Military: The 329th Regiment

My father Sergeant James L. Miller (1917-1954), awarded a Purple Heart and Bronze Star with an oak leaf cluster, fought with the 329th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Battalion, in the 83rd"Thunderbolt" Division. The contributions of my father's unit (which embarked across English Channel for Normandy on 19 June 1944) deserve special attention and are related in the account to follow for the admiration of students, many of whom might otherwise never appreciate fully the sacrifices made by those, and other brave, men. Much can be learned too concerning the war in Europe from a glimpse at the exploits of a regiment, which played a pivotal role in defeating the Germans in history's greatest conflict-- World War Two.

From beachheads established at Normandy in northern France on 6 June 1944, which took the names from left to right of Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno, and Sword, the Allied armies climaxed their assault on Germany under the code words Operation Overlord. By July 2nd (about a month after the initial landings on D-Day) Allied troops in France numbered 1 million, including 13 American, 11 British, and 1 Canadian division. During a period of 3 weeks, dating from June 6th, we also landed 566,648 tons of supplies and 171,532 vehicles. None of that was done without cost--the Allies suffered 60,771 in casualties with 8,975 killed in action.

By July 25th the breakout had entered a new phase, when the steamroller against Germany, it could be called, was launched. Near the south end of the Normandy peninsula from Saint Lo on the west to Caen on the east, Allied troops began to move farther inland, with difficulty on the first day, but at an accelerated pace thereafter. Within a week Avranches, at the base of the peninsula had been reached, at which time (August 1st) General George S. Patton of America's Third Army was brought into the fray.

It is my resolve, however, as stated above, to focus on the operations of the 329th Regiment. On July 4th, for instance, the 83rd Division (including the 329th) began an attack directly south of the Utah beachhead in western Normandy. Fighting there and on nearby terrain was extremely harsh, made so by the numerous hedgerows and a huge swamp, from which the Germans fought ferociously. From the swamp, for example, the enemy laid down heavy mortar barrages, along with withering machine gun and small arms fire.

After much fierce fighting, on July 25th, the 3rd Battalion, of the 329th, broke out from its necessarily defensive position. No fighting to follow though would ever be described by members of the 329th as more severe than that of July 1944 amidst the hedgerows of Normandy--what a"baptism" of fire that had been!

Soon after such intense conflict, the 329th received a brief respite. The regiment had been assigned the duty of both policing and defending Angers, on the north bank of the scenic Loire River. It was then the first nightly passes were distributed, which motivated many soldiers to consult their French-English dictionaries (to help in communicating with pretty young women in the town), not to mention the acquisition of chocolate bars and chewing gum for those same women, and often as well for little children. No doubt too in those halcyon, but transitory, times the troops entertained the townspeople, including the women there, with a rousing song, a stanza of which I learned to sing from my father, soon after had returned home:"We're members of the 3rd Battalion, and proud of it, you see. We fight at wakes and weddings, and every fancy ball. But, when we fight for Uncle Sam, we fight the best of all." So, World War Two, in spite of all its hardships and the threat, even the fact of death, did have its diversions.

The amenities of those days at Angers soon came to a close though. For, September 23rd, the 329th took to the roads and fields leading out of France into the land of Luxembourg. After traveling more than 300 miles, which brought the regiment to the outskirts of the city of Luxembourg, the unit became a part (for a time) of Patton's Third army, with the mission of protecting its left flank.

After several skirmishes in the country of Luxembourg, the 329th crossed the border into Germany on Decemberr 10th, where it relieved the hard-pressed combatants in the Hurtgen Forest, a hellish battleground. By December 14th, the 3rd Battalion, following what amounted to mostly desultory fighting, completed the conquest of the Hurtgen Forest, a place where many (both friend and foe) had fought to the death.

But, big trouble loomed ahead! On December 16th, Field Marshall Karl Gerd Von Rundstedt ordered Germany's last major offensive of World War Two, which became the greatest campaign in American military annals--the Battle of the Bulge. It pitted the Fifth and Sixth Panzer, along with the Seventh Army, of Germany, numbering 500,000 men, against 600,000 American soldiers, in a battle, which raged for over a month in the Ardennes Forest of Belgium and Luxembourg. The toll in casualties of the opposing armies, both wounded and dead, was horrendous. The Germans inflicted 81,000 casualties, 19,000 of whom were counted among the dead; while the Americans made the Fuehrer's forces pay even more dearly--100,000 in killed, wounded, and captured.

In the tenacious fighting, which so often characterized the Battle of the Bulge, the 329th played a major role. For one thing, it halted the German onslaught near Rochefort in the Belgian sector of the Ardennes. Soon thereafter, American outfits, including the 329th, counterattacked, which in a short time, brought the ground war back to the German homeland.

The advance into Germany then proceeded rapidly. In fact, so quickly did the 329th progress, it set a record in military history for infantry by marches of 15 to 17 miles a day. With this result--by 13 April 1945 the 1st Battalion, soon joined by the 2nd and 3rd battalions, became the first Allied infantry units to cross the Elbe River. Having done so, the 1st and 3rd battalions, after meeting some stiff resistance, at least for a time, advanced eastward to Nutha and Gutergluck, towns situated 3 miles from the Elbe. Then, in the neighberhood of those towns, the 329th took up a defensive position. Whereupon, after calling several times upon the Germans to surrender the nearby town of Zerbst, the 329th began a march there on April 28. The town was overrun the same day, as it turned out, with no resistance, and with 900 Germans captured, which brought the 329th's total of POWs for the entire war to 47,773. Interestingly enough, after so much fierce fighting and the resultant casualties from Normandy into western Germany, the taking of Zerbst (the last operation of the 329th in Europe), did not involve the firing of a single shot on either side.

Soon thereafter, on May 4th, the Russians arrived on the scene, which concluded in an unofficial way, the 329th's illustrious role on World War Two's Western Front--a condition, which became official on 8 May 1945, the date of Germany's unconditional surrender.

Let me conclude with a few poignant words from Colonel Edwin B. Crabill, commander of the 329th Infantry Regiment:"Beneath the soil of Europe lie the bodies of over 850 of our comrades. To the hospitals have gone nearly 4000 others wounded in action. Most of these were killed or wounded because when the time came for them to decide between safety or duty they chose the latter. Our debt to them cannot be paid." Could anyone else have put that better?

Bibliography:

Eisenhower, Dwight D. Crusade in Europe (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Co., 1948).
Goguen, Raymond J. (Sgt.) 329"Buckshot" Infantry Regiment": A History, ed. 1st Lt. Daniel P. O'Conner (Wolfenbuttel, Germany: Ernest Fischer, 1945).
MacDonald, Charles B. A Time for Trumpets: The Untold Story of the Battle of the Bulge (New York: William Morrow, 1985).
Schrijves, Peter. The Crash of Ruin: American Combat Troops in Europe During World War II (Washington Square: New York University Press, 1998).