stats

Daily supply tonnage brought into Europe through the ports of France on December 15, 1944, the beginning of the Ardennes/Alsace Campaign:

23,050

blood and fire

I finally got the CD's I was waiting on...the compiled  history and troop movements of Dad's 253rd Infantry.  Complete order of command still confuses me (not necessarily in this order): H Company, 2nd Battalion, 253rd Infantry Regiment,  63rd Infantry Division. Vets of the campaigns/battles of the 253rd have contributed to the thin knowledge that managed to escape that fire in the Govt. archives.  It is spotty and some of the info comes in the form of copies of old mimeographed Morning Reports that were daily reports of the troops activites, some barely if not impossible to read. Being that they had to be recorded, I imagine a soldier, a few miles in back of the front lines, typing away, probably on an old Remington.

I went over a rough timeline I had pieced together with my Dad yesterday, to see what towns, villages, names of guys in his company, the officers he might remember.  It was only about 66 yrs. ago, (!) but I actually was able to jar his memory some.

He left the war behind him as soon as he was shipped home, not like some men who got involved in the organizations and reunions.  But some of these men have dedicated their time putting together as much material they could find and have actually become historians. Here is the main site I've been involved with. This is real history, with wars worth fighting. Not like today.

my dad,~joe goldberg

rant

Unbelievable. Truly. To save a swath of fury from overcoming the landscape, I've decided to get my hosting elsewhere. Traitor. I know. I'm glad. I like the Blogger interface better than my website host's, but not the customer service.- because...there is none. In this case you get what you pay for. I don't want to have to fix my own car before I drive it, I just want to drive it. That's also why I like Macs. Get in and go and it looks better too. 

$$$$$

Well, all I can say for blogging, is one step forward, two steps back. You have to jump through so many hoops to get any help from "Blogger", then you're led back right where you started! With no answer. Like those friggin' phone menus...that lead nowhere. It's almost insulting, like I'm going through an initiation...but here I am, back in the rabbit's hole. I cannot view this site online and it's frustrating. And there's no there there. I'm yelling for help into a void. What is the point? Can someone give me the secret password? The code?? Hel-lo-o-ooo!!?? ...out there...someone there??

Talk about having the wind knocked out of your sails..I'd better hunker down...

(...somehow I can't help but think there's someone out there making money on this. It sure isn't me).

you are there

It is exciting to me to become so involved in a great project. The only time ideas seem to lift off the ground is when I think of doing something for someone else. Don't get me wrong,- I'm no altruist or people-pleaser. But flowing creativity instead of head-banging comes when there is a personal connection for me on some level. And it's nothing I can purposefully instigate, it just happens. To be creative-on-demand is not my forte.

I have had to learn many new things in a short period of time, most of which has to do with slogging into the 21st Century: doing research, starting a blog, (do I have to buy a domain??), buying a video camera, learning about lavaliere microphones...do I want an omni-directional or uni-directional? (uni). Whew!

So far, I'm working my way backwards from my father's capture and subsequent imprisonment on April 3, 1945. It happened during the Jagst-Kocher River Engagement, an eight-day battle with the 17th SS Panzer Grenadier Division (for all those of you who give a rat's ass), where his 253rd Regiment fought alongside the 254th and 255th to cross the Jagst and Kocher River, north of Stuttgart.

It was a few months after the Battle of the Bulge, just south of the Ardennes. At that point, the Germans knew they had lost the war, and they were putting in their best fighting forces in a last ditch effort. These SS Divisions were known for their aggressive fanaticism. Fortunately for him, my father was taken just before the crossing, as it ended up being a hell of a battle, ending up, finally, captive in a farmhouse in Augsburg. I Google Earth'd the two rivers, and the stands of forest are still there, post-war. Kind of eerie.

1

Visit the link (on right) to my father's Collection for the Veteran's History Project for the Library of Congress. His great-nephew initially interviewed him for a college project and it is about 1/2 hr. long. I'm hoping to flesh it out with questions of my own. It is to be a video-taped interview.

I am also in the process of writing an illustrated narrative of the interviews that I hope to self-publish in the near future. At this point there are only layouts of the illustrations and graphics waiting on the text. I'm doing it in "InDesign", wonderful software for work going to print.