Paul O. Huber, Salt Lake City, Utah: an interview by Winston P. Erickson, July 14, 2000 : Saving the Legacy tape nos. 69 and 70

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PAUL 0. HUBER J 14 2000 Africa, all the way over into the desert, out by idi-Bel-Abbes which i forty mile ff of the Sahara Desert. We camped there in the desert in 130-degree days just in kind of a cedar forest. We were restricted on water. We could have a helmet of water per day per man for washing and cooking and everything else. It was very little. We were there until they were talking of invading Sicily. Everybody thought that once this thing in Africa was over, we would be rotated back to the United States. I was on the staff, the battalion staff. We put names in to be rotated. It came back that we would instead be going into another campaign. The soldiers in Sicily were experienced and experienced soldiers would be needed. There were no rotations. We left Sidi-Bel- Abbes and went all the way back across the country to Bizerte. We disembarked to hit Sicily. In the morning airplanes went in, the 82nd Airborne and, I think, the 101 st Airborne. In the afternoon we went in. Again, we landed without any resistance, at least as far as our group was concerned. When you read the history, you will hear of the 82nd Airborne and 101 st Airborne divisions. What happens in a division is that you have combat teams. The division was broken up into combat teams, which were an infantry regiment and an artillery battalion. By going into Sicily, we were the 39th Combat Team that was attached to the 82nd Airborne Division, so we were part of the 82nd Airborne. When we landed, they told us where to go and what our objectives were until our division headquarters could come in two or three days later on. So, you will not hear of the 9th Division which we were part of. The 82nd Airborne maybe had thirty percent of their troops. There must have been seventy percent or more of them lost in the landing. 19