110 degrees magazine - Index

110 degrees magazine - 110° Magazine - July 2007 - Through the gates of Hell - Index

COVER STORY [THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL]
24 www.110mag.com July 2007
sights of soldiers lying wounded and
whimpering while waiting for help. I
also had to walk over and around the
silent forms of dead bodies, both
Allied and Axis.
When I at last got to a tank I
knocked on the side. The tank operator
opened the hatch and said, “What
do you want?”
After explaining to him our desperate
situation, I imagined that he
would offer me a ride back to our
position, but he just slammed the
hatch and drove away leaving me to
leap away and then make my way
back to my unit with sniper fire still
falling around me like some grim rain.
I was lucky to have survived both
going and returning.
Not only was front-line conflict
dangerous, it was plain miserable.
The kitchen, for example, could never
catch up with us so we spent months
without warm food, just eating
congealed stuff out of our K-rations.
The food became sticky in the rain.
One day we ccught a really wonderful
break, because for some reason the
kitchen caught up with us for a meal.
After weeks of eating cold food I
consumed 13 pork chops before I was
finally satisfied.
BACK TO SCHOOL
We were almost done with the war
when the confrontation at the schoolhouse,
during which my sergeant was
killed, took place.
After the sergeant was slain a bullet
struck the wall just above my head. I
was the shortest man in my unit and if
I had been of normal height that bullet
would have killed me on the spot.
One of my comrades suddenly bolted
out the door making a mad dash back
to our lines. I saw an arm enclosed in
the sleeve of a German uniform grab the
man and pull him out of sight. Another
of our men was in an adjoining room in
FREE