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160 9 Aftermath, 1945–48 On February 24, 1945, two enlisted men from the 2nd Special Services Company joined the 112th Infantry Regiment of the 28th Infantry Division to show movies to the troops resting from heavy combat. The Special Services officer told Technician Fourth Class Backmurski that the troops would welcome movies and the two GIs should find a place to show them. Near the village of Schoneseiften they found a wrecked barn that would provide some shelter and a wall against which they would put their screen. They went to work setting up their generator and telling the troops that there would be a first-run movie that night. What they did not know was that several hundred yards away were German artillery forward observers. The movie started, and German artillery fired on the barn, causing casualties and shaking up two Special Services soldiers. Two days later another projection team found another barn, and the Germans fired mortars at that barn while mortars of the 112th Infantry fired at the Germans, who were about five hundred yards away. At the 2nd Company headquarters at Eupen, Belgium, it became clear that the enemy realized that when the Special Services team arrived with generators, there would be a concentration of American GIs, a tempting target for an enemy that was yet to be beaten.1 The commander of 2nd Company recorded that from March 14 to March 16, the projectionists showed movies to units of the 2nd Infantry Division at Breisig, Germany. The company was the first Special Services unit to show movies on both sides of the Rhine River. A few days later Technician Fourth Class Raymond A. Reinhart was awarded the Bronze Star for his actions during the Ardennes offensive in December 1944. In the monthly report for the Aftermath, 1945–48 161 2nd Company, the commander noted that a million movies had been shown to GIs from the Normandy area to Germany. A few men had been wounded, and several had been decorated for their service.2 In the Pacific the 12th Special Services Company continued its work on Leyte and had the experience of having the four platoons of the company about twenty miles apart. That was a new feeling because in the islands they were often hundreds of miles away from each other. On Luzon, however, the company was in proximity to Japanese infantry and sustained enemy air raids. There was a feeling that Manila was an objective that would eventually be taken, and it would take many more battles to defeat the Japanese. On the other hand, in Europe the troops felt that one more offensive would end Hitler ’s Thousand-Year Reich. The 18th Company in the China-Burma-India theater was in need of assistance because of the magnitude of the workload and the distances to be covered between platoons. The Library Section of the platoons had great difficulty distributing books and decided to combine their efforts with the troops organizing PX rations that were scheduled to be distributed to outlying areas once a month. The main base and the headquarters of the 18th Company were stationed at Assam, India, and served the units building the Ledo Road into China. Platoons operated 175 to 245 miles from headquarters . The theatrical sections put together a GI show that toured the Ledo Road and put on forty shows in forty-eight days. At the headquarters the company operated a popular radio station that featured big band music,“hillbilly” music , and American comedy and drama shows. The unit coordinated with the Red Cross to provide shows for army hospitals. It was a heavy schedule for the company. Assistance came when the 36th Special Services Company arrived in the theater of operations and began to work more than a 300-mile stretch of the Ledo Road. The 18th Company had arrived in India in mid-1943, and the 36th deployed to the China-Burma-India theater in March 1944. An activity report from the 18th Company indicated that conditions on the Ledo Road were difficult. Captain Richard W. Conway, commanding, stated , “The need for Special Services is great. At no place along the entire road are living conditions themselves conducive to high morale. The road itself is cut out of the jungle and out of the mountains.” Conway went on to report that “rations of necessities” left Calcutta, but were hijacked or simply left by the roadside. Cigarettes were limited to one carton per month. The...

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