If You Survive Read online

  The survivor broke in panic and ran wildly past me. I tackled him instinctively, but he was a big man, and he dragged me along for a few yards. I managed to hold on and kept talking to him quietly. He quickly regained control, and just about then the barrage ended.

  While our single medic manfully attended the wounded, I collected the few men still able to stand, and we resumed our positions along the flank. This was typical hedgerow country, with many small hills and gullies and occasional gaps in the hedge. The Germans were on the ridgeline along our course, and they were able to follow our every move. We advanced as carefully as possible while taking cover behind the hedges, hoping they might not spot us; then we rushed across the gaps.

  Our tanks kept out of sight below us, coming up to help us only when the hedges were high enough to hide them.

  At one time, while I was lying on the ground beside one of our tanks waiting for the men to get into position, I suddenly got the urge to move—and did crawl ahead some ten feet closer to the hedge. There was no purpose in this move, just a compulsion. The next moment, a machine gun cut up the very ground I had just left. What impelled me to move I’ll never know. This lifesaving hunch might have had the same source as the one I had received just three days before when, for no particular reason, I ordered the already overloaded men to carry extra grenades—those grenades that served us well while we ran the gauntlet the night the blazing tank lit up the road. Perhaps there is some unknown sense we call upon subconsciously.

  The main body of the battalion had been forced to stop, and during the breather I got a chance to take stock. I found I now had six of the original forty men, two of the original five tanks, and both of the tank destroyers. The rest of the battalion was also in rough shape and was almost stripped of officers; I was the only officer left of the original six in E Company.

  A tank destroyer, incidentally, has tracks and armored sides like a tank but is completely open at the top. This gives the crew a clear view of the enemy targets, but, of course, no overhead protection. The great thing about the TD was its 90-mm gun, the only one we had capable of knocking out the big German Tiger tank and its six inches of armor plate. Our Shermans and their 75s could handle the Mark IV medium German tank but was no match for the Tiger. The TD was a must on our team.

  At one time during a lull I happened to be standing beside a TD, studying the enemy position through my field glasses. The TD captain was doing the same thing from his open turret above me. Suddenly he yelled, “Hit the dirt!” Instantly my men and I dove for the hedge; an 88 high explosive (HE) shell burst on the front of the TD, and its shrapnel flew everywhere.

  The captain had seen the quick flash of the German gun, and he reacted at once. His shout gave us a split second that probably saved our lives, for the 88 travels faster than sound, and we never would have ducked if he had not yelled.

  As it was, the shell had exploded only five or six feet from where we lay in the dirt. None of my men was hurt, and I got off with only a splitting headache—and I couldn’t hear too well for a few hours.

  The captain immediately moved his TD back down the hill out of sight, and the other TD and tanks also moved. He was almost in shock from the concussion, but he refused to be evacuated. His TD was not damaged, for it had shed the HE shell. If the 88 had been loaded with armor piercing (AP), the TD would have been ripped apart.

  A few minutes later a battalion of infantry from another division came up to relieve what was left of our battered battalion. A captain from this new unit came over to me and asked me to fill him in.

  I pointed across the small open gully ahead to where the frontline riflemen were taking cover behind a hedge and told him the enemy were directly in front of them. I also showed him the hedge on the ridge two hundred yards to our right where the Krauts could observe our every move and had plenty of machine guns, mortars, artillery, and 88s, and I told him they hit us hard whenever we crossed an open space.

  Finally, I suggested that, everything considered, the best route for his men to take up to the frontline riflemen would be a short detour to the left behind a small rise that avoided the open gully. Possibly the captain was preoccupied with other problems, or he didn’t completely understand my suggestion; or he might not have seen enough combat to appreciate what the Germans could do. He thanked me politely—then led his men, followed by another company, into the exposed area across the gully.

  To my astonishment, the Germans did not fire on them, and I began to wonder if they might have pulled out. I quickly found that I, too, had underestimated their shrewdness. They had been watching the new battalion, and they guessed their mission. So as soon as the new rifle companies were mixed in with the companies they were relieving and both were somewhat confused and exposed, the Krauts commenced shelling the entire area with very heavy artillery and mortar fire. They knew the exact range, having just withdrawn from that location, and they opened up with all available weapons in a very fierce barrage, right on target. Exploding shells flashed everywhere and raised much dust and smoke. In wild panic, the men dodged about, screaming, and headed for the rear. Their eyes were wild with fright, and tears streamed down their contorted faces. They were in complete panic.

  We stayed in our position on the flank and watched helplessly, our stomachs churning. We watched the desperate officers of the new battalion as they tried frantically to regain control. They stood at gaps in the hedgerow behind us and intercepted their men as they rushed by. We could hear them shouting out where they wanted each company to collect. About half an hour passed, the men milling around in the rear, sorting themselves into companies. During this time they were very vulnerable to further attack, but they were fortunate. In a short time the shelling tapered off enough to allow vehicles to move. All available ambulances and medical teams moved up to get the wounded taken care of quickly. Every vehicle able to carry a stretcher was used. For over an hour we watched ambulances, jeeps, light tanks, and half-tracks hauling out those wounded unable to walk. The Germans also must have been watching but did not fire again. I found out why later.

  During all this blasting by the Germans I saw no return fire at all from our cannon or artillery. Probably all the forward observers, or their radios, had been knocked out. Our Air Force wasn’t around either, but they probably were busy helping Patton’s tanks in the breakout.

  When things began to quiet down and seemed under control, a captain from the battalion staff of this new unit came over and cautioned me that we might be in for a heavy counterattack soon. I agreed, for I had anticipated this very thing. He went on to say that if my men would stay to help, he’d see that we all got hot chow. We then had a total of about thirty men, including the crews of the tanks and TDs and some stragglers from the company.

  At this point food of any sort held little interest for us, but since we had no orders to fall back, I told him we would stay until ordered to move. Shortly afterward a major in a sharp, clean uniform with the Fourth Division patch on his shoulder came walking up to me from the rear all alone. He informed me that he was Major Walker, our new battalion commander.* He told me briefly and simply that Major Drake had been a casualty in the last barrage. I had never met Major Drake and did not know how or if Lieutenant Colonel Lum Edwards, the commander when I joined the battalion, had become a casualty.

  Major Walker asked me several questions about the recent action and the enemy location and potential, and I held back nothing—including the warnings about going straight out into the gully. He nodded his understanding, told me to stay in position until further orders, and took off for the front along the route that detoured the gully.

  I don’t know what he found at the front, beyond complete demoralization and no great desire to go get the SOBs, but he quickly gained control. Soon I received orders to follow when he jumped off in the attack and to continue protecting the right flank. My first thought was “What the hell with?” The tanks had been moved up to support the attack at the front. There were only the two TD
s, plus about a dozen riflemen—six from my original forty and a few stragglers.

  I have often wondered if the new battalion CO knew the enemy had withdrawn and, if he did, just how he knew. Was it simply luck? Anyway, it worked, and I was impressed.

  Later on we stopped for the night in some fields not far from Tessy sur Ville, digging in along the hedges where we placed our TDs and tanks and other vehicles under the trees to hide them from aerial view.

  As full darkness settled over us about 11 P.M. we heard occasional German planes overhead. By now we could distinguish the characteristic sound of enemy planes. Our planes had a steady drone; theirs was more of a hesitant put-put.

  As the enemy up there floated around looking for a target one of our trigger-happy gunners on a .50-caliber quad (four machine guns mounted to fire together from the back of a half-track) opened up. Soon other quads in his unit joined in, with the tracers streaming up into the night sky in a huge arch of ribbons. This cone of tracers didn’t touch the planes at all but did pinpoint our location very neatly. A few minutes later a solitary pathfinder plane drifted over us and dropped two brilliant parachute flares, lighting us up brightly, like a football field, so that the night bombers could see us easily.

  As we looked up nervously through the flares to the sky above we clearly made out the dark shapes of the bombers, now directly overhead. Our gunners again opened up, shooting through the shredded tin foil the bombers were dropping to mess up our radar. The tracers looked to be way off target, and certainly no planes were hit.

  It seemed those little parachute flares never would reach the ground, and we were nakedly helpless in their eerie glare. We were down on our hands and knees pressing against the earth, with mouths open—to reduce the effects of concussion—and fingers in our ears as the bombs whistled down.

  As the whistling shriek of the free-falling bombs ended just over the hedge we were utterly defenseless. We were in the bottom of an elevator shaft awaiting the crash of a runaway elevator cage. There was nowhere we could go.

  A couple of five hundred-pound bombs hit just over the hedge, about thirty yards away, and I was knocked flat in the dirt. For an instant I was in the eye of a tornado with the air crushed from my lungs. My head was whirling and pounding, and I gasped for breath. I tried to stand up, but my legs sagged, and I collapsed. Suddenly it was over. After a short while most of my senses returned and I checked my men. They were shaken and frightened, as I had been, but no one was wounded.

  A medical unit had the rotten luck to be in the field next to us, and they lost several ambulances and many of their men.

  The rest of the night passed quietly, and for this we were immensely grateful.

  Around noon the next day we were pulled out of the line. Our part in the Saint-Lô breakthrough was over. E Company was down to about twenty-seven men out of the original one hundred sixty-eight; only six of us survived from the original forty of our platoon. I was very lucky to have survived my first major battle.

  We were told, officially, that we had accomplished our mission. Later the Twenty-second Infantry received the Presidential Unit Citation for its part in the Saint-Lo breakthrough. General Patton had been able to swing through the gate we had opened in the German line at Saint-Lô and began a big circling drive to capture a whole German army. Combat team A—made up of the Twenty-second Infantry and the Sixty-sixth Regiment of the Second Armored, also known as “Task Force Rose” after General Rose of the Second Armored Division—has done its job well.

  Now a new phase of the war was possible. Our troops were no longer confined to the small beachhead, stymied by crisscrossing walls of hedgerows. Now every unit was needed for a new role—pursuit of the Germans across France. We were ordered to rejoin the other two regiments of the Fourth Infantry Divison on the road to Saint Pois.

  Somewhere en route we stopped for the night. I fell asleep, so exhausted that I was not aware of the heavy rain falling. It was close to dawn when I awoke, stiff and cold and wet, with about five inches of water in my foxhole.

  Somehow our young bodies were able to endure such punishment.

  *This same Major Walker many years later rose to command the entire fourth Division in Vietnam, eventually retiring a Lieutenant General. When I talked to him in July 1986, after he had read this book, he told me that the sharp, clean uniform had been his first change of clothes in 30 days. He had landed on D. Day with the regiment.

  VI

  THE CHASE

  The Saint-Lô breakthrough was completed by August Second and the enemy was occupied with Patton’s tanks, so we had time to stop and take on new officers and men.

  Lieutenant Toles was our new commanding officer in E Company. Lieutenant Piszarak had returned after a head wound and resumed command of the first platoon. I had the second platoon, and Lieutenant Blume had the third platoon. A Lieutenant Lloyd was brought up to lead the weapons platoon.

  Platoon Sergeant Reid was back with me, although I don’t know where he had been, and Sergeant Anders was returned from special patrol work. The newly minted Sergeant Phearson had survived and was still with us. We received enough replacements to bring the platoon back up to forty men. With the sergeants and about four other men, plus myself, we now had eight experienced men. All the rest were green recruits.

  Meanwhile, Patton’s Third Army stormed through the gap and raced wildly in three different directions: westward toward the great port city of Brest; in a northerly circle to help trap two German armies; and straight east to the Seine near Paris.

  Our rest and replacement period was a short two days. We were moved along the route toward Saint Pois and assigned to clear up some pockets of German resistance and defend against possible penetration by the enemy.

  One night, as we took up defensive positions along a ridge facing east toward no-man’s-land, I felt very vulnerable because our men had to dig in so far apart. I checked my platoon area several times during the night and found several errors the new men were making. One stands out as a major error to this day. I found one man sitting on top of a hedgerow with no cover around him. He stood out vividly long before I got near him. I showed him how to take advantage of a big tree and its shadow, which was only ten feet from his exposed position. I told him to think and thus avoid giving a Jerry an easy opportunity to kill him.

  Our next objective was the village of Saint Pois. As we approached along the road, in an attempt to make the Jerries take cover and thus lose some of their advantage, our artillery began to lay down a barrage on both the village of Saint Pois and the ridge behind it. The infantry then started to move up. Our company was not in the lead this time, so we missed the fighting, but we did catch some incoming artillery. Also, one of our jeeps ran over a big antitank mine and was destroyed.

  When we got into Saint Pois our company was ordered to go house-to-house on the right side of the road. We took only a few prisoners, for most of the Germans had withdrawn.

  Much to the delight of our men, we did find quite a bit of hard cider. Because of impurities in the drinking water, native Frenchmen do not drink water unless it is boiled. Instead, they settle for wine or cider. After two weeks of steady fighting, our men were glad enough to have a taste of it. The cider barrels we came across were used as reservoirs, lying on their sides. They measured eight feet in height and twelve feet in length and almost filled the small barn that stored them.

  My platoon had one casualty in Saint Pois, Sergeant James “Chick” Reid, who was hit in the upper thigh by a rifle bullet. Sergeant Otha Anders moved up to platoon sergeant.

  We continued our advance in the wake of Patton’s Third Army. Near Mortain, the Germans were making a desperate attempt to break our line behind Patton’s tanks and cut his supply lines. Here they ran into the Thirtieth Infantry Division, which at one point was using its artillery like rifles, firing low-level point-blank shots at German tanks and infantry.

  Artillery fired in a direct line instead of a long arc is very effective. When the enemy
is close enough to fire in this manner the gunners can usually see the targets, and this allows them to fire directly into the mass or at tanks. All that shrapnel really tears up the enemy. Of course, it also gives the Germans a good chance to knock out your guns—and their crews as well, if they can get in close enough. The enemy can see the artillery and direct all kinds of fire on the guns. It takes a lot of guts for the artillery crew to man their pieces when in such exposed positions. The exposure often requires the men to fight like infantry. They are better suited for long-range action, but that time it worked for us. The combined infantry and artillery fire was too much for the Germans, and they withdrew with many casualties.

  During the German attacks on the Thirtieth Division, my platoon was sent out to support a couple of antitank guns at a road block. The officer who came out to relay the order, told me very little. As we were in enemy territory, I thought I should know more about the road block, such as its exact location, how long we might be gone, and how much food and ammunition to take along. He refused to tell me anything except to get moving. I obeyed reluctantly. I could smell alcohol on the officer’s breath, and I resented having to take orders from someone even slightly drunk.

  The roadblock assignment turned out to be an easy one, for no enemy appeared. The desperate German counterattack at Mortain had failed, but we were held in the area a few more days before we began a series of shuttle movements by truck toward the Seine River. With our new orders—“Keep your eyes open, but keep moving”—the chase was in full swing. Our infantry rode trucks through Alençon and Chartres, stopping only to refuel or to clear out pockets of the enemy.

  The trucks were from service companies, and each had two black drivers. As though we didn’t have enough problems on our hands, yet another one, albeit minor enough, cropped up. The drivers’ orders were for both of them to ride in the cab; our orders were for either an officer or a sergeant to ride up front to make sure the trucks did not get lost. The drivers were very upset by our orders, and some refused to obey. Some officers had to pull a gun to settle the conflict in orders. I had no problem with my drivers, though they did grumble.