From Thanksgiving and the first half of December, Phil commanded platoons of Class II enlisted men—all former Class III patients—in exercises and drills meant to increase their mental and physical conditioning, as well as his own. Once they were determined to be Class I, they would be sent  to a replacement depot for assignment to frontline units.[1]

Staying at the convalescent camp near Aix-en-Provence gave Phil more access to information about what was happening on the front line.

He learned that after he left the 30th Infantry, the Third Army crossed the Meurthe River, and by the end of November, they were the first troops to reach the Rhine.

After more than two years of pushing the Krauts out of French Morocco, Tunisia, Sicily, up the Italian boot, out of Rome, and through southern France, the 30th Infantry finally and triumphantly crossed into territory regarded by Germany as part of the Reich—Alsace, an area in eastern France  on the German border.

The German Army’s hopes of holding in the Vosges Mountains were now completely smashed.[2]

General Truscott had this to say about the U.S. Army’s superiority in the Vosges:

With all of the support made possible by mechanization both in the air and on the ground, it wasthe Infantryman who bore the brunt …

It was the Infantryman who scaled the heights and stormed the German positions.

The whole campaign depended uponthe physical and mental condition, the state of training,and the morale of the individual soldier, and, particularly, of the individual Infantryman.[3]

Phil could not have been more proud of his men …. and, truth be told, of his 19-year-old self.

~~~~~ 

[1] Larimore, At First Light, 172.

[2] Ibid, 173.

[3] Truscott, 555

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