134th Infantry Regiment "All Hell Can't Stop Us"

Pierreville, France

September 1944

The following excerpt is from Chapter VI of the 134th Infantry Regiment Combat History of World War II:

"It was 0800, September 10, when the Regiment moved out. The 2nd Battalion, (Major Roecker, after a few days’ illness was back in command) moving east from its area at Germany, was on the right; Colonel Boatsman’s 1st Battalion (except Company A, who had its hands full at the fort) advanced on the left, and Major Wood’s 3rd Battalion, in reserve, followed the 2nd. No enemy resistance interfered with the advanced infantry columns during the morning hour. About the only outside activity was a beautiful bombing attack - carried out by American light and medium bombers - on the Foret de Haye (to the north of the regimental zone, within the big bend of the Moselle). By noon the battalions were fording the shallow Madon River - the 1st below Xeuilley, and the 2nd and 3rd at Pierreville. Because of the angle to the direction of march in which the rivers - and the objective - lay, the 1st Battalion had a somewhat less distance to go than did the 2nd. With no enemy opposition in its path, then, the 1st Battalion was on its objective at 1320, and already was beginning reconnaissance of the principal obstacle to any further advance - the Moselle River.

Some artillery fire - sporadic and scattered - had begun to fall in the zone of advance as the battalion crossed the Madon. A particularly bothersome point of resistance developed from Frolois - a town just east of the Madon - as the enemy began firing into the left flank of the 2nd Battalion. There was some treacherous 20mm fire; there was small arms fire; an artillery barrage fell in the midst of the thin columns of the 3rd Battalion as it marched down toward Pierreville from the west, but the men deployed quickly and by some miracle escaped injury. Major Roecker had no intention of becoming involved in a delaying action at Frolois, but he could not ignore this threat to his flank. He called for an artillery mission, but he could not expect artillery to be permanently effective against the protection which the enemy had in the village. Therefore he called upon Company G to clean out Frolois while the rest of the battalion continued toward its objective. All this did involve some delay, but men of Company G carried out their side mission decisively. Climax of their action came when a bazooka team, suspicious of the German use of Church steeples, fired a rocket into the steeple of the village church. It rang the bell, and out fell two Germans."

Thanks to Paula Baker and Jerome Leclerc for providing the photo of Pierreville, May2003