It was with some justification that the men of the 10^th Mountain Division believed themselves to be the best trained outfit in the US Army. Their years of intensive training in extreme conditions were remembered by many as being more physically grueling than any of their experiences at the front. On a snowy night in January 1945, around a couple of houses outside the Italian town of Querciola, the men of L Company of the 86^th Mountain Infantry Regiment were engaged in their first prolonged firefight. In a pair of small but sharp engagements the company lost its first man killed, its only man captured, and earned the first of many medals for bravery. The events of the fighting demonstrated the value of their training, but in some respects also laid bare how unprepared they were for combat.

          They had been on the front for less than three weeks, first near the town of San Marcello, then in the town of Querciola, which the troops immediately took to calling “Coca-Cola.” The village was surrounded by a defensive perimeter centered on outlying farmhouses. These farmhouses were fortified and codenamed after fierce animals. Positions Lion, Rattlesnake and Bear were themselves surrounded by two series of foxholes, an inner line for defense and an outer line to provide observation and advanced warning.

          Querciola was surrounded on three sides by high ridges and mountains, all of them occupied by considerable numbers of entrenched German infantry. The mountain troops were under complete enemy observation at all times. The men slept and tried to stay concealed during the daylight hours. Fires were forbidden, so the troops had to rely on their alpaca parkas, wool gloves and mountain boots to keep warm in the damp and penetrating cold. Pfc. Bob Krear remembered that,

“The Germans knew exactly where we were, and we knew where they were, but a strange sort of winter truce was observed by both sides. We did not fire at them and they did not fire at us, although occasionally to keep us “honest” they dropped an artillery or mortar shell on us…In general, though, the winter front was a quiet front. It was as though neither side wanted to engage in hostilities…besides, we were green troops and the Germans knew it. They assumed they had little to fear from us.”

          Things were quiet during the day, but night brought war. Forward observation posts were constantly on the alert. If Germans loomed in the night, the forward observers were to fire flares into the sky to signal the alarm and light up the infiltrating forces so that machine gun positions covering the area could open fire on them. One of the tasks assigned was to send out combat patrols to gather intelligence. The best way of doing this was to capture an enemy soldier who could be interrogated. Every few nights, groups of men from L Company went out into the darkness for this purpose, but never succeeded in taking any captives.

          During the evening of January 24^th, the object of all of L Company’s combat patrols walked right into their hands when two German deserters came into the lines. They said they wanted to be taken prisoner, and were escorted into town. Upon interrogation they revealed that their unit knew the 10^th Mountain Division was in their front, and were on high alert as a result. Their officers had told them that the 10^th Mountain was a crack division, the best the Americans had (even if as yet untested). The Germans said they had previously served on the Russian front, and deserted because they believed the Axis powers had long since lost the war and they were uninterested in dying for a lost cause. They also came with a warning. The unit from which they had deserted was planning a limited attack in the Querciola sector. Sgt. Bill Morrison recalled that this information,

“…caused a noticeable stir at first, but after talking it over we decided it was probably nothing but bull. Captain Bailey took them at their word…as soon as it became dark, the whole company was busy with picks and shovels digging in the perimeter defense. The usual bitching accompanied our physical efforts. The second and third squads would be on line and the first was to be held in reserve, in case…The night was warm, overcast, yet not too dark. Digging was easy, once past the frozen crust. Al Poskus and I dug together. Sam Bulkley was on the flank. It started to snow. Our spirits fell with the flakes. It’s a pretty helpless feeling standing in a hole and not being able to see ten yards, and added to this, the threat of attack. We prayed for the snow to stop, without success.”

          The cold night passed in eerie, tense silence. Captain Bailey stayed awake in the command post. All was quiet, and spotlights in the rear created a strange artificial moonlight through the falling snow. At 0300 hours, Pfc. Horton Durfee was manning the CP switchboard when he heard someone in one of the forward observation foxholes around the Rattlesnake strong point blow into the receiver of the field telephone. This was the signal to speak quietly, so Durfee whispered into the phone, “Yeah, what’s up?”

          “There’s Germans passing right through our lines!” came the hushed answer, “What’ll we do?” Durfee covered the receiver with his hand and called out to the Captain, “There’s Germans passing through their lines. What should they do?”

          “Shoot them!” said Bailey without any hesitation.

          “Shoot them.” relayed Durfee, again in a whisper.

          The CP was silent as everyone held their breath waiting to hear the sounds of gunfire from the north. Nothing. Durfee blew into the phone, and the man at the other end said, “Yeah?”

          “What happened?”

          “They’re gone.”

          Durfee turned to the Captain, “He says they’re gone.” They sat there dumbfounded for a moment, wondering what the hell was going on. Were the Germans the product of active and fearful imaginations? If not, how were they allowed to escape unscathed? Then the chatter of gunfire echoed through the falling snow. Sgt. Bill Morrison recounted that from his position on the right,

“Suddenly, through the quiet of the night, the dreaded sound of the burp gun, then machine gun fire, scattered rifle shots…One of the outposts to our left was being attacked. Flaming tracers roared across the sky and vanished. At the first shot we jumped, tense, alert. My blood must have been doing sixty miles a minute. Our eyes strained for the slightest movement out there and we wondered, fearing the worst. What in the devil was going on? Had the Germans broken through our weak spot to hit the rest of us from behind? What would it be like to fight it out in a pitched battle? Was this first attack the real thing or just a feint to throw us off guard? These and a million other questions crowded through our minds. There were no answers. We would have to wait and see and sweat.”

          Rattlesnake was a fortified farmhouse with six peripheral foxholes manned by the 2^nd Platoon squads of Sgts. Louis Wesley and Bert Renzetti. Twenty-five Germans in white camouflage passed through the outposts looking to take prisoners for intelligence. The riflemen in the foxholes had never been in combat before, were outnumbered and out-gunned, and were too afraid to open fire. The German patrol penetrated to the farmhouse itself, and there a firefight developed.

          The Germans set up a firing line close to the back of the house, and sprayed the building with bullets from their MP40 submachine guns. The Americans in the house returned fire with rifles and pistols, and hurled grenades toward the muzzle flashes. They were able to keep the Germans at a distance, and inflicted some casualties. After less than an hour, the patrol broke contact and retired, carrying their wounded off with them. The men in the outposts watched their enemy escape, and again made no effort to engage them.

          A few minutes later the Germans launched a larger, coordinated two-pronged attack on the Lion strong point, which centered on another farmhouse. This position was manned by Sgt. Ed Jones’ squad of 2^nd Platoon, supported by a couple of Italian Alpini. The Germans fought their way toward Lion with rifles, MP40s, MG42s and hand grenades. Pvt. Bob Schoonmaker returned fire with his .30 caliber Browning machine-gun so effectively that he drew a great deal of enemy attention. He was soon wounded in the head and shoulders, but continued to lay down a steady fire.

A map of the action around Querciola on the night of January 24-25, 1945. The tactical developments are based on a crude hand-drawn map made by S/Sgt. William Morrison.

          The Germans captured the surrounding foxholes and penetrated right up to the farmhouse. Pfc. Edward Johnson moved out of the building to take up a firing position in a foxhole. He jumped into the hole, but discovered too late that it was already occupied by a German soldier. Pfc. Johnson was made a prisoner. The Germans began to use a number of grenades. One detonated near the house, and a piece of shrapnel passed through one of the windows and seriously wounded Pfc. Cal Canfield behind the knee. Other Germans threw grenades at Pvt. Schoonmaker’s machine-gun position. Shrapnel from one of the grenades destroyed the gun and Schoonmaker, now weakening from loss of blood, took to throwing his own grenades to hold the enemy at bay.

          Pfc. John Nichols manned a second machinegun post. His consistent firing prevented the Germans from surrounding the house. Enemy soldiers got within thirty feet of his position, and he was wounded several times. Although he had cover by which he could easily have crawled to the relative safety of the farmhouse, he remained at his machinegun throughout the fight.   

          Sgt. Ed Jones had the bleeding Pvt. Schoonmaker evacuated despite his protests, then phoned the CP in Querciola and told Pfc. Durfee that his situation was critical and that immediate reinforcement was required. Capt. Bailey ordered the 3^rd Platoon reserve over to Lion with all possible speed, and Sgt. Merrill Archard’s squad hurried in that direction. When they arrived on the scene, Archard first went into the house to get directions for deploying his squad. Shouting over the gunfire, he was instructed to retake the foxholes in front.

Pfc. Cal Canfield (left), and Pvt. Robert Schoonmaker (right) were both wounded in the action around Querciola. (Denver Public Library)

          Sgt. Archard divided his squad and sent Pfc. Bob Krear with his BAR, and Pvt. Artur Argiewicz around the right side of the building while he and the rest of the squad moved around the left. Krear and Argiewicz ran out and jumped into the two nearest holes, and there was a burst of automatic gunfire. Argiewicz called out to Sgt. Archard, who was by this time out of earshot on the other side of the farmhouse, “Arch! They got me! Go back, Arch, go back!” His voice dissolved into pained groans for a minute or so and then went silent.

          Meanwhile, Sgt. Archard ran along the left side of the farmhouse and reached the front corner of the building. A German soldier stepped out from behind a haystack and leveled his MP40 directly at Archard. Bullets zipped through the air and smacked against the stones of the house as the Sergeant dropped to the ground, certain that he was dead. He opened his eyes and found that he was unhurt, and crawled over to the nearest foxhole. As he climbed in, he discovered the hole was occupied by a terrified Pfc. Jack Feldman.

           The foxholes in front of the farmhouse were recaptured, and the Germans were pushed back into the trees. There they continued the battle, and fired at Lion with tracer rounds from an MG42. Captain Bailey called for artillery fire. The firefight continued until 0530, when the artillery drove off the attack by landing shells within twenty-five yards of the house and slowly walking the fire further out.

          As the cold pre-dawn fell silent, the casualties were tended. The body of Artur Argiewicz lay lifeless in a foxhole with a bullet in his back. The round that killed him had been fired from a Thompson submachine-gun inside the farmhouse. In the darkness and confusion, he had been killed by one of his friends. When the man found out, he was so deeply affected that he was removed from combat duty. Argiewicz was the first man of L Company killed in Italy. The total losses for the fighting around Querciola on January twenty-fifth were one killed, four wounded, and one captured. It is unknown how many casualties were inflicted on the German attackers.

          The nighttime skirmish around the outposts demonstrated the combativeness of the enemy in front, and the vulnerabilities of the company’s positions. L Company spent its time after the fighting of January twenty-fifth strengthening its defenses. Several small patrols reconnoitered the front, and listening posts were maintained. On the twenty-eighth of January a patrol of twenty-three men was sent out. Earlier patrols made wide sweeps several miles into enemy territory. This time they remained close to the vicinity of Querciola, and no enemy contact was made.

          Pfc. Artur Argiewicz was laid to rest in Italy, at the Florence American Cemetery and Memorial. Hundreds of his comrades in the 10^th Mountain Division would join him in the coming months. The action at Querciola resulted in Pfc. John Nichols being awarded a Bronze Star for heroic achievement in action. Pvt. Bob Schoonmaker received a Bronze Star for gallantry in action and a promotion to corporal. Although most of the company were not participants in the action, and there were many lessons still to be learned, at great cost, the experience gained by those involved proved a valuable asset during the attack on Monte Belvedere in February.

This blog is part of a larger body of research culminating in the publication of the book ‘Heroes in Good Company: L Company, 86^th Regiment, 10^th Mountain Division 1943-1945’ which is available in select bookstores and on amazon.

Sources:

Bailey, Everett C. Letters to Doris Bailey, 1942-1945. Bailey Papers. Author’s collection.

Brower, David. Remount Blue: The Combat Story of the Third Battalion, 86th Mountain Infantry, 10^th Mountain Division. Unpublished Manuscript, c. 1948. Digitized version edited and made available through the Denver Public Library by Barbara Imbrie, 2005.

Carlson, Bob. A History of L Company, 86^th Mountain Infantry. Self-published Manuscript, 2000.

Durfee, Horton K. World War II Memoirs of Horton K Durfee 1943-1946. Self-published, 1998.

Hauptman, Charles M. Combat History of the 10^th Mountain Division. Fort Benning, GA: Infantry School Library, 1977.

Krear, H. Robert. The Journal of a US Army Mountain Trooper in World War II. Estes Park, CO: Desktop Publishing by Jan Bishop, 1993.

Morrison, William. 2003. Interview by Abbie Kealy. Interview C MSS OH 295, 10^th Mountain Division Collection, Oral Histories, Denver Public Library, Denver, CO.

US Department of the Army. Company L, 86th Mountain Infantry Regiment. 1945. Morning Reports of 14 January through 2 May. Box 11, 10^th Mountain Division Collection, Denver Public Library, Denver, CO.

_____. Headquarters 10^th Mountain Division. 1945. Citation for Bronze Star Awarded to John A. Nichols, for Heroic Achievement in Action on 25 January 1945. By command of Major General Hays. 10^th Mountain Division Collection, Denver Public Library, Denver, CO.

_____. Headquarters 10^th Mountain Division. 1945. Citation for Silver Star Awarded to Robert E. Schoonmaker, for Gallantry in Action on 25 January 1945. By command of Major General Hays. 10^th Mountain Division Collection, Denver Public Library, Denver, CO.

Wellborn, Charles. History of the 86^th Mountain Infantry Regiment in Italy. Edited by Barbara Imbrie in 2004. Denver, CO: Bradford-Robinson Printing Co.,1945.