| I was at Andler and Manderfeld |
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| After erecting a Bailey Bridge at Andler, we removed about 300 German Teller mines from the river bank. We were ordered to deactivate all of them, to which we expressed our displeasure...to no avail. So we did. |
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| After that we went up the hill to Manderfeld. We moved into a house directly across the main road in Manderfeld from where the road from Andler intersected the main road. As I recall, it was a rather nice house. We immediately removed the furniture and rolled out our sleeping bags. We then had a mail call, the first in quite some time. Among the letters, etc., was a copy of Yank Magazine. The center spread showed an illustration with a GI deactivating a Teller Mine. The Heading read: “DON’T DO THIS”. Apparently, the newer German Teller Mines were set to explode when an effort was made to deactivate them. Wow!! |
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| As a squad of combat engineers we mostly operated as an independent team. Occasionally we were with our platoon. Manderfeld was one of the rare times that we were with our entire company...kitchen and all. We had the kitchen, such as it was, set up in the middle of the road at the east end of town. |
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| On the next day I told the first sergeant that I needed dental care and he agreed that I could go down to Andler on the water truck and see a dentist. The dentist was a full colonel with a foot operated drill, located in the first house on the left side of road leading from Andler to Manderfeld, just past the end of the Bailey Bridge. The colonel looked at my broken denture and asked what outfit I belonged to. When I said the 312th Engineer Combat Battalion his response was: "Son, I would have to send this to Paris, and by the time it came back you will be either dead or wounded." |
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| That ended my dental visit. (For the record, I never did get the dental work that I needed till after I was discharged in January 1946.) |
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| When I left the dental clinic I met a Red Cross lady who was making doughnuts. I asked her if she would give me one. She asked what outfit I belonged to. When I told her, her response was: "We will be taking doughnuts to your unit in a couple of days." |
| (For the record, I have never in my life seen a Red Cross doughnut!) |
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| We spent two or three days in Manderfeld before heading for Roth. While there, however, I got to the village of Auw. At Auw I saw the temporary graves of a couple of men from an outfit that I previously belonged to (Company “A”, 81st Engineer Combat Battalion, 106th Infantry Division). |
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| When we moved near Roth we stayed in a barn about a half mile from Mortar Junction (our name), where the road thru Roth joined the "Siegfried" Highway. On the road across from the barn was an air compressor, upside down, and mostly burned . It was from my old Company A. Also, we retrieved a bulldozer from the forest east of the "Siegfried" Highway, and it also was from my old Company “A”. |
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T/4 Arthur W. JASPER
(now Major retired)
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"B" Company
312th Engineer Battalion
87th Infantry Division
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Campaigns
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Central Europe
Rhineland
Battle of the Bulge,
Belgium
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