Now the Final Episodes
“At 5.25 o’clock on the morning of October 31 ‘Fritzie’ on watch along the Lys River was rudely awakened from his dreams of German beer and sauerkraut to face a typical go-get-’em barrage. It was a typical American barrage. Five minutes of drumfire. Five minutes of hell, fire, and damnation. Five minutes of terror. Across the Lys River scurried the Ohioans. Paddling in the icy water on logs and planks, the ‘doughboys’ went over, carrying rifles and machine guns. Engineers began to build bridges. For a few minutes the Germans hesitated, but it didn’t take them long to decide. Back they went to previously arranged positions. Here they planned to stop the infantry, but they were mistaken. In twenty minutes the Ohioans had reached their first objective. Three hours later they passed their second objective and dug in for the night. As they dug in the Germans dug out and started for the Escaut River. On the second day members of the 37th Division drove on through Cruyshautem and Huysse to the banks of the Scheldt (Escaut) River. Here, under a veritable rain of shrapnel and machine-gun fire, they established and held the only bridgeheads to be erected over this river during the war.”