Several days into the attack, the Army, in its infinite wisdom, took away our Engineer's Mackinaws and gave us the long G.I. wool coats and twelve buckle overshoes. Each shoe weighed at least ten pounds, and the overcoats quickly acquired a coating of ice and snow from the knees down as we plowed through the deep snow. That made climbing onto a tank next to impossible and walking extremely difficult. Our neglect by the Quartermaster Corps. was driven home when we took a small village and a squad of Germans surrendered; coming out with their hands up. I saw that one of them had on a pair of good-looking gloves. I took them and told him "You won't need these where you're going." They were great and for days everyone admired my new German gloves. Being waterproof and windproof, the gloves kept my G.I. wool gloves warm and dry. Weeks after, I found that my fancy gloves were actually G.I. issue that the Kraut had taken from a captured American soldier.

      The first large town we attacked and captured was Regne'. We hit it on the 7th of January. There was no real resistance, but the Germans pounded the village with shells and mortars. My squad got into a deep basement on the edge of town and dug one out-post foxhole. Mail from home came forward to us and we feasted on Christmas packages. That night, in addition to the shelling, we were all hit with diarrhea, vomiting, and heartburn. The diet was too rich and too sudden a change. We went back to our usual K rations!
      From Regne' we marched South. A few miles outside of town, we passed through a small cluster of farmhouses and out in a field across the road, there was an American light tank. Then we spotted two German's standing in a ditch looking out into the field. Two of the men in my squad and myself fired at them. They both went down. Then we shouted in lousy German for them to "Raus" "Commen zie heir." One stood up with hands in the air, looking down at his buddy who was still on the ground. Apparently we had all aimed at the same German. The remaining one was sent back as a prisoner.

     Out on the snow-covered field we saw the object of the two soldier's attention. It was a G.I. lying face down. He moved and tried to wave. It was obvious that he had been hit. I looked at one of my men, Roy Plummer, he looked back at me then shrugged and said, "OK". We both knew what we had to do. Slinging our rifles, we ran out into the field expecting the crack of a bullet any second. The G.I. was pretty far gone with a sucking wound in his back, but we dragged him back to the houses and yelled for the Medic.
      We later learned that Co. D and Co. F with some 33rd Regt. Tanks had attacked the area to the south of Regne' and our G.I. was probably from one of those units.
     Around the 8th of January, we hit several towns and hamlets late in the day and the daylight quickly turned to night in the Belgian winter. Fighting in villages during daylight was confusing, but night fighting was a nightmare. In the light of burning buildings and with clouds of smoke, the shadows moving near you could be either friend or foe. We were working with another squad in our platoon when a figure appeared in a doorway in front of us. One of the G.I.'s went forward thinking it was an American when the figure in the door fired his burp gun. Luckily our G.I. only lost a finger. The German disappeared into the smoke.

      In another small town, probably Ottre, we thought we had cleared the houses and had grabbed a nice warm basement for the night. I was changing my socks when our Platoon Sgt. Jim Cofer came down the stairs and shouted, "Cullen, get your squad and come with me." We saddled up and went into the night. An officer thought he detected Jerry movement in some houses to the right of the road. We were to clear them. The patrol started badly when I crept past a small building near the first house. I stepped through some ice into a liquid pig manure cesspool. My overshoe quickly filled with the stuff. Then as we entered the house, as silently as possible, my canteen started to make a loud "clunk". The water in the canteen that had been frozen solid had partially melted in the warm basement. Every time I moved it made a noise. Apparently the Germans had moved on or we scared them away. We went back to our basement where I washed out my boot at the insistence of all the men in my squad.

     In another night attack across fields and woods, our own tanks mistook us for Germans and started shooting at us with their bow guns. The tracers danced all through our ranks as we fell into the snow. Fortunately, no one was hit, but some of us wished we had an anti-tank gun.

     The tanks did it again to us during an attack through woods after a heavy snow. My squad was on Point for the platoon and as usual I placed myself near the end of the squad column. Although the snow had stopped, the pine limbs were full thereby cutting the visibility and noise. We could neither see nor hear beyond a few feet. We were picking our way forward when Earl Cordell came up from the rear and said, "Sarge. I think something has happened behind us." I passed the word forward to our people to stop, then went back along the trail with Earl. About 100 feet back a cart path crossed our axis of attack, and as I stepped onto this path a German soldier appeared before me, about five feet away. I had my rifle at my hip with the safety off and I fired out of pure reflex. He went down.

     Fear and panic started to hit me and I grabbed a handful of snow and stuffed it into my dry mouth. We didn't know what would come down the trail next-we were out in the middle of nowhere in a silent and snowbound forest.

     Several of the men of the squad that had been behind us then started to appear through the trees. They told us that a column of German infantry had cut through our line and shot them up. We milled around a bit then decided to go down the cart path to see if there were more Jerries coming toward us. Our little combined squads reached a clearing in a few minutes--- just as a platoon of Germans came out of the woods on the other side. We looked at them and they stared back—we were about 150 feet apart—but neither side raised their rifles. Then we started to yell at them to surrender and drop their weapons. They shouted back at us. Although neither side understood the language, we both knew what the other side was saying. I fleetingly wondered how this standoff would end when bullets started to crack and snap past us. Instinctively we all dove for the snowy ground. I headed for a depression near a tree, but another guy got there first and I landed on top of him. As I went down I saw that three of our own tanks had pushed through the brush on our right and were firing at us. They either ignored or didn't see the crowd of Germans. The bullets and tracers were still cracking over us when several of us tried to wave a cease fire" at the tanks as they approached. We didn't have radios. Finally some tank commander must have seen the error and the firing stopped. The Germans disappeared, but we had one dead; hit in the groin and bled to death before we could help, plus two badly wounded. Things like that happened.

     The Task Force, now called" Welborn" stayed in the assembly area from the 9th to the 11th near Ottre and our halftracks came forward to us with sleeping bags and blankets. Hot food was welcomed during the day, but we didn't shower or change our uniforms. We just kept going as we were. When I saw some of the 83rd Div. footsloggers, I thought they looked pretty beat up and scruffy. Then I studied my own squad and a group of German prisoners and realized we all looked the same! No shaves, no haircuts, no showers. Little sleep, same uniform, same long Johns for nearly three weeks giving us all the same "look".
     Back into the attack and on the high ground as usual, we were working with some T.D.'s on a ridge overlooking a valley. It was late in the day when we spotted a Kraut tank in the valley near some woods. We pointed it out to the T.D. Commander and they swung around and fired. The range must have been more than 1000 yards. The shot missed and the Germans then fired and hit our tank that started to burn. We got one man out and somehow a stretcher appeared from somewhere (I didn't know where it came from) and several of us got the wounded guy on to it and started to run toward the closest house. I stumbled and was actually running on my knees trying to keep the stretcher level. We made it and got him into the shelter with the Medics.

     The next day we were deep in the woods again to relieve a squad in a defensive position. When I met the squad leader, I saw some soldiers, down the hill from us, in the cart path we were standing in. They were bending over a body on the ground. I asked, as usual, "Who's in front of us?" He said, "Nobody." I then said "Who are those guys?" We both looked again at the two soldiers who were now looking back at us. I said, "They're Krauts!" Instead of relieving the squad, we helped them in a short sharp firefight. One of my men, his name long gone from my memory, was hit. I ran over to him, crouched over and saw that I couldn't do anything. I was standing by a tree when something exploded against the trunk near my head. It knocked me down into the snow and things got very dim for a few minutes. I heard one of my men yelling "Cullen's dead." But I wasn't. My right ear was ringing and there were spots of blood on my cheek, but I was OK. I don't know what hit the tree unless it was a U.S. rifle grenade the Germans had captured. Jerry was firing blind into the snow-filled trees just as we were, and the fight didn't last long. Finally the shooting stopped and everything became quiet again.

     E company then moved forward on the 13th to take the high ground overlooking Baclain, and the next morning with the 1st Bn 33rd Armored, we took the town.
     Sterpigny was our next objective on the 15th, and it was a tough one. The Germans were retreating all over the front, but they put up some nasty rearguard actions and chose this area as one of them. They shelled the field as we attacked, and antitank weapons made a mess of most of our tanks. Light tanks, one after another were set on fire.

     We attacked Sterpigny from a wooded hill to the Northwest of the village. "D" Co. was with us as part of Task Force Welborn but the combined companies didn't add up to a full platoon. My squad consisted of Roy Plummer, Wesley Pitzer, Reuben Kline, Earl Cordell, Vernon Spores and me. My track driver Vories was back with the half-track—somewhere behind the lines. We started the Ardennes campaign with twelve men in the squad. "D" Co. was in the same shape we were in so the attack was made by anything but a strong force.

     We approached the edge of town through a severe shelling when we crossed the fields. We picked up a tank from the 33rd and followed it into town as it crept behind some of the buildings to the right of the road. Flat trajectory gunfire cracked near us as we moved slowly forward. From that we knew that there was an anti-tank gun or a tank aiming at us. Later we learned that it was a Panther.

     Our tank went into a space between two buildings to try for a shot at the German Panther. He moved forward with my squad right behind him. I had my hand on the hull of the Sherman when there was a tremendous crack and a cloud of dust. The crew of the Sherman bailed out. The Panther had put a shell through the corner of the building and into the Sherman, knocking it out. It was our last tank.

     I decided to take my group to the other side of the street then to work our way up to where the Panther was sitting. To cross the road, we waited until their tank fired a burst of machine gun fire, then we ran over. He had been firing down the street at intervals. I guess just to let us know he was there.

     Once on the other side, we met more of our task force from "D" Co. and a number of tankers who had lost their tanks in the field above Sterpigny and Cherain. My squad started to look for the Panther by going through the houses and backyards until we came to a large church. It had a stone wall near the street that enclosed a cemetery. We decided to stop there and to plan some action. With no bazookas or anti-tank grenades, there wasn't too much we could do with just our rifles. Then we found some bottles and gasoline; we made Molotov Cocktails and lined them up on a window sill overlooking the church wall. We decided to wait for the Panther to come to us.
     Our decision was reinforced when we saw Kraut tanks and self-propelled guns crossing the hill behind us. We realized we were cut off and all alone. No one was coming to help us take the rest of the town. We waited, watched, ate, slept a little, and posted guards at doors and windows. The rest of the Task Force were doing the same in other houses in the Western edge of town. Our force now consisted of "D" Co. reduced in size just like "E" Co., some tankers on foot—both medium and light tanks and possibly some infantry from the 83rd Div.

     In any case, most of them were strangers. One light tanker was impressive--his uniform, head and body were a dull red color. I asked him, "What happened to you?" and he said that a brick wall had fallen on his tank when it was knocked out and he got all the brick dust through the hatch. I watched him as he stuck his head around the church wall and then fired his little carbine at the Panther. Another light tanker that night decided to go over the wall to "go see what those Krauts were up to." I don't know if he came back or not.
     After nightfall, the Germans must have decided to see what we were doing. One of our "E" Co. men was on guard at the house by the church when a huge German soldier started to enter the door. Our man shot first—the German fell back and dropped by the church wall. He must have been 6' 5" and the point man for a probing patrol. We waited but no more Krauts appeared.

     I later went back to a house that was more or less a Command Post. The roof was on fire but we didn't care. I went under a table to get some sleep when an officer came in and started to talk about "surrender". Our officer, "Chief" Alejandro said "no, absolutely not." I shouted from under the table, "I agree with you Chief, no surrender." The other officer left, whoever he was.

     Then one of the tankers volunteered to try to get through the German lines and to contact our forces over the hill. He went off into the dark. About an hour later, I was on the second floor of a house near the edge of town watching for the tanker to return. In the room below was a group of G.I.'s—strangers to me who had been sitting doing nothing since we got into the town. I saw the tanker running down the hill. He came toward a fence and started to climb over it as a shot rang out from the room below me. He fell and didn't move. The group in the room downstairs thought he was a German and had shot him. He was dead. I never knew his name or whether he had made contact with our lines.
     That same night, in the same house, we started to get more action from the Germans. They pushed a patrol down the opposite side of the street and started a firefight that we joined in. I fired twice at some forms on the other side of the street, then my rifle jammed. I hadn't cleaned it since the last time I had fired it—three days ago.

     Failing to get the spent cartridge out of the chamber, I ran into the room where the group of soldiers still sat doing nothing. I shouted at them to give me a rifle. None of them moved. I went to the front of the house again and then heard one of my men shout, "Sarge, they're setting up a machine gun." I couldn't see anything from the doorway, but realized I was standing in the open. I stepped to the left to get protection from the thick stone walls when I heard a voice behind me say, "What's going on here?" I turned to answer. It was an officer from the back room with the laggard soldiers. As I turned a stream of green tracers flashed under my chin and hit the officer full in the chest. He went down as the machine gun bullets cracked into the room. Suddenly the stream of tracers stopped. Roy Plummer, one of my squad, came running down the stairs shouting "I got him, Jim, I got him."
     We tended to the Lieutenant, but he had turned a sickly green color and probably was in shock. As the medics took over, I took his .45 pistol since he wouldn't be using it again.
     Toward dawn we went back to the house near the church. I was on guard in the doorway as daylight broke. The big German lay where he had fallen during the night and all was quiet. Then I heard a squeaky creaking rumble and knew that a tank was approaching. I thought it was our Panther coming to attack at last. A lot of mixed thoughts hit me. Should I run, stay in position, fire a warning shot, go for the Molotov cocktails, or just run and hide? Then one of my men came out of the door and told me that a small group of tanks and infantry had come in from the West and we were no longer surrounded.

     When our tanks broke through to Sterpigny, we were relieved, only to get orders to march to Cherain, a few miles away. We heard that several attacks on the hill East of Cherain had been repulsed and we were elected to try again. Our little group got there and started up the hill and had no trouble at all. Some shells came in, but nothing serious. We dug in at the edge of the woods. While digging my hole, I looked up and saw a British officer coming up the hill with one of our majors. They stopped near my hole and chatted then shook hands. The British officer went off into the woods toward the South East. I asked our major, who was still standing there, "Who was that, Sir?" He said, "Oh, just someone doing a job for us." He then went back down the hill. Years later I found that General Montgomery sent young officers into all of the front lines to gather intelligence and to report back to him.

     After a cold night in the snow, with a lot of shelling to keep us alert, we were ordered to attack through the woods. We started into the pines, still deep with snow. My helmet caught on a branch and as I stopped to clear it, a mortar shell exploded in front of me, and I was slammed down into the snow. My leg felt as if I had been hit by an axe. Roy Plummer and Pitzer dragged me back to their fox hole as more shells came in. Ed Cordell was hit and Kline had been hit in the arm. Roy was calling for a medic to take care of us. He tried to get his canteen loose to give me a drink, but it had been shattered by a piece of shrapnel. The medics came and our small company went off to continue the attack. Ten men and one officer; that was all that was left of "E" Co. 36th Infantry.