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CHRONICLES OF HEROIC ARIZONA CHINESE- AMERICAN SERVICEMEN OF WORLD WAR II (6)
PFC Moon S. Yee was with the 325th Gilder Regiment. PFC. MOON S. YEE was with the 325th Gilder Regiment PFC. Wing Yip Quan was with the 100th Airborne Division.
It was 3:32 am New York time when a radio flash announced the invasion and Eisenhower's Order of the Day: "The tide” has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory. A few hours .later, President Roosevelt led the American people in prayer: "Almighty God: Our sons, pride of our Nation, this day have set out upon a mighty endeavor, a struggle to preserve our Republic, our religion, and our civilization and to set free suffering humanity.....”
Cpl. Loy Mah was assigned to the 402d Field Artillery Battalion as gun crew for the 105 howitzer. Their unit was waiting to cross the channel to France, but the troop ship that was to take them across was sunk before they could board. So the battalion had to wait for transportation across the channel. They later fought in Southern France. American and British beachheads linked up within days. While the Allies raced to build up supplies and reserves, American and British fighter aircraft and guerrillas of the French resistance blocked movement of German reinforcements. Allied troops seized Cherbourg and struggled to expand southward through the entangling hedgerows. The hedgerows divided the countryside into thousands of tiny fields. The narrow roads, sunk beneath the level of the surrounding countryside, became deathtraps for tanks and vehicles. Small numbers of German infantry, dug into the embankments with machine guns and mortars and a tank or two or a few antitank guns for support, made advancing across each field costly. The British made several attempts to break through to open country beyond the town of Caen, but were stopped by the Germans. By 18 July, the U.S. First Army fought its way into St. Lo, and on 15 July , launched Operation Cobra. As heavy and medium bombers from England pummeled German frontline positions, infantry, and armor finally punched through the defenses. Capt. Robert Ham was with the U.S. First Army. Rejecting his generals' advice, Hitler ordered a counterattack against the widening breakout by Germany's last available mobile forces in France. U.S. First Army forces stopped the Germans and joined Canadian, British, and Polish troops in catching the enemy in a giant pocket around the town of Falaise. Allied fighter bombers and artillery aided a massive destruction of twenty enemy divisions. The Canadian and Gen. Montgomery's British soldiers trudged through the frozen mud and water of the flooded lowlands In the Netherlands to free the Belgium port of Antwerp Gen. Bradley's First Army took the German City of Aachen on 21 October. The drive of General Patton's Third Army toward the German border halted on 25 September due to shortages of gasoline and other critical supplies. Sgt. Fay M. Wong was attached to the 3rd Army.
With the enemy forces in full retreat, French and Americans troops roll into Paris on 25 August 1944. Meanwhile veteran U.S. and French divisions, pulled out of Italy, and landed on the beaches of the French Riviera in southern France. Victory seemed to be at hand. But by mid-September Allied communications were strained. Combat troops had outrun their supplies. British and Canadian forces advanced into the Netherlands and American troops crossed Belgium and Luxembourg and entered German territory. They both met strong resistance. Bad Weather curtailed unloading of supplies directly across the Normandy invasion beaches. The attacks by the U.S. First and Ninth Armies toward the Roer River were extremely difficult. The Huertgen Forets through which they moved was thickly wooded, cut by steep gullies and trails. Armor had no room to maneuver. Two months of close-quarters fighting the mud, snow and cold was devastating.
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