Glenn C. Clift
111th Medical Battalion
Somewhere in Italy
22nd October 1943
Now that censorship has relaxed
somewhat for us, a few lines suggestive of our activities during the past few weeks.
To our Division, as you probably
know by now, has come the honor of being the first American troops "on the mainland
of Hitler's German-held Festung Europa." Of the Division my own Battalion was the
first to hit the beaches that early, historic morning and hence my Company of our Medical
Battalion the first Medical soldiers to get in and set up for business here in Hitler's
backyard.
It has been said of us that
"by the grace of God we established and maintained the beach head over which will
flow the Armies of the Four Freedoms." I don't know about that. It sounds mighty
flowery—like the super-duper leads newspaper boys sweat out on tablecloths over
Manhattans and coffee in good white cups. All I know is that those first few days we
waited a lifetime for reinforcements to get in and help us hold that narrow, precious
strip of beach. And for the British to come up and cinch the deal. There will never be
another waiting like that. I hope.
Our boys came in with the third
and fourth waves that morning. You have read by now (Time has the story
pretty straight) how the Germans let the first two waves in without resistance, then
opened fire on the third and fourth waves, the only ones that came in that first hour or
so.
They threw the book at those
early waves, literally and figuratively. You have seen the ads in the magazines. Soldiers
crouched low in assault boats, planes roaring overhead, shells and machine gun fire
raining against the sides and off the ramps of the landing craft. It was much like that
for our gang. Only the advertisements can't quite convey the indescribable sounds and the
smells and the hellacious suspense of a ship-to-shore operation. If that could be written
into an advertisement people would "blow their tops" buying bonds. Or they'd win
wars and end them anyway they could.
That landing should occupy a
sizeable paragraph in our military annals. We landed with what we carried on our backs
against Hitler's choice Panzer divisions dug into the high hills overlooking us; landed
and met his best tanks and screaming 88's with rifles and bazooka guns. And we came to
stay.
There were times those first
forty-odd hours when we looked a hundred yards ahead into Jerry's tanks and gun
emplacements, and behind us to the beach. And there were no boats there. Not then. But let
no man doubt it, all hell couldn't have stopped the Texans that morning. Couldn't have and
didn't. It sounds fishy and on the tall tale side but one Company of our boys hit the
beach, tore off their helmets, rolled up their sleeves and charged into Jerry tanks with
their rifles and knifes and hand grenades.
Army men are calling that landing
the good soldier's perfect dream of a good scrap. We had other names for it. Quaint names
made up of four-letter words. You wouldn't know those names though.
No need to deny it: there for a
while, before reinforcements could land, before we had captured airfields and while the
British were rushing up to join us, it was anybody's fight. But before the second day was
ended another good batch of Rebels (interspersed of course with a percentage of Yanks)
came in and the first act of the show was practically ended.
Of our own
"Pill-rollers" someone else will have to write. Anything I might say here would
smack too much of bragging. This I will say: any member of A Company, officers and
enlisted men, from this day on can walk proudly and at ease in those ranks reserved for
the courageous, the unselfish—and the lucky. And that I deem it an honor being a
tried, if not a worthy, member of the team.
I guess after that young outburst
I'll have to tell you of one of us, one who will not soon forget that first Italian
sunrise we watched.
He's a Yankee this fellow. He
spent most of his twenty-two years battling a near-fatal siege of infantile
paralysis—and won his fight just in time to get in the Army and to join us the week
we left the States.
I can't give you his name. You
wouldn't know him anyway. We call him "Foxhole" because one day over in Africa
he gave us a "Venoed" exhibition on how to enter a foxhole head on, from a
running start fifteen paces off.
He is here with me now so I'll
let him tell his story in his own words:
You see it was like this. I came
in with the third wave, just like the other boys. It was around four-thirty, not quite
daylight. How it was, I was dug in on the beach and there was a lieutenant there beside me
in the slit trench.
The lieutenant noticed one of the
assault boats had been hit by an enemy artillery shell. Soldiers were jumping out into the
water over the sides and out over the ramp. It was down. Some of the boys were on fire.
The boat was facing me and I saw an arm waving for help from the floor of the boat.
The first thing that came into my
mind was that if that was me out there I would want someone to come after me.
I threw off my equipment and the
soldiers on the beach started hollering at me not to go. I went around trying to get a
couple of volunteers to go with me but machine gunfire was pretty hot right then and all
the fellows ducked down in their slit trenches to get away from me.
I kept teasing them and one of
the boys says "I'll go with you." Then another guy right beside him said he
would go too.
They were Medical men, too, so I
told them to get out of their equipment and hurry. (Our equipment is heavy and too bulky
to swim in.)
We ran down the beach with heavy
gunfire on us. The boat was about forty yards from the shore and was burning pretty bad
now. We started to swim out there. We could hear the bullets hitting the water all around
us. It was pretty close. One of the boys wanted to turn back but we kept teasing him to
come on.
We reached the boat. You see, how
it was these other two boys hung onto the ramp and I climbed up in the boat. They were
four in there, a major and three enlisted men. The fire was so hot by then my clothes
started steaming. We went over the major. He was burnt, bad. The major was dead. The other
three were wounded in the legs. I didn't know where else.
I drug the three soldiers to the
ramp. Then I went back to try to get the major off and that was when a shell hit the stern
of the boat. Shrapnel flew all over. I hugged the floor. Another hit the water right by
the ramp where my friends were holding the three wounded men. Lucky there, not a one of
them was touched.
I decided then we would have to
leave the major and told the boys if they could swim one of the wounded men to shore I
could bring the other two. While we were coming in there was still machine gun fire all
around us.
We started first aid soon as we
hit the beach. While we were doing this I heard an awful blast. That boat I was on, the
gas tanks had blown.
It was like this. The Shore
Engineers took the three soldiers away. Everybody started hollering to see if we got back.
I told them it was pretty close. They kept hollering up and down the beach so I started
looking at myself to see if I was hit. I was deaf as a post from the close explosions out
there but otherwise still in one piece.
About this time a Beach-master
came up to me and said: "That was a brave thing you did." I told him it was just
the first job and he started laughing.
After that I moved on up forward
to help with the wounded and a Chaplain said to me: "Why don't you go back to the
beach and rest?" You see he knew me I guess. So I went back to the beach and saw the
sailors who had carried the wounded boys away and they told me they were doing fine. I
felt pretty good about those fellows doing all right. I ate my breakfast then, right there
on the beach.
Don't assume that all of us have
conducted ourselves in such a commendable manner. Far from it. On the whole there is
little in combat of movie-style heroism. The man who accomplishes the impossible, and
lives, is motivated always by the same excitement, the same fears that make him crawl with
us on the ground from Jerry's "rattlesnakes," that cause our knees to knock when
the bombers dive, when the screaming shells make Believers of us by the hour.
No, Foxhole's story is far from
typical, but the rest of the boys have given good accounts. I have a feeling Davy Crockett
and Bowie and Dan’l Boone and Kenton are well pleased. The old boys might have done
it differently but I'm damned if they could have been more thorough.
When our initial mission was
accomplished we were pulled out of the game and sent to the showers for rest. That is what
we are doing now, resting, washing, writing letters and—most important—receiving
those long awaited lines from home. That and waiting for the order that will send us in
again.
Naturally enough we have not come
this far without our Purple Hearts nor can we hope to escape them in the days to come. But
we have received our baptism of fire and with the help and the protection of the General
who doesn't wear stars we have come through it intact of body, stronger than ever in
spirit. Whatever is to come we can take now, more wisely and with stouter hearts. Somehow
that comes when one has walked side by side with Death—and found him not so
terrifying after all.
There is something else we will
carry with us into the next campaign or on to the beaches ahead. This is something that is
born deep inside us when we come to know why we are here, when we have learned how very
important it was that we did leave you and all we love for—this, and for the future
we know well enough can have so many different endings.
Yes, a lot of things will be
different when we go in again. Home and wives and mothers and dads, America and the
American's God are newer to us—now in October. Strangely new and heartbreakingly
dear. I don't know exactly what this is or how honest it is but we'll have it the next
time. And most of us will never lose it again. Not now.
I went one afternoon recently to
the dedication of a small cemetery. It was halfway up a hill we came to know pretty well,
a hill that one day will be as familiar to you as San Juan or Chickamauga. The sun was
warm that afternoon. Birds were singing and the sea out across the flat was blue and
white-capped and so peaceful that it was hard to accept the task at hand.
But I remember one thing the
Chaplain said there: "Ahead of us are more invasions, ahead are more bombs and more
shells and wounds, maybe even death. But we will face that future unafraid because those
who rest here have made the past secure."
It's about like that. You will
know what I mean.
So try not to worry
unnecessarily. No call for both of us to work overtime in that department! I know a part
of what you suffer, waiting as you must—not alone for news of me but of the others of
our family here, in the Pacific and now in the Royal Navy.
In the vernacular, it won't be
nearly as long as it has been. We're on the winning team and if the Lord isn't entirely
with us certainly he isn't being overly helpful to the other team! Too many of the hours
you think of us in the thick of the battle we are actually visiting cities and shrines
many of you will never have the chance to see and to enjoy. So you see this isn't entirely
without its brighter moments and that a lot of your worrying is needless.
In fairness to you and the censor
this is all. Till next time bless you for your letters, your encouragements and your
prayers.
This also brings my every good
wish that your Christmas will be pleasant and untroubled and that the New Year will indeed
be one of good cheer and of promise for us all.
GLENN |
