European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - March 2, 1945, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Win soldiers on the Western front learn to fight weather the hard by de Cunningham yank staff correspondent with the 83d division in ardennes Campaign was More than a fight against the strongest German attack we had faced since the Early Days in it was also a fight against almost daily snowstorms in near subzero temperatures and face freezing winds which doubled the difficulty of rolling Back the German we Learned a lot about Winter warfare in the some of it was Learned the hard Way by Frostbitten hands and pneumonia and various bronchial besides physical Dif there was the added trouble of Frozen equipment and even but out of it All came the gis usual improvising and Home made remedies which will be unofficial sop from now Lin company men of the 83d who cleared the Bois de Ronce of German opposition in a continuous eight Day push that enabled the armoured spearheads to follow through to the vital  Learned a lot of ways to fight Winter weather during that oper their methods were often makeshift and crude because there was no time to waste on but those hastily improvised of keeping themselves moderately warm and dry and their weapons and equipment workable played an important part in the ultimate Success of the Wilburn Mcquinn of a platoon sergeant in the 331st used the usual method for frostbite prevention in his platoon by insisting on frequent to and Finger clenching exercises to keep the blood but he and his men Learned some other some of the men took off their overshoes and warmed their feet by holding them near burning i heat rations fuel tablets in their Mcquinn others used waxed ration boxes which Burn with very Little smoke but a Good both i heat and ration boxes Are also Fine for drying your socks or i also used Straw inside my overshoes to keep my feet warm while we were some of our other men used newspapers or wrapped their feet with strips of blankets or old Mcquinn company Robert Windsor had another Angle on keeping feet we found our feet stayed warmer if we didst Wear Windsor when they get wet from Snow and then leggings tighten up on your legs and Stop the flow of blood to your that True of cloth overshoes which Are tight when snug fitting Over shoes get wet and they bind your it looks to me like overshoes should be issued two or three sizes larger than shoes to prevent another in this kind of Windsor is to have the men remove their overshoes at night when its other Wise these cloth Arctic sweat and that makes the feet of the Best Deal is to have a drying tent set up so you can pull men out of the line occasionally and let them get thoroughly dried out and the drying tent to which Windsor referred is nothing More than a pyramidal tent set up in a covered location several Hundred Yards behind the with a i stove inside to pro vide there an average of seven men at a time can dry their clothes and warm themselves before returning to their this proce Dure takes from 45 minutes to two de pending on How wet the mens clothes All the frontline outfits in the 83d division used this Estelle Jacoby of set up a stove in his foxhole to protect himself from the frigid temperatures of the first he stretched his shelter half Over the foxhole for a leaving a few inches uncovered at one keep us a Little but when it warmed then he rigged up an empty ammunition Box As our pants would thaw out and wed get numb All burning tree branches for the a opening at the end served As a smoke another 331st Man used a modified version of Jacobs plan by stretching a Blanket Over his Hole and using i heating rations for the fuel used primarily for cooking which come in units of like d Are burned one at a each third of a unit Burns for about 15 throwing off a fair amount of they should be placed in a cup or a can near one end of a Hole to control the when used for the fuel Tablet is sufficient to heat a can of c rations and a cup of other 83d who were sufficiently far Back to do a Little More detailed found that a pretty fair stove could be made by cutting off the tops of unusable Jerry cans and using an 81mm mortar tube As a the same procedure works Well with gasoline and such a homemade stove will throw enough heat to make a cellar room quite because of their almost continuous it was All but impossible to get sleeping bags and Straw up to the frontline in place of the men used branches of Trees As matting for their logs and More branches were used As a roof to protect them from tree i Pioneer which include axes and were issued to each outfit for foxhole construct Tion other Coats and the usual i blankets were used for two or three men slept in each close enough so that they could Pool their some slept with their helmets for an extra measure of the chief difficulty men had in carrying their own blankets was that they got wet with Snow and then making them hard to Roll and heavy to the same held True with i which became waterlogged after Sev eral Days in the Snow and on some of the More frigid the men abandoned any Hope of sleep and walked around and exercised All night to keep from the frontline troops of the 83d were issued a dry pair of socks each wading through icy streams and plodding through knee deep Snow drifts often resulted in men soaking two or three pairs of socks within a few in such the men Cru Reg out their socks thoroughly and placed them inside their shirts or under their where the heat generated by their bodies gradually dried them another soc drying method was to put them under the blankets and sleep on them at when we had to Wade through snowdrifts and streams our pants would sometimes get wet Clear up to the Leslie a squad Leader from for a while our legs would be almost then our pants would freeze solid and they be a sort of windbreaker for us and Over another thing that bothered us was that we  always take off our wet shoes at if we and didst have time to dry them out before we went to they be Frozen stiff in the morning and we  get them some of the men preferred to let their pants legs drop outside their overshoes to keep the Snow All of them agreed that the cloth Over shoes Are not very Good for Snow fighting As they soak through easily and then freeze which makes them difficult to take the men Are con Vinced that rubber overshoes Are the better of the two types of Marshlands in some sections of the Bois de Ronce added to the infantryman when digging in for the they hit water two feet that meant two or three inches would accumulate in their Foxholes before they were ready to this also forced them to move around gingerly on branches to avoid sinking into the one a platoon of the 83d had to dive into Muddy Foxholes without preliminaries when a German tank came along a Forest path spraying my by the time the tank had every Man in the platoon had had the front of his Field jacket and plus shoes and thoroughly enemy pressure that night was so Strong that none of the dripping soldiers could be spared to go Back to the drying they spent the entire night in wet clothes with the temperature less than 10 above the frontline troops were critical of their White Snow they All said the capes were too Loose for fighting and As a they caught on nearby branches and not Only but forced their already overburdened wearers to take time out to unhook the thin fabric soaked up rain and melted Snow very when they froze they rattled like a Bunch of As one recon patrol the gis in these trucks Hove just been relieved Are due for a