We moved out at dark and marched down to a point on the other side of the river from Buiziville La Bastille. It was the first time we were to cross the river and the town was held by the Germans. Word came down that we would hold it up and they were going to lay artillery fire on the town for 15 minutes. The first 3 rounds started to come over and they were short. They hit close by with a terrific concussion and threw dirt down our necks. The troops were so closed up I couldn't even get in a ditch along the road
[so I] had to stay on the road. That seemed to be the most terrific artillery barrage you could possibly encounter and it was going right over our heads. After it lifted we had' to wait for the engineers to: build a pontoon bridge because the bridge had been blown up. When we crossed the river and entered the town there wasn't a single house left standing. Moat of them were in flames. It was daylight by the time we were close to Pont Auny. The Second Platoon was acting as a point and we came up to the same crossroads. The Col, and the General were also up there and they happened to see a Jerry standing in a road waving a white flag. They ordered me to take a patrol and go after him. I had very few men left and they were loaded with weapons. We had to leave a machine gun strike out. We advanced down the road and came to a small town by the name of Francquestat. We cleaned each building and never found a soul.
Finally, I asked a French man and he said they were over in a chateau. We walked over to the place and it was beautiful. The name of it was Chateau Francquestat. It would compare with a lovely mansion in the states. It had a large front yard with a high stone wall all around it. Had a beautiful garden and a nice pond. We started searching the outhouses first and found nothing. The Jerries had been there and used it
for a tank park. They really had a nice set up. We started toward a house and a couple of ladies came out of the kitchen One of the men raised his rifle and they hollered because they thought he was going to shoot. Believe it or not two of the ladies could speak English and had born in Maryland. They told us the Germans had left two days before. Of course we didn't know whether to trust them or not, and I kind of wanted to see the house any way. I explained to them that we would have to search the house more or less as routine duty.
We started through the place and what a sight it was. Everything was just beautiful and a lot of beautiful antiques. They had some of the most beautiful oil paintings on the walls I have ever seen. The chandeliers that hung from the ceiling were huge. We searched each room, and there must have been 250 of them. It was 4 stories high and each room was done in a different color and plan, I was especially interested with the bridal suite, it was all finished in light blue and the furniture was a dream. The bed had high bedposts with, those at the head going clear to the ceiling, and had a soft blue satin cloth draped all the way up. After sleeping in fox holes for about 10 days I wanted to go over and plop down just to see how a bed felt. We couldn't do that though because of booby traps, Each room had a separate bath and the plumbing in the house was the most modern I've seen since leaving 'the. U.S. The German officers used this for a headquarters and each one had a separate room. They even had room service. It would have taken 5 or 6 trucks to carry away all the empty wine bottles. Even some of the bathtubs were filled with water as If they were getting ready to take baths.
You can imagine the fun and excitement going through the place, shooting down deers, throwing grenades, etc. Or can you? After we had satisfied our curiosity, and completed .our mission we left and headed back to the outfit. We talked with the ladies and they seemed mighty happy that the Americans were there. We found a lot of helmets and parachute equipment and they said the Jerries had 22 prisoners there. We also found two graves of our own men in the yard and the ladies had placed flowers on them.
Finally got back to our position and set up in defense. The place where we set up the read block, 5 roads came together at that junction. We set up the machine guns, etc., and had it pretty well covered. Later that day I went up to the farm house close by and washed up. A couple of our men were up there making coffee and having a big time with the French.
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