Once our outfit left the Normandy beaches, we travelled across Europe spearheading. We liberated town after town as we went along. We even liberated Paris. When we got to Nancy, located about 240 miles east of Paris, it was early fall – 80 years ago, I cannot believe it. We were told we were going to be there for a while because our supplies were so short.
In Nancy, there was a big rail yard where supplies could be delivered and we would be able to stock up. We were sleeping in pup tents until we were able to build shelter to get off the ground. It was very rank – it was rainy season. We were getting trench foot and all of that. We scouted around for material and we were able to make a short low shelter that we could crawl into. We could get our sleeping bags in it that was it, so we slept right next to our guns.
There were a lot of bombs trying to bomb the rail yard and that kept us busy. The Germans had a big railroad gun that would come out in the darkness of night to try and bomb the tracks. We were lying on the ground and we could see this big flash, then we’d here the boom, and then we’d see the missile passing over our heads and landing not far from us. It happened five nights in a row and finally that gun was shot out.
It was there that I celebrated my 21st birthday – it was Christmas. There was a theater in this town and I went to a movie one afternoon and I heard a fellow yell YEAT (like you hear in Newburyport). I found the guy who yelled it and he turned out to be Leo Murray, a classmate of mine from Newburyport High. He was a combat engineer and we had a little reunion there. We both made it home safely and he came home to work at the post office, I would see him from time to time.
It was Christmas, 1944, and anyone who follows World War II knows this is when the Battle of the Bulge occurred. They caught us shorthanded when they blitzed into the area, so the Allies had to take men from all of the outfits to send there. We were all worried we were going to get picked, I know I was, thank God I didn’t get picked to go.
When we finally did get moved out as a unit it was to Metz, France. When we stopped we were by this fort in Metz along the Rhine River and it was really cold – we were back to sleeping on the ground. I remember two or three nights when we slept in squat tents so our gun crew could sleep on canvas cots – it was still FREEZING! I finally took my sleeping bag and went out to sleep in my trench where it was warmer. Those trenches saved us in more ways than one.
As we moved on, we moved to the Rhine River. Well I was about to face my 2nd big fear. My first big fear was in England, crossing the English Channel during the invasion. Now we have to cross the Rhine. We thought it was going to be another bloodbath. As it turned out, the Germans were getting weaker and weaker because the Russians got into the war. Facing us and the Russians was a big deal.
As we headed up the Rhine, we got the message to hurry up and move. We had captured the Remagen Bridge and over five days thousands of troops crossed that bridge before it collapsed. By then we had moved down the Rhine to build another crossing. One night around 9 p.m., I can remember there were so many guns going off to protect that infantry crossing the river that the ground was shaking. Soon after it was all quiet, the infantry made it and took two or more days to build a pontoon bridge across the river. It was so wide and so swift; it took all that time to get a bridge across.
Easter 1945 in Germany, we got word that there was going to be a church truck at 7 a.m. and those who wanted a ride could get on it. I was one of about six guys who got on the truck to go to Church. We had our rifles across our shoulders and steel helmets on when we arrived at the church. The church was so full of people, people were standing around outside. I heard someone holler “MAKE WAY FOR THE AMERICANS” and the crowd parted to let us in the church. There was not a sound made. There were German citizens everywhere. They were looking at us and women were crying. It was such a strange feeling. I never got a chance to go back and visit that church.
We went on from there and survived the war, but Nancy, France really stands out in my mind. Particularly right now 80 years later.
On Dec. 21, I will be celebrating my 101st birthday and will be staying home for the holidays. I hope everyone has the happiest holidays and a healthy 2025.
Robert “Boots’ Chouinard lives in Salisbury.