I was sitting on the ground, partially concealed by the long grass,
when the Germans came through the treeline. A squad of about seven men,
all with Kar 98s or MP40s.
We saw each other at about the same time, but my Garand was laying on the ground beside me. I made a dive for it, while Sergeant Morgan opened up with his Thompson submachine gun.
The Germans, seeing that our squad of nine men outmatched them, turned and made a break for it into the woods. I brought my Garand up and aimed, loosing three rounds in their direction. The slowest German fell as his chest opened up. Morgan let another long burst into the bush that the Germans had disappeared into.
He ran our in front and yelled the most important command a leader could give, "Follow me!"
I jumped up into the hot pursuit behind Morgan, then heard crashing sounds in the bush as the rest of the squad followed. The Germans came into view again and I emptied the rest of my clip at them. The gun ejected the stripper clip and I yanked another out of my pouches and jammed it in.
Apparently the Germans had decided that running wouldn't save them and they would turn and fight, the four that remained, anyway.
As we came into view of the Germans, three Kar 98s and an MP40 tracked Morgan and me. We dived for cover behind a mass of dead logs and such. We paused and listened to the Garands fire, but no BAR. "Put some BAR fire on them!" I shouted, but there was still nothing.
Finally, out of desperation, I stood up and fired at the MP40 gunner. The rounds cut into him and threw him to the ground.
I ducked back down as 7.92 fire tracked towards me. I heard more Garands fire and then the roar of Morgan's Thompson, but still no BAR.
Three more Garand shots and it was all over. The Germans all lay dead in their tracks, smoking gunshot wounds punched through them.
It was time to regroup and assess our losses. It had been weeks since our last resupply and we were running low on everything, especially ammunition.
I had spent three of my stripper clips, leaving me only three more to fight with, Sarge had spent two clips from his reserve of four, our BAR gunner hadn't spent a round of ammo because the assistant BAR gunner, Mark Stankowitz, had demanded the use of the BAR from our regular gunner, Joe Miller. Then, he managed to jam the weapon in the process by dropping it in the mud while the bolt was open, then attempting to fire it.
The other soldiers in the squad, Pvt. Ben Doon, Pvt. Hartmann, Pvt. Trout, Pvt. Horn, had only fired a few rounds. We would have to make a run for resupply. After a quick discussion, Sgt. Morgan made it clear that we would push on and complete our patrol.
I still had five rounds in my Garand and the three stripper clips amounted to twenty-four rounds. I would be all right for a certain amount of time. I looked over at Stankowitz, who was smoking a cigarette. "Hey, where'd you get that?" I questioned him as it had been about a week since our supply of cigarettes had run out.
It turned out that Mark had taken four packs and placed them in his BAR clip pouches, sacrificing bullet space for cigarettes.
When Sgt. Morgan discovered this, he dressed Stankowitz up and down for fifteen minutes, and then his took the four packs and divided them up among everyone in the squad except for Stankowitz.
I was tempted to save them and smoke them over several days, but I didn't like them a whole lot. Myself, along with Sgt. Morgan, preferred a fine cigar, only smoking cigarettes in a pinch. I found the best thing to do with them was to trade them for ammo and other things.
We finally moved out on patrol again, the woods ran in pretty much a straight line, with a large clearing on one side and a road on the other. We tried to stay close to the road so that we could ambush any kraut vehicles we saw along the way, but none ever showed up.
I found the cigarettes rather unpleasant to smoke, being a Polish brand, so I wrapped them in some cloth and placed them in one of my empty stripper clip pouches.
It was then that we had our second contact with the Germans. We saw the about one hundred yards away. I dropped down to the ground with the rest of my squad and then slid forward when Sgt. Morgan called soldiers that had Garands up.
"All right. That's one hundred yards; lay down some fire on them. I don't know what they are so interested in, but if they are, so am I."
We aimed and opened fire, a hundred yards was a long shot, but we had the volume of fire necessary to bring them all down before they knew what was happening.
I slapped another stripper clip in and then we advanced. We walked the hundred yards to the German position carefully, checking for snipers along the way.
The Germans were all dead; our Garand shots had taken them in their upper chests and heads. We checked around and found what the Germans had been so interested in, four dead 82nd airborne troops were lying sprawled out on the ground. They had been cut down by what looked like MP40 fire.
Despite his moral opinions, Sgt. Morgan ordered us to search the bodies for weapons and ammo. I respected and understood Sgt. Morgan's moral dilemma. I can't say that I liked stripping our own me for equipment, but we needed the ammo.
The man I searched hadn't been dead long, in fact, his body was still warm. The man had been carrying an M-1 Garand so I was in luck. I took the man's four stripper clips from his ammo belt, including the one from his rifle, which told me he hadn't even got a shot off.
The people that needed ammo must have got it. Sgt. Morgan was stripping pistol ammo off the paratroopers to reload the empty clips for his Thompson.
We stayed there for a while. We cooked the paratrooper's rations that we had found in their packs and ate them. Once again, I didn't feel right about eating the paratrooper's food, but our food had run out days ago and we had been surviving off what we could find in the forest. In payment and respect, we dug shallow graves for the men and marked them for grave detail to pick up.
We moved out again just after we finished burying the paratroopers. We intended to find shelter for the night, so we continued on down into the woods. We moved with Sgt. Morgan in the lead. We knew the Germans would be sending reinforcements along and we would have to be at the ready. Morgan told Miller not to let Stankowitz touch the BAR.
Sgt. Morgan held his hand up in a fist to tell us to drop. I dropped to the ground and tried to make myself as concealed as possible. Then I heard it, the soft sound of voices and footsteps coming through the bush. Then the patrol passed right by us, sitting in the bush. I aimed for a shot, but Morgan and Mellar opened fire on them before I could.
Their bullets cut into the Germans. One man was hit in the leg and tried to dart off into the bush. I snapped my Garand up and fired three rounds into his back; the man fell forward onto his knees and then onto the ground.
The BAR roared at fleeing men, but then, the battle turned against us. A German squad had come up behind us and then ambushed us.
I whirled around and began to pump rounds out of my Garand. Machine gun fire filled the air. Finally we turned and ran. As I ran, I yanked a grenade free from my belt and dropped it behind me. It went off and I heard screams of pain. Then I finally saw some rocks to use as cover. Webber jumped behind one, then I slid down behind him and reloaded my rifle.
The air filled with sounds of battle, Garands and Kar 98s being fired. I threw another grenade over the rock and saw it throw some Germans away when it exploded.
I stood up and started firing again. I managed to drop one German for each round fired. It was a pitched battle, the Germans were being reinforced and we were alone.
We turned and fell back, stopping every so often to return fire or throw a grenade.
We burst forth from the treeline and into a farmer's field. A white house sat in the center surrounded by the farmland. I made a break for it, darting as fast as possible for cover.
I slid down behind a short mortar wall, and then opened up on the Germans, firing until the bloc clip shot up out of the action. I dropped back down and slipped another into the gun.
The Germans came through the treeline and opened fire on us. 9mm rounds smashed against the wall I was taking cover behind. I yanked out yet another grenade and threw it over the wall. It went off and the air filled with screams and German curses.
I heard Sgt. Morgan's Thompson make well-placed comments at the Germans, and then I popped up and began to fire. That's when all hell broke loose.
I was aiming at a German soldier when a potato masher grenade went off barley eight meters from me. I was deafened by the concussion and knocked to the ground. I heard something ping off my helmet.
As I lay there, my left arm began to hurt. I started to panic, as I could only feel pain and the cold of the ground under me and hear nothing. I felt along my left arm and felt warm blood seeping through my field jacket.
I shook my head, trying to clear it and then stood up, bringing my Garand to my eye. One German soldier was stumbling across the ground; his gray uniform stained with blood from shrapnel wounds. I fired three rounds, putting the man down permanently. I popped off my two remaining rounds into a German that was breaking though the treeline. The bloc clip ejected and I crammed another one in.
"Fall back to the house!" Yelled Sgt. Morgan.
I turned and ran towards the house. I ran around the side for cover and then laid down some fire for my retreating friends.
We were winning, I could tell, now only a few Germans pursued us out of the treeline. I reloaded my rifle, once again becoming worried about ammunition.
One man came out of the bush. I fired a single round. It smashed through him and dropped him to his back. He rolled around for a moment and then laid still.
The forest returned to a state of perpetual quietness. No more Germans came from the treeline. Birds began to chirp again.
We regrouped near the house. Sgt. Morgan had a take on the situation. "Who have we lost?" Was his first question. We did a quick head count, Pvt. Trout was the only person unaccounted for. He had been standing next to Hartmann when an MP40 burst had hit him in the back. We would be able to head back and mark his body for grave detail later.
"We can spend the night in this house, I don't think any Germans got away to tell about us. Give it an hour, then we can send out a patrol to search for Trout and any other German Patrols."
The door to the house was locked, but we used a bayonet to pry it open. It was cold inside, which seemed wrong. Whenever I remembered my house, I remember the warmth of the fire burning inside.
The entrance was empty. It lead into a small living room, there was a fireplace, and a few pictures still adorned the walls, but there was no furniture.
I swallowed and gripped my Garand even tighter, now with its bayonet attached. Being in the house, we would possibly be facing close contact with the Germans. The bayonet would be useful against them in the confines of the house.
The structure was clear. Sgt. Morgan and myself went to check the outside root cellar, while Hartmann and Horn made a fire.
We saw each other at about the same time, but my Garand was laying on the ground beside me. I made a dive for it, while Sergeant Morgan opened up with his Thompson submachine gun.
The Germans, seeing that our squad of nine men outmatched them, turned and made a break for it into the woods. I brought my Garand up and aimed, loosing three rounds in their direction. The slowest German fell as his chest opened up. Morgan let another long burst into the bush that the Germans had disappeared into.
He ran our in front and yelled the most important command a leader could give, "Follow me!"
I jumped up into the hot pursuit behind Morgan, then heard crashing sounds in the bush as the rest of the squad followed. The Germans came into view again and I emptied the rest of my clip at them. The gun ejected the stripper clip and I yanked another out of my pouches and jammed it in.
Apparently the Germans had decided that running wouldn't save them and they would turn and fight, the four that remained, anyway.
As we came into view of the Germans, three Kar 98s and an MP40 tracked Morgan and me. We dived for cover behind a mass of dead logs and such. We paused and listened to the Garands fire, but no BAR. "Put some BAR fire on them!" I shouted, but there was still nothing.
Finally, out of desperation, I stood up and fired at the MP40 gunner. The rounds cut into him and threw him to the ground.
I ducked back down as 7.92 fire tracked towards me. I heard more Garands fire and then the roar of Morgan's Thompson, but still no BAR.
Three more Garand shots and it was all over. The Germans all lay dead in their tracks, smoking gunshot wounds punched through them.
It was time to regroup and assess our losses. It had been weeks since our last resupply and we were running low on everything, especially ammunition.
I had spent three of my stripper clips, leaving me only three more to fight with, Sarge had spent two clips from his reserve of four, our BAR gunner hadn't spent a round of ammo because the assistant BAR gunner, Mark Stankowitz, had demanded the use of the BAR from our regular gunner, Joe Miller. Then, he managed to jam the weapon in the process by dropping it in the mud while the bolt was open, then attempting to fire it.
The other soldiers in the squad, Pvt. Ben Doon, Pvt. Hartmann, Pvt. Trout, Pvt. Horn, had only fired a few rounds. We would have to make a run for resupply. After a quick discussion, Sgt. Morgan made it clear that we would push on and complete our patrol.
I still had five rounds in my Garand and the three stripper clips amounted to twenty-four rounds. I would be all right for a certain amount of time. I looked over at Stankowitz, who was smoking a cigarette. "Hey, where'd you get that?" I questioned him as it had been about a week since our supply of cigarettes had run out.
It turned out that Mark had taken four packs and placed them in his BAR clip pouches, sacrificing bullet space for cigarettes.
When Sgt. Morgan discovered this, he dressed Stankowitz up and down for fifteen minutes, and then his took the four packs and divided them up among everyone in the squad except for Stankowitz.
I was tempted to save them and smoke them over several days, but I didn't like them a whole lot. Myself, along with Sgt. Morgan, preferred a fine cigar, only smoking cigarettes in a pinch. I found the best thing to do with them was to trade them for ammo and other things.
We finally moved out on patrol again, the woods ran in pretty much a straight line, with a large clearing on one side and a road on the other. We tried to stay close to the road so that we could ambush any kraut vehicles we saw along the way, but none ever showed up.
I found the cigarettes rather unpleasant to smoke, being a Polish brand, so I wrapped them in some cloth and placed them in one of my empty stripper clip pouches.
It was then that we had our second contact with the Germans. We saw the about one hundred yards away. I dropped down to the ground with the rest of my squad and then slid forward when Sgt. Morgan called soldiers that had Garands up.
"All right. That's one hundred yards; lay down some fire on them. I don't know what they are so interested in, but if they are, so am I."
We aimed and opened fire, a hundred yards was a long shot, but we had the volume of fire necessary to bring them all down before they knew what was happening.
I slapped another stripper clip in and then we advanced. We walked the hundred yards to the German position carefully, checking for snipers along the way.
The Germans were all dead; our Garand shots had taken them in their upper chests and heads. We checked around and found what the Germans had been so interested in, four dead 82nd airborne troops were lying sprawled out on the ground. They had been cut down by what looked like MP40 fire.
Despite his moral opinions, Sgt. Morgan ordered us to search the bodies for weapons and ammo. I respected and understood Sgt. Morgan's moral dilemma. I can't say that I liked stripping our own me for equipment, but we needed the ammo.
The man I searched hadn't been dead long, in fact, his body was still warm. The man had been carrying an M-1 Garand so I was in luck. I took the man's four stripper clips from his ammo belt, including the one from his rifle, which told me he hadn't even got a shot off.
The people that needed ammo must have got it. Sgt. Morgan was stripping pistol ammo off the paratroopers to reload the empty clips for his Thompson.
We stayed there for a while. We cooked the paratrooper's rations that we had found in their packs and ate them. Once again, I didn't feel right about eating the paratrooper's food, but our food had run out days ago and we had been surviving off what we could find in the forest. In payment and respect, we dug shallow graves for the men and marked them for grave detail to pick up.
We moved out again just after we finished burying the paratroopers. We intended to find shelter for the night, so we continued on down into the woods. We moved with Sgt. Morgan in the lead. We knew the Germans would be sending reinforcements along and we would have to be at the ready. Morgan told Miller not to let Stankowitz touch the BAR.
Sgt. Morgan held his hand up in a fist to tell us to drop. I dropped to the ground and tried to make myself as concealed as possible. Then I heard it, the soft sound of voices and footsteps coming through the bush. Then the patrol passed right by us, sitting in the bush. I aimed for a shot, but Morgan and Mellar opened fire on them before I could.
Their bullets cut into the Germans. One man was hit in the leg and tried to dart off into the bush. I snapped my Garand up and fired three rounds into his back; the man fell forward onto his knees and then onto the ground.
The BAR roared at fleeing men, but then, the battle turned against us. A German squad had come up behind us and then ambushed us.
I whirled around and began to pump rounds out of my Garand. Machine gun fire filled the air. Finally we turned and ran. As I ran, I yanked a grenade free from my belt and dropped it behind me. It went off and I heard screams of pain. Then I finally saw some rocks to use as cover. Webber jumped behind one, then I slid down behind him and reloaded my rifle.
The air filled with sounds of battle, Garands and Kar 98s being fired. I threw another grenade over the rock and saw it throw some Germans away when it exploded.
I stood up and started firing again. I managed to drop one German for each round fired. It was a pitched battle, the Germans were being reinforced and we were alone.
We turned and fell back, stopping every so often to return fire or throw a grenade.
We burst forth from the treeline and into a farmer's field. A white house sat in the center surrounded by the farmland. I made a break for it, darting as fast as possible for cover.
I slid down behind a short mortar wall, and then opened up on the Germans, firing until the bloc clip shot up out of the action. I dropped back down and slipped another into the gun.
The Germans came through the treeline and opened fire on us. 9mm rounds smashed against the wall I was taking cover behind. I yanked out yet another grenade and threw it over the wall. It went off and the air filled with screams and German curses.
I heard Sgt. Morgan's Thompson make well-placed comments at the Germans, and then I popped up and began to fire. That's when all hell broke loose.
I was aiming at a German soldier when a potato masher grenade went off barley eight meters from me. I was deafened by the concussion and knocked to the ground. I heard something ping off my helmet.
As I lay there, my left arm began to hurt. I started to panic, as I could only feel pain and the cold of the ground under me and hear nothing. I felt along my left arm and felt warm blood seeping through my field jacket.
I shook my head, trying to clear it and then stood up, bringing my Garand to my eye. One German soldier was stumbling across the ground; his gray uniform stained with blood from shrapnel wounds. I fired three rounds, putting the man down permanently. I popped off my two remaining rounds into a German that was breaking though the treeline. The bloc clip ejected and I crammed another one in.
"Fall back to the house!" Yelled Sgt. Morgan.
I turned and ran towards the house. I ran around the side for cover and then laid down some fire for my retreating friends.
We were winning, I could tell, now only a few Germans pursued us out of the treeline. I reloaded my rifle, once again becoming worried about ammunition.
One man came out of the bush. I fired a single round. It smashed through him and dropped him to his back. He rolled around for a moment and then laid still.
The forest returned to a state of perpetual quietness. No more Germans came from the treeline. Birds began to chirp again.
We regrouped near the house. Sgt. Morgan had a take on the situation. "Who have we lost?" Was his first question. We did a quick head count, Pvt. Trout was the only person unaccounted for. He had been standing next to Hartmann when an MP40 burst had hit him in the back. We would be able to head back and mark his body for grave detail later.
"We can spend the night in this house, I don't think any Germans got away to tell about us. Give it an hour, then we can send out a patrol to search for Trout and any other German Patrols."
The door to the house was locked, but we used a bayonet to pry it open. It was cold inside, which seemed wrong. Whenever I remembered my house, I remember the warmth of the fire burning inside.
The entrance was empty. It lead into a small living room, there was a fireplace, and a few pictures still adorned the walls, but there was no furniture.
I swallowed and gripped my Garand even tighter, now with its bayonet attached. Being in the house, we would possibly be facing close contact with the Germans. The bayonet would be useful against them in the confines of the house.
The structure was clear. Sgt. Morgan and myself went to check the outside root cellar, while Hartmann and Horn made a fire.