90th Infantry Division Pic of the Week: Mainz, Germany
January 9, 2012
Posted in 358th Infantry, 90th Infantry Division, 90th Infantry Division Pic of the Week, Mainz Germany, World War II
Tags: 358th Infantry, 90th Infantry Division, 90th Infantry Division Pic of the Week, Mainz Germany, World War II
What a mess war leaves behind! This edition of the 90th Infantry Division Pic of the Week features a shot of members of the 90th ID, flushing German stragglers from the rubble of Mainz, Germany.
I was a rifleman in E Co. 358 Reg’t on the 22nd of March entering the
outskirts of Mainz through an apple orchard. We received small arms fire
immediately and crawled forward in deep furrows in this orchard to keep
our profile as low as possible, several were wounded and Sgt. Stanley
Bernardo died of wounds from this event. We rose to “marching fire”
and found ourselves in the middle of artillery fire from ours and the enemy.
Then came the P-47 fighter planes strafing just ahead of us which saved
our lives. My BAR man managed to silence two Germans who were about
to kill both of us. Following the P-47 strafing, we began taking German
prisoners without resistance and three of us GIs took 54 POWs in a short
while, taking them to the rear area. This was a very eventful day and
we felt the Air Corps really saved our lives that day. Mail call that night
in the railroad station revealed that my brother was a POW of the Germans. Two weeks later a Recon group that worked with the 90th
helped to liberate my brother on Easter Sunday 1945.