"…Some important omissions can be noted: field cap, breadbag, pack, etc.. It is probable that some of these items were not commonly stocked in divisional stores since they were usually issued by the Army replacement units which normally sent new soldiers to the Field Army. There are no pages to record weapons issue in a Naval Soldbuch, so no weapons issue is recorded. In fact, the Army Administrators had to improvise a page to record Andreas' unit: on a page which normally chronicles a sailors transfers, the army clerk manually ruled out some boxes to record the field unit and corresponding replacement unit. Andreas was assigned to Füsilier Kompanie 272, and arrived on October 2, 1944, and was the 189th man on the rolls. In November, without time to grant him a leave, his unit headed for the Western Front. Andreas was part of the Second Rifle Platoon.
Although Andreas may have been under-trained as an infantryman, he must have performed well in combat. On Christmas Eve, 1944, an order was drafted which promoted Andreas to Gefreiter, and as with most German promotions, it was retroactive to the beginning of the month. The order was written after the company was engaged in some very costly fighting against the American 78th Division a week before, and Andreas must have demonstrated some capability to have been promoted; only 12 other men were promoted in that same order. The company also needed combat-experienced junior leaders to fill gaps made in those same battles. Late in December, large numbers of brand-new replacements were arriving at the unit, and junior leaders were surely needed. Then it was back to the war and a rendezvous with fate.
At shortly after 7 PM on January 4th, 1945, the Füsilier Company began an attack which was intended to take Siegfried Line Bunker #27 away from the Americans. After this attack failed, another one was launched shortly after midnight. The combined strength of the 1st and 2nd Platoons for this second attack was only 22 men. This attack also failed and the company commander pulled his unit back to Bunker 24 to regroup. The HQ group and the 1st and 2nd Platoons took the inside of the bunker, and the 3rd Platoon took the outdoor positions to the right of the bunker. Exactly what happened next is a mystery for now, but at 10 AM the commander of the heavy machine-gun squad heard motor noises, running and yelling coming from the direction of Bunker 27 as the Americans mounted an attack. At 10:30, the sound of a loud explosion carried over to the heavy machine-guns from the direction of Bunker 24. The Americans then left the scene and the Germans eventually arrived to clean up…"
From here
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Amicalement
Armand
