by William Lee
Dale’s twelve-man squad was near the center of the elliptical fortification, on the side facing away from the valley. The squad directly across the trail from him faced down the mountain toward the valley and town below them. The Germans knew exactly where the American battalion was and had been hitting them with mortars all day. The last attack from a company of Nazis was about an hour ago. The Germans had been easily repelled and broke off the attack after losing a dozen soldiers. Dale was afraid they were going to come back with two Battalions.
Squinting his eyes, he scanned the impenetrable forest for Germans lurking in the settling fog. The forest’s shadowy canopy of trees, gloomy skies and the thick underbrush of fallen trees made it very easy for machinegun-toting Krauts to hide.
“Do you see anything?” hissed Tom from the foxhole next to him.
“Negative,” he replied.
“Me neither,” said Adam, leaning up against the inside of the foxhole with Dale. Adam was shouldering his weapon of choice, a Browning Automatic Rifle, or BAR for short. The BAR was considered a squad-based weapon, not a heavy machine gun, but not as light at the Thompson in Dale’s right hand. Adam had his BAR set out of the foxhole, a tripod holding up the barrel that pointed up the mountain.
Treadwell, another member of the squad, slid into the foxhole like a baseball player coming into home plate. He was holding a new M2 carbine rifle, and his drab, olive uniform was covered in mud. The M2 carbine was an upgrade from the M1 carbine, in that it could be set to full auto and accepted a thirty-round magazine.
“The lieutenant just said Listening Outpost Two reported Germans approaching our position,” he informed the others as he adjusted the helmet which had slid down his forehead. They had set up four listening posts total, each 1,000 meters out. The listening posts would report back to the fortified position but would not engage. Each listening post was heavily camouflaged and had a crank-powered, battlefield telephone to report back to the battalion. The main purpose of each listening post was to ensure that the Americans would get a warning before a German attack.
“They will be here any minute, everyone in position,” called out Dale. All members of his squad were either dug into foxholes are behind fallen trees.
“I think I see movement, two hundred yards out,” Tom whispered as he pointed up the mountain and to the right.
“Hold your fire until you have a clean shot. Conserve your ammunition, no automatic fire until they are inside 50 yards.” Matthews said, as he lifted the Thompson up to his shoulder.
“I like to fire single shots at first, make them think they are up against a bolt action, then when they get close, open up, and switch to full auto.” Adam smiled and rubbed his BAR like it was his favorite puppy. “Gets them every time,” he said with a smile.
Boom. A single shot rang out. It was from ten feet away. Dale looked over and saw Evan give the universal thumbs up sign.
“I think I got me a Kraut,” he said from behind a large fir tree. Evan was holding his M-1 Garand, a semi-automatic rifle. It was deadly accurate and considered to be an excellent defensive weapon. There were four soldiers carrying M-1 Garands in the squad. They would get the first kills because they were very accurate long range, but once the Nazis got close, the BARs would be more effective.
Bang. Bang. Bang. Three more shots, one right after another. This time from 20 meters to Dale’s left. The squad directly next to Matthews was under attack. He could tell it was Garands firing, the Germans were still over 100 yards out. He squinted his eyes and saw the gray uniform of a German solider running between the trees 80 yards away. Then another and another. The next wave of Nazis had arrived.
He said to Adam, “See them?”
Adam nodded his head, and said, “Yes sir, barely through the fog.” He squeezed the trigger on the powerful BAR. A deafening explosion followed, and then, “Damn, I missed.”
Dale and his men were dug in and well-hidden, while the advancing Germans were running tree to tree. Now they were close enough to be seen, and the entire evening erupted in a deafening symphony of nearly 100 automatic rifles firing into the trees.
Dale spotted a Nazi 70 yards out crouching, behind a large tree. He was lining up a shot with a long rifle. He knew the Nazi was seconds from shooting an American. Dale took a deep breath, exhaled, and settled his iron sights on the Nazi rifleman. He gently squeezed the trigger of the Thompson machine gun. The Trench Broom, as his gun was also called, jumped to life and three bullets burrowed into the tree close to the Nazi’s face. Bark and splinters broke free and sprayed into the Nazi’s eyes. The Nazi jerked his trigger, and the rifle overshot its intended target. Dale instantly lined up his machine gun again and fired. This time the bullets slammed into the Nazi’s face, and he jerked backwards and collapsed.
“Hell yeah!” shouted Matthews, “that’s my thirty-seventh kill.”
Adam grinned and said, “Still doesn’t beat my 54 kills!” He peered down the barrel of his Browning and gave the trigger a good long pull, sending 10 bullets into a German soldier that had stuck his head up from behind a tree stump.
“Grenade!” yelled Adam.
Dale heard the thud of a grenade not six feet from him. He turned and saw the smooth, egg-shaped, German hand grenade land on the ground between his foxhole and the one to his left. He flung himself deep into the hole while grabbing Adam by his collar and dragging him down with him. The grenade exploded harmlessly, only feet away. Dale and Adam scrambled to stand, ears ringing from the explosion.
“Thanks. You saved my ass,” Adam choked out, as he wiped mud and dirt from his face.
“Roger that,” Dale responded, as he detached the magazine from his Thompson. He reached into the canvas ammo pouch attached to his web belt and pulled out a fresh magazine and slid it into place. He knew the magazine was in place when he heard and felt the metallic click. From down in the foxhole, he saw Evan firing from behind a tree at unseen Germans. He pulled back the charging handle, and the Thompson was ready to fire.
Dale and Adam cautiously rose from the foxhole, with their weapons held firmly at their shoulders. The Krauts had advanced to 25 yards. From a standing position in the foxhole, Adam fired the BAR at a German’s head as it poked up from behind a large fallen tree. Splinters flew in every direction, as the bullets smashed into the tree just below the German’s exposed head. Adam raised the barrel ever so slightly, and the German’s head exploded in to a bloody mess.
Dale saw two Germans, 30 yards to his left, hiding behind a small outcropping of rock. He knew that his Thompson would likely be ineffective against their rocky defensive position. He could see they were setting up something behind the rock. Setting his Thompson on the ground, he took one of the pineapple grenades from his belt and wrapped his left index finger around the steel ring. He jerked the ring, activating the grenade. One, two, three. Dale knew it had a five second delay. Then, with one fluid motion he threw the grenade at the Germans behind the rock formation. The grenade never hit the ground. It exploded in the air only feet from the Germans heads, shrapnel ripping holes through their bodies as they were flung to the ground by the force of the explosion.
Dale, all but deaf from the gunfire and explosions all around him, looked right, then left, to see how his squad was doing. His entire team was holding their ground. No one had taken any hits. The air was heavy with the noxious gasses of thousands of rounds being fired. A grayish white haze washed over the ridge.
“Mortar, incoming,” shouted an unfamiliar voice from behind. Dale and Adam, instinctively, dove into their foxhole and hoped it would not explode directly overhead. Dale could hear the whistling sound of the mortar cutting through the air. It was a familiar sound; the Germans had been lobbing mortars at them for days. If it exploded to their right or left, the foxhole would shield them, but a direct hit would mean a shallow grave. Face down, covering his head with his arms, Dale heard the mortar explode behind him.
Leaping to his feet, he griped the wooden handle of his Tho
mpson machine gun and raised it to eye level. Focusing on the iron sights at the end of the barrel, he saw a German soldier advancing 20 yards in front of him. Dale squeezed the trigger, and 10 rounds, half his magazine, slammed into the tree. One bullet finding its target. A gut shot. The German bent over and dropped to his knees, a fatal wound, the man would eventually bleed to death. Yet, Dale took aim again; this time sending three bullets into the mostly exposed soldier. The Nazi lurched backwards and toppled over onto the rocky ground.
There was the terrible roar of an incoming artillery barrage. Shells exploded in the tree tops, sending thousands of shards of hot metal down on the Americans. Everyone dove for their foxholes and scrambled to find whatever cover they could. Dale and Adam managed to pull their thatched, stick and branch shield over themselves as the hot iron buried into wood, dirt, and flesh. Once again, Dale and Adam took the opportunity to reload their magazines, and when the barrage of shrapnel had passed, they sprung out of their foxholes and ran, crouching the whole way, to a nearby fallen tree. Peering out from behind the broken tree, they could see Germans retreating.
They had been taught that soldiers in a fortified defensive position could repel an offensive force three times its size. The exposed advancing Germans took severe casualties, while the dug-in Americans were mostly protected by the earthen fortifications. The Americans had taken some casualties, but the lack of food, ammo, and medical supplies were going to be the death of them.
The squad began to advance from their hidden positions to the battlefield, where the Germans had just fallen. Slowly, tree-by-tree, they moved through the field of carnage searching for German weapons and ammunition. Mutilated German corpses littered the mountainside, strewed out in twisted and unnatural positions. Most had died from gunshot wounds, but arms and legs, dismembered from the exploding grenades were scattered about. The reality was, without reinforcements, the Americans would soon be out of bullets.
After searching the bloody corpses, the squad was back in their foxholes. Dale’s squad had taken no casualties. He was sliding rounds into his empty magazines, preparing for the next wave, when the lieutenant approached in a semi-run hunching position. It was getting dark, darker than normal; the unseen sun was going down.
“How are your men doing, Sergeant?” the lieutenant asked. He was a lean man, with sandy blond hair. His slim frame was deceiving. Dale knew the Lieutenant was an excellent fighter, with hand-to-hand combat skills that surpassed any other officer he knew. Dale assumed he had obtained these fighting skills prior to entering the army, he figured maybe a boxer or something.
“No injuries, but we could sure use some K-rations,” Dale reported. Generally, the men hated K-rations. They were dry, tasteless, and never enough food for a hungry man. The men preferred C-rations, which, while still not a gourmet meal, offered more flavor and calories.
“We have very little food left and even less ammunition, after this last German assault,” replied the lieutenant. “Unless we get reinforcements, we can’t last much longer.”
Dale nodded his head in understanding. The Lieutenant, kneeling on one knee, went on, “That patrol we sent out last night took severe losses but came back with a German prisoner.”
“Great, another mouth to feed,” grumbled Dale.
“Yes, but we were able to get him to talk. While we are surrounded by heavily entrenched Germans, it seems there may be a pass, a couple thousand feet up the trail, that will bypass the German’s main force. It may be a way off this mountain. I need you to recon that pass.”
“Last night’s recon team lost 43 men?”
“The team was too large; they were spotted. I want your squad to go recon up the trail a couple thousand feet and see if there is a way off the mountain where we can by-pass the German fortifications.”
“We are running low on ammunition,” Matthews objected.
“I can fully equip your squad. I want you and your men to leave once it is completely dark.”
CHAPTER TEN
Dale Matthews and his squad huddled in the center of battalion’s fortification. They were all cold, damp, and famished.
“I have a few cans of C-rations left,” the lieutenant said, handing them to the men. They carefully divided the food the best they could so that everyone got some. The C-rations were designed to be enough calories for one soldier, hardly enough for twelve soldiers that had not properly eaten in three days.
“Can I get some of the meat and beans?” George Murphy asked. “That’s my favorite,” he said with a grin.
“I got a can of meat and spaghetti,” Howard Meyers said. “Anybody want to share this with me?”
“I can help you out with that spaghetti.” Raymond Treadwell said. There were not enough cans for everyone to have their own, so they shared what they had, eating directly out of the can.
“I also have extra ammunition and some new flashlights. These flashlights have red lens covers, so they are harder for the enemy to spot,” the Lieutenant said, as he passed out the lights. The new flashlights were just like the old ones, an olive, drab, plastic frame with a ninety-degree angle on the lens and bulb assembly. The main difference was the red lens covers helped dim the light so that the enemy could not see them from a distance.
“This ridge is about seven kilometers from end to end, with no known roads,” the lieutenant explained. “We are about two thirds of the way to the German fortifications. The mountain is only about two kilometers wide, and, to the best of our knowledge, we are surrounded. Last night, we sent four squads to see if they could get past the Krauts and back to the division, they failed. We must find a way off this mountain. I want you to go up the ridge toward the German fortifications with two objectives. First, I want you to see if there is another way off this ridge; and, second, try to spot any weaknesses in the German fortifications.”
“Roger that, Lieutenant; and thanks for the C-rats,” Dale added.
“Just find us a way off this mountain, Sergeant.”
“If there’s a way, I’ll find it,” Dale replied.
“All right men, finish up your chow, and we will be heading out,” Dale ordered as he scraped the last spoonful of cold stew at the bottom of the tin can. Normally, the men complained about C-rats, but tonight they tasted unusually good.
“What’s the plan?” asked Fred Perry, the youngest solider in the battalion, as he rubbed some newly grown peach fuzz on his chin. It had been said that he lied about his age to get into the Army.
“We continue up the trail, towards the German fortifications. We break into four-man groups, staying off the main trail. We’ll keep an eye out for any passage that would be suitable to bring the battalion down into the valley,” Dale said.
“Slow and easy,” Adam said, “We are outnumbered and out gunned; soon we will be sitting ducks.”
“If you see the enemy, do not engage. Only fire a weapon if you must. The goal is not to kill Krauts; it’s to find a path off this ridge for the whole battalion,” Dale reminded them.
“Is everyone ready? Anyone need to take a crap or piss? Now is the time to do it,” Matthews said to the huddled squad.
“Safeties on and watch where you step. These Krauts like mines,” Dale added, “last thing we need is one of us accidentally firing off a round.”
“Adam, you are with me,” he announced. “Tom and Steve, you are with me, as well. Everyone else, break into four-man teams.”
Steve Dyer had the only M-9 bazooka in the squad. The M-9, sometimes referred to as a “stove pipe,” was a rocket-propelled, anti-tank weapon that could also be used against an entrenched machine gun or armored vehicle. It had become less effective against German tanks since they upgraded their armor, but it was still somewhat effective at close range.
The men quietly advanced up the trail past the earthen fortifications. They passed the water-cooled, heavy machine gun that was set up behind logs and rocks. The machine gun fortification marked the end of their encampment; everything past that was German te
rritory.
Dale stepped off the trail and into the woods. The goal was to find a path off the ridge. They were about 1000 feet off the valley floor, with steep cliffs and rugged terrain cascading to the village below them. If there was any hope of finding a passage down, they would have to travel as near as possible to the steep cliffs. It was one thing for a few men to travel in the woods at night, but moving almost 270 men in broad daylight was totally different. They needed a passable slope that offered cover from enemy fire. The only way they had held off the Germans superior numbers thus far was that they were entrenched.
The first thousand meters were easy, as expected, because the listening post had not reported any German activity in the last few hours. Dale did not know exactly where the listening post was, but he was sure they were about to pass it soon. He did not expect any communication from the post, as their job was to observe and report back to the battalion without exposing their position.
The air was cold, and the ground was soft from recent rains. The forest floor was thick with undergrowth. “This place needs a good fire to burn off some of this brush,” Matthews thought to himself. Dale Matthews, Adam Bond, Tom Brown and Steve Dyer reached the steep cliff and stopped to survey the ridge and valley below them.
The four men crouched behind an outcropping of rocks that overlooked the valley and town below. Tom Brown had found a StG44 “storm rifle,” on one of the dead German soldiers. The StG44 was an impressive assault rifle with select fire capabilities. It was accurate up to 300 meters in full auto and 600 meters in semi auto. However, that was not the most impressive feature of the weapon. It was outfitted with a rare ZG 1229 Vampire night vision scope. Most soldiers had never seen a night vision scope; some had heard of night vision, but none had used it. Earlier, Tom had spent several hours trying to figure out how to make it work.
Tom moved into position above the outcropped rocks and dropped to one knee. “I bet you’re glad I found this rifle.”
