Company K at the 346th Regiment Inactivation
Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. From the 346th History
Orders were received on May 5 for a limited objective attack the next morning. So Third Battalion jumped off at 0830, meeting some small arms fire and a few rounds of artillery. Plans for the following day’s attack were stopped at 0525 on May 7 by a message from the Division Commander reading: “Sit tight, hold what you have, accept any surrenders. “
GERMANY SURRENDERS
At 0945 May 7 the following message was received from the Division Commander: “Representatives of the German High Command signed the unconditional surrender of all German land, sea, and air forces to the Allied Expeditionary Forces and simultaneously to the Soviet High Command at 0700, 7 May 1945 under which all forces will cease active operations at 0900, 7 May 1945. Effective immediately all offensive operations cease. Troops will remain in present positions. Moves involved in occupational duty will continue. Due to difficulty in communications, there may be some delay in similar orders reaching the enemy troops, so
full defensive precautions will be taken.”The commander of a German Artillery Battalion came through the lines to arrange surrender of his unit to the Second Battalion at 0500 in the morning. The German colonel did not know at the time of the surrender that the war had ended.
May 8 found the Regiment accepting the Artillery Battalions surrender at 0500 as previously arranged.
May 8, 1945
Germany
Dear Folks,
Yesterday sure was a great day for me. We attacked on the sixth and were supposed to shove off again yesterday morning. But instead of receiving an attack order, we were ordered just to stay where we were. Then a little after ten o’clock we got the news that the Germans had signed unconditional surrender. Even though it doesn’t take effect officially till tomorrow, it meant that we were though fighting. Boy oh Boy! What a feeling. The Lord has certainly been good to me. I’ve got lots to thank Him for.
The “Stars and Stripes” also brought us some pretty good news yesterday. It said that over half of the combat troops would get a furlough back in the States before they are shipped to the CBI1 The China, Burma, India Theater. Don’t plan too much on it because there’s just about as much chance against it as there is for it. But wouldn’t that be great!
Yesterday also I received a box from you and my name was turned in for a pass to Paris. It was the package containing pop corn and it really hit the spot. The corn was still as crisp as it was when you packed it. It would have done your heart good to have seen the fellows (and me) go after it. I wish I could send the box home and let you fill it up again.
If my pass had come a little bit sooner it might have kept me out of a little fighting but I’m glad to get it now. I’ll be going in a day or so. Considering everything that happened, wasn’t yesterday a pretty eventful day for me?
Well it looks like Spring again today. Maybe the weather is doing a little celebrating. We’ve really had some pretty rough weather for this late in the season during the past week. There has even been a little snow. I hope it stays nice now.
It’s been almost a week now since I got any letters but no doubt there will be two or three when they do come.
Hope everything is ship-shape back there. Be good and God bless you.
Love
Donald
Categories
Germany: May 1945
The following is the official “After Action Report” for the 346th Regiment, May 1945, from the 87th Infantry Archives
Categories
April 10-20: 2nd Task Force Sundt
From April 10th to the 20th, Task Force Sundt was reconstituted, again with K Company attached
Categories
Germany: April 1945
The following is the official “After Action Report” for the 346th Regiment, April 1945, from the 87th Infantry Archives
At the end of March, K Company was attached to Task Force Sunde
Following the crossing of the Rhine River, German resistance crumbled to such an extent that it was essential to form a hard-hitting, fast moving armored unit to reach into the German rear areas, disrupt communications, cut up German administrative units and installations. Such a force was organized and placed under the command of Lt. Colonel Harold S. Sundt and was to be known as Task Force Sundt.[…] Units comprising the Task Force were the 607th TD Battalion, less A and C Companies, plus Company A of the 735th Tank Battalion, the 87th Reconnaissance Troupe, K Company of the 346th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Platoon Company C of the 312th Engineer Battalion and supported by fires from the 155 mm howitzers of the 335th FA Battalion. The Task Force was divided into three hard hitting companies plus a CP group. Each company consisted of a platoon of tanks, platoon of TD’s, platoon of infantry, riding on the armored vehicles, and a platoon of the 87th Reconnaissance Troupe. The CP group contained the remaining forces. It crossed the Rhine at Boppard on a pontoon bridge and assembled six miles to the northeast at Dachsenhausen which was the limit of the Division advance.
The Task Force’s first objective was Nastatten, 12 miles southeast of Boppard. At 0545 March 27th the Task Force took off for Nastatten, the plan of attack being to advance along the high ground to Ruppertshaffen. and thence to Nastatten. By 0830 the Task Force had reached Ruppertshaffen, three miles west of Nastatten, where it assembled and regrouped.
The third Task Force Company, under the command of 1st Lt. Glen J. Doman, 346th Infantry Regiment [K Company], made the attack on the town at 0915. […] The infantry under 2nd Lt. Robert L. Picher, 346th Infantry Regiment, [K Company] swept through the town and cleared all enemy resistance […]
[…]
Captured enemy documents and statements of prisoners indicated that the area in the vicinity of Butzbach was an assembly area for stragglers of the Rhine defenses. Accordingly, on March 30 the Task Force received a mission of securing Hoch-Weisel, three miles southwest of Butzbach, and sweeping the woods to the north and west. At 0800 the 3rd Company moved there and the 3rd Reconnaissance Platoon and the Pioneer Platoon occupied positions between Butzbach and the woods to the west. The day was spent sending patrols through these woods. During the day the Task Force destroyed nine 20mm AA guns, eight 37mm AA guns on 21/2 ton trucks, one 40mm AA gun, three 105mm guns, seventeen 75mm AA-AT guns, four 88 AA-AT guns, and twenty-three vehicles. 519 prisoners were taken.
[…]
April 1st found all missions assigned accomplished, the Task Force dissolved and the Battalion assembled near Kleeberg. During the Task Force’s operation, it had taken 1485 prisoners and had advanced 76 miles.
March 16, 1945
Dear Mother and all,
Before I forget it, I want to wish mother a happy birthday. This will be late getting there, I know, but I hope you’ll forgive me. I thought about it before I wrote my last letter but forgot it again when I got around to writing. Lots of things slip up on me and I feel sort of good just to remember a date at all. I see by the date also that three days ago I passed my year and a half mark in the army. I guess I’ve got about five months overseas time in, too. If the situation doesn’t change in another month I’ll be entitled to an overseas stripe. Of course, it wouldn’t make me mad, though, to be back in the U.S. even before another month is up.
It’s been about a week now since I’ve had any mail. I’m getting pretty anxious to find out just what Richard is doing. No doubt by the time he is doing something or is about to. It could be (and I sure hope so) that this half of the war might not last too much longer. But things will be far from over even then. We’ll just have to keep our chins up and keep working and praying with our eyes always looking toward the complete finish. One of these days we’ll all be home for good.
I’ve been pretty lucky for the last few days as far as work is concerned. That is far from even implying that I haven’t been busy but I think you’ll understand what I mean when I say it hasn’t been too bad.
Did you get my V-mail a few days ago telling you that I received a raise in pay? Before my insurance is taken out I should be getting around a hundred dollars a month counting everything. Just to fill space I’ll tell you what I should be getting paid. The base pay for a Sgt. is $78, then I get 20% for being overseas, $10 combat pay (I think), $10 for the combat Infantry Badge and I think and $2 for the Silver Star. Say figuring that all up if I haven’t been misled somewhere it’s a good bit more than I thought!
As far as I know I’ll still be doing the same sort of work. Spending most of my time messing with the radio and whatever other communications is necessary to keep things operating. I guess I never really thought when I started to radio school, almost a year ago now, that it would ever really be my job. And not only that it’s turned out to be almost a full time job. All the communications wor I do seems simple and routine but I suppose if I realized just how much knowledge I have picked up altogether since I began I wouldn’t feel too bad about it.
Let’s keep trusting and praying. It really pays. Love,
Your son and brother,
Donald
March 12, 1945
Hello Folks,
I’ve not much time today so one of these little letters will be my limit. I wouldn’t even try to get this to you if I didn’t want to tell you something. You may already know it by this time, though, if you noticed the address. If you didn’t notice it before, look at the upper right corner of this page. [He has been promoted to Sargent – bypassing the rank of Corporal]
If this is my last letter for a few days, and no doubt it will be, I’ll be busy again. Little vacations are wonderful but they can’t last forever. A chance to rest up a little, eat some hot food instead of cold rations, and go to church is about all we have a chance for. But even that much really helps a lot. Of course we also try to write a few letters.
Let’s still keep trusting in the Lord to bring us together soon. With His help we’ll be seeing each other. Keep praying and I’ll do the same.
Lots of love, Donald
March 10, 1945
Hi People,
I am a little surprised to be still where I can write to you today but you can be sure I’m not unhappy about the situation. There are a few things, mostly samples of money, that I’ll send along for you to see. These aren’t anything special but just bills from each country that I happened to have. I hadn’t even intended to send them home but decided the other day that you might be interested. You’ll be able to decipher what country they are from and how much they are worth. These bills are invasion money (printed and backed by our gov’t.). Invasion money is always printed in these two sizes and the larger denominations the size of our dollar bills. That way it fits into our billfolds. European money is printed in a million different sizes and always has to be folded someway or other to fit our pocketbooks. Some of their notes are bigger than this sheet of paper. We had this trouble in England and if we were to use what is printed by the governments on the continent it would be the same thing.
There isn’t much new I can tell you as far as news goes. It’s just the same old story of sweating out the time when we start moving again.
Yesterday someone was talking about dogs and the thought came to me that it has been a long time since I have heard anything about old Topsy. Is she still around? If she is she should be old enough now I’d think to have lost a little of her puppy pop.
I got a whole stack of Tribunes yesterday evening. One bunch of them was from Dec 24 to 27 and the others from the latter part of January. You can see that they come sort of irregularly. Any time there is anything really special even in the Tribune I’ll be glad to receive it as a clipping. Then I’ll be sure to get it and I’ll have it 2 weeks to 2 months sooner.
Think I’ll hold on to this letter until after mail time this evening. It’s time I was getting a letter again.
5PM
Rather than start a new page on this letter I’ll sign off by telling you I got to attend church this evening. I’ll be looking again tomorrow for mail. No luck today. God bless you all.
Lots of love, Donald