Chapter 4 Jerry Catches Hell* November 16 - 19, 1944

The soldiers’ story continues, from chapter 4 of the war journal of Charles Meagher. The regiment had moved from their first bivouac at Épinal toward St Dié, farther east in Lorraine and firmly in German hands.

November 16, 1944:  

It had been 5 days since the men of the 409th Infantry Regiment had moved into the steep hills southwest of St. Dié, some of their forward positions only 5 kilometers from the enemy line. They had spent their time digging foxholes, taking care of their weapons and equipment, and making reconnaissance patrols to test German positions. The medics had been busy taking care of those wounded by incoming fire and land mines. And they waited for orders to attack. Those orders came on November 15th; the 409th's mission was to attack, seize and hold the German positions on Hills 1, 2, and 3 just southwest of and across the Meurthe River from St. Dié.


Now, on the 16th, the 2nd and 3rd Battalions moved east; the 1st was held in reserve and prepared to move on 15 minutes notice. They knew that the Germans would fiercely defend their line because "if the Yanks could be held in the Vosges until the heavy snows in December, there would be a cessation of military operations. Snowdrifts of 16 to 20 feet high are not infrequent in the Vosges...Stop the Americans for one month or more, and the Rhine plain below the bend would be intact, Jerry thought. Alsace and its capital, Strasbourg, would remain in German hands." So the 409 was heading towards the well-defended towns of Chevry (for the 2nd Battalion), Taintrux (for the 3rd), and the hills between those towns and St. Dié.


Map of the Battle for Saint-Dié:

From the Infantry Journal

Madonna's Dad, Charles Leo Meagher, was part of a mortar crew in "L" company, 3rd Battalion. Each mortar crew consisted of 4 men: a gunner, an assistant gunner, and 2 ammo carriers.


One of his army buddies described him later as a "big, red-headed Irishman that always seemed to be happy...He was ...about 6'2" and weighed about 220 lbs. He wasn't fat, but very muscular & maybe that is how he got the nickname of 'Moose'. He was big and strong as a moose." This same buddy, Tom Bracket of Fremont, Nebraska, said that back before they had shipped out of New York City, he liked to go out on the town with 'Moose' because he was so big. He knew they "wouldn't have any trouble".

Biographical detail: Charles was named after his dad's best friend, a major league baseball player named Charles Leo "Gabby" Hartnett who played for the Chicago Cubs and was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1955. Gabby and the Meagher family were all from the same small hometown of Millville, Massachusetts, southwest of Boston on the Rhode Island boarder.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabby_Hartnett

At 0400 the men of the 3rd were alerted for an attack. The mortar crews were deployed on the forward ridge overlooking the long, open approaches to Taintrux. This left them exposed but positioned to deliver supporting fire for the attacking rifle companies.


0845 Prepatory fire is directed to the enemy rear.
0855 Artillery directed at enemy forward areas. 0856....0857....0858....0859....


0900... firing ceased. The 2nd Battalion hit the clearing in front of them as a smoke screen was laid down with mortar fire. The only natural obstacle was the Taintrux River, which was supposed to be "only about two feet deep in most places, but the attackers found it to be more than four feet deep, even over one's head in some places." After crossing, they entered the woods on the opposite bank and headed uphill to take the summit with little resistance.

Field Medical Kit (Colmar Pocket Museum)

Meanwhile, the 3rd Battalion also moved out into the open at 0900 when "the wrath of hell broke loose. Machine guns pinned the scouts to the ground. Mortars and 88s from Jerry began to fall like rain on the platoons. Everyone headed for what cover was available." "Acts of heroism were taking place in every sector, but no one paid much attention as the cry for medics was increasing." Many of those heroic acts were performed by medics trying to rescue wounded men out on the battlefield.


Commanders were firing missions against the German artillery and mortar fire - sometimes four or five missions at a time. Meanwhile, the infantry men “were having their troubles - and plenty of them - out in their first taste of No Man’s Land.”


“As darkness fell over the front, the 3rd Battalion was pinned down by machine-gun fire and forced to remain in position along a front known as Phase Line A. The 2nd Battalion had reached Phase Line B….and were dug in for the night.” Many of the wounded who had fallen in places where daylight evacuation was impossible, could now be removed under the cover of darkness.


At the end of this long first day of combat, the men could rest. “It had been a tough day. Rifle squads, machine gun sections and communications men had sweated and fought, inching ahead in a path of blood. Darkness was never more welcome ... Up until that time, the least
movement had brought a barrage of artillery or mortar fire.” One company “slept in a barn along with six stinking cows which had been dead for days. They were too exhausted to care.”


November 17, 1944:


The 3rd Battalion renewed their attack early in the morning. “A low-hanging fog provided excellent concealment.” As they approached their objective they met little resistance. There were signs of a hasty departure everywhere - cast-off equipment and evidence of meals prepared and abandoned. In Taintrux and Chevry “civilians informed them that the Germans had left only 30 minutes prior to the American arrival. The villagers were overjoyed. Cognac, wine and a new form of liquid ‘embalming fluid’ called Schnapps were pushed into eager hands. It filled the hearts of the men to see the children smile and to see the looks of astonishment on their pinched faces when a K ration candy bar was was offered to them.”


“Proudly the 3rd Battalion pushed thorough to its first objective, the high ground southeast of St. Dié.”


“The 2nd Battalion was also having a relatively easy day of combat on the 17th of November.” Orders came to move on and take Hill 2 and the rear of Hill 3. Hoping that the Germans had also pulled out of those positions, they moved out across the valley and started climbing the hill. Suddenly the day was not so easy - the hill was very steep and covered with dense underbrush. The captain ordered them to drop their packs and all extra equipment to “facilitate passage through the dense underbrush.” This would come back to haunt them later.


 At 1400 they finally arrived to the top of the hill. "No resistance had been met.” Some of the men had “visions of spending the night in a lookout building that was found in the rocks up on the hill.” However, once their success in making their objective was reported, they were ordered to move to, and take, Hill 1. 


At 1500, they started up that hill, and “learned from a French civilian that the enemy had abandoned the base of the hill the afternoon before, moving up the hill on the road to Saint Dié.” The companies continued up the hill and reached a point just below the crest by 1645, without meeting any opposition. They decided to hold there for the night - a long dark November night. They “had had no rations for the day. They were hungry and the night was cold. They had dropped their rolls back on Hill 2. Some men dug all night just to keep warm.”


Here are some photos of the delicious K rations that those soldiers were missing that day and night. Breakfast,

According to Tom Bracket, "for breakfast, there was a small can of horrible scrambled eggs, 4 little crackers , a pack of instant coffee." (photo from the Colmar Pocket Museum, Colmar, France)

....lunch,

"For lunch, the same thing (as breakfast) - only it was a can of awful cheese." (Colmar Pocket Museum)

................and dinner.

"For supper - same thing, only you got a can of hash and a fruit bar. Each box had a pack of 3 cigarettes & a piece of gum."     (Colmar Pocket Museum)

And there was elegant dinnerware of course.

(Colmar Pocket Museum)

Other comforts of the soldier's life.

Note the foot powder at upper left. Very important.  (Display at the Colmar Pocket Museum)

“Meanwhile the men with the red crosses on their helmets were beginning to rest on their laurels as the first rush slackened.” The medical platoon had moved back
to a small farmhouse in Les-Rouges-Eaux at a fork in the two roads leading to the
battalions on the front line. Here they treated casualties, some German prisoners,
of the first days of fighting. The dark muddy roads from the 3rd Battalion were
considered too dangerous for ambulance runs at night, under blackout conditions.
“Everyone hoped there would be no seriously woulnded night casualties.” “But
war is no respecter of persons or conditions."  One driver “decided to try the run,
fully aware that a slip might send his vehicle over the mountain side.” With
two men lying on the fenders to guide the vehicle, he made four trips down and
back, carrying full loads each time. Although the run was only two miles one way,
it took an hour to make the round trip. Casualties kept coming in and a second
ambulance ….was sent up the mountain to help. These two crews worked all night
to evacuate casualties over the ‘impassable’ road.”




November 18, 1944:


“With the hills in American hands, the following day, November 18, saw little but
patrol actions by both battalions.” The soldiers of the 409th established defensive
positions and waited to be relieved by the 411th the next day.


November 19, 1944:


“By 0937, November 19, the Regiment had been relieved and the battalions
entered their bivouac areas in the vicinity of Les-Rouges-Eaux.”  “The first attack was over. In their first highly successful engagement the men had learned the nature of combat. They weren’t veterans by any means but they knew what combat was.”

*NOTES on sources of information:
1)  Chapter titles are taken from The 409th Infantry in World War II published by the Washington Infantry Journal Press in 1947.


2) The above account, as well as all accounts of the 409th Infantry Regiment in this blog, are taken from  the above-mentioned Journal, featured in our first blog post. Madonna has the copy which belonged to her Dad, Charles Leo Meagher. He fought with the Regiment in the 3rd Battalion, "L" Company and survived the war to return home to southeastern Massachusetts. Sadly, he died very suddenly on Thanksgiving Day in 1957 at the age of 37, leaving his wife Terry, and his young children Charles Jr (age 6),  Jim (age 4) and my friend Madonna (age 2).

Charles Meagher with his 3 children. From left to right Charles Leo Jr., Jim and baby Madonna. Looks like a favorite photo -  maybe carried in a wallet and pulled out often to show off his family.

3) Some anecdotes and descriptions are taken from the letters of Tom Bracket, an army buddy of Charles Meagher, written to Charles' son Jim Meagher from Oct. 1992 until Tom's death in 1994. Any accounts taken from those letters are so attributed in the text. We hope to eventually have all of Tom's letters on this site for those interested in first person reminiscences about the 409th Regiment's experiences as related 50 years later. Here's a photo of Tom which is dated 1955. He sent it to Charles Meagher with a note on the back, quoted here in full under the image.

Tom Bracket, 1955.  Message written on back: "This is probably the only one (of some photos?) that will look like me as you remember. A gun in one hand and a jug in the other. Notice there is still some in the jug. We got the deer drunk and then shot them. These were taken this fall. I had a week's beard and no bath."  

Chapter 3b: Baptism of History (On this hill....)

Sept. 25, 2011: Belfort to Thannenkirch


Having found, admired, and kissed the Lion of Belfort good-bye well before lunchtime, we three travelers (Madonna Jeanne, and Picasso) headed to one more tourist stop for the day. Bemoaning our lack of GPS for getting out of Belfort, we had a hard time finding the right road. After extensively touring the northern suburbs, we finally managed to turn our Picasso Citoën east toward the hill that overlooks the town of Ronchamp 13 miles away.  


Our destination was a chapel called Notre Dame du Haut - in English,  Our Lady of the Heights.

.

A sanctuary, dedicated to Mary, had occupied the very top of the hill over Ronchamp since the Middle Ages.  Somewhat timeworn and badly in need of repair, it was finally destroyed by the bombardments of war in September, 1944.


The local Commission on Sacred Art called upon the well-known  architect and urbanist, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret-Gris, more commonly known by his pseudonym, Le Corbusier, to design a new chapel for the site. 


Le Corbusier was a leader of the modernist movement, with a life-long interest in creating  neighborhoods, public housing and better living conditions for all economic strata. One of his most famous is the Ville Radieuse (Radiant City) in Marseille which incorporates some of his often-used elements: 1) a structure lifted off the ground on pillers, 2) a façade of non-supporting walls so that the architect can create whatever forms he wants, 3) along with a free-form floor plan, 4) unencumbered views from the windows and 5) a roof garden to substitute for the green space taken up by the footprint of the building. City-planners all over the world took his ideas to heart in the post-war housing boom to create high-density spaces. Sadly, many of these became warehouses for the poor and were criticized for isolating their inhabitants and destroying communities. One notorious example is Cabrini Green in Chicago.


When invited to design a chapel for the hill above Ronchamp, Le Corbusier said "Je n'avais rien fait de religieux, mais quand je me suis trouvé devant ces quatre horizons, je n'ai pu hésiter." ("I had never made anything religious, but when I found myself before these four horizons, I could not hesitate."). Inspired by the location, and tapping his love for organic forms, this is the building that he created.

Abandoning the straight lines of former creations, Le Corbusier used the curved forms of the hills around the site. The roof carapace, or "coque" is made of concrete, poured and hardened in wooden plank forms that left the image of the boards visible on the under surface. Between the roof and walls is a space that lets light into the sanctuary - and makes the concrete roof seem to float above the building. This works because the  concrete roof is supported by pillars, not by the walls.

The view above is the approach to the chapel and will be much improved when the small visitors building & bookshop are removed. There are new facilities being built farther back behind the photographer and this small building will be torn down to give an unencumbered perspective. I hope that's the plan.  The new building, parking lot and landscaping, still under construction, were  designed by Renzo Piano, keeping to the theme of mid-20th century architecture. 


For my former students, and Paris tourists, Renzo Piano's most
well-known building would be the Centre Pompidou, below. 
The esclator which crawls up the front is called the "chenille en verre" (the glass caterpiller).

At right, Madonna inside the caterpiller in 2005.  


This very contemporary museum and cultural center was built to house a collection of 20th century art, including Picasso, Matisse, Leger, and Duchamp, among many others. 


A walk around the chapel of Notre Dame du Haut reveals many of the same elements used by medieval cathedral builders. There are two towers, one of which is this tall one.

Note the roof
drain which empties into a sort of occasional rain storm  fountain. 




No gargoyles, though.

What looks like a wall full of oddly shaped cut-outs... 

...is in fact a stained-glass homage to Notre Dame, Mary.

For the entry into the sanctuary, Le Corbusier designed the glazed doors and the door handle. 

On this door is one of his a favorite symbols, the open hand. 


This symbol was used elsewhere by the architect, most notably in Chandigahr, India, on a 28-meter tall monument.


Le Corbusier led a team of architects to completely design this brand-new city and capital for two Indian states, Punjab and Haryana.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chandigarh











Passing through the door into the sanctuary, the pilgrim sees the simple, elegant form of this holy water font.












Under the high point of the roof carapace, 

is the altar of the church.

Notice how the concrete roof seems to float lightly above the walls at the altar end of the church (above), but at the opposite corner (below), one feels the weight of it.

Perhaps that is why the confessionals are placed there, the roof being a symbol of the weight of one's conscience? 

Notice the industrial materials used for the confessionals and other elements of the interior.

The pulpit is, like the roof shell, concrete and also shows the imprint of the plank forms.

These elements are hard-edged and feel harsh in isolation. But, like the medieval cathredral builders, Le Corbusier used light and color to infuse the whole with softness and mystery.

Color glows from deep pockets cut into the thick stucco walls.

Diffuse light from the top of the tallest church tower...

See the tower photo above for the exterior view of this wall.

...lights the little chapel below, dedicated to 
Mary.










 

Facing the altar, from the fourth pew.

The building has the cool, sheltered feeling of interiors created in very hot climates. So it is no surprise to find out that Le Corbusier found some inspiration for it in the Mosque of Sidi Brahim in Algeria.

http://www.discoverislamicart.org/database_item.php?id=monument;ISL;dz;Mon01;29;fr


Take a walk around the hilltop outside the church, and you see the panorama of the surrounding hills.

The Carillon designed by Jean Prouvé.

  

An old grave marking stone with a simple, rather irregular cross graved onto the top.






























On the exterior of the altar wall in the church, is another, outdoor altar for celebrating open-air services.

A statue of Mary was rescued from the old ruined church and placed in the window above and a little left of the cross. The statue can be turned to face the interior congregation or toward the outside during an outdoor mass.


Worshippers sit on a large lawn or on a ziggurat made from the stones of the medieval church.

Next to the ziggurat is a memorial post with a dove on top. The old church was not the only victim of violence on this hill in World War II. 


The inscription reads "On this hill in 1944 French people died for peace". 
























In some ways, it may seem to us that Le Corbusier was an odd choice to design this chapel. He who admired industrial materials and elements in his structures, was inspired by the natural beauty of site to mimic the curved lines of the hilltops and natural forms. He who created housing blocks in urban areas and drew inspiration from the Citroën factory, was to design a pilgrimage church on a remote hilltop. And he who was a self-proclaimed atheist, from a Protesant Swiss family and who claimed roots in the heretical Cathar movement wiped out in 1208 by the Catholic church and French king, was asked by the traditional Roman Catholic hierarchy to create a spiritual space on ancient sacred ground.


But to visit his creation, is to realize that he was the right choice. He succeeded in creating an awe-inspiring space, just like those ancient cathedral builders of the Middle Ages.


If you wish to find out more about Notre Dame du Haut, and other architecturally interesting buildings of the world, I recommend this link for its fine photos and interesting descriptions:
     http://www.galinsky.com/buildings/ronchamp/
The article there does a fine job of describing the complexities of this seemingly simple chapel.


Dazzled by visits to the impressive Lion of Belfort, and now this wonderful chapel (all in one long morning!), it was time to turn our attention to a less high-brow visit - a lunch stop!  Preferably a long, lingering French-style lunch on a terrace. That proved harder than our hunger pangs would allow because hordes of people seemed to be out for a late Sunday lunch in all the little towns we encountered.  One was packed with cars & people because of a local festival. We began to despair and pulled into a rather non-descript pizza place with rowdy "youts" hanging out at the outdoor tables. 

Once inside, we looked over pizza menues and were ignored for quite a long time. Which made we two VERY hungry patrons VERY grumpy. Finally we ordered a pie topped with local cheese and Montbéliard sausage, plus salad.


It was a great meal. Simple and delicious, made with local ingredients. The typical French-style green salad (always made only with greens, dressed with vinaigrette) did look a bit different than usual so when the owner came over I asked him why the dressing looked creamier, more opaque than the usual. He smiled and said that it was their own home recipe. "Really" I responded. "How do you make it?" His answer still makes me laugh. He said "You start with a liter of Dijon mustard." 


So for those of you who want to make enough vinaigrette dressing for a very huge crowd, here's his recipe:
1 liter of mustard
1 glass of vinegar  (I know. There are many sizes of glasses.)
3 liters of olive oil
1 liter of water
And the secret to the creamy texture is - (trumpet sound) -  an immersion blender to mix it all. We know that because he brought out the equipment to show us. And now I know how to say "immersion blender" in French - "mixeur à soupe".


Well-fed and happy, we set off to find the shortest, fastest route to our next stop - a beautiful village in the Vosges Mountains of Alsace. 

Thannenkirch, Alsace

Here at last our trail would meet up with the trail of the 409th Infantry.


P.S.  I am finding that when I click the button that converts my draft copy to a preview of the final version that you folks see, odd things happen to the spacing. It is not my decision to randomly insert vast spaces between paragraphs. Nor to move small pieces of sentences away from rest and dangle them in an odd manner. But I will now give up on trying to outwit "Blogger" and just publish