Ambrose (AJ) Champagne, Jason Theriot, a woman (Mrs. Champagne?), Hewitt Theriot:

-Raised on a farm in the back of Parks (“Grandbois”- big park)
-Drafted March 18 (1942) and sent to Camp Beauregard, Alexandria
-Transferred to Fort Smith, Arkansas and attached to the 6th Armored Division; trained for 6 months before going to maneuvers on the Sabine River in Texas
-Went back to Fort Smith and moved out to the desert in California; trained another 6 months and then sent on to Camp Cook
-Was doing guard work and training; filmed some training films with Paramount Pictures

-Went to Camp Shank, New York to go overseas; water was full of submarines
-Landed in Scotland and moved inland to Long Polk, England; trained there with anti-aircraft guns
-The hospital there was used during D-Day and Champagne watched them bring in the wounded
-Had to wait until an armored division could be safely put on the beach
-Brought to the Channel and waited till July 30th till they could cross; finally saw the aftermath of war

-Camped out in a pasture overnight and the 3rd Army started to retake Brittany
-Pushed back the Germans and then went up to Paris; cleared up more spots and went into Nancy, France and the Moselle River (Mogdiville)
-Ran out of ammunition and gasoline and had to stay there from September to October
-By November they attacked through the back of Metz and pushed the Germans back; Battle of the Bulge soon followed

(7:44) Battle of the Bulge
-On Christmas Eve they moved to Metz and slept; next morning traveled to Luxembourg for a week
-New Year’s Eve (if remembered correctly) they replaced the 5th armored Division
-The snow was horrible and was the height of the fence and so cold (40 degrees below 0)
-Took 9 days at Bastogne to wait out the weather; they’d fight and take 10 feet and that night they’d lose it to the Germans again—a costly war

-One night Champagne got stuck out in some acres of trees with just 2 men; Germans were firing tree-burst shells and all the tops of the trees were gone
-Decided to play coward as the Germans were coming so they dug a foxhole and covered themselves with the fallen tree tops and branches
-There was going to be more Germans than there was of them (3 men)
-Doesn’t really believe he was a coward, just realized there was no way they could fight all the Germans that were coming

-January 9th the sun came out and the planes were able to come in and pushed the Germans back
-They retreated pretty far and they followed them until the 3rd Army was called back; the 1st and 9th Army took care of the rest
-They got to the Rhine River and the Germans were trying to sink the pontoon bridge so they couldn’t cross
-Never got to sink it and they were able to cross it into the country
-Germans were not really on the run but they were running low on equipment
-The Germans were using their flak guns and grenades on them; a fight the whole time they were retreating

(13:32) Went through the town Buchenval and saw a concentration camp
-There was a little room where the people were executed; made with cement with nails on the walls
-The people would be tied by the necks and hung up on the nails until dead
-Never saw any hanging but Champagne knew what it was
-He could see the fingernail marks of where the people would try to claw themselves up
-The beds were big traufs with 3-4 people in each with one blanket
-They were little and starving; had seen American POWs and none went through that kind of punishment

(15:42) Halftrack and Armored Tactics
-Was a sergeant in charge of a halftrack; had 5-6 men with him, a driver and 2 machine gunners in the back
-In the Headquarters Company, 50th armored Battalion, 6th Armored Division

-Tactic: “Let’s say that we were going to fight for Parks. Okay, they would first send some of the line companies in the battalion, foot soldiers. They would be in the two-and-a-half ton trucks. When it was a big deal, they brought in infantry from an entire division, two divisions if necessary. They would walk ahead of the armor.”

-The 2-3 years of training before going into combat helped; learned a lot of the tricks
-English men would say: “He who runs today may live to fight another day”
-Came back with a bronze star and the French “Croute de Ger;” wasn’t there to try and earn medals

(24:43)
-Shot one of his own men one night in the woods
-They had to be careful as Germans were there so they were told to shoot anything that walked unless it knew the password
-These 2 fellows, Wishner and Wagner, Champagne figured they were too old (in early 40s) to be in the army
-Champagne saw movement and yelled for the password and no one replied so he fired and hit one
-Never found out if he killed the man but he (the other man) should have been more alert; had to go on a small trail to see whether or not Champagne shot on purpose
-Needed to be alert as they had replacements coming in all the time (so you didn’t always know everybody that was with you)
-Many times the replacements would go on patrol and never came back; Champagne’s brother Richard was a replacement and after a few days he was killed

-Was under Patton and only ever saw him once in Magdeville
-They were stationed there several weeks waiting for ammunition
-It was the first of November and it was pouring cold rain; Patton was there with Generals Grove and Bradley

-Normandy was hedgerows with Germans in the trees; tanks would get hit in the bellies
-Germans had bulldozers so it was easy for them to knock over the tanks
-One sergeant took a bulldozer and put blades on the tanks; saved a lot of equipment this way
-Found the concentration camp and from then on it was just pockets of Germans they would find

(47:00) Leaving
-Left the equipment at Frankfurt, Germany and 20 men were picked that had been there from the beginning to go back to England with the captain
-They were put on trucks and followed the Rhine River to Coblenz, Cologne and Antwerp and crossed the Channel
-Some places all that was left was little walls of brick, devastated area

(48:20) Speaking French
-Staying at Megdeville for 6 weeks defending the line
-Got to get close to 3-4 families that would cook him food and drink wine with them in the afternoon
-One family (Jobert) kept writing him after the war
-Would go into towns and say “bonjour” to those he met

(57:20) the ship back home
-Took 8 days coming back; landed in New York and sent to Virginia to be discharge
-Got so sick on the way back and stayed on the first deck the whole time

Transcription Begins:

Ambrose Champagne
Born: March 1920
St. Martinville, LA
50th Armored Brigade, 6th Armored Division

I was raised on a farm in back of Parks, what is known as Grandboil (means big park). I was drafted March 18, 1942. I first went to Camp Beauregard, Alexandria. From there I was transferred to Fort Smith, Arkansas, and attached to the 6th Armored Division. I trained there for six months then I went to maneuvers in Louisiana and Texas along the Sabine River. From there we came back to Fort Smith and from there we prepared to move to the desert in California.

We stayed in the desert for six months and then went to Camp Cook, California. We were doing guard work and training. While at Camp Cook, Paramount Pictures took about 15 of us to make some training films, which was very interesting to see how movies were made. They were very nice to us.

From there we went to Camp Shank, New York, and we crossed the ocean. The water was full of submarines, but we made it Scotland. From Scotland, we went more into the interior of England at a place called Long Polk. We trained there about as close as war could be. We went to South Wales and fired our anti-aircraft guns. We went to some fields where they fired overhead and you get the feel of the bullets flying over your head, four or five feet over your head.

There was a hospital near by. After D-Day, we could see that they were bringing in these men who had got hurt. We figured it would be our time soon. We had to wait to get in there because there was no place to put an armored division ashore. We had too many tanks that would have been exposed. They already had a few armored divisions ahead of us.

So they brought us the Channel and we waited there until the 30th of July, then we crossed the Channel. Naturally the war had been cleared up pretty much, but they had a lot of things for you to see. The first thing that I saw when I got into France was a dog carrying the leg of a human being; so that kind of gave me a feeling of what we were about to enter.

So we bivouacked out in a pasture that night. The next morning, the 3rd Army started to retake Brittany. In Normandy, the land was all four or five acres with hedgerows with trees on it. Every time a tank tried to go over the hedge, they hit him in his stomach. They had bulldozers, but they didn’t have any guns, so they were knocked out pretty easy. This one sergeant took a bulldozer and put blades on the front of one of the tanks. He said, “When we get to a hedgerow, we not gonna climb it, we gonna push it.” That American saved a world of equipment.

When we had cleaned up Normandy, we were going to take the Brittany peninsula. We cut off the Germans and pushed them up to the end. We captured a lot of Germans, but we lost some of our men.

I started out as a machine gunner on the half-track. I got promoted when this fellow, Steel, got killed. We were taking a little town and our artillery was firing near us, but they shot too short. They killed Steel. He was right in front of me. Some things, you know, you think are funny. Since he had been in the service, his wife had had a baby. He had a picture of his wife with the little child in his wallet. And the wallet fell out of his pocket when he got hit. The wallet was open…and his little child was there. And he never saw it. From then on I took over the track.

I was a sergeant in charge of a halftrack in the Headquarters Company, 50th Armored Battalion, 6th Armored Division. We had water-cooled .30-caliber machine guns in the back and a .50 in front. We had five or six men on the track: a driver and two machine gunners in the back.

(Halftrack’s role in armored attack) Let’s say that we were going to fight for Parks. Okay, they would first send some of the line companies in the battalion, foot soldiers. They would be in the two-and-a-half ton trucks. When it was a big deal, they brought in infantry from an entire division, two divisions if necessary. They would walk ahead of the armor.

When we were fighting for the Brittany Peninsula, they had a world of infantrymen there.
We would come in from behind the infantry. If the terrain were right, they would send in some tanks to soften them up. We were mostly targeting German airplanes and infantry.

From there we fought a little bit here and there. They we went to Paris. We cleared out a few spots on the way to Nancy, France. The Moselle River separated Nancy and Mogdiville. There, the 3rd Army ran out of ammunition and gasoline, so we stayed there from September to October.

I stayed at Magdeville—that’s close to Nancy, France— for six weeks. When I was there, these three or four families had taken a liking for me. (What were the family names? Martin, Jobert, Ofraw?) When it wasn’t our week to stay on the line, watching to make sure the Germanys wouldn’t come back, they’d cook and we’d drink wine all afternoon. That’s how they are. This one family was Jobert. They kept on writing me after the war.

When I’d come to the little towns, I could speak French, so I’d say to the people, “Bonjour.” I’d go and visit with these families during the day. I got along well with them.

We drank some good wine in France. And in Germany we drank Schnapps; it was green Schnapps—talk about make you sick. Sometimes we’d over-drink.

Our reconnaissance officer, Lt. LaBeadle, always wanted me to go with him because I could speak French. I went with him a lot of times, sticking our nose around behind the German line. We got into some tight places sometimes. He got killed one night.

I saw Patton one time at Magdeville. We had been stationed there for several weeks, waiting for ammunition to catch up to us. It was the first day on November and that morning it was pouring cold rain that was something else. There was General Patton with General Grove and General Bradley—our division commander, our army commander, and our army group commander—present. He was up there with three other generals saying, “Go ahead you son of a bitches! Go ahead!” He was a powerful leader. A lot of times he would go beyond what he had to do, because he didn’t what to stop fighting. He wanted to go into Russia and China. I’d say that Gen. Patton was one of the best.

In November, we attacked again through the back of Metz. We pushed the Germans closed to their line until the Battle of the Bulge came.

During the Battle of the Bulge, the 3rd Army went to the rescue of Bastogne. For Christmas Eve we moved through Metz. The next day we traveled to Luxembourg and stayed there for a week. On New Years Day, if I’m right, the 5th Armored Division got out and we got in. They had taken a pretty good beating. The weather and the snow were just horrible. The snow was up to the height of a fence. It was cold. It was 40-degrees below zero with snow.

At Bastogne, it took us nine days to let the weather clear out so we could do something. It was really just a fight for ten feet tonight—tomorrow night, we would loose it the Germans. And that’s a costly war.

One time, I got stuck with only two of my men. We were in a little pine tree square, maybe six acres of trees. The Germans fired tree-burst shells. When the shells would hit the branches at the head of the tree, the shrapnel would go down. One shell could maybe catch three or four people. There were no more tops left on those trees. There were some engineers between the Germans and us but it got too hot for them and so they backed out. So I was the point; I was going to have to deal with the Germans. All I had was two men. I told them that we gonna dig us a foxhole and we gonna cover it with branches. And we gonna get in there because the Germans are coming and there will be too many for us to fight. So we gonna play coward tonight. So we got in that foxhole and covered it good. About an hour after, the Germans were walking on top of our foxhole. But I still believe that I wasn’t a coward; I just figured that I couldn’t do it. (Where did this happen? In Belgium, in the Ardennes Forest?)

The next morning we had to make two trips to where one of the line companies was to haul back all of our equipment. On the ninth day of January, the sun came out. Our planes were able to come in and really beat up the Germans until they started to back up. So they retreated back through those little towns in Belgium and we followed them until the 3rd Army was called back to where we had been originally been fighting. The First and the Ninth Army finished them off and took care of it.

We got to the Rhine River and the Germans were trying to sink our pontoon bridge we had made there. It was like seeing daylight at night because they had so much tracer fire shooting at the German planes. The Germans were firing shells at us, too.

We finally cross the Rhine and worked our way into the country. The Germans were not necessarily on the run, but their equipment was getting pretty low. They were using their flak guns on us as artillery. It was just fight when you meet them. They were retreating, but they fought all the way. They never did give up all together.

I went through the town of Buchenval, the concentration camp. They had a little room where they would bring the people to be executed. It was made with cement with nails on the walls. They’d bring them in by the truckloads and tie a little rope on their necks and hock them up on those nails until they died. I didn’t see the people hanging there, but I know that the nails were there. The walls were made of clay and those people who were being hanged had eaten up the walls with their fingernails.

There were these big traufs and they put three or four in there to sleep together and they shared one blanket. I saw some of our men who almost starved, but none of our men, that I know of, was ever put through that kind of punishment.

We were in Germany. We came into this little wooded area, patches of pine trees. We went over this hill in my track and this 88 shot us. He shot low and knocked our track off. He could have hit the gas tank and blew us up. I hollered at the boys, “Jump!” Sanders, the driver, said, “You too sergeant.” I said, “Leave it there. Let them amuse themselves.” He said, “Oh, no, I’m gonna get it out.” So he drove it up a little bit and the Germans could shot at us. We didn’t have far to go and the track made it to the shelter behind that hill. So they got one shot, and they busted it up, but they didn’t hit the gasoline tank.
We had to get a new track after that.

I shot one of my own men one night. We went into this wooded area and the battalion commander gave a little talk and told us that we had to be very careful because we were in an area where the Germans were. He said, “Anything that walks, they better use the password.” These two fellows, Wishner and Wagner—I always said they were too old to be in the army; they were about 40 years old—and they were walking towards us. So I hollered the password, and said, “Give me the password! Give me the password! Give me the password!” And when they didn’t I let one of them have it. I don’t know if he died; I never heard anything about it. My lieutenant, who was laying close to where I was standing, came with me to see a bunch of majors and colonels where they put me on a trial. They wanted to see if I purposely shot the fellow.

But nothing ever came of it and I never found out what happened to that fellow. I always said that he didn’t belong in the army. You had to be alert. We had replacements coming in and we had to send them out on patrols at night. Someone of them never came back.

My brother, Richard, was a replacement. He fought just a few days and was killed.

From then on there were pockets of Germans we’d fight. Once in a while we’d have to cross a few rivers and they would put up a good fight.

We left our equipment near Frankfurt, Germany. This captain from our battalion picked about 20 men—who had been in combat from the beginning—to go back to England. So we got on these two-and-a-half-ton trucks and followed the Rhine River to Coblenz, Cologne, and Antwerp—that was all flat to the ground. There were little walls of brick high like my chimney. The beauty of the Rhine Valley is something else. In some places there was nothing to fight for so it wasn’t devastated; that was something beautiful. We passed through that and went to the English Channel and went back to England.

We got on a ship and sailed across the Atlantic. I had got so sick on the way there the first time, so I asked the fellow in charge of the boat, “You gonna need an noncommissioned officer on the deck all the time?” He said yeh, and I said, “Well, don’t look for anybody else, you got the man.” I told him that I was gonna put my bed roll right here along the side and out of the way and I would ride on the top deck all the way back to the States.

I always said that the two or three years that I had in training before going into combat saved my life. I learned a lot of the tricks. Like the Englishmen used to say, He who runs today may live to fight another day. I wasn’t ashamed of running when I had to. I came back with the bronze star and the French Croute de Ger. I got scraped and bruised up and cut up during combat, but I never paid attention to that.

I don’t know how I came out of it, but I still got my lil Rosary.