By PAUL D. GROUCUTT
Morning News news editor
When the first shell from a German tank hit the track and shook his M-10 tank destroyer, Pfc. Paul F. Groucutt said his prayers.
When a second shell came right through the side of the M-10,
the wounded Army private didn't have time to say anything - he bailed out of the burning tank.
It was around Christmas, 1944. Groucutt's platoon, part of ""C'' Company of the 813th Tank Destroyer Battalion,
had just been involved in a heroic battle on the Siegfried battle line in Germany.
When the Germans counterattacked, the 813th, along with the 79th Infantry Division, retreated into France to the Maginot battle line.
It was World War II, and the Sharon, Pa. native's outfit was in the thick of the battle. It was the German offensive that became known as the Battle of the Bulge.
The M-10 tank destroyer is a vehicle that looks like a
tank and carries a gun powerful enough to destroy a tank, but its own armor is much thinner than what a normal tank has.
""We knew the Germans were coming through there (the Maginot line),'' Groucutt
recalled. ""But we had control of the pillboxes.''
Groucutt's platoon of tank destroyers was ordered into position to wait for the attack.
The tank destroyers headed across an open field for what the men
thought were protective ""dugouts.''
""When we got to our position, there were no trenches,'' Groucutt said. ""So we were sitting in an open field like a sitting duck.''
About a
thousand yards ahead, about four or five German tanks were headed for the M-10.
""We started firing at them, but one German tank to our left was hidden from our view,'' Groucutt said.
""The first
shell they fired hit the track and shook the whole tank. I said a Hail Mary and an Our Father.''
The second shell hit the vulnerable spot on the M-10, where the turret joins the body, and blasted right through the
tank.
The tank sergeant, Moe Nelms, who was standing in the rear of the tank next to Groucutt, was hit and fatally wounded. Groucutt was wounded in the thigh and leg.
""It was all chaos inside of there,''
Groucutt said. ""The tank was on fire. I knew I had to get out of there.''
Groucutt jumped out of the welded, makeshift top and rolled over the side the Germans were shooting at.
He doesn't remember
hitting the ground. ""I knew we had the pillboxes, so I started crawling toward them. My leg was hurting and it was bleeding a lot,'' he said.
At one point, he looked back at the burning tank destroyer and
saw two men tumble off the side. Groucutt learned later that both had been killed.
Groucutt finally made it to the pillboxes held by U.S. infantrymen, and was taken with another wounded man to an aid station.
For two weeks, he was listed as missing in action.
The only lead that ""C'' Company had to Groucutt's whereabouts was the tank's radio operator and assistant driver, Joe ""Moon'' Mullins.
Mullins
was the only one from the tank destroyer who escaped without a scratch. He had fled into a wooded area near the battlefield.
In his report to his superiors, Mullins said he last saw Groucutt crawling toward the
pillboxes, with 20mm shells and tracer bullets flying near his head.
When the 813th learned Groucutt was being treated for wounds, he was transferred to a hospital in France, where he spent three and a half months
recuperating.
By the time Groucutt rejoined the 813th in 1945, the war in Europe was nearly over.
Groucutt, then a 19-year-old private, first joined up with the 813th Tank Destroyer Battalion at Bizerte Beach near
Tunisia in 1943 after the battalion had taken part in the campaign against Germany's ""Desert Fox,'' Gen. Erwin Rommel, in North Africa.
After a brief layover in Africa, the 813th moved to southern England
to prepare for the invasion of France. The battalion landed at Utah Beach on June 27, 1944 - D plus 21 days.
The 813th immediately hooked up with the 79th Infantry Division, and the two remained together for most of
the European campaigns, which included Normandy and northern France in 1944, the Rhineland in 1944-45 and Central Europe in 1945.
When Groucutt's battalion joined the Normandy campaign, they knew the job that had to
be done.
""Our job was to keep fighting the Germans and pushing them back,'' Groucutt said.
Groucutt's first shock of the war came when he landed on the beach. ""There were still bodies of
American soldiers lying around, some with bayonets still stuck in them,'' he said.
The 813th was the first armored unit to cross the Seine River, on Aug. 20, 1944. The battalion continued advancing, with a few
detours, to Germany and crossed the Lauter River into Germany on Dec. 16, 1944.
It was three days later, on Dec. 19, that Groucutt's tank destroyer platoon was involved in a pitched battle for pillboxes held by the
Germans.
On the morning of the 19th, the tank destroyers and infantry moved in for the attack.
""About 25 yards in front of the pillboxes, the Germans had rigged barbed wire barricades,'' Groucutt recalls.
""And 25 yards beyond that, they had dug anti-tank ditches so our tanks couldn't get across to support the infantry.''
Bulldozers were used to push dirt in so the tanks could cross the ditch.
The infantry
had already crossed the ditch but was getting hung up on the barbed wire.
Groucutt's job was to load ammunition from the racks inside the tank. The racks held up to 100 shells, about half high-exploding and half
armor-piercing.
The M-10 was equipped with a 76.2mm (3 inch) gun on top and .30 caliber and .50 caliber machine guns, which were mounted inside. The M-10s held a crew of five men, including the driver, the radio
operator and assistant driver, the loader, the gunner and the tank sergeant.
During the battle for the German pillboxes, Groucutt remembers an infantry lieutenant crawling up on the side of their tank to plead for a
favor.
""He was desperate for help and wanted us to move up and crush the barbed wire,'' Groucutt said. ""That would put us directly in the line of fire, only 25 yards from the enemy, but our
sergeant gave the go-ahead,'' he said.
Groucutt's tank destroyer was able to accomplish its mission, crushing the barbed wire so the infantry could take the pillboxes.
During the battle, a German sniper fired a
bazooka shell into the tank, wounding Groucutt for the first time.
""We heard a big bang inside of the tank and found a hole in the side of our makeshift top,'' he said.
Groucutt said they later found the
shell embedded in one of the retractable seats inside of the tank.
""If it would have hit our explosives, I wouldn't be sitting here talking. Just a little lower and it would have blown up the tank.''
Groucutt's crew had another close call when they tried to return across the anti-tank ditch.
""The driver spun the tank around and the track flipped off. We thought we were dead ducks. But then he spun the
tank around again and the track went back on.''
They were able to get back across to an aid station, where Groucutt was treated for shrapnel wounds to his back.
For their courage beyond the call of duty in that
battle, the entire 813th Battalion received the Bronze Star and Groucutt's tank destroyer crew received the Silver Star.
The two men killed later in France, tank Sergeant Moe Nelms and driver Arnold Hyde, received the
awards posthumously.
Groucutt's ""C'' Company, in a single operation, was also credited with knocking out 13 German Mark IV tanks and two Mark V tanks, two half-tracks, two large trucks, one mortar and
killing 80 Germans in a battle near the bloody Parroy Forest at Luneville, France.
Following the war and his discharge as a corporal at Ft. Indiantown Gap, Groucutt married Erie native Theresa Spiesman and graduated
from Gannon College.
Groucutt worked at Hammermill Paper Company for 36 years, retiring in 1985 as a foreman in the paper mill's beater room.
Groucutt and his wife have eight children and 25 grandchildren, and have
lived on Erie's east side for over 45 years.
Since the mid 1960s, Groucutt and his buddies from ""C'' Company of the 813th Tank Destroyer Battalion have gotten together for annual reunions on the Labor Day
weekend.
