90th Infantry Division Pic of the Week: Fontoy, France.

I had three different NCAA Tournament brackets before the weekend started.  Now they’re all wadded up, in the corner where they belong. It’s Monday, and back to business.

The 90th Infantry Division Picture of the Week features a shot of Fontoy, France.  Interestingly, Hobert Winebrenner, in his book, BOOTPRINTS, tells of his unit, the 3rd Battalion, 358th Infantry, 90th Infantry Division, moving into Fontoy.

He wrote:

Hobert Winebrenner - 358th Infantry, 90th ID

We had vacated Chambois, well west of Paris, on August 22. In three weeks, we traveled through the bulk of northern France, some five hundred miles, with little to no resistance. We finally found and squared off with the enemy in the early morning hours of September 10, when the entire Battalion shoved its way into Fontoy, west of Thionville.

Although the unit histories will tell you otherwise, we weren’t spoiling for a fight. We had all enjoyed the time off. It wasn’t hard to get used to a life without flying metal.  Some were understandably apprehensive about heading back into battle. In Normandy, none of us believed we would survive, so we just went about our business as if on borrowed time. But after the one-sided victory at the Falaise Gap, followed by nineteen straight days of relative inaction, many had envisioned a life after this mess.

At Fontoy, where it was strictly a house-by-house encounter, we reacquainted ourselves with war. Mined road blocks and booby traps caused additional problems.  Although our casualties were comparatively light, any American dead were significant. Far from welcome, the sounds and sites of battle had returned.

The 90th Infantry Division secures Fontoy, France - September 12, 1944. (U.S. Army Signal Corps Photo, Courtesy National Archives)

The next day, September 11, 1944, Winebrenner and his unit would push east into the hill country surrounding Algrange.  Winebrenner would be wounded again, shot through the leg by an enemy rifleman.