5. Wounded, Captured

I WAS ORDERED to go down the hill, to the edge of the brushy valley. It was my duty to spy on the Germans, find out what they were doing and report back to our officer whatever I was able to find out. I crawled down the hill to find a place of concealment but after doing so found the brush to be so dense, it was impossible to see through. Crawling back up the hill, I reported this to the Lieutenant, telling him I could see more from there than from below. We could see that the Germans were getting ready to counterattack. It was this excitement I suppose that caused the officers to draw their .45’s and order me back down the hill as fast as I could go.

I was angry and disgusted. I was being sent out to be shot down as the Germans were obviously ready to come at any moment. I was carrying all the ammo for the machine gun. Ryan was back on the hill behind his empty gun. Flinging myself down the hill, I had no fears of being shot as I figured it was only a matter of time anyhow. However, before I had gone very far the Germans began making it pretty hot for me with rifle bullets. Man’s sense of self-preservation won out over my anger and I dropped to the ground and crawled the rest of the way. That I am alive today is most surely the direct result of my being sent back to that valley.

About halfway down the hill the Germans had dug a hole for a machine gun which they had used against us in their retreat. I was crawling toward this when a German airplane flew directly over me, very close to the ground. The pilot threw out a red flare which began to float slowly down. The pilot then flew quickly away. He had marked the place for the artillery to drop their first shells, then sweep on up the hill. Just as I reached the hole the shelling started. The Germans were coming.

I dived into the hole just as a shell from the German barrage lit close to the edge of it. This shell just happened to fall a little short of the rest as all the rest had gone over my head. I could see them moving up the hill where my buddies were. I was sick at heart as I realized what their fate was so soon to be. Every foot of that hill was literally being blown to bits.

The force of the explosion knocked me unconscious. I neither saw nor hear anything for a time. How long it had been I did not know. The first realization I had of approaching consciousness was my aching body which was twisted crooked in the bottom of this hole. With head back and face toward the sky, the first thing I saw was a sky full of planes, Germans and Allies. A terrible battle was being staged up there. Every few seconds a plane would fall and come hurtling down in flames. There was no possible chance of escape for the pilots trapped in those twisting infernos.

I sat watching this fascinating exhibition until awareness of my position finally penetrated my befuddled mind. Then I looked around for my rifle. It was standing in the corner of the little two-by-three hole. I grabbed it and peeped over the top. There, about 50 yards in front of me, was the German army coming toward me.

I raised my rifle and fired. As one man they dropped to the ground. Each time they would rise, I would fire again. I held the line here for three or four minutes. They did not know but what I had a machine gun, and were not sure of my exact position. They were playing it safe by waiting for their soldiers on the right or left to get around behind me. I said a prayer that some of our boys would at least be helped to get away by this short delay.

Then I remembered I still carried the ammo for the machine gun. This, I knew, was badly needed by our gunner. I could not be captured or killed. Not yet. I crawled from the hole and started as fast as I could to get back where I belonged by the side of the gunner. There were two German scouts about 25 yards to my left unnoticed by me until they shouted at me to halt.

I kept going. I reached our lines where our boys had been, but now there was nobody but the dead. Again came the command to halt. My only thought then was to get over that hill. I took one look back and saw both scouts taking aim with their rifles. Zig-zagging up the hill, I must have zigged and zagged both at the wrong time.

One of the bullets hit me in the shoulder, the other in the right hand. The bullet through my shoulder sent me sprawling to the ground, throwing me on the shoulder that had been hit. Trying to crawl, I found that the bullet must have severed the nerve chords as my left arm was paralyzed and useless.

I crawled a few feet this way but the German infantry was gaining quickly on me.

When they saw I was crawling they started shooting. Being the only moving target on that hill I was drawing fire from all directions. Bullets were kicking up dirt in my face and eyes and tearing through my uniform. Dropping my rifle I got to my feet and tried to run. By this time I was getting weak from loss of blood. Only a few feet more and I would be over the hill.

Miraculously, I made it over the hill. There I heard one of our boys calling for help. His voice kept getting weaker, then died out altogether. I knew he was beyond help. Going down the other side of the hill one of my leggings came loose, wound around my legs and threw me. I had to unwind and take it off. A few more steps and the other one did the same thing. I was afraid the Germans would gain the top of the hill before I could get into the woods. This was the same woods we had fought our way through that very morning.

I had to cross a valley to reach a little road that led into the woods. In this strange country I did not know which way to go to escape. Following the trail of bodies, of dead American soldiers, was the only way I knew. My run had slowed to a feeble walk. I could hardly drag one foot past the other. By the time I reached the road I was going around the bodies - too weak to step over them. As I wound my staggery way through these torn and twisted bodies the Germans were covering the road and valley with machine gun fire. Bullets were flying thick and fast around me, mowing down small trees and saplings. It was another miracle that I made it up that road through that hail of lead without being riddled.

Reaching a turn in the road beyond which enemy bullets could not reach I saw a lad sitting there amongst the dead soldiers. I asked him if he was hit but he said no, just resting. Then I saw others, some machine gunners who had used all their ammo and were arguing the question of which way to go to get back to our lines. When I joined them, Private John Tuttle asked me what I had been doing up there so long, the others had been gone for 15 minutes. He had just loaded his machine gun with the last of his ammo and was just ready to press the trigger when I stepped into the line of fire as I came down the hill. One second more and I would have died at the hand of our own gunners. It made him sick to think how near he had come to killing me. He had swung his gun to a different position and did not see me again until I joined them. He had been praying all the time that I would make it and wondering if I had until he saw me coming and came to meet me.

One of our boys took up the lead. I brought up the rear as we started back to our lines. We had not gone far, following a little path marching in single file when suddenly the line stopped. The boys all raised their hands above their heads. The lad in the leadcalled "Put up your hands, fellows. It’s all off. They got us!"

For us the war was over. We had been captured. The Germans crowded around, guns and bayonets leveled at us. They asked if we were English. Being told we were Americans they set their rifles on the ground and began to question us. Their black bread was quickly traded for raincoats some of our boys had.

Four or five of the Germans still had their rifles pointed toward me. One of our boys told me they wanted me to raise both my hands. As I only had one hand raised they thought the other might be concealing a grenade. After I told them I could not raise it - that I had been wounded - they looked at my shoulder, expressed their concern and had one of our boys bandage it. This was done by Roy Cannon, a boy from New York. Then they detailed a guard to take us to their Headquarters. It was then I saw the damage we had been doing. There were dead Germans lying thick for a mile, it seemed to me.

We were met by more German troops, some of them were coming into the timber carrying stretchers. There was something heavy on them but they were going the wrong way to be carrying their wounded. It was machine guns they had on their stretchers, covered over with blankets. We were not supposed to fire on stretcher bearers, and they used this means to get their machine guns up in position without interference.

We finally reached the road and it was here that I could keep up no longer. There was a guard in front of us and one behind us. I was about to give up when John Tuttle came back to me and said "Buddy, you get in front of me. If that Hun sticks anybody with his bayonet let him stick me. You’ve had about all you can take." Without his help I would have ended there.

The guards halted us after a while. The one walking behind us proved to be mighty nice fellow. He walked over to one of their kitchens by the side of the road and came back with his canteen. It was filled with hot barley tea laced with whiskey. He handed it to me to drink. I took a couple of swallows and then handed it to him. He pushed it back for me to drink it all. I drank most of it, then gave the rest to Tuttle. Talk about a bracer. When we started out again I could hardly keep off the heels of the fellow in front of me. In return for this kindness, I gave the guard two packs of Bull Durham, of which I had several. He seemed very grateful.

These Germans who captured us were fine fellows. They treated us as well as circumstances would permit, which was far better than we had expected to be treated. I have since wished I could meet the German who gave me the bracer of liquor and barley tea.

After marching for some time, we were finally halted before a building somewhere in the Alsace-Lorraine region. This proved to be German Headquarters. They told us we could lie down. This we promptly did on a brick sidewalk covered with frost. Exhaustion brought immediate sleep. I was awakened by a not ungentle kick. A German asked "Are you the wounded man?" I answered, "Yes, sir." "Well, you better come inside," he said, "and lie down by the fire. It’ll be a little more comfortable." I followed him inside where I lay down on the floor and slept till morning.

In the morning we were taken further into German territory. We were getting awfully hungry but marched all that day without food. That night we got a drink ( water, the first drink I had from the morning of the 8th till the night of the 10th, with only the barley tea on the night of the 9th. About 11 o’clock on the 11th we got a bowl of soup from the Germans - 60 hours between meals, with only two drinks during the same period. Since we had been on short rations for quite a while before this we were in no condition for further fasting. This, along with the forced marching of that day and most of the night, left us on the verge of complete exhaustion. I was freezing cold and weak from loss of blood. It was a blessed relief when we were finally corralled in Montmeedy fortress where we were to stay for a couple of weeks.

Here, we were fed three meals a day. For breakfast we were served a thick slice black bread with a bowl of barley tea. For dinner we had only a bowl of soup. This soup consisted of outside cabbage leaves, horse meat - which there was very little of - barley and field beets. This soup had the same effect as would a dose of salts. For supper we had a thick slice of black bread and a bowl of barley tea. By the end of these two weeks we were all considerably underweight. My legs were so thin I was almost afraid to stand for fear they would break.

During our stay in Mountmeedy we slept on straw ticks filled with wood shavings, body lice and trained fleas. These fleas were trained only to bite. My wound became a festering sore, the hole in my shoulder kept well-filled with lice. My blouse, shirt and undershirt were matted and stiff with dried blood and the corruption that constantly flowed from my wounded shoulder. I had also received a dose of mustard gas which, at first, broke out in yellow blisters but now had formed solid sores on my hands, wrists, and other exposed places on my body. My clothing being torn in so many places allowed the gas many targets. I was also having terrible cramps in my stomach. This also was caused by the mustard gas, I was told by the German doctors,

We were lined up one day and interviewed by a German dressed in civilian clothes. He then pointed me out and told me to follow him. We had heard so much about these ‘’German cannibals" and their "barbarous ways" that I expected almost to be put in a pot to boil, have my ears trimmed off, or some other torture performed on me. Instead I was led up some flights of stairs and told to have a chair. This German civilian was a shrewd man and talked like an American.

"What outfit do you belong to?" he began the questions. "I don’t know," I answered, "I just joined that outfit a couple hours before I was captured, and didn’t know any of the men or officers."

He wanted to know when we left the States, when we landed in France but I said nothing. He sat there and looked at me a little while. Then he took out his cigarette case, passed it to me, and took one out for himself. After he lit mine, then his own, he laughed and said "You’re a pretty good soldier." He then answered all of the questions he had asked me. I told him he knew a lot more about the U.S. Army, even my own outfit, than I did. He shook hands with me, then sent me back to where the rest of our boys were.

At the end of our two-weeks stay at Montmeedy we were put on passenger trains, under guard, enroute to Germany. The only time the guard spoke to us was when we crossed the Rhine River, pointing at the river and repeating "Rhine, Rhine," two or three times, then closing up like a clam. Now we were in Germany, headed for Rostatt and the concentration camp for prisoners. On arrival at the camp we were greeted by other American prisoners who had been there for some time and who had already become accustomed to a soldier’s life under the iron hand of Germany.

We were given a general overhauling. Our heads were shaved, all superfluous hair being removed by a liquid paste. This was followed by a shower bath of just the right temperature and a new issue a clothing. Prison numbers were given us, bunks of wood shavings assigned and we were born again. This being my first bath for about two months, it left my skin quite tender.

The next morning we had to laugh at each other. We all looked as though we had contracted measles. The inescapable fleas had spent the night investigating our clean skin. We were rid of the lice but the fleas were there to stay.

Sergeant Halliburton had taken charge of the boys in the prison camp. At times it seemed he had taken charge of the Germans also as he gave them as many orders as he took from them. He was doing a mighty good job of running the place. Our medics had their own infirmary under his supervision. Our wounds responded very rapidly to their treatment and care, considering their limited supply of medicine and paper bandages. They doctored me with every kind of medicine available for my stomach cramps. They finally got it in fair enough shape so that the cramps were not quite so frequent.

We were issued a box of rations every two weeks by our Red ross. These rations consisted of canned beans, tomatoes, salmon, sardines, navine beans and salt bacon. There was enough good food to last from one issue to the next. We had been told by the boys already there to take all the food the Germans offered us and get rid of it somehow. This way we would still be doing our bit to help win the war. The Germans were very short of food and would have to surrender when what they had was gone.

This food from the Red Cross was the best food we had eaten since we began soldiering at the front. Once, while in the trenches, I lost one of the best cooking and largest feeds I had while in there. A French mortar fell, blowing up the trench, food and all. Since that was our allowance, there was no more coming.

All in all life in the prison camp was a dull and monotonous one, just helplessly waiting for the war to end.

Continue to Chapter 6

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