Taking off with the Tanks

Taking off with the TANKS

By Sgt. Walter Peters

YANK Staff Correspondent

With the Second Armored Division in France—It was the morning of the beginning of the biggest drive since the Allies had invaded the shores of Normandy. The immediate objective of Combat Command "A," the outfit I was travelling with, was to advance through St. Gilles, thence through Canisy, and finally to capture and hold the heights just before Le Mesnil Herman. Nobody dreamed that our tanks would be sweeping across Brittany and right to the threshold of Brest ten days later.

Four of us were sitting in the half-track that served as command post for the battalion commanded by Lt. Col. Amzi R. Quillian. Along with others in the battalion, the men had made an all-night trek from a bivouac area far to the rear up to a position just before the jump-off line on the St. Lo-Periers Road. The men's faces were brown with dust. Their eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep. Dirt clung heavily from their eyebrows and eyelashes.

One of the men looked at his watch. “Ten-forty,” he drawled. The drive had begun at 0900 hours. Our medium and light tanks, led by Col. Quillian, were far to the front and the men in the Combat Command half-track waited for word.

Then the word came over the radio. The colonel's voice was calm and serious. “We've made contact with the enemy and have taken a few prisoners,” he reported.

"You’ve waited a long time,” another voice replied. "Get in there. Get punching. Get hitting…”

“That's the general, all right," said Pfc. Jack Giels, of Cleveland. "He's a bug on slogans."

"We're moving ahead," another voice said over the air. Our long column of trains, that included jeeps, supply vehicles, and ambulances, in addition to half-tracks, began to wobble through a break in the hedges and over the orchard paths that had been cut by the tanks up ahead.

We were cutting right through enemy lines. On either side of us were reserve tanks with in­fantrymen of the Fourth Division riding atop them. There were also other infantrymen riding in trucks driven by Negro soldiers of a quartermaster truck battalion. To the front, the tanks charged through the hedges, spraying them with machinegun fire as they did so. When the tanks came to enemy pockets that held them up, the infantrymen would jump off and mop up.

The command-post radio was busy with conversa­tion.

“I am held up at a sunken road, 50 yards south of phase-line orange," Col Quillian reported. The whole column stopped.

The colonel continued talking. "Doing every­thing I can to get across. Using bulldozers."

"Fine, fine," another voice, obviously belonging to the general, replied. "You can have anything I've got. Let's get slugging into them."

While the column was stopped, a mortar platoon sergeant came to the half-track and asked if any­body had an extra helmet. A sniper's bullet had gone right through the top of his and made it un­serviceable.

"Maybe the medics have one," Giels said. The sergeant walked back to a medic half-track to see.

The tanks got over the sunken road and we moved on again. For over a mile the terrain resembled farmland that had just been plowed. Everywhere the earth was shaken and blasted by the heavy artillery that had been hurling shells on to it early that morning. There were huge craters in the earth, too, from the bombs that our planes had dropped the day before. There also were burning German tanks that had been destroyed by the tanks ahead of us.

"It would cost Hollywood a cool ten million dollars to shoot a scene like this,” one of the soldiers said. The whole area was trembling from the fire of our artillery. Overhead, the sky was full of "grasshoppers," directing shell fire from the sky. Lying all over the orchards and the roads between them were dead cows and horses—-so many that you no longer paid much attention to them. At one point there were about 25 young pigs running back and forth in fright, and as they ran they squealed. A soldier jumped out of a jeep and took one of them in his arms.

“You'll be okay, little piggy," the soldier said stroking the pig's back. “You'll be all right. It's just those goddam Heinie swine we're after."

One of the men picked up a German song book.

"This is a song of the Panzers," he said. "It says here that when this war is over and the Germans all get back to their Fatherland they're going to raise their children to be Panzers like their daddies."

At about 1500 hours we got on the north road leading to St. Gilles. Then our column was halted again. The enemy was lobbing mortars and 75 and 88 shells into the road. Twenty-five yards behind us a half-track belonging to a heavy-weapons platoon was hit and three men in it were killed. A couple of others were wounded.

In a field to our right were a number of M-10s. Mortar shells were falling all around and as they did so, the men with the M-10s buried their faces in the earth. One of the shells landed directly on a trailer attached to an M-10. Huge flames began to spout from the vehicle. Then the crew of the M-10 ran toward the trailer and began to unload it.

"There's ammunition in that trailer,” a man in a jeep behind us yelled. The crew continued to unload. The fire was beyond control and the rear of the M-10 started to burn. Just then, one of the men took a fire extinguisher and doused another man who ran through the blaze and disconnected the trailer from the M-10 and then a third man drove the M-10 away to safety. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion and the ammunition began to explode.

A medic jeep drove by and the man behind the wheel jumped out and ran toward the trailer. There was another explosion and I didn't see the medic again. About two minutes later I learned that he had been blown up by the explosion—both legs blown off and his body hurled on to the M-10. The man who had run through the blaze to disconnect the trailer, I heard, was Sgt. Thomas Green, of Tennessee. There was too much excitement to get more details.

The column got rolling along the road to St. Gilles. About 300 yards along it, we were forced to stop again. Enemy mortars were still firing at us from somewhere ahead. Everyone took cover alongside the roads as best as he could. Then the fire subsided and we got back into our vehicles and went forward again. We came upon three men walking toward us. One of them was wounded and another was crying. He had lost his buddy only a few minutes before. His body was shaking and he was being helped along by the wounded man and the other soldier, who appeared to be quite all right.

When our column stopped again, a sergeant walked over to a lieutenant and said, “I think we lost ______ ______.

The lieutenant called over First/Sgt. William Trinen, of Letcher, S.D.

I I'd like you to go over and make sure if that body belongs to _____ _____."

“Yes, sir," the first sergeant said.

A few minutes later our half-track pulled into an orchard and the men stretched out in the grass to get some rest. After a time Sgt. Trinen came back. His face was serious. He didn't say a word for a few seconds. Then he looked at Giels and T/Sgt. Russel E. Sands, of Warren, Minn.

“His scalp was ripped wide open,” he said slowly. "He didn't have a chance."

There was a long pause. None of the men said anything.

Sgt. Trinen continued: “He wasn’t even 20 and didn’t give a damn about anything. He was such a clean-cut kid, too.”

Again there was silence for a moment.

"There ain't any of them boys bad when they're dead," Sgt. Sands said.

Giels looked up. "No, nobody's got a bad heart when they're dead."

Word came to us that the most advanced tanks were already passing through St. Gilles. I hitch-hiked a ride in an ambulance half-track that was going there to pick up some wounded. The road was jammed with our tanks that were rolling into the town. The dust was so thick that it was impossible to see more than 20 feet ahead. The infantrymen on the tanks held their hands
over their eyes to keep out the dust. The hot sun beat down on their backs and their clothing was damp from sweat. The gullies beside the road were filled with burning, smoking German tanks and vehicles.

The town itself was like the inside of a furnace. Everything that wasn't stone was on fire and the smoke choked our throats while the heat made it almost unbearable to go ahead. When we reached the other end of the town the ambulance I was riding in stopped. Lying beside the road were three Ameri­cans who appeared to be dead. A fourth soldier, though wounded himself, was giving water from his canteen to a fifth man, whose right heel had been squarely cut off by shell fragments and whose chest and face were also bleeding.

Cpl. 1 Carl Lindberry, of Chicago, a surgical technician on the ambulance half-track, felt the pulse of one of the unconscious men.

"There's still a slight beat in him," Lindberry said. "Let's take him in first."

Pfc. Willis Wacker, of Denmoss, N.D., and Pvt. Robert Jee, of Danville, Va., both first-aid men, unfolded a blanket over a stretcher and then placed the man on it. After the wounded man had been placed in the ambulance, Lindberry walked over to another of the unconscious soldiers. He felt one man's pulse and shook his head.

He walked over to the third unconscious soldier, who was lying on his back with his mouth wide open. The man's teeth protruded and the color of his skin was that of death. A little dog was lying beside this soldier, a little dog with a deep cut across his head and his bowels splattered all over himself and on the dirt around him. Lindberry felt the man's pulse. Still a chance," he said.

Next, the man with the cut heel was lifted into the ambulance, and then the soldier who had given him water walked unaided into the cabin off the ambulance.

I got back to the Command Post just as word came over the radio from the forward tankers that there was only enough gas left for a three-hour operation.

“Keep on slugging," the general's voice said.

They did, and at about 2200 hours, Col. Quillian's battalion reached its objective.

YANK 20 Aug 1944 British Edition

Sniper Killer

Sniper Killer

On the rifle of this Regular Army platoon sergeant are 22 notches. They represent dead Nazis. Soon there will be more of them.

By Sgt. WALTER PETERS

YANK Staff Correspondent

With U. S. Forces in France (By Cable) "It's a beautiful country. Wonderful for snipers, though. From now on, we don’t call anybody by rank. It's first names, from the Old Man down. Snipers may be nearby. They like to pick off the leaders.”

T/Sgt. Frank Kwiatek, a heavy-weapons pla­toon sergeant who's spent 27 of his 46 years in the Army, was doing the talking. We passed a reserve company where some of the men were taking a bath out of their helmets while others wrote letters or cleaned weapons.

Up ahead there was a clearing, in the hedges. We walked through it, crossed another field and reached another opening in the hedges on the other side. "All those openings were made by machine-gun fire," Kwiatek said.

As we walked up toward the front lines, Kwiatek's eyes darted from trees to hedges and back to trees again, like a hunter looking for a wild animal. "I got a sniper right up in that tree last week.” he said. "I guess we have them all cleaned up now but you never can tell. I'm not taking any chances."

A little later Kwiatek sat down on the, ground, pulled out his knife and began cutting a notch in his rifle. "Might as well do this while I have the time," he said. There were 21 notches, already and he was cutting the 22nd. "Three more to go and I'll have settled the promise I made when they killed my brother Ted. Then I’ll kill 25 more for my brother Jerry. After that I’m going to kill as many Germans as I can, because I hate the whole Nazi system."

Kwiatek was in Northern Ireland with his pla­toon when his brother Ted, a 21-year-old tank gunner, was killed in Sicily. Kwiatek swore be­fore the men of his platoon that he'd get 25 Ger­mans to avenge his brother’s death. Several weeks later another brother, 19-year-old Jerry, was killed in Italy and Kwiatek vowed to kill another 25 Germans.

So far he's killed 20 with his rifle and two with hand grenades. And he's probably killed "an­other dozen" with a tommy gun, but he doesn't count them because "when I kill a German, I like to look right into his eyes. I like to see him drop. When he drops, I can almost see my brothers smiling at me. I like shooting snipers especially; they're so sneaky." (Nineteen of the 22 notches represent snipers.)

Kwiatek shot his first German on June 10 when a sniper stopped the progress of his outfit at a crossroad near Cerisy La Foret. After a number of men had been killed and wounded, the company commander asked for a volunteer to eliminate the sniper. Kwiatek volunteered.

He prowled through the woods until he was 25 yards to the rear of the sniper, hidden behind a road marker. The sergeant was just getting ready to shoot the German when he spotted another sniper in a tree about 50 yards to his right. "I shot the sniper in the tree first and then exter­minated the one behind the marker."

The sniper in the tree taught Kwiatek a lesson. "I decided that from then on I was going to watch every tree, every bush and every hedge."

A few minutes later the outfit passed the cross-road, with Kwiatek trailing behind his platoon to give rear protection. "I saw the hedges moving slightly. It was a little windy that day but the wind was blowing from the other direction, so I became suspicious. I tiptoed toward the hedge and saw a German. 'Hey,’ I yelled and when he turned to face me with his rifle ready in his hands, I let go. He keeled over backward. He was a goner—just another dead German. Later I discovered he was a captain in the German paratroop corps."

Kwiatek prides himself on being a scientific sniper hunter. "To kill snipers," he said, "you must use your head. But that doesn't mean you should stick your head over hedges, where the squareheads can take Coney Island potshots at you. I always tell my men to keep their heads down, but sometimes fellows forget. Then I can't tell them anything any more. It's, too late."

Once when one of Kwiatek's men stuck his head above the hedges to shoot, a sniper got him square through the head. "His brains splattered all over my face," Kwiatek said. "I was never so sick in my life.

"Rogers (Pfc. Floyd Rogers of Rising Star, Tex.) and I decided we were going to get that sniper. I told Rogers to take the dead man's helmet and hold it up over the hedge after l gave a signal. I walked 40 yards away and then signaled. As soon as the helmet went up, the sniper began shooting and gave away his position. Then I signaled to Rogers to lift the helmet again in another posi­tion. When he did, I saw the Hun's helmet come up from behind a tree, then his shoulders. Then I let him have it. All it took was one shot. Those bastards don't give you more than one shot."

Kwiatek, the oldest enlisted man in his outfit, spent 19 months as a machine gunner in France in the last war. He's been in the same platoon since 1924 and became platoon sergeant in 1940. His daughter is a captain in the Army's Nurse Corps in Italy.

Kwiatek's men call him "Hard Tack Murphy," a name he used as a welterweight fighter in the Army in the early 30s. "He's a damn good pla­toon sergeant," said Pfc. James W. Justus of Key West, Fla. "The only trouble is, he wants to finish off the war by himself. Every time I see him, he's looking at a tree. He's going to be a very sad man when the war is over and there are no more snipers to kill."

This article appeared in the British Edition in July of 44. In that version they showed a picture of T/Sgt. Kwiatek and the article was a little longer. This shows how the editors in each edition had latitude to create their paper as a custom fit for their area.

YANK 18 Aug 1944

The Battle for St. Lo - Part 3

The Battle for St. Lo – Part 3

…and then St. Lo was freed

By Sgt. Walter Peters

YANK Staff Correspondent

St. Lo—Far back, in the head­quarters of the 29 Division from which a small task force of about 300 men began its mission to occupy St. Lo, it seemed almost as quiet as a section of the New England country­side. Only the division's own guns and the clatter of rolling Sherman tanks could be heard. The 29th had been nibbling toward the city for some time. Now the worst seemed to be over. The men had battled their way through marshlands, hills, dikes, and hedges. They had even fought through a river, shoulder-deep. Now at last had come the time for occupying the city itself.

The task force gathered in an orchard, standing in long columns of twos. They were especially picked men—infantrymen, engineers, artillery observers, medics, and even a group of MP and Civil Affairs officers.

The Division Commander—Major General Charles H. Gerhardt—stood there, holding a cigar in his right hand and at the same time whittling a walking stick cut down from a branch of a tree. "This is an historic affair," he said in a slow, clear voice. Some of the men stopped chewing gum and their faces became more serious. “I want every man to be on his mettle," the general continued. " We must be ready to meet, anything at all. We are representing the division and the American Army, and I want every one of you not to let them down for one minute. You must prepare yourself for anything the enemy may throw at you. Be on the alert. Be on your guard. We are going to carry this mission out."

The executive officer, a colonel, stepped forward. "Men," he said, “I want you to pay close attention. In case a man is wounded or if it is necessary to get a message through, only one man will leave. If there are four men on a mission, three of them must continue while the other goes back. This applies to whatever may happen. Another thing—all vehicles will be at 60-yard intervals. Anyone who violates this will be sent back and miss the fun."

A private in the line looked at his buddy. "Is he kidding?" he muttered.

The colonel conferred a moment with the general, and then turned to the men again. "It's been changed," he said. "One hundred yards is the interval. One hundred yards."

I piled into an artillery radio observation jeep with Capt. E. G. Gifford of South Orange, N.J.; T/5 Floyd McCarland, of Long Island City, N.Y.; and , Pfc. Albert Harazamus, of Chicago.

The task force had been scheduled to start out at 1500, but it didn't get moving until 30 minutes later. Meanwhile, the men in our jeep were gossip­ing with the GIs in the jeep ahead of us. "Remem­ber Puncis, the little Italian guy? " McCarland asked. "Yeah," a soldier in, the other jeep said. "He's with us now," McCarland said. "Good man," the captain said. "Remember_______” McCarland asked. “Yeah," the soldier up front said. "He got knocked off.” McCarland said. “Jees, that's awful!" the other man exclaimed.

Tanks began to pull out of the orchard. The infantrymen followed in trucks, and we followed the engineers behind the infantry. We drove at such a slow pace and stopped so many times it seemed that we wouldn't get there before midnight.

It was now 1630 hours and we were still two miles from St. Lo. All along the dusty country road was evidence of the great battles that had been fought by forward troops days before. There was the stench of the bodies of dead cows and there were skeletons of tanks and trucks. Off the road, behind a hedge­row, GI equipment was strewn all over the grass— hand grenades, .30-calibre clips with bullets, and many personal effects. At one spot was a GI helmet with three holes torn through its casing, and nearby were a number of letters scattered about in disorder.

Some of the letters were from a girl, written apparently to the soldier whose helmet had been torn. "I know you'll come through with flying colors,'' one of them read. "Please, dear, keep writing. I'll be anxiously waiting to hear from you. I'd love to see your funny face. Hurry home." Another letter, from the same girl, ended thus: "I love you more than anything or anyone in this world—always, Lilian."

There was also an unfinished letter from the soldier to the girl. "Sweetheart," he had begun, "since I left the States as per usual I have saved all your mail and I really had quite a batch up to last night. I carried them all in a little cardboard folder, all arranged in order of dates. Last night I took them and as I read each one of them, I tore them up. It hurt as far as sentiment goes, but I feel safer if I don't carry them on my person. I hope you don't mind. Yesterday the company took a little walk to a brook where we proceeded to strip and take a bath. Remember the pictures we used to see in Pathe News of boys taking a bath in the river? Well, that's just the way we looked. I hope Mom and Pop got the picture situation straightened out and that Pop won." That's the way the letter ended.

There was also a general letter from the President addressed to members of the armed forces. "Never were the enemies of freedom more tyrannical, more arrogant, more brutal," the letter read in part. Near this was a Catholic prayer book opened to page 24, which read: “In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen."

As we moved to within about a mile, and a half of the city, the vehicles were forced to stop. The enemy was shelling the road heavily. Snipers were busy, too. They were shooting at the task force from hills on the right and from orchards on the left. After the shelling subsided a little, we moved on. Then the snipers fired again, the vehicles stopped, and the men scrambled out with rifles and tommy guns, looking around for the attackers. Then we moved on, and stopped again. And so it went.

When we got around a semicircular bend in the road the enemy began throwing shells heavier than before. "Lay down, lay down, you crazy jerks!" shouted a soldier at a couple of men who continued walking as the shells began hitting the road.

To the front of us, infantrymen were walking single file on both sides of the road, and in front of them the tanks were leading the way in. When it appeared that Captain Gifford's jeep could go no further, I excused myself and ran forward to join the infantrymen.

All along the road, from then on, it was a matter of ducking and running. I think we dove into road­side gulleys about 40 times before we reached a distillery where a road sign said we were entering the city of St. Lo.

A sniper was firing through an opening to one side of the distillery. Sgt. Thomas C. Taylor, squad leader from Tallahassee, Fla., aimed his M1 and shot at the opening. After the shot, he continued his trek through the residential part of the city.

Then a medical jeep rolled by and stopped. An officer was lying on a stretcher hoisted onto the jeep, his pants cut from his backside. After a quick glance, the men turned their heads away from the deep wounds.

A shell whistled overhead. Everybody took to the roadside, "There's a cemetery," shouted a soldier. The shell hit a monument, and as it did, little pieces of granite hit the road.

General Gerhardt was standing in the center of the crossroads. A number of infantrymen had already fanned out into the city streets, searching for Germans who might have been left behind. Somebody said there were 200 of them hiding in buildings. How many more Nazis were on the hill facing the crossroads we'll probably never know.

"Four volunteers," the colonel yelled.

Four men came forward.

"Okay, go out there and clean them out," the colonel said, pointing to a street from which a machinegun was firing.

"Four more volunteers," yelled the colonel. The men were busy elsewhere and didn't hear him. "I said I want four volunteers," the colonel shouted louder. Then, as the men remained busy, he told a sergeant to find him four volunteers.

For a while the scene seemed like one in a basic-training barracks. "All right," the sergeant walking around yelled. "Four men. All right now. Step on the double." Four men dashed over.

At 1810 one of the volunteers came in with a prisoner. Then another volunteer came in with two more prisoners.

Just at that time it seemed as though the whole German artillery had broken loose. Shells began falling around the crossroads.

"Those prisoners brought them on," a private said. "It's those goddam prisoners. They spotted them walking down here."

While shells were falling and everyone else was taking cover, the general was calmly walking around with his stick. One shell broke through the side of a building across the street from us. Then another sailed through the same spot in the wall.

"Daily double," a captain yelled.

A soldier ran over to the colonel.

"They've got an observation tower on the hill, sir," the soldier said. The colonel looked up at the hill through binoculars.

A tank pulled up to the crossroads. "Come out here," the general yelled at the tank commander.

The tank commander didn't hear. "Get that damn helmet off so you can hear me," the general shouted, at the same time banging on the tank with his stick. The commander came out.

After a few words with the general and the colonel, the tank commander took the tank onto a road leading into the heart of the city.

Wounded men were sitting or lying down with their backs to a brick building. "Bring me some water, please," one of the wounded men asked.

A captain brought some water and, while the man was drinking more shells came in, all hitting within 50 feet from where the leading men of the task force stood. Some came much closer, too close.

A shell hit a building 20 feet from us, and as it did, debris crumbling from the wall fell on some men. Inside the building, still hanging on one of the remaining three walls, was a lone picture of Jesus Christ.

Another tank commander collared the colonel.

"I can get that observation tower," the commander said.

"Well, go ahead. What are you waiting for?" the colonel asked.

"Permission, sir."

"You've got it. Go ahead. Go ahead."

The tank began moving from the crossroads toward the hill. Just then, a herd of cows slowly moved across the road. A shell hit behind the last cow. She turned her head to look and then slowly turned her head back again and continued to follow the herd.

“Stupid animal. Most stupid animal in the world except an ox," a lieutenant said.

After the cows moved out, the tank rolled over and stopped when it reached a position where it could get a "bee" on the observation tower. Then it began to lob out shells.

An ambulance moved up and I thought it had come to pick up the wounded. Later I discovered in the ambulance the body of a major, a regimental executive officer who had been killed by a shell a day or two earlier. The men said he had been determined to get St. Lo, and when he died they vowed to take his body there. They covered his body, with a flag and placed him on the altar of a nearby church. The day after we moved into the city men were still passing by, placing flowers on the flag-draped body.

At about 1900 hours, the colonel got out the division flag. S/Sgt. Gerald F. Davis, of Bellefontaine, O., gave T/5 Francis L. Beins, Jr. of Tulsa, Okla., a boost up alongside the wall of a build­ing. Beins took the flag from the colonel and stuck its pole in a chink in the wall. When the flag hung out, the soldiers smiled. One sergeant said: "Isn't it pretty? Brother, isn't that a pretty sight?”

Ten minutes later the colonel walked over to a soldier with a walkie-talkie. "Can you get
division?" he asked.

"I think so, sir," said the soldier.

“Okay, tell them St. Lo was taken at five-thirty."