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The gray stone buildings of the small Belgian farm compound
provided a cozy haven for half-track D-23 and a tranquil respite
for our 3rd Rifle Squad from the 48 nightmarish hours spent in
reclaiming the shell-shattered village of Grandmenil. Numbed
with that special weariness that sleeplessness and foodlessness
inflict on the body, we eyed deliciously those simple amenities
that would now make possible a hot meal, sleep without intrusion
and time to untangle our senses.
Outwardly, Christmas day slipped unheralded through the towns
and villages of the Ardennes, but inwardly many brooding hearts
must have lamented the way the day honoring the Prince of Peace
had been sullied by the ugliness of war.
In our half-tracks we had sung Christmas carols rather heartily
in the cold darkness of that Christmas night, but had we known
what lay waiting for us beyond the brow of that hill overlooking
Grandmenil, we might have sung with less fervor. But now, all
of that was behind us. Ahead of us we knew that at least some
of the Christmas spirit would be salvaged by that lavish Christmas
dinner that we were sure our company kitchen would make every
endeavor to get to us.
Our boudoir that night would be the hayloft of a barn, which
we would share with several huge, magnificent Belgian draft horses
stabled beneath us. For us, the prospect of sleeping in a bed
of hay, just having our weary bodies all but disappear into the
gentle arms of that bucolic mattress, would indeed by a luxurious
delight.
If we had any hope of casually lolling around to the Armed Forces
Radio, stretching and yawning to pass time, they were soon dispelled.
After a night's sleep and our belated Christmas meal, we were
whisked to an area where we relieved another unit in a defensive
position. The position was well protected with roll upon roll
of concertina wire (coils of barbed wire that are almost impenetrable).
Two men occupied each hole, alternating throughout the night
on guard duty.
Morpheus would not be so kind to us this night, since we would
be spending it in a hard, cramped foxhole. This tour lasted no
more that 48 hours and we returned to the familiar farm compound.
Our jaws all dropped in unison when we returned to the hayloft
and saw a large, gaping hole in the barn roof directly above
where we had slept. Feeling it was better to leave well enough
alone, we did not pursue too diligently the matter as to precisely
when the shell had struck during our absence.
We spent a few more days in a similar guard role, but this time
we were able to fulfill our guard duties with the living room
of a nearby house as our quarters. The house was occupied by
an elderly couple. The old Belgian gentleman would sit very erectly
in his chair from morning to evening, dressed in a military uniform
replete with medals, as though he were waiting for the sound
of a trumpet to signal his final mustering out so he could then
join the ranks of the honored dead.
As those days passed, we were, of course, unaware of the vast
preparations that were underway for the mounting of a large offensive
that would choke off the German penetration in the "Bulge".
January 3rd would inaugurate the red and white path that would
lead us south to meet the Third Army near the town of Houffalize.
The mingling of the blood and snow would, with all too much frequency,
call out in harsh cadence the agonizing toll of the pain and
death of the slow, bitterly contested march, made brutal by the
frigid winter air.
As the hour for mounting the offensive approached, and orders
began filtering down through the echelons, our units all over
the area began to stir. There was always a feeling of great excitement
and exuberance when our entire Armored Division was on the move.
It was the excitement of coming out of that feeling of isolation
when each small unit was immersed in its own cauldron of battle
and joining the rest of the Division. There was the excitement
of recognizing the faces of friends and acquaintances of other
of our units in passing vehicles, and the joy of seeing that
they were still alive and well. The shouts and greetings that
were exchanged in passing turned the entire scene into a jubilant
survivors' convention on wheels.
It was also the excitement of the very sensation of power
when we witnessed tank after tank and half-track after half-track
come spilling out of forests, fields, gardens and villages, then
funneling onto the highway in one giant phalanx of steel. It
was seeing the half-tracks brimming with Infantry, each half-track
with the .50 caliber machine gun in the front on the ring mount
like a slender index finger pointing the way for the 'track'
driver, and the heavy water-cooled .30 caliber machine gun hugging
the rear of the half-track as if its sole preoccupation was to
guard the rack of bed rolls slung outside beneath it. It was
seeing tanks almost rearing on their haunches as they surged
forward with a sudden transfusion of power. It was seeing tanks
with their hatches open with the tank commander presiding in
the open turret looking like some modern day, malformed centaur,
dispelling the suspicion of the Infantry that tanks were but
monstrous, unthinking steel robots, indifferent to the special
vulnerability of the single Infantryman, but were indeed occupied
by real flesh and blood creatures such as we were.
It was in those moments that the unique spirit of camaraderie
seemed to peak, and a strong sense of pride in our unit pervaded
everyone in this champion Division that had earned its honors
in the bloody hedgerows of Normandy, in its spectacular foray
across Northern France and Belgium, and then in crushing the
dragon teeth in the mouth of the Siegried Line.
The roadways were treacherous with ice, the snowy surface having
been packed to a glaze by the thousands of tons of vehicles traversing
every foot of the highway. Along the way, vehicles that had skidded
out of control could be seen at the bottom of embankments in
all kinds of awkwardly disabling positions.
No sooner had this massive column reached its crescendo of roaring,
clanking, screeching sounds, then units began peeling off to
pre-assigned points on what would be the line of departure. Once
more we would find ourselves receding into that feeling of isolation,
as our small detachment would find itself in some lonely outpost
where the point of attack would begin.
When the half-track leaves the roadway and coils with the others
in an adjoining field, you know it is now time to go through
the perfunctory ritual of checking your gear and making sure
that the cartridge belts are full and that there are at least
two bandoliers of ammunition crisscrossing your body, along with
a couple of grenades to join the K-Rations already stuffed into
your pockets.
As you step out of the rear of the half-track, you are always
aware of how Divinely gracious the provision is that does not
permit you to know what the next day or even the next hour holds
in store for us. It would have proven most disconcerting had
I known that that step from the rear of the half-track would
be the last one taken in a combat role, and that the next twelve
days would be one intense, unrelenting span of action with but
that triumvirate of fear, cold, and sleeplessness as my clinging
companions.
The roads all seemed to look alike, each lined with trees placed
at such precise intervals, standing there so rigidly at attention,
providing us with that omni-present Ardennes honor guard. The
forests behind them, planted with such perfect symmetry, gave
the appearance of a vast military host drawn up to witness silently
the bloody spectacle about to take place within its ranks.
It was late afternoon before the column of tanks and Infantry
finally moved down the roadway to make its initial contact with
the enemy. In a very short time we came upon a very substantial
roadblock, consisting of a number of large trees that had been
felled across the road. The lead squads were instructed to leave
the road and move around the roadblock. No sooner had we left
the road and moved into some rather thick brush, when we were
met with a flurry of rifle fire and several hand grenades exploding
in the middle of our small group. There was an immediate exchange
of fire. Our Squad Leader, Lester Fickel, was hit, and a man
by the name of Joseph Hughes, of Shenandoah, Pa., was shot in
the stomach; in addition, there were several other of our men
wounded. We were all stunned, when a short time later, we were
told that Hughes had died before even reaching the medical half-track.
Darkness came early in the Ardennes during the month of January,
so we were told that we would remain in place for the night just
where our comrades had fallen. That night I discovered the comfort
of crawling under a spruce tree, with its boughs touching the
ground, and curling around its trunk and resting on a soft, dry
bed of pine needles. For some reason, no one dug in that night.
The action that we had run into that first day ended with some
loud and excited shouts from the German soldiers that we had
encountered. The voice of the enemy always introduces a more
frightening dimension into any exchange, because when there is
a voice behind that rifle or behind that thrown grenade, you
know that you are not simply the target of some inanimate object,
spitting bullets or explosive; you are the target of another
mortal being who is really trying to kill you. Hearing the voice
of the enemy is certainly not an unusual occurrence in combat
situations, but my most memorable instance of this circumstance
occurred in our first engagement in the Bulge near the village
of La Gleize.
Our squad had been ordered at night to cross a narrow bridge
and then leave the roadway, ascend partway up a hill and then
follow a course that would parallel the road. As we made our
way up the hill, all that we could hear was the snipping of the
wire cutter as our squad leader made his way through several
cattle fences that obstructed our path. We reached a point, perhaps
50 yards from the road, and then began movement parallel with
the roadway, crossing a brook that flowed down off the hill,
and then proceeding a few more yards. In the quietness of the
night, we heard the unmistakable sound of the bolt of a machine
gun being pulled back into a load position. Everyone hit the
ground and froze. Then everything ripped loose. The machine gun,
which was no more than a very few yards from the forward man
in the squad, opened fire. Fortunately for us, the gun must have
been set to fire on that narrow bridge that we had just crossed.
Had it not been for his discipline in firing into his pre-assigned
target, and had he merely turned that gun a few degrees to the
left, the gunner would have, without question, made casualties
of all of us.
No sooner had the machine gun opened up, than the night was
alive with heavy rifle fire and the unmistakable sound of exploding
hand grenades all around us. We had walked into a perfect trap.
To make the scene complete, there was the pop of flare guns,
followed by the eerie light of the flares with the swishing sound
as they burned and illuminated the area. We had moved into an
L shaped German position, with the machine gun at the end of
the short leg of the L. Then from one end of the enemy position
to the other, there rang out a chorus of shouts and curses, and
demands to surrender in German and halting English, like counter
point to the deadly serenade of machine gun and rifle fire, and
exploding grenades, played under a canopy of descending flares.
Our squad was lying on the ground head to toe, each of us trying
frantically to crawl bodily into our steel helmets to escape
the blistering torrent of fire.
It was then that the order to pull back was breathlessly and
hoarsely whispered along the line. The prospect of getting out
of there alive seemed, at the moment, to be just about nil. One
of our men became so disoriented that he crawled in the wrong
direction and was captured. The rest of us squirmed to a 180-degree
turn and then tried to make our way back. I was immediately faced
with the prospect of crossing the small brook, which had a cattle
fence passing right over it. The lower strand of the wire was
too high to get over because of the firing, and too low to get
under, but the man behind me became inpatient with my efforts
and solved my dilemma by placing his foot firmly on my posterior
and literally catapulting me across the brook and through the
wire.
As I crawled on my stomach, I passed several motionless forms
of men whom I presumed to be dead. After some distance of crawling
on my stomach, I was able at least to get up on my hands and
knees, and then after some distance more, being beneath the trajectory
of fire, I was able to stand up. The machine gun was still pouring
fire onto the bridge that we had crossed earlier, so using it
was out of the question. It was therefore necessary to wade through
the stream that the bridge passed over.
After we returned to a barn, dripping wet, to lick our wounds
and count our casualties, George Sampson nervously pulled a cigarette
out of his pocket. When he reached for his lighter, he was shocked
because he didn't recognize it. Instead of the dull, tarnished
lighter that he was used to, he pulled out a lighter that was
glistening. The friction from crawling on his stomach had cleaned
it so thoroughly that it gleamed beyond recognition.
In spite of all that had happened that night, it was always the
sound of the shouts, the jeering and the cursing in German, the
voice of the enemy, that made the deepest and the most searing
impression on my memory.
After spending the night under the spruce tree, interrupted only
for periods of guard duty, when daylight came, the roadblock
that was encountered the night before was quickly removed. No
sooner had that obstacle been overcome than we were faced with
a blown-out bridge that required another delay to permit the
engineers to replace it. It was those delays that were always
so maddening; the inactivity in the numbing cold added so much
more to our physical discomfort. It was at such times that if
at all possible we would try to steal a few moments to huddle
behind the rear of the tank to capture some of the heat from
the exhaust of the engine.
Tank columns must have been at the very top of the priority list
for the German forward artillery observers, for the shelling
of the column was constant. The delays to permit our own artillery
to demolish and soften up some strong point, or the delays to
permit the lead tank element to work over some stubborn defensive
position always made the Infantry so much more vulnerable to
the incoming fire from the German artillery. This produced a
love-hate relationship between tanks and Infantry. We loved them
when we ran into heavy small arms and machine gun fire because
of their effectiveness in overcoming that type of resistance,
but we hated them because of the heavy fire they brought upon
themselves and us. At night when all was quiet, the sound of
the tank generator starting up and running would further incense
us because we knew it would just invite more trouble. So it must
ever be that the instinct of self-preservation will always produce
its overriding prejudices.
Later, in that same day, we approached one of those small, nameless
hamlets with its houses clustered around a very sharp horseshoe
bend in the road. Just before the first houses there was a road
that let off to the right at a perpendicular to the road on which
we were moving. The Infantry immediately began clearing the houses.
No sooner had some of us entered the houses, when a machine gun
opened up behind us and began pouring heavy fire down that side
road, cutting the lead elements from those following. Those of
us who had entered the houses must have interrupted the preparation
of the evening meal because there was some food on the stoves.
I grabbed a small pan of hot milk and gulped it down. It was
delicious.
The firing at the intersection behind us was still rather furious.
I ran across the street to the solitary house located in the
very center of this horseshoe turn. As I ran up the pavement
to the entrance of the house, the door flew open and two German
soldiers came bursting out, almost into my arms. Fortuitously,
at that moment, the lead tank came easing around the corner and
they threw their hands into the air. Passing off prisoners to
the rear was never much of a problem because it seemed there
were always a few men who made a career out of taking the prisoners
back, having discovered the luxury of absenting themselves from
the deadly, continuing drudgery of the forward elements.
On this occasion, as I began moving these two prisoners toward
the street, I encountered a lieutenant. I asked him what I should
do with them and he simply replied, "Take them back to Battalion
yourself ". I was pretty certain that if it hadn't been
for the machine gun fire that was still holding up matters at
the intersection, I would not have been the one taking them back.
I indicated to the two prisoners that they should start moving
back up the road. By this time it was just starting to get dark,
and there was still some sporadic firing at the intersection,
so I indicated to the two of them as dramatically as possible
that they should start to run. And run we did. We made it through
the intersection without incident and continued past the remainder
of our column as it was paused on the road. I had no idea where
Battalion Headquarters was, and by now we were on a very lonely
road still going at top speed because I didn't know how to tell
them to slow down.
When I had taken them prisoner, I had immediately removed all
their gear from them, helmets, and of course weapons, and other
military gear, so that they were stripped of all unnecessary
weight. However, they still did retain their hob-nailed boots,
which made excellent heavy-duty track shoes. I, on the other
hand, had all my gear, with all its clumsy bulk, and for foot
wear, nothing but a classic old pair of galoshes, which were
like racing slicks on a surface that was mirror smooth because
of the passing tanks. The inevitable happened, and I went sprawling,
sending my helmet bouncing along the icy surface of the road.
The prisoners immediately halted in their tracks. It was a very
tense moment on that deserted roadway, since I did not know what
the prisoners' response would be. Fortunately, my rifle had remained
firmly in my grasp.
Crawling on my hands and knees, I recovered my helmet, put it
in place, and then got up. I nodded to the two of them to proceed,
and proceed they did, immediately breaking into a run again.
Finally, I saw a house in the distance with a number of Jeeps
clustered around it, and was happy to know that I had found Battalion
Headquarters. I met a G I who was willing to accept the prisoners,
so I was finally able to divest myself of my two track stars.
My return to the squad was made with a little less duress. That
night we spent at a small barn at the edge of the hamlet, alternately
sleeping inside and pulling guard outside.
Our artillery spent most of the night shelling the village directly
ahead of us, and the evidence as we approached it the next morning,
was unmistakable. They had done a thorough job. The great devastation
of all of those shelled villages was so similar; trees shorn
of branches that littered the ground beneath them as though some
giant pruning shears had gone amok; walls of houses with the
curtains fluttering through holes where windows once had been;
broken power lines drooping from poles, snaking their way through
the snow to nowhere; piles of rubble with hot embers from burnt
beams underneath, steaming holes through the covering of freshly
fallen snow. Heartbreaking desolation.
Constantly pushing forward was gruelingly slow and humanly very
costly. But one of the ironies of combat is that you are actually
in touch with so few people, that you are sometimes unaware of
the extent of the human cost. You are aware of what is happening
to your squad and possibly one or two other squads, but aside
from that you are almost totally oblivious as to what is going
on around you, even across the street from you. The medical half-track
might be busy evacuating people who have been wounded and possibly
even killed in one of the other platoons, and you might be completely
unaware of it. That is why combat experience has such a narrow
focus.
It was obvious that our day's objective would be the high ground
ahead of us. As we wended our way towards the crest, the column
was suddenly enveloped in a fierce and sustained barrage of artillery
fire. For the Infantry, there was nowhere to take shelter, no
ditches or depressed areas in which to escape the intensity of
the fire. Simultaneously, George Sampson, Harry Clark and I,
without a word, decided on the same course of action. There was
a small wooded area about 150 yards off to the right of the roadway,
and we decided to make a run for it and wait out the barrage
in whatever shelter the woods might provide. Inspired by the
volume and the devastating accuracy of the incoming fire, we
moved at a rapid pace across the snowy field. As we burst through
the first fringe of trees, we were astonished to be met, in a
well dug-in position, by a half dozen German soldiers with their
arms raised. Years later they probably regaled their grandchildren
as to how they were captured when their position was overrun
in a fearless charge by three American soldiers.
As dusk approached, the crest had still not been attained. At
that point, we were ordered to mount the tanks. The final several
hundred yards would be made with the tanks moving abreast up
the snowy slope. As the attack began, tracers arched out from
the front of every tank, converged on a tree line on the top
of the hill, and then disappeared as their trajectories were
exhausted. As the tanks moved the final few yards to the tree
line, there were several explosions as a few of the tanks struck
mines covered by the freshly fallen snow.
After we dismounted from the tanks, we were told that we would
be spending the night along the tree line. I had decided that
I did not intend to do any digging that night. I planned instead
to spend the night under one of the tanks that had been disabled
after striking a mine. This tank was located only about 30 feet
off to the left of the roadway leading to the next village.
Although the tank was disabled, it was, nevertheless, still occupied
by the crew. The tankers were always very generous with us, so
there was no problem when I asked if they could spare some blankets.
They gave me a hefty supply, which at least boded well for a
reasonably comfortable night. I shared my plans with Fred Dorsey.
He liked the idea and decided to join me.
After we had been there a short while, a Jeep came up to us bringing
rations and water for our unit. There was a lot of slipping and
tripping and falling in the snow as the rations were distributed
among the men.
When the guard roster was made up, it was decided that a tree
located on the far side of the roadway would be the primary guard
post. Our time on guard would be from 2 to 4.
Dorsey and I spread our blankets under the rear of the tank,
and what with the extravagant number of blankets and some residual
heat from the tank engine, we were quite comfortable. But it
seemed in no time at all we were awakened for our tour of guard
duty. After we crawled out from under the tank, Dorsey told me
that under no circumstances would he agree to go over to the
other side of that roadway to the tree to pull guard. I argued
with him that we had no choice, since it was the assigned position.
He remained adamant, and foolishly I relented and agreed to pull
guard by the tank, but I did insist that we move forward of the
tank. Dorsey agreed, and with the luminous- dialed guard watch,
having been handed to us, we began that two-hour guard tour.
Two hours of standing in numbing cold, trying to be as alert
as possible is a challenging ordeal. Chewing on fruit bars or
the hard chocolate bars helped to occupy the time and bring a
small bit of heat and energy. Foot stamping is always good for
short intervals, as long as it doesn't interfere with the listening.
One of the essential rituals of guard duty is always to urinate.
This becomes such an unvarying part of guard procedure that weeks
later when I was hospitalized, invariably every night's sleep
would be interrupted because of this self-induced call developed
so rigidly during guard duty. Our guard tour did end after that
always seemingly interminable two-hour stint. George Sampson
and the man he had dug in with that night were to relieve us,
so I went to their hole, wakened them, and gave them the guard
watch. As soon as they made their way to the tree across the
road to begin their guard tour, Dorsey and I crawled between
our blankets underneath the tank.
We had just fallen asleep when we were awakened by a commotion
behind us. Because of the unusual nature of the disturbance,
we crawled out to investigate, and saw Sampson and the other
soldier with several German prisoners. It happened that a very
short time after they had assumed their guard position, a German
patrol had stealthily made its way up the ditch on the far side
of the road and was intercepted by George and his companion.
This had a very shattering effect on me because I had not insisted
on being at the guard position where we were supposed to be.
When I realized the implications of what could have happened
if that patrol had come a few minutes earlier and gotten behind
us, the damage that could have been inflicted because of our
negligence, I was overtaken with a real sense of shame at my
dereliction of one of the most elementary responsibilities of
a soldier.
What made it sting all the more was the memory of an experience
when I was involved in a defensive position in the Stolberg area.
There had been several holes grouped together in a woods, and
the hole in the center of the group was to be the primary guard
post. Two at a time, during the night, we would move to that
hole and the guard watch would be passed to those on duty. On
one occasion, John Eumurian and I, who had dug in together, crawled
out of our foxhole one morning, and only a few feet away from
our hole was a new, freshly oiled ammunition clip to a German
Machine-Pistol. Someone had been negligent on guard duty. A German
patrol had been permitted to pass only a few feet from us and
could have caused deadly havoc in our ranks. I remembered how
angry I was then, and now that I might have been the culprit
in a similar situation, I was deeply shaken.
As daylight came, a Jeep came up the road. As it neared us, there
was a loud explosion as the Jeep hit a mine. The two men in the
Jeep were seriously injured, and within a very short time, men
with mine detectors were brought up. Mine after mine was picked
up throughout the area where we were located. It was the Teller
mines, strewn hastily under the freshly fallen snow, that people
had been slipping and stumbling over the night before while distributing
rations. The crowning moment came, however, when a Teller mine
was removed from directly underneath the rear of the tank where
Dorsey and I had slept. The knowledge that you spent the night
sleeping on a Teller mine is frightening.
The delay in clearing the area of mines was considerable, so
it was quite late till the column began to move once more. Ahead
of us down the slope was the village of Regny. Again, the artillery
had done its work and the village was literally in shambles.
Nevertheless, the platoon ahead of us met stubborn resistance
and progress was exceptionally slow. Daylight hours were very
short and it always seemed that we were bumping into darkness.
By the time we moved through the village and a short distance
beyond, daylight was failing, and a very heavy snowstorm had
developed. There were isolated houses scattered along the roadway,
and we had taken one of the houses on the left side of the road,
hoping that we would be remaining there for the night. The usual
formality of blacking out the windows with whatever material
was at hand was immediately taken care of.
Shortly after this was done, Pop Waters, our Platoon Sgt., came
in and said he needed a few volunteers for something that needed
to be done; nothing of a particularly hazardous nature. Since
I was standing by him and didn't volunteer, he gave me a particularly
sharp dressing down. My spirits were already low because of the
guard incident the night before, and now this rebuke on top of
that pushed my spirits down another couple of notches because
I had great admiration for Pop Waters. Sometime later, after
we were pretty comfortably situated, Pop Waters again returned
and said that the 3rd Rifle Squad should get geared up and ready
to move out. It was reported that a German tank was roaming around
up on some high ground on the other side of the road and they
wanted the Bazooka team up there to guard our flank.
By this time, the snow was falling and the wind blowing in blizzard
proportions. We made our way through ever deepening snow to the
high ground where we were to dig in for the night. When we arrived
at the top I took off my gear and stacked it against a tree in
preparation to digging in. I just stood there and was overtaken
with a dark, brooding feeling of despair; in the bitter cold,
with the wind screaming through the naked branches of the trees,
now being driven so fiercely that it stung my face like hundreds
of pin pricks.
The prospect of spending hours chiseling through the frozen crust
of earth and then shivering till daylight, languishing in that
frozen pit with the sound of a marauding German tank in the distance,
this, along with the several dispiriting events that occurred
during the last 24 hours, sent my spirits plummeting. Standing
there, I contemplated the futility of it all; to go through all
of this, and then possibly as a final recompense to have my crumpled
body found lifeless in the snow and heaved ignominiously onto
the back of a three-quarter ton truck brought me to the point
of almost total despair. As I stood there like a spectator to
my own misery, the bleakness of that wintry hill reflected accurately
the bleakness of my own spirit.
Nevertheless, I joined George and we selected a spot and scooted
the snow away and started to dig. After digging for some time,
someone called our attention to a figure that could be seen making
its way up the path that we had taken, approaching through the
heavy falling snow. It was one of our men. As he approached,
he shouted that he had a message for us. We were to return down
to the Company because orders had come down from Regiment that
all troops were to be in shelter. The toll taken by the weather
was almost exceeding that taken by the enemy. It didn't take
us long to gather our things together and begin to make our way
down to the rest of the Company.
This time we didn't return to the same house that we had left
previously. We were directed to another house, which was already
occupied, and fortunately, by the time we arrived, the men had
already made up their guard roster, so we were excluded. This
gave us time to rest up and thaw out from that long hilltop excursion.
The next morning, as we prepared to move out, an additional snow
accumulation of 10 to 12 inches greeted us, but at least the
snowstorm had ended.
As we approached the next village, there was by the side of the
road, a yellow sign edged with a curtain of driven snow and the
name Hebronval visible through it. One of the first buildings
to be entered was a shed-type building attached to a house. Harry
Clark entered it and had an old fashioned shoot out with a German
soldier and finished him.
At this point, the tanks refused to move any farther for reasons
that we were unaware of at the time. While everything was stalled,
the Infantry took up positions along the roadside among some
of the scattered buildings. On the left side of the roadway,
I took my position by a small wood shed. As I stood guard there,
I was deeply concerned and appalled at the horribly despondent
frame of mind into which I had slipped during the last 48 hours.
It was an attitude that was absolutely deadly, since I knew it
was stealing away the alertness and the initiative that were
so essential if one was to at least attempt to survive. I prayed
a desperate prayer for help, an inarticulate cry for Divine intervention.
What soldier would not want to have complete assurance that he
would survive the ordeal of war, but to have that assurance was
not my lot.
There was a response; however, it seemed to be simply "All
is well. All is well." Although I still did not have the
assurance that I would not die, I knew my days were in God's
hands. As a consequence, I experienced a quieting of the spirit
and even a feeling of buoyancy that would not desert me.
With the quieting of my spirit, my senses were again attuned
to our immediate situation. We could hear the muffled radio communications
from inside the tanks, with the static and constant interruptions
in tones of urgency. Someone then told us that the reason the
tanks were not moving was because they feared mines. After encountering
that minefield on the hill two nights before, they feared that
the Germans might have again taken advantage of the freshly fallen
snow and strewn a hasty minefield.
Someone asked for two volunteers to walk in front of each track
of the lead tank, shuffling the snow to locate mines that might
have been lying immediately under the freshly fallen snow. Harry
Clark and I volunteered to do this and got the column moving.
Shuffling the deep snow was particularly laborious and painstakingly
slow.
As we moved farther into the village, we approached a curve in
the road, and poised right on the curve was a solitary house
with the windows already shattered. It looked especially menacing
because of its location. The situation of the house was perfect
for a Panzerfaust team (A German Bazooka team) with covering
riflemen. Harry and I began firing into the openings of the house.
With the roar of the tank engine immediately behind us, in addition
to our preoccupation with the possibility of mines, a rifle shot
from that distance ahead of us would have been impossible to
hear. There are often parallel circumstances that quickly excite
latent fears and conjure up unpleasant memories that prompt instinctive
responses. Over all of the noise we heard the voice of a corporal
behind the lead tank shouting at us to quit firing, because he
said there might be some Germans in there, who might want to
surrender. Harry and I replied to him that we would gladly stop
firing if he would exchange places with us in front of the tank.
With that we heard no more from him.
In Normandy, in July, our tank and infantry unit had been brought
under extremely heavy machine gun fire in a hedged field resplendent
with brilliantly colored poppies. As I lay in the grass beside
a tank, hugging the earth under fierce, grazing fire, I could
see, near me, flowers snipped from their stems or exploding in
a shower of petals. The scene was a vivid portrait of the bitter
anomalies of war; Sherman tanks squatting in the midst of poppies,
and angry bursts of machine gun fire slashing through the flowing
shrubs that graced the hedgerows that surrounded us.
We finally broke out onto a narrow lane and moved slowly forward
for some distance. There was a 6 or 8-foot embankment with heavy
foliage on the left side of the lane, and on the right was a
3-foot stone wall that separated the lane from an open field.
After moving slowly for some distance, the column of tanks and
Infantry came to a halt. Then there was a conversation between
our platoon leader, Lt. Shedd and the commander of the lead tank.
Approximately seventy-five yards ahead, an intersection could
be seen where a similarly narrow lane bisected the one upon which
we were advancing and there was a small brick structure located
on the right of the intersection. After the conversation ended,
Lt. Shedd ordered me, since I was near him, to advance to the
intersection and check for any enemy vehicles or guns that might
be there. I made my way forward on the right side of the roadway,
hugging the wall and in a low crouch cautiously moved toward
the road junction. When I reached the small brick building at
the intersection, I checked carefully in all three directions,
and saw nothing of a threatening nature, neither gun nor vehicle.
I made my way back to the head of the column and reported to
Lt. Shedd that I had seen nothing of either enemy vehicles or
guns. When I made my report, I was standing to the right front
of the lead tank. Then, either by coincidence or by design, a
heavy outburst of machine gun fire from the right front across
the field, raked the column. Everybody's attention was immediately
focused on that area to try to pick up the position of the offending
gun. At that instant, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a flash
and a cloud of dust only a few yards beyond the intersection
where I had been just a few minutes previously, and instantly,
the tank beside me was hit. There must have been a Panzerfaust
team concealed in the heavy foliage, dug into the embankment
just beyond the intersection. In the moment of diversion, it
fired that deadly blast. The explosion of that round against
the tank caught me like a wallop with a 2 X 4 across the front
of my body. I was hit and immediately began to move to the rear.
I noticed that the upper part of my field jacket was in tatters.
As I made my way back, I passed men crouched against the stone
wall. I received words of encouragement and comfort as I passed
by them. "Tough luck kid!" "You'll be OK!"
Everything will be alright kid!" I went back some distance
and then lay down in a ditch where a medic came and gave me first
aid and a shot of morphine. In a very short time, I was joined
by two badly burned tankers who had somehow managed to extricate
themselves from the burning tank. Because the lane was so narrow,
it took a while to bring in the medical half-track to evacuate
us. The half-track had to back in quite a distance in order to
pick us up. We were placed on litters and into the half-track.
In a short time we arrived at a tent hospital where X-Rays were
quickly taken. Soon I was moved onto an operating table where
my last recollection was hearing the soothing voice of a nurse
saying to me, "Now you tell us all about what happened."
Before I could even mumble a word, the anesthetic eased me into
a soft, velvety whirlpool and I was gently drawn down into unconsciousness.
Later, when I awakened and became lucid enough to investigate
my injuries, I found that my neck and chin had been burned by
the heat of that penetrating missile, and there were other bandages
on the upper and lower part of my body, which I surmised, covered
shrapnel wounds. Lying on my chest and tied around my neck was
a medical packet. I checked the contents and was surprised to
find the projectile to a rifle bullet inside. When the Doctor
made his rounds to check on my condition, I said to him that
there must have been a mistake and told him of the rifle slug
that I had found in my packet. I told him that I had not been
hit by small arms fire; I had been hit by the blast from a Panzerfaust.
He said he didn't know about that, all he knew was that he had
taken that rifle slug from my lower abdomen.
After lying in a hospital bed day after day and contemplating
the almost total improbability of being hit simultaneously by
two different weapons, it was almost impossible not to suffer
a significant effect on the fear mechanism that initiated the
instinctive responses that I constantly made.
The firing that Harry and I did was not a wanton or trigger-happy
escapade, but a justified response to what was perceived to be
a real threat despite the cries of that feckless protestor sheltered
behind the lead tank.
By this time the tanks had moved far enough without incident
to assure the tankers that the possibility of mines was no longer
there. Harry and I broke away and joined the others in moving
through and clearing houses.
There was a road that cut off to the left of the main street
leading to a Chapel and another part of the village. Those men
who entered the Chapel, among them, George Sampson and Harry
Clark, found the body of a young girl in the front of the sanctuary,
laid out in preparation for burial. I had joined up with Charles
Craig and proceeded up the main street with several other men,
working through the houses on either side of the street.
One of the first houses I entered, I had entered alone. As I
ran through it, I bumped into a German soldier in the doorway
between two rooms. He immediately raised his arms in surrender,
and then gestured that he wanted to get something from his pocket.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small change purse,
and from it he retrieved some kind of skiing medal. It must have
been something he valued because he offered it to me, and then
thrust the purse into my hand in a further attempt to ingratiate
himself to his captor. I felt quite sure that if we had been
together a few more minutes, we could have been good friends.
I ushered him to the door and indicated to him that he should
move down the street to the rear with his hands clasped behind
his head.
I joined Craig and we entered another house. Craig was armed
with nothing but a Walkie-Talkie and the Army .45 automatic.
The .45 was a weapon that I'm sure most men would have been more
effective in throwing than in shooting. Nevertheless, Craig seemed
to feel adequately secure carrying that piece of equipment. One
house, which we entered together, found Craig immediately rushing
upstairs to check it out, while I went to the rear of the house
on the first floor. In the rear of the house was a room with
an open stairway leading to the cellar. There was just a railing
around the open stairway and the steps leading to the cellar
were very steep. At the bottom of the stairs was a door, but
it was located in such a fashion that it would have been extremely
difficult to open and at the same time have the rifle in a ready
position.
The prospect of going down those steps did not appeal to me at
all, so I shouted down, "Kommen sie raus mit den handen
hoche!" I shouted this twice, without any response. I then
began to leave, but as I approached the front door and saw that
Craig had already left, I became apprehensive, because once you
leave a house, the others following have every right to believe
it has been cleared. I returned to the rear of the house again
to the stairway and shouted down again. "Kommen sie raus
mit den handen hoche! Still, no response, and I was still determined
not to go down those steps. I didn't like the idea of using hand
grenades because of the possibility of civilians taking refuge
there. Standing in the corner at the top of the stairway was
a wooden hay rake. I picked it up and threw it with as much force
as I could. It bounced down the steps with an awful racket, slammed
into the door, and instantly, the door burst open and four German
soldiers come hurriedly through it and up the steps with their
hands raised, all chanting the prisoners chorus, "Comrade!"
"Comrade!" "Comrade!"
The houses on the street where we were working were finally cleared
and four of us found ourselves by a small outbuilding at the
edge of the village, waiting for orders as to what we should
do next. Craig, meantime, had been summoned and had returned
back down the street. In a very short time Pop Waters approached
us and told us that the Company was going to change directions
and would be moving out of the village on another road. However,
he said to me, "Take these guys and go down the road and
clear those two houses." My heart sank, because those two
houses were about a quarter of a mile away and the long open
roadway was nothing but an unending series of undulating snow
drifts. The snow had drifted in depths that ranged from knee
to navel deep. We moved out again with the wearying chore of
breaking snow, burdened with all that equipment, particularly
that necessary nuisance, the entrenching tool, banging you in
the backside with every step you took. With snow at such depths,
we did not walk through the snow; we climbed through it.
As we approached the halfway mark, tensions began mounting considerable,
knowing that we must make outstanding targets in our dark uniforms
against the brilliantly white snow.
Moving closer to the objective, we could see that the house-barn
combination on the right side of the road was nearer, but the
squat house on the left looked more ominous. I felt that if there
were trouble, it would issue from that house. After that long
struggle over completely open terrain, all I wanted was shelter,
so when we got reasonably close, I decided to make a run for
the nearer house on the right side of the road, so that we could
at least get inside and catch our breath before we made our move
on the other house. I dashed up the step and crashed against
the front door, bouncing off! It was locked!
There was now nothing else to do but make the final dash for
the other house. With the other guys in my tracks and, I imagine,
each one holding his breath, we rushed diagonally across the
street. I pushed in the front door into a medium sized room.
When my eyesight recovered from the blinding snow, I found myself
in the midst of at least twelve German soldiers. Some were standing,
others seated, and all of them were surrounded with a frightening
array of weaponry, and yet, realizing it was all nullified because
they had made a decision to surrender. When I realized what damage
they could have inflicted, in view of their commanding position
and deadly amount of weaponry, my emotions veritably ricocheted
back and forth between terror and euphoria. To have such tension
broken with such elation must have carried us away, because Pop
Waters, evidently wondering where we were, had followed us to
see what was taking so long. Although his actions demonstrated
his concern, his appearance was as though he knew that all we
had to do was to hike through the snow, pick up some prisoners
and return. At least there was one real tangible reward from
that incident, because one of the prisoners "agreed"
to give me a beautifully holstered Spanish .38 that he was carrying.
That unusual day at Hebronval was a day I desperately needed.
There wasn't a day like it before or after. That day seemed to
be the Divinely orchestrated response to the prayerful interlude
by the woodshed earlier in the day, at the entrance to the village.
Our unit now changed direction and moved out of Hebronval in
a southerly direction toward high ground ahead of us, and after
moving some distance in a tank and Infantry column, there was
a short, but heavy, exchange of fire as we approached a small
wooded area. As we moved through it, we came upon two badly wounded
German soldiers, blood covered and groaning pitifully. The officer
with the several of us who stood by them said we should prepare
immediately to remove them to the rear. No sooner had he uttered
those words, when a man standing by us fired a few rounds from
his Thompson sub-machine gun into them, killing them both instantly.
We stood there absolutely dumbfounded at this senseless and cowardly
action. Ironically, the man who did it was the same man who earlier
in the day, yelled at Clark and me for firing into that house
because he said, "There might be Germans in there who want
to surrender."
There was a rather steep hill between us and our next village
objective. It was decided to split the column and have the tanks
approach the village around the right side of the hill, while
the Infantry would make its way around the left side of the hill.
As this move proceeded, the height of the hill made it impossible
to maintain radio contact with the tank column, and there was
fear that a lot of dangerous mischief would follow if neither
column knew where the other was. An officer ordered Clark and
me to make our way to the top of the hill so that we might locate
the tank column and so make a coordinated attack on the village
possible. Harry and I made our way through the deep snow and
finally made it to the crest just about completely exhausted.
We spotted our tank column. The tank column spotted us and thought
we were Germans, the Germans in the village spotted us and knew
we were Americans, and everyone began firing. We burrowed into
the snow for a few moments to catch our breath; then we literally
threw ourselves down that hill, running, sliding, tumbling, just
to get out of there. After the firing, we didn't have to tell
the officer where the tank column was. They had decisively reported
their location.
The two columns met at the edge of the village, and the tanks
laid down heavy fire as we moved into it. Some of our men came
upon an elderly Belgian farmer who seemed oblivious to everything
that was going on around him because his barn was on fire. After
the village was secured, these same men returned and helped him
save his barn.
By the time the village was secured, darkness had already set
in. A search was immediately begun for inhabitable quarters since
most of the houses had been severely damaged. Several men from
our platoon found one where at least the rear of the house was
only slightly damaged, although the front of the building had
been blown open. It was always amazing how quickly a room could
be blacked out so that we could have light as soon as possible.
A mattress was dragged from an upstairs bed, and then a large
dresser was used to keep the mattress in place in front of the
lone window in the room.
Guards were immediately set out while the rest of us prepared
enthusiastically for our first warm meal in days. Pop Waters
had been carrying with him a tin of sardines that he had received
from home. I was fortunate enough to be asked to share this gourmet
meal with him.
Things looked pretty good for a reasonable night, in spite of
the intermittent shelling. Soon, however, a full-scale artillery
barrage came slamming into the village. One shell must have landed
at the base of the wall of the house, directly beneath the solitary
window. The force of the explosion blew the mattress and the
dresser back across the room. We threw ourselves on the candles
in order to extinguish the light so as not to jeopardize our
position. Just as quickly, the mattress and dresser were again
positioned against the window, the candles were located and lighted,
and food that hadn't been spilled was recovered and the meal
resumed.
A new officer had just joined us that day, and he had been seated
on the floor eating when the shell struck our house. Sometime
later, he said "I can't believe what I've just seen."
He continued, asking, "What kind of men are you?" We
really didn't know what he was talking about. Then he went on.
"When I was in England, if a Buzz Bomb just flew over the
camp, everyone would be up all night, no one would sleep. Here,
a shell almost lands in the room and you guys act as though nothing
happened." There was no response to his observation, because
I guess everyone knew he could find the answer for himself soon
enough.
A runner came for Pop Waters and told him to report to the Company
CP. In a very short time he returned with news we did not want
to hear. Our 3rd Rifle Squad was ordered to get its gear together,
and we were taken to the edge of the village and ordered to dig
in. Sampson and I, with the Bazooka, were ordered to dig in right
beside the road, Clark and another man, a few yards from us,
and the other team, beyond them. After hacking through the frozen
surface, in a very short time, George and I realized that we
had inherited a rock quarry. We chiseled and chipped and sweated
even in the intense cold, and after hours of this highly unproductive
labor, we managed to carve out what must have appeared like nothing
more than an oversized, built-in birdbath. A few yards away form
us, Harry and his companion must have struck a mother lode of
topsoil, because in a very short time, he, as well as the other
team, were ensconced in deep, relatively comfortable holes. Clark
managed to pilfer a door from a nearby shed and threw that over
the top of their hole for additional warmth and comfort.
When we initially were brought to this position, we were told
that anything that comes up that road is German. After we had
been suffering there a number of hours, we heard the sound of
a vehicle approaching us. As it came nearer and nearer, we got
into a heated argument as to whether the sound of the oncoming
vehicle was actually German. Our argument was more with ourselves
than with each other, because as the vehicle approached, we were
certain that the sound was decidedly that of an American engine,
despite what had been originally told us.
Finally as the vehicle came by us, we were greeted by a cheery
American voice. It was the voice of the commander of an American
tank destroyer. That man would never know what kind of hell he
put us through and how close he came to having a Bazooka round
through the side of his vehicle.
Daylight did not come too soon, after that night of cold and
suspense. We were finally recalled and joined the rest of the
unit. As we re-entered the village we came under exceptionally
heavy artillery fire. We took shelter in a shed where a number
of our wounded were waiting to be evacuated to the rear. The
wounds of some of the men were distressingly bad, and it was
doubtful whether evacuation would come in time.
The entire day was again spent in slow forward movement, with
the usual pauses for our own artillery to do its work, or standing
by while the tanks demolished or silenced some strong point.
The incoming fire never really ceased for any length of time,
taking its emotional as well as its physical toll. Although the
sameness of the nights, the sameness of the landscape, the hunger,
the cold, all conspired to dull the senses, it seemed that the
one sense to escape this dulling effect was the fear, which,
whether mentioned or unmentioned, dogged every step and hovered
over every moment.
By dusk, we had again reached the next village, with the Germans
withdrawing just ahead of us. There were not very many houses
in what would be more accurately described as a hamlet rather
than a village. The stream that flowed by this small grouping
of houses now had to be bridged before we could proceed further.
The combat engineers would have the unenviable task of spending
the night putting a bridge across the stream under heavy and
persistent fire.
Troops were continuing to move into the hamlet, taxing the possible
places of shelter to the limit. I entered one house that was
already just about filled to capacity, with most everybody just
milling around. The room I had entered was the kitchen of the
house and I spied a kitchen sink that was rather low to the floor,
but I could see that there was adequate room underneath for a
person to stretch out. I removed my gear and got down and wiggled
my way underneath the sink. For me, the physical requirements
for a night's rest were absolutely minimal, especially in view
of the sleepless night Sampson and I had spent the night before.
Neither the view nor the smell, from my vantage point, was very
inspiring, what with the dank odor of the sink drain above me
and the sight and smell of vintage combat boots in front of me.
Nevertheless, I thought I had done really well with the spot
I had chosen.
Sometime later, some loud mouth broke the spell of my repose
by complaining about the number of men in the building, and began
checking into the company affiliation of each man. I concluded
from what I heard, that he did not want D Company personnel there,
because all except those of another company were being ordered
out. I tried to remain indifferent to the proceedings, feeling
my benign presence under the sink was harming no one. But I knew
my position had been compromised when I saw a large, ungainly
combat boot, with flesh overflowing its top, begin probing around
under the sink until he finally encountered my body. He was evidently
unable to bend over to see me, because he simply kept jabbing
at me with his foot until I was forced to respond. I asked him
what he wanted. "What's your name soldier?" "Kauffman!"
"What company?" "D" "Then get out of
here!"
It is one thing to be evicted from some palatial suite, but to
be unceremoniously booted out from under a kitchen sink has no
insulting or demeaning equal. I struggled out from under the
sink, dragging my gear with me and stood to face my antagonist.
This humiliation had made me altogether furious, and even through
I faced a creature with an arm just burdened with stripes, I
told him that I was not a member of some alien unit, but I too
was an American soldier and I couldn't see what harm my presence
could bring. The exchange became very heated, and after I had
words like "insubordination" and "Court-marshal"
rifled past me, I realized that the solitary stripe on my arm
did not very well buttress my position, so I made a retreat.
I opened the door and just before I left, I discharged a barrage
of epithets that I was sure would cover all of his human frailties,
slammed the door and went sulking out into the darkness looking
for a more friendly refuge.
Just a short distance away was a barn, and upon entering it I
found it to be just as crowded as the place I had just left.
There were in it soldiers, civilians, and a number of dairy cows.
For some reason, the cows had been given a very generous allotment
of space. Most of the cows were lying down, so I dropped down
beside the first one, rested my back against it and found complete
comfort. As an added bonus, I was a benefactor of the heat that
the animal was generating. After my last ordeal, I decided that
I had now found a true Shangri la. The calmness of the animals
as they placidly chewed their cud had a particularly tranquilizing
effect.
Sometime later there was activity in the opposite corner of the
barn. Through the language barrier, I learned that a woman was
having a baby. What a time and place, I thought, with local strangers,
foreign strangers, and then as if to add final insult, the animals
themselves. Yet as I reflected on it, despite the embarrassment
of the moment, I wondered if in time to come, the woman might
not be overcome with a great sense of pride as she remembered
another mother who also gave birth to a Son under similar circumstances,
a Son whose first gulp of air on this earth was also the stale
air of a stable laden with the smell of manure.
Sometime later, a soldier came to the door of the barn and told
us that a barn just a short distance away had been hit by a shell
and a number of our soldiers had been killed. I never knew why
we always felt so secure in a barn, since in most parts of a
barn the only protections was a thin slate or tile roof. The
news made me very uneasy, so I decided to leave and find other
quarters. Down the street was another house, and as I entered,
I found it occupied mostly by men of our company. But again,
it was a cellar kitchen that was altogether crowded, with men
sitting and standing. I did find a place at a table, but the
prospect of sitting up all night in a room that was blue with
smoke did not appeal to me, so I moved on again. The kitchen
opened directly into a barn that was completely empty except
for the dairy cows. Barn or no barn, I wanted a night's rest,
so I took off my gear and lay down in a concrete feed trough
and finally, after a night of wandering, found a place of rest.
The next day would be a repetition of the preceding days with
its drudgery, its hardships, and the disappearance of friends
from our ranks, whether by the medical half-track or the ultimate
route; that notorious three-quarter-ton truck. We received word
that one of our other units had been ambushed and had taken a
heavy toll of casualties. The road down which we were moving
was in the same direction as that which the hard-hit unit had
taken. We were ordered to halt in an area of open, scrubby terrain.
Waters come to us and told us that Sampson and I were to move
with the Bazooka to a position quite a distance forward of the
company and prepare to intercept any tanks that might come down
the roadway. We waited for what seemed hours and finally Harry
Clark came to us and told us that the company had moved out some
time ago in another direction, but somehow they had neglected
to tell us. This would not be the last time that Harry would
come to our rescue.
We took a very circuitous route, and after walking quite some
distance we finally entered a wooded area. Just inside the woods
we found a trail and followed it. This path paralleled the edge
of the woods, and as we moved forward, some of our men caught
a glimpse of several German soldiers darting through the woods
ahead of us.
There was at least one other squad ahead of us as we moved single
file through the woods. The column came to a halt, and then we
could see heads turning as if a message were being passed from
one to another. Unfortunately, the message ended with us; the
call was for the Bazooka team to make its way forward. Sampson
and I made our way forward past the other troops crouched along
the pathway. When we arrived at the head of the column, we were
told that there appeared to be an enemy vehicle about 100 yards
ahead, just inside the woods. The column stayed in place while
George and I made our way forward. As we drew nearer, it appeared
that the vehicle, which was an armored vehicle, seemed to have
been abandoned. But close by was a rather large log bunker, the
type which the Germans seemed especially adept at building.
As we moved closer, a German medic appeared at the door wearing
a Red Cross vest, and waving a white flag. We then moved rapidly
forward and found that the medic spoke rather good English. He
told us that there were a number of fellow soldiers inside the
bunker and they too wanted to surrender. We told him to tell
them to come out with their hands raised, then to form them in
a column of two's to expedite moving them to the rear.At this
point, we were no more than 30 or 40 feet inside of the woods.
As we formed them up, we heard the sound of tanks and were relieved
to see two of our Sherman tanks come sweeping across the open
field toward us. We did not realize that what they would see
would be a German vehicle, a bunker, and a group of German soldiers.
As they approached, they immediately opened fire and closed
into the very edge of the woods. All of us hit the ground. It
was a moment of absolute terror. The one tank, to which I was
the closest, raked the area back and forth, the coaxial machine
gun in the turret sweeping over us again and again. Then at regular
intervals a round of high explosive was fired through the trees
and into the bunker. George was hanging on bodily to one German
soldier who was trying to get away. The audible prayers of the
Germans around me, the maddening feeling of helplessness in being
fired upon by our own men, it was a total nightmare.
The firing would cease, and we would think that it was all over,
but then, whether they spotted movement or for whatever reason,
the firing would begin again, the machine guns sweeping over
us and the 76's cutting loose and bringing down branches with
snow on top of us. We could hear the empty casings of the high
explosive rounds clanging on the floor of the tank.
When this whole unfortunate incident began, Harry Clark left
his position where we had left the company, made his way out
of the woods into the clearing, approached the tanks from the
rear, and somehow got their attention and shouted to them that
there were American soldiers in that group. The tanks finally
quit firing.
Clark and the others stated later that they never expected to
see anyone rise up out of the horror alive, and yet every one
of us did. There was not one casualty. The only conclusion that
we could ever arrive at, aside from Providential intervention,
was that the tanks were too close.
After we all collected ourselves, the German medic came at George
and me and was absolutely furious because we had let the incident
happen. Why he ever thought that we had invited something as
horrible as that upon ourselves we will never know, but the circumstances
were so unreasonable that anything was forgivable.
By this time the entire column arrived where we were and we again
moved out. We came to a small stream where we all replenished
our water supply, filling our canteens. Our orders were then
to follow the stream. We came to a tributary, and this brought
Clark and Sampson into a heated argument, because Sampson would
have followed the tributary instead of the main stream. At this
point Clark gave a rather lengthy dissertation on the simplicity
of determining which is the main stream and which is the tributary.
Clark, the classic country boy, the experienced coon hunter,
lamented as to how little city boys knew about the out-of-doors.
The going was extremely tough as we made our way up the steep,
wooded slope and through the heavy snow. We finally arrived at
the top and then moved some distance down the forward slope,
the military crest. By this time it was dark and we were told
to prepare to dig in. Sampson and I were assigned to dig in directly
beside a narrow road that cut through the woods. The digging,
again, was extremely difficult. A conspiracy of rocks and roots
made the progress painfully slow. The hole we ended up with was
adequate, but not at all ideal.
We placed our raincoats, which we carried folded over the back
of our cartridge belts, in the bottom of the hole, for some protection
from the cold earth. Sampson was wearing a mackinaw, not the
traditional long overcoat that most of us wore. The night was
probably one of the coldest that we had thus far encountered,
so when we crawled into the hole, I removed my overcoat and covered
the both of us with that. It was brutally cold that night and
so we slept very little. Sampson spent some time huddled under
the overcoat reading his New Testament by the light of his flashlight.
We had no interruptions during the night, but we heard later
that a German contingent had moved through behind us and captured
some of our men, and then later, this same group was, in turn,
captured by others of our company. To this, George and I were
completely oblivious.
At daybreak, we decided it was pointless to lie in the hole shivering
any longer, so we roused ourselves and climbed out to do some
foot stamping. The overcoat with which we had covered ourselves
was frozen hard as a board from having been wet the previous
day. I literally had to break the arms of the coat and the other
surfaces to make the coat pliable enough so that I could put
it on. While I was doing that, I had propped my rifle against
a nearby tree. George, meanwhile, had spotted a German patrol
coming up the ditch toward us on the same side of the roadway
where we were dug in. I immediately scrambled for my rifle, and
George reached for his .45 automatic. He couldn't find his pistol,
and on reaching for my own rifle, I found that it was frozen
solid. I couldn't even stomp the bolt open with my foot, so George
grabbed the Bazooka and we waited till they were almost on top
of us when we both shouted, "Halt!" as loud as we could.
Arms and weapons flew into the air as we caught them totally
by surprise.
We moved them onto the roadway and George stood there covering
them with his empty Bazooka, daylight streaming out of both ends
of the empty weapon. I removed their gear and some helmets, and
while we were doing this, others from our unit drifted over to
us to oversee the proceedings. I had finished checking all of
them, but there was one man wearing a camouflage suit and a peaked
cap who, to me, seemed inordinately cocky. I decided to go over
him again. This time I opened his outside suit and checked his
uniform underneath. In an inside pocket I found a small .22 caliber
automatic, often referred to as an escape pistol.
After we finished with prisoners, someone else took charge of
them and George and I returned to getting the rest of our gear
together. When we removed the raincoats from the bottom of the
hole, George found his pistol. It must have slipped out of the
holster during the night and had been hidden among the raincoats.
After some time we were again ordered to prepare to move out.
This time, instead of moving forward down the road, we moved
in the other direction to where a sharp turn in the road brought
us onto another road, which was the main roadway to the next
village, the village of Mont le ban.
When we arrived on the lower road, there was again the usual
waiting and milling around till things were organized. We were
never sure why so much time was consumed in what always seemed
such an elementary matter of simply moving forward. As was the
case in so many previous occasions, this morning found us again
gathering in small clusters of men, although we all knew better.
There would always be the cry from one of the officers or noncoms,
"Don't bunch up, one shell will get you all." There
was a slight rise in the road ahead of us, and when several of
us were together in front of the rise, mortar shells began dropping
all around us. Dirty black holes began blossoming in the snow
on every hand. Fred Dorsey was one of the first victims of that
attack. We were all sickened to see Fred lying there beside one
of those blackened holes in the snow in a grotesque posture of
death, the ultimate humiliation.
In September, when I had returned to our unit from the hospital,
it was positioned inside the Siegfried Line, just within the
German border. I was warmly greeted by Fred Dorsey and Lester
Fickel to a very depleted squad. They immediately began bustling
around, getting together all the equipment I would need and then
went through the bed rolls on the rack on the back of the half-track
to gather blankets for me. Because of the heavy casualties, there
was always a surfeit of blankets and bedrolls. While I was organizing
my equipment, I could hear Fickel and Dorsey inside the half-track.
I soon understood that Fickel was reading one of the letters
to Dorsey that Dorsey had just received from his wife. (Fred
Dorsey could neither read nor write.)
I had decided that night to sleep underneath the half-track,
and while I was arranging my blankets, I could hear the two of
them having a mild argument. They were arguing about who they
thought should be the next squad leader. Each one deferred to
the other, saying that he should be the next one.
As I lay there underneath the half-track, the stillness of the
night was suddenly rent by the long burst of fire from a nearby
German machine gun that reverberated through the woods. That
sound sent a chill up my spine, hearing that sound which I had
not heard since Normandy. I was suddenly seized with an imminent
and pervasive sense of encroaching hostility, not only because
of that rapid firing machine gun, but now the trees and rocks
and the very earth on which I lay also seemed to exude hostility,
because I was inside the enemy camp. I was now on German soil.
Returning to combat the second time is far more difficult than
that initial experience, because when I returned the second time,
the incident in that narrow lane in Normandy had convincingly
disabused me of the youthful illusion of invincibility, and just
as quickly jarred me loose form the myth that "It won't
happen to me." It was the warmth and friendliness of Dorsey
and Fickel that helped me through the difficult transition of
returning to combat. Now Fickel was gone, having been wounded
a few days earlier and evacuated, and Dorsey lay dead in the
snow.
The reaction to the mortar attack was immediate. Some of us made
a break for a small copse about 200 yards to our right. Several
of the tanks moved in that direction, so I made it a point to
keep up with and beside one of them as a shield as I ran for
the woods. There was a cattle fence hidden under the snow, and
I caught my foot in it and went down. With Craig right behind
me, I know I had at least one footprint in the middle of my back.
That mortar attack was so critical because it split the company.
Only about 15 of the Infantry made it to the woods. The others
of our company had fallen back. This would separate us from the
men I had been with constantly; Craig's was one of the few familiar
faces.
Once inside the woods we settled down for another period of waiting.
I was out of food and found a part of a loaf of hard, black German
bread lying on the ground. It was not unusual to see German prisoners
with a loaf of that bread simply strapped to their belts. As
hungry as I was, it was too hard and sour to tempt me to more
than a few bites, so I discarded it.
When the decision to move out came, we made ready, but as soon
as the first tank began to move, there was an immediate response
of direct fire from the village, either from tanks or from anti-tank
guns. The tanks quickly retreated back into the woods. We could
hear that there was an urgent conference taking place over the
tank radios. The word was that there were Tigers in town. The
Tiger tank was the most feared of all weapons in the German arsenal;
like a tracked dreadnought, it was certainly the scourge of anything
we possessed.
The call must have gone out for air support, because some time
later a flight of P-47's arrived on the scene and, as was their
custom, seemed to circle endlessly, but it was simply their way
of carefully establishing the target. Once that was done, their
execution was a wonder to watch. First, with their bombing runs,
which on this occasion began directly overhead, the earth trembled
with the impact of the detonating bombs that shook snow from
the trees. Then during the strafing runs, again directly overhead,
the planes themselves recoiled with the force of the eight .50
caliber machine guns, shattering the air with the fury of their
bursts.
How many Tigers were involved, we did not know, but sometime
later when another of our tanks moved, there was an immediate
retaliation from the village, indicating that some of them were
still alive and well.
As we sat there, crouched in the snow, waiting for a decision
to be made, I happened to glance at a new young officer crouched
nearby. I was taken aback by the look of fear that completely
distorted his face. The baggage of fear is burdensome enough
to carry, but when I looked at that young untried officer and
realized that imposed upon him was also the responsibility of
leadership, I felt a special measure of pity.
Since I was near the command tank, I could hear the urgency of
the communication that was going on between our column and the
higher command. By this time, the day was wearing on and darkness
would soon cover the scene. It was then that we heard those infamous
words over the radio, "You will move into that town!"
Further, it was stated that there would be an artillery barrage
lasting twenty minutes, after which we would be mounting the
tanks and moving into the village.
There were three or four tanks in our detachment, formed in a
single file inside the woods; one of them was a light tank, the
others were Sherman tanks. When the barrage was just about over,
we mounted the tanks. Three of us got aboard the light tank.
This was my first experience with a tank other than the Sherman.
It was just about dark when the last shell of the barrage went
crashing into the village. The tanks almost jumped out of the
woods at the given signal, each one determined to outrun the
other to the village. The three of us had quite a surprise when
we saw how quickly the light tank outran the others. There was
a stream midway between the woods and the village, but we were
certain that our tank never touched the bottom of that creek
bed. It simply leapt across.
The guns of all the tanks were firing, tracers pouring into the
village, and by now, because of the superior speed of the lighter
tank, the tracer bullets seemed to be passing us uncomfortably
close as our tank moved farther ahead of the others. The commander
of the tank on which we were riding did not raise his head above
the turret; he just reached up to the .30 caliber machine gun
above him, pointed it toward the village and fired what seemed
to be one long, continuous burst. We were well in advance of
the other tanks, and we could see that the driver was heading
for the shelter of the nearest outbuilding.
We arrived there very quickly and the driver spun the tank to
a halt behind a large shed. We had just hit the ground when the
unexplainable happened; another barrage of artillery came in,
and right on top of us. One man of the three that were on the
tank took a large splinter of steel directly in the middle of
his back and finished him. The screams of the farm animals that
had been caught in the intense fire of our approach were heartbreaking,
as they charged around in complete terror, many of them no doubt,
wounded.
I immediately left the position where we had dismounted and made
a run for the first house. A number of the houses in the village
were already on fire, giving the night an eerie quality, with
the sounds of the screaming animals and the somber sight of a
town on fire.
I entered the first house and since it faced away from the burning
village, the interior of the house was extraordinarily dark.
I shouted as I entered, but there was no response. It is amazing
how fear heightens the senses, because I felt the presence of
somebody in the room. I began probing around with the muzzle
of my rifle and suddenly felt the unmistakable sensation of flesh.
As my eyes grew more accustomed to the darkness, I saw the forms
of two elderly people standing in front of me, too terrified
to speak. I mumbled an apology to them and turned and left the
house.
At this point I knew I was alone, but I was sure that as the
others arrived, they too would begin moving immediately into
the village. After leaving the first house I ran along some other
buildings till I came to the gateway of a courtyard. Immediately
inside the courtyard to the right of the entrance was a house
with the top floor on fire. About six feet of the front of the
house extended inside the courtyard, the remainder of the house
was outside the courtyard. After entering through the gateway,
I went around to the front door of the house and entered the
open door. Directly inside, to the left, was the door to the
cellar, which was also open. From the top of the narrow stairway
that led to the cellar, I could see the glow of light.
Cautiously, I made my way down the steps and was surprised to
see a number of candles setting on boxes with equipment that
was unmistakably German, scattered around. (German equipment
always had a very distinctive odor.) With this, I knew I was
inside the German position. I returned up the stairs, and as
I stood in the front door, I saw another gateway directly ahead
of me across the courtyard. I then went forward along the other
wall of the courtyard to the gateway and saw that it brought
me out onto a street. At this time the air was alive with all
kinds of sounds: the sound of heavy firing, the sound of tank
engines everywhere, crackling flames, and still the shrieks of
those terrified animals.
Directly across the street was a house, and for some reason I
was contemplating making a run for that house. My mind was soon
changed because directly from the other side of the wall, only
a few feet from where I was standing, a machine gun opened up.
The tracers from that gun were splattering off the wall of the
house, that moments before, I had been planning to move toward.
After the machine gun opened up, I decided to retreat back into
the courtyard. I made my way through the rubble, and this time
I went to the doorway of the other house that opened onto the
courtyard, and stood in the doorway of the house to decide what
to do next. When I made my way across the courtyard, I saw another
American soldier enter the gateway that I had entered and stand
in the shadows of that first house. Evidently there must have
been enough light from the fires, when he entered, for him to
recognize me as an American too, otherwise he would have probably
fired, having taken me for a German soldier.
While I stood in the doorway, I saw two figures come to the entrance
where I had just been moments before and pause to look, no doubt
to investigate, because of the noise I had made moving through
the rubble and broken glass. Since there were now two of us in
the courtyard, I felt an added degree of confidence, so I shouted
to the two figures in the gateway, "Kommen sie hier mit
den handen hoche!" They paused for a moment. I shouted again,
"Kommen sie hier mit den handen hoche!" This time I
saw them raise their hands and move slowly toward me. The fires
that were burning in the village made for an extremely confusing
picture, because as the wind whipped the flames, the landscape
would one moment be bright, and the next instant, as the flames
died, the scene would again revert to the blackness of night.
As they approached me through the rubble-filled courtyard, I
could see that their hands were raised. The American soldier,
who was still standing in the shadows, made no move as I stepped
out of the doorway to approach the two prisoners. So as I approached
them, I was the only American involved in taking them prisoner,
as far as they were concerned. The routine of taking prisoners
during the last few weeks came under the most unusual circumstances;
some situations were almost comedic, would now prove almost fatal
to me.
When I stepped in front of the first man, doing as I had done
on so many previous occasions, I dropped my rifle to my left
hand in order to remove any dangerous equipment. At that instant
the prisoner made a movement and whether it was the result of
that movement toward me or whether there was a glint of light
from the fires around us, I saw that in his raised right hand
there was a weapon. Since I was too close to him to bring my
weapon to bear on him, I could do nothing but throw my rifle
to the ground and, in doing so, disarm myself. I reached for
his right hand with the weapon, to prevent him from bringing
it down on me. I grabbed his hand with the pistol, and with my
other arm, I grabbed him around his upper body. He, in turn,
grabbed me around my upper body, and we tussled, trying to throw
each other off balance. It was then that he fired his pistol
and part of my hand went numb, nevertheless, I was still able
to prevent him from bringing his arm down to where he could have
done fatal damage. I could actually hear the other German soldier
whimper with fear because of what was happening before him.
Meanwhile, for some reason, my companion did not move from
his position, but remained hidden in the shadows, a fact that,
without question, contributed to the whole unfortunate incident,
since if he had moved forward and joined me, and the two German
prisoners had been aware of the presence of both of us, nothing
would have been attempted. In final desperation I shouted to
my unknown companion, "For Pete's sake, give me a hand!"
He moved forward toward us, and when he was upon my opponent,
fired four shots. The German soldier gave a loud, horrible scream
directly into my ear, and as the bullets struck home, he slipped
from my grasp and crumpled to the ground at my feet. During the
rapid sequence of action, the other German soldier somehow managed
to flee into the darkness.
The two of us made our way toward the gateway, and immediately
after leaving the courtyard and moving a short distance, we were
halted by a voice in the darkness. As the fires flared, we could
make out the form of a Sherman tank ahead of us. I called out.
"We're Americans, I'm hit. I want to get back!" The
man in the tank did not believe that we were Americans, and the
excited tone of his voice made me fear that we might yet be gunned
down by our own men, but I persisted and said, "We're D
Company, and we want to get back!" His next question was,
"What's the password?" I replied that I didn't know,
since we hadn't had one for quite a while. His doubts were still
not satisfied, so in evident desperation he asked a question
of last recourse that was probably asked many times before. "Who
is Roosevelt's wife?" "Eleanor!" I replied. That
satisfied him and we were finally permitted to pass through,
back to our own position.
The guards were already in place outside the door of the first
house we came to, so we entered and found that those inside,
in that short time, had already set up; the room blacked out
and the flickering light of candles throwing shadows around the
room. The one sight that really astonished me was that of the
imperturbable Craig, sitting on a chair with his feet propped
up on a table as though the whole evening were just one great
bore. There was an officer present, so I blurted out to him everything
that had happened, explaining where this courtyard was and warning
them that I was sure that there was a German tank on the other
side of the wall of the courtyard, because, in thinking about
it, I believed it was the machine gun from a tank that had fired
when I attempted to cross that street.
Then I made a most foolish and shameful remark, a remark that
was made in the stress of the moment. I said, "When you
move up tomorrow and come to that courtyard, if that German soldier
is still there, make sure that he's dead." Sometime later,
I was told that when our unit moved up the next day, they did
find the body of a soldier that turned out to be a German officer,
and one of our men emptied his .45 into what was already a corpse.
When he was reprimanded by the officer, he replied, "Kauffman
told me to do it!"
There were already several wounded soldiers in the cellar
of the house, so the officer told me to go down and join them,
since there was a medic there to take care of my wound. I was
given a shot of morphine by the medic and then he tried to put
back in place a finger that was merely hanging on by the tendons.
There was also a Belgian couple, who were assisting and scurrying
around trying to help to make the men comfortable, in spite of
the fact that, from what we gathered, they had lost a child as
a result of our bombing. How magnanimous!
There was a considerable delay in bringing up the medical half-track
to evacuate the wounded because of the heavy shelling that was
going on, particularly in the area of a bridge and an intersection
through which the half-track would have to pass.
When the medical half-track finally did arrive, we held our collective
breaths till we finally got out of the danger zone. Being wounded,
especially if it isn't of a real serious nature, actually brings
a great sense of relief, since you've felt pretty certain that
you were going to get it somehow.
When the waiting is over and you have survived, you experience
a feeling akin to euphoria. Then our wounds were of no great
concern to us.
One day as I walked down a large corridor in the hospital in
Paris, I heard a very familiar voice say "Hi, Bob. I was
expecting you." It was the voice of a friend of mine, Ross
Overholt. We had become good friends in Germany while we were
in the Scherpenseel area, where in comparing notes, we found
an unusual similarity in our experiences. I had joined the 3rd
Armored Division immediately following their first engagement
in Normandy; Ross had joined a short time later. I was hit near
St. Lo during the second week of July; Ross was wounded a few
weeks later. We had both gone to different hospitals in England
and had rejoined our unit just after it had crossed the German
border in September. We also discovered that we both belonged
to the same small Church denomination, although Ross lived in
Michigan and I lived in Pennsylvania.
Although we were both nineteen years old, we would often have
exceptionally good chats that were almost philosophical in their
nature. On Christmas night in the Bulge, Ross had been wounded
by the same shell that had killed both Lester Wertman and Lt.
Mellitz, as well as wounding several others. Ironically, Ross
was also wounded in the hand. So Ross evidently thought that
since he had been hit, according to past performances, I should
not be far behind, and the greeting I got, "I was expecting
you," was an absolutely genuine reflection of the inevitabilities
with which we lived.
In that village outside of Hebronval, when the house was struck
by an artillery shell, and the scene that followed caused the
new officer to ask the question, "What kind of men are you?"
we had no illusions that we were a special breed of men. We knew
that experience alone would reveal to him one of the great incongruities
of war: that the very violence and horror of battle itself seemed
to produce a mollifying agent that acted as a damper on the strings
of the emotions. Were it not for that fact, the very force of
the harshness and the severity of the conflict would agitate
those strings with such intensity that the mind of a man would
be shattered and shredded.
Seventy-two hours after the incident in the Belgian courtyard,
lying in a Paris hospital, between something as unfamiliar as
two white sheets, my experience was reminiscent of the Scriptural
allegory of moving from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom
of light, since I had been transported from the dirt and death
of the battlefield into the antiseptic serenity of a hospital
room. However, it was then that the insulating protection of
the mollifying agent began to dissolve, and as it did, and the
sluice gates of my mind opened and the recollections of the recent
past poured out, at night in the darkness of my room, I would
lie in bed trembling, experiencing degrees of fear that I had
not known before. We were not an unusual breed, just the most
common among all men.
After leaving the hospital in Paris, before being transferred
to England, I was moved to a hospital in what had been formerly
the Normandy beachhead, to a place called Le Hay de Puits. In
the hospital ward there was a phonograph, and one of the records
that was played over and over again was a beautiful song with
the cumbersome title, "Spring Will Be a Little Late This
Year." For many of my fellow soldiers, that spring would
never come; for others, spring would indeed be a little late;
but for me, spring came just in time to end that bitter winter
of my youth.
END.
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