Thanks Roque! Don't have that book, GOTTA get it.
Dad said Truscott really cared about his men and he was
a soldier not a politician - more interested in getting the job done
than showing off.
m2
206thMPCo
Up above I asked Roque about the Combat Boots and he said he got
his in Africa. I wasn't ever in Italy so I didn't know what they did.
Talk about cold ask j3rd. The winter of '44 was one of the coldest in the
records and fighting in the Bulge was awful. If you took your boots off
they would freeze and you might never be able to get them back on. I
remember one instance where we got into a cellar where we could have
a fire but I had to have another guy unbutton my the "liberated" overcoat
I had on and with the web belt I had to be helped with that.
No debating your statements but I never saw a "Sam Brown" belt (as we called
them) like that for in all the time I was in. Everybody wore the Web Belts where
I was even the Brass and the AB troopers when I was TDY with them.
Sgtleo
Marion's note: Quote deleted...
Sgtleo in Italy, you didn't miss much. Winter of '44, UPin the mountains, no comment.
WE ALL SUFFFERED IN ONE WAY OR ANOTHER. Roque
206mp: Yes, I recieved packages from home. Cookies were usually crumbled and a bit stale but great. One surprise I go was from my aunt. Package with a big loaf of home made bread. Bread was stale but found it had ben cut open, the center cut out and a pint bottle of Old Granddad Bourbon inside. From somewhere she found out this secret of safe shipment. What a safe way to pack it. Did we all enjoy this!!
We got our combat boots in No. Africa. Damn airabs would try to steal them and also the
mattress covers. They would cut two holes on each side and WEAR THEM LIKE PANTS!!!!! Roque
Roque..
Did you ever get a chance to sell any of the Matress covers? I think they kept the farm in Michigan going for about a year. They started running out of matress covers andstarted cutting them in half.I think those deals with the Arabs got pretty dangerous and they had to keep a .45 handy. They either ran out of matresses or got shipped to Italy.
The other stori I heard was about the Casbarrs.
Chris
Chris--We were issued just one mattress cover per GI. And the Arabs tried to sneak in under
the tarp and some got away before we found out what was happening. Some had their
boots stolen so when we took them off at night we tied them to the cot at the head end.
The casbarrs, me oh my. Gotta keep quiet here. Only officers had .45s' Our M1s' were by
our boots. Hey Sgtleo you woulld have a ball at rifle inspection, all that desert dust,damn!!
Roque
Dad had said he always had trouble with the arabs stealing anything they could get their hands on.
One of the few stories he told was when he was a train guard in north africa with the 794th MP Bn. He and 1 other MP was assigned the guard a supply train going to Tunisia.
( usualy there were 3 - 5 guards on a supply train < 6 if they were hauling Rocky`s combat boots > but there was only the 2 of them on this train. Then the train broke down in the mountains and it took 3 days to get it fixed & running again. So dad was on one side of the train and the other fella was on the other side. They couldnt sleep for the 3 days the train was broke down & dad said they were runnin low on ammo chasing off the arabs most every night.
All this talk about mattres covers and selling them etc but do any of you
know what the Army really intended the mattress covers to be used for??
How many of you had a mattress when you were in the ETO so why the cover??
Something to think about before I give you the answer.
Sgtleo 
Sgtleo. We called them mattress covers We used them to fill them with straw and lay on them.
We only had them in No. Africa. we also had rubber insulated 35 gal bags for water and we
hung them on a tripod. The bags had spigots to draw water for drinking only. Put aterbrine
tablets in the water to purify it. Sgtleo you should have seen some of them arabs when they
cut holes on the corners, they would stick their legs through the holes pull it up and double it back to the waist, get a rope and tie it around leaving on end long that was brought from the waist between the legs to raise the cloth up and it made it look like pants legs.Hell of a looking sight. Roque
206mp: Yes, I recieved packages from home. Cookies were usually crumbled and a bit stale but great. One surprise I go was from my aunt. Package with a big loaf of home made bread. Bread was stale but found it had ben cut open, the center cut out and a pint bottle of Old Granddad Bourbon inside. From somewhere she found out this secret of safe shipment. What a safe way to pack it. Did we all enjoy this!!
I've heard that one before re: the bottle in the bread. Three cheers for your sweet aunt. 