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The 290th Infantry Regiment Combat Diary was a publication of the 290th Infantry Regiment Written and edited by Tech 4 Cecil J. Bond and prepared under the direction of 1st Lt. Victor G. Katen
290th Infantry Combat Diary
Prologue to battle |
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An undercurrent of expectancy surged through the 290th Infantry in the early part of October 1944 when the breath of soft ocean breezes was wafted across the brown earth of Kentucky on wings of rumor. Throughout Camp Breckinridge rumor was rampant that the division would soon shake the dust of Kentucky from its youthful heels and head across the sea to an active theatre of operations. But veteran cadre men, recalling innumerable time-consuming "dry-runs" by their former organizations prior to overseas shipment, promptly inaugurated a campaign of rumor debunking seldom equaled or more willingly accepted by an army that has long nurtured rumor as an important source of information. Despite attempts to discount prevailing trends, rumor gained substance when it became known that a regimental crating detail was at work preparing water tight containers for material and records most likely to suffer in the event of a juncture between troop transport and torpedo. Rumor gave way to fact when, on 13 October, the second alert was given the regiment and on 14 October, as the troops marched aboard trains waiting to move them to a point of embarkation, even the most skeptical individual would have been inclined to agree that the 290th Infantry, commanded by Col Carl F Duffner, was making the initial move of a distinctly "wet run." Camp Shanks was a brief four day pause that featured numerous checks of clothing and equipment, considerable orientation and a chance to say farewell to New York for what might prove to be a long time. An alert was followed by a forty mile rail trip to Weehawken, New Jersey, then aboard a broad beamed Weehawken Ferry that had once carried many of the 290th men across Long Island Sound to civilian jobs in the city. As the boat drew away from the dock the skyline of Manhattan stood in silent salute against the blue-black sky and there were few men who did not strain for a last glimpse of a dark, towering Miss Liberty as the ferry passed beneath her and moved on toward the docks of Staten Island. The USAT Brazil, flagship of a large, escorted convoy sailed from New York harbor the 22nd of October on what was to be a journey without incident. Five thousand troops were packed aboard the twenty thousand ton vessel and with the exception of an occasional stomach that proved incapable of adopting itself to seafaring, the voyagers suffered nothing more serious than the customary inconveniences of overcrowding. Ten days later the Brazil slipped into the harbor of Swansea, Wales and on the 3rd of November troops debarked and moved by train and motor convoy to billets in and around the resort town of Porthcawl, Wales. Training and final preparations for combat kept men of the 290th occupied during the day but the evening hours were spent in accordance with the dictates of the individuals conscience. Dates with Welsh girls, dances arranged by Special Services and pleasant evenings of conversation over glasses of ale or stout seemed the more popular forms of relaxation. Restaurant dining proved interesting in that the menu occasionally featured tasty English delicacies and invariably offered the standard wartime fare of "Spam and chips." The five weeks at Porthcawl and adjacent towns were pleasant ones with military activities at a minimum and passes to nearby towns plentiful. But Wales was only an interlude before moving on to the job for which the 290th Infantry had been sent overseas and on the 9th of December the regiment departed by rail and motor for Southampton, England. Those who traveled by rail crossed the English Channel on the liner "Monrovia" and the channel boat "Invicta," the latter an English craft remembered most vividly by her passengers for the unique fare served under the guise of food during the two-day voyage. On the 14th of December the channel crossing was completed and troops debarked onto the rubble-strewn beach of Le Havre, France, the shattered ruins of a once great port giving most men their initial contact with the devastation wrought by warfare. A motor convoy took the men to a sparsely settled portion of the Normandy Plain near the village of Yvetot where shelter tents were pitched in fluid darkness and intimate contact established with the mud of France. Troops making the trip to Southampton by motor convoy arrived in that city on the 11th of December and sailed for France on three LST's later that in that day. Arriving in Rouen on the 13th of December, the convoy debarked and proceeded to an assembly area near the town of Yvetot and adjacent to that occupied by other troops of the regiment, there joining fellow soldiers in the swirling mire of the Normandy Plain. The 290th Infantry left the assembly area on the 19th of December, traveling for two days in bitter weather across northern France and a part of Belgium by motor convoy and box car, utilizing the same 40-and-8 cars that had been the scourge of doughboys in World War I. Troops arrived in Hasselt, Belgium, on the 20th of December and immediately set about the task of establishing a Command Post. Though the advance unit was some twenty miles from front line warfare, the site of the CP proved to be directly beneath the aerial path followed by buzz bombs venting their destructive force upon the port of Antwerp. The eerie path traced by the jet propelled monsters across a fog-laden sky gave many an otherwise brave man a peculiar feeling of helplessness. Every quarter hour a flying bomb lumbered across the sky, identified by a sound not unlike that of a heavily-laden truck laboring up a steep incline and when an occasional robot seemed to be nearing the end of its fuel supply, soldiers hearts skipped a beat in tune with the laboring engine until the lethal sky rider had passed on. The German counter offensive in Belgium brought an abrupt change of mission and sector in which the 290th Infantry was to enter the fray. With von Rundstedt threatening a full-scale breakthrough and the entire strategy of the western front endangered, the 290th Infantry streamed out of Hasselt by motor convoy shortly after midnight of the 22nd and raced for the ruptured lines of the First United States Army. The final chapter of the prologue to battle became a part of the record on the 23rd December when the 1st Battalion was attached to the 3rd Armored Division. On the following day, 2nd and 3rd Battalions, 898th Field Artillery, Company B 629th TD Battalion, Company B 750th Tank Battalion and Company B 275th Engineer Battalion, units comprising the 290th Regimental Combat Team, moved forward to establish a defensive area in the vicinity of Biron, Belgium. This order had scarcely been accomplished when it was followed by a second one directing units of the 3rd Battalion to occupy the town of Hotton, and hold it at all costs. The prologue to battle had ended---days of combat were at hand. |
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