My Honor Flight (15 page)

Petey’s
downfall threw Buzz Company into an even worse funk.  None of us could
understand it.  He was a genuinely good man.  How could he fall apart like
that?  Who was next?  Would it happen to all of us?  There were no longer any
jokes, no gallows humor.  That was how we had survived up until now—we would
pull little pranks on each other, or tell jokes, or rib each other while we
traded money in card games.  We’d find something to take our minds off the threat
of death, and our lost men.  But now we were all quiet.  Grim.  Businesslike. 

Battle was
light for us as we made our way Northeast.  In early December, all of Buzz
Company was assigned to take a French outpost that the krauts had occupied. 
They were putting up resistance as we slowly pushed them back to Germany.  It
turns out that the outpost was a large fort.  It was part of the Maginot Line. 
Tinpan called it the Vaginot Line.  It had been ineffective in stopping the
Germans when they invaded France, and we hoped it would be just as ineffective
for the Germans as we tried to take the fortress from them.

But the damn
place was a group of bunkers, all connected by tunnels.  We were to take it so
we could use it as a base.  So we couldn’t destroy it.  No tanks.  This was
going to be infantry work.

I’m always
tickled when people say they had a bad day.  As we prepared for battle, a nasty
bug hit the Ninth.  Vomiting, diarrhea, flu-like systems.  Over half the men,
including me, had it.  Cap considered postponing the attack.  We all begged him
to postpone it.  Well, those of us who were in the discussion.  Half of the men
were hitting the latrine at any given time.

 “Boys, it’s
not up to me.  All of Buzz is going to hit that fortress,” said Cap.

 “Cap, you
ain’t got this bug,” said Morelli.  “I can’t go a half hour without taking a
shit.”

Cap stroked
his chin and pursed his lips, thinking for a few minutes.  Then he nodded.  “The
Ninth will set up in a defensive position, let the rest of Buzz take the
offensive.  Too risky for us.  You men are more pathetic than normal.”  He winked.

We cheered. 
We weren’t trying to avoid battle.  We just weren’t capable of combat.

We set up in
the treeline closest to one of the buildings that they called combat blocks. 
The whole facility was made up of eight blocks over about fifteen hundred yards,
so there was one platoon assigned to each block, and then we were put on cover
detail for the biggest combat block.  Our job was to provide cover if the
advancing platoon had to fall back.  But we would only be able to provide a
fraction of our normal cover.  At any time, about a quarter of the men would be
back in the woods throwing up or having diarrhea.  When we WERE able to take our
positions in the trees and bushes, we shivered violently.  I suspect I couldn’t
shoot a target more than about ten feet away because of the shakes.

And then it
started raining.  Hard.

It was a
cold, stinging rain, blowing sideways and pelting our faces.  I imagine the
temperature was just above freezing.  I already had heavy chills, so the cold,
soaking rain was just too much for me.  I curled up, propped against a tree, and
tried to focus my eyes on the bunker in front of us.  But they kept glazing
over, like I was going cross-eyed and couldn’t focus.  I just hugged my rifle
tight to my body, in the crook of my elbow.  I wasn’t sure I could even lift
the rifle now.  All strength was gone.  I was shutting down.

We heard
grenades explode at the bunker.  Since we were on the French side, most of the
bunker faced toward Germany.  So Buzz Company would be sneaking up on the
bunker from behind.  The advancing platoon dropped grenades in the two gun
turrets on the top of the bunker, while at the same time attacking the bunker
wall, throwing grenades in each window. They timed their grenades to go off at
the same time.  It worked.  There was no gunfire from the turrets.

But there was
a problem.  The grenades alerted the bunker, and with the telephone communications
inside the fortress, all the bunkers came to life.  I watched in horror as the
retractable turret on top of the combat block raised.  Then I heard gunfire
erupt all down the line—the blocks had come to life.

There was
nothing for us to do but wait.  And shiver.  We heard muffled gunshots for what
must have been a couple of hours, but no one fell back, and no one came to get
us.  So we steadily got quieter and colder.  I was having a really hard time
keeping my eyes open.  I was worried I was freezing to death.  So I stood up
and threw one arm into the crook of a tree trunk, then just leaned there.  I
didn’t even hold my rifle anymore, just left it on the ground.  Every few
minutes my arm would get sore, so I’d turn and put my other arm in the tree. 
My fingers and toes were starting to go numb.  I tried stamping my feet and
moving my arms, but any movement caused my head to pound.  Looking back, I’m
sure I was starting to get hypothermia, combined with that flu. 

No one
talked.  The rain had turned to freezing rain, so ice covered all the trees.  Finally,
we saw a young fella come running out of the bunker towards us.  He was a GI,
so we didn’t take defensive action.  Honestly, I don’t think more than a
handful of us could even talk intelligently.  I tried to say something to
Tinpan, but it was an undecipherable mumble.  My tongue was thick and my frozen
cheeks made it hard to move my mouth.  Tin didn’t even try to respond.  Just
looked at my mouth as I spoke, shook his head and looked down at the ground.

The GI told
us that the synchronized attack had worked.   Buzz Company took the entire
facility in two hours.  Cap ordered us into the combat block.  We found the
bunkhouse, and we all stripped and climbed into beds.  Even in the nice warm
building, I was shivering violently.  But as cold as I was, I went straight to
sleep. 

The next day
we all laid low.  Those that weren’t sick were in a different barracks.  I
would say that about fifteen from the Ninth Platoon were in my barracks, and
Cap had quarantined us from the rest of Buzz Company to keep the bug from
spreading.

The second
day, I was feeling a lot better, and even hungry for the first time in three
days.  I had a headache and it hurt to move my eyes, but I wasn’t shivering anymore. 
Cap put me with Kozlowski and Trumbull on an inventory detail.  We were to
check each room in the environmental facilities and record all tools and
supplies.

Kozlowski
never caught the bug, and he walked in front of me and Trumbull, who walked side
by side with me.  Trumbull had the bug too, but got over it a day earlier.  He
carried a clipboard.  Kozlowski would move crates or boxes around, and he and I
would list off the contents.  Trumbull would write them down.

We came up to
a red door.

 “Probably
nothing in there,” said Trumbull.  “That’s an electrical closet.”

 “How do you
know that?” asked Kozlowski.

 “Look at the
sign, dumbass.” Trumbull pointed at the sign by the door, which read
Electrisch
. 
He wasn’t serious about the dumbass part.  He was joking with Kozlowski.  I
chuckled.

Kozlowski
glared at Trumbull, his hand on the door handle.  “Hey pencil-neck.  You want a
knuckle sandwich?”

Trumbull
stopped and looked at Kozlowski, his eyebrows raised with a hint of fear. 

Kozlowski
winked as he opened the door.  “Don’t worry, man, I’m just pulling your leg—”

Two gunshots
rang out, and a pink mist appeared behind Kozlowski.  He’d been shot, twice in
the chest.  He didn’t even hesitate.  He just bull-rushed into that closet.  We
pulled our sidearms, and just as we came into the doorway, we saw Kozlowski hit
a kraut full-on with an elbow to the face.  The kraut’s head snapped to the
side and then he collapsed.  Kozlowski sagged, then fell to the floor. 
Trumbull and I pumped two rounds into the kraut.

We bent down
to Kozlowski.  He was dead.

Turns out
that goddamn kraut had hidden in the facility since we took it over.  He had a
cache of food.  Cap was so pissed that he ordered ALL of Buzz Company—not just
the ninth platoon—to turn the place upside down looking for any more krauts. 
We didn’t find any.  But we found three little spaces with blankets and food. 
The German had been moving among them to avoid getting caught.

A couple of
days later, I sat down to mess next to Duncan. 

 “Figured
Kozlowski would be the last one of us to die,” said Duncan.

 “Yeah, the
pig-headed son of a bitch.”

 “Figured Petey
would make it longer too.”

 “Yeah...”

 “Remember
back in France?  Remember when we talked with Porter?  We ain’t gonna make it,
Mack.”

 “We’ll make
it,” I said. “Krauts are on the run.  Hell, we’re in Germany now.  We’ll be
home by spring.  Jesus, Duncan.  All you think about is us dying.  You think
that way, you might make it happen!”

Duncan scowled
at me, stood, and walked away. 

We had bleak
moments in Buzz Company.  But we’d been enduring one long string of bad news,
without anything good on the horizon.  I’ll tell you it’s tough as hell to keep
going when it’s getting darker, with no sign of light anywhere ahead.

After some
down time, we were sent to Belgium.  We didn’t know it as the Battle of the
Bulge, but that’s where we were.  It was colder than hell.  We were low on
supplies.  It was bitter cold.  I think probably the highest temperature during
the day was about ten degrees.  It was dark all day long because of heavy gray
clouds and flurries.  Everything looked black and white—no color.  Remember I
told you that the movies seem to like to show the war as black and white, and
cold?  Well, the Bulge is where they got that idea. 

We'd been
tussling with krauts for two straight days with no breaks and no sleep.  I felt
hollow.  Stretched out.  It's hard to explain.  My gut was empty, but I was
past hunger.  My head felt drawn out, like I’d been staring at something for a
full day, and my eyes felt like they were full of sand.  My nose and chin were
numb from the cold, and my fingers stung.

So we were
all pissed off.  No good food for days, no decent sleep for days, laying on
that frozen ground or on patrol ALL the time.  You try spending a week or two
on the ground in the dead of winter with restricted food.  Then stop sleeping
for a couple of days.  You will understand just how miserable a man can get.

We were
laying on our bellies on patrol.  The Ninth Platoon wasn't alone.  There were three
other platoons in our group, so we had over a hundred men.  We held a position
along a ridge in a forest, facing toward the heart of the forest.  A wave of
krauts started moving in through the trees.  A LOT of krauts.  Pearson spotted
the first one and called out.  The call went out down the line, and the whole
line was on guard.  I remember it was darker than usual.  I think it must have
been early evening.  We watched the tree trunks.  That was the best way to see
movement, because the trunks’ shapes would change as people moved behind them.

There was no
sound.  No wind, no footsteps.  Complete and utter silence.  In the winter in
the forest, nothing is moving, and the snow creates a sound-deadening blanket. 
We watched the trees, trying to spot Germans.  Cap called out to Pearson, “You
sure you saw something?”

 “Cap, I’m
tellin’ ya.  I saw at LEAST fifty krauts.  They are right there!”

Still nothing
happened.  We sat there for probably ten minutes.  No one relaxed.  No one
looked away.  Even though we were exhausted, hungry, and cold, the adrenaline
had kicked in.  All of our senses were heightened.  I glanced down the line,
and I could see little clouds of moisture as everyone breathed.  That was the
only thing moving.

Then, the
attack came.  There was a loud shout from a German, and the next thing I knew,
there were a hundred gunshots, all at once.  It was an explosion!  They had
timed their attack so they would all turn and fire from trees at the same
time.  They had to fire blind, though.  Because if they would have looked at us
to pick a target first, we would have seen them and fired.  That's the only
thing that saved our bacon that day.  They all turned from trees, started
shooting, then aimed.  That gave us enough time to duck for cover as bullets
whizzed past our heads.

They had a
pretty clever system.  They would let half of their men shoot their clips. 
When they were out, those men would duck behind trees to reload, and then the
other half of the men would start shooting.  They advanced toward us, moving
from tree to tree. 

We were
returning fire as best we could, but these Germans were aggressive.   They couldn’t
keep the attack up for long because no one carries that much ammo.  So they
were going to try to storm our line and kill us quick. 

"Short
burst!" yelled Cap.  I heard other platoon leaders calling the same
thing.  We didn't have much ammunition, so we couldn't just sit there firing
constantly.  Plus, we were up against the ridge, and we couldn't look up over
it because they’d pick us off.  So we’d take a few pot shots without aiming. 

This went on
for about four or five minutes.  That probably doesn't sound like a lot, but
imagine a constant stream of gunfire aimed at your head for that long.  I was
getting scared.  I thought those krauts had to be walking right up to the other
side of the ridge, and they would just walk over and kill all of us.  Morelli
reached up to take a potshot, and he took a bullet in the helmet.  It didn’t
kill him.  It wasn’t a direct hit.  It’s what we called a dinger—it’d ring your
bell for sure.  Morelli slid down the berm, and someone came to him to see if
he was hurt.  Morelli pushed him away, and yanked his helmet off.  He fingered
the dent in his helmet, and then looked up at the sky.  He looked down at the
helmet, raised it with both hands, and slammed it into the ground.

 “I. AM.
SICK. AND. FUCKING TIRED. OF. THIS GODDAMN PLACE!”  While he was yelling, he pulled
out his bayonet, affixed it to his rifle, slapped in a new clip.  All while
this was happening, Cap was yelling at him.

 “Morelli,
stand down!”

 “Morelli,
shut the hell up!”

 “Someone
grab him and keep him down!”

 “Hey man,”
someone yelled at Morelli.  “Shut up and stay down!”

Then Morelli
stood up and charged over the ridge!  No helmet—he just charged over
bare-headed.  It was like something you see in the movies.  We all looked
wide-eyed at each other, and then at Cap.

 “Son of a
bitch!”  Cap yelled.  “Follow him!  CHARGE!”

We didn’t
take time for bayonets or anything.  Morelli was a—what’s the word?—catalyst. 
He was a catalyst for us.  We’d all been downtrodden for weeks, starved for
days, and deprived of sleep for a long time.  And now the enemy was attacking
in full strength, and we were pinned down.  And Morelli decided that he’d had
enough.  When he jumped over that ridge, I knew that I’d had enough too.  We’d
all had enough.

We ran over
the ridge, firing blindly at first and then focusing on targets we could see.  As
we started running down the other side of the ridge, there was Morelli.  He was
as calm and deliberate as can be, walking from tree to tree.  He would look one
way, see a kraut, fire once and kill him.  Then he would walk to the next tree,
spot a kraut, and fire once.  We were providing cover fire all around him.  The
Ninth Platoon was the only one that had charged.  We were like a wedge driving into
the krauts.  This really confused the Germans, because they now had to decide
to shoot between two directions.  They could fire at us, or they could fire at
the line of defense on the ridge.  They all chose differently, so their
firepower was diminished.  Then, since they were scattering their shots, they
had to stop their system where half their men fired while the other reloaded. 
Now they were all ducking for cover, taking potshots and reloading.  We’d
knocked them back on their heels.

We decided to
swing left and sweep the forest.  We didn’t really decide that.  Morelli was
moving in that direction, so we were charging behind him in a wide swath,
shooting anything that moved.  Since we were making our way left in front of the
platoons on the ridge, we had those krauts in a cross-fire.  We’d taken out the
left third of the German forces when we reached the end of their group.  We
turned back to go the other direction.  The two left-most platoons crossed over
the ridge and joined us.  Where there had been the twenty or so of the Ninth,
there were now probably sixty or so men working back to the right through the
forest.  The remaining Germans were hit from two sides.  We didn’t stop.  We
just kept moving, tree to tree, and we kept shooting until there was nothing
left to shoot.

I still can’t
believe that we didn’t suffer a single casualty in that battle.  It just doesn’t
seem possible.  How could we storm up over a hill when trees above us are
splintering from bullets, and not get shredded by gunfire?  We got together.   

 “Who’s the
crazy son of a bitch that started this?” called out a lieutenant from another
company. 

 “One of
mine,” replied Cap.

 “If he does
that again, I’ll shoot him myself!” yelled the lieutenant.

We all glared
at that lieutenant.  We stood up in a wall of men and faced him.  We didn't
give a shit about rank right then.  We were tired, cold, and hungry.  We’d just
stormed a hundred krauts and killed them all.  It was the first major win we
heard about at the Bulge.  And that SOB was attacking a member of the Ninth. 
Attack one of us, attack all of us.  We had icy fire in our eyes, and we were
still a little battle-drunk.  That’s what we called the adrenaline rush of
battle.  You don’t just come down after an intense battle.  You have a tendency
to want to keep fighting.  I think it’s because it’s not natural to kill, so
when you’re pushed to that state, it takes a little while to get out of it. 

Cap saw us
and stepped into our group. 

 “You boys go
take a rest,” he said.  His voice was real firm.

Cap pulled
the lieutenant away, and they had words out of earshot.  We went to Morelli,
who had flopped down, sitting next to a tree, staring off into the distance. 
Chartelli swung around and flopped down next to him.  He tossed Morelli’s
helmet into his lap.

 “You’re
gonna need this,” Chartelli shook his head.  “Goddamn, man.  You coulda got all
of us killed.”

Morelli
nodded, still staring into the distance.  I saw tears in his eyes and he was
shivering real bad.  “I’m sorry, guys.”  He was almost whispering.

 “Hey man, it’s
OK!” said Jackson.  He was a skinny little kid from Tennessee.  “We all here! 
Ain’t none of us hurt!”

 “Damn
fucking lucky,” someone said.

 “Yeah.”

We all just
stood there for a few minutes, not saying anything.  I was replaying what had
just happened in my head.  I was trying to figure out how we had pulled it
off.  It felt like one of those times when you are falling down, or in a car
accident, and everything moves really slow.  Like everything around us was
slower than us, so we were moving faster and reacting faster than them.  I
imagine a lot of us were thinking about that, or thanking God that we’d
survived.  Or thanking the trees for cover.

Cap walked
up.

 “Rodgers is
really pissed off.”  Cap was grim.

Chartelli
tilted his head toward Morelli.  “Is he gonna get court-martialed?”

Cap flinched
and looked at Chartelli with a look of surprise.  “Over my dead body.  Boys, we’ve
had our share of fights.  More than our share of fights.  We’ve seen more death
than people should have to see in their lives.  But I’m telling you that I was just
part of the single most heroic thing I’ve ever seen on the battlefield.” 

He paused,
looking around the group.

 “It wasn’t
heroic, it was stupid,” Morelli said quietly.

 “Well,” Cap
paused.  “YOU were stupid.”  The group laughed.

 “But you
made a decision in battle.  It was the wrong decision, but once in a while
things go our way.  Today was one of them.  And if you didn’t have this platoon
covering your ass, we’d be looking to bury you and half of us by nightfall.  We
couldn’t have stopped those krauts any other way today.”

We were
slapping each other on the backs and shoulders, silently congratulating each
other.  For a few minutes we weren’t hungry, or tired, or cold. 

Morelli got a
couple of things out of that incident.  First, he got a new nickname—Dinger. 
We always said that if we were going to get in a scrap with someone, first we’d
shoot Morelli in the head to get his mind on scrapping.  Second, he eventually
got a Silver Star for that battle.  When that happened, we rode him hard about it. 
We said he was just jealous of Chartelli for getting one, and he had to do
whatever he could to match Chartelli.