For three days, I was in a foxhole with Delmer Johnson in the snow. He was a good-looking young man of Scandinavian descent. I remember the two of us sitting there with canteens and K-rations, which were in wax cartons. We would light the cartons and melt snow. We would then make ourselves Nescafe, lemonade, tea, whatever. It would take a very long time to take snow and continually melt it until you got enough water.

During this time, Delmer was telling me about his mother and father and the kind of son he was. He regretted that he gave so much aggravation to his parents and that, when this was all over, he was going to make up for it. He was a good kid, possibly a wild young man for his day. But he did have a conscience, and he felt badly about the way he turned out as far as his parents were concerned, but he was going to make it up to them. He never lived to do it.

On 7 January, we made a lateral move over to the woods, where we took a German prisoner. The orders came back to dig in. I was digging in with Delmer in a gully in the woods because it was softer, and we were able to dig better. Command brought up three of our tanks into our area. The tanks drew enemy fire that killed Delmer Johnson while I was standing next to him. When the fire came in (armor-piercing shells), our tankers got out of their tanks and took off. It was very disheartening.

Twenty years ago, Melvin Silverman, a buddy from First Platoon, showed me pictures of a recent trip to Europe, which included the picture of a grave of a soldier in the 87th Division. He had taken the picture at random. It was the grave of Delmer Johnson.

U.S. Army Star
F Company, 347th Infantry Regiment

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