It was three o'clock in the afternoon, 4 September 1943, when I crawled back under a temporary shade I had thrown up out of discarded shelter half, and some sticks and pieces of telephone wire. The African sun bore down, but was not nearly so hot as the south wind blowing at 110 degrees off the Algerian desert. We had been in that dirty wheat field, not 2000 yards from the Mediterranean for three days shaking down for an invasion of parts unknown and had just sent off the last of our stuff being combat loaded on the attack transport, U.S.S. Dickman. She was tied up with countless other invasion ships at the French naval base of Mers-el-Cabir at Oran, Africa. I was one of a thousand sweating infantrymen of the 2nd Battalion, 142nd Infantry, dressed in heavy woolen combat uniforms, and my only possessions at the moment were my side arms, gas mask and combat pack containing part of a day's ration of dog food, referred to officially as Army Ration, Type C. Our only job at the moment was to patiently wait for the trucks to come the next day and haul us to the Dickman. As Battalion Executive Officer and second in command, my many duties had boiled themselves down to the simple routine of staying around Battalion Headquarters and holding things together, especially in the absence of the commanding officer (Lt. Col. Samuel S. Graham), who at that time had gone to 36th Division Headquarters to see what he could find out, if anything.
After pulling myself under the shade I tried to go to sleep, but it was too hot and I guess I was still a little mad at Rosey (Capt. Samuel W. Rosenberg), the Battalion Surgeon, who had just jumped me for the third straight day because the slit trenches we were using for latrines had not been dug deep enough to suit him. He knew there was nothing but solid rock eight inches beneath that Hell-hole of a blistering wheat field, and we were doing the best we could with our small entrenching tools. The thought occurred to me that Rosey would be better off sticking closer to his aid station aside the Oran highway where our medical detachment was enjoying a satisfactory pickup trade from jeep wrecks and the heavy traffic moving to the port.
As usual the desert wind stopped about sundown and a cool breeze drifted in from the Mediterranean. I got up and sauntered down to the aid station where I stood around for a while watching Rosey carefully supervise the preparation of a man for evacuation. A medico told me his motorcycle had sideswiped a truck and he was suffering with a compound fracture of the right thigh. The aid stood by directing everything by the numbers. To him it was just another training exercise for what lay ahead.
After seeing the man off in an ambulance we sat on some medical chests and had us a game of casino, with the Chaplain (Capt. Harris T. Hall) and the S3 (Capt. Carthal N. Morgan) sitting in. After a while Rosey broke out some alcohol from one of the medical chests and poured a generous portion into our mess cups and cut it some with what was left of an open can of grapefruit juice. The play continued and we made speculations about the coming invasion. A medico sergeant tuning a radio chimed in that he had gotten it straight from a division jeep driver that it was Italy. The Chaplain dealt the cards while we listened to some of Tommy Dorsey being broadcast direct to us from Germany. At the end of the record, Berlin Sal in her throaty voice cut in and confirmed what the medico had just said. After bragging us up big and speculating on what some of our sweethearts were up to that evening with the draft dodgers back in Texas, she went on to say what a fool General Clark was for thinking of throwing away the lives of so many fine young Americans by dumping them on the Italian beaches against crack divisions of battle smart young German soldiers. She claimed they were waiting for us in such well prepared positions that we would never get ashore alive. And as a parting gesture, she sent her personal regards to Colonel Sam, our battalion commanding officer, and a half dozen other well known officers in the Division. After she signed off I overheard a soldier braggingly tell a medico about the plans he had for Berlin Sal the very first time he met up with her in Germany. I think he spoke for most of the men in the outfit.
It was long after dark when I left the aid station. Our five companies were scattered over an area of about four city blocks and I walked around for over an hour checking on how the men were doing. Under flashlights and candles there were hundreds of games going and the action would make a dealer from Las Vegas choke up and want to cry. Every man in the outfit seemed to be Hell-bent on getting rid of his money. They knew they would be aboard ship in a few hours where they wouldn't let a man bet on the time of day and later too busy playing the odds with death to cut a deck of cards.
We sailed out of Oran at five the next evening. The convoy moved in four columns 1000 yards apart with the cruisers Philadelphia, Savannah, and Boise, on the inside. Ships flying mostly British and American flags stretched as far as the eye could see with our destroyers plowing the edge of every horizon.
The Dickman, manned by the Coast Guard, had been the liner President Roosevelt before the war. She was an old friend. So were her crew and officers. We had practiced loading her for combat, sailed the Mediterranean and had gone through landing rehearsals against the coast of Africa under the cover of darkness to familiarize our officers and men with the conditions they were soon to face. Every detail of loading and unloading had been worked out down to the last man, vehicle and piece of equipment. The first to come off in combat was the last to be put aboard, so that everything could be unstacked in proper order. Each man and officer was assigned to a numbered boat team, and the men of respective teams were quartered together aboard ship. In spite of the crowded conditions, life on the Dickman was pleasant. Everyone had a bunk to sleep on off the ground and the chow aboard ship was excellent. Since our combat orders had not as yet come down, everyone took it easy, and those who could make it top side stood around on deck watching the greatest armada of ships that had ever been seen sailing for combat.
The following morning about ten, a motor launch from a British transport carrying the 3rd Battalion and Regimental Headquarters pulled alongside the Dickman and sent up word the regimental commander (Col. John D. Forsythe) wanted Col. Sam, me and the S3 at his command post on the British ship immediately. We scrambled down a rope ladder thrown over the side and took off on a calm sea for regiment. When we were all assembled, the Colonel appeared with his staff and a large map board and began issuing his orders.
It was to be Italy, the Gulf of Salerno at a place called Paestum, a walled Grecian ruin built 500 years before the time of Christ. Navy frog-men who had walked out the beaches under the cover of darkness had reported them to be mined and heavily covered with barbed-wire entanglements. The well prepared defense positions on the dune line were manned by Italian soldiers. All enemy gun emplacements had checked to be exactly as shown on the close-up oblique aerial photographic maps that had just been placed in our hands.
The Gulf of Salerno lies south of the Sorrento Peninsula, which separates it from the Bay of Naples. From the town of Salerno at the southern base of the peninsula are beautiful beaches stretching twenty-five miles south to the town of Agropoli. The Fifth Army plan was for a British corps consisting of two assault divisions and British commandos and American rangers to land in the Salerno area. With a twelve mile gap between us and the British corps our division was to go ashore with two regiments in assault over four 600 yard beaches named Red, Green, Yellow and Blue in the vicinity of Paestum. The rest of the American corps was in Sicily awaiting the return of our ships for them. The first assault waves were to hit the beaches at 3:30 AM 9/Sept/43, with our regiment on the left sending an assault battalion in at Red Beach and one at Green.
Our 2nd Battalion drew Green Beach in the center with a sector that included all of the mile square ruins of Paestum with our right boundary forming an east-west line running inland from the Tower of Paestum, which lay quite close to the water southwest of the town. The Tower of Paestum was a ten meter stone structure, built as a medieval watch tower and commanded an excellent view of the beaches. We were later to find its fourteen foot thick walls to be an indestructible fortress against anything we could carry ashore by hand. From the top of its walled turret enemy machine gunners and snipers had it pretty much their own way.
We were to move rapidly inland, take the town of Paestum and reorganize at the railroad just beyond town. Our initial objective was 3600 foot Mount Soprano five miles across a flat plain. We were then to advance over the mountains another seven miles to the town of Roccadaspide, where we were to hold and await further orders. All lines of communication would move directly to the beaches over which all supply and evacuation would be made.
With copies of the orders, bundles of maps and aerial photographs, and boxes containing a booklet on Italy that was to be placed in the hands of each man, we left for the Dickman. On the way we discussed our plans and by the time we climbed aboard, Colonel Sam was ready to issue his orders. I called all officers to the ward room, passed out the maps and turned things over to the Colonel.
It was to be exactly as how we had worked out in our training exercises. The assault wave was Company E, commanded by Capt. James G. Barnett, on the left and F, commanded by Capt. Homer Spence, on the right. In the second wave came G, commanded by Capt. Terrell J. Davis, the heavy weapons company. The third wave was made up of the rest, Headquarters Company, commanded by Capt. Willard H. Gill, attached engineer platoon, artillery forward observer team, navy shore party, navy fire direction team and our medical detachment. After that the coast guard would return to the Dickman for all of our heavy equipment, vehicles, supply personnel and anti-tank platoon. The pioneer platoon of Headquarters company was to be issued wire cutters and scattered among the boat teams of the first wave with the mission of cutting the wire on the beach. The attached engineer platoon was later to clear the beach of mines.
Co. E was to move through Paestum and Co. F to take the tower and move straight in keeping the south wall of Paestum on its left. Battalion Headquarters would be set up at the railroad station at the far edge of Paestum, and after reorganizing at the tracks E and F were to advance on Mount Soprano. Co. G was to follow in reserve and the heavy machine gun and heavy mortars of H Company were to go under rifle company control on reaching the beach. That is not exactly the way the whole thing worked out. I don't think anything worked out according to plan except the parting shot of Colonel Sam when he said, "I want every man to be on that mountain by sundown." Everyone personally saw to it that he got there, except the dead and wounded.
Except for a visiting reconnaissance from the German air force that reported our departure from Oran, our convoy was not attacked and everything went along on the Dickman as if we were on a cruise ship. Eating and sleeping were our pleasures and our deck sports consisted of reading the book on Italy and cleaning our weapons. The booklet fed the imagination of our more amorous soldiers, and the talk of beautiful Italian women took up most of their spare time, while the Mexicans, native Texans who made up about a third of our outfit, passed hours away whetting their bayonets with pocket stones and talking Spanish.
The sign and counter-sign we were to use the first twenty-four hours after landing puzzled us all. If a man ran into an unknown party, especially at night, he was supposed to holler, "Male Fist," and if he was a friend he would reply, "Hearts of Oak." That would make you know he wasn't the enemy. The words just didn't make sense to the Mexicans and the farm boys from the Midwest couldn't figure it out well enough to explain it to the rest of us Texans. The only man who seemed able to live with the words was the communications officer (2nd Lt. Robert H. Cromwell), who had been in a Broadway play and he said it had something to do with knights and warriors many years ago in England. I know the words were responsible for the death of a lieutenant in E Company (2nd Lt. Fremont C. Dibble). A private in E told me the lieutenant hollered, "Male Fist," a couple of times when he reached the dune line off the beach and the enemy shot him in his tracks. The Mexicans took a shorter route. They would just whisper, "Sergeant, it's me, Rodriguez," and of course the sergeant knowing Rodriguez's voice would let it go at that. We were not worried much because it was generally known that those Italians didn't have much stomach for fighting.
After supper the last night aboard, the bosun's shrill whistle sounded over the loud speakers and we heard the familiar, "Now hear this," and we all stopped and listened. Over the loud speaker came the voice of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Hostilities between the United Nations and Italy have terminated, effective at once." The men were bewildered as to what came next and so was I, but we did our best to make it clear that the invasion was scheduled to go on as ordered. Even on so short a notice the Germans might have been able to take over the entire defense and resistance to the invasion might be heavier than expected.
I went down to the bottom of the aft hold to D deck to check on my boat team made up of over forty men. I think it was number twenty-one and consisted of a rifle squad, a light machine gun squad, a 60 mm mortar crew, a couple of linemen with rolls of phone wire, the Battalion Surgeon and aid man with a litter, the Battalion Sergeant Major (TSgt. Elvin E. Carter) and his clerk, the captain of H and the captain of Headquarters Company and their runners, and me and my walkie-talkie man, Charles R. Bick, who was from Pennsylvania. Bick was just a kid. I remember the night those French women gave him his sixteenth birthday party down in Algeria where we were camped out at a race track at Tlemcen. They all kissed him good night as if he was their own boy. But Bick was large for his age. The officers were nowhere around as they were checking their units, but I sat around for a while trying to reassure the men. Every boat team was a mixture like mine, so if a boat was blown out of the water we would not have all our eggs in one basket.
When I came back to headquarters, Colonel Sam told me to find those twelve extra bazookas he had picked up at Division the other night and put them out with ammunitions wherever I could place them. He said it might be just our luck to hit one of those armored German panzer outfits. I had a hard time getting rid of the bazookas, because the rifle companies already had their share of them and the men in H and Headquarters Company were loaded down with special equipment. When I passed the last bazookas off on the Captain of Headquarters Company he hollered at a soldier that was standing around doing nothing. It was old Mack, a man who couldn't do a damned thing well except pass out letters at mail call. When Mack took the bazooka and two rounds of ammunition he said, "Hell, Captain, I don't know how to shoot the damn thing." And the Captain replied, "Mack, you just carry it ashore and maybe someone will find a use for it."
I would never have dreamed it, but within a few hours Mack got himself a German tank. A sergeant that was with him told me about it. A bunch of them were hiding behind a stone fence when the sergeant spotted a tank coming down the fence on the opposite side. He yelled at Mack to bring his bazooka, and Mack disclaimed any knowledge of the weapon. The sergeant told Mack just to put it on his shoulder and when he told him, to raise up, poke the thing at the tank and pull the trigger. The sergeant loaded the rocket launcher from the rear and when the tank was half way past them he cocked it and said, "Now, Mack, now." Mack raised up slowly, pulled the trigger and knocked the Hell out of the tank. Then Mack slid down behind the wall and said, "I shore hope I didn't hurt nobody."
The Chaplain had raised the Devil with me for over two days, because he was assigned to a boat team in the third wave. He wanted to be in the first wave, and I had tried to reason with him that every boat in the first wave was so overloaded that you couldn't squeeze a sardine into a one of them. That night after holding his last prayer service on top of a hatch, he hit me up again, and this time more forcefully than ever. I could tell he meant business, but I tried to reason with him that if he did land with the first wave it would be too dark and with so much shooting going on he couldn't do a darned thing if he were there. He said, "Men will be dying there, and there is where I belong." I couldn't answer an argument like that and gave in. "O.K., Chaplain," I said. "There are thirty-six landing craft on board this ship and you just pick the one that suits you and get on it." I think the Chaplain found plenty to do in his line early in the day.
At midnight the Dickman's engines went dead and her anchor chain rattled over her side. We had arrived at the troop transport area twelve miles off shore. A terrific naval bombardment had opened up far to the north pounding the shore defenses where the British were to land. The orange flashes in the northern sky reminded one of a huge electric storm of great intensity. According to the plan given us we were to make our assault on the beaches at Paestum without previous naval or air bombardment, a fruitless idea of trying to trick the Germans into thinking our entire effort was to be made farther north. But General Clark rarely, if ever, fooled his German counterpart, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, a shrewd and superior defensive specialist.
When the first teams were called to their boat stations I went below and joined my group. One of the men gave me a hand grenade, which I slipped into my gas mask cover that hung by a long strap over my shoulder. We stood in the center of the dark cargo hold, smoking our last cigarettes and saying very little. Our instructions were to load and lock our pieces, only to fire in the darkness when absolutely necessary. We could not take the chance of shooting at everything that moved in the dark, otherwise we might wind up killing each other. I adjusted my pack once more and my hand unconsciously went down to my Colt automatic hanging at my hip. From there on we were entirely in the hands of the Coast Guard until they put us on the beach eight minutes behind the first wave.
Finally, boat team twenty-one was called, and we began to climb out of the hold one by one. I brought up the rear to see that everything was clear. I followed my bunch across the cargo deck to the opposite side of the ship. It was getting darker by the minute, because the moon had just gone down. I felt my way up the gang-way to the top deck, where our landing craft hung free on power winches at the far end of the ship. One by one we walked a long, narrow plank with nothing but the sea below us until we half fell five feet into the bottom of the LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicular Personnel). I landed on top of several men as there was little standing room left for me. Those snub-nosed assault craft had a ramp in front that could be quickly dropped when it hit the beach, permitting the landing party to scramble ashore. I stood in the very back of the boat where I belonged, for it was my duty to see that everyone got off.
When we started lowering away I heard the coast guardsman operating the winch take a parting shot at the coxwain of our boat. "I thought you joined the Coast Guard to stay home," he yelled. I have forgotten the exact nasty words the coast guardsman threw back, but they were expressive.
Our coxswain knew his business. As soon as we hit the water he took off in the darkness for the rendezvous where we joined eleven other boats of the second wave going round and round in a big circle. Off in the night, hundreds of other boats were circling in like fashion, biding their time until the moment they were to fan out at the line of departure and make a fast run for the beach. We didn't have much to say to each other, but just stood there packed tightly in the churning boat shivering as the spray drenched us to the skin. I kept turning my ankle on the litter Rosey's aid man had brought aboard.
We lost all track of time and were not conscious of what was going on until the coxswain opened up the throttle and yelled above the roar of the noisy engines that we had crossed the line of departure, 1200 yards off shore. As in training, I told everyone to get below the side plates, but I remained standing amazed at what I saw in the distance. There was the dark outline of Mount Soprano just exactly as it appeared on the aerial photos, and I studied every detail of the Italian landscape that came to me through the darkness. Without warning all Hell broke loose. Flares went up high over the beach, and every German gun opened up all at once. Tracer machine gun bullets splattered off the side of our boat and passed overhead like strings of pearls in the night, and you could feel the breath of the flat trajectory 88 mms as they barely missed. I didn't have to tell anyone to get down. We were all hunting the bottom side of that boat, but there wasn't room. The squeeze triggered some of the cartridges of compressed gas in our life belts and a few inflated, making conditions far too tight. I looked over my shoulder and there was the coxswain standing erect as if nothing was happening. He was gunning his engines for all they were worth, racing hard for the beach.
When we went aground fifty yards off the shore the ramp fell and everyone scrambled out of there as if the thing was on fire. As I started to run out of the boat, back came Rosey yelling, "Where's the litter, where's the litter?" I shouted, "To Hell with the litter. Let's get out of here." We both ran into the sea. The water tripped me and I fell head-over-heels going completely under. Someone grabbed me by the pack and started dragging me ashore. When I got to my feet in waist deep water all machine guns were laying down a heavy cross fire of tracer bullets in a final protective line. The fire was so hot that I didn't think we were going to make it, but most of it was passing a couple of feet over our heads.
At the water's edge I saw men lying all over the ground. I thought they were dead. I made a dash across the beach and hit the ground when a flare went up and hung there lighting the area brighter than day. Down the beach I could see men crawling on their bellies and hands and knees, with their butts low. When the flare went out I made another dash and hit the wire. My gas mask flopped between my legs tripping me as I ran. I rolled over on my back and slipped it off. I started working myself under the wire. I pushed with my feet while I held the wire up with my hands. Mortars were hitting all over the place, throwing sand in my eyes. I kept on wiggling. When I kicked off the last strand, I rolled over on my belly and took a quick look around. There was a machine gun in the dunes just to my left rattling like a snake, but it was firing over my head. I decided to make a run for the dunes. When I crawled up into the high grass, I recognized the machine gun position as the one plainly shown on the aerial photo. I reached for my hand grenade, but it was with my gas mask under the wire.
I figured the best thing for me was to get off that beach. I jumped over into a depression in the dunes. Just as I got to my feet I saw four Germans about twelve or fourteen feet away coming straight at me. I knew they were Germans, because of the shape of their helmets and the way they carried their rifles close to the knee at the balance. Apparently they hadn't seen me. I let them have three shots from the hip and when they ducked one way, I ducked the other. We parted company. I was kind of startled at the muzzle blast of my .45. A bright orange flame shot out about a foot from the muzzle every time it went off. That sort of trick might give my position away, I thought.
It was a little more peaceful in back of the dunes. Most of the action was still on the beach. I was glad to get my breath. After wandering aimlessly down a little draw, a rifleman from E called to me by name and we joined up. The Germans in the darkness were hollering all over the place. I asked the man from E, who spoke some German, what they were yelling about. He listened a minute and replied, "The damn crazy Americans won't stop and fight. They're just walking through us."
Pretty soon we came out on a big clearing. A bazooka shell lit up the country. Right in front of us was the Tower of Paestum. From behind the high turret German machine guns and snipers were letting the beach have it for all they were worth. Bazooka men from F and the regiment to the right (the 141st) were pounding away at the base of the tower, but it wasn't doing a bit of good. A bunch of riflemen were just standing around watching. The Germans were firing from positions well behind the turret wall, which was too high up for a hand grenade, and there was very little that anybody could do.
Then and there I decided to get back into my own sector. The man from E and I took off to the left and try to find the walled city of Paestum. In about five minutes we ran into something like fifteen men from F and G. Rosey and his aidman carrying the litter were with them. They had just taken nine prisoners. I couldn't quite figure what was going on. The Germans were so scared they couldn't stand still, while the men of F and G were taking the Germans' helmets and trying them on for size. Finally they asked me what we were going to do with the Germans. I said I guessed we had better take them with us, so we all started off together to find Paestum.
As we stumbled over telephone wire covered in brightly colored plastic, we tried to cut it with pocket knives and bayonets, but it was made of steel and too tough to handle. We moved forward in a very loosely held together group, with the prisoners bunched up in the middle just a little in the front of center. When we hit the wall of Paestum, I yelled for everyone to keep clear of the rocks that had fallen off the wall obstructing our progress in the darkness, but other than that things were progressing O.K. But when you move around too much in close combat nothing stays peaceful for long. Just to our right a machine gun opened up firing a burst of tracer into the wall, richocheting them into us. The prisoners hit the ground first and then we fell in behind the large rocks. When I lay there trying to make a simple estimate of the situation, I heard a German tank creeping past us in starts and stops with the Germans yelling to the driver not twenty-five feet to our right. Every time one of us would move, the machine gun fired another burst, chipping rocks in the wall. I was in a complete dilemma. I said to myself that we can't go forward because of the machine gun, we can't go to the right because of the tank, the wall was too high on the left, and I am not going to pull back. And it didn't seem healthy to just stay there.
I turned to a BAR man hiding behind the same rock and said, "You know? I don't know what the Hell to do." The man with the Browning Automatic rifle whispered, "Come to think of it, I saw a hole in the wall back yonder not over fifty yards."
I rolled out of my pack still dripping sea water and threw away my field glasses and map case. I told him that I was going back and see about that hole. If there was one, I'd come back and get the men. When they started pulling out for him to open up on that machine gun with his automatic rifle and cover us.
Rosey was lying there listening to every word. I turned to him and said, "Come on Rosey, let's go back and see about that hole in the wall." Then I took off and Rosey followed.
We found the hole in the wall. It was really just a gap, but you could manage to get to it by climbing up some fallen rocks. When I got on top I heard voices on the other side. I recognized Bugler's. Bugler (T5 Charles W. Stimson) was the battalion clerk, and was called Bugler because he used to be the company bugler back in old National Guard days at Sweetwater, Texas. I asked him who he was with and he said a bunch from E and G. I crawled back through the wall to get the other men but it wasn't necessary. I heard the Browning start firing and all the men crawled through the gap, except the BAR man and the prisoners. He later told me that soon after we left they started shelling the area and he and the prisoners jumped in a deep hole and stayed there until after daylight when he turned them over to the MP's on the beach. He was still a little mad at us for having dumped the prisoners on him, but later I put him in for a citation for getting us out of that tight spot and to make it up to him for the dirty trick we had unintentionally pulled on him.
Everything was as quiet as death in that ghostly city of ruins, but the sound of the action to our rear remained hot. I did not know the condition of the battalion. From the looks of the group I had, the whole thing must be mighty badly disorganized. I had between fifty and sixty men from every unit in the battalion, a few non-cons, and one lieutenant (1st Lt. Woodrow R. Jenkins), the S1 (Capt. Willard H. Gill) and the Battalion Surgeon for officers. Every man must have come off the beach as an individual, for there was no semblance of organization. I did know that tanks and German troops were moving into action. Artillery swished overhead to form geysers in the sea, but within the walls of Paestum it was like being in a tomb where a sound had not been heard for a thousand years. The place was uncanny. My mouth was dry and I could feel death lurking out there in the darkness ready to strike from nowhere. The situation appeared to me to be quite critical. My only desire was to get my men out of there and on to a river shown on the aerial photo where we could dig in and fight it out at daybreak.
It was too dark to do much and time was running out. I hollered at the non-coms to grab them off some men and form squads. Then, I told the lieutenant to send out scouts to our front and we would all move through the east gate of Paestum and dig in as soon as we got to the river. The S1 was to bring up the rear and keep the men punched up.
As soon as we got moving I sent out three-man patrols to cover our right and left flanks, but no sooner had the patrols disappeared in the darkness than they would gradually swing back and rejoin the main party. No one moved fast enough to suit me and I soon found myself out front with the scouts. After punching them up I moved back through the men yelling that if they wanted to live after the sun came up they had better get out on that river and dig in. Finally, I just took off in front of the scouts and everyone followed behind.
You could feel daylight coming on, and off to our right the columns of two Grecian temples made a silhouette in the graying sky. We stumbled over old ruins and climbed crumbling walls of houses whose floors were of beautiful tile mosaics. When we reached the east wall of Paestum there was a commotion in a black tunnel in the wall and just as I started to shoot into the tunnel women's voices shrieked out, "Italiano, Italiano!" The lieutenant had already crawled to the top of the wall and called back that you couldn't get off the other side, so we all turned to our right and went to the east gate. There, standing in the middle of the gate and all alone was Colonel Sam, his back to the railroad station.
The Colonel evidently had the same idea that I had, for he ordered us to cross the plowed field to our front and dig in at the river referred to on the map as the Capodifiume, which ran in the general direction of our objective, Mount Soprano. Just as day began to break Colonel Sam and I took off together across the flat plain with our men fanned out on either side. I asked him how in the Hell he had gotten to the gate all by himself, but I can't remember what he said.
The Capodifiume was nothing more than a drainage canal fed by an ice cold spring flowing from the base of a nose of Mount Soprano. It was about twelve feet wide with straight banks covered with a dense growth of head-high rushes. Its water was so crystal clear it looked to be about two feet deep and good enough to drink. When we reached the stream we could see no Germans anywhere, so the Colonel told me to set up the battalion command post there and ordered the lieutenant and the men to proceed up the left bank of a hundred yards or so and take up a defensive position.
The Colonel, the S1, Bugler and I sat down in the rushes with Rosey and about four medicos in red cross helmets squatting around. Each aid man carried a full bag of medical supplies with wire and metal splints hanging from shoulder straps. With the coming of daylight rifle and machine gun fire broke out heavy back in the town. I was glad to be out of there, and all we could do was to wait until some of the rest of our outfit caught up with us. Then, all of a sudden a German heavy mortar opened up across the river lobbing shells into the railroad station where some of our men were trying to assemble. I jumped to my feet and through the tall weeds could get only a faint glimpse of Germans partly concealed behind a house throwing shells into the upright tube. They weren't over seventy-five yards from us and in order to get a clear shot at them I dashed into the river for the other side. I went over my head in water and never touched bottom. I grabbed some weeds on the concave bank, but wasn't able to get a footing. For a moment I thought I was going to drown, but someone heard me splashing in the water and Colonel Sam reached over the bank and pulled me out. The shock of being drenched in ice water gave me the rigors and I shook all over.
Before I had gotten control of my nerves one of the medics jumped up hollering and pointing to our rear at four German machine gunners running across the plowed field from the direction of Paestum. Colonel Sam was already yelling at them when I pulled my automatic and let them have several rounds from the hip. They hit the ground and when I let them have another burst they dropped their weapons and trotted in German style with their hands high in the air. Colonel Sam left to see about our men to the front, while I went about searching the prisoners. They insisted on holding their hands up, but I made them put them down thinking that the German mortar crew might see hands over the top of the reed and let us have a round of what they were throwing into Paestum. I took nearly a carton of Chesterfield cigarettes and some matches off of them and divided them among us, as ours had been soaked in sea water. Where they had gotten the American cigarettes I never found out, but through Rosey, who spoke German, they told me they were from the 16th (Armored) Panzer Division and had been waiting at the beach for us for three days.
When I gave out of questions, Rosey said the Germans wanted to know if I would answer a question for them. I said, "Sure, what do they want to know?" Rosey spoke to them in German and then turned to me and said, "You'll never guess it. They want to know if we're cowboys from Texas."
The First Sergeant of F (Joe W. Gill) looking for his company appeared from a hedge row of blackberry bushes bordering the plowed field. A machine pistol bullet had driven his wedding band up the bone into the palm of his hand, but he wasn't complaining. In the crook of his arm he carried the machine pistol he had taken off the German that had shot him. I assured the sergeant that his company was still somewhere back to Paestum, but he was determined to go forward. After considerable friendly persuasion on my part and some help from Rosey, I induced him to take the prisoners to the rear where he could find an aid station with the tools to remove the ring. I didn't feel like ordering a brave man like that to the rear, but sort of left the decision up to him, and was glad when he reluctantly agreed. I heard he rejoined F that night on Mount Soprano.
Things were beginning to break up back at Paestum. You could see our men individually and in pairs infiltrating toward us up the hedge rows, and a Ford truck painted a dusty tan raced at high speed on a dirt road leading from the town. It got past us before we realized it had German markings. A hairlipped man from E with his 60 mm mortar appeared from behind the hedge row and I yelled for him to put it into action and knock out those Germans who were still shooting their mortar into Paestum. This man was also named Mack. He was an exceedingly smart soldier, but due to his speech difficulty hadn't risen in rank higher than corporal.
When I told him to put his mortar into action, he replied, "I can't, I loth my thight."
Remembering that I had seen him practice shooting his mortar without a sight in Africa, I told him to try it like back in Africa. He moved over to a clearing where he could get a better view of things and I told him to aim at the Germans behind the house. He sat down, put the mortar barrel between his knees, and after pulling the safety pin, held the shell with its tail sticking into the tube. He deliberately moved the barrel back and forward until he thought he had it just right and let go of the shell. It hit bottom and came out of the barrel in a high arc.
When the shell exploded Mack threw down the mortar and jumped up into the air and ran around in a circle exclaiming loudly, "Yethus Thrith, I got a hit, I got a hit."
Only minutes after Mack knocked out the mortar a German tank pulled up so close to the opposite bank of the river that you could see its turret and gun barrel sticking through the reeds. It fired two 88 mms that exploded in the field just behind us. And then its two machine guns firing in angry bursts began cutting down the reeds on the river bank. We all ran and dove head first into the thorny blackberry hedge. I still have white marks on my hands and arms and body where those sharp thorns tore at my flesh.
I decided it was time to move the command post. From the opposite side of the hedge-row I could see men infiltrating in pairs and small widely scattered groups, taking advantage of whatever cover they could find. It looked like we were getting on the move. I jumped into a drainage ditch knee deep in water and started forward. Those of battalion headquarters followed in single file. Behind me were the Chaplain, the S1, the captain of H, Bugler, and Rosey and his aid men, all sloshing in the water. The shoulder-high ditch and grassy bank gave us good cover. When we came around a bend I could see straight ahead where the ditch emptied into the river. At that moment the same tank or another one pulled up on the opposite bank of the river and started raking the field to our left with its machine guns. Two other tanks pulled into view and also opened fire. We all crawled out of the ditch and took cover in the tall grass. I could see our men lying flat in open fields, some of them firing at the tanks with their rifles. The river acting as a barrier kept the tanks from running over our position. Finally when a bazooka shell ricocheted off the side of one tank, all three withdrew to the south and disappeared into some woods.
Those tank crews were gaining a certain respect for our riflemen. Already they had lost five tanks to bazookas in our battalion. A sergeant out of H (John Y. McGill) had knocked one out by climbing the tank and dropping a hand grenade down the open turret after someone had shot the crew leader when he had stuck his head out of the top for a look-see. Drivers operating with their forward ports open for better vision had been killed in their seats by riflemen firing pointblank through the openings. The Germans had taken a heavy loss in armor in similar fashion throughout our entire division, and in a way were operating at a distinct disadvantage. We were so completely disorganized and scattered that at no time did we provide a tank with a suitable target. The Germans were utterly confused by our tactics. While they were shooting at one man another lay hidden closely by with a bazooka. We were like a corps of army worms advancing on Mount Soprano, each individually Hell-bent on getting to the mountain. Our tactics of individual infiltration applied more pressure on them than they could cope with, and they alone knew that it would be only a matter of time when some of us would be sniping at their artillery positions at the base of Mount Soprano.
For some reason unknown to us our artillery was not giving us any support and it was getting well up into the day. Neither had the navy come in to silence the German artillery firing at the beaches. One very active 88 mm gun crew was shooting direct fire at the beaches from a position high up on Mount Soprano. So far the only weapons that we had employed against the Germans in our sector had been those we had brought ashore by hand.
After the tanks withdrew I moved on and found the Battalion Sergeant Major and my runner, Bick, by the river. Bick was standing there soaking wet and shivering, watching the sergeant apply a first aid packet to a man shot through the leg. The sergeant told me later that when they ran out of our assault boat, Bick grabbed him by his rifle belt and he had had to pull Bick hanging on his belt all the way, part of the time with Bick crying. They had arrived at the river just as the tanks moved up and started firing. The wounded man had fallen into the river and was drowning. They could all hear the man crying for help, but no one dared move. Then all of a sudden Bick laid his radio down and stood up. He deliberately walked through the cross fire of the tanks and our riflemen and stood on the bank of the river until he had found his man and dove in. When the action was over they found Bick clinging to the bank holding the man's head out of the water. While Bick may never have gotten a medal for that act of bravery in those few moments he became a man. He later rose to the rank of staff sergeant.
I took the radio and sat on the ground calling Red Fox One and Red Fox Two, or any other Red Fox who would answer. Red Fox was the call signal within our battalion. No one answered. After a long time the captain of G came in and said that he and about one hundred men were over by a house with a red roof. As there were a number of houses all with red roofs dotting the landscape, I could not figure out his exact location, but he assured me they were in pretty good shape and all moving toward the mountain.
Just before I reached a wooden foot bridge crossing the river, I ran into Rosey and his aid men working on the wounded. While some of the stretcher bearers were bringing the most urgent cases in on litters, Rosey and his key men were working steadily putting on tourniquets to stop bleeding and applying splints to fractured legs. They were too busy to even look up. I stopped to encourage the men with their "million dollar wounds," which meant a one-way ticket home, but their only thought at the moment was to join their outfit on Mount Soprano. As soon as a man was fixed up for evacuation, the Chaplain saw to it that he was hidden in the reeds to give him advantage of all available cover. And the Chaplain saw to it that those who died in the aid station were lined up in a neat little row off behind some bushes. Every Memorial Day my particular respects go out to one waxen face that stared open-eyed in death at me there on the ground. I don't remember which company he was from.
I looked toward the sea. Off in the distance across the sloping plain to the north I could see an entire infantry regiment (the 143rd) deployed over a mile wide moving up in our direction. It was our reserve regiment which had been forced to land farther up the beach, because Paestum was too hot. By then it was growing late in the afternoon.
I could hear our artillery coming into action. Off in the direction of G our artillery forward observer had finally gained radio contact with his battery of 105 mms. The captain of G told me that the lieutenant of artillery had crawled up on the roof of a house and told his battery to fire one round at "the house with the red roof." From there he could adjust the fire of the battery on any target of his choice. The battery fired. The shell hit the barn just behind and blew half the barn roof over the top of the house. The lieutenant suddenly became aware of the fact that every house in Italy had a red tile roof.
The German tanks made another pass. They pulled up and started firing machine guns at us and their 88 mms at the regiment below. I hit the ground and so did everyone else except Rosey who kept working on the wounded, completely unconscious of what was going on about him. Our artillery forward observer asked for fire from his four gun battery located somewhere back at Paestum. While the battery was firing two or three rounds for adjustment, the tanks pulled out and that was the last we saw of them that day. In the meantime some of our riflemen had infiltrated the German artillery position and after a few rounds from their M1's, the German artillery pulled out hastily on the only escape route open to them on a dirt road to the north. Then a U. S. naval destroyer pulled in and opened fire on the 88 mms high up on Mount Soprano. When the first blast hit up there on the mountain, the 88 mms stopped firing and we all started moving on Mount Soprano, still two or three hours short of our objective.
I picked up a pack and a gas mask and a couple of hand grenades at the aid station and crossed the wooden foot bridge to the opposite side of the river. At that point the river cut back to the left and it was a much shorter route to the mountain. Bick was with me jabbering to the other walkie-talkie men on his radio and telling me that most of the rest of the battalion was going to cross the river farther up or go around where it headed at the big spring. The sergeant major, Bugler, and a half-dozen enlisted men followed me. Somehow I had lost the S1 and the machine gun officer who had been with me all day. Rosey and the Chaplain stayed behind attending to their work.
A soldier in combat rarely, if ever, knows what is going on outside his own little barnyard, which in most cases is quite small. To hear the others tell it they got it lots worse than we did, both on our right and left flanks. In one respect the 2nd Battalion had been lucky. The Germans had considered the walled ruins of Paestum a natural barrier to tank operations and had concentrated their main armored efforts against the troops coming in above and below Paestum. But that didn't help the lieutenant from the third platoon of E (3nd Lt. James J. Curran). Shortly after daylight he and a German tank contested each other over the priority of going out the east gate of Paestum. The lieutenant and his small group were hidden behind some rocks just before the gate anxious to depart the city, while the tank wanted the right of way. The men were pinned down and the tank was afraid to close in because of bazooka fire. It was a flat stalemate. But the lieutenant who had been a Massachusetts state policeman before the war, couldn't stand the indecision. Every once in a while he would rise up and throw a hand grenade at the tank, which in turn would retaliate by spraying everything with machine gun fire. After about the third or fourth toss a sergeant yelled in a loud voice, "For Christ sake, Lieutenant, leave the Goddamned thing alone." They lay there for a while and finally the tank pulled back and let the lieutenant and his men through. A little later the lieutenant was hit by shrapnel and was evacuated to a hospital ship some twelve miles off shore, but went AWOL on another landing craft and rejoined E shortly after daylight the next morning.
A parallel account was told me by a sergeant out of G who said that he and about six men were hiding behind a stone fence when a general officer of the Division appeared and hollered for them to get out from behind that wall and get going to the mountain. The sergeant told him there were German tanks out there and the general said, "Those are American tanks, come on, let's go," and jumped the wall. A tank let him have an 88 that nearly split his legs and the general jumped back into the nest of soldiers and said, "They are German, for sure."
After crossing the bridge we followed a foot path that took us through overhead grape arbors loaded with ripe fruit ready for the press and through little farm enclosures with figs drying on trays laid out in the sun on top of the shed roofs. We ate them as we passed not because we were conscious of being hungry, but mainly because they were in reach. Not an Italian was in sight, neither were the Germans. The only thing alive and moving were a few hogs rooting in forbidden potato fields. As we passed around a series of hay stacks we came upon a recently abandoned German artillery position. What impressed me most was its comfort and neat appearance. It was unique and still had a rather pleasant smell. Everything was intact just as the Germans had left it, except the artillery piece and the empty shell cases were missing. Around the perimeter of the gun emplacement, which was completely concealed by a balcony of overhead grape vines, were benches and couches made of bamboo and reeds that the German soldiers had built for leisurely comfort. Their dead cigarette butts carefully placed in an earthen bowl on a table appeared to be fresh smoked, and I sat down for a moment on one of the benches for a rest.
A letter lay on the table and I opened it. I couldn't read the German, but the picture enclosed made me think of our families back in Texas. There was the baby boy on the soldier's knee with a little girl hanging onto his pants and the mother, who looked like she might have been nine months pregnant, stood pointing to a little dog who was sitting up asking for a biscuit. A couple of grandparents appeared proudly in the background. After studying their faces for a long time, I took a match and burned the picture, because I thought it too personal to fall into other hands.
As we moved on we followed a well beaten patch of tank tracks, which led to a route around the headwaters of the Capodifiume, where a big spring burst out of the ground flowing several thousand gallons a minute. A battalion runner picked up a half-used belt of machine gun ammunition discarded by one of the tanks and showed it to me. It was something new to us. The belt was loaded with regular metal cases containing wooden bullets stained a shingle red. We figured they were good for only a very short range and were used in close combat so as not to overfire into their own troops under such conditions as had prevailed earlier in the day.
The sun was about an hour high when we sat on the ground by a house one hundred feet from the spring. We tried to keep our minds off the dead German who lay a little apart from us where he had been thrown out of a passing tank. A set of tank tracks led up to the front door where he lay on the ground. He could well have been one of the drivers shot while operating with the forward ports open. We were growing very tired and still had a hard climb ahead of us. To our front we could see men climbing halfway up the steep slopes of the mountain, with hundreds of others following close behind emerging from the flat plain below. One could definitely discern a distinct pattern of reorganization forming on the mountainside. Each company had its own objective on each side of a gap in the mountain and you could see the men beginning to funnel toward their individual destinations. It appeared to be like a magnet slowly drawing the separate pieces of a confused puzzle back into proper order. There was E on the left and F on the right, with G funneling up toward the middle of the gap.
Back at the Tower of Paestum a very strange character out of the adjoining regiment had attached himself to me. He was tall and thin and appeared to be the kind that had never had a friend or anyone to speak kindly to him in his life. He had no apparent talents for being a soldier or anything else for that matter and never said a word or came close or did anything. He just seemed to be around every time I looked up. He gave me the feeling I didn't want to have him around, and several times during the day I found myself asking him why he didn't go off and hunt up his own outfit. He would only look at me out of his sad eyes and be gone for a while, and then there he would be again, just there. I tried my best to ignore him, but had the feeling he was always somewhere around.
When I caught myself unconsciously glancing out of the corner of my eye to see how the dead German was getting along, I saw this lanky fellow appear from behind the farm house carrying a large demijohn of wine under his left arm. Our eyes met and he slowly moved toward me and placed the jug in my hands. I removed the cork and took a long pull at the bottle, and then passed the wine to the others sitting in a circle. I reached for a pack of cigarettes and handed them to him and when our eyes met we smiled to each other. Soon we all began to laugh and talk for the first time that day and opened rations and ate.
While Bick and another soldier were going to the spring to fill our canteens, I took a message book from Johnnie (Pfc. Johnnie A. Pricer), a battalion runner, and wrote a message to Regiment giving them a report on the condition of things and our progress. I gave the message to Johnnie and told Bugler to go along for company and in case Regiment wanted further details to fill them in.
When Johnnie and Bugler took off, we all stood up. I motioned to the lanky soldier to come along, and we slowly climbed to the gap in the mountain where we dug in for the night.
James T. Padgitt, Texas Military History, Summer, 1965
[James T. Padgitt, son of Mrs. J. Tom Padgitt, entered the Army Nov. 20, 1940; sent to ETO April 1, 1943; fought at Salerno; 12 months overseas; attached to 36th Division; awarded Purple Heart; held the rank of lieutenant colonel; discharged on Nov. 1, 1944.]
After pulling myself under the shade I tried to go to sleep, but it was too hot and I guess I was still a little mad at Rosey (Capt. Samuel W. Rosenberg), the Battalion Surgeon, who had just jumped me for the third straight day because the slit trenches we were using for latrines had not been dug deep enough to suit him. He knew there was nothing but solid rock eight inches beneath that Hell-hole of a blistering wheat field, and we were doing the best we could with our small entrenching tools. The thought occurred to me that Rosey would be better off sticking closer to his aid station aside the Oran highway where our medical detachment was enjoying a satisfactory pickup trade from jeep wrecks and the heavy traffic moving to the port.
As usual the desert wind stopped about sundown and a cool breeze drifted in from the Mediterranean. I got up and sauntered down to the aid station where I stood around for a while watching Rosey carefully supervise the preparation of a man for evacuation. A medico told me his motorcycle had sideswiped a truck and he was suffering with a compound fracture of the right thigh. The aid stood by directing everything by the numbers. To him it was just another training exercise for what lay ahead.
After seeing the man off in an ambulance we sat on some medical chests and had us a game of casino, with the Chaplain (Capt. Harris T. Hall) and the S3 (Capt. Carthal N. Morgan) sitting in. After a while Rosey broke out some alcohol from one of the medical chests and poured a generous portion into our mess cups and cut it some with what was left of an open can of grapefruit juice. The play continued and we made speculations about the coming invasion. A medico sergeant tuning a radio chimed in that he had gotten it straight from a division jeep driver that it was Italy. The Chaplain dealt the cards while we listened to some of Tommy Dorsey being broadcast direct to us from Germany. At the end of the record, Berlin Sal in her throaty voice cut in and confirmed what the medico had just said. After bragging us up big and speculating on what some of our sweethearts were up to that evening with the draft dodgers back in Texas, she went on to say what a fool General Clark was for thinking of throwing away the lives of so many fine young Americans by dumping them on the Italian beaches against crack divisions of battle smart young German soldiers. She claimed they were waiting for us in such well prepared positions that we would never get ashore alive. And as a parting gesture, she sent her personal regards to Colonel Sam, our battalion commanding officer, and a half dozen other well known officers in the Division. After she signed off I overheard a soldier braggingly tell a medico about the plans he had for Berlin Sal the very first time he met up with her in Germany. I think he spoke for most of the men in the outfit.
It was long after dark when I left the aid station. Our five companies were scattered over an area of about four city blocks and I walked around for over an hour checking on how the men were doing. Under flashlights and candles there were hundreds of games going and the action would make a dealer from Las Vegas choke up and want to cry. Every man in the outfit seemed to be Hell-bent on getting rid of his money. They knew they would be aboard ship in a few hours where they wouldn't let a man bet on the time of day and later too busy playing the odds with death to cut a deck of cards.
We sailed out of Oran at five the next evening. The convoy moved in four columns 1000 yards apart with the cruisers Philadelphia, Savannah, and Boise, on the inside. Ships flying mostly British and American flags stretched as far as the eye could see with our destroyers plowing the edge of every horizon.
The Dickman, manned by the Coast Guard, had been the liner President Roosevelt before the war. She was an old friend. So were her crew and officers. We had practiced loading her for combat, sailed the Mediterranean and had gone through landing rehearsals against the coast of Africa under the cover of darkness to familiarize our officers and men with the conditions they were soon to face. Every detail of loading and unloading had been worked out down to the last man, vehicle and piece of equipment. The first to come off in combat was the last to be put aboard, so that everything could be unstacked in proper order. Each man and officer was assigned to a numbered boat team, and the men of respective teams were quartered together aboard ship. In spite of the crowded conditions, life on the Dickman was pleasant. Everyone had a bunk to sleep on off the ground and the chow aboard ship was excellent. Since our combat orders had not as yet come down, everyone took it easy, and those who could make it top side stood around on deck watching the greatest armada of ships that had ever been seen sailing for combat.
The following morning about ten, a motor launch from a British transport carrying the 3rd Battalion and Regimental Headquarters pulled alongside the Dickman and sent up word the regimental commander (Col. John D. Forsythe) wanted Col. Sam, me and the S3 at his command post on the British ship immediately. We scrambled down a rope ladder thrown over the side and took off on a calm sea for regiment. When we were all assembled, the Colonel appeared with his staff and a large map board and began issuing his orders.
It was to be Italy, the Gulf of Salerno at a place called Paestum, a walled Grecian ruin built 500 years before the time of Christ. Navy frog-men who had walked out the beaches under the cover of darkness had reported them to be mined and heavily covered with barbed-wire entanglements. The well prepared defense positions on the dune line were manned by Italian soldiers. All enemy gun emplacements had checked to be exactly as shown on the close-up oblique aerial photographic maps that had just been placed in our hands.
The Gulf of Salerno lies south of the Sorrento Peninsula, which separates it from the Bay of Naples. From the town of Salerno at the southern base of the peninsula are beautiful beaches stretching twenty-five miles south to the town of Agropoli. The Fifth Army plan was for a British corps consisting of two assault divisions and British commandos and American rangers to land in the Salerno area. With a twelve mile gap between us and the British corps our division was to go ashore with two regiments in assault over four 600 yard beaches named Red, Green, Yellow and Blue in the vicinity of Paestum. The rest of the American corps was in Sicily awaiting the return of our ships for them. The first assault waves were to hit the beaches at 3:30 AM 9/Sept/43, with our regiment on the left sending an assault battalion in at Red Beach and one at Green.
Our 2nd Battalion drew Green Beach in the center with a sector that included all of the mile square ruins of Paestum with our right boundary forming an east-west line running inland from the Tower of Paestum, which lay quite close to the water southwest of the town. The Tower of Paestum was a ten meter stone structure, built as a medieval watch tower and commanded an excellent view of the beaches. We were later to find its fourteen foot thick walls to be an indestructible fortress against anything we could carry ashore by hand. From the top of its walled turret enemy machine gunners and snipers had it pretty much their own way.
We were to move rapidly inland, take the town of Paestum and reorganize at the railroad just beyond town. Our initial objective was 3600 foot Mount Soprano five miles across a flat plain. We were then to advance over the mountains another seven miles to the town of Roccadaspide, where we were to hold and await further orders. All lines of communication would move directly to the beaches over which all supply and evacuation would be made.
With copies of the orders, bundles of maps and aerial photographs, and boxes containing a booklet on Italy that was to be placed in the hands of each man, we left for the Dickman. On the way we discussed our plans and by the time we climbed aboard, Colonel Sam was ready to issue his orders. I called all officers to the ward room, passed out the maps and turned things over to the Colonel.
It was to be exactly as how we had worked out in our training exercises. The assault wave was Company E, commanded by Capt. James G. Barnett, on the left and F, commanded by Capt. Homer Spence, on the right. In the second wave came G, commanded by Capt. Terrell J. Davis, the heavy weapons company. The third wave was made up of the rest, Headquarters Company, commanded by Capt. Willard H. Gill, attached engineer platoon, artillery forward observer team, navy shore party, navy fire direction team and our medical detachment. After that the coast guard would return to the Dickman for all of our heavy equipment, vehicles, supply personnel and anti-tank platoon. The pioneer platoon of Headquarters company was to be issued wire cutters and scattered among the boat teams of the first wave with the mission of cutting the wire on the beach. The attached engineer platoon was later to clear the beach of mines.
Co. E was to move through Paestum and Co. F to take the tower and move straight in keeping the south wall of Paestum on its left. Battalion Headquarters would be set up at the railroad station at the far edge of Paestum, and after reorganizing at the tracks E and F were to advance on Mount Soprano. Co. G was to follow in reserve and the heavy machine gun and heavy mortars of H Company were to go under rifle company control on reaching the beach. That is not exactly the way the whole thing worked out. I don't think anything worked out according to plan except the parting shot of Colonel Sam when he said, "I want every man to be on that mountain by sundown." Everyone personally saw to it that he got there, except the dead and wounded.
Except for a visiting reconnaissance from the German air force that reported our departure from Oran, our convoy was not attacked and everything went along on the Dickman as if we were on a cruise ship. Eating and sleeping were our pleasures and our deck sports consisted of reading the book on Italy and cleaning our weapons. The booklet fed the imagination of our more amorous soldiers, and the talk of beautiful Italian women took up most of their spare time, while the Mexicans, native Texans who made up about a third of our outfit, passed hours away whetting their bayonets with pocket stones and talking Spanish.
The sign and counter-sign we were to use the first twenty-four hours after landing puzzled us all. If a man ran into an unknown party, especially at night, he was supposed to holler, "Male Fist," and if he was a friend he would reply, "Hearts of Oak." That would make you know he wasn't the enemy. The words just didn't make sense to the Mexicans and the farm boys from the Midwest couldn't figure it out well enough to explain it to the rest of us Texans. The only man who seemed able to live with the words was the communications officer (2nd Lt. Robert H. Cromwell), who had been in a Broadway play and he said it had something to do with knights and warriors many years ago in England. I know the words were responsible for the death of a lieutenant in E Company (2nd Lt. Fremont C. Dibble). A private in E told me the lieutenant hollered, "Male Fist," a couple of times when he reached the dune line off the beach and the enemy shot him in his tracks. The Mexicans took a shorter route. They would just whisper, "Sergeant, it's me, Rodriguez," and of course the sergeant knowing Rodriguez's voice would let it go at that. We were not worried much because it was generally known that those Italians didn't have much stomach for fighting.
After supper the last night aboard, the bosun's shrill whistle sounded over the loud speakers and we heard the familiar, "Now hear this," and we all stopped and listened. Over the loud speaker came the voice of General Dwight D. Eisenhower, "Hostilities between the United Nations and Italy have terminated, effective at once." The men were bewildered as to what came next and so was I, but we did our best to make it clear that the invasion was scheduled to go on as ordered. Even on so short a notice the Germans might have been able to take over the entire defense and resistance to the invasion might be heavier than expected.
I went down to the bottom of the aft hold to D deck to check on my boat team made up of over forty men. I think it was number twenty-one and consisted of a rifle squad, a light machine gun squad, a 60 mm mortar crew, a couple of linemen with rolls of phone wire, the Battalion Surgeon and aid man with a litter, the Battalion Sergeant Major (TSgt. Elvin E. Carter) and his clerk, the captain of H and the captain of Headquarters Company and their runners, and me and my walkie-talkie man, Charles R. Bick, who was from Pennsylvania. Bick was just a kid. I remember the night those French women gave him his sixteenth birthday party down in Algeria where we were camped out at a race track at Tlemcen. They all kissed him good night as if he was their own boy. But Bick was large for his age. The officers were nowhere around as they were checking their units, but I sat around for a while trying to reassure the men. Every boat team was a mixture like mine, so if a boat was blown out of the water we would not have all our eggs in one basket.
When I came back to headquarters, Colonel Sam told me to find those twelve extra bazookas he had picked up at Division the other night and put them out with ammunitions wherever I could place them. He said it might be just our luck to hit one of those armored German panzer outfits. I had a hard time getting rid of the bazookas, because the rifle companies already had their share of them and the men in H and Headquarters Company were loaded down with special equipment. When I passed the last bazookas off on the Captain of Headquarters Company he hollered at a soldier that was standing around doing nothing. It was old Mack, a man who couldn't do a damned thing well except pass out letters at mail call. When Mack took the bazooka and two rounds of ammunition he said, "Hell, Captain, I don't know how to shoot the damn thing." And the Captain replied, "Mack, you just carry it ashore and maybe someone will find a use for it."
I would never have dreamed it, but within a few hours Mack got himself a German tank. A sergeant that was with him told me about it. A bunch of them were hiding behind a stone fence when the sergeant spotted a tank coming down the fence on the opposite side. He yelled at Mack to bring his bazooka, and Mack disclaimed any knowledge of the weapon. The sergeant told Mack just to put it on his shoulder and when he told him, to raise up, poke the thing at the tank and pull the trigger. The sergeant loaded the rocket launcher from the rear and when the tank was half way past them he cocked it and said, "Now, Mack, now." Mack raised up slowly, pulled the trigger and knocked the Hell out of the tank. Then Mack slid down behind the wall and said, "I shore hope I didn't hurt nobody."
The Chaplain had raised the Devil with me for over two days, because he was assigned to a boat team in the third wave. He wanted to be in the first wave, and I had tried to reason with him that every boat in the first wave was so overloaded that you couldn't squeeze a sardine into a one of them. That night after holding his last prayer service on top of a hatch, he hit me up again, and this time more forcefully than ever. I could tell he meant business, but I tried to reason with him that if he did land with the first wave it would be too dark and with so much shooting going on he couldn't do a darned thing if he were there. He said, "Men will be dying there, and there is where I belong." I couldn't answer an argument like that and gave in. "O.K., Chaplain," I said. "There are thirty-six landing craft on board this ship and you just pick the one that suits you and get on it." I think the Chaplain found plenty to do in his line early in the day.
At midnight the Dickman's engines went dead and her anchor chain rattled over her side. We had arrived at the troop transport area twelve miles off shore. A terrific naval bombardment had opened up far to the north pounding the shore defenses where the British were to land. The orange flashes in the northern sky reminded one of a huge electric storm of great intensity. According to the plan given us we were to make our assault on the beaches at Paestum without previous naval or air bombardment, a fruitless idea of trying to trick the Germans into thinking our entire effort was to be made farther north. But General Clark rarely, if ever, fooled his German counterpart, Field Marshal Albert Kesselring, a shrewd and superior defensive specialist.
When the first teams were called to their boat stations I went below and joined my group. One of the men gave me a hand grenade, which I slipped into my gas mask cover that hung by a long strap over my shoulder. We stood in the center of the dark cargo hold, smoking our last cigarettes and saying very little. Our instructions were to load and lock our pieces, only to fire in the darkness when absolutely necessary. We could not take the chance of shooting at everything that moved in the dark, otherwise we might wind up killing each other. I adjusted my pack once more and my hand unconsciously went down to my Colt automatic hanging at my hip. From there on we were entirely in the hands of the Coast Guard until they put us on the beach eight minutes behind the first wave.
Finally, boat team twenty-one was called, and we began to climb out of the hold one by one. I brought up the rear to see that everything was clear. I followed my bunch across the cargo deck to the opposite side of the ship. It was getting darker by the minute, because the moon had just gone down. I felt my way up the gang-way to the top deck, where our landing craft hung free on power winches at the far end of the ship. One by one we walked a long, narrow plank with nothing but the sea below us until we half fell five feet into the bottom of the LCVP (Landing Craft Vehicular Personnel). I landed on top of several men as there was little standing room left for me. Those snub-nosed assault craft had a ramp in front that could be quickly dropped when it hit the beach, permitting the landing party to scramble ashore. I stood in the very back of the boat where I belonged, for it was my duty to see that everyone got off.
When we started lowering away I heard the coast guardsman operating the winch take a parting shot at the coxwain of our boat. "I thought you joined the Coast Guard to stay home," he yelled. I have forgotten the exact nasty words the coast guardsman threw back, but they were expressive.
Our coxswain knew his business. As soon as we hit the water he took off in the darkness for the rendezvous where we joined eleven other boats of the second wave going round and round in a big circle. Off in the night, hundreds of other boats were circling in like fashion, biding their time until the moment they were to fan out at the line of departure and make a fast run for the beach. We didn't have much to say to each other, but just stood there packed tightly in the churning boat shivering as the spray drenched us to the skin. I kept turning my ankle on the litter Rosey's aid man had brought aboard.
We lost all track of time and were not conscious of what was going on until the coxswain opened up the throttle and yelled above the roar of the noisy engines that we had crossed the line of departure, 1200 yards off shore. As in training, I told everyone to get below the side plates, but I remained standing amazed at what I saw in the distance. There was the dark outline of Mount Soprano just exactly as it appeared on the aerial photos, and I studied every detail of the Italian landscape that came to me through the darkness. Without warning all Hell broke loose. Flares went up high over the beach, and every German gun opened up all at once. Tracer machine gun bullets splattered off the side of our boat and passed overhead like strings of pearls in the night, and you could feel the breath of the flat trajectory 88 mms as they barely missed. I didn't have to tell anyone to get down. We were all hunting the bottom side of that boat, but there wasn't room. The squeeze triggered some of the cartridges of compressed gas in our life belts and a few inflated, making conditions far too tight. I looked over my shoulder and there was the coxswain standing erect as if nothing was happening. He was gunning his engines for all they were worth, racing hard for the beach.
When we went aground fifty yards off the shore the ramp fell and everyone scrambled out of there as if the thing was on fire. As I started to run out of the boat, back came Rosey yelling, "Where's the litter, where's the litter?" I shouted, "To Hell with the litter. Let's get out of here." We both ran into the sea. The water tripped me and I fell head-over-heels going completely under. Someone grabbed me by the pack and started dragging me ashore. When I got to my feet in waist deep water all machine guns were laying down a heavy cross fire of tracer bullets in a final protective line. The fire was so hot that I didn't think we were going to make it, but most of it was passing a couple of feet over our heads.
At the water's edge I saw men lying all over the ground. I thought they were dead. I made a dash across the beach and hit the ground when a flare went up and hung there lighting the area brighter than day. Down the beach I could see men crawling on their bellies and hands and knees, with their butts low. When the flare went out I made another dash and hit the wire. My gas mask flopped between my legs tripping me as I ran. I rolled over on my back and slipped it off. I started working myself under the wire. I pushed with my feet while I held the wire up with my hands. Mortars were hitting all over the place, throwing sand in my eyes. I kept on wiggling. When I kicked off the last strand, I rolled over on my belly and took a quick look around. There was a machine gun in the dunes just to my left rattling like a snake, but it was firing over my head. I decided to make a run for the dunes. When I crawled up into the high grass, I recognized the machine gun position as the one plainly shown on the aerial photo. I reached for my hand grenade, but it was with my gas mask under the wire.
I figured the best thing for me was to get off that beach. I jumped over into a depression in the dunes. Just as I got to my feet I saw four Germans about twelve or fourteen feet away coming straight at me. I knew they were Germans, because of the shape of their helmets and the way they carried their rifles close to the knee at the balance. Apparently they hadn't seen me. I let them have three shots from the hip and when they ducked one way, I ducked the other. We parted company. I was kind of startled at the muzzle blast of my .45. A bright orange flame shot out about a foot from the muzzle every time it went off. That sort of trick might give my position away, I thought.
It was a little more peaceful in back of the dunes. Most of the action was still on the beach. I was glad to get my breath. After wandering aimlessly down a little draw, a rifleman from E called to me by name and we joined up. The Germans in the darkness were hollering all over the place. I asked the man from E, who spoke some German, what they were yelling about. He listened a minute and replied, "The damn crazy Americans won't stop and fight. They're just walking through us."
Pretty soon we came out on a big clearing. A bazooka shell lit up the country. Right in front of us was the Tower of Paestum. From behind the high turret German machine guns and snipers were letting the beach have it for all they were worth. Bazooka men from F and the regiment to the right (the 141st) were pounding away at the base of the tower, but it wasn't doing a bit of good. A bunch of riflemen were just standing around watching. The Germans were firing from positions well behind the turret wall, which was too high up for a hand grenade, and there was very little that anybody could do.
Then and there I decided to get back into my own sector. The man from E and I took off to the left and try to find the walled city of Paestum. In about five minutes we ran into something like fifteen men from F and G. Rosey and his aidman carrying the litter were with them. They had just taken nine prisoners. I couldn't quite figure what was going on. The Germans were so scared they couldn't stand still, while the men of F and G were taking the Germans' helmets and trying them on for size. Finally they asked me what we were going to do with the Germans. I said I guessed we had better take them with us, so we all started off together to find Paestum.
As we stumbled over telephone wire covered in brightly colored plastic, we tried to cut it with pocket knives and bayonets, but it was made of steel and too tough to handle. We moved forward in a very loosely held together group, with the prisoners bunched up in the middle just a little in the front of center. When we hit the wall of Paestum, I yelled for everyone to keep clear of the rocks that had fallen off the wall obstructing our progress in the darkness, but other than that things were progressing O.K. But when you move around too much in close combat nothing stays peaceful for long. Just to our right a machine gun opened up firing a burst of tracer into the wall, richocheting them into us. The prisoners hit the ground first and then we fell in behind the large rocks. When I lay there trying to make a simple estimate of the situation, I heard a German tank creeping past us in starts and stops with the Germans yelling to the driver not twenty-five feet to our right. Every time one of us would move, the machine gun fired another burst, chipping rocks in the wall. I was in a complete dilemma. I said to myself that we can't go forward because of the machine gun, we can't go to the right because of the tank, the wall was too high on the left, and I am not going to pull back. And it didn't seem healthy to just stay there.
I turned to a BAR man hiding behind the same rock and said, "You know? I don't know what the Hell to do." The man with the Browning Automatic rifle whispered, "Come to think of it, I saw a hole in the wall back yonder not over fifty yards."
I rolled out of my pack still dripping sea water and threw away my field glasses and map case. I told him that I was going back and see about that hole. If there was one, I'd come back and get the men. When they started pulling out for him to open up on that machine gun with his automatic rifle and cover us.
Rosey was lying there listening to every word. I turned to him and said, "Come on Rosey, let's go back and see about that hole in the wall." Then I took off and Rosey followed.
We found the hole in the wall. It was really just a gap, but you could manage to get to it by climbing up some fallen rocks. When I got on top I heard voices on the other side. I recognized Bugler's. Bugler (T5 Charles W. Stimson) was the battalion clerk, and was called Bugler because he used to be the company bugler back in old National Guard days at Sweetwater, Texas. I asked him who he was with and he said a bunch from E and G. I crawled back through the wall to get the other men but it wasn't necessary. I heard the Browning start firing and all the men crawled through the gap, except the BAR man and the prisoners. He later told me that soon after we left they started shelling the area and he and the prisoners jumped in a deep hole and stayed there until after daylight when he turned them over to the MP's on the beach. He was still a little mad at us for having dumped the prisoners on him, but later I put him in for a citation for getting us out of that tight spot and to make it up to him for the dirty trick we had unintentionally pulled on him.
Everything was as quiet as death in that ghostly city of ruins, but the sound of the action to our rear remained hot. I did not know the condition of the battalion. From the looks of the group I had, the whole thing must be mighty badly disorganized. I had between fifty and sixty men from every unit in the battalion, a few non-cons, and one lieutenant (1st Lt. Woodrow R. Jenkins), the S1 (Capt. Willard H. Gill) and the Battalion Surgeon for officers. Every man must have come off the beach as an individual, for there was no semblance of organization. I did know that tanks and German troops were moving into action. Artillery swished overhead to form geysers in the sea, but within the walls of Paestum it was like being in a tomb where a sound had not been heard for a thousand years. The place was uncanny. My mouth was dry and I could feel death lurking out there in the darkness ready to strike from nowhere. The situation appeared to me to be quite critical. My only desire was to get my men out of there and on to a river shown on the aerial photo where we could dig in and fight it out at daybreak.
It was too dark to do much and time was running out. I hollered at the non-coms to grab them off some men and form squads. Then, I told the lieutenant to send out scouts to our front and we would all move through the east gate of Paestum and dig in as soon as we got to the river. The S1 was to bring up the rear and keep the men punched up.
As soon as we got moving I sent out three-man patrols to cover our right and left flanks, but no sooner had the patrols disappeared in the darkness than they would gradually swing back and rejoin the main party. No one moved fast enough to suit me and I soon found myself out front with the scouts. After punching them up I moved back through the men yelling that if they wanted to live after the sun came up they had better get out on that river and dig in. Finally, I just took off in front of the scouts and everyone followed behind.
You could feel daylight coming on, and off to our right the columns of two Grecian temples made a silhouette in the graying sky. We stumbled over old ruins and climbed crumbling walls of houses whose floors were of beautiful tile mosaics. When we reached the east wall of Paestum there was a commotion in a black tunnel in the wall and just as I started to shoot into the tunnel women's voices shrieked out, "Italiano, Italiano!" The lieutenant had already crawled to the top of the wall and called back that you couldn't get off the other side, so we all turned to our right and went to the east gate. There, standing in the middle of the gate and all alone was Colonel Sam, his back to the railroad station.
The Colonel evidently had the same idea that I had, for he ordered us to cross the plowed field to our front and dig in at the river referred to on the map as the Capodifiume, which ran in the general direction of our objective, Mount Soprano. Just as day began to break Colonel Sam and I took off together across the flat plain with our men fanned out on either side. I asked him how in the Hell he had gotten to the gate all by himself, but I can't remember what he said.
The Capodifiume was nothing more than a drainage canal fed by an ice cold spring flowing from the base of a nose of Mount Soprano. It was about twelve feet wide with straight banks covered with a dense growth of head-high rushes. Its water was so crystal clear it looked to be about two feet deep and good enough to drink. When we reached the stream we could see no Germans anywhere, so the Colonel told me to set up the battalion command post there and ordered the lieutenant and the men to proceed up the left bank of a hundred yards or so and take up a defensive position.
The Colonel, the S1, Bugler and I sat down in the rushes with Rosey and about four medicos in red cross helmets squatting around. Each aid man carried a full bag of medical supplies with wire and metal splints hanging from shoulder straps. With the coming of daylight rifle and machine gun fire broke out heavy back in the town. I was glad to be out of there, and all we could do was to wait until some of the rest of our outfit caught up with us. Then, all of a sudden a German heavy mortar opened up across the river lobbing shells into the railroad station where some of our men were trying to assemble. I jumped to my feet and through the tall weeds could get only a faint glimpse of Germans partly concealed behind a house throwing shells into the upright tube. They weren't over seventy-five yards from us and in order to get a clear shot at them I dashed into the river for the other side. I went over my head in water and never touched bottom. I grabbed some weeds on the concave bank, but wasn't able to get a footing. For a moment I thought I was going to drown, but someone heard me splashing in the water and Colonel Sam reached over the bank and pulled me out. The shock of being drenched in ice water gave me the rigors and I shook all over.
Before I had gotten control of my nerves one of the medics jumped up hollering and pointing to our rear at four German machine gunners running across the plowed field from the direction of Paestum. Colonel Sam was already yelling at them when I pulled my automatic and let them have several rounds from the hip. They hit the ground and when I let them have another burst they dropped their weapons and trotted in German style with their hands high in the air. Colonel Sam left to see about our men to the front, while I went about searching the prisoners. They insisted on holding their hands up, but I made them put them down thinking that the German mortar crew might see hands over the top of the reed and let us have a round of what they were throwing into Paestum. I took nearly a carton of Chesterfield cigarettes and some matches off of them and divided them among us, as ours had been soaked in sea water. Where they had gotten the American cigarettes I never found out, but through Rosey, who spoke German, they told me they were from the 16th (Armored) Panzer Division and had been waiting at the beach for us for three days.
When I gave out of questions, Rosey said the Germans wanted to know if I would answer a question for them. I said, "Sure, what do they want to know?" Rosey spoke to them in German and then turned to me and said, "You'll never guess it. They want to know if we're cowboys from Texas."
The First Sergeant of F (Joe W. Gill) looking for his company appeared from a hedge row of blackberry bushes bordering the plowed field. A machine pistol bullet had driven his wedding band up the bone into the palm of his hand, but he wasn't complaining. In the crook of his arm he carried the machine pistol he had taken off the German that had shot him. I assured the sergeant that his company was still somewhere back to Paestum, but he was determined to go forward. After considerable friendly persuasion on my part and some help from Rosey, I induced him to take the prisoners to the rear where he could find an aid station with the tools to remove the ring. I didn't feel like ordering a brave man like that to the rear, but sort of left the decision up to him, and was glad when he reluctantly agreed. I heard he rejoined F that night on Mount Soprano.
Things were beginning to break up back at Paestum. You could see our men individually and in pairs infiltrating toward us up the hedge rows, and a Ford truck painted a dusty tan raced at high speed on a dirt road leading from the town. It got past us before we realized it had German markings. A hairlipped man from E with his 60 mm mortar appeared from behind the hedge row and I yelled for him to put it into action and knock out those Germans who were still shooting their mortar into Paestum. This man was also named Mack. He was an exceedingly smart soldier, but due to his speech difficulty hadn't risen in rank higher than corporal.
When I told him to put his mortar into action, he replied, "I can't, I loth my thight."
Remembering that I had seen him practice shooting his mortar without a sight in Africa, I told him to try it like back in Africa. He moved over to a clearing where he could get a better view of things and I told him to aim at the Germans behind the house. He sat down, put the mortar barrel between his knees, and after pulling the safety pin, held the shell with its tail sticking into the tube. He deliberately moved the barrel back and forward until he thought he had it just right and let go of the shell. It hit bottom and came out of the barrel in a high arc.
When the shell exploded Mack threw down the mortar and jumped up into the air and ran around in a circle exclaiming loudly, "Yethus Thrith, I got a hit, I got a hit."
Only minutes after Mack knocked out the mortar a German tank pulled up so close to the opposite bank of the river that you could see its turret and gun barrel sticking through the reeds. It fired two 88 mms that exploded in the field just behind us. And then its two machine guns firing in angry bursts began cutting down the reeds on the river bank. We all ran and dove head first into the thorny blackberry hedge. I still have white marks on my hands and arms and body where those sharp thorns tore at my flesh.
I decided it was time to move the command post. From the opposite side of the hedge-row I could see men infiltrating in pairs and small widely scattered groups, taking advantage of whatever cover they could find. It looked like we were getting on the move. I jumped into a drainage ditch knee deep in water and started forward. Those of battalion headquarters followed in single file. Behind me were the Chaplain, the S1, the captain of H, Bugler, and Rosey and his aid men, all sloshing in the water. The shoulder-high ditch and grassy bank gave us good cover. When we came around a bend I could see straight ahead where the ditch emptied into the river. At that moment the same tank or another one pulled up on the opposite bank of the river and started raking the field to our left with its machine guns. Two other tanks pulled into view and also opened fire. We all crawled out of the ditch and took cover in the tall grass. I could see our men lying flat in open fields, some of them firing at the tanks with their rifles. The river acting as a barrier kept the tanks from running over our position. Finally when a bazooka shell ricocheted off the side of one tank, all three withdrew to the south and disappeared into some woods.
Those tank crews were gaining a certain respect for our riflemen. Already they had lost five tanks to bazookas in our battalion. A sergeant out of H (John Y. McGill) had knocked one out by climbing the tank and dropping a hand grenade down the open turret after someone had shot the crew leader when he had stuck his head out of the top for a look-see. Drivers operating with their forward ports open for better vision had been killed in their seats by riflemen firing pointblank through the openings. The Germans had taken a heavy loss in armor in similar fashion throughout our entire division, and in a way were operating at a distinct disadvantage. We were so completely disorganized and scattered that at no time did we provide a tank with a suitable target. The Germans were utterly confused by our tactics. While they were shooting at one man another lay hidden closely by with a bazooka. We were like a corps of army worms advancing on Mount Soprano, each individually Hell-bent on getting to the mountain. Our tactics of individual infiltration applied more pressure on them than they could cope with, and they alone knew that it would be only a matter of time when some of us would be sniping at their artillery positions at the base of Mount Soprano.
For some reason unknown to us our artillery was not giving us any support and it was getting well up into the day. Neither had the navy come in to silence the German artillery firing at the beaches. One very active 88 mm gun crew was shooting direct fire at the beaches from a position high up on Mount Soprano. So far the only weapons that we had employed against the Germans in our sector had been those we had brought ashore by hand.
After the tanks withdrew I moved on and found the Battalion Sergeant Major and my runner, Bick, by the river. Bick was standing there soaking wet and shivering, watching the sergeant apply a first aid packet to a man shot through the leg. The sergeant told me later that when they ran out of our assault boat, Bick grabbed him by his rifle belt and he had had to pull Bick hanging on his belt all the way, part of the time with Bick crying. They had arrived at the river just as the tanks moved up and started firing. The wounded man had fallen into the river and was drowning. They could all hear the man crying for help, but no one dared move. Then all of a sudden Bick laid his radio down and stood up. He deliberately walked through the cross fire of the tanks and our riflemen and stood on the bank of the river until he had found his man and dove in. When the action was over they found Bick clinging to the bank holding the man's head out of the water. While Bick may never have gotten a medal for that act of bravery in those few moments he became a man. He later rose to the rank of staff sergeant.
I took the radio and sat on the ground calling Red Fox One and Red Fox Two, or any other Red Fox who would answer. Red Fox was the call signal within our battalion. No one answered. After a long time the captain of G came in and said that he and about one hundred men were over by a house with a red roof. As there were a number of houses all with red roofs dotting the landscape, I could not figure out his exact location, but he assured me they were in pretty good shape and all moving toward the mountain.
Just before I reached a wooden foot bridge crossing the river, I ran into Rosey and his aid men working on the wounded. While some of the stretcher bearers were bringing the most urgent cases in on litters, Rosey and his key men were working steadily putting on tourniquets to stop bleeding and applying splints to fractured legs. They were too busy to even look up. I stopped to encourage the men with their "million dollar wounds," which meant a one-way ticket home, but their only thought at the moment was to join their outfit on Mount Soprano. As soon as a man was fixed up for evacuation, the Chaplain saw to it that he was hidden in the reeds to give him advantage of all available cover. And the Chaplain saw to it that those who died in the aid station were lined up in a neat little row off behind some bushes. Every Memorial Day my particular respects go out to one waxen face that stared open-eyed in death at me there on the ground. I don't remember which company he was from.
I looked toward the sea. Off in the distance across the sloping plain to the north I could see an entire infantry regiment (the 143rd) deployed over a mile wide moving up in our direction. It was our reserve regiment which had been forced to land farther up the beach, because Paestum was too hot. By then it was growing late in the afternoon.
I could hear our artillery coming into action. Off in the direction of G our artillery forward observer had finally gained radio contact with his battery of 105 mms. The captain of G told me that the lieutenant of artillery had crawled up on the roof of a house and told his battery to fire one round at "the house with the red roof." From there he could adjust the fire of the battery on any target of his choice. The battery fired. The shell hit the barn just behind and blew half the barn roof over the top of the house. The lieutenant suddenly became aware of the fact that every house in Italy had a red tile roof.
The German tanks made another pass. They pulled up and started firing machine guns at us and their 88 mms at the regiment below. I hit the ground and so did everyone else except Rosey who kept working on the wounded, completely unconscious of what was going on about him. Our artillery forward observer asked for fire from his four gun battery located somewhere back at Paestum. While the battery was firing two or three rounds for adjustment, the tanks pulled out and that was the last we saw of them that day. In the meantime some of our riflemen had infiltrated the German artillery position and after a few rounds from their M1's, the German artillery pulled out hastily on the only escape route open to them on a dirt road to the north. Then a U. S. naval destroyer pulled in and opened fire on the 88 mms high up on Mount Soprano. When the first blast hit up there on the mountain, the 88 mms stopped firing and we all started moving on Mount Soprano, still two or three hours short of our objective.
I picked up a pack and a gas mask and a couple of hand grenades at the aid station and crossed the wooden foot bridge to the opposite side of the river. At that point the river cut back to the left and it was a much shorter route to the mountain. Bick was with me jabbering to the other walkie-talkie men on his radio and telling me that most of the rest of the battalion was going to cross the river farther up or go around where it headed at the big spring. The sergeant major, Bugler, and a half-dozen enlisted men followed me. Somehow I had lost the S1 and the machine gun officer who had been with me all day. Rosey and the Chaplain stayed behind attending to their work.
A soldier in combat rarely, if ever, knows what is going on outside his own little barnyard, which in most cases is quite small. To hear the others tell it they got it lots worse than we did, both on our right and left flanks. In one respect the 2nd Battalion had been lucky. The Germans had considered the walled ruins of Paestum a natural barrier to tank operations and had concentrated their main armored efforts against the troops coming in above and below Paestum. But that didn't help the lieutenant from the third platoon of E (3nd Lt. James J. Curran). Shortly after daylight he and a German tank contested each other over the priority of going out the east gate of Paestum. The lieutenant and his small group were hidden behind some rocks just before the gate anxious to depart the city, while the tank wanted the right of way. The men were pinned down and the tank was afraid to close in because of bazooka fire. It was a flat stalemate. But the lieutenant who had been a Massachusetts state policeman before the war, couldn't stand the indecision. Every once in a while he would rise up and throw a hand grenade at the tank, which in turn would retaliate by spraying everything with machine gun fire. After about the third or fourth toss a sergeant yelled in a loud voice, "For Christ sake, Lieutenant, leave the Goddamned thing alone." They lay there for a while and finally the tank pulled back and let the lieutenant and his men through. A little later the lieutenant was hit by shrapnel and was evacuated to a hospital ship some twelve miles off shore, but went AWOL on another landing craft and rejoined E shortly after daylight the next morning.
A parallel account was told me by a sergeant out of G who said that he and about six men were hiding behind a stone fence when a general officer of the Division appeared and hollered for them to get out from behind that wall and get going to the mountain. The sergeant told him there were German tanks out there and the general said, "Those are American tanks, come on, let's go," and jumped the wall. A tank let him have an 88 that nearly split his legs and the general jumped back into the nest of soldiers and said, "They are German, for sure."
After crossing the bridge we followed a foot path that took us through overhead grape arbors loaded with ripe fruit ready for the press and through little farm enclosures with figs drying on trays laid out in the sun on top of the shed roofs. We ate them as we passed not because we were conscious of being hungry, but mainly because they were in reach. Not an Italian was in sight, neither were the Germans. The only thing alive and moving were a few hogs rooting in forbidden potato fields. As we passed around a series of hay stacks we came upon a recently abandoned German artillery position. What impressed me most was its comfort and neat appearance. It was unique and still had a rather pleasant smell. Everything was intact just as the Germans had left it, except the artillery piece and the empty shell cases were missing. Around the perimeter of the gun emplacement, which was completely concealed by a balcony of overhead grape vines, were benches and couches made of bamboo and reeds that the German soldiers had built for leisurely comfort. Their dead cigarette butts carefully placed in an earthen bowl on a table appeared to be fresh smoked, and I sat down for a moment on one of the benches for a rest.
A letter lay on the table and I opened it. I couldn't read the German, but the picture enclosed made me think of our families back in Texas. There was the baby boy on the soldier's knee with a little girl hanging onto his pants and the mother, who looked like she might have been nine months pregnant, stood pointing to a little dog who was sitting up asking for a biscuit. A couple of grandparents appeared proudly in the background. After studying their faces for a long time, I took a match and burned the picture, because I thought it too personal to fall into other hands.
As we moved on we followed a well beaten patch of tank tracks, which led to a route around the headwaters of the Capodifiume, where a big spring burst out of the ground flowing several thousand gallons a minute. A battalion runner picked up a half-used belt of machine gun ammunition discarded by one of the tanks and showed it to me. It was something new to us. The belt was loaded with regular metal cases containing wooden bullets stained a shingle red. We figured they were good for only a very short range and were used in close combat so as not to overfire into their own troops under such conditions as had prevailed earlier in the day.
The sun was about an hour high when we sat on the ground by a house one hundred feet from the spring. We tried to keep our minds off the dead German who lay a little apart from us where he had been thrown out of a passing tank. A set of tank tracks led up to the front door where he lay on the ground. He could well have been one of the drivers shot while operating with the forward ports open. We were growing very tired and still had a hard climb ahead of us. To our front we could see men climbing halfway up the steep slopes of the mountain, with hundreds of others following close behind emerging from the flat plain below. One could definitely discern a distinct pattern of reorganization forming on the mountainside. Each company had its own objective on each side of a gap in the mountain and you could see the men beginning to funnel toward their individual destinations. It appeared to be like a magnet slowly drawing the separate pieces of a confused puzzle back into proper order. There was E on the left and F on the right, with G funneling up toward the middle of the gap.
Back at the Tower of Paestum a very strange character out of the adjoining regiment had attached himself to me. He was tall and thin and appeared to be the kind that had never had a friend or anyone to speak kindly to him in his life. He had no apparent talents for being a soldier or anything else for that matter and never said a word or came close or did anything. He just seemed to be around every time I looked up. He gave me the feeling I didn't want to have him around, and several times during the day I found myself asking him why he didn't go off and hunt up his own outfit. He would only look at me out of his sad eyes and be gone for a while, and then there he would be again, just there. I tried my best to ignore him, but had the feeling he was always somewhere around.
When I caught myself unconsciously glancing out of the corner of my eye to see how the dead German was getting along, I saw this lanky fellow appear from behind the farm house carrying a large demijohn of wine under his left arm. Our eyes met and he slowly moved toward me and placed the jug in my hands. I removed the cork and took a long pull at the bottle, and then passed the wine to the others sitting in a circle. I reached for a pack of cigarettes and handed them to him and when our eyes met we smiled to each other. Soon we all began to laugh and talk for the first time that day and opened rations and ate.
While Bick and another soldier were going to the spring to fill our canteens, I took a message book from Johnnie (Pfc. Johnnie A. Pricer), a battalion runner, and wrote a message to Regiment giving them a report on the condition of things and our progress. I gave the message to Johnnie and told Bugler to go along for company and in case Regiment wanted further details to fill them in.
When Johnnie and Bugler took off, we all stood up. I motioned to the lanky soldier to come along, and we slowly climbed to the gap in the mountain where we dug in for the night.
James T. Padgitt, Texas Military History, Summer, 1965
[James T. Padgitt, son of Mrs. J. Tom Padgitt, entered the Army Nov. 20, 1940; sent to ETO April 1, 1943; fought at Salerno; 12 months overseas; attached to 36th Division; awarded Purple Heart; held the rank of lieutenant colonel; discharged on Nov. 1, 1944.]
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