Back to: May 6, 1943 - Aug.29, 1944: Formation and Training
Back to: Aug 31, 1944 - Dec. 1944
This map follows the movements of the 278th in 1945 from their arrival in Germany to the end of the war.
1945
The Colmar Campaign
- Jan.26 - 29, 1945
Word came that the battalion must march over 100 miles to meet the XXI Corp for fighting in the Colmar pocket. The route taken by the 278th went from Puttelange to Sarralbe, Sarre-Union, Phalsbourg, Saverne, Wasselonne and Molsheim before ending at St. Marie Aux Mines. With 18 M-6 tractors with worn treads, and the other heavy machinery of the 278th, the 100-mile trip took four whole days to complete over snow-packed mountain roads. - Jan. 30 - Feb. 6
The batteries of the 278th take up positions in Ostheim (in an abandoned cheese factory), Ribeauville, and Guemar. They were assigned the mission of destroying a railroad bridge over the Rhine at Neuf-Brisach in support of the XXI Corps; the bridge had been serving as an escape route for Germans retreating from the Colmar pocket. By Feb.6, the Colmar pocket had been cleared and the bridge destroyed. - Feb. 7 - 13
The 278th engages in counter battery missions to knock out a German railroad gun harassing the town of Colmar. - Feb. 14, 1945
The battalion leaves Colmar and marches back to its original position 100 miles to the north. On cleared roads, the trip now takes only 14 hours.
Germany
- March 14, 1945
The 278th "B" battery enters Germany for the first time, at St. Nikolaus. - March 21
Rhineland Campaign ends. - March 25
With the whole battalion now in Germany, the 278th supported the Rhine crossing of the 3rd. Infantry Division near Worms. - March 29
The 278th is attached to the XXI Corps, and retains this attachment throughout the rest of the war. - March 31 - April 27
This month saw the 278th marching, firing, and bivouacing from one locale to another through eastern Germany. They proceeded from Erbach with stops in Lunbachshof, Winterhausen, Schweinfurt, Mörlenbach, Schrozburg, Dillingen, among many others, to Augsburg, where "B" and "C" batteries fired their last rounds of the war. - April 28
The 278th's last tactical march of the war commenced. The batteries moved into positions in and around Oberhausen, a suburb north of Augsburg. On April 29, "A" battery fired round #6008, the last to be fired by the 278th against the enemy. - April 30 - May 6, 1945
The battalion spent the final days of WWII guarding POW camps in Schwabmünchen and Seigsdorf. May 6 marked the two-year anniversary of the creation of the 278th.
Walter & Bill's Story
An important part of the 278th's history is the story of Walter and Bill Plywaski, who, at the ages of 15 and 16, escaped the Dachau concentration camp in 1945 and after fleeing to the Allied line were 'adopted' by the 278th's "C" Battery. Below is an essay written by Walter on the 50th anniversary of D-Day and first published by the Colorado Daily. Posted with permission of the author.
THANKS, JOE!… or D-Day recalled from another perspective.
(A Colorado Daily guest editorial 1st published on the 50th D-Day anniversary and on http:/wwww.Normandyallies.org/vc.htm on12/16/98)
Let me now praise non-famous men in grimy helmets and uniforms. They, in that unforgettable spring of 1945, brought Life’s early light into the barbed wire hells of Germany. These men, landing on Normandy's bloody beaches, poured freedom from the muzzles of their guns for me, my brother and all our concentration camp comrades. The Americans and other Allies transformed us from those about to die like vermin to men preparing to live again. This is a belated thank you note to these "GI Joes" who, like we, had also danced with death (though to a different tune). Thanks Joe!
On this anniversary of D-day in Europe, I humbly acknowledge those who pried open the black gate of the SS hell with their bullet shattered bones and lubricated its hinges with their blood. While there are still a few of you to read this thank-you note for my life and that of my children who might never have been without you, I salute you with "L’Chaim"…. To Life!
In mid-April 1945, my brother and I, aged 15 and 16, escaped from the Dachau Karlsfeld sub-camp (about 10 miles from Munich) during an American shelling. The explosions brought out the true Aryan "heroism" of our SS-guard executioners, who ran from their towers and hid. This was the first time for us outside of barbed wire since May 1940 when we, as Polish Jews, were penned in for swift or slow slaughter.
We ran through a hole blasted in the barbed wire and crawled to reach an abandoned German anti-aircraft battery visible from the camp. There we feasted on still hot corned beef stew on a stove. Cans of DDT for our lice ridden bodies, Wehrmacht boots and wool clothing, helmets and some weapons completed our booty. Since, by then, we could be mistaken for German soldiers, we kept our striped jackets and left to find the Allied lines.
We were "taken prisoner" by Americans who took us back to their Battalion and were identified by a sergeant who spoke Polish. After a shower, he got us the smallest possible American fatigue uniforms rolled up on arms and legs. A fantastic field kitchen breakfast of hot cereal with real milk and sugar completed our transformation into mini-GIs.
Who were these men just out of heavy combat, who found it seemingly necessary to share their language, thoughts, anger and their grief? I never knew most of their last names, but knew I was safe and free at last, free at last.
My brother and I came to them with our Polish names of Wlodzimierz and Wladyslaw and no English language. We parted from them some three weeks later as Bill and Walter, marching to Bremen so as to go to U.S. We were “drafted” on the way by a bunch of GIs fishing with hand grenades in a pond. A Polish American GI among them convinced us we needed some "R&R' with his outfit. Thus we became the mascots of the 278th Field Artillery Battalion, Battery C, commanded by Capt. John C. Van Arsdale of Minneapolis.
The day after we “joined" the 278th, that tall young captain gave a short speech at morning's formation. He said something like "These two boys lost their entire family. You can't give them back what they lost, but you can teach them all you know about and how to do things. Company dismissed!"
Capt. Van Arsdale, a chemical engineer, led our education. One of his men taught us algebra, another how to cut hair, another American history, another yet to press a uniform, and so on. By the end of May, we were in cut down American uniforms, stripes and unit shoulder patches inclusive, a strange sight at maybe five feet and 90 pounds.
Battery C's men bivouacked on the Danube near the town of Donauworth. That miraculous summer we wandered along the river, swam, ate and grew. The men of Charlie Battery were our buddies, our fathers, our teachers and often our playmates. By the fall of 1945, the 278th was to return "stateside" and we had to part with those magnificent non-famous men.
My brother Bill and I now use the gift of life bought so dearly by so many to save so pitiably few out of the murdered millions. Yet the price paid by the GI dead saved other millions of Europe and America from the planned thousand years of slavery and death factories of the Third Reich.
Bill and I now live our concentration camp fantasies of a good life in a humane new land. We hope against all hope that the price for lives such as ours shall "Never Again!" be required to be paid and that there shall "Never Again!" be such children as we were... yet there are and probably and sadly be again. Then once again lives will have to be bought by fear, wounds and deaths!
Can anyone doubt that shortly, (in a historical sense) there shall be another "Thanks Joe!" note written by a Kosovar ex-refugee? I do not!
Walter Plywaski (Previously Wladyslaw Plywacki of the Lodz "ghetto", Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps.)