March 29

I have found that if you double click on the letter itself and go to a full screen, the letters are much easier to read. The letters that look like telegrams were written on regular paper and then the army made them smaller-about 5 inches by 6 inches. They folded this sheet in half (your letter could only by one page) and inserted it in a 3 by 5 envelope.

After breaking out of the Remagen bridgehead, the 9th assisted in the sealing and clearing of the Ruhr Pocket, then moved 150 miles east to Nordhausen and attacked in the Harz Mountains, 14-20 April. On 21 April the Division relieved the 3d Armored along the Mulde River, near Dessau, and held that line until VE-day.

From the best I can tell, Company B of the 15th Engineering Battalion was assigned to the 9th Infantry Division which is assigned to the V Corps, First Army, 12th Army Group. from 17 February 1945 to March 31. Following the Rhine crossings in March 1945, the Allies fanned out with columns of armor and motor-borne infantry and soon were making advances. The U.S. Ninth and First Armies, with the help of the new U.S. Fifteenth Army, encircled the Ruhr (an industrial section of the country) and took more than 325,000 prisoners. They were racing across Germany to take the agreed upon land before the Russians could arrive.

A company usually consists of three to four platoons and roughly 100 to 130 soldiers. At one point Dad talks about sharing food sent from home among his platoon of 50 to 55 men. The platoons are then divided into squads. In November Dad says his squad has 12 men. The sergeant was Isley.