Combat Duty Begins

Late one afternoon, we set up our AT gun facing down a road towards the enemy positions. At the time we had orders to challenge all personnel, not only civilians but also those in American uniforms, and regardless of rank, to ask them for the correct password before they could pass, because there were German officers and soldiers masquerading as Americans trying to get behind our lines to wreak havoc there! Failure to know the password was sufficient cause to take them prisoner! If they resisted arrest and tried to escape we were ordered to shoot to kill! As luck would have it, when it got darker later in the evening, a Jeep came up the road towards us, with a Major in the passenger seat and a T/5 driving! I stood there with my M1 at my left hip and shouted, "Halt! Who goes there? Give the password!" The Major said, "We don't know the password! We're from the 314th Engineer Combat Battalion and we're lost!" I replied, "Don't Engineer Combat Battalions have maps and compasses?" He said they'd forgotten their maps! I said get out of the Jeep with your hands up and come forward slowly! I told my buddy to take the "45" out of the Major's holster, the driver's carbine out of the Jeep, lay both weapons on the ground to my right and then go back and tell the Platoon Sergeant we've taken 2 prisoners who didn't know the password! The Platoon Sergeant returned with his carbine at the ready, together with my buddy, and took them back to the CP. About 15 minutes later he returned with the Major, and the T/5, who had turned out to be OK having been verified via our field radio! The Major and his driver then picked up their weapons, the Major saying to me as he boarded his Jeep, "I'm glad you're on our side!" Of course, I was tempted to retort sarcastically, "And which side is that?" but thought I'd better keep my mouth shut!

On another occasion, we were chased down a road in our AT truck, with our AT gun bouncing along behind us, by a German "88" gun crew located somewhere to our far left. Our driver was burning up the engine, as we were traveling at about 80 or 90 mph. We guys in the back of the truck were crouching down as low as we could get while the "88" shells were hitting the road, each time about 15 to 20 yards behind us, with successively advancing fire, about 3 or 4 times altogether, until we disappeared behind a forest of trees. During this episode I remember feeling that severe tightening in my upper chest, that I called "fear pain". I'd realized from almost the first combat action we'd ever engaged in, that one's overwhelming fear of instant death can produce a severe constricting chest pain and you can feel your heart pounding in your throat, which I called, "fear pain". Had the "88" been farther away we might not have made it as the angle of arc, and therefore the time between shots, would have been smaller allowing the gunner to gain on us, i.e., our traveling at about 130 feet per second would not have helped much as the forward velocity of the "88" shell must have been better than 3000 feet per second!!

One day, the 355th Infantry, including 2nd Battalion, took the town of Horchheim. As a reward (joke?), we were attached to the 11th Armored Division, sped forward in a pouring rain for several hours (all trucks had to be uncovered in combat so we could debark very quickly in the event of a strafing attack, or other combat action, etc!) towards the Rhine to help assault the city of Worms. I ate some wild strawberries growing right in front of me while we were lying still in a small roadside ditch awaiting some ME-109's to fly by above us so we could rapidly emplace our AT gun, hidden under some trees, in case German Panzers came our way along the road from Worms. The strawberries tasted so delicious that I thought it strange to find such a small pleasantry while all hell was bursting loose above and around us? After we deployed our AT Gun near the hillside road we looked up and saw a giant panoramic battle scene composed of the sky above with 3 or 4 simultaneous aerial dogfights of P-47's (or P-51's) vs. ME-109's; the city of Worms on our left, i.e., east of us, with 11th Armored Division tanks fighting German Panzers and columns of 11th Armored Division armored infantrymen in their armored carriers advancing also. Other infantrymen on the nearer flank, who I assumed were other line companies of the 89th Division, were advancing towards the city behind the 602nd Tank Destroyer Battalion half-tracks in the large valley below just south of us. So much activity was going on that I was amazed and wished that I'd had a movie camera, or at least some 35mm film for my "donated" Leica, so I could record this actual war scene while being secretly happy that I was not directly involved in this battle, as 2nd Battalion was "ready" reserve, i.e., we were in the "bleachers" for this show!

We also saw a P-47 (or P-51?; I had never bothered to learn the difference!), with "Free French" (Cross of Lorraine) markings, which had been in a "dogfight" with an ME-109, crash into a field just north of us, about 300 yards away, the pilot bouncing out of the cockpit in an arc upon impact, his body hitting the ground like a broken doll and being instantly engulfed by the flames of the immediately ensuing explosion of the plane! Upon seeing the P-47 crash I thought sometimes it's real good to be just a plain old "mudslogger" (infantryman)!