The convoy went from Bastogne to Bellefontaine, Virton, Etain, Toul, Nancy, Drulingen, arriving on January 20. The 506th PIR went into regimental reserve.
While on the road, Sergeant Lipton became ill, with chills and a high fever. At Drulingen he went to see the medical officer, who examined him and declared that he had pneumonia and had to be evacuated to a hospital. Lipton said he was 1st sergeant of E Company and could not possibly leave. As the doctor could not evacuate him that night anyway, he told Lipton to come back in the morning.
Lieutenant Speirs and Sergeant Lipton had a room in a German house for the night. (Alsace, on the border between France and Germany, changes hands after every war. In 1871 it became German territory; the French got in back in 1919; in 1940 it became German again, in 1945, French.) The room had only a single bed. Speirs said Lipton should sleep on it. Lipton replied that wasn't right; as the enlisted man, he would sleep in his sleeping bag on the floor. Speirs simply replied, "You're sick," which settled it.
Lipton got into the bed. The elderly German couple who lived in the home brought him some schnapps and Apfelstrudel. Lipton had never drunk anything alcoholic, but he sipped at the schnapps until he had finished a large glass, and ate the strudel. He fell into a deep sleep. In the morning, his fever had broken, his energy had returned. He went to the medical officer, who could not believe the improvement. The doctor called it a miracle.
Speirs, delighted by the recovery, said that he and Winters had recommended Lipton for battlefield promotion and that Colonel Sink wanted to talk to him. Lipton went to regiment, where Sink gave him a one-hour grilling on his combat experiences.
Easy stayed in reserve for nearly two weeks, moving almost daily from one village to another. The weather warmed. The sun shone, and the snow began to melt. The ground got mushy. A supply truck arrived carrying an issue of shoepacs complete with arctic socks and felt insoles. "Where were you six weeks ago in Bastogne, when we needed you?" the men shouted at the drivers. Dirty clothes, blankets, and sleeping bags were picked up by the Quartermaster Company and sent to a G.I. laundry. Portable showers capable of handling 215 men an hour were brought in; Easy moved through them as a company. The water wasn't hot, but at least it wasn't ice cold either. Soap and lather, scrub and scrub—it took a major effort to remove six weeks of dirt and sweat.
Movies arrived, including Rhapsody in Blue, Buffalo Bill, and Our Hearts Were Young and Gay. Stars and Stripes, Yank, and Kangaroo Khronicle brought news of the outside world (not as welcome as one would have supposed, because the news from the Pacific showed that the war there had a long way to go; this ignited rumors that the 101st was going to be shipped to the Pacific for "the big jump" on Japan).
On February 5, Easy moved into the line as the 506th relieved the 313th Infantry of the 79th Division in the city of Haguenau. The population was nearly 20,000, which was big time for the paratroopers in Europe. Carentan had about 4,000 residents, Mourmelon about 4,500, and Bastogne maybe 5,500. Haguenau lay astride the Moder River, a tributary of the Rhine. Easy's position was on the far right flank of the 506th, at the junction of the Moder and a canal that ran through town to cut off the loop in the Moder.
"Our position was somewhat like a point into the German lines," Lieutenant Foley recalled. Easy occupied the buildings on the south bank, the Germans held the buildings on the north bank. The river was high, out of its banks, the current swift. It varied from about 30 to as much as 100 meters wide, it was too far to throw grenades across but close enough for machine-gun, rifle, and mortar fire. Both sides had artillery support. A few kilometers behind their lines the Germans had a huge railway gun (probably a 205 mm) from World War I. It fired shells as big as the 16-inch naval guns that had supported the Americans at Utah Beach.
The paratroopers moved into buildings that had been occupied by the 79th Division. Webster and five other members of 1st platoon took over a building at the juncture of the Moder and the canal. "In keeping with the best airborne tradition of relying on madmen instead of firepower," Webster wrote, "six of us with one B.A.R. relieved eighteen 79th Division doggies with a water-cooled 50 and an air-cooled 30-caliber machine gun." The 79th Division men told 1st platoon that this was a quiet sector, no offensives by either side, but Webster noted that they left in a hurry after the briefest of briefings.
The building the 1st squad of 1st platoon occupied was a wreck. Sections of walls had been blasted away, the roof partially removed by mortar shells, all the windows broken, the floors ankle deep in plaster, bricks, and broken glass, the banisters ripped off for firewood, the toilets choked with excreta, the basement a cesspool of ashes, ordure, and ration cans.
Looking the place over, Cpl. Tom McCreary expressed the general sentiment of his squad: "We got it made."
This was the first time anyone in the squad had lived indoors on the firing line. The men set out to improve their quarters. They rearranged the cellar, putting the bunks and C rations in one room, throwing the trash in another. They found some gas-burning lamps and a working stove. They spliced into a German field telephone system and established communications with the 1st platoon CP. When they needed to relieve themselves, they went to the third floor, "where the toilet bowl was only half full."
George Luz, radio man for the 1st platoon CP, paid a visit. McCreary's squad showed off their accommodations with pride. "If you think this is-good," Luz responded, "you should see Company HQ. They're living like kings." He looked around again, and added, "Them bastards."
(Webster shared Luz's feelings. He went back to the company CP as seldom as possible because "there was altogether too much rank in that place and a private didn't stand a chance.")
As on the Island, movement by day was impossible. Snipers were always ready to blast anyone caught in the open. The least movement would bring down mortars; two or three men outside would justify a couple of rounds of 88s. So, Webster recorded, "our major recreation was eating. We spent more time preparing, cooking, and consuming food than in any other pursuit."
The company's task was to hold the line, send out enough patrols to keep contact with the Germans, and serve as forward artillery observers. McCreary's squad held observation post No. 2. Two men, one at the third floor window, the other in the basement with the telephone, were on duty for an hour at a time. From the window, the men had a beautiful view of the German section of town. They could call for artillery fire just about whenever they wanted, a luxury previously unknown. The Germans would reply in kind.
It was hard to say which was more dangerous, mortars, aimed sniper fire, machine-gun bursts, 88s, or that big railway gun. One thing about the monster cannon, although it was so far to the rear the men could not hear it fire, they could hear the low-velocity shell coming from a long way off. It sounded like a train. Shifty Powers recalled that he was an observer in a third-floor window. When he heard the shell, he had time to dash downstairs into the basement before it landed.
Although the men lived in constant danger—a direct hit from the railway gun would destroy whole buildings—they were in a sense spectators of war. Glenn Gray writes that the "secret attractions of war" are "the delight in seeing, the delight in comradeship, the delight in destruction." He continues, "War as a spectacle, as something to see, ought never to be underestimated."1