Wesley S. Trindal was with Company F, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. He was born in Superior, Wisconsin in 1925 and lived on a homestead. His mom and dad lived in an apartment in Milwaukee while his father worked for the Milwaukee Light and Railway Company. The Trindal’s moved all over the country and even to the Panama Canal Zone where Trindal attended Balboa High School. He finished high school in New Orleans at Alcee Fortier. On 5 July 1943 Trindal enlisted in the army in the Enlisted Reserve Corps. He was ordered to active duty in August 1943 then took his basic training at Camp Fannin, Texas from December 1943 through April 1944. Trindal then went to Camp Breckinridge, Kentucky for Ranger training. His Ranger training was cut short when D Day happened [Annotators Note: the invasion of Normandy on 6 June 1944]. He went to Fort Meade, Maryland then to Butner, North Carolina [Annotators Note: Camp Butner] for additional training. From Butner they were sent to Fort Ord, California where they took jungle training. The GIs from A through N [Annotators Note: soldiers with last names beginning with the letters A through N] went to the Pacific and N through Z went to Europe. They went back to Camp Meade and from there to Camp Shanks, New York. On Halloween night 1944 they boarded the Isle de France and shipped out. Five days later they were in Scotland. Trindal was in the front of the boat trying to keep from getting seasick but to no avail. The North Atlantic was very rough and he got seasick.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal served in the US Army as a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.] They landed just south of Glasgow and took a troop train to Southampton where they boarded a British trawler for the trip across the Channel to Le Havre. In Le Havre they got on 40 and 8 boxcars [Annotators Note: French railroad boxcars rated to hold 40 men or eight horses]. The stove in the boxcar Trindal was in fell over and the car caught fire. They put the fire out with the water from their canteens. After that they were forced to stand for the rest of the trip because the floor was wet. When they got off the train they were taken by trucks to Aachenand in the western end of the Hurtgen Forest to a replacement depot. Trindal spent Thanksgiving in the replacement depot. They were fed a hot meal of turkey, yams, cranberry sauce and all the fixings out in the open in the Hurtgen Forest. They had to eat fast because it started to rain and the rain was very cold. The next day they were taken to the front lines on GI trucks. When they offloaded from the trucks they ran into the tree line and dove into the first foxhole they came to. Going into the induction center at Fort Bragg, North Carolina was the first time Trindal had ever been away from home. The army made sure that they stayed too busy to miss home. The GIs in the replacement depot with Trindal were all well indoctrinated. They carried their uniforms and all of their worldly possessions in a duffle bag all over the States for 18 months but when they got to Gervais they were told to turn in everything they could not wear or fit in a little field pack. Trindal wore a pair of long handle underwear, wool OD shirt and pants, fatigue jacket and pants, a sweater his mother had given him, and an overcoat and raincoat. Going up to the front was scary. They had been gung ho early on because Camp Fannin where he did his basic training was also a prison camp for German soldiers of the Africa Korps who had been captured. The drill instructors made sure that that the GIs knew that the Germans were superb soldiers and they were civilian slobs trying to become soldiers in 17 weeks. The attitude of the men going to the front was of fear but also an esprit de corps. They had been through a lot of training together and kind of knew what they were getting into. They had to get into the fighting to find out what they did not know.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal served in the US Army as a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.] Baptism of Fire was a film that the army liked to show to new recruits to give them an idea of what they faced when they entered combat. It was a propaganda film that gave them some good pointers and some bad pointers. They saw the movie five or six times throughout the course of their training. By the time they went into combat they were scared but they were also as well prepared as they could be. As soldiers of the US Army they had incentive to stop the Germans. They knew that the Germans planned to invade England and had invasion maps of Greenland, Canada, and the United States. When they first got off the trucks they got into the woods where they rested for about 20 minutes. A non commissioned officer came up from the front lines and directed them to get out of their holes and follow him back to the front. The trails to the front were marked with tape. They did not want to stray from the trail because the Hurtgen Forest was full of Bouncing Betty mines. The Germans also shelled the area frequently. There was not much in the Hurtgen Forest that was not dangerous. Trindal and a few of his buddies were assigned to Company F. They were to join the original members of the company. There were not many. There were only four left in the company or regiment that had landed in Normandy on 7 June [Annotators Note: 7 June 1944]. Trindal and his friend Bobby got into a shell hole that they cleaned out with their helmets and entrenching shovels. The first night was awful. They were told that they were not to let any German advance through. Their imaginations ran wild. They were very apprehensive. They had been told in jungle training that they were not to shoot at anything until they were fired upon. Trindal and Bobby took turns sleeping all night. The next morning was the only time during the two hitches in the military Trindal completed where he was served breakfast in bed by a sergeant. The sergeant gave them k rations after they finished cleaning out their shell hole. Trindal knew some of the people he went up to the front with but does not recall the names of any of the sergeants. They were too apprehensive.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal served in the US Army as a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.] On 28 November [Annotators Note: 28 November 1944] they went out on a patrol. Trindal and a fellow soldier had been radio operators back at Camp Fannin, Texas [Annotators Note: where Trindal took his basic training]. When the platoon lieutenant asked if anyone knew anything about radios, Trindal and his friend volunteered. They became point men on a patrol that was going into the rear areas behind the lines looking for infiltrators that had supposedly gotten though during the night. If they saw anything they were to alert the main body of the platoon they were leading to any trouble behind their lines. The patrol lasted about three or four hours. The forest they moved through was clear with big trees. It was scary. Fortunately nothing happened and they were able to go back to their posts. The Germans would send artillery and mortar shells into the trees. Some of the guys in Trindal’s unit were killed without ever firing a shot. On 29 November they got orders to move out to attack the city of Grosshau that night. That night they entered the city of Grosshau. As soon as they entered the town a runner came up and told them that the 1st Platoon of Company F had captured the town. They were happy to hear that. They went out into a beet field and set up positions. In the morning they would go out on the attack. The following morning it was still cloudy and raining. Trindal and his buddy had found another shell hole that they were sheltering in. The Germans shelled the area and one of the shells detonated right in front of Trindal’s foxhole. The blast destroyed his rifle and he was hit by a piece of shrapnel in the knee cap. Other than that he was alright. He had to find a rifle so he went back into Grosshau. There had been a lot of fighting there and he hoped to find a rifle there. He did not find a rifle but did find an M1 carbine and two magazines of ammunition for it. The attack started at about 10:30 in the morning. They started up a hill to get to their line of demarcation but when they had gone about 800 feet the Germans fired on them with everything from artillery to small arms. The Germans had the entire hill sighted in. There had been some shelling of the hill before this time so there were some shell holes for the men to take cover in. The company commander, Lieutenant Wilson, saw a German acting as a forward observer and sniper firing on them from on top of a stone farmhouse off to their left. He ordered everyone to fire on the farmhouse. The German hit three or four of the men in Trindal’s unit. One of the men told Trindal to throw away that carbine and take his rifle and go get the Germans. He did. The bazooka man got hit so Trindal took his bazooka and flanked the farmhouse with another soldier. They slipped into a trench behind the farmhouse and Trindal was able to fire a few rockets into it. The rockets and rifle fire were enough to take out the forward observer. After silencing the farmhouse they took a break. The lieutenant came by and told them to advance across the beet field and take the woods on the other side. They leap frogged across the field but when one of the men in front of Trindal stood up and ran he was hit by an artillery shell that blew his body parts all over Trindal. Trindal was in shock. He ran and got as far away from the body as he could. Casualties were so high that by the time they made it three quarters of the way across the field they were ordered to retreat. They fell back to the trench by the farmhouse. That was the end of the battle on 30 November.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal served in the US Army as a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.] That night [Annotators Note: 30 November 1944] just about everyone slept in shifts. The next morning after breakfast an NCO called for volunteers. Trindal was picked. They ran across the same beet field and got to the woods. No on fired on them. The Germans were gone. They made their way through the forest trying to locate the German forces and walked right into the crossfire of three machine guns. The GIs backed up and started firing. Then they started digging in. Trindal took off his cartridge belt and raincoat while he was digging. It was a heavy patrol with 10 of them including a BAR man and they were putting a lot of fire on the Germans so the Germans decided to give up. They came out of their bunkers and stopped shooting. The two men manning the machine gun on the left and the two manning the gun on the right came out. The Germans manning the middle gun got away. They sent the four Germans off across the glen with their hands up. One of the GIs stood up and started shooting at the Germans. The Germans took off and ran back to their machine guns and fired on the GIs. They fired back at the GIs and killed the one who had fired at them. At that point they also knew where the American positions were and shot the patrol up. At about the same time the Germans started shelling and the Americans started shelling. A round hit the tree next to Trindal’s position. He was knocked out and did not remember anything about the rest of the day. During the second week of December he was given truth serum in a hospital. They learned that Trindal had come too about six hours after the blast. He was not able to get up so he just laid there until dusk. When he was finally able to move he picked up his raincoat. When he did he discovered that the salt shaker he had in his pocket that he had taken from the mess hall at Fort Ord had been shattered by the German bullets. For some reason this made Trindal very angry. With his adrenaline pumping he made his way to the foxholes on the right. There he found out that the four men in those holes had been killed. He went over to the left and learned that only two or three had gotten away. The rest were dead. Trindal crawled into one of the German machine gun bunkers to rest and shelter himself from the weather. The following hours were only pain, sleep, and fear. He made it through the night and was able to remember what happened from that point on.

Another reason Wesley Trindal crawled into the bunker was to take cover from the German and American shells that continued to fall. He was in no man’s land for about three days. By the third or fourth day he was feeling better. While he was in the bunker two Germans entered the bunker. They indicated that they wanted to surrender and asked him if he would take them to the American lines. The Germans sat down in the bunker and they lit a candle so they could see each other. The German who spoke English was about 40 years old. In addition to English he spoke Slovak, Russian and several other languages. He had been an interpreter on the Eastern Front but was sent to the Hurtgen Forest due to the need for man power. The other German was 19 years old just like Trindal. The boy’s father was a pilot in the Luftwaffe. He had been a cadet pilot in the Luftwaffe but was transferred to the infantry. The boy had pictures of his family that he showed Trindal and Trindal showed the German pictures of his family including his father who was a major in the army Corps of Engineers. It was ironic that they would be sitting there showing each other family photos while being shelled by both the Germans and Americans. The penalty for an American soldier fraternizing with the enemy was a 65 dollar fine. The penalty for a German soldier fraternizing with the enemy was death. The German soldiers had water. They had collected the water from the canteens of the American soldiers while Trindal had been unconscious. They also had German bread and French cheese. Trindal had had no food or water for three days. He offered to cut the bread and spread the cheese on it. The Germans shared their food and water with him. Sharing the bread, cheese, and water boosted the spirits of all three men.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal served in the US Army as a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. During the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest Trindal was knocked unconscious by and artillery shell. When he came to he found himself in no man’s land and drug himself into an abandoned German machine gun bunker on top of a hill where he was joined by two German soldiers wanting to surrender.] The next event that happened to Trindal was serious. The Germans were on the east side of the hill and the Americans were on the west side of it. That night two Germans approached the back of the bunker and asked if anyone was inside. The interpreter told them that they had come across a very secret forward observation post and ordered the two men to return to the German lines. They did but the interpreter figured that they were most likely SS troops and that they would return in the morning and shoot anyone who was trying to go to the American lines. This was in November of 1944 and the Russians were advancing on the Eastern Front and the Americans were advancing to an extent on the Western Front. The translator suggested that they get out of there and try to find the American lines as fast as they could. They left the bunker but the artillery shelling picked up and they had to get back into it. They tried again later and were able to get out. They passed the bodies of the GIs from the patrol Trindal had been on who had been killed. They made their way down the hill, across the creek, and across the field. Trindal was having trouble walking so the two German soldiers were helping him by each supporting one side. They all carried their rifles because they did not know who or what they were going to encounter. Eventually Trindal saw helmets out in front of them. He started yelling for whoever it was not to shoot that he was an American with two German prisoners. The American ordered them to come forward. They entered the American lines. The Germans were taken away and Trindal was sent to the aid station to be treated for his wounds. The medic told him that they expected a German counterattack and that he should go back to the first aid station at Grosshau with the next group of men escorting wounded there.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal served in the US Army as a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. During the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest he was knocked unconscious by an artillery shell. When he came to he found himself in no man’s land and drug himself into an abandoned German machine gun bunker on top of a hill where he was joined by two German soldiers who wanted to surrender. He escorted the Germans back to the American lines then went to the aid station for treatment.] There was another wounded GI being treated whose friends were going to take him away and Trindal was to go with them. Trindal and the three other GIs made their way through the forest to the edge of the beet field. He could look out and see the Tiger tank that had been knocked out during the fighting on 30 November. He could also see an 88 millimeter gun that was in a log embankment that had been firing at them during the battle. It was clear to Trindal that there was no way that the Americans could have gotten through by frontal attack. It was interesting that the Germans had parked the tank then placed a piece of reinforced concrete on the front of it. The concrete was full of pock marks where rockets and shells had hit it. When they got to the beet field everything came flooding back to Trindal. He could see his friend being hit by the artillery shell and his other friends dying during the battle a few days earlier. He told the other GIs to go on without him and that he would get to the aid station on his own. He found a bunker and went into it and fell asleep. When he came to it was getting dusk. He started across the beet field and a German burp gun [Annotators Note: Allied nickname for the German MP38 or MP40 submachine gun] opened up on him. He was very out of it and walked to a shell hole and fell into it. Someone saw him fall into the hole and thought he had been hit. Then he blacked out again. When he came to he could see the farm house. He got up and made his way toward the house. He knew that there was a road leading into Grosshau next to it. While heading for the road he got caught in a barbed wire entanglement. When he regained his senses he carefully got himself loose from the barbed wire. On the road Trindal ran into two American medics who were on their way back to the front for another load of wounded. When they got to Trindal they picked him up and took him back to Grosshau. Trindal got to the first aid station in Grosshau which was in the basement of a house. He was given some more A.P.C. tablets [Annotators Note: A.P.C stands for aspirin phenacetin caffeine] and coffee. A doctor filled out his wound tag. He had a concussion, trench foot on both feet, a banged up knee, and other problems. While he was in the aid station with the other wounded a cook arrived with a chocolate cake and parceled it out to the patients. Everybody got a piece and it bolstered every ones spirits. The next day Trindal was evacuated by ambulance to the 130th General Hospital in Ciney, Belgium. It was a 15 or 20 mile trip over bad roads. That was the end of Trindal’s experience in the Hurtgen Forest.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal served in the US Army as a rifleman in Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division. He joined the 4th Infantry Division during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest.] Trindal learned during jungle training that they would not be able to make all of the mistakes in their lifetimes. They would have to learn from other’s. They learned to not shoot the German troops and that if a buddy was hit that they should keep going and let the medics take care of them. They learned to put some distance between themselves and the wounded so the medics could tend to them. They worked on a buddy system and supported each other. One of them would shoot while the other ran forward. They did the same thing during retreats. That is how they got out of a beet field and back to the trench. During combat, they did not have time to think. That would creep up on them when they were in a rest point when things were quiet. The soldiers would have to quiet those thoughts and think of other things or it would drive them crazy. When Trindal was back in the hospital about five years after the fact he could not recall the damage that had been done during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. They had to learn to conquer their thoughts so their thoughts did not conquer them. Everyone has a breaking point and Trindal’s was very low. Trindal experienced the most fear when the trucks dropped them off at the front lines when he first went into combat. When the ambulance was taking him to the rear was another time he was very afraid. He had slept for about 24 hours or so and when he came to he was very afraid. He recalls sitting by a window in the hospital and tracing the tree outside with his finger. That was how he kept his mind off of what he had experienced. When the Bulge came [Annotators Note: The German Ardennes Offensive also known as the Battle of the Bulge began on 16 December 1944] they were in Quonset huts receiving truth serum and insulin shock treatments. The German artillery group came up from Belgium. They had run out of food, ammunition, and gasoline before they got to the hospital. The treatments were stopped so Trindal and the others patients were able to go back into combat but they were only able to conquer their fears by talking to the doctors. For 40 years he kept it out of his mind. He stopped being a kid. He drank a lot. His wife helped him get through it.

Wesley Trindal had dreams about the war. He would dream that he was in it again and would keep the barracks awake while he was sleeping. People would throw shoes at him or other items to wake him up or quiet him down. Trindal reenlisted in 1948 and went in the Corps of Engineers. During his second hitch he learned to quit dreaming so he would not be dumped over during the night. The Hurtgen Forest was manicured in some parts with the trees being in a straight line and the underbrush cleared out and the forest floor was even. There were some small streams. In the worst shelled areas the tree tops had been blown off which crashed to the ground. It was a tangled mess and there were men trapped under it. In the war zone it was always rainy and cloudy so the sun never got through even with the tops of the trees blown off. Trindal does not recall the sun coming out once while he was there from 27 November though about 5 December. Trindal feels that what should be remembered the most about the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest is the loss of life. According to Master Sergeant Rush, the records show that there were 3000 casualties in three months [Annotators Note: the 4th Infantry Divisions 22nd Infantry Regiment alone suffered 2526 killed, wounded, captured, or missing in the Hurtgen Forest between 13 November and 3 December 1944]. There was over a 200 percent loss rate in the 4th Division alone. In the Iraq War there have been 3000 casualties in three years. They lost 3000 in three months. During the war they were fighting Germans who were just like them. They wore uniforms and were following orders. Even though the Germans did use roadside bombs it was not the same type of warfare seen in the late 1900s and 2000s. Trindal believes that new tactics need to be used and thinks noise weapons should be used. If that does not work then atomic shelling of some sort may be necessary. During World War 2 the jeeps and trucks were not armored. Today they are trying to present a truck with a V bottom that is resistant to improvised explosive devices [Annotators Note: Trindal is talking about the MRAP or Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicle]. Trindal feels that that is silly and that the bomb should be prevented from being put there in the first place using men and surveillance cameras. Trindal believes that the legacy of the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest should be whether or not the tactics used during the battle can be beneficial today or will it only cost lives. The Americans lost 3000 people in the Hurtgen Forest but the Germans lost 12000. The people and equipment the Germans lost resulted in the Battle of the Bulge being short of people and equipment. The Battle of the Bulge only lasted from 16 December to 24 December [Annotators Note: December 1944] but would have lasted much longer had it not been for the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. The Germans could have reached Antwerp and cut off the British from the Americans. Historians claim that the American military should have gone around the sides of the Hurtgen Forest and starved the Germans out instead of chasing them out but Trindal thinks that this is bunk. Like Henry Ford said they had to learn from experience.

When Wesley Trindal joined his unit on the front lines as a replacement he did not see many people who were not also replacements. Some of them had been there for a few days but he does not recall seeing any old guys. The NCOs were happy to see them because there were so few men. The whole situation was chaos. They were very much welcomed. Trindal’s foxhole buddy was hit during the advance up the hill and he does not know what happened to him after that. He also does not know what happened to the others in his unit. In combat it is difficult to keep track of people because people come and go so frequently. Trindal does not know how many of the replacements he had gone to the front with were still around by the time he came back from no man’s land with the two German prisoners on 5 December [Annotators Note: 5 December 1944]. On 3 December what was left of the 4th Division had been pulled off the line and the 330th Infantry Regiment [Annotators Note: 330th Infantry Regiment, 83rd Infantry Division] took over. This was the fourth or fifth unit that had been assigned in the Hurtgen Forest since the beginning of the battle in October. When a division was wiped out they would just throw another one in. The war changed Trindal from a high school loner to a man who was able to accept anything that was thrown at him in life. It also brought forth a lot of faith. If he had to do it all over again he would. The thing he would change is that two men came back from that patrol [Annotators Note: the patrol during which Trindal was wounded and cut off from the American lines for three days. See segment titled The recon patrol.]. Trindal does not know if he just did not hear the sergeant call for them to fall back or if the sergeant just went back without saying anything to them. He also feels that they were foolhardy for exposing themselves in the opening of the glen without first going around it using the protection of the trees. Their orders had been to go find the German lines but do not get killed. For all intents and purposes they all got killed. Many men were shot in their foxholes or bombed. In every war both sides criticize each other’s tactics. The Americans criticized the Germans and the Germans criticized the Americans.

[Annotators Note: Wesley Trindal joined Company F, 2nd Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Division as an infantry replacement during the Battle of the Hurtgen Forest. While on a reconnaissance patrol he was wounded and cut off in no man’s land. He crawled into a knocked out bunker for shelter and at some point was approached by two German soldiers who tried to enter the bunker.] When the two Germans approached, Trindal thought for sure that he was going to be killed. He had his gun ready in case he had to fire on them. He was unsure of whether he should start shooting or wait. His head was hurting and he did not want to hear noise. That may have caused him to hesitate. The two Germans lived and they brought Trindal back to the American lines. Trindal’s philosophy in life is everything in moderation and have fun. Trindal and his wife have been all over the United States except for Alaska and Hawaii. Trindal has an engineering degree but says his wife is the one who got it for him. After graduating from LSU [Annotators Note: Louisiana State University] he went to work for the Ford Motor Company’s Edsel Division but got fired from there when that division was closed. He then went to work for the Chrysler Corporation as a file clerk but was not happy with it. By going the engineer route instead of the management route Trindal had a ball during his 32 years of government service. He spent 26 of those years at Fort Belvoir playing with trucks and heavy equipment as well as working with contractors who were providing the troops with the equipment Trindal did not have. Trindal feels that it is important that people study every war. Hannibal went over the Alps with elephants. In Afghanistan we are landing troops on top of ridges with helicopters and trying to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. He also feels that the enemy is calling the shots and the US military is purely a reactive force. We are just doing what the enemy imposes on us. Trindal believes that until the American military can start thinking about what the enemy will do next they will not be able to anticipate what is going on. He feels that as soon as the military entered Iraq the Corps of Engineers should have gone in and overseen the rebuilding of the country’s infrastructure. The Corps of Engineers should have supervised the Iraqi Army and let their forces do the work just like the Americans did in Germany after World War 2. The United States was smart enough to get the German military out into the street to take care of the German people. The Stars and Stripes showed that. They did their best to purge what they could of the Nazis but there were a lot of German soldiers who were just like Trindal and those are the ones to cultivate to do the job. The American Truck Historical Society out of Kansas City, Kansas is sponsoring trucking museums all over the country. Trindal believes that what is needed is a mutual aid society interconnecting museums so people will know where The National WWII Museum is in New Orleans, where the United States Army Museum will be in Fort Belvoir, and where the Cold War Museum is going to be in Lorton, Virginia. The Cold War Museum is being set up by Powell, the U2 pilots son or grandson [Annotators Note: the U2 pilot Trindal is referring to is Francis Gary Powers]. Trindal and the others at Fort Belvoir in the 1960s were at the missile site in Lorton working on the rough terrain forklift. World War 2 helped Trindal in his 26 years of working with trucks and equipment at Fort Belvoir. He had learned the ramifications of a driver working with equipment. He knew what features the troops liked and disliked about the equipment they would be working with. He then gave those specifications to the contractors who would be bidding to provide them. The trucks Trindal was responsible for getting for the Corp of Engineers had air cushioned seats and automatic drive five speed transmissions. He had learned a lot while driving a two and a half ton truck around the Carentan Peninsula in 1945. The Army Corps of Engineers, the Ordnance Corps, and the Quartermaster Corps need to pay attention to the troops in the field and to what the civilian users are doing with their equipment. They also need to keep up with technical advances and not worry about wasting government money or getting the lowest bid. It takes premium equipment to do a premium job. That was Trindal’s philosophy for over 20 years.