I was in the 4th platoon (light weapons...mortars and machine guns). The night before the attack Capt. Warne Parker gave us orders to attack and which platoons would lead the attack...I remember this clearly because the 3rd platoon would attack on one side and the 2nd on the other.  We had been severely worn down by the fighting  in Kohlscheid and Wurselen and the 3rd platoon leader (Lt. Hall) protested, "But I have only 6 men."  Lt. Harold Holycross platoon leader of the 2nd said, "I only have five".  Normally each platoon would have had 41 men each. Our Battalion Exec Officer was Major Nathaniel Laney and the Battalion CO was Major Hal D. Mc Cown. 

 

We attacked at shortly after dawn on the 24th, which turned out to be a clear, sunny day....your might say, even 'warm'. We attacked down a sunken, tree lined road on the northern side of La Gleize without opposition. 

 

My shoes had holes in them and my feet were wet so I climbed up on an American half track which the Germans had captured to see if I could find shoes.  I was down on my hands and knees throwing unless pieces of clothing and equipment over the side and somebody banged on the side of the half track.  I looked over the edge and it was Pfc Nick Caroccia the runner for the 2nd platoon and one of my best friends.  The conversation went something like this:  "Oh, it's you Mc Kay.  What the hell are you doing?"  I said, "Looking for shoes."  He said  "Jesus Christ.  We do all the fighting and you weapons platoon guys do all the looting."

 

A personal note.  My parents were Scottish immigrants and we only drank tea, never coffee.  My "gunner" was of Finnish parentage and although Finns are famous for drinking coffee he did not drink coffee either. We  huddled in about 2 feet of snow, not sleeping, the night of 23/24 December and when it was barely light we were desperate for something warm so we melted snow in a canteen cup, lighting matches to melt the snow and mixed in powdered coffee into the barely warm water.  I took a taste and spit it out in disgust and he did the same.  That's the last time I tasted coffee...nearly 66 years ago. 

 

Incidentally, my gunner, Alfred Berlan, was an interesting guy. A police officer from Auburn, Washington before the service he was killed on 25 February near Julich, Germany on 25 February 1945.  I was sitting back- to- back with him and I piece of shrapnel whizzed by me  and struck him in the head and instantly killed him. He was an interesting, extremely quiet guy and I liked him very much. While we were in Kohlscheid in early December he was called to company headquarters one morning.  He came back and was very, very quiet all day.  That night in a bed we were sharing I said to him, "What's wrong?" He answered, "My father died."  When he was killed it was customary for ones best friend to search him for items you didn't want his parents, wife or girlfriend to see...e.g. condoms, pictures of naked girls or the like.  He had several hundred dollars in his wallet and I pondered taking the money but decided against it.  In 1947 he was reburied in Detroit, Michigan and his mother asked me to come so I "thumbed" a ride to Detroit.  Alfred's brother brought out the box that was send containing his personal effects.  I asked him if any money had been in the box. He said "no."  Some son-of--bitch from Graves Registration robbed him. To this day if somebody were to ask me what was the most despicable thing I ever saw I  would say, "somebody who robbed a dead man." 

 

Sorry I've been so verbose, Mike.  You hit me on a bad day as you can see.  I will send the photo of Mc Cown and Peiper in a day or so.  Incidentally the photo of Mc Cown shows him in a Division which fought in Korea (see the shoulder patch on his left arm it isn't a 30th Division patch).  He served in Korea as the youngest Regimental Commander in Korea).  He told me this and I could see he was proud of that..

Elmer Mc Kay  17 March 2010.

I have just reread the e mail I had sent to the Dutch military historian and noted some of the editorial errors...where is Charlie Coleman when you need him?  My shoes were in rough shape.  I didn't find any shoes that day but a few days later one of the guys found a dead American who had on a new pair of boots.  They took off his shoes and one of the "liberators" shouted, "Who wears 9 1/2 D?"  Fortunately I did and for the rest of the Bulge my feet were dry.  The only downside were the guys who kept asking me "Do those dead man's shoes still fit you Mc Kay?"

 

As to flashbacks.  I had them rarely.  I did, however, develop a bad case of shell shock after I found my friend.  I started to lead my platoon across open ground..  A German machine gun was shooting over the open field and I stopped dead-in-tracks in the middle of the field in confusion....I really didn't know or remember where I was.  Fortunately the German stopped shooting.  He must have thought, "That American bastard  must be crazy. He's making this too easy." One of my men ran out and took me by the hand and led me to safety.

 

As an addenda to this story is that somebody took me to  barn where we found Nick Caroccia guarding the worse case of shell shock I ever saw.  Nick looked at me and said something like, "Here, You guard him.  I have to get back to the platoon."   Now, as an aside, my hometown is Erie, Pennsylvania and in 1947 while visiting Nick at his home in NYC Nick said, "I have something to show you."  He went in a bedroom and brought out a small diary he had taken off the shell shocked soldier and read the first page:  "Property of (and a name I've forgotten) Erie, Pennsylvania. I looked for him when I got back home but never did find him.

 

"Bartiebee" (the source for this e mail) is Dr. Charles Bates my boss when I was an oceanographer in Washington, D.C. and is one  the brightest men I ever met.