Moon Above, Moon Below

by William Peter Grasso

  Wood noticed the wings on Tommy Moon’s chest. “You must be our ASO, Lieutenant. What’s your name, son?”

  After Tommy introduced himself, the general continued, “Do we have you to thank for that brilliant air support this morning, Lieutenant Moon?”

  “Well…I suppose so, sir. But I had a lot of help.”

  Wood gave an amused laugh. “Now isn’t this something…we’ve got ourselves a humble flyboy here. Didn’t reckon we’d be seeing the likes of you when your General Quesada agreed to put his boys down here in the dirt with us dogfaces. What made you so lucky to be the first one, Lieutenant?”

  When Tommy related the story of how he’d become ASO, Wood roared with laughter. “Wrong place at the wrong time, eh, Lieutenant? Well, it’s good to have you, anyway. Now why don’t you and my cannon-cocker here”—he nodded to Lieutenant Baxter, the artillery FO—“fill me in on exactly how you marked those Kraut guns so your P-47s could find them so easy in that damn forest.”

  Tommy had heard some stories about General Wood in the little time he’d spent with his brother. He knew he was an artilleryman from way back, so there was no need to spoon-feed him the technical details. When the explanation was done, the general said, “So, when we’re talking target acquisition for you high-speed aviators, drawing a line of approach way up in the air beats a li’l ol’ pinpoint on the ground any day? Especially a pinpoint you probably can’t even see?”

  “That’s it in a nutshell, sir.”

  “Well done, gentlemen,” the general said. “You know, I saw those willy peters popping up high but I didn’t know exactly what y’all were up to. Excellent work. We’re going to make that method SOP around here right quick. And it’s going to need a name. Let’s call it goal posts.”

  Wood told DeLuca, the M10’s radio operator, to tune into the division command net. “Gotta pick up my mail, boys. General Patton expects very timely replies.”

  By the time General Wood was off the radio, a rain cold for August was drenching the column, but it hadn’t seemed to dampen the general’s spirits a bit. “I tell you,” he began, “ol’ Blood and Guts Patton is fit to be tied right now. He found out why Montgomery refused General Bradley’s request that we be allowed to advance beyond Argentan. Turns out he considers us Yanks untested in battle. Says he’s afraid we’ll get our necks broken if we try and push the Germans too hard. Can y’all believe that shit? Like we ain’t been kicking Kraut ass left and right since we got off the boat at Normandy. Untested, my sweet ass. Hell, the only test that stick-up-his-ass Limey ever passed was the one for how long you can wait before you get off your ass and actually do something.”

  Barely visible through the murky translucence, a high ridge line loomed a few miles ahead, dominating the road. “I don’t like the looks of that ridge,” General Wood said. “An artillery observer up there could see halfway to Spain on a good day. He can sure as hell see us even in this pea soup.” He asked Baxter, “Lieutenant, do you have that ridge plotted for fires?”

  “Affirmative, sir…and the valley behind it, too.”

  “Good,” the general replied. “Captain Newcomb, let’s remount the infantry and pick up the pace. Let’s make ourselves as fast-moving a target as we can.”

  In the lead tank, Sean Moon had his eyes glued to the ridge line, too. The tense voice of Fabiano, his gunner, blared in his headset: “Hey, Sarge…you think they got eighty-eights up there?”

  “No…they don’t want to be shooting down on us. Better odds of a hit if they shoot level.”

  Sean’s head and torso were out of the hatch, straining to see through binoculars a tell-tale glimpse of anything that might indicate an observation post: an antenna, a poorly concealed vehicle, a human form; anything that didn’t match the scrub and small, sparse trees of the ridge. It didn’t help that he had to stop and wipe dry the binoculars’ lenses every few seconds.

  Where would I be if I were him? I’d try to be on the front face, near the peak, so I wouldn’t get silhouetted against the sky. But gray as everything is right now, the sky’s almost as dark as the ground. Not much to be silhouetted against.

  Over the mechanical growls and squeals of the Sherman came a sharp THUD nearly masked in a rumble of thunder. And then another, unmasked this time, unmistakable: Artillery!

  Behind his tank, the field just north of the highway was being churned by geysers of dirt and mud flung upward with each round’s impact. Captain Newcomb’s voice, taut like steel wire, was in his headphones, ordering, “Keep moving. Keep it moving. Don’t stop.”

  Even on this relatively smooth road, at top speed, the Sherman pitched like a ship in a stormy sea. A crewman who didn’t brace himself would be viciously bounced around her cramped interior mercilessly; he’d be bloody and bruised in no time.

  The artillery impacts shifted to the south side of the highway. We’re getting bracketed, Sean told himself. That fucking observer’s got to be up there somewhere…

  But trying to get a steady view through binoculars in a speeding, lurching tank was almost impossible. He’d already smacked himself soundly in the face with the eyepieces twice.

  At the Sherman’s top speed of 25 miles per hour, they were closing fast on where the ridgeline closely paralleled the highway. A bolt of lightning backlit the ridge, seeming to linger as if a gift from the gods of weather, allowing Sean a glimpse of what he’d been searching for:

  Right there! Can’t mistake that shape. It’s one of them Kübelwagen things.

  Kübelwagen: a German “jeep.”

  Stupid bastard’s sitting right on the ridge line. If it hadn’t been for that lightning, though, I still wouldn’t have seen him.

  “Pull off to the left and stop,” he commanded his driver.

  “Why, Sarge? Ain’t we in an artillery ambush?”

  “I said stop the fucking tank, numbnuts. Right fucking now.”

  As the Sherman lurched to a halt, Sean reached down into the turret, grabbed Fabiano by his collar and pulled his head up through the hatch. “What the fuck are you doing, Sarge? You trying to get us all fucking killed?”

  “No, asshole. Follow my target line.” He held his arm out next to the gunner’s head, his finger pointing to the spot on the ridge where the German observation post was. “That’s where the fucker’s at. Target further identified by the little break in the treeline. Sight in on that and blow his ass up before he brackets us in.”

  “But that’s at least a thousand yards away, Sarge.”

  Sean pushed Fabiano’s head back down into the turret. “So what? We ain’t trying to kill a panzer here, just make a few Jerries wet their pants and run away. Hurry the fuck up before the rest of the column runs over us.”

  The Sherman’s gun roared. The round struck the face of the ridge a little more than halfway to the crest.

  “All right,” Sean told Fabiano, “so maybe it’s a little farther. Give it twelve hundred.”

  Captain Newcomb’s voice blared in Sean’s headset. “What are you shooting at, Moon?”

  “We spotted the Kraut FO up on the ridge, sir.”

  “Can you handle it alone?”

  “Affirmative, sir.”

  The third volley of German artillery slammed down, very close to the road this time. None of the speeding American vehicles were hit.

  Fabiano fired again. This round seemed to hit right at the crest of the ridge. When the smoke and dust cleared, the kübelwagen was nowhere to be seen.

  If there was going to be another volley, it would hit in about 20 seconds.

  But that time came and passed. Newcomb ordered the M10 to pull off the road. As it did, General Wood stood tall on its deck, waving his arms in emphatic hand signals for the rest of the column to keep moving.

  Lieutenant Baxter jumped from the M10 and ran to inspect a crater made by a German shell. He was back in the turret in less than a minute with a jagged shell fragment in his hand. “Just like I thought,” Baxter said. “The trajectory of those rounds is almost stra
ight down. The impact marks are nearly round. I’m guessing those guns are probably right on the backside of that ridge.”

  “Sounds like a good bet,” Newcomb replied. He pointed to the shell fragment and asked, “Got a piece of the rotating band there?”

  “Yeah. I can’t tell the exact caliber…but I’m pretty sure it’s not from an eighty-eight.”

  “That’s good news,” General Wood said. “Let’s high-tail it up to the front of your column, Captain. I want to meet that eagle-eyed tanker of yours who spotted that FO. And while we’re up there, maybe we locate that Kraut battery and take it out.”

  The German artillery battery was right where Lieutenant Baxter suspected it would be, on the backslope of the ridge line. With the American tanks blocking the highway—the only escape route—the Germans had no choice but to stand and fight. It was a losing gamble, over all too quickly. After the tanks destroyed several howitzers with direct hits and airbursts from Baxter’s artillery decimated their exposed ranks from above, the survivors threw up their hands, shouting Kamerad! as they surrendered.

  A dozen or more bewildered dray horses wandered the smoking ground that only a few minutes ago had been a killing field. The GIs had seen such a sight before but still had trouble comprehending it. General Wood summed it up best: “It’s mind boggling, boys, that a technologically advanced army like the Wehrmacht is still largely horse-drawn. Those Kraut bastards might’ve been told they were fighting a delaying action, but it was no more than a suicide mission for them. It’s those poor dumb animals I really feel sorry for, though. Oh well…evacuate the healthy ones to the rear with the prisoners. Shoot any horses you find wounded…and make it quick, for their sake.”

  Wood gathered his battalion commanders from the leading elements. “Gentlemen,” he told them, “we’re two miles outside of Alençon and we’re losing daylight. We’re not going to enter the town until sunrise tomorrow. My G2 tells me there may be up to a regiment of Jerries there, with armor. Now I want to keep the house-to-house fighting to a minimum, for our sake and the sake of the townspeople. But I also want to keep that regiment—if they’re still there—from escaping our grasp and living to fight another day.” He unfurled a map on the hood of a jeep. “I want the Thirty-Seventh Tank to bypass Alençon under cover of darkness and form a cordon here, on the north side of town. A battalion from Fifty-Third Infantry will accompany the tanks. The terrain west of town should be quite suitable for overland movement by tracks, even at night. Any Krauts who try to duck out the back door, you take them out of the fight for good.”

  General Wood paused, fixated on the map as if it was still hiding some secret he desperately needed to know. Then he shook his head and said, “Dammit. Not even two full days on this road and between a few little delaying actions by the Krauts and the goddamn Free French in our way, we’re already a half day behind schedule…plus we’re down seven Shermans.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  12TH ARMY GROUP COMMUNIQUE

  FROM:

  BRADLEY--COMMANDER, 12TH ARMY GROUP

  DATE--TIME OF ORIGIN:

  11 AUG 44/2100 HRS

  TO:

  MONTGOMERY--COMMANDER, ALLIED GROUND FORCES

  COPY (FOR INFO):

  SHAEF (EISENHOWER); HODGES--1ST ARMY; PATTON--3RD ARMY; QUESADA--IX TAC; WEYLAND--XIX TAC

  ALL UNITS OF THIS COMMAND ARE ADVANCING AHEAD OF SCHEDULE TOWARD FLERS-ARGENTAN “HOLD LINE,” DESPITE SIGNIFICANT DELAYING TACTICS BY ELEMENTS OF GERMAN 7TH ARMY. ANTICIPATE ARRIVAL AT “HOLD LINE” WITHIN TWO DAYS (13 AUG). IF 21ST ARMY GROUP NOT IN A POSITION TO MEET US THERE ON THAT DATE, DOES IT NOT MAKE MORE SENSE TO ALLOW 12TH ARMY GROUP TO CONTINUE ADVANCING NORTHWARD UNTIL FALAISE-ARGENTAN “POCKET” IS CLOSED? THIRD ARMY IN PARTICULARLY GOOD POSITION TO SEAL ANY FURTHER GERMAN RETREAT EASTWARD IF ALLOWED TO ADVANCE BEYOND “HOLD LINE.”

  SIGNED,

  BRADLEY

  Chapter Sixteen

  The storm was long passed, leaving in its wake a night sky clear and ablaze with stars. Lying on the hull of his brother’s dormant tank, Tommy Moon had given up trying to count those stars. He’d given up on a few other things, too, since the sun went down, like trying to catch a nap, something the tankers didn’t seem to have any problem taking turns doing. Or wondering whether he’d ever get back into a jug’s cockpit. He checked his watch; it read 0005—five minutes past midnight. His third day with 4th Armored had just begun:

  And only God knows how many days to go. It feels like I’ve been here for a year already. Did the Air Force forget all about me? It’s funny—when I was a kid, being around my big brother made me feel safe. But here…

  Sean’s head popped from the turret hatch. “Hey, Half,” he called out in a muted voice, “you awake?”

  “I am now.”

  “Ahh, don’t bullshit a bullshitter. I’ve been watching. You ain’t caught a wink. What’s the matter? You nervous or something?”

  “Fuck, yeah, I’m nervous. Aren’t you?”

  He climbed down from the turret and crouched next to his little brother. “No, Half, I ain’t nervous. Just alert.” He offered a chunk of D bar. “You want some?”

  With a snap that sounded thunderous in the stillness of night, Tommy broke off a piece and popped it into his mouth. He wasn’t expecting the bitterness of the chocolate. His face looked like he was sucking lemons.

  Sean chuckled. “Creature comforts got you by the ass, flyboy. But you get used to the taste of this shit. Eventually. And it’ll keep you moving.”

  Tommy sat up and scanned the velvet darkness of moonlit French countryside all around them. He knew where they were supposed to be on the map but had no clue if they were actually there.

  “How do you guys know you’re in the right place, Sean?”

  “You saw how it works. The captain goes off with the infantry and does his little recon, then he sends guides back to lead us into the positions he wants.”

  “Yeah, I know all that, Sean. I was here, remember? But really, how the hell do you know where you are when you have to go overland in pitch darkness to get there?”

  “Just follow the lines on the map, little brother. Just follow the lines.”

  “I don’t know, Sean…I might have been born at night but I wasn’t born last night. Lines on a map are one thing, but there aren’t any damn lines on the ground. Sounds like a big crapshoot to me.”

  “Ain’t everything, Half?”

  “Gee, aren’t you the fucking philosopher all of a sudden. But tell me—do you guys fight at night a lot?”

  “When we have to, Tommy. Only when we have to.”

  “I’ll bet it gets pretty crazy—a night fight, I mean. Seems like the odds of killing friendlies are pretty damn high.”

  “Brother, you got no fucking idea.”

  “Actually, I do, Sean. It’s pretty easy to accidentally kill friendlies from the air, too. Even in broad daylight.”

  Sean gave him a surprised look. “You ever done it?”

  “Maybe. I’m not really sure.”

  With a bemused smile on his face, Sean said, “You pilots get away with fucking murder. Like those assholes who bombed the shit out of Thirtieth Division…even killed a general, I hear. I bet they’re all swigging Guinness in some English pub right fucking now, with their hands up some barmaid’s skirt and not a care in the world. When us ground pounders kill a friendly by accident, though, you better believe somebody’s gonna swing for it.”

  “Oh, bullshit, Crunch. How about…”

  But he stopped himself. He’d spat the nickname Crunch with all the derisiveness he could summon—his Irish was up, as they’d say back in Brooklyn when someone was pissed off. But he knew he shouldn’t say the words lining up to tumble from his mouth: How about you standing over those dead Krauts yesterday…and Newcomb asking you if you got any prisoners…and you said, “Negative, sir. Didn’t work out that way.” What the hell did you mean by that, Sean? Last time I checked, killing POWs was categorized as murder.

>   “I asked you not to call me Crunch, Tommy…and I fucking meant it.”

  “Why? I thought you’d like a nickname like that, considering how you got it and all.”

  Sean didn’t reply. The irritated silence they fell into didn’t last but a few seconds. Four human shapes were approaching up the gentle slope from the direction of the road. Two were topped with the unmistakable silhouettes of GI helmets. “Get the password from ’em,” Sean told Fabiano, who had already leveled his Thompson in their direction. “Don’t shoot ’em first, okay?”

  Softly, Fabiano called out, “I hear it’s nice in Omaha this time of year.”

  “Bullshit,” a male voice replied. “I prefer Indianapolis myself.”

  “Indianapolis,” Sean said. “Today’s magic word. Let ’em in, Fab.”

  The GIs were infantrymen. The two with them were French civilians, one a young woman, the other a middle-aged man. “Where’s your C.O., Sarge?” one of the GIs asked Sean. “These folks say they’ve got some real interesting stuff to tell him.”

  “He’s at the M10 right over there…about thirty yards,” Sean replied as he jumped to the ground from the tank’s deck. “C’mon, I’ll bring you over. Hey, Lieutenant,” he called to his brother, “why don’t you join us, too? This oughta be interesting as all hell.”

  Even in the darkness, there was no doubt the woman was attractive. Despite her youth, she possessed the composure of one used to being in charge. But her shimmering frock seemed far too grand for a night stroll in the fields, as did the high heels on which she tottered across the grassy turf still soft from the rain. Most of the women they’d seen across the French towns and countryside so far looked like weathered, hardscrabble farm wives, pitifully plain, in old clothes mended many times over, the harsh uncertainties of life in a theater of war etched on their faces. But this one was wearing makeup and intoxicating perfume, too.