A letter from my father
Sgt. Manuel Delgado
1st Platoon, Company F, 376th Infantry
9/4 Division , 3rd Army
Dear Paul,
I know you have often asked but I have not shared my WW II combat experience with you until now.
War is a cruel and tragic failure of mankind and I hope and pray that you will never have to see or experience it. I am proud to have served with distinction and to leave our family a legacy of faithful service to country. But the loss of friends and brothers in arms, and the horror of war is hard to adequately put into words. It is up to you and your generation and the next to find solutions through peaceful means rather than through armed conflict.
Now that you are older and have your own children, I will share this story with you.
December 1st, 1944, Saar-Moselle valley, France
It was a bitterly cold winter morning when we launched an assault on a heavily fortified German emplacement on the wooded hillsides overlooking the Moselle river.
A few months before, we had landed on Utah beach with the 3rd Army and since then had engaged the enemy in fierce battles in St. Nazaire, Metz and Nancy.
We were now fighting house to house making our way to the German border. The devastation of war is impossible to describe. We moved through towns and cities that had been flattened by airstrikes and artillery. We were a rifle platoon and the street fighting was brutal.
The month before we landed in France, I had just turned twenty and celebrated my birthday with some of my friends at a pub in Tewkesbury, England where our division was staging. We had a great time that night. My friends Emmanuel Wiesner, Jimmy Graham, and Mike D’Augelli and few other guys from my squad were at the pub. Even Lt. Wilson, our platoon leader stopped by for a few beers. We had all become close since basic training at Ft. Benning.
We were a rifle platoon and we had a lot of swagger back then. I was a Sergeant and a squad leader. There were ten men in my team and there were none braver nor better.
I remember on Sunday, after the big night at the pub, talking with my best friend Emmanuel Wiesner. He was from NYC and had showed me around Manhattan before our division deployed overseas. He was a great guy and we had bonded as friends since basic.
What an unlikely pair…. I was a Catholic kid from LA and he was a Jewish kid from NYC….He was a Yankees fan and even though I was an LA guy, I liked the Brooklyn Dodgers. Who would have thought the Dodgers would move to LA in 1959!
I told him about my family and that in a few months my sister Carolina, would be taking her vows as a Carmelite in December and how much I missed being home with all the family.
Sitting at a café at an outdoor table on 5th avenue, we both had a beer and hoped the fighting would be over soon. Emmanuel said he would come out to LA and visit after the war. We talked about the future and of course the gals that we’d like to see when we got back!. I had met your mom, Helen, at a dance just before we were shipped out and really wanted to see her again.
Emmanuel wanted to go back to college and become a doctor and told me about Shelley. She was a nurse and worked at a hospital in Brooklyn. I wanted to be an engineer and we shook hands on the future.
Months later, on that icy morning readying for battle, I realized it was December 1st and my sister would be taking her vows. I quietly asked her to watch over me.
At 0400 hours we launched our assault. It was icy and windy with snow flurries. My squad was ordered to attack a wooded area on the flank of our company’s intended objective. The line of camouflaged concrete bunkers overlooking the river was an ominous sight.
My orders were to capture prisoners if possible as they would have valuable intel regarding the fortifications.
We moved as quietly as we could on the icy ground which cracked under our boots. Loaded with ammo and grenades, we threaded our way through the pine forest. I grasped my M-1 carbine so tightly, I thought I would break it.
As we made our way forward, the weather had cleared a bit, but the temperature felt colder if that was even possible.
As we broke out of the woods into a small clearing we stumbled upon a concrete bunker in the distance. It was embedded in a rocky outcropping about 100 yards ahead and was eerily illuminated under the moonlight. There was smoke coming out of a small metal stack. It looked quiet. We circled around and two of my men Graham and D’Augelli tossed in smoke grenades. I thought about using HE but wanted to take prisoners.
As the smoke filled the bunker, German soldiers ran out firing and after a brief gun battle, we took three men prisoners. They were young guys just like us but also battle hardened and equally frightened.
After the smoke cleared, we descended down some steel steps into the bunker…it was warm inside…There was a small wood fired heater and there was some food and even a bottle of wine on a table….Heaven…We put the Germans in the corner and I had Wiesner keep a rifle on them.
I radioed in our situation to my Platoon Leader Lt. Wilson. He said he was nearby and to stand by as the Company was under counterattack.
At that moment, the bunker shook under German tank and machine gun fire which pummeled the concrete.
“We gotta get outta here”…I yelled.
I immediately let the German prisoners go as we couldn’t take them with us…but they were cut down by incoming rounds as they ran out…Graham found a small iron door at the base of the concrete pill box and we jumped out.
I looked back and the German counterattack was in full force as we raced down the snowy embankment toward the river. German tanks were firing at will and the trees exploded above and all around us.
I looked at my watch, it was 0730 hours. I radioed Lt. Wilson on the walkie talkie and told him we were under heavy fire and needed artillery support. I heard him say “Roger that…Get out of there Manuel”
As I ran with my men through the forest, I felt a searing pain in my side as shrapnel from an enemy shell tore into me. I urged my men on, but my legs became heavy and I felt myself falling and sliding down the steep slope toward the river.
As I fell and slid, enemy shells and machine gun fire continued to rain down as I plunged into the icy water.
Weighted down by my webbing and ammo, I sank and was drowning…. I looked up with terror and saw the grey dawn light above the surface of the water.
I tried to reach for the surface but started to sink further and at that moment, I knew it was over.
Suddenly, a hand grabbed my webbing and pulled me onto the snowy bank. The sounds of battle became muffled and the smoke filled morning light was steel grey…I sat there stunned…completely alone…no one was near me…
“Who pulled me out?”
There was no one there.
All of a sudden, a couple of guys from another squad ran over and helped me up…”You ok Sergeant? “
As I was being helped to my feet, American artillery had zeroed in on the Germans and you have never seen anything like it.
We hunkered down on the riverbank and when the shelling lifted, the guys from 2nd squad helped me hobble back to our lines.
Later, as I was lying on a cot in the medical tent, I asked about my squad…
Captain Whitman, my company commander came to see me later that afternoon and said…”I’m sorry Sergeant….Wiesner and Graham were killed. “
“I know you were friends…I’m sorry.”
“Why me?”…I thought
“Why am I alive and my friends are dead?”
The tragedy and futility of war will never be understood.
I have tried to take that memory to a quieter place over the last sixty years, but I still see the faces of my friends who died on that hill that morning.
Back home and many years later, I remember visiting my sister Carolina at the Carmelite convent in Los Angeles. It was Sunday and visiting day and I recounted this story to her and she said…”Manuel…When I was lying in front of the altar on December 1st taking my vows, I said “Dear Lord I am willing to dedicate my life to You..…but please bring my brother home….and that morning on the bank of the Moselle river, the Hand of God saved you.”
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