C. Boykin

the story of a veteran who fought during the bitter winter of 1944/45 in the Ardennes.

Calvin Boykin, gunner on an M-8 armored car, then after their withdrawal from St. Vith and environs he was promoted to section sergeant, assigned to the same, but new armored car of 1st Section 2d Platoon of RCN CO, 814th TD Bn. He entered the Army from Big Spring, Texas in February 1943.

FIRST ECHELON MAINTENANCE

By virtue of a hard freeze the night of 22 December 1944, vehicles of the 7th Armored Division and its attached units, including the 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion, rose from the muck of mud and icy slush and began an orderly withdrawal on the 23rd from St. Vith, Belgium and environs. The 7th Armored's CCB, under the command of Brigadier General Bruce Clarke, had defended well or seven days against the onslaughts from German units of Manteuffel's Fifth Panzer Army until orders initiated by Field Marshal Montgomery had resulted in the plan for a daylight withdrawal from "The Fortified Goose Egg."

Task Force Jones, under Lieutenant Colonel Robert B. Jones, commander of the 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion, received orders to fight a rear guard action, using elements of his 814th and other units. Lieutenant Raymond A. Fuca of Rockford, Illinois, leader of the 814th's 2d Platoon RCN CO, informed his men that they had been ordered to form a secondary road block behind four M-36 tank destroyers of the 814th, designated to fight the rear guard action.

Posted near a farm house in the Beho/Bovigny vicinity, the platoon awaited further orders. Chilled to the bone in the bitter cold, compounded by clearing skies, men of 2d Platoon muttered to each other rather grimly, watching all day long the main column passing on a road below. By late afternoon, Pfc. Marvin Moser of Hickman, Nebraska, drover of Lieutenant Fuca's jeep, casting aside his worries (apparently), checked his vehicle's log book. He noted that the mileage readings indicated a need for a change of oil. Moser, a stickler for maintenance, jacked up his jeep and changed the oil. When told at the annual reunions of the 814th, this story, humorous in retrospect, has become one of the battalion's legends.

Pfc. Calvin C. Boykin, Jr., M-8 gunner, 2d Platoon, RCN CO, 814th TD Bn.

Bazooka VS German Tank

Account Set in the Belgian Ardennes Reported by Lieutenant Will Rogers, Jr., Leader of 1st Platoon RCN CO 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

Some years after the war Will Rogers Jr., recalls an incident that happened following his platoon's arrival at Poteau. His account for the Armor School production of the two-part military documentary, The Battle at St. Vith, includes the following: Early morning of 18 December a member of his platoon spotted a German tank not far distant from 1st Platoon's outpost. Lieutenant Rogers, as he told the story before the cameras, scurried within one of his men to their jeep, and after some effort disentangled the rocket launcher (Bazooka) from the camouflage net. They attempted to pull the bag of rockets off the jeep, and found the bag frozen to the vehicle. Frantically, they chipped the ice away, pulled off the bag, and the rockets fell from the bag into the mud. In his characteristic sense of humor and irony he portrayed their actions as being reminiscent of a scene from Laurel and Hardy all over again. They loaded the launcher with a rocket, took aim at the tank, then pulled the trigger. Nothing happened. They had forgotten to attach the rocket wires to the launcher. Frantically, they completed the wiring, again took aim at the tank, and fired. A loud explosion sounded the instant the rocket hit the tank. As the smoke began to clear, Rogers recalled seeing the German tank commander close the hatch as the tank backed away, undamaged.

(Account reported in Gare La Bete: A History of the 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1942-1945, C&R Publications, College Station, Texas, 1995)

 

Secret Weapon

Lieutenant Will Rogers, Jr. Account Set in the Belgian Ardennes Reported in the Kansas City Star of January 2, 1945. Rogers led 1st Platoon RCN CO 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion.

Will Rogers, Jr., former representative (Congress) of California--in the Army he is officially Lieutenant Will Rogers, Jr. found his reconnaissance platoon engulfed by Germans December 23 and had to retreat. But he left the enemy a warning red letters. The son of the famous humorist, Will Rogers, obtained a 4-foot sheet of wrapping paper, nailed it to a big tree in the middle of the road and printed with a red grease pencil: "Beware! We will be back in two weeks with our new secret weapon."

(Quoted from Gare La Bete: A History of the 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1942-1945, C&R Publications, College Station, Texas, 1995, written by Calvin C. Boykin, Jr.)

One Way to Destroy a Vehicle?

Bottled up by enemy fire from the rear and front of the column earlier used by CCB of the 7th Armored Division on early evening of 23 December 1944, the rear guard elements of Task Force Jones sought and finally found an exit route through brushy trails and fireguards near Salm Chateau, near Vielsalm, Belgium. However, at St. Marie, just above Salm Chateau, the ice-covered marsh proved difficult for to traverse, and several vehicles mired down and had to be abandoned. As gunner on an M-8 armored car of 2d Platoon, RCN CO, 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion, I recall hearing the urgent voice of Colonel Jones, leader of Task Force Jones and commander of the 814th, ordering us to "burn your vehicles and get out on foot!" I handed an incendiary grenade to my driver, T/Corporal Frank Powers of Kansas City, Kansas. Then my armored car slipped through the ice-covered marsh and stalled. Efforts to secure assistance from passing vehicles failed, so I removed the firing pin from my 37-mm gun and called for Powers to set off his incendiary grenade. He couldn't find the grenade I had handed him earlier. In the moonlit early evening I ran through the snow, hampered by the weight of my overcoat, tankers jacket, and galoshes, finally reaching 2d Platoon's Lieutenant Fuca's jeep, some 200 yards ahead. I shouted for Lieutenant Fuca's driver, Pfc. Marvin Moser of Hickman, Nebraska to hand me his incendiary grenade, which he did immediately. I ran back toward my stranded M-8, finding my driver, Posers, and my radio operator, T/Corporal Warren Hansen, stuffing rags into the gas tank of our armored car, attempting to light them with a cigarette lighter. The rags caught fire, then fizzled, just as a German tank roared in the distance, causing us to take instant flight on foot. Running through the snow, I finally caught up with Lieutenant Fuca's jeep. On noticing the incendiary grenade still clutched in my hand, I returned it to my lieutenant's driver, Moser. Moser, despite having a jeep load of stragglers, including one on the hood of his jeep with a severe chest wound, shook his head and laughed. "You returned the grenade?"

(Moser doesn't remember this story. After walking some distance through the snow I caught on to a light tank in the column and rode out on the back. Beautiful starlight night, interrupted by periodic checking of the wounded aboard. A buzz bomb traced across the sky. No worry).

Abstracted from Gare La Bete: A History of the 814th Tank Destroyer Battalion, 1942-1945, C&R Publications, College Station, Texas, 1995, written by Calvin C. Boykin, Jr.

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