies in stormy waters on the border of the Bering Sea and Pacific Ocean.
"I don't know how they would do it because there's no road access to the burial spots," Coyle said. "Maybe they could bring heavy equipment in by plane. And they'd need a crew of hardy guys with some pretty strong backs."
