John Pfister would serve in the 4th Infantry Division
throughout the war, finishing as a technical sergeant in charge of a heavy weapons platoon. He received the Purple Heart, Silver Star and Bronze Star with three clusters and an arrowhead (for landing on a
beachhead). His European service medal has five campaign stars on it for the five campaigns he took part in -- Normandy, France, Siegfried Line, Ardennes, Germany.
He was interviewed in mid-March 1999 by Bill
Welch and John Williams.
I was conscripted June 21, 1941, before they started the draft.
I was supposed to train for 18 months and then be discharged.
In the meantime, on Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese attacked Pearl
Harbor.
We were coming back from the Carolina maneuvers and we got the news that the Japs had attacked Pearl Harbor and, of course, that canceled all indications that we were going to be out 18 months; now we
were in for the duration. We were in the 4th Infantry Division, the first division to be motorized. We had been training in the States, preparing for different types of operations, like going to the desert
in Africa. We never went there but we were prepared to go there.
We went to Fort Dix for demolition, attacking attack pill boxes. We went to Camp Cara Bell, which is in Florida and had
amphibious training. We kept training our training was over and then we prepared to go again. We had training until we were called.
We were finally sent to England in February 1944. While I England we did
dry runs for the Normandy Invasion two different times at Slapton Sands, the first time without ammunition and the second time with ammunition. We were thinking we were going to hit the beach. After those two
exercises we went to base camp at Seton, which is on the Channel. We were still training. Finally we got the word to go to the staging area, preparing for the invasion. On the way, we saw field after field
after field filled with half tracks, trucks, tanks and howitzers, whatever had to go with the war. We got our final briefing at the staging area on where we would land. We still didn't know when we
would land. It was a secret. We had diffrerent briefings with aerial photos. We were billeted in camouflaged tents.
The 8th Infantry (regiment), which I was part of, was picked to hit the (Utah) beach at 6:30
a.m. on the first day. In June. They didn't say June the 6th, just June.
While in the staging area, the town we were near was strafed while we were there by German aircraft. When the sirens blow and all
that, we all jumped into our slit trenches. Nothing really material happened at the staging area. We weren't allowed to walk in fields. We had to stay on the side and not make any tire marks or footprints on
the terrain.
Come the first day or days of June we went to the port and out to the ship we would be sailing on. From the landing craft we went up the toggle ropes to get on the ship. We stayed on it one or two
days until we got the order to go out. I believe it was June 4 when we started to go towards France. And the Channel was so rough that it was called off and we were called back. Our ship went back to the
same position. We were there not too long. That evening of the 5th we started out again. We had a final meal. We heard from our commander -- Eisenhower. I'm a Catholic. We had Mass that night after we
had our dinner.
Around 1 in the morning on June 6 we were out in the Channel and we got on all our paraphernalia -- which was about 80 pounds. We went down the toggle ropes into the landing craft. They
were going up and down. And here we got all this stuff on. I had a bazooka, five rockets, my own gun and I think I also carried a box of .30 caliber ammunition. At the time, I was gunner or the assistant
gunner of a .30 caliber machine gun that my squad had. We were in a heavy weapons platoon. We were attached to E Company, but we provided support to G and F companies.
We circled around in these landing craft for
hours. The channel being so rough, we got sicker than dogs. We were throwing up on each other ... with all this paraphernalia on. We didn't care how sick we were. We knew we had to go no matter what
happened.
What was on your mind?
I knew we were gonna hit the beach. I'm thinking, John, are you going to live through this?
It was not only if I was going to live, but after the beach, how long would I
last? I was 25. Not only were you going to live but after you hit the beach, how long were you going to last.
We were going in a circle for hours. It was a matter of getting everybody into the water. Then
we got word to line up. In front of us was one line of landing craft. This was probably about 6 o'clock in the morning. F and G companies were in the front line. E was in support. On the way in
we saw all the bombardment of the beach by planes. They were dropping their bombs on the beach. And we saw antiaircraft shooting back at the bombers. The way some of the shows you see, like The Longest
Day, it was as though the Germans didn't know we were coming. They knew we were coming because they wouldn't be shooting at our bombers if they didn't know -- with the bombers dropping their bombs on the beach. There
was wave after wave of bombers dropping their loads on the beach. And some battlewagons were dropping their loads on the beach, too. We crossed the main line of resistance and the action in front
of us, and we could see the pill boxes as we were going in. The initial wave struck exactly at 6:30. And five minutes later the second wave was supposed to land and we landed right on time.
Going in, we
were fired on by artillery. We had a couple of direct hits in our wave. One of the landing craft men from our company was hit and it was sunk. We lost a lot of our personnel. I saw these tanks going in
the water. I never saw them before. And we saw amphibious boatscalled DUKWs. This was all new to us. There were amphibious boats we had never seen at Slapton Sands.
Finally, when we hit the beach, we had
to go through the barriers. Each one had a satchel explosive on it. The landing craft wanted to stay away from them. So when they dropped the ramp in front of us, we were out quite a ways from the
beach. We inflated our Mae Wests and jump out of the landing craft. We didn't know how deep the water was going to be. The water was chest high. But even jumping off in that, I went under at first and was
lucky enough to be able to walk in. It was about 75 to 100 yards before we hit dry land. And there was no where to hide. And I could see machine gun fire on the beach. Right on the beach. It wasn't our
fire. It was the Germans. Finally, we hit the beach. We were told there would be a sea wall. And there was a wall about this (3 feet) high. What kind of a wall was this and they call it a sea
wall. We would see pillboxes about 25 to 50 yards back. The initial wave, which was G and F companies, had already taken prisoners from them. The prisoners they had taken were running on the beach with their
hands up and all in circles. They didn't know what to do. We didn't know what to do with them. We were told to get off the beach. Our first objective was to secure the pillboxes, and then go
forward. There was no sense staying there. They had the beach zeroed in with artillery, mortars and machine guns. So we got past the pillboxes. There was a minefield. It was an inundated area
where they had ditches. Each one was marked "Achtung Minen." There was no sense walking on the high ground next to the ditches.
The ditches were meant to let the water in and flood us. They told us
this in the briefings. But they never had time to fill the ditches with water. So we marched through the ditches. Artillery was hitting sporadically all over. while we went. I was surprised at
how many duds there were. You could hear them hit and not explode. But the Germans were using slave labor to make their ammunition. They didn't care whether they were made right or not.
So we
kept going and going. Our first objective was Ste. Mere-Eglise, about 8 or 9 miles in. We just kept heading in that direction. Before we got there, there were a lot of small towns we had to hit. On the
way in, we didn't run into too many Germans. As we got closer, we started to pick up paratroopers from the 101st and 82nd paratroop divisions. They were glad to join up with us. They were spread out
all over. There were booby traps all over and you had to watch yourself. Finally we took some small towns where we took some small arms fire. In one town, we were shot at by snipers. We were pinned down.
There was one little two story house and it looked like the sniper was firing from the upper story. That's when I fired my first rocket (from a bazooka). We were pinned down at the time ... into this building and made a
direct hit. It went right in the window. It exploded. There was a concussion. There must have been someone in there. I don't know. The fire stopped ... momentarily at least, and we just moved on.
We came on sort of a farmhouse and a barn and we heard something in the barn. To be on the cautious side we fired another bazooka rocket into the barn. It went off. There were no soldiers. It was a
horse. It came out and just took off.
We reached Ste. Mere-Eglise. The paratroops had already taken it. We were told to expect a counterattack. That was about 9 in the evening. They had double daylight savings time
and it didn't get dark until 11 o'clock.
We heard a lot of small arms fire and looked in the air and we saw these big planes. Behind each plane was a rope and on each rope was a glider. There was all kinds of small
arms fire going at the gliders. The Germans were right in our front. We could see the ropes drop and the planes go one way and the gliders the other. The gliders were landing in the hedgerows. We could hear
them crashing and hear the men screaming. The screaming was awful. And we heard small arms fire and anything else going on. That stopped the counterattack as far as we were concerned. But there were many men
killed crashing into the hedgerows.
We advanced east toward Cherbourg. That was our next objective. Along the way, we ran into opposition and had to clear the Germans out of the little hamlets. We went through
one hedgerow after another. We did stop a little while to get a break, but we were attacking all the time. We didn't have too much rest.
Our tanks were coming in. We hated like hell to be near tanks. They
draw fire. If you're near a tank, that is the roughest part of a conflict because there is so much concussion coming in from all the fire being aimed at these tanks. We just wanted to go forward
and get away from these tanks. That made us move faster.
You see pictures of explosives, but when you're right there in the barrages it's just something you want to get away from. When you heard artillery coming in,
you went for any fold in the ground you can get.
On June 10 we were heading for Mountebourg on the way to Cherbourg. We were pinned down by a tank that was in the next hedgerow or one ahead of that.
Anyhow, it was firing point blank, traversing from side to side with its 88 (mm cannon). Somehow that tank was knocked out. We had to have a forward artillery observer with us. He would ask for fire. They
would have the howitzers fire right into the next hedgerow, then they would lift the fire and we'd move into the next hedgerow. And then we'd run into more opposition and run into another tank. That's when I got
hit.
My squad was near one of these ditches. The ditch had been dug out for cattle and in the bottom was water. There was sort of a decline so the animals could drink. All of a sudden -- boom -- there was
a big blast from this tank we ran into. Everything went blank. I got hit and blacked out. Two of my men were killed. This was our first casualty as far as I know.
I was a corporal, a squad leader. We had
six men. We had one machine gun. There were two men on the machine gun, the next two guys had the ammunition and the other two had a box of ammunition plus their own rifles.
I got hit in the shoulder and the
f¥ot. They still had this creeping artillery. I know two of the fellas in my squad were killed. Names? No I don't remember.
The rest of E Company kept following the creeping artillery.
This was an 88, a tank firing into the hedgerows again. They had to keep going. An aid man came to me. He told me to stay here until they get a litter to carry me back to the infirmary. Well, I had to lie
there all night long before anyone came to my assistance. They found me at daybreak and saw I was wounded and took me back. During the night I could hear the artillery going over my head, going in front of
me. So I just stayed along the hedgerows. I got a little sleep; after all, I had been hit in the afternoon and I'm laying along the hedgerows waiting for someone to come for me. When I got to the
infirmary, they had no way of taking care of me. I had shrapnel wounds. They put me on a big flat landing craft boat and sent me back to England, to Southampton. They took care of my shoulder. They never
took an x-ray. My foot wasn't too bad.
(It was 10 years ago that shrapnel was discovered in my back. I was in a car crash. After I got x-rayed, the nurse asked if I had a piece of metal on the
gown. After they checked me over, they found the shrapnel in my back.)
After I was released from the hospital in England, I had to be rehabilitated. Then I was sent back to France. We went to all these
different replacement centers; from one to one to one center after another until I got back to my outfit. It was on July 25, the day of the breakout at St. Lo. On that particular day, we could see wave after wave
of bombers dropping their bombs at St. Lo. It seemed like some of them couldn't get in there fast enough. We were at the replacement center and dug in and we were bouncing on the ground from the concussion
of all the bombs. Finally, when the bombers left I was sent up to join my outfit.
At St. Lo it was back to the same with may same platoon. (That was a relief for Pfister. He wanted to get back to his own
unit, to the men he had trained with and been with for so many months.) I had another machine gun section.
I made sergeant. We kept going. During this time we went from being part of the First Army to
being part of the Third Army under General George Patton. We were going through France pretty fast, on 2-and-a-half-ton trucks. If there was opposition, we would dismount and then get back on.
We got to the
outskirts of Paris on Aug. 23-24. We went through Paris on Aug. 25. We liberated the people of Paris. We went through on the 2 and a half-ton trucks. There wasn't much opposition until the center of the town
and we got snipers shooting at us.
On the way, people were greeting us with flowers and champagne. They were jumping on to the trucks. We finally got to the center of the town after a little opposition. We
were going down one street and you could look over and see lines of our trucks going down the other streets parallel to us. There were so many vehicles so the opposition was knocking off. We got to a big square, a
park. We got out of our vehicles. There was no more firing. The civilians were kept away. We were there two or three hours and then we had to leave. Outside of Paris we really ran into
opposition. It was the rear guard of the Germans that were leaving Paris. After we got started, we just kept on going. We got to Belgium with some opposition all the way.
I was fortunate not to get
hit. One time near Belgium, we were pinned down by a tank about 50 yards to our front. A rifle company was pinned down in front of my squad. I saw a rifleman with a bazooka not doing anything. I took
one of my men from the ammunition detail and said we'll go around the flank and try to get this tank knocked out. I took the rifleman's bazooka and we went off to the flank. The tank was firing at our line
during this time. I fire two rounds from the bazooka into the bogey wheels and put it out of action. The concussion silenced it. Then I took a grenade and threw it inside the turret. We then went
forward.
The company commander saw what we did and put us in for a Silver Star. He got hit later on. We were in another small town. We were dismounted. There was opposition and the Germans were
putting artillery fire down on us. The commander was standing in a doorway and the artillery hit right in front of him and killed him. His name was Lieutenant Fox. I hated to see him go. He was a nice guy.
During this time, our platoon was always attached (to another company) We were never in reserve, always on the go. I was told we had 99 days of continuous front line firing. There were some rests, but we
were never taken off the line.
When we got to the Maginot Line, there was no resistance. We rested up there. Then we went to the Siegfried Line and through it. We were the first division in Germany.
Then we held up to let the flanks catch up. We were there a week or so before we took off again.
We were on a ridge and could see the pillboxes on the next ridge. We had the artillery observers direct fire at
them. We could hear the artillery flying over and see the shells just bounce off the pillboxes.
We finally got relieved. It was the first break for the 4th Division since it hit the beach. We had
been living on nothing but K rations. Sometimes they sent prepared food up to us.
There was no griping. We were there for a purpose. If we could get radishes or carrots or vegetables, there was that kind of
food occasionally. And we would find food in houses or gardens.
We would cut logs and set them up so that we had a shelter like a room that could hold 15 to 20 men. We had the logs overhead because of the tree
bursts from artillery. We'd get shrapnel and wood from it. We would put cover over the slit trenches we dug. I always tried to pair up with little Sgt. Stanley Ball. He was a good digger. He was
my squad leader.
THE HURTGEN FOREST
It was one of the worst times. We were only supposed to have to go 2200 yards. We spent more time there than we did in France. We were losing men.
We went up
this hill. There was barbed wire strung all along it. We were stuck there two or three days before we could advance. The engineers put bangalore torpedoes in it to blow it up so we could get through. Then
there was another line of trees. The Germans were dug in. They fired on us. We sent tanks and the artillery came in on them. They didn't make any headway. We had to go from one line of trees to the next.
That's where we spent Thanksgiving. We didn't get turkey that day. The kitchen sent up turkey that weekend. It strikes my mind that we were set up alongside the road. While we were there, artillery
came in and we huddled in the trench.
Whenever we stopped for the night, we would dig in. We were always on the front line.
One time in the hedgerows we could see firing toward our back in the direction of the
command post. We knew Germans were to our back. But we could hear Germans just in front of us talking. And we hear this firing in the rear. We were dug in. We lobbed grenades over to
the other side of the hedgerow and that stopped the talking. The next morning we went over and here's three or four Germans with their Lugers in hand, spread-eagled. Some of the men wanted the Lugers for
souvenirs. I could care less for another weapon, especially a German one.
In the town where Lt. Fox was killed, we captured a half-track on the edge of a field. In it were some field binoculars. They had two big
glasses on the front and filters of different colors. I was in charge with my squad, so I got them. We kept them in the jeep. We used them many times. When I was sent home, I left them with the next in
command. I got a card after the end of the war from him. He had sold the binoculars for $400. He didn't send me any money or even give his return address.
We were a close outfit. We were like brothers.
Closer than brothers, really. We were together since 1941 -- through all our training and until the war ended. We got a lot of replacements. There weren't too many guys left from the original unit by
the end of the war, except for the guys on the 81-mm mortars. They didn't lose many men because they were farther back from the front lines. Toward March or April, they were giving 30-day leaves home to some of
the men with the longest service. I didn't go on the first leave. Stanley Ball got to go. We were the last two original men in my platoon. And we started with 50 men in the platoon. While Ball was gone, I
turned down a battlefield commission to lieutenant because that would have meant I couldn't get the leave home. Ball never was the same when he came back. He was nervous and jumpy.
And when we were on the
Siegfried Line, we were given three-day passes for Paris. When we had to go back, I was so scared. We were passing through all kinds of stuff coming in on us and I couldn't wait to get to the front line where I
would feel safe. I was so scared of the stuff coming in on us.
THE WORST
The worst action we were in was the Hurtgen Forest ... and the Battle of the Bulge. We were losing men left and right -- sporadically. When we
were advancing, we had a lot of small arms fire coming at us.
Replacements would get there and they would be gone. We tried to educate them, but in any conflict they seem to be the ones to get hit.
In the
Battle of the Bulge we had been off the line at least a week. We were going to be billeted in a barn and had our jeeps and trailers outside. We were unloading them when the rest was called off. And we got
the word, we were taking off; our rest was called off. We got notice to go back to our original position, which we did. We went back to our original position and we held. We had the right flank
(of the Bulge. The 28th was on our left.) We got a lot of fire.
There was one time, our section was taken off the line and we had to go to the flank for action and we got the shit kicked out of us. That
was the week of Christmas. There was snow.
We went left. We were supposed to hit their flank. We were going up a road. My squad lost two men killed and several wounded. I saw the corpse of one
of them lying there. He was Chinese and now he seemed so much more yellow. He was just lying on the road. We were just trying to get back to our original position. It's funny how that sticks with you -- that
sight.
They were dug in and they had thrown artillery at us. It was dropping on the road we were next to. That was what was hurting us. They had that road zeroed in. We had to withdraw. We
didn't have the manpower to try again so we had to go back to our original position. We made no frontal attacks during the Battle of the Bulge. They were hitting our (dug-in) position with artillery (but no front
attacks were made.)
We were together four years. I belong to the 4th Infantry Division Association. When we're at reunions, we contact the fellas that were actually in your company. It's great. It's
like going on vacation and seeing your brother who was out of town. The camaraderie ... is unbelievable.
One of the fellas in my company -- Howard Friel -- received a battlefield commission. Howard
and I were in together from Day One until he went to another platoon after accepting his battlefield commission. Every D-Day without fail he gets on that phone. We talk for at least an hour, just catching up and
reminiscing. He made a lot of money after the war in the coal mines. At the 25th anniversary, he says "John we got to go back." Much as I want to that would do me no good,
to go back to Normandy to visit what I went through. And I have a wife and three beautiful daughters. I'm not going to leave them. He offered to pay my way, but I wouldn't go. But he went back.
He was one of my best friends. He said to me one time , 'John, I want to put in for the Medal of Honor. I know what you went through. I know how you were up there every day, how you were on the front
line. I think you should have the Medal of Honor. I said, 'Howard, there's no sense doing that. ....
I just wanted to get the war over with and get back home. I know ... I know I did my duty.' I felt that I
couldn't wait to get the damn war over with, to get back to my wife. We had been married a year after I got in the service.
He said, 'John you were always up there.' He said, 'whenever you had to do something, you did
it.' I did it without thinking. It was one of those unconscious things.
I made tech sergeant and was acting platoon leader the last two months of the war. Lieutenants were going through all the time. They
didn't last too long. They were always getting hit or something. My boys stayed with me all the time.
My men were good. I never had trouble with them. Except this one smartass. We were billeted in a town.
I gave him an order or something and he said 'No I'm not.' and I said 'Yes you are.' He as much as said he was going to knock the shit out of me. I said, 'You know what will happen if you hit a
noncom.' He said, 'I don't give a shit.' He invited me outside and we went. He took a swing and then I just knocked the shit out of him. I'm not bragging. He didn't want to do what I asked him to do.
The next day he wasn't with us. I don't know what happened. I don't know if he went AWOL or not. You see, when something has to be done, I just DO something. I'm very aggressive. That's what happened with him. I just
went right into him.
We were going through France. And when you go through the towns, you look for what you could pick up. In this warehouse we found a stash of champagne. I'm talking cases and cases of
it. The bottles had the straw wrapped around them. My squad, we saw this champagne and we loaded up six to eight cases in the jeep and put our ammunition on top. We were going across France so damn fast,
every now and then one of the guys would go to the jeep trailer and pop a bottle. In once place we had a kitchen set up and we were there for a rest. They got a hold of the champagne. And I drank with
them. It was time for us to go to chow and I had to go through the chow line and I was so pissy-ass drunk. The first sergeant says, "Pfister what the hell's wrong with you. You don't need something to
eat. He said, take him back to his billet and let him sleep it off. He's in no condition to eat." They took me back to the billet so the men couldn't see me. Things like this happen.
Whenever
we ran into SS, we knew we were up against a lot of opposition. Onn time, we marched all night long to get up to wherever we were gonna go. It was raining, but the moon was in and out. We were going to
attack first thing in the morning. We got outside of this town. Our rifle company got in position. We went to all these houses and when we got the word we were supposed to break in. They were all
asleep. They were SS troops and they had no security. We surprised them. We took this town. There wasn't much action. We caught them all the SS in bed. They were not happy. They were sullen. There was
a big Nazi flag hanging from their pole. I got the flag. That flag is bigger than the top of this desk. I still have the flag to this day.
One thing the SS would do, they would fight you and then when they left, they
would leave behind Wehrmacht soldiers -- the old men. It was nothing to take them as prisoners because they wanted to give up, really.
Postwar recognition
After the war, I got a notice from the recruiting
office that Sgt. John Pfister had another medal to receive, another cluster for my Bronze star. (I got a Purple Heart, a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with three clusters and an arrowhead. I have a European
medal with five campaigns.) They were going to give it at a parade. After the parade was over, I received it at the Perry Square park reviewing stand from Col. Francis Gabreski, the war ace from Oil City.
LOIS
When I was conscripted in 1941, I worked for Zink Cleaners at 6th and French. I was dating Lois Hull. I had given her an engagement ring.
We got married right right after our unit finished its training at
Fort Benning. We were married May 19, 1942. I had a five-day furlough and came home to Erie to be married. After the furlough, the division went to Camp Gordon, Ga.
We communicated every day. My wife wrote a
letter every day. When I was able to write and had the time, I'd answer each letter. When I was on the front line, I didn't always have time and she knew that. I had to watch what I wrote.
(because of the censorship). Sometimes she would get a V-mail and it would be all scratched out. Were the letters important? Oh God ...
I would get her letters in a stack -- 5-6-10 letters at a time. It
was tough.
I would make sure to read them in order.
When Lois got the notice that I was wounded, she didn't know what to do. It said I was missing, actually. After I got back to England, I wrote
her and told her I was OK. Then I had to tell her I had to go back into action .... Heh heh.
D-Day. She knew that I was there. She said she could feel it. (There was no way of knowing, but she
felt it. She knew.)
All this stuff is in my mind. I can wake up at night and put myself in a foxhole or someplace in Germany and France and BE there -- in Germany or France. So what I'm telling you
here is not a crock.
This is real. There are guys who will tell you things they read in books. A lot of things happen that you forget. Things happen so fast. You keep going and going . You don't know
where you're going to be the next day. You don't know what's going to happen. You pray. But I'm still here today.
After the war, we had three girls -- Jacqueline, Martha and Barbara. We have
seven grandchildren.
(John went back to worked for Zink as a driver. Not long after, he was selling for H.G. Hull, then Carl E. Schultz and later Spaulding Tobacco of Meadville. It had an Erie office
at E. 10th near Holland. He was with them for 30 years.
He has been a stamp collector and is now the president of the Erie Stamp Club.)
Camp Cara Bell
Camp Cara Bell on the west coast of Florida.
That was one of the worst camps we were in. The (amphibious) training was intense. It was a hell hole. It had Quonset huts with bunks in double tiers. They were just made of two-by-fours. The
mattresses were just this thick (about 3-4 inches.) The floors were sand. We got water from pipes that ran along the wall with spigots every few feet. And they told us to watch out for these little
snakes. They said they were poisonous.
THE COLD
The coldest was during the Battle of the Bulge. Most of the time we would sleep in our slit trenches. We would get in our slit trench -- any fold in the
ground -- and put something over our head. You'll dig it as much as you can, but you don't have to go as deep.
If you had the slit trench covered and you're in the slit trench with another person. The body heat
would keep you from freezing. Talking about freezing, I always had two pair of socks tucked inside my belt next to my body. Every night without fail I would change my socks and put the dry ones on and get
the wet ones off. They might have stunk a little, but I never had frostbite or trench foot, too. In the winter, when it was cold, they issued us a new boot that had a lining in it that absorbed moisture and
made the socks wet. That's why you had to change your socks all the time. Whenever we were in a rest area, they would always issue us new socks.
Personal hygiene was number one on my list. Just the other
night, my wife asked me if I ever raised a beard when I was in the service. I don't ever remember raising one. Or letting my hair grow. Every chance we got, we would shave and try to keep ourselves clean.
The guys in my outfit were pretty well disciplined. I'm talking about my company, my squad, my platoon. We kept as clean as we could. We always made sure we carried K-rations, too. I always carried two
K-rations in the chest pocket of my jacket and two in the side pockets.
There were advantages to that. We were advancing. One time, artillery was coming in. I was in a fold or something. I got hit. I was
down on the ground and all of a sudden I felt the impact on my right hip. "Oh my god, I'm hit!" I thought. I pulled a can of Nescafe out of my pocket that my wife had sent me. It
was the kind you open with a key. This piece of shrapnel had hit the can on the ridge along the top. I kept that piece the longest time. I can't find it now.
One time in a barrage of mortars, you
would hear the 'ping ping ping' of the mortars. We were going through big, tall pine trees and hear these mortars taking off and think "Oh Christ, here they come!"
Thomp. They'd hit in the trees, then in the ground.
One man in my section was in a fold, spread-eagled, his arms in front of him. A 60mm shell hits right between his arms. It was a dud. He got
up and he starts running around. He was like a mad man.
In a barrage like that, they go straight up and you don't hear until boom boom boom. The ground is shaking. Then you check and
you're still here.
When they're coming at you, you look for any fold in the ground. It's an experience you don't forget.
But I did my duty.
