Matthew A. Reluga was playing football and got the notice that Pearl Harbor was attacked [Annotator's Note: the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii on 7 December 1941]. His brother was in Panama training. Reluga was working at ITE [Annotator's Note: ITE Circuit Breaker Company in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] assembling circuit breakers. He had been classified 4F [Annotator's Note: Selective Service classification indicating that an individual is not fit for military service] because his two brothers were serving, and he was supporting their mother. He had to go in when called in late 1942. He was sworn in on 17 December 1942 and went to Indiantown Gap [Annotator's Note: Fort Indiantown Gap in Lebanon, Pennsylvania] for basic training. After getting a medal for marksmanship, he went by train and joined the 90th Division [Annotator's Note: 90th Infantry Division] in the S2 Section, Intelligence. They were maneuvering [Annotator's Note: 3rd Army Louisiana Maneuvers, 28 January to 1 April 1943]. They did that for four weeks and then went to Camp Barkeley [Annotator's Note: Camp Barkeley in Abilene Texas]. Reluga was assigned to the 358th, 3rd Battalion, Headquarters Company [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division] in the intelligence department. They went to the California desert [Annotator's Note: Camp Young, California] to train for Africa. [Annotator's Note: A telephone rings from 0:06:55.000 to 0:07:02.000.] They had a few days off and went to Los Angeles, California. Reluga and his buddy Brownie [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to verify identity] went to the USO [Annotator's Note: United Service Organizations, Inc.]. He thought he met Hedy Lamarr [Annotator's Note: born Hedwig Eva Maria Kiesler; Austrian born American actress, inventor, and film producer]. He went to the hotel where Al Jolson [Annotator's Note: Al Jolson, born Asa Yoelson; American entertainer] died. He and Brownie were in tears because of that. They returned to camp and resumed training. At one point, a snake crawled across his hand. He was scared to death.

Matthew A. Reluga's older brother Charles was an MP [Annotator's Note: military police]. Once Reluga got get a break in combat. He went to Paris [Annotator's Note: Paris, France] and met his brother there. It was a three day leave [Annotator's Note: an authorized absence for a short period of time] and Charlie treated him wonderfully. Reluga cried like a baby leaving his brother. Reluga rejoined his outfit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division]. After his desert training [Annotator's Note: before being in Europe], his unit got orders to the East Coast. He joined them at Camp Kilmer, New Jersey. They departed for England [Annotator's Note: 4 April 1944]. They trained in Kidderminster [Annotator's Note: Kidderminster, England]. Word got out that they were training for a big operation. On the train to Wales [Annotator's Note: Wales, England], they were told not to talk about where they were going. They went from Wales to France. They were on rations on the ship and many of them got dysentery [Annotator's Note: infection of the intestines]. Prior to leaving the ship, they had church service. The Catholics received communion, but Reluga did not want to go to confession. They received word that they were on the invasion [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944]. He was given a silk map and a compass. They landed on Utah Beach [Annotator's Note: Utah Beach, Normandy, France]. They were directed by Canadian soldiers. He joined his unit [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division] and got his assignments. They fought alongside the 101st [Annotator's Note: 101st Airborne Division] and 82nd Division [Annotator's Note: 82nd Airborne Division]. Reluga did not contact the enemy until a couple of days later. They ended up near Hill 122 [Annotator's Note: Foret de Mont-Castre (Hill 122), Manche, Normandy, France, July 1944] and suffered many casualties. During the battle, Colonel Bealke's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant Colonel Jacob W. Bealke] team was eight men. The Colonel got wounded and was taken back. The Germans had them targeted. They were tough cookies and fought to the end. One outfit got some prisoners. Bringing the prisoners back was a tough assignment. Reluga had to do that. They were not allowed to interrogate the prisoners. Reluga was a private. Later, as a Staff Sergeant, he had more responsibilities. His job was to instruct two of his men to go with the attacking company. Often, he went. He did not fight that much. They would report what was going on and were strictly observers.

Many times, Matthew A. Reluga had to take a patrol [Annotator's Note: of the Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division] into enemy territory and report on what he saw. Their shoes had buckles that had to be strapped to not make noise at night. They crawled through enemy territory many times. They would spot a unit and try to get an estimate of its size. Back at S2 [Annotator's Note: unit Intelligence section], they reported what they saw. Once you saw them, you stayed clear of them. After Hill 122 [Annotator's Note: Foret de Mont-Castre (Hill 122), Manche, Normandy, France, July 1944], a German told him there were Russians that wanted to give up. Reluga had to go locate the outfit. The Germans trained their men to go through the lines in American uniforms. Once, a jeep came through with an officer driving and a private in the passenger seat. This made Reluga suspicious. He asked the Major to get out of the jeep and unstrap his shoes. [Annotator's Note: Reluga backs out of the lighting often.] The Major had hair on his ankles. The Americans' ankles were worn out. Reluga took them prisoner. [Annotator's Note: Reluga jumps to the Battle of Saint-Lô, 7 to 19 July 1944; Saint-Lo, France]. He originally was in reserve there. Patton's [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] Army had maneuvered close to Luxembourg. They went into Bastogne [Annotator's Note: Bastogne, Belgium]. [Annotator's Note: Reluga goes back to Saint Lo.] A smoke screen was set up. The smoke did not go towards the enemy. When the airplanes came and strafed the smoke, they killed many of the men. [Annotator's Note: Reluga goes back to Belgium.] That is where the general [Annotator's Note: US Army General Anthony Clement "Nuts" McAuliffe] said nuts to the Germans when asked to surrender. [Annotator's Note: Reluga goes back to Saint-Lo.] They ran out of gasoline. Patton wanted to go badly. Many reporters were with them. The enemy was giving up when they met them.

In early April [Annotator's Note: April 1945], Matthew A. Reluga's Division [Annotator's Note: Reluga was a member of Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division] commander was told by Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] to go to Czechoslovakia. Reluga went. They had support units with them. They went into Czechoslovakia [Annotator's Note: on 18 April 1945] with very little force and took some prisoners. The Russians were chasing the Germans. The Germans were giving up quickly. Reluga just told them which way to go. They never fired their weapons. The Russians were treating the Germans like animals. [Annotator's Note: Reluga explains that the Russians cut the Germans genitalia.] They found Germans hanging from trees rather than being caught by the Russians. They committed suicide. The Russians did not forget what the Germans had done to them, and they were not taking prisoners. Reluga returned from Czechoslovakia and rejoined his unit. The war was not over but they got word that Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] had passed away [Annotator's Note: on 12 April 1945]. Reluga called his men together and they had a little prayer for him. The building where his men joined him from was shelled and they would have been hurt had they not come over. The artillery were timed shells that broke after penetrating. This was close to the end of the war. The Russians had women soldiers. Some Russians reported in as prisoners. They had been fighting for the Germans. On 8 May [Annotator's Note: Victory in Europe Day, 8 May 1945], the war was declared over and Reluga and his men were happy about that.

Roosevelt [Annotator's Note: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States] died in April [Annotator's Note: on 12 April 1945]. Matthew A. Reluga got a Silver Star [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] around that time. His lieutenant, him, and another guy were in a jeep. The Germans were firing at them. The troops [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division] were being fired at by both the Germans and the Americans. Reluga went and told the Americans they were firing at Americans. Reluga returned and the Germans were firing at him again. He had holes in his pants, but he thinks it was from the brush. He was not frightened because his nerves got him through. His lieutenant said he was crazy. He got the Silver Star for that. He thinks he could have gotten the DC [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]. It was just instinct. They were in trouble and could not do anything. He was bugged by his guys getting killed by their own guys.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Matthew A. Reluga to talk about action at the Moselle River at Fort de Koenigsmacker in Thionville, France, 9 to 11 November 1944.] Van Fleet [Annotator's Note: US Army Major General James A. Van Fleet] was in the caves below the hill. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] came up with Colonel Bealke [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant Colonel Jacob W. Bealke]. They [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division] were getting shelled, and they were hitting the ground [Annotator's Note: diving for cover]. Patton asked them what they were doing and told them that if they could hear them, they were going over them and not at them. He called them scared ducks but used a different expression. Reluga told him that he hoped they did not have to attack over the river. Patton told him, "You will." Colonel Bealke asked Reluga if he knew who he was talking to. But he respected the General. The following morning, they crossed the Saar River [Annotator's Note: Saar River near Merzig, Germany]. Many times, Reluga went after prisoners with his buddy Radle [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify]. They hit a town and dropped grenades into buildings. The Germans were giving up gladly. They took 90 prisoners. Reluga wanted to make them do the goose step [Annotator's Note: special marching step performed in formal military parades, now associated with Nazi Germany]. And they did until they got out of sight. [Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Reluga if there were reprisals against the Germans.] He says that his guys never took a German life, but there were times they were told not to take prisoners because there was no place to put them. Once Reluga was taking three German prisoners. Another guy took them and did away with them. That was mistreatment by that GI [Annotator's Note: government issue; also, a slang term for an American soldier]. Reluga thinks he must have been a cook because a front-liner would not have done that. many of the prisoners were older. The Germans sent Polish soldiers first to take the fire, sacrificing them.

The first rounds of artillery fire are often shot way over where you think the troops are and then you fire back to where you are. Many times, artillery fire [Annotator's Note: friendly artillery fire] exploded near Matthew A. Reluga's own troops [Annotator's Note: Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division]. Many times, they would meet the observers and tell them. It would then be too late to make any corrections. The weapons company had heavy machine guns and mortar shells. The mortars at the front lines were 60mms [Annotator's Note: M2 60mm lightweight mortar] and did not do much damage. When they had gone into the pillbox [Annotator's Note: type of blockhouse, or concrete, reinforced, dug-in guard post, normally equipped with slits for firing guns] area earlier in the war, they fired a shoulder weapon into the pillbox. They also used flamethrowers [Annotator's Note: ranged incendiary device that projects a controllable jet of fire]. They burned the Germans where the machine guns were. They carried satchels with mines. Crossing the Moselle [Annotator's Note: Moselle River, France] at different times was murderous. When you are in a boat, you are a dead target. The heavy mortars were no good there. The light artillery would not make it over the river. The Germans used a lot of crossfire. It was time consuming. The Germans were at the beachheads, so they had to be knocked out. The first company was annihilated by the Germans. The heavy artillery was then used, and some Germans started giving up. Once they broke through the German lines, there was very little resistance. The Germans were ready to give up in early April [Annotator's Note: April 1945]. Reluga's was a motorized unit that moved rapidly. Patton [Annotator's Note: US Army Lieutenant General George S. Patton, Jr.] did not like to sit still. He was mad when he found out he did not have the gasoline to go to Berlin [Annotator's Note: Berlin, Germany]. He wanted to, but Eisenhower [Annotator's Note: General of the Army Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower, Supreme Commander, Allied Expeditionary Force; 34th President of the United States] said no. A deal had been made with the Russians to let them take Berlin. Reluga went close to Pilsen [Annotator's Note: Pilsen, Czechoslovakia; Plzeň, Czech Republic]. He does not know exactly what they were doing when the war stopped on 8 May [Annotator's Note: 8 May 1945]. The war consisted of many losses of men. They lost up to 90 percent of K Company [Annotator's Note: Company K, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division]. They would combine with other units. They would have cooks and other people join them at the front. Reluga did not lose any of six men through the war. None of them killed any Germans. They were mainly observers. One man kept records of all that they did. One guy took pictures of airplanes, German prisoners, and pictures of Reluga with a couple of Russians.

[Annotator's Note: The interviewer asks Matthew A. Reluga if he and his outfit, Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division, were around the Merkers Salt Mine in Merkers-Kieselbach, Germany.] Reluga went into one particular spot and there was a man in charge of the mine there. He told Reluga [Annotator's Note: Reluga speaks in Polish] he had to go to the bottom. Reluga did not go to see if there was any gold. He turned a report into his regiment that there was gold there. There was a railroad nearby and a train was coming by. The artillery guys fired at the train at will using direct fire. They laughed doing it. One time, a German was "pooping" and one of Reluga's guy shot him with a 37 [Annotator's Note: M3 37mm anti-tank gun]. He said he "split the guy's ass in half," but Reluga does not think he really did. Many guys got lost jumping into ditches along the Siegfried Line [Annotator's Note: a series of defensive fortifications roughly paralleling the Franco-German border built by Germany in the 1930s]. The Germans put mines in them. Reluga and his buddy Radle [Annotator's Note: phonetic spelling; unable to identify] stayed in the middle of the road when being strafed by a German plane. The planes strafed the ditches. The unit "shelled the devil" out of one town. The civilians were fleeing, and a person came up to him holding a baby. The baby was dead. That brought tears for Reluga, even though she was a German woman. The German SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] women had an SA [Annotator's Note: Sturmabteilung; German paramilitary organization] on their arm. When they searched the German women, they made them drop their skirts. They would have what he calls "snatch [Annotator's Note: slang for vagina] pistols." The Gestapo [Annotator's Note: German Geheime Staatspolizei or Secret State Police; abbreviated Gestapo] women would carry them between their legs. He questioned a Burgermeister [Annotator's Note: also called Burgomaster; master of the town] once who said there were no soldiers there. They got shot at when they went in. They then knocked the town down. He did not feel sorry for the German villagers there. The German people tried to hide as much as possible. They were told the American soldiers would take advantage of them. Even after war was over, they were not allowed to associate with the German women.

After the war was over, Matthew A. Reluga and his men [Annotator's Note: in Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division] could not go out with the German girls. They had to send patrols to look for Germans who would put civilian clothes on to not be taken prisoner. He went into one concentration camp, and it was too much to take. In ditches close by, skeletons, prisoners, were dumped in there. The German guards tried to escape, and the camps were left unprotected. If they saw a German, it was goodbye for him. They could not touch the people in the camps. It was mind boggling. They were told not to touch them. Other units took over. Reluga had gone to a mortuary and the Germans were guarding an area where some people were alive. One man borrowed Reluga's weapon to kill the Germans there. The guards were annihilated. Something like that is too much. What the German leaders did was put the men who were condemned to death anyhow in charge of things like that. They were put in the SS [Annotator's Note: Schutzstaffel; German paramilitary organization] to be killers. If they did what they were told, they would be free. Reluga respected the regular SS troops. They fought to the death. SS were seldom captured. Reluga tells a joke: In Mainz [Annotator's Note: Mainz, Germany], an American was riding a bicycle. A General told him to get off the bike or be sent to the front lines. The soldier said he was in the front lines. [Annotator's Note: Reluga laughs.]

Matthew A. Reluga was not capable of going to the Naval Academy [Annotator's Note: United States Naval Academy, Annapolis, Maryland]. He applied but was not accepted. He qualified physically. He wanted to go into the Naval Air Corps. He regrets not being able to do that. He would have wished to have served in a special unit and not in combat. Anybody who says they liked combat is "full of bull." The killing of frontline American troops was about 80 percent. "Frontliners" were destined to be killed. What helped was that they were all young and were willing to sacrifice their lives for a buddy. They fought for their own "A". They did not fight for the flag, for the generals, for the United States. They fought to protect each other as much as they could. They were assigned a dirty job and they did it. The ones that were yellow [Annotator's Note: derogatory slang for cowardly] paid for it. There were many deserters who left the front lines. Many were tried and executed. His brother was an MP [Annotator's Note: military police] and he witnessed it. If the guy was "chicken" or "yellow", he did not deserve to live. Reluga fired at one of his men who was yellow who then joined in the attack. After they landed in Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944 with Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division], they were in impregnated clothing. As soon as they got word that they were not going to be gassed, they got rid of them. The gas masks too. He always carried a couple grenades and was never without them.

Matthew A. Reluga did not take a shower after Normandy [Annotator's Note: D-Day; the Allied invasion of Normandy, France on 6 June 1944 with Headquarters Company, 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry Regiment, 90th Infantry Division]. If you went four or five days without changing your clothes, you would have bugs. One time in Czechoslovakia, they went into a town and a woman told him he stunk. She washed his clothes for him. Wherever they went, they had to be suspicious of one thing. Germans would put bombs in the fireplaces with timers. A German prisoner told them about it. He took some German money but did not care for it. In Malmedy, during the massacre [Annotator's Note: Malmedy Massacre, Malmedy, Belgium, 17 December 1944], they were in the area. They heard the shots but did not know what it was. In that area, Reluga had prisoners. Some Frenchmen had weapons and they left the prisoners with them. He assumes they killed the Germans. They had a mix of Frenchmen and Polish soldiers with them. Reluga tells the interviewer this interview has put him back in the war. He paid for it the night before when he thought about what he was going to tell him. He did not think it was necessary to meet and he did not know if he could do it. He has told stories in this interview that he has not told another person. Reluga became a Master Sergeant later on.