Another River, Another Town

Book by Irwin John P

CHAPTER 1

THE EDUCATION OF A HERO The German breakthrough in the Ardennes forest in France in December of 1944 and January of 1945 created a “bulge” extending into Allied positions. In the ensuing battle, one of the most horrendous and costly conflicts in the European theater in World War II—the Battle of the Bulge—the Allies lost enormous quantities of equipment, men, and supplies. The need to pursue the now retreating Germans required massive replacements of equipment and, especially, men. There was no way the war could continue without them.

At that very moment, I was being prepared—along with tens of thousands of other GIs—to help supply the need. I had found my heroic destiny in armored warfare, and my training at Fort Knox, Kentucky, resulted in my qualifying best as a “medium tank gunner.” I was a normal teenager, just eighteen, naïve, ignorant, fully absorbed in myself, and quite certain that I knew all I needed to know about the world—in fact, next to nothing—and was invulnerable to such subtleties as death and destruction. My education about the war was pretty much limited to the Why We Fight indoctrination films we were required to watch in basic training. Those films filled me with adolescent hostility toward Adolf Hitler and his armies, whose satanic goal, we were assured, was to conquer the world and make slaves of us all.

I was a griping-good soldier and wanted more than anything to go to Germany, find Hitler, and relieve the world of that monster once and for all. Not all the trainees I associated with shared my zeal; in fact, lots of guys were finding ingenious ways to avoid shipping out to the ETO (European Theater of Operations). Most of them were draftees. I, on the other hand, had enlisted, primarily to avoid finishing high school, which I detested. Surely war was preferable to high school!

I had as good a training at Fort Knox as nineteen weeks (including two weeks of gunnery school) would permit, and by the time I arrived in Europe, I had received the corporal stripes that went with being a gunner. I had the romantic idea that in some sense war was glorious. But the devastation I saw in France, Belgium, and Germany was so nearly total in places that my illusions began to fade. A lot of boys became men in those first days, though some of us held on to our heroic fantasies, our dramatic dreams of doing great things in battle. We rode across France and Belgium in “40-and-8s” of World War I vintage and ended up in the tangle of destruction in Germany called Stolberg.

At Stolberg we were detained in a replacement depot (or “repple-depple”) situated in a former chain factory. Our private quarters consisted of whatever vacant spots we could find on the filthy floor. The air was choked with the smoke of burning shoe impregnate, which was considered more valuable as a source of heat than as protection of shoes and feet against mustard gas. And everywhere, of course, were the countless barracks bags and other equipment the men were responsible for. I saw no glory here! But it was here that we were, without our knowledge or consent, assigned to various line outfits, our combat units. I did not know what my assignment would be when we finally convoyed out of Stolberg into the vast unknown of combat warfare. I still remember the tingle of excitement I felt as we traveled across the wreckage-strewn countryside. The carcasses of tanks, trucks, half-tracks, even planes, gave us some impression of what lay ahead for us.

One of the remarkable things about combat life is the almost total and perpetual blindness of individual soldiers when it comes to the matters that most immediately affect them. We never knew what was going on, where we were going, what we would be doing, or, of course, what the outcome would be. We thought we knew, because there was always an abundance of rumors, all said to be gleaned from the most authoritative sources. Next to mail and food, rumors are the lifeblood of military existence. And incredible as it may seem, though the rumors are generally proven either false or exaggerated, soldiers never lose faith in them. They are, after all, the only show in town when it comes to information.

Our small convoy traveled several hours before coming to a fairly extensive wasteland of frozen mud covered with many hundreds of military vehicles, most of them armored. To my left I noticed a small column of Sherman tanks on what was presumably a roadway. Around the area men were everywhere, walking, sitting on their bags, leaning on vehicles, and, invariably, smoking. The one thing more ubiquitous than rumor-mongering in this army was cigarette smoking. The ten or twenty GIs in the entire European theater who did not smoke were forever on the defensive to explain what their problem was. Besides the hundreds of tanks and half-tracks, there were large numbers of armored cars, trucks, peeps (later known as “jeeps”), command cars, and the like.

We dismounted from our trucks, lit up our cigarettes, and put our hands in our pockets. It was very cold. Our little convoy had been under the direction of a second lieutenant, and he had walked away somewhere, cigarette in mouth, hands in pockets, looking for someone to report to. The going rumor was that we had been assigned to the 3rd Armored Division with the First Army—a rumor that for once turned out to be correct. The information meant next to nothing to me, since I knew nothing about army units. Yet, for some reason I felt good about it. Now I had an identity, a home plate, so to speak, an address I could call my own. All I wanted now was to move out of this mudhole and on to my new unit.

There was a great deal of urgency in that open air repple-depple. The command here wanted to move us out just as urgently as most of us wanted to go, and our wish was about to be granted. The tanks lined up on the roadway were waiting for us to take them up to the assigned unit. One tank, however, stood off the roadway, apart from the others, undergoing some sort of maintenance. At the sound of a whistle we were lined up, counted off in fours, and directed to the various tanks. As it happened, three other guys and myself were assigned to the stray tank not in the column. As we stood dumbly by the tank, a captain came over to us, and, seeing my corporal stripes, he spoke to me.

“I need someone in charge here. You seem to be the ranking person, Corporal, so that will be you. Who’s a driver?”

A long moment dragged by. Finally a reluctant voice with a Virginia drawl said, “Uh, Ah guess that would be me.”

“Okay. You other two will go along for the ride. I’m Captain Harkin, and I’m in command of this convoy until we get to the 33rd Armored Regiment.”

“Sir?” I ventured.

“What is it?” he asked briskly.

“I thought we were going to the 3rd Armored Division.”

“Damn it, you are,” he snapped, “at least you are as soon as these mechanics say your tank is ready to roll. The rest of us are going to take advantage of what daylight is left and move out. You’ll be on your way to catch up to us within twenty or thirty minutes. But remember. This is hostile country. It hasn’t been completely cleared of the enemy. The SS may be anywhere around here waiting for a chance to create diversions. No lights! Get it? N-O-N-E. Even a lit cigarette outside your tank could draw fire from God knows where. You’ll be given driving instructions before you leave.”

He pulled his cigarette from his mouth and stomped it into the mud.

“Any questions?” he asked.

I asked the obvious one. “Will we have to shoot?”

“I hope not,” he said. “You certainly won’t be shooting that cannon, for God’s sake. Any other questions?”

After Captain Harkin left, we stood in a silent clump a short distance from our tank, watching the maintenance crew working on it.

“You a good driver?” I asked the Virginian, whose name turned out to be Bernie Graver.

“Ah’m qualified.” He shuddered. “Ah sure don’ wanna stan’ around here long, though.”

The other two were quiet. One—Eddie Evangelini—was no older than I and looked just as underage. “I never expected this kind of duty when I got drafted,” he whimpered. Our fourth member said very little, though he wore a funny smile, as though he knew something we didn’t. I wasn’t sure I liked him. He said his name was Hominy. Har-dee-har-har, I thought, so call me Grits!

It was forty-five minutes before our tank was ready to roll. Graver got directions from a lieutenant, who assured him he would have no trouble. Just stay on the road. When we get to a small town, the rest of the convoy will be waiting for us. But remember: NO LIGHTS!

No lights, and a cold winter dusk had settled in, making the road virtually invisible. To add to these troubles, a haze of dust hung in the frigid air from the tank convoy that had passed on ahead. Dust! Sherman tanks were technology’s answer to clean air. They were extremely efficient dust machines. Take one road caked with winter mud, drive a Sherman tank over it, listen to the clanking, crunching, and shrieking as the heavy treads grind the frozen mud to powder, and enjoy the spectacle of tremendous clouds of dust being blown into the air by the downward blast of the rear exhaust. And they said, “No lights!” From my perspective, lights wouldn’t have made a particle of difference.

Graver was obviously in the grip of terror. The mention of SS troopers had fired his brain. From that moment on he was a changed man. He had come under the control of a higher power called FEAR. His foot pressed that Sherman accelerator flat to the floor of the tank. It was never clear, at any given moment, whether or not we were on the road at all—not that it mattered that much to Graver. I could hear Evangelini utter a “Holy shit!” from the depths of the tank, but Hominy just stood on the back deck of the tank nonchalantly, as though it didn’t matter one way or another.

But it did matter. Graver could not see more than twenty yards before him, and he had those rolling thirty-five tons moving at about forty-five miles an hour. The impact of one tank upon another at that speed invariably produces effects no one would wish for. In the present case—unknown (and invisible) to us—the convoy that preceded us had stopped at an intersection in the road to take bearings. When our tank rammed full speed into the last tank in the convoy, Hominy completed a beauti- ful loft over our tank turret onto the back deck of the tank we had rammed. I suppose it would have been fun to watch, but it was no fun when Captain Harkin showed up to inspect the damage.

“I’ll be a mother—” he began, shaking his head incredulously. “This has to be history in the making!” He examined what was left of the shattered drive sprocket on our tank and the separated tread lying twisted in the road. “Jesus Christ! What the hell were you trying to do?” he croaked at no one in particular. Graver sat with a dazed look in the driver’s hatch, not entirely sure what had gone wrong. Evangelini was buried somewhere in the inner sanctum of the tank hull, apparently not even breathing. I stood by Captain Harkin shaking my head in sync with his, trying to make the point that those of us in command often have to put up with some pretty stupid things.

“What’s your name, Corporal?”

“Irwin, sir. Corporal John P. Irwin.”

“Didn’t you notice how fast this son of a bitch was moving?”

“Well, yes, sir, I thought it was kind of fast,” I offered defensively.

“No, Corporal. It wasn’t kind of fast. It was very, very fast. It was the bloody fastest fucking tank driving I’ve seen in this war. I’ve been around this war awhile, and I didn’t know tanks could go that fast.”

“What do you think we should do, sir?” I ventured.

The captain cast a scowl my way and walked over to his peep. He radioed the maintenance people in the rear. A few minutes later he came back.

“Bad luck! No one can do anything for you before tomorrow afternoon. The rear has its own problems. Your trapeze man got himself hurt. No telling how bad. We’re taking him with us. You three will have to stand guard right here in the middle of this intersection until the maintenance people can get to you. And when I say stand guard, I mean just that. See these woods all around here?” He circled his arm at the nearby hills. “They’re swarming with fucking SS just squirming to shoot your asses off.”

I was sorry Graver had to hear that remark. His head disappeared down the driver’s hatch, just like a turtle retreating into its shell. The hatch closed, and I could hear it latch. No one was going to shoot his ass off! From the still-open turret hatch I could hear repetitive pleas to the Mother of God to have mercy and forgive and protect this unworthy servant.

As the convoy of tanks roared off into the night, I listened to the fading echoes. Somehow, this was not at all what I had expected of combat. It wasn’t clear what I did expect, but this surely was not it. For the first time I became aware that our tank was positioned in the middle of an intersection, not more than twenty feet from a house. In fact, I could just make out that there were other houses in the area, though I saw no lights and no signs of living beings. It was going to be a lonely vigil indeed.

My only companion during that excruciatingly long night was my “grease gun,” a strange little collapsible submachine gun that fired fifteen rounds of .45-caliber bullets per clip with forty-five percent accuracy up to twenty-five yards. I often wondered if I could hit the hull of a tank from the inside with one of these babies. Nevertheless, one thing was certain: no one was going to get me to sit inside that iron coffin in a situation like this. I’d seen lots of war movies, and I knew all about how the Krauts would open hatches and throw hand grenades inside tanks. So I chose to sit on the steps of the nearest house, on guard, with my trusty grease gun cradled in my arms. Which I did all night long!

Wherever the SS troops were, they never showed themselves to me that night. And in the morning I sat, cold and groggy, on the steps of the house, still cradling my first and only line of defense in my arms and smoking a cigarette. There was no sign of life about our tank. My two stalwart companions were still too terrified to venture outside, not even for necessary activities. I could only imagine the condition of things inside, and I was glad for the fresh air.

The tank was stocked with water and rations, so we did not starve or die of thirst before the maintenance people showed up late in the afternoon. The water cans were blocked with ice, but we managed to melt that without setting Germany on fire. The three of us stood around the three of them, who were having problems replacing our drive sprocket.

“Never seen anything like this,” complained the staff sergeant in charge. “Y’all musta put lily grease on them tracks to slide that hard.”

“Oh, we didn’t slide,” explained Graver. “Ah never even put on the brakes—never saw a thing in front of me. It was just slammo!”

“Shit! You boys are luckier’n hell you wasn’t killed,” came a voice from under the tank. “When we git this thing runnin’ fer ya, y’all better take real good care of it, ’cause we ain’t got no more spare sprockets layin around.”

It took more than an hour and a half for the repair team to complete the task, and I was getting very nervous as I watched the sun disappear behind the trees.

“You guys got any idea what we do now?” I asked, trying not to look too stupid.

The lanky redheaded sergeant raised up to his full six-foot-three frame and looked down at me, wiping his greasy hands on a greasy rag and grinning as he did so.

“My fir...