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As I stood watch overlooking the only open field in the entire Ardennes, I couldn't help but think of home back in Idaho. The quiet nights in December, the snow that drifted slowly to it's resting place upon the thousands of acres of forest. How the trees swayed in the night wind, crackling and moaning as if they were old men shuffling about. Yet this wasn't Idaho, I was thousands of miles away from home.
This beautiful place, this amazing scene has been tainted by the hands of men. Trees, hundreds of them, lay splintered and ripped apart from the works of German artillery, their rounds bursting in the air, sending shrapnel and massive trunks crashing down upon us while we wait helplessly, wondering if our number has come up. The worst part of it all, the one thing we fear the most, is the unpredictability of these horrific acts of war. Any time the krauts could rain hell on us and we would never see it coming.
Tonight though...tonight is different. Across this desolate, snowy field, where the Germans are lying in wait, there are no sounds of machine guns opening up, nor the thunderous echo of artillery fire barreling towards us. Instead there's candle light, carols, and laughter. See tonight is no regular night, tonight is Christmas Eve, and while the German Army celebrates with popping flares and singing "Silent Night", we sit freezing, hungry, and exhausted. This is not the Christmas we had imagined.
When I awoke the next morning my eyes jolted open and my senses came alive, there was hot coffee! Across the foxhole from me sat my good friend Joe Scalini. Joe was from an Italian family that found Brooklyn, New York to be home. His family owned a Deli Shop downtown and made a decent living. He looked like and talked like your average New York Italian. He had broad shoulders and the attitude that went along with it, but he could always back it up, he was a scrapper back in England before we made the jump and kept up his fighting spirit when we dropped into Normandy. He was one of those most sound guys under fire that our platoon had, and I was damn lucky to be his friend and foxhole buddy.
"About time ya woke up princess, I was about to drink this all to myself"
"Is that hot coffee?" I asked.
"Hot? Yes" Joe smirked. "Coffee? Well, if by that you mean murky water with one ground up coffee bean thrown in it, then you might be in luck, good thing I somehow found this." Joe pulled out a small silver flask that had the name "1st Lt. Robert Jones" perfectly etched on the front. "I'm sure he's a nice guy and wouldn't mind sharing some with us."
He poured some into the coffee and handed the flask off to me. I took a sip and choked down the fine whiskey that it contained. It's not that I wasn't a drinker you see, I just hadn't had a taste of the damn stuff since we jumped six months ago.
"Ah, I see old Sally Sweet Lips ain't used to some real whiskey eh?" Joe laughed.
"Keep making jokes Joe and kraut artillery will be the least of your worries" I said as I past the flask back over.
"Some chumps over in 3rd Platoon sayin' we might be getting hot chow today, with it being Christmas and all."
"Depends on if the krauts take it out first"
"If kraut shells take out our hot chow Mike, I'm gonna be one pissed of son-of-a-*****."
"What are you gonna do, take on the whole damn Germany Army?"
"Just wait and see Mike, wait and see."
Just then, Doc Holiday came over and popped a seat in our foxhole.
"Is that whiskey I smell?" he asked with his long, drawn out southern accent. Doc Holiday's real name is Dave Holly, but everyone calls him Doc Holiday because well, no one wants a Doc with a name meant for a girl. Plus the real Doc Holiday was a western cowboy badass, and there were some moments when we'd watch Doc do some pretty crazy things in combat, so the name stuck with him.
"Christ Holiday, you musta' been born with that **** in your veins" said Joe.
"Listen Joe, there are two things I'm good at. Patching you guys up is one, cause the Army taught me that, and the second one is drinking, cause well, when you grow up in southern Alabama, you ain't got nothing to do but drink and hunt, heck, sometimes we'd do both"
"You know what Doc, you're a crazy son-of-a-*****" Joe said as he past the flask off to Doc. "Don't drink the whole damn thing."
"Well Joe, they don't call me Doc Holiday for nothing."
As we sat in our hole, we could hear commotion going on off to our right flank. There were men yelling but no gunfire, which seemed like a good sign. Just as Joe and I were about to get up and check things out, we heard a shot ring out. Someone shouted "Contact!" and we dove back into our hole.
"That mother ****er shot me!" someone screamed.
"Ahh ****....I reckon I might as well go see what happened" Doc said as he climbed out of our hole and disappeared into the morning fog.
We could hear more yelling and the sound of a jeep driving over to the area. A few minutes later Doc came back and jumped into our hole.
"Somethin' about someone missing a flask, poor bastard shot him in the foot cause he thought he was lying about him takin' it."
Joe looked at me while tucking the flask away in his coat.
"Talk about an easy ticket home huh Doc?"
"Yeah I'd say so Mike."
The rest of the morning was uneventful. There were some short bursts of machine fun fire along the lines but it was relatively silent. Joe had went off towards the rear earlier to "plunder" as he liked to call it. He had a knack for always returning from these adventures with something that didn't belong to him, whether it was a fine silver spoon or a freshly pressed winter coat that belonged to some Captain from Battalion Headquarters, the answer was always "What? I just found it layin' around."
This morning Joe was on top of his game, not only did he procure the flask earlier, but as I watched him walk up to the foxhole, I could smell and see the steam coming out of a large cooking pot he was carrying.
"Hey Mikey! Merry Christmas! Where's Doc?"
"He's scrounging around for some Morphine, please tell me that's what I think it is"
Joe handed me the pot and my face instantly lit up.
"Well it ain't no damn turkey dinner, but I found some hot stew, and would you look at that, some bread too."
"Joe...I'm not even gonna bother to ask" as I grabbed a piece of bread and dipped it in.
"You'd be surprised at what you find just laying around out here in the Ardennes Mikey" smirked Joe.
It turns out Joe used to do alot of petty thievery back in the city, and he became very good at it. He once told me a story that he posed as a dairy man and managed to coerce an entire neighborhood into giving him their milk from the morning run because he said it was tainted and he was sent there personally by the manager to make sure he got all of it. We joked that in the first hours of the invasion if we got captured, Joe would not only talk us out of becoming POW's, but he would steal all of the krauts' weapons while doing it. Joe always told us he wasn't that good though, but deep down inside he knew he was.
As Joe and I finished up his early morning spoils, Doc Holiday finally managed to make his way back over.
"Dangonit! First I waste all mornin' lookin' for morphine, and now I come back over here and ya'll got hot chow?!"
"Damnit Doc keep it down would ya! Plus I saved you some anyways, and I managed to get you a present too" Joe pulled out two boxes of morphine syrettes and handed them to Doc. "Don't worry, I ain't short changing any of the guys in the rear who need it."
"Jesus Joe, does God owe you some favors?" asked Doc. "I've been looking for a few syrettes all mornin' but you manage to find two boxes?"
"I knew you needed some Doc, so I managed to find some."
"Ah, the infamous answer to all of our questions Joe" I laughed. "Never fails to amaze me."
The rumour of hot chow that 3rd Platoon was spreading around had turned out to be true. How Joe got it to use two hours before it arrived is still a mystery to me, God must have really owed him some favors.
One December 25th, 1944, not a single shot was fired at our position. That all changed on December 26th.
I was jolted awake to Joe screaming "Incoming!" in his thick New York accent. It seemed to always come out the most when things started getting hairy. Artillery fire was coming in heavy, and the Germans had an excellent understanding of timed fuses. They always managed to get their rounds to explode right above our heads. Trees began to explode as Joe jumped underneath the log roof of our foxhole. It provided enough protection from shrapnel and falling trees, but a direct hit was just that, a direct hit. The first time you get hit with artillery is traumatic and unreal, hell, every time is traumatic. Though as the shelling and fighting becoming a daily occurence, you begin to grow numb to some of the "shock" feelings you used to get in the beginning. Sure, you're scared ****less every time artillery comes in, but you have a sense of calmness about yourself because you know there isn't a thing in the world you can do to stop it. You just sit and hope your time isn't up, and wait for the end, for when the real fighting begins.
"Joe! Joe! You alright?"
"Can't hear a god damn thing Mike! Get the 30 up!"
I pull our .30 Cal out from underneath my blanket and dig the tripod as best as I can into the frozen ground.
"Gimme a belt Joe! I need a belt!"
German machine gun fire erupts and the cracks overhead are deafening.
"God damnit Joe hurry up!" I began firing Joe's carbine at the sound of machine gun fire in front of us.
"Relax Mike! I bet you can't see a damn thing anyways!"
Joe was right, the fog was so incredibly dense that I could barely see 10 yards in front of me. Still, having a wall of machine gun fire going towards your enemy rather than having it come at you is a soothing thought.
"I got it, I got it! Load her up!" yelled Joe.
I traded off his carbine for the belt and began loading the .30. The few seconds it took me to get her going seemed like forever, but she finally began singing the familiar note of death to the German line.
The fighting here was nothing like what we saw in Normandy. It was up close and personal there, you could always see what you were shooting at. It was nothing to clear a house and have to kill a kraut point blank. Here was different, we never move, we are sitting ducks, we wait to get shelled and then we wait for the following attack. Most of the time the fog is so thick that you can never tell where the fighting is or where the rounds are coming from. Sometimes they get so close you can hear them screaming in German, but you never see them, they are like ghosts, and that is the most unnerving thing I have ever encountered.
"Joe! Give me another belt! Joe!" I screamed.
"Damnit hold on Mike! I'm busy here!"
Joe and I were firing at what seemed like an empty fog, yet we both knew what was on the other side of it. There were men, some even boys, that were making their way to us, firing their weapons, throwing their grenades, trying to kill us. Life isn't supposed to be like this, and we knew that, but when you are thrown into hell's path you do anything and everything to keep yourself and the man next to you alive. We were all accustom to this ferocious demon, this deafening roar of death and destruction. We hardly flinched.
"I got it Mike! Here you go!"
Joe throws me another belt of .30 Cal ammo, 200 rounds of death that you can't outrun and you can hardly hide from. I feel this uplifting spirit engulf my body, as if I am indestructible, my adrenaline is soaring through my veins yet I am calmly addressing the situation at hand.
You see, Joe and I have become hardened combat veterans since jumping into France six months ago. Every day we were thrown into situations that would drive a sane man crazy, and it did to us for the first few weeks, but as the days of fighting turned into weeks, we became masters at controlling our body during combat. We learned to channel our emotions and our adrenaline into something we could use. We dashed from cover to cover, fired upon the enemy with accuracy, and push forward ferociously to engage the enemy and destroy him. To us, this was art, and we were the Da Vinci's of our time.
"Mike I need another magazine! Reach down in my bandoleer! I've got you covered on the .30!"
I didn't even have to tell Joe to take my weapon, he instinctively knew to. This is what being a warrior is all about, this is what happens when you've been living, breathing, fighting, and dying next to the same men for months on end, they know your every thought, your every move, and will make that move for your before you even have to ask. This is a brotherhood, where blood is shed for one another without a thought.
"Joe, I got you! Here you go!" I toss a bandoleer to Joe and he continues firing his weapon.
"CEASE FIRE!" a voice screams, the entire line echoes the command and our weapons fall silent. Nothing is moving, hundreds of casings melt into the snow and a thin layer of steam settles where they lay.
"Mike, you okay?"
"Yeah I'm good, how about you?"
"Good good, how you sittin' with ammo?"
"Uh ****, let me check" I begin sifting through our hole looking for boxes of belts. "I've got two boxes left, I'm running a little low"
"same here, I got a few bandoleers left."
A Doc rolls through and checks on us, we give him the okay and he moves on to the next hole, no one is yelling for him which either means everyone is good or they're dead, it's hard to tell.
Exhausted, we sit down for a quick smoke, one of the few habits you pick up in combat that works for you while it kills you. War makes even the most stupid habits seem like a good idea.
Joe ruffles through his pack and manages to pull out a rare treat in times like these.
"I was keeping this for a ****ty day, today seems like a good day for it"
He pulls out a fine German chocolate bar and breaks it in half, he hands me the bigger half.
"Comeon' Joe, take the bigger half, it's your stuff anyways"
"How am I supposed to share the spoils of war when I'm keeping all of it to myself?"
"....well since you put it that way"
I had never tasted a chocolate so rich in my entire life. If there were two things the Germans were good at, it'd be making chocolate and fighting a war.
"Mike, if God himself came down here today and told me to ask him one question, you know what it would be?"
"No, what would it be?"
"How can the Germans make such damn good chocolate, but turn around and kill or enslave everyone they come across?
"You gotta be ****ting me....you'd ask that?"
Joe eyed me with a puzzled look.
"That ain't a good question?"
As the night drew in we hunkered down and readied our positions for another possible attack. Night attacks weren't common, but they weren't rare, it was hit or miss. If the krauts felt lucky, they'd try to hit us with artillery and a platoon sized element right after, but usually it was just a few flares and some stray artillery rounds to keep us on our feet.
It was about 0200 when Joe woke me up for my shift of watch. He said he'd heard a few noises about 20 yards away to his right, but told me not to worry, as the roving watch was making their hourly movements up and down the line. Joe gave me a few coffee beans he scrounged up from a cook back at headquarters earlier and hit the rack, I had an odd feeling about this watch.
0312, the noise Joe heard earlier is back, and it sounds close, maybe 15 yards away. I strain my eyes to the area, are my eyes playing tricks on me?
I ready the .30 Cal towards the sound, rounds on feed tray, bolt locked to the rear, weapon on fire, I'm ready for whatever pops it's head out.
Suddenly, it stands up, my finger grips the trigger and begins the pull....and then it shakes the snow off of it's back and walks off into the dark.
"Was that....a deer?" I say out loud.
Joe wakes up startled "What? What's going on? The krauts coming?" He stands up and readies his carbine.
"A deer, I almost shot a deer"
"**** you should have Mike, would have made for a decent eatin', probably ain't much different than skinnin' a cow"
"Go back to sleep Joe"
The night continues on, my shift is almost up, ten more minutes till I wake up Joe and get some shut eye. Then I see something, something that isn't supposed to be this close to us.
"CONTACT FRONT!" The .30 Cal opens up with a ferocious roar and shatters the silence.
"Mike! What the ****!?"
"Krauts 10 yards front! Hit 'em Joe!'"
The entire Airborne Company is firing, everything we have is opening up. There must have been 50 or 60 krauts launching a surprise attack at dawn.
"Jesus Christ Joe they're close, throw a frag!"
He pulls the pin on one of his grenades and sends it flying through the air, it bounces five or six feet into three of them and explodes. The human body is not built to take shrapnel or a concussion like that at such a close range, body parts are strewn about and the screams of groan men rip pierce the ears.
The volley of fire from both sides is unbelievable, and comparable to a New Years' Eve fireworks show. Tracers light up the sky, explosions send a flash of light in every direction, muzzle flashes light the faces of the enemy that stands before us. I cannot help but dwell for a split second in the awe that unfolds before me, this is a sight that you can never imagine, but one you must see to believe.
"They're falling back Mike! Keep firing!" Screams Joe.
"I got 'em! They're dropping!"
The krauts are covering their retreat with artillery fire, massive concussions rock our senses and we seek cover underneath our log roof yet again. They're throwing everything they have right now at us to cease our fire, and it's working. We hunker down and hug the ground as best as we can, trees come crashing down all around us. Five minutes of constant shelling and suddenly the Earth goes silent, and now the cries of our wounded echo throughout the forest.
"Medic! I need a Medic!"
"Ahhh Christ I'm hit!"
To be Continued...
