Company commanders were summoned to the Alsdorf cellar command post. At 0100 in the morning, Col Duncan learned that the big attack would begin that day at 1245. The drive to the Roer River, seven miles east of Alsdorf (Germany), was set to start November 8, but sloppy weather delayed it until November 16. Now, many of you will meet and defeat the best the Japanese have. You have met and defeated the best the Germans had. Never has a man had the opportunity of working with and associating with a finer group of officers and men than you of the 743rd. You have kept the faith your loved ones had in You, your country had in you, Col Upham had in you, and I had in you. Yes, you have kept the faith of those who died in Flanders Field (Belgium) in ’17 and ’18, of those who died in the water and on the sands of Omaha Beach (France), of those who died beside, the hedgerows of Normandy, of those who fell in the orchards and farmlands of France, Belgium and Holland, of those who threw their soft bodies against the steel and cement obstacles of the Siegfried Line, of those who pushed to the Roer River, froze in the bitter winter campaign of the Ardennes (Belgium), and of those whose bodies were strewn from the Roer River to the Rhine River and from the Rhine River to the Elbe River. Never, from the day you hit the Normandy Invasion Beach until this day, have I had any doubts as to your courage or your willingness to sacrifice your lives for those of your comrades. You have accomplished it only as great soldiers could. You have accomplished your mission in Europe. The writing is by Pfc Wayne Robinson, who here wishes to acknowledge the great help given by so many, from tank commanders to cooks to personnel clerks, in getting the facts for this combat story. The 21-chapter illustrations are by Pfc Norman E. Hess, aided by German-speaking T/Sgt Frank Gartner, looked after the considerable details of the publication. That the book did get printed at all is astonishing to its author.
This is just one of the sometimes fantastic difficulties overcome during the manufacture of these pages in the bomb-devastated city of Frankfurt-on-Main (Germany) in July 1945. A Battalion truck was driven hundreds of miles through Germany to locate and haul a linotype machine so that type could be set for this book. Sometimes, War can generate a complicated task to be done. (Corrections (if) Photographs, Additional Research by Doc Snafu.) The part extracted relates to the Battle of the Bulge, December 16, 1944, to February 25, 1945. () – (Bangor Public Library, 145 Harlow Street, Bangor, Maine, 04401, USA). Document Source: United States Army Robinson, Wayne and Hamilton, Norman E., Move out, verify: the combat story of the 743rd Tank Battalion, (1945).
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