Ed & Ray Hersman in WWII - Robert Marks.org

4.12. BATTLE OF THE BULDGE Ed & Ray Hersman in WWIIus into the woods and to the O.P. They told us that day that one of theirtrucks was shot up coming out of the woods. This was shortly after we hadwalked out. I can only assume that we walked through an ambush but theGermans didn’t shoot any of us because they knew they would instantly havea fight on their hands. We were very angry with the artillerymen who letus lead into that forest when they had so much more firepower than we did.We were relieved by the 4th Division.I picked up our trip wires and discovered something strange. The detonatorin the grenade had fired but had not set off the grenade. Something hadclimbed the trail at one time, up the cliff, but when we didn’t know. The 4thDivision was coming from the Hurtgen Forest and that was our destination.The 4th had been literally shot to pieces.4.12 Battle of the BuldgeIt is noteworthy that we knew and reported back at our first O.P. in Luxembourgthat the Germans were unloading tanks at the railroad at night andwe could hear them. One night the British bombed the woods we believedthese tanks were in. We on the front knew the Germans were building upfor something. It turned out later to be the Battle Of The Buldge.We went through Belgium to Maastricht, Holland, 23 where we stayed afew days. We then went through Aachen, Germany 2425 to the Hurtgen Forestwhere we relieved the remainder of the 4th Division. The Hurtgen Forest wasdark even in daytime, the roads were dirt at one time but now were mostlymud which was knee deep in places. The woods beside the roads were heavilymined so we were forced to stay in the roads during our march into the forest.Our biggest fear were tree bursts, which occurred when shells would hit treesand spray shrapnel on everything beneath. We relieved a battalion of the23 See the map in Figure 4.1 on page 40 #9.24 See #10 the map in Figure 4.1 on page 40 on page 40.25 See Figure 4.10.66