Whether it's dismantling a 45-ton tank or repairing a delicate watch, it's all in the day's work for the 127th Ordnance Maintenance Battalion. They have the huge job of keeping the division's 2400 vehicles and 1000 trailers in shipshape running order. In addition, they keep in repair and adjustment the division's 7100 carbines and rifles, 1200 machine guns, 2800 sub-machine guns, 84 anti-tank guns, 221 tank guns, more than 80 artillery pieces and other assorted weapons in the division. They top this off with watch repairing, fixing stoves, modifying tanks and other vehicles, repairing fire control optical instruments and ordering, issuing and installing astronomical amounts of spare parts.
During the division's rushing breakthrough in France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany, the 127th Ordnance worked under terrible handicaps of time, often setting up in open fields in deep mud and snow, but the work went on and the fighting equipment was delivered to the front on time.
Detachments from A, B and C Cos. were attached to the three combat commands and brought their shops right up to the firing line to save time. Even under fire the ordnance men had to work with exacting measurements and nothing left their shops until it was perfect, for upon the performance of the tank or gun they sent back into the line might depend a man's life.
Men of the battalion were the first ordnance troops into Germany when advance detachments of B and C Cos. followed their combat commands into the Siegfried Line at Wallendorf in September, 1944. Here they repaired and evacuated ordnance equipment in full view of the German guns which were located on commanding heights.
When the 5th Armd. Div. crossed the Rhine and struck out on its 230-mile fight to the Elbe, ordnance followed as closely as it could, repairing tanks and equipment on the side of the road, in fields, in buildings, under any conditions, but always finishing the job and rushing the badly needed equipment up to the front. On this long drive ordnance had to fight the problem of fixing a tank one day and finding the tank company to whom it belonged, 100 miles farther into Germany, the next day. Working a 24-hour shift to deliver the goods, ordnance produced the equipment when and where it was needed no matter how far the advance.
During nine months of combat the ordnance battalion repaired 1422 tanks and other combat vehicles and 1826 general purpose vehicles. During that time more than 1500 tons of spare parts were handled and issued by them, all of this in a period when the battalion moved its heavy equipment more than 35 times, or an average of once a week.
"Let no 5th Armored soldier say his vehicle or gun ever let him down," has always been in the minds of the 127th Ordnance men as they worked, and their record shows they have lived up to their standards.
Lt. Col. Roland S. Biersach is the battalion commander.
