110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - 110° Magazine - July 2007 - Through the gates of Hell - Index

“I was thrown into the midst of
land battle of World War II that
American’s fought in, ultimately
involving a total of more than a million
combatants with nearly 200,000 casualties
on both sides.
One of the bunkmates that I had
trained with, named Robert Green,
was killed almost immediately “On
the first day of his first battle in a
front-line trench he fell,” to echo the
words from an epitaph by Kipling. We
fought from ditch to ditch — advancing
or retreating on our bellies.
Robert was the first of us to fall in
battle, but certainly not the last. I
was assigned to a Platoon that had
40 riflemen. After 110 days of battle
only eight of us remained alive and
still able to fight.
My life as a rifleman was a terrible
ordeal! Following the Battle of the
Bulge we spent a year chasing the
Germans back into Germany. During
the Ba tle of the Bulge
that time I was to cross the Rhine
River three times, twice while under
German fire.
The sun was setting on the Third
Reich. Hitler’s armies had lost too
many soldiers and resources in the
Battle of the Bulge to be able to
continue the war.
Added to the problem was the fact
that the Germans were forced to fight
on two fronts. Patton’s three armies
were advancing inexorably from the
west even as the Russian armies were
attacking the east. However, tattered
remnants of the German military
units continued to fight with the
ferocity of cornered rats.
We eventually penetrated into the
heart of Germany. I was lucky to
survive the days of fierce battle that
my platoon went through. In the
month of April in 1945, for example,
we were advancing on a town where
superior German forces had prepared
for our coming with machine guns,
which they fired from hardened positions
trying to kill us. They kept us
pinned down with their effective
fields of fire.
We were taking refuge from the
deadly storm of bullets when my
platoon leader said to me, “Lincoln. We
need a tank. Go find one.”
Finding the tanks wasn’t the problem,
because they were located about
four blocks to our rear, their locations
made obvious by the roar of their
huge engines.
The problem was getting to the
tanks; I felt like a duck in an arcade
shooting gallery because I was dodging
German bullets while retreating
towards the tanks’ positions.
I ran from one cover to the next
trying not to give the snipers a clear
shot at me. I kept passing the sad
Lincoln Leung
Age: 81
Occupation:
Retired Engineer
Place of Birth:
San Francisco
Local Residence:
Oakley
Life Goal:
To live life worthy of the
time I borrowed from war
July 2007 www.110mag.com 23