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Off to the Races - After eight days at Chateau Salins, "B" Company moved out the morning of March 19 on a 50-mile march to a bivouac near Singling, France, going into puptents for the first time since Martigny, France, back in September. The following day at noon, Lt. Thomas and the First Maintenance Section, with one prime mover, left to support CCA near Sarrguemines. The division was on its way through the Saar Valley to the Rhine, and the Seventh Army was beginning to move. The "B" Company contingent, behind CCA, was very close to the fighting, and Lt. Thomas carried a vivid memory of the surprised looks on faces of infantrymen of the 76th Division as they moved past the huge prime mover which was parked along the road close to a town which the infantry was about to clear.  Wrecked German tank at Maginot fort near Singling |
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"Up Front with Foster" - While the company was bivouacked at Singling with the division already on the drive through the Saar Valley to the Rhine, Lt. Foster and T-4 Ketner lived a couple exciting lifetimes one night. Following CCB in his capacity of company liaison officer, Lt. Foster, driven in a peep by Ketner, was in the combat command column as it proceeded northward after passing through Saarbrucken and Zweibrucken. There was occasional opposition from enemy strongpoints all along the way, but things got rough near the town of Martinshohe after midnight. Forward elements, including some medium tanks, had passed through the town when the enemy, waiting there, cracked down on the remainder of the convoy. Bazookas stopped and set afire two gas and ammunition trucks of the 128th Field Artillery which were forward, close to the "point" which had slipped through Martinshohe. While the two "B" Company members sat in their peep in the pitch darkness along the road two miles from the town, mortar fire began to crash in, all around a crossroads near which they were parked. Everyone hit the ditch, protected by a high bank on the left side of the road, and stayed there about half an hour during which time about 30 rounds landed in the immediate vicinity. Moving up the road a short distance, the column stopped again, and while it was halted because vehicles were unable to go around the burning gasoline and ammunition trucks, the Germans made things very unpleasant for occupants of all vehicles along the road with a 20 mm flak gun down over a slight rise on the left side of the road. This gun was in one of the emplacements making up the second phase of the Siegfried Line, and the men operating it began to "hose" the entire length of the column with the usual assortment of tracers, incendiaries and AP rounds. The only cover was a 1 1/2 foot ditch, and from it, Lt. Foster could see a terrifying stream of tracers coming from the busy gun, streaming apparently right for his head and seeming to pass just over him. "For the first time in my life," he stated, "I was so scared that I tried to dig deeper into the ditch with my toes as I lay there." Ketner was so dead tired that he sat, apparently asleep in his seat, disregarding the 20 mm fire. "For God's sake, get out of there and into this ditch!" shouted the lieutenant, and Ketner wearily complied. The bullets dent through the canvas of trucks in the column, but because of the rise in the ground between the gun and the road, its fire was not able to be depressed sufficiently to catch crouched men and lower vehicles. But it didn't look that high to Lt. Foster and Ketner. So tired was the latter that, after another short move toward the town, when he got out of the peep and knelt beside it again to escape the stream of 20 mm bullets, he knelt on the side from which the fire was coming. Not knowing just how strong the enemy force in the town ahead was, a captain, who was in charge after several higher officers had become casualties, ordered the column to pull off the road, set up a perimeter defence, and dig in for a possible counterattack in the blackness of the night. Small-arms fire was coming from all sides by then and there was danger of fire from men in the defensive formation itself, so taut and jumpy was everyone. With about 15 medium tanks forming the outer defensive ring, the group remained in that field until about 6 a.m. when enemy fire knocked out two medium tanks, and it was decided to bypass the town. Backing off and circling Martinshohe to the right, the combat command moved on to strike the autobahn running northeast, and resumed its push into Germany.  Siegfried Line tank barriers |
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Germany Again - Leaving Singling, the last bivouac area in wartime France, the morning of March 21, the company travelled 43.5 miles to enter Hitler's crumbling Reich for the second time, closing into a field bivouac area in the afternoon near Vogelbach, Germany. Two large German cities, Zweibrucken and Homburg, which were along the line of march, had been thoroughly mauled from the air, and the sight of their destruction did the hearts of ordnancemen good. Until then, they had seen only Allied cities in ruins. The drive through the Saar to the Rhine, spearheaded by the Sixth Armored Division for the Seventh Army, was well underway and moving very fast, and the convoy was not far behind the division's combat elements. There was considerable confusion, because of the speed of the drive, among German civilians and soldiers. White flags, flew, from every window and hung on every door, while whole groups of German troops wandered into various CP's to give themselves up, and others walked, unescorted, down the road to the nearest PWE.  Zweibrucken bomb damage Even one of the dogs, "Skippy," T-5 belonging to Arthur J. Souza, entered the war when he found himself inside Germany. Soon after the column pulled into the bivouac area near Vogelbach, Skippy went up a wooded hill from the field in which the vehicles were parked and the puptents pitched. Very shortly thereafter, he was heard barking and some of the men called him. When he did not come down, they started up to see what was wrong, but had just entered the woods when they saw two German soldiers walking out toward them, hands over their heads. Behind them, still barking, was Skippy, and he looked a little proud of his achievement. All through the ETO, men had noticed how all the dogs which attached themselves to a group of soldiers did not care for civilians. In many cases, the dogs hanging around the company would bark and growl at, or even attack, anyone in civilian clothes, but this was the first time it was shown that the canines would go so far as to make a distinction between American and German uniforms. |
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Yellow Jaundice, a Rabbit, a Heinie - It was from another field bivouac near Dreisen, Germany, that Captain Buehrig was evacuated because of a case of Yellow Jaundice which he had contracted, and there Lt. Klawon took command of the company. Leaving the area near Vogelbach at 9 a.m. on March 22, the company convoy made a 36.4-mile march to a field two miles southeast of Dreisen, entering the bivouac area at 2:20 p.m. And not more than 10 minutes later, four rated men were well on their way back to the unadorned status of private as a result of a rabbit-shooting incident. Firing of weapons in the company area had been forbidden by Captain Buehrig. The rabbit ran across a field next to that in which the vehicles had stopped, and the target proved too tempting for the aforementioned quartet, whose top rank was T-5. Also tempted beyond their powers of resistance were a few other men of higher rank, but they evidently were not observed. Prominent in the punished quartet of gunners that day was Oliver Ayers. He fired an M-1 clipful of assorted tracers, ordinary rounds and armor-piercing bullets at the bunny. On the firing line with him were G. I. Croft, Roy Holsonback and Walter Jenkins. Hailed [Hauled] before Captain Buehrig by Chuck Weiks, they were informed by the captain that, as of then, they could, for all practical purposes, consider themselves privates. The "bust" went through, but less than two months later, they had regained their rank. On a guard outpost the first night were T-3's George Kuzma and Walter Sobota, T-5's Jimmie Cannon, Martin Siebold and Leo Donahue and Pvt. Lawrence E. Lundgren, all of Artillery Section. Just after dark, they captured a German soldier who approached their post, and then wondered what to do with him, for they knew they were stuck with him for the remainder of the night. Not wishing to pull any extra guard during the night, they decided to hold him at the post. That too had a disadvantage, however, for the superman had about him an odor which made sleeping in his vicinity unpleasant. With the company up and guards going off post at 7 a.m., they took the German to Battalion Headquarters. There, they were amazed to learn that prisoners were not accepted until 8 a.m., so they had to entertain their Heinie for another hour. |
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Across the Rhine and Main Rivers - "B" Company crossed the Rhine at Oppenheim on March 27 at 10:50 a.m. on a 52-mile march which took the company from a bivouac near Dreisen to another, one mile northeast of Langen and five miles south of Frankfurt. On that trip, men had their first look at the famous autobahns. These four-lane highways were full of traffic as supplies and troops moved eastward while prisoners and slave workers streamed west. In the column on its movement deeper and deeper into the heart of Germany were many replacement tanks and other combat vehicles to be turned over to combat elements when and if needed. The Rhine crossing was made over a pontoon bridge under cover of a dense smoke screen for protection from enemy air attacks which had been numerous. However, while the company was crossing, all was quiet. While at Langen, 1,400 bottles of champagne and German brandy were "liberated" and distributed gradually among personnel of the company. Resulting during off-duty hours were some hilarious times for the following few weeks. Two days and 46 miles later, another river, the Main, was crossed at Dornigheim after pulling out of the Langen bivouac the morning of March 29. The column moved into another field bivouac near Bruningen at 5:45 p.m. March 29.  Across the Rhine at Oppenheim That day's trip had been made not far behind dashing spearhead elements of the division, and German confusion was even greater than usual. Towns through which the column passed had just been taken, and white flags were profuse. Great numbers of German soldiers wandered around, waiting to be taken prisoner or just sat along the autobahn with and without guards. Neither they nor the civilian population could understand the tactics of the speedy American advance, and bewilderment was on their faces. It was different with the freed slave laborers and military prisoners of the Germans. They beamed from ear to ear as they lined the roads saluting and waving at the occupants of each American vehicle which sped past along the fine highway the Germans had built for war and which was serving its purpose -- for the Yanks. The division, which had effected a juncture of the Seventh and Third Armies in the Saar, now had been a part of Patton"s Third Army again since reaching the Rhine. |
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Noisy Night - After the excitng [exciting] days and nights of the Brest campaign, guard duty was usually a dull and monotonous affair for those unfortunates who "made the team" each night, but the night of April 1 was one of the "shootingest" in the guard history of the company. All ended well though with three prisoners, including a German captain, taken and no casualties on either side. The company was bivouacked just off the autobahn, one mile south of Gruningen, and the "big parade" was on, a seemingly endless convoy of army vehicles of all descriptions pouring along the main artery to the Hitler heartland while other vehicles, loaded with Adolf's super stock, sped back toward PWE"s. But not all the Wehrmacht was caged yet, and forward combat elements reportedly had been temporarily cut off that afternoon. It was further reported that German infantry, isolated but still organized, might try to make a way westward near or through the district of the company's bivouac area. Guards especially were warned that night by the first sergeant to be on the lookout and not to hesitate to shoot. While the guards did not take the "danger" too seriously -- there nearly always was a rumor about paratroopers or infantry on the loose -- nevertheless it was something to think about in the dark hours of the night. On the midnight relief at an outpost consisting of a medium tank about 100 yards further out in the field from the autobahn than the bivouac area, were "Jims" Wyrick and Lintz. This pair had been on post about half an hour and were standing beside the tank when they heard a faint scuffling sound out in the field still further from the autobahn. Peering into the faintly moonlit night, they could see three figures walking, parallel to the autobahn about 70 yards from the guard post. Wyrick climbed on the rear of the tank where he could operate the .50 machine gun on the turret, and Lintz, armed with a carbine, called "Halt!" from the side of the tank, expecting a few G. I.'s or possibly frightened civilians to come to a quick stop. But it didn't work that way. The three dimly visible figures hit the ground very fast, and melted into the darkness. Another call brought no response, and, wondering what might be following the three who had reacted very much like soldiers, Lintz flopped behind a tank track, working the operating handle of his carbine which picked that time to jam instand [instead]of throwing a cartridge into the chamber. Wyrick opened fire with the .50, and when it stopped after a few rounds, he heard Lintz talking with great sincerity to his jammed carbine while working feverishly to free the mechanism: "Tomorrow I'll throw you so far I'll never see you again -- if I live!" Soon Wyrick had the .50 going again, and the carbine too began to function, both weapons peppering the spot in the darkness where the figures had disappeared. There was no return fire and no sound from the field. Lintz and Wyrick were joined at the tank by the four other guards who had been awakened, like most of the company, by the shooting. They were Rosie Haynes, Hubert Glover, T-4 Joseph L. Manocchio and Red Sharpe. After much more firing by the group at spots in the field which looked a little darker than the rest of the ground, it was decided that the only way to get any sleep that night would be to walk out and see what was there. At this point, Johnny Dombrouski, sergeant of the guard, appeared. He, Rosie and Lintz walked out into the field, spreading wide apart as they moved out. When they reached the area where the figures last had been seen, a German officer rose from the ground in front of Lintz, and an enlisted man surrendered to Dombrouski. Pistols were taken from both, Red Sharpe coming out to assist in the disarming. Proceeding through the field after sending the two prisoners back to the tank under guard, Dombrouski, Rosie and Lintz looked without success for the third. As they started back to the tank, he whistled from his hiding place and gave himself up. When found, he had no weapons. The officer was a captain, and the other two, noncoms, one a German equivalent to a first sergeant. Kept at the post the remainder of the night, they were placed on a truck headed toward a PWE next morning. There was further firing of the .50 that night when Red and Manocchio saw distant figures against the skyline, but another search produced no prisoners. |
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"Horsekiller" - The preceding night too had brought fire from a .50 on one of the guard posts. In fact, Ike Eiklor practically set the town of Gruningen afire. Incendiaries from the gun he manned started a blaze in the town which was located in a valley below the hill on which, the company was bivouacked. The fire crackled all night. Ike saw figures moving along a road running toward the town. When he called, "Halt," they kept going, so he cut loose with the .50, bullets ricocheting from the road into the village. No prisoners were taken that night, but on the following morning, a group of men found German rifles in the area where Ike said he had seen the moving figures, Also in the general direction of his fire several dead horses say on the ground, and Ike took a riding about being a horsekiller, regardless of how long the animals had been there. Platoon Headquarters saw the last of its section chief, Tech. Sgt. Wavard W. Holliday, at the Dreisen area. There, he was given a furlough to the States on March. 31. At this point the section chief job was taken over by T-3 Joe Shaw. Called "Granny" by his fellow GI's, Joe, who was liked by everyone in the company and especially in his section, did a job of section leading which could be used as a model for such a task. Unquaking before "brass" and unconscious of stripes, Joe concentrated on getting the work done the way it should be done and the men of the section were solidly behind him, their morale soon topping anything in the company. |
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Trailer Camp - Possibly the "coziest" quarters to be occupied on the drive through Germany, with the exception of the Luftwaffe barracks at Altenburg, were the German trailers into which the bulk of the company moved at Otmanshausen on April 4 after a 38-mile trip from Verna. These trailers -- brand new and never used -- evidently had been built and equipped for use by Luftwaffe ordnancemen. They were lined up in rows under a shed which also housed a great amount of new equipment and machinery both for planes and wheeled vehicles. Each trailer was just large enough to accommodate two men with sufficient room for clothing and equipment. Set up in each was a stove, complete in that thorough Teutonic way, with a rain and windproof chimney, poker, shovel and the rest of the gadgets necessary for the burning of either coal or wood. Glass windows of the trailers were provided with removable fibre-board blackout panels, so the inhabitants were able to have light in the evenings, light in the usual G. I. manner from generators, batteries, candles and blowtorches. Parts Issue and Service Sections here slept in a barn where they used a six-foot thickness of straw for mattresses. The shop at Otmanshausen was located on a level, hardpacked section of ground under the roof of the big shed, and it was full during the four days the company spent there. Mechanics worked constantly on the usual run of tanks, halftracks and armored cars, plus an unusually large number of GMC trucks. The assortment of vehicles filled the shop and spread out onto all level bits of ground in the vicinity. Here, men ran into their first big-scale "find" of enemy tools, and from there on, mechanics' boxes bulged with German wrenches, screwdrivers, pliers, sidecutters and all the other paraphernalia of the craft. In fact, many toolboxes themselves from there on were those of Luftwaffe ordnancemen. They were bigger than those furnished men of the company by the American army. Although the German wrenches were sized in millimeters, the men soon learned how many millimeters equalled the popular fraction-of-inch sizes they needed, and once-scare tools became plentiful. Lost to the company by transfer on April 4 was Pvt. Edward A. Bardysjewski, an old timer in the organization and in the army. |
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Langensalza and the Luftwaffe - When the company moved into the undamaged Nazi airport near the town of Langensalza on the afternoon of April 8 after a 57.3-mile trip from Otmanshausen, anti-aircraft preparations were in evidence on all sides. Multiple .50's, 40 mm guns and regular .50's on anti-aircraft mounts speckled the field. Scattered over the huge green expanse of the airport in front of the cavernous hangars were numerous German planes of various types, all undamaged except for the instruments of many which the Germans had managed to break before onrushing tankmen of the division took the airport. While many men were all over the airport examining the many types of planes parked there, the reason for all the anti-aircraft preparations became evident. At 4 p.m., darting German fighter planes appeared overhead, and guns all over the field opened up, pouring a steady stream of lead and explosive shells up into the sky for about 15 minutes before the twisting, darting, snooping planes decided they had seen enough and departed. There was more anti-aircraft fire rattling around the field at 7 and 8 p.m., and on these occasions the German planes dropped anti-personnel bombs which made noise and knocked some glass from the hangars, but caused no casualties. By this time, men of the company thought an exciting night was in store for them, for hitherto their experience with the Luftwaffe had led them to believe that it was a night-time thing. And if the Heinie planes were daring daylight and our figthers [fighters] to come over, it was assumed that they would swarm with persistence -- and heavier loads -- all night. However, many a soldier was surprised when he awakened in the morning to realize that he had not been aroused once during the night by ack-ack. But with the day, came the Luftwaffe again, contrary to its former custom. At 8 a.m. four enemy fighters suddenly appeared overhead, dodging and twisting in the streams of fire directed at them, and again dropped anti-personnel bombs which did not hit anything or hurt anyone. Two hits were scored this time by ack-ack units on the field. At 7:30 p.m., four more German planes came over, dropping more anti-personnel bombs which again caused no casualties and did no damage. This time, the ack-ack men shot down one of the planes, and many men of the company had the pleasure of seeing it fall, leaving a plume of smoke behind it. That was an appropriate finish to the last of the Luftwaffe -- the last, that is, as far as the company was concerned, for the men saw no more German planes except on the ground or flying in with wings wagging in surrender. At Langensalza, the company had its best shops since leaving the States. In fact, there were many of the opinion that the undamaged hangars provided better facilities for work than any allotted the company back home. Work was heavy at Langensalza with many tanks, armored cars, halftracks, trucks and other vehicles coming in as a result of the fast-sweeping drive across the Thuringian plains of the Reich. This number was augmented by other combat vehicles on which work was being done, some of them driven in the column and others carried on the prime movers or towed. However, with the working facilities in the hangars, this work was sharply reduced during the nine-day stay, and the load lightened considerably for many men of the company the last day or two. But not for the men on the gas truck -- Herbie Ludwigson and George Francy -- who were kept very busy hauling gas and refueling the multitude of vehicles in the company at the time. These included 15 new medium tanks, brought in at Langensalza as replacements for the 15th Tank Battalion. All these vehicles, as well as the others in the company and ones coming in and leaving during the time at Langensalza, had to be gassed and made ready for the next long move. Consequently, the gas detail was no snap at that airport. But for the company mechanics, Langensalza was a good place, even though they were kept very busy during the first seven of their nine days there. The undamaged hangars had rainproof roofs and their level concrete floors made the heaviest kind of tank work easy to men who had been doing the same thing in rain, mud, snow and wind across France, Beligum [Belgium], Luxembourg and up to that point in Germany. There was even a feature which made life easy for the wrecker men. The demand for their service decreased sharply because of the presence of smooth-working chain hoists running on steel beams across the width of the hangar. By using these hoists -- hand operated -- the mechanics could handle practically all the shop work which the wreckers had to do before. Engines, transmissions and other heavy assemblies were lifted out of and into vehicles by hand hoist with ease, as well as armor plate and other lighter loads, too heavy for manual lifting. While most of the men in the shop would rush to the door to watch when enemy planes buzzed over and the ack-ack opened up, as happened frequently during the first two days, and others would make a break for the nearest shelter, a good many would stay on the job through the bedlam of ack-ack and anti-personnel bombs.  Ju-88's in Langensalza hangar Although the only food there consisted of stock captured from the Germans, liquor was plentiful. The men located a huge warehouse bulging with all kinds of the stuff, including some very potent gin and several varieties of brandy. They secured enough before a guard was placed on the warehouse to insure no spirit shortage for the balance of the stay there. Here too the men were able to see just what those big sky trains of C-47's, which they had watched fly over them in the past, were doing. Hundreds of flights were made into the airport by the big, graceful planes, each heavily laden with gasoline for racing armor up ahead, for fighting planes which used the airport and for all army vehicles needing gas for operations deeper into Germany. The C-47's would land, disgorge their cargo of full gas cans to be hauled away by Quartermaster trucks, take aboard a load of empty cans, and return for more full ones. |
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In High Gear - One of the longest single-day movements since the trek across France from Brest the preceding summer was the march from the airport at Langensalza to a field bivouac near Brietenborn on April 17. Travelling the autobahn from Gotha to Zietz and good secondary roads the rest of the way, the column covered 140 miles from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tanks and other armored vehicles in a separate column pulled in two hours later. Movement of the Third Army was so fast at the time that the airforce apparently was unable to keep in touch wich [with] developments, strafing in at least one instance an airport which already had fallen. This occurred near the town of Muselwitz as the company column approached the field. Three P-51's began to work over the ground on which German planes of many types were parked, strafing and firing many of the planes, and the convoy halted in confusion at the edge of the field. Almost but not quite certain that the strafing planes were ours but unable to figure out the deal, the ordnancemen finally took a detour around the field. While many planes there were visible to those in the column, hundreds of others -- all fighters - were hidden in a woods at the eastern edge of the clearing. These, most of which had been destroyed, were seen later by members of the company when they returned past the airport a few days later. Also indicative of the speed with which the advance was being pressed at the time was the fact that "B" Company's only food for the past ten days had been stores of canned goods, mostly corned beef, captured from the German army, and mail those days was something only talked about. All along the line of march, as was always the case then, a profusion of white flags adorned all towns and villages, and German prisoners and slave workers streamed west along the autobahn and secondary roads. Evidence of preparatory work by the airforce was to be seen on all sides in bombed factory sites throughout the heart of the Reich and in countless knocked-out German vehicles. On April 18, Lt. Thomas and the First Maintenance Section joined the rest of the company on a move from Langensalza where they had been left to clear up unfinished work. |
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Deepest Penetration - After the very fine quarters at Langensalza, the field bivouac coming next was a little rough by comparison, especially since the elements conspired to make it so. It rained nearly all the time, when it was not snowing or hailing, and a piercing wind blew across the field in which the puptents were pitched. It was here that the company gained a cook, Pvt. Kenneth I. Bravo, who was transferred from Headquarters Company, and lost PFC Ralph J. Harris through hospitalization. To the field bivouac on April 19, Stanley Miernik, then staff sergeant, returned from a furlough which had given him 30 days at home in the States. Also rejoining his unit here was T-5 William E. Lipford Jr. who had been hospitalized in England for a foot injury sustained in maintenance work.  German fighter planes in Altenburg woods The division now was in the center of a triangle formed by the German cities of Leipzig, Chemnitz and Dresden, and the fight with Hitler's war machine appeared to be drawing to a close. In fact, the situation might have been described by a phrase which G. I.'s were to hear later in Germany -- "machine kaputt!" On April 20, the division was attached to the First Army, SHAEF Reserve, and although a few patrols were out and roadblocks established, the majority of the Sixth was being used for occupation. This inactive status resulted in a sharp decrease in the amount of work coming into the shop, and many men got their first real rest there on that windy, rainswept field. |
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Altenburg - Leaving the Brietenborn area the evening of April 24, the company moved back 13 miles to the Altenburg airport, the same one which P-51's had strafed while the convoy moved past on its way east. T-5 Thorne M. Johnson left Altenburg for a furlough to the States, beginning his homeward journey on April 25. The first night at the airport was spent in hangars which made excellent shops for the small amount of work to come from then on, and the following morning the men took over fine Luftwaffe personnel barracks. There was much dirty work attached to the occupation of the barracks, for apparently they had housed refugees before the company moved in, and the job of removing all the dirt, refuse and garbage was not pleasant. Once finished, however, the Altenburg airport barracks made the best living quarters the company had enjoyed since leaving "that foreign country," the United States.  Altenburg airport hangar It was just like being in garrison back home except for a lack of certain luxuries such as hot water, showers and mattresses, but no one missed those little things after the hardships of the French, Belgian, Luxembourg and German campaigns. Entertainment on the post included movies, a beer hall and athletics. Many of the men and officers were in the post theatre, watching a movie which was not too good -- they seldom were -- on the night of May 8 when, over the picture's sound, a persistent noise began to divert their attention. As man after man in the darkened room turned his head slightly to concentrate on the noise outside, it gradually resolved itself into the wailing of a big air-raid siren on the post. About the same time, flashes of light began to filter through chinks in the blacked-out theatre windows, and loud booms, mingled with the rattle of small arms fire, became clearly audible. The first general reaction in the theatre, result of many months practice in diagnosis was - air raid! But it didn't take long for a second thought to come, for something had been just below the surface for some time, hanging fire just about as long as it could. So, quickly following the air-raid thought, came another, the correct one: "The war's over!" By the time the show ended, flares and tracers were going up into the sky all over the post, and one loud crash came from the shop area where the crew of a tank which was in for repair removed a projectile from a 76 mm shell, wadded the propulsion charge, and fired the resultant blank in their gun. There was considerable celebrating that night as men drained bottles they had been saving for the occasion, as well as any other bottles of liquor on which they could lay hands. |