I found myself eyeball to eyeball with my first vision of the horror of war. One of our guys was hit by a mortar charge and blown apart, his head severed from his body. It landed near me. I had a close-up view of his shocked face, his bulging eyes filled with fear and surprise. I'd seen a lot of corpses in city morgues, so I didn't turn away. I stared, almost hypnotized by the soldier's head, forgetting where I was. The shell bursts snapped me out of it. To this day, that first face of death is imprinted on my mind like a leaf in a fossil, never to fade away.
Tossing smoke grenades to mask ourselves, our squad advanced, bullets flying. Suddenly a French voice boomed out over a loudspeaker.
"Cessez le feu! Cessez le feu."
After about thirty seconds of repeating the order to cease fire, the French guns fell silent. Then a group of French soldiers emerged through the smoke and advanced toward the beach carrying white flags. Colonel Gibb, our battalion commander, seized his bullhorn and commanded us to cease fire as well. The assault was over. But we remained in position. Were they really surrendering, or was it a trap?
"Americans! Stop shooting!" yelled somebody with a heavy French accent. "We will surrender!"
"Frenchmen," Colonel Gibb bellowed through his bullhorn, "we do not accept your surrender!"
The white flags froze. We checked our weapons, waiting for the command to resume fire.
"You surrender only to the enemy!" continued Colonel Gibb. "We are not your enemy! We are Americans, your allies! If you want to live, come and fight on our side! Fight the real enemy! Fight Hitler! Vive la France!"
No one moved. Then the dam burst. With an enthusiastic roar, happy French troops swarmed down toward the beach. Voices in French and English were yelling and laughing. We stood up and rushed to meet them. The French embraced us, many with tears in their eyes. They broke out singing La Marseillaise. For cryin' out loud, we were having a beach party with men who'd been trying to kill us only moments before!
See, the French didn't have any choice but to fight on our side. Rommel could have saved their asses, but his troops were in retreat, thanks to the British breakthrough at el-Alamein by General Bernard Montgomery's "Desert Rats." Montgomery had said, "Give me a fortnight and I can resist the German attack. Give me three weeks, and I can defeat the Boche. Give me a month, and I can chase him out of Africa." With our help, Montgomery would fulfill his promise. But it took him more time to do it than he reckoned, until May 1943•
Before our invasion, the Vichyists in North Africa could sit around over a glass of cognac discussing whether Petain was a traitor or not. Now they had no choice but to fall in with us to free France. We found out later that Eisenhower had struck a deal with Admiral Darlan, Vichy's commander in chief. However, Darlan was assassinated, and General Charles de Gaulle would assume all authority for assembling the Free France troops.
We headed south through the Atlas Mountains, taking every city in our path. Sidi Bel Abbes. Ghardaia. Ouargla. North Africa turned out to be not at all like the exotic place I'd imagined it. The climate ran to extremes, from sweltering heat to freezing cold. It hailed. It sleeted. It was cool in the morning, blistering in the afternoon, then bone-chilling at night. Every dogface was issued mosquito netting, overcoats, gloves, and several blankets. We needed all of it. I saw my first real legionnaire on our way into Sidi Bel Abbes, a tall, dark young man wearing a khaki uniform and carrying the longest rifle I'd ever laid eyes on. He was so ordinary, a far cry from the extras in Beau Geste. There wasn't a trace of anything remotely romantic in Algeria, just corruption, harsh tribal chieftains, thieving by the natives, unyielding customs.
What a thrill I got out of being in Sidi Bel Abbes, headquarters of the legion since 1831. The old telegrapher at the New York Evening Journal, Henry Hudson, used to tell me about the fortress at Sidi Bel Abbes and its role in the Dreyfus case. In 1893, Captain Alfred Dreyfus was charged and convicted of treason. He was accused of having written a list of secret French military documents to be delivered to the Germans. Colonel Picquart, then head of French military intelligence, defended Dreyfus, uncovering evidence that a French infantry officer, Major Esterhazy, had planted the evidence. Picquart was dismissed and confined for a time at the fortress at Sidi Bel Abbes. My sergeant didn't understand why I was so excited about going inside the fortress, but he gave me one hour to visit it. Holy mackerel, did I get a kick out of the commemorative plaque next to Picquart's cell with its brief legend about Dreyfus! It made me look upward and thank old Henry Hudson.
The Big Red One continued to move toward the Tunisian border, our three battalions spread out across the Ousseltia valley. On February zo, 1943, we took up positions in a place called Bou Chebka, in the vicinity of the Kasserine Pass. There, General Erwin Rommel's welloiled killing machine, the Afrika Korps, counterattacked. Rommel's troops were faster and more experienced than us, and they had the Tenth SS Panzer tanks. They broke through and overran our outfit. We were like babes in the woods, trapped in the crossfire. There was nothing to do but die or retreat. So we retreated. There were so many American soldiers killed and wounded that day. The rest of our outfit ran for their lives, scared shitless, back into the Faid Mountains. There we hunkered down and slept in total blackout.
Kasserine was the most disgraceful moment of the war. But plans were immediately made to reverse the setback. After replenishing our supplies, we counterattacked, backed up by the Twelfth Air Force squadron, which had been trimming down the German spearhead with strafing runs. The Germans suffered terrible losses in the ensuing battle, since we'd been able to move up our artillery. Kasserine Pass was retaken. The Sixtieth Infantry relieved us of holding the pass so that the Big Red One could regroup, bring in replacements, and prepare for the next attack on Gafsa. The First Division and the II Corps were now placed under the command of General George Patton. The British First Army and the French Nineteenth Corps joined us, backed up by Allied planes. A new offensive was launched in mid-March. One prong of the attack was against the Mareth Line. My outfit's mission was to attack Rommel's flank as he retreated up the coast of Tunisia.
Wed never forget the thrashing we took from General Erwin Rommel and his Afrika Korps at Kasserine.
We'd become much tougher, thanks to the battle experience. Now we moved into positions confidently, fought like animals, and moved on to the next objective without a pause. First Gafsa, then El Guettar and el- Hamma fell, pushing back not only Rommel's Panzer Divisions but Italy's crack San Marcos Marines and the experienced Austrian Alpine troops. At night we'd dig into the sand for a few hours of shut-eye. I'd never seen anything like the magnificent night sky overhead, millions of stars shimmering like a painting by van Gogh. We lay down in ditches as deep as graves, the deeper the better. Falling bombs-if they didn't kill you when they exploded-would make you deaf forever. I'd already seen lots of guys killed, their guts spilled all over the desert. When I looked up at the stars, I saw those terrible images again and again, like a movie looped in a projector going round and round. I never thought about my own death. Nor did the fear of getting shot or blown up cross my mind. There was only one thing I was afraid of stepping on a land mine and losing my cock in an explosion. The British, the French, and the Germans had planted so many mines along our route that our boys frequently stepped on the goddamned things, blowing off legs and genitals.
As if we didn't have enough things to think about at night, just as we closed our eyes to try to get some sleep the unmistakable voice of a woman floated to us from somewhere far-off in the desert.
"Hello, boys! Hey, Big Red One! Wake up, suckers! This is Axis Sally, ready to tuck you in for the night with the latest war news. "
The eyes of every dogface opened wide.
"Don't look for the loudspeaker-other GIs have tried, and they're deader than door nails. "
Axis Sally was one of the enemy's most vicious weapons, an American gal with a sexy voice that made every male reach for his crotch. We'd search futilely for the Nazi loudspeakers durin
g the day. Somehow, they were back every night. So was Axis Sally.
Just relax in yourgraves. Churchill is enjoying his cigar because the British army is fighting to the last American in North Africa. "
We all had the same question. Was she blond, brunette, or redhead?
"Why are you fighting for the British? You fought against them, not Germany, during your revolution. In a few days, German soldiers will be washing down fish eggs with vodka in Moscow. In the Pacific the Japanese are slaughtering U.S. marines. "
The meathead who wrote her copy should have been doing comic strips instead.
"Rommels sixty-two-ton Tiger tanks are whipping the bejesus out of Montgomery's demoralized Eighth Army, and our well fed, victorious Luftwaffe owns the skies over you suckers, so wise up and throw down your rifles. Don't be ashamed to cry uncle. Your own Uncle Sam doesn't give a damn about any of you dying. You're young. You've got a right to live. Hitler has nothing against Americans. His beef is with England. You boys should be on our side. "
Finish your goddamned spiel and get to the music!
And now for news from home! In the United States, instead of supporting you, those patriotic civilians are on strike at all major defense plants. You suckers are dying while back home they're demanding shorter hours. You poor slobs are being fed red, white, and blue trash by Eisenhower, who was never in combat, who hasn't the faintest idea of what it means to dodge bullets and bombs. "
The song, goddamnit! The song!
And on the North African front, more good news! I just got word that the Twenty-Sixth Regiment of the First Infantry was clobbered by our Panzers and practically wiped out. "
We laughed like crazy. Axis Sally had greatly exaggerated reports of our demise. She tried so hard to demoralize us but instead ended up entertaining us.
`I am going to sing you suckers to sleep. Think of your wives and sisters and sweethearts getting fucked by draft dodgers, deserters, and those lucky, lucky 4-Fs. Good night, boys!"
A haunting harmonica accompanied Axis Sally as she sang "Lili Marleen" to us. She was full of bullshit, but, craving music, I loved to listen to her sing.
"This is Axis Sally, saying good night and sleep tight, because tomorrow you'll all be vulture food. "
As we advanced toward Djebel Chemsi, all resistance evaporated. We were surprised by the German withdrawal, then learned that Gabes had been taken and the British Eighth Army was pursuing the enemy toward Sfax and Sousse. By day, we moved across the white-hot desert searching for any trace of the enemy. There was nothing for days on end. A small advanced patrol of our men was always sent ahead of our company, scouting for Germans and mines. A Bedouin tent appeared in the middle of nowhere. Shots rang out. Goats started bleating madly. My company ran for the tent and encircled it. Just as we got there, one of the advanced patrol soldiers emerged with an insane look on his sweaty face.
"No other Ay-rabs in there," said the dogface.
I followed the sergeant inside. Two Arab men and three Arab women were dead on the ground, their blood splattered all over the place. One of the women had been breastfeeding a baby.
Mildred Gillards, or (Axis Sally, "as we knew her, was caught in Germany and flown back to the States to be arraigned for treason. I have no idea why a girl from Portland, Maine, would do those go back to your wives and sweethearts" broadcasts on Nazi radio, but she was damned insidious.
The sergeant stared at the corpses. Everyone in our squad felt sick to their stomachs. The crazy dogface smiled proudly.
"Throw me your weapon!" the sergeant commanded.
The dogface reluctantly threw his rifle to the sergeant.
"Any of them open fire at you?" asked the sergeant.
"Didn't give 'em a chance."
"Did they pull a knife on you?"
"On me?" laughed the dogface, like a hyena. "You should've seen 'em flippin' like chickens."
"Killing them gave you a hard-on, didn't it?"
"You told me to wipe out the enemy, didn't you?"
"You call this the enemy?" said the sergeant, lifting up the bloody remains of the baby.
"Anybody ain't American's the enemy!" said the depraved dogface.
The sergeant laid the ten pounds of murdered humanity on the rug and swaddled it with a sheet. The sun was beating down. Flies were already swarming around the corpses. The sergeant washed the blood off his hands with water from his canteen. Then he aimed his own rifle at the wide-eyed dogface, clicked off the safety, and shot him twice through the heart. The insane soldier collapsed like a sack of potatoes. Horrified, we froze. The silence was broken by the sergeant clicking the safety on his rifle back on.
I will never forget the gruesome sight of all those bullet-ridden bodies as long as I live. Soldiers don't shoot civilians, let alone a woman nursing a baby, unless they're nuts. Yet, like everyone else, they lose their judgment and sometimes even go berserk. War itself is organized insanity. Both sides are trained to kill, and everyone is a potential enemy. We were given rules of conduct, but the rules were hypocritical as hell. When you see an enemy pissing, it's still your choice whether to shoot him or not. Civilized wars just don't exist.
Once in Tunisia, the First Division prepared for the final advance into Tunis the last week of April 1943. First, the hills on the road to Mateur had to be captured. The hills had no goddamned names on the maps HQ gave us, just numbers. The enemy was dug in, with those hills converted into grim bastions bristling with artillery, mortars, and machine-gun nests. The battles over the next days were furious. General McNair, chief of army ground forces, was even hit by German shrapnel. Our artillery hammered enemy positions mercilessly, hitting many of our own advancing troops in the process. Hill 523, Hill 609, Hill 575, one by one they were all taken.
Around the first of May, our final push began at 0300 on a moonless night. The Afrika Korps threw everything they had at us, yet their defenses were penetrated. Bizerte fell, and the way was clear for Montgomery and his Eighth Army to enter Tunis. The Germans and Italians were cornered with their backs to the sea, with nowhere to retreat. All along the coastline, ships, barges, anything navigable, fled Africa with enemy troops. Many were sunk by American planes. In one of the queer twists that happen in wartime, one of our planes strafed a German ship carrying American prisoners of war toward Sicily. Abandoned by its crew, the ship was taken over and brought back to shore under the command of none other than one of the Big Red One's battalion commanders, Colonel Denholm, who'd been captured in the bitter fighting on Hill 523.
The day it all ended-May 9,1943-there was a strange lull in the combat at sunrise. Our orders had been to continue the advance. A school building up ahead was our next objective. Just as we were about to assault it, the front door opened, and out walked a British soldier with a black beret.
"It's over!" he yelled, waving to us. "Come have a drink!"
The British were already celebrating a great victory for their besieged nation. They hugged us and passed around bottles of whiskey. The Axis armies in Africa had surrendered, and the continent was recovered. Operation Torch marked a turning point in the war. The campaign was the first defeat for German and Italian armies-with over 250,000 enemy soldiers taken prisoner-giving us invaluable battlefield experience and renewed confidence. But the price of victory was heavy. The Allies lost over fifty thousand men.
"Up to that moment," wrote Eisenhower in his memoirs, "no government had ever attempted to carry out an overseas expedition involving a journey of thousands of miles from its bases and terminating in a major attack."
Rommel's defeat in North Africa was the beginning of his end. We would fight him again in 1944 during the Normandy invasion, but he was wounded there and sent home, where he was implicated in the failed assassination attempt against Hitler. Rommel was offered poison or a trial. He took the poison.
Husky
13
began a journal in North Africa. If I survived, I was going to write about my war experiences someday. The journal w
asn't much more than a small calendar book full of quickly scribbled notes, drawings, random thoughts, and ideas for characters and stories. I tried to make sense of our campaigns by getting the facts straight. I jotted down names of dogfaces. Many died before I could find out much about them.
As often as I could, I wrote my mother a letter on "V-mail" stationery, or on any piece of paper that was handy. Mostly I sent her cartoons and wrote quips about the lighter side of infantry life. I avoided talking about anything violent or sad. Telling her where we were or describing our actions too precisely was impossible, because all letters were examined for possible security breaches. My drawings were a way for both of us to keep our spirits up and to survive the nerve-racking reality of the war.
Survival was the one thought that held dominion over everything else in a doggie's universe. In that vein, we worried about simple but basic things: dry socks, edible chow, fresh water, the runs. I never saw anyone praying to God except in some Hollywood movies after the war was over, imagined by screenwriters who'd never been near a battlefield.
Almost forty years would elapse before I'd write a novel entitled The Big Red One and make a four-hour, twenty-minute movie out of it.' The book was like taking a hill. Once that battle was over, I had to move on toward the greater mission: a motion picture. I was driven to turn my wartime experiences into a movie in order to convey the physical and mental upheaval of men at war. That's how I ultimately came to grips with my experiences. Tactics, strategy, troop movements on maps were for military historians. My screenplay reduced the war to a small squad of First Division soldiers-a veteran sergeant and four young dogfaces-and their emotions in wartime. Each fictional character was an amalgam of real soldiers I'd known.
See, there's no way you can portray war realistically, not in a movie nor in a book. You can only capture a very, very small aspect of it. If you really want to make readers understand a battle, a few pages of your book would be booby-trapped. For moviegoers to get the idea of real combat, you'd have to shoot at them every so often from either side of the screen.
A Third Face: My Tale of Writing, Fighting and Filmmaking Page 13