Stanley P. Bielen

I joined the Army on August 19, 1943 in Newark, New Jersey. I had a choice of joining either the Navy, Marines or the Army. I chose the Army because I wanted to join the Army Air Corps as an Air Cadet. My basic training was at Camp Van Dorn in Mississippi with the 63rd Infantry Division. While there I applied for the Air Corps and was accepted on the condition my Company Commander would approve. He refused and I asked for a transfer to another outfit. In early January 1944, I was assigned to the 83rd at Camp Breckenridge, Kentucky. for advanced training in the S-2 Section of 1st Battalion Hdqs. 331 Inf. After my first and only furlough while in the Army in March, 1944 we had as part of our training a marching fire exercise that required the entire Division Front marching ahead with the artillery firing 100 yards ahead of us. The artillery would adjust keeping that distance in front. Shortly after we started two 105 mm. shells landed in my company, one just 10 feet from my left and the other 15 feet to my left rear.

The result was that 6 men were killed and 21 wounded. I was one of the wounded but my buddy three feet from me was beheaded. His head was in the helmet away from his torso. This was my blooding which they say all infantry must go through to become combat savvy. No Purple Heart for those of us that were killed or wounded. I received a Good Conduct Medal pinned by a Colonel while in a hospital bed. I had a choice while in the hospital not to go overseas with the 83rd or stay in the States. I chose to go with the 83rd while still being treated for my wound as I limped up the gangway of the George Washington the troopship for the 331st Infantry Regiment.

I was wounded also in Normandy by shrapnel from a tree burst. Normandy was hell for the 83rd and I was lucky to have survived that campaign. I was discharged on December 4, 1945 at Fort Dix , New Jersey and returned to my home in Bayonne, New Jersey. I owned and operated the Bielen Machine Company a precision manufacturer for Aircraft and many other industries. I retired in 2002.

In the S-2 Section our equipment was the same as a rifleman. But we were issued field glasses, compass and the current battle map with an overlay that would have the positions of our battalion. As Major Kenneth Scott said (when he was the 1st Battalion Commander 331st) we were his eyes and ears.

I am going to describe the duties of a S-2 Section Soldiers Job as many that see the page have no idea what we did. It is the recon and Intelligence section for Battalion and Regiment. A G-2 is the Division counterpart. Our main duties are to gather information on the enemy. This is through our taking out and leading usually a few men from one of the rifle companies out beyond our front lines and into enemy territory. I usually worked with Company B or C of the 331st. Regiment Most were to scout the enemy for information that would be valuable to the Battalion Commander. Some times we would setup a ambush patrol. hoping to get a enemy patrol doing the same. Patrols were not liked by most Riflemen. as it was mostly at night and you had to worry about mines or into an enemy ambush. In Normandy while the 101st Airborne was still at the front, I was on a patrol that was scouting the front and if it wasn't for a paratrooper stopping us when we were walking into a German machine gun nest, we would have been cut down. The Germans would fire flares if they suspected a patrol and being caught in the open would make you a target for them. The flare made a pop sound as it was fire giving you time to hit the ground in a prone position.

The Battalion Observation Post: manning it was also part of our job. This was always on the front lines and sometimes ahead of it. The enemy artillery always made this a prime target in our attacks.

We also had the job of getting the enemy prisoners and as we had two German speaking men in the section to interrogate them, for their unit and their positions and strength. In the Ardennes I went to get 35 German prisoners from the front and me being all by myself following the column, suddenly two P-51 American Fighters seeing the Germans pealed over and dove toward us all their machine guns firing away, lucky for the column a American vehicle nearby put up a pink panel to show we were American. The planes pull up.

There was also special missions like in Normandy three of the section included me was sent to cover an opening between the first and second battalion. The two men were on the front line while I was 100 yards back in a dugout with a walky- talky to them and a phone to Battalion.The Krauts attacked there with tank and Infantry. On one of my worst days on the battle field. The two men left me alone and when I called Major Scott to tell him the situation, he said stay there and keep him informed The tank came within 50 yards firing the machine gun (bullets popping all around me) and cannon all the time mortars falling all around me, I tried calling Major Scott again but the line was blown out. After firing a clip at the tank I gathered the phone the,walky- talky and timing the tank fire I set off for battalion diving for cover every few yards.

There were times when I worked with Battalion Headquarters. I was given a pile of Aerial Photos and would transfer the information from them to the Battalion Commanders Situation Wall Map.

At the end of the war when in the Hartz Mountain Area. I was involved in Military Government. One of our Interpertors Walter Kohlman and myself were in charge of an area the size of a county and had to check all the German military hospitals to insure that the German officer in charge would send those recuperated soldiers to the prisoner war camp and not harbor them in the hospitals. Walter had been born and raised in Landau, Germany and hated the Germans for killing his parents in a concentration camp. He was tough on them and would think nothing of blowing their heads off with his .45 pistol.

While we were in Bavaria, I had the opportunity to accompany Walter to Landau. We first went to a German neighbor of his that had warned him in 1939 to flee as the Gestapo was on the way to get him Walter fled to France and on to America and now an American Soldier is back home. His purpose was to reward that family by giving his family home to them. It was a shock for them when they saw Walter. We partied with them and then went to the town Burgomeister to arrange the transfer of the property. The Burgomeister said it could not be done, with that Walter took out his .45, I put him in an arm lock and told him to take it easy as we were in the French zone of occupation and would be in big trouble. But he told the Burgomeister if it wasn't done he would come back and kill him. He also had another mission, to find both his sisters and was able to find one in the Pyranees Mountains and the other in Switzerland. He took them to Paris and eventually to America.

The last time I saw Walter was on my Wedding Day October 30, 1948. He was the only Army buddy that attended and he was the first one to greet my wife Frances and me as we left the church.

Gallery

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