Combat Duty Begins

We were sent out on a total of 12, 6-man, nighttime "recon" patrols, on one of which we lost one man who was killed due to a 'trip-wired' mine explosion! Of course, for all night patrols, we dressed in canvas-wrapped combat boots to reduce the sound of walking through the brush, charcoal-smeared faces to reduce any reflected light, our dog tags were taped together to avoid clinking noises, and we wore our woven woolen roll-up caps, instead of our steel helmets and liners, to avoid noise made by twigs and tree branches striking our helmets, etc. In addition, we had to take some tablets, whose effect lasted about 4 hours each, to keep us wide awake during our night patrol activity. I think they were called "benzadrine sulphate". (You could tell when they wore off because you'd suddenly feel extremely fatigued as though you were about to faint and you knew it was time for another tablet.) After returning from that particular patrol each of the surviving men had to be questioned; I remember that "I lost my tongue", from a temporary case of combat fatigue, and couldn't answer the Battalion Commander's questions; he told our Squad Leader to let me have some relief from combat duty the next day!

During 1 large night combat patrol, we came across a group of 4 German Panzers (tanks) with their crews asleep on the ground around their tanks without having even posted a sentry? They probably thought that forward elements of Patton's 3rd Army couldn't possibly have been as close as we were? We comprised a force of about 1 platoon, plus our C. I. & R. Section, and took a total of about 9 (?) Panzer "tankers" prisoner as we quietly, successively awakened them from sleep. We sent the 9 prisoners back with 2 of our GI's, who were armed with Thompson submachine guns, about 300 yards rearward and continued our silent advance. Further on, we found what appeared to be an officers' drinking party in a small one-story building! They didn't even know we were outside, but this time they had posted a sentry. One of our GI's, a full-blooded Blackfoot Indian from Washington State, soundlessly killed the sentry, from behind, before he knew what had happened and laid him silently on the ground! We disposed of the raucous officers by using a concussion grenade, which was a black can about 7, or 8, inches tall. Our Squad Leader screwed in the fuse assembly, removed the pin and held the grenade lever down, as I smashed a hole in an accessible ground floor window; he then quickly dropped the grenade through the hole with the lever released (this yields a 4-second delay, hopefully, from the moment of release before detonation) as we instantly dropped to the ground to avoid being possibly hit by breaking window-glass! The results were startling! We entered and found 5 dead officers, with hardly more bodily damage than some blood trickling out of their ears and noses! This feat, and a lot of good luck, saved us a lot of combat, because it reduced our immediate enemy from a force of 14 fighting men with 4 tanks, to 9 prisoners without tanks! Someone suggested disabling the Panzers but the Patrol Leader said our mission was to capture some prisoners for questioning which we had done without a casualty, and besides the concussion grenade, although being muffled inside the building, had already made enough noise, so let's get out as quickly and quietly as possible!

Later, on the return trip, I wondered why the Patrol Leader ordered us to destroy the officers outright, from whom we might have been able to abstract more, and/or better, information than from the 9 enlisted-men prisoners, instead of trying to capture them. I remembered that each officer had been armed with a Luger pistol and in addition there were several Schmeisser machine-pistols in the room and realized that our Patrol Leader had made the optimum decision considering our patrol returned with our mission accomplished and without a single casualty. Although I'm sure I had surmised it beforehand, I decided I would henceforth definitely respect this 26 (?) year old 1st Lieutenant, and all other officers like him, who had graduated from the USMA! I realized that the difference between a West Point graduate and an OCS graduate, with some few exceptions, could usually be observed within the first 1, or 2, minutes of a "firefight" or some other type of "high-stress" combat engagement!

In another town, we had to cross an open space of about 15 feet, one at a time, and scale an 8 (?) foot high concrete wall to get through some backyards in a residential area while a German machine gun was intermittently firing in enfilade from our right flank along the length of the wall! When it became my turn to run and get over the wall, in between machine gun bursts, the "fear pain" in my throat was so intense I thought I would pass out! Nevertheless, I ran forward, scaled the wall instantly, rolled over the wall belly down hugging the top of the wall, pulled my M1 rifle along with me as I fell feet-first to the ground on the other side still barely a split second ahead of the immediately ensuing machinegun burst!! Thank God I was, at that moment, a physically-fit, 20-year old kid, endowed with a generous supply of adrenaline, who'd paid a lot of attention to our Infantry Basic Training instructors, God bless them !!

Later, another near-deadly incident took place in that same town when I was caught in the entranceway, with the door behind me locked, of a thick-walled brick building by a German soldier firing at me from the roof of another building about 2 stories above! Luckily, the building wasn't long enough to enable him to draw a bead directly at me, as his downward shots hit the wall to the left of, and about 8 or 10 inches in front of, my left boot!! Fortunately, the bullets must have ricocheted towards my right and I was not hit, except by small pieces of shattered brick or concrete! I shouted to my 2 Battalion Scout buddies who I knew were around the corner and to my left, of the same building, yelling that I was trapped by a "kraut" above me on the roof of the next building! One of my buddies killed him instantly with a single shot!! I thanked both my buddy and God, in precisely that order!