Claude Cruise

- Cruise arrived as a replacement soldier in September 1944 from the 23 Recon of the 16th AD

- Cruise was able to provide information on the Battle of Aachen, specifically the events of December 17, 1944: He noted that the action occurred south of the City of Aachen and that the 30 CRT moved in-force during that period, all three platoons together; noted that they "bedded down in the high school" and remembers that a Messerschmitt ME-109 circled overhead and took recon photos of the American positions in Aachen; later, they were strafed by accompanying ME-109s; after Aachen the 30 CRT went to Malmedy.

- Cruise remembers that the weather was terrible until Christmas Day, when the American bombers and cargo planes flew over head, and the US soldiers cheered them on

- Cruise recalls the US Army Air Force bombed for three days until Aachen was leveled

- Cruise remembers loosing his finger nail during the Aachen battle

- He remembers that the Germans were finally pushed back in late-January 1945

- Soon after they crossed the Rhine River

- Cruise remembers that the 30 CRT was often the first of the 30ID or US forces to enter a town and, thus, had first choice at looting…"we had the first choice of lute."

- Cruise was good friends with Bob Klingensmith, another replacement

- Cruise offered a story from his time in Aachen: He took a radio from a German coffee shop and went to install it in a shelter they’d established in a bombed-out building when a German 88 millimeter artillery piece began firing on their position. The firing was so intense that it not only blew out the walls of the building, but also the supports and the building came crashing down on top of them with them in the first floor and basement of the edifice.

- Cruise remembers fighting against the SS, and that they were relentless fighters and would not ever give up

- Remembers a time when he was leading against remnants of the Siegfried Line smoking a cigarette. A round from a German sniper hit the concrete bunker just inches above his head. Cruise lost his helmet and dove out of the way before any other fired round could hit him.