center of combat operations. Emron spent Christmas of 1944 at Bastogne, with a Christmas dinner of K rations. When the weather cleared, he witnessed a huge German column of armor and infantry, intent on destroying the defenders of Bastogne, attacked by allied war planes and totally obliterated, with no sign of life remaining after the bevy of air strikes. Through his skill as a combat infantryman and a full measure of luck, Emron survived both the Hurtgen and the Bulge to participate in the advance through the German heartland and witnessed the surrender of the Third Reich that ended the war. He was separated from service in April of 1946. Emron returned to school, earned his PhD in Zoology and served for some 28 years on the faculty and as chair of the Zoology Department at Weber State University. Melvin A. Jensen Melvin served in the Army from September 1, 1942, to January 28, 1946, and had the rank of sergeant. He received the American Theatre of Operation Service Ribbon, Asiatic Theatre Service Ribbon, Good Conduct Medal, Argoo-68 Victory Medal, and Meritorious Unit Award. He served in the 973 Ordnance Ammunitions Reconnaissance Company as an aerial torpedo mechanic. Bill Johns was inducted into the Army in 1942 and served in the Asia/Pacific Theater of Operations. He rose to the rank of master sergeant and was recognized with an Asia/Pacific Philippines Liberation medal, two unit citations, Three Beachhead Stars (signifying participation in three invasion beach landings), a Victory medal and a Good Conduct Medal. He was separated from the service in 1946 and attended Weber on the GI bill in 1946 and 1947. I was inducted into the Army of the United States on 8 September 1943. I went on active duty 29 September 1943, at Fort Douglas, Utah. While at Fort Douglas, I volunteered for the parachute infantry. This was strictly a volunteer organization. We were issued clothing, attended seminars and lectures on personal hygiene, etc., very enlightening! Out of a company of perhaps 200 men, ten of us volunteered for the Paratroops. We were shipped out to Fort Benning, Georgia, for basic training. We completed eight weeks of basic training, and then proceeded to go through parachute training. This was done in four stages: A-stage was physical hardening; B-stage was tumbling, hand-to-hand combat training, parachute packing, and parachute manipulation; C-stage was on 1,250 foot tower training, controlled descents, etc.; D-stage was jumping from an airplane. We had to pack our own chutes for the first five jumps. Jumping from an airplane was thrilling. On 8 January 1944, we completed our training and received our wings and a certificate as being a qualified parachutist. In April 1944, I went home on furlough. When I returned, I found out one third of my regiment had shipped out to other organizations as replacements. Shortly after, another one-third shipped out and I was with this group. We went to Fort Meade, Maryland, got new equipment, 100 and then on 14 May 1944, we left the Port of Embarkation at Newport News, Virginia, for Europe. We arrived in Naples, Italy, on 31 May 1944. It was in Naples that I experienced my first look at the cruel realities of war. After going through the chow line, we would clear our mess kits by scraping the leftovers into a 20 gallon Gl garbage can. As we would scrape our mess kits into those cans, there would be old ladies, wives, and children; with cans, cups or whatever they had, scooping out our leftovers. These people were starving, and it was distressful watching them scramble for something to eat. After Naples, we boarded a troop train for Sicily. This was quite an experience. The troop train was made up of boxcars, referred to as '40 and 8's', which meant forty men or eight horses. I think the horses had an advantage; however, we didn't have to ride with horses. We camped in Sicily for about a month undergoing additional infantry training and jumps. We were supposed to have made a coordinated night parachute jump with the French Forces, but the French did not show up because it was too windy. However, WE DID make the jump, ending up with lots of bruises and scrapes. Next, we shipped to a camp near Rome. It was the Pope's Summer Palace, "Lido de Roma". It was nice. All this time we were only replacement troops. We had not yet been assigned to an organized unit. A short time later some of us in this replacement company were assigned to a regular organization, which was the 551st Parachute Infantry Battalion. We later found out that this battalion was preparing for an assault in Southern France. On 15 August 1944, we boarded C-47 aircraft, left Italy, and at 1800 hours (six p.m.) we made a parachute drop behind enemy lines in southern France, near the small city of Le Muy. This was the first broad daylight jump of Battalion size, right in the enemy's backyard. It was very successful. We liberated several cities in Southern France, two of them being Cannes and Nice on the French Riviera. We liberated southern France by defeating the German troops and spent time patrolling and guarding the border in the French Maritime Alps. In November 1944, hostilities ceased in southern France. We were relieved by a Japanese-American Regimental Combat Team, and we went on some R & R to the city of Nice on the Riviera. We then proceeded up the Rhone River Valley to Laon, France, where we reorganized. At that time hostilities were in limbo, and we had visions of going into Paris. However, this vision was short lived. On 16 December 1944, the Germans initiated an offensive which would become known as the Battle of the Bulge. We were loaded on trucks and sent up to the front lines. We were in action again. We were the 551st parachute Battalion, a separate battalion, but attached to the 82nd Airborne Division. The weather was terrible, cold and wet. We were later told that it was an exceptionally bad winter with record snows and cold. A lot of the men suffered frostbite and frozen feet. I don't know how we survived, but we did. Sometimes our Quartermaster organization managed to get us sleeping bags, and we would double up for warmth. Other times we managed to find a farm house that had a barn. It was nice sleeping in the hayloftsto us like having a room at the Hilton! Other times pine boughs served as a bed. After the enemy had been stopped, our battalion was given the assignment of initiating the counter offensive. We faced a numerically superior force. We lost our forward artillery observers and were unable to get artillery support. As a result, our battalion lost over four-fifths of its men. Out of a total of 793 men, our battalion ended up with 96 men and 14 officers. In spite of our great loss of men, we were able to accomplish our mission and were awarded the Presidential Unit Citation for extraordinary heroism against an armed enemy. I, along with others, was awarded the Bronze Star. After the Battle of the Bulge, our organization, having suffered such heavy casualties, was disbanded and the remaining men were assimilated into the various regiments of the 82nd Airborne Division. I ended up in the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment. After the 'Bulge', we pushed on into Germany and ended up on the Elbe River, where we met up with the Russians. While on the Elbe River, we visited the Wobbelin German Concentration Camp we had liberated. It was horrible seeing the dead bodies stacked up all around. It was while I was here, on 8 May 1945 that the war in Europe ended. It seems strange, but I didn't witness the jubilation that was exhibited in the U.S.A. In August 1945, our division, the 82nd Airborne, as the result of requests from both the British and the Russian divisions, was selected as America's Guard of Honor for the Army of Occupation in Berlin. 'This was an honor of the highest order, and an operation that fittingly capped a two-year battle history, during which time the 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment chased the German legions some 14,000 miles through eleven countries.' Berlin was divided into four sections: American, British, French, and Russian. I found the German people nice and friendly to us. There was not any visible hostility or resentment to the American forces. They seemed to like us, especially the 'Frauleins'. 101