AL , S MEMOIRS

Chapter 6

was younger. They were two of the nicest people that you would ever meet in your life. It has been my absolute pleasure to have known this man and his wife and to share some of his story. It must have been an honor for my grandfather to stand side by side with Al through the most difficult of times and to have both survived, had a long life, and to have had wonderful families.

The other photos in this chapter were provided by Larry. They depict Al and Larry’s father’s 1st Platoon at Asch, Belgium. According to Larry, their name for the base was “The Mud Hole in the Pines”. One of the pictures shows them stealing blast from the railroad to put to use in and around the Bivouac area, another photo is of Coy Shirley manning one of the .50 caliber machine guns that Al mentioned that were on some of the trucks, and another photo is of George Heath with the tail section of a German plane that was shot down over Y29 when the Germans attacked. This was one of 36 German planes shot down that morning at Y29. As mentioned earlier by Al, on New Year’s Day, the German planes came over to raid the air base. Not only did they raid the air base of Y29, but they raided almost all of the Allied Force air bases in and along the front lines in one final move to try to take control of the war. This was called Operation Bodenplatte and will be reviewed in a later chapter.