Lying there in my hole on the hill, I mused from time to time about how the war had suddenly diminished in size. Heretofore I had always tried to keep abreast of the broad strategy, to read about developments in all theaters of operations. There on the hill, when we were lucky enough to receive a few copies of Stars & Stripes along with our rations, we could read about how our armor was making gigantic strides across France; how we were slaughtering the Germans in the Argentan-Falaise pocket; how the Russians were also making sweeping advances; how we were taking great leaps in the Pacific. But now I found I didn’t give a damn about these things. It wasn’t a question of how far Patton’s tanks had gone that day or how the Russians were faring; I wanted to know how our 3d Battalion was getting along, how many casualties Company F was taking from the shelling, what was being done to blast the stalemate which had developed in our own particular, private little war.
But these answers were almost impossible to come by.
Though we might not know immediately all the efforts being made in our behalf, the fact was that things were taking place designed to get us through the antitank barrier. Our first inkling came when we saw a group of prisoners being herded back and noticed a strange silence on the part of our own artillery. Next we thought we saw some of our own men moving in an area that had definitely been enemy territory. We buzzed about all these things excitedly, confident that they foreshadowed something important, though we didn’t know what. We just sat there, protecting the flank of the regiment, waiting and hoping.
Finally one day we saw our own light tanks roll down the road toward Jerry-land, disappear from view in a hollow, then reappear on what we knew was the other side of the antitank fence. We cheered lustily. It meant the end of our clay pigeon existence and a chance to get where we could do some real damage to the enemy for a change. Without awaiting orders, I told my men to begin packing up, to get ready to move forward.
It was not long before orders came for us to stick with Company G in the advance. Happily, we hoisted the paraphernalia of battle on our backs and headed for the break in the antitank fence. It was good to be able to stretch our legs and get a good look at the barrier that had proven so formidable. It was a high steel fence, resembling a huge picket fence, made in sections so Jerry could move it wherever he needed a sturdy roadblock. Machine gun fire from well-camouflaged dugouts by the road had added to the effectiveness.
Night came not long after we passed the antitank fence. Though we halted and started to dig in our machine guns, the pause was only temporary. New orders came to forge ahead. We left our half-dug emplacements with little regret, confident that our best protection lay in moving as far and as fast as we could while the Germans were off balance.
Throughout our march, flares and artillery slowed our movement considerably, but it was a new weapon that proved the most effective, not because it produced so many casualties but because it scared us half to death. We were hustling along the side of a paved road when we first heard it, a weird, agonizing sound—a sound which grew louder and more terrifying as the projectiles approached. It sounded for all the world like a ghost tearing a board from the wall of a haunted house on Hallowe’en. needed no urging to hit the dirt.
It was our first experience with the “Screaming Meemy,” or, as Jerry called it, the Nebelwerfer. It was a multiple-barrel rocket launcher, fired electrically so fast that the rockets came over in great numbers almost simultaneously. The rockets plowed into an empty field behind us with spectacular concussion.
Upon reaching our destination we had to get our guns in place by intuition for the night was pitch black. Thoroughly weary, we lay down and slept. But it was good to be tired from exhaustion of movement instead of the nervous strain of sitting and taking mental punishment.
In the morning Lieutenant Black took me along to a company commanders’ meeting at battalion to plan the next jump for-ward. The meeting was held in a deep gully which served as a battalion command post. Hardly had it broken up when Jerry pounced on the area with his artillery, pounding it unmercifully. The direct fire wham-wham of 88’s followed quickly. These were high-velocity 88mm dual-purpose pieces—antitank and antiaircraft, and, as many infantrymen will testify, antipersonnel as well.
About a hundred yards to the left of my foxhole a tank destroyer took a direct hit and blew up with a tremendous explosion. It was an awesome sight. Two bodies hurtled from the destroyer, while a third rose in the air and fell back on the burning hulk. A column of black smoke rose high in the air. Then the tank destroyer itself became a dangerous weapon as the ammunition inside began to ignite. High explosive shells and machine gun bullets erupted with enough force and numbers to give the impression of a full-scale battle. Pieces of shells and great hunks of the vehicle itself flew in all directions.
Then, danger came from another quarter when the other tank destroyers decided to get as far from the burning hulk as they could, as quickly as they could. The roar of their engines filled the air. With little regard for the men in the foxholes, they raced away barely missing several of the foot soldiers. I cursed loudly but breathed a sigh of relief when they got out of the area without injuring anybody.
That same day I discovered an antidote for the foxhole complex I had developed in front of the antitank barrier. Taking charge of a patrol to search a wooded area on our flank, I found that the greatest cure for concern over my own safety was to have something to do. Company G was down to one officer by this time, Lieutenant Black himself. Thus, I volunteered to take over some of the duties of a rifle company officer. I led the patrol through a number of small farms, looking for likely places where the enemy might be hiding. We gathered a few docile prisoners without firing a shot, though we came under heavy artillery fire several times. But the good thing was that I found myself losing the feeling that I needed a portable foxhole wherever I went.
During the afternoon while turning in our captives at an improvised prisoner of war enclosure, I came upon Lieutenant Mike Germusa, Mike had been in the group of replacements which I was in charge of on the voyage across the Atlantic, but I had not seen him since being assigned to the One-Two-One. Mike told me that on his first day in action he had been called upon to take over Company C when the rest of the company’s officers were killed or wounded. He was elated that he had proven equal to the assignment.
“That’ll be something to tell my son,” Mike bubbled excitedly.
“Your son?” I asked. “I didn’t know you had any children.”
“I haven’t—yet,” Mike replied with a grin, “but when we were in England, I got a letter from my wife saying we’re going to have one. She promises it’ll be a boy!”
I slapped Mike on the back, wished him good luck, and went back to the business of getting into Dinard.
The next morning brought no change in orders at first. Company E was to take the lead, and again we were to stay with George Company and maintain protection for the right flank. This time we were to go all the way into the city itself. But as we formed to move out, Jerry artillery came down with a terrible ferocity, catching the men of Company E in the open and filling the air with flying pieces of steel and flesh. Several were killed, some wounded, and the company disorganized.
Plans were changed quickly. Company G moved into the lead, and my platoon stayed with them. But from the very start as we picked our way along hedgerows, we caught hell time after time.
Once between shells I looked up and there was Jack on the other side of the hedgerow I was hugging. I leaped over the embankment to greet him. The first thing he did was give me a Luger pistol he had been saving for me. I returned the gift in the form of a cheap watch I had taken the day before. Though the German artillery failed to appreciate our reunion, we fell to the ground and carried on an animated conversation despite the barrage. As Company G pulled ahead, Jack and I agreed to meet again in Dinard.
A few hundred yards down the road we joined forces with some medium tanks and for a while fitted our pace to theirs. The noise of the tanks apparently alerted every one of Jerry’s gunners, for he began to favor us with a devastating artillery barrage. Sergeant Walter Price and I crawled close to a big hedgerow, but we turned out to be on the wrong side of it, the side where the shells were falling.
It was terrifying. Dust, dirt, and shell fragments flew everywhere. Great jagged fragments hitting the hedgerow above knocked clods of earth down on top of us. We huddled and hoped and prayed, even as we coughed and spluttered to get the dirt out of our eyes, nose, and throat.
Then suddenly it was over and we waited for the head of the column to go forward again. Though we waited and waited, nothing stirred. I checked my men and found that the leading man in the platoon was in contact with the last man of a group of engineers who were between us and George Company. We settled down to an impatient wait.
Finally, when the tanks started moving around again, the Germans again renewed their artillery barrage. I cursed the luck that had put us in such an unenviable position without apparent remedy, but our orders were to stick with George Company, and that’s what we had to do.
No sooner had the artillery stopped than the engineers began to run pell-mell for the rear. I reached out and stopped several of them and demanded to know what was the matter. Their answers left me flabbergasted.
“Our squad leader got killed!” one of the men panted, eyeing the rear anxiously.
“Who’s keeping contact with George Company?” I shot back.
“Nobody. We ain’t had contact for a long time. We were waiting for somebody to come and get us.”
Choking back a string of epithets, I turned away before I did something for which I might be sorry. I knew that somehow I had to regain contact with Company G, but what made me angrier than anything was knowing that we had endured the artillery fire without reason. Checking my men quickly, I found that only one had been injured. Sergeant Mazza had been hit in the left heel—of his shoe! He would limp his way into Dinard.
Taking part of the first squad as a patrol, I made a rapid search. Fortunately, we found George Company with little of the difficulty I had anticipated. The riflemen had been advancing cautiously and had been virtually oblivious of the heavy shelling to their rear. I sweated and swore at the absent engineers responsible for stretching our nerves to the breaking point with such careless neglect of a duty that was fundamental in the infantry.
As the advance progressed, we passed through beautiful hilly country studded with magnificent estates and stately homes. Searching our way through each of the dwellings systematically, we came to a big estate on the very edge of the city. We made our way through the grounds, helping ourselves to bunches of delicious grapes and other fruit right off the vines and trees. At last we reached a group of houses, empty and surrounded by a high concrete wall.
I went forward with Company G’s commander, Lieutenant Black, to survey the situation. Just beyond the concrete wall was the first paved street of Dinard itself, and across the street was another building which looked to us like some kind of fort with a high wall around it similar to the one around our buildings. From a vantage point in a house, we could see firing apertures in the farther wall with connecting trenches behind the wall. In one or two places the muzzles of rifles protruded. As several of our men ventured into the street, the Jerries opened fire. Since we were too close to this new obstacle for artillery fire, it looked to us like a job for mortars. We called forward one of the officers from the 81mm mortar platoon, Lieutenant Lee Norman, to do the job.
Our plan was to put both mortar and machine gun fire against and beyond the wall. As this fire fell, the riflemen were to breach the wall with bazooka rockets, whereupon the attacking platoon was to rush across the narrow street onto the objective.
Lieutenant Norman’s mortars began to do their job. My machine guns opened fire. A bazooka-man fired three rounds into the wall. The riflemen tensed, ready to assault.
Rubble and dust were still settling and the riflemen had not begun to move when the street suddenly filled with German soldiers. They marched in parade formation, their officers at the head waving white flags of surrender.
Though it took a moment or two to get over this pleasant shock, we hardly could be expected to turn down the German offer. There were about 175 of them. We herded them into an open courtyard and I set up my machine guns. just in case they should change their minds.
While searching the Germans for concealed weapons, I looked for a good wristwatch as mine had been broken in the morning’s shelling. I never permitted my men to rob the enemy, but we did not consider taking a man’s watch an act of thievery. A watch is a legitimate item of military equipment, and I wanted every man in my platoon to have a good one. The only other items we took from Jerry were knives, scissors, and other sharp instruments. Pistols, of course, were prized items.
I finally found a watch fitting my requirements and motioned my prisoner to remove it.
“Kaput,” the German said, pointing to the watch.
We had long since learned from the French what kaput meant, for the French constantly used the word in relation to the Boche; finished, broken, done for, all washed up.
“Nix kaput,” I said firmly, staring as hard and firmly at the German as he was at me.
The German made one more try.
“Kaput,” he said again, this time with a shrug of the shoulders.
I made a definite motion of my outstretched hand. He reluctantly removed the watch from his wrist and handed it to me.
Far from being kaput, the watch kept time magnificently, and I figure it helped me to do my small part in the war.
Our bag of prisoners was a strange crew of all ages and sizes, but it was their bland attitude toward surrender which amazed me more than anything else. They seemed to think that because they had surrendered without a fight to the finish, we should look on them as allies. They bowed and grinned at us obsequiously, all the while muttering that they had not fired at us. I wondered just who the hell had been doing all the shooting the past week. Surely the scores of dead piled up in front of the antitank barrier, the wounded man who had died a lonely death in the farmhouse—these would not have appreciated the grins and repulsively friendly overtures of our captives.
As in every group of prisoners, some claimed they once had worked in the United States or for one reason or another were practically American citizens. Many insisted they had kinfolk in Milwaukee, Chicago, Brooklyn. Making our way through the group we had a hard time avoiding being buttonholed by Jerries who wanted to tell us about the store they had owned in New York, the brewery they had managed in St. Louis in wonderful, wonderful America. How naive did they think we were? How could they possibly have expected to gain special treatment by revealing this kind of information? If they actually had lived and worked in America, then this made it all the worse. After accepting our country’s hospitality, they had turned and killed our country’s soldiers.
It was interesting to see the amount of equipment the Jerries carried to their surrender rendezvous. We, the victors, were stripped to bare essentials, carrying neither messkits, blankets, shaving kits, nor other comforts. Not so our captives. They were loaded with items we would not have thought of carrying. We gathered, for example, the fanciest array of cutlery you have ever seen outside of a hardware store display. There were knives, razors, and scissors of all sizes, shapes, and purposes. Each man in my platoon managed to select an interesting and useful knife or two in the haul and not for a long time did we need new hair-cutting supplies for the platoon barber.
One of the first things a German did upon surrendering was to throw away his gas mask and gas protective equipment. They obviously were as happy as we that gas had not been used, and just as we had our suspicions that they might use this monstrous means of waging war, they had similar suspicions about us. The second thing Jerry disposed of was his steel helmet. Indeed, some of them seemed to think that tossing away the helmet was in itself a sign of surrender.
One thing that amazed us particularly was the amount of pornographic literature and photographs Jerry carried with him. The men of my platoon were delighted with the items they took but became concerned lest the Germans had appropriated the en-tire supply in France.
“We better hurry to Paris,” Blackie Napolitan insisted, “before these guys get all the postcards.”
The officers in particular were elaborately prepared for surrender. Some carried bulging suitcases with changes of uniform and other bulky items. Since it obviously would have taken hours to pack the bags, they must have anticipated the capitulation long before it came.
I suppose our general impression of the prisoners was best expressed by one of my men while he sat glaring at them.
“Supermen?” Dick Wheelden asked sarcastically, spitting on the ground. “Supermen, hell! There ain’t a real he-man in the whole damned bunch.”
Just about the time we finished frisking our quarry, orders came to turn the job of guarding the prisoners over to headquarters men and join Company G inside Dinard. Hoisting our weapons on our backs, we trailed the riflemen down the main street. Everywhere we could see evidence of defense preparations; foxholes in the streets, smaller holes for housing mines, barricades by the sides of buildings, and holes punched in the walls as apertures for rifles. But the men who were to have manned these defenses had thrown up their hands.
When we reached our objective and halted, we became aware that other units were not having the same good fortune we had met, for we could hear sounds of heavy fighting in other parts of the city. The sharp blast of tank cannon mingled with the crack of rifle and machine gun fire. Wisely sticking to orders, Lieutenant Black held his company on its objective to avoid being hit by our own fire as other units advanced. But as we waited it was hard to ignore excited French civilians who constantly came to us with reports of German concentrations in various parts of the city. We finally decided to send out small patrols to investigate these reports. Though the patrols brought in a few Jerry stragglers, on the whole we found that the volatile French informants had exaggerated German strength.
I took over one of these patrols and in the process of investigation came across the command post of Charlie Company, Mike Germusa’s unit.
“Sergeant,” I said to a man who was splicing wires together, “have you seen Lieutenant Germusa?”
“Lieutenant,” the sergeant replied, scarcely looking up from his work, “he just got killed. Ten minutes ago, I guess it was. Too bad too. He was one hell of a swell officer.”
I was shocked—stunned by the news. All I could think of was my last meeting with Mike, only yesterday, when he had told me his wife was going to have a baby.
I asked the sergeant how Mike died. A man who had been near him at the time volunteered that Mike and his messenger had set out to investigate reports of German resistance at a nearby hotel. Just as they rounded a bend in the street, the Germans cut Mike down with machine gun fire.
Sadly, I turned and started back. And as we walked along the rubble strewn street, I seemed to hear a familiar voice saying proudly:
“She promises it’ll be a boy.”