110 degrees magazine - Index

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

COVER STORY [THROUGH THE GATES OF HELL]
26 www.110mag.com July 2007
the schoolhouse. A German hand
grenade was lobbed into that room
ending his life.
I could see the faces of German
troopers popping up at the windows
and realized that I would be killed if I
remained where I was, so I ran out the
same entrance where my companion
had recently been captured and dashed
down the hill towards our own lines.
A German machine gun began
shooting at me, and I could see bullets
kicking up dirt on both sides, but I
remained untouched. Then I tripped,
fell headlong with my helmet flying in
one direction and my rifle in the other.
It just so happened that my fall carried
me tumbling into a ditch. The watching
Americans and Germans both
thought that I had been killed by the
machine gun.
I lay unconscious in that ditch for
three hours. When I awoke the fighting
was raging as fierce as ever. Still minus
both rifle and helmet, I dashed down
the slope and dove headfirst right
through the window of a building where
GIs were firing at the enemy behind me.
I landed hard on the floor and passed
out for another hour. When I regained
consciousness that time the soldiers
promptly issued me replacements for
rifle and helmet and sent me right back
into the midst of the fighting.
The battle continued for the next
eight days and on May 8 we entered
Czechoslovakia and linked forces with
the Russian armies who had been
coming from the east. We had conquered
Germany and the European part
of the war was over.
Only two of us survived of the six
that had gone into that schoolhouse.
When the war ended, I had
marched 500 miles in 110 days.