Every Man a Hero

by Ray Lambert

  Villagers were happy to sell us bread, eggs, and whatever else we needed. Getting gas from the GIs manning fuel dumps was generally easy enough; we’d just pull up and ask them to fill it up.

  There was only one exception, about halfway back: a lieutenant in charge of the MPs where we stopped ordered us held until he could figure out whether we were German spies or just crazy Americans. He got on a radio or phone and worked his way far enough up the chain of command to decide it was the latter.

  A surprise waited for us in Algiers, the country’s capital: WAACs had just arrived and set up camp.

  WAACs—Women Auxiliary Army Corps—were American women who had volunteered to work for the army behind the lines, taking jobs like drivers or clerks so more men could have combat roles. For us, the key was that they were women, a species we hadn’t had much contact with over the past few months.

  We heard about them soon after we pulled in—word travels fast when women are around. They happened to be on their way to the mess hall when we arrived at their base; we asked if we could join them.

  “Come on,” they said.

  The food was great, the company better. A photographer happened to be visiting, and by the end of the meal he had convinced us to pose with the women. Pictures taken, we went back to get ourselves squared away.

  Little did we know that those photographs were soon being reprinted in newspapers all across America, telling Americans what a great job the WAACs were doing and making it look like we were all partying over in Africa.

  My wife saw it, of course, something she pointed out in a letter some weeks later. Luckily for me, she was the understanding sort.

  * * *

  The WAAC, which dropped one of the A’s and became WAC in July 1943, was extremely controversial, with both men and women, civilian and in the service. A lot of people simply didn’t like the idea of females being in the army, even if they were far from combat.

  But that didn’t keep women from volunteering; a total of 150,000 joined during the war.

  They did a heck of a job, filling in behind the lines and saving men for combat. They played an important though often unsung role in the war.

  Time to Raise Hell

  I’ll tell you, the 1st Division had quite a reputation. We were first in a lot of things. We fought really hard and we partied pretty hard, too.

  I don’t know what other units did, but some of our guys would have a beer party before going into battle. It was just the kind of thing you do to get the war off your mind.

  So you can imagine what happened when the division returned from Tunisia and settled into camp in Oran.

  We’ll put those stories under the title of “hell raising.” The division certainly lived up to its reputation, something that didn’t please the upper echelons of command.

  Terry Allen, though, didn’t mind.

  Personally, I wasn’t much of a drinker, and as a married man I wasn’t about to be visiting the madams’ establishments in town. But as long as they didn’t get out of hand, I was fine with letting my guys do what they wanted on their own time. They’d earned it.

  * * *

  Junior officers were in such high demand that the army tried recruiting NCOs to take officer training and get commissioned. I was offered that deal when I got back to Algiers: to become a second lieutenant. Take a commission, join another infantry unit as a combat leader.

  I wasn’t tempted. For two reasons.

  Most important, I liked my unit, I loved my job, and I liked the fact that my brother was in the same regiment. If we’d been close as kids, we were now even closer, even though we spent little time shoulder to shoulder. Being so intense, combat makes all your relationships stronger.

  I felt that way about my men as well. I was responsible for them. They were family members. We were working together in a difficult job, one with high risks but potentially great rewards. Saving a fellow soldier’s life has a value beyond anything you can measure.

  Most of all, taking a promotion would have meant leaving the medical department. At the time, the highest rank you could achieve as a medic if you weren’t a doctor was staff sergeant. That changed later on, but in 1943 there was no hint it ever would. As far as I understood, taking the promotion would mean shipping back to the States, leaving my guys, leaving the fight. It would have felt like I’d abandoned my duty and my calling.

  There was another reason, too. In the infantry, second lieutenant was just a place to get knocked off right away. The Germans appeared to target the lieutenants, figuring that the platoon would hesitate and lose morale if their leader was gone. That assessment may have been overblown—I knew plenty of second lieutenants who were breathing, not bleeding—but it still looked like one of the worst jobs in the army.

  So I stayed where I was. The suggestion that I take a promotion came up a few times again, but I never changed my mind. Staff Sergeant Lambert, Medical Detachment 16th Infantry, was a fine title and job description as far as I was concerned.

  Homeward Bound . . .

  One of my jobs as staff sergeant was to censor the outgoing mail.

  That one wasn’t fun.

  I was always careful not to concentrate on what the guys wrote, just to look for what are now called key words, like Africa, for example. Anything that might give us away or expose some sort of secret had to be cut out.

  That meant all you could really say in a letter was: I’m okay. I love you and hope you’re fine.

  That’s about it. Pretty much everyone knew it, too. I don’t remember having any problems with the guys over the letters.

  Besides regular mail, we had a special type of letter called “V Mail,” “Victory Mail,” or letters that soldiers and loved ones could choose to send, saving on weight and helping the war effort. After they were censored, the letters were photographed and then sent overseas on microfilm. Written on special paper, the original would be a little smaller than a standard piece of note paper. I’m not sure how big the microfilm was, but you could jam a lot of letters onto the roll. When it arrived, it would be reproduced on a page about half the size it had started with.

  Imagine how many people read your thoughts along the way.

  At the front, mail delivery was very sporadic. The kitchen trucks usually had a mail bag and would take mail back. It could be months before a letter arrived on either end. It wasn’t much better in Algiers, but there was one consolation: after so many months in combat, we figured we were going home.

  * * *

  The rumors started as soon as our troops entered Tunis and Bizerte. First in, First out, pun intended.

  In our minds, the war was over for us. Yes, the Germans still controlled Europe, and on the other side of the globe, Japan occupied a good chunk of Asia. But we’d fought what seemed a war and a half. New guys were rolling in; the army was still building up. It was time for someone else to take over the fight.

  In my mind, I was as ready to go home as everybody else. I had a son I’d never seen, a wife I barely knew. I didn’t want to leave my unit, but I wouldn’t be opposed to spending my time with them back in the States, where I could arrange for my family to live with me. And getting shot at every day was never high on anyone’s list of pleasures; I could live without that.

  Yes, like everyone else in the Big Red One, I was ready to go home.

  Uncle Sam, or more specifically Dwight D. Eisenhower, had other plans.

  Six

  Husky

  Gearing Up

  The bazookas gave it away.

  Those and the boxes and bundles of fresh gear and medical supplies, along with the replacement troops that flooded into the division toward the end of May and early June. You don’t reequip a unit that’s going home to rest.

  As the rumors faded and reality set in, our regiment shipped out from our camp to Algiers aboard the USS Thurston, a troop transport that would serve in both the European and Pacific theaters by the end of the war.

  I didn’t take the boat. I still h
ad my Olympia, and drove it the couple of hundred miles with the rest of our vehicles to the city. Once there, we started rehearsing for a fresh landing. At that point, we didn’t know where our target was, and we still didn’t know when we boarded the Thurston a few weeks later, weighed down with our combat gear. It wasn’t until we were out in the Mediterranean and Command started passing out pamphlets with crude translations of Italian that it became obvious we were going to Sicily.

  * * *

  Ninety miles north of Africa, the island of Sicily is a bit like an overfilled ice cream cone that fell to the ground and landed off-kilter. It’s a rugged, rocky, mountainous island. Mount Etna, an active volcano, is the upside-down ice cream cone; it dominates the northeastern quarter of the island. While there are many beautiful beaches, traveling through much of Sicily means driving or hiking up steep hills and around mountains. The geography greatly limits the ways it can be attacked—though plenty of invaders over the centuries have taken a try at it.

  At its closest point, the roughly triangular island is only two miles from the Italian mainland. For the Italians and the Germans, it was a strategic spot that made it easier to defend Italy and project power in the western Mediterranean. For the Allies, Sicily would be a strategic launching point for attacking the rest of Italy. Holding it would give our aircraft and ships bases close to the Italian mainland.

  Code named “Husky,” the idea of the Allied operation was to land troops in the southeast part of the island. The British would attack up the western side; once again led by Montgomery in the field, the British forces were intended to make the main thrust. Their goal was Messina, the port city at the northeast of the island, close to the mainland. Once the Allies controlled that, any Axis forces would be cut off from the easiest escape route. They would lose the best port to reinforce their army, and most likely would have to leave Sicily completely.

  Montgomery was landing four divisions and some additional troops along and through an area about forty miles long in the Gulf of Noto, south of Syracuse. His British Eighth Army was the same hardened, experienced force that had faced Rommel in Africa.

  The American forces were to the west. Dubbed the American 7th Army, we were once more led by Patton. The 1st Division was one of three divisions that would hit beaches in the Gulf of Gela, with two units of parachute troopers hitting inland. Our logistics would be a challenge; our landings would be over a fifty-mile stretch, while the parachute assaults were well inland. Aside from countering the German and Italian units in that part of the island, our primary job would be to protect the British flank as they advanced.

  If it sounds like we were being given the short end of the stick, we were. The British, Montgomery especially, didn’t think we were up to par as fighters. Despite everything we’d been through, we were considered junior partners in the war as soldiers. It was an attitude that, incredibly, would continue through the rest of the conflict.

  We’d learned a hell of a lot since landing in Africa nearly a year before. Most of all, we knew how to kill.

  My battalion would be part of the first wave, striking near the city of Gela. We expected heavier casualties than we’d had during the Torch landings.

  Unfortunately, those expectations would be met.

  Death in the Boat

  I can’t remember the exact type of landing craft I climbed down to the night of July 10, 1943. I believe it was a Higgins boat or one of the smaller LCI (Landing Craft Infantry) versions, but honestly I’m not sure.

  What I am sure of, what I can still hear, is the sergeant nearby yelling that someone had dropped his gear on the ramp.

  And I remember even more vividly realizing that it wasn’t a battle pack but a man who had just been killed.

  The seas were rough, the clouds thick overhead. The winds were incredible. Forty knots—“Mussolini winds” guys called them, as if the Italian dictator controlled the weather as well as his country. Our little craft had pitched back and forth the entire five hundred yards in to the shore. We’d stopped abruptly, ramp lowered, and as I ran forward I found myself in water nearly waist deep.

  Run!

  Tracers split through the air around me. Shells were landing in the water, and along the dark shadow of land ahead. Black obstructions seemed to rise from the beach as we got closer. It was a lot like a movie, but one that hadn’t been made until then; someone needed to have lived through this hell before such a script could be written.

  Ashore, I ran to my right, looking to get my bearings and start helping people. The red cross was back on my helmet and armband; wearing it during the invasion made it easier for the guys to spot me, and we were all targets anyway.

  The gunfire and the flashes and the explosions hadn’t stopped, but once I was on land I started getting used to them, if that’s the right word. As deadly as they were, I’d seen worse. The large ships behind us were answering with their guns. The battalion moved through the dunes, toward the small houses lined up above the beach.

  We set up an aid area and got to work. Company medics patched guys up; the bearers grabbed them and brought them down to the open-air station. We got enough of a foothold there for the landing craft to start bringing supplies in.

  Then the counterattacks started.

  * * *

  The first hit the Rangers who’d landed in Gela itself, which was to our west, on our left as we came ashore. The crack infantrymen repulsed a surge by Italian foot soldiers, only to be met with a wave of Italian tanks. Though clearly outgunned, the Rangers held on, fighting through the night to keep a hold on the city.

  A group of thirty-two light Italian tanks came at our regiment next, heading from Niscemi, a village that was among our immediate objectives a little less than ten miles from shore. The tanks were quickly harassed and picked off by paratroopers who’d landed overnight, then targeted by gunfire from a cruiser offshore, the USS Boise.

  By the time they reached the 16th Infantry troops, they were down to about twenty. Even so, fighting was intense, made more so by our lack of tanks on the beach. This was a deficiency that would weigh heavily the next day.

  In the meantime, the winds that had kicked up the waves overnight punished the small boats and landing craft offshore. A large number were pushed in and beached against their will.

  The wind had also pushed our paratroopers off course, sprinkling them miles from their targets. For us, this meant that a key airfield we’d hoped they would take overnight was still in enemy hands.

  At least the sun was out. Our battalion secured Highway 115—contrary to the name, it was a gravel road—and the route to Niscemi by the end of the day. We were off the beach, uphill in the fertile wheat fields between Niscemi and Gela.

  By nightfall, the Seventh Army had moved roughly two miles inland. We’d lost fifty-eight men, with another 199 wounded. We’d also taken some four thousand prisoners—the first indication that the Italian troops on the island were not all going to fight as eagerly as we feared.

  But there were still plenty who would. As would the Germans.

  Cracking the Crack Troops

  Our aid station was about three hundred yards from the front when the Germans launched a fierce counterattack before dawn the next morning, Sunday, July 11. The brunt of the assault that hit both our regiment and the nearby 26th was once again led by tanks. But this time, they weren’t the lighter French-made vehicles the Italians used, but well-armored and heavily gunned Tigers from the elite Hermann Goering Division. The Nazi tanks quickly overwhelmed the companies on the front lines, rushing across the wheat fields as infantrymen either hid or wasted their bullets trying to stop them.

  The Hermann Goering Division was named after Field Marshal Hermann Goering, the Luftwaffe or air force chief and one of the most powerful men in Hitler’s regime. Though technically part of the Luftwaffe, the division was an armored ground force with over a hundred Tiger tanks; American intelligence rated it among the most dangerous units in the German army.

  By 0640
, the Germans had overrun the 3rd Battalion of the 26th Infantry and were rolling down both sides of Highway 117. Crashing through farm fields, their guns were now within range of the beach, where General Allen was desperately trying to get some more firepower.

  Up near us, in the area of Abbio Priolo, some forty tanks rolled right through our front lines. Two companies broke, retreating pell-mell until the officers managed to rein them in and set up a defensive line at Piano Lupo. A short time later, thirty Panzers hit the 3rd Battalion.

  The fighting was so severe that we ran out of bandages, and I had to send back to the beachhead for another doctor to help handle the wounded. We hadn’t set up a regular tent at that point because the battle was so fluid; there had been little time to do it overnight and there would be none this Sunday, as we had a steady flow of casualties. By a little after 1000, or 10 A.M., the regiment had lost two battalion commanders and six of the nine antitank guns that we had managed to land.

  The situation was beyond critical. The battalion was in danger of being overrun. The beach area was barely secure; Italian dive bombers had made an appearance overhead, and division headquarters was within gun range of enemy tanks. If there was a safe place on the entire island, I didn’t know about it.

  General Allen, though haggard, maintained his cool. When someone asked if he was going to retreat, he replied, “Hell, no. They haven’t overrun our artillery yet.”

  They were pretty close, though.

  Fortunately, the Germans had not been able to coordinate their tank attack with their infantry support. They had some nine thousand foot soldiers—grenadiers and elite troops, many of whom had seen combat in Africa—but confusion and miscommunication had left the infantry behind. That made the tanks vulnerable to attacks from our men as they passed. Soldiers shot bazookas and improvised with sticky bombs attached to the hull of the tanks, knocking them out one at a time.