A Citizen-Soldier
Remembers

This is the personal story of an enlisted man and his experiences during three years, one month, and nine days of World War II as a member of the 149th Armored Signal Company of the 9th Armored Division.

This division was organized and trained at Fort Riley, Kansas, and Camp Ibis in the Mojave Desert in California, and Camp Polk, Louisiana.

On August 20, 1944, the whole division sailed to England on the Queen Mary. Approximately 15,000 soldiers plus one thousand crew members made that voyage on the "Gray Ghost."

The soldiers of the 9th Armored Division drew their equipment in England and then sailed across the English Channel on LSTs to Omaha Beach, Normandy, France. From there the division was part of a triumphal march across France before cheering thousands of people greeting the armored might of the United States.

This excitement was soon replaced by the terror of battle during the Von Rundstedt offensive. Starting in December 1944, the "Battle of the Bulge" was the largest battle in which the United States has ever been engaged and the 9th Armored Division was the unit with the most fire-power along that line.

The division spearheaded one of the most dramatic events of the war, the sensational taking of the Remagen Bridge across the Rhine. This event and the subsequent establishment of the first beachhead east of the Rhine were covered in articles by a young Stars & Stripes staff writer by the name of Andy Rooney.

The division broke out of the Remagen beachhead and drove deep behind enemy lines freeing its own men from a prison camp in Limburg. The 9th Armored Division then struck north in a huge encirclement that trapped over 300,000 enemy soldiers. Some of the author's many photographs which illustrate this book were taken during this period.

The division was then ordered south to go on the attack into Czechoslovakia where the Germans finally surrendered.

With the end of the war, the 9th Armored Division was broken up and its troops began the strange process of being sent home.

The voyage home on the USS Mount Vernon, an army troop ship, was strange and exhilarating. Less than a week after arrival in the States, the author was discharged from the service.

Following his experiences in World War Il the author returned to the innkeeping business and married. The couple moved to Littleton, N.H. in 1949 where they still reside.

His wife, Rita, was very active in politics, serving in the New Hampshire legislature and also receiving appointments from Presidents Nixon and Ford.

Their son Richard N. Dixon is manager of the Ausable Club in St. Hubert's, New York and daughter Suzanne Hopgood is president of the Hopgood Group in Hartford, Connecticut.

The author, now retired from innkeeping, has written several books on the subject including And Then There Was One (currently out of print) which is the history of the five hotels of the Summit and West Side of the Mount Washington area of New Hampshire.

To purchase this book, or for more information, contact the author at: The Crawford Press. $25.00 + S&H