Chapter 3

Maj. Harris already had two sergeants in his tent when I arrived. I was introduced to Sgt. John Saunders and Sgt. Andrew (Andy) Bonner who would be the squad leaders for the newly organized Third Platoon of Easy Company. John was to take over my old squad, and Andy had the newly assigned squad. They were both veterans of North Africa, so that was a help. We talked for a while and were dismissed by Maj. Harris.

We stopped of at the squad tent to leave John with his squad while I went with Andy to pick up the new squad. Wonder of wonders, with the Army's great wisdom, Andy had a BAR man, but no bazooka team. Hell, with all of the Kraut tanks we were running in to, there was no way he could do without a bazooka. At least, he had a man who had been trained on a bazooka, but he had never been issued one. I told Andy to send everybody out scrounging for a bazooka and rockets, both HEAT and WP. Everybody in the squad realized the importance of having a bazooka, so they were eager to find one ASAP. Luckily, the tent next to ours was empty, so I told them to show up there as soon as they came up with the bazooka.

Once these details were covered, I went back to see what Maj. Harris had in mind for us to do tomorrow. He wanted me to take both squads out on combat patrol, more for us to get to know each other than for any damage we might do to the Krauts, though that would be appreciated, too. This time, we were to follow the road we had paralleled yesterday and push as far as we could to knock out any roadblocks or ambushes that we could find. That seemed like a sensible order to me, so I was happier than I might otherwise have been. Also, he did ask me to see if we could pick up a burpgun for him for a souvenir.

I got back to the platoon just in time for lunch, so we took a break for that. During lunch, we made a point of talking about anything but the war, but, after that, I called a meeting of both squads and told them what the major wanted us to do. They had come up with a bazooka and rockets, so that was covered. It was nice to have two BARs, two bazookas, and 15 men to back me up. I told the guys that we would get them all an MP40 and a P38 as soon as enough showed up, but we also needed an MP40 for the major. I did say that they should still consider the M1 their primary weapon, but the automatic weapons could come in handy on occasion.

I spent the afternoon interviewing all the new men to get some idea of their experiences. It turned out that they were all men who had just come over from England, but they all had at least some experience in North Africa. I made sure that all of them knew that I was looking for soldiers and not heroes, and I made sure that they knew the difference. With replacements coming in, I hoped that we could pick up the man needed to fill out First Squad. I was also looking for a Corpsman, but I didn't have a lot of hope for that.

We started out the next morning with John's squad on the left side of the road and Andy's squad on the right side. No, I was not stupid enough to walk in the middle of the road! I stayed mostly on Andy's side because I didn't know exactly what to expect from the new men, and I wanted to be with them if trouble started. We managed to get through our first cigarette break before we ran into anything, but it was a doozy when it came up.

We were walking very carefully, since we were now well within range of the Kraut patrols, and we didn't want to be caught with our pants down. Jimmy Banner from Second Squad was working point. He was not real good at the job, but everybody had to learn. He stopped short, turned, and ran back toward us, shouting at the top of his lungs, "HALF TRACK! HALF TRACK!" Well, so much for catching the Krauts by surprise.

There was one German soldier riding on the top of the cab, acting as sort of a scout. It was impossible to tell how many soldiers were inside the half track, but there had to be a gun crew, because an antitank gun was mounted on the half track. The vehicle was so wide that it completely blocked one lane of the road and hung out a little bit into the opposing lane. I couldn't see any supporting infantry, so I guesses that they were riding inside.

At least, there was no sign of a machine gun on the half track. Just as I saw him, the soldier riding on the cab bailed out by rolling over into the open bed of the half track. All of a sudden, a flock of rifles and MP40s were poked over the top of the bed walls, and they all opened fire on us.

Well, as I said, all of us were veterans of North Africa, so we knew to hit the dirt, aiming to flop into the drainage ditch if there was one. Fortunately, there was one on both sides of the road, so we had some protection. I yelled, "BAZOOKAS! WP!" I think that caught our guys by surprise, but there was a lot of scrambling for the right rocket.

As I expected, Harley fired first, but Eddie Jackson was not far behind with his rocket. Thank God! Both rockets hit the half track. It was so close that it would have been hard to miss, but that was beside the point. Of course, there was a lot of screams of pain from the Germans, but all of them who could bailed out the rear door and ran for the ditches.

Chester and Doug Johnson, the new BAR man, opened up on the Krauts as they ran for the ditches. One hit was scored, but there were at least six men left for us to contend with. Gus Schmidt, one of the new men, could speak German, so I told him to tell the Germans to surrender. There was a pause while they thought about it, but it didn't last too long. One of the Germans shouted that they wanted to surrender, so Gus told them to drop their guns and stand up. They had a wounded man who could not stand up, but the other five did.

We searched the Krauts and had one of them fetch the stretcher that was carried in the half track. They rigged it for their wounded man, and we sent the prisoners back under the care of Ernie Goldberg; he earned an MP40 for his trouble. I did warn Goldberg not to shoot the prisoners once they were out of sight, since there were too many witnesses to keep it hushed up for very long. He agreed, and off they went. However, Gus did tell the Krauts that Ernie was a Jew, so they had better not give him an excuse to shoot. The idea was to keep them in line, and it apparently worked, because all of them got back to Company headquarters.

The two bazooka rounds had made such a mess of the half track that we didn't find anything to "salvage," except for the MP40 that I had already given to Ernie Goldberg. We loaded up and pushed out, this time with a different point man. The Germans must have been planning something, because we ran into another MG42 emplacement that amounted to a roadblock after about 600 meters.

This was a much more elaborate setup. Saunders, Bonner, and I carefully worked our way toward the Germans and found that they had a real surprise waiting for any GIs that stumbled upon them. Not only did they have two MG42s and two Panzerfausts, but they had a Panzer IV to back them up. The tank was a big deal against a Sherman, but against only infantry, it was a deadly weapon. Obviously, we had to take out that Pz IV first, or we were going to be nothing more than hamburger! The 75 mm main gun and the two MG34s were simply too much to ignore!

Fortunately, the krauts didn't know that we were there, and we were flanking the right side of the Pz IV. That was an ideal setup for our bazookas IF we could hit where we were aiming! The bazooka rocket did wander on occasion, so it was not what I would call a precision weapon, but it could do the job with a little luck. Fortunately, the bazooka could penetrate the side armor of the Pz IV, and that was all she wrote for the tank if that happened. I used a pencil and my little notebook to make a quick sketch map of the Krauts' position. We managed to get back to the rest of the platoon without being spotted, so we were slightly ahead of the game.

I gave the tank to Saunders since I knew those men better and put Andy Bonner on the infantry. At that point, I let the two sergeants make the detail assignments, but I did listen in just in case I wanted to make some changes. The one thing I did do was to give Saunders' BAR to Bonner so that he would have both of them to go after the two MG42s. He also took Charley Winslow who was so good with a grenade.