My Honor Flight (10 page)

I mentioned
that Kozlowski used to love to scrap and he learned his lesson during our time
in Europe.  He lost his appetite for scrapping that day.   He’d still fight
with people, but from that day on, he wouldn’t fight unless he was provoked. 
He was a hell of a lot less cocky after that.  We all were.

We were
working our way through some heavy woods in central France.  Not as tight as
those damned hedgerows.  But it was a forest with few roads.  The weather had
finally broken after weeks of clouds and rain, and it was pretty comfortable in
the dappled shade of the forest.  We were pushing through undergrowth.  I hated
this area, because dead wood on the ground crackled with every step and we
couldn’t avoid it.  We might as well have had seventy-six trombones.  Given how
we were announcing ourselves, we were extra sharp.  We’d take a couple of
steps, stop and listen.  We didn’t talk about it, but we quickly learned to
step in unison, because otherwise we’d just hear each other snapping twigs
constantly as we walked.  All twenty-five of us would take three steps and
stop, listen.  Take three steps.  You get the idea.

We had
trained our ears to this pattern, listening for the tiniest noise other than
our own walking.  So we were stunned when the world exploded in front of us.  A
massive roar came through the trees.  A wave of sound shuddered in our chests. 
We all dove into the underbrush.  I thought for sure we were being bombed, but
I hadn’t heard any planes.  Above us, the sky brightened, and more light
filtered through the tree canopies.  But it wasn’t light from the sun.  It
looked more like fire. 

We huddled up
really close—all of us sitting or laying in the underbrush.  Cap was up on one
knee, looking in the direction of the blast.

 “What the hell
was that, Cap?” asked Charlie Moore.

Cap didn’t
answer.  He just shook his head and scanned the forest for several minutes. 
Then he looked down at us.

 “Well, I
don’t think that was meant for us.  I don’t think they know we’re here.”

 “Krauts?”
asked someone.

 “I’m sure,”
said Cap.  “And they are real close.”  He looked around at the ground, shaking
his head as he grabbed a stick of dead wood, snapping it in his hand.  “The
problem’s going to be getting anywhere near them without announcing ourselves.”

 “Can we call
in for help?” someone asked.

Cap nodded.
“First we have to get a look at what we’re dealing with here.  And it’s got to
be quiet.  So I need a single volunteer who can be damn quiet.”

A half dozen
hands went up.  Cap picked Clyde Thrailkill.  He was a good egg from Maryland. 
Family was in the fishing business.  Clyde slung his rifle over his head, and
then he started walking through the forest.  He looked like he was walking
through a mine field—real slow, carefully placing each foot.  After watching a
couple of minutes, we got bored, so we all lay down on the ground and just
tried to relax.  Cap stood next to a tree, watching in Thrailkill’s direction.

About a half
hour later, we heard a big ruckus in the forest.  Twigs cracked constantly—something
was coming right at us!  We all jumped up to one knee and trained our rifles on
the noise.  Pretty soon we saw Thrailkill thrashing at branches as he charged
through the trees.  He saw us and adjusted his path to meet up with us. 

He stood for
a few seconds with his hands on his knees, panting hard.  His eyes were real
big.

 “What is it,
son?” asked Cap.

 “Rockets!”
said Thrailkill as he panted. “BIG ones!  Biggest things I ever saw!  Big as
trucks!”

Big as
trucks?  We all looked at each other.  Some didn’t believe it.  Some looked
really scared.  Their eyes got big as well.

 “How far?”
asked Cap.  He didn’t seem to be scared.

 “Maybe two
hundred yards ahead, there’s a bluff.  It drops about twenty feet to a road
below.  On the other side of the road, there’s a big clearing.  There’s about a
dozen trucks, and at least four of them have those big rockets on them.  And
about a hundred goddamn krauts.”

Cap closed
his eyes and sighed.  “Goddamn it,” he whispered.

We all stood
there watching him, waiting for some great idea.  After a few minutes, he
looked around at us.

 “We can’t
take them out.  We don’t have the numbers or the firepower.  They’ll wipe us
out...  I don’t have any ideas, men.  Let’s radio it in, see what HQ can do for
us.”

It took a few
minutes, but it turned out that HQ was very interested in those rocket trucks. 
They told us to do whatever we could to keep them from moving out.  They were
going to send a plane overhead to check them out, and then decide if they
wanted to bomb them or try to capture them.  When Cap asked if that meant
letting them fire the rockets, they said yes.  So, we were going to watch them
fire those things at allies, and not be able to do anything about it.

We moved up
to the edge of the bluff.  Cap wanted a good look so he could figure out how to
react if they finished launching before HQ gave him more direction.  When we
got there, the clearing was as busy as a beehive.  Krauts were scrambling
around all over the place.  There was one directing traffic, and we watched in
horror as one of the rocket trucks roared to life, and pulled out onto the road
heading to our right.  They were on the move!  A bunch of Germans were taking
down one of the rockets off of some kind of crane and a launch pad, and they
were working feverishly to get the rocket back to a truck. 

Just then,
bullets ripped into the trees that we were using for cover. 

 “Krauts!” yelled
Morelli.  “Looks like about thirty or forty of ’em!”

The Germans
had taken defensive positions in the ditch on the opposite side of the road and
they were firing on us.  Somehow, they discovered that we were here.

Another
rocket truck roared as it headed out on the road.

We fell back
about ten feet.  Cap looked around.  “Trumbull, Peters, Mackinack, Thrailkill,
Donovan, and Chartelli.  Get your asses moving east.   Figure out a way to stop
those trucks from getting out of here.  Everyone else, fall back with me. 
Let’s use these goddamn sticks to our advantage.  We’ll hunker down in the
undergrowth.  If the krauts come after us, we’ll hear ’em coming.”

We didn’t
waste any time.  Trumbull asked for men to give us some of their grenades.  We ended
up with four grenades each.  We took off running as fast as we could through
the woods, dodging branches and watching for ankle-twisting sticks. 

After about
ten minutes of hard running, we turned left, and ran a few more minutes.  We
came to the road.  In this part of the woods, the trees were thick, so the road
was under a canopy of leaves.  I liked the heavy shade, because it provided us
some cover. 

 “So, I say
we knock some trees over and block their path,” said Trumbull.

Thrailkill
nodded.  “We’ll need a bunch of ’em, so they can’t just drive around or through
them.”

 “You think
we could blow up one of them rockets?” asked Chartelli.  None of us had any
idea.  We’d never seen one before and didn’t know anything about them.  And,
all the trucks may have already pulled out of the clearing. 

But we didn’t
waste any time.  We put three men on each side of the road, and our job was to
find trees where we could wedge a grenade into the trunk somehow, so that it
would knock the trees onto the road.  That’s not as easy as it sounds.  We had
no idea what size tree we could take down, and we didn’t have any way to
control which way they would fall. 

We each found
a tree, and timed it so that we would count down and pull the pins at the same
time, then run like hell to get away from them.

Boom!  We did
a pretty good job of timing it.  But the results were horrible.  Of the six
trees, four still stood, one fell in a direction opposite of what we wanted,
and the final one did cross the road, but at an angle that a truck could
probably get around.

Trumbull took
his helmet off and rubbed his hair, surveying the trees.

 “I suppose
we could hit the same trees again.  See if we could weaken them to the point of
falling.”

Chartelli
shook his head.  “Nah, this ain’t gonna work man.  Plus, we just announced
ourselves to the fucking Jerries anyway.  They know we’re here.  I think we
should—”

Chartelli was
interrupted by the sound of a truck engine coming from the west.

 “Son of a
bitch!” yelled Chartelli.  “This is bullshit, is what it is.”

 “Three men
on a side!” yelled Trumbull.  “If it slows down for the tree, throw a grenade
under the truck and shoot at the driver!”

The road in
this part of the forest was twisty, so we couldn’t see the truck coming, but it
was close.  Just as it rounded the nearest curve, I cussed under my breath.  It
wasn’t a rocket truck.  It was a transport truck.  We could hear the driver
yelling “Achtung!  Achtung!”  He slammed on the breaks, and krauts spilled out
of the back of that truck and ran for cover on either side of the road. 

At that
minute, complete chaos erupted.  We heard distant gunshots from the woods.  Our
platoon had engaged the enemy.  At least two of our men had thrown grenades at
the transport truck.  One had bounced off a tire and exploded out on the open
road.  The other had rolled under the truck.  After the blast, we heard a hiss,
and steam started pouring out of the truck’s hood.  The grenade had taken out
the radiator.  Then the krauts started laying into us with heavy gunfire. 

We’d made a
serious mistake.  By splitting up, we were on separate sides of the road, so we
couldn’t regroup.  It got even worse for Pete, Donovan, and me.  We were on the
side of the road farthest from Buzz Company.  At least the other three men
could fall back to the rest of the platoon.  If we tried to cross the road,
we’d be cut to ribbons.  And we were facing at least fifteen men.

The ground
sloped away from the road into a shallow ditch.  So we were lying in the bottom
of a depression for cover.  But it was only about a two-foot deep cover.  The
Germans were smart.  They weren’t firing constantly, only when they saw
movement.

 “They’ll be
advancing soon!” Chartelli yelled.  “We got to get the fuck out of here!”

 “No good! 
yelled Petey.  “We’re pinned down.  They got the angle on us!”

 “No good for
any of us!” replied Chartelli.  “This is the end of the road for us!”

We heard a
German call out.  They were coming.

 “Grenades!”
yelled Trumbull, “Our only hope is to keep ’em backed off ’til Cap can get
here!  But we can’t waste ’em!  Only one at a time!  I’ll call out and tell you
when to throw!  Me first!”

He threw a
grenade, and sure enough, we heard the krauts yell in panic.  After it
exploded, it was quiet for a few minutes.  They were thinking. 

Donovan
stirred next to me.  “I think we can crawl back to the tree stump, and then
cross the road in the cover of the tree.  Regroup with the other three.”

I looked back
at the tree, then looked at Petey.  He nodded.   On our bellies, we started
squirming to turn around to head for the tree that was about thirty feet behind
us.

 “Anderson,
now!” yelled Trumbull.

 “Of
course...” grumbled Petey.  He was in front of Donovan and me.  He stopped,
pulled a grenade, and chucked it toward the krauts.  We didn’t wait for it to
pop.  We started belly-crawling again toward the tree.

We reached
the tree.  But we were all cussing.  The tree trunk itself was about six feet
from the road.  It was broken off at ground level.  We’d hoped to crawl under
the tree for the cover.  But there were too many branches, and we wouldn’t be
able to crawl under.  We’d have to get up and run around the tree trunk, which
meant we’d be exposed to the enemy.

 “What now?”
asked Petey, “We can make a run for it, or turn around and put up our stand.”

 “Either
way,” said Donovan, “we gotta do something.  Those other three can’t hold ’em
off by themselves.”

 “Mack, any
opinion?” asked Petey.

I didn’t say
anything.  I was trying to calculate the risk versus the best attack.  Before I
could come up with an answer, Donovan spoke up.  “The tree is a better
defensive position.  If we run for it when the next grenade blows, we might be able
to get around to cover.”

Petey looked
at me.  “I agree,” I said.  We waited for the next grenade.

 “Chartelli,
now!” called Trumbull from across the road.  We waited for the grenade to
explode.

At the sound
of the blast, Petey, Donovan, and I all started moving toward the tree trunk. 
We had to cover about six feet to the trunk, then another four feet or so to
get around and find cover.  I guess we kind of looked like those fellas in
track and field who come out of blocks.  We started up off the ground into a
crouched run.

The krauts
were smarter than we figured.  They had spread out and were taking cover behind
trees.  They were just waiting for us to move.  Bullets started ripping through
the downed tree’s leaves and branches.  I was the last one in line, so I hit
the dirt and back-crawled to the ditch.  As I was moving, I watched the scene
in front of me.  Petey had made it.  He dived past the tree trunk and out of sight. 
But Donovan took the brunt of the attack.  He had four or five bullets hit his back,
neck, and legs.  He collapsed and didn’t move.  I was sure he was dead.  Too
many bullets to survive.