|
|
|
Spearheading - The 104 miles from the vicinity of Becheral to L'Hivet, covered from 7:35 p.m. on August 4 to 6 a.m. August 5, included the famed "spearheading" expedition as well as visits from enemy planes, the first prisoners and the usual strenuous moments in G. I. lives. Things began to happen that night at a sharp curve in the road which could not be negotiated by trucks with trailers without the assistance of a wrecker. Manning the wrecker were T-5 Arthur Baker, driver, and T-5 John Wolanyk, while in charge of operations at the curve was Lt. Young, driven at the time by T-4 Joseph Stephens. It was here and to the above quartet that the company's first prisoner came. A Czech, forced into the German army, according to his story, he walked up in civilian clothes, and surrendered. Several trailers overturned while being lifted around the curve, and one of these will not be forgotten by the men on the job. Belonging to the 69th Tank Battalion, it was loaded with dead G. I.'s. Earlier in the afternoon, Master Sgt. Benedict A. Wojcik and T-5 Thorne M. Johnson, with the above crew, helped all the vehicles of CCB Trains get around the curve. About half a mile down the road beyond the curve was a fork in the highway, and by the time the first truck with a trailer -- one driven by T-5 Vito Prisciantelli -- reached the fork, it was too far behind the first unencumbered vehicles for Vito to see the truck ahead of him, and no road guide had been left. Vito chose the left fork, and the Machine Shop truck followed. So did T-5 Carl B. Loflin, and the rest of the vehicles fell in line, taking the left turn -- all except the Artillery truck, driven by T-5 Vincent J. "Mayor" Kozlowski with Tech. Sgt. Harry Wilson in the front. This pair caught the other vehicles after their road ended in a field and they retraced their route. All vehicles in the second section of the split column were travelling at too high a speed trying to catch the front of the parade, but after about five fruitless miles, Vito, leading them, stopped, because he did not know whether or not he was on the right road. One thing which made him -- and the others -- wonder was a huge self-propelled gun which they had passed in the moonlight after taking the left fork in the road. Unfamiliar, it could have been a German piece, but they learned later it was an American 155 howitzer of a type new to them. Passing through a small town shortly before, the column had halted suddenly, and several trailers were struck by trucks behind them. The trailer of a Parts Issue truck manned by T-4 Roy Moore and T-5 Arthur Nicklies was damaged beyond running condition. Hank Witkowski came along with his wrecker at the time, stopping to be of assistance. While they were trying to figure out what to do with the trailer, the rest of the convoy left them behind. Then along came Lt. Young and Joe Stephens. Lt. Young told Hank to pick up and carry the trailer on the wrecker boom, and suggested that they all get out of the town in a hurry because it was "hot." This proved to be good advice, for hardly had the Parts Issue truck and wrecker left the town before it was re-entered by the Germans. The truck and wrecker caught the column later that night while it was stopped. When the rest of the "lost" section of the company caught up with Vito's truck, a huddle decided that they would go no further without information. No officer was present, but in about 10 minutes Mr. Hebberd came along in a peep from the direction in which the "lost" section was headed. He gave the order to move on. Pvt. Edward Bardysjewski, driving a recovered halftrack, took the lead for some breakneck travel on the dusty road, and the few miles before reaching a hard road were covered uncomfortably but fast. Just as the "lost" section of the column reached the hard road, another "problem" arose. The vehicles, which still had not caught the head of the column, were halted on a long hill when word was passed down to dismount because a "German halftrack and tank" had been spotted on top of a hill about 200 yards ahead. While they were wondering what to do next, sounds of tanks and other vehicles were heard over the hill just ahead, and as the noise became louder, everyone made a break for ditches and whatever other cover he could find. When the advancing vehicles cleared the top of the hill, the "B" Company men were mighty pleased to see that they were American -- M-8's and the first five "B" Company vehicles from which the remainder of the company had become separated back at the fork in the dirt road. With them were two German prisoners, one of whom had been turned over by elements of the 86th Cavalry which they had been following and the other who had been taken by the copany [company]. The first five vehicles of the "B" Company column had been following a platoon of the 86th which had taken a wrong road. Upon reaching a crossroads, the 86th men had asked a prisoner they had captured which way the Americans had gone, and he had pointed straight ahead. Then they had turned him over to the "B" Company men. Taking off on the road indicated by the German, the 86th-led column covered only a few miles when they began to suspect they were on a wrong road, and the convoy stopped at the edge of a town to make a check on the route. Jake Tuel and Kenneth Lytle, then T-5's, were in front of a big French house when their Welding truck came to a halt, and as they stopped, light shone from an upstairs window. In that situation, light was something definitely not to be desired, and as soon as they saw it, Tuel and Lytle swung their .50 toward the window. Several faces appeared there, and within a few minutes a Frenchman, beaming, came to the truck from the house, bringing sandwiches and cider. Happily passing around the food and drink, he explained that these were the first Americans he had seen. Given a cigarette by the dazed G. I.'s, the Frenchman shocked them again by lighting it right out in the middle of the road. Further down along the halted column, Sgt. John M. Dombrouski and T-5 John DePoint, on the Decontaminator, saw a pair of eyes peep from one of the numerous foxholes dotting the sides of roads in that sector of France. Dismounting, they told others what they had seen. "Keep the hole covered with your guns," shouted Lou Poznick, hopeful that the occupant would understand and be reasonable about coming out. But when nothing happened, someone suggested, "Let's throw in a grenade." Before that explosive step could be taken, PFC George Solway tossed a stone into the foxhole, and immediately therefrom came one German soldier, on the double, with hands raised. The check on the route of march, for which the 86th men and "B" Company vehicles following them had stopped, revealed that they were indeed on the wrong track and were practically the forward element of the U. S. Army at the moment in its drive to Brest. The 86th soldier who had questioned the prisoner became very wrathful at the latter's deception. The next step was a quick about-face for the five trucks with the 86th and a return in the direction from which they had come. Then followed a fast trip by the reunited company column over a dirt road, a ride which gave men in topless trucks with windshields down two of the dustiest hours they ever experienced. But the gods must have been with the company that night, for, despite almost nonexistant [nonexistent] visibility and reckless speed, there were no accidents, and no one else got lost. During a few hours' halt at 11 p.m. August 4 on the march from Becheral to L'Hivet, among those on guard were Staff Sgt. Teddy Anderson and Sgt. Jake Dunning. Teddy carried a hand grenade to the post, pulled the pin, and sat there for two hours, even refusing to talk. When the order to move came, he could get the pin only halfway back into the grenade, so he gently laid it behind a tree and left the scene. In the same area, another guard, "Pappy" Bradford, was absolutely not going to let the Wehrmacht slip into the company area. Across a hedgerow from his post was a ditch about five feet deep with a small stream at the bottom. On post about half an hour, Pappy heard distinct sounds of approach through the ditch. When the intruder was directly across the hedgerow from him, Pappy told some of the men close to him to give him covering fire if necessary, for he was going over the hedgerow to find out who was moving through the ditch. Charging across the hedge into the face of the defiladed intruder, he barked a loud and menacing "Halt!" His answer was a low and plaintive "Moo!" from a cow taking a midnight stroll. This was the second cow "captured" by alert company guards. The first French bovine was "surrounded" by the Artillery Section the night of July 31 --- the night that everything happened to the company. Having gone to bed about 11 o'clock, but not to sleep, they heard sounds of something approaching, and quickly got out of bed to organize small patrols which encircled the noise. After proper identification, "Bossie" was permitted to continue her promenade. |
|
As the Germans Saw It - All men who went through the Brest campaign have vivid memories of it, but two members of the company, Lt. Anderson and T-5 Donald Trone, also found out how things looked from the German side. Captured by the enemy during the drive, they spent almost a month and a half in the German-held city while it was being besieged by the Americans. After recalling for the record all the events of his experience, Lt. Anderson summed it up in one reminiscent remark: "That's what happened, but it certainly doesn't tell the whole story -- you just can't get into print the fear that we felt." And that fear was inspired not by the enemy but by American' bombers and artillery which constantly pounded the German positions while the two, only members of the battalion to be captured, were in enemy hands. Developments reached such a stage of terror that the lieutenant risked his life to escape on September 12, while Trone, not put on the spot like the officer, remained a prisoner until liberated by the Americans on September 18. Driven by Trone, Lt. Anderson left the company on the afternoon of August 4 at Becheral to locate a bivouac area. Having done so, with other billeting officers of the battalion, he spent the night of August 4 at Battalion Headquarters in Pontivy. Setting out the morning of August 5 to find the company which had moved north during their absence -- those were days of quick, long and unheralded marches -- Lt. Anderson and Trone started northward to Mur-de-Bretargic, but had to detour because the enemy had closed in behind the company which was following CCB. The lieutenant and Trone then decided to follow CCA in the hope that the two combat commands might close or come near enough to each other to permit Lt. Anderson and Trone to rejoin CCB and "B" Company. While following the tail of the CCA column, they had to halt their peep while casualties were being transferred from a peep to an ambulance, the two vehicles blocking the road. Meanwhile, the CCA column moved on, and, trying to catch it again, the two "B" Company members came to a "Y" in the road where tracks of all kinds went both ways. Flipping a coin to decide, they took the left turn. About six miles further, they, in the last of a column of four peeps, all lost, ran into rifle and machine-gun fire. "Step on it and get out of here quick!" was the lieutenant's advice as several bullets slapped the peep. But one struck the engine in a vital spot just then, and the vehicle was useless. Trone and the lieutenant leaped out into a ditch. In very short time, they were surrounded by about a dozen German soldiers, including some paratroopers. Searched only for weapons, Lt. Anderson, who wore no officer insignia and who was not recognized as an officer, was able to get rid of his notes during the next four days. A chaplain in a peep just ahead was severely wounded by the German fire, and the captives -- six in all -- carried him to a German aid station where medics were unable to help him, and he died. He was the only man in the four-peep column hit by the ambush fire. The Germans then made their prisoners dig a grave for the chaplain, while they forced three Frenchmen to dig grave's for two German soldiers killed earlier that day in a brush with the 86th Cavalry. The two Germans and the chaplain were given military funerals with an exchange of salutes, the Germans rendering the Nazi version with three "Heil Hitler's." Then the Germans lined up the three Frenchmen against a wall, and to the disgust of the Americans, shot them with pistols while a large number of German soldiers looked on. Allowing their captives -- Lt. Anderson was the only officer among them -- to get their musette bags and clothing from the peeps, the enemy soldiers put them in two-wheeled horsedrawn carts, and began a night-and-day march to a point 20 miles from Brest. American planes flew over the column many times, "scaring hell out of us," according to Lt. Anderson, but they did not strafe. Up ahead could be heard occasional exchanges of shots as FFI or Maquis engaged the Germans. The latter, according to the lieutenant, were "very conscious of our planes," and would take cover every time one came in sight. At Landerneau, the original six prisones [prisoners] were loaded into a captured 44th Infantry halftrack, but when they reached a division headquarters halfway from there to Brest, their number was increased to about 18, and they were transferred to a German truck for the rest of the trip which was resumed the following morning after a night spent at the headquarters. During the questioning there, the Germans learned they had an officer in Lt. Anderson. He said no "pressure" was put on them when they refused to answer queries which apparently were not important but were superfluous. Their captives treated them well. "Wine and cognac were copious during the whole time," Lt. Anderson said, "and we got plenty." In Brest, while prisoners in their truck, they were caught in one of the numerous bombings, the "eggs" landing about a half mile away. After spending one night in Northwest Brest, they were taken to the east bank of a river flowing through the middle of the city. There, on August 14, officers were quartered in a chateau and enlisted men in another house where they stayed until August 28, during which time the number of prisoners increased to about 50, including seven officers. The newcomers were almost all from the Sixth Armored and 28th Infantry Division. Officers did no work at all, and the enlisted men very little, if any, missing no opportunity to "foul off," Lt. Anderson stated. The food never was good, and got steadily worse. Menus for the three daily meals, listed by Lt. Anderson, consisted of a slice of black bread and ersatz coffee for breakfast; a bowl or two of soup and ersatz coffee for dinner; and baloney or liverwurst with a slice of grease, plus tea or ersatz coffee for supper. On August 28, after four days spent almost entirely in air-raid shelters where it was cold and damp with sickness and diarrhea prevalent, it was decided to move the prisoners to the Crozon Peninsula, about five miles south. Marched to the docks that day in a column of fours, they were about to board a 150-foot flatboat when nine B-17's came over. Prisoners and guards dove for the nearest air-raid shelter. Lt. Anderson, last to enter, was "blown in" by the blast of a bomb exploding about 150 feet away. The big planes made three "passes," dropping a dozen bombs within 150 yards of the shelter, one landing 10 feet from one end of the concrete above-ground affair, cracking it down the middle, rocking it like a boat, and blocking one entrance. Two hours later, the group was towed on a flatboat to the peninsula where they were bedded in a little town of about 300 people, French civilians being turned out in the middle of the night to make room for the prisoners. There they remained for the duration of their captivity. One of the Red Cross boats which plied between the hospital town of La Frette and the Crozon Peninsula was strafed on September 8 by American planes, killing about a dozen Germans. It was done, according to the American version, because the boats had been carrying contraband. The German counter measure was to place an American officer aboard each of the crafts making the crossing, "so they could see there was no contraband aboard." Lt. Anderson's turn came September 12 when he was placed aboard one of the boats, a slow-moving one. As it neared the dock where it was to land, American artillery shells began to strike the very spot for which the craft was headed, and continued coming in. At the last moment, the German skipper turned the boat back toward the peninsula, saying, "we'll try it again tomorrow." That was when Lt. Anderson made up his mind there would be no such tomorrow for him. Fire from a .50 machine gun, spraying the boat on the way back, strengthened his decision. Through an English-speaking French barber who, because of his trade, had access to the prisoners' quarters, Lt. Anderson and four others made arrangements for a small boat to pick them up that night. Crawling, one at a time, in the darkness between guards who were stationed 60 yards apart, they all got into the boat, and rowed for the American-occupied shore southeast of Brest. Nearing it, they were fired upon by M-1's and shouted, "Don't shoot -- we're Americans!" A voice which carried across the water, saying, "Cease fire," was the "most pleasant sound I ever heard," stated Lt. Anderson. He had a bad moment in his crawl past the guards earlier that night when, having a cold, he was unable to smother a cough right in the ticklish part of the venture. "I don't know when anything sounded so loud to me," he recalled. Landing on ground held by an engineer outfit, the "B" Company lieutenant found out from Eighth Corps headquarters where the company was located, and hitch-hiked back, arriving on September 15 at Plouay. Trone was rescued on September 18 when Americans took Brest. Coming back via the devious replacement route, he did not rejoin the company until December 10 at Henriville. Whereabouts and fate of the two were not known to the company until August 25 when captured 76th Medics, who had been exchanged for German prisoners, brought back the word that they were in Brest. During his incarceration, Lt. Anderson and the other six or seven officers confined with him dug potatoes and other vegetables which the "B" Company lieutenant, as chief cook because of a knowledge of the culinary art, prepared. |
|
Sad Sacks - On the dash to Brest, even the crash of combat noises and the fluttery roar of the Luftwaffe did not succeed in drowning amusing memories of the fun loving element. While moving along on the 56-mile jaunt from Lesneven to Bourg Blanc on the Brittany Peninsula, where the enemy was on all sides, little things happened which remained as much in the minds of some men as their frightening experiences. On that march, which was made the day and night of August 7 with the company following CCB, the front of the column engaged the enemy during halts. Frequently burp guns and other enemy small arms chattered duels with the .50's, and occasionally an accompanying multiple .50 halftrack of the 777AAA Battalion would pour a crushing hail of heavy slugs into houses or hedgerows hiding firing Germans. And all the while, there was the threat -- and actuality -- of the Germans closing in behind the column. During all this, the men were performing duties which necessitated the presence of an ordnance company in such a spot. Although halts were short and everyone was sleepy and fatigued from day-and-night movement and guard, repair work went on during those halts -- work on tanks, armored cars and other combat vehicles which were carried on the prime movers or towed. Likewise were repairs and adjustments made on various small arms and artillery weapons and instruments of the combat command -- anything and everything necessary to keep armor rolling and fighting. Proving that not even the enemy could kill a sense of humor, T-4 Charles Grenay would be the first to laugh when reminded of embarrassing incidents in which he figured. Neither excitement nor fear dimmed memories of "those little things." During one of the column halts -- about 2:30 p.m. the afternoon of August 7 -- Charlie was standing at the rear of the Small Arms truck when several shots snapped out not very far away. Acting instantaneously, he dove into a ditch beside the truck. When the firing ceased, he climbed out of the ditch, discovering as he did so that some other G. I. had visited the spot before him -- without benefit of shovel. His clothing extremely the worse for the dive in odor and appearance, Charlie was standing again at the rear of the truckle, wondering what to do and giving vent to some of that "church language," when machine guns opened fire from several not-distant points. Instantly forgetful of everything but a desire for cover, Charlie hit the ditch again -- in exactly the same spot. It was decided for him by other occupants of the Small Arms truck that he would change clothes before riding further in that vehicle. Before the firing started, Lt. Young and George B. Francy, then T-4, spotted a creek about 50 yards off the road, and decided to wash. Leaving most of their clothing at their vehicles, the two went over to the creek, and began taking baths of that type in which G. I's indulged when they had no tub and not much water. Joining them with the same intention was T-4 Carlos Mortellaro, but before he had time to get into the creek, the small-arms fire which had scared Charlie Grenay opened all around the three men. Mortellaro crouched along the bank while the other two stayed right in the water, for they had no way of reaching their vehicles without exposing themselves to bullets. Also, they heard men in the columns shouting to each other that American infantrymen were moving along both sides of the road, including the section where the trio was hidden at the creek. This was not good, for there they were with no uniforms to identify them, and if seen by the advancing doughboys, they stood a good chance of being potted for Germans. And -- it seldom failed at such times -- they heard the comand [command], "Load up!" being relayed along the column just then. Making a hasty decision, the three took off for their vehicles, Lt. Young and Francy in the nude, leaving what clothes they had taken to the creek laying beside it. Also left were Lt. Young's dogtags. Later that afternoon, the lieutenant returned to the creek, but the clothing and tags had disappeared by then. |
|
"Bring up the Infantry" - During another of the many stops made by the column on that exciting day, August 7, when the company was practically surrounded by disorganized troops of the enemy, T-5 Gordon Miller spotted figures moving through some bushes about 150 yards off the road. With binoculars, he saw that they were German soldiers, and immediately delivered this information to Mr. Hebberd who was passing in his peep at the time. After one look, the warrant officer gave an order not to fire, and went to bring a vehicle mounting a .50, the company's favorite weapon. In a few minutes, he returned with a halftrack driven by T-3 Asa F. Cope, Staff Sgt. Kermit L. Howell, manning the .50, pumped a stream of slugs into the spot where the figures had been seen. The fire was returned, Howell continued with the .50, and confusion spread through the column. "Bring up the infantry!" was the cry. Up along the column, someone said shots were being directed at the vehicles from a house, and the building was given a good dose of lead, administered with a .50. Still further toward the front of the column, the gunner on an anti-aircraft halftrack, mounting four .50's, spotted hostile fire from a barn loft, and swung his four guns against it for a few bursts which caved in the loft and set it afire. These handy anti-aircraft halftracks were scattered through the column for protection against strafing planes. As soon as the shooting started, Lt. Klawon had returned to a town, through which the column had just passed, for infantry support. He came back, passing the word along the column to cease fire because friendly infantrymen were coming up along both sides of the road. That ended the excitement of far as the company's participation was concerned. A report from the infantry said that three dead German soldiers had been found at the spot where Howell had fired after Miller had seen figures there. The many halts in the march that day, made while combat elements of CCB at the head of the column engaged the enemy, or while the whole column did so, were no rest periods. The "load-up" order, always coming when least expected, never failed to catch men with a meal half eaten, coffee at the lukewarm stage, or off the highway bowing to nature's demands. During the afternoon,`the company passed through burning towns which were quiet as the column moved through but which came alive with firing as soon as the vehicles were past. It was as if someone was calling ten-minute breaks in the fighting to enable the company to pass through the towns. |
|
War Humor - While parked along the road that night -- August 7 -- T-4 Frank E. "Fast-Train" Balluf was stretched out on one of the two benches in the Small Arms truck, snatching some sleep, and Charlie Grenay was in a similar position on the other bench. Having eaten a can of C-ration meat and beans during the afternoon, Charlie could feel that slow convulsive sensation in his stomach. Tightening a muscle or two, he thought he could keep the situation under control. However, pressure mounted, and eventually Charlie relaxed. Immediately he heard "Fast-Train" hit the floor of the truck and saw him grab his helmet and carbine. Rising to a sitting position, Charlie, asked, "What's wrong?" "Flak, flak, flak!" was the excited reply. Laughing, Charlie told Balluf that he, Charlie, ha d been responsible for the sound that fooled him. "No, no," cried the not-to-be-calmed "Fast-Train, "I saw the tracers!" |
|
Under Pressure - Many funny things were done by the scared gang of ordnancemen as they "threw away the book" in the face of all kinds of unforseen difficulties and enemy action. Many of the things that happened were simply outrageous as judged by any military standards -- the following, for instance: Along the way, they received a medium tank with a broken idler from the 15th Tank Battalion which needed the vehicle badly. Parts Issue, as was to be the case so many times throughout the war, did not have an idler for the tank. Overcoming that obstacle, Master Sgt. Wojcik located a knocked-out medium tank, and had the needed part taken from it, even though the vehicle was still burning and the idler was so hot it had to be handled with gloves. During halts throughout the day, the idler was placed on the 15th tank. That too had to be done in a "crazy" way, for only four bolts were available for the job. With the idler being held in place by these four bolts, it was welded to the tank. Many times during that process, the welders would just have gotten their equipment out of the truck and be ready to go to work when the order, "Load up," would come. But despite everything, the tank was repaired and returned to the 15th Battalion that day. |
|
Point of the Spear - It was during the night and early morning of August 8 and 9 that the company reached its nearest point to the German-held port of Brest -- about five miles -- running frequent gauntlets of small-arms fire and one artillery barrage. That afternoon, "B" company men had been shelled by German artillery and had seen other elements of the division catch shells in their bivouac areas. Situated between units of the 50th Infantry and the 25th Engineers in the Bourg Blanc bivouac, into which they had moved early in the morning of August 8, they also were between enemy forces who were on all sides, including front and rear. On the afternoon of August 8, the Germans shelled the area occupied by the 44th Infantry and the 69th Tank Battalion, the latter on a hill within sight of the company. Time and again that afternoon, the men could hear explosions and see big black columns of smoke rising from the 69th area as shells landed. Other shells, presumably from American artillery in the rear, passed overhead, and many men spent most of that afternoon in foxholes and slit trenches. After the shelling, word reached the company that five Germans were hiding in a wheatfield across the road from the bivouac area, and a party went to investigate. Included were First Sgt. Charles F. "Chuck" Weiks, Staff Sgt. Robert E. Dunlap, Gordon Miller, T-5 Jesse B. Tomlin, two Engineers and a staff sergeant from an infantry element accompanying the column. They found two German soldiers, fully armed, who surrendered. These were turned over to the two Engineers who marched them away. Later that afternoon, while on their way to Mass, which was being celebrated a short distance up the road along which the company was camped, a group of men, including Chuck Weiks, found and captured three more German soldiers behind a hedgerow. This was the day that the first sergeant became the owner of a P-38 pistol. It also was the day that T-5 Harold W. Harkness got "chewed" twice by Capt. Buehrig, once for questioning an order and again for obeying it. "You can't win!" he contended. Having received no instructions and knowing that the other companies of the battalion were moving out of that "hot" Bourg Blanc bivouac area, Capt. Buehrig told Harkness to call Battalion on the halftrack radio to see if there were any orders for the company. "If I turn it on, they'll start shelling us," stated Harkness, knowing the Germans were all around and close. "Turn on that radio!" ordered the captain, warmly, having weighed his chance of drawing fire against the necessity for contact with Battalion. It was then about 5 p.m., and all other units were leaving. Harkness turned on the transmitter, and hardly had begun to work the key before the whine of the radio was answered by the whine of incoming 88's with worst wishes of the Wehrmacht. The direction of the aim was perfect, but there was a little too much elevation, so the projectiles passed over the company to explode behind it. "Turn that thing off!" yelled Captain Buehrig then, just as emphatically as he had ordered Harkness to turn it on in the first place. Orders did reach the company eventually, and at 9:30 p.m., the convoy moved out toward Brest. The orders were, according to Capt. Buehrig, to bivouac near the service companies of CCB. At the beginning of the march, a unit of the 50th Infantry headed the column in a halftrack, but soon was out of sight, for the halftrack took off at too high a speed for the more cumbersome vehicles of the ordnance company. A half hour after starting, the front of the convoy ran into small-arms fire at a point where high banks lined both sides of the road. The bullets passed harmlessly overhead, and the fire was returned from various vehicles of the column and from the opposite side of the road. When an anti-aircraft halftrack sprayed with its four .50's a place from which hostile fire was coming, there was no more from that spot. To T-5 Alvin B. "G. I." Craft also goes credit for stopping some of the shooting. Manning, the .50 of the kitchen truck on which he was riding, Alvin saw shots coming from an upstairs window of a farmhouse at a crossroads. With the angry and surprised exclamation, "That sonofabitch is shooting at me," Alvin turned the .50 on all upstairs windows of the house. Those in the cab of the truck leaped into a ditch at the outbreak of hostile fire, not even setting the emergency brake, and while Alvin pumped bullets into the house, the vehicle rolled backwards down the grade on which it had stopped. After about 15 yards, the trailer jack-knifed in a ditch, stopping the truck. Finishing one belt of ammunition, Alvin shouted for more, because he saw shots come from a barn near the house. His call was answered by Mess Sergeant Bailey who passed up another belt from his position of defilade in the rear of the truck. A few seconds later, there was no more shooting, either from the house or barn, and with all quiet along the line, the company began to move again. Approaching a crossroads, with the infantry halftrack out of sight, no one knew which direction to take. A Ninth Infantry guide there, mistaking the company halftrack, which was leading, for part of an infantry unit, motioned the vehicle, driven by T-5 August W. "Gus" Toth, straight ahead. This road, it was learned later, led to an outpost of the Ninth Infantry. Following the halftrack was a 3/4 ton truck and the Welding truck. The rest of the column had been directed correctly at the crossroads by an officer who arrived there after the first three vehicles had gone straight ahead. The aforementioned three vehicles had not gone more than 200 yards when the road ended with nothing but the enemy 1,500 yards ahead. While they were turning to go back, "Pappy" Bradford and T-5 Wilburn D. Wilcox, who had dismounted to help swing the Welding truck trailer around on the narrow road, were accosted by a major who wanted to know, "What outfit is this?" When they told him, the major turned, walked a few steps away, suddenly wheeled, threw his arms over his head, and yelled: "Ordnance? Ordnance?? Migawd, I've seen everything now! What in hell are you doing up here? Get those goddam vehicles turned around and get the hell out of here!" |
|
Confusion - Meanwhile, the remainder of the convoy, which had turned right at the crossroads, continued about two miles and halted along the road near the area in which they were going to bivouac. Just then, Lt. Frank W. Haught, company liaison officer, came up with orders to return and join the rest of the battalion. Now the Germans began to add their bit to the general confusion and excitement. Apparently realizing that something was happening out there in the dark before their positions, they began to throw 105mm shells onto the road. Luckily the shells were a little high, passing over the column to explode beyond it. Having dashed for ditches and hedgerows when the artillery fire began, men were a little reluctant to comply with the "Load-up" order while shells were still crashing in. However, the trucks were turned, and made their getaway without any hits, but in the natural rush some trailers and trucks sustained slight damage. It was at the beginning of this "retreat" that the three lead vehicles, which had gone straight at the crossroads, rejoined the company. Then, in accordance with the procedure which had prevailed all through the Brest campaign, the first vehicles in line took off down the road at so fast a pace that it was an even bet the column would be split again. Although it was a moonlit night, the dust was so thick that the driver of one truck, trying to catch the rest of the column, frequently would find himself speeding right up into the rear of the next one before he knew it was anywhere near. Several trailers sustained damage in that manner. In the artillery-inspired rush, the company then went straight through the crossroads at which it previously had turned right, and missed the road leading to the battalion area, finally winding up at 2 a. m. in a field bivouac. In the vicinity was a PWE in which Lt. Gen. Carl W. Spang, commander of the 266th German Infantry Division, was a prisoner. This was the objective of about 1,200 German soldiers who tried during the remainder of the night to release the general. Their efforts were repelled, however, by a comparative handful of troops of the Sixth Armored Division, described in Reader's Digest of May, 1945, as "50 M. P.'s." This was responsible for much of the small-arms fire which sprayed the bivouac area during the early hours of the morning. Robert "Rough-house" Ferreira, then T-4, had just finished spreading a camouflage net over a Second Maintenance Section 2 1/2-ton truck and was covering the ring mount when a carbine magazine suddenly loomed large in his life. It was the only thing that stood between Ruffy and a Purple Heart. A bullet struck his carbine magazine pouch as he stood there on the truck shortly after the company had bivouacked at 2 a.m. "It made so much noise," Ruffy stated, "that I thought I had been hit by a rocket." He began a hurried climb from the cab of the truck, got halfway, and fell the rest. Feeling no pain -- except that from the fall -- he made a hasty examination to see if he had a wound in his side. The only damage, luckily, was a puncture sustained by one carbine magazine which had stopped the bullet. The slug was found next morning on the seat of the truck where it had fallen. Continuing small-arms fire, apparently coming from a sniper, caused Ben Franklin, then T-5, who was on guard, to try to locate the man behind the gun at 4 a.m. Crawling up to a hedgerow, Ben found a small opening in the shrubbery, and slowly began to rise to a standing position. Just as his head was high enough for him to see through the opening in the hedge, another helmeted head arose on the other side of the bushes, not more than two feet away. Unable to get a good look at the other head in the darkness, he nevertheless could recognize it as that of a soldier, and had no reason to assume that the man on the side other of the hedge was up to any good, Shouting at the other guards -- T-5 James W. Pow, T-4 Sanford J. Littlejohn and T-5 John Polochak -- he hit the ground, and began to crawl faster than he hitherto had supposed it could be done. The other guards, not knowing what was wrong and seeing Ben scramble away, took cover under a peep to size up the situation. Before Ben had covered 50 yards, the soldier on the other side of the hedge called across, "Don't shoot -- friendly troops!" Capt. Buehrig, whose bed was near, was awakened by the commotion. Coming over to the post, he informed the guards that the field across the hedgerow was occupied by the 603rd T. D.'s. After a hectic night -- one which many men had thought at one time or another might be their last -- the company moved out of the field at 7:45 a.m. on. August 9. The trip to rejoin the rest of the battalion was not reassuring either, for along the road travelled by the column, infantry was establishing blocks. As the convoy moved along, men noticed that the doughs had set up 57mm anti-tank guns ponting [pointing] down the road in the direction they were going. And the infantry was digging in. By 9 a.m., however, they had rejoined the rest of the battalion in a bivouac area four miles south of Plabennec with no further incidents. |
|
Plabennec - It was here that experience in the art of soldiering in the presence of the enemy showed. "B" Company had become a veteran organization, capable of functioning and looking out for itself when the going was rough. The men had lost weight. They were exhausted and dirty, and nerves as well as tempers were taut. But they had learned. Garrison training hadn't taught them. Maneuvers hadn't. Combat had. Before resting, they camouflaged and serviced all vehicles, and did a quick but thorough job of the back-breaking business of digging foxholes and slit trenches. Then came a rest which lasted the remainder of the day. T-4 Ulysses H. Phipps holds the distinction of being the only man in the company to be mistaken for a mortar shell. It took an enemy shell passing close to Evacuation Section one day while the company was bivouaced [bivouacked] near Plabennec, about 10 miles northeast of Brest between August 9 and 14, to gain him this distinction. After the explosion of the shell, someone said it had come from a mortar because of the swishing sound it made in passage, but the only swishing noise was that made by Phipps on his way to a slit trench. So quick was his dash for cover at the approach of the shell that his passage and that of the missile sounded like parts of the same thing. While bivouacked in the vicinity of Brest from August 10 to August 21, the men enjoyed what might be called a rest period by comparison with what had gone before. Much work came into the shops, and mechanics finally had a chance to finish other vehicles on which they had been working while moving, but it was a rest in the sense that the company stayed in one place for 11 days and that there was no enemy action after the first three days. During that 11-day period, more than 50 combat vehicles were repaired and returned to line units by men of the company. And during the last four days of that bivouac, "B" Company was the only one of the battalion left there, the others having pulled out with Combat Commands A and R, while CCB stayed to contain the Germans in Brest, "B" Company remaining to take care of its maintenance work. On August 10, most men got their first good night's sleep in 10 days despite the fact that artillery of the division fired into Brest all night from nearby positions. In the afternoon, two P-51's had appeared over the company area, circling several times. Then watchers could see the two planes dive and strafe an area several miles away. After a few strafing runs, the original two planes flew away, only to be replaced in a very few minutes by four others which strafed the same area for about 15 minutes. Although the men had no way of knowing what the air force had been up to, results began to show that night. German soldiers, very much disorganized and scattered by the strafing, were wandering around in straggling groups. "A" Company that night had a guard post at a tank below an embankment at the edge of "B" Company's area. "B" Company had a post atop the embankment. Both posts covered a road on one side of the bivouac field, and the 44th Infantry had a squad guarding a road running along another side of the area. Around midnight, just after "Navigator" Giles and Tom Walters had gone on guard, the "A" Company .50 opened up, firing ten shots and jamming. "B" Company, give us some help -- fire on the road," shouted the "A" guards.  Camouflaged prime mover Complying, Giles fired about 15 rounds, and stopped to see what the score was. "Germans on the road," yelled the "A" guards, and Walters fired about 20 more rounds. Capt. Buehrig, awakened by the firing, put in his appearance at the post, and called in German for the soldiers to come out with their hands raised, promising their safety if they did so. Seven arose from the ditch. Ten more were rounded up in the area after daylight. Full realization of the effect of August 10's strafing by American fighters came on August 11 when Lt. Young, Arthur Baker, Hank Witkowski, PFC Anthony Chioccarelli and Pvt. John R "Yosh" Gasiewski, with two wreckers, joined similar wrecker crews from other companies to clear up the mess which the P-51's had caused in the small town of Plouvien. They found the road littered with destroyed enemy vehicles and dead German soldiers. Included in the wreckage were motor and horsedrawn vehicles, ammunition trucks, artillery pieces and anti-aircraft guns. It took eight wreckers all day to clear the road enough to permit passage of American military traffic. The wreckers pulled the destroyed vehicles from the road, and placed all of them in a big field. On the following day, Lt. Young, Pratt and Odom went close to Gransom to recover an M-7 which had been left there the night of August 8 because the gearshift lever was broken and there was no clutch. This self-propelled 105mm gun was located about a mile and a quarter past an outpost of the 86th Cavalry. When the ordnancemen reached this outpost, two squads from the 86th accompanied them across hedgerows toward the M-7. With one of the two 86th squads were two FFI men, armed with German burp guns. The "B" men were with the other squad. While a hedgerow separated the two groups, one of the FFI men -- they always were eager to kill Germans -- thought he saw one of the hated Boche, and opened up with his burp gun. The cavalrymen were instantly set for action, and their prompt dispersal and rapid movement to the hedgerow were watched with admiration by the ordnancemen -- from the ground. Reaching the M-7, the men were able to shift gears with a crowbar, start the engine, and drive the vehicle back to the company. In this bivouac, the area was atop a hill at the bottom of which flowed a small stream, providing excellent facilities for baths and laundry. There was not much swimming here by the men, but they did congregate at the small pool in the creek to watch the mademoiselles swim, especially on Sunday. Also helpful here was the presence of a potato patch and never a day passed without the sight of men bending over a small stove preparing french fried potatoes. The company kitchen did not go into operation until a week. later. During that time, the company had lived on 10-in-1 rations, supplemented by fresh eggs and the aforementioned potatoes. Moving across the road from the bivouac area, the kitchen fed from there for two days before coming back into the big field. During those two days, the cooks decided to make more room in their truck by getting rid of excess material which they had been carrying for no purpose since leaving England. Digging a deep hole, they buried, among other things, two cases of baking powder. And -- they'll do it every time -- two days later, it was decided to serve pancakes for breakfast. Staff Sgt. Bailey sent Pvt. Joseph P. "Honest Joe" LeBlanc back to exhume the buried baking powder.  German small arms collected near Brest Never to be forgotten by those who saw it is the area in which the 44th Infantry underwent a disastrous shelling one dawn from previously-zeroed German guns. After that, the Germans kept so close a watch over the area, laying in shells whenever they saw dust on the road leading to it, that burial squads could not even take care of the dead. They lay for two weeks in the hot summer sun in and around foxholes and amid the ruins of their vehicles. Men of the company made several attempts, while at Plabennec, to recover vehicles in the former 44th area, only to be driven away by German shelling. Finally, Lt. Young and T-3 Leroy Schultz decided they could sneak in on a German motorcycle which they had picked up. The cycle, it was hoped if driven slowly, would not raise enough dust to be noticed by the Germans. Successful in their tactics, they examined the vehicles, determining which could be evacuated before returning to the company. Late that day, they managed to sneak back with Pratt, Prince, Howell, T-3 John L. "Pappy" Gregory, T-4 Jimmie Cannon, Alabama Ayers, T-5's James M. Croft and Martin J. Siebold. The group made the trip in a halftrack and a peep. They returned to the company that night with four vehicles of a total of 15 recovered from the area. Six of these -- three peeps, two halftracks and an M-8 scout car -- were repaired. Those not repairable were torn down, and the parts used for others as needed. While bivouacked outside of Brest, men could watch American planes bomb the Nazi-held city. Although Brest itself was out of sight, they saw planes, including Fortresses, fly over the target, run the flak gauntlet which the Germans threw up, and drop their bomb loads. Soon thereafter, the heavy bomb explosions would be heard, and black columns of smoke would rise from the unseen town below. Not all planes would get through, and members of the company saw some blow up as their bombs were exploded by flak hits. They also saw pilots or crews parachute from others which were only disabled. The company lost its tailor on August 17 when Pvt. Robert E. Fethke was evacuated because of a bad knee. Also lost the same day at the Plabennec bivouac was Lt. Becker, evacuated because of a nervous disorder. While at Brest, T-5 Charles I. Nicholson was told one day by a Frenchman that two Germans were in his home. Taking an armored car, Nick, with two men from another company, went to the house, and put a few bursts of machine-gun fire through the windows. Out came the two German soldiers about whom the Frenchman had told him, and behind the first two came exactly 82 more! Fully armed, including burp guns and grenades, they filed meekly out of the house with their hands raised in surrender to be disarmed in the front yard. Then they were turned over to other troops. When those .50's talked, Adolf's boys usually were impressed! |