George M. Legg
Company C, 144th Infantry Regiment
Later Company E, 114th Infantry Regiment
44th Division

We marched through a small town in Southern France, (don’t remember the name) then followed a railroad north for about two miles. We then stopped for the night. I was a gunner in a 60mm mortar squad of the weapons platoon in a rifle company.

Our two machinegun squads dug in on the east side of the railroad tracks; our three mortar squads dug in on the west side. Sometimes during the night, the guard on duty, a machinegunner named Smith, heard German voices advancing. He hollered, "Halt!" and the Germans opened fire with their rifles. Smith cut loose with the machinegun. The next morning, Smith found a dead German soldier about fifteen feet from his foxhole. Smith said there had been three of them apparently headed for the town. One bullet had hit the jacket around the barrel of his 30-cal. air-cooled machinegun, with a glancing shot. Fortunately, it missed Smith.

As for me, sleeping across the tracks, I didn’t hear a sound. We in the mortar squads, so very tired, didn’t hear the excitement, and didn’t find out what had happened until morning. We stayed there all day.

On our feet as it got dark, we proceeded north along the tracks, following some tanks that had been brought up as additional support. It was a very dark night, I mean it was pitch black, as we entered a forest, holding on to the man in front of us to keep from getting separated. We had penetrated the forest about 200 yards when the Germans opened up with one of their best weapons, the Eighty-Eight; they had that railroad zeroed-in perfectly.

Our tanks stopped moving and we hit the rocks on the track bed. Almost as soon as we got quiet, the shelling stopped, but not for long. After lying there for about ten minutes, and just as we started moving forward again, the Germans opened up with that artillery again. My squad leader hit the rocks, stretched prone against the railroad tracks. The man in front of me was lying with his head against the squad leader’s shoulder, and I hit the dirt with my left shoulder touching him and my head against the squad leader’s hip, and a man behind me was against my right shoulder with his head crammed against the squad leader’s knee.

The squad leader got hit in the leg, the man on my left got hit in the back of the neck, the man on my right was hit in the hand, and all I got were some rocks or shrapnel bouncing off my overcoat. My foxhole buddy, who was wounded in the neck, was the most seriously hit. I carried him back to the aid station that had been set up in an old farm house at the edge of the woods. I cut away his clothing and got him ready for the medics. As soon as the medics arrived, we put him on a stretcher and headed for the town where an evacuation center had been set up. After carrying the stretcher back about a hundred yards, I told my squad leader there was no need for me to go back into the town as I had not been wounded. Neither the squad leader or the ammo man were seriously wounded, so they took over and I went back to the aid station. There, I asked if they knew where the company had gone. "On up the tracks," they told me.

I went out, took one look, and said "there’s no way" that I was going up those tracks that night. Since I had covered my buddy with my overcoat, I looked around and found a GI raincoat, then went into the farm barn, that had a nice large shell hole in the roof, climbed into the loft, buried myself into some hay and went to sleep. The next morning I woke up with a good sprinkling of snow over me and the hay. When I started moving around, I found the loft was full of GIs.

Then I headed up the railroad tracks, looking for my outfit, and came across my mortar, mortar ammo, machinegun ammo and rifles, at the place where we were last shelled. I picked up my mortar, one bag of mortar shells, a box of machinegun ammo, and two MT rifles. I arranged these around my body, then headed north. I don’t know what I would have done if I had run into an enemy patrol, but I knew I had to get back with my company and I was loaded for bear. I walked the tracks for about two miles and found one of our company standing at a gate near the tracks. He told me the company’s location, so I headed for the farm buildings about a half-mile away and rejoined my outfit there.

We had lost about 30% of our platoon the night before, and fortunately, most were not seriously wounded. Our squad leader and ammo bearer were two of the three men of our five-man squad to return later in the day. (The other man, my foxhole buddy, returned to the company in Austria after Germany surrendered. His neck was still stiff, but he was alive.)

We spent the night in the farm buildings. At morning, we found rain had started during the night and continued as we advanced about a mile. We stopped, and as usual, began digging foxholes. Every time we dug a shovel full of dirt, water would fill the hole. The C.O. lined us up to move out to a better place and just as we were to move out, another outfit came up to relieve us.

After lengthy discussions, the relief outfit decided to move further on and it passed on through. They had advanced only two or three hundred yards when they ran into a well fortified German force just waiting for our advance. The relief outfit really got chewed up in that encounter, taking a beating intended for us. Once again, I guess the Good Lord was still with me, since we had pulled back just in time.

I’m not a "Holier than thou" religious man, but I firmly believe in God. Without his protecting hand, I do not believe I would have come through some of these experiences without a scratch.

I am proud to have been a member of the "Fighting 36th Division." I am also proud to have been a member of the 144th Infantry Regiment, a part of the 36th Division until shortly after the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

I joined Company G, 144th Infantry Regt., 36th Division, in June, 1938. I attended summer camps in 1938 and 1939, but did not attend the Louisiana Maneuvers in 1940 as I went to work as a field assistant for an entomologist right after graduating from high school in May, 1940.

When Company G was activated into federal service, I went with my outfit to Camp Bowie and served my year of active service along with the rest of the 36th Division. As fate would have it, when Pearl Harbor was bombed, the 144th was removed from Camp Bowie and eventually from the 36th Division.

Soon after leaving Camp Bowie, many were reassigned to various other units, and most of us eventually went overseas. The 144th eventually became a training cadre, and trained many, many men for overseas assignments. Although this organization did not go overseas, it did contribute trained men for every conceivable military organization—the medics, the infantry, air force, engineers, armored units, anti-tank, anti-aircraft, military police, paratroopers, and on and on. Many of us went overseas and many of them gave their all for their country.

I wish to pay tribute to this "PAR ONERI" regiment for its great contribution of fighting men during World War II. Some were sergeants, some were privates, some were lieutenants, and some were generals. All were "fighting men." To these men, living and dead, I say "God Bless You," and "I am proud to have trained and served with you."

THE 144TH INFANTRY

by GEORGE A LEGG, CO. G, 144TH

The 144th, though torn asunder,
Its members scattered far and wide,
With heads held high, will ne’er go under;
For its members served with pride.
In foreign lands, on island strands,
Where e’er our soldiers died,
The 144th lent able hands;
For its members served with pride.
"EQUAL TO THE TASK," its motto read,
And they proved it never lied,
By the living and the dead,
For its members served with pride.