A Death in San Pietro

by Tim Brady

  Nonetheless, Clark, supported by General Keyes, argued that heavy armor had made gains under more stressful circumstances and time was wasting. If it wasn’t tanks doing the job, what would it be? In a few days, the 36th would be one full week stuck at San Pietro—one more week in which no progress had been made toward Rome. December 15 was the day chosen to mount the next assault against the village and tanks would lead the way.

  A two-pronged attack was planned: a column of tanks would roar up the valley, sweep around the southwest corner of Mt. Sammucro and head straight for the village in a frontal assault. Meanwhile, forces from Sammucro would descend down the ridges to attack San Pietro from the hillside; and the 2nd and 3rd battalions would attack simultaneous to the tanks from the south and southwest of the town.

  In preparation for the assault, the order came from Colonel Frazior on December 13 for Company B to edge out to the “nose of Sammucro”—the area of the summit on its west end overlooking the Liri Valley—to get into position to head down the summit by the next evening. Waskow’s company was to take the lead in the attack of San Pietro from above, and to do so it needed to be on the west edge of the mountain, pointing down.

  With a few hours of relief under its belt, Company B headed back up Sammucro from the east side of the mountain in preparation for its next assignment. On the way up, it ran into Company I coming down the hill.

  It was not a moment for lingering reunion. In low voices, delivered around bobbing cigarettes dangling from mouths, the Mexia boys swapped stories with the Belton boys about what was happening up above and what was happening down below; who from their neck of the woods in Texas had been wounded, and who had been killed. There were even some laughs about the guy from Company B who had got a Christmas tie while up on the mountain. Waskow exchanged greetings with at least one old friend from the Belton unit, Marvin Splawn.2 Then off they trudged in their opposite directions.

  Riley Tidwell’s feet were a mess. His trench foot had degenerated to the point where he could no longer put pressure on the soles of his feet, so covered in sores were they. Instead he dug into the hillside with his heels almost backing up the mountain. Down at the aid station, before Company B set out that day, Tidwell made coffee for his captain and pulled out his can of sterno. In the usual way, he stuck a piece of bread on the wire hangar that he always tucked into his kit for just this purpose. He proceeded to make toast for Waskow and listened as the captain told him once again how, when the war was over, he was going to get himself one of those fancy new pop-up toasters. “Smart Alec toasters,” he always called them.

  He also asked Tidwell about his feet3 and Tidwell gave his captain an honest picture of his circumstances. Truth be told, he was having a hard time walking. He mainly had to stay on his heels. Waskow decided to send Riley back down to get treatment. What good was a runner who couldn’t run? Tidwell heeled himself down to the aid station on the mountainside, where medics gently took off his boots, cleaned his feet, and wrapped them in gauze. It felt like heaven by comparison to how they’d been aching before. Tidwell felt chipper enough to rejoin Waskow and the Company as they were still ascending Sammucro.

  Sergeant Willie Slaughter’s platoon had broken off on a separate patrol to the west, to nearby Hill 570, where they were to make contact with a unit from the 504th Parachute, the unit that had initially served as a replacement unit for the 1st Battalion. As they walked the ridgeline, Slaughter spied a pair of heads poking up over a rock along his path. He inched his way forward, saw one of the men turn in his direction, caught the shape of a German helmet and then the sight of the Panzer rifleman turning a machine gun in his direction. Along with the rest of the platoon, Slaughter dove for cover as the Germans opened fire.

  They had stumbled on a German observation post. Cooly, Slaughter took out a grenade and lobbed it in the direction of the two soldiers. Meanwhile Slaughter’s old football buddy from Mexia High, Sergeant Jack Berry, was about to jump out from cover and help a member of the platoon who had been caught in the first burst of fire. Slaughter warned him against it, but Berry was gone before the words registered. Jack Berry was struck with gunfire and killed as he crawled over the rocks to his comrade.4

  Slaughter and the rest of the platoon settled in for a firefight that would last for a couple of hours. In the end, seven Germans were killed, seven more wounded, and thirteen were captured. From the POWs came intelligence that U.S. artillery had knocked out the German command post down in San Pietro days earlier, that replacements coming into the village were generally older troops, thirty- and forty-year-olds, and that about 120 infantrymen were now in the town. All encouraging news.5

  The rest of Company B heard the small arms fire and grenades of Slaughter’s platoon as they moved along the summit of Sammucro. It was now deep into the evening on a misting, foggy night. As the company reached and then inched out over the “nose” of Sammucro, Waskow commented on the murky dark and the landscape: “Wouldn’t this be an awful spot to get killed and freeze on the mountain?” 6

  With Tidwell and his first sergeant, John Parker, another Mexia man, Waskow eased down over the west edge of Sammucro. They’d gone just a few steps more when a shell came whistling in. Waskow picked up the sound of the screaming round a split second before Tidwell and gave him a shove, hollering at his runner to hit the ground. Tidwell did just that, as did Parker.

  Waskow was too late. The shell burst above him and shrapnel tore into his chest, shredding heart and lungs. He was dead in a gasp.7

  IT WAS A bad day for Company B on the mountain. The artillery fire continued intense all morning on December 14, sweeping the mountaintop and adjoining ridges. There wasn’t much protection among the rocks when the German guns zeroed in.

  The company continued down the southeastern face of Sammucro toward San Pietro moving in conjunction with 2nd and 3rd battalions, who proceeded on a line from the slopes to the west of San Pietro, basically where they had left off a few days before during the first assault on the village.

  Company B got pinned down in a German counterattack, and was asked to hold the position. All day long it fought and got punished for the effort. Both of the remaining officers in Company B—two first lieutenants—were killed. First Sergeant Parker was eventually wounded. Two staff sergeants, including Jack Berry, were also killed. Another Mexia man, Private Floyd Durbin, was dead, and yet another Mexian, Hulen Tackett was wounded. Scores of replacement soldiers—those who had arrived in October from all over the country—were also killed and wounded. Company B’s casualties were now comparable to Company A’s and C’s. All units were down to about 30 percent of full. More than eight hundred of the men who’d climbed Mt. Sammucro on December 8, would be dead or wounded before the month was over.

  Back where Henry Waskow lay, it was Tidwell who checked for signs of life and saw none. It was Tidwell who found Waskow’s kit with its Bible, its postcard book from Capri meant for sister Mary Lee, with its last letter written and folded on a piece of rough field paper.8 It was Tidwell who helped pick up the captain and took him down to the head of the mule trail.

  There at the station, he lay Waskow down with the other dead bodies being collected. All were tied tight to their litters, waiting for their final leg off the mountain, when they would be draped over the sides of a mule and carried the last way down to the valley below.9

  Tidwell went back up the mountain and reported to Frazior, the battalion CO, that Company B no longer had any officers. The unit was leaderless down at its end of the mountain, overlooking San Pietro.

  Tidwell had known Frazior from his duties as company runner, going back and forth from Waskow to battalion headquarters. Frazior noticed the condition of the runner’s feet. He asked Tidwell if he was capable of getting back to his unit. Tidwell guessed he was.

  Tell one of the sergeants over there to take charge until I get someone to the company, Frazior told him, and then take yourself down the mountain to have someone look at your feet.

  The
company runner did as he was told, hobbling first to Company B, where he informed the first sergeant he saw of Frazior’s order, then back down the mountainside again to the aid station, where his feet were again wrapped in cotton gauze. This time, he proceeded all the way to the base of the mountain, where he found a shed occupied by exhausted members of the 36th, leaning vacant-eyed against the rough walls. He sat himself down and breathed hard and deep.

  Sitting off by himself scribbling in a notepad was a slight, middle-aged man, wearing fatigues and a rumpled knit cap. Ernie Pyle must have sensed that Tidwell wanted to talk and he slipped over in the tall man’s direction.

  In fact, the lanky private did have some things that he wanted to say about the captain he had left earlier that day at the end of the mule trail on the side of Mt. Sammucro. The man he had been trailing now for three and a half months through the mountains of Italy, and in North Africa before that, and Cape Cod, and all the way back to Camp Bowie in Texas. The man who drank his coffee, ate his toast, talked of smart alec toasters with him.

  Pyle gently asked what had happened up there and Tidwell told him how his captain had just died on the mountain.

  “He must have been a fine man,” Pyle said.

  Stunned by an awful day of war, feeling lucky to be alive and sick at what he had seen, Tidwell tried to frame his thoughts. “He was like a father to me,” was the best he could do.10

  19

  Purple Heart Valley

  AS THE 1ST CONTINUED the fight on Sammurco, the 2nd and 3rd battalions began the assault on San Pietro, joined by a battalion of the 141st, which was given the assignment of attacking the village directly from the south, to the left of the units from the 143rd. Mt. Lungo, which had remained in German hands throughout the fight on Mt. Sammucro, was to be attacked as well, by the 142nd.

  What was expected be the most powerful punch at the German line came steaming at San Pietro on a winding line down the Venafro Road. Starting from part way up the mountain to the east, then going down into the valley, and around the base of Sammucro, were Mark Clark’s tanks, which jumped off at noon on December 15. The road itself left little room for error. To the right of the tanks loomed Mt. Sammucro; to the left was a steep drop-off down the hill. The road was only the width of two small cars and from the moment they arrived in the valley, they were in open view of German artillery.1

  Eight tanks rumbled down the lane toward the village; eight more moved in conjunction with the 2nd and 3rd Battalions who were also sweeping around the mountain from the southwest in the wake of the first tanks. Neither component of the attack got very far. The Germans let the lead two tanks get near the town before they opened fire with anti-tank weaponry. The Panzer troops’ aim was directed on the trailing tanks in the first group and it was accurate. In a matter of minutes, two American Shermans were destroyed. Those two effectively blocked any means of escape on the narrow road for the lead tanks, which meant Wehrmacht anti-tank guns could wreck them at their own pace.

  The next three tanks were stopped and disabled by mines. Each was abandoned by its crew, halting the progress of the remaining tanks, which were left to take fire from German positions around the valley. In all, seven tanks were destroyed, five were disabled, and only four made it back to their original assembly area.2

  The 2nd and 3rd battalions, moving in behind the tanks, were not having much better luck. They were hit by a wall of automatic weapons, mortar, and artillery fire coming from San Pietro, Mt. Lungo, and, most deadly, from the olive tree terraces that fronted the village. General Walker’s assistant commander, Brigadier General Wilbur, ordered Company E of the 143rd to swing around to the right of the tanks, up the hill, in order to attack the village north to south, from above. Late in the afternoon, Company L joined them in the fight. They got near to San Pietro, but took such a severe pounding in the process that both companies were reduced to just a handful of rifleman as darkness fell on the 15th.3

  Staff Sergeant Alvin Amelunke, Waco, Texas, attached to Company L, was in the midst of the fight when German artillery began to rain down. He was in a hole with a fellow sergeant from Company L when a shell hit a tree directly in front of them. A piece of shrapnel pierced his companion’s helmet, killing him instantly.

  The attack continued after dark, and Company L made some progress among the olive orchards and terraces, and even penetrated German lines. There they were met with heavy automatic fire, and Amelunke’s communications man went down in a heap. Without sleep, little food and water, and with heavy casualties, Company L was near the end of its rope.4

  The 141st, coming at San Pietro from the south, had stopped along with the 143rd to regroup. The battalion mounted an attack from the valley side of the battlefield at about 5:30 in the afternoon. Artillery pounding San Pietro helped them get to the verge of the town, but there the stonewalls surrounding the village slowed them, as did the booby traps, mines, and barbed wire attached to the walls. German troops in buildings overlooking the barriers were also firing down from the upper floors, directly into the American forces. Once the attack had been slowed to a halt, the German mortars, planted in locales all around Sammucro and across the valley at Mt. Lungo, began to zero in on the 141st with pinpoint accuracy. The four companies from the 141st’s 2nd Battalion involved in the attack were whittled down to a handful of officers and a few score riflemen by early the next morning, but a smattering of troops managed to break through the boundaries of San Pietro.

  The one major success of the day’s attacks was happening simultaneously—over on Mt. Lungo, the 142nd was lunging up the hill. One battalion attacked the northwestern side of Lungo, while another attacked the center. The Italian motorized brigade was once more involved and took the southern route against the Germans. The 1st Battalion on the right flank engaged in a number of fierce firefights. It knocked out more than a half dozen machine gun nests on its way to the top of the mountain. The 2nd Battalion likewise made a quick journey to the top, during which it was able to induce a newly captured POW into pointing out fifteen gun emplacements on the mountain. They were quickly zeroed in and subsequent fire saved American soldiers throughout the valley. Mt. Lungo fell by 1:35 on the morning of December 16, which proved vital to the capture of San Pietro as well.5

  Come daybreak, the Germans tried to reinforce the village, but with the 142nd now on top of Lungo, exposing German posts in the town and valley, and with Sammucro still held by the 1st Battalion of the 143rd, the Panzer troops were now in a desperate position.

  They acted accordingly. A fierce counterattack ensued on the afternoon of the December 16, focused on the American right flank, where the 2nd and 3rd Battalions of the 143rd were positioned. Here, Company I—the Belton guys, who’d been pulled off the top of the mountain and asked to join the assault against San Pietro—got caught in the first blaze of fire from the Germans. They were above the village, just to the northeast and they got smashed. The CO and second in command were both killed in the initial attack, forcing Company I to reel back. But the unit held its ground thanks in part to Private First Class Charles Dennis of Waco, who rallied the platoon with fierce machine gun fire.6

  Company K was quickly drawn into the fight, too. Led by Captain Henry Bragaw of Southport, North Carolina, “a mild-mannered horticulturalist with a strawberry-colored handlebar mustache”7 They were able to stop the counterattack, despite having lost its communication with the battalion command post.

  A withering line of artillery fire was also essential to stopping the Germans. At the height of the fight, shells were landing within 100 yards of the American lines—a dangerous rain of fire, but so accurate that German troops could not penetrate it.

  By one o’clock on the morning of the December 17, the fight was essentially over. The Germans began quickly withdrawing from the village, leaving just a smattering of troops to cover the retreat. What was left of Companies I and K proceeded into San Pietro and the area just to its north. In the process they collected ten German POWs not quick e
nough to escape the town.

  San Pietro had been turned into a rough pile of stones. A few walls with window openings were huddled together, suggesting the buildings from which they were derived and the shape of an ancient Italian village. The essential outline of the town’s church, dedicated to St. Michael the Archangel, remained visible, but from a distance it looked like a sand castle kicked over and over again. Within one of the church alcoves, an armless statue of St. Peter looked out mournfully on what was left of the village.

  Even as the 36th Division began sweeping through the remains, the German soldiers were racing away to their next line in the mountains, five kilometers away.

  UP ON the mountain, the weary 1st Battalion of the 143rd was relieved by a battalion from the 141st. Exhausted and unshaven, on wobbly legs and empty bellies, what was left of the outfit made a tired descent from Sammucro after spending the better part of ten days on its heights. Someone estimated that the 1st Battalion had pitched 2,000 hand grenades among the rocks of Sammucro in its stay up on the heights. That was more than a division would typically use in combat. Of course all of those grenades were lugged up to the top of the mountain by hand. Mortars, too, were used at a level three times the usual. They, too, were carried up on the backs of the human mules, who had scaled Hill 1205 time and again.8

  Down below, Riley Tidwell was still waiting for his captain to come down off the mountain. It had been three days now that Henry Waskow lay wrapped in a tarp, still trussed up in the rope that had been used to secure his journey on a litter off the summit. His remains had lain with face covered, boots exposed, on bare ground, against yet another old stonewall in this land of old stone and mud.