[Annotator's Note: Conversation between some people off-camera can be heard throughout this clip.] Jack Davis volunteered for service. [Annotator's Note: A man comes in and tells Davis he killed two pheasants and left him one.] Davis was 16 when the war broke out in Europe in 1939. He had one brother and two sisters. His father was a machinist at Ingersoll Rand [Annotator's Note: Ingersoll Rand, Incorporated]. They were okay during the Depression [Annotator's Note: The Great Depression, a global economic depression that lasted from 1929 through 1945] because they lived in the country with gardens and chickens. Davis fished a lot. His parents were up on everything and followed the war. They had voted for Hoover [Annotator's Note: Herbert Clark Hoover, 31st President of the United States] but became Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] supporters. His parents were not isolationist as they had an English and Irish background. With the English holding Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] off, they felt the country should help. Roosevelt was smart. The 10th Infantry [Annotator's Note: 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] went to Iceland before the war. Draftees were taken out because it was illegal to send them overseas if the country was not at war. Only the Regular Army volunteers went to Iceland in September 1941. They stayed until August 1942. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Davis if the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941 changed feelings.] Everybody was determined to help. The Axis of Germany and Italy declared war before the country [Annotator's Note: the United States] did. Roosevelt took it to the Congress and only two people voted against it. Davis wanted the Army. He had friends in the Marines, but he said they were nuts. Just before he entered the Army, he heard from one of them who was on Guadalcanal [Annotator's Note: Guadalcanal, Solomon Islands]. One guy came back without a scratch. The other one was killed on Saipan [Annotator's Note: Battle of Saipan, 15 June to 9 July 1944; Saipan, Mariana Islands]. Davis wanted to be where you could smell the smoke. He was interviewed by Colonel Breckinridge [Annotator's Note: US Army Colonel William Mattingly Breckinridge] as a replacement for the 10th Infantry. He volunteered. He has no regrets. The regiment was 75 percent of people from Kentucky, 25 percent West Virginia, with a few from southern Ohio. It was a hillbilly outfit. In later years, he told Breckenridge that he got him shot. Breckenridge told him he was lucky to be alive.

Jack Davis went to his military training at Camp Pickett [Annotator's Note: now Fort Pickett, near Blackstone, Virginia] and Fort Benjamin Harrison [Annotator's Note: in Lawrence Township, Indiana]. He got adjusted to it because he wanted to do it. He knew the country was up against tough opposition with the machine Hitler [Annotator's Note: German dictator Adolf Hitler] had built and with what Pearl Harbor [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941] proved about the Japanese. They were going to divide the country up and there would be no freedom at all. He was with a good outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division]. They got orders in the spring of 1943. They went to England and then Northern Ireland. The 5th Division was essentially a Southern outfit in a segregated Army. There were not as many Blacks [Annotator's Note: African-American soldiers] in Northern Ireland so they were sent there. They had tough training there. They walked 50 miles in the mountains once and then went into a fake battle. They trained at river crossings. The 5th Division crossed more rivers than any division in the history of warfare for a total of 23. He was scared to death every time. They crossed the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River, Germany] in the middle of the night. The 5th Division relieved the 1st Division [Annotator's Note: 1st Infantry Division] in France in July [Annotator's Note: July 1944]. They went on Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France] and went to Caen [Annotator's Note: Caen, France]. The 10th Regiment relieved the 18th Regiment [Annotator's Note: 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division] which was Ernie Leh's regiment [Annotator's Note: Ernest P. Leh served as a rifleman, and later as a communications sergeant, in Comapny E, 2nd Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 1st Infantry Division]. They were ordered into attack and moved to the south. Three divisions were picked to break out of the hedgerows - the 30th [Annotator's Note: 30th Infantry Division], the 5th [Annotator's Note: 5th Infantry Division] and the 2nd [Annotator's Note: the 2nd Infantry Division] - and to open the road between Caen and Saint Lo [Annotator's Note: Saint-Lô, France]. Hill 183 was there, and it was a bloody battle against the 3rd [Annotator's Note: German 3rd Fallschirmjäger Division or 3rd Parachute Division] and 5th [Annotator's Note: German 5th Fallschirmjäger Division or 5th Parachute Division] German paratroop divisions. The British attacked at the same time. The British told them, "Good show Blokes."

Jack Davis' first combat was "scary as hell". He would be walking along the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] and somebody in front of him would disappear. As soon as a guy would go up over the hedgerow, he would get shot in the head. If you made it, you were considered damn lucky. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] came and the 3rd Army was made operational. It had only been the 1st Army under Bradley [Annotator's Note: US Army General Omar Nelson Bradley] before that. When it was over, the 5th Division [Annotator's Note: 5th Infantry Division] was attached to Patton's Army on 1 August [Annotator's Note: 1 August 1944]. Davis had a friend in the 3rd Battalion [Annotator's Note: 3rd Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] who had a canteen full of Calvados [Annotator's Note: apple or pear brandy from Normandy, France]. He came over to see if Davis was still alive. They drank the Calvados. His friend wandered off to return to the 3rd Battalion. Davis got sick and puked all over his field jacket. He never dug a foxhole. The next day some guy said they had some bombing that night. Davis never heard it. He never did that again. You cannot get drunk on the front lines. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Davis what it was that was so frightening about the hedgerows.] The most frightening part is before it starts. It is a mystery. Once it starts, fear kind of leaves and you just do your job. The unknown scares the hell out of you and that is why river crossings were the worst. They were in shape though and being in shape could save your life. He formed friendships that he missed when he got back home. He could not relate with anyone else, even his family, so he just shut up and did not talk about it for years. What opened it up was the Battle of the Bulge chapter [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge Association, Incorporated; a national organization for veterans of the Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945, and their lineal descendants]. The dreams stopped. Davis was lucky enough to be in an old outfit that had trained together since 1939. They had officers and leadership that came from the Kentucky region because they understood the hillbilly kids. Davis was a hick himself and was just like them. It was not patriotism after a while. You would do your job because you did not want to look like a fool in front of your friends. You wanted to save them, and they wanted to save you too.

In Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France], a friend of Jack Davis' [Annotator's Note: in Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] got riddled [Annotator's Note: by enemy fire]. Davis was doing aid work and could not do anything for him. It makes you cry. Davis got to the point where he could stay focused. You had to. He lost the best lieutenant he ever had in the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], Lieutenant Hawthorne [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. That hurt him as much as anything. They went from the hedgerows [Annotator's Note: man-made earthen walls that surround a field that are often overgrown with impenetrable vegetation] to Avranches [Annotator's Note: Avranches, France] to Angers [Annotator's Note: Angers, France]. They were told to kill them and keep going. Every place they went, they were met by people with wine and flowers as they were the first liberators. Angers was a good-sized city of about 80,000 people. The 11th Infantry [Annotator's Note: 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] went into the center, and the 10th went around the outside and captured a railroad bridge. The French were as happy as could be. That continued for the month of August [Annotator's Note: August 1944]. They were in XX Corps and Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] kept it under wraps. They were called "The Ghost Corps" because nobody knew where or who they were. They were the 7th Armored [Annotator's Note: 7th Armored Division], the 90th Division [Annotator's Note: 90th Infantry Division], and the 5th Division. They got to Verdun [Annotator's Note: Verdun, France] and Churchill [Annotator's Note: Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill; Prime Minister, United Kingdom, 1940 to 1945] announced who they were in Parliament [Annotator's Note: Parliament of the United Kingdom]. They ran out of gas at Verdun. There was a big battle and the civilians had evacuated. Going through France in August, they were traveling so fast. They would get resistance, clean it up, and keep going. They captured Verdun around September [Annotator's Note: September 1944]. They had taken Rheims [Annotator's Note: Rheims, France], on 28 August [Annotator's Note: of 1944]. It was the champagne [Annotator's Note: alcoholic beverage] center of the world. Davis was later made an honorary citizen. He got sick on the champagne. They rode on top of tanks and any transportation they could get. They outran their supply lines as things were coming in on the beaches. The Red Ball Express [Annotator's Note: Allied forces truck convoy system] could not keep up with them.

Jack Davis and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] made it to the Moselle River and the Germans were waiting for them. That was the bloodiest battle they had [Annotator's Note: Battle of Metz, 27 September to 13 December 1944, Metz, France]. C Company [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] went in with 200 men and in one day they were down to 42. All battles are chaotic and nothing but confusion. There is not one that is not. The 11th Regiment [Annotator's Note: 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] had tried at place called Dornot [Annotator's Note: Dornot, France] and were driven back on 10 September [Annotator's Note: 10 September 1944]. A mile or two to the south, Davis went across at Arnaville [Annotator's Note: Arnaville, France]. It was worse than Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France]. C Company lost two company commanders the first day of battle. After Captain Davis' [Annotator's Note: US Army Captain William B. Davis] radioman got killed, the captain put the radio on his back and was calling for C Company and got hit in both legs. He was taken back on a litter and had his head blown off with a rifle grenade. The executive officer took over and he got killed. This was all in a few hours. The captain of A Company [Annotator's Note: Company A, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] was killed too. Davis was in D Company which was a heavy machine gun company. Davis had two jobs. He was an aid man which was a suicide job that he tried to get the hell out of. They had the highest casualty rate in the Army percentagewise. Davis got lots of medals, but he does not want to talk about that. He is uncomfortable with it. He got two Silver Stars [Annotator's Note: the Silver Star Medal is the third-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] for gallantry in action and a Bronze Star [Annotator's Note: the Bronze Star Medal is the fourth-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy] in Normandy [Annotator's Note: Normandy, France] for bravery under fire. Those are complimentary from the men he was with, and they are the only ones worth it. There were a lot of other guys who never got anything. A lot of who would have written them up, especially officers, were likely killed. He does not know who wrote him up for the medals. If you had a Combat Badge [Annotator's Note: Combat Infantryman Badge, military decoration awarded to infantrymen who fought in active ground combat], you could get a Bronze Star if you were in the Army between 1941 and 1945. Davis has two. He said he did not want anything else other than his Silver Stars and his Purple Hearts [Annotator's Note: the Purple Heart Medal is award bestowed upon a United States service member who has been wounded as a result of combat actions against an armed enemy], but they sent him another Silver Star for a total of three. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Davis to talk about them because he feels it is important for young people to know that ordinary people can do extraordinary things.] You do not even know that you are doing anything like that. Somebody else sees it and determines that is what it is. Davis would "walk into the goddamn bullets" like he was walking down the street. He now thinks he was a damn fool. He thinks he did wise up because he stopped getting medals. [Annotator's Note: Davis laughs.] Training is why you can do that. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] said that you teach a guy to get in and out of a tank all the time. That way, when the tank gets hit, he does not have to think, and gets out of the tank. They also had good leadership. Their platoon leaders and junior officers had guts and set an example. Davis is sure there are a lot of guys who never got medals. Up at the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945], Lieutenant England [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and they got counterattacks Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944]. The next day, tanks were really close. Lieutenant England called in artillery and had to call it in right on them. When their shells come in, they scream. When your own come in, they hiss, and you duck in the foxholes. Davis can still see England laying there with his brains coming out of his head. Davis had a friend in foxhole who got killed and the guy with him did not get a scratch. He should have gotten the DSC [Annotator's Note: the Distinguished Service Cross is the second-highest award a United States service member can receive for a heroic or meritorious deed performed in a conflict with an armed enemy], but he does not know if he did. It is hard to explain and to relate to somebody who was not there. You cannot spend any time in combat and come out the same person. Davis came home and if someone said somebody broke their leg, Davis would say, "So what." When you see a guy trip over his own intestines, you then have no sympathy for something like a broken leg. People would complain about not getting tires for their car. He just shut up then and did not talk to anybody about it. But time heals. He feels most of them had post-trauma and did not know it. He went back to work after about three weeks at home, and it helped. He would have been a mess if he had continued the way he was going.

Jack Davis and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] went into a war of attrition six or eight miles into the bridgehead to take Metz [Annotator's Note: Battle of Metz, 27 September to 13 December 1944, Metz, France]. Metz had 26 forts around it and had never been taken since 400 AD, when it was taken by the Huns [Annotator's Note: nomadic people who lived in Central Asia, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe 400 to 600 AD]. Fort Driant was on the highest part across the Moselle [Annotator's Note: Moselle River] outside of Metz. The fort could see down the Moselle valley and they used their guns to bomb the hell out of them. A task force was put together to take it. The fort covered 98 acres. It was started in the 1870s and completed near the end of the Franco-Prussian War [Annotator's Note: also called the Franco-German War, 19 July 1870 to 10 May 1871]. It had big moats and was reinforced concrete. The guns were on the roof. The 11th Infantry [Annotator's Note: 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] went up first and took a small part. Part of the 10th, including Davis, were sent up at the end of September [Annotator's Note: September 1944]. The Germans would go below and go to sleep when being shelled or bombed. Davis was in a pillbox [Annotator's Note: type of blockhouse, or concrete, reinforced, dug-in guard post, normally equipped with slits for firing guns] with one gun and another gun was dug into a foxhole covering a moat. They were there for nine or ten days. A good friend of Davis' went in the hallway and put a Beehive [Annotator's Note: Beehive charge, British explosive device] on the iron door. He was the light heavyweight champion [Annotator's Note: boxing class] of the Army and volunteered for the Rangers [Annotator's Note: US Army Rangers]. The Rangers tried to get Davis to join but he did not. The explosion caused carbon monoxide in the hallway, and everybody was sick and passing out. Gas masks do not work for carbon monoxide. His friend was knocked cold. They threw him on the top of a tank with the rest of the dead. The battalion surgeon saw his hand move and saved the friend. He woke up in England and a German was helping out and he thought he had been captured. His mother had been sent a letter that he was killed in action. He called when he got to New York, and she fainted. He went to school, became a financial advisor and made a lot of money. Davis and the men contained them [Annotator's Note: the Germans] by the river. One night a guy came looking for food. Davis and his friend, Bill Cross [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity], threw a grenade when they heard the hobnail boots [Annotator's Note: short nails used to increase the durability of boot soles] in the hallway. He got away though.

Jack Davis and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] went down the Saar River [Annotator's Note: a river in northeastern France and western Germany]. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer stops to change tapes they go back to the Battle of Metz, 27 September to 13 December 1944, Metz, France.] They had contained the forts, especially Fort Driant. There were three forts that did not give up, Plappeville [Annotator's Note: Fort de Plappeville, or Feste Alvensleben, Plappeville, France], Driant, and another. They got orders to go to the Saar as part of Task Force Bell, named after their Regimental Commander, Colonel Bell [Annotator's Note: US Army Colonel Robert P. Bell]. There were woods near Kreutzwald [Annotator's Note: Kreutzwald, Germany] where they jumped off. It was right on the German border. They fought in the woods for 14 days. The Germans knew they were ready to invade Germany. They did go into Germany while there. There was a mine there and C Company [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] got held up there. There was a building above the mine. Lieutenant Hawthorne [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] and Lieutenant Holt [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] threw a grenade in and then shot the locks off the doors. The Germans came piling out. The next day they went into Germany. After about 14 days, they were put in reserve. The 5th Ranger Battalion was part of the Task Force. They were in a little town and word came back that the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945] had started. A Company [Annotator's Note: Company A, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] was in a schoolhouse. Two replacements hated each other over a girl back home. One of them was on guard duty and the other came in and murdered him. Around the 19th [Annotator's Note: 19 December 1944] they loaded onto trucks to go to Luxembourg. For the first time, they used headlights. Each regiment went by themselves in open trucks. It was cold as hell. They stopped in Luxembourg City [Annotator's Note: Luxembourg City, Luxembourg] at General Bradley's [Annotator's Note: US Army General Omar Nelson Bradley] headquarters. They were told to keep going until they found Germans. They headed into a farmhouse that had rabbits. There was an ambulance there and everybody in it was killed. It had been strafed by an American plane. The 5th Division had shot it down. They said it was a German pilot, but it was an American. There were a lot of friendly fire killings. If an American strafed his own ambulance, he was a damn fool. A lot of times artillery was short. They had good fire control centers though. Davis and the outfit were on the very southern shoulder of the Bulge. Morale was good as long as you kept bitching. One morning, they attacked toward Brecht [Annotator's Note: Brecht, Belgium]. The 12th Regiment, 4th Division [Annotator's Note: 12th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division] had been overrun. They left jeeps and first aid stuff behind. Davis and the men had no resistance at all. Their machine guns [Annotator’s Note: Browning M1917 .30 caliber water cooled heavy machine gun] froze. It was down around zero. The guns were water-cooled and freezing. They made a fire in a house to thaw them out. There were two jeeps that had been abandoned. The officers said they could not take them. They took the Prestone [Annotator's Note: name brand of antifreeze, a chemical used in engines] out of the jeeps and used that for the guns. The morale was good. You cannot break the morale of hillbillies [Annotator's Note: a derogatory term for an unsophisticated country person, associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians].

Jack Davis and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] took in replacements. A lot of them turned out to be damn good. They had to be. They were not in as good of physical shape. The men were losing weight. You cannot live on K rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. They were edible. They did not have any entertainment. If they were in a big foxhole, they would play poker [Annotator's Note: playing card game]. Davis quit gambling because he never won. They had a foxhole paper put out by Bruce Campbell [Annotator's Note: US Army Captain A. Bruce Campbell]. They would take turns reading it. It was called the "Diamond Dust" [Annotator's Note: published January to March 1945]. Campbell had been a journalist. He was taken out and made a PR man [Annotator's Note: Public Relations officer] for the division. Davis and he visited a lot after the war. Davis got a lot of mail. His mother wrote every day and included a piece of chewing gum. The hillbillies [Annotator's Note: a derogatary term for an unsophisticated country person, associated originally with the remote regions of the Appalachians] did not get any. Davis thinks their parents did not read or write. He and the men had no idea of when the war was going to be over. They just kept going and hoped it would end. When they got to the Rhine [Annotator's Note: Rhine River], they realized they were going to have to clean out the whole country. Davis's feelings about the German people depended on how they acted. At Kreutzwald [Annotator's Note: Kreutzwald, Germany], there was a change in the people. The friendliness was over. The civilians oftentimes spied on them and called in artillery. They had done that at Metz [Annotator's Note: Metz, France] too. On Christmas Eve [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944], they had seven counterattacks. A German was hit and was screaming. Davis was carrying ammunition but had morphine [Annotator's Note: narcotic used to treat pain]. He crawled out and gave the guy two shots of morphine. The guy was dead the next day. On Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944], Davis looked at a kid from B Company Annotator's Note: Company B, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division]. A bullet had creased his temple, cut an artery, and the blood was shooting up in the air about one foot. Davis went to treat him. The kid said he wanted to "get the sons-of-bitches." Davis told him he was going to bleed to death and got him out of his foxhole. They were in foxholes that had been dug by the Germans. A guy on a light machine gun had four dead Germans in front of him. Davis kicked one to see if he was dead, and the German got up to surrender. Davis could tell he was scared to death. Davis got the kid down to a house and got the bleeding stopped. Years later, Davis found the guy who had been on the machine gun, and they got in touch at a reunion. His name was Alan Wygant [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity].

On Christmas Day [Annotator's Note: 25 December 1944], a German came over with a white flag and asked Jack Davis' outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] to surrender. He was sent back. The next day they captured him. Davis did not know that they had practically destroyed the regiment they were up against, the 217th Grenadier Division [Annotator's Note: Germany Army 217th Infantry Division]. Davis thought he needed a good, deep foxhole and found one. There was a dead German in it. He dragged him out. There was a bottle of schnapps [Annotator's Note: type of alcoholic beverage] at the bottom. He left the bottle there. It was obvious they had them beat. They would patrol on the edge of the woods. One guy got hit with a Bouncing Betsy [Annotator's Note: German S-mine, Schrapnellmine, Springmine or Splittermine]. They got pulled off the line the first of the month for a Christmas dinner. It tasted good after the K rations [Annotator's Note: individual daily combat food ration consisting of three boxed meals]. They got three a day. They would tie them together to carry them as they had thrown away their backpacks. Breckinridge [Annotator's Note: US Army Colonel William Mattingly Breckinridge] had recommended it to them to get rid of the weight. Most of the time they were not in towns. Davis got frostbite on his feet, ankles, and hands. His hands have been cold for 65 years. Their shoes were no good for the winter. They got shoepacs [Annotator's Note: cold-wet weather footwear] sometime in February [Annotator's Note: February 1945]. The Germans were better equipped with everything except the rifles. They had a Mauser [Annotator's Note: Mauser designed Karabiner 98 kurz; often Karabiner 98k, Kar98, or K98k, German 7.92mm bolt-action rifle]. The American machine guns were World War 1 stuff. The Germans had a three-to-one ratio of bullets per minute over the Americans. The BAR [Annotator's Note: M1918A2 Browning Automatic Rifle] was a good gun. The German tanks were better. The Germans took the American uniforms. They found 18 guys from the 4th Division [Annotator's Note: 4th Infantry Division] who had been shot in the head. The Germans had taken their boots. Davis has a picture of that. This was regular Army [Annotator's Note: regular German Army]. They were not disciplined and a lot of them were taken out of the Luftwaffe and put in the Volksgrenadier divisions [Annotator's Note: type of German Army division formed in Autumn 1944; professional military formations with effective weapons and equipment].

Art Williams [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity] from Kentucky told Jack Davis they had to get out of there. Davis started to run and felt his feet get cold. If you get cold feet, you are doomed. It was not from the snow. He was just drained and almost collapsed. Williams got him behind a hill. They knew they were drawing tank fire. Williams had his water-cooled gun [Annotator’s Note: Browning M1917 .30 caliber water cooled heavy machine gun] shot out once, and he picked up an M1 [Annotator's Note: .30 caliber M1 semi-automatic rifle, also known as the M1 Garand]. He had enough points [Annotator's Note: a point system was devised based on a number of factors that determined when American servicemen serving overseas could return home] to get out, but Davis saw him in Le Havre [Annotator's Note: Le Havre, France] and asked what he was doing there. He said he wanted to see what the Japs [Annotator's Note: a period derogatory term for Japanese] were like. Davis looked all over for him at a reunion in Kentucky but found out he had died from spinal meningitis [Annotator's Note: infection of the fluid and membranes around the brain and spinal cord]. In January [Annotator's Note: January 1945] they were in a holding position on the Saar River [Annotator's Note: a river in northeastern France and western Germany] near Diekirch [Annotator's Note: Diekirch, Luxembourg]. On 18 January [Annotator's Note: 18 January 1945] they crossed there and went to take back the ground the 28th Division [Annotator's Note: 28th Infantry Division] had lost. They went to Putscheid [Annotator's Note: Putscheid, Luxembourg] parallel with Germany going north in Luxembourg. Bitburg [Annotator's Note: Bitburg, Germany] came later. The Germans were withdrawing from the Bulge [Annotator's Note: Battle of the Bulge or German Ardennes Counter Offensive, 16 December 1944 to 25 January 1945]. Putscheid was a small town that had the last crossroads the Germans held going back into Germany. Around the 24th [Annotator's Note: 24 December 1944], B Company [Annotator's Note: Company B, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] made an attack riding on tanks. The tanks got knocked out and a lot of the guys died in an open field. Nobody could get to them, and they died from shock. The tanks were on fire that night and they could see the flames. The next day, Lieutenant Hawthorne [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity], and Lieutenants Storey [Annotator's Note: US Army First Lieutenant Isaac H. Storey] and Liebner [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity] from C Company were all together and tanks were shooting straight at them. That was when Williams said it was suicide and he and Davis should get out of there. The Lieutenants were hit. Liebner was left in a hospital in Diekirch to die, but he made it. Storey was hit in the neck and was taken to Luxembourg City [Annotator's Note: Luxembourg City, Luxembourg] to a hospital. He survived. Hawthorne, Davis' lieutenant, was all ripped apart in his groin but was still alive. Their chaplain, who was tough as hell, came in. Hawthorne told the chaplain he did not need him, then he died. That broke Davis up. They had become good friends. The night before Hawthorne had a premonition. Everyone knew it was a matter of time. It was all luck. Davis had been hit in France. The guy was not a good shot and almost missed him near Bitburg. Davis saw blood in the snow but did not realize it was his. He was not in the hospital long. Davis wanted to be sent back instead of being sent somewhere else. He told the battalion surgeon he would take care of himself. He got infected. [Annotator's Note: Davis laughs.] Davis did not want to go to other guys someplace else. He was his near Bitburg in the woods. They were fighting like hell around there. Bitburg was blown to hell.

Jack Davis and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] received a lot of artillery fire. The tree bursts were the worst. The German 88 [Annotator's Note: German 88mm multi-purpose artillery] was the best piece of artillery in the whole war. The muzzle velocity was tremendous, and it was accurate. Putscheid [Annotator's Note: Putscheid, Luxembourg] was a bad place. C Company [Annotator's Note: Company C, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] made the last attack and Sergeant Reinhart [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity] was captured. Davis and he had become good friends. Reinhart escaped and was caught. He escaped again and made it back to the 103rd Division [Annotator's Note: 103rd Infantry Division]. He was sent home. He was shaking hickory nuts out of a tree in Hamilton, Ohio. He fell out, broke his back, and became a paraplegic. Davis had to cross the Sauer [Annotator's Note: Sauer River] again near Bierdorf [Annotator's Note: Bierdorf, Germany]. The river was in flood stage and ice was coming down. A friend of his got the first boat across with eight guys, came back across, and got hit. Those eight guys held on there. They could not get a bridge in. Near Echternach [Annotator's Note: Echternach, Germany], the 76th Division [Annotator's Note: 76th Infantry Division] made a crossing. Davis and his outfit started using their bridge. They attacked up a ridge near a castle. It was rough going. Guys hit mines [Annotator's Note: stationary explosive device triggered by physical contact] and two trucks were blown up, killing everyone inside. Davis had to cross back to replace a mortar guy who got to go to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France]. Davis was told to take a German prisoner with him. It was pitch dark. The German ran like hell because he was more scared than Davis. Davis had to go cross back the next day. The 76th Division was green and attached to the 5th Division. They ended up with more missing-in-action than any other division. They had drowned making the bridgehead.

Jack Davis and his outfit [Annotator's Note: Company D, 1st Battalion, 10th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] were transferred to XX Corps and went across the Palatinate [Annotator's Note: Palatinate region in Germany] with the 4th Armored Division. They surrounded part of the 7th Army and got to the Rhine River. They did not lose many people then. They were just cleaning out pockets behind the 4th Armored. The 10th Infantry was fighting in Mainz [Annotator's Note: Mainz, Germany]. The 11th [Annotator's Note: 11th Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] was in reserve. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] told General Eddy [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Manton Sprague Eddy] to cross the Rhine that night. Eddy called General Irwin [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General Stafford LeRoy Irwin] and Irwin said they had to cross. The 11th made the initial attack at two or three o'clock in the morning. Davis went across about four or five o'clock in the morning. The 2nd Regiment Annotator's Note: 2nd Infantry Regiment, 5th Infantry Division] went across further south. This was 24 March [Annotator's Note: 24 March 1945], and the weather was getting nice. They did not get much resistance. They went towards Darmstadt [Annotator's Note: Darmstadt, Germany] and were in some buildings when they got shelled. A kitchen had come across over a bridge. The Germans tried to bomb that night and they could see planes being shot down. The Germans hit the water pipes in the building and one man drowned in the cellar. Outside of Davis' building, a tank destroyer went by, and a guy's head was blown off. Davis saw him the next morning. They then went to Frankfurt [Annotator's Note: Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany]. A bridge was half blown away and they had to cross it. The Germans had a 20mm at the Frankfurt Opera House. They were shelled. A captain was killed on the bridge but nobody else was hurt. Davis was feeling rotten and was sick. He got a chance to shave and noticed his eyes were yellow. He had hepatitis [Annotator's Note: inflammatory condition of the liver]. A captain gave him sulfa [Annotator's Note: group of synthetic drugs used to treat bacterial infections] and sent him back to duty. He was in reserve and two or three days later, they were ordered to the Ruhr Pocket [Annotator's Note: battle in the Ruhr Valley, Germany, 1 to 18 April 1945] 125 miles north to help the 1st Army. Davis was not getting better. Some volunteers had been brought in and they were Blacks [Annotator's Note: African-American soldier] put into the 9th Division [Annotator's Note: 9th Infantry Division]. Davis saw them. It was a whole platoon [Annotator's Note: called the Fifth Platoon, they volunteered to fight with Company E, 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment; Company F, 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment; and Company G 2nd Battalion, 39th Infantry Regiment, 9th Infantry Division], and they were having fun. A book was written about it. After the Ruhr Pocket, they had to catch up with the 3rd Army to Bavaria [Annotator's Note: region of Germany]. The war was about over. They got into Czechoslovakia. The last guy killed was in a tank there before the word came through of the ceasefire. The 2nd Regiment ran into girls who had been taken out of Buchenwald [Annotator's Note: Buchenwald concentration camp in Weimar, Germany] and were walking to the redoubt [Annotator's Note: temporary fortification] below Munich [Annotator's Note: Munich, Germany]. One of them was Gertrude Weissmann [Annotator's Note: Gerda Weissmann Klein] who wrote a book. Some of the SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] were women. The medics and the mess sergeants tried to feed them but a lot of them died anyhow. The Germans tried to hide by burying them. Davis and the outfit disinterred the bodies and made the Germans come see them. Weissman married Lieutenant Klein [Annotator's Note: Army Lieutenant Kurt Klein] from the 5th Division. She dedicated her book to the 5th Division. Davis went back to the aid station. He told Captain Krakauer [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity] he had hepatitis. Krakauer was mad and told Davis he was lucky he did not die. The sulfa had made it worse. Davis went into a hospital. People from Dachau [Annotator's Note: Dachau concentration camp complex near Dachau, Germany] were being brought in and they could not save them. It was awful. Davis went to the hospital at Rheims [Annotator's Note: Rheims, France]. He read that the 5th Division was readying to leave for Japan. Davis went to rejoin them. He went AWOL [Annotator's Note: absent without leave] and went to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] and got drunk.