Heroes: the Army
"...I was sent back to L Company and was back two days when I was wounded in an all-day company strength combat patrol Jan. 1, 1945..."
|
| ||||||
 | ||||||
|
I arrived in the Huertgen Forest Oct. 13, 1944 as a replacement. Two days before L Company had been ambushed and had lost all of its officers and two of its platoons.
Fifteen minutes after I was inserted into a front line position two of the five other men who had come with me were wounded. We were in The Forest for two weeks and then were withdrawn to reorganize and rest.
Thereafter I joined an 18 man volunteer patrol attached to battalion headquarters and served with it until it was disbanded near the end of December. I was sent back to L Company and was back two days when I was wounded in an all-day company strength combat patrol Jan. 1, 1945.
I spent two weeks in the hospital (the wound was minor) and then returned to the front and served with the division until the end of the war.
We took part in the Rhineland campaign, crossed the bridge at Remagen, helped close the Ruhr Pocket and ended the war in Dessau, Germany, at the confluence of the Elbe and Mulde River!
Thereafter we moved to Bavaria.
I came home in February, 1946, graduated from Stanford University in 1947, received a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University in 1948, spent 22 years in the newspaper business in San Jose, California, as a reporter and science wrier and am the author of a web novel on The Forest to be found at http://www.doitright.com/Carl/The_Forest.htm.
It is called The Forest.
(You can read an exerpt from the novel by Mr. Heintze, entitled The Forest, by clicking on the above link.)
----- Carl Heintze
Interested in some background
information?
Check out the related links below...
Los Gatos Weekly-Times/Carl Heintze
Veteran's Account of the Huertgen Forest: Carl Heintze
9th Division: WWII Living History
9th Infantry Division Octifoil Association
ETO Order of Battle: Divisions
American Battle Monuments Commission: WWII Honor Roll
National World War II Memorial
The above story is by Carl Heintze, Co. L., 3rd Battalion, 39th Infantry, 9th Infantry Division.
The story is re-printed here on World War II Stories -- In Their Own Words with the kind permission of Mr. Heintze.
Original Story submitted on 22 January
2005.
Story added to website on 14 February
2005.
September 5,
2002.