The 399th Combat Team drove 420 miles straight up the Rhone Valley in a three-day "motor march" ahead of the rest of the Century Division. On November 1, 1944, they left their duffel bags in the bivouac area. They were told they'd see them in three days. They didn't see them again for the duration. The white X in the middle of France in the map above marks the spot (see details in the map below). They were relieving a shot up regiment of the fabled 45th Division, which had landed in Sicily and fought the length of Italy. As the 399th history points out, the men of the 100th were still carrying full field packs and a lot of illusions. The men of the 45th were carrying only a rifle as they walked out.

"Hey, buddy, where are the front lines?"

"You're them." (399th history)

"I'm not bragging because there were a lot better soldiers than I was and a lot of them in the engineers that were a lot better than I was. But I was lucky enough to capture the first two guys that was captured in the C Company. It was a big mistake. I was being sent somewhere in the jeep. When we first got over to France, moved up to the line, and got in combat. They were just walking along the road. And what they were trying to tell me, I can't speak French or German, I didn't know. We had a pamphlet on Germany too. And I was trying to figure out who they were. They didn't look like they were in uniforms. And they didn't have a gun. I thought that they were just workers, civilians. They looked pretty rugged but they had no guns. They had those big overcoats that they wore. That made me suspicious. But after talking with them I didn't think they was German soldiers at all. So I was trying to read that book and drive that car and pass these guys. And they were trying to talk to me and I was trying to talk to them and I put it back in gear. I passed them up then. And they tried to give up. I pulled off. They came up and pointed at my book. They walked up and they tried to tell me that they were prisoners. They wanted to give up. They didn't run or anything. So I told them to get up on the hood of the jeep. And drove back to the company, with them riding on the hood of my car, and said I have two prisoners. It was only half a mile from the camp. They all got a big laugh out of that because I'd captured the first two prisoners." (T. C. Moore, 2001)

"You know, when you go into combat they had the saying, if you get by the first few days, you got a better chance of living. We got a call when we first got over. When we first moved up into position. We would lead the division. The infantry was relieving this regiment. Our platoon worked with the 399th. Very soon we got a call that they had some guys, infantry company pinned down, and the needed to build a bridge. We took two ton an a half trucks and a jeep and Bell, myself, and a guy and went up a hill and the Germans were there. They let us build it. We put out a 50-caliber machine gun and a 35 caliber machine gun and all at once they started shooting at us. We couldn't come up and come back. It was the first and almost the last action we seen. We called the infantry to get us out of there. We were sitting with lumber and stuff in the open. So this lieutenant getst the word to come get us and they them fools must have been all rebels. They come by us all yelling and up the hill without cover like Pickett's Charge and they were sticking Germans all over the hill with bayonets. I saw one infantry man after it was over. One guy sitting in a chair in a medic station, shell shock, couldn't move. No expresion. Great beginning." (T. C. Moore, 2001)

Dad used to laugh about how naive he was about what they were getting into and how little they knew when they got over there. There was a stump in the way of their roadwork, so he decided to get it out by blowing it up. He packed the stump with explosive, way too much, and set it off. The stump went sailing into the sky like a rocket--splinters flying everywhere.

He also told a story about the early days when they first got into a French town that had been shelled. A lovely French girl came and asked him to help her take something out of her house. He of course went right along. The something was a big shell right through the bedroom wall, half in the house and half outside. He flexed his muscles and yanked the shell out of the wall and carried it down the stairs with her ooing and ahing about the big strong Yank. It was only later that he realized that he was also the luckiest Yank out there.

Zeke Zederbaum "German 88 Just Before We Blew It Up"

After spending months diving to get away from 88s, this must have been a great day.

Zederbaum "Can You Find the 88 in the Picture?"

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