Comments on: Battle of Wingen-sur-Moder

By: Walter C Cox, Jr. E Co. 274 regiment

Walter C Cox, Jr. E Co. 274 regiment — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 15:14:02 +0000

Being a 2nd Lt commanding the 3rd platoon of the 274th Regiment, I commend the author of this article. It is very authentic in that it exactly depicts the horror of the situation on that very cold snowy time in January 1945. It was my Sergeant and a private, Dyson and Dubose that I sent to the church door to release the prisoners who had been there for 3 days or more. During the day the battle ended and as I walked up and down the main road of Wingen, there were bodies of Germans and Americans lying everywhere. They were frozen in various shapes and the collection of the dead truck was piling them into the trucks as if they were logs.
I found the window where a sniper had been sitting in a rocking chair with about 200 spent shells on the floor. I am sure he was the one who killed Lt Wayne Meshier and shot Capt. Davenport 3 times without killing him. It was an erie feeling and I cannot get the sight out of my mind even after all those years.
I went back in 1977 and visited Wingen as well as other places of battles and found a foxhole I had helped dig back in 1945.
Our association will meet Sept 2010 in Texas and will probably host some 100 Trailblazers whose ranks are falling at the rate of 100 per year.

By: Z.O.Marek

Z.O.Marek — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 18:26:54 +0000

The Wenk still stands but has a new name,if I recall correctly it is now the SCHMIDT. PS will go in the spring 2010 and recheck and will update the info.
Z.O.Marek. Nr K'Town Germany. Feb.2010

By: Robert Cunningham

Robert Cunningham — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 03:42:03 +0000

In discovering this review (Battle of Wingen-sur-Moder), I have finally found my wife's uncles place of death. Clemens Riedemann was a PVT 179 INF and died 5 January 1945. He grew up in Paulina Iowa and was living in Winona County-MN. He was 34 years of age, married with 4 children. He enlisted in May of 1944, (Fort Snelling) and found himself in this horrific battle 8 months later. He was a muscian and brother of Vernelle Riedemann who lived 53 more years dying at the age of 87 years in 2001, preceded by their mother Hermine Voss, who passed away at age 104 in 1993. Clemens and his family paid the price of our freedom. I honor him and all the men and women in our arm forces. It has been a long search because this battle does not get the attention it deserves in reading about the Battle of The Bulge.
God Bless America and God bless those who served, died, were wounded or MIA and all the famlies who live in the shadows of life
after war. Robert Cunningham

By: Laurie Trlak

Laurie Trlak — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 15:23:17 +0000

Thanks for this article. My father, Allen J. Rogers, was a soldier of C/276 and fought in that battle; he suffered frost-bitten feet but he survived (obviously, since I was not born until 1957). Of course he never talked about it. I didn't know of this battle until some years after his death, when a member of the Trailblazers association emailed me an account that had appeared in the Trailblazer magazine.
I had never realized until I read the article that as late as January, 1945, victory was not certain for the Allies. I think of the impatience of so many in this country today over the situation in Iraq, which has been no where near as costly in terms of lives lost as WWII, and I'm thankful that Americans then were evidently tougher than we are today. I also have a greater appreciation of what Dad experienced in just that battle, and even more respect for him and his fellow soldiers.
Once again, thanks for publishing this account.